Tim Dillon (Comedian): "The Boomers Are A Selfish Generation!". "Gen Z Has Exposed Society's Scam!". "Bosses Are Being Threatened By Mental Illnesses!"

[0] The Zoomers, some of them have figured out that the country's a scam.

[1] They invent mental health ailments they don't have.

[2] They take days off on end.

[3] They terrify their superiors.

[4] They found the flaw in the system.

[5] They go, why are you late?

[6] They go, I'm gay.

[7] You go, don't worry about it.

[8] Are we still on YouTube?

[9] Tim Dillon!

[10] He's a comic icon.

[11] A master of improv.

[12] One of the best in the world.

[13] I like making people laugh at stuff that is inherently maybe a little darker.

[14] Because from 13 to 25, I was a closeted gay cocaine addict.

[15] But some of our best qualities don't come about because of the best reasons.

[16] There's no one better at those random rants.

[17] There's a lot of topics I want to go through with you.

[18] And the first is the future of AI.

[19] We've bred some of the least interesting people on the planet.

[20] Influencers.

[21] These generic barcodes with feet.

[22] Those people.

[23] don't need to exist.

[24] They need to be replaced by an AI version of that.

[25] What's your assessment of different generations?

[26] Well, we've given up on the children.

[27] They're being raised by algorithms.

[28] The boomers, they are the funniest generation because to be funny, you kind of have to just not care.

[29] And there's no generation of people that have cared less about the future of this planet, about their children.

[30] And then the millennials were this very shitty generation of like, want to constantly be patted on the back and told how great they are.

[31] I believe the right things.

[32] I tweeted the right thing.

[33] I am good.

[34] I know that's unpopular maybe to say, but I'll just keep going.

[35] Tim, I've watched you for many a year now and I think you're one of the most exceptional, interesting, provocative...

[36] talented comedians because you have a remarkable ability to improvise, it seems.

[37] Well, thank you.

[38] And I wonder how someone learns to do that.

[39] Where does that talent come from?

[40] I was a closeted gay cocaine addict for many years.

[41] You really have to be good on your feed when you are a closeted gay cocaine addict from like 13.

[42] to 25, you're going to run into situations where you're going to need to lie and you're going to need to be able to kind of, you know, filibuster.

[43] And I guess I got good at it then.

[44] I was always good at talking, but I think that was good.

[45] That kind of allowed me to think on my feet more than other people would have to, perhaps.

[46] Not always for the best reasons.

[47] Some of our best qualities don't come about because of the best reasons.

[48] But it's good that I have that quality now, I guess.

[49] Do you know Jimmy Carr?

[50] I don't know him personally.

[51] I adore his comedy and he's like an amazing comedian.

[52] But I don't know if we've met.

[53] I was sat here with him two weeks ago and he said to me, he says, Steve, when you meet a comedian, you don't ask a comedian if they're depressed.

[54] You ask them which one of their parents is depressed.

[55] That's a good way to say it.

[56] Sure.

[57] Well, my mother was a schizophrenic.

[58] So I tend to think on the mental illness hierarchy, she was kind of the gold standard.

[59] Whereas depression, all due respect, is slightly less.

[60] And then I think my father might have been on and off depressed.

[61] But schizophrenia was the, that was the, you know, central challenge in her life.

[62] For people that don't know what that is or haven't experienced it, what is, how does it?

[63] sort of manifest being schizophrenic especially for you as a you know 10 year old when you have a schizophrenic yeah it started to really come out when when i was about 13 and 12 or 13 um it's a lot of paranoia it's a lot of confusion that as a child you're trying to contextualize you don't really understand why your mother is talking about people following her or these grand, elaborate stories that aren't true.

[64] And even at 12 or 13, you know they're not true.

[65] And you're worried for her because physical illness is very easy to kind of understand as a child because, you know, somebody gets sick.

[66] As a child, you get sick, so you get it.

[67] Mental illness is much tougher to understand.

[68] As a child, you only really start to understand it.

[69] as you go through life.

[70] And when you become more of an adult, you start to look back at it because you've had your own mental struggles.

[71] You know, people that have had mental struggles at 12, you really don't for most 12 year olds.

[72] So it's something that I've understood more as I got older.

[73] And then it was kind of just very disorienting and confusing.

[74] And what was the sort of cost or the impact that that confusion had?

[75] Because you're so right.

[76] With schizophrenia in particular, when you can compare how your parents are acting to other parents, that sort of disparity or that distinction must be quite...

[77] It's jarring.

[78] Yeah.

[79] It's jarring.

[80] When you're young and you are at somebody else's house and you see the way their mother is talking and you see the way that the family interacts and in your house when that is different...

[81] And my mother was a very fun person, very eccentric.

[82] a free spirit her whole entire life.

[83] She had been, it wasn't hellish to grow up with her.

[84] I loved her and she loved me a lot.

[85] But around my early teen years, it became apparent that something was wrong.

[86] I think I was in the car one day.

[87] And I remember she said, there are people that are following us, but don't worry, they're protecting me. And I found that to be so crazy, like doubly crazy, right?

[88] Not only did she believe that there were people following her, but that they were doing it to protect her.

[89] I thought that was so crazy.

[90] And I remember being young and hearing that and internalizing that as something is actually really wrong.

[91] And I remember thinking about it and telling a friend of mine, like, I think my mother, you know, is crazy, you know, and I don't know, you know, and that got progressively worse as I got older.

[92] And what was the impact of all of that on you?

[93] Like growing up in that family home, how does that shape you?

[94] And does that leave any sort of fingerprints on you that are still with you today in terms of comedy or who you are?

[95] Yeah, for sure.

[96] The fragility of mental health.

[97] is something that I understand in a way that other people don't.

[98] I understand that people can have a nervous breakdown.

[99] People can, you know, have, you know, a stress -related event that tips them in a direction where, you know, and I've had friends that have had this, right?

[100] Like, you know, it's a difficult thing to understand at 12 or 13.

[101] But that was a huge impact on me growing up.

[102] was basically your world is rocked a little bit when someone is suffering from a mental health issue.

[103] You feel less secure, less safe.

[104] You kind of feel like something is coming that isn't good.

[105] You know, schizophrenia is a degenerative disorder.

[106] There is no real cure.

[107] There are medifications that can...

[108] make the effects less apparent for periods of time.

[109] Those medications have really bad physical side effects.

[110] So watching my mother go through a lot of like physical side effects from those medications, you know, rocking back and forth, right?

[111] Muscle twitches and things like that was also very, was very tough to watch as, you know, as I got older and she was medicated with some very strong drugs.

[112] to try to, like, you know, I guess mitigate the schizophrenia.

[113] It's very tough.

[114] It's akin to a loved one getting a physical ailment.

[115] It's very similar to that in the sense that, you know, you are saying goodbye in a way to someone, little by little.

[116] And your father, your parents divorced around this time as well.

[117] Yeah.

[118] Yeah.

[119] And that sort of confounds things, I imagine.

[120] Yes, I believe that that was an event that probably was, I believe she was always a schizophrenic.

[121] There was always an underlying predilection for that.

[122] I mean, from speaking to doctors, this is what I believe.

[123] I believe that the divorce, the stress, that was, but she initiated the divorce.

[124] I think there was a catalyst for her to feel perhaps vulnerable or she, you know, I think a lot of stress brought on kind of.

[125] the symptoms because I had never, there were always indications.

[126] She was kind of a, again, a wild person, right?

[127] She would go out and collect these Disney toy sets at McDonald's.

[128] She would collect Beanie Baby.

[129] She would pick up junk on the street and say, we're going to fix it up and refurbish it.

[130] And these are antiques and everything.

[131] There was a lot of compulsive obsessive kind of behavior.

[132] And some of the behavior now, you know, a little conspiratorial.

[133] I do a joke now that where I talk about it, I go, you know, the people that are saying the things that my mother said for years are now in Congress.

[134] So, you know, had we known about YouTube, we could have thrown her on there.

[135] She would have made a good living.

[136] You know, really, she would have done well.

[137] She was a personable woman.

[138] But yeah, I mean, that was that was tough because he was out of the house.

[139] She was there.

[140] And she was struggling.

[141] And because I'm from an Irish Catholic family, nobody talked about it.

[142] And people would use words like eccentric or she's fun.

[143] Be like, Patty's fun.

[144] Nobody would really go, wow, I think she's got a real problem.

[145] And you're sort of 13 years old.

[146] So you're going through all of the, you know, the stuff 13 year olds go through, figuring out life.

[147] You got any siblings?

[148] No. Okay.

[149] Just me. Okay.

[150] Just me. That's all the fun for me. Yeah.

[151] Just one.

[152] Yeah, it was just me. Do you think you were parented from that point onwards?

[153] No, no. I kind of grew up.

[154] And it's the generation to a degree as well.

[155] I think I'm more of an extreme case because my mother cared about me and she wanted, you know, she hated drugs and alcohol.

[156] She hated cigarettes.

[157] She hated all these things that if, you know, she would, you know, find a. thing.

[158] She would go nuts and scream.

[159] She was never like a permissive person.

[160] She did not encourage any of my behavior.

[161] She always wanted me to succeed.

[162] And she was always very, you know, critical of my behavior.

[163] So there was that sense, there was parenting in that sense where.

[164] It wasn't a free -for -all, right?

[165] But generationally, you know, we just weren't parented the way kids today are parented.

[166] There were no cell phones.

[167] There was no, you know, where is your location?

[168] Nobody was being tracked.

[169] You were able to spend hours on your bike riding around the suburbs with your friends.

[170] You had a curfew.

[171] You had to be in by curfew.

[172] You had to make sure that your eyes weren't bloodshot when you went home because, you know, you were smoking weed for the entire time you were gone.

[173] So there were things like that.

[174] But in addition to that, which is kind of a generational difference in parenting, there was just the idea that she was dealing with her own issues.

[175] And my father was out of the picture.

[176] So I had this freedom where it's kind of like I kind of raised myself in a weird way.

[177] A lot of freedom and a lot of trauma by the sounds of it.

[178] Yes.

[179] Yes.

[180] Yeah.

[181] There was a lot, I would say, unprocessed for a long time.

[182] that tends to find an avenue and process trauma, right?

[183] It tends to find an avenue.

[184] For many years, it was drugs.

[185] That was the avenue, which is where a lot of it goes, you know?

[186] And then - How old were you when you started drugs?

[187] I was, I started smoking weed in eighth grade and seventh grade.

[188] The summer between seventh grade and eighth grade, I smoked weed a few times in seventh grade.

[189] And the summer between seventh and eighth grade, we really ramped it up.

[190] We really, you know, I was friends with a girl in my town who was fun.

[191] She was a lesbian who rollerbladed everywhere, which I thought was an interesting archetype.

[192] And I still do.

[193] Uh, and she always was smoking weed while she rollerbladed.

[194] I thought it was a very cool, you know, just kind of a goth lesbian who smoked weed and just kind of very London, to be honest.

[195] And she would just kind of rollerblade places high all the time.

[196] And I just became friends with her.

[197] And I said, this seems like a good way to live.

[198] And, uh, I just, you know, started smoking weed with her.

[199] And then very quickly, you know, within a year that, you know, we were doing blow and acid, you know, I dropped acid on stage at my eighth grade graduation.

[200] Uh, you know, with her and another buddy of mine, we, you know, drop, drop tabs of acid.

[201] Uh, we were doing ecstasy.

[202] We're doing lines of special K. It was a good time.

[203] You know, I mean, this was obviously a response to everything I just talked about, but you know, drugs are a lot of fun.

[204] They have a lot of negatives, but they, that period of my life was, was a lot of fun and terrible, but you know, that's why I haven't done any of.

[205] Any drugs or had a drink in 14 years.

[206] So I'm not advising it.

[207] It's not a course of action I advise.

[208] But looking back at it, you know, there were certainly good times.

[209] I know that's unpopular maybe to say.

[210] I don't think that, you know, it wasn't all terrible is my point.

[211] But don't do it.

[212] But you know what I mean?

[213] But I wouldn't have traded those moments for anything.

[214] But it's not a good thing to do.

[215] I would have rather be like a hot surfer or have gotten into sports or something.

[216] What about, were you comedic at that age?

[217] Probably, yeah.

[218] I was always kind of a goofball.

[219] So were people telling you at that age that you were funny?

[220] Yes.

[221] I would like to make people laugh.

[222] I, you know, would imitate, we had a teacher who died.

[223] She was a smoker and she died of lung cancer and she had a voice like this and I would imitate her in the back of class.

[224] And I would be like, I'm here and I'm in hell now because of you, you know, things like that.

[225] And I would, I would just, we would, you know, it was always kind of like we'd drive around Long Island, we'd smoke marijuana in cars and I would point at big houses.

[226] That's kind of a lot of what we did.

[227] You know, we'd drive around like rich areas because no one was ever home.

[228] No one's ever home in these rich areas, by the way, to real, you know, that's just something your audience can take with them, which people don't, they're never home.

[229] So we would just smoke pot and, you know.

[230] drive around and then I would just try to be funny and sometimes I would be funny and sometimes I guess I would be annoying.

[231] But I was always trying to be funny.

[232] What was the age range of drug usage?

[233] Was there a rock bottom?

[234] I was going to say a peak, but it actually goes the other way when we talk about drugs, doesn't it?

[235] Yes.

[236] So the rock bottom was I was 25.

[237] I owned a house that I had bought with a subprime mortgage in a town called Baldwin, New York.

[238] And I was an alcoholic.

[239] I had not come out of the closet.

[240] I had not done any kind of standup comedy.

[241] I was working at a mortgage bank in Long Island several years after the mortgage industry had completely collapsed.

[242] It was really nothing to do.

[243] It was an incredibly depressing place.

[244] I worked next to a guy who was kind of losing his mind.

[245] He was just he was losing his house, but he was ordering koi fish.

[246] for a pond.

[247] He wanted to have a nice koi pond and he would spend the majority of the day.

[248] His wife would call and scream at him.

[249] We have nothing.

[250] We're going to die.

[251] And he would always just call people and he'd go, what, what size are the fish?

[252] And how many of the fish can I get?

[253] You know, so everybody was kind of losing their mind at that point in, in this particular very bleak office, you know, kind of industrial park in Long Island.

[254] And I was just sitting there.

[255] trying to be a billionaire in real estate, I guess.

[256] And, uh, I was hanging out with my friend's father who's, who's passed away, but he was a really fun guy.

[257] Um, he was such a fun guy.

[258] I was in two boating accidents with him.

[259] That's how fun he was.

[260] Most people tap out after one boating accident.

[261] I was in two boating accidents with this man. Um, he had three D weas and a B we.

[262] A biwi is boating while intoxicated.

[263] It's incredibly difficult to get a boating while intoxicated.

[264] It's an actual accomplishment.

[265] He was a fun guy.

[266] He never had a job his whole life.

[267] He sold drugs.

[268] And his wife worked.

[269] And I was friends with his son.

[270] I went to high school with his son.

[271] But this guy was so much fun.

[272] We adored him.

[273] There was one time me and my friend were sitting at a bar.

[274] It was an outdoor bar in Long Island.

[275] You know, that kind of dumb tiki bar vibe.

[276] And his father came up to us.

[277] It was me and my friend and a few girls that we were friends with.

[278] And he said, I want you guys, like, I'm going to buy all your drinks.

[279] And we said, okay, thanks.

[280] And then he walked to the bartender.

[281] He pointed at us.

[282] He pointed at himself.

[283] The bartender, thumbs up.

[284] We gave him the thumbs up.

[285] We said, okay.

[286] We never got the drinks.

[287] We forgot.

[288] About an hour later, we got a tab that was like $2 ,500.

[289] We go, what the hell is going on?

[290] And the bartender said, you just, you agreed to pay that man's tab.

[291] He pointed at you.

[292] You said thumbs up.

[293] He's been drinking here for two days.

[294] He has no money.

[295] That's the type of guy he was, right?

[296] He was just a fun guy.

[297] I mean, you know, so we would go out on Long Island from bar to bar in his little boat.

[298] He had like this little cigarette boat, like a little, you know, and we'd go from bar to bar to bar.

[299] And one time, I was 24 years old, we...

[300] We were going really fast, it was late at night and we just ran up on like a marsh and we were both thrown out of the boat.

[301] And I like, I literally came to and like a nest of egrets, that bird had those big white birds that, and I was just in the middle of it.

[302] And I felt to myself, I said, my life is kind of out of control.

[303] That was the rock bottom.

[304] That was kind of the, where I said to myself, I said, you know what this is?

[305] I could have been paralyzed.

[306] It could have been killed.

[307] I'm like, this is probably not going to end well if I keep drinking.

[308] So I was laying in that egrets nest.

[309] at probably one o 'clock in the morning in the middle of, you know, the Long Island Sound or wherever I was.

[310] We were in the ocean.

[311] We were in Freeport.

[312] And I was just basically going like, this is a real problem.

[313] So then I went to AA.

[314] You know, I started, I was like, this is probably time to like fix this.

[315] So you made the decision to go to AA.

[316] Yeah.

[317] I'm trying to figure out how you get from that egret's nest to that first AA session.

[318] Because it doesn't seem like one just wakes up the next day and goes, okay.

[319] I'm going to go to AA.

[320] Well, it wasn't the next day, but I woke up and what basically happened was I was around a lot of really end -stage alcoholics, meaning like these people had drank their entire lives.

[321] I was hanging at this bar called Lisa's Lounge, which was a bar in Long Island.

[322] It was in the town I lived in.

[323] Up the block from the house that was foreclosed was this bar.

[324] I could walk to it.

[325] It was named, I kid you not, after a woman who died in a drunk driving accident.

[326] Her father had named the bar after her.

[327] She had died.

[328] She was hit by a drunk driver and he named a bar after her.

[329] And people would, and she, her picture was on the, I mean, it's just unreal.

[330] It's true.

[331] Her picture was on the wall of the bar and people would toast her to Lisa and everybody would get, it was a, it was a, it was a great community.

[332] of people.

[333] And it was a lot of drugs and alcohol and people that had, you know, nowhere to go, nowhere to go.

[334] Like the owner told me once, he goes, as people doing coke at the pool table, he goes, I opened this bar.

[335] I swear to God, he said this because I opened this bar because I really wanted people that didn't have a place to go to have somewhere to go on Christmas.

[336] And then he just did a line of cocaine.

[337] And I said, well, that's a nice thing.

[338] At 24 years old, I thought that was a great thing.

[339] And I was just like hanging out in this old man bar this was not a fun bar this is not where you'd go to get laid this was not a club this was not this was the end the end a late stage alcoholism after decades people found themselves here and it was so close to my house I went there and um that was you know that was a weight Every night when I went to bed, I looked at their lives and I said, I'm young, but this is where I'm going.

[340] This is where I'm heading.

[341] I had that example kind of right in front of me. And that, together with my friend's father, together with that accident, started to basically, I said, I've got to make a choice now or this is where I'm going, which seemed a little bit worse than death.

[342] Sitting there in a bar every night.

[343] being afraid of who I was, being afraid of trying something in life that I loved, trying to make something of myself, sitting in that bar, drinking my life away, felt like a huge failure.

[344] I didn't want to fail.

[345] So that's why I stopped.

[346] There was still something in you.

[347] There was still some kind of desire or fight in you, which isn't always there for some people who are in sort of that late stage addiction.

[348] There was some reason to persist, right?

[349] Yes.

[350] Well...

[351] I thought that I could have a better life and that's all you need, I think.

[352] And I think that that is the primary motivating factor for anyone to change anything in their life is that they have the hope or the idea, they have the imagination that they can have a better life if you can conceive of a better life.

[353] So I said, there's probably a version of me that's not drunk every day, that's not working at a dead end job, that's doing something that he likes.

[354] And it was tough.

[355] It's not hard to change.

[356] It's very difficult to change anything.

[357] But that was my, you know, moment where I had that realization.

[358] Did you know what that better life looked like specifically?

[359] Or did you just know that it existed?

[360] Well, I knew that it was sobriety.

[361] So I knew that it was being sober.

[362] I didn't have a roadmap for exactly what it would be.

[363] But I knew that it wouldn't involve sitting in a bar, getting drunk next to someone named Marge, you know, for example, right?

[364] I knew that it would be sobriety.

[365] I knew that it would be honesty.

[366] And those two things go hand in hand.

[367] So that was what I knew.

[368] And I'd always wanted, you know, as an actor, as a little kid, right?

[369] From six years old to 13 to 12, I acted.

[370] I was in theater.

[371] I was in plays.

[372] I was in Sesame Street on the show Sesame Street a few times.

[373] I toured around the country in sixth grade with my mother right before the divorce, right before the onset of her symptoms.

[374] um with a broadway show any get your gun i i was an actor i i liked performing i enjoyed that life i had given up to do drugs when i was like 13 but then when i sobered up around 25 about exactly 25 i went to a stand -up comedy open mic and that that was the thing that kind of pivoted the direction of my life so does this all happen around the same time the aa meeting the first stand -up comedy.

[375] Yes.

[376] The AA thing in particular, was that difficult for you?

[377] Because I kind of understand the 12 -step program and there's some quite challenging elements of that.

[378] A hundred percent.

[379] I was also around this time a juror on a murder trial.

[380] This is something that I shouldn't leave out because this really did impact me as well.

[381] There was a murder trial in Long Island that was pretty well known.

[382] It was unknown to me at the time I was selected, but...

[383] A guy had murdered the mother of his children, and he was an informant for the police, and they had failed to follow up on many orders of protection that this woman had against him because he was providing them information.

[384] They subsequently, after the verdict, settled an $8 million lawsuit with her family, paid her $8 million.

[385] So this was like a pretty big case.

[386] It involved police, you know, malfeasance and things like that.

[387] And I was selected as a juror, and I really wanted to be a juror on this case because I was bored in my life, and I thought that maybe it would be interesting to be a juror on a murder trial.

[388] You know, I thought it was going to be something stupid, like someone fell in a Wendy's and wanted $100 ,000, but I heard it was murder one, you know, and I'm like, well, that's fun.

[389] You sit there every day, and every day it's just mortality is the theme of every single day.

[390] Life, her life, his life, his life being taken, you know, him losing his freedom, her life being taken.

[391] And that really kind of impacted me too because I was going to bars every night, drinking after that, thinking about life and going, I'm on a really bad course and I got to change.

[392] And it was tough.

[393] It was difficult because it's hard to be vulnerable.

[394] Like as a comedian, you hide behind the jokes and the bits and things like that.

[395] But in that room, you can't do that.

[396] So that is difficult.

[397] The God thing was difficult.

[398] The higher power.

[399] I had to come to that in a different way.

[400] There are challenges.

[401] You know, being honest was a big challenge.

[402] I was like, God, they're like, you have to be honest.

[403] And I'm like, okay, I can stop drinking.

[404] I can stop using drugs.

[405] I don't know if I can be honest.

[406] That seems insane.

[407] Look at the world we live in.

[408] Why would anyone be honest?

[409] That doesn't seem to get you anywhere.

[410] And they were like, yeah, but if you are become a liar and you're a compulsive liar, you will go back to drinking drugs.

[411] That's the way it works.

[412] So that was the toughest thing for me. And you had to forgive yourself.

[413] You have to forgive yourself.

[414] You have to forgive other people.

[415] You have to make an inventory of people you've wronged.

[416] You have to go to those people and say, I apologize for what I've done, for taking money from your drawer and using it on drugs, for lying to you, for making you worry about me. These are all important things and you have to do it.

[417] And it's really hard to do, but it's important to get over that hump.

[418] That first stand -up gig that you do.

[419] Yeah.

[420] How did you get on?

[421] It was an open mic and it was a coffee shop in Long Island in a place called Merrick.

[422] Yeah.

[423] It was sort of 25 years old.

[424] 25 at the time.

[425] I was 25 and it was also a tattoo shop.

[426] So you would hear like tattoo needles as you, if you weren't doing well, it would and it would just be guys having, you know, having their girlfriends like tattoos like changed.

[427] because they were no longer in the relationship.

[428] So they were like, they were making them into missiles and like patriotic things or 9 -11 remembrances, you know, whatever the case may be.

[429] And occasionally they would chuckle.

[430] And then there was a few like local people that liked comedy that would come to the coffee house.

[431] But it was kind of an everybody gets on thing.

[432] So that's the beginning of comedy is like everyone gets on, it's an open mic.

[433] You just go and you're on.

[434] And it went well.

[435] It went as well as it could have gone for the first time.

[436] I got some laughs.

[437] Certain things didn't hit.

[438] But I felt confident and I felt like I belonged and I felt like I was doing the right thing.

[439] And I, for the first time in my life, was like I felt kind of certain that I would keep doing this.

[440] There was a certainty.

[441] For the majority of my life, I wasn't certain of anything.

[442] I was kind of trying different identities out, trying things out, seeing what would work.

[443] And then this was like, okay, I'm good at this.

[444] I can get better at it.

[445] And I like it enough to work hard at it.

[446] Comedy.

[447] Comedy is an interesting time, it appears, as someone that's not at all involved in comedy at all, because you have these two forces almost colliding more so than I've really ever seen in my lifetime, which is...

[448] Good and evil.

[449] No, I'm kidding.

[450] No, but it's like correctness and comedy are at war, it seems.

[451] Sure, well...

[452] And even correctness has now made its way onto the stage of comedy.

[453] Yeah, I think that there is always going to be taboo subjects.

[454] There's always going to be things that are harder to make funny than other things.

[455] There's always going to be a line.

[456] As George Carlin said, your job is to find out where the line is.

[457] Cross it, you know?

[458] You got to get good at stuff to make people laugh at stuff.

[459] I like making people laugh at stuff that is inherently maybe a little darker because of the way I grew up.

[460] But I got to make sure those jokes are funny enough so that people will laugh at them.

[461] And then there's some people that will never laugh at them.

[462] There's some people that don't understand comedy.

[463] They take it very literally.

[464] They don't like it.

[465] They like to be bothered by it.

[466] They get angry about it.

[467] They're unhappy about it.

[468] someone's making someone laugh somewhere and they're angry.

[469] I don't know what to do with those people.

[470] I don't know how much we can pay attention to those people.

[471] I know many of them write articles and, you know, you know, the monologue on television about that they're upset about something.

[472] I just don't know how much attention we've paid.

[473] We've paid a lot of attention to them over the last four years.

[474] I think people are a bit exhausted by it.

[475] I think people are a bit over it.

[476] I think there are people in society that they're allowed to have their reactions to anything you do.

[477] You're allowed to hate me, find something I've said offensive, disagree with me. You can write about it, talk about it, whatever you want to do.

[478] It's really kind of not my business.

[479] And there's only so much attention that I can pay to it.

[480] I think that's kind of the way comedians have to look at this stuff.

[481] They go like, hey, man, we're making jokes.

[482] We're having fun.

[483] You have the right to be very angry about it and be upset about it.

[484] But I mean, again, that's a little crazy in my estimation to be that upset by comedians that have no real power.

[485] The thing about comedians, we don't have, but now people say, well, you have cultural power, soft power, whatever.

[486] That's sure.

[487] But we don't have the type of power that CEOs of large companies do.

[488] Our job is not to.

[489] you know, move a conversation forward.

[490] Our job is not to, it's our jobs to be funny.

[491] Now, if we do some other things, if we happen to shed light on something that's good, if we move a conversation forward, if we illustrate a truth, that's a great thing.

[492] And it's secondary.

[493] Our primary job is to be funny.

[494] And that can be, that's being wrong.

[495] That's being stupid.

[496] That's being short -sighted.

[497] It might be even being bigoted.

[498] If it's funny, we're not in the, we're not.

[499] in the job of being right.

[500] We're not in the job of being correct.

[501] There are people whose jobs are they have to be right.

[502] A surgeon has to be right.

[503] They can't just wing it.

[504] We are in the job of being funny.

[505] So if you confuse those things, which a lot of people out there do, that's where you get this tension, you know?

[506] But again, I'm a clown.

[507] I perform at comedy clubs and theaters.

[508] I do a podcast.

[509] If I say something you don't like, it's really, really an infinitesimal chance that anything I say is really going to have the gravity and weight that these people think it does.

[510] You want to be looking at other people that have more power.

[511] Direct that energy somewhere else.

[512] You say direct that energy somewhere else, but I watched that video of you getting very...

[513] because Rogan, he gets cancelled and you don't.

[514] And you say some pretty amazing...

[515] Yes, try to get cancelled, yes.

[516] You seem uncancellable in many respects.

[517] Well, no, no, no. I'm not uncancellable.

[518] I'm a goofball.

[519] I wear crazy glasses.

[520] I'm a comedian.

[521] I say things that probably are intelligent.

[522] And sometimes people will look at me and go, that's a good take.

[523] A lot of the things I say are completely absurd.

[524] And...

[525] You know, I don't even know which is which when I say it because I do two hours of broadcasting.

[526] I've done it for eight years.

[527] And I don't know what I'm going to say until I sit down and I talk.

[528] And some of the things I say that are absurd start intelligently.

[529] And some of the things I say that are intelligent maybe start absurdly.

[530] And that's the fun of it to me. If I knew what I was going to say or if I had an agenda, if I wanted to say a certain thing.

[531] I would get very bored very quickly.

[532] But I just try to look at stuff and go, what do I think?

[533] What do I think?

[534] I'm being told this.

[535] You know, what's my reaction, you know?

[536] And that's kind of like what I try to do.

[537] But yeah, I think I'm goofy.

[538] And if people are mad at me, they're kind of, they look stupid sometimes because of how over the top I am about certain things and how wild.

[539] And again, a lot of it I think is funny.

[540] Right?

[541] So Joe has a different podcast.

[542] He has like a – he has a podcast where sometimes it's funny.

[543] But he has very serious people on – he has the biggest podcast I think in the world.

[544] I think you guys are maybe the second.

[545] Right?

[546] You're up there.

[547] I have no idea.

[548] You have no idea.

[549] Okay.

[550] Clever.

[551] But, you know, like he's hugely successful and he, you know, does all these really amazing interviews where he researches and he reads books and he's smart and he's talking to somebody.

[552] And I'm like – shooting from the hip i'm just going off the top of my head and like halfway through a story i'll go oh no and i'll just go the other way on it because i'll realize i'll sometimes i'll read the third paragraph i'll be dismissing the whole thing and then when i get to the third paragraph i go oh this is a problem so it is and that's what i think makes it funny joe rogan yeah um going on his show you you described that as being really pivotal for you in your career he's the most generous person that i've met with his audience, with his fan base.

[553] All he wants is other people to succeed.

[554] He brings on comedians.

[555] He brings on writers.

[556] He brings on journalists.

[557] He helps them promote whatever they're doing.

[558] He has this huge fan base.

[559] He shares it with people.

[560] So I'm very lucky that he's had me on a show a bunch of times.

[561] And he's a very good friend.

[562] And like, when I go on the show, we just have the conversation that we would have privately.

[563] We have it on a show.

[564] So I think that's why people like it.

[565] Podcasting.

[566] Yeah.

[567] I mean, it's taken on a life of its own.

[568] What do you think of podcasting?

[569] I mean, it's been on a bit of a journey.

[570] Obviously, there was this big, I think podcasting was like the OGs of podcasting, like Rogan started out.

[571] Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Keith and the Girl, a show in New York City, Mark Maron.

[572] Those guys were in the very, very early.

[573] Before it was cool, before anyone was really like, before the money was there.

[574] And then the celebrities show up.

[575] It was like a bit of an experiment for a couple of years.

[576] It seems Spotify have kind of rolled back from that experiment.

[577] Yes, because they have nothing to say.

[578] Most celebrities don't.

[579] A lot of them, you know, are invented people who are created in a laboratory.

[580] The laboratory is CAA, my agency.

[581] And they create a person and they get public relations people.

[582] They get lawyers.

[583] They get all these people, business managers, agents, they come in and they go, this is who you are.

[584] This is what plays.

[585] These are the things you highlight about your past.

[586] These are the things we don't talk about.

[587] Let's leave the Confederate flag at home.

[588] You know, they create a person.

[589] That person then goes and they're now famous.

[590] It's a terrible idea to give that person a microphone and tell them to talk for an hour.

[591] It's terrible.

[592] You know, many of these people aren't that talented.

[593] Some of them are.

[594] Some of them are amazingly talented.

[595] Some of them are very kind of banal people.

[596] People tend to think of Hollywood as this place where it's all satanic pedophiles eating children.

[597] Now, undoubtedly, some of that is true.

[598] But a lot of it is just very banal, boring people that have been created by these corporations that when you realize how boring they are and then you look at how much money they have and where they live, that's what will drive you.

[599] Now, you'll go, oh, my God.

[600] So that's why podcasting is a really, really bad idea.

[601] for these people.

[602] They should be kept somewhere.

[603] They should have very managed things where they come out on the red carpet and they go, how are you doing?

[604] And they just go climate change and then walk into the auditorium and get an award.

[605] They should be allowed to speak two to three words at once.

[606] And they should know what those words are beforehand.

[607] It is a terrible idea to give someone, again, these people that all of their interactions are with other famous people.

[608] All of their thoughts are filtered through a prism of, you know, corporate lawyers before they can say anything.

[609] This is not what podcasting is in my estimation.

[610] Is there any celebrity podcast that you think is?

[611] I'm sure there's some that are really good.

[612] This is not everyone, right?

[613] I'm sure there are people that have really good podcasts.

[614] But like if we're just talking in general about let's give A -list actors a microphone, probably not the best idea.

[615] Just probably not the best idea, you know?

[616] What's your...

[617] Because I know they gave Meghan Markle money.

[618] They gave a lot of people money there at Spotify.

[619] And so I don't know that that...

[620] But then they came out and said, we made a mistake.

[621] We shouldn't have given these people money.

[622] Do you think you should have gotten the money instead?

[623] Of course.

[624] I absolutely believe that.

[625] But, you know, I can't compel them to give me the money.

[626] I can't compel them.

[627] I can't get a member of the royal family to marry me. And I would have stayed in that castle, no matter what was said.

[628] But I can't have that happen.

[629] So I can't, you know, Oprah doesn't interview me. So you got, I have enough money.

[630] But the, sure, you know, I think it's podcasting to me, the fun of podcasting is being unfiltered free and just having fun.

[631] What's your assessment of these sort of different generations?

[632] We have these Gen Zs, millennials, and we have the boomers.

[633] What's your read on these things?

[634] Well, we've given up on the children.

[635] The future is not the children.

[636] The children are no longer the future.

[637] The future is AI.

[638] The future is robotics.

[639] We're very clear on that.

[640] We don't even talk about the children anymore.

[641] We talk mainly about AI.

[642] No one's even said anything about the children in months, years, really.

[643] We've given up on the children.

[644] They're dead -eyed little monsters.

[645] They're running around killing each other.

[646] We can't deal with it.

[647] It's very traumatic.

[648] I've even stopped thinking about what they're doing because it's crazy.

[649] I'm more excited about AI than the children, just like anyone else.

[650] Who's reviving the economy of San Francisco?

[651] The children?

[652] No, AI.

[653] So AI's next.

[654] We don't know what we're going to do with the children.

[655] Build prisons, that's what I say, for children.

[656] They're crazy.

[657] They're being raised by algorithms.

[658] They're all on fentanyl.

[659] They're all on drugs.

[660] They're all running around trying to kill each other and record it.

[661] There was a case in Phoenix, Arizona.

[662] These rich white kids running around, beating up kids at random.

[663] Filming it and putting it on TikTok.

[664] No motive.

[665] Nothing.

[666] Just for clout.

[667] Just for things.

[668] And they killed a kid.

[669] And finally, now because they're all white, of course, the cops didn't do anything for a year.

[670] And they were like, wow, just a couple of kids having fun killing the other kids.

[671] This is how people grow up.

[672] So this Gilbert, Arizona Police Department does nothing about the whole thing.

[673] Finally, they just arrested these kids because they killed somebody.

[674] But this is not only there.

[675] I mean, it's kind of an epidemic where like.

[676] All over the place, you see like, you know, young people, unfortunately, you know, these crazy acts of violence that are now being uploaded for clout.

[677] People going, look at what I did.

[678] And what they did was like, you know, assault someone or kill someone.

[679] This is a real problem.

[680] So we have to deal with the kids in some way, jail them.

[681] I don't know what to do with them.

[682] But AI is big.

[683] Robotics is big.

[684] That's what is next.

[685] The Boomers, I have a book coming out about them.

[686] I love the boomers.

[687] They're a selfish generation of people.

[688] The state of the boomers, these paranoid people who refuse to leave their McMansions, they will not leave.

[689] They will not retire.

[690] They lord around their houses.

[691] They diminish their children.

[692] They say, I can't believe you don't own something like this.

[693] They like holding these houses over their kids' heads.

[694] They retire to bigger houses.

[695] They have thousands and thousands of square feet.

[696] They're very sick.

[697] people.

[698] They refuse to give up their jobs.

[699] They're dying in the Senate.

[700] They're collapsing in Congress.

[701] They will not leave.

[702] They will not cede any of their power.

[703] They're emotional terrorists.

[704] And I grew up with them.

[705] They're very interesting people.

[706] They've proven the lie of the 60s, these hippies that everybody thought were like progressive.

[707] They're actually not.

[708] They were always just selfish drug addicts.

[709] They never cared about anything they purported to care about.

[710] They just wanted to get high and roll around in the mud.

[711] And then as soon as the drugs changed from whatever, from acid to money.

[712] They, you know, became this very like materialistic, soulless group of people.

[713] But the funniest generation that has ever lived, nobody's funnier.

[714] Nobody's funnier because to be funny, like we talked about, you kind of have to just not care about anything.

[715] And there's no generation of people that have cared less about the future of this planet, about their children, about anything than the boomers.

[716] They're all little islands and they all are about themselves forever and ever.

[717] refreshing about that, funny.

[718] And they're holding the planet hostage.

[719] They won't die.

[720] They won't leave.

[721] I've suggested they be forcibly evicted from their homes and committed to mental institutions.

[722] Legally, we have some problems.

[723] That's not easy to do.

[724] I've spoken to some lawyers.

[725] There are problems doing that.

[726] And then the millennials were this very shitty generation of like.

[727] Pin a medal on me, pin a ribbon on me. I'm right.

[728] I went to the right college.

[729] I got the right internship.

[730] I believe the right things.

[731] I tweeted the right thing.

[732] I did the right thing.

[733] I have all the right beliefs.

[734] I have the good politics.

[735] I have this.

[736] Shower me with, tell me I'm good because my boomer parents, they don't care about me, but you tell me I'm good.

[737] The world needs to fill the void that exists inside of me. And these millennials are these kind of ambitious people.

[738] that want to constantly be patted on the back and told how great they are.

[739] So they're kind of shapeshifters that conform to any popular sentiment.

[740] They crowdsource all of their opinions.

[741] They just want, whereas the boomers just kind of didn't care about anyone or anything.

[742] You have the millennials who are.

[743] kind of like more like, I am good.

[744] And you tell me that I'm good because they're not, they're good to be told to be good.

[745] Their politics are aesthetic.

[746] They want everyone to look at them and to tell them how great they are.

[747] And then the zoomers are the younger generation after the millennials, they seem to be, you know, somewhat.

[748] Like they're self starters.

[749] They're very skeptical of institutions are a little more cynical.

[750] That's some of their positive qualities that they're more independent minded.

[751] The negative qualities are the aforementioned murder and the filming of the murders and the killings and the drugs and the fentanyl vapes and all of that.

[752] That seems to be less.

[753] I mean, we need a draft to be honest, you know, now that I'm kind of older and.

[754] Now we need a draft.

[755] Young people should probably just go into the military.

[756] I know that's going to be a controversial thing to say, but if they're just going to do fentanyl and attack each other in malls and put it on TikTok, they can go die in the Ukraine so that Boeing can make some money.

[757] Are we still on YouTube?

[758] So would you consider yourself to be optimistic about the future?

[759] There's a lot going on in the world.

[760] No, no. No, I don't.

[761] I'm sane.

[762] So I don't.

[763] I think there's good things happening.

[764] But I mean, optimistic for the future overall, I don't know.

[765] That's tough to be, maybe, right?

[766] I mean, you've got elections coming up this year as well here in the US.

[767] Well, we all know elections solve everything.

[768] We all know that's where the real power lies, the elections.

[769] Now, yeah.

[770] When you're talking about...

[771] refusing to languish control and power the boomer generation.

[772] I was thinking a lot about Biden there.

[773] Sure.

[774] Because it seems like your presidents are getting older and older and refusing to.

[775] Yeah, I mean, Biden seems to be a bit old.

[776] Trump's old.

[777] You know, Biden seems to be in a stage of mental decline, though.

[778] He was really good at the State of the Union.

[779] They gave him something.

[780] They shot him up with something, which is great.

[781] We have no new talent in the country.

[782] Nobody wants to be a politician anymore unless they're psychotic.

[783] You need young people that care about the country and that want to change it.

[784] And what you're getting now more and more is, you know, all of the interesting people in our country are and the people that are ambitious and the people that have talent.

[785] They don't want to be in politics.

[786] They want to be somewhere else.

[787] It's more fun to go to Miami and trade Bitcoin on a yacht.

[788] You know what I mean?

[789] They just don't want to be in politics.

[790] They don't want to do it.

[791] So you end up with these octogenarian, drooling, somewhat, you know, like dementia ridden elderly people who are incapable of even understanding what's happening because they don't even know what it is.

[792] They barely know what TikTok is.

[793] TikTok is something their grandchild shows them, you know, at some party they're having in Maine.

[794] They're sitting on a hill in Maine eating.

[795] The lobster is falling out of their mouth.

[796] They go, look, grandpa, look at the TikTok.

[797] And then they have to then go into Congress and hash this out.

[798] No, I mean, the problem really is we just don't have young people that care enough about the country because the press is going to rip their lives apart, right?

[799] They're going, there's so much more money elsewhere.

[800] There's so much more.

[801] And the system's so toxic and so corrupt.

[802] They go, I don't want to get involved in that.

[803] They're going to ban TikTok, aren't they?

[804] They're talking a lot about banning it.

[805] They're talking about it.

[806] I have no followers on it, so I'm for the ban.

[807] You know?

[808] For personal, completely personal reasons, I'm for the ban.

[809] And I also think it's a problem.

[810] I don't know.

[811] I don't know anything about it.

[812] I just know that people are making a lot of money on it.

[813] So if I say I'm for the ban, people get angry with me. It's not a good...

[814] It's not a good cultural force.

[815] But what is?

[816] Do you have goals in terms of your comedy and your career more generally?

[817] Do you have like stated goals?

[818] Yeah, I have things I want to do.

[819] I have, you know, the boomer thing.

[820] I want to do a show about boomers.

[821] I've always wanted to.

[822] The book is going to be a large part of that.

[823] I want to do either a movie or a show.

[824] There's something.

[825] I find it very funny the way I grew up.

[826] My friends' families, their parents were very funny people.

[827] And I want to do something that kind of immortalizes that because they are about to leave.

[828] They are about to go.

[829] And there's something very funny about them.

[830] And I want to make something about, I think a lot of comedians, maybe everyone wants to do something about their childhood or do something about how they grew up or, but, you know, I, mine will be good.

[831] That would be the difference.

[832] No, I really liked the idea of that.

[833] That's a goal.

[834] Just to tell that story is a goal.

[835] I'm banging on the desk.

[836] I apologize.

[837] And then it's just to keep making people laugh and to keep having fun.

[838] You know, I mean, all the things that I, there's certain that that boomer story is something I want to tell.

[839] You got to find the right platform, the right medium.

[840] But that's something I want to do.

[841] All those early experiences that you've had have quite clearly manifested in your work in various ways.

[842] You talked about the unprocessed trauma from your earliest years.

[843] Yes.

[844] Have you processed it?

[845] No. No, I mean, I process some of it.

[846] Some of it.

[847] I mean, I don't know that I process all of it.

[848] In one lifetime, it's a tough thing to process all of it.

[849] But I process a good amount of it.

[850] And I've come to a point where there's always more work to do.

[851] You could always be in a better place mentally.

[852] And you should try that.

[853] Try to get there.

[854] But I think I've done a good job of...

[855] processing it.

[856] I lost my mother about six months ago.

[857] Uh, I think, I don't know.

[858] It was August.

[859] She died in August, maybe six months.

[860] Um, and it was a very difficult thing to go through because the, her life was not great at the end, but it was in the beginning.

[861] She had a lovely, amazing life.

[862] In the beginning, her and my father were married for 10 years before they had me. She loved surfing and boating and she spent a lot of time in Florida and she was kind of, she was voted best looking in her high school.

[863] She was very, very attractive early on.

[864] The front nine were good.

[865] The back nine were a little tough, but I had her out to my house on Long Island and the whole family was kind of there.

[866] We had a really nice day of everybody, my cousins, my, her sister, everybody being there.

[867] And that was a good moment.

[868] That's what I'm remembering.

[869] And it was, you know, she was as good as she could be.

[870] I try to get more religious as I get older and more faith.

[871] I think faith is a good thing to have.

[872] You know, obviously, religion being a human institution, there's pitfalls, there's problems.

[873] You know, we don't have to rehash them.

[874] The idea of there being a spiritual realm to me is, I think, very interesting.

[875] I think it seems to be quite possible.

[876] I think that people are more than their bodies.

[877] They're more than the flesh.

[878] There is a spirit there.

[879] And I think there was a spirit in my mother that was trapped in a very difficult situation.

[880] And I think that spirit is free.

[881] And I think that's the way that I feel about a lot of things now is that I seem to be getting more into this idea of, you know, the physical not being everything and that we should develop a spiritual side of ourselves.

[882] And I looked at the struggles that she had later on in her life.

[883] And I was keeping her in a body and in a mind that is actively fighting against her was a selfish thing.

[884] So letting her, having her be free, I think is the best outcome.

[885] It's a complex set of feelings.

[886] It is.

[887] Because there's grief on one end and then there's something else on the other, right?

[888] There's like a...

[889] Well, there's relief because she was in pain.

[890] So when someone's in pain and they depart...

[891] this world, you are, there's a relief that you have because watching them go through that is terrible.

[892] It's hard.

[893] And this is people that suffer in all kinds of ways.

[894] So, you know, again, I think people are more than their bodies.

[895] And, you know, I think they are, you know, the soul, I believe is a real thing.

[896] I believe the spirit is real.

[897] And I was raised Catholic.

[898] There's parts of the Catholicism I don't.

[899] vibe with as much obviously the terrible lineage of abuses but then there's parts of it that I think are really good having a spiritual dimension to your life I think is really good so you know I look at it and I would never say like it was time but she had suffered greatly for a while and having her out at the house and having her be with everybody kind of for the last time nobody knew she was going to die but like That was just kind of a moment where I think she might have felt like it was okay to let go.

[900] I don't know if that's true or not.

[901] Have you been to therapy?

[902] I have.

[903] I've been, yeah.

[904] I'm not in it currently because I'm on tour, and I haven't been in it in a bit, but I certainly have.

[905] And I think it can be very good.

[906] I've been to therapy.

[907] Yeah.

[908] It can also not be good.

[909] Yeah, it can also be, yeah.

[910] It can also not be good, but it can be good.

[911] Because you, presumably you want to have your own family someday.

[912] I'm presuming.

[913] Perhaps, yeah.

[914] I mean, I don't know.

[915] I've done a lot of career stuff for a very long time.

[916] And I think at the age I'm at in your late 30s, you kind of start realizing that there's just a ceiling, not even career -wise, but in how happy it'll make you.

[917] So my career might get a lot better, but the amount of joy you derive from accomplishments.

[918] As you get older, it starts to dim and you actually start enjoying other people's accomplishments.

[919] You start looking around.

[920] Community makes you happy.

[921] Being involved in things makes you happy.

[922] Helping people makes you happy.

[923] It starts to shift.

[924] If you are, you know, on a good path, I think you start to shift from like, me, me, me, look what I've done to like, hey, can I help somebody or can I be part of something that has a value?

[925] What's the biggest side of you that your audience don't understand or don't know?

[926] Because I've watched you for years.

[927] And I think I've watched a one dimension of you.

[928] Yes.

[929] A funny one, hopefully.

[930] Really funny.

[931] You know, I think everyone that they watch, me as well, is a human being and not always on all the time.

[932] And I think that, you know, there's a dimension of me that you get on the show.

[933] There's a dimension of a lot of, you get a lot of what I think on the show.

[934] Like if you went out to dinner with me, I, and the things that I'm saying on the show are what I would say there.

[935] Like I would, I'm not going to have an opinion on the show and then sit down and go, well, actually this is the way I really feel.

[936] Everything in here is what I think.

[937] And some of it's really funny.

[938] Some of it's not.

[939] But I think it's just like, just a dimension of like being a human being apart from being a product, right?

[940] Where people just consume.

[941] The things you're saying and doing, a lot of people probably didn't know a lot of this.

[942] Some of them did because I'm pretty open about it.

[943] But, like, you know, I think that a lot of people just see one side of you where here's a guy who makes everything funny or tries to make everything funny.

[944] But then there are a lot of things, too, where, you know, I have interest in art, comedy, I have interest in it or not, you know, my career, I have interest in it or not.

[945] And I like to.

[946] You know, talk about the spirituality stuff.

[947] That's probably something that I don't talk about.

[948] Maybe I'll bring it up.

[949] It's like an aside.

[950] But there are interests that I have that are varied.

[951] But for whatever reason, I'm like, it's not funny or it doesn't fit the show that I'm doing.

[952] So there's a show and then there's a person, right?

[953] That's not me. That's every entertainer everywhere.

[954] Your show at the Royal Albert Hall that's coming up, it's in a couple of days' time.

[955] Yeah.

[956] One of the things that I...

[957] I'm always shocked by with you, and you've said it earlier, is that when you do your podcast or when you do these sort of long form bits, it appears that you're basically freestyling.

[958] Yeah.

[959] What's going through your head?

[960] Like, I've always wondered.

[961] Yeah.

[962] When, if you're sat on Rogue and if you're sat on your podcast and, you know, your producer pulls up some article.

[963] Right.

[964] Do you just kind of trust?

[965] Yes.

[966] That you're fine.

[967] It's what I used to do when I was a drunk.

[968] I would sit at a bar and talk.

[969] And now I just do that without alcohol.

[970] Like, I like looking at things.

[971] And trying to figure out what's going on and trying to make them funny.

[972] And that's the value and the service that I provide is like, here's a landscape of stories and articles and things.

[973] And what the hell's going on?

[974] And let's see if we can make it funny.

[975] And let's see if we can understand it on a deeper level.

[976] Because there's so, you know, the press has all these agendas about like what they want you to believe all over the place.

[977] Left wing, right wing, whatever.

[978] Centrist, corporate.

[979] just buy things, whatever it is.

[980] And what I like to do is look at them and go, well, maybe there's a dimension here that's more human that I can flesh out because I'm looking at it.

[981] I don't have an agenda.

[982] I don't care either way.

[983] I'm not sponsored by the person in this article.

[984] I don't have a alliance or an allegiance to anything.

[985] I'm looking at it and going like, what's the funniest take?

[986] And how does this, you know, how does this explain something larger that's going on?

[987] That's interesting to me. That's fun to me. I like doing that.

[988] So I think it's been successful because I enjoy it.

[989] You came out as gay at roughly sort of 25 years old during that period of your time, during that period of your life.

[990] Very late by today's standards.

[991] Most people statistically today come out at the age of two.

[992] So where do you fit love into all of this?

[993] You try to fit it into it as much as you can.

[994] You know, you try to—you know, it's hard because you travel a lot.

[995] And it's hard because you are spending a lot of time doing the things that are benefiting you in one part of your life.

[996] But sometimes that hurts another part of your life.

[997] So you try to—and again, like, once you start, like, you know, having success, it's—so a lot of comics, like, marry other comedians.

[998] Or somebody in that world who gets it, who understands it.

[999] So, you know, I think, you know, that's been something I've seen.

[1000] And that works a lot of times.

[1001] Like people are really happy and bring up great families kind of in the world of comedy because their partner gets it.

[1002] But for me, I don't know if that's going to – I don't want that really.

[1003] I would like somebody who's completely like not involved with this at all.

[1004] Are you dating?

[1005] Yes, but not one person in like a serious way.

[1006] You know, like you're just around and, you know, kind of meeting people and seeing like what's fun.

[1007] Homosexuality is slightly different.

[1008] So it's not like a whole, you know what I mean?

[1009] It's not the royal wedding per se.

[1010] It's not like moving to the castle.

[1011] But maybe one day, you know.

[1012] Have you ever been in a long -term relationship?

[1013] On and off, but not serious where it's like, again, like it's going to lead to marriage and children.

[1014] There is kind of that difference where like.

[1015] You know, not that gay people can't get married and have kids.

[1016] They can and have and blah, blah, blah.

[1017] We know that.

[1018] But I personally have not been in a relationship where it was like, this is where it's going.

[1019] And I think it's a lot of it is because I was just so hyper focused on like trying to figure out a way to do this really hard thing, which was like be a comedian.

[1020] But, you know, now I think I'm more open to that stuff because like I said, you know, you do some stuff, you do some cool stuff.

[1021] And then you like want to enlarge those other parts of your life that you've neglected.

[1022] I was the same for most of my life, but I actually think when I look back, I just had, I think the first model of what love is you learn from observing your parents.

[1023] Yeah, uh -oh.

[1024] Yeah, but you're right.

[1025] And then you go, okay, this is love.

[1026] Okay, so this man, this woman, how they interact.

[1027] And then you grow up and you go, that never leaves your brain.

[1028] And you think, is that what I want?

[1029] That's right.

[1030] That's right.

[1031] That's right.

[1032] Yeah, it is not.

[1033] But you're right.

[1034] And a lot of it is an excuse when I go, oh, it's all the...

[1035] career.

[1036] That's me being kind of a selfish person that, you know, I needed to be selfish to figure out a way to like get to where I wanted to go.

[1037] But, you know, I could have made more time, but I did it.

[1038] Right.

[1039] So it's like, you know, you battle a lot in life with like the things you want, the things you think you want, you know, it's kind of, you want the thing, you want the nice stuff, you want the nice cars, you want the nice things.

[1040] But then you realize that the things you really like are the things that you feel drawn to and you feel drawn to obviously making people laugh, but you also feel drawn to being, you know, in a, like a situation where you're being appreciated, loved and, you know, taking care of.

[1041] What do you love about yourself?

[1042] My ability to do it and keep doing it.

[1043] And like, I don't, I'm not an excuse person.

[1044] I don't, uh, I, you know, I take rejection and I, I kind of move on pretty quickly.

[1045] I've done that since I'm a kid.

[1046] I have a lot of the qualities that a lot of the YouTube guys try to not, not the go to the gym every day and do this and do that, obviously.

[1047] But like, I don't let someone tell me something's not going to happen.

[1048] I'll just keep going until I figure out a way to make it happen on my terms.

[1049] And I like that about myself at all.

[1050] You know, I like that about myself a lot.

[1051] I think that that's a good quality to have.

[1052] growing up the way I grew up, there's a version of me that's just a druggie, that's just on the street, that's dead, that is blaming everyone else for every other thing, that's talking about how, you know, whatever.

[1053] So many people had it so much harder than me, right?

[1054] I had a mom that was sick and, you know, a dad that was maybe not as involved as maybe he could have been, but they're both really good people, both very supportive of me. The drugs were something that I did.

[1055] You know what I mean?

[1056] Like so many people grow up in genuinely abusive environments and they succeed wildly.

[1057] So I'm inspired by people like that.

[1058] So I'm not trying to say like it's woe is me or anything, but like I did come from an environment and I do have that thing in me. We all do where I could just offload everything and say, hey, I didn't get what I wanted.

[1059] It wasn't a perfect scenario.

[1060] I'm going to use drugs for the rest of my life.

[1061] I'm going to mismanage my money.

[1062] I'm going to go broke.

[1063] I'm going to, you know, blame everybody else.

[1064] I could have been that guy.

[1065] I was that guy for many years.

[1066] And I know who that guy is.

[1067] I'm happy I was able to get rid of that.

[1068] That doesn't mean the guy that I am now is a perfect person.

[1069] Not at all.

[1070] There's a whole host of other problems you have once you get rid of that guy.

[1071] But I'm glad I got rid of that guy.

[1072] And what are you working on now over there?

[1073] I mean, everything, eating better, sleeping better, spending more time with people, going on dates and listening to actually what people say, you know, even if they're terribly uninteresting as most of them are, right?

[1074] But you have to, you know, bless them.

[1075] You have to, God bless them.

[1076] They're children of God.

[1077] You have to just kind of listen.

[1078] And you did, you majored marketing.

[1079] So, you know, but all that stuff, I'm obviously, I'm kidding, but like all of the stuff that human beings have to do, their mental, physical health.

[1080] you know, the way they balance their lives.

[1081] It's all, once you sober up, it's not like, wow, the journey's done.

[1082] It's like, wow, the journey can actually begin and I can learn how to negotiate all this stuff as a human being.

[1083] And you fail all the time across the board.

[1084] But what you don't do is you don't start using drugs.

[1085] You don't start drinking.

[1086] You don't start becoming a pathological liar.

[1087] You don't start doing the things that you used to do when you were out there.

[1088] you know, being the worst version of yourself.

[1089] Coping mechanisms.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] Mental health coping mechanisms.

[1092] How is your mental health and what are your new sort of mechanisms for managing mental health?

[1093] Well, I think it's good.

[1094] I'm a comedian, so it can't be great.

[1095] If it was great, I wouldn't have became a comedian probably.

[1096] I think talking to people, you know, taking long walks, again, helping people, enlarging your life.

[1097] your spiritual life, trying to be a better person is what everyone should do all the time.

[1098] I think that's what I try to do.

[1099] I try not to get too caught up in, you know, the insanity of the world, of spending too much time online, looking at the internet too much, you know, not being around real people, being in your head, obsessing about things you can't control.

[1100] All of that, if you can find ways to not watch the murders on TikTok.

[1101] And go somewhere else and just sit on a beach or take a walk or do something.

[1102] It's much better for your mental health than just watching this parade of insanity.

[1103] You know, it is fun to do.

[1104] I do it sometimes.

[1105] I have to do it as part of my show.

[1106] But I think if you can get away from it, as I get older, I spend less time online.

[1107] I grew up without it.

[1108] And then it became your life.

[1109] And now if you spend less time on it, I actually think you look at it as, oh, this is something I do for my career.

[1110] But then you actually have a real life.

[1111] You can read a book and go somewhere.

[1112] Like that to me has more value now than just scrolling and the endless.

[1113] That to me is a recipe for unhappiness.

[1114] We know it too.

[1115] All these young kids, we know how bad it is.

[1116] We know how bad the effects of a lot of this stuff are.

[1117] And we will lie about it.

[1118] And all these tech companies are like, there's no correlation between the mass suicide and my new app, which tells them how to do it.

[1119] Like there's no. You know, there's no, you know, they have a new app, Suicider.

[1120] They're like, that has nothing to do with it.

[1121] You know, it's like, you know, just filters, which you can kill yourself.

[1122] That has nothing to do with what's happening.

[1123] It's for entertainment.

[1124] The kids know it.

[1125] So we know how bad this stuff is.

[1126] We know how toxic it is.

[1127] We're seeing it with young people now the way we've never seen it before.

[1128] And, you know, so I think.

[1129] that's another thing.

[1130] Your mental health can be really dramatically improved if you have a human interaction.

[1131] Elon obviously bought Twitter and that seems to have kind of balanced the scales in terms of giving, one could call it free speech, but another outlet for people to just speak in a more uncensored, freer way.

[1132] Are you happy that he bought?

[1133] I think it was good, yeah.

[1134] I mean, listen, Twitter had become a really, unfortunate example of censorship in American society.

[1135] Twitter itself, you know, as a thing is not a holistic thing.

[1136] It never was.

[1137] It was always this kind of battleground where people would just be crazy and, you know, fight with each other and this, that and the other thing.

[1138] I don't know that it is, you know, people say it's the town square.

[1139] It might be.

[1140] I don't know if it is.

[1141] I think it's good that he bought it.

[1142] I think it's good that people could say what they want to say.

[1143] Again, I, I just, I think that at the end of the day, it's like whatever Twitter is for people, if they really enjoy it or they like it, use it.

[1144] You know, there are times when I enjoy it and I use it.

[1145] There's times when I just don't care as much and I'd rather put those thoughts on my show and develop them more.

[1146] I think that's, you know, where I'm at.

[1147] Do you ever get bothered by feedback you get?

[1148] Sure, everyone does.

[1149] Everyone does.

[1150] But I don't get a lot of, I've tried to limit feedback because feedback can work in two ways.

[1151] You can also start.

[1152] doing something you think people will like and then end up destroying the beauty of what you do or what you enjoy.

[1153] So I think when people go, well, why don't you do more of this?

[1154] Well, I don't like this.

[1155] This sucks.

[1156] Do more of that.

[1157] You shouldn't be in that headspace.

[1158] You should go out and do what you do.

[1159] And then the responses to it are all valid.

[1160] Because the people that are having them, this is their reaction.

[1161] But you don't have to consume their reactions as a way to program your mind about the things you create.

[1162] I think you can let them have their reactions.

[1163] And, you know, you can tell, you know, you can look and, you know, does what you're doing feel good?

[1164] Does it make you laugh?

[1165] Is it funny?

[1166] Do people you trust and like enjoy it?

[1167] And, you know, in comedy, there are metrics, right?

[1168] There's all kinds of things.

[1169] The internet, there's all kinds of metrics.

[1170] Are people liking it?

[1171] Do they buy tickets?

[1172] Are they enjoying it?

[1173] People communicate in all kinds of ways.

[1174] So your tour comes to the UK.

[1175] Very, very excited.

[1176] I'm going to do my very, very best to make sure I'm at least one of the shows.

[1177] I would love to go to the one in Finland where 19 people have bought tickets.

[1178] No, I'm kidding.

[1179] I love the Finnish.

[1180] A woman sent me a message.

[1181] She goes, it's not London and it's not the Hamptons.

[1182] But she goes, it's what we have and I'll show it to you.

[1183] And I was like, well, I like that.

[1184] I like someone who's very grounded like that, who really knows what it is.

[1185] But the Royal Albert Hall.

[1186] That's the iconic venue.

[1187] And I'm really happy to do it.

[1188] And I'm so mad you're in Australia.

[1189] We would have, you know.

[1190] I'm pretty sure I'm in Australia on that day, aren't I?

[1191] Because when I saw you post on Twitter that you were coming to London, I sent it to my team within about a millisecond and said, oh my God, let's all get tickets.

[1192] And then someone rebuttaled and said, you're in Australia at that time.

[1193] But you're doing, you're in Manchester and Liverpool as well.

[1194] For the 7th of April, the Royal Albert Hall.

[1195] What can one expect from that show?

[1196] I think if you are into darker comedy, if you like, you know, kind of, it's a lot of it's somewhat, you know, topical to a degree.

[1197] I look back at the year that we've kind of had and, you know, I talk about stories that have interested me in funny ways, you know, obviously, and there are cultural trends in America and probably a lot of them in Britain that...

[1198] You know, we talk about all these things.

[1199] A lot of the things we've covered today, whether it's social media and its effect on children and mental health, all of these things are themes in the hour of comedy, right?

[1200] And like people getting canceled for certain things and homelessness I talk about because that's an epidemic in American cities, like drugs, everything.

[1201] So a lot of what we've discussed today, it's funnier there.

[1202] And you - Hopefully.

[1203] I think I heard you say you were thinking about potentially moving to London at one point.

[1204] I'd love to own something in London.

[1205] I like One Hyde Park, but it's very expensive.

[1206] And the reason that I like it is because it's the most expensive residential real estate building in the world.

[1207] No one really lives there.

[1208] But you see these young Saudi kids drive their Bugattis and stuff.

[1209] And every now and then one or two lights is on.

[1210] And to me, it symbolizes the utter coldness and emptiness of having things.

[1211] And I think there's a beauty to that.

[1212] There's something very interesting about it.

[1213] You know, that whole city of London really interests me. And I don't mean the city of London.

[1214] I mean that city of London, that city within a city, which most people don't know about.

[1215] There's a great article in Vanity Fair, read it or don't.

[1216] The point is that whole area of Knightsbridge is very interesting to me. One -Eyed Park is interesting because the banality and the hollowness of extreme wealth really shocks me. We tend to, and listen.

[1217] We know the rich are doing crazy things, right?

[1218] The mega rich, the yachts, the this, the that, the Epstein stuff, a lot of it, not good, regrettable.

[1219] We understand it.

[1220] There's also an element I think people don't understand, and that's the banality, how boring, how passionless.

[1221] A lot of people are that level of, and that's always made me. You would like to join the Knightsbridge crowd.

[1222] Well, to observe, you know, they'll never let me in.

[1223] That's the other thing I love about, I'm addicted to rejection, right?

[1224] Since I'm six, I've been auditioning and have no, no. So they'll never let me in.

[1225] But it's just fun to kind of look at, and you don't even want to be in per se, because it's not fun.

[1226] That's the thing.

[1227] It's not really that fun.

[1228] But it is funny to me when I look at like, you know, the secrecy and how.

[1229] You know, some of it really is really bad, and people are doing crazy things, and they're overthrowing governments, and that's probably 10 % of them.

[1230] And then 90 % of them, it's just they're fighting extreme, suffocating boredom.

[1231] And the north of England's very different, as you've observed.

[1232] Very spirited, lively, fun, interesting.

[1233] I love it there.

[1234] They like alcohol a little bit more.

[1235] They have fun.

[1236] They have a lot of fun.

[1237] I guess they probably heckle you more.

[1238] Perhaps, yeah.

[1239] I mean, I haven't been in the North.

[1240] This is my first time in the North.

[1241] I've been in Glasgow, which is Scotland.

[1242] I've been in Dublin.

[1243] But this is my first time in the North.

[1244] I did a show.

[1245] The first show in Dublin I did last year, one of the greatest shows I've ever done.

[1246] Second show was a late show.

[1247] And it was just so drunk.

[1248] They were crazy.

[1249] And one woman screamed, fuck Catholics.

[1250] And then there was a big fight in the audience.

[1251] And then I screamed at them.

[1252] I said, this is why Dubai is winning.

[1253] This is why China is.

[1254] Winning, like, look at you people.

[1255] You all look alike.

[1256] You look like me. You're all potatoes screaming at other potatoes, that they're slightly different kinds of potatoes.

[1257] It's stupid.

[1258] And they liked that.

[1259] They cheered.

[1260] I said, this is why you guys are losers and Dubai is taking over.

[1261] They're building buildings that reach the sky.

[1262] And they all cheered.

[1263] They understood.

[1264] They get it.

[1265] I mean, that's where I'm from.

[1266] That's where culturally I'm from.

[1267] Dubai really is doing well.

[1268] By all sort of economic accounts.

[1269] It is.

[1270] People love it.

[1271] People love it.

[1272] You like it?

[1273] I've never been.

[1274] You've never been?

[1275] I've never been.

[1276] It's a beautiful, clean, ordinary.

[1277] People like it.

[1278] Seems like there's no left.

[1279] Well, that's the themes, right?

[1280] I mean, this is what, you know, we're seeing is that this is what people want.

[1281] They want beautiful, clean, and orderly.

[1282] And, you know, now there's an underbelly there, obviously.

[1283] You know, this is not ideal, right?

[1284] You know, but these are the things that America is struggling with right now.

[1285] A lot of our cities are in disarray.

[1286] Yeah, I mean, California is a good example of a city in disarray.

[1287] I couldn't quite believe it because the image we all have of California as Brits is this beautiful, clean...

[1288] No, no. Lie, lies.

[1289] Hollywood, lies.

[1290] That's what we've seen on our TVs.

[1291] There are some beautiful parts of this state that are incredibly stunning.

[1292] And you are...

[1293] But the people are hollow.

[1294] They're empty.

[1295] They don't exist.

[1296] All the people you meet in L .A. are figments of your imagination.

[1297] They're fractals.

[1298] They're not real.

[1299] You didn't meet them.

[1300] They are an entity of which they go between worlds, but they're not physically in reality the way that you are or I am.

[1301] So keep that in mind as you're navigating the city that the people, many of them that you're seeing, it's just kind of, you know, some of them are attractive and whatever, but they actually don't.

[1302] meaningfully exist in any way that you would understand.

[1303] There's quite actually, as you say that, there's a thin line between the two polar sides of LA, the extreme like wealth and then the extreme poverty.

[1304] There's like a thin line psychologically between.

[1305] Most of LA is people waiting for instructions.

[1306] That's what it is.

[1307] Now, because everybody here is on the chopping block from the CEO of Paramount to a busboy who's trying to get a showcase to get a spot at the Hollywood Improv or maybe he wants to be an actor or whatever.

[1308] Everybody in this town is replaceable.

[1309] Everybody feels that everybody.

[1310] So everybody's waiting for instructions.

[1311] Nobody wants to act.

[1312] Everybody's waiting for somebody else to let them know it's OK, because that is how the town works.

[1313] And people tend to wait for consensus to build before they do something.

[1314] You know, again, they don't believe anything.

[1315] The town is not a town of people who believe things.

[1316] They sit in their house.

[1317] They're sitting, you know, you look at these house in Beverly Hills or wherever you are in Malibu.

[1318] They're just sitting like this.

[1319] They're just sitting like this.

[1320] They're versatile.

[1321] And they don't, you know, and then they go out.

[1322] The trainer works them out.

[1323] They go back and they sit and they stare.

[1324] And they're waiting for instruction, waiting for the phone to call.

[1325] They're waiting for an email.

[1326] They're waiting to be told what to believe and who to believe in.

[1327] And what reality is the reality of today?

[1328] Are fat women in?

[1329] Great.

[1330] Get them on.

[1331] Get a bunch of women in this on oxygen machines.

[1332] What are we in today?

[1333] Are we doing something else?

[1334] Tomorrow, are we back to hot people?

[1335] Get them.

[1336] They're waiting for instructions.

[1337] They have no beliefs.

[1338] They are empty.

[1339] They're hollow.

[1340] They are vessels.

[1341] But it is pretty, and the tacos are good.

[1342] The thing that we've, you know, as Brits, we've watched America for so long, and we see California, Hollywood.

[1343] It seems glamorous.

[1344] We see New York, which looks like an amazing place as well.

[1345] New York's amazing.

[1346] Very different.

[1347] I love New York.

[1348] New York's an actual city.

[1349] This is an idea and not a good one.

[1350] And you said at the start of this, you said the phrase that it's bad advice that you can do anything and be anything.

[1351] But to us, that's always been like the American dream is you come here and then you can do anything and be anything.

[1352] That's what we see as the American dream in the UK.

[1353] land of possibilities.

[1354] You can become anyone and you rise to the top.

[1355] Well, yes, we market that quite well.

[1356] And sure.

[1357] I mean, listen, yeah.

[1358] I mean, could you?

[1359] Yeah.

[1360] But the reality of the situation is that journey is a bit more involved than people say.

[1361] When you go, oh, you can be the president of the United States.

[1362] When you tell a kid, who's eight years old or whatever, you can be the president.

[1363] Yeah, but the attorneys have been involved.

[1364] You leave out a lot.

[1365] You leave out a lot about the compromises that you have to make to become the president of the United States.

[1366] It's kind of like telling someone they can be a superhero.

[1367] Yes, I'm sure that you can be a version of that, but there's a little bit you're going to have to do.

[1368] I think it's a very bad overall thing to tell masses of people.

[1369] that they should, without regard to reality, without regard to their own limitations or their own, without regard to their own tolerance for work and how much work they want to be, without regard for any of that, telling them that they can just be anything they want to be.

[1370] It's such a deeper conversation and it's such a, it's a catchphrase.

[1371] It's a license plate.

[1372] It's something to put on a shirt.

[1373] It's a bumper sticker.

[1374] It's not a philosophy for life because there's a lot more.

[1375] There's a lot more that goes into that statement.

[1376] And I think that's what I mean.

[1377] Not that people can't do great things.

[1378] People can absolutely do great things.

[1379] I think people can do great things in the UK too, right?

[1380] People can do things in the UK.

[1381] I mean, maybe the class systems are more stratified there than it is here.

[1382] But I just think that like, you know.

[1383] So what we mean when we say you can be whatever you want in America is you can make as much money as you want.

[1384] That's what we're really saying.

[1385] We're really pushing this idea that the only route to happiness is this upwardly mobile vertical where you have to grab everything and be a boss and be an entrepreneur and run an empire.

[1386] And that's the way to happiness.

[1387] That's not.

[1388] the way to happiness.

[1389] That's what we're pushing.

[1390] We're not telling everybody they can be anything they want to be so that we have a lot of challenges to like our ideas and stuff.

[1391] We're not, we're not looking for that type of feedback.

[1392] We just want people going out and working themselves to death.

[1393] That's what we really want.

[1394] When we say that you can be anything you want to be, the translation is work yourself to death.

[1395] I'm going on my boat.

[1396] But this younger generation aren't apparently working themselves to death.

[1397] If you observe things like TikTok, where they're having like the mocha chocca frappa lattes and doing the yoga and working at the big tech company and quiet quitting.

[1398] Some of them have figured out that the country's a scam.

[1399] And here's the good news.

[1400] They're not wrong.

[1401] And when you figured out the country's a scam, you can approach it the way a con artist or a scammer would approach it, which is what a lot of them do.

[1402] They invent mental health ailments they don't have.

[1403] They take days off on end.

[1404] They terrify their superiors into respecting their mediocre, shoddy quality of work.

[1405] This is something that Gen Z has latched onto.

[1406] This is something that I fully support.

[1407] This is their way of rising through the ranks.

[1408] They're taking advantage of people that they work with and, you know, making them tolerate less and less work and work of lower and lower quality because they've realized that a lot of this is bullshit.

[1409] So they're like, why shouldn't I get in on it?

[1410] And there's obviously the remote working now as well.

[1411] That's a big thing post -pandemic.

[1412] Yeah, absolutely.

[1413] We've realized over the pandemic, I think a lot of people, that a lot of the things that we thought were guarantees aren't.

[1414] And a lot of the things we tended to believe in fervently, we at the very least right now question.

[1415] I think young people are like, why in the hell should I spend 40 hours?

[1416] doing a job I hate when I can pretend to do it and threaten my boss if they try to fire me and fake a mental illness that I don't have and demand everybody conform to what I want and then use whatever diversity chips I have to go out and throw a scare into anyone that tries to call me to account for any of my behavior.

[1417] And I think that's a beautiful thing.

[1418] I mean, it's very interesting.

[1419] It's really destabilizing a lot of.

[1420] You know, now, obviously the same thing is to shut those people up and say, shut up.

[1421] You have to do these things or get out, but nobody's going to do that.

[1422] They found the flaw in the system.

[1423] They've kind of exposed the scam.

[1424] And once the scam is exposed, it's for all to be seen.

[1425] And now everybody can kind of just approach it the way it is.

[1426] Everybody now is kind of like even big companies, everybody's like in it for themselves and just trying to figure out like, how do I get the most?

[1427] And there's nothing wrong with that.

[1428] That's the most American thing ever, right?

[1429] Is to try to get something for yourself.

[1430] There's no, there shouldn't be any hate for that.

[1431] It's a bit silly, ridiculous and crazy how they do it, but they're only taking the tools that you've given to them and that you've allowed them to use, right?

[1432] So they use these things, you know, they go, why are you late today?

[1433] They go, I'm gay.

[1434] You go, don't worry about it.

[1435] You know, like it's the most American thing ever to use the playbook that someone hands you and goes, here's the playbook.

[1436] And you go, great.

[1437] I have anxiety.

[1438] I have anxiety.

[1439] You keep coming into my physical space.

[1440] Great words.

[1441] You keep coming into my physical space.

[1442] You're using volume right now.

[1443] I have anxiety.

[1444] I need time right now.

[1445] This report is not ready, but I need time right now.

[1446] And, you know, what I need right now is just to be a little quiet.

[1447] So it's great.

[1448] I mean, I'm for it.

[1449] I've interviewed a lot of people about AI, experts at the very top of these AI companies.

[1450] But you mentioned it earlier.

[1451] And when I knew you were coming today, I thought, this is the guy I need to ask about the future of AI.

[1452] Because as it relates to that generation, the thing that's going to disrupt them, but also many other generations, is the advent of superintelligence, where, you know, apparently all of the things we do, that report can be done by...

[1453] some kind of robot or AI.

[1454] So you must have a pretty, you know, informed view about artificial intelligence.

[1455] Well, listen, it's affecting the industry that I'm in greatly.

[1456] I think I'm lucky enough and comedians are lucky enough that we won't be replaced as quickly, perhaps, as other people, but it's certainly going to disrupt.

[1457] the world of writing, the world of acting.

[1458] Certainly, you know, Tyler Perry just canceled an $800 million expansion because he looked at this new AI that was generating locations.

[1459] He goes, why do we have to have on location shoots?

[1460] And then you start thinking about set dressers, prop companies, all these things that will be, you know, you know, maybe unnecessary now with AI.

[1461] So the business that I'm in, it seems like, and again, not to be.

[1462] overly dramatic about it but people are looking at it like an apocalyptic event because there are jobs that when we look at how profoundly ai is going to impact the business that just simply won't exist um you know we have ai influencers now that are actually because We've bred in this country, some of the least interesting people on the planet and some of the most interesting, but some of the least interesting people, the most generic people are making millions and millions of dollars, essentially just hawking products on the internet.

[1463] That's all they do.

[1464] They go, someone asked me about my skincare routine.

[1465] And I thought I would share something with you guys.

[1466] I'd share a promo code with you guys because a lot of people come up to me and they go, your skin is really glistening.

[1467] It looks really good.

[1468] So I'm really excited to share this promo.

[1469] And so those people don't need to.

[1470] In fact, they really don't.

[1471] They don't exist as human beings.

[1472] So they need to be just replaced by a pixelated version of that, an AI version of that.

[1473] Now, going from Robert De Niro to AI, that's going to be a thing.

[1474] Going from, you know, Tina Turner to AI, that's a big deal.

[1475] Going from these people, these generic barcodes with feet, these promo codes, going from them to AI is going to be literally unnoticeable.

[1476] Let it happen.

[1477] I saw an AI influencer the other day that had 200 ,000 followers.

[1478] Of course.

[1479] I was like, oh my God.

[1480] Yeah.

[1481] And there's some with millions.

[1482] There's that Lynn, what's that, Lynn AI influencer that's got millions and millions.

[1483] And I was thinking, and then the crazy thing was the comment section of like these men that were genuinely messaging this AI influencer thing.

[1484] Very healthy.

[1485] Very healthy men.

[1486] Yes.

[1487] Genuinely.

[1488] Yes.

[1489] Well, you know, not everyone's happy with women right now.

[1490] And this AI woman might be, you know, doing better.

[1491] I don't know.

[1492] If you play this forward, you talked about robotics earlier.

[1493] AI, robotics, people are getting lonelier than ever.

[1494] It seems like a lot of people in the future are going to be dating these AI sex robots.

[1495] That might be where I finally find someone that respects my autonomy and respects me. And it might be someone I like.

[1496] I mean, I'm very open to that, to dating kind of an AI.

[1497] Really?

[1498] Well, I mean, you never say never.

[1499] You never say never.

[1500] I mean.

[1501] Humans are over.

[1502] We've had a run.

[1503] It's ending.

[1504] It's all around us.

[1505] That's why I mean the whole thing about the children.

[1506] No one cares.

[1507] Politicians used to talk endlessly about children and families.

[1508] Now the only reason children come up is if they're using a bathroom and it's a gender thing.

[1509] Other than that, no one cares.

[1510] No one cares.

[1511] They're only a battering ram about like a cultural conversation or whatever.

[1512] It has nothing to do with like, are they being educated?

[1513] Are they going to have any money?

[1514] Can they own anything ever?

[1515] All these companies that own everything now and they have excluded people, have locked people out of owning them, the Black Rocks, things like that.

[1516] Basically, they're just having – they're just like the internet's your home now.

[1517] That's what you – that's your home.

[1518] You can't own a house.

[1519] You can't own anything.

[1520] But you own your avatar.

[1521] You can date someone who's AI.

[1522] You can have any comment on anything you want.

[1523] If something comes out and you don't like it, you can type about it.

[1524] You'll never own a thing.

[1525] You'll never own a house.

[1526] You'll never own a car.

[1527] You'll never have any money.

[1528] The best parts of the world will be colonized by the super rich.

[1529] The rest will be ravaged by climate change.

[1530] The good news is you can close the door to your little pod, talk to your AI influencer and have an opinion, but it won't change anything and it won't matter because you'll be living in this world that we've created for you to feel like you have a purpose.

[1531] But we've robbed you of all of the things that you could say that are yours and everything that is yours, even your own thoughts, we now own.

[1532] Even your locations are digital.

[1533] The way you, you know, where you park your memories are digital.

[1534] We own all of that.

[1535] We've taken everything from you.

[1536] physical dimension of your life.

[1537] We've just completely removed it.

[1538] We've let the cities you used to love get invaded with hordes of drug addicts and you're scared to leave your home.

[1539] And isn't that great because you don't really need to leave your home anyway.

[1540] So after we've taken all of this from you, we're going to give you a nice AI influencer today.

[1541] So am I optimistic about the future?

[1542] The answer is yes.

[1543] It's going to be beautiful.

[1544] What about men?

[1545] Men are struggling, it seems.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] If you look at the data, there's men seem to be lonely than ever.

[1548] There's higher rates of suicidality.

[1549] Lots of sort of addictions, pornography addictions and stuff like that.

[1550] You know, now we have these sort of quote unquote masculine influences emerging that are presenting a set of answers and telling them that they're losers.

[1551] Right.

[1552] And those people seem to be the most compelling to that group.

[1553] Yeah, well, I think it's, again, I think that dividing the world into interest groups and having them only be interest groups and, you know, giving our humanity away to, This idea that we should all be pitted against each other, whether it's men and women, whether it's different races, whether it's different religions.

[1554] At the end of the day, it all feeds the same type of isolation that you're seeing now.

[1555] right?

[1556] It feeds that.

[1557] It is an ideology that is not about building anything.

[1558] It's not about constructing something.

[1559] It's about tearing something apart.

[1560] So when everybody endlessly talks about how terrible men are or that men are the result, all of these horrible things happen because of men and that, you know, having a man in something or giving a man an opportunity for whatever reason.

[1561] Now, obviously men do great in the world, right?

[1562] So even as people hear me say this, they're going to get angry.

[1563] They're going to go, no, every president's been a man. But no, the reality is, you know, hearing if you're a young guy, you're a young boy that goes to school and you hear that you're toxic and there's traits about you that are toxic and that you're contributing to a worldview that is unknowingly or that you're inherently racist or that you're inherently sexist, learning that and hearing that and feeling that and everything else I just talked about, this world that is harder and harder to stand out in.

[1564] It's harder and harder to.

[1565] get something that feels like it's worthwhile.

[1566] It's more difficult now to carve out a space for yourself, for everybody, you know?

[1567] But I think nobody wants to hear men talk about it.

[1568] Nobody wants to hear men commiserate about the difficulties and the challenges they're having because I think a lot of people's knee -jerk reaction is to just tell men, you've had it good, shut up, nobody wants to hear you.

[1569] That's terrible.

[1570] These are also the same people who talk about the importance of mental health and how important it is to talk about mental health.

[1571] So I think we have to stop pitting people against each other and stop, you know, tearing everything apart and start to build things based on values.

[1572] And the values cannot be.

[1573] Just this rampant tribalism of you're a man, you're straight, you're gay, you're white, you're black, you're indigenous.

[1574] I think we have to build it on values.

[1575] What do we believe?

[1576] What do we believe?

[1577] And then you should be around like -minded people who believe the things you believe in.

[1578] They all don't have to be the same thing.

[1579] America is a very big country.

[1580] The people that live in Malibu, California don't believe the same things.

[1581] The people that live in Louisiana, that's okay.

[1582] We're all going to die if we keep trying to convince each other.

[1583] to think the way other people think.

[1584] There is not a bigger waste of time on this planet than for me to go to people and convince them to have the same thoughts I'm having and the same experience on this planet that I am having.

[1585] The way forward is to respect people's differences and to create a world where different people can thrive.

[1586] And Andrew Tate has shown up as kind of a symbol for that group of people with the Lamborghini and the muscles and the fighting and the money and the women.

[1587] Yeah.

[1588] And that's drawn in a big group of men who say, you know.

[1589] Well, you know, I think I've met Andrew Tate.

[1590] I've had him on my show and he's very, very, very lovely to me. He was a nice guy.

[1591] I think what he speaks to, and he says wacky things like everyone does, like I do, like a lot of people do.

[1592] He's not, again, he shouldn't be a senator.

[1593] But I think what he speaks to is that desire that a lot of people have, a lot of men have to be respected.

[1594] They want to be respected.

[1595] And they want to do things in life that bring them respect.

[1596] And I think he's preaching certain things that can get you respect, can raise your status as a male.

[1597] Now, some of those things have negative connotations and some of those things might have unintended consequences.

[1598] But the things he's talking about, it's easy why young people understand why they would want to have money and have status and, you know, be in good shape and all these things that are, you know, somewhat demonized, you know, potentially by people, but then also at the same time coveted, meaning that a lot of the people that demonize the Andrew Tates of the world are doing the same thing he's doing in another way.

[1599] Nobody would ever, you know, if someone goes and celebrates female CEOs, they would never be criticized.

[1600] It would actually be a great thing.

[1601] If I had an event for women leaders, if I had an event for women leaders, And I got up and I said, these women are rich.

[1602] You have money.

[1603] You have status.

[1604] Look what you've done.

[1605] It would be cheered.

[1606] This would be the Aspen Ideas conference.

[1607] This would be anywhere, right?

[1608] Now, what Andrew Tate has said to men, among other things that are probably not all great, but one of his things is go get your financial status up because that's how you're going to get respect in this world is by having money and not relying on other people.

[1609] That is demonized endlessly as this crazy thing that is terrible and the worst advice for men to get.

[1610] And he says, yes, it'll get you women.

[1611] By having these things, it'll get you women.

[1612] And then people demonize that.

[1613] They go, how dare he?

[1614] That's crazy.

[1615] But on the flip side, if I'm celebrating the material accomplishments of women, that's in our culture great.

[1616] And telling girls that they all should be girl bosses and they all should get material things and own your house and own a company and be.

[1617] So I think there's a little bit of a double standard where we're kind of we look at the Andrew Tate's world.

[1618] We completely demonize the idea that they're telling men money gets you status.

[1619] These things get you status and get women.

[1620] However, on the other side, we're constantly telling young women that career oriented goals are the most important thing in life.

[1621] We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to leave it for.

[1622] Interesting.

[1623] Wow.

[1624] That's a good one.

[1625] Oh, I think you know this person.

[1626] Okay, but interesting.

[1627] After I say the question, can you tell me who it is?

[1628] Well, that violates the rules a little bit.

[1629] Okay, all right, all right.

[1630] Then I won't violate the rules.

[1631] But you would be able to figure it out if you cared enough to figure it out.

[1632] Actually, we turn these into cards, which are over there.

[1633] So it's a stack of cards.

[1634] And if you turn over your question, the question you'll...

[1635] Well, if you...

[1636] If you find this question in there, you turn it over and you scan the back of the card, it will show you answering it.

[1637] So you would be able to figure it out.

[1638] Oh, interesting.

[1639] Okay, so I have to leave a question for...

[1640] The next person.

[1641] The next person.

[1642] And you don't know who that's going to be either.

[1643] Do I answer their question first?

[1644] Yeah, you answer this one first.

[1645] Okay.

[1646] Who should you have apologized to but didn't and why?

[1647] Good question.

[1648] Meghan Markle.

[1649] Because when she launched her lifestyle brand...

[1650] American Riviera Orchard, which is a beautiful collection of glassware and dishes for the upwardly mobile woman.

[1651] I really thought I had doubted her level of shamelessness.

[1652] I am now, I respect it.

[1653] I like it.

[1654] I'd have lunch with her.

[1655] I've come full circle on her.

[1656] Using all of that social capital about this supposed racist treatment you received.

[1657] Using all of that social capital to launch a lifestyle brand so that people have glasses of which they can drink Chardonnay in Santa Barbara, perfect.

[1658] So I'm sorry, Megan, that I had ever doubted you.

[1659] I'm on board now in a major way.

[1660] And if there is a job for me at American Riviera Orchard, three words that don't really make sense together but yet sound lovely, I would love to be considered for a position.

[1661] So you're a fan of Meghan Markle's now?

[1662] Big time.

[1663] Big time.

[1664] It's gone the other way.

[1665] Often with me, it does.

[1666] I'll criticize a person for being sort of grotesque and then they start to own their grotesqueness and it makes them, you inevitably have to like them because they're just so shameless.

[1667] You just go, I like this.

[1668] I adore this.

[1669] You know, like I saw.

[1670] I saw her and she's like, American Revere Orchard, Montecito.

[1671] It's just so funny.

[1672] It's everything she supposedly hates, which is privilege and class and all this stuff.

[1673] And it's just right there.

[1674] You know, it's great.

[1675] It's actually fun and it gives me hope for the future.

[1676] I sense you.

[1677] I'm being serious with that answer.

[1678] But I am.

[1679] I would apologize to her.

[1680] I would say to her, I doubted you.

[1681] And, you know, and I am kind of deadly serious about that.

[1682] Meghan Markle is, at her essence, okay, a climber.

[1683] This is all she is.

[1684] She's a Hollywood actress.

[1685] She's a climber.

[1686] Look where she's climbed.

[1687] Look where she's climbed.

[1688] She's living in a mansion in Montecito.

[1689] She's got all these idiots.

[1690] Like, she has climbed.

[1691] We're not talking about her character.

[1692] We're not talking about that.

[1693] And I'm hitting the desk again.

[1694] We're not talking about her character.

[1695] We're talking only about the results.

[1696] You have to give it to her.

[1697] A lot of C -list actresses end up a lot of places.

[1698] Very few of them end up in Buckingham Palace or our version of Buckingham Palace, which is Montecito.

[1699] So good for her.

[1700] I'm not going to let you leave until you give me another answer.

[1701] Another answer about who I should have apologized to?

[1702] I don't know.

[1703] I've apologized to so many people.

[1704] I guess my grandmother who died, I should have been more apologetic about, you know, when I was a druggie and when I was out there and how much she worried about me. I think people tend to not realize how much anxiety their behavior causes.

[1705] Like I didn't realize how me going out and staying out late and doing these things, she just spent a lot of time worrying about me. And she was such a positive force in my life.

[1706] If I could speak to her again, I would apologize for, you know, how inconsiderate I was.

[1707] Tim, thank you.

[1708] Thank you.

[1709] Thank you so much.

[1710] You know, you're potentially my favorite comedian.

[1711] And I only say that because I've never seen you live.

[1712] But I absolutely, you've given me so many moments of joy.

[1713] laughter amongst a life that's sometimes difficult.

[1714] I'm not going to say I've got a very difficult life these days, but sometimes I struggle like everyone else.

[1715] And in those moments, I actually find myself gravitating towards you because I think you represent the other side of my brain, which I'm not sort of publicly allowed to, you know, investigate as much.

[1716] Because your humor is so unacceptable at times that it is so wonderful.

[1717] Well, thank you so much.

[1718] And it's rare in a world where people are increasingly scared.

[1719] It's funny, the amount of times I've played clips or videos of yours to all of my team here.

[1720] Way before, you know, I knew we were sitting down together.

[1721] It's incredible.

[1722] And to hear that you're coming to London and you're going to be doing the show is very, very exciting.

[1723] And I would recommend everybody, every single person to go and get tickets to Tim Dillon's tour called American Royalty.

[1724] It's the American Royalty tour and we're all over the UK and Royal Albert's the, you know, the penultimate, the really great one, you know, but then there's also places like Finland and other places that...

[1725] uh you know are are of less importance to me and the world thank you so much the links to your tour are all below in the description below so everyone can go and get those um go and get those tickets right now before they all sell out so tim thank you thank you thank you very much thank you for everything you do and i don't think you'll ever you're probably not very good at taking compliments i can kind of see that yeah i'm not great at it but i'm usually being yelled at but thank you thank you for having me on i really enjoyed this