#33 - Dane Cook

[0] We are live, ladies and gentlemen.

[1] Thank you very much for tuning into the podcast.

[2] Once again, my friend Brian Redband, of course, as always, and today joining us the wonderful and talented Mr. Dane Cook.

[3] Talk, Joe.

[4] How about?

[5] Hey, doing, Chris?

[6] Before we get going, I have to thank our sponsor, The Fleshlight.

[7] Have you ever used one of these things?

[8] Have you ever fucked with these?

[9] I have not.

[10] Feel that.

[11] It's fantastic.

[12] Oh, my God.

[13] Oh, Brian.

[14] That's our delay in the background.

[15] You guys can't hear it, but my computer is, volume is on, of course.

[16] But this is the sponsor of our show.

[17] You're supposed to...

[18] There's a little button right in the middle, Brian.

[19] The upper level.

[20] A round, round thing.

[21] Upper level.

[22] Is it off?

[23] Okay.

[24] Is it off?

[25] Yeah, it looks like it's off.

[26] Powerful.

[27] Anyway.

[28] The idea...

[29] First of all, why?

[30] Well, they offered a sponsor the show, and I said, why not?

[31] You know?

[32] No, no, but why in the shape of the flashlight?

[33] No, no, but why in the shape of the flashlight?

[34] Why is it a flashlight?

[35] I guess that's so it makes it easier to hold so you can fuck it easier.

[36] Okay.

[37] And then once you're done and you ejaculate, can you open that to point it out?

[38] Yeah, that's why I say you unscrew the bottom and release the crack of shame.

[39] It just slithers out into the sink.

[40] It's like something out of.

[41] It is more shameful for some reason than masturbating.

[42] It feels way better, but it's more shameful.

[43] Like I always joke that as I'm coming, I'm regret.

[44] threading it as I'm coming like does that also serve as a flashlight?

[45] No it doesn't light up in case of not a flashlight.

[46] I should have a little lasers pointer fleshlights or something like that.

[47] Yeah it's just a silly little piece of shit.

[48] By the way talking about fleshlights but it's awesome if you want to ask me. They come in pink and last night you performed for pink.

[49] I did.

[50] What kind of a fucking shitty segue was that?

[51] Asshole.

[52] I did.

[53] How dare you?

[54] Subjected my ears to that.

[55] Actually how was that though?

[56] Was that pretty cool?

[57] She called me up and she asked me if I would do her a birthday party for her boyfriend Carrie Hart, you know, the BMX guy and all that.

[58] And I haven't done a private anything in forever.

[59] And I was like, no, I don't, you know, I'm a fan and stuff.

[60] It seems weird, right?

[61] Yeah, yeah, I was like, I can't do that.

[62] And then she was like, well, this is what, you know, how much I can pay you.

[63] Oh, really?

[64] And I was like, it was actually a few weeks ago when the deal came together.

[65] I was like, if you, if you can do that and get me courtside for Lakers, Celtics, which I thought was impossible.

[66] I'm like, I'm never going to get courtside last minute for the series.

[67] Wow.

[68] And she called back She goes, I got you court signed for the last two games, and I'll give you the Vig that you want.

[69] Holy shit.

[70] Next thing, you know, I'm standing there.

[71] It was like, it was the highest paying hell gig I've ever done in my life.

[72] Was it bizarre?

[73] Was it completely bizarre?

[74] It was weird.

[75] How many people were there?

[76] 75.

[77] And they had Pink and Carrie were on stage and, like, thrones that she'd gotten him.

[78] And were you hired to do your act or to just talk to them and just say hi and fuck around?

[79] I pretty much could have done anything, but I knew they were fans of, like, you know, my comedy.

[80] So I was like, all right, I want to go in and do well.

[81] But by the time I got up there, everybody's shit phase.

[82] And it felt like the Boston or something back in New York at like two in the morning.

[83] Yeah, those things were awesome.

[84] I've been a big fan of Pink lately, have you?

[85] This thing is like her recent shows.

[86] Yeah, I know.

[87] She's an incredible performer.

[88] Yeah, I wrote a whole blog about her.

[89] Brian, why am I not hearing myself?

[90] There we go.

[91] It was just that.

[92] It was just that?

[93] Yeah, just the vine for you.

[94] Okay.

[95] Yeah, dude, I wrote a whole blog about her performance of the Emmys that I watched that.

[96] I was like, holy shit.

[97] Like, it was like perfect.

[98] Like, her voice was perfect.

[99] The way she carried herself was perfect.

[100] And then when she actually suspended herself and started spinning around, I'm like, there's no fucking way she's really this good.

[101] Yeah, and she's really singing.

[102] Wow.

[103] Yeah, really singing the whole time.

[104] And even, you know, people on the radio were like, she was lip syncing.

[105] I don't think she was.

[106] I don't think she was.

[107] She wasn't.

[108] She wasn't.

[109] Doing that and singing anyways is ridiculous if she really was doing that.

[110] You know, she just fell doing that shit.

[111] I saw that video.

[112] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[113] That's scary as fell.

[114] But not only fell, but when she fell, the wire pulled her and pulled it to the very until it was taught.

[115] And I thought, if that snapped, it could have cut her head off.

[116] Totally.

[117] Wow.

[118] And then it would have been the most popular video on.

[119] How crazy would that have been?

[120] Could you imagine watching Pink get her head cut off?

[121] Capitated.

[122] Could you imagine if that was a real viral video?

[123] Wow.

[124] And then the sales would go up because isn't everything posthumous like?

[125] Yeah.

[126] Giant.

[127] Huge.

[128] Anytime you die.

[129] Even if you were mediocre, when you die, you were a little bit better than mediocre.

[130] Yeah.

[131] Everybody loves you.

[132] Everybody goes crazy.

[133] They're never going to hear you again, so they go nuts and buy your shit, even though they forgot about you.

[134] Look at Michael Jackson, who's, by the way, incredibly brilliant, talented.

[135] But after he died, man, everybody went fucking nuts.

[136] Everybody went nuts to buy his shit.

[137] I thought it was fake for a bit.

[138] Did you really?

[139] Yeah, because I'm kind of like, I'm always like, all right, these guys.

[140] A conspiracy theorist.

[141] A little bit, man. It's like, I thought that, you know, he'd pop out like six months later.

[142] You know, because he needed something.

[143] He needed the love back, man. There was a lot of people that were not feeling Michael Jackson for a long time.

[144] I don't think anybody's ever even tried to pull that death off.

[145] I think if you tried to die and I think that's a federal crime.

[146] I think if you fake death.

[147] Is it really?

[148] Yeah.

[149] I don't think you're allowed to do that.

[150] You know, I mean, even as a publicity stunt, you would have to have medical records.

[151] And if you have medical records, then people are going to find out they don't exist if you're faking it.

[152] True.

[153] I don't think you can do it.

[154] The whole Tupac thing is ridiculous how it's gotten so crazy.

[155] Elvis too, man. Elvis back then, maybe you could pull it off.

[156] You know, they killed JFK.

[157] They could probably fuck Elvis up.

[158] Well, that was the whole thing is that everybody said Elvis faked his death to get away from the colonel to live a normal life because the colonel was like this megalomaniac.

[159] Isn't that hilarious?

[160] People are so romantic.

[161] They don't realize that when you get to be Elvis famous, you are guaranteed fucking insane.

[162] There's no way you can get away from it.

[163] Elvis, this is back before the internet.

[164] This is back, you know, I mean, terrible movies he was doing.

[165] He couldn't even leave his house.

[166] He couldn't even walk down the street.

[167] When people would see him, they would start screaming and fall to their knees.

[168] Yeah.

[169] My favorite Elvis story that I heard was at the height of, you know, everybody loving and hating Elvis.

[170] Those buttons came out.

[171] You know, I love Elvis.

[172] And then the I hate Elvis pins came out.

[173] He made those.

[174] Him and the Colonel came up with that.

[175] They sold more I hate Elvis pins.

[176] I've heard of a bunch of people doing that or stealing that exact same idea.

[177] That's awesome.

[178] That's so awesome.

[179] You know, the Elvis thing must be so, sucky if you were a dude back then how the fuck do you compete with Elvis your girl is screaming and yelling and you're fucking her and you know she really would way rather be fucking Elvis all you can really do is just play into it and just tell her you love Elvis and take her to Elvis and like just try to make her Elvis fantasy come to fruition yeah put on the fucking wig the whole deal mutton chops those Elvis there's an Elvis clip when he was really he was really fucked up he was doing whatever drugs he was doing and he was bored and he was not remembering the lyrics and there's a gig he was doing in Hawaii where he's so fucking bored and you watch this he's not singing any of the lyrics right he's just inside jokes with his band members and then he does the thing where he slowly backs up slowly during this one song to his three backup singers and in the middle of the song he just turns and screams in their faces and scares the shit out of them like literally turns and they're all like as they're trying to sing it's like he was gone yeah yeah yeah he was way too big you can't get that big it's not it's not say Big, and he was like so, I mean, I'm kind of a huge Elvis fan, and there's one documentary that Priscilla actually did years ago based on what she wrote, where she finally talked about how insecure he really was.

[180] And, you know, he had his buddies, like, living with him and shit.

[181] And if they wanted to go out to a dinner and he was by himself, he would freak out.

[182] He would shoot TVs up.

[183] He had to have his friends around him 24 -7.

[184] Wow.

[185] Joe, you kind of have that whole entourage.

[186] You want a gang of people that go there.

[187] This reminds us of you, Joe.

[188] you know how like we used to like always roll like with huge groups of people became too problematic yeah but you prefer that kind of well it's it's always more fun to have a bunch of guys that you're friends with that like go to you in gigs but if you have too many and you have to manage them all then it becomes a pain in the ass it becomes like more of a pain in the ass of getting my friends to get downstairs in time so we can get to the fucking show and you know did you call this guy did you wake him up we got to go to the fucking airport where is he and there's five different guys and everybody's got their own bullshit and then dudes started arguing with each other and then it became ugly and it became like, okay, this is nonsense so I had to cut most of it.

[189] It was like a reality show for a while.

[190] It was, it was too much, though.

[191] It was too much like that.

[192] There was too many people, you know, when it was Tate and Eddie and me and you and Larry and Mike Young and all these other dudes and we'd all go out together.

[193] I mean, come on, that was ridiculous.

[194] It was a giant group on the road, man. Yeah.

[195] Do you like touring with a bunch of dudes?

[196] You always tour with your friends?

[197] I kind of, I pretty much have stuck close with the same guys that I started, Like my graduating class, Bobby Kelly, Al Belbenny, you know, I knew Burr when I first started and Patrice.

[198] Because we kind of came up like a little bit after you, like you were a couple of years ahead, headlining around.

[199] And I did a bunch of really fun little gigs for Dick Dardy.

[200] The Comedy Huts, remember those?

[201] Comedy Hots, the light ships.

[202] Was it in Cambridge that we did, Dick Dardy's comedy home?

[203] At the Aku -A -O -Coo, yeah.

[204] Dane was with a comedy troupe with Bob Kelly and him and Al -Dalbennie.

[205] So it was a good comedy troux.

[206] you guys were funny it was good you know it was interesting you would do comedy sketches and then you would do like each guy would go up and do stand up right and so we would work together do these dick dardy gigs those were fucking fun our sketch comedy improv group was was so bad we were so bad at improv and everybody you know the first rule of improv is don't deny but we were so bad at improv that our first rule was deny so we were just come in and completely ruined scenes by like you're pretending pantomiming i'm holding a baby and just bobby you can be like dude we're Why are you holding a tire?

[207] And you just, it would just fall apart from there.

[208] But we just had a blast doing, man. Oh, you guys had some good ones.

[209] You had some good sketches.

[210] We had a couple of good skits.

[211] It was fun.

[212] I mean, it was, and it was experimental.

[213] It was like, you guys were taking chances.

[214] You were doing something a little unusual at a comedy club.

[215] And you were doing comedy, too.

[216] Yeah, that was probably actually better for us.

[217] Opening with our stand -up, and then we just go fuck around and do music or skits or improv or whatever for, you know, whatever the rest of the hour to fill it up.

[218] Do you still ever try to do improv once in a while, or do you just only stand -up now?

[219] a little bit.

[220] I've been bringing because Al's been hosting down at the Laugh Factory and I'll bring Al up once in a while and we'll do stuff at the very end just to whatever skit or Dom Mara and I will do some stuff once in a while where I'll just bring Dom up and bat some stuff around but not like I used to not like, you know, sketch, full on sketch, upright Citizens Brigade, yeah yeah, yeah.

[221] Yeah, I'm not a sketch guy I really rather prefer watching stand -up.

[222] I mean, sketches are fun and everything like that.

[223] You'd be so good at it though.

[224] I don't like it as much.

[225] I don't like doing it as much.

[226] Remember that movie you did, that little little short movie you did for Kelly Kirsten when you were talking about the cable bill and stuff like that.

[227] It's like a five minute clip or something like that.

[228] But that's fucking hilarious.

[229] I just pretended to be my dad.

[230] It was really easy.

[231] Well, how did it go from, I've always wanted to know, because you were in Boston and you were the first guy who we watched go from, you know, headlining to then you're on TV, man. And it was like everybody was looking at you going, how do I do that?

[232] How did you turn the corner?

[233] How did you get news radio?

[234] Total luck.

[235] Complete total luck.

[236] I did MTV's half hour comedy hour and MTV...

[237] Was that Mario Joyner or somebody hosting those?

[238] Yes.

[239] And Mario would It was like, I didn't even get to shake his hand.

[240] Like he introduces you and he goes to the left and you go to the right and I was like damn I didn't get to shake Mario Joyner's hand.

[241] I felt like I wasn't even really on a show, you know?

[242] It's like Mario Joyner back then was the shit, man. That's a guy where I don't understand what happened there.

[243] I don't understand how he just kind of vanished.

[244] Anthony Clark was hosting like kamikaze or something like those guys were but i know anthony so i know he's troubled so i know that's what would led him to this weird place he is now but i never understood the mario joiner thing right do you remember uh reggie mcfadden i do remember there's another one right you remember reggie macfadden was a monster absolutely one of the few guys that i really would would be afraid to go on after i used to see him in the early 90s in new york and i would watch him do stand up and i would go fuck this guy's going to be eddie murphy he's going to be gigantic he's going to be the biggest comic ever And then nothing.

[245] It was weird.

[246] It's the weirdest thing ever.

[247] Is he still even...

[248] Exactly.

[249] Exactly that question right there.

[250] Hilarious and charismatic guy, man. So handsome and well -spoken and a fucking really nice guy.

[251] Like a real nice guy.

[252] And whenever you're around him, he's always smiling, having a good time.

[253] It's like, what the fuck happened?

[254] How does this not work?

[255] It's a very strange thing.

[256] It's a very strange thing.

[257] And it's a very strange thing when guys get angry that for some reason or another, they don't get the respect that they deserve.

[258] That is one of my pet.

[259] heaves.

[260] That's a weird thing when people do that.

[261] Well, it's because, I mean, I don't know, I can't speak for Reggie, but it's like, you know, you go through this phase or period and stand up where you're like, okay, I've committed my life to this.

[262] This is what I want to do.

[263] I've, you know, I'm all in here at the table.

[264] I'm in my, for me, my mid -20s.

[265] There's no turning back now.

[266] And there's a bunch of those years where you're watching people go on.

[267] You know, some people are getting stuff.

[268] Some people are falling off.

[269] And it freaks you the hell out, man. Freaks you out.

[270] Freaks you out hard.

[271] but I don't think it's a very healthy attitude at all to look at someone else's success as if somehow or another it's bad for you and I think if someone's not paying attention to you like there's a lot of dudes are like I don't feel like my act gets to respect that it deserves it gets the exact respect it deserves there's no other way around it it's the perfect connection between you and an audience and if it's not getting a reaction it's because of one or two things either you've been very shitty in marketing yourself or promoting yourself or you're not seeing it the way other people are seeing it You haven't found your audience.

[272] There's some people that have weird acts.

[273] Like, you know, Mitch Hedberg, for the longest time, had a really hard time on the road because he would go on, and they would put on these, like, super high -energy middle acts that would sing.

[274] And, like, I remember there was this black dude in, I believe it was in Ohio.

[275] I think it was at the Funny Bone in Columbus.

[276] Damn.

[277] And Hedberg was supposed to headline, and this guy was fucking crushing it every night in the middle spot with singing and dancing and getting those Columbus, Ohio people into it.

[278] And then Hedberg would just, You know your folks.

[279] He's from there.

[280] You know, it's what it is.

[281] That's your peeps.

[282] They're good people.

[283] That's where I recorded my special there.

[284] But he would go out to them and they would hate him.

[285] They would hate him.

[286] Well, was he in that phase, too?

[287] Remember, he'd just go up and kind of, he would stand there.

[288] I remember for a while in his hair would just completely be covering his face.

[289] Like, not even looking up the glasses, nothing.

[290] He was just like the top of his head.

[291] And how do you go up after somebody is fucking doing juggling fucking chainsaws, which is hilarious, by the way.

[292] Yeah, it is a weird thing, right?

[293] He had to find his audience, and he had a real hard time with that for a long time.

[294] That's always a tricky thing, man, when you're coming up in the beginning.

[295] Like, there's guys who will tailor their material or tailor their act where they don't want to do this, but they do it just so that they can get more people liking them and they can get, like, on a better track.

[296] Right.

[297] You know what I'm talking about?

[298] Yeah.

[299] Yeah.

[300] That's like a real...

[301] It's so hard to fucking, especially when you don't have an audience, to really find your own voice.

[302] You know, it's so tricky.

[303] because you know you'll work at a club and if you offend someone if you're like you know my act was always kind of dirty and offensive and like you know when I was nobody like they would get upset at me like you just there's three people that want their money back and fucking asshole you know clean up your act for the next show and you're like cleaning my act like this is what I like to do this stuff that I always like to see like I can't talk about what I think is actually funny so when you're doing your stand -up and you you did finally leave Boston and hit the road where did the news radio thing finally even come from so I did this MTV thing and I got a development deal right out of it with Fox to do a show called Hardball, this terrible show.

[304] It was really bad, but, you know, a bunch of good guys on it.

[305] And I had fun, but it was like, I don't want to be around actors anymore.

[306] I'm like, this is just too gross.

[307] I would go back to New York, go back to comedy.

[308] But I fucked up and I already got an apartment because I thought the show was going to, everybody thinks their show is going to go.

[309] Sure.

[310] Oh, the ratings are good.

[311] I think we're picked up for next year.

[312] You know, everybody thinks that in show business.

[313] So my stupid ass got this fucking cool -ass apartment.

[314] And I was like, all right, now I'm stuck.

[315] So then, right after that, I got to deal with NBC and before I know when I was on news radio.

[316] It was just like stumbled into one thing.

[317] I mean, I auditioned for news radio, but it was kind of funny because one of the reasons why they liked me for the part was that there was no jokes in the script.

[318] Like the first one they gave out, there was no, it was no comedy in it.

[319] It was just like really straight and flat.

[320] And I was like, wow, how the fuck do I play this?

[321] I was like, I'm just going to play it as if I was really saying it.

[322] Like, let me just go and do it.

[323] There's no jokes in here.

[324] So I don't know what they're doing.

[325] They were just trying to weed out the hacks.

[326] They were trying to read out the whole.

[327] They were trying to weed out the exploding shoe guys, I guess.

[328] So I just got lucky.

[329] It's total luck.

[330] Total luck.

[331] Right person, right place, right time.

[332] Click, click, click.

[333] Yeah.

[334] All of a sudden I'm on TV.

[335] Which was fun.

[336] But in the beginning, when I was on TV, I was very shitty with writing new material, and I wasn't performing that much.

[337] I was just loving the fact that I was making all this money and just having fun and doing stupid shit and just no discipline at all.

[338] And saving up for your first incredible car.

[339] Yeah.

[340] I bought the first car right away.

[341] As soon as I had money, I bought a, it was a 1994 Toyota Super Turbo.

[342] Had one of those too.

[343] Dude, those were the shit.

[344] Used.

[345] That fucking big crazy wing in the back, like a spaceship.

[346] Oh, I loved it.

[347] I loved it.

[348] It was my first really cool car.

[349] I think I went 85 Mustang GT with the T -tops.

[350] Did you?

[351] Charcoal gray.

[352] She was a beaut.

[353] Nice.

[354] Nice.

[355] Yeah, there's something fucking cool about buying your first cool shit.

[356] I bought a pool queue for $7 ,000.

[357] I bought this Ernie Gutera is this guy in L .A. It makes this cue called a GINA queue.

[358] Yeah.

[359] It's very homemade, like really, like precise, perfectly balanced pool queue.

[360] Yeah.

[361] It's like, this thing's awesome.

[362] 7K.

[363] That's so stupid.

[364] Do you collect anything?

[365] Do you have anything that you, like, spend money on?

[366] You get the best...

[367] I know we both get Steve Martin junk.

[368] We both collect Steve Martin stuff.

[369] I got like a bunch of memorabilia.

[370] Yeah, yeah.

[371] I went back and found a whole bunch of old vinals, Lenny Bruce and Cosby and Newhart.

[372] and Steve Martin and stuff So that was kind of my thing Like I like finding stuff that that's You know off the beaten path As opposed to like all right Anybody can go out I think for me the craziest car I did in Aston Martin Oh yeah And I thought okay I spent a quarter of a million dollars On this car It's going to be the fucking craziest The best car ever And it really ended up being the worst thing That I'd ever bought with my money Dude I had the exact same story With a Porsche 9 -11 turbo I bought a 9 -11 turbo And it broke down I mean literally broke down where it needed a tow truck five times in three years.

[373] I think I drove you three times to that dealer, just me. Yeah.

[374] I spent, I was there like nine different, I love that we were complaining.

[375] But it's true, they're fucking crap.

[376] They're crap.

[377] I have a Lexus, it never fucks up.

[378] Never.

[379] Never fuck.

[380] They're bulletproof.

[381] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[382] They make them so well.

[383] There's never any problems.

[384] But if you have a Mercedes or a Porsche or something like that, you're going to have some weird light goes off.

[385] Like, what the fuck is this?

[386] This isn't working.

[387] Why is my headlights not coming on?

[388] Shit.

[389] You got to bring it in, oh, it's the computer And they wanted Windows 95 on those things I bought the Aston Martin And then I bought the Casino Royale soundtrack And I just fucking drove around And I pretended I was a spy And I literally was pointing at people On the side of the road And pretending I was shooting them And like That was to show you up too much time On your hands The problem with those cars Is when they work, they're intoxicating You know, when you hear the sound The engine That fucking powerful like well -engineered engine but it was such a poorly crafted car inside that I was like why don't I just get a fucking ringtone of that sound and be happy with the fucking sound of the engine and get rid of this plastic piece of shit everything inside was crap it's an English car right yeah they've never been known for really making great cars I mean Jaguar I guess yeah but the engine you're right it was worth that sound always used to fuck up too before Ford bought them right yeah yeah yeah English you don't want that You want Japanese.

[390] They don't fuck around, dude.

[391] But my problem is, is like, everything's made by robots now, for the most part.

[392] So even American cars are made by the same robots.

[393] It's not the same, though.

[394] It's the standards that you engineer the car to.

[395] That's what's important.

[396] And they're using much higher standards than American car companies are.

[397] There's no doubt about it.

[398] I have a Ford Mustang, and I have a BMW M3.

[399] And the difference between them is so different.

[400] And Ford is high level, as far as American cars go.

[401] It's better than GM.

[402] But still, you're inside of it.

[403] feels fucking chinty and things feel goofy and they don't the navigation system kind of sucks it was like it's engineered by an American guy you know just kind of quirky whereas the Lexus is like everything that nav is the best right yeah listen I was fucking dudes with money complaining about cars how sad that's because we've also had the latest podcasts of all time we've had nothing as well that's the thing is you can actually you could sit here and you can tell these stories if you've been fortunate enough to have some success because anybody who knows who's done this for living when it's bad it's fucking bad when it's empty it is at its emptiest man so you know you get a little something or you have a few years of fun that i think it's kind of cool to be able to talk it still doesn't seem real to me you know success and money none of it seems real to me you know when i can go to the store and just buy things like oh look that tv looks like it would be perfect right there let's just get this thing yeah i can give me a piece of plastic and you give me whatever you got yeah and i never it's real yeah it's it seems fake doesn't it see i mean you never walk around your house i know you never walk around your house i know you you don't smoke pot, but when I do, I'll walk around my house high, and I'll just look at the house and I'll just go, what the fuck is this?

[404] Like, I'm, this is my house is where I live?

[405] This is so strange.

[406] Like, you know, you think about what it was like when you first started making money and you didn't have to worry about bills anymore.

[407] You know that feeling?

[408] Yeah.

[409] It's the fucking most liberating feeling ever.

[410] That's the big feeling.

[411] It's not being famous, not being rich.

[412] The liberating feeling is not have to worry about paying your bills.

[413] That's the most important one.

[414] It was like, wow.

[415] It was.

[416] It was.

[417] was like all of a sudden it just like lifted like i literally physically felt lighter i'll never forget it because i was always scratching it was always like do this john schuller gig and maybe i'll have enough money for rent and then you know i can't eat tonight because i you know i literally don't have any money i have to wait until tomorrow when my check clears billy down still owes you uh 704 bucks barry cats was the big one is barry still you imagine yeah yeah yeah he still owes me three hundred bucks from one of those really those gigs that was brutal for people that didn't don't know what we're talking about.

[418] There was a time where there was another entity that he had called New York Entertainment, right?

[419] And they were booking colleges, and apparently it was costing too much money to rent the building where they were at and they were spending more money than they were making.

[420] So they started spending the comedian's money and owing it to them, literally.

[421] Like you would go to the gig, you would fly around the country, go to these colleges, get your checks, send them in to Barry, and then, you know, you would wait.

[422] And then you'd be like, a month later, be like, what the fuck, dude?

[423] Where's my money?

[424] this is getting crazy and then it would be like another time you would do it like three or four times there was guys that had like they had a lot of money out yeah i don't know how it all got settled but it was ugly it didn't it didn't and there's still guys salty about it wandering around every once in a while barry'll be like you want that 300 and i'm like no it's like good luck charm is you not paying me you maybe bust my ass i had the i'll show him fucking theory going yeah that's yeah but i know for me man like seriously it's like what put things in perspective and people some people know this or don't is like you know i i hired my stepbrother my half brother yeah yeah i know that story that's a crazy story and it was like all right so i thought i had this great nest egg i bought a house i did all that and then he came in and you know i can't talk too much about it's ongoing but well let me talk about it since you can't so the rumor is you don't have to say anything that he stole like 11 million dollars from you yeah that's fucking horrified like five years to think that your fucking brother your blood like someone you grow up with is so fucking jealous and so shifty and plotting against you that they'll steal your fucking money allegedly allegedly that had been such a betrayal that's it man it really would I mean first of all absolute complete betrayal and the way I deal with that with my family but the thing that really was jarring in the best of possible ways was talking about okay I've been doing stand -up for I've been doing stand -up for 20 years you know when when everything happened I started in 1990 and then I looked and I was like all right, this is gone.

[425] I never had this.

[426] Either it was gone or whatever.

[427] I went back on tour.

[428] I did probably the biggest tour that I'll ever do last year.

[429] I did 80 arenas.

[430] I went out there.

[431] I fucking just, you know, it was hammering.

[432] Yeah, the economy was shitty, but I kept going.

[433] I was promoting.

[434] My fans came out.

[435] And it was that, I haven't had a moment in a lot of years where really struggling again where you're like, I'm in trouble.

[436] If I don't do something and the ride is over, what do I have left?

[437] What's there for me years down the line?

[438] And I was really, you know, thankful that, the fans came out and supported it but it was that moment where I'm going okay you know yeah I've bought some cool shit in my life and you know I've collected some albums or you know buy something crazy once in a while but you can't fucking take somebody's creativity it always comes back to you'll have stuff you'll lose I've had things I've lost it many times in my life and all you can do is keep getting back on stage or fucking getting out there and doing whatever you know connects you to something yeah yeah that's what it is really for comics too it's putting the new thing together right yes putting that new chunk and then the the new set and, you know, preparing for the next special and feeling these new bits come alive and the tags and the new tags.

[439] It's like, what a burst you get every time you come up with a new tag.

[440] It's like this positive energy charge.

[441] Like, ah.

[442] And then sometimes on stage in the moment, you'll pause and say the perfect shit out of nowhere and it destroys.

[443] And that becomes the closer.

[444] I mean, that becomes the part of the bit that ends the bit.

[445] It's the best feeling on earth, man. When it all starts to come together, you see that, you know, you know, it's like you have a theme or a through line that starts to come through and there's nothing better in the world man. Right from the bat, right from the get -go, when you have your first good set, you become a junkie for that feeling.

[446] You become someone who needs to kill.

[447] You need to get up there and kill.

[448] And you don't want to do any new, you don't want to fuck around and do any new shit.

[449] That's the problem in the beginning because you're scared and you want to make sure you get through the set good and you just do the stuff that you know it's going to work.

[450] Don't fuck around.

[451] Don't fuck around.

[452] It hampers your growth because you become this fucking junk You just want that charge.

[453] You just want to hear them scream.

[454] You want to hear, oh, shit.

[455] Oh, no, he didn't.

[456] But we also, you know, we came out of Boston where, you know, I know the guys that I can't.

[457] I mean, I love Steve Martin and the guys that I always loved just watching growing up that I wanted to emulate.

[458] And then when I started in Boston, these guys were like killers, man. What people don't understand about Boston is everybody knows all these famous guys.

[459] Everybody knows Billy Crystal.

[460] Everybody knows, you know, I mean, and the very good comics.

[461] Robert Klein, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[462] Name the guy.

[463] Don Gavin was better than all of them.

[464] He was better than all of them.

[465] This is not an exaggeration, and he was fucking squeaky clean.

[466] I mean, every now and then he'd say, fucking fuck, fuck, fuck, a little this or that.

[467] But his bits were not dirty.

[468] It was delivery was perfect.

[469] It was perfect.

[470] Like, you would watch his economy of words, the way he set a sentence up, and you would just feel humbled.

[471] You would be like, fuck, he's a master.

[472] Yeah.

[473] He's a master.

[474] but he got caught up in this Boston thing where there was all these great guys in this one area and they always drew a crowd and they always got paid well and then they would go on the road and they'd be nobody so they'd be like why would they be a fucking nobody back in Boston making some money the next thing you know they're back in Boston and they're just doing the same gigs over and over again where everybody else takes a shot and branches off and disappears and becomes famous but you really would watch these guys and part of you would feel bad that they weren't getting over the hump but you felt like so fucking honored to be opening up and standing watching going I'm learning from the best so when you leave Boston it's like you had that these were guys like I always describe it like they had the energy of showmen but they were like men they were like men doing comedy yes yes and I you know I always really wanted to be there they always stood right at the fucking front of the stage they were really...

[475] Lenny Clark is the perfect example of that Lenny's a fucking man he's a guy this is what Lenny Clark said was we were at Giggles and Saugas and there was this fucking table full of chicks They wouldn't shut the fuck up They were screaming And yelling and he goes Listen, if you don't shut the fuck up I'm gonna hire a nigga To fuck you in front of your mother It's like What the fuck did he just say?

[476] I mean it was me I think Chris McGuire was there I think it was me and Chris I can't remember But we were like What the fuck did you just say He doesn't give a fuck Lenny Clark did not give a fuck He was just this big Gigantic burly guy Who would by the way He would beat your ass too who this is like if you like talk shit to Lenny Clark he'll probably you know do a line and punch you in the face yeah these were real like real hardcore blue collar guys but fucking hilarious but it made us it made us sharper because you were held up to a much higher standard you had to go on after guys who were way better than average and you had to be sharp all the time you had to you had to constantly reassess your material you did I learned a lot watching Joe before us because the thing that happened with you though was you were the first guy that I saw from like the next young generation that when you started headlining you were getting the respect for for killing but you were the first guy that I saw that had real backlash ever in my life that people were like they didn't know how to where to put him and people that he had passed no not going to mention names but like they were just so fucking frustrated and they didn't know how to deal with like okay wait a minute this is the next guy coming up there's that you know people are always going to resent and you're young Good looking, and every fucking chick in the crowd after the show is just like, you know.

[477] There's that, there's the fighting thing, too, which doesn't make any sense at all.

[478] It's not supposed to, they're not supposed to coincide together.

[479] Yeah.

[480] The martial arts thing.

[481] It just seems like I'm not the, I'm not, I'm not in the club, you know?

[482] And I mean, that's what it felt like to me. But people are, there's always going to be backlash whenever anyone's successful.

[483] I don't have to tell you that.

[484] Oh, yeah.

[485] And I didn't fight, which makes it even tougher.

[486] You know, people are always looking for some reason why you're fucked up when you are more successful.

[487] They're always looking for some reason why it's them, you know, it's you and not them, you know.

[488] People get upset at other people's success, you know, and you can feel it.

[489] You know, I mean, I got hate mail when I was on Fear Factor every day.

[490] There's no getting around it.

[491] You're always going to get someone who's fucking mad at you about this or maybe you said that or you don't deserve this or you're short or you're bald or it's just constant.

[492] People you don't even know just want to, ah, ah, before the internet, did that even exist, though, to the degree?

[493] I had a website 98, dude.

[494] The Internet's just hate.

[495] There's someone's hate.

[496] Well, it's not that the Internet is hate, dude.

[497] The Internet is an outward expression of how people feel.

[498] People are frustrated and angry.

[499] And, you know, look, we've been shown that we live in a place where we have a fake economy that is recognized as fake by everybody, but we're still pretending that it's real.

[500] We print up money.

[501] Nobody understands where it all goes.

[502] Everybody's fucked.

[503] The banks are making billions.

[504] We don't know how.

[505] There's a lot of frustration and anger in this world.

[506] And if you're anonymous, you're fucking McFuckstick on the Rogan Board, and you just decide to be a cunt.

[507] You know, it's just so easy to lash out.

[508] You know, Dane Cook could suck my dick, you know.

[509] I asked for questions.

[510] And, of course, most people, like on my message board, most people are real cool shit.

[511] There are some interesting questions for you.

[512] But there was a few that were just so fucking douchey.

[513] It's just, you know, you're never going to get away from that.

[514] Those are people, too, that they really want so badly to perpetuate a moment or something because they want to see the fucking battle.

[515] They want to see the battle.

[516] And there's also this thing where they don't want to see anybody ever forgiven for anything that they might have done in the past.

[517] Right, because they can't.

[518] Yeah, they can't, yeah.

[519] Yeah.

[520] And it makes it okay that they can't if you can't or we can't.

[521] Yeah.

[522] I think I lost you on a couple of cans back.

[523] But yeah, no, totally.

[524] You know, there's just a lot of people in this world that not just, they don't just feel shitty, but they're lashing out.

[525] They lash out at other people.

[526] They do it for no reason.

[527] Like, I can imagine, like, see, like, if you don't like a movie, like I saw a serious man last night, it was fucking terrible.

[528] Why would you watch that?

[529] It had, like, all these stars on it.

[530] Don't you have rotten tomatoes?

[531] Five stars?

[532] Dude, I didn't go to Rotten Tomatoes.

[533] I should have.

[534] It was a Cohen Brothers movie, too, and I love the Cohen Brothers.

[535] And there was some really interesting parts in it.

[536] But there was a part at the end where I was like, oh my God, it ended.

[537] It just ended.

[538] It's just like, okay, now the movie's over.

[539] At a nowhere.

[540] Way worse than this.

[541] I accepted the Sopranos.

[542] I was figured like, this is a long story.

[543] It's over.

[544] That makes sense.

[545] This was just like, I don't even know these characters.

[546] All of a sudden, boom, it's over.

[547] So I wrote on Twitter.

[548] I was like, a serious man seriously fucking sucked.

[549] You know, I was like, well, am I a hater?

[550] Am I doing that too?

[551] I'm a fucking reviewer here.

[552] Now I'm a reviewer.

[553] Now you fuck me out of two hours of my time.

[554] I feel like I deserve something back.

[555] Yeah, plus you said it as Joe Rogan, not fucking McFuck's dick or whatever.

[556] Yeah, I think the message boards would be, I tried it on my board for a while, tried to make everybody put a picture of themselves.

[557] I said maybe we'd be nice to do each other if we used our actual photo as an avatar, but it only lasted for like a little bit.

[558] Everybody wanted to be fucking Darth Vader or some chick sucking a dick.

[559] Somebody like...

[560] All the avatars on my board are all chick suck a dick.

[561] Somebody like...

[562] Lizard or somebody just recently tried to do that, where you had to have your real name on their message board, but then all these pirate privacy things went on.

[563] Right, yeah, Blizzard, yeah, those game guys, right?

[564] Yeah, yeah.

[565] Do you do game, you're a gamer, right?

[566] You do, like, online gaming a lot?

[567] Not like I used to, I mean, I used to, you know, have PC stuff, and then, you know, I did console for a little bit, but...

[568] Takes up too much time.

[569] Yeah, man, not like...

[570] Once in a while, I'll still do, like, Call Duty or something, but you want to play for 11 hours in a row.

[571] When you do that.

[572] I get so addicted to online video games.

[573] They're so addictive.

[574] When, like, Quake, like first -person shooters.

[575] I've talked about this many times.

[576] I used to play 10 hours a day.

[577] No bullshit.

[578] That's how we actually kind of really first met.

[579] That's how we met and bonded before the big breakup.

[580] But it was like, I remember you were telling me about alienware computers and all that shit.

[581] So I went out and got one.

[582] I basically got the computer he told me he had, which I didn't have the money for at the time.

[583] but Joe's like, I got this, it's a rig and area 51 fucking I went and got it.

[584] I was living in this shitty little studio on Hacienda and all I had was fucking futon and my alien wear computer.

[585] I don't really know anybody out here anyway when I first came out, but I'd jump on with Joe once in a while and think like, all right, Quake 3 or whatever we're playing.

[586] He would like just...

[587] Destroy, right?

[588] He just...

[589] Like not even destroy.

[590] It was not even fun.

[591] It was not even like...

[592] We talked about this.

[593] It was just bad.

[594] It was like beyond rape.

[595] Yeah, he would do like kill me like 99 times in a row and I don't even think I killed you once maybe in like three hour period and I'm like Joe, I need to stop.

[596] Dude, not only would Joe be plasma rifling me up my ass like every other hit, but then I'd hear through his whatever the headset like he'd be doing something else, which made it even fucking worse.

[597] Like he, I could tell he was not even completely focused and I'm fucking sweating and doing that thing where I'm like trying to sound like I'm not fucking raging.

[598] I'm like, good shot Joe.

[599] turn off the mic I'm like fuck come on Quake is one of those games for those who don't know it it's a first person shooter where you're running down these 3D mazes and you have all these different gun options and it's one of those games that relies very heavily on playing it all the time so the mouse and the keyboard literally become like an extension of your mind and you can get it to do what you want it to do because you're so comfortable with the movements you don't think about you know it's WASD use the keys to move backward and straight side to side but you don't think about it you just do it it's just like I'm going to the right.

[600] When I go to the right, I'm thinking to the right, and as I'm thinking, my fingers are moving, and you get totally synced up with it.

[601] You have to do it like eight, ten hours a day to do it.

[602] So I was obsessed.

[603] I'd go online.

[604] That's what I would do.

[605] And I'd be, like, having conversations with my chick, and I'd be thinking, I could be playing quake right now.

[606] I could play playing, so I would have to pretend that I wanted to see a movie with her.

[607] I was a complete junkie.

[608] What was weird is that you were really competitive with the game, where, like, I would just hide in the toilet paper roll of the unreal bathroom map and just sit there and snite people where you were more like kill, kill, kill, kill, no. I was trying to Number seconds.

[609] It's what, you know, my leftover martial arts days, there's still some work to be done in the back of my head.

[610] So I'm just fucking just running down hallway, shooting people, this thing is so satisfying.

[611] It's so fun.

[612] I remember it was over when I was at Fry's Electronics, trying to buy, like, shit that I didn't think he had.

[613] I'm like, is there a mouse that has every button already on?

[614] Like, what can I do to fucking have one advantage?

[615] And guys would do that to me, by the way.

[616] Guys would do the same thing that I did to you to me. It wasn't, it wasn't that many guys.

[617] But every now and then, you run into, like, a Chinese virgin, some 13 -year -old kid who doesn't give a fuck.

[618] And he's just every day, 15 hours a day, just staring through his bifocals at that fucking screen, blasting dudes.

[619] Oh, man. Dudes would rape me. It would happen all the time.

[620] And I would be like, how the fuck?

[621] I thought it was good.

[622] Guys would gun you down and hit you with rail guns, impossible shots.

[623] You just showed up for a second, you're dead.

[624] You're like, motherfucker.

[625] Some guys are just on another level.

[626] And now kids have all the modded controllers.

[627] You know, I'm just using a regular controller.

[628] So I'm like, I'm never going to have the advantage anymore.

[629] They've got like these, you know, whatever, Wolfpack fucking sticks, and it's like nine.

[630] I can't deal with the console.

[631] You know, the console is just not as precise.

[632] And they did a thing with Microsoft started, they did a competition between console guys against keyboard and mouse guys.

[633] Yeah, but you'd never play that.

[634] You'd get used to the point, if everyone's doing the same controller, then everyone's on the same page, you know?

[635] But the same controller isn't as precise.

[636] Why would you use that controller when you got another controller that's better?

[637] You can get really good at it.

[638] But you can't get as good.

[639] Right.

[640] For what you like to play, you're kind of first.

[641] Destruction, son!

[642] Hang us, kill!

[643] You just want to blast them.

[644] You just want to blast them.

[645] You want to have the most connection between you and what you're doing.

[646] But you know how fun it is to get on your Xbox and go, oh, Carlos Macias playing Call of Duty.

[647] Let's kill him a little bit.

[648] It's so fun.

[649] Do you ever kill him?

[650] I've played him once.

[651] Really?

[652] Yeah.

[653] Is he any good?

[654] No, no. Really?

[655] Yeah.

[656] Kick his ass?

[657] I don't think, I think I was more just like watching him.

[658] Can you talk shit to him?

[659] See, like I hang out in the toilet paper.

[660] Does he play like Joe?

[661] I'm a video game boyer.

[662] He's like, nice shot, Ned.

[663] I went to his website the other day for something because every now and I like to read his Twitter and go, what the fuck?

[664] It's just so strange.

[665] So I went to his website and it said one of the most feared comedians in the country.

[666] That's like on his bio, on the front of his website.

[667] Dude, he's the Punisher.

[668] One of the most feared.

[669] Like, what a crazy thought.

[670] You talk about the wrong psychology for comedy.

[671] One of the most feared, you want to be a feared comedian?

[672] What is that?

[673] What does that even really mean?

[674] That's so strange.

[675] Do you collect comics?

[676] What the fuck are you talking about?

[677] We're talking about Carlson CPA -A -S.

[678] I know.

[679] Don't be changing gears like that.

[680] That's ridiculous.

[681] Wow.

[682] We're talking about someone completely crazy.

[683] Yeah, I don't really know what that means.

[684] Who wants to be a feared comic?

[685] It's horrible.

[686] It's a horrible way of thinking.

[687] You want people to fear you?

[688] Who is going to fear you?

[689] The audience?

[690] Yeah, who?

[691] What he likes to do, and, you know, he talked about on the Mark Merritt podcast.

[692] I thought it was really fascinating that he actually opened up to it.

[693] But when he called back?

[694] What's that?

[695] Because he went in.

[696] Yeah, that was kind of, you know.

[697] It was weird.

[698] Maron was like, it was very strange.

[699] It was very strange conversation.

[700] But I didn't understand why Maron didn't understand that he's completely insane.

[701] Like, Carl's is like gone.

[702] He's like bipolar or something.

[703] Like, there's something wrong.

[704] But when he started talking about the, during the podcast, what was it exactly?

[705] Oh, shit.

[706] Now I'm trying to remember.

[707] Fuck.

[708] God damn it.

[709] I can't remember what the crazy part was.

[710] Oh, one of the crazy ones was.

[711] Did you tell me this one that he was saying that some troops, that someone was thinking about killing themselves, would they read his shit?

[712] Or they saw him perform and they didn't kill themselves.

[713] Was that you?

[714] No, that wasn't me. Well, I'm making shit up now.

[715] Now I'm just giving him rumors.

[716] But he was talking about how he would go on stage in front of guys on purpose to make them feel bad.

[717] Really?

[718] Yeah, he would bump guys and do an hour.

[719] And he talked about how he did it to Mark Maren.

[720] He talked about how he did it to, what's that dude's name?

[721] Steve Trevino.

[722] First time Steve Trevino ever got the head.

[723] line.

[724] Carlos went on right before him and did like an hour, an hour, 25 minutes or something crazy.

[725] But when he was talking about, he comes, like, he's pained that he did it.

[726] That's the thing that's that I don't associate with.

[727] Yeah, it was fake.

[728] I had to, you know, man, it's what I had to do.

[729] It's like, why?

[730] I think he's like, he's broken.

[731] I think he's like a legit sociopath where it doesn't, he doesn't feel emotions the way everybody else does, and I don't think he feels when he's hurt either.

[732] He's got like this weird block going on.

[733] It's very strange.

[734] I think you're talking about my brother now.

[735] I think I'm talking about a lot of people.

[736] There's a book written recently called The Enemy Amongst Us or something like that, something along those lines.

[737] And it was all about sociopaths, about how many people amongst us really don't feel emotions.

[738] They just pretend they do to fit in.

[739] But they don't fear the consequences of their actions.

[740] They don't worry about hurting other people's feelings.

[741] You know, that's a fucking real problem.

[742] There's a lot of people like that.

[743] Yeah, I think I'm on the fucking complete other side of that, man. I'm one of those people I feel like I feel everything.

[744] Well, to be a comic, you have to be fucked up, right?

[745] I mean, we would all admit to that.

[746] You have to be sensitive.

[747] You have to be, you have to be, you have to be, there's got to be something inside of you that wants attention so badly that it's willing to go through those early days.

[748] Because, you know, if you're not fucked up, you're going to find something better.

[749] You're going to find something that doesn't hurt so much, you know, but that need to be special is got to be so strong that you're willing to get through the bombing.

[750] Right.

[751] Right.

[752] I just remember being so afraid in, because I was like the complete, not only introverted, but I was like, I had like anxiety.

[753] I had social anxiety.

[754] I still really do, actually.

[755] It's funny because I can do huge fucking arenas.

[756] If the meet and greets, 10 people, I'm like, all right, what are we doing?

[757] But in high school, it was really bad.

[758] And I remember feeling like that first time I got a laugh that like broke up a moment.

[759] And it was like, oh, that's the fucking weapon right there.

[760] Totally.

[761] I want people to fear my comedy.

[762] What?

[763] What is that?

[764] My first one I did out of anger.

[765] I had this really shitty math teacher who was always mean.

[766] and she would just treat you like you were really dumb if you didn't understand things and she was a black lady and she was doing this thing on stage or on the stage she was doing this thing in front of the chalkboard but she was writing something down and I wasn't paying attention and she goes Mr. Rogan would you like to come up here and do both of these questions for the class and I said would you like me to do both of those questions and everybody went fucking crazy like dudes could not help it they just started laughing and people slamming books down and then she kicked me out I got sent home for the day, but I remember thinking, like, at that moment, like, damn, I just got that bitch.

[767] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[768] That's when the soundtrack starts, man. No, I know.

[769] I know.

[770] After that, it was like, I was a little hellian.

[771] She was being mean to me, you know?

[772] It was like, and I shut her down in front of everybody.

[773] It was like, damn, that was my first heckle.

[774] I just remember skipping school one day, and I was at Brigham's.

[775] Remember Brigham's?

[776] Sure.

[777] And I was just sitting there in my, Mr. Hall, the guy who was like the house dean came up.

[778] And also he just sat in front of me. Like, I was.

[779] busted and he goes um and i was starting to do like plays or like write stuff and he goes he goes listen man he goes i know school's not for you he was the first person to like he goes i know school's not for you i know that theater and you know making people laugh you're kind of a cut up now he goes that's really what you should do i know you want to be a comedian that's what you should do first person to ever tell me you should do that yeah so nice to have someone there to say something like that yeah i never had anybody tell me that everybody told me i sucked my own mom told me She didn't think I should go into comedy because I wasn't very funny.

[780] Well, I think that's more of a mom protecting her son.

[781] Oh, it was, for sure, but for sure.

[782] But God damn, lady.

[783] My girlfriend does that.

[784] She doesn't want me to do comedy because she's just like, she watches her friend do it.

[785] It's like embarrassing.

[786] She feels bad.

[787] And she's like, oh, you don't want to do that.

[788] She just doesn't want you to eat it.

[789] Watching somebody eat it is hard.

[790] My friend Eddie, you know, we've talked about that.

[791] I got Eddie to do stand up nine times.

[792] He's a funny guy.

[793] He says, like, really funny shit.

[794] like always and I'm like dude you could totally be a comic I'm like within two years of fucking around and practicing you'll be open up for me on the road I'll help you I'll cut out a lot of the time the development time I'm like dude you could be a comic just listen to me I can help you I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this and he just fucking it's over and over the bombings were so disastrous it was so hard to watch it's funny how like people that we know that are funny and when they tried it's it's almost like they land on stage the furthest place from what really actually makes them funny and fucking interesting.

[795] Yeah, well, they just don't know how to be perceived.

[796] They just get confused as to how they should be perceived.

[797] It's just they want to like, they want to like somehow or they like fit this mold of what they think is going to be funny.

[798] It's like the connection between them and the audience is so distant and fucked up and jagged.

[799] There's barbed wire in the way.

[800] It's for most people, they don't understand that in order to be able to be yourself and get on stage and talk in front of somebody.

[801] you have to like really know what the fuck you how you're coming off you have to really know yourself in a way that a lot of people aren't comfortable looking at themselves yeah you have to you have to it's it's about being revealing and then finally not giving a fuck anymore that people don't like what they see and then you can slowly find the people that like what they see and build the laughs from there man and it's got to be a real not give a fuck it can't be i'm pretending to not give a fuck like you have to mastered it to enough where you've understood the situation and you've assessed it and you've been objective about the whole relationship between you and the audience over and over again so many times that you completely mastered it.

[802] And then you're comfortable with the experience.

[803] Right.

[804] And then, only then can you go up there and just be yourself and fuck around and be funny.

[805] But until you hit that vibe, that one groove, you know, you're just going up there going clunky to you.

[806] Like clunk, clunk.

[807] You just, please love me. You just like, please, what can I do to make a connection with you?

[808] And you get it like little bits.

[809] Oh, it touch you a little.

[810] But it doesn't grab you and hug you, you know?

[811] In the beginning days, like, every now and then you would crack like one bit that was like, ooh, it has something there and people would laugh.

[812] Like, I think there's something there.

[813] Yeah.

[814] I think I'm touching gold.

[815] There's gold under here.

[816] Let me keep digging.

[817] Fuck, it's hard.

[818] You listen to yourself a lot.

[819] Like, you record your sets and.

[820] I really, I never used to until I, you know, you make CDs and then you have to, which is brutal.

[821] And also, I mean, I remember listening to the first CD and I went, okay, at that point in my life, there was no. real drama in my life.

[822] There was nothing, nothing dramatic about my life.

[823] It was pretty easy going.

[824] A lot of my first stuff was like very nostalgic and very kind of like, this is the stuff I grew up with.

[825] We, it's fun.

[826] That's what I knew.

[827] And as I listened to that, I was like, all, two things.

[828] First of all, when I listen to myself, like, I would say 40 % of it, there's no words.

[829] It was just physicality.

[830] And that was when I started really getting passionate about vernacular and wanting to build up a you know language and paint better stories with with words and not only that but i i started having things happen in my life and my personal life with especially my folks that really were like all right you know what i'm not a kid anymore who just goes up and talks about fucking or or you know frat you know kind of humor drinking it was like i have real issues real problems but now how do i turn a corner and how can i you know it it takes a while to be able to not reinvent but like how to have a metamorphosis on stage with truth and like where you're at in your life do you feel that all the criticism that you've gotten and I can say this for myself all the criticism that I've gotten even the stuff that hurts and even the stuff that was wrong and just you know hurtful it helps me absolutely it's improved me even the douchebags have improved me because it's made me look at myself through their eyes and go okay do they have a point like what it what is it about me that's offensive to them what is it about me that they don't like.

[831] Yeah.

[832] You know, and then you see it and you go, oh, okay, I can see how maybe I'm being kind of douchey or like I've had bits for my old CDs where I would like to go back and change it.

[833] I don't even want that being represented of a representative of my thinking.

[834] I don't think like that anymore.

[835] Old specials that air and people just discover you and they're like, oh, is that what you do?

[836] Yeah.

[837] Like, I go to England a lot and I love it over there but I had an old bit about just shit not England how fucking stupid it was how the women are disgusting.

[838] And it was just a mean bit for no reason.

[839] I just met a couple English people I didn't like I just run this crazy bit but now it's like I want to say like I don't really think that way anymore this is just douchey shit yeah I definitely look back I don't you know no regrets because everything builds you up to where you're at but for me when it was like okay I finally hit I crossed over and I remember I knew I had a moment or I was like okay when all the DJs in the country were really talking about me that's when I knew I was in trouble that's when I really battened down the hatches and I was like all right I know what two years from now I know the way this is going to go and I know the way it's going to come back and you know what i just took it i took it all in the chin i pretty much fucking just kept showing up doing my thing because when when the pendulum swings into the good area it's going the same fucking direction in the other area man it's really so there's a real backlash for somebody who works hard to get attention that's a there's a weird thing about people when you work hard to get attention if you get attention and people like people love dave chapelle one of the things they loved about dave chapelle is he's very reclusive he like goes on stage like weird he'll show up in a park with a fucking PA system and do a show, it's weird.

[840] But when people promote a lot and people, you know, get their name out there a lot, there's a backlash for that, always.

[841] Why is that?

[842] I don't know, man. What the fuck is that?

[843] I got that.

[844] I mean, I did that because in 1998, I was sitting around doing nothing for most of the day except waiting for sets.

[845] I just come out here.

[846] And I was watching a documentary on fucking punk bands.

[847] And they were showing them put up like, hey, we're dragon face.

[848] And like, literally, you know, nailing their flyers.

[849] to telephone poles and I remember sitting there going like this is what I need to do whatever the modern version of that is I need to fucking build a fan base I need to do like some kind of grassroots thing because I'm I don't want this to pass me by and then what do I have nothing I'm good at nothing else I'm really shitty at a lot of things in this world really bad I think that's the only way you ever make it as a comic if I had other career paths my other career path was brain damage my other career path was kickboxing I'm like, what am I going to do?

[850] I'm going to get brain damage for no money or I'm going to become a comic.

[851] Well, I don't have any other skills.

[852] I don't have a college degree.

[853] What the fuck am I going to do?

[854] I can't work.

[855] I'm a shitty worker.

[856] I would show up a construction gear because I'd last two weeks, pocket the money and then fucking quit.

[857] Like, fuck this.

[858] I would like tar roofs and it was like half a day and I'm out.

[859] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[860] Boston, man, those people fucking work hard.

[861] Yeah.

[862] And you know that.

[863] There's an East Coast work ethic.

[864] Because of the fact that it snows there and it gets deathly cold in the winter, people are hard.

[865] Right.

[866] They fucking work, man. They get up at 7 in the morning and they're at work by 8 and they fucking work all day in the snow, in the sun, 90 fucking degrees out, hammering nails.

[867] That's a hard gig, bro.

[868] Doing construction in Boston.

[869] And it's like, you know, you're doing that.

[870] But when you know those people are coming into your shows, probably why the guys before us, it's like, you better give them a fucking show.

[871] Fuck, yeah.

[872] You better give everything you got.

[873] If you haven't worked a really hard job where you come home tired and you just been a guy who kind of went from college to comedy and kind of drifted through, you don't appreciate people's attention spent.

[874] You know?

[875] People, especially on Friday night, 10 o 'clock show, they're fucking tired, dude.

[876] They're tired.

[877] Yeah.

[878] You know, those people worked all day and they've been drinking.

[879] The comedy is such a fucking strange thing, man. It's so strange.

[880] It's like, it is our connection with something.

[881] That's what it is.

[882] It's like everybody's got their own connection to it.

[883] And, you know, and everybody's trying to figure out how this guy connected and how is he connected.

[884] Yeah.

[885] But you're the best guy at connecting with the internet.

[886] You were the very reason why I started a MySpace page.

[887] I read an article about you in People Magazine I was at my dermatologist checking to see if I had a fucking staff infection because I do Jiu -Jitsu you get zits, you got to get them checked out because it might be staff.

[888] So I'm sitting there and I'm reading this article in People magazine and it said you had 300 ,000 MySpace fans and I was like, you fucking imagine I go 300 ,000 people you could just send out an email with 300 ,000 people I'm like, that's incredible.

[889] I'm like, that's fucking brilliant.

[890] So I started a MySpace page that day and I hired my friend Duncan to take care of it.

[891] My friend Duncan got a job.

[892] And my friend Duncan's job was just add friends to the MySpace page and, you know, and I'd send him blogs and he put up my blogs and shit like that.

[893] Right.

[894] I love it how attached you seem like you always are.

[895] It seems like you answer almost everyone's, like I've talked to so many people that you've answered like Twits or Myspaces or Facebooks.

[896] Are you really on the internet that much?

[897] Are you that, or do you have like a staff of games?

[898] No, man. I never had anybody else log into my stuff ever.

[899] It was always, always me, still always me. How much time a day do you spend?

[900] been responding to emails.

[901] Do you still use MySpace?

[902] No. Oh, even Day Cook gave up on you, bitch.

[903] Sorry, Jerry.

[904] It's over.

[905] They need, you know, they fucked up.

[906] When Dane Cook gives up on MySpace, that's like Tequila, that bitch is still on.

[907] She's still swinging.

[908] They fucked up, though.

[909] Isn't she?

[910] They don't take care of their home, man. They don't.

[911] They don't.

[912] And they haven't touched it since.

[913] And there's so many stupid things like adding friend requests, you know.

[914] Too hard.

[915] They're not sexy anymore, you know.

[916] Something else sexier came along that got it right.

[917] Facebook got it right by simplicity, not letting you put fucking glitter tags.

[918] And every time I go to your page, music starts playing.

[919] And weird hearts fall that fucking freeze the page.

[920] Yeah, freeze the page.

[921] But you always had the best pages, man, like on MySpace.

[922] And just personally, do you do it your design yourself?

[923] I used to do.

[924] I learned HTML code, man. I bought like HTML for dummies because I literally had nothing to do all day.

[925] And if I wasn't playing video games, I was fucking bored, man. I was bored and I wanted to I treated honestly it was like all right this is politics I need to shake hands I need to kiss fucking babies because I want I want money and I don't want to live in this fucking shitty apartment with I think like Don Barris lived downstairs for me He would just be fucking screaming And fucking the movie Don Barris who people don't know He hosts a thing called the ding dong show at the comedy store And it's all the most psychotic open micers There's certain open micers that are like completely delusional and absolutely insane and their acts are just so bizarre that you can't believe they're real.

[926] Well, Don Barris puts on a show specifically with those people.

[927] Yeah.

[928] Fucking genius.

[929] But he's always surrounded by nuts.

[930] And you were Polansky and Windy City Heat, right?

[931] It did, man. That was one of my favorite movie.

[932] That's one of my favorite things I've done.

[933] I just rewatched it and I was like, holy shit, that's Dane Cook.

[934] Like, the first time I never realized it was you.

[935] I still have not seen that.

[936] I still have not seen it.

[937] Oh, dude, it's great.

[938] It's a fucking funny.

[939] For people who don't know, they punked this guy for a whole movie, right?

[940] Yeah, and Kimmel pretty much swept in, made a whole movie.

[941] They pretended this guy was famous, and the guy's crazy.

[942] I mean, they're basically taking advantage of a crazy, Percy.

[943] He was always at the comedy store.

[944] The guy was always there.

[945] And they had this guy convinced that he was famous, and it worked.

[946] But basically, it's kind of sad.

[947] I mean, they're picking on a fucking...

[948] It is sad until you finally hear the stuff that wasn't in the movie and just how fucking evil he is.

[949] Oh, he's crazy.

[950] He's crazy.

[951] But it's, you know, I feel like he's just a broken person.

[952] Yeah.

[953] Yeah, well, he's weird.

[954] He's a weirdo.

[955] He's broken.

[956] Yeah.

[957] It's weird that, like, being a Facebook friend with him, too, because he is still talking about that movie today.

[958] Oh, send me his Facebook address.

[959] I want to read his crazy shit.

[960] I fucked up.

[961] I fucked up and Ted Haggard banned me. I was loving reading his crazy shit.

[962] Yeah, who's your favorite Twitters and people to follow on, like, Twitter?

[963] Do you have any, like, guilty, like, Ted Nugentz or anything like that?

[964] I wish Ted Nugent was on Twitter.

[965] I tried to find him.

[966] He wasn't in there.

[967] Ted Nugent's not on there?

[968] No, damn it.

[969] Fuck.

[970] I got all kinds of crazy dudes online.

[971] I love it.

[972] It's like a party that I put together with all these nubes.

[973] nutty people that should never be together.

[974] There's a thing called Flipbook now, too.

[975] You've got to get this app, man, on your iPad.

[976] What is it?

[977] It's a fucking app that makes, you plug into your Facebook or Twitter, and it turns whatever your feet is into a magazine.

[978] Yeah, you flip it with the pictures in the, like a magazine.

[979] So whatever the links are, it makes it like an article, like Hollywood Reporter or People Magazine, and you flip through.

[980] Wow.

[981] And then it's just like it'll be your fucking face with one of your quotes.

[982] You've got to see this, man. It's cool.

[983] It's like a minority report type shit.

[984] It's like that, man. It's cool, dude.

[985] You know, what's also good is Pulse.

[986] I don't know if you use that.

[987] I got Pulse.

[988] Yeah, that's good, too.

[989] Yeah, yeah.

[990] If you want it basic.

[991] Yeah.

[992] I love the iPad.

[993] I got it.

[994] I've been working on an app too because that's the new thing, man. It's like, you know, now everybody, you know, wants, you got to be in somebody's pocket.

[995] Right.

[996] People don't even want to fucking log into a site anymore.

[997] It's like, dude, I don't want to, I don't want to mess with all that.

[998] Just be in my fucking pocket.

[999] We've got an app that we're working on right now for this podcast for Libson.

[1000] And Libson, the company that's hosting us, they make apps for you.

[1001] So it's really cool.

[1002] When they host your podcast, they'll make you an iPhone app.

[1003] Yeah, you have a couple iPhone apps.

[1004] Or you used to have...

[1005] I took them all off.

[1006] I did have one with Zanel and those guys, which was great.

[1007] They did an amazing job.

[1008] But I got a company working on a new app now with just the whole push notification thing.

[1009] Because, I mean, I think one of the best companies out there for like when people are talking about promoting, how can I promote, I'm a musician, I'm a comedian, whatever, is like these things like say now.

[1010] You know what's say now?

[1011] Right.

[1012] That's a little, you call up and leave a little voice.

[1013] message.

[1014] Yeah, but it hits everybody.

[1015] Everybody who joins your say now, if you send a text, it's a hundred percent fucking guarantee everybody's going to get it.

[1016] You can go regional.

[1017] If you're going into New York, do shows, you can hit New York with a say now voice message, hey, tickets today, if you guys want to come see me, it's last minute.

[1018] As opposed to MySpace or whatever, you're hitting, like, 0 .04 % of people who, Twitter, like, if they don't see that stream, 20 minutes later, if you repeat it like, and then everybody's like, you're spamming.

[1019] Yeah, right.

[1020] It's like, promotionally, when we, want to get the word out.

[1021] That's like mailing list.

[1022] Say now, there's only a few people that I actually go to their Twitter page and like read their personal tweets just to see.

[1023] But you have to do that.

[1024] You have to go back and like, oh, this is pretty funny or this is a cool link.

[1025] Like you have to go.

[1026] There's no way you're going to catch it in you.

[1027] If you have like tweet deck or something like that, there's no way you're going to catch it.

[1028] How many people do you follow?

[1029] You follow a lot of people?

[1030] I like 70.

[1031] That's it?

[1032] Damn, I follow hundreds.

[1033] I think I follow like 500 people.

[1034] Yeah, I like they have more.

[1035] Yeah.

[1036] And I was missing so much that like, but now you can do lists.

[1037] I haven't done lists.

[1038] There's so many nutty people on there.

[1039] There's so many cool people to follow.

[1040] Right.

[1041] I love seeing religious people right next to porn stars.

[1042] Yeah.

[1043] I love when it's all right there.

[1044] You feel like you're doing something to them by forcing them to cohort together.

[1045] If this is a party, this would never fucking work if you invited these people to hang out.

[1046] Yeah, I bring politicians and porn stars and, you know, I try to just make it as weird as possible.

[1047] Any fucked up person, haters, I find a lot of haters, and I add them to.

[1048] all kinds of weird fucking people man I will say this I have every email that everybody's ever written me are you serious yeah I figured out like this method with mac mail years ago of like and I have everything in folders man it's kind of crazy but I have every military email I have every fucking like I have one called weirdos and it's just bad shit crazy you should publish a book on that I should man because I've had a couple of interesting stalkers dude I've had a couple of fucking really really yeah you want me to throw them out Throw them a little shout out.

[1049] Like the story that we were talking about before the, we started doing this, that's one of the reasons why we won't talk about it on the air.

[1050] Yeah, yeah.

[1051] I'd like them to know that it's that interesting.

[1052] Right.

[1053] You know, there's a bunch, though.

[1054] They're sitting there right now going, it's me, it's me. My favorite was the Carlos Mencia male that we got after that video, how much, like, crazy.

[1055] Oh, angry people.

[1056] Angry Mexicans.

[1057] Oh, it was just terrible writing.

[1058] I mean, I saved a bunch of them.

[1059] I had a whole folder called Carlos fans.

[1060] It was just the most ridiculous messages that I got.

[1061] They're shocking.

[1062] Just shocking how dumb some people are out there.

[1063] What's weird about the whole text messaging and everything.

[1064] Like somebody, I know, I'm not going to say what it is, calls me all the time, never texts me. And I won't even answer the phone anymore because it's just like stupid questions.

[1065] I think the phone calls dying.

[1066] I think to the point where I do, you know, I'd rather do text me. I like making calls in my car.

[1067] Yeah.

[1068] I like it when I'm hooking up to the Bluetooth.

[1069] I can have cool conversations, you know, when I'm driving for an hour or something.

[1070] Wait, too, you could text, though.

[1071] Like, text.

[1072] No, why would I want to do that when I can have a conversation?

[1073] I like conversations in the car.

[1074] That's silly.

[1075] You would rather text than have a conversation?

[1076] Huh?

[1077] Yes.

[1078] Really?

[1079] You're just some...

[1080] You are disconnected.

[1081] My problem is I have, like, a really weird creative head where I get, I start thinking about something.

[1082] If somebody calls me during that, I lose it.

[1083] Yeah, I just disconnect my phone, man. Yeah, I know, but then, I don't know.

[1084] That's all I do.

[1085] I'd rather, like, be in this mode and go, uh...

[1086] Don't do it.

[1087] No. You're not committing.

[1088] I told you that right room, that program that I use?

[1089] This is what I do.

[1090] I disconnect the phone.

[1091] I shut off my cell phone.

[1092] I tell everybody, leave me the fuck alone.

[1093] I'm going to write.

[1094] And then that's it.

[1095] I go back there.

[1096] That right with right room, all you see is, have you ever used that?

[1097] No, no. Shit, check this up.

[1098] Yeah, but like, my mom.

[1099] This is how I write.

[1100] Listen, your mom is going to fucking suck it.

[1101] Talk to my mom for 15 minutes.

[1102] I want to shoot myself.

[1103] Check this up.

[1104] When you use it, it, it makes it turn into a tron.

[1105] The whole, this is all you see on your desk.

[1106] all you see is green text and black screen you can't you can't access your task bar that's smart you can't you can't do anything the only thing you do is you know you could quit and you know that's smart man that keeps you focused totally focused and i shut my phones off because i write and i end up seeing shit pop up yeah yeah or you know you just think maybe i should just beat off and then you just go start checking out porn sites and spanking one off yeah i hear you're writing a book right now i'm trying yeah that shit's hard man that's one of the hardest things I've ever fucking taken on.

[1107] I'm writing one right now.

[1108] And I won't let anybody help me. People came and were like, you can hire this guy and no one will ever know and so -and -so used them.

[1109] And I'm like, first of all, that's pathetic.

[1110] And secondly, fuck, I want this to be the hardest thing that I ever accomplish.

[1111] Yeah.

[1112] I want to make sure that everyone knows that every word is in a certain order because I wrote it.

[1113] That's what it is.

[1114] It's all of it.

[1115] It's the best representation that I can come up with of my thoughts.

[1116] Yeah.

[1117] But you're a great writer.

[1118] I've never read some of your stuff.

[1119] It's like, you don't need any help in that department.

[1120] Well, thank you, but I think everybody does.

[1121] You know, I think you use, in the beginning especially, you could use someone else's eye, you know, someone else who sees what you're doing and has a different opinion on things.

[1122] I think that's very beneficial.

[1123] Yeah, I mean, I've given my stuff, you know, to friends or, you know, people that I trust to read it after the fact, but.

[1124] So in that sense, they help.

[1125] I mean, you get feedback.

[1126] I think I'm definitely a better writer now because of all the feedback that I've gotten from people over years, you know?

[1127] It's like the same, it's like, it's like, it's like common.

[1128] in a way.

[1129] But the thing is, you know, it's like your connection with the writing.

[1130] Sometimes it's it's such a hard thing to describe, but sometimes the words come to you when you're writing.

[1131] You know, when you're on stage, you're performing and, you know, you'll get in the groove and you'll bits will come to you at a thin air.

[1132] But there's something even crazier about it when you're writing.

[1133] Because when you're writing, sometimes I'll get through a whole paragraph and then I'll go back and read it.

[1134] I go, God damn, where the fuck did that even come from?

[1135] It's like it just came out of space.

[1136] It's like I'm in this weird semi -conscious state when I'm writing where you're just like so zoned into what you're doing and as you're zoned in the sentences just sort of form themselves in your head and then they change their position and know this is in the beginning and then and you read it again and it offers you another perspective.

[1137] It just all starts, it's like literally like you're tuning into something that comes out of it's in the air somewhere.

[1138] It truly is like the most incredible form of therapy that I can, I mean after my folks passed away and people were like you should go talk to somebody and like I was bringing it on stage but I wasn't and then I started writing and then reading some of the shit that I was writing and realizing I don't even know I felt that because you just get in that fucking Zen place where you're like I'm not even looking at the keyboard I'm just putting it out there and then you read back and you're like oh man I didn't realize that's how I connected those two things together or so I mean I love writing it's just writing a book is tough man it's very important for comics too there's a lot of guys who don't like to right.

[1139] They just like to perform on stage, come up with funny ideas, which is a great way to do it.

[1140] That way does it.

[1141] But you're not going to get the best shit.

[1142] Sometimes you're going to get ideas that come to you when you sit down and just write.

[1143] And then you can take those ideas to stage and fuck around with them and tweak them.

[1144] But if you just try to go on stage, just come up with stuff on stage, it's not the same.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] Yeah, you have to have like a little kernel of something.

[1147] I mean, I can improv if I know what I want to go up there with.

[1148] But I hate getting caught just leaning.

[1149] You know, when you're leaning up there going like, wow, what else?

[1150] You find it really hard once you do I find it very hard Once I do a special And then I know I have to do new shit And then I'm really like piecing it together And I'm always doing a million different things As once as you are too I'm always doing a million different things So it's hard to fucking piece together All this new shit And then you got to do a new show And you're like fuck these people Probably already see my special Yeah You know just aired You know fucking shit How much new shit do I got I got like 40 minutes of new shit Bring that back It's 45 but I don't even like that bit You know you're sticking things And I hate bringing stuff back That I've done before Oh I feel so wrong It just feels rotten.

[1151] It feels like you're a shithead.

[1152] You're cheating.

[1153] You're robbing them or something like that.

[1154] Unless they ask for it.

[1155] If people scream for it and if I can remember it, that's a problem.

[1156] Like someone will yell out like, Ann Nicole Smith, like, I can't do it.

[1157] That bit's like seven minutes long and I don't even know.

[1158] I know some of the punch lines.

[1159] This may sound super fucking cheesy or something like Bon Jovi would do.

[1160] But during my last tour, I would bring somebody up out of the crowd and I'd be like, you know the fucking cul -aid bit?

[1161] Because I haven't done it in 12 years.

[1162] And they do it.

[1163] They do it.

[1164] And I'm watching them.

[1165] act out and they know the kick that I would do or the whatever physical thing.

[1166] And I'm just like, this is crazy.

[1167] Wow, that's actually pretty fucking cool.

[1168] You know, I started out doing comedy.

[1169] One of the reasons why I did comedy in the first place was reenacting comedian's bits that I saw on TV to my friends.

[1170] I was like 18, 19.

[1171] I remember there was a girl that I was working with.

[1172] I was working at the Boston Athletic Club in South Boston.

[1173] And I was a fitness trainer.

[1174] And this girl that was working there had seen Sam Kinnison on HBO.

[1175] And so she comes up to me. And she goes, you got to see this comedian.

[1176] He's so fucking funny.

[1177] He does this bit about, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen.

[1178] She gets down on her stomach in the parking lot doing Sam Kinnison's bed about the bit about the people having sex with the gay guys having sex with the corpses.

[1179] And she's lying down in the parking lot at the Boston Athletic Club.

[1180] And she's like, so here these guys are.

[1181] This is how he does it.

[1182] Here these guys are.

[1183] They're lying in the slabs.

[1184] Like, oh my God, I'm going to go to heaven.

[1185] I'm going to be with Jesus.

[1186] And oh, oh, what is this?

[1187] It seems like some guy's got his dick in my ass.

[1188] Oh, you mean life keep fucking the ass even after you're dead?

[1189] It never ends.

[1190] She did that bit for me in the parking lot, and I was howling laughing, and I instantly became obsessed with stand -up comedy and with Sam Kinnison.

[1191] I was like, I have to go watch this.

[1192] This is the craziest thing I've ever seen.

[1193] It took a long time to fucking, I got to get a VHS copy of it.

[1194] Right.

[1195] And I finally got to see it.

[1196] I was like, holy shit.

[1197] So would you say that was obviously one of the moments that, like, defined your formative years in stand -up comedy?

[1198] Yeah, there was that, and there was, uh, when I was.

[1199] I was a little kid, I was about 13, my parents took me to see live on the sunset strip.

[1200] And Richard Pryor, yeah, dude, my parents were hippies.

[1201] And my sister was like 12.

[1202] She went too, shit.

[1203] Right.

[1204] And so we're in this theater, and I remember laughing so fucking hard.

[1205] I couldn't believe.

[1206] And it's kind of funny about stand -up comedy, man, because Richard Pryor was one of the most brilliant ever for sure.

[1207] But, honestly, when you watch it today, some of it is very dated.

[1208] You know, it doesn't hit me the way it hit me back then.

[1209] And that's the case with music.

[1210] That's the case with a lot of things.

[1211] Lenny Bruce is one of the greatest of ever.

[1212] One of the most important pioneers of comedy ever.

[1213] It's very hard to laugh at his stuff now.

[1214] Because the culture changes.

[1215] People's perceptions change.

[1216] And comedy changes.

[1217] And the comedy that you do today would probably be too shocking for people who lived.

[1218] It's like comedy is defined by its certain era.

[1219] So if you go back and watch live on the Sunset's trip today, it's not going to hit me like it hit me when I was 13.

[1220] But when I was 13, I didn't know anything about comedy.

[1221] I couldn't believe there was someone actually saying these things.

[1222] And he was saying it so perfectly.

[1223] I was crying, laughing, and I remember looking around at this theater, I'll never forget this.

[1224] People were moving forward in their chairs and rocking back and forth.

[1225] And I was thinking, I've never seen anyone laugh like this in a movie.

[1226] And this guy's just talking.

[1227] Right.

[1228] I'm like, I was thinking about Stripes, because Stripes had been out at the time.

[1229] It was one of the greatest comedy movies ever.

[1230] I'm like, it's not this funny.

[1231] Nothing is this funny.

[1232] This is crazy.

[1233] This guy's just talking.

[1234] And that was the first big seed.

[1235] That was huge.

[1236] That was just the seed of my fascination would stand up.

[1237] But until I got people that told me that I could do it, I did not think I could do it.

[1238] I was teaching Taekwondo and fighting in tournaments, and these guys that I would train with, I would make them laugh in the locker room and on the way to tournaments.

[1239] Because everybody was scared on the way to tournaments.

[1240] We were going to get kicked and punched and shit.

[1241] It's fucking terrifying.

[1242] And a lot of guys got knocked out, and you get to see your friends get knocked unconscious by getting kicked in the head.

[1243] So there was a lot of, like, gallows humor on these trips.

[1244] So I would always be the guy that would, like, do impressions of all the different teammates, having gay sex and all the super shit and that's how I got to talk to doing stand -up comedy man but fuck it's stand -up comedy has got to be one of the fucking weirdest jobs to ever enter in ever because no one could tell you how to do it yeah and trying to tell other people what it really is we could talk all day you just you know when you're at the middle you gotta be in the fucking mix man when you're at your best when you're locked on on stage and crushing don't you feel or do you feel because this is how I feel like I'm just riding it I feel like I'm a passenger you know I feel like I'm tuned into this whole thing.

[1245] I feel like as everything's coming out and I'm hitting all the things, it's almost like I'm just, I'm on autopilot.

[1246] I'm in some crazy groove where I'm getting to watch this and I'm getting to experience the words coming out of my mouth as they happen.

[1247] I have no idea how the fuck it's all working so smoothly.

[1248] I really can't even take credit for it.

[1249] That's interesting because I, like, I can't speak anywhere near as flawlessly as when I'm on stage.

[1250] If I try to tell you a bit, I will stammer, I will fucking not remember.

[1251] and I can groove on stage sometimes like surfing where you're like I don't know how I'm staying up for an hour just like there's that intensity there's an intensity of communicating with people you know just like every cylinder everything in your brain just goes it just all fires up and it cranks there's that Steve Martin quote in Born Standing Up where he goes I can feel it in my fingernails I point out I can feel it in my foot the way it just moves and plants I can every part of my body feels like it's emitting fucking stand -up.

[1252] But yet he hated being a stand -up.

[1253] Oh, my God.

[1254] Well, what he hated is the agilation that came when he became immediately gigantically successful, and then he couldn't get an honest response from people anymore.

[1255] They would start screaming and cheering as soon as they saw him, and he would do these gigantic arenas that he couldn't control, and they were just totally out of control.

[1256] Which happens to a lot of guys when they get big.

[1257] You know, Chappelle, when he was touring, he would be really frustrated after the Rick James sketch came out, Because people would be yelling out everywhere.

[1258] I'm Rick James, bitch.

[1259] He'd be in the middle of set up.

[1260] I'm Rick James, bitch.

[1261] And they couldn't kick out enough people.

[1262] It was just, it was too nutty.

[1263] That, to me, honestly, when Dice was at his peak, when I first, you know, was watching the HBO specials, you know, I watched Young Comedian specials, and then he had that, I remember feeling like, how the fuck can I do this, but not be a character?

[1264] How can I do this and be as real, still be an entertainer, still be on, but be as much me so there's none of that fucking catchphrase not to say people you know everybody wants to be a little Mark Twain you want your shit quoted yes but not like that right not like that not a t -shirt right do you get that weird feeling you know it's also like when you are first starting out doing comedy how old were you when you first got on stage 19 I was 18 18 I was I was I was 21 and I was not a fully foreign person yet you know right so it's like you know When you're on stage and you're talking, I don't know if I am yet either.

[1265] I'm sure when I'm 60, I look back at myself now and go, what the fuck kind of shit were you talking, stupid?

[1266] You know, you know what I'm feeling.

[1267] But I know that, you know, I did not have anything to say.

[1268] There was no reason for me to be up there talking.

[1269] I really didn't know who the fuck I was.

[1270] I didn't know what I was saying.

[1271] I could show you how to kick somebody in the face.

[1272] I really didn't have any opinions that were valid on anything else.

[1273] I mean, what the fuck?

[1274] What's my opinion on anything?

[1275] I could tell you something silly in my girlfriend.

[1276] friend did once she was blowing me or something.

[1277] I could, you know, that's it.

[1278] But other than that, it's, who the fuck out, are you?

[1279] But you were, and I threw off a little, but, because you were saying, like, so then when Chappelle started doing the bigger shows, because yeah, even Steve Martin, lost control of the fucking...

[1280] Did you, how quick was the jump between you doing clubs and you're doing these giant places, giant arenas?

[1281] It was actually a slow, but steady trajectory, where when that web stuff, what happened was this, in 2001, my first real website that I put in combination of Napster starting to get hot and me uploading all my shit to that with the link I literally uploaded clips with me at the end going Visit dangook .com At the end of every 20 second clip Then Comedy Central I did a half hour presents That I thought would air fucking twice I'm like okay That was the one with you and the tank top The tank top Dude I thought all right You know what This will air a couple of times maybe I got a light of fire I'm not wearing a bowling fucking shirt I don't want to look like what anybody else did.

[1282] I just want to do some crazy shit.

[1283] Maybe people fucking pay attention.

[1284] Never realizing they were going to air it five times a week for like two years.

[1285] It built my whole fan base.

[1286] And almost immediately went from a few hundred cedars to, you know, a couple thousand.

[1287] And then I'm doing all the college stuff in over three, four, five years.

[1288] The emails, the instant messages, doing those schools, renting out the arenas at the schools, and it just built.

[1289] How much time do you spend Every day talking to fans, emailing, you know, Facebook and Twitter and all that shit.

[1290] I'll tell you, man, I don't, I used to talk to everybody.

[1291] I used to reply to everybody.

[1292] That was at the beginning.

[1293] That was like from 2000, 2005, that's really what I did most of my day.

[1294] And then it got to a point where you don't need to read all the fucking crazy shit that comes back.

[1295] And, you know, there's just too many opinions and too much negativity.

[1296] So it came down to, I'm replying to troops.

[1297] If I get letters from like, and I can check by the email.

[1298] somebody you know one of our troops writes or if it's like a kid i write back i've been trolling as a kid for years man don't assume don't assume you're talking to a real kid's talking to i'm writing a book i'm writing a book a 12 year old gets advice from dane no but it took a while man it was not like everybody there's that old expression oh it took 20 years to be an overnight sensation it was a long time man it was not uh it was not as instant maybe as some people thought It's got to be satisfying, though, to know that you went out here and you did some movies and shit and some things didn't connect and didn't happen well for you, but you did it all in your own.

[1299] Like, everything was done through your own, you figuring out of self -promote.

[1300] And you changed everybody's attitude about it.

[1301] No comics are good promoters except, I mean, there's a few.

[1302] It's very rare.

[1303] But until you came along, no comics were really good at self -promotion.

[1304] Totally changed my attitude towards it.

[1305] You learned that from your father, right?

[1306] I did man A couple things And I want to give credit to Joe too And I told you this a long time ago Like you were the first person To have a website Not only your website But you had cool shit on your website Man You had fucking cool designs And fucking And that is a direct result Of my obsession with Quake Because I was obsessed with Quake And I ran into this guy Andrew Who was this nut that I met online He's my Quake clan Just how fucked up I was I'd have all these dudes online From like Kentucky and Oklahoma They would come and fly to California And stay at my house This is when I was on news radio Yeah I was on TV and dudes would come over my house that I didn't know from that they were just my quake buddies and they would come over and stay at the house Yeah, I'm not bullshitting I had like five dudes come over my house And we had a land party Wow I was so obsessed with this That I put a T1 line in my house Because back then you couldn't get any fast internet You get ISDN which is not quick enough So I said okay how much is a T1 line It was a thousand dollars a month I'm like let's do this okay So they fucking have to install this business grade You know internet line That's why you beat me all those times You're in a faster connection You son of a bitch That's it!

[1307] That's all it was.

[1308] I was completely wired to the gills.

[1309] We're on 336.

[1310] But it is, it's your ping.

[1311] Your ping time is what's important.

[1312] You could be on 56K, but if you're really close to the server, your ping is fine.

[1313] It's all in how fast you.

[1314] It's all really just how much you do it, you know, just become obsessed with it.

[1315] Sure.

[1316] You start to know your frame rates and when you're going to fucking click and bounce.

[1317] That's so dangerous.

[1318] Getting really addicted to things like that, you will lose your life.

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] Right?

[1321] Do you worry about doing shit like that?

[1322] Like things that eat away your time, relationships, marijuana.

[1323] Marijuana.

[1324] Yeah, yeah.

[1325] How dare you?

[1326] No, I mean, all, listen, for me, all I ever, all I ever wanted to do is create.

[1327] That's it.

[1328] I'm not, I don't have any other fucking abilities.

[1329] You know, I really just, when I was a kid, I had that epiphany moment where I was like, all I really care about is being around performers, talking about performing, talking about, you know, making something from nothing.

[1330] And you brought up my dad as like, that's, my favorite conversations in life were with him because he was the kind of guy who had gone.

[1331] So, yeah, I don't, you know, you're a lot of talk, Dane.

[1332] I want to see shit.

[1333] And it was like, he was just motivating, man. That's important, man. That's important.

[1334] Having people that don't totally completely believe in you, you know, it is actually an important thing.

[1335] The mom was like, oh, I think you're the greatest, you're the best.

[1336] She was so fucking Uber supportive.

[1337] But my dad was like, yeah, you're not, you're not really doing anything.

[1338] In order for you to develop the kind of fortitude that you're going to need to get through the hard times, you have to have something to prove.

[1339] That's what I think.

[1340] I think it's too hard if you don't.

[1341] It's too hard to really push yourself.

[1342] Right.

[1343] You know?

[1344] If you don't have a chip on your shoulder or something to prove or some gap to fill, you're not going to do it.

[1345] You're not going to get through that.

[1346] Think about all the guys that we started out with that were just as good as us.

[1347] There was a lot of guys that were very commensurate.

[1348] They were all really...

[1349] And you think of them.

[1350] You're like, what happened to that guy, man?

[1351] I used to kill.

[1352] He used to have this one bit and used to destroy and they just could see that guy on evening at the improv.

[1353] I could see that guy, you know?

[1354] Right.

[1355] Headlining.

[1356] And he just stopped.

[1357] Stop doing it.

[1358] too there was this chick Leanne Lewis I was an open mic her with her do you remember her dude she had some fucking good bits man she was still trying to figure out how to go on stage and had to develop but as a comic like as a chick too especially it was very like honest and out of nowhere and like well written shit I was like wow this chick's gonna be huge someday I'm like she's gonna be like Ellen or just disappeared just fell off just where'd you go it's weird it's weird there's so many fucking so many slots so many people going towards these slots and some of them just too far up the salmon ladder they just fuck this they just can't do it Dan you should use your Hollywood connections to get John Hughes was just about to release the extra hour of planes, trains and automobiles that they filmed right before he died what happened to that now it's completely gone it's probably all in the family the family probably owns it and they have to figure out the rights if that's what he wanted I'm sure they'll probably release it still why would they want to keep it well they've kept it for what 20 years you know he he wasn't going to release it ever but then just recently he was thinking about it oh well i don't know that that would be so awesome unless it was in as well who knows what the fuck's going to happen i was telling you before that um you know one steve martin moment that uh was really because i i had dinner with him like a few months ago he sent me a copy of his book i was completely blown away but i never met him i heard all this stuff about him that he's kind of like you know maybe not you know he's a little socially awkward all this shit and what a trip it is meeting someone that famous right Meeting really your hero, too, which you don't want to do, by the way.

[1359] Usually you meet your heroes and you're like, oh, that was, I kind of sucked.

[1360] But with him, I was like, all right, he sent me a copy of his book.

[1361] And I wrote back just to be like, can I take you out to lunch?

[1362] And he agreed.

[1363] So I sat down with him for a little bit.

[1364] And he's really, like, I can be shy.

[1365] I don't know about shy, but I can still be like a little bit, you know, quiet.

[1366] But he's very much like, he won't say a word.

[1367] I don't think if you don't start the conversation with him.

[1368] Wow.

[1369] But he did say to me at one point, he goes, he looked at me kind of like, perplexing, he's like, you look like you really love it up there.

[1370] And I was like, yeah, no, I really, I really do.

[1371] You know, when you're in the middle of it.

[1372] And I started kind of, and he goes, yeah, I never had that.

[1373] Wow.

[1374] I go, never, I go, not even at that.

[1375] And he goes, I never had that.

[1376] I never felt connected to stand up.

[1377] I thought that.

[1378] That's so strange.

[1379] What I have least in common with Steve Martin's comedy.

[1380] Isn't that crazy?

[1381] I wonder if he's just got some weird connect in his mind.

[1382] Maybe he's depressed, maybe a naturally depressed person.

[1383] Well, if you read a lot of, I read a lot of the stuff in The New Yorker when he would write.

[1384] Oh, yeah, it's depressing shit.

[1385] Yeah, man. That letter to my father?

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] That says it all, man. I was telling Brian this, I wasn't going to bring this up, but fuck it.

[1388] When Phil Hartman was alive, Phil Hartman was really good friends with Steve Martin, and Phil Hartman was going to set Steve Martin up with what I call a coyote.

[1389] What a coyote is is these really kind of crafty, professional chicks that will fuck celebrity.

[1390] celebrity guys in order to try to get famous, try to figure out some way.

[1391] This is pre -TMZ.

[1392] Okay.

[1393] You know, now it's like, you know, you really can fuck someone and all of a sudden become hugely famous.

[1394] Like that girl, the Jesse James girl, what's her name?

[1395] Bombshell McGee.

[1396] Yeah, the Mel Gibson girl.

[1397] Yeah, that girl, exactly, exactly.

[1398] And then all of a sudden that actually can parlay into some sort of a something.

[1399] I mean, who knows the fuck you can do.

[1400] But you, people have your name.

[1401] They know who the fuck you're right now.

[1402] And she was one of those.

[1403] She was just kind of creepy.

[1404] She's just like very insincere, but really hot, just really beautiful, but, you know, just cunning.

[1405] Put something vacuous there.

[1406] And Phil was going to set Steve Martin up with her.

[1407] And I forget who it was.

[1408] One of the cast members was like, that is the creepiest thing ever.

[1409] He's like setting her up with a murderer.

[1410] And this is before, obviously, Phil's wife killed him.

[1411] He's like, this woman does not, she's not into him.

[1412] Like, she's like looking at it as an opportunity.

[1413] She's like a little assassin.

[1414] She's going to move in.

[1415] And I was like, whoa, that is creepy.

[1416] And then I started thinking him as coyotes.

[1417] From then on, it's like, because that's how coyote's like, look at your cat.

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] They look at your cat.

[1420] And like, oh, look at what we guys?

[1421] Hey, bitch.

[1422] I just got to figure out a way to get there.

[1423] Yeah.

[1424] You know?

[1425] Those Skybar chicks.

[1426] You ever go to the Skybar?

[1427] Once in a while.

[1428] Cross street from the comedy store, we would always go there because it'd be really easy.

[1429] You just walk across street and grab a drink.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] And there was always like this conversation.

[1432] Do you do Coke?

[1433] Sometimes.

[1434] Like always.

[1435] That's the whole conversation.

[1436] There's like producers trying to talk starlets into bed and coyotes praying on like balding Jewish men with money.

[1437] I always hear, hooray for Hollywood.

[1438] During all those fucking boring conversations.

[1439] How much of a mind fuck is it when you actually met Steve Martin?

[1440] When you're sitting there talking to him, isn't it like, holy shit, how does this happen?

[1441] How can this be real?

[1442] I met Gene Simmons.

[1443] He came to my New Year's show.

[1444] And I was like, Gene Simmons is at my show.

[1445] Like, this is insane.

[1446] I saw Kiss a bunch of times as a kid.

[1447] I saw them in the 70s.

[1448] My uncle used to work for Howard Mark's advertising, which was a company that did their album covers.

[1449] So I got to meet Ace Freely when I was like eight years old.

[1450] So I got to see them when I was really young.

[1451] I got to see them live in concert.

[1452] Then I got to see him Kevin James and I went twice in the 90s.

[1453] We were like, holy shit, two nights in a row, we're seeing kiss.

[1454] I mean, fucking huge fan.

[1455] So all of a sudden, Gene Simmons is at my show and I'm shit in my pants.

[1456] I was like really nervous for the first time in front of one of my crowds.

[1457] I mean, everyone is there specifically to see me, but fucking Gene Simmons is one of them.

[1458] I'm like, holy shit.

[1459] is going to be entertained by you I had to talk about it I had to talk about it right away I'm like if I don't get this out right away that's going to be fucking with my head the entire time I'm on stage Junior high school Motley crew I was listening to you know shout at the devil and it was like that was my anthem and I fucking went to Motley crew and two years ago I'm at the laugh factory and all of a sudden a madman starts fucking running around the crowd it's Tommy Lee and I found out he's my biggest fan ever and here's the fucked up thing I would go to Motley crew and do devil signs and I had the Sufi thing he's fucking doing what I was doing at his fucking show to me in front of the fucking laugh factory and i'm doing the same thing i'm going this is fucking wrong this is too fucking this is the matrix man i met tommy lee and i was so shocked that he even knew who the fuck i was i was like this is the weirdest he loves comedy man he's like he's into it no he's fucking he loves comics he wants to or he wanted to at the time fight kid rock and he wanted me to get him a trainer he decided he needed to fight kid Kid Rock for Pamela Anderson's honor.

[1460] So he was talking to me about, like, who's a good trainer?

[1461] I'm like, we can get his trainer.

[1462] Like, you want to do Jiu -Jitsu?

[1463] You want a kickbox?

[1464] What do you want to do?

[1465] You want to stand and bang?

[1466] I mean, Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, that would have been one of the saddest fights of all time.

[1467] Didn't that happen, though?

[1468] Like at a music award?

[1469] Well, I think somebody punched somebody.

[1470] I think Kid Rock probably punched him.

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] I think, I don't know who would win that fight, but the kid Rock, he's got that crazy white thing going on where you have to kill him.

[1473] You know, you know what I'm saying?

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] Like, you know, you know, you think.

[1476] think you know you think he's down you're like you're done we're fucking done here right yeah yeah we're done no when i fucking say something fucking hit you in the head with a bottle or something you know he's out of his mind i would i would probably have to bank on kid rock there yeah i'd go definitely i'd go kid rock but you know he's a scrapper Tommy's a long tall guy if he's got a good straight right somebody teaches him out of throw it he's a drummer drummers have a lot of fucking endurance man all that shit that's endurance that's like a speed bag all day Tommy might fucking box his eyes off that might be You might stand up out of him and just tank, tank, tink, tink.

[1477] But rock's a drummer too.

[1478] People forget that.

[1479] Oh, is he really?

[1480] Yeah.

[1481] Yeah, but how much does he drum?

[1482] He's a drummer like, you know.

[1483] Not consistently.

[1484] Like I play pool.

[1485] Right.

[1486] You know, he's not a goddamn professional.

[1487] He's not out there beating it for Motley Crow, right?

[1488] No, no, no. He takes a lot of goddamn endurance to drum, you know?

[1489] You ever tried drumming?

[1490] What are he doing?

[1491] It's a fake sleeve.

[1492] Such a silly fuck.

[1493] This is for the folks on iTunes.

[1494] Fake coy.

[1495] He's got a fake tattoos.

[1496] That was a stoner purchase.

[1497] It was $7 for four different sleeves oh i got a whole shirt i got a whole shirt like that somebody said it to me he's like man isn't this the fucking coolest like i would wear it and i was like what are you talking about it's tights it's flashy designer tights yeah that's all it is it's like like you're wearing a rash guard out but i brought my falcon cuff you know like the eddie brawl falcon cuff joe did you ever get to as far as just comics that you fucking dug coming up did you ever get to do shows with like i don't know who your steve martin was or like akin toson or one of those guys like no Tom Arara is the closest.

[1498] I got to do shows with Dom at the comedy store.

[1499] That was big to me because I paid to see Dom before I ever did comedy.

[1500] And for people who don't know, Dom Arara, fuck.

[1501] In the late 80s and the early 90s, he was a monster.

[1502] He's still a very funny guy.

[1503] But for whatever reason, he doesn't get as much attention as, you know, I think his act deserves.

[1504] But back then, he was, you know, really, really popular.

[1505] And I paid to see him.

[1506] I was living in Boston.

[1507] I took my girlfriend to see him at Nick's Comedy Stop.

[1508] And I had never gone on stage yet.

[1509] And all of a sudden, you know, in Montreal at the Comedy Festival, it was like, I'm working with him.

[1510] them yeah holy shit it was only like six years later seven years later and whatever it was really fresh in my mind i was like holy fuck like i paid to see this guy wow and now i'm working with them like we're doing a show together you know we're both on the bill it's like people are come to see him and they're come to see me like what yeah you know that's great but you know that's not like you know he became a friend and it became normal after a while but i never got to see like my real i got to see a few of my real influences live i saw hicks live i saw him live like four or five times.

[1511] How was that?

[1512] It was pretty wild.

[1513] I saw him live when no one knew who he was.

[1514] And here's an interesting thing that's for comedy historians.

[1515] When Hicks, when I first saw him, he was very similar to Sam Kinnison to the point where it was like he was stealing his essence, I would say.

[1516] Right.

[1517] You know, like you would, you know, the Steve term thing.

[1518] But it's a good, that's a good way of describing it.

[1519] When I first saw him, he was making Kinnison like noises and doing like sounds like in between bits, like the bit didn't go so well and he'd do the like this Kinnison like thing.

[1520] I was like, wow, this guy was like connected to Kinnisans like thing.

[1521] And it makes sense because he was like one of the guys that opened with Kinnison and followed him around the road.

[1522] But he got out of that quickly.

[1523] We all are influenced by other guys.

[1524] I know you had an Anthony Clark period.

[1525] I had a Richard Jenny period where I stopped myself on stage and I realized I sounded like my cadence and everything was Richard Jenny because I was a big Richard Jenny fan back.

[1526] Yeah, yeah.

[1527] I was like, I got to stop myself.

[1528] But a lot of people don't know that Hicks had that with Kinnisen You know, everybody thinks is Hicks, especially because he's dead, of this, you know, this God who's an amazing comedian and very influential and very unique.

[1529] But all of us have this weird thing where we want to be like someone we admire, and sometimes it sounds like it on stage.

[1530] Yeah.

[1531] But he stopped that after a while.

[1532] I saw him once, and he had it like that, and then I saw him again, you know, just like six months later, and he didn't do any of that.

[1533] And he had a bunch of new shit.

[1534] I saw him do a headliner set at the Comedy Connection, and then a headlinson.

[1535] lineer set literally six months later and it was a totally new hour right and I was like wow you just he figured it out right there's that moment we all have where it's like you just something clicks and you finally realize all right this is what I need to do or this is my voice or my truth or whatever the fuck it is he when you think about it for a guy who's only he mean I believe when he died he was only 32 years old his ideas and philosophies and the the validity of his opinions were so advanced right you know for for a person of that age because really like most 25 year old guys he was 25 years he was 25 years who's doing a lot of his act, right?

[1536] Most 25 -year -old guys, you better shut the fuck up if you want to tell me how the world's running.

[1537] Just stop.

[1538] Just you don't know.

[1539] And don't give me any nutty fucking 9 -11 conspiracy website bullshit.

[1540] You know, you're fucking, what are you 24, dude?

[1541] Really?

[1542] Just don't, don't tell me how to run the world.

[1543] Right.

[1544] Let's grow a little.

[1545] Let's get some life experience.

[1546] Then give it to me from, you know, the perspective of someone who's actually seen something.

[1547] But he was advanced.

[1548] Like, 25, 26, 27, really relevant points and really good, material there's no bad period when you look at his material you know it's like there was no period where it was bad it got better and better and better I think one thing that he he really latched on to and maybe it was after going through the kinness and influence was like and I appreciated was like this release of whatever emotion it seemed was going through him he just allowed it to come out even if it was mid other story or idea and I would just watch that and I remember thinking that was like empowering.

[1549] I was like, wow, this is a place where you can go up and you can fucking ring shit out.

[1550] And people, you know, with a joke, I think it's like a good song.

[1551] Sometimes you don't know the lyrics to a song.

[1552] You just love the fucking song.

[1553] You realize years later, like, I didn't even know what they're saying here, but it doesn't matter.

[1554] And I think with some comedians, it's like, it's not even so much about what they're saying is how they're expressing something emotionally behind that.

[1555] Those are the guys that I always watch.

[1556] I mean, Carlin, of course, prior.

[1557] It was like there was truth mixed with just humor just random ideas you know what i got to see too i got to see kinnison become not so good that was a fascinating thing of kinnison who was my the guy remember i told you that chick you know doing that thing in the parking lot that's a got me in a comedy i mean literally that's that was the bug that planted it i got to see him perform live after he had gotten really famous and really successful and he would come on stage with the two girls and the whole thing and it was like i didn't laugh yeah he stopped being funny he became like this caricature of this guy.

[1558] You listened to Louder Than Hell, his first CD or whatever it was.

[1559] You listen to that still today, and it's brilliant.

[1560] It's really good still.

[1561] But if you go and, you know, you look at, like, the stuff that he did, like, right before he died, it's not good at all.

[1562] Yeah, well, he got caught up in that MTV Wild thing, and you're right.

[1563] It was like the trench coat became an out, like...

[1564] Yeah, it was like a costume.

[1565] Yeah, yeah.

[1566] Well, Dice for a while kind of had the same thing going on, too, where he became the Dice Man. You know, the Dice Man was a character that he used to do on stage.

[1567] And he used to do these John Travolta impressions.

[1568] Yeah, on the Young Comedian Special.

[1569] That's where I really liked, thought he was really at his strongest.

[1570] It was fucking brilliant impressions.

[1571] Likeable, charismatic.

[1572] I mean, when Dice burst onto the scene, I mean, I think I was right out of high school.

[1573] Yeah.

[1574] And I remember thinking it was the funniest shit I'd ever heard in my life.

[1575] You know, and then hanging out with that guy at the comedy store years and years later and just like he's like a normal guy.

[1576] Right.

[1577] You know?

[1578] But now he, like, is the Dice Man full time.

[1579] It was a character.

[1580] And now he's got this leather jacket on and the gloves on.

[1581] It's full time.

[1582] time now.

[1583] I have a theory that it's like when you're when you're a character, not just a character, but like look at any sitcoms or any fucking throughout history.

[1584] If you play a character, especially with a weird name, like if you're like a potsy or like, right, you like you, but then you become, okay, I need to keep that hairdo.

[1585] I need to be recognized from that era.

[1586] And you play into it.

[1587] And that's, that's frustrating when you see that.

[1588] But it's why I never wanted to be a character, man. I was like, I'd rather change and not be as funny.

[1589] but still have certain fans and I've had this happen I've had fans go Dude I like your stuff back When I first I know but I was a kid I was talking about kid shit I didn't I was still new It's like if I didn't change You would not fucking hang out And care at all What I was doing Well there's people They're gonna like you At one stage your career Not in another And that's okay Because that's where they are They are where you were At that stage of your career Exactly It's all right You know whatever Sorry I love that Sorry I lost you I got some new people along the way I lost a few I got a few stragglers That becomes what you crave I really believe because at first you just want to, you know, I get to keep my fans.

[1590] I got to hold on them.

[1591] I'm going to make them happy.

[1592] And when you let go of that and you realize somebody's going to check out for a while and then I had a guy write me an email and he goes, dude, listen, I jumped on the hate train or whatever.

[1593] I didn't like you.

[1594] I listened to isolated incident.

[1595] I heard you're talking about your folks talking about shit that I've experienced.

[1596] I'm back in, man. I'm hanging out.

[1597] Back on the Dane train.

[1598] But that's cool, man. That's like people that can check in and out.

[1599] Like, I respect that.

[1600] You know, I do the same thing with music.

[1601] I don't always like what somebody's putting out.

[1602] Oh, of course.

[1603] I'll always listen in.

[1604] I'll always listen in.

[1605] Perfect example of that.

[1606] Exactly, man. He was doing Soundgarden, then he was doing dog shit.

[1607] Now he's doing Soundgarden again.

[1608] It's like, awesome.

[1609] I'm still here, all right?

[1610] I just, I bought that of the stuff.

[1611] I just, I wasn't into it.

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] But, you know, go ahead.

[1614] Take your chances.

[1615] Who the fuck knows what makes the connection, you know?

[1616] If you don't take that chance, as soon as you start thinking about like, wow, I have to do what they want.

[1617] Then you're fuck.

[1618] Because then you don't even know what you're doing.

[1619] How many guys do you, you guys see this?

[1620] It's like, that's why when people, new comics come to you out here and they're like, what do I need to do?

[1621] I'm like, get the fuck out of here.

[1622] You shouldn't come up here because you're going to be like packaged and immediately like there's a stigma on you, leave.

[1623] Well, there were so many guys at the laugh factory that became you.

[1624] When you became famous, when it was starting to happen, even when you were like packing Dublin's all the time, there was, I noticed so many guys that were like doing you on stage.

[1625] I was like, wow, this is fucking crazy.

[1626] It's like, here's these guys that have noticed something that's working, and they're just jumping on it.

[1627] That's a fascinating thing to see, you know, like a whole new wave, you know?

[1628] There's a wave of guys that came out of the laugh actor, Joe Coy, that sound just like you.

[1629] And Mitch Headbirds and Stan Hopes.

[1630] There's all these, like, clones of clones and clones.

[1631] Yeah, yeah.

[1632] Well, a lot of Mitch Headberg guys, right?

[1633] There's a lot of guys that had that.

[1634] Oh, my God.

[1635] And guys that were, like, pretty good, good comics.

[1636] But they're like, dude, you've got to stop doing that.

[1637] Yeah, I know you're good.

[1638] You have some good jokes.

[1639] but stop doing that.

[1640] I'm the cerebral.

[1641] It's not just the cerebral.

[1642] It's like, yeah, yeah.

[1643] It's like, dude, you're doing Mitch Headburn.

[1644] I'll tell you, man. It was fascinating to, okay, when it happened, and it was like, fuck, I'm famous.

[1645] I'm known.

[1646] People are talking about me when I'm not trying to fucking get something going.

[1647] And the DJ is like, that was really, they were setting this tempo.

[1648] And then there were guys that you see come out.

[1649] It's a little flattering and weird when you're like, oh, this guy's kind of like me. And it makes you not want to watch comedy.

[1650] because you're a little freaked out by it.

[1651] But then you know that, all right, a couple of years down the line, as guys start getting frustrated, those same guys are the ones who would come out of the woodwork and say, oh, no, Dane fucking took from me. I was doing that shit.

[1652] That is true.

[1653] That will happen.

[1654] And guys will forget that they stole it from you.

[1655] Right.

[1656] That does happen.

[1657] They'll forget that they got the idea to behave that way from you, and they'll decide in their head somehow that they were doing it first.

[1658] I've had guys that do that.

[1659] But you know, it's like you just nailed it.

[1660] It's like you take that.

[1661] you have a voice, you have certain people that you want to emulate, and then you figure out your shit and you grow out of it.

[1662] And I'm as kind of understanding and cool about that, because I've been up down, up down, and it's like nothing's going to...

[1663] But in the beginning, though, you don't feel that way.

[1664] In the beginning, you feel like someone's stealing from you and you have to put a stop to it.

[1665] Because when you're not famous and you're struggling and you're coming up and you're just starting to do well, and then you see somebody start ganking off you, like, hey, hey, hey, I created all this success at a hard work and you're just kind of like emulating it.

[1666] Like, you better stop doing that.

[1667] you're doing what you saw be successful you're doing a version of me that's tricky man that's a tricky thing it's a tricky thing because it just feels like someone I mean it really you got to let them do it you know I mean look if you become successful just through the merit of your own work it's going to be really clear who's copying and who's you know who's imitating who but it just doesn't feel like that in the beginning in the beginning when you don't have money and you're not like if someone's doing me now I'm like look at this guy why am I doing that well I guess that's what happens right and it's kind of fucking flattering even though it's still you know but you figured they would be done with it i was doing it when i was an open micer you know i was doing it like it was a year in or two years in you know i would hear myself sound like somebody else but when someone's like doing it and that's their act on comedy central you're like okay man you took this too far right you have to do your own thing you have to have your own delivery yes and you know what it's funny because the first time in my life i ever ran in that was with you when we had you know it was like 1998 and joe called me up i remember i still living in that shitty apartment and you're like dude there's a fucking bit that you're doing that you're doing and it's it's like my closing bit i remember i was so fucked up by that not only because it was like you know i had a lot of respect for joe but it was like i don't ever want to be one of those guys that gets you know put in that position and i remember feeling like that was a defining moment for me because it was like i need to talk even more about maybe not nostalgic things or things that are outward that i see but things that are from me that happened to me it's hard though because especially if you're influenced by someone else and you your bit is influenced by their bit.

[1668] And even though you know it is, you know you shouldn't probably do it because everyone thinks that you kind of stole it, but it kills.

[1669] And that's the problem when it fucking crushes.

[1670] And it's all you have about it in life.

[1671] And it's such a good bit.

[1672] It's just, you know, you could go up there with this one and just fucking slam it in.

[1673] Yeah.

[1674] But really, ethically, it's almost like you have to find out what's good about that and cut it out and try to add it to something that you create.

[1675] You know, you can be influenced by something and, you know, and you're not even aware of it, you know?

[1676] you never see where a lot of guys like work together like we saw that at the comedy store a lot where like guys would work together and guys would riff in the back parking lot and then they would go on stage and it was like it was like a battle over whose bit is this you know who's bit is this we're sitting out like Stanhope had this fucking guy that was opening for him this guy was a douche and he he would go on stage and they would whenever they would fucking riff Stanhope would say a bunch of cool shit and this guy would go on stage and do Stanhope's cool shit yeah it's just like fuck man now I can't riff in front of you, I can't just fuck around and come up with it, but then when you're still two are doing it together, and then you've got to figure out, well, who's is this?

[1677] What's going on here?

[1678] Or somebody like, you'll have an idea, an original premise, and someone will add a tag to it, and then take your whole fucking thing and jump on stage because they added a tag.

[1679] Like, no, it's fucking, it just came up with that.

[1680] To this day, like Bobby and Al, because I've known I know Al since I was a kid, 13 years old, Bobby since I started, Robert Kelly.

[1681] And us three definitely, I can hear it all the time.

[1682] Bobby does certain things.

[1683] I'm like, oh, that sounds like me, or all three of us, because we started.

[1684] We spent so much fucking time together.

[1685] We formed our, you know, kind of comic cadences and all the tricks that you learned, that those are the two guys that I can still watch and be like, oh, that's how we influenced each other.

[1686] I have one friend when I come up on an idea, I have to walk away.

[1687] I walk away and I say it in my head, and I write it down, because I don't say it in front of them, because if I say it in front of them, I'm pretty sure that it's eventually going to go on stage.

[1688] Oh, my gosh.

[1689] So I have to go away.

[1690] I fucking really do that.

[1691] Yeah.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] And, you know, and some, the worst is the one friend that you have an idea and you start saying the idea and they try to top it and they start talking over.

[1694] You're like, no, no, no, no, you don't, this is delicate.

[1695] It's coming out of nowhere.

[1696] It's coming out of outer space.

[1697] Let me say it.

[1698] Could you fucking imagine if, if, imagine, if Oprah decided that she was tired of all this.

[1699] Yeah, maybe she would do this.

[1700] Stop, stop, stop.

[1701] Stop talking.

[1702] If you talk right now, you're going to, I'm going to miss. I'm getting a gift right now from the universe.

[1703] It's like ideas, like crazy ideas sometimes will come to you, like fully formed.

[1704] but if you start talking and explaining it to other people and then someone jams in with their own shit it's like oh it's lost now yes or if they start trying to get to to what you're getting to because they kind of get a sense of it like they want of territorial pissings are wrong or wrong and you're like no that's not what I'm saying at all and then like fuck it's just lost all my momentum communication's dead and that's we should all text each other oh you're waiting that whole time for that Chris Brian you're out of mind Chris is your name from now on why do you think the internet's gonna call you Chris you look like a Chris He, Brian, Brian at the end, the beginning of the show, Dane showed up and Dan goes, hey Chris.

[1705] And Brian was like, I'm not Chris.

[1706] Right, you always call me Chris.

[1707] You always call me Chris.

[1708] I've been calling him Chris for like months.

[1709] Very upset.

[1710] And I told him, when you meet as many people as certain people do, you know, you literally, you lose your space in your memory bank for people's names.

[1711] Now you're Chris.

[1712] If I don't see you for a month, your fucking shit is gone from my brain.

[1713] I don't know.

[1714] You're that guy.

[1715] Hey, what's up?

[1716] We could have hung out, smoked a joint, went to a movie.

[1717] I don't fucking remember you, dude.

[1718] Right.

[1719] There's too many people.

[1720] I remember everything, right?

[1721] Do you remember, Joe?

[1722] We met, and we hung up.

[1723] It was the Galaxy Theater, and we all stood on the curb, and you're like, I don't fucking remember where this was.

[1724] I have a friend who's famous who likes to fuck a bunch of different girls, and his whole, I mean, he's a complete pussy addict, and he doesn't think it's a big deal, and these girls aren't going to be attached to him.

[1725] I'm like, do you not understand?

[1726] I go, you are, you're in movies, and people love you, and they see you all the time, and they're attracted to you, and you're attracted to you, and you're meeting.

[1727] all these people millions and millions of them and it's not a big deal to you but to them it's like oh my god this is a guy who's in some big fucking giant movie and his penis inside my vagina to them it's like the greatest moment ever and you forgot her name already right it's literally one of the top three things that they'll ever fucking want to talk about with their close friends yeah I try to tell this dude the reason why these girls go crazy is because they think you're in love with them they think you know this is going to be like a love affair now and you're just moving on to the next chick and you know you gotta be careful of that right you're single I am I am I was with a chick for about five years and about eight months single so she was she was there for the big ride for most of it yeah wow yeah what finally just drove the nail it's everything a lot man yeah you see in the business you know what it was yes but I went through a lot of shit man my folks and then into my brother you've had like the roughest four five years ever I'm surprised you're even functioning Sometimes I am too, man, because it really was, you know, I lived to perform because my folks were just the coolest fucking people, but they got to see everything.

[1728] That's what I've come to the, you know, at the end of all the talking about it and figuring out, it's like they got to see everything I want to do.

[1729] Do you find it's hard to date chicks in the business?

[1730] Right now I'm just having fun, so I'm just kind of like doing whatever, but I would not want to settle down with a headshot, no. That's it.

[1731] That's why I have a no headshots policy.

[1732] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1733] seven year period of grace period.

[1734] That's it.

[1735] No headshot policy.

[1736] After seven years, you haven't had a headshot in seven years?

[1737] Okay, you're good.

[1738] You're clear.

[1739] You're clear.

[1740] You've escaped the spell.

[1741] You know, but there's, you know, real housewives of Calabasas.

[1742] All these crazy bitches out.

[1743] They all wanted to be actresses.

[1744] Yeah, man. I know I'm fucked up, okay?

[1745] But I've figured out how to deal with my fucked up and make it work up and make it work up and make it work.

[1746] It's very hard and be, you know, as fairly healthy human being.

[1747] But I know that other people that are fucked up, like the odds are.

[1748] We're going to be able to talk and hang out and be cool with each other and make this work out and both be balanced.

[1749] It's very hard.

[1750] The odds are very, very small that you're going to have your shit together and we're going to have a healthy relationship.

[1751] Right.

[1752] You know, it's just like too many times over and over and again.

[1753] You just deal with all these crazy people and all this psychosis involved in the...

[1754] The auditioning process breaks people's souls.

[1755] Right.

[1756] Because getting this movie or getting this television show or anything they're auditioning for could be the biggest fucking moment in their life.

[1757] And they're freaking out and they're pacing around the waiting room and you get to see them go over their lines.

[1758] It's, it makes...

[1759] I read for a sitcom like six months ago.

[1760] I got nervous being in the room with all these people that were nervous.

[1761] I was like, I just want to get the fuck out of here.

[1762] Like, this is a terrible feeling.

[1763] You know, I've got money.

[1764] I don't have to worry about shit.

[1765] This just seems like it would be a fun job.

[1766] I'm looking at all these people.

[1767] Like, this is like their big fucking thing, their big break.

[1768] And they're doing that every day over and over again, getting rejected, getting rejected, needing that love, getting rejected, needing that love, getting rejected.

[1769] So close.

[1770] But nope.

[1771] Final three.

[1772] No, no, no. And they're doing this for years and years.

[1773] And this is already a person who's psychologically unbalanced, already a person who, the reason why they want to be a performer in the first place is they want to be loved because they weren't love as a child.

[1774] So there's this incredible, horrible imbalance.

[1775] And they just can't quite connect.

[1776] And then you start dating them.

[1777] And it's like, look, man, you're not on a comfortable road.

[1778] Like, this isn't going to be smooth and relaxed and everyone's carefree.

[1779] This is going to be constant psychosis.

[1780] Do you think I'm good?

[1781] Do you think I'm fat?

[1782] Is this good?

[1783] What am I a loser?

[1784] Will you read lines with me?

[1785] all our friends are like that though yeah but I'm not dating our friends shit yeah but they still have that same kind of fucking doing that five times a day every day yeah but they have success as comics that's the difference guys like Joey and Ari yeah they're going to auditions all the time but they're also killing it on stage all the time they're also they're doing comedy all the time you know and Joey's always getting acting gigs here and there so it's like and Ari's always getting you know commercials here and there They have an outlet.

[1786] They're doing well.

[1787] It's the people that are not making the connection.

[1788] And, you know, girls, too.

[1789] You know, if you're a girl, man, it's a natural feeling, I think, for a girl to want some sort of male companionship and protection for a woman to be by herself, comes here from, like, Omaha, Nebraska or something.

[1790] Right.

[1791] She's going to be incredibly insecure, like a cork in the middle of the ocean by herself anyway.

[1792] Right.

[1793] It doesn't have any friends committed to this acting thing, and then just rejection, rejection, rejection, and then it's just their whole childhood thing that dragged them there in the first place.

[1794] Then you come along and you're like, hey, Did you like to go see a movie?

[1795] Like, you don't even know what the fuck you're getting into.

[1796] Right.

[1797] You're just opening up the door to hell.

[1798] My ex was one of the classic cases of everything that I didn't know until after the breakup.

[1799] Everything she always said she hated, she became.

[1800] Like literally every fucking facet.

[1801] That's why they hate.

[1802] They hate, I mean, what they hate actually is what they're afraid of in themselves.

[1803] Right?

[1804] But it's tough because then people go, you know what?

[1805] Like people that are further along in this industry when I'm always like, what's your gem?

[1806] What can you, you know, what can I learn from you when they go, yeah, you don't want to be with a girl who's in the industry.

[1807] But then you're like, if somebody who isn't, how do they really fucking understand the bullshit that I then have to deal with?

[1808] So what's that middle ground?

[1809] Who's that girl in the middle?

[1810] Well, you can find girls in the, I've met girls in the business that are really cool.

[1811] It's just really rare.

[1812] You know, there's a lot of them that are just really normal.

[1813] They just like acting.

[1814] I am kind of dating a girl now.

[1815] But after what I've been through, you're kind of more trepidacious because you're like, all right, if that's going to build up for that way.

[1816] there.

[1817] Trepidacious is a very rare word.

[1818] Oh, thank you.

[1819] That was strong.

[1820] That was a strong move.

[1821] Charlie Murphy.

[1822] There's a lot of people who do think that you can't find someone, you know, in the business.

[1823] But you can, it's just rare.

[1824] You know, you can't rule it out.

[1825] But as a rule, if you're going to have an ethic, it should be a no head shots policy.

[1826] Find some normal chick.

[1827] I have a head and butt shot policy.

[1828] Oh, buddy.

[1829] I like the way through the little gulp in the middle.

[1830] That's Brian.

[1831] He's always got to do it.

[1832] something like that, just to make you go.

[1833] Oh, Chris.

[1834] Oh, Chris.

[1835] So now that you've, like, you've done, like, how many specials?

[1836] Four CDs, a couple of specials.

[1837] When you do it now, do you give yourself a specific amount of time?

[1838] Like, do you do a special and then say, all right, now I start fresh with all new material and within, like, X amount of months, I do a new one?

[1839] This is probably the first time in a while that I'm not putting a time limit on it.

[1840] I mean, I used to.

[1841] It was like, all right, every, it was like every other year, and then you're preparing during that time.

[1842] Right, right.

[1843] But now is like, I'm just, I'm doing it for the first time in a while, really just enjoying it.

[1844] It's not a machine.

[1845] It's not like I got a fucking top as I got to make money.

[1846] It's like, I'm okay now.

[1847] I'm in a good spot.

[1848] My fans are happy.

[1849] I'm, you know, I'm happy.

[1850] I'm balanced, you know, after some crazy, you know, years.

[1851] I'm just trying to enjoy it, man. Yeah, yeah.

[1852] Because that's the thing that you guys, it's like, I had this moment.

[1853] it was like, I had a good year when I hit where I'm like, this is dream come true time.

[1854] And I really did enjoy it.

[1855] And then it was like, you know, took care of my family and, you know, I had money.

[1856] And then a lot of stuff happened.

[1857] So I, you know, a lot of stuff happened, whether it was like internal from, you know, comedians or whether it was, you know, my folks being sick or all the shit.

[1858] And I, yeah, dog shitting and getting evicted.

[1859] It was like, I didn't have time to just be a regular, like, person in process everything.

[1860] And so that's what I've really done the last, well, the year.

[1861] Do you find that, I find that it drives me really crazy when I come up with a bit and then I put it on a special and then right after I fucking film it, I have a way better tagline.

[1862] Oh, man. And then I'm like, I let this go too quick.

[1863] I should have worked on this.

[1864] Like, part of the process of developing material is you got to do a bit over and over and over again until you find the rhythm of it.

[1865] To you find, you know, the natural order of the words and, you know.

[1866] It's never done.

[1867] No, it's never done, man. That's one of the great things about those guys in Boston, the untold story of why they were so good.

[1868] as those guys had the same act forever.

[1869] Right.

[1870] A lot of those guys, unfortunately, kept the same act for years and years and years and people actually grew to expect it.

[1871] They would go see Steve Sweeney, who was fucking brilliant, but it was the same brilliant, you know, 20 minutes that you had seen seven years ago.

[1872] Right.

[1873] And they just, and they had it down.

[1874] And they had their act, and it was a fucking machete.

[1875] Yeah.

[1876] And it would just slice through the crowd.

[1877] It was just, all the timing was.

[1878] Like Terminators?

[1879] Yeah, the timing was just perfect, you know?

[1880] The timing was just deadly.

[1881] There were so many of those guys then, too.

[1882] too.

[1883] Yeah.

[1884] Yeah, if you come out with a bit and you don't really develop it enough, it's like maybe you didn't quite get it out the perfect way.

[1885] You know, people love new shit.

[1886] That's more important to them than anything, but you want to like, God, you want to make sure it's done.

[1887] Yeah.

[1888] You want to make sure it's really done.

[1889] I kind of was like a few years back, it fell into this routine of like, you know, maybe it's never done and maybe it's always kind of evolving in something else and that's okay.

[1890] Maybe it's just again more about who I am.

[1891] Because I don't guys like even Johnny Carson growing up.

[1892] I didn't know what the fuck Johnny was talking about half the time when I was a kid, but it was like this idea of, oh, you're attracted to this person.

[1893] And there's something glamorous about stand -up where you can't go anywhere else except for maybe what we're doing here today without somebody impeding on it and like editing it or some standards and practice.

[1894] There's always somebody fucking with you except comedy's glamorous because you can say whatever it is that you want to say.

[1895] And that's one of the things that I love about this podcast too, is this is so look how easy this is we just have a couch and a webcam and a and a fucking table and a laptop it's that's it's all it takes in a flashlight that you can fuck Everything's so processed and so fucking prepared that why can't something be a little rag tag and a little messy and real and maybe a little uncomfortable and really, you know, have an amazing moment?

[1896] Well, for you, I think this is very important because I think you're a very misunderstood guy and the ability to express yourself for long periods of time will get a chance for someone to see your real personality as opposed to this projected image that they have of you.

[1897] I get that.

[1898] You know, so this is like a great medium because if you're doing like a fucking tonight show set or something like that you're sitting on the couch.

[1899] at you're talking for seven minutes.

[1900] To me, it always feels like it's over.

[1901] That's it, it's over?

[1902] It's like, I don't even know.

[1903] Who has I?

[1904] Was I me?

[1905] Did I get it outright?

[1906] You know, did I just, did I fucking force this?

[1907] I'm seven minutes.

[1908] Yeah, fuck.

[1909] Yeah.

[1910] So nobody really, I mean, this is a fantastic opportunity that we have today to do something like this.

[1911] This didn't exist for performers of other generations.

[1912] I mean, the ability to let people really know who you are.

[1913] Awards and all, this is, this is exactly who we are.

[1914] And seeing comics and however many entertainers like, go from this.

[1915] to getting that fame or fan base or whatever it is without anybody in the middle of it, without managers and agents, and it's pretty incredible, man. Bob Burnham, what's his name?

[1916] Yeah, Bo, Bo Burnham.

[1917] Bo Burnham.

[1918] He's like 18 or something, isn't he?

[1919] He's a really young kid.

[1920] Yeah, I had him open for me in New Hampshire.

[1921] He's killing him everywhere.

[1922] He did a bunch of shit on YouTube, and people loved his songs on YouTube, like comedic songs, and all of a sudden this kid is fucking packing places.

[1923] Right.

[1924] I mean, it's incredible just because of the internet.

[1925] No one had, that kid that, was on Ellen, a kid that sang that paparazzi song, the Lady Gaga song was brilliant.

[1926] It was at like a school talent festival or something like that.

[1927] And this kid was fucking brilliant.

[1928] And now he's got a record deal.

[1929] It's amazing.

[1930] It's like you instantly can connect to people that just weren't available before you, before you had to go through magazines.

[1931] But let's be devil's advocate for a minute, because how fucking quickly is that kid fucked up now?

[1932] Oh, he's done.

[1933] Because there's no it's like he's out of that fucking plane.

[1934] No tandem jump for him no fucking let's do a thousand hours 11 right isn't he 11 or something like that so he's 11 that's the scary there will be a certain chew him up spit him out process with some of these people that you know that make it through there who it's like people who win the lottery most people who fucking play the lottery are like you know fucking got nothing no you know and then you see that documentary on hbo you see lucky yeah about these fucking people that hit the lottery they're nowhere near prepared people who are already rich know how to have money people who have nothing and then get rich get fucking crazy yeah crazy nuts when I got first about my first development deal my manager thought I had a gambling problem and it was because I was buying lobster like every night I was just eating like a king that would be nice I got a fat check and I just went off like a rocket I was spending like 10 grand a month and he was like what the fuck are you doing I'm like I'm having fun bitch the first money I ever had and the dumbest thing I probably ever did was I logged in and again this is when the internet like 56 came out of him I logged into like a poker fucking website, and I'm like, I'm going to play poker.

[1935] I'm pretty good at poker.

[1936] I lost five grand of my underwear in about six minutes.

[1937] Wow.

[1938] Literally in the middle of the fucking night.

[1939] I remember pushing my IBM think pad away from me going, I can never do this again.

[1940] Wow.

[1941] Five grand like that.

[1942] Wow.

[1943] I love internet gambling.

[1944] I love the idea of it.

[1945] I'm scared that it's fucking rigged though, man. It's totally right.

[1946] It's totally right.

[1947] It's got to be Joe.

[1948] Come on, man. I wonder, because if you, you, you.

[1949] can play guys on quake and they'd be bots and they would never mess they would just destroy right like literally a hundred no you'd never come close to them they would know where you were at all times they know exactly the right weapon they were used because they weren't really playing it was just a computer simulation that was playing perfectly right you got to have these poker things not only that but who's to say who's to say somebody isn't playing and has like a screen open of like you know best odds on hands and anything else so it's like or hackers that just haven't been caught that are sitting there like you know call of duty behind a wall and like watching your hand, you know?

[1950] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[1951] I used to play chess online, then I'm like, some fucking fag is going to have a chess fucking master thing opened up.

[1952] Right.

[1953] And he knows 10 moves ahead already.

[1954] You know what, though, for chess, you shouldn't even care.

[1955] Let them cheat.

[1956] Go ahead.

[1957] You know, it's only going to make you better.

[1958] You're playing someone in chess.

[1959] The whole key is to play tough, tough people.

[1960] The worst is Scrabble.

[1961] Everyone's addicted to the Scrabble apps and Facebook Scrabble.

[1962] There's so many websites.

[1963] You just sit there and you type in what you have, what's been placed, and they'll tell you the best word, from the dictionary is 12 points So play Scrabble, I'll play old school Just a table and some people sitting around We live in a society where people feel victorious When they figure out the best way to cheat That's victory If I can figure out how to cheat you I'm fucking great I'm more amazing than you at something It's fucking insane It is pretty interesting But we think about the Russian mom How much money the Russian mom is made by cheating Made by getting people's credit cards Made by hacking things made by doing that It's like when you realize the actual numbers involved like it's you know it's fuck it's a it's a branch of business yes I mean literally is a branch of business doping people is a branch of business ripping people off ripping off their websites hacking it to their shit getting credit card numbers it's a branch of business I mean it's like this is sophisticated shit you know this is being sophisticated stuff being done on a high level whenever you're going to have any sort of a situation like that where there's kind of an open door you know and there's programs you can run programs in the background think about how many goddamn viruses there are you know I mean viruses and key loggers and just fuck man and everything's going into the cloud man everything's going it's sky net dude it's happening it's totally Google is Skynet right Google is I use it for fucking email and I use the Chrome browser yeah because this is a bunch of websites dedicated to that too everything's that's that's kind of weird man it's freaky when you think about like pretty soon everything access to everything all the time and computer power is exponentially increasing so the kind of programs the kind of things that computers can do is going to change drastically over the next few years but I watched a thing on Dateline the other night it was about a woman who fell for the scam of like you know contact us there's a million dollars in a bank account and so many people phone that yeah and I couldn't believe it it's like this woman was like oh I'm $300 ,000 down because they keep writing me saying we need more money to get the money out God, who, who, and I get those all the time.

[1964] Dude, people are crazy.

[1965] You ever write them back?

[1966] Sometimes I'll write them back just for the hell of it just to be like, I'm in.

[1967] A whole email folder that says scams, and it's just conversations that I have with fucking Nigerian terrorists.

[1968] That's a book, dude.

[1969] It's fucking weird.

[1970] How many I get.

[1971] I get like, I get at least one a day, at least one guy a day.

[1972] Good evening, sir.

[1973] I represent the Bank of Newcastle and we right now have, you know, a situation, you know.

[1974] They don't know your name, but they know, dear sir or.

[1975] Bam, and you're like, oh, this must be...

[1976] If you could possibly help me, there's $3 million in cash here.

[1977] I'm looking for someone who can come up with a small deposit to get out the box.

[1978] That's it.

[1979] Fuck, man. But a lot of people get fooled by those Nigerians, apparently.

[1980] It's a fucking lucrative business.

[1981] A lot of people get fooled for those key where you think it's Facebook and you type in your username.

[1982] Oh, yeah.

[1983] Every day, a new person on Facebook or something like that.

[1984] Yeah, fishing sites are big, man. You know, look, people are fucking crafty.

[1985] You gave somebody my phone number, remember?

[1986] some dude you thought was really Cliffy B Oh that's right Somebody I started getting phone calls I'm like what the fuck bro Oh shit Yeah I thought it was a real Cliffy B That was a good trick too Well it was not a good trick You really should have looked at the address Well I mean if it tricked me You know it's a little bit better It was new It was on MySpace Somebody made a fake MySpace account You became a Cliffy B fan boy You were a Cliffy B fan boy And he didn't pay attention To the actual address It got you They cloned his website You got God You got God, man You got God, son At least I didn't Twitter my phone number I did Twitter my phone number Last month You thought you were DMing someone DM to somebody Yeah Oh God But I kept it as a fan line It's fascinating I just turn it on In middle of nowhere And just start answering calls Joe Rogan fan line I just start talking to people Look it the fuck out of you That's why you gotta get to say now man Yeah it sounds like an awesome thing Man that app is great man I will get it They can ring your phone They never know your phone number You go live I do a thing I go live You hit a button sends it to everybody and then they can just call like a radio station like this rolling are they located in San Francisco is there headquarters located in San Francisco yeah I believe so yeah because I met someone who was trying to get me to do that years ago but of course I blew it off though you should do it yeah no I'm on it what other things do you do for promotion how many different things are you involved in just a few just a few man no I do the say now obviously Facebook you know the Twitter stuff but not a lot man those are like the those I don't do four, I don't know what four square is.

[1987] I hate that shit.

[1988] Why would you want it to be the ultimate stalker?

[1989] That's like, hey, I'm at Applebee's.

[1990] Here's the exact location.

[1991] I am here right now.

[1992] Oh, you can't do that.

[1993] That's what that is?

[1994] That's nutty.

[1995] That's not going to happen.

[1996] What is that my location stuff?

[1997] Like, why would you want to do that?

[1998] There's an app on your iPad where you could just sit here and put your address in.

[1999] You know, to show you all your neighbors who have twittered or at least who who have said, yes, you can use my location.

[2000] That's in Twitter.

[2001] You can see who's in your neighborhood is twittering right now.

[2002] It's ridiculous.

[2003] that's creepy there's like four i just read uh there's like 45 apps right now in the app store that have code in it so that people can log in and get your context list really Jesus christ yeah yeah they're a 15 year old kid put up handy light two weeks ago right right and it was a tethering there's a tethering program there's like 45 that's how many they admit there's like 45 you know what you know what's crazy is what's even worse is android when i had android there was so many bad rogue apps like i downloaded a weather app and it was just supposed to give me the weather and it was like this is going to take your contact list you know how it gives you the warnings of all the things it was like five different things i was like why this is a weather app why does it need my contacts this is how much of a fucking scoundrel i am right now when you're single again i had a girl call me randomly and because i know my numbers out there sometimes and people can you know people do post shit it's like you change your number once wrong so i middle of the night i'm like hello you know giggling and is this dane and i'm like yeah yeah what's up where did you get this number oh my god oh my god and then finally she sounded so hot that i was Like, where are you guys right now?

[2004] I was like, age, sex location?

[2005] How old are you guys?

[2006] You're like, oh, we're 22?

[2007] I'm like, you are you guys in L .A.?

[2008] What's up?

[2009] Send a picture.

[2010] When you're single again, you're like, there's no laws that govern me at this point?

[2011] Yeah, fucking take full advantage of this crazy magic trick you have.

[2012] Doesn't it feel like a crazy magic trick?

[2013] Yeah, man. It feels like as long as you recognize it's a magic trick, the real problem is when dudes who have the magic trick don't think it's a trick.

[2014] I think I am this fucking.

[2015] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2016] You know, that's an easy soup to start drinking.

[2017] Right.

[2018] No, I never forget and go, I can't.

[2019] I was the guy that couldn't fucking get it done, man. I had no game.

[2020] I had no fucking approach.

[2021] So, yeah, I'm constantly reminded.

[2022] It's a very strange thing when people are under the spell.

[2023] You know, when they're looking at someone famous and you see that their hearts beating fast and their hands are shaking.

[2024] Yeah.

[2025] Wow.

[2026] Just because they've seen your image broadcast somewhere or they thought you did something that they enjoyed.

[2027] Oh, man. That would be with Steve Martin.

[2028] I ever met Steve Martin.

[2029] That's how it would be.

[2030] Yeah, Steve Martin.

[2031] It's like being like Pantleone and Matrix.

[2032] You just want to believe that steak's real.

[2033] Fuck it.

[2034] I don't care if it's fucking not real.

[2035] Still, to this day, I'll go back and listen to Let's Get Small.

[2036] Oh, like, fuck.

[2037] You know, especially for then.

[2038] I mean, when was it?

[2039] Was that like 78 or something like that?

[2040] Right before the jerk, right?

[2041] Wasn't that like right before the jerk?

[2042] Yeah.

[2043] Fuck, man. And he told me I was asking about the jerk.

[2044] Because as much as I could, I was like, you know, once he warmed up, I was like, tell me a little about, you know, the jerk.

[2045] and he was like, I was just driving to the gig every day with Carl Reiner and we're like, is this funny?

[2046] Is this funny?

[2047] They were just doing what comics do and then get to set and make it work.

[2048] Wow.

[2049] Yeah.

[2050] Yeah, they were like, we had no clue what we were doing or how big that was going to be.

[2051] I want to know what happened with him because there was definitely a point in his time kind of after planes, trains, and automobile around Grand Canyon times, or it seemed like he just stopped playing Steve Martin and started acting like an old man or something.

[2052] Like, no more crazy.

[2053] He was forcing the crazy wild cream.

[2054] What you're feeling on that?

[2055] Don't a lot of comics want to be?

[2056] like, you got to take me serious.

[2057] A lot of comics go through that phase where it's like, I'm a serious human being, stop smoking weed.

[2058] What about that weird thing where comics want to be taken seriously and they start like making points on stage that aren't funny?

[2059] Yeah.

[2060] I worked with this comic once.

[2061] I'm not going to say his name, but he's a political guy, pretty famous guy.

[2062] And he did this line and then he said, that usually gets an applause break.

[2063] And it wasn't even remotely funny.

[2064] It was some silly fucking Democrat versus Republican point that should be obvious to anybody's paying attention.

[2065] And it was just like, wow, like, you're going for that?

[2066] Like, they lose this perspective and all of a sudden they start thinking that they're like this voice of reason that people need to hear.

[2067] Yeah.

[2068] And they're like, come on, man. You're supposed to just be funny.

[2069] Right.

[2070] If you don't have anything funny to say about a subject or if it's not setting up something funny later.

[2071] Yeah.

[2072] You know, I understand if you want to like get a point across or give a perspective.

[2073] that may not be funny but it gives us your point of view so I understand what you're talking about when you say some funny shit later but if you start preaching that's a fucking tricky thing right yeah yeah no no that's how many guys have you seen do it though a lot right yeah yeah and it seemed like there was like a phase not as much now but a few years ago where everybody was trying to do that you know where everybody was like this is the point in my act where I'm gonna dim the lights and do Bill Ma real talk right it's like no I'm there I'm there for fucking yucks man I'm there to make you laugh your ass off I'm there to make you escape for a little bit.

[2074] There's a lot of fucking guys that do it a thousand times better than me but I figured out how to do it my way to where I can entertain you and we can all forget about the real hardcore shit for a little bit.

[2075] That's all I'm supposed to do man. If I can do some flicks if I can produce some TV stuff, great.

[2076] I love comedy that doesn't have to mean shit like Joey Diaz is one of my favorite guys to watch ever because everything is up my ass and my balls and my dick.

[2077] Shut up my cock.

[2078] That's Boston.

[2079] That's so Boston too.

[2080] Everything ended up up the ass.

[2081] If you couldn't get the fucking, if you had no end of your joke, it ended up off your ass.

[2082] I appreciate like really deep thinkers and I appreciate people with really fascinating points of view.

[2083] But for the most part, a lot of that stuff is not funny.

[2084] A lot of that stuff really, it's almost you're disrespecting certain topics by doing them on stage.

[2085] I mean, you can kind of like brush on it and like kind of like dabble in it.

[2086] But, you know, if it's a really fascinating subject, it's something that needs to be explored.

[2087] It's not going to be funny.

[2088] Yeah.

[2089] But just just for flat out funny.

[2090] Like for me, I like stupid shit.

[2091] I like, like a Joey Diaz type guy.

[2092] That's the kind of shit I laugh at.

[2093] I want to, you know, I want to laugh at someone.

[2094] I mean, I love good writing and everything like that.

[2095] But I love just as much, you know, Joey Diaz, he's got this joke about transvestites.

[2096] He goes, I love transvestites.

[2097] They cook, they clean.

[2098] You can beat on them every once in a while.

[2099] The cops come, who are going to believe?

[2100] Me or some dude with a wig and a black eye.

[2101] It's great.

[2102] That's like, just bang, bang, bang.

[2103] I mean, it's just laughing about transvestites.

[2104] It's fucking tremendous joke.

[2105] But you know what I'm saying?

[2106] like that's my that's the kind of shit that'll make me clap and laugh and then hours later he'll be at the diner eating clapping and laughing you know it's like that's that's my favorite kind of comedy i like just stupid shit that's why i like old steve martin yeah exactly yeah old steve martin was awesome yeah what are your favorite comics like today that work today i just watch burr again on letterman i think billy's just like he's one of the funniest guys out there and I think he, you know, he's like a...

[2107] He's an architect, man. He gets out there and he fucking figures out.

[2108] And he's just funny.

[2109] It's just about fucking being funny.

[2110] And he's not going to use his power to, you know, like, you know, do that.

[2111] Try to get later.

[2112] Yeah, just a funny cat, man. He's just, it's all pure.

[2113] I like to watch in, you know, Chappelle before, you know, he kind of disappeared.

[2114] You know, I always appreciated watching Dave get up the...

[2115] As a guy who's, like, on the same level as him, like, fame -wise, does it freak you out that he doesn't fucking perform in these big places?

[2116] Does it freak you out that, like, you're like, why don't you?

[2117] you like let people know where you're going to be man why don't you do more shows like it's one of the best ever one of the best ever right now and it's it's so rare to hear he's i don't know dave personally it's all like i don't have insight but just from what i hear you know he's just he's he's got some stuff to work out you know so maybe he's just not in a place where he can face that head on i know i'm putting it yeah i know what you're talking about i mean i heard that crazy story about the um whatever the hell happened on the airplane right where they had to land somewhere and the pilot thought that he was a hazard to the flight so they landed early.

[2118] That's extreme.

[2119] You know, that's extreme stuff.

[2120] I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I met him when I did, I mean, comedy clubs in New York and I did this appell show twice and he's always been a cool dude, but I never got to know him deep.

[2121] Yeah.

[2122] I don't think he's like that though.

[2123] I don't think a lot of people know him really personally.

[2124] He's kind of, you know, living in fucking Utah or somewhere and just...

[2125] Ohio.

[2126] Yeah.

[2127] Yeah.

[2128] Yeah.

[2129] Yeah, it's strange, huh?

[2130] Yeah, but you know, that's one of the things that I said also that I think people really love about him is the fact that he is kind of reclusive he is kind of like the reluctant star and one of the things that people will like go after you is like that you already have attention so they're like why this fucking guy want more attention you know right yeah like you're fucking attention whore look at this attention whore show your mouth attention whore yeah it's like that's what it is like people think that like when you promote if you're self promoting that somehow or another you know you're doing something to them sure you know do you get that like stop fucking spamming me it but it You know, any level of success and what I've learned having, you know, again, slow but short trajectory is like there's always more people that don't like what you do, then more like what you do.

[2131] And that's it.

[2132] And you just attract more of people that like you, more don't like you, will be attracted to you and tell you.

[2133] Of course.

[2134] I mean, like I said, I'm totally hypocritical.

[2135] I hated a serious man and I went on Twitter and I'm like, seriously fucking sucked.

[2136] You know, if somebody could have seen me, you know, perform and, you know, did the same thing.

[2137] but that's okay though you got to realize that you know there's gonna people there's a lot of music that I fucking love and you know if you know Mrs. Rogan gets in the car with me she's like what the fuck are you listening right and I'm like this is I was made for loving you okay yeah you don't know this you don't know this fucking song you know somebody like Chappelle though I mean regardless of what he's dealing with there's so many when Steve Martin did arenas Steve Martin was doing also he wasn't doing like when people say like arenas today yeah I'm doing maybe 20 ,000 people that dude was doing fucking and 60 ,000 people in an arena where he was partitioned with no screens, nothing.

[2138] Man, Mike, white suit, dot on the other side of the place.

[2139] So you understand.

[2140] But with me, it's like, I have the most amazing, like the guy that comes out, my road guy, Al Dottley, he did Zeppelin, he did Elvis, he's got all the gadgets.

[2141] We put screens.

[2142] We make you feel like you're in your living room.

[2143] I go in the middle, not because I want to be a gladiator, because it's four theaters at any point.

[2144] It's easier to be close to people from the middle.

[2145] It wasn't like a thing where it was like, yeah, by being in the middle, I'm the rock stars.

[2146] No, it's like, I need to be as close to people in these big shows as possible.

[2147] I've only done one theater in the round show ever, maybe two.

[2148] Was it in Cape Cod?

[2149] No, I don't think I did that.

[2150] Salt Shore.

[2151] Did one in Phoenix.

[2152] Remember that round?

[2153] Oh, yeah.

[2154] What was that one?

[2155] That was a minute of comedy tour.

[2156] The whole stage was a circle and it turned.

[2157] I think it was Phoenix.

[2158] Yeah, I did something in footage.

[2159] It always weirded me out that people were behind me. You know, this fucking, this is strange.

[2160] I'm performing and I'm not looking.

[2161] There's people behind me. Like that, I couldn't get past that.

[2162] That was freaking me out.

[2163] But it really is smarter, right?

[2164] It's like more dynamic.

[2165] It's a three -dimensional approach as opposed to like standing in this one plane, facing this one way every time.

[2166] Yeah, when people are behind you too, and I always keep a little light on everybody, there's a constant flow of energy by seeing other people and feeling.

[2167] It's just, there's something unique about being in the middle.

[2168] Right, like they're seeing people, not just you.

[2169] Yes.

[2170] They're not just seeing a stage with you.

[2171] They're seeing people watching you, and that isn't at it.

[2172] Oh, that's interesting.

[2173] Absolutely.

[2174] That's an interesting way to look at it.

[2175] Yeah, like everybody's like, whoa, we're on this together.

[2176] If you're just talking about on an energy level, if you want to talk about that.

[2177] Like, for me, it's like what you put out there.

[2178] And it doesn't dissipate the way I feel it does when you're just launching it at them.

[2179] Like, you're meant to look at me. When they feel like they're part of it, they're connected to it, it's a different kind of comedy, man. It's a different show.

[2180] And the screens, look, I got all four.

[2181] So even when my back's due, there's never.

[2182] a bad seat.

[2183] Even if you're up top, you're looking directly out at a screen.

[2184] So we figure out how to make it work.

[2185] That's pretty fucking bad, actually.

[2186] It's got to be really strange to do shows for that many people.

[2187] What does it like to do a show for 20?

[2188] I think the most I've ever done, come out and do it.

[2189] Come out and do a gig.

[2190] Come out and open.

[2191] I'm telling you.

[2192] No, I'm serious, man. I always have people, you know, people who've never done those size shows on the last tour.

[2193] I just be like, dude, come out.

[2194] Come out.

[2195] And it was great, man. And everybody thinks, it's not going to work for me there.

[2196] It's like, no, First of all, my fans are comedy fans.

[2197] They're not the kind of people that get like, oh, we're just waiting for...

[2198] They love comedy, most of my fans.

[2199] And you never want to go back once you've done big shows like that in the round, man. Really?

[2200] Yeah, I promise.

[2201] Very bizarre.

[2202] Yeah, no, you dig it, man. You dig it.

[2203] I have a shiny bald spot in the back of my head.

[2204] We powder you up, Joe.

[2205] I'm telling you right now.

[2206] I got all that shit.

[2207] Are you kidding me?

[2208] I'm thinking...

[2209] No hat, man. 20 ,000 people.

[2210] What is the biggest crowd you've ever performed?

[2211] Gator growl?

[2212] Gator growl.

[2213] 48 ,000 in Florida.

[2214] Whoa, Gainesville?

[2215] Mm -hmm.

[2216] Damn, 48 ,000.

[2217] Holy shit.

[2218] That was pretty cool.

[2219] What the fuck was that like?

[2220] That first laugh was like, it came across the field.

[2221] That's insane.

[2222] But I would never want to do that size and that, like, a stadium if I could do that again.

[2223] Doing an arena, it's compact.

[2224] Everybody's right on you.

[2225] And could you imagine eating shit on stage in front of 48 ,000 people?

[2226] Could you imagine bombing?

[2227] Can you imagine hitting a joke, especially if you did a controversial joke and they didn't like it and they turned on you?

[2228] 48 ,000?

[2229] And maybe you've got to still do another 40 minutes.

[2230] Oh, my God.

[2231] You better make sure that's what, and trust me, I made sure it's like, my fans are showing up for this.

[2232] I'm not setting myself up for that kind of fucking.

[2233] Do you still look back and remember the first time you ever bombed?

[2234] Yeah.

[2235] Oh, yeah.

[2236] A bunch of them.

[2237] I just wrote, I'm -called New York.

[2238] I just wrote a chapter in this book I'm writing all on the very first time.

[2239] time I ever bombed, which is a horrible, terrible disaster that I'll never forget, because it was the first time I ever bombed while I was getting paid.

[2240] Oh, shit.

[2241] That's a big difference, right?

[2242] Bombing at open mic nights.

[2243] Everybody's bombing.

[2244] You know, it's like, there's like, five people are going to eat shit on stage, and you're only up there for five minutes.

[2245] But once you do a paid game, and I was middling, I shouldn't have been middling.

[2246] I really didn't have the time.

[2247] And the guy who went on before me fucking crushed, and there was this chick that I had seen the last time I was there, and she was super hot, and I fucked her, and she was in the front row, and she brought her friends and their friends look and they were going to sit in the front row when I went on stage so I was panicking I was like they're going to be right in front of me I was only like a year into comedy year and a half yeah yeah and this guy went up who was the emcee was way better than me he was already better than me and I was like I conned this fucking book me into making me a middle I was like it's a cocky douche I can be I can middle come on I can middle so he lets me middle on this guy goes on stage and destroy and he stopped doing comedy he's really too bad he's a natural I don't remember his name unfortunately but he fucking killed and then I went after him and ate just dry bricks of shit with no water for 20 minutes it was the most embarrassing feeling I'd ever had in my life I couldn't believe how unbearable it was and her and her friends were like looking at each other and her friends would lean over and say something like he happened oh no and then I could hear crickets and I'm trying to be like extra loud because I'm trying to like be trying to bring it back to my side so like you like force the punch lines and the timing is all off and it's suffering even worse and my only experience with being nervous before my only experience with pressure had been fighting so when you know fighting in tournaments you know if you're nervous you just turn inward and you say this doesn't matter how I'm going to do this I'm going to do this I'm going to fucking explode I'm just going to fucking go.

[2248] You're terrified but you just get psyched up to go which is the worst thing you could ever do on stage to be nervous and aggressive and fucking and all introspective and turned into yourself I don't get the fuck what they think I'm just going to go it's the worst mindset ever for comedy That's called being Carlos Monsia.

[2249] I'm going to turn it in.

[2250] I'm going to explode.

[2251] The most feud.

[2252] I had to do, uh, did you ever do shows without microphones?

[2253] Oh, yeah.

[2254] Bachelor parties?

[2255] Ever do a bachelor party on the mic?

[2256] I did.

[2257] Yeah, I used to do like, uh, colleges around Boston where they'd hire me and I'd be like where there's, I'd be standing on a pool table.

[2258] I did one in the cafeteria, standing on a cafeteria chair, uh, table.

[2259] Yeah.

[2260] Rickety table like I couldn't move.

[2261] That was their, their stage.

[2262] I did a place in Florida called the Rath Skeller.

[2263] They hired me to come down and it was like one of my first road gigs.

[2264] And it was the thing where it's like there's food being served during the TVs are on.

[2265] Like all that shit where it's like the whole, everything is happening and I'm doing stand -up and like somebody threw a hot dog at me like five minutes into an hour.

[2266] Those gigs are so important, man. All those shit gigs that Boston comedy used to book and all those little weird fucking places in New Hampshire, you would drive an hour and a half up to, you know, New Hampshire and do some weird.

[2267] bar with a tinny sound system those are so good though when you look back at it now like how important were those like for developing your ability to like focus on stage and kill and cut the fat out of your act and driving home from Orno Maine once I got a gig up there and it was the first time that I remember a few years and I drove home and I'm like all right this this matters even though it was horrible I was like this matters this someday I will look back on tonight know that like I learn fucking something here oh man but it was you know I want to come back.

[2268] Yeah, you do those gigs and you're just like, wow, like this doesn't even feel like show business.

[2269] It feels like...

[2270] I did a thing with this guy, Scott Papacuri.

[2271] He used to book the Matapoise it in, this little tiny shithole.

[2272] But it was a great little room where I got to see Teddy Bergeron, by the way, who was a fucking genius.

[2273] Yes.

[2274] One of the best comics ever.

[2275] One of the best comics ever had one of the best Tonight Show sets of all time.

[2276] Did you ever see his Tonight Show set?

[2277] Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[2278] Maniacly good.

[2279] Another guy where you're like, how could this guy?

[2280] not be in everybody's, you know, mind as one of the greatest comics ever.

[2281] Yeah.

[2282] And this guy's got Papua Curee booked a gig for he and I on Block Island.

[2283] And Block Island is like an island outside of Rhode Island, I think.

[2284] And there's nothing there.

[2285] It's just drunk, retarded fishermen.

[2286] And they are dumb as fuck.

[2287] And they're so drunk, they are all of them.

[2288] There's maybe 20 people in the room.

[2289] All of them are so drunk, they can't even keep their eyes open.

[2290] Their mouths are slag.

[2291] They're like, well, let's go on here.

[2292] And we have to do comedy for them.

[2293] And Scott gets up and starts shitting all over them.

[2294] And he was not really, you know, he hadn't been doing comedy that long then.

[2295] Really probably shouldn't have been on stage in this sort of a situation anyway.

[2296] And I went on after them and they had already turned their backs to the comedy show, like half of them.

[2297] They turned their backs and just started a conversation.

[2298] And we had to stay in a, it wasn't in a hotel room.

[2299] It was in a supply room.

[2300] They had two cots in a supply room with no shower.

[2301] There was a bathroom.

[2302] You know, we could take, like, you know, a horse bath.

[2303] Yeah, a horse bath.

[2304] And, you know, we stayed in this little fucking supply room until we could catch the boat back the next day.

[2305] Oh, man. I did so many of those little ones.

[2306] I mean, colleges where there's no hotel.

[2307] I'm happy to do them.

[2308] You're psyched.

[2309] I got a gig.

[2310] I know.

[2311] At the time.

[2312] Yeah, at the time, you're like, all right, I get a gig.

[2313] I'm making 50 bucks or whatever it was.

[2314] But, oh, man. Brutal.

[2315] Bangor Maine.

[2316] I did a bunch up there.

[2317] Yeah.

[2318] I did a bunch for Norm LaFoe.

[2319] He had all these gigs in Western.

[2320] Massachusetts way out there where you had to drive 40 miles an hour because deer would jump in front of your fucking car every five minutes you had to be careful that you didn't die like you get to these certain gigs that were like Berkshire shows yeah especially Western Mass yeah near Amherst I remember there was a lot of two lane roads where you would see dead deer all over the place fucking wrecked cars yeah I nailed one one night did you yeah just his just his ass had just gotten past me and I did the thing where I gunned it I'm like I wanted to swerve the voice was like gun it and I fucking hit him I watched him spin off into the woods Dude you can die from that A lot of people have died from hitting like Especially if you hit a fucking moose If you hit a moose you might be dead That thing might come to the windshield And crush your fucking spine Yeah right I had a dream that Mike Goldberg The guy I work with in the UFC Got killed by a grizzly bear And it was a very graphic movie In my head like a very graphic dream Where it was very realistic Right And I woke up like literally woke up like whoa Like he was with his wife and his kids And they were in a river And a fucking grizzly bear Came running through the bank of the river Jumped into the water And just fucked him up in front of everybody Jesus Yeah Very strange So Mike Goldberg If you're listening But don't go camping Don't go in the river Yeah stay the fuck away Do you think that's the future of That's like 30 years from now That's what fucking sports gonna be It's gonna be literally be like a guy Mix martial arts verse Some kind of hybrid DNA government experiments Like half fucking Cougar The only reason why there's not sword fights on TV is because no one's put sword fights on TV.

[2321] If they were, people would love to watch that.

[2322] Two guys with samurai swords trying to hack each other's fucking heads on.

[2323] I think we're going to produce our very first show together, Joe.

[2324] I love it.

[2325] The Lions versus the Christians, I mean, those people weren't much different than us today.

[2326] How is that different than ghetto gaggers .com?

[2327] How is that different than some of the shit that you watch, like, those Mexican drug dealers cutting that guy's head off with a small knife?

[2328] Have you seen that video?

[2329] No. Fuck.

[2330] You see the suicide?

[2331] jump off the fucking where his head just splits open yeah his head it blows up like a coconut that got shot with a rifle around yeah it's awful you can't unsee that stuff but you should know that it's out there you know when you see someone really fucking shifty when you go to 7 -11 you should know this guy might pull out a gun he might commit suicide yeah who the fuck knows I mean you know you've seen so much fucked up shit on the internet I think to a certain extent it influences people's behavior and it makes people a little bit more fucked up than maybe they could be because they have all this nutty stuff they have access to Yes.

[2332] But on the other side, you should be more aware of, like, what is possible.

[2333] You might be a good person who's always around nice people.

[2334] You're a Mormon or something.

[2335] And so you think everybody's mellow and predictable.

[2336] And then all of a sudden, you're around some fucking gangbanger, and you don't know what the fuck this is.

[2337] Right.

[2338] You don't know what the rules are.

[2339] You don't know what game he's playing.

[2340] Yeah.

[2341] And you know what?

[2342] Most people don't realize in those situations, you have no true.

[2343] You better fight your fucking ass off.

[2344] When you see people going along with it, that's when you're like, oh, this is going to be bad.

[2345] Right.

[2346] I saw a God get knocked out.

[2347] was a he looked like he did these these thugs just found him coming out of a um it looked like a convenience store they knocked him out knocked him out unconscious the guy falls bangs his head off the concrete out cold arms up in there stiff and the dude starts pissing on his face oh man dude pulls a dick and piss on it just decided to knock this guy out of nowhere like you need to know that there's people like that out there right that's real shit i mean you can be paranoid and fucking you know and start dwelling on him and get all second amendment right but how do you get to know that person is they have a facebook page hey i'm in to knocking people out.

[2348] Then my wrap -up is, my tag is I piss on you.

[2349] It was hard to watch, man. It was hard to watch because you see the dude half conscious and the piss is hit in his face and you're just moving.

[2350] You're like, that could be you.

[2351] That could be anybody.

[2352] Anybody who somebody decides to just steal on.

[2353] You're in the wrong place, the wrong time, and some guy who you never saw coming decides to punch you in the face and piss on your unconscious body.

[2354] And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I think that's the end of this fucking podcast.

[2355] I'm glad you came over dude.

[2356] Again, we're sponsored by the flashlight .com.

[2357] You know, you and I have had our differences over the year, but I always respected your ability to market yourself.

[2358] And I always respected your ambition.

[2359] And I think sometimes when people are ambitious, things don't necessarily work out the way they should be.

[2360] But I know you're a good dude, and I know that you're always working on your act.

[2361] I see it all the time.

[2362] I know you're doing the right things.

[2363] And I hear your interviews.

[2364] And I know you're in a good place with your mind.

[2365] And I think that's important, man. And I think it's also important that, you know, at a certain stage in your life, you know, you have to recognize when you've had differences with somebody and, you know, it's not that I don't like you as a person.

[2366] You know, it's just, just differences.

[2367] And I'm glad that we put all that shit past and we hung out.

[2368] Oh, man, that means the world hearing that for me, Joe.

[2369] You know, you get a lot of integrity and I've always had a lot of respect for you, which is part of the reason that there was for me on my side, when anybody ever came to me with anything, it was like, I have really nothing to say about it.

[2370] I hope that time will just eventually figure that out.

[2371] So, I appreciate that.

[2372] Good to be here on your show.

[2373] it again.

[2374] Yeah, dude, for sure, for sure.

[2375] And I think, you know, stuff like this, like I said, is perfect for a guy like you to, so people really get a chance to see who you really are.

[2376] True.

[2377] No bullshit.

[2378] And I don't think anybody who was thrust into your condition is going to come out of it without some scrapes.

[2379] I mean, you thrust yourself into like, really like a stratosphere, like that very few human beings ever have to navigate.

[2380] Comedy low hand.

[2381] And you did it, yeah, you did it over a very short period of time.

[2382] So I think people need to respect.

[2383] that.

[2384] I think you did an awesome job.

[2385] Thanks, man. You got through it and you're doing all the right shit.

[2386] And I enjoyed how you did that isolated incident.

[2387] I was telling people, like, I love how you did it all in one take.

[2388] And you did it all, like, with one camera, like, right on the stand.

[2389] You could tell there was no edits to it.

[2390] I was like, that was really cool.

[2391] That was like a cool, creative choice, you know.

[2392] I think you're doing some awesome shit.

[2393] Oh, thanks, man. Thank you.

[2394] We'll keep up the good work.

[2395] Keep it.

[2396] Good luck with your writing.

[2397] I'm going to get that program, by the way.

[2398] Yeah, write room, folks who are into it.

[2399] I think it only works for the Mac, but I know that there's a version of it for the PC as well that does the exact same thing and it's just for all you creative types who are easily distracted and if you're also easily distracted and you have a hard time of writing pick up this book called The War of Art I think it's Stephen Pressfield is a guy who wrote you ever heard of it?

[2400] Fucking incredible war of art I bought a bunch of them and I give them out to people yeah I think I might have one I'll give one to you it's an amazing book and it's all about how you can overcome resistance and focus your mind for writing really really brilliant book I need that writer.

[2401] Yeah, everybody does.

[2402] With the book, man. But he was, you know, he talks about it in the book.

[2403] I mean, here's a guy who really didn't become successful as a writer until he was in his 40s.

[2404] And he recognizes his own errors and what his own, like, bad patterns of thought.

[2405] And he sort of addresses all of them that all creative types have in this thing.

[2406] Cool.

[2407] Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, Twitter .com slash Dane Cook, Twitter .com slash Red Band.

[2408] I'm Joe Rogan.

[2409] Thanks for tuning in, you guys.

[2410] And we'll see you next week.

[2411] Love you, bitches.

[2412] Thank you.