Transcript of Nate Bargatze

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

And today we celebrate Nate Bargatze.

Yeah, you made it Italian.

I did. It sounds so Italian, but he does not present as Italian.

Does not.

Nate Bargatze is a stand-up comedian and an actor. His credits include Your Friend Nate Bargatze, Hello World, The Greatest Average American, The Tennessee Kid. His stand-up is so damn funny. Yeah, it's so funny.

The world agrees he's a big deal.

I'm the last to acknowledge this, uh, but by gosh. And he has a new movie out on May 29th called The Breadwinner, which is just a bullseye of his comedic brand. If you like his stand-up, which I know everyone does, you're gonna love The Breadwinner. Please enjoy Nate Bargatze. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new US home of Formula 1. Starting March 7th, you can watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. Watch every race live only on Apple TV.

You're a fancy man.

Fancy?

Well, it's, you know, I have a bunch of stuff this week, so then they all come to everything.

Are you touring right now?

Yeah.

Where are you at?

I'm in the middle of it. It'll end in August.

How many dates?

Probably 150 or something like that, maybe more.

Almost every other day.

Almost, yeah.

How are you maintaining your energy? Are you concerned about that? I know, it's like I would read these things about Leno, he's like hosting The Tonight Show and then somehow doing 80 dates a year, and I'm like, how the fuck is this man doing all those things?

I have pretty good energy. Where I live, we got a crazy storm, so I was in—

I lost like 5 trees in my yard.

You know where?

Mount Juliet, where you were a waterman.

Yes, I heard y'all were out there. You're out there full time yet?

I wish. No, all summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas, any moment we have 3 days, we're there. We love it so much. Yeah, our friend Hannah, who's staying at the house because she knew she was gonna lose her power where she was at— can we stay at your house? Great. And she's just sending more and more photos every day, like, this tree's down, this tree's down. So you were in Nashville this morning?

So I was in Toledo Saturday, supposed to go to Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville got canceled because the weather, so I was gonna go home, but the weather got kind of just too crazy of a— we got stuck. And so then we went to Vegas.

They got full power in Vegas.

They got full power in Vegas. We did the same thing. We did not lose power, but like my brother, he's got his power back. So then I got my buddy Brian, his family's lost power, so they're coming over today.

There's a ring that I love. And then there was yesterday, my wife goes, I told Benny and his 3 roommates from Ole Miss they could come up and stay at the house because they lost power. Like, first of all, what is the same plan? They're gonna drive 7 hours because the fucking power's out, and then 3 dudes that are in college at my new house? No way.

Yeah, yeah.

And I said, you bet. And then luckily they got halfway there and then they jettisoned the plan.

On icy roads, like, that's not the smartest.

Yeah, you're already there.

Yeah.

And I looked up the weather, I was like, bro, it's 43 tomorrow, I think the ice issue is going to be gone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wherever Ole Miss is.

Oxford, Mississippi.

Yeah, that's got to be further south than Mount Juliet, we would agree.

Much further.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What if that was a skill you had where we'd set a college and you knew exactly the town it was in.

I bet you do, because touring, touring and college football, you could name a college and I could maybe—

who's your team? Are you a Tennessee—

I'm a Vanderbilt fan.

Okay.

I did not go to Vanderbilt.

His mother worked in the box office though for the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Yeah, yeah. So grew up a diehard Vanderbilt fan.

Now where do you live currently in Nashville?

Brentwood. I'm from Old Hickory, which is the side you're on.

Yeah, you went K through 4 there. Yeah.

No, I was public till 9th grade. I went to Donaldson Christian my senior year. My dad was a teacher, and so he was able to teach there, and then we were able to afford to go there.

Yeah, he was what, history teacher there?

Yep.

Is that a bummer or fun to have your dad teaching in your high school?

You know, I never had him as a teacher because he was teaching a different grade. I played basketball. I got cut all 4 years for my basketball team. The first year, my dad was the assistant coach of the basketball team.

That's—

did he give you the news? Uh, I think I got the news from someone else, but you know he's in on it.

He's the assistant coach. Decision?

Yeah, part of the decision. They sat down.

I was cut too. I tried out with my best friend in 7th grade, and he only tried out because he wanted to hang out with me, and then I didn't make the team and he did. Oh, so then he just quit. Oh, he did? Yeah, yeah. And I was even thinking, well, I wonder if now that he quit, they'll call me. And I don't think I was even second runner-up for the cuts.

He still couldn't get you in. He should have said, I'll only play if you bring—

Yeah, loyalty.

There's brothers in the NFL that are that way, right? One brother I watched is incredible. Real Sports, where one brother, he's missing a hand or something. Do you know this story? And he went to college. He's basically like, I'll play here, but you got to take my brother too. And then the brother is fucking great and he plays with one hand. And I showed my little girls when they were like, 4 and 6, the 60 Minutes segment, are real sports. I'm like, look at these two. That's you two. That's how you be a sibling.

Oh, I don't know.

One of you will lose a hand.

That's right. When one of you—

not if, when.

And we don't know who. I'm betting on you, Delta, but could be you, Lincoln.

Oh God, how athletic and great you have to be to just not have a hand.

No, I mean, it's unimaginable.

It's hard enough with two hands. You and I had everything.

We had all of our appendages. And we couldn't make the team.

And for him to get that high, glide by us— it's like golf with John Daly.

Well, he's a local legend in Mount Juliet.

Yes, he was a guy that was so talented but drank. His warm-up would be 3 Diet Cokes and a couple cigarettes, and then he would just go out. And then he won like a major championship.

He tells the story himself quite often. He loves this story that he invited Tiger at the end of a match to the bar to have some post-match drinks, and Tiger said, if I was as talented as you, I could go have drinks. Yes, but I gotta go practice. And it's interesting, he tells that story and he likes it.

Well, yeah, it's a compliment.

It is.

But what I see is, yeah, now if you had done what Tiger did, you had the talent, God knows if you didn't go to the 19th hole. I mean, he had a great time, clearly.

Two majors.

I mean, yeah, yeah, he's got a tour bus, he's got a tour bus, he's doing great.

I watched some documentary, it was like about drug lords on Netflix, and there was a woman from Compton in the '80s, she the biggest drug lord ever. But she was also, growing up, could have been an Olympic sprinter. A person like that, you're just born great. You're a winner.

Yeah.

So it just matters how do you apply it, and so where do you send it? And her path went this other way, and then she's like, all right, well, I'll just be the best. I think she does talks now.

She has a podcast.

She could. She should.

But like motivational speaking.

I thought that's what happened towards the end. But again, now I'm starting to make up.

That's all right. We do a fact check on this show.

But it led us to an incredible segue for me. So your father, I think very interestingly, was a clown and a magician and a motivational speaker.

Yes.

What did his work life look like when you were a kid? First of all, I know you guys are really close. You adore your dad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What did dad's work life look like growing up?

He was a magician. I always say, like, my daughter, your kids, none of this seems out of the ordinary for them. That's all they've ever seen. So it was that kind of aspect. He always had a regular job. He was a teacher, and then he would do magic and stuff.

Well, even let's go back. He was going to be a preacher. Yeah.

Yes. He had a very rough upbringing. My family was in Tennessee. Then his mom, my grandmother, ran away when she was like 17 to Louisville. So my parents are both from Louisville, Kentucky. And then when my dad was 18, he ran away back to Nashville and then lived with our cousin Ronnie Barguetzi, who coached at Vanderbilt too. He was like a coach and broadcaster. So the reason we kind of fell in love with Vanderbilt and then Ronnie, like, kind of got him straight. He's a Christian, saved him.

I mean, was he drinking and floundering?

Yeah, I think he was just lost. You know, my dad had a Christmas where he woke up, all the kids had a present but him and some stuff like that. So he was just kind of lost.

So your dad was kind of the black sheep?

Very much. So he ran away, then moved home and really straightened up. And they were really strict with him, which was something he's never had before. No one ever cared where he was. Now they cared where he was, right? And they're like, you better be home at this time. And my mom and my dad have been together since 7th grade.

Oh, 7th grade, and they're still together?

Yep.

My goodness.

So did she come too?

Yeah, they got married, she came, and then I was born '79. And when I was 5, my dad went to college, Trevecca. Graduated and started teaching and still doing magic and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, to me, all that's show business still. Like, I've interviewed several people that were going to be preachers, or Jack White was going to the seminary, but they wouldn't let him bring his amplifier, so he didn't go. It's just so interesting how many people that desire that—

you feel like you have a communication skill or something. Yeah, just like, I'm gonna head that way.

You feel drawn to stand in front of people and try to convey something.

Exactly. Yeah, I think no internet, even for me, when you've started you don't see anyone succeeding. So the high school I was going to go to is a pretty rough high school. So a lot of parents would try to switch. I went to a very blue-collar Christian school. It wasn't a high, high-end place, but kids had money. You know, you would see— I graduated '97, but they have like a 1997 Mustang and Camaro. And then I had like a 1985 Mazda 626, nickname Old Blue.

Great gas mileage.

Great gas mileage.

Yeah.

So when I look back now, because I'll think about whatever drive or whatever wonder that you could have had, I wonder if I would have had that if I would have just stayed where I was in the public schools. Because as public schools, no one has a nice car. You don't see the teachers. You have no idea that someone could have $1 million. Yeah, like that couldn't even fathom into your brain.

It's not part of reality.

Yes. And when you would see celebrities, that's like seeing a king when you're coming up and you're in a public school and you think, well, what could I be? You could go be a full-time caddy at a very rich golf course. A good racket, actually.

Yes. I don't know.

How you would ever know that someone has done that as a career.

Yes, or even valet parker, because your parents never fucking valeted.

You don't even know about valet, none of it. A restaurant that you could go work out where you're full-time at a 5-star restaurant, that's a career.

And I agree, I always get asked in interviews, when did you know you wanted to be an actor? I hear people say all the time, like, when I was 9, I'm like, I don't know how I would have thought that in Detroit. I never met one, never saw one.

You watch TV and you're like, what are they doing? I want to do it.

They seem like they're from another reality. I know they're That's not even in my world.

I think now with social media, you see behind the scenes and you see their personal life. So maybe you're like, oh, that guy does sound like—

there's no barrier to entry. You can be a producer of content and post it. We just had this expert on talking about this. The internet phase one was all humans could be publishers. Before that, you had to get through the gatekeepers at New York Times to share your thoughts in writing with anyone. Everyone became a publisher for better and worse. Yeah. And then now we're in a phase where everyone's a producer. Or has the capacity to be growing.

The New York Times. I would never even heard of New York Times. Like, right. Like, it's like, yeah, you would hear about some kids make it out of that and they are very curious.

Our world was a lot smaller. That's how we could sum it all up. I think it's like I knew my town and then the town my dad lived in when I'd see him on the weekends and then my grandparents' town.

Yeah.

And that was that.

It was very rural.

It can be rural, but it's not the sticks.

Yeah.

They have restaurants.

But you didn't go downtown when I grew up in Nashville. Nashville downtown was pretty rough. And so no one went down there.

But Dad, so he did other stuff, obviously. Mm-hmm. But he did perform.

He still did magic. When you look back, he was trying to get a career, but he had a family. And I think he had a chance to move to Vegas, but didn't want to with raising us. And so he stayed in Nashville. And I don't know if I remember exactly how much him going out and trying to do this stuff. My mom did great because my mom had to stay home with us and Dad would go pop off. I remember we had a really big Christmas one year.

What age?

12.

Oh, perfect.

And now I know because it's gigs. My dad just got a lot of Christmas gigs that year.

Yeah.

So it was kind of like we had a little extra money.

What was the big present you got?

I got a snake.

A real snake?

A red-tailed boa. Yeah, I was into snakes.

Oh, wow. You were a weird kid.

Yeah.

Every now and then I'd like hang with a kid and he'd invite me into his bedroom and there was a snake. Yeah, it was a certain type of child. Yeah, that was an amateur herpetologist.

Yeah, I always liked snakes. As I've gotten older, I'm not going to go grab them. All of that went away.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think you felt brave? Like it was a way to exercise bravery in some sense with the snake? Yeah. Yeah.

Because they're scary as fuck.

I don't know if I thought of it that deeply. Really?

I mean, most people are afraid of snakes. It's kind of like an innate human fear.

My dad would just always go grab them and show them.

He was from the country in Kentucky.

He'd handle anything unsupervised. So if he saw something, it was always to show us. We lived in Del Rio, Texas, when I was 5. My dad moved down there to teach at an Episcopal school. We only lived there and then we moved back. But I remember going to church and we saw a snake in the middle of the road. So I'm like 5, and it was doing like the cartoon way where the middle of it would be up.

Oh, yeah.

I was moving. Then my dad got out and caught it and he was like, I'll go show it. We're that family. It's like, I'm going to go show it. The kids are going to love it. Right, right, right, right, right. So then we're driving And then my dad's got the snake. It's like over his shoulder, and I'm like right behind him. And this snake is furious. But then when you get there to the camp, lays it down, all the kids get around it. It's very exciting. That's the family ethos. We kind of are a lot of games. Like you're making up games and you're like, all right, let's play this and that kind of circusy circus.

And there's 3 of you.

There's 3 of us.

In what order are you in that?

I'm the oldest, and then my brother Derek, and then my sister Abigail. Okay.

And you were, by all accounts, a pretty big fuckup. You barely graduated high school and then you go over to the community college, you do a year there, right? And then you end up going to Western Kentucky for a year.

Just one semester. It was all remedial classes at Ball State. And so it was just to try to even get you where you could go to a college.

Yeah. You have the best joke. I heard this morning I was watching one of your standups and you said they call it community college because they have a sense you're going to be staying in the community.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, show you the ropes of the community.

I had an old joke where I would say with community college too, I was like, all my classes were outside because they were like, you guys will be working outside one day, but get you acclimated to the outdoors. Yeah, they just knew. And all my jobs were outside before comedy.

I went and actually got a degree at a community college and transferred.

Sometimes I think about trying to go get just a community college. I don't need the full— I like community colleges for some reason.

Me too.

Good.

They're attainable.

They're very democratizing. I'll say it's what's really great about our country is most countries that have a really good university system, you test in early or you don't go. Whereas our country, you could start at any moment at a community college and transfer somewhere really good. Yeah, that's an incredible part of society.

Trade schools.

People need to go.

My last serious job, I was a water meter reader. You would drive around, I would listen to comedians. And when I look back, I can see it. I would go up and do some shows with my dad when I was a kid. Not a ton, but pop up. I'm around it. Yeah.

And you liked—

and I liked it. I like the comedy aspect. I like making people laugh. The magic part of it, I don't know. I mean, it's a lot of work. I mean, I could see when my dad does magic, I mean, he's kind of doing it all day at home. And so I liked the making people laugh.

Was he happy? Because I do feel like the idea of a magician or a clown, even a stand-up, I think we're all like, oh, they're funny, they're happy. But more and more people we talk to, I'm like, oh, wow, those people are almost carrying the most weight and sadness. Yeah. And have decided to channel it.

Yeah. I mean, I would think he was happy, but I'm sure there's a mix of both of that. When you're up there on the show, it's so fun. And I just know this from personal experience. When you're up there, it's like the best. And when you come off, it's like reality kind of set back in.

Yeah.

Yeah. You have ultimate control for this finite amount of time, and then you enter back into the real world where you have virtually no control over anything. It can be a little bit disjointed.

Well, you can be celebrated in one sense.

Yes.

I mean, I walk out in front of arenas every night. It's this applause, this big, big, big thing. And then it kind of gets back to normal.

Okay, so I do have one question about the reading the meters. I'm so snoopy by nature. Did you enjoy having full permission to just be like walking onto people's properties and taking a little peek about how people live?

So when we did it, the meters were always in the yard in front. And so you would get a crowbar and it was like a mini manhole. And so you would lift it up, you just go to the top and you just type in what they're doing.

Did anyone ever try to grease you? Like come out and be like, man, type in blah blah blah, we're struggling, let me throw you $20.

Yeah, I don't know if they would try to throw you money, but they would, you know, it's like, no, I'm gonna pay, just give me whatever. And my buddy Michael that I started comedy with, he still works there.

Yeah, I wonder if he's fucking with my meter.

He could be. We can find out.

I want to say this out loud, I am so grateful for the water department in Mount Juliet because we had this big issue with the pool. The autofill flooded for a few days, so I had this crazy water bill. And we call, we're like, I get it on the water bill, but the sewer fee It didn't go into the sewer, went into the lake. And they're like, okay, cool. Like, if I made that call in LA, I would have never got anyone on the phone ever that could have made any decision. And they would have been like, suck a dick, and then hung up. The fact that they were like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I was very grateful for it.

Yeah, I'll let them know and I'll find out if Michael reads your—

what? He might have been the one that was like, what the fuck happened here?

I'll just have Michael pop up to your house, sniff around. Yeah, yeah.

Take some selfies.

Yeah, yeah. He still works. He told me recently, I think he had someone that was upset with them and said, you know, Nate Bargatze used to work here and I'm going to tell Nate how you are doing. Not knowing that he was the one. Yeah, that he started. He was like, all right, tell him. I'd like to think that I have that much pull still at that water company. I go, Miss Jill, we're going to back off for a little bit.

All right. We're going to take our foot off the gas. They need a second to breathe and catch their breath. Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah, you and Michael move up to Chicago to start comedy. You try Second City.

Second City. I did it very brief.

And why wasn't that a match for you?

I knew I was always going to be clean, and so I could tell you did improv. I can't control where they're going to take you.

Not only can you not control, you're obligated to join them. That's, that's the buy-in.

Yes.

So if he says, my condom fell off, guess what?

You guys were using— yeah, I can maybe not curse in it, but I'm gonna be in a predicament.

You just die.

You die in every scene. And when you start too, they all go dirty.

Yeah.

So everything is kind of dirty.

It's the easiest route to take.

So I pretty quickly was like, yeah, this is not gonna match with what I want to go do. And I already wanted to do stand-up. Michael wanted to try Second City. It was almost like I just needed someone to go like, hey, I'll try something different, you want to go? And you're like, yes. That's what you need.

That's all you needed. I needed Aaron to try to join that basketball team with me.

Yeah, yeah, you just need something, someone to kind of come in. Like, you really want to do it, but you're so scared to say you want to go do it.

And I love how much you talk about this. I think it'd be very comforting for all the people that are trying comedy. You're really honest about the fact that you had gone to— is it Jim Roth?

Yeah, Jim Roth.

Yeah, went to comedy college. And I think a lot of comedians are too cool for that or would turn up their nose at that. And you were like, for me, I needed some starter stuff between that and open mic.

Yeah, it's just a comedy class that he does. I mean, he still does them. It's just you're meeting people that are starting. We're all pretty nervous. Yeah. And we're all scared of what's going to happen. There's a comic I remember. He's still a very funny comic, Jon Roy. And he just won Star Search the year I started. So he came in and talked to us. And so you're like, this is nuts, dude. Like, this dude just won. This is 2003. And he's a real comic. And then you would go to open mics and you could grab a guy from that class.

Let's do it together.

Yeah, let's do it together. And then so you slowly start It's kind of like Groundlings.

Yeah, I was going to say I'm going to be even darker, which is— it's so comforting to see minimally some people are worse than you. It's like that simple.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's why punk bands are so encouraging as you go and you're like, I think I might be able to play in a band. The bar's low.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody's trying it and everybody's doing it. You just got to get where you're comfortable to go try stuff and like kind of pushed in the direction.

It's practice.

You have to go.

Yeah, I paid.

It is getting over that fear every time you get up.

Exactly. I remember I wanted to get a call every Wednesday and be like, the building burnt down.

Yeah, right.

I can't do it. And I'm like, oh man. So I could be like, I wanted to do it. You want that. All you're looking for is something so you could be like, even if you never did it, you're like, I tried every time.

Yes. Alleviate the self-flagellation of not trying. Yeah. We just interviewed Anderson.Paak. You know that musician? He's incredible. And he just directed his first movie and his son was in it. And he's like, up until a week week before the movie, I'm just like praying my kid changes his mind and doesn't want to do the movie so I can blame him.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's exactly how the mind works. It's like, how can I still have on record I did everything I could, but then I didn't have to do it?

You didn't have to do it.

So weird. You do a show and you're like, oh my God, it's the best thing ever. And then the next show, you just hope this gets canceled. Your car gets blocked in. I remember my car got blocked in before an improv show, and I was like, I can't make— I'm so sorry, I can't make it. And I was so happy, trying to hide your glee.

Yeah.

So wild.

Yeah, and that's the thing that you got to get over because some people are like, I can't wait.

I know, but are they? Or are they also doing—

Eddie Murphy, like, there are a handful, I think, that were like, step back, motherfuckers, it's time. Yeah, there are those people.

They're very excited and they can just jump right in. And then a lot are like, who do I think I am trying to do this?

Yeah, it's a confidence thing.

And I'm gonna say that you are uniquely challenged because A, the persona you end up carving out for yourself that works so beautifully is not a high-energy rapid-fire thing. So that A works best at an open mic. You have limited time, you gotta crush immediately, you're gonna be clean. You had additional challenges, I would argue.

Yeah.

Why do we decide in '04, I guess, to move to New York?

The documentary Comedian with Seinfeld, I believe it's on Netflix. It's Seinfeld got done with the show and then taped a special. And then was going to build a new hour. I don't know if he taped a special, but he was building a new hour of material. And so it showed him going through the New York comedy scene. If you want to know anything about stand-up comedy, it's still the best one to watch. Anybody that probably around my age or class of starting or really being into comedy that moved to New York is very much because of Comedian.

I think it was in that doc, right, where he says, when I go on stage at this point, I'm gonna get 4 free minutes. Yeah, they're gonna just be so excited I'm there. But then reality is going to take over. That's the beauty of comedy.

Jack Nicholson, they're gonna be like, for 4 minutes they're clapping, and then they're like, all right, yeah, yeah, what do you really got? Tell a joke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's as objective as it gets.

And in New York, you just dive into it and you're just obsessed.

You started as a barker at Boston Comedy Club?

Boston Comedy Club, that was what it's called in New York. And I moved there in '04.

Bert Kreischer was a barker too. So you're standing out there begging people to come in to— Brandon was at that club?

Yeah.

Oh, No kidding. So you're out there on the street begging people to come in and give this comedy show a chance.

You got flyers. So you're standing on a corner and you're like, hey, we got a great comedy show. And I started— if you ever saw Pete Holmes had a show on HBO about his comedy, Crashing. I started with Pete. But yeah, you would stand out. Dustin Chafin, a comic buddy of mine, and we were kind of together during all this time, and he still comes with me out on the road. And he would run a show at Boston Comedy Club. It wasn't a normal— it would start at like 8 during the week and it would run till like 2 AM. Okay. A lot of comedy. Yeah. So there wasn't really set showtimes. You're just kind of trying to get people in, have a couple drinks. You'd be out on the corner and you're like, hey, we got a great guy. And then you would get them to walk in and they could walk in and they'd be like, all right. And then I performed for one guy once. You have two people, then you have—

you perform for a parrot, you said?

Oh yeah, that was in South Dakota. That was on the road. That was on the road. There's a parrot in the room.

Did it talk? Yeah, it'd be great if it was heckling you.

It did with its loud screams, and they're hard to time, you know. You don't know when they're coming.

You're a hack.

Yeah, yeah.

I was in South Dakota and at an indoor pool, and oh my God, it's a human in there. Yeah, you're staying in that hotel, like your whole world just in this thing. Yeah, there's two shows, so there's a pair in the back and you're like, what? Why does he have to be in here? And the guy was like, he likes the shows. And you're like, what? All right. You know, and you're just like getting paid. Yeah.

It's shocking that alcoholism tracks high.

High.

I mean, you're just sucking some shit whole hotel for 3 days. I mean, come on.

What are you going to do? You try to do your show. Parrot's yelling.

Oh my God.

Then you do the second show. The parrot's not there. And so I go, where's the parrot? He goes, well, he has his own room. And you go, why don't you put him in there?

Yeah. I thought like the parrot lived in that room. Sure. Yeah. Logical assumption.

He goes, no, the parrot only watches one show. Then he goes, Flattering.

It's flattering.

Yeah.

Now, how did you socially get along with all the other comedians? Because I'll say, the improv sketch scene is lovely. It's akin to Broadway people. Like, everyone's insanely supportive. I got along instantly with everyone. But when I did stand-up, I felt like that vibe was trickier for me to navigate. And you're from the South and you were clean. How did that whole aspect—

I think it's kind of like school. You just find your group that you're kind of going to be with. Weirdly, my group that I was the closest to were the dirtiest comedians. Big Jay Oakerson, Luis J. Gomez, Dan Soder. Dan Soder's not the dirtiest.

That almost makes sense, by the way. Yeah, because you're not doing the same thing. You're no threat in some sense.

Yes.

They're playing the fucking trumpet and you're playing stand-up. That kind of makes sense.

I would open for them. The shows I would do a lot coming up, they were uncensored and they were advertised edgy. Was super sexy at the time when I was in New York. That's when Burr started. Burr was a big one for me because I watched Burr kind of become Burr. And so he was just doing spots. I remember when I was handing out flyers one time and I go, hey, we got a show, and it's Bill Burr. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. And he was doing his first Letterman. So we would know him as a club, but it's not like people knew him. And then the Opie and Anthony rant happened where he just roasts Philadelphia. I don't know if you've ever seen it. No, it's amazing. You should go look. So it's Opie and Anthony was a radio show. And so they had comics and then they do a live show and they're doing this live show in Philadelphia and they're just booing every comic. They booed Bob Saget, Tracy Morgan, they booed everybody. And so then Burr went up. It was on YouTube. This is kind of right when we're even— a video could be uploaded and all this kind of stuff.

And so Burr goes up and just starts tearing into this crowd. Well, they love it. And so, I mean, he's just trashed.

Oh my God.

Oh, I'm You must see it. One man versus Philadelphia.

So that was a big, big thing where it was funny is we would go watch Bill Burr at Carolines because Burr was the comic we all were like, can we go see Burr? Can we go see Burr? Yeah. Louis C.K. was kind of right above Burr, so he was like a little bit older at the time. So Burr was like the younger next. Something I learned too from Burr is I remember right after that Philadelphia thing, he would do a show and they would start going like, I'm from D.C., I'm from Texas, start trash. And they wanted that and they wanted to get roasted. They want to get right.

And he's like, no.

He goes, I got an act. And it was like a learning moment to go like, oh yeah, you don't give them what they want. That could have been his whole life. His whole life. So the rest of your life you have to go to towns.

Also, you think about how much more work you have. Everywhere you go, you've got to learn everything about— if your whole, yeah, routine is like— and you're in Skokie, Illinois, I don't know how much stuff you're gonna be able to dig up.

Oh, you need a team.

Kohler, Wisconsin, making toilet bowl jokes.

And then you're also encouraging that your audience is going to yell And they're going to lead you.

You're not going to lead them.

No. And they're going to be just screaming. And then it's not a fun life. That's the thing sometimes with, like, the crowd work comics. Unless you're, like, a phenom like Matt Rife or some of these other guys— Trevor Wallace, Nate Jackson's another one— where these guys are really, really good. Ian Bagg. When you go down that route, if you're not going to become the best at it, yes, you're going to invite a lot of problems.

Yes, yes, you better be very skillful.

Yes, it's not easy to do and it's not consistent. And then you also end up getting some jokes. I mean, if y'all are married and you're like, oh, interracial couple married, well, I'm gonna have 10 of them. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, you have a kid, you divorced, you have this, you're going to end up having stuff.

Yeah, you have a routine in essence that is under the veil of improv.

Yes.

Yeah, but it's a bag of tricks. So there's even cheats in improv.

They Yeah, I've used the cheats. We used to do, in New York, you perform for a small audience. It was like, we could have just done this in a cab. And that was like everybody.

Yeah.

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I remember one comic, we were in the back and someone said that, and then this other comic next to me goes, "Dude, that's my joke." I remember just thinking, it was like little lessons that you learn where you're like, no, I think we're all saying— I think we've all agreed that we can all say that. It was just the idea that he's like, "Are you kidding me?" "You stole!" Yeah, yeah.

Were you ever tempted, like when you're seeing seeing Burr do his thing and it's crushing and all these people are crushing, are you like, should I try to do something a little dirtier?

Should I try? My mind just didn't go that route of writing that kind of way. I never wanted to make someone feel bad in the crowd. I just didn't like it. It would make me so uncomfortable to do that. So I was always making fun of myself. Yeah, so I think it kind of kept me in that realm. I had a joke on YouTube though, and it was one that I didn't like that I put up. Remember, there was a bunch of prostitutes being murdered in New York when we were there. And so then it was a joke kind of about that kind of situation, right? I'm a young comic, it works very much in those rooms.

Yes.

And then I did it maybe out here. I didn't put it up on YouTube, but it got put up on YouTube.

Yes.

And then I remember, this is kind of early on MySpace, and so then actually a lady that is in that line of work messaged me something. And then I wrote back and said, look, I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was going to go up, I wouldn't do that joke again. And I know why I did it. I know why I came up with it.

But yeah, I felt bad.

I was like, I'm so sorry.

That's just so rare in this space. It's so rare.

He just made himself in the running for Best Boy Award.

I know.

Last year I went to Jimmy Kimmel's.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's the very best.

Yeah, just keep your eyes peeled for that.

Yeah, make room on your bookshelf.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. You know, we've had other comics on. Everyone's great, but they don't feel bad. They double down on why they can be, which is fine.

There's a lot of reasons for that where that works.

Yeah.

And there's another reason you need that. You could have a mix of both. I always think about a singular person, you know. It's like this group thought where you think, like, even in this country where it's all so nuts and everybody's so crazy, but if you pulled everybody individually and you could get them and talk to them one-on-one, you would go like, we're the exact same person for sure, right?

I know.

And so it's like that kind of aspect. You do you.

You have no judgment over anyone else that's doing their thing, and you recognize there's space and a need. Because let's be truthful, also comedy is this incredible political force, often for good. And people should do that, and people should do what you do.

They should. You can have everything that you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we live in a world where you can select exactly which—

that was even a hard decision when it was getting political, saying your opinions. And there was a time where it was like a lot of comics that were younger than me were just flying by me career-wise because they were being more vocal on both sides, whichever way, but just politically vocal. I want everybody to do everything that they want to go do, and there's places for all of them.

There's a lot of arenas.

There's a lot of arenas. I just felt like I have a direction I'm supposed to go. I mean, I was very pulled because it was just like people were passing.

Yes, it was happening to us in the podcast space. There were moments where I was like, huh, I could shore up half this, you know.

Exactly. It's right there on a platter for you to take, and you got to just sit. And I trusted that I'm being led, I'm supposed to be, and you just go, I'm not going to do it. And then I see signs of it now more than ever, where I'll have someone come to a show. One girl, she's 16, and she's at my show with her dad. It was very just honest and upfront and went through a hard time, was going to kill herself, started listening to my comedy, then got them listening to my comedy together because you weren't pushing them apart, you weren't going to get them in a fight. Yes, they're laughing at me, I'm being dumb. And then that story kept happening more and more where I would have people come up. And so then now you do get to a point where you go, I have a trust to that audience. I can go to San Francisco, I can go to Alabama, both sides, they want to come.

Well, and the dad and the daughter, who most certainly have different political leanings—

oh yes—

get to come together, and they normally wouldn't have anything in common, but now they have this thing they can share, and that's fucking valuable.

And music, TV, movies, they don't have anything right now with a lot of entertainment, even family is Disney or animated movies. That's it. You're trying to have this kind of thing where you're like, yeah, we all want to go. That's why sports are so big.

Mr. Mom. Your movie is Mr.

Mom. Mr.

Mom. And when I was a kid, everyone from every edge of the spectrum was at Mr. Mom.

Yeah. You need to be a place of haven.

Yeah. I've been thinking about this so much, obviously, because there's a lot of pressure to state your political opinion, and I have a lot of them. But I think not doing it, and as you say, like, have a space where everyone can listen, or you can show the humanity of people, you can laugh at something unrelated is political. That's a weird thing to say. It is a force to drive people together, which should be the hope. As you said, we're all the same. That is a political stance that we're all the same. So we're not saying it out loud, but hopefully that's what we're showing.

So this movie that we have coming out, it's my first movie and it's cute. I think very funny stuff. I'm a comedian, so like, I mean, I have funny stuff that won't feel like it's written down for children. But it's fun. It's Mr. Monk. We're not doing anything too crazy.

I was watching the clips last night.

Yeah.

And my daughter was walking through the room and she was hellbent on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She's already announcing, that's what we're going to watch tonight. My other daughter's like, no, we're going to watch Palm Royale. There's already a debate heating up.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, okay, well, everyone's yelling. I'm going to watch these clips for tomorrow. And then both of them just shut up because there was kids their age and they were talking to the dad forcefully.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I like that. This.

One of my favorite scenes from The Office— so when Jim and Michael Scott were managers, they were co-managers, and then they were going to be layoffs, and Michael Scott is playing a detective game or whatever, and then Jim comes over and Jim's frustrated because everybody doesn't know if they're going to get laid off or not laid off. And then he sits there and Jim pulls Michael Scott aside and is like mad to be like, we need to be talking about what's going on. And then Michael Scott just goes, this game is all that matters right right now. We don't know anything that's happened, but this game is just a distraction. And I've always thought of that moment as one of my favorite moments of that series, because it's like, that sometimes needs to happen. You need that distraction to go, it doesn't matter right in the moment. This thing doesn't matter. It's out of our hands. It's something that's not controlled. And again, there's plenty of places to go find it.

All I'm saying is like, it's okay to take a break, even if that's your main thing. It's also healthy to take a break.

Why Why is Friends still the highest-rated show on Netflix? You go look at the top movies on all these things, you know, be a couple— Jason Statham, anything he puts out, I've watched all of them.

He puts asses in seats.

Yeah, it's like I'm gonna get to watch it and it's fun.

Yeah, I think Zootopia was like the highest movie.

Yeah, but they don't go to old movies. People just need a break and everything is so like hopeful too heavy. You got to be so invested. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, they just want to go back. There was a period where, yeah, it felt like it was that, and then it just went a too far.

Everything was taking me to church, for lack of a better word. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't need to— I want a break. And by the way, I bet you feel the pressure that Monica and I feel, which is— make no mistake, I got a lot of fucking opinions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, I don't want someone to not feel welcome listening to whatever we have to offer. I don't want to alienate anyone, and I want everyone welcome. There's a lot of criticism that has come with that, but my higher principle is much more—

I would always want everyone to feel I saw something today that said the biggest political move you can make is consider more people friends. And I was like, that's so true. That is sort of our goal here is get to know every single person. If you really get to know every single person, it's hard to judge.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah. And then I want to hear everything. There's a comic, Patrice O'Neal, that passed away, but very, very dirty.

Yeah, he was nasty, but unbelievable.

He was actually in The Office.

Yeah, I've seen him do stand-up a few times.

And so I remember when we'd be hanging out, I first moved to New York. I'm from the South, so he was like, you don't believe in dinosaurs? And at the time, I don't think I even realized that that was like a stereotype.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That we wouldn't believe in that. I mean, now I know people that don't believe in that. I know people don't believe in a lot of things.

Some people don't believe the Earth is round.

You know what, I'll talk to that person.

Sure.

That guy is way more interesting to talk to than just like the Earth is round.

Around Earth. Boring.

You're like, I would rather better talk to that guy because again, I know my beliefs.

Yeah.

So I'm not going to be swayed, but just pure enjoyment. And so he asked me if I didn't believe in dinosaurs. I said, yeah, I don't.

Oh my gosh.

I just was like, I didn't even know that this was— I was like, I'm gonna just go the whatever.

Yeah, you're improving.

I'm improving, having fun. So then cut to later on, he was having a party at his house. My buddy Jay— I wasn't supposed to be going, and he He goes, what? He goes, that guy doesn't believe in dinosaurs. You don't think I don't want that in my house? I want that all over my house. And I very much believe in dinosaurs, just to say. But it was like, that mentality changed my life because it was a welcoming mentality to be like, what if I didn't? What if I really—

you're welcome here—

didn't believe in dinosaurs? He still is going to be like, dude, I would love to talk to you about why you don't believe in dinosaurs.

Yeah, well, how do you explain these fossils? I'm so curious.

He would have believed dinosaurs, and he's not going walk out going, I don't believe in that again. You know what?

He changed my mind.

Yeah, maybe it does happen. He goes, this guy was good.

So I want to talk about— you're in New York, you're starting to do shows. It takes you a year before you're starting to even get paid $25 or whatever a show. I want to know when— because you've also said the writing the jokes is the easiest part, and the most elusive is to figure out what is my unique delivery system that is true to me, that will define me as a comedian. That's the big battle of becoming a great comedian. So if you moved to New York in '04, at what point do you think you found your actual identity as a comedian?

I was able to write the jokes first, and then naturally I had a slower rhythm just being from the South. I had some kind of voice.

You couldn't escape it.

I couldn't escape it. I sounded different. Every show I went up, I had to say something why I talk like this.

Yes, yes.

So you would start every show like that? It's evolving. It's so insane. This is how much I love staying there. It's like, I remember once I saw an interview with Louis C.K., and Louis C.K. was like, you don't even know what it is to be a comic till you've been doing it 20 years. Which at the time I was like 10 years in. And it's also one of those things that you're like, that's so unfair to say to like young comics.

It's discouraging.

But then I've done it 23 years now and I get it. But you do know what you are as a comic. It's not that you don't No, but the difference at 20 is unbelievable.

Is it the consistency? It's like, you know how to do you.

The way it was said, which was a good way, was, yeah, everything I say is going to be funny now. Your cadence. And then people really know you.

Yeah.

And so then you're able to kind of go like, I know how to do this kind of stuff like that. Like, I look at my stand-up career, I would hope that people would go listen to my first CD and then watch my last special, and then you're actually seeing a life. I used to drink. No kid. I have a kid, I don't drink, I'm married, you know. So you're watching a full-on person's life being told to you. That's what I always thought was stand-up, and that's what I liked about it. It kind of got out of jokes where it ends up being—

even though there's jokes in there, but it's just the next phase, the progression of your maturity.

You got to go live life. And that's what a big thing with comics is— you have to go live a life. You need to go get married or go give kids.

That's what I was going to bring up, is you get married in '08. It's not like you've made it.

I got married in '06.

That had to be rare for the comedians in your group to be committing to someone at that moment because it's such an unstable life. That in itself is a rare choice, I'd say.

Oh yes, when you have a kid, most would be 40 and then they would kind of start their family.

You had been with Laura throughout this whole period?

Yeah, we started dating before I started comedy. We met at Applebee's.

Oh, you were both working at Applebee's?

Met, but we were together when I was reading water meters.

And she's from Alabama?

Yep, Huntsville.

So what was she doing?

She moved to Nashville pretty quick, maybe a little community college type thing, then moved to Nashville and just started working, waiting tables at Applebee's and that kind of thing.

That's a fun place to meet.

Very fun. Yeah, that's also what a ride you two have been on.

Yeah, I mean, she'll tell you, when I first met her, I think it's in me that I wanted to do comedy. My senior year, they wrote like where you would be in 10 years, and I like— my first thing was like, I'll be in the NBA.

Joke.

Yeah, joke. Which I played church basketball for Nashville Baptist Association.

Wow.

So it was technically the NBA.

Congrats.

Oh, nice.

Little loophole.

Then my second one was to perform at Zanies or Comedy Club in town. And so then I ended up doing that. When I wrote it, you're kind of writing it as half serious. You're so protected. Some of Like, you're going to be a comedian.

You don't want to get caught believing in yourself.

So weird.

Sad that we are like that.

Yeah. And I think culturally it's different state to state, city to city. Like where I'm from in Detroit, you're not to be caught believing in yourself. It's not a good look.

Especially for a man, probably. Oh yeah.

My buddy Julian McCullough, who comes out on the road with me, he's from Philadelphia. And if you had dreams, he's like, you never mention them. Like, here it is.

It's like, we're all pieces of shit and we all agree on that. And who the fuck do you think you are? Yeah. I guess they call it Tall Poppy in other countries. But yeah, yeah, the two big first breakthroughs are you do a little spot on Comedy Central.

In 2008, I did Montreal Comedy Festival, Conan, and Live at Gotham.

Things are cracking. You and I had the same experience, funny enough, which is a unique experience that I cherish, which is similarly the first time I did Letterman. Tom Cruise was the first guest, and they had shut down the whole goddamn street. And I pulled up in the SUV and people were fucking pulling their hair out, screaming, cameras cameras were ready and I stepped out. Everyone just went, oh, save your film, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And you had that at Conan?

I had the same thing at Conan. Yeah, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on mine. I pulled up, get out, and right when I get out, all these people come up with cameras. And then I hear them go, it's nobody.

Yeah, to be on TV for the first time.

It's quite a I remember one guy did go, he held his camera up like just to his waist, just in case, I guess. Yeah, like if I was going upstairs to murder someone, like at least he has something. He's like, that's enough.

Like, I got it, Justin, I got enough.

And you know when you pull up, you're like, you know it's coming. Yeah, you're like, can I just get out somewhere else?

Bring me around.

Yeah, let me just walk up to it. Yeah, I'll just walk.

I can come in the front door.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's fine.

The other cute and fun thing is immediately after you are a celebrity— because I remember going with my aunt to see stand-up in fucking Sarasota, Florida, at like a Best Western. And of course the dude— well, I don't care about the dude at all. Then the dude's on stage and I'm seeing a guy on stage get laughs. And yeah, when it's over, I'm like, this guy's Johnny Carson. Like, and now I need a fucking autograph.

Yeah, this guy's rich.

Yes, people love him.

Get into the business, you're like, I mean, that guy, he's my roommate. $7.

Yeah, that guy's struggling.

It's bad.

Yeah, he's drinking a lot.

And yeah, I saw Jim Brewer was the first stand-up comedian I saw at Zanies. And I remember the whole show, seeing the host and then the middle act, and you're like, they're famous. And then you get into it, you're like, that host might have been paid $15. Yeah, he's got to get up the next morning, go to his real job behind the curtain.

It's depressing.

Yeah, you're like, oh, okay.

It never ends, by the way. Every time you get behind a curtain, you're like, oh, wow, okay. So, fuck. I still feel like shit. Okay.

I mean, yeah, even now when you're hosting the award show, do you still feel like no one cares?

I don't feel like they know me. The Emmys is like, you walk out there and you're like, "I don't know..." I was there and you did a great job.

I loved it.

Yeah, yeah.

I had so much fun watching you.

Yeah. I don't think they loved the Boys and Girls Club thing.

I liked that a lot.

I thought that was fun. I will say this. There is an enormous chasm between a live experience and what you see on TV. It's why improv doesn't work on TV. They've tried many times to put improv on TV. It doesn't work. You can't feel the stakes. Makes of it on TV. You're safe in your room. Similarly, like, I've been to SNL and I've seen a few people, and every time I'm like, I think that's the best host I've ever seen. So you don't know what the experience is on TV.

I didn't have a bad experience in there. The only thing I regret with it was I wish I would have went out to the audience and talked to them beforehand, just to go like, hey, I was really doing this, you know. That was a week that was Charlie Kirk. Yeah, that was a heavy, heavy, heavy week. Yeah, I think I wish I came out and like warmed everyone. John Oliver, Seth Rogen, did it good. But John Oliver was great with it where he was like, 'F Nate,' and he would go short to cost me more money. So like some of the comedians like bought into it. Yeah, yeah.

But I understand that some of the actors, when it's these big moments and it's serious, you're threading a needle because all these shows have to be entertaining on the couch to watch.

And the kids were watching it get out of clock. I know, I love the fun aspect to it, to like, 'Oh, you're going over.' And yeah, I was never gonna let— I mean, they did go under, but I did not think they would go under. It was a cool experience. Experience. I would like to do it again and just go back, but y'all do whatever you want to do.

I thought it was just for 20 minutes.

I brought a comfortable chair. Mention every country you want to mention. You don't believe in dinosaurs? Tell them right here. You're safe here.

It is frustrating though, because you were like, we can do something, we can raise some money here, there's some action that can be done. Yeah, the Boys and Girls Club, which we can all agree on is a good cause.

To be honest with you, again, I don't always think of the individuals, but there's a lot of companies there. CBS gave $100 grand, so they're gonna do that. But they were like, if someone wins, they go, whatever she goes over, we'll cover her. I thought they would get it. Everybody has publicists. I thought everybody would go like, yo, if you win, just go, hey, I'm sorry, Netflix, you're giving money to the Boys and Girls Club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I kind of thought of it as a win-win. And I think I wish I explained this for the week that it was. I thought it was like, look, you could go over and just tell Netflix. And on top of you going over and you get to give your big, big, big speech, you get to go, you know what, and Netflix, give Boys and Girls Club $100,000 on my name.

Yes. You thought of the clever fix for them. Yes. But they didn't necessarily come up with that.

But I don't know if that's their fault. Another reason I didn't feel crazy bad about it, I'm not nominated. Yeah, dude, it took me 23 years to get to this, and mine wasn't even on that show. Yeah, yeah, mine was in a garage 2 weeks before. I understand how hard it is to get where you want to get, but then I think of it as the entertainment aspect. Yes, to go like, well, you need to be a show. And that's one of the things everybody tells you, that this is going too long. You mentioned what the problem— what they should fix. And if I would have known— I didn't No, the presenters, they got to chill that out.

I know it's long and people are going off script and I know they want to be funny.

Yeah.

If I could have been live in the moment, started just pecking some time off these presenters. Those guys work hard. Like, yeah, there's so many. They have to come with so many, so many different— there's a lot, a lot, a lot that goes into it. Being a part of it, it's one of those where I was like, I would never do it again. Then you're like, I don't know, I think I can fix it. That's the comic in you. Yeah, the comedian in you. When someone's the comic before you, this crowd's terrible, everybody's— this crowd's terrible, you always go like, well, let me get up there.

Yeah.

And then usually you get up there and they are, and it ends up bad. You have that thing in you.

Yeah.

Where you go like, you go, I bet I can get them.

Yeah. If you don't think you can crack it, what are you doing? It's like, uh, Max Verstappen or one of these racers said, if you're not going for the fucking pass, you're not a race car driver.

So I think the Oscars will be good this year because I think they got a lot of movies that people know.

Yeah.

The F1 centers, people have seen them, have seen them. With TV and the Emmys, there's just much.

It's fragmented.

It's fragmented. And the people at home, you're not thinking about that crowd at home that's watching it. They want to watch an award show. It's live, it's fun, you don't know who's gonna win. It's sports. Yeah, you have sports. Yeah, at your hands. So like, make it sports. Yeah, make it exciting. And then you don't have to come up with a gimmick. You're kind of just purely like, what is going to happen? Oscar parties were always these giant parties and all this kind of stuff. Nothing to say that the movies I know they don't make them.

That's period.

They don't.

Yeah, we're not pulling from the same in the middle. Yeah, we just did this the other day. We read like the '98, every one of them was a $500 million movie and everyone saw it and everyone loved it and they had passed over another dozen great movies to get to the whittle it down.

Yeah.

Okay, so post Live at Gotham and Conan, do your venue size change when you're starting to tour? I guess I'm wondering what are the markers I know there's these big moments for you that get us to 2024, which is an insane year for you. What are the big markers in crowd size, venues?

I love giving advice to young comics because I've done every single gig you could do. I rode all the rides.

Yeah, yeah.

There was no quick— when I got SNL, I was doing arenas. I always say like SNL added the second arena, so it like made me more mainstream. But I went through the whole process of doing the show with Parrot. Yeah. And then being in clubs, you start selling clubs. And it was Netflix, first half-hour Netflix special, which was like a series.

It wasn't even a standalone stand-up.

Yeah, it was a series. Nikki Glaser was in it, Dan Soder, Fortune Feimster, Dion Cole. From that, I was at a comedy club, and the week after that aired, some people came to the show, and I was doing jokes from that special because you didn't have to overturn jokes that much because no one knew. I remember doing jokes, and then I was like, have y'all and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, we just watched the special. And you're like, oh my gosh. So then at that moment you realize like, oh, I have to write a new hour now.

Which is funny, it's different because when I was a kid and you loved Andrew Dice Clay and you'd heard the rhymes, you still wanted to see him do it every time. The paradigm changed a bit.

Stand-up comedy is still of extremely new art. And then what it is today, if you go look at—

and not to mention Bill Cosby's name, he's one of the greatest of all time.

Yeah, but, and he's one of the first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's alive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.

You know what I mean? Like George Carlin, he would be alive. Yeah, George Carlin's not 200.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These guys would all be alive. Seinfeld started— like, Seinfeld's kind of the one now. He's a viral man. Yes, these, these guys are alive. So this art form, how you see it, has changed so much. When they came up, stand-up was a niche thing, and then they had booms, but it was all these live experiences. Places, but you need to get into TV. You need to get a sitcom.

You went on Carson, you got a sitcom.

Yeah, that was the path. Even when I started, that was kind of the path. But then you kind of had the Gaffigan and Sebastian Maniscalco. Dane Cook, I think, was important to stand-up comedy in the fact that you were able to go like, oh, this is a guy in an arena through MySpace as well, not through being on Carson. No. Yes. And Dice Clay was one that you knew from stadiums and all this. But again, this was farther back. Your access to him wasn't as easy to see it, right?

You saw it on HBO when it went live, which is what I saw, and we videotaped it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I would've loved to have gone and seen him in person and do all this stuff I just saw.

Those were giant things that were like going like, look, people are making it to this extremely high level. And then you have Dane Cook where now media and social media and like everything's out. So now everybody gets to watch everything Dane Cook is kind of getting to do. And so then Dane Cook is giant.

I'll add to the Dane Cook thing because I did a movie with him at the peak of that, which was comedy as a cultural identity. So like, when I was watching Dan, I was like, oh, there's something more going on than Richard Pryor. This is like, this is my band I like. Yeah, he is an identity marker for me. That's new to comedy. I think that was like kind of the beginning of he represents what I'm all about. Yeah, as opposed to Dice tells these nursery rhymes and they're funny, or Pryor— no one's watching Pryor going like, yeah, that's me.

You liked his story, and they broke boundaries and they did stuff, and they were just such big big personalities. I mean, especially Dice. I'm such a big fan of Dice, but he was just this big, big personality for the media.

It's like he's on SNL and he's on talk shows.

Yeah, it's like Elvis. It's crazy.

And the movies.

And then even to see where he's at now, then he goes and was an entourage and all this. He's unreal. I want to meet him. But I mean, Dane was a big part of that. Then you got Gaffigan, who's very, very prolific and writes so many hours. I come from the school of writing an act. An act is very hard to create. And that's why there's certain points where you get— it can thin out a little bit, is because you have to keep writing a new act.

You got to feed the machine.

And writing a new act is one of the harder things to do because you got to come up with the stuff. Every time you tape a special, you're like, I don't know what I'm going to talk about.

Yeah, you're going to do an hour of material, but my guess is you're going to workshop 10 hours of material to whittle that down to the 1 hour. Or maybe it's more, I don't know.

Yeah, well, it depends on how you work, but you're just in your head looking for any You're— yeah.

Oh, this I gotta say, when I was in the Groundlings, it's like we had to put up hopefully 5 or 6 new sketches every Wednesday. And by the end of the year, Jess and I would be sitting at a restaurant like, oh, you see how that guy grabbed the napkin? That's funny. What if we had a sketch where, you know, you're out, you're mining, you're clutching that?

Yeah. And that's what stand-up is.

Yeah.

And it's exhausting.

And it kind of fucks up your waking hours because all you're doing is looking for it.

Yeah. It's like grabbing nuts. A squirrel, you're going in hibernation, is Yeah, I'm such a big fan of stand-up because they kind of have to do so much. You have to write, direct, produce. You have to come up with stuff. If you're talking about a girl in the middle of your act and you got to try to sound like that or this and change your voice, there's just so much stuff that they have to go do. And you got to just stand up by yourself and then just entertain like all these people.

Doesn't go well all the time.

Not when you're creating it.

Yeah. So it's this disjunction between you're on the road doing your hour that was, say, on Amazon Prime or on, you know, whatever. And that thing works great. And now we're back to the batting percentage is going to drop for a while.

Yeah.

And you got to adjust to, oh, I'm not crushing.

Yeah, you have nowhere to go. And you know what's funny too, sometimes like after I taped my last special, the day after I taped, I flew to and did this kind of corporate-y kind of event. Because some corporate events are great. They're big, they set up, they have a nice stage. And then this one was a little chiller. And everybody's kind of in nice comfortable chairs. I did an hour of material the night before in an arena, and then this was in front of like 40 people, and I did that same hour in 25 minutes. Whoa. Like, that's how much— oh my God, the crowd and energy impact.

You're not pausing, you're letting people sit and think.

You're not— I mean, it is—

that's an awesome bit of data.

Yeah. Oh, you can jam, because the pace is literally— it's more than 2x of what the night In your head, you're like, I can't believe I'm at where I'm at in my act.

Oh, that's incredible. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. So yes, you're just one of the episodes of The Thing, but then you quickly do a Netflix special in the same year, and that goes well. And then you do a second Netflix special, that one goes great. Then you do Amazon, that one's huge, that's their biggest stand-up thing ever. 3 million people watch it in 28 days. It's bonkers. You go back to Netflix, and then SNL— was it at all like, I thought I was famous, I sell out arenas, and then I do SNL, it's like, oh no, there's a whole other world that I really hadn't touched? Did you have that moment where you're like, oh, this is kind of trippy?

I love awareness, so I was very aware of like, I knew I had to go destroy on SNL. I was doing a sold-out arena weekend again. I was in Oklahoma City Thunder, where they play, on that Sunday, and then I flew to SNL. So I knew that I was going to fly to somewhere where people there are not going to know what I just did.

And you're smart enough to know, like, I know that you started doing small rooms in New York to prepare for your monolog because you knew SNL is a small room in a weird way.

Yes. Well, and I knew the monolog mattered the most.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I just picked 8 minutes of my hour special. Comics do that. A lot of comics they think when you go on SNL or if you go on Tonight Show, they'd be like, I've already heard this material. You're like, yeah, man, I got to go do it. This is a whole— I knew I was going to talk to people that are not watching my stand-up.

Yeah. You're being introduced to a whole bunch of people.

Yeah. I would always joke and just be kind of like, well, I'm not even famous. An idea that you could go sell an arena out and then go back, but I'm not famous.

I know.

It's weird because you set a record with 1.1 million tickets sold in 2024. Yeah, but also that's not a large television audience. Let's say everyone that knew you came and saw you and bought a ticket. That's actually a show they're gonna cancel.

Yeah.

Yes, but it's huge in stand-up.

It can be misleading to get them to come out to go do that. We're gonna see if this works out in this movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I knew I had to go on and make a point. And the good part about getting it so late in my career is I was much more prepared for that moment. I was the most nervous about the monolog because I was like, that has to go good. That's what I'm supposed to be good at.

Yeah.

And then the rest of it, the expectations won't be that high. I thought it would be fine because it's live performing, so I was like, I think I'll do fine in it. And then we got lucky with the George Washington sketch. It goes crazy. I mean, the George Washington thing is bigger than—

it's the thing on YouTube, like, just views-wise.

Views-wise. But what people come up to me— oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They love your stand-up, but they'd be like, that George Washington thing you did was like the funniest. The George Washington thing is the reason I can almost like walk up to anybody now and you know they kind of know you. Yeah, yeah.

They're having some weird feeling, whether they went to high school with you or something, they recognize you.

They recognize you now. And I know it's probably from SNL. Now it's just a bunch of other stuff, but all kind of close.

Now, 2018, you quit drinking. And as someone who quit drinking in 2004, I want to know what precipitates that.

Things were cracking. I was about to start doing theaters from comedy clubs. It was my last comedy club. I was in Charlotte Comedy Zone. Great club. It was the last time I drank. I just knew if I wanted to get where I wanted to get, this was in the way. You would have a fun night Thursday night because that'd be your first show and you wouldn't be drinking.

You'd be hungover on Friday.

Hungover Friday. There's the weekend. You're hungover.

Yeah. You're fine.

Then you're not going to mentally work on it and try to expand. You're going to survive. The extent that I wanted to get to, I just knew I couldn't get to that.

Were you also letting people down you loved? Were you inconsistent?

Were you not available? You're just embarrassing missing, you know, just even waking up and being like, I don't know what I said, you know, where you just feel bad.

You're taking an inventory of all the things that happen and each one's getting worse and worse, and you're like, who do I gotta call?

You know what helped was Alec Carr's got a great book. His is big on non-smoking.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's not only a hypnotist, he just talks you through it.

He frames everything in an interesting way.

I read too, and I'm blanking on the name of it.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous?

No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I did not do—

You're an humbling.

Yeah, I mean, it's not easy to do without some structure and approach.

Rob Lowe on Howard Stern years ago, I heard— I think he quit drinking. He said, I didn't have it because you think alcoholism is you're waking up drinking shots of vodka. And I knew a guy like that. I remember him showing up to work at 7 AM and shouldn't have driven to work in the bag. Yeah, and it wasn't like he was up on— he started.

In my case, the end was like, I'm not someone who's gonna drink in the morning, but also this hangover is insufferable. I don't want to get drunk, I want to alleviate this fucking anguish of this hangover. And then I'd be like, oh wow, yeah, I drink Sunday mornings, I can manage that, that's on the weekend. And now Monday mornings I drink, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm a dude who fucking drinks in the morning.

Yeah, it's easy to get there, but then the, the level where you have a problem with it— what I liked when Rob Lowe said it was it wasn't this extreme thing where you're like, I'm drinking 24 hours a day or whatever, right? I never drink at home. When I was at home, I would never crack a beer open and have a beer. But when I was out with friends, I didn't know how to stop, right? And so it was like, you would just get going, and then that's its own momentum. There'd be times though, I'd go 2 weeks without drinking, it wouldn't bother me, right? I wouldn't be like, oh, I need to go drink. I think when I heard Rob Lowe say that, it was like, oh, this addiction, you think it's just driving off a cliff.

Oh yeah, it's like there's so many levels of it. That's a great point because I've had dudes trying to get sober and like, well, I never did coke. And I'm like, okay. I remember watching this HBO show called Dopesick, and there was a dude who was buying crack, melting the crack, and shooting it up. And I'm like, okay, well, I smoke crack, and I could be sitting here going, well, I never melted it and shot it up, and that could keep me from addressing this.

Like, you can always find someone worse than you, but all you think is the worse than you. And so then that's what makes you think you don't have like a problem.

But I think even the analysis of does this thing take more it gives. And if you know it takes more than it gives, and yet you somehow can't stop, that's worth questioning. Why would I do something that I know takes more than it gives?

Yeah, food is the one I have now, and that's the one I'm working on now, is trying to—

we have a medical treatment for that one.

Yes, they do.

Yeah, I mean, if I could take a shot and drink 2 Jack and Diets once a week, fuck, that sounds good.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Yeah, yeah, there's no shame in that.

No, no, no. Yeah, that's been the hardest for me to get going, like eating. I just don't. I like fast food.

I like delicious—

all this stuff. And you get stressed and then you end up going to it.

Well, you're regulating all this stuff, whether it's sex, it's booze, it's food. You feel discomfort and you have a very quick solution, and that's very tempting.

Yeah, it's tough.

Okay, now you had one deal to do a sitcom at one point that Fallon was producing at Universal, and then you had an ABC pilot that you shot. Side note, do you love Kurtwood?

Oh, the best.

I love that man so much. I had lunch with him last week. I mean, what a beautiful fucker.

Yeah, he'll still text me. He's just so nice.

He's a wonderful man. I feel so lucky I know that guy. So why do a movie? I mean, I guess I probably already know, like, this sitcom thing is not for me. Tell me the decision to do a movie.

Well, the sitcom thing I did, I wrote a script every year. We only shot one pilot. I always made it to the point where we wrote the script but never made it to the pilot. So I tried it for 8 years and 8 scripts, and then some of them weren't, some of them were.

It's a demoralizing experience.

It's really crazy. You know, it's a year-long process in a sense. I got a call that they weren't going to do it. And I mean, I was in like Edmonton and it was -20 degrees. Run outside real fast. I'm walking to the club and they're just like, yeah, it's not happening. And then you just go up to go do your set. Yes, you could do your show. I'm about to go on stage and you're like, okay.

And a guy puts his camera down. Save your film. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he's still not made it. I kind of learned quickly, and again, this is kind of the aspect of being clean, because I would go out on auditions and I would do auditions. I wouldn't want to curse and stuff. A lot of auditions would be maybe doing something that I was like, I don't really feel comfortable doing it. And then even if it was one that I did, I would never commit to it to even, even have a chance to get it right. I did a Coen Brothers audition within the past couple years. I have not met them, but the person who books all their stuff, the most wonderful. There was a lot of cursing, the character I would have played, and I said like, I'm just not going to curse.

Were you going to say like dadgummit and stuff in place of it? Were you going to try to fill in?

No, I would have just figured—

massage it.

The way I do it is like, I try to do it where you don't know I'm not doing it.

Yeah, right.

It's not like you don't make it super obvious.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just I have to think of a different way to say something. And I always think, that's not your problem, that's my problem. You can give me a rated R script, I'll go through it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll make it how would I be comfortable. It's not on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is my thing. They were very wonderful, but it's like, the more and and all this stuff, you're like, I'm just not gonna get—

you're a very square peg in this round hole.

And so I learned it earlier, and then you just kind of learned that like, all right, I'm gonna have to create anything that I want to go do, and I'm gonna have to be at a point in my career where I could go, I'm not doing that, so whatever. So that's where I was like, yeah, you just kept doing stand-up and kept trying all this kind of stuff And then it just kind of worked out with the specials and everything. It all kind of started clicking. And, you know, when I go on SNL, it's like I'm not going to do something political or I'm not going to curse.

You're proving your concept. People are like, yeah, he does it this weird way, but it works.

Yeah, we all like it.

I'm out of my own business. I'm not better than you.

Yeah, yeah.

You do whatever you want to go do. Some side of it too is like competitively, you just look and go like, I just don't see a lot of people doing it this way. You need to be yourself. You need to be who you are.

So when does Breadwinner come about as a concept? Because because I was watching Your Friend today. I was seeing— oh yeah, we're touching—

there's some— I stand up.

Yeah. Which I think is an obvious and smart place to start. So how do you start thinking of like, okay, what package do I put this point of view in?

Me and, uh, writer Dan Lagana, who we wrote a pilot together again 10, 12 years, whatever, 15 years.

Yeah.

That didn't go. And then, so we've always just stayed in touch. So Dan came to me. When you write a show, the showrunner and I think the writers really matter. So when you go do a TV show, that really matters. A movie, like when you saw— half of what I know about Hollywood is because of Entourage. So like when Entourage, they go find those guys shooting at that gun range. A movie can come from a guy that lives under a bridge. The writer, it just doesn't matter.

The director is going to have—

the director is going to be the—

that's the director medium. TV's a writers. Yes.

When you do that, I even like that because you're like, all right, now you're not getting just completely paired up with, you know, well, this guy did this and this and this, this, and you want to go like, now I want to write it with my friend or whatever. So me and Lugano got on the phone and just started talking about trying to write a movie. And then, you know, it just kind of follows along in my stand-up about being— I don't know, just whatever I've talked about my stand-up. Making a movie is essentially like that. What's funny is I didn't even think of Mr. Mom. We were talking about John Hughes movies. That's what I want to create more of.

Yes.

The Home Alones, Planes, Trains, Automobiles, like all all this kind of stuff like that. Mr. Mom, I knew what it was. I don't know if I've ever seen it. I didn't watch a ton of movies growing up, so I'm like pitching. I was like, yeah, this is great. And then it is funny that it's like, yeah, John Hughes. You're like, of course. It's like, so it's essentially— it's exactly— you're like, oh yeah, they already did that. Yeah, that's why it's a good idea. Half the time you come up with a good idea, you're like, like, dude, is this the best idea ever? You're like, yeah, it was 50 years ago when they did it. We're not trying to be something better than that, but it was like my take on it. And two, because there's this thing where it's like the dad is dumb and everything and all this. This movie is not that.

Can I set up the premise? Your wife gets to be on Shark Tank. She has some invention, and then they tell her, you know, you're going to be quite busy and you have a family. Is your husband going to be able to take over so you'll be free for us to invest? And then you happen to be backstage eating fucking donuts, and they bring you on stage and you embarrass her and you're a dipshit. And so that kind of crumbles. And then now she's gonna be gone for a month to go out and try to get this, and I got to raise the kids, and you got to step in. You're a car salesman?

Yeah, I sell cars with Kumail. Kumail?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We love him.

We love him so much.

Me and Kumail started together in Chicago. Oh, yeah. One of my oldest— Pete Holmes, Kumail, like Hannibal Buress, TJ Miller. There was a lot of comics that were in Chicago when we all started. Yeah, Pete Holmes, obviously. So Kumail was unbelievable, and it was very great to have Kumail on the set because he's done so much now, been in movies. And so to have someone that you're friends with and that you've known for 20 years, I could ask him a lot of stuff. You could be vulnerable and not feel dumb, because that was a big thing of where people are like, yeah, the dad's sitcom, you know, well, this dad doesn't know how to do anything, just another dumb dad. Where you're like, dude, I know how to do stuff. But a lot of roles in life, if one leaves, the other one's going to be like in some pretty big trouble. And it's also based on like— I have a joke about my daughter at school. Her school called me and asked asked me what bus number my daughter's on. I'm like, why would you call the dad? And so like, that joke, if I walk up to anybody, that's the joke they bring up.

Yeah, to anybody.

Because everybody— wife, whatever. I got a joke about— because I did my own laundry forever. I thought it was a big deal, and it wasn't as big of a deal.

I'm gonna— yeah, I want you to say it. He goes, yeah, I do my laundry. I'm gonna bring that up in a fight, but I'm gonna sit been doing it for a minute.

Yeah, that's right, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, I thought of it one day because I knew my mom did my dad's laundry.

That's how you grew up.

That's how you grew up. That's still how it happens a lot.

For the record, my wife does all the laundry.

Yeah, I don't want to lie, but I just did it because I, you know, I'd always be traveling. She would have— I just dump it in there and like, whatever. But I thought, oh yeah, that's a— because my neighbors, like, they're watching. And so I was just like, well, I'll just wait. I'll hold on to it and wait. It's a bomb. I like— in my head, I'm like, it's a fight ender. Yeah, it's Nuclear option. Yeah, like if I set the house on fire, I could be like, okay, but you got a guy that does his own laundry.

Yes.

And you should apologize first. Yeah.

Did you use it?

Yes, I did drop it in. It did not go like—

yeah, the punchline is he goes, uh, he goes, yeah, I dropped this fight ender and I had not anticipated it was going to start another fight.

That's right, that is right.

It was a fight beginner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Tinder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just kind of said it and then it sparked and then it flew.

Yeah.

You got a great cast. How did you get Forte in it? His wife has accepted a bunch of bids and some guy came in way under.

It's Will Forte, who's just the sweetest and so funny.

So funny.

Yeah, the whole cast is great. Mandy Moore is my wife. Yeah. Colin Jost in it. Very funny.

He's going to go line dancing with the moms. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He plays like the stay-at-home dad. Another reason I thought about this was because there was a guy I knew that was a stay-at-home dad. It's funny, he would be around women so much that I was like, if he came and hung around with us, it would kind of be weird.

He's like one of the—

the energy was just like—

it was like he just—

yeah, it just didn't fit. It was like very funny. And this was just in real life. So that's when I somewhat thought of the idea, was that kind of aspect that you get kind of lost in your just surroundings until you adapt to it.

We're all a product of whatever context.

I kind of thought of him, and I got a buddy that's the opposite. His wife's a dentist, they own their own dentistry, so he's a stay-at-home dad. It's a mess. He was another— it was both of them were kind of the ideas that I thought of. He's, yeah, like a dude.

Yeah.

So the moms cannot—

I mean, he barbecues every night for dinner and, oh, steak 5 nights a week.

He drives his car to the pickup and it ruins everything. There's no system. It's the most man. If you like call him and you're like, hey, let's go watch the game tonight somewhere, he brings his kids because he doesn't have that in his head to go like, uh, you know what, I should probably get the kids to sleep.

Wow.

He's like, you know what, they can stay up till midnight too. I just like the idea of just the kind of chaotic— and Colin is so funny in it, is playing the stay-at-home dad.

The execution— I wish I could have seen the whole thing. I can only see the trailer and the scenes I saw, but the execution's incredible. It has your spirit.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it.

Look, I'm excited about it. I think this is a movie that if you've watched me as a stand-up, you would think I would make this movie. You're going to see some jokes that would make sense and maybe have been in my act. But we do have a great cast.

It's a family movie that's live action.

Yeah, live action. And we just want you to bring everybody.

It's a definitely feel-good.

We need some of that.

Yeah, yeah.

My last question for you, and this is selfishly motivated now that I've spent so much time in Nashville, you're gonna open a theme park theme park in Nashville?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's as much as you can say about it?

Yeah. Okay.

Wow.

More will come. But we used to have a theme park called Opryland. It was my first job. I was a sweeper at it when I was 15.

Probably a lot of cigarette butts.

Only cigarette.

Yeah. Yeah.

They took it when I was like, uh, senior in high school, and it's a mall now. Everybody loved Opryland. It was profitable. It was like, why would you take it?

It was part of the '08 collateral damage, was it?

No, no, no. I graduated high school in '97. I'm 46. Oh, so it shut down in Like '90s? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the '90s. So it was just annoying. Now, I didn't think at that time, I'm going to go resurrect this. You hit points in your career where you got to figure out what's your purpose of being here. And so one for me, when I did Bridgestone Arena, 19,375 seats, record. So I used to daydream about that. And so my dumb little thing that I would say is I always think like your goals, you should be embarrassed if you don't get them, and your dreams should be embarrassed to say out loud. And so it was kind of like that. So that daydream of that Bridgestone, right? So then I get to that Bridgestone night, and I can't believe I'm there. And then you're directionless for a second.

That's what's so confusing about success.

Yes, because it can't be about you. Or that's what I believe. Anything that you're doing cannot be about you. If it's about you, it's only going to go bad because it's never going to be good enough. And so you have to have another reason for it. And so then that's when I kind of came up with the idea of Nate Land and the company that I'm starting, like this movie where I really want you to trust this brand and trust when you see it, you know what it is. We have a motto for our production company or movies, like good, clean, funny. And but I think we can do good, clean drama. It's basically like I can make Die Hard but the one that airs on TBS.

I even like that you said, you know, there was this era where you could go to the mall, you let your kids fuck off and run around forever, you got to have a good meal with your friends.

Yes.

What a dream.

I'm in experience with going out and touring, and so they tell you it's always, well, no one watches movies anymore, no one wants to go. I just find that hard to believe when I'm staring at people out. And again, it's one of those where you're like, the system that makes the thing is blaming the person. I don't think it's their fault. Yeah, they're just doing what you're— you're not—

they're responding to what you're responding to.

You give them an animated movie or a horror movie and they have no choice. What do you want them to go? And then the movie theaters, that's just a dude that owns a theater. He can't get people to come in there. So I just wanted to create that experience. A, I want to really try to see if people will come back to theaters Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I have no idea. But then the theme park is the bigger aspect of it, to go and be like this place that you can come bring your family. I want you to be able to let your kids go run. When my parents, they could drop you off at Opryland and you could go hang out with your friends and be alone. Maybe you have a girlfriend that you get to go hang out with, or you have all these little experiences, or maybe you're 12 and your parents are like, Y'all go meet here.

Yep.

In one alley.

Yeah.

And you have autonomy, that freedom.

Yeah.

And now you have those freedoms. Weirdly, the only way for people to get them is they actually have to go become very wealthy and live in gated communities, and they can go live like the '50s. It's the other people that can't. And so I want to create a space for that. And some of it would be free. Some is going to be a theme park, like a Downtown Disney where you can just go walk around. Yeah, yeah. But you want it to be this place where people go, and I want you to be able to feel that you can drop— safe bubble, a safe bubble that they can just have a place to go.

So I've heard you say that potentially you would stop touring. The 2024 tour generated like $85 million. Mentally, how do you get yourself to a place where, you know, you might unplug from that safety that's coming your way?

It's hard. I mean, especially right now, because we're doing feasibility studies and we're doing all this stuff, this theme park. I'm paying for all this. So everything that's going into this theme park, which these studies and these economic studies and all this kind of stuff is very, very, very expensive.

Yeah.

So right now I'm paying for everything. I'm paying for the tour. We have employees that work for us, healthcare. We have all this stuff that I'm able to provide gracefully because people come to shows.

Yeah.

So I don't want that to go away. When I said stopping touring, I did have the idea of where it was like, I want to get out of the way if someone else comes along. I don't think it's as soon as I probably thought initially when I initially said it, but there is a point I I want to go develop younger people and find them. I think that's what's happened in the industry that we're in now, is the developing of younger people. I'm not trying to even do anything different. I'm just literally taking your '80s, '90s way and just going, like, we need to probably do that. I know if I need to be in movies, I'm probably gonna have to star in movies to sell the tickets for to the movies, I want to be able to do it to find the people to then find the next big Tom Hanks, pass the baton off and break them off and like try to have them go do stuff and build a world and really go develop. Let people develop. Social media, especially with comedy, it forms a lot of bad habits because you're first told to get booked at a comedy club, you have to have followers.

Well, to get followers on Instagram, you got to do stuff that you cannot undo. Well, you cannot undo, and it's too hard to create. Yeah, you got to create it every day.

Well, you get into the clip mindset, not the routine side.

So you're filming all day and every clip's got to be crazier and crazier and crazier.

Well, you're trying to hack the algorithm.

Yes.

Like, your new job is not the audience, it's kind of hacking the algorithm.

You have to grab the low-hanging fruit.

That's all you can do. Or you can build an act where people can trust and they're going to come to. And I still think that exists. I think a change is happening and you're seeing it. Younger people are annoyed with their phone.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, people are starting to like—

people start to go like, I don't like this. That's why experiences are becoming a thing. That's why people want to go out and kind of go do stuff. Restaurants are having pickleball and all this stuff in it. And so you're seeing this aspect. You can do it.

I very much hope for you and all of us that everyone goes. I think it would be very fun for everyone in their family to go.

Thank you very much.

Do you need those options. And this has been a fucking blast. I appreciate it. Thanks for giving me so much time.

I loved it. Y'all were so fun to talk with, and, uh, I can't wait to see you at home.

Oh my God, I know. All right, great hanging with you.

Thank you so much.

Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

Ready?

Yes, I have two drinks. I feel safe.

Good.

Okay, I'll go through both in this little chat.

I know you, you intake a lot of fluid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, speaking of that, I was at, um, an event and I was sitting with a stranger. Also just another— just, just so funny to be at events and feel like a little kid, you know?

What event was this?

It was for Rose, the hair products that I love.

Yeah.

Um, and, and it was at DuPont Cars.

What's that?

It's a very cute diner.

Okay.

And they had rented out this space. It was so cute. But there's like tables and people were kind of sitting at tables mishmashed, you know? And I was with Rachel, my friend Rachel, and we were like, what do we do? We had to ask if we could sit with someone.

And it felt like high school cafeteria.

Yeah, middle school, even worse. And then they said no.

They said no?

Yeah.

Because it was taken already?

Yeah, they were like, we have someone coming.

And then no one ever sat there?

Yeah.

Oh boy.

Yep.

Okay.

Luckily, we found these two women who let us sit with them.

Jeez. Yeah. No thanks.

Yeah. And one of them was half Indian.

Okay.

And she also didn't drink water.

So interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, my dad doesn't drink water.

Yeah.

Just Michelob. Sometimes Michelob, but no water. And I was like, it's conceivable we just don't need it as much.

Well, what's very conceivable is if you monitored water intake across populations, you would see different levels.

Yeah.

And it would be quite interesting if Indians were like, yeah, very low on that.

What if you— what if Indians only need one thimble a day?

All right, I'm going to make an armchair theory.

Okay.

Okay. And this goes to why African Americans have higher rates of high retention.

Yes.

I know I've already said this before, but when the people were kidnapped and enslaved, they were marched across the continent of Africa and half the people died of dehydration because they were not offering them water. And then, so the people that made it to the boat, they had a really, an above average salinity count. They held on to salt in their body. And then they got on these boats. They did not serve them water. Dysentery was running rampant. Another half of them died of dehydration. On that trip.

Right.

So the only people that got here had a really abnormally high salinity count.

Yeah.

And which is now leads to hypertension.

Right.

So it's conceivable to me that the environment Indians came from, hot and warm.

Yeah.

That you guys do hold on to your salt better.

Yeah.

In which case you would need less water.

Yeah. But I wonder what the rate of hypertension hypertension is for Indians?

Sky fucking high.

Is it?

I don't know.

Okay, it says approximately 25% to 30% of adults in India have hypertension.

Versus how many in, say, England? Okay, that's a very white— or Sweden?

32 to 33.

Same.

Hmm.

Okay.

All right, well, there goes that.

Well, I mean, I definitely hate to be—

I'm gonna— they're gonna run the risk of being offensive here.

Okay, go ahead.

How many people in India are getting measured for hypertension? Like, how many people are going to the doctor? We know that like 700 million of them are living in such poverty. They're not seeing a doctor ever to be labeled high village doctor. I just doubt that the data on hypertension in India is anywhere comparable to the data that's coming from England because so many people don't have medical care in India versus in England. Maybe, maybe that hurt your feelings.

No, it didn't. It didn't hurt my feelings. I just don't know if— I don't know, you know.

You don't know.

I don't know about the village doctors. A big issue with India is there's very— the cities, there's some very rich cities and then there's extreme poverty.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's hard to know what these numbers are based off.

Yeah. Anyway, if you're an epidemiologist or you're an anthropologist that studied this, in the comments tell us if there's any data that suggests Indians require less water.

Yeah, if like I feel good just having a thimble, then like I think maybe it's fine. My body would tell me. Like, you get thirsty.

Yeah, I don't know what's what with me, right? I just do things compulsively. Oh sure, uh, anything I like I do nonstop.

I know, but you like drinking water?

Like, love it, love it.

I know you— and you love it because of the way it makes you feel, right?

Yeah, I love how cool it is and it's refreshing.

Yeah, see, I get none of that. Yeah, none of that, Benny.

Yeah, I see. I know, I told you I used to carry around a gallon of my well water. Sure, everywhere in high school people like, oh Jesus, here's Dax with this gallon of well water, because I love the taste of our well water. So much. And when I was in Walled Lake where I went to high school, everyone's on city water. Oh, and so I needed my jug of well water. Isn't that perverse?

So you would like empty out the milk gallon and put the well water?

Well, I wouldn't empty it out, but once it was empty, I would wash that out. I wouldn't waste a gallon.

No, that would— that's wasted.

My mother would be fucking up in arms.

Yeah, I just— I think, you know, I've told you this, that sometimes I get actually like very, very full off water. And that doesn't seem— I'm not seeing other people get very full.

I can drink a gallon of it.

Exactly. I'm seeing you guys be—

so did this half-India— she did— half-Indian didn't drink water too? That's what you discovered?

Yeah. Oh wow. So I'm building a real—

you have N of 3, I guess. Your dad, pretty good stranger, and you.

Yeah, I guess people can weigh in, but only weigh in if you, um, are on my side.

If you're half Indian or above. We don't— yeah, no one 30%, right?

No, no, I prefer— honestly, I prefer 100%.

Yeah, like your 23andMe.

That's right.

Something at the event that was just that, it was that you felt uncomfortable, or is there another— no, just the water, the water thing.

Yeah, the water.

Um, well, I went to an event too.

Oh, tell me.

Yeah, I traveled to New Orleans. That's right, you did, to be a guest at Walter Isaac's I don't know if it's his primarily, but the Tulane New Orleans Book Festival. I've put a lot of words together. I don't know if it's called the New Orleans Book Festival or the Tulane Book Festival or the Tulane New Orleans or New Orleans Tulane.

It's a lot.

Whatever. Those are the people.

And it's Walter Isaacson.

Walter Isaacson. Yeah, that's what I didn't say.

The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.

Okay, that is a lot of words and you didn't hit them all.

Okay, the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University by Walter Isaacson.

Was it fun?

It was okay.

I haven't been to New Orleans in, I guess, since Kristen shot a movie there. We had a rental house directly across from Tulane, which is north of the city by 20 minutes or something. Much different vibe than downtown New Orleans. I was staying downtown.

Okay.

And so I haven't been downtown in goat's age. So I got there on Friday and I decided I'm going to take a walk.

Okay.

Before everyone's completely annihilated.

Okay.

It's a huge— everyone knows, I'm not shedding any light on this, it's a boozy fucking city.

It's such a good city.

Maybe the booziest.

Yeah.

And fun. I walked, uh, down to Bourbon Street and Canal and then was cruising down. I immediately saw this like 16-piece jazz band, the ragtag group, like no uniformity in their wardrobe or their style or their seeming, their background. It was rad. I watched that for like an hour. Yeah, I even recorded some of it thinking I'll show someone, and then I was like, no, who's gonna want to watch this? But I found myself recording a little bit. That was really fun. And yeah, New Orleans is— I gotta say, if any city in America has the most distinct fingerprint, it's that city.

Culture.

Yes, it's like so French.

It is.

And so Black in the, in Creole and all these things, and it's like the vibe is so unique.

Yeah.

And all the food everywhere you're at, even if you're at a corner thing, it's going to have some— they're going to have turtle soup, or they're going to have some weird animal on there that I don't normally eat, and there's going to be French items on any menu.

Turtle soup.

And I knew my event was on Saturday afternoon, and Anderson Cooper was interviewing me.

Yeah.

And, um, which was great because we interviewed him a long time ago. Yes, uh, for his Vanderbilt book. So he reached out like, hey, can we chat before the event? I'm like, great. Uh, then he said, hey, um, I'm gonna work out, then I'm gonna eat at the steakhouse in the, in the hotel if you want to swing by. So we did. So then we had like an hour sit there on the river shooting the shit.

Ah, with steak.

Tell you how— well, he had already eaten a po' boy at another spot.

Oh boy, do you like po'boys?

I can't fuck with them because of the bread, so I'd just be eating a plate of shrimp, I guess.

And you don't like seafood?

Okay, I like shrimp if it's— and that's, that's an asterisk.

Okay, but I bet you do like fried shrimp.

I hate shrimp cocktail. I love fried shrimp.

So you would like the po'boy?

Yeah, I've liked po'boys in the past.

They're hard to say.

Yeah, not really po', po'boy. It's not poor boy.

I know, but you want to say poi boy.

Oh, po'boy. All to say, I felt very, very grateful. I was like, look at me sitting on the fucking Mississippi River chatting with Anderson Cooper. How did I get here? This is very fun.

Yeah.

And unique. And I was grateful for it. We had a lovely time. We could have— and I was like, uh, why don't you get a drink? It's happy hour. So I know he drinks. He's like, no, I'm just— I'm gonna have a coffee. And then later he's like, I gotta go.

I—

and I'm like, where are you going? It was like 6. He's like, I have do the news.

Oh, fuck.

I'm thinking because he's in New Orleans, he does—

he's not—

he's off the day off.

He wasn't. He had to leave my tableside and go to a remote studio and do Anderson 360.

Wow.

So after I walked around the French Quarter a little bit, I got back to my hotel before all the blackoutness started. Although there was some— there's plenty of blackoutness at 6 PM for sure. And then I'm in my my hotel room and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna turn on 60 Minutes, which I never watch. Sure enough, there was Anderson 360. And I'm like, oh my God, we're just shooting this. It was very—

that's weird.

I felt like the fabric of time and space was tearing.

Yeah.

Um, and then the event was Saturday and it was completely lovely. It was, um, in their basketball arena, so I don't know how many thousand people there, but it was huge.

Great.

And, um, the topic was grief because Anderson has a podcast called All That There Is or something like that, and it's all about grief because when his mom died, he started going through all of her stuff and he decided to start recording his thoughts on it. And then it turned into this grief podcast he has, All There Is with Anderson Cooper. All There Is with Anderson Cooper. And, um, so it's about grief. So then it was all about my dad, uh, and it was—

it's lovely.

It was outrageously lovely. He was reading from the thing I had written about him, which I hadn't heard in a while.

Oh yeah.

And you would have hated it, Monica. I bet I cried 6 times on that stage.

I wouldn't have hated it. Let's not make that a thing.

Okay. What would you have felt about it?

I probably would have felt like it was sweet.

All right, I won't make that a thing.

It's not a thing.

It's a unique experience to cry on stage in public in front of 5 or 6,000 people. 2,000 people.

I bet. Yeah. Um, you did it once before. You did it.

Um, I got choked up one time on stage.

I know, Keith. Yeah, it was really sweet.

It was.

And it was about my dad.

It was about my dad, lo and behold.

Yeah, dads will do that, you know. God, dads are a lot to handle emotionally. Yeah, they are.

And I bet they're, they're different daughter to father than son to father. I mean, I'm sure it's individual, but yeah, I mean, I think the broad trend—

I know, I feel bad about— do you feel bad about that?

About what?

That your feelings about your dad are different? Your emotions? Like, you love both of them, obviously, but my mom and my dad? Yeah, yeah. But your emotions toward one are a little different than your emotions toward the other. I I sometimes have guilt about that.

Well, one is historically your nurturer, right? And the other is like, again, forgive me, historically, like the rational one that's going to tell you you're on course to be right. It's like you're there. That person's your signposts of like, good job, you've done this. Now here's what you do with your tack. I don't know, it's just more like—

interesting.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't get it. That's not what I had, but I feel like friends of mine who had dads taught them to do a lot of stuff, and their moms comforted them and taught them how to be emotional. But my mom taught me— I don't even know what I'm saying. I more think not in terms of like how you feel about a mom versus a dad, just like what a daughter feels about a dad versus what a boy feels about a dad, right? Like, I— tell me, um, it— I think boys are looking for much more validation from their others that like they're becoming men or they're— yeah, they're waiting for that, boy, I'm proud of you, you've become a good man. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Is that what you're looking for from from your dad?

Um, not like you become a good woman, because that would be like, yeah, how would you know, right? Exactly. But definitely you want your dad to be proud of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

So there's something going on with the roles for sure. Yeah, they're not one for one. There's like, there's definitely like different baggage with each.

It is, it's, it's, it's weird. And like, my baggage with my mom is, is not the baggage my brother has with my mom.

Yeah.

And all, all the iterations are— everyone has baggage with everyone, and they're all different.

Yeah.

And I— it's— I'm sure it has to do with gender, but also— yeah, yeah.

I see the tension between my mom and my sister, and it's just not tension that I have between my— but it is the same tension I have between my dad and I, you know?

Right. There's something about the same gender that—

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, it was lovely I met Kenny Chesney backstage.

Big country star.

Huge.

Huge.

Had a great chat with him. It was quite fun. And then I went back to my hotel, and I had noticed there was a Creole restaurant in the bottom of my hotel that it was highly recommended. So I'm like, okay, tonight's— I'm going to work out.

Turtle soup?

I'm going to work out, and then I'm going to eat a bunch of turtle soup. And so I do all my little chores, and then I go down. Myself, and I see on the menu for the table, whole fried chicken, red beans and rice. It's got a cool name. It's $100. And I'm like, I can't eat a whole chicken. This is for like 4 people, right? I can't eat a whole chicken.

And I want it.

There's no other option for fried chicken. It's just that. So I'm like, I can't eat all that. And if the only way I can have fried chicken, I'm going to get it. Yeah, it came, Monica, in this huge fucking metal pan, tin, and it was the best fried chicken I'd ever had, um, by like 3 deviations above chicken. I can't tell, it was so much breading, so much.

So it's a little contradictory to what we were just talking about with the po' boy, right?

Because I did say fuck it. You're right. Yep.

But worth it.

But I want to say the breading to chicken ratio was 65-35. 65% breading. And it had 3 dipping sauces: a hot chili one, honey, and then a garlic one I couldn't fuck with. It smells so good. I bet it was delicious if you put that garlic on it. Anyways, I ate so much fucking chicken and breading. Yeah, all the sauces. I killed all the honey. I had rice and my beans. I was so full at the end of it that I said, you must go walk for a half hour.

Yeah, smart.

Let's try to help your insulin a little bit. So then Monica got out on those streets. I started pounding those streets, and again, I was overwhelmed. I went in a different direction that night, and I was over— it was more the upscale direction. Oh, and I was smelling so many fun smells, and the architecture was different, and all the little balconies, and I was smitten.

It's a great city.

Oh, I loved it. It was great. It was a great little excursion.

Um, speaking into run-ins, I had a Sim moment.

Oh great.

While you were gone, I went to a store I like to go to. I feel like maybe I shouldn't say— I don't want to like blow up anyone's spot.

Okay, then don't, don't say the name of the store.

Okay. I went into a store.

Yep.

I was looking and I saw this woman from the back, and I liked the back of her sweater.

Yeah.

I was like, I want I want that sweater.

Yeah, cool.

And then I kept looking at the clothes, and then all of a sudden she turned around and it was Amanda Peet.

No way!

Yes!

Oh my God.

And it was so—

sure wasn't like Belle.

It was Amanda. I confirmed. Um, and she said, oh my God, so crazy! I was just— we were— I was just talking about you. Because one of the sales associates there said to her, I just heard you want something. And she said, oh, was it armchair? And then he said yes. So this was very Simmy. It was so exciting. And then we were all chit-chatting.

Did you break out your mahjong cubes?

I did invite her to mahjong. She hasn't. She's not. She's on the fence. It was such a good run-in, and she's so fun, and she was like meeting friends for dinner, and I was like, oh, what a life. Yeah. And, um, one of the friends she was meeting was Amanda Anka. Okay, so she came into the store as well.

Oh my goodness. And you guys get to talk about astrology a little bit. Oh, what did you guys decide?

Uh, we decided we're right.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jess and I were on our way to Sunset Tower. We were very indecisive. We wanted to hang out, but we didn't know what we wanted to do. And finally Finally, we were like, let's go to Sunset Towers. We're on our way. And Jess said, he said, well, my friend said that if you're indecisive, it means you have bad gut health. And I was like, I have good gut health. And then, you know, we're driving and all of a sudden I say, I want to go to this store. I want to go right now.

Yeah.

And he was like, oh, okay. And I was like, unless you don't, unless you don't want to, but it'll be fast. I just want to run in and get these pants.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He was like, yeah, fine. No worries. And so then I go and all this Sims stuff happens.

Oh wow.

Good gut health.

That's what I, that was my takeaway. I had great gut health. Um, at the end of last episode, I ended up cutting it because we were signing off and I said, oh wait, wait, I have something important to say. And then when I was editing, I was like, eh, whatever, I'll cut that. Um, cuz it felt wrapped up, you know, but I will say now that I have a new wrinkle under my eye.

You're convinced now it's here for good? Because you thought maybe it was a result—

I was hoping that maybe it was temp because you had— I did something weird with my eye.

Yeah, you swatted your eye or something.

Yeah, and I thought maybe that was a result, but it's still there.

Okay.

And I had a really long, wiry gray hair the other day.

Okay.

Okay, so stuff's happening.

Yeah.

And I'm—

welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.

I'm not ready. I'm not ready.

Yeah, as my hair grows out, I'm like, oh yeah, it's so gray, so gray.

I know, but you're a man.

I know, I know, it's different. I still don't like that. It doesn't mean I enjoy.

But you know that the whole thing is like, men look hotter with age and women like—

I mean, some do.

Buried.

I think we make a big meal of when someone does, like George Clooney. I love his salt and pepper. But there are a lot of people that are salt and pepper that that's not the consensus. So I do think we've— we hone in on the ones it's working really well for, and we build a whole story around it.

Percentage-wise, we're gonna—

I would say more men are appreciated with gray hair than women. Yes, totally agree.

Yeah, we pulled it right out.

Did you say that?

I don't want any reminders of that.

Okay. There's a very classic fable about the king with gray hair. The second the king shows a gray hair, he has to start ascension or whatever it is— the succession. Oh, is he like living in fear of this gray hair? You know, he never had to read this in a literature class. I think you brought this up before, probably, but I had a real impact, but I can't remember. I don't remember. Yeah.

Anyway, look, this is life. We age.

That just reminded me of something I said. Oh, I know what I want to talk about. One juicy thing I just— or do you want to talk more about your wrinkle?

No. Okay. I don't know. That's all I Okay, it just—

I understand. Um, I started the Murdoch doc. Have you?

I started it last night.

Okay.

But I only got a few minutes in because I decided to watch The Pit instead.

Okay. It's unbelievable.

Okay.

Like, we all have been told Succession is based on that family.

Yes, the show.

But if you watch this doc, you can't imagine How exactly, plot point by plot point, it is all the exact same. Whoa, it's crazy.

It is crazy.

It's one of the craziest docs.

They had access, like, how'd they know all the little details?

People have just been reporting on that family so thoroughly, right? And when different family members are out, they tend to talk more, and then they're reingratiated, they're given another role, then they sing the party line. And then they're out.

Yeah.

Um, I really want to interview, um, what's the one brother's name? There's Lachlan and then the other brother.

Which one? Middle?

The younger brother.

The Kieran Culkin character? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lachlan, James.

James. I really want to interview James, uh, Murdoch because he's more of a rascal. He was like the smartest member, the smarter of the two boys. He actually ran divisions successfully. Lachlan had a much more checkered track record. James didn't want to keep Fox News as conservative as it was in the wake of Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, all these huge payouts and huge controversies they had.

Yeah.

And the defining moment was their coverage of Charlottesville. Oh yeah. And his wife said to him, if you're not going to push back against Nazis, who will you push back against?

Oh, I love that.

Yeah, like a little morality check.

So she tried.

Yes, but they sued each other. They tried to change, uh, the— this irrevo— uh, irrevocable trust that was created. There was discovery, and all their laundry had to come out in a Reno courtroom. I mean, it's fucking mind-blowing family drama. And that whole World News of the World, whatever, that shithole magazine in England where they were hacking the phones of victims who had been killed. Oh, that's what unraveled it. They had been hacking all of the royal family and prime ministers, but no one really cared. And Jude Law, who we had on. Yeah. The public didn't really care when the elite were being fucked with. But then they were intercepting the voicemails from this girl who had been kidnapped and was ultimately killed. And because they were erasing them so more could come in, they were losing important information. Like, the fucking private investigators that the journalists hired were erasing emails from this victim to make room for more emails so they could keep reporting. So it was horrendous. And they did that to a bunch of different murder victims and kidnap victims.

So that's so— that's tied into this.

Well, they owned that, and James had just come in to run World News. So then there was this huge public trial in England. They ended up shutting down the entire publication, and it was their most valuable asset.

Did he feel— is he in it? Are they in it, the doc?

No one sits for an interview, but they've been interviewed so much that they can play the interviews.

I just wonder, like, did he— yeah, what are his ethics during that? If he's— yeah, they're— they seem like they are in and out.

They're in and out. Yeah, they're like, okay, I'm going to play dad's game, right? Um, and then the daughter, Shiv, is the smartest of all of them by a long shot. She's had so much independent success away from them, and it's just like the Shiv story. She's like, she's the smartest, and he just can't see it because she's a, a woman.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, it's so juicy.

That's cool. I'm gonna watch that.

I feel bad for all the kids, to be honest. I mean, what, like, what, what a ride they were born into. They that they couldn't get off. I do. Like, you're just a product of whatever family brought you home from the hospital.

Yeah, yeah.

And you have this, like, incredibly powerful, smart, conniving father.

Yeah.

Who's quite good at creating animosity between the four of you to see who will rise at the top.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, in that way. Yes.

And the— and the leverage of money he constantly it's like you might think you'd be above turning down a billion dollars, right? Let me just— let's see if you would be.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is true.

It's not the fun privileged life I would think being born into a billionaire family would be, let's just say that.

Yeah, I mean, you see it on that show, like they're on yachts, they're doing— I mean, they're doing this stuff, but everyone's so miserable.

Yeah, on private planes.

I would never want to be— yeah, I guess that goes— I would never want to be one of them.

So no, nor would I want my family dinner to be like this crazy Game of Thrones happening the whole time.

Although you would like that because that's like fun.

Well, I would, I would try to be the— I'll try to get the Iron Throne.

Um, okay, speaking of dynasties. Yes, this is for Nate Bergazzi.

He's creating a dynasty.

That's right.

And Empire.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, you bring up the NFL player with one hand whose brother also played in the NFL. Shaquem and Shaquille Griffin are the NFL brothers famous for overcoming immense adversity. Shaquem, who had his left hand amputated at age 4 due to a congenital condition, became the first one-handed player drafted into the modern NFL 2018, joining his twin brother Shaquille with the Seattle Seahawks. Yeah, that's really cool.

There's the most— well, it might have been a Real Sports. I don't know if it was a whole doc.

Yeah, you said Real Sports.

Okay. And I made my children watch it.

That's sweet.

Didn't hit them.

They, they take care of each other. They take— I don't think you're forcing it down their throat.

They're babies. What's going on? Do you have a sibling? You'll always— I know, protect your sibling.

They protect each other.

Yeah.

Okay, Nate brings up a Netflix documentary about drug lords and a woman from Jemeker Thompson, who became one of the biggest drug lords in the 1980s. Drug Lords is a docuseries on Netflix, episodes called Jemeker Thompson, Crack Queen of LA.

Crack Queen.

Sounds good.

No one's looking for that moniker. You want to be a lot of queens, but like, Crack Queen is probably lowest if you pulled the nation.

Yeah, but you can make a lot of money in crack.

She did. Yeah.

Good margins, almost as much as those Murdochs.

Yeah.

Um, what year did Opryland close, the amusement park Nate worked at? 1997. I remember Opryland being like a big deal.

Sure, it was in the South. Yeah, yeah, I went to it.

You did? Yeah.

How were the rides? I don't remember, I was a little— well, then they were not Not that good, because I went to Kings Island as a baby, and I remember the Beast. You shan't forget the Beast.

I'm getting mixed up. The pit is making me a little mixed up.

Okay.

Because I almost said, did you hear about that case?

The guy who—

Hear about those people who— the water slide that broke and people died?

Wait, this is real or the pit?

No, it was the pit.

I'm sure it's happened.

I'm sure it's happened. And it really got in there. It really got in that noggin of mine as real. Yeah. Huh.

Huh.

What are we gonna do? I'm gonna safeguard against this.

I need to— I might need some plans in place. They just— they do that show in such an honest telling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kudos to the pit.

The verisimilitude's off the chart.

It really is a great show. Um, all right, well, that's it for Nate.

Those were the facts.

Yeah, those were the facts.

Just kind of a couple references. Some Netflix docs.

Sure, sure, sure.

All right, love you.

Love you.