Transcript of #2472 - Jeff Ross New

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day.

What's up, dog?

Joe.

Good to see you, my friend.

Same here, man.

What's cracka-lackin'?

Life is good. Happy to be in Austin, Texas.

Happy to have you. Are you doing Kill Tony tonight?

I'll show up at Kill Tony tonight.

Nice.

Of course, my guy. So happy for him.

Yeah, he's killing it.

He always talks about us as his early supporters.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah, that guy, he's the best.

I mean, that show is on fire. It's a fucking runaway train right now.

Everywhere I go, Kill Tony, Kill Tony, Kill Tony, love you on Kill Tony.

It's such a fun show, you know. What a great idea. Kind of amazing nobody thought it up.

Well, he just kind of put his open mics on his roasts and his personality and his friends and has built a community. It's kind of amazing.

Oh, it's incredible. He's the new Johnny Carson. I mean, think about how many, like, Adam Ray's killing it, selling out giant theaters. All these guys that, you know, came through that show are fucking destroying now.

This is our tribe, Joe.

I know.

I love it.

It's amazing. It's a good time for comedy.

Did I hear that you have a German Shepherd?

No, no, I have a Golden Retriever and I have a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Oh, okay.

Little tiny fella.

Somebody told me something different.

No, I love German Shepherds, but I don't have—

I have a German Shepherd.

They're the best. You have to exercise the shit out of them though. Yeah, they need work.

She loves to run around. Oh yeah, dig and climb and adventures.

They need tasks. They're not like my golden. He's just cool, just chilling, laying on his back, getting his belly rubbed.

Oh, I follow him on Instagram.

Don't worry, he's the best.

I look for my mornings with him.

I mean, they're a very low-maintenance dog, and he's trained. You could train him very easily, but as far as like a guard dog and that kind of— useless.

My dog— my dog can like sit, stay, and run around frantically. I'll be like, run around frantically, and she'll just run around.

Well, they have so much energy. Those dogs are just designed to work.

I put her to work for 2 months this summer on Broadway. She came out at the end of my show and howled with me in the audience.

She can howl on cue?

We taught her. I had the same trainer that did Sandy from the show Annie, like from when I was a kid, Bill Bertolone. And he's like, I could teach her. She's like a wild rescue German Shepherd from the desert. And there she was, like came out, jumped on a couch, hit her mark, turned to the audience, and we like sang.

Oh, that's awesome.

She had her own dressing room. Nipsy, her name's Nipsy. And, you know, and then when the job was all, you know, when the run was over, she was like, no more work. Now I need something else to do.

Yeah, they need things to do. Like, people that just have them and have them in an apartment and don't go anywhere, like, that's a crazy thing to do to a dog like that. Yeah. Oh, look at her.

Oh my God.

Wow, look how sweet. So she's a rescue dog?

She is.

Where'd you find her?

They found her in a, in a bummy, uh, breeder in Reno. Yeah, in the pandemic, I had an old dog. I had an old senior dog that my ex found on the street, and we took care of her at the beginning of the pandemic. And, and the ex left, left the dog. So it's just me and this old beat-up street dog for a few months. And the vet was like, I got another, a puppy, German Shepherd.

And so she was a puppy.

This one was, yeah.

Oh, that's great.

So now it was like 5 years ago already. So she's my bestie and we do everything. I mean, I just love her to pieces. Like I can't, even getting on the plane to come here yesterday, there was a part of me was like, should I bring her and let her run around the Four Seasons for a couple days and whatever? But yeah, it's hard leaving them. It's like I have a kid. She looks at me looking for the buzzwords. Are we going? Are we staying? Are we eating?

I know, they get separation anxiety big time. And they get very attached to one person.

Right.

Yeah. You're her daddy.

She's just so sweet. She'll lay in bed, wait, she never wakes me, rolls over, arms up, ready to get— she can't start the day without a full belly rub. I almost hold her legs and play her like a guitar. And she just, you know, tongues out, just complete euphoria. Once a week, I take all her collars off and just rub her rub the neck and just her eyes start watering.

And that's so cute.

Highly— I never was into dogs. I'm slightly allergic. My sister got snapped on by a Doberman when we were little, so I was always a little afraid. And then it was just kind of forced on me during the pandemic because all these dogs needed homes. So now here I am, I'm a freaking doggy daddy.

Oh, I love dogs. I've always had dogs. I will never not have dogs. I love them. I love them. What do you think it is? It's— they're just these amazing creatures that just love the shit out of you. And especially if you train them from the time they're puppies and you give them nothing but love.

Yeah.

Like, they're so connected to you. And then, you know, it's just awesome. You wake up in the morning and it's always positive. It's always, "Hello, hello." I wake up with Marshall and he starts whining and whimpering. And he, like— I do this thing in the morning. I go, "Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir." He's like, "Ooh, ooh, ooh." He's wagging his tail and he's— rolling around on his back and I'm rubbing his belly and he's giving me kisses. He loves it. He loves— he gets so excited to see me in the morning. It's like his ritual. He knows the ritual's coming. He's gonna get all this love.

Does he sleep in your room?

No, no, my wife is a little bit allergic, so he sleeps outside the room.

Right.

But he is— he's just a giant love sponge. That's what he is. It's like he loves everybody. Everybody comes in the house, like he meet you for the first time, he's like, I can't believe you're here! He's just so excited. Excited to meet everybody.

My dog checks everybody. She's got to like check them out.

Of course, German Shepherd, you know, it's different.

And if somebody has like chemical imbalances or a little off, she lets me know.

Oh yeah, you got screwball friends.

Yeah, well, every now and then, you know, comics will be off their meds and they'll come over and be like, I used to know that person, I don't know that person anymore. The dog just like alerts me.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, they're very watchful, you know, they're, they're shepherds, they're protecting you. They're protecting their daddy.

She's funny on the plane. Like, I've only flown with her twice, but once to New York and then once back after we were done on Broadway. And she's like— it was 9 months later. She literally knew how to walk on the plane, where to go, where her seat was. Like, remembers everything like a person.

They're very smart dogs. Very smart dogs. It's one of the reasons why they need so much exercise. Like, the dumbest dogs can just lay around and do nothing.

Yeah.

But really smart dogs, they need a lot of activity, especially shepherds, because they're working dogs.

If I leave her alone too long, she'll dig up the backyard. She needs something to do.

Yeah, they get crazy. They're like an athlete.

Yeah.

You know, they just, they need work. They need to go.

And they don't need a lot of food. They don't need a lot. She's, she's like—

What do you feed her?

You know, I used to overfeed her and give her a lot of table scraps and spoil her. And then I learned more recently that if I keep her to like a cup and a half of kibble a day that the vet recommended—

You should get her on raw food. So raw food or fresh food.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I used to feed my dogs kibble too. I had one dog that got cancer, and I read about all these dogs getting cancer, and you know, they get fat so easy when you give them kibble. And it's just because that stuff can sit on a shelf forever. Yeah, it's like, you wouldn't eat it, why are they eating it?

Right.

It's not healthy for them.

Sometimes I put a little turkey in the—

Turkey's great. Real food is great. Real, real food for your dog is the way to go. I feed my dog Farmer's Dog. It's— it comes frozen. It has to be frozen, right? And the way they attack it versus the way they attack kibble— like, kibble's like, okay, they're eating, no big deal. Yeah, but they just can't wait to eat this stuff. Like, they get excited. Like, the little guy, a little Charlie, he literally leaps up in the air trying to get to the counter where— when I'm putting the food in his bowl. He gets nuts. They love it. It's real food. It's human-grade food.

I have to check that out.

Oh yeah, it comes frozen, and also they give it to you do the right portions for your dog, right? So you don't have to think about it. Like, you put in your dog's weight, what breed your dog is, and, you know, whether your dog's overweight or not, and they, they measure it out calorie-wise, so it's specific to your dog. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site joerogan.com is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project and they've got built-in privacy and security tools to keep everything protected. Head to squarespace.com/rogan to try it out for free. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Sag mal, hast du bei der Steuer auch diesen Schul-Flashback? Einfach irgendwas raten und dann hoffen, dass es stimmt?

Boah, nee, gar nicht.

Wieso? Steuer ist so mein Safe Space. Du meinst, damit ist alles sicher?

Ja, genau.

WISO Steuer ist so die Steuer-App, die dich einfach versteht.

Egal ob Studium, Job oder Umzug.

Stimmt. Krass. Fühlt sich gar nicht wie Steuern an.

Steuern erledigt? Safe! Mit WISO Steuer. That's Daddy.

Well, she'd probably get a little paranoid. I used to have a pit bull that she would get paranoid if she was in a room with that high, and I was realizing, oh, this poor dog, she's getting high too. She was a rescue dog too. I found her, she was covered in mange. It was so sad. She was eating out of garbage cans.

That's heartbreaking.

Yeah, a friend of mine found her and they took her in for it, and then they called me and they said, do you want another dog? I had one dog already. I said, absolutely. And as soon as I saw her, I was like, oh yeah. They're good together. Yeah, it was so horrible. She was covered in mange, a little scabs on her and everything. It all went away within like 2 months of food. But that dog, because of living on the street, she could never get enough food. She was always like raiding garbage cans and stuff. Like, you'd have to lock up the garbage can, strap it down with a bungee cord. She would tip them over and she was never full, even though she would like get fat. She would— she was never full, just in case. It was just You know, she was starving when I found her.

I had the old dog first and then the young German Shepherd, so the old one had all these street habits like that, and she taught them to the young dog. Like, the young dog walks down the stairs as if she has a broken back hip. Oh no. She learned how to get in the car from an old dog. So two legs, she could leap right in, she's a kid, But she still goes two paws up and I have to pick her up.

Yeah, that's how Marshall does it.

Overprotective like the old dog.

Yeah, Marshall, I think he probably could jump in my car, but it's like he knows I'll just lift him up because I've done it since he was a puppy. So we do this little thing. I go, you ready? He puts his paws up. I go, 1, 2, 3. It's always 1, 2, 3, up. So he gets ready.

Do they talk to you? My dog howls with me in the morning.

No, Marshall only talks when he wants to come inside. Like if he's outside, he'll just bark once at the door just to let you know. He's really good. He's the best dog.

What does his bark sound like?

Let me in. It's like, hey, I'm out here. Come on. You know, he's out till he's not. You know, he's out till he's bored. And then he just lets you know. He's not annoying.

The old dog, if I had to put her like, if like a guy came over to work on the house or something, I had to put her like in a bedroom or a bathroom. She was, she was you know, big, big dog. She would gnaw on the handles. So I have a house full of like chrome door handles that all have like bite marks in it. Like, the bite is amazing.

Yeah, you got to give them things to chew on all the time. You know, there's chew toys all over my house. Yeah, everywhere. My dog has— Marshall has like a big box filled with toys. Yeah, and it was like— and he just goes in and picks one out. Yeah. Randomly.

Yeah, depends who it is.

I go, what are you gonna get? Which toy? He's like looking around, picks one out, and then him and the little dog, they play tug-of-war. It's adorable. They get it.

So they get along. Oh my god, you knew they'd get along before you got this.

He's the easiest dog to get along with. He gets along with everything and everybody. Jamie's got a psycho dog. Jamie's got this little French Bulldog that's like a little meat missile. Yeah, he's a nut. He's great. He's awesome. Oh yeah, he's not just— he's Carl. Almost 3, 2 and a half. He's a little psycho. He's jacked. He's super jacked.

Really?

He's like this little French bulldog, but he's just fucking jacked. And him and Marshall just play insane. It's insane. Like, Carl throws himself through the air at Marshall, 'cause he knows that Marshall's like super gentle, and they just play back and forth, but it's adorable.

If a dog is small enough, like a little chihuahua-type dog, they can put their head inside— my dog will just open her mouth and let another dog just roll her head inside her mouth.

No instincts.

Yeah, it's crazy. Just wants it to play.

It's just nuts that those used to be wolves. They've turned wolves into these little tiny things you could carry around.

I mean, in 1,000 years, are they getting smarter the way humans are evolving? I wonder.

That's a good question. I wonder. I mean, I think there would have to be a reason for them to get smarter. You know, some dogs are, like the dogs that are trained, like a Belgian Malinois. Those are really smart dogs. You know, those are military dogs. Those dogs, you cannot just leave that dog alone. No, like, it's like a shepherd times 10. Yeah, they look like shepherds, sort of, but those dogs, they're so intelligent. Yeah, you know, they, they are constantly scanning everything and looking for everything. They know when you're weird. They know everything, right? Yeah, so those dogs have to be smart because they have jobs, you know. They use them like— those are the dogs they sicced on like Osama bin Laden's crew, right? Oh, they open the door and they breach dogs run in.

Incredible. Yeah, my dog's such a wimp compared to all that.

So's mine.

She just wants to play.

Yeah, these are the only dogs that— well, I've had a couple dogs before. Like, I had a dog that was a Shiba Inu mix, and he was kind of a pussy. But— and I had a Mastiff before that, but mostly I've had like big guard dogs, right? You know, this is— these are the dogs of— first dogs I've had that are— they're not guarding shit.

Marshall's not guarding.

They guard your emotions, buddy.

Well, they're just sweet.

They're just sweet. They're just awesome to have. It's like you just have love around you all the time, and they're never in a bad mood. There's never a day where he's never had a bad day in his life. Every day is a great day. Every day he's happy.

Even if you're not there?

Well, he gets sad if I'm not there for sure. But like, I pull out the ball, it's always the same thing. It's never like one day I'm like, maybe he's gonna get bored of this fucking ball. Nope. I pull out that ball. Oh, oh, the ball! The ball's out! Let's go! Bouncing around, wagging his tail, jumping up. I got a ball. It's got like the stick, like it's like a long curved stick so you could throw the ball.

Yeah, of course.

And, you know, he just starts leaping up towards the stick. He gets so pumped. I'm like, one day he's going to get bored of this. Nope. He's 9 years old. He's never gotten bored of it.

When I come up the stairs, if she sees that I have my sneakers on, she starts stretching like an Olympian.

Let's go. Time to go.

Yeah.

Dogs are awesome. People that don't have them, I feel bad for them. Like, you're missing a lot of love in your life, especially like people that live alone. You know, it's like you always have a friend. You always have somebody. I talk to my dog, like I have conversations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and that this is— Marshall look you in the eyes when you're talking?

Oh yeah, yeah, it's a real friend. Oh, he's, he's like the most loving creature I've ever encountered.

Do you tell the dog stuff you wouldn't tell your family or your friends?

No.

Sometimes I'm like, hey Nipsey, man, I probably shouldn't have said that. She has emotional, like she knows when I'm happy, sad, nervous, sick.

Mostly it's baby talk.

Mostly it's like, "Oh, it's my buddy." He watches TV with me.

He climbs up on the couch and sits on my lap. He puts his head on my lap.

The best.

Yeah, and when there's animals on TV, he parks his head up.

Yeah.

You know, 'cause it's a big TV, and so he's like, "What the fuck is that? Is that real?" He has to—

When Nipsey first came out from the desert, she was like 6, 7-month-old. You know, puppy, but still a sizable dog. A German Shepherd at 6 months is already like a dog. And the old dog, which was old, you know, on her deathbed, but wise, streetwise, she was on the floor and the puppy was up on my bed. It was her first night in a home. And I put on TV, I put on House of Cards, and it was this daunting kind of scary music. And the dog's just watching, and it's like a shadowy figure. It was Kevin Spacey coming down the hall, his character coming down the hall. And as this man was revealed full screen on a big screen, Nipsey did a backflip, fell off the bed, and ran and hid in the closet. And the old dog, Nana, was like, "Oh, boy." She had to pull herself up on her bad legs and go in the closet, and tell her to come back out.

Now, listen, it's TV. Like, "Who? Oh?" It's almost time for spring break. So maybe you're headed to the beach or maybe you're taking the kids on a road trip or maybe you're just taking some extra time for yourself. No matter what, you deserve a break and a reset and AG1 can help. AG1 is your daily health drink. Just one scoop combines your multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods, and antioxidants to help support a healthy immune system and digestion. Plus it travels really well so you can start working it into your routine even when you don't have a routine. Just slip a few travel packs into your luggage and have a nice flight. Uh, I've talked about AG1 for a long time, and it's not just me. I know a lot of people enjoy it. It's very easy. It's very convenient, and you deserve to take care of your health. Visit drinkag1.com/joerogan, and for a limited time, get a bottle of omega-3, vitamin D3, K2, and an AG1 flavor sampler for free in your welcome kit with your first subscription. That's a $111 value. At drinkag1.com/jorogan. House of Cards, what a fucking show that was. Oh yeah.

Oh, what a fucking show. They never should have done that last season. Once Kevin Spacey got canceled, they should have just canceled it.

It was done.

Or, you know, not.

Right.

Such a good fucking show.

That was a great show.

It's crazy. I saw him, he was in Israel doing some weird thing where he was like doing like a song and dance routine. In a small club recently. Like, he's been kind of reduced to doing that for money.

Is that reduced, or is that part of the comeback? You got to start. I don't know.

I mean, it's something. I mean, I guess he's just making money, you know. He's completely bankrupt. He lost everything.

Mm-hmm.

It's crazy.

Show business.

Well, it's not just show business, right? It's, it's also What did you do? You know, what'd you get caught for? He got, you know, he was an old-school dick grabber. Those old-school guys, no one really likes that, getting their dick grabbed like that. Some gay guys do, I think. I think what he did probably worked on some guys, you know I'm saying, right? Like, gay guys have a whole different way of interacting with each other that we don't have. But I think with Spacey, it was like some of those fellows were young, and that's the problem. Power. It's power. It's like in the gay community, there's a lot of guys that think it's okay for young gay guys who are underage to hook up with older gay guys. It's a— that's like Milo Yiannopoulos. Remember him? He actually talked about that on my show. He was talking about when he was 14 he hooked up with this, this older guy, and he's like, trust me, I was the predator. He's like saying that he was going after the guy. I was like, alright, but it's different in their eyes. I mean, I'm just speaking for gay guys that I've talked to.

It's different in their eyes than, you know, an adult male and a young female, right? You know, but Kevin Spacey's a fucking unbelievable actor. That fucking House of Cards was so good. It was so good. Such a good show. I'm glad it's still out there, you know, because there's a lot of stuff.

It was so good, it made me miss and rewatch West Wing. That's how good it was.

Mm, I haven't— I never watched that. I think I maybe watched one or two episodes.

It's like an idealistic version of what politics could be, I guess. Right.

Martin Sheen is like the president we wish we had, like a really solid—

Yeah, it was a long time ago. But he's also controversial. He's hiding a medical thing. It like got way ahead of a lot of the modern-day stories.

Joe Biden.

Yeah. Yeah. And his wife's a doctor, so she's helping him.

Well, we always have these idealistic ideas of who we want to be our leader. And the thing about the Kevin Spacey character was like, that's probably more realistic. Like, that guy is more realistic.

Like— Well, as we get older, we understand you gotta be cutthroat to make it. There's gotta be a certain killer instinct in a president.

You're also most likely deeply compromised by the time you get into office, which is the only way you navigate those worlds. Like, everybody's compromised. Everybody's gone to that Eyes Wide Shut party.

Right. I couldn't get in, just for the record.

Yeah, me neither. Yeah, I don't want to get in.

I know. That's a good thing. A dog can kind of save your career because, like, you get invited to some wild sex party, you'll be like, I got it. My dog's been waiting for me for 5 hours. Sorry, I can't go. Yeah. Meanwhile, it's better to just hang out with your dog.

You'll have have a better time and you won't feel gross in the morning, I guess. But I think all those people are sociopaths. They probably don't even feel gross ever.

I was out all weekend for the Fanatics football stuff. Travis Scott's DJing till 3 in the morning.

What is the Fanatics football stuff?

They had a flag football tournament in LA. It was supposed to be in Riyadh and they had to move it to LA. Tom Brady and the Fanatics.

What's the Fanatics?

It's like, I guess it's a branding company. They do all the jerseys. They do all the—

Oh.

Michael Rubin and Michael Ratner, two friends of mine, did this flag football game, and I was just partying. I just took the weekend off, and I'm like seeing all the football players, and it was just so much fun. And then just as the party's really getting hot, I'm like, "I miss my dog.

I'm going home." Yeah, there's always this thing in the back of your head, like, "I gotta get home. He's been home alone for 5 hours. He's been home alone for 6 hours. I'm thinking about him. He has to pee." He's a good boy. He's not gonna pee in the house, but he's probably holding it in. Yeah, and it's nuts. Like, people think, especially comics, you know, we want to be up late getting drunk, fucking off, being retarded, doing drugs. You know, I just want to get home. Yeah, I want to get home, chill out, relax, watch TV.

I feel like if I had a dog when I was starting out in comedy, I would I would have been more disciplined. I would have been coming home instead of staying out all night. I kind of regret that a little bit.

You regret staying out all night?

Well, I mean, I was, you know, you know how it is. You do your set, you start hanging out in the club, in the comedy club, and drinking or eating or whatever. But there's a certain, I don't know, you go home and you're up earlier, you get more done the next day.

Oh, absolutely. Well, it's just you feel better. It's hard to leave when you're having fun. You know, it's also you feel like you're a part of a different society. Society of people who don't have a regular job. You got freedom. You're your own boss.

I grew up— I lost my parents as a teenager, so I live every day like I could die tomorrow. So I never want to leave. I have ultimate FOMO all the time. I never want to miss an event, a party. I went to the Super Bowl. I went to All-Star Weekend. I want to go to the Grammys. I love— of life. I want to make the most out of it all the time. It works against me sometimes, I think.

That's interesting, right? It's the plus side of experiencing loss when you're young. You really want— you really relish life. You want to make the most out of it. You want to enjoy it while it's here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the things I say on my show is I learned early on human beings were made to mourn and move on. You can't mourn forever or a part of you dies, and that's not fair. Right. So it gave me this sort of zest for living. You take that loss as a young person, you're, you're afraid at any second it could, you know, it's hard to make long-term plans. Are your parents still alive? Yeah, it's amazing, amazing blessing. And sometimes when you lose people young, you're afraid, you're old, you live in the constant fear that it's all going to fall fall apart.

Yeah, I've lost a lot of friends. Like, sometimes I look at my, my contact list when I get a new phone, you know, and you're swapping over contacts, and I'm like, oh, fuck, you know, I've got like 20 dead people in my contact list. Some of them I just keep in there, you know. I, I got old phones where like Bourdain was texting me. I just kept the phone. I'm like, I'm never throwing this phone away, you know. It's a bunch of friends who—

I look at Bob Saget's texts all the time. I'd listen to Gilbert Gottfried's voicemails.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Yeah, it just brings me right back to them. I—

those two guys, that was— those are two tough ones. Those are two really tough ones.

Well, that's great. There's that famous picture of me, Norm, Gilbert, and Bob that Adam Egan took at Jones Restaurant in Hollywood, and I show that in my special, and I talk about each one do like a tribute to Norm. I do a tribute to Gilbert, whose family is a big part of my family now. His kids are great kids. His daughter goes to school here in Austin. And there it is, there it is. And Bob, who just became a grandfather. So they left quite a legacy, those guys. And I really loved them, and they would make me laugh. You know, I would just set them up and they would go, and I would laugh until I I was dying laughing.

Fucking Norm, what a legend.

The king.

He was such a great guy too.

Yeah. He was so funny too. And his clips, I don't know if it's my algorithm or what, but you would think Norm is making comedy content every day if you looked at my algorithm.

Well, mine too. I think a lot of people. So like people just share them because, you know, he had so many funny things to say about everything and such a unique perspective. Just an unusual state of mind.

Canadians. I have a theory that Canadians— I'm from New Jersey, so I feel like New Jersey— I grew up as an outsider to New York. We had to root for New York sports teams, we had to listen to New York radio stations as a kid, TV stations. And Canada has that with America, right? So I think they always feel like— comedians feel like outsiders a little bit. I feel like Canadians kind of have that.

Harland, he's Canadian.

I mean, Canadian comedians, you could go all day.

Tom Green. Yeah, yeah, Jim Carrey.

Jim Carrey, a lot of Canadians. Caroline Ray, uh, and a lot more. John Candy, right?

Yeah, John Candy was a Canadian.

Yeah. Uh, Martin Short.

Was he? Is he?

He is. I think so.

He's still with us.

Those SCTV people.

That's right.

Yeah, Martin Short is— he had a rough month. He lost somebody very close to him, but he's still one of the funniest people in the world.

Oh, he was brilliant. All those fucking crazy characters.

Oh my god, I was at a birthday party once. It was like Paul Rudd's 50th birthday party years ago, and I remember I was like, let's do karaoke, and nobody wanted to start. Everybody was too like shy to like do karaoke first, and Martin Short walked up to the mic, belted belted out like a Sinatra song, dropped the mic, and walked out to the valet and left. Just like kicked it off and went, "Fly me to the moon," and he was gone.

It's weird when you get older and you realize how many guys have passed. Like, Patrice comes up in my algorithm all the time. And you know, you just watch old clips. I went on a binge a few months back of him on Opie and Anthony. Yeah, just fuck ruthless. He would have been the number one podcast in the world if he was alive today.

Patrice?

Yeah, if he had a podcast, because he probably would have. He probably— I mean, it's a perfect normal transition from Opie and Anthony to podcasting, right? He would, he would probably have the best podcast in the world, except the guests would never get to talk at all. Yeah, it wouldn't matter. He would be dressing them down.

Patrice's greatness at the Charlie Sheen roast I always talk about is he went on last and he was like— we booked him late. He never wanted to do a roast. And he said, I don't know this one, I don't know that one. And finally I called him one day, I go, we're roasting Charlie Sheen. He goes, oh. He goes, I don't know Charlie Sheen, but I think I could do that. I go, you know him. You don't know him, but you know What do you know? And he goes, all right, I'm coming. He dresses total rock star, like a leather suit, like this whole, like, fantasy Patrice in his head. And then the day of the show, he's like complaining about his material. He's like, I don't know, all these writers, they don't know me. This isn't me. But I go, Patrice, fuck all that. Pay attention and roast the roast. Just roast the roast. Make mental notes. Clock it all, let them see you taking it in, and then just go on and talk about what you just saw. And that's what he did.

No, it was brilliant. Did you see Charlie Sheen's Netflix documentary?

I haven't.

It's fucking great, man. Crazy. It's crazy. Like, he talks about everything. Talks about the first time he smoked crack. A girl was giving him a blowjob when he smoked crack.

How else you supposed to do it?

He said it's the best experience he's ever had. He says he's never topped it.

Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Makes you want to try it. Makes you like think maybe. He was a fascinating guest too, having him in here. It's like, that guy's been through so much shit and he's okay, you know? It's like, how is he alive?

You know, people are just different, right? Tiger blood. I was on tour with him that whole time.

Right, that's right. You were doing that thing with him. So What happened was when he got kicked off of Two and a Half Men and he went kind of kooky, he decided to do this whirlwind tour. And the first one he did, he tried to go and just wing it.

Torpedo of Truth. Yeah, that's what he called it.

The winging it one did not work.

No.

But then when he started doing it with you and he did it with Russell— Russell Peters did a bunch of them with him— with comics, it actually worked because like he would have someone to bounce stuff off of and they knew how to be entertaining and keep the flow going, right? Yeah, and then you got into those stories, and it was amazing. Yeah, it totally turned around.

The first one I did was in Atlantic City, and he called me the night before, and I was in LA at a party, and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, go do it, go do it. So I caught a like 6:00 a.m. flight.

He called you the night before? What did he say?

He's like, my shows aren't going good. Every— I didn't know him. He goes, you know, like All these different people keep telling me, Simon Rex, other friends of his kept saying, Jeff Ross could come out and roast you and save this. So I just wrote jokes all night, left the party, wrote jokes, caught a 6 AM flight. I walk into his dressing room like an hour before. Chuck Zito is literally staring me down going, don't be too mean to my guy. They're just trying to scare me. And I'm like, I'm here to like, I'm a comedian. Charlie was really cool, and I told his road manager, he goes, what do you need? I go, I need a podium to roll out, big arenas. I want to make it like a show, and I need a hazmat suit because he'd been bombing for like a week every single night. I'm gonna come out, I go, I heard there's a bomb scare, and I roll out. It's Jersey, so it's my crowd, and I just start roasting him. And it went well, and I was like, if you're winning— because he's always like, winning, winning— I'm like, if you're winning, something's wrong with the fucking scoreboard.

Old Jeff with hair, duh, winning.

Look at that.

Boy, he looks so skinny. That's a look of a guy who does coke. Look how ripped he is. Jesus.

Oh man, he was up all night. We had— he was like—

So he was still partying hard back then.

You know, it's hard to say.

Had to be.

He didn't let me see that side of it.

I'm sure he was. There's no chance he was clean. Oh, that's right, he was a warlock. A warlock with tiger blood.

Right.

Violent Torpedo of Truth tour kicks off in Detroit. TV star is booed off stage.

Yeah, so then after that, they kept calling and going, can you do this date? Can you do that date? It was like more money than I'd ever made for a one-nighter, so I just started getting on the bus and the plane with them.

And how many dates you guys did?

I wound up doing 8.

Osterfreude für alle zum Aldi-Preis.

Milka großer Schmunzelhase ab 90 Gramm für nur 1,29 Euro. Oder Philadelphia Frischkäse ab 150 Gramm für nur 89 Cent.

Aldi, Gutes für alle. And Russell, how many did you do?

I don't know. I don't know.

So you just had different comics. Who else did it?

I don't remember anyone else but me. So that's news to me that Russell did.

Yeah, Russell did a few. At least one I know of.

Maybe there might have been some in Canada I didn't do.

Well, Russell's really good off the cuff. You know, Russell's great working the crowd.

I think Russell interviewed him. I think Russell, like— That's how he did it? Yeah, I think that's how he did it. Because now it occurs to me that he had interviewers on some of them. And he had a radio guy. And I think maybe Russell might have done a Canadian thing.

That's a smart way to do it. Have someone who's smart and quick just interview. Because the stories are so bananas. All you need is the stories. And he was so open about stuff, talking about how much crack he would smoke.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it was just so insane. And everybody was so happy that someone was, instead of hiding from the fact that they fucked their life up, they were like celebrating that they were off the rails. And everyone was like, "Yeah, Tiger Blood!" I remember even Diego Sanchez, who was fighting in the UFC, was saying he had Tiger Blood. That's how fucking— That's how popular it was getting.

Yeah, he was a thing.

Yeah, it was a thing, but it was a new thing, right? It was a movie star who'd gone off the rails and was like celebrating it and being open and honest in interviews about prostitutes, cocaine, chaos, everything, all the above. Yeah, it was a totally new experience for the general public because before, if someone had an addiction problem, it was like, oh, so sad, right? He was doing coke and, you know, my life had fallen apart and then I found Jesus, right? You know, it's like always one of those things.

He wasn't on an apology tour.

He went on a fuck you Yeah, 100%. And no one had ever done that before. No one had ever done a fuck you tour before. I mean, it was a little ill-advised, the first ones, you know, when he went on by himself. Like, that was a terrible idea, right? You can't just wing it. And when you're on coke, you think you could do anything, you know?

Or he would take questions, but there's 15,000 people yelling at him, right?

If you're gonna take questions, it would have to be a person who's a moderator, right, who has a microphone and talks to another person and is there so they can keep it from going going off the rails, and a line of people. You can't just have people yelling out things in the audience.

One night, one night, somebody wanted his money back, and he brought the guy up and gave him his money back, and then of course like 400 people stood up like, "I want my money back." Oh no. He would get in a— he would hear the audience too much.

Yeah. Well, he had no experience with that kind of stuff.

Right.

If you think you could just do live audience and deal with 15,000 people's different personalities, then you don't know I don't know what that's like. Good luck.

We wound up doing 8 shows, and I would always roast him, so by the 8th show, I had 20 minutes of Charlie Sheen material. Every city, I'd add jokes. So that's when I was like, "Why don't we just do this on TV? I mean, we have the roast." And then we did the Comedy Central roast. Patrice and all that. And Mike Tyson was at that one.

It's a really interesting career arc with him. Well, if you know his story, he was on the set of Apocalypse Now with his father. When he was 10, right? And then 10 years later, he was doing— what was the fucking movie? His fucking big war movie. Jesus Christ, why am I blanking? Platoon. He was doing Platoon when he was 20. Yeah, which is nuts. 10 years later. Yeah, I mean, he's doing the next iconic war movie, right? And he's a 20-year-old kid, and then all of a sudden he's a fucking superstar, right? He was great in that movie, and he's just off the rails, just like no restrictions. He's rich, he's young, he's handsome. He's going crazy, doing drugs, but he made it through it all. That's what's nuts.

I gotta check that doc out.

It's great. He's a great interview too. Like, like, having him on the podcast was fucking great. He's a really nice guy. He's very cool and honest about it all. Yeah, you know, he's also like, hey, you know, I can still act.

Act.

Like, how about— I've fucking paid my dues. I've been sober for 7 years. Like, give me a shot. Yeah, he could still act.

He's a good actor.

I hope someone does do something like that, because I feel like if one big movie came along, like, maybe Tarantino could put him in, because he's the master at reviving careers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What he did with Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction— like, Travolta was dead on the operating table in his career. Before Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction came along and boom, he's back because they realized like, oh shit, John Travolta, John Travolta can fucking act. And that, that role was perfect for him. Vince, he played this crazy hitman with Samuel Jackson. That's fucking— what a movie.

I watch it all the time.

Yeah, it completely revived his career. Yeah, he's the— like Quentin Tarantino is like the master of seeing things that other people don't see. And I was like, "That guy's still great." And I think that's like the case with Charlie. Like, someone's gotta come along and see and just go, "I just need to get him a role where he just can really sink his teeth into it, and he'll fucking kill it." Especially now, at this stage of his life, where he knows how important it is, he'll throw himself into it. It'd be fucking amazing.

00:40:37

Well, like, some people don't act for a long time, and then look what Sean Penn just did, and he came back back after God knows how long and just did this totally iconic, unrecognizable, strange character.

I didn't see that movie. I've heard all these mixed reviews.

Whatever. It's interesting to see Sean's take on this soldier.

Look, Sean Penn's out of his fucking mind, but that's the kind of guy that makes a great actor. He's a great actor.

Ditch the Oscars to go see—

Yeah, go to Ukraine.

So cool.

Go hang out. Go hang out with my boy Zelensky. Do coke. Russian Coke.

I got— you think that's what they were doing? That's good.

I'm just guessing. I'm just taking a wild guess. But that, that guy, I mean, how about him? Like, goes and fucking meets the drug lord. What's his name? What's wrong with my brain today, Jamie? What the fuck's his name? The dude he met in Mexico, the guy who got arrested. El Chapo. Thank you. Went down and met El Chapo, and that's how El Chapo wound up getting arrested, right? Wanted to meet Sean Penn. He's like, all right, I'll go meet— he wrote an article for like Rolling Stone. He like was a journalist, right? I remember, went to— I mean, like, who— what fucking movie star goes down and meets El Chapo? By the way, that shirt— Conor McGregor bought a shirt that's like exactly like that shirt and recreated that pose with— I forget who he shook hands with, but it was like this like funny inside joke. That a lot of people didn't catch. It's like, why is he wearing that shirt? And people realize, oh my God, he's wearing the El Chapo shirt. He bought a similar shirt. He's like literally doing that.

Oh my gosh.

So silly. He dressed as gangster El Chapo. He's literally doing the thing. But he did it on purpose. Nuts. I mean, it takes insane balls. To be a world-famous actor and decide, "I'm gonna go meet a drug lord in Mexico and write an article for Rolling Stone." He's an adventurer. I guess.

Acting's a part of him, not all of him.

I mean, he must be. I mean, he's in fucking Ukraine. Like, what does he do?

I remember being at a party, Eddie Vedder's birthday party, and Sean Penn walked in with Stormy Daniels. Like, he has friends from the most— Diverse places.

That's funny.

Zelensky, Stormy.

Have you seen Kyle Dunnigan's face swap things with Trump and Stormy Daniels? Oh my God, they're so funny.

So funny.

Kyle Dunnigan, he's another guy that got revived by Kill Tony, or like really got— the world got to see him. Like we did, we covered his face swap videos a bunch of times on the podcast and blew them up. But to see him as these characters, like when he plays RFK Jr., when he plays Elon, like that is what really like kicked off Kyle's career. You know?

Dude, his RFK is so good. So fun.

His Elon's so good.

That's when he first started doing the face swap. And I was like, this is the best. My text chain's always sharing his stuff.

His Bill Maher. His Bill Maher is amazing. You know, I tried to play—

'Cause his jokes are funny about it.

I tried to play the Bill Maher impression with Bill Maher when he was in there. He goes, if you play it, I'll leave.

Why does he care? I don't know.

Because he doesn't hang out with comics enough. He's out there doing his show, hanging out with political people, being all serious.

It's like, he just wants to be a— what do you call it— a contrarian. I was on his podcast and like, he literally, he just wanted to fight about anything. I go, the Ramones are great. He's like, no, they're not.

I'm like, all right. Rock and roll high school's not great? Come on, son. The look, the crazy hair, all of it.

The Ramones, one of the greatest.

The Ramones ruled. They were ruled.

Never had a song over 2 minutes and 5 seconds.

How can you say they're not great?

It's nice to go see them in college, man.

You don't have to like it, but you gotta admit there's a reason why people love them, right? Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, man.

People are so weird when they want to say something sucks. Like, I was having an argument with someone about— there's like, Taylor Swift's all dumb music. I go, no, it's not. It's not. She's got some great songs. Nobody No Crime, a great fucking song.

By the way, I respect anybody who writes their own music, produces their own music.

Also, it's like, do you think you're smarter than everybody who loves her? Like, she's literally got more fans than anybody alive, and you think they're all wrong? That's kind of crazy. Like, you just— you don't have to like it. You don't have to like it, but there's— there's like— people have closed minds.

I met her at an Oscars party last weekend, and she introduced herself. I was talking to Travis. She was— I was talking to Travis for a few minutes, and she said, "Hi, I'm Taylor." You know, I was a little starstruck because, I don't know, musicians are the last thing for me. Like, I really respect— and she was super cool, man. And she was really cool, actually. And I told her that I went to her Eras show, and she—

did you really?

She said she watches the roasts.

And oh, that's funny.

It was pretty cool, actually.

That's awesome.

I wonder when they make love if they wear helmets, those two.

Why do you think they wear helmets?

Just saying, it's gotta be wild. Travis and Taylor, sweet and passionate. Maybe. I hope so.

That's what I think.

You have your fantasies, I have mine.

Shoulder pads, cleats. Yeah, going for it on AstroTurf.

He's a nice I like this guy.

Is he?

Has he been in here?

No, never met him.

He'd be a good—

Good dude?

Yeah.

It's interesting when people are public, like a public relationship like that, two super famous people. It's like, that's a lot of pressure. And then you're putting it all out there in the world and like everybody's judging you, like, oof. It's hard enough to keep a relationship together, but keep a relationship together when you have to field everyone's opinions of you? Especially like Taylor Swift, 'cause how many fucking songs does she have about ex-boyfriends?

Right?

It's like, geez, if you break up with her, the fucking diss track of the universe is coming your way.

Yeah, right. Kendrick Drake, fuck that. Just don't break up with Taylor.

Exactly. Yeah, but it's like you're doing it in front of the world and you're inviting all the shittiest people in the world to have their opinions about you. It's like, it's a lot of pressure.

Freaking Timberlake this weekend, that really pissed me off.

What happened?

They released released a 2 or 3-year-old video of him getting a DUI.

Yeah, I did see that.

Why does that need to be out there? Why do they— what is—

how is that a legal thing to take like a video of someone being arrested? Like, why is that? Because he's a public figure? Why? Why isn't that private? I don't understand.

It makes no—

and there was nothing outrageous about it. He didn't—

hassling this guy and bringing up old news, it really bugged me.

I mean, there was nothing outrageous about I mean, he was very calm and relaxed, and, you know, they arrested him for DUI. They, you know, they asked him a few questions. There was nothing about it that was, you know, like, oh, look at Justin Timberlake, he's off the rails, he's acting crazy. It was like he had a few drinks, probably shouldn't have drove, drove, got caught. That's it, right?

It happens to a lot of people.

Yeah, and whatever, just because he's famous or whatever, he wasn't acting like an asshole. He didn't do anything terrible. People, and, you know, and everybody wants like, look at him, he got caught, right? You have so much money and you still got caught, right? You know, obviously get a driver, dude. You know, you gotta get drunk, right? It's not that hard.

He's tooling around the Hamptons, they thought he was fine.

Yeah, that's probably it, right? That's where all the rich people drink and drive.

Well, I don't, I don't get having to torture somebody by releasing the video.

Well, I mean, all he has to do is just not be online for a few days and it'll go away. But it's like, why is it okay to release that? Why is that a public record thing? Unless there's like some— even if there's a case, that should be something that gets released in court.

No, they released it as public information. But what? Right, why? I don't know why.

Cuz he sings?

Cuz we live in a cruel fucking world, that's why.

Yeah, we live in a place where people people enjoy cruelty. They enjoy— well, it's like, you look at him, you know, he's like super famous, married to— what's her name? Was he married to Jessica Biel? Beautiful woman. Yeah, right. He's got this perfect life. He's rich, he's famous, he could dance, he could sing, he's tall, he's handsome, he's a star when he was young. Fuck that guy. You know, that's how everybody is. Oh, look, he was drunk. Yeah, yeah, bitch, you've been drunk before too. Shut the fuck up, right? And if you haven't, fuck you. If you've never been drunk, fuck you. Unless like your dad was an alcoholic and, you know, understanding circumstances. But it's like, why is that something that people are in? I saw it, came across my newsfeed, and I looked at it for a few seconds. I was like, there's nothing outrageous about this. You see Alan Richman though?

No.

The guy who plays Reacher, he beat the fuck out of some guy in front of some kids today. Yeah, or yesterday. It was crazy. He— that guy's a giant dude. You know that show Reacher?

Yeah, I heard of it.

He's fucking huge and jacked, and he was riding dirt bikes and he got in some altercation with his neighbor and someone filmed it. And you know, he's all this hulking guy, and I don't know what the circumstances were. Maybe the guy deserved it. Maybe the guy was a piece of shit. Maybe the guy came after him first. But all you see in the video is him beating this guy up and And, you know, he's fucking this tank of a man. He's huge. He's like 250 pounds, and he's beating some guy's ass, and then he gets back on his motorcycle, and he's doing it in front of kids too, which is kind of crazy violence. Well, it's also— it's like, why you— I don't know what happened, so I don't really want to comment on the extenuating circumstances. Right.

Pushed off the bike by the man.

Oh, the guy pushed him off the bike. Okay, well then that guy's just trying to get it. You want to see the video? Let's watch the video. So watch the video. Like, so this is after he already beat the guy's ass.

I don't— I'm not gonna show it.

So he's punching the dude. The other guy's a big guy too. He might have just had a dickie neighbor. Boy, neighbors, and like especially if you got a homeowners association, there's some fucking shit heads. So this guy— so if the guy pushed him off the bike, I kind of understand. The guy pushed him off the bike, he's lucky that's all he did.

This could be 8-year-olds, like, yeah, those little kids with tricycles.

But those little kids that are there too, and he's yelling at him and pointing at him. But if you really did push him off the bike, that guy's a piece of shit, and he's lucky. And he— look, he's an idiot because he, like, even after he beat his ass, he's still getting in his face. And he's still talking shit. Okay, well, that's a different story. Well, that's good. That's good to know. Yeah, fuck that guy. You know, push someone off a bike, and it's like— is because the dirt bikes were loud and they're in the neighborhood, you know? Turn your TV up. Shut the fuck up.

Right?

People are just so into everybody's business. I've watched so many videos of homeowners associations yelling at people for doing whatever— parking an old car in your driveway.

I'm not—

or just like, people always love to tell people what they can and can't do, right? I've had homeowners associations before. I don't know if you've ever dealt with that. It is a fucking nightmare. You have to sit down and talk to these dorks who tell you what you should and shouldn't do with your fence.

Yeah, you know, higher your hedges.

Dude, I had a situation once where there was all these wrought iron fences in my neighborhood, and I repaired my fence and I replaced it with a different wrought iron fence, and they said you can't have wrought iron fences. We have a new rule. It has to be a questing fence. I said, but there's no consistency. I said, the entire neighborhood has wrought iron fences. They said it doesn't matter. I said, well, let's go to court. I go, I don't give a fuck. I go, I'll sue you. I go, I have money. I go, let's go to court. I go, I'm not taking my fucking fence down. And they're like, you're gonna take your fence down. I go, you're not gonna tell me anything. You're not gonna tell me what to do just because— I go, it looks great. It's not like it's a blight on the neighborhood. The house is beautiful. Shut the fuck up. And eventually I won.

Did you have to sue?

Well, I threatened to sue and they backed off because they were afraid of suing. They're afraid of lawsuits because then you'd have to— they would have to use the homeowners association funds to do this. And it didn't make any sense. Like, I talked to a lawyer about it. I said, does this make any sense? He goes, no, there's a precedent in the neighborhood. Like, every third house had wrought iron fencing. And it wasn't like it wasn't good looking. Like, it was beautiful, was new, was clean. I had reputable company build it. There's nothing wrong with it. And I was replacing wrought iron fence with more wrought iron fence, just better. It was like the fence was broken, it looked shitty. It was like, you know, they get rusty where they connect, and I had to get it replaced.

So what on earth was their problem?

Just cunts. Cunts. This is how cunty they are. I had a neighbor, he lived across the street. He told me that I had to trim my trees and thin them out so that he could see the view in the distance. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, we have a regulation that says you can't obstruct the view. I go, these trees have been here for 50 years. And then I talked to the guy who sold me the house. He's like, that asshole was trying to do that with me too. Just tell him to fuck himself. Yeah, he's just a weird guy. He said he built an observation deck at the top of his hill in his backyard so he could see like the lights of the city in the distance, and he wanted you to cut your trees down so So you're obstructing the view. I go, your house is obstructing my view of this hill. I like to look at hills. Is that what we're going to do? Take your house down. You take your house down, I'll trim the trees. Fuck you, man.

Tell him to lift his house up.

He's like, oh, so it's going to be like that. I go, going to be like what? You want me to cut trees down so you can see? Like, you don't have a view, man. You're not on the edge of the hill. You're backset. This is what the view looks like from where you are. This house has been here before your house was there. Go eat shit.

But it's like, that's nice, and maybe you would have done something.

I wouldn't have done a fucking thing. It's not— it didn't make any sense. It's just people want to tell people what to do. Like, I was reading this article where this homeowners association hired a tow company to go around the neighborhood and tow all the cars that had expired tags. Can you imagine? Like, you know, your tag's expired, like, ah, fuck, I'll get to it. I'm busy. I'll get to it next week. Week, you know, you're just running around, and then all of a sudden they tow your car. Like, fuck you, man. Like, fuck you. It's just people love to tell other people what to do. And homeowners associations, when they get power, they become like the little hall monitors of the neighborhood. You know, your grass is unruly. You, it's supposed to be 2 inches, it's 4. Like, ugh. Just people. People love to do that. They love to tell people what to do and what not to do.

I have one neighbor who kind of runs the whole block. She puts everyone on an email chain, and she's pretty— she leads with love, but she looks out for everybody.

Well, as long as I'm looking out, it's not bad. It's just like nonsense. Like the guy wanted me to trim the trees. He wanted me to thin out my tree. You want me to chop the trees down? He goes, no, I just want you to thin them out. You can thin them out. I go, what? What are you talking about? Chop all the leaves off so that you could see lights in the distance. It was like the dumbest conversation, and he realized while we're in the middle of the conversation how dumb this is, right? And then we never talked again. And I would see him occasionally.

Isn't there a safety issue with trimming your trees, like thinning them out? Fire safety?

Well, I mean, where we were, there was— the real issue is brush. The real issue is the ground. You know, dried brush on the ground. We were evacuated from where I lived 3 times from fires down here. No, this is in California.

Yeah.

And when I lived in California, the last big fire in 2018, we lost 3 houses in front of our house, and my neighbor's house caught on fire. But I had one— my crazy friend Bud would not leave the neighborhood. They evacuated the whole neighborhood. He wouldn't leave. He's like, I'm staying. I'm staying. I'm gonna save my house. I'm gonna save other people's houses. And he fucking He saved his house. He saved— he saved my neighbor's house. He checked my neighbor's house. My roof— the roof is on fire. He got water on it. He called the fire department. There was fire departments that were like trying to put out fires in the neighborhood the moment they started, and they hosed his roof down because embers will fly and land.

I had it in LA, evacuate for one day.

It's spooky, man. It's— the fires in California are no joke, man. It's, it's really weird to see when it happens because you realize like how nature is completely in control when that happens.

You just—

this storm of flames that comes over the hills, it's wild. It's, it's wild and it cannot be controlled. And once it starts, it's just a matter of trying to contain it. And a certain amount of houses are just gonna go no matter what, depending on which way the wind blows. But that wasn't what the problem was. It was— this guy was just a cunt. Just a— just, it's a homeowners association thing. It's just like people that think they— like, there was a— we— I'm still a part of this email group that, you know, I'm still on the email of the homeowners association. Yeah, one of the guys poisoned one of the people in the homeowners association's dogs. Yeah, like they got in some sort of a dispute about something. This guy poisoned his fucking dog.

Dogs.

Wow.

Yeah, it's so sad.

Evil cocksucker. Wow. But it's like that kind of thing. It's these people that just want to control their neighbors, man. It's so weird. Like, one of my neighbors—

what's the punishment for that?

He should be shot. I mean, you fucking piece of shit. That's like killing a family member.

He should have to eat whatever he gave those dogs.

You should go to jail for sure. I don't know what happened. I don't know if they caught the guy. They don't— I don't think they know exactly who did it. They had no video evidence. The person who lived there apparently didn't have good security cameras. But there's just a— it's so weird. Like, they would get mad at someone for the way they designed their house. And I was like, what do you give a fuck? And he's like, this is like one of my neighbors built a house and my other neighbor go, what do you think about his house? I go, it's a house. Like, I don't care. And he's like, I think it's ugly. And this house is going to lower our property values. Like, what are you fucking talking about? Your house looks great. Great. You have a beautiful house. You think people are gonna pay less for your house because this house is boring? Like, this doesn't make any sense. It's— but it's just people, they nitpick. And when they have control, when people have control over other people's situation— like, they don't have control over their own life and their life is just a sloppy mess, they always like to look at other people's lives.

And I don't like where he puts his dumpsters.

It's a hater. Yeah, we all confront that all the time.

It's not just a hater, it's a hater with power. Because of homeowners associations. And from that moment on, I decided I will never buy a home with a homeowners association. Never. No fucking chance. I don't care how cool they are, 'cause someone not cool could move in, and then it becomes a nightmare. I will never have conversations with those kind of people where they tell you what you could do with your lawn. Like, fuck you.

Fuck you. When I was a young comic, I lived with my grandfather in the house that I grew up in, and we would never, ever, ever mow the lawn. We just didn't have any money. We didn't care, and everyone in our neighborhood just hated us. They would heckle us and yell at us. So I guess I've been the eyesore, and now I'm on the other side of it.

My grandfather lived in the same house that he bought in the 1940s, and when he bought it in the 1940s, this was in— it was an all-Italian neighborhood in Newark. And then I'm from— they started doing— you were born in Newark?

Newark, New Jersey.

No shit. Let's go.

That's where I learned karate.

Is that really?

From detectives in Newark. Really?

Oh yeah. Yeah. People don't know you're a black belt in taekwondo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's wild. Do you still do it at all?

I mean, I work out like, you know, not with people, but I know my moves and I do a few in the new Netflix special. I throw some kicks for fun and tell the story about getting a black belt at starting at 6, getting bullied. My mom dragging me to the House of Empty Hands. That was what it was called. Ronnie Roselli, Newark detective, teaching me karate, almost like a father figure.

Oh, that's awesome.

Gave me confidence, gave me self-respect, respect for others. Taught me that hard work pays off. You know, when you get a black belt at 10 and a half, you go, wow, maybe I could be something in my life if I work as hard as I did at that maybe I could be good at something else too.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it teaches you a lot about— like, the belt system is really good because you get rewarded for your work, and then you see like a tangible result instead of just like, ooh, I'm getting better. It's like, oh, there's like a ceremony. Yeah, I've reached a new level.

Yeah, I could—

now, you know, now I have to be—

some of my most cherished memories are those ceremonies.

Mm-hmm.

My dad and mom watching me get my brown belt, blue belt, brown belt, and black belt. Competing in tournaments all over the East Coast.

Isn't that awesome?

What was his name? Gary— there's this karate guy used to throw— Gary Alexander. He threw East Coast tournaments, and I used to compete. I still have a room, half a dozen karate trophies.

That's awesome.

It's the best time of my life.

I lost most of my stuff, but I do have a bunch of medals that I still have that are in my drawer by my bed. A bunch of medals from the day, but it seems weird when I pick them up. They don't even seem real.

It's from another life.

Oh, it's another life. Like, I don't even— I— until I like hit a bag or something like that, I almost forget that I could do it, you know? And then I do it, I'm like, ooh, right, still got it.

I like block. I like my kicks. I can front snap kick. I can't side kick. I can barely roundhouse at this point, but it's like, why not? I got a belly. I've There's no real good reason other than I'm just, you know, you ever thought about like starting to take classes again? If I, if I do think about it, I probably could. Yeah, you know, you're good at kicking, of pushing me to do stuff like that.

It'd be good for your health. Just take a class a couple times a week.

What would I take if I was a black belt in taekwondo?

Take taekwondo. Just start taking that again. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're doing it for exercise. It's not like you're gonna fight in the UFC. No. Just go and start, you know, you'd probably feel it a little bit and then you remember what you used to be able to do and so your muscle memory would kick in.

Yeah.

You'd start probably watching your diet a little bit better.

Right, right, right.

Drinking more water. Yeah, taking vitamins. Then next thing you know, 4 or 5 months have gone by and now your waist is thinner, your kicks are snappier, you're going to 3 classes a week instead of 2. You know, you feel better. People go, Jeff, look at you, you're looking great. Okay, I started taking taekwondo again.

Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I guess I, I guess I wouldn't wear my black belt. I would feel like I was disrespecting, right, the art. Yeah, so I'd have to re-earn that.

Well, you could always take a totally new style and start out as a white belt, you know. You take like Kyokushin, shirt I'm wearing right now, Georges St-Pierre. Take something else. Just take something near you, like Krav Maga, like take anything.

My manager Amy told me she was your publicist when you were on the COVID of Black Belt magazine. Oh yeah.

AVsV. Yeah, yeah, way back in the dizay.

I love that. That's so funny.

Yeah, um, I mean, I never stopped working out. I just don't— it's too much of a part of my brain. Like, my mind doesn't operate well if I have days— even if I just take a couple days off, I don't feel right. I feel squirrely. I feel like I'm not balanced.

You know, sometimes I just like to stand in front of a mirror and just throw blocks and just make sure that I like the way that it feels. Yeah, just do it.

It's meditative. Yeah, yeah. You know what I used to love doing, especially when I lived in California? I'd take a couple bong hits and just hit the bag and just like feel it. Just, just start feeling it and just—

I remember my kata.

Do you? Do you remember all those?

I remember at least At least the first two, I think.

God, I used to hate those things. I didn't think— I was young and immature, and I didn't understand the value of forms. I used to think that this is pointless, this isn't fighting. I only wanted to practice fighting technique. But now I understand. It teaches you body control. Like, you know, you throw a sidekick and you snap it up in the air and you hold it and you turn and block and all that stuff. Like, it teaches you body— it's like a— almost like a form of yoga. You know, and it teaches you to control your body. I do a lot of kicks in the air now, and I do them slowly, like, I— and it, it's really good for your control and your balance. And I didn't think that when I was younger. I thought that was like a waste of time. I thought like really what's important is like hitting things really hard and being fast. And now I realize like, no, no, no, there's like a lot of value even to help your technique kicks and to be able to hit things hard, like do it slowly and just have full control of your balance and your movement.

So I like to do that. I like to do like slow kicks.

I like— that's why I like yoga.

Yoga is amazing.

Yeah, I feel like that's akin to martial arts.

It makes me high. Yoga is like the best.

Take your shoes off. Oh yeah, your phone is gone.

You're so relaxed.

It's just about your body and you're so calm.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yoga is so good for your brain.

Usually on Mondays when I'm here, I would go with Tony to his hot yoga.

Yeah. Oh, Tony loves it. Yeah, he raves about his yoga.

He told me he's been off it a little bit.

He has. Yeah, well, you know, the thing about Tony is like he's so focused on Kill Tony right now because the momentum is so extraordinary, and he realizes that— like, Tony's really aware that he's in a very rare moment in his life. Yeah, where things are going so well. So he's got his foot on the gas.

Yeah, of course.

And he's got his new special that he filmed that he's editing right now, getting ready to release.

And he's so proud of him, man. He's earned it. I always told him he would take a different path than a normal entertainer. He always had this kind of odd trajectory.

Well, he's an odd guy. Yeah, you know, Tony, you'd swear he's gay, and he's not, but he's an awesome person. Person. Like, people who don't know Tony, they see like the outside of him. Of course, like, as a friend, he's a great friend. He's a great guy.

I really love checking out each other, and he's the best. He was so happy. He was the first one to text me when I knew I was coming down here. When I was workshopping my, my show, he came and saw it in Austin. He came to the opening night on Broadway in New York. He's like there for his friends, 100%.

Well, that's the beautiful thing about Kill Tony is it's all about supporting people and giving people careers. Yeah, I mean, he's given so many people careers and pumps so many people up. I mean, he's— it's really that thing, that Kill Tony thing, is also— it is, in my opinion— well, first of all, for our club, it's the cornerstone of the club. It's one of the most important things about the Mothership, because having Kill Tony at the Mothership every Monday night lets all these people that are upcoming comedians see what it's like like to have one minute that you've polished and worked on really well and it kills, and then you pop, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's on YouTube, it's got 11 million views, and then, you know, maybe it's on Netflix and it's got millions and millions of people watching all around the world, and then all of a sudden people come to see you in the clubs and you're selling out weekends and you're writing, and then you get a golden ticket and you gotta do a new minute every week, you're a regular. I mean, it really—

I did it. My show comes on tonight. It's 90 minutes. It might be the longest stand-up special in Netflix history.

Well, your show is like a one-man show.

90 minutes.

It's a little different, right? I haven't seen it, but I've heard great things.

Yeah, you're gonna love it.

I'm sure I will.

You're really— I think you're gonna like it because it's about us. It's about comedy and the community of what we do.

It's an embattled community, and it has its detractors and it has a bunch of haters and a bunch of shitheads in it, but for the most part, like, as far as creative communities, it's one of the most supportive communities ever. I mean, it's an amazing— the community of comics, like real comics that are all— that when we meet up in clubs, it's always hug. Like, people think we're all like angry, bitter, like, oh, the tears of a clown. It's not. There's a few people like that and they always make me sad. Bad, but the reality is like most of us are super happy to see each other. It's always hugs and laughing and watching each other's sets and giving each other tags and telling each other like, "Oh, that fucking new bit is amazing." It's like, it's so supportive.

I was at your club last night and it was like, oh, comics come in to say hi. I brought some extra chicken wings. Jamar was there. It was just fun. Moses was doing roast battle. I sat in on that. Plant, then I went outside, said hi to some people, and went upstairs and did a spot. It's like, it's fam— I don't have a wife and kids to go home to. This is what I do. This is the people that I love. The comedians are my kids, my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, you know?

Well, I do have a wife and kids, but it's still my other family.

Yeah.

It's like the family of comedians, it's like a band of brothers and sisters. It's like a weird kind of friendship that, you know, it's like only they know what you do. You know, only they understand that it's like 10 years before you're even any good. 10 years of being— Like, if you're out there and you're headlining a club and you're on the road, like, you fucking put in that work. There's no shortcuts. It's impossible to have a shortcut. You just gotta grind.

I learned long— I learned, though, over time, I don't want a shortcut. I like the process.

Process.

That's what I live for. You know, we have a roast coming up May 10th. It's not about May 10th. It's about, I can't wait to hang in the writers' room again. I can't wait to figure out who's coming. I can't wait to figure out the seating. Who are we going to make fun of? Who's going to be in the front? You know, what am I going to wear? It is the grind that's exciting.

Yeah, there's no finish line, right? The finish line doesn't exist. You'll have little finish lines, like you do a special, like your special that's coming out. That's a finish line, but it's only a stop, right? You're stopping to get water.

But where is the finish line, Joe? Like, okay, so I did the Broadway show, then I shot it, then I edited it, but now I'm here still talking about it. And then in a month from now, 2 months from now, someone will stop me at the airport and go, hey, I was— my kid was sick, I was in the hospital, I watched your thing and it made me laugh for 5 minutes. When life— so it never— the spe— all of it is— there's no finish lines.

No, there's no finish lines.

If you're sitting around going, I hope I win the Oscar, if you're— Tom Cruise is jealous of George Clooney and George Clooney is jealous of Brad Pitt. There's no— there's no finish line.

There's no finish line.

It's all the— I have a big neon, like you have the neon, I have a big neon in my house that just says, enjoy the process. Yeah, that's where I'm at.

Yeah, trust it, trust the process and enjoy it. And that's the weird thing about when you release a special and then you have nothing. And then, you know, you have to like scour your brain for what you wanna talk about. I took like a whole month off of stand-up after my last special. I didn't do any stand-up, maybe more than a month. And I just thought, I said, let me just think, just like no pressure, let me just think like what is interesting to me? What do I wanna talk about? Instead of just rushing to try to put together a new hour, Right. Let me just think for a while. You know, and I'd come to the club every now and then and watch, watch guys do sets, but I didn't do any sets for a while.

I'm in that zone right now.

It's nice.

You know what?

Scary.

When I first finished the special, it was years of material building to it with a through line and a story. And then when it was over, I was a little bit lost. Like, I'd go to the Comedy Cellar. I was still in New York. I couldn't let go. Of some of the— and I was like, I need to stop doing this material. And then I felt like I had no purpose. Like, I didn't want to talk about anything. And I said it to my buddy Kai, and he goes, dude, relax. You're between albums. Like, he put it in musical sense for me. He's like, you're like a musician between albums. Absorb some new things, see some movies, go on a trip, have some new life experiences. And then I was like, yeah, that's probably a break. Week after doing the same thing, the same kind of hunk for years, your body, your brain, like, think about something else, absorb new things, download new influences. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm at. And then of course Kevin was like, I'll get roasted. And I was like, all right, I can put stand-up away for another 2 months and just write that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I go back into roast mode, which gives me— I'm like a dog who needs a job.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of the same thing because dog. It really is. It's like you need a task. If you're just doing nothing, like the idea of like, oh, one day I'm gonna retire and just relax, like, bitch, you'll go crazy. Forget—

see, we're roasting Kevin Hart.

That's what I heard. Are you supposed to say that though?

Yeah.

Are you supposed to talk about it?

I am.

Okay, you're allowed to?

Oh, my show.

Okay, cuz I was told not to tell people about it.

We're doing it May 10th, baby. Mother's Day, live on Netflix.

So you're officially announcing it?

Yeah.

Okay, I could talk about it now.

At the Forum.

Because I was told about it, but I was told I was not supposed to tell anybody.

I don't know who told you that.

Some people. No, they said keep it under wraps.

You like it?

Oh, it's already a thing.

They announced it this weekend, I think.

Oh, hosted by Shane Gillis. Let's fucking go. Nice. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Right? Kevin is so pumped up.

That's awesome. That's going to be fun.

Dude, he's out, you know, he's out there.

These Netflix fucking— the Tom Brady one was insane. That was so good. That was so good. That kind of like juiced comedy back up again because it was so wild. It was like the jokes were so wild. It was so raw.

Yeah.

And we had gone through this like weird period of like people getting canceled for jokes, right? You know, it's like all of a sudden like, no, that's out. That's gone.

No, no, I said to him I've been big game hunting Tom Brady for years. It took a couple years. He retired, unretired, but I kept him on the line. And finally, we were shooting promos, and I was like, "Why are you doing this?" 'Cause I could tell, you know, it was starting to heat up, and some heavy hitters were signing on. I go, "Why are you doing this?" It wasn't for the money. And he goes, "I want to bring comedy back. I'm sick of the woke bullshit and canceling. I want to make comedy, like, funny." again. He understood that. And I caught him, I caught him on a Super Bowl Sunday. He was playing in the Super Bowl and I saw him looking at some jokes on Instagram that I posted and like, and I'm like, this is where he goes to relax. He goes to the roasts. And I'd heard that. So as I was like, he won the game and I was like, I think it's time. And then we reeled him in and he did it. And I will admit that roast was harsher than than I expect— even I expected.

Vicious.

I mean, it was a bloodbath. And I saw Tom the other day, and I said, "It's time to take your win." You know, he was like, "It was so harsh. It was tough on my family." I go, "I get all that, but you wanted to do it to bring comedy back. You did that. 1.6 billion viewing minutes, Emmy-nominated against the Oscars and the Grammys." like the Super Bowl halftime?

It was the most watched thing in the history of Netflix.

Right.

You know how nuts that is? Think about how many things are on Netflix. That roast was the most watched thing in the history of Netflix, and it was because it was so funny. It wasn't just because it was Tom Brady, which of course made a lot, but it wasn't just because all these great comics were on it, which of course meant a lot.

Right.

It was, it was so good. It was so good that people were telling people about it.

Yeah. And it's like a great Super Bowl. It's gonna be around forever. Netflix leaves it up.

Like the Charlie Sheen roast. We were talking about Patrice. Yeah, they're always gonna be there. Be there forever.

I do think, all respect to Tom, I do think this one with Kevin and Shane Gillis is gonna top it.

Really?

I think it's not quite a sequel, but it's its own thing. It's gonna be the greatest roast of all time.

Netflix is the place for roasts now, because as great as Comedy Central was, because you had restrictions on language and content, right?

And it was editing.

Yes, editing.

This is a—

and commercials, right? Yeah, right. This is buck wild.

The buck wild.

Yeah, Netflix is fucking amazing. I mean, what an insane platform that you have. You could never get bored. If you're bored in this life, like you're bored, you don't have anything to watch. Like, are you crazy? Yeah, there's so much shit to watch.

Only boring people are bored, right? Yeah.

Say, or people are uninformed. But I mean, even in this day and age, you could just, you know, do an internet search like, what's the best roasts on Netflix, right? What are the best dramas on Netflix? What are the best shows on Netflix? There's always something. That's exciting though.

It's gonna be a big one. Yeah, Mother's Day, Motherfucker's Day.

Kevin Hart, there's a guy like, I don't understand how he has the time to do all the things he does. I do not understand it. I'm a pretty busy person, and I look at people like him and I feel lazy. I'm like, how are you doing this? Right? How do you have time to sleep?

Right? And I saw him out with his wife having drinks two nights last weekend.

He must sleep like 4 hours a night.

I don't know how he does it. Some people are just built different.

Yeah, I mean, well, it's growing up poor and realizing that, like, once this is happening for you, like, keep your foot on the gas. And that guy keeps his foot on the gas better than anyone. Yeah, and he's ambitious as fuck. He's always got like some tequila brand and releasing this. He had a vegan restaurant chain for a while. I would have talked him out of that. Fuck are you doing with that?

Well, you know, he likes to branch out and be a businessman. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I just— I don't understand the time. And then in the meantime, he's doing arenas at the same time.

It's like, killing.

Yeah, I don't get it.

The roast The roast for him is back to his roots. That's what I love about it. It's like the Philly thing, talking shit. Shane's from Philly, so there'll be a big Philly angle, you know, and we got some of his oldest buddies coming on. It's gonna be pretty massive, I think.

That's nice. Yeah, well, you've carved out an interesting path for yourself as the roast master. Yeah, you know, like, you're— it's like an old-school skill you know, that used to be a big part of comedy, you know, the Friars Club roasts.

Yeah, I miss those Friars Club roasts when they were just like, you know, sometimes they weren't even on TV yet when I was doing them. I just bought a Leroy Neiman painting from— they had an auction of old Friars memorabilia, and Leroy Neiman painted Henny Youngman surrounded, and he painted his punchlines like around his one-liners around Henny holding his violin. And he used to sit in the dining room at the New York Friars, and Henny in his wheelchair would sit under that painting. And for some reason, it's all up for auction, so of course I had to grab it.

Oh, that's awesome. That's so cool that you got it. Yeah, that's amazing.

I miss some of those guys. Think about Buddy Hackett. I almost wore a Buddy Hackett t-shirt today. I loved Buddy.

He has a Buddy Hackett t-shirt.

Somebody made me a Buddy Hackett t-shirt and gave it to me.

Yeah, those guys are from a different time, you know, different time. No television, no nothing, doing the Catskills, right? Different world.

They would do each other's acts, they wouldn't do whatever got a laugh.

Yeah, they're assassins on the road. It was a totally different life. And if you had a name, like, you had a name back then, like, if you were a famous comedian back then, dude, that was the rarest of rare things. Yeah, how many of them were there? There was like 10, right?

You know, Shecky, Buddy, Nipsey.

Yeah, few of those guys.

They're not many left. No, they're really all gone now.

Yeah, so what happens?

That's gonna happen to us, buddy.

That's what I hear.

Or better than the alternative, what, stay around forever? No, either you either keep going or you— you saw the picture, Gilbert, Norm, Bob. You know, the alternative representative is death. So when I go, I don't want to get old, I go, yeah, you want to get old.

Yeah. Um, as long as you keep your body moving, you just don't want to be an old, like, completely incapacitated person. Like, that's— especially if it's avoidable, right?

You know what I mean? I went through it all year. I went in for a— after 3 weeks after that Brady roast, I had a— went in for a colonoscopy. My buddy Jordan and had been texting our text chain. Everyone's gotta get— he's like kind of a hypochondriac, so I kind of ignored it. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was too busy, I was on the road, and then finally I went in for a routine colonoscopy, and I waited too long, and they found a tumor in my colon. And immediately, that an hour, 2 hours later, was on the phone with a surgeon. Stage 3 and found a specialist, took care of it right away, but never felt doomed.

Have you changed your diet?

Yeah, I don't— I'm eating a lot less red meat.

Red meat?

Now when I eat red meat, it's like gonna be the best red meat.

Why is it red meat?

I don't know. I mean, for me, growing up in a catering hall in New Jersey around pastrami and prime rib and he said that that was a big cause of colon cancer.

Really?

Yeah. And processed foods.

Processed foods make sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

So I'm eating a lot less of that. Yeah, I moved over to turkey and chicken and a little bit of fish and cut out the processed stuff as much as I can.

What about alcohol?

I've never been a big drinker.

That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little wake-up call. I mean, you have a health scare, you wake up time to take care of you.

I just had the— you know, I talk about this on my show, like, I had my chemo port in on Broadway, on the show, and I was, like, still kind of in it. It was like I was having a human experience onstage. And just 2 weeks ago, I had the port, the chemo port taken out. My sister came down to celebrate and hang with me, and it's like a war prize. Like, I hold the port where they put the chemo. Like, I have it on my desk now. And, and, and let's just say they take a— they put a lot more in people than they take out. So I feel very lucky I survived it all.

And yeah, I'm glad you're alive.

People die with those fucking ports in them.

They do.

They—

well, they die with cancer, that's for damn sure. Colon cancer is a very common one.

This guy James Van Der Beek, younger than me, I know.

I met him. He was a nice fucking guy, man. He came to the club, hung out with his wife in the green room. Sweetest guy guy, just such a nice guy. And apparently he was struggling back then. I didn't know. He looked real thin, you know.

So when you asked me right when you walked in, how are you doing, I was like, great, you know. Like, it was a, it was a pointed question, and you asked politely and innocently, and I was like, yeah.

I didn't know that you had gone through that.

Yeah, yeah.

God, I haven't seen you in— when, when was the last time I saw you?

I saw you in DC. I saw you in New York for Kill Tony.

Briefly. Yeah, yeah, we didn't like sit down.

No, no, shit, we had a drink. Was it your birthday in New York when you were doing Kill Tony?

Mm-hmm.

Was it here? One of the— I think it was August. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. But then I saw you in DC where you were with your family. It was quick, but I see— I feel like I see you because I pop into the Mothership, but I always pop in on the weekends when you're on Yeah, but, uh, yeah, it was a crazy thing, man. I've never been sick a day in my life. I've always had that— like my grandfather used to call it world-beater energy. Like, I always felt invincible, never, never thought for a second it would be me.

Yeah.

And then I did wait too long to get a colonoscopy, and they're not a big deal. Like, guys are afraid of colonoscopies because something's up your butt. Yeah, but in the end, it really isn't up your butt. It's a doctor checking you out.

You're out. They tell you when you wake up, they go up your butt, bro.

And get the endoscopy, especially for smokers and stuff like that. And like, for what, for what is essentially like a one-day inconvenience, okay, they can really save your life. It did save my life.

Well, I'm glad you cleaned up your diet. Yeah, you know, you got to do that because I know that you are— I mean, I've run into you at Katz's Deli before too.

That's another thing I needed to talk to about.

What?

I forgot all about this till you brought it up. Do you remember running into me at Katz's Deli with Tony? And I guess you must have been in town doing stand-up or something. This is like already 10 years ago.

I don't think it was that long ago, was it?

It was, and I'll tell you how I know. One of the things when I got booked on this appearance, I said, make a mental note, I owe Rogan an apology. And it's not a big deal, but it always kind of bugged me. I came in to say hi, and I was self-conscious because I had something wrong with me and I didn't know what it was. And you said, "What's with your eyebrows?" And I like— I like kind of shoulder shrugged, and you were like, "Is it for a role?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Oh, do you have any recollection? I do. I lied. Yeah, I was—

you said I shaved them off for a role. I was like, oh, that's crazy. What are you playing?

I was embarrassed because I had alopecia. Didn't really understand what was happening to me yet.

And I—

you saw that I had a big fro, big bushy eyebrows. Like, I was like the propitia man of the year, you know. And I don't know what causes it. It's an autoimmune thing. It's not life-threatening, but suddenly I looked completely different. My fame, like if anyone ever recognized me walking into a restaurant, you know, get a good table, skip the line, it was all gone just suddenly. And within a few weeks I was I remember being at Zanie's in Nashville and just scratching my head and like a big clump of hair came out. Then I was on a plane and I was like, there's no hair on my leg. What the fuck's going on? And then within a month, me and Adam Egeth and Tony went to the barbershop on Melrose. They came with me because I was kind of like shaken up, like, what is happening to me? Am I dying?

So it happened really quickly.

It happens all within a few weeks.

All your hair fell off within a few weeks.

And then when I thought it was done, eyebrows started going. And then eyelashes. So sweat, salt, it was like, I was like, what the fuck? I didn't even recognize myself.

And is there anything they do that reverses that?

There's some medications. Dr. Drew actually hooked me up with a research doctor Dr. Brett King, he was at Yale at the time in Connecticut, and I did have some restoration of eyelashes and eyebrows, but the side effects were a little bit scary, and they lower your immune system a little bit. So I did that for years. And then when I got cancer, I was like, fuck those meds, I can't do it anymore. And the chemo eyebrows, eyelashes gone again. And now I'm literally like hairless. Like I have no hair. And, you know, you learn to live with it. You know, you got to channel your inner rock star.

Listen, there's worse things that can happen.

Believe me, I get it.

You know, right? More than anybody.

But it always dinged me because you and I have been friends a long time. We have an honest friendship. Comics, brutal honesty, truth.

And I looked you right in the eyes, and I was like, "Yeah, I went with it." I found out slightly after that that you had alopecia from other people, 'cause someone else brought it up, and someone said, "Oh, he's got alopecia." I'm like, "Oh, I asked him at Katz's Deli, and he said he shaved his eyebrows off for a role." But I just felt like you were probably embarrassed, and I totally understood.

It's weird.

Weird. They say a lot of these autoimmune issues come from inflammation, and a lot of inflammation comes from what you eat.

Right. A doctor would tell me that wasn't true, so.

Yeah, doctors aren't always right, and one of the things they're not always right about is nutrition and the impact that nutrition has, particularly on autoimmune issues. Very few doctors have any knowledge or any education in nutrition and the impact it has. I mean, your entire body is built out of and reconstructed what you consume, right? That's the only thing that your body has, right? In order to— your body makes new cells, your body replenishes cells, recreates all the tissue. There's only one way to do it. It's got to be what you eat. Yeah, it's the only thing— what you drink, what you eat. That's it. And if you're eating a bunch of processed stuff that has a bunch of bullshit and preservatives and— what causes inflammation? Well, a lot of things. Allergies cause inflammation. Processed food causes inflammation. Excess sugar causes inflammation. Alcohol There's a lot of things that people eat that cause inflammation, but it's really genuinely a thing of a balance of, you know, your diet and, you know, what your body has to work with. You know, if your body doesn't have any nutrients to work with, no vitamins, no minerals, you know, you're dehydrated, you're drinking too much sugar, you know, things start malfunctioning and misfiring.

And then, you know, there's, there's a bunch of different consequences for having a high inflammation diet. And for a lot of people, it's sugar. Sugar is one of the leading causes of inflammation, especially in the standard American diet, because the standard American diet is just riddled with excess sugar, corn syrup, and bullshit, and preservatives. And your body just after a while just gets tired of processing that stuff. And then you start encountering a bunch of issues. And I know there's a lot of autoimmune issues that people have had success in reversing by completely cutting out everything other than whole foods. Just eating chicken and meat and vegetables and drinking water, and that's it. Cutting out all the bullshit.

Yeah, I gotta do better.

Have you ever gotten blood work done?

Oh, well, now I have to do it all the time.

Do you? Do you ever get blood work done from like a comprehensive laboratory that's looking at your nutrient levels and all those different things.

I don't know if I've done that.

We should do that. There's a place in town, Waste Well. I'll send you there. Yeah, yeah, they'll— they're really good. I mean, they do— they take a shitload of blood and they do these really comprehensive blood panels. They can scan for cancer too, by the way.

Well, that I've done.

Yeah, that's a big one, you know, because they can check for any kind of cancer in your body.

Well, now that I'm through all that, I'm much more open to taking care of myself and staying on it And the first time I did that one, I was like, cancer's a scary one.

And I was like, boy, I hope I don't have cancer I don't know about. When it came out zero, I was like, but I do so much to take care of myself. I use a sauna every day, cold plunge. I take a ton of vitamins. I'm always exercising. I eat probably like 99% clean. Every now and then I'll fuck off, and— or if my daughter makes cookies I'll eat cookies, but for the most part, I give my body— she's really good, she makes a bunch of different stuff. Today was white chocolate chip cookies. They're really good. I had one this morning. But for the most part, it's— your body can only use what you put in it. There's no other building blocks. It doesn't have anything else, right? There's nothing else it can draw from. And that's one of the problems, is when you don't give your body what it needs, it starts taking things out of the tissue issue. It starts taking things. That's where osteoporosis comes from. Your body starts literally taking calcium out of your bones. You know, you got to give your body the building blocks. Without that, it doesn't know what the fuck to do.

And slowly but surely, you start to deteriorate, you know. And there's a giant difference between giving your body a nutrient-dense, healthy diet and not, you know, and taking care of yourself and exercising and not, and drinking much water and electrolytes and not. There's a giant difference, and it's all— your body just cannot recreate itself correctly. It cannot build itself and repair itself correctly unless it gets the proper nutrients. That's where a lot of people's issues come from, and doctors don't tell you that. Like, I had a family member that got real sick, and the doctor said— they got cancer— and the doctor said it doesn't matter what you eat. I go, well, fuck that doctor, right? That's not true. I don't— this doctor's telling you could eat cake and just take chemo and you'll be fine. That's horseshit. That's not true. That's not true because they should— one of the things they should tell you immediately is get on a ketogenic diet because one of the things that has been proven is that cancer uses glucose to survive. And, you know, autophagy, which comes from fasting, is one of the best ways that people can get rid of errant cells and cells that are, you know, misfiring.

Make your body burn off fat, use ketones for energy. Energy and, and just get rid of all the dead cells, get over all the shit that your body doesn't need. And even if you want to do that, do intermittent fasting, you know, where you only have a period of time where you eat. Like, give yourself like a 16-hour window with no food and then start eating after that.

But how do you keep your— how do you not be cranky?

And that's your mind doing that because your body's relying on carbohydrates, right? So when your body is not relying on carbohydrates and your body's burning off ketones, you don't have that problem. You don't have that crashing problem. The crashing problem is from a high carbohydrate diet, and I've had that before. Look, I'm Italian, so carbohydrates was my thing, you know. It was all about pasta and pizza, and I love that stuff. I just love it. And that's my cheat food. If I'm gonna cheat, I'm gonna eat Italian subs and that kind of shit. But when your body gets accustomed to that, first of all, you get a big insulin spike, you crash, you get exhausted. The way to avoid that is to get your body to start using fats. And the way your body uses fats is that's what you give it for fuel and your body adjusts. And then your body does something called gluconeogenesis where it starts using meat and protein and turning that into glucose. And when you go through this process, it's a shaky process. Process at first. Like, you get what they call the keto flu originally— initially, rather— where you, you get tired all the time.

You're like, oh, this is exhausting. And your workouts suffer. It's like you have no energy. But eventually your body adapts, and your body just gets accustomed to using fats. And when your body gets fat adapted, first of all, your brain works better. You get an extra gear in terms of, like, your ability to think and communicate and it just feels like you have more energy. You don't need naps, and you don't crash after you eat.

Hmm.

That's why when you're saying like you shouldn't eat red meat, I eat mostly red meat. That's like most of my diet, right? That's like 80% of my diet.

Why? I mean, it's an addiction for me.

I don't think it's an addiction. I think it's the most nutrient— I think it's the most nutrient-dense food in the world. The problem is processed red meat, right? So if you're eating a bunch of processed shit that has a bunch of preservatives in it, yeah, that's not good for you. But like a ribeye steak steak, a grilled ribeye steak, there is nothing wrong with that. It's one of the most healthy foods you can eat, and it has everything you need. It has plenty of vitamins, it has fat, it has all the things that your body naturally knows how to process. And people have been eating that food from the beginning of time. Yeah, you just got to get educated in it. And it's like most people, especially particularly most doctors, I've I've had conversations with doctors where they've said, you get everything you need from a balanced diet. And I'm like, fuck you. You don't know anything. Like, how much time did you spend in medical school learning nutrition? Was it even an hour? Was it a day? Like, it takes a long time. And there's real researchers who have spent decades understanding the balance of nutrient-dense foods and vitamin supplementation and what vitamin supplementation can cure and fix and what's it— what it's good for and how to balance it out and what vitamins work synergistically with other vitamins.

Like, if you're taking vitamin D3, which is fantastic for your immune system, you have to take it with K2. You should take it with magnesium as well. Like, you gotta know these things. And most doctors, they just— they talk out of a— they talk out of a voice of authority about something they're not educated in. They're educated in getting people in and out of their office office as quick as possible and getting that insurance money. And that's what they do. And most of them, they talk like they're authorities. Meanwhile, they have a gut. You're sitting there looking at this guy who looks like shit, and he's telling you about health. Like, bro, you're not healthy. Don't talk to me about health. This is angry. It makes me angry. It really does.

I get it.

It's infuriating because it's like these people, you count on them as authorities, and really they're just, they're just paying off their student debt. They're paying off their fucking loans. Phones, they have insane malpractice insurance they have to cover, they have a giant monthly nut, and they're trying to push pharmaceutical drugs on you as much as they can because they get compensated for that. And that's what they do. And this is the standard American health system. It's a real problem. It's a real problem. And it leaves us sicker. You know, this is the thing that RFK Jr.'s trying to balance. Like, we are— we spend more money on healthcare than anyone in the world. We make more money than anyone in world, and we're sicker than anyone in the world. We spend more money than we ever have on healthcare. We're sicker than we've ever been.

We're living the life. We're eating well.

It's not it. It's we're eating shit, you know. If we were just eating healthy, the people that are just eating healthy have way less problems, way less health consequences, way less issues, way more energy, way more mental acuity, all those things, because that's how your body's supposed supposed to live for thousands and thousands of years. What did we do? We ate fruit, we ate vegetables, we ate meat and chicken and fish and eggs. And that's what you're supposed to eat, right? That's real food. Most of these things that sit on a shelf, you're not supposed to eat those, right? Just like your dog. Like, your dog's not supposed to be eating kibble, right? You know, feed your dog raw food, your dog's gonna go bonkers. Feed your dog human-grade food like Farmer's Dog, your dog will go crazy Crazy. Watch how she eats it. Watch the difference the way—

try it.

My dog can't wait. He's dripping— water's dripping off of his mouth before I feed him. He's like sitting there waiting, like, stay, and I'm putting it in the bowl. Okay, you like attacks it. Jamie, you were saying that about your dog, right? Like, let Carl— like, when he was eating kibble, he wasn't even interested.

Yeah, I mean, I would see me never had had a chance to even give it to him. He would never, never ate it. You just sit there like, well, what do you—

how do you— you're a—

how do you—

who's been feeding you?

And what have they been eating? Like, how did they get in your body? But I always give my dog the whole time, but I give her like turkey, you know, putting it— sometimes if I have turkey or chicken around, I'll put it in her bowl. I always give her, you know, like a Katz's Deli, when you order the sandwich, they give you a little piece before that. Yeah, I always give her a little piece to get her Elevated, and she snaps it.

Oh yeah, yeah, because it's real food, right? That's what people are supposed to be eating too, man. We're supposed to be eating real food, you know. We got tricked because things have to stay in the supermarket. You gotta, you gotta be able to sit it on the shelf and it's gonna be able to stay there for a few months. That's how you make your profit. That's why milk is homogenized and pasteurized. I'll try to scare you off raw milk. Bitch, I drink raw milk every week. There's nothing wrong with raw milk. You just can't get it from a shitty farm, just like you can't get meat that's rotten, just like you can't get sushi that's rotten.

Just eat ice cream every day. How bad is that for me?

Ice cream is actually not that bad. Ice cream, when you think about bad things to eat, ice cream is probably one of the best desserts to eat because ice cream has fats from the cream, it has protein from the milk, and it does have sugar, so you got a little bit of sugar, but you're absorbing that sugar along with all the fat and all the cream, and it probably is way better for you. It's way better for you than sugar, like drinking like a soda. Like, so a soda is the most alien form of sugar your body absorbs. Your body doesn't know what the fuck this is, because sugar in nature comes from like an orange It has all this fiber, you know, and you're eating it and it's a slow digestive process. That's why you don't get this crazy spike. But orange juice is fucking nuts. Like, you take all the fiber out and now you just have just pure sugar water and you think you're being healthy. Well, you're not. Okay, look, you get a little bit of vitamins from the vitamin C that's from the oranges. Yeah, but you're not supposed to eat it that way.

You're supposed to eat an orange orange, right? Like apple juice, right? Like, my daughter's like very conscious of like food and like what's in it. And she, she put— we went to the supermarket and she was gonna get an apple juice. She's like, this has 30 grams of sugar. This little thing had 30 grams of sugar. Like, that's crazy. That's just— you're just— you might as well have a Coca-Cola, right? It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, your body— like, I think there's a— there was some paper that was written recently about ice cream actually being good for for you, and by far the best of desserts that you can eat because it's, it's milk and cream, you know. It's like there's, there's actual food in ice cream.

I crave it every night.

Ice cream, not that bad. Look at this. Can ice cream be healthy? What recent studies actually show. Recent research has sparked debate about ice cream's place in a balanced diet. By examining long, long-term health studies, scientists are exploring whether moderate consumption may have unexpected links to certain health outcomes. So ice cream has long been regarded as classic indulgence rather than a healthy food. The discussion largely emerged— okay, however, in recent times, some surprising research has sparked the debate among nutrition scientists by saying that consumption of ice cream may be related to certain unpredictable health outcomes. The discussion largely emerged from data analyzed in long-running research projects such as Nurses Health Study and Health Professional Follow-up study. Two major epidemiological studies that track diet and health outcomes over decades. Research examined dietary patterns among participants with type 2 diabetes. Notice unusual pattern related to ice cream consumption. Discussion earned. Okay, what is the discussion? Consuming ice cream more regularly sometimes appeared to have lower risks of certain health conditions, especially cardiovascular disease, amongst individuals who have type 2 diabetes. The problem is with epidemiological studies, you're just basically like filling out a form as to what you ate, and they track that with like large study groups of people, and they try to figure out, okay, that's one of the ways they find out like, oh, the people that eat red meat more are sicker.

But that's also like, what are you eating?

Right?

You eating burgers that you call red meat with sugar, with a Coca-Cola, right, and some fries? Right, because that's what a lot of people are eating.

Right.

So it's not like grass-fed steak with a salad, you know, that's not the problem.

Remember Craig who came in here? Craig from Craig's? He told me to say hi.

I love Craig.

He said steak and I thought about steak.

Oh, he makes a great steak.

That was my joke when I got colon cancer. I told Craig, you're gonna go out of business if I'm not eating your steak.

I don't think you have to stop eating steak. I mean, I'm no doctor, but I don't, I don't think steak's the problem. I think all the other shit's the problem. I think it's preservatives and bullshit and processed food. It's just not good for you, man. None of it's good for you. If you could sit on a shelf like that, how's all these preservatives— that stuff wreaks havoc on your gut bacteria when you're consuming things that are filled with preservatives. That— those preservatives are essentially killing life. That's what they do. That's how it keeps bacteria and mold from growing on the food. It's, it's a life killer. And then you eat it, go, oh, yum, yum, yum, oh, it's preserved so I can eat it. I mean, your health— your healthy gut bacteria just gets fucking nuked. Yeah, I don't think it's meat is a problem.

You know, I was on a USO Christmas tour, and I ate worse on that than I would. And I go, how are they— yeah, that's something they should fix.

That is something they're trying to fix. That RFK Jr.'s trying to fix that.

I was like, eating ice cream and shakes and burgers and pizza at every base.

Yeah, it's a lot of processed food. Yeah, it's terrible food for those soldiers. It's terrible. And then you're asking them to go to perform in the most fucking scary thing on earth— combat.

So it made me think, well, maybe it is, maybe it's all bullshit. If the military is eating the same pizza and pepperoni that I'm eating at home, then no, they should be more—

no, what's bullshit is the way they treat those people. That's what's bullshit. What's bullshit is the way they take care of them. That's what's bullshit. What's bullshit is the consideration they give to the diet of these people, right? You're asking these people to make the ultimate sacrifice. You're getting them prison for food. That's what's bullshit, right? Yeah, it's not— diet's not bullshit. Diet's everything. It is literally everything. Like I said, your body has nothing else, nothing else that it can build itself up with other than nutrients. It's all it has. You consume it. If you don't, you starve to death, right? If you don't eat, you starve to death. So in order for your body to take care of itself, what are you giving it? It's that simple.

You drink a lot of water?

A lot of water, yeah.

You still drink a lot of coffee?

I drink less. I've been drinking coffee later in the day now. I've been like going through my day and not drinking my first cup of coffee till like noon now. I've been doing that a lot lately.

Huh. Yeah, you don't need it in the morning to get going?

Sometimes I feel like I do. I enjoy it. I indulge if I enjoy it, but I don't like relying on things. I don't like having to do things. I don't ever want to have that feeling. So lately I've been like— and I've gone days without coffee just to see what that feels like. Sometimes I feel a little sluggish, but there's ways you can avoid that too. Like, I'll take nootropics, which is brain nutrients, you know, theanine and acetylcholine and a bunch of different things. Like, there's Alpha Brain. That stuff pumps my brain up and fires it up. It's just you get addicted to caffeine. Caffeine is very, very addictive, and I feel like if I can get my day going without it, it's probably better.

Yeah, I drink a lot less, but I see what you're saying.

I love it though.

Oh, it's great.

I love a cup of coffee. I love it.

I landed yesterday, Austin Airport, like I needed a coffee so bad. I'd been out partying the night before, early flight, I land, and you just want a cup of coffee before you even start seeing your texts because you don't want to deal. And it's like the first place I go to, it's like there's a long line. I finally get there and it's like it's a kiosk. And I'm like, I can't kiosk. I need to just tell someone to put coffee in a cup and hand it to me. And I go to another place and it's like they charge me and then they hand me a cup and go, go fill it. And I walk away. I just can't. I get so freaking cranky. And I go to the third place finally. Is just like they give you a cup of coffee. The kiosk and the, the no employees, just, it all makes me so mad. I want to talk to somebody.

Oh, okay.

I don't like filling out a computer when I want something.

I rarely go to coffee places because I drink black coffee, and black coffee at Starbucks tastes like dog shit, right? It's all burnt and tastes terrible. It's just not good.

I could drink any You could take old coffee, put it in a microwave, and it's the same to me as— really? Yeah, an espresso that you're—

oh, I like it. I like this. This is French press Black Rifle Coffee. You want some? Yeah, get in there, dog. That's good coffee. That's real coffee, son.

Thank you.

That's coffee.

Cheers.

Taste that. Cheers. Here's another problem.

That's good.

That's not right. Not bad, right? If you get coffee from Starbucks, you're getting in a paper cup. And if you get it in a paper cup, it's not paper you're drinking out of, it's plastic. Because the inner lining of those paper cups is basically like a condom, right? Ever seen when they break it down? Yeah, when they're— well, if you add hot liquid to plastic, that plastic leaches chemicals into your body that are not good for you. They're called forever chemicals. Chemicals. It's terrible for you. So like every time you drink a hot liquid that's in a paper cup, you're sucking on plastic residue. Hmm.

That's gross.

We're gross. There's a lot of things that are gross about the American lifestyle. I mean, if you get coffee from Starbucks or something like that, ideally you should bring your own cup. Bring a mug. Bring, you know, like a little— one of those little Yeti Yetis, you know, so it's like pouring right into stainless steel. That's how you're supposed to drink it. But who does that? Who brings a little stainless steel Yeti with them everywhere? Nobody. Nobody. But if you did that, you'd get a lot less of these fucking microplastics in your gut that also wreak havoc on your body, destroy your immune system, destroy your endocrine system. It's— they're endocrine disruptors, so it stops your body from producing hormones naturally. Which also can lead to a host of different diseases.

Makes me think maybe Charlie Sheen was right after all.

Crack.

Smoking crack while getting a blowjob.

Yeah, that's how to do it.

You don't think he was worried about the plastics in the pipe?

Well, there's certain dudes that are built different, and they could— I mean, a lot of people that did what Charlie did would have already been dead a long time ago. He's resilient. I do hope someone somebody puts him in a big movie.

I like your idea.

I like a good comeback story.

Maybe he's due for another roast.

Be hard now. He's all clean, sober. It's like, what did you do 20 years ago? It's like, yeah, but now he's kind of doing all right. He looks good, looks healthy. He looked a lot better than I thought he was going to look. Like, it doesn't look like a guy who's went through 25 years of And he was sick. Mm-hmm. What did he have?

HIV.

Oh yeah, HIV is weird. That's a weird one because with the medication they have now, you don't really— you know, you're not even testing positive, but they just tell you you have it no matter what. It's dormant. It doesn't totally make sense. There was a guy named Peter Duesberg that I had on my show a long time ago. and he was a professor out of the University of California, Berkeley, and just brilliant, brilliant guy, groundbreaking work on cancer, but he had a very controversial take on HIV. And his take was he didn't believe that HIV is what caused AIDS. He said the fact that you have HIV is because your immune system is so severely compromised that HIV shows up. That was his take on it, and he was ostracized. You got to realize, like, during the AIDS crisis, do you know who was the guy that was in charge of the medical establishment in this country? Anthony motherfucking Fauci. Same guy. And that guy had everybody convinced that we're all gonna get AIDS, that we're all gonna die, and y'all have to take this medication. And one of the medications they gave people was AZT.

Problem with AZT was AZT was a chemotherapy medication. Medication, and it was killing people quicker than cancer was, so they stopped using it. They repurposed it when AIDS came along, and they started giving it to AIDS people because they didn't have to go through this whole process of like getting a drug certified, getting a drug to go through the FDA and all. They already had a drug, so they said, well, this drug, this will be the drug we use for AIDS. But it fucking killed everybody they put on it, killed tons and tons of people. When they stopped using AZT, people stopped You know, that's what Dallas Buyers Club was all about. It was all about them trying— that movie with Matthew McConaughey. Yeah, it was all about them trying to find alternative cures, alternative medications, and being able to access alternative medications. He wanted everybody to use AZT, and he was like, AZT, the reason why they use it, it's the only drug that is both safe and effective. It's literally what he said back then in the fucking '80s. 80s. And that's the same guy that sold us this bag of bullshit with the COVID origins and, and whether or not it was gain-of-function research that caused it.

He's just creepy fucking guy. Hmm.

We never really got answers on any of this.

We will. It'll take time, but we will. And he'll probably be gone by the time it's publicly understood. But if you read RFK Jr.'s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, it'll open your mind. It'll open your eyes. He talks about how they were testing out in the 1980s, they were testing out HIV vaccines on foster kids in New York and killing them. Jesus. Yeah, they tested it on foster kids. Yeah, it's real. If it wasn't real, he would have been sued. He hasn't been sued for it.

Wow.

It's a dark book, dude. The Real Anthony Fauci. I can't recommend it enough. It's a fucking terrifying book, but That's the same guy that was a part of the whole AIDS thing. I'll wait for the movie. The movie's gonna be weird. Who would play Anthony Fauci in a movie? Maybe Martin Short.

I think it's another Sean Penn tour de force.

Sean Penn was all about the vaccine.

Do you miss acting?

Not even a little.

I was thinking about that the other day. You really were in this whole other world, Joe. Call times, makeup, lines, blocking?

Well, I enjoyed working on NewsRadio, and it was very— I felt insanely fortunate to be able to work with Phil Hartman and Dave Foley and all those people on that show. Stephen Root, Maura Tierney, Andy Dick. It was incredible. Candy Alexander. It was an incredible cast of people. I mean, I felt super, super lucky. But once it was over, I'm like, I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate that because that was like optimal. And I had been on a couple other shows as a guest. I didn't like it. And I was like, this is not what I like. I only did it for money, you know. It's not my thing. And it's a long process, dude. Sitcom hours are, you know, especially in the beginning days, it was like 12, 16-hour days.

Who wrote that show?

Paul Sims and a bunch of other writers, but he was from the Larry Sanders Show. Show, you know. And he did Boardwalk Empire after that, a bunch of other stuff. But brilliant guy. But that show was just like— they caught lightning in a bottle. I got so lucky to be a part of that show, and I'm like, I could never be on a shitty sitcom after that, you know. I couldn't be on some fucking, you know, sloppy canned horseshit.

You went highbrow with Fear Factor.

Well, I took that because there was no actors. First of all, I took Fear Factor because I thought it was gonna be canceled. I thought this is gonna be giving me a lot of material.

It was like rad forever.

148 episodes. Yeah, it was nuts.

Have you seen the new one?

No, I haven't, but Johnny came on. Johnny Knoxville came on to do it. I didn't see the Ludacris one either. But how long did Ludacris do it for?

I don't even know that till now.

Yeah, Ludacris did it. I think— was it on MTV, James? Amy, I think he did it on MTV. MTV did it for a little while. I think he did it for— I don't know how long, but I love Johnny. Johnny Knoxville, great. He's the best.

A true gentleman.

Sweetheart of a guy.

And I love him so much.

I hope it does well, you know. I hope they don't hurt anybody. That's the problem. Like when Fear Factor came back on NBC, when we came back in 2011, we only did 6 episodes They were really trying to make it bigger and better. I was like, Jesus Christ, we're gonna fucking kill somebody, right? It felt like it. It felt like when it was canceled, I was happy. I was like, fuck this.

Huh, you were done?

Yeah, well, it got canceled because they had to drink cum. Do you know that? No, you don't know that?

What?

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, they played horseshoes to drink donkey cum.

We're still talking about Andy Dick at NewsRadio?

No, no, we're talking about Fear Factor. Andy only drank people cum. He's a gentleman. But yeah, that happened. That's what got the show canceled. But that's because they were just trying to make it as outrageous as possible.

It's like the early— you're right at the beginning of that crazy—

this is it. Fear Factor, donkey juice. This is it. They had to play horseshoes and they drank donkey piss and donkey cum. Cum. There was 3 sets of twins and one twin had to drink the cum. Look at that, that's a mug o' cum.

Oh my God, it's so foul. Wow.

Yeah, so TMZ I think got a hold of the clip or images and said that Fear Factor was doing this, and it never aired in the United States, but it aired overseas. It aired, uh, somewhere in Europe. I want to say the Netherlands or Denmark or some shit.

Wow. Yeah, now you survived.

Good times, good times.

Now you're drinking delicious coffee in your palatial—

hanging out with you, man. Dude, I've known you since you were Jeff Lipschutz.

I've known you since your best joke, which was, um, never trust a hooker with a walkie-talkie. You go, I learned— you were like 25, but you're like, I've learned a lot of things in my life. Yeah, I never trust a hooker with a walkie-talkie. Was that Joke?

No, it was I went to college for 3 years. You know what I learned? How did it go? Don't trust hookers with walkie-talkies. I don't know.

You know me since Jeff. I'm still, by the way, I'm still Jeff Lifshultz. My ID, my passport.

Maybe you shouldn't tell everybody.

It's all right.

We should have hid that.

It's at this point.

When did you change it to Ross? What year was that?

Oh, I could tell you. What happened was I got booked on Star Search down in Florida, like my first time on TV. You know, we're all starting to get like on MTV and Star Search. Those shows were coming around, and I go down to Orlando where they were shooting it back then, and Ed McMahon was the host, and he kept introducing me by fucking up my— Arch, this week's challenger, Jeff Lipshits! And I'd walk out. And it would screw me up, you know? Then the next, I'd won, and then the next day it's like, this week's challenger, you know, Lifeshots. You know, he would just screw it up every time. And on the flight home, I was like, I either have to, if I really love comedy, I was like 2 years in, I go, let me think about this. Ross is my middle name. Name. Jon Stewart was Jon Leibovitz, and he had told me he had— he did it for the similar reasons of like, no one can spell— if I asked you to spell Lief Schultz right now, even you couldn't, and you know me 35 years. So, right, so I was like, all right, either I'm gonna have to change my name or my whole family's gonna— I don't know what to do.

So Ross, it just made sense.

It's easy. Yeah, yeah, it's easy.

Jeff Ross.

What was Ed McMahon like? Uh, you know, did you ever hang out with him?

I shook his hand and that was the of it. I didn't get to know him very well.

I heard he was an animal.

I heard he drank a lot.

Yeah.

But then I made some joke like that and people got mad at me online going, don't disrespect Ed McMahon.

Was he gone by the time you made that joke?

Yeah, recently, because they rebooted Star Search just now.

Fuck people online. You can't listen to them.

Oh dude, that's another thing Saget taught me, Bob Saget, like block the haters. Like, you know, we would argue about this because like he would block people. And I go, well, then they know you saw it. Just ignore them. Let them float out to sea. He goes, no. He goes, no, I want them to know that they're blocked. He goes, and I don't want them following me. I don't want— I don't want to say funny things to people who say mean things. He valued himself.

I say don't read the comments. I say don't even pay attention. Let them exist in the ether.

Well, you're You're off social right now. Yeah. You told me.

Yeah, I post things, but I post and ghost. That's what I tell people. Post and ghost. Just post things so people know about stuff or something's interesting. You know, someone sends you something interesting, like, oh, people should know about this.

Right.

That's it. Get out.

I've gotten better instead of using social media, like— Seth Green is my neighbor, good buddy of mine, the actor. And he started doing this during the pandemic. Instead of texting, or liking people's stuff, he FaceTimes. It takes longer, but he's like, it's a real connection.

Oh, okay.

So he'll FaceTime you, you know, and talk to me, just even if it's for a minute.

What if you have an Android phone?

Then you're fucked. And my friend Benji Ofalo goes, he quotes Brody all the time. He'll just, he'll write, he'll text me emojis, positive and a check. Positive check-in, like Brody used to do. He would just positive check-in.

Positive energy.

Positive check-in.

God, he was so fun. Here's another guy who's on my fucking contact list that's gone that I miss.

I almost wore my Brody t-shirt today. I was thinking about him a lot lately. I don't know why.

Enjoy it.

Enjoy it. Has there ever been a comedian who's been less famous but more— his cadence has been more, like, remembered? It's almost like him and Dangerfield have the most memorable delivery.

Of all time. Especially for us, for the guys who were around him. He was so— he was just such a unique dude. He would show up at the Comedy Store and pull into the lot, everybody'd smile.

When I first met him, I really truly hated him. I really hated him. It was literally like the mid-'90s, Joe, like in New York, and I can't believe I haven't thought about this in so long. The show that— it's so funny. The show that's coming out tonight, I'd started developing 30 years ago. My grandfather died. I lived with my grandfather. And it was like a way to like process it. And it was emotional. And I was doing it at little alternative comedy spaces in New York. And I didn't know Brody. And Brody would sit in the front. He was obsessed with it because I was like talking about stuff that hit for him somehow. And he would sit in the front, but he would like over-laugh or twitch around in his seat. So then, you know, I'm developing this like one-man show. It was like different than stand-up. And he's like, he would want to talk to me about it and he would say like weird things that kind of threw me off. You know, he would notice the difference audiences. And I said, "Listen, man, HBO's coming to see it next week. Could you just not be in the audience?" He goes, "Oh, okay.

I understand. I'm the guy who bothers you. You don't like me. I get that." I go, "No, it's not that, man. It's just that like, you're like—" Brody.

You're like— 818 till I die.

You're distracting me. And I'm not like— I was only doing comedy a few years. So then HBO comes, and Brody— I walk on stage, and Brody's in the front row. So afterwards, I go, "Dude, what the fuck is your problem? I told you not to be." He's like, "There were no other seats. I couldn't miss it." And our friendship grew where we both moved out to LA, and we became such good friends that I had a Comedy Central show, he was the warm-up. I had to have him around me all the time. I felt safer and better.

I think we both grew from like, I was a model in Pakistan, cover of Camel Beat magazine.

I dated an amputee, we met on StubHub. What was the one about the Nickelback tour jacket? I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I saw the Nickelback tour. It was in the lost and found, but still. I love Brody. Look up Brody Stevens. Yeah, I heard you talking about him the other day too, about his friendship with Zach Galifianakis. Yeah. And that— were you there when they did the memorial at the Comedy Store?

No, no.

I had a good line.

I don't like those things.

I was backstage and Brody's like, college baseball coach, high school baseball coach, and all his friends all spoke spoke for like an hour. And then they bring me out and I go, after hearing all Brody's friends talk for an hour, I'm starting to understand why he killed himself.

That's why I don't like those things.

It was beautiful. I prefer to mourn people solo.

It was beautiful, actually. Well, Brody was a beautiful guy.

That's our world. We got to remember these guys.

I know we do. Well, you know, one of the good things about podcasts is like the world gets to understand a lot of these people and hear us talk about all these people. I think our world is more understood now in this day and age with the podcast world than I think it's ever been known before. More criticized, but that's part of the problem. I mean, that's part of the process of it. That's normal. But also more understood, like people get it. They get it.

I remember when you had Gilbert Gottfried on. That was great.

Gilbert was awesome.

I don't think he fully understood what was happening here, but I remember really enjoying your interview with Gilbert.

What do you mean you don't think he understood? He'd done Stern, he'd done— Right, but he—

this is— Stern is fast and jumping in and Joe, you know, like impressions. This is more of a conversation, which Gilbert, in his spectrumy thing, you know, it's tough. A lot of yes and no answers.

I thought he Yeah, but I loved him, you know, and he knew I loved him. I was always a giant fan of his, so it was like, I think it was pretty easy.

I wear a Gilbert Gottfried shirt in the special. That's cool. Ultimate tribute. He was a sweetheart.

So sweet guy. So fucking funny too. Goddamn, that guy was funny. I used to love watching his sets in New York. The best. Especially like in the '90s when no one knew who he was. Like, oh my God, he's such a killer.

One of his last times on stage, I was at an improv in Florida, and he came with his family, and he came on as a surprise guest. He walked out and he told this long, crazy joke about skull-fucking his dead grandma. So at his funeral, at his funeral, like a year and a half later, I said, Gilbert's comedy was fearless and ruthless and subversive, yet he He was so lovable that he could get us to laugh at a joke about skull-fucking a dead person. And then I looked at his coffin and I said, "Not so funny now, huh, Gilbert?" So, I love Gilbert.

We've had the very unique opportunity to be around some really, truly exceptional people. Rare, rare human beings. You know, and so many of them. You know, we're so rich in our associations with so many So many completely unusual people, you know? Here's one more Gilbert story.

Okay. One time we were roasting Joan Rivers. I was producing it, and I booked Gilbert. And I'm on the phone, I'm smoking a joint, and I go, "I got one joke I like, but I can't do it." He goes, "What is it?" I go, "Well, you know, like, Kanye West's mom had recently died during a plastic surgery procedure." It was the background. And I go, Joan Rivers, Gilbert, you know, Joan Rivers, Kanye's mom has a better plastic surgeon than you. And I go, but I can't do that. And Gilbert goes, I'll do it. And that's when I realized I was being a pussy and I had to do it. So I did it. So he pushed me. That's awesome. That's awesome.

He's a really special, special guy. Guy. We're lucky dudes, Jeff. We really are. We're lucky. And especially now that we know all these people that we just talked about that were amazing, that are gone. We're lucky we're still here.

Being a comedian is like a backstage pass to the world. You get to see things you never would see as a civilian. It's true. I just went to Qatar, Djibouti, Africa. You're in Djibouti? What are you doing?

You did stand-up? There for the troops.

Christmas with the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. So the Patriot missiles that they're using now— is it two of the bases that just got hit just a few months ago?

Wow, that's nuts.

You get to see— and when you're with the Vice Chairman, you're sometimes— you're on FOBs, they call them, forward operating bases. They don't even tell you where you are exactly. Oh wow. You know, you're like 80 miles from the Iranian border somewhere in Kuwait or Qatar or Jordan. It's so cool. Wild.

You've always done a lot of stuff with the troops. You've been doing that from way back, from like the early 2000s.

2003, my first trip to Iraq with Drew Carey. Wow. Yeah, he took me in 2003. Saddam was still alive. I went back in '05. I've done probably 100 of those shows all over the world. Wow. It's the best, man. That's why I'm a comedian. That's the best feeling. That's the best feeling. They say, oh, thanks for coming, and I'm like, thank you, man. Just forget that I'm like entertaining, you know, you're doing a show for people who are starved for entertainment. It fills me up. Like, it, it, it invigorates me. Me. It's just, they're not drinking. They're the best crowds, right? I highly recommend it. That's awesome.

All right, dude, your special, is it out yet? Tonight. Tonight. Look at you, a Netflix comedy special, longest special Netflix ever did. You got the Bobby Brown microphone on.

I sing. I sing a song in the show.

Perfect salty-sweet-sour mix. Look at that outfit.

It's a suit of armor, this guy. This guy, poor guy, lost his hands in an explosion. Oh, geez. I asked him why his wife never got finger banged. Jesus. It's a multimedia show about my family, about resilience, about bouncing back.

Are those screens on the back wall, a bunch of different screens? Yeah. And they show different things on them? Yeah, the dogs. Oh, that's cool.

You're gonna love this show. I'm sure I'll love it. It's about some of the stuff we were talking about, like when you take a hit, getting back up.

That's awesome.

And what's it called again? It's called Take a Banana for the Ride. When I was an open micer, I would take my grandfather to his doctor appointments, and then at night I would go in New York and try to get on stage at the open mics, and my grandfather would give me a few dollars for the bus and tolls and a banana. Take a banana for the ride. Kind of his way of saying, I can't go with you, but I'm there with you on the ride. I just tattooed a banana with my— my mom would write I love you or I miss you and put them in my school lunches. So I found an old letter with her handwriting and made a tattoo. Oh, so now I always have a banana. This one Eddie Vedder drew.

It says Born to Rose Oh, that's cool. All right, it's out now, ladies and gentlemen. Go watch it. Jeff Ross, I love you, buddy. Love you, Rogan. Thank you.

Good to see you. Bye, everybody.