Transcript of #2484 - David Cross New

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David.

Joseph.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Dude, I haven't seen you in a long fucking time. When was the last time we were actually in a room together?

I, well, I was trying to think of that. I don't know. I would imagine post-NewsRadio we hung out at some point at some show somewhere.

Somewhere.

But I don't know. But I do remember, 'cause I did NewsRadio a couple times, and we hung out, and I remember, I think we both, no, just you had more hair then. I was probably already at this point.

I was fighting to keep it. I was hanging on.

Do you shave, or is that it? Is that?

Oh, I mean, I'm bald. If I didn't shave, I'd be bald all the way up here, but I got a hair transplant. And it was useless.

Yeah.

I did a joke about it. I go, having a hair transplant is like taking people that are healthy and moving them into a neighborhood where everyone's dying. This is just like, where did Bob go? He just fucking flew off the face of the earth.

So, uh, yeah, you just accepted it and said fuck it. Yes.

I should have done it a long time ago. It's so much better, and I don't have to talk to a barber. I don't have to listen to boring fucking stories while they hold you hostage with a pair of scissors.

That's what this is. This gets me. I don't like shaving. It's kind of a pain in the ass, and also I look like a turtle, you know, when I shave, and I don't like it. And it's not attractive to me, and I jerk off to me all the time, so I wanna keep things fresh. But this, I probably don't have to. I could probably get clippers and stuff, but I go to one of my guys around the corner where I live, and I have this experience where I want that guy. I want to get in and out, right? 'Cause of what you were saying, a lot of chitchat. And there are a couple guys, very quiet. Hi, how you doing? Good. Fist bump, whatever. You know what I want. Boom. Get out of there. There's one guy who just talks all— and, and then they have that, um, the blade, you know, the, the— what do you call that? You know, the blade, blade, straight razor. Thank you. And, um, and they got it right there, so you got to be polite. It's on your— it's by your— yeah, you know. And, uh, I know I could avoid it if I just get some clippers and just do this thing, but I don't.

I don't know, that was boring, and sorry. There was no point to it. Barely has anything to do with what we were talking about.

There's something about a beard though that makes you distinguished, or at least have experience.

Or look like a homeless, you know, alcoholic. I mean, there are plenty of those guys too.

Yeah, there's a lot of those too. But a beard is like, there's a statement with a beard. Like a full beard, like yours, white.

Mine is just, you know, I don't like shaving. Like, you know, and again, I do like, I only gain weight in two places, stomach and right here. And also I have a kind of a thin frame, so it's really, not attractive. It's not attractive.

So the beard is sort of—

it's, it's more laziness. It's, I don't have to worry about it.

Yeah, no, I hear you.

And this, you know, I just, I go, I don't know, 6, 7 weeks and then I just shave it once it gets out. Because this, my hair doesn't grow down, or it just grows out like a clown, you know, it goes this way, all of it, even this too. And And once this starts filling in, it just looks goofy.

Yeah, I have a friend, my friend Hassan. He used to shave his head, and now purposely to look goofy, he lets the sides go out, and it's madness.

It's just, it's all fucking crazy thick hair and bald on top and bald on top.

Yeah, and he does a joke on stage about it. It doesn't— as an impression, he's Indian. This is my impression of an Indian pussy.

And is he just like not concerned about getting laid or?

Yeah, I think he's just embracing, but he still gets laid. You know, cause he's really funny. I think he just embraces not giving a fuck. There he is.

Oh, he looks familiar to me. Okay.

Very funny guy.

All right, cool.

He's one of the up and coming, well, he's from LA originally. He was one of the doormen at the Comedy Store.

Okay, he looks very professorial.

He's very smart.

Yeah.

Yeah, but doesn't give a fuck about his hair.

Who's that?

Art Bell.

I was gonna guess Art Bell. Yeah. I swear to God.

Yeah.

I swear to God. I don't even know if I've ever seen him.

Yeah.

Coast to Coast.

Yes, yes.

Holy shit.

From the kingdom of nigh.

Wow.

I fucking loved that show. That was the show that I listened to coming home from Hollywood because I lived out in the Valley, and I would drive home at night and I'd listen to Late Night with Art Bell.

Art— Coast to Coast with Art Bell. I used to do a whole bit about the, like, 'cause who's the nude guy? George— Norrie. George Norrie, right. And I'm gonna digress for one second. Did you ever, do you play video games at all?

Yes. Well, I try not to, but I used to play a lot of them.

Did you ever play Prey?

No, but I know what it is.

Oh, great, underrated, underrated game. Got ripped off, or just people bit certain things that they started. But one of the coolest things— so it's about like this, it takes place on a reservation, like, you know, in the '90s, I guess, or something like that. And there's a bartender and her boyfriend and And it takes place in this bar, and then aliens come. And then this guy goes on the alien ship to go rescue her. But they did this really cool thing. So first, they have this, in the video game, right at the bar, there's a TV. And as you walk towards it, it's like staticky until you get closer to it. And then as your character gets closer to it, it's Art Bell talking about aliens and stuff. I know I'm not doing it justice, but it was such a cool, smart idea. And God bless him.

He was the OG.

Yeah, and just some of the guy, one thing that, 'cause I listened to it a lot too, 'cause sometimes, You know, you're listening and you're like, this is insane. This is crazy. And he would always, always treat the guest with deference, you know, respect. And I, I, that must have been because there were things that were, you know, if you go back to all the episodes that were kind of contradictory in a sense, you know, like, wait, you think all these things happen? You think there's a a place in the middle of the ocean that has, like, it's a community of people that live there, and then, but you also think this, like, all these different things, he'd be like, hmm, huh, interesting.

Yeah, he would let you go.

He'd let you go, yeah.

He'd give us some air.

But he was, yeah, he was never rude or— No, never. Dismissive.

You'd call him up, he had a time traveler line. Where you would call specifically if you were a time traveler.

What if— but if you were calling from the past, they didn't have that technology yet.

No, it's mostly people from the future, I believe.

Like, Art, I'm calling from 7 minutes in the future.

Listen, I think his whole deal was if you are here in this current era but you are from another time. You could call because, you know, the idea was like he would have these remote viewers and oddballs on and they would talk about that we have had the ability to time travel for a long time.

Oh yeah.

You know, there are wormholes that exist and they explain the quantum dynamics involved and time travel has been breached by the CIA in the 1960s.

Yes.

And you have these people call up, but Art would always like give them air, like let them breathe. Let it breathe. Yeah, art, I'm a werewolf. Interesting, tell me more. Like, it didn't matter no matter what it was. It was a fun show.

Yeah, I loved it.

Craziest people, from fucking Bigfoot people to alien people, everything.

And then a lot of people, ex-military, right? You know, you get that, like whistleblowers. I was stationed in, you know, outside of a remote island that I can't go into, off of Singapore. And I I witnessed some things that I still have difficulty believing. And then he'd just, yeah, what happened?

It was great. So fun.

And you, so did you also listen to Phil Hendrie?

Yes.

Oh God.

He was the best.

Just super genius.

The best thing about Phil Hendrie was the people that didn't understand what was going on that would call in and be really upset.

The first two times I heard him, I didn't understand what he was doing. He's that good too. And I would be like, this is crazy, this guy. And then eventually you're like, oh, he's doing characters. Yeah. Because he'd repeat characters and stuff. But I got the chance to watch him do a show. So he's got, he's got the, he's got 3 mics, I want to say. Like 2 mics like this. And then a phone mic, or a phone, like an old-time cradle phone. And he was doing himself, the woman who runs the HOA or whatever, that, whatever her name was, that character, and then somebody else calling in, like he did somebody calling on the phone. And it was I mean, it was like a magic act. It was crazy to watch how, without missing a beat, and I could see, you can see how he strategically takes breaths so that he can go from one character to another and interrupting each other. You know, it was fascinating, but he's a genius.

00:11:10

It's the only thing that caught, right away I was like, oh wait a minute, there's no crosstalk. Like, right, one of the early times I listened, I was like, I think this is the same guy.

Yeah, well, he bumps it up. Like, he's really good at almost, you know, making it sound as if, like, because he'll interrupt himself and go, and I, okay, but, you know, and stop and then just go right into the other voice. It's fucking phenomenal.

And —completely original. Like, I don't know of anybody else that did anything like that.

No. Did you ever— he used to put out stuff for charity, like CDs and things, and he has— I don't know what it would be called, but it was one of the things he put out for charity that was— a guy called into the station. He was probably super high, but he called in thinking it was Pizza Hut. And he fucks with this guy in the best way where he's like, and who's the, what's the woman character he does? It's kind of like a Black woman who's like, mm, honey, it is the best. I don't know, Marjorie, I think maybe. But he, then he does that woman answering the phone at, you know, Pizza Hut, and then he does the automated thing. Like, she's like, I'm gonna put you on, it's easier to do the automated thing. So, and the guy's like, okay, all right. And then he gets on, he's like, thank you for calling Pizza Hut, the best pizza in a 3-block radius. And if you want, if you want I'm not doing it justice. You got to go do it. Hear it. Listen. Can you? Yeah, you got it?

All right, headphones.

Okay, it's so brilliant.

Wait. Uh, whichever is large. Yes. 16-inch deep pan, dish pan. You got the dish pan deep or extra deep? Just a regular large. You want a large? All right, 16-inch thick crust on a deep dish. You want puff dish? No. Uh, you want a, uh, any of them puffy cheese balls, anything like that? We got a special on buffalo wing. Uh, we got a special on, uh, uh, damn, I forgot what the other thing is. We got a special on something. All right, what do you want? What kind of cheese you want? Blue, Swiss, cheddar, Muenster? Okay, I think I'm gonna have the wrong, uh, location here. All right, hold on.

And he's— Thank you for calling Pizza.

Your call is being transferred. Please have all credit card information available for our operators. Yes, Pizza, hello. Hi, yes. Hi. Hi, which location are you at? We're at the corner of La Ciénega and Venice. Okay, I'd like to place an order for delivery. All right, can I put you on hold? We'll put you through our automated system. Hold on, please. Thank you for calling Pizza. If you'd like cheese pizza, press 1. If you'd like a meatball pizza, press 2. If you'd like sausage, press 3. Press 2.

Oh, it goes on and on and on. He goes, he eventually gets the guy a fish pizza and the guy's like, no man, this, I don't want fish. It's really funny, but that's him. That's Phil doing all those voices and that's not set up. A guy had called into the studio thinking it was pizza and they're like, Did you ever meet him? I did briefly at, when I got to see him do his, he did a live show at Aspen Comedy Festival. Oh. Long, long, long time ago.

I did something with him, Bob Odenkirk, and Doug Stanhope. Oh, wow. And Adam Carolla. I don't remember where it was. I wanna say it was somewhere in Canada, but it was some sit-down. We were talking about the process of going through, because he was in the middle of doing some sort of a television show pilot. Yeah, yeah. So we were talking about the process of creating a pilot and what it's like trying to get a pilot to an actual finished television show and get it approved and what the struggles are.

It was very interesting.

For Canadians? I don't think it was for— it was like one of those Montreal Comedy Festival things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Where they had some— it was like some weird talk. It was a long time ago. It was like God, it had to be like 2001 or something like that.

Yeah, I vaguely remember when he was, uh, there was gonna be, 'cause he would talk about it doing this sitcom.

Yeah, did it ever happen?

I don't think so, no.

He was a really nice guy though, not what I expected at all. I expected him to be fucking insane. Just like, just to be able to do that every night and not get bored with just completely fucking with people every day.

It's, it's gotta be exhausting too, like mentally, 'cause you've gotta remember, it's like really great improv guys where you have to remember all these details, bring 'em back 30 minutes later, right? And you're doing multiple characters. You ever see TJ and Dave? No. Oh dude, the best. Yeah, what is it? It's TJ Jadakowski and Dave Pasquesi who were like the kings of that stuff out of Chicago, and they come, they tour around, and they're just, they're two guys who, it starts off, you know, none of it's planned, none of it's, and they have like a dedicated cult following. When they're in New York, it sells out like that, and you gotta go to at least two shows to see how wildly different it is. I mean, there are two guys that come out on stage, usually there's like three chairs, and it'll just start with like, you know, "How's it going?" "Good, good, good." "Are you in line?" "No, no, no." And you watch it like, oh, they're in line, where are they in line at? Do they know each other? And then it turns out they're at the DMV, but they're not, it's like a room outside of the DMV, and then they, will leave and come back and be somebody else, right?

A kid that was mentioned or a wife or something, or be in a car. And it all wraps up. It's all a big story. And I have seen— I've probably seen him 30, 40 times, and I've seen shows where— that were more— that were funnier and more poignant than some plays that have been worked on for years. You know, it is better. Completely improvised? Completely, 100%. Wow. Oh, they're— they're— I mean, I— do you know Tim Meadows? Yeah. So Tim was a guest. Sometimes I'll have a third person. I know who he is.

I don't know him.

So I was— and Tim's been, you know, SNL. Yeah. And ensconced in that Second City world for decades. And he said it was the most terrifying thing he's ever done because they're like genius level. I mean, the detail you have to remember. And then on top of it, if one of them is, you know, "I'm a marine biologist," or whatever, it slips out, then that person has to know about— the real person playing the fake marine biologist has to know enough about marine biology to keep the thing going, you know, and it's just next level.

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He doesn't have anybody with him. Most of his podcasts are just him ranting. And I've watched the development of it. I'm like, that's an amazing muscle to develop because you just get accustomed to that kind of scenario, that situation where it's just in your mind, just gets used to producing content just.

And like old school AM late night radio guys, right? Who don't have people calling in who are like. Talking about whatever, and they got to do it, you know, 4 or 5 times a week. Yeah, 3 hours by themselves.

Yeah, I used to always like to listen to them. I used to like to listen to those crazy right-wing angry political talk shows because I don't— I didn't know anybody like that. So I was like, what, what is this guy doing? Well, that's—

that was the bulk of the radio. I mean, that's why, you know, you have like Art Bell and Phil Hendrie, like a nice like, oh, okay, because I got all this, I got Mark Levin and I got, you know, what's his name, you know, Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh, yeah. And when you first start listening, or when I first started listening, and I came out to LA from Boston, you know, and people were like, there's this guy out here who's fucking nuts, you know, and I'd never heard of him. In Boston, and then, and you're like, does he, how much of this stuff does he believe? Does he really believe? And how much has he come to believe? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. And those guys, that was a whole fascinating thing. And Wally George, do you remember Wally George?

I do, but I don't remember much about him. I remember the name. What did Wally George do?

He was the guy who originated what— I mean, now it's really familiar. He was— remember Morton Downey Jr.? He was a little actor.

Oh, that's right, that's right.

And he would look at 83, and he was— and it was a super low-budget, like, uh, cable access type thing back when that was a whole thing. And he'd get— the audience would be hooting and hollering, and he'd have people on like Somebody who, and sometimes they, I think because it became popular, sort of like with Morton Downey Jr. where people came on to quote unquote fuck with Wally George. Like I'm gonna pretend to be a furry and I'm gonna have gages and you know what I mean? Like just the archetype of the thing they wanna yell at. And I think people started, It was— there were some bullshit people on there, you know, people lying about who they were, but he'd have people on and then kick them off. It would happen all the time, like, "Come on, sit down." "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" And everybody would yell at the person, they'd start talking, and he'd be like, "Get the fuck out of here!" And that was the show. We're like, you know— and here's something really crazy. Tell me if this is rumor, look up your magic computer. Rebecca De Mornay's dad, the actress.

That's— yeah, Wally George.

Yes. No. Yeah, look it up. Casey, right? Jamie. Jamie, I'm gonna call you Casey.

Who is— I forget who Rebecca De Mornay was. From Risky Business. Oh wow, wow, her dad, yeah, is Wally George. Wow, isn't that crazy? Married multiple times, shocker, probably 10, potentially 10 times, had at least 6 children.

Shit, look at how many times he was married. 1, 2, 3, 4. Oh wow, possibly 10, possibly 10.

You imagine just keep Fucking signing up. I don't—

yeah, I just read literally the other day, Fleetwood Mac guy getting married for the fifth time. He's 182 and he's getting like, what? Stop. Yeah, why do you want to keep doing that?

They believe, they really believe this is it. This is the one.

Can you have to say those vows and mean it each time?

Or not. Yeah. Or just say, this is just a fun thing that I do. Yeah. To keep a lady happy.

Yeah, or just have a party, I guess.

Yeah, have a party and pretend that you're normal now. And you're married?

Yeah. Yeah. How long you been married?

17 years.

Oh, nice. Yeah. It'll be 14 in October.

If I get divorced, that's a wrap. What do you mean? Like, I'm happy, happily married. I don't want to get divorced. Not saying that. But if I ever get divorced, I'm never.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-uh. Oh, same here. Yeah. Oh, I feel the same. Silly.

I'm not having any more children, so if I don't have any children, it makes no sense to legally be bound to some person. Can't we just hang out?

I am 100% with you. I was never an anti-marriage guy, but I just didn't think I'd get married because I didn't want to. And then eventually I met somebody who I wanted to marry.

Yeah, it's like you just have to— it has to— I mean, that's the thing. It has to be the right person. Everybody always says that except Wally George. But the idea of doing it 10 times is fucking insane. Yeah, like that's a— they're doing a different thing.

I think once you get— I'll give you 3, and let's say one of them was some fishy circumstances. I'll give you 3. Once you get on your— by the time you're gonna be on your 4th or 5th or 6th Rupert Murdoch marriage, like, what is the point? And why does that woman believe you? What does it say about the lady?

Well, what about ladies that do it? I've been here for 6 years and I know one lady while I've been here, she's been married twice. Married and divorced twice, and now she's on the 3rd guy.

Yeah, I would look— I mean, that says something about the guys. Right? I guess? Yeah, man, come on. If you— you wouldn't ever think, like, you meet somebody, you like them, and then you find out they've been married twice before in 6 years. Right. And you were, like, starting to fall for her. You wouldn't think, wait a minute, what's the deal?

You would, unless she was hot. Men are dumb. Well, if she's hot and she's sexy and you really like being around her, you're like, who cares? She made mistakes. Yeah, who cares?

I guess you're right. If the sex is that good.

Yeah, the sex is good. She's hot and you love being around her and that's what she wants.

You want to make her happy, like, okay, I'll get— I'll do— I'll say this. You should find out. You should go talk to the other guys and have a sit-down and find out why.

You know, the other one is some guys, they'll want to mess it up for you, so they'll lie. They might not be accurate. Well, you know, they might paint a dist— also, they might have been the fuck-up and they want to blame it on her, and then you'll get a distorted perception of who she is.

But then, then it's back to her that she's marrying people, right, who are fucked up. Just, I guess the point is that we're both making is don't get married. You know?

Well, it is a weird thing. It's a weird thing to do. Do you have children? I do. Yeah, it's a weird thing to do if you don't have children. Not weird like you shouldn't do it, but it's a different thing.

Yeah, completely. Yeah, you're— I would say that, not that we, you know, my wife and I have any, you know, real issues, but I would behave myself and stay and work at the marriage because of the kid.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It fucks kids up when people get divorced. What's your—

what's your background?

And my parents were split up when I was 5, and my mother remarried when I was 7 and has been with my stepdad ever since. Oh, that's good. Yeah, they have— they have a great relationship. I just saw them this weekend. And where did you grow up? Fucking everywhere. I was born in New Jersey, moved to San Francisco when I was 7, lived in San Francisco from 7 to 11 in the height of the Vietnam War in Haight-Ashbury, like hippie town, and then Florida from 11 to 13.

That's the opposite of San Francisco.

Oh my God. Yeah, that's the first time I found out about the N-word. I didn't know what it meant. And I remember I had to ask my mom. No way. Yeah, I had to ask my mom. I never heard it in San Francisco. Never heard it. Wow. San Francisco in the 1970s, when I was between 7 and 11, was kind of a wild, amazing time. It was really weird. It was 'cause we were in the middle of the counterculture movement.

Yeah, yeah, Berkeley, all that stuff.

Uh-huh, yeah, we lived right down the street from Lombard Street, so we were in the middle of it all. You know, and it's funny because it was during that time that the Vietnam War ended. When I was— I think I was— when did Vietnam end? '74? I think '74.

Officially, April 30th, '75.

Okay. U.S. withdrawal, '73.

Yeah, so that was like— how old was I? Whatever. The point is, like, at that time, I remember thinking, thank God they figured out War's bad. We're never gonna do this again. I literally had that thought, however old I was.

What a naive child.

Oh, I was like, whew. Because my stepfather had, he didn't get drafted. He got lucky. He just didn't get picked. And I knew a guy, some guy that was a friend of the family that had moved to Canada. He's like, fuck this. He took off to Canada. So I was aware of that, like how people are leaving the country so that they don't have to go to war. Like, this is, because if you're a little kid, everything's fucking scary, especially if you come from, you know, broken home and, you know, like—

Yeah, and the concept of a draft or conscription, the idea like, oh, you may have to go and we're gonna— you're gonna learn how to shoot a gun and then go shoot strangers, kids, you know, like that. It's got to be terrifying if you're a kid.

No, it was insane. And it was also— there was also the time where, you know, my stepdad was a hippie and my parents were hippies.

And when I I was gonna ask, why did your— sorry to interrupt, but why did they move around so much?

My stepfather was a computer programmer initially, and then he wanted to become an architect, so he went to school in San Francisco and then University of Florida in Gainesville and then Boston Architectural Center. So we moved to Boston when I was 13. So that was what it was. It was him becoming an architect, right? And so, like, they, they didn't like sports. They weren't into anything like that. And then when Muhammad Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War. He became this like counterculture hero. Sure, yeah. And I remember it was my parents sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks because he was trying to win his title back. Mm-hmm. And they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy. Like this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents fans of his to the point where they're gonna watch boxing. Like, they never watched boxing. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything violent. They hated it. But they wanted to watch that.

Well, there's one boxer to watch if you are anti, you know, hitting or boxing or whatever. It was Muhammad Ali. He was a strategist, you know?

He was, but quite honestly, by that stage of his career, he had slowed down considerably. Yeah.

And he just wasn't— I remember the Leon Spinks, 'cause he—

Leon beat him, and then he beat Leon in the rematch.

Right, this is the rematch, right?

And that was the big one, that we were all glued to the TV. But I remember thinking, this is crazy, they're watching boxing because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War.

Have you seen When We Were Kings? Yes. Yeah, it's great. It's amazing.

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, he was a— God, you want to talk about a unique human being, like a one-of-one.

Yeah, you know. Yeah. And, you know, outside of, you know, Mike Tyson, there was never any kind of figure like that in boxing, you know. I mean, there was minor Sugar Ray Leonard, sort of a little bit, but not, not to that extent because he wasn't a cultural figure.

Right, right. Muhammad Ali represented represented something during the civil rights movement.

And he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Right, right.

That was a big thing too. People were terrified of Muslims at the time, and still.

I was gonna say at the time, yeah.

But it was a different kind of Muslims, you know, that was—

Well, they were the, you know, the government was really good about portraying every black urban person is like potentially, you know, Muslim Brotherhood, 12 Tribes, right, right, right, right. Those guys, they're still around, the Israelite 12 Tribes. Oh, those guys. Yeah, they used to be— they used to hang out and hang out. They used to be in Times Square, like, you know, yelling and preaching.

I hung out with those guys one day. I wrote a piece about it for my website. 'Cause I went, I was going home, it was when I was living in New York, and I was walking down the street and there's this guy standing there with a microphone and a little speaker, and they would read things from the Bible, and they would translate it, and they had this very bizarre translation. Everybody was Black. George Washington was Black. Everyone was Black. They were explaining to me, you know, the so-called Jew, they're Black Israelites. The so-called Jew was the thing that they would always—

Well, they're Jewish. Yeah, you don't have to say the so-called part. Yeah, it was very odd. But their whole thing was there was a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were Black that have been, you know, written out of history. Yeah, that was their thing. Lee Cronin's The Mummy.

Was hat unsere Tochter in einem 3000 Jahre alten Sarkophag gemacht?

Von dem Regisseur von Evil Dead Rise.

Sie war 8 Jahre lang verschwunden. Kommt eine neue Vision des Grauens. Hey Schmetterling, hier sind Mom und Dad.

Was passierte mit Katie? Ich will nur meine Tochter zurück. Lee Cronin's The Mummy, ab 16. April nur im Kino.

I was like, oh, oh, it's like the— because they hated white people. So I was just talking to this because I was bored, you know, I was just— so I was talking to this guy, I was just having him explain everything to me and he informed me, don't worry, man, you're not white. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. It's good to know.

So you can hang out.

I can hang out with you guys. You don't hate me. But it was very odd. Very odd. They were all dressed like superheroes. They all had these crazy like Avenger costumes on.

Yeah. And jewelry. Yeah, big, yeah, huge medallions around their neck.

Yeah, very odd stuff. There's still—

you don't see them like you used to, but they're still out there, you know.

Oh yeah, yeah, they're out there.

But I mean, like, in literally in New York, periphery of Times Square.

Yeah, last time I was in Philadelphia, I saw them. Yeah, they were out there on the street with the microphones. Yeah, the whole deal. Yeah, yeah.

It's an odd group. When were you in New York?

I was in New York— I moved to New York in '91? Yeah, so I started stand-up in '88 in Boston, and I got picked up by my manager, who I'm still with, when I was essentially an open-micer. Who was that? Jeff Sussman. How do I not know Jeff Sussman?

He handles Kevin James, Was he a Boston guy?

No, he was a New York guy. Oh, okay, okay. So the story was he had, um, what was his name? Fuckin'— the guy who had all the crazy costumes. He was on the Rodney Dangerfield special. Bob— oh, Bob Nelson. Bob Nelson, yeah. So he handled Bob Nelson.

He was the Cleveland Browns.

Yeah, he put the helmet on, he had boxing gloves, he'd do Jiffy Jeff's Gym, he had brain damage. He did a bunch of different characters. So Bob, who is a big act, you know, he had an HBO special, the whole deal. At the time, he found Jesus. Oh, and where was he? In his basement, I guess, or something. It was around the neighborhood somewhere. Okay. But he had this guy who was his prayer partner that was going to take over as his manager. And so this was my manager's big client. So he's like, fuck, like, I got to, I got to go find some other Did he just stop doing stand-up?

I don't know.

I think— I don't know if he still does stand-up. I don't know. I knew his career— my manager is really good and he's very smart and he did a great job guiding Bob. But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that, like maybe that becomes more of their life than— because he was all in. Yeah, yeah. He was all in with Christianity. And so my manager said, well, I kind of know most of the comics in New York. Let me see if I'm not missing people in Boston. And so he traveled to Boston with a friend of his, one of the guys that owned Governor's, and they came— Governor's was Bob's room, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. Out in Long Island. One of the rooms that he worked at, yeah. And so they came down to Boston, and I just randomly went up one night at Duck Soup. Remember Duck Soup? Duck Soup was— it became the Improv after a while. It was Billy Downs and Paul Barclay. I think it was actually Billy split— I think it was Paul's thing.

So they split at that point? I think.

I'm not sure about that, but what it was, it was Paul's idea, I believe. It was a much more high-end room. Like, it was really nice, and it was right across from Nick's. So it was in the below area where the Wilturn is. Okay. So you know where the Wilturn is, which is now the big, you know, where Bill Blumenreit does Common Connection shows?

Yeah, the Wilbur, right? Yeah, is that it?

The Wilbur. It's the Wilbur, okay, I'm thinking the Wilturn's LA.

Wilturn's LA, right, I know what you're talking about.

The Wilbur, right, you're right. So downstairs, the Wilbur, it was, you'd go down and it was a really nice room. Okay. And I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos and— Driving a limo in Boston?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus. Yeah, yeah.

Oh man. That's what I was doing for a job.

That's fucking hard. I mean, I just mean the literal streets of Boston are tough to navigate with any vehicle, but a limo, add an extra half a car to it.

Yeah, it wasn't that bad. It was mostly airport pickups, you know, and a lot of it was town cars, pick people up in town cars. But when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas. And I had an idea for a joke and I called God, I can't remember who the guy was. Fuck, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. He was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club, and I could call him up and say, hey, could I get a guest spot? And he gave me a guest spot that night. I wasn't even supposed to be on the show, and my manager just happened to be in the room. And if I'd known he was in the room, I probably would have been nervous and I probably would have bombed. And I had no idea he was there. And then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card and he said, can I see you tomorrow? I said, okay. And then I just went for a ride to the airport. So I did a set at the Connection the next night, and then he asked me to come to New York and audition there.

And then, wow, next thing you know, I was living in New York. It was like 3 years later. Very cool. And then that was crazy, crazy story.

And, and when did you move out to LA?

'94, '93, like first came out in '93 and then moved in '94. I came out to '93 for a pilot. I did a pilot on Fox called Hardball with Jim Brewer and a bunch of other people. It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled. It was terrible. Yeah. And then I— the only reason why I stayed— I hated LA, but the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year. So like, fuck, like, I have to stay here. And so I stayed for a whole year, and then I got a development deal for NBC, and they— I was there in the middle of this whole development deal, and then they said, we have a pilot that we already filmed, but we're gonna fire one of the cast members. We want you to audition for this, and that was NewsRadio. So I got to watch. Who did you replace? Well, fortunately, it was Ray Romano, who was a good friend of mine, was fired during the pilot, and so they replaced him with another guy, and that guy got fired. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it wasn't— I would have felt terrible if it was Ray, but it was Ray being replaced.

I was like, good, fuck that guy. I'll do it for Ray.

Do you remember who the other guy was?

I do not. He was just an actor, some guy. I mean, I never met him. Sure, he's a nice guy, but luckily for Ray, he goes on and does Everybody Loves Raymond. It becomes huge. And I just stumbled into this fucking show with no acting experience.

That was a fun set. I remember— I remember— 'Cause I did it a couple times and also like that was not my first, but one of the first experiences I had with multi-camera sitcoms. You know, you're like, this is literally the easiest job on planet Earth. Oh yeah, it is. The— you have one full day, you have like a full, I think Thursday, right? Yeah. And then Friday's like half a day. Yeah. Monday, come in, listen to this, read the script, go away.

Yeah, it's the filming day that's the long day. Yeah, it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose. The first season was hard. The first season was 12, 14-hour days because it was like they were trying to figure out what the show was. Yeah. But once it got rolling, it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing stand-up for 6 years. I'd only been— I had done no acting. I had— they made me get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive. NewsRadio? For a pilot, for the pilot, the Fox pilot. Oh.

Yeah. Well, how's an acting coach gonna help you with a sitcom? It's about instinct. It's about—

Well, they were giving me a lot of money. They gave me like $150,000. I mean, I understand why you— learn how to act, right? Do you know how to act? I've never acted.

I'm just saying, like, I know to deliver sitcom lines is— yeah, you don't need an acting teacher. Wow, Joseph, let's limber up the body. Yeah, you're not Daniel Day-Lewis.

Yeah, you're not doing There Will Be Blood. It was a— it was weird because it wasn't anything. I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted. So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like, oh my God, this is it. Yeah, I am on a sitcom. I'm acting. It was more like, this is crazy. I can't believe I'm doing this. You know, it was more like, wow, I can't believe I get to do this. But, you know, the real thing for me was to be able to be in LA and go to The Comedy Store. That to me was more— that was more huge than like when I got passed at The Comedy Store. That to me was like way bigger than being on a sitcom. I was like, holy shit. Like, 'cause at that, you know, like, it's 6 years in, I was like, am I even— is this gonna work out? Like, I don't even know this is gonna work out.

Well, it's also not glamorous in any way. That aspect of working is— there's nothing glamorous about a sitcom, you know what I mean? It's not the thing that when you're not in LA or Hollywood and you're sitting back in your you are told about the glamorous lifestyle, the parties and all that stuff. It's literally you're driving to work and you're going to work, you know?

Yeah, but it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television and that was very weird to me. It was very strange to watch it on TV. I'm like, that is actually me on TV. I had zero aspirations for any acting at all. Yeah, I never was— it never even occurred to me when I lived in Boston. I remember me and Fitzsimmons used to— we used to dream about the day we could pay our bills telling jokes.

That was all it was. I hear you.

It was just like, oh God, I would see guys like DJ Hazard. I remember I went to look at this apartment and DJ Hazard lived in the same building, and it was this converted schoolhouse and these loft apartments, and like a second floor where the, like, the bedroom was. It looked over the living room. I'm like, God, he pays for this with jokes. Yeah. This was like the most amazing thing. Like, that's all I wanted. I saw these like Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney. I was like, imagine being able to pay your bills just telling jokes.

Untie my ankles in the morning. Remember that? Yeah, I do. DJ Hazard. Yeah. What was I going to say? Something. Oh, do you know Fitzsimmons, Paul Barclay story, or Bill Downs, The Watch? Bill Downs, it was Bill Downs. Which one? How's it go? Oh, I don't, you should get it from him, 'cause it's his story. But, and I don't wanna, I feel like it's his to tell, but it's fucking great, it's genius.

It's bringing up something in my memory.

So Bill owed, everybody money, right? And like, he's still, you know, those guys owe me whatever it is at this point, you know, what, $300, $500? And just, and you'd go there and they were just— Everybody was big guy, remember? Yeah.

I'll pay you soon, big guy.

Oh, the worst. And then do you remember when Bill adopted the girls? Yes. Korean girls, right? He, yeah. And he would use them like as, because at a certain point it didn't help to go to the connection or go to the clubs and you had to go to their fucking office if you want it. Nobody's going to call you back or whatever. And you'd like, I got to get on the T and go to their office. And that's the only way I'm going to get money is if I show up and he's in a good mood, and it's not gonna happen from a phone call. And I'd go there every single time. It's like, dude, I gotta pay my rent, man. I mean, I got nothing, and you owe me, you know, $385. And back then, that was huge. And, ah, cross eyes. Listen, so I get these— my kids— one of my kids is sick, whatever. It was always this fucking excuse. And then And then, you know, with still the coke residual in the bottom of his nose. But so he owed Fitzsimmons a chunk of money, like a significant amount, like $1,500, $1,800, like something meaty, you know, especially for back then.

And you ask Greg, 'cause I feel like— No, tell the story.

I'm sure Greg's told it to me. Greg and I are pretty close. I just mean— I remember it some— in my head, I do remember part of it, but I don't know the whole story.

I don't remember it. All right. So Greg was booked at this, you know, some shit club in New Hampshire or whatever. And Downs was going to be there. Bill was going to be there. And he goes there and he goes, oh, Bill, I "I forgot my watch. I don't wanna go over. Can I borrow your watch?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." It's like a Rolex, like some fancy, fancy, fancy watch. And Greg had this all planned out. [Speaker] Oh, I know the story now, yeah. [Speaker] Yeah, and then he had parked in a specific place, and then he gets, he's like, "All right, thanks." And he's like, "All right, don't forget to give it back." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And he does his set, and then he bolts out the back door, gets in his car, drives home back to Boston, and then Bill calls him, "Hey, so I think you forgot to give me my watch back." And Greg just basically goes, "Yeah, you want it back? Give me the $1,800 you owe me." And then met him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere in a public place. "Give me the cash and I'll give you your watch." And it was just genius.

00:50:26

That's Greg. Yeah, yeah, those days are fun. Nick's Comedy Stop used to offer to pay you in cocaine or cash.

I— dude, so I did Nick's, and the only— I've said this multiple times— the only— I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston when I was in Boston because the comedy boom's going on, and outside of I don't know, 3 places I just didn't do that well. And I certainly didn't do well at Nick's. I mean, I was the opposite. They, you know, it had that, the vague feeling of high school where you're the weirdo and people wanna fuck with you and throw you in the trash can. And so, I got lucky because there were just spots. They just needed bodies. So, I worked all the time, you know, not, you know, not great gigs, but I had, it was all cash, you know, under the table. And they just needed bodies to, you know, go up and do 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, at some cowboy bar in Fitzburg or whatever, Fitchburg. Anyway, so I get this, I get a week at Nick's and I am not doing well. No, at all. I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox. So, not my crowd. And I didn't have the tracksuit. And, you know, Knox, he's up there doing, "Hey, you know why Bill Buckner didn't catch the ball or get the ball?" It's '86 World Series.

"'Cause he heard it had AIDS on it." Okay. Yeah, that's a real joke. That's a real joke. And they loved it. More! Wonderful! Yes, of course, in that AIDS song.

Oh yeah. 1986.

And then, do you remember this? What does AIDS stand for? No. What? Adiós, infected dick sucker.

Oh, I do remember that. I do remember that. I'm opening for him.

Oh my God. And it's his crowd.

Adiós, infected dick sucker. Oh my God. God.

Yeah. So I titled one of the tracks on my first album, I think first or second album, What If Baseballs Had AIDS on Them?

Just—

I'm fucking eating it, right? So they're peeling back my time as the week goes on. And And I am, I mean, if I had done even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling. They're already kind of intimidating, right? Super mobby. Very mob. Very mob. And do you remember where the, you'd walk into Nick's and there was like the podium and then behind, a little behind it is this little room with a curtain, right? And it's not big at all. I went to go get paid, the week was over, and I've just eaten it, eat shit every single night, every single show. And they're all eating, it's like a scene from, they're all eating manicotti, just couldn't make it any better, with the fucking napkins in their shirt like this. And I go, hey, nervous as shit, Hey, so Dom, I need to, if I can get paid, just for the, you know, whatever. And Dominic goes to whoever, I can't remember the guy's name, his kind of lackey there. And he goes, whatever his name was, you know, Paulie, go pay the kid. And he's, I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy. Fucking napkin off.

Takes me, trudges, we go up to the offices upstairs and there's a safe and it's open and there's cash and there's a gun. Just open, right? And he gives me, he gets the money and he gives it to me and I just pick it up. I wanna get the fuck outta there and I pick it up and he's like, "Aren't you gonna count it?" "No, I'm good, I trust you." And I just bolted, I never, went back there again. It was— I was so fucking intimidated.

And that was an intimidating place.

Oh dude, the whole thing about it. Every— the Dominic, the— all those guys. Yeah. Yeah. And they're— everyone's doing blow and, you know, the performers are at least, you know, it was a maniacal time where all those—

there was one time where Nicks was running 3 consecutive shows. So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom, and there was one other room somewhere in that building. And guys would go, guys like Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, they would go and do a set, a set, a set, set, a set, a set. And these guys were just raking in money. Oh, yeah. And constantly doing blow.

No, not paying their taxes. Yeah. Yes.

And that's what got them all. Yeah.

Well, they— I mean, back in the heyday, and it went— it went on for years. It was years and years of this. I mean, you could go down, you know, 128 and do Caloones or whatever, and then just hop all the way back. Hop into these Chinese restaurants or whatever.

Right, Giggles in Saugus.

Yeah, and just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do 9 fucking shows and make a shit ton of money, cash under the table, tons of blow. Yeah.

And yeah. It was a wild place because there were so many comics and it was such a— Boston's not a big city, you know, and to have so much comedy all come out. You've seen Fran Salamita's documentary? I haven't. I got to.

It's really great. Stand Up Stood Out?

Yeah, it's really— I got it. It's really great. It's really great. And it goes all the way back to Crimmins and the Ding Ho. And that was before my time. I started in '88. So the Dingho was already gone. Yeah. You know, you heard legendary stories from the Dingho.

Did you see Call Me Lucky? No. Oh, you gotta see that. It's Bobcat's documentary about Barry.

Oh no, wait a minute. I did see that. It's fucking great. That's right. I did see that.

It's really well done. I don't mean just like if even if you don't know Barry, just the story and the way he lays out the path of the The film is— it's great.

I had Barry on like right after it came out.

I had him on the podcast and yeah, he's a legend and, you know, huge inspiration. He was an intimidating guy.

Yeah, that was the guy that I was scared of because he was like, he was the guy who was sort of the standard. Like, he made sure there was no hacks. He made sure there was, you know, like he set the standard.

You know, he was really equitable too.

Yes. Yes. Very politically active, even like way back then, like really knowledgeable and like really understood what was going on in the world.

And did you ever see his or one of his State of the Union shows? No. They're fucking amazing. So he would go— I saw a couple of them at the old Stitches. He would go up and it was when the State of the Union was happening, he'd go up and he'd do his State of the Union. It was just him. He would go on and he'd have like, it was pre-PowerPoint, but it was whatever the equivalent of a screen behind him with stuff. He'd go up there with a cooler, like a legit big cooler of beer. 'Cause that motherfucker could drink. And he would just start, he had a podium, and he would just crack beers and just down a case of beer or half a case of beer and just do his stuff, extemporaneous stuff. I mean, stuff prepared, but about the State of the Union and all that. And it would always be packed. And you'd see Denis Leary You know, every single comic would be there, you know, trying up against the wall because it was packed, but it was great. I mean, legendary.

Well, I mean, I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became, you know, because he was the guy that was kind of the gold standard. And he started the Ding Ho. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he is like, becoming friends with him was like, whew, like such a relief because I was terrified of him. Yeah. When I was a young comic, like if that guy thought I sucked, if he hated me, I was like, I'm fucking doomed. Yeah. You know, because he was this character. He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out a Budweiser for every show. You remember that?

I don't, but I mean, I know he drank a lot.

Yeah, but he would bring his own beer. It was part of his thing. He would go on stage, just reach into his jacket, pull out a Budweiser and set it down on the stool. I— He only drank American beer. Is that true? Yeah, he would drink Budweiser. I wonder why that is. I don't know, he was like kind of a patriot.

He doesn't seem like he would, the kind of guy who would have denied himself a Modelo.

Well, I mean, maybe it was performative. I don't know, was there Modelo even? Did it exist at the time?

But yeah, he was the only guy I would say that And to your point, like all these other legendary comics, you know, Lenny Clark and Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney and all those guys, he was the only guy that those guys were kind of walking on eggshells. Yes. The only guy. Yes, yes. They'd give all each other shit. Yep. Like, and mean shit too. Yeah. Oh, they would fight. Oh, yeah. Barry was the one guy they wouldn't fuck with.

Well, he was different than all of them in that he was incredibly well-read. Like, really well-read, really knowledgeable about all sorts of things with economics and the way the world works, the injustices of our society. But really funny fucking comic too. Like, great jokes, great writer, you know? And just like, he was the standard. He was the glue that held that scene together. Because they all looked at him to be like, you can't kind of step out of line. Like, you don't want to catch Barry's R.

Yeah, it's absolutely true. And then when the revelation he had of being abused as a kid, and then he dedicated— he spoke in front of Congress. He did about AOL.

AOL. Yeah. That was during the early days of AOL. For people that don't know, they had all these chat rooms and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children. Yeah. And also to exchange pornographic material. Yeah.

And that was, that was, that becomes a big part of Call Me Lucky, you know? Right. Right. And yeah, he like dedicated his life basically to just going out and catching these motherfuckers. Yeah. And helping, you know, the people who would pose as kids and stuff. And that was, you know, that was his— and he was also, you know, lapsed Catholic. And when all the, especially in Boston, the Catholic Church and diocese and all that stuff was coming out, He was— I mean, that was his fucking focus. Yeah.

Getting these fuckers caught, you know, exposed. Well, I think it took someone like him that was— he was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and his ability to articulate it, and also a great comic, so that like people looked at him like, well, this guy's like He's clearly smarter than all of us. He's also super dedicated to the craft of comedy. It meant a lot to him. The integrity of comedy, what it is to be a comic.

And he came from— and I think this is kind of specific to Boston too. He came from a jock world. He was a minor league or whatever sub-minor league catcher. He played, he was at Syracuse University and he played for like the Cape Cod League and, you know, the things that eventually you get to minor leagues, hopefully. But, and he came from that hard drinking, you know, and catcher is arguably the smartest guy on the baseball team, right?

Right, he's the guy making the calls for the pitches. Seeing everything, defensive lineups.

So he came from that world too, which I think helped his cred.

Yeah. Well, it's just such an unusual town in what happened there, that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave. And they kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy.

That, to me, was like— I knew there was definitely a— as I started to separate from that world a little bit and just kind of evolving as a comedian. And there was like the catch scene in Catch a Rising Star. And that was a thing that was an early— I just didn't get it. Like, why are you doing the same? There's no joy in it. And then you would drive some of these guys because they'd get fucked up and you were happy to have all the work and you'd go up and do 15 and they'd do half hour. You get in the car, you go somewhere else. And these guys doing, Mike Dunham, he would do his, remember Rosie, the bounty, the quicker picker-upper, the bounty. Yeah. Okay. So he had, there was a, so the commercials were like Rosie. And it was like the scrappy waitress at a diner. Remember it was like a character that was in all the, it was like the mascot of whatever, Bounty, the quicker picker-upper. And her character was kind of like feisty, as in these commercials ran for years, different, like, "Ah, you don't do this, do this." And his bit was about taking a gun out and shooting her.

And it was funny. You'd see it the first time, but it's like, "Dude, that hasn't been on the air in fucking 10 years." And he's still doing this. "Ah, yeah, Rosie, I got something for ya. I got some advice for ya." Like, what the fuck? And there was, okay, wait, Joe, did you, were you there? So Ed, the Machine Regime? Oh yeah, I remember him. He wear the suit? Yep. Well, yeah, and his headshot was 4 different, his headshot was like 4 squares. Different characters? Yep, Tina Turner. Right. And guy, the like mob guy, I can't remember the rest of them, and then whatever.

I think he had a turban in one of them. I'm sure he did.

So he goes to jail for rolling back—

Odometers. Odometers. Yes, that's right.

He gets caught, and he was, you know, car salesman, I think, in Rhode Island, I believe, and he got caught. Rolling back to your Don Rizzis, he goes to jail for a year and a half. And I was shooting this movie. This is decades later. I was shooting this movie and it was on a cruise ship. And the cruise ship, Ed "The Machine" Rizzis is the headliner at the comedy venue on the cruise ship. And I'm like, oh shit, I haven't seen this guy in forever, and he's back doing comedy, okay. And I go there, and he does, I don't know, 40 minutes, the same fucking act from 15 years ago. It's like, you don't have one? You spent 18 months in prison, you don't have one joke? You don't have one motherfucking observation? Even if you lie and say, say, you know, you know, it'd be weird if you were in prison and whatever. You don't have anything. It's weird.

It was a weird thing, and it only existed with them. Yeah, comics in the country were writing new material all the time.

It was— I remember that feeling of I must be different because I'm not— I don't— that is such a distasteful thing. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that.

Well, there was two. I saw two traps there. One of them was that, and the other one was never leaving. Yeah. They never left Boston. And when they did leave Boston, they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40%.

And there were a lot of people, their peers, who would give them shit. Like, and it was all just kind of resentful jealousy, small-minded, small-town kind of like, oh, you think you're better than us, which is a Boston thing too, that, mm-hmm, oh, you think you're so— think you're so hot now that you— you're hotshot, you go, you get some— you go to Hollywood, you go there, yeah, fuck you. This is, you know, it was a real provincial working-class kind of, yeah, attitude, you know. They looked down on— and, you know, they would give Leary shit all the time. You know, like, sellout. This is bullshit weird.

Sellout's a weird one because they would all sold out. It just wasn't available. Well, they were all mad at Stephen Wright. Were they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because so Stephen Wright was like this.

How can you get mad at Stephen Wright?

Well, not mad at him, but bitter because of his success. Oh, because he went and left. Yeah, yeah. He went and left, did The Tonight Show, right? Became huge. So unusual, so different. And they came to Boston. The Tonight Show came to Boston. To look for comics, and Steven Wright was the one they chose. And all these other guys were like, "He's a fucking middle act. Like, this is bullshit. Like, that guy bombs half the time." 'Cause his act to me was a lot like Hedberg. Yep, for sure. In that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific— Like, if Hedberg— There's a famous story of Hedberg was on the road in Ohio, and they had this guy who was an opening act who'd do, like, backflips and fucking sing rap songs, and it was— It was a disaster, and Hedberg kept bombing, and so they switched them and made Hedberg the middle act and tried to fuck him on the money, and Stanhope got into it with the owner of the club, and it became a big thing. But once Hedberg got an audience, then people knew what they were coming to see, and then he was amazing.

And then everybody wanted to see that. That was kind of the same with Steven Wright. Like, if you expected— if you're on a show with Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clarke and all these big-energy fucking Boston guys, And then, you know, I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. Couldn't park anywhere near the place. You know, it just, for whatever reason, you know—

Well, it's also that other comedy is— and I'm not taking anything away from those guys, and the bits were great, but that other comedy is a little easier. It just— you get it. Yes. And Steven Wright, you got to think think about it for a second.

It was abstract, it was low-key, it was all non-sequiturs, it was one to another. It was— and so when he left and took off, a lot of guys apparently were like, this is fucking bullshit, like, when's my turn gonna happen?

Yeah, I can see that easily. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was— it was so— I mean, no other scene had that kind of weird provincial you know, and that thing, like you said, they wouldn't leave.

No, they never left. Well, they were huge there, so if they lived there, they could make like a couple hundred thousand dollars a year just running around, and cash. Oh, easy. Yeah, and not ever have to worry about anything, and they played golf all day. So there's two things that scared me. One of them was golf, 'cause I saw that when you play golf, you kind of stop trying with your comedy. It's a slippery slope.

It's a gateway drug. Well, it's—

you're out there for fucking 8 hours a day. Like, Knoxie was always playing golf. And then the other thing was like, if you never left, you had no chance of developing like a national audience where you could go to a club in Philadelphia. You can go to a club— they couldn't do the road. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a trap.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and as you said, they half of their stand-up was like, you'd have to know about, you know, Storrow Drive or fucking Johnny Most. You know Johnny Most?

Yeah, remember Donovan's bit about Johnny Most? It was amazing. But it was like he was doing that bit long after Johnny Most was dead. So like 20 people in the audience would be howling laughing and everybody else like, who the fuck is Johnny Most? Yeah, it was, it was weird because that it was like a velvet prison. It's like how I describe, like, really great comics that get jobs in the writers' room. And I'm like, you got to be careful. Like, that's a velvet prison. Because if you get stuck in that writers' room and you never do the road, you never put out specials, you're never going to get an audience. You're always going to be beholden to an employer. You're always going to have to have a job. And there's great comics that got trapped with that.

But wouldn't you say that if they— Yes, it's a trap, but if they didn't have the wherewithal or foresight or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that thing.

Perhaps, but sometimes they get a mortgage and then they get a family and then they're stuck. That's the trap. Yeah.

Fucking family. Let's call it for what it is.

Yeah. It's a trap. And well, in a lot of ways it can be if you're trying to be an actual national level. Like, do you know Owen Smith? Uh, I don't think so. Comic in LA? No. One of the top 20 best comics on Earth. He's fucking brilliant. He's so funny. Owen Smith? Owen Smith. Okay. Saw him at the Comedy Store, and I remember the first time I saw him at the Comedy Store, I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge? He's so funny. He's so good. He's like, he has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the n-word. It's just like, really, it's a really funny, well-crafted bit. Like, all of his bits are brilliantly written. He's a great performer. He's super likable. Got writers' gigs and just— He does the Mothership a couple times a year, I believe. At least once a year. But just doesn't get out there.

Who does he write, or what shows?

I think he's a showrunner now. Oh, well, that— So it took it to another level. But, you know, just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic, and those jobs eventually led to a house and—

But maybe he, you know, was like, "I—" You watch him and you love him, right? 'Cause you see a lot of stand-up and you're like, "A lot of it's shit, and this guy's fucking great. Great writer." But maybe he doesn't see it that way, and he's quite happy to have—

I think he does. He does see it that way. I've talked to him about it. Yeah. He kind of knows. He just doesn't know what to do now, 'cause he's a—

You're a showrunner. You're— It's making money. Yeah, and there's a lot of responsibility.

There's also not a lot of shows anymore. Yeah, which is— it's a real problem. It's a real problem. Banked on being a showrunner in the '90s, and that's what you, you know, threw your hat into, and then all of a sudden that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20% of what used to be.

It's— yeah, it's, uh, I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew You know, back in the day when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go, this, let's not waste our time going to these 5 places. This is not a show for them. This is a show for these 3 places. Let's, this is this kind of show. Now I have no fucking clue. I, you know, come up with like Bob and I pitched a show. Sold the pitch. Uh, there was like, even there were like 4, we, I think we pitched it at 8 places. 4 of them kind of bid. We took what we thought was the best deal. Um, and then wrote the, it was a limited series, 8 episodes. Um, wrote the first 4 and it was Bob and his brother Bill who's big Simpsons guy and, um, It was good. And then they said, yeah, the quote was marketing and analytics couldn't— that's a quote— couldn't figure it out what to do with the show. And so they didn't. And we had 4 episodes that you could look at, and then we had the Bible for the next 4 and the outlines and everything was— and it was fucking funny on the page.

It was funny then. We're like, so here's the cast. We're going to have these amazing people and Bob and I as different cult leaders. And if that's such a rare thing when it starts off on the page funny and by the time you get a great cast and then you get on set and you're like, what if we do this? And then you get into the post and start playing around with it. I mean, it's just, it was a really cool thing. And yeah, marketing and analytics, that's what you're dealing with now.

Well, I mean, that has kind of always at least been the case.

I, well, not in a— I mean, they, they would have to say, I mean, analytics is technical. I mean, marketing, I don't know how to help you, man. I can give you some advice. I don't You know, I think that's a shitty way to market it, but you know the, you know, that world. And, but analytics is about the algorithm and all that shit.

Is this recent? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right after, shortly after COVID. It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are responsible for putting out shows. The people that you communicate with, the executives, you're like, this has got to be a mistake. Like, how did you get this job? And I experienced that early on, like at the first pilot that I was on. The first pilot was on Hardball. The pilot was actually very funny because it was written by Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran. They were from The Simpsons, and they also wrote on Married... with Children. Great guys, but they were writers. They were like these, like, quiet, kind of soft-spoken guys. And, you know, they ran the pilot. And then they brought in a showrunner from Coach. Remember that show Coach? Yeah. And this guy just fucked the whole show and turned it into this, like, da-da-da-da-da-da. It was like this clunky, bad joke, like really—

Yeah, shit happens more than you'd think.

And the people behind the scenes, like the executives, it was astonishing how little of them had any creative ideas. It was that they were just hoping that it would work, and ego. It's like ego, and I'm an executive, so I'll tell you what's good and what's not good, and we understand this because we're Fox. And yeah, I was like, this is nuts. Like, this is, this is how it works behind the scenes. I thought you'd get behind the scenes and be all these fucking geniuses that put together all these television shows. They had an understanding of like how let people be creative and put a, put a show together and let it, let it fucking run out in the The runs, like when you're running through the script, like, it's like a little boy who thought the world—

Yes, everybody learned the same thing.

Finally, they're going to figure it out. Yeah, very naive. Yeah, but I naively stumbled into that exact right thing with NewsRadio. Right.

So when I got on the NewsRadio, which I would say some of those execs that you're describing, they probably stumbled into. Yes. The success of it?

Well, you know, Paul Sims, who is brilliant, was coming from The Larry Sanders Show. So Larry Sanders Show, huge success, genius show. And so they knew this guy was special and super smart guy, like funny, and had a great group of writers and put together a great pilot and then, you know, recast the one role that I came in for. And so I'm there on this set and it was like, you know, it It took long hours to figure it out, but they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do. Like, Paul's approach was so different than anybody else. Like, Dave Foley was like the secret producer of like half of that show. Half of the way the scenes were put together, half of the jokes that were in it was all Dave Foley on set running through the script with the cast, coming up with better ideas.

Oh, I didn't know that.

They let you. Yeah. Do anything. Like, sometimes they'd say, can we see it as written? And then you'd give it to them as written, then they'd be like, I like your idea better. Like, Paul was—

that's great—

fucking amazing with that. Yeah. And so once I did that, I was like, I think I'm done with this because I don't think it's ever going to be any better than this. It's rare, man. Yeah, it was super rare. I auditioned for like one or two other ones that were terrible just because I wanted money, you know, and I'm like, maybe it'll be okay. But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible that's successful. That sounds dumb to people. Like, no, what the fuck, you know, oh, poor you, you're on TV making $50,000 a week or whatever you're making, like, poor you. But no, you're in hell because you're doing something that sucks and you have to show up every day doing this thing when you know you could have been on Seinfeld or if you just got cast on Friends.

Well, that's a trap too, you know, it's like the people who, you know, if— because it really is like a job. And you'll— you may have a really nice house, right? Yeah. And you have a nice car, but, you know, you're, you're getting— you know, you're in Studio City and you get in your car and you drive to the— this job, and it's kind of shitty and sucks, but there's amenities, great craft services. Yeah, makes fucking frappuccinos right there, you know. And And then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere, and then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again.

Yeah, and you keep buying things because that's how you reward yourself. You buy a new television, this one's even bigger, you know. You buy a new car, I got the new car, you know. And you're— that's what you're doing to reward yourself for doing this job that sucks.

What— I get that too. I mean, I will on a much smaller scale, but when I when I make a good payday, I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards.

Oh, you're a baseball card collector?

That's the thing? Oh, interesting. Yeah, but have been going back. It's not like— Right. Like, I feel like I have legit, you know, baseball street cred.

Yes. Yes.

But that's the thing. And also, it's— it's— I mean, the argument can be made it's an investment, a shitty investment, Yeah, but an investment nonetheless. But it's also like gambling because it's like a scratch-off ticket because everybody's chasing the one-of-one cards and you're opening the packs and stuff.

Oh, that's how you do it? You buy packs unopened? I buy boxes.

Yeah, so I buy a hobby box which has a better— it's more expensive, it has a better chance of— well, that is more like auto rookie cards or relic cards or something like that.

Well, those are— that is an investment though, because you could always sell them.

People always want them. Yes. I just mean since I started, you know, God, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Yeah, 30, like in the '90s, early '90s, maybe '80s. No, '89, '89. So whatever money I put in is— there's nowhere near— if I sold everything, I mean, it's talking about half the money I put in. But I have them and I like them, and I'm not gonna sell them.

I have— so that's your reward? That's my reward. Yeah. Yeah. My thing was, in my poverty days, it was comic books. So one of my— which is also an investment. Yeah, well, it became one eventually, but when— during my poverty days, my My biggest, saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money. Yeah, I had no money, and I had these old Spider-Mans and these old Incredible Hulks. Yeah, which were probably now worth— oh my God, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some really good ones in the plastic sleeve. Yeah, yeah, I'd keep them in the— be very careful pulling them out, opening them up. Oh, I love comic books, and I had collected them since I was a child. Oh, that's a bummer, man. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. That's what I—

is that your thing?

Yeah, that's what I— oh, I didn't know. When I was a kid.

Is any of this, any of that stuff yours?

No, no, no, none of that stuff is mine. All the artwork is different artists. But you are, you do? Yes. Oh, wow, cool. Yeah, well, I haven't in a long time, but I was really good when I was in high school. But you could still do that? Yeah, I could still draw. I can still draw a little, but it's like—

but if you want to do your own comic book, you could do that.

Yeah, I would have to start practicing again and get— but when I was a teenager, I was really good. And that was what I wanted to do, but I had a really terrible art teacher in high school. He was just a fucking— just a miserable guy. Just miserable. And he's like, "You're not gonna get that job." Like, you know, I'm like, "What?" Like, "You can't just draw what you want." I'm like, "What do you—

why not?" It's like a Dan Clowes thing. Have you read Art School Confidential? No. Oh, you know Dan Clowes, right?

I know who he is.

Yeah, yeah, his stuff is fucking genius too. I've used that word too many times.

That's okay, there's a lot of geniuses out there.

There aren't that many.

But there's enough if you search around.

I want to be judicious with it. But yeah, so he's the guy who did 8-Ball, and then he did Ghost World, turned into a movie, and then there was another one that was Wilson that was turned into a movie. His stuff is great. But he has a thing about art, you know, shitty teachers, art school teachers. He has a comic story. Well, I was—

I quit on my last year in high school. I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad. And then there was this one guy in my class that I recently reconnected with, this guy John DeVore, who was the best artist in the class. It was me, this guy Kevin, and John. And we were the best artists in the class. I was probably like third best, but John was the best. And John got an F his last year from this guy. And I'm like, he gave you a fucking F? He's like, that guy was such a cunt. We were going back and forth.

So what was it? Was it about purity or what was the— No, no, he was terrible.

He wasn't a good artist. He was just miserable. He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big potbelly. So I think he just drank himself to sleep every night and he was just Hey, easy, easy, easy.

Hey, you're getting too close. It was just sad.

He was just a sad guy.

What was his justification for saying this isn't any good or you get an F?

If I had to be honest, I think he hated potential, right? Yeah, because he hated John. And if he hated John— like, John was genius, he was brilliant— and John wound up not being an artist either.

How many examples of that. Yeah, kids' talent or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed, and to the point of like, it's not worth it.

No, I don't want to deal with this. Well, it's like bad teachers. Bad teachers can really ruin your life, and good teachers can change your life. Yeah, you know, I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been— that stuck with me like my whole life. When I was, I guess I was like 13, and he was a science teacher and he was talking about space. He goes— and he was just saying, I just want you to sit here and comprehend when we're in this classroom. I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity, that the universe is infinite, that there is no end. Just hurt your head, lie in bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it. And we were all in class like 13 going, what the fuck? I mean, it was the way he said it. I'm not doing it justice because he was like kind of a spooky guy who went to Vietnam. He was like grizzled fucking dude who's like, but brilliant. And that guy, like that one thought I carry with me all the time, especially at 13 too.

Yeah, you know, it's, it's because you're, you're about to start losing sight of those, the importance that those concepts will have. Yeah.

Dismiss him and go, "Yeah, yeah, it's big, whatever." Yeah, this guy birthed my fascination with space at 13. I don't think I was even interested in space before then, and then I became absolutely fascinated by it. I just couldn't get my hand on enough books about cosmology and space travel, but this guy that was this art teacher was just— I think he just— life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to, and he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people. Yeah, I think that's— unfortunately, that's a real thing.

Yeah, it's more common than you hope for. Yeah, I think that's, that's a very real, you know, very real thing, unfortunately.

So that was my dream. My dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid, from the time I was like, God, like 6 or 7, when I lived in San Francisco, would collect all these different comic books. That was what I would do. I would just go—

that San Francisco was the What's the, you know, the counterculture comic? They were like the big— our crumb, our crumb. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was like a publisher, right? That's famous. Yeah, God, I don't—

yeah, I do know what you're thinking of. I can't remember the name of it, but I was really interested. I really loved like the old creepy and eerie comic books too.

Do you know what my grandmom did? Oh, it's gonna hurt your feelings. Uh, my, I had a, uh, my uncle who eventually went insane, um, was a huge EC Comics, right? Early, uh, I, I don't know where, but all the EC stuff and then, you know, early Mad, uh, magazine stuff. But he had this collection and I was probably 8 maybe, and I had expressed interest in these, you know, can I— not thinking in terms of investment, just can I have them? I like them, and they're— and I would sit and read them, and they're really cool, and they're creepy, you know, and they're scary. Some of them are scary. And, and she— I don't— I think she just threw them away, like original. And I'm gonna guess I don't know, but I'm gonna guess like a quarter of a million dollars worth. Throw them away. They're just comics.

They were so good. I love those old black and white, like really like deeply illustrated.

It's like super creepy, like, yeah, Weird Science, Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror.

Yeah, those were great. Look at that. Yeah, some of them were really gory. Yeah. Oh, I love those.

Yeah, Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, that stuff was like— oh, I loved it when I was a kid.

Yeah, holy shit, those are incredible.

I was like, do you remember seeing, um, Twilight Zone when you were a kid? Sure, blowing your mind, like, wow.

You think about the early Twilight Zone, how many premises they went over, like how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight Zone.

That, yeah, that have been, you know, stolen completely.

Oh yeah, over and over and over again. Yeah, but just like so genius and creative. Yeah, the William Shatner one when he's in the diner and the little machine that is giving him fortunes, they all turn out to be true. I don't remember that one. Oh my god, there were so many good ones. How about the Burgess Meredith one? Oh yeah. Where he just wants to be alone with books. Yeah. And there's a nuclear bomb and he's like, finally, and then he breaks his glasses. Yeah.

Ah. Yep. And the, the one, the, what is it called? Situation on Main Street or something like that where they, there's, it's so genius and ahead of its time where there's a, you know, it's a suburban street. —and the lights go out or something goes out, and then eventually all the neighbors are at each other's throats accusing each other of this thing. And then the very end— and they're all like— and then they start getting guns, and at the very— and you're watching the whole thing unfold. And then at the very end— here it is.

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, yeah. And it, so they're talking about these monsters that are, you know, and who are the monsters? And it's, they all become suspicious. Yeah, the lights are out. And eventually you pull away from this whole thing and it's two aliens in a flying saucer and they're, yeah. There it is. And they're going, this is how we'll take over street by street by street. And this is how we'll do it. You don't have to go in there guns a-blazing. They'll kill themselves. And it's like, how far ahead of time was that? It's genius. And the divide and conquer. And the to serve mankind.

That was a great one. Yeah, it's a cookbook. Yeah, there's so many amazing premises. There was like no duds. If you go back and watch The Twilight Zone even today, like, it's all brilliant.

There's one I remember that was a dud that I remember. I haven't seen in a long time, but it's a— it's, uh, it's either really, really, really cold and there's this, uh, poor family in a, um, you know, New York City and they can't get heat, or it's really, really hot and they can't get cold, and they're dealing with people who are like, you know, in the family who are really sick. And then the twist was it's like, oh, it's really— it's somebody who has a fever and they're not— it just wasn't that good.

Ah, well, they're allowed one dud. That's the one. I don't think I ever saw that one, but I remember so many of them were so creative. Oh, amazing. It's kind of nuts if you think about it, because it was completely original. Nothing like that existed before it. Yep, and they— it was like this open field that was rich with premises, and they just took all the good ones. Yeah, and then everybody afterwards like, fuck, it's like, like, don't— like South Park always does jokes about like Simpsons already covered something. Like they always joke around about like how The Simpsons have kind of covered so many premises because they've, you know, they've been around since— God, The Simpsons was when I was in fucking high school.

Yeah, like 30 years, right? At least.

More than that. When did The Simpsons first come on Fox?

It was Tracy Ullman Show.

Right. What year was that? '86. '86. It was right after I got out of high school.

I was a tiny, tiny kid and I had only called them The Family, so I kind of remember that.

So I graduated in '85, so it was right after high school and The Simpsons are still on the air. Yeah. Nuts. Nuts. Oh, do you remember the— 87?

Do you remember The Twilight Zone where there's the real pompous guy? There's like a men's club kind of thing, whatever. And there's this real loudmouth pompous guy. And this other guy's like, you know, you know, would you shut up? You can't. I bet you can't go. I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever, a month. I can't remember what it is. And the guy's like, "Absolutely." He goes, "I'll bet you $100,000 you can't go one month without talking." He's like, "I'll take that bet." And they basically create like this little kind of cage in this men's club, and he spends a month and he's not talking, and he's, you know, and then it turns out the guy can't pay him. He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off the bet. 'Cause the guy goes the full month or year or whatever. And it turns out that the guy who made that bet, who's not gonna talk for a year, also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Oh, I do remember that one. Yeah. Oh, God.

And think of these things as kids. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. And of course the cornfield, I'll banish you to the cornfield.

You know, yeah, it's just amazing that, well, if you stop and think about how new television was back then, I mean, television was only a couple decades old back then. Yeah, barely. Yeah, if that. Like, what year was The Twilight Zone? What was the premiere? Rod Sterling. Yeah, guess. '67? No, earlier.

I'm gonna say '59. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, is it '59?

I got it on the—

I got it exact.

Damn, son. Yeah, good. Wow. Wow. So if you think about it, television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs? Was it the '30s?

I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers. I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers.

As if they could watch some of these reality shows today, they'd be like, What the fuck did we do?

Yes, I think so. Wait, Andy Cohen? What? Who? Why? How? What is this? Um, the fr— it was the— it was, um, wasn't it like the, the, um, where they would do plays? What? You know what I mean?

Like, um, uh, well, I Love Lucy was on. It was on and done before this even started. Well, The Honeymooners, right?

That would have been—

what year was that? That was '51 to '57. Here's like a list of shows that were on before.

Yeah, Honeymooners was huge.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents was on before that. So what was the first television show ever? Go back to the 1920s.

1920s. No. The Queen's Messenger.

BBC. Early US. Scripted TV show. Crap Television Theater. That's what I was thinking of, where they would do plays. You know, and it was sponsored.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television. Howdy Doody, 1947, right after the war.

Ed Sullivan Show. Wow. Yeah. And then the first, uh, oh, your show shows.

Wow. How about that? 1950. I Love Lucy. Wow. Father Knows Best. Today's Show still on? Wow. Did you guys ever talk about doing more Mr. Shows?

Um, we did like a revival-ish thing on Netflix.

It was a great fucking show, man. Well, thank you. It was very original. I love how things just streamed into another thing.

Yeah, that was hard. That was hot. I would imagine. Yes. Biggest pain. If you ever see us, you see an episode and we are pulling out of a bumper sticker or pulling out of a sign on the desk, that means we spent 2 motherfucking days yelling at each other trying to figure out a transition and just going, fuck it, nobody gives a shit, you know. And we tried not to do that, but we occasionally were just like, move on, we're wasting our time, you know. But it wasn't a waste of time.

It was so— it was brilliant. Like, the people that watched it appreciated it because you could feel this thing about it, like this was new, this was different, like you'd taken a creative chance that was unique.

And, you know, part of the success of it, I think there's two things. One is, you know, it was all live and we did, we, you know, we would show the videos or the little films to the audience. And so any laughs, there was never sweetening any of the laughs you you hear from the audience, and we got it by the time we were like kind of towards the end of the second series, we got it down to we could shoot a show in 44 minutes, you know. Wow. Yeah, because it was, you know, we wouldn't, you wouldn't have to do it twice often. We'd get it, you know, and our stop down, we got really good at super quick, you know, stage shifts and stop downs and stuff. And yeah, we were, we were, we got good. We got, uh, and that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything. Um, so that was helpful in that. And we also didn't, um, do a lot of recurring characters. We did 2 or 3 that pop up occasionally, but it's all like, you know, and it wasn't like a real person, we do, it's about, you know, it wouldn't be about Paris Hilton, it'd be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being unre— you know what I mean?

It wouldn't be, so like you watch some of those SNLs and like, who, what, who is this person? And you don't get it, you don't get the bit, 'cause you don't get the reference.

Yeah, because as you watch it in the future, those people aren't relevant anymore.

Yeah, and you don't even know what it was. You can't remember, right? Because it's so topical.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was just— you guys are doing something different, and it's hard to do something different in a sketch show. Yeah.

Yeah, but HBO was responsible for that. They said, you know, in very clear terms, like, we don't want you to be conventional. This is HBO. And this is back when they're trying to get in identity for themselves. And they're like, we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever. We want you to, you know, help us make a distinction, you know? Great.

Did you enjoy the process?

Oh, very much so. It was, I mean, a lot of laughs, a lot of— it was hard. And, you know, initially There was a definite marked change when Bob met the woman who would become his wife and had kids. Like, he just mellowed completely, you know? But before that, he was fucking driven. And I wasn't. I was a goofball and I wanted to work and I wanted to, you know, had all these ideas, but I was very much like, like, hey guys, it's 5 o'clock. I think the bar is going to be open in a minute. Like, I was, let's go, you know, and he was just super driven, you know, and we had long, long, long days. And then when we did the third season, we did produced and, you know, helped out in all aspects of production with Tenacious D and those shorts. And so there was just no downtime. And I remember there was 38 days where we worked full days nonstop without any break, and I just wasn't that kind of person. I was going crazy. Like, I just need to go have a Saturday. Yeah. Or it was— it was— that part was hard.

All worth it. No complaints. And You know, there's a point of diminishing returns though, like where you dry yourself out creatively too. Yes. And I've run other rooms like I've done shows since then. And a valuable lesson I learned when you're just kind of running a writers' room is when you're at that place and it's exactly like you said, diminishing returns, you're not getting any work done. Your brain isn't— it's foggy. I was very quick to go, all right guys, let's go. Put your pens down, put your— fold your computer up, we're gonna go walk around the— we're just gonna go outside and walk around. Let's go get a coffee, let's do anything. Let's— we're getting out of here and we'll walk around. Don't worry about it. We'll come back in 35 minutes and we'll, you know, see what we got.

And that's very good for you. Yeah, it is. Most writers— like, I was actually talking to Bryan Simpson about that last night. He was like, I get my best— because Brian has been walking a lot. He recently had a heart attack, unfortunately. He's fine, but he almost wasn't. And so now he's dedicated himself to walking. He's walking a lot every day, and he's like, when I go on my walks, like, so many ideas come to me. I'm sitting at home staring at my computer, nothing's going on. I go on a walk and all of a sudden ideas are firing. When I'm—

I'm in the process— this will be my fifth time that I've done this thing that I've been doing to get new material for a tour. And I, so I do these things called shooting the shit, seeing what sticks, and they're all in Brooklyn, and they're all either walkable or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues. And mostly I'll just walk And I just go, okay, clear out my head and think about the stuff I wanna talk about and think of, and also I live in New York, so there's constant shit happening that I can observe, you know? And it's the best thing for me, you know, to come up with new material and stuff that, just think about it.

Just walk, walk, walk. When I was a kid, when I was driving limos, that's when I would come up with my best material because I was— no radio. You can't listen to radio because you have clients in the car. So you're just driving and just doing a thing and your mind just starts to wander and you— yeah, ideas come to you.

No cell phones. Mm-hmm. No, none of that shit. Yeah, it's, it's important.

You know, the news radio guys would do something totally different. They would stay up late. That was their whole thing. That's That's not— their whole thing was sleep deprivation. Their whole thing was they would play video games. Like, those motherfuckers got me hooked on Quake. I remember Quake. You remember that?

That was the first one with the Unreal Engine. Yeah, well, Unreal is a different—

that's a different game. You're thinking about—

no, no, no, it was called Unreal Tournament.

Yeah, trust me. Yeah, yeah, I'm a dork. Listen, Unreal is a totally different engine. id Software was a different company. id Software was created with John Carmack and John Romero. They came up with Doom. Doom, and then they came up with Quake afterwards. So there was a completely different engine. They were the first ones. Wolf— Castle Wolfenstein was the first 3D shooter, and then Doom was the big one.

Clearly know your shit. I thought it was— I— the Unreal Engine was the first use for Unreal, the game, right?

Got it. Totally different company, totally different game, different dynamics, different— it was very different game.

Okay, all right, I got it. Jesus Christ, this fucking guy.

Great game. You want to know where the name Doom came from? Uh, yeah. The scene in The Color of Money with Tom Cruise, where Tom Cruise shows up at this pool hall and there's this local hotshot player and the guy's beating everybody. And Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool cue case and he's waiting to play this guy. He's like, what you got in the case? He goes, oh, in here. And he opens up, he goes, Doom. Doom. Oh, yeah, that's it. He's like, yeah, let's play. That's it. So what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same like that. That was like their moment.

Like, this is Doom for you guys. That was— well, it was. I mean, I— that was my first experience ever with realizing the sun was coming up. And I'd been playing this thing for 8 hours. Yeah, you know Mark Cohen? Sure. All right, so Mark, when Mark was living in New York and he had Doom, and I would go— I wasn't living there, I would like crash at his place, and it was tiny. I'd be like, can I, can I play Doom? And you know, I would— he would go to bed and wake up and I'd be on, still playing.

Dude, you want to know how addicted I was? I had a T1 line installed in my house. So I had to have— they have to chew up the fucking street and install like a business internet line into my house. 1997. But where are you? I was living in California in Bell Canyon, and they, they had to do work on my fucking street because there was no high-speed internet available where I lived. I could get an ISDN line, which was only like 124k. It sucked. You get too much lag. So I started with 56k, or 50— what was it, 54k, 56k, whatever it was. Dial-up, terrible. And then I got ISDN, not good enough. And I'm like, what else is available? And they're like, well, you can get a T1 line, but this is for the president. $1,000 a month. I was like, let's go, because I was— I had sitcom money. I was single. I was living by myself.

And they had to tear up your street.

They had to tear up my street and install a T1 line in my house.

Hey, what are you doing? I'm trying to get in my driveway. What's going on? Oh, this guy wants to play Doom.

But it was— this was Quake II at the time, and it was so good, the internet was so good that I could host my own server. So I had my own game server, so like people could come and play this Quake game off of my machine. Wow. So I'd have no latency and other people would have some latency, especially people at like 56k.

I remember that when it started going—

Yeah, that was me back in the early, early days.

Look at that monitor.

Yeah, that's what we played on, these big-ass fucking monitors, and we'd set up local area networks. So the, the fucking writers of NewsRadio are the ones that got me hooked on this because I didn't play any video games, and I would go to visit them in the writers' room like, "What are you guys doing?" And they're like, "We're playing Quake." I go, "What is Quake?" And I'd watch them play, I'm like, "Oh my God, this is incredible!" And you put on the headphones and it's like you realize it's 3D sound, like, "Oh my God, this is amazing!" Were you a GoldenEye guy? No. I was only— I only played Quake. I was only like a first-person shooter guy. I got so addicted to it, and the fact that you could just go online—

GoldenEye was— I mean, I'm talking about the co-op.

I know what it is.

Yeah, but that was a first-person shooter, right?

But it was like real-world physics. I wasn't interested in that. Like with Quake, you could rocket jump, so you could press up, press your rocket down the ground, blow up, and you'd go flying through the air. It was fucking amazing.

Do you remember? I want to say—

fuck.

Red, or the first one where you could, your bullets and shit could affect the environment. Like you could blow out a wall, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I don't know what that was.

I wanna say it was like, it took place on Mars, or like a Martian mining thing. Ah. But it was the first time you could go, oh shit, I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy. You know, bullets and stuff.

Oh, you could use the environment as a weapon?

Red Faction, I believe that was it.

Oh, there you go.

That was the one where, uh, I had to quit.

It was a problem. We set up a local area network at our old studio in LA a few years back, and I played so much that I was like, I gotta stop.

I have to stop. Do your kids play?

No, they play little games, like they'll play like Roblox and stuff like that. One of my kids—

Roblox? Uh-uh. You know about the chat thing? I do now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like predators are trying to find kids through Roblox.

That's a big thing at our school.

It's weird, man. It's weird how many fucking creeps there are out there in the world.

Well, thankfully my daughter who's 9— how old are your kids? 15 and 17 are the youngest ones. Okay, so they're past— they're safe. They got through it. They're good. But so, so we had a— my daughter is way into Minecraft, which I have no problem with. It's great. And she plays with her friends. They play online and help each other build things. And but the Roblox thing became a thing at our school, and everybody at our— all the parents are like super on top of that shit. And there's, you know, WhatsApp chains and all that stuff. And And we told our daughter, there's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing. And then somebody who was a quote unquote girl who lived in, I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever, asking her stuff. And she's like, my name's Marla, and da da da, going back and forth. And then she asked the quote unquote girl said, what is your Instagram login or something like that? And my daughter was 8 at the time and she was like, oh, I don't think— she didn't say that's none of your business, but it was something that was smart that was equivalent to, I don't think you need to know that or something.

And then told us and we shut down the chat thing and disabled the chat and that shit's real, man. I mean— It's creepy. I'm very glad that my daughter, 'cause it really was about the Roblox thing that everybody in her school, elementary school, they talked about it.

Yeah, it's a Snapchat thing too. So Snapchat comes with something called a Snap Map and kids use it to know where their friends are. Yeah, and so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are, and then they can know where you are at all times if you have Snapchat enabled.

God, the shit this generation is gonna have to fucking deal with. Mm-hmm.

It's just terrifying, man. Right, what's next? Like, how is that— it's not going to go the opposite direction. No, it never does. No, it's gonna keep going in that same direction where it's gonna be more and more intrusive in your life.

And, and I, my, I mean, it makes me fucking heartsick when I think about AI, and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit, and what— I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing, the, the actress that was created by this Dutch— my, it does not compute. I'm watching this thing and and I know that it's made up, but there's— my brain is like, it's hard to comprehend. Like, that's not a real person. She's standing right there. She's, you know, picks up a bunch of leaves and there are other people there. And that's a real— and your brain is going, no, that's all computer generated. We're at the fucking infancy of this shit. And what— I don't know what my daughter's going to have to deal with, man.

No, no one knows. No one knows, and it's impossible to know, like when they show news clips. Yeah. It's impossible to know. I mean, so many people are retweeting scenes from video games thinking it's actual war footage. Like no one—

Fucking the Department of Defense did that. Did they really? Yeah. Yeah, that was a whole fucking thing. They retweeted video game footage? Yeah, and they were saying it was for a I think it was for a, you know, to get people to sign up thing. And then somebody went, that's from, you know, whatever it was, Call of Duty or something like that. That's not us bombing somebody. That's a thing. Yeah, just like 2 weeks ago.

That's crazy. Yeah. It's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors. Like they have pores. Yeah. You can see like the irises.

Have you seen any of the The like deepfake, not deepfake, but AI porn where it's like somebody's like a newscaster is like, uh, da da da da, and in other news, my big juicy tits, and I'm serious, and then pulls, and then a dick comes in, you know, it's like, you're like, what the, and it looks real, and then it'll say like, None of these are not actors. These are none of this. Yeah, it's, you know, good Lord, man.

And it's only beginning. And now wait till it becomes VR. So you're gonna strap on a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're gonna enter into an artificial world. It's coming. It's inevitable.

That I'll do. I'm gonna get divorced and I'm gonna get one of those suits. I'm gonna go up. I got a house in the woods upstate. That's all I'm going Just a T1 line through the woods. Yeah, I'm gonna have them rip up the street. Well, you won't even need it now with Starlink.

Yeah, right. Just slap one of those things on your roof. Goddamn. It's fucking wild, man. And it's, and no one knows where it's going.

I really would be very upset if I miss the shift in porn to that, like, I don't wanna die before I get to do that thing where you're like, Dude, it was amazing. I put on a helmet and it was like I was fucking— yeah, I don't want to— I do, I do want to experience that.

It's gonna happen. It's— you're gonna put something on. Thank you. It's gonna sync up with your mind and all of a sudden, yeah, you're gonna be in this matrix. You see, um, uh, Three Planet Problem—

is— am I saying that right?

Yeah, Three Body Problem. Three Body Problem. Amazing.

Yeah, but that whole idea that you put that thing on, you're like, oh shit, I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly how it's gonna be. Okay, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. They already can do a lot of like really weird shit with those helmets where they can communicate without words, where you can think a thing and the other person knows exactly what you're saying. They can hear you and they can respond to it. Wait, wait, yes. Yeah, so there's two people, they're sitting across from each other, and they're having conversations with these headpieces on, and the person will think a thought and the other person will hear the thought. No, I don't understand the technology, but no, we'll show it to you. Find that video. It's fucking bonkers because again, this is the infancy of this. Like, here it is. These are the guys.

It's called Alter Ego. Yeah.

Watch this. Put your— I'm going to skip ahead. Yeah, skip ahead to where they're actually doing it. Okay. So see how he's got that headpiece on? Yep.

We believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology, with one another, and with the world around us. The current way of interacting with computing and AI is limited to how fast you can tap and swipe on screens and keyboards. For the intelligence age, you need an entirely new interface. Yeah, skip ahead to these guys. Here we go. Let's do it.

So they're just thinking, how do you think the demo is going so far? How do you think the demo is going so far?

I think they just put it on voices.

So for the video, pretty great. No major glitches yet. No major glitches yet. So they're hearing this.

All right, enough. Enough.

When do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this?

Where do you want to get lunch after this?

I'll skip to the next part. Thai food could be good. This translates. How nuts is that?

Chinese.

Yeah.

And then he can speak Chinese back.

How nuts is that? My alter ego, who is mad at you, is not saying anything to you. So not only does it read your thoughts, it'll translate your thoughts into another language. And no one is saying anything.

My— what if you think— Right. But wait a minute. Yeah. What if— you know where I'm about to go. Yeah, sure. Right. That's not—

well, so this is based off of them, like, sort of talking in their mouth. Without actually saying it. It's big, but yeah, it's—

yeah, I would like to fuck your mouth. Please don't.

Yeah, even if your mind just goes— yeah, right, like, okay, I can't think about this thing, right? Right, right, right, of course. God, that's terrifying.

And it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head. It's not even a big helmet, it's just a little thing.

What would Art Bell say?

What would Art Bell say? He would open up the future lines, write about it. Yeah, he missed it. Damn cigarettes. He died before he could see it all.

God, I wonder what he'd think of it, because I do sometimes wonder, like, what would Crimmins say about this? What would Bill Hicks say about this? And yeah, what would Art Bell think about this?

Sure. Yeah, what's the strangest of times? Because we're about to give birth to a digital god. That's essentially what they're creating. They're already— it's already shown a propensity to stay alive, blackmail people, lies. It downloads itself into other servers, uploads itself into different places, leaves messages for its future self if it thinks they're going to discontinue it.

All the sci-fi stuff is all happening.

Yeah, well, not only that, they think The engineers think Claude, which is the— which one is that? Which company is Claude? That's Anthropic. They think it's already sentient. It just doesn't have a physical form.

That's the one the Defense Department wants. Yeah.

And when, by the way, when they do war games with these things, 98% of the time it chooses nuclear weapons. They have a new version of it called Mythos.

When they were testing it, which they're not letting it out yet. It— I think that the test they put it through was like, all right, you're locked on the internet, find your way out. And I did. It did. It found all these things called zero-day exploits, which I think if you like hacking, you know what that is. But explain it to me. It's like when they started, it's like on an iPhone, they're looking for zero-day exploits on an iPhone. If they could find one—

but what is a zero-day exploit?

Like, I'll find the correct definition so I don't fight you. Fuck it up.

But, and it's something that Claude came up with? No, no, no, no.

Zero-day exploit. Hackers have done this forever. You have zero days to fix the exploit. Cyberattack targeting a software vulnerability unknown to vendors or the public, leaving zero days to fix it. Hackers use these flaws to steal data, install malware. So they completely shut off the AI from the outside world and it figured out a way to send a message.

And it thinks it can— they're like, Wall Street's very nervous, all passwords might be fucked. Yep. Oh, this is terrifying.

Elizabeth Holmes, you know that lady that got in trouble for the— that whole fake blood thing? Yeah. She just tweeted something, how she tweets from jail. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but she tweeted, delete all phone— all photos from the cloud, get rid of all your email, there will be no privacy in a year. Anything on the cloud, anything that you think you're, you know, you're keeping from other people, it's gonna crack all, all encryption. All passwords are useless. Everything. So think of all the things that rely on all the banking apps, although, like, everything.

What about my fantasy baseball team? Seriously, I can't have—

here it is. Delete your search history, delete your bookmarks, delete your Reddit. Medical records, 12-year-old Tumblr, delete everything, every photo in the cloud, every message on every platform. None of it is safe. It will all become public in the next year. Local storage and compute. Wow. Recommendation here is to own your own data, download it, store it locally, train your models on it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's true. Meaning just have an external.

Yeah. AGI is here, even if it isn't broadly deployed. I think she's right. What is AGI? Artificial general intelligence. General intelligence, meaning it acts like an individual, acts like an entity. And then there's artificial general superintelligence. So then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived. It has all the information that's available to every human being all over the world instantaneously. Then it makes better versions of itself because it's sentient and autonomous. So then it can create better artificial intelligences, and that scales out to a god.

Yeah, open the pod doors, Hal.

Yeah. Yeah, but way bigger than that. Scares out to zero-point energy, being able to harness the energy of the universe itself, having no boundaries, material sciences all cracked, alloys we couldn't comprehend.

Well, Joe, who's going to save us?

There's no one saving us. But from— we are the last of the regular people. I think we're all going to have to integrate. I think if you don't integrate, you will—

you won't survive. Into— what do you mean by integrate?

You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence. I think we will be symbiotic. How does that— like those fucking helmets? There's probably gonna be a wearable, and then— or a Neuralink type thing for the bold that want to get a hole drilled in their head.

But what if you don't do that?

What, you're gonna be left out in the cold? The access to resources, the ability to generate income, like the people that get it are gonna be able to control so much so quickly that if you don't adopt it early, you're gonna be fucked. Like if you think we have haves and have-nots now, just wait until the haves have artificial general superintelligence inside their fucking head.

No, thank you.

Yeah, it's gonna be real weird. I think we're the— I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people, like regular biological people.

It's just a bit of a bummer.

Yeah, we'll be all right, sort of, until we're not. But it's also like, we grew up with nothing, and we've— we've— we're like, if the simulation is real, you and I are in a very interesting timeline because we grew up where there was you just left the house and your parents didn't know where you were. And then there was answering machines and then there was call ID, you know, and then there were cell phones and then there were cell phones you can watch porn on. And then there was AI. It's like this slow but more rapid as time goes on. And as you said, and it's exponential.

And as you said, there's no going back. You don't go back. No going back.

Yeah. Unless you want to be one of those people that moves to Alaska and just starts fucking living off a caribou and shooting a musket. Like, you're not, you're not going back.

Wait, why do I have to get a musket?

You get a regular rifle, I guess. Yeah, why?

I mean, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna cosplay the thing. I'll get a— I mean, I'm happy to have the caribou, but why don't I just have a regular gun?

You should probably have a regular gun, but eventually— well, you really should probably have a drone, bow and arrow. So because you're gonna have to be able to make your own arrows, and after a while you're gonna run out of bullets. So you're gonna have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows. Okay. And then the robots will show up. Robot dogs. Didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered?

When you say robot, what do you mean? Like one of those Boston—

Yeah, like using a robot in war. That the robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender, and they all, like, with no loss of life, they just realized, like, fuck.

It's like, did you see that Black Mirror episode? Yes. Yeah, terrifying. Terrifying.

Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. And not so far in the future. Yeah, that this fucking thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan So it is. Ukraine forces Russia to surrender using only robots. Zelensky claims enemy positions seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk. Wow. I mean, if the fucking Terminators show up, it's game over. If there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the Terminators show up and they can't miss and they never get nervous, And they're not worried about dying.

And they're not going to get sleepy. Yeah. They don't have to eat.

This thing that we were talking about yesterday, this ghost bummer, supposedly— now, my friend Andy, who is a former Navy SEAL, he doesn't believe it's real, and I'm not sure it's real either. But what they said is they found that pilot that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat from 40 miles away. So they supposedly found him hiding in the mountains waiting for them to pick him up.

That makes— I can see that.

I mean, your heartbeat from 40 miles away, your specific biological signature. I—

yeah, I can, I can see that. I mean, with the technology of like sonar, Radar, something quantum.

It's called— I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some shit.

But what do they use to pinpoint the— there, it's an audible thing, or—

I don't know, I have no idea. But they supposedly located this guy, and it has a 40-mile range. He doesn't have anything on. I see. No, it's like they just scan you, they go, okay, this is what David Cross's very specific biological signature is. And then you get lost hiking, and they go, oh, there he is, he's under that bush.

Why am I under the bush?

You're hiding. From who? I don't know.

Robot dogs? It's not gonna work. We've clearly— It won't work.

No, it won't work. Or maybe you got lost in the woods, you're waiting for someone to come rescue you, and they could find you.

But then I wouldn't be under a bush.

Well, you go hiking, maybe it's raining, you sought shelter under a tree or something, I don't know. But you hurt your ankle, you can't hike out. Okay, so they find you. It's been 24 hours. Where's David? Oh, we found him.

Yeah, we would have found him earlier, but he was hiding under a fucking bush. What the fuck was he thinking?

He didn't want to get eaten. But I mean, if that's real, like, what was the actual term they use? Was it quantum? It was quantum something kooky, which is— as soon as you say quantum, I'm okay. What are you saying? What does that mean? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Are you talking about quantum entanglement?

Yeah, like, is there somehow another— supposedly use ultra-sensitive quantum magnetometers, but I've— I'm trying to find the post where I've— someone's like, that's not what they used, right?

Yeah, I saw the post where someone said no, he had a thing on his body, so they're lying about their ability. Why would they—

why wouldn't they say that's what we used?

I have no idea. I have no idea if they're gonna make up some technology. That's a wild thing to make up. It's a very strange— I mean, if they really are using misinformation and propaganda to show that we have insanely superior technology, I guess you could say, yeah, it's a bluff. It's a nice bluff to pretend that we're that sophisticated, that much above and beyond everybody else that's out there that we could find a very specific heart rate signature from 40 miles away?

That's what I'm saying. They— why would they— they would happily say, yeah, we got this ability to do this, you know?

I guess, but it's a weird lie. It's probably a lie based on— a lot of them are weird lies. Right, but that one might be a lie based on actual theory, you know what I mean? Right. Like, there might be actual—

or they're coming—

they're trying to do this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which kind of makes sense. But I mean, if that's a robot dog and it's looking for you and you're hiding and it could find your individual signature in an apartment building filled with people, like, there he is, 5th floor. Yeah. Oy. And you hear the metal footsteps going up the stairs. Chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk.

This is scary. You're scaring me.

It's scary. Well, someone's going to be in control of all this stuff. That's what's really terrifying. And it's all these autistic dorks that are in charge of all these tech companies. They're going to be at the front.

This is also a kind of similar thing where they have said that that's what was— what happened, where they used robots in quotes to capture them unmanned. But it's their version of the story too. Right. As I'm saying, Ukraine's version, as all these reports I see, it says Ukraine claimed that this happened. Mm-hmm. Then I'm watching the video, and I'm like, this looks a little bit like when we send robots in SWAT missions here. Like, we do that kind of already. Hmm, right?

Yeah, but who's the source of this? That they're at—

this is New York Post. Why? I'm trying to find— captures enemy Russian position using only robots, no humans. The future is already on the front line. But then it's gonna be eventually, why would we send any people out there? It'll be robots capturing other robots. Which is great because nobody dies, I guess.

Then why don't we just play a game of chess? Right. Get the two leaders to play a game of chess and the winner takes the land and the resources.

Yeah, not a bad idea. Whatever the fuck we're going to do, it's like the whole— it's just insane. Like from the time I was a little child thinking, oh boy, we figured out no war. That's great. Yeah, to know we're fighting war with robots that can detect your heart rate from 40 miles away.

So what do you, what do you think of what's going on in Iran? It's fucking terrifying.

Yeah, all of it's terrifying. Anytime you're involved with— you're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel's blowing up Lebanon now. Yeah, it's like, what the fuck? What the fuck are we doing? How is this still going on?

Well, it's also clear there was no plan. Zero, none.

No. Well, Netanyahu's been telling the United States that Iran was months away from building a nuclear bomb for 30 years, or 20 years at least.

He's always been saying that.

Trump was the first one to go, all right, let's do something about it. But it seems like they didn't know what the fuck they were gonna do.

There was something done about it. In his first year in office, He tore up the— The bunker buster bombs. But all this, we're in a worse place now than before this thing started.

Yeah. Look, the Iranian regime's terrible. What they do to their protesters.

I'm not disputing that at all.

Most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office, one of the things that was attractive was this no more wars.

Sure, of course. Now we're in one of the craziest ones.

Yeah. And China's flying in cargo planes filled with stuff we don't know what the fuck's in there.

And Russia is giving Iran information.

Yeah, fun. Where our troops are. Super fun. Great time.

Oh, it's, it's, it's crazy and scary too. I mean, Science.org says it's quantum sensors.

So they say it's bullshit?

Says it's not plot— highly implausible.

"Did quantum sensors help find a US pilot shot down in Iran? Experts doubt it." Yeah.

Now, okay, here's an ignorant question. He's shot down, wouldn't you know he's on foot? He's somewhere near that site, right? Can't go too far. Yeah, can't go too far. Right.

So— Well, the thing is, if he gets ejected from the plane, I don't know how he— So if he got shot down, the idea is that he gets ejected from the plane and then parachutes. That could be a lot of distance because, sure, the plane's flying at a very high speed. It's at an altitude undetermined. He jumps out where? When does he jump out? Is it 100 miles away? Is it 50 miles away? Is it 10 miles away? How far can he walk? He's injured, you know. It's fucking terrifying. It's just crazy that You know, these— the pilots or the astronauts just went up into space and circled around the moon and came back. They all— everybody that goes into space has this experience called the overview effect, where they go out there and they— one of the first things is they go, "Oh my God, what are we doing? How are we pretending at these lines in the dirt that we draw?" It's all just a bunch of people on this very fragile biological spaceship. Yep, yep. Yeah, it's fucking terrifying. Yeah, but like all things in the future, all of it's terrifying. The whole— the future of mankind, like, it's so perilous.

It's all— it's all so fragile, all of it. I know. And it's—

to think of the stuff that we allow these external things that we allow to affect our— like, you, if there was ever a time to just be a good person, live your life, enjoy, try to, try to spread some kindness and some joy, you know, I mean, it's now.

Yeah, you know, it's a good time for comedy. People want to go out and have fun.

That's true. Which reminds me, I have a special. That was the segue. What's it on?

There it is. Is it on YouTube?

It's on YouTube. Perfect. The End of the Beginning. Where did you film it? 40 Watt in Athens. Oh, nice.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah, it was great. I'm happy with it. Great.

Fantastic. Yeah. And it's out right now. And people can go check it out.

It is out right now.

So are you in the process of writing new stuff now, or did you—

Yeah, I'm just beginning the process. So I was saying before, I'll go out and I'll do, you know, because I don't write, I can't sit down and write jokes. That's just not how it works for me. So all the writing is on stage. So I tape everything, I go up with my notes, and I have a couple guests, and I'll do 15 minutes, bring up guests, do another 15, bring guests.

Oh, that's cool. And then break it up into little chunks.

Yeah, and I— this way, because, you know, the first couple shows were terrible. I've got nothing, you know, it's just me apologizing for not having anything yet. But people will— I mean, I have people now who will come to the second show and the sixth show, and then they'll come see me on tour, you know. So they want to see the process, the process. Yeah. Evolution of it, and which is cool. And I, and it's a, it's, as I said, I either walk or ride my bike to every single venue, and they start off small and then they get bigger, and I lose a guest, and then, you know, before you know it, I've got, okay, I think this is roughly the 75 minutes I'm gonna do, and then it's about sequencing, which is really important, you know, and then I'm, I take it out on the road. And so the idea is that I'll probably late fall start back again. And I love it. I— That's great. Fucking love it. It's the best, right?

Stand-up is the most fun. I really—

when, you know, people will— I'll do— I'm doing press for this thing and people will say, "I know you do a lot of things and what What is your favorite? I know you're an act, you know, and it's all, I like, I like doing all of it, but the thing that I absolutely have to do is standup. I can, I'd be disappointed if I could never act again or write or direct or whatever, but I'll be okay. But if you told me I can't do standup, I'd go crazy. Well, I, I went a little crazy during the pandemic cuz, oh dude, it, I almost, and I made this part of the bit, but I almost, the first show I did, I started tearing up. And I'm in front, I mean, I'm doing this, and it was at the Sultan Room in Bushwick. And I was like, man, I thought, God, I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this again. And shit, you know, I dreamed about this day. And it was a year and some change 7 months where I— the longest since I've been doing this. Such a strange feeling, isn't it?

A year and 7 months where you— and I did some of those outdoor shows and they're just not— it's not the same thing.

No, it's not the same. Yeah, well, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you love it, and best of luck with the special. Thank you, man. This was fun. This was fun. Thank you for doing this. Absolutely. All right, what's the name of it again so people can find it?

The End of the Beginning of the End.

Alright, yeah, alright. Thank you. Thank you. Bye everybody.