0:00

You made it weird, you made

0:02

it weird, you made it weird,

0:05

oh yeah. You made it weird,

0:07

you made it weird, yes you

0:09

did, you made it weird, oh

0:11

yeah. You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

0:15

What's happening weirdos? This is the return of

0:17

Paul Scheer, one of my all-time favorite people.

0:20

He's so funny, so wonderful.

0:23

He's a delight and you're going to hear all of

0:26

those things in this conversation that follows. Paul

0:29

is doing so many things. I'm just

0:31

on his website, paulscheer.com right now. The

0:33

main thing that he is plugging is his book, wonderful

0:36

book, Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

0:38

He also has tour dates

0:41

coming up with his podcast, How Did

0:43

This Get Made, other stuff. I

0:46

mean he's got it all. What do I got

0:48

here? He's doing the Wilbur in Boston on June

0:50

16th. Bullseye Live with

0:52

Jesse Thorne and Paul Scheer. I mean go

0:54

to paulscheer.com. I'm

0:56

sure he's coming to your area.

0:58

He's definitely coming to Boston and

1:00

check out his book, his hilarious

1:02

and touching memoir, Joyful Recollections of

1:04

Trauma. For me, me

1:06

persona, go to peteholmes.com and you can

1:08

come and see me on my feeling

1:11

it tour. I'm going to Houston, going

1:13

to Madison, we just added that Madison,

1:15

Wisconsin, coming back. Going

1:17

to Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. All of

1:19

those are available on peteholmes.com. I'm

1:22

also doing my Largo show here

1:24

in Los Angeles, July 17th,

1:26

August 16th, September 5th and September

1:29

26th. If you live

1:31

in LA or going to be in the

1:33

LA area, July 17th, August 16th, September 5th

1:35

or 26th, go to largo-la.com

1:38

and get tickets to Pete Holmes

1:40

Living at Largo. Those shows

1:42

are always a highlight of my month. Now we're doing

1:44

two a month. Even more

1:46

chances to come see my favorite thing that

1:48

I do each month. Hope you can

1:50

be there. In the meantime,

1:52

enjoy this wonderful chat with this wonderful

1:55

man. I sincerely hope you enjoy. Get

1:58

into it. younger

2:00

than when I last saw. I mean, I knew you

2:03

when you were 20. Yeah,

2:06

this is it. I, you

2:08

know, look, I'm in this world where

2:10

we're in LA and I go to

2:12

these doctors that, you know, they take

2:15

out parts of your body that are gonna, you know, fuck

2:17

with you. Have you removed them? Have you heard about this?

2:19

This is a real thing. I have not gone to this

2:21

doctor. Is this a bit? No. What's

2:24

not, what's not, what? They take like your

2:26

pancreas. They look at you and they go,

2:28

all right, that's bum.

2:30

Let's get it out now before it causes some

2:32

problems. Like this thing's function is to age you

2:34

and wrinkle you. I mean, I don't know if

2:37

it's gonna prevent aging, but this is a doctor

2:39

I've heard here in Los Angeles. I just talked

2:41

about this the other day to a friend because

2:44

they, another friend, which is,

2:46

well, remain nameless. Aziz. Aziz.

2:49

No, not Aziz. No,

2:51

that wasn't right. Naturally. Well.

2:54

There it was. Well, cheer. Has Aziz ever

2:56

done this podcast? Yeah, he did it. Back

3:00

in the day. We did it when he was renting

3:02

Tom York's house. Oh, I remember that. Do you remember

3:04

that? Yes, I do, I do, I do. And I

3:06

remember we dropped by and he was Azizin' the hell

3:09

out of it. He was making some dumplings and he

3:11

was in Tom York's house. That house is pretty great.

3:13

I drive by that house a lot because my friend

3:15

lives near there. I always remember it because the pig

3:17

mailbox. Can I? Yes. Go

3:19

ahead. Well, I just always remember that landmark.

3:22

Not that that house has it, don't worry about that, but

3:24

there's a pig mailbox when you do it.

3:26

Near it. Near it. Near it.

3:29

It doesn't have a novelty of pig.

3:31

That is actually the Pink Floyd. I

3:34

can't remember who's in Pink Floyd.

3:36

Me neither, Roger Waters. Can

3:39

I say? Maybe, I said this last time you

3:41

were on. And I don't know why

3:43

I love saying it because I'm being a bitch, but

3:46

I had pizza with Aziz. We're gonna go back to

3:48

your story. Oh, please. We're not gonna forget.

3:50

It's not even my story, but go ahead. Yes, go ahead. I'm

3:53

not like, oh my gosh, I came on here

3:55

to promote the doctor who takes that. Like, oh,

3:57

I can't believe Pete didn't go back to my

3:59

story. I just, maybe

4:02

I said this the last time you were on, but I said to

4:04

Aziz, I was like, dude, when we were like 20, I was probably

4:06

27, and he was 23.

4:10

We had pizza near UCB, it was after a

4:12

show, and I was like, Dane Cook

4:14

had just sold out Madison Square Garden. I've told the story

4:16

a million times. I love telling the story, I guess. And

4:19

he was like, the way

4:22

I remember it, which is not true, is

4:24

that it was like on the TV. Dane

4:26

Cook sends out Madison Square Garden. That's not

4:29

how it was. New York One, they're doing

4:31

a feature on it, they're ready for it.

4:33

Neil Rosen, live from Madison Square, sent out

4:35

the New York One team. We're out, so

4:37

Dane Cook has just sold out Madison Square

4:39

Garden. I don't even know

4:42

if that works anymore for the current people, but

4:44

there was a time when every movie that shot

4:46

New York, that cut to a TV, New

4:48

York One, because it was like, oh, we could get in there,

4:50

and they already have the graphics, we already got this team, and

4:53

they'd be like, ah, yeah, New York One, who watches New York

4:55

One? But then I remember everybody did. At

4:58

that time, New York One was hot. I

5:01

wonder what it's up to now. It was

5:03

like CNN for New York, that was it.

5:05

And it was not high level journalism, but

5:07

yeah. I don't know about that. I

5:10

would have loved to see how they covered the mystery

5:12

smell. Did I

5:15

watch New York? Oh, wait, what was the mystery smell?

5:17

There was a delicious maple syrup smell over all of

5:19

Manhattan, do you recall that? Oh, I do remember that,

5:21

yeah. We weren't there for that. No, but that was

5:23

like, I remember reading about it. So anyway, so. He

5:25

said, and I think this is a

5:27

good story. He said, Dane is

5:30

30, blah, blah, blah, that

5:32

means I have this many

5:34

years to sell at Medicine Square Garden. And

5:37

then when I bring that up to him on the podcast,

5:39

he goes, I never said that. He

5:41

didn't say I might have said

5:43

that. He didn't say like. He said never said

5:45

that. If I said that, I'm embarrassed.

5:48

He just said, I didn't say that,

5:50

well. But to me, it's

5:52

an interesting thing. I

5:55

said that. He definitely said Randy. Well,

5:57

maybe. You're not here to be Aziz's

5:59

lawyer. I just thought I'd throw that at you. No, but here's

6:01

what I'll say. It's not

6:03

embarrassing. That's my point! That's

6:06

what I'm saying, it's not- He fucking did

6:08

it! Like, that is like one of those

6:10

aspirational stories where it's like Jim Carrey wrote

6:12

himself a check for a million dollars. Put

6:14

it in his dad's breast pocket when he,

6:16

at his funeral. That's what I'm saying, if

6:19

I said to you, imagine if you and I

6:21

had pizza back when we knew each other in

6:23

New York. And I said, I'm gonna hit a baseball

6:25

all the way to the moon. Yeah, and you did

6:27

it. And then I did it. That's impressive. How the

6:29

fuck you said that? And I was like, no. Because

6:31

most of our life is talking shit that

6:35

we don't pay off

6:38

on. So when you actually do it, it

6:40

makes you seem like a soothsayer, like you're

6:42

done, did it? Dude, he went and said

6:44

some sooths. And then he's a

6:47

sooth denier. That's like a flat

6:49

earther of the sooth community. I'm really curious about

6:51

that. I wonder if we pushed him this hard

6:53

if he would go, all right, I'm

6:56

embarrassed. Well, now it even feels, you

6:58

know, I mean, it's interesting because I

7:01

do think that we

7:03

all are trying to create these narratives

7:05

of like who we are, where we came

7:07

from, what we did, right? It's like, and

7:09

part of that is like shaving

7:12

down the truth. It's maybe

7:14

connecting events that were a little bit further apart. We

7:16

definitely do this. I just did it with the TV.

7:19

That's why I have to check myself before I wreck myself.

7:21

There's a small chance that maybe I'm

7:23

misremembering even that detail. I just think

7:26

it's so unlikely. But you know what

7:28

it is? It stuck out to you.

7:30

And because you're not, there's interesting things.

7:32

It's like what we remember versus it's

7:35

interesting. I wrote this book, this Joyful

7:37

Recollections of Trauma. And one of the

7:39

biggest things I had, trying to remember

7:41

your life. Well, no, I remember it.

7:44

But when I put it down, I felt a

7:46

weight of going, well, is

7:48

that the way it really happened? And

7:50

am I doing everybody justice?

7:53

And that was something I really wrestled with.

7:55

And I realized at

7:58

a certain point, I

8:00

believe it. This is my experience

8:02

of the events and it's

8:04

life is Rashomon. You could sit there and

8:06

go Aziz said, and you know, by

8:08

the time I'm 30, I'll do this. Aziz is like, I've

8:10

never said that. Aziz is like, we weren't getting pizza, we

8:13

were getting Mexican food. Whatever it is, like, you know, everyone's

8:15

got their own version. And it's like, but

8:17

that's how stories get told. It's our version of events.

8:19

Somebody else can say, oh, it was different, but we're

8:22

not here to be historians. It's like, you heard that.

8:24

There's no reason why you would have that in

8:26

your head. Can I throw this at you? And we're

8:28

gonna talk about joyful recollections and

8:30

the trauma very interested and it's available. Whenever you

8:32

want it pre-order because pre-order means it's available now.

8:34

Pre-order means you can pay for it and not

8:37

have it. And then when

8:39

it comes, what a surprise. Oh, a

8:41

little gift you gave yourself like the

8:43

microwave dinged and you forgot what's in

8:45

it. Oh, I love a pre-order. I've

8:47

ordered pre-ordered Blu-rays and all of a sudden at

8:49

my door, point blank, not point

8:51

blank, point break of a 4K remaster

8:53

comes. I forgot I even ordered it.

8:55

Yes, okay. Sometimes I ordered two things

8:58

because I forgot. I ordered

9:00

after hours on Criterion and then a couple months passed

9:02

and I ordered it again and the day it came

9:04

out, I got two after hours on Criterion. That's definitely

9:06

happened to me with video games. I have two copies

9:08

of a video game because I'm like, damn it. I

9:10

know, I want to feel bad. I know what they're

9:12

doing. I'm gonna put this to you. I've

9:15

brought this, what we're talking

9:17

about is emotional truth and sort of mythological

9:19

truth. And when I wrote my book, I

9:21

remember I called Duncan, I sent Duncan Trussell

9:24

a chapter that I had written in

9:26

my book and it's called Duncan Trussell. So

9:29

I was like, he's gotta see it. I can't just write this

9:31

whole story. And it was

9:33

the first time I did this podcast and

9:36

blah, blah, blah. And it was a big

9:38

deal for me because he introduced me to RomDos. And

9:41

I said, I rang the doorbell and

9:43

then he opened the door like a

9:45

mad prophet and there's two little dogs,

9:48

I remember the line, figurating through his

9:50

legs, right? Just the chaos. He

9:52

puts liquid THC on his hand, he licks it

9:54

off. We go in a room that looks like

9:57

it's designed for seances, all this stuff, right? He's

10:00

like, I love this chapter. It's incredible. Thank you

10:02

so much. And he's like, when you did my

10:04

podcast, I didn't have my dogs. And

10:06

I was like, I'm keeping it. Right.

10:10

And this is what I'm telling you. Yeah. I

10:12

was like, the emotional truth is that

10:14

going to your house, Duncan, whether or

10:16

not you had those dogs is

10:19

like visiting a guy with dogs. Well, and by

10:21

the way, and that will paint the picture. That's

10:23

the thing too, is like we make these

10:26

stories. We start to, it's true. It is

10:28

true, but it doesn't have to be factually

10:30

true. And then like, and by the way,

10:32

no, it's more than. It's actually true. Right.

10:35

Well, I mean, but I mean, right. Exactly. It's there in my

10:37

phone. Oh, what do you, oh, here we go. It was already

10:39

off. All right. Mine is off. Doubted

10:41

myself. Mine, I did it right before, I think. But

10:45

there is that, that thing that

10:47

I think I was wrestling with for so long.

10:49

The thing I wrestled with the most is

10:53

my parents. Like what

10:55

are they going to think of this? And

10:58

where are their friends going to fall? You

11:00

know, I understood like, I can write this

11:02

book. I know what my friends are going to

11:04

think. I know where they're going to be. But then, you know, you start

11:06

to put it out there. And then all

11:08

of a sudden it's like, you're painting a picture of somebody

11:11

else. And I want to be respectful of that. But the

11:13

truth is, it is true to

11:15

you. And as

11:17

long as you're not doing a lie, who cares

11:19

about the dogs? Because that image that I

11:21

remember reading that chapter. Oh, really? Yeah. Are

11:24

you more interested about a guy with dogs going through? He's like,

11:26

100%. I'm going to go one

11:28

further. And then I have

11:30

an Anne Lamont quote that I hope you

11:32

haven't heard that's going to really make you

11:34

feel better about whatever you write about your

11:36

parents, you bad boy. Oh, yeah. You're

11:39

known as the bad boy. I am. I'm the

11:41

bad boy of improv. I'm also the bad.

11:43

Think about that. You run into the scene

11:45

and people are like, uh-oh, what

11:47

kind of bomb is he going to

11:50

drop? Sensors get your finger over that

11:52

bleep button. You know what? Some people

11:54

are yesing. I fucking yesing. That's the

11:57

way I go. Fucking yesing. Fuck yeah,

11:59

Anne. Fuck yeah, and!

12:02

That's like an old bet you would have done. Like

12:04

the fake books. Oh yeah. Remember? Oh

12:07

yeah, back in Crash Test. With Crash

12:09

Test, that's kind of a weird fucking

12:11

synchronicity. Yeah. Because I was listening to

12:13

American Idiot, the Green Day album.

12:16

OK, yeah. Which was the album that came out around

12:19

the time of Crash Test. And I remember,

12:21

wait, no. American Idiot, yeah,

12:23

maybe you're right. Because

12:25

I thought American Idiot came out when I was in high school. But

12:27

maybe that was their first flag in politics. Duke,

12:30

yes, you're right. That's what. Sorry. No, you're right. Sorry.

12:32

You tried to have a Green Day. Yeah.

12:34

You just had a 21st century record. Blay, baby. But

12:37

guess what? We can see them on tour with every

12:39

one of our favorite bands. At the

12:41

Warp Tour? What is it? I think it's nice.

12:43

Now it's like Weezer's doing tours of like, it's

12:45

like all these bands now, they basically

12:48

can't sell out arenas by themselves.

12:50

But you put three together, and

12:52

they do. And it's the

12:54

best concert you can possibly see. It's sort

12:57

of like, oh, will I go out

12:59

to see me? Yes,

13:01

I go out to see Weezer. But if

13:03

it's like Weezer, Green Day, and blank, I

13:06

once saw Boys to Men perform with

13:08

NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. No,

13:11

it was Backstreet Boys and

13:13

New Kids on the Block. June

13:15

wanted to go. But Boys to Men opened up. Man,

13:18

Boys to Men fucking killed it.

13:20

It was amazing. No, Boys to

13:22

Men is like 10 number one. Oh,

13:25

it's amazing. Maybe

13:27

more than 10. And also no offense

13:29

to New Kids on the Block. Exactly.

13:32

Love that army, the New Kids on the

13:34

Block army. But they are immensely

13:36

more talented Boys to Men. Oh my

13:38

god. Like in a way that's comical.

13:41

It's unfair. And they open for them. And I

13:43

was like, wait, what do you know? They should

13:45

be closing. But they're going to look at that

13:47

Weezer tour. It's like, oh, one night we open,

13:49

one night we close. You know, they flip it.

13:51

It's fun. That's interesting. I

13:53

feel like, again, no disrespect to NKOTV. But

13:56

I feel like that was a band that was put together by

13:58

like a big fat guy with a- I think

14:00

in a mall looking for hot boys. Yeah, I

14:03

think this is a guy who I

14:05

believe, and I don't, again, no, I don't wanna- No

14:08

disrespect at the LGB. No fake

14:10

news, but I believe that the person who did do that, Lou,

14:12

I think his name is, I think he was a molester, I

14:14

think he's in jail. Oh, really? I think

14:16

one of these guys is. I'm

14:18

sorry, Cat Williams, is that you? Hey.

14:21

I'm sorry. Look, if they went in jail, I

14:23

mean, but there's some version of that. Oh, no.

14:25

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. When I was a youth,

14:27

I, cause Joey McIntyre

14:30

is from like fucking Framingham. Yes,

14:32

okay, yeah. And I was in

14:34

Lexington, and NKOTB is, listen

14:36

to how naive and sweet this story

14:38

was. New Kids on the Block was the

14:41

biggest thing, obviously. Of course. We just

14:43

picked up the phone, 411, Framingham,

14:46

what listing? McIntyre, Joey,

14:50

the operator, tell me how Boston this

14:52

is. She goes, yeah, right. Yeah,

14:57

right. I love it. Yeah, right. Dream

15:00

on, kid. I ain't

15:02

giving you Joey's number. Now, meanwhile, that's what

15:04

you're doing. As a kid, I am looking

15:06

in phone books for people whose name was

15:08

Goldfinger, and trying to call them like,

15:10

To James Bond? We

15:13

used to call, we

15:16

saw on You Can't Do That on television, did you

15:18

watch that? Of course. Of course, I was gonna say,

15:20

if you didn't watch that, I would've been like, what?

15:22

Kids That Are Not Live before all that, before Quiet

15:24

on the Set. By the way? No drama there, why?

15:26

Because they're Canadians. That's right. I don't know what this

15:28

riff is, but I'm in it. You don't know about

15:30

Quiet on the Set? No. Pete.

15:33

What? You're missing a cultural moment here in the

15:35

country. What's happening? A couple weeks ago,

15:37

there was a documentary that was aired

15:39

on Max, but also on Discovery about all

15:42

this, the bad going on. The Nickelodeon documentary. Yes.

15:44

Okay, I didn't see it. Oh, okay, it's great. It's

15:46

bad. But it's dark. Oh

15:49

yeah. Bad stuff. Oh yeah, but

15:51

not on, nothing about, nothing about

15:53

those kids, nothing about you can't do that

15:55

on television, because it's a Canadian show. And

15:57

Canadian people, they're Canadian kids with respect. Here,

16:00

in Hollywood, Dan Schneider, kind of a piece

16:02

of shit. And then also-

16:05

Is it sex stuff? Well, then it goes into

16:07

sex stuff. Okay, because it becomes not a riff zone.

16:10

If someone's being a dick, then we riff.

16:13

No, Dan Schneider, we can riff on. Yeah,

16:15

okay. I love that you know

16:17

what, like, Paul, help me, which area of the story do

16:19

we riff on? No, no, no, the guy from head of

16:21

the class, asshole, dickhead,

16:23

riff, riff, riff, riff, riff, riff. There's another part of

16:25

it. We don't have to- We stop riffing three quarters

16:28

through. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you can't do that on

16:30

television. Do you realize you can't do that on television

16:32

was about the guy, the grownup?

16:34

That was his show. That

16:36

guy who- I just had- At the

16:38

beginning, it's his, and it cracks open. And

16:41

I always was like, why is Barth, remember

16:43

his name was Barth, why is Barth the

16:45

first thing you see? It's about the kids.

16:47

Because it was his show, that guy pitched

16:50

it. So that- He's the comic that was

16:52

like, I'm gonna make a sketch show for

16:54

kids. It was him. So, but like, but

16:56

it was never positioned these

16:58

kids are meddling. And it was like the Scooby-Doo version

17:01

of it would be like, damn, these meddlesome kids. The

17:03

kids just took it over. But I love that he's

17:05

still got his face on it. It's like, it is,

17:07

you can't do that on television, but I am the

17:09

face. He's the EP, he was dreaming of it. And

17:12

it put himself like Woody Allen, crisis

17:14

noted, would put himself

17:16

in the sketches as like a wink. Like

17:18

I'm the- What did you say? Crisis noted,

17:20

that wasn't right. Scandal noted. Okay, get scandal

17:22

noted. That's actually a great way of dealing

17:24

with things because there are these things- Oh,

17:26

you gotta do scandal noted. Scandal noted. Take

17:28

it to all your pods. I like it.

17:30

Take scandal noted. Scandal noted. Just

17:32

acknowledge it. It's there. People

17:35

don't like being ignored, gas lit.

17:38

Yes, of course. But there are certain things they

17:40

always say that when you're talking about certain things,

17:44

you're not saying like, I

17:47

love Woody Allen. He's

17:51

amazing. You're just like, oh, like the way that

17:53

Woody Allen did X, Y, and Z, which is

17:55

a factual thing that you don't even need to

17:57

note a scandal on. That's where I always found-

18:00

on the line, it's like, this is not,

18:02

I'm not advocating for it, nor am I

18:04

talking against. I'm just saying that happened. That's

18:06

right. Diane Keaton is fantastic in Andy Hall.

18:09

And Andy Hall. Andy Hall's great

18:11

quote. And Annie Hall. But

18:13

I feel like I wouldn't wanna have to say scandal

18:15

noted because it's like, well, I'm not saying anything, but

18:18

yet some people want you to say it. Tip the hat.

18:21

Tip the hat, I like it. Scandal noted. When

18:25

it comes to bigger ones, you have to really- Scandal

18:27

noted. Really scandal noted. Well, I wanna see what you're getting

18:29

into, where was I going? You

18:31

were saying you can't do that on television. Where was

18:34

I? Can't do that on television. And he said it

18:36

was his show, and you said that Woody Allen had-

18:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but why were we talking about, you

18:41

can't do that on television. Here's the animal- Joey McIntyre?

18:43

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But who

18:45

knows? Okay, well I'll tell you that- Boys to men,

18:47

boys to men. Pretty great. Let me tell you, I

18:49

don't know, but this is how boys to men came

18:51

together. Yeah. Different cities.

18:54

Yeah. There

18:56

was a buzz. Okay. There was

18:58

like a, there was a happening. Who are

19:00

these men? These four

19:02

men that would sing. But

19:05

they're not, no, these are boys. They were

19:07

boys at the time. And we're like, what's

19:09

gonna happen? These boys are gonna become men.

19:12

But why don't we get them right before?

19:14

Did you know that it's actually not boys

19:16

to men, it's boys to men. It's

19:19

like men in black too, the return

19:22

of- So boys, there's two boys to

19:24

men zero? It's like the sequel to

19:26

boys, boys to- Men zero. They

19:29

would sing some of them in church,

19:34

some of them at school. And people would

19:36

be blown away. And like

19:39

fate blew through that scene.

19:41

Like God himself brought them

19:43

together. Boys to men was like,

19:45

look at that kid over by the TCBY. Is

19:48

he wearing one roller skate? See if he can sing. Danny?

19:52

You tell me Danny was blowing fucking

19:54

two pays off at his church. Well, here's

19:56

what I'm gonna say. That's fired, okay. I'm

19:58

into this idea because- I did read,

20:01

who am I feeling? I listened

20:03

to Will Smith, scandal noted. That's

20:06

a scandal, I guess. Trauma noted. Trauma

20:08

noted. I can't think about him without. No, thinking

20:10

about it. We all are gonna think about it

20:12

for the rest of our days. But that's

20:16

how we're gonna live the rest of our days. But

20:19

the way he talks about how Fresh Prince

20:21

came up and how that came out was

20:23

super organic, like from basements and

20:25

doing things. And

20:29

DJ Jazzy Jeff was the

20:31

draw. Shut

20:34

the fuck up. No, and then he was like.

20:36

People wanted more from DJ Jazzy Jeffery? That's what

20:38

was going on at the time. It was like,

20:40

oh, he's a great DJ. That's the

20:42

thing. And so it was like, then Will kind of rapped

20:44

on that and then it's like, and it kind of hit

20:46

culturally at a moment. So the way he describes it was,

20:49

he was on the coattails of

20:52

DJ Jazzy Jeff and then it

20:54

flipped as culture flipped. And

20:56

when that happened, did Uncle Phil toss him

20:58

out the front door? No, that's it. Get

21:00

out. No, but before that, but

21:03

that's a crazy thing. Because you talk to

21:05

DJs and they're like, oh no, Jazzy

21:08

Jeff is in the high, Carl

21:11

Tartt, who you know, right? Carl Tartt, great

21:13

improviser, great comedian. Carl

21:16

took a DJ, went to

21:18

DJ school. Very good.

21:21

But he was saying, not, he's very good

21:23

at DJing. He sounded so much like,

21:25

I'm Lithuanian. So

21:28

I'll say a Lithuanian immigrant that just got

21:30

to America. He's trying to sound like a

21:32

cool guy. He's like, DJ Jazzy Jeff, go

21:34

to DJ school. Very good. Very good. And

21:36

I liked it. He got DJ

21:38

school. He learned all the scritches, scritches,

21:40

scritches. He got scritches. He

21:42

cross-fed. Very good. But he

21:44

created, he created. He's a very good

21:47

guy. He creates very good music. But

21:49

he was, and still is, looked

21:52

at as like one of those amazing

21:55

people in that field. And one of the first, like

21:57

the starters of it. That's why I think, making beats.

22:00

making beats DJing. Like,

22:03

and this is where I'm not in the

22:05

world when I'm just saying. Yeah, but DJing

22:07

isn't making beats, that's producing. No, no, no,

22:09

DJ is also like going out

22:11

and performing too. Like, you're gonna go

22:13

out to clubs and songs. Like producing

22:16

is producing. Like Kanye,

22:19

scandal noted. Like he would

22:21

go around with like a bag, with

22:23

basically like beats and be like, hey, like you

22:25

need to make this. I have this beat, take

22:27

this beat. There's versions of that too. Did you

22:29

see that documentary where Kanye was going into, I

22:31

think it was, I don't know, I wanna say it was

22:34

HBO, but it couldn't have been HBO, but he was just going in

22:36

and before he was big,

22:38

basically begging them to listen to his

22:40

stuff. And it's, I don't

22:42

know if it's douche chills, you would know. Yeah,

22:44

it might be douche chills. You're just sort of

22:46

like, no, I mean, those are the things. But

22:48

it's also like going back to

22:50

Aziz, it's like that's the calling your shop,

22:53

being so confident. Jamie Foxx is on Howard

22:55

Stern, and he said that like he was

22:57

at a party and Kanye came up

22:59

to him at his own party, at Jamie

23:01

Foxx's party, and said, I have a beat for

23:03

you. You have to listen to this. And

23:06

that was like, now

23:09

I'm gonna say it's crazy to say it's Gold Digger, but

23:11

it was like, he was like, I got this.

23:15

And so that like, he was like- Wait, he listened to it?

23:18

Yeah. Cause I'm gonna, here's my parallel

23:20

story. When I was at the Boston

23:22

Comedy Club, Chappelle, Haida Chappelle's show, I

23:24

have this memory of Chappelle in the stairway of

23:27

the club. He wasn't that big

23:29

yet. He was on the phone making an airline reservation.

23:31

And he was going, Chappelle, C-H-A-P-P-E-L-L-E.

23:36

And I'm like, this woman is on

23:38

the phone with Dave Chappelle, the world's

23:40

biggest comedian then and now. And

23:43

she was just like, Chappelle. I was like, lady.

23:45

The crazy thing is, I talked to Chappelle about this, and

23:47

he said there was no airplanes when

23:49

he was at the Boston Comedy Club. So that's

23:52

how interesting that you remember that. There were dogs

23:54

figurating to his legs as well. It's mythically true.

23:57

I just didn't say anything about Chappelle.

24:00

So, one of my first,

24:02

not gigs, but when I was at

24:04

NYU, I

24:08

wanted to write for the paper. I had written for the paper in high

24:10

school. I was like, let me write for the paper. I don't know what,

24:12

I wanted to do something creative. I didn't know how to do it. So,

24:15

you can write movie reviews. And so, I got

24:17

whatever people didn't want. And one of the things

24:19

I got, one of my first things I got

24:22

was a review of this new

24:24

Dave Chappelle ABC sitcom. And I think it

24:26

was called Buddies. Yeah, Buddies. And it was

24:28

like Chappelle lived upstairs. His buddy lived downstairs.

24:30

He was black, he was white. They would

24:32

come down the fire escape. They'd get into

24:35

each other's lives. That was the show. And

24:37

so, part of what I needed to do was watch

24:40

the show and then

24:42

interview Chappelle after he did

24:44

a standup set at Caroline's.

24:47

Now, I never got to do the interview with Chappelle,

24:49

but I went to see him. And it was an

24:51

interesting moment because it was like, oh,

24:53

I like this guy. I've seen him in Nutty Professor.

24:55

He was the funniest thing in Nutty Professor. Which

24:59

is probably not true. He was very funny in

25:01

Nutty Professor. Eddie Murphy is great in that movie.

25:03

Shots fired, Eddie Murphy. You said it. Eddie's

25:06

after you. But I remember him. I remember

25:08

going as a kid going, oh,

25:11

why isn't that guy more famous? He

25:13

blew up. He was so funny in

25:16

Nutty Professor, but then it didn't nothing really

25:18

happen. Anyway, I have

25:21

this memory, the core memory of trying

25:24

to talk to Chappelle about Buddies. So I think

25:26

I got him on the phone. And

25:28

talked to him about Buddies. Now again, this is

25:30

now. Hey, me. Yeah, and it

25:33

was sort of like, lovely but

25:35

great. And I'm doing a terrible job in

25:37

reviewing him, but that's me talking to Chappelle.

25:39

Did you write a good review of Buddies?

25:42

You know, I go back and look at my

25:44

writing from that time. And I'm like, oh gosh,

25:46

I'm trying to find my voice. And

25:48

I don't know what it's like a

25:51

little too, it's a

25:53

little too everything. It's like, I like it by it,

25:55

but I'm also trying to be funny. But I'm also

25:57

like, hey, but we've already seen this before. But what

25:59

makes this work? But it was a positive review because

26:01

I remember I got Chappelle.

26:04

Like, and I was gonna write a positive review. And

26:07

then I also remember one of the

26:09

greatest mistakes I've ever made was

26:13

that job. I go

26:15

and I'm interviewing the producer of

26:17

a Jim

26:20

Jarmusch movie. Not Jim Jarmusch, but like a

26:22

producer. So like, you know, that's like the

26:24

level, the totem pole that I'm on. Like

26:26

I'm like, you interviewed the producer of a

26:28

Jarmusch movie, not like Jim Jarmusch. So

26:30

I'm like, I met him at a thing, I'm trying to

26:32

work my tape recorder, it's not working. And I'm like, oh,

26:35

oh. And I go, I'll just get it. And I started

26:37

asking him questions and I'm not writing anything down. And he's

26:39

like, do you wanna write something down? I'm like, oh,

26:42

yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like I did an

26:44

interview with a guy. I was like,

26:47

and I mean, whatever that interview was, my

26:49

God, scribbled notes of like four minute answers.

26:52

It was like just nightmare. A

26:54

true nightmare. And I think about

26:56

myself now, if I sat down to that, I'd

26:59

be like, what the fuck? Why the fuck am

27:01

I doing this? It's actually a good exercise in

27:03

being compassionate ones. And I'm saying this as somebody

27:05

who would probably be like, I have to go.

27:07

Yeah, and by the way, that producer was amazing.

27:09

He was like, why don't you write down some,

27:12

then they're helping you. Okay, got it, yeah. I

27:14

love when you're in the right mood to lend

27:16

a hand. So here's the counterpart to Kanye and

27:18

Jamie Foxx, which is an incredible story. Somebody,

27:21

Chappelle, you know, he would drop in and

27:23

then the club would be full in five

27:26

minutes. It's like, talk about considerations and myths.

27:29

But it was true, the club would eventually be full and

27:31

somebody, people would hand him CDs. And

27:34

I remember this very vividly as like somebody, you

27:36

know, vulnerable, goes up and gives them their mixtape

27:39

or whatever, and I'm like, what's he gonna do?

27:41

And Chappelle put on the counter behind him,

27:43

does his set, finishes and walks off. Doesn't

27:46

take the city. That's not shots

27:48

fired to Chappelle, but I

27:51

remember being like, yikes, that

27:53

guy saw that he's

27:55

not gonna listen. Yeah, right. He's

27:57

in the bag like. It's

28:00

tricky, right? It's like, well, it's like... It's tricky,

28:02

but it's also honest. And I tell

28:04

you one of my favorite things lately, somebody was trying to get

28:06

me to do something that I didn't want to do, and it

28:08

was just because of what their idea

28:11

that I could influence or help in

28:13

some way that I don't even think I could. And

28:15

they were kind of like, or let's put it even

28:17

more clearly, they wanted me to do something just because

28:20

I'm a public person. Sure. Got it. And it just

28:22

felt very insincere. Yeah. And

28:25

I remember being like... Somebody, you know? Somebody

28:27

I just met. Oh, okay. So... This was a few

28:29

years ago. No, no, but this is good. But I

28:31

want the context of like... Because a friend is different

28:33

than a... It wasn't a friend. Okay, that's all. It

28:36

wasn't a friend, and it was years ago. And

28:38

I just remember coming across the phrase, I think I'm

28:40

going to disappoint you. And I don't want

28:42

to. But they're going like, maybe you

28:44

could do this or this or this. And it's like,

28:47

instead of just being like, I feel

28:49

like you're the same way, a people-pleasy guy. Yeah. I'm

28:52

learning as I get older, some people really take crazy

28:54

advantage of the people-pleasies. Well,

28:57

yeah. And things that you might just mean

28:59

to be like, I'm just being polite. They take it seriously.

29:01

So I'm trying to be better to just be like, I

29:03

think I'm going to disappoint you. And

29:06

I don't want to disappoint you, but I don't think that's

29:08

going to happen sort of thing. Well, you know, it's interesting

29:10

because I take a different tact

29:12

with it, which is

29:14

I think that people are always looking...

29:18

Not always. But

29:20

I think that people who will do

29:23

that... There's this phrase that I

29:25

hate now. The phrase that pays? The phrase that pays.

29:29

All music all day. But

29:33

the thing that I

29:36

really hate is this phrase of,

29:39

I have to take my shot. I got to

29:41

take my shot. And sometimes that idea

29:43

of I got to take my shot is

29:45

just really veiling. I'm asking something incredibly inappropriate.

29:48

And that has been co-opted as this phrase

29:50

of like, well,

29:54

it's not... It's a virtuous thing. Right. It's

29:57

like, I'm not being rude. I got to

29:59

take my shot. It's like, would... Yeah, but

30:01

that shot is like,

30:03

we don't know each other. Like it's like-

30:05

There's a better time for that shot.

30:07

Everybody in your position has taken shots. Yes,

30:10

and you can take a- Figure out

30:12

when to take- Right, like that phrase isn't

30:14

like, cut me to

30:16

the front of the line. Like, I think like early

30:18

on in my career, and even

30:20

at this point too, people will say to me like, well,

30:23

what do I need to do? Like, what do I

30:25

need to do to get to this? And

30:29

I think more often than not, I

30:32

have a spiel that I don't

30:34

even cut and paste. It's a real thing that

30:36

I, like, if I talk to people,

30:38

it's the real thing. It's like,

30:41

there is no shortcut. The way that I

30:44

got up, the way that I got

30:46

my opportunities, is it luck?

30:48

Yes, absolutely, that's a big part of it, right?

30:50

But then it's also like, it's the

30:52

timing, it's where I was, it's like what happened in

30:55

a moment? It's not like you can recreate it. It's

30:57

not like, here is the map that if you follow

30:59

this map, you'll get in. And

31:01

everyone has these different stories that are amazing, but

31:04

that's like, there is no path. And I think people

31:06

are like looking for that thing. It's like, can

31:09

you do this thing? And if you

31:11

post on your page that Vitacoco is

31:14

your favorite drink, then- They'll send you

31:16

a case. Or they'll be- They're

31:18

like, then I've made it. Like if Pete says

31:20

like, my album is the best, then

31:23

I've made it. You know, it's like, but

31:25

like even if Chappelle at that point, like, all right, yeah, I like

31:27

the standup. What does that do? Like

31:29

it just goes, okay, yeah, but he's still

31:31

struggling to get to where, like, he

31:33

can't be like, well, yeah, get a production deal. And

31:35

you know, my thing, you know, it's like, it's weird.

31:37

We don't work like that. No one works like that.

31:40

I wonder just to go the other way,

31:42

cause I'm with you when people ask, if

31:44

people ask for advice, which doesn't happen very

31:46

often, but if they did, I would be like the

31:48

advice that I would give you expired the

31:51

week after it worked for me. Right, you know what

31:53

I mean? For example, it would be like, well, crash

31:57

test is a hot show in New York. You should just

31:59

go and watch. and get to know everybody and kind

32:01

of ingratiate yourself into the scene, well,

32:04

that show's gone and they're all gone.

32:06

But I think there are, and I

32:08

bet you have great examples

32:10

of this, there are through

32:12

lines, all the stories are different, but

32:15

I'm gonna offer one. One is

32:17

people are doing what is, the people

32:20

that make it are

32:22

doing something that is very clearly

32:24

written on their bones to

32:26

do, meaning it's not just something they

32:28

like to do or something that they

32:30

think they'll get important if

32:32

they do it. So that's one commonality. Yes, and

32:35

by the way, just so you know, I say

32:37

to people, I'm like, I can't

32:39

tell you a path, but what I can say is, do

32:42

what you find funny, find people

32:44

who like that or that you

32:46

like and work together with them,

32:48

build community, and my whole thing

32:50

is just don't wait. Don't worry

32:52

about selling your show, go make

32:54

your show, go find your

32:56

person, go get up on stage. Don't worry

32:59

about selling your Netflix special, just

33:01

be in a group, that's the only thing I

33:03

can, that's the only thing I can say that

33:05

is true, is you find like-minded people, you work

33:07

with those people, and those are the people that

33:09

I've worked with for my entire life, I continue

33:11

to, but that's an

33:14

unsatisfying answer to a lot of people too. Sure,

33:17

my version of that advice is- You're

33:19

probably a little more enlightened than I am. No, no, no,

33:21

no, it's the same thing, is you

33:24

go like look to- That

33:26

was so funny. Look to, who do

33:28

you admire and then do what they're doing.

33:30

Go where they're going and if

33:33

you think they're funny, just try to merge

33:35

with them in some way, but in a cool

33:37

way, don't be sweaty about it. But it's also

33:39

like find your own crew, right? I

33:42

remember seeing Bob and David,

33:44

Oden Kirk and David Cross and Mr. Show, and

33:46

I was like, these are the best, and they're

33:48

friends with Janine Garofalo and all that sort of

33:50

stuff, and I'm not gonna

33:52

get into that crew. I may

33:55

work on the outskirts of that crew. But who's the

33:57

next one? Right, it's like, but the crew that I

33:59

worked with, the crew that you- you work with, those

34:01

are our crews. And it's like, very

34:03

rarely do you see somebody infiltrate

34:06

a crew. It's

34:09

like, you know. When I got to LA, I

34:11

wasn't like Zach Galifianakis, Pat Nauseam, and Sarah Silverman,

34:13

here I come. Yeah, it's like that's- They were

34:15

done. Right. They're closed. Right,

34:17

and you might do the same show with them, they

34:19

might think that you're funny, you might be in that

34:22

thing. You might eventually become friends with them, but you're

34:24

not just gonna be on the comedians of comedy. Right,

34:26

right. They already have

34:28

an ogre, Brian Posey. They

34:30

don't need two ogres. But that's, you know, and I think that

34:32

that's what's

34:34

on, what

34:36

I think is sometimes interesting is

34:39

this idea of like, I gotta shoot my shot, I

34:41

gotta do this thing, and I'd say this about podcasting,

34:43

all the time, people are like, how do I get

34:46

a podcast? Or what I, well, you can get a

34:48

podcast very easy, but whatever you do, just make sure

34:50

you love it, because- Oh my God. You know, who

34:52

knows when it'll take off, but truthfully, in

34:54

success, you will make

34:57

more podcasts. Yeah. It's

35:00

not like there's no, there's

35:02

no like, they're there. It's like, you know, it's like,

35:04

there is, and you might be like, smart list, you

35:06

might be like, all these, you might get a $75

35:08

million deal, but the truth is, and

35:11

they're still making podcasts, and then they have to make podcasts

35:13

for X amount more years. You

35:15

like donuts? Yeah. How about

35:17

all the donuts in the world? Yeah, and it's like,

35:20

and that's what I'm always like, just like what you

35:22

wanna do, and if you like the work, if you're

35:24

enjoying the work, people will find the work. Well, I've

35:26

said this a million times, but I wanna hear what

35:28

you think about it. I knew I had to start

35:31

a podcast, cause every podcast I was a guest on,

35:33

I would just, it would become, I

35:35

don't mean I would be a blowhard and take over, I

35:37

just mean it would always shift, they all seem the same.

35:40

Right, very much. They all led to the meaning of life,

35:42

they all led to this, and all this stuff. I was

35:44

like, oh, I think I should just do my own, there

35:46

seems to be something that I wanna say. That

35:49

was the indication that I should start a podcast. And I think that

35:51

you're so, you're kind of perfectly built for

35:53

podcasts in this way, because it's like,

35:55

the interviews that you do versus, everyone's

35:58

got their own style. I'm a big

36:00

believer in, there can be a million

36:03

podcasts, like how did this get made? There can be a million interview

36:05

podcasts, there could be a million whatever. The

36:07

trick is people are tuning in for you. And

36:10

anyone could be in this seat, ultimately. You might

36:12

get a higher rating if you had like, you

36:14

know, Barack Obama on your show, but the truth

36:16

is, is like, that's one week, right? You know,

36:18

it's, but people are either like you or don't,

36:20

but they are tuning in for you. And I

36:22

had said this about how did this get made?

36:24

Like, yes, we make fun of

36:26

these movies, but people like the dynamic between

36:29

Jason, June, and I, and we

36:31

could be talking about anything at the end of

36:33

the day. No, it's all an excuse. That's the

36:35

same podcast advice I give. Is I go, keep

36:37

your theme as general as

36:39

possible. And I've said this

36:42

a million, but it's like Mark Maron's, when he started

36:44

was like, come in with three what the fuck moments.

36:46

Great. And that, yeah, but then that

36:49

just fades away. And nobody cares, because everybody was tuning in for

36:51

Mark. Nobody's tuning in to hear what you have

36:53

to say about fucking

36:55

Neil Breen. Well, but this is,

36:57

yeah, but this is the thing that I'm always like, this is the

36:59

biggest lesson I've learned in

37:01

all of this stuff and everything that I've

37:04

done is the

37:06

intent you have to

37:08

be open to the idea really morphing.

37:10

And it's like, you might, you know, and

37:12

it's like, and you may, people

37:14

may hold on very strongly. Like, well, no, this is

37:16

what I want it to do. And, and

37:19

you might look, there might be, Wes Anderson

37:21

is a good example of that. Yeah. And that, but by

37:23

the way, it's going to be locked off and centered. And

37:25

that's it. a

37:27

little drawings and you got it. But I think a

37:30

lot of these things are collaborative, but you're also following,

37:32

you might have two thirds

37:36

of what you know is

37:38

right and what you're doing. But then when you stumble on

37:40

that, that remaining third, it's

37:42

a little different. You got to like also

37:45

acknowledge the thing. It's in the air, it's out

37:47

there. People have taken it in, they're on board

37:49

with you. So like, let

37:51

them- You got to adapt. Yeah. Like, like, again,

37:53

with this book that, that

37:56

I wrote, like the book I wrote was not

37:58

the book I intended to write. And if

38:00

I really stuck to what I intended

38:02

to write, I don't

38:05

think I would be as happy with the book, but

38:07

it's like, but that process of

38:09

letting go, and that's also like, I think

38:11

it's very attuned to improv, but it's

38:15

allowing yourself, it's

38:17

almost the opposite of meditation, right? Because meditation, like

38:19

you're sitting there, and in meditation,

38:21

you're supposed to clear all your mind, right, and

38:23

these distractions come in, and you're supposed to be like,

38:25

I mean, this is at least my knowledge of it, you know, and

38:27

the way I've done it, and it's like, you push it aside, and

38:30

you kind of clear your mind, and in this, it's sort of like, I

38:32

believe that you almost are supposed

38:35

to fly away on those distractions, like, oh, this

38:37

is inspiring me, like, yeah, let me go over here,

38:39

and maybe I'll hit a dead end, but then you

38:42

just like, you kind of have to ride waves a

38:44

little bit. And try them out. There's a

38:46

lot of like trying it out, there are a lot of chapters

38:48

that I wrote in my book that I ended up scrapping. Chapters

38:51

that I started off writing that

38:56

are now a piece of another chapter

38:59

that fit thematically better in

39:01

there. You know, it's a very like- You

39:03

know, the book presents itself. And that's, and

39:05

to going back to all of this, that's

39:08

why I hate an emphasis on, hey,

39:10

listen to my first podcast episode, watch the

39:12

first episode of my TV show. Like,

39:16

TV, I've done a bunch of TV from

39:19

Inception to, you know, seven seasons,

39:21

four seasons, whatever it is, it

39:23

gets better. It gets better because you

39:25

find the rhythms, you understand things, you get in there,

39:27

and we put so much emphasis on the first. And

39:30

I was like, do 10 podcast episodes, and

39:32

then get all the marketing behind it, and

39:34

then go forward. That's also my advice is

39:37

I go record 10 episodes before you release

39:39

that in. Because then maybe you

39:41

can release a good one. Well, that's it, because

39:43

it's like, you don't

39:45

even know what you're doing yet. Like, and that's- And

39:48

that's okay, that's part of it. I think that

39:51

there is this thing where

39:54

you can get so caught up. It's

39:57

like, even if you're writing a script, if TV is

39:59

a perfect example. It's

42:00

a forced thing, right?

42:02

Like you aren't comfortable with-

42:04

No. The

42:08

benefit of doing shows or

42:11

where you have creative control on some

42:13

level is you can cast people that

42:15

you know, that you feel comfortable with. And you may not

42:17

have worked with them. But

42:19

there is this thing that's like, and it, you

42:21

know, one of the coolest things

42:24

in doing Black Monday, this

42:26

is a show I do with Don Cheadle and Regina

42:28

Hall and Andrew Rannells. I knew Andrew a

42:30

little bit. I didn't know Regina

42:32

at all. And I definitely didn't know Don. And

42:35

I had to audition for that

42:37

show. And I, you know, I auditioned with Seth

42:39

and Evan, or for Seth

42:41

and Evan, Don, David Caspe and

42:44

Jordan Caine who wrote the show. Now

42:47

David and Jordan were very much advocates for

42:49

me. I think Seth and Evan were advocates

42:51

for me. I don't know, you know, but a bunch of

42:53

great people were auditioning. Yeah. And Don was

42:55

in there. And, you know,

42:58

knowing his power of like,

43:01

I am an Academy nominated

43:03

this guy. I am Don Cheadle the fucking best.

43:05

You know, he's amazing. But

43:08

he carried himself with this energy of, I'm

43:10

gonna make you comfortable. I'm gonna make this

43:13

as easy for you as possible. And

43:16

I think that there are some people who know how to do that when

43:18

they are leading a show. I

43:20

may not be as comfortable with Don as I was in

43:22

the pilot as I became in the middle of season one.

43:25

But like, that's a real work ethic and that

43:27

some people have it and some people don't. And

43:29

it's like, and when you're at the top, it's

43:31

always say like, you know, it all comes down

43:33

from the top. It's like, you can at least

43:35

try. You hear those T-Cruise stories. That's when James

43:38

Corden did this podcast. He told me Will Smith

43:40

scandal noted. T-Cruise.

43:42

Yeah. Scandal. Pending.

43:45

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

43:47

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

43:50

That's our first scandal pending. Ha

43:53

ha ha ha. Tom Cruise scandal pending. No, but I

43:55

mean, like, look, every time I mentioned Tom Cruise, you

43:57

have to say scandal because people are going to say

43:59

he is responsible. for Shelley Miscavige. Oh,

44:02

the missing. Yeah. Really? I

44:05

didn't know that. People believe

44:07

that his involvement with Scientology

44:10

is part of it. Why David Miscavige's

44:12

wife is missing? Well,

44:15

not that he's involved in it, but you're involved in a society

44:17

or a group of you. That's

44:19

why you would say, I think you should say- Oh,

44:21

scandal pending. Well, not even scandal pending. I think you

44:23

say scandal noted. Ah, scandal

44:26

noted. T. Cruz? But

44:29

I love me some T. Cruz. I love T. Cruz.

44:31

I love T. Cruz more than you. I

44:33

just say whenever I've mentioned T. Cruz, I

44:36

get a lot of- Really? A

44:39

lot of feedback. See, this is fun. Generally. I

44:41

feel like hanging out with you, I'm getting

44:44

a lot of downloads. Nickelodeon wasn't so great.

44:46

Getting in there. Ah. I'm like, I'm

44:49

okay with it and I'm a little concerned.

44:52

I'm a little, not even checked out. I'm

44:54

just sort of not as involved in the

44:56

stuff. There are certain things

44:58

that I get very locked

45:00

into. And there are certain

45:03

things I don't. I think what was

45:05

really that got me about that Nickelodeon

45:07

thing was- I'm

45:11

gonna watch it. Yeah, it's like there's

45:13

something about it that, my

45:19

interest was peaked for certain reasons. And

45:22

I was like, oh, I would like to see what they're gonna do

45:24

here. And I think what was so interesting was they

45:26

handle it very journalistically, not sensationally. And

45:28

I think that that's very hard to

45:30

do with a topic that is- That

45:33

juicy. Yes. Yeah. And

45:35

it's funny because you watch people's reactions to it. And this is the

45:37

thing that, there's

45:39

a lot of negative things about Dan Schneider

45:41

said on this show. When

45:44

I read people's responses about this show, one

45:46

of the things that people really latch

45:48

onto is he hired

45:51

these two women and made them

45:53

share a salary because

45:55

he made them paper partners. But

45:58

paper partnering is- is done

46:01

all, like there's a lot of bad things

46:03

about Dance Center. Paper partnering is not one

46:05

of them. Oh really? Like yes, I remember

46:08

on like SNL, all these shows would do

46:10

paper partners. It's like, hey, you're

46:12

not really partners, but we'll put you together and- What

46:14

are you reminding me of? Every once in a while

46:17

you watch a doc and they're just

46:19

like, can you believe it? And you're sitting at home and

46:21

you're like, that's very normal. Well like this

46:23

is like, this is the issue that I have with

46:25

the Alec Baldwin trial with the gun

46:27

going off. It's like, he is Alec

46:29

Baldwin and ass. Like today was the- Ass the

46:31

voice. Oh, the gun going off? Oh yeah. You're

46:34

like his lawyer. And the gun that fired. But

46:36

like, there's this thing that drives me

46:38

nuts about it, which

46:41

is like, well, he needed to be more

46:43

careful with a loaded weapon. No, he didn't.

46:45

Cause there are no loaded

46:47

weapons ever on set. There are no bullets

46:49

on set. This is not a mistake of

46:52

a prop gun. This is

46:54

a bullet. Like there is no, like that

46:56

should never have happened. It never does happen.

46:58

No one ever has a live animal. Like

47:01

the way people talk about it, it's like, well yes,

47:03

in real life you need to be, have gun safety.

47:05

And I believe on set too. But it's like, what

47:08

we're talking about is something crazy. And so the people

47:10

are like, Alec Baldwin was yelling at everybody, even himself

47:12

on set. I'm like, that's true. Alec Baldwin

47:14

can be an asshole. And that's

47:17

not what we're putting on trial. You are a

47:19

good lawyer. Ladies and gentlemen,

47:21

is my client an asshole? Yes.

47:23

That's not illegal? No.

47:26

But you're selling the moviness of it, right?

47:28

It's like, oh, well you don't know. And

47:31

there are certain things done in our industry. Now

47:33

it may not be great. He

47:35

wasn't involved in the grab ass of

47:37

loading guns and shooting cans. No, there

47:40

are, no, there are people.

47:42

And even if he was, there is

47:44

still a person who is, and

47:47

she is now down at jail. Anna Gutierrez Reed.

47:49

She's going to jail. Oh yes. And

47:52

she wasn't scared of Alec Baldwin. Even if she was,

47:54

she should be able to go. Like this is a

47:56

real round and this is a fake round. She put

47:58

the wrong, and there should never have been. That's

54:01

something that's, I guess I'm so fascinated

54:03

by that. It's the crown for normal

54:05

people. Yeah, right? It's just the total

54:07

exploitation of every personal detail of your

54:09

life. And at least with the crown,

54:11

you have, even you're born

54:13

into it, but you are, it is something

54:15

where it's like, okay, that's my life. It's like when people

54:17

go like, I always say like, if you run for president,

54:19

you have to be insane. On some level, you have to

54:22

be insane. You have to say, A, I

54:24

can handle this. And

54:27

it's like, I think I can do this. You're

54:29

like in a cabin and there's thousands, millions of

54:31

locusts outside. And you're like, open the windows.

54:34

I want to be commander in chief. It's a

54:36

crazy thing. It's a crazy pursuit. And that's why, like

54:38

when I listened to these things and I see people

54:40

like obsess about it, it's like, oh, how did this

54:43

person get killed? It's like, it becomes like television, but

54:45

we do forget like there are. No, I agree. I

54:47

used to have a bit, I only did it once

54:49

or twice. I didn't love it. People are not going

54:51

to like it, I'm sure. Cause it's also like, makes

54:53

them feel bad that they're- No, totally. We just want

54:55

to be able to eat our sausage. But it's like,

54:57

if I'm murdered, I know it's

54:59

dark. But I'm like, if I'm walking out of the club and

55:01

I'm murdered, don't make a fucking, my

55:03

last thought will be, God damn it. They're going to

55:05

make a Netflix documentary. I mean, by the way, I

55:07

think that's a funny thing. As I'm bleeding out. Yeah.

55:10

I appreciate it. I'm going to be like, he killed,

55:12

and then he was killed. Yeah, it's like, and it's

55:14

like- Like he ate fucking shit, dude, I'm a guy.

55:16

I know. And it's like, it

55:19

was like, that murder in Idaho, was

55:21

it Idaho or the,

55:23

all the girls were

55:25

murdered by that guy, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting

55:27

the story. But it was

55:29

this really gruesome murder. I'm

55:32

forgetting the specifics, but like TikTok detectives got

55:34

involved and they're like, it's this person, it's

55:37

that person, it's this person. And then, it's

55:39

like, they're sending out armies of like, go

55:41

uncover, it was none of those people. Because

55:44

they don't even have all the information.

55:46

Yeah, that's not how the world works. It's

55:49

like, yeah, sometimes I like that. I feel

55:51

that way about making a murderer, even serial.

55:54

My friend Brent James Sullivan was always like, he

55:56

was always the guy that was like, he did

55:58

it. Right, right, right. He's just like, stop

56:00

it. And we don't know, like, I don't know

56:02

if he actually thinks the person did it, but

56:04

he's just like, you

56:06

know showbiz. And if

56:09

they like included the whole picture, you

56:11

would not be binging it. The one

56:13

thing- It's just too delicious. Well, that's

56:15

why like the staircase, the

56:18

documentary like is heavily edited. Oh, you're up my

56:20

alley now. Oh, I mean, this is like, but

56:22

this is, I'll go even, you

56:24

know, it's like, whenever you put somebody in

56:26

the lead, if you're making a documentary about a

56:29

murderer, they're gonna

56:31

become sympathetic, you know? And that's it, we

56:33

tell stories that way. That's the lead character

56:35

of our story. And that's

56:38

why I love those three docs

56:40

that were made before Peter

56:43

Jackson made his doc about the West Memphis Three.

56:45

Because the first doc, it was like, it's definitely

56:48

these boys. Yeah, and then you're like, I got

56:50

it. And the second one was like, oh, we

56:52

kind of fucked up. And then the third one

56:54

was like, oh, now we think we see, like

56:57

they went back and forth. Yeah, and it was

56:59

like, oh, that's at least, I

57:01

don't know, they're like, buddy, here's

57:04

what I think you're saying. I

57:06

could make a documentary about you, Paul Scheer,

57:10

that everyone would walk out of the theater being

57:12

like, that person's a monster. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

57:14

This is not a new point. But they could

57:16

still like me, right? Well, that's another

57:18

layer, is if we were following you when you

57:20

were the lead, yeah. Oh, you're saying, okay, guys.

57:22

I'm just saying like, if I

57:24

had access, let's make it more interesting. If I had

57:27

access to all your life, I

57:29

could cut it together and just be like, look, he lied

57:31

to his teacher and he was in a car accident. It's

57:33

a curb finale, it's the Seinfeld finale, right? It's like bringing

57:35

all these people together to say, like, you're a piece of

57:38

shit. Exactly, or it's Beau is

57:40

afraid. Oh, yeah, exactly. You come in at the

57:42

end and this is our biggest fear. Yeah, yeah.

57:45

That is, and then you, yeah. When I

57:47

first heard about mouth tape for sleeping, to

57:49

improve your sleep, to get more oxygen, to

57:51

make you breathe through your nose, which is

57:53

so much better for you, don't be a

57:55

mouth breather, all of that stuff, sleep better.

57:58

I was worried. I mean, it

58:00

seemed to me. It seemed

58:02

like I would put it on and I would

58:04

feel suffocated, I would panic, and I wouldn't be

58:06

able to sleep. And I can't stress this enough,

58:08

the exact opposite is true. It's like closing a

58:10

bridge. It's like, or maybe a

58:13

tunnel, an opening a bridge. Yeah, the nose is

58:15

a bridge, because it has a bridge. But

58:18

it's like closing a tunnel. You

58:20

know, like in a city, the tunnel's closed, so you take

58:22

the bridge. That's what your brain does. It goes, oh, tunnel's

58:25

closed? No problem. It gets the

58:27

message. The mouth is closed. Let's breathe

58:30

through the nose. It's completely natural, I

58:32

would say. Argue, science would argue. It's

58:35

how we're supposed to be sleeping. Don't be a

58:37

mouth breather. And the first

58:39

time I tried hostage tape, I slept

58:41

better, and it was completely comfortable and

58:44

completely natural, and it peeled off easily

58:46

in the morning, which is incredible. What

58:48

is hostage tape? It is mouth tape.

58:51

It helps you sleep. It's getting your brain

58:53

20% more oxygen. It's

58:56

getting your body 20% more oxygen. It reduces your risk of

58:58

sleep apnea. It

59:02

helps eliminate reduced snoring, in my case, getting

59:04

rid of it entirely with a piece of

59:06

tape. It even helps with oral hygiene and

59:08

bad breath. When

59:11

I went to the dentist recently, they asked me,

59:13

do you breathe through your mouth when you sleep?

59:15

And I was like, heck no, because of hostage

59:17

tape. I was worried I'd feel trapped. I absolutely

59:19

don't. I used it

59:21

and immediately noticed a difference in my

59:23

sleep. I was getting deep, deep, deep

59:26

REM sleep. I wasn't waking up in the

59:28

night out like a light and having deep,

59:30

amazing dreams all night that you only get

59:33

when you have that good REM sleep. So

59:35

that was the proof that it was working

59:37

for me. And I've tried other types of

59:39

mouth tape in the past. I was like, oh, I saw

59:41

hostage tape. I'll just try a

59:43

mouth tape on Amazon. I bought one. It smelled

59:46

like glue. It was too strong. It took my

59:48

facial hair off when I peeled it off in

59:50

the morning. It stunk. Go with the

59:52

name brand. Go with hostage tape. It's

59:54

strong enough to stay on all night with no problem.

59:57

It doesn't smell like glue. And

59:59

it peeled off. Heels off easily and comfortably in

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1:00:53

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and what we do now is we

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play the best worst ice cream with

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but it's also just a great game

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this game, laughing, squealing,

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hooting and hollering as I mentioned,

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and having a lot of fun

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at the dinner table. Games

1:01:33

guys, family, friends, they

1:01:35

have adult games too for

1:01:38

grownups. Get off

1:01:40

your screen. Get together,

1:01:42

get shoulder to shoulder, get laughing, get

1:01:44

playing together. It keeps Leela busy. It

1:01:46

keeps her focused. I think it teaches

1:01:48

her a low key lesson about the

1:01:50

dangers of gambling. We love the best

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worst ice cream. We also love My

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Parents Might Be Martians. It's similar to

1:01:56

Pyramid, which is a game that I

1:01:58

really love. but it's like the kids

1:02:00

version where you try to get them

1:02:02

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There's no time for boring games. Kitten

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games. Let's get into it. Back

1:02:41

to the show. But I think you could also make a movie

1:02:43

that was like that person was the greatest person in the world.

1:02:45

And I think this is true of I don't

1:02:48

I can't say everybody but most people if

1:02:51

we had all your life we could cut a

1:02:53

10-minute thing together to be like this is the

1:02:55

best person in the world. Before we contain multitudes.

1:02:58

We contain multitudes. So

1:03:00

you wrote this book. Let me tell you the Anne

1:03:02

Lamott quote. Oh, yes. She said if they wanted me

1:03:04

to write about them more gently, they should have behaved

1:03:06

better. Isn't that

1:03:08

great? I love that quote. That's a great quote. It's

1:03:11

interesting, you know, it's like I It's

1:03:15

the scariest thing I've ever done is write

1:03:18

this book and I was gonna curious about you

1:03:20

feel about this as well because it's like You're

1:03:23

putting something down on paper and

1:03:26

in the world that we work Even

1:03:28

if you make a special maybe there's there's

1:03:30

tweaks There's things you know, you put you

1:03:32

put it down like I've made a lot

1:03:35

of different things in different media But

1:03:37

this is the first time where I'm like, this

1:03:39

is locked in amber. This is a book. It feels

1:03:41

elevated if you don't hold it you can hold it

1:03:44

and and

1:03:47

yeah, and I think I want and there was two parts of

1:03:49

that which is like When I said

1:03:51

like it's not the book that I set out to make It

1:03:54

was because I was like, oh, yeah, if you listen how this

1:03:56

get made, you know Like over the course of the 14 years

1:03:58

that we've been doing that show I tell tell stories about

1:04:00

my childhood and it will stop Jason and June

1:04:02

and their tracks are like, wait, what

1:04:04

happened? And I'm like, well, no, no. Like,

1:04:07

well, we, you know, we went into the city to go

1:04:09

see naked women and they're like, wait, wait, what do you

1:04:11

mean you went into the book? Well, yeah, we like, we

1:04:13

were, we got fake ideas to go. We wanted to find

1:04:16

naked women. So we went to the city and like, hold

1:04:18

on. You know, now this is a story that I'm like,

1:04:20

oh yeah, we just one afternoon I decided like, I need

1:04:22

to see what a naked woman looks like. Let's get on

1:04:24

the train and let's go to your, you go to like

1:04:26

a naked club. I just

1:04:28

meant like, let's get into New York city.

1:04:31

We will figure it out like they, and

1:04:33

we will figure out a place to go.

1:04:35

This is what every person at my church

1:04:38

thought the same. They were like, don't go

1:04:40

to New York. There's just naked ladies everywhere.

1:04:42

This is it. You know, it's

1:04:44

like, it's like you tell these stories. It's like, and I'll

1:04:46

tell a story. Where did you go? And what did you

1:04:48

do? We went to 42nd street and we were like, let's,

1:04:51

all right. So how old? Probably

1:04:53

sophomore in high school. Okay. Right.

1:04:57

And then we went to go buy a beer and they're like,

1:04:59

well, you need an ID. And we thought that, oh,

1:05:01

wait, oh, I guess we thought the city was lawless,

1:05:04

you know, and you know, and then, and then we

1:05:06

were like, what do we do? And then we saw

1:05:08

this sign. It was like, um, you

1:05:10

know, we make IDs. Well,

1:05:13

great. Went there, spent 20 bucks.

1:05:16

He made the shittiest looking IDs you could possibly ever

1:05:18

have. Uh, and this is a different

1:05:20

time back when they just had signs that said we

1:05:22

make IDs. I mean, by the way, the ID

1:05:26

is, is comical. I mean, I'll

1:05:28

show it to you. You have it. I do. Cause

1:05:31

I was saving it for my book. Uh, just so you can see where we're at. Um,

1:05:34

but the, um, I did

1:05:36

think you had the idea ID. You have

1:05:38

the photo of the ID. Yeah. Only

1:05:40

because I've been, I have a part of my

1:05:42

website where I am like putting like DVD

1:05:45

supplemental materials almost like of like, I'm like,

1:05:47

cause I'm like, you know, I didn't want

1:05:49

to put a insert in there. Let me

1:05:51

show you. Hold on. Uh,

1:05:55

it says college ID

1:05:57

and then underneath it, it says.

1:05:59

as New York University, as if

1:06:02

NYU has like, oh, we can't

1:06:04

make these IDs, we need to outsource it to

1:06:06

a general- And it also says, I am a

1:06:09

student at. Yes, I am a student at. New

1:06:11

York, date of birth, 418.72. 72,

1:06:17

I aged myself up to get in there. So

1:06:20

that was like, so that was the $20

1:06:22

ID that we bought. And as we

1:06:24

were sitting, well, as we were sitting outside, admiring

1:06:27

our new fake IDs, this guy came up to us

1:06:29

and literally said, do you want to

1:06:31

see a naked lady? No. And

1:06:34

I said, I was like, yeah, 100%. And-

1:06:37

Do you want to see a naked lady? Yeah, because he

1:06:39

was like, what are you guys up to today? And we

1:06:41

were like, we're just hanging out. And he's like, oh yeah,

1:06:44

what are you guys up to? Like, you want to see

1:06:46

some ladies? Like, yeah, it was a very, like, he, look,

1:06:49

we're like little kids from Long Island. He

1:06:51

saw these like three kids in Batman shirts,

1:06:53

you know, hanging out, like ready for, he's

1:06:55

like, I'm going to take these kids for

1:06:58

a ride. And he's like, oh,

1:07:00

whatever it is. Now, as he starts walking us, we're

1:07:02

getting further and further from 42nd Street. We're getting

1:07:04

far, you know, and it's like, it's down this alley.

1:07:06

When he said down this alley, like, I was

1:07:08

like, wait a second. And

1:07:10

I was like, uh-huh, wait a second.

1:07:13

I don't know if we should go down this alley.

1:07:15

My friend's like, well, we should go down this naked

1:07:17

crew. And I was like, and he's like, yeah,

1:07:19

don't you- You wouldn't lie about that. And then he was like,

1:07:21

don't you want to like fuck a naked lady? And I was

1:07:23

like, and there was this moment of like, oh wait, I

1:07:26

wasn't part of the equation. I didn't want to- I

1:07:29

didn't want to have sex. I just want to, I want to, this

1:07:31

is a purely, this is like a safari for me. I just need

1:07:33

to see a naked lady. I don't know.

1:07:36

Big game hunting. Yeah, you know, and, and we got out

1:07:38

of there. And I don't know if this guy was going

1:07:40

to rip us off because he wasn't asking us how much

1:07:42

money you have. You know, whatever it was, we were going

1:07:44

to go down an alley with this suspect. Anyway,

1:07:46

we run away from that guy. And,

1:07:49

you know, when we get to this moment,

1:07:51

we get to this thing where

1:07:53

I'm wearing, oh my God, that was crazy.

1:07:55

And as we're sitting there, there's a guy like a

1:07:57

top, top hat and tails, or I feel

1:07:59

like he- he's in some sort of costume like this.

1:08:01

He's like, literally like, he fell as long as he's

1:08:03

a naked lady. Again, there's

1:08:05

again, the city pays off. And-

1:08:08

You should write a book called The Horniest

1:08:10

Secret. Oh gosh. How to manifest naked ladies.

1:08:12

It was the best. And we're like, yeah.

1:08:16

And he was like, come right in inside. And

1:08:18

it was the entrance to this place called

1:08:20

Show World, which is this old, like

1:08:23

used to be like this old, like not even strip club, like porn

1:08:26

emporium. It was like video screens, live shows,

1:08:28

insanity. And we looked at our IDs for

1:08:30

about two seconds. Yep, that works. Great, go

1:08:32

on up. And that was it. And you

1:08:34

know, you don't care if you have money.

1:08:36

We're gonna go spend it on naked ladies,

1:08:38

like go. And what happened? Were you in

1:08:40

one of those rooms where the thing slides

1:08:42

up? Yes. And we went in on

1:08:44

of those things. And you know, and you know- You were

1:08:47

in a jerk booth. And we were like, what is that?

1:08:49

Like we don't know. Three guys from Long Island in a

1:08:51

jerk booth. And then by the time we really like- With

1:08:53

the sneeze guard, but the name first sneeze. And when it

1:08:55

popped up, I was like, whoa,

1:08:57

that's a real person. Like, and it was, that

1:08:59

was shocking. And as soon as you take it

1:09:01

in- That was the original Zoom. Ha ha. What

1:09:04

was that thing that was going on for a little bit of

1:09:06

time? It was like a chat roulette.

1:09:08

Yeah, it was chat roulette. It was

1:09:11

chat roulette IRL. Yes. Boom.

1:09:14

And then by the time we realized it was a

1:09:16

naked lady, the thing went down and it was like

1:09:18

$10 more. And it was like, this is a higher

1:09:20

payment to like game ratio than like a Dragon's Lair.

1:09:23

You know, it was like- Ah, Dragon's Lair, good pull.

1:09:25

Do you think there was a guy going like, taking a look

1:09:27

at you and being like, I bet I can get away with

1:09:29

two seconds. It felt like

1:09:31

it was up for no, like, whoa. So

1:09:35

anyway, like, you know, like, I

1:09:37

would tell that story on the podcast. People would be like, oh

1:09:39

my God, like, you know, and I'd tell

1:09:41

stories like this, or I'd tell these things. And I started

1:09:44

to realize like, oh, my life is different.

1:09:47

Or what I assumed was normal was different. And I

1:09:49

was like, I could, and I could write a book

1:09:52

that's like anecdotes. Just like, oh, like things and funny

1:09:54

things. I said, but I think what the other thing

1:09:56

that people didn't realize, because they

1:09:58

didn't tell them, is that there's

1:10:01

like another side of that, not that

1:10:03

story, but of my story, which is

1:10:05

like, I grew up in this

1:10:07

household with a very abusive

1:10:10

stepfather. And part of the early

1:10:12

part of my life was kind of

1:10:15

surviving that and escaping that with my mom

1:10:17

and kind of dealing with that. And so

1:10:19

the book is, yes,

1:10:21

you got jokes. I gotta tell you a

1:10:23

story about bumping into Christopher Walken, I'll give

1:10:25

you an ode to a minivan, but it's

1:10:27

also this kind of journey of being

1:10:30

this kid who, and

1:10:33

then this out of control situation. And

1:10:35

the way that my family dealt with it was just

1:10:37

kind of like cutting it off.

1:10:40

We don't talk about that. It was never discussed. You don't

1:10:42

talk about Bruno? You don't talk about Bruno. And

1:10:44

we went away from it. And

1:10:47

I think you would appreciate this on some level. It's

1:10:49

like what that

1:10:52

not talking about that did to

1:10:56

me without understanding what that was. You gotta talk about

1:10:58

Bruno. Yeah, you gotta talk about it. I don't know

1:11:00

if you watched the whole movie, but do you definitely

1:11:02

need to talk about it? I watched a majority of

1:11:04

it and then I turned out. They're still saying I

1:11:06

don't. Yeah, I did. I was like, well, they're not

1:11:08

gonna talk about it. Why am I watching? I thought

1:11:10

this was about Bruno. I'm here for like, Wazamo or

1:11:13

better. And then I watched Bruno and I was like,

1:11:15

I don't understand if the two things are late, but

1:11:20

yeah, so I think it was like, you know, for me, it

1:11:23

was just like that was this kind of

1:11:25

push pull of. What flavor of Busy was

1:11:27

he? I know that's kind of a stupid

1:11:29

way of asking Busy. Busy,

1:11:32

no, he was just an

1:11:35

abusive guy. Like,

1:11:37

you know, it's funny as I

1:11:39

talk about this with you in here, I

1:11:42

say things so casually because they were

1:11:44

so natural, but it was like, it

1:11:47

would go from like playing a game

1:11:49

of Monopoly with my stepdad and

1:11:52

then like, you know, he lands on my thing.

1:11:54

I'm like, oh, that's 250 bucks. And

1:11:56

he would just start choking me, like

1:11:59

just straight up. choking me and like, how much,

1:12:01

and how much, you know, and it's like, and

1:12:03

you've been holding my throat and I can't breathe

1:12:05

and, you know, and dropping me in the chair.

1:12:07

I'm like, nothing, nothing. I was like, okay, that's

1:12:09

what I thought. Like that kind of like,

1:12:11

on the- The shakedown of Monopoly rent? Yeah, I

1:12:14

mean, that's like, it could be- That's horrible and

1:12:16

I want to acknowledge that. Also like, how much

1:12:18

do people hate Monopoly? I mean, like this is,

1:12:20

but like, but also how good at Monopoly was

1:12:22

I that, you know, boom. There you go, I

1:12:24

know how to get that money. You put those

1:12:26

hotels there for a reason, people. Like the purple

1:12:29

ones get Baltic. That is horrible. I

1:12:31

fucking hate it. No, but it's like, thank

1:12:34

you. But it was like, you know, and it's, it's hard

1:12:36

to be like, I don't want to sensationalize that part of

1:12:38

my life, but it's a part of my life that

1:12:40

was, you know, I think that

1:12:42

I really wrestled with wanting to

1:12:45

have kids. And then

1:12:47

also looking

1:12:49

back on now that I am a parent, I'm like, oh,

1:12:52

that's really fucked up. Oh yeah. Like as a kid, it

1:12:54

was like, oh, that's just him. He was kind of a

1:12:56

crazy guy. I want to say not just

1:12:59

to validate you, but to validate all

1:13:01

of us. It's like going back and

1:13:03

unpacking your stuff and the

1:13:05

value of going like, I'll tell,

1:13:07

I'm just going to jump to the punchline. Alain Duboutin,

1:13:09

who I love, Alan Day Button. I don't know how

1:13:11

to say it. He said you

1:13:14

can gauge a person's mental

1:13:16

health by how badly they

1:13:18

want to be famous. Like

1:13:20

their damage. And I was, when I heard him say

1:13:22

that, I was like, oh my God, my whole life

1:13:24

I wanted to be famous. And then you'd think I'd

1:13:26

be haunted by that. I was just like, you

1:13:29

see me. I knew it was fucking hard. I

1:13:32

knew it wasn't fucking normal. So when you're

1:13:34

going back and finding these, you're

1:13:36

not just like licking your wounds or

1:13:38

making a spectacle of it. There's so

1:13:41

much value and it's necessary value and

1:13:43

going like, do you guys see this?

1:13:46

My stepdad choked me and people will go,

1:13:49

that happened to me. I relate. Yeah.

1:13:52

I'm with you. And how you feel adult

1:13:54

grown Paul is normal. This is no joke.

1:13:56

Like healing your inner child is no joke.

1:13:58

And it's a gift. you can give the

1:14:00

world. And well, you know, it's like, to

1:14:02

me, it's the thing that I've always found

1:14:05

to be the most important

1:14:08

thing, and this goes back to what we

1:14:10

were saying earlier, is the community. Who

1:14:12

do you find, who can you talk to? And it

1:14:15

could be small things. You know, it can be these

1:14:17

little details that, oh,

1:14:19

that, you see somebody else

1:14:21

just do something, and then you're like, oh, or

1:14:23

you read this quote, or you see this thing,

1:14:26

and it just starts to make you think differently.

1:14:30

Part of this thing was like, by not

1:14:33

sharing this with anybody

1:14:35

until I was like in my mid-20s. And

1:14:38

even at that point, I was, I have a real, I

1:14:40

have a shame, right? Yeah, but I think, but it's funny,

1:14:42

it's like, it's shame because, how

1:14:44

could, how dare we bid it?

1:14:46

How stupid were we that we put ourselves in

1:14:48

this position? But it's not like, it has

1:14:50

no, it's like,

1:14:53

well, yeah, but you were the victim there. Like,

1:14:55

it's like, it's a very weird thing. And was

1:14:57

it also like thinking this was happening

1:14:59

to other people? I don't remember

1:15:01

what I was thinking. Like, my parents weren't physically abusive, but

1:15:04

there was a lot of fighting, and it was every day.

1:15:06

And I think I was just like, that's

1:15:08

it. Is that normal? I

1:15:10

never even questioned it was normal. I was like,

1:15:12

it was normal. That's what my life was. Like,

1:15:14

it wasn't, and yes, maybe some kids didn't have

1:15:17

that, but it's like, there's tools that you have

1:15:19

as a child, or there's a lack

1:15:21

of tools that you have, foresight

1:15:23

and context. And if you

1:15:25

relate to this, I would watch Full House, and

1:15:28

if the kid went up to their room, and then Danny

1:15:30

Tanner would come up and sit on the edge of the

1:15:32

bed and be like, what's wrong with, not Michelle, it would

1:15:34

be Stephanie or somebody. I'd be like,

1:15:37

get the fuck outta here. I

1:15:39

was like, what is this, on the Sci-Fi

1:15:41

network? I mean, yeah, like

1:15:43

I think, well, you know what's so funny? I tell the

1:15:46

story. That's when you put on a weird L tape. Yeah,

1:15:49

you go up to your room, and like, I remember my

1:15:51

parents would be like, my

1:15:53

mom would say, like, get, go,

1:15:56

get outta the house, because it's not a

1:15:58

good time. And I'd have to like, Basically

1:16:01

like couch surf, but be at

1:16:03

like, knock on my friend's door and be like, hey,

1:16:05

can I hang out and play? And it's like, uh,

1:16:08

sure I get. You know, it's

1:16:10

like, I'm fighting. How many DVDs

1:16:12

of the Criterion Collection do you

1:16:14

have? Like you inviting yourself over.

1:16:16

Yes. You know, but I think. Those

1:16:18

kids needed help. We thought they were

1:16:20

just the weird neighbor boys. I know, and they were

1:16:23

getting out of a bad situation. And I think that

1:16:25

that's like this weird thing of, like

1:16:28

I've realized it just doesn't help. Like, and look, and that's one,

1:16:30

and again, this is like slices. It's all

1:16:32

these like, and this book is really like about

1:16:35

like acknowledging that and taking care

1:16:37

of that inner child, but also like it's,

1:16:39

it's making it, it's like, how do

1:16:42

you integrate that into you? So it's

1:16:44

joyful. The book is called Joyful Recollections of Trauma.

1:16:46

It's like, yeah, these are, I can look back

1:16:48

on this in a loving way, I mean, in

1:16:50

a crazy way, and there's victories in those times

1:16:52

and there's, you know, and again, it's not, it's

1:16:54

not all heavy, but it's like, it

1:16:57

is like this idea of like going like,

1:16:59

how do you, like talking about this stuff, that's,

1:17:01

it is a little, like, it's

1:17:04

what maybe people don't want to talk about

1:17:06

all the time too, but it's also something

1:17:08

that people can maybe identify with. Well, I

1:17:10

was curious why it's joyful recollections. Cause I

1:17:12

think there was like victories in those moments,

1:17:14

like who I became in those. Well, you

1:17:16

got that rent eventually. Yeah, I got, I

1:17:18

got in there. And with juice. But

1:17:21

like, you know, like there's moments like where it's like

1:17:23

as a kid, when you're fighting

1:17:25

an adult, like there's a

1:17:27

great, there's a great, there's a story

1:17:29

in my book about a home invasion that

1:17:31

I like lived through. When I was a

1:17:33

kid, this guy was trying to collect money

1:17:35

from my stepdad. And basically when I was

1:17:37

home- You mean like gambling money? I

1:17:40

don't even know to what, but not gambling.

1:17:42

But they knew each other. Yes, they knew each other.

1:17:44

And he would've owed him money. I would've money on

1:17:46

some, whatever it was, you know, again, and that's the

1:17:48

other, that's the biggest- Everybody's collecting from this guy. We

1:17:50

got it. We got it. We got it

1:17:52

there on Park Place. Get that money. And you know how

1:17:54

he feels about it. You're like, I don't

1:17:57

know if this is gonna go well. It's really weird. Milton

1:17:59

Bradley does not- I don't wanna sponsor the book, I

1:18:01

don't know why. Let me

1:18:03

put you in touch with the Parker brothers. I

1:18:06

think what was interesting was like, you,

1:18:08

like I was living

1:18:10

through this moment where it was just like a

1:18:12

normal day and this guy's like trying to break

1:18:14

into our house because he's convinced that

1:18:17

my stepfather is home, right?

1:18:19

And he's like, I'm gonna- Oh wait, so you answer

1:18:22

the door? But I

1:18:24

don't open it, but I'm like, no

1:18:27

one's home, right? Did he bang in the

1:18:29

style? Oh yeah, I mean, it was like,

1:18:32

I mean, well, he started climbing through a

1:18:34

window and you know, and I'm fighting- When

1:18:36

go first? After this is like a whole

1:18:38

long battle. Battle, no, I never opened. Oh,

1:18:42

you yell through? I yell through,

1:18:44

well, I mean, I'll tell you the whole story.

1:18:46

So basically- Couldn't be more interesting. All right, well

1:18:48

then I'll tell you that. So basically I wake

1:18:52

up because I'm now, it's summer break. I

1:18:54

don't have to go to camp, a beautiful

1:18:56

respite for me. I hated camp, I hated doing athletic

1:18:59

things. Put me at home, let

1:19:01

me watch TV, eat cereal

1:19:03

at all hours. Like, yeah, do

1:19:05

it my way, comic books all

1:19:08

day. So

1:19:10

it's probably like 10 or 11, I don't know. I'm sleeping in.

1:19:14

Yeah, you're sleeping in the bookie hours. Exactly, that's

1:19:16

it. You know, that nighttime is where I'm alive.

1:19:19

That's my ninth to five. So this knock comes

1:19:21

at the door and I bolt up out of

1:19:23

bed. I'm like, oh my God, I run downstairs.

1:19:27

And I see this guy out on

1:19:29

our front, I

1:19:33

can see him through a window, like, okay, this

1:19:35

is like a crazy beardo out there. He's got

1:19:37

some, he's big, he's got this beard, he's banging

1:19:39

on the door and I'm like, I'm not going

1:19:42

to answer this. I'm

1:19:44

just gonna, no one's home. Because the one rule my

1:19:46

parents gave me was like, if you're gonna stay home

1:19:48

alone, you never open the door. I

1:19:50

was like, got it. That's the rule, I can follow that rule.

1:19:53

So he's knocking, knocking on, but now I'm

1:19:55

like, I am afraid. I'm like, kind of like hanging out in my

1:19:57

house. I'm like, I don't want him to see going

1:20:00

on or lights are going on. It's the knock at the cabin.

1:20:02

I didn't see, but. You gotta make a choice.

1:20:04

You gotta, I mean look, this is the thing. June and I

1:20:06

talk about knock at the cabin all the time. If someone came,

1:20:08

I said to June, I would kill

1:20:10

myself. That's basically what they say. They say one

1:20:12

of you has to kill yourselves. He is a husband,

1:20:14

wife, two kids. One of you has gotta.

1:20:17

That's the plot of the knock at the cabin? And

1:20:19

it's like who's gonna do what? Well,

1:20:21

I should kill myself. I have to kill myself. It would have

1:20:23

to be me. I'd have to kill myself. Of course you'd kill

1:20:26

yourself. But that movie does make it that simple. Why?

1:20:29

Infidelity. I think it's sort of like, ah, well maybe

1:20:31

I should live. Maybe the kids, we could have another

1:20:34

kid. I can hold both the kids at

1:20:36

once. Hey, you know, look, I think the other thing is

1:20:38

like. That would be like a vine.

1:20:40

Yeah. That was my favorite. Like done.

1:20:42

One of you has to kill you. Pshh.

1:20:44

Yeah, get out of it. Before I even explain. By the way,

1:20:47

like let me get out of the trauma of this. Like I

1:20:49

don't need to deal with the after effects of like whoever lived.

1:20:51

Yeah. You know. So. Just

1:20:53

covering myself with a tarp. And I got, give it a go. One,

1:20:56

two, three. Make it simple. But

1:20:59

so, you know, we're kind of like playing this Russian

1:21:01

roulette game and I peek up my

1:21:03

head and I see him out the window. And I

1:21:05

started seeing him pacing around the house. And

1:21:08

I know that we have a back door to

1:21:11

our house. That was always open. And

1:21:13

it was like this. We had like an outdoor

1:21:16

patio. So it was like, you

1:21:18

know, like shitty fake carpet, outdoor patio. And

1:21:20

then that led into the house. And

1:21:23

as he starts walking around the house, I'm like, oh my God, he's

1:21:25

going to the back. He's gonna see if it's in the back door.

1:21:27

So I run to the back of the house and we have a

1:21:29

small house, but you know, I'm running there and

1:21:32

I go to lock the door. And as I get there,

1:21:34

he gets to the door at the same exact time, but

1:21:36

I lock it. And now we're

1:21:38

only separated by a glass

1:21:41

door, a glass sliding door. So you can see

1:21:43

him. He's like, somebody's home and I freak out.

1:21:45

I'm like, no, no, no one's home. No one's

1:21:47

home. I say the thing that I'm not supposed

1:21:49

to say. And he's like, I know

1:21:51

you're lying. And you know, he starts banging on that door.

1:21:53

And I'm like, this is going to break. And I don't

1:21:55

know what to do. So we had like

1:21:57

one of those Venetian blinds. I'm just like, cranking. Crank

1:22:00

cranks are like all of a sudden the blinds are

1:22:02

going clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk and

1:22:04

then I'm like, and you stop banging it like turning

1:22:06

it so it's like shh shh you

1:22:09

know, separating myself from this insane What if

1:22:11

it worked? Ah! Where did he go? Where

1:22:13

did he go? You know, so I

1:22:15

was like, oh gosh, you know, so now I'm like, well, at

1:22:17

least I've, all right, now I've locked

1:22:19

both doors. He can't get in. He knows I'm home.

1:22:22

He thinks I'm lying. And then

1:22:24

I realized the only, you know, I'm like,

1:22:27

now I need to arm myself because now

1:22:29

I, you know, I like just in case

1:22:31

and I had had this, I

1:22:33

was, you know, I had weapons all around the

1:22:35

house, my own weapons, kid weapons, but

1:22:38

one of the kid weapons I- You had a kid weapon? Well,

1:22:40

like, you know, like, you'd like, oh, this is my sword. This

1:22:42

is my thing. You know, like, you know, like not in real-

1:22:44

I don't know why it was so incredulous. I had nunchucks. Yeah,

1:22:46

of course. I had a gun. Yeah, you know,

1:22:48

so I, I was a ninja one year and my parents had

1:22:50

got me like a wooden sword. It was like a, almost like

1:22:52

a martial arts practice sword.

1:22:54

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so

1:22:57

I grabbed that. And then I think

1:22:59

he's gone. And

1:23:02

then I hear a crash. And I'm like,

1:23:04

oh my God. I knew that

1:23:06

by our front door, there's a window and the window goes

1:23:08

into the laundry room. And the laundry room, that was how

1:23:10

I used to break into my own house. I was like,

1:23:12

oh, if you pop out that window, you

1:23:14

pop out the screen, open up the window, you can get

1:23:16

into the laundry room. I'm a small kid. I could just

1:23:18

climb through the thing. And it was always kind of hilarious

1:23:20

because you'd like kind of roll into a bunch of laundry.

1:23:23

Kind of. I loved it. And by

1:23:25

the way, I would do that when I had my key.

1:23:28

I just was like, it was the best thing at all.

1:23:30

But I don't know. It's funny, all kids know how to

1:23:32

break into their own house. They have to. Isn't that crazy?

1:23:34

Yeah, it's the best. And so I knew that and I

1:23:36

knew he was heading there. And now I'm a

1:23:38

little kid, so I could go through that window with ease.

1:23:43

Beardo, Beardo a little bit bigger. So

1:23:45

he gets through and he's like

1:23:47

Winnie the Pooh, he's stuck halfway in,

1:23:49

halfway out of my house. He's like, he's mounted

1:23:52

on your wall. He's like mounted in the laundry.

1:23:55

And I had that sword and I

1:23:57

come into that room and I'm like,

1:23:59

yeah. You start John Wicking

1:24:01

him? Yeah, because I'm like, this is

1:24:03

a man trying to break into my

1:24:06

fucking house. No, I endorse it. Yeah,

1:24:08

you know. Castle law. And

1:24:10

so he's trying to grab it and I get one crack

1:24:13

at his head, where it was like,

1:24:15

you know, wood, sword, on

1:24:18

head, like, crack. And you were

1:24:20

like, and that was the

1:24:22

moment I give up. I

1:24:25

hit him that hard. He was like, and

1:24:28

I take off out the back door

1:24:30

of my house to run to my next door

1:24:33

neighbor to see if they will help me. And

1:24:35

you know, the next door neighbor called the cops.

1:24:37

You left the patio back door unlocked. I did.

1:24:40

At that point, I was just like, I got the fuck out of there, you

1:24:42

know, and they know what? Why am I siding with

1:24:44

the house? I got out of there. I got out of there.

1:24:46

Small boy. I look, it's like, what could he do in the

1:24:48

house? Who cares? You know, at that point, I'm

1:24:51

not thinking about the house. So I get to the, you know, by

1:24:53

my question. But Paul, protect the house.

1:24:55

But now you didn't lock that door, huh? Interesting.

1:24:57

Well, and anyway, that's why you have that as

1:25:00

simply safe, simply safe. But

1:25:03

the, you know, so I run to my neighbor and you

1:25:06

know, and my mom's still at work. My mom can't come home. And

1:25:09

he left. He had taken off. He basically got

1:25:11

hit in the head with my sword. I think

1:25:13

he left. Did you yell yield

1:25:15

before you hit him? I wish. I would

1:25:18

like show gone. As you

1:25:20

would sort of him. Oh my gosh. I just

1:25:22

brought my kids to London. We were doing

1:25:24

some, how did this get made there? And we

1:25:26

went to go see the changing of the guard.

1:25:28

And the whole night before we showed them videos

1:25:30

of people fucking with the, the Queen's guard. They're

1:25:33

like, make way for the Queen's guard. And they,

1:25:36

and they will run over man, woman, child.

1:25:38

They do not care. It's like, if you are

1:25:40

in front of them, they will,

1:25:43

they will walk through you. And my kids were so

1:25:45

frightened. If the Queen is on the way? No.

1:25:50

Anytime. What do you mean? Okay. There

1:25:52

are plenty of videos online where you watch

1:25:54

people fucking with the Queen's guard whenever they're

1:25:56

doing anything. It's like, cause they're not

1:25:58

allowed to break. They can, they

1:26:00

can, they're like antifallen. They never break. Antifallen.

1:26:04

They're in there. We are here

1:26:06

to train you to be certified

1:26:08

antifallen. You will not break.

1:26:11

They, they, this, this thing with the queen's

1:26:13

guards is like, they are,

1:26:16

what I think about it is it's pent up

1:26:18

aggression from being fucked with and not being able

1:26:20

to do anything is there's like, if I start

1:26:23

to walk and you are in my way,

1:26:25

I do not move for you,

1:26:27

you move for me. So I will yell make way

1:26:29

for the queen's guard. If you do not make way

1:26:31

for the queen's guard, I will then walk

1:26:33

over you. Watch these videos online. There

1:26:36

are plenty of them. They just trample

1:26:38

you trample you. Like they're not,

1:26:40

you know, where are they going? They're doing their little

1:26:42

trot. They could, they could be like, I'm waiting.

1:26:44

They're allowed to just go like, I'm going for a

1:26:47

stroll. They are. No, they, they

1:26:49

have their like little routine routine. They're

1:26:51

swapping positions. Yeah. Right. It's like they're

1:26:53

on guard, but like because they can't

1:26:55

move. What you will see, or at least

1:26:57

is what I learned is like to move,

1:27:00

to have a scratch on your leg, you might say,

1:27:02

all right, now I'm going to walk out and I'm

1:27:04

going to walk down and I'm going to walk back.

1:27:06

And you know, it's like they can't move. So they

1:27:08

are, they, uh, scratch the leg or whatever they need

1:27:10

to do. It's like, that's how they are. So they

1:27:13

are creating their own. Whatever,

1:27:15

you know, they're going to trail out some of the

1:27:17

dirt from the hole in your cell that you're digging.

1:27:19

Shawshank style. You just kind of just shake it

1:27:21

out. I knew you would get that. Oh, of

1:27:23

course. Shawshank,

1:27:26

which I call the, uh, the Bud Light

1:27:28

of movies. It's fine.

1:27:32

Fine. And you know, it's no one can make

1:27:34

a big deal of it. It's like pizza. It's

1:27:36

like, it's good. I disagree. It's Shawshank. It's

1:27:38

a, but it's like Shawshank now maybe

1:27:40

Bud Light Shawshank. When it came out, we were

1:27:42

like, I just feel like it's like one of those

1:27:45

movies where it's like, Oh, wow. Yeah.

1:27:47

Humanity. It's like, yeah, this

1:27:49

is not a crazy idea that we're showing in this

1:27:52

movie. Talk about a guy who might be guilty. I

1:27:54

think that guy might be guilty. You think Andy did

1:27:56

it? I think it might've been. You think Dufresne did

1:27:58

it? Maybe. Hot take. Hey. Hot. Listen

1:28:00

to my podcast. There's a couple things that I remember on the

1:28:02

show. Do frame files. One

1:28:07

that it showed prison assault,

1:28:09

sexual assault. That was shocking.

1:28:11

This is like pre-Oz. Oh

1:28:14

yeah. Way pre-Oz. And I

1:28:16

remember being like, they're gonna like talk about

1:28:18

that. By the way, this is something I'm

1:28:20

immune to because in my book, just

1:28:23

only because you bring this up, one of the

1:28:25

big threats that my stepfather would give me was if I

1:28:27

made a mistake, I would go to prison and be raped.

1:28:30

And I didn't understand what that was. So

1:28:32

like rape in prison was like, so maybe

1:28:35

I didn't even take in that Shawshank rape.

1:28:37

I was like, yep, that checks out. Just

1:28:39

like my stepdad said. That's the way they

1:28:41

do it. They're gonna fuck you. I

1:28:44

didn't even know what rape was, but I was like, this is, I'm ready

1:28:46

for it. I'm ready for Shawshank. Where is he

1:28:48

now? I know where he is.

1:28:50

How did he get made? I

1:28:54

just washed my hair with shampoo. And I

1:28:56

just washed my hair with modern mammals, which is why it

1:28:58

doesn't look like a bale of hay you just took out

1:29:00

of the microwave. Hey. Exactly. Modern

1:29:03

mammals washes your hair, but it leaves the

1:29:05

natural oils you need for it to look

1:29:07

perfect and in control. Wait, but it's not

1:29:09

a shampoo? It's like a shampoo, but it's,

1:29:11

it's like a non shampoo shampoo. But it cleans

1:29:13

your hair. Like shampoo. But

1:29:15

not shampoo. Because it won't dry it out.

1:29:18

Like a shampoo. A non shampoo shampoo that'll

1:29:20

clean your hair like shampoo, but won't dry

1:29:22

it out like shampoo. Shampoo.

1:29:24

I think that's good. I'm gonna wear a

1:29:27

new slogan. Thank you. It's probably too many

1:29:29

words. Modern mammals, a non shampoo shampoo that'll

1:29:31

clean your hair like shampoo, but won't dry

1:29:33

it out like shampoo. Shampoo.

1:29:36

That really scared me. I

1:29:39

have a lot of power here. I

1:29:41

can see that. Can you make me taller?

1:29:45

I'm here for hair stuff only. Okay.

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1:32:25

right, back to the show. Oh wait, let me just finish. I'll

1:32:27

put a cap on the story and just say that. The

1:32:29

craziest thing was, you know, see the guy was gone, the

1:32:31

cops came, they're like, okay, well, yeah, he's

1:32:34

gone. And then I just went

1:32:36

back to my house and spent

1:32:38

the rest of the day there. With

1:32:40

the broken window. With the broken window, well yeah,

1:32:42

with the broken window and put the laundry room

1:32:45

back together and when my parents came home, there

1:32:47

was this energy of like, well, you're fine. And

1:32:50

I'm like, and you're talking about the full house moment of it all.

1:32:52

I was like, yeah, I am

1:32:54

fine. And right, I'm fine.

1:32:56

And it's like, there was no time, like

1:32:59

it wasn't hurt, didn't have a broken arm,

1:33:01

didn't have, like wasn't, you know, there was

1:33:03

no understanding of emotional hurt. Right, and like

1:33:05

where that could be a scary thing as

1:33:09

like- The place you slept was Winnie the Pooh'd.

1:33:11

Yeah, exactly. And like that, and that kind of

1:33:13

like, but again, it was like, oh

1:33:16

right, why am I complaining about this? It's,

1:33:18

you know, and that's the thing, where it's

1:33:20

like as a kid, you go, oh right, there's

1:33:22

no, right, I'm fine,

1:33:24

I'm fine. I hate it. But I

1:33:26

mean, but that being said, rape

1:33:30

in prison is, you know, an epidemic that

1:33:32

we've got to understand through Shawshank. I tried

1:33:35

to do a bit about that, where the

1:33:37

whole premise of the bit was why are

1:33:39

we okay with that? I really don't understand.

1:33:41

Like, yeah, don't drop yourself, why is that

1:33:43

like, I've made this point a million. Because

1:33:45

I think there's no humanity for criminals, right?

1:33:48

And in the joke, look,

1:33:50

it's more of a point. I didn't like doing it, because

1:33:52

I didn't like saying the R, that word

1:33:55

on the stage over and over. But I was like,

1:33:58

you know, we did, we looked the other way, because

1:34:00

we're like, it's part of the sentence. I'm like, then

1:34:02

make the judge do it. Like the judge decree how

1:34:05

often it should happen. But then I also go like. But

1:34:07

that's a humiliating thing to be like, that's

1:34:09

what you deserve. No, that's not what you

1:34:11

deserve. Also, you go, how many assaults for

1:34:14

fraud? But I didn't say assaults.

1:34:16

And I go, how many assaults for this? How many assaults for that?

1:34:18

And then I would go, I read a

1:34:20

story, and this is true, about a guy who

1:34:22

had two glasses of wine with lunch, drove home,

1:34:24

got T-boned by a drunk driver, his car was

1:34:26

sent into a construction site, killed a construction worker,

1:34:29

so that's a city worker. He was over the

1:34:31

legal limit, two glasses of wine, not a big

1:34:33

lunch, I guess. I don't know

1:34:35

if that's true, the fallacy of food or whatever, but he was

1:34:37

over the legal limit. He

1:34:40

gets sentenced to manslaughter, and

1:34:42

drunken manslaughter is like murder.

1:34:46

So he goes to prison for whatever, 30 years. I

1:34:49

go, who here hasn't had two glasses of wine

1:34:51

and driven a car? And everyone

1:34:53

applauds. And I go, how many assaults

1:34:55

for you? I

1:34:57

mean, that's a. How many assaults for us?

1:35:00

Yeah, right? That's us, but

1:35:02

it's not funny. It isn't, but it

1:35:06

is a true point. It's a good point. It's a good

1:35:08

point, I know. It's a soapbox moment. I will tell you

1:35:10

the joke that I could never get to work as a

1:35:12

standup, and that's probably because I'm not a good standup. I

1:35:15

had to do standup when we were touring for the league.

1:35:18

So I would work, and I had like 10 minutes of it.

1:35:20

My dude, Klaus, screamed at me. Said,

1:35:22

you get out there and you do a tight five. I was

1:35:24

like, oh, I gotta do this for the material. Do it! Don't

1:35:27

make me wake up, Jay! This is a

1:35:29

joke that I feel like I can never

1:35:32

quite articulate why I

1:35:34

think it's so funny, but I do.

1:35:37

M&M commercials. You

1:35:39

have these two M&Ms talking, and often

1:35:41

the backdrop is a bowl of M&Ms,

1:35:45

and they're not talking. And people

1:35:47

are eating those M&Ms, and

1:35:49

they're okay with it. And I'm like, are they

1:35:51

kind of like, have they sold out their brothers

1:35:53

and sisters of M&Mhood? Or

1:35:56

are they special sentient M&Ms? I

1:35:58

don't even know, like there's a part of it. Maybe they would wake

1:36:00

up these M&Ms and give them the gift. This is

1:36:02

what I was like, I'm like, you're either okay with

1:36:05

this, and this is a word that

1:36:07

I probably shouldn't use, but I

1:36:09

was like this M&M Holocaust that's happening where people

1:36:11

are just, you know, hot housing

1:36:13

your friends, and you're just having a conversation about,

1:36:16

hey, you look kind of crazy, yeah, I'm purple.

1:36:18

You guys are like, hey, hey, you friends are

1:36:20

being murdered behind you. Johnny!

1:36:24

How could you? The original zone

1:36:26

of interest are those M&Ms commercials. Here's

1:36:29

how I would do that, then. It

1:36:31

would be like, their friends are being massacred

1:36:33

behind them. Those ads should be like this,

1:36:35

hey, green M&M, how are you? Johnny! No!

1:36:41

But seriously, are you the one that makes

1:36:43

me horny? No, Danny!

1:36:47

Then it's just yelling. Now you're in

1:36:49

the pocket. Now you're in the pocket.

1:36:51

So the same thing is when you

1:36:53

go to a barbecue joint and the mascot

1:36:55

is a cow. Let

1:36:58

me move you to your table. Well,

1:37:00

that's why I love the idea of

1:37:02

the cow as the mascot for Chick-fil-A,

1:37:04

scandal noted. Is that

1:37:07

a scandal? Chick-fil-A, yeah. They're anti-gay,

1:37:09

everything. Oh,

1:37:11

okay, I thought there was a new one. Oh, no,

1:37:13

no. Anti-gay, meow. I'm just kidding,

1:37:15

that's horrible. But I've known, I knew about

1:37:17

that. But with the

1:37:20

Chick-fil-A, that makes sense. It's

1:37:22

a cow, he's making crudely made

1:37:24

signs saying eat more chicken. And he's

1:37:26

excited. He's selling out. No, he's

1:37:28

not selling out. He's selling out the chickens.

1:37:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. And he supposes

1:37:32

that the cows and chickens, like dwarves and

1:37:35

elves, don't like each other. I think it's

1:37:37

even less about that. I think he's like,

1:37:39

hey, people, I need to

1:37:41

live. It is less

1:37:43

about, it's like, you're- But the reality

1:37:45

is that cow is gonna be slaughtered

1:37:48

and he's gonna die a turncoat

1:37:50

to his animal brothers. Right.

1:37:53

This is one of the weird things, it's like, yeah,

1:37:55

we will eat more chicken. That's a good idea. It's

1:37:57

not like he's gonna be spared. When they're at the

1:37:59

slaughterhouse- They're not like, a lot of people have chin. Let

1:38:02

25 cows go. They

1:38:06

got, it's like the fucking golden ticket.

1:38:09

You're free. I, yeah,

1:38:11

I guess you're right. I guess like there's a

1:38:14

part of him, it's like, he's just, like he's

1:38:16

doing the Lord's work. He's like, God, I'm gonna

1:38:18

get out here. I'm just gonna get as many

1:38:20

people as I can to just, if

1:38:22

I save a couple cows lives, or if

1:38:24

I live an extra day, if I can

1:38:26

make another sign. He's thinking long term. It's

1:38:29

really dark what we're riffing on, because like, the only

1:38:32

way you would save animals lives is if they didn't

1:38:34

breed them. Because once they're, once they exist. He's

1:38:37

doing, is he doing Benini in

1:38:40

the, what's that

1:38:43

Benini movie, the Holocaust movie

1:38:45

that Benini was in? Oh, Life is

1:38:47

Beautiful. Like is he like, hey, hey,

1:38:49

hey. Yeah, it's kinda like that. Or

1:38:51

is he more, to your point, the

1:38:53

barbecue mascot, who is like, hey, hey,

1:38:55

come to your seat. They

1:38:57

let me work inside the house. It's the

1:38:59

most obvious comparison, but if there were an

1:39:01

alien species that were eating us, and we

1:39:03

went to that planet, and the mascot was

1:39:05

like, come to Petey Burger. And

1:39:07

like, then you can go in and eat me. It's

1:39:10

fucking dark as shit. Where are

1:39:13

you on your spiritual

1:39:15

flavors these days? You

1:39:17

had kids. I had kids. You were

1:39:19

in the movie, the disaster artist, scandal

1:39:21

noted, sorry buddy. Scandal noted. Scandal noted.

1:39:23

Sorry buddy. The,

1:39:27

you know, my spiritual journey, I actually write about this

1:39:29

in the book too. I talk a lot, you know,

1:39:31

I came up in a very Catholic household and came

1:39:33

up in as a very, we became

1:39:35

born again Christians for a bit.

1:39:37

Wait, your stepfather? Yeah, we were

1:39:40

like in this thing where it

1:39:42

was like. Spiritual trauma is so

1:39:44

fucking, look, all trauma is brutal.

1:39:47

But to me as someone who loves whatever

1:39:50

you wanna call it, the Lord. When

1:39:53

it gets all mixed up with that, it's

1:39:55

like this gift, it's like your birthright is

1:39:57

to recognize from where I'm from. Yeah. is

1:40:00

to recognize some connection to

1:40:02

a place in the universe. And when that

1:40:04

gets married to your abuser, as

1:40:07

it so often does, unfortunately, it's

1:40:09

like double trauma or whatever you wanna call

1:40:12

it. It's sad. You know, it's interesting. I

1:40:14

was in Catholic

1:40:16

school. So I would have like

1:40:18

a mass once a week,

1:40:21

or some sort of assembly mass

1:40:24

feeling. And then my

1:40:26

dad is a Catholic and we go to Roman Catholic

1:40:29

mass, like that 45 minute in and out, get your

1:40:31

communion and go home. You know, very bang, bang, boom,

1:40:33

boom, bang. Five, yeah, Saturday, five o'clock. We're home at

1:40:35

5.30. Let's go to a movie. Love your neighbor. Get

1:40:37

the fuck outta here. Hey, go to Ponderosa. Salmon on

1:40:39

the mound. How about half the salmon on the mound?

1:40:41

Get the fuck outta here. Hey, and

1:40:44

then, and

1:40:46

then Sundays we would go to this born again church and that

1:40:48

would be like a four hour event. So there

1:40:50

was a period of my life where I was going to church

1:40:53

for like upwards of like six to seven hours a

1:40:55

week, in which I understand people. You

1:40:57

didn't even like. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, like, I

1:41:00

mean, that was even, and that was, and that's kind of

1:41:02

the joke of this, not the joke, but one of the

1:41:04

things too, it's like, yes, I can tell you about this

1:41:06

abuser and tell you I had this experience, but it

1:41:08

was also my stepdad. It was like, that's just, it wasn't

1:41:11

even, I wasn't like active, like, oh, I hate him. I

1:41:13

can't wait to get out of here. It was like, oh,

1:41:15

that's also the guy who, yeah, he's also a person in

1:41:17

my life, a daily, you know, it's like, it's a sort

1:41:19

of like, that's the hard thing to kind of discuss

1:41:22

with all this sort of stuff. It's the cognitive

1:41:24

dissonance. Yeah. I mean, I was talking

1:41:27

to you a PB and J one day. And choking you

1:41:29

out the neck. Choking you out the neck. But I think,

1:41:31

you know, for me, it was, you know, we've talked about

1:41:33

this, you know, the spiritual nature of like, I

1:41:36

wrestled with that a long time, you know, of what

1:41:38

do I want? You know, I've come from this very

1:41:40

structured, you

1:41:42

know, religion is this, and this is, and you're bad if you

1:41:44

do this, and you can't think this one, you can't do this.

1:41:47

So for me, it was like trying to figure out what

1:41:50

I wanted my own spirituality

1:41:52

to be. And that's

1:41:55

something that really

1:41:57

solidified for me when my

1:41:59

first son, I was born and everyone's like,

1:42:01

oh, you're gonna baptize him? You're gonna baptize him? And

1:42:04

that felt to me disingenuous. I was like,

1:42:06

I don't wanna baptize

1:42:08

my kid because I'm not going to a church. And

1:42:10

I know a lot of people, they go to church

1:42:13

on Easter, they go to church on Christmas and they,

1:42:15

you know, and it just feels

1:42:17

like, well, what are you doing? Like, who are

1:42:19

you fooling, right? Like, I mean, like, oh, well,

1:42:21

he took all on Easter. And it's like, it's

1:42:23

like, it's like, there's a separate God for those

1:42:25

people. Yeah, it's like- There's like the real God,

1:42:27

and then there's the God that's like, hey, okay!

1:42:29

There's like, he's the party loose God. I

1:42:32

love Rory Scoville's latest special, religion, sex,

1:42:34

and a couple other things, I think

1:42:36

it's called. And he does- Oh, I

1:42:38

haven't seen him yet. Oh, it's great. I know some

1:42:40

of those bits because I saw him do them live.

1:42:43

Oh, it's, but he doesn't, oh, go ahead, go ahead.

1:42:45

No, no. One of the bits is like, like does

1:42:47

God care who gets dressed up for church? Like, it's this whole

1:42:49

bit about like, well, you gotta wear your nice clothes when you

1:42:51

go to church. You gotta wear your nice clothes. It's like, yeah,

1:42:53

it's like, oh yeah, you gotta wear my nice clothes. Like, why?

1:42:55

Yeah. Like, what's going on? It's like,

1:42:57

what's happening here? I love it. I also,

1:43:00

the line where he goes, I love people that

1:43:02

are smart enough to know that God isn't a

1:43:04

man, but stupid enough to think he's a woman.

1:43:06

You're almost there. You're almost there. It's like, it's

1:43:08

a- You're so close! It's like, they- You're

1:43:11

so close! He does that joke, and again, we're just telling all

1:43:13

the jokes, especially when he's like, it's

1:43:15

like, oh, like- Andrew, the name

1:43:17

of the disciples. Oh, that's such a, but he's

1:43:19

like the bumper sticker. It's like, on

1:43:22

the first day, God created man, and then

1:43:25

he had a better idea. It's

1:43:28

like, wait, and he? It's like, yes,

1:43:30

I can't, I can't, I can't. All

1:43:34

of that stuff. It's so funny. But

1:43:36

anyway- Factisms. Oh, you felt like

1:43:38

you didn't want to be with the party loose, God.

1:43:40

Yeah, well, I just, yeah, it was like- Hey, Paul,

1:43:42

thanks for making an effort. Yeah, it's like, what am I

1:43:45

doing here? It's like, I didn't want to do that, and I didn't want

1:43:47

to like, so my father-in-law,

1:43:50

who is a very religious man, and a lovely

1:43:52

man, he was like, can I baptize your

1:43:54

son? Like, just in the tub? He's

1:43:56

like, in the backyard. We'll do it in the backyard. I'll

1:43:59

get some holy water for- my church and we'll do the

1:44:01

whole thing. And we said, yeah. And so we invited a couple

1:44:03

of people over, um, people

1:44:05

who were, uh, my son's

1:44:07

godfather or something, like a neighbor or two,

1:44:09

just very low key. And I

1:44:12

remember sitting in that moment and,

1:44:14

and going, Oh, I think this

1:44:16

is my religion,

1:44:18

the community and friendship and caring

1:44:21

and like ceremony. I bet it was special.

1:44:24

Well, don't let me lead you. It sounds like

1:44:26

it was special. No, it was because it was

1:44:28

like that to me is the

1:44:30

thing I like about organized

1:44:32

religion, right? This idea of like, Oh,

1:44:35

it is about like, it is about

1:44:37

like, we're all agreeing to protect this

1:44:39

child. We're here. And so like, then

1:44:41

I think that was like, as that kind of happened,

1:44:44

that like led me into these things

1:44:46

that we talked about probably on this podcast,

1:44:48

you know, meditation and, and things like that.

1:44:50

So I, I, to me, I'm always open

1:44:54

to whatever is there. And I,

1:44:56

you know, it's, it feels weird because it's like, I

1:44:59

feel like it's so poo

1:45:03

poo'd to be like, Oh, I, I believe

1:45:06

in higher powers. I believe in

1:45:08

spirituality. I don't know if I can name it. I don't

1:45:10

know if I can like put it in a package and

1:45:12

say, this is what I believe. Like, I don't

1:45:14

think it's like a black and white thing. If you ask me like,

1:45:16

well, what do you believe in? Like, well, I believe in this and

1:45:18

I believe in that. And I, so

1:45:21

it's ever constantly evolving, but I think it all

1:45:23

comes from. Something

1:45:25

about like looking inward, working out, it's like,

1:45:27

it's being the person that, you

1:45:29

know, it's like, it's, that's about like following rules. And it's about

1:45:31

like, I think it's about like opening

1:45:34

your mind, opening. Like this book was a spiritual

1:45:36

journey for me in a way, like to like

1:45:38

sit with it and wrestle with it and, and,

1:45:41

you know, so in that way, I think that's where I'm

1:45:43

at, you know, like, I know it's like, it seems whenever

1:45:46

I talk about it, I feel like I get, um, it

1:45:49

gets like gooey. I'm like, Oh, I don't know

1:45:51

what I'm saying, but I, but I do, I

1:45:53

feel strongly connected to these

1:45:55

things and I want, I think a life with

1:45:59

spirituality. in it or

1:46:01

a deeper understanding of

1:46:03

something is important. I

1:46:06