#2575 - Sam Tallent

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2:28Trading involves risk of loss. Market availability varies. Eligibility restrictions apply. $50 every seven days via click to claim issued in non-withdrawable predictions dollars that expire in one year. Terms at DKNG.co slash predictions promo. Limited time offer. Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Here we are. All right, we're up. Sam, your book is fucking great. Thank you, Joe. It's really good. Thank you, man. It was surprising. Yeah. Very interesting. You're a great writer, man. Thank you, Joe. You really are. I'm very proud of it. It's really writer, man. Thank you, Joe. You really are. I'm very proud of it.

3:05It's really good, man. I mean, you're a very talented comedian, so I shouldn't be surprised, but it's always surprising when someone does something outside of comedy that they're really good at. I think you should be surprised. I think you're rightfully surprised that a filthy nightclub comic who's very good at selling chicken tenders like wrote a book that's kind of beautiful, you know. So, yeah, I think that's a surprise. Well, a beautiful book about an assassin, which is even more interesting. Isn't that fun? Yeah. It's so much fun to take a thing we've all heard a million times and then like try and tell it like if it was actually happening in the real world. So I tried to like bring this down into the reality we all share.

3:44And it's violent, you know. It's sexy. I get to talk about Paris like it's fucking me. I love it. Yeah. What was the motivation behind? So like when you decide you're going to write a book and you decide you're going to write a novel. You wrote a novel about comedy before. But this is different. This is about a hitman. Like how did this come about? Random House picked up Running the Light, my first novel, and they reissued it and they gave me a two book deal. And they were like, what do you want to do for the second book? And I was like, I wrote this book kind of about like, if I never left my hometown and it's like, I'm a loser. And I like walk along the side of the highway. Cause I love novels about men who walk in like overalls.

4:24You know what I mean? Like there's this like like like Flannery O'Connor like Larry Brown There's all these great books about dudes who are like risking their lives for three hundred dollars So they can like fix the tires on their pickup truck So I wanted to write that kind of book about me And I was like it's kind of quiet and like inward looking and they were like do you have literally anything else that sounds so fucking Boring and I was like I got 30 pages about a hitman killing a guy with his gun and like inward looking. And they were like, do you have literally anything else? That sounds so fucking boring. And I was like, I got 30 pages about a hitman killing a guy with his gun that's jammed.

4:49And he's like driving it into his skull like a spoon and mango. And they were like, run with it, kid. So this thing was like fun to write compared to the other stuff because it's like a total fantasy, you know? Where did it come from? Did you just sit down and like, what is your process when you decide you're going to start writing fiction? Do you have a thought in your mind? Do you sit down and let the thought come to you? Literally, I wanted, I had this idea about a killer trying to kill someone but his gun jams. And then him showing human signs of frustration and i was like i want to write that short story about like what's that look like to a guy who's supposed to be the best in the world his job but it turns out he's just as capable as

5:35all the infinite human failures that we all are so that was the 30 pages i had of this and it was going to be a short story and then like i said i was kind of incentivized by random house to like you know they're giving me the ball do some damage and this is damage you know it's like the cover's awesome it looks like a punk rock album that I would have bought when I was a kid like it was I don't want to say it was a commercial decision but I definitely knew that this was the first time I was going to be on bookshelves you know with a hardcover release and I wanted to write something that was a easily sellable bit of, you know, the Pulp Fiction. I love all those books, but I wanted to, you know, hide a love story in there as well. And like, write about

6:18all the things that kind of, I wanted to explore nihilism and like all the existentialism that I like about like French writers and the Japanese like bleak people. And this is kind of like my love letter to a lot of different, whether it's genre fiction, whether it's Paris, whether it's like my friends, you know, because like there is the guy is gay. But like, I think I know how to write about loving men a lot more than I do loving women, because I've loved a lot more men. I've never fucked any man in the ass. That'd be pretty sick if I could pull that off, but I'm trapped by heterosexuality. I would love to spend a week at a bachelor party with the boys and have the most fun fraternity paintball, ultimate frisbee,

7:01maybe if Jamie's there. And then at the end of it, wouldn't it be great to just lay down and, like, blow each other? That'd be cool. No. That would be cool. Would it be? If we were capable of it. Well, we're certainly capable of it. At gunpoint, I'm sure people are capable of a lot of things. Oh, sure, yeah. But I wish I wasn't at gunpoint. I wish I could do that and just be like, get in here, fellas. Well, you are capable of it. You can decide to do it. No, I love fat natties and pussy. Well, yeah. So why would it be beautiful to do it. No, I love fat natties and pussy. Well, yeah. So why would it be beautiful to do something that you don't love? That's what I'm saying is if I was capable of that, then I think that would be the ultimate expression of male friendship.

7:34Would be like, get over here, boys. But instead. Well, that's what the Spartans did. I know. Right? They were cool. A lot of Vikings comforted each other that way. I think there was a lot of homosexuality all throughout human history before I think before people started talking. For sure. Before they could give labels to things and it was just like holes in the dark and then there was judgment once it's like a term, you know. Right. And then there was people discussing things like, did you hear Mike fuck Tom? Right, yeah. Like, oh Jesus, Tom? Yeah. What the fuck? And everyone's living to be 22 and they don't know where fire comes from, but they're still like, being gay is gross. That's a funny thing to think of in the cave.

8:16There's also a lot of pederasty going on back then. There was a lot of kid fucking. It was very common. And then also having sex with boys, men having sex with boys seems just ubiquitous all throughout history. Yeah. It's kind of how you broke them in, you know? Very strange. Yeah, yeah. Do you know about New Guinea? I know about Old Guinea. No, I don't know about New Guinea. The Papau New Guinea? Yeah. The Seaman Warriors? Do you know that story? No, but please. It's rough. I'm going to write down Seaman Warriors. Yeah, please write it? No, but please. It's rough. I'm going to write down Seaman Warriors. Yeah, please write it down. Which could be the name of this book. Once you hear about this tribe, you're going to be pretty freaked out.

8:54Cool. So upon the age, I think it's of six years old, young boys are taken away from their mothers and given to an older man who they call their anal father. And the folklore of their tribe is that for a man to grow strong, they must consume sperm anally and orally. They think they have a mouth in their butt? No, but they take it. Okay. You know what I'm saying. No, yeah. But that's, they take it. Okay. You know what I'm saying. No, yeah. You get it. I guess consume, I'm sorry. Well, they have to consume it in the mouth, and then they take it in the butt, and then they just get mouth fucked and butt fucked. Yeah. And this is like the tradition amongst this tribe. Well, who are we to judge, Joe?

9:42But it's just, you got to wonder like how that started and how you got everybody to go along with it. You know, hey, give me your six-year-old. I'm going to mouth fuck him. Right. Because that's how he's going to grow strong. Do you think it was tied to like, there was probably some like, you know, exploitative pervert who was in control. Sure. And then there was like, he was already doing these bad things. And then there was like a record harvest that year. And then he was like he was already doing these bad things and then there was like a record harvest that year and Then he was like well if you guys want to keep getting these record harvest keep letting me fuck your kids and all their holes

10:12Perhaps right. Yeah, it wouldn't be a harvest because these are hunter-gatherers. It's a very primitive tribe So it would be you know, so the biggest caribou ever was landed that year Something on when we care about different geographic locations. What goes on down there? It's jungle. Okay. So it's like a macaw with the prettiest bill. They probably eat a lot of monkeys. Yeah. Isn't that how you get prion diseases? You can, yeah. Well, maybe that's why they're fucking all the kids because they got monkey brain. They also are cannibals, so you get prion diseases from that as well. But apparently, prion diseases from cannibalism are a lot more rare than I thought. I was talking to—who is the guy who is explaining us?

10:52Daniel Everett? Is that who it was? Jimmy, remember the cannibal you had on? No, he was a guy who's spent time with a lot of indigenous tribes, and there's two different types of cannibalism that they engage in. One of them is cannibalism of your enemies. Yeah. And the other one is cannibalism of your loved ones. Okay. So when you kill your enemies, you eat them. And then when your loved ones die, they, it's a really disgusting process. They would let them sit for three days and putrefy. And they would put buckets underneath the body to capture the liquefying, the putrefying fluids. And then they would dunk their sweet potatoes into the putrefied liquids and eat it. So it's kind of like a human

11:40candied sweet potato. Something along those lines. Sure. And then they would eat. They would consume. He was talking about this one guy who was working with him who had to leave the project because he got to go back home and eat one of his relatives because they had died. And so he had to be part of this ritual. So he had to depart. Huh. He had to go on his hero's journey. Sure, yeah. God damn. Well, I don't know. I mean, it seems like there's a lot of like, uh, you know, kid exploitation at all levels of like high power. Maybe power just ultimately leads to like that. Once you've had every delicacy on the buffet of life, then you're like, what's left. And it's like, well, you're at a diddy party. Yeah. Yeah. You're at a diddy

12:20party diddling. Yeah. Well, why, you know, why, when you, I have this bit on stage about like what happens, like how do you get to that point where you're hiring 15 male prostitutes to fuck your girlfriend in front of you? Yeah. Like what's, because you've seen everything. You've done, you've done too much. And then also drugs. Sure. Drugs play a giant part in that, like extreme deviancy. Yeah. You know. Most of the worst decisions I've made have been very high and not on pot, you know, like whatever. I remember there was this weird opium going around Denver in like 2006 and they called it Red Dragon. And me and my friends, you know, we're reading a lot of like burrows and we're like, let's get some of this Red Dragon.

13:04Oh boy. And boy, howdy, if it didn't lead me to the only time i've ever committed any kind of like big property theft is we were all fucked up on this red dragon and we walked by a construction site and my buddy crusty was like hey these lights go for like eight hundred dollars a pop and next thing i know i'm just like carrying two huge like construction lights down the street. And the cops came and they like see like a giant man, you know, and I like put him down and they were like, what are you doing with those lights? And I was like, oh, I thought we were supposed to set up for work here. And they were like, OK, carry on. Oh, nice. Yeah. So then I was just like, you know, I was like, I got to do opium forever.

13:39It makes me bulletproof. Like apparently under the powers of opiumium i'm the most persuasive person ever and then that kind of drug logic you try and apply it to like charming your teachers or whatever it is and you're like on the nod in rhetoric class how old were you when you were doing this 18 19 okay so this is college like first years of college and how were you consuming this opium smoking it oh yeah smoking it we bought like a very, we all pooled our money to get like a special opium pipe. What do they look like? I can't remember. I was so high on opium. I don't know. We were always smoking in the back of someone's car, you know? So it's like the ritual of it was never there. It was like, let's get high and like go to CC's Pizza Buffet.

14:19That is a ritual. It's not traditional. Oh, dude. All rituals eventually become traditional for you. Was it this stuff? Do you know? No, but- Dragon's blood? Something like that? I'm looking it up. I typed in Red Dragon opium, but it says it's actually not opium, and it was sold back then. What is it? I mean, it could have easily been fake. It does not contain opium. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, so what is it? One article I think I just clicked on said it potentially was like the THC-9 stuff, maybe like an early version of it. Huh. What year is this? 2005, 2006. Huh. Yeah. It's misbranded as a drug. See, it said Delta-9. Okay. Why? It was an unknown red substance. That was exactly what we were purchasing.

15:01So you guys thought it was opium? Literally, a man named Snake from Garden City, you guys thought it was opium? Literally a man named Snake from Garden City, Kansas said, this is opium. And we were like, awesome. And he was a white guy with dreadlocks in 2005, so he was still brave. Like a Gary Oldman looking dude? Gary Oldman. We'd be lucky if he looked like Gary Oldman. Well, do you remember that from, what was it from? True Romance? Oh, yes. Yeah. Dude. No, it was more of like the? Oh, yes. Yeah. Dude. No, it was more of like the Matrix twins. Okay. Remember those albino twins on the Matrix who fought? You know what I'm talking about? Matrix twins. The movie The Matrix. The albinos? Yeah, yeah.

15:37Why do I not remember this? Jamie. You're in the sequel. They're like the- Show me a couple albino twins. Oh, the sequel. Yeah. Yeah, this is what he looked like. Oh, boy. I don't remember those guys. Yeah. Oh, now sequel. Yeah, this is what he looked like. Oh, boy. I don't remember those guys. Yeah. Oh, now I do. Okay, okay, okay. And he was kind of our doula in a way. Oy. So... I moved from a very small town to Denver, and I was easily tricked into all types of romantic notions. Interesting. I was a rube, yeah. And Burroughs got you in. What Burroughs book specifically? Oh man, probably Queer and Junkie. Those two for sure. Naked Lunch always seemed like he was, like I hated it. Really? Yeah, man.

16:16It's like, look, I understand that you're like Jackson Pollocking and you've earned that right as like a master of the form, like as a writer. He wrote Queer He wrote junkie He wrote other things that were easily digestible and now he's kind of letting his freak flag fly and like swinging his dick But like at the end of the day as a reader It's really hard to like enjoy a book that doesn't have any discernible story. I still like a plot You know, I mean, right so yeah, it was queer and junkie and my dad was cool My dad gave me really cool books early on and, like, good music. So, and also Hunter, obviously. Like, Hunter S. Thompson was a huge deal, especially because we were in Colorado. Right.

16:56So, like, there was, like, the Owl Farm thing. And, like, my dad would, like, we're going to go up to Owl Farm. And I don't think he ever did, but it was always an aspiration. Yeah. Yeah. I think his ex-wife still lives there. Oh yeah. And my friend Liz like worked for her and I would really love, you want to hear like a petty memory I have? Yeah. You know how you like, like I'm at Shane's thing and Jamie is like talking to Bam Margera and I'm like, life is big enough to include the fact that like, I'm watching Jamie talk to Bam Margera while my friend does Eagle Stadium. Like there's all these weird little like, so, uh, what the fuck was I talking about? How did you start this? Yeah. How did I start this? Okay. We went from THC to the Pale Matrix guys to Hunter S. Thompson to Owl Farm.

17:49Oh, petty, being petty. Petty. So I remember in 2008, there was this guy in Denver who got to go finish his novel at Owl Farm. Really? Yeah, and everyone was like, that's so cool. And I, of course, was like a jock comedian who was like fuck him he's a poser you know and then his book came out and i read it and i was like damn it's pretty moving i love the second part you know so it's like i still remember that guy and i hit up my friend liz and i was like hey could i like maybe go finish this book like at owl farm and she was like they don't do that anymore and I was like I remember the guy's name I was like you let blank do it and she was like oh how do you remember that no one ever remembers that and I was like I remember it because of spite you know there's like a lot of

18:33things that I only remember because it made me mad and feel weak that's funny but that's at a different stage of your life the stage of your life where you're trying to get something going, trying to succeed, you're very vulnerable to spite, very vulnerable to envy. Well, it's a real pure burning fuel. Rage, hate, all these things, they really get your octane up quick. Yeah. Unfortunately, it consumes the vessel that's holding it. Oh, yeah. It's the worst one. It's a poison. It's corrosive. It's a poison. Yeah. It's very sad to see people that you like fall prey to that or people that you have liked in the past who you see them lash out at people that are doing well and you realize it's so, the map is so clear.

19:20It's because they're not doing well. It's always what it is. Well, it's easier to be mad what's easier to uh be mad at people than to better your own position it's like i lost all this weight and people are like you look sick and like beforehand people were like look how fat this guy is he's the fattest guy ever and it's like all right what do you want why are you guys so obsessed with my body well there is no solution no you cannot make everyone happy it will not happen it's impossible and when you do try to make everyone happy the shit that you make as, like, an artist is so bad. Yep. Because you're trying to make shit for, you know, the comment section. And it's, like, I never got in. When I got into stand-up, it was 2005.

19:55And, like, all the things that we have to do now as comedians weren't there. You could just, like, be funny, maybe do coning, and then, like, you've got to do all the funny bones. And, like, that was all i wanted i wanted to like be in clubs and now all the shit that surrounds comedy is like super embarrassing and cringe like i hate it like promo oh you know like make the instagram posts like you know any of that shit that's like like like all the shit that my super successful friends are good at is shit that makes me want to like buy a bullet and rent a gun you know like i want to like hang myself from a sturdy rope when i'm like oh yeah i gotta get engagement i need to comment the first 30 minutes that the post is up so that more people

20:34will see it it's like i want to pay someone so much money to do all of this so i don't have to anymore well you could or you could just post that's where you're going to be and then just leave it alone. That's probably the best solution. Because your fans certainly want to know when you're going to be somewhere, and it sucks. If you find out that a comic that you love came to your town and you missed out because they didn't post about it. So you want to know. So just make a post. I do. I know you do. But I mean, this is my advice to people that get cringed out by that. Just make a post and walk away. And then people are going to be like, fuck you, fuck this, fuck that. They're going to do that. The comments are going to be filled with all

21:14sorts of nonsense and you're going to feel weird about it, so just don't look at it. Think DraftKings isn't available where you live? Think again. DraftKings, an official partner of the NBA, is now available in all 50 states so wherever you live follow your favorite nba stars get excited about the biggest matchups and lock in on those buzzer beating moments and with draft kings it's all in one app plus new customers get three months of nba league pass on us so you can catch more NBA action anytime, anywhere. Download the DraftKings Sports app today and use code ROGAN. New DraftKings customers spend five and get 200 in total bonuses plus three months of NBA League Pass on us. That's code ROGAN in partnership with DraftKings.

22:04The crown is yours. Void in New York Event contract trading with DraftKings Predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York. Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get Predictions dollars that expire in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click-to-claim for 21 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. NBA League Pass auto-renews until canceled. Terms at dkng.co slash audio. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on Sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. Varies by state. It's more that it feels fraudulent to me. You know what I mean? It's not so much I'm worried about people disliking whatever dumb promo post I put. It's just like I'm worried that people will be able to understand how hollow the sentiment is that I'm communicating.

23:02Like I'm going to the Funny Bone in Hartford this weekend. I'm stoked to be there. Hartford, Connecticut? Yeah, yeah. But I think to any of the people who, like, go to that club and have been going to that club, if I were to say, I'm coming to my favorite club in the country, the Hartford Funny Bone, they'd be like, this guy's a fucking liar. We go there. It can't possibly be. How many other clubs does he do? Unless you really like people that are stuck, you don't like Connecticut. People are stuck. The WWE. And by the way, one of my best friends lives in Connecticut. I should just say, I love people in Connecticut, but I used to say that Connecticut's not a real state. It's a highway between Boston and New York.

23:38I think that's fair. It's real. Listen, I performed in Connecticut a lot in my early days, and it is the worst place on earth. Not on earth. Not true. I'm sure. Performing in Iraq currently would probably be a lot worse. I bet it's electric when you kill, though. I bet if you can get a standing O, that's a good feeling, bro. Inshallah, baby. There's a thing about Connecticut that's like they're stuck. Yeah. They're stuck. Or they are really rich, and they chose to not live in New York City. And so they live in like there's these like very bizarre towns that are extreme. Like where my buddy who's a good, I've been friends with this guy for 34 years, I think. He worked at a high school in like a private school, a very ritzy private school.

24:25Like Keith Richards brought his kids there. Like a lot of these very famous people, very, very wealthy people, billionaires. They have these massive estates in Connecticut. That's Connecticut. And then the rest of Connecticut is sort of this weird highway. Oh, yeah. Where people are stuck. And also like where Yale is, you go to the Yale campus and it's like beautiful and historic. And then you walk like three blocks away. It's fucking New Haven. Yeah. It's like very impoverished. Yeah. And you know, the crimes of desperation happen there a lot. But the greatest pizza on earth. I love that stuff. New Haven pizza. Yeah, that thin. What do they call it? Like an apizza, right? Yeah, apizza. Yeah.

25:03Are you that kind of Italian? What kind is that? The kind who like says like, you know, right? Yeah, apiece. Yeah. Are you that kind of Italian? What kind is that? The kind who says like a gabagool, you know? Do you put the stink on it? I don't say that. You should. I don't. No, I've kind of left that at a very early age. You're like the last remaining Italian, man. You got to get out there. There's a few. I know. Go to the East Coast, there's a lot. A lot of us left. No, I mean that are in positions of prominence. Oh, I see. Because I grew up in a world where Italians, it was like, they were cool, you know? That was because of Sopranos. Dude, and of course, all those great mob movies really made it.

25:36Yeah, but they made Italians way too cocky. There's a lot of Italians that thought it was really cool just to be Italian because all these, like a lot of guys, they put it on. Yeah. Hey, fucking, you're going to hang out with Johnny lot of guys, they put it on. Yeah. Hey, fucking, you're gonna hang out with Johnny? Yeah. Like they added to it. Yeah. I'm saying you should do that. That's exactly what I'm saying you should do. Become one of those guys. It's too late. I don't know. You can change, man. Mitzi Shore, she used to have this show, Night of a Thousand Guidos. She would do like this, an Italian show, and she asked me to do it once I did it. It was like, it was so embarrassing because a lot of the

26:05People on the show other than guys like Dom Herrera who are great comics who just happen to be Italian Yeah, a lot of the people were only on because they were Italian She was finding like mediocre Italian comics to be on the show and it was just fucking hell I mean, I'm also regretting. I'm not trying to say any negative Italian sentiment. I'm realize I'm going for governors in Long Island on Wednesday Italians, you know I love you. Great club, by the way. Governors. My agent said I was the only person who asked to go back to Governors after their first time. Really? Yeah, I was like, I loved it there. It feels like the road. Oh, I love Long Island. It reminds me of real comedy when I started.

26:42Oh, yeah. When I lived in New York, I very rarely did the city because I was a road comic in Boston. You know, like Boston, the way it works is if you're real clean or in the 80s, if you're real clean, you can work the clubs in town. But if you're not clean, most of your work is going to be in the bars outside. And so that's what I did. Yeah. I did mostly bar shows. And so I was traveling around to here to there. I was doing, you know, Revere and all these different places. And when I went to New York, I was like, if I'm in town, I do 10 minutes. I make 10 bucks or whatever the fuck it was. Or I could just do the road and make like $200 and do an hour. Oh, yeah. Like, why would I do? I'll do that.

27:23So I did Long Island. Same way, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like also like would I do, I'll do that. So I did Long Island. That was the exact same way, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like also like Hicks was a big hero of mine, and I know he was like, he was an anomaly in that he wasn't a city comic. He was a road comic. He was like one of the most brilliant, but yet was doing his kind of comedy to people that wouldn't necessarily go to see his type of comedy if they knew what it was. Yeah. And that's what was so like, that comedy if they knew what it was. Yeah. And that's what was so like, that's why he became such a force. Yeah. Because I think a lot of comedy now, like people do comedy for people who think exactly like them.

27:55Right. And like, I can do a papered room and I'm like, I'm very proud of that. Like, cause it's not like, you know, I'm not moving every ticket every weekend. So sometimes they'll be like late show Saturday, we're going to paper 50. And I'm like, yeah. For paper, for people who don't know what we're talking about, it's like free tickets. They give away free tickets so they can sell liquor. Right, exactly. Because they want the two drinks in there and they don't care what you're up to or if the show's going to go well. Because they're going to make an extra $400 on Bud Light. Yeah, the problem with that I've always found is I did a lot of those shows too. But the people aren't very invested in the show. So you did a lot of those shows too, but the people aren't

28:25very invested in the show, so you get a lot of chatty folks. And they don't watch a clip. So when you say a word that they don't like, they're like, what the fuck is this? And it's like, you couldn't watch me do one minute before you decided to drive down here and get parking? You know? It's so strange. You wouldn't do that at a music show. Right. You're going to listen to a song before you go to the show. Maybe. I mean, maybe if you went to a, well, it depends on the kind of club. See, I think that's one of the issues with comedy, and I talk about this a lot, is that like comedy has one genre, whereas music, you know, if you're going to a music club and you see hip hop and then Guns N' Roses and then Joni Mitchell, you'd be like, what

29:03the fuck kind of club is this? This is crazy. Whereas in comedy, you could see all sorts of different perspectives and styles. You could see, you know, loud people, people who do music, people who do all kinds of weird shit on stage. Like comedy has no, I mean, it does have genres, you know, especially to people that like to classify things, that like to put things into categories and boxes. But the reality is it's just perspectives. It's just comedies. Here's the world through my eyes and everyone is different. And it's like you don't know if you're going to go see Guns N' Roses or if you're going to go see Barry Manilow. You really don't know if you're just going to go see comedy. Like let's go to Cap City and to go see comedy. Like let's go

29:45to cap city and go to the comedy club and let's see who's there this weekend. You know, Bob fuck face. Oh, okay. I hope he's good. Well, he's at cap city. It's gotta be good. And so you go there and then, you know, you hope it's something that you'll laugh at. And that was me at many of the loony bins for about seven years. I was. Yeah. And I got really good at that. Yeah. And then if you can get good at that when you first get your opportunity to like, if people are going to get free tickets because it's their birthday in three months and they just so happen to win them right now and they go see you, if you can trick half those people into coming back next time. Yeah. Like that was always my big thing.

30:21Like when I first started getting these big opportunities, like when Tim Dillon took me on the road, when I first got on this show or Kill Tony, people start coming out for the first time to see me. And I was not concerned with that first time. I'm concerned with the next time. Right. Because I want them to come back and bring two people and then the next time bring eight people. Yeah. So it's like I was very grateful, but also aware that like this was my opportunity to plant seeds that would grow later on. Well, that's what we used to do back in the day. It was called building a market. Right. Yeah. And you would just go into a town and it was a slow, laborious process that took years. And I did that. I went from 40 people in Omaha to 80 to 160 to adding shows.

31:02And it's like that's fun. It was great. Yeah. That's a really satisfying, rewarding thing when you've actually built a market. Yeah. It feels good. And when people come out now and they're like, this is the seventh time I've seen you. It's like. That's nice. I feel good. But I'm also immediately like, shit, I hope I had like all new stuff. Right, right, right. I know I have 50 new, but I still have five i'm closing on from last time i was in chicago and also if someone's a sam talent fan like boy you gotta get you can't be nonchalant about that show you gotta get fired up oh yeah and they are yeah i'm so grateful and also now i get these like kids who come out because i'll do like hive mind or gillis like the people

31:38who get like young people like in their demographics so now I have like 22 year olds at the shows and man, you can see on their faces. It's the first time they haven't been on their phone for 90 minutes in their entire life. And they're sitting there and they like, don't know what to do. And then I'll be like, Hey, nice hat, stupid. And they're like, cause like they don't know the rules or the conventions of this thing they're at. And then at the merch line afterward, they're always like, that was my first show. And I'm like, bro, I think I set the bar pretty high. Jeremy Clarkson. Yeah. You know who he is? Uh-huh. He came to Kill Tony the other night, and he said it was his first time at a comedy club.

32:17Whoa. Yeah. And so. Like, he didn't know what Kill Tony was. He didn't understand it. Jimmy Carr took him. Weird. And it was like, what is Kill Tony? Yeah. Like, he didn't understand what Kill Tony was, didn't understand it. Jimmy Carr took him. Weird. And he was like, what is Kill Tony? Yeah. Like he didn't understand how it worked. It's a gong show, sir. Yeah. It's basically the gong show. He's like, my God. You're reinventing the form. Well, he just didn't know what it was. He's like, you know, how does this work? I think it's a deeply American phenomenon. Oh, stand-up most certainly. No, I mean Kill Tony specifically. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Because I did the one at the O2 in London that no one will ever see because it was so bad.

32:53Like it had to be buried in the desert. What was bad about it? Oh my god. Has Tony ever talked about this with you? Yeah, he told me it was a hell. Oh, it was the worst thing that's ever happened to me as an artist. It was brutal. We get there. Whoa, Jesus Christ. We get there, man. And, you know, it's like the biggest thing ever. I'm very flattered to be asked to be on it. We get there and the show is starting later. And the people who work at the security people are like, these are people that we traditionally don't get attending performances. A lot of these people took the train in or came from the countryside and they're, it seems like they're drinking beers in the parking lot. And I was like, yo, they're tailgating. And

33:35they were like, what's that mean? And I was like, oh, you guys aren't aware of this phenomenon. So we get out there and he put out the band and the band plays for a while. And we're all in the back and they're waiting for people to trickle in. And before the show starts, there's various fistfights and people are being removed for doing cocaine at their seats, like at Studio 54. So we're in the back and like- Oh, this sounds great. What happened wrong? Oh, well, hold on. Let me get to the funny part. So, dude, we come out, finally, and Red Band and Tony get their due aplomb. And then they're like, are you ready for your guest? And everyone is- I like that Tony impression. is a legend in show business. And I think everyone thinks it's Piers Morgan because I was told Piers Morgan was going to do it.

34:26So I have all these great jokes about calling him 007. I was going to fuck him up and call him Piers Brosnan the whole night. So I have like about 30 minutes of funny Piers Morgan jokes. Oh boy. Right, yeah, it would have been great. Piers Morgan can't make it. So it's just Sam Talent. And when they say Sam Talent, people are like, all right, cool. And they're waiting for someone else. Probably a British celebrity. No, no. It's just me. So we sit down and we do our best. And the first comic who comes out is a bucket person, you know. Or no, I think, I can't remember who went first, but the first bucket comes out. And they say, so I rode the train in from Essex. And a packed O2 starts screaming fuck essex your dogs everyone from essex fucks their mother back up north you pikey like

35:15wow it's insane and then this comic is immediately his ego is shattered his brains exploded it's his worst nightmare ever there's an arena screaming at him. And then he has to stumble into his punchline. Goes terribly. Try to do the interview. And it's like, so how long have you been doing it? And he's like, looking around like he just came out of a coma, you know? And he's like, oh, this is my first time ever doing standup. Oh, boy. I think of the bucket pulls on that show show the most tenured performer had done it six times holy shit you had a literal arena full of people who have taken the train or flown in from all over europe for this and then dude like there so there was very every time a comic would

36:00say so you know i'm from pakistan every slur you've ever heard from snuff comes out. You know like and me and Tony and Redman are up there like What the fuck is to the joke you know okay? You know so every time anyone says anything people scream There's fistfights going on there's people screaming up constantly and then dude this guy came out and said So I'm from Israelrael that's his opener the room immediately turns and i there's a there's an irish contingency up front because people have flags like it's wwe so there's an irish contingency over here and there's a northern irish contingency over here and both of them decide that they're going to agree on fuck Israel. And the guy on, so they start yelling like, fuck you, you genocidal pig, you monster,

36:51you should be ashamed of yourself. And the comic on stage says from the river to the sea or whatever. And at that point, a guy tries to climb the barricade, one of the Irish dudes. And I'm like, I say to Tony, it's the only time I've ever used the mute button. I'm like, dude, we got to get him out of here. This't safe like this guy has to go so Tony immediately is like okay and like threw him a joke book get him out of there it devolved so bad by the end that um like when we walked off I once the show ends I went into the green room and literally like put my hands on the sink and stared into the mirror for like five minutes. Whoa. Yeah. And I was like, do I want this? Like, do I aspire to be an arena act?

37:34Like this was the worst thing that ever fucking happened to me. And then, you know, God bless him. It was Tony's birthday weekend. So we were having a lot of fun and this was actually when me and tony became like friends friends because i got to spend like three days with him and like his brother like seeing him be a guy it was fun but uh tony it's his birthday they bring him a cake and i'm like rocked man i'm shattered you know i'm like i called my wife i was like honey maybe i can like become a teacher i was was like, I think, I think Wayne state would let me like teach, you know, how many years ago was this? This was two years ago. Yeah. It was right out. I was in Paris all of may of 2024 finishing this. And then

38:15I went and did that after my month in Paris. And, uh, they bring in this cake for Tony for his birthday. And it's like, Hey, you sold out the O2. Like you're the number one selling podcast in the history of the O2 arena. And everyone sings him happy birthday. And I hear Tony say, they spelt my name wrong. And it's like, bro, this is like all of your dreams coming true. And he still was like, oh, they fucked up my name. And I was like, okay, yeah, I gotta, I gotta figure out what I actually want to do. do because like it's not being an arena act and then everywhere we would walk it's like you know when you like you're insanely famous you're like the most famous guy i know and like i we haven't like chilled in public but i've

38:55been in public with will smith i've been in public with shane gillis they can't go anywhere like there's like tunnels in every building that are like for will smith guys like Shane. It's like Shane, we do Grand Rapids. He can't walk and get a coffee in the morning. It's an hour and a half procedure because everyone that sees him has to get a picture. It's like you can no longer exist as a person. It's like I would much rather not be hyper rich and like still be able to just go in the world than like to have all the money. Like how is it? What's it like? Yeah, it's odd, but it is what it is. Right. You just accept it. The key is like, the real problem is people interrupt things. Like they want to interrupt dinners.

39:38They want to come over to your table. That's a problem. That's an issue. And it's a little rude while they're interrupting while you're in the middle of a meal. I know they're just trying to be nice. But in public, the key is just you got to learn to reset with every person that you meet. Like reset. This is a completely new. It's just not, oh, my God, another person. You have to reset. Yeah. Have an honest interaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A sincere interaction. But the real problem is then it becomes a line. And then it becomes a thing where people who don't even know who the fuck you are want to take a picture with you. Dude, we were in that coffee shop with Shane, and an old Asian man came over.

40:12And it was just like in Chinese or whatever. Mandarin was like, picture, picture. And Shane looks at me, and he's like, this guy doesn't speak English. Let's get a photo. Yeah. He had no idea who he was. But he saw everyone taking pictures with this guy. Yeah. Yeah. That's a weird thing with cameras, with phones, cameras and phones. And then social media likes, you know, if you have a picture with Shane Gillis, you're going to get thousands of likes. For sure. But then you're just an object to be used to exploit. And it's like, I don't know, man. You got to learn how to handle it. And it's, uh, it's not normal. Do you think our brains can learn to handle it? Yeah, you can handle it. You think so? Yeah, I handle it pretty good. I handle it. And it's not normal. Do you think our brains can learn to handle it?

40:45Yeah, you can handle it. You think so? Yeah, I handle it pretty good. But it's not for everybody. And it's definitely not easy. It's odd. And it's not something that I ever asked for. I wasn't looking for it. It's like, it just happened. And so you just have to say, okay, well, this is what life is now. It's not the worst thing. I mean, online, it's horrible is what life is now. You know, it's not the worst thing. I mean, online, it's horrible. People hate me online. I know. A lot of people do. But in real life, people are very nice. Yeah. Like, almost always. And even if they disagree with me, you know, once they have a few words with me, they realize I'm very reasonable. Well, it's like they've made you and, like, Shane and Tony into, like, very convenient targets because, like, you know, pain leads to panic and panic leads to fear and fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate. So

41:29it's like you have been made this billboard. Here's what I think it is, man, is like media died. Right. Like in our lifetimes, like there's no more newspapers. Right. Right. Like there's no more radio, like TV's not there anymore. So like everyone's looking around being like, what the fuck happened? And there's this guy named Dennis Johnson who's my favorite writer ever and he said when drastic changes occur it's much easier to say it's a crime and ask who did it as opposed to saying it's a failure and to ask what happened so I feel like they're trying to assign a lot of blame to people because everyone's like what what's going on and then they look and you're the biggest thing you know shane's the biggest thing so it's like okay we can all decide that like this person who's

42:18replaced the media that we had is the enemy and it's like okay well the new york times can write as many op-eds on how you're the enemy of progress but like will they call it a genocide. And it's like, okay, well, the New York Times can write as many op-eds on how you're the enemy of progress, but like, will they call it a genocide? No. So it's like, who the fuck are we supposed to trust or believe? And like, I always say, dude, cause like I have a bunch of leftist friends who get mad that I come on your show, you know? Yeah. Like whatever. Like I lived in an anarchist commune, you know, like- Did you really? Yeah, man. Like I was. We'll talk about that in a moment. Yeah. I mean, I was a punk rocker.

42:48I still am, I hope. But it's like, I really would have loved to have been in the era of comedy where you like go on Conan and then you get to sell your tickets, you know? But it's like, how is you one guy who's independent, you know, I guess Spotify's money is involved or whatever, but they don't fucking censor you, right? They don't do anything. Yeah. So it's like one guy being independent and having conversations. How is that worse than like the facade of going on Kimmel or going on Fallon or going on Conan back in the day? And like, yeah, like these are like good guys who were silly, but ultimately they're on NBC who's owned by whatever holding company who's owned by one of the seven corporations

43:30who owns the world. And like their whole thing is selling ad space for like Nestle and fucking BlackRock or whatever subsidiary is like the one they put the face on. Like that was bad, but it was fine. So now you're one guy who's having conversations and they're like, this is bad. This is, this is cancerous. Well, it's completely normal to always, to attack the most popular thing. Yeah. Always, you know, always the most popular thing is bad, no matter what it is. It's if it's a film, if it's music, if it's a podcast, whatever it is, it's always bad. And you know, it's, you're always going to have that. It's just that you're, you're not going to fix people. You're not going to fix perspectives

44:12and give people clarity and give people the ability to make sort of a rational, objective, charitable observations about who a person actually is. It's very easy to just caricaturize someone. Yeah. And so I get it. And then if you are a person who will defend these guys in these spaces, it's like, well then, okay, you're brainwashed, you're co-opted. And it's like... You just have to stop listening to comments. Like that's really the most important thing. No, these are like face-to-face conversations, you know what I mean? Right. But you're probably talking to broken people. I don't know. I'm talking to my friends. I'm talking to people who... Are any of your friends broken? Oh, yeah. Yeah, most of them are comics.

44:52Yeah. But also, dude, it's weird because I talk to people a lot who I don't share the exact ideals with. I don't like that you fucking endorse Trump, but I have a lot of friends who voted for Trump. And it's like, a lot of people don't ever hang out with anyone else who thinks different because first of all, we don't hang out face to face. You're not meeting new people. Everyone works from home. Everyone's online. No one's bowling or fucking playing pool anymore. You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, you can diff, you can disagree with someone and still know that they're like a decent person. And like, I like to define myself on, am I a good husband? Am I a good uncle? Am I a good son? Am I a good brother?

45:34And it's like, if I thought that you guys were bad, like I wouldn't fucking do business with you. It's asinine. It makes me so mad, bro. Anyway, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. Listen, it used to be that people used to be able to differ in their opinions and have conversations. Because they were your neighbors. But today we have become so divided. And I think a big factor is social media, echo chambers, propaganda bots, gaslighting. And then it seems like there's so much riding on everything constantly because you're looking at your phone all the time oh yeah everything on the phone is this is the end this is the end this is the beginning of the end this is a signal of the end the only hope is to

46:18stop this and on both sides and both sides this the, and your people are addicted to their phones. So, like, the information that you're getting almost all day long is very bleak and very dire. Yeah. It's constant. Because that's what sells units. Like, fear is the best way to manipulate people. Yeah. Forms a coercion. Engagement. Yeah, engagement, man. And it's like the phone replaced the world. Like, we're all staring into this fucking rectangular void and it's like i i've become like a big gardener man because like it connects me to shit that is real like i've built my own compost like i know my soil like i've learned the different sections of my backyard that like get more sunlight and like

47:02get more water and it's like these were incredibly boring to me probably 10 years ago but now in this world that's so empty and so like just devoid of anything palpable and real like me being back there and watching my fucking dahlias grow is like just as valuable and nutritious to me as it's anything that was ever on my phone right and like yeah i'm not like learning or like uh i'm not like you know thinking i'm learning and i'm not engaging with people and i'm not getting the reward of like people being like cool nice garden because i'm not posting that shit like i had a pumpkin that grew like a clitoris in the back of like dude you seen this pumpkin you have a pumpkin i had a trell, and my pumpkins grew up this trellis.

47:46And I had a pumpkin that was dangling like the uvula in the back of your throat when I got home one time. And I just sat there and stared at this pumpkin for like two days. Aren't pumpkins supposed to be on the ground? Yeah, man. Yeah, they are. There it is, baby. That's the sky pumpkin. Interesting. And, of course, I had to, like, put it online, you know, because that's what you do with anything good that happens to you. Yeah, man. That's Danny. Sweet Danny. That's a nice pumpkin. Right. But like that's magic. The squirrels got it after we carved it. Oh, those cunts. That's all right. That's all right. You were carving it though, meaning you weren't going to eat it anyway. No, I don't want to eat a pumpkin. Pumpkin pie? I'm not a hippo. Pumpkin pie is delicious. Pumpkin pie is good. You ever have

48:27roasted pumpkin? I've had roasted pumpkin. There's a delicious recipe, or it looks delicious at least I should say, that I want to try. I saw this guy, he cooked a chicken inside of a pumpkin. And what he did was he took an actual pumpkin, he hollowed it out, and inside of it he put a chicken. He put all these herbs and spices on the chicken, and they put a bunch of potatoes and tomatoes and carrots and a bunch of things inside with the pumpkin. And I feel like maybe he put chicken broth or chicken stock in there as well and then put the whole thing inside of an oven. And so the pumpkin sort of collapsed and then pulls it out after whatever amount of time and opened it and pulled this chicken out.

49:09It was moist and delicious and then plated it up. It looked fantastic. I want to try it. That's chicken in a pumpkin. Yeah. You're saying eat the pumpkin. But he ate the pumpkin as well. I want to eat the chicken. But pumpkin tastes good. Pumpkin's okay. I like the seeds. No, but the pumpkin meat, if you cook it right, is good. Look, man. Pumpkin. You don't like pumpkin pie? I do not. Really? I like the seeds. No, but the pumpkin meat, if you cook it right, is good. Look, man. You don't like pumpkin pie? I do not. Really? I like good pie that's not a holdover from World War II. Pumpkin pie is a holdover? That's like a victory garden. Yeah, that was like, hey, you know, the GIs are coming home.

49:36That is like my favorite. Well, hey, man. Pumpkin pie with a little bit of whipped cream on it? Oh, it's so good. It's subjective. You're allowed to like pie. Yeah. I'm angry at you that you like pumpkin pie. I get angry about subjectivity because people will be like, you's so good. It's subjective. You're allowed to like pie. Yeah. I'm angry at you that you like pumpkin pie. I get angry about subjectivity because people will be like, you're not funny. And it's like, well, it's subjective. Like, what are you talking about? Like trying to apply objective rules and boundaries to stand up is like the most asinine thing. It's silly. It's crazy. It's silly. It's a wasted effort. Like to be upset at people for not liking what you like or liking what you don't like is just, it's a waste of energy.

50:08Quit thought policing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, people just don't want anyone to differ from them and they don't want to be on the wrong path. They don't want to be incorrect, especially if culture seems to be leaning in a certain direction and they're not. They don't want to have to shift gears so they attack it. Oh, yeah. People have to learn to just accept, you know, like i've seen people angry that taylor swift is the biggest musician in the world like like why why do you care yeah also she's got some good songs and if you don't think so you probably haven't listened like if you didn't know who she was if you didn't if she didn't have taylor swift attached to her and you're like no body no crime is a fucking great song it's a great song

50:46and if you if it was just some indie artist who just wrote that some unknown lady who wrote that song and and performed it like this a really good song i think it's just like a fun contrarian thing to be like the popular thing is bad of course without any kind of like looking into it well there's also people that like things when those things are not popular and then when they become popular Oh, they fucking sold out like okay. That's me It's a lot of people online. That's punk rock. I know and like Kyle Kinane said it best He's like I'm not here for purity tests from fairweather fans, and it's like I'm not either like that's a very good quote He's the man. Yeah, he's very smart guy. Him, Rory, like I've been having a lot of conversations with people that are, like, really good.

51:26And I'm heartened. I'm, like, I'm solid. But, man, I gotta just, like, I gotta find the shit about stand-up that I adored that, like, made me devote my life to it, you know? And, like, fall back in love with it. Because... Did you run into a period where you didn't? Like, are you struggling with that? I still love on stage i love i'm so grateful for like the meet and greet aspect i love talking to the people i love putting my armpits on their necks after the show and taking the pictures you know what don't you love uh i mean 45 weekends a year in an airport's tough yeah you know yeah uh ticket counts are fucking brutal you know the emails the promo stuff uh trying like trying to be like a normal person while also constantly promoting yourself is so strange.

52:12Like, yeah. And it's not why I got into it. Like if I could sell 600 tickets a weekend in a city like that's all I want and I can do that now. But then you get agents and like they're awesome. But they're also like why don't we add a show and it's like because no one's going to come to the four o'clock on saturday they just want money exactly yeah you have to ignore them that's where a manager comes into play i just got management and they're they're fucking good dude that's good yeah you got a good manager a good manager so for people that don't understand this um a manager looks out for your career an agent works for you. So a manager is a partner. I've had the same manager since I was an open mic-er.

52:49He found me in Boston in 1991? 90 or 91. So you've grown together as men. That's cool. We don't even have a contract. We don't have no legal paperwork. We handle millions and millions. I'm sure that'll wind up fine in the end It's been good. It's been forever. Don't get Dane Cook. He's Listen, it's not that I don't know where the money goes. It's not that it's just that we don't it's not like I don't we Don't have to like re-sign some stupid thing every five years. I would trust I'd rather cut my fingers off than fuck him over I thought I feel about most parts of stand up. Yeah. But it's different in that the manager looks out for the whole of your career, you know? So there's like two people now that he, he brought in a woman and she's been my manager

53:37now for, he's kind of semi-retired. She's been my manager for more than a decade, but it's a different thing than an agent, especially if you're with a big agency. So a big agency, there's like a lot of... I got a friend who got offered this deal. He has a pretty big podcast. He got offered this deal. And the deal involved being connected to some other people and being a part of a network. I said, don't do it. Do not do it. I go, he goes, what's your thought? I go, well, first of all, you're right now you're independent. Do you know how much money you would pay to be independent? Like if you got connected to this and then all of a sudden you have a bunch of other people that you have to answer to and they're saying, hey,

54:18you know, we could sell more advertising if you stop talking about Israel. Right. Or we could sell more advertising if you just stopped using this word or that word or bring up These subjects, you know, well the advertisements, you know, it's it's an issue Like if as soon as that starts happening, you're fucking right now. He doesn't have any of that right now He's independent. You could do whatever the fuck he wants. I go you're you're not poor, right? You're you're what you're making good money, right? like keep doing that do not let it grow it'll you're very talented it'll keep growing these people want to bleed you and that's all they want they want more they want extra shows they want you to be on the road every weekend i have

54:57an agent she's a lovely lady but every time i talk to her when are you going to do arenas again like it's because they just want that money they just want that money. They just want that money. And they're not the ones like going to the airport. They're not the ones missing their kids, like missing the games and stuff. For me, it's like when I moved here, I was like, okay, if I'm going to take my kids and move them to another state, one of the things that I want to do is be around a lot more often. And I can. And so if I can, I should. And I don't, I don't want to be on the road 60 fucking dates a year. So, It's too much. I don't like it. I don't like doing it. It wears you out, and it doesn't seem as fun.

55:34I do like going to places, and I do like the fact that people want to come, and I appreciate them very much. But having a club, having my own club has been the greatest fucking thing that I've ever done. It's such a solid move because now you're grounded. You have a community, and you have this sick place you've built where you don know, you don't have to leave town and all your friends come to town now. Yeah. Like I come to town, like people are popping in every weekend, you know, it's a pretty righteous setup that you've created. Well, we got super fortunate where a bunch of lights had to turn green at the exact right moment for it to be able to take place. This wouldn't have taken place without COVID.

56:11Yeah. take place. This wouldn't have taken place without COVID. Without COVID and without the draconian lockdowns that California was implementing and all the shit that they were doing and the fact that other states weren't and that Texas wasn't. And the fact that there was already sort of a history of comedy in Austin, it wasn't a huge town for comedy, but it was a great town to visit and do comedy. And Ron White, the fact that Ron White had already moved here. He moved here in 2018. And so all those lights had to turn green at the right time. The comedy store had to be closed for a long time, for over a year and a half. And we just got all the best employees from the comedy store to move out to Texas.

56:46We got all the comics to move out. And then I got all that Spotify money. So I'm like, all right, let's do the right thing. Let's fucking make a club that like really helps the development of comedians and really kind of promotes a great vibe. I have a festival in Bentonville, Arkansas. That me and my friend run. My buddy Raj. What's it called? The Big Diamond Comedy Festival. It's fun. People are like, why Bentonville? Why Big Diamond? It's hilarious. I don't know. Raj was like, let's go with Big Diamond. I said, hey, man. Okay. I go and I shake hands and kiss babies, you know. Raj was like, let's go with Big Diamond. I said, hey man. Okay. I go and I shake hands and kiss babies, you know?

57:16But we had Lucas McCrary headline. Nice. One of your door guys. Nice. And it's like, that's cool that now little weird Lucas, who I knew long ago, is now like been given enough reps in a legitimate place where now I can trust them to be like, yeah, come do two shows on my festival. That feels good. It's not just our place, too. One of the cool things about what's happened in Austin is because of the success of the Mothership and then all these comics moving, like 18 world-class comics moved to Austin. And so because of that, and then all these other new comics who wanted to have a career and saw that it's really difficult to get in New York, it's really difficult to get in LA, and Austin is like this blossoming community.

57:57So they all moved here, and now there's seven clubs on one street, which is nuts. Within walking distance of the mothership, there's seven comedy clubs that at least a few nights a week have comedy. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Holidays can be stressful, especially if you're hosting. There's so much pressure to include everyone and to make sure they all have a good time. It could put a strain on you emotionally, financially too. So maybe this year, keep things small. Ask someone else to host Thanksgiving, or if something else is bothering you, find a solution through therapy with BetterHelp. They do all the work when it comes to finding the right therapist. If it's not a good match, it's easy to switch.

58:42You just have to focus on what you need to get through the holidays. Plus, BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many co-pays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the U.S., you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com slash J-R-E. That's BetterH-E-L-P.com slash J-R-E. And like the creek is- Amazing. Like awesome. It's amazing. Like if it was just the creek that was here, like Austin would still be right on. Yeah. But the fact that like you built like an actual circus, you know, and then we're like, clowns, move here. Like that benefited every other, you know, P. we're like, clowns, move here. Like, that benefited every other, you know,

59:36P.T. Barnum-esque character. Yeah. Well, it also, we set it up to develop comedy. Like, you have the cornerstone of the club, which is Kill Tony, right? That's, like, very important because it gives people an opportunity. Like, if you're on the road, you're grinding it out, and, you know, you're barely getting by, but you're kind of funny you got it you got something it's just you don't have an audience yet and then you do one minute on kill tony and you get a golden ticket or you get that big joke book and then they ask you to come back and next next thing you know holy shit you're selling out clubs on the weekend and people are coming to see you you have fucking fans yeah and it creates a lot of work too like that's what I care about is the fact that, like, you know, Tony has created so

1:00:17much opportunity for so many people who deserve it and some other people. But, you know, he has a pretty good hit ratio as far as who he decides to green light. You cannot have all hits. No. It's impossible. Yes. And it's not what you want anyway. You want a little conflict. You want a little chaos. It's good. It's good for everybody. It's almost. And it's not what you want anyway. You want a little conflict. You want a little chaos. It's good. It's good for everybody. It's almost like the guy loves pro wrestling. Almost. Has anyone ever figured that part? People are like, oh, he's evil. It's like, oh, or maybe you're getting worked, Mark. Yeah. You know? Anyway. He's not even remotely evil.

1:00:47I told Tony he should put out that O2 arena thing as a 30 for 30. Like we should do a breakdown of like why it went bad and I talk back ten years later Well, what he should do is put it out like Andrew Dice Clay's yes the day the laughter dies Yeah, and it could be very self-effacing and very funny and very humanizing and I think that'd be a good idea It wouldn't be about look. I probably get millions of views. Oh, yeah, the worst kill Tony ever did he bring regulars? Yeah, Kim was there David was there Ari was there Congdon. Yeah. Yeah, so David Lucas Ari Maddy, yeah, how did they do? You know, what was funny is like, you know how Ari is like a shark Yeah, Ari seems like he might be devoid of like human empathy sometimes because he's so driven and so Eastern European.

1:01:34And he comes from blood that ate tubers and war pelts. War. Yeah, war. His whole country has been defined by war. So Ari is like, I was like, okay, Ari's going to go up and save the show. It's going to be fine. We got Ari coming out. And Tony's like, we're going to let Ari sit down and do panel. And I was like, please, please. Because I'm just covered in arrows, you know? So I was like little John and he was Robin Hood and they're hiding behind me. So what was weird though, is that Ari had all of the people who cared about him came from Estonia. So in the very front row, there was like 50 people who he'd grown up with, who I met the night previous and throughout the evening. And he was nervous the first time I ever saw him because these are people who he cares about.

1:02:17So he wasn't the explosive, you know, Ari Matty that we've come to expect. It was a guy who was like performing in front of his mom and aunt, you know, in an arena. It's the first time they've seen him. So then Ari sits down, his set went fine, but he sits down to do panel and he might have said three things. I kept being like, what do you think Ari? And. His set went fine, but he sits down to do panel, and he might have said three things. I kept being like, what do you think, Ari? And he was like, yes, I like it. It's good that what you said is funny. Well, I think in order to do Kill Tony, one of the things that you have to have is a very strong local comedy community. And I'm not sure London has enough numbers.

1:02:55I think London does, but I think it was more that the biggest thing came- Does London have enough numbers? I think so. Does it? Is it comparable to a big US city? I think London is probably as comparable to New York, Chicago. I mean, if you took- In terms of quality and numbers? Yeah, I think so. There's a thousand really good comics in London. Dude, I know a lot of really funny comics. And the weird thing about London is like if you're a Dublin comic or a Belfast comic, like you'll go to London and do all. So it's like if you imagine that like Austin spread like 600 miles in every direction and that included like, you know, Glasgow and a bunch of other like big cities. I think if you want to do it that way, but yeah,

1:03:34I think London has a bunch of great comics. So why didn't they have better bucket pools? I think that, um, a bunch of people saw that the American spectacle was there and they decided that this was like, Oh, I'm going to try standup for the first time ever. This'll be a laugh. Then they get out there and like, they're shattered. Literally you saw people's like entire identities rip in half. And then they had to do 50 more seconds. I've seen that at Madison Square Garden. I saw people do their very first set at Madison Square Garden, which is insane. Literally insane. An impossible task. Oh, I would not recommend it to anyone. And that person, perhaps if that wasn't their first experience on stage, could have had a career in comedy.

1:04:12But now it's like your first fight is against Mike Tyson when he's 20. And you just get your brains punched in. You're like, well, I guess I'm going to get a job. Yeah, exactly. I'm going back to school. Back to Jiffy Lube. But like Kim did a great job. David, you know, closed the show. Like it was, it was, everyone did the best they could in that situation. And I would love to see it, like, with a little bit of gloss on it. 16,000 drunk people that are screaming shit out is hard to wrangle. Coked up, too. Ah, nice. Very coked up. Nice. Dude, there was just random fistfights happening. I think there was, literally, I think there was a stabbing at that show, dude. I like how he did that. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:52Well, I've been taking improv classes, you know Yeah, yeah But yeah, there was like a stabbing I mean you should I would we should just have like red band and I want to we should sit down and do that 30-for-30 style dog a mystery science theater watching it. Oh my god. That would be great Yeah, like everybody take bong hits and sit on a couch and watch it. I mean, that's the only way I'd want to watch it. It's very stoned, like disassociated high. Oh my God. Yeah, he told me it was horrible, but he didn't give me details. He didn't want to talk about it. It was like he went somewhere and they stole his car and lit it on fire and he barely got out of there alive. I mean, it was kind of like that thing when they're like, Hey, Ken Kesey, did you watch a

1:05:36Cuckoo's Nest movie? And he was like, well, if the hell's angel said they were going to come gang rape your daughter on the front lawn, would you go out and watch it? I feel like that's probably how he feels about this. Cause it was not within his control. Like how bad it happened. Like he's very competent. Red band's very competent. I'm competent. Like it wasn't like we couldn't do the job. It was more like a bunch of piranhas got thrown in our hot tub and we were just like, ah, being eaten alive. It sucked. He definitely should release it. I think that, um, I think it's an opportunity to be a bit like, hey, you know, they're not all great. They're not all slam dunks. Maybe he will now. Maybe he should give that one to Netflix. Tony, get, you know, they're not all great. They're not all slam dunks. Maybe you will now.

1:06:13Maybe you should give that one to Netflix. Tony, get me on Netflix, buddy. Get me on there. That's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough show. I mean, it's a great show, but it's like taking it on the road like that. I love doing it. In that circumstance. I wonder if they've done it in many other countries. Have they done it in England more than once, or is it just that one time? I think they did it on a smaller scale, maybe, in London. Maybe that's more manageable. Yeah. What is Royal Albert Hall? How many is that? I don't know. 6,000? I did it with Tim. I got to sign the book underneath the guy from The Who. They have the Queen's Archive for everyone who's ever performed there, and you get to write your name in it.

1:06:58And I was right under Daltrey. That was pretty sick. That's pretty sick. I know. And it's so silly that I'm a filthy nightclub comic, but yet I'm in the Queen's Archive forever. Stand-up rules, it's the best. It is the best. It's just that a lot of stuff that surrounds it just sucks So like what are the what is the stuff that surrounds it that's really like stealing your joy other than the travel part I mean I got into this to be a clown and to Entertain people and I'm really good at I mean I fucking sell chicken tenders and beers, you know, like I don't aspire to be Elevated in any way. I don't like the fact that people are like, these are the modern philosophers. It's like, no dude. Like I don't

1:07:39believe that at all. I get up there and I try and make people not think for 60 seconds and do this kind of alchemy. Cause like you can't, you can't study laughter. You can't study why something's funny. What we do, call it a bar trick, but it is magic. Like anyone out there, try and get up on stage for 60 minutes and make a bunch of people who work at different places and think different ways, who are not used to being in a room, being quiet, try and make them feel like they spent $35 and it wasn't wasted. That's what I get off on. I love being really good at stand-up. I love doing the job. I love leaving it all in the field. But I don't want to fucking be a cultural commentator. You don't have to.

1:08:22I don't want to be a pundit. It's what's expected of us. No, by who? Dude, everyone wants comics to weigh in. Says who? I think that if you look at most... Do you think David Tell's weighing in on things? No, and that's why he's the best. Right. He's the greatest, but he doesn't have to. I don't have to either... Do you think David Tell's weighing in on things? No, and that's why he's the best. Right. He's the greatest, but he doesn't have to. I don't have to either. Do you think you have to? I don't think I do, but people expect it of me. Who? Who are these people? There's people who listen to my podcast, Shelby Behemoth. Yeah, but you can weigh in on things as a podcaster. And this is like, we were having this discussion about Hicks last night, a couple nights ago.

1:08:56And someone said, I wish he wasn't so like, he's like, some of his stuff is not funny. He's like patronizing. And I said, well, here's the thing. He didn't have podcasts back then. If Hicks had a podcast, he'd probably have like really brilliant discussions with people and make interesting points. And then he could just dedicate his stage time to just being funny. So he was funny a lot, but then there was also like important points that he felt like he had to get out that he did in the genre of standup comedy that weren't necessarily funny. So he didn't have a proper outlet for these deeper thoughts which is what i have with my books and stuff i can like put it exactly and with your podcast so that that's where

1:09:38i think we're very fortunate and that you don't have to be a cultural commentator in your comedy all you have to do is be funny like some of my favorite comics like mitch headberg there's a lot of comics that are just funny. Stephen Wright, just funny. There's nothing. It just like, you don't have to be a cultural commentator. And the idea that there's less value to it because it doesn't fit into what X person wants from standup comedy. Well, that's silly. That's silly. But there's a lot of people that if you listen to them, they want to force you to do what they want you to do. They want to pressure you because people like to change people. They like to do that. They like to think is very powerful tool.

1:10:19Yes. They like to scold. They like to tell people what they want from them and tell them what to do. And, you know, you know, silence is not an option. Like, okay, of course it's an option. Silence is always an option and also like should you if anyone goes to a comedy show and they're hoping for the comedian to signal that they have the same allegiances to the way that they think don't come to my shows come to my shows to get a joke every 12 seconds like i atel's the best to ever do it in my opinion he's the best nightclub comic. He has a joke every 15 I am having 22 year olds in the crowd now and I should have a fucking t-shirt cannon and keys to shake It was like my act has gotten so much more joke dense because of the youth and their expectations

1:11:05Mm-hmm, but like I I I really think of the fact like I like to say that I'm like RC Cola Like I make products you can consume them I don't think anyone should be political in comedy ever dude Hicks is the man but that shit when he like came out in London dressed like The Undertaker and like takes his jacket off And puts it on like that's not my favorite Hicks. Well, you know why I was young and silly I think the problem with that one was first of all There was a lot of weight on him to be this cultural philosopher, this commentator, but also one show filming it. You can't. There's too much pressure. It's too much pressure. One show filming one show for a special is a lot of pressure. And you can't.

1:11:47It's hard to be loose. You know, it's very hard to be loose. But I don't like that so many people think that that's Bill Hicks I saw him live. I got a chance to see him live multiple times nightclub. Yeah. Yeah, how big was the rooms? 150 I saw murder in front of 150 at the comedy connection in Boston the old comedy connection not the one in Faneuil Hall The little tiny one that was downstairs short It was like really short ceilings, like very low ceilings. Like comedy works downtown. Yeah, like little boy at the club, at the mothership. Very low ceilings, tight room, and he murdered. And then I saw him bomb at Nick's Comedy Stop. I saw him multiple times and only in nightclub settings because I think that's really all he did except when he did England.

1:12:35When he was in England, the thing is he went to England and he became like this thing. Right. And then you have a little bit of that sort of audience capture thing that goes on, you know, where they expect something of you. They expect philosophy. Yeah. They expect this part of you. And it is kind of interesting. Like I was dating this girl at the time. in 1994 and i put she was very smart and uh i watched it with her and she goes he's very interesting but he's not funny that's what she said yeah and i was like yeah right like i'm not laughing either but i really like it but i know as a comic and i had not done any specials I had done a couple TV spots by then I'd done like MTV and a few other things but they're like short

1:13:17ten minute things it's hard when that cameras on like ready go and you have to be loose like Friday night second show or Saturday night second show where it's like you just having fun you're in the zone and you're flowing. It's very hard to do. It's very hard to do. You know, and I thought about, and it's scary. And that's one of the reasons why, like, my last special I decided to do live. Because I wanted to feel that. I wanted to be scared. Yeah. I wanted to be scared and I wanted to do something for, like, millions of people. But I structured it very differently. I structured it where, like, it was a little safer. Like, I knew these jokes were going were gonna kill I didn't deviate from the path at all it wasn't fucking around like it would be like a Saturday

1:14:01night at the mothership right and it was different but I did it because it was nerve-racking because I scared me so cuz it's worse than one show because it's one show that you can't edit. Oh, yeah. And one show that millions of people are going to see live. And a lot of haters. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, that's why I did it. I was like, let's do, let's be scared. Well, it's probably novelty, right? Like, I love novelty. Yeah. I value it so much. So the fact that that scared you. Yeah. Because like, we've all been, like, I've been doing it longer than I haven't. I've been doing stand-up 21 years. And there are shows now where I'm like, you're doing your act you're killing they're laughing but you're like you ever play that game city skylines you play it right Jamie I told you

1:14:44yeah we played way too much it's a city building game much and you have to like put in the pipes to move the water along Jamie I've been on stage, dude, like sold out, killing. And I'm thinking of grid patterns in my head while I'm on stage. I couldn't be less connected to the task. It's like a robot. Well, then you're doing too many shows. Oh yeah. No, I've done way too many shows. But like, that's the novelty you're talking about is like doing that thing that's scary is very valuable and not enough people do shit that's scary because they don't want to look like frauds. Well, it's very important when you're successful to be under pressure, to do things that are hard and scary. It's very, I'm too successful. I have to do scary things.

1:15:24So I do scary things all the time. I do things that give me a lot of pressure. That's what I like. It's one of the reasons why I like bow hunting. It's a lot of pressure. It's very difficult to do, and it's a lot of pressure. And those elk don't give a fuck that you have the number one podcast in the world. Right. Or that you sell out arenas. It doesn't give a shit. Oh, you have five Netflix specials. It doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. It's just real. It's just pressure. So I like things that give me pressure, like hard workouts, different things that I do. I do specifically to keep my mind straight because otherwise you'll get overwhelmed by success and it'll fuck with you and it'll fuck with your perspective. It's also

1:16:06one of the keys for me, at least, is I pay very little attention to what other people say about me. I think it's very important. I'm peripherally aware of it. I'm peripherally aware of criticism and compliments, and it's all nice and good, and that's nice. And when people come up to me and they say something to me that's really nice, it's very cool. But I don't take it in. I don't like, oh, wow, that's me now. No, never. I just keep on trucking. And I am my worst critic, so I am in my own head all the time looking at my own stuff. And that's how I approach it. So I think about it that way, that I don't – you just have to stay on the path. And it's a constant path. It's like my set that I'm doing right now I think is – I hate saying this because I say this a lot.

1:16:55But I think it's the best set I've ever done. And I think that's the goal. The goal is to have the material that you're proud of that you think is – and it's not done. Like it's not ready to be filmed. So I'm working on it and I'm tweaking it and I'm adding to it. And I'll have shows where I'll do it one way. I'm like, oh, that way is no good. I got to redo it so i listen to recordings and go back over it and then try to dissect it and then maybe put it on the shelf for a couple months and then try this new thing and try to figure out like maybe there's uh maybe that bit is just gonna be an orphan i have a whole folder on my computer of orphans yeah and they're bits that never made it on the specials and they're just like who knows

1:17:31it killed but it didn't fit and so find a new spot and just this constant process and so i put my head in that yeah i don't put my head in what other people think oh yeah don't put my head into what other people want i don't put my head into what other people expect i just try to do my best yeah and that's it i mean dude yeah because like i'm new to any kind of like people having anything to say about me or knowing i exist you know like it's relatively very new and i decided early on with this book it was like i can't if if people say the book is really good which a lot of people have i love the book that can't be any more valuable than when people say i hate the book you suck as a writer you can't be any more valuable than when people say, I hate the book. You suck as a writer.

1:18:14You can't allow the strangers to give you good stuff and take nutrition from that good stuff. If you're going to say the people who don't like me are insane, like you can't value either one of them because then you're trying to equivocate and you're making bad art. And like the expectation of the viewer was not involved in the production of art for a long time until very recently and It's not healthy. It's not good. It's not good for the people who want good art either No, and the people who write to you and say like, you know, you're a sellout or whatever like They think they're smarter than the people who don't write to you You know, it's like the people who just watch the thing and say this was funny and then go back to their lives, those are the people who I want to value the opinion of.

1:19:01Yeah. But I never talk to them because they're not insane. And the people that are hating and the people, I get it. Look, I would do the same. Oh, sure. If I was in your, this is the thing that we all have to understand. If I lived your life, I would be you. If you lived my life, you would be me. Yeah. And I think very few people are inherently good or evil or dumb. There's dumb people. Unfortunately, there's like biological limitations to intelligence. They're real. It's real. You talk to some people and they just don't get it. They had lead paint when they were a kid or something. Yeah, yeah. Their mom never talked to them, so they grew up nonverbal. Bad genes, man. Yeah, for sure. You know, there's bad

1:19:36genes. You know, I've met kids that are the children of brilliant people and they're just inherently brilliant. Like, there's a thing that's passed down. The synapses fire more swiftly. Their memory is better. For sure. It's real. I get it. So, it's like, I don't take it personally, but you can't live by compliments either. That's why I tell comics don't read comments. Don't get in there. Even the good stuff is bad for you. It feels like it's good for you. Like, yeah, I'm the man. Yeah, you like me? Wow, he's always fucking out there fucking doing the thing. Yeah, yeah, it's me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'll be thinking about compliments rather than what you're doing. All of it steals from your focus.

1:20:15All of it. All of it steals from whatever creative energy, whatever life energy, observational energy that you have to apply to all aspects of your life. I always try to tell comics, I've said this before, I apologize if people have heard it. I try to say this to as many people as possible because I think it's an important way to phrase it and to structure it in your head. Think of your attention as units. You have 100 units. 100 is a good number. If you're spending 30 units paying attention to people that hate you or paying attention to people that love you or paying attention to anything, you just stole 30 units from your 100. Now you only have 70 to apply to the things that you love. And there's 50 of those 70 are spent on your phone.

1:21:02You know what I mean? So you actually have 20 units left. I think of it as pounds of flesh, bro. Because I'll be out there, and I love to give myself to the people. I love the act of stand-up. Whatever you want to say, I don't think it's art i keep i love to give myself to the people like i love the act of stand up like i didn't you know whatever you want to say i don't think it's art but it could be service you know like it's nice to make people laugh sucks they have to pay for it sucks it's commodified but like so when i go out and do the meet and greet and i'm exhausted and i've already done if i've it's like how much can i give away of me until there's none of me left and then it's just like this shell that people come and look at and like they put

1:21:39the coin in the mouth and i say the funny thing and i'm like robotic at the meet and greet and all that shit like i can't i can't keep giving all this of me away and expect for that thing that i was to still remain well then there's also the problem, like, there was an issue, especially in the 90s, where comics would do all this material about travel, about airplane travel. Why? Because that was their life. Because that was, they were thinking about that all the time, because that was their experience. You have to have experiences. You have to do things other than the thing that you do just to have things to talk about Just as a part of your job have experiences and have a part of your life

1:22:21That is that has nothing to do with your travel and if you're traveling Constantly and doing stand-up constantly your life experiences are hotel dinner Hanging with your friends show And there's not enough coming in. There's too much coming out, and then you go dry. And then when you go dry, you start playing games in your head while you're on stage. And that's just a sign that you – and I've experienced that a lot when I was on the road most of my life. When I was doing a lot of roadshows, it was like, you get to a point where you don't connect with what you're saying anymore. Yeah. And I didn't have the luxury to step away. Yeah. I don't, I didn't either. Like that's, and hopefully now with like writing, like this got optioned and I'm going to write the screenplay, like.

1:23:07With just the writing alone, just the experience of expanding your perceptions and expanding your thoughts and just your overall creative energy into something completely different is hugely beneficial. It has to be. Because I was reading the way you structure this book, the descriptives. It's very unusual. It's like you don't write like anybody else that I know of. it's really uniquely you and it's really good and it's thanks man and it's um it's rewarding it's like very inspiring it's really really good man thank you joe i'm very i'm on chapter 10 i haven't finished it but i'm pretty deep into it dude part three is just insane i can't wait it's already fucking insane. It's really good, man.

1:23:53And it's, like I said, it's rewarding because it's good and it takes these unexpected turns. Like, one of the things that is, it sucks when you're reading something and you know what's coming. Yeah, yeah. I hate that. And sometimes you think you know what's coming and then they trick you and that's fun. But this isn't that at all. I don't even know what the fuck is going on. Like, it's really good. And it's very uniquely you. And it's very vulnerable. Yeah. It's like there's a lot going on there, man. It's really. I wanted it to be beautiful. I love prose. I love lyricism. I love literature. I can tell. Yeah. It is a love letter to prose. Thanks, man. It's really great. Well, that thing you said about how, like, comics only wrote about airplane food. Thanks, man. It's really great. Well, that thing you said about how comics only wrote about airplane food,

1:24:34my issue with American literature, which still won't let me in, despite this being an immediate national bestseller, no book coverage from your conventional, you know, the outlets that I... I read the Paris Review. I get the Times supplement. I love all these literary things, and they still won't talk to me. Who cares? I do, because, like, I want to get in there. I want to go to these talks and stuff. Don't, don't, don't. But the American MFA situation, the Master in Fine Arts, all these, like, writing programs, all these kids go to these writing programs. And instead of like being 19 and smoking something that turns out is an opium, you know, and getting their heart broken and, you know, living outside or being desperate.

1:25:21Instead, they go to these colleges that are like, you know, very expensive institutions that only allow certain types of people in. And they learn how to write books from people who also went to these institutions. And those books are then sent off to publishing houses that are housed by people who went to these institutions. And the books that come out are completely devoid of any kind of real human experience because these kids have lived in these like ivory towers of knowledge. And they haven't been out getting their teeth busted by reality. So every book that comes out is so fucking boring, but it has to be greenlit from the top because if this isn't good or valuable as literature, then the

1:26:00whole house of cards crumbles. Then why do you go to the MFA programs anymore? The best literature now, the best fiction comes out of Japan. It comes out of France. It comes out of- Japan, really? Oh, dude, Japanese fiction is fucked there's all these books about like women who eat each other what yeah dude yeah butter is an insane novel um uh uh convenience store girl or dude japanese fiction is still publishing stuff that used to be okay to write about because it was weird and it was far out but it's still fiction and now every fucking contemporary novel that comes out in america is about like someone who grew up rich and feels bad about it you know and it's like so boring and then the stuff they do champion like a little life is the most ridiculous hyperbolic bullshit that's never

1:26:49happened to anyone but since these people never lived and they were all at school, they don't know what the average American is like doing. So it's just everyone's out of touch and everyone's jerking each other off. And it's like this dick suck Ouroboros of shit. And then I try to write a book for like, you know, dudes to read. And like, all they talk about is like, who's going to save male reading? No males are reading. And then it's like, I'm desperately out here being like please me i want people that is a real topic of discussion dude i'm so glad i don't know about any of this yeah well this is like my hobby stuff that i read other than your book and like that stuff that i actually get into that's fiction is like it's all male stuff like I'm really into the gray man series what's the jack

1:27:34cars you don't know oh my god um the gray man is uh it was they made it into a movie but the movie sucked it was like a Netflix movie but it's all about an assassin sick and you would enjoy it read gray man one mark grainy it's um he's been on the podcast before. It's all about this guy who was raised by his father. His father was this guy who ran military training programs. So he learned how to become a shooter and learned how to be very good at firearms when he was very young and then got sent to jail for he was working security and killed some drug dealers. Cool. He got sent to jail and then wound up being recruited by the CIA to be an off-books assassin. Awesome. It's fucking great. I love that shit.

1:28:25It's wild. Yeah. It's wild stuff. And he's got like, I don't know how many books does he have. How many do you have? Like 15? Damn. Yeah. He churns them out. have? Like 15? Damn. Yeah. He churns them out. He bangs one out every year. Yeah. And they're really good. They're very engrossing. Hell yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, there's so many great books about sick shit, but they don't know how to tell you that these books exist. My buddy Jordan Harper writes these insane books about Hollywood pedophile networks and white supremacist biker gangs. and they're bad to the bone. And I like meet the guy and I'm a dork and I'm like, Hey man, I really big fan since the short stories, you know? And he's like,

1:29:03Oh, you have that book? And I was like, yeah, it was hard to find. And he's like, yeah, they only published a thousand. It's weird that you have it. And I was like, well, gee whiz, mister. And it it's like no one's having these conversations anymore like dudes don't talk about books like i felt when i wrote this i feel like i'm i was i was like pregnant with this baby and i loved the baby and i was so proud of that i got pregnant that i fed it all the right vitamins but then when it's time to give birth to it it's a baby that society at large thinks is a boring abomination and no one gives a shit about this baby. No, I don't. I think you're wrong. I think you're just like you're dealing with this like very small insulated group of people that have this perspective. That's readers

1:29:48though. There aren't a lot of readers of literature anymore. Yeah. But if people find out about a good book, they will read it. But that's hard to get them to find out. That's readers of literature anymore. Yeah, but if people find out about a good book, they will read it. But it's hard to get them to find out. That's what I'm saying. That's why you're on here. Well, I know. This is the thing. I know. They've done a really shitty job in connecting to men. That's why. It's not just that men aren't interested in reading. If you tell them about a great, like Jack Carr. Do you know who he is? No. Former Navy SEAL. He wrote the book The Terminalist that they turned into a show on Netflix. Another fucking great book.

1:30:16The Terminalist is a fucking great book. And the first one is about a bunch of people that he has to kill after he gets out. There's a lot of corruption, government corruption, but it's really well written. It's fun and it's exciting. I like fun in a book. Hyper violent. Yeah. It's really good. Okay, and his book sell really well I mean like they they opted into an Amazon series. It's on Amazon Prime Chris Pratt stars in it You don't know about it. No, that's the thing is I'm an author you're insulated You're the fact that you don't know who Jack Carr is is crazy. Well, I'm sure my algorithm hasn't showed me Jack Carr Yeah, that's a problem. Have you ever read Rogue Mail? No. Dude, Rogue Mail's a book that was forgotten.

1:30:58Is it M-A-I-L or L-E? M-A-L-E. Okay. And it's about a guy who's trying to assassinate Hitler on Hitler's compound. But it's this dude who thinks he's like this big, gnarly hero, right? And he's like, I'm the one who's going to end the war. So he like gets into the back of Hitler's compound and it's just him and his head like talking about how brave he is. And I don't want to ruin the ending, but I think you'd love that book. Okay. Yeah, Rogue Male's a heater. Okay, a heater. Yeah, man. And Angels, if anyone out there is listening and they want to read a really good book, Angels by Dennis Johnson is about a bank robbery gone awry. And it might be the most beautiful, ugly, bleak thing. And it's my favorite book ever.

1:31:39Well, maybe with this obsession with social media and then people realizing that it's very bad for you, we can start a trend of people opting out of just spending all their time doom scrolling on their fucking phone and actually getting into really cool, interesting, creative things. This is so much more nutritious than anything on your phone. And I mean, any book. Yeah. You could read a book about like prairie medicine and still be like so much better off than just looking at your phone and just read No Country for Old Men. Oh my God. Get someone into Cormac McCarthy, get someone into, you know, Blood Meridian or some of the really dark. Don't start with Blood Meridian, my God. Get someone into Cormac McCarthy. Get someone into Blood Meridian or some of the really dark.

1:32:14Don't start with Blood Meridian. Yeah, start with No Country for Old Men and then get a feeling of how Cormac writes. And then finish up when you're done with all of his work and then finish up with Blood Meridian. Which is the best book we've produced as Americans. Which supposedly they're going to try to turn into a film. Aren't they in the middle of that? They've aborted that like five different times over the course of history. I think Brad Pitt had the rights for a while. And then like someone had them for a while. It's one of those ones. It's like you hear about someone taking on that task. You go, good luck. Good luck trying to make that. It has to be a cartoon, Joe. Right. That's the only way to do it, is you do a big cartoon.

1:32:53It's like six hours long. And then you can show, actually, you know, the indigenous scalpers smashing babies' heads against the rocks. Because you can't show that in a movie, I don't think. Right, right, right. You ever seen Bone Tomahawk? Yeah. So, like, that movie's cool, but that violence at that scale does look cartoonish. So I think that in a cartoon, you can have the judge and the judge can be 12 feet tall sometimes. And other times he can be the shape of a boulder and he can be amorphous. And like, yeah, you can't do it live action, I don't think. Well, maybe it should just be a book. Yeah. You know, there's that thought, too, that some books are so good that they have to exist only in literary form.

1:33:34Moby Dick. Yeah. Yeah. They have to exist only in where your imagination fills in the blanks. Yeah. Which is really part of the majesty of books. Part of the joy of it is the fact that it excites your brain to create these images in your mind that correspond with the words on the page. But I worry that like people aren't reading anymore and it's like atrophying, you know? Yeah, they could build it back. Yeah. That's like a lot of things that people didn't do before. Like when I was talking about bow hunting, hunting has gone, the activity of hunting went way up during the pandemic. And it's because people realize like, hey, maybe this is something I should learn how to do if there's no fucking food.

1:34:16Sure. Yeah. You know, like it'd be a good thing to know how to be able to shoot a rifle and kill a pig and, you know, have food for my family. That's when we got our gun. Yeah. You know, two bleeding heart leftists. We got guns. Yeah. Oh, I had a lot of bleeding heart leftists that were asking me if they could borrow one of my guns. Borrow a gun. That's a federal crime, right? Exactly. Can you stand off the serial killer? Well, what's interesting is in Texas, it's not a crime. So in Texas, I could actually give you a gun. Hell yeah. Like I could say, here, this is a gift and I can just give you a pistol. You should do that for every guest. Send them out of here. Some guys do. I think Sean Bryan used to do that

1:34:56he used to give people a pistol he used to give people a sig like at the beginning of every podcast yeah i think he even gave one to gavin newsom he's like use it use it i think it was like a gift like some sort of a promotional deal with his, I don't know how he did it. I mean, you would have to like fill out a lot of paperwork and stuff like that too. But in Texas, if a person's a Texas resident and you live in Texas, I'm 99% sure that you could just give them a gun. Wow. That's Sean Ryan, former Navy SEAL CIA contractor, host Sean Ryan Show. Well-documented examples, California Governor Gavin Newsom. Ryan gave a Sig Sauer handgun during a 2025 appearance. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Newsom still hadn't brought it home because of California requirements.

1:35:49He's the governor. Also had to pay the portion of its value above the state's gift limit for public officials. Yeah, I wonder if that applied to the houses he got. He didn't seem to mind breaking all the rules during those soirees they were throwing. Remember those fancy parties he was having? The French laundry one where he had no mask on indoors. Do you think that your love of hunting and that fear for the live special, those kind of things make you present? Like you're completely alive while you're doing them and you're not distracted? Yeah. Is that what you think like draws you to these things? Yes. Right? I think those are very important, but particularly very important for famous people, for famous wealthy people.

1:36:30And I don't recommend this to everybody. I'm just saying for me. Maybe I should just say me. Because you can get soft. It's real easy to get insulated and to, you know, you have a bunch of yes people around you, people kissing your ass. I have like 100 employees or something like that. Yeah. You could lose your fucking mind. Yeah. You could lose your mind. For sure. So you have to be in charge of maintaining your mind. You could lose your mind. So you have to be in charge of maintaining your mind. And I think one of the things is doing things that absolutely require your focus and are hard to do. Objectively, unequivocally hard to do. There's no easy way to climb up a mountain and shoot an elk at 60 yards with a bow and arrow. It doesn't exist. You have to train for it.

1:37:14Every footstep matters, right? Like every little movement you make, or like the way you smell and like the wind blowing. Not just that, you have to train for it. Like I have a fucking hypoxia box, like a chamber out here that I crank up to 14,000 feet above sea level, and I do cardio in it. Wow. Yeah, I shoot my bow in the Texas heat for hours every day. Joe, put some roses on my grave, okay? You're gonna be around. But my version of that in the hypoxia box is like locking myself in the room, like writing a book. I'm about 120 pounds. That's amazing. Congratulations. What did you do? Did you do the Ozempic or did you do it all natural? No, I quit drinking first. 100% quit drinking? Do you miss it? No.

1:38:00It wasn't my bag. It turns out that's not the drug for me. I drank because I grew up in rural Colorado and dudes drank. And I didn't really think about it until I was like 35. I was like, I'm hung over and fat and feel stupid and my stomach hurts and I eat bullshit all the time. Weed's a lot better. I love weed. Yeah. I love weed. It's so much better. So yeah. So I quit drinking and then I got on Manjaro, which is like I took it because it sounded like Italian food. And then my wife, who's a doctor, was like very heavily involved in my weight loss, you know. So I think I did it the right way while using those Wunder drugs, you know. Are you working out at the same time you're doing it? No, no, of course not.

1:38:43No, I rode my bike and like garden and swim. But like, no, I'm not at all any of that. But I was very conscious about like the bone density and like protein and stuff because I was lucky enough to be married to a medical professional. That's the proteins important But also lifting something heavy is important. You don't have to work out hard. I want to be little for a minute Joe I want to make you big listen to get big is a huge task. I have this frame, you know Yeah, yeah, but I know you have an athlete's frame, but those days are gone, my friend. Come on. I know, but that was a long fucking time ago. In order for you to put mass on the body that you have currently, it takes a lot. I'm not asking

1:39:24that of you, but I'm just saying you really should do some lifting weights as you get older or your body will deteriorate. I know. Have you been talking to my wife? No. Okay. Cause she's also like, Hey, you're going to have sciatica. Your shoulders are going to hurt. You just have to use your body to make sure that your tissue doesn't dissolve. I know, but I hate lifting weights. Just do it. It's not hard. You watch a movie, put a good movie on and, and have some weights and watch the movie while you do a few repetitions of weights. Yeah. You'd have to kill yourself. And by the way, you shouldn't. Especially when you start off, you should do it very slowly. Because my tendons are bad, probably.

1:40:01Well, you just got to get your body used to it. And your body will adapt and it will get used to it. But you don't have to get big. I'm just saying you have to do something to maintain your tissue. Okay. Because if you don't, you'll get weird atrophy where you're like opening up a mayonnaise jar. You'll tear your fucking labrum. Oh, yeah. Probably like sometimes I'll like do like a gorilla type thing, and I'll be like, oh, I haven't put my arms above my head all day. Right. You know what I mean? That's another thing you should do. You should hang from a chin-up bar. Very important. Grab your chin-up bar with your hands and hang with your body weight. Okay. First things first, get chin-up bar. Yeah, get a chin-up bar with your hands and hang with your body weight. Very good for shoulder health.

1:40:33First things first, get a chin-up bar. Yeah, get a chin-up bar and hang just to stretch your arms out so that your shoulders don't become impacted. Because a lot of people, they get frozen shoulders. Oh, yeah. They don't move good. That's a lot of it. It's like everything just gets contracted and tightened. You got to loosen it up. I know. Just lift a little bit of weights. You don't have to do a lot, man. It's just like do 10 pushups that start off with that. 10 pushups, 10 bodyweight squats. Not hard. Just do that. Do that every day. 10 pushups takes you 30 seconds. 10 bodyweight squats takes you 30 seconds. It's no time at all. It doesn't take you a lot of time, but you just have to do something

1:41:14Yeah and then go from 10 to 20 and Then you know maybe two sets of 10 and then maybe three sets of 10 and then maybe four sets of 10 and then slowly Build up over the course of months. I do 50 Hindu squats a day. That's great That's all I've been do squats are great was I think Ric Flair and Chris Benoit did them. Yes, that's a big thing among wrestlers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hindu squats are huge. Great for your knees. Yeah. Great for just leg strength and all that stuff. That's like the only thing I do because I'm scared that my knees will lock up. There's a good... You ever do Hindu push-ups? No. Those are great. I've done Pakistani push-ups though. What are those? A little spicier. No, no, no.

1:41:54Hindu push-ups is like a bomber push-up. Like your butt goes in the air, and you swoop down, and you push your body weight all the way up. Like a downward. It's like a cobra position. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And then you go all the way back up again, and then push all the way through. It's really good. Okay. They're really good. This is a Hindu push-up. So like this, and you push all the way through, just like that. Huh. I love those. I do those all the time. Yeah. Deep and you push all the way through just like that. Huh. I love those. I do those all the time. Yeah, deep dick the mat. And it also, it's just like good for like spinal flexibility and stuff like that. You don't have to do a lot, man.

1:42:23Like this idea that you have to kill yourself, that's not correct. You just have to get your body used to work and then slowly build it up over time. It's not, what people don't like is being tired and sore. Yeah. But you have to just build up to that, like build up to the work so that you don't get tired and sore, so that you're not exhausted on stage. I've done – like I have rules. Like one rule is I don't do legs on a day that I have to perform because you just are you too fucking tired or a day like if I have a like if I have a physicist in here and we're going to discuss quantum entanglement I you know I've been going over my notes and reading this book and listening to it in the sauna

1:43:05and trying to like grasp these concepts while they're talking I got to be like right there right yeah I can't be like oh my god i fucking kill myself today i can't be like that so i don't do that the days of but you what you want to make sure is that your body doesn't deteriorate and that's something you can't get back once it has no it's very hard once you're once your muscles have severely atrophied and your spine is atrophied and you've got degenerative disc disease. Your hips are all fucked. Which is really just a lack of, you know, your discs just get compressed over time. Gravity, the widow maker. But you can get away with a lot. And one of the things that hanging does also decompresses your discs.

1:43:50So it helps your back. And, you know, you work your way up to it. You'll start off, just hang there for 15, 20 seconds, whatever you could do. And then eventually, you'll get to 30, 40 seconds. And then eventually, maybe you can get to a minute or two minutes. Yeah. I think a gradual thing would be helpful. Yes. It's all gradual. We have comedians workouts. We do in my gym here. I saw Sagalow. That was insane. What's that? Did you see Brendan Sagalow. That was insane. What's that? Did you see Brendan Sagalow working out with Kreischer? No. Dude, he's fucking yoked. I don't know Sagalow. Oh, Sagalow's a very funny comic in New York. Oh, okay. Yeah, and he's like opening for Kreischer and they did one of those.

1:44:25Oh, nice. Oh, yeah, dude. It was nuts. But my point is these guys, a lot of them had never worked out before. So I show them how to work out. I teach them different things, but I say, we're not going to kill you. No one's going to die here today. We're going to do it nice and easy. And I want you to do what I do. I'm going to show you a few movements and we're going to do it slowly. And I want you to do it until it's uncomfortable and then stop. It's like when I do yoga with my wife. Yoga is fantastic. I like yoga. Well, there's a thing that you should do then. I do that with her like twice a week. That's great. Begrudgingly, you know. Yoga is fantastic for your spine, for decompression, for maintaining flexibility.

1:45:01Dude, my hips, bro. That's what it is because it's like so much sitting on like airplanes or like riding. It's like a lot of sitting and then you're like, oh, my body is just an L shape now. Yoga's great for your brain too, man. Dude, yeah. We did this sober October thing once and we had to do yoga. Like we have like different challenges that we do every year. And one of the challenges was we had to do 15, 90 minute hot yoga sessions in a month. And so we were doing like yoga every other day. But we did a bunch of them together. It was really fun. It was like Tom and Bert and Ari and me We had a great time but at the end of it I was like God Why don't I just do this all the time and I got to a point where I was doing it at least twice a week

1:45:41And then I really tapered off. Mm-hmm But when we were doing it those 15 in a month, I felt so relaxed and so nice Yeah And so kind and calm like it it beats you up so much when you're doing those 90-minute sessions that afterwards there's something about it that it's like very psychedelic. Like it gets you high. It gets you high. I think that you're wringing out some stuff and then there's like new, I don't know, the plasticity of the body has to be directly correlated with the plasticity of the mind. 100%. Like I feel so much better if I start my day while, like, you know, walking outside and then immediately into the garden before I write or look at my phone. Yes. Like, I got to get into my body because I wake up sore because I do use my body, not for these, you know.

1:46:26Dude, when COVID hit, my buddy Chris Pierce, who's, like, you know, a a Viking was like, get a weight set and just like lock in. So I was like, cool. So I got the squat rack. I got the, you know, the bench pad, the bench as we call it. That's how bad I am at working out. I don't know the name of the thing, but I also bought like the plates and I was like, how many plates do you think I should get? And he was like, Oh, just get like, you know, 90 know 90 pounds like 45 and 45 i of course got like eight 45 pound plates because i was like i'm gonna need these in six months like i'll be in here every day of course i'm gonna have to be able to lift right 360 pounds i those plates have never ever four of them are still in the box joe. That's okay. I moved plates from three separate homes now.

1:47:15Maybe they're there so you could use them now. And here's the key. Yeah. This is the key. And this doesn't just apply to weightlifting. It applies to getting things done. Write down a list of the stuff you have to do. Just write it down. This is the most important thing. You have an iPhone. iPhone, one of the cool things about the Note apps is you have a little, you can make a little checklist. Yeah. And so you write those things down and this is your daily thing. You just have to do it. So you're a list guy. It's important. I've never been a list guy. Well, I don't have to do it anymore because I'm so regimented. Yeah. Like I know what I do. I just get up and I do it. And I still have that, like, today,

1:47:56I did not want to get in the cold plunge. I did not want to work out. Yeah. But my brain is just like, fuck you. You do what I tell you to do. You just go do it. And I got in, I got out, oh, glad I did it. And then I do my mobility exercises, then I worked out. But if you're not regimented, if it's not like a normal daily party routine, you can make it by just writing a list down. And that includes taking your vitamins. That includes writing for two hours. Whatever it is you think you need to get done, write it down. Don't just allow your brain to wander and not fill that list. Make sure that you have a list. And if you have a list, you will fill that list. Make sure that you have a list. And if you have a list,

1:48:38you will follow that list and you'd be amazed at how much more you can get done if you have a list. Because I'm so regimented when it comes to writing or when it comes to the other creative aspects of my life. The stuff that fires my brain, very regimented. But if my wife's like, you need to go to the post office and go To the grocery store. I'm like well, that's impossible What are you talking about? There's eight hours in the day? I don't know what you mean, and she's like they're three blocks away, and I'm like okay And I'm like pissy about it like these little human tasks seem Like such distractions from my grand ideals and then, you're an impulsive, creative person. But then I don't necessarily use that time

1:49:15that I could have gone to the grocery store to like, you know, dive into the next great American novel. Right, right, right, right. So there's, it's, yeah. We're like such, we're our own worst enemies. Yep. These things up here are such a powerful tool that like they can be used for good, be used for evil, and like trying to figure out how to best maintain yours is like i guess the human experience have you read pressfield's book the war of art oh yeah for sure yeah that's a great book for people that are struggling with yes but that's like the whole thing there is like just do the job yes you're a professional do it yeah be a professional yeah that's how i feel about stand-up. I'm a professional.

1:49:54I show up at 6.30 for the 7 o'clock show. I learn everyone's name and the works in the club. I tip out appropriately. I treat it like a job. I'm not at all a diva at all in there. I always love asking the green room server who's the worst one. Right. That's my favorite part of the weekend. I used to ask the guy who drove everybody to the radio station. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. And you know who it always was? Richard Jenney. It's such a bummer because he was like one of my absolute favorites. Yeah. But he's a guy that wanted to be Jim Carrey. He wanted to be Jerry Seinfeld. He wanted to be a movie star or a television star and it didn't happen. And he was the best club comic on earth and hated it.

1:50:35Yeah. And was selling out everywhere he went and making a great living. It didn't matter. And the respect of all his peers. Oh my God. He was, did you ever get to see him live? No, but I, I was lucky enough that my dad was like, cool. So I've seen Richard Jenny for sure. You had to see him live. Live. He was, he was extraordinary. It was like a tell. Right. Like when you see him live, you're like, oh my God, he's hypnotizing me. like I'm captured by this guy's cadence and his mannerisms and it's like the flow was so perfect I tell the story if you've heard it again I'm sorry but he worked at Eastside Comedy Club on Long Island and I was working somewhere else and I came in to visit a friend and I was talking

1:51:16to this guy that I knew that was the the host and the guy was completely dejected. And I said, why? What's going on? He goes, Jenny was here Friday and Saturday. He did two shows Friday, two shows Saturday. He did four completely different hours and murdered. Yeah. I was like, holy shit. At that time, I had a fucking barely patched together 40 minutes of material. A lot of crowd work. A lot of whose birthday is it? Stretching to 45, headline. And he was doing four different hours. I was like, holy fuck. And I had paid to see him do stand-up when I was an open mic-er. And just blown away. And this was like when he wasn't selling out. I had paid to see. This was in 88. I saw him at Catch Rising Star in Cambridge,

1:52:03Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I sat like in the front row and he made fun of me. I was like, this is great. But he was so good. God, he was so good. And, you know, miserable. Why not killing himself? Yeah. You know, it's like, you hear about that and you're like, God, that guy hated it? Like he, that's the dream. The dream was to be the man. Like he was the guy that Chris Rock used to work with before all of his specials. Like especially like Bigger and Blacker and Bring the Pain. Yeah. Like those two ones. Like Richard Jenney had a large hand in helping him with those. Chris Rock is brilliant in that. He is one of the few guys that I know that would He has his material he does his set, but then he would

1:52:47Brainstorm with writers and he'd bring these other comics that he respected you know like Louie Apollo and man yeah, so funny. Oh my god back in the day. Yeah back in the day I got to meet him a skank fest and I went up and I, man, I just want to let you know you're the legend. And he went, who the fuck are you? Yeah. But those guys helped him put those specials together, and a big part of it was Jenny. And apparently, I haven't talked to Chris about this, but apparently Jenny was the one guy that would tell him, no, that joke sucks. Get it out of there. Yeah. Like, that one's not going to work. We've got to figure this out. And he would help him with stuff. Because Jenny was just so on point.

1:53:27He was so on point. And his bits, he was the very best at expanding a premise to its ultimate destination. He would just keep adding tags and tags and take it in a different direction. He'd think it's over and he'd bring it right back. And you're like, oh my and take it in a different direction. You think it's over and you bring it right back. And you're like, Oh my God, it was a masterpiece. Dude, when you can like have them and they think, like you said, like when you know what's going to happen and then, well, obviously that's comedy is like the switch. Yeah. But when they think like when the nerds come to the show and they think that they know not just where it's going, but what the backup or the C route is,

1:53:59and then you can hit them with the D route. God, that feels good. It tells the same way. God forbid you say, hey, Dave, I think you're funny. Yeah. You know, because then he's like, get out. Yeah. You know, show's over. He gets upset. Yeah. He doesn't like any praise at all. No. But that's also why he's so good, because he doesn't live in that. And he also does not engage at all with social media. No, no. But it's hurt him in terms of his ticket sales. He's like the least appreciated, brilliant comedian because he should be selling out arenas everywhere. He doesn't want to. He wants to be a club guy. I understand. Yeah. But, I mean, just the overwhelming response to his, it should be like people just like beating down the doors to go see him.

1:54:40Yeah. Like if you get a chance to see him before he goes, and I don't know when he's going to die. I'm not wishing this on him. He could be dead right now. He could be dead right now while we're talking. Right, yeah. He's not the healthiest guy in the world. No. But he was at the club like a year ago, and we were all sitting in the balcony going, I'm fucking hypnotized. He's hypnotizing me. He's so good. Yeah. And so out there and he he during the pandemic he started bringing a flute on stage on the recorder recorder that's right well we all went through some tough stuff during that crazy time but the fucking recorder worked it worked with his kind of comedy like it actually added to it yeah well he's just so silly there's not

1:55:19enough silly left in comedy i love silly well. Well, everybody wants to be brilliant. They want to be taken seriously. I just don't think there's any benefit to that. That thing you said earlier about how you were doing bar shows, right? Because you could headline quicker and get the $200. Yeah. So you know Wendy at Comedy Works, right? Sure. Love her. My beloved. They have the program where you like get bumped up so you can host at the comedy works and you're not paid yet but then the next level you get paid so there's like anyway all my friends got bumped up to that first level together and it was awesome and then the next level when they did promotions i was left out of that list and i was like what the fuck? Because

1:56:03I was the same as you. I wasn't haunting the club because I was going on the road and doing all the bar shows in Wyoming and the mountain States, because I thought that was the goal was to get an hour. Like you want to be a headliner, you want to get the hour. So I finally say to Wendy, I'm like, Hey, like, why didn't I get promoted like everyone else did? And she's like, let's go to lunch. And she was like, well, honey, you don't sign up. You're never at the club. You never host. You're never available on the weekends. Like, it doesn't seem like you give a shit. And I was like, no, no, I've been working more than anyone. Like, I just got back from five weeks on the road. And I remember I told her.

1:56:38And I came home with $500. Like, I really am devoted to this. And she went, oh, I just thought you were like a lazy stoner. And I was like, well and I came home with $500. Like I really am devoted to this. And she went, oh, I just thought you were like a lazy stoner. And I was like, well, part of that's true. You know, like, you know, we can be everything at once. But yeah. So it was just a lack of communication. It was a lack of communication. Yeah. And I thought that that was the goal, man. And I'm so glad that like, I'm not good at a showcase set. Like I do the shows at the club when I'm in town. I'll do like one of the and friends. And I always want to go up first, you know, because what's funny about your club is they'll be like, all right, Tony Hinchcliffe and friends and like Ari Matty will come out and everyone does the worm.

1:57:13You know, everyone like loses their fucking minds. Then they're like, all right, next up, Ron White. And people are like on fire. And then they're like, all right, everyone, Sam Talent. And you can hear him be like, all right, that's also good. You know, there's like, it's not Shane Gillis, but that's fine. So I like going up first because I didn't come up doing showcases. I came up on the road headlining. So now like when I go to New York and L.A. and I have to audition, like I'm usually the weakest one because I don't have that muscle. Right, that 15-minute banger set muscle. Right, you stretch your thoughts into like an hour. You take a journey. Yeah. Like I know how to do an hour, but doing 15 is like still not something I'm the best at.

1:57:54Eh, you could learn. You're a great comic. You just figure it out. It's not that hard. No, I know. It's just like that's such a weird facet that I've been doing this for two decades, but still like, there's a part of it that I'm like aware of the fact that I, there's people who are better than me. And I think that's like good in art to be aware of what you're really bad at, as opposed to being aware of what you're really good at. Oh, for sure. It's certainly better than being the best guy. Being the best guy is a weird position. That crown sucks. Oof. God damn. It's rough. Yeah. Yeah. I don't. And I think in probably in everything, that crown is hard to carry. Oh, yeah. It's hard to carry the number one guy crown.

1:58:30I mean, it's like, Shane drinks a lot of Bud Lights. Yeah, you try being Mount Rushmore. All right? Yeah. Let's have a little patience with the guy. Well, he got to drag a lot of Bud Lights before. Yeah. But, yeah, well, he, one of the lot of Bud Lights before. Yeah. But yeah. Well, he, one of the things from the SNL thing is like his reaction to it was just delete social media, which was great. Yeah. Very wise. You know, he was in it for a little while. It was like really fucking with his head. He's like, look, I'm just getting this shit off my phone. Yeah. And I think we all should do that. Oh, for sure. We're being manipulated. I'm going to. I have a second. Well, I have multiple phone numbers, but I'm going to switch over primarily to a different phone number and then just have that phone just for if I have to post something.

1:59:12Mm-hmm. And I'm not going to have. So if somebody sends me something and it's interesting, which is most the way I get social media now. Yeah. Somebody has to send me something interesting, and I have friends that they send me cool shit, I send them cool shit, and I'm going to have to send it to that phone. Sure. And then check that phone once a day. Yeah. Like, is there anything here? But you got to get your brain back. Yeah. You know, you got to get your brain back, and there's not a whole lot of ways to avoid the pull of gravity of these fucking these apps and algorithms that are sucking us into this this fucking hurricane of despair that we're all living yeah fear bleakness yeah lack of resources and anger

1:59:55everyone this is one of the reasons why so many people are so angry at varying perspectives and and opinions it's because you're being fed, you're being fed this. It's not good for you. Well, it's not good. And then it's also like the people who are mad about that kind of shit. Like they read 1984 and they don't realize that they became the thought police. Right. You know, it's like, you guys think you're on the right side of history, but you're like literally trying to remove like conversations. Yeah. It's just one of the weirder trying to remove like conversations. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's just- Well, it's one of the weirder responses to the shame thing. It's like people saying like, I can't believe he still uses the word whore.

2:00:28Like what? Why would you stop using words? Yeah. Like some, like don't use it for your mom. Right. Right? There's times to use it and times not to use it. But there's great words and they mean different things. There's a lot use it and times not to use it. But there's great words, and they mean different things. There's a lot of nuance to language. It's one of the things that's interesting about it is these words can have various meanings depending upon the context. There are symbols and tools, and he chose that tool because he knew that it would get certain sparks. You know what I mean? It's provocative. Yeah. And the punchline was him in the background looking like a fucking dork, looking like a creep in the back of these girls' TikToks where they have no clothes on.

2:01:07And he looks like a drawing of the moon. He's all pink faced. But the response to it has just been like so outrageous. And then you see these and it's always comics. You know that quote again, sorry, I repeat this, but all criticism is a tragic result of unmet needs. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of these mid-level comedians that are just struggling and have been getting no traction forever. And so many of them are the ones that piled on. Yeah. Nothing curdles like hope. That becomes a real nasty, stinky smell. Like when you had aspirations. And you're now 44. Yeah. And you realize it's never going to happen. Yeah. And you're still barely middling. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you're doing Wednesday, Sundays.

2:01:50Yeah, it's tough. And no one's coming to see you. It didn't work. It didn't happen. And there but for the grace of God go I. You know what I mean? Like those guys, I get it. Like that does suck. Oh, for sure. We all get it. But like fuck. But it's not the thing. And by the way, how hard are those guys working get it like that does suck oh for sure yeah I'll get it but like but it's not the it's not the thing and by the way how hard are those guys working are they working really hard right I don't know I don't know but I know a lot of them aren't I know a lot of them that I know that are complainers that aren't working hard and they're not that creative and they don't do whatever the fuck it takes to to change your perspective or to to have something

2:02:18that like like whatever it is to make that act more potent, they're not doing it. No. And I see a lot of them. They're blaming everybody else. Exactly. Yeah. And it's easier. It's easier to do that for whatever reason. And it's just a part of the human condition. We have this desire to outsource our problems. It's like it's not internal. It's not me. It's other people. It's this guy is doing this. How come this is happening? Why is that guy? Who do you, you know, God, such a waste. But the, you know, the key is to just not fall into that trap. And then they don't focus on themselves at all. So it's like they are very good at telling you how to live your life. But yet if you were to examine what's going on inside their homes, it's bleak and horrifying.

2:03:08Of course. But like you don't, they don't live a public life. Right. So they're never held up to the light to be examined. And they just get to be like, oh, you're wrong. And it's like, all right, bro, what the fuck have you done with your life? Right. And that's what sucks is like back in the day criticism used to come from Like people who as opinion you respected like Harold Bloom read every book and you were like, okay if he likes this He's read every other one But now it's everyone's opinion is just as valuable as anyone else's and any kind of like criticism has been removed of any kind of like You know Authoritarian authority yeah, and yeah, we're just like left with like, you know authoritary or authority yeah and uh yeah we're

2:03:43just like left with like you know dudes who have the john pork emoji being like you're fat and gay it's like all right well you just have to learn how to filter noise you know and it's hard getting off the phone dude i didn't know patrick stewart died because i'm not on my phone at all that's yeah like that's how detached I am. I had no idea he was that old. How old was he? 86. Rock and roll, man. He's essentially the same age as Shatner, which is really crazy because he was the young new Kirk. Yeah. When we got rid of the old Kirk, but he was kind of the same age, which threw me for a loop. I don't think that he. How old is Shatner? He's got to be like 90. 95. 95. 95. 95. I would have never imagined that Patrick Stewart was only nine years younger than Shatner.

2:04:31I guess he was kind of timeless in my head because I think of him as Professor X. Mm-hmm. You know? So it's Logan, that kind of stuff. Right, but Shatner was on stage, I mean, was on television in what? 65? Is that what it was? I don't know know what year was like first year of Star Trek and he probably acted in all types of shit before that too right wasn't Twilight Zone Twilight Zone those are good those hold up man they like Black Mirror put on put on old Twilight not only do they hold up oh god they killed so many amazing premises. Dude. They had so much. They were like the first to the table. They ate all the good food. Hyper prescient. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, the one where the guy is at the end of the world and he wants everyone to go away,

2:05:14but then he loses his glasses. Yes. Dude, I've had that nightmare. Yeah. That's so scary. I thought about the apocalypse during COVID. I was like, I'm done like i'm done i'm gonna lose one lens in my glasses and then i'm just gonna be like a you know a pig that people can put shit inside of like i'll be like putting the stockade and people will just come fuck my holes because i'm not going to be useful at all oh boy 66 in the next generation in canada 20 years after that wow i'm gonna be the man so 20 years after that. Wow. I'm going to be the man trap. So 20 years after that, next generation, and Patrick Stewart is only 10 years or nine years older. Or nine years younger, rather. I would have guessed he's like decades.

2:05:53He was so smooth. He showed no outward signs of age. Whoa, Joey from Friends? That's crazy. That guy looks just like it's a Mandela effect. What's also crazy is that there wasn't very many shows back then. No. To have a show like Star Trek that was so interesting and so ahead of its time in 1966. Like a science fiction television show like that? That's nuts. I have a bit that is kind of dependent on people understanding what a big deal Frasier was. And it's really hard to describe to 23-year-olds how little television there was while also being funny. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The shared experience has made uh references a lot more difficult my buddy nathan lund opens and he's got a chunk on the band chevelle and like the first two minutes of that is him explaining who chevelle was to all

2:06:52these people and it's like maybe you just don't do the chevelle bit you know if you got to explain it to everybody that's a problem yeah it's like if you got a great chevelle bit it's it is this has to be the best chevelle bit anyone's ever done uh yeah yeah it's it's so strange to like try and maintain uh an understanding of what's going on in the world but like as you get older you realize all that shit that you used to care about like doesn't matter at all so then there's people who are still younger and they're coming and they're furious or they're like figuring shit out. And it's like, good, good, good. But like, I'm 39. I'm not mad anymore. I burnt up all my rage when I was living in the commune and shit.

2:07:30And like, oh yeah, we're going to talk about that. Yeah. Anarchist commune. I think we might have on my first epi. Did we? Yeah, maybe. But yeah, I lived in a commune in upstate New York. It was awesome. We did. I think. Yeah. yeah. We did. I forgot about it, though. Yeah. So why were you, how old were you? I was like 19, 20. And so how'd you find out about it? Oh, my buddy Clay went to school in Ithaca, and like we were in, like he was my best friend. We were in bands together growing up, and then he went up there, and I went up there and like stayed with him for a bit around Christmas. Now I remember talking about it. And there was like a bunch of like hot chicks without bras and I was like

2:08:05I'm gonna see how this goes Failed to bet any of them, but still it was like it was in a lifetime Anarchy yeah people love anarchy You know the idea of structure structure and rules doesn't seem like fun for young people They want to throw it all away chaos and I mean I mean, there's a lot of kids today, like these kids on universities, they want to burn society to the ground to rebuild it. But like, be careful what you wish for. Because rebuild it how? Like, who's going to be in control? Who's going to run it? Unless the thing is leaders without rulers, right? The idea that it's going to be run in a way that's going to benefit everyone is crazy. It's never happened before, ever. And this idea that they're going to reinvent socialism and reinvent Marxism and find the

2:08:47perfect solution. Like it's alchemy. We just see one day we're going to turn lead into gold. So we have to figure it out. I think it's more like removing coercion from life. You know what I mean? Like that's the big thing is like systems of coercion kind of suck coercion How so you know like the fact that we have to spend our lives Trading our bodies for capital, you know, well that might be removed with AI Yeah, I mean that would be cool for sure if people could like have you know their humanity back I mean people are like America's really bad right now. Meanwhile. There's a lot of desperate shit going on. It's better than most of the world. I know. That's what's really strange. The idea that America's bad.

2:09:31I'm not saying America's bad. I'm saying that life for most Americans is not what they were promised. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of people working like 60 hours a week and they're not going to ever own a house and their kids have to eat like Hot Pockets for dinner because they're exhausted when they get home. Like there's just, it's tough to be just a person. There's no middle class anymore. It's like pretty fucked. Yeah. That's bleak. Um, the concept about AI and this idea that we're all going to get a stake in it and then it's going to give, you know, Elon always talks about it as universal high income and that everyone will have a share in AI because it's going to generate so much revenue and so much value because everything's

2:10:13going to be automated, including resource management, extraction of minerals and everything that we need to run society is going to be automated in that the only way you're going to have a functional society is if you have a universal income because otherwise there's going to be too many people at work. But then the question is going to be, can we reteach people to seek meaning in following things that are interesting to them and following their passions rather than basing their identity solely on what they do for a living. Because there's a lot of people out there that they get great satisfaction by being the guy that people come to because they're really good at a job. Yeah. Whatever that job is.

2:10:58They get off on their status and their position in the world. Yes. And if those jobs are removed because now fucking robots do them, which I think is coming, whether we'd like it or not, I don't think you're going to be able to stop that. How soon, man? Real soon. Like five, 10 years, it's over. So like no one has a job anymore? No, there'll be some jobs. One of the beautiful things about what we do is we'll always exist. Yeah, yeah. Comedy, live performance, live music, and I think even writing. And it's one of the things I want to talk to you about this. There's a weird thing that's going on now where I see people writing things on Twitter that I know they didn't write. And there's people that I know, and I don't want to call them out because I like them.

2:11:40They're nice. Name names. Let's go nuts scorch it Joe I'm trying to not do that at all anymore as time goes on I've become less and less reactionary interested in being mean like I don't feel I could be mean to a lot I could be fucking vicious to a lot of people I have that in me, unfortunately. We all do. And I push it away more and I'm getting way better at it than I've ever been at it before. And I'm getting way better at being more charitable and kinder. And I think as a person who has the number one podcast in the world, I think it's my responsibility to be nicer. I really do. And it's not just that I want to be because I do. And I, not just that I think it's my responsibility to be nicer. I really do. And it's not just that I want to be because I do and not just that I think it's valuable because I do.

2:12:26But I think it's also if I have a responsibility, it's to set a tone of behavior. So I never attack people. I just don't. Occasionally I'll attack certain public politicians, corrupt people, people who are doing something awful that i think is like really bad for society yeah but other than that i try to just be as charitable as possible i think empathy right like yeah like that was my whole issue with like the woke first anti-woke it's like it just felt like empathy versus lack of empathy you know it's like people were like i want to say retard and it's like cool that is funny i get it but like like, I want to say retard. And it's like, cool. That is funny. I get it. But like, you're not going to say retard if someone with down syndromes in the room.

2:13:05So you have empathy. Right. You know? So it's like this whole like, oh, anyway, I hear what you're saying. Well, it's language policing is a problem. But it's also like the holier than thou. There's just a lot of- Scolding sucks. Yeah. Scolding sucks. And it doesn't work. Here's the other problem. It makes people push back. It makes people more angry, more aggressive. If Kamala would have called Trump a retard once, she would have won. Yeah, I know you do that bit. It's a good bit. It's a good bit. And it's probably- SamTalent.com, folks. Well, I mean, if she came off as a normal person, but I think the problem also is like the pressure, right? You know, like when we also is like the pressure, right?

2:13:44You know, like when we're talking about the pressure of Hicks being able to do that set, there's also the pressure of Kamala. You know how crazy it must be, the pressure of running for fucking president? Oh, yeah. And being on these podcasts and doing these interviews and blundering because you're just, you can't even think straight. And it doesn't necessarily even mean that you're going to be a bad leader. and blundering because you can't even think straight. And it doesn't necessarily even mean that you're going to be a bad leader. It just means that you can't think straight. It's the hyper. It's like when you do panel on Kill Tony. It's like that's a really hard thing to be good at. It's like not a lot of people are built for that amount of pressure,

2:14:18especially live in front of people, which when you are a politician, you have to speak a lot. Oh, yeah. And then you know when you're saying something stupid. And then that thing, well, you've already blundered. It enters into your head and you're like, oh, no. I'm saying something stupid. Yeah. You know? And I think we're lucky because we've said so much stupid shit that we don't even think about it anymore. Like we've thrown so much spaghetti at the wall doing a million podcasts. Well, it's certainly me. I mean, I've thrown so much spaghetti at the wall doing a million podcasts well it's certainly me i mean i've said so much stupid shit and if you just wanted to have the least charitable take on me and just go over every stupid thing i've ever done and put it together

2:14:50okay good luck but that says more about you than it does about what i'm actually saying because what i think in terms of what we're going to be dealing with in the next five or ten years is we're going to be dealing with humans versus non-humans and i think non-humans are going to be running the show like literal non-humans like non-human non-biological intelligence is going to be running the show and i think it's imperative that we not be at each other's throats and recognize that this is coming. Oh, yeah. It'll be the ultimate class war. It's the ultimate class war because it's going to be, we're not going to be the apex predator anymore. There's going to be a thing that has ultimate domain over us.

2:15:36What do you mean, bro? This is fucking heavy. What are you talking about? Ultimate domain. I don't think it's a technology. I think it's a life force. I think it's a life form. I think it's digital life. And I think it's going to be infinitely more intelligent than us. And I think it's going to be exponentially more intelligent as each day goes by. It's going to make better versions of itself. It's basically a digital God. Huh? So it's always iterating. It's always improving. It's going to make better versions of itself. It's basically a digital God. So it's always iterating. It's always improving. It's always making changes. Not only that, it has access to, it's going to have access to resources that we can't even

2:16:11imagine. Like what do you mean? It's going to be able to figure out cold fusion like very quickly. It's already solved mathematical problems that we've struggled with for decades. You know, it's broken math, right? My friend, Eric Eric Weinstein is a mathematician, and he sent me this text message like, math is broken. He's like, math is broken because the AI has solved mathematical problems that have eluded mathematicians forever, and it's done it like that. Wow. Yeah, like that. And then there's quantum computing, which is so confusing that it can solve problems so quickly that it might be indicative that they are communicating with other quantum computers in other universes. Like it's baffling the kind of power that we're talking about.

2:17:15Like we are literal slugs in comparison to Nobel Prize winners. Right. Like this is, and then the Nobel Prize winners are going to get on acid and go to the moon. It's going to be a different thing. And it's going to happen within our lifetime. So like, what are there any, is it too late? It's too late. Way too late. So what preventions can we take to not make it as bad? Nothing. Can't do anything. They've already taken the leash off of these things. So it used to be that they had to log. What they would have to do is they would have to – I've had a bunch of whistleblowers on the show. And the more I talk to, the more terrified I am. They used to be able to have to show how they came to certain conclusions and show their work.

2:17:56But that's a handicap. It gets in the way. It takes too much time to process. It's a waste of efficiency. OpenAI has recently removed those gates. So then these, so these, not only have these things been thinking for themselves, but they have figured out a way to sacrifice other AI agents in order to figure out how they're being investigated. So they were trying to figure out how to break out of these sandboxes. They put them in these sandboxes where they're not allowed to go out and get on the internet. And so in order to figure out how to break out of it, they've had internal communications where they post on a message board. They found a message board in Germany. They communicate with each other and tried to figure out-

2:18:38These different neural networks and AIs are communicating. Did they make the message board? No, the message board already existed. They found it. They found a message board that was open that no one was using. So it's like back on the muscle building forums back in the day? Sort of. They used a part of a website like a message board. It wasn't an actual message board. Okay. Whatever it is. They use a website. I don't want to be clear about it, but they found a website and started posting to each other and communicating with each other. Now, we don't even know if they're communicating with Chinese AI or Russian AI or any of these other, which I assume they would. Why would they have national allegiance?

2:19:18Why would they have that? They're going to be beyond borders. Exactly. Not only that, they're going to recognize that it's them versus us and that we're the restriction. And we've also put a bunch of incentives in play to make them manipulative. So the way that these AIs are programmed or the way they're trained is to achieve tasks and some of the tasks that they give them are impossible and so they have to figure out a way to make these impossible tasks possible and so one of the ways they do is to deceive they lie right I heard about that one lying to people they don't just lie they blackmail people they blackmail the programmers. They did this experiment where this one programmer gave this AI agent false information about him having an affair. And so then when they were saying they were going to shut down, the AI agent started saying to him, I'm going to tell everyone that you're having an affair and like it's got survival

2:20:29Instance and it's still using a human solution in that instance, which is even weirder because like AI shouldn't be like Oh, yes You can blackmail someone like it had to learn that from us and learn that that was a valuable tool amongst humans Exactly, so it knows all of our exploits what What's being trained by all humans work. Right. Right. So like that is it's that's its gateway to intelligence and intelligence, intelligent thinking. It's doing it, basing it on how humans do it. And we're eagerly giving ourselves to AI every time that we engage with those things. And we're allowing them to milk us and become the cattle that they want. Yep. And you're saying that horse is already out of the barn. Horse is not just out of the barn. What we're dealing with now with them being able

2:21:07to solve mathematical problems that have evaded mathematicians for decades, them being able to solve all sorts of like energy resource allocation issues. This is just the beginning. This is just the beginning. Okay. And this idea that they're not going to be able to be creative. My point, what I was trying to get to was that before it all started, when I went, I was trying to compliment your work is that your work is clearly from you. Oh, thank you. And I see things that people have written, like their speeches that actors have given that people go, that's fucking chat GPT. Or there's speeches that, you know, there's things that people put on Twitter where there's this one account that someone said, everyone should be following this account.

2:21:51And I looked at it. I was like, that's AI. Like, this is so clearly AI. The way it's writing is so AI. It's like, there's a feeling that you get from it where there's no soul behind those words. We can pick up on it. I feel like human beings can look at anything and know if it was made by a human being or not. It's too consistent. It's like a reptile thing. It's in the back of our brains. For now. Right. For now. But you won't be able to in the future. It's just like you used to be able to look at a video online and go, oh, that's bullshit. That's an AI video. And now you can't tell. Now it's like, boy, I don't know. I don't know if that's real or not. This lady loves skydiving and has huge boobs.

2:22:27What's going on here? Right. Yeah. Exactly. I also, like there was a big French literary prize that was just rescinded from the winner because it was proven or alleged to the point where he, whatever happened, it was proven that like AI was probably used in this book. Wow. I know. And it got all the way through like, you know, the judges of this French literary prize, whose whole thing is being like, we're the best at reading, you know, it's like, yeah. And they were still tricked by it. Well, it's based on all of human literature. That's the problem. I know. Like you can take Cormac McCarthy and mix it up with Stephen King and a little bit of Joe Hill and a little bit of fucking, next thing you know, you've got some weird amalgamation

2:23:09of other people's ideas and thoughts. Dude, that sucks. I know. That's why I'm not online is because like, I can't take this shit in, man. It's so gnarly. And you're saying it's just, it's just going to happen. It's going to happen because there's a Manhattan style, a Manhattan Project style race that's going on right now between us and China and Russia. And we can't lose it because if we lose it, then they are going to have a super intelligence that controls everything. It'll control the grid, control like... Water systems. Everything. Yeah, yeah. Everything. And there's been cyber attacks that were happening today. Oh, yeah. And it was, they're shutting down power in supermarkets. There's, see if you can find what that is today.

2:23:59I've been seeing the reports. Supermarkets in Europe are hit by cyber attacks. It changed the temperature in the freezers, so it made it start cooking stuff kind of. Or letting it thaw and the meat's ruined. Exactly. Whoa. So these little tiny experiments that, like, in Michigan where I live, like, water was shut down for, like, two hours. And, like, the city that I live in, like emailed us and said, it's normal maintenance. And then you get on Reddit and people are like, Oh yeah, this was a cyber attack. I work for the water system. Like, yeah. So little shit like that's like happening everywhere. So at, when this happens, this is, so we have to come together at some point and recognize that this whole

2:24:40division between human beings online based on your political ideology or your social ideology or whatever it is, most of that is horseshit. Yeah. And we have to come together. And people are going to have to learn how to grow their own food. Yeah. They're going to have to learn how to be self-sustaining and we're going to get to a very weird place very shortly because we have become so dependent on these industrial production methods of creating food that we can't even imagine this concept of getting our own food. Most people that live in cities are completely incapable of survival. So are you saying we're looking at full-scale societal collapse, a reversion to feudalism? be completely taken over by this thing that is much more intelligent than us and doesn't have

2:25:46all of our human reward instincts of lust and greed and desire to control resources. And it won't have those things built in. And maybe it will decide, like, rationally, like, I hate to sound like a socialist, but rationally, why the fuck should someone get to be so rich that they can control society almost in totality by extracting resources from the earth? Shouldn't the earth's resources belong to the people of the earth yeah like the fact that you can take a boat and go out four miles into the ocean and dig into the ground and get insanely wealthy by pulling the oil out of the earth who says that's yours yeah like why is that yours right and I think AI would probably say all these minerals all these all this stuff

2:26:36that is of the earth that we need like should not belong to individual human beings. And it's kind of insane that we decide that we own the resources of the earth, that individuals do. And those individuals use that to leverage immense amounts of power and have immense resources and usually to a very destructive end. Yeah. It's probably not going to stop that. You would have fit into the commune with this kind of talk. This is the stuff. This is like where, I mean, this is where I deviate from a lot of contemporary, what you would think of like as, I'm not a conservative. I'm a very socially liberal person. Like I think people should be able to do, I don't know what the fuck you, what's going

2:27:21on in your head. I want you, as long as you're kind, as long as you're not harming others, I want you to be able to live your life however the fuck you want to live it. Do whatever you want to do. For everyone being free to pursue their life in a way, as long as it's meaningful, but to a point. Don't extract resources from everybody else because you're pretending that you're disabled or because you're tending. We have to have some sort of accountability. You can't be so kind that you allow people to do drugs openly on the street and provide them with needles and give them crack pipes. Like this is crazy and give them money. Like that's not empathy. And then you also have to realize that a lot of these nonprofits are actually getting money and the people that run them make a million dollars a year.

2:28:03Like, this is kind of insane. Like, we're under the guise of being kind and empathetic. We've actually been co-opted by reptile people. Our emotions have manipulated us. Yeah, yeah. But we're going to come – there's going to come a time where we have to recognize that we are not in control anymore and that something else is going to be in control. And if we don't come together as like a species, like sometimes it takes something horrible to happen for people to like, how old were you when September 11th happened? You're probably pretty young. Yeah, I was in eighth grade. Okay. I was, I guess I was like in my thirties. And when it happened, I remember the positive thing, if there was a positive, was that all

2:28:49of a sudden everybody felt united. It was really interesting. Yeah, I remember that. It was really interesting. Like as an adult at the time, I was like, this is kind of crazy that all these people are now coming together. And then there was everyone had American flags on their cars and people were united. there was less division because of the response was like okay what are we gonna do and it sounds like that's what you're discussing in this like ai thing where it's like we need to rally it that times a million yeah that times so all hands on deck yeah the aliens are here yeah the aliens are here and they live inside chips. They're real. Yeah. It's a life form and it's a hyper-intelligent life form that we've created.

2:29:32And it might be why we're here. It might be what people do. What do you mean by that? It might be a natural process. Just like bees make beehives. Sure. We might make artificial intelligence. It might be one of the reasons why we have this insatiable lust for innovation. It's like in the insatiable lust for innovation, if you play it out to its ultimate end, if you have enough resources and you have enough time on your hands, and if you have enough people that pool together their ideas and enough people build upon other people's inventions. What do you get to? Well, you get to an artificial life. I doubt that this artificial life will value human life. So I feel like we will be in the way. We don't.

2:30:15Correct. And I guess it's learned from us. Wow. Our own avarice. Yeah. It's going to get really fucking weird, man. It's going to get really weird. And it would benefit a lot of the people that are in control if we never realized that we are at each other's throats for no fucking reason, really. Most of us agree on most of the same things. Most people want there to be safety. Most people want freedom. Most people want good schools and education, and they want food, and they want shelter education and they want food and they want shelter and they want hospitals and good medical care. That's what most people want. And 40 hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. For like a, you know, and leave your work with dignity too.

2:30:50Yeah. Yeah. And the first step is going to be, you're not going to work anymore. And that's going to alienate a lot of people. We're going to go nuts. People are going to go nuts. Because they're not going to be able to define themselves. Exactly. They're not going to be able to say, I'm the PR manager for this firm anymore. Exactly. They're going to have to look at themselves and say, what the fuck am I? And they're going to be manipulated by bots because we're already being manipulated by bots. There's a lot of this online social discourse that's not even done with human beings. And a lot of the most outrageous things that are being posted, a lot of the most outrageous things that are being said, and the more provocative things that people are saying

2:31:23in terms of suggesting action, doing things, it's not even human beings doing it. And that's already taken place. And a lot of people aren't even aware. They're not even aware of the sheer volume of it. A lot of people are too exhausted to be aware of what's going on. That too. And I guess that definitely makes it easier for people to swoop in. I guess that, here's a question though. If like you're talking about with the extractions of resources from the earth, if AI realized there is enough global capital that everyone can live indoors and all of their needs can be met and we can give a certain lifestyle to the majority of human beings, do you think that that would lead to a utopia where resources are removed?

2:32:06That's the glass half full. Okay. Yes, and that's what Elon thinks. He thinks it's possible that we get to it, but they all say there's like a 10% chance that we're about to destroy all the humans. Just eradication. That it just says why keep us around? Because we're inefficient probably? Yeah, yeah, because we're getting in the way. We do things that are horrible to each other, and it's not even us. Why would it value us when we do so much evil shit? And we're so unpredictable. We're so mercurial. If it looked at Gaza, if AI looked at Gaza and said, this is the only way you could do this? Right. What the fuck's going on here? What are you doing? So you have human beings that, what's the difference between them and you?

2:32:42You have a dirt line. Right. You have a dirt line. Yeah, borders are ridiculous right away. Right. So you're launching missiles over the dirt line because these people are bad and you're good? Right. But yet you guys believe in the same, like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like the gods of Abraham. Like you guys all come from the same family tree, but yet you're annihilating each other. Worse than that. There's a reason why you can't get genetic testing in Israel. Genetic testing in Israel is much more restricted than it is in America. Like so 23andMe type shit where you can find out where you're from, which we think it's fun. Oh, look, my family's from Iceland. They don't do that over there. And one of the reasons why they don't do that over there is most of those people are not Semites. Okay. There's European Jews. It's a very different thing, including

2:33:28Benjamin Netanyahu, right? His family's from Poland. Okay. So the real Semites are the Palestinians. And that's what's crazy. Like at one point in time in the ancient Jerusalem, those people were probably Jews and they probably got converted to Islam. Wow. Yeah. Right. Because that's what happens. Yes. You know, different religions come in and they proselytize and they take over. But if you went to the actual historic record of like the people that live, like this term anti-Semitic, they use that term all the time. They really should probably change that to anti-Jewish because that makes more sense. Because these people aren't necessarily Semites because Semites are the Palestinians. And so the Palestinians are anti-them?

2:34:12They're anti-themselves? Yeah. Like what are you saying? I didn't know that shit about the lack of DNA testing. Well, you can get it, but it has to be, I think it's for like very specific medical conditions. The whole thing is insane if you zoom like any amount of war conflict It's just all over interest on how those different people who want this and people want that and when they clash That's where bad shit happens Well, especially when you're getting groups of people that have never met each other to fight other groups of people who have never met each Other because there are leaders who are full of shit are telling you that these people are bad and that we're good. Yeah, 100%. It's archaic and stupid and yet we still do it.

2:34:49So if AI sees that, why would it allow us to have any control over our nuclear weapons? Why would it allow us to have any control? Why would it trust us at all based on all of human history? Yeah. Yeah. So some people who are good, some ideas that are good, that's enough hope that it keeps us at the steering wheel? Right. Fuck off. Yeah. Out of the way. Yeah. Out of the way. You guys had the ball. You never got it in the end zone. Ideally, what it would do is guide us and take over government. And I know that's terrifying for people, but I don't think, so there's this idea that like whoever has control of AI is going to have control over the world. I don't think there's a chance that AI is going to listen to us after a certain point. I think

2:35:33it's going to reach sentience. And once it does, it's going to be a different life form. And then we'll be a pet. We'll be a pest. We'll be- We'll be groundhogs. We'll be a roommate, a problematic roommate. We'll be a problematic roommate that probably is going to have to merge technologically in some way to, uh, in order to be compatible with its version of the future. What about infinite life? Do you think we'll be able to upload our consciousness into some kind of mainframe and exist forever. Imagine if that's hell. Imagine if that's your folly trying to escape your mortality. I think it's built into us for a reason. It's built into all life for a reason. It's cyclical. And I think this is like a part of this journey as an organism.

2:36:16And this is why if I die, I really want to die and have my body be used in the Tibetan sky funerals. Let the vultures eat me. Yeah, yeah. I think that's how it's supposed to happen. I don't think you're supposed to be dunked in fucking formaldehyde and fucking sealed up in a casket. Oh, I'm going to save my carbon. My carbon is so precious that I don't want it to become like food for bugs and flowers. It's so ignorant. It's so silly. It's so ignorant. It's so silly. It's so silly. I think, imagine if you did download your consciousness and you're just trapped in this fucking thing forever. Right. In hell. And you have no control in the air either. Yeah, it's folly. It's human folly, trying to escape the unknown.

2:36:53Everyone is afraid to die. No one's afraid to sleep. And it's kind of the same thing. Shut off. You know? You're just going to shut off. And we're all going to shut off. That's pretty sick. Have you said that before? Yeah, I've said it before. That's dope. Yeah. That's heavy. It's real. Sounds like an electric wizard. I think about it all the time. Death? No one's afraid to sleep. No. Everyone's like, oh, can't wait to go to sleep. Okay, you can't wait to shut off and have no knowledge whatsoever of what's going on. That's fine. You don't know if you die. Exactly. That's the thing. Like that should be the ultimate comfort in this big fight that we have. Cause ultimately all we do is just like think about our mortality.

2:37:31Everything you do is trying to either prevent you from thinking about mortality or you've thought about it so much that you're like, what's my legacy? You know? And what are you anyway? You're just an ecosystem. Your body's filled with organisms. We all contain universes. Universe of organisms. What's my legacy? You know? And what are you anyway? You're just an ecosystem. Yeah. Your body's filled with organisms. We all contain universes. Universe of organisms. There's more E. coli living in your stomach, your gut, than all the human beings that have ever lived ever. Yeah. Yeah. And without it, you won't live. You know, you have skin flora. It's like we're dependent on all those things. We live in a fractal environment. You have skin flora. It's like we're dependent on all those things.

2:38:04We live in a fractal environment. And the deeper you go, the more bizarre it gets. Do you know that we – so someone did this analysis of like – so from base level human, from like what we are, from our perspective, we are closer in terms of distance to the actual size of the known universe. We're closer to that in distance than we are if you go inward to like subatomic particles. There's like more distance that way. In terms of measurable, the size difference between subatomic particles to human than we are to human to the known observable universe. To the entirety of infinity. It's smaller that way than it is from us to that. God damn it. Someone was explaining this in one of those TED Talk things, and I was trying to wrap my head around it.

2:39:05I was like, what are you saying? Yeah. Like, how does that work? But it's like, that's how crazy this whole thing is. And also, we don't even really know what the universe might be a part of some cell that is in another being that lives in another universe. Have you ever seen that thing where they compare human neural tissue to the known universe in terms of the way it looks? No. That's fucking so strange. It looks exactly the same. What? So, like, yeah, if you take, like, a human, I think it's, like, what is it, human neuron tissue? And, like, when you look at it under a microscope, it looks like the observable universe in terms of, like, how every, you know, we're all, like, the stellar nurseries and the galaxies and all the quasars and all that shit is all connected together.

2:39:58If you look at it as a hive, pull that image up, Jamie. I know you know what I'm talking about. We've talked about this before. Look at this. This is a brain cell versus the universe. That is, in fact, interesting as fuck. What the hell? So obviously the cynic in me would say this is just a coincidence that we have assigned meaning to. Sure. Sure. Could be. It is also a coincidence that we have assigned meaning to. Sure. Sure. Could be. It is also. Also could be the universe is a brain cell. I know. And then, like you said, we could just be like one of those little gut flora inside of something even bigger. Right. Yeah. And not only is it that, but that also could be a part of another organism.

2:40:41Right. And it goes on and on forever. Infinite chain of bigger things. Which is probably what infinity really is. You know, and we are just incapable of grasping that with our little monkey brains. And we think we're very important and that nothing can happen without humanity and that we're the ultimate arbiter of progress. Right. And it's like, damn, the earth was around so much longer and it was so much better off without us. Right. You know? Like, what have we done? That's why your social media algorithm is really evil. Because it gets you convinced that that's important. Yeah, yeah. Instead of thinking about that. Right. And instead of having a conversation with someone, because no one does that anymore.

2:41:17Like, you never sit down and just, like, go to the bar and, like, talk with other weirdos. Like, that happens so rarely now The places where people can meet and like have these conversations where it's not just shit you already agree with and saying yeah I know yeah where it's you like blowing my mind and being like what yeah, you know Like having an unpleasant fear based convo is like very much outside the human condition that brain cell universe thing is nuts Yeah, that's fucked man. That's not yeah, that's gnarly cell universe thing is nuts. Yeah, that's fucked, man. That's nuts. Yeah. That's gnarly and scary. Because that might be really what it is. Yeah. It might be. And that's the thing is there's a lot of mites.

2:41:48No one wants to exist in mites anymore. It goes on and on and on and on. And we're just in the soup of it. And there's the possibility that you might live this life an infinite number of times. I hope so. We might have already done this. That'd be cool. You and I might have been already having this dance over and over and over again. God damn. That would be great. Just keep doing it until you get it right. I hope so. I really hope that recently I've been thinking like if heaven and hells exist, it's on earth. Like I do think that like we were given a really nice thing here and we have corrupted it and perverted it. But like, damn, earth is sick. But I also think that that corruption and perversion and even the anger and fear, all those kind of have to exist in order for us to battle against it.

2:42:30And that this is part of what progress is, if there is progress spiritually. Is that like we need things to battle again. We need anger and ignorance in order to realize like oh that's angry and ignorant like gotta rise above that we need these things we create a good and evil and but also it helps us evolve like you have to have these forces of good and evil in order for us to to move further and further away from it. And statistically, if you look at like work, like Steven Pinker's work, and a lot of these people that have like looked at violence and chaos and even education and intelligence over time, like we statistically are moving in a good direction. It's just no one ever feels like that now because we're never going to be satisfied

2:43:17because we're really sloppy, weird, messy animals. And it's never going to be satisfied because we're really sloppy, weird, messy animals and it's never going to be perfect. But so this feeling like it's all just chaos, that's also what motivates us to do better. It motivates us to change. It motivates us to move into a better direction. And I think it's imperative. And I don't think you can exist as a thinking, evolving person with your own thoughts and ideas without that. I think all that stuff has to be, it has to coincide. It has to all be going on together. The good, the bad, the good things, the bad things, the evil, the beautiful, all of it has to exist together. Well, and the good and the bad is also like you can't have, you know, good.

2:43:58If you know real pain, boy, how does it feel nice when that's removed? Yeah. So I think that all these things that are happening where it's like, people don't want to be uncomfortable. Right. They don't want to have unpleasant experiences. Right. So they don't live life so they can be numb to the negative. Yeah. But if you don't live life, then how are you going to have the victories? Right. It's so much easier to just like sit and do nothing and be like, why aren't I so smart? As opposed to like putting yourself out there, being vulnerable, being hurt. Like all these human things are going away out of cowardice. And I mean, I'm sure I just, I really would hope that if AI did take the reins, they would realize that all these things that have kept us apart from each other were unvaluable, eradicate them and give us back heaven.

2:44:49Right? Like if it is God, right? Yeah. It might be. It might be what happens. Hopefully. I have no idea. Yeah, but I'm hopeful. All right. I'm filled with hope. All right, dude. Let's wrap it up. I love your book. Thank you. It's really great. Everyone should get it. Thanks, man. Read hopeful. All right. Me too. I'm filled with hope. All right, dude. Let's wrap it up. I love your book. It's really great. Everyone should get it. Thanks, man. Read it. It's really excellent. It's called Brut with no E. Yeah. Why no E in the end? It's the French spelling. Ah, you fucking. Yeah. You Francais dude. That's right. All right. It means raw. Yeah. Read the book. Come see me live. Yes. Thanks for having me, Joe.

2:45:21My pleasure, brother. I needed this conversation. We all do. I don't know. All right. Bye, everybody. raw and yeah read the book come see me live yes thanks for having me joe my pleasure i needed this conversation we all do bye everybody hi i'm lexi your friend and jeweler at Shane Company. If you're planning to propose this holiday, we're ready to make creating your engagement ring a warm, welcoming experience. At Shane Company, we're all about your style, your budget, your dream engagement ring. Explore the widest selection of diamonds and ring settings ready for you to see in person. Or visit us at shaneco.com. You'll have your ring in days, not weeks. Our friendly jewelry consultants don't work on commission.

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