“If You’re Still Trying to Be Rational Now, You’re Crazy:” Comedian Tim Dillon on Being Informed vs. Being Ignorant

27:48So it's just like everybody's back slapping, high-fiving, it's Christmas party. And that's the thing also I think people don't get is that what you see on the outside has absolutely 0 % what's going on on the inside. None of these people hate each other. The ruling class took care of people. I think, like, I don't have a problem with that. I'm not a Marxist. I don't believe in that. I believe hierarchies are there. I believe that there's going to have a society with classes. It's all going to happen. You just can't completely take all the money, all the spoils, and then rig the system in perpetuity for yourselves and your friends and neighbors.

28:23you have to have some concern for people below you and i think the problem is that we've seen over the last 50 years we've seen these wealth concentrations and with them political concentrations of power and i mean one of the reasons that trump is in office is because what it was going to be bush v clinton again and we were like what the hell i mean they were already arranging the election as these two families that i since i've been alive i was born in 85 since I've been alive, it's been a Bush or a Clinton pretty much in the White House other than Obama. So the idea that we were going to go right back to that, it was just no sure sign that the country was truly in practice an oligarchy.

29:05And that became so disturbing to people that they're like, we're going to throw a bomb at the system. And the bomb was Donald Trump. But yeah, behind closed doors, nobody likes each other. The Clintons, the Bushes, they all hang out. and the reality was that's I think where Trump came from. That's where the outsider comes from. This idea that like we want it. So then you put somebody in who is a Bulgarian, who's grotesque, who doesn't follow society's rules, who says whatever he wants, who's vindictive and cruel and all of these things that, you know, a lot of dictators are, a lot of leaders, authoritarian leaders are.

29:40They're petty, they're narcissistic and you elect somebody like that because with all of those negative qualities, they still now Trump financially is not an outsider we know that but he's still appearance he appears to be an outsider and he is an outsider in the sense that he's not part of polite society he's not part of that tightly scripted what we just talked about here's the way things are going to work and here's the rationale we're giving you when we're going to give it to you in this very carefully constructed way you have a guy who's a bull in a china shop and the china shop is why we needed the bull.

30:17And that's what people don't realize. You might hate Trump. You might not like him. You might think he's great. But he's necessitated by the idea that we've just had the same group of people recycling the same ideas that really haven't worked. And all we've seen is an erosion of people's, not only their rights, but their money, their status in society, their station in society. And I mean, listen, I perform all over the country. It's not great out there. There's a lot of problems. You go to Ohio, you go to Rust Belt, you go to these places where, you know, these people, you know, as George Carlin said, a system that threw them overboard 30 years ago.

30:58There's not much to do. I mean, the factories are gone. You know, the schools are underfunded. There's a massive opioid crisis. Like people are upset. And I think there's rage. And the rage is directed at those, you know, people that are back slapping and hanging out at the Christmas party. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think, I don't know if there's a solution necessarily because like you said. It's tough. So in 2016. What do you think about Yang? Does Yang make sense? So you know more about finance than anyone that I come into contact with in my daily life. Does Yang make any sense? Or is he, every now and then he says something I like, but then I see him on a skateboard and I go, you know.

31:39Well, that's just it. like, yes, I like Yang. And I thought this is going to be the guy. Like he felt smart. He felt like he also asks, why is this happening? He felt like he was sort of one of us a little bit. And then I even was like, I was texting him and he would text back. And so I thought, okay, and I have his books here somewhere. He was making sense in that way. And then there were two things that bothered me where I started to feel like, damn, he's got a weird narrative now. Because I like the ubi the idea of is it as bad as he says what's coming no i don't know okay it's not as bad as he says and that that was the first problem but but the solution i like the idea that use a progressive not regressive but a progressive sales tax essentially to pay for a thousand dollars a month for everybody people can opt out of different social programs to get the ubi and so on he had the math and the UBI makes sense.

32:35What I don't like is the fear mongering. So he says automation is going to take all the truckers jobs. The truckers are going to rebel in the streets. And then automation is going to take everyone else's jobs. And this time things are different. And it's like a little bit of fear mongering. Like everyone's scared now. Like, oh my gosh, automation is going to take everyone's jobs. And, but you look at it like truck drivers right now, there's job postings, but they need 30 % more truck drivers than there already are. People are just buying so much stuff from Amazon. The country needs more truck drivers.

33:10So you can have 30 % of that taken by automation. It won't affect employment at all. Then you can't have automation driving. You can drive on the highway, but you can't have them drive in the city streets. There's too many things that they can't recognize. So they'll get, if you automate all the trucks on the highways, there's going to be many more trucks. Then you're going to need many more trucks in the city delivering to the last mile. So the truck drivers have a buffer. There will be a job they can move to. And this, you can say this for every industry, like ATM machines, everybody thought that was the end of bank tellers, but it turned out the bank started making so much profit.

33:47They put a chase branch on every corner and there's more tellers hired than ever. So I think Yang should know better. So I don't know. So I ask why, why is he saying this, when he comes out of this world, he should know better. Everyone in technology knows better. And I think he's just doing that to scare people for his UBI, which I agree with. He should have just started with the UBI and forgotten the fear-mongering. And then the other thing that disturbed me was he always says after every debate, they didn't let me speak. They didn't let me speak. They didn't let me speak. In their last debate, trending, let Yang speak.

34:23But you know what? Fucking raise your hand or interrupt like everyone else does. You could speak. There was one question they asked Bernie Sanders. Well, how are you going to pay for forgiving all student loan debt? I knew Yang has a great answer for this. He said it on Joe Rogan, actually, the answer for that. He could have just raised his hand or interrupted like every single other candidate does. You want a candidate who can stand up to North Korea and China and Russia, and he can't raise his hand. He's intimidated by Bernie Sanders, which is the weirdest thing in world so those two things disturb me and so interesting i thought because i was kind of like i don't know you know so from the outside i go it does seem that automation and artificial intelligence going forward will be a problem eventually to a degree it could be but it's also going to create like yeah it'd be good if radiologists are replaced by ai who could see cancer on your x-rays then more people will live longer and there'll be more opportunities to create drugs and it's not like opportunities are going to go away as the world gets better.

35:27So is it, do we need a higher skilled worker though? Is that a problem? Because when you go around America and you meet people, you go, I'm trying to imagine the job they'll do. And I draw blanks sometimes. When I talk to somebody, I go, I wonder what job they would do. And then you go, this is a person who does need a low skilled job because there's a lot of people that are just not educated. What do you do with those people? Because there's a lot of them. There is a lot of them. And I mean, I don't know all the answers, but it's not going to be worse than it is now. Okay. Interesting. This is very positive.

36:06Yeah. Because you're still going to be solving major problems with automation. And then when major problems are solved, new industries start. That's happened every single time in the past 300 years of capitalism. So I'm not saying, oh, just be pro-capitalist and it'll all work out because like you said, the role of government is to take care of people who can't take care of themselves or who are weaker in some way. And there's always going to be some role for that, but it's not, it's like robots aren't going to suddenly wake up and, and, you know, take everyone's jobs. So then I ask why, why did Elon Musk, who by the way, creates more automation than anyone else.

36:44Why does he support Yang? So he must, there's some narrative, it's you asking why, like there's some narrative here that we don't quite understand. And, and I don't understand it. Like what's Yang's role in this? I don't, I don't really understand, but things are certainly not going to be worse with automation. They never have been. They've always created industries that we can't even imagine now. And just the basic things that Andrew worries about are not worries because he doesn't address the fact that we actually need more truck drivers in the country. And if automation takes away the highway truck drivers, we're going to need more city truck drivers.

37:18So the jobs are just going to move over. So his basic argument doesn't work. Although, like I said, I love the solution. I think UBI is a better solution than forgiving student loan debt, which as Andrew Yang says, only benefits the top one third of society. And the other two thirds, you're using the money from the other two thirds. So I don't know. I just got disappointed in Andrew not raising his hand to that question. Like, why is he then spread the narrative? Oh, they don't let me speak. When he could, and the rules are, he could just raise his hand. He could just interrupt. Interesting, yeah.

37:47I mean, it'll be interesting to see what happens. You know, I think that it's, he's tapping into a real fear. And I think he's tapping into the idea that a lot of people that are in low skilled, low paying jobs right now are struggling. And they're terrified if those jobs go away, which is understandable. That's the narrative. Trump had except instead of instead of immigrants coming instead of robots. I think it's both. I think that like the idea is that like if you have if you I totally get people being afraid of both things in the sense that more low skilled workers will depress wages. That's why the Koch brothers loved open borders.

38:30They loved the idea of it because it was just supplied a lot of their industries with low-wage labor. And I understand people going, well, what the hell is going to happen if this job is done by a robot? So I think that fear is rational even though it can be demagogued by people like Trump and it can become very ugly and it can become this kind of strain of nationalism that you don't want. But I think fear in and of itself is somewhat rational. The idea that you should be concerned with what you're going to be doing in five years or 10 years. I agree. It's scary.

39:12Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

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41:01I always wonder, and I wonder if you think about this when you see all the people traveling around, I always wonder, where is this person going to be when he's 70 years old? So, because we're going to live to be 70, like lifespans increasing. Where are these people going to be? Like, they're not going to be doing, they're not going to be able to be doing the same job or the job's going to be gone or whatever. What's going to happen to everybody? I mean, it's going to be interesting. I mean, the people that are in their 40s, 50s now, that, I mean, it's very tough to go out there and find something.

41:30I mean, it is very hard, which is why the Yang or somebody that recognizes the scope of the prophecy, I think that what makes Yang interesting as opposed to these other people is that even though, like you said, he's maybe dramatizing the effects of automation for his own personal gain, he talks with very big ideas. He's super smart. He's got the highest IQ of all of them. The scope of the problems that we face are big. And when we see politicians talk about them, they make them very small because in order to make them seem surmountable, these obstacles, you make them small. Go, well, on my first day, I'll commission a panel.

42:12I mean, we can, I did it the other day on my podcast. I said, like, ask me any question. And I can just answer it by saying, on my first day, I'm going to get smartest people, put them in a room. We're going to get a panel. I'm going to listen to people. I've been to the border. I've seen them. And it's just like a formula of what they say. And none of it means anything. It's just word salad. It's just like smartest people. First day. I've been there. I've been all over the country talking to people just like you. Their concerns are the same. So on day one, I'm going to commission a panel of people.

42:41We're going to raise taxes. We're going to, you know, everything's just the same thing over and over again. So you have a Yang or somebody who comes in and goes, no, the robots are going to eat us. And you all get a thousand dollars. You go, oh, okay. well that's different right just craving that difference which is where trump came from i think i think it's like no we're all liars we're cheaters we're liars i'm the biggest liar and cheater and now i'm gonna help you and everyone went oh well that's nice well think about it everybody has been different right so so trump was very different of course barack obama was very different very different um in appearance yeah not in anything else right i mean he was a good i think he was a decent president good president for what he had to contend with but you know what's very interesting about obama was it was pretty much business as usual and trump's kind of business as usual yeah we're still in afghanistan we're still in iraq like be there and they don't even explain why we're there anymore even w was different because people were sick of clinton and gore and then ray was different carter carter was different from nixon ford so you know i think I think difference wins, not just in politics, but in career, like look at comedy, who wins in comedy.

43:55You have, you know, Louis CK was obviously very different making a new special every year. It was kind of like started that whole trend of we've got to write and rewrite and take every topic under the sun and make a new special every year. You know, you're very different with your, you know, you have this like kind of such a strong point of view. Again, I said it before, but you're not, you're kind of like taking what everybody's thinking and twisting it into something funny, like a pretzel that looks funny now as opposed to like just this. And I don't know, what comedian is just the standard thing?

44:28And then he just rises up and becomes successful. I can't think of anybody who's just like, oh yeah, let's just follow the line. What do you think it is? Because it's interesting because I criticize a lot of like what I consider to be hucksters. They peddle this idea that everybody just has to hustle and grind and go out and do this and that. And the other thing, because I think that at the end of the day, a lot of people are just not built to have their own business. That's just the reality. It doesn't mean that they're bad people, but there's just a lot of people that are not. So to tell everyone they should be their own boss or that there's a business inside of everyone or any of those things, I don't think are true.

45:01However, I do think that people should try to do what they, but how do you reconcile the idea of people having a nature? and some people's nature is to be a leader. Some people's nature is to be a follower. It's not a judgment on them as a person. I know there's a lot of bad leaders and a lot of good followers. And I don't even mean in their private life. I'm just talking about the way that it all shakes out in the world. I do videos about Gary Vee and stuff that are kind of funny, poking fun at him. I don't think he's the worst guy in the world, but like that whole ethos of telling my whole generation of people and the people under me that they all need to have their own company.

45:36It doesn't matter if they don't, you know, like one of my favorite quotes from Gary is he goes, ideas are shit. It's all about execution. It's like, well, then what are we doing? What are we executing? So to me, it's like, that's the big fake out of the whole thing. It's like, ideas are shit. Doesn't matter. Just execute. It's like, execute what? Right. Or execute how? Right. Because you need ideas on execution. Like there's bad execution and there's good execution. Like I've seen plenty of businesses fail because they took the hard way to execute something as opposed to a much easier way just because they didn't have practice coming up with ideas.

46:12You have to be good at coming up with ideas to know how to execute something. But let me ask you, why do you think someone like Gary or other kind of business self-help gurus that appeal to a certain audience, why do you think they're saying that? Well, I don't know. I think that they're making, this is how that they, this is their business, right? Their business, they're selling an idea. And the idea is that people are going to be self-sufficient and successful and happy if they follow this 10-point plan or if they do X, Y, and Z. I just find a lot of it to be hollow because people ask me all the time about how does somebody start in comedy, this, that, and the other thing.

46:53You just figure it out. There is really no blueprint. You're either kind of meant to be in this crazy world or you're not. and you're going to figure that out relatively quickly maybe if you're a self-aware person, there's a tremendous amount of sacrifice you have to put into getting good at it. And you probably have to be a little crazy, probably have to be a little off-center to truly want to get involved in this, right? So already it's very tough to then write a blueprint for somebody because there's so many variables. So when I see Gary and people like that just pollute, because his whole theory of everything is just pollute.

47:31Pollute the world with content. Post four times a day. It doesn't really matter what you're saying. Ideas are shut. Execution. And to me, that type of stuff's ruining the world. The idea of we pollute, pollute, pollute with no thought behind it. A lot of the worst trends in our world start, I think, with people that have no idea what they're doing, just doing. And then I think that just sets up a huge thing because then we're like, yeah, everything's great. We don't need politicians to have any clue. Like if we're all just doing and throwing it out there, content is king. Boom, boom. You know, marketing is queen.

48:04That's another thing he says. But what is the actual thing that we are marketing? What is the thing that we're doing? What is the, where's the actual value other than this perceived value? And that's my big problem is like, you'll see certain people, you know, certain restaurants are so hyped up. They're everywhere. they have a dish that's all on instagram they're hard to get in and you get there and you eat the food and you go so what the hell was the point of it now obviously the people that run the restaurant are making a lot of money but you the consumer that go in there and go the food's actually not that good and we just got taken for a little bit of a ride to me i mean i guess the value is that you got taken for a ride maybe you won't get taken next time but to me i'm like a lot of people that I know that are entrepreneurs, they have a nature.

48:53Their nature is that they're entrepreneurs from when they were young. Gary Vaynerchuk's one of them. So this idea - With, you know, he kind of states he was born with nothing. And I guess he came from Russia and - Ukraine, I think. Yeah. And then his parents started a wine store and he kind of, I don't want to say inherited that wine store, but worked there and really built that up. And he modernized it online. Again, it's not really, I'm sure he doesn't like me if he knows who I am which I think he does but it's not about him per se it's an entire dimension of the internet and specifically that business guru self-help community like I love sales trainers guys like Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar because they're telling you how to sell they're literally saying when you sit down with somebody look them in the eye, ask for the order they're giving you kind of the step by step thing about a specific process, a sales process you can kind of apply to a bunch of different things.

49:47I'm not against the idea of motivational people. I think Tony Robbins has some valuable stuff, but there's something very hollow about the specific strain of motivation that guys like Kyle Lopez and Gary Vaynerchuk do where they're literally walking around a$10 million mansion and they go, and if you want to know how to get this, click here. It's like, no, that's not it. I already know that that's not it. I already know that by clicking there, I'm not winning. I'm not getting the mansion by clicking there. I feel that instinctually in my heart. Oh, my God. So one time I was in California and, you know, everybody who's working for Tai Lopez, a lot of them are like his relatives.

50:23What does he do? What do these people do? I'm like a mate. All right. I'll describe because Tai Lopez's cousin or sister or whatever says, hey, you should, if you're in LA, stop on by. So of course, I'm not going to pass up that opportunity. I stop on by Tai Lopez's mansion. And it was kind of like living in this insane world. Like everything was wrong about the interaction. So he tells me to show up at, at three or his cousin says, show up at three. Ty will be ready then. And they put me in a room and he's not ready till three 30. Then every seven minutes he had to do some different activity.

50:55That was some rule of his. So for seven minutes, he would get a massage for seven minutes. He was getting a haircut for seven minutes. He ate lunch. And then there was one point somebody literally ran up to him and like gave him a brand new pair of sneakers. And he put those sneakers on. Then he says, walk with me to the gym. He does like stretching for seven minutes. Seven minutes, you shouldn't breathe. You know, be nice. That could be. And then later that night, I had to go to this event. It was like this charity event. Elton John was singing. And there was a fairly high price for this event.

51:27At the end of the event, around one in the morning, everybody's leaving. Tai Lopez is coming in. He's in a tuxedo. He's coming in. Didn't have to pay anything because the event's over. So he's walking in. he's got his selfie stick and he's like oh here i am with my good friend james altucher and like he's as if he had he's in the tuxedo as if he was like at the event the whole time but it's the same thing with a lot of these guys they create this vision of this this world this imaginary world you know like the mansion he rents you know you go to he you know he has this one ad where it's like you got to read books you go to where the books are it's all like these you know fake like It's like this statue of books carved into his.

52:09So everything is kind of like a mirage. And then, but he's selling this dream and people, young people in particular, buy into it. And then since Tai Lopez has no actual expertise himself, and then he'll team up with some real estate investor. And he's like, here's my good friend who does real estate investing. You could buy this course for$6 ,000 and your very first deal, you're going to make$300 ,000. and he'll simply split the profits of that with that real estate guy. So he'll do that all day long, like team up with people who are selling these courses. But his first thing is, hey, you should live a life like me.

52:48Here's my 67 steps to living the life like me. You'll get it for free. People sign up. So he has 100 ,000 people sign up for his email list. Now he's got 100 ,000 people who love him and they're all young people who maybe are a little more gullible. Then he's selling these$6 ,000 courses or$3 ,000 courses. these young people will buy them and he splits the price. And he makes like 50, 60 million a year on that. Like, so he went from - Good for him. Hey, I never get mad at them. Good for him. Listen, I love a huckster. I love a con. I call him out because he's funny and I have to. But keep hitting him over the head.

53:21Keep whacking him over the head. I love it. Good. But the weird thing is he went from - Someone's got to take these people's money. Someone's got to take their money. Someone's got to tell these people, that after their$3 ,000 real estate seminar, they too will own a house in the Hollywood Hills or whatever. It's just great. Good for them. So Gary's model, because I asked why, I've known Gary for a long time, and I've asked why. Is he a fun guy? He doesn't seem fun. I mean, all these people, 100%, they're very odd to interact with. I once even pitched a TV show, Guru's Gone Wild, because I know all these people, And I was like, when you look into their, when you peek into their inner lives, it's a lot different than what their - Guru's gone wild?

54:10Yeah. Please tell me I can find this somewhere. I want to make it, but no one - No, I thought it was a thing that we could find. No, no, I got to write it up. Guru's gone wild. So, but like Gary, he's not selling courses like Tai Lopez, but he is selling the same vision. Like if you hustle and grind and execute - I have no problem with gurus. Just tell me a real thing. Okay, here's the real thing. Your expertise is, and I could be wrong here, but like Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, things like that, right? Yeah, but I've been, I've been, I've written over 20 books. I've been. But you're giving people like information.

54:47Yeah, I used my first business, just the one minute background. My first business in the 90s before every company had a website, I built the websites for AmericanExpress.com, Bad Boy Records. Yeah, dude, I watched 45 minute Gary V. talks where he says nothing 45 minutes i don't know what i should do what he's doing i mean we're talking an hour right i genuinely don't other than post on tiktok right i don't know what to do he goes social media is your friend i'm like i know kindness is delicious gary what do we do like i want to know i would like to go on his podcast and maybe i'm wrong i'm willing to be wrong i just i haven't found anything that's so so i asked why like his company has 800 people employees from what I understand.

55:31And I've run, and I, my first business was an ad agency building websites. And with 800 people, you're going to go out of business pretty quickly. You can't support 800 people in a service business because once there's even a tiny tick down, you're out of business. And so, so there's a why they're like, okay, he's supported by various billionaires from what I understand who, who invest in his business and keep it going. But then what's it good for? Well, these billionaires own valuable consumer brands that we know of every single day. And because Gary Vee has so captivated the Gen Z audience with this vision of, if you just hustle and grind and execute, you're going to be rich.

56:12And the Gen Z people love him. He gets millions of followers on every platform. They love what he's saying. Even though it might not mean he's selling this dream. So brands then hire him and billionaires who own these brands support his business and keep it alive because now they have this direct voice to hit the Gen Z audience. It's the same technique as Trump. Trump dominates Twitter, so he doesn't need any news company to support him. He broadcasts to 50 million people on Twitter. Gary broadcasts to every Gen Z person on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram. So if you're selling like the latest fashion brand, you pay Gary a bunch of money or you invest in his company to keep it going and now you have this direct voice to Gen Z because Gary has this message, whether it's correct or vapid or incorrect or whatever, he has this direct voice now to Gen Z and that's his model.

57:07Well, God love him. You know, again, I don't begrudge anyone the way they make money. I have to call out things that are funny and it's funny. It's funny to have somebody all day tell you to hustle or grind. It's just funny. It's especially funny when there is no mental health care in the country and that's all you get. All you get is a guy on Instagram telling you to hustle. well that's funny to me that that's where the world is at one time i took a bunch of his photos where he's giving all these inspirational quotes but every photo has him just looking at his phone in different positions he's like sitting looking at his phone he's on a bus looking at his phone he's on a train looking at his phone what if they took a phone away from that guy for like an hour what would he do would he bite someone would he kill somebody i don't think he would know what to say or what to do and i put it i put it up on my instagram this nine by nine grid of him looking at a phone and like i say guy what are you looking at and that's the last time he ever spoke to me interesting so i think he told i i don't know you never know right yeah you know you never know maybe he's just busy but usually we would have some back and forth and uh that was that interesting but but but there but that's again like everything on the surface has some narrative so and you never hear what the actual narrative i had to dig to figure out how is he how is he in business i had to dig to figure out who, how does he instantly get millions of followers on every platform?

58:25Like it's strange stuff happening. And then also because he has this Gen Z audience, companies will come up to him and Uber will come up to him and say, Hey, can you be an advisor? We'll give you a quarter of a percent of the company. And he collects those little advisory percentages as well. You can make a ton of money that way. Right. God love him. Yeah. God bless. It is interesting. The idea, no one will say the actual under there's a, there's the mountaintop and then no one will say the entire narrative that's underneath the mountaintop. Like take MKUltra, which you've talked about a lot. That's kind of created modern society.

58:58If you think about it, like it created the whole hippie culture of the 60s because the government was giving acid to every John in San Francisco. Yeah, I mean, MK is very interesting because these things that people just really don't know about. But it's definitely true, but it's always labeled a conspiracy. It's always labeled a conspiracy. It was a government basically trying to figure out how to control people's minds through psychedelic drugs, through certain tests, depending on who you talk to, through traumatic events that they either put people through or took people from those traumatic events.

59:28So the reality is during the Cold War, you had the Russians and us basically trying to create super soldiers. We're experimenting with the idea of what would it take to create somebody who we could split their mind up so that they were the super spy, that they wouldn't be able to confess any information because they genuinely didn't know it because that was in one part of their brain they couldn't access. You know, it was one personality and the other person. And, you know, what about a Manchurian candidate where you could essentially just have somebody be the president or be a senator, but literally be secretly controlled by the group of people who would devise this behavioral technology or technique.

1:00:07Their success level with that is, you know, debatable. There are some people that believe that they were very successful at it and they were able to use it on people like Sirhan Sirhan who assassinated Bobby Kennedy and that it still works to this day. There are some people that will tell you that they were never able to do it. They were never able to hijack somebody's mind 100%. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. There are some very interesting things that people point to as examples of MKUltra working. Sirhan Sirhan's an example of that. Where you look at it, you go, hey, this is a guy behaving very oddly.

1:00:42You have a guy that assassinated or tried to kill Reagan, quote unquote because he you know supposedly loved jody foster and then you look at this guy john hinkley jr the hinkley family and the bush family were actually friends neil bush was having dinner with the hinkley family the day or was scheduled to have dinner with them the day that one of their sons shot the president which would make who the president neil bush's father if it happened in russia we'd all go see putin conspiracy happens in america we all just kind of ignore it very interesting to me that's just a string of fun coincidences again to me it's a coincidence if like you're on a train and somebody next to you grew up in your town that's a coincidence the idea that of three you know of however many million people were in the country at that time not as many as we have now but a lot the idea that the guy that tried to assassinate the president his family was having dinner with the vice president's son because i didn't hear that fact fact can go look it up having dinner with the vice president's son the guy who stood to inherit the job if reagan was killed that is an interesting coincidence just a fun coincidence it is 100 fact you can look it up it's washington post new york times real deal and why did he try to assassinate reagan supposedly because he loved jody foster year.

1:02:28Which is a narrative Does it seem odd that they would schedule a dinner, almost like a celebratory dinner, the day a family member is? I find it odd they know each other. I find it odd that they even know each other on a level where they could be friends to that degree. Of all the people in the world that tried to assassinate the president, the idea that their families are close. And again, does it necessarily mean something? I don't know. But makes you look in a country that was a mature country that was being dealt with honestly by the press. That would have been a bigger story. And I think people would have started going, wait a minute.

1:03:14We want a little, we want answers on this more than just JFK. Same thing. We want answers on this. Yeah. By the way, you took a photo of yourself at the X, which by the way is very weird. as you pointed out that in Dallas there's an X right at the spot where John McKinney was shot a week earlier my wife Robin and I we were in Dallas and did an Instagram video right at the X and there's a I don't know if you met this guy there's a guy standing right there at least he was then where he kind of describes and he has this he's selling a DVD here's where the shots came from here's you know Lee Harvey Oswald was actually on the second floor eating lunch and he was eating with his boss and he wasn't on the seventh floor or the sixth floor or whatever, and that no shots even came from the school board depository, a school book depository.

1:04:01So I sort of feel like that was clearly a conspiracy or some kind of cover-up, but for whatever reason, nobody wanted to investigate it. Well, nobody wants to investigate anything. I mean, and that's reality. People don't want to investigate it. Boston Marathon bombing is very odd. You had two guys that the FBI said, we have no idea who they are. Then Russian intelligence came out and said, yeah, you do. We told you who they were. And then the FBI is like, okay, we did know who they were. And then it comes out that the FBI had some prior relationship with them, even though they've kind of denied this.

1:04:32And then they had to kind of walk back their denial. And it was probably a case of like the FBI recruiting them as informants. And then maybe something had happened because the FBI does this all the time. This is how the FBI does a lot of their work is through the use of confidential informants. This is what they do. You know, they entrap people. Entrapment is what the FBI does. They send a guy into a mosque with a bomb and they try to get three other people to agree to go bomb somewhere and then they go, you're all in jail. This is what the FBI does, you know? There's FBI agents right now in an office in Virginia pretending to be 15-year-olds on the dark web entrapping substitute math teachers that are pedophiles.

1:05:08I mean, this is just what they do. So... I don't know if you remember, well, it was before you were born, but in 1980, there were... It's the whole ab scam thing. The FBI pretended to be sheiks driving all these politicians. Of course. Total entrapment. Yeah. whitey bulger they they have informants this is what they do and a lot of times they let those informants go out and do bad things as long as they keep informing so the boston marathon bombing happened and the fbi was like we don't know who these guys are and in russian intelligence was like we told you exactly who they were and then you're like these guys were traveling back and forth to like i forget the name of the cut it's daga stan but where is that that's in chechnya it's yeah and it's like the caucuses and shit like these hotbed for terrorist activity hotbed and they're coming back and forth to america you know and it's okay and it's fine and then eventually this horrible bombing happens and people start asking questions and it's very weird and they shut down the whole city of boston they catch these two guys in a boat they're trying to kill both of them clearly they end up killing one of them and then the trial is really not covered And then they put SAM, special administrative measures on the attorneys.

1:06:19Not only the Dokar Zanaev, but also the attorneys can't speak. The attorneys can't go and be interviewed about this whole thing. And then the reason they give for that is, well, national security. We don't want to inspire other terrorist acts. But they were very clear that these two acted alone. So it's like, well, if they acted alone and they're not part of a larger network, then why would an attorney being interviewed about the case? So there's clearly something they don't want getting out. I mean, this is just a weird situation. You know, it's just odd. And nobody really, because people think you're like insulting people's memory by asking questions.

1:06:51It's like, no, I'm just very curious about. And here's the other thing. And this is verifiable fact. The Tsarnaev family, Tamerlan, Sokar, their grandfather, Rusli Tsarnaev. You're going to love this because this is just fun. And it's factual. Rusli Tsarnaev, who's their uncle. He's not their grandfather. He's their uncle. Because I'll make this point and somebody will be like, it's actually their uncle, as if they've done anything. It's like, it's the same, you know. Their uncle, Rusli Zarnaev, married Samantha Fuller. Samantha Fuller is a daughter of Graham Fuller. Graham Fuller was a career, not only CIA agent, but the architect of our Mideast policy for the CIA.

1:07:34Big CIA guy. Big CIA guy's daughter marries Rusli Zarnaev. his grandchildren or his nephews become the first terrorist attack on our soil since 9-11? Interesting. Very weird. Shadowy labyrinth of connections there. I don't know what that means. I can't tell you what it means. I know that that's a fact. And I know that that's very interesting for me and it's an odd coincidence that this guy married into a CIA family and his nephews end up having some type of relationship with the FBI that the FBI doesn't come out about. And then they end up doing this horrible thing in Boston. It's weird. And a mind like mine, it's hard to shut those things off.

1:08:16Well, but I think that's the solution. Like you say, like this scares you at night, all of these things. I think the solution is doing what you do, which is asking why, talking about it. And you're able to say, hey, I'm just a comedian. And that kind of like, you know, passes over the newspapers, all these people who try to deny or refute. Like, hey, I'm just a comedian. I'm just saying this thing looks interesting. And it's funny. And which is what Jon Stewart would always say, right? So Jon Stewart really was the only actual news source in the country. Yeah, it was very funny. And if anyone ever called him on it, he said, oh, no, no, I'm not news.

1:08:55I'm just a comedian. But he was actually the only news source. Everyone even said, this is my news source. And I think now there was this wave where everyone was reading, like let's say a decade ago, there was all these popular self-help books. And then you have for the past three to five years, all of these popular intellectuals that kind of did the podcast scene. And then now I think, though, the real voices are comedians like yourself, like some others who are you're seeing them. Your podcast, I imagine, has been shooting up in downloads for the past two years because now this is the voice.

1:09:28It's the only voices people can trust because you're asking the why, and there's no rules about what conditions you can put on it. So you can connect the dots any way you want, and then it's up to people to decide whether to trust it or not. Right. And I mean, that's the thing. I mean, what I do is entertainment, but there is some info there. Everything, I'm not lying about everything I'm saying. You can Google it. You can verify it. You can check it out. It's all checks out. The conclusions you draw are your own. You know, and I wrestle with them. I have different conclusions every night. about it.

1:09:59I'm like, what does this mean? You know? Yeah. And I mean, we probably just like you, I hear stories every day, whether it's, you know, a podcast guest who off to the side tells me he used to be in the CIA and this, this, this happened. Or the other day I was at, I was talking to this very big hedge fund manager and he was stumped about something. And so a hedge fund manager manages billions of dollars or whatever, and they play in a very big league on Wall Street. He was stumped and he couldn't figure it out. He would say on a Friday, maybe Trump would tweet, trade negotiations with China not going so well.

1:10:37And so for the last hour, the market would collapse. And then Sunday morning at three in the morning, he would tell me somebody from somewhere would start buying in the overnight markets an enormous amount of what's called futures, basically the stock market they were buying and at three in the morning and then at four in the morning someone from the trump administration would come out and tweet oh no trump was wrong trade negotiations are going great instead of the market would shoot up so who was collecting who was buying all this market stock market futures in the middle from three to four in the morning on a sunday night when there's usually no activity who's who is doing yeah and it's not illegal because you can't it's not illegal to bet on a tweet.

1:11:19Like it's not like inside information about a stock or anything, but just something weird. And he, and he, he, this guy was telling me, this seems to happen at random points, at least once a week. And there's someone buying oddly right before the tweet. And someone is pulling billions a week out of the market. And it could, it be someone related to Trump. Could it be somebody else? Like, but that's just like one small tiny thing I hear about at a dinner party. There's all this stuff happening underneath. And the only thing you could do is you can't figure it out and you can't stop it. You could just be raised the question, ask the why.

1:11:53That's it. You can just ask why. Just get on the boat.

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1:14:01Because what can you do about that as a citizen? You can say, okay, things are unfair. We need to redistribute wealth or whatever, which might be fine. But then you look at like Elizabeth Warren, which, okay, do a 2 % tax for people worth over$50 million. But by the way, don't you think people worth over$10 million are also wealthy? Why can't they pay the wealth tax? It's also like, don't you think people that are that wealthy, they know about tax-exempt securities and all that stuff? I mean, I'm all for taxing rich people. I'm all for that. I just, you know, my whole thing is where's the money going?

1:14:32Is it for more war, you know? Or is it actually to help people? Because we always talk about, oh, tax the rich. But it doesn't seem to make it into the hands of the people who need it. Like, are you going to give it to the post office and 18-year-old soldiers in Afghanistan? We've taxed a lot of people. We've taken a lot of money. Very little of it has made it into the hands of people who need it. Yeah, and I like how the reality is nobody ever wants to pay more taxes. So Elizabeth Warren, maybe it's a good idea that wealth tax, why put it at$50 million? Why not put it at$10 million? That sounds like pretty rich people to 99.9999 % of the country.

1:15:09Well, she's worth$12 million. So let's put it at$50 million. Right. Because again, what's… Not for being a professor, which I think the next thing is going to be college is going to burst. Absolutely. The bubble of college and the fake bullshit, that like the student loans that people take out so that they can go get a degree in the gender theory of cats is going to have to go away. Right, and like I argue this with my kids. I say, why are you going? And so the education reason is out the window because that's been disproved. There's no educational benefit. Oh, but like to learn how to socialize.

1:15:47Okay, you're going to socialize with the same suburban demographic you just spent the first 18 years of your life with. You're just going to spend another four years partying with these exact same people while the government or your parents pays the bill. And then you're stuck in debt and you can't get a job. So true. Scary. Are your kids away? Going away to school? Yeah. So our kids, we have five, 17, 17, 19, 20, and 20. One's finishing school this year. One, fortunately, listened to my advice, dropped out. One and two are applying right now. And one's in a different kind of school. Do they all live here with you or there?

1:16:19No. Different places. That's great. three or four of them at any given point live with us okay fun do they all get along yeah I think so what do you think Robin they all get along yeah that's great yeah that's great yeah we've just been married a year so we've been blending them this past year oh perfect perfect well that's awesome yeah how many are yours how many are hers two are mine three are hers oh awesome and everybody's cool yeah yeah awesome they'll all be here this week that's great so and you're in LA now I'm in LA three weeks out of every month I mean I'm in LA pretty much like I won't be back February and January, February, I'm going.

1:16:52And then I'll be back March to Headline Carolines, which is awesome. Excited about that mid-March. But I'll be in LA for the next two months. I work a lot on the East Coast. I'm an East Coast act in terms of like, I get booked and bought. My biggest markets are DC and Philly and Boston. And I do very well in Florida. And it's like, I sell very well in Chicago and stuff. I end up being on the East Coast a lot because that's where I do the weekends. Every now and then I'll take a few days in New York. But I do love LA and all my friends are out there. and Rogan's been amazing and that whole crew of guys, Burt Kreischer and Theo Vaughn and Tony Hinchcliffe, that whole group of people, I really like it.

1:17:27I love the comedy store. David Spade's been great. I do that show out there with him. Oh, yeah. You do the PR notes for David Spade. Yeah, it's the PR thing. So I love LA and I always thought I was going to be a New York guy and I was going to be that New York guy and it just went another way and I ended up in LA and I ended up really liking it. And you said earlier, it's hard to predict five years ahead, but where do you see, like come like right now there's probably more working comedians in the country than ever before like it's been almost like a fad and i don't think it affects you but there's so many people like vying for you know the 52 netflix specials that will happen what's happened is there was people tell me they're like we're in the transitional phase i'm like the transition happened years ago you know what is a comedian what's considered a comedian right now is very different than what was considered a comedian even three, four years ago.

1:18:21It is a broad definition that includes people online, people on the internet, people that are on social media, people that are vlogging, people that are YouTube stars, and any and all of those people can do live events, whether they choose to do standup or a podcast or meet and greet. They can fill seats. you are now competing with everybody that's interesting or entertaining throughout all of the media landscape that is fucking terrifying for a lot of people i love stand-up it's my first love i'll do it all the time but if you're just doing stand-up comedy right now you're a blacksmith and you have to be you know conscious of the fact that the fans you're gonna get are gonna find you on their phones.

1:19:13They're not going to find you at a comedy club, no matter how prestigious it is. And hopefully those people follow you into comedy clubs and then follow you into theaters. But you're not doing yourself any favors by not being on social media or not trying to, not only not be, you got to be funny on social media. You have to figure out a way. That's part of your job is to find out how to be, you might hate it. Part of your job is to find out how to be funny on Twitter, funny on Instagram, maybe funny on TikTok, certainly funny on YouTube. That's part of your job description now. It wasn't, you know, it was maybe five years ago if you were really ahead of the game.

1:19:49But certainly it wasn't 10 years ago. But it is now and it's non-negotiable. You know, I think that, so that's the, so where it goes five years from now, who knows? But I do know that you're going to see the people that have figured it out and are figuring it out. I think their careers will flourish or blossom to a degree. maybe the era of superstardom is over the idea of the massive arenas and that can still happen but I think you're going to have your people they're going to come out to see you you're going to find a way to monetize that they're going to enjoy what you say there's going to be a lot of voices and there's going to be small groups of people that enjoy those voices as opposed to this top-down gatekeeper enforced sphere of people and then there's just this rigid hierarchy and you can only kind of move up with when, but I mean, I could be wrong.

1:20:40You know, these big streaming services, they could come in and colonize the internet. They probably will. And, you know, it might go back to a more traditional trajectory in the new media landscape. You can already see it happening on YouTube, but in certain places that, you know, the cartels are involved. You know, the big companies are involved. The entertainment companies are involved. They might carve the space out and you know you may go back to like gatekeepers may start being reintroduced i mean they're still around tech is still in its own way a gatekeeper we're all kind of slaves to the algorithm yeah but that is the future so if you're a comedian right now and you're you're not spending a few minutes you know really ideally an hour a day looking at your not to use gary's word but your socials you you really have to you really have to dedicate yourself to that because you know the nature of the job has kind of changed.

1:21:38You still have to be funny, but no one cares about the New York Times writing review about your set. No one cares. Because they're not going to show their friend the New York Times review. Maybe an old couple cares that lives in Beacon, New York, and they're like, oh, isn't this nice? But the majority of people are showing people a funny video you made or a funny stand-up clip, or they're sending somebody your podcast, go listen to this. And if you don't have those things, how are people finding out about you? It's just not happening. So, so it's funny. This is going to be like a little bit, the Gary V podcast, but his book crushing it, which I think he wrote in, I want to say 2010 or 2009.

1:22:16I wrote the forward to crushing it. I'm kidding. I, that'd be awesome. But, uh, uh, that is, that was for me like his best book because that's what you're doing. Like every day you post on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, you know, you probably think about your podcast. Yeah. Crushing it is basically being on all the platforms, responding to some of the comments, and that's what he means by it. Yeah. That works. It does work. I do think that you have to do it, but I also think that it's… The part of the reason is because I kind of know what I want to do and who I am and what I think. so I think if you do that and you're just not a person yet I mean you can probably still have some success at it but I think that like you got to be and that's my only issue with him is like I totally get the crushing it but it's like you got to be a thing right like and I think that's the the thing is like you got to interface with the world from a certain position and to me as a comedian you got like what is your funny who is your audience where are you like what is you know what is the the impetus for why people should follow you somebody said very early on they said if you don't make it what who loses out if no one comes to the show what are they losing out i love that quote and someone who didn't make it and they were probably quoting someone who did but it was said to me in a long island diner by someone who said yeah what are people losing out on if you don't pop or that is the most amazing quote i've heard in a while because it's true that's what i like when i do my sketches or my video or anything like that i'm trying to give people a more realistic version of the saturday night live like let me give them something that looks a little bit more like the world that we live in as opposed to the world as we would want it to be right because you you again if you said if you don't if you just do stand up you're like a blacksmith in today's world and you do you can see on instagram or youtube you do these sketches that are just so funny like you know you're the guard for epstein or your megan mccain is like a big one right or you know all these things are just brilliant.

1:24:36And I agree, you have to be more than one thing and kind of combine them. And that's this unique intersection. We have a lot of fun making those sketches. We have a lot of fun doing that. I have a lot of fun doing the podcast. I don't think it has to be drudgery and misery. And I think sometimes stand-ups get this idea that everything's got to be painful. We grow through pain. Some of that's true. But a lot of it, you have to sit back and go, like the transition of my career came from going to LA. It came from, I went, I auditioned the comedy, sorry, did not get passed. I had an okay set. It's fine.

1:25:11I don't, I don't, I don't like blame her for not passing. She could have, but she didn't. And that's fine. I'm totally cool with that. I like people that work. I love the manager, Liz. I have only positive things to say about that play. I love Noam, the owner. It was on me that I just didn't have the, I'm like, not always a great guy in three minutes. You know what I mean? comedy was i went to la and i was like oh you know that was crushing and i went to la and i was sitting in my friend's garage there was no spots in lax i wasn't in at the store i just got there two years ago and i didn't even live there yet i was just coming out back and forth and i was sitting in my friend's garage i think we were i don't even smoke we like smoke a cigarette i was very depressed and we were in his garage and he said i have this desk and i have this camera and I have this green screen.

1:26:00And why don't you just sit at this desk and like, just rant and go off. And Roseanne had just been canceled. This was, you know, 2018, 17, 18. Roseanne had just been canceled. So I just went on this rant about how I'll do Roseanne. I'll be Roseanne. I was like, what is, what is, what is Roseanne? She's fat and she has dinner. I'll be Roseanne. I'll be racist and have dinner. Give me the money. I'll be Roseanne. And it was just this really funny thing. and we put this old school 1990s backdrop of you know of the twin towers behind me like a new york backdrop like you know and we did it we just put it out as a goof and people were like oh this is funny this is kind of ridiculous this is funny and ridiculous and we just kept doing them we kept doing them kept doing them and they got started to get a little bit of attention it started to get a little bit of attention and then when the megan one came i just threw a wig on and i said I'm Megan McCain.

1:26:54We edited the video. My friend's computer, you want to talk about the way things work and how odd things are? The computer he was editing it on broke. So he forgot the order he edited. He had it edited on. And then he drove 20 minutes to another friend's house to do it on a MacBook and just was like, I just forget how I even edited this. And he's like, oh, I guess it'll just go this way because these are the lines that just are the most ridiculous and make me laugh. he cut it together and it's viewed millions of times and people love it. Meghan McCain hates me or whatever. But I mean, lighten up.

1:27:27You have nine houses. Calm down. But the whole thing is like that all came from being in a garage and not knowing what was next and thinking I had done a Comedy Central special. I'd done a 15 minute quarter hour on Netflix. I wasn't really selling any tickets. I'm wondering what the hell is going on. I'd done the JFL New Faces comedy. You know, I'd done all those things. None of them work. I tried to get into the cellar. I didn't get into the cellar. And unfortunately, I'm in LA in a garage with my friend. It's 3 a.m. I just performed, I think, in like a coffeehouse parking lot, literally on a milk crate.

1:28:04And I'm like, I'm in comedy eight years. I'm fucked. What am I going to do? And then I was just like, oh, fuck, but I'm funny. That's the thing. It's like, oh, but this isn't a con or a hustle or, you know, this is i'm actually funny so i'm in a garage with a desk and a camera and a phone we shot it on a phone let me just be funny in the environment that i'm in and then that led me to the bigger podcast and to the bigger clubs and then people started buying tickets and it led me back to the worlds and then it led me to getting passed at the comedy store and it's like so i took the circuitous route to the places i wanted to be all along but i think do you think i think now you always have to take a securitist road.

1:28:48Yes. Like everybody. Yes. Because who's going to, who do you know that just did the normal route and is now going to be sellout arenas? There are certain people that I think are very, very, that are like Seinfeldian. Like Mark Norman, for example, who's like a Seinfeldian comedian in the sense that like, he is a brilliant, what it was, prolific, smart, sharp tactician who's great and just can put out stuff over and over again. I don't know, like, listen, where anyone ends up, who ends up in an arena, I don't even know. But I look at somebody like Mark, and it's like, I can understand Mark just doing stand-up.

1:29:28And that's not to denigrate him at all. That's actually to exalt him and say, he's a rare breed of human being that is just so suited for that specific type of stand-up. That being said, there's very few of those guys and gals that can go out there and do that. And I think most people, and even Mark would say, marketing-wise now, he's also going to take a different route because you need to get people's attention. And he's got a podcast with Joe List. Yeah. But I mean, I just love being crazy. So to me, to put on a wig or to do something stupid and get attention by being very funny in the environment I'm in is just, to me, great.

1:30:04And then I love stand-up. And then to bring it all back to a stage is also great. Your humor doesn't feel, particularly for these sketches, doesn't feel scripted at all. Like, maybe you do multiple takes. And then we edit. So that's why my editor, this guy Ben, that I met in LA, me and him think comedically in a very similar way. I go, he'll give me lines sometimes, but I go and he edits. Editing is so huge. That's what a guy like me has always not really been able to do. Because I just put it out there as like this whirling dervish. And he's able to go, okay, let's try to find the through line here.

1:30:36Let's try to find what's funny. Let's try to punch it up. I feel like although you're trying to be funny, like that's more of a skill than hey let me go into funny mode it seems like again you have something you know it's almost yeah yeah something funny but that's just it it's like every artist every writer every comedian there's something damaged inside and you kind of have to find that place and let it sort of come from that guttural place because like when you're talking in office parties, you're not just sort of observing from afar. This is what an office party is like. It's like you hated your existence, it felt like, when you were in an office party.

1:31:16And then you exaggerate. I was taking myself back to that. I do this stream of consciousness on my pockets, but I was taking myself back to literally standing in a bar on Long Island, bar restaurant on Long Island, knowing I shouldn't be there. And what that felt like. And that applies to anyone that's ever been somewhere where you know you shouldn't be. But that doesn't mean that all of you shouldn't be. that doesn't mean that there aren't parts of you that can make it work. But it was just standing in a place where I knew this is a stop on my journey. It's not the end of my journey and I shouldn't be there.

1:31:46And I think that like that was where that episode was really funny because it allowed me to kind of just beam myself back to be that guy and the absurdity of the people and me interacting with them. And it's not a neg on them. It's not a neg. It's just me not being there. it's the same thing if I was at the New York City Ballet and we're all in the back we're all talking and they're like what is this and it would be the absurdity of me being somewhere I shouldn't be or I don't belong and I would say working at the New York City Ballet I guess if I was just there it would be okay I just saw the Nutcracker it's great but oh she's getting tickets yeah I love it I see it I saw it like 10 years ago I love it I think the Chris Michelle is trash and the people who see that should be killed but I like the Nutcracker because it's very wealthy well-dressed families from scarsdale which is where i kind of want to spend my time and not rangers jerseys and like cheese it's like but so so i think that a lot of it is like can you remember and i put myself back in the spot and and that's where just it was really funny because like i was just like oh fuck i live this yeah but then you take it like that extra absurdist level yeah where it's just like you're in the brains of all these people and what their goals in life are yes and and projecting like what they want and how they're justifying not getting it and that's the comedic angle of like yeah it's a comedic angle for you my family gets mad you know i should talk my family a lot i have to see them boomer christmas yeah i mean i have to see these people and they're like we don't talk like that i'm like yes you do i mean those are lines my father has said i love my father but these are lines he said he's literally said to me and my friends when we tell him about like one of our other friends he's like dad my dad's Like, you got to golf.

1:33:33Got to make time to golf. Because the older I get, the more I regret. Just because even just play nine. Just play nine. Take a half day. I mean, it's just like, these are lines from not only my dad, but, you know, the boomers that I grew up with on Long Island, my friend's parents, who would talk about buying condos for all of dinner. Like, we want to go to Naples. And I love these people. I grew up with them. It's not that I've disliked them. It's like, you make fun of the things you know and love and care about. You know? And that's kind of what people don't understand. and Bill Hicks gets a shit on the South, but he's from the South.

1:34:03He knew the South. A lot of it frustrated him. You know, a lot of people, Sebastian Maniscalco makes fun of the people he grew up with and their mentality and everything, but he loves them. I mean, so it's like, as much as the, they're just ripe for parody. The boomer generation is ripe for parody. I think that's a key because if you're just angry at who you're talking about, it's going to come across as vindictive. Of course. The audience is an x-ray machine. They're going to say, oh, he's just angry. Like with the office party one, You're really just, it's almost like you were turning the anger on yourself.

1:34:35Like you knew you were off to bigger things. It's not their fault I'm where I shouldn't be. None of it's their fault. And I think that's part of the thing you have to realize is that a lot of it is you. But it's just very funny to look out at places in your life you've been that maybe you shouldn't have been and figure out like, how am I going to extricate myself from those places? It's interesting for me because like, so I've been writing for, writing books for 20 years. So the first, let's say eight or nine years, I was writing about finance and just wrote finance books and wrote for the Wall Street Journal, whatever.

1:35:07And then I started writing more, like everybody assumes everyone on CNBC is like rich and successful and whatever. But during this 10-year period, I had made, and my listeners know this, but I'll do it quickly. I had made millions several times and lost all of it down to zero at least five times. So like from 15 million to zero, then from three million to zero, then from seven million to zero. And I had done this repeatedly. Like I was the worst circus idiot in the world. Yeah. And so instead of just writing some finance books, suddenly I started writing, look, this is what really happened. And it felt so real to me.

1:35:50This was for me, my career transition. And now it's almost like a genre in business self-help, but no one was writing this at all. so I would get calls from people like did you have a stroke are you about to kill yourself is something wrong because and my rule was I couldn't publish a piece of writing unless I was afraid of what people would think that was rule number one like unless I was afraid what people would think I couldn't publish because then I'm writing the same thing everyone else is writing I'm just in that zone that comfort zone of what everyone else is writing but if I go out of it saying like look I went broke you don't have to listen to me anymore but this is then what happened after that.

1:36:23And this is all the shitty things that happened when I was going broke. And this is what actually happens to your friends and your family while you're going broke. And so suddenly my audience 10 X'd and it changed everything for me. And, and, and at the same, but my one, but another rule I had was I'm only, I should only hurt myself. I can't hurt or blame anyone else. Right. And, and cause it is really only about me. And that says though, I still lost friends family co-workers opportunities you know it's just you have to be okay with your whole life changing once you make that sort of honest transition yeah and that's okay i think that's good change is good yeah change is good look look for you you went out to california you stopped doing you know the clubs in new york i think there's a certain safety factor like you you know a club owner wants people who are interesting but also doesn't want the audience to give bad reviews and so on.

1:37:19So it maybe is… I think New York just… It's just… There's a flurry of activity. California, you have to create that. New York, you can do spots all the time. You can be around things that are happening. There's just this inertia that feels like it's moving you forward, whether it is or it isn't. In California, you truly have to create that. That starts with relationships more than it does in New York. Because California, people make the time to see each other. You don't bump into each other. it's far less casual there so when you're working you know if you drive and if you and your buddy each drive a half hour to meet somewhere you're going to make that time more valuable than if you're just walking down a street you would anyway and when i met my friend ben and we started doing all these things it was like this is a relationship that is very vital to my career because this is the first relationship i've had where the person in it is not a stand-up comedian but they're they They have a comic sensibility.

1:38:18They like editing. And they want to make things. And I want to make things too. And we put our heads together. We just started to, you know, really make things. And I feel like too much about New York is about going it alone. It's bad. And it's not the move. Going it alone. It's me against the world. And I'm on the subway alone. And I'm in the rain. And I'm miserable. And I'm cold. And I'm the one on stage for five minutes. And I'm killing and this, that, and the other thing. but it's like nobody's an island and I think you need to find people that have the skills you don't and I need you need to collaborate.

1:38:51You need to learn how to collaborate. You need to learn how to make things. You need to learn how to develop different things and too much in New York is about going it alone. And in LA, it's not that that isn't possible. You can go it alone in LA, but even just carpooling, the idea of like people are like, all right, you drive today. I'll drive tomorrow. it just lends itself to, you know, meeting people and trying to figure something out with them. Well, you look at like any artistic movement, like look at the beat movement in the 50s, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and a few other people, but mainly those three, they all hung out together at Columbia.

1:39:27They kind of grew up as a scene together. They did completely different things, you know, but Allen Ginsberg would fly to Morocco and edit William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, Alan, you know, they would help, you know, everyone rejected on the road, but, you know, they helped Jack Kerouac get on the road published. So it's sort of like in the art world, the same. I think you're right. You can't succeed going alone. You have to kind of find not your tribe. I hate that. That's like almost like a self-help word, but like you're seen somehow that you're going to grow up with. And I feel like you have it to some extent.

1:39:57And I put you, Andrew Schultz, Chris Dostofano, Giannis Papas, kind of like all in this group of people who are using social media, podcasts, and everything to sell tickets just as much as your reputation from stand-up. Yes. Yes. You know, like you said, you were on Comedy Central to do a half hour. Netflix, you did a quarter hour. Your podcast is probably viewed much more than those things. Much more. Much more. Much more. And it's better. And the reason it's better is because it's not a 15-minute… Yeah. You know, I mean, it's just better. It's more, if you want to get to know me, and if you wanted to become a fan of me, I would much rather giving you hours of content of raw, unfiltered me than I would give you a 15-minute edited, you know, scripted, they're jokes I'd worked on.

1:40:41So to go from one to the other, to me, it's like, it's just so much of today's climate feels like it lends itself more to like the authentic. I think that's what attracts people. I think that's key. To people, right? It's authenticity. city too much of comedy is a veneer where people aren't the people they are pretending to be or they're they're comedies a magic trick and you kind of get the idea now that oh if this guy wasn't telling those jokes he'd be like miserable and i don't want to hang out with him and he actually wouldn't say anything interesting so i don't i don't want that person well it's also a lot of i don't i don't want to i don't and i don't know anything so i'm just broadly generalizing this there's some notion where some comedians are pandering to the audience because likability is considered a strong factor in stand-up comedy.

1:41:26But I like how you… Also, I see this with Andrew or with Chris DiStefano, where you're able to take a strong frame with the audience. You're able to tell the audience to shut up. Or you're able to say… But that's because they like us. I will be honest with you. That is because they love us. That's because we are likable. If we weren't likable, we couldn't do that. Yeah, like in the WeWork, the one… The set you have pinned to on Twitter. That WeWork, you're like, you know, you're just a bunch of… And they like it. Yeah, they loved it. Listen, we're in a world where Jimmy Fallon plays Muppets and Ellen DeGeneres dances.

1:41:58It's like it's not the real world. None of this is real. Seth Meyers is goofing around. You know, like Henry Kissinger, Miss Piggy, and Jimmy Fallon are playing footsie. None of this is real, and people know that. They go, what's going on? Because there's that world, and then there's a world of school shooting, opioid crisis, Detroit's fall. All of these things that are happening, that aren't reflected in any meaningful way in pop culture. So then when somebody just fucking goes off and calls it out or say, people are like, oh yeah, okay. Well, how long did it take you though before you were able to go from what you thought was comedy to, you know what?

1:42:40I care about the opioid crisis. So I'm going to take that on stage. Well, I do care. I don't want anybody to die of opioid. I'm a sober guy. But it's also like, it's not even that I'm up there trying to make a point. I'm just calling out what this is. Like, I look at the world. I look at the news. And then it goes into Fallon. And I go, what the fuck? Because the news is just Trump, impeachment, Russia, North Korea, opioid school shooting. And then you go to Fallon. And he's playing checkers with Cameron Diaz. And that's the bit. The bit is that he goes to the, oh, we team at Post Malone go to Red Robin or something.

1:43:14I mean, that's the comedy bit. and I go, oh, this is an infantilized idea of what the world is. And I don't know who's the audience for this. Fat housewives in Galveston, Texas, who just sit there and eat pills and drink while their husband polishes his gun in their car. I don't know, but I don't understand who is enjoying this and who this is for. I guess it's for people that don't want to like open their eyes at all to anything ever. I don't get it. I don't even think it's funny. So, right. So, so you would take these things that are, were obvious to you. Then what was the evolution? And this, I promise we'll close this down soon.

1:43:54What was the evolution to, to turn that into something funny on stage? Cause that's not so easy to take a view point. The evolution was the first time I did something like that was I was at the Grizzly Pear, which used to have open mics. And there was a Monday open mic that was really, really great. And I think I got there late. I was working in Staten Island. I was telemarketing. I was selling photocopiers over the phone. Was that the Comedy Mob open mic? I used to do Comedy Mob open mic. No, it was something called Kinison's Wake. And it was, everyone, a lot of people have done it. But DeStefano used to do it.

1:44:28But then also people, I don't know where they are now. I got up and I just started ranting and raving about how much I hated my job and my life and how the Staten Island Ferry was the worst place in the whole city. And so was Staten Island. And I know that because the boat to get there was free. And I just started going off on this toxic kind of just, and it was just doing really well. And it was just hitting with people because it wasn't like tightly scripted jokes. It was just kind of this idea of like, everything sucks and here's why. And from there, I just started going, oh, that's kind of what people want from me is raw.

1:45:07And obviously raw in a sense where it's organized because they want you to be fun. and consistent, but they want that raw, like, this is fucked and here's why. Did you have a sense, like, I need to insert the funny in here? Or did you just have this confidence that, okay, I'm going to be raw and I know it'll be funny? Well, it just started killing immediately. So it just started murdering immediately because it was just a connection with everything I was saying was real to me. It was authentic to me. So even if somebody else didn't feel like that, it was funny because the funniest things to me are when I, it's real to that person.

1:45:45And that person's bringing you into their life with what they say. Even if you're like, I don't even, that doesn't make sense, or I don't agree with that. You know, why was my office party rant funny? It was funny to people that had never gone to a Christmas party. I have messages from people that go, I've never worked in anything like that. And I don't know why I left. I don't know why I identified with that. I've never even been to anything. I've never even been to Long Island. I'm from New Mexico. I work at a zoo. I had a guy from like, hey, I work at some type of zoo, ecological preserve thing in New Mexico.

1:46:16He goes, I've never been to Long Island. He goes, why did your Long Island stories crack me up so much? I said, it's real to me. It's authentic to me. And that makes you laugh at it because you know I'm on the level and you know that somewhere, somewhere out there, these people exist. These stories are real. And you're having this collective experience with it. And it makes you maybe think of your stories and your people and your fucking life. And that's what I think it is. So if it's real and authentic, I love it. And that's the comedy to me. Sometimes, and this is going to sound crazy, comedians are inauthentic, but that's who they are.

1:46:50And I love that because I'm like, oh, you're not a real person and you shouldn't pretend to be. You're a sociopath who's collected thoughts and ideas and you have no experiences and you sleep in a pot every night waiting to just, and that's fine. Be that. But to me, it's like the authenticity of if it's real to me and funny and crazy, it's going to make somebody laugh. All right. Well, Tim Dillon, the host of the Tim Dillon podcast. Such a great podcast. Tim Dillon show. Thank you. Tim Dillon show. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. This is to my apartment. You can keep it. We'll leave.

1:47:28Tim J Dillon, D-I-L-L-O-N on Instagram and Twitter. Get my socials up so that Gary can know who I am and we can. I almost wrote Gary and told him to come over here today Does he live here? Yeah he lives in New Jersey but he hangs out in New York Interesting So after this and I actually I don't think he knows who I am I think he does maybe I would wonder I kind of made fun of him a little bit on Joe that's the only clip that doesn't have a ton of views on YouTube and like YouTube doesn't monetize or whatever so it's kind of interesting He's got some power but again I think a tour is in the future for us where Gary trains me to be something.

1:48:06Let's do it. I want to get involved. Guru's gone wild. I'll host. I'll host the show. I'll get it. I'll make it happen. If I can, I'll make the attempt. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Will you come on again? Come on again. Anytime. Excellent. Great. Thanks, Tim.

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