#2484 - David Cross

31:41It was really weird. It was because we were in the middle of the counterculture. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Berkeley, all that stuff. Yeah, we lived right down the street from Lombard Street. So we were like in the middle of it all. And it's funny because it was during that time that the Vietnam War ended. When did Vietnam end? 74? I think 74. Officially April 30th, 75. Okay. U.S. withdrawal 73. Yeah, so that was like, how old was I? Whatever. The point is, at that time, I remember thinking, thank God they figured out war's bad. We're never going to do this again. I literally had that thought, however old I was.

32:31What a naive child. Oh, I was like, whew. Because my stepfather, he didn't get drafted. He got lucky. He just didn't get picked. and I knew a guy, some guy that was a friend of the family that had moved to Canada. He's like, fuck this. He took off to Canada, so I was aware of that. Like, oh, people are leaving the country so that they don't have to go to war. Because if you're a little kid, everything's fucking scary. Especially if you come from a broken home. Yeah, and the concept of a draft or conscription. The idea like, oh, you may have to go and you're going to learn how to shoot a gun and then go shoot strangers, kids.

33:11You know, like that has got to be terrifying if you're a kid. No, it was insane. And there was also the time where, you know, my stepdad was a hippie. And my parents were hippies. And when that— I was going to ask, why did your—sorry to interrupt, but why did they move around so much? My stepfather was a computer programmer initially, and then he wanted to become an architect. So he went to school in San Francisco and then University of Florida in Gainesville. and then Boston Architectural Center. So we moved to Boston when I was 13. So that was what it was. It was him becoming an architect. Right.

33:49And so they didn't like sports. They weren't into anything like that. And then when Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War, he became this counterculture hero. Sure, yeah. And I remember my parents sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks. because he was trying to win his title back. And they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy. Like, this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents fans of his to the point where they're going to watch boxing. Like, they never watched boxing. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything violent. They hated it.

34:29But they wanted to watch that. Well, if there's one boxer to watch if you are anti-hitting or boxing or whatever, it was Muhammad Ali. He was a strategist, you know? He was, but quite honestly, by that stage of his career, he had slowed down considerably. And he just wasn't. I remember the Leon Sphinx, because he. Leon beat him. Yeah. And then he beat Leon in the rematch. Right. This is the rematch, right? And that was the big one that we were all glued to the TV. But I remember thinking, this is crazy. They're watching boxing because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War. Have you seen When We Were Kings?

35:10Yes. Yeah, it's great. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, he was a, God, you want to talk about a unique human being, like a one of one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And, you know, outside of, you know, Mike Tyson, there was never any kind of figure like that in boxing. No. I mean, there was minor... Sugar Ray Leonard a little bit, but not... Not to that extent, because he wasn't a cultural figure. Right, right. Muhammad Ali represented something during the Civil Rights Movement. And he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Right, right. That was a big thing, too. People were terrified of Muslims at the time.

35:55And still. I was going to say at the time. Yeah. But it was a different kind of Muslims. You know, that was... Well, they were – the government was really good about portraying every black urban person as like potentially Muslim brotherhood, 12 tribes. Right, right, right, right. Those guys. They're still around, the Israelite 12 tribe. Oh, those guys, yeah. They used to be – they used to hang out and – hang out. They used to be in Times Square, like, you know, yelling and preaching. I hung out with those guys one day. I wrote a piece about it for my website because I went, I was going home. It was when I was living in New York and I was walking down the street and there's this guy standing there with like a microphone and a little speaker.

36:48And they would read things from the Bible. And they would translate it. And they had this very bizarre translation. Everybody was black. George Washington was black. Everyone was black. They were explaining to me. You know, the so-called Jew, black Israelites. The so-called Jew was the thing that they always think. Well, they're Jewish. Yeah, you don't have to say the so-called part. Yeah, it was very odd. But their whole thing was there was a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were black that have been, you know, written out of history. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was their thing. Yeah. They also informed me that I'm not white.

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39:41Great. Because they hated white people. So I was just talking to this. Because I was bored. So I was talking to this guy. I was having him explain everything to me. And he informed me, don't worry, man, you're not white. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. It's good to know. So you can hang out. I can hang out with you guys. You don't hate me. But it was very odd. Very odd. They were all dressed like superheroes. They all had these crazy, like, Avenger costumes on. Yeah, and, like, jewelry. Yeah. Like, big, chunky jewelry. Yeah, huge medallions around their neck. Yeah. Very odd stuff. There's still, you don't see them like you used to, but they're still out there.

40:18Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're out there. But I mean like in – literally in New York, periphery of Times Square. Yeah. Last time I was in Philadelphia, I saw them. Yeah. They were out there on the street with the microphones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's an odd group. When were you in New York? I was in New York. I moved to New York in 91. Yeah. So I started stand-up in 88 in Boston, and I got picked up by my manager, who I'm still with, when I was essentially an open-miker. Who was that? Jeff Sussman. How do I not know Jeff Sussman? He handles Kevin James. Was he a Boston guy? No, he was a New York guy. Oh, okay, okay.

41:02So the story was he had, what was his name? The guy who had all the crazy costumes. He was on the Rodney Dangerfield special. Bob. Oh. Bob Nelson. Bob Nelson, yeah. So he handled Bob Nelson. The Cleveland Browns. Yeah. He put the helmet on. He had boxing gloves. He did Jiffy Jeff's gym. He had brain damage. He did a bunch of different characters. I remember. So Bob, who is a big act, you know, he had an HBO special, the whole deal at the time. He found Jesus. Oh. Where was he? In his basement, I guess. Oh, shit. Or something. Okay. It was around the neighborhood, somewhere. Okay. But he had this guy who was his prayer partner that was going to take over as his manager.

41:47And so this was my manager's big client. So he's like, fuck. Like, I got to go find some other comedians. So did he just stop doing stand-up? I don't know. I don't know if he still does stand-up. I don't know. I knew his career. My manager is really good and he's very smart and he did a great job guiding Bob. But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that, like maybe that becomes more of their life than he was. He was all in. Yeah, yeah. He was all in with Christianity. And so my manager said, well, I kind of know most of the comics in New York. Let me see if I'm not missing people in Boston.

42:34And so he traveled to Boston with a friend of his, one of the guys that owned Governors. And they came. Well, Governors was Bob's room, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. At a Long Island. One of the rooms that he worked at. Yeah. And so they came down to Boston and I just randomly went up one night at Duck Soup. Remember Duck Soup? Duck Soup. Duck Soup was, it became the improv after a while. It was. I don't remember that. Billy Downs and Paul Barkley. I think it was actually Paul's thing. They had split at that point? I think. I'm not sure about that. But what it was, it was Paul's idea of believe. It was a much more high-end room.

43:17It was really nice. And it was right across from Nick's. So it was in the below area where the Wiltern is. Okay. So you know where the Wiltern is, which is now the big, you know, where Bill Blumenwright does comedy connection shows. Yeah, the Wilbert, right? Yeah. Is that it? The Wilbur. It's the Wilbur. Okay. I'm thinking the Wilterns LA. The Wilbur. The Wilbur. But I know what you're talking about. The Wilbur. Right. You're right. So downstairs, the Wilbur, you'd go down and it was a really nice room. Okay. And I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos. Driving a limo in Boston? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

43:52Jesus. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. That's what I was doing for a job. That's fucking hard. I mean, I just mean the literal streets of Boston are tough to navigate with any vehicle, but a limo, add an extra half a car to it. Yeah. It wasn't that bad. It was mostly airport pickups. And a lot of it was town cars, pick people up in town cars. But when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas. And I had an idea for a joke, and I called. God, I can't remember who the guy was. Fuck. I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. He was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club.

44:31And I could call him up and say, hey, can I get a guest spot? And he gave me a guest spot that night. I wasn't even supposed to be on the show. And my manager just happened to be in the room. And if I'd known he was in the room, I probably would have been nervous and I probably would have bombed. And I had no idea he was there. And then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card. And he said, can I see you tomorrow? And I said, okay. And then I did it. He just meant for a ride to the airport. So I did a set at the Connection the next night, and then he asked me to come to New York and audition there.

45:02And then next thing you know, I was living in New York. It was like three years later. Very cool. Yeah, it was a crazy story. And when did you move out to L.A.? 94, 93. Like, first came out in 93 and then moved in 94. I came out to 93 for a pilot. I did a pilot on Fox called Hardball with Jim Brewer and a bunch of other people. It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled. It was terrible. And then the only reason why I stayed, I hated L.A., but the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year. So I was like, fuck, I have to stay here. And so I stayed for a whole year.

45:44And then I got a development deal for NBC. and I was there in the middle of this whole development deal and then they said, we have a pilot that we already filmed but we're going to fire one of the cast members. We want you to audition for this. And that was news radio. So I got to watch. Who did you replace? Well, fortunately, it was Ray Romano, who was a good friend of mine, was fired during the pilot. And so they replaced him with another guy and that guy got fired. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it wasn't, I would have felt terrible if it was Ray. But it was Ray being replaced. I was like, good, fuck that guy.

46:24I'll do it for Ray. Do you remember who the other guy was? I do not. He was just an actor, some guy. I mean, I never met him. I'm sure he's a nice guy. But luckily for Ray, he goes on and does Everybody Loves Raymond. It becomes huge. And I just stumbled into this fucking show with no acting experience. That was a fun set. I remember. His radio was the best. Because I did it a couple times, and also, like, that was not my first, but one of the first experiences I had with multi-camera sitcoms. You know, you're like, this is literally the easiest job on planet Earth. Oh, yeah. It is. You have one full day.

47:07You have, like, a full, I think, Thursday, right? Yeah. And then Friday's, like, half a day. Yeah. Monday, come in, read the script, go away. Yeah, it's the filming day that's the long day. And it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose. The first season was hard. The first season was 12, 14-hour days because it was like they were trying to figure out what the show was. But once it got rolling, it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing stand-up for six years. I had done no acting. They made me get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive.

47:44For a pilot, for the pilot, the Fox pilot. Oh. Yeah. Well, how's an acting coach going to help you with a sitcom? It's about instinct. It's about— Well, they were giving me a lot of money. They gave me like$150 ,000. You have to learn how to act. Do you know how to act? I've never acted. I'm just saying, like, to deliver sitcom lines is you don't need an acting teacher. Right. Now, Joseph, let's limber up the body. Yeah, you're not Daniel Day-Lewis. You're not doing There Will Be Blood. It was weird because it wasn't anything. I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted.

48:26So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like, oh, my God, this is it. I am on a sitcom. I'm acting. It was more like this is crazy. I can't believe I'm doing this. You know, it was more like wow I can't believe I get to do this but You know the real thing for me was to be able to be in LA and go to the comedy store that to me was more That was more huge than like when I got passed at the comedy store That to me was like way bigger than being on a sitcom. I was like holy shit Like cuz at that, you know, like it's six years in I was like am I even is this gonna work out? I don't even know this is going to work out.

49:02Well, it's also not glamorous in any way. That aspect of working, there's nothing glamorous about a sitcom. You know what I mean? It's not the thing that when you're not in L.A. or Hollywood and you're sitting back and you are told about the glamorous lifestyle, the parties and all that stuff. You're driving to work and you're going to work. Yeah, but it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television. And that was very weird to me. It was very strange to watch it on TV. I'm like, that is actually me on TV. I had zero aspirations for any acting at all. It never even occurred to me. When I lived in Boston, I remember me and Fitzsimmons, we used to dream about the day we could pay our bills telling jokes.

49:57That was all it was. I hear you. It was just like, oh, God. I would see guys like DJ Hazard. I remember I went to look at this apartment, and DJ Hazard lived in the same building. And it was this converted schoolhouse in these loft apartments. It had like a second floor where the bedroom was. And it looked over the living room. I'm like, God, he pays for this with jokes. This was like the most amazing thing. That's all I wanted. I saw these like Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney. I was like, imagine being able to pay your bills just telling jokes. Untie my ankles in the morning. Remember that? Yeah, I do.

50:35DJ Hazard? Yeah. What was I going to say? Something. Oh, do you know Fitzsimmons' Paul Barclay story or Bill Downs, The Watch? Bill Downs. It was Bill Downs. Which one? How's it go? Oh, I don't – you should get it from him because it's his story. But – and I don't want to – I feel like it's his to tell, but it's fucking great. It's genius. It's bringing up something in my memory. So Bill owed everybody money. Right. And like he's still – those guys owe me whatever it is at this point,$300,$500. and you'd go there and they were just doing I'll pay you soon big guy and then do you remember when Bill adopted the girls yes Korean girls right and he would use them like as because at a certain point it didn't help to go to the connection or go to the clubs and you had to go to their fucking office if you want it nobody's gonna call you back or whatever and you'd like i gotta get on the t and go to the go to their office and that's the only way i'm gonna get money is if i show up and he's in a good mood and it's not gonna happen from a phone call and i'd go there every single time it's like dude i gotta pay my rent man i mean i i got nothing and you owe me you know $385 and back then that was huge and cross I listen so I got my kids one of my kids is sick whatever it was always this fucking excuse and then you know it was still the coke residual and the bottom of his nose but so he owed Fitzsimmons a chunk of money like like a significant amount like 1500 1800 bucks like something something meaty you know especially for back then and uh you you ask greg because i feel i feel like no tell the story i'm sure greg's told it to me okay greg and i are pretty close i just remember it some in in my head i do remember part of it but i don't know the whole story i don't remember it all right so greg was booked at this some shit club in New Hampshire or whatever and Downs was going to be there Bill was going to be there and he goes there and he goes oh Bill I forgot my watch I don't want to go over can I borrow your watch and he's like yeah sure it's like a Rolex like some fancy fancy fancy watch and Greg had this all planned out Oh, I know the story now.

53:38Yeah, and then he had like parked in a specific place. And then he gets, he's like, all right, thanks. And he's like, all right, don't forget to give it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does his set and then he bolts out the back door, gets in his car, drives home, back to Boston. And then Bill calls him, hey, so I think you forgot to give me my watch back. And Greg just basically goes, yeah, you want it back? Give me the$1 ,800 you owe me and then met him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere in a public place. Give me the cash and I'll give you your watch. And it was just genius. Yeah, that's Greg.

54:18Yeah. Yeah, those days were fun. Nick's Comedy Stop used to offer to pay you in cocaine or cash. Dude, so I did Nick's. And the only – I've said this multiple times. The only – I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston when I was in Boston because the comedy booms going on. And outside of, I don't know, three places, I just didn't do that well. And I certainly didn't do well at Knicks. I mean I was the opposite. They had that – the vague feeling of high school where you're the weirdo and people want to fuck with you and throw you in the trash can. And so I got lucky because there were just spots.

55:05They just needed bodies. So I worked all the time. Not great gigs, but it was all cash under the table. And they just needed bodies to go up and do 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, at some cowboy bar in Fitzburg or whatever. Fitchburg. Anyway, so I get this, I get a week at Knicks and I am not doing well at all. I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox. So not my crowd. And I didn't have the track suit.

55:47And, you know, Knox, he's up there doing, hey, you know why Bill Buckner didn't catch the ball, get the ball? 86 World Series, because he heard it had AIDS on it. Okay. Yeah, that's a real joke. That's a real joke. And they loved it. More! Wonderful! Yes, of course it had AIDS on it. Oh, God. 1986. And then, do you remember this? What does AIDS stand for? No. What? Adios Infected Dick Sucker. Oh, I do remember that. I do. I'm opening for him. Oh, my God. And it's his crowd. and uh adios infected dick sucker oh my god yeah so uh i titled one of the tracks on my first album i think first or second album uh what if baseballs had aids on them

56:48i'm fucking eating it right so they're they're they're peeling back my uh time as the week goes on. And I am, I mean, if I had done even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling. They're already kind of intimidating, right? Super mobby. Very mob. Very mob. And do you remember where you'd walk into Nick's and there was like the podium and then behind, a little behind it is this little room with a curtain, right? And it's not big at all and i went to go get paid my the week was over and i'm and i've just you know eaten it eat shit every single night every single show and um and they're all eating it's like a scene from like they're all eating like you know manicotti couldn't make it any better with the fucking napkins in their uh you know in their shirt like this and uh and i go uh hey nervous as shit just Hey, so Dom, I need to, if I can get paid, just for the, you know, whatever.

57:58And Dominic goes to whoever, I can't remember the guy's name, his kind of lackey there. And he goes, whatever his name was, you know, Pauly, go pay the kid. And he's, I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy. Fucking napkin off. Takes me, trudge. We go up to the offices upstairs and there's a safe and it's open and there's cash and there's a gun. This is just open. Right. And he gives me he gets the money and he gives it to me and I just pick it up. I want to get the fuck out of there. And I pick it up and he's like, are you going to count it? No, I'm good. I trust I trust you. And I just bolted.

58:41I never went back there again. I was so fucking intimidated. That was an intimidating place. Oh, dude. The whole thing about it. The Dominic, all those guys. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's doing Blow. The performers are at least. It was a maniacal time. There was one time where Nix was running three consecutive shows. So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom. And there was one other room somewhere in that building. And guys would go, guys like Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, they would go and do a set, a set, a set, a set, a set. And these guys were just raking in money.

59:24Oh, yeah. And constantly doing blow and not paying their taxes. Yeah. Yes. And that's what got them all. Yeah. Well, they, I mean, back in the heyday, it went on for years. This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep. Okay, when it comes to sleep, I've got to have the right temperature dialed in, depending on the time of year that might be ripping hot. I'm talking volcanic or igloo levels of iciness. The point is, I need the temperature to be just right so I can get deep sleep, the kind of sleep that drives real recovery. And luckily, 8 Sleep is all about giving you the best sleep possible. Their new Pod 5 Smart Mattress Cover is designed for deep sleep and personalized for you, automatically regulating the temperature on each side of the bed in real time.

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1:02:24Right. Giggles and Saugus. Yeah. And just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do nine fucking shows and make a shit ton of money, cash under the table, tons of blow. Yeah. And yeah. It was a wild place because there were so many comics and it was such a Boston's not a big city You know and to have so much comedy all come out you've seen um france alamita's documentary I haven't I got it. It's really great stand-up stood out. Yeah, it's really I got it. It's really great It's really great And it goes all the way back to crimins and the ding-ho And I that was before my time. I started in 88.

1:03:05So the ding-ho was already gone You heard legendary stories from the Ding-Ho. Did you see Call Me Lucky? No. Oh, you've got to see that. It's Bobcat's documentary about Barry. Oh, no, wait a minute. I did see that. It's fucking great. That's right. I did see that. It's really well done. I don't mean just, like, even if you don't know Barry, just the story and the way he lays out the path of the film is great. I had Barry on, like, right after it came out. I had him on the podcast. And yeah. He's a legend and, you know, huge inspiration. He was an intimidating guy. Yeah. That was the guy that I was scared of because he was like – he was the guy who was sort of the standard.

1:03:54Like he made sure there was no hacks. He made sure there was – like he set the standard. And he was really equitable too. Yes. Yes. Yes. Very politically active. Even like way back then, like really knowledgeable and like really understood what was going on in the world. Did you ever see his or one of his State of the Union shows? No. They're fucking amazing. So he would go. I saw a couple of them at the old stitches and he would go up. And it was when the State of the Union was happening. He'd go up and he'd do his State of the Union. It was just him. And he would go on and he'd have like, you know, it was pre-PowerPoint, but it was whatever the equivalent of, you know, a screen behind him with stuff.

1:04:46And he'd go up there with a cooler, like a legit big cooler of beer because that motherfucker could drink. Yeah. And he would just start. He had a podium, and he would just crack beers and just down a case of beer or half a case of beer and just do his stuff, you know, extemporaneous stuff. I mean, stuff prepared, but about, you know, the State of the Union and all that. And it would always be packed. And you'd see Dennis Leary and, you know, every single comic would be there, you know, trying up against the wall because it was packed. But it was great. I mean, legendary. Well, I mean, I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became, you know, because he was the guy that was kind of the gold standard.

1:05:34And he started the ding-ho. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And he is like becoming friends with him was like, whew, like such a relief because I was terrified of him. Yeah. When I was a young comic, like if that guy thought I sucked, if he hated me, I was like, I'm fucking doomed. Yeah. You know, because he was this character. He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out a Budweiser for every show. Remember that? I don't, but I mean, I know he drank a lot. Yeah, but he would bring his own beer. It was part of his thing. He would go on stage, just reach into his drink, pull out a Budweiser and set it down on the stool.

1:06:10You only drink American beer. Is that true? Yeah, you drink Budweiser. I wonder why that is. I don't know. It's like kind of a patriot. he doesn't seem like he would the kind of guy who would have denied himself well I mean maybe it was performative I don't know was there Modelo even did it exist at the time but yeah he was he was the only guy I would say that and to your point like all these other legendary comics you know Lenny Clark and Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney and all those guys. It was the only guy those guys were kind of walking on eggshells. Yes. The only guy. Yes. Yes. The only guy.

1:06:59They'd give all each other shit. And mean shit, too. Yeah. Oh, they would fight. Oh, yeah. Barry was the one guy they wouldn't fuck with. Well, he was different than all of them in that he was incredibly well-read. Like really well read, really knowledgeable about all sorts of things with economics and the way the world works, the injustices of our society. But really funny fucking comic too. Like great jokes, great writer, you know, and just like he was the standard. He was the glue that held that scene together because they all looked at him to be like, like, you can't kind of step out of line.

1:07:37Like you don't want to get, catch Barry's R. Yeah, it's absolutely true. And then when the revelation he had of being abused as a kid and then he dedicated – he spoke in front of Congress. He did about – AOL. AOL. Yeah. During the early days of AOL, for people that don't know, they had all these chat rooms and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children. Yeah. And also to exchange pornographic material. Yeah. And that becomes a big part of Call Me Lucky. Right. Right. And yeah, he like dedicated his life basically to just going out and catching these motherfuckers. Yeah. And helping, you know, the the people who would pose as kids and stuff.

1:08:38And that was, you know, that was his. And he was also, you know, lapsed Catholic. And when all the, especially in Boston, the Catholic Church and diocese and all that stuff was coming out. He was, I mean, that was his fucking focus. Yeah, yeah. Getting these fuckers caught, you know, exposed. Well, I think it took someone like him that was, he was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and his ability to articulate it. And also a great comic. So that like people looked at him like, well, this guy's like, he's clearly smarter than all of us. He's also like super dedicated to the craft of comedy, like meant a lot to him.

1:09:27Oh yeah. Like the integrity of comedy, like what it is to be a comic. You know, and he came from – and I think this is kind of specific to Boston too. He came from a jock world. He was a minor league or whatever sub-minor league catcher. He played – he was at Syracuse University and he played for like the Cape Cod League and, you know, the things that eventually you get to minor leagues hopefully. But – and he came from that hard drinking – and Catcher is arguably the smartest guy on the baseball team, right? Right. He's the guy making the calls for the pitches. Seeing everything, defensive lineups.

1:10:12So he came from that world too, which I think helped his cred. Yeah. Well, it's just such an unusual town in what happened there that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave. and they kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy. That to me was like, I knew there was definitely a, as I started to separate from that world a little bit and just kind of evolving as a comedian and there was like the catch scene and Catch a Rising Star. And that was a thing that was an early – I just didn't get it. Like why are you doing the same – there's no joy in it.

1:11:02And then you would drive some of these guys because they'd get fucked up. And you were happy to have all the work. And you'd go up and do 15 and they'd do a half hour. You'd get in the car. You'd go somewhere else. And these guys doing – Mike Dunnman doing – he would do his – remember Rosie, the bounty, the quicker picker-upper, the bounty. Okay, so he had, there was a, so the commercials were like Rosie and it was like the scrappy waitress at a diner. Remember, it was like a character that was in all the, it was like the, you know, mascot of whatever, bounty, the quicker picker-upper. And her character was kind of like feisty.

1:11:47is and these commercials ran for years you know different like ah you don't do this do this and his bit was about taking a gun out and shooting her um and it was funny you'd see it the first time but it's like dude that hasn't been on the air in fucking 10 years and he's still doing this uh yeah rosie i got something for you i gotta i got some advice for you like what the fuck And there was, okay, wait, Joe, did you, were you there? So Ed, the machine regime. Oh, yeah. I remember him. He'd wear the suit. Yep. Well, yeah, and his headshot was four different, his headshot was like four squares. And different characters.

1:12:32Tina Turner. Right. And guy, the like mob guy. I can't remember the rest of them. And then, you know, whatever. I think he had a turban in one of them. I'm sure he did. So he goes to jail for rolling back odometers. Yes. That's right. So he gets caught, and he was a car salesman, I think, in Rhode Island, I believe. And he got caught rolling back the odometers. He goes to jail for a year and a half. And I was shooting this movie. This is decades later. I was shooting this movie and it was on a cruise ship and the cruise ship, Ed, the machine regime is the headliner at the comedy venue on the cruise ship.

1:13:23And I'm like, oh shit, that's crazy. I haven't seen this guy in forever and he's, he's back doing comedy. Okay. And I go there and he does, I don't know, 40 minutes, the same fucking act from 15 years ago. It's like, you don't have one? You spent 18 months in prison. You don't have one joke? You don't have one motherfucking observation? Even if you lie and say, you know, you don't be weird if you were in prison and whatever. You don't have anything? It's weird. It was a weird thing and it only existed with them. Most comics in the country were writing new material all the time. It was – I remember that feeling of I must be different because I'm not – that is such a distasteful thing.

1:14:17Like I wouldn't want to do that. Well, there was two – I saw two traps there. One of them was that and the other one was never leaving. Yeah. They never left Boston. And when they did leave Boston, they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40 percent. And there were a lot of people, their peers, who would give them shit. Like – and it was all just kind of resentful, jealousy, small-minded, small town kind of like, oh, you think you're better than us, which is a Boston thing too. that, oh, you think you're so hot now that you're hotshot? You go to Hollywood, you go there?

1:15:00Yeah? Fuck you. This is, you know, it was a real provincial working class kind of attitude. You know? They looked down on, and, you know, they would give leery shit all the time, you know? Like, sell out. This is bullshit weird. Sell out's a weird one because they would have all sold out. It just wasn't available. Well, they were all mad at Stephen Wright. Were they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Stephen Wright was like this. How can you get mad at Stephen Wright? Well, not mad at him, but bitter because of his success. Oh, and how quickly. Because he went and left. Yeah. Yeah. He went and left, did The Tonight Show.

1:15:37Right. Became huge. So unusual. So different. And they came to Boston. The Tonight Show came to Boston to look for comics. And Stephen Wright was the one they chose. and all these other guys were like, he's a fucking middle act. Like, this is bullshit. Like, that guy bombs half the time. Because his act, to me, was a lot like Hedberg in that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific... Like, if Hedberg, there's a famous story of Hedberg was on the road in Ohio and they had this guy who was an opening act who'd do, like, backflips and fucking sing rap songs. It was a disaster.

1:16:11And Hedberg kept bombing, and so they switched them and made Hedberg the middle act and tried to fuck him on the money, and Stanhope got into it with the owner of the club, and it became a big thing. But once Hedberg got an audience, then people knew what they were coming to see, and then he was amazing, and then everybody wanted to see that. That was kind of the same with Stephen Wright. If you're on a show with Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark and all these big energy fucking Boston guys, And then, you know, I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. Couldn't park anywhere near the place. You know, like it just for whatever reason, you know.

1:16:52Well, it's also that other comedy is and I'm not taking anything away from those guys. And the bits were great. But the other comedy is a little easier. It just you get it. Yes. And Stephen Wright, you got to think about it for a second. It was abstract. It was low key. It was all non sequiturs. It was one to another. It was. And so when he left and took off, a lot of guys apparently were like, this is fucking bullshit. Like, when's my turn going to happen? Yeah, I can see that easily. I mean, that was it was so. I mean, no other scene had that kind of weird provincial, you know, and that thing, like you said, they wouldn't leave.

1:17:35No, they never left. Well, they were huge there. So if they lived there, they could make like... This episode is brought to you by Sky King on Hulu. Imagine stealing a$33 million passenger plane, having never flown before, and taking off on a 70-minute white-knuckle flight vanishing into the sky. That's exactly what Richard Bebo Russell did when he stunned the world and hijacked a plane alone. So how would he get the plane up in the sky? Well, incredibly, he says playing video games helped. And why did he do it? That's the most powerful part of this film. You just have to watch Sky King, Panic in the Sky, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

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1:19:01And cash – Oh, easy. Yeah. And not ever have to worry about anything. And they played golf all day. So there's two things that scared me. One of them was golf because I saw that when you play golf, you kind of stop trying with your comedy. It's a slippery slope. So many hours. It's a gateway drug. Well, you're out there for fucking eight hours a day. Like Noxy was always playing golf. And then the other thing was like if you never left, you had no chance of developing like a national audience. where you could go to a club in Philadelphia. They couldn't do The Road. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a trap.

1:19:37Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And as you said, half of their stand-up was like you'd have to know about Storo Drive or fucking— Johnny Most. You know Johnny Most. Yeah, remember Donovan's bit about Johnny Most? It was amazing. But it was like he was doing that bit long after Johnny Most was dead. so like 20 people in the audience would be howling laughing and everybody else like who the fuck is johnny most god yeah it was it was weird because it was like a velvet prison it's like how i describe like really great comics that get jobs in the writer's room and i'm like you got to be careful like that's a velvet prison because if you get stuck in that writer's room and you never do the road you never put out specials you're never going to get an audience you're always going to be beholden to an employer.

1:20:24You're always going to have to have a job. And there's great comics that got trapped with that. But wouldn't you say that if they, yes, it's a trap, but if they didn't have the wherewithal or foresight or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that thing. Perhaps, but sometimes they get a mortgage and then they get a family and then they're stuck that's the trap yeah family let's call it for what it is yeah trap and well in a lot of ways it can be if you're trying to be an actual national level like do you know owen smith uh comic in la no one of the top 20 best comics on earth he's fucking brilliant he's so funny owen smith owen smith okay saw him at the comedy store and i remember the first time i saw him at the comedy store, I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge?

1:21:21He's so funny. He's so good. He's like, he has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the N-word. It's just like really, it's a really funny, well-crafted bit. Like all of his bits are like brilliantly written. He's a great performer. He's super likable. Got writer's gigs and just, he does the mothership a couple times a year, I believe, at least once a year, but just doesn't get out there. Who does he write or what show does he write for? I think he's a showrunner now. Oh, well, that. So it took it to another level. Yes. But, you know, just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic.

1:22:00And those jobs eventually led to a house. But maybe he, you know, was like, you watch him and you love him, right? Because you see a lot of stand-up and you're like, a lot of it's shit. And this guy's fucking great. Great writer. But maybe he doesn't see it that way. And he's quite happy to have— I think he does. He does see it that way. I've talked to him about it. Yeah. He kind of knows. He just doesn't know what to do now because he's— I mean, if you're a showrunner, you're— He's making money. Yeah, and there's a lot of responsibility. There's also not a lot of shows anymore. Yeah. Which is—it's a real problem.

1:22:36It's a real problem. If you banked on being a showrunner in the 90s, and that's what you threw your hat into, And then all of a sudden that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20 percent of what it used to be. It's yeah, it's I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew, you know, back in the day when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go this. Let's not waste our time going to these five places. This is not a show for them. This is a show for these three places. Let's this is this kind of show. So now I have no fucking clue. I, you know, come up with, like, Bob and I pitched a show, sold the pitch.

1:23:26There was, like, even, there were, like, four, I think we pitched it at eight places. Four of them kind of bid. We took what we thought was the best deal and then wrote the, it was a limited series, eight episodes. Wrote the first four, and it was Bob and his brother Bill, who's a big Simpsons guy, and it was good. And then they said, eh, the quote was, marketing and analytics couldn't, that was a quote, couldn't figure it out, what to do with the show. Wow. And so they didn't – and we had four episodes that you could look at, and then we had the Bible for the next four and the outlines and everything was – and it was fucking funny.

1:24:15On the page, it was funny. Then we're like, so here's the cast. We're going to have these amazing people, and Bob and I as different cult leaders. and uh um i mean and if that's such a rare thing when it starts off on the page funny and by the time you get a great cast and then you get on set and you're like what if we do this and then you get into the post and and start playing around with it i mean it's just it was a really cool thing and uh yeah marketing and analytics that's what you're dealing with now well i mean that has kind of always at least been the case i well not and i mean they they would have to say uh i mean analytics is technical i mean marketing i i don't know how to help you man i can give you some advice i don't you know i think that's a shitty way to market it but you know the you know that world and uh but Analytics is about the algorithm and all that shit.

1:25:22Is this recent? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right after, shortly after COVID. It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are responsible for putting out shows. The people that you communicate with, the executives, you're like, this has got to be a mistake. Like, how did you get this job? And I experienced that early on. Like at the first pilot that I was on the the first pilot was on hardball The pilot was actually very funny because it was written by Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran They're from the Simpsons and they also wrote on married with children great guys, but they were writers They were like these like quiet kind of soft-spoken guys and you know They ran the pilot and then they brought in a showrunner from coach remember that show coach.

1:26:09Yeah, and this guy just fucked the whole show and turned it into this like, da-dum-dum, da-dum-dum. It was like this clunky, bad joke, like really odd. Yeah, that shit happens more than you think. And the people behind the scenes, like the executives, it was astonishing how little of them had any creative ideas. It was that they were just hoping that it would work. And ego, it's like ego and I'm an executive. So I'll tell you what's good and what's not good and we understand this because we're Fox and yeah I was like this is nuts like this is this is how it works behind the scene I thought you'd get behind the scene and be all these fucking geniuses that put together all these television shows They had an understanding of like how let people be creative and put a put a show together and let it Let it fucking run out in the the runs like when you're running through the script like It's like a little boy who thought the Yes.

1:27:06Everybody learned. Same thing. Finally, they're going to figure it out. Yeah, I'm very naive. Yeah. But I naively stumbled into that exact right thing with news radio. Right. So when I got on the news radio. Which I would say some of those execs that you're describing, they probably stumbled into the success of it. Well, you know, Paul Sims, who is brilliant, was coming from the Larry Sanders show. Yep. So Larry Sanders show, huge success, genius show. and so they knew this guy was special and a super smart guy like funny and had a great group of writers and put together a great pilot and then you know recast the one role that i came in for and so i'm there on this set and it was like you know it took long hours to figure it out but they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do like paul's approach was so different than anybody else like dave foley was like the secret producer of like half of that show half of the way the scenes were put together half of the jokes that were in it was all dave foley on set running through the script with the cast coming up with better ideas oh i didn't know that they let you do anything like sometimes they'd say can we see it as written and then you'd give it to them as written then they'd be like i like your idea better like they paul was that's great It's fucking amazing with that.

1:28:28And so once I did that, I was like, I think I'm done with this because I don't think it's ever going to be any better than this. It's rare, man. Yeah. It was super rare. I auditioned for like one or two other ones that were terrible just because I wanted money. And I'm like, maybe it'll be okay. But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible that's successful. That sounds dumb to people. Like, no. Are you going to? I totally know what you mean. You're on TV making$50 ,000 a week or whatever you're making. Like poor you. But no, you're in hell because you're doing something that sucks and you have to show up every day doing this thing when you know you could have been on Seinfeld or if you just got cast on Friends.

1:29:10That's a trap too. It's like the people who – because it really is like a job and you may have a really nice house, right? Yeah. And you have a nice car. but you're in Studio City and you get in your car and you drive to this job and it's kind of shitty and sucks, but there's amenities, great craft services. This guy makes fucking Frappuccinos right there. And then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere and then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again. Yeah, and you keep buying things because that's how you reward yourself. You buy a new television. This one's even bigger.

1:29:55You buy a new car. I got the new car. That's what you're doing to reward yourself for doing this job that sucks. I get that, too. I mean, I will on a much smaller scale. But when I make a good payday, I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards. Oh, you're a baseball card collector? That's the thing? Oh, interesting. Yeah. But going back, it's not like I feel like I have legit. you know baseball street cred yes yes um but that's the thing and also it's it's i mean the argument can be made it's an investment a shitty investment yeah but an investment nonetheless but it's also like gambling because it's like a scratch-off ticket because everybody's chasing the one-on-one cards and you're opening the packs and stuff oh that's how you do it you buy packs unopened i buy boxes yeah so i buy a hobby box which has a better it's more expensive it has a better chance of well it's more like auto rookie cards or relic cards or something like that um but those are that is an investment though because you could always sell them people always want them yes uh i i just mean since i started you know god 30 years ago 40 years ago Yeah, 30 Like in the 90s, early 90s Maybe, no, 89 So Whatever money I put in There's nowhere near If I sold everything I mean, it's talking about half the money I put in, but I have them and I like them And I'm not going to sell them So that's your reward That's my reward My thing was, in my poverty days It was comic books So one of my - Which is also an investment.

1:31:45Yeah. Well, it became one eventually. But during my poverty days, my biggest, saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money. Oh, yeah. I had no money. And I had these old Spider-Mans and these old Incredible Hulks. Which were probably now worth - Oh, my God. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some really good ones in the plastic sleeve. Yeah, yeah. I'd keep them in the sleeve. Be very careful pulling them out, opening them up. Oh, I love comic books. And I had collected them since I was a child. Oh, that's a bummer, man. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator.

1:32:23Really? Is that your thing? Yeah, that's what I... Oh, I didn't know that. When I was a kid. Is any of that stuff yours? No, no, no. None of that stuff is mine. All the artwork is just different artists. Yes. Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. Well, I haven't in a long time, but I was really good when I was in high school. But you could still do that. Yeah, I could still draw. I can still draw a little but it's like but if you want to do your own comic book yeah you could do that I would have to start practicing again and get but when I was a teenager I was really good and that was what I wanted to do but I had a really terrible art teacher in high school he was just a fucking just a miserable guy just miserable and is like you're not gonna get that job like you know I'm like what like you can't just draw what you want I'm like what do you why not It's like a Dan Clow's thing.

1:33:06Have you read Art School Confidential? No. Oh, you know Dan Clow's, right? I know he is. Yeah, yeah. His stuff is fucking genius, too. I've used that word too many times. That's okay. There's a lot of geniuses out there. There aren't that many. But there's enough if you search around. I want to be judicious with him. But, yeah, so he's the guy who did 8-Ball. and then he's got he did Ghost World turned into a movie and then there was another one that was Wilson that was turned into a movie his stuff is great but he has a thing about art you know shitty teachers art school teachers he has a comic story well I was I quit on my last year in high school I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad And then there was this one guy in my class that I recently reconnected with, this guy John DeVore, who was the best artist in the class.

1:34:04It was me, this guy Kevin, and John. And we were the best artists in the class. I was probably like third best. But John was the best. And John got an F his last year from this guy. And I'm like, he gave you a fucking F? He's like, that guy was such a cunt. We were going back and forth in emails. Was it about purity? No, he was terrible. He wasn't a good artist. He was just miserable. He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big pot belly. So I think he just drank himself to sleep every night. And he was just sad. Hey, easy, easy. Easy. Hey, you're getting too close. He was just sad.

1:34:42He was just a sad guy. But what was his justification for saying this isn't any good or you get an F? If I had to be honest, I think he hated potential. Right. Yeah, because he hated John. And if he hated John, like John was genius. He was brilliant. And John wound up not being an artist either. Wow. Think of how many examples of that where kids' talent or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed. And to the point of like, it's not worth it. No. I don't want to deal with this shit. Well, it's like bad teachers. Bad teachers can really ruin your life and good teachers can change your life. Yeah.

1:35:17You know, I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been that stuck with me like my whole life. When I was I guess I was like 13 and he was a science teacher and he was talking about space. He goes and he was just saying, I just want you to sit here and comprehend when we're in this classroom. I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity, that the universe is infinite, that there is no end. Just hurt your head. Lie in bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it. And we were all in class like 13 going, what the fuck, man? I mean, it was the way he said it.

1:35:56I'm not doing it justice because he was like kind of a spooky guy who went to Vietnam. He was like a grizzled fucking dude who was like – but brilliant. And that guy, like that one thought, I carry with me all the time. Especially at 13 too. Yeah. You know, it's because you're about to start losing sight of those, the importance that those concepts will have. Yeah. And we just dismiss them and go, yeah, yeah, it's big, whatever. Yeah, this guy birthed my fascination with space at 13. I don't think I was even interested in space before then. And then I became absolutely fascinated by it. I just couldn't get my hand on enough books about cosmology and space travel.

1:36:36Yeah. But this guy that was his art teacher was just – I think he just – life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. And he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people. Yeah. I think that's – Unfortunately, that's a real thing. Yeah. It's more common than you might hope for. Yeah. I think that's a very real thing, unfortunately. So that was my dream. My dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid from the time I was like six or seven, when I lived in San Francisco, I would collect all these different comic books. That was what I would do. I would just go.

1:37:13And that San Francisco was the – what's the, you know, the counterculture comic – they were like the big R. Crumb. R. Crumb, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was like a publisher, right? That's famous. Yeah. God, I don't – I do know what you're thinking of. I can't remember the name of it. But I was really interested. I really loved the old creepy and eerie comic books, too. Do you know those? Do you know what my grandmom did? Oh, it's going to hurt your feelings.

1:37:45My uncle, who eventually went insane, was a huge EC Comics, right? Early, I don't know, but all the EC stuff and then early Mad Magazine stuff. But he had this collection and I was probably eight maybe. And I had expressed interest in these, you know, can I not thinking in terms of investment, just can I have them? I like them and they're and I would sit and read them and they're really cool and they're creepy, you know, and they're scary. Some of them were scary. And she, I think she just threw them away. Like original, and I'm going to guess, I don't know, but I'm going to guess like a quarter of a million dollars worth.

1:38:44Threw them away. They're just comics. They were so good. I love those old black and white, like really like deeply illustrated. It's like super creepy, like weird science. Tales from the Crypt. This episode is brought to you by Tommy John. A lot of people are trying to feel better day to day, clearer heads, better routines, just making small changes that actually improve how you feel. One thing people don't really think about is comfort. If your underwear isn't right, you're adjusting all day, You don't even realize how much that pulls at your attention. I love Tommy John because their stuff is very comfortable.

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1:41:27And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. Meet your match at ZipRecruiter. Vault of Horror. Yeah. God, those were great. Look at that. Yeah, some of them were really gory. Yeah. Oh, I loved those. The Crypt Keeper. Yeah. Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, that stuff was like... I loved it when I was a kid. Yeah. Holy shit. Those were incredible. Do you remember seeing Twilight Zone when you were a kid? Sure. Just blowing your mind. Like, wow. You think about the early Twilight Zone, how many premises they went over. Like how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight Zone.

1:42:14Yeah, that have been, you know, stolen completely. Oh, yeah. Over and over and over again. Yeah. But just like so genius and creative. Yeah. The William Shachner one when he's in the diner and the little machine that is giving him fortunes. They all turn out to be true. I don't remember that one. Oh, my God. There were so many good ones. How about the Burgess Meredith one? Oh, yeah. Where he just wants to be alone with books. Yeah. And there's a nuclear bomb and he's like, finally, and then he breaks his glasses. Yeah. Yep. And the one, the, what is it called? Situation on Main Street or something like that?

1:42:54where they there's it's so genius and ahead of its time where there's a you know it's a suburban street and the lights go out or something goes out and then eventually all the neighbors are at each other's throats accusing each other of the this thing and then uh the variant and they're all like and then they start getting guns and uh at the very and you're watching the whole thing unfold uh and that at the very end here it is the monsters are due on maple street the monsters are due on maple street yeah and it so they're talking about these monsters that are you know and who are the monsters and it's they all become suspicious yeah the lights are out and eventually you pull away from this whole thing and it's two aliens in a you know flying saucer and they're, yeah, there it is.

1:43:55And they're going, this is how we'll take over. It's street by street by street. And this is how we'll do it. You don't have to go in there, guns a-blazing. They'll kill themselves. And it's like, how far ahead of time was that? It's genius. Divide and conquer. And the To Serve Mankind. That was a great one. It's a cookbook. Yeah. There's so many amazing premises. There was like no duds. If you go back and watch The Twilight Zone even today, it's all brilliant. There's one I remember. That was a dud? That was a dud. That I remember. I haven't seen it in a long time. But it's either really, really, really cold and there's this poor family in New York City and they can't get heat.

1:44:45Or it's really, really hot and they can't get cold. and they're dealing with people who are like, you know, in the family who are really sick. And then the twist was it's like, oh, it's really it's somebody who has a fever and they're not. It just wasn't that good. Well, they're allowed one dud. That's one. I don't think I ever saw that one. But I remember so many of them were so creative. Oh, amazing. It's kind of nuts if you think about it because it was completely original. Nothing like that existed before it. Yep. and they it was like this open field that was rich with premises and they just took all the good ones yeah and then everybody afterwards like it's like like don't like south park always just jokes about like simpsons already covered something like they always joke around about like how the simpsons have kind of covered so many premises because they've you know they've been around since god the simpsons was when i was in fucking high school yeah it's like 30 years At least more than that.

1:45:47When did The Simpsons first come on Fox? It was Tracy Ullman Show. What year was that? 86. 86. It was right after I got out of high school. 86? I was a tiny, tiny kid, and I had to only call them the family, so I kind of remember that. 86. So I graduated in 85, so it was right after high school, and The Simpsons are still on the air. Yeah. Nuts. Nuts. Oh, do you remember the— 87? Yeah, but technically— Do you remember the Twilight Zone where there's the real pompous guy? There's like a men's club kind of thing, whatever. And there's this real loudmouth pompous guy. And this other guy's like, you know, would you shut up?

1:46:33I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever, a month. I can't remember what it is. And the guy's like, absolutely. He goes, I'll bet you$100 ,000. You can't go one month without talking. He's like, I'll take that bet. And they basically create, like, this little kind of cage in this men's club. And he spends a month, and he's not talking. And he's, you know. And then it turns out the guy can't pay him. He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off the bet because the guy goes the full month or year or whatever. and it turns out that the guy who made that bet who was not going to talk for a year also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out oh jesus christ yeah oh i do remember that yeah oh god i think of these things as kids yeah whoa yeah and of course the cornfield i'll banish you to the cornfield you know yeah it's just amazing that well if you stop and think about how new television was back then i mean television was only a couple decades old back then yeah barely yeah if that like what what year was the twilight zone what was the premiere rod sterling yeah i guess 67 no earlier i'm gonna say 59 yeah you're probably right Yeah.

1:48:02Is it? 59? Yes. Wow. I got it exact? Yeah. October 2nd, 1959. Damn, son. Yeah. Pretty good. Wow. Wow. So if you think about it, television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs? Was it the 30s? I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers. I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers. imagine if they could watch some of these reality shows today they'd be like what the fuck did we do yes i think so wait andy cohen what who why what is this um the first it was the it was um wasn't it like the the um where they would do plays what you know what i mean like um Well I love Lucy was on It was on and done before this even started Well the Honeymooners right What year was that?

1:48:58That was 51 to 57 Here's like a list of shows that were on before Honeymooners was huge Alfred Hitchcock Presents was on before that So what was the first television show ever? Go back to 1920s 1920s No The Queen's Messenger That's BBC early US crap television theater that's what I was thinking of where they would do plays you know and it was sponsored yeah yeah yeah live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television Howdy Doody 1947 right after the war Ed Sullivan show wow yeah and then the first oh your show shows wow how about that 1950 I Love Lucy Wow Father Knows Best Today's show's still on Wow Did you guys ever talk about Doing more Mr.

1:49:54Shows? We did like a revival-ish thing On Netflix It was a great fucking show, man Well, thank you It was very original I love how things just streamed Into another thing Yeah, that was hard God, I would imagine Biggest pain If you ever see us You see an episode And we are pulling out of a bumper sticker Or pulling out of a sign on a desk that means we spent two motherfucking days yelling at each other trying to figure out a transition and just going fuck it nobody gives a shit you know and uh um we tried not to do that but we uh occasionally we're just like move on we're wasting our time you know um but it wasn't a waste of time it was so it was brilliant like the people that watched had appreciated it because you could feel this thing about it like this was new this was different like you you'd taken a creative chance that was unique it and you know part of the success of it i think there's two things one is you know it was all live and we did we you know we would show the videos of the little films to the audience and so any laughs there was never sweetening any of the laughs you you hear from the audience and we got it by the time we were like kind of towards the end of the second series we got it down to we could shoot a show in 44 minutes you know wow yeah because it was you know we wouldn't you wouldn't have to do it twice often we'd get it you know and our stop down we got really good at um super quick you know the uh stage shifts and stop downs and stuff and yeah we were we were we got good we got uh and that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything um so that was helpful in that and we also didn't um do a lot of reoccurring characters we did a two or three that pop up occasionally but it's all like you know and it wasn't like a real person we did we do it's it's about you know it wouldn't be about Paris hilton that'd be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being on re you know what i mean it wouldn't be so so like you watch some of those snls and like who what who is this person right and you didn't you don't get it you don't get the right because you don't get the right yeah because as you watch it in the future those people aren't relevant anymore yeah yeah and you don't even know what it was you can't remember right because it's so topical yeah yeah but it was just you guys were doing something different and it's hard to do something different in a sketch show yeah yeah but HBO was responsible for that they said you know in very clear terms like we don't want you to be conventional this is HBO and this is back when they were trying to get an identity for themselves and they're like we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever.

1:53:02We want you to, you know, help us make a distinction. You know, great. Did you enjoy the process? Oh, very much so. It was, I mean, a lot of laughs. A lot of, it was hard. And, you know, initially there was a definite market change when Bob met his, the woman who had become his wife and had kids. Like he just mellowed completely, you know, but before that, he was fucking driven. And I wasn't. I was a goofball and I wanted to work and I wanted to, you know, had all these ideas, but I was very much like, hey guys, it's five o 'clock. I think the bar is going to be open in a minute. Like I was, let's go you know and and he was just super driven you know and we had long long long days and then when we did in the third season we did uh produced and um you know helped out in all aspects of production with tenacious d and those shorts and so there was just no downtime and i remember there was 38 days where we worked full days non-stop without any break and i just wasn't that kind of person i was going crazy like i just need to go have a saturday you know or it was it was that part was hard all worth it no complaints um and you know there's a point of diminishing returns though like where you dry yourself out creatively too yes and and i've run other rooms like i've done shows since then and i a valuable lesson i learned uh when you're just kind of running a writer's room is when you're at that place and and it's exactly like you said diminishing returns you're not getting any work done your brain isn't it's foggy i i was very quick to go all right guys let's go put your pens down put your folded computer up we're gonna go walk around the we're just gonna go outside and walk around let's go get a coffee let's do anything let's we're getting out of here and we'll walk around don't worry about it we'll come back in 35 minutes and we'll you know see what we got and that's very good for you yeah it is most writers talk like i was actually talking to brian simpson about that last night he was like i get my best because brian has been walking a lot he recently had a heart attack unfortunately uh he's fine but he almost wasn't and so now he's dedicated himself to walking he's walking a lot every day and he's like when i go on my walks like so many ideas come to me i'm sitting at home staring at my computer nothing's going on i go on a walk and all of a sudden ideas are firing when i'm i'm i'm in the process uh this will be my fifth time that i've uh done this thing that i've been doing to get new material for uh for a tour and i do these things called shooting the shit, seeing what sticks, and they're all in Brooklyn.

1:56:19And they're all either walkable or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues. And mostly I'll just walk and I just go, okay, clear out my head and think about the stuff I want to talk about. And also I live in New York, so there's constant shit happening that I can observe you know and uh it's it's the best the best thing for me you know to to to come up with new material and stuff that just think about it just like i was saying walk walk when i was a kid when i was driving limos that's when i would come up with my best material because i was no radio you can't listen to radio because you have clients in the car so you're just driving yeah and just doing a thing and your your mind just starts to wander and you yeah ideas come cell phones no None of that shit.

1:57:12Yeah, it's important. The news radio guys would do something totally different. They would stay up late. That was their whole thing. No, that's not. Their whole thing was sleep deprivation. Their whole thing was they would play video games. Those motherfuckers got me hooked on Quake. I remember Quake. You remember that? That was the first one with the Unreal Engine. Yeah, well, Unreal is a different game. You're thinking of Unreal. No, no, no. It was called Unreal. Tournament. Yeah, trust me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a dork. Listen, Unreal is a totally different engine. Id Software was a different company.

1:57:49Right. Id Software was created with John Carmack and John Romero. They came up with Doom, and then they came up with Quake afterwards. So there was a completely different engine. All right, sorry. They were the first ones. Castle Wolfenstein was the first 3D shooter, and then Doom was the big one. You clearly know your shit. I thought it was the Unreal Engine was the first use for Unreal the game. Right. Got it. Totally different company. Totally different game. Different dynamics. It was a very different game. Okay. All right. I got it. Jesus Christ. This fucking guy. Great game. You want to know where the name Doom came from?

1:58:24Yeah. The scene in The Color of Money with Tom Cruise where Tom Cruise shows up at this pool hall and there's this local hotshot player and the guy's beating everybody. And Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool cue case and he's waiting to play this guy. He's like, what you got in the case? He goes, oh, in here? And he opens up, he goes, doom. Doom. Oh, yeah. That's it. He's like, yeah, let's play. That's it. So what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same, like that. That was like their moment. Like, this is doom for you guys. That was, well, it was. I mean, that was my first experience ever with realizing the sun was coming up.

1:59:15And I'd been playing this thing for eight hours. Yeah. Do you know Mark Cohen? Sure. All right. So Mark, when Mark was living in New York and he had doom and I would go, I wasn't living there. I would crash at his place, and I'd be like, can I play Doom? And he would go to bed and wake up, and I'd be still playing. Dude, you want to know how addicted I was? I had a T1 line installed in my house. So I had to have, they had to chew up the fucking street and install a business internet line into my house. 1997? I was living in California in Bell Canyon. And they had to do work on my fucking street because there was no high-speed internet available where I lived.

2:00:09I could get an ISDN line, which was only like 124K. It sucked. You'd get too much lag. So I started with 56K or 50 – what was it? 54K, 56K, whatever it was. Dial-up. Terrible. And then I got ISDN. Not good enough. And I'm like, what else is available? and they're like well you can get a t1 line but this was for the president a thousand dollars a month i was like let's go because i was i had sitcom money i was single i was living by myself they had to tear up your street they had to tear up my street and install a t1 line in my house hey what are you doing i'm trying to get my driveway what's going on oh this guy wants to play doom but it was this was quake 2 at the time and it was so good the the internet was so good that I could host my own server.

2:00:55So I had my own game server. So people could come and play this Quake game off of my machine. Wow. So I'd have no latency. And other people would have some latency, especially if people had like 56K. I would talk these people up. I remember when it started going. Yeah. That was me back in the early, early days. Look at that monitor. Yeah, that's what we played on, these big-ass fucking monitors. and we'd set up local area networks. So the fucking writers and news radio are the ones that got me hooked on this because I didn't play any video games, and I would go to visit them in the writer's room.

2:01:31I'm like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're playing Quake. I go, what is Quake? And I watched them play. I'm like, oh, my God, this is incredible. And you put on the headphones, and it's like you realize it's 3D sound. Like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Were you a GoldenEye guy? No. I only played Quake. I was only like a first-person shooter guy. I got so addicted to it. And the fact that you could just go online. Goldeneye was, I mean, I'm talking about the co-op. I know what it is. Yeah. But that was first-person shooter, right? Right. But it was like real-world physics. I wasn't interested in that.

2:02:03Like with Quake, you could rocket jump. So you could press your rocket down the ground, blow up, and you'd go flying through the air. It was fucking amazing. Do you remember, I want to say. Oh, fuck.

2:02:22Red, or the first one where you could, your bullets and shit could affect the environment. Like you could blow out a wall. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know what that was. I want to say, it took place on Mars or like a Martian mining thing. but it was the first time you could go oh shit I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy you know as opposed to just bullets and stuff oh you could use the environment as a weapon Red Faction I believe that was there you go I had to quit it was a problem we set up a local area network at our old studio in LA a few years back and I played so much that I was like I gotta stop I have to stop.

2:03:12Do your kids play? No. They play little games. They'll play like Roblox and stuff like that. One of my kids. Roblox. Uh-uh. You know about the chat. I do now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like Predators are trying to find kids through Roblox. Yeah. That's a big thing at our school. It's weird, man. Yeah. It's weird how many fucking creeps there are out there in the world. Well, thankfully, my daughter, who's nine, how old are your kids? 15 and 17 are the youngest ones. Okay. So they're past. They're safe. They get it. They're good.

2:03:47But so we had a – my daughter is way into Minecraft, which I have no problem with. It's great. And she plays with her friends. They play online and help each other build things. But the Roblox thing became a thing at our school. And everybody at our – all the parents were like super on top of that shit. And there's WhatsApp chains and all that stuff. And we told our daughter. There's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing. And then somebody who was a quote-unquote girl who lived in, I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever, asking her stuff. And she's like, my name's Marla. And I'm going back and forth.

2:04:32And then she asked the quote unquote girl said, what is your Instagram login or something like that? And my daughter was eight at the time, and she was like, oh, I don't think – she didn't say that's none of your business, but it was something that was smart that was equivalent to I don't think you need to know that or something. And then told us, and we shut down the chat thing and disabled the chat. And that shit's real, man. Yeah. I mean – It's creepy. I'm very glad that my daughter, you know, because it really was about the Roblox thing that everybody in her school, elementary school, they talked about it.

2:05:23Yeah. It's a Snapchat thing, too. So Snapchat comes with something called a Snap Map, and kids use it to know where their friends are. Yeah. And so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are, and then they can know where you are at all times if you have Snapchat enabled. God, the shit this generation is going to have to fucking deal with is just terrifying, man. Right. And what's next? Like, how is that? It's not going to go the opposite direction. No, it never does. No, it's going to keep going in that same direction where it's going to be more and more intrusive in your life.

2:06:01And my – I mean it makes me fucking heartsick when I think about AI and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit and what – I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing, the actress that was created by this Dutch – Oh, yeah. it does not compute. I'm watching this thing, and I know that it's made up, but my brain is, it's hard to comprehend. Like, that's not a real person. She's standing right there. She picks up a bunch of leaves, and there are other people there, and that's a real, and your brain is going, no, that's all computer generated. We're at the fucking infancy of this shit, and what, I don't know what my daughter's going to have to deal with, man.

2:06:50No, no one knows. No one knows. And it's impossible to know. Like when they show news clips, it's impossible. I mean, so many people are retweeting scenes from video games thinking it's actual war footage. Like no one – Fucking the Department of Defense did that. Did they really? Yeah. Yeah, that was a whole fucking thing. They retweeted a video game footage? Yeah. And they were saying – it was for a – I think it was for a, you know, to get people to sign up thing. And then somebody went, that's from, you know, whatever it was, Call of Duty or something like that. That's not us bombing somebody.

2:07:31That's a thing. Yeah, just like two weeks ago. That's crazy. Yeah. It's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors. Like they have pores. Yeah, I know. You can see like the irises. Have you seen any of the deep fake – not deep fake, but AI porn where it's like somebody's – like a newscaster is like da-da-da-da. And in other news, my big juicy tits. And I'm serious. And then polls. And then a dick comes in. You're like, what the – and it looks real. And then it'll say like none of – these are not actors. These are – none of this is used. Yeah. It's – good Lord, man. And it's only beginning.

2:08:20And now wait until it becomes VR. So you're going to strap on a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're going to enter into an artificial world. It's coming. It's inevitable. Well, that I'll do. I'm going to get divorced and I'm going to get one of those suits. I'm going to go up. I got a house in the woods upstate. That's all I'm going to do. Just a D1 line. And then it intervenes. Yeah, I'm going to have them rip up the street. Well, you won't even need it now. It's Starlink. Yeah. You just slap one of those things on your roof. God damn. It's fucking wild, man. And no one knows where it's going.

2:08:52I really would be very upset if I miss the shift in porn to that. Like, I don't want to die before I get to do that thing where you're like, dude, it was amazing. I put on a helmet and it was like I was fucking whatever. Yeah. I don't want to. I do. I do want to experience that. It's going to happen. You're going to put something on. Thank you. It's going to sync up with your mind. And all of a sudden. Yeah. You're going to be in this matrix. You're going to be in another world. Did you see three planet problems? Am I saying that right? Yeah. Three body problem. Three body problem. Amazing. Yeah.

2:09:34Yeah, but that whole idea that you put that thing on, you're like, oh, shit, I'm here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly how it's going to be. Okay, good. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. They already can do a lot of really weird shit with those helmets where they can communicate without words, where you can think a thing and the other person knows exactly what you're saying. They can hear you and they can respond to it. Wait, wait. Yes. Yeah, so there's two people. They're sitting across from each other and they're having conversations with these headpieces on. and the person will think a thought and this other person will hear that thought.

2:10:08No. I don't understand the technology, but no, we'll show it to you. Find that video. It's fucking bonkers. Because again, this is the infancy of this. Like here it is. These are the guys. It's called alter ego. Yeah, watch this. Put your... I'm going to skip ahead. Yeah, skip ahead to where they're actually doing it. Okay. So see how he's that headpiece on? Yep. We believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology, with one another, and with the world around us. The current way of interacting with computing and AI is limited to how fast you can tap and swipe on screens and keyboards.

2:10:46For the intelligence age, we need an entirely new interface. Yeah, let's skip ahead to these guys. Here we go. Let's do it. So they're just thinking, how do you think the demo is going so far? How do you think the demo is going so far? I think they just put it on voices for the videos. Right. Pretty great. No major glitches yet. No major glitches yet. So they're hearing this. All right. Enough. Enough. When do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this?

2:11:23I'll skip to the next part. Thai food could be good. This translates into Chinese form.

2:11:33and then he can speak Chinese back.

2:11:40How nuts is this?

2:11:47So not only is it read your thoughts, it'll translate your thoughts into another language, and no one is saying anything. My, what if you think? Right. But wait a minute. Yeah. What if? you know where I'm about to go right that's not well so this is based off of them like sort of talking in their mouth without actually saying it it's big but yeah yeah I would like to fuck your mouth please don't yeah even if your mind just goes yeah right like okay I can't think about this thing right right right of course god that's terrifying and it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head it's not even a big helmet it's just a little thing what would art bell say what would art bell say he would open up the future line is right about it every yeah he missed it yeah damn cigarettes he died before he could see it all god i wonder what he'd think of it because i i do sometimes wonder like what would crimen say about this What would Bill Hicks say about this?

2:12:56And what would Art Bell think about this? Sure. Yeah. What's the strangest of times? Because we're about to give birth to a digital god. That's essentially what they're creating. It's already shown a propensity to stay alive, blackmail people, lies. It downloads itself into other servers, uploads itself into different places, leaves messages for its future self if it thinks they're going to discontinue it. All the sci-fi stuff is all happening. Yeah. Well, not only that. They think the engineers think Claude, which is the – which one is that? Which company is Claude? Anthropic. Anthropic. Anthropic, yeah.

2:13:38They think it's already sentient. It just doesn't have a physical form. That's the one the defense department wanted. Yeah. And by the way, when they do war games with these things, 98 % of the time it chooses nuclear weapons. they have a new version of it called mythos uh when they were testing it which they're not letting it out yet uh it i think that the test they put it through was like all right you're locked on the internet find your way out and i did it did it found all these things called zero day exploits which i think if you like hacking you know what that is but you explained it to me uh it's like when they started it's uh like on an iphone they're looking for zero day exploits on an iphone if they could find one but what is a zero day like like a i'll find the correct correct definition so I don't fight you can fuck it up but and it's something that that Claude came up with no no no no zero day exploit hackers have done this forever you have zero days to fix the cyber attack targeting a software vulnerability unknown to vendors or the public leaving zero days to fix it hackers use these flaws to steal data install malware so they they completely shut off the AI from the outside world and it figured out a way to send a message and it thinks it can they're like wall street's very nervous all passwords might be fucked yep oh this is terrifying elizabeth holmes you know that lady that yeah got in trouble for the that whole fake blood thing yeah uh she just tweeted something how she tweets from jail i'm not exactly sure how that works but she tweeted um delete all phone all photos from the cloud get rid of all your email there will be no privacy in a year

2:15:19Anything on the cloud, anything that you think you're keeping from other people, it's going to crack all encryption. All passwords are useless. Everything. So think of all the things that rely on, all the banking apps, like everything. What about my fantasy baseball team? Seriously, I can't have people. Here it is. Delete your search history. Delete your bookmarks. Delete your Reddit. Medical records. 12-year-old Tumblr, delete everything. Every photo in the cloud, every message on every platform, none of it is safe. It will all become public in the next year. Local storage and compute. Wow. Recommendation here is to own your own data, download it, store it locally, train your models on it.

2:16:01Yeah, it's true. Meaning just have an external thing. Yeah. AGI is here, even if it isn't broadly deployed. I think she's right. What is AGI? Artificial general intelligence. General intelligence, meaning it acts like an individual, acts like an entity. And then there's artificial general super intelligence. So then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived. It has all the information that's available to every human being all over the world instantaneously. Then it makes better versions of itself because it's sentient and autonomous. So then it can create better artificial intelligences.

2:16:39And that scales out to a god. Yeah. Open the pod doors, Hal. Yeah. Yeah. Way bigger than that. Scares out the zero-point energy, being able to harness the energy of the universe itself, having no boundaries. Material sciences all cracked. Alloys we couldn't comprehend. Well, Joe, who's going to save us? There's no one saving us. We are the last of the regular people. I think we're all going to have to integrate. I think if you don't integrate, you won't survive. What do you mean by integrate? Integrate. You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence. I think we will be symbiotic.

2:17:22How does that? Like those fucking helmets. There's probably going to be a wearable or a Neuralink type thing for the bold that want to get a hole drilled in their head. But what if you don't do that? You're going to be left out in the cold. The access to resources, the ability to generate income. Like the people that get it are gonna be able to control so much so quickly that if you don't adopt it early You're gonna be fucked like if you think we have haves and have nots now Just wait until the haves have artificial general super intelligence inside their fucking head No, thank you Yeah, it's gonna be real weird.

2:18:00I think we're the I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people Like regular biological people It's starting to be a bit of a bummer. We'll be all right, sort of, until we're not. But it's also like we grew up with nothing. And if the simulation is real, you and I are in a very interesting timeline because we grew up where you just left the house and your parents didn't know where you were. And then there was answering machines. And then there was call ID. And then there were cell phones. And then there were cell phones you could watch porn on. And then there was AI. It's like this slow but more rapid as time goes on progression of technology.

2:18:45And it's exponential. And as you said, there's no going back. You don't go back. There's no going back. Yeah. Unless you want to be one of those people that moves to Alaska and just starts fucking living off a caribou and shooting a musket. Like you're not going back. No, wait. Why do I have to get a musket? You can get a regular rifle, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to cosplay the thing. I mean, I'm happy to have the caribou, but why don't I just have a regular gun? You should probably have a regular gun. But eventually, well, you really should probably have your own bow and arrow. So because you're going to have to be able to make your own arrows.

2:19:19And after a while, you're going to run out of bullets. So you're going to have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows. Okay. And then the robots will show up. Robot dogs. Didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered? When you say robot, what do you mean? Like one of those Boston? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like using a robot in war. The robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender. And they all, like with no loss of life. they just realize like fuck did you see that black mirror episode yes terrifying absolutely terrifying and not so far in the future yeah this fucking thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan so it is Ukraine forces Russian to surrender using only robots Zelensky claims enemy position seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk.

2:20:28Wow. I mean, if the fucking Terminators show up, it's game over. If there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the Terminators show up and they can't miss and they never get nervous and they're not worried about dying. And they're not going to get sleepy. Yeah. They don't have to eat. This thing that we were talking about yesterday, this ghost murmur, supposedly. Now, my friend Andy, who is a former Navy SEAL, he doesn't believe it's real, and I'm not sure it's real either. But what they said is they found that pilot that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat from 40 miles away.

2:21:13So they supposedly found him hiding in the mountains waiting for them to pick him up. I can see that. I mean your heartbeat from 40 miles away your specific biological signature I yeah I can I can see that I mean with the technology of like sonar radar something quantum it's called I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some shit but what do they use to pinpoint the there it's an audible thing or I don't know I have no idea but they supposedly located this guy and it it has a 40 mile range. But you're saying he doesn't have anything on. I see. No. It's like they just scan you. They go, okay, this is what David Cross's very specific biological signature is.

2:21:58And then you get lost hiking. And they go, oh, there he is. He's under that bush. Why am I under the bush? You're hiding. From who? I don't know. Robot dogs? It's not going to work. It won't work. No, it won't work. Or maybe you got lost in the woods. You're waiting for someone to come rescue you and they can find you. But then I wouldn't be under a bush. Well, you go hiking. Maybe it's raining. You sought shelter under a tree or something. I don't know. But you hurt your ankle. You can't hike out. So they find you. It's been 24 hours. Where's David? Oh, we found him. Yeah, we would have found him earlier, but he was hiding under a fucking bush.

2:22:39What the fuck was he thinking? He didn't want to get eaten. But, I mean, if that's real, what was the actual term they use? Was it quantum? It was quantum something kooky. As soon as you say quantum, I'm okay, what are you saying? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Are you talking about quantum entanglement? Is there somehow or another? They supposedly use ultra-sensitive quantum magnetometers, but I'm trying to find the post where someone's like, that's not what they used. Right. Yeah. I saw the post where someone said, no, he had a thing on his body, so they're lying about their ability.

2:23:17Why would they – why wouldn't they say that's what we used? I have no idea. I have no idea. If they're going to make up some technology, that's a wild thing to make up. It's a very strange – I mean if they really are using misinformation and propaganda to show that we have insanely superior technology, I guess you could say. It's a bluff. It's a nice bluff to pretend that we're that sophisticated, that much above and beyond everybody else that's out there that we could find a very specific heart rate signature from 40 miles away. That's what I'm saying. Why would – they would happily say, yeah, we've got this ability to do this.

2:24:05I guess, but it's a weird lie. It's probably a lie based on – A lot of them are weird lies. Right, but that one might be a lie based on actual theory. You know what I mean? They're trying to do this. Yeah, which kind of makes sense. But, I mean, if that's a robot dog and it's looking for you and you're hiding and it could find your individual signature in an apartment building filled with people, like there he is, fifth floor. Yeah. Oy. Yeah. And you hear the metal footsteps going up the stairs. Chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. This is scary. You're scary. It's scary. Well, someone's going to be in control of all this stuff.

2:24:44That's what's really terrifying. And it's all these autistic dorks that are in charge of all these tech companies. They're going to be at the front. This is also a kind of similar thing where they have said that that's what happened, where they used robots, in quotes, to capture them unmanned. But it's their version of the story, too. Right. Ukraine's version. All these reports I see, it says Ukraine claimed that this happened. and then I'm watching the video and I'm like this looks a little bit like when we send robots in and swap missions here like we had we do that kind of already hmm right yeah but who's the source of this that there that's uh this new york post well i was trying to find captures enemy russian position using only robots no humans the future is already on the front line but then it's going to be eventually why would we send any people out there it would be robots capturing other robots, which is great because nobody dies, I guess.

2:25:45Then why don't we just play a game of chess? Right. Get the two leaders to play a game of chess, and the winner takes the land and the resources. Yeah, not a bad idea. Whatever the fuck we're going to do, it's just insane. From the time I was a little child, thinking, oh boy, we figured out no war. That's great. Yeah. To, no, we're fighting war with robots that can detect your heart rate from 40 miles away. So what do you think of what's going on in Iran? It's fucking terrifying. All of it's terrifying. Anytime you're involved with, you're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel's blowing up Lebanon now.

2:26:30It's like, what the fuck are we doing? How is this still going on? it's well it's also clear there was no plan zero none no well detenya has been telling the united states that that iran was months away from building a nuclear bomb for 30 years or 20 years at least yeah i've always been saying that that's trump was the first one to go all right let's do something about it but it seems like they didn't know what the fuck they were gonna do there was something done about it he in his first year in office he uh he tore up the you know buster bombs but all all this we're in a worse place now than before this thing started yeah um look the iranian regime's terrible like what they do to the protesters i'm not it's it's all i mean most people that voted for trump or wanted trump to be in office one of the things that was attractive was this no more wars.

2:27:28Sure, of course. And now we're in one of the craziest ones. Yeah. And China's flying in cargo planes filled with stuff. We don't know what the fuck's in there. And Russia is giving Iran information about where our troops are. Super fun. Great times. Oh, it's crazy. And scary, too. I mean, science.org says it's not likely. Quantum sensors. So they say it's bullshit? It says it's highly implausible. Did quantum sensors help find a U.S. pilot shot down in Iran? Experts doubt it. Yeah. Now, okay, here's an ignorant question. He shot down. Wouldn't you know he's on foot? He's somewhere near that site, right?

2:28:10Right. Can't go too far. Yeah, can't go too far. Right. So. Well, the thing is, if he gets ejected from the plane, I don't know how. So if he got shot down, the idea is that it gets ejected from the plane and then parachutes. That could be a lot of distance because the plane's flying at a very high speed. It's an altitude, undetermined. He jumps out where? When does he jump out? Is it 100 miles away? Is it 50 miles away? Is it 10 miles away? How far can he walk? He's injured. It's fucking terrifying. It's just crazy that the pilots or the astronauts just went up into space and circled around the moon and came back.

2:28:55Everybody that goes into space has this experience called the overview effect where they go out there and one of the first things is they go, oh, my God, what are we doing? How are we pretending at these lines in the dirt that we draw? Yeah. It's all just a bunch of people on this very fragile biological spaceship. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's fucking terrifying. Yeah. But like all things in the future, all of it's terrifying. The whole – the future of mankind, like it's so perilous. It's all so fragile. All of it. I know, and it's to think of the stuff that we allow, these external things that we allow to affect our, like, if there was ever a time to just be a good person, live your life, enjoy, try to spread some kindness and some joy, you know, I mean, it's now.

2:30:00yeah you know it's a good time for comedy people want to go out and have fun that's true which reminds me i have a special that was the segue what's it on uh there it is is it on youtube it's on youtube perfect the end of the beginning where did you film it 40 watt in athens oh nice Nice. Nice.

2:30:24Yeah, I'm happy with it. Great. Fantastic. Yeah. And it's out right now, and people can go check it out? It is out right now. So are you in the process of writing new stuff now, or did you— Yeah. I'm just beginning the process. I was saying before, I'll go out and I'll do—because I don't write—I can't sit down and write jokes. That's just not how it works for me. So all the writing is on stage. So I tape everything. I go up with my notes and I have a couple guests and I'll do 15 minutes, bring up guests, do another 15, bring guests, do another. Oh, that's cool. And then break it up in a little chunks.

2:31:04Yeah, and this way – because the first couple shows were terrible. I've got – it's just me apologizing for not having anything yet. But people will – I mean I have people now who will come to the second show and the sixth show and then they'll come see me on tour. They want to see the process. The process, yeah, the evolution of it, which is cool. And I and it's a it's as I said, I either walk or ride my bike to every single venue and they start off small and then they get bigger and I lose a guest. And then, you know, before you know it, I've got, OK, I think this is roughly the 75 minutes I'm going to do.

2:31:43And then it's about sequencing, which is really important, you know. And then I'm I take it out on the road. And so the idea is that I'll probably late fall start back again. And I love it. That's great. I fucking love it. It's the best, right? Stand-up is the most fun. I really, and people will, I'll do, I'm doing press for this thing, and people will say, I know you do a lot of things, and what is your favorite? I know you're an actor, you know, and it's all I like. I like doing all of it. But the thing that I absolutely have to do is stand up. I can I'd be disappointed if I could never act again or write or direct or whatever.

2:32:33But I'll be OK. But if you told me I can't do stand up, I'd go crazy. Well, I went a little crazy during the pandemic because. Oh, dude, it I almost. and I made this part of the bit, but almost the first show I did, I started tearing up. And I'm in front, I mean, I'm doing this and it was at the Sultan Room in Bushwick. And I was like, man, I thought, God, I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this again. And shit, you know, I dreamed about this day. And it was a year and seven months where I, the longest since I've been doing this. such a strange feeling isn't it a year and seven months where you and i did some of those outdoor shows and they're just not it's not the no it's not the same yeah well that's awesome man i'm glad you love it and best of luck with the special thank you man this was fun this was fun thank you for doing this absolutely all right uh what's the name of it again so people can the end of the beginning of the end all right all right thank you thank you bye everybody

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