#2523 - Ali Siddiq

30:42I said, I just came. And I want to do, I'm a comic. So me hosting was no big deal. I wasn't working. So I said, well, let me just come host it. That's what they want me to do. so I gained fans from four different audiences in a month so when I came back they were like yo I saw you with Miles Gibranee and so I came back to see you when you put your show up I'm like cool so my process that was a part of my process it didn't matter who I hosted for I was like okay cool let me go when I hosted for Bill Burr And Bill Burr was like, this is crazy. We in Austin at the Paramount. And I said, the worst thing about this was that at the time I was wearing all black.

31:34And I went to the show. And when I walked on stage, the first thing I said is, hey, I do not work here. Don't. Like eight people asked me, where's the bathroom? I don't know. I don't work. But it was like, I look like an usher. I was like, yo, this sucks. But it was a cool gig. That's a smart approach. I mean, that's a great way to build, especially if you're already headlining. Yeah, I think that thing about concentrating on the process, people should try to apply that to everything. You know, my friend John Dudley, who taught me archery, he's a big believer in that, being process-oriented. like how you get better at archery and he used to compete all over the world travel compete in archery tournaments i think that's the i think that applies to everything i think it applies to music i think that applies to everything the more i think it's one of the things that trips people up about social media a lot of these young guys in particular young people in particular is that they are thinking about other people and they are comparing themselves to other people and they are looking at those numbers and you're you're looking you're spending all of your energy if you have an allotted 100 units of energy in a day you're spending a disproportionate amount on things that don't empower you and actually kind of fuck your head up not good for you at all instead of saying wow i am chasing the fucking dream right i am out here being a professional comedian and i have a real chance to develop a real following if i put my time in i put my effort i really care and I really work hard.

33:13I could sell out of theater one day. That's possible. Like, that's a goal. It should be a goal just like getting your Ph.D. in chemistry or whatever the fuck it is your goal is. But the process is what's important. The process is, like, appreciating what you're doing, why you're doing it, and just bearing down and doing your best. That's it. That's it. And other people, look at them as inspiration. Other people that are kicking ass, you know, don't become a hater. That shit is so bad for you. I know so many dudes who have like hater tendencies and they never excel. Never. It's the counter thinking of an excellent person is a hater.

33:55Someone who's always trying to diminish people and downplay people and look at someone in the least charitable way and the worst possible way. Just somehow or another trying to make themselves feel better. But it doesn't work. It does the opposite of work. It robs you. It robs you of your self-esteem. It robs you of your self-respect you're spending so much time thinking about this other dude like why it's a lot It's a lot of energy and my dad this one's this is one story that I did not put in the special that I should have and My dad had all these these thoughts and he was I lived to say he was a crazy man But when you think about the things that he would say Made sense my dad and why would you be telling me this at the age that but he just gave them I think I was like 11, and my dad out of nowhere just said, you know something, people spend the same time and money on being fake when they can put that same time and money into being real.

34:51Yeah. And I'm like, I didn't know. I didn't understand what that meant. But as I got older, if you spend any money or time faking something, you could probably spend that money and time being real about something. You know, why go buy a fake necklace to act like you rich when you can go buy a real necklace at some point and actually be rich if you're comparing it to necklaces. But I just didn't understand it at the time. But then as I got older, I understood, like, why put this time in to pretending when you can put that same energy in and then become real at what you do? It makes no sense. My uncle Vinny, when I was six or seven years old, I was staying at his house with my cousins.

35:52And we were supposed to brush our teeth. And I didn't like following rules, period. And so I wouldn't brush my teeth. Instead, I would take toothpaste and smush it around on my teeth. And so that when they smelled my breath, they would smell toothpaste. And my uncle explained to me, he goes, I understand why you're doing it. He goes, but the amount of time that you're spending pretending to brush your teeth, you could have just brushed your teeth. And I thought about that when I was six. I was like, damn. I was just a little kid. But I was like, ah, he's right. Why am I faking brushing my teeth?

36:29I was six years old. My Uncle Vinny was like super patient, super calm. Out of all my family members, he was the strangest. Out of all these wild, crazy Italian people, he was an artist and he was very soft-spoken and never got angry about anything. He'd always speak really rationally. I was like, God, he's so smart. He's just so peaceful. But the way he laid it out, he didn't say, Hey, I know you're not brushing your teeth you little fuck It was the time you're spending pretending to brush your teeth. You could have just brushed your teeth But it was like sometimes adults will say something to you like that when you're six and it just gets in your head You're like whoa, okay That just saved me a whole lot of time

37:20Stop pretending stop faking it doesn't help anything it does the opposite opposite and you know people the truth sometimes is is hurtful to people the truth doesn't feel good you know to a lot of people unfortunately but you know you have to look at it you have to have perspective but that's the ultimate hate right there that's the ultimate hate is for me to give you a falsehood instead of tell you the truth right that's the ultimate it's the ultimate hate. Especially if you're making up a background for yourself. You're making up a story about your life that's not true. You're pretending you're somewhere in life that you're not.

38:06Yo, man, just do the thing. Just do the thing. Yeah, but it's hard for people. And then there's a lot of people that think you just fake it until you make it. You hear stories. I had$500 in my bank account, but I told them I got this. I got that loan, and next thing you know, my business is making all this money and you go wow he faked it until he made it and it worked and you think it's gonna work but it doesn't work most of the time. That's so few and far between then they never tell you that that guy goes to jail later for fraud. Yes! A hundred percent! A hundred percent! The feds busted my house three years later and took everything like okay.

38:45Exactly like when they arrested Carl Spencea recently for like all those counts of tax fraud I was like okay I don't want that to happen to him, but there it is. Right? I mean, that's what it is. I'm not laughing at Carlos Menzien. I'm just laughing at the fact that you're like, yeah, when they bust his car. I mean, it didn't bring me any joy to see that. I don't like anybody getting arrested for taxes. I think taxes, until they have an accurate account of where the fucking money goes, and until you completely eliminate all fraud and waste, what the fuck are you doing locking people up for not paying taxes?

39:33Like, you guys should get locked up for not doing a good job with our money. So what do you think about all the new purchases and redoing the White House and all this with tax dollars? Did they do it with tax dollars? How much money did they spend in tax dollars to do the ballroom? Let's find out. What's that? They need a ballroom, though. That's how that guy snuck in with a gun because they tried to do that White House correspondence dinner in a hotel. That dude who got arrested a few months back. What's this resolution, the pool, something full of algae right now that we spit on? Yeah, I don't know about that.

40:12That's something about making the pool look nice, whatever that is, reflecting pool. Yeah, the reflecting pool. Reports indicate the new White House East Wing Ballroom is projected to cost about$600 million with roughly half, just over$300 million coming from taxpayer-funded government accounts, despite earlier promises that it would be taxpayer-free. $300 million sounds like a lot until you find out how much money they spend on other things. When you find out just how much fraud is in NGOs, how much fraud is in nonprofits, how much fraud is in insider trading and propping up companies so that they can get better deals.

40:52The whole thing is fraud. The thing is, if you're spending, I understand how much money goes in other things, But if you're spending any money that's my money that I don't know that I need it or that's not really the aim, the goal. You should be able to vote on it. You should be able to vote. You should be able to vote on where all your tax money goes. How much tax money is being spilled on getting smart people in places, making smart children? That's the big one. That's the thing. The big one is if you look at our country as a community, and that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be the United States of America.

41:32All that bullshit aside. That was the one good thing that happened about 9-11 when 9-11 happened after that. We were all united. It was crazy. It was crazy. We realize like we are actually on a team. So if we're on a team, why do we have these deeply impoverished neighborhoods for decades and decades that are riddled with crime and drug abuse? Why? Is it impossible to fix? That's crazy. That's not true. It's just no one's tried to fix it. No one's done any effort to fix it. And if you did fix it, you want to make America great. Here's the best way. Less losers. And how do you get less losers? More opportunities for people.

42:10More opportunities, more support, more education, more everything that you need if that was your neighborhood. And if we did that, we'd have to switch the way our system runs. But that could be done, man. You don't have to have losers. Not that many. That's the thing about make America great, right? if you're trying to make anything great don't you need intelligent people to do that of course that's the number one thing so when we have all these divisive people that that's on a lower vibration how is that making the the the country the country great if we're putting people in position that don't have the experience or the education in those in those things then then we just saying a bunch of divisive things, you know?

43:02Yeah. You know, it was, if I'm watching the extravaganza that happened in the White House, what was the thing, Michelle Obama is a man? Like, how did that help? How did that help? That guy says that every time he does a speech. But what is the thing? First of all, it's really divisive because you know that a large portion of the country is going to have a problem with this. You know, clearly she's not a man. You know what I'm saying? But it makes no sense, like, to— I've never seen this many people say so many damaging things about a past president. It's like he's still on the forefront, and it's not like we have a president that's doing the greatest job for this country, you know, which is a weird thing to me.

43:52And people are going to ask, is that what's the belief? That's the that's the real belief of people. That's the real thing. Well, listen There's some crazy people that believe the world is flat. There's a lot of dumb beliefs There's probably people that do believe Michelle Obama's a man what that guy does. He's like a pro wrestler Like he's got a character called the Incredible Hulk. It's very corny in a lot of ways sometimes it's you know cringy but the point is he gets a lot of attention a lot of attention because of all this. That's what he's doing. So what he's trying to do is maximize the amount of attention that he can get for a very short window of career.

44:31This is not how he really feels, how he really thinks. When you talk to him in real life, he's very reasonable. This is an act that he does, like a pro wrestling act. But what he can do is fight. He's really good. And that's what's so confusing about it all. So you got this guy who's created like this fake persona where he puts on an American flag bandana, comes out to Hulk Hogan music, does all his interviews with sunglasses on, has a bunch of crazy, silly rhymes, and says ridiculous shit, just trying to get attention, the most amount of attention. It is very divisive, don't get me wrong, but that's by design.

45:04So he's Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in the same person. But an actual fighter, and a really fucking good one, man. He just knocked out Derrick Lewis at the White House. Derrick Lewis has the most knockouts in the history of the sport. Don't do that. Don't do that, Joe. Don't do what? Don't say they're so excited because Derrick Lewis go to the same gym, Main Street Boxing Gym in Houston. I'm very close to that. Dude, I love Derrick Lewis. I don't like the fact that Derrick Lewis lost that fight. I think Derrick of 10 years ago would have been a real fucking problem for that dude. Because Derrick of 10 years ago, you couldn't hold him down.

45:39He would just get up. There's a whole compilation of people trying to hold Derrick Lewis down. He just gets a hand on you and just whoop. His grip, they did that UFC grip thing where they test the grip. Everybody's like 140. The strong ones are like 160, 190. Derek just squeezed it casual, 218. And they were like, what the fuck? So you see how problematic this was for me. You already beat my friend. Then you turn around and say. He beat a 40-year-old Derek Lewis. A 40-year-old Derek Lewis. Then turn around and say Michelle Obama's the man. I was like, okay, you know something. I know what you're saying.

46:13I'm pissed. Listen, you're right. I'm like, I'm pissed. You're right. But I'm telling you, if you met that dude in real life, you would get it. He's just a dude. He's just a guy who is a competitive wrestler, played in the NFL, and he's like, I got to do something to figure out how to get people to pay attention to me. Because it can't just be fighting. It's not enough. If you look at Conor McGregor, you look at Sugar Sean O'Malley, you look at these guys that have these flamboyant personalities, these big personalities. They get Cassius Clay is the original example. They get an immense amount of attention and that translates into much more money and much more opportunities.

46:51There's no fucking way that guy would have gotten that fight at the White House if he couldn't fight. Because the fight that he had before that, he fought Curtis Blades, who was a top 10 UFC heavyweight, huge wrestler. And they went to war, dude. I mean, he put it on him for three fucking rounds. Like Curtis just has an insane heart and survived it. But that guy can fucking fight but just that alone is not enough, but what you got to get attention I don't agree with it. I don't I wouldn't do it. It's not my thing. I don't like it Right, but I get it and it's smart with Muhammad Ali though He was very respectful in his in his in his act You know to get attention, you know just like he wasn't I mean He wasn't with other people but he would show up at fucking Sonny Liston's house and scream about him on his fucking front lawn at four in the morning.

47:41He did wild, crazy shit. Okay, I get that. He did a lot of wild. He was just all about getting your heart rate up, getting your emotions in there. He was so fucking smart. He knew before everybody that you could just get somebody into a frenzy and they wouldn't be able to sleep. Their whole life revolved around fighting you and I can't let this guy beat me and the fear of losing, he's going to keep you weak. It's going to keep you, you're not going to be able to eat as much food. You're going to feel nervous. But you see what happened when somebody called him Cassius Clay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah Was that what fighter was that?

48:17He kept punishing him. Your mama name your mama name I'm gonna call you but that didn't work out for him. He beat the he beat the piss out of him He carried him. He carried him always beating his ass Dude, he was a special special guy It's you know, I'm not comparing him in terms of his cultural significance to Josh Hokett because you know he was uh my parents my mother and my stepfather were hippies they never watched fighting but when he had a rematch with leon spinks that's how much of a cultural figure he was they wanted him to beat leon spinks oh my god he's gotta win he's gotta win hippies sitting in front of the fucking tv in like 1970 whatever it was how crazy it is to have italian hippies because I heard it it was like my family I thought they was Italian Italian well they were hippies but you know my grandmother went to jail for running numbers for the mob so it's like there was a lot of okay there was a lot of real Italian a lot of dynamics yeah grandma went away for a little bit she wouldn't rat him out so she did some time I was at a I was at a show one time and I said where are all the Africans in here?

49:33And this Italian dude, he's from Sicily, he raised his hand. And I said, and the people were like, why is he raising his hand? I'm like, he knows. Like, he knows. He knows. So he was like... Yeah, there's a really good reason why Sicilians have darker hair, curly hair, darker skin. He was like, yeah. The Moors. And that's all I said was, he knows. And people who got it, they was like, okay. And at that point, it's like when people don't know that you have some sort of level of intelligence. Yeah, he gets some information. They're like, oh, okay. Like, yeah. It's a big thing. But that's funny, though.

50:19Italian hippies. But my grandmother also. Well, yeah, there was a lot of hippies back then, man. And I think the original idea behind it was great. And I was just watching this thing today about the CIA and LSD and what they did. It was really funny, man. It was a – That video? Yeah, that cute animal day. I saw it too. Isn't that dope? See if you can find it. Put it up because it's kind of cool. There's conveniently an MKUltra hearing going on right now in the – Oh, how convenient. I know. Listen, bro, I got it right here, Jamie. I'll send it to you. They 100 % are still doing that. No ifs, ands, or buts.

50:52If you think they did that in the 60s, and they 100 % did, if they're doing mind control experiments on people and they're influencing people's opinions, and half of the reason why people are at odds with each other all day long online is probably government intervention at one point, or some government's intervention. If not ours, Russia and China. This is wild. The CIA created the hippie movement, and your mom's favorite band probably helped them. In the 1950s, the CIA bought up the world's supply of LSD. They brought it to the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, who reverse-engineered it, giving them an unlimited supply and a complete monopoly.

51:30Then the testing started. One early volunteer for these tests was Ken Kesey. Kesey wrote a book inspired by this experience, which became a bestseller. Then Kesey went on to host events, which he called acid tests. And he wasn't charging anyone. He just wanted people to show up and do acid. For these events, he hired an unknown house band called The Grateful Dead. These events became wildly popular and with them rose the popularity of the band. So The Grateful Dead begins touring and Kesey follows them around in a bus from show to show. And everywhere he went, he brought a vat full of Kool-Aid laced with LSD.

52:03This guy had a seemingly endless supply, exporting the hippie culture all around the U.S. Meanwhile, the CIA is flooding college campuses with LSD under the guise of research. And The Grateful Dead was just one of many bands in this movement. At the same time in Laurel Canyon came a wave of musicians with something in common. They were all children of high-ranking military officials. The biggest names in music. Jim Morrison of the Doors was the son of an admiral. Frank Zappa's father was a chemical warfare specialist. Even Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Yeah, all three of them. And all of these bands as well.

52:35The theory is the CIA orchestrated the hippie movement to steer a very real anti-war movement into something a little easier to combat. Dissent without teeth. The hippie slogan was literally, turn on, tune in, and drop out. In other words, do acid and remove yourself from society. And a lot of them did drop out of society to go live in communes in the woods. This intersection between hippie culture and the CIA could all be a great big coincidence. Maybe military brats naturally want to rebel. And maybe the CIA was giving away acid because they're chill like that. Maybe the CIA created the hippie movement.

53:13And your mom's favorite band probably helped them. Yeah. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. That's wild. They also had a big influence on gangster rap. Big influence on promoting gangster rap. Oh, for sure. A hundred percent proven. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. They wanted to fill prisons. You want to push that over anything else? You know, because we can look at how rap music changed and when it changed. You know, 1992. Yeah. After 1992, they was like, no more positive rap. Well, it was whenever Straight Outta Compton came out, because I was in Boston at the time. I remember to the day it happened.

53:52But Straight Outta Compton wasn't a drug-filled induced album. If you look at a lot of the songs that was on that album, it was rebellious songs against the system. Fuck the police. And then 1992, man, when they decided, yo, we don't want no more De La Soul. We don't want no more Tribe Called Quest. We don't want no, you get them leather medallions out of your, it's like, yo, we need, we need, like, yo, they were like, self-destruction and West Coast, West Coast All-Stars. They was like, what? They coming together? Hell no. So, you know, we need this to be divisive. We need them to separate. And that's crazy that the biggest times that I've experienced this country being together was the Olympics when the Dream Team came, 9-11, and COVID.

54:57That's the biggest time that we, the three biggest times I've ever even seen us together. Yeah, because we need something. We need something that's real. We need some sort of an event that makes us realize, first of all, the fragility of life. That's important. And we have to realize that we're all supposed to be a part of a team.

55:18And you can't play on a team if your teammates don't think that you're valuable. Not only that, you can't play on a team if your teammates are poisoning you. If your teammates are allowing you to eat rotten food so that you can't play and maybe giving you inferior gear on purpose and maybe keeping you in a place where you can't get sleep so that you're not going to evolve. You're always going to be tired. You're going to be fatigued. So you're never going to get better at whatever the fuck it is you're doing. You're never going to advance in life. You're going to be tired. You're going to be on drugs.

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56:27Go to armra.com slash Rogan. This is how I see. That's not a good team. This is how I see with parenting. It's hard to parent if your number one goal is survival. Right. You know what I'm saying? It's hard to parent. Right. You know, you got to parent from a comfortable space. You can't parent from nervous chickens really don't lay eggs. That's true. So the thing is, the way I parent now versus how my mom, my mom was strictly survival. So my thing is survival first. You know what I'm saying? Then the rest of it. I don't remember going on vacation with my parents. You know, vacation? What? Your mom working two jobs and going to school trying to better.

57:22She's just taking care of you. So I'm not in the position. My kids go on vacation. You know, it's different. You know, so I see things from both sides all the time because I'm in that, which makes me grateful. I'm grateful that I can do the things I can do with my family. You know what I'm saying? Versus parenting from a place of frustration. you know but I understand this this frustration thing you know I'm trying to take care of you and you know and then sometimes I look at my kids like you know something you have it really easy because if I wouldn't have washed them dishes my mom would have destroyed me you know what I'm saying because her mindset is hey I'm trying to take care of y 'all y 'all got the help in this you know me like we have a housekeeper you know what I'm saying the housekeeper come here four days out the week you know and now i'm like so you just gonna throw that stuff on the floor and you're making it hard for the housekeeper you know the reason why she's here four days a week is so to make your life easier but you you're adding on to by being lazy by being lazy like like i don't there's a balancing act right you want to protect your children but you don't want them to develop soft.

58:44You want them to be able to take care of their own problems and you want them to be able to understand the consequences of their actions. So this is like fine line of like encouragement and punishment and like explaining to them how your life was different and you have to appreciate this life. This is very unusual. You're super fortunate. But I think ultimately what they learn from is how you behave. That's a giant part of being a parent that people, I don't think, are totally aware of until you start doing it. They understand. Whatever the fuck you say is one thing. That's great. What you do is what they really say.

59:24And if you're a lazy fucker who's always making excuses, your kids are going to not have respect for you. They're going to know, like, real early on, you're kind of full of shit. This is the craziest thing, though. You know how hard it is to put some eye on punishment and then say, hey, Pac, we going to Cabo. He's like, am I on punishment or we going to Cabo? You don't get your iPad for 16 hours. When we get to Cabo, you stay in your room and overlook the ocean. Watch Netflix. And think about your consequences as you order room service. They're drinking Coca-Cola, eating French fries. Lamb chops coming to the room.

1:00:04We were like, yo, you on punishment, dude. So I can't have oysters. You hear the birds chirping. And you're looking at the waves. It's rough. It's a certain part of success that you almost can't.

1:00:29I'm not staying at home because you're on punishment. See, my mom was, it's just different. It's different. My mom would go in her room and turn on Knott's Land and the Dynasty, and I'm in my room with no TV because it was only one TV. It's a TV in every room. The punishment was come in here and watch Falcon Crest with me. What? I don't want to watch no Falcon Crest. And then you start watching Falcon Crest and now you love it. You're like, so when is it coming on again? You get addicted to new characters. That's why I like MASH. You know what I'm saying? I would be in trouble and you're watching MASH and Bonanza and then all of a sudden you love MASH.

1:01:15I cried when MASH went off. Do you remember the dude who dressed up like a girl in MASH? Jamie Farr? Yeah. He was my neighbor. I was your neighbor? Yeah. Wow. Back in California. He lived right next door. Two houses down. Wow. Clinger. It used to be just me and him. And then another guy built a house in between us. He was cool. Very friendly guy. Played a good character. That was a good show. Yeah, MASH was a very good show. You know, and I said this other day to a friend of mine. I said, like, I listen. I used to ride and take my kids to school and listen to morning shows. you know really Tom Joyner you know listen to Tom Joyner and this is something I can listen to with my kids now there's there's no morning shows that I can listen to with my children without them putting in a different element that I'm I don't want my kids to be a part of you know that's a weird thing that they cursing on radio and doing all this well they can't curse on radio still oh yes they can.

1:02:23Can they? They changed it? They'll drop a B word in a minute. Oh a B word. Yeah. But that's it. You can't say fuck. No. But the rest of it you know you got daughters. Right right right and you're hearing some shit you don't want them to hear. That's a weird thing. So they go to school and they say you watching the B. He was like, damn, that was the ending of the show. So now we ride and listen to Keisha Cole. He was in with no talk. Oh, I listen to NPR. I listen to Urban Network. You know, for them to listen. Now they got all these political questions. And, you know, when you're five-year-old, I'm like, so why aren't we voting?

1:03:15I'm like, oh. It's because you've been listening to Karen Hunter. It's the whole time on the way to school or from school. So it's weird how you, what shows would you sit down and watch with your kids now? You know, they had to watch the shows that I grew up watching. You know, got to go back. You got to watch Perry Mason and Family Matters and, you know, the Cosby show. You know, different world. We had to go back and watch Good Times. You know, we can't watch the current things. you know so you know even with with comedy i took i took hasan to a comedy show with me to see some friends and he was 14 at the time and we left because it was no it was nothing the things that were being said it it kind of made me go back to when um Cosby did the story about his son going to see Eddie Murphy.

1:04:20And he's, Daddy said these things. And I was sitting there like, after the first two minutes, I'm like, yo, we got to get out of here. How old was he at the time? 14. 14. That's too young. And I'm like, yo, man. But, I mean, the guy who's doing comedy is doing comedy for adults that are drinking in a nightclub, right? No, we was at an event where it was all these bodybuilders. the gym um next level had did a um a show for all the the the people that work out there and the trainers and i'm thinking okay this is at a ballroom you know it's probably gonna be pretty cool and i stopped in you know we sat in the back and then it went left and i was like hey man let's get out of here and he's seen me and so he's like no this ain't that it is this ain't the same i'm like yeah i'm not i'm not going for a certain type of laugh i'm not doing shock value you know so he's watched almost all the specials you know so it's not this it's not the the same for for him you know and he look he knows a lot of comics so it's it's not this wasn't conducive i was like Like, Hasan, we out.

1:05:36We out of here. He's like, but it's some comics you can go and you can watch their whole show. Like Marcus D. Wiley, he can get an understanding of at least marriage, you know, how marriage goes to give you some fuel. But I think the landscape of comedy is different for different people. Not knocking the people who do shock value or a lot of sexual content. That's their stick. And they probably young and at some point they'll grow. Hopefully they'll grow and it'll be more things in life to talk about. People like, well, how do you have this many specials? Because I have a life, you know, I had a life before that I talked about.

1:06:20And then I have a life, a current life that, you know, I'm still experiencing things. So I'm going to talk about things that that's that's a little different because I'm I'm living and I'm not stuck in sex is not the number one thing. I remember when I when I when I figured that I was sex wasn't that big when I went to, you know, they had the thing Netflix and chill. And I actually wanted to watch the movie. Get your hand off my leg. I'm trying to watch this movie. You know what I'm saying? That's funny. So it's a thing about the development in this game of how you grow and what you think about.

1:07:01Well, I think comedy is just one of the problems with the label is that there's no genres. It's not like blues comedy, rock and roll comedy, hip-hop comedy, EDM comedy. It's just comedy. You don't know what it is. It's just different people's perspective on things. And there's different kinds of comedy that people like. You know some people are giant Richard Pryor fans some people are Sam Kinison fans some people Jerry Seinfeld fans and Some people love Bonnie Raitt and some people love You know whatever James Brown fill in the blank. There's a lot of different styles of music and there's a lot of different styles of comedy and All that I care is that you enjoy what you're doing and you're doing it because you enjoy it And if you're doing that, I don't give a fuck.

1:07:46I don't give a fuck what you're doing I don't care if you have props I don't care if you write signs and hold them up for the crowd I don't give a shit what you're doing I don't care if you do impressions I don't give a fuck what you're doing that that was a huge so when talk about the scope of comedy you know I'm I can start with Carol Burnett and I watch that but the guy who I watched on HBO a lot I knew I wasn't gonna do that type of stand-up it was that was just a whole different thing but Gallagher was crazy to me. Crazy. That was the craziest. Everybody wore plastic. They had garbage bags around their necks.

1:08:24Like the front, what, six rows? Yeah, just getting splattered with watermelons and pineapples and coconuts and whatever the fuck he was. Cabbage. It was ridiculous. Ridiculous. But he also had some good jokes. Yeah. Some solid jokes in between then. Dude did a ton of specials. Yeah. You know the craziest story, the Gallagher story, is Gallagher retired and his brother took over. His brother was Gallagher 2. So he had a brother that kind of looked like Gallagher. I remember that. Right? I remember Gallagher 2. And then somewhere down the line, Gallagher decided he wants to start doing comedy again.

1:08:58And he's like, hey, Gallagher 2, the gig is up. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm making money. I'm Gallagher 2. I think there was some sort of a legal dispute. Find out if that's correct. There was a legal dispute between them. Gallagher's younger brother Ron who shared a strong likeness to Leo asked him for permission to perform shows using Gallagher's trademark Sledge-O-Matic routine Leo granted his permission on the condition that Ron and his manager clarified in promotional materials that this was Ron Gallagher not Leo Gallagher who was performing Ron typically performed in venues smaller than those of which Leo Gallagher performed after several years Ron began promoting his act as Gallagher 2 or Gallagher T-O-O or T-W-O In some instances, Ron's act was promoted in a way that left unclear the fact that he was not the original Gallagher.

1:09:51Leo initially responded by requesting only that his brother not use the sledge-o-matic routine. You can't use the fucking, you can't use the sledgehammer. Ron nonetheless continued to tour as Gallagher too using the routine. In August 2000, Leo sued his brother for trademark violations and false advertising. The court ultimately sided with Leo and granted an injunction prohibiting Ron from performing any act that impersonated his brother in small clubs and venues. This injunction also prohibited Ron from intentionally bearing likeness to Leo. What? Imagine you can't look like your brother. You can't.

1:10:28Cut your mustache. Yeah, you got to change your mustache. You got to get rid of the beard. That's crazy. So did Gallagher continue with his career after he kicked his brother out? Did he come back? Probably. Was that part of it? Yeah, I think. I don't know. No, but I mean, does it say it there? Didn't say it here. It doesn't say it. Not specifically in this paragraph, no. When did Gallagher start performing again? Put that in a search. See what it says. Because I think he did start performing again. Yeah, he says he was rushed to the hospital after performance in 2011. Oh. Okay. And what year did he sue his brother?

1:11:092000. Oh, so he did start doing comedy again. So that's it. Yeah. So he's like, hey, motherfucker. Yeah, he had a special in 2007 and 2014. Yeah, you can't be doing that with Gallagher 2, running around, siphoning off of your crowd. You know, people are like, honey, you want to spend 50 bucks and see Leo? Or do you want to spend 20 bucks and see basically the same shit? And see Ron. I see Ron smashing fucking cabbage. Then you had a carrot top. And imagine saying, yeah, you can perform, but you can't use a sledgehammer. I would use a mallet. What about a mallet? Can I use a mallet? Can I use a baseball bat?

1:11:52Can I just have someone pitch me things and I smash them into the crowd? Yeah. You can't own that. That's a different thing. I'm handing out oranges and tomatoes in the audience. Yeah, I honestly, I don't give a fuck what you do, as long as you like what you're doing. It's like I love certain kinds of music that's completely opposite to other shit that I love. I mean, I like all kinds of stuff. I don't think you should pigeonhole yourself with anything. But I would not take my kids, especially when they're really young, to see someone who's very sexual or really rowdy or really raunchy. You know, the caveat to this is he was in the green room and they were looking right at him.

1:12:34Like they introduced it. And I'm like, tell me what you're, I didn't know they act. Oh, so he didn't say, hey, bro, you got young kids? Yeah, hey, man. Because I would say, hey, man, tonight, you know. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Set an event, bro. Oh, I would definitely do that. Especially if you were another comic and you brought your kids out. Like, bro. Yeah, because Juan Villareal used to bring his kids. Seven minutes on dick sucking.

1:13:03Like, yo, you don't have to get him out of here. They don't need to know about all these techniques. Yeah, so that's weird. Yeah, that is weird. But you know what I mean? It's like time and a place. Like, who was he doing it for? I mean, they probably knew what he did before they hired him. They probably wanted that. Someone's a fan. Which is fine, but just don't invite kids. And like I said, I didn't, all I did was, hey, Hasan, let's go. And that's it. I didn't, hey, y 'all should have been. I'm like, hey, man, do what you do. But I'm getting my kid out of here. And then you get the phone call.

1:13:34Hey, man, why you leave? You don't really want to know why. I'm leaving because you are terrorizing my child. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, it no, but I definitely wouldn't take my girls to like nothing. I'm like, no, they don't need to see that. early. Not at all. My wife got mad at me when I think one of my daughters was six and the other one was eight. I had them watch the movie Alien. You ever see that movie Alien, the original movie? Yeah. Fucking terrifying. And I was like, this is too young. This is too young. I fucked up. You know, I think Hassan watched Annabelle when he was young and it was...

1:14:19Oh, Annabelle's creepy. It was. He was traumatized he was watching somebody else's house oh you know with some other kids and they were like I guess they they understood but Hassan was it was a whole problem like you talking about sleeping with all the lights on in the house like I want all the lights on and I'm sleeping in your bed like do you ever go to that place in Vegas the it's a haunted me Zack Baggins haunted museum. He has the Annabelle doll there. Wow. Yeah. There it is. Which one is the one on the right? Oh, hell no. That's the real one? That's the one on the left, the movie one? Yeah.

1:15:00Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Wow. So that Annabelle is both on creepy as hell to me, but Well, there's something kind of extra creepy about the one with eyes like a person. The left one. That's insane. You believe in ghosts? Yes. Really? Have you had experience? Um, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I have. Let me go back. Let me say that. I do believe in ghosts. So my old house, when my mom says that now, it's a girl that lives there. You know, I don't know what happened at this house, but it's definitely a girl that lives in this house. But she would only come from, like, the hallway bathroom to the kitchen.

1:15:46and I remember during the pandemic you say girl you mean a ghost yeah that's a girl okay she's definitely a girl and I remember being during the pandemic I was in the den and I was working on I was working on something and literally I just turned and said so you up huh and cause I could feel her I was like yo cause but and I had to go back through my family a lot of people in my family have experiences with past relatives that passed on. My uncle said he saw his dad, which my grandfather owned, in his shoes. And my mom said she saw my grandfather before that died in the house that they had in Mississippi.

1:16:33But yeah, I believe in ghosts. I believe in unsettled spirits. But he definitely had a girl that lived in the house. My grandmother, the one I was telling you about before, she was very interesting. and she really strongly believed in ghosts and there was a guy that stayed with them for a while. They had an upstairs area that they weren't using once the kids left and so they rented out, it was like an attic space that they had converted. I forget exactly what it was. Anyway, they rented out a room to this guy wherever the circumstances were and he died. And my grandmother swore that that dude stayed in the house.

1:17:09Yeah, I believe it. I think it's possible that if something happens to you, that if you're dying, it's a very traumatic experience. And I have a feeling that we don't totally understand memory. And we assume that memory is something that only human beings have or that only animals have or that only creatures, living creatures have. I don't think that's real. I have a feeling there may be a type of memory from particularly traumatic experiences that stays in a space. And I think this is one of the reasons why they have to disclose within a certain amount of time someone's been murdered in a house in a lot of places before you buy it.

1:17:50Because people don't want to live in a house that's got that energy in it. Because I think things keep energy. I think they do. I think there's something more to memory than just as simple as, oh, remember when we were five? I think there's something else there. I think that's our memory. But I think there's a type of memory in things. That's what I think. I believe in the unseen world. So I believe in gens. I believe in angels. So it's an unseen world that's not our thing. But that was things here before us. I think there's things here with us. Yeah, definitely with us. And people who don't think that haven't smoked DMT.

1:18:35But I definitely believe in gin. You get a hold of some DMT and you're like, okay, I don't know shit. There's things around me all the time. There's things that are influencing you all the time. And this is like when we talk about good energy and bad energy, one of the things you experience in psychedelic states is a clear recognition of good things that you've done and bad things you've done. good the good way of thinking the good way you think about things a positive way and bad like i remember having negative thoughts in an experience once and it was all these like dark fractals and then i realized it was trying to show me that these dark fractals these crazy geometric these like scary patterns that i was seeing was because of my own thoughts and then i released them and it turned into beautiful geometric patterns over and over and it kept saying like, look at this and look at this.

1:19:25And I was like, oh, it's actually the way you think changes the world around you. It has an effect. It might not have the ultimate effect. It might not be a hundred percent of what happens to you and in your life, but it has a meaningful effect. We just can't measure it. And there's things that are out there, whatever they are, they have some kind of consciousness that are around us all the time. We just don't have the senses to take them in. Just like when you wave your hand over an earthworm and has no fucking idea you're doing that. We don't have the senses to understand that there's things around us.

1:19:59And people have been writing about these things for so long to discount them all. They're all liars. They're all delusional. They're all crazy. I think that people discount them due to thinking that they were on drugs. Well, they probably were. But it doesn't mean they're wrong. It doesn't it doesn't mean it wrong. You know, like a drunk really don't tell a lot of lies. A drunk don't tell a lot of lies. They're gonna, I'm drunk, I can't remember all that. I'm just saying what it is. It was saying, but when you, when people like LSD, you know, hallucinators, you know, or mushrooms, or these things, people are like, well, you only saw that because you was on this, but maybe that's the portal on how you see certain things.

1:20:52I think there's certain things that we block ourselves from being able to see by our own protective instincts. We protect our thoughts. I mean, this is why people, I think, get paranoid when they smoke weed. One of the things that weed does is it dissolves all these artificial barriers that you've put between you and the thoughts of real danger. They're all there. You realize your vulnerability. You realize who you are. So just think of how years ago, how weed was viewed, how marijuana was viewed. It was taught that marijuana is the gateway drug to crack. I didn't believe that. How did that even correlate?

1:21:32But it's for those who are trying to find an ultimate high. Maybe you just smoke weed and that's all you ever did. And you wasn't trying to find another high. I think some people try to find another high. Like now, man, a lot of these young people are on so many different things at the same time. Like, what are you searching for? You know, they popping pills, doing coke, drinking lean, doing everything all at the same time. Like, what is, and drinking. Like, what are you trying to escape or what are you searching for? You know, and I just know people who just smoke weed and still smoke joints.

1:22:15They don't smoke the I know people who grow their own bud. They're not even trusting what's going on now. Now they're finding fentanyl and all this marijuana, you know, is deep. And pesticides. Pesticides. Horrible pesticides. Because what people don't know is that a giant percentage of all the drugs or marijuana, rather, that people are buying in places where it's illegal. they're growing them in national forests in California and the cartel's doing it and the cartel uses a bunch of pesticides and herbicides that are illegal like real toxic shit and they find them doing it all the time they find these grow ops in the forest all the time because it's a misdemeanor so because marijuana is legal in the state of California growing it is just a misdemeanor so you could have a full-scale grow up in you know public land out in the forest And these guys find them there all the time a friend of mine found one in a ranch that he works at He followed these PVC pipes And he realized that some guy was diverting water into this little area that was on a to hone ranch Which is a big ranch outside of Bakersfield But um this dude that was on my podcast for his name is John Norris.

1:23:28He wrote a book about it He was a game warden and he had it turned into a tactical unit They had to get like dogs like Belgian Malinois and shit with bulletproof vests And they're going in there having shootouts with the cartel because the cartel had set up these marijuana grow-ups in the woods And it was his job to police that area. It's like okay. I guess that's what we're doing now And then they it's a crazy story man. It's not like moonshine. It's up. That's why you do Exactly exactly and this thing moonshine moonshine Developed into NASCAR Exactly. Exactly. They had to outrun the cops. Yeah, that's what NASCAR came about from.

1:24:07It's fun. I mean, listen, also, it's Al Capone. It's all the mob. They were all running alcohol, and there was a lot of people that were connected to them. Some people believe that JFK's dad was involved in alcohol, but that's disputed. But the point is, a lot of people were making money selling alcohol, and they were all criminals, all of them. And so what are you doing? Are you stopping people from getting marijuana? Nope. What you're doing is you are empowering a criminal empire, and you're giving them an immense amount of money. And they're probably going to have to kill a few people because people get in the way.

1:24:42They're probably going to have to rob a few people because people are competition. There's a little bit of a problem over here. We got another guy growing. We live in a society where the bad guy is definitely romanticized. Right. So how do you stop people from wanting to be the bad guy when it's so romanticized in everything? It's romanticized to the point where John Wick is a good guy. Yeah. John Wick is a contract killer for the Russian mob. He kills who knows how many fucking people, and he's the good guy. But you got a problem with the Iceman. Right. The Iceman was a terrible person. Right, you know, poison John Wick at least looks sexy in that suit, but you cannot wait for John Wick six to come out John Wick movie though like he had a reason they killed his dog and they stole his car They fucked up they fucked up They stole the wrong guy's car and they killed the wrong guy's puppy and so you rooting for him You're rooting for him to kill all these bad Russian guys But you don't realize like that guy's been a contract killer for the Russian mob for who knows how many dads is he's assassinated.

1:25:53How many fucking people that have families that will never come home to them because of John Wick? And yeah, and sometimes a lot of times, you know, people don't care. You know, it's weird. Well, we're weird. We're a weird animal. We're a weird animal in a constant flux of thoughts. And we, you know, trying to figure out what's the right way to think and the wrong way to think and people join religions for it. They'll join cults for it. They join political movements for it. They just want to find a way to think that makes them feel better than the way they think right now. You know, with the need to feel better outside of yourself, you know, or your family, you know, or being, you know, great to society.

1:26:43I think that's detrimental to this society where I personally need to feel better, but I don't want the community around me to feel better. And in my mind, if everybody around you in the community feels better, I think it makes for a more harmonious environment than me just being the only one. Yeah, but that's because you're a wise person. The problem is there's a lot of people that aren't wise and there's no one wise around them. And that's the real issue is that there's an extreme lack of like a good direction book on how to lead a solid life. You're not taught at school. At school, you're taught to sit down and learn some shit that you don't give a fuck about learning.

1:27:32Memorize this. Do good on the test. You got to get a job. What's a job? Well, you got to sit there and do some shit you don't want to do to get some money. and with the rest of your time you can do whatever you want as long as you keep showing up every morning at the same spot. Okay. And then that sucks. And so what do you want to do? I want to escape this suck. So what do I need? Cold syrup? Okay. Give me some of that. What do I need? Weed? Give me some of that. Adderall? Ooh, Adderall makes me like the job. Okay. I'll take this shit every day. Now I don't give a fuck. Now I'm trying to get ahead.

1:28:00Next thing you know, I'm moving up the corporate ladder. I'm a fucking animal, bro, because I'm on Adderall. You're basically on meth. You're on a well-designed slow drip amphetamine and you're out there fucking sleeping four hours a day getting shit done You know driving a Jaguar And this is the problem of society is it like people don't have a real that there's a lot of people out there that don't Really have a purpose they don't have a real feeling of purpose in their life You are very fortunate because you found a thing that you're really good at you love to do and you make a great living doing it.

1:28:37A lot of people don't have a thing and they never were taught to pursue a thing or they never saw anybody else do it and they realized they could do it too. And then next thing you know, they're married and they have kids and they're in their 30s and then they're in their 40s and they feel like shit. I'll ask you a question. You have a team, correct? Team of people. In terms of what? Team of people. Sure. Okay. Okay.

1:29:03Do you think your team is happy doing whatever they do for the team? If I didn't think that, they wouldn't be working. Okay. So you don't want to be the only one happy on the team. No, that's terrible. And you don't want to also have someone on the team that is one of those people that just is never happy. That's a problem, too. Yes. That's a problem, too. There's people out there you can't fix. So with, like I produce other people's specials now. And comics have hit me. Hey man, I want you to distribute my special. I want you to do this with my special. And the hardest thing, because I'm a small company, the hardest thing is when I have to explain to somebody why it's a no, you know, on this particular special.

1:29:57And it's not just my no. It is for other people's know because I tell people and I explain this. If we're doing a special with you, you have to get the approval of all five of us. Because we all five do different things. And I want everybody who's involved in your special to want to do it. Not they have to do it because it's a part of the company. No, I want them to want to do it. And I say, I'm not putting you through a process that I'm not putting myself through. And I've tested this team with me giving them a special that I knew that wasn't special. And I'm the head. I'm like, I sent it out and we brought it back to the table.

1:30:52And it was a lot of silence at first. I'm like, so what were we thinking? What were we thinking? and they was like I don't know I think this is horrible I'm just listening to everybody's opinion on it and they was like I don't understand the direction I don't understand where you're going with this we're going to have to fix a lot of it and I'm just sitting there listening and we took the vote and when we turned the vote in it was five no's and it was like so what was your take on it? I said I knew it was a no from the beginning I just wanted to make sure that y 'all wasn't going to try to fluff me because he's the head.

1:31:32We're going to say yes. And I'm like, good. So anytime we do a project, I put it on the table just like I put anybody else's project on the table. And you got to get all five people. If you want me to finance, you got to get me. Then you got to get the marketing person that's going to market. Then you got to get the director. You got to get the manager. You got to get everybody. so they can feel good about pushing your project. I don't want anybody pushing a project that they don't like. That's very smart. Yeah, so you make it a democracy. Smart. So if you got all five of us, then now we ready.

1:32:10You know what I'm saying? And now I'm going to feel good about somebody coming to me and saying, this is going to cost this. Because I know they're doing it out of, hey, man, this is what it's going to cost. We're going to figure it out. And I'm like, cool. but even when I do a special man they it is a lot of you don't want to talk about this part like no it's like we should talk about this part and it's been some decisions that have been made that was it was my call at the end but it was somebody else's idea like with Domino Effect it would have never been a Domino Effect 2, 3 or 4 if I would have stuck with the name that I started with.

1:32:52The name was 1983. So what it was going to be, 83, 86. Right, right, right. It's like, it's like, and Rugged, which won, what, three Rebby Awards. Rugged was, the original name was I'm Not Handy. And Eric called me and was like, no. I've listened to it. I watched it so many times, I think that we should go with this name. And he gave me the name, and I sat on it for a day, and then I called him back. I'm like, yeah, you about right. Well, that's good. That means you got good people. And I think that people should put, like right now I'm on the Custom Fit Tour. Well, I'm off into August because I'm going to take six weeks of vacation.

1:33:42But Custom Fit is not going to be a special. It's just the tour that I'm doing now because the specials that I'm writing are different than what I just wanted to take this time to just do some material. I didn't want to be working on the special. But the theme is about people think custom fit is about clothes. It's not about clothes. It's about tailor making the people around you. I'm saying that you can be a benefit to and can be a benefit to you. and saying not just having these people around because you know sometimes people have a bunch of people around that secretly despise them you know and secretly despise their success and that's uh that's detrimental to anything haters yeah yeah sometimes haters will get real close to you stay stay next to you it's a problem i mean when you're in a position like you're in too when you're producing other people's specials you're going to get a bunch of people to come to you that you don't want to do their shit it's just like owning the club the same issue the way i bypass that i put all the power into adam adam egott decides who's there and who's not there and how the the club gets scheduled and you know who passes and who doesn't and he's really good at it you know he's really good at it i trust him implicitly so i don't have to think about it and i like it so that when people say i want to work your club i'm like well you got to talk to Adam.

1:35:12I just perform, I might be the owner, but I just perform there. I don't, I don't think about it in terms of like how the scheduling is. I often have to check the website to see who's there. I don't know who's there. You know, it's a, it might be mine, but I got a guy who does it and he does it really well. So why would I get involved in that? When I, it's easier to not. When I had, um, when I had a club in Houston, I couldn't be funny in the club at all. Why not? Because I was, actively working the club. So I'm on stage and I'm worried about so many other things going on. Like, yo, did you just drop a glass on the ground?

1:35:55Like, I didn't have enough help. You gotta get the right help. I got very fortunate in that a lot of the people that I took to Austin, they were from the comedy store and they were out of work. So the comedy store closed because the fucking stupid government of LA. They wouldn't even allow them to do outside shows. You couldn't do an outside show in the parking lot of the comedy store. They wouldn't allow it. It's so stupid. They were closed for like a good solid year and a half. They couldn't support paying all these people. So they had to get rid of them. And I moved here. And it's the same time.

1:36:29It just, by chance, it happened at the same time. And so they were all out of work. And I said, hey, let's get the band back together again. Do you guys want to move to Austin? so I paid for everybody to come out here and I paid for them I gave them a full salary with everything for like a year and a half or so maybe even more maybe two years before anybody had to go to work because the club wasn't open so I was like I want to give you a job so you could settle in get used to Austin you're going to get paid like you're working but you don't have to work but I love you I know you and you know come here.

1:37:07Very admirable. With the store, I just performed at the store main room for TDE. They had a thing before BETWall so I popped in. And the comedy store has a certain politics to it that, you know, I like the other one a little more, even though all they serve is pop. The improv? No, the other comedy store. Oh, La Jolla? Yeah, La Jolla. La Jolla's the shit. Which is. That place is the shit. What a club. They just don't have food. No. You pop popcorn drinks. I don't believe in food and comedy clubs either. Yeah, so. But it's just a different environment. La Jolla's like very nice, beautiful place.

1:37:52That club is awesome. I love performing there. and with the store in LA, it's like you get there and it seems very segregated. This is now? To me, that's when I come. How long ago was this? I just performed last week, last Wednesday. That's sad to hear because it wasn't like that before. It seemed like the main room and the room around the corner and the belly, all these rooms are different spaces and that's to me, and I may just, it may just be that feel because I'm not there a lot, you know, but when I come, before I came that time, but the management walked up was very pleasant. What do you mean by different spaces?

1:38:38Obviously, they're different rooms. What do you mean? What do you mean? It seemed like the main room is different from the room around the corner. Well, it is different, but what do you mean by feels different? It feels a little different. Well, I mean, just by its design. It's a big showroom. It's brighter. The ceilings are taller. And then you get into the original room, which is just tight and perfect. The original room is like that's where you find out what's real. You know, I've seen a lot of people have rough sets. They were real confident going into that room. That room was a truth serum.

1:39:11I like a tight room like that. Well, then there's the belly room. The belly room is the ultimate truth serum. Trying out new jokes in the belly room is the place because, you know, it only seats 70 people. You can't bullshit those people That's the The creme de la creme It's a tight small room The belly room is spectacular I came from small audiences They're the best It's the best for finding out if jokes are real There's nothing like a small crowd Like in our club we have the little boy Our rooms Are named after the bombs They dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki And little boy is only 110 seats It's a super low ceiling.

1:39:54This is when, you know, it's those times in comedy when you knew that that's what you actually love to do. And I remember I was in San Antonio at this place called Santa's. He literally owned a whole strip, the club, the washroom, the corner store, everything. A guy named Santa. I didn't know that he owned it, but it was like a rainstorm or something. The show got rained out. And it is literally three people in this room. It's two ladies and it's Santa. And I don't know that this is him at the time. And we had to go on to get paid. The promoter was like, I'm not paying nobody who don't go on. We're still doing the show.

1:40:40I'm like, okay. So this is$100. he was getting paid$100 and he was like who going up I'm like I'm definitely going up and I'm going up first I don't care I did like an hour and 30 minutes for three people and I was like because I kept looking like anybody else going up there he was like no we good I'm like I and Santa I remember he finally revealed that he was the owner of the club and he was like, well, let me take you to the back. He took me to the back and he gave me like$700. You know what I'm saying? For performing. He's like, yeah, man, you wasn't scared and me and my friends had a good time.

1:41:23And it was like three people. It was literally the dude named Vance put the show on. It was like three. Vance tell anybody the story. He was like, this is when I knew Ali was different. When he went out, three people, he went first and he's like an hour and 30. And he was like, and it didn't look like he was coming down. And I'm like, yo, bro, I'm here. This is what I do. And I need that$100. So that's definitely some extra motivation. It's crazy that no one else wanted to go up. They was like, no. And another time I was at Wiley. It was at Wiley College. And Marcus was performing. And the mic went out.

1:42:02And it's like all these people in this auditorium. The same place they shot, Denzel shot the movie, The Great Debate. so we in this auditorium and the sound goes out and they start ribbing Marcus and I was in the back and I was like what's going on and the sound went out and I walked out and I was like what's happening and I said hold on Marcus let me ask him something wait a minute I know damn well y 'all not in here trying to get somebody a problem because y 'all got us in we didn't bring the sound system got us in Fair Eastside High before his broken clock. And so I say, listen, Mark is sat down in the back.

1:42:42I was like, yo, this is what we gonna do. I'm gonna talk. Y 'all gonna laugh. Then I'm gonna talk some more. But y 'all can't be laughing all along because we don't have no sound. I'm not supposed to use my real voice in this. So I'm at like 45. And then I look back at Mark. I say, hey, man, you wanna come back up? Mark was like, no. Like, you got it? Like an hour and 20. He's like, Ali's nuts. I'm like, no, this is what I do, and I'm going to figure it out. We did a show at the Improv once in Hollywood, and the power went out, and they were going to cancel the show. And we were sitting there talking, and I said, can we light the stage somehow?

1:43:23And they said, yeah, we can get an emergency light attached to a generator, and we could run the wires through the crowd and put an emergency light on the stage. I go that's that we'll do that and then we'll just do stand-up with no mic and we did the whole show with no mic It was the opening middle and then me I did a full hour. It was amazing. Everybody had a great fucking time It felt special it felt very unusual You got to see what it's like like when you don't have a microphone and you're projecting to the back of the room Changed my pacing on things, but it was great. It was it felt cool It felt like you were doing something, and the audience was into it.

1:44:03I go, look, we're going to have fun, right? Like, fuck it. Who cares? This is never going to happen again, probably, ever. I've been doing comedy 30-something years. I've never had that happen where I did a show with no microphone except that one. So this is the thing. These are the experiences that, as a comic going through the trenches, that some comics will never have. Right. Because they didn't come up that way. And you have a different set of chops when you come up a certain type of way. I've come up and just joking had to be the craziest place. Because some nights you're coming in, it's like nine people.

1:44:47But these nine people are into comedy. And Alice would be like, you got to do the show. Like, it's not a, we don't have a limit. We got to do these people that's here. Because the thing is, that whole idea that the show must go on regardless, too. Well, I learned that from Paul Mooney, too. And one of the things that I said, I did a show at the comedy store. It's like the first time that Mooney ever complimented me. I was always scared of him. It's because Mooney didn't like you. It was terrifying. He was a legend. He was a legend, wrote for Richard Pryor. And it was like the way he carried himself.

1:45:23He didn't like you. And I was 27. happened you know i was young and stupid and uh i i went up because i would always go up last or late i had late spots and uh there was like 15 people in the room but i did my act and i heard in the back of the room oh he was laughing having fun and then he grabbed me afterwards he goes you're a real motherfucking comic he goes that's what a real comic does he goes all these other motherfuckers they went up there and they did oh where you from bitch i know where i'm from Tell me some fucking jokes. Do your fucking act. And that's what you did. And I was like, wow.

1:45:59Paul Mooney likes me. Me and Paul had a different type of relationship. Did you and Paul not get along? One, I have to always say I loved Paul until I met him. It's like Paul was on some bullshit when I met Paul. man I was at the improv and I was featuring for him and the improv it got me to feature for him and I was like cool I'm excited I get to meet one of my idols in this game one of the people who changed the course of my pacing because it my my lineage just sitting down I passed through Paul so it's when I first started I was a crazy man I was all over the place thought that you had to had all this energy.

1:46:52And then this guy named Dez White walked into the club one night. I was there, and Dez stood in the same exact place. He never took the mic out the stand, put his drink down the stool, and Dez just stood there, and he was destroying this room. Never took the mic out the stand. And he always said, people would say, Dez, Dez, why you don't take the mic out the stand? And he's like, because there's a stand. Let it over the mic. Some of my favorite comics don't take the mic out of the stand. Ron White. Ron White just stands there with a drink on a stool, sometimes with a cigar, just killing with the microphone in the stand.

1:47:36Oh, man. Joey Diaz. Joey Diaz keeps the fucking mic in the stand. And he makes me laugh harder than any fucking human being that's ever lived. That—so I'm going to finish Paul, then I'm going to go to Ron. So what did he do though? So I'm in on the green room and At the old empire where they had a downstairs you would come through the you used to be a rain forest Yeah, so it was spellbinders at first and then it changed so I'm sitting in the green room in like it's a main part and it's a smaller part He walked into the small part and said hey Go count the room And I'm like what? yeah go count the room I was like I don't I don't work here like that I don't count the room and he was like yeah alright then he walked out and then he came back like maybe 25 minutes later yeah tell you and your little white friend that it's packed out there and I want my bonus like what white friend what are you talking about Raymond Cook is the manager of the club at the time.

1:48:47He was talking about Raymond. And I was like, yo, Paul, I don't count the room. I'm the feature. Why would I be counting the fucking room? And then he said something else negative to me and I'm like, yo, Paul, if you say something else to me, I'm going to kick your ass, Paul. Like, what is wrong with you? So I called DL. I'm like, yo, I'm about to fucking beat up Paul Mooney. He's like, you can't beat up Paul Mooney. he's a legend even if you beat him up you're still not gonna win it's gonna be a loss so I'm like yo so then another time oh and then later on that same weekend he had this lady with him and she was sitting at the top and I was sitting up there and she got up and she left her purse so I didn't wanna leave and leave the lady's purse there so I grabbed I got the purse like this I came in I'm like hey ma 'am you love your purse and Paul turned around like, what are you doing with her purse?

1:49:49I said, she left it. And then the only thing in my head is DL, you cannot beat up Paul Monette. So I just walked out. I'm like, I'm going to fuck Paul up. What year was this? This is like three years before he died. And this was the old improv. This is what I had heard, just for clarity. He was struggling in the last years of his life. so you probably didn't get the best version of Paul Mooney. So then we're here in Austin. We're performing at the theater that's right next to the Paramount. It's another theater that's connected to the Paramount. The black heritage, the black art something, both of us not knowing that we're at odds.

1:50:35So I'm in my green room and the lady comes in. Hey, she's very nice. Hey, Ali, Paul Mooney's next door. and he would like to meet him and I was like no I'm cool and then she goes Paul Ali's next door I don't know if y 'all want to meet each other and Paul's like no I'm cool and I went up I'm in my green room and the host is on stage and Paul's getting ready to go up and this was his apology he walked by the room and came back like on Purple Rain came back and leaned in the room and said hi Ali and then i mean paul's fucking nuts man and yeah but he that's you gotta take that that he got you know there's certain people are just eccentric that's paul i mean i wouldn't have counted the fucking room either i would have been like that's not my job yeah but ron white i was in orlando manager orlando called me say hey ali um i know you have a i know you have a um a feature but Ron White would like to you know feature for you and I was like I don't know no person named Ron White and she was like you don't know Ron White I'm like wait a minute like Ron White, Ron White I think it was like some other guy who's using his name or something like that his name happens to be Ron White like Ron White, Ron White he's like yeah I said he want a feature for who He said, you.

1:52:08He called and asked. I was like, the fuck? I said, hell yeah. So I called Marcus. I'm like, yo, Marcus, you're going to go up and then you're going to bring up Ron White. When was this? This was like maybe four years ago. That's crazy. And Ron shows up in this huge tour bus. Like, I'm walking to the club and I'm like, who buses this? And I'm like, oh, shit, it's Ron's bus. It's got tequila brand on it and all this. And he's in his bus. He's not even in the green room. Then I get knocked on the door, and his manager, he's like, hey, Ron would like to know, can he come in the green room? I was like, Ron, why can't he come in the green room?

1:52:54So he comes in. He's like, yo, man, I just want to, I love what you do. I just want to do some time. Ron went up there and was destroying this room. and I couldn't wait to get up because I wanted to just talk about fucking Ron White just featured for me. And I destroyed his room with Ron. He sat out and watched. He was like, you're fucking amazing. And my mind is, I'm still in awe that Ron White wanted to fucking feature for me. Wanted to work with you. I was like, that shit was crazy to me. That's so cool. Well, you know, when he's working on new stuff, that's what he likes to do. He likes to go around and does a lot of sets.

1:53:34He's constantly active. He's at the club tonight. We're working tonight. He's one of the main reasons I moved here. Ron moved here before the pandemic. So I called him up in like 2018. I loved having him at the store. So he started coming to the store around 2014-ish, something like that. Oh, my God, we had so much fun for years and years. And he had a beautiful place up in Beverly Hills. And then he just got sick because he's always traveling. I just got sick of the long flights and the traffic. And I called him up. I go, why'd you move to Texas? He goes, Austin's amazing. The food's fucking great.

1:54:10Everyone's nice. It's in the middle of the country. If I want to fly to Florida, it's quick. If I want to fly to, I'm like, God damn it. Can I live in Texas? And then the shit hit the fan with COVID. And I was like, I gotta get the fuck out of California. This place sucks. They're telling me what to do. This is not what I signed up for. You tell me I can work. You tell me I have to wear a mask. Fuck you. I'm getting out of here. And when I came to Austin it was one of the main reasons why I was willing to move here I'm like if we never do comedy again at least I can hang out with Ron That's that's amazing.

1:54:37Yeah, and then everybody else came and then once I mean So everybody says that I got everybody to move here sort of I got a lot of people to move here But Ron got me to move here. That's the most important thing Like Ron got me to move here And then I realized how nice people are here and how disconnected they are from show business And I was like, oh, this is so refreshing. Everyone's just normal. My neighbors are normal guy Everyone's normal. They're regular people. Just people living their lives, having a good time. You know, it's like, and for me, you know, because I love hunting. Everyone hunts out here.

1:55:08Yeah. It's like a normal pastime. I tell people I bow hunt in California. Texas is, Texas, we have been a gym for a long time. And we just let, we let other people feel like they, the upper echelon. We like, okay. Texas ruled forever. I mean, you've got to think, Kenison and Hicks, two of the greatest of all time, came out of Houston. And when I was coming here all the time, I knew it, right? So one of the things that was good about doing comedy is a lot of people that moved during the pandemic just wanted to get out of California, but they had no idea what the rest of the world was going to be like.

1:55:44They'd never been to Nashville. They'd never been to Austin. I'd been here a couple dozen times. I knew I loved it. So I was like, look, this will be all right. I'll be fine. Like, it looks like I'm never doing comedy again. I was like, it looks like comedy's done. It looks like they're going to fucking make us just stay indoors, especially in, like, blue cities. Like, this is crazy. You have to have a vax card to eat at a restaurant in New York City. I'm like, this is fucking bananas. None of this shit makes any sense. I remember you guys came. Mothership was coming. The next thing I know, Creek in the Cave was here.

1:56:18Creek in the Cave was here first. Yeah, exactly. I'm saying how I heard about it. I'm like, oh, they're like, Creek in the Cave? I'm like, damn, okay, Creek in the Cave is coming from New York. And then Mothership is here. But they had rooms. You know, the main thing was the room that was so hard to get in there first. It was the Austin Comedy Club. Damn, I forget the name of it. Velveeta Room? No, no, it was the actual comedy club. Cap City? Cap City. Yes. Cap City. That place was always packed. Yeah. I almost bought that place. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, I almost bought that whole mall. But the guy who was trying to sell it to me wanted way more than it was worth.

1:57:01And then he got roped up in some FBI investigation. I was told while it was going on that he was being investigated. And I was like, oh, okay. And then he wound up getting arrested. But that building was for sale. The whole thing was for sale. And I went in there. I thought about how many shows I'd been there, how many shows I'd seen there, How many shows I performed there? I'm like, I could own this place? Oh, my God. Cap City was the first place that I did on the road with DL. That was a great club. Fucking great club. Perfect club. That place was amazing. Such a fun place to work. I think that people didn't realize how the rich history of Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio.

1:57:47Bro, Laugh Stop in Houston, River Oaks. One of the greatest clubs of all time. Somebody told me that that building still exists like that, that it's still set up like that, that there's nothing in it. Is that true? There is nothing in it, though. But it's still the same room? Yep. Man, we might have to do a Mothership Houston. Yeah. That's a, yeah. See, if there's another city that could support, like, a large group of talented up-and-comers, Houston's one of them. Yeah, so, you know, we have Secret Group there. We have... They had the other Cap City that was upstairs. Remember they opened up the second one?

1:58:25They closed that one and opened up another one. You're talking about Laugh... No. Capsid? Capsid? Oh, I'm sorry. Laugh Stop. Yeah. Laugh Stop. That was the Laugh Spot. Oh, no, no, no. They had that already. That already existed. No, the Laugh Spot had went upstairs on Waugh. They had moved. I thought that was the Laugh Stop. I thought it was the same group that... No, it was the same group that owned the Laugh Stop in River Oaks. The Laugh Spot was another place. I knew that because when I was working at the Laugh Stop, Ralphie Mae was working at the Laugh Spot. We got together. We were hanging out and eating dinner.

1:59:00But that was the old spot. Then there was the other Laugh Stop that they put upstairs. It was a new – but it didn't last. It was only for a couple years. Yeah, I didn't go to that. It was a good spot. Then it went under. Yeah. Ari Shaffir did it with a Hitler mustache once. he trimmed his mustache to look like adolf hitler ari is ari is is by far the craziest person that i know like i thought my uncle mac was the craziest person and then i met then i met ari i'm like this is the craziest person that i know yeah he's awesome yeah and he just moved to england i'm like brother gonna stab you he moved to england they will fucking stab you they stab people there don't don't get stabbed Ari is nuts, but he's such a cool dude, but he's fucking nuts.

1:59:51I went to go see him at the Creek in the Cave when he was getting ready to film his special. And I was like, yo, Ari is so crazy. If people took time, just go through the many looks of Ari Shafir on the internet. The one that killed me was the half. he was just bald on one side then on the other side I was like yo he's doing Two-Face like he is insane he did Two-Face for Batman yeah he's out of his mind but but that's really who he is you know he's not trying yeah he's not trying he's not trying that's what he is he's out of his mind he's a fucking maniac complete maniac when he tore up Burt when I heard about him tearing up Burt's check it was like $25 ,000 he's like yo I just made$25 ,000 He just tore the check up.

2:00:44He's like, they'll write you another one. I'm like, are you insane? And I'm like, he's the craziest person. He's fun. I've had some great conversations on the phone with him. And he's just, and I was. Very fucking smart dude. I was very honored when he called me to do his last, the endless. And I was like, that's cool. because that's where that's a pivoting point a major point in my career when I did This Is Not Happening Yeah, that was a great show, man It was a great idea. I remember when he started doing it. He started doing it at the lab at the improv. So, do you remember the lab? Yeah. Another little room.

2:01:27Cool little room They should have never got rid of that room They changed that place and they fucked it up in my opinion The main room is still awesome But the lab used to be in the back and it was like there wasn't a big bar there. I think it's still there We can get the uncle I would last time I was there Deon Cole Yeah, but it's different. It's not it's not the same setup It used to be you went through a door and it was like another small room and in that small room It was separated from the front door. They moved the front door and now everybody went in through the parking lot Right, and so they went into the lab through the parking lot So the front door was back there that now and when you would open it It was all this noise from the street and they had a curtain to block off the noise and you'd hear people talk They were like right next to your stage where they're buying tickets.

2:02:16It was annoying and then there was the bar Which is right there. It's still a cool little small room once everybody settles in but the original setup was way better And Ari started doing it there. I was like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm gonna do a storyteller show I was like

2:02:34That's what I thought I was like why why are you doing that? And then he said well it really helps you without like having to have like punch lines and setups and have everything really tight You could find the beats in a story and I was like oh well actually that's brilliant. That's pretty fucking smart It's a good alternative sort of way to develop bits You know you develop bits by working it out but into a more loose format of telling a story And I didn't even know that that was the premise behind it because when I got it, it was like, you go on here, you tell a true story. And I was like, okay, cool.

2:03:11That's my thing. And I had just won Comedy Central's Comic to Watch in 2013. So you get a package, you get an album, you get a half hour, and you get a chance to go on one of the shows that's already on um comedy central so they was pitching me at the adam divine show and i was like i don't like it and it was another show i was like nah i'm cool so every show that they would say that they wanted me to go i was like no that really ain't my thing so then chase de russo young comic called me and said hey listen you might want to go on this is not happening i was what's that he say is a show start on the internet you know you i went on and i watched both i think both seasons of it on the internet and i was like yo this is the this is the one so i call ann harris that kind of say this is the show that i want to do and r didn't know me r is like i don't know him but eric abrams is one of the co-creators of the show he was like I know him so he's pretty good you should bring him on and Ari would already tell anybody like I didn't know what he was gonna do but all I know it was a true all you had to do is tell a true story and I was like perfect Eric thought that I was gonna do the story that I did on the second time that I was on but I and I'm like when I got there I was listening to people's stories and I I was like, no, I'm going to do a lighter story.

2:04:52Because the second story is Mitchell. It's like when I was going to kill this CO. And I was like, no, I should do a lighter one. And then I did the prison riot, which is affectionately known as Mexican Got on Boots. And Ari's like, best fucking story I ever heard. I'm like, me telling the story about a riot, a prison riot.

2:05:14And I was telling what happened. and I only did like 16 minutes of what happened. That was a whole ordeal. It wasn't a 16-minute ride. It was like nine hours. The whole thing is like nine hours. I only told the beginning part of it, which was pretty cool. You know what happened? I already lost the show, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so when the show came back, it was with Roy Woods. They called me to do it. and the loyal spirit in me, I called Ari first. I was like, hey, they want me to do this show. I'm really not fucking with it. And he's like, no, no, do it. I was like, what? He's like, I heard about all the stuff.

2:06:04He's like, man, do it. Eric is still shooting it. He was saying, so you should do it. He goes, we wanted you to be the host, but they didn't want you to do it. You know, they got Roy, which is cool. I don't think they wanted anybody affiliated with Ari to do it. They were punishing Ari. So when they asked me. We should tell people why. So for people that don't know, Ari got a deal. He got an offer to do a Netflix special, and he wanted to do it. And they wanted him to do the special on Comedy Central. And he said, well, I don't have to. It's not in my contract. They said, well, if you don't do it, we're going to cancel your show.

2:06:40And he was like, wow. I can't believe you would do that. And that ain't what you tell Ari. Nope. Nope. So we were trying to figure it out. I offered the host it for free. I said, I will come in and host it. I'd already done it. So I'll come in and I'll host it for no money. I go, because he wanted to make sure that everybody was paid. He was going to take out a loan. And Ari was going to pay all the grips, all the camera people. Because these people, they chart out their year. They're like, oh, I'm doing this is not happening for the next six weeks. And then I'm doing this for five weeks. And that's their year.

2:07:13And that's how they budget their life. And Ari decided that he was going to take out a loan to pay everybody. And I'm like, wow. I go, listen, man. They go, tell Comedy Central that I'll host it for free. They weren't interested. They weren't interested in anybody affiliated with him. He offered up a bunch of other comics. They weren't interested. So I was in that group of the bunch because I know it was you. it was Joey me Bert and they just got me to do it once Ari told me it was cool he's like man do it yeah Ari would never try to stop anybody from working so what I went on and did in my protest of you know you didn't want Ari so what I did was told a story about Ari

2:08:04I just told her like okay cool my story is mushroom story which is an Ari second season I did this show Ari gave me mushrooms and I went through the whole thing of what happened when Ari gave me the mushrooms I ate the mushrooms I didn't know that they were mushrooms mushrooms I thought they were something else and it was like I ate an eighth of mushrooms and it was a long day. What a rude thing to not tell you to not eat all of them. And I remember Janice was my assistant and I had to fly the next day and I'm still gone. I'm out of my shit. So I get to the airport and I called Janice. I said, Janice people are going through this machine and then I'm not seeing them anymore.

2:09:04Dan's just like, he's nuts. He's going, like, and Janet said, they probably going to various places. And I was like, but I don't want to go to Various. I want to go to Houston. So then when I get up to the TSA, I said, hey, I'm seeing a lot of people go through this machine and then I'm not seeing them anymore. Where are they going? And the man said, man, various places. And I got out the line. I called Jan. I said, you are right. They are going to various. Jan's like, he's nuts. Like, he's losing it. I'm like, yo, I was so toasted. And just getting on the plane still full of mushrooms, it was, I just, I wanted to just close my eyes.

2:09:47But the shit just wasn't working. It was like, I was out of it. I never. Mushrooms is a crazy thing. It's a crazy thing. And that same week, because I was there for a couple of days, Joy Diaz gave me a black star.

2:10:06And I remember calling somebody. He was like, yo, don't you eat that shit. He said, if you want to lose it, don't you. This is an episode of I'm on Joy Diaz. This is back when I was smoking. I took an edible with the flying Jew. and me and him, it's like you literally see us. I was fine at first. And then you, Joey's the only person that's in the studio that's still together. And you just slowly see us just melting. We both, and then I know I was speaking very good English at one point and then I was like, yeah, Joey's like, oh, I understand. I don't understand. The church of what's happening now had some of the greatest overdose on weed moments ever in the history of the Internet.

2:10:58Just Lee, just seeing Lee Syatt just melting. He can't keep his eyes open. He's just melting in his chair. At first, I was like, yo, he's tripping. Then all of a sudden, I'm like, this is not happening to me. It was crazy. Joey Diaz doesn't give a fuck. And then. He goes, I want to see the devil. the other side of the story is another comic with me named Billy Sorrell he had taken some edibles but he ain't on the show so he's outside he didn't just melt it outside like he's just sitting on the ground outside the studio like yo those black stars are 500 milligrams yo that was yeah I saw Joey eat two of those once he just chucked down two of them I'm like that is so crazy.

2:11:48That's so much. You know Jamie doesn't feel it. Edibles don't work on him. Jamie's got some weird fucking biological condition. Throw it at me. I'll try it. Yeah. I'm not afraid. He doesn't give a fuck. He's not scared of edibles at all. I've done two different types of mushrooms. I didn't know that there were. It's like the ones where I was really on one. That's the one that R gave me. and then there's some other ones that made me very talkative. Like, look at me.

2:12:28Drool on his shirt. Bro, he's in another dimension right now. He can't keep the headphones on. He doesn't know what to do. Joey's the best. They're back. They're doing it again. They're back. They're back together again. Oh, man. Are they doing it out of New Jersey? Is that what they're doing? It has to be. Yeah. He's the best. I remember I called Moses Malone for Joey because he's a big Moses Malone fan. Before Moses died, I called him. He's like, you know Moses Malone? There's no fucking way you know Moses Malone. I'm like, yeah, I know fucking Moses. Moses was nuts, too. Moses Malone was a fucking nut.

2:13:08Have you heard about these new mushrooms that make you see little tiny people? Oh, no, no, I haven't The talkative ones were like I called a lot of people on my phone and and everybody's same report was You know you call me like three in the morning. So you want to talk to me about my life? And which ones are those what did you take? It's not psilocybin. It's something different Yeah, it's something different. It made me very tough to delay I told DeLay about him I told him about him I called him and I talked to him for like hours just about so then he ended up taking the same mushrooms he called me and I knew what it was I was like go ahead just talk he was talking his ass off I had put the phone down and went to sleep I woke up he was still talking I was like yo this shit is crazy what is it I don't, man, I gotta, I gotta.

2:14:06Jamie, put that into perplexity. I gotta call. Put that into our AI sponsor and find out what mushrooms make you talkative. Yeah, I know who gave them to me, so I call her and ask, hey, what was them shrooms that you gave me? Because she went and bought them, and like, I was a fucking talkative mess. I don't know what that is. I've never heard of that before. Most of the time when people take shrooms, they can't talk. And it's like, oh. No, I was, I was on one. That's crazy. I wonder what that is. Because the ones that Ari gave me. It just says it's magic mushrooms just in general. Huh. Some people's response to it.

2:14:37Yeah, but it seems that there's different responses to different ones. I know what I'm saying. On the screen, it says what I just said. Huh. I don't think there's enough research for perplexity to have an educated answer. Right? How much research are they doing out there? Talkative social on magic mushrooms, but there's no specific mushroom reliably proven to make you talkative. All right. Ask if there's a mushroom that makes you see little people. Yeah, that's different. I know. I know but I want to see what perplexity has to say about it. What does perplexity say? Ask it about is there a mushroom that makes you see little people?

2:15:13Let's see if it really is up on its psychedelic science I want to see what it says though. It's just a question to see how it handles this Yes, it's a specific edible mushroom called

2:15:33Lanmoa Asiatica has been reported to cause very vivid hallucinations. You say hallucinations. Maybe they're really little people right there. Of little people when it's undercooked, a phenomenon known as Lilliputian hallucinations. So the thing is, how do you know it's a hallucination? Maybe you just now can see these things that people have been writing about for eons. How ignorant are people and how arrogant are we that we know everything that's going on all around us all the time? We don't people have always thought gremlins are real and gnomes were real Fairies studying that since the 60s.

2:16:10Of course they have been I'm studying it right now Let's study. Let's go study mushrooms Man, yeah, they've been studying it But like the the real problem is there's got to be a bunch of I know for sure There's other strains that are much more potent because I know a guy who is a mushroom guy. He's like deep in the world of mushrooms. And he was explaining to me that there's one that's like 10x stronger. And there's new ones that they found. I think they found a new one, I want to say in China, they found a new hallucinogenic mushroom. But this one, this Lilliputian one is weird because it's not psilocybin.

2:16:46This is not when it's cooked. This has something to do with cooking it. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you normally eat them raw. No, I think this might be the Chinese one. Because I think it's a is it yeah, okay, so this is I conflated the channel So they eat it if you cook it and you do a real good job cooking it You don't trip but apparently some people have not cooked it and eaten it and go. Oh, wait a minute What are we cooking out of this when you're you might be cooking out? Whatever the mushroom is giving you to let you see the spirit world or see the fairy world or the gnome world or whatever It is with restaurant.

2:17:20You can get into restaurants. Let's go. I'd be like hey undercook my just put it on some salad dressing send that shit out let's go I don't have unfortunately I don't have a problem with mushrooms I think that unfortunately what do you mean some people are like you shouldn't be on there but I don't have a problem with mushrooms especially if I'm in a safe environment but being at the lows on mushrooms that's not the best place to be also trying to fight it if you fight it you're fucked if you start going no I don't like this it's gonna get dark on you trying to wrestle with it I've had them in chocolate like little chocolate squares and it's been a time I don't sometimes it can get rough to see little people I definitely want to be somewhere I just need to be somewhere safe Brian Simpson has a hilarious story about Someone gave him a mushroom chocolate bar And he put it in his freezer and forgot Forgot that it was a mushroom bar And they just ate the whole thing And just went to Pluto

2:18:40He's like Dr. Manhattan sitting on Mars In a fucking lotus position This one's kind of strange It says it doesn't matter who you are or what you do, you're going to have the same experience as everybody else who's done it. Okay. At that point in time, when do we start to say maybe there's something in this substance, this compound, this molecule that lets you interact with something that's real, that's around you? If it's repeatable over and over and over again, if all these people see the same thing over and over and over again, and people have been writing about it since the beginning of time, they've been writing about elves and fairies and gnomes and magic people in the woods, what do you think they were doing they were probably eating these fucking mushrooms so this is show that i watch that i still don't know what this show is about but i've watched i'm on season number four and i have no idea what it's called from ah i've been watching it i love that show i'm in the middle of season four right now and so you know he's taking mushrooms the one guy did yeah well you spoiler alert no but you know Big spoiler.

2:19:45But you know already. Big spoiler. I know, but the people that listen don't know. Hey, it's still going to be fantastic. Don't fuck this up. It's good. No, it's on MGM. No, they're moving it. They're moving it? Oh, shit. One of these new shows that's been talked about is getting moved. No, no, no. That's still on Paramount. Yeah. I think it's MGM. I think it says MGM. Yo. Great fucking show. Yeah. Very original. I still. People. From is officially on Netflix. There it is. I don't understand. Oh, damn. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Maybe it's on Netflix as well. Yeah, that's all I was saying. Oh, that's what it is.

2:20:18It debuted on Epix. But you watched all these seasons. Good show. But you have no idea what. There's no rules. And so I called my director. I said, hey, I want to make a show that is about whatever we doing. And he's like, well, give me an example. I say, watch From. I've watched all four seasons. I cannot tell you what this show is about. I just know that this shit is good. For people that don't know, that want to watch it, it's people that are trapped in this town. They all have the same circumstance. There's a downed tree in the road. They can't go further. So they turn around and they find themselves in a loop that keeps leading them through this town over and over and over and over again.

2:21:10And no one in the town can escape. And at nighttime, monsters come out. And they look like people. They look like a mailman. Yeah. They look very normal. That's scary ass milkman. Oh. It's scary. Like that milkman is insane. That old lady. The old lady that knocks in the window. Oh, man. Terrifying. It's a terrifying show. It gives me anxiety and I know it's all fake. It's like, it's a crazy show. Yeah. And season four is even more bizarre. Yeah. Like Everything that I be thinking I was like yo I think this is what it is And then it don't It doesn't be that But then it'll come And it'll be like See?

2:21:50And I But I'm like see what? Like what am I Like I don't know The freak this show is going They don't know No one knows where it's going But it's like Lost The same people that made Lost Made that show Word? Oh man That's why It has that same sort of feel Like crazy Doesn't make You can't predict What's gonna happen You cannot predict Nothing makes sense and very entertaining Lloyd tickles the shit out of me Lloyd is mad about every goddamn thing like but it's so it's a crazy it's crazy but it's very interesting like I don't miss it I love it yeah I've been binging it so I started I guess me and my wife started about a month ago or so and we burned through the first three seasons and now we're into the fourth yeah it's good and i think the next season's coming out in 2027 but i don't like how they i think the next season's the last season unless they decide to keep it going finale it's the finale they just announced that it's going to be the last season and maybe maybe when that money comes rolling in but the thing about this kind of show is you could do whatever you want like yeah you go back in time you could do wild shit like i don't want to give anything away but there's no rules.

2:23:03You can make anything happen. You can make anything happen. It's a very strange show, but it's very entertaining. Oh, man. It's a very entertaining show. But if you want to just sit at home and watch shit and not do anything, man, you never picked a better time to be alive. You could waste your whole life just staring at a screen. it like when I when I ask people because I my palette for what I take in is Different than a lot of people you and I turn people on to a show like when I turn my boy on the pinky blinders I was like you know you gotta watch people he called me it was like yo This is crazy and I remember my boy delay got so invested in um Was the first show the motorcycle show that I turned him on to I I know what you're talking about.

2:23:54I never watched it What does that show that motorcycle show that everybody liked? You know talking about Jamie that's it songs van okay I turned them on the sons of anarchy and it's a person on there that you kind of get invested in and I remember he called me and said something about him and I was like Yo, who like who what would you say? And I'm putting on my shoes and then I noticed are you talking about the person on Sunday? He said yeah that's fucked up what they did. I was like yo you a crazy man. He's like no I'm so invested. I was like yo man you a wild person but you know Sons of Anarchy, Pinky Blinders like I was big on Yellowstone and now the two spinoffs of Yellowstone, Marshalls and the Dutton Ranch I can't not watch it like it's some good shows out there and I just can't watch the typical stuff I gotta watch something that has a little more to it than what normal people would watch cause I like to see normal people in shows like something I can relate to that doesn't ranch you know being Texas this is I don't how ranching is this is how i always experienced how ranching goes with cows and and how you keep your land and all these different fights that people have over land i'm like shit is shit is pretty interesting it's very interesting yeah that taylor sheridan's a friend of mine the guy made that he was on here the other day um uh talking about it but the other show that i love was Landman.

2:25:41Same kind of deal. It's all about the oil industry. You just realize like, oh, Jesus, is this how all this works? Yeah, it's other things happening in life and it's way more notorious people than a drug dealing show. This is, man, crude oil is a business. So it's such a big business, of course you're going to get devious shit going on. You're going to get shit happening. It has to. Yeah. The real world of oil must be nuts. It must be nuts. I mean, that's why we're in war right now. And you have to be ruthless with oil. That's a big thing. And I don't understand fake meat. Why would people be giving somebody fake meat?

2:26:24Well, because they make money selling fake meat. That's why. I mean, that's what a lot of people were trying to push, why they're saying that cows are bad. Cows, the methane, the environment, man. It's bullshit. But all they're doing is trying to, someone is pushing this idea that we need to stop eating meat because they're profiting off of us not eating meat. That's what it is. That's all it is. It's not bad for you. It's good for you. You need it. Protein. It's super healthy and one of the best foods in the world for you. There's just a bunch of horse shit out there saying that we need to eat less meat for the environment.

2:26:58No, we need to figure out how to not pollute. That's for sure. But regenerative farms aren't polluting. You're full of shit. It's not true. If you want to say we need to stop doing factory farming, okay, maybe. Yeah, that's probably a good thing to do. But you need to figure out how to feed all these fucking people. You've developed a system that's entirely reliant on massive amounts of animals moving through. The amount of chickens that people eat in America every day is crazy. What are the amount of chickens that get consumed in America every day? Let's guess. 20 million. At least. at least.

2:27:37I'm going to say 50 million. 50 million chickens a day. How many million chickens a day get killed? Oh, okay. How many do we eat? How many millions of chickens do we eat every day in America? Because I know I can account for three in my house. 22 million? 22 million chickens every day, son. That's nuts. That is a crazy amount. That's way bigger than the entire residence of Los Angeles. if every person was a chicken we eat that amount in this country every day that's crazy in my home alone if we roasting chicken if we going to get a roast chicken we going to get three of them I didn't even know that I could eat a whole chicken by myself until I did it it's like yo man this Muslim grocery store they sell them in there It's already roasted, and you get two garlic sauces with each chicken.

2:28:38And once you dip a piece of that chicken in that garlic sauce, it's not going to survive. It's like I bought three of them because I know if two are going to make it home, I have to eat this one by myself. And they put it on a piece of pita bread. It's already roasted, and it's insane that I would eat a whole chicken by myself. Estimates suggest 24 to 26 million chickens are killed every day in the United States for meat. So if you don't want factory farming, you've got to figure out a solution where you can get 26 million chickens a day. Or you convince people they need to stop eating meat. But if we look at, like, say if I'm looking at a show, Game of Thrones or House of Dragons, when I would see them sit down to eat, it was a lot of meat on that table.

2:29:29Yeah. Variations of meat. It's a whole thing. I've never seen the king sit down. It wasn't a whole entire pig on the table. And then if you most people haven't bought a lamb and you think that a lamb is enough. It depends on what you on. Who's there? If you if we if it's it and it's after the fast and you put a lamb on a spew and all these Muslim families come to your house, that's that's not enough. You need another lamb. You need two lambs. Like whole lambs. Man, meat is delicious. It's great for you too. Don't let anybody tell you any different. They can, but I'm not really listening. When somebody tells me about a vegan situation, I'll listen to you, but none of it is going in.

2:30:25It's like, you know how I say something comes in one ear and go out the other. It's not even going in the ear. It's like I've already made my decision. Okay, I'll feel you. But I'm not really listening to you. I'm eating the lamb. Goat, I'm eating it. Life eats life. The factory farming thing is the uncomfortable part. That's the gross part. And if you just were on a ranch, it's natural. It's natural. If you want to get overtaken, just let the animals just do their thing. Chocolate. And see how many. See, don't you see a. I Am Legend taught you that. It's like, yo, how many antlers ran through a place?

2:31:05It was a stampede. So even like with the thing that happens in the ocean, sardines, right? So all these mass sardines come one spot. Then the whales come first. Then the sharks come. And then we still get sardines. after all this ecosystem is eaten, we still get sardines. You're not running out of natural if you let everything do its thing. Do you know how many jellyfish? Somebody should start eating them. Because that is a crazy... Jellyfish can mob out. Like mob out. And they can kill you. And they can kill you. Somebody eat them. Something eats them. You can eat them at Chinese restaurants.

2:31:52I've had jellyfish before. Was it good? I don't remember it being good. I don't remember where I ate it, but I remember someone cooked a specific type of jellyfish. And I was like, okay. I didn't even know you could cook that. In Texas and Louisiana. What kind of jellyfish are edible? Find that out. In Texas and Louisiana, the amount of crawfish that we eat in two months is literally insane. Imagine if they didn't. Imagine if crawfish would be. Imagine. I know I can account for at least 50 pounds by myself. Like, I know. Think of how many crawfish there would be if people weren't eating them. Like, when I was a kid, I grew up in Florida for a while.

2:32:32We lived in Florida in Gainesville, and there was alligators there. Gainesville, Florida. But they were protected. Wow. Back then, the alligators were protected. Like the Everglades? Well, it wasn't the Everglades quite. Okay, hold on. Edible jellyfish. Best known edible species used in Asian cuisine. Oh, boy. Try to say that word.

2:32:54Ropilema escalentum, often referred to as the Japanese edible jellyfish. That's a lot easier. Salted in jock. Or flame jellyfish. Yeah, so there's a few different species of jellyfish. Anyway, my point was when I was a kid, alligators were protected, and they were at this lake, and you could see them, and people would throw marshmallows in the water, and the alligators would eat them. And then now there's too many. like there's so many alligators there now like they they can't get rid of them they're they're in every body of water everywhere you go there's alligators yeah the entire everglades filled with alligators golf courses filled with alligators i remember when they when they don't the kid got eaten at oh disney world yeah and i was like yo that's insanity because i don't trust a puddle of water in florida no i a puddle it could be a puddle i'm like it's an alligator in there it's But what they removed?

2:33:49400-some-odd alligators from Disney World? Oh, they remove them all the time. They have to check every day. They have to go back there and make sure that there's no alligators. It's like a huge number. It's a huge number. Maybe 24 this year, 40 or something this year. But it's 400-something overall. That's insane. You know, Disney World has a bass fishing lake. You can go bass fishing at Disney World. There's like a little trip that you take. Here you go there. 414 alligators removed from Disney World since toddler's death 10 years ago. That's a lot of monsters. That's a lot of monsters, man. They're legit monsters.

2:34:29I remember when I was in Guam. I was in Guam doing a show, and I think the military had moved there, and it was a bird that they were trying to protect. And so they killed all these snakes. And this is how when you change the ecosystem to something, something happens. so the snakes not only were they eating that bird but they were eating and controlling the toad population so when they got rid of the snake we were coming back from the show and it's like it's literally hundreds of thousands of frogs that come out at night everywhere it's like you just see them flat in the street because you can't not You can't miss them.

2:35:15It was hundreds of thousands of frogs on Guam. And I was like, yo, man. People fuck up everything. They got to do something, man. People meddle. Yeah, they got to bring the snake back. Yeah, got to bring the snake back. Stop. Stop. Stop your bullshit. People just meddle. I mean, there's so many countries that are infested with animals that people brought in to kill other animals. You know, like Australia has a giant feral cat problem. They brought in feral cats, I think, to kill a... I forget what species. I think it was a toad they were trying to kill off. My neighborhood has a goddamn cat problem.

2:35:51Like, in my neighborhood, it's like one cat has some babies. And my family has something to do with it. We fed the cats and then shit. Of course. Of course. You want to be nice. Meanwhile, they're killing billions of birds every year in this country. Cats, I love cats. I love cats too. They kill billions house cats kill billions of birds and mammals in this country every year If you you don't have a bug problem if you have a cat in your house because if we you know we had these water bugs they call them cockroaches, but I've watched it before I left the cat that just outside he was just slapping one around It's like five of them dead out there He's just slapping one around like just toying with him like but I don't mind cuz then they never make it into my house It's like cat's eye Remember about the four pest campaign That happened in China What is that?

2:36:45What they do? It explains it to you Under Mao Aimed at exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows As a part of the Great Leap Forward It was framed as a public hygiene and agricultural protection drive Meant to reduce disease and protect grain from being eaten or contaminated Mass mobilization methods included Trapping and poisoning rats Swatting flies and mosquitoes and organized efforts to scare and kill sparrows. Before you get to the end here, they had one little problem, so they introduced something else to fix that problem. That created a new problem, so they introduced something else to fix that problem.

2:37:18Yeah. And it ended here with tens of millions of people dying from a famine because they didn't have the natural ecosystem to protect the grass. This is correct. So sparrows were targeted because they ate grain seeds, but they also consumed large numbers of crop-eating insects. Their near extinction caused an ecological imbalance, leading to insect population booms, lower crop yields, and contributing to Chinese famine, the Great Chinese Famine, which tens of millions died. Wow. You got to give something to get something. Yeah, man. Don't think you're smarter than nature, you dumb fuck. You got to give something to get something.

2:37:54There's a balance out there, and we don't totally understand that balance. What's this fish that we have now? Asian carp the one that's infested all the different lakes and then the snake head that's another one then that the joint that torpedoes up That's the Asian carp. They fly through the air when you're in a boat Yeah, they just for whatever reason when you're in a boat. They just try to throw themselves onto the boat Get me the fuck out of this lake There's so many of them and they don't have a natural predator and they bring them into places is sometimes to clean up the algae, and then also now you have a carp problem.

2:38:30Now the carp eat all the algae. They eat everything. Where your whole lake looks like a swimming pool. There's no algae left. Look at these fucking things. That is crazy. That's the Illinois River. I mean, this is just hundreds of fish just flying through the air everywhere they go. How nuts is that? You ever see people, they shoot them with bows and arrows? So they wait for them to hop up in the air, and they try to catch them in the air with a bow and arrow? with the string on it. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of people do that. That's a very popular sport. Is this fish edible? I don't know.

2:39:05I've never heard of anybody. I know people eat regular carp. I don't know if Asian is Asian carp edible. Yeah. Yep. There you go. It's lean and nutritious. It has a clean, mild flavor. So I would just have a net rolling behind me. Filet of fish. There you go. Don't you guys need product? There you go. Get out there with bows and arrows and get it done. How many crawfish does Texas and Louisiana consume in crawfish season? That's a good question. I guess you would have to do it in pounds, right? Would you do it in pounds or millions of actual crawfish? Because they don't measure them in individuals.

2:39:43They weigh them by weight, right? Because they're kind of little. They go by weight. How many pounds of crawfish do you think? Just say Texas and Louisiana in a year. 50 million? I have to ask again, but it did give me 90 % of the farm crawfish comes from Louisiana. Yeah. Wow. 90%. How many pounds? That didn't give me the answer. How many pounds does Texas... I went way too high. How many pounds does Texas and Louisiana consume in a year? I'm going to say 2 million pounds. No, it's got to be more than that. Really? 2 million pounds is a lot. It's fucking way more than that. What is it? What is it?

2:40:2570 % of the consumed amount is eaten in Louisiana, and the total is upwards of 150 million pounds. Yeah, I'm trying to tell you. 120 to 150 million annually. Whoa. Yeah. Just in Louisiana. 70%, which is almost 100 million pounds of that is just in Louisiana. That's great. Between crawfish boils and crawfish egg duvet, that is fucking delicious. That's delicious. Dang. That is a crazy thing. Texas doesn't have a number. It's just tens of millions. Well, all we need, we've got the Louisiana. I would have thought they'll be double what the whole country ate. That's crazy. Like Maryland actually thinks that they are big on crap, and we just be shaking our head like, okay.

2:41:18I think we ship crab to them the Chesapeake Bay cannot outdo the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of America now by the way it is we still Gulf of Mexico I don't think Mexico agreed I don't think they did either this is not the Gulf of America we're not saying that that's hilarious Well, hey, brother. It's great to talk to you again, as always. It's always fun. Man. Very good to do. Thank you. Do it more often. Man, I'm here. Okay, let's do it. It's always fun. Yeah. Tell everybody if they want to consume all your specials. All of it's on YouTube. All of it's on YouTube, but you can go to AliSadiq.com. The new special out, My Father, is getting busy right now.

2:42:11it is a it's a great this is a great special it really is where did you record this? that was in Detroit beautiful like I said I love what you do I love the fact that you're so prolific and you know that you've built this whole thing just on the hard work so congratulations appreciate you thank you very much it was good to see you bye bye bye

2:42:40Thank you.