#2538 - Joe DeRosa

28:47That's so funny. What are the odds? That's so funny. What are the odds? Did you ever see Autofocus, the Bob Crane movie? Yes. With Craig Kinney. What a crazy movie, man. I love that movie. That movie's crazy. Do you think the guy killed him, his buddy? Yes. I do. I do. It seems like it. I do. I think so. but that's when they show how he would get laid on the road crazy he would wait for the reruns of hogan's heroes to be on tv and they'd sit in front of the television he knew when they were on and there's that scene there's that scene where he tells the bartender goes could you put on channel 22 whatever she puts it on and he's sitting under it and then the hot chick comes up she goes oh my god is that you and he goes oh how embarrassing I think of it.

29:31Oh, my God. Well, back then, you got to think Hogan's Heroes. First of all, how much has society changed and how much more sensitive have people gotten when you think that Hogan's Heroes was a show about a Nazi concentration camp and it was a comedy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a comedy. Yeah. It was a comedy about prisoners of war that were captured by the Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. Then they made like they had like lovable Nazis lovable They made them like bumbling buddies Nobody died the show was on for like five years nobody died. No anyway How many seasons did Hogan's Heroes go 168 episodes six seasons God damn Six seasons and no one died It's they didn't kill anybody how many people died on Hogan's Heroes run that through our AI sponsor perplexity Yeah.

30:26How many people died during World War II in a Nazi prison? Not a one. Not a one. Nobody got tortured. In six years and 148 episodes. Yeah. It's so insane. Do you think, they get into a little bit of this in the movie, but they play it down. But do you think there was a lot of pushback? Do you think there was like, they were like, what are you fucking crazy? We can't make this show. This is nuts. Or was it just, eh? In the movie was there pushback? I don't remember. There's a little bit where he's like, it's kind of crazy. Almost nobody dies on screen or as a plot event in Hogan's Heroes. It was a broad comedy and the regular heroes, Hogan, Clink, Heroes, Clink, Colonel Clink, Schultz, the fucking Nazi guard.

31:12He's a hero. And the prisoners survived the series. The notable fictional death of Major Wolfgang Hostetter, who was reportedly killed during an Allied bombing raid and the commandant dies at dawn. The title is misleading. Colonel Klink is not killed. So the practical answer is one named reoccurring character with occasional unnamed wartime casualties implied rather than shown. Yeah. Nobody died, obviously. That's. Klink was like, remember, I see nothing. He saw nothing. He was always like, I got to get out of here. I see nothing. Like, they're all plotting fucking devious things to try to get back at the guards.

31:52And he was like, I see nothing. It's like having a show where the Klan connects people. And then the Klan is, like, kind of funny. The black guys are, like, break dancing. The Klan's having a good time with them. Yeah. The closest I've ever seen to it is Tarantino in Django when he makes the Klan scene funny. When they're all kind of dumb. Do you remember that scene? God, I don't remember that scene, unfortunately. There's a scene with the Klan, and I think Jonah Hill has a cameo in it, and they're all kind of dumb, and it's like funny dialogue with the Klan. You're like, I don't know how he just pulled this off, but he did.

32:26It's a scene with the bag, so they're trying to talk about the, like, my wife made mine. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my point was that if you go back to that year, like, what year was Hogan's Heroes? Was it the 70s? 65 to 71 is when it was. 65 to 71. Okay. Being on television was a very new thing. Oh, yeah. Very new thing. A sitcom star was a very new thing. It was only at the most, what, two decades old? How old is the Honeymooners? What year was that? Honeymooners are the early 50s, I believe, right? I think. And it was a spinoff of the Gleason Variety Hour, whatever the fuck that was called.

33:12It was a sketch they did It was only on TV for a year What year did it start? Originally aired from 55 to 56 Wow The Honeymooners There's only one season? So I have both Honeymooners box sets 39 episodes in one season That's a lot The main box set is called the Classic 39 Because that's all the episodes That weren't sketches on the show He did 39 episodes and he was like, we did it, it's done. It's like, nobody does that now. Right. You know, Seinfeld did it and Ricky Gervais does it. He does three seasons and he goes, that's it. They did 39 and it was a massive success and they were like, you have to do more of these.

33:58And he's like, nope, we did it. We're good. We have nothing left to say. Really? Yeah, and then they did reunion shows and shit, but like, that was it. That's wild. That's wild. He went on to do all kinds of other shit, though. He was in The Hustler in 62. He played a serious role. Minnesota Fats. He was the only guy that's ever been in a movie about a pool player that was a real pool player. He could fucking play. You watch him play in the movie, you're like, oh, okay. That's a real pool player. The way he strokes the ball. He strokes the ball like a pro. He could run, I think he ran 75 balls in a straight pool.

34:38It might be 100. But 100 balls is like the number. If you could run 100 balls in a straight pool, people are like, that guy's legit. He can run 100 balls. Yeah. And he could do that. Gleason was an incredible. What's that, Jamie? It's kind of interesting about the show. The sketches were over 35 minutes or more, and the writers felt restricted by the half-hour format. Wow. So that partially had something. Also, he had a contract issue, too. So they felt restricted because they didn't have enough. They had one more time to. They said it was too slapsticky and fast-paced, according to TV Guide. Huh.

35:16Look at this. He had$7 million left on his contract in 1956, which is crazy money. The excellence of the material could not be maintained. I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it. Wow. I mean, that is baller shit back then. Like, that is not something people were doing back then. Or he just got lazy. because he had so much money. Yeah, CBS was going to give him a three-year contract for what would have been$132 million today. He was going to get close to like a million dollars an episode. Wow. Jesus Christ. A million an episode back then? It was close to that. No, no, no, no, no. Like what today's money was.

35:53Oh, what today is. Sorry, I forget where it was on here. But even that's like kind of unheard of when Seinfeld, when it was announced they were all going to get a million an episode, I remember that was like groundbreaking. It was like this has never been done before and whatever. This guy was offered the equivalent of that back in 56 and said, nah, I'm good. Well, he probably already had so much money and he was drunk all the time. Yeah. That guy drank all the time. Yeah. He was so fun. Did you ever watch his final interview? Yes. Yes. Yeah. He's in the tracksuit just chain smoking. Oh, yeah.

36:25He didn't give a fuck. Tracksuit, chain smoking. Wow, he was making$839 ,000 now, the equivalent. But he had to pay for production costs, it says. Oh, that's different. Yeah. Oh, okay. Art Carney received$3 ,500 a week, which is$42 ,000 a week now. Audrey Meadows,$2 ,000 a week. Wow, women got fucked over back then. No, but Jackie Gleason Enterprises was running the show, so I mean. Yeah, he fucked her over is what I'm saying. Art Carney got fucking almost twice as much as her. God damn. Jesus Christ. She was his wife. Only one person got residuals. What? Reportedly, only cast member to receive residuals when they were rebroadcast.

37:12Oh, because they had to change that shit later. Yeah, that's where those strikes and the writers' union and the SAG, all that stuff plays a part. I got residuals for news radio, and they're not what you think they are. People think it's going to change your life. You never have to work again. That's only for the people like Jerry Seinfeld that own the show. The regular people that get residuals, it's nice. It's a good thing. But it makes sense. They're showing the fucking show over and over and over again. It's still your work. It does make sense. You're reselling it so it's not the original deal that you had to put it on NBC for one hour.

37:53Now it's like a thing where you're going to sell it again. And so all the actors get paid again. It makes sense. Dude, I've told you this before. I'm going to tell you again. so it's documented and i know you're not that interested but you you need to fucking keep acting dude you're fucking great on that show that is not easy i in my opinion multi-cam sitcom despite it being the easiest job in show business as far as payment time versus reward it is the hardest type of acting because it is an acting where you have to land jokes and gags and you have to make it convincing. That is very, very, very hard to do.

38:32You are so fucking good on that show. And I watch news radio all the time still. I told you last time I was here, it was one of the things that got me through COVID was doing news radio front to back. You need to keep acting. That's very nice of you. Thank you very much. But I think your idea of what's very hard to do and my idea of what's very hard to do are two totally different things. Because acting on a sitcom is easy as fuck. Okay. It's so... It's so boiling water. It's so boiling water. You know what? You know what? This is Joe DeRosa in the green room of the mothership. You know what? How many times do you have to say that at the fucking night?

39:14I go to that green room. You're all fucking... I'll go after you, dude. You walk funny. You look diseased. It's just not stuff. It's fucking easy. If you're a comic, it's easy. If you're used to doing stand-up in front of a live audience, that's a lot harder. And then the acting, they give you, especially if you're working with great people. You know, I was doing scenes with Dave Foley and Maura Tierney and all those. They were amazing. The cast was incredible. Vicki Lewis, Andy Dick, Candy Alexander, Steven Root. They were incredible. I will say this to you, though. The fact that what you just said it's easy is why I think you should be doing it I think you are a natural fucking actor and I think you're you I just pretend dude.

40:04It doesn't yeah Listen, it's not Daniel. I've never done Daniel Day-Lewis acting. That's like the real act Val Kilmer acting right in in tombstone That's real act. I think you could I don't want to do it Well, that's interesting. That's right in another life. If I had another life, I love movies I fucking love movies. You know what's a great show? What's that? A great show? It's called Lucky. And it's on Apple. What is that lady's name with the big eyes? Yeah, I watched the first episode. She's really beautiful, but very unusual looking. What is her name again? Anna Taylor-Joy. Is that her name?

40:35I think so. She was in The Queen's Gambit. She fucking killed it in The Queen's Gambit. Anya. Anya. Anya Taylor-Joy. From The Witch, right? Is she in that too? I think that was her first movie was The Witch. I didn't watch The Witch. No one in my family would watch it with me. I want to watch it. I'm a giant Robert Eggers fan. I think he fucking murdered Nosferatu. I think it was the best vampire movie by far of all time. Nosferatu was dope. The Lighthouse was dope. Have you seen the werewolf trailer that's coming out? Okay. Don't you okay me, you son of a bitch. I have. Don't you okay me, you son of a bitch.

41:09Here's what I will say. What the fuck are you going to say? I love Robert Eggers. I'm not knocking it. But it's the fourth movie he's released. we're in the trailer I see black and white footage and a lot of people twitching that's what you need that's what I'm looking for I'm like alright I just come on bro I don't know if it's gonna be different this looks phenomenal yeah it's phenomenal of course he's twitching he's turning into a werewolf what the fuck is wrong with you DeRosa there's no world where it'll be a bad movie no world doesn't exist that guy knocks it out of the park A plus every movie the witch the Northman Have you seen that?

41:48I did. Fuck. You didn't love that? I didn't love it. Get out of this room. I didn't - no. Go home. You stop. Go home. I'll tell everybody about your special after you leave. You son of a bitch. How could you not like the Northmen? I wanted more battles. I wanted more like - It was perfection. A plus. You know what took me out of the Northmen? He might be my favorite director of all time. You know what took me out of the Northmen? What? You being a pussy? No. Take it easy. fucking no I'll tell you what took me out of it Nicole Kidman having full plastic surgery in 1650 or whatever it was taking me out of it let me see what she looks like back then is she?

42:26she's in the Northmen? of course she is she rules but I think Eggers does great work or Eggers excuse me does great work oh dude he's the best I think he's my favorite director of all time next to Tarantino Tarantino's always going to be number one but this guy's because I feel like there's like levels to movies, and I think Tarantino, he's the undeniable peak of the mountain. And then everything else is pretty dope. Scorsese's got some murder. He's got some killers. But a bunch of those guys have a few lemons. You know what I mean? You're going to have some lemons when you... I mean, Scorsese's output is incredibly high, and it's like, of course, you're going to have a few duds.

43:06Well, this is one of the reasons why Tarantino's the goat, is because he figured out how to have no lemons, other than Death Proof, which Tony loves. We argue about it all the time. So I don't see plastic surgery in Nicole Kidman. They showed her for a second. Yeah, she looked good. I don't think she's in the trailer a lot. That was nuts. Let me see Nicole Kidman. And that was a long movie. That was a long time ago, this movie, right? What year was this? It's probably pre-COVID, I think. I think so. I think it's like 2017 or 18. Does it say, Jamie? I'm amazed with Robert Eggers that he gets wide release theatrical releases with the types of movies he does.

43:49I think it's because they sell. They fucking sell, dude. I mean, they're so good. They're so good. People love them and they go to see them. I mean, it's really that simple. It's wild. What year was it, Jamie? Four years ago. Oh, really? That was only four years ago? Oh, shit. It was post-COVID. Crazy. I thought it was three. See if you can find a photo of Nicole Kidman from that. And I'm obviously not saying the movie's bad because Nicole Kidman had plastic surgery, but it does take me out of it when I see somebody doing a period piece. See, that doesn't look like plastic surgery to me. She looks totally normal.

44:22Maybe it's just because I remember. Maybe you just want her to have plastic surgery because you're a hater. I'm not shitting on Nicole Kidman, by the way. You seem to be a little bit of a hater. She looks perfect. She's got a, yeah. What are you saying? A little work. She looks perfect. A little work. A little work. I don't see work, dude. I see a beautiful face you son of a bitch fuck is wrong with you go So down there when she's with Anya Taylor joy right there. That's her right there so that That looks a little fillery Unfortunately that look I think has gone away though. I think ladies are realizing that nobody likes it.

44:54No the filler face Did you see the trailer for this thing the neuromancer? No So what's the nerds are super pumped? This is like the story where like oh, I've heard the matrix came out of this so I it's going to be a TV show actually it's not even a movie wait how do you mean the Matrix came out the ideas of like jacking in and stuff like that yes who wrote that book off the top of my head from 1984 William Gibson yeah this is supposed to be a movie that people were concerned was like impossible to or a book rather that people were concerned was impossible to translate into a film correctly Okay, I don't know why because I haven't read the book but I've read that argument like there's no way you're ever gonna really Just jacked in and now he's like in some new space Which I don't again.

45:44I haven't read it either. I don't snow spoiler alert or anything So I don't know much about it, but people are very pumped that they attempted this and it looks cool Hmm, but but wait a second. So did the matrix just take all of its ideas from here? No here. I'll find out what I mean when I said that okay Lucky watch this so lucky it's on Apple TV is only as seven episodes and it's only going to be one season I think. I just started watching the shards which I'm feeling the term cyberspace came out of that book and then like there you go consensual consensual hallucination experience daily by billions of authorized the matrix actually itself I think came out of there.

46:23Ooh well that's coming right? That's coming. He was ahead of his time he figured it out so now this is a weird thing okay and this is the thing you notice with with these directors that break through and do an amazing first movie and then it's kind of followed by a lot of ho-hum stuff you mean the matrix yeah well the wachowskis the matrix was this cultural phenomenon it changed everything and blah blah blah blah their movies after that except for maybe v for vendetta none of them really ever lived up to that so now we're seeing this and i'm like well did they just get all the great ideas for the matrix from this other thing?

47:04And then they made a great movie. And then that's why they were never able to kind of hit that again. Every matrix sequel is terrible. They're literally jacking in the same exact way through the back of the head. Yeah. It's the same thing. And they're saying the term, the matrix came out of the, that's crazy. I thought they made that up. You know, they got sued too. Cause some lady wrote, um, I think it was a graphic novel. It might've been a short story or graphic novel. I forget what it was. But she wrote a story and brought it to them, apparently. Well, she also said she wrote The Terminator for both things.

47:40So is she just a kook? That's a kook. She had a manuscript titled The Third Eye from 1980s. And she, yeah, I saw the story. I remember when. Let me tell you why she's a kook. Do you know the story? Well, because he mentioned The Terminator. Harlan Ellison wrote an episode of The Outer Limits. It was called Demon with the Glass Hand. Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron when The Terminator came out. And he goes, that's my fucking story. I did it on The Outer Limits in the 60s. And Harlan Ellison got paid. And they were like, yeah, it's actually kind of the same thing. Huh. So this lady did not write The Terminator in the 80s.

48:20Well, it could be multiple influences. But. It could be. Multiple inspirations, right? It could be. The worst one is, and I'm a fan of the guy. We're not accusing anyone of plagiarizing, but we're saying if someone was going to plagiarize, why wouldn't they plagiarize from multiple sources? You can't just say just because he stole a giant chunk of it from that one episode of a show. That doesn't mean that he didn't steal a bunch of other stuff. And I'm not saying anybody stole anything. Right, right. I don't think James Cameron stole a goddamn thing. I don't think he stole anything. I think he saw it.

48:54I think he might not have even seen it. there's a lot of parallel thinking when it comes to this concept of AI and robots being like people. It's in Battlestar Galactica. Sure, sure. I mean, it's like there's a lot of that where people become robots. It's in the original Alien movie, 1979, remember? Right. There's a fucking artificial intelligence that is their guy that they don't know is a robot until it has, I think they beat it to death. How'd they find out that it's a robot? It's I think they they kill it. They not knock its head off And that's how they find out it's a robot blanking on the act.

49:32It's it's re um, oh god the guy's a great actor He's one of my favorites and I'm blanking on his name So this is 79 that they did that right so that's the Terminator like these concepts have been around for a long time the concepts of Artificial intelligence taking over. I think it was more the plot line of this this robot comes back Oh, in time? It was something like that. Oh. And I don't think James Cameron stole it either because there's no other evidence of him ever swiping something. But I do think we all do this thing where we see something, we don't remember, it goes into the subconscious.

50:06And maybe you go, I got a great idea. And you're not realizing, oh, actually, that's a thing I saw when I was 10. He's pretty intensely creative, like an original. I don't imagine that he would do that. I would. I would hope not. I don't think so. But Harlan Ellison did win. the case. Interesting. I wonder how much he got. Pay! How much did Harlan Ellison get for that lawsuit? Did they disclose it? Or did they pay him just to shut the fuck up? Well, Ellison is... I mean, he is... Everybody that loves sci-fi, he's their favorite sci-fi guy. Really? That's a bold statement. He's the guy. Ellison is the guy.

50:48You should read up on Harlan Ellison. You would love... I probably should. There's not enough time to consume all the things. Yeah There's so many things to consume Dispute ended out-of-court settlement. There you go rather than a court ruling on what so they just paid him to shut the fuck up so they probably gave him a Fat check. Yeah, there it is soldier and demon with the glass hand involved combatants from a future war Arriving in the president including a relentless futuristic soldier sent to kill Ellison argued that the Terminator borrowed this core setup Commentators often mention his Outer Limits episode, Demon with the Glass Hand, but Ellison himself reportedly said his principal claim concerned Soldier, not that episode.

51:32So it seemed like it wasn't, maybe it was more than one thing. Hmm. Either way. You could, you know, it's like every werewolf movie is a guy gets bit by a werewolf. Sure. You know what I mean? Sure. You could say no one can make a werewolf movie anymore because of the wolf man. Because you're all stealing from the wolf man. Well, I think the difference is that's werewolf mythology overall. Right. That's true. That's true. Versus, you know what I mean? That's true. Yeah, of course. I mean, that's, yeah. Bad example. It's not an original story. But you would love Harlan Ellison because he was just.

52:11I'm sure. My favorite story of his is he talked about when he was in college and he goes, My literary professor said I had no talent, so I got expelled because I punched him in the throat.

52:23He's a maniac. Maniac. God, how many bad teachers have ruined a kid's future by telling them they have no talent? Yeah, right? How many? It's nuts. So many. There's so many stories like that. So many stories of some shitty teacher. It's nuts. Did you have when you were getting into well, well How old were you when you said I'm gonna go do comedy? I'm not gonna do any of the shit that I studied in school. I'm gonna actually I barely studied in school I only went to school because I didn't want to be a loser literally I went to UMass Boston Like the continuing education program. So I didn't have to take my SATs.

52:59I only went for three years I was wasting my time and the whole time I was doing it I was fighting and that was my primary concern That was what I was thinking about and I was teaching at Boston University. Oh, you mean like like MMA fighting Okay, okay boxing and taekwondo. Okay, um and that was my concern I really was the the but you tell people you know, oh, what do you do? Oh, I'm a taekwondo fighter Fucking loser you fucking loser I'm totally I would not tell people what I did. I'm going to school. I'm going to UMass Boston That was literally that's what I was doing. Oh my god. That's so fucking funny dude four times state taekwondo champion Had fought all over the country.

53:42I didn't know that yeah I knew you've had fighting in your background. I didn't know you were champ and stuff Yeah, I was really good when I was young at taekwondo. I was really good What made you switch gears from that to go into comedy? Well first of all there's no future in it There was no future. I tried out for the Olympics in 88. I made it to the nationals I won the states and I made it to nationals. I made it to the third fight in the nationals and I lost. That was in Miami in 88. And then I realized, like, I wasn't as enthusiastic about it anymore. Oh, yeah, you got extra cigarettes? Thank you.

54:15Look at that. Here. I knew you might want some. Leave them there for everybody. Yeah, yeah. And then I was also getting brain damage and I was very aware of that. I would lie in bed at night after sparring and my head would be ringing just throbbing just boom boom boom boom Jesus Christ I was like I'm doing this for free there's no money in this I'm not making any money holy shit yeah I was sparring a lot especially kickboxing sparring I was getting hit a lot it was a lot of like kickboxing wars and it was just not worth it it was just not and I was realizing like i gotta get out before i become that guy at the gym because there were some guys that i had met and then i'd watch them deteriorate a little during the time that i knew them and i was training with them i watched their personalities change i watched them get like slower like i could see their movement was compromised because they got brain damage they've been knocked out a few times and i was realizing like oh this is a real problem and no one seems to be thinking about it everyone's like pretending it doesn't exist because they just want to be a tough guy and they just want to fight and win and it becomes the thing you do and the thing you do is the only thing you know and if that thing is bowling then you bowl every night you know if that thing is golf then you golf every day if that thing is fighting you're fighting all the time yeah and it was uh by the time I was and I was also realizing there's no future in this I'm not going to ever have any money I'm always going to be poor I'm always going to be like wondering where my next paycheck's coming from.

55:50This is, there's no money in this. And there was no UFC back then. And I got talked into doing standup by my friends. That's literally how it started. This episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee, the only coffee we drink here at the JRE Studios. America's 250th birthday celebration may be over for some brands, but not for Black Rifle Coffee. They've celebrated America since their founding in 2014 and continue supporting the communities that make America strong. Last year, they eliminated$34 million in veterans' medical debt. That's real relief to families who serve our nation. And this year, they're doing it again, aiming to eliminate even more.

56:27Beyond financial support, Black Rifle lives its mission. Every month, they send their employees to support initiatives by the boot campaign, Folds of Honor, and others giving back to veterans, first responders, and their families. Every bag, box, or can directly supports that mission. You can grab killer roasts like Just Black. That's my favorite. Spirit of 76 or the extra caffeinated Waken the Neighbors at Walmart, your local Black Rifle coffee shop, or if you're in Texas at HEB. Veteran-founded, American-roasted Black Rifle coffee is America's coffee. And that was it. I mean, you moved fairly fast, right, through stand-up.

57:03Well, see, I did half-hour comedy hour, MTV half-hour comedy hour. I was like... I got five years in, five years into stand-up. And then I got on the television show, Hardball, the show I did with Jim Brewer. Yeah. Did that, flew out here, or flew out to California, rather. And that got canceled after six episodes. And then I got news radio right away. So I only auditioned for two shows ever. Wow. Hardball and news radio. And I got both of them. It was the luckiest streak of all time. No acting class. I took a couple of acting classes that I had to take when Disney gave me the money, the first development deal.

57:44They said, do you know how to act? I'm like, I don't know. Why are you guys giving me money? It made no sense. They just wanted to put me on a sitcom. And, you know, this was in the 90s when sitcoms were like Roseanne and Seinfeld. It was a gold mine. If you could find a personality that you thought was someone who would click on a sitcom that people would want to watch, you know, every Tuesday night or whatever it was, they were they were willing to pay you a lot of money and then all of a sudden i was out in la but it was never a desire of mine so because it wasn't a desire of mine i didn't get nervous like i didn't get nervous during auditions i was it was not a it was not a thing where i'm like this could change my life this could be it it was like what am i doing here yeah what is this what am i doing here it's um it's you're you're good at it that's what you're fucking doing there Man, it's not it's not hard dude.

58:35It's again. It's not real acting. It's not you know Marlon Brando It's it's just you're just pretending that this thing is happening in the the newsroom. It's not hard It's fucking easy. I mean the meantime I'm doing jujitsu I was still sparring back then so I'd go to the jet center and kickbox at spar and so I'd go to work I'm like this is so easy This is so easy compared to stand-up and kickboxing and everything else. When you said you were noticing damage happening because of your head throbbing and ringing, did you notice any other effects or did you cut it off before any effects could actually, you know, like actual things that were affecting you?

59:19No, I didn't notice anything like I was compromised or I couldn't think well or I was forgetting things. It wasn't like that. I think I cut it off before I got that bad. But I definitely got some brain damage 100 % and I think it plays a part of my impulsiveness in my I You know I like scary things. I like I like things that make me nervous I like things that are really hard to do and I think that might be part of that right is that I got rattled a bunch of times in My formative years yeah Because from 15 to 21 who knows how many times I got hit in the head yeah a lot you're you're we're we're very different in that way you're you're you're a guy that i think like very much likes a a challenge the conquering the challenge you know uh you know well it keeps me sane that's what keeps me sane i think you make your the voluntary things that you engage in that are way more difficult than the rest of your life it makes the rest of your life easier because these hard things that you do voluntarily voluntary adversity you force yourself to do hard things all the time so then when other things that are seemingly hard come up you're like oh this ain't shit compared to a cold plunge this ain't shit i just did a workout a hypoxia workout and uh so it's at i have a box in my studio that goes to it takes all the air out so it puts you at the equivalent of 15 000 feet uh above sea level and you do this interval training so you You do sprints on the Airdyne machine.

1:00:55You get off of that, and you do these kettlebell cleans and presses or swings, and you get off of that, and then you do the sled, and you push the sled, or you do backwards on the sled, and it's got varying resistance. And you do them in these 50-second, 40-second, and then 30-second sprints. So, like, everything else is easy. God damn, dude. I'm just – I can't. I admire it. I admire the shit out of it. Well, it's just for me, I think everybody should do something hard. It keeps it keeps me sane. For me, I need it. I don't know. You know, I'm not other people. I don't I don't pretend to know how they feel, but I know how I feel.

1:01:37If I don't exercise regularly, I have more anxiety. I don't feel comfortable. I don't feel good. I'm more irritable. I don't like it. I don't like that feeling when I am like when I work out really hard and I do the things that I'm supposed to do. I feel great. I feel friendly. I feel happy. I feel light. I feel like life is easy. Yeah, it's a thing. I'm not blowing smoke. It's a thing I've noticed about you. You're a very, I would even say happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Like, you're very friendly. You're always in a very good mood. I've very rarely seen you, and I see you frequently now at the club, very rarely seen you come in where you're like, eh, fuck.

1:02:18Like, I don't think ever, to be honest with you. and it's I guess everything you're saying like it puts you in choice it's a choice to feel like that that that don't do you any good unless you're trying to do something with that fuck this unless you've got some shit you have to get done that's hard and you want to have this attitude where you're going to attack it like fuck this like regular life like why why why why upset why why you're not in Gaza right what are you doing you're not you're not in Ukraine hiding in a fucking bunker like what are you talking about yeah what are you bitching about yeah you you're living an easy life in america and you're rich right like what how dare i be upset sure how dare i sure imagine sure with the the fortune the luck that i've had in this life how me being pissed off at things that's why it doesn't bother me when people talk shit about me either i'm like okay like talk that shit you could have fun you could teach remember when youtube was doing those master classes where like a guy would sit down and like Steve Martin would be like, I'm going to teach you how to do right comedy or whatever.

1:03:21And David Mamet did one on writing or whatever. You could do a master class on YouTube in how to let the shit roll off your back. Because I am astounded at how much it does not bother you when people are releasing clips and talking this and it's all bullshit, whatever. And you're just like, yeah, whatever, man. Have fun. Knock yourself out. It doesn't – you can't stop people from having an opinion. There's always going to be people that have an opinion. And then in this market of hot takes, there's always going to be people and their opinion is – negative opinions are more valuable in terms of the commodity of attention.

1:04:02Attacking someone, calling someone out, it's more valuable in this commodity. And then there's people that have legitimate differing opinions of me and they don't like this and they don't like that. and the only guy said this or they don't like this person that I had on, what am I supposed to do? Address all of it? Even think about it? I police myself as much as I can. Believe me. If I fuck something up, I'm mad at me more than anybody's mad at me. Right. So that way I get it out on my own. I don't need a lot of external validation. I don't need any. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in doing the best that I can, and I hope people like it, and that's it.

1:04:41I went the little shit gets me man. I know it does. I get like you need an outlet Joe DeRosa You need a physical outlet to calm your mind. Yes, that's what you need You need to get a trainer just hire a trainer. We talked about this. We have been talking about it get a trainer Yeah, because you're not gonna do it on your own Get someone who you show up three times a week And they put you through the paces and a smart trainer will do it nice and slow so the first few workouts It won't even be that hard. You leave there. You'll feel like energized. You won't feel exhausted. You'll feel like, oh, all right.

1:05:15I did a little something. Feel good. And then he's like, okay, this is a process. You know, we're going to keep ramping this up slowly but surely. But you're never going to be like, oh my God, I can't fucking move. I went to my fucking trainer. He's killing me. My back is killing. I can't get off the couch. No, no, no, no, no, no. A good trainer is going to look at you, ask you what have you been doing? When was the last time you worked out? How often you do okay let's start here and they'll start you off with some simple body weight stuff they'll put you through some different mobility exercises different stuff to just get the get the joints lubed up get everything moving and then build your body up nice and slow nice and slow yeah my boy chuck uh you know chuck mexican ot's dad chuck yes he chuck right when you and i talked about when you were like, you should get a trainer, Chuck said to me, unprompted, he goes, Joe, let me train with you.

1:06:10Dude, take him up on it. Yeah, and he goes, I'll come to your apartment. Let's just go. I'll come to your apartment. Dude, that guy's jacked. Yeah. Take him up on it. He knows what he's doing. And he said everything you just said. He goes, we're going to go slow. It's not going to be this overwhelming thing. Because I get overwhelmed easily, obviously. And I was like, Chuck, it's going to be too much. And he goes, we're not going to do that. We're going to take it really slow. Let me just come to your place, whatever. And so I think I'm going to start doing it with them because I just need to.

1:06:37If you go to the wrong trainer, there's some trainers out there that are meatheads or they don't really know what they're doing. And they'll beat you down. And they're like, we're going to fucking push it today. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't push it when someone doesn't work out. When someone doesn't work out, you go nice and slow, nice and easy. And then you slowly build up to the point where you can push it. Right. You don't take a fucking Prius and you drive it around the racetrack sideways. It's not designed for that. The suspension is going to fall off. The wheels are going to – there's no traction.

1:07:09You've got no tires. You're going to have to build up everything. And then once it gets built up, then you can push it. So once you get into – look at Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll lost literally almost 300 pounds, which is crazy. Now he's running on the treadmill. He did six miles when we came in to do a podcast. We're all working out together Right and he's fucking running on the treadmill while we're talking we're talking he said look he can breathe He can talk he's running a good clip got in the sauna with me did the whole thing When I first met him he's 500 pounds. Oh, yeah could barely make it up to the stairs to the comedy club He couldn't couldn't walk up the stairs Now he's fit now.

1:07:50He's healthy. He runs all the time Yeah. So it's just a process of building to get to that place. Like he did that show. McConaughey has this benefit every year and we went to the benefit and he performed at the benefit. And he's on stage and we were backstage watching it. And so we're like me and Tony and his girl, my wife, we're in the corner watching this. Jelly gets off stage and there's a railing like a ramp to get off. He grabs the railing and hops over it and lands on the other side. I go, dude, do you know what you just did? I go, you used to be 500 pounds. And now you just jumped over that railing like a cat.

1:08:29That's wild. It was amazing. That's wild. He was so happy. He's like, isn't this crazy? I'm like, it's crazy. Look what you've done. That's wild. And that's what you have to do. And it took him years. And that's how you have to do it. It has to be slowly but short. But along the way, you'll feel better every step of the way. It's not about breaking your body down. It's about slowly introducing movement and some physical exercise and then building upon that. Ten push-ups in a day. Then the next day, you try 12. And then a week later, you're doing 15. And then two weeks after that, maybe you can do 20 in a row or three weeks, a month, two months, whatever it is.

1:09:10Everybody's got their own timing. Bodyweight squats, very simple. Start with 10. No big deal. Get to 90 degrees, pack up. Just enough, just to get the blood moving. Walking is fucking great. You know what's really great? Walking with a weighted vest. Not that hard to do. Put a 20-pound vest on, 25-pound vest on, walk around the block. Yeah. It's fucking great for you. Yeah. There's a lot of different things that you could do that don't crush you. And then you're just going to feel a little better. You'll have a little bit of more vitality, more blood flow. And then you build upon that. That's the key.

1:09:44I was building slow. I was doing three days a week and it was getting better and better and better. And then end of the summer hit, August hit. I started going on the road again. And all of a sudden it starts to taper off because you're like, now I got to fly on this day when I'm usually doing my thing. And I got lazy and I got to get back into it. I got to get back into it. But the good thing is this, with what you're saying with the slow build, when I start again, I'm able to start where I stopped. I'm able to start there again. You know what I mean? Right, rather than where you began. Exactly.

1:10:17That's great. Yeah. Listen, man, it's all about momentum. Discipline is very important, but really momentum makes discipline a lot easier. You know, it's like you say, oh, you've got really good discipline. I'm like, sort of. I got started. Once you get started, it's more about momentum than it is about discipline. Right. And then it's also about writing things down. If you just write it down, you have to do it. Right. Write it down and make a check. That way, instead of keeping this thing in my head, oh, I'm just going to figure out my own workout. I'll do this. I'll do that. No, I have a whiteboard.

1:10:51I write down on the whiteboard. This is what we're doing. And then you just do it. Yeah, I had a list in my phone. These are your exercise, 20 reps of each of these. Perfect. And I just kept adding exercises to it. I don't know a good app, but I'm sure there's some out there that are a really good workout app that will vary your workout every day based upon your level, based upon how much experience you have. I try it's there can the apps get confusing I tried a couple of them and there's got to be a good one out there I just don't know what they are it's a lot of questions that I'm like I don't fucking know man that's because they're trying to make it good they're going to try to make an app that you know gives you what you need but yeah exercise apps again there's there's good ones I'm sure but exercise apps kind of became like dating apps where there's a million that are all saying we're going to change your life in three days and you're like no i think most important is a real good trainer is more important because he can correct your form in real time tell you why don't do it like that you're going to hurt your back don't do it like this you're putting too much pressure on this and that and you're not balanced whatever it is he can get you to do it correctly which is more important than anything yeah when especially once you start actually lifting weights you know pavel tatsulin who's the uh he's the guy who really brought kettlebells to popularity in America, this Russian cat, and great system of training.

1:12:13But one of the things that he said that really stuck with me, he said, strength is a skill. And you should think of strength as a skill. So when you're working on your skills, like kettlebell cleans and presses, you shouldn't be exhausted. You should do, he does, instead of doing it to failure, you know, like a lot of people like to work to fail, like imagine you can clean and press 50 pounds 10 times until you're like really exhausted. And on the 10th time, you're really kind of cooked. Don't do 10. You do five. Just do five. And then wait a long time. Wait like five minutes. Rest up completely and then do another five.

1:12:48Do it that way. That's interesting. Because that way you're always fresh and you're working on skill. You're still getting the same amount of repetitions, but you're not torturing your tissue. You're not taxing your system. You're learning it. And you're not taking any shortcuts. You're not moving weird. You're not leading into something in a weird way. You're going to hurt yourself because you're all out of line. You're doing everything with correct form because you're not exhausted. Yeah. But you're still getting the same amount of work in. The rest time is interesting because I always thought, well, like, I was doing two different types of push-ups.

1:13:19I was doing the fucking 45 finger spread, down, hold, up, whatever. And I could get through 20 of those. Initially, I couldn't. And then when I was able to get through 20, I was like, holy shit. And then I was doing a different push-up with the arms back like this. and those when I got to that I'd hit 10 and I'd be like fuck and then I'd sit for a minute and then I a minute would go about I'd be like you got to do the other 10 because if you don't if you wait too long I always thought waiting too long was a bad thing but you're saying no actually rest five minutes take take a breath there's nothing wrong with it as long as you have the time to do the same amount of reps you just want to get enough work in so your body forces is adaptation.

1:14:03It doesn't have to be all to failure. Now, again, depends on what we're trying to do, right? If you're trying to build up muscular endurance, then yeah, you go to failure. It depends on what you're trying to do. If you're just trying to get stronger, that's a different thing. And then, you know, obviously I do different kinds of workouts. Like the workout I did today, it's all exhaustion stuff. It's all sprinting. It's not like the kettlebell stuff. This is all high altitude and it's all like maximum intensity on the airdyne bike, maximum intensity on the sled, maximum intensity on the kettlebell cleans, you're beating yourself up because you're only doing it for 50 seconds and then, or 60 seconds, 40 seconds, and then 30 seconds.

1:14:43So it's like, I do a bunch of different kinds of exercises, but when I do like strength stuff, I don't ever do it to failure. Can you do, is there a thing, like some people go, the 100 pushups a day, whatever, that's their thing. I always wondered, well, is it the same if you do 100 pushups just throughout the day? 100%. 100%. Doesn't matter if you start at nine and finish at three. Farmers don't lift hay to failure, right? They pick up a bale of hay, they chuck it under the pile, they go back to get another one. They pick up a bale of hay, they chuck it on the pile, they go back to get another They push a wheelbarrow.

1:15:20They fucking hammer a post down. They do a bunch of different things. They do it all throughout the day. But they're never doing anything where they're just, very rarely at least, where they're lying flat on their back, breathing. They think they're going to have a fucking heart attack. They never have that. They never get to the point where they're dropping the bale of hay because their arms are shaking. And they're like, one more rep. But yet they get ridiculously fucking strong. Why? Because of all the work. It doesn't have to be work to failure. In our mind, we think, oh, you have to go to failure in order to get stronger.

1:15:53And again, we're talking about very specific things, getting stronger, using kettlebells especially, but you can do dumbbells and other things as well. If you're now, if you're doing something else, like if you're trying to get maximum amount of bench press, if you're trying to win a competition or maximum amount of chin-ups you can do, then it's a different thing. We're talking about a different thing. But if you're just talking about overall building strength for your body, the most important thing is volume, I think. Okay. And it's – if you can – like I said, I think this principle that Pavel Tatsulian has is a really good one.

1:16:31That instead of doing 10, if you do 10 to failure, do 5, wait a while, do 5 again. And I think it lessens the opportunity to get injured. You're much less likely to get injured doing it that way. I'm very rarely injured from working out very rare from just kettlebell stuff like very rarely right all right All right, you're inspiring me to hop back in and and and start doing it again I gotta I've really you just gotta get somebody to help you, you know get Mexican OT's dad Yeah, get him to help you. Yeah, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, yeah No, that dude's fucking jacked. Yeah, that's that's perfect guy And what he said is the right – like, he knows what he's doing.

1:17:12That's why he's the guy, to get you to do it nice and slow and just build you up. And also, he's fun. He's cool to hang out with. Yeah. You like that, too. You don't want to be an annoying trainer. It's always asking you to post about him on Instagram. Yeah. Fuck off. You know what I mean? Yeah. You think you post, I got an energy drink I'm trying to promote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get those DMs from guys. Exhausting. Yeah. All right. I'm back. There you go. You're back. I'm back in, baby. Bro, I read the craziest thing today, and I need to find out if it's true. I sent you the thing where Nick Fuentes was talking about, Jamie.

1:17:48So apparently there was this plot where Iran was trying to kill Trump. Remember when he was supposed to get in the Air Force One that Cotter gave him? Mm-hmm. And then instead he flew in the old Air Force One? Okay. Well, they're saying that he actually didn't even go in the old Air Force One, that they snuck him out on a truck, like some fucking cargo truck, and then put him in another kind of plane and flew him out of there. And then they put the press in Air Force One because they were apparently worried they were going to target Air Force One as well. So imagine Trump put the press on Air Force One and they were thinking about possibly targeting them.

1:18:33Holy shit. He hid in an airport catering container and was taken to a military jet for a secret flight out of the country after the NATO summit last month. And this is being reported by the New York Times. The thing is, though, I think they put the press on Air Force One. So if they flew him out, it was because they were worried they were going to try to take down Air Force One. And they took the press. If you take the press off, then they know that we know. You've got to let them know that we're not playing games. Just everything's normal. Exactly. And if the press dies, so sad. Oh my God. You just get more press.

1:19:09That's fucking wild. If that's true, that is so wild that he didn't even tell them, hey guys, we're not really going to get on this plane. No one's getting on this plane. You guys get out of here. Go take American Airlines home. No. He's like, hop on. It's safe. Yeah. It's Air Force One. Guys, my gift to you. Take Air Force One. Enjoy it. There's food up. There's sandwiches on there. Enjoy yourself. Is that absolutely what happened? It says reporters on the older plane were not told that Mr. Trump had not flown with them from Turkey to an air base in Britain, making them unwitting participants in the ruse and leaving them along with some White House staff members to serve as unknowing decoys.

1:19:50Holy shit. After they arrived in Britain, he was secretly moved back to the older version of Air Force One. Bro. Jesus Christ. Those press people were signing up for something they didn't know. They didn't know what they were signing up for. And they didn't tell them at all that when you want to know who's more important, you or the president, that's when you find out. They just throw you on Air Force One. Shrimp cocktail. It's like - Boom! All of a sudden you turn into fucking protons. It's like fucking Goodfellas when he's telling Karen to go, go down and get the dresses. Go ahead, go ahead.

1:20:26There's dresses. No, I'm okay.

1:20:32Karen, why? Holy shit. That is fucking wild. Isn't that crazy? That is fucking wild. That's crazy. Yeah. Has there been backlash? Jamie, are they saying anything? Who? Who's saying anything? The press. I would imagine they're a little perturbed That would perturb me Jesus Christ That's so crazy Holy shit Imagine if it blew up It's like I should have been there I wanted to be there with them when they died They're heroes He would probably talk shit about them Oh my god Maybe they had written nicer things about me I would have told them Oh my god I just watched Michael, the Michael Jackson movie.

1:21:21How was it? Look, it's the first part of his life up till bad. They don't get into any of the crazy shit. They're saying they're making a sequel that they might get into some of the crazy shit, but it was fun. I'm a big Michael Jackson fan. It was fun to watch, but I started reading up on Michael Jackson afterwards because I was like, it just was very nostalgic to watch. Do you know this? When he died, he was pronounced dead at Neverland Ranch and they lied to the press and said that he was at a hospital already and pronounced dead because they had to get the body out of Neverland Ranch and they knew if he pronounced him dead at Neverland Ranch they wouldn't be able to get the fucking body out of the goddamn house.

1:22:03Why? Because they said the press would leak it and the clamoring of fans and whatever else would literally have blocked them from getting the fuck from transporting the body So they had to lie and say he's dead already, but he's at this hospital and it was a decoy because that's how fucking famous he was. They were like we can't drive his dead body from this location to another or we're never going to get it. Steal the body. I want to get a finger. Yeah, something. Get a finger. Yeah. We would have garden clippers. Something. Try to steal. And here's another crazy thing because I know you've talked about the Michael Jackson, like the conspiracies around his death on the show before.

1:22:42there's another crazy thing I didn't know he owned you know he had that vast music catalog that he bought of music publishing right he owned the Beatles Beatles Eminem he bought Eminem Eminem made fun of him in a video and he bought Eminem's fucking catalog so fuck you the most pimp move ever I'm gonna buy all your fucking music that's so gangster yeah right so he owns his catalog right it's it's it's i think he he might have owned dylan it was crazy that the the rights to the music that he owned was nuts right he's with sony sony wants the publishing back on all these artists and he owns it and when he did his last album he had to take out a loan against the record company of 200 million dollars to do the album because he didn't have a lot of money left and they said you got to put up collateral and he goes all right I'm gonna I'll put up a portion of the catalog as collateral and then he before he died he goes they're not promoting my album and because they're not promoting my album it's not selling and then everybody close to him said it was a ruse they didn't promote the album on purpose so that he would lose the fucking catalog because he wouldn't be able to pay the loan back and then right after that he died.

1:24:07Really fucked up. That's the business he was in. Yeah. You buy people shit, they fuck you over. That's how it works. Yeah, yeah. Come on, man. Well, it's dark, though. You're playing war. You're playing war. If they blow up Air Force One, you gotta go, hey, maybe we shouldn't have fucking killed the leader during Ramadan. This is how it works. This is the game we're in. This is the business we chose. Hey, listen, he's in the business of fucking over his enemies. They decided he was their enemy they fucked him over the doctor that administered the drug that killed him is out of jail already two years and they're like no this guy was just a fall guy well you know the thing about the doctor is he was asking the doctor to do that the doctor shouldn't have done that it's not like the doctor killed him on purpose like he wanted to get anesthetized i think he was so crazy that he couldn't sleep and he was so out of his fucking mind.

1:25:03And he was probably on a bunch of stuff. He probably wasn't just on propofol. If you're willing to take propofol to go to sleep, what else are you taking? You're taking some other things. The doctor, the one thing that he said that I found very fascinating was that he said that Michael had been chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice. I've heard that. Yeah. And it makes sense. It completely makes sense. If you look at his body, it makes sense. his body looks like it's devoid of testosterone yes it has no testosterone he's very thin if you look at his brothers they're all thick they're all like big dudes yeah germane they're all like men they look like men like thick men yeah he looks thin and he looks very different than them that's not normal yeah that's not normal that is that's not even normal if you don't work out and he was a dancer so he was incredibly athletic right so in all the working out that he did he should have been supple i mean he was obviously he could move so good i mean he was his movement was incredible did you ever see that bob fossey movie that apparently he got all those moves from the one well okay so which the miniseries that sam rockwell was in or all that jazz there was a movie no before that along earlier and it's bob fossey doing all the dance moves that michael jackson did.

1:26:25I know what movie you're talking about. It's him and like a little kid. Yes, yes, yes. He's in the desert and doing... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's literally all of Michael Jackson's signature dance moves come from this one movie. Watch this. Watch how he moves. Yep. So there's this. He's doing this, but then he also moonwalks. Like, look at this. Like, all this, this is Michael Jackson. Wow. I mean, 100%. Yo, wow. Look at this. The kick and the point with the toes and putting it down the movement Yeah, yeah I mean that's it's literally every movie does look at that that that point with the kick and the toes Even the outfit it's a 1974 movie the little prince.

1:27:13Yeah little prince rather even the outfit with the fedora bro, you know literally that's you he He mirrored his movements. It is incredible that Bob Fosse had the stamina and ability to keep dancing like that for his entire life until he dropped dead. Because if you watch the Sam Rockwell miniseries, Fosse and Veardin, which is an amazing miniseries, that guy, bro, he was, I mean, it was intake. That's all it was. He'd wake up. He's popping fucking pills. Speed. Boom, boom, boom. coke booze cigarettes all day long chain smoking chain smoking smith chains with drunk through the whole fucking day popping pills doing coke and the fact that he could still stand and not just stand choreograph broadway shows for hours and be that agile whatever is that's insane to me because he loved it it's insane that's the thing find the thing you love find that thing and you will have the energy to pursue it.

1:28:17It's really it. But, but aren't you, aren't you a little amazed that, that his intake of substance could not, would not hinder it at any time? It's kind of crazy, you know? But I mean, we've seen that before, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's, yeah. Yeah. I, I hear you. There's, there's people that have unreal tolerances like Shane with, with booze. it's unreal when you see him pound 16 bud lights and not a slur not a stammer it's nothing doesn't miss a beat puts the sunglasses on it starts getting crazy like we do protect our parks and he'll have a stack of empties at the end you're like that is insane you should be dead you should literally be dead my favorite chain story ever ever i don't mean to tell his story but this is my favorite Shane story ever.

1:29:10And I was, the other day I go, dude, you have to do that on tires. It's so funny. He said he ate chicken fingers. And he felt sick. And he goes to the doctor, because he's like, I think I have food poisoning or something. Looks like something's wrong, right? So he goes, he goes, the doctor goes, you know, he's asking all the questions. How much do you do this? Whatever. And he goes, how many drinks do you have in a week? And Shane said he took a beat. And he's like, I'm going to be honest for once. and he goes, 80.

1:29:4480 is so crazy. Oh, that's so crazy. He said the doctor starts laughing and he goes, no, come on, man, seriously. And he goes, 80. And the doctor goes, it's not the chicken fingers, man. You drink 80 drinks a week, right? And I go, what happened? He goes, I went home. I threw up. I was fine the next day. It was the chicken fingers.

1:30:10Dude, we were at Chappelle's summer camp thing, the ranch thing, and we're hanging out, and I'm about to go on. Shane goes, come on, man, have a drink. Have a drink. I go, dude, I already had two, man. I got to go on, dude. I got to be careful. He goes, have another drink, dude. You'll be fine. I go, Shane, I don't want to be tipsy. He goes, what number drink is that for you? I go, three. He goes, I've had 17 Bud Lights. Have another fucking drink. He doesn't want to be alone in drunk land. He wants you to be there with him in happy drunk land. He's a happy drunk, though. The best. I love him.

1:30:51He's so fun. He's such a fun dude. He's such a unique person. He's very different than anybody I've ever met. He's like, you would think by, you know, you hear him talk. You'd think like he's similar to someone you know, but he's not. Yeah. Different dude. Fucking smart as shit, too. knows a fuckload about history loves history loves it man loves history and yeah he's a very unique specimen he's and as you said a very fun drunk I was just down at the beach with him and he was on the beach all day and I was at the house I called it early and I was just kind of chilling out inside with McCusker and Tommy watching a movie we were just chilling and Shane came back from the beach and he was all fucking tuned up from White Claws or wherever he was drinking.

1:31:38And I was laying on this love seat in the room watching the movie, and he just kept coming up to me, and he's kept tickling me. He's going, come on, dog. Come on, dog. Come on, dog. And I'm like, you're awesome. You're fun. He's so fun, man. Yeah, he's life of the party. Him and Joey Diaz in a room together with everybody else is like, oh, my God, you've got two enormous personalities, life's at the party, in the room together. Diaz kills me. He's the best, man. He's out here all the time now. I know. Yeah, I mean, he's getting a place here at the end of the month, and he's going to do a residency.

1:32:14So he's going to do like two weeks a month. He's going to be here. That's awesome. Oh, it's fucking incredible. It's incredible. He's the best, man. He's the fucking best. It's so fun having an around. The last time he was here, I was doing my monthly, my and friend show at the mothership. and uh and he was the first two the first comic was on or whatever and he goes he's like joe could i go up on your show and i go of course and he went up and it was just seeing the pop from the audience and just i was like man this is fucking great dude it's fucking fun having him around we're very lucky yeah we're very lucky we got an amazing group of people around us all the time it's a lot of fun and he said the funniest fucking thing we were talking about like diet and exercise and lifestyle change, you know, and COVID, I was doing too much of this or that.

1:33:10And I go, when was your big change, man? He goes, Joe, you know what fucking day it was? It was the day of the fucking resurrection. And we go, what? And he goes, fucking January 6th, the fucking resurrection. And we go, do you mean the insurrection? He goes whatever the fuck it was called I don't give a fuck

1:33:36He used to call Khabib Nurmagomedov Kalabib The fucking Kalabib guy You know it's part of his charm Fucking up people's names Oh my god he's so funny The best dude man He lives right near where my parents live in Jersey And I was like Like, oh, dude, man, when I go see my folks, I'm going to get in the car and drive up and hang out with you for a night. Because it will be such a great break from just being with my mom and dad. And he's the best, man. He's just got a truly big-hearted dude, man. I was really worried once he moved to New Jersey, we'd never get him out here. Because I went with him.

1:34:15We went out to eat in New Jersey. And he's the king in New Jersey. I'm like, fuck. Everywhere we go, Joey! Yeah. Cheer, yelling his name. Went to the restaurant. Everybody knows him. It's like immediately everybody's like running over to take care of us. Joey's here. Joey's here. And I'm like, oh, he's the king of New Jersey. He's never going to leave. He's never going to leave. He loves it here. But there wasn't enough comedy there for him. Yeah. Wasn't enough comics. And one of the things that I always say is that we don't exist in a vacuum. We always exist with each other, comics in particular.

1:34:50You can't really do comedy by yourself. You can, but you can't do it to your best. You need other people doing it around you. You need to see it. You need to be around it. The hang, the talking about bits in the green room is so huge. Like, Ahsan has given me two killer taglines after, like, seeing a bit and saying, what about this? I'm like, oh, my God, that's perfect. Yeah. Like, those things, like, we're always, like, tuning each other's shit up or reminding each other of a bit. But I remember Tony's bits better than Tony does sometimes. I had to tell him how a bit goes. He's like, oh, my God, I forgot that.

1:35:29I'm like, dude, go do that. Go do that right now. And he went up and did it right then and murdered. That's great. And I'm like, you forgot. You forgot the bit. Yeah. It's a very individualized sport in the sense of golf, where you're always playing against yourself. But it's a very communal sport. In the sense that you're not playing necessarily in a literal sense with the team, like a sketch group would. But you're playing with the team. You know what I mean? Yeah. The team is in the green room. You're playing with the team in the sense that your buddy is on before you. Your buddy is on after you.

1:36:06You're all doing sets together. And the game is I got to play my best game because I've got to follow the guy that just had a good game. And I need the guy after me to have a good game so I can't fuck up his game. Yes. And it's a very interesting dynamic of team versus individual play. There's also just the atmosphere elevates you. And I noticed that for sure about the comedy store and the glory days. And the glory days, like 2014 to 2019 when we left, there was so much activity there. There was so many guys that were going up. There was so much good comedy that you would just get elevated just being around it.

1:36:44Like it raised your own personal bar, like what your high watermark was. And it just, you know, you're around like guys with really tight acts. And it just, it really helps. It helps everybody. It just, it's so important to be around other great comics, you know? And that's why these hubs like New York is so great for that. LA and now Austin. It's like these hubs are so important because you really, we go on the road on the weekends, right? That was the thing about the store. But on Tuesday and Wednesday were some of the best nights because on Tuesday and Wednesday, it would be Jesselnick, Diaz, fucking Greg Fitzsimmons, Dom Irera, over and over.

1:37:26Murderer's Row. Burr would pop in and maybe Chris Rock was in town. It was like, God damn, these nights were insane. They were so good. I'll tell you the reason I moved to Austin and the thing that continues to be the greatest challenge for me here in a good way, in a constructive way. Because people say all the time to me online and shit, they'll be like, oh, you moved to Austin for Kill Tony. I'm like, I didn't fucking move to Austin. I knew Tony and I were friends and I had done the show. I didn't become kind of a part of that show until after I lived here because Tony started to put me on and we started to have fun.

1:38:11And then it grew from there. You and I were were buddies, but like we're much tighter as pals now than we were. Well, we're around all the time. Exactly. Yeah. So I moved here primarily for. Well, number one, I love Austin and I always and I used to live here and I always want to go back. And once you could do comedy here, it was like a reason to go back. Right. And you could work. The other reason was I was I was like, I did New York. I did L.A. I want a new challenge. And there's a new scene now and all that stuff. But the thing that puts me on my toes the most and still does is this is the best place for young comics to be able to pursue comedy because they can actually live here.

1:38:56They can afford it. New York has become unaffordable. L.A. has become unaffordable. A young comic can come here, can live like a human being and pursue their dream. And those are the guys that keep me on my, because you're like, dude, it doesn't matter if I'm the only guy on this lineup that has done TV or whatever. You got five people going up that are fucking swinging for the fences. because when you're young, you really are like, I got to fucking prove myself. So you're following, even if it's four unknown people, they're doing their A shit. They are trying to kill as hard as humanly possible.

1:39:36And you're like, all right, I guess this is, I got to fucking bring it. You know what I mean? It's that and it's also their enthusiasm for it. And the thing about Austin is we have a real system at the club That actually develops talent. Yes, like we have two nights of open mic nights and we have a real talent coordinator Adam really watches everyone. He watches the open mic nights. He gives people advice. He gets them spots He helps them he gets them on showcase nights He puts them on he gives them sets gives them feedback and then they get to work all around town There's five other fucking clubs on the same street man.

1:40:15It's crazy, dude. You can walk from your place to Sunset to the Creek to Black Rabbit to Vulcan. And then, if you don't mind walking 20 minutes, you can be at Roscoe's, East Austin. It's fucking nuts, man. It's crazy. And then there's also Cap City, which is on the other side of town, which is fucking awesome. It's amazing here. Yeah. And, you know, there's so many young people that have moved here now. And then the Kill Tony thing. The Kill Tony thing is so huge because it's, first of all, you have one minute. You have no room for virtue signaling, no room for fucking claptor. Shut the fuck up.

1:41:00Just where's the jokes? Come with the jokes. And then no one takes in anybody. No one's taking themselves seriously. Everybody's getting cracked on. Everyone's cracking on everybody. It's very fun. It's a fun environment, and it's just emphasizing funny. What is funny? What makes people laugh? And there's a bunch of different styles that do it. You know, there's a bunch of different weirdos that go up every week, and most of them have no chance. But there's some gems. That's the thing about having, like, a true meritocracy, where all that matters is if you're funny. That's it. It doesn't matter what you look like.

1:41:35It doesn't matter what your background is. I mean, Kill Tony is, like, one of the most diverse lineups you're ever going to see. For all the people that think that Tony's a Nazi, it's kind of hilarious. It's insane. trans people, disabled people, you know, uh, people from all walks of life, homeless, literal homeless people who've gone on stage, started a career because of Kill Tony. Yeah. Literally homeless while they're doing it, sleeping in a car. And the next thing you know, they have a career. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's an, it's a truly amazing thing. Um, it's, it's, you know, we just did, uh, he just did MSG and I was there and did the show and then, and then paddled with Jimmy Carr and Attell.

1:42:13Do you know how crazy that is that Kill Tony sells out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row? It's crazy. When I first did it with him, we did it in the fucking, the belly room at the store. And the only people in the audience were like comics. There was nobody in the audience. There was like 10 other people maybe. Dude, I remember, excuse me. I was down here to do South, it was when I still lived in New York. I was down here to do South by Southwest. And Tony hit me up. and he goes buddy are you in town monday i go yeah he goes okay he did his voice yeah yeah he goes buddy he goes he goes come do kill tony right i go okay i ain't seen him in years you know uh and the last i saw him i did it in the belly room maybe the main room i don't you know whatever but it was at the comedy store dude i walked into the fucking vulcan because it was before mothership open I walked into the Vulcan it was like fucking Thunderdome dude it was two levels people like you could feel the excitement dude I walked in the green room Tony goes there he is I go what the fuck is going on what is going on I go is it like this every week he goes it sells out in one minute.

1:43:32I was like, what? I go, did these people fly in? He's like, yeah. I was like. Dude, it's broken our ticket service multiple times, where it's just the overwhelming demand, the people that are trying to get tickets versus the tickets that are available, is so crazy, it crashes the system. That's nuts. We had to revamp the system multiple times just to deal with the Kill Tony sales. That's fucking nuts. It's nuts. Well, it's just because it's so good. It's that simple. And if you've gone, you want to go again. It's so fun. That moment, it was like, remember in Casino when Pesci goes out to Vegas for the first time?

1:44:14And De Niro goes, and this is whatever Sharon Stone's character's name is. And then Pesci looks at Sharon Stone and he goes, holy shit, Ace, what the fuck you been doing out here? It was that. It was like I saw that crowd. That crowd was Sharon Stone. Yeah. And Tony was De Niro, and I go, what the fuck you been doing out here, man? Well, the Vulcan really opened up our eyes to the fact that we needed a club. And what happened was no one had done any stand-up at all for months. And then Tony and I did the Houston Improv, which was great. It was a lot of fun. We did a weekend. It was in the middle of the COVID.

1:44:49It was in July, and everyone was scared. And I did it, and it was a lot of fun. I hadn't done stand-up in months. It was so much fun. But then I started thinking, what if I get COVID and then give it to one of my fucking guests and kill him? That was back when people were really worried that COVID was going to kill you. Yeah, yeah, sure. I was like, oh, no, because I have like these people that come in. Some of them are older. Yeah. You know, and I had this lady on who was a scientist and she was older. And I was like, what if I gave her COVID and killed her? Yeah. Because that was back in the day.

1:45:17That was also when people were really convinced that you could be asymptomatic and still spread it, which turned out really what was going on was there was a lot of false positives for the PCR test. Right, right. 80 plus percent false positives. Right. And so I said, let me just take time off. I don't want to do that. It just feels totally irresponsible just because I would want to get my comedy fix. Let me just ride this out. And then we wound up moving to Texas. And by the time we moved to Texas, it was around November. and Dave and I were doing these outdoor shows. I remember that Stubbs, right?

1:45:54Yeah, we were doing shows at Stubbs, which was a lot of fun. But everybody had to be tested. People had to wait in line. You know, it was like, it was a big deal. And a few people tested positive. We had to kick them out. Right. Then the Vulcan just started doing shows. Fuck your tests. Let's just go back to the way it was. And this was in November. And Ron White went up and he hadn't gone up in like eight months. He hadn't done any stand-up in eight months. And he went on stage and the audience went fucking berserk. They went berserk. Like people were standing up. Yeah. And he murdered. I mean, Ron White just laid it down for 15 minutes.

1:46:33I'm sure. And then he grabs me by the shoulders off stage. He goes, whatever the fuck we have to do, we're going to keep doing this. He goes, you got to open up that club. And I was like, all right. Okay, we're going to open up a club. And that was when I decided, Mike, that's it. We're going to open up a club. And then I immediately started looking at real estate. immediately tried to find a place. Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that that's how the whole... That was it, Ron White grabbing me. Because Ron White is why I moved here in the first place. So I knew Ron moved here in 2018. And, you know, me and Ron were talking on the phone.

1:47:04He was like, I fucking love it here. And, you know, he's telling me how great Austin was. And everything else was locked down. I was like, look, if I move to Austin, if no one's doing stand-up again ever, at least I can hang out with Ron. Like, at least it'll be a comic that I can hang out with. And live in a place where it's like more relaxed and it's easier to get around. Sure. You don't have to wear a mask everywhere. It was like it was at least it was more chill here. Yeah. Even if we never do stand up again. And so him doing that and just grabbing me and saying, we're going to we got to do this.

1:47:33Whatever the fuck we have to do. That's what he said. He was just on fire coming off stage, just on fire and just grab my shoulders. And I was like, OK, we're doing it. That's fucking great. And that's what I did. Because I was always we were talking about it. we should open up a club where and i looked at a bunch of different places but they kind of sucked and they were trying to fuck me they were asking way too much money for these places like during the in the beginning stages of the pandemic when everyone was moving here from california everyone got crazy with real estate they got really nutty oh it was it was bad shit they got really delusional the prices went up like a hundred percent in a lot of places yeah i'm going through it now because i bought a condo here and i'm trying to sell the condo and buy a house and it's very tricky now because the market has shifted so much and values.

1:48:19There's way too many condos for sale. Way too many. Way too many. I'm worried that I'm going to end up buying this house and not be able to get rid of this goddamn condo. You're going to have to keep the condo. I don't have any need for it. I'm like, I don't know what I would do with it. But I also don't want to live in this condo anymore because originally... That's where you take sketchy women. Women that you think might rob you? Because I know you date a lot of sketchy gals. take him to the condo have a house where it's like calm and peaceful a little bit off the track get a little yard you know get some peace and quiet and take her to her condo she goes why is there only an air mattress in here how come you only have four pairs of underwear

1:49:05it's not a bad it's not a bad point you make I've had a few people in my condo where I'm like I don't know if this was a mistake give this address away Once you got people showing up at your house, they're like, oh, no. It's, oh, wait, you were just, ooh. You were talking about starting the club. Oh, oh. What's so weird is it's an odd, like, kind of full circle moment. But when I lived here in 2000, your club was the original Alamo. Yeah. And the Alamo Drafthouse at that time was the only movie theater ever in the country that served food and alcohol during a movie. And I remember that being a place that I went to frequently because I thought it was so amazing that you could get food during a movie.

1:49:56And the kinds of movies they played I loved. And then on top of it, I always saw that as the reason that I loved Austin. It was just sort of a symbol of why I loved Austin, the concept of it all. And it's so weird now that I've moved back after all these years that that's where the mothership is. And now that's my symbol for living in Austin and being a part of this club and that club begetting all these other places that we get to perform in the scene and all that stuff. It's a very weird like kind of full circle thing I didn't realize until right now as we were talking about. We need to have a birthday party for the building.

1:50:36The building turns 100 next year. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have to have a birthday party for the building. Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely should. Yeah. Yeah. We should do something. A lot of history in that building. A lot of cool shit. You could feel it. I felt it when you never got to be here when it was bare bones. But when it was bare bones, when it was just the movie theater, before we did all the renovations and raised the ceiling or lowered the ceiling and raised the floor and changed it and made the tunnel and all the structure that we put in place. when we first got in there, like, you could feel it.

1:51:10You could feel it, like, baked into the walls. I mean, Stevie Ray Vaughan performed there. What was it before the Alamo? It was a bunch of different things. So at one point in time, it was, like, a punk rock club. Wow. So, like, Black Flag performed there. Like, who's this? Chili Peppers in 86. Chili Peppers, 86. So that's why all of those punk flyers are in the green room. The green room is all flyers from people that performed at the club. Their shows. I didn't know that. I thought it was just a cool decor thing. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. It's that, too, but it's also, look at this.

1:51:46He's got the sock over his cock. Raw butthole, right on our stage. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, all those things on the wall. All those different people. Wow. Willie Nelson. All those different people performed there. That was their flyer for the show that they did when they were at the club. There's so many bands on that wall where I'm like I love that band Butthole surfers Yeah, it's tons So it was a punk rock band It was a punk rock club It was a rock and roll club It was a pool hall for a while It was a nudie movie theater Yeah Amazing Yeah, and then obviously it became the Alamo And then the Alamo went under I think before the pandemic it went under And then it was available you know like a year and i looked at it and i was like it's like too much work and and then um that was from what year 74 wow so that's fat man yep that's what it used to look like fuck man i mean it looks different obviously but it doesn't look that different like you looks a lot more narrow yeah what i don't understand like what what happened i wonder if it was two rooms back then.

1:53:03I don't know. It looks different. It looks very different in terms of the, like, that looks more like it. Right. Not the same one. Oh, different one. Yeah. The middle one looks like it. Oh, yeah. But the middle one looks more like it. Go back to that again. Yeah, that looks more like the dimensions. Fuck, man. We fit 250 people. in the big room, but I think we could fit a lot more if we have seating like the Comedy Works in Denver, which I think is the best seat. That's what it looked like when we first got there. When we first got there, it looked like that. And we walked in and we were like, holy shit.

1:53:44The stage was really high, obviously, because it was like movie theater. Sure. And the seating was at an angle, a very sharp angle, like a movie theater. and so we had to raise the the floor up um so it was flat in the center and there's just a slight raise in the back and then we kept those two balconies go back up to that picture right there those two balconies that we have obviously we have the green room balcony and then the vip balcony which is such a dope thing to have yeah because it's always always friends that come by that want to want to come by and see the show and you always have 40 seats you know you could always get 40 people up there so there's always those balconies fit 40 people total yeah holy shit that's crazy we always can stuff plenty of people back back up in there that's fucking wow i had no idea the building was as old as you just said it was yeah i had no idea all that other shit was 1927 is this still the main room or is this little boy it's also it's kansas city so okay sorry similarly looking but you know we we tried to figure out how to do it do we do it just like Like initially we thought, well, maybe we should do it just like this, like have seating, like movie theater seating.

1:54:55And then we're like, no, we should probably like raise the floor up and make it flat in the front. It would make more sense, you know. And then we had to figure out like what to do with the stage. And then Louie gave me some really good advice. We were going to keep the ceiling the way it was. And Louie was like, how can you lower it? And I was like, I think we can lower it like and still get some view out of the balcony. So we had to figure out how to lower the ceiling just enough. And it made a difference. And then he said, lower the ceiling in the little boy, too. And we did that. And then we also made the stage smaller in the little boy.

1:55:29This is all Louie's advice. And he was dead on. I was like, tell me what you think. I listened to everybody. Everybody got a say in what to do, what to have. Like Brian Simpson, it was his idea to have the lights in the green room, the light that shows you someone's got the light in the big room, Someone's got the light in the little room. And then I think it was Tony's idea to put the timers, one or the other. Maybe it was Tony for the lights, Brian for the timer. I forget. But everybody had a little piece of the, like, I think it was Brian's idea to have monitors. It's like everybody got a say in how it's done.

1:56:03That's what it looked like when we first walked in. Now, what does it look like now? I never go in through the front. It looks like it looks like it's dropping from the ceiling. I know. Go to what it looks like now. See if you can find an image of the mothership. Similar and it's been redone obviously but it looks similar enough that you can see oh yeah You can see the bones yeah yeah I mean it's essentially it was set up perfectly for two rooms There's no pictures of the UFO? That's kind of crazy. So we have a big UFO as you walk in. Yeah, yeah. There it is. That's the UFO. And it has a projector.

1:56:40So the UFO is a projector, and up on the screen, it projects all the people that are coming soon. That's fucking cool. It's been amazing. We've been open for three years now, and it's been the most fun thing that I've ever been a part of. It's hilarious, dude. I've walked under that projector a thousand times and I never realized or the UFO I mean and I never realized it was projecting shit It's a projector. That's so funny. Yeah, we just wanted to wanted to make it cool Well, and it's also I think it's a fire extinguisher. I think the center of it is a fire I think we had to have one so we put it in the center of the UFO That same that same time I was talking about during South by Southwest and and when when I did kill Tony it was me and Adam Ray we're on panel and the next day Eric invited us over to see the club and it wasn't done yet you know but he walked us in I remember him walking me through Little Boy and being like we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this and I remember he goes you gonna play here?

1:57:40And I go I fucking hope so I hope so but yeah it was wild seeing it like you know in the construction phase and whatever and then seeing the final product and remembering like, oh, I remember he told me they were going to change that. It's been really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, it's, you know, I think few people are in a position to have created a club that can operate the way a club ideally should operate. And you're one of those people and you made it work, which is a - Well, you have to do it not to make money. You have to, like, my goal in the beginning was just break even.

1:58:18That was the goal. Like, let's just break even. So the idea is everybody gets paid what they're supposed to get paid, particularly the comics. That's what everybody's here to see. They're not there to buy drinks in an empty room. They're there to see the comics. So the comics should get the most money. That's, you know, what I used to always think when I'd go to other clubs. I'd be like, this is crazy. But I would always tell comedians, be nice to club owners because you don't want to be one. Like you don't you don't want to be right the guy that has to run these fucking yeah places and deal with these maniacs Yeah come in and especially some of the nuttier ones on the road You know like can you imagine if you had to run the funny bone in Columbus, Ohio?

1:58:59Fucking animals that show up just miss their flights and They're fucking they do ecstasy the night before they can't read Yeah, yeah, it's 830 the headliners not there yet Like, what the fuck? He's trying to score coke. Yeah. It's, I always said that, too. I was like, I would never want to be in a position where I have to deal with comics from that side of it. Especially comics coming up. There's, like, most established comedians, once you've been doing it a long time, you have a career, you're reliable. You know? You know what I'm saying? Like if you book, you know, fill in the blank. Yeah. You know, whoever it is, it's like national headliner.

1:59:46They're going to show up. Yeah. Well, also, too, like the profile, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the profile that you were able to bring to the club probably helped you circumvent some of the horse shit that club owners in Idaho have to deal with, with agents and all that shit. where it's like, hey, man, sorry, there's an improv there, so we can't take our guy out of the improv. And now there's a whole other battle now that you have to do. Well, there's that. If you pay people more, they'll go to your place. That's one thing I found out. And it pisses off the other clubs, but look, that's not my fault.

2:00:27I am a comedian. I made a living doing this for a long time, and I know the value of the comedian. I know the value of the comic. The comic should be getting most of the money. I don't deserve most of the money. We can make money. We're going to make money on 20 % of the ticket sales and the liquor and all that jazz. We'll make plenty of money. Let's not be greedy. Let's just make an awesome environment. And that's what we wanted to do. So the goal was never to make money. So most people, when they start a business, their goal is to try to make money. And this was a conscious decision to just not lose money.

2:01:01Just make it cool. it's it's again you're yeah you're you were you were in a in a very uh um uh advantageous uh position to to make it the right way and it's also like i kind of had to do it that way because i had the resources and it's like look you're supposed to do the right thing this was this is the thing you should do but what would you like someone in with that has your kind of money to do i would like someone to make an awesome club for comics like you're you're a comic you know how important it is make make make the fucking the best creative environment welcoming everybody pump everybody up yeah that's what you should do dude it's it's it's funny because i always say if you're if and and you did this as a comic right i always say with them with a movie star right somebody who's got you know real movie star bank i'm just like man why the fuck don't more these guys that have endless cash start creating film situations that they want to be a part of not i don't mean like we're going to do the next blockbuster thing or or we've got a franchise or whatever it's like why don't you take 10 million bucks and make the fucking art fucking movie with all of your friends that you always wanted to make because who cares you will break even you will break even at the at the very least, I never, ever, ever understood why more people in that position don't do it.

2:02:35I don't get it. Because rock stars do it all the time. Rock stars start a little label, and they start putting on other bands that they love, and they do passion projects because they want to work with their friends. I've never, maybe not never, but it's very rare that you ever see a movie star do that. And I'm like, why not do it? For years, American Psycho was the big one, the Bredy Sinelis novel. why haven't they made an accurate adaptation well the studios don't want to touch it because it's too violent it's like somebody with 500 million dollars who's a movie star fucking go i'm gonna do it and i'm gonna do it the way it's supposed to be done and it's gonna work because that's what people want to see and fuck it man like i just i don't get it do you think that the uh christian bale version was not accurate i like the christian bale version a lot but it is not the book.

2:03:27The book is fucking dark. It's brutal. There's shit in that book. I was reading that book and I was like Brady Stadellis has murdered somebody. There are details in here where I was like, I don't understand how you would know this. One of the darkest scenes in that book is when he goes to get rid of the body and the real estate guy sees him in the room because they're selling the apartment and so he realizes the real estate guy's already gotten rid of the body and they look at each other and he just leaves and you're like oh god and there was, by the way I was just joking about Brady Sanales I don't think he's murdered somebody I feel like we have to say that it's very important to clarify just humor but the thing the book did and they cut a major scene out of the movie it's the one extra scene on the blu-ray and I don't understand why they deleted it but there's a scene in the movie where his friend says they're at the club at the beginning and his friend goes I'm out of here and the guy climbs up like these like rafters or whatever and crawls into like a fan vent in the club and you never see him ever again and that's the part in the book that makes you go is this all in this fucking guy's head what he just described happening is nuts and this guy is now gone and nobody knows where he is and i'm like is it that's such a key scene and they cut it out of the movie and so whatever they're remaking it now again oh they are yeah who's gonna be uh american psycho i i think maybe adam driver is connected to it i think maybe he'd be good at that um he's got a lot of psycho behind his eyes.

2:05:16But The Shards is the new Brad Easton Ellis adaptation on Fox. What is it? It's his last novel, and it's a fictional autobiography where the main character is him as a teenager, and there's a serial killer at Luce. And all these murderers are happening. They're targeting teenagers, these brutal fucking murders. And there's a cult happening that's reminiscent of the Manson cult. And then he's also coming of age and realizing he's gay and like as he's trying to deal with the fact that this murder thing is happening and he thinks he knows who it is. And it's a wild story. But they're, and he co-created it with Ryan Murphy, the TV show, the adaptation.

2:06:02It's really fucking good so far. Really good. Oh, so it's a period piece. Yeah. It takes place in like 83 or 84. You know how I could tell? The Ferrari. Yeah. Old Ferrari. Oh, wow. But it's one of the adaptations where I was like, I feel like they're really capturing a lot of what's actually in the book. Because Less Than Zero was a cool movie, but it's not the book. Rules of Attraction is a great movie. And he said that was the closest thing that anybody had gotten to. The books are... One of his books. American Psycho would be very hard to capture the darkness of it. Because you're also capturing this guy's internal dialogue.

2:06:42Mm-hmm, you know, which is some of it. Yeah, it's dark So what would you do would you have a guy narrate the internal dialogue? You're missing something? Well, they did that with bail He he narrates the entire thing. I know but you're missing something there. It's very funny You you how do you mean because I think instead of hearing it when you're reading the internal dialogue you You understand that there's no you don't hear the voices right? You know what I mean? Like this guy's got some fucking creepy shit going on in his head. I mean, he's a fucking sociopath, psychopathic murderer. It's like you get into his head in this way that I don't think you ever do in a movie.

2:07:22Like you're in his head when you're reading it because you're imagining it all happening in his head. You're imagining how he's viewing like the real estate scene. Like he's locking eyes, this real estate guy. There's a creepiness to it that it's like, ooh. He plays the best scene acting wise in my opinion in in that movie is when when they're comparing the business cards And they're like they're like one up at each other look at mine, man It's bone white and whatever and Christian Bale starts sweating And he gets like horse and he's like it's fair. It's nice. It's nice Because it's this fucking pissing contest where has the best business card and he's so upset that he doesn't have the best business card that he wants to kill that guy.

2:08:06Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I'm listening to this podcast about Luigi, the guy who murdered the healthcare executive. It's a very, very interesting podcast. You know, it details how they caught him, the whole deal. But one of the things they brought up was one of the first things they thought of after that guy got assassinated was probably somebody he worked with. Really? Yeah. They had to find out whether or not someone had some sort of a grudge. Someone got recently fired. Because when people get murdered like that, you oftentimes think it could be a co-worker. I have a former co-worker.

2:08:47I have a question for you about Luigi. I'm glad you brought it up. I'm so sorry. I have to pee really bad. Why don't you go pee really bad? I'm going to pee really fast. I'll be fast. Question about Luigi. My fucking manager does it. Everybody does it. It's really fucking annoying. Sorry, Joe. Is it more annoying than boiling your own coffee? No, nothing's more annoying than that. Turning on the stove, filling the pot. When does it end? When does it end? What were we... Luigi. Luigi. Yeah. This is what I wanted to ask you because... Jamie has a theory. Well, there were all the... Okay, not publicly.

2:09:27There were all the people... You know that Luigi sparked that whole debate about justified violence or whatever which I thought was bullshit But everybody that was rah-rah-ing Luigi going he's a hero and how many people is this health care guy killed and all that bullshit I wonder now what everybody's saying about the fact that Luigi is doing the insanity plea and it's like well He didn't really stick to his fucking I mean if that's was his thing and he was gonna be the big crusader for him to now go. Yeah, but he's just playing the legal system. I mean, that's the smart move. Play the insanity.

2:10:02Well, it's the smart move if you're not. It also might be accurate. But also, is it the smart move if you're trying to, I know it's the smart move. I'm saying if you're going to go out there and go, I did this because it was justice and whatever, and then go, oh, wait, actually, I was a little crazy. But here's the point. If you did shoot a man who had nothing to do with you because you thought it was justice because he was a healthcare executive. I don't know how he picked that guy. I don't know the details of what that guy has done. Was he particularly bad, the guy he killed? I think he was a CEO.

2:10:34No. It was definitely targeted that this man is responsible for decisions made that killed people. Was he the CEO, Jamie, of UnitedHealthcare? Is that what he was? Yes. So if you think that you should go murder somebody like that, you're probably mentally ill. If you think that that kind of violence is justified. The problem that a lot of young people are having right now and a lot of people that agree with what Luigi did and they celebrated it is because everyone knows that the system is rigged and no one is doing anything to change it. And this is what drives people fucking crazy. If you get health insurance and their whole business model is to deny as many claims as possible, even if they know that your claims are justified because they want to make money.

2:11:29So they're really in the making money business and they're pretending they're in the we're going to take care of you and give you insurance business. Yes. So they're not really in that business. Yes. They're in the business of making the most amount of money. If they can fuck 10 % of the people over or 20 % of the people over, that's 20 % more money. And that's how they look at it. And that drives everyone nuts and rightly so. And if they don't fucking correct that, people don't have a whole lot of options as to how to lash out and how to get back. And especially if like, let's say it's your wife.

2:12:04let's say your wife gets injured or or gets a disease or something and they can treat her and they deny the claim or maybe she needs a surgery some crazy surgery yeah and they deny the claim and it bankrupts you and she dies you want to murder somebody and it makes sense because you're paying for this fucking insurance all this time thinking that you're insured if something goes wrong that's the whole reason why you give them money you don't give them money for freebies it's not it's not for no reason it's not because you you like them you want united health care to have a yacht. Yeah. No, you give him the money because it's supposed to be an agreement.

2:12:37I agree with that completely. I have no beef with the concept behind his motivations for hatred of a healthcare CEO. I have no problem with that. My question is, does it take away from the people that were rah-rah-ing him for him to now go, oh, I was just crazy. Sorry. No, I don't think it does. Do you know what I mean? I don't think it does. No. It's trying to not go to jail. And a lot of those people think you shouldn't go to jail. That's interesting. I think you should go to jail. I don't think you should be able to be walking up to people on the fucking street and murdering them. Right. But I can understand where your anger comes from.

2:13:16Sure. I get it. I really do. Yeah. And there's a thing about capitalism, right? There's a thing about corporations in particular that are, you're beholden to your shareholders. you have to make more money every quarter that alone that motivation alone it motivates sociopathic behavior the people that are going to be the most successful are the ones who are going to be the most ruthless and they're going to squeeze the most money possible without without crushing the company's reputation and that's their goal and in the health care market the problem is like what are your options there's no one amazing option where they always take care of everybody and they're real it's ethical capitalism they're just trying to look we make plenty of money giving people real insurance and really taking care of them and really paying for and so let's make less money but let's make everybody healthier nobody does that no no so your options if you have to get insurance are very limited you're just giving money to psychos so which psycho gets my money which psycho that doesn't give a fuck about me or my family or anybody I love, if they get hurt or sick.

2:14:27Every year, every year that I don't do a writing gig on a TV show, which is not every year. I don't do it frequently. I do it sometimes. But every year I don't do a writing gig on a TV show or I don't act enough to clear SAG insurance. I have to make a decision. Is this worth$600 a month for fucking health insurance? Is it? I don't know. I don't know that it is, especially now with - Just imagine how angry you would be if you paid all that money and then you broke your ankle or something like that and they denied you. Yeah. You're like, what? Yeah. And this is why people cheer about this Luigi guy.

2:15:08There are a ton of stories of people who had treatable illnesses and they were denied coverage. They had surgeries that could have been done to save them. They were denied coverage. There's a ton of stories like that. It's a dirty fucking game. It's a dirty game and it's not it's not the game. They're pretending it is they're pretending the game is we're gonna help care Take care of you. You're gonna have a safety net So you pay a little bit of money and hopefully nothing happens. You never need us And that's our gamble our gamble is if you do need us You're gonna get more value out of it than you put into it.

2:15:42Yeah, and they don't want that health insurance has become like the protection plan at Best Buy When you buy a TV you want the two-year protection plan in case any no I don't fucking know cuz no I'm not some places have a good protection plan though. They just give you a new TV Health care is not even that It's not even that It's worse. It's worse than Best Buy Well, some places have a good protection plan Some places you just bring them the computer. They give you a brand new one. This thing sucks. It broke Yeah, okay. Hold on I file out this fill out this form. We'll get you get another one every time I've tried to utilize it I bring it in they go oh well actually oh really yeah this doesn't yeah the screens crack that's not really part of it We probably broke it the fuck probably did something stupid They make it do it's probably your fault They make it I probably throw it across the room in a fit of rage because I had to boil water in the morning but you know it's it's um it's it's it's a dire you know when when when the neemus mark when the neeman marcus gang thing was happening where these kids were running into neem marcus and stealing shit which again i don't think is is an okay thing to do but you know like my mom i remember was being like can you believe these kids are i go mom they just told an entire generation of kids they'll never own land right they're fucking hopeless yeah they're hopeless like what do you what where does your head even go where did you i have a in my act i have a line it's it's not even a joke i just go where the gen z's and they clap and i go you'll never own land and it gets a huge laugh because it's so true isn't that crazy and it's like it's fucked up and then they hear that private equity companies are buying up houses so they could lease them out and so they'll own all the houses like what and the parking lots yeah they're buying up all the fucking parking lots you can't park anywhere for free or for cheap you know it's fucking crazy man it's it we we are living in a rent to live culture anymore well it's really just about it's again what we're talking about about maximizing the amount of money you could squeeze out of people and that's their business and it doesn't have to be like that but it does have to be like that if you're public it's almost like we're better off with a bunch of private corporations.

2:18:03And if you're private, you can do whatever you want. Like there's private, like, look, you could decide I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to give X amount of my profits to this. I'm going to give Y to that. I'm going to do whatever I want because it's my money. But as soon as you have shareholders, as soon as you take that IPO money, ooh, baby, that's a big windfall, though. You got all this money, all this stock, all this capital has been invested in your business. Your business is going to grow and the business does grow. So do your fucking problems. Yeah. They've ruined, shareholders have ruined, and I'm not saying shareholders inherently are evil, but the board of directors and shareholders and all that shit, they have ruined everything.

2:18:41They've ruined everything. It's like, everybody goes, why did the last three Star Wars movies suck? Kathleen Kennedy came out and said, we were met with demands by the shareholders to rush the fucking sequels out, and we couldn't make the movies we wanted to make. So that's how - Imagine if they did that to Jim Cameron. You can't do that. You can't rush that guy. Imagine if you rushed Avatar. Fuck you. Fuck you. That movie takes forever to make. That's why it's awesome. There's certain things that you can't do just for money. And healthcare should be one of them. It should be one of them. Well, you know what?

2:19:20And I don't say this to ball wash you in any way. but you just said it 10 minutes ago about the club and for all the criticisms that people can level at you whatever the fuck they want to say whatever it's like hey man here's a guy i know that has a lot of money that started something that helps other people in the industry he works in and said i'm not worried about making money i'm worried about breaking even and i want the people that i'm working at my club to benefit you actually did it you actually did the thing that we're complaining that other people don't do. You actually did the thing where you said, I am not going to try to turn massive profits off of this club.

2:20:02What I'm going to try to do is create an environment where people can make what they deserve to make. That's fucking pretty awesome and pretty crazy. Well, the thing is, anybody can do that that's successful already. Yeah. You could all choose to run a business that way, and a lot of people do. I'm not unique in that way. There's a lot of really ethical, moral, happy people. Sure. And you make a happier environment, too. That's the other thing. The environment, the club is very happy. Everybody gets paid really well. Everybody's making money. The waitresses, waiters are all making money. Everybody's happy.

2:20:34That's beautiful. You go to a place where people are happy to be there. That's what you want. You don't want to go to a place where you're making maximum profits and everybody is in hell. And that's a lot of people that work in corporations, right? You're working way more hours than you should. You never see your kids. You're constantly fucking stressed out. Your cortisol is through the roof. You're about to have a fucking heart attack. But you bought a house in the Hamptons. Yeah. Look at that. I got a$15 million house overlooking the bay. How about that? Right. You fucking win. I got the new Ferrari.

2:21:06You want to see it? Yeah. And meanwhile, you're dying. Yeah. Right? But that's the environment of just chasing money. I think you can make plenty of money. I mean, obviously, I'm in an unusual situation. But I think most business owners that do well, once you're doing well, what is enough? Just make it better for everybody. What's enough? What's enough money? What's enough? If you're running a corporation, is it really good to cut back on the ingredients and fuck people over? I was seeing this thing about powdered sugar. Some guy went to a grocery store and he took all these bags of two-pound bags of powdered sugar and he weighed them.

2:21:47They're like 1.3 pounds, 1.2 pounds, 1.27. They're just fucking you. Are you telling me that's not on purpose? Your machines are so off that it doesn't know what two pounds are? But this is this mentality of just squeeze the most. Squeeze the most. I don't think you have to do that. I think if your business is successful, you're good. You're good. Keep the ball rolling. Keep it don't try to just keep making the most money possible every quarter and that's what they do in corporations because they Have to if you don't you're a bad CEO. You'll get kicked out. Yeah, like hey good news guys We made the same amount of money this month as we did last month like what?

2:22:34This guy sucks. Yeah, it's gonna fucking sucks. Where's my return? Yeah, you know fucking we're gonna vote him out Yeah, and then you get a board meeting together and people playing and yeah, you have to do that. That's their job Yeah, ideally what should happen is you say, hey, guys, we made more money this month than we did last month. But the reason we made more money is because we made a better product that brought in even more customers and it was beneficial to everybody. Right. And it's not that. It's not we squeezed the same amount of customers out of more money. Yeah. Yeah. It's the fucking potato chip thing.

2:23:09Well, it's the other thing. You know, this avocado oil scandal that's going on right now. So all these people that are buying things made with avocado oil that they think oh this is gonna be super healthy Turns out a lot of these corporations are fucking you over and they're using seed oils and fucking safflower oil and Rape seed oil all these different oils and they're pretending that it's yeah coconut or it's avocado oil I watched a thing about food Where they talked about by the way what I meant by the potato chip thing was when you we were just talking about this in the lobby before we started recording when you buy a bag of potato chips now and it's half full and it's all air and of course the excuse is well no that's so it protects your chips and just get the fuck out of here fuck off protecting my chips yeah don't crush the chips you fucking idiot yeah maybe pack the chips and ship them properly no no we can't do that have you ever had those vandy chips no what's van oh They're chips made with beef tallow.

2:24:12They're just cooked in beef tallow. It's just beef tallow and salt and potato chips. They're the best potato chips you've ever eaten in your fucking life. Where do you get them? You can buy them online. I buy them online. Yeah, a lot of these are so legit, dude. If I want potato chips, oh, they're so good. And you don't overeat them. It's crazy. When it's real food, you eat enough. Yeah. Especially they're soaked in beef tallow. They're so rich and fat. Yeah. It's actually probably good for you. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. Most of these quality food products that we want to buy and enjoy now, you have to buy them online.

2:24:47You can't get them in fucking stores. You can get them in some stores. But the problem is they get bought out. So say a company comes along and you're making something that has really healthy ingredients and people really get into it. And then Pepsi buys you. Exactly. Some fucking Kellogg's buys you. And they turn it into something that's just close enough. They change the ingredients make it cheaper did that happen with is it rouse our a o's pasta sauce rails rails. Yeah. Yeah rails got bought by I Think like whoever makes ragu or whatever Nabisco or some shit rails made a great talk They still is it still legit or is it they fuck with the ingredients now?

2:25:26I don't I never thought there was any jarred sauce that was awesome like you know they were stuff Steve Sharipa's when he had his? No. You know Steve Sciarippo from The Sopranos? Of course, yeah. Do you know Steve? I don't know him personally. I worked for him when he was the booker at the Riviera in Vegas. I remember that. Before he got on The Sopranos, before he ever did any acting. That's hilarious. Yeah, I was friends with him a long fucking time ago. He's the best. I love that guy. He is the best. So he had an amazing sauce. It was, I forget the name of it, but it was all organic. and it was, you know, like really super top shelf ingredients.

2:26:05It was fucking delicious. Okay. Such a good sauce. But it was too much of a pain in the ass for him to keep the business rolling and he got rid of it. I'm like, God damn, dude, that sucks. I think he had a problem keeping up with demand too because he came on the podcast and talked about it and then he eventually just bailed on the business. Look, man, it's one of the reasons I left my sandwich shop was because I felt like operating in New York was too hard of a thing. And we had to keep the four years, five years, whatever that I did it, we had to keep kind of upping prices and whatever. And it was not out of greed.

2:26:47It was out of there is no way that we stand a chance to turn a profit unless you keep up with what the demand and the economy of New York City is. and I just got to a point where I was like you know man it's just not what I thought it could be you wanted to be fun you want to just be fun yeah and and that was it and it was I wish them well but uh they're still going but um it was it just for me I was like I just can't like this isn't you know so that what happens is with a lot of these um companies that get bought up it's this Steve Sharippa thing where it's like hey man I'd love to keep doing this at the quality I'm doing it and at the tick at which we're moving at or whatever and then somebody comes along like Pepsi and goes, we'll buy you out for 50 million and you probably go, you know what, my ship just came in, take the fucking, I don't know I can't so I don't blame people for selling to a big corporation, it's kind of the position you're left in this mom and pop thing is going away or COVID put a big dent in that Oh, destroyed it.

2:27:54Destroyed it. Destroyed it in terms of like small restaurants. I know so many of them that went under in L.A. I think at one point in time L.A. lost 70 percent of its restaurants. It's that. It's the meat monopoly thing is brutal. You know, like what happened with prices of meats and because they saw like, oh, actually, we can say that there's a demand and low product availability and all this and just charge everybody this much more. But there also is a demand and there also is low product. I mean, there's also the reality of the marketplace. Yeah. Well, what I think it is is there's the reality of the problem and then – and some people are affected by that very genuinely.

2:28:36But then there's a lot of people that go, this is a chance for us to capitalize and squeeze. Squeeze. And that sucks. That sucks. Yeah. That's the thing. and you know once you escape the world of need and you're in a world of decisions based on what you enjoy doing then you could choose to do a business where you do it however you want to do it and don't worry about it right you know because you're not doing it for money you're doing it because it's a cool thing right and ideally that's what we would all like to do yeah ideally it's not obviously it's difficult to achieve but if you can get there that's the way to do it it's just everybody has this thing about chasing the fucking whatever number it is whether it's number in your bank account or the address that you're living in or the car that you're driving everyone's always chasing the new thing there's a new thing to justify why you're pumping all of your energy into a business you know yeah it's uh it's it's the unfortunate uh other side of of capitalism capitalism this is why it's capitalism fucking great it's way better than everything else well that is that i agree with but we're just talking about yeah it's got flaws and the flaws are human nature that's the flaws is there a way do you think is there a way to have the free market with capitalism but actually have some sort of regulation so these problems that we're talking about can't occur or is it just you have to take the good with the bad and that's all there is i mean there should be definitely be regulations without a doubt uh but i think too much regulations then you stifle business and that's what california has if over over regulated because the government is just too huge of a business there i think at one point in time california during the pandemic they lost a bunch of people like a bunch of people moved out but they doubled the size of government they just keep adding more government and more like that's where they create jobs they create jobs through government and just keep adding programs, adding government, and then you just keep siphoning off tax money.

2:30:40And it's a slush fund. And there's a whole economy based on it. And those people are the people that are in charge of running the city. And they don't want to let it go. Because that's how everybody's getting paid. And nothing's getting done. And the fucking homeless crisis never gets any better. And the streets never get clean. The schools never get fucking funded correctly. But yet they keep growing their fucking business. The business of being a fucking person in government. Yeah, it's I one of the things I learned when I worked for the because when I lived here in 2000, I worked for the Senate during the legislative session.

2:31:13It was the 76th legislative session. I think I was a media reporter for the for the Senate Media Department. But one of the things I learned was how low a senator's salary is versus what they actually make in a year because of donations and whatever the fuck else. and I was like of course these people don't want to ever step down from the seat this is the fucking this is a this is a fucking joy ride right now yeah and once you're in that position now you got a problem because now it's like well who's actually in there to do something versus who's in there to keep the job and if you want to keep the job keep the constituents happy well how do you do that well then you start compromising things and cater and you learn how to be a good Bullshit artist.

2:31:59Oh, yeah, you learn how to say the things they want you to say That's why people support ridiculous positions because they fucking lick their finger and find out which way the winds blowing And that's the way my constituents want so that's how I feel. Yep, you know I think God's non-binary like whatever they just start talking. Yeah, they start saying things like what are why are you saying this? This makes no sense They're saying it because they think it's gonna help them and get them to win Kooky stuff Yeah, man, and nobody wants the job. That's the other thing when no but no really successful person who would really be good at it Wants the job.

2:32:35It's too much work. It's it's a hassle You're also dealing with insane corruption once you get in there try untangling all the fucking webs that have been spun for Decades where they've been moving money to this and moving money to that And you gotta pay a little of this and you got to pay a little of that Yeah, did you ever see a Charlie Wilson's war Tom Hanks movie? No It's great. You'd love it. Mike Nichols directed it. Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman performance ever. It's a fucking awesome movie. But it's about how when we were sending arms and funding the Afghanis when Russia was attacking Afghanistan.

2:33:16And he's in there to do a good thing. He's like, these people are getting fucking taken over. The Russians are coming in, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he does all this good thing. He gets all this funding to them. He helps them. The Afghanis start shooting the Russian copters out of the fucking air and all this shit. And he's like, this is great. And then all of a sudden, the powers that be are like, we're cutting the funding. And he's like, what are you talking about? We just help these people liberate themselves. We can't cut the funding now. We have to rebuild. And they're like, yeah, we're not rebuilding.

2:33:48We're not spending any more money in this. and the end of the movie is Philip Seuhoff and telling Tom Hanks that he doesn't say the name, but he says the fucking loonies are in the hen house. He's talking about Ben Laden is now taking over Afghanistan, and this is going to go real fucking sideways on us. And it's just such a great encapsulation of that's how it works. That's how it works. You do a good thing, and then all of a sudden it creates an even bigger fucking problem than they ever anticipated because of funding. It's a it's you would also why were they doing it in the first place? Why the fuck are they funding the Mujahideen and that's how bin Laden turned against us, right?

2:34:27That's what it was all about. He realized how dirty our fucking politics are and what we're doing when doing regime change in other countries and Proxy wars and all the insane shit that we've been involved with forever It's fucked up the way it's portrayed the way it's portrayed in the movie is the Russians are attacking these people It's going to be this genocide. It's blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how it's framed in the movie. In real life, you know, I know there's always multiple sides. It's both sides. I mean, there's probably a lot to that, too. But it's just one of those things where I brought it up because you said, who would ever want this job?

2:35:02And I watched that movie and thought that. I was like, who would want the fucking job of this guy that he thinks he's doing the right thing? And then it just blows up in their faces. You just hope that good people come along and want the job. That's what you hope. but for the most part they're swimming in a sea of psychos right well the question is if a good person does come along can they stay can they stay pure or is the system just built in a way where it's like no there's no way to do this you know I was acquitted to the Hollywood thing it's like in my opinion there's no way to become or it's a very hard thing to become a massive movie star and maintain your morality and your ethics and whatever you're you're playing in a system that is so fucking foul and so dirty and whatever That's why we're like it's so rare to meet a Woody Harrelson or something like that Who's a genuine person and nine out of ten of those guys.

2:35:57They don't fucking live there They're out they go somewhere else and they dip in they do it they get the fuck out again so I always wonder like is there we always say like if only a decent man would come along and lead us or take this seat in this office. Is it possible to even remain pure at that point? I don't know. Or is it just, hey, this is how it works. This is all there is to it. And you either play this game or you will be phased out. And that's it. You know? Well, the Hollywood game is interesting because you have to have the same political opinions of them. Yeah. If you don't have any variation whatsoever.

2:36:35If you're like, hey, maybe we shouldn't take this weird experimental vaccine. You're cast out of the kingdom. Like you have to be full compliance, full compliance to whatever ideology that they have because they're completely in control. They get to choose whether or not you work. The beautiful thing about comedy and music is another version of that, but less so, I think, is that you just make what you make. And if people like it, they come see you. Real simple. Real simple. You get a chance. Everybody gets a chance. Everybody gets a chance to do open mic nights. Everybody gets a chance. If someone says, hey, Joe, you're really funny.

2:37:14You want to open for me on the road? Also, oh, my God, I'm on the road. Yeah. Everybody gets a chance. Yeah. And the thing about the movie business is it's not that way. Like, you could be a really talented actor and you never get cast in something. Yeah. Maybe they don't align with the way you think. Maybe you didn't kiss their ass enough when you went in for the audition. Maybe you don't have a good agent. whatever it is. You might not ever work. Yeah, there's a great what is it called? It's the documentary, I think it's just called Frank. It's the documentary about Frank Stallone. Sylvester Stallone's brother.

2:37:49And Frank Stallone is an immensely talented guy. And he sort of got reduced to he does stuff, he works. And he seems like a happy guy. But there was a big part of Frank Stallone where he kind of got reduced to the punchline of like Sly's brother yeah exactly but you know that was Charlie Murphy I always used to say that about Eddie they talk in the documentary about Frank Stallone they go everybody's like how did this guy not become bigger he's so fucking talented he was a musician he's a great actor he's this he's that and they say in the middle they go dude it doesn't just happen you have to have a team of people operating around you that make it fucking happen it's not just dumb luck it's not just oh he's good if you don't have the people strategically let's put it that buying you through the system right it doesn't fucking happen it just doesn't happen it's like look at when people get nominated that the process of getting nominated for an emmy it's like you you get the consideration vote and then i would see it when i was living in la and then people would do these pr campaigns just based on the consideration oh Oh, yeah.

2:39:00Those billboards for your consideration. Yeah. You'd see them everywhere. Then you get nominated. And then that's a whole other thing. That's why I thought it was such bullshit. And I'm a big fan. I'm not knocking the guy. But when the whole thing happened with the year that Brendan Fraser won for the Whale was the same year the kid that played short round won for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Do you remember that year at the Oscars? and they both, it was like, it's the year of the comebacks at the Oscars and they're up there going, I thought I was done and here I am. It's like, you fucking had a campaign.

2:39:37This costs millions of dollars to get you here. This is not some underdog story. This was orchestrated. That's how it works. It's crazy. It's crazy. Nobody's, oh, yeah, I was driving a cab then all of a sudden I got nominated and I won. That's not how it fucking works. that's bad shit yeah well it's a bad shit business it's it's it's it's the worst and best business of all time it's the best that we it gets us to get to do what we want to do sorry but it doesn't stand up is better now it's like stand up and podcasts is such an easier pathway yeah than that that was the old pathway you had to be a part of that i was i was talking to Tony about it after MSG.

2:40:21We're at the after party. And he, you know, Tony, I love, this is one of the things I love about him. He gets, you have a few drinks and it's a real love fest. He's like, buddy, we're doing it, man. We're doing it. They told us no and we're fucking doing it. And I go, Tony, here's what's wild. I go, the mainstream of entertainment could become the, for lack of a better term, wokest whatever. That whole thing could come back of PC culture and whatever and they could tell any one of us or all of us you guys are out there's no way you're going to get anything on streamers or anything anymore and we'd all still be fine because we all said we found another lane so fuck it it doesn't matter it's a bigger lane too way bigger it's way bigger way bigger yeah because it's authentic yeah it's real and it's not curated yeah it's simple people that's what people want if Hollywood could send a missile to destroy YouTube they would meanwhile it's come up with some of the fucking greatest talents like that guy who made obsession came straight out of YouTube yeah dude I gotta wrap this up oh okay uh your special speaking of which yeah Joe DeRosa I never promised you a rose garden available right now on Netflix on Netflix uh where'd you film it we shot this in phoenixville pennsylvania it was on my youtube netflix scooped it up it's still on my youtube but please go watch it on netflix and and uh i hope you all enjoy it and then and then my my podcast violent horrendous is is now out ymh network nice and at jota rosa comedy on uh youtube uh is where you can find it so please listen and i hope you watch the special and enjoy it thank you for having me my pleasure brother i love you love you bye bye everybody Thank you.