Speaker 1: Yo yo, yo yo, YoY.
Speaker 2: The dato.
Speaker 1: I raised off a FaceTime with Krista Miller, who called
Speaker 1: me solely to tell me how much she loved our
Speaker 1: Andy Ramage episode Yay. She said it was incredible and informative.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you guys have heard any good vibrations
Speaker 1: from it. But people really liked it, at least anecdotally.
Speaker 1: My friend liked it.
Speaker 3: It's been very positive out there, people really loving it.
Speaker 3: I would like to see if you guys take the challenge,
Speaker 3: let us know how it goes. I was a little inspired.
Speaker 3: I went out for my birthday and was like, you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm going to do some of these non
Speaker 3: alcoholic drinks and to see what that's not. And they
Speaker 3: were fine and delicious and I didn't miss drinking, So,
Speaker 3: you know, might pick up the challenge me do it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, give it a try. I guarantee you. The only
Speaker 1: thing I can tell you is you might not be
Speaker 1: You might listen to that and go interesting. Not for me,
Speaker 1: But if you just do a month just for just
Speaker 1: as an experiment, I guarantee you you will feel good
Speaker 1: on day thirty.
Speaker 4: Nice, nice little recap of our last couple of episodes, right.
Speaker 1: There, Yes, and Vaginas. Vagina's was popular, right, Joell, Vagina's was.
Speaker 3: Very popular, as always, historically very.
Speaker 1: Popular, historically very popular. Did you get any good feedback
Speaker 1: about Vagina's.
Speaker 3: Joelle, only that it was hilarious, people spinning up drinks,
Speaker 3: having to pull over in their car.
Speaker 2: That's when the people were very really, very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was like I had to pull over
Speaker 3: so that I could see because I was laughing so hard.
Speaker 2: I love that these are your reviews, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Yes, please let us know what you like. Donald and
Speaker 1: I don't aren't on Twitter and we barely read Instagram anymore,
Speaker 1: so we need feedback. So give it to Joel and
Speaker 1: Dale who are on every social media and let them know. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're here for it. Donald, I've been building the land
Speaker 1: Rover Defender Lego structure you gave me. It's amazing. It's
Speaker 1: coming along for your birthday. Yes, for those of you
Speaker 1: don't know, it's eighteen plus. It's very hard. I forgot
Speaker 1: that Legos had age had eight restrictions.
Speaker 2: It's Lego, It's Lego.
Speaker 1: Don't get them started leg Lego. That Lego sets had
Speaker 1: eight restrictions.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was trying to brag to my assistant that it
Speaker 1: was kind of hard, and he goes, well, it says
Speaker 1: in the box eighteen plus, and I'm like, eighteen plus.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's tricky, but I feel like a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old. Eighteen plus felt a little bit extreme,
Speaker 1: Like I think, I don't think there was any reason
Speaker 1: why fifteen year olds couldn't.
Speaker 2: But then you ran into your first roadblock, and you lie, I've.
Speaker 1: Run into so many roadblocks, and you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny. I don't know if you do
Speaker 1: this with Lego singular, but you get to a certain
Speaker 1: point where you look and you realize you fuck something up.
Speaker 1: But it's such a fucking ordeal to take it apart
Speaker 1: and you just go fuck it. There's this Olivia Ririgo
Speaker 1: news song where she goes, fuck it, it's fine, And
Speaker 1: I keep thinking when I noticed a fuck up that
Speaker 1: I go fuck it. It's fine. Little things you wouldn't
Speaker 1: no one's gonna notice.
Speaker 2: Daniel. It's like, you have any news you want to.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, Dan, I'll tell the audience it has been
Speaker 1: a minute since I've seen you, guys, and since then
Speaker 1: I did get married.
Speaker 2: Wow, look at that.
Speaker 1: Did you consummate the marriage? Dane? Oh, my gentleman doesn't too.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, we'll we'll just infer. It was
Speaker 1: a Palm Springs hotel and it was very lovely. I'll
Speaker 1: say that. How many people are invited again? Twenty three?
Speaker 1: Well twenty one, since it was twenty three total people
Speaker 1: including Stephane. Do you find it odd that Donald and
Speaker 1: Joel and I were not invited?
Speaker 2: Me personally?
Speaker 1: No, me personally, no, he says, it was really lovely.
Speaker 1: I it was u Palm Springs traditionally very hot weather,
Speaker 1: and as the weekend approach, we noticed that the weather
Speaker 1: was dropping and we thought, great, it won't be boiling hot.
Speaker 1: And then the miracle that it was. It rained for
Speaker 1: the exact twenty minutes of our ceremony, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people kept saying. I hear, it's good luck. That's
Speaker 1: what they say. That's going to make you feel better.
Speaker 1: That makes you say that, bingo.
Speaker 2: So it rained, it.
Speaker 4: Rained during our wedding. Yeah, but we built tints, we were.
Speaker 1: They frantically built tents the day before in my backyard. Wow. Wow, Well,
Speaker 1: thankfully it was just a rain.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, sir, Next time put in for the tent.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and also next time, invite next time, invite
Speaker 1: Donald and us next, next marriage. All this, Yes, I
Speaker 1: heard some funny thing on. I read some funny thing
Speaker 1: online where some guy it was the woman's second marriage
Speaker 1: and the guy and like one of the brothers was like,
Speaker 1: here we are again or something like that. It was
Speaker 1: like it was like welcome back everyone or something like that, which,
Speaker 1: if you have the balls to do in someone's second marriage,
Speaker 1: is amazing. I highly recommend that that's good. Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 1: That's funny. You have the right person who's not going
Speaker 1: to be offended by it, though, truly all right. Well,
Speaker 1: in our continuing series on trying to make you laugh
Speaker 1: and entertain you without talking about the television show Scrubs,
Speaker 1: we have what is.
Speaker 2: Wait, hold up, what is that that you just said?
Speaker 1: That was a show that you're not allowed to talk
Speaker 1: about yet, But I can mention because I'm in the
Speaker 1: writers guild that was written and directed in the in
Speaker 1: the in the in the aughts. Is that what we
Speaker 1: call him in the it was Ants show.
Speaker 2: It was Ants show.
Speaker 1: A comedian that I really like and think is so
Speaker 1: funny and is very wise and not only is he hilarious,
Speaker 1: but he's also I think, a deep thinker and says
Speaker 1: wise things. His name is Pete Holmes, and we are
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have him on the show. Is he here, Daniel,
Speaker 1: he's here, and we already prepped him for audience. He's
Speaker 1: going to bring in hold, but.
Speaker 5: I'm not show. We made about a bunch of said
Speaker 5: he's the story natural. So YadA round here, yeada round.
Speaker 1: Here, ladies and gentlemen, go ahead, Donald, give.
Speaker 6: It up for Pete's your's your that's your thunderous.
Speaker 1: Applause, that's your oprah intro of Peen Holmes.
Speaker 7: I really appreciate I wasn't ready at all. Your team
Speaker 7: warned me many times that you guys talk a lot.
Speaker 7: That was number one, and that you're often late.
Speaker 1: And we we're only eight minutes in. You're such a
Speaker 1: fancy guest that we only went eight minutes of banter
Speaker 1: because we didn't want to leave A fancy stand up comedian,
Speaker 1: a beloved America's beloved stand up A fancy boy, a
Speaker 1: fancy boy.
Speaker 7: Well, I appreciate it, but you jumped right in the
Speaker 7: middle of backpack browsing, so I'm not quite ready.
Speaker 1: Why are you in the market for a backpack? Pete homes?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 7: Man, do you find that there's just seasons, there's just
Speaker 7: like you just like thinks something happens and you're just
Speaker 7: like your zest your zest is up? Does your zest
Speaker 7: ever shoot up?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Like you want to go camping?
Speaker 8: You're yearning your zeal Zach Take any movie you've made
Speaker 8: and the character you play the opposite of how the protagonist,
Speaker 8: so that lopey sort of airstream trailer kind of.
Speaker 7: Like if they woke up and was like, I feel
Speaker 7: the opposite and I have zeal and zest and I'm
Speaker 7: gonna go to a Tony Robbins event and I'm gonna
Speaker 7: buy a backpack. That's how I feel today.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna tell you something. I went into Arii
Speaker 1: and Burbank, which if you've never been there is a
Speaker 1: magical place and it's really the man that I would
Speaker 1: like to be one day, but I am not. But
Speaker 1: have you been in there? Donald? It's incredible.
Speaker 2: I went out here in Tarzanna.
Speaker 1: All right, listen, I've never been in an RII so big,
Speaker 1: and I'm not a very campy kind of guy. I
Speaker 1: want to be. I want to be the guy that
Speaker 1: knows how to make a fire and cook on an
Speaker 1: open flame and camping in my kayak. But you walk
Speaker 1: into ari I, Petere.
Speaker 7: Holmes, why real quick? Why go on?
Speaker 2: I just got they got backpacks.
Speaker 1: You should look it's going online, Pete Holmes. You should
Speaker 1: go into the ri I in Burbank.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just magical and huge, and it just there's
Speaker 1: just camping gear and itself big.
Speaker 7: You need the gear to survive the store. Okay, we're
Speaker 7: doing We're doing that. Donald is nice to meet you.
Speaker 7: We've never met.
Speaker 2: It's nice to meet you too.
Speaker 1: Never Pete. That's Joel, our producer and h and Daniel
Speaker 1: our engineer editor.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he has a robot voice.
Speaker 1: He will edit out anything you say that you think
Speaker 1: is horrible and stupid and should not have been said.
Speaker 1: You can just say cut that, Daniel.
Speaker 7: When I made fun of Zach's character choices in his films,
Speaker 7: would you actually copy that and paste it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I said it twice? Whatever. We adopted two things you
Speaker 1: taught me on our show, Pete Holmes, and one is
Speaker 1: a speed agree is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 7: Speed degree? And scandal noted. I said it today. I
Speaker 7: said it today. I just did my own podcast and
Speaker 7: I was talking about how Louis addressed Luisy ky scandal,
Speaker 7: noted scandal. You have to say that just to sort
Speaker 7: of you know. I'm reading an interesting book called The
Speaker 7: Coddling of the American Mind. Have you heard of that?
Speaker 1: No, we're not well read here.
Speaker 7: You just jump right to it.
Speaker 1: Ask us if we watch Below Decks. Some of us
Speaker 1: do Below Deck?
Speaker 7: What is that about?
Speaker 1: That's a reality show, Pete, that follows the crew of
Speaker 1: a fancy yacht and their struggles having to wait on
Speaker 1: the very rich patrons whilst also going out and partying
Speaker 1: and getting ship faced and hooking up themselves.
Speaker 2: I don't watch the show.
Speaker 1: Donald doesn't watch it, but he watches Ah Soka.
Speaker 2: I'm not to talk about that.
Speaker 1: No, but see, Pete, this is something you need to
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 7: It's still in your background. Donald, you don't watch that show.
Speaker 7: You roll your own cigars and like practice archery. You look,
Speaker 7: that's a very fancy room, very.
Speaker 1: Much, audience, Donald, And is in his new home.
Speaker 2: Someone lived in it before and they had a very.
Speaker 7: Who was it Aragorn, son of Arathorne.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lord of the Ring, Pete.
Speaker 1: I want to start at the beginning, because that's a
Speaker 1: very good place to start whenever. We we've never had
Speaker 1: a fancy stand up comedian on our show. We've had
Speaker 1: funny people, but no one who's a stand up. And
Speaker 1: I wondered if you could tell the audience a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, because our audience isn't necessarily people aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily people in entertainment, so they might not know how
Speaker 1: the hell do they become a stand up. Now, Pete
Speaker 1: was in a show that was very very good called Crashing.
Speaker 1: If you haven't watched it, I'm allowed to tell you
Speaker 1: as a writer director that it was written and directed
Speaker 1: very well, but not as an actor. No, that's what
Speaker 1: we were trying to say. Donald is a SAG member
Speaker 1: not allowed to talk about any acting performances. But as
Speaker 1: a WGA and DGA member, I can tell you the
Speaker 1: Crashing was very very well done. Yeah, oh, thank you,
Speaker 1: and its it sort of told the story. But can
Speaker 1: you tell orian's a little bit how you got started
Speaker 1: and how you ended up being a stand up in
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a good question. I The answer would be,
Speaker 7: you know, I started in like two thousand and one
Speaker 7: ish around there, so I've been doing it twenty two years.
Speaker 7: My god, you just watched me stare into the middle
Speaker 7: distance and I start crying. Twenty two years.
Speaker 4: But you just said two thousand and one was twenty
Speaker 4: two years ago. Man, that feels like it was like
Speaker 4: five years ago. I mean, like nineteen eighty feels like
Speaker 4: twenty two years to me.
Speaker 7: Right, I'm so with you. But you know, at that
Speaker 7: time in two thousand and two thousand and one, if
Speaker 7: you wanted to get into comedy, there was improv, which
Speaker 7: I did, and then there was stand up. And that
Speaker 7: was around the time when I'm trying to think like
Speaker 7: Cosby Scandal, Noted Seinfeld, there were there were people that
Speaker 7: were getting TV shows. So like when you would look
Speaker 7: and you'd go, how did I'm trying to think of
Speaker 7: a stand up like Raymond?
Speaker 1: Everybody loves Raymond.
Speaker 7: Raymond is a good one, but also SNL people. I
Speaker 7: was one of those people that wanted to be on
Speaker 7: SNL when I was in high school. That was one
Speaker 7: of like a standout moment was I was in the
Speaker 7: car with my friend Oliver and Kirsta. I mean, that's
Speaker 7: how important this was, and I was making them laugh
Speaker 7: so hard and it was either Kirsa or Oliver, but
Speaker 7: they said you should be on SNL and I was like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, Like these these things, our
Speaker 7: words are like so powerful, and that moment in high
Speaker 7: school when everybody's so awkward and pimply and strange, that
Speaker 7: that somebody took the time to like encourage me in
Speaker 7: that way. And I remember that validating my little night time.
Speaker 7: You know, I'd fall asleep pretending I was doing the
Speaker 7: Good Nights you know, behind me. Would you imagine you
Speaker 7: I did? And I still have that dream. I don't
Speaker 7: have that dream, you know, like in my life, it's
Speaker 7: not like on my goals to necessarily do that, but
Speaker 7: I still catch myself. I'll wake up and I'm a
Speaker 7: little embarrassed. I'm like I had the dream and the
Speaker 7: dream that I had when I was fifteen years old
Speaker 7: that I'm behind, you know, some some actor waving at
Speaker 7: the Good Nights. So you were like, even as a
Speaker 7: as a teenager, I was like, how do you do it?
Speaker 7: I was asking the question you're asking, and I was like,
Speaker 7: you'd find people like I'm trying to think Jay Moore,
Speaker 7: David Spade. There were people that got from stand up
Speaker 7: onto snl right, and then I started doing that, mimicking
Speaker 7: that doing, and we can get into that and that
Speaker 7: really what I got into first though, was improv because
Speaker 7: I read a book, the Second City Book that was
Speaker 7: like they broke it down like this. Chris Farley was
Speaker 7: the funniest guy in Madison, Wisconsin. He went down to Chicago.
Speaker 7: He did Second City. Second City gets scouted like an athletic,
Speaker 7: like a baseball scout. They go and they watch the
Speaker 7: show and they recruit people. And that was true and
Speaker 7: it is still kind of true how how it happened.
Speaker 7: So I was like, Okay, that's what I'll do. So
Speaker 7: I had been doing stand up in Boston probably like
Speaker 7: maybe ten times, not a ton, including some self produced
Speaker 7: shows I did at my college. The first time I
Speaker 7: did stand up, I did an hour stand up. I
Speaker 7: just didn't know any better. I didn't know, well, that's generous, dude.
Speaker 7: It was probably six minutes to stand up.
Speaker 4: I listened, said, I'm in dread to have to do
Speaker 4: stand up because I'm look. We had a fantasy football
Speaker 4: league and if you lost, you had to do five
Speaker 4: minutes at like the laugh. Actually one of the dudes
Speaker 4: really exec Yeah, he was an EP and he was like,
Speaker 4: I'll fucking figure it out and we'll make it happen.
Speaker 4: Do you know how hard I tried to win that
Speaker 4: fucking league just so I didn't have to do five minutes. Dude,
Speaker 4: you did a fucking hour your first time out.
Speaker 2: You are the bravest individual to play.
Speaker 7: I really appreciate that. And that's a very creative punishment
Speaker 7: because if you don't want to do it, stand up
Speaker 7: is like the worst thing I can imagine having to do.
Speaker 7: But because I wanted to do it and I stacked
Speaker 7: it with my friends, it's a nightmare now. I would
Speaker 7: never want to perform for my friends and my family.
Speaker 7: Strangers are so much better. But like I did it
Speaker 7: and it wasn't good is what I'm trying to stress.
Speaker 7: But you know, I, you know, I broke the seal
Speaker 7: and off we went. So I did it like maybe
Speaker 7: ten times. But then I read this book called Truth
Speaker 7: and Comedy and I was like, oh, improv is where
Speaker 7: it's at. Because it's collaborative. It's a lot like you
Speaker 7: know what we're doing now as actors, it's like you're
Speaker 7: on a set. It's social, You're you're engaging with a
Speaker 7: scene partner, and it just felt so much. I'm not
Speaker 7: putting it down, but it felt safer, to be honest, I.
Speaker 1: Would love that. By the way, neither have I done
Speaker 1: professionally ever, I think I would love to do improv
Speaker 1: when I go see it.
Speaker 4: You may train as an improv you've done improv before.
Speaker 1: Of course. Of course I do improv when I'm acting,
Speaker 1: and I make up jokes as we shoot. But I've
Speaker 1: never done a sketch comedy improv land And when I
Speaker 1: go see it, it's obviously hit or miss. Sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: see something that's the funniest fucking thing ever you can't
Speaker 1: believe it, and other times you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is so cringe, But that's kind of part of
Speaker 1: the role of the dice of the thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's fun. That could be fun too.
Speaker 1: Right, But I always feel like I would love that.
Speaker 1: I would love to do.
Speaker 7: Well because it's it's it's beautiful. And I really became
Speaker 7: like an evangelist for how pure improv is and how
Speaker 7: sort of dirty stand up was, because truth and comedy
Speaker 7: kind of makes that case that traveling uh that I'm
Speaker 7: sorry that comedians stand up comedians are a little bit
Speaker 7: like traveling salesmen. It's it's very it puts them down.
Speaker 7: It's like they take their wares and their sad little
Speaker 7: rental cars and they go to clubs and it's that egg.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: They don't say that, but they're kind of implying. Whereas
Speaker 7: improv is you know, you and five, six, seven, eight
Speaker 7: other people, you're listening to each other, you're building it,
Speaker 7: create together, you're co creating it, and then you throw
Speaker 7: it away. It's almost like Andy Warhol. It's like it
Speaker 7: would have belonged in the sixties, with like a spinning
Speaker 7: like hypnotic shape in the background and everyone's wearing white
Speaker 7: and smoking cigarettes. Like it's cool, it's experimental, it's alive.
Speaker 7: But I do want to say that it is safer. Again,
Speaker 7: that doesn't mean it's bad, but there was a My
Speaker 7: part of my draw to it was because I was
Speaker 7: scared to do stand up and that's not really a
Speaker 7: good reason to not do stand up. And I watched
Speaker 7: a lot of people doing improv where you know, and
Speaker 7: I'm not breaking any new ground here. People are pointed
Speaker 7: this out before. A lot of improv teams are big
Speaker 7: white guys with beards, and it's a beer drinking club,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean. It's like, I'm not. I
Speaker 7: still think it can be great at times, but I
Speaker 7: was always like, very like when I had an improv team,
Speaker 7: I wanted to perform all the time. I was like,
Speaker 7: what the fuck are we doing? And you perform like
Speaker 7: once a month if you're like mad Discipline, and if
Speaker 7: you're a house team at Io or something in Chicago,
Speaker 7: you go up once a week. And I'm like, this
Speaker 7: is fucking stupid, Like it's not, but it is. It's like,
Speaker 7: as a stand up you can go up three times
Speaker 7: a night, five times a night, six I believe the
Speaker 7: record is thirteen times a night.
Speaker 2: You can do them.
Speaker 7: I think Steve Byrne did that. He did thirteen sets
Speaker 7: in New York. And it's like, I don't do that.
Speaker 7: But when I was starting, I would do that. I
Speaker 7: would do a lot of reps. And it's like I
Speaker 7: think it was Chappelle or I think it was Chappelle
Speaker 7: that was like, look, if you have a guy in
Speaker 7: boise Ido Iowa that's doing like, you know, a set
Speaker 7: a month, and then you have some dude in Manhattan
Speaker 7: that's going up five times a week, who's going to
Speaker 7: get better? Like you can feel it in New York.
Speaker 7: You're like, yeah, I'm better than I was at seven
Speaker 7: o'clock today.
Speaker 1: But you got to put in those reps.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 7: You can't with improv. That was my problem. You are
Speaker 7: now scheduling ten people with jobs, with lives, a lot
Speaker 7: of them, with families, a lot of them that some
Speaker 7: of them were just kind of doing it because it's
Speaker 7: fucking great and it's fun and it's art in itself.
Speaker 7: But I've always had kind of like a not it's
Speaker 7: not grotesque, but I've had like, I want to do
Speaker 7: show business. I want to write shows, I want to
Speaker 7: write movies, I want to act. I want to do this,
Speaker 7: and I want to do it by getting really good
Speaker 7: at stand up and always do stand up first and foremost,
Speaker 7: but like and and for itself. But I was like,
Speaker 7: I gotta go, We gotta fucking go, guys, let's go.
Speaker 7: And it's hard to do that when you got to
Speaker 7: call three of three other guys and two of them
Speaker 7: are on Kyle.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after these fine words. I've had
Speaker 1: the experience when of knowing people, particularly I was my twenties,
Speaker 1: of people trying to start out doing stand up and
Speaker 1: there's this system in place right where you you need
Speaker 1: to recruit people to come to your show, who are
Speaker 1: your friends, your family, and they need to pay a
Speaker 1: cover and like buy a two drink minimum, and that's
Speaker 1: and that's how you kind of get up in the beginning.
Speaker 1: Is that's still the case. That's what it was back
Speaker 1: in like the early two thousands when I had people
Speaker 1: that were trying to do this.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like one of my roommates when I first moved
Speaker 4: out here, he was in the stand up and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. He would try and get on it. I
Speaker 4: forget what the what the spot was, but it was
Speaker 4: like because I smoked way too much weed back then.
Speaker 7: And still do nothing change.
Speaker 2: Nothing changed a second. It's the same ship.
Speaker 7: That looks like a great sweatshirt to smoke weedan is
Speaker 7: that your Mickey Mouse sweatshirt?
Speaker 2: No, it's not the Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1: He knows about the Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 2: He's a listener.
Speaker 7: It's not. It's not okay.
Speaker 4: And I saw him bomb quite a bit, and I
Speaker 4: saw him, you know, I have a few nights where
Speaker 4: he did really well and I used to sit there
Speaker 4: and be like, dude, I don't know why you're putting
Speaker 4: yourself through this? And it was the same show every night,
Speaker 4: and he was like, if I can just get this right,
Speaker 4: if this comes out right, oh.
Speaker 2: My god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I have a lot of thoughts about that. First of all,
Speaker 7: stand up comedy is a never ending parade of humiliations
Speaker 7: and embarrassments.
Speaker 1: It does seem to be a really, really, really hard
Speaker 1: attract Some.
Speaker 7: People are like, oh, I tried it and then I stopped.
Speaker 7: Should I get back into it? And I'm like, if
Speaker 7: it didn't get its hook in you, why would you?
Speaker 7: Why would you run through a like a sea, like
Speaker 7: a navy seal obstacle course. When on the other side
Speaker 7: of it is some dude says you can do his
Speaker 7: show once a month unless you really want it, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean. So the other thing I feel
Speaker 7: very strongly about that I just think is really important
Speaker 7: and it's a through line and a lot of the
Speaker 7: people that I know that were successful in stand up.
Speaker 7: Leave your fucking friends out of it, leave your fo
Speaker 7: get the fuck out. I didn't invite my fucking friends
Speaker 7: to come watch me when I knew I don't invite
Speaker 7: my friends. Now, you know what I'm saying it's like,
Speaker 7: get why would I want you to watch me rearrange
Speaker 7: my chocolate paneled living room? You know what I mean.
Speaker 7: It's like, it's stupid. It's private, it's between me and
Speaker 7: the audience. It's not a social experiment. It's not something
Speaker 7: I want you. I want your support. I'm in this
Speaker 7: to be fucking Batman. And have you ever seen Batman
Speaker 7: on a gargoyle? He didn't bring his friend Caleb to
Speaker 7: watch him learn how to fight crime. Fucking beat it.
Speaker 7: This isn't about you. I hope you never see me
Speaker 7: fuck off. I'm doing this because it's a compulsion and
Speaker 7: it's a passion, and it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Like Zach
Speaker 7: came and saw me and it was a great show.
Speaker 7: I'm at a point in my career people can come
Speaker 7: and see me now. But for the first ten years,
Speaker 7: you know, I worked at Bennegan's in on the South
Speaker 7: Side of Chicago. A lot of people didn't even know
Speaker 7: I was a comedian. That's the right way to do it,
Speaker 7: just in the same way people don't know Bruce Wayne
Speaker 7: as Batman. Beat it. You have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: But how do you get up here's my question, how
Speaker 1: do you get up? Because to me, that racket that
Speaker 1: I sort of was exposed to was the you know
Speaker 1: by the way they're going up at like five thirty,
Speaker 1: you know the reason that they were getting up is because.
Speaker 7: They brought friends. Those are called bringers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us tell you what. I've never audience. What
Speaker 1: a bringer is the audience? I can't much.
Speaker 7: I can't't, I can't, I can't. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the audience about the tracks. One of
Speaker 1: them is being is being a bringer? Go ahead.
Speaker 7: Well, I never did bringers, and I don't encourage people
Speaker 7: to do bringers. I think bringers are for the tourists.
Speaker 7: There are exceptions to this. There are great comics that
Speaker 7: did bringers, But a lot of people that do bringers
Speaker 7: are just trying to pay it. Meaning like if I
Speaker 7: get five friends to buy five tickets, so that's already
Speaker 7: fifty bucks. Now two drinks and that's probably twenty bucks each.
Speaker 7: I'm not here to do math, but you know, the
Speaker 7: club's making a lot of money giving you five minutes
Speaker 7: on a special show on a Monday night five thirty. Yeah,
Speaker 7: and you bring me. That's a racket for the clubs.
Speaker 7: It's like a pyramid scheme basically, and like it's also
Speaker 7: I would say it's impossible to do well. I've been
Speaker 7: doing it, Like I said twenty two twenty three years.
Speaker 7: If you put me up at a six o'clock Bringer,
Speaker 7: unless all I did was make fun of how horrible
Speaker 7: the show was, which isn't kind. There's no way to
Speaker 7: do well. You can't go up in that show and
Speaker 7: be like, you know the funny thing about sand like
Speaker 7: get at. Nobody wants to be there. They're hostages.
Speaker 1: It's horrible. I've been to bringers. I never knew there
Speaker 1: was a term. I've been to bringers that are so
Speaker 1: cringe and you're there trying to be supportive of your friend,
Speaker 1: but you still have to listen to twenty other people.
Speaker 1: We're at this Bringer.
Speaker 7: I'm telling you, it's like if aliens are watching us.
Speaker 7: They're watching Bringer shows going like, look at what they do,
Speaker 7: because it's a lot of to bringers.
Speaker 1: I never knew there was a term club.
Speaker 4: Okay, so look, and I didn't know they were it
Speaker 4: was called bringers either. First of all, so when I
Speaker 4: was growing up, my parents worked at it were a
Speaker 4: part of a theater company called the National Black Theater.
Speaker 4: It was in Harlem, and for two seasons, Uptown Comedy
Speaker 4: Club set shot its show at the theater. So I
Speaker 4: got to see a lot of very young comedians, African
Speaker 4: American comedians, Ma Coo, Dougie, Doug, Tracy Morgan, a lot
Speaker 4: of these cats perform and stuff like that. And so
Speaker 4: on nights when they weren't shooting stuff like that, there
Speaker 4: would be comedy night and they would set it up
Speaker 4: just like it was on television, and people would come
Speaker 4: on stage and those were the knights where that shit
Speaker 4: would be empty as fuck, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like nobody.
Speaker 2: Would ever night.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was well, yeah that's what it would be,
Speaker 4: but you would you wouldn't know it, but fucking Dougie
Speaker 4: Doug would host it or freaking Flex would be on stage.
Speaker 2: This is back then, right, And I just remember, like
Speaker 2: the ones that did bring their friends in, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Yeah, they got the last they got that.
Speaker 7: That's what I mean. It's it's ridiculous. So to jump
Speaker 7: no bringers. I'm not saying nobody's done a bringer and done, okay,
Speaker 7: I'm just saying that was my policy. I was like,
Speaker 7: this is embarrassing. This is growing pains. Let's just do
Speaker 7: this as privately as possible. Otherwise you're going to exhaust
Speaker 7: your friend group. They're gonna stop coming.
Speaker 1: I was exhausted fast because I once you go to
Speaker 1: two or three bringers, You're like, how do I never
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 7: It's not a renewable resource. It's not a renewable resource.
Speaker 7: And even if it is, you you're exploiting your it's horrible.
Speaker 7: So what you want to do. And when I was
Speaker 7: in Chicago and when I was in New York is
Speaker 7: I would do open mics, which you're a different kind
Speaker 7: of death, but it's a different agreement. In New York,
Speaker 7: you had to pay, the comic had to pay. You
Speaker 7: had to buy two drinks or two items, so I
Speaker 7: got you know, this is a time when money's very tight.
Speaker 7: I buy two buy two cokes for two cokes. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but you also have to sign up, which means you
Speaker 7: might be going on thirtieth you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: There's nothing good about a question.
Speaker 2: You would have hit a bullshit? Wait, you hit a bullshit.
Speaker 2: I used to have to pay for fucking drinks.
Speaker 4: I'm a little kid, and I'm paying for sodas and
Speaker 4: ship at this fucking comedy club and if I couldn't pay,
Speaker 4: they would kick me the fuck.
Speaker 2: Kick.
Speaker 1: I need to buy two cokes.
Speaker 2: This is my parents theater and shit.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing is they put them right in
Speaker 1: front of you, because you're like, all right, have you
Speaker 1: have this agreement where you have to buy two drinks? Right,
Speaker 1: so even if you're not drinking alcohol, you're drinking diet coke, Like,
Speaker 1: they just put two die cokes in front of you.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, no, that that is how you could spot
Speaker 7: a comic at one of these things, because you had
Speaker 7: two glasses of coke in front of you that no
Speaker 7: one wanted. And it was also at a time when,
Speaker 7: like you know, that's probably in New York in two
Speaker 7: thousand and four. I mean two cokes was probably still
Speaker 7: about eight bucks, and you're just sort of like, I
Speaker 7: don't I don't have eight but like this sucks.
Speaker 1: So I have a question for you. When I walk
Speaker 1: down McDougall, For those who don't know McDougall, what is
Speaker 1: it street, boulevard? What is it? I think it's street
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. Is not only the place where I think
Speaker 1: you would say the top comedy club in Manhattan is
Speaker 1: the comedy seller, yep, but also there's a few other clubs.
Speaker 1: And when you walk down that street, and by the way,
Speaker 1: a lot of Pete's show crashing takes place on that street.
Speaker 1: And I remember, I remember seeing you guys shooting there.
Speaker 1: There's guys and gals pamphleting. Yeah, now are they also
Speaker 1: comics trying to get up?
Speaker 7: Is that another?
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 7: And that is what I did? So I love this
Speaker 7: is such a generous line of questioning. I just really
Speaker 7: appreciate your Well.
Speaker 1: We want to educate our audience on the life of
Speaker 1: a stand up comedian.
Speaker 7: Well, I appreciate anyone listening.
Speaker 1: It's very We've done vaginas, and we've done penises, We've
Speaker 1: done we've done alcohol. Now we've done horses. We did
Speaker 1: horses comedians.
Speaker 7: Well, okay, what what? Oh? So that's called barking. And
Speaker 7: so what I did when I was in New York.
Speaker 7: And when I got to New York, i'd been doing
Speaker 7: stand up for three years, but I felt like I
Speaker 7: was starting over. And I think we could talk about
Speaker 7: that for a while, but that was important. I didn't
Speaker 7: walk in going like I'm from Chicago and you will
Speaker 7: respect me. You just assume you're starting over, and that
Speaker 7: was that was a good attitude. I don't remember who
Speaker 7: explained that to me. Probably somebody told me that, and
Speaker 7: I just I went in headlow, you know. And then
Speaker 7: I did the open mics. But like I said, you're
Speaker 7: looking at eight bucks a throw plus subway all that stuff,
Speaker 7: and they sucked. They sucked. They were I'm not saying
Speaker 7: I sucked. I did suck. Like I wasn't that bad
Speaker 7: three years in. I wasn't that bad. But these shows,
Speaker 7: performing for other comedians looking at their notes, waiting for
Speaker 7: their turn to go on again, it's it's an unwinnable situation.
Speaker 7: The only times I remember killing it open mics was
Speaker 7: I had an opener where I'd go, look at what
Speaker 7: we're doing and everyone would laugh because that was the
Speaker 7: only angle know your audience. It's like, look what is this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny. That's a funny route. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: the audience's other comics like make fun of the process.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 7: But I'm not even trying. There's no mark. Again. I
Speaker 7: don't want to sound like a like a capitalist, like
Speaker 7: swine or anything, but I wasn't getting in it to
Speaker 7: learn how to kill it in an open mic, like
Speaker 7: it was fun to do every once in a while,
Speaker 7: but I was like, I want to run bits, I
Speaker 7: want to work out material, and it wasn't happening.
Speaker 2: That's what I was asking you.
Speaker 4: Were you at the level where you were able to
Speaker 4: run your bits and work out your material and try
Speaker 4: and get your set complete you.
Speaker 7: Could do bits at an open mic, But like if
Speaker 7: someone kind of was like, huh, like that was a
Speaker 7: standing ovation, you know, and really, and this is again
Speaker 7: we could talk about the theory of getting through open mics.
Speaker 7: The mantra at that point is don't quit. It's like,
Speaker 7: it's like it's gonna suck. There's a line in Crashing
Speaker 7: where Marina Franklin says to me, she says, if it sucks,
Speaker 7: that's how you know you're doing it right. And that
Speaker 7: is absolutely true of the beginning of stand up. And
Speaker 7: you have to frame it and renarrativize it as something romantic,
Speaker 7: as a lineage, as a rite of passage, because it's
Speaker 7: not gonna in itself reward you. But when I would
Speaker 7: see like Dmitri Martin was like I barked at the
Speaker 7: Boston Comedy Club, I was like I'm gonna bark at
Speaker 7: the Boston Comic Club. Like that's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 7: Jim Gaffigan was like, go to the Boston Comedy Club
Speaker 7: and ask them how, and what they were saying, essentially
Speaker 7: was there's a dumpster fire over there that you can
Speaker 7: at least find a couple tunicns and discarded paper boxes
Speaker 7: that you can lay on. It's gonna suck. Jim Gavigan
Speaker 7: said to me, this is twenty years ago. He goes,
Speaker 7: you're gonna think I'm insane, but you need to go
Speaker 7: to a place that will like fold you into it
Speaker 7: and let you let you in. And the places that
Speaker 7: are gonna let essentially just a wandering you know, new
Speaker 7: comedian in aren't gonna be great places. So the place
Speaker 7: that I got in was the Boston It's not there anymore.
Speaker 7: We rebuilt it for Crashing, which was a real trip,
Speaker 7: but was on West third and basically West third McDougall,
Speaker 7: so it was like a block and a half from
Speaker 7: where I wanted to be, and my corner was McDougall
Speaker 7: and third. So I was standing watching my heroes. And
Speaker 7: when I say heroes, I don't mean names, you know,
Speaker 7: I just mean, any dude that was working the cellar
Speaker 7: was my.
Speaker 1: But that's good to say, But we should also tell
Speaker 1: the audience. He doesn't know that the top comedians stand
Speaker 1: ups in the world, if they're gonna make a surprise
Speaker 1: and shore somewhere, they go to the cellar so you'll see.
Speaker 1: You know, you can be in there and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know Chappelle's going on or Seinfeld's going on.
Speaker 1: They just show up and surprise the audience.
Speaker 7: And that's the trip, is that that Chappelle would also
Speaker 7: come to this Boston because the Boston would let him
Speaker 7: do three hours because it sucks and you want to
Speaker 7: hear something crazy. This is when Chappelle's show is on.
Speaker 7: So I'm barking. So I literally just went to the
Speaker 7: Boston Comedy Club. I met the manager. His name was Dustin.
Speaker 7: Somebody had told me go to the Boston asked for Dustin.
Speaker 7: I met Dustin, who's a great guy, and I said, like,
Speaker 7: I just told him what I've been telling you. I'm
Speaker 7: from Chicago, I've been doing three years. I'm just looking
Speaker 7: for a home club. And the moments in my life
Speaker 7: that hinged on some human kindness are insane. And we
Speaker 7: could spend the rest of the podcast talking about those
Speaker 7: kindness hinge moments, and this was one of them, because
Speaker 7: he could have just said get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 7: He said what he said wasn't the best news. But
Speaker 7: he was like, if you stand on that corner for
Speaker 7: four hours, I'll give you four minutes, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean. A lot of people would be like that
Speaker 7: sounds like abuse, but I was like, I got my headphones,
Speaker 7: I'm going to stand out there. They didn't track it.
Speaker 7: Some clubs track it like you write your name on
Speaker 7: it and they count how many people come in with
Speaker 7: a flyer with your name on it. They weren't doing that.
Speaker 7: You just had to do it, which felt a little
Speaker 7: old Testament in a good way, in the way it's
Speaker 7: like you want to marry my daughter, work in the
Speaker 7: fields for seven years, like it felt from it does
Speaker 7: feel and it feels like fight club. You want to
Speaker 7: come in for Project Mayhem, stand on the porch for
Speaker 7: three days. So I was like, Okay, we come from
Speaker 7: a species that values people proving that they really want something.
Speaker 7: Sleep on the on the steps of the temple before
Speaker 7: you come in on karate. That's what it felt like.
Speaker 7: So I was like okay, and I that was like
Speaker 7: I felt like that was my first break was that
Speaker 7: Dustin was like I'll let you bark and I went out.
Speaker 7: I was pretty good at it, meaning I just kind of,
Speaker 7: you know, I've cut corners in my life when I
Speaker 7: was a waiter, I would cut corner. I was kind
Speaker 7: of lazy and stuff. But with this, I was like
Speaker 7: dead serious. So I was like handout flyers, going for it.
Speaker 1: What was your line that would get people to Trey
Speaker 1: live comedy?
Speaker 7: I just said great live com you guys, you guys. Look,
Speaker 7: that's all I said. Great because there's so many people,
Speaker 7: it's got to be quick, great live comedy, and that
Speaker 7: great live comedy.
Speaker 1: Here's there's also a lot of people. When you walk
Speaker 1: down Mcdogal, there's a lot of people doing this to
Speaker 1: get you to the different clubs. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the red Light District in Amsterdam. It's very Instead
Speaker 1: of it prostitutes, it's guys like Pete.
Speaker 4: It's the it's the fucking well, I don't want to
Speaker 4: say that, now say it.
Speaker 7: It's the It's yes, yeah, it is, you know what
Speaker 7: it is. It's like the gym too, Like it's just
Speaker 7: like this. I like the kung Fu thing. It's like,
Speaker 7: go sleep in the rain, go sleep on it in
Speaker 7: a ditch and prove it. And I actually I'm one
Speaker 7: of those old people now that I'm like, this is good.
Speaker 7: You shouldn't get famous on TikTok right away and not
Speaker 7: be very good. I'm not thinking about anybody in particular
Speaker 7: and just get catapulted into fame. You should lower yourself.
Speaker 7: It's fucking Indiana Jones. Only the pendent man will pass,
Speaker 7: and you got to get on your knees and fucking
Speaker 7: get fucking humiliated. What is the root of humiliated is humble.
Speaker 7: It's also the same root as human. It's also the
Speaker 7: same root as soil. It's like, get low. And that's
Speaker 7: what Bill Burr told me. I was very lucky that
Speaker 7: the first people that I opened.
Speaker 4: Forgot some really fucking, really cool dudes advice right away.
Speaker 7: Jim Gaffigan and Bill Burke used to come through Chicago,
Speaker 7: and my friend Dan Kaufman hooked me up and got
Speaker 7: me opening for them. We didn't those weren't like huge
Speaker 7: names at the point. They were to me, but not
Speaker 7: to the world. And and Bill Burr said he was
Speaker 7: the one that said go to the Boston Comedy Club,
Speaker 7: and he said, keep your head down, don't be a dick.
Speaker 7: You'll get in. Though I still have that email, I've
Speaker 7: looked at it, not recently, but I have checked that
Speaker 7: I got that wording right, and that's what it was.
Speaker 7: So keep your head down and like cand of keep
Speaker 7: your mouth shut. You know, people are gonna make fun
Speaker 7: of you, people are gonna tease you, but like, just
Speaker 7: let the craft speak for itself. Just get better. And
Speaker 7: the tip that I think you were steering me towards
Speaker 7: that was that, like I have a stack of flyers
Speaker 7: and you'd have to like take a flyer out, snap
Speaker 7: and put it in front of somebody. Yeah, and if
Speaker 7: they don't take it, which most people don't, put it
Speaker 7: back in the stack, so you snap it again. You
Speaker 7: don't just leave it out there like you need the
Speaker 7: movement and some sort of razzle.
Speaker 1: They're also very tall. What are you six?
Speaker 7: What six six? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So six six helps? You're gonna get people are gonna
Speaker 1: look at you.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And you know what else helped is is like
Speaker 7: I'm an effusive person, I'm a communicator. This doesn't always work,
Speaker 7: meaning I would tell Dustin how much it meant to me,
Speaker 7: like even after a night, sometimes the show was canceled.
Speaker 7: Often the show was canceled. You bark for four hours,
Speaker 7: you come back, no one's there. You just go home.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. But I was so humiliating and humbling.
Speaker 7: But if you keep doing it, you know what I
Speaker 7: mean by old testament. It's like, you must really love
Speaker 7: my wife or my daughter, you can marry her.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stick with the Miagi analogy. You fucking learned
Speaker 1: to wax on wax off.
Speaker 7: Yeah, But like I also was very clear, I'm not
Speaker 7: a tourist, meaning I'm not just doing this to have fun.
Speaker 7: This was I didn't lose in my fantasy football thing,
Speaker 7: like I want I want this, I want to do
Speaker 7: this and thank you for the opportunity. Now, that sweetness
Speaker 7: didn't always work. I remember there was a club in
Speaker 7: Boston that I was trying to get up and I
Speaker 7: would He told me, he was like, we'll get you
Speaker 7: up another time this month. And I used to call,
Speaker 7: just every day, just calling, and the dude, fine, I'd
Speaker 7: get the machine. I'd leave him like the seventh message,
Speaker 7: This coked up club owner picks up the phone. He's
Speaker 7: like this isn't how it fucking works. I call you like,
Speaker 7: he like chewed me out. So I couldn't just be
Speaker 7: like the borderline Mormon sweet level, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Like I was so doe eyed and kind, I'd like
Speaker 7: to think, but gentle and happy to be here, almost
Speaker 7: like Jack McBrayer or Buddy the Elf, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean. And that did it. Yeah, it did work
Speaker 7: with Dustin in the sense that he knew I meant it,
Speaker 7: and he's a true comic and he respected the part
Speaker 7: of me that wanted to be a true comic. And
Speaker 7: then the trip was I was gonna say, when Chappelle
Speaker 7: would drop by, we'd go out on the street. Again.
Speaker 7: It might be ten o'clock at night, the Terrible Show
Speaker 7: is already going. There's like seven people in the house.
Speaker 7: I'm waiting to go on and the and they go
Speaker 7: Chappelle's here. He's It's so fucking what is there anyone cooler?
Speaker 7: He's walking in. I can remember it, and you know,
Speaker 7: he's smoking, and Dustin would say, go back out, and
Speaker 7: we would go back out. Of course, would go back out.
Speaker 7: Then all we had to say was Dave Chappelle's in here,
Speaker 7: and the place would be full in like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Wow, but here's the word back out. I could picture
Speaker 1: all the comedians who thought they were going to go on, yeah,
Speaker 1: are now running out with their flyers. It became Chappelle, Chappelle, chappelle.
Speaker 1: But it probably means you're not going to go on.
Speaker 7: No, it was a mixed bag. At first, it was awesome,
Speaker 7: and I'd say this to Dave, it's not shit talk.
Speaker 7: At first it was awesome, and then after a while
Speaker 7: that just meant, here's what's going to happen. One hundred
Speaker 7: and fifty people are going to pack out the club.
Speaker 7: He's going to go on. He's going to go on
Speaker 7: for two hours maybe. And by that I mean he's
Speaker 7: not and he you know, he can do whatever he wants,
Speaker 7: but he's not necessarily doing material. He's fucking around, which
Speaker 7: is his right. I say, you see the hierarchy. There
Speaker 7: is like a respect pyramid of stand up, and we
Speaker 7: take that seriously. So that was fine. I would watch it,
Speaker 7: and I learned a lot about what it's like to
Speaker 7: develop material really raw, just literally asking somebody like what's
Speaker 7: your favorite breakfast cereal and riffing on cinnamon toa's crunch
Speaker 7: for five minutes. But it wasn't he wasn't doing you know,
Speaker 7: he's feeling prepared.
Speaker 1: No, I've seen this, by the way. I've seen this. No,
Speaker 1: I've literally seen this carry out. I've been in the
Speaker 1: cellar when oh my god, she Pell's here. She might
Speaker 1: everyone gets excited. Yeah, and then he starts smoking and
Speaker 1: there isn't even what seems like the seed of an idea.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just him smoking, and he just like
Speaker 1: starts shooting the ship with an audience member. And because
Speaker 1: he's who he is, he's earned the right yeah to
Speaker 1: do that. And then if you're in the audience, you're like,
Speaker 1: when's he gonna start telling a joke?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah. And there's a certain kind of writing you
Speaker 7: can only do on the high wire, like you want
Speaker 7: to be in front of the crowd, Like I write
Speaker 7: and then I go on stage and it just juices
Speaker 7: it up. You just like being in front of an audience.
Speaker 7: You like the thrill of the laugh and all that stuff.
Speaker 7: So I get it. He's going up and and and
Speaker 7: he's an EmPATH, but he's absorbing that energy and it's
Speaker 7: inspiring him. But he's also like a cool ass dude,
Speaker 7: that's very calm, So he doesn't mind just sitting there
Speaker 7: and smoking if that's what happens for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 7: So then the best case scenario would be he doesn't
Speaker 7: do too long. He says thank you, and then I
Speaker 7: he didn't talk about and no one yeah, right, hey, Hi,
Speaker 7: get off, and then the barkers, as we were known,
Speaker 7: because no one is left and no one wants to
Speaker 7: go next. So now everyone wanted to go next. Now
Speaker 7: Chappelle went up, no one wants to go next. So
Speaker 7: the number of times that I went on stage, and
Speaker 7: my opener, if you want to call it, that was
Speaker 7: please don't leave, Please don't leave. David Chapelle was great.
Speaker 7: I know, please don't leave, and everyone would leave. But guys,
Speaker 7: I'm forty four, and as I tell this story, I
Speaker 7: have a huge smile on my face. It was essential.
Speaker 7: It was essential. It was like, that's why I told you.
Speaker 7: When people say I did stand up once or twice,
Speaker 7: I took a ten year break, Should I do it again,
Speaker 7: I'm like, no, you either know this is your shit
Speaker 7: even when you suck, but you still have those dreams
Speaker 7: literally in my case, literally dreaming about it. Dreaming about
Speaker 7: hanging out with Zach and Donald on a podcast. Fucking
Speaker 7: dream come to you know, my first specscript with Scrubs.
Speaker 7: By the way, this shit, this shit was fucking in me,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, So like you gotta take
Speaker 7: the win, and the wind was this sucks and I'm
Speaker 7: not quitting. I know that sounds like a little like
Speaker 7: a refrigerator magnet, but I was like, I'm proud that
Speaker 7: I went into Manhattan, a place that used to it's
Speaker 7: At that time, it was scary to me. Unsettling. People
Speaker 7: are mean, Comics are mean. People would say right to
Speaker 7: your face, I don't like you, like fucking weird shit.
Speaker 7: And I stood there holding my empty porridge bowl and
Speaker 7: just like smiled like the fucking Buddha and just waited
Speaker 7: my turn. And then me and the Barkers would talk shit.
Speaker 7: Of course we hated everybody.
Speaker 2: Is that a young man's game, that's a good question.
Speaker 7: I mean, I was twenty five, but Dmitri Martin was
Speaker 7: in law school. He was in his second year of
Speaker 7: law school and he quit. That's fucking courage and certainty
Speaker 7: and skill. Like he recognized his skill, so he didn't
Speaker 7: start until he was already out of college and two
Speaker 7: years into law school. But Tim Allen is always the example.
Speaker 7: I like, sometimes people go, is it too late for
Speaker 7: me to start? And whatever age they are, I go,
Speaker 7: Tim Allen was in jail when he was your you
Speaker 7: know what I mean, like meaning it if it's in you,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, like there can be a
Speaker 7: later break. It's just in fact, the older you get,
Speaker 7: you know, I think, the funnier you get, and you can,
Speaker 7: especially these days, you can cram conversation like this, cram content.
Speaker 7: I was just talking to somebody on my pod today.
Speaker 7: I was like, I used to go to the library
Speaker 7: and get like prior VHS's and stuff, and like, you know,
Speaker 7: you'd have to take this in Boston, take the subway
Speaker 7: into Tower Records just to look to see if they
Speaker 7: had a comedy section. They didn't. You just go home.
Speaker 7: Like but now, if somebody was starting in their thirties
Speaker 7: or even their forties, I wouldn't roll my eyes at that,
Speaker 7: you know, And Roseanne, there are a lot of people,
Speaker 7: I think, especially now, I wouldn't think this do paying
Speaker 7: shit though I don't know. It's an ego question. Some
Speaker 7: people have egos that they can detach from them, so
Speaker 7: I was a little bit more easily and because I
Speaker 7: was young and didn't have as much of an ego
Speaker 7: like dude I was. I was on an airplane. I
Speaker 7: had a first class ticket on a flight. They moved
Speaker 7: me to another flight. My seat wasn't first class, and
Speaker 7: I got on the plane. I was not rude about it,
Speaker 7: but there were empty seats in first class and I'm like,
Speaker 7: can I have one of these? And they were like no,
Speaker 7: and I was like, and I was so shocked that
Speaker 7: they said no. I didn't do anything rude, but I
Speaker 7: was like, dude, I couldn't do it now, you know
Speaker 7: what I mean. Like, I wouldn't go and be like
Speaker 7: I just barked for four hours and they're like, show
Speaker 7: is canceled. I'd be like, well, I'm not coming tomorrow.
Speaker 7: This isn't working. But to that, I knew dudes that
Speaker 7: came to New York and weren't willing to eat shit
Speaker 7: and they are not doing comedy anymore. And that's okay.
Speaker 7: I don't say that and spit out their name from
Speaker 7: my mouth or anything. I'm just saying there were two
Speaker 7: people that in the scenes that I came up with
Speaker 7: that didn't make it. One was people that weren't willing
Speaker 7: to eat shit, eat a shit sandwich. And that's within reason.
Speaker 7: I'm not talking about taking abuse from club owners or
Speaker 7: other comics. I'm saying, within reason, the parameters that we've
Speaker 7: kind of been discussing, the other dudes that didn't make
Speaker 7: it and women that didn't make it, were the shit talkers,
Speaker 7: Like if all you did was complain about what other
Speaker 7: people were getting and how fast they were getting. Because
Speaker 7: here I am handing out flyers as these I'm sorry
Speaker 7: shows up on the scene. Dude is instant, from my perspective,
Speaker 7: instantly in Rolling Stone, on the hot List, you know
Speaker 7: what I mean, or something like that, and you're like,
Speaker 7: dude's twenty years old. If you let that jealousy permeate
Speaker 7: you and get in your bones, I call it comedy cancer.
Speaker 7: You're done. You're fucking done. You keep your head down,
Speaker 7: Bill Burr, keep your head do beit deck like you
Speaker 7: can't look at your neighbor's paper. And that's why you
Speaker 7: don't invite your friends. I don't give a fuck what
Speaker 7: my friends think. I know I suck. It's my time
Speaker 7: to suck. Let me do it privately, let me do
Speaker 7: it alone.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after these fine words. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. They used to be the old prayer
Speaker 1: was that you would get a sitcom, right, So nowadays.
Speaker 2: Isn't that still to say.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a show. I'm sure, but.
Speaker 4: No guys getting in the stand up really just to
Speaker 4: make everybody laugh for the rest of their life. They
Speaker 4: want to fucking turn that shit into fucking.
Speaker 7: Of course, of course some do, some do really, there
Speaker 7: are there are purists. Yeah, for sure, there's a great story.
Speaker 7: Hannibal Burris. I don't think it'd mind me telling you this,
Speaker 7: but like he used to go into meetings with networks
Speaker 7: and he'd just be like, I just want to get
Speaker 7: good at stand up. Like he'd be completely honest with them.
Speaker 7: They're like, yeah, but do you have any pitches? And
Speaker 7: he's like, I want to get good at stand up
Speaker 7: Because he knew the order, he was like, you're not
Speaker 7: gonna We're not going to do this. Now. I'm glad
Speaker 7: we know each other. I'm extrapolating. I just remember Hannibal
Speaker 7: was one of those dudes that was like, I just
Speaker 7: want to be one of the greats, you know.
Speaker 1: So, but yeah, my question is how do you now
Speaker 1: make a living at it? Because I know you've had
Speaker 1: you have a successful tour. You have an upcoming Netflix
Speaker 1: show which we should plug.
Speaker 7: What's it called show ten twenty four. It'll be out
Speaker 7: ten twenty four. It's called I Am Not for everyonty.
Speaker 1: I am for everyone. Yeah, I am not for everyone
Speaker 1: on Netflix. I've seen this show, by the way, with
Speaker 1: Bill Lawrence. Bill and I went to one of the
Speaker 1: last times you were sort of doing it for an
Speaker 1: audience at Largo in Los Angeles before you went to
Speaker 1: shoot it. I believe right, And I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: this because he's here. Bill and I belly laughed for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. How long did you did
Speaker 1: it end up being ninety minutes?
Speaker 7: No, I cut some stuff.
Speaker 1: It's funny. That night I was like that night, I
Speaker 1: was like, I said to you, oh, I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: going to cut it down to an hour, right, And
Speaker 1: you were like, no, No, I think I'm going to leave
Speaker 1: it long. But even the ninety minutes, we bally laughed
Speaker 1: the whole time. It was so fucking funny. I promise you, audience,
Speaker 1: if you're listening and you're a fan of Donald and
Speaker 1: I you will laugh at Pete's special. It's so smart
Speaker 1: and funny. And I like comedy that does not only
Speaker 1: make me laugh but makes me think, and your hour
Speaker 1: certainly does that. Oh thanks man, But I wanted to
Speaker 1: say My question is how I've gone to the Cellar
Speaker 1: and seen so many brilliant comedians. That's where you go
Speaker 1: when you want to see the best in town, and
Speaker 1: I don't. They aren't necessarily household names. They aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: people you'd recognize. How do these people make a living?
Speaker 1: Do they do they tour? They's? Do they tour at
Speaker 1: different levels? Are they hoping for a special? What is
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three way that a stand up comedian
Speaker 1: makes a living?
Speaker 7: Again a generous question. We we cover this a little
Speaker 7: bit on Crashing, but the answer is more than what
Speaker 7: we showed on the show. There's different markets, right, so
Speaker 7: there there are still to this day people in New York.
Speaker 7: What I was smiling during your question that there are
Speaker 7: people that I want to go like, what what are
Speaker 7: how are you doing? Like I do like I don't know,
Speaker 7: I want to go, Like what is what's your strategy?
Speaker 1: Like where do you live? How do you ben in Manhattan?
Speaker 7: Well? You can take it up from the bottom right.
Speaker 7: There are some dudes that do so many sets in
Speaker 7: the city. That's what they that's what they do. Like that,
Speaker 7: and I'm sure they tore some but like you know,
Speaker 7: if you do, because the Fat Black Pussycat is right
Speaker 7: around the corner from the cellar, you can go back
Speaker 7: and forth between those two clubs. I've done it and
Speaker 7: go up eight times at the night and.
Speaker 1: That's in your show. By the way, I just want
Speaker 1: to say a funny little connection here. Jessica Curson, who
Speaker 1: we should have on Donald is my stepsister and she
Speaker 1: is a very accomplished, that hilarious stand up comedian.
Speaker 2: She did it a unique way.
Speaker 4: Also, where she got she was already out there, but
Speaker 4: she got on through a reality television show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was her. That was her introduction, started
Speaker 2: her up.
Speaker 1: She was on one of those what was it the
Speaker 1: comedian competition she was. Yeah. But also what I just
Speaker 1: wanted to say that one of the great things about
Speaker 1: Peete show Crashing is he had all the real people
Speaker 1: playing themselves. All the go to not all, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the go to stand ups in this circuit
Speaker 1: are in the show, including my stepsister Jessica Curson was
Speaker 1: in a very funny episode where Pete and she are
Speaker 1: running back and forth between these two clubs. So I
Speaker 1: just had to digress and tell that.
Speaker 2: And then we go.
Speaker 7: She does another one where we go to North Carolina.
Speaker 7: She was in the only episode where we flew somewhere
Speaker 7: to shoot it, and she's just she's sweet as pie.
Speaker 7: I love her to death. I'm not just saying that.
Speaker 1: Like I have like a special She's someone you don't
Speaker 1: want to follow because she every time I see her.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm the most often that I'm in the
Speaker 1: Cellar is because Jessica's going up and I'm going to
Speaker 1: see her and I'm gonna see some other comics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And every comic will tell me and they're not just
Speaker 1: saying this because she's my stepsister, Like you can't follow
Speaker 1: her because she's so funny and she's so outrageous. Donald.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen her do her thing?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have so funny.
Speaker 7: She told me once she didn't like a crowd at
Speaker 7: the Cellar and she did the rest of her set
Speaker 7: with her back her back to them, which I was like.
Speaker 1: She does this sort of inner monologue thing where she'll
Speaker 1: she'll be performing and if and if something bombs, she
Speaker 1: goes upstage to the wall and turns around into the mic.
Speaker 1: She does like an inner monologue, like, don't listen to them,
Speaker 1: You're doing just great. This is very hard. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not selling it well.
Speaker 7: But yes, great, Yeah, she's letting them into every element
Speaker 7: of the experience. So anyway, the answer is there's city
Speaker 7: spots and then the first break. For a lot of
Speaker 7: people in Mike, I'll just speak for myself. My first
Speaker 7: sort of foray into touring was colleges, and especially when
Speaker 7: you're in your twenties, colleges are incredible and there's things
Speaker 7: called NAKA. Musicians do it as well. It's a National
Speaker 7: Association of College Acts or something like that. You go
Speaker 7: to a NAKA. It's in a hotel. We did an
Speaker 7: episode about on crashing and people are curious. I'm very
Speaker 7: proud of the NAKA episode. I got a college agent.
Speaker 7: I'm forgiving out. I can't exactly remember how, but somebody
Speaker 7: probably a VHS tape that I sent and then they
Speaker 7: submit that VHS tape into naka's on your behalf. You
Speaker 7: have to pay it's like three hundred bucks just to
Speaker 7: submit again at a time when you don't have three
Speaker 7: hundred bucks, and then if you get in, it's a
Speaker 7: really big deal. I often didn't get in. I eventually
Speaker 7: finally got one. I went and you perform at like
Speaker 7: eleven in the morning. And who's there as all the
Speaker 7: people from our colleges that ran the Student Activities Council.
Speaker 7: So everybody's shirt says sack or CAB. They're all called
Speaker 7: soccer Cab, soccer Cab, Student Activities Council or CONCL.
Speaker 1: So they're the students.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're students.
Speaker 1: So they're students who have been tasked with booking the
Speaker 1: acts for this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but let's be real. These aren't the hippus students.
Speaker 7: These are are kids that wanted to run the yearbook.
Speaker 1: Basically they have a lot of power. Though they do
Speaker 1: have a.
Speaker 7: Lot of power, and that's what's so funny about it
Speaker 7: is you're kissing your my future, my rent, and my
Speaker 7: livelihood is now tied to my ability to not only
Speaker 7: perform well but also hobnob and the lobby of a
Speaker 7: highest regency with some eight nineteen year old girl who
Speaker 7: still has braces, and she's deciding whether or not they
Speaker 7: want to spend the eleven hundred dollars to have me
Speaker 7: come into the Upper Peninsula, Michigan and do a show
Speaker 7: at noon. You know what I mean. So it's a
Speaker 7: very I'm telling you, it's a never ending parade of humiliations. Guys,
Speaker 7: it's never ending. It doesn't end. I'm still doing it.
Speaker 1: So you do the set and then you have to
Speaker 1: go in the lobby and be like, so, Michelle, no,
Speaker 1: it's worse.
Speaker 7: You stand at a booth you after your set, pet Homestan,
Speaker 7: it's your My agency was called Auburn Moon. I would
Speaker 7: stand at the Auburn Moon booth and watch people walk by.
Speaker 7: So I did two necas, one where I did very well,
Speaker 7: one where I didn't so one where you didn't do well.
Speaker 7: And you have to stand at the booth trying to
Speaker 7: hand out your merch because you're giving because college kids
Speaker 7: love free stuff, so you're trying to give them T
Speaker 7: shirts or trying to give them a water bottle or
Speaker 7: something like that, or a carabeaner that says Pete Holmes dot.
Speaker 1: And then see them let's say you didn't kill that day,
Speaker 1: and well yea, And so you see them gathering around
Speaker 1: the booth of the guy who killed and they're all
Speaker 1: get get the asease Carabina.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, dude, I don't know if he's ever didna.
Speaker 7: I think as blew up real fast and kind of
Speaker 7: pole vaulted that. But when I did it the first
Speaker 7: time and I knew it was a big deal, it
Speaker 7: was like I was more nervous, more jacked up for
Speaker 7: it than like my first late night or anything. It
Speaker 7: was like it really felt like no one will ever know,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean. It's not going to be
Speaker 7: on TV. But if I do this, it'll fill my calendar,
Speaker 7: like it'll fill out my whole year. And when I
Speaker 7: said eleven hundred dollars, that wasn't random like I would
Speaker 7: say the average I don't not even mid level, low level,
Speaker 7: but headlining early comedian, especially if you're clean, which I
Speaker 7: was clean at the time, you'd make about a grand
Speaker 7: unless they clumped them together. Now you're doing it for me.
Speaker 1: You get paid more if you're clean.
Speaker 7: You book more if you're clean, because.
Speaker 1: They don't want a lot of just don't want dirty talk.
Speaker 7: Absolutely not. In fact, you once you book the gig
Speaker 7: and you get this a whole I could write a
Speaker 7: book on how to do colleges, but once you get
Speaker 7: there you can ask and say, really, that.
Speaker 1: A really good cock joke. Do you guys want it? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it's the same with you know, I do
Speaker 7: corporate gigs now too, and they're always like, you book
Speaker 7: it because you can do an hour squeaky clean, and
Speaker 7: I can and I do and I like it. But
Speaker 7: sometimes you get there. Last one I did was for
Speaker 7: like liquor salesmen. I'm like, these guys want to and
Speaker 7: these men and women would like to hear about this
Speaker 7: sex story or whatever it is. They're gonna like it
Speaker 7: the sex joke.
Speaker 1: So anyway, there's a section in your new stand up
Speaker 1: I'm not for everyone? Is that what it's called?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I am not for everyone.
Speaker 1: I am not for everyone where it's not dirty necessarily,
Speaker 1: but you speak in a very funny way about uh sexuality? Right?
Speaker 1: Is that the way way to put it? And I
Speaker 1: just thought it was so funny and interesting. But it
Speaker 1: would that be considered But would that section be considered
Speaker 1: all rated?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Everything in my new special, with few exceptions, would
Speaker 7: be too edgy for a naka. But the great thing
Speaker 7: is is because I was raised religious, I fuck naka.
Speaker 7: I thought I was going to go to hell if
Speaker 7: I was a naughty boy. So I was way ahead of.
Speaker 1: The curve, right, something that's in Crashing and we haven't
Speaker 1: touched on and we can. We can just touch on
Speaker 1: it briefly. One thing that's interesting about your story is
Speaker 1: that you grew up quite religious, correct and then so
Speaker 1: part of the story of Crashing is not only is
Speaker 1: it Pete's story, he's a young, wide eyed stand up
Speaker 1: coming to town, but your character and you grew up
Speaker 1: very religious.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and it really is sort of like a I
Speaker 7: don't want to say thrown into the wolve's den, but
Speaker 7: it had a little flavor of that more because of
Speaker 7: how sheltered eye was. And you know, Nate Bargatzi was
Speaker 7: there at the same time as me, and he and
Speaker 7: I bonded a lot over just like we're you know,
Speaker 7: we're afar away from the from the church life, which
Speaker 7: which was very sweet and nice. I'm not saying anything
Speaker 7: bad about it. Now everybody's you know, doing everything that
Speaker 7: you could think, drugs, drinking, and there's a lot of like.
Speaker 1: When you're still a religious man, are you not?
Speaker 7: I'm a spiritu Yeah, it's a spirit deeply spiritual person.
Speaker 7: And that and that informs it. You know that we're
Speaker 7: changing gears a little bit. But it's like, I think
Speaker 7: there's a big difference between dirty and ugly. My comedy
Speaker 7: is very dirty, but it's not ugly, and I think
Speaker 7: you can do clean comedy that's very ugly. I think
Speaker 7: what you should really pick up on, thanks Ton, is
Speaker 7: like the undercurrent, like what values, what attitudes and perspectives
Speaker 7: are you championing? And if you don't say fuck, it
Speaker 7: doesn't matter. Did you just say a man should be
Speaker 7: able to hit a woman? Did you kind of like,
Speaker 7: let's really reduce what you just said. Isn't that what
Speaker 7: you just said? And this could be a clean comic?
Speaker 7: And then I go up and I say, like, you're
Speaker 7: the joke you're referencing. I think, is you know Kinsey approved.
Speaker 7: It's very interesting about the spectrum of sexuality and it's dirty.
Speaker 7: I'm talking about jerking off in sacks and all this stuff,
Speaker 7: but like, underneath that, I'm saying, we're all in this together.
Speaker 7: It's a sexuality strange and it's unifying, Like my goal
Speaker 7: is for it to be unifying.
Speaker 1: You never punched down in your and your kind and
Speaker 1: there's there's a kindness to your comedy. You're saying some outrageous,
Speaker 1: funny things, but you're not taking aim at anybody in
Speaker 1: a mean way.
Speaker 7: I appreciate that if I do take a cheap shot
Speaker 7: or punch down, even if it's briefly, it's because that's
Speaker 7: true to our experience, that everybody has a mind that
Speaker 7: occasionally thinks something that you don't approve of, and I
Speaker 7: think that's valuable to talk about as well. Meaning like this,
Speaker 7: I say this all the time, but the sweetest nun,
Speaker 7: the most gentle woman in the world, sometimes is stirring
Speaker 7: her coffee and she's like, I don't know why, but
Speaker 7: I don't like whatever. You know what I mean, I'm
Speaker 7: not I won't say it, but.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I wanted you to go there. And just.
Speaker 7: Example I usually give is I'll be on a plane
Speaker 7: or something, I'm like, I don't know why, but I
Speaker 7: hate the back of this guy's head, like I fucking
Speaker 7: hate the shape and fucking this dumb hair. So one
Speaker 7: of the unifying things you can do. And I know
Speaker 7: I'm having my cake and eat it too. But if
Speaker 7: I do make a joke that's cheeky or a little
Speaker 7: bit wicked, it's because I'm trying to demonstrate shamelessly and
Speaker 7: innocently that all of us know how lonely it is
Speaker 7: to be stuck in these fucking outdated biological spaceships that
Speaker 7: because of the wiring and the pattern recognition and the
Speaker 7: judging and the labeling and the consumerism and everything, that
Speaker 7: all the impetus that we're constantly being flooded in your brain.
Speaker 7: It's like a fucking washing machine filled with marbles, and
Speaker 7: shit's flying out sometimes, and it's lonely and isolating and
Speaker 7: honestly encouraging of dark and weird thoughts to not say, hey,
Speaker 7: sometimes I have a thought like this and it's fucking weird.
Speaker 7: And if I can use my platform to make people
Speaker 7: feel less shame, that's great. And sometimes it might be
Speaker 7: at the expense of whatever, like some joke that you're
Speaker 7: not ooh, that you're not supposed to say that, yeah, okay,
Speaker 7: and here we are and here we are. You're also
Speaker 7: not supposed to think that, you're not supposed to feel
Speaker 7: that you're not supposed to do that, but we do.
Speaker 7: I have a joke in my New Hour about taking
Speaker 7: my daughter on a carousel, even though my friend like
Speaker 7: couldn't find his daughter, and I could have helped him
Speaker 7: look for his daughter, but it's a whole story. I'm
Speaker 7: not proud of that story. They found her, I.
Speaker 2: Can't find my daughter. Okay, I'm gonna go with that's.
Speaker 7: Exactly the joke. But that to me using a high
Speaker 7: status position loud voice, I'm talking, let's go back to
Speaker 7: being Bonobo's babies. You know what I mean, loud voice.
Speaker 7: I'm up high and I'm in the light. So that's
Speaker 7: an alpha position. And to use it instead of championing
Speaker 7: myself and telling you all my virtues and all my
Speaker 7: gloriousness like a dictator and how ineffable I am, instead
Speaker 7: being vulnerable enough to be like I should have not
Speaker 7: gotten on the carousel. That's more valuable because people are like,
Speaker 7: you know what, dude, in this flawed, imperfect thing. Sometimes
Speaker 7: I do that, And if and if you can laugh
Speaker 7: at me and then still quietly be like I've done
Speaker 7: stuff like that, that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the most common.
Speaker 7: What is gained if I get up and just tell
Speaker 7: you how fucking great I am and how perfect I am.
Speaker 7: And you know what I hate most comedy is just
Speaker 7: going up on staying and saying, isn't food great? Isn't
Speaker 7: sex great? Isn't winning great? Isn't isn't that's it? Isn't
Speaker 7: money great?
Speaker 2: It's something I remember back in the day.
Speaker 4: It was always there was some women that would come
Speaker 4: on stage, a lot of women where my big women
Speaker 4: at that shit used to be like the first motherfucking my.
Speaker 1: God, wear my big women at him that.
Speaker 7: You know, what I hear constantly is who's drinking? But
Speaker 7: that is who's drinking? You guys partying and then you're
Speaker 7: into drinking, but that is also Look, I have respect
Speaker 7: for anyone doing comedy, so I'm not gonna, you know,
Speaker 7: broadstroke dismiss anyone. But if I go on stage and
Speaker 7: do a bit about how great alcohol is in a
Speaker 7: club where everyone's drinking, nothing has happened. People who already
Speaker 7: liked alcohol like alcohol. If I can go on stage
Speaker 7: and make them, and it doesn't have to be alcohol,
Speaker 7: but just kind of like take the other side for
Speaker 7: fun and get people to laugh at not even something
Speaker 7: that challenges them, but like something a little bit more
Speaker 7: interesting than just like, isn't aren't orgasms great? Isn't dopamine great?
Speaker 7: Isn't you know? Or a story where you go and
Speaker 7: I say, get the fuck out of here, clown, and
Speaker 7: everyone cheers for me.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, I thought you did that in spades with the
Speaker 1: run you do on sexuality and the Kinsey scale. I
Speaker 1: thought it was really funny and interesting and certainly not
Speaker 1: something I've seen anyone talk about in a comedy set.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really unique.
Speaker 7: Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after these fine words. What are
Speaker 1: your parents? Are they alive? What do they think of
Speaker 1: your comedy? I imagine they're religious. Still.
Speaker 7: You know what's really really weird is that my parents,
Speaker 7: my mom was more was very religious, and that was
Speaker 7: I wrote it in my book that my brother and
Speaker 7: my dad had sports and me and my mom had Jesus,
Speaker 7: and that was like our interest. We knew the stats,
Speaker 7: you know, you knew all the stats, all the teams.
Speaker 7: But like, as my mom's gotten older and I've gotten
Speaker 7: older as well, that's how it works. I've gotten way
Speaker 7: more spiritual and my mom's gotten a little bit less
Speaker 7: interested in that stuff, which which is not you know,
Speaker 7: she's eighty two and that's not my favorite. Only I've
Speaker 7: said before, I'm like, I wish it would be if
Speaker 7: my mom would be like comfortable and feel held in
Speaker 7: the world and be religious in a way that I
Speaker 7: don't share all of those beliefs, but like felt secure
Speaker 7: in the universe. That's my hope for her, and that's
Speaker 7: why now I push it on her a little bit,
Speaker 7: so at the tables of turn. But answer where I
Speaker 7: think you were going. My parents don't really know. I
Speaker 7: think they don't really know what to make of me
Speaker 7: to this day.
Speaker 1: Do they watch it? Will they watch this new special?
Speaker 7: Yeah, the last one that came out. I think they
Speaker 7: watched it with some church friends and then they just
Speaker 7: call me and we were so humiliated, and I'm like,
Speaker 7: you see, this is full circle, man, because me saying
Speaker 7: don't bring your friends is me also saying don't bring
Speaker 7: your family. No, it's not about them. And what I
Speaker 7: always say to my mom with all love and to
Speaker 7: my dad as well as I go, it's not for you.
Speaker 7: And any artist that's making something with what will my
Speaker 7: parents think, isn't giving me all of themselves? And I'm here,
Speaker 7: you know, I don't want to, you know, blow my
Speaker 7: own horn, what is it?
Speaker 1: Blow it to it?
Speaker 7: But I want to, like mine deep I want to
Speaker 7: share humiliations. I want to share vulnerable feelings. I want
Speaker 7: to make fun of my parents, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 7: I spent a lot of my life being like, yes, sir,
Speaker 7: and and this is your show and I'm just you know,
Speaker 7: I'm one of the one of your crew, you know
Speaker 7: what I mean. Like, and it's like, that's fucking over, man,
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 1: Just talking iry to interrupt you, But that kind of
Speaker 1: informs the title. I'm not for everyone. You're saying, I'm
Speaker 1: not for mom and dad. No, I'm going to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do my thing. I'm definitely not for everyone.
Speaker 7: If it's for everyone, it sucks for everyone.
Speaker 1: It sucks, Amen, And that allowed for the people in back.
Speaker 7: That's really true. And dude, you see that in your
Speaker 7: films for sure, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: For everyone, but no, but gosh, for the people that
Speaker 1: respond to them, it's such as that's the reason you
Speaker 1: make them.
Speaker 2: They say, that's why we're in this.
Speaker 1: We're not in you know, Scrubs was not for everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, we're here doing a Scrubs podcast and all
Speaker 1: the people listening obviously loved the show, but the show
Speaker 1: was never a runaway hit. Every season we were like,
Speaker 1: are we coming back? And that happened for nine years.
Speaker 7: I told this to Bill. I was like, that that show.
Speaker 7: I know. I said this to Zex's on the pod
Speaker 7: three times and I'm sure we've talked about the episode
Speaker 7: where j D is wondering how he'll die. He looks
Speaker 7: at you, Donald and you're eating a sandwich, and he's like,
Speaker 7: heart failure, you know what I mean? And he looks
Speaker 7: at him and then he looks at his own reflection
Speaker 7: and goes, I don't know, stress. I have the chills
Speaker 7: as I'm telling you this. I saw that stuff and
Speaker 7: I was like, that's what you're supposed to do with
Speaker 7: a platform. And again, we watched some popcorn shows. We
Speaker 7: watch things that are for we're not you know what
Speaker 7: I mean. We don't have to put down other things.
Speaker 7: I'm just saying there's a special place. I was just
Speaker 7: talking to a comedian where I was like, the money,
Speaker 7: it's for the discomfort of dealing with the people that
Speaker 7: might be like, why did you make that joke about me?
Speaker 7: But it's my fucking job. It's my job to risk it.
Speaker 7: That's really what the money is for, you know. Bb
Speaker 7: King used to say, I do the shows for free.
Speaker 7: They pay me to travel. I do the shows for free,
Speaker 7: they pay me to deal with the draining feeling. I
Speaker 7: was just in Salt Lake City. I did four shows.
Speaker 7: I come back to the hotel, and I've been, you know,
Speaker 7: making fun of my family, making fun of myself, sharing
Speaker 7: like I said that story about the carousel, and I'm
Speaker 7: just sort of like, you feel what my wife and
Speaker 7: I call everybody calls a vulnerability hangover. You feel hollow
Speaker 7: and tender. I was just rewatching Phantom Thread when he
Speaker 7: does his show and then he gets the next day,
Speaker 7: it just cuts to him in bed. I don't want
Speaker 7: to make it too dramatic here, but I'm like, that's
Speaker 7: what the money is for. It's for this feeling of like,
Speaker 7: oh my god, I just show my realness to a
Speaker 7: lot of people. Yeah, I'm not one hundred percent of voyeur.
Speaker 7: Part of me likes being seen and celebrated. But a
Speaker 7: lot of you goes like, I just really that was real.
Speaker 1: I think I first, I love that expression of vulnerability hangover.
Speaker 1: I think I felt that every time I release a film.
Speaker 1: I feel, of course, I feel like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you rip yourself open uh. And then and then of
Speaker 1: course you're you're judged positively or negatively. And then and
Speaker 1: then people's watching and they don't and then there's then
Speaker 1: there's just quiet and you feel a vulnerability hangover, yeah.
Speaker 7: And you feel empty and you feel tender, and you
Speaker 7: feel just my wife is so good at it. But
Speaker 7: there is like a rebuilding process and that's a whole
Speaker 7: other podcast. But like getting your balls right, getting your
Speaker 7: family right, having interests outside of this. There's a lot
Speaker 7: of people in our town, you know, we never talk
Speaker 7: about comedy or anything. It's really good for my spirit.
Speaker 2: You know. I was about to say, how does that work?
Speaker 4: Like doesn't everyone when it's your profession and you're around
Speaker 4: your peers.
Speaker 2: Do you guys talk about jokes all the time? Are
Speaker 2: you on? Is this? You know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Like I wouldn't call it on, you would love it.
Speaker 7: That's my answer is it's it's the best hanging with comedians,
Speaker 7: especially if they're like minded comedians. There's still some ball
Speaker 7: breakers that aren't my favorites. But if I'm hanging out
Speaker 7: with Mike bro Bigli or I was just hanging out
Speaker 7: Eddief did my podcast today, it's heaven because they especially
Speaker 7: guys my age, men and women my age, they've been
Speaker 7: through a lot of the same stuff. So you said
Speaker 7: trenches earlier, but there is a like you're bonded by
Speaker 7: having shared this experience and a lot of us we
Speaker 7: were doing it alone, and now we all get to
Speaker 7: get together and be like that was some shit, right,
Speaker 7: and like and support each other and you do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: I have it with you guys right now. But it's
Speaker 7: nice to be able to just go it's not weird
Speaker 7: if I tell you I'm working on a bed about
Speaker 7: this and and just kind of say it and then
Speaker 7: they kick it back to you.
Speaker 1: I love that with you. When I do Pete's show.
Speaker 1: By the way, for interested, I've done like you said,
Speaker 1: I've done Pete's Show three times, and you can check
Speaker 1: it out. It's called you made it weird?
Speaker 7: Right In sex defense, we don't say the name of
Speaker 7: the show a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah you don't.
Speaker 7: There's no reason you should really know it.
Speaker 1: I've done it three times. I should be definitive.
Speaker 7: No, I'm saying you shouldn't. Every time you've done it,
Speaker 7: I haven't been like, welcome to you made it weird.
Speaker 7: I'm here with that, but it never comes up.
Speaker 1: But the reason, the reason I keep doing it, honestly, Pete,
Speaker 1: and I hope we graduate to being real friends in
Speaker 1: real life. But I I just love coming and laughing
Speaker 1: with you. I think we have we.
Speaker 2: Haven't coming and laughing.
Speaker 7: I love coming in that order to the release laughter.
Speaker 1: I love laughing with you. We have a very someatimes
Speaker 1: of humor. And the last time I did it, Donald,
Speaker 1: we brought up Glen Gary Glenn Ross and spent the
Speaker 1: bulk of the episode just just purely probably poorly quoting
Speaker 1: Glengary Glenross.
Speaker 7: I would put it to Mammot himself that it was excellent.
Speaker 7: I mean that movie all all my comedian friends, most
Speaker 7: of them are obsessed with that movie, and it goes
Speaker 7: all the way up to Seinfeld. He's not my friend,
Speaker 7: but like I know a lot of comedians that love
Speaker 7: that movie because it talks about the brutality of selling
Speaker 7: your wares, of like salesmen that have to use their
Speaker 7: personalities to like kind of get ahead. So of course
Speaker 7: comedians would relate.
Speaker 1: Well, they must have loved our episode, Pete, because that's
Speaker 1: mostly what we talked about.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jodo Ros and I text each other exclusively in Glengarry.
Speaker 1: Quotes, Yeah, I've exhausted the only gifts available on I
Speaker 1: message to you. I believe there's only a couple. There's
Speaker 1: always closing going to Safari. Yeah, you help me find
Speaker 1: better Glen Glen Ross gifts. Yeah, Pete, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on. I Am not for everyone. Is
Speaker 1: on Netflix on October twenty fourth. That's right, not a
Speaker 1: question mark, an exclamation point and audience, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: I saw this live with Bill Lawrence and I. I
Speaker 1: remember it was a holiday, right, Pete was Labor Day
Speaker 1: or Memorial Days, one of those days, and we were
Speaker 1: both kind of tired, and we said, let's go. It's
Speaker 1: Pete's hilarious. It'll be great, and we went and I
Speaker 1: genuinely laughed my butt off. It's so funny and so smart,
Speaker 1: and I encourage you all to check it out. Thanks man, Donald,
Speaker 1: say something nice about Pete.
Speaker 7: Donald, You're welcome anytime. He's salty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Donald, come, don Are you willing to talk about
Speaker 1: Are you to talk about Star Wars? Where are you
Speaker 1: on Star Wars? Because that's Donald's favorite thing to talk about.
Speaker 4: He knows Bill, he knows Bill Burr. He was in
Speaker 4: Star Wars. That's how I found out who Bill Burr was.
Speaker 7: Actually, because he was in The Mandalorian.
Speaker 2: Because he was on the Mandalorian, I was like, who
Speaker 2: is this guy?
Speaker 1: Pete? Could you fill an hour with Donald talking about
Speaker 1: here the key?
Speaker 2: I had been watching him like on the Chappelle Show
Speaker 2: back in the day and all that.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, that Racial Draft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you can do Marvel Star Wars stop motion
Speaker 1: animation as a focus. Uh, sports basketball. If you could
Speaker 1: fill an hour with that, Donald will crush your podcast. Uh,
Speaker 1: bag of dits.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not gonna We're not gonna go into that.
Speaker 1: Pete Holmes, we love you. The special is called I
Speaker 1: Am Not for everyone. Yeah, but Pete, in my mind,
Speaker 1: you're for me.
Speaker 7: You're definitely, and that's what we've learned. Thank you, definitely,
Speaker 7: really really cool.
Speaker 2: You are fucking Batman dude, you are bad.
Speaker 7: Thank you? Oh yeah, the Batman series is on YouTube now.
Speaker 7: We're dropping every Thursday. By the time this comes out,
Speaker 7: they might all be out, but we're firing everybody on theh.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you ask Donald or me to be a
Speaker 1: character and that fucking thing.
Speaker 7: If we thought Donald would do it, leave you out
Speaker 7: of it. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did your funny Friends, but I never got
Speaker 1: the email.
Speaker 7: You'd be great. I mean we we still have a
Speaker 7: lot of people to fer. We need a riddler. We
Speaker 7: could do riddler, we can do. We want to do
Speaker 7: poison Ivy commissioner Gordon.
Speaker 1: Who could Donald?
Speaker 2: Yeah you could.
Speaker 7: Be Gordon, Yeah you could be modern Gordon. But Mat
Speaker 7: McCarthy is our Gordon. We already you already got Sorry,
Speaker 7: who can Donald be? That's a great Gordon, the newest Gordon.
Speaker 7: I don't know, but the Batman.
Speaker 1: Impressions you do a nice you. You don't do impressions
Speaker 1: on stage, but you are pretty good at impressions.
Speaker 7: They come out sometimes and it evolved from good to
Speaker 7: pretty good.
Speaker 1: And do you want to give us a quick al pacino?
Speaker 1: And then we have to go.
Speaker 9: Pete, I want to say you thank you so much
Speaker 9: for having me on his podcast. It's been wonderful to
Speaker 9: sit with my friend zach Rath and Donald.
Speaker 1: Or I'll give.
Speaker 7: I like my aides to be presentable. I've gone with
Speaker 7: my mouth. That's shore taking it out. It's a little
Speaker 7: bit better without the gun.
Speaker 1: Al. We usually end the show by counting five to
Speaker 1: six seven eight. Would you count us out? Five six,
Speaker 1: seven eight is Alpha shooting? Hell yeah A five six.
Speaker 5: Here's some stories that show we made about a bunch
Speaker 5: of times and nurses in Jana, I said, here's a
Speaker 5: story net. All s no, so gadder round you here,
Speaker 5: our gadder round you here, our sweat show. Is that no,