Tag: stand up comedy

The Longest Podcast In History

Matt Nappo, AKA minddog, Carl Mann, and Jamie Dykes hosted the Podathon to benefit The Andy Andrist Cancer Fund

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling stops by Coffee with the Dog

On Groundhog’s day Feb 2, 2022, the legendary Jackie “The Joke Man” martling stopped by Coffee witgh the dog for an inspiring and humorous chat about talk about his life in comedy, his book Bow To Stren, his new podcast with Peter Bales called Standup Memories. Howard Stern was talked about but only as it relates to Jackie’s story. This was not a Stuttering John bash Howard session.
Standup MemoriesPremieres Groundhog Day Feb 2nd 2022

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Transcript:
matt nappo 0:00
Jackie the joke man martling joins me for a coffee with the dog on this episode of the mind dog TV podcast.

Legendary in the field of stand up comedy and a Long Island legend and part of the part of a similar culture to where I grew up in and I’ve got a podcast as I mentioned, that is launching today or tonight at 7pm Eastern Time, called stand up memories. The book is called bow to stern. It’s a memoir of his incredible life ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears open your minds and help me welcome in Jackie the joke man martling to the mind duck coffee with a dog show. Jackie Welcome.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:05
How you doing? Oh, the first thing I’m trying to do is to get this thing to go to full screen. And I know nothing about this. And it makes me crazy. So I guess I’m just gonna have to go with that. Hi.

matt nappo 1:17
I hate doing techie.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:19
You know, every time I go to touch something, it’s different. So is there a is there a

matt nappo 1:27
there’s a I guess you can make your browser full screen. I’m not sure what, whether you’re on a computer or a tablet or when

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:33
I’m on an iPad. And it’s always come up full screen before every time I’ve ever done this. So, ah,

matt nappo 1:42
can you deal with it? Because we look really good. I mean, it

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:46
doesn’t matter as long as so in other words, you’re not seeing a whole bunch of garbage on the left. I’m just seeing that.

matt nappo 1:51
Now. We’re not seeing a whole bunch of garbage. Is this somebody sitting at the desk behind you? Is that a puppet?

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:56
That is a Rodney Dangerfield doll. That’s my good luck charm.

matt nappo 2:01
I kind of was a little creepy.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 2:05
Yeah, you know, it’s weird if there’s ever a mannequin, or a doll like that of any kind in a room or in somebody’s backyard. It’s really weird how when you walk into the room, you don’t play to it. But there’s an awareness, right? Like after I do these interviews a lot of times so on my desk, and I walk in i i go to say, Good morning, which is after seven or eight years, you should think they get you so so it’s nice to meet you have to ask and I was singing your praises. I said don’t sing his praise. I didn’t even meet the guy yet. I have no idea who he is. But it’s nice to meet you. And Jeff gives you very high a high regard.

matt nappo 2:46
But He’s crazy. He’s a liar. Don’t believe a word. He says I’m a rotten person. But

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 2:51
Who said anything about believing? Now? Where am I talking to?

matt nappo 2:55
Where? I’m in Sure I’m sure I’m Long Island, New York,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 3:02
because I’m hearing a twinge of some kind of action didn’t sound like Long Island.

matt nappo 3:06
Um, well, that’s unusual, because usually people spot me right away as long as but to your point. I mentioned it this morning there. Because we have a lot of people in England in in the UK and Wales and all over the world and in the western part of the United States. They think of Long Island is one thing, but your upbringing on Long Island is very different from mine. You are North Shore. Nassau County, I’m South Shore, Suffolk County, those are really two different worlds and two

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 3:39
completely different worlds. You know, when I went to Michigan State, they everybody thought that Long Island was completely covered with pavement. Right and I bring my roommate out and he’s like, wow, this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. You know, it’s a it’s a gorgeous place Long Island.

matt nappo 3:55
Right. And I’m on the North Shore now out in Shoreham. And it’s a completely different culture again, from both of those where you live like that Sagamore Hill area, which was which was beautiful and, and the South Shore which is kind of Brooklyn.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 4:10
Right. You know, my my great grandfather actually ran Sagamore Hill.

matt nappo 4:14
Right. I read your entire book yesterday. You read it entire book in one day.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 4:20
I want to send it up. I thought you’re gonna read it. Wait, where’d you come from on South Shore?

matt nappo 4:25
Linden Harris copake area, right on the border of Lindenhurst and Kopec. So low. Yeah, whoa, whoa, read. But yeah, so let’s, if you I know we want to talk about the podcast. We could start with the book because there’s some fascinating stuff in there.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 4:42
Let me just say, these aren’t even really plugged, especially since you say you’ve got some stuff overseas. I’m currently working on a podcast with a guy from Cork, Ireland. And I’m doing stuff with a couple of guys from the UK. So I just want to tell people my email And I really do answer every email is joke land@aol.com J Okay, e la nd@aol.com. And I do all shows, I guess, being on this as proof, I’m teasing. But I answer all emails and I’m I especially international I’d love to do anything. Do you know I’m this close to one foot in the grave so I want to get over here while I still can’t. Alright, that’s the end of my plug. What self promotion whatever you call it, right?

matt nappo 5:29
Well, we put the link in the description for your email as well. And we do have a English show host actually in the chat room right now.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 5:37
Oh, that’s cool. Now, are you a comic? Are you a broadcaster? Are you a what?

matt nappo 5:42
I’m an I’m just a guy. I’m just a guy I wouldn’t been a musician like like you for since probably as long as my entire life seven years old did my first paying gig it’s seven years

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 5:55
like around Long Island like yeah, Banjo when

matt nappo 6:00
I started in cover bands, obviously around Long Island then did like a very similar situation to you when I had went out west to be to University and did some touring out there, open for lots of classic rock acts and all that kind of stuff pursued, the record deals got signed to a record deal. You know, that kind of stuff that never really panned out, then went back to playing cover bands. Now I play in in mostly original band that plays covers here on Long Island but gigging constantly, you know, playing this South Shore beaches and all that kind of stuff. So we’re just

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 6:35
so fun. You know, it’s so funny. You say, Well, I had a record deal, but we didn’t get anywhere. I can’t tell tell you how envious I am. Because I broke my chops for a long time and never got close to a record deal. Because I wasn’t, you know, writing anything that anybody else would want to hear. But you couldn’t have told me that.

matt nappo 6:51
Right? But it those times was so different in music and everything. And it’s the record company, the record industry was so different. So wasn’t what we did was not something that ever be envious.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 7:05
It is. It’s never not interesting. I can’t stop reading about the 50s and the 60s and the mobs and the craziness. I got so many, you know, when I was in at the end of high school, I mean, I was I was salivating for the young rascals. And now those guys are my friends. You know, I still can’t I still can’t wrap my head around that. You know, I mean, it’s interesting stuff. Yeah, the

matt nappo 7:28
part in the book about Leslie West, I get that you were kind of starstruck by him. I remember seeing him as a teenager at UBS ot days you remember that one?

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 7:40
You be UBS? It

matt nappo 7:42
was a Long Island Club. It was on Sunrise Highway.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 7:46
Guys the name but you know, in those days, the South Shore might as well been Pluto. Right? You know, we’ve got trunk locally, and then defied our ride home. And then in the 70s, our bands played I think, massive people was as far south as we gotten. That was a straight shot. It wasn’t towards the city or towards you know, yeah. And to be careful, you know,

matt nappo 8:06
yeah, I get it. And so, but I did want to talk about there’s so much in the book I want to talk about, but we only have an hour here. But the first it starts with this whole idea that you might be somehow related to

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 8:21
we finally we finally got DNA. And I’m not gonna go too much into it. But the way they found out that Jefferson had sired kids with Sally Hemings, his African American slave was he didn’t have any kids himself. And his father only had him so that we had, they had to go to his grandfather and his grandfather’s brother, and then take the DNA down the line from that night. And that’s the route we wound up taking, not going to Roosevelt’s father, but his father’s brothers, kids and all the way down to, uh, Roosevelt in Texas, and finally found DNA and it didn’t match. But the thing is, in those days, if there was a rumor, there was a rumor, there’s no way anybody was proven anything. And it was it was my great grandfather, and he worked at Sagamore Hill for years. And my grandmother was his oldest daughter, and eight kids. And he went to Washington with Teddy, and then stay there until, you know, 1916 You know, I mean, even, you know, long after Teddy had left. But recently, something I found, which I’ll send you is the letters that Teddy wrote to my great grandfather telling him I need you in Washington. And him saying, Well, I can’t come right now. I can come in a month, which is a beginning. Roosevelt. They made Roosevelt presidents because McKinley died. So Roosevelt ran to Washington, and he wrote to my great grandfather and said, Frank, I need you down here. You know, I’m president, and he said, Well, Mr. President, I’ll get Then what can I say? What? If that’s not proof that he’s my relative? You got to read out, you got to see how it reads it reads from 1900. Like, it is not in my best interest to come now. However, in a month, it shall be in my best interest. I’ll email you. You’ll go crazy. So always easily proud found that it’s not true. So what are you?

matt nappo 10:22
What are you disappointed to find out that came back? No, because

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 10:25
because the cell could have been some monkey monkey business along the way, you know, everybody fooled around with everybody. And all it took was, you know, one guy making a mistake or one woman stepping out, and that would have broke the chain. So, you know, I’m not my my cousin, John Hammonds, the town historian, and he absolutely is, I mean, the way it lines up. I mean, there’s no reason for a kid to be born in Maine, and show up 25 years later, working for the governor of the New York City in his mansion, you know, I just, you know, just knock on the door and say, Hi, Mr. Vanderbilt, you need any help you

matt nappo 11:04
get it. So, in preparation for this Mike’s in who works for the production company that that is doing a podcast tonight that premiering tonight called stand up memories and let me bring that up for people. Now. He we were discussing you and I said I could swear that Jackie got to start at a place called Richard M. Dixon’s White House. And he’s like, really, I never heard of that place. I was like, You never heard you’re from Long Island. And you don’t know Richard M. Dixon. You know,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 11:33
it’s what there’s so many things that when you get past. I mean, you go up to a kid and say, Hey, did you ever see Jay Leno? And they’ll say, Jay Leno, who’s that? Not even who’s Johnny Carson? Like, who’s Jay Leno? You got to realize this stuff floats away. It’s funny. I have a gig on February 18. That my father’s what used to be, you must have heard my father’s place and 100 times. So so. So epi moved. He’s still the exact same guy. He moved to the Roslyn hotel, and recently lost the gig. But I just got booked there with the new Booker and we’re talking about him and I was telling them that EPI is the reason I’m a comedian because my band was playing at my father’s place. And epi so cheap. It was a big deal for our little group to play at my father’s place. So we went for our soundcheck and epi had booked the gong show auditions for Channel Seven TV and we couldn’t do our soundcheck. So I’m watching The Gong Show auditions and I see this guy’s that I’m funnier than this guy. And after I said, Hey, how’d you get to be a comic? He said, I had cards printed up. And he showed me his card. And he said, You know what, let me stay around. And he watched my band. He said, Man, you are so funny. Why don’t you come over and rich in Dixon’s White House in so I went to Dixon’s and Eddie Murphy was there and Rob Bartlett and Dave Hawthorne, and Bob Nelson and me and Minervini all these guys. And then Dixon wouldn’t pay anybody. So me and Richie started a show in Huntington. And I created my dirty joke line 516922 wine to promote that show. And it was such a success and actually lasted 15 years every Tuesday night. At this place in Huntington on the corner and 25 A and one US Route 110 And that grew into the Eastside comedy club. So appies ly grew into the Long Island comedy scene, which is just such a great store.

matt nappo 13:35
Yeah. But also, I think everybody could the story of how your comedy career evolved from your music career. And Ritchie telling you a little fib about the Rodney Dangerfield thing. And that’s great. And then you writing the jokes for him now, I think I’m until I read the book. I had no idea that you were the credit behind the two bagger joke. Everybody I know has told that to bag a joke just thinking that it was Rodney original. And we all got it from Rodney. Well,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 14:11
it wasn’t a Rodney original. But it wasn’t a Jackie original. It’s it’s an old southern expression, which I didn’t know I just this is a true story. I lived at my grandmother’s house. And I this was probably in the book and the phone rang late at night. And nobody had this number one my buddy who was in Peru, doing coke and selling coke. He said chief You gotta listen to the funniest thing I ever heard. There’s a guy down here called Tennessee Bob and he told me about the Tennessee two bagger. And he told me that I wrote it down. And then when Richie told me his lie, I sent Rodney six pages of jokes. And that was one of the jokes on there. Now when you get to know the comedy business, the comedy writing business is very, very little that’s brand new everything is what fits where you’re going to a movie. You know, there’ll be a great joke in a movie, and everybody will love it. But I’ll know where that came from. Because it was a simple twist. It’s just setting something the exact right place. Now that jokes funny enough on its own, but my god that was made for Rodney, you know what I mean? That fits in like a glove. But if you look around you find all the jokes, you know, if there was ever a joke, that sounds like it was created specifically for Rodney because he’s so down and out and so beat up. He says, hey, you know, my wife, I don’t know how I’m doing. I don’t know, Johnny, you know, my wife coming down to twice a week. That’s nothing. Some guys she cut out all together, which is very funny. But I’m reading gursha unlikeness book, and that’s from the Civil War. And it was about rationing. You know, they’re rationing cigarettes, and they’re rationing booze and said, Yeah, my wife even cut me down and twice a week. In other guys is yellow. Some guys, she cut out all together. That’s nine. That’s 1861 You know what I mean? And that, that probably came from the Roman legions, you know, they all of these things have been around forever. And never, never never, which is when you study. It’s just fascinating. Just fascinating. Yeah.

matt nappo 16:22
That is interesting. Because you’re known as this guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of jokes, and so forth. But I’m just wondering, when you were a musician and focusing on guitar playing and getting a Fender Rhodes and whatever, changing your sound and all that stuff, and just focused on the music, were you this guy who just read joke books all the time. I mean, when

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 16:44
I was I was, I have never been any different than I always was. I heard her jokes when I was a kid. And they stuck to my mind. Because I’m a mechanical engineer. I’m pretty smart. And the jokes just stuck with me. And I told them to people, and they laughed. And when they laughed, I remembered them. And I would tell jokes, and I would get joke books when I was a kid in school. If you bought Catcher in the Rye, I got Charlie’s best jokes. You know what I mean? It was one of those things. And I told jokes. And listen, the main thing was not joke books. When I was listening. I listened to every drunk at every party, every pot party, every every bar, I was always the last one standing, you know, telling jokes and remembering them. And in 1975, when I was in my band, we told jokes in between. I mostly told the jokes, but we told jokes in between songs, which I had done in high school, and which I had done in college. to the consternation of every I mean, my college band, we’re playing Rolling Stones, like we play Gimme Shelter. And then I tell a dick joke. People like, what is going on? You know, it just didn’t fit, but I couldn’t not do it. Because I’m so used to stay in the bar telling a joke to two people in us 350 people. And I just told the jokes and told the jokes. But it wasn’t by design. Let me go learn some jokes, because I want to be a comedian. It was just so organic. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than telling somebody a joke. I want somebody to react like I just punched him in the stomach. That’s how hard I want to laugh. When people say you tell dirty jokes. That’s because that’s what people laugh at that they it’s the breaking of the tension that makes up and funny. And anything about sex or crap, or vomit or get you know, that’s much more tension and much bigger laugh, you know, and when I realized I couldn’t do what music, I’m allowed to take these jokes that I’ve accumulated over the years, just tried telling him on stage and, and it worked, you know,

matt nappo 18:48
so but when Rodney called you for that, two weeks, that kind of was a big change in your life. We doing a lot of stand up and it seemed like you would do more writing for him then actually go no,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 19:01
no, no, no, I I sent him so much. But he took so little. And you know everybody, like my friend Dennis Blair was with him for like five years. He just his dream was to write a joke that would somehow make it into Rodney Zack, and it wasn’t easy, because you know, it was so you know, leather clad. And what happened was I wasn’t even a comic. When we were fooling around. I didn’t even know what to do. I maybe climbed on stages catch a rising star a couple of times. And I had just met Richie, Richie Minervini. And, you know, we’re all trying to figure out what he like we’re doing little tiny gigs. Like, you know, I had my guitar amp and me and I’m playing songs and telling jokes in a club. And the guys are showing up just to get stage time because there’s no place besides Dixon’s White House in and people are hungry to get on stage to see what they can do like Eddie Murphy showed up and Bob Nelson you know they get the fire for 10 minutes, and when Richie told me that he had been on a danger fields, that was a huge deal because we weren’t doing clubs we weren’t doing the one anyplace to do it. And I was so jealous that’s when I gave all those pages. And and when he said he didn’t have a connection to Rodney I sent him to Rodney Rodney called me up. It was such a big deal to go meet him at Westbury music fair, but I wasn’t really a comic. I still had a ponytail and blue jeans. You know, he like What the What is this Jesus Christ. And then I always count my beginning of that was in the when would that had to be like 1978 When I was at my grandma’s Yes, like a winter of 78. And I always count my time in comedy is there’s always a starting gun. And I say it was January 79. When I first got paid by Vic at the rainy night house. What I say is it’s the first time I got paid for telling jokes, and playing the guitar, as opposed to playing the guitar and telling jokes. Now you know what I’m talking about two different things. And right away right away, we’re killing it this place cinnamon with these Tuesday night shows. So I’ve already been a musician. I worked in a recording studio, so I knew how to record so I had microphones hanging all the time. So we started doing these shows on Tuesday nights, I had microphones hanging, and I decided I just decided to make an album. So I made an album out of a cassette. I had the best cassettes I had the crowd on the left side and Jackie on the right side and I mixed them onto a two track tape. I knew I could have an album because I had worked in a recording studio, the average person had no idea. If you want to have a record, it’s like baking a cake. You need to tape you need a couple pictures and you need a few dollars. Right and you send it away and you get it but nobody knows that. It’s like this. It’s like Zana Do you know? I knew six months later, I wrote to Ronnie said, Hey, look at this, I got an album. And he says, oh,

matt nappo 22:05
any references to that in the book were guys to just it just didn’t occur to him how real not. It takes hard work. It takes a bit of work. And you certainly did hustle and put that work into I’m not diminishing that. But how simple it is to really record it. Now a lot of colleagues, it just never dawned on them how simple it is just record what

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 22:24
it’s like, not knowing that you can go to the store to buy hamburger. Nobody ever tells you you wouldn’t do it. And then you see somebody to hamburgers. Like how did you do that? Well, I went to the store and bought some chopped meat, you know? It’s it’s, it’s absurd. But it’s like anything if you don’t know what you don’t know what knowledge is power, you know, you wouldn’t believe man you would not believe. For the first however, long time I stand at the door after the shows that we did. And I sell my albums for $5. And the guys used to goof on me you wouldn’t believe how they would make fun to me. And then one day somebody said, Wait a minute. We made $40 and Marlin made an extra 80 bucks selling his stupid albums. Maybe, maybe he knows what he’s doing. You know, it’s insane.

matt nappo 23:13
And the albums were pivotal in the part of your career that most people who are not from Long Island know you from most of all, and that is to how it’s done.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 23:24
I wish I wish that he had to put in the movie. My introduction to him because that would put me on the moon. I put out an album and then I made a second album. And then they made the third album. So by 1982 I had three Jackie the joke man Marlon comedy albums, which was a big deal. It really wasn’t. I made one so I made another so I made another it’s like Ikea the second and third things are easier. You don’t I mean, and nobody, like it was unheard of. It was like I made an album and everybody else got the idea. Nobody even thought about doing it was years and years before people even having cassettes. You know why? When I ran governors comedy shop, I had a cassette player and the people who come and work the club and I put in a 90 minute cassette and I’d record Friday night first show, flip it over into Friday night second show and then Saturday and I everybody that worked the club walked away with two cassettes with all for this shows. And it was like gold. I saw Carol leave for a couple years ago she had Jackie I still got my governance cassette it’s it’s my prized possession. You know, she’s the girl that Elaine was was and I just always did that. And all sudden this guy says yeah, this guy Howard Stern got fired and he’s coming in New York. And I didn’t I had no idea who he was when I sent my three comedy albums. He doesn’t know what’s anybody know this guy’s got three albums. He must be somebody he must be a top guy. You know, like, like, Bill Cosby is not going to send him his album and Jordan Carlin’s not going to send him his album. You know, because they, they actually had albums with a record company in the deal. I’m just the guy that got the made via hold them next to each other. One doesn’t jump out at the other, dude. I mean, it’s like, you know, and when he got the three albums, they were impressive. And if they did nothing else for me, from the word go, if they did nothing, except have him call me, it was worth all the sweat all the blood, sweat and tears.

matt nappo 25:34
And part of that when he was introducing you as one of the top comics in New York, all of a sudden, you are elevated in people’s minds, because he had great listening with his 50,000 Watt station beyond New York, everybody listening to that, all of a sudden, you’re elevated to the guys like who were the kings of the comedy clubs in New York at that time. So you

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 25:56
know, when he first started saying, we got with us today, I want to buy new york’s top comics. I want to correct him in my mind, and I said, Shut up. You know, that’s his opinion. He doesn’t he but he doesn’t know that I’m not. Right. You know, and, and what yardstick anyway, I was a guy, you know, hosting the shows in Levittown on Long Island, right? No, but the guys had come in. And you know, pretty soon people were begging, you know, I asked so many comics to come on that show. And they’d say, what’s it pay? I said, What’s it pay? It’s 50,000 watts of a guy telling your name to the tri state area. Guys, they just don’t get it. They just don’t get it. Jack, I can’t believe I turned down on The Howard Stern Show in 1985. You know?

matt nappo 26:46
Yeah. And basically you work for five bucks at Richard M. Dixons, you’re going to worry about what getting paid from you

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 26:53
know, it’s it’s almost not believable, but it just happens to be the truth.

matt nappo 26:58
Yeah, I need you to clear something up for me because I Okay, thank you. Can we get a picture of it? Wait, we got a picture of Willie here. I attached it to Willie. Right.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 27:11
All areas.

matt nappo 27:13
Um, I talked to a lot of Howard Stern fans who’ve been fans of his back to the ATM days and and continued to this day to listen to him. And I mentioned that already wrote the foreword for your book. And in the foreword that already says that he never engaged in bashing Jackie, when the other people would would do that after you were gone. And everybody said no, it was definitely in the mix on that Jackie bashing stuff. What’s your take on it? What’s true? It was a Jackie basher? Oh, no,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 27:49
I never. I never listened to the show. When I was on it. I never listened to the show. When we went on vacation. I never listened the show after I left. I have never listened to that show ever, which is so many people say oh, your bullshit. You go there. I’m like, Why would I lie about that? Those big those skin off my nose? Like that’s not me. I don’t I wouldn’t listen, if it made me laugh, I would have felt bad. If it didn’t make me laugh. I would have been trying to think what I could do for it. So I had no idea. rd and his friends used to come and see me at rascals. And he even says that my documentary. And they were big fans. He was you know, they he was a great guy. And I knew him not well, but I knew of him and he came on the show at North McDonald. But after I left the show, it wasn’t like we it was I handed him the baton. He didn’t come on the show till like eight months after I left. They tried all kinds of different guys and stuff. And I so nobody ever said that me rd was giving me a hard time or the Scott, you know, people would always tell me that stuttering John was was really crappy to me. And then I see him on you know, and baby on ba Doom, buddy, you know, but I also know that, you know, everybody struggles for airtime. And if you say if you start saying what a nice guy Jackie, is your microphones going off? You know? Did Frd bash me? Maybe that I? I kind of don’t think so. But maybe he did. He might have been so high. He didn’t even know he did. I don’t care. He’s just he’s just a really good guy. He did my documentary. I did his direct TV show three times. I did his podcast three times. I did his new podcast about a month ago. He’s a real good cat. And I have never had a problem with him ever. And it’s so funny because so many emails from people over the last 20 years or 15 years or whatever it is, you know, hey, I It looks like you and I already have friends again. I’m like, because there’s such misconception that he wrestled me out of that chair. You know what I mean? It’s but once people have this, you know, there’s still people think I’m cheap is the I see people and they say you want me to buy a drink. I know you won’t buy me one you No, there’s still yell at me to pay back Rodney that I never owned them. All the things that Howard carved in stone. I don’t even get mad at it because it’s just a testament to his sales power. I mean, he could drive something home he could, if anybody could convince the world that the earth is flat, Howard could have done it.

matt nappo 30:20
Right. There’s so many things I want to touch on there. But first of all, you know, I

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 30:25
will tell you if we, if we don’t get everything done, I’ll do this with you anytime in a week in a month, six months, because I love talking about this stuff. People say, Oh, I know you’re sick. I never get sick of talking about this ever. Because it’s interesting.

matt nappo 30:38
Yeah, it is to everybody. I think now. And Matt,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 30:42
I get, I never, I never make stuff up. I only tell the truth. And it’s really good for me to get the truth. And my side of the story out because it was a lot so many misconceptions. The whole thing about me having a sex change, I gotta tell you right now, that’s only partially.

matt nappo 31:03
I was sure that one was real. But misconceptions, that the idea can you talk about this in the book that you were writing the funniest stuff that Howard said, I think you think that people didn’t know that? I think from my perspective, it was common knowledge that that that Jackie was slipping.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 31:24
That’s the circle that you’re in. That’s the circle you traveled, you probably traveled with musicians, and funny people and showbiz people that are hip to it. But that’s not even I was I was I went to see the sub dudes at the Iridium about 15 years ago, sitting there. My girlfriend couldn’t come so I love these guys. So I’m watching this guy sitting across from me in the table is a you jackass? And yeah, yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, I’m a camera, man. You know, NBC TV, whatever it was. He was somebody in the throes of showbusiness and we start talking. And we get talking. He had no idea. And this is a guy in showbusiness in the throes in the guts of the operations. But it’s, it’s not stupidity, who thinks about it? Right? You don’t watch Johnny Carson and say, Wow, I wonder who wrote that monologue joke? Who cares? You’re laughing, you’re enjoying yourself. You’re not there to work. And he was so surprised. And it’s it’s so funny. I know. I’m sure you know, the chapter in the book. We’re done. Del Louisa was blown away. And Bruce Jenner had no idea what I was doing. Right? That was such an A B situation. So many people so many people had absolutely no idea and so many people it was just as obvious as the day was long. You know,

matt nappo 32:50
Bruce actually I’m this is was hard for me to wrap my head around Bruce actually believe that you were just writing the time down. And

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 32:58
he was he didn’t know he just he was sitting next to me. But he wasn’t watching. So what? What what do you keep writing? I tell Howard what time it is. And he says, That’s what I thought. Every couple of minutes. I could have been saying 10 minutes. So commercial, you know, I’m trying to cut him a break here as opposed to you moron wants you to have your penis cut off.

matt nappo 33:22
Well, I was I was trying to explain to my wife your situation last night that 20 years ago, you walked away from a job that was paying $600,000 A year and or just about $600 $600,000 a year? And she said, How can anybody do that? Why would anybody do that? And I was trying to explain that you were part of something that was probably bringing in $500 million a year. And

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 33:51
everyone was it was so staggering. I what I walked away from was 650. And with with bumps for the next, you know, for the for the five years, and I was making five at the time and even more with the show and whatever. But yeah, like, you know, people say, Oh, you’re making so much money for a writer. I said, I wasn’t a writer. It’s like telling Ringo, you make a lot of money for a drummer. I’m not a drummer. I’m a drummer in the Beatles, right? You don’t I mean, it was like, but nobody else would would. There was not a peep out of anybody. So as the only bird screaming for another warm, which made me look, you know, it’s so funny because how everybody called me cheap, is making $50 million a year and I’m asking for more money so I’m cheap. You know, he sold it. He some people never even people like oh, you know, I never thought of that. You know?

matt nappo 34:48
Right and but he did the same thing with holding out for more money and be right before you did was

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 34:55
to wait two weeks before. We didn’t know if we’re coming back from Christmas. Yeah, we have no idea because he’s holding that, you know, it’s, you know, it’s all Animal Farm. You know, we become what will you barking? You know, you can’t hold out for more money hold on be right with the I gotta I gotta go hold out for more money. Jesus,

matt nappo 35:17
right bottom line there Do you have any regrets about not signing on with their management team and being part of that original?

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 35:25
No, you know, after after it was gone, I wrote to him said I would really like to be on the show if you want to have me back because it wasn’t the money or the fame but I’ll tell you what you miss is sitting in a room with three or four other really funny people for five hours and laughing five days a week that is not something found in in, in in the world. That’s just not something that exists. And I just love that and I was in withdrawal as far as sign with Don Buchwald i Not in a million, not with a gun to my head. You know, I I remember the day after we went to moorings, Howard said, Hey, I got some great news for you, Don’s gonna represent you. And right away, I said no, you know, K rock gives Don money. He gives most of it to Howard. Some of what’s left, he gets to Robin, and then a little bit of what’s left, he gets the fret, I’m going to be the fourth worm. I mean, the fourth little chicken deal with his mouth open waiting to get fed. You know, I mean, he’s got, there’s no way Fred could ever ask for a raise, because Don would have to go in and negotiate with Don. Right. You know, it’s like, take what, take what I’m handing you and be glad you know. And it just seemed like such like my cousin Craig was it was almost a professional baseball players AAA a long time. And he said, an agent couldn’t have two players on the same team. Right? Can’t say yeah, I’ll give you Phil resuable. But you got to sign Tony kubek to you that that’s not fair. Yeah, that’s nice. 1950s baseball reference. But but you know, it’s it just it just felt wrong. Felt weird, you know? Yeah. Sticky. You know,

matt nappo 37:12
right. You mentioned the Beatles. And I do think you guys were the Beatles of radio. I mean, the biggest sensation in radio ever to happen. But no, for

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 37:25
years. For years. I don’t mean the day for years. They broke my balls for coining that for daring to call us the Beatles a radio. Howard hated that and probably still hates it, because that infers that it’s a group, right, that we the rest of us have something to do with it. Yeah, him to him. It’s James Taylor with a backup band. Not entirely true. It just, you know, I tell people, people say all you wrote everything Howard said, No, I didn’t. I didn’t. I wrote some of it. I wrote some funny stuff. So did Fred. But I always use the same analogies if you’re a sprinter. And you run the 100 yard dash and 9.8 I know what the times are now. 9.8 You’re world class. Right? If you run it in 9.9. I mean, if you run nine, nine, you’re world class, if you weren’t 9.8. You break all records that ever work. And that only takes a little bit of wind in your back. And that’s what I was. And that’s what Fred was a little winged in his back. He just, it just rose him above. above everybody else, you know, where somebody else would say something funny. He’d say something funny, and then something funnier, and then something funnier. And, and the great thing was, he was a guy with three different senses of humor, his and mine and Fred’s. But they were all completely different. And one, just three minds work and fast. It was three completely different minds work and fast. So the jokes were from everywhere, like Fred was from Pluto, and I was from punch lines. And Howard was from this broad observation. And it was like coming at you from all sides. It was like it would it would freak people out. You say something really brightened in the stupidest, childless thing in the world which Chuck’s juxtapositions are just just make it just make good good. Good, good radio and great, great comedy. People love it, you know?

matt nappo 39:30
Now my take on that is Howard was always naturally funny, but what you gave to him and what the illusion that he was witty, and his sister even makes that comment in your book. Well, Howard, when did you become so witty? I think and quick with a and that people got the perception, I think and you gave him that it on top of what he already had with observational humor and that kind of stuff and outrageousness. But you gave him this air of being witty and quick and I think that’s the greatest Give you gave them does he any way and now that he’s changed and been through psychotherapy even acknowledged that in any way,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 40:08
you know, supposedly him and Robin, everybody went around and made up with everybody not made up but apologizer what was did this and did that. And you know, I mean, he had a world war with Chevy Chase, and now it’s his best buddy. And he never, I mean, he always acknowledged to me, you know, but he, he’s never said, you know, I wouldn’t be where I am today, if it wasn’t Jack, you know, forget about anything like that, you know, it’s, it’s, I tell people, he was driving the bus. So he couldn’t read the map. But he’s driving the bus. So I can look at the map. And I can say, you know, it’d be really funny if we took a quick ride on the Smith Street. You know what I mean? It was like, you couldn’t do both. And like a piano. It’s such a Yeah, I can’t believe that. I put out that book. And I had a whole extra book, a whole book full of chapters that didn’t make it into the book. And I didn’t put in the chapter, about the making of private parts, which had it had every complaint had them leaving me out them under paying me them not giving me credit them hiding stuff, them leaving me out it that’s a whole book in itself. I can’t believe that didn’t make it in. And it was just, they were gonna do a movie. And it wasn’t gonna have me in it. And I don’t think it was gonna have Fred in it.

matt nappo 41:42
Right? He was still there in that cuz

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 41:46
they scrapped it? No, no, this is this is we’re at K rock, and they’re working on a movie. And um, they’re in the foxhole, right. And I know that they’re all going to the production company, and I’m adamant, and then they scrapped the whole movie. And what they did was they came up with a format that would enable them to never have to show me handing me Howard a note. We watch private parts, I come in at the end, like they already went to Pluto. And I just happened to step on the bus as they pulled into Pluto. Now, this is Jackie, our newest member, and you know, if he even if he hadn’t held up my items at Jackie sent me these albums, I would have been a hero. You

matt nappo 42:27
know, it seems like the only time he ever used the kill switch was to hide the fact that you delete it passing him notes. Right.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 42:36
Is the that whole story about Fred would Elton John, is that what you’re talking about? Yeah, that’s such a God knows. God knows how many times he did that. Gary actually told me about that. And you want it’s one of the things you wouldn’t know it when you’re looking for it. Yeah, you see it, you know, and but you know that I don’t fault them. Because it’s either the tiger if he if that wasn’t him? That wouldn’t be him. Right. You know, you, you know, people are what they are. You know, you don’t get to be Howard Stern. Unless you’re Howard Stern. You know, which so I, you know, people say Oh, Jackie does podcasts and all you can eat can’t wait to bitch and moan and bash Howard. I have never bashed them at all. I will tell the truth and say I pass a lot of notes. And I’ll tell stories of things that happen. But that’s not bashing. That’s funny. You know, people tell stories about me. And I tell stories about Gary. And you know, it’s all fair game, you know?

matt nappo 43:40
Absolutely. I can say unequivocally there’s no Howard bashing in the book. It’s basically you point out some real behaviors, but never once did you say you know how it’s a bad guy because of this, but I think you’re getting some of the dirt. Because stuttering John is that his entire career now is based on Howard bashing. So when people see

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 44:01
told me that people have told us they probably assume that’s what I’m doing.

matt nappo 44:04
Exactly. That was my point that so and he’s not the only one a lot of people who were lower on the on the totem pole than you were on at that Howard Stern Show who now are resent Howard even though he’s the only reason anybody even knows who they are. They’re making their living completely by bashing him. So people just assume you’re out there. And if you mentioned how it’s done, you must be one of these guys who was making his living now bashing me while I was a

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 44:31
comic for a long time before I met him. And you know, I I got really lucky in comedy I really may never become as well known comic as I did, being on the show. But I don’t know I wouldn’t be there is a famous story about Hillary, that Hillary Clinton was getting gas. And somebody said, Hey, you did pretty good. You know. Marin, the president, you’re married to the president United States. That’s pretty Cool, you know, hey, what about what have you? What have you married to a guy who owned a gas station? And Hillary said, Then he’d be president. You know, think about like, it’s not like if I hadn’t met Howard, I would have sat in the corner and twiddle my thumbs. Yeah, I would have kept sending my crap and send them my crap until I bumped into you, you know what I mean? Like, who knows?

matt nappo 45:23
My biggest takeaway from the book, and I’m gonna show the book again, here for a second, my biggest takeaway from the book is a line that you you’re using there, and it’s a cliche kind of, but it’s absolutely true. And in your case, this is what I my, my big takeaway from the book is, the harder you work, the luckier you get. And it’s a really important message. I think anybody in the creative watch, can learn that much from that book, in the stories in the book, it’s worth the investment, you know,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 45:49
the whole world. I mean, that’s, you know, it’s the right place at the right time. The secret is the being a lot of places, then there’s going to be a time, you know, it’s, I let you know, I just I just through the way that the end of the Howard Stern first chapter about Howard, in the book, I said, you know, for all those years, I just threw crap against the wall, and with the Howard Stern Show my crap stuck to the wall, which is the same thing, you know, you just, you just keep at it, and keep at it and keep at it, you know, I worked so hard, and was I just did everything I could to get Pinnacle books to put out a joke book. And I was relentless and relentless and relentless. And finally Larry Wylde left to go to a different company. And I wrote and said, guys, Larry Wild Swan put out my book and they wrote, I swear to God, they wrote back like, alright, Jackie, alright, enough, we’ll put out your book. And the minute that they said yes to publishing my book, all the work and all the begging and all the crap I went through, melted away. I was a guy who had a book deal, and nobody had to know that I didn’t just write and say, Hey, I got a book and that they said, Fine, right? Nobody, nobody has to know you know, Madonna slept on the floor, a rock trying to get a records played. Who cares? You know, she got her records played, obviously, you know?

matt nappo 47:10
Yeah. Now, the joke. Before you were even on how it stands out, I knew who you were. And I think most people on Long Island knew you from the joke line. Now. I was curious about this. Was it before phone sex? Did you get the joke line before phone sex was the big rage thing? And we know

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 47:28
I gotta believe that the minute Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone somebody was doing breathing heavy into it. But you know that nothing to do with phone sex? And funny because to this day, I don’t think myself I’ve ever done it. Bone sex, but no, and it wasn’t. And people used to say, Oh, wow, you must have got really rich with those 800 numbers. And with those with that 800 line, I said it wasn’t an 800 line. It was my mother’s house. Five would cost me for every line. I attend lines. I’ve been paying for it for 43 years. You people that don’t know it’s 516-922-9463, which is 516922 wine. And we’re starting the show in Huntington and we had no money. I said, How are we going to promote the show? I got the bright idea. I’ll get a phone line. I’ll tell a joke. And then say what tonight we’re at cinnamons in Huntington and tell him another joke, which is basic. That’s television. That’s radio, you know, little material a little bit advertising, a little material, little advertising. And it just caught on like wildfire. And the stories go on. And on the first time. We were on the road, I think in Los Angeles at one of those radio conventions where everybody’s sitting around the circle. And Rick Rubin, you know, Rick Rubin? Yeah, he sat down across from us. It’s like 1988, or something. And the first thing he said, he pointed out and said, Jackie, I went to Long Beach High School, and I called Nine to two wine every morning before school. He’s a pretty major guy, you know, I’ve been doing for the last 20 years trying to get him to admit that he said that, because that’s a nice, that’s a nice little promotion, you know,

matt nappo 49:13
but it was extremely inventive idea for you. And because nobody else had done that, at least to my knowledge ever before. So it’s just like, you know

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 49:22
what’s so funny? There it is, again, there’s the exact same thing. I went and bought some hamburger meat made the hamburger and they said, How’d you do that? What’s more obvious than, you know what happened was they invented answering machines. So instead of calling up and having me say I’m not home, leave me a message. I’m saying, This is Jackie. And as long as you’re on the phone, I’ve got your trap. Let me tell you a joke. And then let me tell you where I’m working. It. It really is such a simple, simple concept. Oh, they already did have dial a joke. So I can’t take the credit for you know, the idea of jokes on the phone. But, but once again, but that was Donald. So that was New York City. That was George Carlin having an album that’s Robert Klein having an album that’s not a guy in Oyster Bay with a phone line with an answering machine, you know, though, it was a whole, a whole dumbed down situation, you know, it’s like, it was like going local, which always works, you know? Yeah. So fun, you know,

matt nappo 50:24
and part of the book for stand up comedians, people who are doing it now, there’s so much cool history in there. And I do have a lot of stand ups in in my listening audience. And if you would, because everybody is familiar with the comedy condo the idea of a comedy condo, very few people have any idea where it came from, if

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 50:46
you know what I don’t even know, I don’t even know if the guy’s like the early comic strip guys. I’ve never really sat and had the conversation with the guy. The guy I’m doing the podcast with, which is how I got to know you Peter bales was actually one of the early guys Peter bales used to come to see my band at a place called rumrunners Oyster Bay. And he come over from Locust Valley, because on Tuesday nights, all the local girls were there and they were drunk, an Oyster Bay girls that you know, would round heels that would bang anybody that sneezed. So he would come over there and he liked my band. He noticed I told jokes, and then we start doing the show and cinnamon. And he would drive out from the comic strip, you know, with Cairoli for and Dennis wolfberg and recover to the nice people, because they’re coming to Huntington and getting paid 40 or 50 bucks and getting drunk and getting stoned and get laid as opposed to running from catch a rising star to the improv and getting the hamburger. So everybody loved it. And then the fort Lord, I mean, the comic strip got syndicated Richie put the comic strip in Fort Lauderdale. And any got a condo for the comics, a beautiful condo and they was so out of control that they got kicked out of the building. I think in a month, it might have been less than a month. And he rented some, you know, shoddy house and they moved into the house. But it just became the comedy condo which was kind of like in quotes, you know, like can’t yet right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it’s an in the early days like there were times you went work the gig like in in Richmond, Virginia, where you stayed on a waitresses couch. But that was the comedy condo, which is just so fun. And you know, it’s funny now, it wasn’t funny when you’re, you know, trying to rationalize. I’m 34 years old. I’m sleeping on a couch right now. I’m really in showbusiness, you know,

matt nappo 52:48
yeah. And we won’t we recently did a podcast on it. And they were friends of Andy Andrews, who were talking about the you know, his what His room was really a when the Japanese room divided type.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 53:01
Right, right. Right is every everything you could possibly imagine.

matt nappo 53:05
Yeah. But now it’s a staple. So and so you actually. And I was talking about this before you seen the evolution of, you know, comedy clubs. La had, you know, the Comedy Store in New York had Caroline’s and so forth. And Dangerfield, of course, and the Fort Lauderdale scene. But comedy clubs were not a thing nationwide. And that was

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 53:28
the Comedy Store in LA. And new was the improv in Manhattan, and then kept rising star. The Comic Strip actually was much later. And that’s right when I came aboard. But it was was very slow going, you know, I mean, there just weren’t a lot of people. Because there weren’t any comics were COVID and said to me one day said, you know, there’s only 150 of us. And he said, think about that. He said, right, probably in New York City alone is probably, you know, 5000 brain surgeons, and there’s only 150 of us. And I was so excited. He even clued me in the US. But now there’s 150,000. Comedians, right, you know, it’s like anybody, you know, oh, look, comedy tonight. Well, let me stop in there and see if I can go on, you know, so it’s just gotten really, you know, it’s almost like any, anybody can walk on to Yankee Stadium and play shortstop for anything, which is not really how it should be, you know?

matt nappo 54:27
Yeah. So your podcast is launching tonight at 7pm. It’s, I’m imagining it’s pre recorded. It’s not when

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 54:34
it’s pre recorded. It’s probably live already. I haven’t looked. For whatever reason I haven’t looked. It’s stand up memories.com either with or without the hyphen, stand up memories.com patients in a website, and then you can go to YouTube, or, or Spotify. I don’t know. However, the you know, they always say most of the same stations. You know, I’ve never gotten that crap straight. But tonight, we’re actually going to be on YouTube. Live, and we’re going to watch it and watch the people comment. I already called Gold. Michaels in I said, be ready because this is this is where the stern haters come out. You know, there’ll be one guy saying, oh, Jackie, I love you and 90 people saying he owes Rodney Mone bashes Howard, he’s a piece of crap. You know, but you know that you, you just, you laugh it off and then you walk away and you know, it irks. Yeah.

matt nappo 55:29
Yeah, no, I get it. And that sucks. I mean, that this, the internet is just made for trolling. Man.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 55:34
I’ll tell you the one thing I love. I love having my book out. You wouldn’t believe how many people have written to me or email me or said to me, Holy mackerel that your book opened my eyes. I didn’t know any of that stuff. Probably never thought about it. And it’s so funny because a year or two ago, I got a huge bump in sales. And the publisher called me up and said, What did you do? What show did you go on? You know what? You know, what do you what do you do? Yeah, I went on my blog. And and then I realized what happened was Howard put out a book. Oh, yeah. If you buy a book on Amazon, underneath it says people who bought this book, also bought this book. Yeah, they already got their mouse out. They already got the credit card there. And with one click, they got my book to $15 So I got a huge bump in sales was Howard never said to his audience, Jackie has a book out or were don’t even if he said don’t buy Jackie’s book people go what book, you know, people had no idea, right? So it’s been an uphill battle trying to get it sold. But you know, but about

matt nappo 56:40
the book I could, I didn’t want to talk just a little bit more about the podcast, but about the book, you wrote a memoir, you’re still young, young enough that you have big things ahead of you. And they got to be another, a follow up, right? Because you’re not done. Usually people write their memoirs when they’re done.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 56:58
I wrote, I wrote enough for two books. So I have a whole if you really didn’t read the book, I’m going to send you the unpublished book. There’s a whole nother books worth the chapters. But I can’t even tell you like even if I retired from everything right now I got more stories coming out of my ears, you know, I just look around in my head, you should come visit my office, you’d get a kick out of it. But I look at my office and I see you know a cell of the Flintstones with me on stage in Blackrock or whatever it is in me with Keith Richards and Les Paul and and joke man plates and martling street and all the times I was on stern and all the all the notes from Rodney in the cartoon by Don Martin just at random looking. And all of those things lead that incredibly fun, eclectic, stupids, maybe not especially knockdown drag out funny. But interesting stuff, how things lead to other things. And I just, I never get sick of that. So yeah, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna keep writing. You know, I just I wrote a whole long story the other day, just because if you see somebody you haven’t seen in a long time, and they say, Oh, I’m friends with so and so. You want to tell so and so the story about the friend that you have in common? And next thing, you know, like, oh, yeah, and as you start writing, like, it gets nuts. You know, if I thought somebody was going to buy it, I’d be writing books like crazy, but you know, might. So there was millions and millions and millions of fans, but not that many people bought my book. I mean, I’m not complaining. Yeah, I made some money. But I would have been so nice. If the word had gotten out a little. And I waited too long. I waited 15 years or 17 years, you know.

matt nappo 58:48
Yeah. And people. I think if you would have really bashed Howard, it probably would have been a better seller.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 58:55
Everybody. Everybody says that, you know, yeah, Jackie, you know, you’re you’re, you’re pushing you. Why don’t you write your real mind you write what you really feel like, you know, and but most people will any brain say, Wow, that’s it. It’s a heartfelt book. It really makes sense. I got a documentary that’s coming out, was screening it at Chappaqua. On February 12, Lincoln’s birthday, duck. And it’s, and it’s good. And right now, a couple of cable companies have it and we’ll hope if it gets sold, it’ll be so fun because it’s it basically it kind of accomplishes what the book did. And but if it got on one of those cable companies, any stern fan, even the you know, even the people that hate me would be interested. And it’s just an eye opener, you know, so,

matt nappo 59:44
I don’t know. And again, you’re probably right about the circles that I run in. I don’t know of anybody who hates you. I just think there are a lot of misconceptions out there about that. But I think a lot of people have turned on how in a lot of the law, his most loyal people to see a change him and he’s gone really Hollywood and this woman that’s got his, his Miss Mephisto kind of Jones whatever it is right?

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:00:10
He will tell me it took him a long time to finally come around to realizing Holy crap. He’s not that funny. You know, like, like, it’s in your area there with aligner you’re not that was never his job. That’s not what he did. No, he’s easy. He’s not a joke, or he’s a talker. And he’s so good at it, you know,

matt nappo 1:00:32
right. With the podcast now, you and Peter bass. Are you having other guests on? Or is it just you and him every

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:00:40
what happened was this guy, this guy, Mike cave, who has pink tie.org. I’ve never heard of that charity. Yeah, he’s a great, great guy. And he’s got so much going on. He’s got so many things going on. So he started tied in media, which is his media company. And he has a beautiful room and a beautiful green room. And it’s a whole studio. And he’s a friend. And he’s always ever since I met him, he always wanted to do something with me. He said, What about doing a podcast? I said, Yeah. Alright, well, we’ll give it a shot. And Peter bells is my oldest dearest friend. He’s the one that dragged me into the comic strip in Manhattan and jumpstarted. Me. So wants to come be my guest. And we act. And after a couple hours, I said, You know what, this should be our show, not my show. This should be our show. We came up with stand up memories, because he’s a professor and comic that’s been around for 40 years. And I’ve been around for 40 years. And we know everybody. So we started talking. We have 20 shows in the can ready to go once a week for 20 weeks. We haven’t spoken to another human being yet. Do we plan on it? We of course we plan on it. I got probably 50 texts and emails from Jackie, I’m perfect for your show. I’ll be perfectly show you got me on the one thing we’re not going to do is sit there with another comic. So he can try and be funny and and tell you. You know, comics aren’t good interviews, you know, unless they’re a little bit off the beaten track, you know, that, like, radio, people have always said to me, man, it’s such a joy to have you in because you get right to the joke and right to the story, you know, other comics that like prod me, prod me get me going, you know, it’s like, you just take the microphone, and you’re off to the races. Broadcasters appreciate that.

matt nappo 1:02:28
Yeah, absolutely. And some of the guys I’ve interviewed, I didn’t do a lot of comics, and some of them just want to do material and want to send me stuff before to kind of lead them into their materials. Like

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:02:39
I said, do that, that the audience

matt nappo 1:02:43
isn’t interested in that either. They’re interested in real life stories and the kind of stuff that you brought here so I appreciate that.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:02:49
Yeah, what’s going on behind the curtain? You know? Yeah,

matt nappo 1:02:53
just one more question before I let you go cuz we are an hour and I don’t want to disrespect your time. To Gelman thing.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:02:58
Yeah, disrespecting my time. I got nothing to do. I I love talking about myself. But I didn’t say that. Okay, I appreciate that. I’m not talking about myself talking about the comedy, especially from Long Island. We we could do. Who do you know, for a million years? I will say February 18? No. What night is it? February 18. It which which is this Jesus February 12 is the document on February teeth. At my father’s place, that’s not my father’s place. It’s the Rosalyn cellar with Susan Akilah who is a violinist with a great band it’s her show I’m just doing like opening 20 minutes. And they’re great guys is Joe G and and Susan and they have like a five or six piece band and it’s going to be so much fun and the rosin cellar. I mean, and it’s literally down the street from the old my father’s place which I get such a kick out of. Right so I want to give that a plug because we’re here we’re talking about Long Island. Yeah,

matt nappo 1:04:04
well the book has a different feel for me being a Long Island and and I think it would be for people who only know you from the Stern show cuz you mentioned so many things that nostalgic for me in a way I mean mentioning of clubs I know and how they got started. And all

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:04:19
right, you look up and next thing you know, you’ve been daydreaming for 20 minutes about the old days, which I think is a great thing, you know?

matt nappo 1:04:25
Yeah. But the Gilman stuff is that the the Gilman incident? Is that the straw that kind of broke the camel’s back with your relationship with how it is that was at the beginning of the end.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:04:39
Oh, the practical joke. Yeah. Oh, no, no, that was just something really, really funny that happened years ago that was on Shelter Island. That was one of the great stunts. That was one of the great stunts, you people. I just pulled this stunt. We were out to dinner. And one of our rivals that are on air rivals, it was Kathy Kathy Lee Givens producer. It’s too long a story to go into. But imagine if it’s somebody that you’ve always had words with and kind of professional. You know,

matt nappo 1:05:18
Howard was a constant, Kathie Lee and Frankie right,

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:05:22
so much animosity. And here we are sitting in this little tiny space. And they’re at one table and we’re in the other table. And I pulled the waitress aside and said, Listen, I want you to bring Howard a joke. I’d bring Howard a drink, and tell him it’s from Michael Gelman. And she said, why I can’t I said, Listen, I gave her I’d love to say I gave her 100 bucks. I think I gave her 20 bucks, and said, Look, just do it. And when I went to do it, stuttering John and Scott Einziger, who was the producer of the show, ran out ran out of the room. They didn’t want anything to do with it, because they don’t want to get in trouble, you know. And so this waitress, in this little tiny room, brought Howard a drink and said, this is from Mr. Gilman, and how it is six, six, and he stood all the way up and raises glass and said, God, man, and it was so obvious that Garmin had no idea what what the hell he was talking about. And it was just, it was just so mean, but so harmless. And so funny. And all six months, six hour just sat back down in his chair, and I’m next to me said, The waitress told me the drink was from government. And I said, I know that’s, that’s what I told him to tell you. He was busy. You know, he was so pissed. And then he came in Mondays. And you know what I told you daughters what you did to me. And they thought it was funny. Because the tides get turned on the big guy. That’s, you know, that was my job. That was my job to throw a little sand in the gas there.

matt nappo 1:07:05
Beautiful story. Well, I do want to wrap this up, because I do want to get the audio out in time to promote your thing for tonight, so people will be on it. Again, it’s called a stand up memories. The link will be in the description for you folks. I hope people will tune in tonight again, Jackie will be in the chat room and and looking at some of the comments and maybe even commenting back so I really appreciate your time here.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:07:28
Let me tell them email me especially you overseas people joke land. Not choke me in jail, K la nd joke land@aol.com. All my gigs are on joke, land calm. I tweet a dirty joke every day at Jackie martling on Twitter. And look for the documentary joke man. And Matt, I really appreciate this. I hope we get to do it again. I don’t know if I have your email address. Do I have your email? Yeah,

matt nappo 1:07:54
we’ve been writing back and forth for about a week now.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:07:58
It was through Matt. I know it was through Matt. I mean through Mike, Mike, Matt.

matt nappo 1:08:04
Mike, Matt, we’re all the same person. I appreciate it. Yeah. And please do come back. Whenever and anytime. You’re always welcome back here. Thank you so much.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:08:13
You know what I always tell interviewers, a lot of times people say God, I wish you I’d ask Jackie about this as much as people ask you just keep a list of all the stupid things, all the stupid questions. And if we do this again, you could say, Alright, I got a list of 20 things that people were curious about. And then we’re off and running. You know,

matt nappo 1:08:33
we got a lot of those. They just didn’t bring them up today. And then people in the chat rooms right now just asking stuff like that. But if we if we had time today, but I do want to get the audio out so people will know about it for a minute. Just promise me we’ll do this again. We definitely will do this at your convenience. My friend. I would love to have you back. Thank you.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling 1:08:50
And I would love you to come out here and see Joe Klein. Thank you very much. I really appreciate.

matt nappo 1:08:55
Thank you Jackie. Have a great day. And we’ll look forward to talking to you tonight. Great. Bye for now. Bye bye. Jackie the joke man martling. Folks, fantastic conversation there. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. I hope you will check out his show tonight. And be part of it. So I don’t have another program on for tonight because we are. I’m in the book mode myself. I have to finish up the book. So I’m kind of putting some of the shows on hold. Tomorrow I have Tommy Cheung at 1pm with me on course morning coffee with the dog tomorrow morning 9am to 11am. But Tommy Chong at 1am and we’ll be taking your comments and chance for you to chat with the fabulous Tommy Cheung yourself. kind of ask him some questions. And I believe Carl and Jamie will be sitting in at least for part of that. So hope you’ve been great having you here this morning. Thanks for coming. I appreciate all of you up to everybody. been supportive of the program up until now and thanks. keep on coming to you About it keep on coming back and always remember to turn on round Round. Listen to me Listen to me Listen to me, Listen to me Listen to me

How To Live 101 with Andy Andrist

The Strongest Man I Know Delivers A Holiday Message

Andy Andrist has been through more than it would take to break most people. Every one of us has had some hardships and trials to deal with. Andy has had more than his share and then some and maintains a sense of humor, combined with a sense of purpose to face life”s hardest challenges in a way that should be a lesson to all of us.

Andy’s family back story includes nightmares of pedophilia, rape, a severely disabled father, hard core drug use and alcoholism, career disappointments, economic hardship and enough drama to fill an entire season of Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer combined.

One week prior to Christmas, his daughter was the victim of a smash and grab burglary, resulting in being robbed of presents intended for her students and having Andy’s car window broken with damages not covered by insurance deductibles. Merry Christmas. 3 days later he was diagnosed with having one of the more challenging cancers to treat. He handled it all with grace and his unique brand of dark humor.

On Christmas eve. he joined  me for the morning show to talk about his situation and how he is focusing on being at his daughter’s wedding as motivation and inspiration for beating his current Goliath. I am proud to know this man and call him a friend.

Oh and, he happens to be the single funniest comedian alive today.

Like most independent entertainers and normal workaday folks in the USA, Andy’s healthcare coverage only covers him when he doesn’t need it. The last thing he needs in his battle with cancer is stress about going deep into debt. Please help ease that burden.

Use Venmo or Paypal to send directly to andyandrist@yahoo.com

https://www.patreon.com/Issueswithandy

Transcript:

matt nappo 1:02:56
Where were we ah, there he is. He’s got some very close up thing going on. It will say Oh, whoa wait.

Andy Andrist 1:04:45
Holy fucking yeah the angle 30 pounds to your flannel.

matt nappo 1:04:51
is gonna say you look like you’re playing Santa nail. You swallowed Andy Andrist, Santa.

Andy Andrist 1:04:56
Yeah. I keep this I get the hat out for Do I do sort of like what you do for Christmas Eve, I haven’t done it for a few years. But it started as like a pitch on the man show is like, Let’s deliver a beer to the homeless. Like, it was like, you know, the beginning of one of the wars, and was sort of a, you know, timely pitch. And they know, they, they came up with every reason why we, you know, like, like, for instance, what if one of the host gets picked by a homeless guy? Well, if it’s Rogen, it’ll be fucking great TV.

matt nappo 1:05:31
I don’t know, I saw it on fear factor, and he was trying to break up a fight and he looked like a pussy, to be honest with you.

Andy Andrist 1:05:39
I doubt he would be like, down with get bit by a homeless guy, you know. Now, he just takes some horse medicine and he’d be fine. back then. So I don’t know, it was a few years after the man show. And now the you know, the pitch was going to, we’re going to deliver beer to the homeless, and then the idea grew. And then we’re going to like give them you know, disposable cell phones, they could call family, it turned into it would have been a pretty nice idea. And it never would got past the lawyers. So I was home and I had a bunch of shit beer, you know, leftover from summer, whatever. And I got it all in the freezer. And I went around and handed it in, I got a bunch of like the whiskies and you know, any booze that had been stored for a while that I wasn’t going to use fucking homeless people will, you know, they’re not going to go, oh, I can’t use this cooking brandy. No thing so but it was kind of a It was cool. And I did it, you know, it’s just gonna drive and and, you know, it’s, it’s like every red flag you could put up the, the cool part was she was getting out and hand and beard it you know, they think, oh, it’s gonna be somebody with a toothbrush and some soap or like, Hey, man, you want to get fucked up? I got some beer and some shots. And you know, and then I did it for years. And then I started adding food to it, thinking well, I’m getting camera shots and all the you know, I’m kind of exploiting them for my own entertainment purpose. So I pizza. And, and you know, so there’s like families or you know, there’s kids that are homeless and aren’t ready to start drinking. If your

matt nappo 1:07:20
Carl made the point this morning, and I agree that what do people for if you can’t use them for content, but the point about homeless people will take anything was made. I think last summer when you were handing out tuna fish sandwiches in the middle of the summer with no refrigeration after like 24 hours.

Andy Andrist 1:07:35
Well, those were the ones those were the ones they wanted what they you know, they cuz if you’re homeless, you’re already fucked. So you might as well get food poisoning, and call it good. Or as James James, my friend put together peanut butter sandwiches, which, uh, you know, if you’re homeless, you can put that away and have it, you know, the tunas. And I think this is why they were more popular is the tuna you just eat right away. Like, you know, I was presenting it and James was the one who had the idea and peanut butter sandwiches. And then I was like, fuck that. I’m gonna upgrade and go, Hey, would you rather have a peanut butter sandwich or a tuna? And they’re all almost all of them said, Yeah, tuna.

matt nappo 1:08:13
Wow. Wow. Well, good. You know, and that’s great that most people would think well, that’s just he’s just being kind of making fun of the situation, but you’re helping out and you. Yeah. humanitarian effort.

Andy Andrist 1:08:28
In fact, on that one, we really didn’t get many, you know, pictures. I went to this I got all these cans. You know, I haven’t been to the you get 10 cents a can and sign up, throw him away. I just bagged him up. And I had like six big garbage bags full of them. And thinking, well, maybe I’ll use some of this to finances pizza, homeless? Nah, fuck no, there’s these twin brothers. They’re like 6263 Even they’re just lanky fucking guys. And they work a grid, picking up cans. Like you’ll see one up here and the next street over the other one and they kick ass as far as you know, if you’re gathering cans you don’t like these guys, because they’re fucking the Trumps of can gathering and Trump’s the bad. You know, the Trump’s aren’t good at anything. So that’s not even the apt, but why would

matt nappo 1:09:21
they be Out Stealing cans from homeless people just need them just to make sure you don’t get anything

Andy Andrist 1:09:27
technical, or they run the machines where they cash them in and take the money and, you know, send the dog out. But so I’ve done that I’ve given this guy like a few bags of cans before I don’t know their twin brothers, so it could have given them to his brother, but a few years ago, and the guy just made me feel great for the fucking gesture. You know, it’s like, here’s, here’s 60 You know, dollar 60 And he’s like, but I gave him you know, probably 50 $60 worth of cans yesterday. And in the fucking guy, you know, he fucking squeal. You know? is just so happy and you know about it. And then you gave me a hug, I took a picture of, you know, the two of us, and I can’t, I’m not going to post it because I don’t want to say, Hey, I, you know, but it just, it just that gesture, you know, I had those cans, I didn’t really want to take them in, but I also knew, you know, there’s, these fucking guys will appreciate it. And some say they smoke crack, or crystal meth. And the teeth on this gentleman would suggest that, you know, they definitely some hard times or whatever. But if I’m out, you know, living on the streets with my brother, picking up cans, that’s just like winning the lottery. So when his brother shows up, they’re like, you know, they gotta go, I think you can only get $35 at a time. So they probably take them and you know, shifts and work, or kuntang or whatever. But at the end of it if they smoke, some crystal meth and that gives them a little, you know, rip and a happy buzz on the holiday, then fucking mission accomplished. Those guys aren’t gonna be here forever. And neither Meyer, any of us and it’s like this fucking disconnect between people like that train picture. It’s just some people. It’s like a humanity test. Some people see Oh, my God, these people are fucked. And you know, I don’t think I could live around a big homeless population like that, because I got fucking walking empathy.

matt nappo 1:11:22
But in LA, for the mantle, you had to live in LA, right?

Andy Andrist 1:11:26
Yeah, yeah. And it’s just like it was. Yeah, I brought one guy. I forget how. Anyway, I brought one guy into the man show a lot. Like, oh, yeah, we’re pitching it. You know, like, this is my actor I’m bringing in and I just let him use the facilities. You know, like, you know, and I think I call down wardrobe and got, you know, so they come in shave him wash him. I didn’t, you know, he did all that on his own. And then I just called wardrobe. And let’s say, you know, hey, we’re working on a thing. We need a pair 32 under underpants and some pants. And I do those kinds of things. You know, I usually like help somebody at someone else’s expense.

matt nappo 1:12:05
Yeah, my wife had a thing where she would and she still wants to do this a lot. bringing it home with people. Oh, they’re only going to stay, you know, till they get on their feet. Well, that ends up being a year, two year three years. And then they rob us. And, and we call the cops on him and the cops are mad at us for taking them in. Like basically, what Yeah, homeless people, what do you expect, you can’t be bringing these people in your house.

Andy Andrist 1:12:31
They weren’t born. They weren’t. I mean, most, for the most part, most of our born homeless, right? And regular people, and they just got fucked up along the way are like these brothers. You know, it’s like, I’ve been intrigued with these guys for years, like, you know, like me and my brother gathered cams back in the day, and he’d fucking rip me off and we’d fight. And eventually, both of us gravitated towards other aims in life. But like, these are twin brothers, they probably they look like they could have been athletes back in the day. I’m sure their parents didn’t see him going into fucking gathering up cans. And but if I was their parent, at least I would be like, god dammit, you guys are the best. You know, if they smoke math, it does not interfere with their fucking in fact, that might enhance their ability to get cans. You know, somewhere along the line avoid stop coming home for Christmas. And they, you know, they do what they do. And hell I you know, I I’m not going to judge anybody. I mean, if I was out on the streets, I would be looking for fucking quick. Hi.

matt nappo 1:13:39
Oh, yeah, I would I don’t know. Especially here. I mean, if I was on the streets, I would be in Key West. That’s the immediately go down, man. Yeah, you

Andy Andrist 1:13:51
want to Well, you want to go to the warm miss most liberal place you can find and that’s why a lot of them are in LA. or San Francisco or whatever. It’s, you know? Yeah, you know, I’m intrigued by you know, Midwest homeless. It’s like goddamn when health you know, yeah, I would have a sign that says need a bus ticket. There you start building incrementally but just me walking Cago Milwaukee being homeless in Milwaukee is like Fuck yeah. You know,

matt nappo 1:14:23
and scary thought holy.

Andy Andrist 1:14:27
Yeah. Yeah, he wants you know, you walk around with fucking brown feet. You know, fucking your hair gets all dreaded out. And you might just be a completely mentally unstable low life but Keywest you might get also be accepted as a fucking guru. You know, there’s so many fucking Ritchie’s there, you know, takes us one or two of them to to finance a sidewalk Jesus.

matt nappo 1:14:56
Well, I was just thinking I could probably walk into Westbeth but Oh, Baptist what is Westboro Baptists? And tell them I’m the second coming and they might even believe me. Yeah, I’m here.

Andy Andrist 1:15:09
Yeah, I went by that church. And there was a, like, I think there’s a Dairy Queen, something I saw excited to, like a woman with one leg, a big moo, moo. And she ordered food up there and ate, what she couldn’t, you know, like the she had an ice cream cone and bags of food. So she jammed the ice cream cone, and then did a wide swing around with her leg, the wheelchair and the bags, and you know, kind of, I didn’t order anything to eat, see, and hurry filled me up. And then across the street, there was a group of kids protesting tobacco. I was like, it must have been an off day or whatever. But it’s like, you know, they just like it’s, it’s part of their whole fucking thing. What are we protesting today? I don’t give a shit. Just hand me my sign. I’m against it.

matt nappo 1:16:01
You got to be pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel when you get to tobacco these days?

Andy Andrist 1:16:06
I know. Yeah. But it was like a group of kids. Like, they don’t give a fuck, you know, kids bought, you know, it’s like, you got to go back about 10 years to have kids who are genuinely genuinely upset or concerned about their parents smoking maybe 2030 years ago. You

matt nappo 1:16:25
know, I don’t want to make light of your situation. But you mentioned a homeless guy hugging you any concern that you’re already dealing with some health issues, and that might be not the best

Andy Andrist 1:16:39
for you? I haven’t, you know, I don’t know how I feel about the homeless and their backs, you know, but I did not ask for a VAX card. I should have said, Hey, man, you’ve been boosted. And I’m not talking about that shit. You inject yourself? The real shit? No, I didn’t. I thought about that early on. Like I have this a case called hobo Danny around. He calls himself hobo Danny, and I’m not sure what happened to hobo Danny, I think he may or may not have disappeared. And somebody went into his account, but early on in this thing. He saw me down there. And he’s like, oh, you know, I had a mask on. He goes, You’re not buying this bullshit. Are you? And I don’t know, man. And he. And then he wanted to smoke weed with me. And I was like, usually that would be fine. And maybe not. No, but yeah.

matt nappo 1:17:31
If it’s that kind of situation, I will roll you one and roll me one now.

Andy Andrist 1:17:39
Right now, for a while I had like that, you know, alcohol wipes by my pipes. Like

matt nappo 1:17:50
Did the doctor give you any kind of you can’t smoke weed shit or no?

Andy Andrist 1:17:55
Well, if you don’t ask, I don’t you know, like, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

matt nappo 1:18:00
Ask them Oh, quit. Yeah. Merry Christmas.

Andy Andrist 1:18:04
Christmas. Yeah, I feel like no one I did a lung scan. That was the last thing I did a couple like, early this week. And, boy, I’ve never been more nervous about test results in my life than okay, they’re, they’re taken. So far I got this cancer or what they’re calling a cancer and it’s in one tiny spot in my bio duck. But they’re taking a look at my lungs. And the lungs are the ones

matt nappo 1:18:33
I get it, man this

Andy Andrist 1:18:36
ship. And so, you know, she called up and I you know, I just kind of took it as Oh, she’s saying I’m fucked. I go, oh, god damn it. No, really? And she goes, No, no, this is good news. And I don’t even you know, she’s like, we did your lungs. And there’s, you know, there’s no I think she said there’s no malignant, you know, there’s no, whatever, but I just heard, you know, I was expecting the worst. So I just really, you know, because if my lungs or if there’s cancer anywhere else, you know, I’m gonna I’ve got a I haven’t started it yet. But I have a wish list for hospice. And if I find out I got cancer anywhere else, it’d be better to just get them the list early. Because some of that wouldn’t be hard to find. You know, horse tranquilizer sure ketamine and, you know, all the usuals but I might want to explore down the list a little.

matt nappo 1:19:33
Yeah. And call Rogen quickly and say, you know, what do I need? What do I do doc?

Andy Andrist 1:19:38
human growth hormones. You got anything to sprout hair up?

matt nappo 1:19:43
Well, that’s great. If you get a lung scan and the worst news they deliver is Oh, you got to switch to Indigo from sativa right.

Andy Andrist 1:19:53
And I have I have done a little that just so for, for sleeping. And I sleep all right. I or whatever but it’s like you know I haven’t really embraced that difference between I’m a sativa guy and I don’t get why you know but now that I want to just shut some shit down yeah indica is great I got an indica edibles and even a couple of green green indica buds

matt nappo 1:20:19
I’ll be honest with you, I’m thinking that I’m wired backwards with the sativa indica stuff because I get the opposite of what I’m supposed to get. So I’m I get with tea because I want to get creative and write music and stuff and all it does is put me to sleep I get the Indigo stuff and then all of a sudden I’m getting green Yeah, I’m like hybrid is the best bet for me.

Andy Andrist 1:20:43
I don’t run into it as much anymore but it used to just fucking infuriate me to go to a pot store. I know what I want. I know what today is the deals and all that shit and then somebody who’s like you know need to marijuana 101 class you know, what am I gonna feel? Is this one gonna, I’m looking for you know, and then they’ll go this little give your body like you know, just this one will take the edge off of my suicidal thoughts. So could you please get the fuck out of my way? You know, body high shear. This one. This one will really aid you know, if you’re writing a screenplay. This one will really punch it up in a green jar, you Fox Well,

matt nappo 1:21:29
this is kind of a one of the reasons I’ve obviously so most insignificant reasons, but you got to stick around because I am working on a screenplay that kind of you gave me idea for it. I was going to make you a executive co producer when I get a deal for

Andy Andrist 1:21:45
well, it’s easier like Rocky Sylvester Stallone stole a lot of this other this book club boxers story. Right and it probably would have been better for him if the real rocky had died. All right. Yeah. I come up with all of this. I forget the guy’s name but yeah, yeah, check. chaotic. You know, Chuck should assume Sylvester Yeah, it’s good. That’s pretty amazing. Like he took he took this guy’s you know the the beats of this guy’s story and turned it into a fucking movie franchise and never gave fucking Chuck anything.

matt nappo 1:22:26
Yeah, he was doing church tours. Chuck at camp. What’s nurse something like that? Yeah. But he was doing church towards giving inspirational talks about his how we and they were building him as the real rocky.

Andy Andrist 1:22:40
Right. Yeah, like there’s that real Kramer know what a fuckin sad thing that is. Touring in support of being a fucking footnote.

matt nappo 1:22:55
The sign I never saw the sign before the signing of the issues with Andy it looks like it says Dr. Seuss with Andy. Is that new? I never saw that before

Andy Andrist 1:23:06
it’s been up there. I don’t know how to frame my shit and Shaylee goes it looks at when I first read moved over about four feet. Shaylee said it looked a little busy because it worked for you. Like it’s you know

matt nappo 1:23:21
you look perfect today like I’m sure Charlie’s gonna be saying well the lighting was perfect. I know what the hell

Andy Andrist 1:23:27
yeah, I know I haven’t I have a heat dish and then the lights askew but it’s yeah that morning. I don’t know they they timed it so that I have either fucking direct sunlight in my face. Or you know darkness so yeah, if they we I say we do it in the morning.

matt nappo 1:23:45
Your call is coming back in for considering everything you look fucking healthy man.

Andy Andrist 1:23:51
Well that’s what uh that’s the fucking Stan you know cuz my liver was getting fucked with all this whatever and so I was kind of in liver failure and there are no liver failures. Their liver to do a lot more than others and then they fucking burn out.

matt nappo 1:24:12
It’s all a learning curve for you. It’s all a journey and a learning experience for your liver I find that there are two liver failures they all do like all of us they just learned

Andy Andrist 1:24:23
at first your liver fails I don’t know your thoughts

matt nappo 1:24:28
so that that show you did way way you got hammered. That tended to be a kind of a blessing

Andy Andrist 1:24:36
was kind of a hidden suicide attempt. Because my liver was severely fucked people around me were noticing that my skin was yellowing and and and then the guy says you want to do a shot and yeah and then not only did I want to do that when I wanted to revisit my fucking alcoholic roots and and go all in. So yeah, I got fucking completely blackout drunk fell that you know, it’s like, okay, yeah, you know, it’s like, you gotta You gotta listen to, to least the fucking basics. Yeah, okay my skin, like I could Google yellowing skin and find out I was having liver problems, you know, but and I don’t I’m not even sure I want to count that show cuz if I don’t do another show is that my last Oh god,

matt nappo 1:25:23
that was my same thought like no, this is the reason you have to beat this just to do another show to get more

Andy Andrist 1:25:29
or just jump on an open mic on this week’s but yeah, I did it open for Billy Wayne Davis and I’ll go ahead and count that as my last thing, if that’s what you know if I don’t get better or whatever, but I you know, it sounds sounds like I’ve got a pretty good odds of, of, you know, continuing this drama

matt nappo 1:25:51
on I have a good feeling about the outcome of this thing. But my point is, if you hadn’t done that and hadn’t crashed really hard at that last gig, you probably wouldn’t have gotten to the doctor and probably would not have discovered this until later. And that makes my chances worse.

Andy Andrist 1:26:07
Well, I think I was in the process to I don’t I don’t remember where I was, but I think I was at the very least had the MRIs scheduled and stuff. But, you know, yeah, bad, bad, you know. So it’s kind of fitting to that I would do a show for about six people and then fall down blackout drunk in front of, it’s like, that’s kind of a bookend with my career. That’s how it started. I forget there was a town and maybe billings or so town in Montana, where they really just didn’t care about the opening act or really anything but they just wanted to see the opening act should hammered. So they kept sending shots, and I did them all. And I remember closing with a gun, I’m gonna fucking puke and I ran to the bathroom. So I guess it would be a nice book and

matt nappo 1:26:57
yeah, we can’t think of that. But I do have some good news for you because and I know a lot of people gonna be like trying to be played doctor who never went to medical school and all this stuff. But I actually know some doctors who are very prominent and have worked in with the Whipple procedure. Yeah.

Andy Andrist 1:27:17
And I don’t like something that would happen in like a like some roller derby. Shit. Mr. Whipple, the whip. You know, the big fucking hogs. Grab the skinny girl and flinger into somebody else. That’s what it sounds like the whipple surgery in a maneuver. But yeah, and I talked to Coach, he’s an opera head coach of Auburn track is a friend of a friend. And he, he had the surgery done. He had every symptom, everything, every procedure and every symptom that I’ve had, and he sounds a lot like JB Smoove and buddies, I’ve heard he’s a religious guy, and you know that, but I had a good conversation with him. And he’s like, and I kept expecting a motherfucker. He was like, we are that we lucky ones. We are the lucky ones. Let me tell you that we the motherfucking lucky ones. It helped. And I think I said she at some point. And then I was like, oh, yeah, that’s just cuz he sounds like JB smooth. He wants to hear me, me go on, like motherfuckers really, you know, they’re gonna remove that motherfucker out of my fucking bio. Part of my fucking this. But he had all that done about two or three years ago. And, and, you know, he made it sound like, you know, no big deal, you know, go in there and he he’s a bit of an Exaggerator so he was like up in a couple of weeks. I’m like, okay, maybe a month, a month and a half. But it was comforting to hear somebody that had just gone, you know, gone through it and, you know, is on either side of it and doesn’t have diabetes and any of these other things that you know, came up in the discussion,

matt nappo 1:29:03
right? Well, it used to be a tough thing but now they say it’s so precise that the the only the biggest concern is going to be you afterwards making sure you behave yourself and don’t rip because that becomes a really you know, a tender area and you can’t do anything physical and you got to you know, not go out and piss in your yard in the middle and or even

Andy Andrist 1:29:25
know coke. I’m not going to ask him that. But uh, yeah,

matt nappo 1:29:31
somebody there to make sure you behave yourself.

Andy Andrist 1:29:34
Well, that’ll just I think my kids gonna bounce in for a bit but I mean, it’s gonna it sounds like a long recovery and at least you know like laying around and shit so you know, try not to binge watch every thing that’s available right now. Because I figure you know, yeah, I am just going to be kind of like fuck on a shelf for a bit and and, you know, I envision like a fucking you know, cabin overlooking the mountains and snow dropping and stuff and artists on my fucking couch couple of cats trying to squeeze me out of my spot

matt nappo 1:30:09
you have Stephen King right your recovery that’s right

Andy Andrist 1:30:15
I definitely could use a fucking hobbling I gotta find that cable from my phone in a minute here, but uh, well, that’s I was trying to get on the computer and shit. But then I, you know, I’m a podcast so sometimes you got to jump on other shit. Right? But I know how it goes. And I got a few minutes of like charge here but uh, if I hop up and run in there, grab a cable and you can fill the air with Christmas thoughts.

matt nappo 1:30:46
You can do that I can actually sing a song. Alright,

Andy Andrist 1:30:49
yeah. Which I just heard a couple heard again this morning and last night and I’m honored sir.

matt nappo 1:30:56
You wrote it I just put the words in order every every word and that song came out he

Andy Andrist 1:31:01
Yeah, well. Yeah. And I was fucking Oh, they’re dead. I dropped out I dropped this but that fell into there but uh, I I was like that was when I first got the stand and I could eat again. And and then I like fucking for some reason I was just I needed macaroni salad. I went to a Hawaiian place a couple of times. And then I would go to the deli and you know nothing that makes you feel dirtier than ordering macaroni a tub of macaroni salad and I tried to go just a spoonful and then I got maybe a little more yeah don’t stuff at all. Okay, that’s good. And then I go home. And one time I woke up at like three in the morning and and I went to this the little fridge and I didn’t even have a spoon. I just started fingering macaroni salad and my face like and I don’t even really care for that shit. So that’s why I thought there must be some sort of white trash fuckin cancer that needs to have macaroni salad fed to it to lose it.

matt nappo 1:31:56
I was thinking you could because you’re a mushrooms in the mac and cheese type of guy. Substitute right now so

Andy Andrist 1:32:03
I guess yeah, I’ll probably do more starting on hallucinogenics a little bit next week or two just again well I mean it’s I don’t have any real thing anything to take the edge off and and here’s the thing about this is I had a few times where I got a motion you know crying or whatever. And then i i Go what you know thinking what am I fuckin Who am I crying for? You know my crying because I didn’t dying my it’s a surprise. Like I’ve known you know, in fact, I’ve had suicidal thoughts. Oh, shit. All right. I’ll be right back. All right,

matt nappo 1:32:42
be right back. We’ll see if we get him ties. I want to play this song. I’m going to hate to get fucking serious with Andy but it’s okay to cry for yourself is what I’m going to tell him when he gets back if he gets back. It’s definitely okay for that. I think we shortchange ourselves on it should a lot. Is this the one yeah, this is the one I’m gonna play the song. This is a song that Andy wrote. I put the music to it and didn’t know he was writing it. Linda Allen had said Andy wrote about the maca macaroni salad thing that he had some kind of low a white trash low rank cancer window read that into somebody’s got to make a song about write a song about this white crash low rank cancer blues and I took that as an assignment this is it.

Got the blue yellow, red and blue Job flow red cancer blue it ain’t no

Yay I had to do that everything gonna be alright, cuz I know everything’s gonna be alright. Yeah. Well, before I don’t want to keep you serious because I don’t want to get emotional here, just for your sake, but I want to let you know that it’s perfectly okay to cry for yourself, man. Um, you need to just fucking let it out. It’s the healthiest thing you can do. And I

Andy Andrist 1:36:48
you know, I yeah, I just I analyze everything so when I cry I’m like who am I? Is this for me? Why am I doing this to me? You know, I’ve had you know there I don’t have a big bucket list of things I’m hoping you know, like, I wish things had gone a little easier. But there’s no reason to fucking carry on but I think it’s you know, I mean, the first thing that popped in my head was Oh man, I’m not going to be here for my daughter’s wedding. And, and all that but we went and saw Ghostbusters and and now I can see that even if I can’t be at her wedding. We can just get the guy who was the warden and Shawshank to play my body and then animate my head. And it’ll seem like I’m right there.

matt nappo 1:37:33
Well, Chad’s got a no good taxidermist. No,

Andy Andrist 1:37:37
y’all Yeah, Chad

matt nappo 1:37:38
could stuff yeah, we can. We can have you stuffed and like oh, you my

Andy Andrist 1:37:43
boy. This is a dude. Nobody Oh,

matt nappo 1:37:47
it’s got a voice. Yeah, he’s

Unknown Speaker 1:37:49
a crooner. And yeah, that’s how I knew I was in sang was getting to me as I called him. I said nobody wants to hear your whining you can’t and I shoved him out of my room. Spent the last week make it up to him like

matt nappo 1:38:07
oh yeah, I know all about that kind of stuff. Those Oh, I feel regret now for for the way I treated you

Andy Andrist 1:38:16
see nigh on everything, it’s like 17 years old but yeah, I mean, you know, I’ve very rarely ever been to him. And I felt that’s all for a cat man. Yeah, and he he kind of all he does is shift it’s sort of annoying but I you know, he’s like my old man he I let him out in whatever time it wants to go out there and then I just go look for him a few minutes later with us spotlight you know Oh, he’s got he’s fucking you know he he goes out and he just stands there and he doesn’t you know it’s like I thought you needed to piss you or you know nothing

matt nappo 1:38:52
Wow, no, my cats my wife is the cat lady. And we we have half cat but if we let them out they’re gone for like two months. So we don’t let them out ever they don’t run

Andy Andrist 1:39:03
Yeah, always we’ve always had you know even my my well my family growing up we’ve always had cats and they’ve always been in and out. Yeah, they like my cat cats will go out and well not Mr. squishes anymore but the other one you know murder shit. And it’s a bummer but it’s you know, see a cat a little cat, carrion and big rat and then and then about 20 minutes later it’s on your lap rubbing up against your face and and I couldn’t do the rat thing even close to me, but it seems better once removed. I just

matt nappo 1:39:40
off the guy. Let me give you a hug.

Andy Andrist 1:39:43
Yeah, yeah, I know. I know all about the Black Plague.

matt nappo 1:39:50
Wow. You mentioned before you’re a podcaster This is a surprise to me. I didn’t know you have a podcast.

Andy Andrist 1:39:57
Well, I must think so. I’m on One.

matt nappo 1:40:00
Right. But the question and I know this is a small concern to you, but people we count on that podcast, honestly, to keep their mental health in check. Are they expecting one today?

Andy Andrist 1:40:14
Yeah, we got one today. And I, I think we, we, Erickson mentioned that we’re going back up on YouTube for a while. I mean, we’re just because we kind of pulled it and without any notice. And, and and then we kind of, we thought we’d do more clips and shed or whatever we did, we just kind of lost our audience on YouTube to kind of grow our Patreon. And right now, we’re going to just ask that Patreon subscribers, if that, you know if they can, they want you to continue on, but we’re also going to make it free for YouTube for the foreseeable future. And, and hopefully, we’ll carry on and it won’t turn into you know, Andy’s health crisis updates, because I don’t, you know, I don’t want to get in, you know, I know how that would be as a listener. So I don’t want to you know, but it is, you know, I talk about what’s going on in my world. And that’s kind of overwhelmed my, my thinking for a while, but, uh, yeah, hopefully, we’ll get back to some fucking, you know, some fun ribbing, and move away from this, you know, the scare I had, which, you know, like I said, I think I’ll be fine after the surgery. So,

matt nappo 1:41:26
gonna get tired, you’re gonna get tired of talking about it, because everybody’s so concerned about you, they’re gonna ask you about it every time they see you.

Andy Andrist 1:41:33
That’s why I kind of wanted to, you know, like, I call Doug. You know, I called Doug, one to lighten the mood in the car with me and my daughter, you know, and we weren’t, it was just, you know, I had Erickson was one of them. And on and you know, Texas, Erickson, he’s a lot more, you know, you know, into his feelings, or whatever. And, and she goes, was that Doug? And I go, No, no, and let me call Doug. And I called Doug and I go, haha, I got cancer. Aha. He goes, Oh, you want a podcast? And, you know, I thought I could either, you know, not say anything to, you know, to a bigger audience, and have people you know, hear about it through the grapevine. And then they’ll call you know, like I talked to in men a couple, you know, people will hear about it. So I’d rather be in front of it, and just say, I got cancer. And here’s what’s going on, then to get you know, to feel those phone calls where I, I don’t mind the phone calls. I just don’t want to inform you know, like, here it is, here’s what’s going on on it. You know what, just listen to Doug’s podcast, I cover the beats on it, and then call me back. But, uh, yeah, so it’s like, you know, it’s like anything, like if you get it Dewey, or whatever, and people hear about that, and then that’s all your conversations or whatever. So hopefully, you know, people can want to talk to me about stuff can move past those, you know, that shit and just, you know, whatever they need to tell me you know, however, however this like I heard from Travis Lipski, I haven’t heard from him for ever and and I didn’t know who it was for quite a while and you know, so it’s like, you know, when when you hear this kind of thing about a friend or somebody that you you like or remember, or whatever, you know, you do want to kind of check in with them and I don’t mind that because I really don’t have a whole lot you know, going on right now.

matt nappo 1:43:27
Yeah, you Doug sounds like he reminded the his reaction reminded me of a friend I had and he just passed away but my friend Jeff when I got caught my another friend had a mail order bride from Russia, and I would do an acoustic show and this mail order bride from Russia did not know protocol, and she was she took off her panties and was rubbing her vagina all over my bald head on stage and my wife got the pictures of it. And I was furious and I got caught you know what there’s a girl rubbing it on your head and I went over to my friend’s house I said Laurie found found out about the girl rubbing the twine on my head the first thing he did was he went and got a bottle of bourbon and in April and put it right in front of me so you know we don’t need to talk about this. Okay

Andy Andrist 1:44:15
yeah yeah, no no need to keep this drum all bottled up. It’s talking about a high rate of speed. Yeah.

matt nappo 1:44:29
So are you planning on like putting getting a lot of shows in the can before you think totally you don’t let your fans feel like letting them down but people need to hear from you.

Andy Andrist 1:44:41
Yeah, I think until January 20th. I’ll be feeling normal. Right I can you know, weed for a while I wasn’t getting high so I you know, I I still smoked weed but I just wasn’t getting high. Yeah. Change when I go This stent and all this other poison leaked out of my system. So I can definitely, you know, smoke weed and, and, and, you know, talk about shit that pops in my head and hopefully I won’t be like, you know, what was me you know, here’s another thing, you know, I think I think I’ve, you know, they’ve established I don’t have or at least to be a surprise if I have it in other parts, you know, they’ve done enough scan. So really, you know, it feels like, I get the surgery, it’ll save my existence. And, and and then that’s it, you know that, like, they’ll eradicate what was in there and then I’ll be like, you know, back to semi healthy human being. And also know that my lungs are clear. My livers clear. So no, on the other side of this if I want to really, you know, drink heavy,

matt nappo 1:45:56
no, no, stop right there. This is an excuse like to go 90 miles an hour everywhere you go through life now and just think,

Andy Andrist 1:46:06
what if my reputation like my reputation is I’m a fall down drunk? And I’m more of a lightweight, but what if, what if I get on the other side of this and I can really change people’s perceptions like, not only am I a drunk, but I can also drink a huge amount of alcohol

matt nappo 1:46:25
you got a bad attitude with the with the long term vision of how this is gonna go, you should come out expecting to be another world champion drug user, you should just do what you need to, to enjoy the experience without getting to the point of where you’re going to get yourself in this position.

Andy Andrist 1:46:45
Right? Well, I mean, you know, in one, two, though, I mean, like the weed that we have been smoking weed since I was, you know, a teenager. And pretty much, you know, escalated through the years I haven’t curbed it. It’s gotten more and more. So I was definitely surprised to hear that my lungs were okay. And that’s, you know, fucking big tobacco. I don’t

matt nappo 1:47:07
mind on I don’t I can hear the wheezing at night, right?

Andy Andrist 1:47:11
Yeah, and I was like, I don’t feel like I’m, I’m in shape. Like you know, I you were talking about the runs that five K’s and I used to do 10 K’s all the time. Or not all the time, but a couple three for a year. And then I did completed marathons and stuff and now I can hear myself breathing heavy to walk up to the mailbox. And fortunately, I fought the war on the mail. So that I don’t have to go down the hill and then climb back up. But um, it’s you know, I felt like, you know, there was a part of my body that I ruined besides my penis. I would say my lungs. Yeah. And I haven’t I haven’t ruined my penis. I’ve just made it stronger. For wind resistant.

matt nappo 1:47:56
I don’t know how you how you do that. But hypochondria is contagious, you know and so everybody hears you saying well my skin was changing color and I had Batman I had liver problems are the big one now is I don’t want people thinking because I got a bet because she said I wasn’t getting high and this has happened to me and I don’t want people just assuming that if you smoke a ball and don’t get a buzz from it oh my god.

Andy Andrist 1:48:22
Well, you might want to check the THC content you might have got CBD you know there’s like a troubleshooting thing you know, how are you plugged in? Okay, so Okay, well alright then my next thing is you probably have cancer

matt nappo 1:48:40
hypochondria definitely is the most contagious disease going I mean I hear things and I’m always I’m looking at my skin color now. Do I need to change the lighting or am I getting sick?

Andy Andrist 1:48:51
Yeah, yeah and I really didn’t even notice it you know and my daughter come home and you know said I look like one of the Simpsons which is the go to for any white man and he’s turned jumped this Yes, yes. We do look like Simpsons and no we don’t like to be made fun of please stop yellow hate directed at White people who have liver failure. Need a subset? You know? Yeah, we’re not Simpsons. We’re alcoholics. And

matt nappo 1:49:21
so what if there is any benefit to you being having to be concerned with your own personal situation right now? Is it distracting you from any all the bullshit in the news? And yeah,

Andy Andrist 1:49:33
I stopped I don’t give a shit. Good. I like Rachel Maddow is tidbits and you know her storytelling and I don’t give a shit. I’d still like to see the Trump’s fucking tortured or something. But, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s kind of I guess it’s like every man for himself. When you find out you’re, you know, potentially got something that’s going to kill you in, you know, a reasonable amount of time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s like that and I’m in, I’m less likely to put up with shit from people. Like there’s a fucking hippie at this place me and my daughter, we’re waiting in line. It’s a real narrow, you know, and only probably two people should be in there waiting. And there was me and my daughter, we’re in there. And then this dude comes in, he’s like, joins the line. He’s talking to this young hippie girl, and he’s an old hippie dude. And he’s like, has a scarf and he’s like, just it’s not even about to go Hey, man. mask up, bro. You know, I mean, you know, it’s just, you know, I’m in a fucking bucket now. I can’t get fucking sick from this shit. And this guy was like, he kept talking up this girl and he just and I go, I go, I see your fucking nose Wavy Gravy. And then I go, you know, mask up, bro. That’s like, Here I am, like fucking confronting somebody on the ship. But I was like, you know, I gotta wear a mask. Everybody in here is wearing a mask. The people behind there. They got mask on. And this fucking guy thinks what he has to say to this. He said, It was like, I just moved to Eugene. But it just felt like destiny. Well, I live in Eugene and I didn’t want you to fucking change your destiny to get the fuck out of it. So I he stepped over to look at something and then both me and my kid wedged him out. So now he went from being second in line to fourth. And he just looked around and then he laughed, and he wasn’t gonna let it go.

matt nappo 1:51:27
But I’m gonna channel Erickson for a moment here. What he would say to you, I think and this is you definitely don’t need COVID But one thing you need even less than COVID is an ass beating from some white trash white dude. Yeah, you know?

Andy Andrist 1:51:45
Yeah. Walk away. And liver failure. Cancel my belly but I can still need an agent if he’s asked me you know you just grabbed a Husker that fucking hair that’s you know attached to a ball. How’s it even hanging in there anyway? Got a fucking bullet hanging from a bond spot I yard that down there it’s in and then kick. No,

matt nappo 1:52:13
no fighting because it’s not whether you can put a hurting on him. That’s not what I’m

Andy Andrist 1:52:20
what people fight cancer in different ways. And maybe fully fuckin hippie refuses to look out for my safety and other people’s safety. That’s fighting cancer,

matt nappo 1:52:30
right? I’m not gonna compare this to cancer at all. But I think you’re onto something there because I’ve had severe sciatica, where I couldn’t walk, and somebody pissed me off. And all of a sudden I was ready to fight them and get that adrenaline rush. And when it was done, the sciatica was gone.

Andy Andrist 1:52:45
Yeah. And this is off subject. But one time my, my daughter came back, she’s went to Colorado University, and she was at a football game and we were in I was wearing Colorado gear. She was and it was an Oregon Duck Game. Colorado, lose a close game. But this guy in front, my daughter two rows down, kept heckling back to her, you know, like I’m and then and he just won’t let it go. And then at some point, my daughter goes, What do you want to fucking fight me, you piece of shit. I’m a girl. And I was like, oh, so proud of her. And but then you have a you know, it’s like, when you say that you should have a plan. And you know, not that he would have needed it. But you know, because I was there. And I will fight anybody. If I have uphill position. You know, bleachers that you know, because I was already planning to throw a shoulder into this guy and knock him about six rows down. That’s how I like you know, I visualized fights like, you know, I don’t get in. I haven’t been in a fight and a long time. I can’t even remember, but I plan it. You know, like, they’ll grab that guy’s hair, shocking him down, kick him in the balls and then drag it. It’s like I was like four steps ahead. And this guy’s still deciding between vegan options. Wow. Uh, you know, don’t put that fuck I’m serious here.

matt nappo 1:54:08
I never had the luxury to plan it and I used to get into a lot of fights in the day and I thought about the number of ass kickings I got in my life. Add them all up. It would be I should be dead from the amount of ass kicking I can I yeah,

Andy Andrist 1:54:25
I didn’t. Well, I was a shitty or inattentive, defensive back. That’s the word for it. I was inattentive. And I didn’t always cover my guy perfectly or whatever. But you know, I had other shit going on, or whatever. But I played special teams. I love playing kicking team work and even kick receiving team. Because you could just that’s that and that’s how like if I was at a group of friends and there was going to be trouble. I always look for somebody not necessarily involved in the play. You know, somebody who’s like mouthing off but has a say had you know it’s like a sucker punches you know what I do like in in the kicking team, I would always deliver a big hit. And like the one the kind where the coach or watching film going that’s the way you hit. I was hitting a guy who was 30 yards away from the play and not watching it’s like that scene in waterboy

matt nappo 1:55:24
Oh, froze up. Oh, why,

Andy Andrist 1:55:30
and had no chance of getting hit and I would fucking level that guy not top or fucking the part of the play, but that’s how I would fight in a situation it’s like, you know, or anything is like I scan it look for the fucking the one that I could take down. And that’s who I’m going to fucking hit if it gets into it.

matt nappo 1:55:52
Well, I guess that’s the safe approach, but it never worked out that way for me. Before he talked I forgot I wanted to mention this today on the program, but you brought up psychedelics before, and the guy who called them before was with me 51 years ago today. I know this you know where you were the first time you took a psychedelic 51 years ago today we yeah, my did lie.

Andy Andrist 1:56:17
with some friends and cool a couple mushrooms didn’t really know what it was we went to like a Fred Meyers and, you know, I’ve learned that you don’t want for being high. Remember, like dogs that I could understand that dogs were communicate, you know, like I was really in tune with. Okay, that dog saying this and then the dog down the hills responded with that. And then he’s telling the dog down the hill that that was? And then I really do them again for years. I don’t know why they just said you know, we gave them to me. Yeah, and then I and then kind of as an

matt nappo 1:56:58
end up grabbing some Wi Fi troubles. Yeah. Anyway, 51 years ago today and

Andy Andrist 1:57:05
stuff in your head, just kind of, you know, demanding answers all at once or whatever. So you know, I now I can talk myself out of a bad trip and move. noodley

matt nappo 1:57:19
you know what, Andy, I’m going to try putting you out of the room and bringing you back in. Hopefully this works. We’re having some Wi Fi trouble here. Let me see if this works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s better. Yeah, we were having Wi Fi trouble. I fixed okay.

Andy Andrist 1:57:32
Yeah. But, yeah, like I you know, so I like you as a kid. I, you know, that amazes me, like, you know, if I would have gone that route, I don’t, you know, because I like the exploration in the learning curve of how to do it, you know, and maybe if I had done it as a youngster, I wouldn’t have appreciated it, you know, but I used to think if I do any hallucinogenics it’s going to be I’m going to find a ledge and I’m going to jump off it. I’m going to freak out. I’m gonna cry and I’ve done all that. But now I kind of go get a hold of yourself, man. rein it in. And then I can have a good time on the other end of it, but it’s like kind of, it’s like kind of challenging your brain it’s not like getting it to me it’s like challenging your brain to to follow the fucking the light path and not get distracted.

matt nappo 1:58:20
Yeah, well, I haven’t done it since 1987, anything like that. But well,

Andy Andrist 1:58:25
this year this year, and I’m saying this year at Panamint in you know, maybe you’re in an RV, or whatever, but we’re going to do it up big this year to Panama and it’s a perfect place to do hallucinogenic for anybody but uh you know, for

matt nappo 1:58:43
me No, I wanted I offered to pick up Craig in Albuquerque this year. I was going to go this year I had every plan on going and I asked Craig if you want me to pick you up and he said I can’t I’ll be back with those guys. Don’t tempt me and I’ll be back on the horse I’m doing mushrooms with him

Andy Andrist 1:58:59
Yeah, well maybe you’re in a better spot now Craig

matt nappo 1:59:04
but if you got if you guys do it again this year I’m definitely gonna go I got talked out of it by people. My cuz my Yeah, I was gonna drive cross country and they like your age. You’re gonna drive I don’t want to fly. A mask on was not my thing.

Andy Andrist 1:59:20
Your age you can stop at any place and get discounts let me throw out my AARP card here and get a 15% off our breakfast. Yeah, you eat early. You go to bed early. You know? Yeah, I’d say traveling old is the way to go.

matt nappo 1:59:44
Yeah, that

Andy Andrist 1:59:47
nobody wants to wake you and arrest hurry to rape you.

matt nappo 1:59:52
That’s not true. I had a 96 year old lady told me the other night and I’m sure if she could do what I wanted to

Andy Andrist 1:59:59
do. You won’t find yourself Rest here in Topeka.

matt nappo 2:00:05
Yeah, so but the thing about Panama, I think you got a book now if you really want to get a cabin or something, because

Andy Andrist 2:00:10
No, when, whenever we decide is, that’s what creates the demand. You know, I mean, if we we say it’ll be this week that you know, because I think it would be a great sitcom to just to see the inner workings of the crew and what goes on there on a day to day because it’s fucking fascinating. I don’t think anything goes on there until you know, there’s a group like ours, and then, you know, then they fire it up. But I feel like it’s almost like a doormat, you know, like that. It’s like, when you go well, I went, I went into the Mustang or ranch or whatever, and how they, you know, it’s like, you walk in, and then they all show up and present themselves or whatever. But you know, I would like to be in Not that I’d watched that stupid show, the cat house or whatever. But it’s more interesting to me what goes on when they’re not out? You know, here we are. You know, I’d love to hear the interview. I know that show was they showed you what they wanted to show you. One time I was driving through back from probably Panamint party or Vegas and and there was a horror horror house. I you know, that’s a crude term for it, or whatever. That’s what it is. Yeah, it was a hoarder house. And they advertised showers for truckers and, and breakfast. So and it was like 430 in the morning, open 24 hours. So I went in and hung out and I had a great time just having coffee and watching the You know, the four o’clock shift complain about the morning crew, you know, they don’t even wipe to come off of the walls, or whatever. And then when the tired old hag, there was she was served the coffee and behind the counter. And then I go I think I’m gonna go the shower. And then she asked, like, threw us like a fucking raspy cigarette voice company. And I wasn’t sure if she was on, you know, like she’s bringing up well, maybe, or it was PR. Either way I declined because I you know, it wasn’t there for making love. Or killing time. You know, and then having a nice breakfast, but that’s, you know, that’s what I like to hang out for, you know? Oh, that one time I went to Florida strip club with Doug’s mother and the dollar store and we were hanging outside waiting for the pussycat lounge to open. And when it did, there is a chick with a mullet. A lot of bruising. not blaming, you know, I’m not saying her old man beat her ass, but she did. And she had the old school aerobics Reebok shoes on and she got up and had her fucking floppy tits out. While she was cleaning the like she removed her top to wipe the pole down and stuff. Damn it, you know and excellent. Imagine being in a more a better strip. You know, like, I’m not a gentleman. And I don’t buy into the Oh, the gentleman’s in in the VIP lounge. I want to see a chick who’d been slugged around a little bit wiping off the pole with sitting also had a cigarette. Dang. I was like, I don’t need to see the rest of the crew here. I’ve gotten everything I need out of this.

matt nappo 2:03:25
I’m pretty sure that’s a sublime song. Yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:03:30
Yeah. And parts of that weekend were told in one at Doug’s books. Mother was holding the cocaine and

matt nappo 2:03:38
just a line just hearing the line. I remember going to a strip club in Florida with Doug’s mother. It’s just sent me like into Oh, yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:03:46
Well. We had I think it was like Keywest. And when there was three shows, one I did real well. And then the middle one was a people were threatening to get me. And like Doug jumped up there on stage that offend me. It was like, I was being heckled by Haitians, Cubans and fucking Irish cops. And that and that was only like, that was it. They’re like, 12 people. There’s three groups of four that were all hated me. And But Doug got up there yelled at the audience. And then he goes, Do you want to do any more time and I go fuck, no. And then he leans in and he goes, we’ve got coke and mothers holding

matt nappo 2:04:26
another line that has never been said,

Andy Andrist 2:04:29
I know. So yeah, like, you know, my mother was sober as far as I knew. And then Doug said she had cocaine so like, a mother. Let’s do some coke and went into the bathroom while Doug was trying to tame down the the uprising and did some big bump. She, she was like, you know, either rookie added or hadn’t held a bag in a long time. It was like really? Another one. All right, sure.

matt nappo 2:04:55
Oh my god. Imagine this stuff. Yeah flat Florida strip club alone I mean Florida strip club is all you got to say. I mean those two elements bring you to a very good picture but

Andy Andrist 2:05:11
yeah and 11am to you know before they even pretend to have left

matt nappo 2:05:18
well only thing that can make it a little bit more busy tell me it was a Sunday morning

Andy Andrist 2:05:23
I know Sunday was yeah Sunday I remember the regret regret and be enormous. Fucking yeah guilt that Sunday morning was and that was probably Thursday morning.

matt nappo 2:05:39
Well, you know, that’s what they that’s why they go to church on Sundays. You know, they build up all the sin and all week long and then they got to go and tell somebody that sorry.

Andy Andrist 2:05:49
Yeah. I just remember dropping off a friend made that night that wrestled with on the floor of the club, like old school style, you know, on fours and all that and and then I dropped this person off at a trailer she wanted to be dropped like up the road. Oh, did I say she was probably could have been a she I don’t know gender. I don’t like to label people. But the person often I didn’t like skywriting, but it was in a circular and it’s and then it said God loves you and it had a happy face. It was like that was like kind of like above that trailer. Wow Yeah. Wow. So

matt nappo 2:06:33
that’s what made it made you the believer in faithful

Andy Andrist 2:06:37
religion. That’s how I knew it was Sunday Sunday in Florida full of cocaine and this is the perfect time to drop some fucking cryptic bullshit above a trailer

matt nappo 2:06:51
well, they knew they wouldn’t know which shell it to go to to which is really telling in itself like super cheap. Hey Shay. And again I don’t want to label people but I’m guessing he or she whichever it was or in between must have a this situation going on every Sunday that the guy with the plane the god guy with the plane knew exactly what

Andy Andrist 2:07:11
to do with Dr. Martinez team has trailer the messages that she was at a show and had this dude who was like a friend and the message is this guy blew up her phone what that I heard were fucking fabulous. They went you know I’m a nice guys is worried about you and to you. You call me back ground you fucking cut you off. It’s always the way it is with us self identifying nice guys. Nice guy. They’re just waiting to cut the head off of the check. You know until she she admits that she likes him a little cutter fuck. That’s really the nice guy.

matt nappo 2:07:56
The era of social media has made that happen faster because people used to say, well, you don’t call me back within a couple of hours. I get pissed off. Now. If you don’t answer that text message within two minutes. They think you’re totally avoiding them. I love you. Where are you mad at me? You?

Andy Andrist 2:08:13
Yeah, yeah. Good Times in Florida. I did write a follow up on Doug’s book and just say now this is part Doug didn’t remember. That way weirder.

matt nappo 2:08:26
Funny, he doesn’t remember the podcast, because you were on with the drinking bros. Oh, by the way, fucking Fiat Spider. shit about that car. I love that car. I had a fucking perfect car, by the way, right? Like that. That’s not the car that you would pick. What are you gonna pick a Testarossa? And the guy’s gonna be able to avoid that. No, that

Andy Andrist 2:08:47
was there in Texas. So they probably I ball and Range Rovers or something. And they came out with a new version of that, like a few years ago. Yeah, so I was like originally thinking I’d asked my petty file who he does to set it up. I was promised by the guy who was molested me, you know, to try to keep the fucking spark going that he was going to buy me a car when I graduated. When I saw him 30 years later in Florida, I brought along my diploma. And was you know, in my mind, I kinda envisioned this car shopping. But I don’t want I no longer want that. 1984 ragtop I want the 2000 was it 2016 That they came? They want that’s what I want. But those plans kind of went up in flames and lawsuits and such. I don’t think we’ll be car shopping anymore.

matt nappo 2:09:40
That’s a damn shame because what is the deal? Right? And you got an associate’s degree on top of it, so I only think it’s gonna get serious.

Andy Andrist 2:09:49
Yeah, yeah. When the car salesman comes back in for me, Mr. Spleen sitting in there. That would be the undercoating talk. I would like the sports package upgrade and alter Yeah. I would I actually have my name on the I guess the glove box like he had his name on the glove box. That’s what I you know, I’d want to add to and then in a fucking coupons for sizzler Nice. Yeah,

matt nappo 2:10:25
I get it you branded? Yeah. You kept you kept up your end of the bargain.

Andy Andrist 2:10:30
Yeah, that’s the thing. I mean, and I’m still that way like this one a few years ago this guy bet me the outcome of Michigan State vers Oregon and I said, and he wanted to do money, and I’d like how about this football, my dog will fetch your football Michigan State verzorgen. And then the guy just didn’t pay, like my team one covered or whatever, and he wouldn’t pay. And I was like, Kevin every time you like, I’d see a Facebook post on it. And I’d write welcher. And I really didn’t give a shit about the thing. But it’s kind of like some sort of attention deficit or whatever it is. I remained focus until that guy gave me the football. And then I was like, moved on. And that’s kind of I got burned on, you know, underwear modeling gig and it 19 7980. And, you know, promises were made, and I fulfilled my end of the bargain. By graduating and then this fucking cunt won’t give me my you know, it’s like, it’s not extortion. It’s like, let’s just buy me the fucking car. And then we can have the conversation about all the other shit. When you were two

matt nappo 2:11:35
years of interest. 35 years of interest on top of that, yeah,

Andy Andrist 2:11:39
yeah. And all that. And then like, you know, hey, you know, probably cost you a lot to get, you know, therapy or whatever. No, I didn’t do therapy. But let’s lump in a cup, let’s say 100 grand from the time I was 14 to the time, you know, I got over it or whatever. So yeah, he owes me more than a car. And I felt like it was more than fair, that we just settle on the car, because that’s the that’s the fucking Michigan State football to me. But he kind of, He scoffed at it. I felt like that was a moment where he’s kind of like, like, you know, okay, sorry, motherfucker. Kochi. Oh, high school, didn’t have great academics. But I graduated I was, you know, I was in the top 100.

matt nappo 2:12:26
That guy doesn’t appreciate the good deal that you because that is you don’t get that’s a very easy out and easy payment for the for the crime he committed. And then that is the cheapest best bargain. he’s ever going to get a car and a credit card. What $30,000 A time? Yeah, that’s a great deal. He’s,

Andy Andrist 2:12:46
he’s gonna take that. Yeah, he’s a you know, he likes to roll out like he had money and shit. He lives in a community. That’s like, you know, okay, you know, I mean, it’s he walked away. It’s like, you know, okay, man, the lawyers are gonna make that fucking car and then some. And as it turned out, he had to pay for several lawyers, and he had to pay my lawyers eventually. And he had to pay his lawyers any any kind of lost. And what he lost is, is, you know, that he, he lost control of that fucking narrative. And I filmed him. And I told him, I filmed him. And I can do what I want with that, you know, and what I did was I put it on a real slow burn, Paul, for Vince is making a movie, but it’s, it’s been 10 years or so. And it’s like, you know, that guy’s probably still alive, wondering if Paul’s ever going to finish the project and so my, or whatever, but I you know, that that’s got to be a bummer to have that hanging over him, or, you know,

matt nappo 2:13:45
definitely was to have the fear of where, where you might release it and all that kind of stuff is gonna be worse than when it really actually happens to him. So in a way, that’s the worst torture you can have. Have that hanging over his shoulder and

Andy Andrist 2:14:01
you’re like to kind of there I talked to Todd Snyder’s management about using the song too soon to tell for like, you know, just and then the band twiddle is agreed to let me use a song or whatever, I’d like to still this guy, the my molester. He would play ELO when, you know, he had a great stereo and crank up ELO and I kind of just was overwhelmed by the music and didn’t you know, I didn’t like it. But I would i There’s a song on it. Called caught in a trap. It’s a V side. Whatever. So it’s like an ELO song that nobody’s probably ever used. And I would love to have that just so I could have that in there to stick it to them to like, hey, you know, your favorite band back then. lent me a song. You dick. Well, I’m

matt nappo 2:14:50
gonna get I’m gonna get that for you as a Christmas present to be able to hear but I’m gonna reach out today, but um, what can we do to help prevent to get this done? cuz I have access to like video editors production tweets, what does he need?

Andy Andrist 2:15:04
I feel like Paul’s, you know, he’s got he’s got a lot of it done, he does all of it in himself. And it’s like his backroom is is, is, you know, full of stuff that I sent him. And I feel like he’s just kind of, I feel like the timing is perfect. You know, this thing happened 10 years ago or whatever, where I confronted the pedophile. That’s when I flipped the script on my whole, my whole brain at that point, because I eat that guy used to fucking live rent free in my brain. And then I felt like I even the odds,

matt nappo 2:15:41
even rent free in his brain thinking, when’s that shoe gonna drop?

Andy Andrist 2:15:45
Right? And yeah, and he used to have shoes with the brace built into them. So if his shoe drops, it’ll also have the thing of extra fucking here. But you know, and kind of like, right at the beginning, I did it for revenge, I stopped the camera on him because he stuck a camera on me. And I wanted to just straight up get revenge on him. And then Paul started talking more seriously about, you know, using it and making a film out of it. And then that kind of, you know, and then I’m involved with that. And, and that’s a weird way to get over, you know, did this fucking drastic therapy. And now I’m turning it into a project. And then now getting, you know, fucking cease and desist letters and the, you know, threat of lawsuit. And that could have ruined me, you know, I couldn’t lose to that guy a second time. And then I had to go sit in a courtroom with him on a like, it was like to I left home on Christmas, flew to there. And so like New Year’s Day, I’m sitting in a courtroom with my pedophile, and it’s like, five or six people in the courtroom. And it’s like that motherfucker. So I had to really get belly deep in the whole fucking thing. And years past, and I kind of forgot about the project. And then I didn’t want the project to happen. I begged Paul out, you know, it’s like, let’s fucking throat you know, and we got he called me. Fuck you. God dammit, you’re a fucking artist started acting like one. Oh, loosely reheated. You know, that was basically saying, you know, I know, You’ve spent about seven years on this, but let’s fucking throw it in the dumpster man.

matt nappo 2:17:27
No, I Well, I can appreciate your, your take on that. And I can also appreciate his take on that it’s a different Yeah.

Andy Andrist 2:17:35
And we become really good friends throughout all that. And, and I want to, I want it to happen for both of us, you know, because and I, you know, and I don’t even like a deed for like, oh, go, you know, maybe get more gigs or whatever. You know, I don’t give a shit about any of that. It’s like the news to me anymore. You know, but I want it to succeed. I want you know, I want to see what Paul did you know what? And I think Paul’s you know, he’s called it his opus. Right? So he’s putting his fucking heart into it. And I think what we need at this point is, you know, well, I said, I put him on a deadline. I called call up and I called him, you know, yeah, I got cancer and all this. And he’s like, God, damn, you know, what are we you know, and I go, I’m not calling to tell you this. As a friend, I’m calling to tell you this as a filmmaker, you’ve got your ending, man. Get a camera crew up here. We’ll be in and then when they don’t come out, and you know, that’s wrong. To Todd Snyder.

matt nappo 2:18:35
But I’m serious, though. I, you know, I know. You probably get people just and it’s a pain in the ass sometimes. But I would do anything if Bob needs me to fucking be a laborer to come out there. Well done.

Andy Andrist 2:18:49
And I think, you know, from a practical standpoint, I think we’re, he’s getting pretty close. And then it’ll be like, like, what I ran into with the comedy special, you need to have, you know, you need to have somebody do this, this, this and this. And I, like we’ve had people we’ve had a, well, we had one person come in as a producer, and he just ripped off. He just, he just, he got money, use my story got money, and then he used it as his own ATM. So then it was like, that was the guy who’s pushing, you know, let’s do this and this. And, you know, and then I think both Well, Paul’s a lot happier not having somebody fucking bother him. And when the time comes, I think we are going to hit we’re gonna do a fundraising effort to raise the cost of to finish it out. Perfect. You know, the way Paul wants to? I feel like it’s almost all there. So yeah, I think you know, when when we get clear of things or whatever, I think we’ll probably do a push to get either some producers or a pot of money to finish it and you know, not like 100,000 More like, you know, 30,000 or something like You know, I don’t know. But I feel like that, you know, Paul’s not far from it. And I feel like you know, the timing of everything is kind of, you know, it’s like he can’t change the timing sometimes. That sounds weird, but but, you know, it’s like, five years ago, I would have been eager for this thing to be done now. I don’t you know, I’m not motivated by any anything like, you know, want to tour bonds or, like, you know, I did tell Inman the other day that if I don’t die a cancer, me and him will will come out your way. I said, let’s get my dog on this. And we’ll we’ll go out to Long Island. And we’ll do a gig out there and he goes, alright, you promise?

matt nappo 2:20:44
I’m definitely on that. Man. I got a theater all set up for it. And I’m thinking of an actual, like, a three or four man show, but that was definitely in my mind for after your after. This is all in your rearview mirror. So

Andy Andrist 2:20:57
there you go. It’ll work out and then I can put that Falco’s show behind me, but

matt nappo 2:21:04
Falco’s because we had we had a titty bar. That was actually called Falco’s and you say, I remember you saying that. You wouldn’t call it Teddy by that, but we had one.

Andy Andrist 2:21:13
Yeah. felters maybe.

matt nappo 2:21:19
It was like an old man buy that they turned into a titty bars, and Falco was the original owner, and they never changed the name of it.

Andy Andrist 2:21:29
There’s a billion teams out there and shouldn’t be one of them. All right,

matt nappo 2:21:32
we’re coming up on 230 and 1030. Here, I’m gonna end it there. But I want to honor it. Everybody wants to help. And you know, this, and I know, you’re kind of feeling like an awkward place here. And I don’t want to I don’t want to make you feel awkward about this. But people do want to help because we know, as a comedian, you don’t have the best health care coverage. You don’t have Trump coverage. Nobody.

Andy Andrist 2:21:57
I mean, maybe Congress does, but you know, I pay five or 600 a month for health insurance. And I get in there and so I’m in a position now where you know, my wife’s on disability and I’m going to probably have about nine or 10 grand in bills on top of what insurance pays with if I didn’t pay for insurance, I’d have money to pay for the other so if you know if that’s if people wanted to help and donate or however that does I know Brett Brock’s doing something can Harris is doing something and I’m going to bank all that money and use it to cushion to cushion against this fucking you know, the $100 co charge here. You know, the surgery and all that shit. It’s it’s a fucking heartbreaking thing not just for me, but for people that you know fucking try to you know, I’ve got insurance but it doesn’t cover when you’re sick, you know, covers part of it. But why the fuck doesn’t cover everything. I wouldn’t need help and people could help other people. But yeah, it’s, I appreciate all of it. It’s kind of overwhelming. Because I’m, you know, I’m not somebody who’s like, Oh, I got this helped me out, man. But I feel like, my back is against the fucking wall on this.

matt nappo 2:23:08
No, I and I applaud everybody to kind of think about this health care. Insurance is something you pay for if you don’t need it, but once you need it, you’re fucked. Because, you know, no, insurance is going to cover all this stuff. And the last thing we should be thinking about right now, right now you’re gonna fucking pay for all this shit and be worried and have tension and anxiety about that.

Andy Andrist 2:23:29
You’re getting shoved into the MRI tube is like, how many fucking pictures are you taking a couple would be good. I don’t want to pay for it. I don’t want to get in a situation where I’m paying for 10 photos. And we’re only looking at two of them. But yeah, that’s the thing. And and, and I don’t feel like I have that stress. It’s weird because I you know, I, I don’t want to get emotional either. But people have stepped up and it’s like, okay, I don’t have that worry right now. Other worries,

matt nappo 2:23:57
I’m adding to it. And just to let people know, I’m working on a new five OC three real nonprofit so that we can donate 100% to you of the money that comes in, and people could still use it for a tax write off. So that should be in place by the second week of January that will be there’ll be a button for it on mine.tv.com You want to give it to Andy directly for these medical costs stuff. And you’ll get 100% of it. No, nothing taken off the top no bullshit administrative costs. And you can use it as a tax write off so and I’ll help you to Kitty to get it’s tough.

Andy Andrist 2:24:34
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I haven’t. Yeah, I know. It’s it’s been kind of a you know, like the thing my daughter’s car got ripped off and people you know, I wrote something people helped put that, you know, it’s like a real fucking bummer, you know? And then it’s like, you know, my daughter’s done so many cool things for people. It’s like, well, this is coming back, you know, so it’s like, yeah, so I’m

matt nappo 2:24:58
hope we don’t make a religious guy out of you. After all this stuff, you don’t you don’t end up being a believer because

Andy Andrist 2:25:05
hey, if I if I die and there’s some sort of god entity, I’ll be like, What the fuck are you? Oh, shit, man.

matt nappo 2:25:13
Yeah, no, I can imagine how that would be a shock. I had a guy on last week who was gonna prove the existence of God, but he left angry. He’s a little angry at me now talking about cease and desist letters.

Andy Andrist 2:25:32
So he did prove the existence of God tree lawyering.

matt nappo 2:25:36
Exactly. No, but the atheist stepped up to help a guy in need that day. So I thought that was a AHA justice on that kind of show. The the atheist sit stepping up to help a guy get his medicine and gas money and all that food.

Andy Andrist 2:25:51
Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen Doug Stanhope do more acts random acts of kindness than anybody from my church upbringing. And ever done, you know?

matt nappo 2:26:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate getting to talk to you today. You know, there’s an outpouring of love for you. But there was before you just didn’t notice it now that now people are being vocal. But

Andy Andrist 2:26:13
yeah. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than accepting that you’re loved by others. I know.

matt nappo 2:26:18
And especially so many people, I mean, seriously, I know that to blow smoke up your ass, you’re a gift to a lot of people big issues with Andy dropped about 40 minutes ago, and people say but breaking those. Yeah, issues with me that they look forward to Friday, like, and your show, like, it’s a life line to them. So

Andy Andrist 2:26:39
well. And that’s, that’s why I’m glad, you know, in the, in the short term or long term that we’re back on YouTube, because I you know, I mean, I know, I don’t like going behind paywalls. And, you know, and if, if, you know, the people who were with us before, you know, can enjoy that, I appreciate that. They’re, they’re able to do that. And hopefully we can come up with a way to keep Patreon. You know, interesting or, or whatever. But, uh, yeah, so I, you know, it’s like, I’m used to being a comic and going around, and having, you know, people like what I do, and also the complainer’s and all that shit, and through this, you know, doing the podcast that, you know, kind of grown a bit of a family and I may not No, a lot of them, but they know who I am. And I appreciate that, that what I blather out or say or do is entertaining to folks so

matt nappo 2:27:35
and everybody’s going through this with you so you have the support of anybody and again, not to end on a downer note here but if you need any support from anybody don’t feel embarrassed about asking for it man, you’re human. You I know you’re the strongest man on the planet for all you’ve been through and still continue to keep a sense of humor. I applaud you for that but I you know you don’t expect people to think that you your don’t have your tender moments man, we love you and yet you can you can get you can get as emotional as you want ever and nobody can hold it against you.

Andy Andrist 2:28:05
Yeah, now after I get done here and cry, I’ll blame you. Why am I crying? Because

matt nappo 2:28:11
I’m like the Barbara Walters of comedians I make every comedian cry.

Andy Andrist 2:28:15
Yeah, mine dog mind fuck maybe. Yeah. Well,

matt nappo 2:28:19
Chad has agreed to come on the show and I think he has been reluctant because he thinks I am the bad guy who can make him cry and and kind of expose his inner psyche Yeah, well, but I’m not

Andy Andrist 2:28:36
Yeah, I said Well, we did the our show and or Death Valley. We did a podcast there and I had I had Shaylee crying but it’s not one that we’re we decided not to air it. That would have been the best rated one now maybe maybe maybe with the proper I don’t know. I’m not sure what I know. There was a couple of stories I told you know, but Patreon we may put that up at some point it was a you know, but uh, I felt like I was a preacher like Shaylee was kind of on the edge she’d been on drugs for hours and I feel like cracking you know?

matt nappo 2:29:11
And he said

Andy Andrist 2:29:15
like Sam Kinison. You know, raising your boys lower in it. And then you know, so yeah, I got I know I can track my team if I need to. Oh, I

matt nappo 2:29:24
love that. I love you got you got to do some of that just for the ratings. Just just those numbers as well. You have a great day, man. Great. All right, sir. I appreciate it. And you’re celebrating have have have a joyous one. Well, I’m going to get pizza

Andy Andrist 2:29:39
to hobos. So that’s how I’m doing Christmas Eve and beer. Of course,

matt nappo 2:29:43
not gluten right now.

Andy Andrist 2:29:45
Now in fact, even I’ve even talked about a second class system where we get a better pizza for ourselves.

matt nappo 2:29:56
Be well, man and have a good one. Thanks. Love you Dog Have a good day Bobby to buy the fabulous Andy understand folks great to have him hear from him and know that his his sense of humor hasn’t been diminished in the least anyway. I got to get to work I got not work I don’t have a show today I have to actually get to work and go do some traveling to pick up some some stuff for the holiday celebration here. Hope you have a great holiday. Thank you for joining me thank you for sticking with me for on the overtime. And for all you do everybody have a great Christmas holiday or wherever you’re celebrating for people who celebrate Kwanzaa on Sunday, Canadian Boxing Day whatever the hell that means that the day after Christmas or day after Thanksgiving, I don’t know. But the kidneys have a special day on the 26th they do up there whatever the hell you do up there, do it well have fun, all that kind of stuff. And so until Monday I’ll be back with your hour everyday next week. So join me then Monday 9am for coffee with the dog till then I’m Matt nappo for coffee with dog bye for now man. I hit the wrong fucking button you see that? You see what he made me do? Round Round Listen to me, listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.

Paul Provenza – The History and Future of Comedy

Paul Provenza came to school me in comedy . We talk about his early years. stand up, his transition to television actor and show host to creating his own voice in film directing and filmmaking in the comedy space.

http://naturejack.com

https://www.whosay.com/paulprovenza

https://twitter.com/paulprovenza

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matt nappo 0:01
A true comedy legend on this episode of the mind dog TV. This episode is brought to you by fundwise Capital unwise capital is a business lending matching platform. Avoid the mystery of one sided deals connect with fundwise to get the very best funding qualified for that, you can apply online in 60 seconds or less. And there’s no effect to your credit to see how much you can get. It’s easy. Use the funding for anything you need to start or grow your business. If you did hear me correctly, if you say start, you don’t have a business yet. If you got a solid business plan that can help you get funding get the best funding you can qualify for. This strategic lender matching platform searches to hundreds of lenders to find the very best possible option for your unique situation. They have hundreds of five star reviews on Google trustpilot and Facebook and an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. They provide unsecured lines of credit at 0% interest for nine to 15 months. unsecured term loans won’t based on income, short term gap funding and bridge loan. They work with real estate start up like I already mentioned, franchises restaurant any kind of business any kind of project to get started to really eat just go to apply that funding wise.com slash mind that’s apply that fundwise.com slash mind to get money for your business now. Fly that fun? Why is that calm slash mind.

And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here. As always, just a important little note here. We’re not live, although I’m streaming this live the first time you see it. I’m not really live. This is pre taped. As a matter of fact, that could actually be dead by the time you’re seeing this. But hopefully that’s not the case. Anyway, today, I have finally arranged for the fabulous Paul provenza. To be with us. You know, if you tried to tune in when we had Paul scheduled a couple of weeks ago, we had some technical difficulties, which is the reason we are pre taping today to make sure that none of those technical difficulties get in the way of today’s broadcast. Now Paul prevented you know, as a comedian, a film director and author, all around renaissance man and a man full of respect and insight into the world of comedy. And it’s my pleasure to bring you this interview with a great and fabulous Paul Pimentel. Ladies and gentlemen, open your ears, open your minds and help me welcome in the fabulous Paul provenza to the mind dog TV podcast.

Paul Provenza 3:00
Thanks for having me. Finally, without tech problems, anybody that didn’t catch it the last time My apologies.

matt nappo 3:08
I actually deleted that pretty quickly after it was done. Because it was just, it was a lot of me trying to cover dead air. And it was it was not

Paul Provenza 3:18
that good. Look how well it’s working. Now I have to say,

matt nappo 3:23
I appreciate the effort. I’m coming back. And thank you very much for that. So Oh, there’s so much to talk about with you. And you’re probably one of the first stand up comedians I ever saw back in the day when I was a young man, and you’re only a couple years older than me. And I know you’re from Pelham Parkway area in the Bronx, which is kind of my neighborhood. So I grew up in the 70s and was a huge fan of stand up comedy, but I know that you got started young in it. Right? And so I look at my work and being in that world today. I didn’t know anybody who had the call and composure to do stand up comedy as a teenager in those years. And just the intelligence and, you know, ability to have something to talk about. Talk to me about you’re getting started.

Paul Provenza 4:13
Wow, wow, that’s so kind of you. I can’t believe it. Where did you see me at the improv?

matt nappo 4:18
Yeah, yes. Yeah. And it was like, you know what I, you know, memory is what it is, but it was at the improv, but I think it was late 70s might have been at, I don’t know, it was it was early, it was early and I was out, you know, again, I’m only like one or two years behind you. And as I was thinking at the time, how come I don’t have you know, any friends who are doing it, the balls first of all the balls to get up and do it. But the, you know, most of people who were teenagers sweated when the teacher called them to read out out loud in class and here’s this guy, you know, just a year or two older than us and just as common and composed and professional and it was just like, this is this is for adults. Not fair. People. So that’s what you buy.

Paul Provenza 5:04
Wow. Well thank you for those kind words. But um, yeah, and I started really young. And you know, I started going to the improv as a patron, when I was about 15, maybe with, I had an older cousin, who, you know, bought me a lot of time with my parents staying out until one two in the morning. He was big, big, big influence in my life still is, and, and I would go with some friends from high school. And I mean, I remember sitting there and seeing it was amazing. I’m actually back then even Gilbert godfried had already been doing it for a while. Wow. And I remember seeing any lien boozer and at blue stone, and Franken and Davis and Larry David, just, you know, phenomenal comedians who went on to varying degrees of visibility and success. Andy Kaufman in his early days, you know, when I was very, very young, I had the opportunity of being the victim to an the, in early incarnation of Tony Clifton, which he was doing without makeup or wardrobe, or anything he was just doing as a guy in the audience. And he would Heckle comics and just see what happened. I mean, yeah, I was really young when I started. So I started going to the improv it like 15. And then I did my first time on stage at, I think 16, or between somewhere around 1617. And here’s the cool thing. Back then you had to, you had to wait online, you know, if you an open mic, or you had to line up at like, you know, people would Sorry, I showed up once at like, 10 in the morning. It wasn’t gonna open until 810 in the morning, that’s good. And I lived way up in the Bronx, so I had to slip up subway schlep all the way down to Midtown Manhattan in Hell’s Kitchen. And so I get there at 10 o’clock, and it’s already a huge long line. And you have to wait online and you have to, you know, just wait until they opened up or until they brought out a bucket with numbers in it at like six or seven. And then you took your number, and it was random, it didn’t even necessarily have to do with how long you are online. And it was weird. And so I ended up with a very, very high number, and at about three or 330 in the morning, because they used to stay open till 4am legal curfew, or until the last patron left. So on audition nights, it was always you know, 4am so like, three 330 in the morning, I still had a bunch of numbers before me. And I went up to the MC and I said it’s not my number yet, but I was wondering if maybe you can move me ahead a couple of numbers because I have school in three hours.

and and the the MC just cracked up and he wants your kid. And he brought me up next. And I got to tell that story to Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. He was the house MC Wow. So that was my I was like 16, maybe turning 17 at the time, the first time I went on stage. And it was something that I just always wanted to do since I was a really little kid. I just really felt connected to it. Yeah, I have a lot of theories as to why. But I just always wanted to do it. It was a real need. And my first time on stage was a nightmare. I mean, it was horrible because the three 330 in the morning, all kinds of other Open Mind. And because the improv was at 44th and ninth, which is like poker Central, you know, there are always a couple of hookers and maybe a pimp that came in to have a drink and get out of the cold or something. So it was just a horrible, horrible experience. But when I came off stage after that first absolute, you know, disaster, he could have been traumatizing. But here’s the weird thing it wasn’t I actually thought to myself, I can’t wait to do that again and figure this out. And so then I went away to college, I went to university, Pennsylvania, it was in Philadelphia, and started performing around Philadelphia, there were a few other people at the school. And through people I had met, I had met some other people in Philadelphia that were starting to do stand up. And there was they were trying to sort of a scene was kind of beginning to happen. So I was getting a lot of work while I was in Philadelphia at going to school. And then I would drive up to New York on three day weekends or holidays or whatever or when I you know, had the energy to do that. I would drive up to New York and continue getting online for open mics on Sundays. And within a year, I think maybe four or five times getting on stage. I passed auditions at the improv. So I was back at school doing stand up with my friend And whatever, you know, Penn was a big school so I could put together shows and different dorms and they would be like different all different markets, you know, kind of. And so I was getting all this stage time. So every time I would go back up to New York, I would have more and more experience and more stage time, which the other people do in the open mics weren’t, they weren’t getting. So I rose pretty quickly through those ranks. And one of the first people that I met that was an improv regular, who sort of took me under his wing. And he was a young guy at the time as well, he was only a few years older than I, but had been doing it and had shown unbelievable gifts in stand up. And comedy in general was Rick Overton who still to this day is one of my dearest friends. He was like, he was like, one of the new kids on the block that I was trying to join. And he just immediately introduced me to so many people saying, you got to see this kid, you got to see this kid. And so he helped really bring me into that fold. And it was life changing. So by the time I was 17, you’re well into 17, or 18. By my second year at Penn, they had a rathskeller on campus, which they don’t have anymore, because at the time, the drinking age was 18. Right, which had happened because of the Vietnam War, because it became, you know, it became impossible for them to not lower the drinking age, because people were sending us off to die and 18, but we can’t have a beer. So the drinking age was was lower than so they had literally a bar on campus called the rathskeller. And

they offered me a Saturday night slot every week to do stand up. And I would do like an hour an hour and 15 however much material I had every week, and a lot of it was about you know, going to school and being a kid and you know, being a college kid and all that stuff. But there were enough I had enough times on stage there that I actually could develop material and go back to the improv with material that was going to work. And that I had already worked out and everything so so when I got out of school, I immediately started working at the improv. And then within a year, I had a pilot on ABC television, which brought me out to Los Angeles and I just stayed. But it was a pretty it was a different time, there was just not that many people into stand up, it was still a pretty rarefied art form, you know, what was it like now, and there wasn’t as much access to stage time as there is now and I’m saying that with tremendous affection for them this moment because I think you know, the voices that are coming out of standard I think this is a golden age of stand up now. You know, there was a boom in the 80s. But that was like a boom of the business of comedy. And there’s a boom now That to me is more about a boom in the art form of comedy with so many different kinds of comedy and different voices and different appreciation for different kinds of things. And you know people that is people watching your podcast right now is like you we never had an audience of people who are interested in the mechanics of comedy or interested in what really goes on in the world of comedy or interested in a comedians life outside of what they do on stage. And that’s a relatively new phenomenon that has just exploded and and I think it’s been amazing for the artform.

matt nappo 13:24
Wow, I got I got a there’s so much in that in that simple edge to talk about. But on that golden age of comedy stuff. I’m a little bit torn on that. Because boomers my age, right, I brought up Bill Burr to my friends, and they didn’t know who he was. They didn’t know who he was. But coming back to you being a young man doing this and I asked this on Twitter just the other night, who is a young comics and capital young that I should know right now because I know a lot of people 50 and older. I know some but most of the really successful ones I know are 50 or 50 year old are in that area. And the young people coming up so when you say golden age because they’re I think it’s all a little bit oversaturated what you asked to do with some of this canceled culture stuff, I think it’s a lot of that is young comedians looking to cancel established comedians and looking for dirt on them. Because there’s just so many people doing it right now. So but talk about that, well,

Paul Provenza 14:26
that that’s just a variation of what’s always going on, you know, the younger generation, be it music, be it acting be a comedy, be it painting, sculpture, the younger generation always sort of rejects the ones that came before them, or at least immediately before them, you know, that’s kind of part of the process of evolution that has to happen. And I think this canceled culture thing. It’s just a different way of going about it. But you know in in the 1980s in 1980 Don Ward and his partners opened the car Comedy Store in London. And the it was almost as if a switch was flicked because it was we’re gonna do a new kind of comedy. And they rejected outright all the old school forms of comedy. You wouldn’t find it at the Comedy Store and everybody that was working at the Comedy Store was maligning all the old school and there was basically a canceled culture of people like oh geez, I can’t think of the names but all these stalwarts of British stand up comedy, were just relegated to the dustbin. And it’s exactly what’s happening now. 40 years later. So I kind of always happen that way. It’s different now because of social media and the way it’s all the the how everything’s become politicized. It’s more than just like, Oh, I didn’t want to do material. That’s old school. It’s more politically politicized now than ever before, but the phenomenon itself has always been going on. But here’s the difference between what’s happening now in that regard. And when I was coming up, is that, you know, back then, first of all, there were a million talk shows and they were afternoon talk show. So it was dinosaur there was Merv Griffin, there was my list. There was john Davidson. There was you know, there were all these afternoon talk shows, right? And then there were the late night talk shows, of course, the tonight show Johnny Carson being the king, but also there was Joey Bishop and they were, it was Alan Thicke in the mid 80s. And all these were a million talk shows right? And they would have comedians on, but they back in those days, it wasn’t so demographically driven. So you could be watching the tonight show or Merv Griffin or Deke Cavett. And you could see, you know, the hip new young Freddie Prinze on the same panel with Alan King, or, you know, Milton Berle, or something like that. And so you got exposed to a real breadth of comedy on the same TV shows, you know, they would also do that in other regards to you know, they would have john lennon on but they’d also have, you know, gore of a doll on the same show, all right, you know, and that’s all different now. And now, it’s, uh, you can’t find a show that’s gonna book you know, an old school, you know, comic in their 80s on the same bill with, you know, Moses storm was a young guy that I just saw recently that I think has tremendous down, you know, that’s why on the green room, and even on comics, only back in the late 80s, when I was doing that show, I always made an effort to have, you know, Robert Klein on the show, and Jonathan Winters on the show, along with Bo Burnham and, you know, really mix the generations on greenroom in particular, I also mix people from the UK and people that I had, you know, grown aware of from doing the international festival circuit and stuff. Because it’s like, nobody questions that music, like nobody in music would question, Well, why is James Taylor working with this, you know, young 22 year old bands, like how did that happen, right? intuitively makes sense. It’s about the art form. And it’s about music, but they don’t think of it in terms of comedy. But that’s really, you know, I hope that the younger generation, you know, grows to appreciate those that came before and sort of just just to look at, look at them as something valuable, not something that has to be discarded. I do look at that, like Phyllis Diller has sort of been re captured as a major force for women in comedy, because in the 70s, during the feminist wave, she was sort of tossed aside as, you know, she does self deprecating stuff, and this and that, and this and that, but the truth is, she was also doing what she needed to do to play in the big ball game to play, you know, with Bob Hope and, and, and Sinatra, and all those people, you know, and she did what she did, because that’s what she had to do to make a living and to become successful. But she did it brilliantly. And was hilarious. And she broke down all kinds of barriers

matt nappo 19:02
for women in Korea. Absolutely. Yeah. So but she

Paul Provenza 19:07
was maligned in the 70s as being part of that old school, you know, not on woke, you know, philosophy but, but she actually really did more for women comics than just about, you know, just about anybody. So she’s I like that she’s being appreciated now more than she had been for quite some time. And that’s what I hope happens to a lot of the older generation is that that the appreciation to them really grows.

matt nappo 19:31
Well on that, you know, you mentioned Bo Burnham. Whoa, whoa. That happens. You get in a spam call. Take the call. Yeah. You mentioned both. recently about that, aren’t. You mentioned Bo Burnham. And I think that’s relevant to this conversation because there was a episode of the green room where you had Bo Burnham and Garry Shandling and a couple you know you talk about mixing these people. And I think just to get sidetracked for a moment I think you are kind of you know they have six degrees of separation and then they have the game 60 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. I think in the commodity world they should be six degrees of Paul Brenda because you connect. You connect the world of Buddy Hackett to the world of Bo Burnham, right and everything in between. You guys you just mentioned but that show with with with Bo Burnham and it’s still in my mind, Bo Burnham and I know Gary Shandling was one of the guys on the show. Yeah,

Paul Provenza 20:37
I tried. The whole lineup actually was Bo Burnham. Garry Shandling. Ray Romano, Mark Marin. And Judd Apatow.

matt nappo 20:46
Wow. And so when that when you were putting those shows together, were you hand picking them for each episode and saying this is the group I want?

Paul Provenza 20:55
Yeah, that was really my that was really my sort of creative domain was to put together combinations of people that I thought would be interesting, provocative, all those different things. And and largely, it had to do with, you know, what I know about each of those people. I mean, I did scrap entire shows like they were shows where I had four people lined up and it felt like oh, this is a show that’s going to go in some interesting directions, I’m really happy with that, and then somebody would drop out. And I would end up scrapping the whole show, because it wasn’t the kind of thing we could just go, well, who else is available was an intuitive idea. I mean, I wanted the show to be really spontaneous. I didn’t have any agenda, per se, for any particular episode. But in putting certain groups of people together, I did have a sense of where something could go and whose personalities would match or clash and interesting, fun ways, or whatever the case may be. I mean, that really was the big difference between the greenroom and tough crowd, which was a great show is a tough crowd was all about conflict. And I didn’t want the grief be about conflict I want if conflict arose, conflict arose, but I didn’t want that to be what it was about, I really wanted it to be an example because when I was when I was 1617, and just getting into the world of comedy, it was regulatory To me it was regulatory to me to find an entire group of other people who also felt like aliens in their own lives, who also looked at the world in a different way. who also had a sensibility of you know, when you’re when you’re a real comic when it’s in your bones, comedy just kind of happens to you the way the way I would imagine for a musician that he rhythms all the time you know, you’re walking down the street here dog bark and car door slam, you know, screech, the tie or whatever, it all becomes rhythmic right? Well that’s true for comedy too. When you’re really immersed in it and it becomes a lens through which you experience the world. That same thing happens in comedy just kinds of happens and and walking into the improv and being among a group of people who were in that same space they existed in the world and that kind of way was revelatory for me I it just changed my life and I always even going back as far as comics only which was late 80s I always wanted to try and give an audience that experience that feeling of oh wow look you can be in a room full of people having a really heated argument but nobody’s angry at each other and and you’ll you’ll laugh at some point no matter what and people actually communicate ideas and you know and and and there are conflicts and there are things in concert and I just felt like the experience of being in in a group of people who are you know, that’s the way their existence is was something I wish I could share with everybody and I tried it with comics only in a very sort of primitive way. The idea of comics only was you know, I always want to watch the tonight show but I was I only cared about the comedian’s satiated going seeing you know, the Rolling Stones or whoever. But the real reason that I was watching this for the comedians and and I thought, well, what if we do a tonight show but the only guests are comedians so you don’t have to listen to somebody plug in their book or talking about their new special tour or whatever. So that was the premise behind comics only. And I was hoping to sort of evoke the idea of what it’s like to hang out among other comedians to varying degrees of success. You know, one of the things that I did with that show was I gave he gave the guests the option of doing prepared material and conversation format, which is what you did on the show. If you you know, when you went on The Tonight Show if you were doing a stand up spot and they said okay, you’re going to sit on the panel with Johnny for five minutes, you would prepare a conversation with Johnny, you told me, you’d give them things to lead you into stuff you wanted to do. And that was a sort of convention of the time. And so I gave the comics on comics only, I gave them the option, we can do that. Or we can just sit and see what happened. And some people chose the ladder some people chose the form and most people chose the former again, because they said it was sort of like the convention at the time. But some people chose the ladder and some people surprised the hell out of me every time they came on, like, you know, Judy toll was, I never knew what she was going to do. And those were among my favorite moments, but so comics only didn’t really rise to what I really was hoping to accomplish, which was a sense of what’s it like to hang out with comics.

And then 35 years later, I had the chance to try it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I was given a time slot to do whatever I wanted to do. And it happened to be a very late night time slot and most comics had finished their shows. And I thought, well, let’s see if I can get the vibe, you know, in a live show, of just hanging out with comics after their sets. And then after doing that, for, you know, a handful of shows, and by the way, the fringe is a great play, the Edinburgh Fringe was a great place to develop material or projects because you do 28 shows in a row. And that’s like, you know, a year of development time. And you know, you find immediately the next day, let’s change this, let’s try that let’s do this, you know. So by the end of the month in Edinburgh, of doing these live shows, and I had brought up some some friends who had cameras and some experience in production, they said, let’s figure out how we could shoot this if we were ever going to shoot this for television. And that’s where we came up with the you know, the very sort of active camera movement and the idea of capturing what’s happening in the moment. So when we got down when we finally got a deal to do the show on television, I had always been frustrated because I had done stand up on television. And you always have to adapt to the medium. You’re frozen. Are we still together? Oh, okay,

matt nappo 27:08
I’m frozen.

Paul Provenza 27:13
Well, you are you wrapped is that it you just wrapped. But I would always I was frustrated doing television and doing stand up on television and watching stand up on television, I was frustrated that what was most exciting and interesting about stand up to me, which was the this idea of spontaneity, and the idea that, you know, a comic can respond to anything in the moment. And just, I just love that reality of it. That’s what makes a live show. So interesting. And I always felt like all that was sort of, you know, gone, when you when you were doing television, and from doing it on television, I would know, they would say, here’s your mark, here’s where the cameras are, you know, you got to coordinate to the production. So I approached greenroom in the opposite direction. And I said, What if the production has to accommodate the comedy. And so I made sure, you know, I, I said, I want all the camera people to have had experience with news and sports. Because we don’t know where the ball is coming or where it’s going. We don’t know what’s going to happen, what’s going to be as I want to be able to capture it all with a real sense of Oh, this really literally just happened. So you know, put the cameras in the audience in the group and made the crowd really so intimate and aren’t, you know, surrounding everybody so that the audience that I also hate, hate, hate, hate. Audience cutaways and stand up shows, I hate them. I hate them, I hate them. They’re hack, they’re annoying, they bring nothing to the game. All they are is just cheap and easy ways to do shitty edits, I fucking hate the gray audience, every shot, if you want to know what’s going on in the audience, it’s there for you to see if you care to look at it. Right? So production style of the green room was also very, very considered. And we had done a lot of work, you know, with cameras doing the live shows and everything. And I feel like I finally came close to accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish 35 years earlier.

matt nappo 29:01
Wow. You know, I there’s, again, there’s a lot to comment on that. But I just briefly going back to comics only because you just answered a very big question in my mind. I remember specifically, I had, you know how you go back to your memories of your old school and you think it was just so gigantic. I remember coming away as as this in depth thing with comics specifically. And I thought, wow, you know, and to me, in my mind, it was always an hour and a half a half hour show. But I go back to the Bill Hicks thing. And the first time I think he was on, I looked at it. At the time, I thought, well, that’s the stolen material. he’s doing he’s doing an album and I just mastered because I was a mastering guy at the time and I just messed it a CD think it was dangerous. And then then he was on again and it felt like a in depth conversation and I was like wow Berenson Difference between his first appearance on and the second one. So he first he had the option to say I’m going to do material that first. Right? I was confused by that, because I was like, the format of the show change what happened here?

Paul Provenza 30:13
You know? Yeah, well that’s the thing, though I had never done a hosting TV thing before most of the comics, a lot of them, it was their first time on television, you know. So we were all sort of figuring things out that finger figuring things out. We also did some really, really dark sketches and things on there. I mean, Fred wolf was my head writer, and my, you know, announcer slash sidekick on the show. So we did a lot of really, really dark stuff on that show that the network had no idea we were doing because we started doing the show when the network was hot. And then they merged with the HBO comedy channel and became Comedy Central, we were already in production, and the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. And so nobody knew what we were actually doing until we delivered it. And at that point, they were like, We can’t air half of this stuff, because the sketches were really dark. I mean, blown people’s brains out and stuff, you know, very cartoony, like, creme, violent, you know, blood soaked kind of moments, but then you’d come back and Fred would have a little, you know, cartoon x band aid and he go, like, I just got a little headache, but I’m okay, you know. So we did all of these weird over the top and dark and weird things. And the network was like, we can’t run this and we were like, well, you already produced them. Why don’t you run them and see if they’re a problem? And it was so not together yet at that point that they weren’t okay. We did 165 episodes.

matt nappo 31:40
That’s That’s a lot of those. So yeah, that’s got to be some gold in there on YouTube. I mean, yeah.

Paul Provenza 31:46
And it’s, it’s kind of a time capsule of the comedy boom, because you know it. Jeff Foxworthy. Judd Apatow did his first TV appearance as a stand up of Bob Goldthwait. Jon Stewart, Dennis Leary. Ellen DeGeneres, you know of one of her first talk show spots ever.

matt nappo 32:10
Read stollery Fred Stoller and Sam Kinison.

Paul Provenza 32:17
Yeah, it was Steven Wright. Again, at show also I did a whole episode with Phyllis Diller. Steve Allen was a regular on the show he would come and do all sorts of sketches with us. Rip Taylor was like our Larry bud Melman at the time where he would do anything and we just would come up with the weirdest shit for rip Taylor to do and he loved it. You know, we had old school, young school, we had old school doing stuff that you wouldn’t normally see them doing. You know, it was great, great. A great training ground for a lot of us. And there’s not much of it online at one point I put up clips but the clips we can’t find the original master tapes. Wow, that line actually come from VHS tapes that my mother made when they were when they were broadcast.

matt nappo 33:16
Oh my god. That’s that’s Yeah, I can relate but because i was i was i a library of master tapes to the perfect storm and flood that I had. And so I can relate to that. That’s a sad thing, though. Cuz that that’s why the history of comic comedy history.

Paul Provenza 33:34
Yeah, but like, you know, No, nobody really cares. Nobody. They don’t really care. I care. Scorsese, Martin Scorsese ain’t gonna step up and do a restoration project on the episodes Komsomol

matt nappo 33:50
here, but I would definitely love to see that film still episode, man, I would, you know, go back and find that on YouTube. that’s a that’s a gym. So you, you obviously have a respect. You know, you mentioned Steve Allen and, and people like that a respect for those who came before and the history. The You know, there is a proud history to the crap, let’s put it that way. But do you think that that’s lost? Do you think a lot of comedians working today have your same respect and, you know, for the history of the craft?

Paul Provenza 34:24
Actually, I don’t, I think quite the opposite. But it’s a double edged sword. Because while I think that most I mean, like you said, you will, you know, I’ll talk to you on comics. And I’ll ask them, you know, like, they may remind me of somebody and I would say, Have you ever seen so and so and you go, No, you know, and it always sort of discourages me that Wow, man, there’s so much to be had by going back to the original masters, so to speak. Even if, you know, it’s no longer their time, there’s still an amazing amount to be gleaned from what they were doing. just soak up and you know, it’s like be like a pianist not knowing, you know, Beethoven. You know, just because you play jazz piano doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know, Bach, you know, it kind of feels like that, and but I really do think a lot of it is faded, ironically, because with YouTube, you can see people that you would never even imagine I love going down YouTube rabbit holes and finding people, you know, in discovering people that I didn’t, you know, didn’t know at the time when I was starting out that I wish I had known, you know, but the flip side of that is, what we tend to be seeing now are really much more original voices, and much more original perspectives. And as much of that has to do with the time in which they’re coming up. It also has to do with the fact that well, they’re not, you know, they’re not just doing impressions of other comedians that they’ve seen, because when most comics start out, that’s really what they’re doing. is a lie. Yeah, you know, even like, like for me coming up, it was, you know, I wanted to be, and this was a really challenging thing. I wanted to be Woody Allen, I wanted to be Robert Klein, and I want it to be Richard Pryor. So how do you find the three the overlap between the three of them, you know, but a lot of us when I was coming up, a lot of us sounded just like Robert Klein, who was you know, at, you know, his his I wouldn’t say peak because he’s had a lot of, you know, he had a long peak. But a lot of us were very, very influenced by Robert Klein, and a lot of us had similar inflections and rhythms and things to Robert Klein. And I think the reason is because Robert Klein, really spoke to us, like Robert Klein was the first comedian to break through that middle class, college educated people who are interested in comedy could relate to it like, well, he’s, he’s us. He’s a middle class, college educated, you know, guy who does stand up, you know, and so he was like somebody that we all gravitated towards is kind of a beacon. You know, a lot of us I mean, myself and Paul riser and Larry Miller, and a handful of other comics, people would constantly say, You sound like him, you sound like him. You sound like him. He sounds like you He sounds like you. And it’s because we all had this tremendous Robert Klein influence,

matt nappo 37:25
you know, well, client as a musician, and I know, and I feel like sometimes I may just overdo it with the comparisons between art forms and stuff. And I like to compare music to kind of stand up comedy and so forth. And I realized that you do it to it, because even in this conversation, I’ve heard you do it a couple of times, you know, talking about rhythms and stuff. Do you Are you a musician? on any level? Do you play anything?

Paul Provenza 37:53
I don’t any longer but I actually was a musician around the same time that I was really getting interested in stand up i was i was a musician. And much to my chagrin, this is one of the great regrets I have in my life. When I decided that I was going to go full bore into stand up comedy, I didn’t want anything to get in the way of my focus. And I literally put all my instruments away in a closet and never touch them again. Wow. And is the biggest regret I ever had.

matt nappo 38:24
I think I think you’re right to do it though. I mean, because I as somebody who’s tried to walk both both of those and I knew that I knew I couldn’t do stand up comedy and and be in a band because it just a financial aspect of it. I have to give up a $300 gig playing music to go work at an open mic night where I’m not going to get paid. It just didn’t make any sense to me. So

Paul Provenza 38:47
yeah, now of course I realized that oh my god, they really one would one would help the other so much whether I did it or not. It’s still it. There’s the similarities between the art forms are unbelievable. And I realized now that that was, that’s, that’s something that I regret for sure. But at the time, that’s how focused I was on stand up that I thought to myself, anytime I play, anytime I spend practicing or playing an instrument, it’s time that I could be writing material and learning about comedy. And I it was, it’s a regret that I have, but it’s the choice that I made,

matt nappo 39:23
right? I think probably one that would help you become a successful comedian rather than being a non successful both.

Paul Provenza 39:31
Part of my attitude Yeah, I was kind of like, man, I felt like you had to really focus you have to be 100% a comedian. So you know, I just didn’t understand that music was not not being 100% a comedian as well. I didn’t I just didn’t know that at the time, you know, but the music aspect of comedy never left me I mean, the aristocrats that movie The biggest, the biggest, appreciate For that movie comes from musicians even more so than musicians get more specially jazz musicians, they get it more than anybody

matt nappo 40:08
there is improv.

Paul Provenza 40:11
And, and yeah, so much of comedy is rhythm and timing and, and also tone. I mean, like, you know, it’s amazing to watch people who understand the difference in levels of tone, you know, people who can throw something away and people who can, whom know when to push something, or, you know, it’s just, it really is like music. It really is. You know, when I when I had a rough cut of the aristocrats I brought it to a friend of mine who’s a composer. I mean, he’s, he’s won Emmys. And, you know, he’s written, composed music for a lot of big films and TV shows and things. And I brought it to him and I said, What do you think about music and, and, and he watched the whole thing, and he said, I think Music We’re just getting away, because it’s already, this is already musical. He goes, I can’t even find a place to drop a note. That’s not gonna fuck already there, as well. That’s pretty, that’s pretty interesting. And that’s why there’s no music until the closing credits, which was a jazz composition by Gary Stockdale who I said to him, Well, if you’re not gonna do any music in the movie, can you at least do a piece to the end? And he said, I think it should have a jazz vibe. And he ended up composing this piece that jazz musicians tell me is a really, really challenging piece of jazz. Yeah. It’s too sophisticated for me to understand just how good it is. But

matt nappo 41:27
no, it definitely is. And I think you’re right about that. Now you’re aristocrats. I wanted to go there because and right before the we hit the tape button. I mentioned to you to Jeff altman said hello, and that he’s a magician now and you kind of looked at me like what the hell is that all about? Now you’re with the aristocrats. You got together with Penn jillette? Who magician I’m just wondering how that came about that you got? I guess he’s comedy magician too. But he’s thought of in the magic world. How did that relationship come together? And was, you know, when, when the seed of that movie start?

Paul Provenza 42:06
What actually happened there was when Penn and Teller, excuse me, were doing their first off Broadway show. Their publicist was a friend of mine, who I’ve known since college when she was a college friend of mine, and she became a Broadway publicist. Her name is Jackie green, and she also has one of the best senses of humor. I spent years going, Jackie, why aren’t you doing comedy? Why aren’t you writing comedy? Why aren’t you were but like, she’s written so much stuff for Nathan Lane. Like whenever Nathan Lane hosts an award show or something like that all his best ship was written by Jackie Greene. She just she’s a natural, right? What her area where she makes a living as a Broadway publicist, and she never professionally became a comedian. But so she was handling the Penn and Teller show off Broadway. And she said, I think you guys would really get along. And she introduced us. And you know, over time, we became friends. And we started to, it became very clear to me that while Penn and Teller often would malign magicians, and they often would talk in a pen would often talk about comedy being, you know, hacky, and all of that sort of stuff. The truth is that they absolutely adore both comedians and magicians. And when that became clear to me, we really started to hang out a lot. And we would make each other laugh quite a bit. And we became friends for many, many, many years. And we would always talk about the aristocrats jokes, I forget how it came up, but we would talk about it and we would always laugh. And we would talk about people that we had heard do it and what they did to it, and you know, and all those kinds of things. And we would just sort of joke around fantasizing, like, could you imagine a tape of just like, you know, 10 comics, telling different versions of the aristocrats joke, it would be hilarious. And I’m like, this thing is like, all we got to do that tape, we got to do that tape, you know, for years and years and years. And then one day it came up again, we were hanging out late at night, I was finishing a show and panatela had finished their show in Vegas and we’re sitting at the pepper mill having a late night breakfast at like, one or two in the morning and and we were talking about it again and and we had both her Gilbert do it. And I think I told him about how Bob Saget is, like one of the foulest mouths ever that it’s just beyond the pale so it’s just hilarious. You know, I don’t know if he knew Bob at the time, but I know, I actually know Bob from my college days. That’s another story. But um, so at one point in this conversation, and I had been in a weird place in my career, I was he wasn’t really clear what the hell I was doing. But I had started going overseas and started working on the International Circuit, the festival circuit and spending a lot of time in the UK and so I was gone for long periods of time, and he was like, What are you doing? I was like, I was doing something, you know. And at that point he said, Listen, we’ve been talking about this thing for years. He goes, do you think we can actually do this? And I went, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s the point of it? And he goes, I don’t know maybe it’s just something funny we could do for ourselves and we could show friends of ours are weird because but he goes, if I commit to this, could you commit to this? And it was so late at night? I said, Yeah, sure.

matt nappo 45:28
Late at night, I love that.

Paul Provenza 45:32
Literally, we went, we went to, you know, like a Best Buy or something. fries or something, probably something that doesn’t exist anymore. And we bought to, you know, off the camera off the shelf consumer cameras. mini DV at the time was the new format. And we said, let’s see. So I called a handful of friends of mine I called Bobby Slayton, I called Jeff Ross. I’m sorry, not Jeff Ross, john Ross, who was terrific stand up and he was a writer on comics only. I called Kathy lagman. And I said, meet us at the improv. We’re going to do this crazy thing. We just, you know, we just want to see what happens. And so we did Bobby Slayton in the parking lot, Kathy Gladman in the parking lot. JOHN Rawson did in the men’s room at the improv. And then emo Philips came in to do a set. And he said, What are you doing? And I told him, and he went, Oh, that sounds awesome. I’d like to do that. So we sat down with emo Philips, and we did this thing. And the next morning, you know, we watched the tape. And Penn said, Well, I think we have proof of concept. I go, yes, I’m just not sure what the concept is. So we decided, let’s just keep going and see what happens. So we would take people and I again, I would be gone. I’d be in Europe, or Asia or whatever, you know, traveling around the world for three months, and then it come back for a month, a month and a half. And then they go away again for another two months and come back for three months. And it was a lot of that. And we would just coordinate. You know who he could set it up to do in Vegas, who I could set up to do in New York, when he was off from his shows, they had to break into shows he come to New York, and we do some stuff, and a bunch of people in LA and all that sort of stuff. And we just randomly contacted all these people we knew that would be interesting and fun to see do this. And then people started getting wind of it. And and then we started going like, well, we have enough here to start calling people that are crazy to call, like George car, you know? So we call George Carlin. And when we told them we were going to do this thing with the aristocrats he went all he goes, you’re kidding me? We said no. I think I have a whole notebook of ideas about this joke. He goes, call me in a month, I want to go find this and see if I can organize some thoughts. He goes, but I love this idea. And so a month or so later, we got together with him. And you know, after every buddy that we shot, you know, we would shoot two or three people in a day and drive from people’s houses to people’s offices, whatever and shoot. And he would always say in a pen would always say anything. He goes, What do you think we have anything here? And I would say, I just don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. After every day, I don’t just don’t know. And we went and shot Carlin and we packed up the gear. And we get back in the car and he sits down and he goes, What do you think? Do we have anything here? And I went Yep. I knew that George Carlin had given us whatever we needed to make something out of this. Wow, it though it was so perfect. It was almost linear, how he deconstructed the joke, how he his attitude about all the different aspects of it. And just, it was so professorial that I said, we have a spine, how we’re gonna hang everything else off of it, I don’t know, but we have a movie here. I know it. And so it was George Carlin that made it makes sense for all those

matt nappo 49:03
professorial that is the word I would use to describe George Carlin anytime after, say 1975 I think he started to become and I know a lot of it, he was doing a lot of college work at the time, but he just had that air of being more than a comedian in some way was teaching you something all the time.

Paul Provenza 49:23
He was always he was a student of comedy as well as a great comedian. And that’s one of the things that you know, that I felt I was as well I felt I just love discovering more and more about the art form and discovering more people that I didn’t know about and what they did. And you know, as funny as we were talking about going back to the old school people and everything is it’s like, you know, if brother Theodore or professor or when Cory for gap earning, if those guys were 20 years old and showed up on the comedy scene now they would be regarded as the greatest innovators. It would, it would be the hippest acts in comedy.

matt nappo 50:03
Wow, that’s food for thought for young people who are looking for inspiration. You know, that’s, that’s a good way to go. Yeah, you know, but Carlin, he’s one of the first guys, I think that I can remember. Who was this and then did a complete change and transformation into something else and remained successful that whole time. You know, Can you think of any others?

Paul Provenza 50:26
You’re absolutely right. No, I can’t think of many others. Most people, when they go through something like that they don’t actually come through the other side. They either don’t come through successfully, or they haven’t really changed that much. But you’re right about Carl. And I think that he is a case study. Yeah, for example, that he didn’t just change his image, or, you know, pander to a different audience. He literally changed as a human being. I mean, obviously, he had been changing internally before he started expressing it. But he, he changed from being about pleasing an audience to being about pleasing himself.

matt nappo 51:09
Right? Yeah. You know, and music they call it finding your voice in, in comedy, they often are, you hear it referred to often as developing your comedic character, you know, but

Paul Provenza 51:21
finding your existing thing. Most comedians now that they’re not real characters, right? You know. Interestingly, there are wonderful people there. They’re amazing people who who confuse that issue like Sarah Silverman, when, you know, when she became known, she was really doing a character. And now she’s not. Now you know, the irony is stripped away, and she’s really talking art. So she’s somebody who had a much, much more subtle, not as splashy way is making that transition like Carlin, but there aren’t many more,

matt nappo 51:57
right? Yeah, and it’s not as big of a difference I make from the hippy dippy weatherman, to what column was doing and becoming, you know, influenced by mort song, Lenny Bruce, and people like that and bringing that political aspect to it. Now I’m back before I get out, because I want to talk to what made you want to direct and get into directing stuff. But on that bad idea of that stuff, where we we go from there in the political world today, because in the days back in the day, I hate saying that phrase. But back in the day, you had people like calling and Pryor who would comment on political stuff. You had more Trump before him and Lenny Bruce, and all that, but commenting on it.

Paul Provenza 52:42
I gotta stop you for a second. Because George actually did not consider himself a political comedian at all

matt nappo 52:51
I know. And really,

Paul Provenza 52:53
you look at his material. It’s not really about personalities, or issues, per se. It’s not really about like current events. It’s bigger, bigger treatments of you know, like, Yes, we’ll talk about abortion, but it’s not really about abortion. It’s about you know, the power structure. You know, he wasn’t as opposed to somebody, like a more Saul who literally talked about the news of the day. And George never saw and I know, he’s, you know, I’ve had this conversation with him. He literally never thought of himself as a political comedian at all.

matt nappo 53:25
I get that. And he was more of a, you know, commentate commentary on the government and how when he when he went there at all, it was about the system. Sure, yeah. Culture, right.

Paul Provenza 53:39
And, and, and language and how that impacts culture and society and all that stuff. They’re bigger things than you know, being about the news or being about current topics there. By the time. I mean, there’s nothing that Carlin talked about in any way that you might refer to as politically, there’s nothing that he talked about 30 years ago, that isn’t valid today. Right? You know, it’s like watching bill when I watched Bill Hicks, I’m like, holy shit, this could have been written last week, you know? So there’s a big difference between what they’re doing and what more Saul did and even Lenny Bruce, I mean, Lenny Bruce was a little bit of a mix of both or Lenny Bruce would talk about specific current events and he’ll mention certain you know, people that are, you know, obscure to us now but at the time we’re in the you know, in the news every day, or like Robert Klein’s mind over matter album, the whole second side of that album is all Watergate. Right and a lot of it still resonates but I mean, it was he’ll talk specifically about individual characters like Senator Stennis or Rosemary woods or people that were in the news every day, but are obscure to us now. Because that car Yeah, that neither

matt nappo 54:51
fire. No, I get it. But where I was going with that is that there was a period of time and a comedy is always had that ability to come in. on politics, but now what we’re seeing, I think, which is different is that comedy has become the subject of politics in a lot of ways. And that that’s a really confusing thing for me. And in your mind, do you? First of all, we agree. And second of all, is it a good thing or bad thing? Because I’m looking at this fallout from Chappelle stuff, and he is now front and center a political issue himself. He’s a stand up comedian. Yeah. Now he’s not just commenting on political issues. He is a political issue.

Paul Provenza 55:33
Remember this ever happening before is certainly not in my lifetime. It but it that relates to what I was talking about before how, you know, this is a time where audiences care about comedy in a different way. It is amazing that somebody act can become a political touchstone. I mean, that was, you know, I mean, more was more saw wish that happened when he was doing his Kennedy Assassination obsession, you know, period there. Yeah. But he wish that, you know, things that he said will become political footballs. No, I it is remarkable. It is remarkable. But what it does speak to, is, how the art of comedy is being felt seen and appreciated differently than ever before. I mean, what you know, it just, it just, it’s kind of a fantasy of mine. I mean, I always I remember, many years ago, talking about how boy, I wish comedy got taken more seriously, you know, and, I mean, I sort of met not only as in terms of like news, but just as an art form. You know, it’s like, I feel like comedy appreciation should be taught at universities the same way music appreciation is you can track movements, and artists and art and you know, all that stuff. It’s just, it’s so rich and interesting. I always felt like comedy deserved more respect and appreciation in that regard, and that’s kind of what’s happening now. And I guess this, this is the weird flip side of that good thing, the good thing being that people are really seeing it as an art form that has an impact. And that does matter. And I think that’s disconcerting for comics. Because it’s really hard. It’s a hard line to walk when you’re a comic, because I’m one point. You know, at one point, we understand we’ve devoted our lives to an art form that it obviously has to have some meaning and significance to us, but at the same time, take itself seriously. And that’s one of the really compelling things about comedy is that it always operates in these weird dissonances. Everything about it is dissonant, that’s why it’s it’s it’s a masterful art form to me, because it’s so hard to pin down. You know, it’s a good joke, a pretty melody. Yeah, but at the same time, there’s also all these other cultural and social things, there’s a real relationship to an audience, you know, the thing about stand up is there’s nothing between you and the recipient, even with something like music. You know, a musician has music between them and the recipient, right? how they interpret that, how they feel that whatever. But you know, with a comedian, it’s literally it’s you, your voice, the things you say. So there’s a certain immediacy to it, that puts you in that place where well, if you’re going to, if it’s going to be important to you, then you’re going to have to, you know, take the flip side of that, which is people, we’re going to have issues about what your points of view are, you know, it’s so it’s a very, very, very complex art form on so many levels. But right now, it’s particularly particularly interesting. So I guess to answer your question, I never seen anything like it before. And I think ultimately, it’s a good thing. I think all the conversations that provokes without even saying they’re things that agree with things that I don’t agree with, I fall, you know, personally, I fall on in different ways on different people you might mention or different issues that come up in comedy that you might mention, but I absolutely think that the conversations around all of it are crucial. I think they’re great. I think they’re conversations we should have been having for the last 50 years.

matt nappo 59:08
You know, I I tend to agree with you. But he come back to this image in my mind of me being a kid, my parents were very hardcore, right wingers. I mean, they’re, you know, they were Nixon people. And they were fans of the Smothers Brothers. They were fans of George Carlin, they were fans of Vic Gregory, and could appreciate that comedy, even though they were diametrically opposed to their politics. You don’t see that. That’s rare. Yeah. In today’s world, you don’t see that at all. You’ll see people will, you know, basically boycott any art form any artists in any discipline, because they don’t like their politics. You know, people who didn’t like Robert De Niro who loved his movies all their whole lives. All of a sudden, he says something politically that they don’t like I’m not watching any of his movies again. That’s I think something nil? No.

Paul Provenza 1:00:05
I think so too. I agree with you. I think so. But you know, here’s the odd thing is that it starts to articulate and it’s the first time I’m, I’m trying to, but I think there’s this I think what’s happened is, you know, the news, entertainment, politics, show business, they’ve all become one in the same, right? I think that this is, this is a sort of illustration of that is that well, all the things that you might, you would, you would hope that you would hold a politician, you know, hold their feet to the fire for things that they said publicly, you know, man, now you’re doing it to comedians. And, you know, I it’s all emerged, it’s all become one. And and I think that this is a result of that. I mean, you know, people remember people talking about this many, many years ago about how you know, infotainment was a thing, and how news and entertainment were becoming becoming blurred, and you could see it happening on television, you can see a local news shows where all of a sudden have these, you know, elaborate graphics and things. And, you know, I mean, by the time of the first Gulf War in the early 90s, it was full blown, you know, but this this meshing of entertainment and information and entertainment and current events and news, they’ve become inseparable to me. I mean, what’s going on in, you know, with a lot of these republican extremists like, like bow birds and green and cawthorne. They’re not doing anything government related. It’s all

matt nappo 1:01:36
showbusiness. Right? Yeah. You

Paul Provenza 1:01:39
know, their, their, what’s their political, what’s their agenda in terms of policy, they’re not doing any of that.

matt nappo 1:01:46
They never get into real issues or any of that kind of stuff. It is all like catchphrases, and, you know, bumper sticker

Paul Provenza 1:01:54
culture, and how much exposure they can get to which people, you know, at which point is it going to stick under, you know, get under somebody’s skin. But but it’s not about about government, and and, or governing, I should say, and so I think that what you’re talking about is just more of that, I think it’s it kind of comes with the territory of what’s happened now.

matt nappo 1:02:17
Yeah, good point. And are you an optimist for for, you know, our nation for the world that always stuff because when I look at it, I gotta tell you, I’m a pessimist. But I just want to get you, you know, outlook on the big picture for, for the future. For what

Paul Provenza 1:02:35
it’s worth, and I am no expert on anything. But for what it’s worth, I can’t play anybody here into game theory, and they can actually run these run these, you know, these outcomes. I just don’t see any outcome that doesn’t end in Civil War. Yeah,

matt nappo 1:02:55
I agree. I agree. It’s positive or

Paul Provenza 1:02:59
negative. I couldn’t even tell you anymore.

matt nappo 1:03:03
I agree. I may. It’s pretty scary. Well, it’s all I can say. Yeah, no, I Well, you know, I want to say it’s refreshing to hear somebody agree with me on that. But it’s really scary to hear somebody agree with me on that, oh, let’s move on. Because I don’t want to make this that political, this time bomb when people get on. Directing. And because we can’t you kind of alluded to this before, when you were talking about the green room and getting you had a certain look and atmosphere and all that kind of stuff that you wanted there. And bringing you all the way up to ironwolf. It’s your most recent project, the last shot and Andy Anderson, how that came about and your approach to directing a stand up special in today’s days.

Paul Provenza 1:03:53
Well, you know, it, I don’t have studios, you know, asking me to work for them. I don’t have projects being brought to me as soon as everything I do is really DIY. and I have been friends with Andy for quite some time. And I’ve been working for, I think, a million years now on a documentary about an aspect of Andy’s life, which we’ll get to in a minute, but in the intervening period there Andy said hey, I got some people together we’re gonna shoot a special edition your dog’s house dog Stan hopes place in Bisbee. And he has this little I guess somebody else might call it a man cave. It’s where you know, he and his friends get together and watch

matt nappo 1:04:38
COVID a man cave on the show. Yeah.

Paul Provenza 1:04:43
Because the funhouse and it’s just a little space and it seats maybe, you know, at best 5060 people talk 40 4050 people tops. It’s a tiny little thing and every once in a while, he’ll do stand up shows there. And and he was like, this is where we can shoot it, like, Well, okay, so we got a bunch of kids together who were just out of film school. And they just came and shot this thing and everybody was drunk or high half the time. But Andy did a great, great show. And because it was DIY, you know, my feeling is we can’t make it look like it’s not DIY. And what’s the point of that? Let’s own it. And let’s go, you know, Andy’s a kind of an underground cat. I mean, you know, he’s not for everybody. I think he’s absolutely brilliant. I think some of the things that he does in that special are so challenging, and I think that he’s still a lovable cat talking about this stuff, and just loses, loses, you know, this vibe of, Oh, I just want to hug the guy. You know, he’s talking about the fact that his mother is a rape baby. And and I just, I just, I just, he’s so endearing. You know, it’s wild. And he’s a very interesting cat. And he’s a beautiful guy. He doesn’t you know, he’s not a hostile, aggressive person at all. But he talks about, you know, you can see why he’s duck Stan Hope’s favorite comic, he talks about things in a way that nobody else can talk about. And, and he’s brilliantly funny. But so we just said, let’s see what we can do. And I was like, you know, I wanted all of these cameras to be handheld because again, it was a tiny little space, tiny little room. Yo, Andy needs to be you never know what he’s gonna do or say next. And so the camera work is kind of all over the place, but it kind of feels right for the moment because it reloads literally, we’re not, we’re not trying to pretend that this was, you know, a $200,000 HBO shoot. This was a bunch of monkeys with cameras, you know, shooting a really funny guy. So that was my approach to it. And we had some technical problems. It was a lot of footage we couldn’t use. And as a result, it kind of has this vibe of i will i don’t know you described I think it’s kind of punky

matt nappo 1:07:12
I think it looks like an artistic approach. And you know, I didn’t, at the time I commented to somebody said, look at this, what makes it different than any other comedy special you’ve ever seen. And you brought it up before, but my friend who I was showing it to, he said, right away, he said, you never see the audience’s faces. You see the back of their heads, you never see a cutaway to the audience. And you talked about it before. And that was unusual. I said, Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t pick up on that. But you mentioned the handheld stuff. Is there a steady cam because that the movement seems extremely steady. If you had some really good college hunks with, with strong arms to hold that camera really steady? Or you had a steady cam on it because it feels like it’s got like a magical artistic quality to it. Whether it happened by accident or your intentional design, it feels like that I want to be in this room.

Paul Provenza 1:08:10
Well, that is a joy for me to hear. Thank you so much for for being kind about it. But it really was driven by what do we have you know? And no, there was no steady cam there was nothing there was no every camera was different. So you know, matching the footage is was a real challenge. But as you said you wanted to be in that room. And that’s the vibe that I wanted to create. Yeah, I just that feeling of and that’s why you do see the audience from the back of their heads because again, I put the camera in the audience, I wanted it to feel like you’re in this space. That’s it’s it’s undefined. You don’t really know where it is. You’re not really sure who’s in the room. You don’t know how big it is. It’s just an experience and and it actually looks much richer than I expected it to you know, in terms of the what we had no lights, which is all lights that were in the room that debt, Doug has watches football games in all DIY, absolutely. There were virtually no concessions to any sort of a shoot really made at all. Authenticity is a big part of what I what is meaningful to me. That’s what was the big part of the greenroom as well, was the authenticity of really, truly not having you know, not having planned anything in any way more than just it’s able to get whatever happens. You know, on the greenroom, the Congress, the show starts mid conversation. When the audience is actually you know, when it’s funny because when the budget came down from Showtime, there was a certain amount of money in there for what they call audience services. Which are the people who go to if you’re waiting online at Universal Studios, they’ll say hey, you want to come to TV taping tonight, people go okay. And they show up. And they know what anything about what they’re doing. They’re just, it’s just an event. I was like, we’re not getting an audience service. And everybody that was invited to come to the taping was for my personal email list, my producing partner, Barbara Romans personal email list, and some people who work in on the show and a bunch of comics personal email list. So everybody was in the audience of the greenroom. But 90% of his, they got to bring guests, of course, but you know, 90% of the people that were in that room, spend time in green rooms, right, that aspect of authenticity, that I thought, well, nobody else can do that. I’m doing that for sure. You know, which is why you have this weird thing of like, there’s an audience there, but there’s not an audience there. And most of the comics when they, you know, as the audience, we were seated already talking as the audience came in and sat down. Because we want them to feel like oh, they’re coming into a room. That’s all. There’s a thing happening right now just walk into a green room, there’s a thing happening every time you walk into a green room. And they found their seats wherever they were. And most of the people who were on the show, they knew people that were in every audience. Yeah, cars were real. They were people who you’d find in the greenroom. So I’m always sort of, I’m always looking for what what are the little ways that I can help you know, create an express some authenticity, and and that’s a lot of what went on in shooting Andy special is, is I know, a lot of people will do a stand up special, your people you’ve never heard of. And maybe they’re saying them specials that break them, break them out, and they become big stars from them, or whatever the case may be. But a lot of people you’ve never heard of do Sam specials in 3000 seat theaters. Right? Like what’s the point of that? Exactly? That’s a lie.

matt nappo 1:11:57
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you you’re getting all your friends and relatives to fill those empty seats or whatever to make it work. And then pumping in some some canned applause and laughter and all that kind of stuff. Just Yeah, that’s um, you know, a fanfic. And you’re absolutely right.

Paul Provenza 1:12:13
When we were doing the audio on any special, which again, because it was DIY, you know, we didn’t have a sophisticated audio setup. You know, we had a few things. Greg Charlie, who is on Doug’s team, he did some great stuff for us, but but you know, we had to go in and mix the show properly, so that it just wasn’t, you know, totally like, you know, there’s nothing going on in this thing that’s not professional. But, So Jeremy grody, who did the audio on the greenroom, did the audio on that special? And I told him I said, I want to hear the audience’s comments on the ship that Andy’s doing. Because you know, Andy will do some bits These are people in the audience that are fans of his and you’ll hear them go Oh, Andy, no, please. You know, I want to hear that I want to hear that you can be an Andy fan and still feel those things. Yeah. Oh, that Andy Andy is is he’s even pushing the boundaries for people that like him already. You know, I really I want all that I just felt that that was more authentic.

matt nappo 1:13:21
That’s absolutely true. And that Tandy, I mean, if you listen to his weekly podcast issues with Andy, by the way, you’ll get that every single week as a big fan of his I will listen to that podcast and I believe three or four times during every single episode. Oh man, can you really

Paul Provenza 1:13:40
know? Yeah. Because because he’s so like, not PC, right? But that’s not a fair way to describe him. Because if you watch his special if you watch last shot, like he does material, that’s anti corporatism, he does material that’s anti homophobia. He does material that’s anti anti trans. He does material that’s, you know, some like really left wing kind of perspectives, but those kind of left right things fall away. Either way he does it and then but then he’ll do you know, the story about rape, which is, you know, as on PC as you can get right now, but do you want to hug him at the end of the story? Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not it’s not, you know, he’s not just doing it for shock value. When you find out his personal connection to it as the bit goes on. It just it just fucks with your head. Right. And, And that, to me is some really, really great comedy. Though, it’s like you can’t even classify him as you know, he’s, he’s one of those legion of skanks guys because he, you know, does this rape story or he’s one of the he’s not any of those things. Now,

matt nappo 1:14:54
I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of you because you just mentioned can’t even classify I think there’s a lot of clicking this in the comedy world right now where you people are in camps. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. Because what you represent to me is that, again, that’s 66 Degrees of Separation prevented, you were kind of like welcoming to so many people and, and especially on those shows that you did where you brought it. You know, Robin Williams and Bo Burnham. That’s a lot to bleep from those two, you know, so you had, you know, that knocking down the walls in comedy, and more than a lot of people are building them up these days. But you mentioned a documentary you’re working on. Let’s talk about that a little bit. And what’s what because people want to know, you know, you say you’ve been working on forever. I know a lot of people have asked me, you guys, documentary waves are coming out, they’re eager to see it for free forever. What’s up with it?

Paul Provenza 1:15:53
When they see I don’t know why it’s very, very challenging thing the story of it is it’s basically the story, the background to it. And ultimately, it’s the story of Andy with the help of Doug Stan hope and a couple of other comedian friends Chris castle, French every they tracked down and confronted on camera, and he’s childhood molester. And it’s so it’s the story of why this matters to him actually going and doing it. And then what happened as a result of it. And it’s really tricky project because it’s a comedy. It’s like, Hi, it’s like, comedy, Mount Everest is trying to make something funny that that isn’t funny at all. Which to me is, you know, that’s the the physics definition of work is you exert a force on something, and it moves or changes direction, right? That’s what you that’s the kind of comedy that interests me more than this stuff that’s like, Hey, did you ever notice when you find funny things that are already out there, as valuable as that is nothing wrong with that, there’s not as interesting to me as taking something that’s unfunny and figuring out how to make it funny. And the reason that I that I can do that with this story is because Andy has already done that, and he has made it funny. That’s the way he has processed this pain for himself that resulted from from this experience in his life. But it wasn’t enough, he felt like he really needed to say something to this guy. And so it’s it’s this, it’s Andy being funny about it. But it’s also me being very serious and honest and truthful about it. And it ultimately is, there’s a lot of lenses through which to see the story. One is the lens through the lens of comedy, which interests me, of course, is that this is really how comedy is born of pain right here. Right, right. The other thing is, this is a different way of dealing with something that’s hard to deal with, that you don’t really have a paradigm for, anytime any anything about this subject is presented, it’s presented in a very morose way. Not that it’s not important. And not that feeling isn’t genuine for a lot of people. But it’s not necessarily the only way to deal with this. And you know, Christine Veen is in, it appears in the movie as well. And she talks about, you know, having dealt with her own stuff through making the making comedy out of it, and stuff like that. And so this is a thing that a lot of people just don’t have a paradigm for. But it means that you might be the kind of person that doesn’t have to look at this as something as morose and horrible as it is, it doesn’t mean that it was an important and meaningful and tragic thing that happened to you, but you don’t have to stay in that place. And so there’s that lens to which is all these different way of dealing with this kind of trauma. So there’s a lot of a lot of levels upon which this story operates. And what I’m just trying to do is just tell this story, with all of those aspects of it being present, right? You can put however you want, but

matt nappo 1:19:16
it’s a challenge to editing is that the challenge is editing all the stuff that you’ve gotten or Yeah.

Paul Provenza 1:19:25
No, it’s it’s, it’s the editing because I’m basically working with found footage. They again was Chris castles and Frank Chevrolet. They were shooting stuff for months and months and months around this. They were just shooting. There was nobody at the helm. It was just let’s just shoot, you know. So I came into the project and the only thing I was involved in shooting were a handful of interviews with some of Andy’s family members and a couple of friends. That that’s it. So basically most of what I’m telling the story with is found footage to me. It started They already got that with no agenda, or no, you know, they had no ark in mind. They had no, they were just shooting. So once again, it’s really authentic, that they weren’t shooting this really with any sort of plan to do anything with it, they were just shooting it, they were hoping they could do something with it. But once again, it’s totally DIY, right? So that’s, that’s why it’s taking so long, it’s like, there’s so much that does come out of the footage that’s already been shot. There’s so much that does come out and to figure out what’s meaningful and what’s important relative to some of the other stuff. But there is no outline in what they shot.

matt nappo 1:20:40
Gotcha. Yeah, so speaking of plans, is there a plan for a discrete distribution when it is finally done? like where are you gonna? Cuz I would think that’s tricky, too, because of the subject matter and what it is we can you add this to and obviously no network is going to touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Paul Provenza 1:21:01
And again, it’s another situation where it’s not you know, it’s DIY, it’s very punk. There’s no actual production values to anything. Yeah. So yeah, the answer is, I don’t know but it’s a phenomenal story that deserves to be told. And it’s it’s shocking how funny Andy is even in the midst of what he’s really really truly feeling very deeply, you know, has affected his life and for the for the worse, even with all of that Andy is still really really funny about it all. And I just think it’s a great story that needs to be told and we’ll just see, you know, a long time ago I decided that I had no career there is no arc there is no linearity at all. I decided that at some point I’m just going to be project to project and just whatever happens happens it’s like you know, I in my romanticized vision of it it’s like you know, I’m I’m in a French ghera you know, French Garret painting a painting or making a sculpture out of found objects or, or you know, whatever it may be and something might end up in the Museum of Modern Art or something might get sold or something might just end up you know, being thrown away when I’m dead. I have no idea I just doing the projects that fall on my heart and this is what I mean. Hey,

matt nappo 1:22:19
I got I got cat so it looks like he or she I don’t know what the he or she but it looks like she wants us to wrap this up. But Tom, that I’m not we’re not quite there yet. likes to be. Speaking of that, I’m glad you went there because I wanted to talk to you about this. And I don’t know I don’t want to sound like I’m blowing smoke up your ass. But when it comes to legacy, and I was thinking about and we mentioned Bill Hicks a couple of times in his program. Bill Hicks is a legend. He was funny, and I loved him. But people use that word legend because he died young. I know smoke again, I think you’re in the same level as Bill Hicks. The only reason people don’t say the Paul provenza the legend is because you’re alive. But they think about legacy and all that kind of stuff. You know, and not just his

Paul Provenza 1:23:08
studio. network or studio?

matt nappo 1:23:13
Well, I do have a production crew he is but No, but seriously, do you think about legacy at all, because, you know, you’ve done a lot of great things and I consider you like a renaissance man, as far as you know, going from, from stand up to author and director and filmmaker and all this kind of stuff and taking your own path. You have your own voice in, in, in directing films to so it’s not like you’re copying anybody. I you know, I look up to you as a role model. And for a lot of reasons. But legacy do you think about that?

Paul Provenza 1:23:53
Wow, first of all, thank you. I’m honored by your comments. And in terms of legacy, I do but not in an obvious way. Like I don’t really, I don’t really know there’s so much out there. There’s so many every day that goes by I’m like, I can’t believe how much shit there is. There’s so much shit. sports news, it was spoken in art and music and it this is so much shit. It just never stops, like how much shit can we have? It just never stopped. I’m a little overwhelmed by all of it. So I don’t really think that I you know, I don’t think of legacy in terms of what people are going to remember being that. I don’t care also, because who cares? We’re just you know, we’re on a pebble, you know, revolving around the sun and there’s way bigger forces at work in us. We’re very self important. I don’t care about any of that. But where I do feel like I do think a bit about legacy is that everything that I’ve been doing for about 15 or 20 years now. There came a point in my life where I was like, You know what? I’m just not as gifted enough, you know, I’m not I’m not as gifted enough to, I’m not gifted enough to change the art form from the stand up that I do. I just feel like I can’t really contribute to the art form in any meaningful way, by doing this thing that I do, you know, if I were Maria Bamford, I would feel very differently about that, you know, if I were Dave Chappelle, I would feel differently about that. If I were you, Louie ck, I would feel differently about that, I would feel like I had a shot. But I don’t, I’m just not that gifted. However, all this other stuff that you’re talking about is, is it pretty, pretty much my own voice, and it’s pretty unique. So I decided that I wanted to give back to comedy, which saved my life as a child, I wanted to give back to comedy in some way, it wasn’t going to come through doing stand up per se, for me, it would come from all these other projects, if it’s going to come from any place. And I decided, everything that I did everything that I worked on, I was doing for me at the age of 14, that someday, some kid at the age of around 13 1415 is going to see this stuff, and it’s going to make a difference in his or her life. That’s the extent of legacy that I think about everything I do. Everything that I’ve done for the last 20 years has been stuff that I would have gone bananas over if I discovered it when I was 14 years old.

matt nappo 1:26:30
Yeah. Wow, that’s really cool. Really cool stuff. You know, as you were saying that I was thinking about something I noticed in like on the internet, you will see prodigy musicians now, because you mentioned 1314, we see I see, prodigy, many musicians who are just like, you know, incredible talent at 45 years old every single day, our music, you know, that’s impossible in comedy, isn’t it to say, where if you saw a five or six year old blowing them away, stand up comedy with that, like shock, shock, you

Paul Provenza 1:27:03
know, that’s, that’s a series Barbara Roman, my partner and I tried to sell several times over several periods of time, tried to sell this, because, you know, most people who are prodigies at comedy are getting in trouble for being good at what they do. Wow. The age of 10 or 12 problem maker, right? They’re not, they’re not rewarded. They’re not celebrated like somebody who was a prodigy in athletics or music or art. And that’s part of it. And so this project that we tried to do was basically about you know, showing some love to the people who are prodigies in comedy at a young age and introducing them to the world of comedy and mentoring them yeah, it’s not something that happens I think because of that because

matt nappo 1:27:58
point I never even considered that but you’re absolutely right they get punished for for being good at what they do if you’re if you’re too good at comedy too young it’s frowned upon and you get smacked you’re a wiseass you’re a punk Shut the hell up that kind of stuff. Where if you’re a musician they encourage you Wow incredible Yeah, incredible insight. Well, I I’m gonna let you go but I can’t let you go because until I bring this up I’ve noticed during this interview, are you having a unlit cigarette in your hand and my mind goes back to you lecturing Bill Hicks about smoking Are you smoking now

Paul Provenza 1:28:35
I’ve decided to commit slow suicide

matt nappo 1:28:40
well you know i by the drop that’s what that’s what that’s what it is suicide by the drop right we’re all doing it we’re all getting one what I just said surprised me to see that that’s all because I remember that very clearly is you’ve given Hicks like some shit for having a cigarette on you. So I’m lit well good for you. Well, I appreciate your time here and I wish you great success with everything nature jack calm by the way to get the Last Waltz. And you know last shot I’m sorry, The Last Waltz that’s another great documentary but it’s Yeah.

Paul Provenza 1:29:18
The last was not that funny. Yeah. Oh,

matt nappo 1:29:22
anything new that besides the documentary you’re working on that we want people know about enough.

Paul Provenza 1:29:28
setlist is back on stage. We’re doing setlist in Los Angeles again. The first one since pandemic hit just last month, and we’re doing it monthly at the improv lab on Melrose. Lastly, the first one we did we came back at Eddie Pepitone and a bunch of bunch of people. It’s great fun. setlist is another one of those things that you know, if I have a 14 hour day, we’ll go crazy over

matt nappo 1:29:59
remar Trouble in that when I when I first learned that you were doing that, I thought there’s no way if there’s not enough comedians that have the chops to just, you know, let the audience pick what they’re going to talk about that stuff. I thought Robin Williams Of course, and maybe Drew Carey and

Paul Provenza 1:30:16
but you know it’s not it’s not the audience it’s not the audience. They are given the premise of to those your viewers who don’t aren’t familiar, the premise of setlist This is a format created by the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant evil genius Troy Conrad. And we partnered together and I took it around the world and took it on the international festival circuit. It’s been here, because this is the thing is that the impulse of it works in any country. We’ve done it in Argentina, we’ve done it in China, we’ve done in Egypt. It’s wild anyway, the premise of it is Troy Conrad, we usually it’s Troy, create a setlist and we give it to the comedian while they’re on stage in front of the audience, and they have to make up the set along with it.

matt nappo 1:31:04
I was under the impression you were polling the audience for those.

Paul Provenza 1:31:10
that the reason that that distinction is important is because what you get from the audience generally is two dimensional stuff. And it tends to be stuff that they are familiar with, like it could be a current events reference or it’s a dick joke, or it’s something that you know, it’s really sort of pedestrian, but what we create for the setlist are more complicated than that. And they’re coming from other comedians. So there’s juice in this thing, if you can find it, it’s up to you to figure out how to get in there. You know, so it’s the topics are crafted. They’re not random at all. Right? So their challenges, and that’s why we’ve had people like Eddie Izzard, get up and do it. And Robin Williams, and Roseanne and to mention, and some of the biggest names in comedy have gotten up and do it, to do it, because they get what an incredible challenge it is, and how fun it is. It’s like skydiving. It’s really it’s so scary. It’s so frightening, especially for somebody who’s got, you know, a reputation at stake. But once they do it, they’re like, oh, man, this is great, right? You know, Rob, bank us all the time for letting him do what he goes and just change my month just now doing this show tonight, you know, Eddie is in the middle of one setlist set. And he’s doing great too. But at one point, he gets a topic and he turns to the earnings and just goes This is fucking hard. And it’s like, it’s it’s, it’s more than just random stuff. It’s a real challenge. And the comedians who do it are brave. And I think they trust us that we never make them look bad. And that’s one of the things we did it as a series in the UK, we did 14 episodes of it for what was sky Atlantic at the time. And we haven’t been able to sell it in the United States. And it’s very frustrating. But one of the reasons that we didn’t sell it, we have a lot of interest, but the American concerns that wanted to do it all want to make it a competition. And we said absolutely not. It’s the antithesis. The whole point is that there is no judgment. You just it’s just let’s see what happens. It’s a celebration of the creative process, not about a victory or a failure or winning or competing. The comics aren’t competing against each other. They’re competing against the list.

matt nappo 1:33:29
In suits ruin everything, man. I’m telling you, they just don’t get it. But I get it. Yeah, no, there’s no I hate competition in any art form. You know, that whole idea of making it a competition? It then it should be sports, you know, sports and things. Keep your competition over there. And yeah, well, I’m sorry to hear that. Because there was a great idea. And I can imagine

Paul Provenza 1:33:58
Angeles at the improv every month at the improv lab and it’ll pop up again and actually TJ Miller was doing it as his closing of his show he did a week at the Irvine improv and he closed his show with like a 15 minute setlist segment every night. So you may be or that and we did a we did a full Rick Overton did a full one hour special in the setlist format which is available if you click over 10 plus setlist you’ll find it online and he’s a Maestro and watching him work is like going to you know comedy college watching you do setlist in particular because he doesn’t have the bit yet you watch find it and

matt nappo 1:34:41
wow hope we just locked up. Big we’re froze up. Well that’s a shame. We’re getting to the point where we’re gonna close up view that Paul Yeah. Now the phone is telling us you know what You guys got to wrap it up we have the people render on there

looks like he’s still connected anyway folks I’ll just edit this out did it the day to day that that that that that that that need to add it there you are yeah there you go yeah so yeah

Paul Provenza 1:35:38
the records if you if you google Rick Overton and setlist you should be able to get his setlist one hour special and watching him you know work is like going to comedy college and also we did we did a couple of them nowhere comedy shows we did one with Gilbert Godfrey where he just Gilbert doing setlist for an hour so that was great. We hope we’re hoping to do more of that with Gilbert. We’re hoping to do a whole tour of Gilbert just every night doing setlist that’s it no prepared material just Gilbert with setlist

matt nappo 1:36:15
what a gift to the world that would be I know he’s so funny

Paul Provenza 1:36:19
and watching Gilbert try and find the joke, right? There’s nothing funnier. There’s nothing funnier even if he doesn’t find it which is rare if ever right it’s hilarious watch try and find so that’s the thing so the audience’s that come out they know that this is a real challenge to comedians and they know that the comedians are really on the heels and so they really they tend to be really supportive they tend to be like yeah come on we’ll pull in for you We know you can make us laugh You know

matt nappo 1:36:43
no heckling at the setlist I get it. Yeah, cuz they’re all they’re all rooting for the underdog, because even the best comics in the world become an underdog in that. Great stuff. Well, I do appreciate your time here. And I wish you great success moving forward. And please let me know when and if the anti documentary comes out. So I can Oh, well, yeah. Well, getting there. Thanks for Thanks for coming. And, you know, please don’t please come back to great and fabulous Paul provenza. Great, great guy, great insights in there some really important things for me to think about there, you know, and what comes across is very clearly his his love and admiration and respect for the art form. And as he mentioned in his commentary on that is, it can be a double edged sword, when you have that much respect and admiration. A lot of comedians start out basically imitating their heroes. And so with that being lost on the younger generation, to some degree, we do have a lot more original voices and people who are able, because they don’t have that influence, to really take things in a very unique and new direction. So I just love to hear your thoughts on it. Please write to me at info at my bookkeeping. I can’t tell you who’s on the next program because this is pre taped, folks. So I don’t know when exactly this is going to hit next at this point. So I hope you enjoyed this program. Until next time, I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. Have a great day and bye for now. What you want round

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Punching Henry Podcast Style

Get Money

On Monday, October 11th, 2021, The great Henry Phillips popped in to delight Minddog and his listeners with talk about music, filmmaking, acting, and story telling in general.

And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here as always got the great Henry folks with me tonight. I’m gonna bring him in just one minute just before I bring him in No, I just because I Henry has a habit of getting misconstrued in the press and stuff like that. So I want to bear all the responsibility for these comments, and no weight on Henry at all. For the racist and homophobic things I’m about to say. Really not just the happy indigenous peoples day, if you still call it Columbus Day, good for you. But it’s also Coming Out Day. And it just occurs to me. I mean, first of all, there’s no indigenous people want to call people who got here before the white Europeans that’s more accurate. So it’s happy people got here before the white Europeans day, Columbus was not Italian. So my Italian friends who just feel like they’ve been cheated out of a day to celebrate Italian heritage, Italian, whatever it is ancestry. Columbus was an Italian and he sailed for Spain. So get over that. The other part is National Coming Out there, which I’m all for. Everybody’s got a day, but 365 days in a year. We shouldn’t be competing over days. I mean, there has to be another day pick tomorrow. Pick yesterday, yesterday wasn’t a day that I knew about anyway. So we’re just causing a lot of conflict and a lot of unnecessary bs going around about whose day it is and all that stuff, but happy whatever day it is Monday night, and I got Henry Philips you know, Henry Philips, if you don’t know I almost want to tell you You shouldn’t be listening or watching this live stream shouldn’t be listening to my podcast, if you don’t know who Henry Henry Philips was born to be a rock star. But I think and we’ll find out about this but I think his humility and his sense of humor are what caused him to change his life cost and direction and career choice slightly ever so slightly. He is a rock star of sorts, but he is a singer, songwriter. troubadour extraordinaire, filmmaker, writer actor probably a bunch of other things I want to say chef but I don’t want to say let’s just say he’s a cooking show hosts and leave it at that Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears open your minds and help me welcome in the fabulous Henry folks in mind on TV pockets Henry welcome.

Henry Phillips 4:21
Hey, thanks for having me.

matt nappo 4:23
It’s my pleasure to have you now as I mentioned I think you were born to be a rock star you got a great voice I know you probably you’re very humble about that and might argue with me about that but I think you had a great voice great ear for melody and good player and it seems like you were born to be a rock star. Do you agree with that at all?

Henry Phillips 4:44
Thanks. I was gonna say I your your intro and not everybody. I can’t say this about everybody but your intro was really pretty accurate. I was just like, yeah, you know, the sense of humor and everything sort of took me away from that and the humility of course, because being a

rock star is all about flamboyance and you know, muscle on your way in front of the crowd and standing out. And I’ve always been pretty bad at those things. So that that might be why I sort of ended up doing what I’m doing. But uh, but I appreciate that. Yeah, music is a huge first love for me. And I can tell you’re into it, too, with all those guitars in the back. And

I yeah, I’ll never stop doing it. So anything that I do, I always try to figure out how I can get the music in there. But right, but the rock star thing didn’t pan out for me.

matt nappo 5:31
Well, let’s talk. Yeah, and rock star is overrated and a lot of ways and I think you are a rock star of sorts in your own world right now I don’t I think you’ve got the market cornered on what you do, because there are a lot of guys who go out there with a guitar in a comedy club. But as you kind of alluded to in one of the, the films I’m not, I look at them as like one film right now like the Godfather saga. Yeah, Henry saga. But you kind of alluded to the fact that there are a lot of guys, and without naming any names or bashing anybody. There are a lot of guys out there with guitars. But more a lot of them are doing parody and stuff like this and not doing necessarily what you do. So I think you are a rock star in creating a whole new comedy genre, musical genre. So congratulations.

merch

Henry Phillips 6:21
Thanks. Well, yeah, I mean, it’s been, I guess, gosh, we’re going into the third decade now. You know, I mean, I think it was probably like 92 are something that I was hanging out with all musicians and I would crack my buddies and my bandmates up by just playing the guitar and kind of doing sort of a foe love song or something. But I’d read newspaper headlines or, or I would just sort of throw in a line in there about, you know, that you would never hear in a soft ballot or something like that. And then, yeah, my friend started saying, you really got to go up there and do this at open mic nights around town. And I never would have done it if it weren’t for friends of mine pushing me to do it.

matt nappo 7:05
You know, you mentioned going through the headlines and stuff and one thing I’m noticing about you is I don’t not sure if you’re reading lyrics or something, it seems to me, you make it as hard as possible on yourself. And Bob Dylan wise, with so many words to remember, I mean, I want to learn one of your songs. I couldn’t do it I don’t think I can do without relying on the lyrics or a teleprompter for year is I know you make it rough on yourself. I think how do you remember all

Henry Phillips 7:35
your right and I’m and I’m lazy about it too. Because like once I’ve got it in my brain, and like I have a couple of songs that are like ripped from today’s headlines and, and I’ll memorize them and then in order to do in order to update it, like it should be updated. I have to memorize it again. And I can’t do it sometimes. So I wound up doing the old version of fitness starts sounding dated. But yeah, it’s not easy. I mean, it’s just like anything else you have to just put in the time you know, if you say something to yourself over and over again for an hour straight while you’re staring at the wall. You probably can eventually bang it into your head but it nobody wants to do that. I don’t want to do it. But um, but you’re right. I have a there’s YouTube clips of me on the radio, doing songs and just screwing up halfway through and I’ll look at it and I’ll cringe I’ll be like, Oh, come on. Why didn’t you just learn the lyrics before he got on the radio? Wow,

matt nappo 8:30
I haven’t seen any. I mean, I’ve seen so much of your work. Unless I just it goes by me and because

Henry Phillips 8:36
I try to make a joke out of it. I’m like, you know, yeah, like as if that’s part of the joke or suddenly you know, but yeah,

matt nappo 8:45
yeah. And it seems to me that you know, the beauty of it is you’re listening to all the words so if you add live or impromptu or change a line here and there, there’s no way I because you have so many words in the song. There’s no way I’m gonna call you on it. Anyway. There

Henry Phillips 9:00
you go. Yeah. Well, a lot of times when in the middle of the live show, I’ll just sort of improv something a little bit more updated or whatever. And, and also because of the fact that it’s comedy, it doesn’t have to follow the exact meter. In fact, sometimes it’s funnier if it doesn’t, and it doesn’t rhyme. It catches people by surprise. So yeah, you can be a little loose that way, you know?

matt nappo 9:23
Yeah. Christopher doesn’t naturally Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, some of those some of this stuff is really the melody though. Makes me think that at some level there there is a composer in you that wants or needs I should say, a classic rock hit song because, again, I’m not to blow smoke up your ass. But I think melody writing and the melodies you pick out are very unique, very radio friendly, at least for my generation. My job. That’s

Henry Phillips 9:59
that’s really cool to hear that you’re absolutely right. I’ve always tried really hard that the song that you just referenced to that turned out to be the duet that I do with my friend Julia lillas which is a completely ridiculous song with all kinds of sex references and stuff but the melody on that one, I was listening to a lot of that Brian Wilson stuff right after Good Vibrations, you know, when he started taking his downfall and started running some of the most beautiful melodies, like Surf’s up and a bunch of other ones and, and I was influenced by that and i and i actually that that melody was part of a song that I was writing for a friend of mine who’s whose mom had just died. And I I didn’t have a career. I didn’t have a career as a songwriter I couldn’t there’s it really honestly would have fallen completely on deaf ears for me to finish that song as nice as it might have been. But I wasn’t a recording artist, if nobody would have ever heard it. But I did have this comedy thing going so I when Julia and I came up with the idea for that duet, I started going back to other melodies and going oh, I never used this one for anything. But if that just for people that are interested on YouTube, you just put duet with Henry Phillips and Julia lillas. And it’s in it’s in you it’s on YouTube. And it’s the the melody is a very sincere and I’m actually very proud of it, but no, but I appreciate that you notice it because a lot of people don’t even think about it. They just hear the jokes. But yeah,

matt nappo 11:37
a lot of them a lot of you songs, you have great melodies. And again, I’m really impressed by your voice when you’re doing and I’ve seen some clips where you weren’t necessarily trying to be funny, but you were just singing from the heart and noticing your voice technique and it’s like wow, well you got to really, again not blowing smoke up your eyes. This is a genuine sincere compliment. Really a really good voice for pop rock. You know folk music, all that kind of stuff. What, cuz I have to ask what you’re and it’s a cliche that I hate asking any musician but your influences seem to be all over the place. And I will say that because I’ve never seen anybody go from F 13 chord into a B major ever in my life until I saw you do it. I’m like, wow, that’s some heavy jazz influence, right? Oh yeah. Why would you listen to where’d you get that stuff on? Yeah,

Henry Phillips 12:34
13th is great. Okay, so I used to be partnered up with a buddy of mine who would sing and I’d play guitar and we’d be on the patio at restaurants and we’d make like 100 bucks each and we would go through the whole catalogue of you know we would do Eagles songs and you know Billy Joe or whatever, but it was guitar and vocal but every time every now and then he would throw a song at me that he wanted to do but it wasn’t a guitar song like like a perfect example is just the way you are but Billy Joel and I was looking at the course and I was already a semi accomplished guitar player at this point. This is this is in the 90s and I looked at the chords I was like these are not Guitar Chords you know it was like the first one is de that’s fine and then it’s B minor six and then it’s G major seventh go into a G minor six we’ve added 13 I think and or added nine or something but I was just like whoa let’s happen in here but but I went ahead and took the challenge and I was like and I want to tell any any guitar players out there, take that particular piece of music and learn those chords and it’ll really expand your vocabulary, your chord vocabulary and and other ones to bridge over troubled water. If you watch Paul’s Paul Simon who is a guitar player, his chords are fantastic. I mean really, really good. Especially like his solo stuff. I was really inspired by the movie one trick pony. When we made our punch in the clown movie which the director of our movie Greg v ns turned me on to that movie and I was like wow, but But yeah, so his songwriting so I love when, when songs are on the guitar, but they do piano chords. So those are a couple of influences. Still on the pop genre, but also Tom Waits I’m big on who’s always of course a big piano player. He has he has a song called invitation of the blues that I learned that one on the guitar and that’s got some beautiful chords in it. And yeah, just all those singer songwriter guys, but I love a good good top three chord guitar song, but I also like when they start getting a little more experimental with the court. You know what another good one is you just got me on something that I’d love to talk about too, by the way, but the song by the beegees How deep is your love? Oh

matt nappo 15:02
yeah, great song on Guitar Man. Boy, yeah,

Henry Phillips 15:06
that was one that we did too. And I was just like, Whoa, I think the whole thing is like in key of E flat. But it’s all, you know, going from the minor to the major. And yeah, that’s a great one too.

matt nappo 15:19
I took that song apart years ago for a kind of like workshop to kind of say, how do you write this song? Because you don’t start out with those chords and try to put a melody to it? I think you’d be and I don’t know this for a fact. But I think the beegees kind of start out with singing the song and then figure out what are the chords that will make that really, that melody really jump out. But that that song in particular got me going like, wow, how do you how do you write a song?

Henry Phillips 15:48
I know. Yeah, I know, I think it’s the way that you just said, yeah, that’s the way that I’ve always done it. Like, the melody kind of comes first. And then you try to figure out which chords fit and you try to be as, as interesting as you can, without messing up the integrity of it, you know, but, uh, yeah, and then, but with me, it was an extra step, because I would think of a funny stand up idea. You know, I’d be like, Okay, well, what about a song about a, you know, a, you know, all the people that have, you know, made contributions to Western civilization, you know, you know, Da Vinci and you know, all of the Western philosophers and all these people. What about a song that talks about how great they were, but also what freaks that they were, because they all had these weird sexual fetishes and all that stuff. So then that’s like the stand up kind of idea, the comedy idea, and then it turned into Alright, so what’s the melody that I’m going to use and then I would just file through all these ideas that I had for melodies that I probably written just completely in earnest, that were supposed to be regular songs. And then I’d pick one and then I would just so so that way, at least the music still has a chance like if you didn’t speak English, and you heard it, you’d probably just think this is a regular folk song or something, you know, and that and that’s my favorite kind, you know, where you can’t tell because nobody’s really putting on a funny voice or making a funny music. You’re just just taking the idea and putting against a song that sounds legit.

matt nappo 17:26
Sometimes it’s sincerity with which you deliver it makes it all that more funny. Like he’s saying something that’s ridiculous. But you, you have this very serious and sincere tone in your voice and look on your face. Like you’re delivering a rock anthem, but you’re saying something like, crafting a great, you know, format, which is standing on the shoulders of the freaks. The song you just mentioned, it’s hard to explain. You know, when you go to see a comic, you can come back and say, Man, I saw this great comic last night, and he told some jokes. And here’s basically some of them. Yours. I mean, if I go to explain standing on the shoulders of freaks to my wife, she just looked at me like, what the hell? What the hell are you talking about? That’s funny. Well, I got to see him do it. Yeah.

Henry Phillips 18:17
Yeah, it’s not really a very easily repeatable thing. Yeah. But um, well, you know, I think one of the things that I was inspired by Well, a lot of the stuff that was going on on SNL when I was a kid was just mind blowingly funny, mostly those sketches that would happen in the last half hour that I don’t even think you can find them online anymore. It’s weird, but But remember, you obviously remember deep thoughts, you know, on SNL. So that was that kind of thing, right? Where he was saying it in that really, you know, small t sort of a poetic kind of a way, you know, touchy feely sort of new agey and they had the music and the presentation and everything and then all the more reason for the punchline of the jokes to just kind of blindside you you know, and it’s that presentation that I really liked a lot, right?

matt nappo 19:08
A couple of things they just want to ask you for my personal understanding of value because I’m a I’m a huge fan but I need to and this is for me, not for the audience. A couple of things I noticed is that this the old son pick, I know Yeah, play with that but you’re not doing what I call Travis picking it you’re using it in a very rock and roll kind of wait. Okay.

Henry Phillips 19:33
Wait should correct me so Travis is the one where you’re doing it like this? Is that right? Or

matt nappo 19:37
you’re doing the alternate baselines and doing and you’re locking your hand and be able to play the melody and the baseline at the same time time? Yeah, time your manual those drums, bass and get the end there. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Henry Phillips 19:49
No, I, you know, I, what I do is I’ll do I’ll use my thumb. Okay, if it’s a G chord, for example, We’ll just a standard G I’ll do a thumb to hit that lowest note and then with these three fingers I’ll just grab the the other, you know, three of those chords or strings whichever ones that they are. And so it’s more of a you know, your own it’s a little like a drummer, you know, bass snare bass boom, didn’t you know, something like that. But I’m also singing at the same time, but I will say that I was doing that naturally anyway. And then I had a one of the first guys that I met when I was doing like coffee houses and stuff was a guy named Marty Canada who ended up being my manager. And probably the main thing that he did was increased my musicality because he was a guitar player and, and the first thing he told me to do is you got to use that thumb pick because when I was on stage, the bass notes were getting lost, right? And, and because there’s just obviously the way the guitar is, it’s your, your thumb would have to be working extra hard in order, but you know, so I started using that thumping, and everything sounded much more balanced. And that was great. But um, but yeah, I don’t, I don’t really I just tried to make sure that all the notes of the quarter in there, but I’m not, I’m not necessarily doing anything fancy that way. But I will say that I did some classical training too. So when I’m just doing solo guitar, like the probably the most difficult one I ever learned was the entertainer for the guitar, which was really difficult. I found some sheet music for it some somewhere but but yeah, I’ve only dabbled in that never really mastered

matt nappo 21:36
Chet, Chet Atkins swing doing the entertainer and he’s using his own picking. Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that traditional Travis picking and now Yeah, yeah, that’s unbelievable. That’s just good. And you know, I thank you for the audience for indulging me on that, because I’m just curious. Where some pics come in. A lot of people just adopt them naturally. For me, I think you’re right, though. bass notes. If you’re just using your thumb, and I’m, you know, especially if I’m playing electric. I’ll never use a thumb pick. Oh, yeah. playing acoustic bass notes just don’t come through if you’re just using the right go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we kind of we mentioned the films and kind of a casual conversation away. For people who don’t know punching the clown was the first movie, it was highly acclaimed. And then there was a follow up just a few years ago, I think, like five years ago now punching Henry. I see them all in one movie. But so in order in order to condense that whole long singer songwriter troubadour extraordinare, how about we just call you a storyteller? Because I think that’s what you are. And now I’m curious about your relationship with the director, I think, from if I have it correctly, you know him from undergraduate years in college, and you’ve kept a relationship all the time, and now putting films together?

Henry Phillips 23:00
Yeah, absolutely. The so so he and I met in college, I had pretty much given up on any dream of being a rock star. And I was out here in LA, which is basically my hometown, I spent some time in New Jersey, and which I think is one of the reasons our mutual friend, Tom Konopka and I, you know, got along really well, but so I, after jersey, we moved out to LA. And I went to UCLA, and I went through this whole like community college system, and eventually got to UCLA. And my one friend that I have is this guy that I’d sit next to all the time, we were political science majors. And we just chatted a lot. He was from France. I thought that was interesting. He thought it was fascinating that I was in the music and so we’d sort of share you know, stories about that. And then and then when we graduated, he went to film school because that was his dream is to become a filmmaker. And I’ve started going full on into the stand up comedy thing, just kind of backed into it. By my last year of college, I started doing these open mic nights, and having a lot of fun with it. It was sort of a hobby, and but I would tell Greg is my friend there and I would, we still kept up and I would tell him these stories, you know, I’d just be like, Oh, man, I played at this bar last night where the guy says that he’s gonna give me $4 for every person. And he gives me $14 at the end of the thing, and we had like, 40 people there, but I know he’s ripping me off, but I mean, at least rip me off with a number that makes sense. Like if he said 12, then that’d be like, Alright, well, according to his books, he counted three people, but 14 isn’t even divisible by four. So I don’t know how he could get, you know, so I would tell him stuff like this. And he was like, man, we got it. We got to make a movie of this. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. But that’s so his final project at UCLA I’m sorry at Syracuse University is where he went after graduate school or undergrad. He, he made a little short film that was made there was basically a precursor to our punching the clown movies and that available to see and yeah, there’s some of it on YouTube if you if you put punching the clown portrait because it was called a portrait of Henry Phillips, you can see little bits of it, it’s on there somewhere not the whole thing, but we might eventually put it on there.

matt nappo 25:25
I’m sorry to interrupt you.

Henry Phillips 25:28
That’s all right. But anyway, so that that started our whole thing. And then ever since then we, we became writing partners. And we would just, you know, do outlines for feature film and dream of making a feature film that tied all these stories together. And then we started seeing things pop up, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was really similar to what we were kind of going for and the stuff that Ricky Jabez was doing. And so I think in 2007, we finally, technology got to a point where you could rent a camera that looked almost like film and, and Greg just showed up to my door one time, and he just he said, Man, let’s just make this movie, I don’t know, I’ll borrow money from family, I’ll use whatever my life savings is, but we’re just going to, because he’s like, I’ve got films, he became a film professor. And he’s like, I’ve got film students that can help us. And they’re making films by themselves. And I’m teaching it and it’s like, I never wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be a filmmaker. So you know, let’s do this. And I was like, well, let’s do it. So we wrote out an outline and, and just eventually had a couple of false starts, but eventually landed a kid who was one of his film students to produce it. Meaning, you know, to make up all the calls to the, you know, the locations get sag on board, you know, and all the crew get the crew together. I mean, there’s a lot of work there that neither Gregor are interested in doing. And, and eventually, in 2008, the first couple months, to date, probably just about the most exciting. Three or four weeks of my life was the beginning of 2008 when we were actually making that film that we had been talking about for 12 years, or whatever it was, and it was fantastic. And and, and then a year later, we were done with the movie and showed it at a Theater in New York called quad cinemas and and then it got on Netflix. And before he knew it, it was I was literally like walking around the streets of New York and San Francisco and Houston, Texas. And every now and then not all the time. But sometimes somebody be like, Hey, I think I just saw a movie of yours on Netflix. And I was like, Wow, that’s so cool. Because it was on during that time where everybody started doing the streaming thing. So they didn’t have a ton of stuff. And people just kind of run would run out of stuff to watch and they just start browsing. Okay, punching the clown. Let’s see what this is all about. And so yeah, that’s that’s the story of that. And Greg and I still work together to this day. I mean, I just yesterday, we talked for a couple hours about a new screenplay that we’re trying to put together.

matt nappo 28:15
Oh, Tao, please tell me it’s a third. Henry. So sort

Henry Phillips 28:19
of, it’s a well, the idea was always that I, mice, all of my stories are still from that era when I started, which was the early 90s. So they’re just all they don’t really work in today’s world because of social media and cell phones. And there’s so many plots that you couldn’t really have any more so we thought, maybe it’s time to do a period piece. So it’d be like a prequel, like the early 90s. But you

matt nappo 28:46
can’t play yourself as a kid. I mean, you look young, but

Henry Phillips 28:51
yeah, be a kid has had some rough years. So yeah, so we’re changing a lot of who the main character is and whose perspective it’ll be from and everything like that, but but the stories were always to me the most important part of it, and those will all be in there because we we left a lot of stories untold from that era.

matt nappo 29:12
You know, I have to mention this. I don’t know if anybody has ever said this to you before, but you have a resemblance to a young or middle age now. Robert Redford, you could do okay. I think you could probably pull up the rug.

Henry Phillips 29:31
Yeah, maybe I can have him. Well, that’s,

matt nappo 29:35
that’s your movie. So I love them. And again, this is no smoke. I would rate them right up there with the top films and again, I look at them as one film now. It’s like the Godfather saga. banri Saga, but um, there’s a line in there, but you broke my heart. You really and I think it’s in punching Henry. Yeah, it is. Funny, I set you online. Your reaction to it got me but the line from funny guitar boy says I wouldn’t want to be. I wouldn’t want to be playing these rooms in my 40s and you just gave that like sigh and at that moment I said, imagine playing those rooms in the 60s because that’s my life. Oh yeah. Should I kill myself now? Or wait till the end of the movie? Tell me

Henry Phillips 30:25
behind you. I mean, at this point, I’m in my 50s so I’m not far

matt nappo 30:29
but you’re playing those types of rooms? Oh, yeah.

Henry Phillips 30:33
Well, I don’t know I’ve got the loony bin coming up in Wichita, Kansas next, a week and a half from now. Now I’m certainly not doing like you know, all glitzy theaters and stuff every now and then I’ll get I’ll get a gig that’s got a little more glamorous, but it’s like the smaller the town The better the? The treatment, I guess. Because Yeah, if I went to New York, I would be. Yeah, I’d be in a basically a shoe box.

matt nappo 31:00
To convince myself that, wait a minute, he’s right about fat, you know, funny, you’re tall boys, that I want to be nice to my 40s. But as I got into my 40s, that’s when I started enjoying playing those rooms. And if I look at it, honestly, right now, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trade what the rooms I play in, which are those kinds of rooms and sometimes bigger rooms. But I wouldn’t trade that for the theater experience. I liked the intimacy, I liked getting to know the crowd. As long as they’re not too drunk and rowdy after I like getting to know the people that are coming to see me. Do you agree with that and feel like,

Henry Phillips 31:34
I do agree. And I want to make sure I’m not doing this laughable thing that I saw you to do. Like when their popularity started going down. I saw an article that it looked like they were trying to spin it and they’re saying, We’re gonna start going into more intimate venues now because we feel like we miss and it’s like, Oh, come on, you’re just not getting the crowds that he is. It’s a voluntary thing. It’s like, you know, we just sort of we’ve done that the arena thing. Now we wanted to go to the smaller venue. But so I’m not trying to say that it wouldn’t be great to just show up to some place and have 3000 people and then you’re on to the next town. That would be great. But, but you are absolutely right. And I think that most comedians that I know, I’d be really surprised if they didn’t agree, you know that they all started in comedy clubs. And comedy clubs are a lot of fun, you’re in the back of the room hanging out with the waitstaff. They’re all your friends for the week, and then, you know, 30 feet away from you, your buddies up on stage and says, There is bring up, you know, whoever it is, and then you go up. And you can see everybody’s faces, you can see them when they’re laughing. If they’re not laughing, you can work on that you can say, all right, well, what’s going on here? Well, you know, a theater you just see lights or just nothing. And that’s, that’s a lot more cold, you know, and But no, I love being in, in rooms, you know, clubs. Yeah. And I feel like the sensibilities better to there’s a I don’t know, well, I mean, I tried to do colleges for a little bit. And that was always really difficult in terms of the venue, it was either in the cafeteria, or even, like, if it’s in an auditorium or something, it’s just too wide and echoey, and the sound got lost or whatever. And, and I was, and I don’t think that the college students were grown up enough to start having a dark sense of humor, you know, and so I was like, most comfortable when I was like, between 30 and 40. And at a comedy club, and you could email everybody’s having a few drinks, maybe a couple people or divorced people started getting that kind of jaded. Sort of a little bit darker sense of humor, and I like that, you know, I would think it at theatres, I’m sure it’s great, but you don’t really have any, any gauge of what the personality of the audience is, you know, just some, some couple that’s never even been to a comedy show. But they figured that something that they saw on the newspaper that they’re going to be doing tonight, you know, but yeah, I really, really do like the comedy clubs,

matt nappo 34:12
especially doing the kind of work that you do. Sometimes the laughs aren’t, aren’t always like, especially in the beginning, like belly laughs they’re small laughs And if somebody is 1000 feet away, that small laugh isn’t gonna make it to the stage and you’re not getting any of that energy that you need. Oh, I

Henry Phillips 34:29
know. That’s very true. Now I kind of rely on having everybody pretty close together so that if one person laughs It sounds like they’re all kind of with me, you know? Yeah, there’s a some expression that I’ll probably butcher but it’s something like you know, if you have 10% of the audience that’s on your side, they can turn a whole show and your favorite you know, and it’s a lot harder to reach that 10% if you’ve got several 1000 people, but you know, in a room with 100 people in 10 people sure Yeah And yeah, no and and there’s some great comedy clubs around this country too.

matt nappo 35:06
Yeah. Another thing you allude to in the first film, I think it was Yeah, what’s the first film? I think you’re in a recording studio and this kind of struck me it’s a lot of your songs take a lot of bravery because you bravery might be the wrong word. I mean, nobody’s gonna kill you. But you’re taking your time to get to the funny part like a lot, especially with music stuff. And I know this for a fact when people want to, they want that laugh upfront and sometimes it takes a minute of listening to you sing to you get to the part that gets the first laugh. Yes, well, that takes some bravery and take some conditioning to get your get yourself able to deal with that and stay maintain your composure and say I know the laugh is coming to confidence and I know that they’re gonna get this eventually but I have to set them up properly. That that’s professional and it takes some getting used to tell tell me about how you got to that point because I would be nervous starting out that oh my god, I’m a minute into this. I haven’t gotten a laugh yet. I better get that pretty quick. get thrown out. There gonna flash the light. If we get off today. It’s whatever. How did you acquire patience and confidence?

Henry Phillips 36:18
Yeah, what you’re describing was the hardest part about what I what I did. And I so in the beginning, it was copy houses where people were expecting a real song. So it was like a minute and a half of this song. Everybody’s going okay. Alright, so he’s he’s upset about a breakup or whatever’s going on. And then all of a sudden, the lyrics would take a little bit of a turn, but still completely straight faced. And they’re like, Okay, well, now he’s talking about calling the police and, you know, and now this is starting to get out of hand and, and he’s losing control of his bodily functions in the middle of the living room, and just like, what the hell is this? And then and then and then everybody went, Oh, okay. It’s a joke. All right, I’m on board. And then they get on the mailing list and you develop a little bit of a following. But then I started doing comedy clubs in like 99 that was about about six years into trying to build this act that was based on exactly what you’re talking about that kind of Sucker Punch thing. And I’m telling you there were some rough ones, there were some really rough ones. And when I was the opening act, it was okay because there’s not as much pressure and and they would sort of go along with me. And then when they found out it was a joke, they’d be like, Oh, this is great. But then I started getting booked as the headliner because those middle middle act shows went really well. And that’s when I had some really really difficult ones I’d be I remember a string of them that I did up in Michigan was like in Grand Rapids Michigan and then clearly it should have been called the Henry Phillips sucks from one town to another tour because ever they’ve just we’re not getting it and the club owner in every case was standing in the back just go on I don’t think this is funny and then by the time I started getting to the funny parts, they had already checked out right? And that’s the fear so yeah, so I had a difficult time after several years of having this problem. I started I pretty much coward you know, chickened out. But but but in a way that I that I liked, I started because I at this point, I had a lot of jokes in between my songs that I would do some banner. And so I thought, Well, why don’t I just do all those at the top without the guitar? And so I started just doing stand up comedy. So if you were to get at the loony bin, or the funny bone, you went to see stand up comedy. So from the middle act, going into the headliner, okay, we’re still in that genre. Now the guy’s standing there, and he’s doing jokes. So I would do that. And I’d say, Hey, does anybody want to hear music? And then they already knew I’m joking, right? So it was a much much easier situation but it took me years and also, I can’t tell you how much envy I had when I watched people like the Flight of the Conchords or Tenacious D or these guys that were really doing that that serious songwriting thing but they weren’t they didn’t have to do it at the funny bone they were just they were sort of famous already. So they they were able to do that kind of thing that I was always you know, wishing that I could do but I couldn’t if I ever wanted to work at the comedy club again. It’s It’s ironic like you kind of have to be well known when you get messed around like that. Yeah, exactly. But but but I’m happy now I go up and I do. I do probably 15 minutes of stand up and I do you know, a lot of topical stuff and, and then I’ll just jump right into the songs and I’m kind of liking the groove that it’s got now.

matt nappo 39:49
Even your stand up has that kind of sincerity within the delivery of a bed. That makes it very It’s a different kind of stand up than anybody else does. So, you know, I know I’m blowing a lot of smoke at you, buddy. stuff. Now again, I love the films but like with historical fiction and novels, I’m a sucker for wanting to know what’s real and what’s not real because obviously these films are semi autobiographical. Yeah, I want to know what’s real and what’s not. And what what I take away from being a musician for 45 years now I’m performing. I’ve never been heckled. I’ve tried stand up and didn’t even get heckled doing stand up I shot, but I didn’t get heckled. I don’t know what that experience is like. But since you broach the subject, I think three times in both in both movies combined, this idea of getting heckling, I have, I have to think that at some point, it’s in your psyche, just that the whole you know, being hurt or wounded by some of these assholes can show up and they don’t do it for acting. They don’t do it for music. comedy is the only place you’ll see assholes show up and want to ruin your show. Is any of that stuff that’s in the movie based on reality? And is there a woman?

Henry Phillips 41:13
Yeah, Oh, absolutely. No, because I’m a I’m an incredibly self conscious person. It’s a lot of people are just like the worst nightmare that they could ever imagine as being heckled as a comedian. It’s like I I’m an idiot who picked that to be a possibility in my career. It’s like, I can’t believe that I wound up in that situation. But yeah, absolutely. Oh man, I’ve had some terrible terrible ones. In the movie, we depicted a couple of them. You know, one of the in the first movie, we had one where there was just a miss booking, you know, I was supposed to be performing my comedy and then they said, Oh, yeah, we also booked and it’s always some event, you know, it’s like, we also booked I think in real life, there was one that was like, it was all a, you know, cancer survivors or something like that. And it’s like, not not that they couldn’t have a sense of humor, but they were a pretty serious bunch and, and dark humor was not going over? Well, I mean, dark humor is really one of those kind of things that you you’re sort of privileged to be able to, to make those types of jokes, and then you don’t really think about him too much. But I yeah, I felt really uncomfortable one time doing a show like that. And I was just like, what? When do I get to that point where everybody’s there? Because they want to see what I’m doing? Because I was there. But um, yeah, no, I also had one. I remember having one in MLA of all places where it was a sports bar, and the guy ran the bar was British. And he didn’t really know much about American sports, but he definitely wanted to sell beers. And he did a whole promotion where he bust all these kids from USC to come in and watch their team basically clinch the season. And, and then he didn’t want any space between the end of the game and then me going on right after that to perform and he was just, you know, serving them tons and tons of drinks the whole time. So they were pretty drunk. And the guy lines up overcompensating, and so the game’s not even over yet. And he goes, Okay, go go go on there. And I go, Well, I don’t think the game’s over yet. He goes, it’s alright. They already know who won’t just get up up there. Like he had some kind of OCD about, like, God forbid, there’s a couple minutes in between the game and you know, right. Yeah, and they couldn’t, because they were all bused in there anyway, and it was like it didn’t even give them a chance to go to the bathroom or go up and get another beer or whatever. So then I went up there and going back to what you were saying, I’m doing this, this kind of Sucker Punch thing. So all of a sudden, they went from watching their game and they’re drunk to now they got a folk singer on stage, just singing for a minute and a half of a song that sounded like it was at that time I was opening with this song sounded like a religious like a campfire, religious song, and about God’s creatures or whatever and, and they’re just like, what is going on here. And literally, people started throwing things at the stage. There was a band that was going to play later. So the drum set was set up and one guy threw a chair and it crashed into the drum set. And then that was then the band that was there started jumping in and the guy who was doing the sound became sort of a bouncer. And he started and it was just absolute chaos. So yeah, and so and then I got I got off the stage because I was afraid somebody was gonna throw something at me. Or kick my ass or whatever and, and then the guy didn’t even pay me the 100 bucks that I was supposed to get. Because I didn’t do the set and I’m like, what you gave me an impossible situation here and

matt nappo 44:51
they have no sympathy for their mistakes. Oh, yeah,

Henry Phillips 44:54
it was awful. Yeah. But yeah, no, but in the movie, I would say overall Everything is at least based on a true story except in the you have to have an over reaching a plot, right? And so so in the second one, when you watch and the first movie, when you watch it from scene to scene, I can tell you the parallel real life story for just about everything in that movie. Except there’s this sort of telephone game thing where I say something off the cuff and eventually go That’s racist thing. Yeah, well, I’ll tell you the true part of it. I went to a meeting with a manager out here in LA. And it wasn’t bagels, it was donuts. He had a bunch of doughnuts. And he’s like, he’s a real powerful guy. And he’s like, and refill up. So would you like one of these donuts? And I was like, Okay, I’m just eating a doughnut. And there’s kind of a low in the conversation. And eventually, I was like, these are good doughnuts. And he’s like, yeah, they are good, aren’t they? And I was like, yeah, so where are they from? And he’s like, I don’t know. And then he gets, you know, on the speakerphone or whatever. And he’s like, Hi, Lisa. Can we find out where we got the doughnuts? Henry Phillips is here and he’s he’s a you know, an up and coming new comedian. He wants to know, and then, of course, the Secretary was like, I don’t know where we got the frickin doughnuts, but she’s trying to figure it out. And then she calls back and she’s like, hey, Dave got the doughnuts. And he’s I can’t get on the phone with him. Right now. He’s on a run, I guess be in just like before everybody was all hooked up with their cell phones and stuff. And so then he gets on the phone. He picks it up and he goes, Henry, I’m sorry. And he’s like, why is this a problem? Why is this a problem? I asked you where the doughnuts are? It’s the easiest question in the world. You can’t tell me I’ve got Henry Phillips here. I’m trying to you know i mean he he’s I don’t know what he said he is up and coming comic. You know, he’s, he want the guy wants to know where the doughnuts are? Find out. He hangs up and I’m just sitting here going, Oh, this is mortifying, you know, yeah. To hear

matt nappo 47:07
and the girl thinks you’re a dick. No, absolutely.

Henry Phillips 47:11
She thinks that I’m some asshole. Like, I’m a 28 year old guy. And I’m just some guy going, I want to know where the damn doughnuts are. So anyway, so that was the end of the real story. And then and then we started thinking, Well, what could have How funny would it be if if it turned into some kind of telephone game thing? You know, we made it bagels, because that way it’s like, oh, maybe he’s being anti semitic or something like that. And, and, and that was the big thing at that time, right? Like when it Cramer from Seinfeld is on on his show. And he went viral for his rant and then,

matt nappo 47:49
but he actually said so.

Henry Phillips 47:52
But the thing is, how funny would it be if there was a guy who got blamed for all that stuff, but never even did anything like that? I mean, that’s the worst punishment Yeah, that you could get so. So that’s pretty much where that that idea came from.

matt nappo 48:05
I live that there was a period of time back 2020 years ago. So we were playing at a very popular spot all the time. And there was a bouncer in a club who happened to be black. And White was getting into some altercation with some regulars who happened to be white. And a lot of white people started to gang up on the guy and I went to defend him. Now it was a hells Angel guy who started throwing the N word around a lot. And they chased this guy into the back alley to kill him. And I went back to protect them. And somehow it got around that I was one of the guys chasing him. I was one of the guys yelling the N word. And I had to kind of leave the band for a couple of years and leave that town basically known as the racist guy took a couple of years of me to kind of clear up my reputations in I was there to protect

Henry Phillips 49:01
no good deed. Yeah, so

matt nappo 49:03
I relate to a watch your movies. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. It’s like the story of my life.

Henry Phillips 49:12
Yeah, well, it’s funny that you bring that up, too. Because remember, I mentioned that guy, Marty categor, who is my first manager, the guy taught me about the thumb pics. He was telling me, we were talking about the movie Spinal Tap, which I could not get enough of, I must have seen it. 50 times I had the whole thing memorized and everything like that. And he loved it too, because he loves humor. But he was telling me he goes a lot of guys. I guess. He was probably about 20 years older than I am. And he said a lot of the guys that I knew didn’t like the movie. Because they didn’t think think it was funny at all. They just thought, Man this is bringing up bad memories. I remember when we had the show, you know we had the record company. The record store signing and nobody showed up and everybody’s yelling at each other. I mean, these were all real stories that were hilarious to me, but a lot of people live through them. And, and I and I’ve had a little bit of that with, with my movies, too, because I, I’ve had people say that they’re depressing. Yeah. And it’s like, real life,

matt nappo 50:23
don’t do one or two lines that you kind of take. Wow, well, yeah, that that’s a real moment. But all comedy I think has to have that, that. It has to be comfortable. At some point, that little bit of uncomfortableness will make the punch line all that more funny when you get to that point. And it’s it’s an important thing to kind of take that uncomfortable moment in and really absorb it and say, what does it mean to me?

Henry Phillips 50:51
I agree. There’s the movie, the movie King of Comedy is a good example. Have you seen that and a lot of people wouldn’t even classify it as a comedy to me, I’m laughing my ass off. But I’m like, there’s one part of that movie where every time it used to be on on TV, I had to change the channel. Like I couldn’t be in the room while that scene is going on when. When he invites when he invites a date over to Jerry lewis’s house. And Jerry loses coming they have that dramatic irony of his show. And I’m like, this is just too much man. I gotta change the channel. It’s like it’s so incredibly uncomfortable, but at the same time, it’s so awesome that it makes you feel that way.

matt nappo 51:34
douche chills. That’s what I call it. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so yeah, the movies are great. And we got some comments in the in the chat room about the Densmore incident. I just discovered that in the last week.

Henry Phillips 51:50
Oh, the Densmore house in Kansas. Yeah,

matt nappo 51:54
I didn’t I didn’t even know that that video existed and then I found that the battle a week ago, and I’m trying to explain it to my wife, I of course, I do a very poor, but that that had me actually, like, laughing out loud at a computer screen, which doesn’t happen too often. Was that a real incident? Was that bass? Yes,

Henry Phillips 52:15
that was absolutely real. I mean, I played it up a little bit with the music and tried to make it like like one of those drama things, you know, but uh, but yeah, no, that absolutely I was born out of my mind driving all the way back to LA from I think it was Iowa and just Kansas, I think is about six hours from one side of the state to the other. And just you’re hoping a tornado is going to happen just so that you can see something. And I kept on seeing a sign saying, you know, Densmore house, you know, check this out. And so I just thought, well, I’ll do anything at this point, I had to go to the bathroom anyway. And so I went, and there’s this house that was built by a civil war veteran, and they were doing tours, and they had a lot of old people getting off the buses and to take this tour. And I was like, What the hell, you know, I’ll take the tour, and I paid like the 10 bucks or whatever. And I go in, and it’s pretty amazing. There’s a house where everybody, everybody was marveling at the fact that the guy built this thing by hand, and there’s a lot of incredible design stuff. And there’s engineers that couldn’t replicate the things that he did with his house, you know, typical museum type stuff. But at one point, somebody started noticing that it smelled like dogshit. And, and I smelled it too. And I’m just like, what is this and we’re like, up in one of the bedrooms or something like that. And the tour guide is like, yeah, I smell that does you guys, do you want to check your shoes or whatever, and I pick up one of my shoes, and it’s just completely just matted down with dogshit. Yeah, and I looked everywhere. And I had been tracking footsteps of dogshit throughout this whole house. And all these old people are like, ah, Tim grows, what are you doing? And I felt like such an asshole. You know, I just felt like such an outcast. And they were like, okay, let’s all go out in the backyard. Do sir if you don’t mind taking your shoes off or whatever. And so but and that’s another one where the story basically ended there. But of course, my mind is thinking Am I gonna have to pay some kind of cleaning costs? And how much is that going to cost? You know, I don’t know what kind of wood that they’re using. You know, I mean, they’re taking all these precautions to preserve everything and But yeah, I pretty much ended there. But But yeah, so the whole the whole video is, yeah, it’s on there. It’s

matt nappo 54:46
the question and bear with danger. The question it begs is has any of the people who were there taking the tour that day, seen that video and contacted you and saying, oh, you’re the head? Oh, yeah, no,

Henry Phillips 54:58
it happened. I’m guessing about maybe 10 years ago or even more. And

matt nappo 55:06
the internet being what it is, though somebody who is going to see it eventually

Henry Phillips 55:11
I kind of I kind of hope so. I mean, I would think it would come come up when people search YouTube for the Densmore house because other stuff, but no, I’ve never had anybody that noticed it, but I, hey, maybe I can help, you know, bring bring people to help make the place famous or something. That would be

matt nappo 55:32
beautiful. Check that out tonight, I think and I’m gonna encourage the audience playing search terms within Morehouse and Henry Phillips to kind of push that up in this surgery. Yeah.

Henry Phillips 55:45
algorithm. Yeah. But yeah, on YouTube, it’s called brush with danger. If anybody wants to look it up and right. It was gonna be I was gonna make it a series or something. But we never really did that.

matt nappo 55:56
I loved the treatment that you gave that because it does start and I thought, wow, is he part of one of these? You know, television shows that real life incidents and then to figure out it was a gag, but I love that treatment of it. Because it’s it’s so and you went very far out of your way to get all the lighting right in the hallway. Oh, yeah. the look and feel of that testimonial piece?

Henry Phillips 56:19
Yeah, well, I did that through. There’s a production company called all things comedy, which is run by a bunch of comics that they set up. The cinematographer did a great job. I don’t remember his name, but I’m sure it’s on there. But yeah, it was it was pretty fun.

matt nappo 56:33
Now, we are coming up on time, and I want to be respectful of your time. I’m grateful to have you here. And thank you to Tom Konopka for making this happen. Yeah, but I also want to talk quickly about the highway man and Henry’s kitchen if we can squeeze both of those in now. The highway man, funny stuff, very influenced by, I guess, late 70s 80s. network television shows, I guess, the most recent episode, I think, is the one I have in my way. Brendon Walsh is Yeah, photos and get the tattoo. Yeah, so there’s, yeah, tell me about the heart. There’s

Henry Phillips 57:12
there’s two there’s the ones that I put up on YouTube, which I’ll take some time and sort of tweak them and everything and just put them out randomly and those are publicly released. And you can see those on YouTube. Just to let people know that they’re on if you put Henry Phillips YouTube you’ll see all the stuff that we’re talking about here but um, so the highway man Yeah, there was a whole bunch of shows that was like Kung Fu, the Hulk you know, $6 million man Highway to Heaven. All these shows were just involved a drifter, you know? And so I thought, well, I want to be one of those guys, you know, but I want to be the 50 year old guy who’s like mysterious who just drifts from one town to another but my I don’t have a special talent. I’m not good at anything. In fact, I, I wind up making things worse in the town before I move to the next one, you know, and so it’s called the highway man. And, yeah, I’m just a guy and I’ve got a wig. And I’ve got like a jean jacket. And I’ll see mostly people stranded on the highway, and I’ll try to help them with their car, but it winds up being worse than it was before I got there. But yeah, the Brendan Brendan Walsh is great. And I’m working with a lot of my comic buddies on it, which is great. So yeah, there’s an episode where my buddy Brandon Walsh is in the like, at a high highway turn off, and he’s taking pictures with this camera. And then I’m witnessing a thug named a comic named Steve Gillespie, who’s just a guy who is, you know, mugger basically and he shows up to steal the camera and they wrestle with it. And eventually Steve gets branded on the ground starts kicking his ass and highway man is just sitting there in the bushes, watching the whole thing. And even writing down trying to make a drawing of the thing is if that’s going to help anything, and so once the coast is clear, and Steve takes off with Brendan’s camera, and then Brennan’s dusted himself off that’s when highway man comes out of the bushes and says Hey, man, I got I got the police sketch of the guy you know, you can give this to the police maybe they’ll be able to find it and Brennan’s like Who the hell’s this guy? So yeah, those are all on YouTube and, and, and Henry’s kitchen also. So about 10 years ago, I made a kitchen video out of my bachelor apartment, I was going through a breakup so it came off extra depressing. And I wrote music for it that was over the top depressing and and the second one that I did was called Henry’s chili for one and it went viral, it got over a million views. And so I was like, well, maybe I’ll turn this into a regular thing. And so I’ve been making them ever since for 10 years. And when the pandemic hit, I wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of the live stuff anymore, or any of it really and and I started kind of looking for a way that I can do more stuff out of home. And so, so I started these two web series, or I continued the Henry’s kitchen and the highway man. And they’re both the exclusive videos come out every month on Patreon. So there’s patreon.com slash Henry’s kitchen patreon.com slash highway, man. But that’s all in the videos. So if people like them, they can subscribe. And then I put them out every month and

matt nappo 1:00:24
every month. That’s pretty aggressive. I have to say, yeah, as a one man production company.

Henry Phillips 1:00:31
Yeah, I keep busy. And then, but but now I’m going back on the road, man. I’ve got a Wichita Kansas, Kansas week, a week and a half from now. And then I’m going to go to St. Louis, to open for a band called Ludo at the pageant theater for a few nights. And then I go to Wisconsin, Western Wisconsin and Wisconsin Rapids to do a couple of rural gigs there and, and then, and then Fresno after that, but I’m finally getting back out there and performing. And it feels good. I’m really happy to

matt nappo 1:01:03
be here for you. I have the link to your website. Yeah, going down there. It’s in the description. Also the links to the Patreon pages for the shows and all that kind of stuff. And I’m imagining I’m guessing the tour dates are on Henry Phelps. Yeah, yeah.

Henry Phillips 1:01:18
Well, it’s a good question, because I’m usually pretty bad about that stuff.

matt nappo 1:01:22
Most comedians aren’t. People in the music industry are cool. I mean, anytime I talk to entertainers on the show, I go to their website, and they say your website is totally outdated. And

Henry Phillips 1:01:36
it’s true. And I’m definitely one of those guys, because I never got to that point where I could get somebody to do it. Right. Most most of my comic friends eventually get to a point where they’ve got somebody who volunteers or somebody who gets a paycheck or whatever, to do all that stuff. But it’s for me, it’s me trying to figure out how to navigate the damn thing, you know, but it’s up to date now. So

matt nappo 1:01:57
yeah, well, I appreciate you being here. Now. I just have to note that you’re the second guest. on my show that has actually been interviewed by Larry King, I find that Yes. Wow. To me is that’s an impressive thing getting interviewed by Larry King, I’m guessing because there was no context to the one I saw. I’m guessing it came out right after punching the clown. That’s one

Henry Phillips 1:02:21
after the second movie. So the second movie punching Henry which by the way, both those movies are on Amazon, if anybody wants to see them, I think you have to pay a couple bucks. But But Amazon. But so punching Henry was done through a studio so that that had an actual budget where they hired a PR person to get me interviews. And Larry King wasn’t on on cable news anymore. But now he was doing it on the internet, and, but still just as cool. And so I was able to sit down with him and do a whole interview. And I think there’s two on YouTube. There’s the full interview. And there’s also like, just a quick q&a one,

matt nappo 1:03:02
right? Well, just and again, I’m trying to be as respectful of your time as possible. But there are a couple of questions I have to ask you about. Sure. First of all, he he seemed like he was reading off of something that is on your Wikipedia page. And that was included in the second one where you’re in the room with the record company executives and they’re talking badly about you they’re talking like a blockhead. Oh, yeah. His two best friends are despair and failure and all this kind of stuff, making you feel like a real loser. And I it says something like in your wiki page or Wikipedia page that Henry is known for playing a character who is a loser, and it’s like, Yeah, but you say I’m right here in the room, and then Larry, Larry King says something like you’re even a failure at that. People have no respect for this guy.

Henry Phillips 1:03:59
Yeah, a failure of being a failure. I don’t even remember that. The exact context of that, but uh, but yeah, so um, I all of the stuff that we talked about Kingdom comedy guy when I was a kid watching Garry Shandling do his stand up, you know, Rodney Dangerfield, these were all the people that I laughed at, you know who I guess their persona was losers, but I loved it. I Bob Newhart was another guy. Albert Brooks, you know,

matt nappo 1:04:30
I was gonna say your filmmaking and your approach to filmmaking and I didn’t want to kind of, because I didn’t know how you would feel about this because of your comparison. But I think when I look at your filmmaking and your approach to filmmaking, be Albert Brooks, influence to me jumped out at me that was the first Yeah, these films make me feel like you know, reminiscent of that kind of delivery, that kind of attitude.

Henry Phillips 1:04:55
Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah. Modern Romance would be nice. Number one, you know and then yeah defending your life and loss in America. I mean, I love those movies. But yeah, those guys, I don’t know if I just saw all those people at a time where I was like, Oh, Okay, I get it there’s a world where it’s okay to be a loser and it’s actually encouraged you know, and it’s called comedy you know, and I love it you know, Chris Farley Will Ferrell you know all these guys you know, I mean that’s, that’s what it is, you know?

matt nappo 1:05:32
Right. And before I let you go together thing from the Larry King interview that came out he asked you at one point what would you What would you like to be more successful at I think it’s how we put it and your answer was I’d like to be a better kept actor. Now I think, again, not blowing smoke up your ass but I think you’re a great character actor. It just seems that most often you’re playing yourself as a character but I know you’ve done some other acting things. Anything like that in the horizon? Because I do I do think you have the ability if I read I know your father was a known as a character actor. any of that on the horizon for you other acting work? I’m not Henry.

Henry Phillips 1:06:13
I love the idea of it. But yeah, I guess what I was getting at there is my dad was a character actor. And yeah, that’s in the Wikipedia too. There’s a bigness to what a lot of character actors do that I love. Well, like Rip Torn would be a great examples, right? Like, you know, it’s like, that’s something that you know, if he asked me, What would be something that I wish that I could do that I can’t I’d say it’s that kind of grandiose, sort of character acting where you just command the whole room to you know, you just walk on there and everybody’s like, Oh, yeah, I mean that. That’s fantastic. I don’t feel like I’m that guy. I don’t necessarily aspire to be that right now. What I like I did I did several episodes of Silicon Valley, the show on HBO and I was pretty much I was playing a character for sure. But that character was a little bit of an offshoot of myself, you know, I was just kind of trained to be as dry and real as possible. And yeah, I’m all for doing parts like that. And you know, I’ll keep pursuing it. It’s not it’s not really a and a career that you get to choose whether you get to do it or somebody else has to put you in there stuff. But I

matt nappo 1:07:27
got suckered away. But yeah, yeah, it is fate. And it is a lot of luck and all that stuff that plays into it.

Henry Phillips 1:07:34
But we live in a time where we can make our own stuff which is really helping me out a lot.

matt nappo 1:07:39
I agree I visit that’s a double edged sword you know, and you know, this probably a conversation for another day because I do want to let it go because I you know, I’ve kept your over an hour now. But there, there is a point where all comergence like may say there’s no good music or anymore No good comedy around anymore. It’s just not true. It’s just you have to dig a little harder to find it because a lot of great artists aren’t getting the sweetheart promotional deals from record labels or movie studios. And they have to produce this stuff on their own. So you have to dig a little harder to find it, but it’s out there. So

Henry Phillips 1:08:13
it is out there and word of mouth is the best you know, and you just every time you talk to somebody who’s got similar tastes, just say, Hey, who are you listening to now? or What are you watching or whatever, and that’s the best way to do it.

matt nappo 1:08:26
Right? come to New York sometime soon.

Henry Phillips 1:08:28
Oh, absolutely. I’d love to. I’d love to. Well,

matt nappo 1:08:32
well hey, me. And Tom Kanaka says hello. He’s in the one of the chat rooms he says. Please have Henry back for round two. This was great. Bah bah bah, bah, bah, bah. Thank you, Tom. Thank you again, for hooking this up. Please stay in touch and do feel free to come back anytime you want. I appreciate this morning, you know, and I wish you great continued success and till next time Till we meet again. Be well. That sounds great. I appreciate it. Bye for now. Henry foe folks. Wow, what a great guy. What a great talent. One of the one of the most creative people in the world today. I say that you know, with no exaggeration, I mean, we’ve got a lot of things going on. I didn’t kind of chef, the chef stuff. Listen. The only reason I made that comment in the beginning about the chef stuff is I know a lot of serious chefs who struggle struggle they have YouTube shows and they struggled to get 1000 views and then this was kind of making a joke out of a cooking show getting millions of views. I know my chef friends are very hurt by that. But bad bad is a great stuff too and very entertaining Henry’s kitchen. I hope you’ll check out all the Henry stuff the movies, see the stand up the the music on iTunes and all that kind of stuff. Everywhere you find Henry in so many different creative endeavors. So that’s our show for today. Tomorrow, I have a musical group from LA to boo droz which is a cigar box foot stomp and rock and roll band. Anyway, I hope you will join me then 8pm tomorrow till then I’m Matt nappo for the mind dog TV podcast. Thanks for coming. Have a great night. Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Search For The Unbookable Truth – The Inman Conspiracy

Why Should I Care About A Film That Is None Of My Business?

I’m a fan of comedy. Stand up comedy, in my view, is the last bastion of truth in art.  I am fascinated by the personalities of the men and women who perform with nothing more than a microphone and their wits and bravely attempt to make strangers laugh at their point of view. I love interviewing comedians and finding out what makes them tick.

I’m also naturally uncomfortable with conflict. That’s why I got rid of television in my house over a decade ago when networks figured out that having a roundtable of people shouting at each other was an inexpensive production that would bring in better ratings than real content driven productions. That’s also why I stopped following any politicians or pundits on social media.

Being on Twitter, I have seen many comedians argue and insult each other. It’s really hard to tell the good natured shit-giving, from malicious attacks. Comedians, by nature of what they do, are good at shitting on each other, often starting a fun and then turning a little darker. It can be entertaining if you’re the kind of person who enjoys listening to the neighbors fight.

I’m a fan, and as a fan I don’t like seeing ot hearing people I am a fan of being shat upon when it is malicious. Enter the tale of James Inman vs the entire world of Doug Stanhope about a movie that was made several years ago, that is truly none of my business., The Unbookables.

SYNOPSIS

“Ride with the Unbookables on an insane stand-up comedy road trip across the Midwest. Executive Producer Doug Stanhope (The Man Show, Louie) showcases some of our eras’ most fearless and challenging comics as they unite in this ground-breaking and hilarious documentary that tests what is “too far” in comedy clubs today.

The van tour hits a major speed bump when the gang runs headlong into a club owner in Kansas City that tells them to clean up their acts or get out. Now, comics James Inman (SF Comedy Competition winner) and Andy Andrist (The Man Show) face off as the group decides whether to finally compromise or get fired.

This instant underground comedy classic is now available for the first time On Demand with a new soundtrack featuring music from Mishka Shubaly. Get in the van with stand-ups including Sean Rouse (MIB 2, Premium Blend), Kristine Levine (Portlandia, Levine Large) and Brandon Walsh (Drunk History, Pickle & Peanut) as as they serve up comedy that is unsafe at any speed.”:

I wanted to ask James Inman to be on the show almost 2 years ago, when it was still only audio. I wanted him because I saw some videos online that truly had me laughing out loud. Then I followed him on Twitter and noticed him arguing with other comedians about the film, which I never heard of before. nI decided not to ask him to be on the show but was drawn into watching some of the arguments play out on Twitter, like watching a slow motion trainwreck, unable to turn away.

Around April of 2020, a few months into pandemic lockdown, I had the fortune, some might say good fortune, of being one of the first podcasters to get a bored Doug Stanhope on the show. That chance encounter lead to several other comedians from that circle coming into focus and I have been lucky to get some of them on my show. Some of them were in the film, although we never talked about it at all. I did notice that many of the comedians who were part of the film or associated with it were distancing themselves from it. The only person with a favorable view of the film seemed to be James Inman, who seems to love it like a parent an only child.

I didn’t watch the film until I watched and episode of Brendon Walsh’s World Record Podcast, with Henry Phillips as a guest. Both were part of the production. Henry Phillips seemed to be more supportive of the film than most but Brendon made a statement to the effect of wishing he hadn’t been part of it. I decided I had to see for myself. I found the film on Amazon Prime, a free stream.

I think the first go at it, I made it 3 minutes in before falling asleep, only to periodically woken by the sound of James screaming voice. My initial thought was that I had found a film that was possibly worse than Paul Blart – Mall Cop. I tried watching again, with similar results. All the while noting that Inman was still talking about the film as if it was Citizen Kane. All art is subjective and critics are often people who can’t create but have a need to tear down other people’s work to validate their own frustrations. That said, i personally did not enjoy The Unbookables at all, even when I did finally manage to taze myself to stay awake for the entire film. I know now that James tends to take opinions about the film personally. He also seems to think that not loving the movie is somehow disrespectful to the director, Jeff Pearson, who has since passed away.There are many films by directors who are dead that I don’t like. I’m not disrespecting their life or their body of work but not loving a particular film they created.

Fast forward to May of 2021 and a friend who has been very helpful in suggesting comedians for me to try to book, wrote to me saying “You have to get James Inman On”. I told him I wanted to get Brett Erickson on, who I am a fan of but also seems like a more civil conversationalist. The issue was I had seen a recent Twitter spat where Inman was saying some not so nice things about Erickson, and  I thought having Inman on first would ruin my chance of getting Erickson on. I decided to stop procrastinating and asked Erickson and he agreed. The episode was a great experience for me and I enjoyed our conversation as much as any other of the 100 or so comedians I have interviewed in the last 18 months.

Within minutes of my booking Erickson on the show, and quite coincidentally, a couple of people pushed UInman’s button on twitter and reignited the flaming of Brett Erickson. I tried my best to add some diffusion to the thread. James seems eager to take the bait when people are clearly just tr\ying to get him to have a negative emotional reaction. As a fan of comedy, such things can be painful to watch.

Next stop, Andy Andrist, who is one of the most underrated comedians of my lifetime, decided to use me for his own amusement. He suggested I have James on my show, knowing that I value his opinion and am a big fan. So I did ask James to be on and he was quick to say yes. The full, unedited interview can be seen or heard on this page, as well as the comments from the livestream on Youtube. In the comments you can see Andy calling out James for “false statements” and having great fun watching me struggle to find some balance in the interview. I’m not angry at Andy. I appreciate his play. It reminds me of  my best friend, Leo, manipulating me for his own entertainment, but I have to acknowledge that I was played.

Now, the truth can also be subjective and again, the truth about the real beef about the film is truly none of my business. Even if the things James told me were 100% false, and 100% is unlikely, I think I was able to read between the lines to get a hint of what the real issue is. I believe the executive producer, (Stanhope), and most of the comedians featured were not happy with the final product and somehow the director ended up with the rights to the film and signed a distribution deal without consent or approval of the the man who funded it. His name and influence being used to promote is bound to make him upset, to say the least. I don’t know any of this for a fact, but the circumstantial evidence seems to support that conclusion. Whatever the truth is I’m glad to be done with the subject and hope I never hear about the movie again.

James talked about hope for a reunion show.  The problem is that few, if any, of the significant members want any part of that. In a lot of ways the whole saga feels like a guy still stalking a girl who broke up with him years ago and can’t see that the more he’s ries to win her back the father he pushes her away.

I like Jamesa Inman, I think he is a talented and funny guy. I hope he moves on and puts the film behind him. I doubt that will happen. I do hope to have him on again to talk about anything not related to the movie whatsoever. I’d like to try to get through a show without  either of us saying “Doug”.

The full transcript is below:

Minddog 0:26
And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here. As always, first of all start off by apologizing if you hear a fan sound in the background, had some issues today with the overheating, and did not want to risk taking down the studio putting in a new computer to run the show tonight on short notice. So I got a fan running the whole show. I hope it doesn’t bother the audio too much. And I appreciate everybody coming here. You all know who’s here tonight. Obviously, there’s been a lot of excitement about this. A lot of emails, a lot of private messages, a lot of people talking about this program tonight. And so I have some explaining to do about how we got here, and why tonight. And so let me begin by saying

matt nappo 1:17
James Inman has already set the bar for guests on this program because the sponsor that usually sponsors comedy interviews on this program has been declined to sponsor tonight. I do have another sponsor who wants to sponsor tonight. I don’t know if I’m going to read them though. Because in the interest of time, I’m going to want to get James in as quickly as possible. I know you want to hear from him, not for me, and certainly not about the sponsors tonight. But I found it funny that the sponsor usually sponsors the comedy stuff, did not want to sponsor James because he’s considered controversial, especially on social media. And truth is, folks, I’ve been banned for life from Twitter. Eight times now, I’m off Twitter, in case you don’t know, I’m not on Twitter anymore. My good friend Nate kelp is on there. Now. He’s helping promote the program, but he doesn’t have any followers. I mean, and I understand he’s been behaving themselves, but sooner or later, he’s gonna get banned, too. But to my knowledge, I don’t think James has ever been banned from Twitter yet he’s got the reputation for being kind of a bad boy on social media. And I’m okay. I mean, they have no problem sponsoring me every week. So I thought that was a little inconsistent, a little weird. As you know, James Inman is hysterically funny. He’s He’s also a little bit prone to conflict lately, especially on social media, which scared me a little bit because I actually thought about asking James to be on the program almost two years ago now. And then I started following him on Twitter. When my other account, I wanted my previous editions on Twitter. And I saw him arguing with a lot of people and growing up in an Italian household where people were always yelling at each other. Conflict bothers me, it rubbed me the wrong way, it makes me uncomfortable. And whenever I would comment on any of this stuff, I would try to try to make it a little numerous or defuse the situation at all, but it didn’t seem to work. And I admit there are times when I am confused by comedians where I can’t tell if they’re being serious, or they’re seriously angry, because they fuck with each other so much that I don’t know when they’re being serious. So I see James arguing with a lot of people that I thought should be his friend, or were his friends. And, and that stuff went on for you. And so I put the brakes on asking him, and then about six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, now somebody suggested I have him on and I said, Yeah, I really want to have him on because he’s funny as fuck, and but I’m a little scared of him. And then two weeks ago, my friend Craig wrote to me said, you gotta have you know, I want to have bread on and I’m afraid that if I have in Milan, all shits gonna break loose with, with my chances of getting bread on the show. And then so I went to back on Twitter, and at that moment, that very moment, somebody was pushing James’s buttons about the unbuckles. And Brett’s name came up, and it was not pretty. And I thought, Well, I better get bread on the show as quickly as possible because I don’t want to, I don’t want to I don’t want to ruin my opportunity for getting him on the show. And so and then, after that,

Andy Andrews said, I should have James on the show. And I thought he was kidding and I asked him, let me see No, he was dead serious. James is a good guy. You should have him on the show. I think you’ll get along with them. I think it’ll be great for your show. And so I trust Andy a lot. And so that’s how we got here tonight. I said, You know what, maybe I maybe I’m being scared for nothing. Maybe we’ll get along fine. Maybe maybe things will go very smoothly. So let’s just get him in. James. Edmund is the winner of the San Francisco International comedy competition. So also the CO creator of mudslinging is ball comedy on Comedy Central pilot and produced his own one man show, adapted from his book, The Great hand diary. He’s also one of the unbuckles buckles and the focal point of the film by the same name. Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears. Open your mind and help me welcome in James M. into my dog TV pockets. James, welcome.

Unknown Speaker 5:44
How are you? Well, thank thank you for coming.

James Inman 5:48
That was a long intro. Oh, my God.

I know, I had some explaining to do. People have written to me and ask me, you know why? And you know, the thread I’m talking about two weeks ago.

Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So I have a difficult time really known comedians kidding. And when they’re serious. And when I see that stuff going on, oh, I just, you know, and by the way, you got to know who your real friends are. And I have to say, before we even get started, Andy Andrist is a true friend of yours. And he will, he said nothing but kind things about you. And he happens to be the only person ever certified by the United States Postal Service as a very reasonable man. So when he says you got to have James on, he’s a good guy.

Unknown Speaker 6:38
So but what what’s the real deal now, James? Oh, wait, are you really at odds with some of these guys?

James Inman 6:45
Well, no, like, like you said, um, you don’t know if they’re joking or not. Right. Right. You’re Yeah. Well, that’s been my experience with Doug for like, since 1995. I mean, he’s been making fun of me for 25 years, and I’ve never known if he’s serious or not, my and so you know, and so then Doug starts making fun of me. And then then Doug gets famous. And then Doug has all these fans and friends and, and peers. And then there’s the book bubbles, and we film the movie, and then all the booqable start making fun of me, because Doug makes fun of me. So I’ve never known if they’re serious or not.

So we’re not we’re in the same boat, dude.

matt nappo 7:34
Okay, but Finn hope has had you on his podcast long after 919 95. And after the film, I think even right, yeah, so I don’t think he would have you on if he really didn’t, you know, and I don’t know dogs can open. I don’t know what he thinks to people. But I it’s hard for me to imagine he would it might be on the podcast, I think twice or three times. Yeah, if he didn’t like you?

James Inman 7:57
Well, the funny thing is, like when me and Doug get together, and he starts making fun of me, I like I push back, like, as hard as I can. Like, I know all of his buttons. And I try to say the most fucked up things I can say to him. But pretty much everybody else kisses kisses his ass on that podcast, because they’re like, oh, dog, you know, it’s so famous. I knew Doug when he was doing dick jokes. When he was like shaking up a bottle of beer. And he had no political jokes whatsoever. In his act. He was just a regular comic, just like, you know, all of us. You know, he wasn’t famous. We both won the San Francisco comedy competition. And so he was kind of like my peer and then he moved to LA, and he gets famous. So I’m kind of still his friend, you know, but a lot of other people you know, they kind of climbed on board after Doug got famous, huh?

matt nappo 8:51
Well, it’s seem and you know, you brought up to filming so let’s go there already. It seemed from me watching film that at the time it was being filmed. You got along with most of the people pretty well during that filming now or am I until the the incident where the big argument with with Lipski Yeah, yeah. And he threw something at you through a hot dog. He glass of water I thought it was a glass of wine or something. Right wine, but it seemed like you guys were friends at that point. Am I wrong? Again, cuz I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. I guess I’m I’m

James Inman 9:30
yeah, we’re all friends. But you know, so just the whole movie was just this long process. And it was, it was kind of like, you know, Jeff, the director and Doug didn’t get along. And, you know, so I had to kind of like, keep everybody together. I wasn’t a producer, but I kind of had to be friends with everybody and get along with everybody. So the movie would get done, you know, so I had to make Jeff happy. Big, big dog happy I had to make all the vocals happy. You know? Um, you know, it was, it was a long process. Well,

matt nappo 10:09
as I mentioned, and this is no smoke, I think you’re hysterically funny. But I also look at you did this film several years ago, and it’s something to be proud of Listen, anybody who’s been in a feature film should be proud of it.

James Inman 10:23
Right? I see. So that’s the other thing too. Like, since Doug makes fun of me, right? The movie comes out. And like all the vocals. I mean, Doug, kind of, he didn’t really trash the movie, but he didn’t really promote it. And so behind the scenes, everybody was making fun of the film. And, and so the film came out as like an independent film with only 10 with only 1000 DVDs. And it got on BitTorrent, but, you know, not very many people saw so. So there was, you know, there was Shawn Rouse, he had a lot of complaints. There was Doug that had certain complaints, you know, and Jeff wasn’t taking anybody’s suggestions, right. And so the movie just kind of sat there for a while. And I was on Facebook and this guy who used to be Bill Hicks, his best friend, Kevin booth, I was following Kevin booth on Facebook. And Kevin goes, Hey, does anybody have a movie that doesn’t have a distributor, I get to recommend three movies a year to my distributor. And I was like, well, I got this movie. You know, I sent him a link to send him a copy of the unbuckles. And he calls me back the very next day. Booth who my hero is Bill Hicks. Right. And I know who Kevin booth is. I’ve known Kevin booth for, like, you know, I’m nervous being around Kevin booth, you know, um, and so he calls me back and I like, I go do talk to the director. Maybe you guys could get together, the director. He might be open to making some changes. And so Kevin and Jeff started talking. Jeff said, Yeah, I think I might make some changes. And then I started giving Jeff all of Doug’s suggestions, all of Sean’s suggestions, and some of the unbuckles in problems, different parts. So I secretly talk Jeff into making those changes. And and we also we added some music by Mischka. And, and, you know, next thing, you know, we got a distributor, we sent it to comedy dynamics. They sent us a contract the very next day. And because the Vice President of comedy dynamics, he’s a huge Bill Hicks fan and Sam Kinison fan. And big Doug Stanhope fan, right. And so and he also knows Kevin booth. And so right when he sees the bubbles, he’s like, Oh, my God, I want this film. And so the whole time, I thought that movie sucked, because Doug was always making fun of it. All the buggles were making fun of it. Even to this day, they kind of laugh it off and stuff. But after we got to comedy dynamics, it got it’s on like, like 20 different platforms. It’s on Roku. It’s on iTunes. It’s on amazon prime. It’s on Google Play YouTube, the DVD is the DVDs everywhere DVD, you can even buy the DVD on Walmart’s website. Right?

matt nappo 13:32
Well, that’s pretty cool.

James Inman 13:33
I think it is the book of those have been making fun of this movie for so long. They don’t understand that. They’re a lot more famous now that we got a distributor and a lot more people are seeing that goddamn movie.

matt nappo 13:49
Right. But it’s been out for several years now. Right? Oh,

James Inman 13:51
it’s so it’s only at the last at the end see at the very first part of 2018. Like December 27 is when we we December of 2017, which it didn’t really end up on coffee dynamics until the very first part of 2018. So that movie is only been out three years, even though it came out as an independent film A long time ago. Nobody saw it. And that’s what the book was don’t understand. They don’t understand it. There’s a lot of people know who the bugaboos are now, because I think you could tell by my Twitter account like Mike right when that movie got on amazon prime, my Twitter account just fucking grew like crazy. more followers on Facebook. I mean, it’s all that shit. They just make fun of it.

matt nappo 14:45
Wow. So I obviously you’re very passionate about this movie, right? But the rest of the guys just don’t share your passion. And that is the root of the cause. I’m just trying to under understand the root of the conflict that I see on Twitter. That It makes me a little uncomfortable.

James Inman 15:02
I think it just it all boils down to Jeff, the director and Doug, and Brian hitting in all gotten this huge fight. And I heard about parts of it. You know, there were lawyers involved, like Doug’s lawyer and Jeff’s lawyer were like arguing over the phone. It took Jeff Jeff, his site, he had a side job where he, he was kind of helping with contracts. And he kind of knew how to negotiate contracts. That contracted Jeff signed for comedy dynamics, it took them six months to sign that contract, because they’re sending it back and forth to lawyers to Jeff’s lawyer, and the comedy dynamics lawyer. So the whole thing to me is funny, because I didn’t have a fucking diamond in my pocket. And still to this day, I don’t have a fucking dime. But there are all these fucking rich people arguing about this goddamn movie, you know. And it’s a movie about a bunch of edgy, poor broke artists that are pushing the envelope on stage.

matt nappo 16:12
Right? Well, this is this is what begs a question I was going to ask here, James, because I went to your website. And one thing I noticed is I couldn’t find any tour dates on it. And I’m thinking, this guy’s fucking hysterical. It’s got viral videos out. He’s an award winning comedian. Why aren’t you working? Why aren’t you moving on? I know, the film is important. But what you just said, I still don’t have it done. Why are you out there working?

James Inman 16:35
Well, before the end book was before, you know, I was doing pretty good as a comic. I mean, I had a really, I had a good reputation I was killing. You know, I used to live in Seattle. And, you know, I won San Francisco comedy competition. I was invited to the Montreal just for laughs festival. Yeah, I pretty good resume. But then I get hooked up with Doug. And we start doing this movie. And, you know, like, my reputation. I can’t really work these these big time comedy clubs, like them, the improv or the funnybone are, but I’m gonna have to, like start booking myself in these edgier, you know, underground, you know, punk rock clubs, or whatever, you know. And plus, there’s the goddamn the virus, the COVID-19. We had a whole year here, we’re, personally, I’ve been waiting for the unbuckles to get together and like, do some tour together, you know, but they always they, they make fun of me. They’re, they’re so used to making fun of me that they don’t understand that we could just like forget all of this stupid shit. And just like if we were real business man, we would put together an unbelievable tour and we’d make some money.

matt nappo 17:49
I get that. From from the outside perspective. Again, I don’t know any of your fucking history. But I’m glad you’re you’re giving me some of it here tonight. But from the outside perspective, I don’t see it as them making fun of you. I think I and the ones I’ve talked to respect you as a comedian. I know that. But I don’t see that as making funny I think sometimes, and I can’t I don’t know what it’s I’m not in that bad circle. And I don’t know these people that well, but it doesn’t seem like hateful. Most I set out for this couple of weeks ago, did

James Inman 18:23
I? I know. I know what you’re saying. Because, you know, they’re all great joke writers. Um, usually Andy’s not that hateful. You know, I mean, I get it when he says it. But you know, when it’s when it’s, you know, some of the other ones. It’s like, I kind of question Do they really mean it or not? You know, because this, they might really fucking hate me. There’s there’s a lot of Doug’s friends that do fucking hate me. And so when they make their little jokes, it does kind of hurt. You know, I, I’ve had to deal with it for the past 15 years, dude. I mean, past 20. Since I’ve known Doug, I’ve had to deal with this shit, where every joke is some kind of insult or put down. None of these guys ever give each other compliments, rarely in public, like maybe Andy will go. Yeah, you should book James on your podcast. He’s really good guy or whatever. You know, but in public. None of these fuckers give you a compliment the only guy that occasionally will give you a compliment. It’s like Mischka. Or, you know, Andy, those are the two guys that are nice. The rest of the people that follow Doug are just mean motherfuckers Okay, so yeah, yeah.

matt nappo 19:43
I mean, I don’t know. But they’ve been nice to me and so far, but, you know, I can’t I don’t get too close to them. They don’t get that close to me. But

James Inman 19:53
because, I mean, it’s just, I think it’s like it was the movie where James is the guy that We make fun of. And so ever since then that’s my character. That’s my role. My role is the punching bag.

matt nappo 20:08
But now on that I’m beat you end the movie by saying that’s pretty much the role of the comedian anyway, so make yourself the clown the fool. And I don’t want to quote you directly because I don’t remember exactly. But for those affected, that’s the comedian’s job in the first place. Right? Yeah.

James Inman 20:24
Right. That’s every to me. That’s every comedians job. But, but when you’re with the group of comedians, there should be some kind of a, you know, respect of your fucking peers. You know, like, I don’t know, it just seems like ever since that movie came out, they fucking hated my guts. You know,

matt nappo 20:48
I wish there was some way we could help resolve that. Because especially if you say you want to see people get back together again and work together again. That can’t happen without some kind of resolution as a matter of love maker here matchmaker.

James Inman 21:01
Since that movie came out, we haven’t done one on bookable show together as a group.

matt nappo 21:10
Well, it seemed to me when Sam Talon is on the show, I like to play with him a little bit about the comparing the life of a musician with the life of a comedian. And it seems to me comedians are used to traveling in really small groups, if not alone. And musicians are used to the experience from the unbuckles, where you have four or five, six guys in a van, traveling from city to city. Yeah. And that’s why van bands are always on the verge of breaking up at all times. And I think I got through it a little bit. You can’t You can’t be back close to your peers for that longer time and not have a bunch of conflict. Do you agree?

James Inman 21:46
Yeah. But I mean, I would think that they would want to do it just had a professional reason. You know, I like I said, like, I doubted myself, for the longest time. I thought the movie sucked. And then after, you know, Kevin booth got involved, and then it got on Comedy dynamics, and then it was all over the place. I was I was sitting around, and I was talking to Brad and you know, cuz he was living in LA. And he was at the Comedy Store every day. And I remembered that Doug had it. He did a podcast once in Las Vegas. And so I met the booking agent or the manager of the Comedy Store. And he said, he was telling me, he’s like, yeah, once we got rid of Mitzi shore, we started booking the comics that we wanted to book not connected to any management company. So we brought in Joe Rogan, and some edgier comics, like Doug and like, so and so and you know, all he should fear and stuff like that. And he goes, and the line was around the block. That place was sold out every night by booking edgy comics, right? So that’s stuck in the back of my head. And when I realized I was like, Brad, you’re at the fucking comedy stores. Let’s book the book. It was at the Comedy Store. And he’s like, that’s a dumb idea. Jamie Mumma. You know, he’s first he said he was gonna do it. Then he said he wasn’t gonna do it. And I’m like, and I’m on the phone with him. I’m like, well, I’ll just off fucking what’s the guy’s number? I’ll call him and Brett goes, you do that James? And I’m like, What the You like he wouldn’t even give you the guy’s phone number. And he’s being sarcastic like you do that James? Like I couldn’t do it. Not Two weeks later, I need this guy who works at Comedy Store. I do a set in front of him. And he goes yeah, hey, James. I was funny. I go Hey, can you do you ever want to book the book bubbles at the Comedy Store is like a book The all the in bookable I’ll give you date right fucking now. And it wasn’t two weeks after that fucking argument with Brett Erickson that I got all the vocals at the Comedy Store. So I was like, holy shit, they know who we are, you know. And so, you know, I fucking we had to push the date back a couple months. And that’s when COVID-19 hit. And they had to cancel a show. So that’s why that show got cancelled. But I don’t think in bubbles realize that we could make one phone call and get the book bubbles at it, at least the belly room. And it would just be fun to do it just some that we could all get together and do a show.

matt nappo 24:27
Well, I don’t think most of them have any real interest in whether you know whether you can book the show or not. And I again, I don’t want to speak for them, but from what I’ve heard publicly said from some people and it doesn’t even look like Travis Lipski is even doing comedy anymore.

James Inman 24:43
He was I was on the phone with Travis. I was like Travis, do you want to do it? He’s like, I’m thinking about doing it. I have to buy a plane ticket blah, blah, blah. And you know, so Travis was back and forth. But he I asked him I said Travis, if we do a comedy, another Comedy Store show Are you gonna do it? He’s like, Fuck yeah, I’m gonna do it. The only person that I haven’t contacted is norm Wilkerson, but everybody else like, like Christine Levine, Brett Erickson and the Andrus, Brendon Walsh me, all of us we’ve been doing comedy 2530 years. It’s not hard to do 10 minutes comedy. That’s all we have to do. You get six or seven of the book goes on stage. We all do 10 minutes. Easy peasy. How hard can that be?

matt nappo 25:32
Right? Well, of course Sean’s not still with us know who else who else in your estimation is in that group was Brendan Walsh and I’m bookable?

James Inman 25:41
Yeah. Like when I set up that Comedy Store gig, Brendan, I called Brendan. I sent him a text. I go, dude, we’re gonna be there March 26, or whatever you want to do it. He’s like, Fuck, I’ll do it. And so Brendan Walsh, Brett Erickson me Christine Levine Andy Andrus and Mischka. Were supposed to do that Comedy Store gig, it was gonna be fun. You know, who knows? there might have been some agents in the room or whatever, you know, and we’re all doing this. We’re all putting this together without Doug’s help. Because I mean, that’s, that’s the whole thing. Doug is like a libertarian, he’s like a, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. He doesn’t want to help anybody. That’s his gig. I mean, that’s his. That’s his philosophy of life. You know,

matt nappo 26:25
I disagree. Yeah, he helps in town, he helped, he helped me a little bit, because if it wasn’t for him, and I don’t, you know, I don’t think he necessarily intended it as as helped towards me. But if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made a lot of the connections that I made. But I know, he went out of his way to give Sam talent a real boost with this book. So to say he doesn’t want to help anyone.

James Inman 26:45
I know. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean, I don’t mean, he doesn’t want to help anybody in a negative way. I just mean that there’s two ways of dealing with something. And when you want to teach somebody, you know, you can either, you know, do it for them, or you can teach them how to do it, and they fucking figure it out themselves. You know, I think that, you know, just like any teacher or your dad, your dad, after a while, he’s like, okay, you’re gonna have to fucking learn how to swim on your own. I’m just gonna throw you in the goddamn water and you’re going to swim.

matt nappo 27:19
Did you read my dad? What’s that? Did you meet my dad? No, cuz he actually did that. My grandfather threw me in a 20 foot deep canal. And I was for,

James Inman 27:33
you know, rely on other people. I mean, that’s the libertarian ideal, even though Doug says, Oh, I’m not a libertarian anymore. He still is at heart a libertarian. Me On the other hand, I love collaborating with people I love like groups of people. And that’s why I love the book most so much, because it was a group of people and we made this really cool thing together.

matt nappo 27:55
Hmm. So that’s what this is all been past base. What about future based? What do you What are you looking at? Because, obviously, if they decide not to, or for any reason, this doesn’t happen. You gotta make other plans for the future. Are you planning anything for the future? If Trump shows anything? Um,

James Inman 28:11
well, right now I’m, I’m working on like, like three or four books, I’m kind of editing, formatting and getting ready to publish a couple books. I can’t really say you know what they are. And also, I’m helping another friend of mine, publish his book and plays so so it’s, it’s all this fucking computer shit on word. And I’m teaching myself how to format a book so they look, you know, professional.

matt nappo 28:48
Gotcha. So where are you? Where are you located? Now? You’re not back in Kansas City. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m in. I’m in Kansas City now. Oh, I thought there was a while Wasn’t there a while while you were in New York?

James Inman 28:59
Yeah, I lived in New York for three years. I lived in Seattle for like 10 years. I lived in Minneapolis for like a year. I you know, I’ve been I’ve been doing comedy like 30 fucking years. You know, and that’s the see that’s the thing where I don’t think a lot of Doug’s friends really know who I am, you know, and, and that whatever I say about myself, they just they think I’m bragging you know, but it’s like Dude, you don’t even know who I am. You know? Like, I feel like I would just like go look at my resume dude. I’ve been you know it’s just really fucking annoying.

matt nappo 29:37
You know? I I got you but and I you know you want to be respected for what you did but I you know I what really does it matter what what they think about you? I mean, cuz I know there are people there a lot. As I mentioned, I got banned from Twitter eight times. There are a lot of people who don’t like me, a lot of people hate me. You know, I move on with my life. Getting Go on to the next thing.

James Inman 30:01
Why not? Why not? Yeah, I got I got banned from Twitter once but then I, you know, I got back on Doug. If this long story Mischka, like reported one of my tweets or something. And this kitty a friend, dude. And so Doug brought us Doug brought us back. Me and Mischka were like arguing with each other. And so Doug brought me and Mischka on his podcast, and we got back together. Right. I wish Doug would do that with Brett Erickson, because I’m really interested, Brad. Yeah, well,

matt nappo 30:37
that came across a couple of weeks ago. And when the day that I Craig Johnson told me you just got to get him in on the program. And then I went and saw your Twitter feed was lining up with a lot of Eric’s and stuff. And so at that moment, I decided to ask Erickson pretty quickly before this blows up. Now, I didn’t watch. I didn’t watch Erickson’s podcast with you. He didn’t mention you at all. I

James Inman 31:03
probably didn’t mention the book mosey bryden mentioned me. And, you know, it’s just it’s like, what he did was just so fucking unforgiveable you know, and the funny thing is, like, I I’m pretty, I’m pretty good at understanding what’s like, morally right and wrong, you know, even though you know, people think I’m crazy, or I’m not reasonable, or

matt nappo 31:27
I don’t know, but not reasonable. I don’t know what they think of. Yeah, I know, I would I thought of you. And I think you’re very emotional and very passionate about the film, obviously. And anybody who doesn’t agree with you, you seem to get seem to take that as a personal offense.

James Inman 31:45
I mean, the director of the film just recently died, Jeff Pearson, the guy that made that film, and I never even got to go to his funeral. I mean, we had a really stupid Memorial that Doug tried to put together and Brett started bad mouth and Jeff on the goddamn Memorial. I just fucking left. You know, I couldn’t take it, because it was just going to be more of that shit where they make fun of me. And I wanted it to be about Jeff Pearson. You know, they don’t understand that Jeff worked really hard on that film. And Jeff is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met in my life. The only other person I think that might be as smart as Jeff is probably Brian Hennigan, which is Doug’s manager, you know, smartest, fuck, he’s like a goddamn alien, you know, but Jeff was like his equal, right. And I’ve known Jeff since I don’t know, since 1992. I met him in Seattle. And, and so yeah, he’s the guy that made that movie. He got, you know, he filmed the whole thing. He had 150 hours of film, and he had to take all you, they watched all of that film. And he had to go through that whole three weeks of film and find the little parts that would create a story. So um, and he had the whole thing mapped out, but they had, this is what I couldn’t believe, because when I went back up to Seattle, to help him like, pick the, the stand up parts, because Kevin Booth was like, we need longer stand up parts. And so they chose me to help him pick out the stand up parts. And I go up there, and Jeff had a office, he had a business office for the unbuckles in a in a real, like, fucking office building. I mean, they didn’t make this out of their house. You know, this is a, this is a real project, a real fucking movie. You know,

matt nappo 33:45
I get it. I listen. I’ve been trying to I’ve been working on my own documentary for five years right now. So I know what, what the struggles of putting a movie like that together are. But at some point, you know, for you, personally, the movies out been out, it’s got whatever reception is gonna get, you can continue to promote it. But at some point, you got to look towards the future, don’t you?

James Inman 34:09
I see. That’s another thing that Doug has been saying. Since we started filming. I mean, it’s like, I’ve heard you look, here’s the deal. Like the whole the whole thing about up, you know, why don’t you move on, you know, that that movies really all did it come out like nine years ago, Doug started that he started right. The day after the movie came out. He’s like that movies old. He’s been saying that for fucking 10 years, because I wanted to make he that’s I honestly started believing that for the longest time until Kevin booth saw the film and he’s like, Oh my god, this is a great film. Like,

matt nappo 34:53
honestly,

James Inman 34:55
I know what you’re saying. Kevin Booth was the first guy that ever complimented me on that film. Everybody else made fun of it, right? And I was like, holy shit. That’s when we gave it to comedy dynamics. And that’s when we signed that contract. So yes, yeah, it’s been around six, seven years. Why don’t you move on? Right now we got the power to call up comedy to cut the fucking Comedy Store and get the unbuckles. Like, like, people know who we are now because of that.

matt nappo 35:29
Well, what I’m gonna say though, is I can understand feeling like that movie is Oh, because if I look at that movie, Erickson looks like a kid. Andy looks at least 10 years younger. 15 years younger. Brendan’s got big brown red hair all over. Now, Brendan’s pure white. I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately. But the age difference if you look at the movie, compared to the people I see today, it feels pretty old. To me. I feel like I’m looking at new styles. If I look and I just started again.

James Inman 36:00
I mean, brothers right now that Psychedelic Furs are touring with Blondie, and I know

matt nappo 36:06
but you but when you’re looking at the film from that perspective, you do see people who are a lot younger than they appear today. And so that

James Inman 36:15
I mean, I’ve been to some open mic nights, and there’s people that come up to me, and they’re nervous being around me. I’m like, What’s your deal, dude? Like, I just want to say, I don’t want to bother you James but I can I shake your hand cuz I The unbuckles is one of my favorite movies I’ve ever seen. What has happened is that movies turned into like a cult classic for for open mic comics and edgy comics because there’s no other documentary like that.

matt nappo 36:45
Right? There’s nothing like that.

James Inman 36:47
Yeah, and Jeff never got his accolades. Like, there was never a time where Doug sat me down and said, Good job, James. It was there was no you like my dad growing up? Yeah. What if?

matt nappo 37:00
What if he honestly doesn’t feel that it was it was a good movie you still

James Inman 37:04
want to do? Then fucking mind that I lie all the time. somebody that’s like he did. He tried really hard and he really wasn’t that funny. He’s funny. Online to his face, just to make him feel better.

matt nappo 37:21
I haven’t talked to

James Inman 37:22
him about the fucking truth. That’s like, bread. Butter. You know, fucking at the memorial. People need to know the truth. Who gives a fuck? Jeff is dead. You know, life is crazy to begin with. Sometimes, we don’t want to hear the truth.

matt nappo 37:38
Right? Sometimes we can’t take the truth. I get it. But what do we just say? Nothing. What? You could just say nothing right? But But

James Inman 37:48
fuck, look, I do comedy. I don’t necessarily tell the truth on in comedy. Right job in comedy is to make people laugh if I have to fucking lie, a lie to make people laugh. I’m not I’m not a fucking monk. I’m not Jesus. I got a professor. I’m not a fucking I won’t make shit up. If I have to.

matt nappo 38:12
Let me let me ask you something. Were you. Were you lying to the Seattle City Council? Or was that all truth?

James Inman 38:19
Yeah, I mean, that was that was a true story. I got arrested for saying the F word. I got arrested for saying for saying fuck. And so it was an exaggeration. I mean, that’s what comedy is you just like, you take somebody exaggerate it to the 10th hour and make it funny. You know?

matt nappo 38:39
I was a classic video by the way. I wish I could get this just clips at that audio and just like use it for bumpers on the show. Because you know, I got two CDs out. So my TV. Yeah, if Yeah, but I’m sure you have copyrights on it. And whether or not you gave me permission, you

James Inman 39:02
can you can you could use it if you do. There’s all I need. I haven’t really promoted my CDs that much. Because, like, oh,

matt nappo 39:11
why not? Why not shift from the movie to the CDs?

James Inman 39:14
these guys, they make fun of me so much. I didn’t even want to promote myself. But like, whenever I promote myself, there’s some fucking jackwagon on Facebook or Twitter who’s friends with dog or fans dog? He’s like, Oh, what a big self promoter. I can’t believe all you do is a big, big day. I mean, I rarely talk about the unbuckles I rarely tweet about it. I rarely tweet about my CDs, you know, because like, that’s the last thing any of the you know, they think it’s it’s like a you know, crass to sell, promote.

matt nappo 39:49
Yeah, and I know, people who came and now people here tonight in 30 different platforms that have a 30 different chat rooms going that people are

James Inman 39:59
really hurt. My feelings I listen to other people I take other people’s. That’s the thing I like they came to see

matt nappo 40:06
you tonight is my point. So I don’t think people can. I don’t think

James Inman 40:11
people understand me, I really don’t. I always seek out criticism, I fucking like it when someone comes up to me and goes, that was funny, but you know, you should do this, or you should change that or add this or that, you know, I listened to that. So when someone like makes fun of me or criticizes me, it really does hurt because I fucking I think that they’re probably partly true. You know, I,

matt nappo 40:36
I totally feel that, you know, and I’m not like you in that if somebody comes up to me and says, that was a great show, but that but it’s gonna kill me for honestly, that buddy’s gonna kill me for a year. I’m gonna think nothing about but then when that person said, but and then what follows is like,

James Inman 40:56
does it hurt my ego, it more it. I use it to like, make myself better. You know, like, because I like before you met dog, my best friend was Brad Nelson. Now Brad made fun of me all the time. So it’s not like Doug was the first guy to make fun of me. I seek out these people that like, make me the butt of the joke. So I’m always like, laughing at myself. I don’t take myself seriously. And it’s so funny that I mean, that’s what happened in the movie. I didn’t know. That’s what was gonna happen. But in the movie, everybody makes fun of me. And then I ended up being in every fucking scene, which was not my I did I had no idea that was gonna happen, right? That’s why one of the reasons why they’re all pissed, you know,

matt nappo 41:44
could be you know, you know how artists are, whatever, whatever the situation, I’m really hoping you can put that animosity behind you and just kind of, you know, we connect with you. I’ll tell you people who I played with in a band 45 years ago, died recently, and we had broken up for stupid reasons. And when they got cancer and died, I felt really bad because they were a big part of my life when I was young and shared that experience in a van quote, traveling the country. I mean, eating shitty food, you know? And, and so, you know, when you have that experience, you regret those relationships when you get old. Me? Yeah. Having lost them for stupid reasons, right?

James Inman 42:29
Exactly. Yeah, I’m the guy trying to get the book bubbles back together. They’re the ones that do fucking all they do is make fun of it. You know? Whatever. I still I could. I’m still a forgiving person. I like you know, bygones be bygones. I don’t give a fuck what happened in the past? I just want to, like do one and bookable show somewhere.

matt nappo 42:51
Gotcha. In the meantime, there are people who who are your fans who think you’re hysterically funny, who want to see you do something, even if it’s without them. Want to see you do something? Now I know that’s true, because some of them have already commented that in the chat room, they want to see you do your stuff. They think you’re really funny.

James Inman 43:13
Book man, like, if they’re, you know, if you’re living in some town somewhere, find the comedy club and tell the booking agent to book me

matt nappo 43:22
to stand up. You want to come to New York in the end of August. What glub glub I don’t want to mention the club yet, but I took two clubs on Long Island, probably not New York City clubs. But I you know, Booker’s from both clubs

James Inman 43:38
really well in New Jersey, like, I didn’t do so hot in Manhattan, because the audience is there. They just they just want to hear jokes. They don’t want to. They don’t want to see a character. But I got to do New Jersey with the the guy with the puppet. Um, that was real dirty. The real dirty puppet guy. Oh,

matt nappo 43:57
I forgot about Oh, George.

James Inman 43:58
Yes. I got to work with Otto and George. And I killed I was like, Oh my god, they like me in New Jersey. And after the show. Like I didn’t know how cool Otto and George was right? But I was kind of nervous around him. And he’s like, I should have you. You want to open for me. And I thought he was just joking. I should have took him up on it because he died like, like a couple years later, right?

matt nappo 44:21
I knew Otto when he first was starting out. He used to he used to he was in New Jersey. But he used to come to Long Island to play my friends dive wise. And he had some really old comedian guy was like 90 years old, who would have to drive him to the shows from New Jersey for a $75 gig. You’d have to pay somebody to drive them and then it would cost gas and tolls to get there but he would go to a gig to play a total. Yeah, that’s that’s a far back.

James Inman 44:47
Well, my jokes always worked better on the West Coast than they did the East Coast. I think

matt nappo 44:52
you’re funny. I’m an East Coast guy. So I think he would do well here anyway. You know, Big I mentioned that a lot of ingest but not so much in jest, because earlier you mentioned that you and Mischka were on the stand hosts podcast because Mitch Stanhope kept you guys together. And it was suggested that I get now i don’t think Erickson would agree to it. But it was suggested that I get you in Erickson on here and I kind of played moderator to that. Would you would you

James Inman 45:23
know, I really like to talk to Doug or Brett and just ask him, what is it that I can say and can’t say? Because, you know, when all this shit went down, like I can tell Doug didn’t want to be on his podcast because he knew he was going to talk about it. Brett doesn’t want me on issues of Andy because he knows I’m going to talk about it. It was they did the show at the there was a show down in Austin. Right. It was called the altercation Comedy Festival. Right? They invited all in bookable except me. And I thought it was a joke. And then I find out later that there’s this I can’t even talk about it because people like oh, this girl said that I called her account on Doug’s podcast. I told Brett, I was like, Brett, first of all, if I called sewing so I’m not gonna mention her name a con on Doug’s podcast. First of all, Doug would address that second of all, shaylee would edit it out. Third, I’d fucking remember that. and forth. All those podcasts are on YouTube. You can go through them. I went through them. I couldn’t find one place where I call this girl I can’t. And so that was supposed to be the reason why I couldn’t do the altercation Comedy Festival because this guy that booked it. He booked Brett. And then he booked Christine Levine and Andy. And then Mishcon. I was like, Dude, are you having an unbelievable show? I was like, I’ll do it. I mean, like, we could do an unbelievable show. No, we await you, James. You got Bubba Khan on tugs podcast like, Are you fucking out of your mind? Oh my god, it just like I fucking snapped. And here’s what pisses me off the most is in the movie. They all get together and say, James, if you don’t work this room with us tonight, if you work famous Johnny’s, we’re never gonna talk to you again, say for this little union. And they told me I got it. And what did I do? I stuck by my friends. Okay, so then we do this. This fucking altercation Comedy Festival. And I’m like, I’m talking to him. I’m like, the guys invite NaVi and buggles except me. All you have to do is tell him you’re not doing the show without James Inman. And none of them fucking take one goddamn thing. None of them had a spine. None of them told that bitch to shut the fuck up. She’s not even a comic for fuck sake. Alright, so Brad is like, I’m sorry. It’s just like the. So they do the show. Anyway, the guy that was booking and he even see he started to like, like, choose a name that sounded like the unbuckles he started to call the show the undesirables.

matt nappo 48:23
But my show was called the undesirables 35 years ago, so I’ll sue him.

James Inman 48:27
Yeah. You know, I confirmed him on Twitter and he fucking blocks me right away. Wow, this guy’s a douche. I can’t believe it. I told Brett. I said Brett, let me tell you something. It’s some douchebag tried to do a comedy show and bring all the Invincibles except you to Kansas City. I would tell that guy to fuck off. I would tell that guy if you want the in bookable you’re gonna have to bring Brett Erickson because nobody’s gonna have a fucking show. And not bring like Christina bean or Oh, we’ll want Lipski. Nope, fuck you. We’re praying Lipski now just because you said you don’t want him that’s what I would have done because you know why? Because I’m a fucking man. And I have a spine and nobody gets in between my fucking friends. It’s like the Musketeers offer run and one for all. And these policies have to fucking lay down like a bunch of goddamn little squirrels. Oh my god, I couldn’t believe it. My head almost exploded. I’m like, fuck you

matt nappo 49:34
mind can explode to I keep it up. You know, this is the first I’m hearing of your side of the story. But I’ve heard

James Inman 49:44
he’s heard my side of the story. I’ve never told this story on a podcast. I think they’d be there as one podcast that nobody saw. But it was like I can’t believe this. Are you kidding me? You know I reminded I reminded Brett to I said credit you know in the movie, you You guys all get together and say we’re gonna talk to you if you don’t work with us. I’m like, all right, so fuck you. I told the club owner to fuck off. And I stuck by my friends. Right so when they do this show off the theme it is they think it I think it’s a big deal. I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s just something fun to do. I wanted to drive down to Austin. See some my friends do goddamn show but no, James is an asshole. Yeah,

matt nappo 50:29
fuck you. Yeah. So the altercation thing. I think that none of them are doing it though. Except maybe Erickson is doing a tissue but I don’t think anybody else is on that. Am I? You know, whatever. All

James Inman 50:42
I know is I’ve one thing I’ve been born with is a good judge of character. All right, because I I’m pretty picky with the people I fucking hang out with. And whoever is running this altercation Comedy Festival, gigantic douche bag. All right, because I I can’t I’d never really met that guy. He was at one of Doug’s parties, but we never got introduced. I never said one word to that guy. I never got into an argument. I never fucked him over. I never did anything to that fucker. And all of a sudden he hates me. I might keep the guy doesn’t even know me. Hate is a strong word.

matt nappo 51:22
Maybe wavy like me what I would call uncomfortable made uncomfortable by the kind of conversations we see on on social media. Now I will tell you that all three of the guys that who fall into that group he on vocals that I’ve had on the program while they were here. They didn’t mention you and didn’t say anything bad about you at all. But in the chat room, it was lighten up and the questions were asked. Ask him Why do you think James Inman is so easily triggered? Is the word

Unknown Speaker 51:55
emotion?

James Inman 51:55
Yeah, that’s the thing because it’s little it’s Doug’s little shtick that he likes to do. And he thinks that Oh, we’ll fuck with James and we’ll get him all mad. But Doug doesn’t know that. I fucking I know what he’s doing. But I still get to say the shit to his face. Just like, you know, Brett’s like, let’s trigger James. Yeah, trigger me, Brett. I’ll tell everybody what the fuck you did in Austin, when you didn’t have the balls to tell JT the fuck off.

matt nappo 52:26
But see, this is not the way to get people to work back together.

James Inman 52:30
Funny, dude. I think it’s funny. I see. Look, one of the reasons why I didn’t watch Brett’s podcast, because it looked boring. He wasn’t saying anything. I don’t know. Maybe it’s interesting. But you know, if you’re gonna do a podcast, you know, fucking doing the podcast.

matt nappo 52:48
I thought I thought it was one of the funnier ones I’ve had. And I’ve had, I’ve got a lot of funny comedians on the program. I didn’t I don’t know,

James Inman 52:55
maybe I should watch it. But when I started doing Doug’s podcast, me and Doug will get into these arguments. And it was the most downloaded podcast I had. Therefore, why I had the two of the most downloaded Doug Stanhope podcasts because he would bring me on. And we’ve known each other since 1995. And we fucking argue and it’s funny.

matt nappo 53:19
Well, you know, didn’t stand hope have that same kind of relationship with Dane Cook for a while for all those years too. And I don’t know. I don’t ever remember Doug being friends with Dane Cook. He never was he was kind of they were rivals, but they patched it up. That’s what I meant. I mean, so at some point. Yeah, like going back to my point of before you get too old to keep keep the fights going. Keep the conflict going and just very active somehow.

James Inman 53:47
I’ve been trying to bury the hatchet. What are you talking about? Brett won’t even pick up my phone call. What? I’m trying to bury the hatchet.

matt nappo 53:58
gives a fuck or cares. Nobody. Nobody cares. So I’m not sure. Again, I think hate is too strong a word and different. Maybe, you know, I feel like I know some people who don’t like me and then professional comedians and people but I wouldn’t say they hate me. They just wish I’d go away.

James Inman 54:17
Hate is a strong word. To me. It’s just a word. It’s an easy word to say. And like you can have two baskets. You got one baskets got love, like, adore. You know, I think you’re beautiful. This basket over here is got hate aversion. dislike disinterested fucking smells like shit. Those are just words that define what I mean. Words. Do words define reality. Words point to reality. Words are not reality in and of themselves.

matt nappo 54:55
Gotcha. Okay. So I don’t think anybody really hates you. And I think You have a lot of fans out there. And again, the point the reason I’m saying is because people, people who really genuinely do have an affection for you and a great respect for you, as a comedian. Want us to want to see you just say something. That’s not you know,

James Inman 55:15
I remember before I met Doug, I used to hang out with Brody Stevens in Seattle. I was there when Brody Stevens started comedy, and so we became best friends, hung out, helped him write jokes over at his apartment. Then Tina comes along. So it was me, Taina, Yoshi, Josh wolf. It was like the young guns and we all hung out. And I was like the older kind of more experienced comic, and it was given them all pointers, but my point is, when I hung out with Brody, Stevens, we all complemented each other. It would we all watched each other’s show, we get off stage, we’d high fiving each other and Dude, you’re the master? No, you’re the master. And so that was my experience with Brody. I need Doug. Right. Doug is like a curmudgeon he makes he’s critical and he makes fun of everybody. So I’m around Doug and all his friends. Nobody ever compliments anybody. It’s it’s the complete opposite of hanging out with Brody. Stevens. Always like happy hanging out with 30 Stevens, you know, we’re all having fun. We’re all like, we liked each other. You know, here, it’s like fucking everyone’s jealous. Everyone’s angry. Everyone’s like, Oh, you suck are good. Boo Boo. You know, it’s like the like I said, the only person that occasionally will give out a compliment is Andy or Mischka. And that’s it. The rest of them, you know, they’re just, they’re negative. You know, it’s like, fucking, it’s, it’s crazy.

matt nappo 56:49
Well, I’m gonna challenge them all, to give you a compliment. Cuz I definitely know they do respect you as a comedian.

James Inman 56:58
They’re worried that Oh, he’ll get a big head if I compliment him. I’m like, dude, I already think I’m a piece of shit. I don’t need to know. I don’t like when people make fun of me. I’m like, dude, I tell myself that every day. Do you think you could tell? You could say something to me? That would be worse that I say to myself, you know, I don’t think much of myself and people think that I’m egotistical. I’m like,

matt nappo 57:25
well, well, that was kind of why I was a little bit nervous about having you on too, because you remind me a little bit of me and I hate myself. But I know that I had in the past I was I’ve had the same issues with you with people being a little bit misunderstood and been emotional and said some things on on on Twitter and Facebook.

James Inman 57:51
You know what? You wrote something on Twitter? That is what got my attention because you’ve got this this fake name, which is

matt nappo 58:00
my friend Dave Kelly. Yeah. Okay.

James Inman 58:01
All right. All right. When we were when we were like, busting each other’s balls, like Andy made some joke like, I’m not gonna do the altercation Comedy Festival this year. Because I think it’s it’s not they’re not doing it anymore. Something. That was the joke, I think. Yeah. Anyway, so you write. And this is funny, because when I read that, I was like, that’s the first time anybody’s ever said anything like that. You wrote, I wish I had a friend that I was sure would have my back like that in life. Or basically, You’re mocking Andy, you’re like, you guys didn’t have James’s back during the altercation Comedy Festival. That was like the first fucking tweet I’d ever read. That was on my side.

matt nappo 58:51
Wow, it was on my side, too. I think everybody should have each other’s backs. I think people should have each other’s back.

James Inman 58:58
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but it’s like, it’s like at during during that whole art altercation Comedy Festival. All I got were jokes about me how I was the fuckup. And I’m like, dude, you haven’t heard the real story. You know? And when you wrote that, I was like, holy shit. Who is this guy? I can’t believe that somebody actually broke the rules. rule is that you’re supposed to make fun of James you and you’re like, Oh, I’m gonna make fun of Andy for what

matt nappo 59:28
my mission is just to try to diffuse the anger again. I grew up in a household where people were yelling at each other all the time. It makes me feel uncomfortable and I maybe I’m pollyannish I want I want people to get along especially I want what I guess

James Inman 59:42
I want the same thing to what I want is the unbuckles to make fun of each other occasionally, and stop making me the center of every goddamn joke. Like how about Brett you know, make fun of Andy or Andy make fun of Mr. or Miss can make fun of brands. Dinner, or you know, fucking Christine makes fun of Doug. You know, but it’s all if you’re gonna joke about a comedian, they’re gonna fucking joke about me. I’m like, dude, leave me alone. Just like, have somebody else be the center of attention from once.

matt nappo 1:00:15
Well, you know, and that’s an unusual position for a company in the performing arts take what is crazy.

James Inman 1:00:22
Like, it makes me feel like I didn’t even want to do comedy anymore. I mean, I was like, happy when I was hanging out with Brody. Stevens, you know, we were all having fun. Now. It’s just like, fuck it, man. It’s like all the shit I went through with them bubbles and now have the only do is just like, they just make fun of it. And I’m like, Jesus Christ. You guys. Who would? Why would you make fun of the movie that you’re in? Why would you trash? The fucking The only movie that you’re in? Because this is the only movie that Brett’s been in the only movie Christine. Well, Christine was on portlandia. Alright, Andy, it’s the only movie Andy’s been on, you know?

matt nappo 1:01:05
Yeah. Well, a lot of people haven’t been in movies. But I you know what, I appreciate your side of the story, James, and I’m sorry that you feel like you’ve been made the butt of a joke or a victim?

James Inman 1:01:19
Dude, I’m just explaining it to you wanted me to explain it. That’s what my life is like,

matt nappo 1:01:25
I actually thought this was that part of the program would take about the first five minutes. It took a whole hour. Right. I get it. I get it. And I hope we can move on past that. Now. I do want to because some one thing that really interests me about you is I know, you’re very well read on. How do I say government operations, things that stare conspiracy theories and all that stuff. What is your level of interest in in that I do a lot of reading on that. And people want me to study that shit before

James Inman 1:02:02
the internet came up for the, you know, whole, you know, Microsoft boom, where everyone got a computer in like 1996 or something. I had a huge bookshelf I used to just take all I did. Before I had a computer was like three, four times a day, I just hang out at a goddamn used bookstore I bought I bought most of my books at a used bookstore. And so the subjects that I read, or I probably read every fucking half of the books on UFOs, they even find on the shelf. I’ve read almost every, like half of every book that you’ve ever seen on Buddhism. So my subjects were UFOs religion, mysticism, and conspiracy, CIA. I used to live two blocks from a library for a year. And I would just walk down the library and I read every book on the CIA, I could find, you know,

matt nappo 1:02:58
have you ever heard of the Montauk project? Yeah, I knew that guy who wrote that book very well. He was on my show a lot. The first time he was on my show, we were talking about psychotronics. But then the second time he came on the show, he brought his friend out by luck, Ed by like, I’m not sure if it was Allah Ed. But a guy claimed he was on the Philadelphia on the match, which was the Philadelphia Experiment. But the third time they came they brought Duncan Cameron who was supposedly fused with Al bielek on the Philadelphia Experiment boat, so very well steeped in all that kind of stuff.

James Inman 1:03:33
You know how all that started? What whole the whole Philadelphia Experiment?

matt nappo 1:03:40
Maybe y’all call Carlos hell yesterday. My band was called to call us on Monday treat somebody for the UFO book and Morris Jeff’s

James Inman 1:03:48
book. It was Yeah. Morris Jessup. It had all these notes in the book and it was like who wrote these, you know?

matt nappo 1:03:55
Yeah, call out and it turned out the guy Robert, I can’t remember Roberts last name now who who did the whole research on call Allen? He actually lived across the street from call Alan Fogg with the whole time and yeah, so basically caught a call Alan. Yeah. All right. They look like this all the time. And they brought the letters in compared to Wow, that’s the exact same handwriting and looked at. Okay, and so Carl Allen, Carlos. Oh, Yun de who wrote all that stuff started the Philadelphia Experiment. Yeah,

James Inman 1:04:25
yeah. Well, um, you know, one of the things I learned that I never knew was and when people think of the CIA, they think, oh, double Oh, seven, you know, assassins, and, and, and they think flipping elections and going down to Central America and starting wars and shit. A lot of people don’t realize that 50% of what the CIA does is in disinformation is in publishing, they by publishing companies, magazines well before before the internet You know, it was always, you know, newspapers, magazines, publishing companies books. I think there was one scholar That said, the CIA helped publish like over 1000 books, like nonfiction books that you find at the bookshop, you know, the bookstore. Right? Right. So, but most people think, Oh, this isn’t the CIA, don’t they do analysis? And then they also start. Yeah. But people don’t realize just how much disinformation they spread. And, you know, I came out during the church commission, where now they’re asking the head of the CIA, do you have people on your payroll that send in articles to publications? And he’s like, yes. And they’re like, do you have people on your payroll? in the news media, like CBS or ABC? Is I just a second? I like to not answer that right now. Because I’m tired. You know? Well, we’ll discuss that later. You know, so, the CIA, you know, they’ve been in this business of disinformation for since they started in 1947. Right.

matt nappo 1:06:06
I in the early 80s. I was a courier for the CIA with top secret clearance. What? Yeah, really? Yeah. From 1982 to 1986. But 86 Yeah. actually worked for the CIA. Yeah. And the CIA is not supposed to have any interest in domestic affairs. We’re only supposed right exactly, but that’s the seed. They Truman Harry Truman when they signed the the National Security Act that was one of the things that they he got, you know, Allen Dulles to promise you know, you could do all this shit, but don’t do anything in the United States, you know, but since that time, we like found evidence that they have done shit inside the United States. Right, so I want to get your take on this now, lately, the Pentagon’s coming out with a lot of and other Air Force and other entities within our government are coming out and saying a lot of stuff about UFOs now Do you believe Do you believe this stuff they’re saying? Oh, dude, I yes. UFOs exists? They’ve not I’m not asking if they exist. Do you believe the stories the government is telling because you just said they’ve been they’ve been very responsible for misinformation and disinformation. So do you believe the stories that are coming

James Inman 1:07:26
well see disinformation is is part true and part untrue so so when the CIA tells you something like part of it can be true? So they’re probably really are like unexplained craft in in the air? They’ve been? They’ve been looking at this shit since the 50s. You know, they. And so yes, those some of those videos that they released are probably real UFOs.

matt nappo 1:07:53
Yeah. Even be on the air. One of the statements that came out of the Pentagon was that they were in possession of a craft not of this earth, which naza mean, it’s in the air means they have physical craft remains or acquit. Do you believe that?

James Inman 1:08:09
Well see, in 19 I think it was 1947. That’s when Roswell happened. And so that’s been pretty well documented. And since then, there’s other crashes that have happened, that there’s eyewitnesses there’s there’s like, like all kinds of so there was like one in Mexico, there was one outside of Chillicothe, Missouri. There’s there’s been a lot of strange eyewitness reports of there was a woman like so these were were like this, this, this woman and her grandmother and her son, they all got like sunburn. And it was radiation. And they saw this diamond shaped craft like it looked like it wasn’t really it was about ready to crash or something. And it was kind of hovering. And it was going real slow and there was like, like six or seven helicopters flying around it because we can track anything in the sky. We’ve been able to with satellites and and radar and shit whenever there’s an unknown object. We have to know what the fuck that thing is. Why they scramble jets to find out what is it It could be a it could be a plane from another country, you know, that have its has its transponder turned off or whatever, you know. So that’s one of the reasons why they they they know there’s so much shit in the air. They they also used to have, you know, these planes, a lot of these bombers that used to go on those bombing runs where they keep the plane up in the air, just during the Cold War, you know, so they’d have a short period The time that they had to attack well on those planes where the gun cameras and so they’ve I’m sure they’ve got all kinds of fucking really good film of unexplained craft that it’s not Russian not Chinese. It’s not American and it’s moving fast.

matt nappo 1:10:18
Yeah. So I’m having somebody on the program Friday at 1pm or I want to make sure I get her I think so Myra Mercy is a name. Oh, yeah. Oh, my mercy. She’s claimed to have been abducted. And it and had some, according to some physical proof of it. Anyway, so that’s it one, one o’clock Friday. I’m just curious now not what you know, but what you believe about extraterrestrials? What is what? What do you do you believe there are extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth and walk the walk on on the earth in our lifetime?

James Inman 1:10:55
Yeah, yeah, I think there’s, like 200 million stars in our galaxy, right? What, eight, nine planets around our star, our sun is just a star. So all it has to happen is there’s probably some planets out there that can sustain life, and they have intelligent life. And those those people are able to build crafts that are able to travel long distances, just like we build ships, and we came from, you know, Spain, and we got in a goddamn ship. It took a few days, but we finally got to America, you know, so and that’s, you know, heck, we only invented the airplane 100 years ago, and now we got jets flying around. Right?

matt nappo 1:11:43
If you believe in the moon landing, and I do yeah. 66 years between the Wright brothers and Neil Armstrong.

James Inman 1:11:50
Yes, we really did go to the moon. I’m all the cost really happened. The earth is round. It’s not flat. I get I hate it when people like lump me in with all the other conspiracy theorists. You know, when this, this COVID-19 thing happened at right when it happened, it sounded like a leaked bio weapon to me and I started looking around. I told I didn’t say anything on social media, because I knew they’re banning people. Anybody that started saying that, you know, COVID might be a leak. bioweapon did get banned on Twitter, fucking YouTube or Facebook. So I kept my mouth shut. And I told my parents I told my, my girlfriend I told all my friends. I was like, dude, I think this elite bio weapon, and they looked at me like I was fucking crazy. year later. That’s what they’re saying.

matt nappo 1:12:39
No, that’s not exactly what they’re saying. People are still saying what it is, is a gaming function accident. Where? Because the original? No, no, no gain of function happened in the United States. I used to be in pathology too. So I know about this stuff. That gain of function was outlawed by the Obama administration. Domestically, they put it over in China, but we still funded it. Right gate gain of function means it was studying the advancement of the disease within bats and mammals and one of the bat better technician, the technician went home from work that day, and spread it to everybody. That’s that’s not necessarily a bio weapon. That’s it.

James Inman 1:13:20
Right, right, you’re right. It’s not an actual bio weapon. But the reason why they have BSL four Labs is they tell people Oh, we’re trying to study these viruses, but every technology, every fucking technology, whether it’s you know, you know, something algorithm, or it could be some technology for you know, the internet or network. All of that shit is used by the goddamn, my phone is going off.

matt nappo 1:13:53
It’s fine. Well, that’s exactly why we outlawed it here, because the probability of that accident happened was extremely high. And we knew it. But But I don’t know what

James Inman 1:14:02
I mean is, I guess what I’m trying to say is every technology is used by the Pentagon, the military, whatever fucking is. So if we got the technology to go into a virus and change the goddamn DNA, or add gain a function to make it a more dangerous virus, you’re telling me the military wouldn’t be interested in that?

matt nappo 1:14:24
Of course, they would be interested in it, but I don’t think the current the one that we responded to, was that at all I think it was again a function accident that we knew any fool could see happen. And it’s like, you know, you’re driving down a car where you give a drunk guy the keys, you know, he’s gonna crash into something. Yeah,

James Inman 1:14:43
but see, I mean, I’m not done, man. I mean, these these, these people in the military, they know what could possibly happen. You know, an enemy could possibly spread a bio weapon. So then what do they do? They have to come up with a vaccine. That’s why these BSL three and BSL four labs, they, they fuck with the virus and then they also create a vaccine for that virus, right. So that’s where they come up with the technology for these vaccines. So if you’re dumb enough to not take a goddamn vaccine, when they suspect it might be a goddamn gain of function leak, I won’t say by a weapon, a leaked virus from the Wu Han virology Institute. I mean, come on, this is the time to take a goddamn vaccine.

matt nappo 1:15:37
All right. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. Any other big conspiracy things that you think need to be known about that are going on right now?

James Inman 1:15:51
Oh, I’m the most the thing that I’m most interested in is probably the, the COVID-19 thing. But before that, um, you know, I think it was a little odd. The whole attack on the on the Congress or whatever the January 6. insurrection, I think was a little strange. It’s a little hard for me to believe that our intelligence agencies, our Pentagon, and all of our security services, had no idea something like that was gonna happen. You know, I

matt nappo 1:16:30
knew it was gonna happen.

James Inman 1:16:31
Yeah. I knew it was gonna happen. I think they went ahead and they I think they knew that these guys didn’t have guns and they were gonna go there and cause a lot of shit. Okay, well, I guess like, this is where I’m getting I’m getting to you’re asking me another conspiracy theory I’m interested in is I think that whole q anon thing was a disinformation psyop. You know, I think that what what q anon is, is like they mix in some truth and some complete bullshit. And they they get a bunch of people believe in it. So this group of people who like guns end up it what it does, is it discredits groups in organizations? If you look at what they did in the 60s with, you know, trying to discredit, you know, a Martin Luther King, you know, trying to discredit the weatherman or any of these movements that happened in the 60s. That’s how you stop a movement from growing, you know, what, you know, an interesting thing. I always believe that, um, that Charles Manson, that whole thing was to put an end to the hippie movement. And, and so I always thought that maybe I was like a nutbag for believing that, that, you know, Charles Manson could be some kind of a, you know, CIA stooge to fuck up the hippie movement. Turns out, there’s a guy that just wrote a

matt nappo 1:18:03
book, Tom O’Neill. Yeah,

James Inman 1:18:05
yeah, it’s called chaos, where he talks about all these strange things that were where somebody was always there to help out Charles Manson, you know, and he gets out of jail early, and he goes down to Mexico and, and they were gonna fuckin they didn’t arrest him for the longest time. That’s the guy you need to interview is that

matt nappo 1:18:25
I I’ve had, I’ve asked him my fourth time, believe me, I’m on that guy spent 20 years researching that book, right. But there was a book in 1980 that came out Paul Watkins, who was within the Manson circle, who wrote a similar book that books been buried, and you can’t even find it anymore. I read it in 1982. And about the inside of the Manson family about how he started in the, the hate district with the CIA using him and for misinformation purposes really got that and infiltrating the hippies. Yeah. And, and Paul kind of nailed that in his book in 1980. And I know, Tom kind of makes some reference to that. And I think he got inspired by that his book goes much further, I want to get him on here because he knows all the stuff.

James Inman 1:19:13
Believe the CIA was, was trying to infiltrate or was or had the Jim Jones, you know, group infiltrated, like that was some kind of psyop, you know, to stop. Because Christianity in Central America and South America, it was kind of taken a left wing. There was this thing called the, what was it called? There’s a type of Christianity that’s like a socialist version of Christianity, liberation theology was growing down in Central America. And so a lot of these Catholic priests were becoming like Marxist, you know, and so the theory is that they sent down Jim Jones, who was this guy Mixing socialism with Christianity. And he does this giant suicide thing. So like nobody ever wants to mix socialism with Christianity ever again. Well,

matt nappo 1:20:13
that’s only one john, john Sam for you if you’re counting references to Andy and is 666 John’s Right, right. That’s a pretty wild conspiracy theory. But I’ve already I’ve already exposed a little of myself here tonight about the CIA, CIA. Talking to a CIA agent. I wasn’t an agent. I was a courier. Yeah, I was just bringing envelopes that stuff like yeah, this whole podcast is here to discredit me. Right. But I also told you of my work in pathology, but I also worked in a cult and worked for a cult and I’ve had several cult members on the program, including people who were Yeah, yeah, I work for a cult that was a healing cult. It was basically a four year school where they teach you to hands on the healing butts hands over healing while you’re moaning stuff in the shop. But, but they the leader of the cult channel that a guide from Atlanta is called Hey, when I was the audio visual technician, meaning, you know, videotape in audio, and every time you go into chance, if you’d be talking as Hey, went for it, and for some reason Hey, when we sounded Asian was a list he’d be talking about in Canada and she’d open one eye and look at me like my mic, make it louder, and go and go right back into for 1200 people that really thought you worked on what they called the the goddess every Sunday morning she had a god

James Inman 1:21:38
that’s depressing. You know, some of those Colts in some of those, those wacky religions, they fuck it up for real? Like, I study religion. Like, I’ve been studying the doubt aging for years. I’ve studied Buddhism for years. Because there’s a couple crazy people like Jim Jones, like Charles Manson, or like this eeling called the urine. Does it mean that all religions are bullshit?

matt nappo 1:22:05
I would agree that I you know, I’m, I’m really open to the idea open minded to the idea of faith and all this kind of stuff. But I think well, religion, any organ, anytime we get organized about stuff, it kind of becomes corrupt people, people can operate with that corruption

James Inman 1:22:21
I never think of it is it’s like we’re we only know we’re like, we’re like a fish. And we’re like a goldfish in a little goldfish bowl, we don’t really know what it’s like over in the east, you know, over in Asia with Buddhism and Taoism, they look at things completely different than we do. So when you say, you know, America has some of the dumbest Christian churches that are nowhere near what Christ taught, we all know that, but you know, over in the East in Asia, you know, it’s all about the, they don’t really care about the world, they’re, they’re more interested in the mind, like what’s going on inside your own mind. So a lot of the for Buddhism, they don’t even have a preacher, you know, they just okay, you want to be a Buddhist monk. Okay, sit down, meditate on nothingness for eight hours, there’s no God to believe in, there’s no, there’s no pastor or, you know, it’s like, you’re stuck with yourself. You have to learn how to meditate. And so there’s this it’s, it’s everything’s turned around in, in the religions of the East. They’re more concerned with psychology than they are with, like stupid laws, you know, whether you know, it’s wrong for gay people get married or abortions wrong, you know, that doesn’t even they don’t even care, you know?

matt nappo 1:23:50
Yeah, I wouldn’t argue against that. What I would say is, there’s no organization over there, you’re talking about the guy who paid the monks up in the top of Mount Everest. I there’s no real organization there of like, you know, Vatican’s, and whatever organization I serve, I mean,

James Inman 1:24:06
the Buddha he lived until he was 90. So he created the Sangha, which is the order of monks and be a monk you have to follow these rules. If you break the rule. They kick your ass out. Unlike the Catholic Church, you know, he’d start fucking kids. They’d like they know them. I’m not

matt nappo 1:24:25
sure that’s against the rules. I’m not sure that’s against the rules. I just think it’s an unwritten rule.

James Inman 1:24:30
Yeah, it’s every Catholic priest has to take a vow of celibacy. But Buddhist monks, not every monk has to take a vow of celibacy, because they know that it’s hard as fuck to never have sex ever again. So not all the monks, you know, take that vow. If you take a vow of celibacy. That means you got to stick to that vow.

matt nappo 1:24:55
I get it. Yeah, so there’s a lot of that stuff but I think all in all, it If we look at the religions, that mainstream religions that we talk about people joining them, and I don’t like, I want to be open minded and respectful of people’s ideas and beliefs, but when you get to organize I really have a problem with with all.

James Inman 1:25:16
Yeah, I mean, the thing of it is I, when people say, organized religion, I’m like, there’s like, there’s all kinds of organizations. You know, it’s like, I don’t really know what people are talking about the what the only thing I know about religion is my parents. They never sent us to church. My parents never talked about when you grew up in the Bible Belt, right? Yeah, I was, I was raised in Kansas City. But when I was growing up, they never sent us to church. They never talked about the Bible. They rarely talked about God. And so I found out later that they wanted us to, like, decide on our own what we were, what religion we were, or if we believe in God or not. So I didn’t start right studying religion. I didn’t go to church. Basically, I just went to bookstores. And I started reading every book on religion that I can find, because I figured if I went to a church that have their own doctrine, you know, so I just wanted to learn, like, what is basic Christianity? 101? You know, what is basic Buddhism one on one? What are the, what are the core principles of this philosophy, theology, or whatever, you know, and so that’s kind of, you know, when I talk about religion, I’m talking about the bookstore, the section that says the religion section where you can find the Bhagavad Gita, you can find the doubt Asian, you can find the dhammapada or the Aponte shots. You know, that’s what I love. I just love the the ancient mystical texts. That’s what I like.

matt nappo 1:26:54
So a lot of comedians are atheists, and I know we’re getting better. We’re way over time. And we’re gonna wrap it up soon. But I want to get your take on this. A lot of comedians are atheists, and I can understand that. I mean, you look at the myths and stuff about Wow, God is supposed to be. But now science is saying, No, a lot of scientists are saying some very smart scientists are saying, not only is there a God, but there’s God is a computer geek with the laptop who’s created this whole simulation? Right? What we learned universe? What, what do you what is your?

James Inman 1:27:29
Well, I mean, about what for when I first heard the simulated Universe Theory, I was like, that’s nothing new or different. The Buddha talked about the same thing. 2500 years ago, basically, the Buddha said that all life is an illusion. And, you know, all this stuff is impermanent. So the only thing that really matters is your own mind and how you perceive the world. Your own perceptions are what’s important, because this world is always changing. You know, you, your parents grow old and die, you know, your girlfriend, she might may not love you anymore, she’s gone. You get a new girlfriend, people come and go, people die. The world. I mean, buildings get old and they fucking tumble. I mean, there’s nothing in this world that is permanent. So it’s it’s it’s illusory. It’s it’s a lot like an illusion, even though it seems real. It’s not real, like a million years from now the earth is going to fall into the sun. So, um, I guess, what was your question

matt nappo 1:28:36
about simulation theory, whether you believed in it or not. And it

James Inman 1:28:40
sounds like the simulated Universe Theory sounds like Buddhism, where everything’s an illusion. It’s sort of like in in Hinduism, they have a concept called Maya, and aura. Laila, Laila is the dance of the universe. So whether you call it a simulation created by computer or whether you call it Laila, you’re putting up word, you’re trying to define something. And basically, it’s all the same shit. You know, it’s this fake world.

matt nappo 1:29:13
So this idea of everything being an illusion, and it’s whatever your mind decides is an illusion is reality. Is it you subscribe to that.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:24
Think? Well. I know. I mean, it’s your mind creates reality. You know, a lot of people think that’s bullshit. They’re like, you can’t, you know, lift up a glass of water with your mind. It’s not like that. It’s more like you in your mind, you have the power to choose what you what your perceptions are. You have the power to choose what you focus on. You can sit down and meditate. Or you can you could it every event that happens in the world, it’s up to you on how you determine how you look at that experience, you know. So you’re, you have, a lot of people don’t realize how much power they have in their mind, just with that little bit of freedom. Now, if you’re psychotic or mentally ill, they have no control over their mind, you know, but, but the Hindus believe that deep deep down inside, they’re still this self, they call it the self with a capital S. It’s like the soul or, you know, the spirit or, you know, the deep, deep mind. There’s something in us that is never changing. It’s always there. It’s immutable, immemorial, indestructible. And so, the Hindus believe that God is within.

matt nappo 1:30:57
Right, okay, now, wrapping this up, bringing it back. 360 completely what you just said, your mind is in control of your reality, all that stuff. I happen to agree with much of that and try to practice it as much as possible. But bringing that back to your situation with the unbuckles and your reality that you perceive that everybody hates you. And once you’re on the outside, kick, kick. Don’t you have the power in your mind to just let go of that perception? I’m also kind of like, part of my mind is joking to dude. Okay. I started by saying, I don’t know when comedians are joking anymore. I become. And Brandon did this to me more than anybody. Oh, yeah. He just fucking mindfuck me so much that I don’t know what’s real and what’s not real, right?

James Inman 1:31:43
Yeah, Brendan. Brendan is he’s a big fan of pranks. And so it’s Doug. So Doug’s a big fan of pranks. So I kind of what I do is like, like, I do a judo trick where I use truth, to fuck with his pranks, you know? Because to me, you know, what’s real? is actually funnier than than his little fake prank. Gotcha. That explain it to you.

matt nappo 1:32:10
Yes. Yeah. So I do appreciate you taking an hour and a half to spend this night with me. I’m sure you had better things you could have been doing, than hanging out with me tonight. But you You’re a good sport. And you came here. And I think, you know, dispelled a lot of my misunderstandings about you from what I’ve read on on social media and I hope we we’ve done you some kind of service. I want to ask though, and I don’t think I don’t have a lot of confidence that I can do this. But if I can get one of those guys to come on, and talk to you live on a program and me kind of be like a crossfire moderator would you be open to that?

James Inman 1:32:48
Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you this. They won’t do it. You’re not gonna get lucky. I really, there’s no way in hell, you’re gonna get Brett Erickson to talk to me on a podcast about what happened at the altercation comedy festival? I doubt if you know fuckin Andy and even do it. There’s no way.

matt nappo 1:33:11
I never say no to everything. But I agree. I agree that it’s extremely, extremely unlikely. Yeah.

James Inman 1:33:19
about it, dude. Last thing he wants to talk about because, you know, he does want to look bad, because he knows that if people find out the story, and they’re like, Are you kidding me? The disease can be a laughingstock.

matt nappo 1:33:33
I agree, it probably won’t happen. But I think the the numbers that that program would draw would be pretty big. And

James Inman 1:33:42
the only reason I keep bringing it up is because one day I want Brett to learn how to laugh at himself, and and accept that he fucked up. Because this time, all have actually fucked up because none of them really stuck together and said, I don’t want to do this show without James, you know that none of them had the balls to do that. So it’s not just Brett’s fault. It’s Andy. It’s Christine. It’s Mischka. None of them stood up for me. They could have said something. You know.

matt nappo 1:34:13
It’s like on the waterfront.

James Inman 1:34:15
Yeah. Right, Brett, you know, he totally is my brother. Yeah. He’s like, this isn’t all my fault. Like he’s right. It’s not all his fault. It’s It’s fucking all of their fault for

matt nappo 1:34:28
I’ve been. I got kicked out of the band that I started over a girl one time, so I can understand how you feel about that. Yeah, I don’t

James Inman 1:34:38
like who’s kicked out. This isn’t even a band. It’s just all I want to do. One show? How hard can it be?

matt nappo 1:34:46
Oh, it can be very difficult. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I do appreciate your giving me your side of story. I look forward to maybe having you back on sometime. I would love that. Yeah, have you back up. We’ll talk about everything. But the envelope balls There you go. I think we got that off my chest and I appreciate everybody coming by I do thank you for stopping by and, you know, facing all the questions and not dodging any of them and telling me like, like, you know, thank you. Alright. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Bye for now. All right, James Amen, folks. You heard his story. I’d love to hear what your take on tonight is you can write to me at info at mind dog tv.com. I gotta check this banner off one second. There we go. Ah, interesting to hear James’s take on all this stuff. And I know that they all the chat rooms were lit up even the twitch chat room, which is a little bit different. We don’t usually see that going on. So I want to thank everybody for coming by. I’m curious as to what your take on tonight’s program again, write to me at info at mindful tv.com I didn’t read my sponsor tonight. fundwise capital, I gotta say they stood up and they were ready to sponsor tonight’s program if I were to read the stuff, and they said, and actually when I called him and said, You know the sponsor drop me tonight. Can you guys fill in? They said sure. And it says Why did they want to drop you? And I said basically, what the comedian that was having on was too risky. And they said I don’t care if you haven’t James in Milan, and I’d stopped for a second and then I heard him laughing He said I know you haven’t I watched I watched your schedule so they had no problem to fundwise Capital good booth for them. The link will be in the description anyway. I’m not going to read their head but their Stand Up Guys speaking of stand up, guys. They don’t care. I mean, as long as you’re standing by us, they stand by me. Good people from Lowe’s capital. Tomorrow, I got Joshua Shea talking about porn addiction at 1pm how to beat your porn addiction. And to me how to beat your porn addiction. If you want to beat it, stop beating it. Pretty simple. 1pm Joshua Shea how to beat your porn addiction. Till then I’m Matt nappo for the mind dog TV podcast. Thanks for coming, folks. Have a great rest of your night and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brett Erickson – Damn The Consequences

 

Brett Erickson is a comedian and writer based in Austin, Texas. A fearless, back-of-the-room comic’s comic, Brett delivers a dynamic, free-form show that’s consistently out front of anything any other comics are doing. It was just this sort of brave, bold, damn the consequences style that led legendary comedian Doug Stanhope to take notice and call Brett, “one of the funniest comics working today.” Quick on his feet and a great joke writer,

Brett is becoming one of the most popular acts in L.A. with numerous appearances on Roast Battle at The Comedy Store, a competition he has only lost once when he was defeated by a fat, bald jerk who should just go back to London! He is the creator, writer and editor of the satirical Brietbart parody website, Brettbart. A “News” organization that’s been called a brilliant Onion-style takedown of the alt-right.

Follow Brett On Twitter to know when and where he’ll be performing: https://twitter.com/iBrettmypants I

SSUES WITH ANDY PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/Issueswithandy http://www.brettericksoncomedy.com/

MinddogTV PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/minddogtv

Sponsors: https://enticeme.com/#minddog https://podmatch.com/signup/minddogtv

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Episode Transcript
matt nappo 0:25
And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here. As always, we’re gonna have some fun tonight. Just a brief programming note before we get started. April Burke was supposed to be with me tomorrow, great comedian, local comedian. She’s not going to make it tomorrow. She’s got some health issues that came up. We will be rescheduling probably early next week, I’ll let you know when that’s gonna happen. We have a great comedian with with us tonight. You know, stand up comedians, generally, for the most part, very intelligent, very smart people. There are a few exceptions. But even like, those few exceptions, are pretty intelligent in in a lot of ways, and some of them are intentionally dumbing down the material to play to a larger audience for a bankroll. So they’re not all that stupid. So let’s just take it on face value that stand up comedians are smarter than the average bear type of person. Now, my guest tonight is known by his peers, his contemporaries and fans. As a very smart comedian, somebody who is very cerebral in his comedy, you need to think about it. You can’t just get her debt. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to go there. But let’s just say he’s smart among the smartest. So it’s my pleasure to have him here tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears, open your minds and help me welcome in Brent Erickson to the mind. Oh, TV podcast. Brett, welcome. That’s exactly what I was talking about that bad, bad. trying to think of the look I should have. Well, you see the, the idea. The idea behind that intro is to put all the pressure on you, and all the expectation that you’re going to be really smart and really funny, and zero expectation that I might even come close to being smart or funny. So I

Brett Erickson 2:24
will find out. I can’t I cannot guarantee you that I will be smart, but I can guarantee you. I’ll be drunk.

matt nappo 2:32
Okay. Well. Thanks for having me on. It’s my pleasure to have you on and I got to tell you, bad eight months ago on the show, I made a really bad prediction. I said that. If comedians were stocks, I would urge everybody to put all their money into bread, Erickson, my thinking was that I had heard everybody was making an exodus from LA, which I think is the epicenter of comedy on planet Earth. And go into Austin, Texas, and I said, Brett’s gonna be the only real comedian left in LA. The spotlights gonna be on him. All of a sudden, he’s gonna get all this attention. You can see HBO calling, and he’s gonna have specials. And now I understand you’re in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Yeah. What was that you said about being a smart guy. Wow. Yes, grab that bullshit. I’m in Austin, Texas, man. So what is the aside from any income tax? What is the real benefit of being located in Austin, Texas for the comedian’s.

Brett Erickson 3:36
I can only speak to the real benefit for me being in Austin, Texas. And that is the fact that my wife has been hired to manage Joe Rogan’s new comedy club. So when that happens, you go, Wow, congratulations.

matt nappo 3:51
Congratulations to

Brett Erickson 3:54
you. Wow. Thanks. She’s great. she’s a she’s one of the best goddamn people and bartenders in equal measure that there is and she was the, if you’ve been to the Comedy Store, you may have seen her she ran the VIP comics only bar in the back. And yeah, so you know, she hit it off with all the comics too. And now she’s gonna be running Joe’s club. So that’s pretty exciting. So yeah, so we decided to come to Austin, but I’ll tell you, I do I do enjoy Los Angeles very, very much. So I do miss it.

matt nappo 4:29
Yeah. I didn’t know Rogen was opening the club. Good for him. Yeah. Gotta do something with all that money. Probably. Yeah. And to figure out what what he could do with all that extra gas now. So I understand, I think anyway, I understand because I went to your website to look at dates and I didn’t see it, but I understand you’re going to Alaska. I this is what I

Brett Erickson 4:50
love about you. This is how much of a professional this man is. I looked at on the tweet you put out today about the show, and I looked at my bio that you You, you cut and pasted from my website, and I noticed that you’ve updated it for

a real professional operation. Oh, I already forgot the question. What was it Alaska? You’re going to go into it? Yeah, I don’t here’s the thing. I don’t update my goddamn What? Does anybody updated their actual website anymore? No, I don’t know that they do. I think I already spend more time than I want to on social media. I, I recently have been pulling back from social media, just because I needed to for my head, my brain. And, and I like that when I started out doing comedy, there wasn’t social media, you know, you you called the comedy clubs, you sent them tapes. They hired you. They did the promotion. You went to the show. That was it. I liked it that way. Now, obviously, I you know, old man yelling a cloud right now, but it’s not the way it’s gonna be. But I just you know, there’s just too much of that shit. And I definitely not I didn’t get into stand up comedy to be a website designer. No, I can’t, you know, so I so I don’t so but I but to your question, I do remember it now. This time, I am going to Alaska. I’ll be up in Alaska. Next week at chilkoot. Charlie’s on the 10th 11th and 12th of June so if you got any people up there in Anchorage, come on out. The Kyoko Charlie’s is a legendary place.

matt nappo 6:38
I was looking at my demographics. And my analytics today to notice I have, I think 30 unique listeners. And there you go.

Brett Erickson 6:48
Look, I’m not even lying. Luckily for me, I am just at the level of success where 30 people would make a big difference. So if even some of them come out, that’ll be nice. And our good friend from the issues with Andy podcast, Mr. Greg shaylee. will be there with me in Alaska. And you could see him too.

matt nappo 7:11
If you’ve had. Have you done Alaska before? Many times? Yeah, I’ve been up there a lot. That’s why I’m asking you why I even brought up Alaska. When you go there? And do you feel like you have to make your material even more edgy or as edgy as possible. Knowing the audience is going to be rapists, murderers and killers. Yeah, yeah.

Brett Erickson 7:36
I dial back my, my liberal politics a little bit. Yeah, because everybody’s got a gun.

matt nappo 7:47
Well, I’ve had several guests who went to Alaska and ended up doing eight or 10 years in jail. See, at probably a handful of probably maybe five or six people who actually went to Alaska for a good time or vacation a fishing trip and ended up going to jail for assault, robbery or something. It seems like a very wild west place and doesn’t seem like a good place for it. Yeah,

Brett Erickson 8:15
yeah, I’m not I you know, it’s interesting because shaylee and I and his lovely paramour, Tracy, and a few other friends are going to go after we do the shows. We’re going to get in an RV and we’re going to drive up into Denali National Park to see Mount Denali, the old Mount McKinley, for you old timers, and we’re gonna go camping for a couple of days. And that’s gonna be exciting, because it’s gonna be the summer solstice.

matt nappo 8:43
I bet you The weather is better there than it is here.

Brett Erickson 8:47
It’s amazing. It’s 24 hours of sunlight. And it’ll be you know, nice 50s to 70s I think something like that. I’m guessing I don’t know what the temperature is going to be. But the goddamn sun’s gonna be out at midnight. And I’m excited to see that that’ll be.

matt nappo 9:00
Well, a good luck and I hope I hope you make it back to Austin. I really do and don’t. Don’t go to jail. Don’t hang out with any day. Show.

Brett Erickson 9:09
Here’s the deal. Greg Chaille. used to work at Chilkoot Charlie’s. That’s how he met Doug. Stanhope and Mitch Hedberg and all the guys that he’s worked with through the years and how we ended up meeting. So he’s a veteran. He lived in Anchorage for 10 or 15 years or something like that. And he’s like my little Mount Everest Sherpa. You know what I mean? Like, I’ll stay close to him. I keep a hand on his back. Like I’m a blind man crossing the street. And I’ll make it back to Austin,

matt nappo 9:34
where we keep a hat on and cover cover that because I would think in Alaska probably doesn’t go too well. Yeah,

Brett Erickson 9:41
yeah, he does look like it looks like a chicken just hatching from its egg.

matt nappo 9:48
Yeah. Okay.

Brett Erickson 9:52
Tough to chicken hair popping out.

matt nappo 9:54
Well, it seems like a nice chicken. I I noticed the few times he’s meant to me he’s called it mind Mad Dog radio. Yeah. Which is not good at reading. He’s a bad reader, but actually I he’s kind of psychic because that’s how I got my start. 35 years ago it was mad dog originally and I was on the radio, but he would know that

Brett Erickson 10:17
let’s talk radio where you sound definitely. As soon as I heard your voice, I thought this is definitely a radio guy. Did you know that I was a radio guy. I know that well, maybe maybe if I updated my goddamn website. I have my violin. I was a I did radio in Illinois. I grew up in Illinois and I graduated from college I went and started working in Peoria, Illinois and radio and yeah, big time. And I had a morning radio show at a couple different stations for a while in the 90s. And I thought well this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be around forever radio and and then I got fired from a couple stations and I just said fuck it I’m gonna go do stay I’d been doing I was doing a little stand up as a time just because I had all the I did what you what you’re doing I had all the I interviewed all the comedians on my my radio show I hosted at the club in town. And then when the radio station told me to take a long walk off a short Pier, I said, Alright, I’ll I’ll do stand up for a while. And that was in 1999.

matt nappo 11:26
Yeah, wow. Yeah.

Brett Erickson 11:28
Yeah. I love radio though, man. I loved it. If I didn’t see that, you know, it looks to me like towns like Peoria and even a little bigger. We’re drying up for radio broadcast talent

matt nappo 11:43
everywhere it is and especially at that time with everybody going to satellite and I think satellite is even on its way out now giving away to digital streaming radio and that kind of stuff. But when I was there I got in it for I was doing an overnight show with crazy people. I mean, UFO people Bigfoot people. Go gigs, all that kind of stuff. My dad. Yeah, that’s cool. Right? You an Art Bell fan? You probably get asked this. Yeah, of course. I had him on my show a couple of times interviewed him a couple times. I had the other Art Bell on just a couple of weeks ago via the other Art Bell being the guy who founded Comedy Central. Who’s that? Do I know that? I Belk founded Comedy Central Oh,

Brett Erickson 12:28
there’s a he’s name is actually Art Bell. There’s Yeah. I thought you were gonna tell me you talked to George Nori. No, I

matt nappo 12:37
talked to Jeremy north. No,

Brett Erickson 12:42
I used to love art. Well, I’ll tell you, you probably know this from talking to comics, especially if you talk to guys who were road dogs in the you know, 90s and early 2000s. Art Bell was just a part of it. Because you drove you were always driving overnight somewhere. And this was before you know Sirius XM and all that shit. You just you drive across the Dakotas. And you’d get Art Bell for a while when you were outside of appear. And then you drive and you’d be trying to make it to Bismarck and it fade out a little bit. And then you’d have to tune it in on another thing. And Eddie catch it again for a second. I used to love that shit.

matt nappo 13:17
Yeah, I did too. And I used to travel because I was you know, doing going from different band to different band at that time while he was on the radio. And during the night, he would try to tune him in wherever he could got a little spooky when you were all by yourself sometimes going from two o’clock in the morning and you’re listening to that stuff. Yeah. But what really burnt me out on that it’s just the whole conspiracy stuff. And I thought at that time, it was getting to it was getting over overloaded with conspiracies and people just going nuts and never saw the place where we beat today. Unbelievable. It’s really insane. So and I know that you’re among the let’s bring in that banner. So we can kind of promote the issues with Andy podcast a little bit. Yeah,

Brett Erickson 14:08
take my stupid fucking website down off the bottom of there. I know one don’t go there unless you want to see the updates. on issues with Andy, that’s where you go for

matt nappo 14:19
that. That’s an older picture from about 13 episodes ago, but patreon.com slash issues with any brand is one of the four co hosts on that program. Now, I know where the name came from, but the concept of the show seems to be and maybe I have it wrong. Maybe there was no concept. Let’s again, let’s get together and do a podcast but it seems to be let’s let Andy talk your role seems to be to keep the public informed of where Andy’s going and kind of fill in the gaps of the things he forgets to say and Charlie is there for the comic relief with the images and stuff and then Chad just drinks and smokes, and then when everything is said, Yeah, but what was their intent a content meeting that said, what are we going to do? Or you guys just said that let’s get together and have a podcast? Yeah, it

Brett Erickson 15:10
was definitely more of the latter. And then it just sort of became the Well, I mean, it worked out perfectly, because we ended up calling it issues with Andy because at the beginning, and he kept having problems, figuring out how his computer worked and how Skype and he couldn’t get this and his microphone wouldn’t work. And we would all be there and we could hear him and see him but he couldn’t see us and he’d be going back to me because it is screaming and messing with stuff and we’d laugh at him. So that’s how we came up with the name and then but it it kind of just organically became his vehicle. I mean, it was just for friends hanging out to do a podcast. And it’s just it’s such a good vehicle for the mind for his brain.

matt nappo 15:56
That is

Brett Erickson 15:58
it really just you know, it it I have absolutely no problem. I’ve known Andy for so long. I have a he makes me laugh so hard that I have no problem. I don’t consider it taking a backseat. It’s more like this show is like Abbott Abbott, Abbott and Costello and it takes three Abbott’s to rein in one Costello in this case, because Andy’s fucking crazy but in a beautiful mind sort of way. And I think we described at one time as, as the three of us exist as those, those rubber bumpers that they put in the bowling alleys when the kids are bowling. The ball doesn’t always go in the gutter. Ghandi will be telling a story and he hits the gutter over here. And then we got to bounce him back into the middle of the lane. Then he hits it over here. We send him back this way. And it’s a damn blast. I love it.

matt nappo 16:53
Yeah, well, I have to say and no smoke. It’s the absolute best use of podcast technology ever got it? You know, it’s I don’t know if it was accidental. But it’s a stroke of genius, the way he is allowed to just kind of freestyle and you guys serve your roles. I noticed on a episode about three weeks ago that you and I were in sync on a therapeutic level of Oh, wait a minute, we’ve had a breakthrough here. When Andy was talking about porn film, he got aroused. As a young man about running at Marilyn chambers running at the same moment and hit me it’s like, wait a minute. This means something we’ve we’ve cracked the guy’s psyche a little bit. Has he developed and grown from that from that piece of it?

Brett Erickson 17:48
You know, that particular piece of enlightenment? I’m not sure sometimes I think it he’s a little bit like a bucket with a hole in it.

You know, like, you fill it up at full and then it’s not full again, you got to fill it back up. He so I don’t know that he keeps it connected. But that was something because I’ve I’ve been with him. I’ve traveled with him numerous times. And he’s that’s not new behavior. Being always being close to running out of gas. And then when we find out that was the plot of the very first porn he watched with free molesting him, it was like, whoa, wait a minute here. I’m not a fucking psychologist. But I think we might have gotten to something.

matt nappo 18:29
I think if you came across as somebody who had some therapeutic cognitive therapy training or

Brett Erickson 18:35
something. It’s not that you know what it is? It’s comedy training. Because all as I was thinking callback, that’s a callback to an earlier joke. on an earlier episode, it just happened to you know, it’s like the Venn diagram where comedy callback and therapy crossover and that was the middle part right there. And that was great. Great. Good. Andy was on here before, right?

matt nappo 19:00
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love Andy and I was trying to be be you three guys and try to just let him talk that whole time. But it’s such an interesting guy and what uh, what, uh, you know, I tell my wife stories about his life is like, because people think I’m interesting, you should write a book. It’s like, you gotta you gotta check out issue for fun. I had a psychic on the program who wanted to do a reading for me. And she said, I might embarrass you. I think you’re afraid to let me talk. Talk about your secrets. I said, No, I’m an open book. And she started talking about some of the shit that she picked up on me. And, and then I said, you know, yeah, you could say that. But I and here’s the real deal. And I told her, and she went, Wow, sorry to hear that. And basically, I said, well, everybody’s got some fucked up shit, right? Not that fucked up.

Brett Erickson 19:53
Well, you could write it all down, but just don’t put the book out till you’re dead. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You never No.

matt nappo 20:00
So you talked about callback to another joke. Where, as I mentioned, you are a cerebral comic. Now, a lot of the things. If I compared you to the like the blue collar, guys, you’re you have, you have to come with your brain intact. You can’t be too stoned to go to your show, and think you’re gonna laugh a lot, because you have to think about it. This, you mentioned earlier, you know, 30 people would make a big difference at this point in your career. Do you think because you you don’t compromise and don’t dumb it down? That hurt your career at all?

Brett Erickson 20:35
Ah, maybe? I don’t know. But I don’t. I don’t do it. I don’t, I don’t think about it like that. You know what I mean? And I don’t I don’t measure success in in just in dollars. I, I am a happy person. And that’s what I do fuck about I I started doing comedy in the late 90s. And I just did it in the Midwest because I have two kids and I was divorced. And I were had joint custody of these kids. And I was doing the road all the time. And I just wasn’t home very much. So then I I stopped doing the road all the time, I got a full time construction job. I worked at the comedy club on the weekends, and I stayed in Peoria, I went to volleyball games and soccer games and and you know, Christmas programs and shit like that. And that hurt my career more than anything that had more than, you know, cerebral comedy or whatever. That hurt my career. But it made me a happy person. So there’s no way I would do it any different. I have a great relationship with my kids. They’re there. They’re healthy, well adjusted adults. And it you know, after they both were out of high school, and they were in college, and often different cities doing their own thing. That’s when the the old lady and I picked up and took off and went to LA. So you know, I’ve only been really attacking comedy full time in these last few years in LA and now Austin. So you know that that’s it? If I had, you know, I don’t regret it is what I’m saying. I have I’ve had a blast, and I still get to do the comedy I get to do. I’m, I’m happy with the results. You know what I mean? I I don’t answer to anybody else. I do it the way I want to do it. And guess what else when I don’t feel like doing it? I don’t fucking do it. It gets like, I work with some of these guys in LA and I have the utmost respect for some of these kids hustle like you have never fucking seen there. They do three or four mics and night, their fucking lives or stand up comedy. And I respect that. And I think that’s amazing. It just ain’t who I am. I don’t give a I don’t give that much of a fuck. I like it. But I like doing other shit too.

matt nappo 22:59
Oh, God, attitude, man. I relate to that in a big way. And I’ve tried to tried to preach that to some people. Not that I yeah, everybody’s different. You know, everybody’s got to do what they like to do. But, you know, I’ve had a lot of musicians who crave fame. And I like, you know, I’ve been down that road and chased fame when I was young. But I’ve seen it destroy people’s lives, too. So I got happy being a club level musician, staying within the tri state area here and not going out and being national stuff. Because Yeah, as long as it makes me happy doing what I do when I want to do it, and I pick and choose the work I want to take and not necessarily just taking stuff to keep working and stuff. Yeah, I think that that is a much better way to stay happy if you’re of that mindset now.

Brett Erickson 23:45
Yeah. You know, I mean, I, I wish I could claim some sort of, you know, philosophical genius and understanding, it just sort of worked out that way. You know what I mean? Like, I fell, I kind of fell into the right decision. I didn’t feel like with my kids, I had much of a choice. But you know, I felt good about it. Like, I like my kids. I like hanging out with them. So you know, it was all good. And that it’s been a perfect kind of recipe for me, you know? Right. So

matt nappo 24:16
So, with that approach now, when you’re on stage, and I haven’t seen you live well, I’ve seen you stand up is to video. So I don’t know, I’ve never been in the same room and I know it’s different there. But it seems to me your confidence with your material. And this might be just smoke and mirrors because you don’t you know, you never see in your psyche. But you seem extremely confident more so than a lot of comedians with the ability to let a premise breathe and set up something and give it a second to sink in. where other people are just and we talk about Radio fraid of dead air. You seem to be very comfortable with putting that out there. Am

Brett Erickson 24:58
I wrong? You’re not wrong. I’ll tell you what, that’s a really good observation. And it’s the radio thing that drove me to it. Because when I started doing stand up, I was definitely not comfortable with that silence because of the radio, you cannot have dead air. You know, I still have dreams, where I’m working at a radio station, and it’s my, like, my first day, and I can’t, I can’t remember the call letters. I, I can’t I can’t find the song. Like, when I started doing radio, we still had the songs were on the eight, like the eight track style cartridges, the big carts, they were great, you know, like, we had a rack of them, you know, 600 songs on carts. And we had these, like eight track player kind of things where you shoved them all in and you hit the button, and it would start. And you know, you had like, Oh, your you got your song list for the hour. And you’d go back to your rack, and you’d get, oh, this song, and then this songs next, and then song and you’d come over and you’d have a stack

of fucking songs and you set them right here, and you put the first one in, and you’d hit it. And Hey, everybody, here we are. And my dream is that I cannot find the songs. I can’t find where the music is, where is it? And the song that is ending, there’s a song ending, right, and it’s time and I can’t remember the call letters. And that fear of that still

is in my brain. I can’t

dream. Now. I don’t have scary dreams like that about stand up. I don’t know what it is. I started doing stand up at the club in Peoria, the jukebox comedy club. And I just I kind of like said fuck it and dove into that where I just there was a there was a one comic from Chicago. I think he’s probably retired now because he was an older guy, but a really funny guy. If you could find him online. I don’t even know if he has anything online. But the guy’s name is Paul Kelly. And if you talk to Chicago, comedians, they’ll tell you that he was a legend back in the 80s and 90s. And he would go up there sometimes. And he would just stand there for the first 60 seconds without saying anything. And it was mortifying. He was so comfortable that but by the end of it, everyone was laughing. He hadn’t said anything. Everyone was just laughing. Because he just kind of did that for a little while just kind of kept looking at everybody. And he looked at somebody for a little bit more. And he was so everyone was like, What is happening? Everyone got really nervous. You could see everyone get go anxious and afraid. Why isn’t he talking and then, oh, he’s doing this on purpose. And they’d kind of kind of calm down a little bit and relax. And then once they get comfortable in it, and they see that you’re not afraid of it, then they get comfortable. And then they can relax, let their guard down. And now you can talk to them about anything. Because they’re because you’ve broken through that. That wall.

matt nappo 27:49
The first guy I ever saw do that was Andy Kaufman, but he never he never took it. And he basically stayed in. Yeah, in that weirdness for a long time. There were times where before he actually was on Saturday Night Live and Johnny Carson, where we’d see him in New York City and basically walk out of there like what the fuck was that a comedy show or not? And he loved that stuff. But yeah, wrestle women? What that was Oh, yeah. Would it be fair to say that you I think it’s fair to say that you’re the most politically vocal of the four people for a host of issues with Andy. Maybe

Brett Erickson 28:34
Andy, Andy is pretty hardcore. Hardcore is not the right word. And it is his second minute

matt nappo 28:43
to the issues that matter to him.

Brett Erickson 28:45
He’s, he’s got it in, it’s infused into his point of view as well. Now, it comes out in different ways. So mine, for me is probably or at least it has been in the past a little more direct. It’s interesting because this now that you say this is because this will be fun. If anybody’s in Alaska wants to come see me. I’m trying to get away. I’m gonna try to get away from some of that. I’m gonna try. I feel like this whole pandemic, this whole crazy fucking thing. Everything has changed. You know, in my in my world. I went from, you know, working at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. feeling like I was right there. And I loved it. I loved it. And then all of a sudden pandemic hits everything shut down. Is California gonna open back up? I don’t know Joe Rogan leaves. He comes out here. He’s gonna open up a new club. He calls my my wife. He’s like, Hey, you want to be? Yes, we do. So like, it’s like this whole new rebirth. And I think my favorite comedian of all time is George Carlin. And what I loved about George Carlin was he had that, that that you know, that societal bang. He, you know, he was a philosopher, he told you what he thought about the way the world was fucked up. And and how you were a part of that. And I love that. But he was also a had a lot of material that was silly, and and inward looking. Right. And that interests me and I’ve never gone that direction. So I’m trying to push myself into that area. Now I feel like because here’s the deal, I got to write a whole new Act, because I don’t remember what the fuck I was talking about before the pandemic hit. So there’s no chance in going back to any material that I had before. So it started over time. So, you know, I’ve been working on some new stuff, and I’m going to try to drive it into the, you know, kind of more about the stuff we all share. Personally, we’ll see what happens

matt nappo 30:53
I have you been on. Since the limited to

Brett Erickson 30:56
six minutes into the first set, I’m going to go right back to calling Trump a cocksucker.

matt nappo 31:03
I would give you credit for less than six minutes. Because I know myself that you haven’t been on stage since a lot.

Brett Erickson 31:13
I have a couple times. I’ve done a couple sets here in Austin. And did a set in one set in San Diego before I left. And a car and I did the Comedy Store a couple of times Comedy Store opened up a little bit back in the fall when they were trying don’t mean Oh, we thought we were going to open it and then it hit hit again. So I did some sets there but it’s that was all really weird. You know what I mean? It’s I feel like now it’s starting to be a little more like it was people at least here. I’m in Austin. I’ve been going to shows every night that it’s fucking over here. Whether it is or not. They’re acting like it’s done. Everything’s wide open. Yeah, there’s no nobody’s wearing masks inside anymore. I’m vaccinated. I’m not worried about it. I don’t know what your thoughts are on all of this. But my feeling is at this point there are vaccines available for pretty much everybody you can get one if you want one go get one if you don’t want one, don’t get it.

matt nappo 32:10
I agree and that’s why I that’s why I brought up the political whether it because you are Oh, at least on Twitter, sometimes you share your opinions. And I think it was just yesterday that you shared one that now edge. It’s surprising to me, but not so surprising to me that you started out sounded like a libertarian yesterday, didn’t I? Well, not such a libertarian. But I think the lines both that people used to define a liberal conservative is so fucking blurred now. Yeah, I mean, I don’t blame it all on Trump. I think Trump amplified that it started before Trump, that whole worrying of the lines between what’s a conservative and what’s a liberal, but you started out by qualifying it that I’m as liberal as an undocumented or whatever. And then I happen to agree with Ted Cruz. And I was in Texas for a couple weeks. Fucking Republican. I don’t think he knows what he’s saying. Yeah, well, let me just say this. Fuck Ted Cruz, right. Yeah.

Brett Erickson 33:13
So I mentioned my, my children, one of my children is an ICU nurse, my daughter, my pride and joy. I love them both. But I like my daughter more. she’s a she’s an ICU nurse, she has been dealing with pandemic from the start 12 hour shifts every day for PP, you know, putting people on ventilators taught her helping people talk to their family on FaceTime, possibly for the last time all these terribly heavy stories for a long time during it, it was you know, she would call she would be crying sometimes to having to, you know, find the strength to go back and keep doing this and put yourself through this emotional roller coaster. And they never, we it was always very hectic and very busy, but they never got quite got overwhelmed. And now it’s flattened out. Those are the people I worry about. And that’s what I was saying yesterday when I said get the back end or don’t because it before it was Hey, everybody, let’s get the vaccine because we have to get enough people vaccinated that we that we don’t overwhelm the hospitals because if you do end up and we kind of lost sight of this, I feel like at the beginning of the pandemic, this idea that that the real the real danger of this pandemic is that everybody gets Coronavirus at once because if everybody gets it at once, a whole bunch of people are going to die who don’t have to die. And that’s the point. So if we’re to the point now where no matter what happens, the hospitals won’t be overwhelmed. The health care system can handle it. So if you want a vaccine, go get it if you don’t want it, don’t get it but if you get it and then if you get Coronavirus and you end up in the hospital. That’s a tragic story for you. And your friends and your family but it’s not a tragic story for me because it’s not making my life any any worse. Exactly.

matt nappo 35:07
Yeah, it makes total sense. And this is why I say you’re you’re one of the smarter comedians out there because I don’t think people out there because I don’t think a lot of people really kept sight of that. You’re right. I think we lost. The goal was to flatten the curve we flattened six months ago, right? I played a show Thursday night. 1800 people one guy had a mask on it’s like, what the fuck good. Is that gonna blow his nose too. It’s like he’s just comfortable with it. Yeah, well, I think there’s there’s some of that too, and some of it is still fear driven people going through you know, I think it’s over here. The hospitals are certainly not overwhelmed here. Yeah. But people are still going to the store is fully messed up and I I’m afraid to walk in the store without a mask on just because of the social kickback I’m going to get over it right. So I’d rather walk in with my pants off than a mask off it. I think I’d take less less flak from it. I went to Trader Joe’s and I didn’t get Coronavirus but I think I got herpes. So you know working that stuff. You know and I we mentioned kind of before we went on the air talking a little bit about common friend Brandon walls now. He you know, I don’t never know when to take Brendan seriously. So he was on Twitter talking about people. He goes on and talks about people shooting joke about Coronavirus and then the next thing I know he’s dropping a Coronavirus sex tape where COVID sex tape or not sex tape well sex worker called sex co Yeah. where he’s the doctor in the guys got in and he’s like, Oh,

Brett Erickson 36:53
I love that man so much. It’s ridiculous. I i’ve been it’s been a joy to know that dude, he is a little bit crazy and ways the funniest goddamn comedian in Los Angeles. And I don’t know why he is not world famous. I mean, he’s comics know him. You know him. Some of your fans probably know him. But not enough people do. That guy is goddamn brilliant. I love them.

matt nappo 37:19
I agree. I’m surprised by that as well. And I, you know, I’m surprised by so many communities, and here’s the thing, you know, and we’re gonna get to the canceled culture stuff in now. But canceled culture can mean so many things. But in a time where it’s getting really hard for comedians to know, where they should draw lines anymore, and I’m against even any kind of rat Frank bastard bringing the camera into a comedy club to begin on. But in a time when we see it getting harder and harder to know what you can do in a comedy club. We’re seeing also seeing more comedians than ever coming out and, and becoming stand up comics more than ever, I think I never seen somebody standing. So it’s kind of an odd thing that the harder it gets, the more restrictive the art form gets, the more people are coming out to do it.

Brett Erickson 38:10
Yeah. Well, there are so many comedians now. And this is part of what feeds into kancil culture. There are so many comedians now that well, first of all, there’s some that shouldn’t be comedians and not because they’re not funny. I don’t care about that you can either learn to be funny, or you can be not funny and just fail at it forever. That’s also fine. Do whatever you want. But there are so many comedians that that they have to turn on each other. They have to cut people loose. You know what I mean? Like, comedians are always looking to get rid of somebody because it’ll just they think that’ll make their you know, it’ll make that easier for them to get booked, because they just got rid of that guy, and he’s not going to get booked anymore. It doesn’t work that way. But there is a I can see why people think that that’s the way it is because there’s just so many. I mean, I would be at the Comedy Store, Monday night Comedy Store in Los Angeles, they do potluck, which is the open mic night you go in, you sign up, and if they draw your name, they drop 20 names, and you get three minutes. So 20 people three minutes, it’s two hours long. And they would have anywhere from 180 to 225. people show up every Monday for 20 spots. And that’s a lot of goddamn people. And that’s just that’s not that’s just the brand new comedians, like that’s just the new group. There’s also, you know, here’s what I used to tell people back in Illinois after I moved to Los Angeles, when they would ask me how it was going, I would say, well, it’s comedy in Los Angeles and New York is I’m sure the same way. You know, it’s sort of a good news, bad news sort of thing. The good news is that 90% of the comedians in Los Angeles are terrible. I know, the bad news is that the other 10,000 are really, really good

matt nappo 40:14
right? Now. So

Brett Erickson 40:15
I mean, I couldn’t go, I would be in Los Angeles, I could go to a show every single night of the year. And I would I could go to a different venue every time, and I would be guaranteed to see at least one comedian that I had never heard of, that would be fucking amazing. And then you start to go, Oh, my God, like, how do you do this? How do you find your way? Because there there are a lot of people doing it. And a lot of them are really, really bad, but there’s still a lot left that are really fucking good. And you’re just blown away and it’s just, you’re like, wow, geez, I should just go get a job at fucking Best Buy or something. I can’t compete with these people. The way it is, I’m glad of it because it makes the art form stronger and better. And I’d love great comedy and I saw a lot of it in Los Angeles, but it’s disheartening when you think that somebody is going to come knocking on your door to make you famous and you realize Holy shit, I’m good the back of this fucking line.

matt nappo 41:20
But okay, I get that the the influx of new talent, new new people, new blood is going to push the art form ahead. But then you also have that canceled culture thing, which kind of in my mind stifles art and stifles it in a big way. And I think it was Seth Rogen last week who was talking about comedians need to get over. Your jokes don’t age well, and I don’t think it’s a bad jokes. Aging. Well, it’s I think it’s about new jokes, being afraid to be born. Because they’re being a board. We’re having a massive portion of comedy. Because we’re afraid of I can’t go there. I can’t go there.

Brett Erickson 41:59
Now. I think you might be right about that. It’s the self censoring thing. That’s the real problem. You know, I mean, do you see what happens to some comedians who, you know, make, sometimes it’s as simple as it is, you know, sometimes it’s comedian is pushing the envelope, and, you know, trying out new things. And sometimes a comedian just makes a mistake. It happens people are, comedians are fucking human. Right? So and then. And sometimes, when you’re pushing the envelope, you also make a mistake. It’s the two things together. And when those two things happen at the same time, bingo, you’ve got a viral goddamn video sometimes. And then that person’s like, Oh, I didn’t mind. And if that and if that sort of reaction, which is all negative ends up stifling that artists creativity, then that’s, that’s bad. That’s bad. That’s, that’s not helping. So I think that’s right, it right. That’s, it’s especially bad for that artist. And it doesn’t matter if it’s stand up comedy, or, or a YouTube show, or radio or painting or whatever. origami, whatever your art is, when you stop trying things that interest you. Because you’re afraid someone won’t like you for it. You’re doing a bad job as an artist, so it’s hard to stay focused on, on that, especially when a lot of these guys, they start they’ll lose a lot of money.

matt nappo 43:41
Right? Well, I’m gonna I’m gonna circle back here to what you just said about comedians thinking that if I get so and so cut him out, that’s gonna make more bookings. For me, it seems to me whether it’s politics, or Comedy or Musical, whatever it is, when things get canceled. It’s the people of peer group that’s canceling them. So when the Tony Hinchcliffe thing, the people who are most vocal and and angry about it, what comedians, they were lining up with paying or whatever, but and you see it in politics, too. If people are like, somebody on the right says something or get cancelled on YouTube, it’s because the people on the left kind of ganged up on but political people. And it’s the same thing with comedy. Same thing with musicians with peer groups, and not knowing that they’re killing their own golden goose. Because if I sent her what he says, Now, when I go on stage, I should know that that light is gonna in a microscope, be pointing on me, but people don’t seem to get that. Do you? Do you feel like it’s peer?

Brett Erickson 44:43
relay? Oh, no, absolutely, absolutely. They in a lot of ways they can’t wait to to cancel somebody to do say, Hey, good, fuck you beat it. And in Tony’s case, a lot of people don’t like Tony. That’s just that His personality, he’s a cocky son of a bitch. So he rubs a lot of people the wrong way. So when they saw that video, they were like, great, you know, but but Tony is, is just playing a part like a wrestler, he’s that he’s the bad. He’s the villain on the, you know, in wrestling. And that’s all it was. And he seems to bounce back from it. In fact, I just went to the recording of the first kill Tony episode that so he’s back. So I don’t know, when I

matt nappo 45:29
started being promoted today. And I was happy to see that, you know, I’m not a huge huge fan of his but I I was definitely on his side of that whole thing. I just think it should be a personal matter and I I’m don’t give the benefit of the doubt that you do to paying. I think it was enough. I did was

Brett Erickson 45:56
I was I felt like, I seem to me that the argument that I tried to make was that Tony was just joking. And and that’s what I was trying to point out. And I I thought I laughed at paying. I sat there and and I had some I laughed at him. So I felt like if I had said anything other than he did a good job. I would have been that would have been dishonest of me now, as far as the as far as the filming it and who filmed it? And how did he get that film? And why did he edit it? You know, why did he cut it off when he cut it off? And all of that stuff? That’s a whole nother discussion. And and he doesn’t look great in those discussions, frankly. Yeah. You know, I it’s just the whole thing. It just sucks. here’s the here’s the fucking thing. All right. It’s there’s a difference between saying something, you know, and being racist. I don’t like racism. Racism is fucking stupid. But anything you say anything you say, from the stage of a stand up comedy show shouldn’t count outside of the realm of stand up comedy. Some, if someone had an issue with Tony Hinchcliffe calling Peng? Dang it, you can bleep this out if you need to a filthy chink. And then and they have a problem with that. Because Tony didn’t clear that with paying first and he wasn’t exactly in on the bit to start with. And it wasn’t all completely pre planned. It was just kind of winging it and go valid complaint. But if you think that, that that it’s a problem, because he really thinks that and he’s really promoting that that idea, then you are then you’re don’t ever go to a stand up comedy show because you’re going to ruin it. Because it’s a stand up comedy, everything. It’s like, it’s you didn’t hold Carroll O’Connor liable for what he said is archie bunker, it was within the context of a show, a show that has beats that has that has punch lines that has setups and premises. It’s all fiction. So it’s unfair to the the artist to draw from their their art, you know, things that you think about them. In reality, there are two things are separate. It’s stand up fucking comedy, and that and that really, really was the issue for me. So I just wanted everyone to understand, because this is the other part that I saw by that, you know, I’m watching if I can, that, that prick on TMZ like, you know, clutching his pearls over the comment that he’s like, oh, not only did he say that, but but then listen to the audience. Like they’re all they’re all laughing like that was another, you know, another statement, a barometer of how far we’ve sunk in America because we were laughing at just blatant racism. No, we were laughing because we could tell in the room in the context of everything that was happening, that it was a fucking joke that I didn’t mean it. That’s why we were laughing. The laughter from the audience should have been the clue to you that the person watching the video that this was a joke and it wasn’t real. So you know that.

matt nappo 49:39
And I that’s exactly what I said when I said basically what you’re doing is indicting everybody who was in that room laughing. And I happen to know one of the people who was in that room with you. And I said, and if you look at his Twitter feed, you know, this guy’s not gonna laugh at racist material. So you’re you’re condemning this whole room of people because you didn’t need one grown up. or anything like that. And then there’s the fact that is five days or four days, he could have called a new Tony Hinchcliffe well enough to call him up and say I was hurt by what you said. And at least give him some heads up. I’m gonna talk totally destroyed, tried to destroy your career to boost my likes in

Brett Erickson 50:18
motion. And it’s interesting that you mentioned Brendan Walsh earlier because the same thing happened to Brendan Walsh not too long ago where it was it was a bit of a different situation where he was hosting a show at the Hyperion theater in LA, with Brendan small, the guy who created metalocalypse, right? I say that right? A very, very funny guy and a great musician. And they were doing a show called Bren today and Brendan and Brendan, and it was like this silly Lark kind of a show where they were basically what’s that, like Kathie Lee and Hoda, it was like, the fourth hour of Good Morning America where the hosts are kind of drunk on rosae and a little bit silly. And that’s that was the the vibe of the show. And Brandon was playing this guy who was a complete idiot. I mean, he everything he said was stupid, just the same kind of dumb stuff he does with the, you know, he’s always dressed like a neck brace on and he’s. And he’s that, and he introduced I can’t remember the girl’s name now, but he introduced some girl by commenting on her great tits. And then she did the show never said anything to him. She was even in, even in one of her bits. She sat on a guy’s lap, and it was like stroking his hair. Like, she was not offended that night, in any way. She knew Brendan was joking. And then a couple of days later, she wrote this blog. And you know, if you type out the words, he said, they look bad. And then she didn’t say who it was. She just said it was prominent la comedian. And then everybody jumped in I Oh, my God, this is the problem. See, women are they they’re constantly being viewed as as bodies and not brains, and blah, blah, blah. And then Brendan finally came out and said, Look, it’s me that she’s talking about, and I was Bob, you know, I was doing this as part of a character or whatever. And then all the people who knew Brandon kind of switched and went, Oh, yeah, that makes sense. But

matt nappo 52:25
that makes perfect.

Brett Erickson 52:25
But by that time, the Hyperion theater had already cancelled the show, Brandon small and Brendan Walsh don’t do a show together anymore. And it’s a fucking shame, because that was a really, really funny show in Los Angeles. And those two guys together, were fantastic. And somebody killed it. And in both in Tony Hinchcliffe case, with the guy who accused him of racism, and the woman who accused Brendon Walsh of being a sexist pig, both of them did it solely to advance their careers to be to be a victim of something to in order to put your name out there more. That sucks. Don’t do it.

matt nappo 53:04
It doesn’t last either. I mean, you see that, and I don’t even want to say his name, but the guy who targeted Hinchcliffe, he’s, he’s already kind of forgotten. Yes, he had 5000 followers in a single day on Twitter. And then it leveled off and he hasn’t had a new one since so well.

Brett Erickson 53:21
He’s got no material. He’s new here. He was in a perfect position because he was getting spots. He’d go up on kill Tony, this is a good thing. You’re in there, you’re in the community you want to be in. And what he did is he took a shot, he took his shot to man, it was like it. I mean, I look, I don’t know the guy. So you know, whatever

matt nappo 53:46
I was, I was one of the 12 people in America who was familiar with his comedy before that date. Oh, really? Yeah. And I had seen some of his stuff. And it was all about race, all about China being Chinese and the Asian experience. And I know for a fact that he had heard that word before. Because when Tommy Chung was on this program, he used it a number of times to describe themselves. And I know he watched that program because I had been in contact with him. So he likes to he lied to TMZ TMZ. Exactly. You know it, but it bothers me to see that kancil culture is still going on. And that I can’t talk sense into people who don’t see that if you push this on your peers, it’s gonna come back on you. It’s just the natural thing you kill with killing your own golden goose. And see that it’s because I’m a huge fan of comedy, and I want to see it continue to grow. And I think it’s not gonna if we more comedians embrace this thing to get their enemy or the competition, it’s just gonna kill it for everybody and it’s a very sad So it is

Brett Erickson 55:00
it’s a shame that we that we try to cut out. People, we don’t want success for other people, you know how I don’t know if anybody out there watching this is in the same sort of line of work where, where you, you have a colleague who has some success, and they tell you about the success and you’re happy for them, but a little part of you dies, like, because it wasn’t you it was them instead of you. That’s all it’s comedy is a hard business, because there’s a lot of that, you know, I I’m I’m far enough along in it that I see, a lot of good things happen to a lot of good people. And I see a lot of good things happen to people who I think frankly, don’t deserve it. So you have to keep your mind in the right place. And that’s not always easy to do. And that’s what, that’s what leads to this sort of shit. Where are we, where we’re happy to cut somebody loose without we don’t even want to know the context. Because we know that if we find out the context, we won’t want to do it anymore. So we got to cut the person loose, and get these numbers down so that we have a better chance of, of success. And you know what, here’s the thing, there’s enough success out there for everybody. It’s not I win and you lose, we can both win. That’s That’s how entertainment works.

matt nappo 56:17
And generally, I will say this generally, because it’s not always the case, you can’t worry about somebody else’s success. If that you know, you feel they don’t deserve it. But if the phoniest will expose themselves over time, I look at Milli Vanilli and people were really, really jealous of them when they had number one hits. But then, you know, when when they got exposed as being fake, their career was over instantly. And so that happens to a lot of people who are phony, you can’t worry about them, you have to worry about yourself and your own success. Absolutely.

Brett Erickson 56:48
Right. Somebody and somebody having success doesn’t mean you can’t have success. It’s not a zero sum game.

matt nappo 56:55
Right? Yeah, well, that’s a problem. We tend to look at everything as limited resources, but in certain areas that is true. I mean, we’re here on Long Island where New York where we used to have a probably 30 comedy clubs on Long Island, I think there may be three or four now and instead so it is it is a very

Brett Erickson 57:16
you’re gonna find more coming back. I think that you know, I read some stories. I don’t know if you’ve talked about this at all, but I read some stuff about how you know after the pandemic in 1918 when that kind of finally ended and everybody came out of it that led into the roaring 20s and the Charleston and everybody party and I think you’re gonna see some of that same sort of, you know, revival when we all finally get all the way back I think I hopefully you’ll see some more comedy clubs I certainly enough goddamn comedians to fill them

matt nappo 57:45
are no doubt about that. That roaring back type of because several months ago now, you know, we were still wearing masks to the club, get in the club, we’d be playing. And people were supposed to be wearing masks at the table in the masks. Were coming off there with dancing that being told, you know, try try not to let people sing along a dance. That’s like don’t Don’t, don’t make people laugh. No dancing, no dancing and singing. But people were having Minaj I was on the dance floor. This is like, and so that roaring back and ready to go. You lock people up for a year and a half when it’s bad. go wild man. Right? Yeah. So are you looking forward to getting you know, the Alaska trip with excite?

Brett Erickson 58:32
Absolutely, absolutely. The Alaska trip and then we’ll get back here. The club that Joe’s opening up will be opening up sometime this summer. So I’m very excited about that. Austin is is a really, really cool place. I know that everybody who already lives here is pissed off that we came. And I don’t blame them. I get it. You know, you got a cool thing going here. And now a bunch of assholes from California, New York just invaded your city. But it’s very cool. So there’s a lot of new clubs popping up here. A lot of places to go up and do stand up and there’s music everywhere. I think that’s gonna be like that all over the place. So I hope that wherever you are, if you’re out there, get out there enjoy some stand up comedy. Go see some live music. Go see somebody read goddamn poems just get out of the damn house.

matt nappo 59:19
Jay. Yeah, I agree. And I hope that happens too. I mean, it’s it’s been really it’s been open here. I’ve been playing since last Memorial Day. So it’s been a year since I’ve been out back performing every week. But it just went we finally lifted the mask mandate and all that stuff a couple of weeks ago. People are still a little shy about it. But I think that roaring 20s thing is, is Yeah, we’re going to happen and

Brett Erickson 59:47
I everybody comes out of the pandemic in their own way. Right, right. I mean, like, everyone, here’s how I don’t know how graphic we can get on your show. Can we get graphic on your show here? Here’s how you can tell you’re all the way over to pandemic. Here’s how you know that you’re done with it. When you get back to as eating, I think that’s when you know, you’re willing to just bury your face in some stranger’s ass. You are past wearing a mask, you know what I mean? Like I made it you are out you’re through the other side. Right? So that won’t be your barometer. Everybody.

matt nappo 1:00:27
One of the guests on the program, not too long ago told me about a guy who went to eat her ass on the first date. And I was like, wow.

Brett Erickson 1:00:36
These kids, man, these kids are wild. I used to do a bit about that, but how, like, because they get right in there. Remember? We used to do a two we call them rim jobs because you stayed around the outside you just sort of dabble. They’re just not for me. That’s not for me. I’m just you know,

matt nappo 1:00:59
it’s a little much. So um, and I know we’re over the eating I’m sorry to end we’re not gonna we’re gonna go a couple more minutes because because just just to watch that PE S Yeah, I didn’t even go to this one.

Brett Erickson 1:01:13
No, see, that’s the thing. If you if you get if it tastes that you went too far, if you taste anything, that’s alright. Because

matt nappo 1:01:23
you’re you’re absolutely right. I never I just want to say that my sponsors I we didn’t read the sponsor point at the beginning of the program because the sponsors asked me to bring it in and try to incorporate the guests with it and I blew past it didn’t even look at it. We’re an hour in and I never even mentioned entice me where you get your non toxic sex toys. The link is in the description as well. The idea is sex toys are made out of the same toxic materials that they banned from children’s toys so children children will put stuff in their mouth but sex toys are still continually made of that toxic stuff and people are putting mud plugs in and vibrators and all that kind of stuff. And

Brett Erickson 1:02:04
yeah, that’s a real those are real sensitive areas of your body to write obviously any orifice is going to have sore you know things that are delicate and shouldn’t be you know exposed to these chemicals. I enticed me

matt nappo 1:02:19
entice me enticed me calm links in the description and and so basically check them out if you want to save your butthole from toxic chemicals. And and get a bad day. Get a bad day. You know, I’ve heard I’ve heard about this and I know your pal Andy is colonoscopy today, but the benefits of but they really do. Unbelievable.

Brett Erickson 1:02:45
I It is unbelievable to me. I got a video a couple years ago just like people think oh, I didn’t even really know exactly what it was but the kind that I got that you can get the handheld one you just spray your butt don’t get that if you’re not a hillbilly spraying yourself down with the garden hose out in the yard. Get you can but you can add one to your toilet where it’s just you. You’re sitting there you’re done with doing your business and then you just press a button and clean fresh water sprays up on there and you just kind of scoot around a little bit cleans off your butt and when you go when you go to the toilet paper it’s just too dry and I thought to myself well why why have we been doing this the whole time because

matt nappo 1:03:29
it’s so much more economical I mean ecological

Brett Erickson 1:03:35
Yes Don’t be a danger dangerous it’s dangerous you’re just smearing stuff around up there you don’t do that so you get a bad day then you get a nice non toxic entice me deal though you get a bad day you clean your butthole all up you get a nice non toxic entice me dildo and RAM that up in there and it’s all good

matt nappo 1:03:56
bye man I thank you so much for for this time your great insight into asset cleansing and and and the trends in seating. It couldn’t have been a better program Brett, I thank you very much for this so much for being here. I was great. I wish you great success and please you know come back again sometime and let’s go through it again. Cuz

Brett Erickson 1:04:16
I would really I would really like that. I’ll take you up on that. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

matt nappo 1:04:20
Thanks. And bye for now and be well. Alright, yep, see it but Brett Erickson folks, issues with Andy podcast. If you’re so inclined, you can go up to Alaska and see him next week. Although I’m not really sure where you can find out about the rest of his days. The website as you heard in the beginning of the program is not updated enough. There has to be someplace maybe it’s Facebook page, maybe Twitter, I don’t know where you find out where he’s gonna be playing by you performing by you. But we’ll come up and try to try on your own. I do my best to keep you informed. I hope you enjoyed this program tomorrow. I don’t have a program April Burke was supposed to be with me tomorrow. She has some kind of medical emergency she needs to postpone. We’ll be back. Probably rescheduling for next week unless I do a solo show tomorrow. So I’ll be here alone. Until then. I’m Matt nappo for the mind doc TV podcast. Thanks for coming. Have a great night. Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Bee Man Cometh – Brendon Walsh – Host of The World Record Podcast

https://www.patreon.com/worldrecordpodcast

Brendon Walsh hosts the second funniest, and most mesmerizing podcast in the universe, The World Record Podcast, which can feature real celebrity guests, fake celebrity guests, prank calls and mayhem.

Bendon started performing stand-up comedy in Austin, Texas in 2002, He has appeared on The Price Is Right, Premium Blend, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Conan, Last Comic Standing, in sketches on the G4 network, @midnight, and The Bob & Tom Show. He toured from 2005 to 2008 as the opening act for Doug Stanhope.

Walsh has performed at the Vancouver Comedy Festival; Just for Laughs in Montreal; South by Southwest (SXSW); the first annual Bentzen Ball in Washington, D.C.; the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas; the Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, Oregon; and the Aspen Comedy Festival. In 2007, he won the $10,000 grand prize on the comedy stage at Famecast.com. In 2008, he was named one of the “Top Emerging Comedians” on AskMen.com.

On March 12, 2010, Walsh performed at A Night of 140 Tweets, a benefit for Haiti at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2011, he appeared on WTF with Marc Maron and The Joe Rogan Experience. He previously co-hosted a podcast, The Bone Zone, with Randy Liedtke, and Do You Know Who Jason Segel Is? podcast with Nick Thune on the All Things Comedy network. He currently hosts The World Record Podcast, wherein each week he and a guest analyze a different world record. Guests have included Melissa Villaseñor, Josh Gad, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Christopher Nolan, Jared Fogle, Michael Keaton, Tom Brady and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Ted Danson also appeared on the show to discuss his pursuit to break a bowling world record. In December 2020, he interviewed veteran celebrity traspo captain Dicker Troy.

Transcript:
Unknown Speaker 0:01
Everybody ready for the mind dog.

Minddog 0:25
And welcome my friends to yet another episode of the mind dog TV podcast. I’m Matt nappo. Thanks for coming. It’s great to have you here. As always, I know some people were expecting Rick Lee, the drummer from 10 years after today has been rescheduled to next Wednesday. I have a guest. I’m really excited about having on today actually more far more exciting. No, no offense directly. But I’m far more excited about the guests that I ended up having today. And I’m fortunate to have him here only because I stopped basically would not take no for an answer. He’s here today. And he’s got the best podcast that I’ve come across in a long time. Most interesting podcast, addictive and most unique, a podcast called the world class podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, please open your ears open your minds and help me welcome in the fabulously funny. Brendan Walsh wedding. Welcome. First order of business called the world record podcast will record what they call it world class podcast. It is a world class podcast it is. I have a problem with that. The brain is not connected often to the mouse. And as I mentioned it briefly before we got started. I’m a little nervous today because I wasn’t sure whether I was getting the B man or the stand up comic that Brendan Walsh is or George Washington scholar who makes me feel like I better be careful about the questions I asked. Well, the the Brendan Walsh the stand up comic is is dead. He’s now the big man. What happened was

Brendon Walsh 2:05
I Brendan Walsh was an investigative journalist on the side of being a stand up comedian, and I uncovered a plot by all the beekeepers to put mind control drugs in the honey in the honey supply. I uncovered that plot. And then one night, the beekeepers caught me snooping around their bee hives, and they all attacked me. They swarmed me. They held me down, they filled my mouth with bees. And then they sewed my mouth closed. And then the bees got into my system. And I became one with the bees. And now I’m the beam man. I’m don’t seem to be allergic to you. But I’ve tried to relate this story to my wife. And I’m glad you put it in words that I can actually play it back for it and concise, detailed events about what happened. So was that an assault or that was an assault? Basic run of the mill origin story to any superhero.

Minddog 3:07
So how has it affected your life? Being happy? It does it? Does it put any like changes on the way that you have to live your life.

Brendon Walsh 3:18
I just I have more powers I have the powers of the bees, I can summon bees. And I wouldn’t say I’m half and half. I mean, it’s just kind of intertwined. It’s like, way when Jeff Goldblum became the fly most very cool stuff. Like it’s all it’s all mixed into my system. A little scary. So the beam man now is, as I mentioned, is the moderator of the host of and the facilitator, I guess, of the world record podcast and I apologize for getting that wrong. The most, the most unusual podcast ever. And I have to tell you, I came in here one night to work on editing my podcast. And four hours later when my wife said, What are you doing? I said I got to start working on my podcast. She said he came in in four hours. I said I started watching this thing. And I went from one episode to another I can’t take my eyes off it it’s like fucking era when Oh,

Unknown Speaker 4:17
that’s that’s really good to hear. I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad to hear that you were watching it too because we started doing

Unknown Speaker 4:24
started doing video about

Unknown Speaker 4:27
maybe about 30 episodes ago. I’m not sure which episode we started with just you know, audio where I like, I like audio episodes I grew up listening to like Bob and Doug McKenzie and Cheech and Chong like all those old comedy albums like sketch comedy albums. And

Unknown Speaker 4:48
I always I, there’s just something about that, that I like because it’s not you know, it’s leaves a lot up to you to, to, you know, put together what these guys look like, and what’s going on and paint your own.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
scenario. And when we started the podcast because I had two podcasts before the world record podcast, I had the bone zone podcast. And do you know Jason Segel is they’re both just audio, and then starting this one, I was like, you know, I want to get more serious, you know, like, let’s, you know, that’s really a while serious, but I mean, you know, I guess my point is, like, you know, this isn’t going to just be a hobby, because we did the bone zone for six years. And there was no income ever really generated from that, even though it’s the funniest podcast that was ever made.

Unknown Speaker 5:38
So with this one, I’m like, let’s, you know, let’s really, let’s, let’s do this one, right? And everybody was saying, you need to everybody does video, you have to do video now. And I’m like, you know, our podcast isn’t just, you know, three comedians sitting around a table, telling road stories or whatever. So if I’m going to do video, I want to do something that lends its I want that to be another layer of the podcast. So absolutely. I get that. But it seems like it’s a lot of work in post or to get all the effects that you have for the video stuff, and makes it a much bigger job than doing just an audio podcast. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. I’ve been thinking about because also, I still don’t think, you know,

Unknown Speaker 6:25
I think the majority of the people are still just listening to it. Which is fine. I mean, that’s that’s how it was made. But I I’m into the video stuff we’re doing, I found a great, there’s a guy named drew Brown, who is a listener, like I kind of put a call out on discord or on the Patreon or something if anybody wants to help with editing and then he stepped up and he does, you know, right off the bat just doing started doing a great job. So Oh, good for him. And good for you. I’m Oh, by the way, the Patreon link is in the scroll there, it’s going across the bottom of the screen. It’s patreon.com slash world record podcast, I really urge you to support this thing, folks. And if you haven’t checked it out, please check it out. Now you do it’s weird, because you’re doing a premiere that seems like it’s live. Is that Monday nights is that when when you’re doing it, or is it every Monday night. I mean, that’s, that’s a new thing I just note because like I’ll upload to the way the you know, the episodes go we generally record about an hour and a half to two hours. And then I’ll put in you know, the way Patreon works, I put about half of it out for free and then the other if you want the other 90 minute or whatever, 40 minutes, whatever, it’s on the Patreon so with with the free videos, I put them up on YouTube. And I just noticed when I was

Unknown Speaker 7:50
uploading them, there’s an option to set as a premiere. And so I just like did that one night as a goof and was just kind of promoting it like whoa, big premiere live chat blah. And so, so I did it that night and it was kind of fun. And so I’m just like that’s just kind of another stupid layer of like the podcast to just have this like kind of pointless premiere of your free video.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
But it was fun to be part of the chat room and just

Unknown Speaker 8:26
but to see you there chatting chatting along. It’s like it’s can’t be live because he’s here answering questions. Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of confusing. Yeah. might as well do it if they’re giving you the option to do I just don’t I guess other people do that. I don’t know. I don’t know what the point of the premiere is why premiere is is is not my thing. But I have pre taped interviews and then done the live thing through here played that video back through here with the live thing going in the corner and people advocate it was live and just watched it along with them and just kind of chuckled to myself with people thinking this is live and they’re trying to ask questions of the guests.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
There’s no way I could possibly do it because it happened last week. But yeah, remember there was a Mr. Show sketch. I assume you’re familiar you watched Mr. Show.

Unknown Speaker 9:17
There was a Mr. Show sketch for David Cross was doing a call in show like a live call in show where people would call into answer questions about a topic but it was the topic was pre taped. So everything everybody was calling in for he’s like that was last week. This week we’re talking about I forget exactly the dynamics of it, but it was one of those it’s such a funny sketch because it’s such a dumb idea. Right. But on the audio side now people are not going to get the fact that Tom Brady’s Tom Brady is wearing a helmet throughout the whole thing you have ever have to stop and say we need to describe this to the listeners because like

Unknown Speaker 10:00
You I have most of my listeners, most of my audience is on the listening side. I do the live stream just to kind of keep people engaged and stuff. But the numbers are minimal compared to that. So yeah, I have to always remind myself, I’m really doing this for the audio people. So I need to remind people of what, and explain to people what they’re looking at. Do you have that? Uh, you know, I feel like more recently we’ve been because now I feel like the what we’re doing is more geared like we’re starting to gear it more towards that, assuming everybody’s watching it, you know, like, not so much visual but there there are kind of a lot of visual gags that are Oh tensional and, and then with the editing, the stuff drew puts in there is you know, definitely adds another comedic element visually. But, uh, no, I always forget to you know, like the Tom Brady. I don’t know if I told any wearing helmets all times. I know. So if you only heard it on, on the audio podcast, you need to go check out the video now and see what you’re missing. That’s that’s my point there. I’ll also be on the Patreon too. He shows he shows his penis at the end of the of the end at the end of the episode. Oh, I just joined Patreon this morning. I’m gonna have to go check that out. Very at the very end of the night like I’m hungry to see Tom Brady’s penis, but it’s it’s naturally curious. I am a little curious about it. Because now that you’ve said also, you’ve gotten some great guests and with veal. You know, obviously, before Brendan died when he was doing stand up you always knew it was humor. NET sometimes we’re on the podcast stuff your old podcast, the current podcast I taught to tell when you’re kidding and when you’re when you’re trying to be funny or you just are being funny or just really being serious and you get me sometimes

Unknown Speaker 11:58
with the Cooper Minh tire guy was the first time I saw you almost break character and crack a smile at what was going on and kind of hit that there were some humor there. Sometimes you you just take the call so seriously. The man is is locked in the zone here with asking these questions. It’s just it’s it’s remarkable see you don’t break character and laugh tough there was a I lost it recently. Oh, when man the a train Amanda and her backstory is that she was carrying a bunch of batteries. She’s the a train she has the speed of the trains. And she was carrying a bunch of batteries across the train tracks and then got hit by a train and she got fused with the batteries. And now she has the speed of a train. But we were calling New York pizza places

Unknown Speaker 12:55
just acting like it just saying we need a slice of that New York pizza.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
And

Unknown Speaker 13:02
and I said then I told him we call one place and I said I’m gonna get I was like you need to deliver it to the top of the Empire State Building I’m going to eat that New York pizza

Unknown Speaker 13:12
and I’m gonna diary off the side of the Empire State Building off the top of the Empire State Building. And then the a train said you know, you have to be careful because if you do diarrhea from the top of the Empire State Building it builds up so much velocity that it could kill somebody on the street when they’re walking by and that I couldn’t contain my you that made me laugh really hard. Superman tires thing.

Unknown Speaker 13:38
I actually just designed a T shirt for Cooperman tires that I’m going to start selling

Unknown Speaker 13:44
but the when we called the the and I can send you a clip. I don’t know if you play clips but I have a short clip of that call.

Unknown Speaker 13:53
We call the tire place. Lizzie Cooperman was our guest and I just randomly introducing her one time because she’s been on the podcast a handful times she’s a great guest we just like have a lot of fun with her. And I just I introduced her I said

Unknown Speaker 14:09
CEO or the heiress of the Cooper my entire fortune

Unknown Speaker 14:13
and just Cooperman tire just sounded like it sounds like a real thing right and so we just kind of stuck with that ever since I you know made her the errors and CEO of Cooper tires now Now we so we call the tire place and she said that they have a new line of fruit roll up tires. tires that are made of like fruit roll up material I guess we call the place seeing if they could

Unknown Speaker 14:40
if they if they got the shipment of fruit roll up tires and and the guys like I don’t know what you’re talking about. We know we don’t have flavored tires here. We just have regular tires. And Lizzy said Oh no, I think it might be because we sent them prove tires and I said oh is that what it is? Did you get pruned tires and there was a

Unknown Speaker 15:00
New incidents? And the guy said due to incident that’s what I’m most laugh because I did not expect the guy say, I don’t know what what are you talking about due to incident? There was no who did I don’t know what you’re talking about we don’t have tires and lug doodoo.

Unknown Speaker 15:16
He said, I mean, that’s one of my favorite calls. I mean, granted it’s it’s very recent but it I mean to have somebody say do to get them to repeat a new incident or do it wasn’t doing similar do do it was to do it today. Yeah, there were two terms that I was using. But either way Yeah, to get him to say just do repeat do two, four or five times, right? Like I mean, that’s just like a gold star in the crank call.

Unknown Speaker 15:47
handbook. It did you do a lot of crank clothes as a kid because you seem to have the knack for most people in your situation doing that, at some point with like, wow, this person is so stupid. I don’t know where to go from here or just lose, lose the ability to keep them on the line, you have an uncanny ability to keep some of those people on 1415 minutes where I know if I tried that they would be bailing in 30 or 45 seconds. Yeah. Is that a skill you learned as a kid? Did you? Were you trained in that self train? Well, I mean, you know, like any kid around, you know, anybody around my age? I feel like maybe within 10 years of

Unknown Speaker 16:32
I don’t know, crap, making prank calls was just a thing that you did as a as a kid, you know? especially before even caller ID or when caller ID came out that kind of put the Yeah, I probably stopped a lot of people from making prank calls. And

Unknown Speaker 16:49
now with cell phones, I mean, you can’t you can’t you’re limited to businesses because nobody answers a strange number.

Unknown Speaker 16:56
But yeah, I’ve been doing it my whole life, I guess. I mean, I’ve just always had I always liked that stuff. You know, like the jerky boys. When I was introduced to the jerky boys, I was just like, this is next level. And that was even this is how old I am, is that I was working. I was probably like, I don’t know, 19 or something. And I had a job as a security guard, like an overnight security guard at this place at this, uh, this building in Philadelphia. And one of the guys that I worked with one of the other security guards who worked upstairs came in and he had a cassette tape. And he’s like, dude, have you ever heard of the jerky boys? I was like, no. And he gave it to me. And this was like the bootleg before the jerky boys had like a record deal. And before the internet, like things would just kind of spread people would make copies of the tapes. That’s the same thing with the south part. That Jesus versus Santa as like a Christmas card to I don’t know, they made that and it just kind of got passed around. And then you know, and then it becomes a real thing. But I got the jerky boys, bootleg. And then you know, all there, they have more albums than people realize, too. And they’re just they’re so funny. It’s some of them are dated. There’s one I was playing for Amanda, we’re on a road trip. And she had never really heard the jerky boys. were listening all the time. And really, you know, great stuff. But there were a couple where you’re like, oh, man, this is so like, there’s one where, like, it’s so even before 911 you know, like it’s like a few years before 911 and a guy called one of them because it was the guy Johnny Brennan. And then I forget the other guy’s name, but he was like, Middle Eastern or Indian or something. And he would always do like a call like this. And he calls he calls it a bomb threat to a pizza place. He’s like, I bomb you. I blow you up and it’s just like, oh my god that like that just shows you what a different world we’re living in. I mean, not that it’s acceptable to do that ever but

Unknown Speaker 19:03
on like a published like that wasn’t a bootleg that was like released by Capitol Records or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 19:09
On like jerky boys three or four. They had more albums than you remember. I actually did something very similar way before jerky boys existed. I was working in a gas station during the midnight shift. You know, one of those, you know, you just stay in the booth and people give you their money, that type of thing. And so guys came up friends of mine, that we smoked them joint and they went over to jack in a box across the street and to get some food and I saw them waiting on line. I said Man, this is a long time. So I called the jack in the box and I said listen, there’s two men at the counter. One of them has a hand grenade. The other one is got a machine gun. And don’t don’t feed these men. They are very dangerous men. So they were standing there on one like 45 minutes. All of a sudden I saw cops coming into the parking lot getting on the roof and the whole bit cops get behind my friends and they’re standing right behind them online and all of a sudden you see them throwing them against the wall.

Unknown Speaker 20:02
And then they got him interrogating them. And they asked him, Do you know anybody who might want to set you up like this? And they didn’t see me across the street like, laughing.

Unknown Speaker 20:12
They did not rat me out, but I didn’t know. And this is like 1979 or something. My friend, my friend had a half and a half pound of weed stuck in the back of his jacket. The cops found it. And they were but they couldn’t do anything about it because he was a victim. Not not. It was an illegal stretching, set up and

Unknown Speaker 20:31
a half pound of weed like wow, yeah, that’s an awful, awful, awful thing you did.

Unknown Speaker 20:38
I know. I was. I was kidding. There’s a long time. I don’t think I’m still on the hook for that. 1979 but I was not.

Unknown Speaker 20:47
I wasn’t good with the prank call for prank phone calls. Like you wouldn’t be able to hold them up online. I don’t you know, it’s kind of shifted to with the crank calls that we’re doing are like,

Unknown Speaker 21:01
I feel like they’re getting less. I mean, not less jokey. I mean, I still think they’re I feel like they’re a lot of them geared towards just like, interesting, where it’s almost like a social, like kind of just finding out like that. There’s just people that are completely different than you are especially like, not to sound like a fogy. But, you know, like young young people, like people that are like 20 not even that young. 30s didn’t know how David Letterman was. And I was like, how can you be 30 years old and not know David Letterman? I mean, that’s true. I, but you know, everybody’s Do you have to?

Unknown Speaker 21:41
You know, I mean, that’s just like, if that’s not the world you grew, you know, like the guy I think was in Florida, worked at a pet store had sounded like he had kind of a rural upbringing. Like if his folks weren’t watching David Letterman. And he doesn’t have like a bent you know, if he’s not like interested in comedy outside of, I don’t know, the hangover or whatever, then I don’t know. Like, I feel like I can. It’s easy to just jump to like, Oh my god, you idiot, but it’s like,

Unknown Speaker 22:14
Yeah, I don’t know. I can cut people some slack sometimes, but it is baffling. Like, like, cuz that guy like didn’t know anything. Right? Everything I threw at him. He’s like, Nope, never heard of that. No, no.

Unknown Speaker 22:29
Like, I don’t remember specifics, but like he didn’t know David Letterman was he didn’t know Jimmy Fallon was. Yeah, Jimmy Fallon. Right. How can you be 30 in that? No, Fallon?

Unknown Speaker 22:40
I don’t know. Yeah, I bet he knows who the Kardashians are, though. You know, I’m the opposite. You can hit me with anything. You know, that’s really current. And I wouldn’t know it cuz i don’t i took television out of my house, like 12 years ago. So I feel like here’s but with like the Kardashians and shit like that. You have to go. You still have to buy food. So you have to go to the grocery store. And every fuckin like the Kardashians are just like a trillion dollar industry or something like they have. They must. I would love to get behind the scenes of like, what makes that fucking awful, awful machine. oiled and still going for more than a decade? Because every time you go to a grocery store, I you know, see for yourself. There’s at least three magazine covers with a Kardashian or a big Kardashian. You know, if it’s not a photograph of one of them. There’s a big bowl by Kardashian brought a ferret or something or like Courtney’s weight loss secrets or, and it’s like how many people you know like, how many millions of dollars are they spending on like these weird fucking PR firms? Are you because you know, there’s a there’s somebody who’s just like, on top of Like Us Weekly where they’re like you Okay, what’s the Kardashian? We gotta have a Kardashian. We don’t get a Kardashian on the cover, then you don’t get the fucking Ryan Seacrest story. Like there’s got to be just like a couple companies that control that are like the spicket of bullshit fucking gossip, that then they just like work with these awful magazines. And they’re just like, Listen, okay, we’ll give you a fucking Blake Shelton story, but you’ve got to run this fucking Miley Cyrus. It’s just it’s just awful. Awful that it’s like because you can’t really escape it like you go to the grocery store. And you’re gonna you got to stand in line at the grocery store. That you don’t really I go to the the self checkout No matter how much I have just to point out there’s there’s still like the mat. They still have like the gum and candy like they have that impulse buy shit and

Unknown Speaker 24:53
yeah, and there’s a famous now for 20 years or more for having absolutely no talent or

Unknown Speaker 25:00
not adding anything to humanity, no value to the world. It’s genius. honest, it’s kind of genius because it all just started from a sex tape from Kim Kardashian. Like, blowing a guy. Like a rapper, AJ.

Unknown Speaker 25:17
And she was like getting boned and sucking and fucking and.

Unknown Speaker 25:22
And that got leaked out. Maybe by them or maybe I mean, it’s definitely turning, you know, lemons into lemonade. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 25:31
yeah, I don’t know. But that’s really that’s what it’s all about. I mean, the timeline, the chronological. I mean, the her father also, you know, defended OJ Simpson and was friends with oj, I remember that very well. Yeah. And then but then the second coming was like her blowing a guy and then all of a sudden, a billion dollar a year, multi billion dollar a year industry because like, they all kind of have their own bullshit that people are buying into, which is fine. doesn’t take any money out of my pocket. I mean, I think it’s just, it’s just shows how vapid a lot of people are. Absolutely. And you know what, we went through a period between 2000 to 2010, where every I think you’re right about the idea of leaking it yourself. Every celebrity or every girl celebrity young girl celebrity was trying to was caught with a blowjob tape, or purposely put out the blowjob tape making it seem like somebody else had done it surreptitiously. But it was a way to get more attention on them, you know, inside the blow job paperwork. thing of 2000.

Unknown Speaker 26:36
That’s a good, that’s a good alias to sign into a hotel under BJ tapes.

Unknown Speaker 26:43
Yeah, like Paris Hilton had one after that. And I wonder if that was like, if she’s like, Hey, I’m fucking pointless to but I can, like, you know, because it’s just like, Oh, I have even I’m equally as untalented and pointless as this Kardashian. Or, I can do the same thing and maybe get more money even though my parents are like, you know, already super wealthy because my great grandfather started a fucking hotel chain. Right. Yeah, I think that that was definitely the case with her. I mean, it was anything for attention. And, you know, she was trying to do everything, record albums, and whatever. And but, you know, famous is a strange thing. Some people just want to be famous. I had a kid on the show who that was his whole quest. And he mainly went as far as like, making, trying to capitalize on a gay bashing attack that happened to him, who came on the show, basically wanting to tell a story about that. And then he opened up with a big blazer and tattoo on his chest and said, Avenue entertainer and said, I started by saying, I gotta get on Elon, that’s like, what the fuck does that have to do with getting attacked? I mean, so you using me? and telling the story just to be famous? It’s just like, well, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of become, yeah, there’s a whole generation of people that because of the Kardashians, and because of reality television, that’s like, if you ask a lot of I bet if you asked a lot of high school kids what they want to be, and I don’t I don’t want to diminish the whole I’m sure there’s still like some smart kid, you know, whatever. It’s not a whole generation. But majority. There’s a lot of dumb asses. Where if you ask them, what they want to do what’s what are the what’s their goal? It would be just to be like, I don’t know, to be famous. Like, I just want to walk into the club, and have everybody turn their heads and know I’m here and it’s like, what do you want to be famous for? I don’t care. Like, I don’t know, rap or acting or, or just like, you know, just being me, you know, doing me. And that’s just like a real

Unknown Speaker 28:44
it’s just a real dumbing down of, I mean, I feel like this whole country has been intentionally dumbed down no question about it. Absolutely. He’s maybe I’m trying to, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but I think it’s probably somewhere in the 80s

Unknown Speaker 29:03
like even even down to like the

Unknown Speaker 29:07
you know, like the the like like the Bill Murray movies and stuff like the like where the hero was a total schlub loser who like Didn’t you know, didn’t want to exercise didn’t want to work that and it’s like getting a bunch of kids to idolize these like slackers maybe? Yeah, part of like a larger conspiracy of like, just have everybody just want to fuckin you know, party. Do beerbongs be like a Hawaiian shirt, dopey guy.

Unknown Speaker 29:37
party animal. Nair do well. And then another big thing I’ve been I’ve been talking about this with people lately because it’s just dawned on me. But like how is because this is also affected. We’re at a point now, where there’s a whole generation for the past 20 years where pornography has been

Unknown Speaker 30:00
plentiful and free. And an easy is easy to access as making a telephone call. And I find that to be very, very curious because the government can regulate anything they fuckin one. They can write a and it’s like, oh, the internet’s a new Oh, two new thing they didn’t know what to do. It’s like bullshit. Because that could have been the top story on every channel is like, okay, we have this new thing, the internet. There’s a lot of pornography. How do we figure this out? And it would have been very easy to put laws in place where you can just like, just have if you want to watch pornography, you have to put in a credit card number, and we’ll charge you one penny. We just need to. We just need proof. The only way you can’t just click and say yes, I’m a teen, there has to be a way for us to prove that you’re not eight years old about to watch an anal cream pie gang.

Unknown Speaker 31:04
Also, another thing with this plenty full free, readily available pornography. Things have been none of this shit existed 20 years ago, there was never such a thing as an angel cream pie, gaping to khaki gang bang, caulk gagging whoever, like there’s things that have been invented and like and like abusive, kind of like, you know, spinning in your faces slapping each at like, it’s like, This is all because everybody, you know, back back when we would have like a porno tape that was stashed away. And you get a chance or the inkling you get like a little warning or like, you know what I’m going to watch. I’m going to cue up my favorite part of that porno. Rub one out and my day, right now. It’s, uh,

Unknown Speaker 31:58
you know, it’s just regular meat and potatoes like you see, like, Oh, she’s an attractive lady. He’s an attractive man. Oh, look, they’re made. They’re having sex. I see everything graphically. You weren’t like, okay, I’ve seen enough of that. Can he try to stick his foot up her?

Unknown Speaker 32:16
acid right, like, for

Unknown Speaker 32:20
like, I mean, you just go on any like porno site, and they have all the categories. There’s there’s no world and hey, I’m not if you’re into pis, that’s fine. Like if you’re into getting peed on, whatever that’s that’s been around for a while, you know, like kinks had been around. But there should not be 750,000 pistes videos available on corn hub or whatever, whatever site and I feel like that has damaged because like what’s an easier society to take over? Like you feed them processed food for 30 years? give them free pornography. You got a bunch of fat people jacking off?

Unknown Speaker 33:03
What’s an easier country to just to conquer? Yeah, yeah, I get that. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, ain’t no cream price. A gang bags did that not exist in my day, we had stag films that your uncle captain, you had to kind of figure out how to get the screws off of the hinges so you could watch it. But I think they run out of things to shock people. But I had an 18 year old freshman college student comedian, just beginning comedian right before COVID hit. He did his first couple of stand up gigs. Beautiful bit about the night they turned off the dorm. turned off the pornography. He said just the audible scream what you could hear from a mile away. And then we ran out into the hall and every guy that is sticking his pants

Unknown Speaker 33:51
sticking around. They turned it off. So like they blocked porno sites on the on the Wi Fi. Yeah. But they don’t know I’m not a you know, I’m not approved by any means. But I just you know, like I said it’s something and yet 20 years later, I mean, I had bits about that about how like, things are being invented and like CoQ gagging is like it’s like why are you trying to do that? She’s a nice lady. Why are you doing that? You’re already down there giving you a Billy Joel. Why are you trying to murder her? That’s one of my bits. Yeah, that’s a mosh pit to be man has new deuterium. Oh, yeah. Well, one of your old bits. I Brendan’s old bits from 2012. I saw recently and I thought wow, how far behind New York is because you were talking about getting your medical marijuana card. I just got mine. That was 2011 2012 or something. I just got mine two months ago. And a month later, they made it legal in New York and I called up my friend I said, they made it legal in New York. He said you know what this means? I said, Yeah, it means I wasted fucking money on a medical marijuana card. That’s what it means. But what is that right?

Unknown Speaker 35:00
Do you like 50 bucks or something? Oh no yeah doctor visit was 145 and then another 75 or 80 for the card and then you have to renew it but I’m not gonna renew it now but well they had that out here with I mean now it’s you don’t need anything you can just go to a dispensary

Unknown Speaker 35:16
but even when it was the medical marijuana cards there were just these, you know, store shop places you’d walk into, they’d say, what’s wrong with you? You’d be like I’m scared of everything. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 35:29
That’s what it was like for me with the doctor was a zoom call and she said, What’s the matter? I said, I got chronic pain. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so it’s still that way. And but it’s a matter of money. But it’s another thing you know, like the government Well, whatever. I’m not trying to get on a big my hair’s like doing like a like, what it is Yeah, mine is

Unknown Speaker 35:53
but just the the you know, the fact that marijuana has been illegal this whole time. And like cigarettes and alcohol, which are proven to just be fucking awful for you not to get into a whole conspiratorial thing but I’m just like, you know, the government like there are kind of vast conspiracies like you know, when people talk about like anything like 911 it’s like oh, that’s impossible. Nobody would do that. It’s like look at fucking do some research see what governments have done throughout history nothing’s fucking impossible. You know that just be that dismissive.

Unknown Speaker 36:30
Just watch the Godfather if history has taught us anything, it that you can kill anybody?

Unknown Speaker 36:36
Yeah, totally. And it’s usually is like the the first person like yeah, watch a, you know, Forensic Files. It’s like, yeah, it was the wife or the husband. It’s whoever benefits you know, and then that works on grander scales, like governments and

Unknown Speaker 36:53
you know, and corporate you know, corporations and governments like can collude and do things to fuck everybody over people do that, you know? Every day Yeah, guys right now figuring out a way how to screw their friend out of $100 Yeah, why do you think the further up you get there are people like that? Well, it’s just that it’s really hard to keep a secret and the bigger something gets the more people get involved the more likely is somebody is going to come out and spill the beans somewhere along the line that’s that’s my whole take on some of the big conspiracy theories. I got to get your take on this because everybody’s fleeing la all comedians are fleeing LA and going to Austin you started in less than a year out in LA. What is your take on this whole mass migration of funny people out to Austin? I mean, you know, it’s honestly it’s it’s funny we were talking about you know, last year, probably last year around April of last year when the all this because it’s been insane here in Los Angeles with just like,

Unknown Speaker 37:59
you know, businesses going under like the lockdowns and it’s been it’s been over the top and and work to and the cost of living so I was talking with

Unknown Speaker 38:13
with the a train about like, maybe we should move to Austin you know, cuz I was like, we need to get out of here. I can’t fucking take this anymore.

Unknown Speaker 38:23
And I couldn’t I’d like to move to the to the Pacific Northwest. But either way, Austin I’m like, I know Austin. I love Austin still when we look on Zillow for places to rent I know exactly where they are and

Unknown Speaker 38:37
and then about you know, five months later Joe Rogan out there and and that’s that’s really the you know, that’s that’s why it’s Joe Rogan is is the most powerful person in he’s the most powerful comedian he’s he’s a cult leader in history in history. Yeah. in history in the sense that like he could and I’m I I’m friends with Joe I’m not you know,

Unknown Speaker 39:07
I’m not as entrenched in like the, you know, that whole scene click. When I mean, I’m friends. I’m friendly with all those guys. And, and Joe, I did you know, I toured with Joe a little bit a while back. And so I’m, you know, I’m not saying this with any kind of, no, I mean, it’s a but because it is kind of but Joe’s like a cult leader. I mean, he is like, the power that he has to

Unknown Speaker 39:35
like people do because there were guys like Sam Kinison, right he used to tour around with a group of guys called like the outlaws of comedy. And then when Sam died like, you know, some of these guys their careers went on but they went from you know, doing like these arena shows to back at like these, you know, clubs, small clubs, and granted they wouldn’t keep doing arena shows, but Joe’s path

Unknown Speaker 40:00
Is that like he can, he could get, he could pick a random person off the street, have them on his podcast, and then say go see this person do comedy. They’ve never done comedy before. But they’re going to be at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Friday and Saturday go see them, those shows will sell out. Just because Joe said, Go see this person, they’re gonna try comedy for the milk, no doubt about he made 30 million sales on a book that kind of suck because he said it was a good book. I mean, and not not to take away from the author who wrote the book, I thought it sucked that put it that way could still be subjective. But his power and influence isn’t astonishing, considering where it started, because I looked at some of his first podcast episodes, and there’s no way and you would think in nine years, 10 years down the road, this is going to be the most influential person on the planet as far as getting being able to sell merchandise, sell a new comedian, sell a new musician, whatever. I know, people who’ve gotten into bands, like the black keys, just because Joe had him on on his podcast, and that’s like, it’s, it’s amazing. And that’s like, yeah, that’s my only

Unknown Speaker 41:13
idea. Just,

Unknown Speaker 41:15
it’s Yeah, it’s really incredible to see that kind of power. And I think it’s like, I get you know, like, I’ve never talked to Joe about it, but that it’s probably I mean, he’s very healthy and like, you know, the amount that he exercises and stuff. I mean, I think he needs to do that to keep his head screwed on straight. I mean, the the weed smoking. I mean, I think if I achieved that level, I it would be hard to keep it together mentally, you know, totally, totally. I you know, you’d start I mean, I don’t know I you know, be that’s it. That’s a different that’s a level where, like, people are taking notes. Like, you know, the government knows about Joe Rogan. And they’re watching Joe Rogan, and I, you know, I’m sure I don’t know if he’s ever gotten a call. And I know, I’m sounding like Alex Jones, but, I mean, I’m sure there aren’t like, you know,

Unknown Speaker 42:08
there are things that maybe you would that I mean, if I were him, I would be like maybe I shouldn’t really delve too deep into this thing that we’re you know, I don’t know like an Epstein thing or I can’t even think of an example but

Unknown Speaker 42:25
I want to know knocking on my door. Or it gets some weird No, you know, saying like, Hey, you better candidate on the fuckin Epstein shit if you know what’s good for you.

Unknown Speaker 42:36
But I don’t know. I mean, he’s I don’t I don’t listen to his show that much.

Unknown Speaker 42:42
So I don’t know. I mean, I feel like he he gets into conspiracy stuff. And he’s not afraid to talk about anything. So I think most his friends like Eddie Bravo will come on and talk conspiracy stuff. He generally is the voice of reason in that room and I don’t listen that much anymore. He that there was a time when I listened like every day when I was traveling, commuting. I don’t commute anymore. So there’s no no reason to. But it’s funny that you say mentioned called and it’s because I had done a video on the cult of Dan, Doug Stan hope and basically thing saying that his influence over the killer termites was very cult like and the killer termites loved it. They I mean, they they were like, Yeah, he right on you got you hit it, right. I think, you know, sometimes, you know, influence can be a dangerous thing. But and sometimes, you know, people can just latch on to that and be proud to wear that. You know, I would think if you said I was in a cult, I would be a little insulted. But I always expected to kind of have to defend myself. Nobody. Nobody got angry at me. They’ll say yeah, that’s pretty. Pretty, right? It is like a church like a cult. Religion. But the thing about stand up I said for a guy who, who is totally anti religion and most of his materials against different religions. It kind of is a religion. Right?

Unknown Speaker 44:01
It kind of changes the ballgame in some some respects. Yeah, but enough that those guys they don’t need us talking about them. Well, me. Yeah. Let’s talk about you. Let me bring that back in. Where is that? Oh, well, record podcast, the most unusual a different type of video podcast, vlog vodcast if you want to call it you’ll ever find

Unknown Speaker 44:28
it you have to see it. It’s beyond explanation. But I have to warn you this you cannot just watch one episode your wife will have to or your significant other will have to come in and drag you out and say get the wife in on it. You know, my pregnant I’m still trying to explain to her the whole baby thing and I don’t I don’t do it very articulately. And

Unknown Speaker 44:51
she’s just looks at me like

Unknown Speaker 44:55
I had my mouth filled with bees. So to close them out. The bees got into my system and now I’m wondering

Unknown Speaker 45:00
The BS. She said, Does he really believe that? Yeah, I said, You know, I can’t tell when he’s kidding. And when he’s not. I know you have to go. you’re short on time, but I do have to kind of get get some clarity on. You and I have something in common. I think I’ve got bad banned from Twitter more than you did. You got you got banned from Twitter for

Unknown Speaker 45:27
pretending to be Donald Trump Jr. But not really pretending that you made it pretty obvious that you weren’t him, right? No, it was pretty. It’s pretty confusing. And I have to give a shout out to jomar neighbors who’s a another super funny comedian who’s legitimately crazy. I love jemar and jemar. On Twitter, he he did this first like one night I was scrolling through Twitter.

Unknown Speaker 45:53
And he changed his profile to be Donald Trump and changed you know, if you have a

Unknown Speaker 45:59
What do they call it with the check? idea. So if you have a verified account, you can change you know, your handles still the same, but you could change the banner, the photo and then the name. So he copied everything from Donald Trump’s Twitter page. And and the only thing that would tip you off it said at Jamar neighbors but that’s in small like you don’t barely see that. And it’s verified. So I was scrolling through Twitter and I came across like a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. That just said like, something completed just said, like y’all are gay or something like that. And I was like, What the fuck? And it took me you know, took me a couple seconds I go, Oh, shit, that’s jamara That’s hilarious. So

Unknown Speaker 46:45
another night or either way, you know, I messaged him was like, dude, that’s the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. And then he would always he would impersonate different celebrities change his whole page, and just tweet this crazy shit. And one night we were but I was up late, scrolling through, and he’s acting like Donald Trump again. So I changed, like Mike Pence. And we’re get it you know, we’re just having these insane conversations on Twitter. And it really at first glance, it really looks like Donald Trump and Mike Pence, they’re saying these things. And so then on the day, that and then and then we change our things back and nothing ever happened. But then the day that they whatever day that it’s on my new Twitter account.

Unknown Speaker 47:31
Like November, whatever day they called the election when they said Joe Biden’s the winner. I was like, Oh, you know, it’d be funny. I’ll just change my profile to Donald Trump Jr. For a few minutes and do some tweets. And I just was like, you know, this is bullshit. Me and Eric are putting out a pot of coffee and we’re gonna figure this thing out. The Trump Organization is the wheels are in motion for the Trump Organization to buy the White House So good luck getting in there sleepy Joe. I literally did like five tweets or something. And people you know, the replies were everybody you know, everybody was kind of in a frenzy at that point. like yeah, we won or like fuck this shit and and

Unknown Speaker 48:10
literally did it for about 10 minutes and then I was like, okay, that’s I’m gonna go change my change it back to my own profile and and then it said, your account is suspended and

Unknown Speaker 48:21
and they won’t give it back. They tried.

Unknown Speaker 48:25
But this stupid in some way. I mean, I’ve been stupid and I gave him credit for because when I got in, this happened to me a couple of times. Now I’ll confess I’ve been bad. But when I had to go to great lengths to try to not let them know that it was me starting a new account again, you’re new and I don’t know if I should even say this, but your new account doesn’t go far to hide who you really are, and they can’t figure it out. That’s my new account. Well, you know, you just you need a whole new email address. I mean, and that’s kind of getting my Twitter account taken away from me with that Donald Trump shit was

Unknown Speaker 49:01
one of the worst moves that I’ve made like not that my life revolves around Twitter, but you know, I had about 80,000 followers verified account which does make a difference when it comes to like promoting things like it’s you’re elevated in the feed and you know, again with this with the world record podcast, my only real

Unknown Speaker 49:24
promotional tools are Twitter and Instagram and and it really kind of like neutered me that Twitter it’s like nobody seeing any of the you know, I have like six 7005 don’t even know what I have.

Unknown Speaker 49:39
But a fraction of that and I doubt they’ll verify me again. So like it’s ruin that, you know, that promotional tool and another side effect was I had a great thing going for about 10 years. I had a family on Twitter Trish and Trevor Walsh and and we would get in these fights it next week.

Unknown Speaker 50:00
Trish while she lived in Philly, hated me. And I was behind on my child support. And then Trevor was like this little psycho. And I would get in these fights with them. And, you know, it was a fun, great thing. And a lot of people didn’t know, like I had people who should know better. Back when I started, where they’re like, do you have an ex wife and a kid in Philly?

Unknown Speaker 50:19
And now people don’t know when you’re getting even your friends? Don’t I’ve put this to the test. But how well Yeah, no. And I discovered that to that again, until it wasn’t until my

Unknown Speaker 50:32
well trician Trevor, all my side accounts that I would have fun with all got caught, I guess they just looked at the IP address they came from or something, but they managed to just shut down all the fun that I was having. And

Unknown Speaker 50:47
the

Unknown Speaker 50:50
I forget what I was gonna say, You’ve lost your family. I mean, basically, they took that away from you. And I and I, the the the other thing about not knowing when I’m joking, is I just don’t you know, Twitter. I don’t I don’t take anything that seriously. I mean, I take things seriously, you know, I have kids, and you know, I’m not a total whack job. But as far as Twitter, I’m like, I’m a fucking comedian. This is a platform like, you know, be all about whatever social, you know, any social stuff. Go ahead and tweet about whatever, you know, you want to tweet about. And I but I feel like everybody else is picking up the slack on that. Like, I don’t need to broadcast that. Like, yes, I’m on the right side of history with everything because I’m a rational guy. But I assume people know that about me and they don’t and I tweet these insane things like on my old account, like one good thing about the account being shut down. I’m like, Oh, well, now. It’s gonna be you know, people are gonna dig up something from 2009 rice. It’s something wildly inappropriate. Just because it was more acceptable to say something out like completely outrageous.

Unknown Speaker 52:03
They can’t cancel you. What are you gonna do SWAT? Yeah, get some raid. I mean, I do enough. Yeah, I could cancel myself.

Unknown Speaker 52:11
become self canceled. I come close to it. But yeah, but the I my old. I was talking to one of the guy Dan Cronin, who’s a writer for Conan Dan Cronin, writer for coding.

Unknown Speaker 52:25
But he we were messaging about something. And, and I said, it didn’t dawn on me until they took my Twitter account away where I was. I thought, I wonder if Twitter if my Twitter account has cost me work by tweeting crazy things, and, you know, getting in weird fake fights. And I mentioned that, because I think we’re tweeting or texting about work or whatever. And I was like, yeah, you know, I think Twitter might have, I might have fucked myself with my old Twitter. And he was just like, you definitely did.

Unknown Speaker 53:01
And he’s like you. He’s like, I thought you were an insane asshole until I met you. And we did a show together. And you’re a totally normal, nice guy. But your Twitter presence, you seem like a psychopath. And I guarantee you, you’ve been up for jobs. And they just googled, you looked at your Twitter and said, You know what, I don’t know what this guy’s deal is. But he just said like, I support Bill Cosby. Or

Unknown Speaker 53:27
like some other outrageous. Yeah, and you’re absolutely right. You definitely have been because I have been in I am crazy on social media. But I don’t reach to some of the depths that you’re doing. I say that in a very complimentary way. I want woke up. I woke my wife up one night, laughing hysterically and at the phone, she said What the fuck? It’s so funny. And I pointed to one of your tweets about peeping tom in your heart was beating. It seems like it’s real. Why is he Why is he posting it? I said, I’m pretty sure it’s just kidding about this, but you’d never know what this guy I that’s, you know, it’s hard for me to I get caught up in the moment of making myself laugh. Get involved in the comedy business.

Unknown Speaker 54:12
I feel like not a lot of things. make you laugh. Like, I mean, obviously, I’m friends with some of the funniest people on the planet.

Unknown Speaker 54:21
But as far as like, watching comedy movies and comedy TV shows, you’re kind of watching it through a different lens. Because you like you, it gets to a point where you just know people who are involved in everything and and you’re kind of you know, it just kind of takes away the it’s just like this peek behind the curtain where you can’t just innocently watch a comedy. And so I it’s up to me to really give myself these like juvenile giggles and and yeah, and that’s another thing like I don’t think about it on the surface, but I have a whole thing where I’m a peeping Tom. Like I just I go out and I talk about how I’m like, Look

Unknown Speaker 55:00
In Windows and

Unknown Speaker 55:02
the floorboards, my heart is beating through my chest.

Unknown Speaker 55:06
I took a picture of

Unknown Speaker 55:09
I was like I try I saw a lady in her bra, I tried to take a picture, but that was on and it’s just like, a picture of like a street. Like I just went to my back door and took a picture with a flash. That’s the one I was cracking up about. That’s the one that she thought was real, because it’s real enough, you will put an emotional,

Unknown Speaker 55:28
emotional attachment to it or, I mean, you do have to think about because then like, you know, I saw a friend of mine recently, she tweeted that there was an actual, you know, that their neighbors saw somebody looking under Windows or whatever. And I’m like, the reality of it is awful. So and like even when I’m doing the peeping tom things I’m thinking like, Is somebody gonna write people love to be fucking angry and call people out and I’m just like, waiting for someone to be like, you know, I’m glad you’re having fun with all this, but I actually had a peeping Tom, who, you know, did terror terrorized my life for two years. And and now you know, and he’s in jail. And he tried like, and it’s like, yes, I’m not. I get it like that. Everybody has a lot of experiences. I mean, if you boiled everything down to, you know, well, this might offend somebody then don’t just never speak because there’s always going to be somebody who’s like, Well, my uncle has a wooden leg, and he slipped on a banana peel once and fell in. Oh, man. Do you think that’s funny?

Unknown Speaker 56:31
I love that complete, federal detailed, mock up of ridiculous over the top reaction to a joke. Banana peel manhole cover you got you covered all the bases.

Unknown Speaker 56:46
I had an uncle who had a wooden leg and they call them hop. And that would never go anywhere. It’d be like what are you being mean to him and being but he actually embraced being called top.

Unknown Speaker 56:57
You know, things used to be

Unknown Speaker 57:01
sensitive. One more time. I want a promo Yeah, I’ll let you go. Because I know you have things to do today. And I do appreciate your time here. Well, record podcast, it’s available. And you can go to the Patreon page. That’s where you should get it because you get the full length and all the bells and whistles and everything that comes with it. I guarantee you, you will not regret becoming a fan becoming a member of this podcast. It’s probably the best use of your time on podcasting stuff other than issues with Andy which you know, is that my current favorite, and I appreciate you coming on Brendan, and you can watch the on YouTube too. There’s a bunch of a few 100 tests, right one is before you jump into the Patreon It’s uh, yeah, and I do appreciate you being here. I wish you good luck with what you got going on today. And thanks for coming, man. Really? This? This meant a lot to me. And I’m sure we’ve means a lot to the the listeners and viewers of the show. So thank you. No, thanks for having me. Anytime. That was That was fun. I know. I know. I regret now after this. I’m going to sit down and regret 90% of what I said. No, no, no, no, it was all good, please. Fine. I I do feel like we should I’m like, we will whatever. You don’t need to talk about Joe Rogan. Everybody knows about Joe Rogan. Yeah. But the it was important to the Austin conversation because it is why the Austin thing is going on. So yeah, and now I don’t know if we’re gonna Well, yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t keep that from but now it’s almost like cliche. You know, we were talking about it a year ago. And now it’s just kind of like, when you mentioned to people that I’m thinking about getting out of LA and you’re just kind of like, oh, we’re gonna move to Austin. And I’m like, Well, I mean, at least it’s not Brad Branson. There was a time when people thought it was cool to move to Branson. He was like, What the fuck do you want to become a hillbilly? What the hell is that? At Branson, Missouri. Anybody knows of good places to move that are fairly inexpensive and

Unknown Speaker 58:59
fun. Yeah. And there’s still places to work. Also. Yeah, yeah, that’s a good, that’s a difficult one. Thanks for coming. Good luck today. And I’ll talk to you again. Bye. See you man. Thanks a lot. Guys. Have a great day. Bye.

Unknown Speaker 59:12
The one and only Brandon wants to be man. I’m sorry. Brandon Walsh is no longer exists. It’s the beam man. And he’s the host of the world record podcast. Link is in the description. the Patreon link is in the description. I hope you check it out. That’s our show for today. And no sponsors for today. I’ll see you tonight we have another episode of meet the author. To be honest, it’s gonna be a little bit of a letdown for me after getting to talk to Brendan today. So I hope you enjoyed this program. Hope you tell your friends about it. hope you come back. Hope you check out his podcast and till next time. I’m Matt nappo for the mind dog TV podcast. Thanks for coming. Have a great night. Bye for now.

Craig Mitchell – Low Carb Laughs


My friend Craig returns to talk about his cooking show, baseball, comedy, politics, west coast life and all sorts of shenannigans

After being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at the weight of 380 lbs in September of 2016. Craig Mitchell has lost 100 lbs (and counting) and has completely controlled his type 2 diabetes with diet alone since February 2017. A Stand Up comic and amateur cook, Craig had a twice monthly cooking show where he shares recipes and tricks of health eating done simply and deliciously!

https://www.youtube.com/c/offthecuffhealthycookingwithcraigmitchell
https://www.facebook.com/offthecuffwithcraigmitchell/

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A Comedy History Lesson – Joey Gaynor – The Comedy Store Memories


A Comedy History Lesson – Joey Gaynor – The Comedy Store Memories
The iconic Joey Gaynor joins me to share some of the history of stand up comedy, The famed Comedy Store, and the current state of the artform.

Joey Gaynor is a stand up comedian and actor from the great state of New Jersey, who began his stand up career in the mid ’70s and t he was doing television shows like ABC’s FRIDAYS the west coast answer to Saturday Night Live. It was there he cemented his friendship with one of his mentors, Andy Kaufman.
In 1983 Richard Pryor took joey under his wing having him as his opening act for countless sold out shows in Hollywood where Joey says, “I got the best damn tutoring you could ever have, Every night after the shows he would sit down with me and talk to me about what I was doing, and more importantly WHY and how I should try this or that. I feel so Blessed to have had a relationship like that with my idol.”
Over the years Joey has worked in film and television with the likes of Leslie Neilson, Paul Sorvino, Thora Birch and the late great Jonathan Winters. Joey also co-starred in what is now a cult classic “COMEDY’S DIRTIEST DOZEN” with , Tim Allen and the late great Bill Hicks.
He also was one of Robert Townsend’s “ORIGINAL PARTNERS IN CRIME” for HBO and guest starred on “HOUSE”, “E.R.” and in the movie “THE FIVE HEARTBEATS”. Joey was also one of the driving forces behind Troma Films Cult CLassic “FEROCIOUS FEMALE FREEDOM FIGHTERS” which Blockbuster rated five stars and called it “Even funnier than “What’s up Tiger Lily”. After a much needed hiatus, Joey is back and rocking audiences once again.

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