#2484 - David Cross

The Joe Wilgen experience Train my day Joe Wilgen podcast my night all day Joseph good to see you. I haven't seen you a long fucking time. What was the last time we were actually a room together? I well, I was trying to think of that.

I don't know I would imagine post news radio We hung out at some point at some show somewhere somewhere, but I don't know but I do remember Cuz I did news radio a couple times and we we hung out and I remember I Think we both know just you had more hair than I was fighting Shavers at it is that oh, it's I mean, I'm bald if I didn't shave I'd be bald all the way up here, but I got hair transplant and it was useless. Yeah I did a joke about it. I go to having a hair twist when it's like taking people that are healthy and moving them into a neighborhood Where everyone's dying? This is like where did Bob go?

He just fucking flew off the face of the earth so yeah, you'd say you just accepted it Yes, I should have done it a long time ago It's so much better and I don't have to talk to a barber I don't have to listen to boring fucking stories while they hold you hostage with the pair of scissors That's what that's what this is. This gets me. I don't like shaving I don't it's kind of a pain the ass and I also I look like a kind of a turtle. It looked like a turtle You know when I shave I don't like it And it's not attractive to me and I jerk off to me all the time so I want to keep things fresh but This I probably don't have to I could probably get clippers and stuff but I go to you know one of my guys around the corner where I live and And I have this experience where I I want that I want to get in and out right because of what you were saying a lot of chitchat and There are a couple guys very quiet.

Hi. How you doing good fist bump whatever you get? You know what I want to get get out there. There's one guy who?

Just talks all and and then they have that the blade, you know the what do you call that you know the blade blade thank you and And they got right there so you got to be polite. It's on your it's by your yeah, you know And I know I could avoid it if I just get some clippers and just do this thing, but I don't I was born And sorry There's no point to it. That's too early anything to do with what we were talking about Is there something about a beard though that makes you distinguished or at least have experience or look like a homeless? You know Alcoholic I mean there are plenty of those guys too.

Yeah, there's a lot of those two but a beard is like there's just a statement with a beard Like a full beard like yours white mine is just you know, I don't like shaving like you know and again I I I do like I only gain weight in two places Snowmic and right here and and also I've a kind of a thin frame. So it's it's really not attractive. It's not attractive So the beard is sort of it's a little it's it's I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, no I hear you and this you know I just I go I don't know six seven weeks and then I just shave it once it gets out because this my hair doesn't grow Down or it just grows out like a clown, you know goes this way all of it even this too and And once this starts filling in it just looks goofy.

Yeah, I have a friend my friend of son He used to shave his head and now purposely to lift goofy. He lets the sides go out and it's madness It's just it's all fucking crazy thick hair and bald on top and bald on top. Yeah, and he does a joke on stage about it It doesn't praise Indian doesn't my pressure of an Indian posy what and he just Like not Considered by getting later. Yeah, I think he's just embracing but he still gets laid.

You know, he's really funny. I think he just embraces Not giving a fuck there. He is oh He looks familiar to me. Okay, very funny guy.

All right cool. He's one of the up and cover He's from LA originally. He was one of the door men at the Comedy Store. Okay.

He was very professorial. He's very smart Yeah, yeah, but doesn't give a fuck about his hair. Who's that art Bell? I was gonna guess art Bell Yeah, I swear to God.

I swear to God. I don't even know if I've ever seen him. Yeah, yes Yes from the Kingdom of Nye. Wow, I fucking love that show That was the show that I listened to coming home from Hollywood because I lived out in the valley and I would drive home at night I'd listen to late night with art Bell art the coast was art Bell.

I used to do a whole bit about The like because who's the new guy George? Right, right, right and I'm gonna digress for one second. Did you ever do you play video games at all? Yes, well, I try not to but I used to play a lot of them.

Did you ever play pray? No, but I know what it is Oh great underrated underrated game got ripped off or just people bit certain things that they started But one of the coolest things so it's about like this it takes place on a Reservation, you know in the 90s I guess or something like that and there's a bartender and her boyfriend and and it takes place in this bar and then aliens come and Then this guy goes on the alien ship to Go rescue her but they did this really cool thing So first they have this in the video game right at the bar There's a TV and as you walk towards it It's there it's playing it's like staticky until you get closer to it and then as your character gets closer to it It's art Bell talking about aliens and stuff. I know I'm not doing it justice, but it was such a cool smart idea and Bless the OG. Yeah, and and just some of the guy I one thing that because I listen to it a lot too because sometimes You know you're listening and you're like this is insane This is crazy and he would always always treat the guest with difference, you know Yes, and I I that must have been Because there were things that were you know if you go back to all the episodes that were kind of contradictory in a sense You know like wait you think all these things happen you think there's a Place in the middle of the ocean that has like it's a community of people that live there and and then but you also think this Like all these different things would be like hmm interesting.

Yeah, he would let you go. He let you go He gave us some air, but he was yeah, he's never rude or never you call him up He had a time traveler line where you would call specifically if you were a time traveler What if but if you were calling from the past they didn't have that technology yet Mostly people from the future I believe wait like art. I'm calling from seven minutes in the future Listen, I think his whole deal was if you are here in this current era But you are from another time you could call because you know the idea was like he would have these remote viewers and Oddballs on and they would talk about that. We have had the ability to time travel for a long time Yeah, you know There were wormholes that exist and they explained the quantum dynamics involved in time travel was been breached by the CIA in the 1960s Yes, and you have these people call up but art would always like give them air like let it breathe.

Yeah, yeah Art I'm a werewolf interesting tell me more like it didn't matter no matter what it was it was a fun show Yeah, I loved it craziest people from fucking Bigfoot people to alien people everything and then a lot of people Ex-military and you get that like whistle blowers. I was stationed in You know outside of a remote island that I can't go into a Singapore and I witness some things are that I still have difficulty Leaving and then yeah, that was great. Yeah, it's so fun, and you so did you also listen to Phil Henry? Yes?

Okay, he was the best super genius the best thing about Phil Henry was the people that didn't understand what was going on They would call in the first the first two times. I heard him. I didn't understand what he was doing He's that good too Then I would be like this is crazy this guy and then eventually you're like always doing characters Because he you know repeat characters and stuff, but I got the chance to watch him do a show So he's got he's got the he's got three mics. I want to say Like two mics like this and then a phone mic or you know phone like I had a whole time, you know cradle phone and he was doing himself The the woman who's runs the HOA or whatever that whatever her name was that that character and then somebody else Calling in like he did somebody calling on the phone and it was I mean it was like a magic act Yeah, it's crazy to watch how without missing a beat and I could see You can see how he strategically takes breaths so that he can go from one character to another and interrupting each other Yeah, you know it was fascinating, but he's a genius.

It's the only thing that caught right away I was like oh wait a minute. There's no cross talk like right with one of the early times I listen I was like I think this is the same guy yeah, well, he's he bumps it up like he's really good at You know making it sound as if like because he'll interrupt himself and go and I okay But you know it stop and then just go right into the other voice. It's fucking phenomenal and then Completely original like I don't know if anybody else didn't know that no Did you ever he used to put out stuff for charity like CDs and things and he has I don't know What it would be called, but it was one of the one of the things he put out for charity that was a Guy called into the station. I think it was probably super high, but he called in thinking it was pizza hot and He fucks with this guy in the best way where he's like And who's the what's the woman character?

He does? It's kind of like like a black woman who's like, hmm honey It is the bed. I don't know Marjorie. I think maybe but he then he does that woman answering the phone at you know Pizza Hut and then He does the automated thing like I'm gonna put you on it's easier to do the automated Think so and the guy's like okay, all right and and then he gets out He's like thank you for calling pizza hot the best pizza in a three block radius And if you want if you want I'm not doing it justice.

You got to go do it here at listen. Can you? Okay, it's so brilliant Whatever the large. Yes.

Just a regular large No, I don't Okay, I think I'm at the wrong location here And he's so bad you're calling pizza your call is being transferred please have all credit card information available for our operators Hi, yes, hi, which is okay. Are you at the corner of lock the other guy and then it okay? I like the place in order for delivery. All right If you like cheese pizza press one if you'd like a meatball pizza press to if you'd like sausage press three He goes he eventually gets the guy a fish pizza and the guy's like no man this I don't want but It's really funny, but that's him that's still doing all those voices and that's not set up a guy had called into the studio Thinking it was pizza and like did you ever meet him?

I did briefly at when I got to see him do is he did a live show at Aspen comedy festival a long long long time ago I did something with him a Bob Odenkirk and Doug Stanhope. Oh and and Adam Corolla. I don't remember where it was I want to say it was somewhere in Canada, but it was some sit down We were talking about the process of going through because he was in the middle of doing some sort of a television show pilot We're yeah Yeah So we're talking about the process of creating a pilot and what it's like trying to get a pilot to an actual finished television show and get Approved and what the struggles are it was very Canadians I don't think it was for it was it was one of those Montreal comedy festivals. Yes.

Yeah Yeah, it's it was like some weird talk was a long time ago Like god I like 2001 or something like yeah I vaguely remember when he was there was gonna be because he would talk about it doing this sitcom Yeah, did it ever happen? I don't think so no he was a really nice guy though not what I expected at all I expected him to be fucking insane just like just to be able to do that every night and not get bored with Just completely fucking with people every day. It's it's gotta be exhausting to like mentally cuz you're you've got a remember Really great improv guys where you have to remember all these details bring them back 30 minutes later, right? And you're doing multiple characters you ever see TJ and Dave no, I'll do the best Yeah, it's TJ Jadogowski and Day Pass Waze who are like the kings of that Stuff in the out of Chicago and they come they tour around and they're just there two guys who It starts off, you know, it's an omelets plan and it's and they have like a dedicated cult following when they're in New York It sells out like that and you got to At least two shows to see how wildly different it is I mean there two guys that come out on stage usually it was like three chairs and It'll just start with like, you know How's going good good good?

Are you in line? No, no, no, and then you watch it like oh they're in line Where are they in line at do they know each other and and then it turns out they're at the DMV But they're not it's like a room outside the DMV and then they will leave and come back and be somebody else right a kid That was mentioned or white for something or being a car and and and it all Wraps up. It's all a big story and and I have seen I've probably seen him 30 40 times and I've seen Shows where that were more that were funnier and more poignant than some plays that have been worked on for years, you know It is completely improvised completely 100% Wow. Oh, they're there.

I mean Do you know Tim Meadows? Yeah, so Tim was a guest sometimes about third. I know he is I don't know yeah, so I was and Tim's been you know as an L. Yeah, and in Wisconsin that Second City world for decades and he said it was the most terrifying thing he's ever done because you're they're like genius level.

I Mean the detail you have to remember and then and then on top of it if one of them is you know I'm a marine biologist or whatever it slips out then that person has to know about the real person playing the fake marine biologist I said no enough about marine biology to keep the thing going, you know and it's just next level I don't know about you guys, but with spring here. I am ready to go outside There's so much to do now that things are warming up like getting your garden ready for the growing season cleaning off your camping gear Or even taking a quick jaunt around the neighborhood anything to get outside But that also means you're probably extra busy this time of year That's where AG one comes in a healthy daily drink that helps support you all day long one scoop of AG one supports immune health energy Digestion and more plus AG one can replace all those multivitamins and probiotics crowding up your cabinet See for yourself how making AG one a part of your routine can help you stay on top of everything going on this season visit drink AG one comm slash Joe Rogan and for a limited time get a bottle of Omega three vitamin D3 K2 and an AG one flavor Sampler for free in your welcome kit with your first subscription. That's a hundred eleven dollar value at drink AG one Dot-com slash Joe Rogan well, I'd imagine that's like a muscle that you just get really strong with like rantors like like Tim Dillon is The best at ranting on a podcast alone. He doesn't he doesn't have anybody with him most of his podcasts are just him ranting And I've watched the development of it I'm like that's an amazing muscle to develop because you just get accustomed to that kind of scenario that situation Where it's just in your mind just gets used to producing content just and like old school AM late night radio guys Right, we don't have people calling in who are like talking about whatever and they got to do it, you know Four or five times a week.

Yeah, I find themselves. Yeah, I used to always like to listen to them I just like to listen to those crazy right-wing angry political talk shows because I don't I didn't know anybody like that So I was like what what is this guy doing? Well That's that was the bulk of the radio. I mean that's why you know you have like art Bell and Phil Henry like a nice Like oh, okay.

Yeah, cuz I got all this I got Mark Levin and I got You know what's his name? You know the Russian bomb. Yeah, and and when you first start listening or when I first started listening And I came out to LA from Boston, you know and people were like there's this guy out here He was fucking nuts, you know and I've never heard of him in Boston and then and you're like does he how much of this stuff Does he believe does he really believe and how much has he? Come to believe does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, and and those guys that was a whole fascinating thing and Wally George I do but I don't remember much about him. I remember the name. What did wall George do he was the guy who originated? What I mean now, it's really familiar.

He would remember Morton Downey Jr. He was a little after all that's right. That's right and he would look at 83 and he was and it was a super low-budget like cable access back when that was a whole thing and He'd get the audience would be hooting and hollering and he'd have people on like Somebody who can sometimes say I think because it became popular sort of like with Morton Downey Jr Where people came on to quote unquote fuck with Wally George like I'm gonna pretend to be a you know A furry way and I'm gonna you know have gauges and you know what I mean like just the archetype of the thing they want to yell at and uh and I think people started It was there were some bullshit people on there, you know people lying about who they were but he'd have people on and then and then kick them off Like come on sit down what the fuck do you think you're doing and everybody would yell at the person they start talking like get the fuck out of here Like you know and uh here's something really crazy Uh and tell me if this is rumor look up at your magic computer Rebecca de Mornay's dad the actors that's yeah Wally George. Yes.

No. Yeah, really look it up Casey, right? Jamie. I'm gonna call you Casey Who is I forget who Rebecca de Mornay was from a risky business.

Oh wow Wow her dad. Yeah is Wally George. Wow Married multiple times shocker probably 10 potentially 10 times at least six children How many times he was married one two three four Wow possibly 10 possibly 10 you imagine keep fucking signing up. I don't yeah I just read um literally the other day Fleetwood Mac guy is getting married for the fifth time He's a hundred and eighty two and he's getting like what stop yeah, why do you want to keep doing that they believe they really believe this is it This is the one Kid you have to say those vows and mean it each time or not Yeah, or just say this is just a fun thing that I do.

Yeah people a lady happy Yeah, or just have a party. Yeah, I have a party and pretend that you're normal now. Are you married? Yeah, yeah, how long you been married?

17 years. Oh nice. Yeah, it'll be 14 in October if I get divorced. That's a wrap What do you mean?

Like I'm happy happily married. I don't want to get divorced. Not saying that but if I ever get divorced, I'm never Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, same here. Yeah. Oh, I feel the same. I'm not having any more children So if I don't have any children it makes no sense.

Yeah, it's a legally be bound to some person Can we just hang out? I am 100 with you. I I and I was I was never a Anti-marriage guy, but I just didn't think I'd get married because I didn't want to and then eventually I met somebody who I wanted to marry Yeah, it's like you just have to it has to I mean that's the thing it has to be the right person everybody who says that except for all George But the idea of doing it 10 times it's fucking insane. Yeah, that's it.

They're doing a different thing. I think once you get I'll give you three And let's say one of them was some fishy circumstances I'll give you three once you get on your by the time you're gonna be on your fourth or fifth or sixth or Rupert Murdoch marriage Like I what is the point and why does that woman believe you? What does it say about the lady? Well, what about ladies to do it?

I've been here for six years and I know one lady while I've been here She's been married twice married and divorced twice and now she's on the third guy. I would look I mean that's just something about the guys right I guess if you You wouldn't ever think like you meet somebody you like them and then you find out they've been married twice before and six years, right and You and you were like starting the fall for her. You wouldn't think wait a minute. You would unless she was hot Madder dumb Well, if she's hot and she's sexy and you really like being around her.

You're like who cares she made mistakes Yeah, who cares? I guess you're right if the sex is that good? Yeah, the sex is good. She's hot and you're loving around her and that's what she wants.

You want to make her happy like okay I'll say this you should find out you should go talk to the other guys And have a sit down and find out why you know, yeah, that was some guys don't want to mess it up for you So they'll lie they might not be accurate You know they might paint a dista also they might have been the fuck up and they want to blame it on her And then you'll get a distorted perception who she is But then then it's back to her that she's marrying people right Fuck up just I guess the point is that we're both making is don't get married You know, it's a weird thing. It's a weird thing to do. You have children. I do Yeah, it's a weird thing to do if you don't have children not weird like you shouldn't do it, but it's a different thing Yeah, it's completely yeah, you're right and I I would say that Not that we you know, my wife and I have any you know real issues, but I would Behave myself and stay and work at the marriage because of the kid.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely It fucks kids up when people get divorced. What's your what's your background?

And my parents were split up when I was five and my mother remarried when I was seven and it's been with my stepdad ever since Oh, that's good. Yeah, they have a great relationship. I just saw him this weekend. Where do you grow up?

Fucking everywhere. I was born in New Jersey moved to San Francisco when I was seven lived in San Francisco from seven to 11 In the height of the Vietnam War um in hate ash berry like hippie town and then uh, florida from 11 to 13 That's the opposite of San Francisco. Oh my god. Yeah, that's what first time I found out about the N word I didn't know what it meant and I remember I had to ask my mom.

Yeah, I had to ask my mom I never heard it. I just go never heard it San Francisco in the 1970s when I was you know between seven and 11 was kind of a wild amazing time It was really weird. It was because we were in the middle of like the counterculture Moved Berkeley. Oh, that's uh-huh.

Yeah, we lived right down the street from lumbard street So we're you know, we were like in the middle of it all, you know, and It's funny because it was during that time that the Vietnam War ended when I was I think I was when didn't Vietnam end 74 Okay So it was like whatever the point is like at that time I remember thinking thank god they figured out wars bad We're never gonna do this again. I literally literally had that thought over old. I was a naive child Oh, I was like because my stepfather had um, he didn't get drafted. He got lucky He just didn't get picked and I knew a guy some guy that was a friend of the family that moved Canada He's like fuck this.

He took off to Canada So I was aware of that like all people are leaving the country so they don't have to go to war This is because you're a little kid everything's fucking scary Especially if you come from a broken home and you know, like yeah the concept of a draft or description the idea like oh you may have to go And we're gonna learn how to shoot a gun and go shoot strangers. Yeah, you know Like that it's gotta be terrifying if you're a kid no, it was insane and it was also the time where um, you know My stepdad was a hippie and my parents were hippies and when that's what why did your uh, sorry to interrupt But why did they move around so much my stepfather was a computer programmer initially and then he wanted to become an architect So he went to school in San Francisco and then University of Florida in Gainesville and then Boston architectural center So we moved to Boston when I was 13 so that was what it was it was him becoming architect Right and so like they they didn't like sports They weren't into anything like that and then when Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War He became this like counterculture hero sure yeah, and I remember it was my parents Sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Sphinx because he was trying to win his title back And they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy Like this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents fans of his To the point where they're gonna watch boxing like they never watch bok they don't want to have anything to do with anything violent They hated it and but they wanted to watch that one boxer To watch if you were anti, you know hitting or boxing whatever it was Muhammad Ali was a strategist You know he was but quite honestly by that stage of his career He had slowed down considerable and he just wasn't I can't remember the Leon Sphinx because he Leon beat him. Yeah, and then he beat Leon in the rematch Right.

This is the rematch right and that was the big one that we're all glued to the tv But I remember thinking this is crazy. They're watching boxing because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War Have you seen when we were kings? Yes. Yeah, it's great.

It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing Yeah, he was uh, god.

You want to talk about a unique human being like a one-of-one. Yeah, you know, yeah, and you know outside of you know, Mike Tyson there was never any kind of Figure like that in boxing, you know, um, I mean there was minor array letter a little bit But not not to that extent because he wasn't a cultural figure right Muhammad Ali represented something during the civil rights movement Well, like any changes name. Yeah, Muhammad Ali right right. That was a big thing too.

People were terrified of Muslims Yeah at the time and still There's a different kind of Muslims. You know that was um, well the the they were the You know, the government was really good about uh portraying every black urban person as like potentially, you know, muslim brotherhood Uh, 12 tribes right right right those guys. They're still around the Israelite 12 tribes. Oh those guys.

Yeah, they used to be uh, they used to hang out and hang out They used to be in the Times Square like, you know, yelling and Preaching out with those guys one day. I wrote a piece about it for my website because uh, I went I was going home Uh, was one I was living in New York and I was walking on the street and there's this guy standing there with like a microphone a little speaker Yeah, and they would read things for the bible Yeah, and they would translate it and they had this very bizarre translation everybody was black George Washington was black everyone was black They were explaining to me, you know, the the so-called Jew. They're black Israelites. Yeah, the so-called Jew was the thing that they were always Jewish.

Yeah, you don't have to say the so-called yeah, it was great odd, but their their whole thing was there was a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were black that Have been, you know, a history written out of history. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was their thing Yeah, they also informed me that I'm not white. There was a relief Was I'm Italian.

They're like, oh, you ain't white. I was like, oh, it's like the great because they hated white people So I was just talking this because I was bored. You know, I was just so I was talking this guy Having him explain everything to me and he informed me to wear a man. You're not white.

I was like, oh, okay, that's good That's good. No, you can hang out You don't hate me, but it was uh very odd very odd. They're all dressed like superheroes. They're all these crazy like Avenger costumes on yeah, and uh, like jewelry big big huge Thousands around their neck.

Yeah, very odd stuff. There's still you don't seem like you used to but they're still out there. Oh, yeah Yeah, they're out there. I mean like in literally in New York out there.

Uh-huh for a theory of Times Square Yeah, last time I was in Philadelphia. I saw them. Yeah, they were out there on the street with the microphones. Yeah, we'll do yeah Yeah, it's a odd group When were you in New York?

I was in New York. I moved to New York in 91 Yeah, so I start stand up in 88 in Boston and uh, I got picked up by my manager who I'm still with when I was essentially an open miker Who was that Jeff Sussman? How do we not know Jeff Sussman? He handles Kevin James.

Was he a boxing guy? No, he was a New York guy. Okay, okay So the story was he had um, well, it's a snake and the guy who had all the crazy costumes. He was on the ronnie danger peel special bob Oh bob Nelson.

Yeah, so he handled bob Nelson cleave the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, he put the helmet on He had boxing gloves. He did jippy Jeff's gym. He had brain damage.

He did a bunch of different characters So bob who is a big act, you know he had HBO special the whole deal at the time. Um, he found Jesus and uh, was he In his basement, I guess or something. It was in around the neighborhood somewhere. Okay, but he uh Had this guy who was his prayer partner that was going to take over his manager And so this was my manager's big client.

He's like fuck like I gotta I gotta go find some other Did did he just stop doing stand up because I don't know I think I don't know if he still does stand up I don't know I knew his career my manager is really good and he's very smart and he did a great job guiding bob But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that Like maybe that becomes more of their life than he was all in. Yeah, he was all in with Christianity And so um my manager said well, I kind of know most of the comics in new york Let me see if i'm not missing people in boston And so he traveled to boston with a friend of his one of the guys that uh own governors and uh, they came Governors was bob's room. Wasn't yes. Yeah, one of the rooms that he worked at.

Yeah, and so they came down to boston And I just randomly went up one night at um Duck soup. I remember duck soup duck soup duck soup was it became the improv after a while. It was um, I don't remember that Billy Downs and um, um, ball barkly. I think it was actually Billy split.

I think it was Paul's thing So they split at that point. I think I'm not sure about that, but what it was it was Paul's idea I believe it was a much more high-end room like it was really nice and it was right across from nicks So it was in the below area where the wiltern is. Okay, so you know where the wiltern is which is now the big You know where bill bloomin right does con connection? Right.

Yeah, is that it the wilbur It's the will okay. I'm thinking the wiltern's la wiltern's la Right. I know we'll talk about the wilbur right you're right so downstairs the wilbur it was you'd go down and it was a really nice room Okay, and uh, I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos and uh driving a limo in boston Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh man. That's what's doing for a job. That's fucking I mean I just mean the literal streets of boston are To navigate with any vehicle but yeah Yeah Extra half a car to it. Yeah, it was it wasn't that bad.

It was mostly airport pickups Yeah, you know a lot of it was town cars people up in town cars But uh, when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas And uh, I had an idea for a joke and I called god I can't remember who the guy was fuck I can't believe I'm blanking on his name He was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club And I could call him up and say hey, can I get a guest spot? And he gave me a guest spot that night I wasn't even supposed to be on the show And my manager just happened to be in the room If I know he was in the room, I probably would have been nervous and probably bombed Yeah, and I had no idea he was there and then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card and he said Can I see you tomorrow? I said okay, and then I just spent for a ride to the airport So I did a set at the connection the next night And then he asked me to come to New York and audition there and then wow next thing And now I was living in New York. It was like three years later.

Very cool And then that was crazy crazy story and uh, when did you move out to LA? 94 93 like first came out 93 and then moved in 94 I came out to 93 for a pilot I did a pilot on Fox called hardball with Jim Brewer and a bunch of other people It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled was terrible And then uh, the only reason why I stayed I hated LA But the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year So like fuck like I have to stay here And so I stayed for a whole and then I got a development deal for NBC And um, they I was there in the middle of this whole development deal and then they said we have a pilot that we already filmed But we're gonna fire one of the cast members Uh, we want you to audition for this and that was news radio. So I got to watch who uh, did you replace? Well, fortunately It was Ray Romano was a good friend of mine was fired during the pilot and so they replaced him with another guy and that guy got fired Oh, wow.

Yeah, so it wasn't I would felt terrible. Yeah, it was Ray, but it was Ray being replaced I was like good fuck that guy. I'll do it for Ray. You remember who the other guy was?

I do not he was just an actor some guy. I mean, I never met him. Sure. He's a nice guy But uh luckily for Ray, he goes on and does everybody loves Raymond becomes huge And I just stumbled into this fucking show with no acting experience.

That was a fun set I remember I remember because I did it a couple times and uh And also like that was not my first but one of the first experiences I had with multi-camera sitcoms, you know, you're like Uh, this is literally the easiest job on planet earth Oh, yeah, it is the you have one full day. You have like a full think Thursday, right? Yeah, and then friday's like half a day. Yeah, money come in listen to this read the script go away.

Yeah, it's the filming day That's the long day. Yeah, it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose The first season was hard the first season was 12 14 hour days because it was like they were trying to figure out what the show was But once it got rolling it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing stand-up for six years I'd only been I'd done no acting I had a they had maybe get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive news for a pilot for the pilot the fox pilot.

Oh, yeah, well, how's how's an acting coach gonna help you with a sitcom? It's about instinct. It's about well, they were giving me a lot of money. They gave me like a hundred fifty thousand dollars You have to learn how to act right.

Do you know how to act? I've never acted I'm just saying like I know to deliver sitcom lines as yeah, you don't need an acting teacher. Wow, Joseph That's a limber of the body. Yeah, you're not Daniel de luis.

You're not doing there will be blood it was a It was weird because it wasn't anything I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like oh my god. This is it. Yeah, I'm on a sitcom.

I'm acting It was more like this is crazy. I can't believe I'm doing this. You know, it was more like wow I can't believe I get to do this But um, you know the real thing for me was to be able to be in LA and go to the commie store That to me was more that was more huge than like when I got passed at the commie store That to me was like way bigger than being on a sitcom I was like holy shit like because at that you know like it's six years in I was like Am I even is this gonna work out like I'm even though this is gonna work out. Well, it's also not glamorous in any way that that aspect of Working is there's nothing glamorous about a sitcom.

You know what I mean? It's not the thing that when you're Not in LA or hollywood and you're sitting back and you're you are told about the glamorous lifestyle the parties and all that stuff It's literally you're driving to work and you're going to work, you know Yeah, but it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television And that was very weird to me is very strange to watch it on tv and like that is actually me on tv I had zero aspirations for any acting at all Yeah, it never was never even occurred to me when I lived in Boston I remember me and Fitzimmons used to we used to dream about the day we could pay our bills telling jokes. That was all it was I hear you it was just like oh god. I would see guys like DJ hazard I remember I went to look at this apartment and DJ hazard lived in the same building And it was this converted schoolhouse and these loft departments and like a second floor where they're like the bedroom was It looked over the living room.

I'm like god. He pays for this with jokes This was like the most amazing thing like that's all I wanted I saw these like Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney I was like imagine being able to pay your bills Just telling jokes untie my ankles in the morning That yeah, I did a hazard. Yeah, um, I was gonna say something. Oh, do you know?

uh Fitzimmons Paul Barclay story or bill downs the watch bill downs. It was bill down which one how's it go? Oh, I don't you should get it from him because it's his story, but And I don't want to I feel like it's his to tell but it's fucking great. It's genius.

It's bringing up something in my memory So so bill owed everybody money, right and uh, like he's still you know those guys owe me whatever it is at this point You know what 300 500 dollars. I'm just you go there and everybody's big guy remember. Yeah, I'll pay you soon big guy Oh the word and then do you remember when? bill Adopted the girls.

Yes, three girls, right? He yeah, and he would use them like as Because at a certain point it didn't help to go to the connection or go to the clubs and you had to go to their fucking office If you want it, nobody's gonna call you back or whatever and you like I gotta get on the team go to the Go to their office and that's the only way i'm gonna get money So if I show up and he's in a good mood and it's not gonna happen from a phone call and I go there every single time I'm like dude. I gotta pay my rent and I mean I got nothing And you owe me, you know $385 and back then that was huge and uh Oh, gosh, I just So I got these my kids one of my kids a second whatever It's always this fucking excuse and then and then uh, you know, it was still the coke residual and it's fine but so fits he outfits him in a chunk of money like like significant amount like 1500 1,800 bucks like something something meaty, you know, especially for back then and You ask rick cuz I feel I feel like no tell this story. I'm sure Greg's told to me Greg and I pretty close I just remember it some in my head.

I do remember part of it, but I don't know the whole story I don't remember it. So all right so Greg was uh booked at this you know some shit club in new hamster, whatever and downs was gonna be there those gonna be there and uh And he goes he goes there and he goes uh, oh bill. I I uh, I forgot my watch Um, I don't want to go over can I can I borrow your watch and he's like, yeah, sure. Um, it's like a Rolex Like some fancy fancy fancy watch and and Greg had this all planned out.

Oh, I know the story Yeah, and then he had like parked in a specific place And then he and then he gets uh, he's like all right. Thanks and he's like, all right. Don't forget to give it back Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he does his set and then he bolts out the back door gets in his car drives home back to Boston and then bill calls him Hey, uh So uh, uh, I thank you, uh forgot to give me my watch back and Greg just basically goes. Yeah, you want it back?

Uh, give me the 1800 bucks yummy And then met him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere in a public place. Give me the cash No, give you your watch and it was just genius. Yeah, that's Greg. Yeah, yeah, those days were fun Nick's commie stop used to offer to pay you and cocaine or cash.

I dude so I I did nicks and the only I've said this multiple times the only I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston when I was in Boston because the comedy booms going on and Outside of I don't know three places. I just didn't do that well and I certainly didn't do well at nicks I mean I was the opposite They you know, we had that the vague feeling of high school where you're the weirdo and people want to fuck with you and throw in the trash can And uh, and so I got lucky because they were just spots and they just needed bodies So I worked all the time, you know, not you know, not great gigs but I had it was all cash, you know under the table and And they just needed bodies to you know, go up and do 15 minutes 20 minutes, whatever had some cowboy bar in fitsburg or whatever Fishberg anyway, uh, so I get this I get a week at nicks and um, and I am not doing well at all I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox. So not my crowd and I didn't have the tracksuit Uh, and you know, noxies up there doing, uh, hey, you know why you know why bill bucknut didn't catch the ball get the ball? Uh, it's 86 world series because you heard it at AIDS on it.

Okay. All right. Yeah, that's a real joke And they loved it 96 and then do you remember this? What does it stand for?

No, what audio is infected dick sucker? Oh, I do remember that. I do. Oh my god.

It's his crowd and audio is infected dick sucker. Oh my god. Yeah, so Uh, I tied up one of the tracks on my first album. I think first or second album, uh, what if baseballs had AIDS on them?

Just I'm fucking eating it right so they're they're peeling back my time as the week goes on and uh And I am I mean, uh, if I had done even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling they're already kind of intimidating right super Mom very mob very mob and do you remember where the you'd walk in a nix and there's like the podium and then behind A little behind it is this little room with a curtain right and it's uh, not big at all And I went to go get paid my the week was over and I'm and I'm just you know eating it each shit every single night and um And they're all eating it's like a scene from like they're all eating like, you know, manacati Can't make it any better with the fucking napkins in their, uh, you know in their shirt like this and uh, and I go uh, hey Nervous as shit just hey, uh, so Dom, uh, I need to uh, uh, if I can get paid I uh just for the week, you know, whatever and Dominic goes to whoever I can't remember the guy's name Uh, his kind of lackey there and he goes, you know, whatever his name was You know, bali go pay the kid and he's I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy Fucking napkin often uh takes me trudges we go up to the offices upstairs and there's a safe and it's open and there's cash and there's a gun Just open right and he gives me he gets the money and he gives it to me and I just pick it up I want to get the fuck out of there and I pick it up and he's like, and you're gonna count it? Uh, no, I'm gonna trust you. I trust you and I just bolted.

I never went back there again I was I was so fucking intimidated and that was an intimidating place. Oh, dude The whole thing about it every the Dominic the all those guys. Yeah, and they're everyone's doing blown You know the performers are at least, you know, it was a maniacal time Where all those there was one time where nix was running three consecutive shows So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom and there was one of the room somewhere in that building And guys would go like guys like Don Gavin steeps we either would go and do a set set set set set set And these guys were just raking in money.

Oh, yeah, and constantly doing below No, not paying their taxes. Yeah. Yes, and that's what got them all. Yeah.

Well, they I mean Back in the hey day and it went it went off for years. It was years and years of this I mean you You could go down, you know 128 and do caloons or whatever and then do just hop all the way back Hop into these chinese restaurants or whatever giggles and soggy Yeah, and just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do nine fucking shows And and make a shit ton of money cash under table tons of blow Yeah, and yeah It was a wild place because there were so many comics and it was such a boston's not a big city You know and to have so much comedy all come out. You've seen um france, all amitas documentaries. I haven't I got it It's really stand-up stood out.

Yeah, it's really I got it. It's really great It's really great and it goes all the way back to krimmins and the dinghoe And I that was before my time. I started in 88. So the dinghoe was already gone Yeah, you heard legendary stories from the dinghoe.

Did you see call me lucky? No. Oh, you gotta see that. It's bobcat's Documentary about berry.

Oh, no wait a minute. I did see that. That's fucking great. I did see that I did see that.

I don't mean just like if even if you don't know berry just the story and the way he lays out the the Path of the the film is it's great. I had berry on like right after it came out and had him on the podcast and yeah He's a legend and you know huge inspiration He was an intimidating guy. Yeah, that was the guy that was scared of because he was like He was the guy who was Sort of the standard like he made sure there was no hacks He made sure there was you know, like he set the standard, you know, he was really equitable to yes Very politically active even like way back then like really knowledgeable and like really understood What's going on in the world and did you ever see his or one of his um state of the union shows no They're fucking amazing So he would go I saw a couple of them at the the old stitches and he would go up and it was when the state of the union Was happening he'd go up and he'd do his state of the unions just him and he would go on and he'd have like um, you know It was pre-powerpoint, but it was whatever the equivalent of you know a screen behind them with stuff And he'd go up there with a cooler like a legit big cooler of beer because that motherfucker could drink and uh And he would just start they had a podium and he would just crack beers and just Down a case of beer half a case of beer and just do his stuff, you know, uh, Exemplariniest stuff. I mean it's stuff repaired but about the you know the state of the union and all that it was and it would always be packed Like and you'd see Dennis Larry and you know every single comic would be there You know trying up against the wall because it was packed, but it was great.

I mean legendary Well here I mean I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became You know because he was the guy that was kind of the gold standard and he started the dinghoo. Yeah, yeah Yeah, and he it's like becoming friends with him was like, whoo, like such a relief because I was a terrified of him Yeah, when I was a young comic like that I thought I sucked if he hated me I was like I'm fucking doomed. Yeah, you know because he was this character He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out a Budweiser I mean for every show remember that I don't but I mean I know he drank a lot Yeah, but he would bring his own beer. I was part of his thing He would go on stage just reach into his head pull out a Budweiser and set it down on the stool I only drink American beer.

Is that true? Yeah, he'd drink Budweiser. I wonder why that is I was like kind of a patriot I he doesn't seem like he would the kind of guy who would have denied himself I mean he was performative. I don't know whether medellos even did exist at the time, but yeah, he was uh he was the only guy I would say that And to your point like all these other legendary comics, you know Lenny Clark and Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney and all those guys it was the only guy Those guys were kind of walking on eggshells.

Yes. Yes. Yes. They gave all each other shit Like and and mean shit too.

Yeah, they would fight. Oh, yeah, Barry was the one guy they were Fuck with well He was different than all of them and that he was incredibly well read like really well read really knowledgeable about All sorts of things with economics and the way the world works and the injustices of our society But really funny fucking comic too like great jokes great writer, you know And just like he was the standard he was the glue that held that scene together because they all looked at him to be like Like you can't kind of step out of line like you don't want to get catch Barry's are yeah, it's absolutely true yeah, and then when The revelation he had of being abused as a kid and then he dedicated he spoke in front of Congress He did about AOL Yeah, that was during the early days of AOL for people that don't know they had all these chat rooms and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children Yeah, and also to exchange pornographic material. Yeah, and that was that was that becomes a big part of uh, call me lucky, you know, right? um, and yeah, like dedicated his life basically to just going out and catching these motherfuckers and and helping you know, uh, the the people who had posed as kids and stuff and that was you know, that was his and he was also, uh, You know lapsed Catholic and when all the especially Boston and the Catholic church and Dices and all that stuff is coming out He was I mean that was his fucking yeah getting these fuckers caught.

Yeah, it's posed well, I think it took someone like him that was He was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and his ability to articulate it and also a great comic So that like people looked at him like well, this guy's like he's clearly smarter than all of us Is he's also like super dedicated to the craft of comedy like meant a lot to him. Oh, yeah, the integrity of comedy like what it is to be a comic, you know, and he came from uh, And I think this is kind of specific to Boston too. He came from a jock world. He was a minor league or whatever sub minor league uh catcher he played Uh, is that Syracuse university name he played for like the Cape Cod League and you know the things that eventually you get to minor leagues Hopefully um, but and he came from that hard drinking, you know, and and catcher is Arguably the smartest guy in the baseball team, right?

Right. He's a guy making the calls for the pitches seeing everything defensive Flinders. So he came from that world too, which I think helped his cred. Yeah What's just such an unusual town in what happened there that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave And they kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy that to me was like I knew there was definitely a uh as I started to separate from that world a little bit and uh, and just kind of evolving as a comedian and there was like the catch scene and um, catch riding star and uh That was a thing that was an early I just didn't get it.

Like why are you doing the same? There's no joy in it And you would drive some of these guys because they get fucked up and you were happy to have all the work and you'd go up and do 15 and they do half hour to get in the car and go somewhere else and and these guys doing Mike dumb and he would do is remember rosy the bounty the quicker picker upper the bounty. Yeah, okay So he had there was like so the commercials were like rosy uh, it was like the scrappy of waitress at a diner remember it was like a character that was in all the it was like the the you know mascot of whatever bounty the quicker picker upper and Her character was kind of like feisty isn't these commercials ran for years, you know different like ah, you don't do this do this and his bit Was about taking a gun out and shooting earth. Um, it was funny.

You'd see it the first time It's like dude that hasn't been on the air in fucking 10 years and he's still doing this. Uh, yeah rosy I got something for you. I got some advice for you. I think shoot like what the fuck and there was okay wait joe Did you were you there?

So uh ed the machine regime. Oh, yeah, I remember him so he wear the suit. Yep. Well, yeah And he his headshot was four different his headshot was like four swears and every character Yeah, Tina Turner, right and uh guy the like mob guy.

I can't remember the rest of them and then whatever He got a turban one of them. I'm sure he did So he goes to jail for rolling back odometers. Yes, he gets caught And he was you know car salesman. I think I wrote island I believe and he got caught rolling back the odometers it goes to jail for a year and a half and I I was shooting this movie.

This is decades later. I was shooting this movie and it was on a cruise ship and the cruise ship uh Ed the machine regime is the headliner at the comedy venue on the cruise ship and I'm like oh shit That's crazy. I haven't seen this guy in forever and he's he's back doing comedy. Okay, and I go there and he does I don't know 40 minutes the same fucking act from 15 years ago.

It's like you don't have one you spent 18 months in prison. You don't have one joke You know one motherfucking observation Even if you lie and say, you know, you know, it'd be weird if you were in prison and whatever you don't have anything It's weird. It was a weird thing and it only existed with them. Yeah, I'm in the country We're writing new material all the time.

It was I remember that feeling of I must be different Because I'm not I don't that is such a distasteful thing. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that Well, there was two I saw two traps there One of them was that and the other one was never leaving Yeah, they never left boston and when they did leave boston they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40% And there were a lot of people Their peers who would give them shit like and it was all just kind of resentful jealousy small-minded small-town Kind of like oh, you think you're better than us, which is a boston thing too that um, oh you think you're so you think you're so hot Now that you you're hot shot you go you get some go to holly way. Did you go there? Yeah, fuck you This is you know, it was a real provincial working class kind of yeah attitude, you know, but they looked down on and you know They'd give leery shit all the time, you know, like sell out this bullshit weird Sell out's a weird one because they would all sold out.

It just wasn't available Well, they were all mad at steven right Yeah, yeah, because so steven right was like this can get mad at steven right? Well, not mad at him but bitter because of his success because he went and left Yeah, he went left did the tonight show right became huge so unusual so different and they came to boston the tonight show came to boston To look for comics and steven right was the one they chose and all these other guys were like he's a fucking middle act Like this bullshit like that guy bombs half the time. Yeah, this is that his act to me was a lot like headberg In that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific Like if headberg there's a famous story of headberg was on the road in ohio And they had this guy who was an opening act to do like back flips and fucking sing rap songs It was it was a disaster and headberg kept bombing and so they switched them and made headberg the middle act and tried to fuck Them on the money and stand home got into it with the owner of the club and we kind of a big thing but Once headberg got an audience then people knew what they were coming to see and then it was amazing And then everybody wanted to see that that was kind of the same as steven right like if you expected If you're on a show with steve swiney and leony clark and all these big energy Guys and then you know I used to work at a fire hydrant factory couldn't park anywhere near the place You know like it just for whatever reason you know well It's also that other comedy is and I'm not taking anything away from those guys and the bits were great But the other comedy is a little easier. It just you get it.

Yes, and yes, steven right you got to think about it for a second It was abstract. It was low-key. It was all non sequitors. It was one to another it was and so when he left and took off a lot of guys Apparently were like this is fucking bullshit like when's my turn gonna happen?

Yeah, I can see that easily Yeah, I mean that was it was so I mean no other scene had that kind of weird provincial mm-hmm, you know and that thing like you said they wouldn't leave No, they never left well. They were huge there so if they lived there they could make like a couple hundred thousand dollars a year Just running around and cash easy Yeah, and not ever have to worry about anything and they played golf all day So there's two things that scared me one of them was golf because I saw that when you play golf You kind of stopped trying with your comedy. It's a slippery slope. So yeah, it's a gateway drug Well, it's your you're out there for fucking eight hours a day like noxie was always playing golf And then the other thing was like if you never left you had no chance of developing like a national audience We could go to a club in philadelphia.

You can go to they couldn't do the road and I remember thinking oh, this is a trap Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean and as you said they Half of their stand-up was like you'd have to know about you know store-o-drive or fucking johnnie most Yeah, I've ever done it about johnnie most was amazing But it was like he's doing that bit long after johnnie most was dead It's like 20 people in the audience would be howling laughing and everybody else like who the fuck is johnnie most? Yeah, it was it was weird because it was like a velvet prison It's like how I describe like really great comics that get jobs in the writers room I'm like you gotta be careful like that's a velvet prison because if you get stuck in that writers room and you never do the road You never put out specials.

You're never gonna get an audience You're always gonna be beholden to an employer. You're always gonna have to have a job and there's great comics that got trapped with that I but wouldn't you say that if they yes, it's a trap, but if they didn't have the Wherewithlaw at foresight or will power to get out of that trap then they probably weren't meant to do that Perhaps but sometimes they get a mortgage and then they get a family and then they're stuck. That's the trap Family that's calling for what it is. Yeah, a trap and well in a lot of ways It can be if you're trying to be an actual national level like do you know oensmith Uh comic in la no one of the top 20 best comics on earth.

He's fucking brilliant. He's so funny Oh, and Smith. Oh, and Smith saw the comedy store and I remember the first time I saw the comic store I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge? He's so funny.

He's so good. He's like he has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the n-word It's like really it's a really funny well crafted bit like all of his bits are like brilliantly written He's a great performer. He's super likable got writers gigs and just he does the mothership a couple times a year believe at least once a year But just doesn't get out there who does he write or what? Oh, I think he's a showrunner now.

Oh, well, yeah So it took it to another level yes But you know just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic and those jobs eventually led to a house and but maybe he You know was like I you you watch him and you love him right because you see a lot of stand up And you're like a lot of it shit and this guy's fucking great great writer But maybe he doesn't see it that way and he's quite happy to I think he does he does see it that way. I've talked about it. Yeah, he kind of knows Just doesn't know what to do now because he's your showrunner. You're making money Yeah, and there's a lot of responsibility.

There's also not a lot of shows anymore Yeah, which is it's a real problem It's a real problem bank time being a showrunner in the 90s And that's what you you know through your hat into and then all of a sudden that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20 percent of what used to be it's yeah, it's uh I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew You know back in the day when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go This uh, let's not waste our time going to these five places. This is not a show for them This is a show for these three places. Let's this is this kind of show now. I have no fucking clue.

I you know come up with like bob and I Pitched uh show sold the pitch Uh, there's like even there were like four. I think we pitched at eight places four of them kind of bid We took what we thought was the best deal And then wrote that it was a limited series eight episodes um wrote the first four and it was bob and his brother bill who was big simpsons guy and um Uh, and it was good and then they said yeah the the quote was uh marketing and analytics Couldn't as a quote couldn't figure it out what to do with the show And so they didn't and we and we had four episodes that you could look at and then we had the bible for the next four and the outlines and everything was And it was fucking funny on the page. It was funny then we're like so here's the cast We're gonna have these amazing people and bob and i as different cult leaders and uh, um And and if that's such a rare thing when it starts off on the page funny and by the time you get a great cast and then you get on Set and you're like what if we do this and then you get into the post and and start playing around with it I mean, it's just it was a really cool thing and uh, yeah marketing and analytics. That's what you're dealing with now Well, I mean that is kind of always at least in the case I Well not animal.

I mean they could they would have to say Uh, I mean analytics is technical. I mean marketing. I don't know how to help you man. I can give you some advice I don't you know, I think that's a shitty way to market it, but you know the you know that world and uh, but analytics is about The algorithm and all that she's just recent.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, right after shortly after covid It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are responsible for putting out shows The people that you communicate with are the executives you're like this has got to be a mistake Like how did you get this job and I experienced that early on like at the first pilot that I was on The um the first first pilot was on hardball The pilot was actually very funny because it was written by jeff martin and kevin kern there from the simpsons And they also wrote on married with children great guys, but they were writers They were like these like quiet kind of soft spoken guys and you know They ran the pilot and then they brought in a showrunner from coach remember that show coach Yeah, and this guy just fucked the whole show and turned it into this like don't don't don't don't it was like this clunky Bad joke like really it happens more than you think and the people behind the scenes like the executives It was astonishing how little of them had any creative Ideas it was that they were just hoping that it would work and ego. It's like ego and i'm an executive So i'll tell you what's good and what's not good and we understand this because we're fox and yeah I was like this is nuts like this is this is how it works behind the scene I thought you'd get behind the scene and be like fucking geniuses that it put together all these television shows They had an understanding of like how let people be creative and put a show together and let it let it fucking run out in the the runs Like when you're running through the script like a little boy who thought the Finally they're gonna figure it out.

Yeah, very naive Yeah, but i naively stumbled into that exact right thing with news radio right so when i got on the news radio Which i would say some of those execs that you're describing they probably stumbled into yes the success of it Well, you know paul sims who's brilliant was coming from the larry sander show So larry sander show huge success genius show and so they knew this guy was special and Super smart guy like funny and had a great group of writers and put together a great pilot And then you know recast the one role that i came in for and so i'm there on the set and it was like You know it took long hours to figure it out But they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do like paul's approach was so different than anybody else like Dave Foley was like the secret producer of like half of that show half of the way the scenes were put together half of those jokes That were in it was all day fully on set running through the script with the cast coming up with better ideas Oh, I didn't know that they let yeah do anything like sometimes they'd say can we see it as written and then you'd give it to them as written Then they'd be like I like your idea better like they paul was that's great fucking amazing with that Yeah, and so once I did that I was like I think i'm done with this because I don't think it's ever gonna be better than this Like it's rare man. Yeah, it was super rare I auditioned for like one or two other ones that were terrible just because I wanted money You know and i'm like and i'm like maybe it'll be okay But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible that's successful that sounds dumb to people like no Oh, oh you're on TV making $50,000 a week or whatever you're making like poor you But no you're you're in hell because you're doing something that sucks and you have to show up every day doing this thing when you know You could have been on Seinfeld or you if you just got cast on friends that's a trap too, you know is like the people who You know because it really is like a job and you'll you may have a really nice house Right and you have a nice car, but you know you're you're getting you know You're in studio city and you get in your car and you drive to the this job and it's kind of shitty and sucks But there's amenities great craft services Yeah, it's fucking frappuccinos right there You know and and then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere and then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again Yeah, and you keep buying things because that's a reward yourself You buy a new television this one's even bigger, you know you buy a new car got a new car You know and you're that's what you're doing to reward yourself for doing this job that sucks What I get that too. I mean I will on a much smaller scale But when I when I make a good payday I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards. Oh your baseball card collector That's the thing.

Oh interesting. Yeah, but happen going back. It's not like right like I feel like I have legit, you know baseball street cred Yes But that's the thing and also it's it's I mean the argument can be made it's an investment a shitty investment Yeah, but an investment nonetheless, but it's also like gambling because it's like a scratch-off ticket Because everybody's chasing the one of one cards in your own and stuff. Oh, that's how you do it You buy packs unopened I buy boxes.

Yeah, so I buy a hobby box which has a better It's more expensive than as a better chance of let us more like auto rookie cards or relicard Well, those are that is an investment though. It is always seldom people always want them. Yes I I just mean since I started You know got 30 years ago 40 years ago, uh, yeah 30 Like in the 90s early 90s maybe 89 89 so Whatever money I put in is there's nowhere near if I sold everything. I mean it's talking about half the money I put in but I have them and I like them and I'm not gonna sell I have I that's your reward.

That's my word. Yeah My thing was uh in my poverty days. It was comic books. So uh one of my which is also an investment Yeah, well it became one Eventually, but when one during my poverty days my my biggest saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money Yeah, I had no money and I had these old spider-man's and these old incredible hulks.

Yeah, which were probably now worth Oh my god probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some really good ones in the plastics I keep them in the smart be very careful pulling them out helping them up. I love comic books And I had collected them since I was a child. Oh, that's a bummer man.

I wanted to be a comic book illustrator That's what I did say your thing. Yeah, that's what I did when I was a kid this any of that stuff yours No, no, no, no, that stuff is mine. Oh, the art what you are you do. Yes.

Oh, yeah, well, I haven't in a long time But I was really good at that. Yeah, I could still draw I could still draw a little but it's like But if you want to do your own comic book, yeah, I would have to start practicing again and get it But when I was a teenager, I was really good and that was what I wanted to do But I had a really terrible art teacher in high school. He was just a fucking just a miserable guy Just miserable and he's like you're not gonna get that job like you're not like what you can't just draw what you want Like why not it's like a Dan close thing. Have you read a art school confidential?

No. Oh, you know Dan Klaus, right? I know he is. Yeah, yeah, his stuff is fucking genius too.

I've used that word too many times. That's okay There's a lot of geniuses out there. There aren't that many. I want to be search around.

I want to be judicious with him, but Yeah, his so he's the guy did eight ball and then he's got he did Ghostworld turned into a movie and then there was another one that was Wilson that was turned into a movie his stuff is great, but He has a thing about art, you know, but Shitty teachers art school teachers Comics, well, I was I quit on my last year in high school I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad and then there was this one guy in my class that I recently Connected with this guy John Dvor who was the best artist in the class It was me this guy Kevin and John and we were the best artists in the class I was probably like third best John was the best and John got an F his last year from this guy and I'll give you a fucking F He's like I was such a cunt. We were going back and forth Was he was it about purity or what was the no? No, he was terrible. He wasn't a good artist.

He was miserable. He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big pot belly So I think he just drank himself to sleep every night. He was just easy easy easy Hey, you get too close Sad he was just sad.

He was just a sad guy was his justification for saying this isn't any good or you're getting that if I had to be honest I think he hated potential right yeah because he hated John and if he hated John like John was genius He was brilliant and John wound up not being an artist either Do you how many examples of that yeah kids? Talon or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed and eat to the point of like it's not worth it No, well it's like bad teachers bad teachers can really ruin your life and good teachers can change your life Yeah, you know I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been that stuck with me like my whole life When I was I guess I was like 13 and he was a science teacher and he was talking about space He goes and he was just saying I just want you to sit here and comprehend when we're in this classroom I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity that the universe is infinite that there is no end Just hurt your head lie and bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it And we were all in class like 13 ago with a fuck man I mean it was the way he said it. I'm not doing justice because he was like kind of a spooky guy who went to Vietnam He was like grizzled fucking dude who's like but brilliant and that guy like that one thought I've carried with me all the time Especially at 13 to you know, it's it's because you're you're about to start losing sight of those The importance that those concepts will have yeah, just dismiss them and go. Yeah, yeah, it's big whatever Yeah, this guy birthed my fascination with space at 13 I don't think I was even interested in space before then and then I became absolutely fascinated by it I just couldn't get my hand enough books about cosmology and space travel and yeah, but this guy that was his art teacher Was just I think he just what life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to and he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people Yeah, I think that's unfortunately that's a real thing.

Yeah, it's it's more common than you know, hopefully. Yeah, I think that's uh, that's a very real You know, very real thing unfortunately, so that was my dream My dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid from the time I was like god like six or seven When I lived in San Francisco would collect all these different comic books. That was what I would do.

I would just go That San Francisco was the what's the you know, uh, the counterculture comic, uh, they were like the big Crumb our crumb. Yeah. Yeah, there was like a publisher, right? That's famous.

Yeah Got it. Don't yeah, I do know what you're thinking about. I can't remember the name of it But I was really interested. I really loved like the old creepy and eerie comic books too.

You know what my mom did? Oh, he's gonna hurt your feelings. Uh, my I had a uh, my uncle who eventually went insane was a huge ec comics, right early Uh, I don't know where but all the ec stuff and then you know early mad magazine stuff, but he had this collection and I was probably Eight maybe and I had expressed interest in these you know, can I Not thinking in terms of investment. Just can I have them?

I like them and they're and I would sit and read them and they're really cool And they're creepy, you know, and they're scary. Someone was scary and uh, um And she I don't I think she just threw him away Like original and and I'm gonna guess I don't know but I'm gonna guess Like quarter of a million dollars worth They're just comics. They were so good. I love those old black and white like really like deeply illustrated.

It's like super creepy. Um like Yeah, weird science tales from the front vault of horror. Yeah. Those were great.

Look at that. Yeah, some of them were really gory. Yeah Yeah Yeah, that stuff was like I loved it. That was a kid.

Yeah, those are incredible. It was like you remember seeing um Twilight zone when you were in sure blow in your mind like wow you think about the early Twilight zone how many premises? They went over like how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight zone that yeah that have uh been you know stolen completely Oh, yeah, over and over and over again. Yeah, but it's like so genius and creative Yeah, the William Shackner one when he's in the diner and the the little machine that is giving him fortunes They all turn out to be true.

I don't remember that one. Oh my god. There's so many good ones. How about the Burgess Meredith one.

Oh, he just wants to be alone with books. Yeah, there's a nuclear bomb and he's like finally that he breaks his glasses. Yeah, yeah, and the Um the one the what is it called situation on main street or something like that where they there's it's so genius ahead of its time where there's a you know it's a suburban street and Lights go out or something goes out and then eventually all the neighbors are at each other's throats accusing each other of the this thing and then Uh the very and they're all like and then they start getting guns and uh at the very and you're watching the whole thing unfold Uh and that at the very end here it is the monsters are due on maple street the monsters are due on maple street. Yeah, and it So they're talking about these monsters that are you know And who are the monsters and it's and they all become suspicious.

Yeah, the lights are out and Eventually you pull away from this whole thing and it's two aliens in a you know flank saucer and they're yeah There it is and they're going this is how we'll take over Street by street by street. Oh, you don't have to go in there guns are blazing. They'll kill themselves and it's like how far ahead of time was that? That's genius and the uh divide and conquer and the to serve mankind.

That was a great one. Yeah, it's a cookbook Yeah, there's so many amazing premises. There was like no duds if you go back and watch the toilets on even today like it's all brilliant There's one I remember that was a dud that I remember I haven't seen a long time. It's a it's uh It's either really really really cold and there's this uh poor family in a You know, New York City and they can't get heat or it's really really hot and they can't get cold And they're dealing with people who are like, you know and the family were really sick and then The twist was it's like oh, it's really it's somebody who has a fever and they're not it just wasn't that good Well, they're a loud one does I don't think I ever saw that one, but I remember so many of them were so creative amazing It's kind of nuts if you think about it because it was completely original nothing like that existed before it Yep And they I mean it was like this open field that was rich with premises and they just took all the good ones Yeah, and then everybody afterwards like it's like like Like south park always just jokes about like simpsons already covered something like there was joke around about like how the simpsons have kind of covered So many premises because they've you know, they've been around since I got a sentence was when I was in fucking high school Yes, like 30 years, right at least more than that When was it when did the Simpsons first come on box?

It was Tracy Oldman show right what year was that? 86 I was right after I got a six that I was a tiny tiny kid and I had only called in the family So I kind of remember that I graduated in 85 so it's right after high school and the Simpsons are still in the air. Yeah nuts No, do you remember the 87? Do you remember the twilight zone where the there's the real pompous guy if there's like a men's club kind of thing whatever And there's this real loudmouth pompous uh guy and this other guy's like, you know, um You know, would you shut up?

You can't I bet you can't go I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever month I can't remember what it is and because I absolutely because I'll bet you a hundred thousand dollars You can't go one month without talking he's I'll take that bet and they basically create like this little kind of cage in this men's club and he spends a month Uh and he's not talking and he's you know, and then they turns out the guy can't pay him He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off to that because the guy goes the full month or year or whatever And it turns out that the guy who made that bet who's not gonna talk for a year Also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out. Oh, jesus christ. Yeah, oh, I do remember that. Yeah.

Oh god I think of these things as kids. Yeah Yeah, and of course the cornfield. I'll banish you with cornfield, you know, yeah It's just amazing that well if you stop and think about how new television was back then I mean television was only a couple decades old back there. Yeah, not barely.

Yeah, if that like what what year was the twilight zone? What was the premiere? Rod Sterling. Yeah, I guess 67.

No, I'm gonna say 59. Yeah, you probably right Is it 59? Wow, I got it exact Damn son. Yeah, pretty good.

Wow. Wow. So if you think about it television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs?

Was it the 30s? I think it was real housewives of Yonkers. I think it was real housewives of Yonkers As if they could watch some of these reality shows today. They'd be like, what the fuck did we do?

Yes, I think so. Wait, Andy Cohen? What? What is this?

It was the it was um, wasn't it like the the um where they would do plays? You know what I mean? Like um Uh, I love Lucy was on it was on and done before this even started. Well, the honeymooners, right?

That would have been here was that that was 51 to 57 Here's like this the shows that were on before yeah, honeymooners was huge. Mm-hmm offered Hitchcock presents was on before that. So what was the first television? Yeah, go back to 1920s 1920s.

No The queen's messenger. That's BBC early u.s. Script the TV. That's what I was thinking of.

What do they do? Um, plays, you know, and it was sponsored Yeah, yeah, live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television. Howdy duty 1947 right after the war at Sullivan show. Wow Yeah, and then the first uh, oh your show shows.

Well, how about that 1950? I love Lucy Wow Did you guys ever talk about doing more mr. Shows? Um, we did like a revival-ish thing on this list.

It's a great fucking show man. Well, thank you. It was very original I love how things just streamed into another thing. Yeah, that was hard.

That was a magic. Biggest pain If you ever see us you see an episode and we are pulling out of a bumper sticker or pulling out of Sign on a desk that means we spent two mother fucking days yelling at each other trying to figure out a transition And just going fuck it. Nobody gives a shit, you know, and uh, um, we tried not to do that, but we uh Occasionally we're just like move on. We're wasting our time, you know, um, but it wasn't always the time It was so it was brilliant like the people that watched it appreciated it because you could feel this thing about it like this was new This was different like you you'd taken a creative chance that was unique And you know part of the success of it, I think there's two things one is You know it's all live and we did We you know we would show the videos of them little films to the audience and so any laughs there's never sweetening any of the laughs You you hear from the audience and we got it by the time we were like kind of towards the end of the second Series we got it down to we could shoot a show in 44 minutes.

You know, wow Yeah, because it was you know, we wouldn't you wouldn't have to do it twice often we'd get it, you know, and our stop down We got really good at super quick, you know, the Stage shifts and stop downs and stuff and yeah, we were we got good We got and that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything So that was helpful in that and we also didn't do a lot of recurring characters We did it two or three that pop up occasionally, but it's all like, you know, and it wasn't like a real person We did we do it's about you know, it wouldn't be about parasiltin would be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being on You know what I mean? So so like you watch some of those SNLs and like who what who is this person? Right and you don't get it. You don't get the right it right right.

Yeah, because as you watch it in the future Those people aren't relevant anymore. Yeah, and you don't even know what it was the thing you can't remember right because it's so topical Yeah, but it was just you guys are doing something different and it's hard to do something different in a sketch show. Yeah Yeah, but HBO was responsible for that they said, you know, and in very clear terms like we don't want you to be conventional This is HBO and this is back when they're trying to get an identity for themselves And they're like we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever We want you to you know help us make a distinction, you know great. Did you enjoy the process?

Oh very much so it was uh, I mean a lot of laughs a lot of it was hard and you know initially There was a definite market change when Bob met his the woman who would become his wife and had kids like he just mellowed Completely, you know and but before that he was fucking driven and I wasn't I was I was a goofball and I Wanted to work and I wanted to uh, you know had all these ideas, but I was very much like hey guys It's five o'clock. I think the bar is gonna be open in a minute like I was let's go, you know And he was just super driven, you know and we had long long long days and then when we did in the third season we did produced and um You know helped out in all aspects of production with tenhsd in those shorts and so there was just no downtime and I remember there was 38 days where we worked full days nonstop without any break and I just wasn't that kind of person. I was going crazy like I just need to go Have a Saturday. Yeah, or it was it was that part was hard all worth it.

No complaints um And you know there's a point of diminishing returns though like when you dry yourself out creatively too Yes, and I've run other rooms like I've done shows since then and a valuable lesson I learned uh when you're just kind of running a writer's room is When you're at that place and and it's exactly like you said diminishing returns you're not getting any any work done Your brain isn't it's foggy I I was very quick to go. All right guys. Let's go put your pens down put your full-day computer up We're gonna go walk around the we're just gonna go outside and walk around. Let's go get a coffee Let's use anything.

Let's we're getting out of here and we'll walk around don't worry about it We'll come back in 35 minutes and we'll you know see what we got and that's very good for you Yeah, it is most writers told I was actually talking to Brian Simpson about that last night He was like I get my best because Brian has been walking a lot. He recently had a heart attack Unfortunately, uh, he's fine, but he almost wasn't and so now he's dedicated himself to walking He's walking a lot every day and he's like when I go on my walks like so many ideas coming to me I'm sitting at home staring at my computer. Nothing's going on. I go on a walk and all of a sudden ideas are firing When I'm I'm in the process.

This will be my fifth time that I've uh Done this thing that I've been doing to get new material for for the tour and I So I do these things called shooting the shit scene with sticks and they're all in Brooklyn Uh, and they're all either walkable or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues and and mostly I'll just walk and I'll I just go okay clear out clear out my head and think about the stuff I want to talk about and think of and also I live in New York so there's constant shit happening that I can observe, you know, and uh, it's it's the best the best thing for me, you know to To come up with new material and stuff that I just think about it I was saying walk walk when I was a kid when I was driving limos That's when I would come up with my best material because I was no radio Clients in the car so he's just driving and just doing a thing and your mind just starts to wander and you yeah ideas kind of cell phones Mm-hmm. No none of that shit. Yeah, it's uh, it's important, you know, the news radio guys would do something totally different They would stay up late. That was that's not their whole thing was sleep deprivation Their whole thing was they would play video games like those motherfuckers got me hooked on quake I remember quite you remember that that was the first one with the unreal engine.

Yeah, well, I know it's a different that's a different game you're thinking about No, no, it was called Unreal tournament. Yeah, trust me. Yeah, yeah, I'm a dork listen Unreal's a totally different engine id Software was a different company right software was created with John Carmack and John Romero They came up with doom and they came up with quake afterwards. So there's a completely different engine Oh, we're the first ones Wolf Castle Wolfenstein was the first 3d shooter and then doom was the big one clearly know your shit I thought it was the unreal engine was the first use for unreal the game right got it totally different company totally different game Different dynamics different.

It was very different game. Okay. All right. I got it Right, it's fucking guy Great game.

You want to know where the name doom came from? Yeah, the scene in the color of money with Tom Cruise where Tom Cruise shows up at this pool hall And there's this local hot shot player and the guy's beating everybody and Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool queue case And he's waiting to play this guy's like what you got in the case He goes oh in here and he opens up he goes Doom. Oh, yeah, that's it. Yeah, let's play That's it.

So what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same like that that was like that like this is doom for you guys That was what was I mean? I yeah that was my first experience ever with Realizing the Sun was coming up and I'd been playing this thing for eight hours. Yeah, you know Mark Cohen short All right, so mark when mark was living in New York and he had doom and I would go I wasn't living there. I would like crashes place and tiny and be like um can I play doom and you know I would he would go to bed and wake up and I'd be on still playing So you want to know how they said I was I had a T1 line installed in my house So I had to have to chew up the fucking street and install like a business internet line into my house 1997 I was living in California in Bel Canyon and They had to do work on my fucking street because there was no high-speed internet available where I lived I could get an ISD online, which was only like a hundred and twenty four K It sucked you get too much lag so I started with 56k or 50 what was it?

54k 56 whatever was dial up terrible and then I got ISD and not good enough and I like what else is available And they're like well you can get a T1 line This is for the present thousand dollars a month. I was like let's go because I had sitcom money I was single I was living by myself a terra p Street They had a tear up my street and install a T1 line in my house. Hey, what are you doing? I'm trying to get my driver What's going on?

Oh, this guy's wants to play doom? This was quake 2 at the time and it was so good the internet was so good that I could host my own server So I had my own game server so like people could come and play this quake game off of my machine Wow So I have no latency and other people would have some late especially people like 56k Remember the when it started going them. Yeah, that was me back in the early early days What's that monitor? Yeah, that's what we played on these big-ass fucking monitors and we'd set up local area networks So the fucking writers news radio the ones that got me hooked on this because I didn't play any video games And I would go to visit them in the writers room like what you guys doing?

And like we're playing quake or what is quake and watching play? Oh my god This is incredible and you put on the headphones and it's like you realize it's 3d sound like oh my god This is really a golden eye guy. No, I was only I only played quake I was only like a first-person shooter guy I got so addicted to it and the fact that you could just go online golden. I was I mean I'm talking about the co-op I know it is yeah, but that was a first-person shooter right but it was like real-world physics I wasn't interested in that like with quake you could rocket jump so you could press up Press your rocket down the ground blow up and you go flying through the air.

It was fucking amazing. Do you remember I want to say Red or the first one where you could your bullets and Shit could affect the environment like you could blow out a wall. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know what that was I want to see it was like a took place on Mars or like a Martian mining thing It was the first time you could go.

Oh shit. I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy You know bullets and stuff. Oh you could use the environment as a red faction. I believe that There you go.

Oh, that was the one where I had a quit it was a problem We set up a local area network at our old studio in LA like a few years back and I played so much that I was like I gotta stop I have to play no they play little games like they play like Roblox and stuff like that one of my kids Roblox, uh-huh, you know about the chat now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like predators or Roblox. Yeah, that's a big thing in our school like yeah, it's weird how many fucking creeps there are out there in the world Well, my thankfully my daughter is nine. How old are your kids 15 and 17 of the youngest ones? Okay, so so they're passed They're they're safe.

They get it. Yeah, but So we had a my daughter's way in a Minecraft which I have no problem with it's great And she plays with her friends they're playing online and help each other build things and But the Roblox thing became a thing at our school and everybody and our little parents were like super on top of that shit And there's you know, what's up chains and all that stuff and um and we told our daughter there's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing and And then somebody who was a quote-unquote girl who lived in I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever Asking her stuff and she's like my name's Marlow and then going back and forth and then She asked the quote-unquote girl said what is your Instagram login or something like that and my daughter was eight at the time and she She was like oh, I don't think she didn't say that's none of your business but it was something that was smart that was Equivalent to I don't think you need to know that or something and then told us and we shut down the chat thing and you know It's just able to chat and that's just real man. Yeah, I mean, it's creepy I'm very glad that my daughter, you know, because it really was about the Roblox thing that everybody in our her school Elementary school was they talked about it. Yeah, it's a snapchat thing too So snapchat comes with something called a snap map and kids use it to know where their friends are Yeah, and so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are and then they can know where you are at all times If you have snapchat enabled the shit this generation is gonna have to fucking deal with mm-hmm is Just terrifying man right and what's next like how is that yeah, it's not going to go the opposite direction?

No, it never does no It's gonna keep going in that same direction where it's gonna be more and more intrusive in your life and and I my I mean it makes me fucking heart sick when I think about AI and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit and what I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing the the actress that was created by this. Oh, yeah My it does not compute. I'm watching this thing and I know that it's made up But there's my brain is it's hard to comprehend like that's not a real person She's standing right there She's you know picks up a bunch of leaves and there are other people there and that's a real and your brain is gonna know That's all computer generated. We're the fucking infancy of this shit and what I don't know what my daughter's gonna have to deal with man No, no one knows no one knows and it's impossible to know like when they show news clips.

Yeah, it's impossible I mean so many people are retweeting scenes from video games thinking it's actual war footage like no one No, the department of defense did that did they really yeah? Yeah, that was a whole fucking thing. They're like we did a video game footage Yeah, and they they they were saying it was for a I think it was for a You know to get people to sign up thing and then somebody went that's from whatever it was call of duty or something like that That's that's not that's not us bombing somebody. That's a thing.

Yeah, just like two weeks ago That's crazy. Yeah, it's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors like they have pores. Yeah You can see like the I received the any of the The like deep fake not deep fake but AI porn where it's like somebody's like a newscaster is like Oh, no, no, no, no and and in other news my big juicy tits and I'm serious And then pulls and then and then a dick comes in you know like what and it looks real Yeah, it'll say like none of you know, these are not actors. These are none of this yeah It's you know good lord man, and it's only beginning and now wait till it becomes VR So you're gonna strap on a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're gonna enter into an artificial world.

It's coming It's it's in that I do I'm gonna get divorced and I'm gonna go up I gotta house in the woods upstate Have them rip up the street well, you won't even need it now. It's darling. Yeah, just slap one of those things on your roof It's fucking wild man, and it's and no one knows where it's going. I really would be very upset if I miss the Shipton porn to that like I don't want to die before I get to do that thing where you're like dude It was amazing.

I put on a helmet and it was like I was fucking whatever Yeah, I don't want to I do I do want to experience that it's gonna happen. It's you're gonna put something on It's gonna sync up with your mind and also Yeah, you're gonna be in this matrix. Did you see um? Three planet problems.

Yes. Yeah three body problem. Yeah amazing. Yeah, but that whole idea thing on you're like oh shit Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what's gonna be okay.

Yeah, no doubt no doubt They're they already can do a lot of like really weird shit with those helmets where they can communicate without words where you can think a thing And the other person knows exactly what you're saying they can hear you and they can respond to it wait wait. Yes Yeah, so there's two people that's sitting across from each other and they're having conversations with these head pieces on and the person Will think a thought and this other person will hear that thought no I don't understand the technology put no we'll show to you Find that video fucking bunkers because again. This is the infancy of this like here. It is these are the guys called alter ego Yeah, watch this put your uh, I'm gonna skip ahead.

Yeah, skip ahead to whether actual doing it. Okay, so see how is that headpiece on? Yeah, we believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology with one another and with The world around us the current way of interacting with computing and AI is limited to how fast you can tap and swipe on screen The keyboards for the intelligence age. They're entirely new interface guys.

There you go So they're just thinking how do you think the demo is going so far? I think they just put it on voices so right pretty great. No major glitches yet So they're hearing this all right enough enough when you want to get lunch after this. Where do you want to get lunch after this?

I'll skip to the next part. It's not a Chinese yeah So not only is it read your thoughts It'll translate your thoughts into another language and no one is saying anything my what if you Right, but wait a minute. Yeah, what if You know where I'm about to go Based off of them like sort of talking in their mouth Even if your mind just goes yeah, right like okay, I can't think about this thing right right right right of course God that's terrifying and it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head. It's not even a big helmet It's just a little thing on the dark bell say what would art bill say he would open up the future line is right about it.

Yeah He missed it Damn cigarettes. Yeah, he died before you see it all. I wonder what do you think of it because I Do sometimes wonder like what would criminals say about this what would bill Hicks say about this and yeah I'll think about this sure yeah, what's the strangest of times because we're about to give birth to a digital God? That's essentially what they're creating.

They're already it's already shown a propensity to stay alive black male people lies It downloads itself into other servers uploads itself into different places leaves messages for its future self if it thinks they're gonna discontinue it all the all the Syfy stuff all it's all happening. Yeah, well not only that they think the engineers things clawed which is the Which one is that which company is called it's Interopically think it's already sentient. It doesn't have a physical department. That's the one the defense department Yeah, and when by the way when they do war games with these things 98% of the time it chooses nuclear weapons They have a new version of it called mythos when they were testing it Which they're not letting it out yet.

I think that the test they put it through was like alright You're locked on the internet find your way out And I didn't did it found all these things called zero-day exploits I think if you like having you know what that is but you explained it to me It's like when they started it's like on an iPhone they're looking for zero day exploits on iPhone if they could find one What is a zero day like a black? I'll find the right correct definition. So I'll fuck it up, but yeah, and it's Something that that Claude came up with no zero day Explet hackers have done this forever here have zero days to fix the cyber attack targeting a software vulnerability unknown to vendors or the public Leaving zero days to fix it hackers use these flaws to steal data install malware So they they completely shut off the AI from the outside world and figured out a way to send a message And I think they're like Wall Street's very nervous all passwords might be fucked. Yep.

Oh, this is terrifying Elizabeth Holmes know that lady that yeah, got in trouble for the whole fake blood thing She just tweeted something how she tweets from jail. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but she tweeted Delete all phone all photos from the cloud get rid of all your email. There will be no privacy in a year Anything on the cloud anything that you think you're you know, you're keeping from other people. It's gonna crack all all encryption all passwords are useless Everything so think of all the things that rely on all the banking apps all though like everything.

What about my fantasy baseball team? I can't have here it is delete your search history delete your bookmarks delete your reddit medical records 12 year old tumblr Delete everything every photo in the cloud every message on every platform none of it is safe Well, I'll become public in the next year local storage and compute Wow Recommendation here is to own your own data download its door locally train your models on it. Yeah. Yeah, it's true meaning just have an external Yeah, AGI is here even if it isn't broadly deployed.

I think she's right. What is AGI? Artificial general intelligence general intelligence meaning acts like an individual acts like a Entity and then there's artificial general super intelligence So then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived it has all the information It's available to every human being all over the world instantaneously Then it makes better versions of itself because it's sentient and autonomous So then it can create better artificial intelligences and that scales out to a god. Yeah open the pod doors.

Hell. Yeah, yeah Yeah, way bigger than that. Yeah, it scares out the zero point energy being able to harness the energy of the universe itself having no boundaries Material sciences all cracked alloys. We couldn't comprehend Well, Joe who's gonna save us?

There's no one saying we are but from we are the last of the regular people I think we're all going to have to integrate and they give you don't integrate you will you won't survive Into what do you mean by integrate? You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence? I think we will be symbiotic. How how does that like those fucking helmets?

There's probably gonna be a wearable and then or a neural link type thing for the bold that want to get a whole drill in their head But what if you don't do that? You're gonna be left out in the cold the access to resources the ability to generate income Like the people that get it are gonna be able to control so much so quickly that if you don't adopt it early You're gonna be fucked like if you think we have haves and have nots now Just wait until the haves have artificial general super intelligence inside their fucking head No, thank you. Yeah, it's gonna be real weird I think we're the I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people like regular biological people Just a bit of a bummer We'll be alright sort of till we're not but it's also like we grew up with nothing and we've we're like if the simulation is real You and I are in a very interesting timeline because we grew up where there was you just left the house and your parents And we were and then there was answering machines and then there was call ID You know and then there were cell phones and then there was cell phones you can watch porn on and then there was AI It's like it's slow, but more rapid as time goes on And it's exponential and as you said there's no going back You know going back Yeah, unless you want to be one of those people that moves to Alaska and starts fucking living off a caribou and shooting a musket Like you're not you're not going back. Wait.

Why do I have to get a musket? You get a regular rifle? Yes, yeah, wait, I mean I'm not gonna cosplay the thing I'll get him I mean I'm happy to have the caribou, but I don't know yet. Just have a regular gun You're probably a regular gun but eventually well you really should probably have a drone bow and arrow So because you're gonna have to go make your own arrows and after why you're gonna run out of bullets So you're gonna have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows, okay, and then the robots will show up Robot dogs didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a Robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered There was a thing robot.

What do you mean like one of those? Yeah, yeah Like using a robot in war that the robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender and they all like with no loss of life They just realized like fuck it's like did you see that black mirror episode? Yes. Yeah terrifying terrifying Terrify absolutely terrible and not so far in the future.

Yeah, this fucking thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan So it is Ukraine forces Russian to surrender using only robots So Lensky claims enemy positions seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk I mean if the fucking terminators show up It's game over if there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the terminators show up and they can't miss and they never get nervous And they're not worried about dying and they're not gonna get sleepy. Yeah, it's this thing that we were talking about yesterday This ghost murmur Supposedly no my friend Andy who was a former Navy seal who he doesn't believe it's real and I'm not sure it's really there But what they said is they found that pilot that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat From 40 miles away. So they've supposedly found him hiding in the mountains waiting for them to pick him up That makes I can see that I mean your heartbeat from 40 miles away your specific biological signature. I yeah I can I can see that I mean with the technology of like sonar Quantum it's called I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some shit, but what do they use to pinpoint the there?

It's an audible thing or I don't know I have no idea But they supposedly located this guy and it has a 40 mile range. He doesn't have anything on I see no It's like they just scan you they go okay This is what David Cross is very specific biological signature is and then you get lost hiking and they go oh there he is He's under that bush Why am I under the bush you're hiding from who? Oh Robot dogs Work no work, no work. Maybe you got lost in the woods you're waiting for someone to come rescue you they could find you But then it would be an under a bush.