Ep 113: David Cross - All Day IPA
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Hey, folks, here we are. We might be drunk. We're back. We got an old fave here. Yeah, excited for this guest today, David Cross. I mean...

Not to nerd out here, but I hate the word comedy education, but Mr. Show was huge for me, though. It was a huge show for me. It taught me. It was cool comedy to me. When I first saw Mad TV, I had the same feeling, the same sense, I guess, that something special was happening in comedy. That was huge. I rewatched some of the sketches today just in anticipation of having you on. I was like, man, they hold up. They're great, man. They hold up.

There you go. Well, it was a different time, too. You could get crazy back then. Yeah, well, there's definitely stuff on there that somebody will point out every once in a while.

There's that thing that people say, like, hey, you couldn't do this today. You couldn't make it. But there are truly some... There's a whole thing with Muhammad. The guy as Muhammad. And a very brief little thing about... Called these... Whatever it is. Like crazy religions or some kind... It's like a goofy... Thank you very much. This is going to remind some extremists right now that you did this and get you in trouble. You know, I'll... Right now, I'll tell you, we're on...

39th on 251. Well, it was also... 16th floor. You come out of the elevator and you're just going to take a quick left and then... Yeah, Rogan Studios down the hall, so start there. But it was so cool seeing that show on HBO because you would wear shorts. And as a kid, that blew my mind. Yeah, well, that was... It was one of those things that it...

Like Bob was a dress up in a suit guy and I was not. And I, I was, I just wanted to wear what I was comfortable in. Cause you know, you have, you have a long day and night at the studio when you're, when you're shooting at the stage. And, um,

And I just didn't... I'm not comfortable in suits or... And it's L.A. in the summer. Yeah, right. You know, and there's no... They were... The first several years were just shitty. The first four were in a... In a...

bar restaurant thing that we just sort of got for the first four tapings and there's no AC or ventilation and it was hot. It sucked. Yeah. I'm not going to wear a suit. And I was also that kind of, to an annoying degree, comic who was like anti-

We felt that. That was part of the fun. No, if I feel I would watch it with friends, like, you know, some of your friends get it and some of them don't get it. But the ones who didn't get it, I'm like, they're fucking dumb. Yeah.

You know? That was just the reaction. I mean, there was so many weird ones, like the Monsters of Megaphone crooning. For whatever reason, that one just hit me. It's so weird and great. I think that was a... If I remember correctly, that was Paula Tompkins' idea, I think. It was basically... There was the Monsters of Rock tour. And just the... It was kind of about the hype and the...

of it, you know? And this is before Coachella and all that kind of stuff. And I think that was a great example of, like, a sketch that was, like, a certain kind of...

idea that you know was a very funny idea and didn't have a ton of travel to it or story and then it just became this uh you know through everybody sitting around and working out but it was i believe it was paul tomkins idea he's he's hilarious yeah that was that was a great you must have had a ton of pushback from from uh like suits on that show zero really we had one note

Which we took over the four years. We had one note and you got to keep in mind, this was early mid-90s and HBO wasn't

that established outside of a handful of things. I mean, like Dream On was a big show. Oh, I love Dream On. But they didn't have a ton. It was pre-Sopranos and obviously Game of Thrones and Sex and the City and all that kind of stuff. So...

They, you know, they gave us whatever it was, the comedy block with Chris Rock. And I think we followed Chris and and it was, you know, Fridays at midnight and anything goes. And they told us like and also we were cheap. We've got we've got to be one that must have been one of the cheapest shows on TV. And yeah.

And they just said, yeah, we want stuff that you can't have anywhere else. Yeah. That only exists here. And, you know, obviously pre-streaming and all that stuff. And I wish that was still the case. Yeah. We literally, one note. Wow. Yeah. We do a Jimmy Fallon spot and it's like, cut that, cut that, cut that. And you're like, what am I doing here? Yeah. Yeah. What was that note?

Oh, yeah. It was, there was, I don't remember the entirety of the episode or the, but it was Bob and I looking back, when we come out in the intros and we're looking back at our upbringing, and then I play my dad in like this 1920s raccoon coat and 23 skidoo thing, and Mary Lynn Rice Cub is my wife, but it's,

So it's my dad and my... So it's me as a little baby. And... And...

my dad in their quotes me whatever is going giving a lot of attention to the baby this little baby you know a plastic baby clearly a plastic baby and uh mary lynn's like you know what about me what about me i'm like but look at this cute little thing look at this adorable little baby and she goes fuck the baby and throws it down on the ground and there's the sole note was

you can't say fuck the baby. You can throw it. You can throw it and you can say screw this or whatever it ended up being. Who cares about the baby? Forget this baby. That was the one note. That was the one note.

That's so weird about comedy and notes. You know, you can be like, I'm going to kill myself. But then if you're like, so, gay people, huh? They're loud. You're like, ooh, the gay loud. Well, that was a joke. They're killing themselves is probably true. Wait, wait. Are gay people loud? Wow, I just threw out something. I don't...

I'm sure there are some loud gays out there. Loud and proud. I'm sure there are some, but is that a stereotype? I just made one up because I was trying not to get in trouble. Well, it didn't work. The comments are furious. Yeah, man. What I love about those sketches, though, is like,

I just never knew where they were going. Oh, yeah. I mean, we all were watching the Ronnie Dobbs sketch in here yesterday. And just the fact that it goes to a guy who keeps getting arrested and then the turn is that he can't get arrested anymore. Yeah, that was a real important part of the kind of the –

you know, we didn't have rules, but, uh, we had a handful of things that we were pretty, uh, uh, that were important, like not, not doing specific parodies of specific people and to keep it, you know, somewhat vague and to be about the idea of that kind of what that person represents, which I think is in part why it still holds up, you know, but, um, as opposed to like when you watch SNLs from, you know, there's a sketch about Tanya Harding, you're like, what? Oh, I vaguely remember that, you know, but, um, uh,

One of the things was to have to tell a story with a sketch if you could. I mean, why not? And then it became a movie.

And that became a movie that nobody saw. I saw it. Okay. Well, there's... I don't know how many people know this. You got Mandy Patinkin in that movie. We did have Mandy Patinkin. We had a lot of... Oh, man, there was some good stuff. And fortunately, it was... Bob and I didn't officially disown it, but we were very...

disappointed we were kind of not kind of why am i even qualifying it we were kicked out of editing and we didn't have uh we were lied to about certain elements of that we wanted to uh hand in that we thought we we just assumed that was we would do what made the show successful but that was taken away from us uh by people who clearly know better and uh and

So it's hard for Bob and I to watch. I doubt either of us have seen it in 20 years, over 20 years probably. Neither has the public. That's just as God has intended. But that would never get made today, not because it's offensive, just because it's not Marvel. Because we're too old. Well, there you go. Nobody wants to see me running around with my shirt off at this point. You look pretty good then.

You were thin. Yeah, then, sure. But there's only so many loud gays that are going to want to see that. But we have a title for this episode. Oh, yeah. Loud Gays. Yeah, man. But you talk about SNL doing those, I guess, time capsule type sketches and Mad TV. Were you resentful of those shows? Was part of you like, fuck these shows? No, not. I mean, Bob was more because he had worked there.

and he did not have a great experience there. They didn't get... They'd miss out on a lot of talent. Like, Bob is a great example of a guy that they didn't... Clearly didn't understand. I mean, you know, it's... I've always said this. Like, it's... It's not... It works for what it is, and it's a really hard thing to have...

to have one week to turn around a live show and to have to humor a guest who doesn't have any particularly, you know, any skill set in comedy or anything like that. And that's a hard thing to do. And I just have zero interest in it. I don't watch it out of, like, resentment. I don't watch it because it's not very good. And you could tell...

that there's a lot of great ideas there, and if they had the time. And the on-screen talent is phenomenal. And I know that there's good writing in there, but they just don't have the time. But that's not what they do. That's not what they're... Part of the fun is how quick it has to be flipped over. Well, fun is relative, I guess, but it's just not for...

or people like me. It's for the people who watch it. And there's a lot of people... It's for loud gay people, I think. It's for loud gay people. Yeah, they just love it. And that's not me anymore. Not since the therapy. That's more broad. But you've got a Bob at SNL. I mean, like Tim Robinson, that's another example, right? Yeah. His sketch show is hilarious, but... Was he SNL? He was an SNL guy. Oh, there's so many examples, guys. There's so many examples. But that's not the machine they created. They created a...

lucrative machine and that machine works a certain way and I have zero interest in that as a comedy writer performer that doesn't interest me at all but um

But, I mean, it works. Yeah. You know. Still on. They always did weird, like, SNL's dead. They do that every 10 years about, but it's still here. But you can see, I mean, you'll see a sketch that you know if it was, if that sketch was able to go through kind of the process we had at Mr. Show, like, oh, man, I bet that would have been a great, that would have ended up being a great sketch. You certainly have the...

comedic uh acting chops there everybody's really exceptional and uh um it's just the writing doesn't get a chance it's but it's not meant it's that's not what they do yeah what's your what's your favorite mr show sketch that you ever did oh man uh i you know there i mean there's so many there there's some that have a really great memory attached to it was really fun to perform you know or shoot it um

Some that were fun to write. I think there are a handful of like kind of perfect sketches. I think the... My favorite, and I'm biased because I wrote it, but my favorite one that just has everything is the prenatal pageants where the...

baby. They have... It's, you know, the southern kind of three-year-olds and five-year-olds pageantry stuff. And the acting in it is great. Bob is tremendous. The idea is fully realized. There's a lot of funny stuff in there. And poignancy, which I think...

Are we supposed to watch this? Well, I don't remember this one, but aren't people listening to this? No, it's video too. They're watching it. All right. We get a lot of video. We don't have to watch the whole thing, but it's fun to see it. Oh, I see. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's the TV show thing. That's not it. Oh, this is not the pageant. No, that's...

You're slipping, Salicus. It says prenatal pageant. It does say it, yes. Interesting. I think, well, we had a lot of transitions and stuff, so you never know what goes into it and what. And who was on your writing staff? Any notables? Well, I mean, we had- Paul F.'s great. Paul F. Tompkins, Brian Poussaint, Dino Stamatopoulos. Oh, wow. Jay Johnston, B.J. Porter, Scott Aukerman.

We had various people throughout the years that would come and go. Yeah, Bill Odenkirk. There's some others. No, that's a hell of a list. Yeah.

Oh, gosh, I'm probably forgetting some... This is going to get me in trouble. You forget how long some people have been in this biz. Yeah. Because did you... Were you a New York kind of Lower East Side alternative guy? No, no. I was in Boston. And I... Before they had a term... Before alternative was a term. But it was definitely... Especially in Boston in the 80s. I moved there in 83. Yeah.

end of 83, uh, beginning of 84. And, uh, uh,

There was definitely like a kind of a division between two schools of thought for comedy and then people who had their Kind of had a foot in both both You know equally comfortable in each camp like Marc Maron Louis CK Those guys kind of did both. Yeah did both very well And that some people who

didn't cross over to the other thing as easily. Um, uh, but Janine Garofalo was a big part of that. Uh, but there was no, it wasn't like we all sat down and, you know, strategized it out. It just sort of was, and then we had our places to play. Like there was catch the rising star in Cambridge and that was definitely the alternative or quote unquote, whatever you want to call it, experimental, you know? And then there were, you know, there was, uh, uh,

uh you know nicks and comedy connection and uh in various places that were way more of the you know kind of blazer yeah brick background and roll your sleeves up and you know punchline set up punchline set up punchline did the same act for literally decades a lot of those guys yeah yeah yeah yeah and they're great i mean yeah like you would some of those guys are

So, I mean, so extremely talented and just in awe of them. But then when you see them over the years and you keep working with them and you're like, this is literally the same thing. I know, I know. Well, I think that's why a lot of them become alcoholics.

Oh, they were already alcoholics. Well, I think it's hard to do that sober, but if you're hammered, it's like an autopilot thing you can just kind of go on. But to be totally present for that, I think it is hard. But then the option is don't become an alcoholic and write some new fucking bits. Well, I'm not defending it. I'm trying to make sense of it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe, but there was a big...

You know, there was kind of a macho element to it, too. To murder. To what? To murder. To kill. To kill, yeah. And to be the top of that food chain. And, I mean, like, really talented guys. Like, the funniest fucking guys. But it was a little depressing. Like, you know that they've been... Because you know them personally. And you know that this...

Certain thing happened. Somebody ended up in jail or whatever. Something happened. And you're not going to incorporate that into a bit. You can't. You're still doing jokes about paper towels.

It was just weird. It was weird. They're not tapping into the darkness, and it's gold, a lot of those stories. But it would require failing and working the bit out where they have to go out there and crush it. That, I think, is a big part of it. I think you just hit the nail on the head. We have to have a lot of humility to keep writing because it sucks to bomb. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. And if you're, you know, this is, you know, times were flush and there was a glut of...

Places do comedy. Everybody wanted it. And, you know, if you're one of those top guys, you could make a really a lot of money doing five sets a night over the weekend. Yep. All cash under the table and tons of blow and drinking and partying and, uh,

And yeah, I mean, you could... It's a lifestyle that would catch up with you, of course. Sure. I mean, it's tough to say no to that. Yeah. But I think you... Mark, I think the idea of working material out and not...

And not killing is just, they don't do that. It's not part of their thought process. I know, but it's hard. I've got an hour right now that's cooking, and then you throw the new one in, and you just fall off a cliff. And then you have to get it back up. So I get it, but you still got to do the new. But then what David's saying, it's also true that you become that guy whose reputation is to kill. Yes. So if you don't kill, they're like, what the fuck? Totally. So that's tough too. There's nowhere to really work out. They're not going to go hit an open mic or something.

like that. Yeah, well, if you don't have a following, you start playing gigs where they're booking you to have the killer set. Yes, yes. It's tough. Yeah, it's just a different mindset, a different approach, a different, you know, you value different things differently, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

One thing cool about Louie is when he was doing that an hour a year thing, he'd have this great special. We all loved him. He was huge. He was praised. And then he would come back with nothing, and he would bomb for like three months. Yeah, absolutely. And we were all like, this is the guy? And then three months and 10 days, and it was murdering. Yeah. You got to respect that. It's called work. Yeah. Yeah. And that part...

It's thrilling. It's satisfying to...

There's a piece that you're just about... I don't know. I can't crack this. I know there's an idea there somewhere. I've tried it, and it's just not worth the time. And then you are about to ditch it, and you just stumble across. Like, oh, I'll approach it this way, not this way. And it's great. It's a great feeling, and you nail it. And then it becomes...

Then next thing you're awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. You're at the Kennedy Center Honors. Oh, all kinds of stuff. You get a Skechers –

you know, promotional contract or a free pair of shoes. I'm going for Vans. I'm a Vans man. But those guys you never see where... I've never seen Mulaney try anything new and struggle. Every time I see him, he's just got gold. Yeah. There's some guys out there and gals who are just, you know, just on it. Kumail was like that. Everyone's got a place they bomb, though. They must. He must do it like...

On the road, slipping it in, and then just... He's probably just smoothed that. You have to. Everyone's got that. Yeah. Yeah. Because if we're watching Chris Rock miss on a couple, then everyone is. But that's what the seller's for. Yeah. The seller is for that. And there are a couple places. Don't forget. When you go to L.A., you go to the Improv, or there's a handful of places where... And it's mostly where there's a tourist crowd. And they...

don't give a shit if it's not your A material. They're thrilled that, you know, Aziz or Sarah Silverman or whoever is like, oh my God, we went to New York, we went to LA, we went to Chicago and we went to go see a comedy show and you're never going to guess who came down. Right, right. And they don't, I don't think they care that much that it was, you know, it wasn't,

minutes of solid shit. Sure. They're just thrilled that and who wouldn't be? You should be. But we're not Sarah Silverman level, you know? Not yet. I mean, wait till the, you know, the blockers kick in and, you know. That loud gaze chunk. That starts hitting. No, we, no, there we go, Mateo, yeah. Oh, yeah.

But, uh... Have you, you've noticed that Mateo and Mark look, they share a similar, they look similar. Are you serious? Yeah. Wow, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. I don't see it. Oh, I do. Really? Maybe I get a stash. I, Mateo and I were making out the other night. Really? I thought it was part of it. Well, Mark, kiss him. Let's see if this works. All right. I'll see some resemblance. Do you not see that?

I'll tell you, he's all Italian. I'm half Italian, so maybe there's something there. Look at that. Come on, guys. It looks like you doing a character. That's his personality, by the way. Yeah, that'll get me canceled. But, no, it is interesting. I mean...

Do you still tour a lot? Are you on the road a lot? I'm about to go out and tour. Thank you for setting that up, Sam. That was beautiful. That was just perfect. Why, you can go to my website, officialdavidcross.com, and you'll see the dates. And if there are tickets available for Summer Sold Out, sure, I'll say that. For the tour, it's called, there it is, Worst Daddy in the World Tour.

and you can go get tickets. It starts in early March and will run. The first leg is up, so please don't... If you don't see your city or town, I will be going to more places in Canada and Europe as well, so don't get upset. We will be putting the second leg dates up shortly. But yeah, there's the first leg that goes from March into...

June, I think. A lot of great rooms here. Oh, yeah. Good stuff. Danforth just did that one. That's a hot one. Great room. Which city is that? Toronto. I recorded a CD there. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Yeah, you use our buddy to open a lot, Sean Patton. Yeah, Sean's going out on this tour. Oh, I love Sean. He's a guy. Yeah, we love him. He's great. Great comment. Tough follow, I bet. I mean, he's a high-energy fat guy. I love him. I love his brain and how quick he is and how extemporaneous it all seems. And yeah, he's great. He's one of the good, loud fats.

Yeah. What did you say? One of the good loud fats. One of the good loud fats, yeah. Great storyteller, too. I don't want to call him fat. He's not fat. He's portly. He just got out of a relationship. He looks good, ladies. There you go. Very good. Did that not? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I did the open relationship, which always works. Oh, no. Geez. That's a bummer. I don't know if we should be saying all this. All right. She's got a ukulele. She'll be fine. What the hell?

But we love you. And we love Caitlin, too. Good people. Yeah.

Because Sean likes to booze. Yeah. And I think you like a nice adult beverage every now and then. I met you in a bar. You definitely won't remember this because it was many years ago. But we were in a bar. The year was 1999. No, but you were just hanging there. You were just having a drink and a show popped up, which I'm sure if you're a comic is your worst night. You're like, I'm going to get away from this. Can I take a guess? Because this has not happened too often. Was it Parkside?

No, it was actually, but it was Lower East Side. That's a great bar. That is a classic. Because that happened to me. It hasn't happened very often, but I remember being at Parkside, and I'm there drinking with some friends, and they're like, all right, are you here for the show? We're going to get ready. Like, oh, no, no, no, no. You want to do a set? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Well, this night you did do a set, and I thought, yeah, you were just having a beer, and they were like, do you want to go on? You were like, yeah, all right. And I was like, damn, that's a comic. What bar is this? It was on 4th.

First and A, I think. I don't remember the name. The library? I don't know. Second and A, maybe? Second and A? Who's that area? Yeah, that would be the... The library doesn't have stand-up. I did a Parkside Lounge. Wait, oh, wait, wait. Was it 2A? Upstairs at 2A? Yeah, that's what it was. That must have been it. That was it. Well, that was my... I used to live across the street, so that was one of three regular, regular bars that I'd go to.

And so, yeah, that makes sense. There's always a show there. Every time I walk by, I see people sad that they have to listen to comedy upstairs. I did a show once at Parkside Lounge. I was like brand new to comedy. And this guy ran a show there. I don't remember his name, but he hosted a show. There were good comics on the show.

He has a full-on racist meltdown. It was like a Michael Richards thing before Michael Richards. He just starts chanting the N-word. He walks the entire room. Wait, he was a comic or he was putting the show together? Both. Whoa. Yeah. He just goes on a full-on screaming the N-word, chanting it, and everyone's like, what the fuck? They walked out one by one. No one was left. And then he said he was going to throw me on. And I'm just sitting there and he walks over to me and goes...

Yeah, it didn't work. And I was like, you thought that was going to work? Oh, that was a bit. Yeah, he thought that was like performance. He thought he was like doing some like performance art thing. And I was like, yeah, I could have. You should have run that by someone. I can't believe you saw Sean Patton. Brutal. That's crazy. There was a lot more performance already. Remember, what was that place? No, no. You see Jimmy. I saw Jimmy Fallon there years ago.

It was on A and 2nd. Or 1st. A and 1st. Oh! Face Boy had an open mic there. It was a famous bar. It had an upstairs. There was always celebrities in there, but they had what they called the art stars. A and 1st would have been like... It was the library. Nah, I know the library. It was across the street from the library. So Double Down or... I know that one. It was a couple doors up.

It was two floors, but it had a... Oh, it's the Irish place, the Mary O'Malley's or whatever. They had a second floor. Okay. It used to be something. It was like Angelica's... Anyway, I'm going way, way, way back. Maybe that's something like that. But yeah, yeah. There was always... There was a mic. There was these guys called Art Stars. That's what they called themselves. And there was all these performance artists...

One guy would do slam poetry. One girl would do the... Yeah, the vagina painting with the brush, you know? No, no, no, thank you. It was the whole thing. And then I'd go up as a traditional stand-up, and they were like, square, dork. So those were my... Those memes would have a way of making me feel uncool. Oh, yeah. Because I do a lot of, like, set-up punch jokes, too. So if they're not working, you're just kind of like, well, there's... No, listen, guys. Nobody... Nobody...

is not going to like your stand-up if you have a traditional thing. Nobody at those places is going to go, hey, this guy just set a set-up, and then the set-up had something funny at the end of it. I know, but that's in our head for some reason. That's how you felt. Yeah, but it's not... I think if you're funny, you're funny. I agree. Yeah, because, you know, there was a lot of... We weren't secure. Now I feel comfortable in any room, but there was a time when I was like, oh, I don't do this room. I'm more of a club comic. I mean, that was actually something that we ran into when...

when, this is going a little bit further back, but in Los Angeles, that whole, out of the Mr. Show, that whole crowd, you know, and then, and when people started, you know, when the New York Times wrote about alternative comedy, somebody came up with that thing, and that became a thing, and now there's, oh, and the Larry Sanders show has Janine Garofalo and Marilyn Ricegub and Bob Odenkirk and all that, it suddenly became a thing.

And then getting either friends of ours or people that we admired that were, you know, more traditional comics to come on down, do the show. And this happened a bunch. And people would be really nervous. They would –

had that thing in their head like yeah what am i there's there's uh it's like what is it going to be filled with punk rockers having a mosh pit you know like that like uh that attitude and it's gonna be fine they don't nobody does shit just be funny you're funny it'll be fine don't worry about it i know but don't you think that some people thought your comedy style like this show was so original and kind of a cool vibe that maybe that you look down on a more traditional style

Um, perhaps. Yeah. But that, but we tried to dispel that notion immediately, you know, that's nice. Cause it wasn't the, you know, it happened more than a handful of times where people were like, Oh, I don't know if they're going to like me. Like, of course they'll like you. Yeah. There's no, there's no rule. It just be funny. And you, and,

It's a person that you know and admire, so you know that there's something there. Just come down and you'll just discover it. It's a safe place. Yeah. It's a comedy safe place. Yes. And he had guys who I would see Todd Berry at the cellar, then I'd see Todd Berry at UCB, and he would kill everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Todd is hilarious. Yeah, just a funny guy. What do you get recognized from the most? Because you've done so much stuff. I mean, is it Arrested Development? Is it Mr. Show? No, I was reporter number three in the Amelia Earhart story. Nice. That's big. It is big. Does she show up at all in the movie? Yeah, it's her story. Oh, nice. And...

And, you know, a lot of people go, excuse me, I'm 92 years old. But if I remember correctly, weren't you reporter number three? That's pretty cool. In the Amelia Earhart story. And we go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, you know, Tobias. Yeah, it's got to be the main thing by far. And then, you know, you get your random...

I was at a bar. Sam, you're going to love this because I was at a bar by myself drinking the other night. And I got a note on a piece of like, you know, paper bag, brown paper bag, just torn off, folded. Guy put it in front of me and then walked back to his table. He said, thank you so much for Todd Margaret. I'm a big fan. Whoa. That's nice.

And he was a middle-aged black man. Hey, you never know. There's another one in my corner. Yeah. Now, you know, we've mentioned you like to booze. You're at bars alone. And...

I heard on a pod you mentioned you did crack once. Yeah. And you said you get it. Yes, it was a really... I want to say it's life-changing, but the fact that I stopped was an affirmation. You did it just once. Yeah, for a long... It was a long once. The once part took... It was...

So I was in, this would have been 2000. 22. This was in London and it was around, I want to say 2006. Crack in London? Maybe 2006? I didn't know that. They got everything, yeah. And it comes with free healthcare, so it's not the worst. Sure, that helps. But yeah.

And I was, uh, there's this guy and I've mentioned this guy and people are like, oh yeah, they know his name or whatever. He's, he's dead now. But, um, he was famous. Um, I didn't know this at the time I was in Camden and, uh, which is kind of an older, you know, gonna sort of the, where, where hippie meets punk kind of aesthetic. And, uh, and, um,

There's this guy who used to sing, and he was kind of very punkabilly look and leather jacket and greaseback pompadour, and he would be in the back of this Fish and Chips place, a very small place. And somebody... Oh, right, of course. It was one of the Vice guys. So it was this guy named Andy Capper, who's got amazing stories and who's...

I haven't spoken to him in a long time, but we would hang out and that's a guy you're going to get in trouble with. And we were there with this friend of mine who happened to be over there and him. And we ended up with this guy and these two out of central casting for...

London, like I would say they were probably early 40s, late 30s, but looked older and just kind of beaten up, but very cackly women. And we ended up...

Going back to his flat, which was like up some stairs. And I remember a fish tank that just had dirty dishes in it. It was like a fish tank. Not with fish in it, but just like an empty fish tank. It was just filthy. Whoa. Places filthy. And doing crack and going, this is...

Like really going, I like this. Not I like the crack, but I smoked this thing that made me like the disgusting thing that I was in. No, it wasn't like a hallucinogenic or you didn't think about stuff. And I didn't think... It wasn't even like Crystal where you're like, my future is bright. I love life. This is great. I'm going to walk around and just enjoy the thing. It was just...

Until you're actually inhaling it, I'm like, this is awful. What am I doing? People willingly...

Well, how did you even get to that point? It just was, was it going around? Yeah, yeah. And we, we, we, well, we bought it. We knew what we were doing. Oh, okay. No, we knew what we were doing. This guy, Andy, got us, introduced us to this guy. This is what we're going to do, and this is what we're going to do for the next hour. But that next hour turned into dawn. Oh, here's the other important part to this, is I have a show that night. I'm doing a month.

Oh, jeez. Long residency at the Soho Theater in Soho in London. And it's important, you know? Yeah. And I'd always made a deal with myself, always, that I still have. Like, if I ever...

drink too much, get too high, do too many drugs, whatever the thing is that prevents me from doing a show and doing the show like I can do it, then I have to quit. And I have to quit quit. I like that. Because I can't have that. And that's a bad sign. And I have a very strong tolerance, huge resiliency for that kind of shit. And I'm like, if it gets that bad, and it almost, that was the point

Because I wanted more. Yeah. And it's probably, at this point, sun's up. It's probably 7 a.m. Oh, boy. I have a show that night. There's been no sleep. Yeah. I had a show. I had a show every night. And then ended up in Camden. And at whatever it was, 10 o'clock, started Smoke Crack. And I was still there.

And I'm all money. Like, yeah, I got money. Here you go. What is it? 50 pounds? Here's 50 pounds. And I got 50 pound notes. And I'm happy. I love it. Yeah. I'm in this filthy thing with strangers that I can barely understand. Are you guys talking or is it just kind of silence? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know what it was. But can you describe what crack feels like? Because we have some. It was...

It wasn't... Again, it wasn't hallucinogenic. It was... The closest thing I can compare it to is kind of like...

a little bit of crystal meth where you're not like totally jacked yeah and you just everything has a little bit of a shine to it like everything's like you know what like if i ever had crystal or any kind of like meth or something like that or like coke coke is like a not as good uh version of that it's like scotch and i want to try the scotch

Sorry. What's paper plane? Oh, you've never had one of these? No. Let's make them a paper plane. Three papers. But also, I want to try the Glenmore. We have a scotch that our whiskey partner Christopher Hart sent in called Glenmore. It's from the 1970s. So we want to try it. He sent us all kinds of cool shit. He sent us a bottle that was like rectangular that men would put in their briefcases. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's really cool old shit. Do you want to try the scotch?

I'll take a taste. I just want to try a little. No pressure. I'm sorry, we didn't mean to interrupt the crack. This guy did crack. So what happened with the show? It's an upper. It just is the kind of thing like where, you know what, I don't... I'm just going to hang in tonight. And then you do a little math. You're like, you know what, fuck it. I'm going to go out. I'm going to go have a drink. And it just makes... I have a tendency to be antisocial and just be like, I'll hang in. And then I would...

just go out of course this is a different person I'm describing I was single I was in New York I wasn't married or didn't have a kid or any of that and uh and I was kind of on top of the world and yeah you know um and I was in New York City with money so yeah uh it was a different circumstance thank you thank you uh so it was it was similar to that hey to crack

Yeah, I mean, as long as you don't get addicted, I say give it a shot, because I've always wanted to try heroin, but they say wine will get you addicted. That is smooth. That's all right. That's pretty good. Eh, it's no bodega, Kat, but it's not bad. It's not as good as our whiskey. Yeah, we sell our own whisk. Do you? Yeah, we got our own hooch. How do you do that? How did that happen? We just said we wanted to make whiskey, and... A distributor hit us up. Yeah. Yeah.

So you don't truly make it. You just... No, we just hawk it. You just got a label. We label it. You got a label and you're selling the label. Yeah. Excuse me, but we got a commercial every week. You sounded like a bodega cat there. What the hell was that? A little glee. But yeah, all right, so... That's a crazy story, man. Don't do crack, folks. Yeah, don't do it. Or do it just once. Just stop. Just once. And that's the thing. I would have kept doing it. It was... It really... I get it. I mean, I get why people...

It's terrible. It would just destroy people and families. Sure. And it's the kind of thing that, you know, I imagine it's, you know, if you're in the setting where you're doing crack and you don't know anybody and it's dangerous and you should be suspicious of everybody, but then you take that crack and that all goes away times 10, you know. And again, it's not like...

oh man, this is really cool and interesting or even like getting high where you're like, oh, you know, I'm just chill and relaxed and I'm enjoying this. I'm hearing things in this song that I didn't hear. It's just, I can't really... Just feel good. It feels great. I was in a really weird, bleak, strange setting that, you know, as the sun came up, had a little bit of like, it's almost like after a one night stand, you know, and...

you're not drunk anymore. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh shit. Been there. But your friend Andy must have known he was putting you in a situation that could have ruined your life, right?

No, I went into it willingly. It wasn't a surprise. He didn't blindfold me. Also, if he's willing to do it, he probably doesn't have the in-the-moment awareness, right? I would think. I was totally willing to do it. And I'd never done it before. And by nature, I'm a very curious person and I'll try this thing and I'll eat anything and I'll try this once and I'm one of those guys. And I was like, yeah, fuck it, I'll take it. And I had a predilection for drugs too and I...

And my responsibilities were to nobody but myself and just like, oh, I got a show in 22 hours, whatever. Right. You know, and... How was that show? It was fine. It was fine. You mentioned The Crack?

I probably. I would imagine, yeah. Like those 80s hacks in Boston. They wouldn't have said anything. Just done the same act. But yeah, good for you. I mean, if you're going to do crack, you know, you got no kids, you got no responsibilities. You're in another country. As I said, this was a long time ago. It was a different person. Yeah. I mean, if you offered me crack right now, of course I'd have to think about it. Salamanca? Bring it out. I'm all out. All right.

What does it last? Like two hours, I'd say? I don't know. I don't think that much. Oh, okay. I mean, we probably... Maybe you keep going. Yeah, that's the problem. We probably bought... Oh, gosh. Because we had to get it. It wasn't... The guy didn't have like a briefcase full of it. It was... But this guy was connected. And so...

I don't remember if somebody went out or somebody came to the door. I just don't remember. I remember watching The Mole People. Remember that movie about the guys on the subway? And I was always like, how could they live like this? It's damp. It's rats. It's shooting in a bucket. Dark days, but they're all on crack. Yeah.

So you can live anywhere. It's like you said with the dishes in the fish tank. You know, it's like virtual reality. That's an image that's like... It's like those goggles. That's an unforgettable image. I know. Yeah, I remember that quite well. It's one of the few things I remember outside of the... You know, I have a vague overview of it, but one specific thing I remember is, oh, there's a fish tank, empty fish tank with dirty dishes. That's impressive almost. And also...

It was such a small place. I mean, whatever kitchen there might have been would have been one of those tiny, shitty... Like a sink in a... I don't know. Yeah, it was pretty bleak. But I guess that was this... It's kind of similar to, you know, when there's...

A guy, whether they're homeless or they're just indigent or whatever, on your local guy or woman who's always hitting you up and over the years does it. And it's that feeling of like, I've got just enough and now I got enough money to get a cheese pizza and this will hold me and I'm just going to sit in my...

and then I'll come out when I need more money for another cheese pizza. Well, that's the thing about meth. At least with the meth, you'd clean up, probably. Yes. Oh, and you'd scrub to the... Yeah. What I'm saying is all life is precious. There you go. That's what I want you to take from this. All life is precious. All right, well, you hear that, Whitney Houston? Yeah.

Probably not. No, she doesn't, I think. I guess she didn't, but she liked the crack. Man, first Gerard, now you. What's happening here? What? Oh, he went hard at her. Oh, really? No, I don't know. Another beer. That's a little weird. We got to ask a little bit of a rest of development. I know it's a big change of gears here, but like, you know. Two legendary comedies. So, I mean, such an insane cast to be a part of. Yeah. I mean. That was so quickly.

There are a handful of shows where you're like, the cast is perfect. Yeah. Like, I can't imagine... Thank you so much. I can't imagine, you know, other people in those roles. Right. And Ron Howard directing. Or narrating. Yeah, narrating. Sorry. Just, yeah. It was...

an amazing cast that, that kind of got pulled from every, every corner. And you think about, you know, nobody really knew who, uh, Michael Cera, Ali, Shawcat were, and, and only, you know, I was, I was, you know, uh, well,

under the radar and nobody knew who Will was or Tony Hale. Oh, yeah. I mean, just, it was pretty amazing. Just all heavyweights. Like, everyone on that show. And, I mean, RIP Jessica Walter, man. She was so damn fun. Were you close with her at all on set or no? I mean, not particularly close. I mean, we were all, you know, supportive of each other and, you know, we worked together for...

five years um over the years and um you know all that cliche shit about being a family is true i mean yeah um but yeah it was uh i mean i'm still friendly with i was just hanging out with michael uh you know four or five nights ago oh wow yeah doing crack nice and michael just had a kid um oh all right yeah

Yeah, that show. I mean, it's on Netflix, so I just put it on. And it's so fun. It might have the most jokes per minute. Maybe 30 Rock. Yeah. But it's up there with... Rapid Fire. Yeah. I remember when it first came out, and the internet was not new, but relatively we were kind of finding our way with it. But having to... I shouldn't say having to, but discovering...

jokes that I didn't realize were there through like chat rooms and stuff things that I didn't get when we were shooting it or watching it later like it didn't occur to me that yeah you know either conceptually or something like that

This was planted in one episode and then paid off a season later in another episode, shit like that. There's a documentary about the show and people who love the show, and they have shit in there. They talk to the writers, and half of it I missed on the show. Yeah. I mean, not just a regular cast, but down to Carl Weathers. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Got yourself a soup. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, amazing. And Henry Winkler. Yeah, everybody's in it. Oh, my God, yeah. It's quite a cast. Yeah. Will Arnett. Yeah. It doesn't get any funnier than that. Yeah, man. It's one of those things I think about, like, because they were struggling to find Job. When they first brought it to me, they asked me to look at Job, and I had no handle on Job at all. Mm-hmm. But...

Then you watch Will and you're like, oh, of course. That's it. That's Job. Who else? There's no one else that would be Job. And Tony Hale. I mean, just all of it across the board. Are you still consuming comedy as a comedy guy? Or are you kind of like, eh, I just go out and do my shows and I go home? Probably less intensely than I used to. But I mean, I'm still hunting for the...

dark, cringy British comedies, which are many. Peep show. Yeah. And, you know, occasionally we'll see... Thank you. A name on the Netflix algorithm or something. Thank you. No pressure. I'll take a sip. See how it is. And...

I'll check that person out, you know. Yeah. Or something, you know, somebody that the kids are talking about. I'll go and check them out. A guy named, I don't know if I'm going to get this right, Sam Morell, who, you know, I didn't know if you were looking. Oh, there he is. He's up on the thing. Oh, there he is. Oh, that guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I'm actually watching this show currently. I'm almost at the very end of the first season and I'm really digging it. A British show called I Hate Susie. It's good. Yeah, it's really good. And also just right up my alley. It takes its time. It's got some really cringe moments, but they're willing to kind of explore everything.

The characters. It's good. She kind of gets canceled online. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that show is great. And it starts off like that. I mean, the thing just hits the gas running, which is there's another British show called... I'll watch it. You feel it, too. They did an American version, but the British show Shameless... Oh, yeah. ...is great. I mean, check out the British version, but that show...

I mean, it starts, there's no, it just, boom, the story, story's going. Is it similar to the Ameri- I've seen the American. Um, haven't seen the American. I read the script for it. Uh, and I remember being, uh, disappointed that it took place in Chicago, which one of the great things about the British, uh, show is it's all, um, almost all of it, at least for the first couple of seasons. Um,

Or just take place in this council flat in Manchester. And there's a pub that they all go to and there's like a little off-license bodega type place that they go to. But it feels like they're trapped there. And I was like, they put it in Chicago and you can escape in any way. Right, good point. Easily. You can get...

Get on the L train. Yeah. You know, whatever. And the American version is kind of dramatic. It's more like family lovey-dovey, where this seems more like a comedy. It's comedy. I mean, there's some hearts of poignancy to it, but I highly recommend it. That's a show that just, I mean, starts...

And great cast. Okay. I'm going to check these out. Are there like comfort watches for you on the road that you just revisit? Is there stuff that you're like, this is my road thing? I never watch TV on the road. Really? I go, no. I mean, my show, I'm doing like two hours. What? That's long. Yeah, it's indulgent and I shouldn't at some point. We'll see how it works out with an opener because usually I go out

And I just do like an hour and like, let's say an hour and a half. And then I'll come out for like an encore, sometimes a second encore. But and I'll just and by then I'm kind of, you know, half in the bag and I'm just shooting the shit and loving it. You know, you know what it's like when you're on stage and you just kill it. We dick around at the end, too. It's usually like give us a current topic and we just rest or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's a good thing that I got a Sean opening. It's going to make me be a little more... A little tighter. How long do you have him do? Just 15, you know. So that's one bit. Well, I'm kind of similar. My bits are long. Oh, yeah? When people are like, can he do five minutes? Like, no. I can do 12 seconds or plenty of like little jokey bits.

things or I can do you know nine minutes you know so do you get the guy like oh I was I want to see Tobias and now you're talking about politics not so much I mean my 2016 tour what or was it 16 whatever the

It was Make America Great Again. I want to say that was, yeah, 16. That one had a bunch of people like would walk out. Oh, really? On the whole tour. I mean, I can count on one hand the shows, not including Europe, that people walked out and sometimes angrily, sometimes really did not care for, but yeah.

Was there a joke that walked them or was it just... Oh, just, you know, enough with the anti-Trump or Republicans or Catholic bashing or, you know, whatever it was that they didn't like. I'm not Mormon, but I'm not going to stand here and listen to you bad mouth Mormons or whatever. And...

That's usually who's most offended is people that aren't the thing you're talking about. It's true. On behalf. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that. I've never seen on behalf of another religion. That's a new one. Yeah. But I'm projecting. Assuming that. But not so much anymore. Occasionally, I just did this little kind of mini tour to get ready for this bigger tour I'm doing in March. And...

Everything was great. Like sold out. Everything was sold out. It was awesome. But there were two. There was Washington, D.C. and Birmingham, Alabama, I think was the other one where...

And it happens, you know, friends of friends are like, hey, we got tickets to the guy from Just Shoot Me. Or did you ever see Men in Black? Well, that guy, you know, whatever the thing was. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And that's how they know me. And they don't even, it's not that they know me and they're excited. It's just like, you could tell somebody brought them. Yeah, yeah. It was part of a night. And, you know, people aren't like furious. They're just like, it would be the same thing if you went to

you know, an evening of white Christian nationalist racist comedy, he'd be like, no, it's not for me. Speak for yourself. It would be interesting to watch that, though, just to see what the hell they do. You dealt with this when you opened for JB Smooth, remember? There were people that were mad he wasn't Leon. Yes. A lot of yarmulkes out there walking out.

Oh, this is nice. Isn't it good? Yeah. Paper plane. I feel like we've kind of jump-started the popularity for this. We're getting tagged in this constantly. Wait, I want to go back. So people would go see J.B. Smoove. Yeah, in the heart of Curb. And he would come out to ba-ba-da, ba-da-ba-da. And it's all these Jewish people going nuts. Yeah. And then he would talk about eating pussy for half an hour. What the fuck are they thinking? I know. What are they thinking? Because he's... No, I have zero...

sympathy for those folks. Oh, no. No, no, but it's just a weird... I mean, it's annoying for JB to deal with. Yeah. But it was a white crowd, for sure. Yeah, yeah. He's a really funny guy, though. Oh, hilarious. Yeah, I knew him way back in the day, way before Curbed. I...

Can't remember from what. But yeah, like L.A. Yeah. Well, he has that old story about how he was driving from St. Louis to another gig in a snowstorm and he had like $8 to his name and then he got the call. Like, you got curbed. He was like, I was about to be on food stamps and it just saved his life. Yeah. He was just like a road dog.

Yeah, he's a really nice guy, too. Good guy. I told you, I opened for him at Caroline's. He's murdering. I leave to go get a beer. I come back, and he's climbing the diamond on the wall. That's how high energy he was. Are there any comics starting out that you were like, oh, shit, this guy's awesome. I got to kick it up. Or when you were in the 90s or whatever, we were like, this is the dude. That were peers of mine? Peers or people that you just looked up to. Well, I mean, yeah, they're...

Like the people that, and we had, you know, as you guys know, it's a very, very supportive group of people. I mean, there's, you don't get this kind of jealousy that other, you find in other aspects of the arts. You don't find like backstabbing. You don't, you know, at least my experience is people are really supportive of each other. And it's one of those things that,

Everyone can kind of relate to an actor's situation, whether it's good or bad, even if they're not an actor. But with stand-up, everyone has that thing in the back of their head like you truly don't know what this is like unless you do it. Oh, yeah. And you do it a lot. And you will have really high highs and really low lows. And it's just not that applicable to other actors.

you do in life. And so, you know, my peers who I really looked up to and I wanted... Like, it meant the world to me if they liked something or they gave me constructive criticism but it was couched and like, you know, this is really good but I think you need to do this. I mean, people like...

you know, people I mentioned before, like, you know, Louie and Janine and, uh, uh, like great joke writers like Laura Keitlinger. Uh, I mean, just great joke writers and Sarah Silverman and, um, Dave Attell and, uh, um, you know, that whole, that whole group of people. Uh, and we were all friends too, you know? And then, and then coming out and the people I looked up to, uh,

Like when I was a kid, it was, you know, Richard Pryor and Steve Martin and then later Stephen Wright and Bill Hicks and, you know, people I got to meet. Yeah. Which was a thrill. And...

You know, Gallagher 2. Not his brother. I was waiting for one. Well, that's the cool thing about comedy is, like, I could see you opening for Bill Hicks and he'd be like, this guy's weird or this guy's a little off the wall. But the cool thing about comedy is if it's good, you'll get a show. You know, like, you can be seen as off the wall by one guy and then another person can be like, this guy's brilliant. You know, like, you still made it.

Yeah, there was, there was this, uh, uh, this is quite tracking with what you were saying, but, but, but there, but it's similar in that when I was younger and I was taking whatever work I could get, you know, when I was, um, you know, still in Atlanta, um, which is where I started, um,

Was the Punchline the club there at the time? Yeah, Punchline and Sandy Springs. And there is still Punchline, but it's moved. I think it's an app. It's connected to a diner. Yeah. You hear that cash register during your set. Milkshake machine. You see the jello in the little thing. Yeah, and the glass. But there was...

Shit, what was I going to say? Uh-oh. Starting in Atlanta. The drinks are kicking in. Starting out, you take all the work and get... Oh, yeah. Whenever... When I'd go out and I would do...

You know, it was opening. I wasn't even middling. I was just opening for various people. Some I connected with immediately. Some I did not. But whenever... If I hadn't seen the headliners act yet and I came off stage and then they would say like,

Man, you got some balls, kid. Then I knew they were going to suck. And that's almost 100% of the time. I was a good arbiter of what their act was going to be. I can't believe Cosby said that. Boy, I'll tell you, you got some guts, kid. Or you get one of these. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That is. But do you remember opening for anyone that you like? We're like, oh, that's a fucking killer. Like in Atlanta.

Someone that gave you a kick in the butt, like, oh, this is what it's like to be a headliner. Because that was a room, that punchline, that old one. Not... My gosh, no. Not really. And that's just luck. That's just, you know, there were so many people coming through. And there were two main clubs there. There was a punchline in the comedy spot, which isn't there anymore. And...

Yeah, I never... I didn't have the luck of... But we'd also go. We'd go when we weren't working and sit and try to get half-priced drinks or whatever and sit at the bar and just watch comedy. But nobody that kind of kicked my ass like that. In Boston, yes. When I got up to Boston, there were many people who were... Were you seeing Stephen Wright when you just got there? I never saw him do stand-up, no. He's actually...

in the, in somewhat, he was responsible for his manager. So, uh, Lauren Dabrowski, who unfortunately isn't with us anymore, who, uh, was part of my sketch group. She was a standup, uh, again, but, uh, a foot in both worlds. Um, I had this sketch group there and, uh, um,

And then she went on to be the head writer for Mad TV eventually, but she died of cancer, unfortunately. But she was good friends with Stephen Wright, brought Stephen Wright to see me do stand-up, because my stand-up was weird and edgy and whatever, but also raw, like really unrefined and still finding my voice and figuring things out. And he...

convinced his manager to come up from New York. Wow. And at that point, my manager, our manager, only had three clients. It was him, Tom Kenny, and Michael O'Donoghue, who was also not with us, was a writer on SNL, the original. Tom Kenny of SpongeBob? Yeah. And in so many Mr. Show sketches, yeah. And...

And he convinced, so he came out and saw me. He convinced Tim Sarkis to come up to New York, I mean, come up to Boston. And then he basically signed me. And that, you know, put me on this path that brought me to West 39th Street. Wow. There you go. Wow. Stephen Wright, man. Damn, what a guy. That's cool. Paper plane. Why is it called paper plane?

Wow. It's an old drink. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Most drink history is just like, you know, not living anyway. Yeah, that sounded cool. It probably, yeah, it probably started out as one thing and then by the third drink became a completely different thing. So history's a little suspect. We got these fun facts too about the Glenmore whiskey, the 70s bottle from our whiskey partner. Oh, fun. I love fun. Well, he said there used to be an agreement. What kind of fun stuff you got?

There used to be an agreement never to use women to sell whiskey, and Glenmore was the first whiskey to say fuck that and use women and sex to sell whiskey. Who was the agreement? I don't know. I guess they just didn't. It was an unwritten rule, I guess. Some guys in Scotland? Everyone.

Yeah. That's what they say. It's owned currently by the same company that makes Pappy. Grappy Van Winkle. Also, I hate to shit on your story, but... Uh-oh, we got the paper plane. Someone came up with it in 2007 and based the name off the MIA song Paper Planes. No, that's not... Get out of here. This is old. I saw it in two places. I got a third one that it's 2001 and it's after 9-11. Oh.

There we go. Sorry. It also says here 2007. That's too late. This is an old drink. He said modeled after an old drink. Oh. But for sure it was made in Chicago in like the 80s.

This is my favorite new cocktail that you've made us. You've made us a lot of good shit. These are some really fun facts. We lost David, officially. It was a good run. Fun stuff. Fun, fun, fun. I thought this kind of drink, though, is like it's all equal parts. And the reason that Pro-Fish and cocktails were always all equal parts was because cocktail recipe books were seen as paraphernalia and parts of it was vanilla.

How do you like that? I see. You know, going, it makes sense, but going by that logic, at some point you're just going like,

Just throwing shit in a glass, right? But that's how a lot of drinks were made, right? Yeah. Oh. That's interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

But no, it's interesting. I mean, this and Corpse Reviver number four, I think, are my favorite ones. I don't remember that one. Yeah. My favorite is the number two, though. That's the most popular. Oh, okay. Do I have to see the... I've only had the first one. Do I have to look it up? Yeah, man. Do you have any pet peeves? Anything just bothering you? I do. Can I take a piss first? Please. Please take a piss. Yeah, let's pause it. Show the man where the urine is.

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I do. I, um, uh, one of the, there, there, I, a couple, I have many, um, and, and the first two are kind of, uh, attendant with each other, but, uh, I, I really despise angry, like zero to 60 want to hit, want to punch, um,

Or just knock with my elbow the people who come out of the subway and then stop right there and they get on their phone. To look for where they are or whatever. The people, you run up the steps and then they just stop right there. Yes. And it's infuriating and that's just, that's not a...

just a New York thing. I've seen that everywhere where people, you come off and they just stop like, Oh, look at where am I? Am I, do I go this way or this way? Let me like, I check my phone. And, uh, yep. That's, it's not just directions. I think it's like an addiction to that. They just like, they went up steps and they needed to just look at it. Whatever it is. It's like fucking move. Yeah. And then spots you could stand kind of similar is, uh, and they're both the, the idea is like, I'm,

I'm not thinking about other people. Yes. And it's the, when you're in a line, it can be small, it can be long, at a place to order something when you get to the front of that line or whatever that thing is. Deli? Deli, sure. Coffee place, whatever the thing is. And you, the menu's right up there.

There's no mystery. Nothing's hidden. And then you know there's a long line. You've been in it. Right. And there's nine people behind you. And then you get up there like, yes. Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness. Which one is...

I think I want... Is there anything... I guess I'll get the macchiato. Do I want large or small? That's fucking like... That's crazy. You've had all motherfucking day to figure it out. Huge peeve of mine, too. And this is a bigger peeve. It's not a long line, but it's a line of one person who takes forever. It's a long line, at least... Oh, that's what I mean. Yeah, totally. It's just the one person who...

And that one person has been in line and watched people go up there. And it also speaks to just a general, that person is just not aware of other people and what they might be dealing with. Yeah, totally. And they're probably the first person to be like, hey, asshole, I'm trying to do this thing. Yeah. Yeah.

I hate that shit. That happened. You were just in Nashville. We went to Hattie B's last time we were there. And I was like, I want the experience. The clubs that they get it for us. And also, Hattie B's has, you have a minimum, there's not a huge menu. Exactly. It's the hot chicken. That's what you're getting. You want a sandwich or a breast? Yeah. Right. But we're in line for a fucking hour. The clubs that they get it for us, I'm like, no, I want to go. I want to do the experience. That's fine. We're in line for an hour. We get to the front. Six women in front of us.

They don't order together. They all pay single. And on top of it, they all are like, hmm. Yeah. Oh, my God. That is infuriating. We were laughing. We weren't even mad. It was so annoying we started laughing. Yeah. That's infuriating. Yeah. But you want to just go, I know what I want. Let me go ahead of you. But they never do. They like the window. They like that moment. It's just not considerate of other people.

And there's this thing, there's this entitlement of like, well, I waited in line for an hour, so I'm going to take my time. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to, hey, man, this is a long wait. I'm going to make sure everybody else has slightly better experience. That's the only good thing about the airport. You go to the airport and they're like, laptop out, shoes off, belt, pockets empty. And there's always someone who gets up there and is like, do I have to take the laptop out? And that's why they keep saying it, which is annoying, but they have to do it. That's a pet peeve, actually, is-

Not that in itself, but the attitude that some of the TSA people have. You've got clear and pre-check, though. I have pre-check. I don't have clear. But that's enough. That's fine. Yeah, yeah. But the thing where they kind of are exasperated and roll their eyes...

people take your laptops out and like hey dude none of us here we're not we're all complying you don't have to give this attitude nobody here has gone I'm sorry how does I've never flown before and the whole thing is mystifying but nobody's doing that we're all first of all we're all in pre-check or whatever so

But decided to like, people, listen to me. Put your, like, okay. Yeah. We got it. Right. The later boarding groups too, you don't want to be, that's why you want to be in the early boarding groups, not just to get on the flight, but those are the people that usually know what the fuck they're doing. So when you're boarding late, like you ever miss a connection? You're boarding late. These people are like, wait, what do I do? I'm like, you've never been on a plane? Well, I think we can get away with, let's get rid of the safety thing on the plane. We've all heard it.

And no one's listening anyway. Everyone's got their earbuds in. I get really annoyed when there's a... I was watching the Giants playoffs game. Oh, they mute the show. It was a fucking good game. And they put on, they go, guys, this is the seatbelt. And I'm like, dude, it's fucking... We know it. It's the playoffs. And they make it long. They make it long on purpose. It's like, don't tamper, don't fuck with, don't play with, don't smoke. Have you started petitioning the...

FAA and seeing if like when there's a playoff game. We're all aware. I write it every time. Speed it up. They always go, do you have a, fill out the survey and I always write announcements, too many announcements. You fill it out? Every time. Wow. I just write that. That's all I write and I push send. Then I,

That's like what my mom says to do. She's like, you should write a letter. I don't think that's happening anymore. She meant like long form. Yeah. Oh, she really did. Write your congressman. Dear Delta Airlines. Well, you've done it again. But yeah, that's a good peeve. I'm up there. I saw a guy looking at TikTok in the turnstile, like literally kind of leaning on it. His four turnstiles. He had one of them.

Yeah, that's pretty awful. You know what I saw on the turnstile? A guy was ripping his fucking tooth out. I don't know what drug he was on, but he's ripping his tooth out. And this is the, yeah, meth. And everyone on the- Tooth fairy. Tooth fairy will give me one last hit. Okay. Where's that tooth fairy? But everyone was like, what the fuck? But not in a compassionate way. They were like, you're blocking the fucking thing. Right.

It's the most New York shit ever where they're just like, dude, rip it off in the corner. What compassion are you going to show a guy who's ripping off his tooth? Poor guy? You ripped your tooth out? No, and I don't mean this. I know it came off that way, and I should re- So what kind of compassion would you show him? What would you do? Awe.

I don't know. What do you think? Something. Well, you can do the tooth two feet away. Go sit on the bench and do the tooth. Something. I don't know. That's a dark thing. You see so much dark shit in this city. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know.

It happens. It's out there. You can't avoid it. But that's what makes the city the city. Another subway peeve is the guys who try to get off before you get on. Or they try to get on before you get off, rather. Yeah. I think people are better about that, though, than...

I think people are pretty good about that more than my memory of the past. That seems to be something that's been instilled in people. You still have it, but to me there's way less of that than there used to be. It used to be really kind of every man for himself. And I think there's a little bit of that kind of general collective consciousness of that thing. It isn't as bad to me as it used to be. Yeah.

since we're doing subways is like a huge uptick in people smoking on the trains now it's insane like when i was a kid like that would be like an immediate like cops would jump on you yeah they'd beat you and now it's just a regular thing it never bothers me i haven't seen anybody smoking i see a good amount of people get high and and kind of like you know try to hide it a little bit i haven't seen like real blatant stuff i've seen i saw a girl you know a couple days ago uh

vaping, which is its own thing. Yeah, that's everywhere. But, yeah, I haven't seen anybody smoking on the train. Vaping is kind of, I don't vape, but like, whenever I'm drunken around someone who's got one, it's kind of fun. Because you just, you take a hit and you're like, banana, walnut. It's kind of fun. It kind of feels good. Vapopologist. The whole thing. It's disgusting, but when you're wasted, it does kind of feel good. I don't know. Yeah, well, it's fun to suck in and blow out smoke. It is. It's fun. Yeah. I feel about showtime on trains.

I mean, you know. I get it. It totally depends. They're trying to make a living. It completely depends. I don't understand. Why do you think anybody would give you money when you almost kick them in the face? Because it works. Because it works. There's enough tourists who are delighted by that. They got their story. Dude, take it, please. I'm happy that you're getting some cash. Take out the $3,000 in a tiny, tiny space. But there's some... There's some...

people who are really good and it's interesting they're very good I don't I don't care for the I don't care for the the

phoning it in mariachi guys I don't like anybody's phoning it in but there's some there have been some interesting like oh that's cool the troops the troops are annoying but I remember the troops the whatever the dance troops oh oh oh I thought you hated the army but uh fuck the troops dude no uh the dance troops when they come on uh I remember I bombed

Montreal edition I was like a young comic and my heart was broken I was like I wanted to go it was a year we both thought we were like we both wanted so bad and we didn't get it and I was on the train afterwards just like hating myself I'm like man my joke stunk and I was feeling so low and a dance troupe came on and the dude was just in my face dancing around me and it broke me and I started laughing it actually put me in a good mood that's nice because when you're that low you're just kind of like ah you know I saw a baby crying and the mom couldn't shut the kid up and a guy dresses a clown and

Which we were all terrified of, but he went up to the baby and did like a balloon animal thing, and then the baby loved it, and the mom was like, here's 20 bucks. Thank you. What? Yeah, it was huge. I'll tell you what's crazy that I could never do, ever, are the guys... And...

They're not necessarily that funny, but just the commitment and the energy and the talent to go to Washington Square Park, put your little speaker down, get your mic, and just do stand-up. Balls.

That's fucking balls. Who was the guy? Was it Charlie Barrett? Charlie... Barrett? What was his name? Charlie Barrett, yeah. No, not Barrett. He was like the Eddie Murphy before Eddie Murphy, right? Yeah, Dave Chappelle. No, no, it was Charlie Barrett who was the guy in Washington Square Park. Yeah. Like 80s, 90s. Is it Barrett? I think it was. I think you're right. I don't think it was Barrett. Am I wrong? And he's dead. Yeah. Yeah.

Chappelle said he would study him. Charlie Barnett. Barnett. Yes, Barnett. But like that is... Balls. I mean, that's just a skill I don't have. But you got to be very broad too. And you have to be enthusiastic. Yeah, yeah, that's true. You do have to be kind of like... I mean, broad, crowd-pleasery-ish. I mean, it's like... You got to hit everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, but he was, uh, he's got some clips online and, and you watch it like this guy's funny. He is funny. It's almost like the, um, freestyling, like rap guys go and you're like, Whoa, where's that? How are you able to do this? Like just, you know, it's so cool. I, uh, I mean, we talk about Marlon craft a lot cause Matt introduced me to a young rapper and, uh,

He has so many songs. It's a whole different thing, but you hear these lyrics. I mean, they're like jokes. I mean, the way they have to put together these words, and it's so clever. Have you ever seen the old, old, old stuff of Biggie? No. Freestyling, little rap battles, like impromptu type things. Really? And it's just a skill that's like, holy shit. How do they do that? How do they come up with that shit? Oh, there it is. Oh, check this out. Yeah. He's probably like 17. 17.

He's not even that big yet. Oh, I love when the guy caves. That's the best.

Yeah, that's like a talent. I mean, there are people taking 20 minutes to do Wordle. I mean, it's pretty... But to have the voice, the confidence, the beat, the wit, I mean, you just have to have everything. It's like race car driving where you have to have such low heart rate because you have to keep thinking of shit and not get panicked. It's incredible.

Yeah, I mean, that's... It's crazy. I've always, always, always said... And thank you for bringing this up. I've always said freestyle rapping is...

you know really the same thing as like uh you know race car driving well i'm just saying you got to be able to uh just shut down otherwise you're just like oh my god i need another line what's my next line and you panic you have to have a like just be that confident and i i i'm i'm agreeing with you oh come on um it's crazy tupac and piggy they both died 25 25 no well how old were they

It's insanely young. They both died at a crazy young age. How old was he? 24. 24. Whoa. He did a lot. That's insane to have the body of work he had and die at 24. And the body. And Pac was 25. Yeah, that's right. Holy shit. It's like, that's unreal.

Wow. And Tupac has an insane catalog. He has so many fucking albums. Yeah. I know. And movies. Yeah. Younger than Jesus. Jeez, man. I mean. There's the 27 Club, too. They didn't even get that far. Yeah. What is that? Joplin? Cobain? Cobain. Yeah. Hendrix? Yeah. Hicks? No, Hicks was 30. 32, I think. 32 or 33? Yeah.

I think you're right. That's like the Jesus Club or something. Yeah, yeah. Amy Winehouse. Winehouse. There we go. That one's tragic as fuck. They got a lot done. It makes you really feel... I didn't do Conan until I was 29. And even that doesn't mean much. No, no. It was a big deal for me. To us, it was a big deal. We're of different comedy classes. To us, Conan was a big deal. Well, wait. I didn't do... That was my first...

Hang on. Late night? That was my first late night thing, and I didn't do that until I was 30... Shit. Yeah, but you had a TV show. I might have, yeah. I mean, it would have been because of that, but just barely. Okay. Did you ever do stand-up on late night, or was it always panel? Yeah, I did stand-up on... Oh, wow. In fact, we talked about it, because I did...

My very first stand-up set, that wasn't like, you know, Evening at the Improv or one of those terrible shows. I did a couple of those. They were terrible. Oh, really? Wow. Really bad. Really. Do you remember who you were on with? I know John Biner was the host. It was Comedy on the Road. I did that twice. And I did Evening at the Improv. I don't remember. But it was... They were weird. And anyway. But I did Conan.

That was my first, like, legit late night thing. Pull it up. I don't know if this is it. There's so many. That's panel. But we did one panel after I've done Conan, like, you know, 14 times. And we talked about my... So they cut...

A bit that had been cleared. And, you know, you do it's it's what you know, it's like five minutes and 12 seconds is what you get. And they cut a whole bit that had been cleared. And then I did. It was one of the last Conan shows before he left. And it was I think it might have been the one it was then it was on TBS and was just him and Andy and you sit around and

And he was kind of apologetic about it and, uh, and said, you know, I, I, any, there was some recrimination there, you know, like we cut you, we shouldn't have cut you. But, uh, uh, yeah, years and years and years and years later, he, he addressed it, um,

But it was weird because I went on, I started, and then there's a very strange edit that you wouldn't see in TV. You would just never see it where it's like there's a laugh and then it jump cuts to here going. And, you know, another thing is, you know, it's just weird. It was clearly covering something up. Yeah.

Yeah, they cut one of my first TV appearances. They cut a bit. Damn, that's crazy to cut it that late if they approve it. Yep, they approved it. They knew what the set was. Was it about a fucking baby? Fuck that baby. No, it was about we don't know what Jesus Christ sounded like, and he could have sounded like an effeminate southern man. Oh, that's why. And then I just did Jesus.

As in a feminist. Oh, that's great. I turn water into wine. Yes, basically. All right. Well, shit. At least you can still do it in your act. Not on TV. Well, yeah, it exists somewhere, I think. What year was Shut Up, You Fucking Baby?

Because that was big. Yeah, 2001. No, it was after, because I have jokes about 9-11. Yeah, you had the- So 2002. The improv troupe, right? About 9-11. Salted Nuts? Yeah. Salted Nuts. Well, there's the thing about Gabriel, which is the name I gave this guy who I saw rollerblading with a gas mask. What?

That's all true. Oh, really? Literally, yeah. I do not lie or make shit up and say it's true. When I say something's true, it's true. And, yeah, it was the day after, I think. And, I mean, just the whole fucking city is traumatized. Yeah. It's crazy. And, you know, there's the 14th Street tanks and, you know, arms. Wow. Yeah, yeah. It was nuts. And...

on Houston Street. So I went out, you know, the whole day and the night was surreal and bizarre and everybody was dealing with it in their own way. And there was...

It was all unknown. We didn't know what was happening, what would tomorrow bring, what awfulness is happening. People still couldn't get in touch with cell phone towers or all kinds of crazy shit. But nobody knew. You can look back and go, yeah, it was some crazy times and the first week was weird. But the mindset, kind of like the beginning of COVID, you know,

All we're hearing is sirens and there's body bags. You don't know what's happening the next day and you don't know what you're waking up to and what kind of world you're waking up to, what kind of New York City. And I'm just walking around. I don't know what I'm doing. I guess just sort of...

Seeing what else is out there. And this guy is coming up from the west side, going west to east on rollerblades. A loud gay, I would imagine. Sunglasses. No, sorry, not sunglasses, but a gas mask. And then, you know, like threw on his...

whatever early aughts tight yeah you know rollerblade disco fucking outfit and he's and he's attitude like real severe attitude i can see he's coming up house and there's no traffic obviously there's no cars yeah nothing and he's fucking coming up determination that's new york that gives you hope yeah but that that was you know a a

that became famous from that, from Shut Up, You Fucking Baby. That's all true. Yeah. Yeah. It's all...

You were here at 9-11. Yeah, I remember leaving school. I mean, we had to go to leave school early. My dad came to pick me up. He was like, yeah, we're under attack. I was like, huh. What? Where were you? Midtown. I went to high school in Midtown. And then my dad, we got a pop quiz that day, actually. Our teacher, we got bombed. We got attacked. Not bombed. Wait, wait, wait. Your school continued? Yeah. Yeah.

What? We had a Spanish teacher give us a pop quiz, and all of us were like, fuck you. We're under attack. Yeah. Wait a fucking second here. When was... Wait, what time of day? How old was I? No, what time? Oh, it was the morning. It was one of the early classes. No, we ended up leaving, but I mean, it went on for a minute. We didn't know what happened yet, but then there was also, you know...

I don't know if people remember. You probably remember. We didn't get cell phone service back then. No. Yeah, towers were out. Everything was ours. I was trying to call my parents. We didn't know. I had friends. No, no. There was no cell phone service. And I remember my family, we all lined up to donate blood and stuff at hospitals, but they were like, we're good. Literally every New Yorker's done this. It was a pretty crazy moment. Oh, yeah. I mean, I have similar memories of that, you know.

And I remember when we did... Because I did talk to people that evening. Because I remember going up to my roof. And I apparently had this real breakdown. And a girl...

There was a friend of mine that wasn't a girlfriend at the time, used to be, but we were still close. I said, I saved your message. And I was like sobbing and all this stuff. And I think I just sort of lost it after a full day of that stuff. And I mean, I have all kinds of, I'm not going to go into it now. But the disconnect between, I had a friend who was in Harlem.

And the attitude he had in talking to him and what people were experiencing...

like below 14th street was just it you he might as well have been in alaska right he's in harlem he's in the same borough same island and and just like asking questions like you know my mom would ask like uh uh hey man so what's going on or uh um you know just general questions like

I can't remember, but like... So, I mean, do you guys have electricity? What's going on? And is anybody hurt? Or, you know, just weird things. Like, he's literally up...

on a, you know, 125th street. And, and it's just a different world down here. It is. It's the, it was crazy. Yeah. I watched it from my roof in Chinatown. And when that first tower collapsed, it was the only time my whole life, my knees gave out. I didn't know what that expression meant before. I fell. Really? Yeah. I couldn't control that. My dad worked in Times Square. So we saw the second town, the second plane hit. So he watched, I mean, it was, I mean, that was like the craziest, uh,

It was the craziest day. I mean, I think about like, I mean, thank God you got a great joke. I mean, that shit was part of healing, like his laughing. Yeah. In New York. I mean, I think of your bit. I think of like Greg Giraldo's bit about the bachelorette party. I think about the Wu-Tang song, Rules. I think about the Spike Lee movie, 25th Hour, where we were like, man, that scene with Barry Pepper was like heavy. And when Giuliani came out on SNL and said, we can be funny again.

I think, I mean, little shit meant so much. I mean, I think of Mike Piazza's home run. Yeah. That was like, that was like powerful. I mean, it was a crazy time. Oh yeah. Yeah. I feel bad. I was in new Orleans, hung over freshman at college, came downstairs of me and my dad had a weird relationship. And I came, he goes, we got to talk. And I go, you know, puke in the living room. And he's like,

the twin towers have been hit. And I was like, oh, thank God. Holy shit. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. It wasn't me. And then I went to college or school and they were, it was shut down. So I got to go home. So it was kind of nice in Louisiana. Damn. It was nice in Louisiana. Well, it was, you know, it was a break, you know, but you know, then the news started coming out. You saw the people jumping, you saw the smoke. It was wild. You know what? Another thing I'll never forget about,

September 11th, that day, it had been a really exceptionally hot... Well, not anymore. But back then, it was an exceptionally hot summer. And that day was crystal clear. It was the first cool day, for real. Like, the temperatures had come down to, like, 70s. And it was a beautiful day. Beautiful. A couple clouds in the sky. It was a nice temperature and...

I remember that very well, like, because we had had a particularly hot summer. Yeah. And we should name this, we changed it to Flight 93. There we go. First joke I remember hearing after 9-11, because it was, like, very heavy atmosphere, was Colin Quinn. And it was, like, maybe two or three days after. And he was on the radio, I think he was on Opie and Anthony, maybe. And he was, like...

Yeah, people were saying like, something told me not to go down there that day. And he was like, yeah, the news. God, Colin, always. Galvin Agassi had a funny one where someone goes, where were you on 9-11? He goes, what year?

Damn. Yeah, were you in with that tough crowd crew? They seemed very intimidating. That Patrice, the Nortons, the DeFallos. No, not really. I mean, I knew them, and there was mutual respect, but that was more of a comedy cellar crowd, and I was never really ensconced in that. Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing you on Tough Crowd, though, and it seemed like you were killed on it. It was, you know. I don't... The only...

Thing I remember about that was there were jokes about this will tell you exactly when it was, although I can't tell you right now, but it was when Kobe Bryant was accused of raping the waitress or somebody in Denver, I think. And they were making jokes about the waitress. And that really bothered me. And it's like,

just a thing you have your own

Cut off points where that's funny, that's not funny. I'll do a joke about that. I'm not going to do a joke about that. And I don't have many. Really, there are very few things I won't joke about. But like victims? Like I'm not, you know, I'm not going to. This is terrible. Right. You know. What about a 9-11 joke? Fucking tons of them. But that's victims. 9-11.

Well, that's in the abstract. I'm not talking about a specific... I didn't go, hey, you know that motherfucker from Goldman Sachs who died? Fuck that dude. Listen to this. No, I mean, this is... These are... Those are... And they're not jokes about people dying so much. Although, I do remember that joke. Now, I haven't thought about it in 20 plus years. All right. The thing about, you know, the...

New York casino and the people who went to the New York or were at the New York casino during 9-11 in Las Vegas being like I can relate that's good I can't remember what the thing was that's a funny angle

Well, hey, geez. We brought it around full circle with the paper plane, 9-11. Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming on, man. We really appreciate it. I'm not done. Oh, really? Listen, we still got a little bit of paper plane. Can I do a rec, man? I never do rec. Do a rec, please. Oh, hit me. Station 11 was my favorite show of like 2021. Oh, yeah, that was great. That was a great show. Really, really good. Yeah. I don't even know what platform it was on, but it was amazing. It was...

HBO, right? I think so. Okay. HBO or HBO Max? Was that about a pandemic? Yes. Yes. And it was made for free. That was really fucking good, man. That was great. By the way, you've got a computer. I don't know what show it's on. You're fucking there. I'm drunk. Are you? No, no. Oh, okay. Yeah, I did not, like, I didn't know anything about the source material. I didn't know. I just, you know, I did my stuff and that was it. And I, man, it was beautiful. And those last two episodes, I was fucking balling. Yeah.

Those last two episodes. And Himesh Patel, how did he not get the Emmy? Yeah. I mean, there's so many good people in there, but he's fucking great. He's just great. I'm going to watch it next. It's my next movie. It's really good. I'm pumped. It's really good. I'm pumped to watch it. It's well done. It's like a movie. So well done. Patrick Sullivan, who was a showrunner, who took that book and turned it... It's just beautiful.

And it's a surprisingly optimistic message. And it's just so well done. It's so fucking good. Yeah. And the last two episodes, I was bawling. And to watch it during COVID, it really hit home. It was all at home. Is that accurate? They were making it pre-pandemic, and then did they finish it in the pandemic? Yeah. Yeah. It was...

I think, you know, started pre pandemic and then the pandemic hit and it was shot in Toronto and I happened to be in Toronto, stuck in Toronto. Uh, my wife was working there. Uh, it's a long story and it was, it was bleak, man. It was really, uh, tough time and, and quite depressing and not good for our marriage. And, uh,

And I remember calling my agent going, I will work on anything, literally just... And I'm not relegating that to anything, but I'm like just... I'm sitting in a house...

that's an airbnb it's not my house with a hyper four-year-old my wife's working and i'm got nothing and i'm and we're on month four of who knows how long this shit's gonna be because you were a lot we were locked down there was nothing open in toronto and everything was open here right i'm like talking to bob he's like hey man i just did a set in new york it's great i'm like oh and

And it was really hard, really hard. We shot a special on rooftops in New York City. Yeah? There was nothing open. We were just like, well, let's just do some weird shit. God bless you, man. Yeah, we were like, do anything. We were going crazy. Dude, I didn't do a set for a year and seven months. I'd go crazy.

I was going crazy. Yeah. A year and seven, that's the longest it's been since I started when I was 17. I've never gone that long. Not even remotely close to not doing a set. You realize how much we need this shit. It's so, it's such a part of our, just, I mean, I, last night they were making fun of me because I was so tired. I was off the road, you know, and I was like, I should cancel at the cellar tonight. And I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I was like, I was like, I couldn't send the text. I was like, fuck it, I'm in. Yeah. I don't know. Uh,

and it's absolutely fine you're along with most people if you haven't uh saw my last special I'm from the future but that is about uh at least part of it is about uh not being able to do stand up in the first set I'll never forget it um

I was supposed to go, so I was supposed to go out on tour. And then the second wave, the Delta Omnicron wave came and canceled that tour. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not going to go through this again. Because again, you don't know what the future is when that's happening. And I'm like, have to cancel a tour, which I've never done in my life. And it was one of the sickest feelings I've ever had. Just like, I love doing standup. I need it. I have to do it. And...

To develop this, you know, hour and 15 minutes, whatever it was, and then to have to cancel it. So I just shot it at the bell house. Like, you know, I scrambled and put it together and it's on my website, officialdavidcross.com. Yes, you heard that correctly. And a lot of it is about the, you know, not being able to stand up and being stuck and the pandemic and all that shit. But...

The very first set I had was at the Sultan Room. And it was... I came back with my daughter. My wife still had to be there for shooting the show. The minute we could. And when I say minute, I mean, what's the flight...

The earliest I can get out of here, I'm going to have my daughter for a month without my wife. It doesn't matter. It's just we're going back. We're getting out of here. We're getting the fuck out of Toronto. We're going home. Things are open. It's nice out. My kid can ride her scooter and socialize, and I can do whatever. And I know my wife's not going to be there for months. It's like I'm happy to do it. Just me and her, great. Yeah. And...

My first set was at the Sultan Room and I was like, just get me anything, anything. And I almost started crying. Wow. I get it. I would say I was like, I was starting to talk and, you know, going like, this is, I haven't been able to do stand up for, the last time I did a real set was, and I started to lose it a little bit.

And then I riffed this thing that actually became something in the set that I just kept in there and it was really fun to do. But I just riffed only to save myself emotionally because I was about to start crying.

And it was the beginning of the set. You can close a set by crying, but don't open a set by crying. And I was like, oh, this has been a dream of mine. Or no, I dreamt about this day. And then I just turned it into this riff about a weird dream I had with people in the audience. But it was one of the most powerful moments.

things I've experienced where like I it's so important to me such a part of my makeup and I have to have it unlike any other I you know

If I never wrote another thing, if I never acted in another thing, if I never directed or produced, okay. But if you said I can't do stand-up, it would crush me. Same, same. I get it. Because that's the thing that should be on our terms. The other stuff is like your weight. Okay, you got cast in this, right? Stand-up's on our terms, so it's a loss of all control. Dude, that was a big part of it. Because there were a couple...

There were periods where I would say something or do something, and I thought, okay, I'm going to be blacklisted or, you know, this is pre-cancel culture, but I'm not going to get to work. I'm going to be difficult to work with. Whatever. People aren't going to hire me. And I would always in the back of my head go, okay, I can always do stand-up. Right. I always will do stand-up. And Sam, you're right. It was not in our control, and that was a real...

you know, gut punch. Like, oh, you can't. I mean, I can't even... And my wife was like, just go find somewhere to go. Like, in an encouraging way. Like, go to Alberta for the week and go to Vancouver, whatever. And I got online and everything's closed all across Canada. And there was no going back and forth because there was a 14-day quarantine because Canada was locked down. Yeah.

Damn. What was called stay-at-home orders. Brutal. It was brutal. Canada was rough. Well, I mean, it was a rough year, too. I mean, it wasn't as rough. No, but dude, this was opening... This was... New York was opening up. Vanderbilt Avenue had the open streets thing, and there's like five lanes, and the median... It's like shut to traffic, and all the people are out there. The whole community's bringing tables out there, and they're sharing...

and kids are running around on their scooters and shit like that. And in Toronto, you're locked down. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah.

With way less of the numbers that, you know. Right, right. It was, I mean, I remember the first set I had back. I mean, I did the Cellar and Gotham comedy couple the first night. And Jerry Seinfeld wanted, he wanted to be the first person on stage. He was like, I want to go on before the host. Like, this is meaningful to me. He was emotional, too. You'd see tears in his eyes. I was like, holy shit, Jerry's tearing up. This is pretty...

You know, it was like press from the New York Post there. And Jerry. What a coincidence. Right.

But Jerry, to his credit, there was a big plastic barricade between him and the stage. He goes, what is this? And they were like, well, this is to protect you guys. He's like, this isn't comedy. And they moved it. So there was no barricade ever at Gotham because Jerry was like, what the hell? 67 people died. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

It was a bloodbath. But Jerry got to feel alive on stage, and that's what matters. Comedians in clubs killing guests. Damn. Well, thank you guys so much. No, you were awesome, man. Thanks for doing this. See David Cross, officialdavidcross.com. All over the road. You can see his tour all over the country. Not Toronto. No, I'm kidding. You're going to Toronto. No, I'll be in Toronto for sure. Danforth. Yeah, always. Yeah.

Look at all those dates. Matt, can you read some of them out loud? Yeah, sure. We got San Francisco on the 22nd of March. We have Austin, Texas after that, Houston after that, Dallas after that, April 1st in New Orleans, then St. Louis, Chicago, Illinois, Knoxville, Tennessee. Wait, Chicago, Illinois? That's not right. It should be Chicago, Kentucky. That's a mistake on our end. I'll fix that up. We got Knoxville and just go to the site to see more.

Yeah. All right. Good stuff. Check out David Cross. Check out his old stuff. His new tour, Go Nuts. Where you at, Sam? Vancouver, Seattle, Portland. We had a night in Portland. That should be great. Salt Lake City, AC, Chicago.

Royal Oak, Minneapolis, Addedon, Boston, New Haven. Madison. Madison. Those are all great. I'm looking at your, those are all great rooms, man. I'm pumped, man. Miami, Orlando, D.C., Atlanta, everything. Where are you in Atlanta? Tabernacle?

Oh, wow. That's big. Yeah. That's a big deal. I'm pumped, man. Yeah. Uh, samro.com slash shows. Check it out. I got all mine up here. Hawaii, then, uh, Spokane, then, uh, Rochester, Miami. Uh,

Appleton. Who's routing you? That's horrible. This routing is terrible. Well, he's gearing up for a special, so he's doing clubs. I'm doing the small clubs. But the routing. Wow. I mean, the places are fine, but to go from that place to that place to that place. Well, I come back to New York every time in the middle.

I never go straight from gig to gig. It's not necessary. Do you have to feed your fish or what? I like to come back. His tank's only got plates in it anyway. Tell my agent, will you? Hawaii to Maine to Spokane to Austin.

to Alberta, to Miami. I just did literally Tacoma, New York, Spokane. I was like, kill me. It's a six-hour flight. It's a bitch. You got to connect a lot of times. But yeah, come on out. MarkNormanComedy.com. Loud Gaze. We're really doing it. Thanks, Dave, for doing the show. Hey, just so you know, it's G-A-Z-E. Yes. So don't come jumping up our ass, all right? Thank you.

I'm about to launch here in New York.