Episode 255 - Big Jay Oakerson

Episode 255 • Released February 19, 2012 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Marc:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Marc:Really?

00:00:08Marc:Wait for it.

00:00:09Marc:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Marc:Wait for it.

00:00:12Marc:Pow!

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck?

00:00:14Marc:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Marc:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Marc:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:46Marc:But I got to be honest with you, had a great time, great crowds.

00:00:49Marc:And I got a list of two or three things here, maybe even four that I can scratch off my bucket list.

00:00:55Marc:And that is a phrase I've never said in my life.

00:00:58Marc:And quite honestly, it aggravates me when people say it.

00:01:01Marc:I guess I can scratch that off the bucket list.

00:01:03Marc:Who the fuck even knew what a bucket list was until that dumb movie came out?

00:01:07Marc:I didn't.

00:01:08Marc:I don't have a bucket list, but I surprised myself.

00:01:10Marc:You know, I think I'm doing some sort of inverted bucket list, which is where I do things.

00:01:14Marc:And I'm like, holy shit.

00:01:15Marc:I didn't think I'd ever do that before I died.

00:01:17Marc:I'm not even sure I wanted to.

00:01:19Marc:So I guess that goes on a different list.

00:01:20Marc:It's not a bucket list.

00:01:21Marc:It's the holy fuck.

00:01:23Marc:I did that.

00:01:24Marc:Surprise.

00:01:25Marc:Don't know if I'm going to do that again.

00:01:27Marc:List.

00:01:28Marc:Is that there's a name for that?

00:01:29Marc:Is that is that just a life list?

00:01:32Marc:It doesn't matter.

00:01:33Marc:Look, Big Jay Oakerson is on the show.

00:01:36Marc:Lovely guy.

00:01:37Marc:Funny comic.

00:01:38Marc:Great stories.

00:01:39Marc:You're going to enjoy that conversation.

00:01:40Marc:I sure as shit did.

00:01:42Marc:God, I'm full of the profanity today.

00:01:44Marc:Full of the fucking profanity today.

00:01:46Marc:A couple of things I want to get out of the way before we get into things.

00:01:49Marc:my Oklahoma experience.

00:01:52Marc:Yeah, I had several Oklahoma experiences.

00:01:55Marc:I will preface it by saying that something happened on stage that has never happened before in my life, and I smelled something I'd never smelled before in my life.

00:02:08Marc:If you're still having trouble with the new app,

00:02:10Marc:The app update and the new app, please email me at wtfpod at gmail.com and I'll make sure it gets to where it needs to go.

00:02:20Marc:Your issue.

00:02:21Marc:I personally can't handle it because I don't have any fucking idea how to handle that stuff.

00:02:26Marc:I'm full of the fucks today.

00:02:28Marc:The music on today's show is by the Dance All Pimps.

00:02:32Marc:Their new album is Beast of Love on Lakeshore Records.

00:02:35Marc:You can check them out at danceallpimps.com or Dance All Pimps on Facebook.

00:02:39Marc:So go do that.

00:02:41Marc:Because they jam.

00:02:42Marc:They do it.

00:02:43Marc:They rock.

00:02:45Marc:Oklahoma City.

00:02:46Marc:Thank you.

00:02:47Marc:Can I just say that genuinely from my heart?

00:02:49Marc:Oklahoma City.

00:02:50Marc:I went to Oklahoma City to do two shows.

00:02:52Marc:We sold out the first show.

00:02:53Marc:We added a second show.

00:02:55Marc:Is that a humble brag?

00:02:56Marc:No, that's a fucking brag brag.

00:02:58Marc:Okay?

00:02:59Marc:But I didn't know what to expect.

00:03:00Marc:I hadn't been to Oklahoma in a long time.

00:03:02Marc:I'd driven through there several times growing up.

00:03:04Marc:I lived in New Mexico.

00:03:05Marc:But Oklahoma is not New Mexico, man.

00:03:07Marc:Oklahoma is Oklahoma.

00:03:09Marc:And I wasn't nervous.

00:03:10Marc:I was excited.

00:03:11Marc:I was curious about what Oklahoma City was like.

00:03:14Marc:And...

00:03:14Marc:On the bright side, I had less than 12 hours in Oklahoma City.

00:03:17Marc:That's not to be condescending.

00:03:19Marc:It's not to shit on anyone's state or anyone's city.

00:03:21Marc:But I was in and out, and we had a few things that I wanted to get done.

00:03:25Marc:So I get there, and everything's cool.

00:03:27Marc:I was a little freaked out, flew on a small plane, got under the clouds.

00:03:30Marc:You know when you're flying into a city, there's that moment where you're like, well, this is exciting.

00:03:34Marc:I can see it.

00:03:35Marc:Literally, flying into Oklahoma City, all I saw on the ground was some sort of mud-colored puddle.

00:03:40Marc:pond and a series of ditches and i thought wow is is this going to get better i hope this gets better i hope this isn't the tone of the entire city of oklahoma city but it was good i got off the plane i'd done some research i was going to leo's barbecue i saw it on diners drive-ins and and and dives look i don't love what's his name guy guy fieri he's obnoxious but i think he eats well

00:04:06Marc:Not in the sense that I consider him healthy, that when I'm watching the cooking channel, the Food Network, when a dude takes a bite of food and he gets that look on his face, you want that to pay off.

00:04:17Marc:You want people to eat good and eat well, and you want to see it on their fucking face on the Food Network.

00:04:22Marc:And Guy Fieri, man, when he puts a bite of something in his mouth, you believe that shit.

00:04:27Marc:So I saw it on diners, drive-ins, and dives, and I'm looking for Leo's, and I got the address, and this kid Spencer, Spencer Hicks, comic in Oklahoma, picks me up at the airport.

00:04:35Marc:I'm like, dude, I got two hours.

00:04:37Marc:We got two hours.

00:04:38Marc:You got to find this place Leo's.

00:04:40Marc:So he looks it up in his phone.

00:04:41Marc:It takes us to the old address.

00:04:43Marc:All right.

00:04:43Marc:It's this beat up old shithole.

00:04:45Marc:And it says, and on the door, it says, Weos is now at this address.

00:04:47Marc:So I put that into my GPS.

00:04:49Marc:And if I can reiterate, fuck GPS is on your phones.

00:04:53Marc:They do nothing but cause trouble.

00:04:54Marc:They don't know where the fuck they're going.

00:04:56Marc:And they've caused me aggravation.

00:04:58Marc:They're liars.

00:05:00Marc:They're liars.

00:05:01Marc:I had done the research at home already where this place was, but I don't know Oklahoma City, so I put it on the GPS.

00:05:06Marc:We ended up driving 45 fucking minutes out to the middle of nowhere.

00:05:11Marc:And this guy lived there, but he'd never even been to where we were.

00:05:14Marc:He'd lived there his whole life, didn't know where the hell we were, driving down this street until it just turns into nothing.

00:05:20Marc:You know, it was one of those moments where I'm like, hey, you know, I had a plan.

00:05:23Marc:And in my mind, the plan went perfectly.

00:05:25Marc:We would have been eating barbecue right now at this cool place where this black dude has been doing it since his dad did it.

00:05:31Marc:And the whole family works there and is going to be groovy.

00:05:34Marc:But all of a sudden I'm driving out and it's just planes of dirt.

00:05:37Marc:And I'm like, there is no black dude out here with a barbecue smoker.

00:05:41Marc:OK, something went wrong.

00:05:43Marc:But here's the thing.

00:05:44Marc:One thing I didn't realize I was going to happen for me in my life.

00:05:47Marc:A little something happened.

00:05:48Marc:I didn't realize it.

00:05:49Marc:And I have to embrace it, even though it may sound like something you wouldn't embrace.

00:05:53Marc:We're driving down the highway.

00:05:55Marc:There's a huge factory just making smoke in the sky.

00:05:58Marc:And I said to Spencer, I said, what is that?

00:06:01Marc:He said, that's a dog food factory.

00:06:03Marc:And I said, really?

00:06:04Marc:What dog food?

00:06:05Marc:He said Purina.

00:06:07Marc:And I said, is that the main Purina factory for dog food?

00:06:10Marc:He said, I don't think so.

00:06:12Marc:Didn't matter because what happened next was I realized that the smell I was smelling that was unavoidable was the smell of freshly cooking dog food and everything that horrible smell represents.

00:06:26Marc:But there is that weird moment where you're like, oh, that's what that is.

00:06:28Marc:That's very exciting.

00:06:29Marc:No, it's not.

00:06:30Marc:It's horses and cats and things they find dead on the highway boiled in a vat and ground up and remixed.

00:06:37Marc:to give to your poochie not a great smell but an experience i had so then after an hour of me this poor kid spencer hicks picks me up he's excited to hang out with me which i always find interesting i'm barely excited to hang out with me and an hour into not being able to find this barbecue place i'm in this guy's truck and what the fuck

00:07:00Marc:Where the fuck are we going?

00:07:02Marc:The GPS says it's here.

00:07:03Marc:And he's looking at me like he doesn't live there.

00:07:05Marc:And I'm like, you fucking live here.

00:07:07Marc:I've only got 40 minutes now.

00:07:09Marc:So now I'm not making a good impression on him.

00:07:11Marc:And I'm apologizing profusely.

00:07:14Marc:Sorry, I didn't want you to see this.

00:07:15Marc:You didn't need to see this part of me.

00:07:16Marc:But I had a plan.

00:07:17Marc:I got to be somewhere at 430 in your city to do a thing that I've never done before.

00:07:23Marc:So we get to the barbecue place.

00:07:26Marc:We had like 10 minutes, 10 minutes for them to get the food out and for me to shove it down my face.

00:07:31Marc:And there's there is four people working at that place.

00:07:34Marc:There were three people waiting for food and a couple of people waiting for to go orders.

00:07:38Marc:And they were in the weeds.

00:07:39Marc:It was it was slow motion land.

00:07:41Marc:But that happens.

00:07:42Marc:It was a beautiful barbecue place.

00:07:44Marc:It was classic.

00:07:45Marc:It was beat up.

00:07:46Marc:It was weird.

00:07:47Marc:It was picnic tables, red and white plastic covered tablecloths.

00:07:50Marc:The ribs were great.

00:07:51Marc:They had a big old vat of greens.

00:07:53Marc:You could help yourself.

00:07:54Marc:Awesome.

00:07:55Marc:Had ribs, had smoked brisket, had links, and on the plate, smoked bologna.

00:08:02Marc:Number two thing I didn't think I would ever have a need for experiencing in my life.

00:08:08Marc:I did in Oklahoma City.

00:08:10Marc:So let's look at the list.

00:08:11Marc:I smelled cooking dog food and I ate smoked bologna, which arguably could be the human equivalent of dog food.

00:08:19Marc:But it was smoked.

00:08:21Marc:Okay, that's out of the way.

00:08:23Marc:So now I got to get to the hotel to do the third thing I never thought I would do in my life, which is hang out with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

00:08:32Marc:We had a fucking great time.

00:08:33Marc:He came to the show later.

00:08:35Marc:And this brings us to the fourth thing.

00:08:38Marc:Came to my second show.

00:08:39Marc:This is something that has never happened to me.

00:08:43Marc:I'm performing in a small theater.

00:08:44Marc:It's a performance art theater, so it's got some class to it.

00:08:47Marc:It's set up like a theater.

00:08:48Marc:Nice big stage, well-spaced seats.

00:08:51Marc:It was the second show, which can always get weird because there's no time limit to what you can do generally, and the audience is a little punchy.

00:09:00Marc:The first show is going to be funnier and tighter, but the second show is going to be weirder and better.

00:09:04Marc:For me, the performer.

00:09:05Marc:Hi, how are you?

00:09:06Marc:My name is Marc Maron.

00:09:08Marc:So before I get on stage, I'm walking around the side of the building through puddles to get to the backstage door where someone had delivered an immense cheese tray that was smelling up the entire backstage.

00:09:19Marc:It was that good of cheese.

00:09:21Marc:And I walked by a couple who's outside and they're in the dark.

00:09:25Marc:And I hear this woman look at me and goes, oh, it's him.

00:09:27Marc:Oh, it's him.

00:09:28Marc:It's you're the guy.

00:09:29Marc:Oh, my God.

00:09:30Marc:And right away, I'm like, I don't want them in there.

00:09:34Marc:obviously that's a little strong but I realize that we're gonna have a little alcohol issue here there's I knew the tone I knew the possibility of the problem the tone could possibly lead to I've been doing this a long time and sure enough the first guy gets on stage and he's doing his shit and I'm hearing the whoo

00:09:54Marc:And I'm like, we've got a fucking wooer.

00:09:56Marc:Now, I think I've expressed my feelings about wooing.

00:09:59Marc:It's unnecessary.

00:10:00Marc:It's usually a woman wooing.

00:10:02Marc:I can see through a woo with my mind.

00:10:04Marc:I aurally can differentiate between a woo because a woo either means a woo is like, woo.

00:10:12Marc:And that can be look at me.

00:10:14Marc:That's usually what's under that or woo.

00:10:16Marc:Help both usually women.

00:10:20Marc:And that is what's being expressed in those woos or the predictable element of the weird Pavlovian expression of excitement that is unnecessary.

00:10:30Marc:So we got to woo her up front, and I'm fine.

00:10:32Marc:I'm listening.

00:10:33Marc:I'm saying, how drunk is she?

00:10:34Marc:What's going on?

00:10:34Marc:This is going to be okay.

00:10:35Marc:Turns out she's a fan of mine, and she, whatever.

00:10:38Marc:It's fine.

00:10:39Marc:Second show, I don't mind doing a little crowd stuff.

00:10:42Marc:So I get on stage.

00:10:43Marc:I do my thing.

00:10:43Marc:We have a pretty good show.

00:10:45Marc:I actually had excellent shows.

00:10:47Marc:I'm five minutes away from closing my show, and this woman sitting up front with her dude,

00:10:52Marc:is talking.

00:10:53Marc:There's a problem.

00:10:54Marc:They're not watching the show.

00:10:55Marc:I'm in the middle of a bit that I happen to have my hand in the flip out position for and I actually turn towards them and I say, please shut the fuck up for five minutes.

00:11:04Marc:I'm five minutes away from finishing.

00:11:06Marc:Five minutes.

00:11:07Marc:Shut the fuck up, please.

00:11:09Marc:It gets awkward for a minute, but then she just says, I need a ride home.

00:11:14Marc:I can't get a ride home.

00:11:15Marc:I'm like, what's the matter?

00:11:16Marc:I can't get a ride home.

00:11:17Marc:He's not going to give me a ride home.

00:11:19Marc:And now there's this couple clearly in the middle of some bullshit.

00:11:22Marc:So I'm like, what is going on?

00:11:24Marc:And she's like, I don't know, but I guess I don't have a ride home.

00:11:30Marc:And then it just sort of starts to unfold.

00:11:32Marc:And the guy's pissed off about something.

00:11:34Marc:And I'm like, what are you pissed off about?

00:11:37Marc:And she said, well, he was gone.

00:11:38Marc:And I'm like, oh, that's right.

00:11:39Marc:You left.

00:11:40Marc:And I fucked her on stage in front of everybody.

00:11:41Marc:And we all promised we weren't going to tell you.

00:11:43Marc:But I guess she couldn't keep her big mouth shut.

00:11:45Marc:Funny enough, filthy crowd work.

00:11:48Marc:No problem.

00:11:48Marc:Got big laughs.

00:11:49Marc:But then it doesn't stop.

00:11:51Marc:And there seems to be a genuine problem in the room.

00:11:53Marc:And I asked him, I said, how often do you guys go through this fucking conversation?

00:11:57Marc:drama with this shit how long you been dating each other and the guy's like three years i'm like oh this happens all the time but here's what ultimately happens i start talking to them and she said that he was gone when he was gone some dude came and sat next to her he came back from being out in the lobby during the show this is all happening during my show unbeknownst to me some dude had hit on her in the middle of my show

00:12:23Marc:Her dude left.

00:12:24Marc:Some dude in the room went over there and sat next to her.

00:12:28Marc:He came back and that dude was sitting next to her and it started all kinds of shit.

00:12:32Marc:So I find this out.

00:12:33Marc:And then all of a sudden the dude who did it says it was me.

00:12:37Marc:It was me.

00:12:37Marc:So now that dude's there.

00:12:38Marc:And I got the pissed off dude there.

00:12:40Marc:And this girl in the middle, of course, enjoying all this drama.

00:12:44Marc:And now I'm Poviching.

00:12:45Marc:All of a sudden I'm povitching.

00:12:47Marc:I'm povitching a situation.

00:12:48Marc:I had to deliberate the situation.

00:12:50Marc:I had to mend the tension between the men and sort of call her out for inviting this attention and not setting it straight because she liked being the center of tension.

00:13:02Marc:And that she clearly had her own issues and they had issues as a couple.

00:13:06Marc:Then the dude who hit on her, he got up and walked out.

00:13:08Marc:And I said, that's a good call.

00:13:10Marc:It was all very odd.

00:13:12Marc:But I think this goes to prove my point that means both look at me and hell.

00:13:29Marc:So you really think that the chicks, that guys were threatened by Steve-O?

00:13:34Guest:They're just threatened because the thing is, they don't see what he does as any kind of a major talent, I think.

00:13:40Guest:He hurts himself.

00:13:41Guest:But I had an affection for Steve-O because he makes me laugh.

00:13:45Guest:Those guys do have humility, though.

00:13:47Guest:They do.

00:13:47Guest:But in the stories he was telling on stage...

00:13:51Guest:And that's what it lacked.

00:13:52Guest:And that's what I talked to him about.

00:13:53Guest:I was like, because he's telling stories.

00:13:54Guest:He goes, yeah, three girls.

00:13:56Guest:I meet these three girls and they say they all want to suck my dick.

00:13:58Guest:And so I bring him back to my suite at the Four Seasons.

00:14:01Guest:And I go, you're like, you're losing the guys here.

00:14:04Guest:The guy's just like, you got to tell him, like, you almost have to present these stories where it's like, and I'm in the Four Seasons.

00:14:09Guest:Like, why?

00:14:10Guest:I have no idea.

00:14:11Guest:Like, I'm just a shithead who jams things up his ass.

00:14:13Guest:He's leaving that part of it out.

00:14:15Guest:He's telling it more from the angle of... Oh, that's funny.

00:14:17Marc:So that was your saying.

00:14:19Marc:Do more about the part that it's ridiculous that you even have a career.

00:14:23Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:14:24Guest:You puke.

00:14:25Guest:You swallow fish and puke them back up and you're making millions of dollars off of it.

00:14:31Guest:It's ridiculous.

00:14:32Guest:It is ridiculous, but it's like... I always say, as a comedian, your innocence is so lost.

00:14:37Guest:That's the shittiest part about being a comedian is your innocence in comedy is lost.

00:14:41Guest:It's hard to just sit back and laugh at a...

00:14:43Marc:Oh, no, I talked about that last night on stage where it's like you're so jaded.

00:14:47Marc:The only time you can enjoy a show is when someone's struggling.

00:14:51Guest:Yeah, you want to go see someone have a rough time and see how they can dig out of it in some way.

00:14:55Guest:You really have no interest in going in there.

00:14:57Guest:As much as I love a tell, I don't go in the room for a tell even every time anymore because I just know he's going to do good.

00:15:04Guest:But when they go, this guy turned on a tell and he's down there doing it.

00:15:07Guest:Now I want to go see what he does because that's when I think the magic kicks in.

00:15:10Marc:Well, yeah, when I started with him, there was always the possibility that he would go on the defensive and try to climb out of it.

00:15:18Marc:In the garage, Big Jay Oakerson from Philly, from New York City.

00:15:23Marc:The first time I met you, I think I was...

00:15:26Marc:I don't know.

00:15:27Marc:I was giving you a ride home or something.

00:15:28Marc:I met you once or twice.

00:15:29Marc:And then I think did I drive you or you drove me?

00:15:32Marc:I can't remember.

00:15:32Marc:I remember.

00:15:32Guest:Yeah.

00:15:34Marc:Like we went to your house and it was like this weird, dark place.

00:15:37Marc:And you said you had a kid in there and there's a girl involved and Kurt was in the car.

00:15:41Marc:And I was like, who the fuck is this guy?

00:15:43Marc:What kind of world is he living in?

00:15:45Marc:And, you know, that was my feeling then.

00:15:47Guest:It's a real dichotomy there.

00:15:49Guest:I'm up there doing, like, I'm telling stories about, you know, finger-blanging a fat chick in some dark alley.

00:15:57Guest:But, you know, I tell people, like, three hours ago, I was doing third-grade homework with my daughter.

00:16:03Marc:So you're not with the mother of the kid anymore?

00:16:05Guest:Yeah, no, I am.

00:16:06Marc:You are?

00:16:08Yeah.

00:16:08Marc:So you have a you have an understanding of some kind, I guess.

00:16:11Guest:Yeah.

00:16:12Marc:All right.

00:16:12Marc:But but I saw you in Montreal and I the one thing I don't I don't know much about the Philly comedy scene other than, you know, I talked to Paul F. Tompkins and you guys couldn't be more different.

00:16:22Marc:The way I always saw you was there were a couple of guys, you and Kurt Metzger, who I love.

00:16:26Marc:who seem to be heavily influenced by some of the New York comics, like Attell and everything.

00:16:32Marc:Absolutely.

00:16:32Marc:And that, like, I could hear it in your voice that, you know, you figured, you know, you sort of took the Attell model and kind of made it your own somehow.

00:16:41Guest:Right?

00:16:41Guest:Are you conscious of that?

00:16:42Guest:Absolutely.

00:16:42Guest:One of the coolest things I thought happened to me early in comedy is when...

00:16:47Guest:You know, when you start out and you're amongst like your peers of like the new guys, doing open mics and everything.

00:16:52Guest:We were just coming up in New York and maybe working like one, like the Boston Comedy Club.

00:16:55Guest:So you drive up from Philly.

00:16:56Guest:Every day, yeah.

00:16:57Guest:We do like six days a week.

00:16:58Guest:It was me, Kevin Hart, Keith Robinson, and Kurt Metzger.

00:17:00Marc:So two black guys, two white guys.

00:17:02Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:17:04Marc:And it's not clear to me whether Kurt even likes black guys, really.

00:17:07Guest:I'm not sure of myself either.

00:17:09Guest:I found tapes recently of me and Kurt doing the Laugh House in Philadelphia, which is a black comedy club that we started off at.

00:17:17Guest:And it was the only club in Philly at the time.

00:17:18Guest:It was the only game in town.

00:17:20Guest:And it was promoted by the hip-hop club station, so it was packed every week.

00:17:25Guest:And you see these videos.

00:17:27Guest:I went immediately... I wanted to do good.

00:17:29Guest:I didn't really have any... I had a passion to do well more than I had a passion to get what I want to say out.

00:17:34Guest:So I pandered immediately...

00:17:36Guest:and uh so in these videos it's literally i'm wearing a fubu jersey with like the chain and timberland boots not me at all like not my stuff but i completely morphed into that because i just wanted them to get past the fact that i was white and laugh at whatever i was saying now when with a black club because my experience is limited but you know kevin obviously started there and keith is a philly guy but he'd long been gone right was he still in philly when he started

00:17:59Guest:by pure chance he had gone back to philly his mother had gotten ill yeah and he had come back to philly yeah it's big be with her every day before so what we do like he kind of like took an interest in me and kev and kurt and uh you know i had a car and he and he really just started like saying like i'll bring you guys to new york and kind of get you guys into the scene up there i mean i was going to quit comedy absolutely i just was tired of like

00:18:23Marc:But let me try to picture it, because I don't even talk to enough black guys about black rooms.

00:18:28Marc:But to me, I was in downtown Los Angeles, and I walked by a black club, and I saw the people going in.

00:18:34Marc:They're dressed up.

00:18:35Marc:It's a big night out.

00:18:36Marc:There's a lot of shit going on.

00:18:38Marc:And I realized I wouldn't even know what to do in there.

00:18:41Marc:And when I the few times I've worked for a black audience, it's not it's not because it's not a racial thing necessarily.

00:18:46Marc:It's just culturally it.

00:18:48Marc:There's a lot more expectation.

00:18:50Marc:I mean, they're fucking going out.

00:18:52Marc:Yeah.

00:18:53Marc:And and I noticed that about comedy with anything that, you know, when they're when when black people go out there, they're out and you better show the fuck up.

00:19:01Guest:Black audiences love being reminded about something they already know.

00:19:04Guest:That's what they love.

00:19:05Guest:Remember when we used to go to the swap meet and do the gym?

00:19:08Guest:They want to hear- How old were you?

00:19:11Guest:19.

00:19:12Marc:So you're 19, and you're bigger than you were now.

00:19:15Marc:You're a big guy.

00:19:16Marc:Yeah.

00:19:17Marc:So you were fat.

00:19:18Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:20Guest:And that was all of my first jokes at all.

00:19:23Guest:My whole sets were like, and when you're fat, and being fat, and how many fat people do this?

00:19:28Marc:How did you get your first gig at a... Because I know there's such a dichotomy.

00:19:32Marc:This is why I wanted to talk to you.

00:19:34Marc:I talked to a lot of guys.

00:19:36Marc:I talked to alternative guys.

00:19:37Marc:I talked to old guys.

00:19:38Marc:I talked to guys who started in clubs.

00:19:40Marc:But I've never talked to a white comic who specifically started in black clubs.

00:19:45Guest:You just didn't know where else to go?

00:19:47Guest:No, we had no idea.

00:19:48Guest:That was the local... What happened was a friend of mine suggested I try comedy.

00:19:52Guest:She said, oh, you're always funny.

00:19:53Guest:You should try comedy.

00:19:54Guest:And it really made sense to me because way more so than I think a lot of comics who are currently in comedy, I had like a real...

00:20:03Guest:deep history of comedy since I was a kid.

00:20:06Guest:I watched every episode of Evening of the Improv and Caroline's Comedy Hour.

00:20:10Marc:What do you come from?

00:20:10Marc:What are your parents?

00:20:13Marc:What do they do?

00:20:14Marc:Well, who are they?

00:20:14Marc:What was the situation there?

00:20:16Guest:My mom had me when she was 19.

00:20:18Guest:My dad took off when I was three, and it was me and my mom.

00:20:22Guest:My mom went back to school and started working a lot, and I more or less lived with my grandparents.

00:20:26Guest:Yeah.

00:20:27Guest:And then when I was 10, my grandfather died, and my mom remarried.

00:20:31Guest:and then I started staying home a lot more.

00:20:33Guest:My mom and step-pop are supportive.

00:20:36Guest:They were very nervous about me doing this, and I quit college immediately to do it.

00:20:40Guest:I went to college for a month, and I did an open mic night, the first one, and I. It went well, and then I dropped out of college the next day, and then I bombed for three months straight.

00:20:50Guest:I couldn't get it again.

00:20:51Marc:Did you grow up in a black neighborhood?

00:20:53Guest:Yeah, pretty much, yeah, in Overbrook, West Philadelphia.

00:20:56Marc:Yeah.

00:20:57Guest:But it didn't seem that weird to me at the time until we moved out of there, how scary and black it was.

00:21:04Guest:But it was very scary and black.

00:21:06Marc:But in a sense, though, it just seems like I think that neighborhoods are still segregated and that there comes a point where you're just part of the community.

00:21:15Marc:Did you feel like your family was like that?

00:21:17Marc:Did you feel distance between you and the black dudes in the community?

00:21:22Guest:No, I was able to, like, I just learned that very young that if I, and I think that's why I watched so much stand-up comedy when I was younger, because I'd go to school and regurge that stuff.

00:21:32Guest:Yeah.

00:21:32Guest:Because no one in fifth and sixth grade, you know, knows who Bruce Baum and, like, you know, Wayne Cotter and these guys, but I'm watching them, like, you know, every Sunday night on TV.

00:21:41Guest:Yeah.

00:21:42Guest:Yeah.

00:21:42Guest:And I love, so I would kind of rehash and then try to make my own funny, and I just kind of became known for being, like, funny.

00:21:47Guest:Right.

00:21:47Guest:Which got me out of a lot more fights than, you know, people kind of wanted me around.

00:21:51Marc:So you were doing Bruce Babyman bomb bids?

00:21:53Guest:Yeah.

00:21:54Marc:At the ghetto junior high?

00:21:55Guest:I'm doing the We Will Rock You with the paper bags and everything.

00:21:58Guest:I really... What, did you?

00:22:00Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:01Guest:I thought anything...

00:22:02Guest:Anything I could do, and I would go regurgent like it was my own.

00:22:05Guest:I would just tell him, I was like, hey, do you guys ever think about this?

00:22:08Marc:But you were working the room in the classroom.

00:22:10Marc:I think that's fair game.

00:22:13Guest:I was never class clown.

00:22:14Guest:I was never like the fart noise under the arm.

00:22:16Guest:I was always like it was like either the written word or like conversationally.

00:22:19Guest:You were putting on a show?

00:22:19Marc:Yeah.

00:22:21Marc:All right.

00:22:21Marc:So then where'd you do your first open mic?

00:22:23Guest:At the Laugh House in Philadelphia.

00:22:26Guest:A friend told me I should try it, and then I was on South Street in Philadelphia the next day.

00:22:30Guest:FUBU.

00:22:31Guest:We were sneaker shopping, actually, and I saw the comedy club, which I guess it used to be Catch a Rising Star, and then it became David Brenner's Laugh House, and then he sold it to this guy who was a hip-hop DJ.

00:22:45Guest:And they made it into a black club, and it was packed.

00:22:46Guest:I mean, the business was good there.

00:22:48Guest:And that was actually something that I found weird when I did go to New York.

00:22:52Guest:Yeah.

00:22:53Guest:Now you're doing open mics in the basement of a chess club for five people who are kind of pissed off that they're there.

00:22:58Guest:Yeah.

00:22:59Guest:Coming from, like, you know, whether we bombed or did well, the crowd was packed, huge, and, like, ecstatic.

00:23:06Guest:And, you know, we're following comics who were like, all right, I'm going to break down the new Dr. Dre song right now.

00:23:12Guest:And then, like...

00:23:13Guest:Very quickly, I couldn't go up there and be like, growing up in Philly.

00:23:17Guest:They didn't care.

00:23:18Guest:They wanted to hear music and you could do anything to this song and 15 comics doing the same jokes over and over again.

00:23:24Guest:They would?

00:23:25Guest:Yeah.

00:23:25Guest:And just me and Kurt.

00:23:26Guest:And just me and Kurt in there somewhere.

00:23:27Guest:And Kurt made me laugh so much because right away when I met him, we had a kinship immediately because first of all, the two white guys that were doing it.

00:23:35Guest:And he saw through that, you know, I'm wearing a FUBU jersey and baggy jeans.

00:23:40Guest:He kind of saw through that I'm not that guy, you know.

00:23:44Guest:And we became immediate friends, and I was all, and Kurt from day one just had these great jokes, just well-constructed, well, great punchlines.

00:23:52Guest:And they would just turn on him because he was white, and he never changed the way he was.

00:23:55Guest:And he would look in these videos I just found.

00:23:58Guest:You can see he's looking over the audience.

00:24:00Guest:He doesn't even make eye contact with them at all.

00:24:02Guest:He just performs to the wall.

00:24:05Guest:And right about the time that we left Philly and started going to New York, I think he'd written his first joke where he was like, I'm going to make black people laugh.

00:24:13Guest:And it was like, you know, you ever taken a doo-doo in public?

00:24:17Guest:Yeah.

00:24:17Guest:They see your shoes and you don't want to walk around because they see your shoes and they know you're the guy who doo-dooed and saying doo-doo.

00:24:24Guest:Did he do that in front of them?

00:24:25Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:26Guest:Did they like it?

00:24:28Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:24:29Guest:They loved it.

00:24:31Guest:I wish I was lying to you.

00:24:34Guest:I mean, you know what's hilarious?

00:24:36Guest:The joke, it was like one of the simplest black comedy kind of shitty bullshit jokes is, you know, white kids got time out when they was getting in trouble.

00:24:46Guest:My mom took time out from whooping my ass.

00:24:49Guest:And that joke gets said a thousand times.

00:24:50Guest:And maybe like a year ago...

00:24:54Guest:I was in the laugh factory, and the audience was like... It was predominantly black, but it was mixed, a mixed audience.

00:25:00Guest:And I was talking about that joke.

00:25:03Guest:Me and my friend were laughing about it on the way to the club.

00:25:05Guest:And I just kind of caught eyes with him in the back of the room, and the set was going good.

00:25:08Guest:It was going fine.

00:25:09Guest:And just in the middle of the set, though, I just go, I go, what's up with white kids?

00:25:13Guest:He goes, white kids got time out when they were kids.

00:25:15Guest:My mom took time out from whooping that ass.

00:25:19Guest:And the crowd erupts, and it just makes me shake my head.

00:25:22Guest:I'm like...

00:25:22Guest:Hack is hack for a reason.

00:25:24Guest:I mean, it really does work.

00:25:27Guest:Like, if you got that reaction for every shitty joke you told, like, why would you stop doing it?

00:25:31Guest:If you have no integrity, why would you stop?

00:25:33Guest:Right.

00:25:33Guest:If you just want to do well and get pussy, which is probably the motivator for 90% of comics who start, I'm going to get pussy, and I'm going to get... And if you have no passion to actually do it, like, you know, people... Kevin Hart himself, you know, said, like, when he was young, you tell Kev wanted to be a star.

00:25:50Guest:Yeah.

00:25:50Guest:And he became a good comic through it.

00:25:52Guest:But I never thought about being on television like this.

00:25:56Marc:Now, you met him because he was working at the Black Club.

00:25:58Marc:He brought you in, right?

00:25:59Guest:No, we started together.

00:26:01Guest:He started a week after me, actually, one week after me.

00:26:03Marc:So let's go back because I saw the show that you did in Montreal, and I want to talk about some of that stuff.

00:26:09Marc:So you started doing the FUBU shirts and the shoes.

00:26:13Marc:And then how did your act evolve?

00:26:15Guest:What evolved from that is that I became up to a point where I was known as, like, I would do well at these black shows because I was willing to take my clothes off on stage.

00:26:24Marc:What is that?

00:26:24Guest:What do you mean?

00:26:25Guest:Like, what was the bit?

00:26:26Guest:The bit was about my stepfather was a powerlifter, like a weightlifter.

00:26:32Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Guest:And he had all these friends who were bodybuilders, and I just always thought it was hilarious how they'd come over and...

00:26:38Guest:They'd make us watch videos of like them posing, which I thought was ridiculous.

00:26:42Guest:So I'd make fun of bodybuilders, but then I would be wearing under my clothes zebra print thong underwear.

00:26:49Guest:Yeah.

00:26:49Marc:And how much did you weigh?

00:26:51Guest:Three, 300, 310.

00:26:54Guest:And the 2001 theme would kick on, the Orchestral 2001 theme.

00:26:58Guest:This was your closer.

00:26:59Guest:My big closer.

00:27:00Guest:Yeah.

00:27:00Guest:After I did a bunch of jokes about why you couldn't have Spider-Man living in the hood.

00:27:05Guest:And I mean like...

00:27:06Guest:It was total panic.

00:27:08Guest:If I ever get a chance, I will show you these videotapes.

00:27:11Guest:I mean, my wording, I'm like, you ever buy a bitch a drink up in a club?

00:27:16Guest:It's insane.

00:27:17Guest:No, you didn't.

00:27:18Guest:Really?

00:27:18Guest:Absolutely.

00:27:18Guest:Oh, no, you didn't.

00:27:20Guest:Oh, yeah, I did.

00:27:21Guest:Oh, yeah, he did now.

00:27:23Guest:And he...

00:27:25Guest:That's it, and Kurt was never willing to pander the whole time, but I went right, because I wanted to do well, and I got to the point where they were paying me regular pay to do these black shows, and I had 15 music cues throughout the thing, and this bodybuilding thing, as the 2001 theme would come on, I would slowly, for every crescendo it would hit, I would take off a piece of clothing down to thong underwear.

00:27:44Yeah.

00:27:44Guest:And it just, like, annihilated.

00:27:46Guest:It was great.

00:27:46Marc:And you would end up standing there naked except for thong underwear posing like a bodybuilder.

00:27:51Guest:Yeah, I mean, never.

00:27:52Marc:To the 2001 theme.

00:27:53Guest:Yeah, I've never seen black people happier in my life.

00:27:55Guest:And for some reason, a fat guy and a thing.

00:27:58Guest:I mean, as awful as I looked and getting naked, I mean, I used to have fat black women throwing it at me and, like, these enormous women that would show up every week to see me again.

00:28:08Guest:It was very bizarre.

00:28:10Guest:And...

00:28:11Guest:Very ego boosting, and what a shot down it was when Keith Robinson first brought us up to New York.

00:28:17Guest:I'm like, well, they don't want to hear me break down the new P. Diddy track.

00:28:20Guest:They're not going to follow this.

00:28:22Guest:What does that mean, break down?

00:28:24Guest:Oh, that was a big thing in the Black Comedy Club.

00:28:25Guest:You go, what's this new song?

00:28:26Guest:You break down the songs.

00:28:27Guest:Oh, okay.

00:28:28Marc:And did you have your thong underwear at that night?

00:28:30Guest:I never did the thong underwear at a mainstream club in New York City.

00:28:35Marc:Now, how did you stop doing that?

00:28:37Marc:How did you know to stop doing that?

00:28:38Guest:I didn't.

00:28:40Guest:I performed.

00:28:41Guest:I was going to stop doing comedy at a point.

00:28:44Guest:I really just felt a little defeated because I was doing these black clubs, but you were never going to get more than $100 a show ever.

00:28:51Guest:How were you making money?

00:28:53Guest:I was driving strippers and escorts to bachelor parties.

00:28:57Guest:How did that come about?

00:28:59Guest:Being a bouncer.

00:29:00Guest:A friend of mine named Ernie came in one day and he said his girlfriend's dad works for this company.

00:29:05Guest:I thought it was interesting.

00:29:06Guest:He was like an old guy.

00:29:07Guest:Yeah.

00:29:08Guest:And he goes, yeah, he just goes and drives the girls, and you stand there and collect the money for them, and then you leave.

00:29:14Guest:And I was like, and they get butt naked, and I thought it was going to be the best job ever.

00:29:18Guest:And then it's a very dangerous job.

00:29:21Guest:You get a bunch of drunk guys around one vagina.

00:29:23Guest:It gets pretty hostile pretty quick, and they're all jockeying for position.

00:29:27Guest:And the thing is, on the phone, you can't call...

00:29:30Guest:company like that and say flat out you never get a strands you go do these girls fuck if you pay them like they'll always be like oh you know they have fun you know and then when they get there you never know what's gonna so you walk in nine times out of ten these guys had an expectation like well how much does it cost to fuck the girl and then i gotta go ah she doesn't really do that and then like what and they get angry and they start getting aggressive you you would go bring one girl to a place and there'd be five girls guys want to fuck her

00:29:56Guest:Oh, man, I wish those numbers were right.

00:29:59Guest:No, it was one or two girls, and there'd be 15 to 20 guys.

00:30:03Marc:And they all want a fucker.

00:30:05Guest:Yeah.

00:30:05Guest:Oh, one girl.

00:30:06Guest:Let me tell you this, this champ.

00:30:08Guest:I've never turned down such hot pussy in my life.

00:30:11Guest:I drove a girl, really, really cute chick.

00:30:15Guest:This is a funny story, actually.

00:30:17Guest:I always call the story like the replacements because it was an ice storm in Philadelphia, and these guys were having a bachelor party in Ocean City, New Jersey.

00:30:25Guest:Yeah.

00:30:26Guest:And I go to my company and I go, he goes, yeah, you're picking up these girls.

00:30:30Guest:We have the three prettiest girls we have.

00:30:32Guest:Yeah.

00:30:33Guest:Are going.

00:30:34Guest:And they all canceled.

00:30:35Guest:Right.

00:30:36Guest:So he goes, well, we got some other girls are going to go out.

00:30:37Guest:And I go to pick them up one at a time.

00:30:39Guest:The first lady was a little old lady.

00:30:41Guest:I mean, like holding her purse.

00:30:43Guest:Come on.

00:30:43Guest:How old?

00:30:45Guest:57 to 60-some years old.

00:30:47Guest:Yeah.

00:30:47Guest:Absolutely.

00:30:48Guest:Yeah.

00:30:48Guest:Blonde-haired lady.

00:30:49Guest:Gets in the car.

00:30:50Guest:She's wearing a pantsuit.

00:30:51Guest:Yeah.

00:30:53Guest:Like a blazer and a skirt, I guess, like down below the knees.

00:30:57Guest:Glasses, you know, bob haircut.

00:30:59Guest:Then we pick up a lady, a little black lady who looks like Bobby Brown.

00:31:02Guest:She has, like, a Gumby haircut, like the sloping haircut.

00:31:05Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:31:05Guest:She's all hiring.

00:31:06Guest:She gets in the car, and this one pretty girl is going.

00:31:08Guest:She's going to drive herself, so I got to drive the two weirdos.

00:31:11Guest:Yeah.

00:31:11Guest:We get to Ocean City.

00:31:12Guest:Thank God these guys were in good spirits because to walk into a place with these three women, you're like, these guys aren't going to be happy, but they were so drunk.

00:31:20Guest:They were hilarious.

00:31:21Guest:They walked in, and the old lady, they were like, oh, which one of you?

00:31:23Guest:The pretty girl walks in first, and they go, oh, nice.

00:31:25Guest:And then the old lady goes, oh, you brought your mom?

00:31:28Guest:At one point, the black girl and the pretty girl were dancing around and the old lady was just sitting on the couch and one of the guys goes over and he goes, clean up or something.

00:31:37Guest:I don't know.

00:31:38Guest:We're paying you.

00:31:38Guest:Do something.

00:31:39Guest:And then one guy finally came out of a bedroom just drunk enough and he grabbed her and took her into a bedroom, the old lady.

00:31:45Guest:But the pretty girl, 14 guys, two at a time, took them all on.

00:31:50Guest:And this is how creepy... And you're standing there?

00:31:52Guest:I'm outside.

00:31:53Guest:I was outside the room.

00:31:54Guest:And one of the creepiest...

00:31:57Guest:Like, things I've ever, uh, like, seen happen.

00:32:00Guest:This is how guys are so, like, when pussy's on the plate, like, how driven they are in one-dimensionally thinking.

00:32:07Guest:Even when they don't have to work for it, though.

00:32:08Guest:They don't have to work for it, but every guy, they'd go in two at a time.

00:32:11Guest:From the first two guys to the last two guys would come out and they'd go...

00:32:14Guest:Oh, man, that's kind of weird.

00:32:15Guest:Like, she's on her period.

00:32:17Guest:That's what they said.

00:32:18Guest:And then other guys would go, oh, dude, really?

00:32:20Guest:And then just go right in the room, like, behind.

00:32:21Guest:I'm like, oh, let me go find out for myself, I guess.

00:32:24Guest:And she just took them two at a time.

00:32:26Guest:And then we went to, like, a Denny's afterwards, and she's trying to explain her life away to me.

00:32:29Guest:I'm like, I don't want to.

00:32:30Guest:How does that go?

00:32:31Guest:She goes, well, I have a dream of being an anesthetician.

00:32:35Guest:I'm like, well, I don't know if you have to fucking bang 14 guys to go to beauty school to give facials.

00:32:42Guest:Just go find your dream.

00:32:44Marc:So did it ever get like, so you're doing comedy and you're driving strippers at night.

00:32:48Marc:But you're not an ass kicker, are you?

00:32:52Guest:No, not at all.

00:32:53Guest:I never thought it was going to come down to that.

00:32:55Marc:Well, what do you think was going to happen?

00:32:58Guest:I thought everyone would be docile like myself, and they'd be excited that there was pussy in the room, and they'd be too nervous to try to do anything else, and they'd leave.

00:33:06Marc:Did you... So you got into trouble ever?

00:33:11Guest:Yeah, I had a couple.

00:33:12Guest:I had a...

00:33:13Guest:I had a gun pulled on me.

00:33:15Guest:The first time I ever got confident in a physical confrontation in one of these shows, a guy pulled a gun on me in Atlantic City because it was two girls, and they were getting changed back into their clothes.

00:33:24Guest:It was after the show.

00:33:24Guest:Yeah.

00:33:25Guest:Old Italian guys banging on the door trying to get in.

00:33:28Guest:Yeah.

00:33:28Guest:And he wasn't this scary-looking guy at all.

00:33:30Guest:And I walked out of the room, and I told the guy, I can't go in.

00:33:32Guest:The show's over.

00:33:33Guest:It's all done.

00:33:34Guest:Yeah.

00:33:35Guest:And he goes, no, I'm going to go in.

00:33:36Guest:I paid for this.

00:33:37Guest:And I was like, no, no, but I mean, what you paid for is over.

00:33:39Guest:The show's done.

00:33:40Guest:Yeah.

00:33:40Guest:And he goes, well, I paid for it, so I say I can go in there.

00:33:43Guest:And I go, very confident, I go, well, I'm saying you can't go in there, so what are we going to do?

00:33:47Guest:And he pulled out a gun and put it right to my fucking, between my eyes.

00:33:50Guest:Yeah.

00:33:51Guest:Loaded, cocked, I have no idea.

00:33:52Guest:Yeah.

00:33:52Guest:But he put it right between my eyes, and I remember just in the fastest thought of my mind going, like, I don't give a shit about these two girls at all.

00:34:00Guest:Yeah.

00:34:00Guest:animal drug addicts that i go why am i have a gun on my face like nothing in my life growing up and you know i used to be afraid of rain when i was a kid and my uh you know i'm a mama's boy and i cry more than i should and now i'm trying to be here to be like a badass to protect these two animals that don't even give they don't give a fuck if i get shot for them they'll go out there and fight the guy themselves like these girls yeah like this is better than their home life what they're living right now you know they always like

00:34:25Guest:There's always some kid in social services.

00:34:27Guest:Oh, God.

00:34:28Guest:You know, some boyfriend who beats the shit out of him or something.

00:34:30Guest:It's just like, I'm like, this isn't my world.

00:34:33Guest:Like, I'm not this guy.

00:34:34Guest:I am very, like, you know, I like to have Passover dinner with my mom and grandma.

00:34:38Guest:And I find myself in these, like, bizarre situations.

00:34:40Guest:So what did you do?

00:34:41Guest:When the guy had the gun on my face, I said nothing, and then he laughed and put the gun down by his side and walked away.

00:34:47Guest:And I went and got the girl, I go, let's get out of here.

00:34:49Guest:And the funniest part is I love telling stories like that, especially when I was 19, 20 years old.

00:34:54Guest:And you go tell your friends that, and I love your friends that always go, dude, he just walked away and put the gun down by his side.

00:34:59Guest:He goes, I would have fucking tackled.

00:35:01Guest:I go, would you have?

00:35:02Guest:Like, I'm happy he didn't shoot me in the face.

00:35:04Guest:Like, I really, I looked at it as I won, no matter...

00:35:07Marc:I would have, yeah.

00:35:10Guest:Oh, dude, man, I would have put the gun... He turned his back on you?

00:35:14Guest:You could have... I was proud of myself for not shitting my pants when he did that.

00:35:20Guest:I mean, proud of myself.

00:35:22Guest:I mean, that was one of the scares.

00:35:23Guest:I got a gun in my face.

00:35:24Guest:I was like, I just wanted to see some pussy with everybody else.

00:35:30Guest:I figure I'll make it up because I'm not paying for it.

00:35:32Guest:I get to watch it for free.

00:35:33Guest:I always had these dreams.

00:35:35Guest:I'd drive the girl home, and she'd be so excited.

00:35:37Guest:She'd fuck me, and I never did.

00:35:39Guest:Oh, my God.

00:35:39Guest:The worst stories.

00:35:41Yeah.

00:35:41Guest:They all had these terrible lives.

00:35:43Guest:One of the funniest I've heard is that- It's horrible.

00:35:45Guest:I hate to be laughing, but it's so- That's fine.

00:35:47Guest:That black girl with the Gumby haircut, the Bobby Brown girl, during that party at one point, a door swung open.

00:35:55Guest:It was like a haunted house.

00:35:56Guest:Yeah.

00:35:57Guest:Like a door swung open, and I just saw her-

00:35:59Guest:like standing up with one leg in the air, and the bachelor was holding her leg up and just like fucking her, and she was making these hilarious noises.

00:36:06Guest:And on the way home, we had to stop through a toll booth.

00:36:09Guest:Yeah.

00:36:10Guest:And it was an awkward silence in the car.

00:36:12Guest:The old lady was sitting in the front seat, and this jumpy little black girl was in the back seat.

00:36:17Guest:And we pulled up to a...

00:36:20Guest:We pull up to this toll booth, and all the windows were down.

00:36:22Guest:Yeah.

00:36:22Guest:I don't think I had air conditioning.

00:36:23Guest:Yeah.

00:36:24Guest:As I'm paying the toll, this black lady leans forward between the both of us, and she goes, I know what they say about white boys, but that white boy fucked the shit out of me.

00:36:34Guest:And the toll booth lady just didn't know how to react to that.

00:36:36Guest:Just give me the thing.

00:36:37Guest:I'm like, what society do you live in where you think people want to hear that?

00:36:43Guest:But to talk so candidly, I mean, it's ironic, too, because, like, you know, to me, I think getting on stage and telling, like, my, you know, you're the sum of your flaws.

00:36:51Guest:So it's like, you know, you want to get on.

00:36:52Marc:Well, I think it's sort of, I had this conversation with someone today.

00:36:55Marc:It's a different version of nerddom.

00:36:57Marc:You know, like, I dated a woman who was in the sex industry briefly, and they talk about it like, you know, it's dinner conversations.

00:37:03Marc:Yeah.

00:37:03Marc:You know, like she did dominatrix work.

00:37:05Marc:She's like, so I'm spanking this guy.

00:37:06Marc:He wanted me to pee on his face.

00:37:07Marc:And it's like, these people don't know where you come from.

00:37:11Marc:But if you talk to a guy who likes guitars, that's all he's going to fucking talk about.

00:37:14Marc:It's their life.

00:37:14Marc:What are you going to do about it?

00:37:15Marc:It just happens to be that business.

00:37:17Guest:But there's always a pain behind it.

00:37:19Guest:No, yeah, yeah.

00:37:20Guest:No matter what they- In the sex industry, yeah.

00:37:22Guest:No matter how much they try to play it off like- Well, what was that story, the biker story?

00:37:26Guest:oh yeah they've man there's so many of them that like just like we had to do that drive yeah what was that two miles down a dirt road for racist but when the guy called me the guy gave me a call yeah to uh to do the job and this guy didn't care about he just wanted to make the money he sat in his house and you're driving what a lincoln or what no i'm driving my uh at that time my saturn

00:37:50Guest:Pretty decent Saturn.

00:37:51Guest:Yeah.

00:37:53Guest:Or is that or my Honda Accord hatchback?

00:37:55Guest:One of those two cars I had at the time.

00:37:57Guest:Kurt got that stolen.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah?

00:37:59Guest:How?

00:38:00Guest:He just parked it in the shitty part and got fucking taken.

00:38:02Guest:Yeah.

00:38:03Guest:He actually parked it in the tow-away zone, so he thought it got towed.

00:38:05Guest:Turned out it got stolen before it got towed.

00:38:07Guest:Yeah.

00:38:08Guest:Good Lord.

00:38:08Guest:But I think it was my Saturn.

00:38:10Guest:And the boss called me up and he goes, he was literally presented to me this way.

00:38:15Guest:Yeah.

00:38:15Guest:Very blunt.

00:38:16Guest:He goes, all right, you're going to drive this black girl and this Puerto Rican girl to a racist biker party, bachelor party.

00:38:21Guest:Was that like a joke?

00:38:22Guest:I thought he was kidding.

00:38:23Guest:Yeah.

00:38:23Guest:Why would you, do you care about these girls' safety at all?

00:38:26Guest:Yeah.

00:38:26Guest:Because what am I going to do?

00:38:28Guest:Right.

00:38:29Guest:And we met the guys at a liquor store because they said we wouldn't find the place.

00:38:33Guest:It was two miles down a dirt road.

00:38:35Marc:We're in Jersey?

00:38:36Guest:Yeah.

00:38:37Guest:South Jersey.

00:38:37Marc:Yeah.

00:38:38Guest:Right as we're driving down that road, I assume we're in agreeance.

00:38:42Guest:I always think these girls aren't ballsy and they're afraid too, but they're never afraid.

00:38:48Guest:They're never afraid of any situation.

00:38:49Guest:I don't know how many times they've been cut in their life.

00:38:53Guest:But these racists requested a Puerto Rican... Requested specifically a Hispanic and a black girl.

00:38:58Guest:And we drive two miles down this dirt road.

00:39:01Guest:And as I'm driving on the road, I'm looking at the girls.

00:39:03Guest:I thought we were all in agreeance that we're going to leave.

00:39:05Guest:We're going to wait for them to get far enough ahead where we can just turn around and get the fuck out of here.

00:39:10Marc:They looked like fucking weirdos or what?

00:39:13Marc:The guys?

00:39:14Marc:You met, yeah.

00:39:14Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:39:15Guest:It was like a party at Cher's house in that movie Mask.

00:39:20Guest:It was just a bunch of Sam Elliott's and just these burly...

00:39:23Guest:goofy guys the beard they had the whole thing going and in time by the way i'm living the character at this point so i'm also pulling up in my fubu jersey and you know yeah you know i'm where i got the whole garb on with me you know echo shirts and right sean john stuff and um you know i think they're gonna judge me for that immediately and they're probably not afraid of me at all which they shouldn't be yeah

00:39:44Guest:And the girls just wanted to go in and make the money.

00:39:46Guest:They really didn't care, and they kept saying, like, oh, we got a job to do.

00:39:48Guest:Like, they're doing noble work.

00:39:51Guest:Like, hey, no, we signed up for this, you know?

00:39:53Guest:We're not going AWOL.

00:39:54Guest:Yeah.

00:39:55Guest:So you go to this place.

00:39:56Guest:We get it.

00:39:57Guest:I had to go in first to call the boss, and when I walked in, like, everything was confirmed, like, the fear.

00:40:01Guest:There was, like, a bed.

00:40:02Guest:I said there was a bed, and there was guns all over the bed.

00:40:05Guest:I said it was, like, the biker version of, like, when you come to a party, like, put your coats on the bed.

00:40:09Guest:Yeah, yeah, right.

00:40:10Guest:Guns all over.

00:40:11Guest:And I called my boss, and...

00:40:13Guest:He couldn't have, he goes, how is it?

00:40:15Guest:And I was like, eh, you know, no.

00:40:17Guest:And he goes, is it scary?

00:40:19Guest:I was like, yeah.

00:40:21Guest:Because there guys are all around me, you know, and I can't like say like, you know, there's guns and I'm scared.

00:40:25Guest:And he goes, what are the guns?

00:40:26Guest:And I was like, mm-hmm.

00:40:28Guest:And he goes, are they holding them on you?

00:40:30Guest:I go, not yet.

00:40:31Guest:And he goes, I talked to them on the phone.

00:40:33Guest:They're good dudes.

00:40:34Guest:He just hung up and just said to do it.

00:40:36Guest:I mean, that night just evolved into, they actually didn't cause much a problem with me.

00:40:40Guest:There was an internal biker problem.

00:40:43Guest:What?

00:40:44Guest:It scared the shit.

00:40:44Guest:I mean, the girls went into the bathroom to change in their stripper clothes.

00:40:47Guest:Yeah.

00:40:48Guest:And a lady came out.

00:40:50Guest:In a robe from a bedroom.

00:40:52Guest:Yeah.

00:40:53Guest:And, like, really, like, clearing her eyes.

00:40:54Guest:Like, didn't know there was, like, a very loud biker bachelor party happening in the next room.

00:41:01Guest:And just confused by the whole thing.

00:41:03Guest:And she tries to go into the bathroom.

00:41:05Guest:And the strippers, like, you know, they have the class of nothing.

00:41:07Guest:Yeah.

00:41:08Guest:So they just, like, you know, like, bitch, we're in here.

00:41:10Guest:Yeah.

00:41:10Guest:And she got mad and started a big fight.

00:41:13Guest:And then her husband, I guess, her old man, came out of the bedroom in tighty-whities and nothing else.

00:41:20Guest:A little scrawny, feathered hair.

00:41:23Guest:And he starts arguing, and I guess one of the bikers was his brother.

00:41:27Guest:And they went over and started arguing.

00:41:28Guest:They started fist-fighting right in front.

00:41:30Guest:And my jaw was on the floor.

00:41:32Guest:I was very visible at that point.

00:41:33Guest:All these bikers were like, this guy's not going to do anything at all.

00:41:36Guest:And just terrified.

00:41:37Guest:And they...

00:41:38Guest:The bike, one guy ended up pulling out a gun.

00:41:39Guest:Yeah.

00:41:40Guest:And his brother and tighty-whities ran through the screen of the back door.

00:41:44Guest:Like, through it.

00:41:45Guest:Just took the screen right out and jumped over the deck.

00:41:49Guest:And they were in the woods.

00:41:49Guest:Took off into the woods.

00:41:50Guest:And he shot, like, into the woods, like, nine times.

00:41:53Guest:And I said, for the hour that I was there, he never came back.

00:41:56Guest:Yeah.

00:41:56Guest:And I go, and I don't know if he was dead or hiding, but either way, like, that was, like, the least of my concern.

00:42:00Guest:I was like, all right, well, it wasn't me they shot at.

00:42:02Guest:Now I can kind of...

00:42:03Guest:You know, and he's trying to butt and nuzzle up to them.

00:42:05Guest:Like, now your brother's kind of a dick, huh?

00:42:07Guest:What a weirdo.

00:42:08Guest:Yeah.

00:42:08Guest:Yeah, stay out there in the woods, jerk off, right?

00:42:10Guest:But I was like trying to be on their team.

00:42:12Guest:And they were cool when it was all, as the party went on.

00:42:15Guest:And then right when, and I said, I never confirmed if it was a joke or not.

00:42:19Guest:But they were in earshot of me.

00:42:22Guest:I guess they didn't know that.

00:42:23Guest:And the girls were changing back into their clothes.

00:42:26Guest:And I heard the guy go, what do you want to do with this fat kid when we fuck these chicks?

00:42:29Guest:And I yelled out the words 30 seconds to the bathroom.

00:42:33Guest:Yeah.

00:42:33Guest:30 seconds.

00:42:34Guest:And I went and started the car.

00:42:35Guest:And we got the fuck out of there.

00:42:37Guest:And they didn't come after it.

00:42:38Guest:I guess they were preoccupied, thank God.

00:42:40Guest:But God damn.

00:42:41Guest:And you know what we did?

00:42:42Guest:We drove.

00:42:42Guest:It was a 45-minute drive back to Philly.

00:42:45Yeah.

00:42:45Guest:three all three of us teary like I was crying and they were going like they're yelling I'm the worst bouncer and I knew that yeah I know I'm awful I thought I was gonna see some pussy and have a good time yeah this is very aggressive was that the last gig um

00:42:59Guest:The last time I did it, I actually did it in New York, ultimately.

00:43:03Guest:When I came to New York and I was living there and just making no money in comedy.

00:43:07Guest:If I was making like 50 bucks on a weekend, I was doing great.

00:43:11Guest:There was no money in it.

00:43:13Guest:The mainstream clubs for me.

00:43:14Guest:And I called one day to...

00:43:18Guest:And this guy hired me on the phone, on the spot.

00:43:21Guest:Didn't even like bad at all.

00:43:21Guest:Because you had done it before.

00:43:23Guest:Yeah, I guess.

00:43:23Guest:A lot of people don't want to do this.

00:43:26Guest:And the way it works, the way it worked in Philly, which was kind of cool, I always liked, was that you'd get a phone call and it'd be like, pick up this girl, you're going to this place.

00:43:33Guest:Yeah.

00:43:34Guest:In New York, they did it where you pick up three girls and you just have them.

00:43:38Guest:and hope that work comes in, like you're on call, essentially.

00:43:42Guest:So I'd have these three animals in New York, I mean, headlined by, or the three hookers having a conversation is just insane.

00:43:50Guest:You can't believe how comfortable, you know, it almost desensitizes you.

00:43:54Guest:You don't wonder when you say the word cunt that a girl would go, oh, dear.

00:43:58Guest:Yeah.

00:43:59Guest:Because you hear these girls talking about like, oh, you saw Mr. Johnson last night?

00:44:02Guest:Like, did he come?

00:44:04Guest:Like, no.

00:44:04Guest:And he goes, oh, girl, you got to lay it on him like this.

00:44:07Guest:And show him like these ass bumps to this guy.

00:44:09Guest:He comes in two seconds.

00:44:10Guest:And they're high-fiving over it.

00:44:12Guest:And it's just like, what world?

00:44:14Guest:Like, what happened?

00:44:15Guest:Like, you wore a dress when you were a little kid at some point.

00:44:19Guest:You had, like, a dream to do something.

00:44:21Guest:And the headliner of that group was the first one I picked up.

00:44:25Guest:So I heard for about an hour before I had the other two girls.

00:44:27Guest:And she was a black albino with a lazy eye.

00:44:30Guest:Yeah.

00:44:31Guest:And the swagger of, like, a knockout 10 that I'd never seen.

00:44:36Guest:And just all the teeth were, like, grated all up and a mess.

00:44:40Guest:And she was like, I had to cancel a date tonight.

00:44:44Guest:She goes, I don't like going on dates.

00:44:45Guest:Last date I went on, she goes, now I know what I do for a living.

00:44:48Guest:But she goes, in the real world, if a guy wants this pussy, he has to take me out for scrimp at Red Blobster.

00:44:55Yeah.

00:44:55Guest:And I thought she was kidding.

00:44:57Guest:I was like, Red Blobster.

00:44:59Guest:And she was like, hell yeah, scrimp, scampi, and Red Blobster, then you get this pussy.

00:45:05Guest:And I mean, is she doing it on purpose?

00:45:07Guest:Why would you do that on purpose?

00:45:08Guest:Like, you could read, and the person... And even if you can't read, whoever told you what that sign said, they didn't say Blobster.

00:45:15Guest:I'm certain of it.

00:45:17Guest:But wait, now... I had those girls for hours, and then I just, like, that was it.

00:45:22Guest:I did it one night, and I came home, and I was like, that's it.

00:45:24Marc:And you're still doing comedy at the black clubs.

00:45:27Marc:Now, wait, I want to hear the stories, though, about...

00:45:30Marc:I'm sorry, but I just got to hear the transition to the kids' parties.

00:45:36Guest:Oh, doing the kids' birthday parties?

00:45:37Marc:It was the same company, right?

00:45:39Guest:Same company.

00:45:39Guest:The guy, I said to him, I was like, you know, I wasn't getting a lot of... I was the last guy he would call for the work because I was his newest employee.

00:45:46Guest:And I went to him and I actually asked him, too.

00:45:47Guest:I said...

00:45:49Guest:I was like, why am I like the youngest, biggest person on your stage?

00:45:52Guest:Everybody else is like an older man.

00:45:53Guest:I was like, but I seem to have all these crazy adventures happening with mine.

00:45:58Guest:They're always going bad and they're scared.

00:46:00Guest:And he goes, well, everybody carries a gun.

00:46:02Guest:I was like, oh.

00:46:04Guest:He goes, you don't have a gun?

00:46:06Guest:I was like, no.

00:46:08Guest:He goes, you want me to give you one?

00:46:09Guest:I was like, no.

00:46:10Guest:I'm going to panic.

00:46:11Guest:I'll pull that out way preemptively.

00:46:14Guest:It's like, hey, these girls having sex?

00:46:16Guest:I'm like, no.

00:46:17Guest:And I'll just pull the gun out and be wagging.

00:46:19Guest:I'd be terrified.

00:46:20Marc:And you can't talk about this on stage yet.

00:46:22Marc:You must have wanted to.

00:46:23Guest:Oh, no, no, no.

00:46:24Guest:I was not in that plea.

00:46:25Guest:No, I'm still, you know, talking about, like, what's up with the... Yeah.

00:46:28Guest:You go to the Chinese food store and they don't give you enough duck sauce.

00:46:33Guest:No.

00:46:34Guest:What's up with the duck?

00:46:35Guest:Give me a thousand soy sauces, one duck sauce.

00:46:38Guest:Annihilates.

00:46:39Guest:Standing ovations.

00:46:41Guest:No, I couldn't talk about it at all yet.

00:46:43Guest:But that company, because I wasn't getting enough work, I was like, can you give me a little more?

00:46:48Guest:And he goes, well, I mean, by day we send out people to kids' birthday parties to dress up like characters, like Elmo and Winnie the Pooh and stuff.

00:46:56Guest:And he goes, would you want to do that?

00:46:58Guest:And I was like, sure.

00:47:00Guest:But because I was his last option on that, I'd be his fifth phone call.

00:47:03Guest:So he'd call up and say, hey, you want to go do this thing at...

00:47:08Guest:You know, the five of the guys, like, you want to go to North Philadelphia and do, like, you know, Rashonda Jenkins' birthday party as Elmo?

00:47:15Guest:And, like, everyone else would be like, no.

00:47:16Guest:But I'd go, yeah, sure.

00:47:19Guest:And it was just, like, the hostility of the way these people would talk to me, when I'm going to be a character, if there's kids, it was just, I never understood.

00:47:28Guest:And you had to wear the whole outfit and everything?

00:47:29Guest:Oh, and they were awful.

00:47:30Guest:Like, he bought, like, these generic outfits.

00:47:33Guest:Not even the real Elmos?

00:47:34Guest:No, not at all.

00:47:35Guest:I was like a brown Winnie the Pooh.

00:47:36Guest:Yeah.

00:47:36Guest:You know.

00:47:37Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:47:38Guest:I said I was Elmo.

00:47:39Guest:The first one I ever did, I was Elmo.

00:47:41Guest:But the outfit had no, like, feet coverings.

00:47:44Guest:Yeah.

00:47:44Guest:So it was just like my Nikes.

00:47:45Guest:Yeah.

00:47:46Guest:Sticking out.

00:47:47Guest:Yeah.

00:47:47Guest:And they would just send me these things.

00:47:48Guest:And they were always just taken back to the fact that I was white.

00:47:52Guest:Yeah.

00:47:53Guest:And I mean, it was so low rent.

00:47:54Guest:I'd walk.

00:47:54Guest:I'd come in like a garbage bag full of the outfit.

00:47:56Guest:Yeah.

00:47:58Guest:And they were just always mean immediately.

00:48:00Guest:And I was just going to entertain their kids.

00:48:02Yeah.

00:48:02Guest:I thought it was going to be an adorable thing, but the adults would fuck with the air, and I'd gotten kicked in the nuts.

00:48:08Guest:What do you mean?

00:48:09Guest:That first one I did is Elmo.

00:48:14Guest:It was sweltering hot like summer.

00:48:17Guest:And there's no AC and these outfits are like, you know, they have, they make outfits that like fans in them to keep you like alive.

00:48:22Guest:I think essentially.

00:48:23Guest:And this, this guy just gave me like, it was like a burlap cost.

00:48:26Guest:It was made of a carpet, like rug art.

00:48:28Guest:You're like the hook art.

00:48:29Guest:Yeah.

00:48:30Guest:It's like that.

00:48:30Guest:And I got it like on me and I'm profusely sweating and miserable.

00:48:34Guest:Yeah.

00:48:34Guest:Mom kept yelling for me to do the hokey pokey.

00:48:36Guest:I don't know if that's the only kid song she ever heard of.

00:48:38Guest:Right.

00:48:38Guest:She kept screaming that.

00:48:40Guest:and call me motherfucker yeah and like there's children every no one cares at all no one cares you know it's like every adult's drinking a 40 yeah you know the moms are braiding each other's hair and you're standing there and sweating and I'm sweating and she's calling me motherfucker and it's my first one it's trial by fire so I don't even know the guy gave me a tape of the hokey pokey yeah

00:49:00Guest:and um and a costume yeah and i don't really know what the hell i'm supposed to do i don't know if i'm supposed to talk you weren't familiar with elmo no not super familiar with it but like but i mean like i just don't know like what uh it was just dancing the whole time or or playing with the kids or do i play a game with them i had no preparation goes go be elmo for an hour you got a bag and a tape a bag and an audio cassette tape yeah

00:49:26Guest:And I remember going that one particularly, and it really stunk.

00:49:31Guest:And then the moment...

00:49:33Guest:Like, the moment it started to feel good, it was, like, the little girl whose birthday it was.

00:49:37Guest:Like, you know, sometimes the kids were really shy, but she was affectionate.

00:49:40Guest:She hugged me, and she's like, I love you, Elmo.

00:49:42Guest:And I was like, that was actually a pretty cool job.

00:49:44Guest:You know, it was pretty neat.

00:49:45Guest:I had younger siblings, so I knew, like, you know, I'm good with kids.

00:49:48Guest:I think it was pretty cool.

00:49:49Guest:And then, like, the punk kids in the neighborhood showed up to fucking destroy everything that I just built with this little girl.

00:49:57Guest:Yeah.

00:49:57Guest:And started telling everybody that I'm not the real Elmo.

00:49:59Guest:Yeah.

00:50:00Guest:And then...

00:50:01Guest:And I remember he ended up staring.

00:50:04Guest:First of all, he called out my sneakers, which really stung.

00:50:06Guest:So I realized, I was like, maybe this girl will not notice I'm wearing Nikes.

00:50:10Guest:And he goes, well, if it's the real Elmo, why is he wearing Nikes?

00:50:14Guest:And I was like, fuck.

00:50:17Guest:And then he started looking through the mouth.

00:50:19Guest:If you look hard, you can see me.

00:50:20Guest:He grabbed your head?

00:50:22Guest:No, he didn't grab the head.

00:50:23Guest:He's just looking.

00:50:23Guest:He's obnoxiously looking right at my face through this little thin screen that hides my face.

00:50:29Guest:Yeah.

00:50:30Guest:And then when he realized that I was white, he lifted the sleeve of the outfit and screamed Elmo's white.

00:50:37Guest:But, like, Paul revered it, like, you know, to the left and to the right.

00:50:40Guest:And people really stopped what they were doing.

00:50:42Guest:You know, everything's sort of like the record scratching.

00:50:44Guest:Everyone turning around.

00:50:47Guest:Like, everyone was, like, shocked that I was white.

00:50:50Guest:Yeah, that I was white.

00:50:51Guest:And it took, like, the kids didn't like me anymore.

00:50:53Guest:It was so weird.

00:50:54Guest:Like, everyone just got awkward.

00:50:55Guest:And then the kid goes, uh...

00:50:58Guest:Let's see if Elmo has nuts.

00:51:01Guest:And I lost him in my vision because I have about a six-inch range of vision.

00:51:06Guest:And I remember just like my plan was to just start spinning in circles.

00:51:11Guest:And I would see him, and then I wouldn't.

00:51:13Guest:And I would see him, and I would try to go the other way.

00:51:14Guest:I'd try to keep him in front of me, and he kicked me from behind.

00:51:17Guest:He got behind me and fucking put a foot deep in my ball bag.

00:51:21Guest:And it was so hot.

00:51:22Guest:And because it was so hot, I wasn't wearing pants.

00:51:25Guest:I just wore my underwear underneath it.

00:51:28Guest:It was the most flushed shot I've ever taken.

00:51:31Guest:So what happened?

00:51:32Guest:I went down.

00:51:33Guest:The mom just kept yelling at me to get up.

00:51:35Guest:And it was like, it was hella.

00:51:36Guest:And as I said before, I thought the stripper things were going to be like...

00:51:39Guest:the worst but I've been equally scared like those kids part like it's really a it's amazing how little it's you know and almost like in a metaphor like how does like performers like the outside people yeah before like it's amazing

00:51:54Guest:how much people who have done nothing feel obliged almost to pass any kind of a judgment in any kind of way.

00:52:03Guest:You know what I mean?

00:52:03Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:04Guest:It's the same, like I said, I'd rather have somebody walk out of a comedy club and go like, I fucking hated you.

00:52:08Guest:Yeah.

00:52:09Guest:Than give me like a scrappy little head rub and be like,

00:52:12Guest:Good job.

00:52:12Guest:Yeah.

00:52:13Guest:Pretty good.

00:52:14Guest:Yeah, you want to have an impact.

00:52:15Guest:Love me or hate me.

00:52:15Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:16Guest:Like, walk out and want to go find everything I've ever done or walk out and fucking, you know, hope I die.

00:52:21Guest:But don't walk out and think it's okay.

00:52:23Guest:And, like, those things were just, like, that's how you just felt.

00:52:26Guest:You just felt judged and, like, you were a piece of shit for even doing it.

00:52:29Guest:It's like, you fucking called me here to be Elmo.

00:52:31Guest:Yeah.

00:52:31Marc:Yeah.

00:52:31Guest:What are you angry that I'm here for?

00:52:34Marc:So when did you have a moment where you're like, this is fucked?

00:52:37Marc:I mean, was there a point where, you know, you're driving strippers around, you're going to a kid's party dressed as Elmo, getting kicked in the balls, and you're still doing comedy, but you're wearing fooboo and taking your clothes off with a thong?

00:52:48Guest:I was going to quit.

00:52:48Guest:I was going to walk away.

00:52:49Marc:And then what changed?

00:52:51Guest:I met, I...

00:52:53Guest:I started working at a job where I started training for a job because I was like, I'm going to go back to college.

00:52:58Guest:I'm going to stop.

00:52:59Guest:There's a low ceiling on this black comedy circuit.

00:53:01Guest:I'm not going to become Martin Lawrence or anything.

00:53:05Marc:Were you looked at as one of those white comics that could only play to black crowds?

00:53:09Guest:Sure, absolutely.

00:53:10Guest:And I remember when we'd go to those rooms,

00:53:12Guest:It made me feel really, you know, I'm relatively sensitive first.

00:53:15Guest:Because there's only a few of those guys, though, you know.

00:53:17Guest:Yeah, well, I'd go with Kurt Metzger and we'd go to these rooms.

00:53:22Guest:And because Kurt had such good jokes and didn't dress the part, they would embrace him very much.

00:53:26Guest:And they would come to me and they'd be like, hey, Kurt, have a great set.

00:53:28Guest:And they'd walk up to me and they'd go, that Def Jam shit's not really going to fly here.

00:53:33Guest:It's like, you haven't even seen me perform yet.

00:53:34Guest:Like, I have things I want to say to a mainstream audience or if somebody wants to listen, you know.

00:53:40Guest:And, um, and I just wasn't respected in those circles at all.

00:53:45Guest:And we would drive like an hour to go to the stress factory, you know, to do open mic.

00:53:48Guest:Yeah.

00:53:49Guest:Which was like, that was a bad open mic.

00:53:51Marc:And it just felt very like, and you were still doing those jokes for white audiences or mixed audiences.

00:53:56Yeah.

00:53:57Guest:Yeah, for black.

00:53:58Marc:There was only like a couple of guys.

00:54:00Marc:There was another guy that used to do Evening of the Apollo, a Jewish guy, a white guy.

00:54:03Marc:There's only a few white guys that did that.

00:54:06Marc:I mean, that was their world.

00:54:09Guest:Yeah, it's a hard one.

00:54:11Guest:But you know what?

00:54:12Guest:Depends who you are, I think.

00:54:13Guest:I think, like, there's something in you.

00:54:15Guest:Like, I'm not, like, I'm pretty white by nature.

00:54:19Guest:Like, you know what I mean?

00:54:19Guest:I'm very, like, you know, I have Marilyn Manson in my iPod as well as, like, Barbra Streisand.

00:54:25Guest:You know, I use that example a lot.

00:54:26Marc:No, I get it.

00:54:27Marc:I mean, I'm, like, I'm not making, like, a racial judgment.

00:54:29Marc:But, I mean, what was the point?

00:54:30Marc:Was there a point where, you know, the, like, the bodybuilding thing, when did that stop?

00:54:35Marc:Did it tank at some point?

00:54:37Marc:It did tank bad.

00:54:37Guest:What do you mean?

00:54:38Guest:But, like, where it came off of, though, was I said I...

00:54:41Guest:When I was going to quit, I had to go train at this job for three days, and I ended up...

00:54:48Guest:Like on the third day of training, I got a phone call from Michael Blackson, who was a comic in Philadelphia, who offered me a gig that night.

00:54:54Guest:And I blindly accepted it.

00:54:56Guest:I hate to make it sound like I was going to not say no because I'm quitting comedy.

00:54:59Guest:But I was like, yeah, I'll get a different job, whatever.

00:55:02Guest:On this day of training, I'll get some other.

00:55:03Guest:Because I was going to go back to college anyway when the semester started.

00:55:07Guest:And it was in Minneapolis.

00:55:09Guest:I had to fly there.

00:55:10Guest:And it was like $400.

00:55:11Guest:And I was like, wow, that was huge for me.

00:55:12Guest:$400.

00:55:13Guest:That'd be more, I think, at that point than I'd ever made in comedy in one shot.

00:55:16Guest:$400.

00:55:17Guest:and I'm flying, which was exciting.

00:55:19Guest:I've never flown to do comedy, really, at that point at all.

00:55:22Guest:I get to the airport, and Keith Robinson was the other comic guy.

00:55:24Guest:Keith was doing it as a favor.

00:55:26Guest:Right.

00:55:26Guest:Where I'm doing it as, like, I can't believe I got this gig.

00:55:28Guest:Yeah.

00:55:29Guest:And Keith started talking to me, and he sounded like he was very ingrained in the mainstream scene, but I didn't really believe it.

00:55:34Guest:I thought he was bullshit.

00:55:34Marc:What year was this?

00:55:35Marc:Because, I mean, yeah, Keith was... Like, I know Keith.

00:55:37Marc:When I started out, I opened for Keith.

00:55:39Guest:Really?

00:55:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:55:40Guest:Keith, this was...

00:55:43Guest:2001 oh okay yeah it's long after yeah maybe maybe even a little early maybe like maybe 2000 yeah 2001 i think and uh we went out to do this gig and he's talking to me about like all these mainstream comics and everything and i'm just kind of was it a black room yes okay it was it was a it was a yeah very very black show in minneapolis yeah dinner theater place right you know very hip-hoppy and there was a rap group went on before the comedy show and all that stuff

00:56:08Guest:I mean, that was always the worst thing with doing those black shows.

00:56:10Guest:You knew there was going to be trouble getting paid when every guy who ran the show was wearing the same football jersey.

00:56:16Guest:They're a rap crew also.

00:56:18Guest:There was going to be problems.

00:56:21Guest:Oh, man.

00:56:22Guest:And this was a pretty square deal.

00:56:24Guest:And Keith's talking about all this mainstream comedy and everybody he knows.

00:56:27Guest:I think he's just name-dropping and being full of shit, kind of.

00:56:29Guest:Right.

00:56:30Guest:And I did the show and I did the bodybuilding thing and I get naked and it went great.

00:56:35Guest:And he pulled me aside afterwards and Keith did well.

00:56:38Guest:He did very well on the show, but Keith's not, he's not doing up there going like, what's up with that new, you know, Jay-Z something.

00:56:43Guest:He's going up there and doing like, you know, when I was a kid, my mom, my whatever.

00:56:48Yeah.

00:56:48Guest:He does well, but not like the people standing up and cheering Apollo style like I was getting, and I thought I was great in that regard, and he's telling me to stop getting naked on stage.

00:57:00Guest:You're an idiot.

00:57:01Guest:He's like, you're a clown.

00:57:02Guest:He goes, if I got up there and got down my underwear, people would laugh.

00:57:05Guest:They're going to laugh more at you because you're fat, but they're going to laugh at anyone who gets down those underwear.

00:57:09Guest:Yeah.

00:57:09Guest:And it took... I was bummed about it, but I kind of took it to heart, and I stopped doing it for a long time.

00:57:17Guest:And then I got into the finals of a competition.

00:57:20Guest:You just stopped doing it, and you just did the other jokes, and it was... Well, you know what's funny?

00:57:24Guest:I actually got nervous, because my comedy was like, my jokes aren't all that great at that point at all, so...

00:57:31Guest:They're doing okay, and now I don't have this big thing.

00:57:35Guest:So I did wrestle with that for a while.

00:57:36Guest:I remember the next week I came in, I was like, well, I need some big clothes.

00:57:40Guest:And my idea was to, I told my shitty jokes, and then I had, I prepared this before I went out.

00:57:45Guest:I had a string around my neck.

00:57:48Guest:And I taped it to, like, right above my nipples.

00:57:50Guest:Yeah.

00:57:51Guest:And I tied these huge... I made a big aluminum foil rings.

00:57:54Guest:Yeah.

00:57:54Guest:And I tied them so it looked like they were, like, giant nipple rings.

00:57:56Guest:Yeah.

00:57:57Guest:And all for the... I mean, this was the beginning and end of the joke.

00:57:59Guest:I go, hey, guys, by the way, before I get out of here, I just got some new piercings.

00:58:03Guest:Let me know what you think.

00:58:04Guest:Too much?

00:58:05Guest:And I just lifted up my shirt, and it's like... Yeah.

00:58:06Guest:And everyone laughed and cheered, and I was like, I'm back.

00:58:09Guest:Yeah.

00:58:10Guest:But I just realized it's just the same.

00:58:11Guest:I might as well just be getting into my underwear again.

00:58:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:58:13Guest:It's like nonsense, you know?

00:58:14Guest:Yeah.

00:58:14Guest:It's all bullshit.

00:58:16Guest:So...

00:58:17Guest:But I started to find my way a little bit, and I was trying to get some better jokes, and I was really working towards that.

00:58:21Marc:You're hanging out with Kurt, who's a great joke writer.

00:58:23Guest:Absolutely.

00:58:24Guest:Is he helping you at all?

00:58:25Guest:Absolutely.

00:58:25Guest:But not even with the writing so much.

00:58:26Guest:Not so much that he was helping me with writing, but I can bounce the funny that I want it to be off of him.

00:58:31Guest:Right, right.

00:58:32Guest:You know, and I'd make him, when I knew I'd make him laugh with just like social observation or conversation, I was like, well, I can do that.

00:58:39Guest:I'm a funny guy in life, not just to black people.

00:58:43Guest:And so I stopped doing the bit, and I started getting my jokes a little bit under me, but I was doing one of these black show competitions I got into when I was in the finals.

00:58:54Guest:And the guy I was going against I just thought was better than me, especially a black comedy.

00:58:58Guest:He had a whole breakdown in the hip-hop songs for people and shit.

00:59:02Guest:I am I told her was I'm gonna bring back the bodybuilder bit just this once because I'm gonna you know the prize was to go to st.

00:59:10Guest:Louis and compete again against some other shitty comics and yeah I wanted to go to st.

00:59:14Guest:Louis and but they put us up the way they did the finals was on a weekend and it's still the same black comedy club right like this is like the Thursday the open mics that we did

00:59:25Guest:were more rooted in, like, very hip-hop.

00:59:27Guest:It was promoted by the hip-hop radio station.

00:59:28Guest:Right.

00:59:28Guest:It would be all the kids in the baggy clothes.

00:59:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:31Guest:Where on the weekends, you were getting more of, like, the Huxtables.

00:59:34Guest:Yeah.

00:59:34Guest:You know what I mean?

00:59:35Guest:It was going to be, like, more, like, sweaters and older black people.

00:59:37Guest:Yeah.

00:59:38Guest:You know, a little more well-to-do and, like, wanting to hear more, like, you know...

00:59:43Guest:hamburger versus like, you know, whatever, like kind of shit they, you know, more like the rowdy.

00:59:48Marc:A little highbrow.

00:59:49Guest:Yeah, maybe a little more thought for folks.

00:59:51Guest:Yeah.

00:59:51Guest:And my jokes are bombing.

00:59:53Guest:We're doing five minutes in front of these people.

00:59:55Marc:But you knew you had the thong in the bag there.

00:59:58Guest:Well, but I didn't want to, in my mind, I was like, I shouldn't, but I didn't know what else to do.

01:00:03Guest:Right.

01:00:03Guest:I didn't have my nipple rings prepared.

01:00:05Guest:Yeah.

01:00:05Guest:So I got to whip out this, you know, the bit, and I started doing it, and just like every...

01:00:10Guest:reaction to this thing was not what i expected the 2001 music starts kicking in and i take off my shirt and i'm used to like that shirt take off is the first mark where you're like i'm killing yeah like the room's obliterated like laughter and it was like nothing and after the after the timpani hits the boom boom boom boom and there's that weird like breaking sounds where it builds again yeah i just heard this lady go uh she's on the side of the state i look at her i just catch eyes and she goes oh god

01:00:39Guest:And I was like, I started unbuckling my pants going like, I'm literally having a struggle in this next little stanza of the song going like, I should just walk off.

01:00:47Guest:I should just be like, I'm goodnight.

01:00:49Guest:I was like, but I'm in it.

01:00:50Guest:Yeah.

01:00:50Guest:I'm in it.

01:00:50Guest:I go, maybe the thong's going to win him back.

01:00:53Yeah.

01:00:54Guest:I drop the pants, and I turn around, and I usually turn around with like, I'm trying to hold back my smiles, how happy I am, how much they love this.

01:01:02Guest:Yeah.

01:01:02Guest:And I turn around now, it looks like a, you know, like I was like, turn around, boy.

01:01:06Guest:That's what I felt like it was.

01:01:07Guest:I turn around, it was a very nervous look on my face.

01:01:10Guest:To see people like, and you've seen heads shaking, and you know, and what's funny is,

01:01:17Guest:When it's really put under the microscope like that, when I did it normally and it would kill, it wasn't really under a microscope.

01:01:23Guest:It's like, oh, this fat boy's getting naked.

01:01:25Guest:It's kind of funny.

01:01:26Guest:Yeah.

01:01:26Guest:But one thing I learned about doing those black clubs and the cultural difference, as you said before, is white people, it's why like Jackass, good example, the Jackass show doesn't have like a humongous black following.

01:01:38Guest:Right.

01:01:38Guest:Because black people don't find a lot of humor.

01:01:40Guest:There's a big machismo, much more machismo in the black culture than definitely in the white culture.

01:01:44Guest:Right.

01:01:45Guest:Or at least in basic white culture.

01:01:47Guest:Yeah.

01:01:47Guest:You know, it's much more machismo.

01:01:48Guest:So, like, they don't like, like, if you told a black guy, like, man, suck my dick.

01:01:53Guest:Like, that means way worse to them than, like, fuck you.

01:01:56Guest:Right.

01:01:56Guest:You know, guys cock slapping each other doesn't really make them, they think it's just gay.

01:01:59Guest:Yeah.

01:02:00Guest:And now when it's under the microscope and no one's on board laughing, they're taking in now how gay this feels that a fat guy's getting naked in front of them.

01:02:07Guest:Yeah.

01:02:08Guest:So you see these guys with their heads in their hands and people leaving.

01:02:11Guest:Oh, my God.

01:02:11Guest:Like, they're walking out.

01:02:12Guest:Yeah.

01:02:12Guest:And, you know, going to complain.

01:02:14Guest:Like, is this... There's a fat guy naked on stage.

01:02:16Guest:Like, that's what he does.

01:02:18Guest:Yeah.

01:02:20Guest:And when I'm standing there and the pants came down, that next crescendo... You know, the crescendo hits and I'm used to, like, just, like... I mean, people at that point usually were standing up.

01:02:26Guest:Yeah.

01:02:27Guest:Cheering.

01:02:27Guest:Yeah.

01:02:28Guest:And it was dead silence.

01:02:30Guest:And I look over and I didn't see this person, but I heard a voice go, like, Jesus Christ.

01:02:36Guest:Like, upset that I'm doing it.

01:02:38Guest:And when the music cuts out and I'm there posing...

01:02:41Guest:You know, I never factored in my mind there was a day this would go bad.

01:02:44Guest:Yeah.

01:02:44Guest:And what do I do if there's silence to that?

01:02:46Guest:I didn't have anything.

01:02:47Guest:So I would just say goodnight.

01:02:47Guest:I'm Big J. Goodnight.

01:02:50Guest:And it was nothing.

01:02:51Guest:And just this, it felt like three minutes.

01:02:53Guest:It was probably 10 seconds of just nothingness.

01:02:56Guest:And then just a voice in the back of the room just goes, what the fuck?

01:03:01Guest:And I didn't have an answer.

01:03:02Guest:I didn't even say goodnight on Big J. I just pulled my pants up.

01:03:06Guest:Like you're shamed.

01:03:07Guest:Yeah, I had no idea what to do.

01:03:09Guest:When I got in the back, Metzger was laughing.

01:03:12Guest:His stomach was hurting.

01:03:15Guest:He goes, you should have just walked off with your pants still around your ankles.

01:03:18Guest:Just like duck walked it off in total embarrassment and shame.

01:03:22Guest:I was like, he's right.

01:03:24Yeah.

01:03:24Guest:And that was the last time I never even tried to do it.

01:03:27Marc:Oh, God.

01:03:28Marc:So somehow or another.

01:03:29Guest:Nor would I. I mean, except for the beauty of this.

01:03:31Marc:But that's why you needed that.

01:03:32Marc:You needed the baptism and failure to take the next step.

01:03:36Marc:So is that when you moved to New York?

01:03:38Marc:Yeah.

01:03:39Marc:Yeah, you got into the clubs and, you know, you met Atel and people started digging you.

01:03:43Marc:I mean, and you got in with those guys.

01:03:45Guest:It's interesting.

01:03:45Guest:You said being influenced by, like, Atel was, like, you know, especially when you start off and you're, like, one of the new guys and there's always, like, people, like, if you're doing well at all or you're getting better, like, all the people come out of work that hate you and they tell you why you're doing so good.

01:03:59Guest:Yeah.

01:04:00Guest:And Keith Robinson gave me advice.

01:04:02Guest:In the beginning, he goes, look, he goes, you don't have to worry about, like, writing your, you know, manifesto yet of what you're going to do.

01:04:08Guest:He goes, get your 15 minutes that works and work it.

01:04:11Guest:Yeah.

01:04:11Guest:Like, work it hard.

01:04:12Guest:Yeah.

01:04:13Guest:And then when you're in everywhere and there's a confidence in you, you can do whatever you want.

01:04:17Guest:Right.

01:04:17Guest:You can do whatever you want.

01:04:18Guest:You know, I barely do material in comedy sets now in the city.

01:04:22Guest:I just talk to the crowd, see where it goes.

01:04:24Guest:Yeah.

01:04:25Guest:But, um, and Kurt would tell me, he goes, yeah, they were saying like, uh, you know, Kurt would be like, oh, Jay's getting, he's in at the comic strip now and staying in New York.

01:04:32Guest:And they'd be like, yeah, doing the same 15 minutes.

01:04:34Guest:He's like, he's getting in, like, you know, he's getting the work now.

01:04:38Guest:And, um,

01:04:39Guest:All that kind of hatred comes your way.

01:04:42Guest:That was the big dig on me.

01:04:44Guest:They'd go, he's just doing a tell.

01:04:47Guest:He's just doing a tell.

01:04:47Guest:He only sounds like a tell.

01:04:50Guest:Maybe one of the reasons why I was able to develop my own voice from it was my first instinct on that when they said that was to attack the problem.

01:04:56Guest:I went right to David Tell.

01:04:59Guest:I said, I keep getting told that I just sound exactly like you and I'm just doing what you do.

01:05:03Guest:Can you watch me?

01:05:04Guest:If you have anything, please.

01:05:06Guest:I'd love to hear it.

01:05:08Guest:and he watched me at the cellar, and he was, like, you know, in his own way.

01:05:11Guest:He was, like, giggling, but he was, like, still smoking side there.

01:05:15Guest:I remember watching him, like, intently because I admired him so much.

01:05:18Guest:He's, like, mm-hmm, you know, because it looks very, like, almost nonchalant.

01:05:22Guest:I was, like, this may be going bad.

01:05:23Guest:And I went out in the hallway afterwards.

01:05:25Guest:I go, what did you think?

01:05:27Guest:And let me tell you, maybe because he thought I did sound like him, and maybe because he thought I didn't, but he goes,

01:05:32Guest:What are you doing two weekends from now?

01:05:34Guest:You want to open for me at Stress Factory?

01:05:37Guest:And I went, yeah.

01:05:37Guest:And from that point, I became like one of his staple guys on the road with him.

01:05:42Guest:And that guy's done, I mean, an enormous amount of things for me in my career.

01:05:46Guest:He's really been a huge help.

01:05:47Guest:And being able to watch him and kind of study what he does.

01:05:50Guest:But like...

01:05:51Guest:For whatever it is, yeah.

01:05:52Guest:People used to say I never denied it.

01:05:54Guest:I was like, look, there's a guy who inspires me, but I don't even have the ability to do what he does.

01:05:59Guest:He's a stand-up, he's like a set-up punch, set-up punch, set-up punch.

01:06:03Guest:My things are way more wordy.

01:06:05Marc:I think it was a cadence thing.

01:06:06Marc:Sure, absolutely, absolutely.

01:06:07Marc:But it turns out that you and Kurt that there's something...

01:06:10Marc:unique about that philly accent like you guys both talks were the same and it tells got sort of a long island thing but it's it's just a pace but you you and kurt both talk like that and i remember i realized like they can't both be it's it's from where they are yeah i mean you talk like from philly yeah that's absolutely that's what it was it was funny and then i always think uh i'd have to make people feel better like joe derose yeah like that would come and i'd remember like

01:06:33Guest:He'd go, I auditioned at the comic strip.

01:06:35Guest:They said, I just sound like you and Kurt.

01:06:37Guest:And I was like, well, we heard what you sound like David Tell.

01:06:38Guest:So I go, it's always going to happen.

01:06:40Guest:Is DeRosa from Philly?

01:06:41Guest:Yeah.

01:06:41Marc:Yeah, that's interesting.

01:06:43Marc:Because it's slightly different than Long Island, but it's not that far away.

01:06:48Guest:No, it's not at all.

01:06:48Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

01:06:49Guest:And they do it.

01:06:49Guest:And when I hear guys, even young guys now that come up from Philly, it's like they do it.

01:06:54Guest:Everyone has the same accent.

01:06:56Marc:It's got nothing to do with it.

01:06:58Marc:So, all right.

01:06:58Marc:So now, it's interesting that the path you've traveled from driving strippers around and stripping

01:07:03Guest:uh down to uh your thong underwear but now you like you're here in la you're standing in some house with some band dudes and so you're no longer opening for a tell but you're doing rock shows yeah well i got an opportunity that i said yes to last summer before i even thought about like what it was going to encompass but uh uh the band corn yeah it was a big uh heavy metal band are you a fan of theirs yeah i'm big you're a big heavy metal guy

01:07:31Guest:Yeah, I'm a music guy in general, but yeah, I do love heavy metal a lot.

01:07:33Guest:And I'm a big fan of Korn.

01:07:34Guest:I've paid to see them numbers of times in my life.

01:07:39Guest:And they said I can go out on tour opening for them.

01:07:41Guest:And blindly, I go, yes, absolutely.

01:07:44Guest:Why would I not do that?

01:07:45Guest:But then two weeks before it happened, I'm like, oh, this may be horrendous.

01:07:50Guest:I'm going to go out for... And really what it was is, I don't know how many times it's been done, like a comic really touring with a band.

01:07:55Guest:I know comics have opened for fans.

01:07:56Guest:It's not an easy gig.

01:07:57Guest:It's a tough gig.

01:07:58Guest:And I was like...

01:07:59Guest:All I wanted was I didn't want to fail at the job.

01:08:01Guest:I have no fear of, like, bombing or doing, I could talk, like, that was one of my favorite pinnacle or milestones in comedy, I thought, was to realize, like, if I had to do an hour to headline somewhere, could I bomb for an hour?

01:08:14Guest:Like, could I comfortably sit there?

01:08:15Guest:And I can.

01:08:16Guest:Yeah.

01:08:16Guest:Because I'll make the staff laugh or something.

01:08:18Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:19Guest:Right.

01:08:19Guest:Having some kind of confidence that, like, I know what I'm doing.

01:08:21Marc:Yeah, it's good to know you can stay on stage for an hour no matter what.

01:08:24Guest:Right.

01:08:25Guest:So I just didn't want to be in the middle of that tour and be like, yeah, we're going to send you home, buddy.

01:08:31Marc:The guy who failed on the cruise.

01:08:32Marc:Right.

01:08:34Guest:As soon as we dock, goodbye.

01:08:37Guest:We're not going to be reboarding you.

01:08:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:40Guest:And it went...

01:08:42Guest:It went great.

01:08:43Guest:It was surprisingly, surprisingly well.

01:08:46Marc:They could focus.

01:08:47Marc:The audience that was there could focus.

01:08:49Guest:I just kind of figured out how to.

01:08:51Guest:Very easily I realized I didn't try to go up there and be shticky, which I'm not shticky, so I tried to make sure I didn't go up there shticky at all and just bouncing the jokes right away.

01:09:02Guest:I just tried to assassinate the front row as much as I could and get them listening and cheerlead a little bit.

01:09:09Guest:It's interesting.

01:09:09Guest:People like...

01:09:11Guest:but uh some people went out on tours after me did it like when they saw this let me do it like yeah and it's not like you know by by set number two they're like hey who wants a free hat you know i was like they told me they go you could do giveaways you could do games with the crowd do whatever yeah and i go well i'm not gonna waste three months of my life like doing fucking giveaway i go if i'm gonna do it like i'd rather live and die by like making them laugh like doing my stuff

01:09:36Guest:And it went, I don't know, it worked well.

01:09:39Guest:I'd try to, whenever someone would heckle out.

01:09:42Guest:And the first tour I did was smaller venues.

01:09:44Guest:It was three months, but it was two tours.

01:09:46Guest:And the first one was like 2,000 theaters, like little theaters.

01:09:51Guest:But then I did Mayhem Fest, which was like 14 bands.

01:09:55Guest:I did my first set at 1.15 in the afternoon, and then 6 p.m., and then right before Rob Zombie went on, on the main stage.

01:10:02Guest:I'd go in front of 25,000 people.

01:10:05Guest:And there's nothing like it.

01:10:07Guest:And again, it's not ideal.

01:10:08Guest:I don't envy...

01:10:10Guest:you know, like the Dane Cook, like, you know, sold that Madison Square Garden.

01:10:14Guest:Like, I don't know if I want to do comedy in Madison Square Garden.

01:10:16Guest:I mean, it's an amazing accomplishment.

01:10:17Guest:Yeah.

01:10:17Guest:But I mean, like, I don't know if I want it.

01:10:18Guest:Like, I like the intimacy of... Yeah.

01:10:21Guest:But there is something about, like, you know, I always save this, like, one particular bit for that last set when it was confronted, like, the 25th.

01:10:29Guest:Because the first set would be, like, 2,000 people.

01:10:30Guest:Yeah.

01:10:30Guest:The second one, maybe, like, 3,000 or 4,000.

01:10:32Guest:And then 25,000.

01:10:33Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:10:34Guest:And I always just save this bit.

01:10:35Guest:And there's something about, like...

01:10:37Guest:I mean, if you can capture half that crowd, and what was cool was when I go on YouTube and you could see a guy video phoning it from the lawn, and you hear the people around him laugh, and you're like, wow, how I was able to hit that, I had no idea, because it just seemed nightmarish.

01:10:53Guest:And then I became cool with the camera guys for the screens, and then I told them, I go, hey, when someone heckles, that's very me, my own personality, my own flaw, maybe, or maybe it's a good virtue, I don't know, but...

01:11:05Guest:If someone would, like, heckle, like, I don't run from it.

01:11:08Guest:25,000 people, no one hears this shithead right here.

01:11:11Guest:Yeah.

01:11:12Guest:But I do.

01:11:13Guest:Yeah.

01:11:13Guest:So I'd acknowledge it, and I'd get the camera guys would put them on the screen so I could just deconstruct him, and the lawn does see it.

01:11:19Guest:Yeah.

01:11:19Guest:And just, like, that was the best.

01:11:20Guest:I mean, like... Did you kill?

01:11:21Guest:It went great.

01:11:23Guest:Virginia Beach and North Carolina, I'll never forget, were two shows where just they weren't that interested.

01:11:26Guest:And I got, like, a core of people to laugh.

01:11:28Guest:But, like... But the other ones, I mean, like...

01:11:31Guest:When I hit the pot, I mean, like 25,000, you know, it wasn't all of obviously.

01:11:34Guest:I can't even imagine it, yeah.

01:11:36Guest:And what a feeling, man.

01:11:37Guest:Yeah.

01:11:38Guest:It really is amazing.

01:11:39Guest:I mean, at the end of the day, I couldn't wait to get back to comedy clubs because I want to, like, you know, talk to people.

01:11:43Guest:I want to, like, be more intimate and, like, tell a personal story.

01:11:46Marc:Could you imagine if you were doing the 2001 bit?

01:11:48Marc:25,000 people.

01:11:51Guest:Oh, man.

01:11:55Guest:That would have been... And then everybody communally yells the end.

01:11:58Guest:What the fuck?

01:12:01Marc:Well, you come a long way, buddy.

01:12:03Marc:I'm glad things are going all right for you.

01:12:05Guest:It is, man.

01:12:06Guest:I'm out here in L.A.

01:12:06Guest:in the garage.

01:12:07Guest:Yeah.

01:12:08Guest:One of the just coolest things I thought... I listen to this podcast all the time, and I've known you for some years now.

01:12:16Guest:I'm proud of you for what you've done here.

01:12:18Guest:And I thought one of the coolest...

01:12:22Guest:The coolest wording of something ever.

01:12:24Guest:You said, are you going to be in L.A.

01:12:25Guest:anytime soon?

01:12:26Guest:And I said, I'll be out there in two weeks.

01:12:27Guest:You go, hey, man, come on out in the garage.

01:12:28Guest:I think that's the coolest way to put that.

01:12:30Guest:I thought that was so badass.

01:12:32Guest:I was excited to do it ever since, man.

01:12:34Guest:Thank you for having me, man.

01:12:34Guest:Yeah, do you feel good about it?

01:12:36Guest:I love it.

01:12:36Guest:Yeah, dude, this was great.

01:12:37Guest:All right, thanks, Jay.

01:12:38Guest:I'll talk comedy with you for four more hours if you want.

01:12:40Guest:Well, it was great seeing you, man.

01:12:41Guest:Absolutely, brother.

01:12:47Marc:Well, that's our show, folks.

01:12:48Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.

01:12:49Marc:Jay's got some good stories.

01:12:50Marc:Go see Jay whenever you can.

01:12:52Marc:Big Jay Oakerson.

01:12:53Marc:He's out there.

01:12:54Marc:He's got things on the Internet.

01:12:55Marc:He's on Twitter.

01:12:56Marc:Do it.

01:12:58Marc:Thank you for listening.

01:12:59Marc:Oh, wait.

01:13:00Marc:Let's do this since I am drinking it.

01:13:02Marc:Yeah, I'm not always drinking, you know.

01:13:04Marc:Sometimes I'm doing it with water.

01:13:06Marc:So we'll be behind the scenes for you.

01:13:09Marc:Pow!

01:13:10Marc:Look out.

01:13:12Marc:Just shit my pants.

01:13:13Marc:Boomer.

01:13:14Marc:Boomer.

01:13:15Marc:You got two seconds.

01:13:17Marc:Thank you for listening.

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01:13:44Marc:Are we good?

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01:13:48Marc:I think that cat doesn't like me anymore.