#2480 - Arsenio Hall

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Our old friend would be so happy, not just that picture, but so much that you've done.

“Like do you believe that people who have gone on know what we're doing or see us?”

I don't know. You'd like to think that you're that important. [LAUGHTER] Oh yeah, I have a feeling they have more important stuff to do on the other side. Yeah, I guess if you're in heaven, you're not thinking about the mothership.

Right. But well, the mothership definitely is from her. Yes, yes.

Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible tribute to her.

Well, the bar is named after her. Yeah, I've heard all the comics I've heard Jane and Ian and all the guys talk about it after they came back. And that's just an honor, man, that plus, you know, I used to say to people, if you haven't taken something from watching Richard prior, you're probably doing it wrong. Right. And Mitzi made the greatest comedy Mecca ever and you got to copy what she did. 100%.

Yeah. Wow. And this is she taught me everything I'm about, how to run a club. How to do it, right? Basically, I'll let the comedians run it.

Let the endmates run the asylum. Yeah, you know. Yeah, we're a perfect inmates for that. And right now, the comedy store is greater than ever. That's awesome.

Yeah, it's wonderful there because, you know, I even got Jay Leno to come back.

You know, because he remembered the old days and hadn't gone back.

And I'm like, dude, it's different. They pay you for coming. They split the door in a different way now. And there are phones in bags. I had to explain that concept.

Yeah. We had encouraged them to do all that. Yeah, that was your era. Yeah. Well, once we left, we started doing that at the mothership for all the shows, then other comedy clubs

sort of phones. It's the way to do it. People are too fucking distracted. Yeah. And I think it frees us up in a way.

I'll say things and try things and not worry about seeing them on YouTube when they're not ready. Or when I've made a mistake and gone too far and said something. Oh, 100%.

“It's also, you have to be free to fuck around and experiment.”

And if someone takes that fucking around experiment, you don't know what's coming out of your mouth. Like, right now, I don't know what's coming out of my mouth right before I say. Right? People have to understand that. This is not like, when you're on stage and you're working out, like a lot of it is freeballing.

You've got material that's like pre sort of established and you've got the bones of it. But you're also fucking around in the moment. And sometimes you fuck around in the moment and it works. And sometimes you fuck around in the moment and it's does nothing. It goes, "Or it's terrible."

You said something awful. You're like, "Whoops, sorry." Yeah. I'm just-- You're just fucking creating something.

And then stand up as the only art form that you have to kind of create in front of a crowd. You can't really get ideas in the concepts and the flesh of it alone. But you have-- it comes alive in front of the crowd. You have to be able to fuck around. Yeah, I am.

Me and Shepel, and you've done this kind of thing. Me and Shepel met Chris Rock in Cleveland because Shepel lives in Ohio, obviously. He's done something very similar to what you've done. But we'll get it out later. Yeah, he's done something really cool.

Basically took over a whole town.

Yeah. And it's funny. And especially at a really funny joke about it, about how-- When white people move into a neighborhood, it's called gentrification. And he goes, "They don't have a word from doing it with two of these motherfuckers." Yeah.

“It's crazy to be gay Shepel the most important man in town.”

Yeah. But Chris Rock was doing Cleveland. And we met him there. And that was the first time I saw the bags. And I was apprehensive.

As a matter of fact, I saw a celebrity in LA who didn't want to put his phone in a bag. And so they had them up against the outside. You know, there's too many snitches in this world. Too many people just want to film everything for the Graham. Yeah.

Like stop. Yeah, sometimes we're seeing the wrong thing. Sometimes we'd drunk. Yeah. For sure, a lot.

Yeah. Yeah, a lot. Dave loves to get lit. Go on to take. But it's also like, that's one of the ways he creates.

Like, I've seen him do entire shows when he's just completely fucking around. And he films everything.

I only plant that seed. Yeah. Yeah. There's an idea there.

“And then you don't tell him you come up with stuff.”

Yeah.

I never drink or smoke before going on stage.

But I love to create it home. And the next day, because sometimes you can write something down. And it'll be like, blaze a button envelope. And the next day, you're like, "I don't know. What the fuck?

I thought was funny about that. That's not what I was smoking. But I like this smoking created home. And then take it to the stage. But when I'm on stage, I've had bad experiences trying to do it high.

And so this will make me creative. I'll be like Hendrix of comedy. Yeah. That's all wrong. Your memory will go.

Yeah. Your memory will go. Yeah. One time I was at the last factory. And I came off and George Lopez said to me, "Why you come off?"

And I said, "I told you I'd do 20."

And he says, "You did five." [ Laughter ] I was at tonight's show moment. I was like, "Yeah." I got to clear something up.

“Speaking of this, that's nothing to do with you.”

But I did a podcast last week with Theo Vaughn. And in it, there was like a video on the internet. There's accusing me of lying about something. And what I said was that I was in the mountains of Utah when the Charlie Kirk thing was going down.

What it actually happened was I was here doing a podcast with Charlie Sheen when the Charlie Kirk thing went down. When we stopped and took a piss break, right? And that's when we found out about it, right? And then when I was in the mountains of Utah,

that's when the Jimmy Kimmel thing was happening. When Jimmy Kimmel was getting trouble. And I was getting all these messages. But I didn't have any service out there. So I had to hook up the star link in order to find out what was happening.

When I did the podcast the other day, it seemed like I was saying that I was in the mountains when Charlie Kirk got shot. I probably was saying that I was exhausted when I did that show last week. So I did a show on Tuesday night at the club. And I have this thing that I do unfortunately.

Where I come home and it's the only time that I get a loan time is when everyone's asleep. And I stayed up way too late. I stayed up super late. Then I had to take my kid to school in the morning

and I was like, I'll just power through. The problem when I do that when I get no sleep is my memory is dog shit. Like I have a really good memory and a terrible memory. It's really good a lot of the times. And then sometimes, especially when I'm tired, it's fucking terrible.

It's like from doing thousands of podcasts. Yeah. My memory is like a room that's filled with boxes and files. And I don't know where the fuck everything is.

So as you were talking the first thing, everything goes to sports for me.

Some of our greatest home run hitters, they strike out a lot. Because they're swinging all in a motherfucking time. Trying to get it to come up with a coffee cold or something. Of course. And I think that's how we are.

Well, not we. You especially right now. You're doing this constantly. You're talking to lots of people saying lots of things. And every now and then is going to be swinging a miss.

Let me. Yeah. But the real problem was sleepy. The real problem was not getting any sleep. And I'm not going to do that anymore.

Because I keep doing things. I get home at nine. Have you had that problem before? Yeah. You get yourself into something.

I've had that problem before. You usually like to fix it with creatine. So creatine is a great supplement when you're tired. It really, there's been studies that show that creatine supplementation, especially like 10 to 20 grams.

It actually alleviates all of the problems that happen with sleep deprivation in terms of cognitive function. But I've been, I just was doing some blood work. So when I was new that I was going to do my blood work, I didn't take any creatine for a month.

Because I want to, because I've read something about creatine possibly being bad for your kidneys. So I wanted to get a baseline, do it, and then do it again when I saw something. So I had this strategy.

But the point is, like, I went, yeah. My brain was foggy. And so for the people that like heard that and like, what is wrong with you?

“That's what I thought when I saw, like somebody put a video on the,”

why is he lying about this? I'm like, oh, I forgot. It wasn't why. It's just, my brain sucks when I don't get sleep. And I'm not going to do that anymore.

Because it's like, when I get home at night, it's the only time I'm alone. It's like my only alone time. And even though I knew I had to get up in the morning and take my kid to school, I was like, I don't fucking care.

I'm staying up. The problem with that is like, when I have to do this the next day, I just don't function as good. I've done it, I've done it before, but I feel it the next day. Like, I can't recall things.

My words don't come out as smooth. I don't have as much, my vocabulary is limited. It's like there's too many problems with it.

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First of all, do guys with these arms? Do you create a team? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great for everybody. Yeah, creatine is not just a supplement for muscles.

Creatine is actually a really good cognitive function supplement. It's actually a cognitive enhancing supplement. Yeah, there's a lot of research on that. Yeah. And the other thing that hit me is,

I was listening to you talk recently. And you talked about smoking herb and how it enhanced the weight lifting process. Yeah. What's that about?

I feel it in your tissues, man. It's like you feel it's really good for coordination exercise. Like there's a lot of you, just who guys just smoke weed. A smoke weed right before class. Like it ripped.

And then to the great things behind when I first started seeing.

Not those guys. Those guys don't do it, but a lot of guys do.

“I think one of the, one of the, I don't want to throw them under the bus.”

One of the brothers was really into smoking weed and doing drugs too. And arguably the best one definitely the best one. But a lot of jujuts of guys do it. And a lot of guys like to do it before kickboxing. It's like, you just feel your muscles more.

You feel like your coordination more. You're more sensitive. It's weird. And it's like instead of that you being like abstract with your movements. And you know, just kind of like doing it.

It's like you feel all the tissues. All the connection when you lift weights. You feel all the fibers of all your shit moving. It's like it just makes you more sensitive. It's such an un misunderstood substance.

Not for everybody. I really believe some people should not get high. I think for some people, it throws them off and sends them down a dark road. And it's just not nothing to procrastinate about their life and personal responsibility. There's a lot of that.

There's a lot of people that just wake and bake and just live in the cloud all day and never get anything done.

And then there's a lot of people that also get like super paranoid. And they get anxiety and they freak out. And then there's people that there's a lot of connections to marijuana and psychosis. Or schizophrenia states that some, but the problem with that is, Were they already, like, did they already have a propensity towards schizophrenia and marijuana push them over the edge?

Were they going to get it anyway? Like it's hard to say. A lot of those guys on a diet coke would have problems. Yeah, right. There's a lot of guys just fucking red lights freak them out.

“There's people that just life is too hard for them.”

And they don't need something else that fucks with it. You know, if you're a mental health struggles, probably shouldn't do mushroom. Yeah. If you're already fucked up, if there's already some things that you're like struggling to hang on to everyday life.

Yeah, you probably shouldn't do acid. You know what I mean? Yeah. You should probably just, just try to like keep your shit together. But that's not everybody.

It's like alcohol. Like alcohol's not for everybody. But some people can have a glass of wine at dinner and just start laughing. It's a nice social lubricant. Some people they at one drink and then they're doing coke and they're getting hookers.

And they're fucking driving on the freeway. The shooting at cops. They just like, they go crazy. Like some people just can't handle alcohol. Doesn't mean it should be illegal.

Right. That's crazy. And this is the same thing I feel with pot. Potters super beneficial to a lot of people. And has been for millions of years.

Yeah. For me. That's my, like in the old days, you'd watch the television show. And a guy would have a martini when he comes home. Yeah.

I even talk about that in the book. When I come home, my girl has me a joint laid out on the counter. You know, and nice little raw papers. And that's my, that's daddy's cocktail. Yeah. It's a nice one too, because it doesn't fuck with your body.

The problem with alcohol is, you know, it feels good while you're doing it. But then the next day you're like, oh. Yeah. You're fucking head and your body's tired. I hear swelling and, you know, different kinds of things.

And also, I'm from a home where my favorite person, my cousin. Because I didn't have brothers and sisters, biological brothers and sisters. So when my cousin came to live with me, a male. He's a teenager and he had a drinking problem. Like I would go inside my toy box and find Scotch.

Oh, you know, he would hide it.

You know, and I loved him and he was hilarious. And he, in part, helped to make me who I am. But a bad experience like that in your youth can make you a little bit leery about liquor. Oh, yeah. I had a friend of mine when I was in high school and his cousin, so coke.

And I watched this guy fall apart. And I watched him do cocaine constantly in fall apart. His life just went down the toilet.

And I never touched cocaine because of that.

I never did. I've still never done coke.

“And I think that's why because I watched his album.”

So you've never tried a line? Never. That's head not once. Yeah. Because I had to try to see what his smell like.

You know what I mean? I'm sure I'd like it. But I've friend Jimmy said don't do this. You'd love it. But he's probably right. But you also have a certain kind of discipline where I think you could do a line

and say, okay, I get it. But I love that you have the discipline to never try it. I don't have that kind of strength. I got to see what it's like once. The thing is like, I don't know anybody who's had like cocaine was really good for me.

Like doing cocaine was really good. I just really chained my life. Just really chained. I really are clarity. Yeah.

I start focusing on it's nicer to people. I don't ever hear that story. Yeah. You never, not once. I did a little coke.

And then I was president of Yale and Rand. I do hear people say that about speed. Which is weird. People say that about end-fendamines. Especially at all.

Like how like, oh my God, it makes me so productive. I got so much done. But it's generally, it's like journalists. And people that have to write a lot. Students.

Yeah. Very curious about at-a-roll because I'm hearing so much. And I'm thinking like when I was doing the book, right? I'm like, would at-a-roll be good to focus me to do for me what it does for students that I hear talk about it?

Probably probably, but I don't- It's a pill, right? It scares me though because I know a lot of people with problems with it. It's a real, it's a real, it's a real catchy one. It gets you.

Yeah. And then you start leaning on it. So that's one of the downs is it's extremely addicting. Very addictive. But what's the other downside?

Well, I would imagine when you get off of it, you're exhausted.

Because I would imagine whenever there's- there's always some sort of a biological,

you know, there's- there's- whenever, there's no free lunch, right? Anything that speeds you up is going to bring you down. Like, there's get- if you're ramping your body up where you're focusing for fucking 16 hours, you're sitting in front of the type, right? Yeah.

“And that's what I like why journalists like it.”

Yeah. I would imagine the back end of it. You've done it, Jamie. Yeah. What's my twice?

Because it kept me up for two days. See, that's what I'm talking about? I'm talking about the main thing. Hold that's it. It's an infediment.

So, yeah, I went to try to go to bed and was like, well, this isn't happening. So, let's get up and see how we're up all day. Two days? Yeah, I just had to call off work, it wasn't good. And then you feel real dopey after it wears off, right?

Yeah, I didn't feel like I just succeeded on anything that day. Man, that is a fucking problem for me. It's like the lack of sleep thing. After this whole Charlie Kirk thing with this, what I was just talking about. Yeah.

I'm really going to concentrate a lot more on sleep. You can't fuck with that because it's like, especially me, it's like, I need my brain to be functioning at its highest potential most of the time. Like, that's what you're doing. Especially when I'm in here.

I was talking at Theo Vaughn. I didn't think it would that be that big of a deal. Theo's a comic. We're just going to be silly. The most recent one.

Yeah, the one I was just talking about is probably be good to be loopy. You know, like, because, you know, the writers on news radio, they would stay up all night on purpose just to get loopy. Because they didn't really do any drugs. They just would use sleep deprivation to be silly.

Yeah. It was hilarious. Like, these guys would start writing like two o'clock in the morning. Like, they would stay up. They would play video games.

They would start writing a script like two o'clock in the morning. And then they would stumble in to, like, when we have a table read. They would stumble into the table read. Like, just finishing this script. They would lay it out to us.

They'd just got done printing it. And these guys would be fucking just completely out of it, hair off fucked up, barefoot. It was really funny the way they operated. But it was there was a method to their madness.

And that method was the more tired you get, the more exhausted you get. You get into sleep deprivation. You get loopy. And you get silly. And you start thinking silly things.

Yeah.

“And those guys, that's how they would use it.”

They would use that weird state of mind that loopiness to write. Yeah. This episode has brought to you by Zipber Cruder. When you're picking out plants for your garden,

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That's zippercruder.com/rogan. Meet your match at Zipber Cruder. I need my sleep, man. If I have sleep, I can do anything. I feel like they've got there with weed without all the loopiness.

You want to get there? You get there with weed and you don't have to stay up all night. You get it right away. Yeah, but weed ain't for everybody. It's not for everybody.

But yeah, I love having my sleep as a matter of fact.

That's the drug that's most important to me.

Having an ambient nearby? Do you like that? Yeah, a little bite of ambient? A little bite. Yeah, well hook you up.

I know a dude who would take that shit every day. He had to take it all the time. And then he was taking two. And he told me like, dude, my house could be on fire. And I would have no idea.

And I'm like, that can't be good, but he needed it.

“There was the only way he could go to sleep.”

But he was also taking an out of all. So he was taking out around the day and then he was taking ambient at night. Can't believe he's still alive. Yeah, that's too much. Yeah, the out of all fuck this life up, too.

Woo. Yeah. It's not, you know, I don't think you should rely on anything for sleep.

For me, I've just, I've never had a sleep problem.

Fortunately, I could go to sleep on a bag of rocks. I could just crash. It drives my wife nuts. It was like, we're on a plane. The moment the plane takes off, I'm out cold. I could just go to sleep.

The bad thing about me is I can sleep best in places I shouldn't sleep. Like church. Yeah. Oh, I was sitting talking about women. Church in my mind.

Church in my mind. Church in my mind. Why? Why was church making yourself sleep? Or reading. Yeah.

They're reading. We'll put you out. There are some audible books that are worse than ambient. Right. You know.

Yeah. Something about physically reading puts me out. Yeah. Just sitting there and looking at the pages. I just started nodding around.

Yeah. I, um. The alchemist. I have been on page 12 for like a year and a half. You know.

Sit down on a plane. And just read the alchemist at the top of the page. And I'm out. Yeah. It's fiction for me that puts me out.

Nonfiction doesn't really put me out. Nonfiction is more like, I guess it's more stimulating because it's real. You know, because I'm reading my real things. Something about reading fiction is what puts me to sleep. Yeah.

For me, it's just reading. I can take out my license. Yeah. Yeah. And look.

Oh. Halfway through my name. Out. This is cool, man. Not having sleep is got like a person.

It's got like legitimate insomnia. That's got to be the nutty as fucking problem. Like, that's that movie, the mechanic? No. The machinist.

No. Is that an action movie? Well, it's, that's the movie with what's Christian Bill. Christian Bill, where he lost an insane amount of weight. Like, Christian Bill's a big guy.

I think he got to like 130 something pounds. Yeah. And the idea was that this guy was going completely insane because he couldn't sleep. And so he wasn't eating. And so he was just like up all the time, like out of it.

Yeah.

“Like, if you see what he looked like when he made that movie, it's like, that's what he looked”

like in the movie. Oh, shit. Yeah. That looks like he's about to make a whole different movie. Yeah.

Like he was about to die. And then he went from that and right afterwards, he did Batman. So he got super jacked. He went from that. And then by the way, the movie sucks.

So this guy like wrecked his health for a movie that wasn't even good. And I mean, I wonder how good it could even be when your main guy is dying. Look at that image on the far right. Look at the difference between. That was like six months later.

That can't be healthy.

Fucking terrible for you. It has to be terrible. Terrible. Do you like to act? No.

I don't hate it. I don't like the process. I don't like waiting around all day.

“I don't like being on set and not like dealing with some actors are great.”

Some actors are just like all kinds of people. Yeah. Cops. A lot of cops are awesome. Because I know you had a point in your life when you could probably do anything you want.

And I never see you pursuing any acting roles.

No. I have void them. I've been offered some fun stuff. And I was like, I'm not going to Bulgaria for three months. Yeah.

It's not my thing. And if it was my thing, I'd be like feel very fortunate and I dive on it. So when you look at something you've done and you're watching a role in daily's or at the premiere, you don't love what you see so much that you do more of it. It doesn't bother me.

It's just not what I enjoy doing. Again, it's the process. It's the problem. It's the 16 hour days. It's like, and it's being around actors.

Because you're around people that need to think and need to talk in a very specific way. Because they're always worried. They're going to be cast out of the kingdom. You know what I mean? So it's like this very disingenuous way of communicating that a lot of actors have.

And you always feel when you do something that this person's going to be your friend for life.

I'll see you next month. And you never see that person ever again. It's such a disingenuous environment. Do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy it?

I kind of like it. But at 70, I prefer to just be at home. You're 70. Yeah. You look so good.

Oh, thank you. That's kind of crazy. Yeah. That you're 70. And no creatine.

I'm not talking to you. I'm going to get it. 70, man. If you told me that you were 45, if I didn't know you told me even 45 would believe you. That's nuts.

Well, that's a blessing. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm happy.

So that's unusual. Yeah, right. A lot of people in their 70, they're bitter and tired. Yeah.

I, um, I talk a little bit in the book about Richard prior coming to my first condo.

I bought a condo. So I could, I didn't have a car yet. And eventually I got one. But when I first came to LA, I wanted to be between the comedy store and the improvs. I could get to both of them.

Oh, right. So I bought me a condo. And I told Richard prior that got a condo. I don't know. It's one of those.

“I think I heard you in Shane talking about how you see your heroes now and then.”

And sometimes you just say the wrong shit. And I was expecting this to be the wrong shit. But it's all I could think of. And I said, Richard, I just bought a condo. And he said, oh, wow.

I like to see it. And I was like, oh. Okay. [ Laughter ] And him and Richard, his body man, came to see my condo.

And that was the coolest thing in the world. But the one thing I remember, remember, I had no furniture. And Richard and it told me his guy had told me to get some cavacias. So I had some cavacias. [ Laughter ]

You know? And we sat on the floor and drank cavacias and listened to a boom box with jazz on it and talked. And he looked around at one point and he said, this reminds me of when I was happy. Whoa. And I don't even have to tell you what went through my head and what I thought that meant.

And I didn't listen to him then. That's the thing is people disperse knowledge to us from their experiences. And sometimes we're too young and dumb to listen. What did that mean to you at the time when he said, "This reminds me of when I was happy."

You know, I was so excited. Richard parking, this is my condo, I didn't process it. But years later, I started realizing that he bought things and philosophies that made his life more complex. And he was happy. This is what I think it means.

He's happy with the simple shit.

“And sometimes, I mean, it's nice to have, isn't it cool to have money but still eat burgers if you want to.”

I mean, because I remember walking through supermarkets. And pretending I was shopping and eating out of the child cart that little, that little pot part. And then leaving the supermarket, you know. So it's nice to be able to buy anything we want. But at the same time, I get that thing of the simplicity.

And, you know, no guard gate, no one is knocking down your door trying to get to you. Yeah, just to contour with no furniture. And for a guy like that, for the greatest that I've ever known in our world to say I was happy when I had a little place with no furniture.

But later, I realized what he meant when I was in a house that was too big with guest houses. Yeah, that would, you know, you walk into a guest house and cobwebs get on your face. You know, because you ain't been in there in a while and you realized, okay, this is what Richard was talking about. I'm doing a lot of shit for other people that I don't need. Right, and too much complexity.

Yeah, to know which somebody said location.

“My business manager said something about my staff and it dawned on me, what the fuck do I have a staff for?”

You know, and I've simplified things a little bit in my life and I'm really happy. Oh, just, you know, me and my woman and a scale down life. That's better. Yeah, there's a lot of people that just want a lot of people around them because it makes them feel important. They have a big staff.

They have a lot of people working for them. A lot of things going on. A lot of different projects. Keep moving, keep moving. Yeah.

But no peace. Yeah. Not good.

I always tell comedians like they're like, oh, I got to get an assistant.

I go, no, you know, just do a shit. Don't get an assistant. You get an assistant. That person's going to want to kill you. That person's going to feel entitled.

You're making all this money. They're not your famous. They're not. They see you for who you really are. They're falling.

Like ain't fucking regular guy. Why is he got all this? Like David Spades assistant duct taped him and tased him. Remember that? Yeah.

Try to kill him. That's that's heavy, man. And I've heard that the people who work for us always hate us.

I've always avoided somebody to kill.

It's not always the case. You know, your housekeeper hates you. And I'm like, no, she's been with me 22 years. This is like, that bitch hates you. And I don't want to believe that.

It's not always the case, but it is often the case that people that are around people that have so much. They feel like, why don't I have this? Like, I'm working for this person. Why am I not doing it?

But why am I not rich? This person could just make me rich. It's weird. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Like, that's not what the job is. The job is your gardener. Garden doesn't make $5 billion a year. Like, this is kind of being crazy. And then you get people to take advantage of you.

Where you get a bill. And you know, like, why does it cost this much? Like, this is kind of like, I have a friend who's very wealthy. He's a businessman. And he goes over every fucking little thing that people charge him.

He's always looking for, you're fucking trying to overcharge me.

He can find his own checks. Yeah. He gets crazy when he thinks people are overcharge him. But I'm like, dude, you're almost 80. And you're worth a billion dollars.

“Like, why are you looking at, like, how much the car wash guy charge is?”

It's crazy. Maybe that's why he has a billion. Perhaps. I mean, he's a businessman. That's his thing.

But what drives him nuts is this idea that people are overcharging him because he's wealthy. Oh, take advantage of him. Joe. The craziest I ever went was I had a barber when I had hair.

You know, and you know, a black barber is a skilled scientist. You know, 'cause back then I had a fried dad and laid to the side with three Adidas stripes over on the left. And you know, my shit was intricate that year. And my business manager happened to be a business manager

for two other entertainers. And he's also my friend. And one day he says, "You know that guy charges "the three of you different prices." And I'm like, get the fuck.

All right. So I found out that Johnny Gill was paying a hundred. I was paying 350. And that drives me crazy. 'Cause basically, like you say, he was charging based on who I am.

Right, yeah, he looked, you can afford it. Yeah, yeah, and I had a friend who had more money than me. And he was charging him a crazy amount. It was like the rental of a road. Crazy money.

“Yeah, well, that's what comes with the territory.”

People just think you're not going to notice. They don't care, you know. Yeah. I guess, yeah. Do you think you're happier now than you were when the Arsenio Hall show was at its peak?

Yeah, I think I'm happier now because with that peak comes a lot of pressure and a lot of work. And I'd be a liar to say, "I don't enjoy having the money without the other shit." You know, I did a good job of investing and making sure that when the lights went out, I was good. So I love my life right now, man.

Oh, and being an OG and pretty much your responsibility is just to give it advice to a comic in the hallway. Yeah, you know, all the young guys don't understand what you did.

“Because what your show was, like back in, I guess, when did it first come on the air?”

What year? Probably coming to America was like '86, '87. I left New York and went and started this show. So '87, '88, some time around and now I'm bad with years. Yeah.

During that time and in the '90s, it changed the whole landscape of late night television. Like completely changed it because late night television was stiff. You know, it was like, yeah, a fucking the desk. The desk made no sense to me. I talk about the desk and how I got rid of it.

But it made no sense.

But I was like, oh, finally, he got rid of the desk.

The fucking, are we being lectured? Am I in the principal's office? Like, what is the fucking desk for? But when they first started doing that in the 1950s, if you went to work, you had a desk.

Yeah. You had to wear a tie. You had a desk and they all smoke cigarettes while they're on the job. They watch the Johnny Carson show. During commercials, Johnny will go under his desk.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, they would often smoke on air. They would do it all the time. Sorry, Dan.

They all smoke cigarettes.

“How about the fact that we could get on a plane to go to a gig?”

And there was a row behind us where smoking began. Right. And which means no smoking row. And the basement behind me got a cigar. Yeah.

And it was just flooding the entire cabin. Yes. Well, dice used to have a joke about it. You're in a fucking tube. Where's the air going?

Yeah. But it was a weird time. But the whole idea was what I was getting to. It was like late night television. It was very stiff.

It was, you know, it was like. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And then your show came around. Paul Inca wrote that. Did he?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Your show came around. And then all of a sudden it was fun and loose. And I remember when Clinton came on your show and played the saxophone.

Yeah. And that, I mean, everybody was like, what is happening? The fucking president of the, was he the president back then? Oh, he was a governor. And that's right.

He was trying to get the young vote. So he did me. And then the next day they decided to do MTV. Because I think what my show did that night was changed. It was changed how you run for the highest office in the land.

And, and look at that. Look at that.

That the joke I had just done was finally a Democrat blowing something other than the election.

[laughter] When you look, you remember jokes in the moment. And dude, so what's interesting is after this presidential candidates, realize they had to come to Rogan and Sunday morning and to meet the press.

You know, and I like that. You know, they have to go everywhere now. Well, they go where the people are paying attention, right? But it was different. Because if they did the tonight show with Johnny Carson,

it would be a, you know, a very competent interview. But it would be stiff. It was, it was like, very, I mean, not even stiff. It's not the right word. It was traditional.

It was like, this was different, like him playing the saxophone, running for president playing the saxophone. It was like, what is happening here? And I tried to get, I, I told Jenna Bush this last week, I'm on this booksling and tour.

And I told her, I said, I invited your grandpa. Because back then there was a mentality that you do equal both sides. You know? And I don't think it was a rule.

But, but, but first of all, my dad was a Republican.

My mother was a Democrat. So I was used to hearing both sides and learning both sides.

“And I thought the best thing I could do for young people”

is show them both sides. And that would be fair of me as a host. And we got a call from a man named Marlin Fitzwater, who said, no fucking way we're coming there. You know, and, and under why?

Um, it's almost like what you talk about with the desk. Um, society at a certain point is stiff. And it takes certain people to loosen it up and make a change. And, uh, I think it was just, they're not used to it. It's like, why are they barking?

And what is, you know? That's right. Things that make you go, hmm. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

There was a lot going on. I had a couple of hooks going. Oh, you had a great hook. The things are making you go home. Everybody used that all day long.

Like, when, if something weird was going on in the office, people are things that make you go, hmm. And it was so cool then they wrote a song about it. And I turned on TV and I would see. Is that CNC music factory?

Yes, that's right.

Nordstroms would have a sale that makes you go, hmm.

And I was like, that's very cool. Yeah. And it came about, sitting with the writers. And, um, I had done it at the comedy store. And he says, you know, we could use that.

And just throw any joke in there, like Randows, that we don't know where to put. Right. And so it really was a cheating technique for me. Yeah, perfect non-secretor.

Yeah. Transition.

“Every now and then, hey, why don't black women breastfeed chocolate milk?”

And you have no place else to put that, that thought. Right. So it's a stream of things that make you go, hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

But it was just, finally, there was a different kind of talk show. It was like, finally, there was a talk show that was more fun. Hey, the desk thing, um, my partner and executive producer Marla Kill Brown. We was sitting around one day and she said, after coming to America, I had done the Joan Rivers thing.

I had filled in for her for 11 weeks. And I think she, uh, her husband committed suicide. And she was going through all that period, right? And then, uh, Conan's creating the Wilton North report in the room that I leave. And I go to Paramount and she says, I'm asking you one thing.

She said, I watch you do stand up the other night of the comedy store. And there is a freedom that you have that I would like you to have on the talk show. And I don't think we can have it with that desk between you and the guest. So I want you to just try without the desk.

And, um, I tried it without the desk and never went back.

Yeah, you changed it. I mean, like, and then George Lopez did no desk when he did his show. A few people have tried the no dust thing. Yeah. But for us, I think it's great.

And, and you know what, I was able, like somebody, like Rosie Perez, who would be nervous at Hold her hand. Hmm. And you can't reach across the desk. Right.

And hold somebody else. Also, the desk was always elevated. Oh, yeah. You want the desk to always above the game? We must be higher.

Which is weird. Well, that's, that's a bizarre, I don't know if that's the ego of the entertainer. Or whether that's some ass kissing prop set designer move. Because we always wanted to be higher. And I remember they put something under my seat.

So I can't you see, huh? Yeah. So I'm sitting even with Karim. You know, we're just bullshit. You know.

Yeah, that's a weird thing. And it's like, why would the host be above movie stars? Like, and rock stars? Yeah. Why?

That doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah. Unless your host is a David Bowie. Yeah, right? Right.

Well, as he decides to do a dark show, even then, it doesn't make any sense.

“It's like, if you want to have a conversation, the way you did it was the best way”

to do it. Just be sitting there. Yeah. Sit with each other. You know?

And now you can lean in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Touch the person. Yeah.

Now, we have a different era where everyone can do talk. I saw Mike Epps talking on his back from his bed the other day. Hold at his phone. And that's when it hit me. It's like, now we have a hard time finding a guest that doesn't have a show.

Right. We can, anyone can have a show now. Yeah. That's kind of cool. It is kind of cool.

And it's just like, and you find your, along as you do it long enough, and you put the right attention to it, and do it honestly, you'll find your own lane. You'll find your own way of doing things. I have friends who have children who have shows. Mmm.

Make up tutorials and successful things going on in their bedroom. One of the biggest shows on YouTube for a long time was a kid that was like unboxing toys. Oh, that's cool. And it was sort of, but then they started monetizing it.

“And I think, you know, as soon as your parents start making all that money off of you,”

opening toy boxes, shit gets weird. It's weird for kids to get famous period. But it was just like, no one had thought that out like that. There would be a lot of people that were interested in you watching toys. Yeah.

Yeah. Like there's a lot of shows that I watch on YouTube that it's just people cooking. Oh, yeah. I love watching people watch a lady cook with big titties. And just an apron.

You know, the side boobets we got out. That's a trick. I like watching people cook with no talking. It's just ASMR. You know, just they're like chopping up the food.

And you hear the sizzle and the pan and like, it's, I don't know why. I like it. I love watching people do things.

Isn't it amazing that you're younger than I am.

But when I was growing up in Cleveland, we had three channels. Right. I remember those days.

And the shit signed off. Right. Yeah. You did that. And you fall asleep with watching TV and that would wake you up.

Yeah. Because it would be just crackling. Oh, geez. I won't stay up too late. Yeah.

“You have to shut it off after the American flag.”

Because the American flag would wave on the TV. Right. Yeah. There would be a match fade from a soldier to the American flag. Yeah.

And then it would just go static at two in the morning. And then I remember when Fox came out. And everybody's like, this channel is crazy. Yeah. Foxes.

They have the Simpsons and my life, man. Those Tracy Allman. Mm-hmm. And then, of course, they discovered that they could get numbers with me and living color. Mm-hmm.

And Fox was really important to us. Fox was important to America. I mean, it was, it was a looser, wilder network. It was like a network that was a little crazier. Mm-hmm.

They were doing things. They were getting nuts. And they had to. They had to take some chances and roll the ice in a different way. Right.

Yeah. And then cable came along.

“It was like the slow descent into madness.”

Yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you have 150 channels. And now you have like literally an infinite number of channels.

Because of streaming in YouTube, it's like you can never run out of things to look at.

Which is crazy because I turn a lot. And I'm like, yo, motherfucker. They got two million stations. And you channeled Jason. You can find something.

But I'm a big YouTube guy. Because I don't like commercials. Mm-hmm. I want what I want. I want it in small increments.

I actually, as a 70-year-old, fit more into this culture than I did the culture I was born into. I like things for three minutes. It's fucked me up too. You know, I don't want long shit. I want quick shit.

Mm-hmm. And I'm jumping around. Well, when I'm watching TV, I'm generally trying to check out. You know, or I'm trying to be educated. Right.

So either I'm watching some like particle physicist talk about the way they find new particles by using particle colliders and large hadron colliders in the amount of energy required to duplicate the, you know, the conditions that happen right after the big bang. I'm just like, yeah. I watch a lot of that shit.

And then I just watch people play pool. I watch people play pool. And I watch, you know, people make furniture and people cook. I mean, I'm just trying to like unwind. Yeah.

I was trying to like realize. But that's so heavy. I heard you and can't talking about the pyramids. Mm-hmm. And as a matter of fact, it was part of the reason I was afraid to come here.

Right. Because I've heard you talk about the re-explosion of it. It's just when you hear that kind of shit and you're like, I don't want to be here like pussy crazy, huh? [laughter]

I don't want to be that guy. Yeah. So it's intimidating to watch intelligent people have an exchange. And say, I got to go there. Is it?

Oh, yeah.

You don't want to be the first idiot in the room.

Nobody. You definitely want to be the first idiot on the show. I ain't, you're not an idiot anyway. But if there's been plenty of really fucking dumb people on the show that were great.

“But do you know somebody that is really intelligent and conversation with them is intimidating?”

Oh, sure. So it's afraid of this room. I mean, I know people like Bill Clinton. The first time I sat and talked to Bill Clinton not on the air. For the second time, I guess I should say.

It was kind of daunting because he, no matter what your politics is, he's a really smart guy. Yeah. Cat Williams is the same way. That motherfucker read a lot more books than I read.

Well, cats brilliant. I mean, you can't be that funny and not be very intelligent. So the reason Bill caused me was so funny. He was a bright man. Oh, yeah.

He's just, that's a problematic subject. I was also Bill Clinton. I wish Bill Clinton didn't have so many problems because I would like to talk to him. I would love to have to sit down with him on a podcast.

You know, the problem is like, how do you sit down and not talk about all the chaos

and all the nutty shit and the Epstein files and all the other shit. Like you kind of almost have to talk about it. It's too bad because I think he's a fascinating person. And I think he's one of the greatest presidents of all time for sure. And if you go back and look at what he accomplished during his administration,

they balance the budget. There was like one of the first times in the history of this fucking country that we didn't have a gigantic debt. Now our debt's like 39 trillion. It's crazy.

And everybody's so bad at balancing the budget. And you go back and listen to him talk when he was running for president.

Like everything he said made sense. And didn't he move a little to the right? I mean, it wasn't to the right. It was just sensible. Like what is to the right and what is to the left?

Well, it's accepting that a lot of things are valuable that are not a part of your party's philosophy. I think we have to be willing to compromise and move a little bit. And that goes for all politicians. We have to be able to move a little bit to be logical and serve all of America

for sure.

But I think the problem is parties all have to agree.

And they then they form ideologies that you cannot stray from. So if you're one of those people that says, "Hey, maybe you open borders of bad idea because terrorists can come through." No, there's no one's illegal on stolen land.

“Everybody gets crazy because there's a party line that you have to stick with.”

This is today. Today things are incredibly polarizing. But if you go back and listen to some of the things that Clinton was saying when he was running for president and when he was president, boy, these are almost right-wing talking points in a lot of way. But they do.

But it's not really right. But it's not really right-wing. It's just sensible. Like what is right and what is left? Left used to be, first of all, freedom of speech was a paramount importance.

It used to be that they were very open-minded.

It used to be like the education was of crucial importance.

And that discourse was crucially important. And that you have to look out for citizens in sense of like having social safety nets and having welfare programs and and food stamps. And all the things that are really important for a society because not everybody is in the same position in life. And if we're a community of people, which is what it contributes supposed to be, you're supposed to look out for everyone.

You know, that that's sensible. That's what the lefty used to be. And then it became transwemeter women, men can get pregnant. And by the way, when you deal with left and right, you have to almost attach a year because we've seen parties change. I'm always reminded that the Democratic Party was the party of the clan.

If you go far enough back. So I'm a Republican. I have to look at it all. Well, wasn't Lincoln a Republican? I believe Lincoln wasn't Republican.

I think the Republicans were the ones who were trying to abolish slavery. There was a lot of, there's a lot of weird things that shift back and forth. And that you, you think of right wing and left wing in today's standards. Like we were playing a clip of Hillary Clinton the other day when she was running for president. I think it was, was it 2008 or 2012.

Eight. She was running for president. She's like, if you're here illegal from another country, you should have to pay a stiff penalty. You should have to learn English. And if you have any criminal history whatsoever, no questions ask you get out of the country.

Never was cheering like that.

But ladies, maga, that sounds completely maga.

“That's why I say when you deal with Democrat Republican, you have to attack a year.”

Because he's evolved and changed many times. That's all you're just being manipulated. And you've been manipulated by these two teams and you have to pick a team. You have to decide which team you want. I hate that.

It's so stupid. I'm politically homeless. I've always been politically homeless for a long fucking time. Neither one of them make any sense to me. We need a logical centrist government.

There's a lot of things that we should do to make this country a better place. We can do these things. And we don't have to attach them to left or right. Anything that the left says that's logical. The people on the right, they immediately dismiss it because it's coming from the left.

And that happens the same where the left does it to people on the right. It's dumb. It's a team thing. It's like the dolphins versus the raiders. It's just you pick a fucking team and you lay that team in a whole game, by the way.

You pick a team and you're a team rules and the other team sucks. And there's a lot of people out there that are not that they're not open minded. And they love a good rigid ideology that they could adhere to. So now I don't have to think for myself. I have a predetermined pattern of opinions that I can just adopt.

And I'll just accept those.

“And that's how I think and that's what I'm going to argue with.”

When I was young, I used to. In some jokes say my my heart is democratic, but my wallet is Republican. Yeah. You know, but it's not even that simple anymore. It's gotten much more complicated.

Yeah, much much more complicated. It's like, you know, everyone should be anti fraud. Whether you're on the left or on the right. Or should be your committing fraud. Right.

Then right. You know, then I'm pro me. Yeah.

We'd like to dismiss it. Whether it's the left or the right. Yeah. There's like, we have a problem in this country where we have a two party system. Two party systems are inherently flawed because there's no fucking way that one side is going to represent you entirely.

And it's much more likely if you have like five, ten, fifteen different parties. They're all legitimate because we don't have another legitimate party.

If you vote for libertarian and I've voted libertarian before you're basically saying fuck these people.

You know, fuck these people. You know, fuck these people. I'm voting. You're jacking up the Dolphin Raider game. Yeah.

I'm voting for rugby. Yeah.

“Because that's what you're basically saying.”

You're like, I can't get behind either one of these motherfuckers. So I'm going to vote for this guy who has no chance. You know, I've done that before. I did that with Joe Jordanson. I did that with Gary Johnson.

I voted for both of them. Why do you think we've not been able to come up with legitimate third, fourth and fifth parties? Well, they got it locked down. They've got it locked down. With donations and money.

Yeah, it's money. Money and politics. When they allowed corporations to just essentially give as much as they feel like it. Like when corporations. And not just corporations, but other countries.

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H-E-L-P.com/J-R-E. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's not good. It's not good.

Money in politics is the real problem.

You know, it should, you know, the whole thing, it's a mess. And then you find out how much money politicians make. Well, TSA guys have nothing. Yeah. And politicians are still getting a motherfucking check? Yes, exactly.

Well, I felt that way also about the lockdowns in California. I was like, all these people that are saying that you should have no outdoor dining. Your paycheck should be entirely dependent on the GDP of your city. And if your city starts suffering, you should fucking suffer. And I guarantee you want those businesses to open right the fuck back up.

Because it didn't make any sense. They were doing things for optics only.

“And they were doing things because they like control.”

People love control. They love it. And once you give them power over people, they're in the control business. They like to keep that control. And it just gets gross.

And they don't have any, there's no repercussions. They don't get in trouble. If all these, like, California, somebody should be in trouble for the abstinence. Somebody. At least one person, please?

Yes. It's crazy. It's crazy. And we know it. And we say it.

But in a motherfucking thing, we can do about it. Right. It's like, right now, there's some talk about journalists getting in trouble for leaking information about the down pilot. And that they want to prosecute these journalists.

At the same time, no one's being prosecuted for the abstinence. Yeah. That's nuts. That's what's a six society. As a kid, I did magic, right, and there's a thing in magic.

I take a coin and put in this hand. There's a thing called misdirection. That's when I just did to you. You looked at that here. Right.

And I'm doing some shit right here. Right. That's the story of American politics. Oh, yeah. Whenever something weird is going to look when Monica Lewinsky, when Bill Clinton got caught with Monica Lewinsky,

they mean to their bomb and some other countries. I'm like, we got to distract these people. This is just too complicated. Yeah. Look, the abstinence files comes out.

We go to war with Iran. It's a good way to get people to stop talking about certain things. You give them a new problem to think about. Hey, this morning, I wake up in a very nice hotel. Thanks to you.

Breakfast was paid for what a tip was done and all that shit. It was kind of cool. And I was nervous. And I'm thinking, I'm nervous.

But then, you know, sometimes you try to focus on why you're really nervous. Why am I so nervous? And I realized it wasn't just coming here. I had watched about a half hour of news. And it was making my stomach hurt.

Yeah. Because I feel so sad on a lot of levels. And anxiety. Yes. Yes.

And news just gives me anxiety. But I got a, as a comic, I got to watch because I got to know everything. I got to have that, that mental roller decks loaded. Yes. Or crowdwork or whatever.

We have to know what's going on in the world, unfortunately. If I wasn't a comic, I would have no social media.

I would never consume the news.

I would just hide. Yeah. I would just go to a peaceful place. I'd probably have a place in the mountain somewhere and just fucking chill. I would not want to have anything to do with any of this bullshit that's going on the world.

“And I know people, a lot of people say, oh, you have to participate.”

Man, yeah, I guess. But I don't think your participation is having the kind of effect that you'd like it to have. I think it's having an effect on the way you think and feel much more. So like a disproportionate effect on your mental health and your anxiety levels. And all these different things that you cannot control by paying attention to it.

You can't control what these fucking people are doing. And it just drives you nuts. And it's frustrating because we realize, I mean, you and I are both millionaires. You are a lot more than me. But at the same time, we realize we don't have enough money to really affect it.

I mean, you, you can affect some things. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, not that I think about it. I want to. I don't want to affect.

If I can affect things in a positive way, I can.

Yeah, I mean, there's some things that affect things by dispersing information of candidates. Yeah. And for helping to inform people. Well, but that kind of money that you have to have to have a dinner and malibu. And later, get some shit done that you want to get done because the president is your guy now.

Yeah. Or girls. Very complicated. Yeah. Very, and then that kind of complication comes with a lot of scrutiny, a lot of weirdness.

And also like, you don't really know these people. You support people, like for running for president or governor, mayor, whatever. How do you, how do you, how do you know them? Are you really sure? Well, this is like, is there no good options?

So you go with the least evil option? Well, a lot of us do that. And that's really painful. Yeah. Think that the lesser of two evils is a horrible thing as a philosophy for a place we raise our children.

Right. Yeah. There's no one person that really comes along.

We like, finally, like a peaceful God-loving person who's just looking out for it.

But his best interest to really only wants to do this because they think they can affect change. And then once they do try to affect change, they get fucking shot. Because nobody really wants that because they're all making money.

“When we were coming up, remember to Sam Kinnison bit?”

Which bit? I think it was very similar to that. People who have an idea we killed him. Oh, that was Bill Hicks. Oh, it was Hicks.

Yeah. Yeah. Hicks had a great bit about that. Yeah. And it's totally true.

I mean, anybody that really wants to rock the apple cart, like that person's a problem. You know, and all these people that are making, well, they're sociopaths. They're making fucking billions of dollars just being cuts. And they do not want you coming along and waking people up to that. And saying, hey, we should put a stop to all this.

We should, you know, we should stop these people from it. Like, that's why people cheered when that God got shot. The United Healthcare guy. He got shot. Oh, yeah.

People were happy. They were happy. Like, finally.

“At first I thought it was, I thought, homey who shot him.”

I thought it was his eyebrows. You know, because women were going crazy. You know, a hot guy. Yeah. He's a good looking guy, too.

Perfect guy. To be like a martyr. Yeah. By the way, have you noticed throughout history, good looking people get treated differently when it comes to the justice system.

They've done experimental trials where the hot guy gets off on for murder easy. Because 11 women were cool with it. You know, well, women are weird with killers. You know, when guys are even serial killers, when they go to jail women, they get great letters. Proposals weird.

Mary, me. Yeah. Even like Richard Ramirez was getting all these proposals while he was in jail. But the ultimate game for a woman is to be married, but not have to live with that motherfucker. So that might be kind of cool.

You know, kind of. I don't know what it is. I heard someone talk about that saying that there's women that like men that are capable of killing. Who? Because back in the day, it was, if someone was, if you needed someone to protect you, you didn't,

you didn't want someone that would hesitate if they were going to kill someone. You wanted someone to ask experience killing people.

And just has no problem murdering people. And if they like you, they won't murder you, but they'll murder other people. Like anybody that's a problem. I knew a girl who went out with a couple of friends in mind. And her M.O. was to do something publicly that would make the man whip somebody's ass to defend her honor or something.

And she'd be because that, that made her feel better. That's a crazy bitch. I've been around people like that before.

I always got rid of them real quick.

I've had a few ladies like that. You're going to him say that to me? You know, I feel like, why'd you say that to him? Don't get me involved in this stupid shit. But it's hard.

I was on a club as a young man on sunset. Left the comedy store went down the street to a place called Carlos and Charlie's. And back then they had this garment called a tube top. Oh, yeah. It was just an elastic.

Mm-hmm. A elastic piece about eight inches or depending on your breast. And I watched a dude take his finger and just pull the girls two top down. And he fell out and I'm watching her man. He didn't know what to do.

You know, because you don't want to fight these guys. Right. You almost want to just say, "Baby, just pull up your top. Let's go home." Yeah.

But he had to fight. Yeah.

“And in that situation, I think you have to fight.”

You just definitely shouldn't be there in the first place. That's the problem with going to clubs. You're just to run into the potential psychopath. Mm-hmm. It's just to, like, that's where they go.

Where people act like cons. That's where they go. When is the last time you went to a club? Yeah, it's been a long time for me. I mean, there is no club for 70 years.

No, no, no. You know, that's called ARP. Well, if you do go, it's sad. If you don't want to be the older bar. Yeah.

Hey, ladies. Hey, yeah. Fucking grandpa doing here. But our kids dance now. That's a good question.

My son has, like, I remember time when you say, I'm doing the cabbage fetch now. You know, it's like, you knew what the latest dance was. My son never dances. I've taken him to New Year's Eve parties.

He never doing a slow record.

Says to a girl you want to dance. You know, you go out and slow dance. What happened to that? That's true, right? Well, because clubs got associated with violence.

Like clubs get associated with people getting drunk. They're doing drugs and chaos and people getting shot. You know? Yeah. This is too much of that going on.

And you hear about that at concerts, too. But yeah, you're right. You don't. There's no new dances.

“There's no things that like you have to learn.”

You know? But you know, you know what's replaced it? Maybe the entire family on TikTok. Right. TikTok has definitely got dances that you got to learn.

Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, for people that are right. That's where the dances are.

That's where the dance is. Yeah.

They're not going to clubs.

They're just boring. Just go viral again, because their dance and the freak on at least. It's a 25-year-old song that has got to dance to it. What's the dance? Show me the dance.

Yeah. Couldn't even begin to start it. I can show you the video. You do it. You've been practicing.

I used to show me the video. What's the, what's the corn dance? In my head, you're like, get up and do it. Do we have to not play the music? Yeah, probably not music.

Yeah. So this is, this is the dance. See, it's a new dance. Yeah. You don't go to a club.

You do it with your girl.

“I think they made it back on Billboard because, you know, like the songs.”

Oh, that's hilarious. That's somebody plays on it. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. 1998.

That's old. Wow. That's crazy. So I don't know. And then to contrast to this is the club in Austin, or everybody goes.

They're not necessarily done those dances. What club is this? This is called the Concourse. Oh, see, I can't go to a club with no shirt. And what do they do here?

Like DJs. Oh, DJs. So they just bounce around. Punch your lasers. Yeah.

This is like a jazz-excess content. Yeah. I can't even chat. Yeah. They just bounce around.

They're all on X to C. There are various stairs at the DJ stage, like they're performing. How weird. Yeah. This is a sign of a sick culture.

Not the same. They were different culture. But it is like, but that there's no the other thing. There's no like people dancing, you know? Yeah.

On the old days. Like, if you go back and you watch like night clubs from like the 1960s and 70s, what did it was everybody like in the disco days, right? Yeah. That's perfect.

When ramp was singing. But burn this mother down. Right. Yeah. Damn.

Yeah. People's dancing. I don't know. Well, I remember when I was a kid, Silent Live kid, or Silent Night fever,

rather came out. Who? And that's when everybody wanted to learn how to dance. Because John Travolta. Yeah.

He could fucking dance. And they would have dance offs. And black people were saying, "We got to step up the game if this boy can do that." Right.

You know, so we had to get better. Right. And then, yeah, it's soul trained.

Everybody was dancing on TV.

Yes. Yeah.

“Saturday morning was, that was life for me.”

There's no shows where there's like a bunch of people performing music on TV. Well, that's the, that's that gap between me and you as talkers. One of the problems I had, and I talking to book about this, I love music. And I grew up wanting to do that show.

So when they start telling me, you know, you can get better numbers with how you mandel. Just talking, then you can with this, because I put boys to men and the temptations together once. I had to fly boys to men from Philly.

I had, you know, and they wanted it less black. And now I got 14 brothers doing cool. You know, and it's like, no, they wanted it less black. Well, they would say shit like that to you. Oh, yeah, they wanted, um, this is the carrot.

They said, we know Johnny's going to leave one day.

You know, you always think it's going to be Tuesday.

So you can inherit his audience if you do the right show. But I, Joe, I used to do the talk show on my basement, man. We put on a temptations record. And my friend, Jr. would be my guest. And he would sing Get Ready on Soul Train.

They lip sync. We knew the microphones wouldn't plugged in. And so he would sing. And then I'd interview him. I wanted to do that show.

But you were doing that when you were young. Oh, yeah. How old were you when you're doing that? 11. Really?

Yeah. My mother would have rent parties. And so she'd rent these card tables and chairs.

“And the people like in LA, we call it town in country, right?”

You can rent stuff for your party. So the next day they come and pick up the stuff in a truck. But before they'd pick it up, I would do a talk show with that stuff. And I dreamed of everything that I did eventually in my life. Wow.

And it was, it was the show I wanted to do. So at a certain point when they say, Does Prince need a purple piano? You know. He wanted purple piano.

And the show I was doing was just too expensive. And you and I talked once at the ice house when I tried to do the reboot show. Yeah. I was telling you how complicated it was. They wanted my Twitter site.

They told you. I was telling people they took over your fucking social media and they wouldn't give it back. Yeah. It was hard to get back. That's crazy.

I remember you telling me that we were standing outside the outside area of the ice house. And you're like, I can't get my fucking social media back. I'm like, that's crazy. They took your social media. Yeah.

And they were used to promote other shows. The end of that reboot experience. Didn't go down exactly the way I wanted to like,

like I got picked up first.

And Jay Leno came out and read a letter from less moon vows that I was picked up for a second season. And then we started talking about the second season. And here's the great thing. They wanted you really got to stop doing the music as a matter of fact.

How about no house band? And it's interesting. Well, but but but but economically speaking, Joe, I look at it. They wanted me to do Joe Rogan before there was a Joe Rogan.

They just want you to talk to people and start. I watched Fallen with Will Smith one night and Will Smith rode in on a horse. And I'm like, that's expensive. You know, they wanted me to do what we're doing right now. Because this is cheaper to do.

I would love for us to have a hip hop star here right now following me. But this is economically sound. It's a new day. Right. So that's all it was. It was just a money thing. They just. Well, that was the reboot show.

The first show. You know, if they want me to be in the position to inherit Johnny's audience. Because that's they wanted me. And themselves to make more money. A lot of money keep making money.

And I was kind of kicking the bag because. I had wanted to do this show since I was a kid. I couldn't imagine to show all the thing is your show was so popular. And by the way, they got numbers one night when Whitney didn't sing. She just came on.

And that was the kiss of death in my morning meetings. Because they were like, look, Whitney's saying nothing and look at the numbers. You know, so they were shooting for the Joe Rogan experience before there wasn't experience. That's fucking people concentrating on the numbers. It's like you're missing the experience.

“Yeah, it's sometimes like, you know, it's really important for me to look back and say.”

I love that show that I did. And I don't regret a moment of it. But I get a corporate organization saying we can make more money. And we can get more people in. Yeah, if I was a court, I would be a terrible corporate executive, by the way.

Yeah, I would say just be you, just have fun. And whatever ads we get, we get, whatever money we get, we get. And that's good. You get plenty. It'll be fine. You can't, you got to let up. It has to, I feel like every show has to be a unique expression of the person that's hosting it and what they're trying to do.

Like let that person be free. Like, imagine a Quentin Tarantino had a sit down with a group of people that were executives before he wrote a script.

You would never get any of these fucking chaotic crazy movies.

They were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't bash a woman's head on a mantelpiece. That's nuts. Yeah. Like don't do that. No, you can't, you know, like in Jackie Brown, no, you can't fucking shoot that girl on the parking lot.

That's nuts. You can't do that. You can't do any of these things. You've got to let someone just be free. And then it finds its audience. Yeah.

“I remember when iced tea came on to explain cop killer.”

And his way of exposing himself. By the way. Yeah. And it was a metal band. Yeah.

People don't realize that. Like iced tea, people forgot body count was a metal band. Yeah, you got it. Search that, yo. Right.

A lot of people don't even know that he did that. You think of iced tea? You think of it? More than you think of, you know, hustler. You think of all those classic songs.

Colors. You think of that. You don't think of body count. Which is like iced tea reinvented himself.

And he was like, I always love this kind of music.

You can't tell me what the fuck I do. Well, I like this kind of music too. Amazing career. That's true. And now he plays a cop for like 25 years.

How about that for irony? I know when he was a parent. And now that's crazy. Well, remember when he was in Pimp's up hose down? Yeah, absolutely.

He was in that too. Yeah. I mean, he was talking about the Pimp game. It's hilarious. Yeah, he came on.

By the way, they didn't want me to do that. You know, book him. But I thought it was. I thought it was cool to expose America to some conversations. They might not hear normally.

Right. And the more power I got, the more I tried to push that envelope and do those things. He compared it to Schwarzenegger.

“He says, you don't think he's really determinate it, right?”

Yeah. And he says, I'm not a cop killer. But there's a message through this character. Right. And I'm paraphrasing.

Yeah. But it was nice to hear people who I know. I would talk to two pop. And I would say, say that on the air. You got to talk about that on the air.

And that was, we didn't have Twitter. We didn't have the blue bird. I was kind of the black bird. Right. And I was able to have these like two pop call me once and he says,

man, they want me to take a AIDS test before I do this movie. And unless I'm really going to fuck Janet, I don't think I should have to take a AIDS test. And I'm like, please don't say anymore. Just come on to show and this fit into both categories.

Come on to show. Don't do any music. Just sit and talk. And those nights would do really good. Of course.

Yeah. And of course, because people want to hear people really talk. Especially in those weird settings, where most of the time when people are coming on talk shows, they would just have this like very canned sort of like pre program thing

that they would talk about. They would talk about their character. We have people don't know. We have pre interviews. What you don't have in a show like this.

But I get a card. Yeah. That morning, it's like, okay.

Here's what Jackie Collins would like to talk about.

Right. Or a Nicole Kidman has requested that you don't mention Tom. Cruz. And I'm like, what's in the code?

Only reason that big is here.

“Because I think Tom Cruz is going to walk out.”

You know. Oh, it was, it was crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, it's all PR people.

And it's again, you're dealing with too many different people that are peripheral people. Where all their money is dependent on this one person performing. So they just want to make sure they make the maximum amount of money possible. Like, don't make any ripples. Don't cause any waves.

Don't cause any problems. Just go out there and smile. Yeah. Don't. We'll sell more records.

We'll sell more movies. TV show. Get better ratings. Don't mess it up. Yeah.

Guys like Prince used to be frustrated with the fact that if something's a hit, can you give us something like that again? How many beats per second is that? Give us that again. Or any big artists.

It's like we want more of a waterfall. Yeah. Yeah. No, Prince was one of the most revolutionary artists ever. And people that don't know the early stuff, they don't know how crazy it was.

That this guy was the house song called Head. Yeah. Just sing it about getting head. First time I saw him, he was opening for the Rolling Stones.

And the audience didn't dig him because it was different back then. And he was singing soft and wet. Right. Right. Well, Prince was just, he was so unique man.

And he predicted a lot of the things that we're dealing with now and going through.

I remember the first time he talked about what became Napster.

And he talked about owning your own property and what was going to and slave on his jaw. And we thought that was silly. But it meant something. Well, he was dealing with these crazy contracts where these record companies, his predatory record companies would lock you into these contracts.

And they fucking owned you. So his response to that was like, OK, I won't perform as Prince anymore. Now I'm fucking this simple. I'm a symbol. It is slave.

Yeah. In signal. What are we going to do now? I'm a symbol. I'm not even selling myself as Prince.

“And he would just, I mean, how revolutionary is that?”

This guy said, OK, I know the work around. I won't use my name anymore. I'll just be a symbol. He was bad. But he was such a bad mother fucker.

The people like, I know who that is. I don't care what that fucking symbol is. That's Prince. Let him sing. Let him do things.

Did you ever meet him? No. I had one opportunity to fucking see him live. Yeah. And I blew it.

At the Great Western Forum. No. It was at one of the hotels in Vegas. But it was a really late show. And I had a show earlier that night.

And there said, and Prince was doing small shows back then. It was like this small, like intimate audience. But it was like after midnight. I was like, I'm fucking tired. I'm going to go sleep.

And this is like in dukes. Ah, I fucked up, man. I fucked up.

“It was like, when his career was in a weird place.”

Because he wasn't doing like big shows anymore. And he was doing this late night show. And people were saying it was really good. But I was like, I'm tired. I'm not going to see this.

And then years later when he was dead, I was like, God, did I fuck up.

I always thought Prince was going to be around.

Yeah. And Prince, we lost Prince to Fentano. Yeah, a lot of people don't want to be an elevator. God damn it. I remember the music college album where he toured.

And he attached the album to the ticket. So that when you bought a ticket, you were buying an album. And it instantly became a million dollar seller with that philosophy. He had genius. That was way ahead of the pimps.

Yeah. I love it. He just knew that he was being fucked. And he knew that all they're selling is his brilliance. They don't have anything.

What is a record company selling? They're only selling the art. That's it. They don't make it. And they're just selling a penny a copy.

Yeah. Exactly. The record company was getting most of it. And now it makes even less sense. Because nobody even buys albums anymore.

“So how the fuck are these record companies even surviving?”

It's so crazy that they're still figure out a way. So they watch their tentacles under these young artists. And for young artists, they feel like they've made it when they're a part of a record deal. Like I got a deal. And I also want to tell them like, this is a...

That ain't a deal. You got to deal with the devil. Like if you just put your shit on YouTube or on SoundCloud or anywhere where people hear it and they start sharing it, you'll be huge. Yeah. We're getting smarter and learning how to deal with the pimps.

Yeah. I talk in the book about Prince also had a great sense of humor. You would have loved him. You know, as a person, beyond the musician. And there was a time when I was hosting the MTV Awards.

And he had no ass in his pants. And, you know. So when he's coming past me down the hall, I realize, oh shit. Because as you see this motherfucker, I know ass in his pants. We'll have to be talking about this tomorrow.

So obviously, when I get back to the show, my first monologue is about that night. Really? Yes. 1991, in that crazy. That was nuts.

1991. So I do jokes about that in the monologue. And like a week or two after the jokes. I get a box in the mail at Paramount. And it's from Prince.

And I open it. I figure it's maybe a hoodie. Right. I opened it. And it's a beautiful black and white suit with all the Prince symbols on it.

Maybe look like I was the drummer for new power generation. It was cool. Cool suit. And I'm looking at it. And my assistant said, turn it around.

[laughter] I turned it around. There was no ass. Did you hear me? No.

No. Not even at the crib. I never put it on.

It's like, I could never bring myself to put it on that suit.

It had no back joke. That's hilarious.

But that's his sense of humor. That's hilarious. That's so funny. I took him to an after-hour. It's doing it once.

I talk about that in the book.

“Because he was very interested in what people listen to and what moves people in clubs.”

And I told him about an after-hour. He joined down the way south of Willshire that was in a lady's house. And he put pit bulls and a fence. And they let you in. They like to chain back.

Bring you to the back. And you know, you put money on the counter. And they put your liquor in a solo cup. You know, not a legal place. And I told him about the place.

And he said, I want to go. And I took him down the way. To the spot. He had an acrylic cane. And a suit where the shoes match the suit.

The exact same material.

And he sat with me in this after I always joined and listened to the music.

And it was where the stripper was. Oh, God. This was maybe two years after I left the talk show. And so did he need the cane back then? Was that when he was having hit problems?

I think so. Now we understand that maybe he had a replacement. A hip replacement or something. I thought it was fashion. But it probably was a little necessary that year.

And he said he was all his dancing. Oh, he should jump off speed. Yeah. And land with heels. Mm-hmm.

So that's what fucked him up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

“I think he was with him as a cane over the time now.”

That's well, he probably was struggling even back then. Because there's a lot of guys that blew their hips out. Yeah. He probably needed it. He was an athlete per se.

Oh, for sure. I mean, his dancing was insane. And he was a good basketball player. Well, I have one of those. He, um, the hat with the police hat with the change.

He sent me that one day. So I'm sure there are a few of them. But just to have one of those from him. And he sent me what looks like a Smith and Wesson 38 long. But it was fixed up.

So the microphone was where the barrel is. So he could hold the gun and sing into it like that. Oh, I have that. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Very cool. I became good friends with Charlie Murphy and Charlie had. Oh, look at that. Yes. Wow.

Wow. I have one of those. I don't know how many of their were. But I have one from that. That's crazy.

Wow. But Charlie Murphy?

“Well, Charlie had all those great stories about Princeton.”

He did not ship out show. Yeah. I mean, that was like that whole segment of like how good prints was as a basketball. And then people didn't believe it because, you know, he's so short. But meanwhile, he could fucking play like a motherfucker.

He had he had a crossover mood. That was crazy. And he could run escape. And I mean, amazing. With a lollipop back.

Let's see. One foot. You know. So he was, he was an athlete. Yeah.

I mean, you can't dance like that, and not have incredible body control. - Yeah.

- But the problem is when you're doing show

after show after show after show after show after show. - For you, you're tearing your fucking joints apart, and that's probably what blue is hips out. - That's one thing about us with the exception of the shit you used to do on a stool that balancing act.

- Oh, the Kardashian joke? - Yeah, our joke, our life of jokes isn't very fake. - No. All we gotta just take care of from the neck up, take care of your mind, our body.

We know comedian has a bad hip. - Well, you generally don't get it from performing on stage as for sure, but when you're dancing and jumping around and doing all that shit, like Ted New Jim blew his knees out, jumping off of speakers, like a lot of people did that.

They went crazy, they were just putting on a show and you don't realize you're doing it. Manored from tool, he blew his hip out, stomping on the ground all the time. - Wow.

- Just stomping while he was singing. How to get a hip replacement. - Yeah, I like being a stand-up. - Well, it's definitely easier on the body. - That's true, you know.

- You still get up on stage ever? - Oh yeah, all the time. - I'm going on my own club. - Yeah. - What night did you go up?

- Usually Tuesday and Wednesday, I do it, but I do it off nights to different nights, but Tuesday and Wednesday almost every week, I do a show there. - I promised my woman I wouldn't go to the mothership.

- Why? - When I told her, she's like, "When you go, I want to go." It's a big deal if you're a comic. You know, I mean, it's a huge deal.

But I want to come one night, flying and just let me have 10. - Dude, you can go up any time. You can go up tonight if you want. I gotta show it tonight. - Yeah, I got a fly home and--

(laughing) - I'm still slinging this book. - I hear your brother. - But any time, any time you want to come by and do a set, you're more than welcome.

- I love it. - I'm in hang out. - Everybody's been so friendly.

- The green rooms are an amazing hang to it.

- That's what I hear. - Well, I've heard both sides of that. I've heard, don't be in that motherfuck if you're not supposed to.

coming in and fucking up the conversation. So, you gotta be kind of bedded. But it's only like during shows when you're not on. You know, if it's a show and you're on the show, everyone's allowed to be in the green room.

It's just like, we don't allow people to just come in out of nowhere. There's like, you're from out of town, you wanna come in and hang out in the green room. Then there's too many people in the green room.

And then people have to prepare. They're going over their notes. The green rooms supposed to be a hang with the comics on the show that are getting ready to go on stage.

And the problem is, that's the cool spot.

That's where Shane Gillis is and Ron White is. Tony Hinch clef is, everybody wants to come in. And you know, it gets, it gets to be a little bit of a problem. So you can't go in the green room if you're not on the show. Unless we know who you are and you know you're in town,

you wanna come hang. But it's like, you know, it's like having a party. You can't let everybody in. - The problem is everybody wants to be there. I mean, look at the level I'm at and how long I've been doing it.

And I know about the green room and want to get in there. - Get in, you can get in anytime. But when you were in living in Hollywood still, that your kids ever want to act? - No, no, they're not interested in the,

you know, never wanted to become good. - No, they wouldn't let first of all, rich kids are not gonna be good stand-ups. (laughing) You're not gonna be able to deal with the torture of bombing.

And they don't have to, and they don't have pain. They're pain is so minor, in comparison to the pain of poverty. The pain of struggle, the pain of not getting enough attention when you're young and moving around a lot. All the different shit that most comics go through.

I've never met a good comic, quite a great childhood.

- As you're talking, I'm thinking, I'm like,

“do we know any comics who are good, who are from wealth?”

- None, I don't know any. I'm sure they can exist. I'm sure it's possible, but it takes a very exceptional person to want to be a great comic that's grew up wealthy. It's just not a thing that they seek to do.

- I think there's so much comedy comes from our pain. - I think the only exception to that would be the way and it's brothers, because the sons of the way and brothers all went on to be great comics. - They all went on to big careers and movies and films

and television. But I think that's, it's like a family thing over there. Like I remember Damon telling me that he set up a stage in his house, that's absolutely true. Well, I mean, they love stand-up so much.

They were fucking do stand-up for each other. Just fuck around. I used to see, first of all, I think to this day, Damon is one of the most under-appreciated great comics of all time.

- And he's back out there now. I noticed in my room, Damon is at the improv.

- But he's always been thought out.

- No, no, no, he never quit.

“He was always doing stand-up, but he's low key about it.”

He makes his money off a television, you know? And even like, he wanted to do what we talked years ago about him coming on my podcast. He was like, I'd like to put out, say, some crazy shit and then I'll get in trouble.

'Cause he was in that, what I call the velvet prison, the TV velvet prison, you know. You do in TV shows, you're playing a dad on a TV show, you know, you can't come on a podcast, talk about getting your dick sucked.

It's just, how he Mandel goes through that, I work with him a lot. And how he is on America's got talent. - Exactly. - 'Cause real commercial television vehicle,

but nobody is more real and edgy than how he Mandel. - When he's on stage and in the green room, hanging out, he's done sets of the mothership. He's coming hung out with us. He came to my podcast and he came to the club,

he's like, fuck, I wanna be like, I wanna do what you guys are doing. I'm like, you can, you can do it, but he's worried that he would lose that velvet prison. - Hey, when we're working and they have the phones and bags,

that's when he's amazing. - Yes! - Because he'll drop the sea bomb in a minute. - He was saying it, he was saying it on stage. - Yeah, I'm just so happy I could say,

"Cunt, yeah, I just want to say it." (laughing) But he was funny, it was like he was having a good time. He was loose. And you could tell, it's like,

'cause how he was a great comic, like how we had some hilarious fucking space. - I just hated following him at the Westwood Comedy store, Mitsa used to send us there to get better. Me, him, and Pauli.

That's the point thing I loved about her. You know how we have Neppo babies. She didn't have no Neppo babies. She was like, Pauli, you're not ready. - Yeah, oh, she was the Westwood.

- She made Pauli work. Yeah, I mean, Pauli's a rare dude in that regard. Like he became a really funny comedian while he was living with a woman who's the great. - In terms of like people in comedy that are like,

“some of the most critical important people,”

she is the most important person in the history of comedy that's not a comic. - Absolutely. There is no argument.

There's no one even close to her. And her son, you know, I mean, went on to have huge success. - I took Mitsa, remember when we had the universal amphitheater, I got tickets

and took Mitsa to see Pauli open for Sam Kinnis. - Wow. - And it just blew her away

'cause she had never seen him in that large environment.

And it was really cool to watch her watch her son. - Well, she let him grow the right way, you know. She didn't give him a silver spoon. - By the way, make sure, start at the comedy store

and she's the mother of Pauli. Because I say Mitsa to you like it's a cousin. - Right.

“- So we talk about her so much, I think, a lot of people”

listening, no. But she's the most important person in comedy that wasn't a comic. And more important than most comedians. Like she would tell you how to do it right.

And if she liked you, man, it was like-- - She tell you how to do it in her opinion. - I've seen her tell some people some crazy shit. - Oh, yes, she was done right a lot of times. She had some wild ideas that she had.

- She had the girl put on the green wig and I'm like, "I'm not sure." But she was trying to find some kind of hook for this girl.

And I'm like, "If you don't want to have to wear the green wig,

go home and figure out a hook." - Yeah, she made Joey Diaz, calm self fat baby. She-- - Ouch. (laughing) She would look at the lineup.

Like, I bet you could find it online, if you looked. There was a line-ups from the comedy store. We had a bunch of comedians, Bill Burr, blah blah blah. And then you'd see fat baby. And that was Joey Diaz, she would call him fat baby.

She wouldn't even let him use his fucking name in the lineup. It would be fat baby.

“- I remember having a conversation with her and Paul”

and Paul was exacerbating the problem. 'Cause she was like-- - Rodriguez? - Paul Mooney. - Oh, Mooney, oh, yeah.

- We got so many calls and I like-- - So we're seeing-- - So I love that dude. - Talking. And Missy's about to start the belly room

'cause she thinks women need a place to perform and to get better. - She thought it was what the belly room originally was. A little college up there for ladies. And she was trying to think of a name for it.

And she says, "I'm also thinking about having one night of just black comics." You know, 'cause there was only George Wallace, Dave Tyree, and Mooney at one time when I arrived. And what year was that?

I came in 1980, New Year's Eve. Wow. I drove out from Chicago 'cause I'm from Cleveland and there were no comedy clubs and Cleveland back then. So I had to go to New York, LA, Chicago.

And my mother was living in Chicago at that time.

“So I went there 'cause rent was free for a while.”

And that was a lot of fun. But, Missy, for the black night, she said, "Paul, why do you think I should call in?" And she says, "I was thinking cotton comedy." (laughing)

And I'm not a Missy, no, you can't. And I was trying to explain what. And Paul was like, "Oh, that's wonderful. Let's see." (laughing) That's exactly what it was.

We call it, "Oh, homie." Oh, homie. (laughing) He was cool. Oh man, Paul, that guy would write.

And there'd be something that would happen in the news like the day before and Mooney would go on stage now, like 15 minutes on it and just crush. And he did something that, I know, I hate it.

He requested the last spot. Oh, he loved that. One is to go on late, one's to stay on as long as he wanted. And we're fucked with you if you try to get up. - Mm. - Oh, you don't like a smart nigger.

(laughing) But don't leave too early, my friends at your house, robin' at me. - Yeah, he would have so many things like that. So many hooks.

And he was just so good at working those small crowds. He just liked to free them, I'll just be an able to fuck around, you know? - With a bottle of champagne, with a straw. - A little tiny bottle of champagne.

- Yeah, the loose. - Yeah. And he would sit on it, during punch lines. Oh, nigger, please. (laughing) We all, he's just sitting in the back and watching.

It's like if you thought you were good at comedy, watch Mooney and go, "God, I got so much to learn." - Yeah. - I got so much to learn. - All the great comics that we know now, at one time, would sit in the back of the OR,

and come late to watch Paul. - Absolutely. - I used to, on a landline. I used to call Keenan and say, "Yo, I'm each you there. We were going to see Mooney in 115."

- I would always love to see Mooney

when something fucked up happened in the news. Like if there's something fucked up happened in the news, like when's Paul going up? - Yeah. - You know, it just like, you had to go see him,

because he always had to take. And you know, that take was always like, "Oh, shit, you know, it was like he would get you." He would like, "Fine and angle." Or you'd be like, "Oh my God, oh my God."

He was, he was so clever. - The coolest conversations at the comedy, when Richard would come up every night, and Richard would go from five minutes to an hour,

that you go to at the theater to see.

“But I would watch Paul Mooney before we had cell phones.”

After it was over, Richard would go and have a cigarette in the main room, like on a Monday or Sunday, I think it would be close. And that's where he would call it holding court.

He would go in their first and just want to dry off a minute, smoke a cigarette, and Paul would come in with a napkin with stuff written on it. And he would just, you know, "Oh, and how about this?" And he would give him tags.

- Yeah. - Richard, on the back of an album, that joke, you go to prison, you get justice, just us, nigga. And he gave that to Richard, and it was on a prior album. But, oh, those, Joe, that was a time,

Richard would work out every night. He'd work the original room, go on the main room, and entertain his guest, and it would be like "Burt Reynolds Moses, Charlton Heston, Bernie Casey." You would see like, "Oh, "Burt Reynolds would have Sally

"feeled with him." - Wow. - It was amazing. They would all come and bow to the king dog. - Yeah, well, he was so different.

Yeah, I always say that the Godfather of Common,

who started everything was Lenny Bruce, but then Richard figured out a way to take that and make it way funnier. But he figured out how to take that kind of honesty and social commentary and figure out

how to talk about life, 'cause people don't know that, before Lenny Bruce came around, it was just jokes. It was just like, "Two Jews walking to a bar. They buy it, ta-da, ta-da." It was jokes, it was like, selling aluminum siding, and then came back and made it

in his 40s. - Yeah. - Wow, look at this. - That's the Mason. - That's the Mason.

- That's crazy, burnt Reynolds, Sally Fields. Now you see that picture, one night, I'm in that room, and Stevie Wonder is over on the panel. Remember how the panel used to be in the manual, on the floor, left at the stage, Stevie's playing,

and there are a few people snorkeling coke.

“I think to this day, Stevie still thinks,”

a few of those people have allergies, because, you know, Stevie's living here. He's just didn't play it in people. - Wow, wow, look at that burnt Reynolds on stage, robbing Williams.

- I saw Bert Reynolds give the parking at $10 and $100. And I thought I was on another planet. I'm like, get the fuck out of here. I should be parking cars, fuck stand up. (laughing)

- Yeah, that was, that's, and for people who were looking at this picture, that's Richard holding court after his set.

- Wow, what an amazing photo.

But Jamie, we should get some of these photos, and yeah, get some of these photos, and let's print 'em up and put 'em in the green room at the mothership. - I saw it.

- The back, he's got the zero signs in the back. - Oh yeah, still, wow. - Wow, I tell you a lot about the history search. - That sign, that sign used to be, Missy had this warehouse room,

like, was just not a warehouse, but, you know, it was a storage room, where she had all the old zero stuff. And I remember seeing that sign there, and they eventually hung it up in the back bar area.

And you just look like, wow, this was, this was a mob club in like the fucking 50s. - Yeah, that's crazy. - I saw a picture you have in the entry of Richard Pryor's mugshot.

- Yeah.

- I had never seen that, what did he do?

- I don't remember. - Yeah, I don't remember, he was very young.

“That mugshot was, I think he was like 18.”

I don't remember what was, I have mugshots from, everybody who got arrested. - Yeah, I saw Larry King. - Larry King was like, bad checks. He was writing bad checks, he had a gambling problem.

- Oh, yeah, yeah, Willie Nelson's up there. - Yeah, I got everybody up there. - There is a book that I have in my garage, and it's the first edition to tell you how much of, of this kind of stuff existed,

but it's all celebrities and their mugshots. So it's a coffee table book, I'm just the mugshots. - Oh, I should probably get that book, I bet there's a few in there that I don't have. And I bet there is a second one that they could do.

It's the books only like a half inch thing. - We got a lot of good ones out there, but so many people got arrested. We got David Bowie out there, of course Morrison, like Hendrix got to have that mugshot, that's a classic.

- Yeah. - There was a lot of mugshots. - Have you ever taken a mugshot?

- Yeah, never been arrested.

- I'm a good boy, believe it or not. - Yeah, you know, I mean, we've done things, but not enough to have to take those pictures. - Yeah, luckily. But also we live in a different time.

In the 1960s and 70s and those guys are getting arrested, they're getting arrested for like having a joint. There's something like that. - Yeah, oh yeah. - Richard or Rex, excuse me, Jimmy,

I think he got arrested in Toronto for having heroin on him.

“I think that's what he got arrested for.”

I got pulled over and had a joint in my ass tray in 1989. And I was scared to death. And the cop was real nice to me. But he did the cornyest thing, he says, get out of the car and he made me rip up the joint

and drop it in the sewer at the curb there. And he says, "I'll get your life together." (both laughing) - But it just is helping me get my life together. - Yeah, it makes me funnier.

- That's funny. That's hilarious. - Good old days, man. I remember you talked about Rodney earlier. Rodney Dangerfield, you know how we love comedy.

Comedy will never stop doing it.

We'll do it until the wheels fall off. And I remember him on stage at the laugh factory near the end of his life. - And I saw him there. - And his wife was in the balcony,

giving him lines to a wireless earwig. And if you went up top, you would hear her say, "I don't get nervous, right?" - Yeah, I don't get a respect, you know? (both laughing)

And first of all, two things. First of all, it warmed my heart that the woman who loves you is gonna help you do what you love. So that made me feel so good and it was like, I want a woman with that kind of heart

because I know I'm gonna wanna do it when I'm older. - She gave us his notes from one of his tonight show appearances and they're framed in the wall in the green room. It's his hand-written notes and bold. He would write it and bold with a punchlines where it's like

sitting there, right above the couch. That's cool, man. - Yeah, it was one of the first things. Whitney Cummings hooked it up. She got it for us from her.

She wanted us to have it. Whitney Cummings, I. - I saw Rani live when I was a security guard. I was a security guard at great woods. Center for the Performing Arts, which was in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

- Oh, I lived in Boston. - Yeah. - Me and a bunch of the black belts from this type one no team that was on got jobs as security guards. And I was 19 and I was backstage and Rani was walking around

with a bathroom on with nothing underneath it. That was when he was going on stage with a bathrobe. He got to such a fucking point in his life where he would literally go on stage with nothing but a bathrobe. He would walk out there with a bathrobe and slippers

and just fucking murder.

I'm never being in the hot.

And I wasn't even thinking about doing stand-up back then. Back then, I was just fighting and I was a fan of comedy. I was a love comedy. - You're fighting friends talk to you when you're doing stand-up, right?

- Yeah, yeah, one of the guys that I trained with, my friend Steve, but when I went there,

“I remember like, you want to talk about not giving a fuck.”

Like this guy really didn't give a fuck. Like he had gotten to a point we had so much success and so much money and this is after back to school and all those big movies and he was still just going out there doing stand-up, he was smoking weed back there

and he would just go on stage with a bathrobe on. And I remember thinking, that is a wildest shit I've ever seen in my life. I remember as a young man because I was always, you know, chill fucking 19, you're scared of everything.

You're worried about the future. You don't know what, you have no security in your life at all. And here's this guy with, you know, millions of dollars massive amounts of fame and he had got to that, I don't give up.

Fuck, okay. But he really did. He wasn't faking it. Nobody told me I was to go on stage in a bathrobe. I was like, God, tell you what I want to do.

I want to go on stage with a bathrobe. He's just going to stage with a fucking bathrobe. See if he could find some photos of him on stage with a bathrobe on, I know he did it for years. - I got in trouble because EZE came on my show

“in his bathrobe and he was like, you gave it to me?”

- You know, 'cause we give out bathrobes. And so he said, well, fuck it. I'll wear it out there and he wore it out and had a, it was picking his teeth with a knife. And Paramount was like, oh, man, this is not what we asked him for.

This is really not what we asked him for. He'll never replace Johnny. - Oh, fuck off. - But I knew you were ridiculous. - I was where I was because I snuck in through syndication,

did a first run syndication. I know network wasn't for me. And when Letterman got CBSed, I knew I was really in trouble, so I had to figure out an exit plan. But the bottom line is for six years.

I did it the way I wanted to do it. And I wouldn't change a thing, man.

- The thing about it is, man, everybody wanted it to be Johnny back then. It was so pretty. - Absolutely. - Even Letterman.

- I joke that the Emmys, I said, I had a dream. I wanted to be an old white man with a desk. And that was, to the point, Joe, that when I made it, I hired Johnny's architect that built his house to build me a house.

- Wow. - I was deep into the shit like that. - Well, he was the guy. People don't realize like that was the carrot. That was the thing that they got.

I mean, Jay Leno and like that famous scene in that movie that talked about it, where Jay Leno would hide in the closet and listen to them talk about it, because he wanted that spot when Johnny retired.

But they wanted Letterman, and it was like this battle between like, we made no sense to me. My Letterman has the Letterman show.

It's fucking you, it's amazing.

Why would you want to do anything else? - But everybody wanted that tonight, Joe. - Absolutely. - That's the one that tonight, Joe. - And when I was a kid, I was a magician.

That's how I started. And I read an article that said that Johnny did slide if Hannah was a magician. So to me, that was God speaking to me. And it was like, you are a magician

and you do a talk show in a basement. - One day, yeah, one day. - Isn't it crazy though that it had to be the tonight show for everybody? It wasn't get your own talk show.

- Joe, if doing stand up, getting that five minutes, having Jim McCalli come see you, I got on dinosaur? No, no, Mike Douglas. And I got on Merv Griffin, didn't do it for me.

I needed Jim McCalli to say that tonight show is yours. - Yeah. - And that crazy? - Did you work new to young? - No, it was too young.

And it's also like, for me, I didn't understand it.

- Like, I used to like watching

when comics were on the tonight show, but it didn't.

“- Like, you remember the night, Roseanne came on?”

- Yeah. - The best at goddess. - Yeah, I was like, oh shit, she's funny. Oh, she was so fucking right. She was so funny.

Roseanne was like, way ahead of her time. She was so wild. There was no one like her when she came out. She's still wild. She comes to the mothership all the time.

- And as wild as she is, Joe, the night I called her and said, I need to rearrange the show tonight. Her and Tom were coming. And it was come Arnold?

- Yes. And it was the morning that I'd gotten a call from Irvin Magic Johnson that he was HIV positive. So I needed the whole show. And this is a cool show.

She says, give me another date, but I'm still coming. 'Cause we love Irvin.

And they came and stood on the side.

That night when Irvin came and talked about it. Oh, she's cool. - She's cool. She's crazy as fuck. - Yes.

- It's cool. - Aren't we all, and don't we have to be? - You have to be. - Yeah. - A little bit, we got to be the different kid

in the neighborhood.

“- Yeah, well, if you want to be as good as she was,”

as people, they don't, you got to go back and watch some of her specials. She was killing in a way that no woman killed like that. It was different.

It was like a aggressive, it was aggressive and angry. It was, it was, - Oh. - It was so fun.

- She didn't sell us any sexuality at all. It was just great writing. - Just great writing and great performing and a lot of, I don't give a fuck. And it was just, ugh.

Do you find any photos of Rodney with a bathrobe on? - I mean, yes, but not on stage. - No. (laughing) - There's only, yeah, I don't even know if they exist.

(laughing) - Well, that was still an exist. - That was crazy. - That was a pre-show right there. He's, you think he's not ready, but he's dressed.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - Right. - And he's not ready. - Look at the phone.

Look at the landline. - Yeah, that crazy. - I showed my son one of those. He couldn't believe that to drop down in nine. It was, and if you missed one of them

and fucked it up, you had to start from scratch. It was crazy. - Yeah. - Back in the day.

“I remember when the iPhone first came out,”

and it didn't have actual buttons, like a star tag. - Mm-hmm. - And I was freaking. It's like, "How will I know where the L is?" - Yeah.

- I can't feel it. - I remember, I had a blackberry back then. You couldn't convince me that I needed to get an iPhone. I was like, "This is ridiculous." - Yeah.

- I'm not typing on that stupid thing. I don't even know where the buttons are. It's great, you don't, it makes a click sound. That's stupid. - Before you know it, we were doing it.

We turned off the click and it says, "A lot about progress. Don't be afraid to change." - Well, now I talk to it. Now a hard layer of text.

I just say text Arsenio. Like, say, "Hey, man, look before I see you tonight." - Bye-bye-bye. - And just send it. - Yeah.

- I do make most of my text messages. I just talk to my phone. - Yeah, pretty much. Me and Siri, and you can't say the inward to Siri. The other now was one of the things.

- She won't say it. - She won't fuck with the inward. - Because Siri is like, "Google, well."

- Yeah.

- And Alexa have the whole business.

I'm not getting-- - You know, but I'm writing a joke and I said to inward. Of course, I didn't say inward, I said, "Negging." And Siri would not write it. And then when I kept saying it,

she started writing other things. You know, that started with an inn, you know, but they weren't even words. And I'm like, "So they got Siri trained." - That's so weird.

She's not getting canceled. - It's weird that it took, it wasn't even 10 years. And then everybody just got accustomed to having a phone with them all the time.

Like, there was, think about like, the difference between, like, it was probably like, what is like, 97, 98, whenever everybody had those motor rollers, right? It was around then, right?

- Yeah. - It was around then, like, 96, 97. - My friends laughed at me.

My first phone was in a haliburton briefcase.

And you opened the silver haliburton briefcase. Take the phone out. And the phone was maybe 10 inches, you know, and I had an antenna that screwed on the outside of the briefcase, 'cause you had this big possum tail.

- Yeah, I had one on the roof of my car. - Oh yeah? - In 1989. - Yeah. - You, wow, back then,

I couldn't imagine that kids would be watching movies on the phone, right? Playing games, watching movies. And there would be most of their social life was communicating through that thing.

- Yeah, remember, there was a time when dude said to each other, yo, he got a strong rap, man, his pimp hand is crazy. He can get a bitch in a second, you know? - By my, by my, he's a, he can talk.

- And now, young men don't know what to fuck to say to a woman leaning against a wall to the club. - You know, they have dating apps now. - Yes, they were swamping, crazy. - But what I was gonna get out of, like,

how quickly the culture changed. From, let's just say, 98, when most a lot of people have to phone, believe half the people had a phone on them. 2008, everybody had a phone. 2018, you'd be crazy to not have a phone.

- Yeah. - 20 years, like that. - Okay, now, now, hold your thought. - Okay.

“- I remember a time when you and I were the only parents”

that didn't allow cell phones in the hands of our kids, 'cause I remember my son said, "Hey, you gotta let me have a phone," you know? And I'm like, not doing it. I'm until you were a certain age, I'd set it up

and I said, "Does everyone in your class have a phone?" And he said, "No, two of us don't." (laughing) And I realized you were the other parent. - Yeah.

- That was saying, we not fucking shit. - I gave her a phone that has two numbers on it. There was a weird little cell phone that you'd get for kids, was she could dial my phone number or my wife's phone number.

It was like, that's it. Those, like, it was like, I forget what it was calls, like the frog or something like that. Some little cell phone, I stay for kids.

- For kids. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you didn't have to worry about the things that kids have to worry about now. Like, I was watching this thing about row blocks.

You know, that game that kids like the play, that they're getting, like, predators are on row blocks. And they're trying to pick up kids, like, child predators. - Yeah.

“- So you have to worry about the games they play.”

You have to worry about them getting DMed by creeps. You have to worry about so much more access. I am just a phone to call people. - Yeah, that was a time when my kid used to play games with a headset on.

And he would play with people you don't know. Just somebody in the world, they would gather. - Yeah. - And I remember feeling like this can't be good. - Right.

- Because these probably aren't all kids he's playing with. - 100% yeah. - Yeah, well, when I first started playing video games, you'd have to chat by pulling down a window and you'd have to type in the things that you want to say.

You couldn't talk to people. And then when people started talking to people in video games, I'm like, oh, this is crazy.

But then the problem is whenever there's anything

that kids are doing, you're gonna have some creeps that are targeting kids. And they find where the kids are hanging out with the kids are doing. And then they try to get those kids to meet them somewhere.

That's what's scary about cell phones and the internet and all that shit. Is that it's not just a phone. It's a way that you can connect with people. And there's always creeps that are trying to connect with kids.

- Yeah, I was lucky as a kid 'cause I talk about being a magician and I worked at a magic shop when I was 12 to cash 'cause I couldn't actually have a job. And I remember meeting older magicians.

“I remember going to people's house to see a new guillotine trick.”

And my mother, my mother worked two jobs. I was a latch key kid. I never had any problems.

But I could have been a target because you got lucky. - Yeah, I really got lucky 'cause when I was writing a book I'm looking at him saying, there's a guy I met who worked until he died for pen and teller.

And this dude, I met him at a magic show in every year when he would come to Cleveland. I would go sit with him.

My mother, never knew I had this 40 year old friend, you know.

- I'm weird, right? - Yeah, but he was cool and I got lucky.

“- Yeah, that's the thing about latch key kids.”

I mean, the thing is though I was watching this YouTube video where they were talking about kids of our age, you know, our generation latch key kids, they grew up like that, are so much more resilient because no problems were solved for you.

You had to figure it out on your own. You went out on your own. You were outside with no cell phone communication. No way to call anybody. When you were 10, 11, it wandered around with your friends,

it's like, it was a different world. You had to figure life out in a way that like helicopter parenting and parents that are like tracking their kids. You know, like a lot of parents,

like they're tracking their kids on their phone. They know where they're, you said you were at Debbie's house. You're not at Debbie's house. Where are you right now? - Yeah.

- Like, everyone is like looking out for their kids, maybe a little too much. It's like you want your children to be safe, but you also want them to have like a little bit of freedom to figure out who the fuck they are.

“- Yeah, I, guys, as a kid, when I would tell my mother,”

I'm spending a night at Kenny's house.

I was never at Kenny's house.

(laughing) You know, my, my girl, when I was 14, had a mom who was a nurse that worked the 11 to 7 ship. So we kind of lived together like a couple. You know, I would tell my mother I'm going one place,

I'd go to Robbins house. I would stay at her house till morning when I went home to get ready for school. You know, I was like a growing ass man. - Wow, that's wild.

- Until one day her parents had the grandparents come to town and to surprise her. And so the moms that worked, there's a knock at the door, and she said it's my grandmother, we had little peep holes. It's my grandmother, my grandfather.

And I had to jump with my clothes off their balcony. (laughing) That was my action-adventure teenage period. - Yeah, it's a different world. I don't know if it's better or worse,

but I think it definitely made you more resilient. And that was this argument that they were making in this YouTube video, that that generation is the most emotionally resilient. And that this generation coming up

is like the least emotionally resilient.

“That's why they're always looking for things that are,”

you know, problems.

They're always looking for things that bother them,

things that cause them anxiety. They're always looking for things that, you know, they can't tolerate. - Whereas my bike helmet, you know. I used to have a car, it was a station wagon,

and the back seat, you sit facing the opposite way. No seat belts, that had to be dangerous. - It's all dangerous, those cars were dangerous. They could barely stop. - Yeah.

- Then drum breaks. You have a drive like an old, I have old cars, but I have what they call resto mods, where they take an old car, but they put like modern suspension, modern brakes,

modern steering, it handles like a new car, but they have all the outside of an old car. And you know, and then the dashboard of an old car, all the stuff, that's what I like. If you drive a real, like you've just tried to drive

a 1968 Camaro, you're like, what is this piece of shit? Like they can't break, you can't go around corner, there's no traction. - What was your first car? - At a 1973 Shavelle.

- I had a cuteness. - I was mad at a cuteness once. - Yeah, at a 70, a 70 cuteness. - That's a great car. - God, they knew how to make a beautiful car back then.

- You like Muscle car. - Yeah, I love, well, when I was in high school, like those were the, so I was in high school in the 1980s. I was a freshman in 1981. - I had four kids in the 1980s.

- Wow. - That's amazing. In those days, those cars were the cars that we all like looked at. Like you couldn't believe when someone had it.

But I remember, I have a 1970 Shavelle that I got to this day. I have it because when I was like 17, my friend picked me up in a 1970 Shavelle with his buddy, and it was perfect.

It was a perfect car. I couldn't believe this guy had it. I was like, how do you have this? - And when you say perfect to non-car people like me, what does that mean?

- Oh, first of all, it was what you would call cherry. Meaning there was no dance, no scratches, perfect paint. It was beautiful. The sound it made when he pulled up, I couldn't, but I think I was 16.

'Cause I don't think I had a license yet.

how does this guy have this car? This is crazy.

“It's just, you know what a 1970 Shavelle looks like?”

- Absolutely. - With the white stripes, black with the white stripes, that was it, I have that exact car right now. I love it. Whenever I get in, I think about, when I was 16,

I think about all those years ago. - When Bert Reynolds drove up, those pictures we just looked at, when he drove up, he had what was called a transcend. - Yes! - And it had a big eagle on your ass!

Smoking the band of cars! - Almost lost my mind. - Oh my God, that was the smoking, the band of car. There was the car that he had in those movies with Sally Fields. - Hundred-dollar tip.

- And he never been to, you ever been to J. Leno's spot?

- With the cars? - Yeah, I did his show once. I brought my Corvette on. I have a 1965 Corvette, and I brought it to his show. It's a restaurant mod, too, and J drove it around.

He's the only person who's ever driven it other than me. - And it's an honor. - But you go to his place, it's like, he has warehouses. - Not a warehouse. - Warehouses, and he never sells one.

- He swears to me, he's never sold a car. So anything, he's in the spot. - He keeps. - He keeps. - And he recently told me--

- Why did someone turn it gold? - Oh, there's a crazy clip of this thumbnail. Someone in YouTube video. - No, go to the other one. The other picture with the real picture.

- I was just clicking around. - But go to the go to the real picture, so you can see what it looks like. - You know what he has now? This kind of cool, he has two tanks, two army tanks. - That's us, right there.

That's my car. Look at that.

“See, you see that modern suspension, modern wheels?”

- Those are exhaust pipes on the side? - Yeah, that car is so fun. - Do those things get hot? - Yeah, yeah, you'll fuck your leg up. It feels like you got shorts on,

your leg touches it, your in trouble. The outside part won't, because like the outside is like to protect you from the actual exhaust pipes, but underneath it is exhaust pipes. But where Jay's leg is, if he backed up right there,

if it was hot, he'd send you to the back of his calves. - Joe, he has tanks. - Yeah, is everything. - Yes, it's the king of Jordan, gave him a tank. And this motherfucker was riding through several notes.

- He drives everything he has, too. That's the thing about Jay. - Yeah. - It's kind of nuts. - It's a lot of rotation.

- Well, he crashed one of his motorcycle just a few years ago, fucked himself up. He doesn't bid it back there. He's fucked himself up without a motorcycle. - Oh, that was the one time he was climbing up a hill?

- Yeah, yeah, we've done a lot of dates together. We have the same agent right, and he called this one day, and he says, how about you, Jay and Craig Kilborn, and we call it Kings of Late Night? And so we went out and did like five dates,

and there was a lot of fun, and me and Jay enjoyed it. So we added 20 more dates to it. - And, oh, that would be great fun. - He was a great comic in the sevens. - Yeah, people don't know when I was in college,

we would go in the TV lounge, and watch Jay Leno, to this day, I remember him saying, I was a philosophy major, and so I just got out of college, and opened up a little philosophy shop. You know, just to explain what bullshit majors

were actually being pedal to. - Well, he was the edgy comic in the 1970s, and when he would go on Letterman show, he was like the edgy guy that was sit on the couch, and he was like, what's your beef?

- Yeah, and he would always be mad at something.

He was like, people don't realize that. You'd see him as, but again, that carrot, that carrot for him was the tonight show.

“That was more important to him than anything.”

- And once he got that tonight show, everything else was like, took a back seat. - Did you do Letterman as a stand-up? - No, no. - That was my first.

- That's a classic, that was a great place for comedy. - Because Letterman, like, he really loved comics, and he really loved, like, solid stand-up. I've never liked doing stand-up on those talk shows. - I've been in the five minutes?

- Yeah, so to me, I was a different kind of comedy. My comedy needs some time. I need to cook, you know, I need time to open up ideas. - And I've got a Letterman ship, I didn't like TV comedy. It's not, I was a nightclub comic.

That's all I ever wanted to be. I wanted to be a nightclub comic. I like doing comedy for drunk people.

- Yeah, but when I first saw you,

it all wasn't dirty, it was some of what was TV stuff. - Well, it wasn't necessarily dirty, but it was free. It was like, I was being free. I was doing, think, whatever I wanted to talk about. I didn't like the idea of being constrained

by any sorts of standards and practices. Like, I'm not interested. I've been not interested in that. - I worked on my tonight's set, try to get on the tonight's show with Johnny,

and the guy would come see me a lot. He would change my jokes, that I hate. I hate when they say, "Oh, yeah." Try saying vacation instead of a gift shop. And I'm like, "Oh, let me just do my thing."

he says, "You're not a Johnny comic." - Oh, good. - Not a Johnny guy. - What does that even mean? - But then I got on on a Monday night with Joan, 'cause I guess I was a Joan guy.

And then I got to sit with Johnny just as I guess to promote coming to America.

So finally, full circle from my basement.

- That's amazing. - I watch a lot of his old clips, like with Don Rickles, and all these old... - Oh, Don Rickles, talking about Snookie to brother in the band, you know,

and he would do a noise of a blow gun. And it's like, "Snookie, you like in this stuff?" Oh, you know. And you can't fuck with that now? - No. - This so much, it's funny how we've come forward

into a new era, but we've gone backwards in certain ways. - Yeah, you can't joke about certain things anymore. - Like I'm scared to death right now, and I must say something that I shouldn't say, and I'm gonna be in two of the decisions you say.

- They can't do shit to you. - They can just be mad, I guess. - Yeah, let them be mad. Just don't pay attention.

“That's what I do. - Just don't pay attention.”

- Really? - Yeah. - I just don't read anything about me. - Yeah. - Stay away. That's the best way. - Yeah. - Are you a comic who, when you're on stage,

it can be 200 people laughing, but that one person who's not laughing

and always the fuck out of you, you can't even enjoy the others.

You don't even look at that person. - No, those people have their own problems. - Yeah. - And so by the way, sometimes they're just not laughers. If that person was sometimes going up to you

and say, "Love what you're doing. "Love the new stuff." Some people just like to smile. - They don't want to laugh. They just want to sit there and watch.

Or they just want to take it in, take in the performance. Doesn't mean they don't like it. And then some people just are upset by everything. You can't control that.

“Just control what, the only thing that bothers me”

is if I'm off, that's it. If I'm off, if I stumble on a word, if I fuck something up, that's the only thing that bothers me. The audience is like, "You can't control that." Why could be upset at things you can't control?

'Cause who knows what their trip is? Who knows what they're carrying around with them? - As a famous star now, do you ever bomb? - I have jokes at bomb for sure. New ones, we try to out a new one, especially like,

we do this show called "Bottom of the Barrel." And "Bottom of the Barrel" at the mothership is there's like a whiskey barrel, and you reach into the whiskey barrel, and you pull out premises, just ideas.

And you just run with it. That's a tonight, actually. And so you pull out a piece of paper and have a subject, ice cream, sunday, whatever. Whatever the fuck it is.

- That takes in test and no food. - Oh, a lot of those fucking go nowhere. (laughing) But some of them don't, every now and then, you get a great premise out of those,

and it's like a little premise factory. But the audience knows it though. So it's different than like when they go to see you and they paid money and they're expecting a polish show. And you have a new joke.

And the new joke is just not right. It's not ready, something's missing. You're not finding it, and you're trying to work through it.

- Yeah, it's always gonna happen.

And if it doesn't happen, you're not taking it up chances. - Yeah. See, I'm not as chance of driven as you are. I'd be afraid to do that 'cause my feelings get hurt too. - Yeah, well, it's part of the process.

- Yeah, you're right. You're right, we should do the things we fear. - You definitely have to, if you wanna write new shit, you're gonna have to, there's that moment where you're like, do I try this new one out?

(exhales) Fuck it, let's go. And you know, a lot of the new ones, the way they come out of, for me, at least first, it's just a frame.

It doesn't have sides, it doesn't have windows, it doesn't have doors, it's just a frame. And I have to figure out how to make a house out of that frame.

“- That's what I loved about going to the original room”

back in the day when we were young, watching Richard take out a pack of cigarettes, take a cigarette, and Mitzi had those smoke things that popped, pup pup pup pup pup. - I mean, you could get, got smoke, and everything, and Richard would have two minutes, and then he'd have five. - Mm-hmm. It was just build. - Yeah, and it was like a, like when grandma used to make a quilt. - Yeah. - And it's bigger and bigger. - Yeah. - You've got an hour. I used to love watching him develop it. - I would hurt, I heard that Richard would go in on a Monday and have a joke that bombed, and then it would be murder and by Saturday. - Mm-hmm. - And then that's what he would do. - It would just go and figure it out on stage.

Damon used to do that a lot. - Yeah. - Damon used to go and sit on stage and just sit with a premise. Just sit with it. And he would try it out for like ten minutes, try to figure, and then finally he'd find something and everybody would be dying. - We got away from that earlier. But I totally got to your point. Damon is one of the great ones, and I hope he continues to do stand up and pup out to the clubs because he's one of the great ones that a lot of people don't realize. - They don't realize how great he was when he did the last stand. That one HBO special that he did way back in the day is a phenomenal special. It's phenomenal. He was so good. But he wanted to be a superstar, you know?

- Yeah. Well, I think he never really said, you know, one of the other things that he did, then it's very unique. Damon brings a camera to all of his shows and he films all of his shows and he archives them. - Every set he ever does. - Really? - Yep. And he goes over it. - That's work. - It's work. Because one of the things that he does, like I said, is like he'll take a premise and just try to find, find, try to find it on stage, try to figure out what about it works, what about it pops, like what is it?

And you know, I guess like doing that with a camera and then you can go home and sit and watch it on the computer and just go, "Why is in this mother fucker?" There's something here. I got to find it and just look at it from every angle, look at it over here, look at it over there, try to do it backwards, try to figure what the fuck makes it work.

“- Yeah. - And he would just, he had no fear of silence. - See, that's the sentence, right? When it's quiet in the comedy club, I lose my mind.”

- Chris Rock does that too. - Chris Rock did a lot of that at the comedy store. He would come in and just, he would have material that he was working on. Like one time, I remember, I brought him up on stage and everyone's going crazy. Chris Rock's here, the chair and chair and chair and chair and chair. And he goes, "Relax, relax, it ain't gonna be that funny." Just let people know, I'm working on some new shit, this ain't gonna be that funny. And but with confidence, like everybody already knew he's funny.

- They already saw a bigger and blacker, they already saw his specials. It was, it was, it was bringing the pain, everybody already knew. - So it's the one where he shot with three different outfits and three different places. - I hated that one. - You didn't like that one, no. And I'm not that I didn't like the material, I didn't like the idea of swapping outfits. The problem with that is you realize he's saying the same thing in all these different places.

“- Don't you? - It takes away from the, but it takes away from the magic of a performer. I want to see you and I don't want anything to distract me from these, I don't want to say, "Oh, he just performs this the same way everywhere."”

- I want you to just be saying it, the magic like the trick is you are in the moment with whatever you're talking about. If you're changing outfits and you're all of a sudden you're in Johannesburg and now you're in Cleveland like, "Uh, don't do that to me, why you gotta let the jacket on in the beginning?" The punch line, you gotta fucking silk shirt. - Uh-uh, don't do that. - I see, I saw it as a guy creatively trying to find new horizon. - Sure. - Do different things. - Some horizon suck, yeah. - It's not with the jokes, we're great. - Right, it's like he's a great comic, it's not that, it's like I just didn't like the idea of changing outfits. If I was friends with him back then I would say, "Don't, I don't like it at all."

And I would, that would explain. The problem is you're taking people out of the premise and then there's a new additional thing that they have to think of, "Oh, that's a different set."

Oh, he's wearing different clothes. It's a new thing to distract you from the most, the primary thing. The primary thing is, "What are you talking about?" Like, "What is this thing you're talking about? Let me get inside your head while you explain this thing that's so hilarious." But if you're doing that and changing outfits and changing stages like, "I know you perform in different places. I know you wear different clothes. Don't show me right now." In retrospect, I wonder how he looks at that special if he...

Yeah, I don't know, I mean, he never did it again.

- Yeah, it's not it. - Well, you don't want to do it again, that's right. I mean, he did it once he tried it, different people like to do different things and try them. I just didn't like that for that reason. I felt like it was an added element that took me away from the premise itself. And by the way, something that's come out of this conversation in my head is the guys who are the best seem to go deeper and work the hardest. - And when you talk about archiving your practices. - Yeah!

All of them, Damon has all of them. And he told me this years ago, because I saw him at the improv he was in the lab. We were in the big room and he was in the lab. This was not that long ago. When I say years ago, like, ten, nine years ago, something like that. And I go, you record all of them. He's like, every set since like 1990 something. He goes, I record them all. I got this camera. I take them all on the archive. I put them on my computer and like, whoa, it may be, thank fuck I'm lazy.

- Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. And I'm also thinking, what an amazing documentary.

- Mm-hmm. - If we could go through the history of Damon's personal archives, that would be a great idea.

“- Oh, yeah. - I think there's a special there. - Probably. Yeah, probably. But I mean, I think that's just part of his creative process.”

And again, I just think people don't realize, especially in the '90s, the early '90s, what a monster he was on stage.

I came to the store in '94. And he was one of the first guys that was like, oh shit, Damon Wayne's is here. Like it was weird. It was weird when people would show up like you'd seen him and move these in shit.

And all of a sudden, they're there in real life. Like, you know, I was just coming from New York. I didn't know anybody.

And I was like, this is so strange. I can't believe I'm around these people. - So you went from Boston to New York. - Boston to New York.

“- Cancerizing star. Where'd you work out in New York for those days?”

- Well, I did the Boston comedy club, you know, the little place that Barry Katz had. I did the seller, Jay Moore's a manager, right? - Yes. - I did catarizing star. Back when that was there, I did... - What was there was a comedy strip? - Yeah, I did the strip. I did the clubs in town. I did danger fields a lot. But honestly, when I lived in New York, I really liked doing the road more, because when I did the road, I could make money. So like, I came up in Boston and in Boston, you made a lot of your money not in the clubs in town,

but you made a lot of your money in like the bar shows, you know, outside of town in the suburbs. And the thing about that is like, you could headline, and so you could do 45 minutes or an hour.

And that allowed me to grow and like to really become a headliner, where it's like, I found like a lot of the New York comics

that I would go on the road with when I would work with them. Even when I was a middle-ack, they were a headliner. They had like these 10 and 15 minute sets that they'd stitched together to put to make an hour. Whereas the guys that I work with in Boston, like the big headliners in Boston, they had a real hour. Like that fucking, that was an hour of thunder. You know, they had a beginning, the middle, and an end, and it was like tight. It was tight. And I felt like I could do sets in New York, but I don't think it's really helping my career, right?

There's no one there to see me. I felt like, I'm going to make money. Like, I could do a set in New York and I make 25 bucks, or I could do a set in Connecticut and make $250. I was like, I'll go to Connecticut. Plus, like, the people were more fun, they're more loose. They're a bunch of fucking crazy drugs. I love doing long island. I love doing New Jersey.

“I like doing the road more. That's what I liked.”

I think I'm a product of my childhood environment. I discovered Stan of, because I was a drummer, had a band.

I was a magician, had doves, boxes in shit, and then my house burned down. So I lost everything, but I had gone to an L-green concert. An L-green had a comet come out. The house lights are on. People are still making their way to the seats. And this guy slowly gets him. And then the lights go down. And by the time he gets to 30 minutes, he's killing.

And all he had was a glass of juice, something on the stool. And this is a kid who just lost his house in his symbols and his tom-toms and his doves and his boxes. And I'm like, that's me. Johnny was a stand-up. So I'm still dreaming. Wow.

And to this day, or even when I start making a lot of money after seeing that guy, I loved opening for people. I went on the road with everybody from Lou Rawls to Patty LaBelle.

“Still to the state of comfortable doing 30 minutes, because that's what I did.”

But I had money. Like I would come to the comedy store, and I would have a really nice car. Because I'd spend most of my time on the road with Patrice, Russian, and Johnny Guitar Watson. That's a different world, opening for musicians is a different kind of comedy, because they're not there to see you. And that's what I found to be the challenge. I'm going to make you motherfuckers who don't know me, and are mad.

Because a lot of people would look at you like, they wanted to temptations. Right, right, right. I got to get them, and I liked that challenge. It is a real challenge, because there's a lot of people like Boo. Bring on Metallica.

Yeah, they don't want to see you. They want to see the music act. Open for blood, sweat, and tears once. Wow. And they really did not want to see me. You think the Johnny Guitar Watson audience didn't want to see me.

Do my fuckers from blood, sweat, and tears. Not fucking with me. Well, it's definitely running with weights on, though. If you can make those people laugh, boy, you take those weights off and go to a comedy club with a dare to see you. Yeah.

It's like, oh, just dare to see comedy. Mm-hmm. Made it easier. Yeah, I just don't want to perform for people that aren't there to see comedy. But there's a value in it, I think.

But that's when you're young. Yeah. And I had nice kind of condo, because I just come off the road with a rita. Yeah, I did a few of those. I opened up for Bon Jovi once.

I opened up for Bon Jovi for VH1.

Like a performance in the round. My job was to open up for Bon Jovi and then get the pretty girls and move them to the front so that they could be on camera. That's what they told me to do. Yeah. I felt did some stand up and then I had to get people to come up here.

Come closer. Yeah. Yeah.

“I remember those times being on the road.”

And if there were six girls in the green room and you're opening for the temptations, number six is yours. [laughter] Now, the five go first to the temps. Yeah. That's a different world, opening for musicians.

That's a hard world. And I know a lot of people like made a living just traveling with bands. And that's all they did. They would just open up for bands. Yeah.

I would open up for RMBX. And it's a matter of fact I got discovered by a jazz singer, Nancy Wilson. And I used to love jazz audiences because that was the perfect type of music for a comic. Because they were mellow. Jazz audience don't scream.

Get the fuck off. Right. Right. They just... A lot's so potent.

He does jazz tours. Still. You do like a jazz cruise ship. Yeah. And he'll do stand up with the jazz audiences.

Hey, every year. But he loves jazz. I love jazz too.

“And I remember going to see the playboy jazz festival in Bill Coffee was the host at the Hollywood Bowl.”

I host that every year now. I still love jazz. And that's the coolest two days of my summer. What is it about jazz? What do you love about?

Oh, about the actual... By the way, the coolest experience was sitting on the beach in Malibu with Miles Davis. After he came on the show once he says, "Well, did you go to the house?" Hang up. And he was a painter.

And he was sitting with his trumpet. It was a red trumpet.

I'd never seen a red trumpet.

Like a crimson trumpet. And it was sitting beside him. And he wouldn't use an easel. He had the canvas on a table. And he'd roll a new piece out.

And he would paint. You ever thought about paint? No. I'm not a good artist. But being a jazz fan, that was the coolest moment ever.

And what do I like about it? I almost equate my comedy to jazz. Because I love to say I'm going in D guys and just play. You know, as a stand-up, you know, I used to love to equate. How I work to jazz.

But it takes a very specific type of person to be like a jazz fan that really enjoys listening to jazz. I'm also a musician. And I know that some of the most respected musicians in my mind are jazz musicians. You know, the intricacy spending time with, I talk about this in the book, spending time with Quincy Jones, who was from the world of jazz in a former trumpet player.

And all that stuff, thinny ends up the year I meet him. He plays for me these tracks. And I don't know what I'm about to listen to. And he says, "Here, that's, he takes out, he slides all the slides. He's listening to this."

And he plays this thing. Think, think, think, think, think. I'm like, "What is that?" He says, "You ever heard of Sheila E. Man?" And I said, "Here, the Escavino family."

And I know the family. And he says, "She put different amounts of water in little pop bottles." And that's her ting and all those bottles. Then he starts bringing up the pots. And you hear the bass and the drums.

And you realize you're listening to stuff from off the wall. And it's just this incredible moment when I realize, "Yo, he get ready, bring Michael back." In a crazy way. I'm listening to, you know.

You got me working, working day and night. You know? And he just take out everything. You just have Michael's voice.

And I'd never been in the recording studio.

And he's at the board. 18 channel tracks, studio. And then he says, "You're from Ohio, right?" And he had seen me do stand up at the Roxy. And invited me to a studio.

And he says, "You're from Ohio, right?" And I said, "Yeah." And so he says, "Let me play it this, man."

“And you have to take big giant reels and put them on this machine.”

And he put the reels on. And the song starts. And he says, "This is a scratch track." And I'm like, "What's that?" And he says, "They want me to find a singer for this."

And he plays me James Ingram, "Find 100 Ways." And James Ingram just wants. Brilliant, beautiful songs. And I'm like, "What's wrong with that guy?" He says, "Yeah, I'm thinking about him.

And he's pretty good." And it ends up being these James Ingram from Ohio.

And that was an incredible day.

But I tell that story to say, "This great jazz musician had this talent that other producers didn't have because of his music genius."

and put Michael back in the mix. Yeah, layers and layers to the sound. Yeah, that's the thing. And you hear a song. You don't realize how much shit is going on the back of the song.

Sheila E would pop about that. Yeah, it's crazy. I love that day. That's a favorite time. Because Michael had been missing.

And I had bought the move in violation album. So I knew he needed Quincy. Wow. Yeah, there's some geniuses of music, man. I had Rick Rubin on podcast.

And he's explaining his creative process. And just like that guy's out there. Yeah, yeah. I had to go his way when I started the talk show that I took over for Joan Rivers.

When I first had the idea that I want to try to find

my own friends at his show. I want to find my show. And I put on LL Cooljay doing a song called "I'm Bad." And that night I found what I was going to do when I lose. Next I booked the freaks come out at night, Houdini.

Oh, I remember that. And that was, so I found my home. When you did the Joan Rivers thing,

“did you think that I was going to lead to you doing your own show?”

Absolutely. You did. I was like, I'm because Joan leaves goes through all the things stuff she's going through. And they give me this show for 11 weeks.

And it starts to get numbers. And I know that she left because of a lack of numbers. And I'm like, oh, this shit is mine. So when I come back from doing coming to America, I'm going to come back to Fox.

I'm going to do this show. And one day I walk into the cafeteria. And I realized they had hired Conan O'Brien to create a show. And I think the show was called the Wilton North Report or something like that. But I realized I wasn't in their future.

So Paramount, they were popping over to say hi. Sending me flowers. And when I finished coming to America, I actually halfway through they were like, when you finish,

you can do that talk show here in first run syndication.

And they had to explain that to me. And at the same time I was being pitched by the king brothers who created Oprah. So I kind of understood that first run syndication could work except Oprah had ABC networks behind it, which is good.

I have some CBS affiliates. And it all worked out. Right now with the exception of Byron Allen, I don't think anybody gets rich in first run syndication. Well, he's a very unusual case.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's figured out a cheat code. Byron Allen, you know, I heard that. When they cheat him, he sues them and wins. I think Byron Allen's show comics on leashed is going to replace Colbert.

Absolutely, that was just announced this week. Yeah. Late show will be replaced by Byron Allen's comics on leashed. That's crazy.

“That's how, in a way, like late shows just don't work anymore.”

They just don't have the same thing anymore. Like that standard model show. Yeah. Where people like, I don't think they do well. And they're expensive, Joe.

Oh, I can imagine.

They were saying that Colbert show was costing them like $50 million a year

to keep it on the air. That's cool. I don't understand it. Like, how? How's it cost you so much money?

Oh, guys. Well, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. When there were three channels, though, and only one had a talk show, everybody was there.

Of course. It made sense. Yeah. It made dollars and cents. There's also the problem that, when you compare it to things that are on the internet,

is that you have to stop conversations every seven minutes for a commercial. Mm-hmm. That's an issue. It's an issue with depth. You don't get to, like, you and I've been talking for two hours and 40 minutes.

Wow. Yeah. So, like, when you're doing this kind of thing, you just flow. Everything flows. You just have a conversation.

You just have a good time. It's so different when you're stuck in this format where you only have an hour. Everything is like, you got to cut the commercial in five, four, they're like, "We'll be right back." We'll be right back. Where are you going?

Stay here. Like, no, you have to sell tide. You know, it's like, that format is so limited. It's so restrictive that people knowing that there's other things out there now, where you could just go and watch it anytime you want.

You don't have to tune in at 11pm. Yeah, we have a must-see TV. And we would all gather as a nation to watch the finale of cheers. Yup. And now we don't do anything together.

No, no, no. Except sports. Except, like, Super Bowl. Mm-hmm. There's only sports.

Live boxing events.

“You have to see that kind of shit where it's live.”

That is the only thing that people all watch together. Yeah. That's it. Did you watch Chris Rock Live selective outrage?

I watched it after, but I didn't watch it when it was a lot.

See, you knew it was available. I was busy. And we grew up. It wasn't that shit was available the second time. But I did a live special on Netflix for that very reason.

Just because I thought it was scary. Just because my last one I did live. And I only did live, because the first time the ask man said, "No, fuck that!" And then I was like, "Why am I in such a pussy?"

And I remember driving home. I had a conversation with my manager and I called it right back. And I got, let me inside tomorrow. I got what I'm thinking about this, hold on. Because I was driving home feeling like I was a pussy for not wanting to do it live.

“And now in retrospect, what did you get out of a green to do it live?”

Fear. No. You wanted to feel that. Yeah, I wanted to be nervous. I was legitimately nervous.

I never get nervous for shows anymore.

Yes, the same kind of scene. When you have a, when you're killing a, a while, I heard you talk about killing a wild hog. When you go hunting like that, is the same kind of, is a very different kind of fear. That's a primal thing. That's very different.

That's a very different thing. That's like, that's a life or death. You're in, that's a weird, that's a weird primal connection with nature, where you're going to eat this thing. You're sneaking up on this thing that has these survival instincts and senses.

My own ears pop up. And you have, you know, you don't want to fuck it up. Either you have one moment to take a shot. That's even more intense, honestly. Like, L-containing with a bow and arrow is even more intense than doing a live comedy special.

If you could believe it. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I believe it. I like things that scare me.

I like things that are scary to do because I think it's good for you. Accept cocaine. I don't want to ruin my life. That's the brow. I just, like I said, I don't hear any success stories from cocaine.

No. Nobody's like, nobody's got like a, a meth story. Yes. Like, now I start doing meth and I start seeing the world for what it really is. Start being more at peace.

I was living in the moment. Nobody says right before I invented the hard drive, I did coke for three days. Right. No. No.

I'm not interested in anything that's going to ruin my life. But I'm interested in things that are going to help me grow and help me expand my capacity to do things that are scary. Would you do stand up live again? 100%. Okay.

Yeah, I'm thinking about doing my next one live again, too. I liked it. Did you make any mistakes that? No. I didn't make any mistakes, but I prepared more than I ever prepared before.

One of the things I did, I listened to my recordings every night and I wrote out my act over and over and over again. I wrote it out. I wrote it out both on paper, like hand to paper and I wrote it out with keys, like typing it on a laptop. I did it over and over again. I listened to recordings, I watched recordings, I way more preparation than I had ever done before for any other show.

The night that you did it, did you change anything or do anything new? No. No. But I was free. I felt very loose.

Once the show started, I felt like a regular show. I didn't, because it was prepared. But it's just like a fight. Like if you go into a fight, you're like, oh, I should have done more roadwork. Oh, I should have sparked more.

I should have hit the pads more. You're, you know, that's not a good place to be.

“To hope that you can pull it off, you have to be 100% prepared.”

And that's the thing about doing a live show as opposed to. Usually when I would film a special, I would have four shows. So I'd film all four of them. And I'd be like, oh, fine, one of them is going to be great. I'll just use that one.

Yeah. But when it's just one and the whole world like millions of people are watching simultaneously, as very scary. Makes you prepare. Yeah. It makes you prepare.

It makes you prepare. And it also, it's like it's fucking fun to do something that scares a shit out of you. Yeah. Like, let's go. Where did you shoot?

Oh, um, San Antonio. Okay. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

You have only done one net. I barely leave Texas these days. Really fucking love it here. I love it. I love it.

Yeah.

“It was amazing when you made the move, man, because that's what I asked you when we first started talking.”

And it's like, were you thinking about this in LA, but way back like 20 years ago? I was thinking 20 years ago about getting out. I moved to Colorado for a little while in 2009. But for legal need? No, no, no, no.

I just wanted to get out. I just wanted to try. But I went too crazy. I got a house in the mountains that was 8,500 feet above sea level. It was like, it was too much.

But when I came back to LA, I always had this thing like, eventually I got to get out of here.

First of all, I always thought LA is 100% going to have a massive earthquake one day.

Yeah. Like a massive earthquake where everything fucks up and falls apart. You lived through the North Reader earthquake. I didn't. Oh, I came to California right after it happened.

Okay.

I was like, this is nuts. The freeways fall down here. This is crazy.

So I feel like I've always been thinking that there's going to come a time where that place just breaks

off and sinks into the ocean. And it's just not well run. Like the whole thing is like just waiting for one little catastrophe. There's very little coordination, very little people don't. They don't.

There's not like a sense of community in the greater Los Angeles area. Like you get in a smaller place like Austin. Like Austin. Yeah. Austin feels like a small town that has everything you want.

Whereas LA just feels like a poorly run bureaucracy driven chaotic shield game. It's like just a shell game of bullshit and money and people drifting and fucking the homeless

“situations, not like everything's nuts in LA, it's just beyond fixing, I think.”

Here in Austin, a lot of homeless. Not nearly as many. I mean, this is a very small problem. You're always going to have homeless people because you're always going to have mental illness. You're always going to have drug addiction.

You're always going to have some people that have problems. But in comparison, like Skid Row is 50 blocks. Yeah. 50 blocks.

Five zero blocks of homeless people just outside.

Just camped out. I left the Laker game recently and went through that area. It's not broke my heart, man. It broke my heart in 2005. Yeah.

I was a film and fear factor downtown in like 2005. Shout out to David Hurwitz. You know Dave. Yeah. Shout out to my intern.

I said him before you. I told him so he's coming. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy.

Yeah. We were filming downtown and I went for a driving home and I took a wrong turn. And also in Skid Row was like, this is crazy. And this is back then. And no one was talking about it back then.

I was like, there's so many homeless people. It's like a zombie movie.

“Remember I came to the set the next day.”

I was like, you guys have to go go this way and take a left. It's fucking nuts. There's so many homeless people. They figured out a way to keep them there. They just pushed people there.

Like they started doing it decades ago. Where they would take all the problem people out of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. And they would just bring it to downtown and go, you got to stay here. And that's what created Skid Row. When we were kids.

I used to hear about mental institutions. We don't have that anymore. Oh, they shut them down during the Reagan administration. That was one of the giant errors of society. When they shut down all the mental health institutions.

And they just let all these people just exist in the street with skits of Frania and just let them do drugs. And then some places give them drugs and give them needles. Encourage them to come there and give them money. Some of the kids stay on the street.

Austin loves you, but you ever think about back in the day. Not leaving California and running for governor. Fuck that. I don't want to be a politician. Why won't I want that job?

You want to tell the job. The problem you see, you want to help. Yeah, you ain't helping. Nothing man. You're going to get killed.

My help would be exposed all the fraud and lock everybody up. And then they wound up killing me. Then you'd lose the big money from the rich. And they're not going to give it to me anyway. And it's like, I'm not.

I wouldn't be good at it. I wouldn't be good at the job. I'd be good advisor to tell people what the people want. But no one's going to listen.

“I think politics we're talking about with money being involved in it.”

It's almost inexorably unfixable. It's almost impossible to untangle that fucking. Beehive of chaos. Yes. This is so much dirty money involved.

And if I'm a politician, I'm not going to stop taking this money. I'm not going to be first. If we all going to take this, I'm not going to be first. Exactly. Look at all these congressmen that make, you know, 170,000 dollars a year.

And they're worth 80 million.

How the fuck did that happen? What do you do? And how did you, how do you have time to invest? Aren't you busy being a congressperson? How the fuck do you have all that money?

You got all that money because you're a grifter. They're all grifting. And they're all just like doing it sneaky. It's red and blue. If you look at, we pulled up the numbers of people, whether it's a Democrat or Republican,

how many of them are inside or trading, it's across the board. Yeah. They all have just unexplainable amounts of money. Yeah. It's a dirty fucking business.

It's not like one of the parties loves money more than the other. No. No. See, I get in trouble for that because usually my humor is written around not liking any of them.

Yeah. And people want me to take a side. Yeah. That's a problem. I had a joke in my Netflix special about, you know, the Democrat versus the Republican

that was running at that time and it was like, that's like asking me, who my favorite meninges brother? (laughter) Motherfuckers did not.

Yeah.

He made them prison with a two-phase.

Why don't they try to get them out recently? Oh yeah. Brother, that documentary on them was nuts. The docu-drama series where they recreated it. Yeah.

Oh my God. I love documentaries. Well, that was a docu-drama. Like the reread series. Yeah.

Actors. So you don't know how much of it is true, but boy did they come off, like fucking complete side goes.

“I remember for the O.J. Simpson scripted doc.”

They wanted me to come read for O.J. What? And I'm like, yo, how do you feel? How do you feel? Yeah.

I'm just too like a nice voice me. Exactly. That wouldn't work at all. That's crazy. I think they chose Kuba Gooding Jr.

That's right. That's right. He actually did a great job. But what a, that story was nuts.

He was the first famous, there it is.

Yes. Wow. And that's Kim's dad. Wow. That's Mr. Cardassian.

Such a treasure. Travolta's in there. Do I forgot your old dad there? It's a, those are fucking so weird. It's the dream team.

Famous people pretending to be other famous. Yeah. So I do a story of my book about O.J. Coming to stage 29 at Paramount to whip my ass one time. But he was angry.

And you said joke on something. What's your name?

“I booked, um, as when naked gun was out.”

And I booked Leslie Nielsen. And we got a call from O.J.s. People because he wanted to come on obviously. He was in that movie. But the second one, it had legs.

So I booked Priscilla Presley, who is a great guest. And a lot of history. And after that, I get a call from the gate. There was an old Jason Simpson here at the gate. And he wants to talk to you.

And he didn't park. He didn't want to space. He parked outside the elephant door. Stage 29. And wanted me to come out.

Uh-oh. Yeah. And by the way, this is, this is at a time. We didn't know he cut him off of his head off. Yeah.

Also at a time, we didn't know about CTE. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which is probably a lot of what O.J. was going through a lot of that violent behavior.

Yeah. It's probably a lot of CTE. Yeah. Man, I mean, when you think about it, those days and San Francisco when he couldn't quite cut the way he used to.

He was getting hit. He was taking head on shots. Oh, yeah. And NFL back then was nuts. Yeah.

I feel bad for him. And junior say I went. Some of those guys. Junior say I was trying to scream to us. What was going on.

Right. You know, he committed suicide. Left. No. Left.

Make sure he didn't damage his brain with the bullet. Right. So they can check it out. But O.J. Stop buying.

And we had a talk. And so he was mad that you didn't have him on the show. Yeah. He was a little man. But was it your call?

Oh yeah. I mean. I mean. But by the way, it was my call to just do things that would get numbers. Right.

You know, well, the, the Leslie Nielson won. I liked him because I saw him someplace with a little thing in his hand to make fart noises. I saw that. Yeah.

So I knew that I would say to him. So you got a big head here to him. Yeah. He would do it. Squeeze the thing.

And yeah, I was just trying to find the funniest guest. Mm-hmm. And O.J. You know, he told me, uh, he said it's such a shit about, uh, you know, I thought having a black host stays would be different.

You know. And I'm like, don't you play the race car. Yeah. We're still down. Yeah.

Yeah. Not you, juice. But, uh, I ran into him in a club one night. I was hanging out with a couple members of New Edition. And we're in this club.

And he comes over and he gets drunk with us. And after we're pretty tanked, Nicole and this gorgeous girl name, they resonate.

I'll never forget her name.

She was beautiful. And these two women come over and I realize, oh, so because O.J. is alone. I realized he was going to places, find in her. And so, so she comes over and she says,

Choose, you know, and he says, and hang out with these guys. And he's, you know, when you drunk spit be flying, I wasn't drunk enough that I didn't see the spit. And so she said, well, I'm going to be over here with Fay and blah, blah, say something before you leave.

And so we sit there and talk. But he said something at night that blew me away. We talked about her. And he said, I still love her. I've tried to give her up.

And I can't. Wow. And that's crazy. That's crazy. Too much later.

She was dead. That's what. That's around the time.

“I remember missing the show because one thing that's addictive about the talk show”

is anything in the news you get to handle it.

And I remember watching a basketball game and seeing the free way chase with the Bronco.

“And I was like, I want a monologue to know it.”

You know, I could believe I didn't have a show that night. That's the only time I've ever really missed it. - Most of the time, just go to the store. - Right, right, right. - That's what it is.

- I wanted to talk to the nation, Ned Knight. - Well, isn't brother. You had a gigantic impact on culture. You really did. Your show was amazing.

You know, you have been an incredible life.

And I'm really happy to hear that you're happy now and just enjoying life. And you look fucking fantastic for 70. That's amazing. - Thank you, man.

I appreciate you inviting me. This is one of those shows. - Next time, you kind of come to the club. - Next time, you're into that too. - Let me know.

- The show is from you want to come. - But I can't come to the club. - I look at the mothership behind you, the neon mothership. - That was actually before the mothership was made.

- Oh, yeah, this was six years old, this sign. This is, we got this sign. My friend, Brigham got me this when I first moved to Austin.

“- So, what did this spaceship mean before there was a club?”

- I'm just UFO fanatic. - Okay.

- I've always been obsessed.

- 'Cause that looked like some shit. I went to a parliament, funky, dilly concert where they landed on some shit like that. And George couldn't you come out and saying, one nation under a group?

- Yeah. - Wow, I've just always been obsessed. That's all it is. But next time you're in town, you're coming. - Promise?

- Absolutely. - All right, I won't be in town.

“I'll figure out a way to hit you and say,”

Siri, Joe, I'm coming. - Let's go. - And I'll be here. Thanks for doing this, man, 'cause your demographic reads. And I know I saw some books today.

- Yeah, tell everybody in the name of your book. - Oh, we had a long ass meeting about that. Do we call it things that make you go home? A life that makes you go home? Do we call it?

We didn't know what.

And then finally one day we gnamed it, "Arcineo."

- Perfect. - That's it. - That's perfect. - Yeah. - And there's a book on tape for those who don't like to read.

And you need to book. And you know what, if you open it and you don't want to read it, they're really cool pictures and sad. - There you go. All right.

Art department, do some AI on me? I'm 35, right? - I'm 35 right now. - I'm 35 right now. All right, appreciate you, brother.

- Thank you, darling. - Bye, everybody. (upbeat music)