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I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So I'm taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You've got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I'm sitting down.
When you say, "there's no reason [to hit a woman]" that kills any examination as to how two people ended up at that place. When you say, "there's no reason," you cut out the build-up and you're just left with the act. How you gonna solve it if you don't figure it out?
I think some people really change when they become a dad. Like, I've changed in different ways. I - but, like, my comedy hasn't changed. And I've also seen people do that where you become this - you become a dad, and then all of a sudden, you're trying to be a role model.
I love making movies, and being in any that I can be in. I'd like to be in those giant movies, as the fifth or sixth lead, and have three or four killer scenes. You don't have the responsibility of the entire movie being on you. I like those roles. I'm shooting for the middle.
People make a big deal about podcasts but it's basically an online radio show with the sound effects and sidekicks, but because you can curse it's more like satellite radio. Most of the podcasters were morning guys who were fired when Clear Channel decimated the radio landscape.
I heard a quote once in a documentary about a band that said you're better off owning everything 100 percent and selling 20,000 copies of an album than signing with a record company and selling a million copies. There has never been a truer statement about show business than that.
If you do live shows long enough as a comedian, you can still hear that rhythm of laughing. It's ingrained in you, and it's not something you can really teach somebody. It comes from doing hours and hours and hours and years and decades on stage, performing in front of live crowds.
I liked Jimmy Snuka, Tony Garea, Larry Zbyszko, Bob Backlund, Bruno Sammartino, Chief Strongbow, SD Jones (even though they never let him win), Captain Lou, Ted DiBiase...Uh...I'm forgetting some people...Greg Valentine. Chris Rock and Ric Flair are the best. Ric Flair is the king.
Inter-racial sex is probably some of the best sex on the planet. You know what that is? Because with inter-racial sex there's like this whole added pressure to perform. 'Cause it's kinda like you're not just humping for yourself. You're humping for your race. You got to represent your people.
So many people there are in politics that they're overly cautious about laughing at stuff. They're so damned concerned about what everyone else is thinking. What are they worried about? Nobody ever walked into a show as a bleeding heart liberal and had a comedian undo 30 years of life experience.
I think the fear of humiliating yourself on stage always motivates me to give at least 90 percent. I've definitely been guilty of leaning on the mic stand, but you can only do that so long before you're like, "Jesus, I'm bombing." The fact that people pay to come see me, that's really just out the window.
You probably need 1/10 of the world's population for us to continue to exist. There's just too many damn people. You have to somehow get us from 7 billion people to... I don't know what the magic number is, but I imagine at some point, that will happen. And I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm making the cut.
Stand up comedy is this thing you get to do, so you have to treat it with respect. You can't just be like, 'Alright, I got my hour down, people are coming to see me now. Now, I'm going to lean on the mike stand.' No, you gotta work even harder now. You got to top what you already did. Because they'll find someone else.
It's a great time to be a comedian because you've got so much more control. You can say what you want to. I think in the old days with the studio system the performer was a bit of an afterthought. You can be a wildcard on the internet. But if you put something on the internet once it's out there it's out there for life.
If you get a chance to go outside of the country, you start examining where you're from and some of the thought processes. Like when I finally got away from the east coast for a while, and I came back there was just this underlying anger that I never noticed before, because I was born there and just dropped right into it.
Did you ever spell a word so bad that your spell check has absolutely no clue what you're trying to spell? What do you end up getting, you end up getting, like, a question mark. You got a million dollars of technology just looking back at you like, 'You got me, buddy. Which is pretty amazing because I have all the words.'
I'm one of those guys where you know, I'm 23 years into this and I love the road more than ever and rather than whittling down my schedule to just play the major cities, I've actually expanded the amount of places that I go to because I want to see a bunch of stuff. You know, plan it as I can while I'm still young enough to travel.
People focus too much on whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in office. It's not like this guy Kim-Jong Un got into power the second Trump got into power. It's not like he wasn't a problem. It's not like we haven't had warmongers. It's not like corporations haven't been the main influence on what we're doing around the world.
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I'm thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I've seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming.
It was right after 9/11 and I decided to walk around the grounds of the Pentagon, because I had never been there. Out of nowhere comes this speeding camouflaged golf cart and this guy starts yelling at me, 'What do you think you're doing!' The guy wrote my name down and began to follow me before I got really scared and took off as fast as I could.
If I get married I get a tax break, if I have a kid I get a tax break, if I get a mortgage I get a tax break. I don't have any kids and I drive a hybrid, I think I should get a tax break. I'm trying to pay off my apartment so I have something tangible. I actually figured out if I paid off my place my reward would be that I would pay an extra four grand a year in taxes.
Any other town you go to there's this little devil and a little angel on your shoulder. A little good advice, a little bad advice.You go to Las Vegas, there's like a devil and a devil and they're just battling it out the whole time. It's like, "Smoke some crack!" "Get a hooker!" And then I go, "YEA! Yea, this is a good town. Smoke some crack and get a hooker! Alright!"
You're not chasing syndication any more. It used to be a big thing. "Let's make 100 episodes and we'll get paid for life". You know? And what does the sheer amount of content that's being made do to syndication after a while? It just seems like there's more content than there is hours for everyone to watch it. But it's some of the best content that's ever been created.
My neighbor's not even listening to me. He's all excited about some garden hose he bought at Brookstone. He's convinced it was designed by NASA. "Actually, it's got two nozzles, one for the hot and one for the..." Really? Is it long enough to go around both our necks and the chimney so we can tandem jump off of this? That's all I really care about you and your little garden hose.
I'm an idiot, basically. I don't think that I'm a dumb guy, but I also realise that I have access to about 0.1 percent of the information that I need to have a truly informed opinion about half the stuff I talk about. I'm like that loud guy in the bar, who kind of makes sense for about ten minutes, and then you realise he flunked everything at high school so you just laugh at him.
London was like that too. It was that time of year when all the rich kids with the oil money have their cars shipped over. Some of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen - with the worst paint jobs! It was just this hilarious, disgusting display of wealth. The shamelessness of it. To be that shameless about your money when you're a guest in a country was astounding to me. But I saw the humor in it.
You're a kid, your whole life is awesome. It's awesome, right? You had no money, no ID, no cell phone, no nothing, no keys to the house. You just ran outside into the woods. You weren't scared of nothing. I challenge you to do that as an adult. All your IDs, all your credit cards - just run out of the house with no phone, turn the corner where you can't see your house, and not have a full on panic attack.
Realize that sleeping on a futon when you're 30 is not the worst thing. You know what's worse, sleeping in a king bed next to a wife you're not really in love with but for some reason you married, and you got a couple kids, and you got a job you hate. You'll be laying there fantasizing about sleeping on a futon. There's no risk when you go after a dream. There's a tremendous amount to risk to playing it safe.
There are no winners in this election [2016]. I paid attention to it for about two months and then it just started to depress me. At least Hillary's [Clinton] a politician, but the fact that you've got a guy from a reality TV show! I have to say, out of everything I've ever watched in sports - the greatest comebacks ever - watching [Donald Trump] get the nomination for the Republican Party is the most astounding thing I've ever seen.
It's just if one person says anything it becomes click bait and then they start talking about the comedy climate which is hilarious, so no. You know what it is? People are adults and they know they're at a comedy show but every once in a while somebody isn't an adult and then for some reason, you know, it's lazy reporting. They're trying to create this thing that isn't happening. It's not like people go in there and are just sitting with laptops open getting ready to blog about every stupid joke.
I've found is that by doing stand-up, I've actually learned how to combat depression. I don't have clinical, but I've definitely had my bouts with it. I just figured out that it's a choice. You're in control of your brain. When your brain is sending you bad information or bad thoughts, you can decide to go to the gym, or write a new joke - or if you're on the road, go to a ball game... something that's going to get the blood going. Or you can let those thoughts take you right down the rabbit hole.
Before I even knew what stand up was, I tried to make people laugh at school because that was how I made friends, so I think that's how I got drawn into comedy and obviously I was just some kid at school being silly, so the first time I saw a professional comedian and how smooth and funny the person was I totally got into standup and I would say obviously Richard Pryor was the guy. He's the greatest of all time and then George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Bill Cosby. It's so weird to bring up his name now but leaving out his off-stage antics... you could learn a lot from him.