0:00

Hi, I'm June Diane Raphael. And

0:02

I'm Jessica St. Clair. And we're

0:04

the hosts of The Deep Dive

0:06

podcast. Now, Jess, you and I spend

0:08

every week talking about motherhood,

0:11

products we love, grief. It's

0:14

basically a girls' night where

0:16

you don't even have to wear pants. And

0:19

honestly, we're having a lot of fun

0:21

doing it. We hope you join us on The

0:23

Deep Dive. Listen to The Deep Dive on Stitcher,

0:26

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this

0:28

now.

0:30

Your milkshakes cost way less than before. Join

0:32

Uber One to save way more. It's a

0:35

membership that's better than your save

0:37

on rides and eats and so much more.

0:39

Join Uber One and save. $0 delivery

0:41

fee and percentage off discounts subject to order minimums in participating

0:43

stores. Taxes and other fees still apply.

0:49

And now, it's time for

0:53

Inside Conan, an

0:55

important Hollywood podcast.

1:04

Hi, and welcome to Inside Conan, an

1:06

important Hollywood podcast. I'm

1:09

one of your hosts. I'm Jessi Gaskell here with

1:12

Mike Sweeney. I'm one of the other hosts.

1:15

That's me. Yeah, that's you. And

1:18

we're co-hosts. Yes.

1:21

Where two people do the work

1:23

of one or half a person,

1:25

a quarter person. But we do

1:27

it, damn it.

1:28

Yes, we do it. We do it in style.

1:31

Yeah, we sure do. I mean, if you could see

1:33

how we're dressed right now, that

1:35

style is the word. We're allowed to wear whatever

1:38

we want because we are on strike.

1:40

Right, but you're not allowed to point it out. We

1:43

are on strike. And

1:46

what a segue into our

1:49

current state of affairs. Yeah,

1:51

yeah, yeah. We're on strike.

1:53

Yeah. The Writers Guild, that is. Have you been

1:55

in unions prior to this? Prior

1:57

to the WGA? No. No, no, no. Yeah, in

1:59

your work. I've been in unions, but I never... Yeah,

2:02

you were in the mailman's union. I was in the mailman's union. I was

2:04

in the amalgamated meat cutters union. Really?

2:06

What is that? I was a deli worker at AMP. Oh

2:10

my God, there's a union? Of course. Amalgamated

2:13

meat. It's called the amalgamated

2:16

meat cutters union, which I just love that name. Is

2:19

the meat amalgamated or the union that's amalgamated? Head

2:21

cheese. Okay. Qualifies.

2:25

Yeah, and then when I was a student, I was

2:27

a unionized. Yeah, and then

2:29

when I was a standup comic, they tried to unionize

2:32

in New York and they formed. Oh,

2:34

that's kind

2:35

of hilarious. And they had a meeting and I went

2:37

to the meeting and it was just bad comics trying out

2:39

their material. And that's when I learned,

2:41

I literally was like, I

2:44

will never go to another

2:46

meeting, a union meeting.

2:48

So yeah, we're hoping this strike

2:51

gets wrapped up quickly and in our

2:53

favor, of course. Yes, whatever that

2:55

means. I

2:58

think wrapping it up would be in our favor. Yeah,

3:00

I think we'll get to that

3:03

point pretty quickly. Yeah. Do

3:06

you write, I don't write slogans on my signs. Oh God. I

3:09

don't. I did end up writing one, but I really,

3:12

I stressed about it because I, you know, it's basically

3:15

your calling card. Yes. And

3:17

people have been Instagramming all the signs.

3:21

And I've seen a lot of funny ones that made me laugh. Sure,

3:23

sure. Yeah. So I just felt

3:25

a lot of pressure to be hilarious.

3:28

But then I thought there's

3:29

nothing worse than trying to be funny and coming

3:31

up short. Exactly. So I ended up not really going

3:33

with a funny one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More

3:36

poignant ones. Oh, very nice. Yeah.

3:39

Good for you. If you see me out there, you'll see my sign.

3:43

Do you write up a new one

3:45

every time or? No, I just. Do you take it with you?

3:47

But I might have, yeah, I took it with me. Is

3:50

that true? I like it. Okay.

3:53

I'm going to have it because otherwise you end up, you start

3:55

the day and you have to look for a sign that

3:57

someone else has written.

3:59

And you have to. to decide you could spend

4:01

hours just looking through all the signs. That's what I

4:03

did. I like, I'm going through that. I feel like it's a

4:05

bargain bin of like, Yeah. And

4:08

there, yeah. And the records. There's some bad

4:10

ones. And yeah, and you don't want to hold a sign that's

4:13

not you. No, no. I feel

4:15

like a bad sign is only gonna prolong

4:17

the strike. They're gonna be like, okay, wait a minute.

4:20

Oh, this is the kind of writing you're doing?

4:22

I know. Anyway, this

4:24

season, we, if you're still

4:26

with us, we are covering Conan

4:29

on the road. And that means

4:31

Conan, that's outside Conan. Anytime

4:34

Conan stepped away from the desk to go

4:36

on a remote or do

4:38

a travel show. Bathroom break, anything.

4:41

Anything. We are discussing. We've got

4:43

it. And today we're joined

4:45

by the hilarious, this is extremely outside

4:47

Conan, Pete

4:50

Holmes. Pete Holmes is hilarious. And

4:53

he had a really funny talk show. He

4:55

did. On TBS. It was filmed

4:58

in the Conan studio, but it was not

5:00

Conan. So I feel like that counts. Yeah,

5:03

it was shot right next door. And

5:06

it was produced by Conan

5:08

and Jeff Ross. So a lot

5:10

of people from our show helped get

5:13

that show up on its feet. Yeah,

5:15

so here's Pete Holmes.

5:17

["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Here's

5:21

your cold open. Okay. Okay,

5:23

thank God. Four to three seasons

5:25

we've been looking for one. I feel

5:27

great about being Conan O'Brien. Good,

5:30

good, good.

5:30

Oh no, that's not the Black

5:32

Caster. Bum, bum, bum. Oh,

5:35

I'm so sorry. I know, Mike White.

5:37

Did you think

5:38

Conan was gonna be here? I never

5:40

heard that on a podcast. I know, Mike White. I

5:42

was the amazing race. Who says that? I

5:44

meant not Mike White. Who's in the White

5:46

Stripes? Jack White. Jack

5:49

White. There's a Jack White, there's a Jack Black, and there's

5:51

a Mike White. You clearly don't know Jack, you

5:53

don't even know Jack White's name. I don't know my Whites. I

5:55

don't know my Whites. They had their time.

5:58

Yes. They had their time.

5:59

It's over and I'm

6:02

into the- Save the three white people. Talk

6:05

them together. Talking about nothing

6:07

and being recorded. We're like Hitler in

6:09

his bunker. It's the last day. It does feel true.

6:12

For these three white people. Yes. Is

6:14

it? Oh,

6:14

we are remotely under the door. Yeah, we're remotely under the door. Oh,

6:16

yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not a shame to benefit the same. I, I, I,

6:18

I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

6:19

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm here as a cold Oprah.

6:22

Yes. What's our preference? You've never

6:24

brought in Leon the professional. That's me. And

6:27

you guys are Natalie Portman and you're 12. Is

6:29

it appropriate that I'm a hit man and I took you under

6:31

my wing

6:32

in the nineties? It was fine. It was

6:34

fine. It was fine. It's called mentoring.

6:37

It's called older mentoring.

6:39

Yeah, but look at her now. She's still

6:41

doing wrong. That was okay in the nineties. Yeah.

6:44

Yeah. Finished your sandwich. Right. When

6:46

did we all start saying we finish each other's sandwiches

6:48

and we're like, but that now it's the new phrase.

6:51

Oh, is it? Like it was a joke. It was on

6:53

Arrested Development, wasn't it? It was on Arrested Development. And

6:55

so were a lot of things. You're saying it's not a new phrase. But

6:59

it's bled into the vernac. Here's your cold open. My

7:02

father,

7:03

if you give him a gift, he takes

7:05

it as an assault. Like

7:08

if you, cause he will be like he

7:10

does- You're done on his birthday? You give him, give

7:13

me these lentils and

7:15

I'll be my father. Pete, can I offer

7:17

you? No, Pete's dad. Okay. Mr.

7:19

Holmes, senior. I don't know your fucking

7:22

dad's name. My name is Jay. You can- Oh,

7:24

okay. All right. Jay,

7:27

I went out on a limb and got you

7:29

a bag of lentils. Happy and lentils. I just

7:31

assumed you. Oh, just

7:34

exactly what I wanted. He

7:36

has to immediately put it down and

7:39

cut your legs out. Because if he,

7:41

it's too vulnerable, he's

7:43

so old school. That if he was like, sweetie.

7:46

Thank you. I love

7:49

pink and white and soft. Like

7:52

that would be too much vulnerability. They

7:54

were. They're gay. Except a gift.

7:57

He knows you. That's our cold

7:59

open. Yeah, there we go. Are

8:01

you mocking? No,

8:04

no. It was a fine cold open. Thank

8:06

you. It's cold. Oh, a cold open. Just

8:09

what I was hoping for. It's cold. Thanks,

8:11

Pete. A great cold

8:13

open. It was a good, it was a- Roll that theme

8:15

music. It was a good cold open. We

8:18

should do cold opens from now on. I know we should.

8:20

Do you not do a cold open? You don't do like a little taste? No, we kind

8:22

of- Do you do a cold open on your podcast? Yeah. We just

8:24

started doing a little taste. Ooh. Just a little

8:26

taste.

8:27

Yeah, what prompted that? Was

8:29

that a note or are you just- A

8:31

note. Other people's podcast, just like all

8:34

of show business. I just heard it on someone else's podcast

8:36

and I was like, that gives a little taste

8:38

of where it's going. A little teaser. I

8:41

listened to someone else's podcast today to

8:43

prep for that person being on my podcast. Sure.

8:46

The whole world is just podcast, podcast, podcast,

8:48

podcast. It's

8:50

a verb, it's a noun, it's a place, it's a job.

8:53

It's a calling, it's a passion. Soon

8:55

it builds. Stay in mind. And now it's a builder.

8:58

But I was looking at their cold open.

9:00

Oh, I should tell you what show it was because that would be

9:03

nice to them. Yeah, let's get them on. Sure, that's good.

9:05

We're now on another podcast. Now we're plugging other

9:07

podcasts. It was called the DoAQ

9:10

podcast, Diary of a CEO. Oh.

9:13

He does a cold open, this motherfucker.

9:16

No one is a CEO.

9:17

He opens

9:19

with four minutes of cold open.

9:21

Really? Just the best snippets

9:24

of the entire episode. That

9:25

you're about to hear. Before any

9:28

ad, there was no ad. Before any welcome

9:30

to serious exam, nothing. Just,

9:33

and I was like, that was incredible.

9:36

You

9:38

know when you see someone else doing what you do but

9:40

with like effort. Professional.

9:42

And a

9:44

plump. And you're like, oh,

9:47

like you're embarrassed. Yeah. Like

9:49

you're suddenly, you widen at the buffet.

9:52

I'm in a wet bathing suit at the buffet. You

9:54

widen and there's chandeliers and white tuxedos

9:57

and everyone's like, well, I'm a woman

9:59

with a mom.

10:00

And the monocle goes, he can't, you know? And

10:02

I'm just like, what? I swam

10:04

off.

10:05

Or if you're like me, you just assume he's

10:08

doing it to show me up. It's like this motherfucker.

10:11

Ah, you like my dad? What are you thinking

10:13

about him? That's exactly what I wanted.

10:15

It comes back to Jack. Is that his name? Jay.

10:18

Jay, fuck. John. John

10:20

Holmes. John Holmes. John Holmes. John Holmes.

10:23

John Holmes. We called him Shorty. That's our John

10:25

Holmes. See you're

10:27

too pure or young. Oh,

10:29

I thought that was a John Holmes. Yeah. Oh,

10:31

he's a porno. Oh, he was a shorty.

10:35

He has a huge ding. Huge but

10:37

short. No, no, no. We go, growing

10:41

up in my family, so my dad's name is John Holmes. My

10:43

brother's name is John Holmes. We got a lot of crank calls

10:45

back in the day. You crank the call and

10:47

you just go in the phone book looking for names

10:50

of porn stars. You call

10:52

Mrs. Whitehead. We're just like, yeah, we're

10:54

gonna pop. We call Bruce Wayne and we go,

10:57

Wayne, it's the Joker. If you wanna see Robin

10:59

again, we've got him down at the, we're in. And

11:02

they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh boy. Let

11:04

me put you on hold. I'm on

11:06

another Bruce Wayne prank call. Thank you

11:08

so much for this humorous crank call. While

11:11

we appreciate the attempted levity,

11:13

we also ask you to respect our

11:15

residential, my mother has lupus. Like,

11:18

there's a whole thing. The

11:21

phone frightens the dog. And

11:23

while, yes, your take was

11:25

unique and refreshing. Now

11:27

you have to text

11:29

them, you know? It's not the same texting Bruce

11:31

Wayne. No, you have to bet they're

11:33

hard to track down as well.

11:35

What was I saying? Oh, you were- Oh,

11:37

so they're both named this huge weenered,

11:40

sorry. John, yeah. But yeah, porn star. Known

11:43

for, Boogie Nights is based on John Holmes.

11:45

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I've seen that. So we would get

11:47

these phone calls and then I'd ask for John Holmes

11:49

and to be snickering and laughing. So the family

11:51

joke was that my father, who would

11:53

sometimes take these calls, would go like, yeah, in

11:56

our family, we call them shorty. So

11:58

the joke that I grew up-

11:59

from like six years old

12:02

was like, we have bigger

12:04

dicks than John bones. Which

12:07

I'm not complaining. Like you think I'd be like, that's

12:09

weird. I was like, my family

12:11

to this day, even though I grew up religious

12:14

and a little bit uptight in certain areas,

12:17

like jokes were always okay. Here's

12:20

an example. My mom, she's

12:23

like,

12:23

your father called me a bitch and I go, were

12:26

you being a bitch? And she laughed so

12:28

hard. My dad morbid

12:31

jokes. Like you can be like, well, I'll see

12:33

you next time. And he'll be like, well, and I'm like, yeah, unless

12:35

you die. And like everybody's like, I'm

12:38

just like,

12:39

I wouldn't say I talk shit about my family.

12:41

I'm just, I'm one of those mopey, like, I like feelings.

12:44

I like going into the dark corners of my psyche. I'm

12:47

going to say something very positive about my family.

12:49

We love jokes and like way

12:52

before it was cool or like normal.

12:55

We had the like, if it's funny, it's okay.

12:58

And even on Crashing the Show, I had

13:00

them sign a release because the lawyers wanted

13:02

me to sign, get them to sign a release and

13:04

they didn't care at all. They were honored to

13:07

be mocked on our show. I know, yeah.

13:09

So you don't have, cause I know a lot of comedians

13:11

especially that have the thing where they're like, I

13:13

have to wait until my family's dead to

13:15

be able to talk about certain things. A lot

13:17

of people. Yeah. I know a lot of people. I

13:19

know a lot of, I feel like that's

13:22

too dark, but there are a lot of people that are waiting for sexual

13:24

revelations too. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a

13:26

tragedy. That's a tragedy. But my

13:28

family would, I don't know how that'd be if I was gay, but they

13:30

would have to fucking deal with it. I'll tell you right now. I

13:33

would love to break their hearts. Oh. Not

13:36

break their hearts, but I'd love to just rock their boat.

13:38

Just say your thing. Yeah, you could do it. I know, I

13:40

know. I wonder

13:43

how they would take it. Just for fun. My dad would

13:45

be

13:45

like, come on, get out of here.

13:48

Just exactly what I want. It's a bit, right? It's

13:50

a bit? You call him bitch?

13:51

He knows the bit. You're doing this just to spite me. He knows

13:53

the bits. So when you were six,

13:56

Yeah. Big dick jokes. Did

13:58

you, they explained.

13:59

about who John Holmes was and- Yeah,

14:03

I don't- Or you just understood it instinctively. You just said

14:05

it cause you, yeah, you heard it. You also died of HIV,

14:07

HIV. Oh.

14:10

So I knew that too. Wow. So

14:13

when it was explained- Was that made funnier? It was a big Bing Dong

14:15

porno star who was very coked

14:17

up and tried to break the mainstream of movies.

14:20

And he was also one of the first,

14:22

I think notable or known

14:25

people- Yes. To get HIV.

14:27

And that sort of began the thing. But

14:30

I also think that didn't help the, I

14:32

don't know if it was part of the stigma too. It probably ruined

14:34

the prank calls. It's helping the podcast. It's helping

14:36

the podcast. HIV, AIDS,

14:39

people wanna hear about them. Sure they do. They

14:41

do. We usually always segue into

14:43

9-11. But we haven't thought that in a while. You said it's

14:45

this kind of- Hitler in the bunker. Yeah.

14:48

Why was he in the bunker, sweetie? What had just happened? Oh,

14:50

it's okay to skate on the thin

14:52

ice but I can't jump in the water? I think

14:55

an army was invading his beloved Berlin. So

14:57

we

14:57

went under there.

15:00

Well, hey P,

15:02

I hate to- Wait, what? Lay tracks

15:05

for this train. Lay tracks.

15:08

I'm so sorry. Train. Cause

15:12

I honestly don't know. How did you come

15:15

to be in the Conan

15:17

cinematic universe? How did you get your-

15:19

I don't know that either. Your talk show.

15:22

Oh, and that's probably why- You actually got the UV blocking

15:24

umbrella that he keeps his whole

15:26

staff under. He goes, we'll be safe under

15:28

here. Yeah. Okay.

15:32

I was

15:33

doing stand-up comedy and I

15:35

wanted to be on Conan by the time I was 30. That

15:38

was my goal. Oh, that was actually, you had

15:40

kind of written that out. I had, what

15:42

if I ruined the podcast? I manifested

15:45

it. Just everything sucks. The

15:47

whole rest of this thing sucks. I

15:50

believe in positive vibes and I believe in setting intentions.

15:52

I like to say you don't get everything

15:55

you manifest, but you did manifest everything you

15:57

get, if that makes sense. Meaning you do

15:59

hit what you aim for.

16:00

You don't always hit it, but if you hit it, good

16:02

chance you were probably aiming for it on some level.

16:05

So I did set my sights on doing

16:07

Conan.

16:08

I didn't really watch him very

16:10

much until I moved to Chicago, which

16:13

is when I started doing stand up when I was 22. I'd

16:15

been doing it for a couple of years, but I got serious

16:18

when I was 22. Okay, I'm just kidding.

16:20

What year is it? The trip? No,

16:23

I don't care how old you are. It's your favorite year, 2001. Any

16:27

rips

16:27

on 2001? Is

16:30

that clear Tuesday? Not

16:32

a cloud

16:32

in the sky? Are we getting

16:35

warm? You knew

16:37

exactly what I meant. Where were

16:39

you doing stand up for two years prior

16:44

to moving to Chicago? Barely in Boston.

16:47

Okay, barely. I

16:49

imagine that's a hard time to break into. It was,

16:51

and I just didn't know what cocaine was. And

16:54

you didn't talk fast enough. I'm

16:56

not even kidding. It's hilarious.

16:59

I don't mean that in a bad way. No, I'm not saying hilarious.

17:02

Some tough guys

17:02

are like, that's hilarious. But they want to fight

17:04

you? I mean it like that's hilarious. I

17:07

was just so, I was religious and I was sweet. It's

17:09

like just picture Jack McBrayer and I'm going

17:11

into comedy clubs.

17:13

Me too. That guy's a guy like that. He's

17:16

a knife wielding. Also very tan

17:18

though. Is he? I don't care for that. Okay,

17:20

so you're in Boston, and so what made you

17:22

move to Chicago? Did you have friends

17:25

who were comics from there? Or did you feel like

17:27

it

17:28

would suit you better? Well, I never felt

17:31

like Boston was going to let me be

17:35

a grown up inside of it. I'm

17:37

one of those profit in this hometown people.

17:40

I still feel like a child when I go to

17:41

Boston. I don't like the feeling it gives

17:43

me. If you're not from Boston and you're not from Boston, go

17:46

to Boston. You will love it. I go to Boston

17:48

and my penis goes inside my body. I know, yeah.

17:51

I hate it. Like

17:52

I can't go back to my high school. It's

17:54

terrifying to me. Yeah, so Chicago.

17:57

I got a sense, but I wanted to be on SNL, so

17:59

I was like, what is it? did Chris Farley do? And

18:01

this is like very early internet, pre-internet

18:04

basically. So I'd read books

18:06

about Second City and it

18:08

basically sounded like all

18:11

of that. Yes. And actually Truth

18:13

and Comedy was a big one because that was like in

18:15

Truth and Comedy it says, it's very, in

18:17

fact, I call such hard bullshit on this,

18:20

but Sharna Halpern is like, stand up

18:22

comedians are like, sad, lonely Arthur

18:24

Miller salesman. They go around and hawk

18:27

their gags for pathetic laughs.

18:29

And then go cry in a holiday inn, improvises.

18:32

Not

18:32

like improv. They were like, behold

18:35

the improv. They made it sound like, let's talk about good

18:37

mental health. They made it

18:39

sound like Mormonism. They were like, it's

18:41

a community. There's game night,

18:43

there's free beverages and everyone's yes-standing

18:46

and it's corporate and communal

18:47

and beautiful. And I'm like- Nobody gets paid. But

18:50

I totally, exactly. It's basically,

18:52

it's a beer drinking group with an improv

18:55

habit. I believe that was an onion

18:57

headline. But I was

18:59

like, I just needed some guidance

19:01

and that's all I had to go on. And what Farley did

19:03

was he lived in Madison. He went to Chicago.

19:06

Mike Myers was in Toronto,

19:09

I believe, went to Chicago. Or

19:12

maybe he did Second City in Toronto. It doesn't matter. Everybody

19:14

was doing Second City. I was like, I'm gonna do Second City. I'm gonna get

19:16

an SNL because in college, everybody was like, you should

19:18

be honest because nobody knows anything. But

19:21

you're the funny guy. So you're like, you should be an SNL. And

19:24

I was

19:24

the tall, lumbering,

19:27

improv, not celebrity, but like,

19:31

I'm gonna own,

19:33

I was the standout of my college improv

19:35

team. Since the professional comedian of 22

19:38

years hesitantly. You

19:41

know, I did sorta, I did well. I

19:43

did well. Well, we looked up every

19:46

member of your college and improv team. They're here

19:48

now. That's why these students are here. I wasn't

19:50

the most beloved though. That's why I hesitated.

19:53

It wasn't that I wasn't like, but some people were

19:55

just like the favorites socially.

19:59

And then the game would start.

19:59

not be like, scoreboard,

20:02

but like nobody likes that guy. Like

20:04

I wasn't talking about it, but like they

20:06

were better at being everybody's friend and

20:08

I was very

20:10

like hyper focused. I was

20:12

very loud. And then I got to Chicago and I realized like

20:15

I'd go to a second city audition or something

20:17

and everybody looked like me. It was

20:20

all six foot five. They're all six foot

20:22

six. Oh, you know what? There's a lot of giants.

20:24

There are a lot of giants. Actually now that you mentioned it. There are

20:26

a lot of giants. And we all

20:29

like looked at each other.

20:30

In your same plaid flannel. We just

20:32

had different hats. Like some were cowboy

20:34

hats, some were trucker hats, some

20:37

were fedoras, but we were all the same guy.

20:39

And we're like, there's only one slot. So

20:42

then I realized very quickly, I moved to

20:44

an improv city to

20:45

do improv and ended up doing standup.

20:48

I worked at Bennegans on 150 South Michigan at

20:50

San Walgreens. But I would walk,

20:53

my link, my stop was

20:55

Irving Park, Irving Park, Brown Line. So I'd

20:58

walk past a place called the Lion's Den every

21:00

day on the way to the train. And

21:02

there was a sign, all it said was Monday comedy

21:05

and then Tuesday other things, but you know,

21:08

Monday comedy. The Too Much Tea

21:10

Tale guy. I

21:13

told him, tell him. Talk on Tuesday, Wine Wednesday.

21:17

Totally unnecessary. I can't remember

21:20

for the life of me what Wednesday was. Because

21:23

all you cared about was that standup night on Monday.

21:26

Tell us what happened. Can we talk to him,

21:28

the guy that saw that sign? So I was so,

21:30

I was scared.

21:32

I think I had a sense that it was a standup

21:34

night, but I just went in the back just

21:37

to see the room. Not

21:39

on a Monday, just to see where it was. And

21:41

it was this little

21:43

box. It was actually perfect,

21:46

but I didn't know anything about comedy rooms, but I was like, it

21:48

wasn't very big. I was like, okay, and I left.

21:50

And then the smartest thing I did and

21:53

sort of the best advice I have for people

21:56

that want to do standup and then I die. So

21:58

I was like, okay, That's what I was asking

22:01

for. There's your cold open. Cold

22:03

closed. Cold open number three. I

22:07

went and watched,

22:09

and that's the best advice I can give is, is

22:11

you're so scared. You think everyone's

22:13

gonna be so good. And I

22:16

was raised by an over-loving mother and a withholding

22:18

father, and that's a recipe for talent. So

22:20

I went in, I was ready to be a comedian,

22:22

but I was still very scared. And

22:24

I went in and I watched, and

22:27

I'm not being cocky.

22:28

I feel like a lot of people would feel this way.

22:31

I was like, I could smoke all of these fools.

22:34

Like it was terrible.

22:35

It was like, you said AA

22:37

meeting. It is a little bit like, this

22:40

is a lot of these people are unstable

22:43

or just in a rough spot. They're

22:45

just kind of getting up. Just wanna talk it out. And like

22:47

going back to my earlier point, standup wasn't

22:49

like,

22:50

I'm not saying it was for dorks or anything, but it was

22:52

a fringe activity. So

22:54

like, you wouldn't

22:56

watch and go like, oh, he's doing Seinfeld

22:59

or maybe Seinfeld, but he didn't

23:01

have the lexicon that we have now. So it's just a bunch

23:03

of people doing bullshit, some funny people.

23:06

And that was the smartest thing I did because the next week I

23:08

went and I signed up

23:10

and I started

23:12

doing it. And I had done it in Boston, but

23:14

that really felt like my start. Oh, that's great.

23:17

And so- And you were immediately good at

23:19

it and that's the end. One

23:22

week later, you had your own show. The funny thing is

23:25

the trouble with social

23:27

media and YouTube and all these things,

23:30

there's that great line in Inside Lou and Davis where they're

23:32

like Oscar

23:34

Isaac goes, I never released the early stuff. It

23:36

kills the mystique. And

23:39

I really think there's a killing of the mystique that

23:41

happens now is because you start and

23:43

you start posting your clips immediately. You

23:46

don't have that whole learning

23:48

curve. You need to be underground

23:50

for a little bit. And that's what was awesome about

23:52

Chicago. I'm not saying it's underground necessarily

23:55

anymore. There's no industry- Either

23:57

New York or LA. Exactly. And it was

23:59

just-

23:59

to be the best person

24:02

in the scene. And not even necessarily

24:04

to make it. I definitely was like, I'm going

24:06

to be a comedian. Full stop, no

24:09

joke, that's what's happening.

24:10

And plus there's less pressure probably being

24:13

there. There was, yeah. There's other details

24:15

in the story. I got very lucky when I was in Chicago,

24:17

the few times I opened for somebody, it

24:19

was Bill Burr and Jim Gaff. Oh wow. Literally

24:22

the two times my friend Dan Kaufman.

24:23

So you really had a community already of people

24:26

who either were already doing well or. Yes, and

24:28

when I moved to New York, I got a phone call from Jim

24:30

Gaff again, and he was calling to ask me to open

24:32

for him in Indiana. And I was like, I just moved to New

24:34

York. And he was like, well, I can't fly you

24:37

out. I was like, okay. So

24:39

I was like, ah, fuck, but at least we were in touch. I

24:42

have so many stories of these. But that was the other

24:44

thing I tell people that are doing Santa, I was like, don't

24:46

try to be funnier than Kevin Hart.

24:49

Try to be one of the funniest

24:51

people just on the show. Just try

24:53

to shine on just that show. And

24:57

that's your mark. And if you're doing

24:59

an open mic, and those days at the lines and 50

25:01

people would sign up, it would take hours.

25:03

So, you know, if you could be in the top

25:06

five of those people. And

25:08

you know what will really give you a leg up is if you

25:10

have a coherent beginning, middle

25:12

and end. If you write your set. You'll

25:15

be. Cold open. If you do a cold

25:17

open and a 9-11 and a Holocaust and

25:20

an AIDS, you're in business. It's

25:22

not silly. But actually. You

25:24

can go. Then it's just mop up after that. If you're not

25:26

drunk, and if you're not just trying

25:28

to say things you're not allowed to say. You're

25:31

way ahead. And if you write a beginning,

25:34

and if you study comedy, I don't mean to make

25:36

it about this, but like, even when I wasn't

25:39

that funny, and I wasn't, nobody is,

25:41

I had a beginning, and in

25:43

what I thought might be around the four

25:46

minute mark, I'd try to do a callback.

25:48

I'd try. Because I saw the pros doing

25:50

that. And I remember my parents came and saw me. This

25:53

was actually in Boston. I can't believe I

25:55

was okay with them coming to see me. I still get terrified

25:57

of that. But they came in and they watched me, and they still

25:59

talk.

25:59

that the host of the open mic

26:02

at the Comedy Connection, I didn't do that

26:04

well. I did okay. I

26:06

still remember the routine. I started

26:08

talking about free samples

26:10

at the food court in the mall. I

26:13

remember this is a joke. I remember I go, food court? I

26:15

was a big Seinfeld guy. What is this? Where

26:18

rebel foods go on trial? Wait for the

26:20

tag. I go, you're going to fry

26:22

for what you did, chicken. It's terrible.

26:26

But I talked about the free samples. And

26:28

it was this whole like- This is the

26:31

reason you had to move to Chicago. Oh my God, I had

26:33

to run from my past. After

26:35

that. The routine was, I

26:37

don't think I've ever really talked about this, not that it's hot

26:39

take, but when you do your own podcast, you

26:42

get excited. When you're like, I think I've found something-

26:44

Something I've never said out loud before. You

26:46

guys know. You guys know the thrill

26:48

I'm talking about. But it

26:50

was talking about that

26:52

you would take

26:54

a free sample. It was always general. In

26:56

Boston you call it general gout's chicken. General

26:59

So's chicken, I believe most of the world calls

27:01

it.

27:02

One drunk guy at a Red Sox game said gout's.

27:05

And we're like, I think it's- What the fuck you're saying,

27:07

mate? And it was just gout's. It was now gout's.

27:09

Oh, are you from China? Yeah. Oh,

27:12

you're from China. You are

27:14

from China. And you come right to Fenway. Like,

27:16

where do you get the G in that word? It's TSO.

27:19

Anyway, I got to go through gout

27:22

pre-check. Gout. That

27:25

was a stretch. I know what

27:27

you were doing. And I love, that's all I needed. In

27:29

comedy, if you know what I was going for,

27:32

still a B minus. I

27:36

talked about how you would take a sample. You

27:39

just have nothing to talk about.

27:41

I'm 20, 21 years old. You

27:43

haven't done shit. You

27:45

just need something. Exactly.

27:48

You just need something. Maybe I was 20. And

27:51

I was like, just talking about you'd eat some

27:53

of the general gout's chicken.

27:55

You don't want it, but it's so good. You

27:58

buy a plate of the chicken. And

28:01

I think I started, it's called a false premise.

28:03

You go, how do they afford to give away the free

28:05

chicken? That's a false premise. The chicken costs two

28:07

cents. I didn't

28:09

know anything, but I'm arguing circular

28:12

logic to prove the stupid point. How do

28:14

they afford the free chicken? Then I thought about it.

28:16

This is so stupid. You eat the chicken, then

28:18

you order the plate. You

28:19

don't even want it. You leave

28:22

it, you walk away, they come by, put

28:24

in a couple of toothpicks, right? And

28:26

like, that's the punchline is an ellipsis.

28:29

They put in a couple of toothpicks.

28:32

You're just hanging out. I

28:35

knew that one over and forth. You guys. I

28:37

think I'll. I'll wait. I'll leave this

28:39

here. You could finish my sandwich on that

28:41

one. Ooh. That

28:43

was

28:44

my ellipse. That development

28:46

was not a right thing. You were kind of doing your early,

28:48

you were kind of doing. Yeah. My

28:51

son, Kelly, but. In Sign Fildes back then. You put it, well,

28:53

you had to. See, what Sign Fildes is a master

28:55

of is he figured out that there's how you

28:58

say it. It's an attitude. Like, what's

29:00

the deal? It's an attitude. And most people,

29:02

the mistake they're making, and

29:04

sorry, I don't mean to turn this into a standup tutorial. No,

29:07

it's. Most new comedians, I want to pull them off stage and go,

29:09

how do you feel about

29:11

what you are saying?

29:12

Yeah. How do you feel? Because

29:15

there's a lot of autism. What's your point of view?

29:17

There's a lot of like brilliance and there's a lot of heavy

29:19

stuff. And someone needs to go like,

29:21

where in your body is

29:24

that joke? You know what I mean? I'm not saying

29:26

you need to be doing this, but you need to be going. You

29:28

said that is Sign Fild. Where in

29:30

your body is that joke?

29:32

Where are these jokes

29:34

in your body? And people like Sign

29:36

Fild that figure that out that aren't naturally

29:38

embodied and not, I wouldn't even say I

29:41

can't prove this, but I have to think he

29:44

taught himself to emote

29:46

on command to get a

29:49

better response. That was the only motivation

29:51

to learn how to talk like a human was

29:54

to get better laughs. Cause I'm sure he's even more

29:56

of a weirdo and that I would love. Some comedians

29:58

amplify like they're.

29:59

Oh yeah, of course. So

30:02

I'll give you an example that you don't care about

30:04

and you won't enjoy it. I'm just kidding. When

30:07

I was starting out, I wrote this joke

30:09

where I go unicorn, how about

30:11

unicorn? It has no

30:13

corn, right? Then

30:16

I did it on my HBO special and I yell

30:18

it. I go, it opens like this.

30:20

And first of all, the first joke, benign

30:24

violation is a joke, right? The first

30:26

joke is that out of nowhere, I go unicorn.

30:30

Unicorn, but I'm yelling,

30:33

how about unicorn? That's

30:37

a joke because the joke isn't

30:39

just the word. The joke is actually,

30:41

not to dissect the bird, but the joke is

30:43

that that's what you're getting upset about.

30:47

And that can be canned and overused and fake

30:49

and bad, but it went from

30:51

something that's embarrassing,

30:53

never say that again, to one of my

30:56

most quoted jokes. And it's a stupid

30:58

joke. And by the way, my social

31:01

person just posted that clip

31:02

on social media. The

31:04

other risk, the comments are full of people telling

31:06

me about Latin. And I don't know

31:08

why I looked at the comments. But I was like, this

31:11

is- You're never too old to learn. Yeah, that's right.

31:13

This is also the enemy of comedy.

31:16

Some new comedian would post that. Somebody called

31:18

the joke lazy. I

31:20

really don't know why I looked at the comments. I never

31:22

do. Someone was like, look, I don't

31:25

mean to, but I just got to call out this lazy

31:27

joke. It's uni and a eunuch.

31:29

And I was like,

31:31

you fucking, I'll burn down a

31:33

whole reenactment

31:36

village and that's their livelihood despite

31:39

this person. Like

31:41

I'll burn the planet plantation to the ground.

31:44

Do you do that digitally? Do you get into it with people

31:46

online? Oh no, I'll never do that. I

31:49

won't give this as a- You have a fake troll account.

31:52

I will say it here and they'll never hear

31:54

it, but I like that. Yes, no one will ever hear it. They'll never

31:56

know. No, no, I don't mean that. That's our guarantee.

31:59

Cold opener, no. So

32:02

let me speed forward. I do stand

32:04

up. Two weeks later. I get good. I

32:06

moved to Chicago. Like after

32:09

doing stand up for

32:11

very short, I moved to Chicago. So

32:13

like six, maybe did it six times in

32:15

Boston. Moved to Chicago

32:17

to do improv.

32:18

Walked by the thing. Monday

32:21

night. Comedy, meditation. Didn't get into anything I

32:23

auditioned except I got an improv

32:25

team, but there wasn't enough action. I

32:28

need, you know. It's like late

32:30

night. I like that. I want to turn and burn.

32:32

I want a new joke, new monologue, new

32:34

laugh. Let's go. Let's go. Fucking

32:37

improv. Look, I love improv, but this fucking get

32:39

your 10 idiot friends together

32:42

to rehearse once a week, to perform

32:45

once a month. I'm like, you guys

32:47

are not snorting the same powder.

32:50

I've never done cocaine.

32:50

I'm just saying I'm in this. I

32:53

want it.

32:54

I actually need it as an anxiety reduction.

32:57

So I was like, look, we either need to rehearse

33:00

every day and do a show

33:02

four times a week, or I need to start doing

33:04

stand up. I'm really glad I started doing stand up because

33:07

that is

33:08

all the thrill and all of

33:10

the pain. It's all the risk and

33:12

all the reward. And I preferred that. I was like,

33:15

I'll eat shit and want to like

33:17

cry. You bombed so badly.

33:20

If it means maybe in three weeks,

33:22

I'll kill so hot. And also

33:24

the bad ones are like pulling the bow and the

33:26

string back. And then the next one's amazing.

33:28

Cause you're fighting. Like it's

33:31

no wonder we caught killing or dying.

33:33

It's like, it really is like a little battle. And when

33:35

you get your ass kicked, you train harder.

33:37

This is why I don't like, like,

33:38

Swine, you're a writer. I know you

33:40

see your things on their feet, but like

33:42

writers that are just sitting around thinking about

33:45

a novel, I'm like, how do you

33:47

motivate that? I

33:50

write because if I don't write, I die.

33:53

You don't write. You get to jerk off and eat some

33:56

Oreos. Like you win if you

33:58

don't write. I'm on a-

33:59

You're going for a walk

34:02

in Madison County. Like I don't

34:04

understand how they do it. And yet I envy them. I

34:07

envy them as well. I love that. But

34:09

I wouldn't trade it for the world, but if

34:12

you could just kind of like find your

34:14

dad's critical voice in you and be like, tickety-tickety-tickety-tickety,

34:19

there's

34:20

like shows coming up. I have to get

34:22

that breadcrumb. Well, and that thing you're

34:24

describing, I think you had

34:27

to have that to be successful. I

34:29

don't think that you, I mean, performing

34:32

once a month, you're not

34:34

going to get the experience

34:36

that you need. It just wasn't working for me. You need

34:38

the rips. But wait, so after three

34:40

years, you looked elsewhere

34:42

and where did you end up? Well, speaking of Seinfeld, I

34:45

saw the movie Comedienne.

34:48

It's a very

34:50

fond memory. I went and saw it with

34:52

Kumail, Kumail Nangiani. The

34:56

most Italian Pakistani. Kumail

35:00

Nangiani and I had a big bowl of pasta. He

35:02

had a unibrow and smoked parliaments at the time. This

35:05

is not the- Pre-marble. Yeah,

35:07

pre-marble. And we went

35:09

to the movie theater, like where

35:11

I wouldn't even call it the movie theater. We went to a

35:13

movie theater where a comedian was playing, but it wasn't

35:16

on a lot of screens. But we went to opening day,

35:18

Matt and A. And we sat down, the

35:20

theater was already dark, we watched the movie. Of

35:22

course it changed my life. By the time the movie

35:25

ended, I was like, I am moving to New York.

35:27

And when the lights came up,

35:29

we looked around and it was every

35:31

comedian. It was all stand up comics. But we didn't

35:33

know. We didn't know until the lights

35:35

came up. It was literally like- Yeah, it's a bad name. And

35:37

you

35:38

all immediately moved to New York together. Well,

35:41

you know, it's an interesting to

35:43

me, obviously, because what

35:45

I did ended up working for

35:47

me. It was a really important moment.

35:50

And I wonder how many of those guys were like, I should move

35:52

to New York. I wonder how many did. And

35:54

the answer isn't a lot. Kumail did. Yeah. And

35:57

I did.

35:57

And I look,

35:59

and a lot of brilliant.

35:59

in one state, but what I wanted

36:02

to do was go to New York. And I did. And

36:05

because of that movie, almost single-handedly, I

36:07

told my wife at the time, we're moving to New

36:10

York, like just like that. And

36:12

not like cutting

36:14

a steak with black and white, we're moving

36:17

to New York, like what's like that? Pack up the

36:19

kids. I was very sweet and very meek. I

36:21

probably just was like, what do you think?

36:23

Next thing I know we're faxing. She was a teacher,

36:25

her resume to schools that we just found

36:27

on a map. But having a

36:29

wife where it's like we're moving

36:32

together, that's a big change. Well, yeah, I mean, this is my

36:34

ex-wife and she ended up

36:35

being the impetus for crashing. But again,

36:38

to say something lovely about

36:40

her, she was very supportive

36:42

and believed in me. And

36:45

when we broke up, actually, she was like, she

36:47

had an affair and she regretted the way that

36:49

it happened, but she was like, the nicest thing she said was

36:51

like, I believe in you. She's like, I think

36:54

you're gonna be- Oh, that's great. She said, I

36:56

think I could cry. She goes, I think you're gonna be one of

36:58

the greats. I'm not leaving you because I think you

37:00

stink. I'm leaving you- She didn't.

37:02

I'm leaving because

37:03

I'm jealous. I'm leaving because

37:06

I'm not attracted to you. She said her truth,

37:08

which was, I'm not interested in

37:10

being a famous comedian as well. And

37:12

that was great. But for like years before

37:15

I was famous. Oh, she got it at the

37:17

right time. That's not for me. I've

37:19

also joked that she also left like the year

37:22

I started making good money. I

37:24

was making nothing. Like she might've

37:26

liked it a little more. She's holding

37:29

you back. How do you like it in a mink? Yeah.

37:33

But yeah, so no, she was supportive

37:34

and she did move

37:36

to New York and she was working and

37:39

I wasn't breaking in and I wasn't gonna start doing

37:41

enough $50 spots. I wasn't getting any $50 spots.

37:44

I was making no money. But then Jesse

37:47

Klein, you know, Jesse Klein,

37:48

she hosted a show on Wednesday

37:50

night at a place called Rafifi,

37:53

which we also rebuilt for crashing. I

37:56

was just on East 11th between first

37:58

and second. And...

37:59

It was this all haven.

38:02

It was like really like, I

38:05

almost always show up at things right when they're ending

38:07

or falling apart. I happened

38:10

to show up at this right when it was sweet. Three

38:12

Conan writers talked about it, Todd,

38:15

Levin, Dan Cronin and

38:17

Andre Dubache. Andre Dubache. I

38:19

think they all became friends and met there. Yes,

38:22

so many wonderful people. 80 Miles,

38:26

Eugene Mermin, Bobby Tisdale.

38:30

It was incredible and they

38:31

were all like

38:33

one of a kind. Nobody

38:36

was doing the same thing as anyone else. Did

38:38

you feel like you were somewhere special

38:41

when you were there? I did. This time

38:43

in my life, I met Dimitri Martin, another Conan writer,

38:45

and I made a fake newspaper.

38:47

I came home and I was so adrenalized just

38:49

from meeting Dimitri. And I made

38:52

a fake newspaper in Microsoft Word and

38:55

put a picture of him in it. This is truly

38:57

embarrassing. And wrote, I

38:59

think my wife called me Pums. Well,

39:01

let's hear the whole story first. I know, I said, anti-semite

39:05

crashes Boston comedy club. I'm

39:07

just kidding. It said, Pums

39:09

meets Dimitri Martin. And I wrote

39:11

the story of how I met him because I

39:14

left it out for my wife to read in the morning.

39:16

Called like the Peter

39:17

Times or something. But

39:20

this is how like

39:23

single focused I was. I

39:25

know you didn't mean it, but I looked at you and

39:27

you were kind of like, are

39:30

you sure you want to tell this story publicly? Indicating

39:32

Jo our engineer. No, no, no. Her

39:35

name is Joi. Jo. Jo.

39:37

That's more fitting. I'm just kidding. JK, JK, JK.

39:43

Gonna no Brian here.

39:46

And

39:49

I'm honored sitting here with Dana Carvey,

39:51

Kevin Neill and Robert Smigel. We

39:53

wrote a Hans and Franz movie in 1991

39:56

that never got made. if

40:00

you can believe that. Gentlemen,

40:03

say hi to the listeners right now. Hello.

40:05

Hello listeners. Hello listeners. Hello listeners.

40:08

I'm your flappy ears. If you've been in the accent too long, you get

40:10

out of it. Your ear lobes are hanging down like

40:12

a dripping muscle. This

40:14

is called accent syndrome.

40:17

When I go home to my wife, I will talk like

40:19

this. She should probably get mad at me. None of you even

40:21

thought about using your real voices. Hi.

40:24

Well, guess what? Hello, I'm Robert Smigot.

40:27

But now you get to hear us. I'm Kevin Meegan. Now you

40:29

get to hear us read selections from this 30

40:32

year old lost

40:33

Hans and Franz movie in a

40:35

limited series coming soon to

40:37

the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend feed. Listen

40:39

to these special episodes of Conan O'Brien Needs

40:41

a Friend, the lost Hans

40:44

and Franz movie, wherever you get

40:46

your podcasts.

40:47

Hi, I'm June Diane Raphael. And

40:50

I'm Jessica St. Clair. And we're the

40:52

hosts of the Deep Dive Podcast.

40:55

Now Jess, you and I spend every week

40:57

talking about motherhood,

40:59

products we love, grief. It's

41:02

basically a girls' night where

41:04

you don't even have to wear pants. And

41:06

honestly, we're having a lot of fun

41:09

doing it. We hope you join us on the

41:11

Deep Dive. Listen to the Deep Dive on Stitcher,

41:13

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this

41:16

now.

41:18

AT&T Connects and OTA Podcasts.

41:21

Connect the alarm. Change the podcast you

41:23

stream. Connect the snooze. 10 more minutes

41:25

to dream. Connect the shower, lather up

41:27

with the news, sports talk comedians

41:29

or movie reviews. Connect with that

41:31

three hour philosophy show. Change

41:33

the drive into work and traffic so slow.

41:36

Connect the dishes to voices that glow.

41:38

Thank

41:38

you to the geniuses of spoken audio.

41:42

Connect the stories. Change your perspective. Connecting

41:44

changes everything. AT&T.

41:50

Your milkshakes cost way less than before.

41:52

I joined Uber One to save way more.

41:54

It's a membership. That's better than your

41:56

save a ride that eats and so much more.

41:58

Join Uber One and Save.

41:59

Zero dollar delivery fee and percentage off discount

42:02

subject to order minimums and participating stores. Taxes and other

42:04

fees still apply.

42:06

So let me, I'll try to speed it up, but

42:08

Jessie Klein had that show Wednesday.

42:11

She and Nick Kroll had a show called Welcome to Our Week. I

42:13

read about it in the Village Voice. And the way

42:16

they described it, it sounded like it was a talk show,

42:18

which is a show in the back of a bar. But I

42:20

got there and it might as well have been a talk show. And

42:22

she worked for Best Week Ever. She

42:25

was on Best Week Ever. And I think she was a writer and a bit,

42:27

no, I don't know what she did. But she was an executive

42:29

at Comedy Central and she was on

42:31

Best Week Ever.

42:32

And I, again, set the intention.

42:35

I had Conan by 30, but I was like, I

42:38

want to do that

42:40

show. I won't tell you all

42:42

the other

42:44

shows I did, hopefully, like literally like a training

42:46

montage, trying to get people

42:49

to notice me so I could finally meet

42:51

Nick Kroll at UCB, which I did, and

42:53

finally ask him, can I do your show? And finally

42:55

get booked on it. Nick's not there that night, but

42:57

Jesse is. I do the

42:59

show, I do well. That's important,

43:01

that's key. It's not just networking. It was like, I

43:04

was ready for receiving. Preparation needs luck, yeah.

43:06

I emailed her.

43:07

I don't even know how I got her email. I must've

43:09

asked her. And I just said, thank

43:12

you so much for having me. I've always wanted

43:14

to be on Best Week Ever. It's like a goal of

43:17

mine. And I've always wanted to do Premium Blend because

43:19

that was a Comedy Central show. She didn't reply.

43:22

She instead, I got an email

43:25

from the Fred Graver, who was the executive

43:27

producer of Best Week Ever, saying, Jesse Klein told me that

43:29

you'd like to do Best Week Ever, just like that. One

43:31

of the coolest moves. That's pretty good. She

43:34

didn't even reply. She just did

43:36

it. And he reads out, next week I'm on, now

43:39

I'm making $400 a week doing

43:41

Best Week Ever. It was fucking incredible. It became

43:43

a regular gig. It was a regular thing.

43:46

I learned so much doing Best Week Ever

43:48

that everyone here takes for

43:51

granted. It's like attitude,

43:53

rephrase the question that's like, what

43:56

was it about Chuck D's

43:58

response that made you... and

44:00

you'd go, the crazy thing about Chuck D's responses,

44:03

like you learn those things, that when you interview

44:05

like a college intern, you go like, oh,

44:08

like you don't know what you're doing. You

44:10

don't know how to talk, showbiz. In sound bites, yeah.

44:12

You don't know how to talk in sound bites. So I did that show.

44:15

Then again, I moved to

44:17

LA, it's boring. I

44:19

wrote a writing sample. I did Montreal.

44:22

I got my agent, Zach Drucker and Doug Luchthuhan

44:24

at WME. They still are my manager,

44:27

blah, blah.

44:29

I wrote a modern family spec. Yes.

44:32

I submitted it. Haven't we all? Haven't

44:34

we all? Literally. I think it

44:36

was the year before they started

44:38

saying, no more modern families. Yeah. But

44:41

I'm very proud of this story too, because I had never written

44:43

the spec. I just,

44:45

they sent me a sample of a script and

44:48

I had never seen the show and they sent me DVDs.

44:50

This is how long ago it was.

44:52

I watched a couple episodes. I looked at the scripts.

44:55

I was like, the first scene is four pages. The

44:59

second scene, exact gold open. The

45:01

second scene is, and that scene comes

45:03

back here. And I swear,

45:05

I just, a beautiful mind to death. I just went

45:07

like, uh-huh. Like it

45:10

took a weekend. There's math involved. It is, yeah.

45:12

I wrote it in a weekend. Like that,

45:15

because I really only did

45:17

that. And there is math involved. It's

45:20

like, there's a musicality and there's a pattern.

45:22

And then I was like, this guy is a

45:24

corny dad. I'm like a corny

45:26

dad. I still remember some of the jokes I had

45:29

him say as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was

45:31

playing Mr. Freeze at the time. I was like, I used

45:33

to see you. So I put in parentheses

45:35

as Schwarzenegger. I used to see him and I was like,

45:38

I think I'm getting this job. And

45:40

I did. Oh shit. I

45:42

got it first back, first thing,

45:44

first job. On Modern Family. Not on Modern

45:46

Family. I got a job on a show called Outsource.

45:48

Oh, okay. Well for NBC. But

45:51

that moved me to LA. Oh yeah. Now

45:53

we're getting closer to what

45:55

we're supposed to talk about who cares.

45:58

Who cares.

45:59

Now I'm doing more. and I'm 31 years old

46:01

now. So I'm a

46:03

year off my Conan. And

46:05

I'm a little, I didn't

46:08

see this wrinkle coming. I'm

46:10

so used to, it's like

46:13

when, you know, and I had 30th

46:15

birthday. But you're 31 now. I'm 31.

46:18

And I had already done Fallon. I

46:22

broke my seal

46:25

doing Fallon, which was okay.

46:27

I did okay on it.

46:29

But then I really was like,

46:31

I'm gonna get on Conan. So

46:33

I really want to, at this point I had been submitting

46:35

tapes or links probably by this

46:37

point to JP Buck. Yeah.

46:40

Wasn't working though. But I happened to be at

46:42

the improv one night when JP was

46:44

watching someone else run their set

46:47

and I was closing out. So I did like 20

46:49

minutes at the end. I did the joke,

46:52

the Google joke. I had just written the joke

46:54

about,

46:55

believe it or not, this was cutting edge at the time, was

46:57

I have Google on my phone and

46:59

it's ruining everything. It almost sounds like a chat

47:01

GPT joke.

47:02

Because I say it's

47:05

like a calculator that you can cheat

47:07

at every subject, which is what chat GPT is. But

47:09

so is Google. Chat GPT is just like a very

47:12

sexy Google. It's like, let me, not

47:14

only will I tell you, I'll write it straight

47:16

out. You can also be married to me. Exactly.

47:19

Now you can marry pornography.

47:22

I never leave the house. It's like pornography that also

47:24

makes you a huge meal. So

47:28

you did the joke about Google.

47:29

Yes, and JP, and this was great.

47:32

He was like, I want that joke to

47:34

premiere on Conan. Oh, cool.

47:37

I've never even heard of something. Yeah. I

47:39

was like, what? We want that joke exclusively. I

47:41

love that. And I just taped it. And

47:43

he said, how old are you? Oh,

47:47

sorry. And I just taped

47:49

it on,

47:51

I don't know if it was John Oliver's New York standup

47:53

show or some other show, it

47:55

wasn't going to air for a couple

47:57

months. Yeah. But this is what I like, this

47:59

is what you want. You want to manufacture

48:01

urgency. Definitely. So

48:04

I had urgency and

48:06

he saw me live. Huge

48:09

synchronous. Or you could just say that

48:11

it's a mitzvah. It was like a gift.

48:13

Now I'm going to do Conan. I'm 31, I do it. Then

48:17

I'm writing on the other show.

48:19

I had a breakup. I lost 50 pounds

48:21

and I did Conan a second time.

48:24

I left my writing job. I was on the Warner Brothers

48:26

lot. I walked to Conan.

48:29

I literally was in the writer's room. I'll be right back.

48:31

I got to go do a set real fast. You

48:33

know what? I hope you took a moment

48:36

to enjoy that. Nobody

48:38

gave it to me. What? Nobody,

48:40

they seemed to pull it off. They were so

48:42

jealous. They were kind of like, how was it? How

48:46

was it?

48:47

Oh, how was your little taping? My makeup?

48:50

Why am I wearing makeup? And

48:52

my favorite shirt? My favorite. So

48:55

the second time. You wore that the first time. I

48:57

didn't. I'm 285 and I'm wearing a smock.

49:00

Oh,

49:03

wow. Like I had never won

49:05

the shirt before. You really lost. I lost 50

49:08

pounds in between my first Conan and my second Conan. A

49:11

bad relationship. And I did

49:13

a juice cleanse and you can tell cause my skin could

49:15

cook bacon and the second one was radiating

49:18

kale juice. The second one. And it

49:20

was that one that I didn't know that they

49:23

were looking for the

49:25

follow up to the Conan show. Oh,

49:27

wow. And so I didn't know, which I'm

49:29

glad. Thank God. Yeah. I

49:32

know. I know. You might be really good at that stuff.

49:34

A little pressure, I guess, but I was already swinging

49:36

for the fences. It's nice not to. But Conan was really effusive.

49:39

And I remember,

49:41

I think it was Jeff Ross was like, he never does that.

49:45

Like he came up and talked to me for like 10 minutes. And

49:47

I was like, that was nice. And they were like, he doesn't normally

49:49

do that. And I was like, really Mr.

49:51

Ross?

49:52

It's true. Really?

49:55

It is true. You say that to all the girls. It was very

49:57

sweet. And we bonded about being from Boston.

50:00

I was gonna say, I feel like you have a lot in common. You're

50:02

both really tall. Irish, Boston.

50:06

Spend time in Chicago. I went

50:08

to Harvard. I'm just,

50:10

I've been to Harvard. Harvard

50:13

Westlake. But this is where I think

50:15

it gets pretty interesting is that

50:18

I

50:19

didn't, I knew they were looking for somebody and

50:22

I miss this naivety, this sort of purity

50:25

that I had because my manager

50:27

day was like, they're looking for someone to host

50:29

a half hour talk show after Conan. I

50:32

was like, great. And they were like, so Conan wants to

50:34

meet. And I was just so happy that I

50:36

got to meet

50:37

Conan. Like I had a meeting in his old office

50:40

and I remember I sat

50:42

down and I was nervous, but I was also

50:44

like oddly confident. And

50:47

I was like, can I sit here? I don't wanna fuck up your shit.

50:49

And I don't know why I said that. Like it was one of those

50:51

like, what am I saying? Like the first thing I'm saying

50:53

is I don't wanna. And he goes, you can sit there.

50:55

You won't fuck up my shit. And I was like, oh, okay. Game

50:58

on. That's what I knew we were good. And

51:01

we just talked. I didn't know any, I swear

51:03

I was so green in show business. I was like, aren't

51:06

we gonna like talk about the

51:08

show? I didn't know, I wonder

51:10

if I had a pitch or something. I didn't,

51:12

but I was just kind of like, and we just chatted

51:15

about

51:15

our families and all

51:17

that stuff. I think his mom, yeah, it was.

51:21

This is very sweet. This is so saccharine,

51:24

but he said, I don't, this

51:26

is the last thing he said. He goes, I don't know what it is about you,

51:28

but when I'm with you, my funny

51:30

tuning fork vibrates. It's a

51:32

weird phrasing, I suppose. So I had

51:35

my little Warner Brothers parking pass

51:38

and I framed it and I drew

51:40

a tuning fork on it. A little

51:42

Sharpie and it's still in my office, but

51:44

I remember being like,

51:46

that's what I got from that. I got a parking

51:48

pass and a tuning fork.

51:51

Next thing I know, we go back to the TBS,

51:53

which probably means six months. But

51:56

next thing I know, we get another call.

51:58

You're going to meet with Jeff Ross.

51:59

not the Roastmaster, Conan O'Brien

52:03

at his office. And this is how

52:06

it went down. I'm sitting in

52:08

Jeff's office, which used to be much

52:11

bigger, yikes. And

52:14

we weren't supposed to go there. And

52:18

I'm sitting next to Conan and he's

52:20

wearing his Indiana Jones light brown

52:22

leather, which I was like, it

52:24

was so weird to see Conan in the wild. That

52:28

was so kind of,

52:30

again, I still get excited when I see Conan, don't get

52:32

me wrong, but it was really like, in

52:34

his civilian world. He seemed

52:37

like a leather guy. I didn't know

52:40

he was leather. This deal is off. I

52:43

walked. I draw the line. And

52:45

in the meeting he says,

52:48

well, we're gonna go to TBS, tell

52:50

him we wanna do a talk show and we're gonna

52:52

tell him that we found the host. And

52:55

I swear to you. Who is it? Who

52:57

is it? Oh, that's great. I did, I went,

53:00

who is it? I didn't say it. I knew

53:02

well enough to shut up. But I was like,

53:05

and it slowly dawned on me

53:08

that he meant me. And it was like, fireworks

53:10

went off in my body. But

53:13

I was just sitting there like,

53:14

that's how you know. And he knew how to deliver that news

53:16

to you too. Do you know what I mean? Like kind of just low.

53:19

He did himself. It's still

53:21

that way. Cause he's one of the two people

53:23

who spend in those shoes. I never

53:26

thought about it. He

53:29

did say, look, I would say this if

53:31

he was in the room. He's like, we're gonna tell TBS you

53:33

have to be on the air for a year. He's

53:36

like, we're gonna tell them you pick us up.

53:38

You have to be on for a year.

53:40

It didn't happen. But that's not his fault.

53:42

You did do a couple of seasons though, didn't you?

53:44

Here's what happened. It's a little more spicy than

53:46

that. And then I died. We

53:50

shot the pilot on the Conan set, which

53:54

was a thrill. And the guests

53:56

were Nick Offerman for one, Bill

53:59

Burr for one. That's the one.

53:59

than we used in TJ Miller for Miller. So these-

54:02

That's good, quite, like how

54:04

much time went into getting ready to

54:07

do that pilot? Yeah, you getting

54:08

to practice. What was great

54:11

was for the monologue, I did my

54:13

closer, which was one of my best closers

54:15

of all time, and it just so happened to be clean. And

54:18

I just did the story, and it was

54:20

like

54:21

some fake way. So we had that done, check. I was like,

54:23

I'm doing this new thing, I'm not always

54:26

the most comfortable guy, and then I tell

54:28

a story. But we knew that was gonna

54:31

murder, and it did. And we

54:33

did it again when we shot the proper pilot.

54:35

And then we were most worried about the guests,

54:38

and the moment that, it's

54:40

hindsight being like, I knew we were gonna get

54:42

picked up. I knew I did a good

54:44

job, because Bill Burr was the guest.

54:47

And this is sort of before Bill

54:49

became like the most legendary

54:52

Conan guest of all time, who always

54:54

comes on and slays. I'm

54:57

bad with time, but that sounds right.

55:00

And he was doing

55:02

a bit, and it was perfect, because

55:04

it was just getting a little tense, just a little tense,

55:07

little Burr tense. You know, you get

55:09

a little Burr on your sock. Yeah, yeah. You

55:11

get a little Burr on your sock. Perfect shit. He went through

55:13

the meadows, he got a Burr on you. And he's talking

55:15

about Hitler, you're fake. And

55:18

he's going, he's

55:20

been going for a while, and I'm

55:22

the host, I'm supposed to shine. He's

55:24

doing great, he's doing what he's supposed to do, but I'm kind of going

55:26

like, how do I score and help

55:29

him score? And he's going to Hitler,

55:31

given these speeches, he goes,

55:33

how did he convince all those people? I've

55:36

seen the speeches. And he goes,

55:39

what was he saying? I mean, what

55:41

is he saying up there? And I

55:44

go, and the joke came to me, sorry to

55:47

my own war story, but Alina and I go, probably

55:49

a lot of hear me outs. And

55:52

the crowd goes wild. And I had gotten

55:54

the card to Ralph. And

55:56

I closed it. And I

55:59

go, when we come back.

57:59

No, there was a lot of- Nobody was like, sure.

58:02

Nobody was like, yeah, smoking

58:04

beer

58:04

for awhile. Miracle bar, man, no. Nobody was like that. They

58:06

were just like, My manager

58:08

was like, they want to make the show. That's all I heard. There's

58:12

just one sticking point. I was so thrilled.

58:14

I, no, I was on the toilet when they got canceled.

58:16

Anyway, I was doing an Elvis when I

58:19

got canceled. But

58:22

they, the way that we just justified

58:25

the budget or whatever, cause it was a very low budget, cause

58:27

it was a very low budget, was we would shoot six

58:29

episodes a week and it was non-topical.

58:33

So there we are like shooting in the summer and I'm like, Valentine's

58:35

day is around the corner. Like literally- That's

58:38

a classic.

58:38

And was that to air every night or to

58:40

air once a week? Four times a week, just like

58:42

you guys Monday to Wednesday, Thursday. And

58:45

we would bank episodes, but here's,

58:48

it never would have worked. Not,

58:51

I consider the show a great success. I actually

58:53

believe it or not, I just have a lot of fans

58:55

and because of, thank you, that means a lot

58:57

from you and from Instagram and

58:59

TikTok, for real, but Instagram and TikTok,

59:02

no, but my compliment is

59:05

giving it this whole second life and

59:07

YouTube gave it this whole second life. It's

59:10

TBS in this weird pre, for

59:12

once the artist benefited

59:15

from like a, we didn't know what to do with

59:17

streaming stuff. They let us have

59:19

it on my YouTube.

59:21

Oh, that's right. That was like in

59:23

the deal. Yeah. You

59:26

can host it on your YouTube. This

59:28

is before anyone knew what YouTube was.

59:30

So before you know it, there's like,

59:33

we should have monetized it by the way. Like

59:36

that would have been incredible, but I can't

59:38

because I didn't pay for it. But they

59:40

could have, that was kind of dumb.

59:42

Sorry. I'm

59:45

just in my brain counting the money. I

59:49

went to a taping once and you had on a

59:51

new material, new material sign-up. That

59:54

made me laugh really hard. I

59:56

who did that voice? Joe DeRosa made

59:58

my dear friend.

59:59

A few materials I'd filled with something I used to do

1:00:02

just to make people laugh. I was like,

1:00:04

well, what's a cup? Glass

1:00:07

bowl, but it's tall, tall bowl. Tall

1:00:09

bowl, Hollywood bowl. Why

1:00:11

is it a bowl? It's not a bowl, it's a shell. Shell

1:00:14

gasoline, it's not gas, it's a shell. What's

1:00:17

a dinosaur? Fossil. Fossil's

1:00:20

jeans, jeans you put on

1:00:21

jeans. Diesel, Vin

1:00:23

Diesel does he wear a diesel? Jeans? And

1:00:25

like you just work and do a thing and then go, is that anything?

1:00:29

That's my favorite. He didn't have a

1:00:31

pad and a pen. That seems

1:00:33

to be right. So did you feel he did it justice?

1:00:35

He did do it justice. He

1:00:37

was great. What were you gonna say, Interrupt? I was

1:00:40

gonna compliment and say a true comedian, you

1:00:42

knows that the joke is that

1:00:45

anything. Yeah, yeah. Like someone watching

1:00:47

is like, I like the part. Like Nate- No,

1:00:49

the audience did the pit swirl when he does that. Is that

1:00:51

anything? Is that anything? That's

1:00:54

the punchline. But Nate Fernald, one

1:00:56

of our writers, I remember he wrote this joke,

1:00:59

it was so Seinfeld. It was so

1:01:01

good. It's really a testament to how clear Seinfeld's

1:01:03

voice is. I'm not saying that just to kiss his

1:01:05

ass, but I'm kissing his ass a little bit. But he's like,

1:01:08

he was like, Macaroni,

1:01:11

they always have the clear window. Then

1:01:14

you can see the Macaroni in the

1:01:15

box. He goes,

1:01:17

meanwhile, cereal's over here in the dark. Why

1:01:19

is Macaroni gonna ruin one of you? I

1:01:22

was like, that is a

1:01:24

great joke. It's ready

1:01:27

to go. Seinfeld's too bright. That is a great joke. You

1:01:29

could kiss Seinfeld. I was like, it's

1:01:31

so ready to go. So cut to me, this is

1:01:33

actually kind of a synchronicity because I went to the Palm

1:01:36

restaurant for the first time yesterday.

1:01:38

First time since this happened. The

1:01:41

first time I went to the Palm restaurant, which is like a famous

1:01:44

Hollywood restaurant, like very

1:01:45

scene-y. The faces of famous people

1:01:47

painted. On the wall, yeah. And they bring you a prime rib

1:01:50

and a martini at 11 a.m. on a Sunday.

1:01:53

So I went to the Palm and I was telling the story

1:01:55

that I was like the first time I was there was

1:01:57

Jerry's sign, Judd Apatow, my dear.

1:01:59

and I mean that,

1:02:02

like we're actually very close. I love him very

1:02:04

much. And we talk all

1:02:06

the time. And I don't know why I'm getting

1:02:08

sweaty about that. I just mean like, he's just

1:02:10

a comic. He's

1:02:13

just like a new balance. He wears

1:02:15

this shirt every day. I'm dressed like him, regular

1:02:18

guy. And I love that we can be pals.

1:02:20

And he invited me to this

1:02:22

thing that Jessica signed phone. So Jerry's

1:02:25

wife was having a fundraiser. And

1:02:27

I was laughing with Val, looking

1:02:29

back that I was like, that had to be like a five,

1:02:31

maybe $10,000 seat. And

1:02:35

Judd, like

1:02:36

classic rich guy thing, didn't have anyone to go

1:02:38

with me. I'm sure Conan's been like, Swaney, do you want

1:02:40

to come to Mick Jagger? He's never asked me. No,

1:02:43

Mick Jagger's having an Easter egg on too. I

1:02:45

get to raise money. Gotta show my face. Anyway,

1:02:48

but I don't really

1:02:50

eat meat. Even though I ate steak yesterday, I

1:02:52

still don't consider myself a red meat

1:02:54

eater. So I bring out

1:02:57

these steaks, these incredible steaks. Jason

1:02:59

Bayman is there, Judd is there.

1:03:01

And then I'm like, I don't even, they bring me the saddest

1:03:04

mushroom I've ever seen in my life. It

1:03:06

was

1:03:06

a $10,000 portobello. And

1:03:10

I was just thinking about Judd being like, I

1:03:12

paid for this. I invited the wrong motherfucker.

1:03:15

So that was to redeem that. Here's why

1:03:17

I bring it up. And why I'm counted as a synchronicity.

1:03:20

Jerry Seinfeld is there, of course. This

1:03:22

is the man who changed my life. I saw his

1:03:24

movie and I moved to New

1:03:26

York and everything changed. He

1:03:29

comes up to me. I have

1:03:31

no stories like this. I'm in a dumb

1:03:34

blazer, like a Sunday school student.

1:03:36

He looks amazing. He walks up

1:03:38

to me and he goes, What's with the mushroom? He goes,

1:03:40

what's with the mushroom? Why is it a

1:03:42

mushroom camp?

1:03:43

It's not a hat. It's

1:03:46

like, it's a shade. It's not graduating. It's

1:03:48

not graduating. I'm gonna move the tassel. Move

1:03:51

the fungi. I'm a fungi. cleanset his

1:03:53

after

1:03:59

He says, but I

1:04:02

also blow it in this story, I think. He

1:04:04

goes, I just want something.

1:04:07

He doesn't do it. He's a regular boy. I just want

1:04:09

something. I can't help it. That's

1:04:12

better. He was doing it as a puppet. That's him regular.

1:04:15

He goes, I saw that. New material, so I felt

1:04:17

that.

1:04:17

Oh, God. Wow. I loved

1:04:20

it. Oh, that's- And this is where I think I

1:04:22

blew it. But it was honest. I couldn't stop

1:04:25

myself if I tried

1:04:26

to quote your friend Mick Jagger from the Easter egg. Just thank you.

1:04:29

I couldn't stop this. I went like this. I

1:04:31

went,

1:04:33

and I immediately cut to him later. I

1:04:37

want to know for the listener that Pete just did a mind blowing

1:04:39

mind. Yeah, the mind blow. With the two

1:04:41

hands, like Pan's Labyrinth, like blow

1:04:44

it and my eye pop. And I just,

1:04:47

you know, he rolled with it, but I

1:04:49

was like, that's exactly like

1:04:51

an episode of Seinfeld where he cut to

1:04:53

the dime. He did the mind

1:04:55

blow. No. Get up to the mind

1:04:58

blow. A legend of comedy,

1:05:00

come back to your church. You don't do mind blow.

1:05:02

Because it took up too much space. Well,

1:05:05

your hand hit the victim in the eye. I

1:05:07

was like, I'm six minutes, my wingspan is

1:05:09

just too great. And he's like, the

1:05:12

conversation went, I think I did manage to squeak

1:05:14

out, thank you for making me a man. I'm sure you did. I

1:05:16

think you're over, I think you're being, that seems

1:05:19

like a totally normal, nice response.

1:05:22

But it is like you're narrating

1:05:23

the moment in the moment, which is what's

1:05:25

funny about it. How many have seen it? How

1:05:28

could he have seen it? Somebody probably sent him the

1:05:30

YouTube clip to be honest, but like

1:05:32

it was a highlight for

1:05:34

sure. So cool. So we did

1:05:36

the show and we got two seasons and there

1:05:39

was like six months in between the seasons.

1:05:41

But here's the,

1:05:43

it even worked out, getting canceled when we

1:05:45

did worked out because

1:05:47

the way we were doing it was evergreen.

1:05:50

It was never supposed to be that way.

1:05:52

So we're not interviewing celebrities

1:05:54

when we're growing. I'm talking to Adam Scott when he has nothing

1:05:56

to say, which was so hard. It

1:05:59

was actually.

1:05:59

kind of pre-podcast though. It was

1:06:02

like, just what's up? Yeah,

1:06:04

tell them about your family. That's true. And then

1:06:06

we did all of these sketches

1:06:09

and Batman sketches, Doctor

1:06:11

sketches. And

1:06:13

we just had access to like

1:06:15

Conan's toy box and

1:06:18

your art department and your talent

1:06:20

booker.

1:06:21

I was wondering, was it sort of- It was incredible.

1:06:24

It was produced by some of the same people,

1:06:26

but then you had your own writers. It was all

1:06:28

the same people. We had our own writers, but we

1:06:30

felt incredibly resourced, but we

1:06:33

had Billy Boletino directed most

1:06:35

of them. A

1:06:37

lot of the same camera people, Peter,

1:06:40

I'm trying to remember the camera guys, but Peter's one of them,

1:06:43

same cue card guy. And it

1:06:45

was just like looking back, boy, I'm

1:06:47

going to be in a good mood the rest of the week. Cause I'm just like,

1:06:49

I really was handed

1:06:52

the keys and Conan really was like, do

1:06:54

whatever you want. Here's how, and this

1:06:56

is also what's great about it. It's nice to have someone

1:06:59

like that behind you too. Yeah, and he was behind

1:07:01

us. And we felt that and TBS,

1:07:03

and I'm grateful to TBS.

1:07:05

It's all different. Everybody

1:07:07

at TBS isn't the same people at TBS. But

1:07:11

here's how not watching us they

1:07:13

were. In the pilot, the first

1:07:15

episode, I said fuck and

1:07:18

they didn't believe it. That's how

1:07:20

unwatched they were. And

1:07:23

when we, there was like a real, almost

1:07:25

like lampoon-y revelation

1:07:28

where we realized

1:07:30

there was like a moment of sadness where we're like,

1:07:32

no one's watching. And then we were like, like

1:07:34

a movie would be like pushing in, no

1:07:37

one's watching. And we started

1:07:39

doing just like, you know, I

1:07:41

flatter myself putting us up with like the Ben

1:07:44

Stiller show and stuff, but we had our own

1:07:46

smaller version of like,

1:07:48

we can do whatever we want. We

1:07:51

swore so much. We

1:07:53

were doing like, it was very dirty

1:07:55

at times. I'm drawing dicks

1:07:58

and stuff. It's not getting, but just.

1:07:59

very adolescent and it was this time

1:08:02

in my life, I was single and my

1:08:04

brother actually loves the monologues because

1:08:06

he's like, it's a snapshot

1:08:09

of a single man figuring

1:08:12

out how to be alone in the

1:08:14

world. Not alone, bad alone. But like

1:08:16

we did a monologue called Have a

1:08:18

Morning and it was the most

1:08:20

earnest like, don't just set your

1:08:22

alarm before you have to go, get

1:08:25

up early, read the paper,

1:08:27

make some comment. But it was like the most

1:08:29

earnest. Like I had just

1:08:32

figured that out. Like you're just becoming human,

1:08:34

yeah. And I would think of the monologues driving

1:08:36

and I lived in Los Feliz and I drive through

1:08:39

Griffith Park and I'd have all

1:08:41

of these monologues, would ride a monologue, I saw

1:08:44

a guy, yes, I saw a guy on a motorcycle,

1:08:46

but like one of those fat

1:08:48

motorcycles with like compartments on the back, we

1:08:50

just did a whole- On a three wheelers. Saddle bag.

1:08:53

A whole monologue about how not

1:08:55

all motorcycles are cool and

1:08:57

would put it on its feet that day.

1:09:00

That's amazing. And you get into that like

1:09:02

white hot mania.

1:09:04

It's not bad mania and like Charlie Sheen, not

1:09:07

trying to make fundamental illness, I'm just saying, wasn't that

1:09:09

bad. It

1:09:10

was like drinking from a waterfall.

1:09:12

You're like, think it, do it. And

1:09:15

I'm really, really proud of it. And

1:09:18

Jamie Lee and Nate

1:09:20

and Joe DeRosa was one of

1:09:22

the writers as well. I'm forgetting, I'm

1:09:25

always Nate from, I'm gonna forget some of them, but really

1:09:27

incredible people. And of course, Oren Brimmer,

1:09:30

who directed all the sketches and

1:09:32

wrote, and we still work together. And

1:09:34

Matt McCarthy- Oh, I love Matt. Who was

1:09:37

in everything. He's been this great con. He's

1:09:39

such a great performer.

1:09:40

Our lives have been so long that Matt

1:09:42

and I and Oren are working together again.

1:09:45

I'm not promoting anything.

1:09:47

We just started going like,

1:09:49

what are we doing? We

1:09:53

have different projects. All of us have different projects from time

1:09:55

to time, where we're like, let's just go back to

1:09:57

the basics. Let's scrap

1:09:59

together.

1:09:59

Yeah, there's some money. Get

1:10:02

a space. This would be a great

1:10:04

space, you fucking assholes. I think it might

1:10:06

be available after this. Actually,

1:10:09

I'm 100% getting when I call you assholes.

1:10:11

I'm like, maybe you guys could let us use

1:10:13

this room. Because

1:10:16

it's those clicks away we shot,

1:10:18

we're about to release

1:10:20

Batman Fires, the Justice League.

1:10:24

Me as Batman just letting everyone go. We

1:10:26

did that with X-Men for the Pete

1:10:28

Holmes show.

1:10:29

And now, you guys

1:10:32

know, it's like when your career is long enough to

1:10:34

have these phases where you're not together and

1:10:36

you kind of miss each other and it's sad and

1:10:38

then you

1:10:39

get back together. You know what was the best was when we were just

1:10:41

making stuff. And you're

1:10:43

just doing it for its own sake

1:10:46

and then it becomes like, because

1:10:48

you can't, and I say this in a great way, not a slimy

1:10:50

way, you can monetize it. You can hopefully

1:10:53

get enough views that these guys can get work

1:10:55

out of it now. And now everyone's benefiting

1:10:58

from a legacy that we created together and

1:11:01

then it'll branch out into this. So

1:11:03

if you see those, please watch them. Yeah, that's

1:11:06

great. I love that you're gonna be doing sketch

1:11:08

comedy. That's really, yeah. That's

1:11:10

exciting. I will say this is the last

1:11:12

little sweet nug. Oh, please,

1:11:15

yeah. I'll tell you two sweet nugs to close. Bring

1:11:17

it home. We did one of the most popular

1:11:19

videos in the hardest bit that killed

1:11:22

the hardest

1:11:23

we ever did on the Pete Holmes show was called Romano

1:11:25

Duets. I did a video called Romano

1:11:27

Sings. We just shot

1:11:30

it in Orin Brimmer's apartment in New York.

1:11:32

And this is before

1:11:35

you even said it went viral. It was popular.

1:11:37

And it got back to us that Ray

1:11:40

Romano had seen it and we were unbelievably

1:11:42

thrilled. Cut to years later, I'm doing

1:11:44

a talk show. A lot of the things we did

1:11:46

on the Pete Holmes show were things that I had already

1:11:49

done very

1:11:50

low budget. So we did

1:11:52

the X-Men series where someone's firing Vega

1:11:56

because you can't, oh, the Street Fighter

1:11:58

series. He's firing Vega because you

1:11:59

you can't bring a claw into a street fight.

1:12:02

I mean, the joke is right there, but

1:12:04

I didn't have any friends or

1:12:06

cameras. So I just shot it in photo.

1:12:09

I made Photoshop stills. Oh

1:12:11

my God. And this is kind of before

1:12:13

that was a thing, like low-fi, not

1:12:16

animated, just cutting back and forth A

1:12:18

and B. And I had premiere, I stole

1:12:21

Adobe Premiere off a torrent site. And

1:12:23

I just made it. And I just voice acted it

1:12:25

in my little room. And of course

1:12:28

I love this story. And then we later

1:12:29

shot it with Thomas Middleditch and it's one

1:12:32

of our most popular videos. And we did

1:12:34

Romano Sings with literally a felt

1:12:36

green screen and it did well.

1:12:39

And then we got to reshoot it for the Pete Holmes

1:12:41

show. And now it's beautiful and it

1:12:43

looks a lot better. Then someone's

1:12:45

like, do you think we could get Ray Romano to do it?

1:12:47

And we'd do Romano duets. So we

1:12:50

did do it and you can watch it and I stand by it. And it's

1:12:52

very funny, but the best part was we're on

1:12:54

the lot, stage nine,

1:12:56

I believe. And I'm standing in

1:12:58

the dark and there's a proper green

1:13:01

screen. And I'm just kind of doing my

1:13:03

part before Ray gets there. So I'm

1:13:05

at the mic and I'm like, hip hop, hooray,

1:13:08

ho, hey, doing

1:13:10

that. And the door- It's all

1:13:12

Kermit-y. Oh, it's very Kermit-y. Yeah,

1:13:14

we used to do it. It's like Ray Romano was like,

1:13:17

then Kermit is like, hey,

1:13:19

hey, hey. And

1:13:21

Ross Perot is, and Aziz

1:13:24

is, wow. It's like they're

1:13:26

all sort of like- They're all in the same spectrum, yeah. They're

1:13:31

all the blend. So I'm doing

1:13:33

it and I'm really, I'm wearing my

1:13:35

hair is dyed

1:13:37

black and I'm wearing his style of

1:13:39

shirt, but it's like kind of like making

1:13:41

fun of him a little bit. Having fun

1:13:43

with him.

1:13:45

But I hear a door open and it's

1:13:47

dark. And I just hear in the distance, he goes,

1:13:50

my poor wife, if

1:13:52

that's what I sound like. And

1:13:56

he walked in and he did it. Oh, that's great. One of

1:13:58

my family, then we played it on-

1:13:59

on the stage and it murdered.

1:14:03

Like stand up level, like roll

1:14:06

it. I was like, this is the greatest

1:14:08

thing we've ever done. I missed

1:14:10

a good one with Jeff Ross. When Conan

1:14:12

auditioned on 30 Rock, he

1:14:16

was filming like a test pilot

1:14:18

and he was very green and he didn't know what he was doing.

1:14:20

And I told Conan how much it meant to me

1:14:23

and Jeff

1:14:23

that in the between acts one and like

1:14:26

two and three, like before, after the desk bit,

1:14:28

before the guest, Jeff handed

1:14:30

very nervous green Conan, a

1:14:32

note that said you're killing. And

1:14:34

that's in the war for late night. And I

1:14:37

just mentioned offhand how much that meant

1:14:39

to me. And before Bill Burr, before I

1:14:41

interviewed him, he handed me a note that said you're killing.

1:14:43

And that's the other framed

1:14:45

thing I have. It's

1:14:48

a treasure. So

1:14:50

then the show gets canceled and this

1:14:52

will just lead into the next chapter, but

1:14:56

we don't have to go into it. I mean, this will be okay

1:14:59

to close. I'm on the toilet, they

1:15:01

call me Elva style and they're

1:15:03

like, the show is not getting picked up.

1:15:05

You know when all your reps are on the call, it's either bad

1:15:07

news or good news. And this is bad news.

1:15:10

But we had done nine, 80 shows, 80 shows. And

1:15:13

we had literally done as many shows as

1:15:15

we could have done

1:15:16

before it started getting bad. Like

1:15:19

for real. I'm

1:15:21

a good spin doctor, but I was like, you got out on top.

1:15:23

How many St.

1:15:25

Patrick's day monologues can

1:15:27

you do? We just went 29. You've

1:15:30

gone through a full year of holidays. Hilarious,

1:15:32

but at least you also had what was going

1:15:34

on.

1:15:38

You've been waiting for someone to ask

1:15:40

that question. So

1:15:43

we got out when the getting was good. And

1:15:46

then just to tell you,

1:15:48

again, out of gratitude, what it did was, Judd

1:15:51

was a fan of the show. He did

1:15:53

a sketch on the show, on the show

1:15:55

that this aired.

1:15:57

We had

1:15:59

the joke was. that I would pick, everybody has this pitch

1:16:01

for Jed, by the way, if you're doing a sketch with Jed, come

1:16:03

up with another idea. But we

1:16:06

didn't know that, which is I'll pitch you bad movies.

1:16:08

It's the stupidest idea. We had a lot

1:16:10

to learn. But I remember pitching

1:16:13

a movie called Bear Jishin and Frog

1:16:15

Jishin. And, but

1:16:18

then Jed's a great improviser and he

1:16:20

goes off script and he like completely

1:16:23

deadpan is like, what's your real idea?

1:16:25

Like, what's your real idea?

1:16:27

And I'm like, that's actually terrifying.

1:16:30

Like now thinking about it, who

1:16:32

cares? At that moment I was like, Jesus.

1:16:35

Like it's almost like, it's almost not

1:16:37

fair. You know what I mean? It's

1:16:40

like

1:16:41

Bono is like, but if you did open

1:16:43

for me, what would you play? And you're like,

1:16:46

ah, gotta go. So in that moment,

1:16:49

I go, well, I

1:16:52

was married when I was 22. My wife left me

1:16:54

when I was 28. I was very religious and

1:16:56

I got very sad, but I ended

1:16:58

up falling really hard into the standup comedy

1:17:01

scene. That was not

1:17:02

pre-planned. But on the top of

1:17:04

your head, that was your pitch. Yeah, I was just like, my

1:17:07

life. And he goes, that just sounds really sad.

1:17:09

And that was the joke. It made the sketch was

1:17:12

that he was like, your life sounds better. That

1:17:14

would just make people want to kill themselves. Yeah. I

1:17:16

was

1:17:17

like, okay. So the show's canceled. I'm on the toilet.

1:17:19

And I love sharing the story just because like, hopefully

1:17:22

it can give people hope. So it's this low moment.

1:17:25

And what are you gonna do? Like,

1:17:27

is that it? And

1:17:30

I called Oren and we

1:17:32

were in that rhythm. We were making

1:17:35

stuff. We were doing stuff. Yeah,

1:17:37

you were like momentum. And we believed

1:17:39

in ourselves. There's nothing, like when you, I

1:17:41

don't know much about sports, but when a basketball

1:17:43

player is in the pocket or on

1:17:46

fire and they're just hitting shots,

1:17:48

get the ball to him because he's in, that's how- It's

1:17:50

unconscious. Yeah, you're in the flow.

1:17:53

And that's how I felt. So I was like, okay,

1:17:55

I'm lean. I don't mean physically.

1:17:57

I just mean like I'm ready to go. Let's- not

1:18:00

mope while the show is still airing

1:18:03

because it was gonna air for like six more weeks

1:18:05

after. That's great. It was canceled.

1:18:08

You had that many in the can. Maybe it was, I'm

1:18:10

making that up. It might've been three weeks at least. That's

1:18:12

amazing. It was. That's a real bit of steam.

1:18:14

Yeah, exactly. Totally.

1:18:17

I was like, let's go to Comedy Central and we'll

1:18:19

pitch them a sketch show because our favorite part of

1:18:21

the Pete Holmes show was the sketch show. So

1:18:23

we go and Ken Tolterman was the head

1:18:25

of Comedy Central at the time.

1:18:27

I like, he's a good guy. He's great. I love

1:18:30

Kent very much. And we were

1:18:32

not in a Hollywood way. Like I just

1:18:35

for a second caught myself sounding like a phony. Oh yeah, love

1:18:37

him. Love him. We've had drinks and

1:18:39

like opened up. It's been beautiful.

1:18:42

But we had this meeting and it's a warm

1:18:44

room. And they knew the show and they were fans.

1:18:47

And before

1:18:49

the pitch, they said, Kent

1:18:51

said, well, one

1:18:53

thing's for sure. We don't want another fucking sketch

1:18:55

show. Oh my God. And me and Orin

1:18:58

are sitting there like wall flowers.

1:19:01

We're like, oh God, yeah. Oh God,

1:19:03

no. Neither

1:19:05

do we. I wish we had the, I bet

1:19:07

we did like, oh, are you kidding

1:19:09

me? Sketch show. Shumer,

1:19:12

key and peel, get out of

1:19:14

here.

1:19:14

So we just,

1:19:17

we literally pivoted and acted like

1:19:19

we were just there to touch base.

1:19:21

Yeah, yeah. Oh wow. Okay,

1:19:24

yeah. But the frustration of that, again, I want

1:19:26

action. I want to go.

1:19:28

It's like the stand up improv thing. I'm like, I've had a taste.

1:19:31

I don't mean a fame and I don't mean of money. Certainly

1:19:33

not. I just mean like, I've been making

1:19:36

comedy. This is what I wanted

1:19:38

to do since I was fucking six

1:19:40

years old with the big dick jokes.

1:19:42

We're gotta stay in the Forbidden City

1:19:44

like George. George Costanza. So

1:19:47

I'm in my car outside

1:19:49

of Comedy Central. And in this moment of frustration,

1:19:53

like kind of feeling down, like, well, that was the

1:19:55

plan. I asked

1:19:57

that question, which I feel like people need to.

1:19:59

this is the swelling YouTube

1:20:02

violins, when people

1:20:04

appropriate your content and get millions

1:20:07

of views and put ads on it. Pete

1:20:09

Holmes blows me away with an inspirational

1:20:12

speech. But I

1:20:14

had the courage and the vulnerability

1:20:16

to go, no, really, if

1:20:18

you could do anything, what would you do? And

1:20:21

that's a vulnerable thing because if you really admit

1:20:23

that to yourself and it doesn't happen, like, you're

1:20:26

the guy in the wet bathing suit at the buffet, right?

1:20:29

And I said, I

1:20:31

would do a show like Girls with

1:20:33

Jeddah Appetel

1:20:35

on HBO. And I was like, okay,

1:20:37

what would that show be? And I was like, well, it would

1:20:39

be about me being married. Okay,

1:20:42

I'm slowly, believe it or not, at this time

1:20:45

in my life, I'm almost 33. I'm

1:20:47

finally putting together what's unique about me. Thanks

1:20:50

to the talk show. Like, oh, I didn't

1:20:52

know that was weird. Religious,

1:20:54

I did. Married so early, divorced.

1:20:58

And then I

1:20:59

thought of the engine of the show, which was,

1:21:01

oh, every episode, I'll stay

1:21:03

on a different comedian's couch. And

1:21:06

I was like, oh, and I'll call it crashing. So I literally,

1:21:09

that was on a Tuesday, booked

1:21:11

a flight. I asked

1:21:14

Jeddah's office if I could pitch him something. Because

1:21:16

he had been on the show, he said yes, but he was shooting train, right?

1:21:19

So I flew on that Wednesday

1:21:22

to fly to New York,

1:21:24

spent the night Thursday morning at like 6 a.m.

1:21:27

on a couch. That was the pilot, we shot it

1:21:29

on an iPhone. Pitched in the show

1:21:32

and

1:21:32

it just went from there. So

1:21:34

there was even, the Pete Holmes show

1:21:37

even bled into that. So

1:21:39

how long after the Comedy Central

1:21:41

meeting?

1:21:42

That

1:21:45

was Tuesday, I pitched to Jeddah that Thursday.

1:21:47

Wow. I literally

1:21:49

have like a Delta. I

1:21:52

have a Delta, I wish I still

1:21:54

had it, like cocktail napkins where

1:21:56

I rode out the show. Oh my

1:21:58

God. And it fucking.

1:22:00

And this is key, because

1:22:02

that could just be mania or momentum. He

1:22:05

was like, write the pilot. And just

1:22:07

like my modern family, I wrote it in two days, turned

1:22:10

it in. And I've seen Jed work with a lot of people

1:22:12

and the number one thing that happens,

1:22:14

and I can have this too, sometimes

1:22:17

the whole table is set. Yeah.

1:22:20

The meal is there, the fork is there, and you can't

1:22:22

eat it. I see this happen. Like it's

1:22:24

imposter syndrome, it's fear. Yeah,

1:22:27

self-sabotage. Fear of

1:22:29

success, self-sabotage, unworthiness,

1:22:31

all this sort of stuff. But because the Pete

1:22:33

Holmes show had me at like an Olympic,

1:22:36

yes, like my body fat was

1:22:38

zero. He said, write

1:22:40

it, I wrote it. Because

1:22:42

you're

1:22:43

doing sex shows a week, but

1:22:45

it was, this is helping me realize again, how

1:22:47

grateful I am to the Pete Holmes show and to Conan and

1:22:50

to Jeff and everybody and to TBS,

1:22:52

even though I shit on them.

1:22:55

It's okay, all those people. You pled ignorance about

1:22:57

TBS. That's right.

1:22:59

It was like running with weights or like running under water.

1:23:02

Absolutely. And then he said, write it and I wrote

1:23:04

it. And he said,

1:23:05

rewrite it and I rewrote it. He said,

1:23:07

rewrite it and rewrote it. I was like, and

1:23:09

Judd, like minds like that, minds

1:23:12

like Conan and Judd, they want

1:23:14

that. That's their dream too, is

1:23:17

to find someone who's like young

1:23:19

and hungry and ready to go. And

1:23:24

this is stupid to be like, and the rest is history. And

1:23:27

that, it was like swinging from a

1:23:29

vine to another vine. And it was incredible.

1:23:32

No, that's right. It's so cool to look back at

1:23:34

it in that way and have those things that at

1:23:36

the time probably just felt to you like, this

1:23:38

is, I'm partly running on just instinct

1:23:41

and following these leads and kind of like

1:23:43

trusting my gut on things. But then you look

1:23:45

back and you're like, no, this path makes sense

1:23:48

when you look at

1:23:49

it in this way. I have fantasized

1:23:51

about winning an award later

1:23:53

in my career. Okay, so

1:23:56

I was wondering what your next manifestation

1:23:58

was gonna be. Yeah, yeah, here it is. I

1:24:00

say one behind me, sporting. So

1:24:03

there are these gratitudes, but

1:24:06

here's the one that I can't wait for. And it's not for the award. It's

1:24:08

for the speech. In the speech, I've laid awake many nights being like,

1:24:11

how

1:24:13

fucking great? Let's

1:24:15

say I'm on some show, I win an award,

1:24:18

and I go up and I accept it, and

1:24:20

I go, I'd like to thank Conan,

1:24:22

Jeff Ross, and JP Buck, and

1:24:26

Nick Bernstein, and the other guys.

1:24:29

Nick Bernstein. And thank, it's

1:24:31

absurd. It's not, it's like somebody

1:24:33

with a cigar going, it's not done, you know what

1:24:35

I mean? But like, and

1:24:37

then take that to Judd, and Judah

1:24:41

Miller, and Orin Brimmer, and Matt McCarthy, and

1:24:43

then lead up to the show

1:24:46

that I'm on. But like,

1:24:48

I'd love specifically, even more

1:24:50

than Crashing, to give that

1:24:53

first break the thanks. And

1:24:55

so that's been my fantasy. And

1:24:57

not to thumb my nose at Hollywood,

1:25:00

or the future hypothetical

1:25:02

show, but just to like, how long did it take

1:25:04

me to say, I want to thank Conan O'Brien,

1:25:06

Jeff Ross, and JP Buck for giving

1:25:08

me my first break on the P-Dome show. Because it clearly

1:25:12

was this incredible push

1:25:14

down the mountain. But that is a better look. I

1:25:16

mean, every award is really almost

1:25:19

more of a lifetime. But I mean, you know, occasionally

1:25:21

an actor will win something at 22 or something.

1:25:24

But usually it's, this is a culmination of- Which

1:25:26

also reminds me, this isn't

1:25:29

to, I guess there

1:25:31

is a certain defensiveness where you want to be like, it

1:25:33

wasn't just, I didn't win like

1:25:35

a lottery. It was a show

1:25:38

where you do monologues, interviews, and sketches. I

1:25:40

was doing stand up monologues.

1:25:43

I was doing podcasting early on.

1:25:46

So I was doing interviews. That's how they

1:25:48

knew I could interview. And I was doing sketches. That's

1:25:50

how they knew. So, but that's

1:25:52

again, swell the violins and the YouTube

1:25:55

misappropriated clip.

1:25:56

That it was like I was doing the Pete Holmes show and then they gave me

1:25:58

the same. Yes. It was the

1:26:01

easiest yes in the world. So,

1:26:04

you know, it was my version of dress for the job

1:26:06

you want. We were doing these sketches in,

1:26:08

if we could find a corner,

1:26:11

we would go, that kind of looks like

1:26:13

a doctor's office. We would

1:26:15

film 10 sketches and you do a podcast

1:26:18

way before you were like, and this will

1:26:21

pay my mortgage. You were like, this will

1:26:23

be something I upload.

1:26:25

Like I think people will listen to

1:26:28

it. So there was a purity to that too.

1:26:30

I just don't want anyone hearing this and being like,

1:26:33

oh, all I need to do is be tapped.

1:26:35

I get the job and then I start doing the work. No,

1:26:37

you do the work and then you get the job. And there

1:26:40

is obviously luck and

1:26:42

timing and all of these things that are completely

1:26:44

out of my control. And, you

1:26:47

know, they say like enlightenment is a gift. This

1:26:49

is a weird parable to say, but

1:26:51

somebody goes to his end master and they're like,

1:26:53

if enlightenment is grace, meaning it

1:26:56

happens to you like an accident,

1:26:59

you know, like it's just given to you by the universe.

1:27:01

Why do we do all this practice? And the master

1:27:04

says, to be as accident prone as possible.

1:27:07

And that's how I feel. It's like making

1:27:10

it, getting tapped,

1:27:11

getting this, getting that is grace,

1:27:14

is an accident, is luck, or whatever

1:27:16

you want to say. Then you can tell yourself,

1:27:19

stand in the hallway where people keep

1:27:21

getting lucky or whatever it might be.

1:27:23

It might help. You

1:27:26

know, I'm fascinated by all the bits

1:27:28

you did before that you got to

1:27:30

redo with a bigger budget

1:27:32

on the Peter Holmes show. I know, that's incredible.

1:27:34

It might be fun to do

1:27:36

like a little behind the scenes. Like side by side.

1:27:38

And show the original and then

1:27:41

how you did it. That's cool. Yeah, and you talking

1:27:43

about it. That's a fun idea. I think that would

1:27:45

be cool to watch. Yeah, with little director's commentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:27:48

Yeah, I think we could do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:27:50

That's a great idea. But anyway, I think that'd be fun.

1:27:53

I'm gonna write it down. I would watch it. I'd like

1:27:55

to see it. Yeah. And

1:27:57

I'd like you to thank me when you win that award.

1:27:59

And for the guy who had me do the

1:28:02

behind the scenes videos. Well,

1:28:04

this is great. Yeah, this is so great. Thank

1:28:06

you, Pete, so much. Thank you, Pete. Here's the longest

1:28:09

Inside Kona. It is. In our

1:28:11

family, we call it shorty.

1:28:13

Oh! Oh! Fucking

1:28:15

circle! Circle!

1:28:22

Thank you to Pete Holmes. Yeah, and

1:28:25

guess what? Pete has his own podcast.

1:28:28

What? I knew you thought he was a little

1:28:30

too comfortable

1:28:30

in front of a microphone. He did seem

1:28:33

like he didn't seem

1:28:36

to be in a rush to leave. Yeah. Very

1:28:38

comfortable. And his podcast is called You Made It Weird.

1:28:40

Right. It's a great podcast. It

1:28:43

is. Be sure to check it out. And

1:28:45

we have a listener question. Ooh! I don't

1:28:47

know if Pete does that. I don't know if he's got the guts. He doesn't

1:28:49

have time. But we

1:28:51

take our listeners' head on. We have still a little time. Oh,

1:28:55

we have time to fill. Here's

1:28:57

our question. From someone named Tara.

1:29:01

Hi, Jessie and Mike. I was just

1:29:03

listening to your recent podcast intro

1:29:06

where Jessie stated that since she was born

1:29:08

in Panama, the country, she

1:29:10

cannot be president of the United States. This

1:29:12

is actually false. If

1:29:16

you were born to two parents with US

1:29:18

citizenship, you are considered

1:29:20

a natural born US citizen and

1:29:23

are in fact eligible

1:29:25

to run for president. And she quotes the

1:29:28

law.

1:29:29

Wow. Yeah, so there you go. And

1:29:32

so this, I don't think really is a question. It's

1:29:34

more of a correction, I guess. It's a correction. Which

1:29:37

I appreciate. Maybe we'll segue

1:29:39

into just have corrections every week. That

1:29:42

would really fill out. That would

1:29:44

fill a lot of time. So

1:29:47

Jessie, you can do it. Jessie

1:29:49

for president. Yes.

1:29:50

Oh, boy. I would

1:29:53

love it if you were president of our country. Oh,

1:29:56

God. I would hate to do it. I

1:29:59

would absolutely. I would, my

1:30:01

favorite part of it would be you still

1:30:04

carving out time to co-host inside

1:30:07

Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Gotta do it, I'm under

1:30:09

contract. You gotta do it, sorry.

1:30:12

Oh, I'm actually

1:30:13

disappointed because my whole life I'd been

1:30:16

using this excuse of not being allowed

1:30:18

to run for president. Right. And I thought,

1:30:20

okay, I'm off the hook.

1:30:20

Yeah, no, yeah,

1:30:23

that, she's absolutely right, you

1:30:25

can run. Too bad you're

1:30:27

not old enough, you have to be 35. Do

1:30:30

I know how to butter up the ladies? I

1:30:32

still got it.

1:30:33

I would never want

1:30:35

to run for president. Yeah. And

1:30:38

we've talked about this before, that I

1:30:40

feel like running for president

1:30:41

should disqualify you from being president. Oh,

1:30:44

yes, yes, yes, yes. Even just the desire

1:30:46

to be president tells me you have

1:30:49

no business being president. You have a serious

1:30:51

mental defect. Yeah. Anyone,

1:30:54

yes, you'd really, truly want to lead. There

1:30:56

should

1:30:56

be all the people who, there

1:30:59

should be like a bucket

1:31:01

of names of people who want to be president.

1:31:04

And then you immediately just put a red

1:31:06

flag by all those people's names. Yes, burn. Never

1:31:09

allowed. Pour gasoline in the bucket and

1:31:11

set it on fire. And then the rest of the people,

1:31:13

there's a lottery and each of those people have

1:31:15

to serve for one year. They have to do it. I

1:31:18

think that's a great plan. You can

1:31:20

window down that group, like get people

1:31:22

who everyone actually is like, wow, they're

1:31:25

really good at their job. And then,

1:31:28

yes, make them do it. And they don't have to run. You

1:31:30

just get selected. Right. And

1:31:33

I think you could, how do you make them do it? You

1:31:35

could kidnap their family and hold them at

1:31:37

gunpoint for a year. Yeah.

1:31:40

And then they have to do it.

1:31:42

Right. Or threaten them, say that

1:31:44

your family has to be president if you don't do it.

1:31:48

Your brother, your brother who you hate

1:31:50

or your sister. Well, how do we get this

1:31:52

into law? I don't know. I think I have to run for

1:31:54

president. Oh, there

1:31:58

you go. Just we've got to go.

1:31:59

I've come full circle on this one. Well,

1:32:02

thank you, Tara. Well, thanks for your correction, Tara.

1:32:04

Yeah, Tara. I'm not

1:32:06

too big to admit when I'm wrong. Yeah.

1:32:09

If anyone else has a correction for us, please.

1:32:12

Or a question. Or a question. We'd

1:32:15

love to hear from you. You can give

1:32:17

us a call and leave a voicemail at 323-209-1079, or

1:32:22

email us at insideconanpod at

1:32:24

gmail.com.

1:32:26

Yes, yes, please do

1:32:28

that. And if you like the show,

1:32:31

even with all its errors and grade

1:32:34

mistakes, you can support us by rating Inside

1:32:36

Conan, an important Hollywood podcast on iTunes

1:32:39

and leaving us a review.

1:32:41

You know what I'm not wrong about? What's

1:32:44

that, Jessie? Loving you. Oh

1:32:46

my God, it's the right

1:32:48

thing to do.

1:32:52

Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast

1:32:54

is hosted by Mike Sweeney and me, Jessie Gaskell.

1:32:57

Our producers, Lisa Burr. Team

1:32:59

Coco's executive producers are Adam Sachs,

1:33:02

Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Engineered

1:33:06

and mixed by Joanna Samuel. Our

1:33:08

talent bookers are Gina Batista and Paula

1:33:11

Davis with assistance from Maddie Ogden.

1:33:13

Thanks to Jimmy Vivino

1:33:15

for our theme music and interstitials.

1:33:18

You can rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts.

1:33:21

And of course, please subscribe and tell a friend

1:33:23

to listen to Inside Conan or an enemy on

1:33:26

Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts,

1:33:29

or whatever platform you like

1:33:31

best. I'm not gonna tell you what to do. Put

1:33:36

on your hat, it's the Conan Show.

1:33:39

Try on some spats, you're gonna have

1:33:41

a laugh. Give birth to a calf,

1:33:43

it's Conan. This

1:33:46

has been a Team Coco

1:33:48

production.

1:33:51

Get 11% off your appliance

1:33:54

upgrade now at Menards. We

1:33:56

offer the lowest prices with the largest in-stock appliance selection.

1:33:59

home today. New appliances for Menards

1:34:02

are meant to make your life easier. Upgrade

1:34:04

your home with top appliance brands including KitchenAid,

1:34:06

Maytag, Whirlpool, Amana, and Criteria.

1:34:09

Upgrade your home with new energy efficient appliances

1:34:12

and save 11%. Good through

1:34:14

June 4th. Savings are a mail-in rebate. Some

1:34:16

exclusions apply. See store for details.