Louis C.K. on Writing His First Novel and Returning to Stage | 2 Bears, 1 Cave

Speaker 1 Alabama and South Carolina, what's up? This December, I'll be bringing my come together tour to Huntsville on the 4th.

Speaker 1 Then on Friday, December 5th, I'll be performing at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham. After that, on Saturday, December 6th, I'll be in Columbia, South Carolina at the Township Auditorium.

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Speaker 3 100%.

Speaker 2 Welcome to a special episode of Two Bears One Cave live, live, not live, recorded from New York City with our special guest, Louis E.K., who has a new book called Ingram.

Speaker 3 Lewis?

Speaker 2 Yes. Welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Oh, by the way,

Speaker 3 I have another copy of that to give you because I signed it. Oh, fuck yeah.
So that one's for you. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 Dedicated to

Speaker 3 that copy is not the book itself. Okay, great.

Speaker 3 Appreciate this very much.

Speaker 2 I very much enjoyed reading this. I actually

Speaker 2 visited you

Speaker 2 and I was in your office. Yeah.
And I think you had already written this. It was going to be,

Speaker 2 it was like coming out soon or yeah, several months later. And you were working on a different book.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I have another novel I just finished a draft of.

Speaker 2 A draft of. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you are loving being a novel writer. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3 So much. I love it.

Speaker 2 Writing every day?

Speaker 3 Yeah, every day.

Speaker 2 And then, did this, you had aspirations of this, right? Like, did you always want to write?

Speaker 3 When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a writer. Like, that was a dream to me.
Yeah. Like, it was like being an athlete or something.
Like, I wanted to be a novelist.

Speaker 2 Did you romanticize the smoking and the dreaming?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course.
Because I got into Russian literature when I was a kid, like, kind of young, you know. And I would put,

Speaker 3 I would

Speaker 3 open the windows in the winter of my bedroom

Speaker 2 to feel Russian.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I just loved the

Speaker 3 being able to write how horrible things could be. And somehow it was sweet to read that it was awful.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure. And the Russians are really good at that.

Speaker 3 Yes, and they're funny. They're funny.
So

Speaker 3 they're not trying to be funny at all. They just say how awful something is and you laugh.
And that's where I kind of learned that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I had.

Speaker 2 I think I had a joke about it where I was in some Eastern European country and I always ask like about, you know, I like to say, please thank you, greetings.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like I try to learn in different languages. I've always just enjoyed it.
And in one of them, I was like, What's the whatever greeting here?

Speaker 2 And they told me that it translates to, hopefully, today is our last.

Speaker 2 And that was a straight-faced.

Speaker 3 I was like, huh, that's well. Yeah, I mean, the best shows, to me, the best shows that I ever had have been in Eastern Europe.
Really? And Bucharest,

Speaker 3 Romania. Sofia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Yeah. And Bratislava, one place I played that was torn down like a week after I played it.
Some Soviet feelings theater. But they really get into comedy there.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I've been to Russia.

Speaker 2 I haven't been to Russia.

Speaker 3 It's really crazy.

Speaker 3 The new book actually takes place in Russia. Oh, right.

Speaker 3 And I kind of went back to that romanticizing that.

Speaker 2 Yeah. When I did...

Speaker 2 Budapest last, you know, my wife's, both of her parents are Hungarian.

Speaker 3 I'm Hungarian on my dad's side.

Speaker 2 Yeah, on your dad's side.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I've picked up phrases just from all these years together.

Speaker 3 And I,

Speaker 2 in Hungarian, said this, the only bad part, this is to the audience, the only part of the city that sucks, I said in Hungarian, were the rotten gypsies. And it was like a minute-long applause break.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, they hate their gypsies there.

Speaker 2 Like, this is fan. This is a good guy.

Speaker 3 We like you. He gets us.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Budapest is a pretty gnarly gnarly place. My grandfather lived there when he was,

Speaker 3 whatever, he grew up there.

Speaker 3 But yeah, and I also just love, I used to really struggle with writing because I always felt like I was in trouble with it. Like I haven't done enough or I'm not, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 And writing television and movies, it was always really hard to generate the scripts because...

Speaker 3 work habits and ADHD or whatever, just like being constantly distracted and wanting to eat all the time and other stuff that's not really helpful and and uh just hard to get my ass in the seat and to look at the fucking thing, you know?

Speaker 3 And um

Speaker 3 so that kept me from really enjoying writing and I would write to make T V or movies, like write something just so you can produce it. Yeah, so the actual writing wasn't that fun.

Speaker 3 And then I got

Speaker 3 into uh fiction, right like writing short stories again.

Speaker 3 And also uh I had a big uh change in my life of getting rid of a lot of distraction and kind of calming my spirit down which actually worked and then i took like a year and a half off of stand-up um between the last

Speaker 2 um a fascinating point yeah for comedians yeah is that like

Speaker 2 i don't know if everyone understands that there's a general kind of feeling amongst comics yeah is like a couple weeks away from the stage,

Speaker 2 you kind of got to get your sea legs back again.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, you're out. You're out.

Speaker 2 And you're like, I I don't, you know, I remember like taking vacations and then coming back and doing it.

Speaker 3 Actually, being scared to go back on stage. Yeah.
Yeah. It really is like being a ballerina or something.
Like, it's that level of discipline, like to really be that good at it.

Speaker 3 I remember talking to Greg Fitzsimmons, who I always think of as just such a, he's got such a great work ethic. And I love his comedy.

Speaker 2 He's so funny. He is great.

Speaker 3 He's hilarious. He's been a friend of mine for, you know, eons.
But

Speaker 3 we were talking about a common friend we have, a comedian. And I was like, where has he been? And he said, well, his wife was ill and he took a year off.
And he said, and then

Speaker 3 he got out of line. He stepped out of line.

Speaker 3 It's like you're waiting for your

Speaker 3 order your coffee and you step out of line.

Speaker 3 So he's having a hard time getting back on the road. And there's always that fear because of how many years it took that I can't fuck around like that.

Speaker 3 But the reason I was able to do it was because I decided I wasn't going to do a comedy anymore. I just decided I was going to quit.
You really? Yeah. He was like, I'm I'm done.

Speaker 3 It wasn't a decision like this. It was a letting go.
It was like, I don't have to do this anymore. And

Speaker 3 so every day felt great because I wasn't like counting the days to coming back. I was just like, fuck it.
Fuck all of that. I did it enough.

Speaker 3 And every time I would remember being a comedian and it felt great, I would say, yeah, that's why you did it for so long. But it wasn't drawing me back.
Right.

Speaker 3 And so during that time, I took like sculpture classes and painting classes and I just sort of let my life unravel. Yeah.

Speaker 3 and it created this space and I started writing Ingram and I how I found out it felt like being a guy that came off of Tommy John surgery that all of a sudden you have new capabilities.

Speaker 3 Like I was able to sit down every morning and really focus and feel like I'm just here with this book and write every single day.

Speaker 2 How many hours would you make yourself write?

Speaker 3 It doesn't matter the time. As long as I sit down and I start, I have certain tricks in terms of trying to get in when I don't feel in.

Speaker 3 I have a very basic ritual every morning of like wake up, I have a little spiritual moment, and then I meditate, and then I make coffee. It's the greatest thing in the world to me.

Speaker 3 And my French press put makes two good cups.

Speaker 3 The first cup, I read the newspaper and stuff. Yeah.
Second cup, I take it to my desk. And I sit down.
And if I'm not in it,

Speaker 3 I go look back at the last couple of pages I wrote. and I just read them and make little tweaks,

Speaker 3 and then I'm working. Yeah, and then I keep going.
And I go until I don't want to. It's like a very gentle thing.
I go until some moment I look up and I go,

Speaker 3 you know, it'd be nice just to go do something else or whatever. Or I feel hungry.
Yeah. A trick I had when I'm upstate.
I have a machine that makes my oatmeal.

Speaker 3 It's a rice maker, but it makes oatmeal for me.

Speaker 3 I set it to like two hours. So

Speaker 3 the smell of oatmeal.

Speaker 2 You kind of go.

Speaker 3 I go, let's go eat. Just go eat.
Yeah. And then me and the dog go eat.

Speaker 3 And then we go walk. And the day, I'm done.
I wrote that morning. So the whole day feels great.

Speaker 2 That's great.

Speaker 3 I love it. I love it.
It makes my whole life better.

Speaker 2 When you write Ingram or this other book, do you do the, because there's different, obviously, approaches to writing, different people have. Do you do an outline and know what you're doing?

Speaker 2 Or do you just kind of see where the writing takes you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, not so far. I mean, Ingram was supposed to be, I thought it was a short story.
I thought it might even just be a paragraph. I just got this voice in my head of this kind of like American kid.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I just started writing a description of his life in his voice. Yeah.
I just wanted to see what it would feel like.

Speaker 3 And he felt living to me. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So once I started describing his life, I just thought I would have him describe in the first chapter.

Speaker 3 and it might make the first chapter a little funny because it wasn't supposed to be the first chapter of a book. It wasn't like, how do I get people into this book?

Speaker 3 It was just like, here's this kid talking.

Speaker 3 So he's describing his life, and I feel like I'm just hearing it and taking it down. I'm helping him say it.

Speaker 3 And then he starts telling a story. He says, and then my father left.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, oh, so you're telling me what something that happened. And then his mother tells him to leave because she can't take care of him anymore.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I got really emotional. I was like, what the fuck's going to happen to him? And I sort of felt this sense of mission

Speaker 3 to take care of him. So every day I would sit down and go like, what's going on with you? And I got scared for him.

Speaker 3 And the only thing that was making me feel okay about it all is that it was in the past tense. It's just the way it happened.
And I was like, well, at least I know he's alive. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I just kept following him through a really hard. I couldn't make his life easier.
I didn't feel like I was deciding what would happen to him in terms of like, how do I want his life to go?

Speaker 3 That's what an outline would have been like. Yeah.

Speaker 3 What do I want to happen?

Speaker 3 So I just followed him chapter by chapter.

Speaker 2 And did your new book have a same kind of yeah, similar.

Speaker 3 That one is really fucked up. It's really crazy.
And it's more closer to my other work in terms of that it gets really

Speaker 3 disgusting in some places. Oh, nice.
And yeah, and it's.

Speaker 2 So I'll really consume this book.

Speaker 3 Oh, it's really fucked up. I don't know if one person has read it.

Speaker 3 And he said it made him laugh out loud sometimes. And he said, there's a few times he wanted to throw it across the room.
And I said to him, he's not a guy I know well, but I got him to read it.

Speaker 3 I said, thanks for reading it. And he said, I wish I could help you.
I wish I could thank you for writing it. Ah, that's great.
Yeah, that's what he said. That's great.
And it made me happy.

Speaker 3 It made me feel like it made his face hot.

Speaker 3 So it's good. That's great.
It's good, bad, doesn't matter. It's something.

Speaker 2 It's something that makes you react.

Speaker 3 That's all I care about.

Speaker 3 You hit some kind of spike.

Speaker 3 And every day I would write that book, I'd be like, you know, there's these two characters meeting that I had done so. I worked so hard on that book.
It's like 450 pages. Jesus.

Speaker 3 And it's on a typewriter. I wrote it on a typewriter.
So I was on the road and I was bringing this Italian typewriter with me everywhere and typing.

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Speaker 3 and when i'm traveling with the pages i get anxious because they're you know yeah i could lose them and uh

Speaker 3 but i would be there's one two characters and they meet in the woods and i work so hard and i'm not even sure i'm going to keep any of it like some of it i'm like this does this is not good yeah but keep writing it because the great thing about writing fiction is that no one ever no one might read that book right besides that one guy i don't know yeah

Speaker 3 but i get to these two characters and then i was like uh

Speaker 3 oh, they're going to fuck. I don't, that's crazy.
They're going to fuck. But that's what it is.

Speaker 2 That's what happens.

Speaker 3 So I described their sex

Speaker 3 and the jiz and everything like extremely, as literarily as I could. Like with as much,

Speaker 3 I put as much into that as I would into like describing a woman dying with her son crying next to her or something, you know.

Speaker 2 So I can't wait to read this.

Speaker 3 I think you'll like that one.

Speaker 2 I really enjoyed. I'll tell you.
Okay, so I'll tell you

Speaker 3 what, man.

Speaker 2 So I was, it's in right away. Like I'm reading it and just like following the story.
But when you read, I think when you read literature or a script, your mind has a, has a tendency to cast.

Speaker 2 You know, you cast. Sure.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 And so sometimes when you read something, your mind conjures up kind of a fictional face and a person. Sometimes you read something and you, for some reason, you cast like an actor.

Speaker 2 Like somebody comes and you go, that's how you imagine it. And then in some cases,

Speaker 2 you put like a real person in it. And man,

Speaker 2 I couldn't help, as I'm reading this,

Speaker 2 I cast it with my eldest son.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Wow.

Speaker 2 And that was, it made it.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 I mean, I cried reading it because I was like picturing my, for some reason, like, you know, once that happened, you can't get it out of your, like, I couldn't shift it to another person whoa he's he's nine and he's lanky and sweet and like

Speaker 2 and i just was like man every time something was happening to him especially like being a you know a band like his mother tell him to leave and oh and like alone and sleeping in these places and like you know you just you're like he hasn't eaten it like it would fuck me up it was really hard but also like every time he had some triumph or somebody takes him in and you'd be like and i just thinking of my my boy the whole time.

Speaker 2 So it was very.

Speaker 3 I had an experience like that writing it because I really got to love the kid. And because when he was

Speaker 3 met with hard things, he analyzed them and he'd have different feelings about them. He'd feel pain, but he'd also like learn from it.

Speaker 3 And not in a wisdom way, but just like, I guess that's what that's like. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And yeah, I mean, a lot of feedback I get about Ingram is

Speaker 3 like mothers really like the book and they really connect with the kid. They really and they worry about it's a it's a yeah, of course.
It's a book that just makes you worry. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And that, I don't know, there's something, I guess, there's something about worrying about a

Speaker 3 about a character and it makes you see them more clearly.

Speaker 2 It makes you see them, and you, you, worry is the right thing. And then there's, you know, something about worrying about a child is different.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, it's different than worrying about an adult.

Speaker 3 It is.

Speaker 3 There's like this question, and I sort of, as the second book asks this question, is like when does somebody go from being our responsibility as humans to being um on the fuck them you know what i mean yeah like when someone a kid is born people are so invested in the rights of a child or the uh social responsibility for a child yeah is a big deal all the way back to we want to make sure uh we know when they become you know with the abortion debate will go on forever and ever because everybody's wondering when does it become important Yeah.

Speaker 3 When do we become responsible for someone? Yeah.

Speaker 3 When does that responsibility start? When does it stop being just their parents? And become. When do they become a protectorate or I guess somebody to be protected?

Speaker 3 But then where is that second line? When do they fuck them? When can we actually kill them? Yeah.

Speaker 3 When is it okay to kill them?

Speaker 3 Because they're one of us or they're on this side of that line. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 a boy is a really, is a very tender part

Speaker 3 of that spectrum, a boy, because boys start to flex their bodies a little bit more and boys can wreak havoc, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 3 But also

Speaker 3 they're tender and they're vulnerable. So it's a problem for everybody.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's no, it definitely, there's an emotional connection reading this book. I think anyone, you don't have to have a kid to feel it.

Speaker 2 I think anyone who just has empathy in them feels like it's a good thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, worry is empathy. So if you,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 it's like

Speaker 3 there's a super version of every feeling. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Like

Speaker 3 anger, if you don't work through it and maybe express it and deal with it, becomes resentment. Resentment to me is like anger that didn't get addressed.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So it kind of

Speaker 3 caught it, not codifies. It cauterizes like a, you know, it gets scuzzy.

Speaker 2 And then it like sits in the person.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's resentment. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sadness becomes like depression, like sadness that doesn't get like, okay, I'm going to feel this sad, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then probably there's something about if you're dealing with happy feelings, they become like a mania. Do you know what I mean? Like there's just these big versions.

Speaker 2 Big versions of the feelings.

Speaker 3 Of the feelings that, and so worry is like empathy that just,

Speaker 3 you know what I mean? And I think a lot of literature movies and stuff is we amp up, you know, you take love and you make it romance. Right.
You know?

Speaker 3 You take pain, you make it torture. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 you take empathy, you make it worry.

Speaker 3 It would have been interesting to write a book about a kid who nothing special happens to. It's just that life is really hard by itself.

Speaker 3 If you write a book about a kid who goes to school and he has some friends and his parents are both home, he's still going to have a really hard time. Yeah.
And you could really empathize with that.

Speaker 3 That's true. So there's, I always get a little suspicious of drama like, and then there was a tornado.
But that's what I wrote. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I do think, too, one of the things you think about when you're reading Ingram is you can't help but go like, man, that era that's not that long ago was tough to live in. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like that was just like, like when there's, when they're, he's running into people and they're like, you know, where are your folks? Like, and he's like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 And part of you goes like, yeah, this is a book that you wrote. You also go, oh, that happened for sure all the time.
Of course it did. There's just kids around and people will be like, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't know. And when you hear from anybody, like, I don't have anybody taking care of me.
Yeah. Your inner feeling or mine is, I'll just cop to it myself.
I go like,

Speaker 3 okay. Yeah.
Like when you see a homeless person. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You might give them money and try to go like this, but you want to keep them away from you. Right.
Because they need too much.

Speaker 3 And that's scary. It's too much.
I'm going to get dragged into that. It's going to drag me out of my ego.
It's going to drag me out of my day. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And a kid, even more so.

Speaker 3 Somebody's like, I fucking care. I mean, if you go to another, like, I remember going going to

Speaker 3 being in Mexico City once in the Zocolo,

Speaker 3 it's a big plaza where the government buildings are. And a lot of tourists go there.

Speaker 3 So children come there to get money from them. They're kids that are just like street kids.

Speaker 3 And one of the things they do is...

Speaker 3 They blow fire. So what they do is they have these torches and they have like a milk gallon container filled with gasoline.

Speaker 3 And they just take a mouthful of gasoline and they blow on the

Speaker 3 and they blow fire.

Speaker 3 And they just do it. And you just see that there's like this

Speaker 3 bad stain of dead flesh around their lips. Yeah.
And whatever is going, I mean, imagine all day doing this trick. They're blowing mouthfuls of gasoline

Speaker 3 onto a

Speaker 3 and you see it lick back onto them a little bit. And also whatever's happened to their mouths, I bet their teeth aren't great no and uh and they're wearing shit you know whatever sometimes it's like a

Speaker 3 a t-shirt like Philadelphia Phillies or something you know what I mean yeah

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 you know whatever not them people

Speaker 3 adults just sort of watch and they might throw them some dirty pesos or something you know what I mean but they don't go like let me get you to somebody who can help you they don't like well the get involved The volume of kids in that situation there is like so much more extreme that it's like stray dogs or something.

Speaker 2 You know, you just go whatever. Whatever, man.

Speaker 3 But every one of those kids is a whole profound experience. Of course.
They are a whole human being equal to you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 I wanted to get in the head of a kid who's dealing with this kind of shit. And the only

Speaker 3 experience I had with it, and when I was a kid,

Speaker 3 I was raised by a single mom and she worked all day.

Speaker 3 So I was alone a lot. And we lived right near the Massachusetts Turnpike.
And I just walked next to it a lot. And

Speaker 3 I walked

Speaker 3 along this fence for hours that had like shit like dirt. I used to pick up

Speaker 3 broken cans. And I don't know.
I had a weird childhood.

Speaker 3 We had. times where like I remember saying to my mom that I'm hungry and she'd say drink a lot of water like there were times where there wasn't like a lot around.
So we touched that.

Speaker 3 And I it certainly wasn't like this. And there's a trillion kids that have been poorer than me.
But I remember that feeling of like,

Speaker 3 you know, there's not a lot. Yeah.
And

Speaker 3 I'm on my own.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I was okay, you know, you didn't, you didn't go like, what's going on here? You just went like, okay, what do I do now? And sometimes we're better than others. And my mom worked really hard.

Speaker 3 And we went to a good school. You know, we we lived that way so that we could live near a good public school.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I remember seeing this documentary about kids riding the rails. I think it's called Riding the Rails.
It was during the Depression. A ton of families told their kids to leave.

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Speaker 3 Usually they choose one.

Speaker 3 Like somebody has five kids and they go, we can't feed five. And this one guy in the documentary tells the story.
He says, My parents told me my brothers and sisters are, he was the strongest one.

Speaker 3 So you go. Get out.
Good luck.

Speaker 3 And so he just hit the road. But they found in those times other kids.

Speaker 3 There was like gangs of kids and they'd camp together and they'd live on trains and the uh the train companies weren't like oh come they were like they'd beat the shit out of them yeah yeah you know so uh this guy he did but this guy telling the story this is part of what got me to this book

Speaker 3 he didn't talk about the violence or

Speaker 3 starving.

Speaker 3 He said, well, I guess the hardest part, he's just telling it like this. I guess the hardest part was like sometimes when it would just be me in a train train car for hours and hours.

Speaker 3 And then he said, I got so lonely. And then he covered his mouth and he couldn't talk anymore.
And he's like 90 now. Like it still hurts.

Speaker 2 The loneliness.

Speaker 3 How lonely he got. And that's the level I think of

Speaker 3 that's the threshold a lot of people can't handle. Yeah.

Speaker 3 is if you're alone in it.

Speaker 2 I think the loneliness epidemic is one that's not discussed a lot.

Speaker 3 No doubt.

Speaker 2 Like, and

Speaker 2 sometimes, you know, you meet people in life

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 you kind of discover through knowing them that you're meeting someone who is lonely, who doesn't have a lot of friends, doesn't have romance.

Speaker 2 And I think it's had an impact on me when I've befriended someone and then it occurs to me, or I'm like, oh, I think I might be this person's only friend. Yes.

Speaker 2 You know, and it really affects you, I think, emotionally.

Speaker 3 It does. And it can sometimes have the effect that it does to see a kid who's, or a homeless person who needs so much that you can't even handle it.
Yeah. That can be like that emotionally.

Speaker 3 Like, if I get to be your friend, you're going to swallow me whole. Yeah.
Because you got nothing.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Ingram keeps

Speaker 3 meeting people that

Speaker 3 feel bad for him, but they just have a limit on how much they can do. They give him a minute.
They might give him a bed for the night. Yeah.
But at some point they go, I can't do this, dude. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I mean, I've experienced that in life, different parts of my life, where I'm really lonely, where I feel really isolated, and where I realize that I'm a problem for other people.

Speaker 3 Where I realize that, yes,

Speaker 3 I'm the needy. I'm too much in need for a lot of people.
And I see people that are good people

Speaker 3 turn and go, like, I can't. And I say, that's too much now.
And because because how much you need yeah they need to do less yeah and i and uh i get it and i've done it myself sure

Speaker 3 so so he he he sees that a lot and luckily he's a the good thing about a kid is that they're malleable and that they can grow they adapt and yeah unless they're being like literally starved yeah yeah which is like there is no there's you know this all the things that we say to each other like everything that might nothing that kills you makes you stronger yeah

Speaker 3 yeah but also it can give you like diseases and it can break break your spine sure it can really fuck you up yeah

Speaker 3 life is not as a zero-sum game for some people that is so dude i remember

Speaker 2 when you're talking about mexico that it hit i just the memory flashed back that i used to spend a lot of time in lima peru right growing like for my summers and the when i was like a teen it's very um eye-opening to see that the levels of poverty in like Latin American countries and other parts of the world too, where you're like, it's not like the poverty we see here.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 2 And I was out at some place in Lima somewhere with a cousin, and I'm probably like 12, 13. And one of the street kids comes up, tattered, ripped clothes, filthy.
And it's like a little girl.

Speaker 2 You know, she's maybe like five or six. And she's like,

Speaker 2 like, you know, puts her hands out. And I was, it's like, oh my God, like, what do we do?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so I had like French fries we had ordered and I just give them to her and I have like some cash.

Speaker 2 And then my cousin, who's Peruvian is sitting across from me he's like oh he's like good very proud of you and then he goes George Bush would be so proud of you

Speaker 3 what

Speaker 2 he's like I go we gotta help he's like and he like turns and shows me like this hillside of like you know tin roof shanty town he's like dude there's fucking two million of them here yeah like

Speaker 2 he had no reaction to it you know no and he was like yeah you just got here I get it like you're shaken by this right like this is normal.

Speaker 3 You know, it's so weird. What are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to not give a shit? Are you supposed to?

Speaker 2 They, they have, you know, it's, it kind of changes between men and women. I think the men kind of go, like, yeah, this is what it is.
The women are, you know, have a little more like warmth to it.

Speaker 2 But it is like, what are you supposed to do if you see it every day? Like, how do you react? I remember seeing this like 60 Minutes piece on, I think, like, the homicide problem in Louisiana.

Speaker 2 It might have been in like New Orleans or something. And how this really,

Speaker 2 you know, young and sincere

Speaker 2 prosecutor, I think it was a prosecutor, was talking about like how the first case comes and how much you feel and how you're going to do it. And then she's like, then they just start rolling it.

Speaker 3 You just go, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, another murder.

Speaker 2 And then they go like, yeah, a year later, I was like, yeah, murders happen. Like, I just, it's just what I do.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was thinking once about how life is about like seashores,

Speaker 3 different

Speaker 3 things in life. Like, that's where we feel the most.
Yeah. Is,

Speaker 3 you know, the ocean is

Speaker 3 unthinkably massive. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And when you're in the middle of it, you're just in it. Like, if you're on a boat or if you're on land, you're just living your life.
But when you're on a seashore,

Speaker 3 you get this wild sense of this massive thing because you're touching the lip of the thing. Yeah.
And you're seeing that you're you're not in the ocean and that there it is.

Speaker 3 And it even can give you a sense of how big it is where you live or if you look at stars and stuff like that. So it's like these borders.
So if you're like fully in,

Speaker 3 I live here, I see these people every day.

Speaker 3 And if you're fully out, you're like, I don't know. But if you touch, if you, when you have those junctures,

Speaker 3 you freak out and your body

Speaker 3 shivers. I mean, what you're supposed to do, I don't think is supposed to be based on

Speaker 3 how you feel. You're not supposed to just react to your sudden empathy

Speaker 3 by giving. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's supposed to be something else, and I don't really know what it is.

Speaker 2 I don't know either.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 If there's always a part of me that thinks that if I was really a moral person, I'd change absolutely everything about the way I live. And then it wouldn't make any difference.
Right.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'd just be doing it as a big vanity.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I don't know. I mean, what I try to do is be

Speaker 3 sort of handle myself well with people around me. That's all I can do.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think that's...

Speaker 3 With the society I've I'm part of.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's kind of the best thing that I think most people can do. If you're trying if everyone's trying to do that, it's a pretty good world.

Speaker 3 That it's it is a it's like a retail version of yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, yes. Um

Speaker 3 the big picture of like what we're supposed to do is countries or whatever. Who fucking who fucking knows?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's it feels overwhelming in that whatever change someone tries to make doesn't really have, it doesn't feel like anything really changes.

Speaker 3 No, not that much. But there is a funny thing about seeing that like when there's a bunch of people suffering, you can just go like, well, it's the way it is.
That's the way it is.

Speaker 3 You don't boil it down to like, well, that person's in a shit ton of pain. Yeah, yeah.
And what if it was you? I mean, there's no qualitative difference between.

Speaker 3 My grandmother and an old lady in Gaza or an old lady in Ukraine. There's none.
There's no difference. Yeah.
They all have the same value. But I can look at it.

Speaker 3 I can just be sort of have CNN on and see like people hurting. And I can go,

Speaker 3 if it's my grandmother, they're both dead. But if it was one of my grandmothers, you had to get the fuck on a plane, go there, fucking rally the troops.
Let's get going. Let's do something about it.

Speaker 2 Well, I see, I always think about how war is so unnatural for a human being to experience and how much that skews your whole emotional landscape for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 Like, once you're a part of like atrocities and you survive,

Speaker 2 I mean, you're, everything shifts for you. I don't think you're ever able to react to the things the same way.

Speaker 3 No, I don't think so. You mean if you're in one, if you're in one.

Speaker 3 Yeah, who knows? Yeah. I don't know.
I never experienced it.

Speaker 2 No, just like being like, my dad was a Vietnam vet. Yeah.
And like a very well-adjusted guy. And one of the guys who like, you're like, you're in Vietnam?

Speaker 2 He'd be like, yeah, like, what do you want to know? He'd tell stories. You know, he's in combat.
And then when he was like 72,

Speaker 2 one day we were just talking and he goes, you know, this is the first time he ever said this.

Speaker 3 He goes, you know, I think the war really affected me.

Speaker 3 And I was like,

Speaker 2 yeah. He was like, yeah, I think about those guys every day.
And I was like, every day. Every day? He goes, every day I think about the guys I lost and stuff.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, are you just like, you're just realizing this right now?

Speaker 3 He was like, yeah, I never really thought about it.

Speaker 2 I was like, yeah, that's. You've been traumatized, but it took you fucking 50 years to process it.

Speaker 3 That's what trauma is. He says, I think about this every day, and I never really ever thought about that.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 it's just this thing that you just live with,

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 it's you're constant. Yeah, all of a sudden, you go, Oh, this has been

Speaker 3 been here because you get, I don't know what made him. I wonder what made him

Speaker 3 realize it.

Speaker 2 Maybe because he was dying, so he started to think about things more like that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 3 but he died, he died.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he died.

Speaker 3 Sorry, yeah, well, it's the way it goes. I wish mine would.

Speaker 2 He's still kicking, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's in the hospital right now, so I shouldn't say that.

Speaker 2 Your wish is going to come true.

Speaker 3 Yes, it will.

Speaker 2 Yeah, at some point. It's the one thing you can count on.

Speaker 3 Yeah. For sure.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 by the way, I saw your new hour, which is fantastic. Thanks.
It's so good, man.

Speaker 3 Thanks. It's been a really fun one to do.

Speaker 2 I wanted to ask you this because when we initially started talking, you were like, when I stepped away from stand-up to right, you're like a year and a half. And you weren't counting the days.

Speaker 2 You're like, I'm done with that. So how, what made you go back on stage?

Speaker 3 So I was really, I think when I passed a year,

Speaker 3 like some about a year, because it contains all the routines of your life, all the holidays and birthdays and everything.

Speaker 3 I did a whole year without it. And then when I started doing a second year, I started to smell a little rot.
You know what I mean? Yeah. And

Speaker 3 I started to come up with jokes. It just was like I started thinking of jokes and it felt like I had to pee after what I was like filling up.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Like I got to get rid of these or I got to just do them once. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so I went to the comedy seller one night and I hadn't been on stage in like, I don't know, a year and

Speaker 3 three, four months, something like that.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I just went to have a steak and hang out with some friends. And somebody didn't show up.
And they're like, do you want to go on? So I said, yeah, fuck it.

Speaker 3 This doesn't mean i'm coming back to stand-up i just want to go on yeah and so i got a waitress give me her pat her her pad and i just wrote a list of the jokes i had in my head it was like five or six jokes

Speaker 3 and i went on and i started doing them and it was so fun yeah and i felt like i was sitting at a piano yeah and just going like this and i was like i'm good at this like i'm good at it and like the pleasure of knowing that like if i leave if I say something and there's a laugh there and I know the next thing and I just know right when to come back in.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Like that, those skills of being able to like, here's the thing, look at them. Here's the next.
Boom. Like I know how to do that.
Yeah. And they were so pleased.

Speaker 3 And I really looked at them. It's something that hasn't gone away in this whole tour.

Speaker 3 For some reason, for the first time, I really, there's always been a bit of a cage up with the audience, but I was just like really looking at them and watching them enjoying it like seeing really specific faces laughing and and the bits were really kind of either really dumb or very audacious so people were kind of going like what yeah and i was really enjoying that face yeah this face going like what are you talking about yeah yeah

Speaker 3 and so

Speaker 3 i came back i did a set like a couple of nights later I thought, I'm just doing it for fun. But all the audience I was facing were pretty good.
I came in one night and it was a really bad crowd.

Speaker 3 And because I just have no, I'm not, I hadn't, hadn't been doing it for so long. I didn't know it was chops.
Yeah. I had a really rough set.
And I realized this is not a, this is a dangerous hobby.

Speaker 2 You got to go in or out.

Speaker 3 In or out was the, was the thought.

Speaker 3 So I, I didn't do it for like a month. I mean, because everything slowed down for me in my whole life.
I was like, I could take a month and think about this. And I took a month just to think about it.

Speaker 3 And then I went, let's, let's get into routine. Started doing three or or four sets a night, started seeing what is this, what are these jokes, what are they, what's the new feeling, yeah.

Speaker 3 And I felt a new uh thing, kind of like what I was saying with writing the book, that like I had a new ability,

Speaker 3 which is that I don't get emotionally involved

Speaker 3 with my own person. In other words, I'm not, I don't take it personally if they like the joke or not, or how they feel about the joke.

Speaker 3 And I'm okay with any outcome. And what that kind of gives me is the ability to do a joke that we always think binary as comedians.
Yeah. Laugh, no laugh.
But no laugh doesn't mean nothing happened.

Speaker 3 Right. Something happened.

Speaker 2 So when you're in that space, because I think you have

Speaker 2 one of the best at like perspective on these things is like, if it doesn't get a laugh, which is like, you know, the goal, let's say, of... obviously doing jokes is to get a laugh,

Speaker 2 you won't abandon this. No.

Speaker 2 Well, you'd go like, I need to hone it more or just it is this?

Speaker 3 Sometimes it's just sticking with it. Like,

Speaker 3 I think I have, I wrote rules this time for the... No, I didn't bring my notebook.
I wrote this rule on my notebook that said,

Speaker 3 don't bail if it's not working.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's one of the toughest things to do.

Speaker 3 If you do something and the crowd goes,

Speaker 3 you just created a new feeling in the room.

Speaker 3 The thing is that we go in a circle on stage with stand-up. We tell a joke and it gets a laugh and it leaves the room feeling pretty much exactly the way you found it.
And then you tell another joke.

Speaker 3 You just, they're laughing and they just laughed and they just, and they're laughing again.

Speaker 3 But if you piss them off or confuse them,

Speaker 3 you've got a new stir in the room. You've got a new chemical.

Speaker 3 a new gas. And then when you light the next match, the flame's a different color.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And now you're off in a new path. And now, which is exciting, it's very exciting.

Speaker 3 People will laugh at a joke that they're kept at a neutral, like, this guy's good, is the feeling we want to give them all the time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And they like me, it's sort of important to us, but I'm having a good time, we want them to think. They're having a good time.
But if, but, but people that are pissed off laugh differently. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And for different reasons. So you just created a new spectrum of

Speaker 3 it's like finding another, it's like carving out another key on the piano that's not black or white. It's a new thing.

Speaker 3 And they go like, what? And you go like, uh-huh. Well, now I'll just play you a song, a Beatles song.
Right, right. Oh, God, that song sounds so good.

Speaker 3 It's not just about relieving them, but it's like,

Speaker 3 I just think that laughs are one thing. They're one thing, but there's a lot of things.
And

Speaker 3 the laughs are the backstop and

Speaker 3 they're the clay. They're where you're where you're what you're really working and it's important.

Speaker 3 But there's so much, if you just, I'm talking about a fraction of an inch. It's terrifying to not be getting a laugh for

Speaker 3 3.8 seconds.

Speaker 3 It's too long. Like if you go like, let's go five, this five, you tell a joke,

Speaker 3 it doesn't get a laugh for five seconds starting now.

Speaker 3 That's dead. I'll put a gun in my mouth.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you're able to have it, it's not that long.
I know. You're able to have it

Speaker 3 and then, and you're okay with it. You're not going like this.

Speaker 3 You're just going, all right.

Speaker 3 You guys are really tense, but it's okay. I know it's okay because I control the future.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm the one on stage.

Speaker 2 I love the feeling of upsetting an audience

Speaker 2 and then getting to a joke that they can't help but laugh at.

Speaker 2 That's great. It's the best feeling.
Yes.

Speaker 3 I was at the seller because I was working, so I've been working on this set anyway, whatever

Speaker 3 I got back into it and I was just like, I'm in.

Speaker 3 So I started to do

Speaker 3 more sets per night and do the usual process I did of, you know, but trying to keep in mind this idea.

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 there is more

Speaker 3 room to play and

Speaker 3 also to just be. I called the show ridiculous because I just wanted to be just ridiculous.
And I'm not, I don't want to make any points.

Speaker 3 I think that I've done, I'm really tired of certain things I've done for a long time.

Speaker 3 And this thing I got in my head when I quit before, which was like, you don't have to do this anymore, I just said, I'm going to keep that idea.

Speaker 3 There's a bunch of things I don't have to do anymore. Rants, like where I'm like, duh, you see how this is, you know,

Speaker 3 like I had a big bit in the set that was the center of the set because it was killing so hard about how people talk on the news and use certain buzzwords it was a little it wasn't like anti-pc but it was like you know like dissecting the speech hypocrisy yeah it's enough with that shit like i'm so bored with that but it was killing and it was fucking with my set because

Speaker 3 everything around it was kind of ethereal and pointless. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so when I was in Omaha, Nebraska, I remember one night I was like, what if I just don't do the bit at all? It's like a 15-minute chunk. I was like, what if I just leave it out?

Speaker 3 And I never did it again. Because the show I left it out, everything else kind of rose

Speaker 3 and got better.

Speaker 3 And then I decided the integrity is in keeping that stuff being important to me. Like the stuff that means nothing.
Yeah. But I think it means something.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And being really convinced of this dumb fucking idea, you know, and believing in it. Yeah.
And I see guys going like, why are you on this right right now? But they're enjoying it.

Speaker 3 It's exciting to them. It's so much more fun than like, right? And them going, yeah.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Yes. And also that's the most traded commodity in comedy right now.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I also hate that type of

Speaker 2 that way of like in movie making when a film is like a film about like, this is just the, things should be like smoking is bad. Yeah.
And then it's a movie about, you're like, yeah, I already know.

Speaker 2 Like there's no, I don't like this ride.

Speaker 3 This is no, it's no fun.

Speaker 2 It's no fun.

Speaker 3 No, the best to me, the things I enjoy the most, movies and stuff, are things that confuse me, that make me go, like, but I thought this, and now I don't know, or just like, or, you know,

Speaker 3 so, so I'm not making any points on stage, and that's been the fun, fun thing. But so, I started doing the bigger theaters, like 2,500 seats, the ones that we do a lot.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And the bits, the set started to feel like it was sagging because I can't really see them anymore. And I missed the clubs where

Speaker 3 I would do this thing. I'd say something really convinced in my voice about this stupid thing.
And then I'd stop talking. And

Speaker 3 I'd feel all their heads go like this. And then one guy would go,

Speaker 3 and he'd laugh.

Speaker 3 And then everybody would look at him. And I would look at him.
And then somebody else would laugh and I'd look at them. And then I'd play in that area and say something.

Speaker 3 That's how the whole set was created. Really? Yeah.
It was just like really seeing them.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 there's one joke in the set that's like my favorite one. And when I do it, there's always one person that's dying harder than everybody.
And I always look at them and I nod at them.

Speaker 3 And I want to say to them, that's my favorite. Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to say that because it's not a great thing to say. And

Speaker 3 30 minutes into a set. Yeah, yeah.
This is as good as this is the best.

Speaker 3 The rest is shit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But that, I'd lost that when I was doing the 2,500 seat theaters.

Speaker 3 So during the last couple of weeks of the or like month of the tour, I started going back to the cellar and fucking around and just doing jokes that aren't in the set and doing just being reckless.

Speaker 3 Really? Yeah. And I started doing tons of sets.
And then I went back up to Poughkeepsie and did the laugh, laugh it up, this club in the it's upstairs of a pub. Yeah.
I love it in there. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And just going up there with a notebook and just trashing through an hour there. You know, I went down to Side Splitters in Tampa

Speaker 3 on my way to a big gig in Puerto Rico. And in Puerto Rico, I did a local club there.
Like, I was just doing local comic books.

Speaker 2 I want to do Puerto Rico. I really want to go.
I love it. I would really want to go do that.
You'll love it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was telling us, we were talking about stand-up and about, like, you know, certain comics have certain gifts. Like, you go, like, this guy is so good at the economy of words.

Speaker 2 Like, he just knows how to get. And I was saying, I was like, you know, I think one of Louie's gifts as a comic is that every hour you have,

Speaker 2 you have this capacity to say things

Speaker 2 that are like, I feel like it's a, people go like, it's a universal, like, I feel like I, I've had this thought, but for some reason I've never heard it articulated.

Speaker 2 And I don't know how you do it over and over. I'm always like, God damn it.
Like, I know this thought.

Speaker 2 Right. And I can't believe no one's ever said it.
I've never heard someone say it. And it feels like, I don't know, that to me is like one of your comedic nice.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It's a good, my mom told me that I could do that.
My mom said that I could take simple things and explain them. Yeah.
And it didn't seem complicated.

Speaker 3 That's true. My favorite compliment I ever got is that I'm going to like repeat a compliment I got.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Was from Chris Rock. And he said to me that I'm like Thor

Speaker 3 because what I'm doing is not.

Speaker 3 It's not mysterious. I've got a huge hammer and I'm just destroying shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But nobody else else can pick up that hammer.

Speaker 3 I'm the only guy who it'll do it for.

Speaker 2 That feels like a good one.

Speaker 3 I like thinking that about my, I like to take that compliment and just bathe in it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Just like to.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because I was trying to tell somebody this, too, about as a comedian. They were like, you know, how do you feel about like yourself as a comedian? And I go, well, it's not this.

Speaker 2 You don't, it's not. I feel this way all the time.
Right. I get off stage sometimes and I go, I'm pretty fucking good at this.
I think a thing.

Speaker 3 And then it goes fucking fucking

Speaker 2 up and down.

Speaker 3 I think a thing that you do that's great is that you take

Speaker 3 your harder feelings like anger

Speaker 3 and you wear them very comfortably and you give them a really great voice because you're not,

Speaker 3 I mean, what I've seen of you, you're not like ranting and raising. You're just saying, I hate this.

Speaker 3 And there's something about that that's very powerful because

Speaker 3 people have a hard time with feelings like anger and stuff and spite. Yeah.
Spite, which is not even an emotion, it's just like, fuck that. Yeah, yeah.
Is you can have guilt about that. That's true.

Speaker 3 But it's real. And, you know, going back to Russian literature, a lot of it is just like, people are shit.
Yeah. And it's not a moral judgment.
It's just. It's a form of love.

Speaker 3 It's like, how much do we hate people in this way? Yes. I love people at their worst.
It's my favorite part of people.

Speaker 2 That feels like a very Louis statement.

Speaker 3 I love people at their worst. I do.
That's what I love about them is when

Speaker 3 they're useless, when they have no control, when they have no self-awareness.

Speaker 3 You got to love somebody like that. When you really meet a Buddha, you're like, I could spend four minutes with you.
That's about it. Otherwise, you're really stink as a person to hang out with.

Speaker 2 I want to meet a mess.

Speaker 3 I want to meet somebody who's just a fucking, my best friends are. I just sit there and I go, man.

Speaker 3 But there's. They're interesting, though.
Yes, they are. But there's something about, like, my favorite joke of yours is the,

Speaker 3 and I'll just, even though you know it, I'll tell it the way I remember it, which is that you're in a movie theater and there's a baby, a couple has a baby. Yes, I'll do it in the first person

Speaker 3 behind me, who's, um, and the baby's making these horrible screaming noises. Yes.
And so I turned to the couple, I said, Are you stabbing your baby? And the woman said, No.

Speaker 3 And I said, Well, could you? Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 That's good. That's that's fun.

Speaker 3 It's a great joke.

Speaker 2 Oh, thanks, man.

Speaker 3 And it's told calmly. Yes.
But you can feel it's a

Speaker 3 really heavy spite.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And it's justified, you know, bring your fucking baby. At the same time, it's like they have no, they can't go to movies without their baby.
That's true.

Speaker 2 They got no money. So it's like, what do we do?

Speaker 3 But it sucks for you.

Speaker 2 It sucks for me in that situation.

Speaker 3 It doesn't not suck for you. But so,

Speaker 3 you know, like

Speaker 3 the thing that's great about comedy is

Speaker 3 breaking those rules, like not being fair. Comedy's not supposed to be fair.
Right. So I remember back when people were saying this thing a lot that comedy should never punch down.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So, everyone just said, Comedy should never punch down. So, you did it wrong.
Well, no, no, that's not true. It's true that it shouldn't never punch down.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 You don't like comedy, or you're pretending you don't like comedy. Exactly.
Punches down.

Speaker 3 But it's the funniest. So I was explaining this to somebody once who didn't understand what it meant.

Speaker 3 And I said, Well, the idea with don't punch down with comedy is this.

Speaker 3 If you have

Speaker 3 a maid or like, you know, a cleaning lady in an office building who has like five jobs

Speaker 3 and she sees the boss walk by who's a billionaire and she says,

Speaker 3 you know, fuck that guy.

Speaker 3 You're like, yeah.

Speaker 3 But if a billionaire goes up to a little cleaning lady and like spills coffee on her head and goes, ha ha.

Speaker 3 I was like, I was telling this person, that's not funny. but of course it's a trillion times funnier so much funnier it's way funnier of course than

Speaker 2 somebody punching up is is crusading and it's like punching down is horrible and funny hysterically funny this is like i've had this exact conversation with someone who one time we were like they were talking about my a special that had come out and then they would go you know you did this and you do that but ultimately it's like he goes you know as far as like kind of like going over like the rules of comedy he's like but like don't be a dick right and i go no are you nuts i go what do you mean yeah and he's like well you know it's it was like basically don't punch down and i go but being a dick can be the funniest thing like yes of course dickheads are funny yes and and saying something smarmy and shitty to someone might be the funniest fucking thing yes it's not polite and it's not nice but it's still funny of course it is what's his name chance langton he's a guy from boston when i started chance was one of the big comics in boston And his whole act, he had like a theme, which was, because that's the way I am.

Speaker 3 And so you just say an awful thing about himself. And he'd say, because that's the way I am.

Speaker 3 And one of them was,

Speaker 3 whenever I see a pay toilet, back when they used to, I don't think I've seen that in years, but it used to be in some public places. The stall

Speaker 3 would have a coin thing in it to get in.

Speaker 3 He said, Every time I see a pay toilet, I crawl underneath and I shit on the floor.

Speaker 3 Because that's the way I am.

Speaker 3 And, you know,

Speaker 3 someone has the clean as shit. Yeah.
And that's the funniest thing in the world.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's the funniest part of that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, it's, it's, the whole point to comedy to me is what you're not supposed to do. It's, you know,

Speaker 3 it's not real. You're not really

Speaker 3 doing something. Yeah.
You're making jokes. Shut up, you know.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like someone getting mad at a tweet. You're like, well, it's not real.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, they used to be.
That was the thing.

Speaker 3 i think twitter kind of with the line yeah because some comedians would tweet a joke and then they'd tweet an opinion oh so they're going like so then people would say well that's an opinion they'd go no fuck you is a joke well well which that's true one is which

Speaker 3 if you want to be taken seriously yeah what do you want to be taken seriously

Speaker 2 yeah please don't let's not

Speaker 3 i mean that's that's in terms of what i enjoy and what i like out of like i think so too people can do whatever they want whatever but i know the moral crusading comedians are exhausting and they probably got something that's uh cool about what they do that i'm not seeing i i like a certain thing

Speaker 3 other people like other things whenever there's a movement that uh i find really annoying yeah it usually will stray into something really cool like they'll make something i wouldn't have made the whole point of the reason i like the way i do comedy and the kind of comedy that you do that i like which is saying things you shouldn't say is you go you're finding shit other people weren't looking for.

Speaker 3 And some of it it's a value, some of it isn't. Hopefully it's all funny.
Yeah. But so what they're doing of like, let's keep it fair, I mean, that'll find something that comedy hasn't looked for.

Speaker 3 Do you know what I mean? Of course. Because it does get to be all one thing too much.
So

Speaker 3 I'm not, it's not the kind of thing I do. I'm not, I'm like, I'm a blues guy, they're electronic dance music, whatever it is.
Yeah. But they're going to find some shit.
They really have.

Speaker 3 I don't watch that enough to

Speaker 3 judge it. Yeah.
yeah.

Speaker 2 So, will you, you're on this massive tour right now.

Speaker 2 Do you think you're going to hang it up again when you're done with this story?

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 2 At least a year and a half off.

Speaker 3 Well, the thing I didn't know was going to happen is that, you know, it's just like the, God, I'm such a slob. I'm just seeing myself.

Speaker 3 That

Speaker 3 the denial of age, you know, and the years going by, it's like, it's fucking hard to be on the road.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I know I did it.

Speaker 3 The only way I know I did a good show now is if I'm in a lot, I need to get in a bathtub of salt

Speaker 2 because your body hurts.

Speaker 3 It hurts too much. Yeah.
And it's not because I'm particularly physical, but because I'm pushing. I'm really trying.
Yeah. And

Speaker 3 what it takes for me to be is like, I takes a lot of repetition and pushing to be the kind of comic I think I'm supposed to be. And

Speaker 3 I don't think I can do that anymore. I don't think I can do it physically.
And also, I really enjoy life

Speaker 3 off stage. I really, I learned to love it.
And I love writing novels. Like, that's, I didn't know I would love that so much.

Speaker 3 And so, and maybe three people will read that where 300,000 used to come to the shows. Yeah.
And I'm okay with that. I really don't need the attention.
I don't. I need to do that that much.

Speaker 3 I'm not interested in it. It's nice.
It's nice to have your work seen, but I don't like being paid attention to anymore.

Speaker 3 I like being private and I have a, I feel good in my life. So that's great.

Speaker 3 But I still love to create. I think what I'll probably do after this is not do a full-scale tour anymore.
I don't want to tell, I don't want to book a year of shows.

Speaker 2 I'm in the same like world as you like every time I finish a tour. Yeah.
I call my agent and I go, hey, so for this next one,

Speaker 2 let's rethink how we do this. Yes.
And as this one's about to end,

Speaker 2 I shot a special over the weekend. It comes out Christmas Eve on Netflix.
And I'm already like, hey, when I do my next tour, which is not going to be for a while,

Speaker 2 I'm like, let's

Speaker 2 reimagine how we do it. And basically, all I'm doing is like, hey, let's pare this stuff down.

Speaker 3 I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea artistically.
I think it's a good idea for your head.

Speaker 3 I think about comedians like Stephen Wright, who's one of my favorites of all time.

Speaker 3 And Stephen,

Speaker 3 he goes, I mean, I don't want to to tell his life, but he goes off and he'll do a couple of like a couple of theaters

Speaker 3 and come home. And then two weeks, months go by, he goes, does,

Speaker 3 never does more than like two nights in a row. And his, the markets that he plays at are still fresh.
He's been doing this. He's been big since 1980, like 85.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And it's 40 years later, as long as I've been doing comedy. And he's still got a really healthy following and he gets, and he loves doing it.

Speaker 2 I think that's the move. And the other thing is, like, what I talked about it is, like, you don't have to announce this crazy.
You can just do the thing where you go up with dates. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, here's some dates. And then time goes by.
You can go up with some more dates.

Speaker 3 Go up with some more. You could just, like, go, hey, can I do what's the next open date at town hall in New York or something? And just do it.

Speaker 3 And then, and then really work on this stuff in a different kind of like, yeah.

Speaker 3 I was like looking out the window the other day and thinking about this and I saw this crazy flock of there is a flock of pigeons that live in Washington Square Park and once in a while you see them and they just create these these uh uh tornadoes of bird

Speaker 3 uh and they they land behind these buildings that I look out onto so I see those pigeons all the time and I was watching them do this thing and I thought I want my work to be like that like just like this instead of like let's get through this almost fucking military campaign yeah it's very muscular it's very economic it's very about the economy yeah the whole thing of how we structure this shit the fact that we do a full hour hour all the time is just so that we can sell tickets to a theater audience.

Speaker 3 Everything's about money and

Speaker 3 career and all this nonsense. So

Speaker 3 I think when this one's over, I'll just like, I'll probably take a good year off or longer without performing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then when I get back to it, I'll just let it feel like this a little more. It feels like it's like so aggressive.

Speaker 2 Yes. And like, I already feel the difference.
I'm 46 now of like when I was touring really hard five, six years ago, I feel a huge difference on the toll it takes. And I'm healthier now.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And like, you know, eating better and working out more, but it still wears you the fuck down.

Speaker 3 It does. And I had a sense of it when I started this one.
And it's kind of a contrary action. I did the opposite of what I wanted for that.

Speaker 3 I decided I'm going to make as much of this tour as I can because I'm not going to do this again. Like I kind of knew it right away.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I packed in a trillion shows and I put in, I'm going to India, I'm going to China, I'm going to Japan.

Speaker 3 I've always wanted to perform in these places and I'm doing them all now because I know I'll never do this again. I'll never do this scale ever again.
So I'm doing everywhere.

Speaker 3 And I'm also trying to make as much money as I can so that you don't have to

Speaker 3 cool it for as long as I can. The last time I did that, it lasted a year and a half.
Another big reason I came back to it. Yeah.
I ran out of fucking money. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was out. I was out.

Speaker 2 I mean, this is like a fair thing to say. People don't consider that too.
Like, it costs money to do, like, you, you can run out of money.

Speaker 3 You can. And also, I did, like, I, even though I didn't have, I stopped having the income I used to have, I kept making projects with my own money.
Yeah. I made a whole movie with my own money.

Speaker 3 Nobody really saw it. And so I started to deplete.
And then I got like a friend of mine told me, a friend of mine who was on his way up.

Speaker 3 He said,

Speaker 3 he said, I had that big moment today. I looked in the mirror and I said, I have a million dollars.
First time in his life. He said, I'm a millionaire.
I have a million dollars. That was a big moment.

Speaker 3 And I said to him, I had that moment twice.

Speaker 3 First time it was good news. Second time it was bad news.

Speaker 3 That's very funny.

Speaker 3 They were about 10 years apart. First time I was like, I have a million dollars.
Then I was like, I have a million dollars.

Speaker 3 So I needed to get back to work. But this tour hopefully will get me at least a few more years.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Without, you know, and at the end, when you've done all these shows and you have this money, I hope you're going to get like a huge diamond chain with a medallion.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 LCK.

Speaker 3 That's what I'm working on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Dude, I have a good guy for you. He's going to hook you up.
Good. And he'll give you a good price, probably like $150,000.
It's fucking tight. Nice.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you'll like it. Nice.
Very nice.

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 2 Ingram, is the book? Yes, it is. This is fucking awesome.
Thanks. And I felt, I'm telling you, real emotion.

Speaker 2 It's impressive, man. You were really talented at this.
Thanks.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I hope you also make another movie, though.

Speaker 3 Someday. Yeah.
I have a few ideas. No, someday.

Speaker 2 You have one that you told me about in detail. I don't remember that.
Don't remember that one? Jesus thing?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's fucking great. Yeah, that's a hard one.
Yeah. Maybe I'll make that one.
Yeah, it'd be great. We'll see.
Yeah, it'd be awesome.

Speaker 2 Congrats on this. Thanks, man.
And thanks for doing the podcast. Thank you.
All right. We'll see you guys next week.

Speaker 3 One goes topless while the other wears a shirt. Tom tells stories and Bert's the machine.
There's not a chance in hell that they'll keep it clean. Here's what we call two bears, one cave.