Joe Gatto's Secrets to Comedy Success & Life Balance | Joe Gatto DSH #1258

Speaker 1 You know, you get destroyed, but you get lucky. Yeah.
But I feel like those kind of games, I like those. They're more communal.
So you like pickball now.

Speaker 1 Ah, it's on my bucket list to try, but I have tennis elbow currently. Oh.
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 I don't play tennis. And I hurt my elbow about a year ago.
And I went to the doctor and they're like, you have tennis elbow. I'm like, how?

Speaker 1 About to hit your funny bones. I must have had too much cannolis or cookies or something.
I don't know. Love me some cannolis.
Oh, the best.

Speaker 1 All right, guys. He is back.
Joe Gatto in the building. Hello.
What brings you to Vegas this time? I missed you. Yeah.
Thank you. Monitor.
Good to see you. Yeah, yeah.
No, I came.

Speaker 1 I'm on my way back from L.A. I had a couple things to do in L.A.
A couple of shows? I'm on tour, yeah. So LA was a couple meetings and stuff.
I got some scripts I'm trying to get going.

Speaker 1 So I'm on my way back to perform this weekend. So we're in New York? No, I'm actually this weekend.
I'm in Indiana, Missouri,

Speaker 1 a little bit of Middle America. So it made sense to go.
stop on the way back home and then finish in New York. You're still on tour, huh? I'm on tour, yeah.
Let's get into a tour.

Speaker 1 Just I started in September and it's just

Speaker 1 through June and then I'll take the summer off to be home with the fam. Damn when the kids are from school and then I'll start back up.
That's a lot of traveling, man. Well done.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's easier. It's like the weekends, you know, I do Thursday to Sunday.
You know, I get home and then I'm home during the week with the kids and stuff. So it's good.
It all works out.

Speaker 1 Any cities surprise you or shock you in any way? Pittsburgh was cool, really. I like Pittsburgh a lot.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I just, when I got there, I just like, you know, you always seem, you always have like a vision of a city before you go to it, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, but like when I got there, the way it presents you'd go through this tunnel and you just opens up into this bridge and it's this island where you see literally everything at once it looks like a painting and i was like i went there i was like this is really cool wow really nice i've never been there man you never been to pittsburgh no i've been uh all 50 states i performed live comedy in all 50 states i made my i made a bucket list thing and they finished uh two years ago okay fargo north dakota was the last checkbox and where do you rank that uh last in fargo

Speaker 1 no it's it was completely different like it's way up there

Speaker 1 yeah you know i'd imagine New York is your first favorite state. No.
Really? No, yeah. That's a lie.
It probably is. But like California, I love.
I love Florida.

Speaker 1 I've pleasantly used supplies, but Ohio. I always have great shows in Ohio.
Yeah. Columbus, Cincinnati, you know, Cleveland.
I love those cities. There's a lot of good people there.

Speaker 1 It's cold out there, man. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm from New York. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You're not out here in this desert heat.
Well, I grew up in Jersey, so now I get cold out here right now. Oh, yeah.
When the sun goes down, it gets freezing out. Yeah.
I mean, you adjust.

Speaker 1 Like people people complain about being cold in miami when it's like 50 degrees where it's just i was just well there was this whole weird thing not like a month ago where it snowed in north carolina and like they had no idea what to do like nobody even had like salt like what do we do they just shut everything for three days we're like we're just waiting for this to melt

Speaker 1 when i was in dc it snowed like a foot and it was normal you know yeah dc and i was in uh have you ever been to square sundance festival uh in uh utah

Speaker 1 yeah park city park city have you been there no i've been to salt lake okay i've been through and another state there, but not. I haven't been.
How is Salt Lake? The Mormon cloud. Salt Lake.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They love comedy, man. Really? Yeah, they're fun people.

Speaker 1 Salt Lake's great. It's really cool.
It's,

Speaker 1 it's got like a,

Speaker 1 it does because it has like a stigma to it because of the Mormon thing. But I didn't find it to be much different than any other comedy crowd.
Really? Came out to like. They got a show.

Speaker 1 That's about like 10 p.m. Yeah, you know, you good show.
You tuck them in.

Speaker 1 There's no electricity. You know, that's not that.

Speaker 1 You doing anything on TV anymore?

Speaker 1 No, I'm trying to,

Speaker 1 I do the stand-up stuff now. And then I've been trying, I started, I wanted to be a filmmaker.
That was where I got into this. That's cool.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I actually moved to California, LA in 2003 to chase a dream in Hollywood and to be a film. I ended up working at Nordstrom, but a little bit of a side thing.
But

Speaker 1 I really love film, always was. So now I'm concentrating on hopefully try to direct a feature.
Let's go. I got a couple of scripts, which is cool.
And I love writing, so it's fun.

Speaker 1 But the stand-up, I mean, I just love performing. I love making people laugh.
Yeah. Getting out, making a reason for people to come out and forget all the BS that's happening, you know.

Speaker 1 That's who you were on Impractical Jokers, man.

Speaker 1 You were the best at making people laugh. Yeah.
Thank you, bud.

Speaker 1 It translates so well. Yeah.
But you were doing comedy before that show, right? Yeah. I've been doing it for since performing live since 99.
Damn. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We started our improv comedy trip in 1999 and we've been doing that. So, yeah, way longer than you've probably been alive.
I was born in 97. Oh, there you go.
All right. A couple of years, man.

Speaker 1 Birthday is tomorrow, actually.

Speaker 1 That's great. Aquarius.
Oh, nice. So your birthday is tomorrow.
You got big plans? What are you doing? Nah, I'm a little bit. A little bit.

Speaker 1 I feel like as you get older, it's not fun.

Speaker 1 Do you find adults who celebrate their birthday weird? Yes. That's like a big, that's a big conversation.
It's weird. Okay.
People, yeah.

Speaker 1 I think, like, I mean, you got to hit, you got to do the bangers. You got to do the decades.
I'll give you the half years, you know, 35s, 45s. Okay,

Speaker 1 you know, but like somebody's doing on like 47th birthday, you know, 32nd birthday. It's just, yeah.
Yeah, it's got to end in at 05. That's right.
It's 05 out of you.

Speaker 1 And do you think they should stop at a certain age overall? No, I think then you start celebrating. I think it starts getting more.
So I found down. It's like, you made it, grandma.
88.

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Speaker 1 Placing Placing the over-unders on you? Yeah. Yeah.
You scared of aging? No. You're not? No.
That's cool. No, I'm not.
I mean, I just, I lost my dad when I was younger. I was 19 years old.

Speaker 1 My dad passed away. And my mom was pretty young too, but I was just like always taught and felt live life to the fullest.
You know, do what you can while you're here. That's important.

Speaker 1 I think it's really, I think it's, I think it's the most important thing. Yeah.
Cause a lot of people save up and save up. It's like, have some fun now, man.
Yeah, do it while you can.

Speaker 1 You know, you'll be responsible, do what you can, but also don't be afraid to, you know, put yourself in a position where you have to hustle a little bit to make a little more and make the memory.

Speaker 1 It's so true i i hear this all the time and i i believe it now is like your kids will forget whatever you bought them for ask your kids last year what you got them for christmas and then ask your kids what their favorite vacation was and they'll be able to recap the whole vacation and completely forget what you got them for

Speaker 1 when i tried that with my daughter last year at her work and she all she did was she recapped the whole trip to disney world and didn't even mention one thing she opened damn which is that's so true though i remember my vacation to greece when i was a kid like back isn't that crazy and it was my favorite one ever it's all about christmas i can't remember a single gift for my parents It's experiences.

Speaker 1 It really is. Dang.
Yeah. Yeah.
So you got to live life traveling and experiencing things. Making memories is true.

Speaker 1 Well, because like that, too, is like that's all you leave your family with, or your friends with. They remember the stories.

Speaker 1 You know, they don't remember the thing you bought them or the thing, you know, what they did. So facts.
Family's super important for you. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Big family.

Speaker 1 I grew up in a divorced household, so it was kind of traumatic, but I think I really want kids. Well, yeah.
Yeah, you should do it, man. It's fun.
How old were you when you had the first one?

Speaker 1 I was 39. Oh,

Speaker 1 late name. Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't meet my wife till I was 30.

Speaker 1 I didn't get married till I was 36 or 35. Okay.
So I was later in the game for sure. Getting married this year, man.
Oh, yeah. 28.
Dude, that's awesome. Congrats.
Want kids by 30? All right.

Speaker 1 What a few. Oh, yeah.
We just want one. I have two.
I love those. This is a good one.
Yeah, two's nice. I had one girl, one boy, so I was like, all right, I've said we're done.
I want. You can't pick.

Speaker 1 If you had your pick, would you want a girl first or a boy first? Do you want a boy sister? You want an older brother? Yeah. Interesting.
You have an older. So I grew up with older sisters.

Speaker 1 I have two older sisters that are awesome. And I really think they help raise a gentleman or a guy who knows how to be handle and not be afraid of women, like being a house full of

Speaker 1 things like that. So I really like that.
And I think later in life, it comes in handy. But there is something to have in an older brother.

Speaker 1 Like I used to get my ass kicked a lot and I kind of wish I had older. Really? It's another older brother.
Yeah. Wow.
So you got picked on. Yeah, a little bit.
I got bullied a little bit.

Speaker 1 I was super nerdy when I was younger. What were you nerding out about? I saw the movie Willow.
Do you know the movie?

Speaker 1 It's basically like a, you know, Lord of the Rings light, cowardly old magic elves and stuff. And I started creative writing and, you know, fantasy stuff.
I was good at math, chess, things like that.

Speaker 1 I wasn't good at sports, you know. You still play chess? I do.
You got to play it, man. Oh, yeah.
You play? I play every day. Oh, really? Yeah.
Are you good?

Speaker 1 It depends what good is. Okay.
Your version. So do you know the rating system? No, I don't want to.
I want to say it right.

Speaker 1 Do you like, do you think like, you're like, yeah, if somebody says are you good at chess? You're like, yeah, I'm good. I'll put it this way.

Speaker 1 If a random player who's never played before played me, he wouldn't win. Gotcha.
Like, there's no way I would lose to just some random players. Somebody on the streets.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So I would put myself at almost good. Like I'm between okay and good because I don't play as often as I used to.
When I was younger, I used to be better, you know.

Speaker 1 But my son started playing, which is fun. So that's me.
I teach him. And it's

Speaker 1 so fun, man. I love chess.
Yeah, chess is good. I like it because it's also now like it came back into, there was that show, The Queen's Gambit.
Yeah. You saw that?

Speaker 1 So it came back into like culture a little bit. That's why I started playing.
No way, really? Yeah. I didn't play as a kid.
Oh. Yeah, I was a late bloomer.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 That show brought a lot of people to the game, though. Dude, oh my god, it was like a perfect storm with that COVID.

Speaker 1 Like, everybody getting locked up playing the app. Everyone was bored.
The chess, you know, like that style. I think the chess app? Yeah.
Like, I banned twice. Did you? Yeah.
Why? I talked.

Speaker 1 How do you get banned from a chess app? What are you doing on these streets?

Speaker 1 I'll be honest. I'll be honest.
I'm a sore loser. Oh, okay.
So I was talking shit. Okay.
And you're not supposed to talk in chess. No.
I think you should be able to. Well, this is an app.

Speaker 1 It's not like a walkie-talk. No, but there's a chat thing.
Oh, so they this side on you. They shouldn't have it then.
Why isn't the chat thing there? Some players can turn it off.

Speaker 1 But when you both have it on, you can talk to each other. You're like,

Speaker 1 checkmate, bitch.

Speaker 1 When someone's caught a win, they'll be like, go ahead, pussy.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But I like that. Trash talking just.
Someone reported me, man. No.
That's

Speaker 1 snitches on these streets. You got to be careful there, man.
But even in person, because I go to New York. I played in New York once.
That's a bucket talking. You play in the park?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got destroyed. Oh, these guys are so great.
I used to sit there and people watch hours. So great.
I never sat down at those tables, but they were so fun. Talk about trash talking.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But that's like, that's like, that is like like a destination things for people. It's like a bucket listing, like you said.
Like that, people are like, I'm going to go play there.

Speaker 1 I went out of my way to play there. Really? Yeah.
I went. I told my girl, I'm like, we're going here to play.
That's like, I know we're in Jersey today, but we're going here.

Speaker 1 It's like a pickup game at the West 4th Street Court. So if people want to see if they can play basketball,

Speaker 1 you play basketball?

Speaker 1 I shoot the ball. Okay.
That's where it starts and ends.

Speaker 1 I'm a bowler. I can bowl.
What's your best bowling score? 288. Damn.
That's almost all strike. In high school.
Yeah. I was a math lead and I was on the bowling team.
So that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 Wonder why I got picked on. But yeah, so I was, yeah, that was a fluke, though.
My average was like 210, 201. I was still, but it's still good.
Yeah. You could have went pro.
I did.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, but I didn't

Speaker 1 got no money enough. My dad was on a bowling league.
So he used to go Thursday nights and he would take me and my friend Joey, Joey T.

Speaker 1 We used to go, like we would, they put the kids on the lane, like, oh, just bowl. And I, so I bowled like every, twice a week for like ever.

Speaker 1 And then I joined the bowling team in high school. Wow.
And I just bowled. But now it's funny because it's like a sleeper thing.
Like we're on the road or something.

Speaker 1 I'll be with people like, yeah, like, let's go bowling. I end up in a bowling alley.
And all of our destroying, like, what the hell's going on? Yeah. Yeah, because you don't lose that.

Speaker 1 That's like muscle mass. Oh, that's it.
Yeah. You get it.
It's like riding a bike. That's 100% true.
I wanted to be good at bowling because pool takes so long to be good at. Pool, I can't do it.

Speaker 1 It's so hard. I don't know.
But bowling, I feel like you could get decent. I think people look at it like in a beautiful mind thing.
They can figure out like what I was like, I don't know

Speaker 1 how to hit the ball, where to hit the ball. That's it.
Air hockey, I represent. You're night at air hockey.
I am nice. Foosball was my game.
Foosball, no good. You're good at that.
That's good.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's good. Yo, do you know the Italian ski ball? Italian,

Speaker 1 like it's like basically the sliders. It's like a long table like this, and it's got a walk.
What do you want to create? Shuffleboard. Yeah, shuffleboard.
Yeah, exactly ski ball. I meant shuffleboard.

Speaker 1 I love shuffleboard. I love those long tables.
You get a nice 16-footer. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Those feel great when you hit in the three. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I like those kind of games because anybody like that,

Speaker 1 foosball kind of, but more like air hockey. Anybody can play it.
That's true. You know what I mean? They could get up and get played.
No, you could get destroyed, but you can get lucky. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I feel like those kind of games, I like like those. They're more communal.
So you like pickleball then.

Speaker 1 It's on my bucket list to try, but I have tennis elbow currently. Ooh.
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 Don't play tennis. And I hurt my elbow about a year ago.
And I went to the doctor and they're like, you have tennis elbow. I'm like, how? You must have hit your funny bones.

Speaker 1 I must have had too much cannolis or cookies or something. Love me some cannolis.
Oh, the best. What's your favorite dessert? Does that? Ooh, cheesecake.
Cheesecake. Good old New York cheesecake.

Speaker 1 Straight up. What were we talking about drizzle? You got a drizzle on? It was whipped cream.
Whipped cream, yeah. Drizzle.
I could go without drizzle. Without playing Jane for me? Me, yeah.

Speaker 1 You're cannoli, though, right? I'm a cannoli, yeah. I do a cannoli or a lobster tail.
Okay. I love those.
Like I've had a lot of bad cannolis, though. Have you? Yeah.
I'm sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm here to apologize. I have the cannoli community.
I'm sure if I had a good one, I would like it because the concept of it, I would like. Yeah, I think you get in the big cities, you're good.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But I'll have people, I'll be on the road in these little towns, and they're like, you got to get the cannoli from here. It's the best cannoli in town.

Speaker 1 And I go and I'm like, this is the worst cannoli. The bread ratio is off.
Well, yeah. So a lot of it falls into like, if you get a soggy, you know,

Speaker 1 absorbs too much of the cream, the shell, it's terrible. Like, you need that crunch.

Speaker 1 It's not an easy thing to make. I don't think so.
Have you ever made it? No, I didn't want to ruin it for myself.

Speaker 1 I'm not a baker. I'm a cooker.
Yeah. I cook one.
Because I love pizza, but making it

Speaker 1 doesn't taste as good. No way.
You know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you have a big thing that happened, and I think probably in Jersey too, was like the backyard pizza ovens. Do you know those, like they did the brick oven thing?

Speaker 1 There was a big fed when everybody was doing the outdoor kitchens. But they would do a backyard.
Oh, during the pandemic? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was was at pizza always in la so they were doing that kind of thing and it was like everybody would like have pizza parties in the backyard that's cool make their own pizzas or i miss jersey pizza man yeah and italian uh out here no good not really no because they they bring the restaurants out here but it's the water yeah something that's water right you don't go to new york new york and get the pizza

Speaker 1 like at a real slice of authentic nah vegas has its restaurants though for sure we can hold up oh dude i love it out here yeah i love it i'm out here like seven eight times a year damn what's your go-to hotel um aria or Cosmopolitan?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, the Cosmo.
I'm actually playing the Cosmo in May. Oh, no.
Yeah, May 3rd. I'm at the, I'm at the, doing the Chelsea.
I'm psyched. Is that one of your biggest audiences?

Speaker 1 It's a big theater, yeah. That's about where I hang.
Yeah, 1,500 per year. Yeah.
Yeah. You're selling out 1,500? Yeah, about there, yeah.
Ooh. There's levels to comedy.
For sure.

Speaker 1 You start out in like the 100-person, right? You do like the comedy club stuff. Yeah.
But when I toured with the, you know, with the guys, we did, you know, big rooms and stuff.

Speaker 1 And then when we started... I started my solo stuff, you know, I started doing stand-up.
I had to do the little rooms just to see if I took to it and how it went. And then I liked it.

Speaker 1 And then people started coming out. And I actually put together an hour I liked.
And I was like, okay, this is

Speaker 1 cool. So I started moving to the theaters pretty quick.
And I move around a lot. Like I, you know, I got a lot of energy.
So like those smaller comedy clubs are tough.

Speaker 1 Like those little, I find more jokes when I have more room. Really? So like my hour always got stronger when I started moving to a theater.
Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then when I did my first one, so I did, uh, I toured for two and a half years with a messing with people. It's a.

Speaker 1 It's my special. Messing with people? Messing with people.
It's on Hulu.

Speaker 1 So yeah, you can check that out. But when I did that, I remember like the last show I did in the comedy club versus the first one I did in the theater.
I was like, I found like, I'm not even kidding.

Speaker 1 I found like 10 more minutes of jokes just because I used my body more. I had more room to

Speaker 1 around. You know, I'm pretty physical.

Speaker 1 You've seen me, you know, like I'm very physical in my comedy. So like when I had that, I was like, oh, wow.
So I really enjoy a stage. Yeah.
Do you have any methods for getting loose with the crowd?

Speaker 1 No, I don't really do crowd work.

Speaker 1 What I do do is I'm not a comic that like sits in the hotel room and waits for a show.

Speaker 1 Like I'll go out about town, grab a cup of coffee, a donut, hit Main Street, walk around, pop into the shops and stuff. And I'll always garner a story or two from that.

Speaker 1 So I'll open with that a little bit to just to talk about that a little. And then I'll get into my wow.
I like that. You see some wild stuff.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Today I saw someone walking a wheel on a leash, a wheel of a car. I'm not even kidding.

Speaker 1 On the way to the studio.

Speaker 1 Dude, I have a good excuse for that.

Speaker 1 That's insane. I was like, oh, that's all.
Well, this is Vegas too. So like, that's

Speaker 1 probably pretty normal. Like, I was like, yeah, it's like my wheel for a walk.
He's probably trying to sell it or something. I don't know.
So, was he, was it a push or pull situation? Pull.

Speaker 1 The wheel was behind him and he had something in his other hand. It was interesting.
I think he was homeless, but yeah, wheels are worth some money. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. You could do a research.

Speaker 1 There's a big resale market on this. Yeah.
I don't know if he stole it or how he got the wheel. That was, that was where my.
Actually, head went right away. It's like, where'd you get this wheel?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I don't know how you get one, one single wheel.
One wheel. Yeah.
That's crazy. What's the craziest thing you've seen on the streets? Oh, my God.
I'll forget it. In New York.

Speaker 1 I mean, I mean, in New York City. Oh, in New York City.

Speaker 1 I didn't think I was going to tell this story, but in New York City, I had seen, I'm not even kidding, it was two homeless people getting married by a third homeless guy. No.

Speaker 1 They were having like a full-blown, it was down by Wall Street and they were having like, I was like, I was like, oh, these people. And then it was just the three of them.

Speaker 1 And he was like doing a wedding. And I was like, oh, I was looking around for cameras.
I was like, oh, is this like a some being filmed? Like just, and it was just like the three of them.

Speaker 1 And then he like got said it. He kissed them.
The guy like threw rice at them.

Speaker 1 And then they like picked up their car and it just walked away and i was like did i just see two homeless people get married on the street in new york so it was insane that was like one of the weirdest things i did but love happens anywhere you know what i mean home or not yeah they're seeing public love on the streets oh i'm sorry

Speaker 1 i've seen it on the subways i've seen now you see some yeah well out here the the homeless are hidden there's a little documentary on this they're in the tunnels the hidden homeless wow yeah yeah i mean they have to be right because of the sun all day yeah i guess it's too hot or tough in your summers yeah yeah i mean you see people that are like in boston and and they're homeless.

Speaker 1 I'm like, why aren't you trying to like to go south?

Speaker 1 Same with New York. Yeah, same deal.
Like I see that. I was like, yeah, it's got to be so much harder to deal with the elements.
I'm complaining about moving my trash to like the road. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then I'm like shivering. But these homeless people are out there all night.
It blows my mind. Crazy.
I think maybe you get used to that life too, right? It's like anything. I guess you adapt.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But I can't imagine it, you know? No, but some people you just see them, they adapt and it's, you know, they're out there.

Speaker 1 There was a guy down on, I used to live in, like I told you, I used to live in LA and Santa Monica busking was illegal on the street and on the promenade.

Speaker 1 So you could play some music and, you know, panhandle and they wouldn't bug you.

Speaker 1 And there was this guy that was there for years that was just, you know, homeless and lived like on the beach and he would just be there for years. Wow.
And I was like, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 That's impressive. Yeah, he was just there.
That's nuts. You still taking the subway these days? I've been crazy videos.
No. It's not bad.
No way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. The city's crazy.
And you probably get recognized. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Mostly, I don't want to get trapped on a train with people that are like

Speaker 1 yelling Larry at me and be like, no. No, but it's, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not very good.
I, I don't find it only in New York. I find like everywhere is a little weird.
Really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a little weird everywhere. Damn.
Yeah. You get, you know, people are, you know, it's not a good time right now for a lot of people.
So I think the streets aren't as safe as they used to be.

Speaker 1 And I always have like my radar up even more whenever we're like with the family and stuff. I got my wife and my kids with me.
It's like a little different.

Speaker 1 Well, that's why comedy is so important right now. And that's why you guys are crushing the podcast scene.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
You guys get the most views out of every genre. I know.

Speaker 1 It's so, so great to just be the escape, you know. Yeah.
It's great.

Speaker 1 yeah people need it but yeah shout out to guys like theo and schultz they're just get pulling massive numbers so many yeah you you're not you know you know nobody to sneeze at you're doing pretty good yourself pal doing all right i'm doing all right you must be funny yeah not really but oh yeah you get you get some killer guest stuff lined up too though i have some cool guys do you do you do your own reach out or how's it work sometimes yeah at first yeah it was all me now i got a team now we're getting inbound oh you get that's how that's that's when you know when people aren't reaching out to you to yeah let me but it was not like that the first year yeah yeah i had a grind okay So I know you got your own show too.

Speaker 1 How long? Yeah, I have two cool moms, me and Steve, and we didn't start doing guests right away because he's a comedian too, Steve Burns.

Speaker 1 So we just talked and BS and we filled up the 45 minutes or hour pretty easy. And then we're like, oh, it'll be kind of fun to get another perspective in here.
And then we had a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 We had Q on, of course, we had Murr, Sal, and then, you know, we had a, we just had Colby Collay on, which was really fun, different, like a different voice.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, she's a musician at Nashville. And

Speaker 1 then we, you know, we get these different people, like some bands and Red Clay Strays.

Speaker 1 And it's just like different people that have like, you tell your stories about like your mom to or any of your family, and you hear about their upbringing and just different lives.

Speaker 1 You know, they were the Red Clay Strays were Alabama, Boboo Alabama, you know, and then it's me from New York and Steve who grew up in Jersey and Pittsburgh, you know, so it's like just a.

Speaker 1 different meld. And then you realize the homes and the parents were kind of the same, just in different states.
That's why I love podcasting. You meet all sorts of characters.
Sure. Wow.

Speaker 1 I've had some interesting ones on this show.

Speaker 1 Top three. Okay.
Top three, Philly mob boss. Okay.
That was wild. Wow.

Speaker 1 One guy who remembered being a rock in a past life. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go talk. Matt Reich.
That's just to bring it back quick. He remembered being a rock.
So the rock had awareness. Yes.
And he, he, in his mind, the rock had a brain and was like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Yep. Do you know the wheel?

Speaker 1 Not just a rock. He remembers all his past life.
Really? Yeah. He was a little cuckoo or no?

Speaker 1 It depends who you ask. I have a spiritual side to me.

Speaker 1 So you believed the whole rock thing?

Speaker 1 I don't know if I believe the whole rock thing and the whole but i believe in past lives okay past lives is fine yeah being a rock though is really where i that's where you look at that

Speaker 1 place where the story starts to get some cracks every button tended um so okay so he thought he was well okay past life but he was he put forward a good case yeah okay he was saying stuff about atlantis about the pyramids yeah okay interesting stuff all right that's cool um so that's definitely a cool yeah that was cool and then do you know billy carson no ancient civilization expert no okay I'm into like history, so I nerd out on this stuff.

Speaker 1 Oh, gotcha. That's great.
That's a great cut. But it's hard to pick.
I've had 1400. 1400.
I'm just saying what comes to mind. No, come on.
Yeah. But I like that.

Speaker 1 When people say, what's your favorite movie? I don't go, well, let me, let me see what I'm, I just say whatever like comes to mind about that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My answer on that question has changed everywhere for my whole life. Yeah, right.
Because I get asked that. Right now it's the departed.
The departed. Yeah.
Okay. That's a good one.

Speaker 1 That's a great one. What about you? What's that on your mind? I mean,

Speaker 1 my favorite of all time always is Young Frankenstein, Melbourne. It's all school one.
But then also Princess Bride's always up there for me.

Speaker 1 but i just saw the uh the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare okay uh which was uh guy richie's new one which was unbelievable henry cavill stars and i recommend it to everybody if you haven't seen it's a good one

Speaker 1 but uh it was really really just such a fun interesting watch you're a history buff you said i am gotta watch it yeah gotta watch it i love that yeah i'm into nerdy documentaries and stuff like that oh i

Speaker 1 i would have figured yeah i do i feel like you're very intellectual the whole thing you present in goes fuck i'm decent my iqs decent but my dad's holy shit yeah yeah he was dad's yeah yeah but you don't want to be that smart no no i saw like what went on behind the scenes can never rest right you get in your own head yeah right you get can't turn it off right no yeah that's why i like being just

Speaker 1 like slightly above average i feel like is the best yeah you know yeah slightly above slightly above so you okay you say you're slightly above I well, I took a test.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I guess the tests are on the paper. But who knows if that actually measures actual intelligence?

Speaker 1 Aren't you supposed to take it a couple of times to see if you get the same number? Yeah. I should probably probably retake it.
I think I've gotten dumber

Speaker 1 with TikTok and everything. Yeah, everything like that.
I know for a fact my attention span has gone down. Drain.
Yeah. I mean, I can't even watch a movie now without going on my phone.

Speaker 1 But you hold conversation well. I can hold, but that's like a conscious thing, I think.
Okay. So here's an interesting thing that I'd like to ask you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 When you're outside the podcast studio, when you're out and about, let's say you're, you know, at a club or with friends or just anywhere doing anything, are you able to, when you're not running the conversation, you able to engage as well?

Speaker 1 Yeah, if I, if I'm I'm interested. Okay.
Yeah. Oh, so how quick do you look to interest?

Speaker 1 Quick. Depends on the topic of the person.

Speaker 1 Depends on the topic. You know, what about you? I'm, I dive in, man.
I love it. I love being around a table with people.
Okay. So you're not checking your phone at dinner.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah, really. Wow.
Yeah, I don't do that stuff. I think that's your generation, though, too.

Speaker 1 Partially my generation, too. But I also have people in my generation that do that.
Oh, really? Yeah. Like my wife's on the phone all the time.
So it's infiltrated your era, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's made its way in. It's such a big part of everything, though.
You know, a lot of it is, I think a big part is like when you run a business.

Speaker 1 So like, you know, my wife runs our dog rescue and she like is always like getting, you know, text messages about, hey, could you help this dog? Or hey, do you have this kind?

Speaker 1 So she's always like, I feel like when work invades your,

Speaker 1 like that happened when I was on Joker, it's like work invaded my phone. Now that I run my own kind of thing, it's, I could be like, no, just put this away for a minute.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was why you left, right? Well, yeah, partially, you know, it was like a lot of personal stuff.

Speaker 1 But like one of the things was like, one of the things I was able to redo was like, okay, I have a family.

Speaker 1 Like, let me pay attention to dinner time and that's a good point though that's why I actually got two phones I ended up not even using the second one but my my thought process was let me have one personal and one business work phone and that just didn't work out yeah so my wife has two uh work lines but they're both on the same phone so it was like that it kind of defeats the purpose you know what I'm saying uh but I think work infiltrate if work infiltrates your phone it's way harder to put it down And that's where I'm at since the show is kind of new and I got to get it going.

Speaker 1 But I think down the road, I'll branch off more. Yeah.
Live like Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 1 He has no, what was it no email or something real or no phone he only uses email only uses email yeah and one of my guests was like that too graham hancock oh i took it to the rock guy you didn't have

Speaker 1 it's granted at gmail.com

Speaker 1 that wouldn't surprise me though oh no but yeah that's that's got to be an interesting way to live he pulled up with map quest printed out my my dad used to use map quest yeah good old map quest amazing and uh yeah he was taking notes on map quest i drove cross-country using i had a map quest so when i in 2005 when i had to move back to new york i had my car car out in California and I asked all my friends.

Speaker 1 I was like, hey, I got to drive my car back saying, I want to take a road trip. Take, you know, I got it.
It's going to be like five days, whatever. And nobody answered me except Murray.
Murr.

Speaker 1 So Murr flies out to California and me and him take a road trip across country. And this is before like GPS was really around.
It's 2005. Yeah.
And I bought Microsoft Maps.

Speaker 1 It was a program that you plugged in a USB GPS thing and you put it on top of your car. So Murray was sitting shotgun with a laptop open, like an airplane.
And he was like on the map, like looking.

Speaker 1 And that's how we got. And I had a printed out MapQuest as a backup, which is insane.
And like, we'd be in the middle of like nowhere, Arizona, and we would lose signal.

Speaker 1 And I was like, what did it say? He's like, well, I remember it's saying go straight for like 120 miles. So I was like, how many miles have we gone? You know, I was later.

Speaker 1 I don't know how our parents drove on MapQuest.

Speaker 1 I talk all the time about how insane it is. I'm like, you know what? From here, I want to drive to Chicago.
I put it in and I could go to Chicago. It's insane.
It's just insane. So technology.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, when I drive without maps i feel so lost yeah i'm so you could be around the corner too leave how do i get i still use it to my studio from my house every day i don't know if i could get here without it it's like a 20 minute drive that's dude that's a challenge you gotta do tomorrow try to get here without him i want to see what happens let me know

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know how people drove, especially across states like you did. Yeah.
Across every state. Yeah.
Damn. But yeah, my dad used to drive us down to Florida.

Speaker 1 You know, it's kind of a straight shot, but once you get into Florida, there's a lot of like

Speaker 1 because, you know, it's a long state. So there's a lot of shoot-offs and stuff.
Yeah. My dad used to drive me.
Just be like, he remembered how to go after the first year he drove it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's insane. It's a blessing and a curse technology, man.
Yeah. Because you can look up stuff so fast now.
Yeah. Like you don't even need to memorize stuff anymore at all.
Just use AI, actually.

Speaker 1 That's a big side. Well, I have, I have, I have multiple thoughts about it.
I don't personally use it. I will say that I got an awesome photo of me boxing Mike Tyson.
Somebody generated with AI.

Speaker 1 And I got it and it was hysterical. And I just sat on it for a while.
And then I posted that I was going to fight Mike Tyson.

Speaker 1 And I tagged, I tagged Hulu, the Bellagio and Mike Tyson saying, hey, I'm so excited. And everybody bought it.
It got picked up actually by a couple of boxing sites. I swear.
Wow.

Speaker 1 It was like on Instagram. And it was like one of my biggest hits, viral hits.
It was so funny. And

Speaker 1 when I saw that picture, I was like, wow, this is pretty impressive that it could do something

Speaker 1 good.

Speaker 1 And, you know, but as far as like people are like, oh, you can make it write a whole script. And then, you know, you just sell the prompt or whatever.
And then you read those scripts.

Speaker 1 And then you're like, yeah but there's no human to that you know you need humans still in some stuff you know yeah it takes away the art of script writing right yeah i think i think i think it takes away the art in a lot of things takes away the human from a lot of it look some stuff yeah for sure like if i need to write i need a factual report about something and it can give me a breakdown quickly that's great that's technology that's growth i use it for itinerary planning so if i'm going to a new city it'll recommend restaurants and activities that's that's perfect that's fantastic it saves me time because if you individually look up everything it would take like a bunch of time do you like the fun of being like hey i want a pancake and i'm like here i'm here in cleveland let me find a pan a Cleveland pancake.

Speaker 1 And you just,

Speaker 1 I used to, but now I'm way too healthy. Oh, really? Yeah.
Okay. So I didn't mean that the way you look.
I just,

Speaker 1 you said it so indignantly. No, I felt like you were judging me.

Speaker 1 No, I used to eat out a lot, but now that I know about seed oils and all this health stuff, you know. Oh, gotcha.
So what kind of, what's it, do you have like a diet you're on or something?

Speaker 1 Or you just stay with like whole foods, you know? Yeah, yeah. I prefer like organic, cross-fed meat.
I know you're vegetarian. Yeah, I'm vegetarian.
Yeah. Pescatarian.
I eat.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But you eat high-quality vegetables.
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Organic, right? Yes. Most for the most part.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because the other stuff, pesticides. Yeah.
You know, all that. It's, it's hard.
Like, how much of it do you believe, though? Isn't it like?

Speaker 1 That's a good question. Yeah.
Right. There's a lot of just marketing.
Yeah. Right.
Because who knows if it's actually organic? Yes. There's no proof.
After the organic. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I just think there's some, you do, that's when you need to do the research on companies and see how much integrity they have. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, some that have been around for a while, I feel like they're a little bit more

Speaker 1 about it. So, I mean, I love burgers and pizza.
So I'll have a cheat meal once in a while. Okay.
Love me some In-N Out. Oh, that's the In-N-Out, huh? Nice.
I haven't had it In-N Out in a long time.

Speaker 1 I'll make it better. But dude, that was a good, that was a good burger.
My wife, it's still her favorite. Whenever she's West Coast and could get one, she gets, she doesn't eat meat either.

Speaker 1 She's straight vegetarian and she'll just get, she'll get the packets and like lettuce and the, and I said, and just had like their grilled cheese version, you know? It's hard to beat it.

Speaker 1 She'll love it. It's hard to believe.
She's from New York, though. So Shake Shack is big out there.
Shake Shack is, but I never took to it. Really? Yeah, I never took to it.
You weren't a fan.

Speaker 1 I liked Five Guys a lot. Five guys.
Yeah, I like Five Guys a lot. When I was eating meat, I liked Five Guys for a burger.

Speaker 1 But when the impossible whopper came and I was able to get that, like, because being on the road is a comic, late night's tough. Yeah.
Not many options. Yeah, you got your late show.

Speaker 1 You have to the meet and greet, you get out. It's like 10:30, 10 o'clock.
You haven't had something to eat yet. Yeah, what do you got? You got Burger King?

Speaker 1 You got a local Denny's, you know, something like that. So figure out what you get.

Speaker 1 But that once I got that Impossible Whopper, like it was the only, you know, vegetarian sandwich really that you can get. You know, I used to eat impossible meat.
It tastes good. I'll give it that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I, it really, texture-wise, I was like super impressed by it.
There's actually this new, this new vegan steak company, Marbled.

Speaker 1 It's called, and it's like, they, it's like filet mignons and it's unbelievable the way it cooks and yeah, it's really, really cool.

Speaker 1 It was like one of the things I was like, oh, this is something different. You know, because I think a lot of other companies tried it and didn't do it as well.

Speaker 1 But did you switch for health reasons or the animal cruelty reasons? I met a cow. named Caesar.
No, you did. That's right.
An 800-pound cow at Woodstock Farms. It's

Speaker 1 up in upstate New York. And they do this thing called Thanksgiving, where you feed the turkeys.
You go up to their farm and you feed the turkeys on Thanksgiving, like around this.

Speaker 1 So my my wife was like, hey, we should go to this. We went and they give you a tour of the facility and this 800-pound cow Caesar comes walking out of the barn.

Speaker 1 I'm like looking at his, you know, it's like seven feet tall, comes over, it's like, wow.

Speaker 1 And it just walked right up to me and I just like rubbed his nuzzle and it put its head down and I like pet it like a dog. And I was like, oh my God.
And I was like, this is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, I wasn't eating that much meat at that time. Anyway, my wife was already vegetarian and I did all the cooking.
She didn't cook. So I was like, I wasn't making steaks.

Speaker 1 And so I was like, you know what? Let me try to be vegetarian for a minute. So I did it and it stuck.

Speaker 1 The only thing I really missed was like buffalo wings, a good burjud and motadell sandwich, you know, like that kind of stuff, like those little things.

Speaker 1 But overall, like you could, there's good options, good enough options that you could get around it, you know?

Speaker 1 And then I saw, I went full vegan for nine months. Damn.
That's intense. That was intense, but it was the healthiest I ever felt.
Wow. Yeah, really good.
And

Speaker 1 that was in, I saw the documentary Game Changers. Game Changers.
That's like a vegan diet. But a lot of things didn't hit with me.

Speaker 1 But what hit with me was, you know, I don't have the best track record when it comes to eating. So like, I think I've damaged probably a lot of my body with the sweets and the meats and everything.

Speaker 1 So it showed like the science about like how you could regain some time and whatnot. And I was like, let me try it.
I tried the first, loved it. I did it one month, did two months.

Speaker 1 And then I got up to nine. I was like, I need some.
You felt too weak, right? I need some salmon. Yeah.
Yeah, it's hard, man, to get that many calories. Sure.

Speaker 1 You did eat 32,000 calories in a day, though, right? It was delicious. That cheesecake was the best, man.
It was a whole cheesecake?

Speaker 1 No, that wasn't me. Oh, that wasn't you? No, that was DeStefano.
I was on that podcast

Speaker 1 with him, and he told that story. But

Speaker 1 I almost ate a full.

Speaker 1 So we had to break between two bits on Jokers. And you see me have like a sugar crasher on TV.
It was really funny, actually. But I had this huge piece of cheesecake and we were in between.

Speaker 1 I just eat it.

Speaker 1 And Murr is out there doing a turn and I start like getting dizzy or whatever. I was like, and I was like, oh, but I know what it was.
I was like, I just, I'm coming down off this sugar rush too hard.

Speaker 1 And Murr's turn is going on, but it's really good. So the three of us are in the back.
And I'm like, you know what? Just bring the medic. And I'll just sit in the back and cheer him on.

Speaker 1 So me at this salad queue are just there by themselves. And I'm in the back being like, get him, Murr.
I'm going to light. Like, I mean, a lot of jokes.

Speaker 1 I was like, we'll never have this opportunity to do something like this again, which was, which is really funny.

Speaker 1 So that, that was one thing that people were like, wow, I can't believe how much sweets you eat. And I was like, yeah, me neither.
I was eating on it.

Speaker 1 That was right about the time when I was like, I got to start changing. Switch out hate going to the dentist.
They found like seven gabbies on me last time. Really? I got a sweet tooth.
You do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But you don't eat bad. You don't, you eat well.
I mean, I do have a sweet tooth, though. I eat well food-wise.
Desserts get you. Desserts get me.
Love that. Love that about you.
That's why we connect.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, man.
I mean, desserts are just so much happiness. It's so great.
Childhood memories. That's the best.
It unlocks like a side of me.

Speaker 1 But I think there's something about like sharing desserts with friends. And it's like a party, right? Like, that's the, it's the, it's the part of the meal everybody gets excited about.
Right.

Speaker 1 And I'll be like, check out these appetizers, you know, and be like, bring on the cupcakes plus my fiancé is a baker so that doesn't help she cooks some amazing desserts well where do you live

Speaker 1 so she makes does she do desserts at home yeah she's a baker by trade she does like she does she doesn't sell it she just bakes for me god and sometimes the studio oh i love that that's nice but she didn't do it today not today today would have been a good day actually i should have had her made some cannoli yes what's her name arielle arielle next time

Speaker 1 oh some cannolis ready for you next time that's kind of that's cool to be married to a baker though right yeah that's good that's good that she didn't do it for a job though because then you never get anything nobody wants to bake at home if they're baking at work that's a tough living man yeah yeah but shout out to her i love coming home to all sorts of crews the house got to smell fantastic and tasty right we got a garden too oh do you yeah you got it all going on yeah yeah plant basil and and mint and everything nice so you got your chef too right yeah i like to cook i wouldn't call myself a chef i can i i i represent when it comes to around the stove what's your go-to dish uh i do a good teriyaki salmon with pineapple rice i have to i plant parmesan is pretty good my baked zbi's ziti's okay you know i do a vegetable lasagna i tried a couple times which went well so you love pasta uh it's all mostly italian stuff yeah but my kids actually love um like a noodle dish so i'll do like a lomain kind of you know or udani kind of thing with them with some sometimes i like some spinach and shrimp and stuff like a vegetable-y kind of thing my daughter is pescatarian too my son is still vegetarian wow the whole family is either vegetarian or pescatarian yeah that's impressive man yeah my my daughter just does a little bit of like uh she does the same fish as i do she like likes a baked lamb salmon.

Speaker 1 She gave up on shrimp. Something must have, she must have had like a bad shrimp she didn't like.
But she used to love shrimp and she's not eating that. But she likes like, she'll try everything.

Speaker 1 She's pretty adventurous. She's nine.
He's seven and now he's just like getting into it a little bit. So you big out sushi? I love good sushi.

Speaker 1 Oh man. Yeah.
I crush a boat. I love the boats.
I just bring me a boat. I love it.
A whole dollar you know? I'll bring it by myself with friends.

Speaker 1 But I love going out and just like telling them to bring it. We went, we were in LA last night and I went out with a bunch of friends and I said, let's just, let's just tell them to bring out stuff.

Speaker 1 And I love that yeah because you get stuff you're not really ever gonna try you know agree my favorite memory is in LA we got a boat we accidentally ordered two no so we were all full after the first one oh my goodness you like and then everything like does a Santa Maria so we all start sharing one more each

Speaker 1 I think like five of us puked that oh my goodness bro that is those boats are damaged 200 pieces because you don't even realize like there's multiple layers and things oh my gosh yeah that was way too much sushi is that your go-to food type like sushi yeah yeah if I'd eat one cuisine the rest of my life, it would be Japanese.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah. Cause you got sushi, curry, and their food's kind of light.
So you're not like heavy? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty close.
Italian just edges out Japanese. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 On the road, my two go-to was like, all right, let's find the place, the Japanese place in town or the Italian place in town. Okay.
What's better? But I love Japanese.

Speaker 1 I mean, I love Italian, but just sometimes I'm too heavy after there's a lot of grain.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, if you, I don't eat the meat stuff, so my sauces are always a little bit lighter, you know, though, just a light tomato sauce normally.

Speaker 1 And the pastas, they can get heavy if you eat too much of it. Oh, yeah.
But the way I lost my weight, a lot of my weight was I stopped eating half.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't know if like ever you'd done that, but I was like, portion control is so huge. Like, you don't realize like you're like, you raise to be like, finish your plate.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 It's like, but I ate half the sandwich and I would just stop and be like, oh, I'm full. I'm not going to eat this half.
I'll just save it for later. And I just dropped LBs like very quick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you can eat mindlessly. Mindlessly, completely.
You finish eating and you're like, I feel disgusting. And you're like, I was so hungry.
Yeah. Especially when I'm watching videos.

Speaker 1 I'll be just eating until the video ends. Like, it doesn't even matter if I'm full.
Like, I don't even notice. Yeah, it's like popcorn in a movie, right? Yeah.
I eat a whole thing.

Speaker 1 You'll, no matter what size you got, right? If you get the small one, you eat the whole thing. You're like, oh, I'm full.
You get the medium, you get the large bucket, you eat the whole thing.

Speaker 1 You don't realize it's mindless. That's a perfect word.
They do a great job with that.

Speaker 1 They get you. That butter, damn it.
Oh, then they started the seasonings. They started the little seasonings now.
Oh, yeah, dude. You're backing up on your movie.
Wow. Popcorn game, brother.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they got the little packets you could like make

Speaker 1 like Cinnabon and like all this fun little salt shaker. I don't go to the theater as much as I used to.
Okay. I used to love it.

Speaker 1 You got to go. I mean, now we got Netflix, Hulu.
It's the only way to watch your movie right now on Peacock. Oh, yeah.
All sorts of platforms.

Speaker 1 You got to get, you got to get out there and laugh with people, get scared with people. It's the only way to see a movie.
Yeah. It's funny because I went to the Ricky Stanicky.
It was a movie.

Speaker 1 You know, I went to the premiere of it and I saw it in the theater. I was like, oh, this is so fun.
It was such a great experience. And I turned it on at home and it wasn't nearly as funny to me.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I really, with the crowd, really brought a different energy to it. That's a good point, though.
Yeah. I'd laugh with people.

Speaker 1 I didn't think of it that way, but you're still right because the energy of the, of the room.

Speaker 1 I mean, you still, one of the most epic videos ever is the moment in the Avengers, you know, and when they show the video of the person who was in the movie theater and video, the moment of in the Avengers movie when the team together and the place explodes when, you know, Captain America picks up the hammer.

Speaker 1 And it's like. To see the video of that is like, wow, that is insane.
That piece of art could move a room full of people to insanity. Like it's a rock concert.
It was crazy. I agree.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? If you could be any Avenger, would you be? And why? What makes you think I'm not, first of all, offense to that?

Speaker 1 I probably would be,

Speaker 1 I would probably go with Black Widow because I would look great now. Wow.

Speaker 1 No, I think that's the most...

Speaker 1 I think being able to handle yourself with fisticuffs would be the most. important thing out of all of it.
Because I mean, you could say I'd be Iron Man and stuff, but then I needed a suit.

Speaker 1 I don't have my own heart. That's weird.
Yeah, it seems annoying. Yeah, it seems a little little bit annoying.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Thor, Thor's a tough one to beat, though, because I, yeah, you know, or is like a flex, you never deal with traffic. He's just flying all over the place.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go Doctor Strange for me. Oh, that's a great one.
Yeah. Yes, you can time travel.
Yeah. Teleport.
You could move around. Yeah.
That's great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 For me, that's some major plot holes I've been with because of his powers. You know, like, yeah, once they started time travel, a lot of that.
That's with any series. It's true, too.

Speaker 1 Once time travel comes in. You're right.
Once time travel comes into, besides Back to the Future in which it's based. Yeah.
You know, yeah.

Speaker 1 But then death doesn't matter when once time travel is introduced so that it lose death loses its meaning you know because now these superheroes will die like what happened in avengers but they're still alive in the next movie yeah we'll bring them back different dimension yeah different guy i still love marvel though marvel's great it makes you feel you see the new captain america yet no how was uh i didn't see it yeah it comes out this weekend i think so so no the premiere was tuesday i didn't it comes out this weekend i'm i'm looking forward to it i'll see that a lot i think they're gonna they they're gonna come back with this new next batch i think they'll get a little bit more focused with it i think they'll i think they'll try to stay away from that multiversy thing that confused people yeah what's your genre of choice what do you gravitate towards when you're watching movies uh action comedy action comedy yeah i like action comedy but i i mean comedy for sure horror i've dipped into hard now too i love a good horror i think there's a lot of great horrors going on too which is fun but there's a lot of horrors that masquerade as comedy which is fun that's true you know comedies that masquerade as horror rather and i think that's pretty cool yeah too you know there's a lot of comedic actors and filmmakers that are making horror you know jordan peel krasinski and you you have some really fun titles.

Speaker 1 Peel crushes his movies, man. They're so like thought-provoking.
I love movies like that. Is horror your genre of choice or no? Used to be.
Now it's more thriller, mystery. Total mystery.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Horror just gave me too many nightmares, man. It was impacting me too much.
Oh, really? Yeah. You don't get nightmares from horror movies? No.
What? No, no. Do you remember your dreams? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. That's impressive.
How do you shut it off? I don't know. I don't sleep much.
Okay. Yeah.
So I think works. Yeah, that works.
Because they were giving myself enough time. I had scared.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do. You know, I just, actually, that's so funny.

Speaker 1 I had a nightmare the other night i called my wife because i was i had a dream that my daughter was yelling for me and i was in la and she's in new york and i rolled over and it was 445 and then here uh in la so i was like they're getting ready for school and i called i said uh i said where's my where's is she okay and she's like yeah what are you talking about like she's in school already she had an early thing i was like oh i said i just had a dream that she was screaming and that that was like the only nightmare I have.

Speaker 1 I don't have nightmare. I don't think I have ever had nightmares with monsters or ghosts or anything like that.

Speaker 1 I think I had a recurring one like I think everybody has after they graduate college about you, you forgot your final paper or even that whole thing. So I had that one for a while.

Speaker 1 But for the most part, I really don't have much many nightmares. Yeah, I've had the test taking one.
I've had the naked in class one. Oh, have you? Sucks.
Yeah. I'm surprised you haven't had any.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Do you believe in ghosts and like dark stuff like that? Yeah.
For the most. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't necessarily think it's like, woohoo, like there's a woman in like a white dress with like glass eyes that you see at the on the staircase or something like that. I don't think that's real.

Speaker 1 But I think for the most part, there's a little bit of truth to the beyond, you

Speaker 1 I think spirits happen and go on.

Speaker 1 I've had a couple experiences like when my dad, when my dad died and my mom died. I think you,

Speaker 1 they get to reach out for a little bit before they just go. Okay.
I think they're given that. Yeah, yeah.
So I've had dead people appear in my dreams.

Speaker 1 It makes me wonder if like that's their spirit sometimes. Oh, you know, has that happened to you?

Speaker 1 No, it was a pirate captain once.

Speaker 1 I didn't have any pirate captains in my family.

Speaker 1 I could see that. That's pretty cool.
So you've had people that died show up in your dreams. In my dreams.
I've only dreamt a couple times of my mom and dad. Okay.

Speaker 1 And they'd always been happy and alive in them, but they always, my dad for a long time and dream of him for a while. And then I dreamt for him for like a couple months in a row.
And that was awesome.

Speaker 1 It was like, I hadn't seen him, you know, that kind of thing, which is cool. Crazy.
So I don't know. Maybe you got like a, you got like a whole pass for a little bit.

Speaker 1 Hanging out for a little bit. I don't know.
But it was, it was interesting to think of it that way. Yeah, cool.
I don't really dream of dead relatives. Do you dream of...
Not often. Not often.

Speaker 1 But it's happened. My dad passed too, and he's been in my dreams.
Once I was in his dream, that was wild. So I don't know what happened there.
How old was he? How old are you when he passed?

Speaker 1 It was two years ago, so I was 25. All right.
Sorry about that. But yeah, I was in his dream.
That was like super weird. You were in his dreams.
Yeah. He was showing me his dream.
Wow. Is that nuts?

Speaker 1 That is some onion-layered fucking craziness, dude. That's like that movie with

Speaker 1 Inception? Yeah, Inception. That's a good one.
Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 That ending made me just want to punch myself in the face i had no idea why it's hard to start to dissect how it all played apart that's how i felt with shutter island too shutter island that one messed me up for a week i'm gonna go old school for you if you haven't seen if you like a thriller yeah memento i've heard of it if i need to watch it that's a good one no if you're thinking about like a good thriller and you like that kind of inception y kind of thing okay memento is fantastic yeah i like stuff that makes you think yeah that's a thinker because when i can predict the end it's a turnoff i turn i don't even i i I'll be watching a movie and I'll be sitting down and I'll go, oh, come on.

Speaker 1 And my wife's like, oh, don't tell me, don't tell me.

Speaker 1 Because she'll know I've got it and I was like and then I'll just sit there like you know you don't know what's in yet you don't have it like that kind of thing so you're intuitive I'm pretty intuitive that's cool man for sure I love that you'd be good on the show I'm watching now called the traders I've heard about it I haven't watched it it's a reality show I don't watch watch much reality TV yeah I usually don't but this is skill-based yeah

Speaker 1 Did you hear about this other one that there's people, the escape where your family could take you out off the island by pushing the button? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I forgot the name of it. It was on, they were showing a million commercials during the series.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Extraction. Extraction.
Yeah, yeah. That That was, that looks really weird.
It was like, it's basically survivor and you want to leave, but your parent, your family has to say if it's okay or not.

Speaker 1 It's like, what? It's like, I'm the one on this island getting bit by snakes. Pull me out.
I would hate that. My mom would pull that shit so fast.
You know, right out.

Speaker 1 If you could go on any reality TV show, what would it be?

Speaker 1 That's a good question.

Speaker 1 I mean, I would love like game show stuff. Yeah.
Like game shows is so fun. I've been fortunate enough to go on.
We did the Misery Index, which is great.

Speaker 1 But I was on a $100,000 pyramid with Straight Hand, which is fun.

Speaker 1 But Hollywood hollywood squares looks like so much fun right now looks like that looks like a really fun one i think game show stuff would be fun as far as reality stuff i don't think survivor amazing race

Speaker 1 the bachelorette would be funny oh that would be funny i'm married wife related yeah no but just for the stories i think it'd be fun uh no i i think just to be part of that like because you can't help but for me when i watch those shows like you you can't help but my wife watches them and loves them and i got sucked in of course yeah but i i like when you watch those shows like the bachelor the bachelorette when you just them and you see like the people in the room, like, do they understand like what's going on right now?

Speaker 1 Kind of thing. There's like a group mind mentality that nobody really understands how crazy all of it is.
I would like to just be part of that.

Speaker 1 Not about the whole love thing, but just to see what the living in a house with all these people, what that does to you. Yeah.
It would mess me up. I think.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 They're all in the same with Big Brother. They're all in one house.
One house. Yeah.
Have you seen that? Love Island, right? Love Island.

Speaker 1 What's the one, Nikki Glazer? Was that? Oh, Nikki Glazer was Love Island, right? Love Island. Yeah.
The dating ones are wild, man. Some of the dating dating ones are insanity.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But Survivor, I mean, that's just,

Speaker 1 I can't imagine. I don't even know how they made that first one.
It was like, here's the idea. We just drop a bunch of people off on an island and they just got to live.

Speaker 1 Like, it is like, great, let's do it. It's insane.
And it's in its like 900th season or something, you know, right? I wish it was like, it's 40 days. So I want to go on that show, but 40 days.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's 40 days? A month. You can't even drive here by yourself without the.
I know. You got no phone.
42.

Speaker 1 You could be walking around the island. It's like, how do I get to anybody? Where did I put that coconut?

Speaker 1 I'd be so messed up. You're in trouble.
Yeah. I'm actually thinking about a dopamine detox.
Have you heard of those? No.

Speaker 1 So you don't, you like put your phone in like a corner and you don't use it for like three days. Really? Yeah.
Anything that gives you dopamine. So like phone, electronics.

Speaker 1 Because dopamine is good, isn't it? Yeah, but we're so overdoped. You're overdoped.
Right now, yeah. Everyone's overdoped.
Overdoped. So it gets even crazier.

Speaker 1 That's a term. No, it is.
That's merch for you. Oh, yeah.
Overdoped. Yeah, we should trade mug.

Speaker 1 No, people go in dark caves. Really? Five days.
It's like a dark cave dopamine detox. Do you think that does anything? I don't know.
It's pitch black and you're there for five days.

Speaker 1 That's, you got, you got problems. You should revive.
That's not right. That's not right.
That's not how you're supposed to live. Yeah.
Like, you gotta.

Speaker 1 That's wrong. Like, yeah.
First of all, who owns the cave? Who might calls this? He's got a motherfucker. Yeah, there you go.
That's what I'm saying. It's a business.

Speaker 1 Well, you could prey on people's insecurities. So, like, you say it's a spiritual awakening or whatever you want to word it.
Sure.

Speaker 1 You know, have you ever been called to do something like like that, a spiritual awakening? Have I ever been? I went to Fargo, North Dakota.

Speaker 1 No, a spiritual awakening. No, I'm pretty in tune with my, with all that stuff.
I, I'm, I have a pretty good handle on that.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty honest with myself, I think, yeah, and honest with other people, too.

Speaker 1 But I think when I had separated from my wife for a minute, I think that was the first time I lived alone in my whole life.

Speaker 1 Wow. I was always with my family, with a family or had roommates or whatever.
And then I was like 40, what was that, 47, 46? That That was the first time you lived alone.

Speaker 1 Sitting by myself in a two-bedroom apartment.

Speaker 1 What the hell happened? Like, and that was like, that's my dark cave. Yeah.
You know, I was just sitting there like, all right.

Speaker 1 So now I think that was a part where it really made me get in touch with, you know, analyzing hard, getting a plan together how to fix it all, grieving,

Speaker 1 you know, rejoicing, trying to figure it all out. You know, did you take some psychedelics? I didn't take any.
Yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 1 People, people,

Speaker 1 you know, said, I've never taken a drug, tried a cigarette, or even been drunk in my life. Wow.
Yeah. So people were like, oh, you should try that to open your mind.

Speaker 1 I was like, I don't know what the hell that's going to do this morning in my life. I've seen bad trips.

Speaker 1 I have too.

Speaker 1 I've seen good ones too. I've been around good ones, but I've seen some that have gone wrong.
I was like, it's not worth it for me. It's a coin toss.
Yeah. I wish it was a little more controlled.

Speaker 1 Do you do psychedelics though? I do. Yeah.
I microdose. Microdose.
I haven't done a full trip in eight years. I don't think I'd do a full trip again.
You've done a

Speaker 1 like a full trip is when you take a lot. Was the last full trip bad? No, but I got what I needed out of it.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 1 This is why you need your dopamine, Kate.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So if you micro-dose, you're micro-dopamining, though, aren't you? Technically, yeah.
Yeah. So maybe you try not to micro-dose and keep your phone in your pocket.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's worse things. If you know, for sure.
But if you went, if you did that dopamine thing, would you stop micro-dosing?

Speaker 1 Because that now is kind of regulating you, isn't it? Yeah, it would offset it. Maybe.
I don't know. I don't micro-dose too often.
Gotcha. Yeah, just when I'm having.

Speaker 1 I have a couple of friends that do it. Yeah, they do it for

Speaker 1 mushrooms, right? Yeah, mushrooms. Yeah.
Microdose. A good friend of mine does them.
He loves it. Yeah, because you're not tripping.
You're not seeing anything on them. You're just feeling good.

Speaker 1 I could see the difference in him too.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah. Oh, wow.
So it made him better or yeah, but he made him better. Okay.
Yeah. Like he made, he just calmer.

Speaker 1 He, he had like an frantic energy about him, but not a bad one, but it was just very, you know, and then when he's on and it was like, oh, okay. Definitely helps with anxiety, man.
Sure.

Speaker 1 I think that's probably all connected, right? Anxiety makes you frantic. I had some terrible anxiety in college, dude.
Did you? Yeah, awful. Where'd you go to school? Rutgers.
Oh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good old Ruckers. New Brunswick campus.
Nice. I almost ended up there.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I went there. Yeah, I did.
I got accepted there. It was one of my three that I was going to go to.

Speaker 1 What'd you choose? I ended up with

Speaker 1 the college that's like right around the corner from my house out on Long Island. Okay.
Post. Long Island University.
I'd have heard of that. Yeah.
I went. It was a coin toss.

Speaker 1 I was going to do Rutgers, but I was out of state.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like 22. Yeah, so I was like, you know what? I'll just go here.
My sister was out of that school. So I got to go to, which is pretty cool.
She was a senior. I was a freshman.

Speaker 1 So I had somebody who was there. I didn't learn much there, man.
No.

Speaker 1 Social, right? Yeah, social. It's all social scales, I think.
No, for sure. That was the biggest thing I learned.
So is a big takeaway. I think it makes you grow.
It makes you a grown-up.

Speaker 2 Yeah, much. That's what it does.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Well, Joe, where are your next shows? Where can people keep up with you, man? JoeGattoofficial.com gives you all the places where I'll be.

Speaker 1 I don't know when this is coming out, but I'm touring through June. I'm coming probably to a city close enough to you.

Speaker 1 And then on Instagram, it's at Joe underscore Ghatto, and that's where. Awesome.
Thanks for hopping on, man. This has been so fun.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Check them out, guys. See you next time.