TCB Infomercial: Joe List

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I think I'm a good dad.

I kept having a, I felt like the universe was testing me leading up to being a father.

I kept having run-ins with other people's children, which is always awkward.

Last year, I was in a hotel, like a really nice hotel, like a high-rise hotel, and I got on an elevator, and it was me and a dad and his little boy, who's probably two or three.

And then the doors closed.

We were going down.

We stopped at a floor.

The doors opened.

Nobody got off or on.

Then the doors closed.

And so I said, hey, it must have been a ghost.

Classic elevator humor.

That's not my joke.

I didn't write that.

That's just an old elevator gag.

You guys didn't really laugh.

They did not laugh at all.

The kids started crying immediately.

Just

I was like, hey, it must have been a ghost.

And the kid was like, what?

And I felt bad for the kid, but then the dad goes, hey, come on.

And I was like, pal, your kid is a little bitch.

I'm sorry.

This is not my fault.

You're raising a dork who's afraid of ghosts.

It was a joke.

On this episode of the commercial break.

So I've caught, my wife and I in our old apartment, we live in a nicer place now, we haven't had a mouse yet, but our old apartment, we would get like an annual mouse visit.

We'd have a single mouse once every 18 months or something.

And

the way we got it, the first time, I caught one in a humane trap, which is like the tube with the holes.

And then you go and let it out.

But I did not realize you have to go a mile from your house.

Yes.

So I just went outside and let him go, and he just shot directly back into my house.

Like he was home before I was.

And it was, it was raining out that night, so it felt like Shawshank Redemption.

Like, I just gave him a shower.

I basically just rinsed him off.

And so then it took me a while to find him again.

And I took him, I finally went a mile and released him really close to a friend of mine's apartment.

And he's like, maybe he can live there.

The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

Yeah,

boy.

Oh, yeah, Captain Kittens.

Welcome back to the Commercial Break.

I'm Brian Green.

This is my dear friend, Chris and Joy Holy.

Best to you, Chrissy.

Besty, Brian.

Dear friend and co-host.

And best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Forgot that part.

And best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Thanks for joining us on the TCB Infomercial Tuesday with podcaster and comedian Joe List.

Joe List is here.

Ah, we love ourselves a little little Joe List, don't we, Chrissy?

Yes, we do.

Joe List is on his fourth hour-long special in five years.

Congratulations to him.

That's prolific.

Honestly,

that's a lot of comedy to write in just a short amount of time.

That special is out on YouTube now.

So I'm going to put links in the show notes.

Please go watch it.

Also, he does the

Tuesdays with Stories.

I keep on forgetting the name of this podcast, even though I've seen it.

So instead of like Tuesdays with Maury's.

Yeah,

that's right.

Tuesdays with stories instead of Tuesdays with Maury.

And every time I want to call it something completely different.

Anyway, with Mark Norman, also a very popular and funny comedian.

They have been doing this podcast since 2013, Chrissy.

Say what?

Almost as long as, you know, Mark Marin, the other guy that's leaving podcasting.

Let's hope this one keeps up.

You can find that podcast.

Links in the show notes also.

And I had to write a a list down because he's on so many podcasts.

Ready?

Mindful Metal Jacket podcast.

And the Joe and Renan Talk Movies podcast with Renan Hirschbergs.

He's also a regular on Robert Kelly's podcast.

You know what, dude?

So this guy is on five different podcasts.

Man, I think I saw him on Howie.

He was on Howie Mandel.

I watched that part of that episode.

And wow, Howie is out there, man.

Howie is a wacky motherfucker.

I don't want to ask him about that.

I want to ask Howie to be on this podcast.

I think I'd I'd have fun.

I couldn't touch him or be near him, but you know, he's like, you know, he's like, he's OCD germ of folk.

And when he touches people, he gets all upset about it.

Apparently, that's what, that's the thing that he says.

That's his whole, that's his whole thing.

Anyway, he was also a touring comic with Luis C.K.

when Luis was doing his thing before he was doing his thing.

You know what I'm saying?

Before Luis C.K.

became kind of persona non-grada for certain indiscretions, let's put it that way.

But, you know, whatever happened to Luis C.K.

and all that jazz, he's back.

He's touring.

He's back.

I think I saw he's doing a special.

So, anyway,

also another prolific comic of our time at the height of his fame.

And Joe was part of that whole not.

Let me be clear about this.

Let me separate those two in your mind.

Joe List went on tour with Luis C.K.

during Luis's heyday, Louis's heyday.

Luis.

Luis.

I like to say it that way.

I know.

It's so much fun, Luis C.K.

Louis C.K.'s heyday.

Joe, by all accounts, was no part of Lewis's heyday, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I think he was maybe along for the ride, but not

actually

riding along.

He was along for the ride, but not actually riding along.

If you know what we're saying without saying it,

I like Joe, and I don't want him to get pissed at us.

So therefore, I will not ask him anything about that because that has nothing to do with him.

And he probably hates that fucking question, I bet.

Or maybe, I don't know, maybe he's addressed it, but not on this show.

That's 10 years ago at this point.

Who fucking cares anyway?

All right.

So let's do this, Chrissy.

Let's take a break.

And when we get back through the magic of telepodcasting, we're going to make this a quick, quick hit today.

We'll have Joe list all of the information in the show notes.

In case you want to follow up, please do.

Watch his brand new special available on YouTube now.

Just go down, just open your phone, scroll down.

There's a blue little link, and directly after you listen to this show, click on that and listen to his new special.

We'll be back.

Okay, you're probably wondering why I, Rachel, have taken over the voice duties at TCB.

It's pretty simple.

Astrid asked me to shut Brian up, even for a minute.

Well, lovely Astrid, your wish is my command.

Do you want to help Astrid too?

You know you do.

Leave a message for her or me or Chrissy at 212-433-3TCB.

That's 212-433-3822.

You can be on the show too.

Just call and say something.

Anything.

Or text us and we'll text you right back.

Promise.

Then head over to tcbpodcast.com and get your free sticker.

It's your constitutional right to a sticker and we must abide.

You get the point.

Follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and watch all the episodes on video at youtube.com/slash thecommercial break.

Best to you and Astrid, especially Astrid.

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And Joe's here with us now.

Hey, Joe, thank you so much for joining us today, Mr.

List.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

You guys look great.

You look very tan, both of you.

Well, I look tan because I go to the tanning bed.

Chrissy looks tanned because that's the lighting we set up for her.

I've been at sports events for my nephews.

Yeah, we get a lot of sun down here in Atlanta all the time.

And

I have small children, and we just happen to have a pool, also known as a death trap in the back of our house.

And so every day I get to spend an hour and a half out there

desperately trying to save them from dying in my death trap in the back of the house.

Joe, you, I saw on your Instagram, were you on the Howie Mandel podcast?

I was.

I just was there a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah.

I had a great time.

I'm so fascinated by Howie Mandel and his podcast and his thing.

He's like, you know, a germaphobe, but then he like loves to play pranks and get dirty and get involved.

What was your experience on the Howie Mandel podcast?

That's a big podcast, too.

Yeah, I had a great time.

I mean, he has like a, he's like a big business entrepreneur guy.

Like he has a huge space.

It's massive.

It's similar to like Joe Rogan's thing.

And he's got, he's invested in these, I don't even know what you call them.

I should know because he told me, but it's like,

what do you call it?

Like Tupac when they did,

you know what I mean?

The hologram, those big hologram things yeah he's got like 20 of those and like you can just talk to people like celebrities and stuff it's really insane it's like an ai it felt like i went into the future yeah that's wild hawie mandel has a hologram like museum essentially where you walk in you're talking to different celebrities in their 3d version yes it's crazy

it's like

and he had somebody oh my god i can't think of who like roasted me it was oh god damn it i should remember it was like some celebrity person Oh, it was Adam Ray.

That's who it was.

It was Adam Ray, the comedian,

as Dr.

Phil.

And he was like, hey, Joe List is here.

And then Adam, as Dr.

Phil, was like, hey, nice shirt, you idiot.

You look stupid.

It was crazy.

And he's got a full band and like all kinds of toys and stuff.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Yeah,

he's taken his podcast.

And I've only seen a number of episodes, but he's taken his podcast kind of to like a new Zaney level.

I saw the one where he had Billy Corgan and Bill Burr, where there has been a rumor that the two of them are related.

They're brothers, and they like confronted each other.

And it was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever seen them.

I don't know if they were mugging for the camera or whatever, but it was the most uncomfortable thing that I have seen on podcasting.

And how he's there for it.

He really is.

Joe,

how long have you been doing comedy for those who may not know Joe List yet?

Yeah, a lot of people don't know me.

Same here.

Same here, Joe.

So I've been doing comedy for 25 years.

Holy shit.

Weird to say.

Yeah, I started right out of high school.

And yeah, it's been a long, long time.

And you traveled around.

You were doing quite a bit with Louis C.K., is that correct?

I did, yeah, back in 2016, 2017.

I did his whole world tour.

It was crazy.

That was when he was still doing like massive arenas, which he still does sometimes.

But yeah, it's crazy.

What is that experience for you?

Like this massive comedian says, hey, hey let's do this together let's go around the world and and

you warm me up it was uh it was insane i mean first of all at that time i had before i met louis he was like my favorite comedian he was the biggest thing he's on the cover of rolling stone and and and appearing at the oscars and the tv show and all that stuff so

He was like something I idolized and then we became friendly and then close friends.

And at that time, he was flying around on a private jet, like a private jet with a waitress on it.

And we were staying at like the Four Seasons and the Ritz.

It was nuts.

You are kidding me.

No, it was crazy.

It was the craziest experience of my life.

We went all over Europe.

We went to like Israel, Paris, Vienna,

I can't even remember, Dublin, London, and had like a lady with a little, you know, rectangle hat on the flight bringing us drinks and steaks.

It was, it was wild.

It was like the most unbelievable experience of my life.

That is insane to be like a young comic.

You know, I'm sure this is the dream of every comic, is to literally land, you know, in the lap of luxury with the world's biggest comic.

And I don't think there's too many comics that fly around on

none that have been here at the commercial break that fly around on private jets and have a waitress

inside of the airplane and get to do the world tour.

Do you

when you have when you have that experience, when you're like, oh my God, we're staying to the four seasons, we're flying around the world, we're doing all these experiences, and then you have to like kind of fall back to then going and doing the, you know, on-your-own journeyman type thing.

I bet that's kind of a kick in the balls.

It's definitely weird.

I mean, one time I opened for him at Madison Square Garden, three times I did actually.

And then you just get on the subway and you're on like the C-train in New York.

And nobody has any idea that you've just, you know, performed at Madison Square Garden.

So it was weird.

And I do remember doing Madison Square Garden and then doing a bar show like in a basement bar, like two blocks from Madison Square Garden the next night.

It was called Mustang Sally's.

It was like a crappy bar gig and just in the middle of it being like, I was at MSG a couple days ago.

So it's, but it's fun.

It like adds to the romanticism of comedy, I guess.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of puts some lure to the history of what you're doing, but that does have to be a strange sensation to be in front of, what is it, 20,000, 25,000 people.

And then 15 minutes later, no one knows who you are.

You're like, I just played Marathon Square Garden, and I'm sitting next to the homeless guy that smells like booze.

Yeah, literally.

It's definitely a weird thing, but it was an awesome experience.

I loved it.

Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Whitman, Massachusetts, which is about 40 minutes south of Boston and is where the chocolate chip cookie was invented.

Oh,

yeah.

Good true story.

Yeah, do tell about the chocolate chip cookie.

I'm interested.

I mean, I had nothing to do with it.

Supposedly the story is it was a mistake.

A woman was making something and spilled.

It's like the classic, like, you know, whoopsie?

Yeah,

and pulled out chocolate chips and a cookie, but I am obsessed with chocolate chip cookies.

That's where it's from.

And I don't know.

I think I might be the most famous person from Whitman.

I'm not 100% sure, but

I've never heard of another person from Whitman, but the chocolate chip cookie is, you know, takes the cake as far as fame is concerned, but it's not a person.

So you might be the most famous person from Whitman, Massachusetts, and then spent your entire life up there.

Are you still living up in that region?

No, I'm in New York.

I've lived in New York City for 18 years.

So I lived in Whitman for until I was like, I think, I don't know,

22.

And then I moved into Boston for a couple of years.

And then I've been living in New York for 18 years now.

Are you always on the road?

Is that something that's just part of your life?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not as on.

I have a baby myself now.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

19 months old.

So I'm trying to be on a little less, but I try to do it like every other week.

So now I'm on the road, I don't know, 30 weeks a year where I used to be more like 45 weeks a year or something like that.

But it's like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and I come home for four days.

But with the baby, it's tougher because he's the best and I want to be with him.

Yeah, you know, I think to myself sometimes, and like our agent has said, you know, oh, go out there and, you know, do some shows and do some stand-up.

First of all, I'm not a stand-up.

I sit behind a microphone.

This is way easier than anything a stand-up ever does.

But the other thing that I always think about is my children.

And I've often said this on the show is I'm afraid one of two things is going to happen.

Either I'm going to be terribly depressed because I'm not around the kids who, while they're a pain in the ass, really do make me happy.

Or number two, I'm going to start to like it.

I'm going to be like, I really like being away from the kids.

And it makes me a little bit nervous.

But at 18 months old, that's a precious age.

It's hard to leave an 18-month-old.

Yeah, no, he's the sweetest, and he's very attached.

He's very intimate.

No one's ever loved me as much.

I always joke, I'm like, I wish my wife loved me as much as the baby.

I leave.

He's like sobbing.

He has to be consoled.

So it is tough.

But, you know, it is nice to sleep in and

not carry a baby around for a couple of days.

But

so it's hard.

It's hard to balance.

But I love, yeah, I love being homeless.

Yeah, for sure.

You,

when

you talked about recently on your, I don't know if this is recent or if you pinned it or whatever, you talked about having a mouse in your house.

And I really relate to that because I also had a mouse in my house.

Yeah, you did.

Did you get a cat or did you get an electric trap?

Is the question.

Which one did you get?

No, I mean, that clip, that's the first time I've ever heard of an electric trap.

I do.

Yeah.

So I've

my wife and I in our old apartment, we live in a nicer place now.

We haven't had a mouse yet, but our old apartment, we would get like an annual mouse visit.

We'd have a single mouse once every 18 months or something.

And

the way we got it, the first time I caught one in a humane trap, which is like the tube with the holes.

And then you go and let it out.

But I did not realize you have to go a mile from your house.

Yes.

So I just went outside and let him go.

And he just shot directly back into my house.

Like he was home before I was.

And it was, it was raining out that night.

So it felt like Shawshank Redemption.

Like, I just gave him a shower.

I basically just rinsed him off.

And so then it took me a while to find him again, and I took him.

I finally went a mile and released him really close to a friend of mine's apartment.

And he was like, maybe he can live there.

Go try this place.

It reminds me of my pet rat when I was a kid.

And I had to go release it down the street.

I got an idea when I was a kid that I'm a teenager.

There was a lot of people in my, like this hippie circle of friends that I had.

They all started getting pet rats, like, you know, the kind you buy at a store that saved them from the snake or whatever.

And the rat would sit on my shoulder.

And I had him for like, I don't know, three months, but my dad abhorred everything about it.

He was like, you're not bringing a rat into the house.

There's no way.

They carry diseases.

And he said, if that rat gets into the house just once, if I see that rat in the house, you're, that rat is no more.

I'm going to kill it myself.

And so one night the rat got into the house.

I let it into the house.

That's how it got in the house, but it got away from me.

And so my dad says, you have to do something with that rat.

It cannot be anywhere around this house anymore.

And in the middle of the night, I had to walk it down the street and i released it into the sewers and i'm pretty sure that it didn't last 10 minutes because it was a domesticated rat it was used to being fed what did it know it's probably got eaten by the other more mean rats i always think about that joe i've heard that rats are actually nicer than mice

this thing i've heard this thing was very sweet i mean and i i hate to say like i don't want to disnify my relationship with the rat and give it a personality, but it felt to me like we had a connection.

Yeah.

Because when I would come around, it would run to me and then it would jump up on my shoulder.

It would just sit there and I'd feed it.

And, you know, I think it was just used to being fed, quite frankly, but it never bit anybody, never attacked it, never did anything like that.

We had a mouse

attack.

The rat never attacked me.

That's good.

Yeah, it didn't turn into a teenage mutant ninja turtle or anything like that.

But we had a rat one time, a mouse here at our house.

And here's how I know: is because my wife kept waking up and there'd be fruit on the floor of our kitchen.

Like it'd take from the fruit bowl and then it'd throw it on the ground, I guess, trying to get it or whatever.

And at the time, we had two dogs that were not playing nice with each other.

So I put one of the dogs in the kitchen, like gated it in the kitchen at night to sleep.

And I put a camera in there to see if I could catch the mouse.

And what I caught was the most unbelievable scene I had ever witnessed with my own two eyes.

And that was the rat, the mouse, was literally taunting the dog it was like coming up to the dog sniffing the dog the dog would wake up would raise its head the dog never once barked never tried to get it never tried never moved wow a mouse just owned his it was like listen here little doggie i'm gonna take your fruit wow well mice are smart right i mean they got bendy bones and they're smart or something i don't know anything about animals yeah i don't know anything about animals either another time i had a mouse and i killed it by just, this is bad.

I have earmuffs if you're very sensitive.

But he was running up my hall.

I lived at the end of like a long hallway in an apartment building and he was running directly towards me and I just reacted and kicked it.

And it like skidded across the thing and was just dead.

I just punted him to death.

Oh God.

But he was trying to get in my house.

My wife was in there.

He was going to try to make love to my wife.

I can't have that.

So I just, I kicked him like, you know, Ray Finkel and he just went flying.

Oh, my God.

That's too funny.

I read that you met your wife through a roast battle.

Is that right?

No, we didn't meet through a roast battle, but we met through, but we did roast each other, and it was pretty, yeah, it was pretty spicy.

It was great.

I mean, people see it, and they're like, oh, my God, you guys are going to get divorced.

Did you guys have a huge fight?

But we wrote the jokes together with a friend of ours.

Like, we both knew what the other was going to say.

Because you don't, the thing about a roast that's nerve-wracking is you don't want to learn something about yourself at a roast.

Yeah.

You don't want your wife to say, yeah, because this guy, you know, snores, whatever the hell it is.

And then you're like, wait, what?

I didn't know you felt that way.

So we worked on the jokes together.

And so it ended up being really, really fun.

She won.

You know, I let her win.

Maybe that's

what I was doing.

I told you.

You know, Brian, do you know Brian Moses, the roast battle?

Yeah, I know Brian Moses.

So Brian came on and then he says, he comes up with an idea during the interview.

He's like, you guys should roast each other.

Come on out.

You know, we'll put you up.

We'll give you a a couple minutes and we'll help you write the roast battle jokes together.

And so I was all about it.

Chrissy said, no, I don't want to do that.

I don't want to be mean.

You know, I don't, I don't want us to get into like some kind of discourse because of the roast battle.

And I said, but we get to write them and choose them.

Like it's not like.

It's not like we're just going to blindside each other with a bunch of insults.

We're going to talk this out before we go on.

So

I don't think that happens in every roast battle.

I think it happens when two people know each other real well.

And like you said, you don't want to be known as the two-pump.

Like, you don't want your wife to come up and say, you're a two-pump chump.

And then you're like, did you have to say that?

Yeah.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So we went over them together.

And because I went, one time I was on a roast years and years ago, and there was like eight comics on the day.

It wasn't a roast battle.

It was just a regular roast.

And there was one guy, and everybody did a joke about how his breath smelled horrible.

And he was like,

we did it individually.

It's like, oh, we got together.

I'm like, let's all talk about this.

We all just, that's what we came up with.

And he was like, I had no idea i had a breath problem

so that's like the worst thing that can happen in a roast today yeah yeah roasts are it's a certain flavor of comedy i find some i find some of it funny but then i sometimes i watch some of those roasts and i wonder just how emotionally stable that person is after the roast because you know that you take it like a tough guy but it everybody something's there's some soft in everybody right there's a soft middle in everybody and i bet sometimes people get off and they're like wow i didn't know you felt that way about me.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, no, it can be a little dicey.

I do think it is best to roast people you're close with, which is the way roast used to be.

And then like the Comedy Central Roast, it kind of got to a weird place where we just had comedians come on and roast people they don't really know.

And that can be.

Yeah, there was a few of those that looked rather uncomfortable.

Yeah, but

interesting, we're talking about like kind of like roasting people and emotional stability.

You have been kind of outspoken about mental health.

I actually just saw the trailer a couple days ago on your Instagram trailer for this movie that you were in about anxiety.

Can you share more about that?

Yeah, so my friend Wendy Lobel, she made this film about comedians with anxiety that's been in the works for a long, long time.

It's actually painful to see the footage because

it's from like 2020, right?

Yeah, yeah, I look insane.

To me, I look insane.

But

yeah, so she made this movie and it follows me and um mark normand and baron vaughn and then another woman who i don't know and i forget her name who's actually in it the most and i feel like an idiot for not remembering her name but so she filmed it over years and got like tons and tons of footage of these comedians and i went and meditated with tara brock who's a famous meditation teacher who i love and um It's been a long project and she got it together and now it's like going, it's doing great.

It's on the festival circuit and stuff.

And it's a really great movie.

Like I said, it's painful to watch myself, but you guys probably don't carry the same pain watching me that other guy do.

I think you're a pleasant looking guy, Joe.

But I also understand the struggle of looking in the mirror and not always feeling.

I think that piggybacks nicely off the conversation about anxiety is that we all have anxieties.

And like as mentioned in the trailer of the film and is,

you know, most people, if they think about it for a second, will probably understand that anxiety is really your brain making up fear of something that may or may not happen, right?

Anxiety is fear of the future, and stress is, you know, the pain of the past, or trauma is pain of the past.

And that can be really debilitating to people.

And I think we all have it to some degree.

I know I have it to some degree.

I guess meditation is one of the ways that you deal with this, with your own anxieties.

Yeah.

So I've come a long, long way, uh especially since then and before then but i'm a big meditator and therapy i love therapy i'd go to therapy every day if i could i just think it's the best

um but i go um

I go, yeah, once a week, and then I'm a big meditation, and then I'm always reading like some kind of psychology book or philosophy book or listening to them and all that stuff.

What kind of meditation are you into?

I listen to the Waking Up app, which is Sam Harris's meditation app, and it's kind of,

I always forget the name, Terra Vada or some other Vada,

Ayurveda, yeah,

the Ayurveda.

Yeah, it's like body scanning.

Is that what it is?

It's some of that, but a lot of, yeah, like

seeing through the ego and that there's nothing there, nothingness, emptiness, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I'm with you.

So, meditation and

therapy are two of the ways that I deal with my own anxieties.

And I think it's a really important subject.

And I applaud you for being open and transparent about it.

And I do think that comedy is one of the ways that we comedians oftentimes will share their own neuroses or their own struggles with mental health or their own questions about their own existence or whatever it is, right?

Their anxieties out there in a funny way that it's hard to not be open when you're laughing.

And then that message kind of gets through.

Oh, he recognizes what I'm feeling, or he has the same thing.

I think comedy, in a way, can be therapeutic like that, or at least opens the mind sometimes.

I don't want to say it's some grand exploration, but I do believe that comedians sometimes can be on the forefront of opening our

minds to conversations that maybe we otherwise didn't have.

Did I read this correctly, Joe, that you've been sober for 10 years, 12 years?

Yeah, about 12 and a half years, yeah, which is another thing that has really helped my stress and anxiety.

Yeah, congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have not been drinking now for almost a decade, drinking, you know, free from the drinking and most drugs except for prescription medications.

But

how has that changed your life?

Oh,

I mean, I can't even imagine, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, immeasurably.

I mean, like, I mean, I drank a lot, obviously.

And, and, and comedy, it's like, it's free drinks, open bar everywhere and all that stuff.

So just, I spent so much time.

I would get off stage.

I would drink before the show, during the show, after the show.

And so, and, and having a baby, it's been like so helpful to not be drinking.

My wife and I always talk about, she's sober too.

Like.

Having to do this hungover, I cannot imagine.

And then just not being present for your kid's life and all that stuff.

And basically, I mean, when I hit 30, that's when I quit drinking.

My hangovers were insane.

Like when I was 22, I would get blackout drunk, throw up in a shoe, shit on the floor, wake up and play basketball the next day.

Like I would be like, oh, 10 a.m.

basketball game, here we go.

And then at 30, I would just want to die.

So it definitely made me much more prolific in comedy, much a happier person, a much more physically fit person.

And not that I'm not exactly the fittest, but

I'm not throwing up or shitting my pants.

So just

every aspect of my life improved in every way, countless ways.

I

share some of the same revelations about sobriety.

I didn't get sober because I went to jail or I ended up on the street or there was some big financial collapse.

I got sober because,

well, first of all, I was smoking cigarettes at the time and I could not for the life of me stop smoking cigarettes.

The second I put alcohol to my lips, I needed to smoke a cigarette.

And I hated the fact that I was smoking cigarettes at my age.

I'm like, fuck this.

You're going to die.

Like, clearly, this is terrible for your health.

You got to stop.

So I said, why don't you stop drinking for three months?

That'll get you over the hump.

And within a couple of weeks of not drinking.

Life started to change in ways that were very unexpected.

Nothing I was looking for, but all of a sudden started to happening.

Some clarity, some perspective, some understanding.

And like you said, my hangovers were getting worse.

My drunks were getting more kind of sloppy, right?

And I just felt like after a couple of months, after I stopped smoking cigarettes, and then after a couple of months, I was like, wow, I don't want to be the old guy at the bar sitting at the corner, drunk like an idiot, sloppy as I can be, because that's just not a good look.

But then that guy doesn't have, I mean, there, I'm sure there are some people who drink alcohol well into their existence and are very smart and self-aware and all that.

But, you know, I haven't met too many of them, right?

They're always just kind of, they can be a little sloppy sometimes.

So I said to myself, wow.

And then years into it, I had children.

And I cannot imagine for the life of me being hungover with small children.

Can't even imagine it.

No, it's crazy.

And it's hard enough being tired all the time and all that stuff and running around chasing them

dead, sober, healthy.

So

I just can't imagine.

And yeah, and that's the other thing is like in comedy, at least i think most fields there's not a lot of people that are like really really successful who are blacking out at night there's a couple there's that's true

we know them we don't have the name you know we don't need to say names we know them they're just alcohol and

um comedy go hand in hand for them um and some of them are really funny by the way some of them are really some of them we've had on the show and they're really funny um did you was that a crutch for you when you would go on stage did that help you was that like i mean bravery juice I would have to do it.

I mean,

I was never uncomfortable doing comedy sober, but I definitely, it was fun.

It was funner to be a little bit loose and have a little uninhibited.

But

you definitely, there was a lot more getting off stage and being like, what did I say?

Right.

Why did I flip out?

Did I say the F word 700 times, whatever it is, you know?

So there was definitely a lot more of that.

That was the other thing, too, when I was drinking.

I was a big drunk texter and caller.

I would wake up and send 40 texts to people being like, I love you, you love me, whatever it was.

And I'm like, oh, my God.

Or Facebook Messenger.

And I'm like, I messaged that person.

Jesus.

Oh, Joe.

It sounds like we live the same life.

I was the

same way.

It was terrible.

I was one of those guys.

I was always either telling people that they loved me or that they hated me.

That was my big thing.

I'd be like, you hate me.

Why do you hate me?

Or I would be like, you fucking love me.

What are you doing?

You know you love me.

You know you love me.

Send me a titpic.

Come on, let's do it.

Yeah, there's a lot of that too.

Tell us about your new special coming out.

Or actually, by the time this airs, it will have been out.

So tell us about your new special.

Oh, great.

Yeah, it's out.

It's doing great.

It's storing the charts.

It's in the YouTube charts.

It's called Small Ball.

It's my fourth hour special that I've done the last, I think, five and a half years, six years.

Jeez, Joe.

In the last five years, you put out four separate hours?

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

It's been going well.

So I don't know how I've done it.

I try not to think about it, but they're all good, I think.

But I think this one, I think this one's better than the last one.

I'm really happy about it.

I shot it in Chicago back in October at Zaney's Comedy Club.

I actually shot it in two different clubs.

There's a Zany's downtown.

There's one in Rosemont, which is kind of the suburbs.

Yeah.

And we shot them and we kind of cut them together, but not in a,

you know,

weird way, jarring way.

It's like just a a few cuts.

So there's a lot of footage from both.

And

I'm really happy with it.

I'm excited about it.

And we tried to sell it to Netflix, and they said, lose our number, rip up my number, don't ever call me again.

This is terrible.

No, they're backed up or whatever.

But so we're putting it on YouTube.

And I actually love YouTube.

It gives you the freedom.

I own it.

And all the specials are in one place.

You can collect all four.

They're all right there.

We've talked to a few people that have done the YouTube and said how much they loved it.

We've talked to a lot of people.

800 Pound Gorilla has been supportive of a lot of people.

You know, they, of course, have the YouTube channel.

I think they also sell on streaming too, but there's a lot of comedians that come on here, noted comedians, people who have been on Netflix, and then they go, you know what, I'm doing this one on YouTube for whatever reason.

I'm sure there's a myriad of them.

And to Netflix's credit, I think they have been pretty supportive of the

comedy.

you know if you put out a special you want people to see it and you don't want them to wait five years or until you finish negotiating with netflix

or whatever.

Is that difficult to navigate that?

I mean, my personal opinion, and this is why I like podcasting, it's multi-platform.

I'm not stuck to, I'm not stuck to just Apple or Spotify, Castbox, whatever.

If one goes down or one changes the way they do things, we still have others that are out there.

I don't rely on them.

It's disparate in nature, and I control what I put out there and what I don't put out there.

And I can do it instantly.

I don't have to wait

for somebody else to distribute it.

So I understand the allure uh of just putting it out there on youtube on your own and and self-distribution but is it difficult sometimes trying to navigate the world of streaming and streamers and ott and all that other shit yeah it's it's weird and none of this was around when i started i didn't know this was going to be part of my career it's it's so crazy i always laugh about like when i started now 25 years ago I used to always say for years, I'm like, if you put in an hour of work a day, you're ahead of most comedians because comedians are lazy by nature.

And And now it's like we all have nine to fives.

You got to cut clips, you got to post, you got to tweet, you got to have a podcast and a web series and all this shit.

So it is

tricky kind of managing all of it.

But at the same time, it's awesome because there's less gatekeepers and you can make something with your phone.

We all have television studios in our pocket.

And then you can just upload it to YouTube.

Even I know how to do that.

And I'm an idiot.

So it is great.

And it's like we all have our own TV channel, which has its plus and minuses, obviously.

But it's definitely been challenging having to learn these things because a lot of this stuff is stuff I didn't want to do.

That's why I wanted to be a comedian.

I didn't want to have a job or work or think about stuff other than, you know, dick jokes.

But

ultimately, it's great.

It's like the best thing that ever happened in my career.

At what point in

your evolution did you like jump on board with that kind of, I need to be a multifaceted content creator and not just a stand-up comedian?

Are you, were you late to the game?

Or

because you said, I didn't want to do it.

I hear you, Joe.

That's exactly how we feel.

Yeah.

We hate it.

It is.

I like to podcast.

That's what I like to do.

I was definitely late.

Twitter and Instagram and stuff.

I was just like, I'm not doing that crap.

I mean, it's crazy how late I got into social media stuff.

And YouTube.

I just didn't build a channel or really try to do any of that.

I just always thought like, I'll just do stand-up on the road and they'll give me a movie or something.

I don't know why.

I was stupid.

And Instagram, when people started doing clips and crowdwork stuff, I was still posting because I love, I'm like an amateur photographer.

So I was still posting sunsets and like buildings.

I love it.

Like

guys were doing like bus tours, like theater tours because of their clips.

And I was like, get out of here.

Instagram's for photos.

And so I actually had to start a new Instagram.

I have a Joe List photography Instagram in addition to Joe List comedy.

I did see that.

And I take some great photos.

But I just, I've been so resistant and reluctant to all this stuff.

But now I'm coming around.

I'm doing better.

Yeah, I think it is a double-edged sword.

It keeps you busy.

I mean, we are so late to the game, too.

I think like two months ago, we said, okay, we should pay attention to this Instagram thing five years into the podcast.

You know, hey, we should put out some videos since everything is now video.

But it is tough because it adds so much more work.

And if it's not your sweet spot, if it's not your lane, then you either have to find somebody who can help you with that or you have to learn a whole new way of looking at and thinking about your own content.

And like you said, there's comedians who are out there who are just putting clips of crowdwork and they're doing entire tours.

You know, they're making millions of dollars because they did these clips with crowd work.

Well,

some of them, I would argue, not all of them, but some of them,

that's all they do.

It's just crowd work.

Like they just do clips of crowdwork, right?

It's not stand-up comedy in the classic sense.

It's just, let's go out there and talk to the crowd.

And I guess that's a form of art too, but it's very interesting.

If you go like you, for 25 years, have been honing your craft as a stand-up comedian, you know, set up, punchline, set up, punchline, storytell, punchline.

And then you have to learn this whole new way of being.

It's hard.

It's like, you know, teaching an old dog new tricks.

Yeah, no, it's weird.

And then I started doing these sort of ironic crowdwork videos where I would just ask people where they were from and then be like, cool, and then name some things.

So I thought that would be funny.

And then I posted so many of those, people were like, this guy sucks at crowd work.

I'm like, no, I know, that's the bit.

Yeah.

So that, you know, you just, it's hard to control what people are going to, how people are going to perceive things.

You do a podcast?

I do.

Yeah.

I do a podcast called Tuesdays with Stories with Mark Norman, which we've been doing for, I guess I was early in podcast because we've been doing it for 12 years now.

12?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a great show.

It's a great show.

I've seen it.

I like Mark.

I think he's really funny.

I think you guys are funny together.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So his new special is out now.

We're going to put links in the show notes, Chrissy, if you don't mind.

And we'll remind you all week to go watch Joe's special on YouTube.

There's four of them available.

You can listen to his podcast with Mark Norman, who is also a very funny comedian himself.

And he's a booze aficionado.

Am I right?

He's got a booze company with

doesn't he have a Sam Murrill.

Sam Murrill, who was just on the show a couple of months ago.

Yeah.

Bodega Cat.

Yeah.

it's a whiskey.

Do you get a lot of bodega cat when you're doing a podcast with Mark?

No, I mean, I know.

Oh, you don't because you don't drink.

Yeah, I don't drink.

And I always want to be like, it's awesome, guys.

You got to get it.

But I'm like, I have no idea.

It might suck.

I don't really know.

I assume it's good.

But yeah, I know.

So they have a whiskey company together, and now I'm seeing it more and more.

So I think it's doing well.

I see ads all over social media.

And I don't know, they were at Madison Square Garden doing something.

It was so congratulations to both of them.

Okay, so Joe, you can find all his information down in the show notes please follow him on social media for clips and all that good jazz joe it was very nice to meet you you are welcome back anytime yeah thank you next time you're here in atlanta please contact us because we will uh this is not our only studio we have another studio we would love to have you in and you can sit with us and we'll have a conversation and drink some tea i would love that yeah that's my favorite thing to do we'll drink the tea and we'll spill the tea yeah so make sure you contact us next time you're in atlanta appreciate you guys Hi, thanks, Joe.

You'll make this rather snappy, won't you, Auntie?

Somebody can be picking to do before 10 o'clock.

Hi, cats and kittens.

Rachel here.

Do you ever get the urge to speak endlessly into the void like Brian?

Well, I've got just the place for you to do that.

212-433-3TCB.

That's 212-433-3822.

Feel free to call and yell all you want.

Tell Brian I need a race.

Compliment Chrissy's innate ability to put up with all his shenanigans.

Or tell us a little story.

The juicier, the better, by the way.

We'd love to hear your voice, because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves.

Also, give us a follow on your favorite socials at the Commercial Break on Insta, TCB Podcast on TikTok.

And for those of you who like to watch, oh, that came out wrong.

We put all the episodes out on video.

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Okay, I gotta go now.

I've got a date.

With my dog.

No, seriously, Axel needs food.

Today is pork chop day.

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All right, thank you very much to Mr.

Joe List for showing up on TCB

Tuesdays with stories with Mark Norman and a cadre of other podcasts that he is apparently a regular on.

Down in the show notes, go watch his special on YouTube.

We plead with you.

We beg with you, Chrissy.

We beg the audience to go do these things.

Because when you do these things, then it lets all the people out there know that going on the commercial break really is worth those three extra clicks.

Yes.

And then bigger and better guests come.

And we've got a shitload of them coming up in June, July, and August.

It's a packed summer full of wonderful guests.

Wait till you see what we have in store for you.

You are going to be just as underwhelmed as ever.

All right.

No, I've seen seen the schedule.

We've had some really good ones.

Kind of crazy, actually.

Yeah.

I just want to drop this.

We have Gary Vee coming in.

You know who Gary Vee is?

Do your homework, kids.

Gary Vee.

Gary, V-E-E.

I'm sure a lot of you just perked your ears up and went, Gary Vee's coming on the commercial break.

He is.

Well, at least that's what the plan is.

Yeah.

We'll see if he actually shows up because we've had a few of those, too.

Yeah.

I'm looking at you, Countess.

Fuck you and your bravo.

All right, here we go.

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Go for it.

TCB podcast, TCBPodcast.com is the URL, the web address.

That's where you find us on the internets, kids.

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Questions, comments, concerns, contents, ideas, we take them all right there on youtube.com slash the commercial break for all the episodes on video as soon as they are here on all right chrissy that's all i can do for today i think so i'll tell you that i love you best you best you and best you out there in the podcast universe until next time we will say we do say and we must say

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