#2302 - Ron White

Speaker 0 Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Speaker 1 The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

Speaker 1 We up, hey, fella. We're up.
What's going on, Ronway?

Speaker 1 I'm feeling good finally after my little bout with fucking COVID. They got you.
They got you with the new COVID. They got me with the new COVID.
I thought the new COVID was total bullshit.

Speaker 1 I thought it was like a baby cold.

Speaker 1 I had,

Speaker 1 you know, my girlfriend raised two kids and she said she's never seen anybody puke as much as I did for two days. Wow.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was brutal. It was just bile.
And I don't even know if

Speaker 1 I've ever been that sick. And only got that part of it a couple of days.
That's interesting. I wonder if you got multiple things at the same time.

Speaker 1 Do people usually puke a lot if they get COVID? Jamie, do you know?

Speaker 1 No, I don't remember that being a symptom i don't remember having that either you might have had a couple things at the same time because there was a bad flu going around too well i went to uh you know i went to vegas

Speaker 1 and uh early and i had a kind of i just thought i had a cold when i went and uh my doctor here gave me a shot of steroids and i felt way fucking better i mean i felt better everywhere i was more flexible i was like fuck i want to do steroids every guy what kind of steroid was it i don't know but whatever it was man i could touch the floor without bending my knees, without stretching at all.

Speaker 1 Like a cortisone shot? I don't know.

Speaker 1 She said steroid, and she gave it to me. I don't ask a lot of questions, you know.
So you just felt loose? I felt loose and good.

Speaker 1 I played really good golf, and then I got there, and it started catching up with me. I had my girlfriend.
I'm staying in the mansion down at, you know, at MGM Grand, which is pretty sweet.

Speaker 1 And I had that show just on Saturday. We got there on Wednesday, and I'm like, fuck it, I'm not going to make it.
I felt it all starting to deteriorate. So I called this doctor.
Dani, it was so bad.

Speaker 1 You didn't think you were going to make it on Saturday? I didn't, I didn't, I thought I would need

Speaker 1 another shot of steroids. That's so I called a doctor.
I had the hotel call a doctor. And I thought I was getting the doctor that was, you know, whatever it takes to get through the show.
Right.

Speaker 1 And, you know, but that's not the doctor I got. The doctor I got was, we need to, let's test you for COVID.
And I'm like, no, no, I don't have COVID.

Speaker 1 He said, I won't charge you if it's negative, which didn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 1 And I said, well, okay.

Speaker 1 And then it came up positive for COVID. And he said, see there, the T and the X and the thing.
And I said, Yeah, I see it. Let's do it again because I don't think I have COVID.

Speaker 1 So we did it again, came up positive again.

Speaker 1 Not only would he not give me the COVID shot, he told me to quit taking the antibiotics I was already on.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he did nothing except for call the CDC to tell them I had COVID, and they both said you cannot do the show.

Speaker 1 I'm like, wait a minute, you're the wrong doctor. I don't want the fucking retired today shit.
I want to, here's your drummer's a junkie. He's out of heroin.

Speaker 1 Get him some fucking something to get him through this guy. So they were telling you you can't do the show because you had a specific kind of a cold, a COVID cold.

Speaker 1 So if you had the flu, would he have stopped you from doing the show?

Speaker 1 I'd say absolutely not. That's so weird.
I don't think it would even come up. That's so weird because right now, like the deaths from COVID now are so low.

Speaker 1 Like the idea that this is still a pandemic and they still have to treat it differently than they do a cold. They do.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 I was faced with,

Speaker 1 do I cancel a show? Well, that's not the same as St. Louis when they just move the date and the people from St.
Louis come back. This is Las Vegas.

Speaker 1 A lot of those people come specifically to see me because I don't do all those shows that I used to do. So it's kind of, if you want to come see it, that's a good place.

Speaker 1 And so it's a problem. You know, it's a refund.
You got to refund them all because those people aren't going to be there.

Speaker 1 Most importantly, your fans are bummed out. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I've disappointed them. Everybody's here.
Fuck, let's do the show. So

Speaker 1 I was just sitting there. I didn't know what to do.
So I'm like, well, I'm just going to call MGM Grand and tell them what the fuck's going on. Let it be their call, you know.

Speaker 1 And they were like, so how do you feel? I'm like, I feel like I can make it through the show.

Speaker 1 And they're like, well, I say, let's just go ahead and do it. You're, you know, it's a big room.
You're not within six feet of anybody. It's 2025.
It's 2025.

Speaker 1 If you told me you had, you did tell me you had COVID, and I gave you a big hug on Monday. I saw you on Monday.
Yeah. When we did Kill Tony.

Speaker 1 Right. And I was.
You were a super spreader on Kill Tony. You son of a bitch.
I'm an asshole. The biggest asshole ever.
It would be so. Nobody got sick.
I know. Nobody got sick.
Nobody got sick.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't until the next day that I got sick. That's when the vomiting started.
It wasn't in Vegas. It was day two.
It was Tuesday after Kill Tony.

Speaker 1 That's when I got sick. And

Speaker 1 it was fucking awful. I mean, for two days, just awful.
Did you get another steroid shot? No, nobody would give me one. So I don't know, man.
I just got the wrong guy to get it.

Speaker 1 You got to go to Gold's Gym. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 Find Find the biggest guy in the room.

Speaker 1 You got something, don't you? You know you got something, bro. Come on, man.
Aren't you a Ron White fan? Give me some fucking steroids. Just to get me around the corner.

Speaker 1 So I'm back. I feel fine today.
Well, that's good. And

Speaker 1 really good news. You coming to the club tonight?

Speaker 1 You know, they asked me to, I don't know who's got the set tonight. I don't know who's got the show.
Me too. Fuck it.
Let's go. Okay, let's go.
I'll go. Let's go, Ron White.

Speaker 1 Plus, uh bottom of the barrels tonight too the uh kill tony was on uh netflix last night isn't that amazing i'm so happy i'm so happy for tony and red band and for everybody on the show i'm just so happy that that show is now on netflix it's sweet you know i i always believed in it and you know that and i always saw something in tony i know i was never sure what exactly it was but i saw something you know that this kid works hard you know, he's got a dream that he's fucking making it work and he's making it work with hard work.

Speaker 1 He works hard. He works really hard at that show, man.
Really does. I mean, I call him in the middle of the day sometimes and he's just laying out like how he's going to do the show, what he's got.

Speaker 1 He's like, he's planning it. He's wandering around his apartment, writing notes down, just planning it out in his head.
He's legit. Tony's legit.
This is the thing about success.

Speaker 1 It's a product of hard work. And in that example, I fucking know it's a product of hard work.
Those guys did that show every goddamn Monday for 10 plus years. Starting with six people in the crowd.

Speaker 1 I was one of them.

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Speaker 1 And when you're ready to launch, use the code Rogan to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I was there when they were doing the Bellyroom show, but I always encouraged it.

Speaker 1 I encourage people to do shows when no one's watching because I think that, you know, the only way something builds is you got to get it started.

Speaker 1 You can't think you're going to launch a a podcast and it's going to have a million downloads. It's not that way.
And you don't want it that way anyway. You want to get good at it.

Speaker 1 You want to learn how to do it. You want to iron out the kinks.
I agree. I agree.
And they did it. They fucking did it.
They did it. And now it's one of the best shows in the world.

Speaker 1 It's the funniest fucking show on television, for sure.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 as far as just a fucking entertaining thing to goddamn do,

Speaker 1 I mean, just to come down. You know, my my last girlfriend was so addicted to the show.
She would come almost every Monday.

Speaker 1 And it's hard for me to go down there on Kill Tony night because they got the, you know, the green rooms hawked out to 19,000 people. And there's no place for me to go.
Right.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so, you know, but she was addicted to it. I mean, just as something fun to do, you know.
It's a fun thing to do. Because you're going to get some great comics.
And it doesn't matter

Speaker 1 if the comic. eats it on stage because it's still funny.
You know, that's not the point.

Speaker 1 The point is that everybody has access, you know, in some way. And and and there's no shortcut to get there because I tried to shortcut it because I thought I could because I was Ron White.

Speaker 1 And my banker said, Yeah, I've been doing stand-up and I'd love to get on. I'm like, no problem.
I'll tell them.

Speaker 1 I'll fix this for you.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he was like, Yeah, yeah, no, you can't. It's a bucket pull.
That's the only way he can do it is to get his name in there.

Speaker 1 It's a legit bucket pull. It is.
And it really is. And sometimes one of our guys gets in, like a san's been on a couple of times now, you know?

Speaker 1 and sometimes not.

Speaker 1 You put your name in the bucket. You'll see.
There's hundreds of names in that bucket. It's a great idea.
It's a great idea. It is.

Speaker 1 And it's inclusive to anybody. I mean, it's amazing to me who he had the vision to put anybody, anybody, no matter what kind of physical shape.

Speaker 1 You can't even say a word. Right.
And handicapped on top of that.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, just... All you have to do is just give it it a go.
Give it a go. Give it a go.
Try to be funny. Do your best.
Just do your best. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 And there's a lot of people doing their best. I'm thrilled.
I'm thrilled for the success of it. It's incredible.
Yeah, it really is. It's fun, too.
It's like it makes everything more fun.

Speaker 1 When there's a fun thing like that out there in the world,

Speaker 1 more of us have fun. We have more fun at the clubs.
We have more fun talking about comedy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you know, it made me really proud too to, I mean, just to walk out on stage and it's, you know, it's you and Shane and and Segura and and Tony and these are my friends you know these are my buddies this is my tribe right here and and we're doing something really special and it's a fucking hoot you know it is a fucking hoot it's a fucking hoot yeah and it's uh that club's the best place for it I had an I had a nightmare the other night oh no yeah and it was about the club oh no and

Speaker 1 that I was the headliner that night and I got down there and there were like nine 11-year-old girls, and that's all the tickets we could sell. And I was like, did you tell him I was coming?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we put it in the thing, and nobody showed up, Ron, except for these chicks. If I was your psychiatrist, I'd sit down and go, Ron, what do you think this means to you?

Speaker 1 What inside of your subconscious makes you think that only

Speaker 1 11-year-old girls would come to see you do comedies? That's because for 38 years, I've been waiting for the end.

Speaker 1 You know, and it finally happened that night in the middle of that dream. See, I knew it would happen.
I didn't think like that and it drives me crazy. I don't understand how you can think like that.

Speaker 1 I just always have because I, you know, it never works as good as it works for me. You know, I mean, it's worked okay for you, but I mean, you know, these kind of careers don't last forever

Speaker 1 unless they do. And there's not very many of them that do, you know, last fucking four decades.
It's a different world now, Ron. I think they do last now.

Speaker 1 I think the thing that was going on before was

Speaker 1 everybody thought you did comedy to get to something. You did comedy to get to the movies.
You did comedy to get to TV. And if you didn't, then you were a failure.

Speaker 1 And you thought of yourself as a failure, and other people thought of you as a failure, too. And that would diminish your confidence.
That would diminish your draw.

Speaker 1 And only a few people survived that and escaped.

Speaker 1 And a lot of great comics, like Richard Jenny, for instance, he got caught up in that and felt like he was a failure and a loser and wound up fucking killing himself.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, he was one of the greatest comics that's ever lived. Ever lived.
He just missed the boat. He missed the internet boat.
He would have been fucking. Yeah, but I missed it too.

Speaker 1 He didn't, though. But you didn't.
He didn't miss it. You didn't.
You caught us. You caught the whole wave, brother.
You came to the corner.

Speaker 1 I did catch a great wave. And it's great for all of us that we all know each other.
It's great for all of us. There's no more, you know, waves

Speaker 1 in terms of your career is going to die off.

Speaker 1 Your career is dependent entirely on your work, and your work's never been better. No, I don't think it has.
It's never been better. You're on fire right now.
You were killing it the other night.

Speaker 1 We were in the green room, and we were watching from the balcony, fucking howling. It's great.
It's great. There's no reason it shouldn't be great.
Like, you've been doing it forever.

Speaker 1 You love doing it. You're passionate about it.
You work hard. You're always writing.
Of course it's great. and it's and it's fun, you know, it's the best.

Speaker 1 I don't think there's any environment that's more conducive to getting chops. I mean, that really is a gym

Speaker 1 to me, and uh,

Speaker 1 uh, but and everybody there is just getting better, and it's that fucking stage time, there's no fucking substitute for stage time, substitute

Speaker 1 stage time and a good tribe, yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 you gotta have that because everybody's killing it. Like, when I see Hassan up there killing it, I'm like, woo, let's go.
I get excited. Everybody's killing it.
It's come a long way. A long way.

Speaker 1 And you see these guys, like Ari Maddie, these young guys coming up. You see all these people in Cam Patterson on Kill Tony Monday Night was on fire.

Speaker 1 On fire. You see the growth.
You see these guys emerging and you're like, this is incredible.

Speaker 1 We're so lucky.

Speaker 1 We have the luckiest job in the luckiest place in the world.

Speaker 1 I think so, man. And if I was a young comic now, I would go to Austin, Texas.
100%.

Speaker 1 fine because there's just all that stage time and now you don't actually automatically get to go to the mothership but that can be your goal

Speaker 1 you can get in there man you can get in there if you're good you can get in there if you're good there's a lot of guys get in there all you have to do a lot of women get in there a lot of non-binary people all you have to do is just be good yeah there's showcases all the time adam's picking people all the time people see you if you're funny your shit's on the internet it's like the path has never been clear now for a young comic i mean when i was young starting out, it's like, how do you do this?

Speaker 1 How do you get on stage? How do you get a manager? How do you get paid? How do you do? Right. You know, now it's like, it's kind of laid out.

Speaker 1 It is. And there are people also hanging around like me that have been through all this stuff before.
You know,

Speaker 1 the growth spot to know how to get better, you know, because I was like you. There was no direction.
There was nobody giving advice. There was, you know, you just looked at it and went, okay,

Speaker 1 I'll try this. Yeah, let's see.

Speaker 1 Well, you made it late in life, too. You know, that's probably why you have this thing in your head.
Because, like, when did Blue Collar was like, how old were you when that tour kicked off?

Speaker 1 45, I think. Yeah, see,

Speaker 1 that's why. That's the thing.
You know who else had that same sort of feel? Phil Hartman. Phil Hartman didn't get on Saturday Night Live.
I think he was 36. That was his first break.
36?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1 Now, did he do stand-up also, or is he a single-story? He was going to. He would do some stand-up to warm up the crowd sometimes.
Okay. And he would fuck around.
And he and I talked about it.

Speaker 1 And I said, anytime you want to do it, I go, I'll take you to the store. I go, you can get on stage.

Speaker 1 I go, you don't need a lot of time. You just like, put together five minutes.
I'll help you. I know you could do it.
And he had some really funny impressions.

Speaker 1 He had a really funny Bill Clinton impression. Right.
He was a funny fucking dude and a hard worker. You want to talk about a hard worker? That dude used to make me...

Speaker 1 Everybody felt like they weren't a professional when they were on that guy. Because he'd have like tabs and shit, a notebook where all his scenes were.
Everything was organized.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I already feel unprofessional. While he was doing that, he was also trying to take his pilot's license.
In between scenes, he'd be reading airplane books. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 What a fucking tragedy, man. What a fucking tragedy.
Oh, bro. You don't know the half of it.
I tried to get him to divorce her a long time ago.

Speaker 1 I told him, like, right when he was struggling, I said, man, just give her half. Just get out.
You'll make more money. And he was like, well, it's not half.
It's a scam. The lawyers get a third.

Speaker 1 It's a third. You get a third of your fucking money.

Speaker 1 Okay, okay, okay. Just give her the money.
Just give her the money. Money is fun coupons.
Right. If you're having money and you're not having fun, then what are you? You gotta cut something off.

Speaker 1 You know, you gotta figure out what, where's the cancer?

Speaker 1 Hack it it off, hack off that melanoma, and let's get this party rolling. Like, you shouldn't be involved with someone that you hate.
That's crazy. You come home to someone who hates you.

Speaker 1 That's crazy. That is insane.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 You know, and I've been in bad relationships before that I cut off. Of course.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden you can breathe again.

Speaker 1 You're a different person when you're in a bad relationship. Like, you're bad too.
Like, you're not your best. Just like a bad friendship.

Speaker 1 Like, you're not the best friend if your friend is a cocksucker You know you're you're good friends with good friends like we all inspire each other and if you got a one-way street or if you are one of those unfortunate people that hooked up with a hot lunatic because that's the problem you got a hot lunatic right and they're sexy and they're fun for short bursts or a few hours at a time and then you're like oh my god this person is in my life and if you move in with them oh christ i know and then if you have kids with them oh crap And if you're married to them, oh Christ, you married a hot lunatic.

Speaker 1 The hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

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You know, you're Johnny Depp and you're on TV. Yeah.
And you're in the court. With the whole thing falling to fucking pieces.

Speaker 1 The whole thing falling to pieces in front of the whole world because you married a hot lunatic. And that's the thing about symmetry and beauty and women who are sexy.
They just can trick you.

Speaker 1 And men are so easily tricked or so vulnerable. Oh, I'm the worst.

Speaker 1 It's so easy to lead me down a road. I'll just sniff my way.
Oh, this is bliss. I'm in love.

Speaker 1 We're going to elope. Fuck it.
I don't care about my money.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she used to like insult him at parties and shit, Phil Hartman's wife.

Speaker 1 It was really rough. I remember we took him.

Speaker 1 We all went to this party once, like some industry-type party, and she was insulting him, and I was like, oh, I just, I had to bite my tongue, which I'm not very good at, you know. No.

Speaker 1 And I was like, and then, you know, he and I were in his green, his little dressing room. And I was telling him, man, like, there's another way.
You know, you're a great guy. Like, you're a great guy.

Speaker 1 You're a lot of fun. You'd be a better person if you were with someone better.
Like, you'd feel better about yourself. Like, you can't be feeling good about yourself.
Fuck no. Fuck no.

Speaker 1 You gotta, you know, but he had kids too, which complicates the fuck out of everything. He had kids with her? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Oh, fuck.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What a horrible fucking story. Did I ever tell you the story about like the worst I ever bombed on stage right after that? Like easily the worst I've ever bombed on stage.

Speaker 1 Did I ever tell you the story? I've never seen you bomb on stage. I was at the gas station and I was getting gas.

Speaker 1 It was two weeks after he was murdered and it was the first time I was going to go on stage again because I was everyone was wrecked.

Speaker 1 I didn't even know how long it would take before I felt like I could do comedy again.

Speaker 1 So I'm at the gas station getting gas.

Speaker 1 And just randomly run into a buddy of mine who's a cop.

Speaker 1 And I go, hey, what's up? What's going on, man? He's like, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 You doing okay? I'm like, man, we're all fucked up.

Speaker 1 And he goes, Did I tell you that I was there? I go, no. You were there? He goes, dude.
What? He goes,

Speaker 1 I was there

Speaker 1 when the kids ran from the mom. I go, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 He's like, after she killed herself, she barricaded herself in the after, excuse me, after she killed Phil Hartman, she barricaded herself in the bathroom, and she had the kids in there with her with a gun.

Speaker 1 And a lot of times when moms kill themselves, they'll kill their kids too.

Speaker 1 And the cops saw that, and so they kicked open the door. And when they kicked open the door, the kids ran from the mom.
The kids ran out of the bathroom. And then the mom blew her brains out.

Speaker 1 Fuck, I forgot about

Speaker 1 that part of it. I mean, I forgot that she killed herself.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing my friend at the gas station right before I go on stage. I'm going on stage in about 45 minutes.
Jesus. Yeah.
Half hour drive to the comedy store.

Speaker 1 15 minutes before I'm going to go on stage.

Speaker 1 And this is my face. I'm just like, there's nothing funny in the world.

Speaker 1 There's nothing funny in the world.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 after I recovered, you know, I took like another week off. And then I came back.
And I was like, he would just,

Speaker 1 he just wanted me to keep going. I had a dream about him once.
I was like, the most realistic dream I've ever had about anybody in my life. Ever in my life.
He was sitting in a lawn chair.

Speaker 1 And I ran into him. And I was like,

Speaker 1 how are you doing? What are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm fine. he goes uh

Speaker 1 we made up he goes it was a lot he goes uh obviously we had a lot to work out and he laughed about it and uh

Speaker 1 I said well that's great man and then

Speaker 1 he pushed the chair back and he was gone and then I woke up like he was gone it was the

Speaker 1 one of the most I've had two very realistic dreams in my life that seemed so realistic they didn't even make sense that was one of them where it was like

Speaker 1 i felt like he was there i didn't i didn't feel i feel like he wanted me to let it go was it was so weird i felt like you know

Speaker 1 he wanted

Speaker 1 it's like that's how he was whenever they would fight because like

Speaker 1 i'm not

Speaker 1 i don't like

Speaker 1 fights in real which sounds crazy because I commentate on fights, but I don't like, I don't like conflict i wish it didn't exist the reason why i got good at fighting like martial arts is because i was scared of conflict i don't like it i i understand it but i don't think it's necessary and i don't think fighting in a relationship i think that's the worst and the people that get in these relationships where they scream and yell at each other and call each other horrible names and

Speaker 1 But with a lot of people, it becomes this cycle of getting mad at each other and then making up. And then the making up sex is like very addictive to a lot of people.

Speaker 1 It's like it's a different kind of thing. And you get on this weird roller coaster ride of, I hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you.

Speaker 1 And he was, he was on that roller coaster ride. And he was letting me know.
Like, it just went too far. It went crazy.
Well, you know, I lived in Mexico for a while with

Speaker 1 a woman who eventually took her own life.

Speaker 1 And, I mean, I was already out of the picture for a couple of years

Speaker 1 when that happened. But when I was in Mexico with her, I knew

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 I was trapped. Number one,

Speaker 1 I moved down there to start a fucking pottery company because I was frustrated with stand-up comedy. They had just cut my Funny Bone chain, had just cut my pay by a third

Speaker 1 because they realized that I just worked for them.

Speaker 1 And I couldn't patch this schedule together without them. Oh, what a bunch of assets.

Speaker 1 And I told the guy that ran the Funny Bone, Gerald Kubach,

Speaker 1 to go eat a steaming bowl of fuck.

Speaker 1 I don't even know what that would look like.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 It cost me a lot of work to say it, but it was still fun to say.

Speaker 1 Wow. But I moved with her down to Mexico, and

Speaker 1 I knew that she was crazy. And

Speaker 1 the way it came up was she had called a... a friend of mine and told her that sometimes she stands over my bed with a knife and just stares at me.
And my son was there also part of the time.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, well, that's over. I got to get out of this.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the big thing was I was depressed because of my situation because I didn't see a way out of it.

Speaker 1 You know, I didn't see a way out. I just couldn't see.
I just couldn't see a path. And it got to where when I was around people, I couldn't talk.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I had no tribe,

Speaker 1 at all. I was cut off from all my friends.
And it's just something I did to myself with that move down to Mexico, which I was there for three years. Wow.
And it was just the worst time of my life.

Speaker 1 And I really didn't think I'd ever come out of it. I mean, I never thought I could even get back to a place where I could sit down and have a conversation with somebody.
That's how depressed I was.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 And when I, it was funny because I moved into Mexico.

Speaker 1 I had the biggest truck that Ryder makes, pulling the biggest trailer they make, my van pulling the biggest trailer they make, all headed down south

Speaker 1 to everything, moved to Mexico. Why Mexico?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 my girlfriend at the time did this mosaic tile application to existing pottery, and she would sell it at art shows or craft shows, you know, whatever.

Speaker 1 And it would sell really fast, but it took her six months to make any of it. So I thought, why wouldn't you just go down to Mexico and train a bunch of women how to make it and let her orchestrate it?

Speaker 1 And I fucking did it.

Speaker 1 I was part of that sucking sound that Ross Perot was talking about going to Mexico.

Speaker 1 Three years later, I had the exact same equipment headed

Speaker 1 north out of Mexico with the same exact truck, trailer, everything. That was a bad idea.
Three years.

Speaker 1 Wow. But

Speaker 1 once I see, oh, she was so hot. Oh, she was so hot.
And I'd never been with a hot woman before. I'd never been with, I mean, that was my girl, you know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And she was just so, she was so beautiful. I'm like, I'm going to, I'll be with her even though I hate her just so I can look at her.
You know, I'll just stare at her and that'll be enough.

Speaker 1 That's all I'll need.

Speaker 1 Turns out I needed a little more than that. So, but

Speaker 1 you can only tolerate so much. And then

Speaker 1 I ended up marrying this other girl that was horrible i mean i mean i i know she's probably listening to this right now so i don't mean horrible but horrible and uh but she always searched the internet for things about me so she could say

Speaker 1 hey this person said thanks for signing my girlfriend's tickets what are you out there signing girlfriend's tickets

Speaker 1 yeah i'll sign anybody's ticket you know just always looking every time she'd turn on her computer it'd make me sick to my stomach because i didn't know what she was going to come up with you know i'm no angel anyway.

Speaker 1 And, but so that girl's sister, when she killed herself, sent me

Speaker 1 a post that my ex-wife found. She printed it saying that she had killed herself.

Speaker 1 She brought it in and handed it to me. And all I did was sit down on the couch and she goes, oh, now you loved her.

Speaker 1 I'm like, just give me a minute, okay? Just give me a minute. This is her sister doing this? No, this is my wife.
Oh, she got the note from her.

Speaker 1 She got the letter from her sister and handed it to me, and she saw it affected me. And she's like, Oh, now you loved her.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 What are you supposed to do? Yeah.

Speaker 1 A lady that you used to live with killed herself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What the fuck? Yeah, just give me a minute. Give me a minute.
Yeah, give me a minute. Jesus, it's a human being that you know that killed themselves.

Speaker 1 How many people do you think you know that have killed themselves?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 man. let's see not very many

Speaker 1 that I really knew

Speaker 1 my best friend one of my best friends from childhood killed himself and but we thought he died at the massacre in Waco because that's he was a big Quoresh guy oh boy you missed the massacre yeah he missed the massacre but we thought he would we thought maybe he's there when it was all going up going down but he wasn't and uh and eventually it was an odd thing anyway.

Speaker 1 He was a dear friend from childhood. His dad was the music director at my church, and he and I used to buff the floors of the church with those big bluffs.
That was our

Speaker 1 job on one day a week that we'd go down there.

Speaker 1 And we'd actually sing Neil Young songs to the top of our lungs because we would.

Speaker 1 Well, I dream that all the nights, you know,

Speaker 1 we'd just sing the fuck out of Neil Young's songs. That's the only tape I had.

Speaker 1 I know you and him had a little problem, but I don't have no problem with that. I know.
You were so sweet about that. I love that guy.
I love his music.

Speaker 1 He just didn't get it. No, he didn't.
That's all I was saying.

Speaker 1 That was a dumb thing. Well, he just missed.
He didn't understand what was happening. And nobody did.
I don't blame him. Nobody did.
I'd talk to him in a heartbeat.

Speaker 1 Even though he pulled his music and tried to get me removed from Spotify. Right.

Speaker 1 I still don't care. I love love that guy.
And I loved his music. Even after he did it, I still listened to his music.

Speaker 1 He just got, he missed, he didn't know what was happening. He got tricked.

Speaker 1 A lot of people got tricked. You know, a lot of people thought that this was the only way out.
We had to listen to these evil lying fucks that were telling us that everybody had to take this vaccine.

Speaker 1 There was no other medicine available. And if you didn't, everybody was going to die.
And, you know,

Speaker 1 he got caught up in it they got us all though they got the whole country you can't be mad at the whole country right that's crazy right

Speaker 1 i don't want to be mad at anybody anymore runway i don't either as i get older i'm less and less inclined there's people i don't wish to talk to right like i don't need that in my life i don't need whatever you bring in my life but i don't wish you bad

Speaker 1 yeah i have really really healthy boundaries when it comes to people that don't make me feel good you know i just don't i just won't hang hang around them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't want to be around them and confront them. Like, who cares? Yeah, no.
Good luck to you. I'll give you a hug.
I got some other shit going on. Yeah, I have friends.
But you know what?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you what makes you a good friend.

Speaker 1 When you get successful, and I'll just talk about successful like I am.

Speaker 1 It's hard to find anybody that'll disagree with you. You know, that because there's something to gain,

Speaker 1 and that's true with you, too. I mean, that, you know, you, you hold a lot of power

Speaker 1 and you have something a lot of people fucking want. And I know that because

Speaker 1 I have a box of, and I should have brought them and given them to you anyway. And I'll bring them to the club tonight.
But it's just a guy I met that owns a sunglass company.

Speaker 1 And he makes sunglasses for hunting.

Speaker 1 And so he said. Wait a minute.
Who wears sunglasses when they hunt?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Nobody?

Speaker 1 You can't wear them when you. Well, I guess maybe some people probably do.
I bet rifle hunters do. Yeah,

Speaker 1 he said that one of them was specifically for bow hunting. It makes you see the target better or something.
Oh, interesting. Okay.
So he's got an invention.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't know. I don't hunt, so I don't really know anything about hunting in glasses.
He just said he was going to send a box. Would you give them to Joe?

Speaker 1 And I said, yeah, I'll give them to him. And I didn't.

Speaker 1 I would think that glasses would get in the way because you know when you shoot with a bow there's a thing called a peep sight so you have your string and in your string is uh what one of the things that's sewn into your string is this little plastic circle sure do you know what it is yeah okay so you know it lines up with the scope the housing of the bow

Speaker 1 I don't know that so with a peep sight is when you draw back and you you don't look through the string you look through the circle that's on the string it's sewed into the string and that circle you line it up exactly with your sight housing And so where your pin is, it's all about like staying calm and keeping that pin there.

Speaker 1 And you want to keep it all like connected together. So my eye is like right there, like right next to

Speaker 1 this peep site. If I had glasses, it might get in the way.
You know what I mean? Like, because the string is touching my nose, and the thing is right there.

Speaker 1 And I'm just drawing back and I'm looking at it like that, right through it.

Speaker 1 I'll give them to you. See what you think.
I don't know anybody who shoots. But I know some hunters that have glasses, so there must be a way to adjust.
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 That's what he told me, though. Okay.
I'll try it out. All right.
I'm open to anything. You never know.
And anything that makes you good at that,

Speaker 1 that's a fucking difficult thing to do. You know? Like, if I meet a guy and he's like, I'm a bow hunter.
I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, anyway, what I'm saying is this.

Speaker 1 Go ahead. What I'm saying is this.

Speaker 1 That

Speaker 1 you're one of the only friends that I have that'll say,

Speaker 1 no, that's fucked up, Ron.

Speaker 1 You don't agree with me to make me feel better because you have something, I have something you need. Right.
You know, you'll go ahead and go,

Speaker 1 nah.

Speaker 1 Every now and then.

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.

Speaker 1 It's the end of tax season, and I know by now you all are probably sick of numbers, but there's one more expense we need to talk about, and that's how much you're investing in your well-being.

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That's betterhelp H-E-L-P dot com slash J-R-E. Well, that green room's great for that.

Speaker 1 A lot of this because everybody knows that everybody loves everybody, so everybody can just talk openly about anything, you know?

Speaker 1 Like, and if you have like some dumb argument with someone, someone will come in and go, yeah,

Speaker 1 I think he's right. Yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah, and you've got to go, oh,

Speaker 1 really? Well,

Speaker 1 okay, let me think about it.

Speaker 1 You need that in your life. You don't want to be a tyrant.
No.

Speaker 1 You know, and that's what happens to a lot of successful people: they get real insecure, and so they become kind of a tyrant, and they don't want to listen to anybody else.

Speaker 1 You know, you see that with people that are like on shows, and they run the show. The show is all about them.
You know, they're the show. And

Speaker 1 they're the producer and executive producer. And the cast all kisses their ass, and they're at the top of the fucking casting call or whatever it is.
The call sheet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a bad place to be. You don't want to be there.

Speaker 1 Don't do it. Don't do it.

Speaker 1 You just, you got to resist the urge.

Speaker 1 So I went back to

Speaker 1 my ayahuasca place

Speaker 1 down in Costa Rica.

Speaker 1 So I went four years ago, right?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that's when I quit drinking. Right.
Which you know I did, right? You know I quit drinking. I quit too.

Speaker 1 When? A month ago. I knew that you weren't drinking.
Yeah, but I didn't know. You didn't stop drinking.
I didn't know that it was a.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think I'm done. Yeah.

Speaker 1 For no reason, other than it's not good for you. Yeah.
No, I didn't have to. I enjoyed it.
Right. No, you were having a good time.
I was watching. But the days after drinking were just too rough.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, what kind of a moron who takes so good care of his body has poisoned himself a couple of days a week for fun?

Speaker 1 You know, why am I doing that? And then I'm like, well, will I have the same amount of fun if I don't poison myself? Turns out, yes. Exactly.
Right.

Speaker 1 Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I mean, you haven't quit everything, right?

Speaker 1 Exactly. Yeah, and I'm just skinning the cat a different way.
Tell me about your cat. Well, I'm going to play some Icaros.
Did they play those while you went through the...

Speaker 1 There we go. Jamie's got them already.

Speaker 1 So what's that? This is the songs that a lot of the shaman like to play while you're tripping balls. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 And if they play this song while you're under the influence, the hallucination will dance to the songs. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 There's certain songs you're like, I don't get it. Like The Grateful Dead.
I've never been on Acid at a Dead concert. But they say...
If you are, you get it.

Speaker 1 So, like, I'm missing that part. Right.
You know? So, to me, it's like it's just this jam music, which is fine, but I'd rather listen to Skinnerd. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I saw Skinnerd Monday, or Sunday night.

Speaker 1 The original Skinner, the real Skynyrd, before the plane crashed. No, I'm just saying.
These guys are putting the show together. I'm sure.
Ricky Medlock is playing Alan Collins'

Speaker 1 play. They have two other guitar players, but it is a band.
I mean, they are nailing this shit. I had tears coming out of my eyes during fucking Freebird for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 Number one, I saw him in 73.

Speaker 1 Me and Steve Cook, who was my best friend until the day he died.

Speaker 1 And Ronnie Van Zandt was lighting joints, and he was handing them out into the crowd. Well, me and Steve had worked our way up to the front.

Speaker 1 He handed one of them to me, and everybody else was taking a hit. I just stuck it in my pocket and

Speaker 1 went in the bathroom and smoked it because

Speaker 1 it was illegal then. And I was listening to Skinner.
Well, Sunday night, I'm at the Skinner show.

Speaker 1 There's cops where I was and there were some outhouses right next to it where you go through this fence. And I told my girlfriend, I'll be right back.
And I was over there.

Speaker 1 I was in the outhouse smoking a joint, listening to Skinner. And I'm like, well, I haven't changed much in 50 fucking years.
You know, the exact same thing.

Speaker 1 Some songs, people just nail it. And it stays great forever.
You never get tired of Free Bird. But there's a guitar solo.
Yeah. And they just fucking hammered it home.
I mean, it was so good.

Speaker 1 Oh, nice. That it was just, I couldn't believe it.
You know,

Speaker 1 I brought him on stage at the Greek one time,

Speaker 1 maybe 20 years ago or 15 years ago. I don't know.
And it was fun because

Speaker 1 I got to say that, you know, when I was 16 years old, we were at the skinner show and we had taken enough mushrooms to kill an average teenager, but we weren't average teenagers.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, let her scattered. It was great fun.
That's cool.

Speaker 1 And so it kind of brought back all those memories, you know, and then watched him play it again.

Speaker 1 It was kind of, it's weird because especially when I come back from arrhythmia, which is my plays out there, that I always come back emotional

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 kind of full of love and forgiveness and those kinds of things. That's what I learned from those hallucinogens.

Speaker 1 Isn't it crazy that that's illegal?

Speaker 1 yeah to to to feel good you got to go to another country to be a better person

Speaker 1 you got to go to another country you got to leave the land of the free right leave the land of freedom to go to another country that's much more lawless and and take in the divine and come back a better person it's and it's crazy and and i always say and i don't think it's for everybody you know i i'm not somebody out there just going yeah you got gotta you gotta do this because I think you have to be open to some things.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, you have to be open to, hey, maybe I'm wrong about everything.

Speaker 1 You know, maybe there is.

Speaker 1 If you're not open to it, you'll get hit hard.

Speaker 1 Well, and that's why it's not for everybody. Because I've, you know, I've seen people wig down there and

Speaker 1 which is why

Speaker 1 I you know, I know you can get ayahuasca locally and have they have, you know, people that are I don't know where they got their shaman title from, but you can do it

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 but I know that there you know it's a licensed medical facility with doctors it's the only one in the world that's a licensed medical facility and it's

Speaker 1 and they're prepared when people wig you know they know what to do they know to hold you down yeah and they do too they'll fucking bind you up and wait till it to clear because they know that you're at a point in this that you're going through some heavy shit one one of them was an nfl player last time i was there and this guy was fucking huge plays for buffalo

Speaker 1 and uh and he just and i was like god if if you had to pick somebody to wig you would say please don't let it be that fucking dude did he wig he wigged oh no he wigged big time oh no and and started just screaming get the fuck away from me oh no which will you know that kind of you know you got 70 people in this room room that are tripping.

Speaker 1 Oh, no,

Speaker 1 what a bummer. And it was.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 they've got big guys, too. Oh,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 so they just got him out of the room, got him calmed down. And he didn't leave.
You know, he just, he was going through some shit.

Speaker 1 The first time I went there, this girl from Japan.

Speaker 1 started kicking and screaming and they took her outside and they had to fucking subdue her. But at the end of the day, the person with the biggest smile on their face was her

Speaker 1 because she worked through some shit that I can't even talk about that I happen to know what it was, but it ain't worth knowing. And

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 she found pure fucking joy and peace in her life and you could see it in her face, you know.

Speaker 1 And I was wondering why when she was wigging out, why is nobody flipping out but me? Because the people that worked there weren't flipping out at all because they've seen it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And there's nothing they haven't seen. There's been 18,000 people through that facility, and so they've seen it all.
Right. And,

Speaker 1 but they just know how to, they know how to handle it. Well, I wonder if you're just in some mansion in Beverly Hills or whatever,

Speaker 1 if there's somebody there that knows how to handle it. Probably not.

Speaker 1 Probably not. Probably not.
Especially if you don't know what you're going to get hit with. Yeah.
And you need to be in a really safe place where people know how to guide you through it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, you don't, it's not something I think you want to grab a handful of and go sit in a fucking closet, you know, and try to figure it out for yourself.

Speaker 1 So that's the real weirdness of any kind of a psychedelic journey is that you're probably going to be going through some shit, and someone could either manipulate you during that time or help you during that time.

Speaker 1 Right. And there are people that will manipulate you.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 And that's why,

Speaker 1 you know, that's why I go to this place place that's not that easy to go to, just because it's so safe.

Speaker 1 You know, it's just, it's set up perfectly for what they're trying to do. And

Speaker 1 it was this guy's dream to do that, to make it accessible to regular people. So back then, when he opened up, you had to go to a corrugated tin shack in Peru or wherever to get this stuff.

Speaker 1 And he said, I want to make a place that's safe to go and people feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 And, you know, so isn't it it kind of crazy that that's illegal i mean it's kind of the weirdest thing of all time that we haven't just as a society went okay why are all these people going to these places okay when they come back do they have positive experiences does it help them yeah a lot of them okay why don't we do that here it should be that simple should be that simple it should be so simple yeah there was a guy there that was on a scholarship they had for

Speaker 1 basically wounded warriors that are going through heavy ptsd there's an organization that that's sending guys to Rhythmia. And

Speaker 1 so I got to talk to him a lot while he was there, and he was a psychologist.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he was fucked up.

Speaker 1 But I kind of got to watch his transformation a little bit, watch this guy coming around. And I'd seen that, and I'd seen the transformation in myself.
where I could just not be so angry and

Speaker 1 not hold all this hate, you know, that

Speaker 1 that takes so much energy to fucking control and to have them really show me a way to let all that stuff go you know to

Speaker 1 and to be a happier person

Speaker 1 you know that

Speaker 1 it and it's hard to

Speaker 1 I really don't understand ayahuasca so it's really hard to explain it to somebody else you know but

Speaker 1 but I don't think anybody really understands it yeah right and I know there's some stuff that's stronger than that but I don't know what's crazy that I don't know what it's called. Ibogaine, you mean?

Speaker 1 Is that what it is? Ibogaine is the one that people use for addiction.

Speaker 1 There's a place called Beyond that's in Mexico that does that.

Speaker 1 Rick Perry was telling us about that. A lot of the former governor Rick Perry is a part of that.
He really wants to bring Ibogaine to Texas and have treatment. We can't be gambling here.

Speaker 1 I think they can get Ibogaine. I think especially with a Republican like Rick Perry, who's really concerned about the mental health of veterans, because I think that's where it really shines.

Speaker 1 Ibogaine in particular helps a lot of people.

Speaker 1 It gives you like a review of your life, apparently. I've never experienced it.

Speaker 1 But the people that have, have very positive things to say about it, and it's incredibly good at helping people get over addictions.

Speaker 1 It has a very high success rate. For one treatment, I think it's in the 80%.

Speaker 1 And then if you do two treatments, it's in the mid-90s. That's fucking amazing.
Yeah, people that never go back to the drugs. Never.

Speaker 1 Never go back to whatever it is, gambling, whatever you have, whatever's wrong with you.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is figure out what's wrong with you. Yeah, you got to figure out why you're doing that.
Like, what is this pathway that I keep going down that's sabotaging my whole life?

Speaker 1 And why can I not resist it? Why do I keep reaching for the bottle? What is it? Why do I keep snorting Coke? What is it? What is it? Well, that was the question I had with myself,

Speaker 1 because I drank like a fool for years.

Speaker 1 They don't say.

Speaker 1 It was funny because

Speaker 1 whenever I was single again, and I was in the green room, and I said, Maybe I'll start drinking again. And everybody at one time went, No.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. No, that's not.

Speaker 1 I was just kidding. I was just kidding.
Well, you quit like that, though. You did, like, you were gone.
I did.

Speaker 1 But I went to

Speaker 1 Rhythmia with with intention.

Speaker 1 I wanted to know why I was doing this to myself and why I could not see a way to quit. And it was so tied up in my persona, my stage presence, who I really was

Speaker 1 at the time. And I'm like, why is this all tied to me? And why can't I shake it? And so

Speaker 1 with that,

Speaker 1 I also went through hypnosis because I had to get sober before I went to,

Speaker 1 because that's not what their deal is. They're not a treatment facility.
It could be a byproduct of it, but they're like, yeah, we're not going to, we don't have detox here.

Speaker 1 So you have to quit some other way. And

Speaker 1 once you've been sober for a month, you can come down here, which is exactly what I did. I came up with a way to do that through

Speaker 1 hypnosis, which I thought was pretty effective.

Speaker 1 I got sober once before in one of those rehabs in Malibu for 90 grand,

Speaker 1 which was at the time I was spiraling you know I was I was living in a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills I was doing a bunch of blow I was screwing expensive hookers which was exactly my life plan you know there I was I'm like okay here it is

Speaker 1 and it ended up feeling pretty hollow you know and I ended up going there and

Speaker 1 And I stayed sober for about

Speaker 1 maybe six months or something like that, but it was white knuckle the whole fucking time

Speaker 1 of, you know, no fun. But when I, when I did it, the way I did it,

Speaker 1 when I checked into that facility, I got the sweat, night sweat so bad when I quit that I would, they had two beds in the new people's things, and I would soak the sheets in one of them and move to the other bed and soak the sheets in that one.

Speaker 1 I was detoxing big time. Never happened this time.

Speaker 1 I never had a night sweat, never regretted it, never thought about it again, never tempted to drink again. And, you know, and I

Speaker 1 own number one at Tequila still, and it's there at the green room every night. And I'm not even, it doesn't even bother me a bit.
That's interesting.

Speaker 1 So that's what the big fear a lot of people have is how will I still be around bars? Right.

Speaker 1 And, you know,

Speaker 1 and yeah, is it a little awkward at first?

Speaker 1 Yes. And do I hang out in bars all the time other than our club?

Speaker 1 No, I don't. I mean, I'll go listen to music if there's something, but just to go to a bar and hang out, I just don't do it.
Right. And

Speaker 1 for whatever reason. Well, it's not that much fun being around drunks when you're sober.
No, it's really not.

Speaker 1 You got to be in the vibe of the drunks to appreciate drunk talk. Yeah.
When you're sober and someone's drunk and they're telling you some fucking story about their boss being a douchebag, it's like,

Speaker 1 whoa.

Speaker 1 Right. So, and and I also have a tendency, a natural tendency, to just kind of isolate anyway, you know.
And so, I really

Speaker 1 that's one of the things I love about the club: it gets me out of the house, it gets me to go down there where my friends are and do what I do for a living, and what I do for a living, and what I do for fun.

Speaker 1 Both, I think a lot of people have that problem, that isolation problem, you know, yeah, yeah, because I think that

Speaker 1 people like you and i i think

Speaker 1 a lot is a lot gets dumped on us you know uh because i'm the of all the friends that i know that i've known for a long while i'm the only one that has that's been very successful

Speaker 1 not out of my comic friends but out of my regular friends and and uh and it seems like i get

Speaker 1 Just I have to take in a lot of stuff and I never knew how to get rid of it. So I would just get to the point where I was full and I couldn't take anymore and that's when I would isolate myself.

Speaker 1 Right. Too many people want something for me.
Too many people want something. That's why I

Speaker 1 gravitate towards you is because I know you don't want jack shit from me except for me to be your buddy and let us be brothers in comedy and whatever. So

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Speaker 1 And so, you know, so that's really good for me. Even today, you know, that's what gets me out of the house sometimes.
You know, oh, me too. And I mean, I love being home.

Speaker 1 I love being home with my family, hanging out. But

Speaker 1 my comedy family, I love being around too. And that's what I feel like.
I feel like when, especially when comics are in town that I don't get to see that often. Oh, it's cool as shit.

Speaker 1 Oh, we all hang out together. It's beautiful.
Who are those two actors that were at the club the other day? It was so much fun to have them in there.

Speaker 1 It was. Which night? Fuck, I don't know.

Speaker 1 We get a lot of visitors.

Speaker 1 When Woody was there?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Which night? Will Arnott and Brad Cooper were there? Yeah, Brad Cooper.

Speaker 1 Well, it was fun to have him in the green room because, you know,

Speaker 1 we're all around each other all the time. So it's fun to have new people in there with stories we've never heard.

Speaker 1 I wasn't there for that one. Yeah, it was cool as shit, you know, just to have them hanging out, you know, good guys.

Speaker 1 Woody was there. You weren't here when Woody was there? No.
Oh, my my God. He was so much fun.
He's so fun. Did he do your show? No, yeah, he did my show.
But then that was nights before that.

Speaker 1 And he just wanted to come to the club. He's been to the club a couple of times now.
Harrelson? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he's just been hanging out.
Fuck, I always wanted to meet that guy. Oh, he's so nice.
We just all hung out in the green room, and he was just like one of the boys.

Speaker 1 It was so easy. How fucking cool is that? So cool.

Speaker 1 He's so easy to talk to.

Speaker 1 And talks to everybody the same way. He's so easy.
He's just a genuine dude. He don't even have a phone.
You can't even get a hold of him. Really? Yeah, he don't have a phone.

Speaker 1 Doesn't do email. Fuck you.
Oh, shit. He's like, he's got an assistant that handles everything.
Yeah, which is probably a freeing thing.

Speaker 1 Just stop. Just stop.

Speaker 1 Leave me alone. Right.
You know? Well, I don't answer emails anyway.

Speaker 1 But it's also like, let me know what I actually, let me think about what I think about things instead of being inundated by all these other people's thoughts constantly all day long, which is valuable.

Speaker 1 It's good to get other people's perspectives on things. I think it enriches you, but at a certain point in time, become captive to it.

Speaker 1 And I think there's just too many people that are captive to other people's thoughts.

Speaker 1 I think so, too. That's why I'm so closed-minded.

Speaker 1 And I really am. I'm truly closed-minded.
And I think you're open-minded.

Speaker 1 I try to be.

Speaker 1 And I struggle with that because just letting people pour information into my head, you know,

Speaker 1 I just tend to avoid it. I am engaged, you know, in that I do follow things closely and not the stock market, but everything else.
But, you know, that's been a little bruiser.

Speaker 1 I don't follow the stock market right now. It's so baffling.
It's so crazy. Like, what is going on? Like, the whole world is mad at us.
Trump's playing golf.

Speaker 1 And in between swings, he's on the phone with presidents of countries. We're going to need more money.
Yeah. That's what somebody told me the other day.

Speaker 1 Is he playing checkers? Is he playing chess? He's playing golf. He's playing golf.
Like, what does that mean? Everybody wants to think there's some grand plan to it.

Speaker 1 Well, they think the grand plan is, look,

Speaker 1 you know, we remember back when

Speaker 1 the, was it the 92 elections when Ross Perot was in?

Speaker 1 So when Ross Perot laid out what happened. Do you remember during that debate?

Speaker 1 Where Ross Perot laid out what happened with the tariffs so that, like, they, when we try to sell stuff over there, we get a high tariff?

Speaker 1 It's like a 35% tariff, but they don't get tariffs when it comes over here. It's not the same.

Speaker 1 It's not like, you know, you guys, there's a tax on everybody if you want to sell your goods to encourage people to buy American products. If you want to sell your products in America, we get a tax.

Speaker 1 That tax goes to the fucking grid or whatever the hell they're fixing with it. Right.

Speaker 1 Ross Perot was laying it out, like, this is how all the jobs went to Mexico. Because Because have you ever seen that, Jamie?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 See if you can find it. It's a great speech because Ross Pro.
He talked about the giant sucking sound. Yes.

Speaker 1 You actually mentioned that earlier in the podcast. That's what I was talking about.
Yes, that's it. That's funny.
Did you just see that recently or something? No, I just remember it. Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 The giant sucking. He would have been a great president.
But you voted for him.

Speaker 1 He had big ears. You know, he didn't come across.
He was also an independent. He was an independent.
And nobody was voting for independent.

Speaker 1 By the way, they changed the whole way debates work after this because it used to be if you got 5% of the vote in the primary that you could be a part of the presidential debates.

Speaker 1 And that's not the case anymore. Or it was 5% in a poll.
I forget what the number was that you had to reach, but it wasn't a high threshold. And then you could be a part of the debate.

Speaker 1 And they changed the shit out of that after this because Ross Perot tanked it. They thought H.W.
was going to go for a second term. Right.

Speaker 1 And meanwhile, Ross Perot fucked it up because a lot of people that would have voted for Bush voted for Ross.

Speaker 1 Ross and the people that were already going to vote for Clinton voted for Clinton and Clinton won. But play this channel.

Speaker 2 You can move your factory south the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire a young 25, let's assume you've been in business for a long time, you've got a material workforce.

Speaker 2 Pay a dollar an hour for your labor,

Speaker 2 have no health care, that's the most expensive single element, making a car, have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement,

Speaker 2 and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a jounce-sucking sound going on.

Speaker 1 There it is, right there.

Speaker 2 If the people send me to Washington, the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street.

Speaker 2 One last point here.

Speaker 2 I've decided I was dumb and didn't understand it, so I called a who's who of the folks who've been around it.

Speaker 2 And I said, why won't everybody go south? They say, we'll be disruptive.

Speaker 1 And I said, for how long?

Speaker 2 I finally got them up for 12 to 15 years. And I said, well, how does it stop being disruptive?

Speaker 2 And that is when their jobs come up from $1 an hour to $6 $6 an hour and ours go down to $6 an hour, then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 What a fucking smart man. He was right.
And that's exactly what happened. American manufacturing collapsed.
Yeah. And they did it all for money.
And they did it all because they were greedy.

Speaker 1 They were already rich. Right.
And if we could have just gotten those motherfuckers to Myahuasca.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ, they'd have smoothed the fuck out, man. They would have said, oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, let's be nice. Let's make America great again.

Speaker 1 I i don't understand the trade war with with canada because have you ever met a canadian that had 35 in his pocket no they're all broke they have twenty two dollars that's it and they'll buy you a beer you know i love broke i've always yeah they're broke they don't have any money up there how come they don't have any money because

Speaker 1 because it's socialism you know they just they i think it's a great place don't you love canada i love it well they have socialized medicine but it's not it's a capitalist society it is but socialized medicine.

Speaker 1 It's expensive.

Speaker 1 What percentage did Canadians pay in taxes? So I don't know. Let's find that out.

Speaker 1 What's the Canadian tax rate? I know it's higher than Americans.

Speaker 1 I know mine's a bitch. And when you go over there, you have to pay taxes, too.
Like, if you do a gig. Yeah, you have to pay taxes.
Yeah, you pay Canadian taxes on your bank.

Speaker 1 And you get paid in Canadian dollars.

Speaker 1 I'm not going up there much for shows. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, you know.

Speaker 1 So here it is.

Speaker 1 Canada's top federal income tax rate is 33%,

Speaker 1 while the U.S. is 37%.

Speaker 1 Right. However, when combining federal, provincial, state taxes, Canadians often face higher marginal rates across various income levels.
That's interesting, that theirs is only 33%, ours is 37.

Speaker 1 I thought ours was lower than theirs. I thought ours was 40%.

Speaker 1 Well, it is when you get to a certain tax bracket, correct? Isn't it?

Speaker 1 Ours changes when you get higher, right? Yeah, it does. 33%

Speaker 1 on the portion over $246,000.

Speaker 1 What's ours in terms of the highest tax bracket? What's the highest U.S. tax? Is it 37? That's what it is?

Speaker 1 What's really crazy to me is when people say the rich should pay more taxes. Okay,

Speaker 1 fine.

Speaker 1 But where do you think that's going? Where's that going?

Speaker 1 Where is the money going? Is the money going to the federal government? Do you think they're good at it? Do you think they're good at managing your money?

Speaker 1 Have you paid attention to all the shit Elon's fucking uncovered? 37% is when you make over $609,000 a year. That's you, motherfucker.
Yeah, well,

Speaker 1 that's me last month.

Speaker 1 This is the thing. It's like,

Speaker 1 I'm happy to pay tax if I thought that they were doing a great job. But it's just you are being strong-armed into giving money to people that do a really shitty job of protecting your money

Speaker 1 and investing it in the country. It's a lot of it is going to bureaucracy and bullshit and a bunch of things that you don't have any say in.
If you could like opt out of it, if you could like

Speaker 1 imagine if you like pick what you, you know, if you had like a whole tax sheet, what'd you like your money to go to? Would you like your money to go to overthrowing governments? No.

Speaker 1 Like, what if the federal government's budget was entirely based on the will of the people? Like, you get to choose. Like, how much your money you want to put into drone strikes in Yemen.

Speaker 1 I say, I don't want zero of my money going to that. You know, how many, how much money do you want to go to this or that or clean water? Okay, clean water sounds good.

Speaker 1 You know, how much infrastructure? Fuck yeah, fix the streets. Well, I'm kind of,

Speaker 1 I agree with you.

Speaker 1 And I've just heard you say this, that, you know,

Speaker 1 everybody should have access to health care and education. 100%.
And the whole country. The whole country.
Everybody. That would rise us all up.
100%. Less losers.
That's how you make America great.

Speaker 1 Less losers. Less people that are saddled down with a lifetime of debt because they broke their leg.
That's crazy. Yeah,

Speaker 1 all my son's friends are all saddled with $90,000 worth of fucking student loan debt.

Speaker 1 Subsidized. And my son was lucky enough that I had enough money to pay for his, you know, and

Speaker 1 so he doesn't have that burden. But god damn it, nobody should have that burden.

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Speaker 1 Terms apply. Education.

Speaker 1 And it's just a for-profit institution that roped you into thinking that that was necessary. That you have to be.

Speaker 1 And by the way, you can get as good an education right now online as is available anywhere on earth. If you have the discipline.
If you have the discipline. Yeah.
That's what's so wild.

Speaker 1 That's what's so fascinating about this time is that it is basically obsolete and yet people are still paying $70,000 a year for it and more. Like, what does Harvard cost? How much is Harvard?

Speaker 1 What's Harvard's yearly tuition, Jamie?

Speaker 1 What do you guess? I say at least 50s. Yeah, at least 50.

Speaker 1 Imagine if you're a middle-class guy and you got two kids and they do real good and they don't have scholarships and you got to pay for them. I can't imagine.
I mean, I don't see how people do it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I really don't.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. The total cost of attendance,

Speaker 1 including fees, housing, and food, reaching around $82,000.

Speaker 1 Undergraduate tuition is $56,550 for a year. That's a lot of money, man.
Oof. That's one year.

Speaker 1 Oof. And if you drop out after one year, then you have nothing and you're down $80,000.
But if you make it through those four years, now you're $200,000 in the hole

Speaker 1 that you owe. And then you have to get a job, and then you get a job that pays $50,000.
And you're like, what? Yeah. Oh, my God.
I don't ever pay this off.

Speaker 1 I'll never pay this off. And then you have to throw a couple of kids on top of that.

Speaker 1 You know something wild? There's people out there, their social security is getting docked because they owe student loans.

Speaker 1 So they take money out of your Social Security to pay for your student loans because the student loans is the one thing you can never escape. You can't bankrupt it.
Which is so crazy. It's cruel.

Speaker 1 It doesn't make any sense. You're saddling an 18-year-old with the burden of a lifetime.

Speaker 1 Harvard, we're offer free tuition for families earning $200,000 or less a year. Oh, that's great.
To who?

Speaker 1 That's a new thing. Offering it to who?

Speaker 1 You can't even get into Harvard. Right, but it's still a good thing.

Speaker 1 Will be free for students, families earning $200,000 or less a year. College announced Monday.

Speaker 1 Harvard has long sought to open our doors to the most talented students, no matter their financial circumstances. That's great.
Yeah, it is. That's great.
I just don't know if it's necessary.

Speaker 1 I think it's probably necessary for kids to go to school just to like a passage, a rite of passage, you know? Like, I think ceremonies and rites of passages are missing in our society. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And especially I could speak for young men. They don't know when they're a man.
Like, am I a man yet?

Speaker 1 Like, there's some men that, you know, in their 30s, their dad's still yelling at them. You know what I mean? It's like,

Speaker 1 when I a man, when am I an equal? When am I... You know, we don't have a ceremony, you know, in other tribal societies and all throughout history.

Speaker 1 People have had rituals, rites of passage rituals, where people feel like, okay, we fucking made it, you know?

Speaker 1 Like you have a black belt ceremony. You got your black belt.
All right.

Speaker 1 I made it. You know, I'm in.
But,

Speaker 1 you know, that's so I think there's a benefit in that society. But then you got to like unlearn all the shit your fucking crazy professors are telling you.
Did you go to college? Yes.

Speaker 1 I went to UMass, Boston. Oh, wow.
That's a good school.

Speaker 1 Easy to get into.

Speaker 1 I only went because I didn't want people thinking I was a loser. That's the only reason why I went.
I just wasted my time there.

Speaker 1 I went for three years, just wasting my time taking class so I could tell people I was going to college. Oh, I didn't waste any time.

Speaker 1 I got kicked out of high school in the 10th grade. So,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 my mind is an open book there.

Speaker 1 A lot of the pages aren't filled in. And, you know what? And I always

Speaker 1 kind of, I regret,

Speaker 1 I regret that a little bit, you know, that I didn't go to college, that I didn't. What do you regret about it?

Speaker 1 Well, just,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 well, number one, I think I'd be smarter.

Speaker 1 But I don't know what it is. And

Speaker 1 I've made it just fine with what I've had, you know, and,

Speaker 1 you know, I've got attention deficit disorder and all these things. It really kept me from doing traditional schoolwork very well.
I'm not even sure that's real. Attention deficit disorder?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't think it's real. You don't? No.
Let me change your mind. I think there's a lot of people that aren't interested in a lot of things.

Speaker 1 But when they're interested in that, when they say attention deficit disorder, why are those guys so good at video games? Like, why are they so good at things that aren't school?

Speaker 1 I think it's just you, I think the human, I think we could categorize it into a bunch of different

Speaker 1 disorders and problems.

Speaker 1 But I think a lot of that is a way to get you hooked on some sort of pharmaceutical drug that's going to to fix whatever problem you have that doesn't allow you to sit in class and listen to some boring shit for fucking six hours.

Speaker 1 You got no problem writing jokes, Ron White. You got no problem performing.

Speaker 1 It's not like there's not a thing that you can't excel at that you can pay attention when you're on stage.

Speaker 1 I don't know about that. I think stand-up comedy

Speaker 1 was the answer to every problem I had. No, you're good.

Speaker 1 Because that's what I was good at. You're a comic.
You are a comic. Like, that's what you're supposed to do.
But let me give you an example.

Speaker 1 That's my point, is that there's a lot of different

Speaker 1 functions in society. There's a lot of different roles in society.
I think they probably tag

Speaker 1 ADD

Speaker 1 to people that don't have it.

Speaker 1 But I know that I still have it. So if let's say that I was going to put together a ceiling fan and hang it in my roof, which I'm not.

Speaker 1 I could no more do that than the man in the moon without an Adderall. If I take an Adderall,

Speaker 1 I'll read the directions, I'll put the whole thing together and hang it on no problem. Without it, I bet you could do it without it.
Stare at it. I've tried.
You just're bored.

Speaker 1 You need excitement.

Speaker 1 You're a certain type of dude who needs a certain type of stimulation, which is why you like the high wire act of performing live. I don't think it's a disorder.
I think it's a superpower. Ah! I do.

Speaker 1 Well, I like the sound of that. I do.
I think the inability to pay attention to shit that's not interesting is not a disorder. It's just, you know, what's interesting and what's not.

Speaker 1 You know, to this day, like, maybe I have it too. Because this day, when I'm talking to someone, they're saying something really boring.
I want to run away. Right.

Speaker 1 You don't hear a word that's coming out of the world. I don't hear a word, and I just can't.
It's like it's.

Speaker 1 I just want to get out. I'm the same way.
But that doesn't mean I have a disorder. I don't think I have a disorder because if I'm talking to you, I got no problem at all.
Well,

Speaker 1 let's get two ceiling fans out here.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm sure I'm not that good at putting together a ceiling fan either. I wouldn't enjoy it, but I could do it.
You just follow the directions. Like, you could follow the directions.

Speaker 1 It's not hard, it's just you wouldn't enjoy it. But if it was something that you enjoyed doing, like learning how to swing a golf club better, then you could pay attention.
I do pay attention to that.

Speaker 1 That's all I'm saying. I think there's roles in this world.

Speaker 1 And different personalities fit perfectly into mathematics. Different personalities fit perfectly in philosophy, different engineering, different personalities.

Speaker 1 It's like you just got to find out what vibes with the way you think. And we all think differently.
We all have different backgrounds. We all have different biology.

Speaker 1 You know, you just got to find what is the thing that syncs up with the way your mind works. And the problem with traditional education is

Speaker 1 it was designed by the Rockefeller family. Like the school system in this country was designed to create better factory workers

Speaker 1 and soldiers and to get them real early.

Speaker 1 That's why they want to start you at five because they figured out when you start people at 12 or 13, they already got their ideas of what the world is and how the world works.

Speaker 1 And I'm not fucking shooting somebody for you. You know, so what they do is they get you when you're five.

Speaker 1 And when you're five, they can kind of indoctrinate you, separate you from your parents most of the day while your parents are at work.

Speaker 1 And so that's like most of your day, you have other people other than your parents telling you how the world is, how the world works, what's happening in

Speaker 1 your life, and what you should be doing.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of crazy because a lot of those people suck.

Speaker 1 I remember thinking that when I was a kid, like thinking how strange it is that people that I don't respect and I don't enjoy are the ones that are in control of communicating to me most of the day.

Speaker 1 I remember very clearly thinking that when I was a little kid, like 10, 11 years old. Yeah, you know, I know that when I was a kid, I used to have this

Speaker 1 history teacher who was also a PE coach.

Speaker 1 Now, he had something as intriguing as history to teach me, but I could not listen to him talk. So, he couldn't even make American history interesting.

Speaker 1 But a good teacher could have done it.

Speaker 1 A good teacher could have roped me in to what was going on and the story of it and how it affects my life and the lives of my parents and my grandparents, how it all went down.

Speaker 1 That's an interesting story. But if you're a dull fucking assistant coach basketball, and now you got a fucking one period of history, and you have a monotone voice, and I'm just

Speaker 1 out of it,

Speaker 1 imagine what it would have been like to have access to wonderful educators. Right.
But if you were listening to, like, you ever listen to Dan Carlin's podcast? No.

Speaker 1 He's got this podcast called Hardcore History. It's incredible.
Incredible. It's amazing.
It's such a good podcast. And this guy will like lay out

Speaker 1 the events of World War I in a way that you will hang on every word and you'll park your car.

Speaker 1 Like, if you got to go somewhere, you'll keep your car running because you just want to listen to where this is going. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, if a guy like that was teaching you history, that would have been great. I mean, I think I would have been engaged.
You probably would have been a historian. Yeah, making nothing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, but this, he's, Dan Carlin's doing well.

Speaker 1 But that's

Speaker 1 someone who loves what they do, and that's the difference.

Speaker 1 School is this weird indoctrination fucking ritual that we all have to go through, and then we all have to feel real bad about ourselves because we don't want to be there and we're not doing good at it.

Speaker 1 I felt like a fucking complete loser in school. I never felt like I was that I was supposed to be there, I never felt like I was smart,

Speaker 1 you know. But I remember

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 finally, when I realized that I was never,

Speaker 1 like, what I was going to school for three years, when I went to college for three years, when I finally was like, what am I doing? I got to stop doing this. It's just wasting time.

Speaker 1 Because that's all I was doing. It was just completely wasting time.
It was like a huge weightlifted off my shoulders. I could just go, eh, this is not for me.

Speaker 1 Well, the one thing is I didn't waste that time. You know, right.
There you go. There you go.
I did.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, I think I'd have a better understanding of how the world works if I'd understood world history. Right.
You know, I mean, those kinds of things.

Speaker 1 I just wish I was, you know, I wish I had an education.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 what would I do with it? I have no idea. I'd still do stand-up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, hopefully. And I wouldn't be any fucking funny.

Speaker 1 Imagine if you did. Imagine if you did go down a different road.
That would have sucked.

Speaker 1 I was, before I started doing stand-up, I was a wind salesman. And

Speaker 1 I was broke, and I had nothing, and I was unimpressive.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my in-laws bought us a garage door opener.

Speaker 1 So I had a garage door opener. Now, you're going to think this is really fucking weird.

Speaker 1 I used to wear that garage door opener on my belt so people would think I had a beeper.

Speaker 1 I just hang it, clip it right there there on the bottom. People don't know about the beeper.
Yeah, yeah. A lot of people listening right now, like, have no idea what that is.

Speaker 1 Ron and I have been through all the various stages of technological inter

Speaker 1 wizardry. Yeah, but the intertwining of our, in our lives, the way it,

Speaker 1 you know, the first thing was the beeper. Like, you would get a beeper, like, my friend Johnny had one.
You could page people. You could page him, and he would call the number.
Yeah. Hey, what's up?

Speaker 1 You stop at a phone booth. Now now that what a phone booth is and you'd have to like put quarters in the phone and look at the beeper and yeah

Speaker 1 hey what's up hey what's going on where you at and you'd have a conversation with someone that's how you'd get a hold of them you have to page them right yeah joey diaz had a pager forever joey diaz had a pager deep into the like maybe the 2000s Wow.

Speaker 1 Not kidding. Yeah, definitely in the 90s, he had a pager.

Speaker 1 Because I remember sometimes he would go AWOL and i'd be paging him like where are you like uh one time we were doing a gig in jersey we're doing rascals in east orange and he fucking never showed up and i finally got a hold of on the phone he's like i'm not gonna lie to you dog i never left vegas

Speaker 1 god damn it joey

Speaker 1 i'll never forget that conversation never left vegas not gonna lie to you dog i never left vegas

Speaker 1 It was just having a good time.

Speaker 1 But that's how you got a hold of him. You'd have to page him.
That was it. And then when you got, then one day he got a phone.
And when he got a phone, you better not fucking text him.

Speaker 1 If you text him, he'll yell at you. Like Brian Redband used to text him.
He goes, stop fucking texting me.

Speaker 1 And then Joey eventually got an iPhone. And Brian got a text from him one day.
I'm like, oh, he's texting? He's like, he fucking texted me. Now we'll text you.
But he doesn't like to text.

Speaker 1 How's he doing? He's good.

Speaker 1 He's coming down soon. He's going to be here in a couple weeks.
Good. Good.

Speaker 1 He's going to be coming real soon, right? When is he here?

Speaker 1 Two weeks. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He only wants to talk to you on the phone. I go, why?

Speaker 1 Why don't you like talking to people?

Speaker 1 He goes, I'm insecure. I want to hear your voice.
I want to tell you I love you. Yeah.
I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it.
He's old school. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He calls me every once in a while. Just to call him.
Just say hello. Just to say hi.
Yeah. Just to say hi.
Yeah. He's like the

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Speaker 1 He might be the number one dude that I just talked to mostly on the phone. Very few text messages between me and Joey.

Speaker 1 But then I'll ask him, like, hey, is April 22nd good? Yeah, we're good. Okay.
See you then. So is he going to come down to do sets? He's coming down to do sets.
He's getting ready.

Speaker 1 He's going to do a special. So he's doing a bunch of shows.
He's got a residency. I think he's doing it in Philly.
Is he doing it in Philly?

Speaker 1 We'll find out when he gets here, but he's doing a residency. He's done a few of these residencies where he shows up like every weekend

Speaker 1 as shows, places. People love him.

Speaker 1 He opened up for Tom in Madison Square Garden. Tom said when he went on stage, they went fucking ape shit.
Oh, how cool is that? They went ape shit because they didn't know he was coming, you know.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joey Diaz.

Speaker 1 He's like a snuffleuffagus. He's a mythical creature.
Right, he is. He is.
There's nothing like him. Nothing like him.
Completely unique human being.

Speaker 1 It was fun to watch him just stomp the fuck out of the fucking room at the store, man he just beat that oh yeah out of those crowds

Speaker 1 out of those crowds

Speaker 1 some of the sets that i've seen him have in the or would i think

Speaker 1 i i think it's the funniest thing i've ever seen in my life i've seen everybody i've seen everyone great great great comedians who i love to death and i'll watch them every time they perform

Speaker 1 but I think Joey hit RPMs that nobody hit.

Speaker 1 I think he hit these moments. Oh, I saw him wind them up, man.
Just wind them up. It's like when people say, like, who's the funniest guy ever? I'm like, come on, man.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, there's guys with great insight. Like, Patrice had great insight.

Speaker 1 He was really hilarious, but he also had like great insight. Joey Dia, you ain't getting no insight out of Joey Diaz.
No, he's giving you, he's rock'em, sock'em, robots. He's here to fuck you up.

Speaker 1 He's here to fuck that crowd up.

Speaker 1 He used to have this bit about Terry Cruz.

Speaker 1 Like when Terry Cruz accused some guy of grabbing his dick, you know, and he had this bit about Terry Cruz in the underwear commercial. Oh my God.
It was so funny.

Speaker 1 You'd be in the back of the room, just barely breathe. You couldn't breathe.

Speaker 1 I was looking around.

Speaker 1 People are falling out of their chairs. Like, they couldn't handle it.

Speaker 1 And he was on fire, just purple, fucking red in the face, screaming and yelling. Like, oh, my God.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Those are some of the first sets I saw you do at the store when you were doing that bit where you were standing on top of the stool.
Oh, the Kim Kardashian bit. Yeah.
Fucking.

Speaker 1 And I just remember

Speaker 1 just how just dick slapped those fucking crowds. I'm like, God damn it.
He's good at this. Fuck.

Speaker 1 It's a fun job, bro. It is the funnest job.
We're so lucky. We're so lucky in so many ways.

Speaker 1 it just it doesn't make sense yeah when i think about a life without stand-up it makes me nervous to even think about but we almost did it right yeah

Speaker 1 i mean when we all went through that with covet i mean you were basically saying you were done i thought it was done yeah i i didn't like it anymore it was i was halfway through every set i was couldn't wait for it to be over wow

Speaker 1 and and now

Speaker 1 i go on stage and i have this whole new gratitude for these crowds, you know, that are still there waiting, bigger than ever. My shows sell out faster than they ever have.
That amazing.

Speaker 1 And part of it is because there's less of them, I guess. But also it's because of my friends, you know, the word gets out.
You know, you guys didn't let me die. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we knew,

Speaker 1 I mean, I tell everybody, but it's true. Like, you're one of the reasons why we decided to buy a club.
Because because

Speaker 1 you grabbed me when you got off stage that first time you hadn't been on stage like eight months, and you grabbed me by the shoulders. Whatever the fuck we have to do, we're going to keep doing this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we did.

Speaker 1 I'll never forget that moment. I was like, okay, we're going to do it.
You're going to get that fucking club open. I'm like, we're going to do it.

Speaker 1 I was already thinking about doing it very seriously because I realized, like, early on coming here, I was like, we need a place. We can't just be working out of these rock and roll clubs.

Speaker 1 They're not set up right. No.
You know? No, there's a difference. I don't even like to do

Speaker 1 sets other places. I don't either.
That's really what's wrong with the mothership. I don't know.
It'll spoil your fucking ass,

Speaker 1 you know, with great crowds and perfect acoustics and an amazing sound system.

Speaker 1 And then when you move over to another room, which I rarely do, do another set in town. I did one

Speaker 1 a couple months ago and I was like, this sucks.

Speaker 1 If you guys want to find me, I'll be down at some other ship.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we did it, Ron. Yeah.
We actually did it.

Speaker 1 You know, it's interesting when you look back at those conversations we used to have, like we were in the Vulcan, hanging out in the green room, talking about what the club's going to be like. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It seemed like a pipe dream. And I know a lot of people probably did think it was fake.
There's a lot of people in LA, like Tony used to talk to him all the time. Yeah, when's Joe opening that club?

Speaker 1 Club's never going to open. It's all bullshit you guys moved down there for no fucking reason because the thing about you taking a making a choice that's a scar

Speaker 1 yeah if the thing about you making a choice to go and you know start something up and the people that are left behind they kind of want you to fail especially the haters right they want you to so Tony was like encountering that all the time

Speaker 1 These people that just for whatever reason they don't want other people to

Speaker 1 They don't want other people to escape the bomb that they're in you know. It's like people from the neighborhood that don't want you to leave, and when you do leave, oh, look who's back.
You're right.

Speaker 1 People,

Speaker 1 for whatever reason, people really like when people fail. You know, it's a gross feeling, it's a gross thing, but it's super, super common.

Speaker 1 Looking for a joint? Yeah. Jesus Christ, Ron.
White, don't you know we're in Texas?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 that's the first thing they got to fix, is make this shit legal in the whole country. It's so crazy that what's stopping them? Oh, I don't know.
I don't understand it.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's a political beach ball.

Speaker 1 It's one of those things that just gets tossed around that I think is good for

Speaker 1 the establishment that runs the country. It's good to keep it up in the air.
Like, I'll promise when I get in office, gays will be able to marry. Yay!

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And then they're talking about there's people that want to take that off the table. You know, it's like there's a bunch of those things like Roe v.
Wade, that was a big one.

Speaker 1 There's a bunch of these cultural beach balls that are very important issues to some people.

Speaker 1 And they get exploited by politicians as a way to promise you this and promise you that, but sure. But it never,

Speaker 1 nothing ever gets fixed. Nothing ever changes.
Right.

Speaker 1 Well, it's changing a little. You know, I didn't think marijuana would ever be legal in Oklahoma.
I thought they'd be behind us, you know, but boy, you go there now.

Speaker 1 It's billboards on every fucking street corner. Come get your weed, you know.
New Mexico just authorized psilocybin therapy. Really? Yep.
People with depression.

Speaker 1 I think depression and anxiety, is that what it's for? Is that what they're using it? Those terms which apply to basically everybody? Right. Everybody.
Everybody.

Speaker 1 Everybody's had some depression and some anxiety. There you go.
Now you can get some mushrooms and figure your life out. Maybe I'll give it a try.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 it's just the problem is federally it's still not legal and that which is it's so dumb it's so dumb you know and I don't think it's gonna change unfortunately I don't think I think Trump is too busy with all these other issues I don't think he's interested in that

Speaker 1 so co-sponsor

Speaker 1 said here it goes the bill would establish an advisory board treatment equity fund and research fund as well as remove psilocybin from the Controlled Substances Act to provide to protect qualified and registered patients, clinicians, and producers according to

Speaker 1 a news release

Speaker 1 released jointly by the Office of the Senate and the House Democrats.

Speaker 1 So this is what the Democrats have over the Republicans.

Speaker 1 Freedom to explore your consciousness. Republicans, for whatever reason,

Speaker 1 they shy away from that.

Speaker 1 It doesn't fit with their conservative mindset of

Speaker 1 what you should. And it used to be it didn't fit, freedom of speech didn't fit with their mindset.

Speaker 1 And now the Republicans are all about freedom of speech because they realize the consequences of it during the last election cycle. You know,

Speaker 1 when things get censored and when you have a town square that's curated by not just the big tech companies, but also by the federal government itself, things can get weird when you're trying to access the truth.

Speaker 1 You want to know what is actually going on. When certain stories have actually been suppressed from the news because the federal government deems them misinformation, even if they turn out to be true,

Speaker 1 that's not good. And so

Speaker 1 because of that, the right is supporting freedom of speech, which I think is fucking great. That's great.
That's what we all should be supporting. But we all should be

Speaker 1 supporting the freedom to expand your consciousness. And people have been doing it in certain ways for thousands and thousands of years.

Speaker 1 And you don't know better if you haven't done it. If you haven't done it yourself and you're passing judgment on people that have, you're not qualified.

Speaker 1 If you want to go, you know, do a psilocybin session, like a heavy, what Terrence McKenna would call a heroic dose, you want to do that and then talk shit? Okay.

Speaker 1 But until then, because the thing is, like, it would preclude you from doing the things that you're doing.

Speaker 1 Know this, okay?

Speaker 1 If you are a fucking rampant capitalist and all you give a fuck about is your hedge fund and all you give a fuck about is the stock market and numbers and buying this exclusive that and that exclusive this and getting tickets to this exclusive thing and all you're about is like status and numbers, it will fuck that up.

Speaker 1 It will fuck that whole thing sideways. You won't be able to take any of that seriously anymore.
But that's good. It's good for you.
You're not supposed to be taking that seriously.

Speaker 1 If you've got half a billion dollars and and you're still scrambling to try to make more money, like pause. You're 67 years old.
You're going to die if you're lucky in 30 years.

Speaker 1 If you're so lucky to hit 97. Oh, yeah.
30 years happen so quick, man. We've been here for five, Ron.
I know. We've been here for five.
You were here for six. You were here.
You were patient zero.

Speaker 1 I always say you were patient zero in the Austin invasion because I remember calling you, it was a 2018 when you moved here? 17, I think. 17.

Speaker 1 I remember calling you going, what are you doing down there? Like, we missed you at the store. Oh, I fucking love it down here, middle of the country.
If I want to fly, I can fly anywhere real quick.

Speaker 1 People are nice. Food's great.
And I was like, fuck, can I live in Texas? I started thinking about it then.

Speaker 1 But then when the pandemic hit and I knew you were here, and then I had some friends in L.A. that were also real sketched out by all of it.
They all wound up moving somewhere else.

Speaker 1 A couple of them moved, well, two families i was real good friends with they moved to dallas and then another good family uh family friend moved to vegas and then another one just decided to stay and we all came out here together you know it's groups of friends and uh when we were looking around austin i was like fuck ron white lives here i could live here That was like one of the first things I thought.

Speaker 1 I thought, if Ron lives here, at least I have Ron. Yeah, I got a friend.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I was like, okay, I can't do stand-up right now anyway. But then as soon as I move, Tony's like, fuck it, I'm moving.
I was like, you're you're moving too? And then Segura's like, I'm in.

Speaker 1 I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 1 And then Brian Simpson came out real early. And I didn't really know Brian well at all until Tom introduced me to him.
Tom was like, dude, you got to meet this guy. He's so funny.
He is too.

Speaker 1 He's so funny. So he was here early too.
And then Ahsan and Derek both moved out here early. I'm like, oh shit, we got something going on.
And then Tim Dylan bought a house out here.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh my goodness, what is happening? This is crazy. And then Duncan was like, man, fucking North Carolina.
I don't know. I'm like, come to Texas, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, Duncan's out here. Like, holy shit.

Speaker 1 Holy shit. This is crazy.
I'm like, all right, we're up and running. And by the time we decided to make that club, fuck, we had like 10 great guys living here.
Yeah. 12 and more were coming.

Speaker 1 And they're still coming.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Dylan, Tony.
There's so many different guys from the store that used to work at the store all the time. Yeah, I roped Tony in, man.

Speaker 1 I'm like, we need Tony here.

Speaker 1 I gave him my fucking condo and let him use one of my range rovers to go out to dallas i'm like yeah live here for a week i don't know where i was but uh yeah you spend a week here you'll go yeah this is doable well we all were so excited because it felt like we were doing something different yeah you know it felt like we were doing something different i've always had this fuck it part of me where I was like fuck it let's go I'm that's me I love doing that

Speaker 1 you do you're impetuous as fuck

Speaker 1 I like it from the time i you told me you were gonna i'm gonna move there you had a house like two days later i'm like god damn this guy moves when he moves yeah

Speaker 1 my kids helped a lot because they really wanted to move that sweet ass place on the lake

Speaker 1 that's good that's good living over there it's also like when we came here no one had masks on and everybody was acting normal yeah and so my kids were like what's going on like why how come everyone's normal here we should live here you know and then

Speaker 1 it just it happened. And then all of a sudden, the stores closed so I could get all the employees.
And then I was like, look, I'll pay you now. You don't have to work.
Just hang out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's, let's, we're going to do something special. That was more money than you were thinking.
It was, but it

Speaker 1 money is fun coupons. Yep, fun tickets.
That's right. That's what it's supposed to be.
If you're not having fun and you have money, you're doing something wrong.

Speaker 1 Because you should be trying to have fun. And sometimes some things you have to pay for in order to have fun.

Speaker 1 A lot of fun is free, but there's a lot of fun where you go, like, oh, we got to buy a building. We have to hire an architect.
We have to pay a construction crew.

Speaker 1 We have to do a lot of things, but that's the way to do it. That's what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 And I was the person who was able to do it because the universe had decided that this thing wanted to get made. And we hit every green light.

Speaker 1 And then I was like, okay, well, clearly, this is the thing I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 1 I know it sounds crazy, but let's go, you know?

Speaker 1 But the whole thing was crazy. Like, it was in the middle of the biggest deal I'd ever done ever in my whole life.

Speaker 1 Spotify, this crazy thing. I was like,

Speaker 1 the show was already like the number one thing. What does that feel like? It was.
Sign that fucking deal.

Speaker 1 Bananas. Bananas.
But

Speaker 1 I was also like, okay, well, what should, you know, you have to figure out what you're going to do. Like, you have to be, you can't be at the whim of all these other people's ideas and expectations.

Speaker 1 Like, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to get the fuck out of LA. So, let's do it.
So, I moved in the middle of everything.

Speaker 1 So, there's this giant deal I have, and all of a sudden, they're like, Where are you going? Yeah, bet they're where. I'm going to Texas.
They're like, Don't go to Texas. This is crazy.

Speaker 1 Like, are you sure you won't be able to get guests? I'm like, Look, I'm flying guests in three times a week anyway. Right.
I was already flying people in from New Mexico and New York.

Speaker 1 New York, and New York's closer than you know, it's a great spot, really. Right, it's not like a six-hour flight.
That six-hour flight across the whole country is a pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 You know, the people were worn out by the time they got there, so you know, they had to like have a night to rest and relax and rehydrate.

Speaker 1 And then the next day, maybe, you know, still they're probably not a hundred percent. You know, this is like three hours.
A three-hour flight ain't shit. It's a three-hour flight from everywhere.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's easy. It's a great spot.
Yeah, but it's also like, I feel like sometimes the universe calls you in a way

Speaker 1 and tells you, just like gives you a feeling.

Speaker 1 I think ideas are like a life form.

Speaker 1 I really do. I think it's like an unexplored life form.
I think that's why the concept of the muse is so enticing to people because there's something real to it.

Speaker 1 Like when you decide you're just going to sit there and write. And you just have it doesn't always come.

Speaker 1 Like sometimes you get nothing, but sometimes because you sat there, you'll have some of the the best lines you've ever written because I think they're like life forms that you have to call into your life and I think sometimes these life forms these ideas they just exist in the ether and by circumstance they like kind of gel together and become more more valid and more alive and then they enter into your mind and if you're ready to receive these ideas you have to act on them especially if they're positive i'm not saying you know go fuck up the capital building because you have an idea.

Speaker 1 I mean, positive ideas, not vengeful. Like, if you have a good,

Speaker 1 a good soul, if

Speaker 1 your goal in life is a positive thing, these ideas will come to you. And you're supposed to, if you can, you're supposed to act on them.

Speaker 1 And I felt like, wow, what a unique opportunity I have to be able to do this. I shouldn't be scared because it's daunting and it's expensive.
And it's like, what are you doing? You just do it.

Speaker 1 Just do what you do.

Speaker 1 You know, here's one thing that I believe. I believe that that

Speaker 1 things disguise themselves and we call them coincidences, but there really are no coincidences.

Speaker 1 And if you'll look for things that look like coincidences, you can follow that line and go somewhere with it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I feel like that that's what happened whenever, you know, with the mass exodus and people started coming to comedy.

Speaker 1 To make this the best comedy scene in the world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, those things fell into place because that's what was supposed to happen. And and, uh,

Speaker 1 and I think it all happened because of me.

Speaker 1 In that, I needed it the worst. I needed this more than anybody else did.

Speaker 1 And I feel like I was able to cash in all my fucking karma or whatever and draw it all into me a little bit because I needed it.

Speaker 1 And so, you know,

Speaker 1 well, it makes sense. Like, it's certainly a huge factor, right? Because if you didn't inspire me to even think about Austin, I wouldn't have.

Speaker 1 And I wouldn't have moved here if you weren't here, I don't think. Maybe I would have, but it helped a lot that you were here.
I was like, this makes it so much easier that I know Ron's here.

Speaker 1 Because it was weird times then, man. Everything was, even going to a restaurant, you felt like you were a rebel.
Like, it felt weird. It felt weird to not be scared.

Speaker 1 Like, you wanted to hide the fact that you weren't scared, that you wanted to just go out. It was a strange, strange, strange time that I think even now we look back on and we can't.
Like, I watched a

Speaker 1 ufc fight the other day an older fight and all the corner men had masks on i'm like this is the craziest thing that we watch timestamp right there you know it's bizarre it was a a fight that took place in an arena in florida with no crowd

Speaker 1 no crowd

Speaker 1 it was justin gaiti versus tony ferguson it was one of the first fights we did back

Speaker 1 um it was like and you were there uh-huh yeah and i was watching the fight the other day, and I was looking at the corner men. They all had masks on.
I was like, what a weird fucking time.

Speaker 1 What a weird. I remember like people would get upset if I didn't wear a mask backstage.
I'm like, what are we doing? What is this for? Like, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 These guys are beating the fuck out of each other and sweating on each other. You know, and all of us tested negative.
That's how we got through here.

Speaker 1 Like, is someone magically going to get COVID while we're all wandering around together? Don't we all test negative? So to get in this room, they had to be able to test you. Everybody got tested.

Speaker 1 Those shows that you did with

Speaker 1 Chappelle. Exactly.
So, we're all in this room. Take that fucking stupid mask off.
But even the shows we did with Chappelle, outside, the people were supposed to wear masks. Outside.
Outside.

Speaker 1 Everyone's tested. Is this a mystery, magical disease that we're encountering? That is like demons hiding in the woods for us.

Speaker 1 But it was too at one time, wasn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, I lost Vic Henley to that disease in New York City early on. But Vic was not a healthy guy.

Speaker 1 What the disease did is exposed metabolic health problems.

Speaker 1 It didn't make it.

Speaker 1 I'll admit that. I mean, he was a raging alcoholic, and he knew it, and I knew he was really considering making some changes in his life, you know, that he was talking to me about,

Speaker 1 and then boom, you know, gone.

Speaker 1 So in that sense, yes, it was.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't in the sense where all these healthy people who have been tested are wearing. No, no, no, that's ridiculous.
That's ridiculous. Especially the athletes and the fighters.

Speaker 1 Like what we would have to do is if one of the corner men got COVID, even if the fighter didn't have COVID, the fighter was pulled from the card.

Speaker 1 So one of the corner men tests positive for COVID because the fighter had been around him, even if he's negative. We treated it different than we treated anything ever.

Speaker 1 And especially for the fighters, it had like, it was not going to have an effect on them unless they did. There's one guy it did have an effect on.

Speaker 1 He got COVID really, really bad. But it's because they kept training.
These guys kept training while they had COVID. They never, a lot of these guys, they don't give a fuck.
They have the flu.

Speaker 1 Who cares? They're showing up at the gym. It's part of being an animal.
It's like you'll show up sick and you'll train through a, but you shouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 You're just breaking your immune system down further, and especially if you're in camp. So being in camp for a fighter is very different than regular working out.

Speaker 1 Being in camp for a fighter is you basically

Speaker 1 redlining your body, trying to get it to recover, like trying to get it to keep pace so you can get to a superhuman level that's only achievable after like a 12-week camp and you can only hold on to it for a couple weeks.

Speaker 1 They know when you're peaking sometimes and they'll back a fighter off. They'll go, we're done today.

Speaker 1 We're done today.

Speaker 1 You're peaking too early. You're peaking too early.
You don't want to overdo it. So you want to back off your training when you're feeling absolutely perfect and get yourself a little, just slow down.

Speaker 1 We're a little too soon. Like a really good trainer knows when you're peaking, but you can't maintain it forever.

Speaker 1 It's really only for, that's why it's so crazy that a lot of these guys, they'll accept a fight on like 10 days notice. Like that's nuts.
That's nuts. Like you need, you need to be peaking.

Speaker 1 You need to be like, you're going to fight in a fucking cage. And I know you're doing this as a financial decision, but that's the way John Jones is the smartest.
John Jones never did that.

Speaker 1 They changed opponents. Fuck you.
Fights off. John Jones, even guys like Chale Sunnin, who eventually stomped in the first round, like absolutely destroyed.

Speaker 1 It was not even remotely competitive. It was an annihilation.
It would have been an annihilation 365 days a year for decades.

Speaker 1 It wouldn't have mattered how good John Jones is and as great as Chale Sunnin is. John Jones was the bigger man.
Chale had fought at 185 pounds.

Speaker 1 John was a big 205 and he was the most talented guy that ever fought in the sport. And he's going to win every time.

Speaker 1 But when they change the opponent, they try to make it chail son and he's like, nope. Nope.
We do things the right way. I go through a full camp.
That's it. Fights off.

Speaker 1 Everybody was like, ah, because they want you to play ball. Get it? We need a new guy.
But look, to this day, everybody says he's the GOAT. Well, why is he the GOAT?

Speaker 1 Because he did everything the right way.

Speaker 1 He knew, especially when he wasn't partying, he did everything the wrong way, too.

Speaker 1 I mean, he did a lot of partying and still beat the fuck out of everybody because he was that good, because he was that talented.

Speaker 1 One of the craziest things he ever said, Daniel Cormier, when they were having a rematch, they were talking shit in the press conference, and Daniel Tormier said something to John.

Speaker 1 John goes, I beat you when I was on Coke.

Speaker 1 It is the craziest statement because he says it, and you're like, oh, shit. And it's true.
It's true. That's how good John was.

Speaker 1 But if you try to change opponents, John's like, uh-uh, try to call John Jones in for a late-notice fight on five days' notice. He'll tell you, go fuck yourself.

Speaker 1 Like, nope, I'll rather hang out at home, my dog. Like, he's not doing it.
Like, you gotta, so these guys, when they're peaking,

Speaker 1 they're vulnerable. They get sick a lot, especially when they're cutting weight, because you're redlining your body, and you could overdo it.
And guys overdo it all the time. They overtrain.

Speaker 1 They just break themselves down.

Speaker 1 They've kept too much pace and not enough recovery, and they're declining and declining and declining they show up at the gym they have no energy and you're like fuck and if you get a guy to the fight that's overtrained it's horrible it's horrible to watch i've seen it many times the guys just can't recover they're too tired they overdid it they were too tough for their own good

Speaker 1 So one of those guys got COVID, this guy Hamzat Chemaev. And this motherfucker is a psychopath.
He's a savage, like one of the most savage guys that's ever fought in the sport.

Speaker 1 And he just kept training. Just kept training.
This motherfucker trains like eight hours a day. He trains like a wolverine.
He's an animal. He was training with COVID and he kept getting real sick.

Speaker 1 Wound up getting hospitalized, coughing up blood, gets out, goes right back to it. Same thing.
Hospitalized again.

Speaker 1 He got hospitalized like twice because he wouldn't stop training because he's that psychotic. But other than him, regular athletes that get it.
They just take a few days off.

Speaker 1 Daniel Cormier had COVID, trained through it, and won the title. Won the heavyweight title.
Training through COVID in his camp.

Speaker 1 He was sick during camp and kept training. And everybody was like, let's just keep training.
I didn't get off the couch the whole time I had COVID.

Speaker 1 So just imagine those level of athletes and we're worried about it so much that everybody has to wear a mask. Like, shut the fuck up.
Right. This is nuts.
So all that had to happen, too, where

Speaker 1 we were

Speaker 1 the reckless ones, we were the ones that, like, I know, I'm not buying this, I'm gonna live my life, I'm going to Texas. And there was a lot of people that were really mad at that: What are you doing?

Speaker 1 You're not scared. What are you doing? You're doing chosen doors.
You're killing people. Blood is on your hands.
There was awful. They were screaming at you.

Speaker 1 They were screaming at a frothy mess of people that were just all caught up in this psyop.

Speaker 1 They were just the, you know, and it was great.

Speaker 1 Not good, really, but it was great in that it exposed these fragile thinkers. So many fragile minds that

Speaker 1 couldn't see the forest for the trees. They just couldn't see it.

Speaker 1 And when we all came out here, when we said, we see it, like, this is bullshit. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 it'll make you sick. Yeah, you'll have to be at home for a week.
Yeah, get vitamin drips. You'll be all right.
Like, yeah. This is what we're dealing with for real.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 a lot of people agreed and then it turns out we were right it turns out we were right at the end of the day we were correct we were correct to want to live our lives we all went back to live our lives

Speaker 1 too soon says who says who the fucking government that's been lying to you about this disease

Speaker 1 and realize that that it happened you know that it really fucking happened that we were locked up locked down it's not good because it's it's like when you find out your friend's a bitch and then you have to count on him again in the future.

Speaker 1 You're like,

Speaker 1 dude, don't fall apart on me here.

Speaker 1 Show up. Like, don't get scared.

Speaker 1 I need help. Like, you find out your friend falls apart under pressure.
You're like, oh, great. Why are you crying, Mike? What are we doing? Don't cry.
This is crazy.

Speaker 1 Like, now you can't count on Mike because Mike falls apart when chick gets hot. And this is how it

Speaker 1 feels with a good percentage of the country. You know, it was a joke from my last special, but I really feel this way.
We lost a lot of people during COVID, and most of them are still alive.

Speaker 1 I wrote that line thinking about specific friends. It's like, what did you think was going on? What did you think was going on? Yeah, it's a disease.

Speaker 1 But since when have you changed your entire fucking life for years for a disease? This is nuts.

Speaker 1 Since when have you listened to the entire government tell you you can't have outdoor dining because of a disease, like a disease that you've already had,

Speaker 1 you've already gotten through it, and they're still telling you this, and we're a year and a half into this fucking thing.

Speaker 1 And so we were right. And so so many people, because we were right, so many people also came.
And that's the beautiful thing. It's like people speak with their actions.

Speaker 1 And the people that are willing to make a leap like that, those are the ones you want there. Those are the ones, like we got the best of the best.
We got the

Speaker 1 most fuck you of the fuck you people because comedians are fuck you people they are something happens in society like hey man fuck you right you know or eat a steaming bowl of fuck eat a steaming bowl of fuck no matter what it is you know

Speaker 1 and uh

Speaker 1 the world needs that i need that i need that i need you here i need tony i need i need people like that the same way that you did the way we all sort of collectively manifested it together but without you we wouldn't be here yeah so you guys come on on down to Austin, Texas, and check out the mothership and see how much fun we're having if you don't believe it.

Speaker 1 If you think we're making this shit up because of you, I also almost bought the cult house.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 That would have been

Speaker 1 made it happen.

Speaker 1 People say, yeah, he did. That would have been horrible.
It wouldn't have been horrible. Yeah, it would have been amazing.
Because it was a cool place. And, you know,

Speaker 1 it was.

Speaker 1 It would have been amazing. Yeah, it would have been amazing.
It would have been amazing. It's an amazing spot, and it's hilarious that a cult used to own.

Speaker 1 I feel terrible for all the people that were roped into building it, and all the people that guy butt fucked. You were doing that piece that was so funny, and you quit doing it.

Speaker 1 You didn't do that under a special. No, I didn't.
No, that was so funny. Yeah, it's a true story.

Speaker 1 Remember, I gave you that line that it's okay to hypnotize people and butt fuck them because that falls under the category of I talked them into it. Yeah, it's basically the same thing.

Speaker 1 That's not illegal at all. Yeah, I talked the guy into letting me fuck him in the ass.

Speaker 1 It's kind of technically not illegal. With a watch going back and forth in front of his face.
That's not illegal. That's not drugs.
The guy was a hypnotist and a gay porn star. Like, what a combo.

Speaker 1 Right. And then when they found the gay porn, like the doc, you watched the documentary, right? The documentary is incredible.
But Ron,

Speaker 1 for the people at home, Ron had performed at this. So you had performed at that place.
You're like, I fucking love that theater. You should buy that place.
And then it was for sale.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, we're in. Right.
And then Adam Egot is the one. He goes, have you seen that documentary that's on that call? I'm like, oh, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, Ron White. What have you done? What have you done?

Speaker 1 I watched the documentary. I don't think I even realized that at that time that that's what that building was.
I don't think I knew that it was a cult

Speaker 1 building whenever I first took it.

Speaker 1 Have you seen the videos of the guy dancing around inside the building? Oh, yeah. That was what he was doing.
I would have seen that years ago. I mean, years and years ago.

Speaker 1 So I knew about that anyway, but I didn't realize that that was the building. Or maybe I'd fuck out of it.
Those are the same people wearing masks in their cars. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 It's like that's why you can start a cult. If you just get everybody who wears a mask in their car, you could rope those motherfuckers into doing almost anything.
And that's how cults get started.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I know. People are looking for leadership.
Well, they're also looking for communities. They're really dumb.
Like, think about the positive aspects of the mothership. Right?

Speaker 1 Like, we're all having a good time. Well, this is what everybody really wants.
But what if the only way you can get that is to believe Baba Kanesh over there,

Speaker 1 who changed his name, and now he wears wooden beads, and he sits in the lotus position, and everybody's got to suck his dick. Like,

Speaker 1 I just wanted to do yoga and hang out with everybody. Why did I got to suck this guy's dick?

Speaker 1 They kept sucking his dick, and you know what? They're sucking his dick somewhere else now in Hawaii. In Hawaii, yeah, he's still getting his dick sucked.

Speaker 1 Some guys are just really good at like getting their dick sucked. It's like the thing where you need to be on acid to understand the grateful dead.

Speaker 1 It's like you need to be at the special frame of mind with a special nine-volt brain where you can

Speaker 1 get talked into a cult like that. But it happens every day.
Every day. Every day.
Every day, all throughout the country.

Speaker 1 You know, I was talking to Mark Andreessen about this, a venture capitalist guy, brilliant guy. And he was telling me that there's a ton of active cults right now in California that are functioning.

Speaker 1 Like, you only hear about the ones that wind up getting in shootouts with the feds. There's a bunch of them that actually function somehow or another.
They keep it together. You know, people leave.

Speaker 1 They tell the horror stories and some people join. Right.
But like Wild, Wild Country is a great example, that Netflix documentary.

Speaker 1 The crazy thing is, in the beginning, it looked so fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it looked completely fucking doable. So doable.
You know, our leader's got really nice fucking cars. Look.

Speaker 1 How can he be wrong? He can't be wrong. He's at 20 Rolls-Royces.

Speaker 1 There's so many of them.

Speaker 1 It's like, whatever

Speaker 1 the way that we evolved in tribal society to listen to the chief, we all have this like strange desire to either be the chief or listen to the chief. Sure.

Speaker 1 You know, either be the alpha or listen to the alpha. And someone can pretend to be the chief.
They can pretend to be the chief with magical insight. And

Speaker 1 you know what the most fucked up thing about that documentary is? The thing that still fucks with my head? Is that that guy would do

Speaker 1 this thing to these people called the knowing, where he would, and they would orgasm. They would just have like, they literally meet God.

Speaker 1 To this day, they all say that it was real, that that thing actually did happen.

Speaker 1 Like the power of suggestion, the fact that he kept it from them for so long, and then the one day, or this is your coming-of-age ceremony, where this is the one day you're going to get the knowing, and he would put his hands on them, and they would really experience something.

Speaker 1 And they said it was like they were experiencing God, like they it was the most bliss they had ever felt in their life and that they never felt it again

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 there the circumstances and the ritual

Speaker 1 activated this innate part of our consciousness that's always there this ability to talk to God the ability to communicate with God which is probably what every religion is trying to do.

Speaker 1 It's all like this whisper of the truth that's out there in the ether and everybody knows that it's out there. There's something there.
I just have to figure out how to. And this guy, this crazy

Speaker 1 gay porn star, hypnotist, butt fucking all these dudes.

Speaker 1 Still,

Speaker 1 even this guy was able to touch these people and they were able to access that part of their brain.

Speaker 1 And they were in. They were in.
They were like, oh, we're in, man. I'm following this guy everywhere.
This guy really is like connected to God.

Speaker 1 Well, you know,

Speaker 1 I think that

Speaker 1 prayer,

Speaker 1 sorry with that, just with prayer,

Speaker 1 is a physical thing, not a spiritual thing. And that's why it works for anybody.

Speaker 1 You know, I believe it's a way to channel energy, and it changes the way you feel, but it doesn't matter what you're praying to, that it's a physical transfer of injury,

Speaker 1 not a spiritual thing.

Speaker 1 And because anybody can do it.

Speaker 1 And also hypnosis is so powerful when it's done correctly. And I know that because I've experienced hypnosis done well.

Speaker 1 And so, boy, if you had both of those things, you know, you could have power over anybody that's stupid enough to fucking.

Speaker 1 That's the problem. That was what they did during the Manson family, MKUltra, during those days.
This is part of the chaos book by Tom O'Neill.

Speaker 1 It's about the Manson family, excuse me, the Manson family murders. And one of the things that they went into is the fact that this guy who worked for the CIA at the time was a part of MK Ultra.

Speaker 1 His name was Jolly West. And Jolly West is this figure all throughout the counterculture resistance movement that the federal government had sort of concocted.
And

Speaker 1 part of what he was doing was teaching people how to manipulate people with LSD.

Speaker 1 And he was teaching Charlie Manson in jail. Like this guy visited Manson in jail.
Then Manson would get out of jail and Manson would get in trouble, get arrested, and then get released.

Speaker 1 And the sheriffs all say, it's over my pay grade. They were all told to let him go.
And so he was implicated in murders and violent crimes and they all always let him go.

Speaker 1 They always had to let him go. And he was getting acid and he had sophisticated methods of manipulating minds.

Speaker 1 It wasn't as simple as like, this is a charismatic dude and they all want to cut a baby out of fucking Sharon Tate's stomach. No, it was way crazier than that.

Speaker 1 It was sophisticated mind control from MK Ultra. and they wanted to see if they could get people to become homicidal maniacs, and they were right.
They could. They knew how to do it.

Speaker 1 They used it, and they got Manson to do it, and it threw water on this whole anti-war hippie movement. All that peace love shit.
Whoosh.

Speaker 1 Now hippies are murderers. Now hippies are Charles Manson.
Now, you know, your kid wants to just like

Speaker 1 fucking paint flowers and show up at Grateful Dead shows. No, no, your kid's a murderer.
Your kid's a fucking, all the hippies are suspects now.

Speaker 1 It worked. It's a fascinating thing they did.

Speaker 1 Like the way they threw

Speaker 1 water on this movement that was happening, like in 1970, there's this

Speaker 1 just threw it down and put Schedule I on everything. If the Nixon administration hadn't done that in 1970, who knows what the world looks like today? Like, who knows?

Speaker 1 Who knows if you can get Ibogaine and ayahuasca in America, if psilocybin had stayed legal.

Speaker 1 It was made illegal in 1970.

Speaker 1 1970? Yep. All that stuff became Schedule I in 1970.
Marijuana was always illegal. It was illegal from like the 1930s.
And that was because it was a textile. And that was because it was a commodity.

Speaker 1 It had almost nothing to do with the drug itself. They were trying to outlaw hemp.
They were worried because they had come out with a new way to process hemp fiber. It's called a decorticator.

Speaker 1 They invented this thing. It was a big thing.

Speaker 1 Popular Science Magazine,

Speaker 1 hemp, the new billion-dollar crop. It was like they were saying, We're all going to use hemp now because now there's an effective way to process the fibers, and they're superior to everything else.

Speaker 1 Make superior paper, superior cloth, superior everything. Right, everything.
Much, much, much, much better plant.

Speaker 1 And William Randolph Hearst was like, fuck that. So William Randolph Hearst starts publishing stories in his newspapers about how blacks and Mexicans are taking this new drug called marijuana.

Speaker 1 They invented the name. It was a wild Mexican tobacco.
That's what marijuana used to be. It was slang for a wild Mexican tobacco.

Speaker 1 So they put that name on cannabis, something that people had had forever. People have been smoking it forever.
It was literally the origin of the term canvas.

Speaker 1 It comes from cannabis? Yes. Oh, I didn't know that.
It's all hemp. If you go like the Mona Lisa, those are all painted on hemp.
The first draft of the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp.

Speaker 1 Hemp was a far superior paper. It's really difficult to tear.
It's a crazy fiber. Hey, can we put this on pause for a second?

Speaker 1 You got a piss?

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Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 ladies and gentlemen, Ron White had a moment there where he

Speaker 1 the cold came back, the sickness came back, and you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was a moment. That was a moment.
I don't know what that was.

Speaker 1 Well, I was over over here blabbing about the illegalization of weed and how crazy it is, and we were talking about ayahuasca and all those things, and all of a sudden you just got a little pale.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got a little pale and started sweating. I don't know what it is.
I just got a little sick. I feel a little better now.
I had a nice yak.

Speaker 1 This is a how long has this sickness been with you? I felt fine all day. I felt fine yesterday.
I played golf.

Speaker 1 Has this happened before, though, or it just comes on out of nowhere? No, this should be the first time. So maybe it's like a maybe it's another thing like a food poisoning thing or something?

Speaker 1 Fuck, I don't know. I don't know what it is.
Wow. And you've had a couple IVs, right? I had a two last week and I'll go home and get another one.

Speaker 1 I'm sure I'll be fine in just a little bit. Damn.
I'm sure I'll be cool. Damn.

Speaker 1 And you played golf? Yeah, played golf with my son. Had a great time.

Speaker 1 It's a nice day to play golf, too.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. One of the things that we have out here in Texas is real weather.
I love it when it rains and everything's so green and pretty.

Speaker 1 You need to go down to Costa Rica. I do need to go down to Costa Rica.

Speaker 1 Stay in your neighbor's place. I do need to go down.
It's the sweetest thing

Speaker 1 that I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 My big pet peeve is when people say it's the best thing you've ever seen. I'm like, this is the best thing you've ever seen.

Speaker 1 I've seen some shit.

Speaker 1 I've seen some shit.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Like, what are you saying? I've seen so many things.
But that place down there that, you know, that's another driftwood, or like, you know, kind of like Driftwood. But

Speaker 1 it is fucking gorgeous. I heard that Driftwood Place is amazing.
Place out here? It's the best, man. It's so pretty right now because

Speaker 1 they blow in a bunch of wildflowers all over it, and it's just fucking gorgeous. It's a great golf course.
I almost wish I played golf.

Speaker 1 It's a waste of time and money. You don't have

Speaker 1 time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I would love it, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 so we should probably wrap this up because you're not feeling that good, right? I feel a little better. You're right? Yeah, I'm good.
You keep rolling a little? A little bit. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's just

Speaker 1 when someone gets sick like that, you don't know what to do. Fuck yeah, I don't know what to do, but I swear I feel better.

Speaker 1 I don't feel hot anymore.

Speaker 1 It's so weird.

Speaker 1 So weird. Like, what is that? I just needed to get something out of my stomach real quick, I think.
Crazy. The quickest way to do it.

Speaker 1 It's just crazy that something's been like, you know, you have a little invader in your body that you're fighting off. That's what we're doing all the time, fighting off these invaders.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm still coming to the club tonight. Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get a drip and come do a set.

Speaker 1 Of course. This will be fun tonight.
It's Cam Patterson's show tonight. Oh, good.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 It's an exciting time.

Speaker 1 Really is. And the world is so chaotic right now, which is great for comedy.
Whenever the world's fucked up, comedy's had its best.

Speaker 1 Gaza and Palestine and ah, and it's fucking Ukraine and the tariffs.

Speaker 1 It's great to come out and do some comedy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know what? And

Speaker 1 I stay away from all of it. Good.
And

Speaker 1 of that subject matter or any politic or anything like that. And the reason is,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 I know my crowd. I know what they want.
And they want to laugh really hard.

Speaker 1 And I think that I've always taken a position as I'm just not going to bring that into it. I'm going to let us do something.

Speaker 1 And I love it when other people do that are really good at it and, you know, that it's fun to watch and it's entertaining as fuck. But I decided a long time ago that

Speaker 1 I'm just going to go out there and make them laugh as hard as I can make them laugh and let them have some time off from

Speaker 1 tragedy or whatever.

Speaker 1 And I'm not that good at it anyway. So, you know, I've never been a political commentator, right? So why be one now? And

Speaker 1 well, the problem with politics is you're going to alienate 50% of the crowd.

Speaker 1 Dead split. Yeah.
Dead split. And if you're one of those people that takes a stand on stage, you're like, okay, great.
Right. Now you're taking a stand.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But just just let's let's have fun it's silly unless what you have to say is so good that you can make someone laugh oh if you're good enough yeah if you're good enough right i you know i saw people try to you know take on 9-11 right after 9-11 but i only saw like one person that was really if if you're good enough to write about that then write about it but if you're not good enough to write about it leave it the fuck alone leave it the fuck alone that's some black belt material yeah you have to be skill level, whatever.

Speaker 1 You know, Mitzi Shore wouldn't let Brian Holtzman on stage for two weeks after 9-11. No, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 She's like, no way. Keep him off the stage.
Holtzman couldn't wait. Couldn't wait to say something fucking completely outrageous.
Whatever that demon inside of him that comes out when he's on stage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't understand him. You know, I really don't.

Speaker 1 I love him to death, but he's such an original character.

Speaker 1 The most.

Speaker 1 He's from a different time. It's like he was brought here from another dimension.
He's like a different thing. Even the way he dresses.
It's like he's from the 50s. Right.

Speaker 1 And he's like my age. Like, he's not.

Speaker 1 He was like that when I met him. He was from a different era when I met him in 94.
I was like, oh, you've known him that long. Yeah, I'm like, where is this fucking guy from?

Speaker 1 Like, you're from a different time.

Speaker 1 People fucking love him, though, man.

Speaker 1 He's got a crowd now. Yeah, he does.
That's the difference between the way he was treated at the store. Unfortunately, he fell into this

Speaker 1 through nobody's fault. But it was like everybody waited till the end and Holtzman would go up.
But like, why have him on the end? You know, it's like,

Speaker 1 have him on when the crowd's hot. Right.
Like, don't put him on at one in the morning. Put him on at 10.
You know, let's see when the crowd is like popping. Like,

Speaker 1 let him cook when the crowd's popping. You know, and now he sells out.
People come to see him in the headlines. It's like people get excited.
You know, he's a maniac. And he's got a crowd now.

Speaker 1 He's got like a legitimate draw. They get it.
Yeah, they get it. Yeah.
It's nice. It's fun.

Speaker 1 And, you know, that's also the difference between

Speaker 1 when a comedy club is run by a comic.

Speaker 1 You know, because Holtzman has always been a comic for comics. You know, we all would go to see Holtzman at the end of the night when he was doing these insane sets for 15 people in the main room.

Speaker 1 Right. But now, like, we're running the shows.
Like, give him a fucking weekend. Like, let's go.
Give him a Thursday night. Let's go.
Let's have some fun. Especially 10 p.m.

Speaker 1 shows he does a lot of Thursdays. Yeah, especially 10 p.m.
shows. That's the best time to see him.

Speaker 1 When it's late, you've had a couple of cocktails. Right.
You feel a little crazy about the world. Yeah.
Let that guy.

Speaker 1 Let that guy loose. You understand it's a joke? Yeah, you get jokes.
You get someone saying something that he doesn't really mean. Right.
It's completely ridiculous to say.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's part of the fun. Yeah.
Yeah. And that he acts like he means it and you buy into it.
No, it's a joke still. But every now and then he'll show you behind the curtain.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Every now and then he'll give you a little peek and you're like, okay. Yeah.
This is an act.

Speaker 1 He's having fun. He is.
He's having a good time. And he loves Austin too.
I see him walking around downtown almost every time I drive through the city. He's just.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a big get getting him here. It was a big get because we wanted to bring a lot of the, there was some magic that was trapped in the talent of the comedy store.
It was magic.

Speaker 1 And some of it wasn't being utilized correctly. And Holtzman's the best example of that.
But what a fun hang it was, you know? What a fun hang. Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 1 That's some of my favorite times in my life in that back bar. Yeah.
Just laughing. Just laughing.
We would be back there just laughing.

Speaker 1 That was a great thing the comedy store did when they put together that bar and that it had Mitzi's actual bar from her house was the bar there. I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that bar didn't used to be there. Like, so the early days, that was like a storage room.

Speaker 1 And so, uh, at one point in time, when the store was like really killing it, they decided, like, we should turn this into a bar. And I don't know what year was that.

Speaker 1 I want to feel like, I feel like that was like 2014-ish, like, which is right when I came back. And the store was killing it.
And we all were like, oh, yeah, we'll have our own bar.

Speaker 1 This is incredible. And you had to go through the kitchen to get through it, like a scene from Goodfellas.
Right. And you get back there, and you could only be back there if you were cool.

Speaker 1 Like you, you couldn't buy a ticket, it was police, yeah, yeah, you had to have a friend, you had to know somebody to get back there.

Speaker 1 But we would be hanging with some of the coolest people in the world. That was my favorite place to drink.
Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 It was so fun. There'd be musicians back there,

Speaker 1 pot back there, and everybody was just chilling. The drinks were free.

Speaker 1 It was crazy. It was like, it was so fun.
The store was a magical place, man. A magical place.

Speaker 1 And there's something about the fact that, you know, it had this insane history to it that you felt like, wow, I can't believe I'm even here. Right.

Speaker 1 Standing on the stage, same stage as Pryor and Tennyson.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you just, you're in the belly of the beast on sunset in Hollywood, like right in the middle of everything.
Right. In the middle of everything.

Speaker 1 Where everybody, I remember when I was a kid in 1988, when I first started doing stand-up, they would talk about the comedy store like it was Mecca. Right.

Speaker 1 You had to make your pilgrimage to the store. And some guys would say they went there, but they bombed.
Oh, I went back. I tried to do some meetings.
I did a set at the store. I bombed.

Speaker 1 I fucked that place.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my first trip out to L.A., you know, I was trying to get on at the improv. I couldn't get on.
And I was like, oh, man, I went to the comedy store. And I told them my story.
It was Monday night.

Speaker 1 And they put me up first, which wasn't wasn't a really good spot, and I ate it.

Speaker 1 But they did put me on stage.

Speaker 1 Well, there it is right there.

Speaker 1 There were about 10 people in there or whatever, nobody, and it was a horrible experience.

Speaker 1 But I always look back at it finally, you know, because they did it.

Speaker 1 They said, yeah,

Speaker 1 go get on stage.

Speaker 1 First time I ever came out to the store, I was out in. I was out in LA to do some pilot thing for MTV.
And

Speaker 1 I was staying at a hotel and I knew where the store was. I was like, I got to get there.
I just got to see what it's like. And they let me in because I said, hey, I'm a comedian from New York.

Speaker 1 Can I just come in and watch the show? And they're like, yeah, sure. They just let me right in.
And then I sat in the back of the room. There's like 19 people in there.

Speaker 1 And they were all like, the comics that were on stage were terrible. They were all like Bodaks.
They're like people that sort of.

Speaker 1 And then I realized years later that what had happened was a lot of these scenes, they go in these peaks and valleys. And I had caught it when it was at a valley.

Speaker 1 And before it was at a peak, like the Kinnison years, it was at a giant peak. When people would come to, it was the wild place.
Kinnison was there. They all come at midnight and watch him.

Speaker 1 And celebrities would be all there. And he had died in like 92, I think.
And I got there in 94. So there's like, there was this like,

Speaker 1 absence. Well, right.
It was a real lull. There wasn't, there's a lot of like leftovers, people that didn't, that were in the 80s that didn't make it.
Right. But they were still around.

Speaker 1 They're still doing stand-up and hoping that something was going to happen, but they had tired acts.

Speaker 1 They were just tired. It hadn't happened for them.
They were out there doing pilot season. They didn't want to be at the store because if you're at the store, there's no

Speaker 1 agents. There's no executive.
No one comes to see you at the store at that time. They would go to the improv, go to the laugh factory.
That's where the industry was.

Speaker 1 So if you really wanted to have an actual career, you wouldn't be doing sets at the store.

Speaker 1 Instead, do sets in front of Bud Friedman going, Language! Watch your language!

Speaker 1 There was a lot of that back then, right? The TV days, everybody thought you had to be clean.

Speaker 1 You know, when I came back to the store, it was in its heyday. You know, you were

Speaker 1 running the podcast, and you know, the fucking place was packed to the rafters, and the comics were solid as fuck, you know.

Speaker 1 We had a magical run, Yeah,

Speaker 1 it was a magical run.

Speaker 1 And we're having one now.

Speaker 1 It's the same thing. I mean, we're, it's basically, but it's our version of it, the new version of it.
But it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 It's just like, it's a beautiful thing when, I mean, that term artist is very pretentious. So I'll just say comics.

Speaker 1 Realize that we're all doing this thing together and there's not a lot of us and it's fun to hang out together and enjoy each other's company and appreciate each other and appreciate the ride.

Speaker 1 We're all on this wild ride together. That's right.
And it is quite a ride. It's a beautiful ride.
Quite a ride. Yeah, we're very lucky, Ron White.
And

Speaker 1 I say it all the time, but it's true. You're patient zero.
All right, man. I'll take the title.
I'll take the title. You're really patient zero because you just threw up.

Speaker 1 Imagine if you have some fucking new COVID, you picked up some new COVID in Vegas that kills us all. Yeah.
I love you to death, brother. I love you, too.
Thank you for being here. Oh, you got it.

Speaker 1 Thanks for having me out. Goodbye.
See you guys.