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Welcome to South Beach Sessions.I'm excited about this one because I've watched this man's career from afar, and it seems like it's recently blossomed as if it's an overnight success story.
But I think it goes back 15 years, maybe more, of grinding work.And I can't believe Stavi Stavros Halkias with us here.I don't know if I put a Latin flair on that instead of Greek.
It works, pronunciation-wise.
It has been really fun and funny to watch you become a tastemaker Because you are you you start in the podcast world you go rough and dirty with Compton and then you turn it into a television show and now you've got a movie coming out and it seems like that happened very quickly But it didn't really happen very quickly, right?
It's just sped up over the last couple of years
Yeah, and I mean to be honest, I am also surprised at like the Because of all the things you mentioned all of those are the things that sort of helped me out But the thing that's the through line for me has always been stand-up, you know, and so my stand-up is kind of
My stand-up career has really done well because of all those things, sort of.It's like they've all kind of let it hit another, you know, another sort of level.
You've reached a level of fame and word of mouth in the new media age where people, you're like a dirty secret or word, or a dirty secret.And now you are so pop culture popular that you can lift everything up.
And the most important thing for you to lift up is your specials because it's what you're proudest of.
Yeah, it's just what I like doing the most.
I mean, to be honest with you, everything else is sort of like, you kind of have to get a bunch of different, stand-up is such a, I mean, it's kind of having a bit of a cultural renaissance, a little bit, but it's such an art, it's kind of like jazz where no one really gives a fuck about stand-up or jazz, but if they know you and they like you, like I get people into my shows the same way, like,
When Dustin diamond was doing like stand-up is a thing where it's like they'll just go see a guy they know oh, you know I mean, that's not screech.
It's not saved by the bell dirty story But what I'm saying is like it's the art form people go to when you don't know how to get When you don't know how to make money in show business, but you have some notoriety you're like
Fuck it, I'll do stand-up, the overhead's low, it's just me and a mic.I started it the opposite way, where it's like, this is what I love, this is what I want to get good at.
And then, definitely the podcast, when we did Come Town, it was kind of a surprise.Shout out to Mullen, it was Nick's idea, he really wanted to do it.I thought podcasting was over at the time.
I was like, well, Marin, Comedy Bang Bang, This American Life, there'll never be another, nobody ever will get rich from podcasting again.That technology's dead, you know?So you misread, You misread what was coming with Rogan.You missed it.
I fully misread it.Rogan and every, you know, everybody's, I mean, you know, what you guys built, everybody was able to make their own independent thing.I did not see it coming.We had a great, you know, that show was really fun.
We had incredible comedic chemistry.And then, but the whole time I was like, all I want to do, I'm using this to get my standup going, you know?And I do think eventually I wanted, I thought I was, you know, you're a little too much.Well,
I don't know if you've, I mean, everyone's experienced it where it's like you work with people enough and you're like, we're compatible up to a point.
And not just what we do on what we record is awesome, but like we want different things from our lives, we're different types of people.
And I think we were doing that show from when I was, I think 25 or 26 to, you know, I don't remember how long the run was, but it was like, it's crazy.These last couple of years have all blended together.
I think I stopped doing it two or three years ago, two? Anyway, whatever, we did it for, you know, when you're broke in New York and nothing else is happening for you, your career sucks.And we got a lot of success.
And then, I think we were just interested in doing different things.And I really wanted to really double down on my standup.And then from there it was like, all right, people will see me because they know me from this podcast.
Let me get them in just as a standup.And then from there I got lucky with, Crowd work clips, I had no idea those were going to be.I mean, that's the other element from Comptown to, you know, Tires, the movie, my standup specials.
The thing that's missing there is those clips, which weirdly might have done more than anything in a weird way, which is still hard for me to wrap my head around because I don't, you know, I like doing crowd work in the way that
I want to connect to the audience but I don't see it as, I see it as one of the lowest parts of stand-up and more, it's one of those things that you should be good at it which means you understand what's going on but once you get pretty good at it, it's kind of easy and it's not as hard and or as rewarding I think as like
but you're surprised that that is where you landed uh what are you doing there are you thinking my stand-up is i honor it more it is more of a crafted thing right that i take great care with the writing the syllable count the rhythms the music of it and you what you guys are like liking is the sloppiest form of this which is i've been doing this since high school
Yeah, I can I know how to go back and forth with with a heckler But it's just all you're doing is making social media come to life there Aren't you people being clever in front of people?
Yeah, people love that and you're very good at it.Thank you Yeah, and I think I think there is I understand the feeling of like something spontaneous happening.That is exciting, right?Like it is cool I get that it's cool to see something happen.
We all experience something in that moment in a way that, even a well-written joke, you might laugh at it, but I wrote that at home, and I've been sculpting that forever.I know that's gonna work.Yeah.That's not the high wire of impromptu live.
Exactly, exactly.And I get why people really like it, but yes, what it really came down to was, I was very precious about my stand-up, too precious, about a lot of stuff.When I was a younger comic,
Maybe even the reason I didn't want to originally podcast, because I was like, people don't need to see me.You know, I opened for Bobby Kelly.He was kind of like my comedy dad, him and Tom Papa.
And I was always nervous to do his podcast, where I was like, this isn't what I want.I want to be on stage.And I was too precious, I think.And essentially what happened was, I really want to put out, I was going to do a half hour special in 2020.
March and May of 2020 were going to be big for me.I was going to do an international tour, I was going to go to England, I was going to go to Europe. And then it looked like I was going to get a Comedy Central half hour.
It was going to film in New Orleans.And so I was really excited about it.Obviously the pandemic happens.None of that happens.
But a special that you had prepared how long for that you're about to head into.It's your most precious form.
For sure. This is how people are gonna know me.They don't know me as a stand-up, they know me as the guy from Comptown, you know, the second guy from Comptown, basically.
And I was like, this half-hour special, and I grew up watching half-hour specials.That's one of the ways that I got into comedy.
Obviously early SNL, my comedy heroes are, you know, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, you know, and then as I got older, Danny McBride, the Apatow guys, all those guys.
One thing that really got me into stand-up was, I loved all those movies, but Comedy Central just re-ran half hours constantly.And I watched them to the point where it did feel like a really big thing.It felt like, wow, this is being a comedian.
And you know, I do this job now, I know that that was like, did not change almost anyone's life, you know, getting that half hour.But for me at the time when I was, you know, this is 2020, Trying to do some math here.
Does it not like yes, exactly You've been exactly and all my friends who got it.
It was like whoa He got the half-hour buddy, but you so you're working how long for that moment?You're that that is more than 10 years.
Do instead was 19 Okay, but whatever the work 11 years, so the work on that particular specialist is more than a year.
Yes Oh, yeah that half-hour was like oh all the good material I had from when I started doing stand-up.
Okay, so what this moment means to you is I've arrived at my dreams.This is the only thing I've ever cared about, getting to one of these.
Yes, yes.And then pandemic happens and That goes out the window, obviously.And I'm depressed like everybody else, whatever.Boy, you skipped right past that.Depressed like everybody else, whatever.Yeah, I don't really want to think about it.
It's one of those things where, in hindsight, you realize, I didn't really think about the 1919 flu pandemic until ... It was something you heard about, and you're like, that's fucking weird.There was a pandemic
in like the 1900s and we don't ever talk about it.Why is that?And then you live through it, you're like, I know why.Because nobody wanted to fucking talk about it.They were like, let's get the, let's move on.That's why the flappers happened.
They got a better, they got a better post pandemic than we did.They're fucking wearing gold shimmery glasses, drinking alcohol, fucking illegally, fucking and sucking in flappers and shit.We got none of that.
None of it.We just got the pressure.We got a mental health issue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, we go, yeah, we go right into just like a dog shit, you know, crumbling infrastructure.So anyway, we don't got to talk about that.We'll keep it moving.
And when we have a break in laughter, I want to say I was not aware of how much thigh would be showing.I thought I would be covered.I Googled South Beach sessions.I want to see the layout.I saw the Miami one where you're covered.It's all right.
I'm not ashamed to thigh.
You don't understand how I'm selling this is see Stavi like You've never seen him before, although they have seen an awful lot.
They certainly have.The nude calendar comes.We got a 2025 coming.Don't worry.
It's another element.We didn't discuss that.My nude modeling, which was actually how I got my first social media following.But anyway.
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Right before we started, we were talking, Neil Brennan does his show here and Neil Brennan, I'm just a huge fan of everything that he does vulnerably in comedy because he's trying to break a new form.
But you and I were talking and you're like, well, Mark Maron did the vulnerabilities.You didn't think the podcast world was doing anything but ending, but you did skip right past we're all a little depressed after the pandemic.
You're allowed to not be a victim here, but also you were broke for a long time in New York.
I don't know how awful that is.I was broke my whole life.I didn't have any money.I think we started making some money with Compton.By that point I was at least making... I had a writing job when I first got to New York.
up until maybe two years pre-pandemic I didn't have any money my whole life.
I'll ask you what that looks like in a second but you're arriving at your dreams and you get a step away after 10 years and who wouldn't be depressed under those circumstances?
Yeah that was brutal but I, you know, Sam Murill, who you know very well, he's one of my best friends, and he's somebody who I was friends with.We met through comedy in the pure, the way like two people that just love something.
I was a guy who would take a megabus up and do shows just to try and get a little momentum, and Sam was, you know, he's a little, not much, but Sam's been at it from a young age in such a way that he had,
He was really ahead of where he was age-wise, and he's how cool a guy he is.He did not know me at all.I was some guy from Baltimore.
I was probably 24, taking a Megabus to be on my friend's... to maybe, if somebody dropped out, do a spot on my friend's benefit show in the basement of Gotham, the comedy club. And someone had bombed and they were like, will you go mop this?
They always give you the shittiest spot because they're like, somebody ate it so hard they threw me up there.I had a great set, which can happen actually.That's not always a bad place to be.
If somebody does really poorly and you just kind of comment on it and do well, it's actually an easy spot.
Sam was just happened to be on that show and that's how cool he is He just saw a guy that was funny immediately befriended me helped me to help me out the whole way So I was lucky in that we did a basketball podcast at the time and I watched him
Watched him not get an HBO special.I watched him have this great hour material He had put stuff out there, and he was like fuck it.I think I'm just gonna put it on YouTube and I was like that seems insane Everyone told him that
And but he was like, I just got to get it out there.I have another hour.And that's and so I was very lucky that I got to watch him go through that.And I knew like, OK, I didn't get this half hour, but and I got to watch it be a success.
But he was the one who took the risk.I was like, oh, that worked.And then so I basically just.
But that was live at the lodge room for you.You did the same thing.
Well, I did that.This is what I'm saying, that most of what was live at the lodge rooms an hour special.But That half hour went into Live at the Lodge.
I mean, I had more material than a half hour, but I was like, I'm just gonna give him the good stuff.So I see Sam do it, and I say, fuck it, I'm just gonna do it myself.And that's what happened to that.
The material that would have been that half hour plus 25 minutes of other stuff all went into Live at the Lodge room. And I was like, all right, I spent, you know, I think I spent 40 grand on it.
I didn't have, I was not at a time in my life where that was, that was a, even with Comptown making money, that was a serious amount of money for me.And I needed to promote it somehow.So even though I was a purist and I was like,
Alright, I can't be putting out these and people started doing some clip stuff like Sam Sam had so much material He was clipping out old stuff and putting it out there that was really helping him My buddy Mark Norman was doing the same thing and he also did a YouTube special Andrew Schultz did it as well?
And so these guys were doing really well And I was like, I'm not doing crowd work.Let me get all my old stuff.I'm not using and that went in a
Seven days like I was like I'll clip up all my old stuff and all the old jokes that didn't make the special and that'll be enough to sustain me went so quick that because I had been preparing for that half-hour special for about a year I and I was
Again, embarrassingly nerdy about comedy, like the way athletes, and I'm a big Ravens fan, like Ed Reed would watch film and just inhale it and look at everything and know everything.
I would be like that about my shitty dick jokes, you know, from a young age.So I taped everything going into that half hour special.
And most of it was useless because it was just the same shit over and over again But I would do crowd work in the beginning of every show just to Kind of just I almost it almost feels like you're your own opening act.
We were like, let's disarm everybody Let's get them to understand that I'm not just a robot telling jokes and that was that was a something in my progression as a comedian to go from just set up punchline to
yes you have to have tight writing but you also have to be a person and so I would just go up there and just with never thinking this would ever see the light of day I did a little crowd work here and there and if something popped up in the middle of a show I would do it and I was like well that's all bullshit I'm not going to use that for anything let's clip that up and put it online and
And it just, from the beginning, started going.And I think it was the right place, right time.I do think everyone was competing with TikTok.So short form stuff was really getting juiced by every algorithm.And I am good at it.I don't like to...
I don't think oh, but you saw you saw your popularity take off like a lit fuse you saw a different way to a different economy than because so Sam is giving some people permission to just own the entirety of their brand and be a whispered secret on the internet that travels by word of mouth and you figured out how to turn that into an economy in a multiple of ways but tell me about how you were handcuffed by
Seeing so much nobility in the craftsmanship of how one tells a dick joke Yeah, you're not enjoying what you're doing or or you're you're enjoying the sculpting of crafting and stuff But you're treating something with so much nobility that you can't go just laugh with your friends on cometown And it doesn't have to be like that serious.
Yeah.Well, I you know, I don't think it was ever The, I think I liked both.Like Once Come Down was a success.That was fun to do.It was just the logistics of, it was honestly like, mostly like scheduling stuff.
I mean, just like working with somebody over time.And mostly because I wanted to be on the road nonstop and we just had to, you know.But the actual doing the show was always really fun.And we're still, me and those guys are still friends today.
But it was, it was, so it wasn't really podcasting versus comedy for me because once podcasting took off, I was like, I did see the value in it.And even though when I left initially, I didn't think I was going to do another podcast.
Very quickly, I realized that's stupid.I have all these people who know me from podcasting.I should do my own.I think it was all just, you know, you're fresh off something and you're so tired of doing it.You're burned out that you're like,
I'll never do that bullshit again.And then literally two months after, two or three months, whatever it was, I was like, maybe I should.And I left in the summer and by October or December, I started Stavi's World.
So that was never, podcasting I realized, I realized it was its own separate thing that had a lot of value.Honestly, mostly financial because of our model of Patreon and getting subscribers and being able to not answer to anyone.
invent a new economy yes exactly but so for me it was more like stand-up jokes versus crowd work which is like the that was the big philosophical difference and i think once i started putting them out i mean i guess i realized
seeing a lot of other people do it, I was like, well, I am actually good at this.This is better than what other people do.And I try and be novel with it.I try and actually get to know a person.
I try, you know, in those splits, I know it's tough, but I do try and just have a different spin on it.
Sometimes I ran into the issue of having repetitive like questions, but I think once you get rid of that, it's like, it can actually be very interesting artistically.I still,
I still value the written joke more to the point where maybe a little too much, maybe you're denying what you are naturally good at because I've had people I really look up to, great comedians, who ask me, why don't you do more crowd work on your special?
And these are the people that I'm like, in my head, I'm trying to impress with my great crafted jokes, but they're like, dude, you're good at this.You should do more of that stuff.
It's so interesting how much you respect the craft.
I don't know that most people who are fans of yours, and I mean this as no insult, are discerning enough to see how brilliant you actually are at crafting written material that is meant to look sloppy, is meant to connect in a human way with every man,
physically, all of it, that it's a wonderfully brilliant manipulation of, and it's smart, of how you connect with your audience by really giving a wide range on making something look easy that you've been working on for 10 years to make look that easy.
Yeah, I do think that it should feel a little spontaneous.I mean, at the end of the day, we are performing, right?Like, it should feel spontaneous.And that's why I do think a little bit of crowd work's good, because you are just connecting.
You're truly connecting for you, not just for the, the audience, you could maybe, if you're good enough and the jokes are good enough, fool, but you have to feel like this is different than everything else.
Like, this is a different, and that's what I love about standup, is that every show is different, you know, no matter how much you prepare. You're in that room and the clock, you can't stop.There's no timeouts, there's no nothing.
It kind of has to happen, that hour.
The thing I admire most about what you guys do is that you are stripped down to your entertainment vulnerability.That it's you, the microphone, and the expectation of funny, and that's a high wire that nobody else has that doesn't do it live.
Yeah, right.And that's what I love.I mean, I love that about it.I do.And I think something that is frustrating is that I don't think any comedy special gets what stand-up is, really.I don't think it is the experience.
I think it's important and you have to put it out there just so you chronicle some of those jokes, but it's not what stand-up is.It's really not.And that's frustrating.
I don't think we'll ever really be able to really get it, because it is... The audience is a part of the show.They're very, you know... Percentage-wise, it's smaller than the person on stage, but
the energy you put out there and each crowd and that's what I do love about it and it's also there is maybe a freedom to that where it's like you don't have to worry about what happens afterwards it's like it's just it happens you have to you know hopefully you'll do a great job but if it's bad you just have to survive it and then when it's done it's done
It's just interesting to me.I think the the real way if you actually wanted to If you loved an hour of stand-up, you just have to it's almost like And I'm not telling people do this.
You should have real lives, but it's like it's like it would be like the least Entertaining version of like watching fish, you know people just follow jam bands and they're like and they play completely different sets You know if you follow me around you'll be like whoa
he changed that premise by five words.It's so slight, but it's like, or his energy was off, or, oh, that's how that joke goes when he's pissed off or hung over or whatever.
And I do think the way you should judge, it should almost be like a pennant race instead of the playoffs, where it's like,
So what you're basically saying is what stand up really is you've got to see me go on tour and grind this out show to show and learn what works and what doesn't and these four words need to be these six words because this crowd in Austin showed me something that felt energetically different than the one in Mobile, Alabama.
Yeah, yeah, or even what I was up to or even honestly the acoustics of a room or just I just think an actual hour is You should gray.
It's almost like it's a cumulative score Averaged out over every single show representative sample size of a baseball season.
Yes Yes, well you you did dabble in sports pods.I don't want to dork out on all the pods
stuff with you because I want to get to some of your biography and how it is that your parents took to the idea of you choosing this as a career as immigrants because my dad wasn't having... Not well.
No, my dad wasn't having the idea like, what?
You're going to go do what?And I can't even imagine what it's like to be broke for 10 years in New York City.I don't know how your family felt about the choice that you made, but there had to be some doubt there.
We were so poor, and I don't mean that my mom gets mad when I say that, but don't get me wrong, we had food, we had clothes, whatever, but this podcast money was like, it was easy to become the most successful member of my family.
So even when we were getting, and look, by the end of Coming Out, we were making a really good living.So I was probably really broke, I was really broke for,
I mean the first couple years in New York and then slowly we started making enough money and then by the end of it we were making enough money where like you know I bought a house it wasn't a good house but I bought a house that my brothers lived in and then so I was kind of supporting my family so it quickly it became a thing where they you know they can't really complain when you're paying off their debt you know what I mean like it's the proof is in the
Oh, but it took a minute to get there, though.
It did.It did.And especially, I was like, you know, I was a good student, and my parents did think I was going to have just some very traditional arc.I mean, they always said lawyer, which I think is what you say when somebody's good at talking.
But I think they were expecting me to just have a pretty traditional, you know, get a good job, pay off our debts kind of thing.And, you know, we got to it eventually in a different direction.
I want to get to how it is that they shaped you but it just in one more podcast type question because of how much it helped you in what is the new economy in comedy where you have the respect of all the other comedians it seems like and there are about 20 of you who
go back and forth on each other's pods, and that's what young people are really embracing.You decide with Sam to do Pod Don't Lie, one of two sports things you've gone into, because you also worked with MSG for a while, right?
So, tell me about what you were trying to do there where you're, that sports are interesting you, and you're like, is there, because I've always thought that comedy doesn't do enough in the sports realm.
All of ESPN and Fox are ripe for programming that's funny and somehow none of them do funny programming It's weird to me.
I think you're right.I mean I think
I mean, so yeah, I wanted to do Pado, so Sam got a show, People Talking Sports, with MSG, and he, there was no writing staff, it was him and our buddy Anthony DeVito, who's really funny, and I ended up being basically the only, Anthony was the head writer and I was the only, like, staff writer.
And you know, the money was less than what it should have been for, we did four shows a week, and it was just a great experience.
It was just like, at the time, again, I was kind of, and I got very lucky with moving to New York, because I got a really bullshit writing job as soon as I got there, thanks to Tom Papa.
He literally went to high school with some guy who had a digital ad
Company, but he wanted to get into online comedy, and we never made anything good, but I cashed a couple check You know I cashed some checks And then I went on tour with Bobby Kelly, and then when I got back and got fired That's kind of when Compton was at least paying a we were at least getting enough to like survive So I got I got pretty lucky after the first couple of years And then with MSG it wasn't great, but the beginning had come to like so I got pretty lucky there but that was just a
Everything about that it was like we were designed to fail where it was like you have to do four shows a week Which is insane with a three-person writing staff our writing sessions were literally we would get we go over the headlines on like a phone And like you know we had maybe look at it.
We would scribble we would sit in the producers office for 45 minutes be like all right, that's pretty good.I mean Sam would have to interview people and and
The only reason I bring all of it up is because both of you, in other ways, as craftsmen professionals, seem to be largely adult.But when it comes to sports, both of you seem like you're between toddler and seven years old.
And so when Sam is courtside at Knicks games, and when you're doing the stuff you're doing with the Ravens, I can imagine you two calling each other and being like, What the fuck is happening in our lives?
It's crazy, yeah.I love sports.It's a funny thing that you grow up playing sports your entire life and then you're just, it's gone.It's completely gone and not that fandom fully replaced that.I think it's a different thing.
I mean, the reason we're little kids I think is because that is what fandom allows you to do.You get to just
Be immature you get to like plug back into your earliest sports memories, and it's it's tribal It's like the it's truly the Jersey color It's that you don't have to think you get to be the dumbest version of yourself when you watch a sports game I think that's that's between You know 70 and 80 percent of the appeal.
It's like being able to turn your brain and the other 20% is like chicken wings You know what I mean?It's just a great time.
It has to be so weird to you to be in the equivalent of a Chicken Wings commercial with Santino as a representative of Baltimore football because you have gotten a skyrocket fame that allows you to be like, wait a minute, I'm in who's Skybox?Why?
Yeah, yeah.I did watch that crushing defeat to the Chiefs in one of the nicest boxes at M&T Bank.It was crazy.Yes, and that's surreal to me.
That's another thing of most of my career is shit that I just never... The stuff that's changed my life is stuff that I never really thought about. truly stand-up, which I really care about, has done the least for me directly than everything else.
That's funny.And I basically just started doing a Ravens character because it was a parody, but it was also what I thought.
It's also you as an eight-year-old listening to sports radio.You were summoning the child in you, the adult in you, the funny adult in you, is going and summoning your eight-year-old sports fan and giving him a comedian's volume.
Yeah, and filtering it through the, you know, the like white trash I grew up around, like the hilarious characters that, so you can make fun of where you're from at the same time too.
You know, all the kids that I would play like pick up football, you know, touch football with and like they grow up and you're able to just make fun of where you're from.
No one is offended by this impersonation of Baltimore.
It's real.They know that guy. You are Daniel Day-Lewis in character.You are unimpeachable as an actor because you've got the voice down so good.
The voice and just yeah and then it's it's it's just a fun and I just started making fun of I mean it I would do When some big story happened, or I used to do that character actually just out of football.
I used to do my friends, William City Comedy, my friends who were in this collective, a very alternative, you know, they're artists that would do some comedy and they would have like weird comedy shows.
And sometimes I did that character doing standup. And some of it ended up actually going into that first special, a couple lines from it.But that was just a guy I liked doing.
And then when the Ravens started, you know, when some big thing would happen, or even if it was just like AFC North stuff, I remember I did a video when... Who was it?I'm blanking on his name.He's awesome on the on the Browns.
He hit Mason Rudolph in the head with a helmet.I would just respond to stuff that would happen or even just do character things and then as the Ravens
I kind of fell back in love with the Ravens when we drafted Lamar, and when we had gotten into those seasons where we were just underachieving so hard, I couldn't understand why we weren't doing more for Lamar, and as a frustrated fan I was like,
You know, I you know and so I just make videos making fun of Greg Roman and I would just shit on Just shit on the Ravens for losing a fan.
You would just be the most outsized Turn it up to a thousand fan and I wouldn't and I and I just you know The the videos did well and then I went on pardon my take they have it.They have a huge football Those guys kind of really set
a lot of, like a big portion of the culture of how we watch football and I love those guys and the show's so funny and they just let, they asked me about it and I think a clip from there went viral and from then it was like every video I did of that got a little more attention and then I started doing it every week kind of organically.
Oh, but I thought, I thought, you came on with us one time in the middle of that and just like called, in the middle of that, called Colin Cowherd out on some of the dog whistle race stuff that he does.
No, that was such cool range, like you and Sam would have grown into doing such a good sports radio show.
I think we would have, yeah.
If that's like the path that you guys had decided that you wanted to do.
We definitely could have, and we both love hoops, I mean that's what it came down to is that
So our friendship started because he just kind of I really I was a fan of his already because I was I was such a nerd in the weeds that it was like I watched every like Conan set and every like okay there but how many of you are there that are there 25 of you connected there from the place where you dork out the way that Jay Leno can watch anyone stand up and say
here's what was happening here here's what was happening here because you're really studying the craft how many of you are there in the comedy world that can talk about it with the kind of depth that that you and sam could for example uh you know who's to say i mean uh there's a handful of us in new york i mean
Not that, I mean, I don't think there's that many.It's a small world of people who care like that.For sure.Yes, you have to hit kind of a, it's kind of a slim Venn diagram, but there's also more, it really just comes down to being a good comic.
It's not really success, necessarily.There's plenty of people that, most people don't know most comics, but there's a lot of comedians I'd like to, you know,
And part of what's kind of sad about being on the road so much, because I've been touring, is that I kind of, I really want to spend time in New York City with, and even younger, like I've met some younger comics that it's funny to be, you know, I'm 35, I've been doing stand-up since I was 19, it's like 16 years.
I feel like an old guy.I did a show in Brooklyn and it was like, these kids were 22, and I remember being a 22-year-old who was like nervous around a guy who had a comedy sense, and I was like, whoa, this is fucking weird.
I feel like the old guy, which you know, I just felt like I'm an adult this year I think stand-ups like that where you feel like a child your whole life But kind of what I'm sad about it's like I'll talk about it I honestly will talk about it with anybody that if I look at your act and I think you're funny I will talk stand-up with you
I prefer doing that.That's what I like to do.I don't want to do it on a podcast.
I would imagine as much as you care about this and we can leave this subject alone because I really do want to get into biographically how you became the things you became and why it is that you kept chasing them undeterred.
But you mentioned when it comes to your sports prowess that you played some.You played at Baltimore Polytech Institute, which I don't imagine has a very good football team just from the name of Baltimore Polytech Institute.
I would underestimate that team.We had a couple guys that went to the league from my team.So you played football aggressively and well.
Yeah, yeah, we were actually pretty good.That year, Laquan Williams, he was on the Ravens, he was a receiver for the Ravens, special teams guy for a while.Ricardo Silva, he picked off Tom Brady in a preseason game.
I'm sorry for underestimating Baltimore Polytech Institute, but you're telling me that then you knew you wanted to be a comedian? You knew you didn't want to be a football player or what?
No, I mean when I was in the heat of it, like that, my junior year of high school, where we had, that was the team, I was, those guys were seniors and before they left, we were pretty good and we made, you know, we made it to the playoffs, we lost, but it was like, and I was, again, accidentally pretty good at football.
My parents never let me play football.They were scared, you know, Greek people were like, that's a barbaric sport and they're not wrong.They're not, I mean, The CTE numbers, they were probably on top of it.
They're like, I'm not letting my child bang his fucking skull.
It's inhumane.It's unethical.It doesn't mean we don't love it, but it's cockfighting.
But the JV soccer program was dissolved because the coach gave a kid porn, not in a molestation way, in a like, I want to be cool, I want this child to think I'm cool way.
Like he really wasn't trying to, it was just even in a weird way, it's weirder.The scandal is deserved.Whatever happens after that, it's really bad judgment.
So this guy's like, I really want to earn the respect of this 14 year old, let me give him a fucking penthouse.
And so our soccer team gets dissolved and our JV football team was so bad that they were like, you guys all have eligibility because you practiced, we'll just take you. At the time it's Mike Allstott, I'm like, I'm the big white running back.
This is what I dream of being.And you know, I want to be Allstott.And I could not read a fucking, that's the thing.I'm kind of a smart guy, but I have, I could not read a playbook.I couldn't see the holes.
Like, and so they were like, why don't you just play like, you know, scout team defense while we're figuring this other shit out.And I just ended up being a good nose tackle and that was awesome, no play necessary.
You know, either you shoot, you go right at the guy, you go to his right, you go to his left.There's three things you could do and I ended up being pretty good at it.
I started my junior year and in that year I was like, I'm gonna go play football in college.But you also eventually are like, that's not, My senior year, I kind of was getting the itch, and I made a documentary.
My mom got me a Mac, that was a huge thing, and I made a documentary about the Greek junta in 1967, and I also had those political, like, my senior year, I was like, I didn't know really what I wanted to do.
I had this creative streak, and always in the back of my head, I was like, you wanna do stand-up.You're just too much of a coward to tell your immigrant family. that you want to do this.
So my junior year, I was like, I'm destined for the league, you know?And then my senior year, they fired the coach I really liked and they brought in a real hard ass and I just didn't go.I was like, I'm not fucking running sprints.What the fuck?
I'm not doing this bullshit.Our coach was all, he wasn't a great coach, but he, he was a player's coach. And I also, and I got really fat.I got a telemarketing job next to a Wendy's.
And it was like the junior bacon cheeseburger ruined my athletic prowess.
I could kill a Wendy's.I could kill a Wendy's.
So there was a lot going for me to abandon my athletic dreams.And then I got into, you know, I started learning how to like edit video and do all this other shit.And so I just, I was like, I'm not playing.I'm not doing this shit.
And I was going to school. Also at the time when you're when you're a kid, I just wanted to get out of my parents house So I had to get a scholarship.
That was the only way I could not live at home if I wanted to go to a not like I could have gone to community college or maybe like a really really shitty local school which you could argue and I went I ended up going to UMBC which I
up until Fairleigh Dickinson, those pieces of shit.We were the only 16 seed to beat.I mean, we got to enjoy that for two years.That's so fucked up.
Fairleigh Dickinson didn't mean the side swipe.
No, they did.All UMBC had was that we were the 16 seed.I enjoyed that for two years and it doesn't happen the entirety of the NCAA.That's right.
You got to enjoy it for two years.It was such bullshit.Fuck them. And so they stripped me even having a tribute.I mean, it's kind of cool still, but it ain't as cool as the only 16 seat to do it.You left though.
And you left before you were finished.At that point, you knew like you left a few credits short of graduation, right?
So what's happening there?You already know clearly I'm going to be a stand up comic.There's nothing for me in classes that's going to help me be a stand up comic.
Yeah, what happened was I got a scholarship that allowed me to live in dorms and that's all I wanted.I ended up losing it for a year because I got caught smoking weed in those dorms, but whatever.That's neither here nor there.
That was a depressing year to get everything you want and then have to go move back home, go back to your childhood bedroom for a year. I'd gotten what I wanted out of it, and I started doing stand-up the winter break of my freshman year.
I knew I liked it.I stopped because of all that immigrant guilt, and I think also I felt guilty getting caught smoking weed, and I was like, you know, I... You are a shame to your family at this point, are you not?I'm teetering on the edge.
Still, again, the bar's so low that no, not yet.
Okay, but it's drugs and comedy, and he can't stay in school and what kind of immigrant son is this?He's a bum.He's not, and he's smart and he's talented, but he's not gonna do anything with it.
I was, yes, that, but I kept, through all that, I maintained a 4.0 because, you know, it was like history.I was good at that stuff.
And so I always had my, I knew my salvation was always kind of like my grades, where my parents, at the end, as long as I kept those up, couldn't really tell me shit.
So I kept those up and then, but as I went on, I literally, I started therapy, I started going to therapy at the school's, you know, the school's health center.They were like people that were, I guess, getting their PhD or graduate degrees.
You're in college and you're going to examine therapy in college?
I'm getting therapy from a trainee, essentially, at the University Health Center, because it was free, right?I also didn't have health.
My mom, they made sure we got to see doctors, but I was on my own now, and it was like, I took advantage of the health services.Mental health services as well, though.Mental health, yes.So not a lot of people are doing that at that age.
No, probably not.And I just felt like I had a lot of anxiety and depression issues, I think because I knew I wasn't doing what I wanted. I had this little brief taste of being an open-mic comedian.I was the happiest I ever was and then I felt guilty.
Oh wow.I quit and focused on school and it was like I have to be serious.
Oh wow, so you are really, what's legitimately happening with you is that you are depressed because somewhere deep inside of you, you know you're not actually following what is your intuitive calling.
I think so or I just didn't like fucking working. I mean, that's the other aspect of it.Most setups suck in America.Most jobs are fucking atrocious and they don't treat people well.And I do think I was, I just knew that if I followed
I was like, let me quit what I want and do what my parents want.And that made me fucking depressed.And I started going to therapy.And this woman basically, it's so funny, I think she probably, she was a trainee.
I think she probably violated her training to tell me to drop out and do stand-up comedy.This is what this therapist told me.
In any case, I spent a year basically trying to get over my... It was that clear, though, but it was that clear, forgive me for interrupting you, to a training professional that you had to follow your heart, that you clearly wanted something so desperately that you had to stop doing everything else and go chase the thing that you were going to be maniacal about.
And of course, you spent a year or more depressed because of the soul-sucking of, must I be a coward and do what my immigrant parents
Parents wish.And boy am I lucky my parents had no money or anything to dangle.It was kind of an easy decision because it wasn't like, no, you can't follow your dreams.You have to be the CEO of our successful company.
It was like, no, you can't follow your dreams.You have to bail us out in a way we want you to instead of the way you want you to.So there was like, it was an easy, sometimes I wonder like what would have happened if I had that classic like,
you have to get a job at your dad's company thing I don't know I still think I want to give myself credit I would do my own thing but yes so after that but if I may how did this happen for you because I want to get to the after that but in the in my family when it came to exiles not immigrants my father wanted me to go the engineering path and if I'd done that I would have been a very unhappy engineer and it was my mother that won that fight
In your case, you're just adult enough in college to go get the mental health you need and tell your parents, no man, you don't have anything better for me.I'm going to chase my dreams.
I think it was a little bit of that. My mom wanted me to get a regular, my mom, it wasn't that it was, she just believed in me.
I had that classic like, my mom just over, still to this day, no matter what, she thinks I am not hitting my, even now, she's like, well you're, like my mom, God bless her, thought it was like, I think she literally used this phrase, which I laughed in her face when she said it, when I told her I wanted to do comedy.
She was like, you're depriving the world of your brain. I was like, mom, that is not what's happening here.
I promise you, the world is going to be a-okay without this.
A brain at the time that was never not high, by the way.I'm like, all right, three hours, don't smoke weed so you can have this talk with your mom.
Like that's where she's catching me and and so she's such a sweet woman who always believed in me so much that For me, but for me it was just like I guess I did always have a bit of a stubborn streak an independent streak and to my mom's credit
So I don't graduate college, because to me college was just, it was a way to not have to live at home.And I spend six months, you know, my lease is weird, and I spend six months with my buddies in our college house, you know, even afterwards.
And I'm doing some tutoring, some writing tutoring.I'm doing, I'm working at like, doing a desk job at a community college, whatever. And and then when I get home and then eventually the other guys are like, all right.
Well, this is fucking stupid We're gonna go get real jobs.This is a fun little And I can't afford to live anywhere by myself.So I have to go back home and My mom to her credit.
I got a I got a paralegal job with no this is what a this is what an upstanding law firm it was didn't check that I didn't have a degree, you know and
And I think a year after I left, one of the partners shot himself in the head in the parking lot because he was embezzling money.Like this is the kind of place, you know what I mean?
Yes, understood.Where the normal dark legal stuff happens, you shouldn't have been, you're not qualified to be handling anybody's legal affairs at this age.
And I'm now doing a horrible job.And you're high all the time.Yeah, I'm pretty stoned most of the time.I cut back a little bit now.I'm an adult.I'm 22 at this point.
And so but my mom what I would do is I would go work that dumb job and then I would come home I would literally just eat dinner and then I would go to open mics I would drive to DC because they had a better comedy scene and my mom my mom assumed when I said I want to do comedy it meant I don't want to
to have a job.I want to be a bum.I want to get high with my friends.I want to, you know, whatever.I want to spend all my night in bars."And she wasn't fully wrong.I mean, there is, that was a more, a lifestyle that I was more interested in.
But I also, and I did that for a while, but eventually I got serious and I was like, I really want to do this.I want to move to New York.I even got that job because I wanted to save money for the move.
And when she saw that I was working a job, I was essentially working two jobs and then commuting to DC every night.And then I would get home at like 1 a.m., my alarm would go off at 7, and I did that every day for a year and she watched me do that.
She was like, oh, okay. She was on board when he's not screwing around.
Yeah, which is kind of cool actually because some people might say like You're putting all this effort into nothing like put it into a real job and you'll actually have money with all but you're my mom but you're putting it into everything because you're choosing the thing that like you're depressed when you don't have it like it makes you that happy to care about this thing and
Yeah, I get that.It's funny because I look back at it and I'm like, I don't begrudge any parent who said, like, I look at what comedy is and how low the percentages are and like, I did get insanely lucky.I understand that.
I worked hard, don't get me wrong, but I get where a parent would come from.So that's why I do think it's very cool that my mom, my mom did believe in me to a delusional degree.She had the same kind of that, which I needed.
You need delusion to want to do something like this.And I gave her credit for that because once she saw that I was working, she was like, great, I'm on board.My dad didn't, but my mom, you know.
Well, what was that like?Because I know I'm rummaging around in this bin, but I would imagine
that maybe most of the people listening to this right now, and I'm being presumptuous in determining this about you, wouldn't really totally understand what it is like to disappoint immigrant parents.
who come from another land to make sure that you can have a better life and now you're telling them, like I told my dad I wanted to be a writer and he's like, I fled communism, dude.
So that you'd be an engineer and do something that could make money so that no one would ever have to govern you again because freedom is the thing that matters most.
And my mom's chirping in the background, Gonzalo, you need to let him chase the things that will make him happy at life. And he's responsible enough that he'll figure out a way to do it there.
But can you explain to people how, like when you're saying I'm too much of a coward to go against my parents, you're in high school still.So this is how you become, comedy helped you become an adult here.
Sure, it did.I mean, yeah, which is hilarious.And again, I would love a super cut next to the solemnity with which we're discussing this. and the material I was doing when I was 19 was like, I'm so fucking fat, I can't wipe my ass.
I mean, that was one of my jokes.I mean, this is what I, this is what my parents were right.
That's the hard thing here is that like, it led to this, but it's like, this is so funny that we're discussing.
Lemony is the perfect comedic work you just slapped me across the face with.Yes, I'm discussing the art of your incredibly- It's about busting fast and like, you know what I mean?
I've really made you a comic genius.I'm interviewing you like James Lipton would interview somebody.
But I mean it was true that that was very difficult and I think your parents just have you know I was relatively young and I don't know guilt is a huge issue For it's it was really the only tool my parents had and they they used it my dad, you know, my dad big on the guilt and
And it's exactly that, it's like, I left my country for you, saying that to you from a little kid, you know?And my dad did not, he at least presented like he didn't want to be here.
He at least, I think shit was going bad for him, and he knew that his one narrative out to himself is, I got trapped here, I didn't want to be here.
I take umbrage with that, we've had our discussions, whatever, me and my dad, we didn't have a great relationship, we're rebuilding it now. Um, and we're on good terms, but, uh, you know, I have, I obviously take, I think he handled it wrong.
I think you should never put that at the feet of your eight year old kids about your, you know, your life choices that you fucked up.
Um, but from a little kid, a little heavy, a little heavy. for an eight-year-old.Dad, don't really need all of your immigrant sacrifices.
I'm eight.It's like, I didn't fucking want to be here.And so that was... And is it just because he's broke?
Is it just because he imagined having a freer life?
It wasn't even that.I think he would... Yeah, he would talk about his obligations all the time.He would talk about how he's not near his family, how he doesn't get to see his mom, his dad.
Oh wow, so what you're eating is the resentment of being responsible for you makes for a smaller life than the one that he could have without you.
Exactly, 100%.That one stings for a kid.And that's powerful, that's so powerful that it was never about you know, a plus-minus list, like, should I listen to my dad or should I wouldn't?
If you went down the, like, pros and cons, there's no pros to listening to my dad.
But it's all just, it's like, you know, how they say that when they train elephants in the circus, you have to tie them up tight as babies and they can't, they struggle and they can't leave the thing.And then when they're adults, you just put, like,
superficial rope and they think they're stuck to it that's what it felt like when it was like I thought I had to listen and then for I just took a year of reflection and I'm like why I got to this fucking I studied hard I got here I you know I did all this shit I I've had every goal I've had I figured it out at a young age and again that's youthful like hubris too you need you need a lot you need hubris and you need you know like I said delusion to want to do something like this but
It worked out and I eventually got over it and then I had a lot of resentment that he behaved that way but then you also realize he's a fucking human being.His life was not easy.
He maybe was a little immature about things and I think he should have owned some of his decisions a little more than he did but it's not like his life was easy.
They were going through tough times financially and he did work hard and they probably had, you know,
Oh, it's not the life he imagined for himself, though.And it shows great grace from you as an adult to forgive him and file it under he did the best that he could under really trying circumstances.
I love that, too.Almost never true.It's almost never the best they could.He did all right.
You know what I mean?He got good at thinking of a couple things, you know what I mean?But still, he did a solid job.
My point is that you're choosing to meet him in a forgiving place so that you don't eat the resentment of having a bad relationship with your dad.What needed repair there for you and what did you do actively to get to repair?
Because would he have done the things necessary for repair if he's an old school immigrant Greek dad?
I think there's a little bit on his part.I mean, yeah, there was a, we just didn't talk for a while.And then it was like slowly, you know, life just happens and people get married and someone, you know, my brother's gonna have a kid.
I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna see my father at, you know, the kid's baptism, you know what I mean?Like, you're gonna take these petty, this fight that we had when I was, you know, in my 20s into my 40.
It just seemed, it seemed immature on my part.And it also seems like, yeah, you know, that's, you know, And I think eventually time kind of softened him too.But is the fight in the 20s about this?No, it's other stuff, just family stuff.
And maybe it's tangentially, maybe you could argue that it's all one thing.But no, this was like, he didn't like it.He didn't like that I was doing standup.But again, at a certain point, once you get successful enough, That's another hard thing.
It's like, I wonder if things would have been this easy if I didn't get this successful.You know what I mean?But again, what's the point of that thought?You know what I mean?
I mean, it is a good guard gate against mistrust, I suppose.Like, you probably... We were talking right before we started about Ta-Nehisi Coates.Baltimore Polytechnic alum.I don't know if he played football or not.
Wherever it is that you see the real Baltimore that is in the wire or in his work or in David Simon's work, and I imagine that you've experienced the real Baltimore, right?
Yeah, I grew up in Baltimore City, yeah.
We were talking about Ta-Nehisi Coates, did some seminal work, got a lot of pop culture fame for it instantaneously, which I imagine would feel something like your last four years have felt, and fled in the other direction because he thought it was going to corrupt and contaminate the ability to do real and good work, the temptations of fame, the temptations of whatever offers you're getting now because you're a hot thing that speaks to a certain demo.
You are a bridge to young people and to sell them fire water or fireball.
Which by the way, I got six more months of that left.What young people are into, neither one of us understands.You know what I mean?It's barely, I'm a bridge to like, you know, maybe mid-twenties kids, but like, you know, young motherfuckers.
It's happening quicker and quicker, being out of touch.
You are now a veteran comedian who is going to fall out of favor with the 18-year-old YouTube influencer in a moment.
But what have you learned about what has rushed into your life, what you have to be careful about as an adult who has largely arrived at his dreams, right?
Beyond his dreams, I imagine, because if all you wanted was a special and now you've got a TV show on Netflix and now you've got a movie out, my guess is you've wildly exceeded your dreams.
Without question.Without question.All I wanted to do was be a touring headliner and make a solid... I would have loved to make $80,000 touring the country, gone every weekend.That was my dream.And I want to have one great special.
I don't think I'm there yet.I like my two specials.So I still artistically am chasing the one.I actually haven't hit that one.But yes. I am in a place I could not have imagined without, yeah, for sure.
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But you don't feel like you've done your best work either.There's still, there's one special out there that will satisfy you on the work you're doing.
Tires, a hit television show on Netflix with Shane Gillis doesn't feed whatever it is you're trying to nourish there.
I mean, that's awesome.I love doing it.But yeah, this is all stuff I never considered.
And Tires is great because getting to do it with friends is incredible and like working with, I mean, John McKeever, who's the director is so talented in the way he, I've been lucky enough to be able to
Do a little bit of acting here and see how other people do things And it's just a fun thing to do and I'm happy to do it and I do want to explore acting more I mean, that's why you know making this movie was part of it But it wasn't All that is like it's like a bonus round.
It's like it's like, you know what I really want to do is one great special and or even just one where I felt like I did my absolute best.I don't feel like I did that with the last two.Could be this one next one.I'm fine.Don't get me wrong.
I don't want to be a glutton.I'd love to knock it out and then be like done.You know what I mean?Done for the rest of my life.And then I can do other fun stuff. But yeah, I still feel like I'm chasing that, but every other aspect.
And I do, I understand the thing of like getting successful negatively affecting the ability to do good work.I mean, I think that's true.You just become out of touch.
You know my life is comfortable like it just is I don't I never really worried about money.Thank God I never got to the point where I fully I mean, but I always lived it.
I always lived below Super below my means and I still honest to be honest you do that But now whenever I just want anything like I'm still in the same apartment I was when I moved to New York ten years ago I have the whole thing instead of it being a three-bed, but it's like I live in some fancy place and
But yes, whenever I want something I can just have it now, you know, which is fucking crazy So you worry about being out of touch and you worry about Not having anything to talk about that's relatable or interesting to people I mean, I still think some of my biggest deepest issues are I mean just kind of like, you know all the same shit everybody is worried about like what's worrying me in my life right now is my health and
is getting a handle on my addictions, is dating life and trying to, because most of my life I've been an immature, I've lived like a child.You know what I mean?It's like.No, I know, I recognize that.
If you focus on one thing the way that you need to focus to get as good at this and successful as in a really competitive field,
It's going to be to the lopsided detriment of every other thing you could have been obsessing about to make yourself a better person.Nobody sees the hard work in making it look easy.
I just finished Will Smith's biography and he's talking about, I'm going to be the biggest movie star in the world.And how is he going to do it?He's going to outwork everybody.
Like, I was, I got into my late 40s still being a child because all I was doing was, how can I get better at this one thing?This one thing provides me with, like, here, what I need.And you were doing the same thing.
Yeah, and I mean, I guess, I guess the lesson is that that's not true, that it provides some of it, but like, you realize that
I mean, I've talked about it a little bit before, but the year last year, where it was a year that I filmed a Netflix special, went on a theater tour, filmed a movie.
and Stavi's World, my podcast, kind of like I was really launching it and it became a really big financial success.In that year, it was easily the worst year of my life emotionally.You know what I mean?It's like I was not happy at all.
And I was just like, wait, and I didn't really enjoy any of it.Like I remember I sold out the Beacon Theater three times.Insane. crazy and I had friends who were at the after party and they were like Let's go fucking celebrate.
This is fucking incredible and I was like I can't I have to get on a plane tomorrow and go promote my fucking Netflix special and it was just like all of that's awesome, but I just didn't get to just be a human being and like anything and it also Destroyed I was just getting really fucked up and I was eating like shit and it really destroyed everything and that was a moment for me where I was like
who gives a fuck about this stuff?It's cool, but we really gotta dial back, and you can't be obsessed with success.That year was like, holy fuck, they're letting me do this stuff?
It's stuff I never thought anybody was gonna let me do, and I didn't think for a second.It was Jurassic Park, you know?It's like, if you could, not if you should.You know what I mean?You know?Wow.
What an interesting thing, though, to realize, a remarkable amount of self-awareness in that.I would say,
I've lost my little brother, it's been a little more than a year, he's a painter and artist and he loved doing it so much that I'm convinced that the cancer that ravaged him is that he was working 16 hours a day with paints and stuff that ends up eating him up and enjoyed all of it because he was consuming all of it and was sprinting 16 hours a day making things.
In one year, you arrive at something that is beyond your wildest dreams, you're saying yes to everything, and you're unhappier than you've ever been.
Yeah I mean it was it averaged out I mean I was so maybe not than I've ever been because there was some fucking tough there were some perks too it wasn't bad it wasn't all bad but I was I was uh I was fucking depressed as shit yeah unhappy that I was when I was a broke open miker that might have been when I was the happiest because that's all it was was about getting better at comedy
Unhappier than I was even in like a maybe a rival that first year in New York where you go from being the big fish in the small pond and then you're so broke because I don't even have my day job anymore and You're living in New York is hard and you don't even have friends.
You're not dating, you know, New York broke, dude.
I mean, I don't know what tough like yeah, New York broke is it's unpleasant But you get looking up at the mountain too.
You're like, holy fuck.I have to climb this thing.
No chance No chance hopeless doubtful.Like how do I how do I get to there?but
hard enough that all the things you got weren't what you thought you want because there was an emptiness in not having someone to share it with, not living a life that tests relationships so that you can grow and get better, and share a life with somebody around your insecurities, where your eating is, or your vices are, or wherever it is you eat to comfort the way I've eaten to comfort all my life.
Yeah, that's exactly, I mean, that was it.It was like, and you also realize there's no, no one is going to stop this but me.No one stops you from getting opportunity.
Like, once you start, and then once you start making people money, I mean, not to get all about capitalism and everything here, but it's like, once you become a commodity that is making people A lot of money.So interesting.
You saw the hook.The hook got into you and it's like, they'll bring me dry for five years.
And I don't want to say that.Actually, I have a great relationship with my agent, Mike Criscola, who actually I do feel care.It wasn't like that classic, ah, come on, kid, let's get you up.
Certainly the whole the machine will work you once you're in it.
There is it's not just a positive It's like you're in it because you sell tickets and because you sell tickets They want to keep you selling tickets, and I took a year off touring which Undoubtedly hurt my touring business.It's gonna.
I am going to have to build it back up a little bit I'm not gonna be able to sell Was selling out theaters, you know multiple times.
I'm going on this theater tour I'll probably sell one theater and you know, I mean like I'll do worse, but that's fine I don't you know, that doesn't that doesn't matter to me and you just see it from from everything.It's like
you what you have to sacrifice to maintain success and I just wasn't interested you know I'm not that interested in it.
Now I still want to do things creatively and there's some of those things are at a high level I made this movie that's coming out October 25th and that's an indie that was kind of like my first foray into like you know I co-wrote it I star in it I executive produced it and
Liked it because I just love dumb comedy like I'm a child of Adam Sandler movies Chris Farley Will Ferrell stuff I love that and I don't think we're making enough comedies like I should tell the people let's start a cult Yes the name of the movie and it is the project that involves both his writing and his needs and wants to be an actor and try to stretch himself creatively coming out of any number of opportunities you could have had to pour your time into as you back away from Opportunity to say no.
I want to do this.This is a project That matters to me.
Well, I did it well to be honest you I did it in that year.It's done, right?
But it is and and again to be if we're being totally frank Acting is harder and making a movie is so much harder than I thought and that actually might have been the thing that fucked me up the most those long days and the Nutrition's bad and no opportunities to work out and especially when you I was pretty important on the project.
So if I had to deliver every single day for five weeks, whatever it was, or the whole production was fucked.So that was tough.
How much eating were you doing here?Forgive me for getting in here, but I've never talked about any of this stuff publicly because I don't know totally the roots of where my eating stuff comes from.
You're triggering some of it because I remember whenever it is that I would finish like a month of PTI that I thought was like the height of my dream, walking through the airport I would crush every fast food.
Every fast food like to reward myself because of the
I don't know, because food was love in my childhood.
100%, no, eating was, I mean, the movie kind of just broke all my good habits, because I had been eating not great, but I was working out, and I was kind of staying, and the movie just destroyed those habits, because you can't have any kind of real life when you're working on something like that, because you're working 12 to 15 hour days, especially when you were rewriting the script, you were doing all this other shit.
And you're responsible for everything.Yeah.
Yeah and so we would just get me and my buddy, I wrote it with the director Ben Kitnick and Wes Haney who co-stars in it and we all lived in a house you know we were in a house together and it was like the only thing and the food was pretty atrocious it's a low-budget movie so there's a lot of just buying fast food for lunch and then you get done nothing's open and you're like I'm so my brain is going a million different places I have to get stoned to shit and eat Taco Bell to pass out and then wake up at 545 in the morning but
Not healthy.Not healthy.Anyway, but hey, go see the movie, folks.That's what's important.
But from an artistic standpoint, I am interested in, it is important to me to make these, and I guess going forward, I know what it takes now and I also want to give myself enough space to do all these things healthy, right?
Like even this tour, I'm taking some, I'm shelling out money for a tour bus, even though it's going to dramatically decrease what I take home because
Waking up in a city, so you don't have to travel the same day, you wake up in a city, you can actually work out, you can actually get a healthy meal and then you can take a nap before and actually have a semblance of reality.
But you're becoming, before our eyes, and it pains me to tell this to the audience, you're trying to become a healthy adult human being. balanced around comedy without getting contaminated and dying in a trailer because whatever.
Life has gone off the rails because you weren't examining what made you happy.Because it sounds like you figured out some of the things that need to be found out so that you avoid pratfalls and get to more things you want.
Yeah, exactly.And it might take slower, and it might not even get there, but it's like, what's the point of giving everything up for something when you've... And I haven't... Like I said, like you said, I pretty much got most of what I wanted.
It can't get that much better.
Yeah, it'd be nice to be... Oh, but to realize it while you're in it though, I think people get greedy.Wouldn't you imagine... that most comedians would get eaten up somewhere.You're sitting here saying the two specials, they're not perfect.
I want to make one better than that.That's what matters to me, to creatively put something in the world that is my best work that I'm proudest of.And maybe I quit and go grab the other things after that.
But you're saying that in the middle of that, as all of your opportunities come true, you're also realizing none of this is making me happier.
Yeah, and at a certain point it's like I'm not interested.I already have made more money than I ever thought I was going to make.
It's a crazy amount if you told me growing up, but it's not like I'm not a huge millionaire or anything like that, but I have enough money where
Maybe I'd like to make, if I want to have a family, maybe I'd make a little more, but I've also helped my family in Baltimore, and I'm at a place where I can do all those things pretty comfortably.I mean, I still have to work.
I still have to go on tour.I took a year off touring.I can't do that another year. You know, the podcast is pretty good.I'm good.I'm much better than most people.
And statistically, because of how bad inequality is, I'm probably super far up there percentage-wise, right?And so, why do you need more?I don't understand this, like... Well, people are greedy, no?
They are.We're in Hollywood.
Yeah.The entire... I just don't get it.I honestly...
how fleeting it is like what more like what they write people write more articles about me I get to go like I don't give a fuck about that stuff I don't being being like what more dinners are interrupted because people recognize me from like none of that stuff is positive parties with famous people more more good seats at Ravens games
Yeah, listen, I got good seats at Ravens games, right?And I love the Ravens.I'll do whatever.I love that organization.I've been a fan since they came to town.But I don't want to be more famous.I guess fame is bad.
It feels like it's like working in a mine or some shit, or like in a nuclear power plant where you have to put a suit over it to do your work.That's kind of how I feel about it, where it's like, don't let this bullshit affect you.
You're just a guy, and don't let this stuff go to your head. The opportunities to make stuff I like.I loved making Let's Start A Call.As hard as it was, I loved it.
I thank Dark Sky, the production company, for taking a chance on, you know, at the time my career wasn't even going good when we were talking, when they let us write the script.
But I got creative control over that, and the only limitation was the production company didn't have that much money, right?So we made it really cheap.
The movie cost less than a million dollars, which I know is a bunch of money, but for a movie that shoots for five weeks with a bunch of locations and shit, kind of crazy. That's why the food was no good.That's why the food was, it was tough.
The last day we had some kind of like, they were making shit up.Shit that doesn't, they were like, it's Szechuan flounder.I was like, that's not, I've had Chinese food my whole life.
I've never seen that anywhere.I've never seen that on any menu.Breaded flounder fillets in a weird red sauce.
You guys are up to something here, I know it. The old fish is where we were at from earlier in the week.It was very tough, yeah.
But yeah, what I want is if I can now, if I can go on to, if I can chase that one thing, the like, let me make that great special.
And if I can... And one thing I do want to say about making movies that was cool, stand-up is such an individual sport, it feels like an individual thing.And talking about playing sports your whole life, it feels like you're on a team.
Tires are like that too, I love that.
And by the way, I love doing titles because it's not Shane's the fucking star, like Steve directs it, or Steve's the star, McKeever's the director, like I get to come in, I get to fucking be a guy who comes in and just like, you know, I get to be the microwave scorer, that's fun.
You know what I mean?I get to be six men of the year.
You get to use all of your physical strengths.I mean, you can sell tires.If you'd walked in and not uttered a word and just been in audition, they would have said, yes, we'll take that guy. Yeah.I will let you go on just this question.
Do you have the sappy story for us when however emotional it was or wasn't to be able to go back and and buy your mother's house for her or or take care of the family?Whatever the family debt was.
Yeah.Honestly it wasn't.I mean it was sappy in that. The debt was first and the house was later, but I paid my mom's debt off.
And what was really sad and is an indictment of American society is that I saw the amount of money that had been hanging over my mom's head.I was able to take care of this when it was just the podcast, I was not even a huge touring act.
And so I looked at the amount of money that was like, Ruled my mother's life.
This was not it was not unsubstantial, but it wasn't like it wasn't fucking and now it's like I'm in a I'm in a lucky enough place where you know I can make that amount of money in like a weekend of shows or whatever, but still it was like
It made me, it fucking pissed me off, because it was like, I knew how hard she worked.I knew how, like, this wasn't somebody who was fucking lazy.And it was like, dude, I don't know, maybe something like 10 grand, right?
Which is still a lot, I get there's a lot of money, but it's like, to have crushed her for over, I mean, you know, this was something she worried about debt forever.And it was just, paying it off felt great.It just felt great knowing that,
And it just feels good knowing that if there's ever an emergency, because that was always what was scary.
It was like my parents were able to, they could keep things on the rails, but it's like if something happens, and thankfully nothing too crazy happened as we were growing up, but it feels good now as my parents are getting older.
A health calamity, something that can't be insured.
A car accident or whatever.
I just can't believe that, and I can't believe that
What you're feeling in that moment instead of happiness, joy, satisfaction, anything earned, what you're feeling is how crushing it is to be an immigrant in this country and give it everything and be drowning under $10,000 in debt.
Yeah, and not just an immigrant.
I mean, just inequality in America is so crazy.It's like people, we have, there's a lot of traps that people can fall into and work hard as shit. And then these are some of the people that, you know, people claim that are lazy, whatever.
And it's like, it's just hard when you get, when you have, when you get into credit card debt or whatever debt early on.And some of it probably was from a medical.I mean, my dad had some like health issues growing up.And so, yeah.
I mean, I was happy obviously, but I was more angry because I was like, I was angry for my mom and how much stress she had to like put out.And then you get into like, I don't, comedians don't deserve this.
Like I shouldn't be, how the fuck have we gotten to the point where it's like a podcaster?
America's principles are all upside down.Your success is an indictment of everything happening in the world.
that your talent would be rewarded and would create a system of haves and have-nots as your immigrant parents slave to create a better life for themselves.
My mom worked so much harder than me.It's not even close.America's stupid.It's not even close how much harder my mom and so many people like her work.
We laugh at the clowns and we give them money. Immigrants are buried under debt and horror and the resentment of their children for not letting them live their dreams.
That's right.And now I have to, if I do have a family, I have to make sure it's not some fucking prick rich kid.
That's, I can't get, I gotta, I gotta get less successful before having a family.Spoiled, undisciplined slob is what you're going to make.You can't have one of those.
The name of the movie is Let's Start a Cult.It almost broke him.I was trying to treat it as a celebratory tale.You're like, no, this one almost killed me.
But it's both, right?That's what you learn is that some of the shit you love will almost kill you.And that year did almost kill me.It's like, make sure it doesn't. and go to the next one, you know what I mean?
The next time I make a movie, it will be not, yeah.
Real wisdom in the idea that that pain, you could treat it as growth to know the things in life that will make you happy, which are not a bombardment of saying yes to every last fame opportunity.
Thank you for the vulnerability, sir.
Of course, thanks for having me.Appreciate it.Yeah, hell yeah.
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