Bryan Callen - The Versatile Talents of Comedy, Acting, and Podcasting

Full transcript: Bryan Callen on London Real

8:09 Good questions for Richard Viller for that, and, um, that’s it. Enough me yapping. Now I give you Mr. Bryan Callen, London Real, one of the coolest up-and-coming podcasts [expletive]. Thank you, what do you mean Thank you. I’m just being, it’s common decency.

8:38 Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to, you know, I’m not in, you know. I did. If I’m in the wrong, I’m going to take care of it right away, and if I can.

8:45 I’ll say, I can’t, you know. I’ve been there, where it’s like, legally I don’t have to do this, and I’m like, dude, but like not karmically. I’m just like, why do I? There’s no need to be a douche. Yeah, you don’t want to be a douche.

8:54 I don’t want somebody looking at me going, that guy’s a douche. I don’t want that. I don’t like, or you don’t want to know that you’re a douche. It’s both. I just, I.

9:01 It’s both. I just, I I, I don’t. My religion is, I don’t want to lie to myself for anybody else. I don’t, especially myself, man I want to, you know, that’s a very important thing. That inner compass is not always convenient, but it’s essential I’m not saying you have to be an angel, okay?

9:18 I’m not talking about, ah, yeah, I got a girlfriend and I fooled around with that girl. All right, you know, you’re a dude. I get it, and all that, but I’m talking about in the… I’m talking about in things, you know, that go to your core and your very essence. Who are you?

9:31 What do you want to do? What are you doing here? And if you’re lying to yourself about those questions, you know, and if you’re doing things for the wrong reasons, one of the advantages of getting older is you start to realize that people that are doing things for the public, embrace status, reputation, which is Hollywood. That’s Hollywood, that stuff somehow never really lasts. That fuse burns might take 20 years, but it does burn, you know.

9:58 That’s not for me, and never has been, and I don’t think for anyone, ultimately, fuel for the real fire. I don’t think there’s a great saying, you know, Hollywood. And I think you can apply this to broad spectrums of life. Hollywood is a place where a lot of people spend their whole life climbing to the top of this wall, and they get to the top, and they don’t like the view, or it’s the wrong f***ing wall, and that’s an important thing to keep in mind. You know what you’re supposed to do.

10:26 You know the truth. You know what the answer is, and the rest is procrastination. You know, you don’t have to have the exact answers, but you know there’s this sort of, like, there’s this in between, you know. There’s a lack of wisdom on one side of the spectrum, and then there’s wisdom on the other side, but then there’s something called correct opinion. There’s something called a reach for wisdom.

10:50 There’s the intermediary level that most of us are in, which is, you know, where you should be pointed. You know where you should be reaching. Don’t f***ing lie to me and tell that it’s back this way. Known this? No, I’m just older I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.

11:04 I spent a lot of time fretting about it. I spent a lot of time reading people who are a lot smarter than I am about it, and that’s kind of why I always tell young people, you got to read philosophy, not psychology. Philosophy, philosophy. You know, I always talk about this, but I’ll talk about it again. Socrates.

11:22 Let’s just take the dialogues, Plato’s dialogues. Oh, it sounds like such lofty reading. It’s the farthest f***ing thing from lofty reading. It answers when you read someone like Socrates and really get into it, and take six months to really get into it. He answers all the questions, all the questions that you hear floating around I think George Bernard Shaw said that Socrates was a philosopher, and everybody else was a footnote after that.

11:45 In a way, he was right. In a way, you, I’m not, and I am not an intellectual. Where do you pick up these Socrates readings? My father, my, well, I would recommend to young people to go to audible.com and download download the English actors acting out the dialogues, the Symposium. You can download those.

12:06 Yes, okay, that’s a better way to do it, because you can listen to it. You can listen to it. It’s a debate, and Socrates never told anybody anything. He just asked questions and led you to the answer that way. It’s called the Socratic method.

12:19 So I, I would recommend that. Some, there’s something very intimidating about picking up something called Plato’s dialogues. There’s something very intimidating about picking up a stuffy book with all those dialogues. You’re not going to do it, man. It’s going to sit on your, and you don’t have context, maybe, or it just seems like lofty language.

12:33 You got to listen to people speak it into your ear. It’s how it was supposed to be. Okay, I think I’ll do that. Yeah, this is like a rolling start, man. I like this.

12:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I never, like, Marc Maron does this rolling start, and then he, like, says who, who it is. And obviously Redband makes the monkey noises. So we did a rolling start, man.

12:52 We didn’t roll. It’s all momentum, brother. It’s good, man. I like it. Well, for people that don’t know, we are here with Mr. Bryan Callen.

12:58 Thank you, sir. Who, people that don’t know, is a comedian and an actor. You might have seen him in such films as The Hangover one and two, Warrior, and countless television appearances, like Sex and the City, which impressed my girlfriend. Lot of TV, man, and NYPD Blue. That’s a lot of TV.

13:15 MTV original cast member, old, old. I am. That’s back in the day. You are one part of the trio, which is the 10-minute podcast. Yes, sir.

13:22 I want to talk about that later. And you have your own podcast called The Bryan Callen Show. Yes, it was. Man Talk for a while, it was Man Thoughts, and then Rogan, Joe Rogan’s like, dude, what’s Man Thoughts? It’s got to be Bryan Callen called the Bryan Callen Show, which is such a lame, I like it.

13:38 And what podcast International? You’re number one. Well, yes I’m the number one. Number two. I’m actually, yeah, you guys are number two.

13:44 I’ve read it. I’m, I was rated by Podcast International magazine, and that magazine was rated in the International magazine of podcast as the number one magazine, so I wrote on our Facebook that we were the number one podcast in London for non-British people, and someone was like, God, you’re award-winning. I was like, yes, it’s so awesome. You can just create your own award show. I’m gonna have an award show at my house and just win everything.

14:10 Well, welcome, welcome to London Real. Thank you. We’re on location in Venice Beach, California. It doesn’t get much better than this. Yep, on the canals, man.

14:17 I know, and you used to live around here. You were telling us about the gang warfare that used to go around here, which is hard to believe, ’cause I mean, some of the, what happened was, it just got gentrified. There’s so much money in Venice, so everything got moved out, and you know, all the, all the everybody who owned a gun got kind of pushed they go to, like, Long Beach. You people find a way to go somewhere, you know. A lot of them went to jail, you know.

14:37 I mean, this just kind of become a… It’s funny how they use the word gentrification. It’s just another way of saying rich white people. Yeah, and Asians, you know that nowadays. I remember being here.

14:48 I worked the summer of ’91 here for the Aerospace Corporation, which is just by El Segundo. I was a mechanical engineer at MIT and the riots, it just happened… MIT? I did. Yeah, and you were a mechanical engineer at MIT?

15:01 Yeah, we got to stop everything. All right, pull, pull the plug. That’s impressive. That’s no joke at MIT. I went to the all New England’s wrestling championships at MIT.

15:12 Really? Yeah. Did they compete? Took third. Where’s the CD?

15:16 But the MIT guys didn’t compete? Did they? No, it was just for high school kids from all over the country. They add the gyms. Yeah at MIT, very small gyms that we had.

15:25 Yeah, it was just mats. Wow, but that’s wild. Bryan, where did you grow up? So, San Diego, growing up. My dad’s a Caltech guy.

15:32 He took me to see Caltech, but I mean Caltech was like, there was like one girl, and everybody else had the glasses on. I was [expletive] this, Dad I’m going. Then I went to Boston, and I saw, like, you know, underground. It was a guy singing in the underground urban environment. I’d never been to an urban environment, you know.

15:48 San Diego, it’s like, like LA. So you were a mechanical engineer. Yeah, so I went there. Shane Carwin is a mechanical engineer? Is he?

15:54 I know, he, yeah, he does some work like that, does he? I mean, he’s a full-time engineer. It cracks me up. 6’1, 285, and just, yeah, that always tripped me out. He always kept that job, didn’t he?

16:05 He, yeah, he still has it. Still has it. He picked me up in Vegas. I was messing with him, and he picked me up. He’s kind of like one of those guys.

16:12 He’s like a silverback that you can poke just for so long until he’ll, he’s just, he’ll just look at you and go, I’m gonna punch you in the face. You like to poke people, right? Yeah, especially like Shane. How well, do you have to know somebody before he started messing with him? I knew Shane for about four hours, but he came to my stand-up, you know, and I was just like, ’cause you get giddy around a giant, you know.

16:30 You’re like, let’s see if I can poke the bear. And he just picked me up, and Nate Marquardt was there, and he picked me up and started to squeeze me, and I started tapping. And he goes, he just whispered in my ear, he goes, “That’s 40% bro.” That was Nate squeezing you or Shane? No, that was Shane.

16:44 I looked at Nate and I go, “Could he do that to you?” And Nate goes, “If I let him, he’s a monster. He’s a big monster isn’t he? And yet, a really smart engineer. Okay, yeah.

16:53 He was working where? Does he work in Colorado or something? Yeah, he works in Colorado. He’s one of those guys. I talked to guys.

16:59 Shane’s one of those guys. I don’t know him well, but everybody I talked to who knows him, like Brendan Schaub and stuff, he’s just a really, like, a such a civilian way. Like, you know, he’s married into his wife. Monogamous, doesn’t go out and party like the other guys. You know, he’s like not a typical fighter.

17:15 It’s normal. He’s like one of the baddest guys on the planet, and yet he’s an engineer, family man, you know, regular guy, you know, and could probably give a, be fight. I mean, two years ago, I mean, he was up in the air. Who was going to take that heavyweight, and Shane was beating the hell out of people. I mean, wasn’t it all first-round knockout?

17:33 It was all 30-second knockouts. It’s weird. It’s weird with fighting. You know, I just played volleyball with Jason Mayhem Miller, who’s doing really well now. Is he?

17:41 Yeah, he’s doing really well. Yeah, Jason had some, you know, he just had some issues, and he knows it, and, uh, but he’s doing really well, and I love Jason. And, um, he, you know, just looking at him, and Jason’s trying to find, you know, where he’s going to go with his next, you know. He’s doing standup now. He’s actually really funny, from what I hear.

17:58 So he’s kind of making a transition into, you know, being a showman and stuff, which is what he’s great at. Yeah, but you know, it’s funny how as men, we, we, we work so hard to be tough in some aspect, and what you realize is that, you know, time has a way of just taking that away from you. And by the way, there is always two, three, four, five, 10 guys tougher than you are. In my case, they’re probably a billion people that could beat me up. They’re younger and tougher, and at least they think they’re tougher.

18:27 Well, you, that guy, when you were 20? Yeah, I mean, we’re made of flesh and bone, man. I mean, you know, it’s there. I guess what I’m trying to say is what you realize is that there’s no such thing as a tough guy. It’s just, it’s all contextual.

18:40 I’m really strong compared to my mother. I can lift like chairs with one hand. So how do you relate that to the UFC? I, I just, I’m relating it more to life. This idea that we, we work so hard to accomplish something and get to the top of something, and in the end, whether it’s fame or whether it’s that belt or whatever, it’s all kind of fleeting, which is, which brings me back to knowing why you’re doing something.

19:04 You got to know why you’re doing something. It’s actually not about that end result. There’s no end game. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of just the, the reach has got to be what’s fun about it. Yeah, I think it is.

19:16 It’s just, it’s hard to keep that in perspective while you’re there, and when you’re younger you don’t have that concept. I mean, I used to be just a out-and-out capitalist. I mean, in my 20s it was just let’s make as much f***ing money as possible or try, die trying, right? And, I mean, 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. And then later I was just like, why are you doing this?

19:34 What’s the point? And I used to ask all my clients in the city. I’d take him out to dinner, and I would sit him down, and I’d be like, why you doing this? He’d be like, oh, the money, and I’m like, no, why you doing this? And ultimately it was something they had to show their dad that they weren’t a piece of s***.

19:47 They wanted to impress their friends from school that they weren’t nerds. They wanted to, but it was always something below the money, and it was always something really personal. There are two aspects to a human being, too, to a man especially. It’s very important for men to feel like they have left an impression. That’s very important for men.

20:04 I want to leave an impression. Some people do it through their children, other people do it through work. Most of us want to leave a mark, be significant, be important. Okay, but there are two sides to a man. I think that, and I always ask people this: you have a desire, but a desire is very different than a need.

20:23 You may have a desire for that big house, but you have a very different need. Your need is to be appreciated or recognized in your father’s eyes, for example, like you just said, or something, and that’s what’s very important, I think, ultimately, to learn. You know, young men start with a desire, and hopefully, as you, as you travel down that road, you realize, oh, I, I, I am actually, I had a need to fulfill, and this is what the need is, and you come to terms with that need, and that’s what’s very important.

20:58 I think about you know, the responsibility of being a human being. I always try to ask myself, why am I doing something? Like, why is that important? Why? Yeah, just trying to make sure it’s for the right reasons.

21:08 Well, I, I think that you need your wounds. You know, I, so much of my childhood was, uh, the overriding sentiment and emotion was shame. I don’t know where it came from, but I just felt I was shame. I, I, I think I grew up all over the world in very poor countries, and I was, I was privileged. I was a white kid, you know, with plenty to eat and I felt a great deal of shame at just being lucky enough to have the math fall on my favor.

21:33 That’s, your parents didn’t direct that shame at you. You, I, I did. It was my sort of, as a boy and you see somebody in Yemen, for example, with leprosy in some market with no nose or fingers, you know, that’s terribly traumatizing to a 9-year-old, a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, because you don’t know why you got lucky. You don’t even know why all these people, these kids, are begging. I remember being in India, Pakistan, and Yemen, the places like that where people would come up, and my father was such a big guy, and these little kids would come up begging for food and money.

22:07 I went to Africa, I remember, and I had a box lunch, and this was in ’79 or ’80, and I, I gave the guy a box lunch. I stuck it through the window, like this, like, like like on a safari, like, like they’re all surrounding the… They’re just poor villagers, and it’s like, this is like where you’re a white guy in a car, and it’s like you’re surrounded, and it’s, it’s, it’s such a degrading… I could see how degrading it was for these human beings, and I stuck that lunch box out and gave it to him, like, like you would do in a, like, a safari.

22:40 It was a terrible… I remember the shame I felt, and they fought over it ’cause they were hungry. How old were you? I was probably, I, I would say I’d have to ask my mother, but I think I was probably 13. Okay, and I had long hair, and they thought I was a girl.

22:56 I had long blonde hair. They thought I was a girl. They offered me some jewels or some trinket, and I was like, I’m a boy, and I was with these girls, and I was embarrassed. For people that don’t know, I just want to say, you were born in the Philippines. Yes, and you lived in, among other places, India, Beirut, Pakistan, Greece, Saudi Arabia, because your father, Michael, was working for City Bank at the time, right?

23:15 And he, I remember, uh, love him on your show, by the way. I know it’s not just me, correct? It’s your top episodes, isn’t it? Go figure. Right?

23:23 He’s 72. He’s been through it all, and he’s such a fair-minded libertarian. He just believes in maximum personal freedom, but it’s like you have, ex, like, you know, Delta Force, you’ve got famous actors, Leguizamo comedians, and then your dad tops the numbers. I know, I know. Anyways, but he’s an amazing guy.

23:39 He’s got a lot to say. He’s done a lot of that. He’s one of my heroes. My father is somebody I’m, I’m, I admire a great deal, because he just continues to grow. Okay, he’s never stopped growing.

23:50 That guy is 7. He’s learning Italian, or something, or he’s learning Italian. He’s unbelievable. He just never stops. He reads books on quantum physics.

24:00 He’s taking a biology class. He’s taking a math class. I mean, he never stops. He’s, he’s obsessed with learning. And what he gain?

24:09 Yeah, he’s still, well, he just retired, but, and he skis every day. The guy is he’s got what’s called two things: peace of mind and wisdom. Okay, and that’s a hard thing to accomplish. Peace of mind and wisdom, they don’t go together, or they’re just two, they go together. It’s a very good question, but I think wisdom is when you, when you, I think, understand what you understand, when you, when you, when you can explain and understand exactly why you stand where you stand.

24:42 Yeah, when you can explain why having principles and ethics and morals is so important, and he does that so well. What I love listening to D is because he, I mean, I used to be a banker. Okay, guilty, and I’m probably more on the conservative side, and and most, let’s be honest, most podcasters, by the definition of them being performers, are probably more on the liberal side. We’re going to talk. Yeah, we’ll defend, we’ll define that in a second.

25:10 Yeah, and we, I want to talk more about your politics later, but your dad comes on, and he just starts defending, you know, certain things about the banking industry. He starts defining the concept of lobbying and why it exists and why he needs to be, as when he worked at the City Bank or wherever, why they have to be in Washington, because everyone else is in Washington. And he just breaks it down so well. A lot like my dad says, too, that I just, he breaks it down better than I could.

25:32 And when I’m listening to him on your podcast, I’m like, go, go, go. That’s right. Well, because he, you know, he’s inherently so fair, and it doesn’t mean he’s right about everything. But if you want to read a really good book, and I recommend it to everybody who listens to your podcast, and I’m one of them, but, um, Lawrence Lessig wrote a book called Republic, Lost, okay. And yeah, I think it’s, I keep saying, because I think he’s really hit the nail on that.

25:56 He’s, you know, it’s about campaign finance reform. Okay, all that matters is money and politics, man, and it’s what corrupts everything, and it corrupts good people. The problem with Washington is it’s become an economy of influence, where good people can’t do business unless they’re corrupt. That’s when you’ve got a problem. You’re always going to have the sociopaths.

26:15 They’re very rare. Right? When an entire incentive structure is now in place, where you can’t do anything unless you are inherently corrupt, right? Which means to get real elected, you’re spending 20% of your day on the phone to get funds, and all this, all this crazy… you lean to the green, baby. Right?

26:34 It is not about Republican or Democratic. It’s not about solving problems in that, in that respect. It’s not about ideology anymore. It’s not about a philosophy anymore, and I’m being a little unfair to people who work very hard in Washington, right? But Lessig does a very good job of saying there are a lot of good people and a lot of very good politicians in Washington.

26:50 Good people, ethical people, trying to solve problems. The system in place, I talked to Arnold Schwarzenegger about this for two hours. What were his thoughts? His thoughts were he came up with the same thing in California, or is it a different beast in California? Well, California’s got, you know, Sacramento so entrenched with these dinosaurs, right, that are that on both sides, but especially Democrats, that are just, um, there’s such a vested interest in keeping business as usual, and I don’t even think they’re bad people.

27:23 I just think that they are dinosaurs. I just think that, you know, nobody, and Arnold said this, one of the things I had very little power to do anything. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, and and by the way, Republicans and Democrats in Sacramento, I’m not, I’m not just saying Democrats at all. I’m saying both sides.

27:39 You take care of your constituents. You take care of the people that butter your bread, right? Okay, and it doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not, otherwise you’re not staying in power, and I sympathize with those people. I don’t think I would behave that very differently. You know, I don’t want to say that I don’t like being like well, better than those guys.

27:58 I’ve never been in their shoes. What I do know is that as long as you have as long as there is profit in that kind of behavior, and you have a system that operates that way, you’re going to have corruption. Same thing with the federal government. What’s happening, which is very encouraging, though, in this country, from what I read, is that the federal government’s at a stalemate, very ineffective, and state governments are taking over, and they’re just they’re just, they’re just taking over their own budgets and balancing their budgets, and doing, and holding teachers accountable.

28:27 You know, this stuff. The great thing about this country is things move very quickly. The great thing about this country is that we talk. Americans talk just like we’re doing now. Yeah, and it seeps in, man.

28:40 Ideas seep in. You can’t hold down a good idea in this country. I hope so. I hope so too, but I think ultimately a good idea wins the day in this country. I hope so.

28:50 You know, there’s this site that I go to, I mentioned on when I was on Rogan show, called Stratfor. You would love this site, short for Strategic Forecasting. But these guys are, like, kind of four. Yeah, I’ll send you the link, but like, a lot of these guys are, you know, ex-CIA guys, and they’re econ, economists as well. But, um, they had something that he said.

29:09 In America, we kill our dinosaurs, and when he was referring to, like, General Motors, as opposed to, say, in Italy or France, where they’re going to keep these institutions alive, uh, in here, he’s like, we kill them, you know, go, go bankrupt, file Chapter 11, equity holders get nothing, restructure, and let’s move on. And then two years later, we see these things happen. So I’d like to think we do that. I hope it. Politics, don’t you think?

29:31 My thing when I hear that is that that’s just the truth. Look, I live in such a… I live in such a capitalist world. I’m a standup comic. If I don’t put butts in the seat, I don’t get paid.

29:44 If I don’t make people laugh, I don’t get hired. It’s just the way it goes, man. So I don’t care how much hype. I don’t care what kind of shirt I’m wearing. I don’t care who my friends are when I’m on stage for an hour and a half, or whatever it might be.

29:55 I better bring the money, or I’m dead. And by the way, I better keep reinventing myself, too, because as you develop fans in a following. Yeah, you people, people are going to, um, oh, by the way, I’ll be in… when is this airing? Uh, this will be out not this Sunday, the following Sunday. When am I going to be?

30:10 Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to do my dates, but, but look, go to briancallen.com, and all my tour days are there, but that, if I don’t do that stuff, if I don’t, if I don’t tell people come to my show, I don’t get paid, man. Right. So I don’t, why do, why do these other people get bailed out? Why, why, why in the world does, does Wall Street, why does Wall Street have that much money?

30:29 Why, why are they able to lobby? God, they compete with each other, but man, when somebody comes in with an idea of how to kind of make them less, not too big to fail or something like that, they’re very effective at, at, at exercising influence. They got a lot of money to do so. You know, I mean, it’s a whole different subject, but they also have to get paid, too. They got to get paid, and it’s what have you done for me lately, and you’re only as good as your last trade.

30:50 True. Is the expression on Wall Street. That’s true. That’s true. So I just think that we should, you know, the truth is what you’re just talking about.

30:57 Is it the truth of the matter? Let’s just stay, let’s just stay with the truth. You can pretend you have a product that people want to buy, and the government can bail you out for a while, but if you don’t have a product people want to buy, if you don’t have a, you don’t make a car that I want to buy, if you can’t compete with Toyota or whatever, then we’ll see you later, bro. I’m, we’ll see you later. I don’t want to hear about it.

31:15 I, there’s nothing I can do for you, you know, unless you want charity. This is the greatest ever. What was that? The book that was written, The Science of Getting Rich, written in 1900? He said the poor do not need charity.

31:25 They need inspiration. A loaf of bread just keeps them miserable for a little longer. It’s kind of a harsh thing to say, but in a way he’s right. Well, it’s kind of what we see in Africa with all the aid, and how the aid just gets either taken by the, you know, it doesn’t help anyone, and oil money in Africa as well doesn’t do any favors to anyone, and the countries without the oil money, like Morocco, are the ones that have actually developed some type of educational infrastructure, and places like Saudi Arabia, where you lived, and Nigeria.

31:50 Jesus Christ, I mean these places, you know, they, they just, small group of people, it’s an oligarchy. Yeah, live off them and don’t develop their natural human resources. But I mean, Brian, you have a crazy background. You’re not your typical comedian. I don’t know what your typical comedian is.

32:06 I don’t know if it’s some crazy guy like Marc Maron or someone who has got a complex or whatever. I like Marc Maron, by the way. But you could have been anything. I mean, you could have been, uh, you could have been a banker. You could have been a lawyer.

32:16 You could have been a doctor. Well, I worked at Lehman Brothers for two years out of college. I was a history major, and I, I f***ed my way into Lehman Brothers. My dad, down at the downtown, at 388 Greenwich. And in fact, I worked on, uh, I worked very close to the World Trade Center.

32:32 Used to walk by it every day. Um, what the hell is the street, Vesey, I think, anyway? Little building at Lehman, in the back office, in the accounts payable and receivable, from okay, ’90s, yeah, ’90. Uh, I think three or something. I don’t remember.

32:47 ’90, ’90. Uh, no, it was before that. It was, uh, right out of college, so it must have been ’89, ’90, or something like that. They kept me around because I was good for, uh, morale. I just made the guys laugh.

32:57 I didn’t learn a damn thing. Okay, I got good REM sleep in my mortgage-backed security class. But did you take a mortgage-backed security class? I sure did. Took a mortgage-backed security class.

33:06 University, no. There, after work, they would have us sit in a room, and the guy would lecture us on mortgage-backed security. Yeah, that’ll put you to sleep, dude. Those things are sneezers. I just never, what I realized is, like, um, I, I respect businessmen.

33:18 I got friends who are very successful at business, and there’s an art to it. I just never understood working for a bank or something and making shareholders richer. I just didn’t want my name, my life, to be a number at the end of the day. That wasn’t interesting to me. Or is it because you’re a performer, and you’re a constant performer, and you like performing?

33:34 Probably, that’s probably. I like making my money off my imagination. You do. Yeah, I mean, like I see your tour schedule, and like, you’re always hitting your dates. Jesus, it’s hard to be on the road, isn’t it?

33:44 Or do you love being on the road? I, I like it because it’s such a creative time for me. You know, I’m writing all the time. I’m reading all the time. You know, I have, it’s a luxury to have so much time.

33:53 It’s incredible. I work two hours a night, but the rest of the time I’m free. I’m in somewhere like a resort in Miami, or, you know, I always book, I’m booking, my, I’m going to San Antonio tomorrow, and you know, I’ll stay on the Riverwalk, and I just spend a lot of time alone, thinking, writing, reading, uh, and just immersing myself in the best that’s been thought and said. You know, okay, and I think that, you know, at this point, now you, you should get, as a creator, you should spend more of your time coming up with original thought, and not so much, you know, not so much.

34:27 Maybe reading can become a procrastination. Yeah, you know, the responsibility of actually creating. You know, it’s a little bit like a guy who’s really technically proficient at playing the flamenco guitar, and he plays other people’s songs, right? But the guy that comes up with his own songs that other people emulate, that’s who you want to be. Do you think as you get older and get into your 40s and mid-40s that it’s now your job to give a little something back?

34:52 That’s all I think about, really. My job is, and I see a lot of young men that listen and ask me questions and stuff, um, maybe young women as well, but it seems more young men. My job is to be as inspiring as I can, to try to get people not to make the same mistakes I did, and do the best I can to make the world a better place. I, I’m not very, I don’t have a lot of tools to do that, but I can, through this medium, you know, through which medium? Uh, comedy, or both.

35:21 Comedy, not as much comedy. I’m such a jackass, but I’m starting now to talk more about these themes, you know. Now my next one-hour special is really going to be about how men are caught between wanting to be a hero and being terrified that they are cowards, and we’re, we’re kind of, men are always caught between those two things. I want, we all want to be badasses and heroes. It really comes out of being a hero.

35:43 It really comes down to mastering the fear of death, and the shame of having cowardice in our hearts. It’s why we build armor. Why do you think we f***ing kick bags and learn how to choke dudes? That is all because we don’t want to be punked. I’m sorry, but it is, man.

36:03 I guess that’s right. It’s a terrible way of looking at it, but it’s f***ing true. And, um, can you weave that kind of serious topic into your comedy hour without, what I’m trying to do? No, it seems to be working. You can.

36:18 It’s a celebration of masculinity. The problem is, I got a daughter. So you spend all this time trying to be a tough guy, and you know, you do this thing, and I was appalling, by the way, my behavior. I mean, you know, just being on a TV show and just candy everywhere, you know, speaking of girls and stuff. But I got a daughter now who’s five.

36:31 I don’t want her dating who I used to be. I don’t want her dating. I don’t want her dating the bad side of Bryan K. I want her to imprint the good side, which means I got to play a character, you know. Well, at home?

36:42 You mean, what’s that? What, what do you mean, you have to play a character? I, you know, I mean, you’ve got to just, you’ve got to exercise a great deal of self-control, which is another way of saying having character as an adult. If children are looking at you, okay, it doesn’t mean you have to be stuffy. It just means it’s just funny.

37:00 It’s, I guess there’s a different idea of what masculinity is when you have a child. It becomes daughter. Yeah, it’s no longer being able to punch somebody in the face. I think it’s more about being nurturing and understanding and nuanced, and, uh, I guess putting somebody else’s happiness far above your own. Yeah, I know, it’s, it’s a very maturing thing.

37:23 I have a stepdaughter who’s nine, and, uh, yeah, it’s because they see you. They see you all the time. They don’t see you at your best. No, they, and so like they pick up on everything, and like I take her to, uh, to martial arts every Saturday, and she does jiu-jitsu, and I kick the tip pads, and like I do this, you know, really hard cardio workout, and she watches me do it every week, and I think to some extent when I tell her it’s bedtime, I think sometimes she’s like, all right, you know, you know Bryan does all these things, and he makes sure he goes, and there’s no excuses.

37:53 We never not go. There’s no excuse, and I think sometimes it helps me with a little bit of discipline with her. Then at the same time, I also have to keep in mind that she’s a girl, and that also girls don’t always want to go to jiu-jitsu. Boy, boy, men and women are so different. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

38:08 No, I know exactly what you’re trying to say. What you’re trying to say is it’s a balancing act. What you’re trying to say is a lot of times, it’s, you’re figuring it out as you go, and you’re just doing your best, and a lot of times, it’s not about making her do jiu-jitsu. Sometimes it’s pulling back and not doing that, and realizing that your concept of what accomplishment and being tough and a man is, is not very applicable to a girl. Yeah, you know, or to someone’s growth, or to some guys.

38:38 You know, yeah. So you said you want to make sure young guys don’t make some of the same mistakes you made. What mistakes did you make? Well, I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to, I got a pretty loud inner voice, but I guess what I mean is, I hate seeing someone lying to themselves. I hate seeing someone who’s been given the wrong information.

39:00 I want you, you know, this kid I knew a long time ago was so clearly gay, and he had a very religious father, and he just, I worked on a film with him, and he was, his body was literally wooden. Okay, and I could tell he was hiding this huge secret, and he couldn’t tell anybody, and he was just, I, I mean, it was, it was his body. And we, I took him to dinner, and I said to him, I said, listen, I said, I’m an older guy, so you can tell me because it doesn’t matter, and I’m never going to tell anybody, but I want to know.

39:31 And let’s just, just take the, I said, is there any truth to that, the fact that you might be a little bit attracted to men sometimes? It came right out. Yeah. And he just looked at me, and he trusted me, he trusted me, right? And he said there might be some truth to that.

39:45 I go, yeah, I go, I know your father is a minister, or whatever, and he loves you, and he’s trying to protect you. I said, but you, you know who you really are, and you know what the truth is inside your heart. And you can pretend that that doesn’t exist, but I’m telling you right now, it’s biting you in the ass right now as you speak, and all you can do is express yourself honestly, and if you don’t, it’s going to manifest itself in, in, probably in an unproductive way.

40:15 Okay. I think I’m not a psychiatrist. I just believe in you, know. Listening to that, the truth is not always convenient, man. It’s everyone, everyone lying to themselves on such an extent, and every, and it’s obvious to everyone else.

40:31 Yeah, you know. You know, probably, I mean, I think that you know there’s a great, my acting teacher used to say, uh, if you want, in order to face up to who you really are, you got to face up to who you’re pretending to be. You know, uh, uh, Krishnamurti said, um, do we really have to define ourselves along these specific lines? Do we have to define ourselves? You know, we come from a culture where you know, and I, in America, I, I had a conversation with Deepak Chopra one time about this.

40:59 How is he cool? He’s really cool, an amazing guy, but I, we were waiting for a table at a restaurant called Ashe, and he was with his whole family, and we, I started talking. He had had a debate with, uh, on TV with a, a Muslim cleric, a, a Christian fundamentalist, a Catholic priest, and, and he was part of the Church of Everything Is Everything, kind of, you know. Uh, he’s a very understanding guy who just said there isn’t this one truth with the capital T, and if you don’t go there, you go to hell.

41:27 And he was arguing with this Christian fundamentalist, who was a kind of a crazy guy, but I said, you know, you don’t want to define yourself maybe along these strong lines. However, you got to know who you are and where you stand for. And there’s another saying that I think that you know is very important, and I think it’s unscripted, on a statue at West Point. A nation defines itself on what it’s willing to fight for. I think a man defines himself on what he’s willing to fight for.

41:56 Ask yourself what you’d be willing to fight and die for. Ask yourself that question. It’s a tough question to ask, and you don’t know the answer for sure, but man, you can really get some insights into you. Now hopefully, those lines you are willing to defend are real, and they are, and they have been, they have been thought out. You have philosophy that you can move into, that you can rut into, when, when the s*** hits the fan.

42:24 That’s why it’s important to know where you stand. That’s why it’s important to read people like Socrates, so you understand what the truth of a situation is. You’ve got to know. You’ve got to know what to, what to hit at, otherwise you’re flailing at branches. You got to, you got to be able to, you got to be able to get to the root of what the problem is.

42:45 Okay, but generation, why do they even think about this stuff? Well, kids don’t, and you and I are no longer, and our job now is to say to kids, it’s, this is always what happens. You and I are like, well, the kids nowadays, we’re all the same. You know, kids, generation, I know, then they said that about us, and they were right, and we’re right. What were we?

43:04 Yeah, we’re Generation X. Gen Xer. Oh no, maybe we weren’t. Maybe I don’t know what I was. I was, yeah, I was, you know, I graduated in 1985 high school, so I’m, I’m a thousand, so, um, but I think that’s the, that’s the, uh, that’s the idea.

43:20 Our job again is to guide, right, push people in the right direction. Why? Because we’ve made a lot of mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of s***. So you didn’t tell me what your mistakes were.

43:31 My mistakes, um, my mistakes, I mean, giving into my appetites, probably when I was younger, you know, dating too many girls, chasing too much skirt when I should have been working. But I don’t know. I talked to Rogan about it. I am my mistakes. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know.

43:47 I, I had to learn. How else am I going to learn not to be a… I’m still an idiot. Yeah, it’s hard. Well, I, most people don’t have that many regrets, and if they do, they’re probably so hung up on it that they can’t move on and be in the present and move on with their life.

44:00 I mean, yeah, you got to forgive yourself, and you got to, you know, I mean, there’s, it’s, no, don’t. Like, yeah, you don’t want to, you don’t want to be in a, in a in a box. You know, it’s, this is a verb. Life is a f***ing verb. That’s that Zen poet who wrote that poem.

44:15 Life is one continuous mistake. Jesus. It’s great. It is. That is a great way of looking at it.

44:23 Yeah, but you can keep making maybe fewer mistakes, and I think what matters is that you continue to learn about yourself. I, I think, I think that’s the idea. I think that is, would you, will you ever do, will you ever do speaking tours? Or is that something that’s just, I think I have, I don’t, you know, or, or is your, is comedy your way of doing that, getting through the back door? Kind of.

44:43 Comedy is my way of doing it. I don’t have that high an opinion of myself. I think there are a lot of people that have, that are, that have more to say. I’m just, you know, I remember a lot of stuff. I read a lot, so I’m just, you know, but there are people that are, that, that should be on a stage speaking seriously.

44:59 But you are going to, wi, some serious themes into your next hour show. Okay, I think that’s cool, and I do it with my podcast. Look, I got my podcast, and I got the 10-minute podcast. Yeah, let’s talk about those. Total buffoonery.

45:10 Oh Jesus, they’re like night and day, those two podcasts. It’s three 11-year-olds in a treehouse, as my buddy said. It’s, it’s, you know, so the 10-minute podcast has been going on for a year. Yeah, we’ve got 120 episodes, I think. Okay, and it actually got, I think it got an award.

45:27 We were rated in 2012, as in the top three best comedies, best comedy on iTunes. That’s big. That’s big. You guys crack me up, even when you talk about the W. They’re like, yeah, we’re on the top iTunes.

45:39 And it’s like, but wait a second, if you’re listening, then you already know that you don’t care. You already know that. Um, it’s pretty funny, and a crazy concept, but, um, it could have not worked, too, but you guys seem to make it work. Will Sasso. Will Sasso, to me, is, uh, Will’s pretty, pretty…

45:52 Will’s the, will, in a lot of ways, is the most talented person I’ve ever met. I’ve heard you say that on Rogan show. I’ve never seen anybody. I’ve never seen anybody do what he can do, really. That’s a bold statement, ’cause you’ve met a lot of different people.

46:05 You know, we were talking, Will and I, yesterday. J. Moore is incredibly funny. I think J. Moore, in a lot of ways, is another example of a prodigiously talented guy.

46:14 Okay, did you have him on your… He’s a friend of mine. Yeah, but J. Moore and Jamie Foxx are two very, I, Jamie Foxx is just, he does it all: stand-up, music, piano, sings. I mean, and looks great, acts great, stud, looks great too.

46:34 You put that in one of his talents. He’s rocked out of his mind. He takes his shirt off. You’re like, what the f*** is this? You know, what are you kidding me?

46:41 He’s like, I met him. I hung out with him. You know, he’s probably ripped in any given Sunday. He was just in, like, crazy ripped up shape. Oh yeah, what is he, mid-40s?

46:50 Is he all right? I’m, Jamie, is Jamie… must’ve got to be probably 40-something. Okay, just turned. He’s prime. Yeah.

46:56 So, sorry, you’re saying he’s very, very talented, but you put Will up there as far as… I think Will is, as I think Will is prodigious. I think he’s incredible. Okay, acting, just comedy, creativity. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been in this business a long time.

47:09 When, when, when you got a guy who does things, and you look at him and go, I don’t know how you do that. That’s saying something. I don’t do that with a lot of people. Okay, I do that with Daniel Day-Lewis. I do that with, you know, some ways with, uh, with J.

47:20 Moore, and I do that with, uh, but certainly with Jamie Foxx and with Will. Okay, so whose idea was it, and what happened, and did you all know each other? Will said we were, Chris D’Elia, who’s another hilarious son of a… I didn’t know. Funny podcast.

47:36 I, he’s on, oh, his standup is… he crushes. Okay, he… I mean, really, oh my God. Don’t try, don’t try to follow him. I, he’s one of the few guys I can’t follow.

47:47 I mean, I get him all the girls. Like, where’s my boyfriend? I want him back. Who’s this guy? But he is, he’s just, he’s just, I’ve never seen a stand-up in my life make that kind of progress that quickly.

47:58 Okay, ever in my life, and he’s doing it just a few years. Oh, he’s well, now, six years or something, but he, in comedy TV, monster before he did the stand-up a little bit, but now he’s on that show Whitney. I don’t, we don’t get it in the UK that I know of. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, and he’s about to do a new show, I think, called Undateable. Okay, and he’s, he’s, uh, he’s just painfully funny as well.

48:15 And we were joking around one day on the street, as we always do, just three guys playing grab-ass on the street, acting like complete idiots. And see, you doing that a lot, all I do, and Sasso, ’cause, yeah, I’m all serious and stuff, and really what we’re doing is like fake fighting and acting like complete morons. I never, I’m, we’re on TMZ. Like, Chris is kissing me. I’m like, stop kissing my shoulder, you know?

48:38 And, um, but, uh, it just, Will called me and said, dude, we should do a podcast. And I was like, all right. He go, like, what? You, he go, and I had these ideas, and we’ll get guests. He goes, no, I think we should just do a 10-minute podcast.

48:49 It’s a round number. And, uh, was like a 10-minute podcast. He goes, yeah, just 10 minutes, and that was it, man. We had such, we have a following, man. I get off, St…

48:58 I get off stage in Canada or anywhere, and it’s always, like, representing, always, always people representing, you know, they know you more from that than the Bryan Callen Show. I don’t know. You don’t know, they’re so different. I mean, like, the classic 10-minute podcast, if you haven’t watched it, you have to listen to the Arnold Schwarzenegger native one, the first one. It’s completely off the charts.

49:16 I mean, like, I’m on the tube in London, and I’m, I mean, people are looking at me ’cause I was just like, I’m laughing stupid. I know, and it’s just like funny, say, and some of them are so nonsensical. I’m like, I got to turn this off, like, insulting each other, so f***ing… Okay, what’s, we did one yesterday. It was so ridiculous, where all I’m gonna say is Chris explodes.

49:35 That’s all I’m gonna say, so stupid. Um, but yeah So you guys get together and film a few. I mean, you shoot, you record a few of those back to back, and then kind of let them out. Yeah, so that’s crazy. Um, it’s a lot of fun, and I think a lot of people got to know the three of you just because of that, right?

49:49 And then you got your own show, which is completely opposite. It’s serious. It’s an hour. You keep it usually to an hour, so it goes over an hour. Yeah, I just try to, I just try to interview people that I’m going to learn something from, or I find inspiring, or I just, or just are different.

50:04 I mean, I’m interviewing pretty soon a kindergarten teacher who’s been a kindergarten teacher for 18 years, and he’s a rock star. He’s a rock star kindergarten teacher. In a kindergarten, you can’t get into it. It’s like, you know, like all the really, like, one of the best. Yeah, he got up and talked at the school, and all the women were like, that’s cool.

50:23 Yeah, he’s a real badass. His name is Kurt Wagel or something like that. You know, people have called London Real a, they call me, they call this, like, a curator, and it was a really weird way to hear at first. Yeah, and they’re like, you’re a curator, and I, two different people told me in, like, in two separate weeks, and I was like, I was like, interesting. I was like, so it means that they know they can come to London Real, hopefully every twice a week, and find content that, if they try to look on YouTube, there’s so much garbage out there.

50:47 And like, you’re the same, because like, I know when you pick a guest, you’re going to pick someone who you think is irrelevant, so it’s going to be that Delta Force guy, or it’s going to be Lego, or it’s going to be a kindergarten teacher. And if you tell me that this guy is worth listening to an hour, then I’ll be like, okay, I trust Brian. Then I’ll listen. And so I think that’s what some of good. Yeah, I guess that, that my, you know, when you listen, you’re creating a guarantee in a way.

51:11 It’s like a filter. You know that you’re legit. I’m going to find good people, because there are a lot of people I don’t put on there. A lot of actors that are, probably famous people you don’t want. Yeah, I, I’m not interested in what certain actors have to say.

51:22 I don’t find them that interesting. I know them. I don’t, I don’t think it’s good for ratings, or it’s a good, you know, prestigious thing. But what are you going to tell me? I know what you do, and I know how you spend your day, and I’ve talked to you, so you might, you might, you might kill me here.

51:34 It might be boring. I get, I mean, it’s weird, because we’re in different circles, you know? And then, and I and I don’t, people don’t know me from Adam. I just started off just doing the show. So for me it’s like, sometimes I get some crazy people that want to be on.

51:45 Like, I, you know, I’m, guy’s an expert in out-of- body experiences, and I’m just like, Jesus, man, I can’t put this guy on, because my audience is going to say, come on, Brian. That’s right. So, but exactly right, dude. I have, I, it’s funny you said, I have some guy who’s one of those guys, and he’s dying to be on the podcast. I’m like, dude, I don’t, I don’t, you know, I’m not putting you on so you can tell me about a bunch of fake experiences you’ve had, and about a, the, the 18th dimension, you f***ing weirdo, because I’m just going to get annoyed.

52:13 Maybe if you start talking, I punch you in the face. It’d be a good f***ing podcast. You know, yeah. So what, what is, I mean, look, what do you want the Bryan Callen Show to be like, you know, in the future? I mean, like, what, I like, what I didn’t want to say.

52:25 What’s your mandate, but like, what is it in your mind? Like, what do you want it to be? I know you can easily say, these are people I, um, I think that, uh, I would like ultimately, and I, I might do, you know, I’m, I’m doing something for a certain, I might do something like a, a talk show like this, but, um, I want to give voice to people I think are important and make a difference. That’s what I want. I want, um, I want to do something for somebody, you know?

52:54 I, I, there are a lot of people out there with a lot to say. Yeah, and that are maybe not even making a difference, but they’ve lived a life. They’ve done something that I think is important, significant, and that people can learn from. And those are the kind of people I like to, um, put on my podcast, the people that make me go, ah, you know, or that inspire me, or that that that are a mystery to me, and it can be a porn star. Yeah, you like, it could be a porn director.

53:21 Who I’m putting on, this guy, Stony Curtis, who’s a huge porn director and colorful guy. You had a porn director on earlier, didn’t you? And a porn star. Yeah, yeah. And so that’s the kind of stuff I find interesting, you know.

53:33 I want to know about that world. I want to know about the underbelly of that world. I want to know who you are and how you got into this world. Okay, sometimes it’s a sad story, other times it’s a boring story, but I want to know about it. You also want to highlight people that would normally not get any exposure, that’s probably, or not?

53:50 Yes, if they are, if they are worthy of exposure. Okay, exposure meaning, uh, they have something to say that other people can glean from, that they can learn from. Yeah, okay. So like the kindergarten teacher, I want to know about why this guy is, he was a D1 baseball player, okay, good-looking guy, why he chose to be a kindergarten teacher, why he didn’t leave. I understand why you fall into it, but he’s stayed there for a long time.

54:13 He’s obviously getting something out of it, and he does a very good job. Okay, so there’s an art to it, you know, whether you know it or not. We need good kindergarten teachers. We need them. No, we do.

54:23 No, I think we need them as badly as we need anything else, you know, and we can probably learn something about what he’s learned, how to reach children. Yeah, the psychology of a child, you know. What are his points of view on education, on what a parent’s role should be, on what a parent’s role shouldn’t be? You know, well, and your daughter’s about to go into kindergarten. That’s right.

54:45 Even more relevant. That’s right. What was, um, what was, uh, Leguizamo like? I actually saw his one-man show in New York City in like ’97. I took, I was flying in from London.

54:53 I took my girlfriend to it, and we had, like, front-row seats, and I f***ing watched him bare his soul for two hours. I think it was called The Pest, with John, John, doing impressions of his dad, impressions of his dad yelling at him. Beautiful man. I mean, this is Leguizamo. Still is a guy.

55:08 He’s got a lot of money. He’s done very well. Leguizamo still, got, I think what drives John is his heart. He’s got, he is f***ing outraged. He’s outraged at the injustices in the world.

55:21 He doesn’t, he doesn’t have articulate sometimes, more so as he’s gotten older. Oh yeah. John, John’s a guy who’s reading. He’s reading Ulysses by James Joyce, and I said to him, I like, dude, why are you reading Ulysses? It’s a terrible… don’t read it.

55:33 You can’t read it. Nobody can read Ulysses. There’s no… I’m reading it, and John will read it. John, John will fight through it, man.

55:40 John is a fighter. John, John is a guy who will… that’s an inspiring dude. John, he’s so passionate. Now still, everything is hard, everything is tough, everything is [expletive]. He’s like, man, I want to be intellectual.

55:51 Like, what the f***? How do you read? What are you reading? I want, he’ll read it all. He’s like hungry.

55:55 That guy’s got the ribs on him, man. He’s got, you can see his backbone. He is, he is the definition of what I love about a human being. He’s just, he’s just like this guy who just will not. He just wants to know everything, and what drives him is this deep, I think this deep sense of injustice.

56:13 Okay, growing up Puerto Rican and Colombian, no money in New York. Yeah, I didn’t know that exact background, man. That he’s the first Latin guy to get up on stage and go, yo, everybody, this is us. You know, that guy who you think is just walking around, man. I got a loud voice.

56:32 I can dance. I got passion. I’ve saw all his one-man shows. He’s the reason I chose to do stand-up comedy. Wow.

56:39 Okay. John Leguizamo. That’s why working with him on that movie, man, I mean, that dude is the reason. He’s one of my heroes, one of my inspirations. Okay, it’s a beautiful thing when you’re an actor and you’re in a scene with him, you know, when you’re doing scenes with him and Lawrence Fishburne and Kevin Hart.

56:55 That’s pretty cool. That’s a lot of power. I just did this movie. Yeah, what’s, um, what was that movie? What is that?

56:59 Ride Along. Okay. Ride Along. Yeah, Ice Cube. It’s fun.

57:02 You get to meet like all these powerful guys. I know you said you dinner with Fishburne and stuff like that on these movie sets, and then everyone goes the separate ways. I’ve heard this about Hollywood, and it rips you, and then like you don’t get to see each other again, or you send them that email, and that is it, that relationship’s over. Yeah, it’s like it’s a fraternity, you know. When you see people, you give them a hug, and you know you love them.

57:22 You know, I never… it’s rare that I meet actors, or I work with actors, and I make fun of acting, and I make fun of myself, but it’s rare that I meet guys like that, like Ice Cube or Lawrence Fishburne or Kevin Hart. Those guys, then I don’t love them. They’re really hard not to love, man. They’re really hard not to love. There’s a reason we’ve been watching those dudes for years.

57:44 They are just, man, they’re just more than charismatic. I think again, that’s another example. You know, Fishburne is Fishburne. I’ve never seen anybody, maybe with that kind of human intelligence, really. I’ve never seen anybody who can take care of fans the way he does without letting them get a piece of him.

58:03 Really? Ah, he’s, he has been there and done that. Yeah, he’s been famous since he was 16 years old, man. He was. But then we forget.

58:10 I mean, it was John Singleton that put him in Boyz n the Hood. Before that, his acting career was just in the toilet, and he was doing these just random Black men roles on random TV series. I think John Singleton said, I’m going to make him a… man, he’s, yeah, he was, you know, he was always doing stage, though. He was doing stage. Yeah, a fellow, whatever.

58:28 He was always on. He was that guy’s from New York, man. He’s a real, a real actor. You know, is it weird to have that much contact with those guys and hang out, and then go your separate ways? Not anymore.

58:38 That you’re used to. That Hollywood thing. Well, we’re all adults now. We’re all men, okay. No difference.

58:43 Somebody has a bigger bank account, it doesn’t matter at a dinner table. What matters is if you can connect. You know, somebody’s got status and prestige. We all know that goes away. You’re famous one year, and three years later people don’t even know who you are.

58:57 Ask a 20-year-old who Paul Newman is. Go ahead, see what the answer is. Ask him who Led Zeppelin is. You know, it changes. It changes, and people who’ve been in the game a long time, I think, know that.

59:11 Okay, who’s your, who do you admire from an acting perspective, and then from a comedy perspective? I mean, not only who do you aspire to be, that I want to know, but also who do you admire acting-wise? I admire Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, Meryl Streep. Those are the actors I think that are, um, because they consistently deliver and push themselves. Yeah, they’re just, uh, they’re so hardworking, man.

59:35 They’re so hardworking. They, they just. David O. Russell as a director, I think, is amazing. I mean, these are people that just, um, did you see Lincoln?

59:41 Were you super impressed? Seen? I haven’t seen it yet. I haven’t seen it yet. I have it at home.

59:46 I have the screener. I just got this big TV, so I’m going to watch it on there. But, um, are you holding off? Yeah, okay, yeah. I’ll have my private moment with, uh, Daniel Day-Lewis.

59:54 But, uh, sounds, so it took me a while to get into it. I had to. It starts off really slow, and then you understand. But, fat, I mean, from… I know you love politics.

1:00:03 Fascinating. What was going on back then? Yeah, uh, you probably know more about it. I didn’t know all the details, and I was. Yeah, well, that’s the thing.

1:00:10 I mean, I think that when you put a human face on history, you realize it’s just, uh, a lot of times just people with ideas, and they don’t know if they’re going to work. Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s profiles and courage. It’s politics, too, so it’s politics, but you know, Lincoln was of ideas. He had courage.

1:00:26 He had courage. It was tough for him. A lot of a lot of decisions were very tough. He was alone in a lot of decisions. That’s what’s hard, you know.

1:00:33 Yeah, and, uh, the people that we read about and that we admire, that we make movies about, are usually those kinds of people that stood alone, that, uh, that again knew what the truth was, and despite even their own lives, chose to go that way. You know, look at Gandhi and Martin Luther King and those kind of people. So, um, what about acting? What, um, how is your relationship with acting? I know that might sound strange.

1:00:59 It’s a tough one, brother. I have, I have a love-hate, I can, I’m going to audition for a great role for Eastbound and Down. Oh yeah, yeah. I worked really hard on it, but I, you know, it’s, um, I love standup, but I, you know, I don’t know. I, I have a love-hate relationship for the waiting around, and, okay, and, uh, you know, the fact that I haven’t done what I wanted to do, too.

1:01:20 You know, I wanted to be, you know, there. I wanted to be Robert De Niro or something. I’m just not, I’m not that deep. I’m a jackass. I just, you know, I like having fun.

1:01:29 I’m not that disciplined on the set. You know, it comes out of how much you love it. I think Daniel Day-Lewis, Method, love it so much. Do they? Or they just obsessed with it?

1:01:38 Both. Look at De Niro, he’s obsessed. You know, Pacino is, I know people. I know I did a movie with his girlfriend. You know, he’s, his life is acting.

1:01:49 Okay, walks around thinking about it all day, right? That’s the thing. You know, what is the definition of success for you personally, though, with acting? A feature film where you are the man. That’s the problem.

1:02:00 That’s the problem. Is that I don’t think that I I, I’m not. I’ve seen success. I felt a little of it, but I’ve seen it in friends of mine, and it’s so fleeting, right? That, you know, you, when you say I made it, you made it for now.

1:02:15 Yeah. What do you mean, made it? You get recognized in airports. People want to take pictures with you. You know, you want an Oscar.

1:02:21 Yeah. But I know a lot of people that have, want Oscars. You know, you see it. They haven’t worked in 10 years, right? You know, that’s the problem with the business.

1:02:30 It’s not linear. So I don’t know what the endgame is with acting. I know that I love going and doing it. Sometimes I like the camaraderie of the atmosphere more than the actual acting. Okay.

1:02:42 I think I like acting, ’cause I want to see if I can make it in this impossible business. Okay, and you like pushing yourself for a skill set that you haven’t mastered? Probably. Yeah, acting is never easy, man. Okay.

1:02:55 Acting is always so nuanced. You cannot, you cannot work hard enough at it. You can’t work hard enough at it. Okay, see, there are a lot of guys that can act, and they can do lines. They can say lines with conversational reality, right?

1:03:09 But let’s see a character come up with a memorable character, right? No. I watched Silver Linings Playbook, and then my girlfriend watched it, and she was like, ah. And I was just like, man, I was just watching Bradley Cooper and that girl, and I was like, they, they, me, on their characters. It wasn’t lines.

1:03:26 Bradley is a good friend of timing. It was like, damn, I just bought it. He’s a good… Bradley’s a really good friend of mine, and I’ve known Bradley way before he was famous, and Bradley was always in love with acting. Okay, and Bradley was obsessed with the craft of acting.

1:03:40 That’s what drives that guy. It’s not the, you know, famous, nice, and all, but, but, um, you know, he modeled that character after a friend of ours. Okay, and, and you know, um, he’s so detailed and nuanced. Yeah, he loves every detail. I said to him, I talked to him after the movie.

1:04:00 I said, dude, you grew the De Niro beard from The Deer Hunter. You had a little outline. He goes, dude, that’s exactly what I did. It was like my homage. I can’t believe you picked up on it.

1:04:09 I go, yeah, I picked up. Come on, man. I could see it. You grew that beard, you f***ing animal. And that’s the kind of f***ing he does.

1:04:15 He’ll just do a little thing for himself, and if you pick up on it, awesome. And by the way, you do a movie with Bradley Cooper. He’s going to make you better, right? He’s a team player. He’s watching the monitor and giving you suggestions that work, right, which is rare in the business.

1:04:28 Hell yeah. If you watch The Hangover, when I get shot, I come out, and I’ve been just taking a piss. I’m like, redoing my belt, that was him. He goes, take your belt off, just maybe, your, you know, he’s giving me all kinds of ideas. Wow.

1:04:40 Okay, you know, so I love that guy. I mean, he deserves everything he’s got. He works so f***ing hard. He helped me with an audition one time, and, uh, we’ve been working on it for an hour, and I go, yeah, I want to take up your time, and he goes, dude, I’ll sit here all afternoon until we get this f***ing… those eyes. He’s so intense.

1:05:00 He’s so f***ing intense. He, the one thing I will say, like, I know Renee Zellweger. I know a lot of, like, know some actors, and one thing I’ll say about actors who are really successful: they are very disciplined people. Okay. They’re shockingly, astonishingly disciplined.

1:05:14 Okay, is that true with any successful person? Fighter? I don’t know. I would imagine. Okay, I would imagine, you know, self-mastery.

1:05:22 Do you want to be stopped at airports? I mean, do you want that? I love, I love attention. I mean, you know, not really, but I love attention. I think it’s fun.

1:05:30 I like the attention, because I like watching people get excited. Okay. I like making somebody’s day. I like when somebody can, I get a picture with you, and I take it. I love that [expletive].

1:05:38 I love it. I never get tired. Every time I come off stage, I take pictures with everybody. Okay, it’s my favorite thing. It’s tiring sometimes, but it’s awesome.

1:05:46 It’s such a privilege. Oh, I love you. I want to take a picture. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.

1:05:51 No problem. It doesn’t bother me. Okay, so would you like to be more famous? Yeah, because I want a bigger house. It’s such a sad thing to say.

1:06:01 I want a bigger [expletive] house. I drive a Prius. I don’t care about cars. I drive a Prius. I want a bigger house, by the yard, and maybe I want a wall around it.

1:06:10 Is that why you didn’t park nearby, because you didn’t want me to see your Prius? Yeah, that’s that’s what it was. I don’t give a f*** about my car. [expletive] care less. You know, I think I would have leased the Avalon hybrid. All right.

1:06:21 So that was the acting thing. Comedy. Who, who, who, who do you admire, and who do you aspire to be? I don’t think anybody. Just myself.

1:06:31 I think that, um, comedy is something that I’m I like trying to stay original with. I think I’m good at it, and I think, um, I’m way better than I am at anything else, and I think that I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to be somewhat original with comedy. You know, somebody said to me the other day, said [expletive] the [expletive] you’re doing right now, dude, is so alternative. Nobody’s doing that well. Good, that’s a great compliment.

1:06:53 That’s what I’m aiming for, so I don’t have a hero for comedy. I, I am, I run by my own. I don’t watch comedy. I love my friends. I love Dave Attell and Steve Byrne and Brett Ernst, and guys, you know, that I, and Chris D’Elia and those guys, and Al Madrigal, and, um, those are the guys.

1:07:12 My contemporaries are amazing. Those are the guys I think are that make me, Sebastian, uh, these guys kill me. They make me laugh so hard, but, um, it doesn’t mean I want to be like them. Okay, do you have, like, a, like, uh, I want to sell out the O2 Arena in London. Yes.

1:07:27 Yes. Yes. Yes. I want to sell out. I love to sell out.

1:07:30 I just want to sell out theaters, because it’s so much money. It’s just, it’s just more money for less effort. That’s all. Okay, so you would like to be, well, I want to make 100 grand an EP, a [expletive] show. Okay, so the more the merrier.

1:07:42 Yeah, so I can just, you know, spend it on people. I love this, this honesty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. spend it on people. You’re supposed to spend it in Vegas.

1:07:51 Yeah, what? In Vegas, hookers, and all that. I don’t do low, and I’m not in the hookers. I feel bad for them, so I don’t know what I would do. You know, you know, cars.

1:07:58 Now you surround yourself by people who smoke a lot of weed, but you don’t typically. Yeah, that doesn’t work with me as well. I smoke weed, but not, you know, I don’t have time. I smoked weed with Rogan the other day. I was high for seven hours.

1:08:10 Like, what you put in this [expletive]? He’s like, that’s how we roll, son. I go, I got to drive, bro. Stuck at a [expletive] D, like, you know, Chipotle. I keep ordering burritos.

1:08:18 I think my stomach’s going to explode. At Howard Marks, in my, in my studio, a week ago, he, he’s the famous international cannabis smuggler. That was, you know, uh, he was an MI6 agent. He was working with the IRA. He evaded the law for like two decades.

1:08:33 He had 43 passports, and he ended up spending seven years in the federal penitentiary. And, uh, he’s just known. He’s a Welsh guy. He’s like, and he’s known for always smoking, and he lights up in my house, and passes it to me, and I’m just like, I, I just got [expletive] to do today. You know, I got to edit this thing I got, and if I touch that, I’m f***ed for four hours.

1:08:52 That’s how I, I don’t have the constitution. I can’t drink in the afternoon. Same with me. I’m f***ed. I got to take a nap.

1:08:59 I’ll, I’ll be out. I see people on vacation. They have a glass of wine at lunch, and I’m like, if I do that, that’s my day. I’m done, bro. I’m, I’m a Mediterranean extraction.

1:09:06 I can’t break that f***ing down. What’s California like? Because I mean, we’re in Venice. There’s medical marijuana everywhere. It’s do you think it’s, do you think, tell me if I’m wrong, and, uh, do you think it’s, marijuana’s gotten to be so accepted, and everyone does it so much?

1:09:20 Is there almost like peer pressure for everyone to smoke up in this, in this? I don’t know, man. I, I think, um, I think that you can be pretty brain dead in California, and, um, you know, there’s just such good weed. I, I think that people just etch out a life. I think sometimes people come to California and just etch out a lifestyle around weed.

1:09:42 You know, the people that smoke weed would be smoking weed anywhere, but they come to the sun, and it’s just accepted. They can find a community, and some people just love weed, and some people, their first love is weed. You know, you’re not going to have much of a resume at 40, but, you know, and you own a skateboard. But, you know, listen, if that’s how you want to roll, and there are a lot of people that do it their whole life, and they’re perfectly happy.

1:10:02 If that’s what you want, you know, I’m just too Type-A personality, man. I’m too, okay, what I want to get f***ing done, or want to learn things. I want my mind clear. I can’t. Some people do better with weed, but I don’t.

1:10:12 I don’t have the chill. Joe writes on it, and some people say they, Joe’s incredible. Joe, the weed’s been the best thing that ever happened to Joe, because you knew him before? Oh, f***, I knew Joe before, and he was the most intense human. Super too intense, just so aggro, and just such a, you know, he’s just amazing that way.

1:10:28 He’s just like the most intense human being on the planet. Joe, when you don’t work out, he would, he’d be like, I’ve never not worked out. Next question. You know, but weed is really, um, I think Joe, I think said it gave him peace of mind. I think, yeah.

1:10:42 Well, but, but, but Joe’s so intense that he’s intense on weed. Joe can be high as f*** and be, you’re not getting anything by him. He’s just a, you know, he’s a fishing net. He catches everything. Just, you know, yeah.

1:10:54 Redband said that when we went to the show, and he he was smoking, and he’s like, he’s like, yeah, sometimes it’s too much when I’m smoking, and sometimes even Joe’s too much for me. That guy holds himself to such a high standard. Joe does. Yeah, but he loves, he’s such a love. He’s such a, he’s got such a big heart.

1:11:10 So what’s it like being Joe Rogan’s best friend? It’s great. I just known him so long. He’s like my brother, you know. And you knew him from MADtv days, or before, had him on MADtv, which was 17 years ago.

1:11:19 Yeah, something crazy, 18 years ago. Um, Joe’s always been, you know, he’s like, in… he’s inspiring to me, but he’s also a guy who, who I can go to when I need the truth, right? A dude called me after my special, and he goes, you know, you’re a great comic. You could be greatness. You could be, you could be great, be one of the best of all time, if you, but you got to, you got to start holding yourself to a higher standard.

1:11:44 He told me to read a book called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, which I did. Great book. But he’s a guy who just, you know, he just wants the best for his friends. He wants his friends to be as great as they can be. He’s not threatened by your success.

1:11:57 That’s big, and it’s big to be able to tell you that. Um, I heard that, I heard that you mentioned he, that he said that. Yeah, he’s been so supportive of my podcast, of me, you know. He’s just, he just, he wants me to come on the road with him, you know, like I did the road with him in Vegas, and I guess he got a lot of tweets that I did a really good job, you know. He got a lot of comments, and he loves that.

1:12:14 He’s like, can, when can you do it again? It’s not threatened by it. He wants a great show, you know, and I love that about the guy, and that’s rare in this town. Or, Joe is, all, we call, he and I call it the pesky truth, you know. Okay, we’re lying to each other.

1:12:29 It’ll last for two seconds. Like, he’s like, you, the other day, like someone’s like, do you do yoga? I go, I do yoga every single day, and Joe was like, you don’t f***ing do yoga every day. I’m like, would you shut the f*** up? Yes, I do.

1:12:41 It might be five minutes, but I do it. You know, he’s always calling me out. He’s always calling you on your s***. Dude, can you let me lie a little bit? What the f*** do you have to ruin my parade for?

1:12:50 Sometimes you’re like, you’re dropping like the history, and then foolish, and he’s like, no, they didn’t, exact. Leave me alone. He’s Like, shut up, you don’t have to know everything. You know, so there it is. All right.

1:13:01 What was, um, what was it like, uh, hunting with him and Rinella? All I’m going to say is you can watch Meateater, which is on the Outdoor Sportsman Channel, or the Outdoor Channel, and it’s, uh, on April 28th, we’re going to tweet and do a podcast April 15th about it. Me and Steven, and, uh, Steve Rinella and Joe. Apparently, you were a one-man show the whole time. Dude, I had such a blast.

1:13:22 Yeah, Joe is my best audience, so I was just making them laugh the whole time, and the other guys on the set, apparently, I was making them laugh. That’s what I’m told. That’s what I’m it sounded like. So I downloaded the first five Meateaters, which are the only ones I can find in the web. I think he might have done five, the first season, I think, and I love him and the show, and now I want to go hunting.

1:13:41 It’s just like, shot. Well, come with us, man. We’re going, we’re going, to go to Alaska or something. It’s great. I don’t know what Rinella will tell us the next thing we’re going to go to.

1:13:49 It’s contagious. Oh dude, it’s greatness. I won’t shoot a bear, though. Was like, let’s, now I’m not shooting a bear. I like bears.

1:13:55 I’ll shoot anything with hooves that I’m going to eat. I won’t eat a bear. Rinella shot the black bear in the one. Yeah, he salted and brined, and smoked a huge piece of bear meat for us, but left in New York. Oh yeah, he was supposed to bring it to the podcast.

1:14:07 Yeah, but I mean, you know, I don’t want to kill a bear. I like bears. Fair enough. I ain’t going to be seen shooting a bear on that black bear, and it kind of, I kind of roll with it, but then he was talking about how he had to cook it, ’cause it’s got trichinosis, or whatever. They’re not meant to eat.

1:14:21 I’ll eat a f***ing deer, though, man. That’s my favorite. Oh, I love venison. Which you did eat, and you, you shot and killed him. You recommend.

1:14:29 I’m trying to get a buddy of mine to go to Slovakia. Only if you love deer meat. I mean, I love deer meat. I mean, the whole concept of hunting and all that. I mean, I like it because it gives you, you know, it gives you a lot more respect for how hard it is to get your food.

1:14:42 We farm now, and we use cows and stuff, which is, I don’t think, nearly as humane as shooting a deer with a high-powered rifle. You guys got some heat for this hunting thing. You get heat. Hunting is a part of Joe released that YouTube clip of the deer getting shot in the head with, like, a Halo rifle. Did you see that footage?

1:15:00 Oh, jeez, he tweeted like two weeks ago. It was these guys doing head shots for deer, because that was the most humane shot I know. Rinella likes a lung shot, but it shows it in slow motion, and it is one of the most disturbing things. Like, the whole face explodes, and the eyes pop out. Yeah, it’s really.

1:15:15 That’s what happens to a human being. It’s pretty awful. Violence is a terrible thing, slow motion. You know, life eats life. If you want to be a vegan, go ahead.

1:15:23 I just got to eat meat. I can’t do it, so that’s the truth. I’ve always eaten meat. Uh, I don’t know where my meat comes from? When I go hunting and I give the animal a chance, and it takes me four days to shoot a deer.

1:15:33 I know where my meal came from. I cut it up. I take out its guts. I do it all. I butcher it, you know.

1:15:38 That’s an intimate experience, and um, I don’t think it’s disrespectful to the animal at all. At all. I think it’s the opposite. I think that you are hunting with people that love nature, understand animal behavior, and I learned a lot about animal behavior, and I got a profound respect for deer. By the way, okay, um, they are a very smart bunch.

1:15:59 So, you know, there are people like Bill Maher, who I like, who has no respect for hunters. I get it, but, you know, he’s never been hunting, um, and I disagree with him. Yeah. It was, um, I’m not going to go hunting the rest of my life. I mean, I don’t have to, but we’ve, we’ve done it our whole, men have had to do that.

1:16:15 Right. Right. It’s a very hard thing to do, which is probably why we planted crops. You know, these paleo people, you know, I’m not in anymore, because, you know, meat and veggies. Go ahead, go ahead, live your hunter-gatherer lifestyle, man.

1:16:28 I’m, I’m eating, I’m eating grains and grasses. You are. Yes, you happy with that? Yes, I am. Look at all the blue zones, by the way.

1:16:37 Everybody who lives forever. Give me the blue zones. That place in Sardinia, they live 110 years. You and all that, they all eat. They all eat.

1:16:45 They’re not paleo. They’re not paleo. They’re not paleo people. They’re all meat eaters. They all eat, drink alcohol.

1:16:49 They just, it’s a community and a lifestyle. I ran into some, like, run, soon. Oh, you do? How long do we have? Uh, oh yeah, I’ve got to go, unfortunately.

1:16:57 Is that okay? You got another 10 minutes for me? Did you, on edge? I had a couple more questions, but you know, go ahead. Give me your questions.

1:17:04 I just got, um, no, just, I got to go shoot something. In fact, just kind of wrap up. I mean, like, um, just your politics. I mean, like, I find that whenever I express a bit of a conservative attitude, you know, most podcasts and stuff are just very left-leaning, and like, you always describe yourself as a libertarian, and I was just wondering, if you tell me what that is, and are you comfortable being kind of more of a conservative voice out there? When, 98?

1:17:28 Yeah, but I hate the word conservative, because conservative sounds so restrictive, and liberal sounds so… libertarian. Um, I just, I just don’t think that, I just think history shows that anytime you give a central authority power over you in any context, and there needs to be some central authority, you have to have some government. You’ve got to have taxation. You have to have legislation.

1:17:53 Yes. The question isn’t Republican or Democrat. It isn’t liberal or conservative. It’s how much power do you want to give the governor, and who is governing the governor? That is the central question.

1:18:04 The political philosophy: how much of your money do you want to give to the federal government? How much, 50%, 60%, 20%? There’s a number there. Men, and history would suggest that, and I would argue that this country is great because the number is a lot lower, um, in this country, or has been, than in other countries, right? As in, that percentage.

1:18:31 People are motivated by, you know, a whole slew of different things, but people need to feel like their efforts and their ingenuity and their risk is rewarded. And I just think that government, by its very nature, and like everything, continues to grow. It is a coercive force. It has to be taxation, legislation. How much of that do you want in your life?

1:19:02 That is the central question. How much do you want? You are not being represented. You don’t have a federal government that tracks the will of the people. You want to blame corporations for that?

1:19:13 I don’t think so. I blame the fact that government’s gotten so big that it’s such a powerful influence that you can’t do business unless you’re a corporation. You can’t do business unless you concentrate your power and then have a pipeline in Washington. Try staying in business. You can’t, whose fault is that?

1:19:32 It’s all of our faults, but you better get informed, and you better realize that it seems to me that government continues. There are a lot of people out there that would like an even bigger and broader scope for government and more influence. I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think they’re bad people. I just think they’re mistaken.

1:19:51 I don’t think that’s good. I want, I live in a world where I’m responsible for myself. It works for me. Um, I want to live in a world where, um, where individual responsibility holds the day. I’m, that’s why I’m in favor of gay marriage.

1:20:07 I don’t give a f*** about gay marriage. I don’t think the government should be involved in the marriage business. Who gives a f***? And I’ll tell you something else. I think drugs should be legal.

1:20:16 How’s that War on Drugs going, man? How’s that going so far? How much money are we spending? How many body bags in Mexico do we have to go through? How’s it going?

1:20:25 You really think you can stop that? I don’t think so. How about taxing it and zoning it, or whatever you want to do, but make it legal. Make people responsible for their own choices. You do drugs and get in a car and kill somebody, you go to f***ing jail.

1:20:41 All right, that’s your fault. But give me the responsibility to make my own mistakes. I, I don’t like any central authority stopping me from doing things. It never seems to really work as well as the other way around. You need some laws.

1:20:53 Law and order. Yeah, you know, you got to have, uh, tort reform, whatever. You got to have, you know, taxation. These are important things. You got to have a strong central authority in some aspects of life, but the question is how much, and so what should people do?

1:21:10 Educate themselves and vote. Is it that simple, or it’s not? That’s not going to make the changes I think we need. Um, I think we need a fundamental restructuring of how government works, and for more on that, there are two books to read. So damn much money, and Lawrence Lessig’s book, Republic, Lost.

1:21:29 They’re way more articulate about it than I am. Would you run for office? No way. I got too many skeletons in my closet, brother. Do you?

1:21:38 I mean, you know, not really. On the show, everybody knows everything. My friends know everything. I don’t have any secrets. They’re pretty tame.

1:21:46 They probably are. They probably are. You know, I’m not, I’m not done anything too bad, not hurt anybody anyway, but no politics for you. That’s a hard game. I don’t think so.

1:21:54 I, I, I think I’m too… I wouldn’t be very effective. I’m too emotional. Okay, I’m not, I’m not. I don’t think I’m that nuanced, too deep a thinker.

1:22:00 I mean, a lot of people are. I don’t know. I mean, I may be, but you know, passionate about what we talked about. Yeah, I’m passionate. I’ll do, I’ll do what I can from this medium.

1:22:09 You know, I’m afraid if politics got in the way, I’d get seduced by, you know, the mission and then end up on the phone four hours a day trying to raise money Jesus, like the guy in The Wire. I don’t want to lose my soul. Fair enough. Yeah. All right.

1:22:21 How do people get in touch with you? Watch your show, all the good stuff, Brian. You can tweet me or brian.com. That’s my website, that’s where my podcast is, or Stitcher, or, you know, uh, and, uh, I guess Facebook too. Yeah, and 10-minute podcast and 10-minute podcast, 10-minute podcast.

1:22:35 In the Bryan Callen Show. When you come to London to perform, I don’t know, but I’ll be there soon, I hope. Let me know, we’ll get a whole posse coming, man. I will for sure, brother. I’m a fan of your podcast.

1:22:44 I appreciate you having me on, man. It’s good to meet you in person. Cool, man. Yeah, it was really good to meet you too. It’s, uh, it’s nice to see, to, you know, to see you.

1:22:51 Uh, yeah, and meet you man. I mean, I’ve heard you talk so many different times, but I’m glad we did this. So thanks so much. I appreciate it, brother. Peace.

1:22:59 You’re the man. It’s great, it’s great. There’s this one line that I wrote that was, uh, answering hopelessness, um, with a defiant smile and raised middle finger, and that’s exactly what I was, was about. It’s like, horrendous things happen. I’m going to find a way to have fun anyway, [expletive].