Mike Vecchione, a special education teacher turned stand-up comic since 2000, shares his brutal early career—bombing at open mics, moving to NYC in 2003, and building success layer by layer through relentless practice. Comparing comedy to wrestling and MMA, he and Joe Rogan critique boxing’s fragmented sanctions, underrated fighters like Boots Ennis, and the erosion of structured career paths due to social media’s validation-driven chaos. Vecchione’s daily journaling and Rogan’s disciplined writing process highlight how skill thrives in competitive environments, not shortcuts like AI tools. Their conversation underscores that true mastery demands grit over fame, with humor and combat sports as parallel battlegrounds for resilience. [Automatically generated summary]
Started in October of 2000, did about three and a half years in Philly with DeRosa, Big J, those guys, and then moved to New York at the end of 2003. Nice.
Yeah, I was a teacher.
I got a master's in special education.
I was working with kids who had behavioral problems for about eight years.
I worked in a behavioral school for a while and then went back at night and got my master's because I figured if I'm going to do this, I might as well teach and then taught in a classroom in three different public school systems.
I was in a relationship, and I thought we were going to get married, and it broke up.
I think a lot of comics have this story, you know, where it's like a heartbreak situation, and then I was just on my own, kind of out there, finishing up my master's.
So I started just going to open mics at the Laugh House, which is not there anymore.
It's a comedy club on South Street.
And I just started going every Wednesday.
And then I started going on Thursdays and a little bit more.
And then I wasn't funny at first.
You know, at Bomb, I would do okay, Bomb, do okay, Bomb.
But I was like, you know, I'm probably not going to be able to do this, but it's going to help me public speaking wise.
It's going to help me somewhere down the line.
You know, I got a good vibe for it.
So I was like, let me just keep doing it.
And at that point, you know, I was, you know, alone and I was going through a tough time.
So I was like, I kind of don't care if I fail.
I kind of just don't care.
I'm going to just fail and just figure it out and just keep coming at it.
And because I'm a sensitive guy, so it's like, you know, failure has been tough to take.
So I just just kept doing it.
I just kind of it kind of dropped off because I was going through a tough time.
I didn't care about failure.
So I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it.
And then at the end of 2003, I was working a job I didn't want to do anymore.
And I just decided to move to New York.
And that's when it really...
I don't know how much time you spent in New York.
I know you're a Boston guy.
But I'm a product of the New York City comedy clubs, really, is what I like to say.
I mean, it's not so much like that anymore, but it used to be, I don't know how much time you spent there, but it was like you would just run from club to club to club to club to make money.
Yeah, but it was a very different landscape back then, and that's what you had to do.
You had to hang and get your face around so people would, oh, you know, maybe Mike would be good to open, or maybe so-and-so would be good to open for you on the road, you know, and that's how you would get work.
That's a lost art also, because if you're big, you know, you have your own fans and stuff, that doesn't come into play.
But if you're good and you're on the road, you don't have your own fans.
It's like you have to, like, keep just working them, working them, working them.
I was at the Atlanta Punchline when this happened, where it was a...
The crowd, you know, they didn't know me.
And there was a drunk woman.
It's my birthday!
It's my birthday!
Like, making it about her.
And, like, younger in comedy, I would have just bailed and just tried to score off of her and win and just, you know, do a penalty kill.
You know, just play the set out that way and walk away with the victory.
But I decided, you know, you know what?
Let me neutralize her.
I don't want to make it about her.
She's being selfish.
You know stay in the pocket cuz and I hadn't won the other people over yet.
They were still on the fence about this guy.
So it's like just keep just keep coming just keep coming and then working them and bringing them to you and bringing them to you and Neutralize her because she's a distraction and just keep bringing them bringing them bringing them and at the end like It was good.
It was a good set, but I got off stage.
I was like, oh my god, that was so much work, and nobody's gonna know about it.
No one's gonna know what happened here.
And I walked to the bar, and there's a couple of comics at the bar, and one guy looks at me and goes, I saw what happened.
And it's really something, because if the crowd's not on your side and you come too hard at her, you know what I mean?
Then they're gonna be like, whoa, what is this guy?
This guy's angry now?
It's like, they kind of don't get the dynamic of what's happening, but if you just stay and be like, miss, I love you, I don't want you to get kicked out, you know?
And eventually she just went to the bathroom anyway, and just, whatever.
Yeah, but it's like the fact that it's like oh I know it I know it and I doubt anybody else is gonna know it but whatever I know it Do you ever stop and think like what if you didn't break up with that girl?
And then which is a great state we had a great program and then I moved to Florida and I finished high school in Florida so I wrestled down there and it's like I was so focused I don't know how you were as a competitor but I was so focused on the win I wanted to get the win I wanted to get it's like yeah yeah yeah it's not and I would psych myself out before matches a lot of times by overthinking it you know and it's like no no no no it's about The process.
Yeah, it's about the process train hard and then but when it's time to compete then I wish I would have had this back then It's like you have to just get yourself up and go out there and just Do the things that you train to do.
Yeah, and I was too focused on the I want to win I want to feel that I want to feel the victory It's like I want to win.
It's like no.
No, it's the process stick to the process, but I wish I would have had that and Before I went out and competed like go out there and just cut through this guy.
I didn't have that attitude I was tired from cutting weight and you know when you go to these tournaments when you wrestle you weigh in you weigh in and then you would go have breakfast and then there's a time where you digest and lay around on the mat a little bit and then start slowly drilling and getting ready for the match and during that time is when you should be getting your mind right to go out there and like take it to him and And the guys who were successful did that.
And I couldn't see it back then, but looking back and having perspective on it, it's like, I wish I was that.
So now I keep that in mind in stand-up, you know, because a lot of stand-up is that, you know, being mentally prepared to go up.
Well, arenas, one of the things that I do is I have index cards, so I write out, I'll get there early, and I'll write out, like, just Bullet points of all the sets or all the bits, and I'll put them on cards.
Right.
Like, this is on this subject, this is on that subject, and I'll lay them out on a coffee table.
And writing that out just, like, cements it all in my head, solidifies it all in my head.
And then it's just about getting fired up.
By the time I'm getting to an arena, though, my set is rock solid.
But the guys I've seen, the top-level wrestlers that I've seen, the discipline I came from...
The guys who are super, super good, Kale Sanderson, that guy, it's like, when he wrestles, I just watched, I went down a rabbit hole and was watching his NCAA finals matches, he just looks fluid.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, I'm thinking that intense, intense, intense, but when a guy at that level goes out and wrestles, it just, he just looks like he's flowing.
You know what I mean?
There doesn't seem to be any tension in his body whatsoever.
And the guys who are really good, I've found Do that yeah, they're just they just flow they're efficient They're efficient in there and he was like and the guys who are really good offensive machines Like they'll set something up set something up and then and then just go to another thing Mm-hmm,
you know, I mean fluid like water, you know Yeah, I feel like wrestling is one of those things that is one of the most difficult sports to compete in and yet one of the most underappreciated in terms of like public perception There's no real professional avenue other than MMA or pro wrestling, which is like entertainment.
But it's so hard to do.
It's kind of interesting how many sports become really popular.
In terms of like being something that people pay to see but wrestling never did that right never connected We know I could see that I could see why though I could see it just because if you don't if you to the untrained eye it just looks like two guys just and Especially if the two guys are at the high at a high high level.
It's very like I kind of do, but I kind of feel like it could have been.
Because the wrestler can dictate where the fight takes place.
You know, if the wrestler chooses to stand, he can stand.
If the wrestler wants to get back up, he can get back up.
And the wrestler knows how to take the guy down.
Whereas, like...
Even though every fight starts standing up, and it's a big advantage for the striker while they're standing up, but the wrestler, if the wrestler knows how to strike, the striker has to think about two different things simultaneously.
Has to think, maybe this guy's gonna shoot, and what if this guy punches me?
What if this guy kicks me?
So there's so many more options that the wrestler has, and there's that threat of the takedown that looms large, that paralyzes guys with anticipation.
It's the most important foundation.
It's everything in MMA. If you can't wrestle, Good luck.
Because unless you can land a wild shot like Jorge Masvidal and Ben Askren, unless you get that wild shot off right away and knock the guy out, it's a long night against one of the best wrestlers.
Yeah, if you look at overall success rate, wrestlers have a huge percentage of wins in MMA. And the really good guys, like Bo Nickel, right away you see him dominating guys with all this experience.
Because his skill set, that one skill that he has wrestling, he's so much better than everybody else.
And the training like I took taekwondo when I was young and it's like forms and you know punches and kicks and forms but When I started wrestling in eighth grade Eighth grade wrestling practice was so intense that I thought that the coach was punishing The football players on that I thought are we being punished for like two months?
I had to check it on my friends like no no no this is just what it is.
Yeah, and it's so I wrestled one year in high school and I couldn't believe how hard it was.
Yeah, it's a big advantage if you could do it right.
Like, this weekend is Israel Adesanya versus Alex Pajeda, and Pajeda, who beat Adesanya in the last fight, is fucking huge for 185. Like, I stand next to him like, how the fuck is this guy 15 pounds lighter than me?
That doesn't even make any sense.
He's fucking huge.
But when he gets into the cage on fight day, he's 225. It's in boxing too.
He came out at the beginning of the fight and established it.
You know what I mean?
I remember that.
And it's like, wow.
And Lomo takes him two, three rounds to download what the guy's doing.
He's a slower starter because he just kind of like is measuring him.
Almost to the point, you're like, what's happening?
You know what I mean?
If you're like unskilled, like I'm just a fan, but it's like he does that for two or three rounds and then he's just like, oh, I figured it out and then picks it up and picks the guy apart.
It's too bad that he's so small because if he was larger in like a natural 135 or a natural 140 or something like that, there's so many big fights for him and it would be really exciting to see.
Because at the end, you know, that Pitbull Crews fight, it's like, that was very close.
Pitbull Crews is a tough guy, Mexican, just staying in the pocket with him.
You know what I mean?
So it's like a Deontay Wilder thing, where it's like, you're just waiting on that one punch, but it's like, you can't lose every round up to that either.
Yeah, like if the guy's on top and he's not making progress or the guy on bottom isn't getting a wrist or working towards submission, will they stop them and stand them up faster?
I think that's better for the sport.
In wrestling, they'll hit guys with stalling quick to keep the action moving.
I know that's not a thing in MMA, but it does help the optics of it.
I think it was up to the referee's discretion and pride.
I don't remember exactly how they did it, but when they did it, it was a big fucking deal, and the crowd would cheer, and then the guy would adjust accordingly.
Because if you got two yellow cards, you're fucked.
I mean, I don't even know if they gave two yellow cards.
I don't remember that ever happening.
I'm sure it did, but I don't remember it ever happening in a fight.
But in MMA, the controversy is about whether or not you should stand someone up, because you have five minutes.
And if someone takes someone down and they're on top of them, it's up to the person who's on the bottom to get back up.
That's your job.
And the guy on top, it's up to him to hold you down.
I don't believe in stand-ups.
It might be more entertaining for the audience, but I'm a purist in terms of like, I think you should control your own destiny in there.
And if a guy can hold you down and just punch you in the face while you're on the, even if it's boring, He's doing what he wants to do, and you can't do anything about that.
That means he's winning, and I think that any interference of that is against the purity of the sport.
Like, say if he's in side control and he's only occasionally hammer fisting the guy.
The guy's in no danger of being stopped.
There's an argument that that's stalling.
But I don't buy that argument because it's only a five minute round.
And for a grappler, it's really hard to take someone down.
Like you're dealing with kicks and knees and punches and you're trying to find the opening and then you level change, you get the shot, maybe you switch from a double to a single, you know, you run the pipe, you get the guy on the ground, all that took a minute and a half.
And if you're holding the guy down and then the referee comes like, keep moving, action, you know, like advance your position.
And then they stand it back up, but what the fuck is that?
That guy couldn't get up.
If it was no one here to stop that, if this was just a fight out in a field somewhere, that guy on top controls the fight.
He does what the fuck he wants to do, and if that guy gets tired, eventually he'll move to mount and just start beating the fuck out of him.
But it's important that his skill set is expressed.
His skill set is his ability to control the guy.
And if you're on the bottom and you can't get back up, I don't care if it's boring.
Tough shit.
Your job is to get back up, and if you can't get back up, that guy wins.
Even if he wins a boring-ass fight where he just takes you down and gives you noogies for five rounds, tough shit.
You gotta figure out how to not get taken down, or get back up, or submit them off your back, or find some kind of scramble where you can get on top.
And if you can't do that, then you lose, because that's what the fight's all about.
And, of course, In terms of the people that go to pay, they are going to pay more to see the exciting people.
The Conor McGregors, the Jon Joneses, the people that stop people and finish people.
And they're the big draws.
But if you can Ben Askren your way to a career, and Ben did it for a long time, we just took guys down and fucking noogied them into a coma.
Tough shit.
That's my feeling.
I don't like stand-ups.
I'd hate them.
Especially, sometimes they'll stand someone up from a dominant position.
Someone will get to side control and the referee will stand them up, and I'm just going, What the fuck are you doing?
It's so hard to get there, and you're only giving a guy five minutes to work, and you gotta think it probably took a minute or so to get the guy down.
And then, if you get taken out of that and stood back up again, now you're tired, and this guy, his striking is probably a strong trait, and now you're in his realm, and you expended all this energy, and it's taken away from you by a bad referee.
I fucking hate it.
I think it's dumb.
I think it should be eliminated.
I really do.
I don't like it at all.
I don't think there's ever a time that they should stand people up.
I don't think there's ever a time they should separate someone if they got someone pressed up against the cage and they're kneeing them in the body and elbowing them.
Sometimes referees will decide there's not enough action and they separate them.
I hate that too.
I don't believe in any of it.
I don't think you should do anything to make it more exciting for the casuals.
Nothing.
Zero.
Yeah, because the best guys are always gonna be exciting.
Because the guy wants to win, and if he could just win by taking guys down, and if the audience boos and he doesn't get popular because of it, okay, so what?
Willy Pep won fights without throwing a punch.
He won a whole round once without throwing a punch.
Just moving and dancing.
It was so masterful that people had to agree.
It's like, what do you want him to do?
Just Arturo Gatti and fucking just stand right in front of him and just throw bombs like Mickey Ward?
Well, the problem is that you have these individual promoters, and you have these, there's too many IBF, WBC, these sanctioning organizations, and it's like, you have to force, you have to force these fights.
You can't, I understand that ticket sales and all that stuff is important, but if you want to maintain your integrity as a sport, You have to force these fights.
Boots Ennis should not be sitting there as the number one contender for five years.
And hopefully people catch on, but you do run the risk of a guy like that not being recognized because he's in this sort of Weird situation where other people are getting shots and he doesn't.
You need a guy at the top going, now this is going to happen.
And if you don't want it to happen, or if a guy's having personal problems, like Jon Jones or whatever that was, like, okay, I mean, you're still a legend, and you will get the shot when you're ready to come back, but the show goes on.
Tom Brady, you know, gets hurt, rips his knee, football doesn't stop.
And they might lose their competitive prime competing against other people in an organization where less people are going to watch, and maybe even more importantly, less people are going to respect.
Like, that was a big test for him, and Caleb in the beginning was very slick.
But Benavidez just kept pressing and putting it on him, and then towards the latter half of the fight, that's traditionally been a problem with Caleb, that he starts to fade in the later rounds.
I feel like, I wonder if Caleb could do something about his strength and conditioning that takes it to another level.
Because I feel like if he could maintain the kind of pace that he has in the early rounds of the Canelo fight, the early rounds of the Benavidez fight, if he can do that, like, man, it's gonna be really hard for people to fuck with him.
I don't know how you would mimic that pressure, like I've never been in a fight camp before, so I don't know how you would mimic that pressure in sparring.
And you would have to, like, really dedicate yourself in that regard to just absolutely annihilating your boundaries and pushing your strength and conditioning to the point where you can get...
Like, there was this guy, B.J. Penn, who's one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time.
And there was one point in time where B.J. Penn, he started training with Marv Marinovich.
And Marv Marinovich was a fucking...
The Marinovichs, like...
They had a style of training where they believed that you already have the skill, and what's more important than anything is cardio.
And so they would do just ruthless plyometrics.
That was the entire camp for whatever amount of weeks that you're doing it.
Most of your time was dedicated to strength and conditioning.
And it was very systematic, and it was very scientific.
Checking your resting heart rate, your heart rate variability, monitoring your recovery, and making sure you're getting the right nutrients and rest and rehydration and all that stuff.
But the most important thing was the gas tank.
Because you already know how to fight.
And what happens in fights, you still know how to fight, but your gas tank starts to fail.
And so when BJ Penn was at his prime...
In like the, if you look at, there's a bunch of different fights like Diego Sanchez, Sean Shirk, where he was just destroying these guys.
He had a limitless gas tank.
And he had this incredible skill set that he already had.
And there's a good argument for that, that like at a certain level, what's most important is cardio.
So there's like several schools of thought when it comes to that.
Now you can go an extra minute 30. Now you're really pushing it, and now you're seeing these things that used to kill you.
Now you can get through them, and at the end you're recovering quicker.
And that's the idea.
And I wonder if a guy like Caleb Plant, if you could get him to an insane level of cardio, where he could compete at that pace that he does in the early fight, because in the early part of the fight, that guy's slipping.
Yes, very skilled guy.
He's moving nice, but then he starts standing in front of Benavidez, and then Benavidez, he's so accurate, and he gets his punches around your guard, and up the front, and uppercuts, and jabs.
You know, but when you've got a champion like Canelo, he thinks he can do it better.
And he thinks he's like, okay, I understand what he did, and maybe he knew coming into that fight, because he did have a wrist problem that he had in the Triple G fight, too.
So he probably had that problem already.
Right.
Who knows?
But I think for Bival, the big fight is better be-if.
I was rooting for Joe Smith, you know, New York guy, Long Island, Union, all the Union guys out.
Yeah, but the atmosphere is just like, Joe, yeah, let's go, Joe, and then Betterbeef comes in the ring, and the fight starts, and it's just, no disrespect to Joe Smith, he's unbelievable, but it looked like just a man fighting a small child.
He's the only, I think it's 19, he's the only boxer at a world championship level that stopped every single one of his opponents in every fight he's ever been in.
And he's super skillful, but he fights like a fucking destroyer.
It is and it's great for everyone because it gives you fuel.
Like for a person who's coming up in life, even if you're not a fighter, you see what someone's gone through and you see the success of that hard work has created and it can be a roadmap for your own life.
Yeah, it's just he's unreal man No, he's unreal and that's that guy you want to talk about mental toughness that guy's destroyed knees Yeah, and he runs thousands of miles.
It's just like every day He's running 15 20 right every day right destroyed knees But he's taken his life where he came from, which is a terrible, terrible situation, and transformed himself.
That's what I love about him.
And he's able to articulate it.
And he does it very well.
And he also talks about mental toughness in a way that I've never heard anybody talk about mental toughness.
You know, when I was growing up, maybe it's the same for you.
It's like, you gotta be mentally tough.
You gotta be mentally tough.
You gotta suck it up.
Suck it up.
And it's like, you're processing that, but he breaks down what does that actually mean in the suck, which is what he called it.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's that conversation that you're having with yourself that we all have with ourselves when we're suffering.
He doesn't want to keep going, but he's, like, finding his own threshold, finding his own limitations, and then knowing that he can push through that because he's done it before.
On the other hand, for fighters, the good aspect of the digital world that we live in now is you have access to like Marvin Hagler versus Tommy Hearns.
You know, you could watch Vito Anafermo fight.
You can watch all these people from bygone days where you could see their technique and their movement and what they did.
And you can get inspiration from that instantaneously off your phone.
Everybody kind of knows what's happening while it's happening.
And then it's up to you.
Either you set up a screen time thing where you only have an hour on this app and after a while it just shuts you out.
Or you just decide, like, I'm going to get things done, you know, and if I'm gonna look at social media for 10 minutes or whatever the fuck it is, that's my little reward.
Just don't get sucked in.
I do it in the morning.
It's a real problem in the morning for me.
Because I take a shit when I wake up, right?
So I take a shit, I got that phone, and next thing you know, I'm like, it doesn't take 20 minutes to take a shit, stupid.
Like, what are you doing in here?
You're just pretending to be going to the bathroom while you're scrolling through social media.
Getting through that, at the beginning of the day, first of all, it raises up your dopamine, like Andrew Huberman and Susanna Soberg have put out all these scientific papers and podcasts and have all these discussions about the benefits for your dopamine increases 200%, it lasts for hours, norepinephrine, all these real tangible benefits.
The resilience, like having the ability to say to that inner bitch, fuck you.
If you watched me, you would think, oh my god, this guy's so stoic.
But adversity is necessary and that thing that's the things been kind of overrun today in society the society that we live in now people don't recognize that I don't think All of my friends who don't do anything physical, they're the ones who struggle the most mentally.
One of the things that I've found that I didn't know when I used to drink a lot of kale shakes is you get a high level of oxalates from that stuff, from non-cooked vegetables.
And some people, not everyone, but some people develop kidney stones and things along those lines.
Yeah, oxalates can be a problem.
When you're grinding up kale and spinach and eating it raw, you're taking an exorbitant amount of oxalates.
I made that mistake on a keto diet too, not satiating myself with enough fats.
You know what I mean?
So, you make that mistake and then you stray off it and people go, well, if you start eating about the keto diet, you start eating carbs again, you gain the weight right back.
All the people that are in the keto, it's like there's something about it.
It just becomes, there's great benefits to it.
There's great benefits to elevating your ketones for mental clarity, for your energy levels through the day.
And, you know, I've had Dom D'Agostino on the podcast, who's a scientist out of Florida, who's a very interesting guy because he's super fit, like really like very strong, very athletic.
And adheres to a keto diet, which is unusual for a scientist to be that jacked and that dedicated to working out, but also very, very educated in the pros and benefits and the studies that show that there's real benefits to just living off of fats, and that's probably what most of our ancestors did back in the day before agriculture and grains and things like that.
And that it's because corn is subsidized, because corn is a cheap substitute for things, and you can add it to stuff for corn sweetener and, you know...
It's just in everything.
And your body doesn't do anything with it.
Your body's like, what is this?
That's why you shit out corn.
When you look at corn in the toilet, that's because your body's like, what the fuck is this?
The thing about comics is a lot of us are fucking impulsive.
You're spending the night at the clubs drinking and partying and hanging out with a bunch of other assholes and everybody's having fun and it's easy to just...
And then like he's working as a security guard protecting like on a set where Pamela Anderson and a bunch of TMZ guys come in and Gary Coleman launches on, there's video of it, where he launches onto the car and is like, yeah, you're not going anywhere.
I actually love that.
I love like, A person, especially a famous person who's now doing a menial job, but is doing it to the best of their ability.
And I love the mental focus of the fact that you're doing this job now to the best of your ability.
I actually love that a lot.
Any menial job, anybody doing any quote-unquote menial job, there's not much money, there's no reason really to excel, but I love there's people who go above and beyond in those jobs, and I actually love that.
Yeah, well, there's a stoic discipline to that that's very admirable, to someone who just does the job to the best of their ability and says, how you do one thing is how you do everything.
Yeah, there's some pictures that I think they're AI-generated of him standing in the street, walking down the street with a giant crowd of people behind him with American flags.
There was only him, like, he was barely seen walking in and out of a building, I think, like, officially, so I don't know what the AI picture you saw was.
There was a video about it, and I couldn't remember.
I saw the video, and I had conflated them in my head, and I had this other video that Bob Seska did a long time ago about aliens fucking with monkeys and turning them into people, and I had fucked them up, and I realized while I was watching, like, no, no, no, this is not it.
So, like, my memory is really good and also sucks.
Maybe, but I had heard also that those balloons were flying around when Trump was president and they didn't tell him about it.
Because they didn't want Trump going crazy and like shooting nukes at the fucking They nuked the balloon.
Yeah, I mean, it's great.
unidentified
Fucking wild, man.
With the TikTok being from China, which it is, the last, I don't know how many, I was thinking back how many iPhones I bought, they come directly from China.
According to Gavin DeBecker, who's a security expert, like a legitimate genius, he told me that there was an original Pegasus application that was invented by the Israelis, and it was a spy program, and it required you to click a link.
And this is how MBS got Jeff Bezos.
Remember when Jeff Bezos had some dick pics get leaked?
If they wanted to go through my meme collection, you know, the things that I see, like, you know, I have a chat with Shane Gillis, Mark Norman, and Ari Shaffir, like, Protect Our Parks, we have a group chat, and it's the most fucking ridiculous shit, it's constant chaos, it's like, you can take any one of those things, it looks horrible, you pull it out, but it's not for you!
It's for us, it's four comics talking shit to each other, having fun.
And he essentially said that one of the things that China's been doing, the way they gather intelligence, is they sell cell phone towers at a very low rate.
And they install them all around these sensitive areas.
So if you go to where these military sites are, what is it, Wyoming?
Is that where it was, what he was explaining to us?
And all these areas where this sensitive intelligence is going on, it's like China has all these cell phone towers set up there, and it's their equipment that they put in.
And we already know that that's the reason why they banned Huawei from the United States, and Mike talked about that as well, that Huawei was using, whether it's routers or all their different types of equipment that they were selling, Had third-party access, so they could steal data, and they could steal intellectual property.
That's one of the things China does.
Anytime the United States has an idea, they just copy it and make it better.
And they constantly do that.
And Huawei was genius at it.
Huawei, before they banned them, had the fucking best phones that you could get.
And I was about to buy a Huawei phone right before they got rid of them, because they had these crazy cameras.
And very forthcoming he was explaining like about how the FBI contacted him about the Hunter Biden laptop Yeah, and explained it it explained that on the podcast that it created a firestorm.
I'm sure I'm sure he was just kind of casually explaining well The FBI told us that there was going to be some disinformation coming out of Russia And I know we were told that this and that and so we limited its reach and and And then it just was fucking giant news.
I mean, this guy just created a fucking dating site for college kids, you know, X amount of years ago.
And also, I mean, most recently, he took a big blunder with that whole meta thing where they thought that everybody was going to put on headsets and delve into the metaverse.
But there was times back then where people thought virtual reality was going to be the future.
But the technology wasn't available.
It didn't really work.
But it was always this thought, you know, that one day we're going to live in virtual reality.
And that was the Matrix.
That was like all these different things.
But it was like science fiction-y enough that it was so far ahead.
And then the technology was kind of clunky, so it never really took off.
But then when Oculus came around and what were the other ones?
There was another big one other than Oculus.
Vive, that's right, the HTC Vive.
They were so good, you're like, ooh, maybe we're close.
And there's some fun fucking games you can play on that.
Apparently there's an alien, like Alien 1, the movie game, that is fucking terrifying.
And you play it, and you're on the Nostromo, that spaceship, and the fucking alien's in the spaceship, and you're going down dark corridors, and rain's dripping, and the thing just jumps out at you.
It's fucking terrifying, apparently.
But that, for whatever reason, they thought that was just going to just sweep the whole country and everyone was going to...
Like the old ones, we had the HTC Vive at the studio and it had to be attached to a backpack and there was like a cable that came above you and we had the cable suspended from the ceiling so we had like a sectioned off area where you could play in it.
And then it got better and John Carmack got involved and they made even better versions of it.
And then it became something you just sit on your head.
And then when that happened, I was like, oh boy, we're getting close now.
Because now it just sits in your head and you have these two controllers in your hand.
But it's still just people are not that interested in it, which is interesting.
You're wasting time, you're seeing a bunch of different things, like, you know, the energy coming from the thing, I'm a big energy guy too, it's like the energy coming from it is, it hits, even when you're looking at your, I tried that for a while, looking at my own, I'll just look at my own stuff, I won't look at everybody's stuff, but then you start getting like, how many likes does this have?
It's a different world, but I think they're going to be fine.
I really do.
I think there's going to be a transitionary period where we lose a lot of kids.
They don't know what the fuck they're doing, and they get lost in it.
But there's going to be enough kids that recognize, like, okay, this is just the new reality of life, and if you want to be successful, just like you when you were young, when you had focus and dedication, you realize there's a lot of people out there that don't do that, and, you know, I can learn from them what not to do.
There's kids that are doing that now, too.
And, like, I have friends that very much limit their kids' access to social media.
They don't allow them on things.
They don't allow them to have a phone.
I don't think that's the way to do it, because this is a reality, and I think that if you give the kids the tools and the understanding to handle that, this is a new level of adversity that they have to deal with that we didn't have to deal with.
But the way I look at it, it's like cold weather.
If you grew up in a place with cold weather, you developed an understanding of what the fuck that means.
You gotta shovel snow, you gotta deal with it.
I think they have a new level of adversity because of the pressures of social media and because of the shit-talking, especially with girls.
Girls are fucking mean to each other.
They reputation destruct in the comments and shit on each other and group chats.
It gets real nasty.
And you developed a level of resilience from being able to handle that.
And there's also a thing, the FOMO aspect, and the comparison.
And this is apparently very bad with girls as well, because there's a lot of people that are using filters, and they're changing their body.
And these girls see these people, and they look perfect, and then they see themselves in the mirror, and they have zits, and they look like shit, and maybe they're a little overweight, and they get massively depressed.
And then they think, well, the only way, for me, I have to be like that person, so I have to do what they're doing, and be completely focused on my looks.
And some people just unfortunately, through a genetic roll of the dice, they don't have good features.
They don't look good.
They don't have a good body.
And then they just feel fucking depressed because they're comparing themselves to this thing.
See, like, if you are a comic and you want to be a great comic and you're kind of funny and you're figuring out, you can see, like, Chris Rock and you go, maybe I could get to that spot.
Maybe I can get there.
But if you're a girl, and you're born with an unfortunate appearance, and you compare yourself to some bombshell who's doing squats with her giant ass in front, you're like, I can't be that person.
Yeah, that's uh, you know I mean, I don't but the guy who wrote Game of Thrones is uh, you know that guy's from Staten Island So it's like, you know The level of imagination, the detail that he must have had in imagining this world, if he would have had a phone, maybe that doesn't happen.
Like, if he was a hot guy and had an option of all these women and going to the beach and lifting and all that stuff, like, maybe he doesn't write that, but, you know.
Yeah, well, the ability to write fiction is so fascinating and it's so engaging when someone writes a good book and you're into this character and these fucking scenarios and it's like all fake.
If you don't remember doing it, you probably won't remember if that was in New York or L.A. I believe it was in L.A. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was in L.A. Because I was on set when he was shooting the ones in New York.
And so Kurt is always like chiming in about things, but what's interesting is like, you know, I've been friends with Kurt for a long time, and now, like whenever I talk to Kurt, he's always fucking scaring the shit out of me.
Because he's so well-read about what's going on in the world.
You know, Kurt Metzger was the first person that contacted me about this restrict bill, which is like what they're using to say they need to stop things like TikTok.
And then you go into what the restrict bill is.
You're like, oh my god, this has nothing to do with TikTok.
They want the ability to lock down anything that's on social media and stop people from spreading information that's dangerous to whatever narrative they're trying to push.
And we went over it in depth yesterday.
It's fucking terrifying.
The ambiguity, the way that they're able to frame what they're able to target.
Metzger is so involved in that world now because he's on Jimmy's show that he's always looking at corruption and this and that and what's happening in Ukraine.
Well, it's a political social show where Jimmy Dore is a comic and Metzger is a great comic and the two of them together, they just talk shit and laugh about how fucking crazy modern day politics and influence and insider trading and all the shit that's going on and Sam Bank from Fried and FDX and where the money was coming from and how they were all doing it and how they got away with it.
He scares the shit out of me every time I talk to him.
When I get a text from Kurt, I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ, am I gonna go fucking panic now?
The way that I slayed that cold crowd was pretty awesome.
I think I'm on my way.
And then I started just listening to him and the laughs he was getting.
And I was getting laughs, but he was just getting, you know, the depth.
Of the laughter and with every joke was hitting harder and harder and his setups were hitting and then the punchlines obviously hitting and then two tags on the end hitting it's like the guy does comedy the way that Pacquiao used to fight he would like hit you and then turn two more times turn you and then two or three more times and then get out and you're like the guy's just like on the ground by that point so he's doing that and he I'm just listening and it's like I'm at the cellar late,
so I know the material, but he's doing material I haven't heard before, and he's murdering at a level that's just crazy.
And at the end of it, it's like none of those people in that crowd even remembered who I was.
Like, he's not there all the time, but it's not, you know, if you see Chris Rock there, you know, it's not crazy.
It's not uncommon.
Chappelle, the same way.
If you see him there, it's not crazy.
Uh, Seinfeld, once in a while.
But, um, Adam Sandler was there one time, and it's like, they sit at the back table, and you could just feel the energy when there's somebody like a Chappelle or a Chris Rock back.
The energy kind of changed.
It's like, People perk up that the people who are there eating everybody notices the comics start their antennas go up and I understand you know the energy so Adam Sandler happens to be back there and He's never there and Dave walks in with his you know goes to the bar to get his coffee or whatever hood up and Adam Sandler goes Dave Dave Dave Dave!
And Dave's just in his own world.
Atel!
Atel!
And finally he comes up to him and he goes, Hey Dave!
He goes, Hey what's up Adam?
And then he goes, How you doing man?
Doing pretty good.
How are you?
Good.
And then he goes outside and smokes.
He just cuts out and goes outside.
Everybody's like angling to see if they can talk to Adam Sandler.
And Adam Sandler's like screaming Dave's name until he gets his attention.
Well, that's one of the best things about those showcase style clubs is that you do work with these killers and you have to sort of reevaluate your material.
If you know you're going to go on after Shane Gillis, like Shane was in town this week and Shane right now, In my mind, for my money, he's got 15 minutes that could fuck with anybody's 15 minutes that's ever lived.
He's a goddamn assassin.
He was going on stage as a mothership, and I watched some of these comics that had to follow him going, oh, fuck.
Because he's just throwing heaters.
It's like 99 mile an hour fastball after 99 mile an hour fastball.
And then you would watch them and go, oh my god, she's right.
So she was a comedy fan from being there and then eventually, we all knew she was hilarious.
It just took time for her to have the courage to go on stage.
Now she's a headliner, killing all over the country.
It's amazing.
But knowing her as an open-miker and knowing her as a waitress before she was an open-miker, she was one of the people that I would go to if I would ask her, like, hey, how did this person do?
How was this person?
And she would tell you in a way that, like, she wasn't jealous because she wasn't a comic, but she was, like, deeply embedded in the comedy world.
And that's the real education that a guy gets if you're in New York.
Like if you are, you know, you're on these shows with Greer Barnes, you're on these shows with Dave Attell, you're on these shows where you get to watch all these fucking killers over Over and over and over again.
He fucking murdered so hard, and then the show would go on, and I wanted to say, you know, this show is great, but it's not as good as a stand-up.
It's almost like people don't know.
He's just the host of the stand-up, and he's kind of the ringleader, and so he's wrangling all these cats and getting all these comics to stay on topic of all the different things they're talking about on Tough Crowd, but I'm like, my God, the best thing is the warm-up.
People evaluate their sets, and then you have the ability to do these door guy showcases where you're going in front of fucking packed houses, and it's amazing.
Well, one of the things we want to establish here is we want to have a real clear path to becoming a professional.
And that if you put together like a real set and then you start doing guest sets on the big shows in the big room, and then maybe a guy like David Lucas or a guy like Bryan Simpson will take you on the road and say, hey, you want to open for me in Seattle?
And then you go with him.
It flies you out, and then you get to see what it's like to be in a new state and a new crowd.
And then you'll have a clear path to being a professional.
And the more professionals there are, the better it is for everybody.
The more guys make it, the more girls make it, the more it is...
Right, there's some guys that are really good writers, but they're just not comfortable performing, and they don't like it, and it gives them anxiety, and they would rather just write.
They're more introverted.
But they're really talented.
For them, that's great.
But there's guys that are talented performers that get that gig, and then they get that steady paycheck every week, and then you get in that system.
If you don't have a draw, but you do have the skill set, you're walking through fire.
I don't give a fuck, because you're gonna do a half-filled show in Columbus, Ohio, where they have to paper the room, because no one knows who you are yet.
Yeah, you're just gonna take that job and you're gonna hope that something magic happens and it allows you to like leapfrog everything and then just go straight into big theaters and arenas, but it doesn't happen.
And a lot of guys, they start out, and they do it for a little while, and then they lose focus, and then they stop doing it, and they, oh, I'm going to restart my podcast.
When people say that, that's the feeling that I used to get when people stopped fighting and then they would take like three years off and then come back to the gym again.
I think that's true, but I think it's wonderful that you're creating an environment where people can work hard, raise their level, and then they get to another level, and they're working their way up.
And all kinds of personal shit happens along the way too.
And it's like you rely on these people for support or your friends or your peers and like picking you up and trying to turn it into a bit or trying to turn it into something, you know, fantastic.
It's a fun way to make a living, and it's a fun way to get through life.
We were talking about it last night where we just did a show, and afterwards we're all sitting around relaxing and having fun, smoking pot, and I was like, could you imagine living your whole life and never killing?
Yeah.
Because we went through that with the pandemic where comedy was stopped, and I was like, I guess maybe I'll never do comedy again.
I've told this story, it's a crazy story, where Ron White had kind of resigned himself to retirement.
He's like, I think I'm done.
I fucking did it all.
You know, Blue Collar Tour.
I got a jet.
I'm gonna fucking sell my boat.
He's like, I'm just gonna fucking relax.
I got money in the bank.
I'm gonna play golf.
And then we did a show in November of 2020 at the Vulcan Gas Company down the street on 6th Street.
And Tony Hinchcliffe had the show.
He put it up.
And he put Ron White up.
And I was already talking about putting together a comedy club.
I was trying to find a spot.
And then I was actually telling everybody I think I found the spot and I wound up not using that place and getting another place, but Ron goes on stage and he hadn't been on stage in like a long time, like eight months or something like that.
It's also, you understand more than anybody how hard it is to put all that stuff together and to figure out a way to say it in a way that's going to get the laughs and resonate.
There's nothing like when you're sitting there and you're turning the bit, however you're doing it, writing it out, I do notes on my phone, but you're like kind of saying it in your head, and then you're like, that moment where you're like, I think I got something here.
I think I really got something here.
And then the satisfaction of taking that and trying it on stage, and then getting the, you're like, Okay, I got it.
I got a punchline.
And it's like, now I'm gonna keep coming.
I don't know what your process is.
Mine's like, just keep coming at it.
Just keep coming.
Keep coming.
Every morning, jokes.
Keep throwing jokes at it.
Keep asking questions about it.
And then when you have it, it's just, there's no feeling like it.
Even fame, whatever.
It's like money.
It's like there's no feeling like it.
Having that bit and just having it murder like all the way through from beginning to end.
You know, I was like, you know, because coming up with premises, it's like there's so many funny things that happen to us every day or potentially funny things.
It's like just journaling makes you conscious of it, because there's so many things that slip by.
Like on the way here, I had brass knuckles, but they're wood.
I worked Hilarities in Cleveland, and the owner, Nick Costas, he gives me a gift every time I do it.
I don't know if he does it for everybody, but the time before, he gave me a baseball bat, and this time it was wooden brass knuckles.
He's a great guy.
It's a fantastic club.
So we can see these wooden brass knuckles, and I'm going through security at Fort Lauderdale Airport to come here, and they flag my bag, and they bring it over, and the guy goes, what's this?
I immediately go, Nick Costas, hilarity, I immediately give up his name, and snitch.
It's like, take this to Yemen or this guy gets a splinter.
You know?
So it's like, but they were like, and I was rushed.
So he's like, do you want to check your bag or do you want, you could just give it up.
I'm like, I'll just give it, you know, I'll just give it up.
But it's like a brass, like, for them to take that, and I think they're wooden, he gave them to me, wooden, so they would get through security.
That's funny.
But for them to do it.
But, like, my point is that journaling, like, I never would have thought twice about that, but it's like journaling brings that out, so sometimes I'll do that if I feel like nothing is happening.
But then I'll take bits on my phone, and I'll just, like, I went to jury duty.
And I'll just...
I'm like, there's so many funny things here about jury duty.
Trying to get out of it.
The way they threaten you.
In New York anyway.
They go, you have to serve or you're going to go to jail for a year.
And it's like, I don't know if this is how much faith I have in the justice system with your threatening me, a private citizen, for a year to come to jury duty.
Anyway, so you end up going and it's like...
As comics, we're in this conundrum because it's like, it could be a three-week trial.
It's like, yeah, I cannot serve for three weeks.
I have road dates.
Money is at stake.
Flights are booked.
Like, all of this stuff matters to me.
Like, I need this money.
So, you know...
But they just don't care.
There's nobody to call.
There's nobody to complain to.
So it's like you come and you check in and you just hope that you're not called into the thing.
So we're sitting there and we're just waiting.
But that's like, there's so many funny with emotions and feelings that come through there.
And like, how do I get out of this?
It's like a felony.
A felony.
If you have a felony, you can't serve.
It's like, I could sucker punch the bailiff.
You know what I mean?
It's like, that's a felony.
He's a cop.
And then you start punching that up and crafting it and then going in there.
And what really happened is I went in there and they go, you know, we have a jury pool outside.
We need to take them first.
So instead of holding here, we'll see you guys tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I have to fly out the next day.
So I go to the bailiff.
I go, hey, I can't come back tomorrow.
I'm sorry.
I have to fly out.
I cannot come back tomorrow.
He goes, wait here.
He goes, he gets a piece of paper and he goes, give this to holding downstairs.
They might reissue you another date.
They might cut you.
So I go, alright.
So I go down there.
I give it to her.
She's like, give me a minute.
Just sitting there waiting.
And she comes back.
She's like, see you in four years.
You're cut.
I was like, oh, thank God.
But that whole thing, like the tension of that, like that's, I'll put that on my phone and I'll just keep coming, keep coming at it.
So I'll write on a subject, and I'll just start expanding on that subject, and then I'll come up with one funny thing and then I'll take that and I'll copy it and paste it into a new file and then I'll write with that thing that like one paragraph that I think is funny and then I'll expand upon it and then I'll come back to it the next day and I'll smoke some weed and drink a cup of coffee and stare at it some more and then I'll write I write like basically an essay and then in that essay I'll find the funny
stuff and extract it.
It's not an efficient process because it doesn't come out looking like stand-up.
It's like basically I'm farming premises and I'm doing it through just time and like Forcing myself to sit in front of it and so I do it a lot of it at night which is kind of hard because I'm tired It's like sometimes I'll like literally see myself like nodding out in front of the computer while I'm writing But if it's just one fucking line like I have one line in one of my new jokes that came from that and it fucking murders just one line That's like a new bit and
this one line like defines that bit and it came out of the middle of the night It was like two o'clock in the morning and I'm just sitting there writing like oh Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I lay out those notes on the coffee table if I'm doing an arena or even a theater sometimes I'll do it.
If I do it at a comedy club, I just have the notes on my phone because it's more casual.
But when I do actual physical writing, we're trying to come up with new ideas.
I can type way faster than I can write.
And I don't have to look at my fingers.
So I can just look at the screen and in the process of writing, like if I'm sitting there, I get into like a trance where I'm only thinking about the ideas.
But it's hard because you get distracted.
You want to surf the web.
You want to look at YouTube videos.
You just gotta like make...
I'll like say, okay, you're not doing jack shit until you have 900 words.
After you have 900 words, then you can fuck off and do whatever you want.
Or not, depending on if you're hot, if you got something.
I also take notes, like if something hits me during the day that I think is funny, even if it's not a joke, just something peculiar, I'll write it down to just general notes.
But then I'll have topics like jury duty, working on this thing on the electric chair now, and it's just like, use that as a topic.
It's like, I got a couple of jokes that are working there.
It's like, why not keep coming at it, keep coming at it until it's a solid bit.
Well, it's the thing that we were talking about before.
It's like the process of getting good as a comic.
It's a long process.
And the more you can do, like listening to sets, watching sets, you know, watching other people perform, writing, the more you put in this overall time and hours, that's going to manifest itself in better performances and better material and better sets.
There's no other way to do it.
When I talk to Shane about his act, I'm like, dude, your fucking material is so good right now.
Even if you're not going to sit down and write the way that you do, and you don't feel like it, maybe you traveled that day, maybe something else happened, it's like, just check in on them.
Just check in on the jokes.
Just see how they are.
It's like, maybe you have a cup of coffee and you're burned out, you did it, whatever.
It's like, maybe just have a cup of coffee and check in.