Chris Distefano reveals his return to Catholicism and selling a Staten Island home after anxiety derailed his creative life, including enabling a family member’s drug addiction. He shares comedy disasters—bombing at Steve Cohen’s party, a failed Mets Jumbotron performance, and a $5K polar bear raffle flop—while questioning societal pressures like "being the best" and AI’s potential to replace human jobs, even in live sports. His journey highlights how personal demons and shifting priorities reshape success, contrasting with Joe Rogan’s emphasis on passion over validation. [Automatically generated summary]
And I said, I couldn't, didn't understand it then.
I said, we're selling the house.
And I convinced my family, because that's what we can do, right, as comics, I convinced them, I had them buy this story, convinced my girl, my family, what's going to be better for us is to sell this five-bedroom house.
Here's the move.
We're going to sell this five-bedroom house for about $300,000 under asking price.
We're going to get out of this puppy.
We're going to sell that.
We're going to move to Queens, where we can walk to stuff in bagel stores and be in civilization.
We're going to temporarily live in a two-bedroom apartment.
And then we're eventually going to move into a condo and life's going to be better because, you know, I won't have to care for these grounds anymore.
I won't have to throw out the garbage.
We'll be safe in an apartment.
People can come in the back window of our home and this will be the move.
And I did that.
And then the apartment that we had lined up fell through.
We left the apartment we were living in because it had roaches.
Jasmine almost left me.
She was almost like, I can't be a part of your chaos and self-sabotage anymore.
And I had to kind of really just say, what the hell did I just do?
Figure this problem out, went back into therapy, turned back into religion, starting to find some answers.
And now we're living in a home that we're renting, that we like, and we're kind of settling in.
But I learned the lesson of self-sabotage the hard way.
It's weird.
What's going on in my career right now, selling the most tickets I've ever had, financially the best I've ever done, getting all these opportunities, was the worst version of me as a human being.
Not because I was just self-sabotaging after self-sabotaging, and I couldn't, didn't know why.
Yeah, but they're, you know, not, they call me gay.
You know what I mean?
Like, they're old school New York guys that are like, I don't fucking know, dude, get a therapist.
And I'm like, well, yeah, I, what I had to do, what I, I really felt like nobody could really help me with this.
I was like, I gotta just turn to professional therapist and then I go into And then I turned back to going to church, and I was like, well, at least I have, like, if anything for me, church is just an hour a week to just meditate and sit there, and I have nothing.
I have no thoughts.
I have no technology.
I'm like, it's just me and whoever I think God is.
That's how I feel about it.
But that chaos stuff, you know, because people always, you know, Chrissy Chaos, I was actually living in it, and I was like, okay, now what I've done, now I've, like, hurt my family.
Now I've done a thing that's, like, not funny.
Now I've, like, taken things from my kids because I thought my kids would be like, oh, yeah, Dad, like my eight-year-old.
We had this moment that kids are just kids.
I'm telling her, isn't this great, baby?
We can walk to the bagel store now.
We can go to the park.
We're not living off the side of a highway.
And she was like, well, I love that we had a pool.
And I was like, yeah, but isn't it better that we don't have a pool now and we can go to the pool club?
And she was like, you know, no.
She was like, honestly, she was like, we did it for you.
So I'm happy that you're happy, but I miss my friends.
And then I was like, oh my god, what the fuck did I do?
So I kind of have been backtracking as much as I can, little by little, to try to re-correct these mistakes.
And now my family is more on board.
Now my family's like, hey, we're with you.
We're with you, but we gotta figure this out.
So now we're settled, finally, in a place.
And we're kind of falling in love with the neighborhood we're living in as time has went on.
And my kids are finding friends and all that.
And I'm not going to take that from them.
I'm not going to be like, well, wherever we are now, we're going to stay for years so they can build the bonds and the friendships that they need that I inadvertently took away from them without me even realizing.
It was, I believe, I have confidence, I believe that I'm in this business, I can do it.
And I believe that like we're all together now, especially how comedy is now, I feel like we're all like this big brother, sisterhood, like we'll help each other.
If one of us is falling, like we got each other.
I believe in that.
But I think that the actual anxiety of the day of, you know, again, being a New York guy, one night Radio City, the next night the theater at MSG, all these, for me, a lot of tickets, you know, 10,000 plus tickets, which is, you know, that's huge for me.
I was like, how am I going to balance all this?
What if I don't do well?
What if one of these 10,000 people realizes that I'm...
So now, now, I've gotten to that point to accept that I'm wildly different.
Not wildly different, but I'm much better now than I was in September when all this stuff was going on because I've just kind of accepted that I don't really have control of what others think.
Maybe you need a thing other than just comedy that you do that's not like career-oriented, like a hobby, like some kind of other interest that you really enjoy that you could focus on.
I'm really into WikiFeed for specifically trans women.
And so, no, what I think is...
Well, what I've done, because I haven't gotten to the hobby yet, what I've done is I've really, I thought I was always focused on my kids, always being a father is everything to me, but I said, what you just said, I said, I'm going to really just focus on being a dad, being home, coming off the road a little bit, just temporarily doing my thing in New York, keeping my podcast going, keeping my name out there, but not going on this national tour, getting away from that, For now, I've shot a special.
It's going to come out at the end of the year.
I'm like, be home.
Be with the kids.
Be picking them up.
Be at the park with them.
Focus on, like, give yourself a schedule.
I'm a comedian from 9 to 5, or 9 to 3. And then when you pick up your kids, just for now, you just be with them.
And that's really helped.
And now, like last night I was at your club, which is awesome.
I was at your club, and that was the first time I was on stage in about six weeks since I shot the special.
But other than that, you've always been like, you have a love and a passion that's, you're not worried about, like you're never looking at your watch being like, is an hour up yet?
You know, when you're podcasting, you're never being like, I gotta get an hour.
You just flow.
You're just free in the moment, flowing with passion, which is very admirable.
And I look at that sometimes and I question myself.
I'm like, do I have that?
I know I've been relatively successful in this and I do love it.
Because I was an athlete, I played basketball my entire life, to the point where my friends from home Are like, you never mentioned basketball, and that's the thing you were known as in the neighborhood.
Everybody knew you as basketball.
They used to call me Gums, because I have big gums.
So they would call me Gums, but they would call me Dirk, you know, Little Dirk.
Yeah, I just was born with this big fat head and big teeth.
So basketball was an obsession.
Then physical therapy, getting my doctorate degree, was an obsession.
And then comedy became an obsession, and I think I have this thing in my head, where I know I have to stay in the present, but sometimes I can't help it, where I'm like, well, is this your obsession ending now, and you're going to find another obsession?
Nobody else in my family works, and I take care of multiple family members, which I'm proud to do.
I don't feel like that's a burden.
I feel like, this is great.
This makes me feel, at times when I feel emasculated, that's something that makes me feel masculine.
When I'm like, oh, I don't know how to build anything, and I got my girlfriend here putting up sheetrock, and I'm like, I can build fucking walls emotionally.
I don't know how to do anything else other than that.
I'm like, at least I feel like, you know what?
I can take care of this family.
You rely on me for that.
And I guess there is something in comedy.
I guess because it's not like a day job, a daily paycheck coming in every two weeks, maybe that seeps in.
But it's weird because I've always been confident in anything I do.
I've always felt like my father would tell me from when I was a little kid You control your part.
You control the output, not the outcome.
He said that to me a million times.
You control your output, not your outcome.
Just control your output.
And the outcome is irrelevant.
It doesn't matter if you win or lose.
I don't care about that.
How are you playing?
And so I feel like I control my output as best I can, but yet then I sit with these thoughts kind of...
You know, they eat at me sometimes, you know?
But, and then maybe it comes out in weird ways where I'm like, well, I'll just sell my house or I'll, you know, I have a grid family thing right now, but maybe I'll, you know, maybe I'll fall in love with the actress from Baby Reindeer.
And I would do that and then kind of tell myself, like, you're being gross.
Stop, Chris.
Like, your family, you have a pain in your big toe.
It's not brain cancer.
Shut up.
And, you know, your family needs you.
And then, so I would do that, but then I actually did give myself a big problem.
I had two major problems.
I had this house sale and then I had a family member who really was acting crazy, like crazy, crazy, crazy, where I was like, this is now a nightmare.
This has become an issue.
So I'm like, now for the first time in the past nine months, I'm like, you, one self-induced, one not, And you've created, now how do you deal with this?
And I was allowing them to do things and say things.
And I was just like, this is fun.
It's chaos, baby.
And then not realizing, hey, man, you're affecting way more.
You're going to be the head of this family than be the head of this family.
They're going to follow your lead.
And you're a lead right now.
No matter how much you tell yourself, I don't do drugs.
I don't drink too much.
I'm stable.
You're not, buddy.
You have to.
Put your feet down right now and your family's, you know, my eight-year-old is, she's old enough now to somebody will, you know, somebody in her class will be like, oh, your dad's the comic.
He's pretty filthy, right?
So my daughter now is at an age where she's, you know, I've never mentioned them.
Nobody knows what they look like.
I'm not that.
But I'm like, oh, there's responsibilities now.
There's repercussions for things we're doing now.
My kids, they're not little anymore.
My 13-year-old, I have 13, 8, and 2. My two-year-old's obviously a baby, but 13 and 8?
You're going to have to now really, really, really get your shit together.
And I think that was scary because nobody really in my family, no male figures at least, even though my father's a great man, nobody really got their shit together, right?
I was like, I'm the only one who went to college.
I'm the only one who pursued anything.
I'm the only one who's ever even owned a home, you know?
I might be taking bigger risks with my life than he could because now, you know, he was gambling.
Yes, he lost his marriage to my mom, which sucks, but...
Whatever.
He gambled.
Some guys wanted to kill him because he owed money, got taken care of, and then he went to Gamblers Anonymous, and at least he was like, well, I have this disease, and I don't do it anymore.
And I respect my dad for that.
He got out of it.
But I'm like, man, I was going down this path where, like, how many more decisions was I going to make?
How many more times was I going to gamble?
Because I was like, I didn't realize.
And this...
This last nine months, I was like, wow, dude, you really fucking are looking it in the face now.
These decisions...
I mean, dude, when your eight-year-old looks at you like, what the fuck did you do?
That's all...
Your mom and dad can tell you shit.
Even your wife and girlfriend can tell you shit, which I all love and respect.
Your daughter is like, what did you do?
Why did you do this to us?
You kind of have this major wake-up call where it was like...
And buy it back, even though it's twice the mortgage rate and you'll have to pay more money, like it would make us happy.
And I reached out to him and he was like, no.
You can't do it.
And it's funny, I sold it to, you know, Staten Island's like a funny, it's, the people on Staten Island are great.
They really, really are.
But like when we first got there, you know, it's like an old school, if you don't know Staten Island, it's like an old school New York City neighborhood.
It's like the only borough that is like, you know, kind of like more Republican than anything.
Like they are like freedom, like American flag, you will see American flags everywhere on Staten Island.
And so they, you know, they're, like when I moved in, you know, I come in here, it's me, you know, like, you know, I'm Italian, whatever, but then my whole family's Puerto Rican.
And my neighbors, for like the first two weeks, just because I didn't know, I told my neighbors that my wife was Italian, that my girl was Italian, not Puerto Rican.
I swear to God, I told her we were Puerto Rican.
And then my neighbor, who's a great guy, he's a doctor, he finally came over to me once and he goes, you know we know he's Puerto Rican.
No, well, so actually what has happened is when I contacted them is they have like multiple family members living in there now.
Oh.
So they're like, we can't, this is our house, like we have to stay, like we, they have a baby, they have a whole, so, and I fucked up, but I do feel, I do feel that we, I'm confident we can, we are getting out of it, and I'm confident in my abilities.
Yeah, and my father, like, inadvertently, like, you know, my father loves me, you know, loves me, like, a phenomenal father, right?
They divorced when I was one.
You know, my mom, my dad lived on Staten Island, my mom all the way in Queens.
You know, if you're not, that's like a two-hour commute.
He didn't have a car.
He was taking the ferry and trains and never missed one visitation with me.
He was at all my games.
But even in the throes of the addiction, like, he would take me to the OTB racetrack, and I loved it.
He was like, we're going to watch the horse.
He's Chrissy.
You have a Yoo-Hoo.
We'll have fun.
You know, he would always tell me, you know, you could leave my mother's house, right, where she still lives, and you could go to the right was church, and to the left was the OTB racetrack, but it kind of, the church was like at a top of a triangle, so you could go either way and get to the church.
And my father told me, he'd always be like, you know, when you're going to church with your mother, though, you always go to the right, okay?
You don't walk to the left.
Never walk past that OTB with your mother to the right, because he knew that the dirtbags who hung out outside there knew me.
And so one day we walked that way, and they all started going on.
So like, here he is, Chrissy!
Good luck, John!
There he is!
There he is!
And my mother was like, how do you know those men?
How do you know those men, honey?
And I was like, you know, sometimes dad walks with me past that way, and then she was like, you tell me right now.
Is he taking you into that OTB racetrack?
And then I, like, didn't know, like, what the fuck to do.
I had that moment, like, do I side with my mom or side with my dad?
And that was, I remember, like, first time feeling like anxiety, but, you know, one thing about...
I just kind of always sided with my dad.
So I was like, no, I was like, I've never been in there.
I don't know how those guys know me.
But then, of course, she found out and, you know, I got in big trouble.
See, the thing with New York, I agree, and New York now, it never felt that way, you know, my whole life there, but recently, New York has become a place, still great, still my home city, but...
that you would always hear about, like, you know, people say, oh, it's conspiracy or like you're watching that shit on the news.
Now you're actually seeing it.
OK, so for, you know, 39 years, I never had one altercation, not one altercation on the subway or in the streets with any kind of mentally unwell person in New York.
There's a lot of crazy people, but like they're not really fucking with you.
Three times in the past year, three times in the past year, I've been physically assaulted or like had to defend myself against a mentally deranged homeless person.
One time I was walking to the comedy cellar, some guy came at me.
And, like, just put his elbow in my chest and I had to push him and he fell over a pile of garbage.
I just had to push him as hard as I can where I'm like, I never dealt with that.
And now you're starting to hear people who, like, would always kind of, you know, never, ever, ever even think about, like, voting any other way.
But the traditional New York way are like, I have to now vote another way because it's not safe for me anymore.
There's crime.
And the cops, I feel bad, man.
The cops...
A lot of my friends are NYPD. They're like, dude, we want to fucking police.
We can't.
I can't do anything.
My boy was telling me a story.
He's like, we were outside the projects, right?
He goes, and we see this drug dealer selling drugs, right?
We see him.
He's selling drugs.
And we know he's right there selling drugs.
We arrest him.
Out.
Right away.
Out.
He goes, then we saw him selling drugs to what we look like a 10-year-old kid.
So we arrest him.
We arrest this kid.
We were seeing a 10-year-old child walk with a bag of drugs, arrest him, back out.
He goes, so what do you want me to fucking do then?
Well, when you saw those illegal immigrants that came here that attacked the police officer and they were out of jail the next day, flashing the bird at the cameras, that's crazy.
You got someone who illegally enters from another country, assaults a police officer, and they're right back out in the street.
What's really crazy is that video where he was doing that thing, trying to get people to get vaccinated, and, like, you get a free burger, so he's eating a burger.
I thought, you know, I've never seen, like, a girl's...
No girls had ever shown me their vagina when I was 11. But they were trying to explain to me that it's like, I guess I wasn't, I guess I wasn't 11. I guess I was 13. Okay.
So it was like, we only lived in Jamaica Plain for a year and a half.
Yeah, I think we moved there before school.
I think I went through the summer and then I went to school.
It was sketchy.
So this is where I went to eighth grade.
I went to this like public school in Jamaica Plain.
We didn't have any money.
We lived in, it was a shitty area.
But the kids were like 17 in the eighth grade and they would show up for the first days of class then quit.
It was just like they had dropped out so many times.
Here they were the age where they should be graduating and they're not even in high school yet.
We actually were on the same basketball team playing basketball together and she had already had sex and I was a virgin and we had this sex and unprotected and I'll never forget she was you know she put like a do-rag on she had done this before My mom wasn't home.
I know a lot of people suffer from it, but it's this interesting thing where I've connected now.
I used to lean into my anxiety, right?
Especially doing comedy.
I would make it a thing, whatever.
I... Pandora's box of anxiety opened up for me on 9-11 because I thought my mom was dead, this whole thing.
So I couldn't shake that feeling for 10 years after that.
I could not shake the feeling of thinking my mom or anyone I loved, any woman that I loved, girlfriend or mom or aunt, if they did not respond to me within five minutes of a text, I assumed they were dead.
That feeling of 9-11 every day came back because I was calling my mom, no response, no response.
Every day, coming back, coming back.
And so I would deal with that.
And then something happened where I started to look at my anxiety like narcissism and like disgusted with myself to the point where, because I used to put out these videos, Anxiety Tuesday, talk about my anxiety and people will still sometimes be like, oh, that Anxiety Tuesday stuff, it helped me so much, why don't you do it anymore?
And I'm like, I hate that guy.
That guy was so pitiful because you were being worried about things that really didn't matter.
What I should have done and what I know now is dealt with that anxiety in a healthier way.
So instead of subconsciously, you know, selling my house because I was really nervous about a big show, we've been able to deal with that anxiety in a healthier way and make a better decision.
So I think like this relationship with anxiety is so like big and swings in my life that I used to kind of let, I'm trying to use the energy now to be like, well, how can you learn from this?
How does this build you up?
And how do you make better decisions?
You know, by doing this.
this so I I struggle with that you have friends that you grew up with that also had anxiety too now anxiety wasn't a thing that you could speak about in my neighborhood if so this is only like you on your own develop this hundred percent and then and then like I remember I my anxiety was so bad I played college basketball and I would I would text my girlfriend at the time to make sure she got home from work you know whatever what she was doing and And if she didn't text...
I remember there was this one game.
We were playing Brooklyn College, which was like a big rival.
We needed to beat them.
I was, you know, one of the best players on the team.
I remember she wasn't texting me back.
I foolishly texted her before the game, like when we were in the locker room, and then thinking, okay, we're going to go in for warm-ups.
20 minutes, I would have to leave my phone in another room, because the anxiety of, like, is the phone ringing or not, I couldn't handle it.
So if I texted her, and then I went and did something else for 20 minutes, I would say, at the end of this 20 minutes, she's going to have a text, she's home, and you can relax.
Right?
Even though it was pure daylight in New York, like she was always going to be okay.
But my brain convinced me otherwise.
So one day, she's not texting back.
And now the game has begun.
So I'm playing this game like I can't even feel my body.
Like I am paralyzed.
Truly, I cannot feel my body.
My mouth is numb.
I'm having like a full panic attack, but I am the lead player on a college basketball game that we need to win.
So I don't know, like, what the fuck to do.
So I call a timeout.
I call a timeout.
Overrule my coach.
I'm like, timeout coach, I just need a breather.
Okay.
I say, I'm just gonna go back into the training room.
I just want to tape my ankle, which is normal.
Okay.
I come back out, because I wanted to look at my phone.
I look at the phone, still no message.
Still nothing.
You know, turns out it was just a delay on the train, and she, whatever, she's a 21-year-old girl.
She's not looking at her phone all the time.
Right.
And...
I come back and I have the phone stuffed in my pants.
I stuffed it in my like tidy shorts and I played the game with the cell phone stuffed in my pants because I said the only way I'd be able to do this is somehow When nobody's looking, even though it's a packed college crowd, pull out this phone and make sure that she texts me or else I can't play.
I'm going to be paralyzed and I can't play.
So I had it, and then I was playing the game, realizing this is worse, because now I'm waiting for the phone to vibrate, and every time I thought it was vibrating, it wasn't.
I was just running in the game.
So then I stuffed it in towels and the warm-ups, which was in a pile in the back of the bench, and they would call...
Coach would call timeout, or I would call a timeout.
I did that twice.
And get out, and then I would go over and look at the phone to see if she had texted me.
And I dealt with this anxiety.
And then what happened was, we were kids, 18, 19. I opened up to one of my friends about it.
We used to call him Bam Bam.
He's a big boy.
And I opened up to him about it, thinking, you know, whatever.
And then what they did...
Again, back then, not knowing anything about mental health, not really caring, being from deep in Brooklyn.
What they did is they, on a road trip, one time we were going to a game, they found a way to, the star six-seventh called me from an unrestricted, it'll pop up nobody, and they said, the girl's name was Melissa, they were like, hey, we kidnapped Melissa.
We have her in the trunk of our car.
She's going to die.
Like, everything that I confessed to them, they said.
And I had, and it was crazy, my freshman year, when she also played basketball as well that year, when I was a freshman, she was a senior, so we would always be in the same gym at the same time, so I had no anxiety.
I was a 90% free throw shooter.
9-0.
My junior and senior year, when I was a better basketball player in better shape, the leader of the team, but she was not with me every game, 50% free throw shooter, because my brain, I couldn't feel my body.
And I somehow got people, my teammates didn't even know this, I got all the way to Division III All-American.
I was like, I'm my school's all-time leading scorer, or maybe second now.
But I did all this stuff, and I was completely, 100%, absolutely having like this mental health Crisis.
As anxious as I could be, I swear, I would never joke about this.
I was like at 21 years old being like, I'm gonna have to kill myself.
I cannot live like this.
And nobody could help me.
My mother didn't know what to do.
This was 25, yeah, 20 years ago.
There was no mental health.
Nobody knew that.
Nobody knew about that.
I just dealt with every day reliving, I think my girlfriend's dead, I think reliving that 9-11 Pandora's box.
And it affected me to the point where every relationship I had, they broke up with me because they were like, I can't deal with this.
To them, it was control.
And in a way, it was.
I was trying to control.
I wouldn't care about if they cheated on me.
Where are you?
I was never jealous about that.
I'd be like, go have fun.
Have sex.
Let me know what big his dick is.
I'm kind of into it.
I don't give a shit.
But I cared about their safety, always.
And it was this thing I could not let go of.
And the biggest fear I have, the biggest fear I have, and that's why I'm trying so hard to work at this now, and sometimes it's fucking exhausting, but I'm trying so hard, is I don't want that anxiety to come back, and then I put it on my daughters.
Because I don't want them, I don't want to be their 18, 19, want to live their life and dad's here texting them and they don't write back and now I'm thinking, who has my daughter?
So I worry about that.
That's the first fear I had when I held my oldest daughter, who was, you know, love of my life.
I held her and I was like, what's going to happen when she goes outside?
Which I know you gotta stay in the present, you can't worry about that, but sometimes it hurts me.
So what happened was, the only advice that I did get from a friend of mine who's my kid's godfather now, Was like, you are so much better basketball player, which is what I cared about back then.
You are such a better basketball player when you're single.
When you don't have a girlfriend, you are such a better basketball player, and that's what you need to do.
So the only way at that time I could overcome it is to be single and to not connect together.
To a girl in any way, shape, or form.
Because then, if I was single, I wasn't worried as much.
Because my mom always would text me back.
Or if I called her, she was always pretty much home.
I very rarely dealt with instances where my mother was not responding.
Because my mom, she is thinking about me all the time.
But these girls, rightfully so, would be like, I'm not going to sit here and respond to this behavior.
Yeah, but it's interesting what you said to me about therapy is I felt that way myself.
I was like, you know, sometimes I feel like I have, we all have issues, but I'm like, sometimes I'm just like bitching to my therapist and I'm forcing myself to talk about these things that I feel like I have a better handle over from like my own kind of, you know, meditation and just, you know, thinking, you know, like seeking out help for myself, listening to people speak, having life experience.
I'm like, you know, I like my therapist, but I'm like, I don't know, man.
Sometimes it's like, you don't want to be the guy that's like, I don't need help, because I get it.
I had her on and she had written a book about therapy in kids and that obsessing about problems sometimes can exacerbate the problem, make them worse.
So instead of just like allowing that problem to sort of go away and naturally recover from it, now you just rehash it over and over and over and over.
And it becomes a thing that you're concentrating on all the time.
And that you're not developing the ability to be resilient.
And resilience comes from a lot of things.
If you have bad things happen in your life, you can develop anxiety.
But also, when bad things happen in your life and you recover from them, you realize you can recover from bad things.
Okay, I feel a pain in my chest, my stomach, you know, whatever.
Like, I had gas once in my stomach, and I had shows in England, and I literally went from literal gas pain, because you were eating all this British food, just a minor gas pain that was going to go away in 10 minutes, to...
Brain exacerbated it into potential appendicitis.
I'm across the ocean.
So now I have three more shows left.
So what I'm gonna have to do is figure out a way to get home preemptively.
Yes, I got on a flight, didn't tell the other people on the show, got on a flight, and got home.
And when I landed back at JFK, my stomach pain went away.
And it was all in my head to begin with.
Because what I was saying was, at that time, was I'm going to get...
My appendix removed over here.
I might die in the hospital.
I don't know how I'll react to anesthesia, but now that wouldn't happen.
Now what I would say, if I got an appendicitis feeling right now on the show, what I'd say was, well, if that's going to be the case, you'll deal with it.
You know what anesthesia feels like.
You won't know about it anyway.
We have enough modern medicine here where if this thing got really bad and this was like, you're going to die, You have enough medicine here where you can make this as painless as possible.
But when you were young in Jamaica Plains and doing those things, would your defense thing, would you always try to make people laugh from a defensive point of view?
People don't understand like to play really good pool requires like this insane level of concentration that's sort of like a meditation.
You're thinking about so many things.
You're thinking about the exact amount of revolutions you're putting on the ball, the angle that ball is going to come off, what is going to come off with spin.
Are you going to put check spin on it so it shortens the angle?
Or are you going to put running English on it so it lengthens the angle?
Are you going to hit it soft or hard?
Where do you want to get for the next shot?
And then where do you want to get for the shot after that?
That's interesting because I thought you were going to say it feels like...
The guys who I know who play golf have bigger careers because they're making these connections with people on the golf course and getting these things.
If you're in a business, you kind of almost have to play golf.
Because guys like to do deals and talk about things on the course.
You get to know a person on a golf course.
Just like you get to know a person playing pool.
You get to know how they can handle pressure.
What kind of a person they are.
Like, Brian Callen famously told me this story where his mom was watching this guy that his dad was gonna do business with play golf, and the guy cheated at golf.
He moved the ball.
And she goes, don't do any business with him.
He cheats.
Moved that ball.
He's a liar.
Like, she was right.
Turned out she was right.
But there's a thing that you could see when a person plays pool or plays golf.
He just says, what kind of traitor of a person are you that you want to live around people who hate you because of your fan choice?
Unless, he said, the only caveat to that is if their father was from, like, Pittsburgh, and you're a Dire Art Steelers fan, you moved to New York, I get that.
But if you're just...
You're the guy that just wants to go against the grain.
So then Steve finally goes, he goes, listen to me.
He stops.
He goes, I'm doing a joke.
He wasn't very nice.
He goes, okay.
He goes, uh...
What did my wife tell you?
And I said, well, you know, Mr. Cohen, she told me just come out here, birthday gift for you, you know, do 15 minutes and, you know, like just, you know, just do the best I can.
And she thought you'd like me because I talk about the Puerto Rican kids and all that.
He goes, yeah, yeah, that's I'm not Puerto Rican, though.
I was like, no, I know.
I know.
And he goes, how about this?
I'll make you a deal.
He goes, what are your five best minutes?
And I said, well, I did the David Letterman show a few years ago.
He goes, oh, I know David Letterman.
I said, yeah.
He said, why don't you do that?
And he goes, do that.
Do those five best.
He goes, I'm going to tell my guys to listen.
Do those five best.
He goes, if you can get me to laugh in those five minutes, I'll double whatever my wife gave you.
He goes, did you get it already?
I said, yeah, I think she wired it to my agent.
He goes, I'll double it, whatever it is.
I don't even know what the number is.
Times two, give me your best five.
So I just like planted my feet and I just, to the wall, didn't even look at anybody, just did my exact David Letterman set, which is about being on the subway.
I just came back from England like shit from 10 years ago, but I had it and I did it.
And they started to laugh and sure as shit.
That's what he did.
He doubled the money, turned out to be a big thing, you know, for me.
And then, what happened was, is I had to sign all these NDAs, not to talk about anything.
But I thought I had to sign NDAs because it was during COVID times and they were like renting out a restaurant, which like you really couldn't do back then.
So I was like, just don't mention that.
And I was like, and I thought it was really more for like, you know, they don't want reporters showing up to the actual event and them getting in trouble.
But it's like, the next day, who cares?
So I do my podcast the next day, Hey Babe with Sal Vulcano.
And I start the show with, dude, I fucking ate it last night.
Here's the story, right?
Going crazy.
That episode comes out the next day.
We filmed it in the morning.
It came out that night.
So the next morning, so two days removed from the Cohen gig, I wake up.
I have 20 missed calls from my manager, my agent, lawyer.
I wake up.
I'm like, what the fuck happened?
So my manager gets on the phone.
He goes, take down that episode, dude.
Take it down.
I said, what?
He goes, you violated the NDA. You just said all these things about the Cohen gig.
You can't do that.
His lawyers are saying you're going to get sued right now and they're going to take you to court and they will not lose.
And so I just hung up the phone on him.
I was like, I need a second.
And I just hung up.
I said, what the fuck do I do?
Because I'm like, I'm not taking that shit down.
It's comedy, whatever.
And then so I'm like, let me calm down.
Let me calm down.
So I'm scrolling on Instagram, right?
This is what we do.
Baseline.
Scrolling on Instagram like a fucking crocodile.
I'm scrolling and I see DMs from Steve's wife, Steve's daughter, Steve's son.
And I'm...
Hearts like this now, I'm like, oh, maybe I am fucked.
Because like now the family themselves, it was all...
I can't believe you talked about it.
Hey, babe, we loved it.
That's amazing.
My dad's dying laughing.
Come to a Mets game.
Throw out the first pitch.
The mom being like, I want to meet your wife.
Oh, my God.
Thanks for mentioning that.
And I'm like, wait, what the fuck?
So I call my...
And I'm like, I have messages from the family saying that it's okay.
And then he's like, all right, hold on.
And then he calls.
He says, send me those messages.
I sent him the messages.
And then within five minutes, lawyers backed off because Steve didn't tell them to do that.
The legal team was just like, that's a violation.
I don't even check with Steve.
You fucked up.
And then it went away like that.
And then the family now has become like friends of mine.
It's like really, the Cohen family owns the Mets are like awesome, amazing people.
It's like, it's almost, even though it's a big Major League Baseball team, it's like when you go to the game, it's like, Josh, you don't even need a ticket, dude.
Come walk in the back door.
Walk in with us.
Like, so cool.
And then Steve goes, I'm going to let you redeem yourself.
In the baseball season.
He goes, I'm gonna let you redeem yourself, okay?
I was just at the game.
And he goes, here's what we'll do.
He goes, it looks like rain.
He was like, if there's a rain delay, I'm gonna give you the mic, I'm gonna put you on the Jumbotron, and you do five minutes.
I said, you want me to do five minutes to cold, wet Mets fans that are angry about the team not playing?
He was like, do you want to redeem yourself or not?
And I was like, I'll do it.
So...
I think it's on my Instagram somewhere.
So I'm wearing, dude, the worst shirt, like a floral printed stupid shirt.
My friends, I was sitting in the owner's suite, right?
My friends are diehard Mets fans.
They were sitting in the stands for this.
They didn't know this was happening.
So rain delay comes.
They have the Mets announcer, again, who messes up my name, called me Chris Destelopoulos.
I'll never forget that.
She goes, Chris Destelopoulos.
She goes, I was going to do a few minutes of comedy for you.
And then the camera's just on me.
And I don't even have a mic.
You know one of those mics that you pin to your shirts?
So I had that.
So I was like doing that bit where I was like, and I'm bombing.
Horrifically, horrifically bombing in front of, you know, 30,000 where when I got Steve Cohen, by the way, and his friends are dying, dying laughing because they knew that that was going to happen.
And then Steve goes, he goes, you're all right, man.
You're good.
You're all right.
And then I got all these texts of my friends.
My boy, Pat, was like, dude, I was in the stands for that.
Like, you know, we're huddled under.
He goes, you were bombing.
He goes, I heard multiple people say they were going to unfollow you on Instagram for this shit.
And he goes, it was so bad.
He goes, it was literally so bad.
He said there was a little kid started to cry.
It was horrific.
And he goes, and your shirt fucking sucked.
unidentified
And I was like, and so it was one of those moments.
But what's the beautiful thing about comedy is, you know, when you put out the comedy work or the podcast is the players, the actual Yankee players, Anthony Rizzo, these guys, they've reached out and been like, oh, I like that bit.
Yeah, I was going to do boxing a few years ago and then the very first day I was there, a guy got into the ring and sparred and he was, you know, kind of being really like, you know, Macho guy.
And he was like, I'm not wearing a cup.
And the trainer was like, we should wear a cup.
He's like, I'm not doing it.
I'm not wearing a cup.
I'm not wearing a headgear.
He got hit in the nuts and his testicle came out of the scrotum.
So that was my first 20 minutes there.
So I was like, I'm probably not going to do this, even though I know that that's not most likely going to happen to me because I would wear the cup.
But I was like, I just was like, you know what?
If you see a man's testicle fall out of his nutsack, You're probably not gonna go back to do that thing just because you're just, you know, it just gives you, it makes you uncomfortable.
But that's what happened to me.
But I do want to, I do envy, I do feel like I should know about MMA because not only is it such a cool sport you can defend yourself, also in the comedy community, It's big.
I mean, the only fight I ever went to was a PFL fight, that league, at the theater at Madison Square Garden.
And the fans, they were, you know, I had never been, I don't know anything about MMA. It was a lot of recognition from the pods because they were like, it's all one community.
And so I was like, this could be my golf.
This should be my golf.
This is what you should get into, not comparing that.
So you, because it's become second nature to you how to do these things, but someone like me who has a bit of fear just from being older and not doing it, like my father learned how to drive when he was 45, so he's just a terrible driver and can't drive.
Even though he's not scared of life stuff, he's gone into fist fight stuff, but he's like, I can't drive.
I learned how to drive when I was 17. I'll drive with one arm.
I'm in control.
So I feel like that way with MMA, it's like now I've developed all these bad things that can, you think, and I'm like, I can't do this.
The problem is, like, if you're sparring with another guy and he hits you with a jab and then you hit him with a jab and he hits you a little harder, like, this guy's hitting hard.
Then you start hitting each other hard and next thing you know you're fighting.
And I've only ever been in two fist fights my whole life.
My first fist fight I punched this kid Glenn in the face thinking I'm gonna knock him off his bicycle and I'll win and he didn't even move a muscle and then he beat the shit out of me.
And then the second fight I got into was just like a bar brawl and I got hit, but I got hit like in the back shoulder.
Wasn't too bad.
And then I just kind of, I never really got beat up.
Yeah, because I'm a person, you know, we talk about it, we get excited about it, but sometimes I don't put these things into practice, even though I know stand-up is...
We're doing difficult things here, but other things I'm like...
Like, for example, when I, you know, in the middle of the pandemic or whatever, 2022, sometime around there, I got nervous about...
I don't know how to fight.
I got to defend my house.
And there was, at times, talks of...
To some type of what if a nuclear bomb went off here because things are getting tight with Russia before they invaded Ukraine.
So I came home one day with night vision goggles, a 30-day supply of powdered fettuccine Alfredo and a gun.
And I don't know how to use the gun and iodine tablets.
And so I did all these things.
And then I was like, well, now what?
My family was laughing at me like, what is any of this stuff going to do?
You can't do any of this shit.
And I was like, you're right.
And I kind of just made a decision, but I don't put things into practice.
So I want to make a choice to say, if you're going to talk about it, then do it.
I always watch, if it's on the plane, this documentary Roadrunner that they made, I think, after he passed away.
And it was amazing.
He said something once where he was like, you know...
I, because sometimes I think about this, you know, when you get a little older, even though I'm not super old, but you start to think like, hey, are my best years behind me?
Like what, you know, what is life?
What's the next things?
And I heard him say, he was like, you know, when I, he only became famous or like people knew his name and read his book when he was 43 years old.
He said, so I was sitting there at 42 years old thinking, well, Whatever, all my fun, all my drug days, all my wild, it's all over.
I'm in the back half of my life now, and this is what life's going to be.
He goes, and I didn't realize that it was going to be the next 20 years of my life that would be me, be the best years of my life.
And I never heard someone talk about it that way.
It was like, I know we know that you never know what tomorrow holds.
Our whole lives can change in an instant.
But sometimes, I can't help but feel like, oh...
I'm coming into my 40s now.
But when I heard Bourdain, I was like, oh, that's a very hopeful thing.
He was always writing jokes during that time, but he'd quit doing comedy and just went back to regular life.
So fuck it.
I'm going back in right and like back to school and all those movies me right it was huge It's crazy like how many people are like that out there that could have made it and just didn't and just stopped just Stopped or got the whatever demons they had got the best of them.
Yeah, which is a lot of us Yeah, I mean there's a lot of guys out there that have demons and their demon might be cocaine they're dealing alcohol Gambling, whatever it is.
I didn't know this about sports, but like, you know, like the same way, like we know funny, funny, funny people that just never really made it for whatever reason.
It actually happens in sports, too.
I thought sports being objective was being like, oh, the best player will get discovered.
But it's like, no, you got to have the right connections.
You got to play in the right tournaments to get noticed by the...
There's a guy out there who would have been as good as the Michael Jordan and the Kobes of the world, but he just never made it.
Sometimes people are very, very talented, and they really could be amazing.
Talent sometimes can fuck you.
Because if you're really talented, you don't have to work as hard.
If you're better than everybody else, you can kind of half-ass things, and you can get through things without even training.
Like, Jon Jones is so talented.
He defended his title against Alexander Gustafson, who's like one of the best guys ever in the light heavyweight division, and didn't even train for it.
He's beaten every single person he's ever faced, except there's only one loss that he has, and it's a disqualification in a fight that he was dominating.
The Gustafson fight was close though.
But he didn't even train.
There was fighters that he was fighting where he was so much better than everybody that the way they would describe it was like he was playing with his food.
After the fact, before the leading up, and after is where all the anxiety hits me or you know, really would spin me out of control and better at controlling it now.
But on stage, I mean truly zero.
Like I literally was having so much anxiety I told you I sold my house because of Radio City and then I was on stage at Radio City and not an ounce of anxiety.
The unfortunate thing is I, as much as people tell me, be in the moment for these big things Slow it down, all that.
I tell myself I'm doing it, but I never have any memory of it.
And I never kind of, you know, take over the night.
Like I did Radio City.
People are like, what'd you do after?
Where was the after party?
Where'd you go?
I said I was in bed at 11 o'clock with my family.
I was in bed.
The show ended at 9. I was in bed at 11. On the night, my biggest night.
One thing that always stuck with me, when I was in eighth grade, at the same time, I had mono and my mom had gout, so none of us could, we just couldn't move.
I fucking had mono and she couldn't move her foot.
So she got us cable television and we watched cable and they would show reruns of Oprah, the Oprah Winfrey show.
My mom would just watch it.
And I remember one day, and it's like advice that just stuck in my head.
Oprah was on, I think it was one of the first times she was on with Dr. Phil.
Oprah was on and she said, you know, the thing about success is, real successful people, is the money always comes second.
It's the passion first, and then the money comes second.
If you reverse it and you go after the money first, you may get success, but there's a negative karmic energy attached to that money.
So the only way to do it the right way is you go passion first, and then the money will always come, but it will come second.
And I don't know, I was like in a fever, mono dream, and I just always remember, and it always stayed with me my whole life.
And that's why I brought up before, I was like, when I saw you kind of, you know, hammering out your set, I was like, oh shit, this is why.
The passion is there.
You can pay him, not pay him.
If you were at this level, not at this level, you'd be still the guy hammering out the hour.
But the people who want to pretend that it's the whole thing, that's foolish as well.
Because you can't just manifest things.
I remember we were at the Comedy Store once, and there was this lady that came to the store who was a friend of one of the comics.
And she was telling me that she is following the secret.
She's like, I have the secret now and now I know that I'm going to be married to the person that I love and I'm going to have an amazing career and all these different things.
As I go, I go, so you're confident in this?
You're like, sure.
I think this was, I don't know if I had seen the movie yet.
Because I remember when I saw the movie, I was like, whoa, these people are out of their fucking minds.
I was like, there's a lot more to it, kids, than just this.
You can't have a bunch of people just thinking they're going to manifest themselves being a rock star.
That's going to happen.
I'm going to make it happen.
No, there's a lot of things you have to do.
There's a lot of work involved, a lot of learning.
You've got to make mistakes and recover from those mistakes and do better and write better stuff and perform better and get better at skills.
You have to do stuff that people actually enjoy.
So what do people enjoy about my work?
What am I missing that other people have?
There's a lot that goes on.
It's not just, I want to be a rock star, I'm going to make it happen.
So this lady was telling this to me, and this was the only time I'd ever met her, but we were all hanging out in the back of the Comedy Store, so she was out there for a couple hours, right?
So then I saw her again, like a year, two years later.
I was doing a show at another club, and I ran into her outside.
I go, hey, how you doing?
She goes...
Last time we talked, we talked about The Secret, and she goes, it's not been working.
She's like, I don't understand.
Her father was messing up her life.
I don't know what was going on.
And she was like, I haven't found that relationship, and my career isn't going well.
And then I remember thinking, like, people that thought that way, that really believed, you can hear that from a successful person.
I just knew.
I had a vision.
I stuck with that vision.
I made it happen.
So there was a lot of people running around during these days, like the early 2000s, that had this thing in their head that they could manifest a reality.
Well, and also, correct me if I'm wrong, by the time you started your podcast, you were already successful, you were already the host, you were already kind of a household name, I'm sure financially successful, so you didn't need it for the money.
Three months ago, and I thought he wasn't in the room, but the way they have that set up is you really believe he's in the room, like almost like a hologram.
He would stick when he was a kid, when he was a kid, when he would get yelled at by his mom and dad, he would stick safety pins through his dick and balls as a way to cope with it all.
And he was like, you know, it was like this thing where they were like, the producer was like, hey, he's going to talk to you for five minutes.
Just get to know your name.
What do you do?
Comedy.
You know, whatever.
And then you're going to get into this segment.
And I was like, okay, great.
Baba Booey.
Gary, you know, is the one who hooked it all up.
And I was like, great, dude.
Five minutes.
That's awesome.
Like, excellent.
And then so we go.
We're starting to talk.
I don't know what I said.
I said something stupid.
And he started to laugh.
And then he was like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second.
What is it?
Who are you?
And I was like, you know, on the show, I was like, hey, my name is what I do, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We talked for like an hour and a half.
I got like a real Howard Stern interview.
And then we did the bit at the end.
You know, I didn't have any good guesses.
And then like 20 minutes later, I get a call from a random number and I pick up and he's like, hey, it's Howard.
And I thought initially it was one of my friends doing an impersonation because they knew I was on Howard.
It happens live.
And then he was like, no, it's me.
It's Howard.
He was like, man, that was great.
He was like, I don't know.
Whatever you're doing, just keep doing it.
He was like, I was very engaged with that stuff, man.
He was like, so good.
And then I was like, okay, thanks.
And then hung up and then I was like, holy shit, did that really just fucking happen from comedy?
And I felt really positive.
I still feel really positive and great about that, but sometimes my brain can't hold on to that for too long, and then what will happen is we'll say, okay, well, let's balance it.
Let's Catholic guilt come in.
Let's balance it and make ourselves, you know, not believe him in some way.
You know what I mean?
And so I hear from you a lot, you'd be able to kind of take that confidence, which is a beautiful thing, and just kind of have it make you stronger and say, all right, I'm going to keep going up, where I look for a way down from it to balance.
So I fight against that, but I'm getting close.
And I do think the next time I come on this podcast, I'll be fully gay.
If I'm in my office, there's a giant difference between how I feel, if I just Watch YouTube videos, even if it's like an interesting thing.
It's a giant difference between how I feel that then if I go over my material and I start writing and I write a new tagline, I write a new joke, I have a new premise, I have a new thing that I put into my phone.
Now I go to bed, I feel great.
Now I feel good.
So, it's like, you gotta learn, like, what is the thing that helps?
The thing that always helps my mental state is to be To be engaged in a thing and to be creative and to try to figure this thing out and then do the work that you need to be doing for your career, for the thing that you love, which is comedy, right?
Or whatever it is, or even podcasting.
Work on that thing.
Work on the thing.
And then when you're done, you feel good.
If you're just fucking off, you just feel like a loser.
And if you feel like a loser and you start feeling that, maybe that's who I am.
Then you have imposter syndrome.
Just be professional.
Just do the things you have to do.
And then, if I do all that stuff, then I can actually enjoy a movie.
I can sit down and enjoy a movie.
If I fucking did everything I'm supposed to do, I can enjoy anything.
But if I have, like, in my head, like, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not doing the work I'm supposed to be doing, then I feel like a loser.
So let's just do the work, and then you don't feel like a loser.
And then you could be sociable, then you're fun to hang out with, because you're not, like, overwhelmed, like, your mind is not on this thing that you should really be doing.
Instead of being here at this party with your friends, you really should be at home working on that thing.
Get all that shit done, so that you don't feel bad.
I do think you can't feel good about yourself because it subconsciously tells you, well, then...
Something bad now will happen, right?
It's this weird thing that, so I think sometimes I flirt with that because I pretty much, you know, I do my writing and I do kind of say, all right, get into comedy, got the whole family behind you, you need to do this, let's do this, but sometimes it's that Catholic guilt, but I'm at a point in my life now, I'm reading this book, Case for Christ.
I, you know, was very mad at Catholicism for a very long time because I grew up Catholic.
When I was 17, when our brains are forming is when all the Catholic shit came out, the priests raping, all that stuff.
And I was like, well, fucking, I have Catholic tattoos all over my body already.
What am I supposed to do now?
I can't, this, I'm like, want to rip my tattoos off.
And I was very angry for a while, initially didn't even want to get my kids baptized, came around, did it.
But then I read this book.
Case for Christ, and I was like, wow, this guy's putting forward, like, very compelling arguments for, like, not only Jesus's existence, but his actual, like, works being real.
Like, this all being fucking pretty real and pretty historically accurate.
And I was like, oh shit.
And then so I started to like go back a little bit, right?
And I started to say, you know, because some of the things I'm even talking about on the show are kind of like, you know, it's still me, but it's like it's not as much as me anymore.
Because I started to go back to church and I started to feel like this like, just like calmness and almost like even if it's forced, like this forced connection.
Have that part in my head that's always there that knows this is gonna be fine.
You know how to handle this.
Just handle it.
Deal with it.
Breathe.
Go through it.
Move on.
Have like a set in your head Of ideals, of behavior that you're tolerating, behavior that you're not tolerating, the way to handle things when things come up.
And don't just dwell on every problem.
Instead, have this thing very rigid in your head.
This is what we're going to do.
Write it down.
Write it down.
Write down on a piece of paper.
If this comes up, this is what we do.
We don't do this.
We don't dwell on stupid shit.
We don't worry about nonsense.
We don't fucking fret about...
We don't sell our house because there's not a bagel shop close, even though there was.
Write those things down.
Write those things down.
Give yourself rock-solid rules.
And then go to those rules every time something comes up.
Instead of just like...
Riffing it, just winging it, being lost in this world of management of anxiety.
Have rigid ideas in your head of how you're going to handle it.
It seems like you've gotten through the worst parts, right?
It sounds like your anxiety during basketball was fucking crazy.
Because of podcasting, sometimes I'm like, because my girl said something to me once, interesting, she was like, you know, on these podcasts, you talk about all these issues you have and whatever, she was like, but at home, you're like, not that guy.
Like, I don't know, like, this stuff is like, you're never like talking to us about it, you're never acting like that.
Like, she was like, I see you writing and doing things, but then you go on the pod and you're like, look at this fucking...
Look at my brain.
So she's like, what?
Like, don't feel like you have to just go on a podcast and to try to be interesting, say all your...
Yesterday I hadn't eaten and I did a 24-hour fast, so I was just, I was like in my body yesterday.
I felt like a lot of, I mean, I know you've done it before, but when you get on those fasts and you just get like all this energy, like I couldn't even sleep.
But I think, you know, human beings biologically, the only thing that's going to change how we age is science, and they're pretty close to being able to do that with a lot of things.
There's a few things you could do to mitigate aging today, and it does work.
It does help you, but you're 500 years old.
It's most likely that they just didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.
Tara was 128. Noah, as the last, the extremely long-lived Anteluvian patriarchs, died 350 years after the flood at the age of 950 when Tara was 128. The maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible, gradually diminishes thereafter from almost 1,000 years to 120 years of Moses.
But dude, I'm telling you, this book, Case for Christ, the fucking history, it's not even an opinion.
He's not saying, I want you to believe.
He's like, here's the history.
Here's why we...
Dude, so like, if I told you, if I said to you, Joe, you believe everything you've heard about Alexander the Great, right?
You believe it.
You believe that, you know, he's fought in these battles.
What they say, you just believe.
It's Alexander the Great.
I'll read his biography.
You'd say, yeah, sure.
But then you'd be like, oh, but I don't believe—they made the shit up about Jesus.
Okay, Alexander the Great, because what you'll always hear is, well, the Gospels were written 100-plus years after Jesus died.
Alexander the Great's first biography was written like 300 years after he died.
So that right there is like, well, the historians of Jesus were much closer in time than, say, Alexander the Great.
And even furthermore, back then, like the ancient Hebrews, they didn't have before writing.
They didn't write anything.
So they would memorize the Old Testament and the Scripture.
So you had guys that they would pass down, right?
They knew 5,000 pages of book on the side of their head.
Yes, the Gospels were 70 years later, but they were based off the accounts of people who were living at that time and up to like 25 years after it.
And they say, oh, well, game of telephone.
I can tell you something goes around the room.
Telephone.
By the time it gets to me, you know, 10 people.
What you just said is irrelevant.
It's a totally different thing.
I get it.
But what they said is because of that ancient thing of, you know, kind of having to pass down these Old Testaments because they couldn't write, it would be like if you're playing a game of telephone, but every person, I check with the person before to make sure the word I'm saying is right.
And then I keep going.
So then it's going to work because you're constantly checking.
But if you looked at it, like, what's the most logical explanation?
Is the most logical explanation that a dead guy came back to life, or the most logical explanation that someone took his body, because that's what the Romans said?
I'm, just because I'm in, I'm saying that that is that one time.
And I'm not saying I'm crazy about it.
I'm just saying, you know what?
After reading that book, there was enough things that happened that historical scholars who aren't religious, some are believers, some are not, are like, this existed and this happened.
And so if this person was this significant person A religious guru figure like Jesus was, right?
And he really does have this amazing view of how humanity can live in harmony, and he really does talk to people about this, and he really does preach forgiveness, and he really does treat everybody the same, paupers and hookers and everyone.
Everyone's just God's children, loved.
When that guy's gone, you're gonna miss him, man.
You're gonna miss him bad.
And if you really do have a fundamental view of reality that's based entirely on myth, and you have connected this guy to the Son of Christ, or the Son of God, rather, this figure that is brought here to save us, and the Romans took him from us and killed him, and now he died for our sins and the whole thing.
If you have that in your head, and then someone says, I saw him, like, I saw him too.
Genghis Khan, they did the wildest thing with him.
They sent a pack of people to bury Genghis Khan, then they sent another pack of people to kill the people That everybody that went to Genghis Khan's funeral was murdered.
They all got murdered by another group of people, and then those group of people got murdered by a separate group to make sure that no one had any understanding at all about where Genghis Khan was buried.
Well, there's people—look, they found that guy who died in the glacier that was thousands of years old.
You know, people's bodies in the right situations.
Okay, hold on a second.
Marco Polo wrote, even by the late 13th century, the Mongols did not know the location of the tomb.
Secret history of the Mongols has the year Genghis Khan's death, 1227, but no information concerning his burial.
So, a frequently recounted tale, Marco Polo tells that 2,000 slaves attended his funeral, were killed by the soldiers sent to guard them, and that these soldiers in turn were killed by another group of soldiers, which killed anyone and anything that crossed their path in order to conceal where he was buried.
Finally, the legend states that when they reached their destination, they committed suicide.
So sex was just animalistic to procreate to get more bodies on the farm.
So you would watch your mom and dad have sex right next to you It wasn't a thing about cleansiness.
I mean, I'm sure you had to get an erection and get wet, so there had to be some type of something.
But it was like this wild thing where this whole idea of taboo, sex being taboo, and having terms for everything is pretty much like a new...
I read this whole thing about impotence court in France.
So back in the day, dude, there was this guy who wrote this.
It's called Fucking History.
The author's name is The Captain.
This guy's the man.
And it's cool.
I read one page a day, and it's about different times in history, kind of applied to today.
But this one thing I read about was in the 1600s, there was an impotence court.
So if you could get divorced, if your wife or if you wanted a divorce, the wife wanted a divorce, The only way out was you had to go to this court and you had to prove that your husband is impotent and can't get his dick up.
So the court were there and then you'd have to perform the act.
And if the husband couldn't get it up, you have to have sex in front of people, couldn't get it up, would grant you...
The divorce because that was the only grounds that it was necessary for.
The unhappy couple would then be subject to separate examinations to speculate groping by surgeons, physicians, and midwives.
Speculative, excuse me, groping by surgeons, physicians, and midwives.
A husband's natural parts were scrutinized for color, shape, and number.
The best thing he could hope for were the inspection...
Specters of delicate demeanor.
Various hypotheses were created.
Could he muster an erection?
Expel reproductive fluids on demand?
Was he capable of healthy performance?
Or had he been forcing his partner into...
How do you say that word?
Lascivious?
lascivious lascivious positions without the promise of coming children that means butt-fucking Mm-hmm as could be expected many withheld what many wilted under pressure According to the reports of a trial in rhymes I said rhymes I think so each rhymes The experts waited around a fire.
Many a time did he call out, come, come now!
But it was always a false alarm.
The wife laughed and told them, do not hurry so, for I know him well.
The experts said after that, never had they laughed as much nor slept as little as on that night.
That's when people look at the average age of people back then.
Oh, people only lived to 30. That's really because there was so much infant mortality, and infant mortality and childhood mortality factors in that, because half your kids were going to die.
This gets into saying that big dicks were an issue back then or something.
They were using this statue as a scarecrow in many places because it would threaten rape, so it would just scare people away from the gardens and whatnot.
I think back then, too, I think that soldiers, I read a lot of stuff about the Roman soldiers.
I think Greek soldiers were like, you know, had wives and kids, but on the battlefield the night before was totally okay to be gay, have an intimate relationship, because they thought you have to be in love with the man you're protecting next to you in order to protect him in the right way.
I think we have a lot of terms now for shit, but I think back then, like James Buchanan, who was the president before Abraham Lincoln, they used to call him.
He didn't have a wife.
He had a senator who was like, they would call him Aunt Nancy.
That was like their nickname for him because they were like, these two guys are gay, right?
But the public at the time knew that, but didn't care.
You being, your sexuality was never in the minds of the American voter in the 1800s.
That came later.
I don't know when it came, but I was fascinated to read that I was like, oh wow, back then when you think that You know, people must have been much more conservative back then.
They were like, no, we don't give a shit at all.
Like, just do get the country in order.
And actually, it plays a part because James Buchanan being, you know, possibly gay and with this guy and, you know, calling him Nancy, this senator boyfriend of his.
Was a senator from the South, and it was James Buchanan's presidency because he was giving all these favors to, they think, his boyfriend of that state that tipped the balance scales and kind of caused the Civil War.
That's what they say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't have the hard facts on it, but I remember reading that and I was like, yo, that's fucking wild.
We're like, you just bet like Abraham Lincoln kind of took over a country that was the roller coaster had went down.
He could not stop it.
And they say that he really sided with the kind of freeing the slaves and the North and the Union because they had much more soldiers and were much bigger than the South.
But like, if that was the other way, Lincoln wasn't, at the time, you know, you can make up what you want, and some people agree and disagree, but it's like, he was going with what he thought was best to preserve the Union.
Not necessarily, you know, I think slavery at that time, a lot of people started to be like, this is gross now, stop doing it.
But I read a thing too where it was just geography where they said if the cotton plantations were in the north, you would have had the slaves and we would have been the non-slave holders.
So like we had to do that with the – of course they didn't, but they would say we had to do that with technology.
At the time, this is what we had to – we needed the manpower and they were the only people who would do it.
Well, like, and Native, you know, because, you know, they were saying, like, where the specific place...
I forgot where it was.
Specific, tumulent, specific place they got the...
Slaves from in Africa were people who were very kind, giving people.
There wasn't any war there, so they believed you.
If you said, come with me, I'll come with you, because I listen.
We're all at peace here where we are, so why wouldn't I come with you?
And then the Portuguese were enslaving them and putting them on these ships, and then that's why they were able to get them from that part.
They knew that, which is really...
Sinister, these are good people that are just – their culture is to follow.
But then you have like the Native Americans who were on the land at the same time in America and you couldn't enslave them because they would be like, no, we're fighting everybody around us because they could have subjugated them too.
I forgot what book it was, but I was reading it.
They couldn't.
They just couldn't.
It was like wild horses.
So they purposely went to a place where the culture was to be kind people.
And I was like, oh, that's like a really horrible part of like the human brain, even though I know at that time things were different.
There's however many groups of homo sapiens there were, different types of humanoids.
But us homo sapiens, whether...
most vicious type that's why we won so this idea of war is oh is in our head because that's what's deep baked in our dna because we were the one that won out to you know evolve into humans so we have it in our thing so when people are like not like we're warlike because that's just that's in our brains no matter what and if you don't if you're not physical some would say like me not physical i'll create a war in my brain but what keeps me going is war What keeps me going is a problem that I have to fix like that.
I mean, could you imagine a time with no war anywhere on Earth?
You can't.
No, that's not possible.
Humans do war, which is the thing that everyone's the most fearful of.
The most terrifying things in history are war, and we just, even though we know that, and most people don't want war, we assume there will never be a time with no war, which is a crazy thought.
You asked me earlier, why do you think the NYPD is not, you know, why do you think the city's going to fail?
Here's a conspiracy.
I guess you would call this a conspiracy or maybe an explanation, again, from one of my cop friends.
He's like, you know why they're doing that?
He's like, the high, high up people, you know, those people that don't even exist on paper that are worth 10 times as much as Elon Musk and whatever, those guys, they want AI, They want it in the police forces.
They want it in the world.
So what they're doing is they're causing chaos here.
And they're going to cause so much chaos that we're going to beg to just be ruled by AI. We're going to be begged for an indifferent AI piece of machinery that sees it in black and white and will do the right things, put the criminals in jail, is who will be ruling this city.
And it's going to take some time, but that's what it is.
I don't think they're thinking that far in advance, honestly.
I think the ideology of these woke people, it's really a cult.
And the cult is that there is some institutional racism that has caused all these people to be locked up, and the only solution is to just let them out.
And when they commit crime, it's because of institutional racism.
Let's put them in that position.
That's where they're committing crime.
And the only solution is to let them out and to just tolerate it.
And this is to try to break this cycle, which is ridiculous.
That's not how to do it.
The way to do it is to make wherever they live To enrich it so that it's not so crime-ridden and gang-ridden that there's other ways out.
Right.
So people don't lose their lives being connected to the culture of wherever they're at because it's just so criminally entrenched.
I mean, it's just they're not thinking that far in advance.
I think most of the people that are Propagating this stuff.
But I also think we're being influenced by other countries.
I think we're being influenced by social media, which is also being influenced by foreign actors that are doing things and saying things and promoting things specifically to degrade our confidence in our system.
And I think that maybe that's something that in the future, like we're living through it now, but in the future, they'll be like, oh, remember when the years those people were on social media and they got into all these wars and destroyed the planet if it gets there because of these things that weren't even real?
So like those people, when we speak about these people that want this and want that, do you think like there's things about the universe that they know for a fact that they're as human as you and I and they just know it and this is why they do what they do?
I don't think they're thinking that far in advance.
That's the thing I'm thinking, the problem with all of this, is no one's...
Like, freedom of speech.
If you take away people's freedom of speech because you think they're wrong and you're right, the problem is then someone else who comes along can also take away your freedom of speech.
If they get into power, if they think you're wrong, you gotta have people be able to talk about things so you can figure out what's right and what's wrong, and sort things out.
Find out what's true, what's not true, what's...
The only way to do that is freedom of speech, and you have to allow people to do that, even if they say things that you don't enjoy, you don't want to hear.
It's better to have someone refute that and work it out than to silence people.
As soon as you don't think that, then you've silenced discourse.
If you've silenced discourse, you've fucked up all progress.
And now people are just going to cling to whatever it is, like the reason why they went after Galileo.
Because people have an entrenched set of beliefs, and they don't want anything to come along and challenge that.
And if it does adapt and it becomes objective and it actually has...
Smart decisions that would benefit the entire country as a whole people are going to want to listen to it because it's going to be superior to us and it's not going to have the greed and Deception built into it that human beings do it's not going to be right supposedly influenced by money Yeah,
but of course I mean yeah well it becomes sentient that it doesn't you know right now it's controlled by people it's but if it becomes something that designed itself You know, if it surpasses the design of human beings and creates its own version of itself, but a far superior version of it, and then we allow that thing to lead us.
Those people are that big because of human-invented technology that allows you to introduce massive amounts of hormones in your system that don't make any sense.
And I heard that, you know, I was always taught that steroids will give you cancer, all these bad things, but I read recently that was just based off one study a while ago that steroids done right is actually not healthy, but it's not going to kill you if you do these things right.
Yeah, so if you have a lack of sleep and you take creatine, it's supposed to increase your performance and things and makes it so that the lack of sleep doesn't really affect you nearly as much.
If I'm going to have a meal where I know I'm not supposed to eat it, but I'm just going to enjoy it, it's always like pizza, carbs, pasta, lasagna, something like that.
They, you know, hook him up to the machines, whatever, do some tests.
Days overnight.
They call me the next day.
They said, hey, man, you know, we're sorry.
Looks like your dad here has congestive heart failure.
You know, this can be a year, four years, but he has congestive heart failure.
I mean, his fluids are backing up.
And, you know, so we just want to let you know, we're going to release him, but this is the protocol and the medicines and all that.
So now I'm going down to the hospital like, oh my God, like, this is it.
Time's running out with my dad.
And then it took me about 45 minutes to get there.
I get there and I guess they continue doing tests and I walk in and the people are there, the doctor.
And I say, you know, I was briefed, you know, I understand he has congestive heart failure, like, what do we have to do?
Can you, like, explain that to me?
And they were like, you know what?
We re-ran the test.
We had given him a diuretic.
Your father had eaten so much sodium in one sitting that it made our, I swear to God, it made our machines convince us that he had congestive heart failure, but in fact he had eaten so much sodium because of the food that he ate that this diuretic, once the fluid cleared, his heart, he has a slight arrhythmia, but nothing like congestive heart failure that was purely from the sodium.
So we get, but, so she's giving birth, like crowning, like it's happening, and my dad walks in, because he's just like, this is my first, this is my grandkid, my first grandkid.
I walk in, and I was like, Dad, like you cannot at all be here.
And he was like, yeah, you know, like you're here, I want to be here.
And I'm like, nobody feels comfortable.
Like, I don't give a fuck, but like she doesn't want you here anymore.
At all.
And she was like, get out of here!
It was like this whole thing.
And then as he's leaving, right before he goes, he goes, I'll be in the waiting room.
Just let me know.
And I'm like, okay.
We're in the middle of the berth.
And he's like, by the way, Chrissy, Yankees got fucking rocked last night.
This team sucks.
And I was like...
All right.
The nurse, everybody's laughing because they're like, what is this guy screaming about the Yankees for his birth?
And then, you know, we had my baby and then he was like, it's a girl.
I said, yeah.
And, you know, great.
And he was like, oh, man.
He was like, I was hoping for a boy, hoping for a boy.
I'm like, you weren't at the gender reveal.
You fucking knew it was going to be a girl, dude.
What do you mean you were hoping for a boy?
And then he told me though, he was like, you know, if I was still in the throes of my gambling, he's like, I would have gambled with your uncles on your kids' gender.
I would have put a bet down.
I would have had to put my money on it.
That's how deep it got.
I was like, that's wild, dude.
He was like, I would have did it.
If I wasn't in control, I would have did it.
I would have gambled on it.
I would have gambled on the kid's birthday.
I would have gambled on it all.
We would have come up with real, you know, he was like, there was action on everything always.
I think the French, to this day, I think you're allowed to cheat on your wife in France as long as you don't Fall in love with someone else, you're allowed to step out and have sex, but, like, it'll get you in trouble, but, like, a night out with the guys drinking beers got you in trouble.
Like, you're not going to get divorced unless you fall in love.
Then you're out.
But I'm almost positive French men can have sex with women outside their marriage and their wives don't really care.
Someone's explaining that to us, like how much, you know, because so many Muslim immigrants have moved into European places, and they're trying to change, like, they've changed neighborhoods, they've changed the way people behave, the way they're allowed to behave.
One of the most talented people I've ever seen in my life.
Cook, comedy, great comedy, fucking...
And then, you know, I was talking to Dubai...
Talking to the shows in Dubai with him, and he was like, yeah, man.
He was like, I would love to go to Dubai, but I'm gay.
I wouldn't even be allowed in.
And I was like, wow, that's fucking wild.
Why am I going to this place?
And I'm starting to think about it, right?
Even though I know the people in Dubai are progressive and cool and whatever.
But I was like, what's the point of all this?
And then that day, the night before, I'm sorry, of our flight, From JFK to Dubai, Iran and Israel got into that little skirmish, remember that, where people were like, World War III, Israel's going to invade Iran.
Dubai borders with Iran.
So I was like, I don't want to go.
I was like, I know that it's probably safe, but I was like, I actually don't want to be.
Why am I going there?
Why are we going to where there's a possible conflict, it's boarding with the country, even though I know Dubai will be safe, I know it's a safe place, I get it, but like, what am I doing over there?
Why are you and I, me and my girl, going, our kids are back home, what happens if there is a war and we can't get home?
What's the point of all this?
Like, what is it?
And she was like, you know what?
Like, then cancel.
I just had like this gut feeling.
And then two days later is when the Dubai airports flooded.
I mean, not 100% that, but there was a weird low-pressure zone where they did cloud seed, but the clouds didn't move for a few days or something like that.