Feb. 11, 2019 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
56:03
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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| Joining me today is an actor, a stand-up comic, the host of America Ninja Warrior, and a guy whose birthday it is today. | ||
| Matt Eisman, happy birthday! | ||
| Welcome to the Review Report. | ||
| Dave, thank you so much. | ||
| I'm a little under the weather, I'm a little hoarse here, but this is a great birthday gift. | ||
| I always say, one of the great joys since I moved out to L.A. | ||
| was I always want to make sure I perform, I do something on my birthday, because that's what I love doing. | ||
| So this is it. | ||
| You're my gift to myself. | ||
| How old are you? | ||
| I'm 40... 48. | ||
| 48, which sounds so old and yet I don't... Does that sound old as 42? | ||
| 48 no longer sounds... 48 sounds old because I still in my head see myself in my 20s. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And it's hard, it's really hard to shift that That thought process, because I'm still, I'm a dating girl, but no kids, so no commitment, none of those responsibilities. | ||
| I know you're married. | ||
| I think those are the kind of things that make you, those are the markers in life that might make you feel, okay, I've matured, but I've regressed in everything I've done. | ||
| I talk about ninjas for a living, I do stand-up comedy, so there's nothing that would make me feel like an adult other than seeing that 48 next to my name. | ||
| And somehow through it all, 48 years, and maybe it's that you don't have kids. | ||
| Big smile on your face. | ||
| So you're doing something. | ||
| You know, I think I was a naturally enthusiastic kid. | ||
| My mom, they called me the sunshine boy. | ||
| And I think the word I always used If there was one adjective I would say to describe myself, it was enthusiastic. | ||
| I get excited about things, and that's one of the things I think that was a gift for me, and to have found a career where you get rewarded for that. | ||
| And especially a show like Ninja Warrior, which deals in hype and hyperbole, where the more enthusiastic I am, the better it is! | ||
| Yeah, that's become a thing unto itself. | ||
| We'll talk about it more. | ||
| It really is, and it's been... | ||
| I think also having Switch Careers midstream in life gave me such an appreciation for being able to do something that I love. | ||
| Because you look at so many people, and I always think of the song Working for the Weekend. | ||
| Everybody's working for the weekend. | ||
| That idea of a job is supposed to be toil. | ||
| It's supposed to be arduous. | ||
| It's supposed to be something you do to provide for your family and then allow you to have that free time. | ||
| We've found a way to disrupt the system and do something we love. | ||
| It's bizarre, right? | ||
| It's the best, and it's one of those things of if you can do it, and I credit this. | ||
| My dad deserves the credit because I was a doctor. | ||
| My dad's a doctor, and he was a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado where I was doing residency, and my dad is a world-renowned physician. | ||
| He's the man I respect more than any other person on this planet. | ||
| He is the smartest, the best, the kindest, the wisest man I've ever known. | ||
| Are you telling me I have the wrong ice minutes? | ||
| You totally do. | ||
| My dad is, my dad is, he's a legend. | ||
| He's Iron Mike. | ||
| He is just, and so to be his, following in his footsteps and to know, to feel like, obviously I think he was, he was very proud of it. | ||
| So when I sensed That medicine wasn't my passion and that I needed to take a step back and reevaluate because I couldn't, in good conscience, be a doctor knowing my heart wasn't 100% in it. | ||
| I felt like I was a fraud. | ||
| I felt like I was not doing a service to my patients and certainly not to myself. | ||
| The scariest moment was telling my dad. | ||
| And I remember when I told him, the first words he said were, life is short, do what makes you happy. | ||
| So I've got that very quote from your dad right here, because it's the first thing that you say on your about page on your Sunday night blog. | ||
| I say it all the time. | ||
| But an interesting thing, because in a certain way, it sort of sounds cliche, do what makes you happy. | ||
| It is cliche. | ||
| And yet, it's almost the best advice or only advice that you can give someone at a certain level. | ||
| Yeah, you know, certainly it's not a Shakespearean line, but I thought it was just, you know, particularly for him to say it at a moment when very easily, probably most parents would be, you're crazy, There's a lot of money invested in this education. | ||
| This is a stable job. | ||
| You don't walk away from it. | ||
| For him to instead say, all we care about is you being happy. | ||
| I've talked to him so many times about it and marveled that he could have mustered those words. | ||
| My dad's an amazing man. | ||
| He worked hard for everything he had. | ||
| I was very fortunate to have more opportunities because of his hard work and the work of my | ||
| mom and I think to, you know, when he says, I'm like, how could I ever repay that? | ||
| He said, just if you ever have kids someday, do the same for them. | ||
| It's that pay it forward mentality. | ||
| And it's that thing of, I don't know. | ||
| It's a. | ||
| It makes me appreciate, though, the opportunity that I have. | ||
| I know how lucky I am to be out here getting to do this and how lucky I am to have tried medicine and learned so much from it and be given so much perspective about what truly is life or death. | ||
| And to be out here in entertainment where we feel like everything is life or death, but to realize it's just silliness. | ||
| It's silliness and it's so much fun what we get to do, yet we still do have a chance to make a difference. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, you can do something real and still enjoy it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's the thing. | ||
| But wait, so let's back up a bit. | ||
| So your dad's a doctor. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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Was it just sort of a far-gone conclusion that you were going to go into medicine? | |
| No. | ||
| No, it wasn't. | ||
| He never pressured me into it. | ||
| It was more, I think, lead by example. | ||
| The funny thing was, I think I kind of had a crisis during college because I worked There was just, in growing up, it was you work hard, you play sports, you go to school, you excel, you achieve, and that's the path you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
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But I never kind of stopped to say... A lot of patriarchy stuff right there. | |
| Work hard, succeed. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| But I never stopped to think, what's the end? | ||
| where am I headed? | ||
| And so then, when I kind of poked my head up midway through college, I go, where am I headed? | ||
| And I looked around and I thought, that's when I thought, okay, I like science, I like people. | ||
| And I looked at my dad as someone who I respected tremendously and saw the satisfaction he got from medicine. | ||
| Now, I think he was a little prescient in seeing that medicine was changing and doctors were losing autonomy | ||
| and that medicine today is radically different than it was 30 years ago. | ||
| So I think he saw that there was probably going to be some disruptions in the field of medicine. | ||
| But it seemed on paper the perfect job. | ||
| But it's so interesting, you know, that's what you realize is, you know, it's like when you watch sports or something, you know, you don't play a game on paper. | ||
| You don't live your life on paper. | ||
| What looks like it might be perfect, sometimes it's just that divine spark is missing. | ||
| Whatever it is, that intangible thing. | ||
| And I'm so lucky to have somehow stumbled into performing and finding that I love I love an audience. | ||
| I love being in front of the camera. | ||
| I love doing stand-up comedy. | ||
| I love being on Ninja Warrior. | ||
| These are things where no matter how sick I am, no matter how tired I am, if it's like when you get on stage and you have an audience, I just feel like I feel present. | ||
| I feel alive. | ||
| It's such a rush. | ||
| Did you have a moment when you realized it was wrong for you? | ||
| Or was it a sort of slow thing? | ||
| There was a vivid moment. | ||
| It was in January of 1999. | ||
| I was in the ICU. | ||
| It was probably 3 in the morning. | ||
| I'd been up for 18 hours. | ||
| We were getting slammed. | ||
| I think we had seven admits. | ||
| So this super sick people are rolling in. | ||
| And I'm a resident. | ||
| I'm an intern. | ||
| First year out of med school. | ||
| And I had a second year with me. | ||
| And there's also an attending, but he wasn't in the hospital. | ||
| So at this point, the guy was like, the person who was overseeing me was just like, you gotta write some orders. | ||
| You gotta make some choices. | ||
| Make some decisions for these people. | ||
| All of a sudden realizing these people's lives now are in my hands. | ||
| And I just thought, I'm sitting there going, I want to be skiing, or playing Nintendo, or I don't want to be here. | ||
| I didn't feel like this is the moment I've trained for. | ||
| It wasn't like ER, I jumped on top of a gurney and started doing CPR. | ||
| It was just this moment of, I felt like a fraud. | ||
| I felt like My heart, you know, all this training, all this, and I loved medical school. | ||
| I loved the problem-solving elements of it, but I realized I think there was, there's just something, I think there are jobs and there are callings. | ||
| Medicine is a calling. | ||
| It is not something that you just do nine to five. | ||
| It is something that consumes you, that you are obsessed with. | ||
| Your patient, you're obsessed with being up to date on the information and giving them the best care possible. | ||
| And if you don't hear that calling, if it's just a job for you, that's awful. | ||
| Because it is such a consuming profession. | ||
| And when you look at the opportunity cost of someone who goes to medical school and is going six figures into debt versus my friends who went into finance and are making six figures. | ||
| And then during residency, you're making subsistence level wages as your debt continues to grow. | ||
| Some of these people will never get out from under that debt, and you end up working this career and making choices that you might not want to, or practicing the way you would want to, or giving the level of care that you would want to. | ||
| I do believe that healthcare in America is going to see a radical shift in the next few decades, because people aren't going to be able to afford to go into medicine anymore, or want to. | ||
| It's such a fascinating thing, because it's like, wow, you've trained your whole life for something. | ||
| Okay, now you have this moment, right? | ||
| You have the wake-up moment. | ||
| What happens the next day? | ||
| So, you know, my mom said something like, there's no wasted education. | ||
| And she's so right. | ||
| So when I came out to L.A., I literally, I packed up a U-Haul, I moved out to L.A. | ||
| September 1, 99. | ||
| And I got the L.A. | ||
| Weekly, I got the back page. | ||
| This is like the movie version of this. | ||
| This is it, you know? | ||
| Like, Elton John's playing, ho, mi casa! | ||
| And so I just started finding open mics. | ||
| And I just started going to open mics. | ||
| Honestly, when I came out here, it wasn't as though I said, I'm going to be a stand-up comedian. | ||
| Part of me thought, I'm going to take a year and I'm going to grow up. | ||
| I'm going to get this out of my system and realize I'm fortunate to be a doctor and I'll go back an adult. | ||
| That's kind of what I thought. | ||
| So this is basically 20 years ago, so you're late 20s. | ||
| Late 20s. | ||
| People can't really understand the open mic situation. | ||
| It's god awful. | ||
| I remember when I was doing it, and it's like a terrible couple years that you have to do as a comic as you're figuring out your shit, but I remember there would be doctors there, lawyers there, there would be professionals, and every time I saw one of them, I'd be like, what in the world is wrong with you? | ||
| Why would you be here? | ||
| You're a real person. | ||
| You're a functioning person. | ||
| And yet they were there because they had something in them that they had to explore. | ||
| I think everybody has that. | ||
| We all search for purpose. | ||
| We all search for something that ignites a fire in us. | ||
| And rare is the person that finds, I think, the job that does that. | ||
| And I think we're so lucky to have found something. | ||
| But do you think it's luck? | ||
| Well, okay. | ||
| We took the chance and we certainly went out there. | ||
| I still think there is a certain amount of... | ||
| Fortune or circumstance or something, you know, I'm not gonna say I'm Christopher Columbus who boldly decided to explore the frontiers of the job world and walk away from medicine. | ||
| I was lucky in that my family supported me. | ||
| I was lucky in that when I came out, you know, you meet the right people. | ||
| Look, luck is what preparation means. | ||
| Whatever cliches we want to spout out. | ||
| I just thought you'd have a good one there. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I've never been called on that, Dave. | ||
| You're very good. | ||
| I'm not saying it isn't luck. | ||
| I do think it's partly luck or kismet or magic of just putting the work in or all those things. | ||
| Having said that, you're right. | ||
| I think that once I realized it was this, that's where the medicine came in so handy in that Medicine taught me such a discipline and and such a an ability to work hard and process information and to just Withstand a river of shit being dumped on you where you're like, this is this is easy, right? | ||
| I'm not I'm not on third call for 36 hours You're asking me to sit here with craft services and have someone do makeup and be pampered that fine. | ||
| Yeah fine great I love this but it can be a lot of waiting around which is quite cool It is, and you know, it's a business. | ||
| Well, here's where it really helped. | ||
| Hollywood is a business of no. | ||
| You go out for a hundred things, and 99 times you're told no. | ||
| And often, you're told nothing. | ||
| You're not given a reason why. | ||
| You might have been amazing. | ||
| You're never told why. | ||
| And if you don't have something that provides you with that sense of self, that sense of, it's okay, I know I am talented. | ||
| If you don't have that belief, then I think people really crumble. | ||
| The people who succeed aren't necessarily the most talented. | ||
| They're the ones who persist. | ||
| They're the ones who can slog it out. | ||
| And you know this. | ||
| We've seen it. | ||
| The 15, 20-year overnight success where somebody pops and like, "Oh my God, this guy came out of nowhere." | ||
| And you're like, "No, they've been doing it for 20 years." | ||
| And they finally, they got recognized. | ||
| And that's why they're so good is because they've been doing it for 20 years. | ||
| I heard Susie Essman, you know, the comedian from Curb Your Enthusiasm, I heard her say that. | ||
| Everyone says she's an overnight success, and she always goes, you know, she's got a great potty mouth. | ||
| She's always like, well, where the fuck were you for 20 years? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Which it's like, yeah, there's a lot of work there. | ||
| But, you know, and honestly though, it's, A, it does two things. | ||
| A, it makes you appreciate it, but B, it also makes you ready for it. | ||
| Because if I'd come out here and gotten a show one weekend, you wouldn't have had the chops. | ||
| You wouldn't have known how to do it. | ||
| You wouldn't have had the ability to know right from wrong or to make the right decisions. | ||
| And I think that's what you learn over those 20 years of hard knocks. | ||
| You know, you start to see You get these opportunities performing in front of four people. | ||
| So when you go out there and you're like, there is nothing. | ||
| I hosted a live show on the History Channel with Travis Pastrana where he recreated the Evel Knievel stunts for three hours. | ||
| Half the time people are just like, just talk! | ||
| And you're like... | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I can do that. | ||
| I've done that. | ||
| That's what I've been trained for. | ||
| And so it was so great to feel like you're ready for things. | ||
| I was just talking about Celebrity Apprentice. | ||
| I was with Arnold Schwarzenegger this weekend. | ||
| The show got politicized, nobody watched it. | ||
| But what was great about it was it was so much fun for me because it called on, I felt, everything I'd done in my life to that point. | ||
| Whether it had been playing sports, or being a doctor, or going to school, or stand-up, or hosting, or anything. | ||
| You called on all these different skills and it's so much fun when you feel ready. | ||
| When an opportunity comes and you're like, I am ready for this opportunity. | ||
| There's nothing you can throw at me that I can't handle. | ||
| And I would much rather have someone go, where have you been, than see you too early and go, Miles alright, but next. | ||
| Alright, so we've got the beginnings of a nice Hollywood story here. | ||
| For a comedy. | ||
| Then it took a turn for the worse. | ||
| Right, then you move to L.A. | ||
| and it all just crumbles. | ||
| No, but, you know, they say that comedy comes from pain. | ||
| I'm not seeing much pain. | ||
| Well, you know, I think, I always say people go into- That's what they say. | ||
| They, those people. | ||
| I think there's, I think people go into comedy for one of two reasons. | ||
| They weren't hugged enough as a child, pain, or they were hugged too much. | ||
| I was definitely the latter, where I had a mother who just showered me with Attention and affection and praise. | ||
| And she was always, Matt, you know, oh, that's so funny. | ||
| Whatever I did was amazing. | ||
| And she made me believe, have this ridiculous confidence. | ||
| And she was always there. | ||
| She was always there. | ||
| I had this unbelievable sense of a safety net from my mom and my dad. | ||
| And I think that that's what gave me the confidence to think I could come out here and take a swing. | ||
| And be okay and know that I could fall flat on my face and either go back to medicine and my parents wouldn't disown me. | ||
| But ultimately I believed... What I've realized in life is nothing is certain. | ||
| And I have a ton of friends who are in finance. | ||
| I had a friend who was at Bear Stearns when it imploded and saw people lose $60 million overnight. | ||
| And these guys who thought they were going to be able to retire all of a sudden now are out of a job and broke. | ||
| You know you go into you choose some of these careers thinking all right I'm gonna work my ass off but it'll pay off in the end and you realize there nothing's guaranteed and so I think to What I realize is the best bet in life you can make is to bet on yourself, because that's where you have the most control. | ||
| And so, while this career we're in, well, is so fickle, so on the surface fickle, where, you know, my show, they live, you know, week to week with ratings. | ||
| Oh my God, it's up a point or it's down a point, and you think it could end at any moment. | ||
| And we make our peace with that. | ||
| But ultimately, what I've realized is, having been out here 19 years, I've worked, and I just have to have this confidence. | ||
| The only way I can sleep at night is to say, if it goes away, something else will come. | ||
| I'll bet on myself. | ||
| And I think that's one of those things in life that... | ||
| is hard to get to, but if you can, is a great position to be in, is when you say, I'd rather bet on myself than someone else, than relying on someone else to provide me, as you have. | ||
| You've gone out on your own. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, I feel that very intimately, because even just in the last couple months with this Patreon thing, the rubber met the road, and I was like, can I make a move here that's a huge risk? | ||
| And I did make the move, and it's worked. | ||
| And I've found that if you're just present enough and aware enough of what really is going on and you put in the work, that you generally make the right moves. | ||
| You're going to do some missteps along the way, but that generally speaking, the right path will kind of unfold for you. | ||
| You've got to shoot, though. | ||
| You've got to take that shot. | ||
| You've got to take that shot. | ||
| With Ninja Warrior, one of the things we see is everybody falls. | ||
| Everybody's going to have a misstep. | ||
| Everyone's going to have a show get canceled. | ||
| It's not the end. | ||
| You just get back up, and you learn from it, and you keep going. | ||
| Some people are devastated by that. | ||
| Some people can't handle that failure. | ||
| And you just have to realize that it's not a failure. | ||
| It's just this was one thing that didn't work, but hopefully it'll lead you to the next thing that does. | ||
| Are you shocked at the amount of people that are just afraid to do something special in their life? | ||
| No, I get it. | ||
| I mean, again, you know, I think I was very lucky to have parents who were incredibly supportive. | ||
| So, and I was also lucky, I think, to have been exposed to enough. | ||
| So even though I, you know, my life had always been very much set towards, you know, sports school achievement, it was set towards, you know, lawyer, finance, doctor, something. | ||
| That there was enough exposure to think that it was possible to have it outside of that. | ||
| So for a random person who's growing up without parents who are encouraging them, I think it's hard. | ||
| I know how lucky I was to have parents who gave me that sense of confidence and that sense of anything is possible. | ||
| So, for the average person, the people who amaze me are the people, you know, I watched that movie, I, Tonya, about Tonya Harding. | ||
| One of the things that struck me, there were two things that struck me. | ||
| One was how remarkable it was that this girl from the trailer parks went into this sport | ||
| and through sheer will and athleticism made it to the top. | ||
| But the thing I didn't like about the movie was that while it purported to tell her story, | ||
| I felt there was a little winking and judgmental of, "She's still a white trash trailer park." | ||
| And when you really saw the story of how her mom would hire people to yell at her, I don't | ||
| know that you wanted to be a sympathetic figure, but at least you understood what this woman | ||
| overcome and the tenacious, the ferocious tenacity she had to persevere in this world | ||
| where she was such an outsider. | ||
| Those are the people who amaze me. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| I mean, I know I was very fortunate to have a lot of opportunities that gave me the confidence to take my shot. | ||
| So look, and the other thing was like when I moved out here, I didn't have a family. | ||
| I didn't have kids. | ||
| I didn't have responsibilities. | ||
| So for that person who's sitting there, those are the people, you know, if you have a wife and kids and you can say, I'm gonna risk our future to take this shot. | ||
| Those are the people I think I really salute. | ||
| Right, it's a little harder to do those. | ||
| The doctor or the lawyer or the finance guy or the janitor who is like, I got some kids and now I'm quitting and I'm going to do stand-up comedy. | ||
| We got a different situation. | ||
| Yeah, and it is hard. | ||
| And it's, you know, one of the things I love with American Ninja Warrior, to shamelessly promote, but it's to see these people who have families, who have jobs, and still find time to train for this ridiculous thing, because it's their passion. | ||
| And when you see that, that's what I love about it, is because I think it's kind of, it sums up the American dream of, it's just bootstraps. | ||
| It's that there's no secret formula. | ||
| War card. | ||
| Have you seen people that have been too absolutely wrapped up in that thing, whatever that thing may be? | ||
| Well... Be it comedy, be it, you know... Sure, sure, of course, of course. | ||
| You know, I think there's a, you know, there's obsession, and a healthy obsession, and then there's, you know, a consuming obsession. | ||
| I think with American Ninja Warrior, for the most part, there's, the community is, There's such a positive, supportive community that we haven't seen people, you know, go off the rails. | ||
| I don't think any of them are using PEDs. | ||
| They're too expensive. | ||
| These guys are making a lot of money. | ||
| I think they really are leading a healthy lifestyle, but more importantly, it's a supportive lifestyle. | ||
| But certainly, with comedy, you've seen lots of friends who've... Comedy is a very lonely existence when you're on the road. | ||
| Now, I'm lucky that with TV, I get to do comedy selectively and not have to be out there 40, 50 weeks a year in strange cities where you're working two hours a day, and 22 hours, you're in a strange city with nothing to do. | ||
| and no one around. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And that is a existence that's kind of fun when you're 20, but when you get into your 40s, | ||
| is incredibly lonely in your 50s, it's very hard. | ||
| Yeah, I remember when I was maybe six or seven years into standup, I was doing some of my first road gigs. | ||
| I was opening at Bananas in Poughkeepsie, New York Stop bragging! | ||
| Oh, Bobcat's great. | ||
| Bobcat's great. | ||
| He was really great, actually. | ||
| And the shows were sold out, so they had to move us out of the club. | ||
| He was in a Best Western. | ||
|
unidentified
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Wow. | |
| Best Western in Poughkeepsie. | ||
| Wow! | ||
| They move us out of the comedy club into a ballroom. | ||
| So it's, you know, I don't know, five, six hundred people. | ||
| I think we did six shows over three nights or something like that. | ||
| But I remember on the last night that the show ends and I'm alone in Poughkeepsie and it's freezing out. | ||
| And I'm starving, and the restaurant's closed, and there's nothing else really there. | ||
| And I remember I walk up to the vending machine at the end of the hallway, and I got Skittles. | ||
| And I laid in bed eating Skittles in a Best Western at Poughkeepsie. | ||
| After one of your best shows of your life. | ||
| After one of the best shows of my life, and I was like, I'm actually depressed. | ||
| I was like, that's how warped this thing is. | ||
| You have some of those moments, I remember that. | ||
| I was sitting there, and yeah, same thing. | ||
| Like in Ohio, walking around going, what am I doing walking to a McDonald's at two in the morning? | ||
| But it's, I don't know, I thought if you see the documentary Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld, you know the story of the band is like walking through the snow and they see this family celebrating Christmas. | ||
| Who could live like that? | ||
| And I think there is, there is just a certain, you know, you have a certain mindset of I have to be on stage. | ||
| But it does get hard and it does get lonely and so it's nice to find something that allows you A little more stable lifestyle with Ninja Warrior. | ||
| We're really only shooting about 23 days a year and so the majority of the time I can be around LA. | ||
| I can be around my girlfriend and we can lead largely a normal existence and pick and choose when I go out for stand-up and so right now I'm in a very fortunate situation but It can change at any moment. | ||
| So I'm also, at the same time, there's always a fire under my ass, that thing of, you always have to be hustling to make sure to find that next thing because, as we've seen, things can get taken away from you very quickly. | ||
| You could say something at any moment that could end your career. | ||
| So this is one of, this is, this is really why, one of the things that's most fascinating to me, when you make a living with words right now, One of the things that amazes me is that the artistic community, and comedians in particular, haven't been more vocal in supporting people. | ||
| Because, again, while I am a clean comic, and the shows I do are completely family-friendly, and I try to be in the middle of the road, I also know that those people who are out there on the edges, guys like Doug Stanhope or Jim Norton, who are pushing those envelopes, They're keeping that area of speech protected. | ||
| Because once you cede an area, once it's taken away, once we say, okay, you know, we can't joke about that, you never get that back. | ||
| And to me, it's not that I, where I feel the power of comedy is, is the power to talk about very difficult, very touchy subjects in a way, in a disarming way through humor. | ||
| Now, I've had rheumatoid arthritis and I've had cancer. | ||
| And when I tell those stories, I tell them as funny as possible. | ||
| Those are stories that, you know, aren't necessarily the best stories to tell, but it's amazing what you can talk about when you use humor. | ||
| And when we take some of those topics off the table for comedy, I think we really lose an important tool for us to communicate and for us to find common ground. | ||
| And that's why it's so amazing to me as we see this now, where there's almost this agreement of, yeah, we're agreeing certain topics now are no longer, you can't joke about it. | ||
| And we're going to go back and apply it retroactively. | ||
| Yeah, well, did you see just in the last couple weeks that the producers of family guys said that they're not gonna do gay jokes anymore? | ||
| It's like you guys have done gay everyone has I mean, they're there one of their iconic bits with that Musical the musical way. | ||
| Well, there's a zillion musicals, but which one was it? | ||
| Everyone has AIDS. | ||
| Oh, yeah AIDS AIDS, you know, they just kept repeating it Yeah, Seth MacFarlane and and again, it's it's like Or every character is a ridiculous stereotype. | ||
| Which groups? | ||
| How do we decide which groups we're not going to make jokes about? | ||
| Actually, equality is that everyone will make fun of everyone. | ||
| That's what real equality is. | ||
| Well, I think South Park does that better than anyone. | ||
| Whether everything is fair game or nothing is fair game. | ||
| Now, having said that, if you want to evolve, if you say, you know what, I no longer want to tell those jokes, That's fine. | ||
| More power to you. | ||
| Make the choice of your own volition. | ||
| Whatever you find funny is great. | ||
| Maybe you've had some personal awakening. | ||
| Whatever it is. | ||
| But I just think, again, what I don't like is the idea of people saying, you can't joke about it. | ||
| If you choose not to, great. | ||
| Again, I choose not to joke about a lot of things. | ||
| I'm just not comfortable. | ||
| I always picture my grandma in the crowd or my mom. | ||
| I want people to be entertained. | ||
| I don't want to alienate people. | ||
| That's me. | ||
| But I love listening to some of the filthiest comics talk about things or joke about cancer or things that have impacted me. | ||
| And I find it hilarious. | ||
| And I find it cathartic to laugh about it. | ||
| And I think because someone else may have had a bad experience with it, doesn't mean that someone shouldn't be able to joke about it. | ||
| I just think that this is a really interesting time because social media gives voice to people and we see where one or two people protesting can change a network. | ||
| And that's what's remarkable, is we really don't see these networks saying, | ||
| you know, 99% of people may not care they cave to this smaller percentage. | ||
| And again, often it'd be nice for them to say, okay, boycott. | ||
| We stand behind our performers. | ||
| We stand behind this content. | ||
| Yeah, so it's a weird time to be a comic. | ||
| I mean, so I did stand up for 12 years in New York. | ||
| Then I came here, I started doing this. | ||
| I was doing something else that I liked. | ||
| I stopped doing it. | ||
| This could be even more dangerous, though, Dave. | ||
| So now I started again in June, and now I'm selling out clubs all over the country. | ||
| And I don't care that much, so I'm having the most fun I've ever had on stage. | ||
| I do an hour and I'm messing around with the crowd. | ||
| But you have people coming out to see you, which I always think is the best way to perform. | ||
| So that's a game changer, because when people come out and they, you know, | ||
| they're there for you, they know something about you, you can do insider stuff, | ||
| as opposed to just being the eighth white guy out of 12 comics, and they're like, who the hell? | ||
| That guy was hilarious, what was his name? | ||
| And then that's it. | ||
| But it's an odd time to be doing stand-up, knowing that people could be in the crowd recording you, just waiting to take you down. | ||
| And that's the workshop. | ||
| That's where you're learning the medicine, not where you're performing the surgery. | ||
| It is, and no other, you know, Jim Norton, I give so much credit for, for talking about how comics are held to a different standard than any other artist. | ||
| So, say you're an actor, and you go on SVU and you play the most reprehensible character. | ||
| Nobody believes that you are that person. | ||
| But as a comedian, what they don't understand is sometimes you will say something hyperbolic, | ||
| you will say something ironically to make a point. | ||
| It's not what you actually believe, but because it's Dave Rubin saying it, | ||
| they take you literally going, wait, you missed the entire point of the joke. | ||
| You missed the joke. | ||
| My point was the exact opposite, but nobody will give you the credit for the context. | ||
| And people often just see the written words. | ||
| And it's really unfortunate. | ||
| And again, what people don't understand and Jim was just talking about this with Judd Apatow | ||
| in the case of Louis C.K. | ||
| is jokes don't spring fully formed. | ||
| Jokes can take weeks, months, years to be honed. | ||
| It's so hard, especially if it's a topic. | ||
| That is delicate. | ||
| To find the phrasing and to say, I'm going to tackle a subject that nobody thinks I can make funny, and I'm going to find a way to make it funny, it's going to take me a while. | ||
| And I'm going to stumble through, and I'm going to get some groans, and I'm going to get some people alienated, not me. | ||
| Again, I talk about various ridiculous things, but I appreciate those comics who can go there and say, take a subject that I would say, I will never laugh at this. | ||
| You made me laugh at this despite that. | ||
| And I think Doug Stanhope is one of the best examples of someone who will take the most taboo subjects and make you laugh despite, you might be vehemently opposed to the way he thinks, but he's funny. | ||
| And when you do that, it's such a way of opening up your mind to saying, Okay, let me rethink these things. | ||
| Or maybe it doesn't. | ||
| But it just proves that I think anything can be funny. | ||
| Anything can be fair game. | ||
| And I think it's important that we allow comedians to have this full range of words and emotions to use. | ||
| Because we're talking about the human condition. | ||
| And I think comedians really do have a great job in that we can bring up some of these topics in a way that You know, when you see it happen on Tucker Carlson, people might go to fisticuffs. | ||
| But in the comedy club, you laugh about it. | ||
| You go, you know what? | ||
| Maybe my crazy uncle's not so crazy, maybe we can talk. | ||
| Yeah, well, that's why it's so strange that I'm doing this again, because I feel like they dragged me into it, because I've seen a lot of comics who I love that have become the word police. | ||
| They've become the hysterical crew on Twitter who are calling for books not to be printed and all of this stuff. | ||
| Amazing! | ||
| I always think, it's like, man, if Carlin was alive, what would he be doing right now? | ||
| Would he be making fun of shit? | ||
| Patrice O'Neil, same guy. | ||
| Or would he be demanding that people be booted off platforms or silenced or otherwise? | ||
| And it's like, what a strange place for an artist to be. | ||
| And you see, eventually it consumes them. | ||
| Eventually it comes back to bite them. | ||
| Because nobody is perfect. | ||
| Nobody is without a flaw. | ||
| Nobody has led their lives Like Jesus! | ||
| We've all done something or said something or tried to make a joke that at some point if you went back people would say that's wrong and you'd be like okay but that was 10 years ago or and it is an odd time I think that that people aren't particularly comedians. | ||
| aren't more supportive instead are really leading this book-burning charge. | ||
| Well, that's why this family guy thing irked me so much. | ||
| It's like, you guys did this for 20 years. | ||
| I'm not even, I don't know if Seth's even that, Seth MacFarlane, I don't even know if he's that much involved in the show anymore, but like, it's like, you did this for 20 years, and now it's like, you're on the other side of success, kinda. | ||
| So like, are we a more tolerant society because we're not gonna joke about certain people now? | ||
| Does that make us more tolerant? | ||
| That just seems odd to me, you know? | ||
| You know, it's really, it's a funny thing where-- | ||
| And I'd love to have him here, and that's not even, it's really not a judgment on him, | ||
| I just wanna know what they're thinking. | ||
| It's a great question, right, right, why this, and then what about, yeah, what other topics? | ||
| Right, so it's like, okay, so you can't make fun of gays, like, should we get, where's the list? | ||
| Where's the list? - And who owns that list? | ||
| Who owns the list, who judges it? | ||
| Who's, you know, and that list is shifting, and what's crazy is you see it's not the joke, | ||
| it's who says it. - Yeah. | ||
| Because, you know, the same person, two people can say the same joke, | ||
| one person gets celebrated, one person gets vilified. | ||
| So it's not the words, it's who's saying them, and that's wrong, I mean, it should be absolutely, | ||
| it should be either this. | ||
| is a fair game or not. | ||
| It shouldn't be based on... What we're getting to is, you know, papers please. | ||
| You have to have the papers to prove that you are of this group so you can talk about this topic. | ||
| And it's like either the topic is fair game or it's not. | ||
| Either everyone can talk about it. | ||
| That's what I believe. | ||
| But again, you know, I realize I'm the white male so I also am, you know, Shut up and listen? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Oh, no! | ||
| Wait, what? | ||
| I've been with you this whole time. | ||
| Why should you shut up and listen? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I always... You're doing that with a little tongue-in-cheek. | |
| Here's what happens. | ||
| I always feel the need... This is one of the... What I hate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Uh-oh, now you're going... When you feel the need to issue caveats. | |
| You feel the need to issue caveats, where you feel the need to say, you know, I don't like homophobia, but I think Family Guy can make jokes. | ||
| You know, where it's like, of course. | ||
| See, that's the concession you're making just because you're a good person. | ||
| I think I used to do a lot of that, too, and now I'm just sort of over it. | ||
| That's because you own your platform. | ||
| NBC might be watching this, Dave. | ||
| Right, but nothing you've said is homophobic, obviously. | ||
| We're talking about The Nature Jokes. | ||
| Or that they don't want Apu in The Simpsons anymore. | ||
| This is craziness. | ||
| What I don't like also is the guilt by association. | ||
| I thought Mike Rowe said this. | ||
| Someone was criticizing Mike Rowe for going on Rush Limbaugh and then Rachel Maddow. | ||
| People were complaining on both sides. | ||
| He's like, going on a show doesn't mean I implicitly endorse every single stance that person has. | ||
| It means I'm talking to somebody. | ||
| I'm expressing my opinions. | ||
| They may have different opinions. | ||
| It's a discussion. | ||
| And I just wish we would allow more of that because otherwise all you're saying is people I approve of talking to people I approve of. | ||
| So all you're hearing is what you want to hear. | ||
| And I think that's what we miss is reasoned people having reasoned discussions. | ||
| Unfortunately, when you turn on the TV, we know hyperbole, hyperbole moves the needle. | ||
| That's an amazing run! | ||
| But at least it's not, you know, politically. | ||
| And you see that and I think that's, it's, you know, I told you before, I give you full credit. | ||
| What I love is, and Joe Rogan does the same thing, I think you guys are willing to have people on you might disagree with. | ||
| And you're not looking for a gotcha moment. | ||
| You're not looking for confrontation. | ||
| You're looking for understanding. | ||
| Like, help me understand your position. | ||
| Let me help you understand my position. | ||
| Maybe there's agreement, maybe there isn't. | ||
| But for the listeners, at least they're being informed. | ||
| They're hearing different points of view. | ||
| Does it strike you as odd that that seems so unique these days? | ||
| Like, I've had people in here. | ||
| I think people don't seek it out. | ||
| I think, you know, and I think, you know, we look at the universities, we look at places where I think people are taught. | ||
| You know, diversity of thought or a different thought, that there is one right thought or that you shouldn't have these discussions. | ||
| And I think that's, you know, we've always, I mean, I look at medicine and it's so amazing how medicine, you know, you think you deal in absolutes, you think you deal in complete science, black and white, but we see a new study talked about sunscreen, how actually sunscreen may not be healthy. | ||
| Because we, the reality is melanoma, which is completely deadly, is only about 1% of skin cancers. | ||
| And it is awful. | ||
| But people are putting so much sunscreen on, they're not getting any of the beneficial vitamin D. We're seeing an increase in cardiac disease. | ||
| Cardiac disease is killing so many more people than melanoma. | ||
| So now, dermatologists are thinking, maybe we shouldn't be wearing as much sunscreen. | ||
| So you see these truths that we thought were absolute being challenged because people look at the data, they look at empirical things. | ||
| When it comes to life and death, we're able to do that. | ||
| When it comes to political topics, which are just as important, I think it's much harder to do it because they're so politically charged that people don't want to look at the data. | ||
| They want to look at how they feel about them or these emotions or what it stirs up. | ||
| And if someone presents a counter-argument, you're dismissed or debunked or deplatformed. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you consider yourself politically? | |
| I think I'm a little more, you know, I am vehemently free speech. | ||
| I am vehemently, people should live their lives the way they want to live them. | ||
| I think I'm moderate to right would probably be it. | ||
| I don't like the government taxing us, and I don't think the government is great at a lot of things, like healthcare. | ||
| How do you function in Hollywood with a set of ideas like that? | ||
| How do you function in Hollywood with a set of ideas like that? | ||
| Here's the other thing is, I tend not to talk politics because it isn't my purview. | ||
| I'm an entertainer, and I'm the last person. | ||
| If people are getting their political opinions from the host of American Ninja Warrior, think again. | ||
| I think for me, what I like is, you know, for me, I never talk politics on stage. | ||
| I never, I would rather bring people together. | ||
| I'm not looking to alienate people or try to be clever. | ||
| I think that's, I leave that to Louis Blacker guys who are very good at that. | ||
| That's their area to tackle the political humor. | ||
| That's just not my thing. | ||
| I think, again, I just think in Hollywood the one thing I think that is so important is the exchange of ideas. | ||
| And that's what I think is being compromised right now. | ||
| And that's the thing that I try to, that I really want people to fight for. | ||
| Because again, once we cede that ground, we're not getting it back. | ||
| Alright, so let's shift to this Ninja Warrior. | ||
| Ninja Warrior! | ||
| First off, they love when you say that. | ||
| It started out as a joke. | ||
| You can hear I'm hoarse. | ||
| I am very loud. | ||
| That adds a little something to it. | ||
| I was hosting the Arnold Pro Strongman World Series at Santa Monica, so it was five hours non-stop of Look at him lifting this weight! | ||
| And when I went into the show, so for those who don't know, American Ninja Warrior started out, it was a Japanese show, | ||
| Sasuke. | ||
| It was ported to America and dubbed. It started doing so well on G4 they made an American version. | ||
| In the second season they realized they had something and they're like, "Okay, we're going to put some money into | ||
| this and we're bringing in a new host." | ||
| And they found me. | ||
| And I think they were looking for Joe Rogan or some bigger guys. | ||
| But I don't care. | ||
| You know, it's like the lights come up at 2 a.m. | ||
| in the morning and the pretty girl goes, all right, I'll go home with you. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I might have been your last choice, I'm just happy to be here. | ||
| Rogan's got enough stuff on him. | ||
| Rogan has enough stuff. | ||
| So I started doing this show and we would be going for 8 or 9 hours a day calling these runs and it's all 10 out of 10 because it was based on the Japanese show. | ||
| So my sports calling technique comes just from years of watching sports, watching the Japanese show and being an enthusiastic guy, I'm always hyperbolic. | ||
| But it was really straining on the voice since we were shooting these ins and outs where it's coming up next on American Ninja Warrior. | ||
| And I was a little gravelly and so I was kind of making a point like, hey, my voice is kind of shot. | ||
| So I was like, American Ninja Warrior! | ||
| And the producer was like, ooh, do that. | ||
| Do more of that. | ||
| So this is like in the fourth year. | ||
| If you watch the earlier seasons, I'm like, uh, next! | ||
| An American Ninja! | ||
| I can't even do it because I'm growly. | ||
| It was none of that. | ||
| So it was just kind of born out of blowing out my voice and now it's become like this signature thing that I love. | ||
| Do you have to do anything for your voice? | ||
| A lot of my friends who are, you know, voice actors... So I've gone to a lot of voice coaches and tried to, obviously, they really were so effective. | ||
| It's um... But I mean even on the meta the medical side of things, | ||
| just to make sure you're not blowing out your vocal cords. | ||
| You know, I see an ENT on a regular basis. | ||
| I'll do, so we'll go to Vegas and we'll do six out of seven days where we're shooting at night, | ||
| but it's still 100 degrees in dust for eight hours in a row, 10 out of 10 energy. | ||
| And those I'll do IVs and anti-inflammatories and steroids just to try to maintain the vocal cords and vocal rest. | ||
| But I'm going back trying to learn better technique. | ||
| It's almost like rock singers. | ||
| I look at Brian Johnson from ACDC who was like, you know, Thunderstruck! | ||
| I'm like, that guy was doing it at 70, the most vocally taxing way. | ||
| So that's one of the things is trying to learn how to preserve the voice to work for that long. | ||
| Speaking of rock stars, I saw this morning that you tweeted something about Steve Perry from Journey. | ||
| Now, I love Journey. | ||
| Love, love, love, Jerry. | ||
| My favorite band in the world. | ||
| I love Steve Perry. | ||
| I love the fact that he's back now. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Because he had had some voice stuff, actually, speaking to guys. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, he basically lost his voice for a while. | ||
| I can't say this completely on camera. | ||
| Suffice to say, he kind of lives near here. | ||
| And I may or may not know the Mexican joint that he goes to. | ||
| So today, people may know this is Matt Iseman's birthday. | ||
| It's Steve Perry's birthday today too. | ||
| So Steve Perry and I share a birthday and I'm not lying. | ||
| So for my 38th birthday, never met him. | ||
| I've been a Journey fan since I can remember. | ||
| And for my 38th birthday at the Brown Derby, the last night of the Brown Derby, we closed it down. | ||
| I hired a Journey cover band and I had them play and I still have this fantasy that someday On my birthday, I'm gonna be singing Faithfully or Don't Stop Believing, and all of a sudden another guy's gonna walk out behind me, and it's gonna be Steve Perry! | ||
| And we're gonna do a duet together, and arm-in-arm, just singing, like, Faithfully at the end. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's my fantasy. | ||
| Steve, if you're watching! | ||
| I hope he's a huge fan of Ninja Warrior. | ||
| I just listened to that voice. | ||
| I think he had one of the most unique... And Arnel Pineda's remarkable. | ||
| It's an incredible story. | ||
| But you listen to Steve and you listen to the passion and the range and just the unique notes that guy would hit. | ||
| Incredible. | ||
| I love Journey. | ||
| I love their songs. | ||
| I love the 80s. | ||
| I love the unabashed passion and glory. | ||
| There's no cynicism in it. | ||
| It's just awesome. | ||
| Every time I do stand-up now or when I do a public speaking thing, right before you start, they go, what song do you want to go up to? | ||
| And the only thing that always pops into my mind is Separate Ways by Journey. | ||
| That beginning. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
| That video when they're playing the keyboard on the wall. | ||
| So much power. | ||
| So much power. | ||
| Break those chains that bind. | ||
| I mean, it's just, you know, yeah, you could Don't Stop Believin' or Anyway You Want It. | ||
| I mean, they have so many great songs that when you just hear it, they're just toe tappers. | ||
| And I mean, granted, you know, if you grew up in the 80s, it was the soundtrack of our youth. | ||
| So so much of it takes us back to there. | ||
| But Steve Perry is just He's been one of the great artists, I think, what Journey has done. | ||
| I saw them up in San Francisco, and Neil Shillen was shouting around, and I thought, I wonder if Steve's going to come out on stage for the long... No, he didn't. | ||
| Yeah, well, they just got inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and he didn't. | ||
| Yeah, it's a lot of bad blood to, I think, get over. | ||
| Anyway, that's a sidebar from earlier. | ||
| Let's get back to that ninja thing. | ||
| So what's some sort of insider something that you can give us about what these guys are like that are doing this kind of thing? | ||
| You know, what you see is, the amazing thing is, they really are the people you see. | ||
| They are these people who are incredibly hardworking and so generous and supportive of one another. | ||
| Um, a woman, Maggie Thorne, and she was, she was open about this. | ||
| She was going through a really tough divorce, and she had three little girls. | ||
| And, uh, during that time, she started traveling around the country, visiting her ninja sisters, as she called them. | ||
| People like Barclay Stockett and Jesse Flexler, Michelle Warnky, and she just talked about how, had she not had this community, She wasn't sure what she would have done to get through it. | ||
| And you see, it's been unlike any other sport. | ||
| I mean, A, we've only had one winner in 10 seasons. | ||
| Like, what other show? | ||
| Like, I talk about, like, at the end of America's Got Talent, you know, they'd come out and go, well, turns out America doesn't have talent. | ||
| There's no winner. | ||
| And yet, you know, it's a show where every single person who's competed on the show has fallen at one point. | ||
| So it's a show that would seem to be filled with failure, and yet when you watch it, you feel like you're seeing more success than ever. | ||
| And I think we've stumbled into a formula where You see, these are really everyday, they're truly everyday people. | ||
| They're us. | ||
| They are people who have jobs, have families, who've dealt with substance abuse, or cancer, or the loss of a loved one, whatever it is, loss of a job, and yet are trying to work through it. | ||
| And you see, the obstacle course is just a metaphor for the obstacles they've overcome in life. | ||
| And we tell, the thing we do, I think better than most shows, is in 90 seconds, we give you a reason to care about these people. | ||
| And then we show you, we let you cheer for him. | ||
| And it's the Olympic formula of, I don't care about curling, but you tell me this guy works at UPS, he's got a new baby on the way, and it's like a Bruce Springsteen song, and when he's out there brushing, I'm like, you go, buddy, you go! | ||
| Flensjørgen from Norway, where you just find yourself cheering for him. | ||
| And I think it's this thing of, one of the things I love, why I love doing the Strongman competition, or Ninja, or with Travis Pastrana, this evil thing, I love watching people push the envelope, or do things they didn't think they could do. | ||
| I love seeing people have their moment. | ||
| Because I think one of the things in life that helps define you, that helps give you the confidence, is to have Super Bowl moment to have to have a moment where you you win you're victorious in something whether it's you get a job or you get a promotion or you you know you literally win a game or whatever it is where you have a moment where you've worked so hard you overcame the obstacles and you got that moment where you're you get the trophy you get that feeling of wow | ||
| The hard work pays off. | ||
| And to have those moments, and I think Ninja Warrior is filled with that. | ||
| And for so many of the people, it's not about getting to the end and winning the money. | ||
| It's getting on the course for, we had a girl, Daniela Bright. | ||
| I think it was season six, I was live tweeting the show and she said, you know, if I ever get out of bed, I'd love to be on the show. | ||
| I'm like, why are you in bed? | ||
| She's like, well, I have stage three breast cancer and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. | ||
| And so I sent her a t-shirt and I said, well, we'll be here waiting for you. | ||
| The next year, she's on the course. | ||
| She goes out on the first obstacle and comes out with the biggest smile on her face. | ||
| And, and, you know, our satellite reporter was like, how are you feeling? | ||
| I won. | ||
| I'm here. | ||
| I feel amazing. | ||
| And to see that, to see someone, you know, what a perspective on life when we so often get caught up in, you know, did the Patriots win or who cares? | ||
| You know, those are real battles that these people are having that we're all going to face, that we're all going to be touched by. | ||
| And to remember that, you know, in the face of those, you can still struggle and overcome and find your little victories. | ||
| I think that's the message of Ninja Warrior and why the show's resonated. | ||
| What do you make of the fact that Ninja Warrior or what Rogan's doing with MMA, like, people doing physical things seems to be actually, like, cool again. | ||
| I think it's, you know, it's a primitive part of us. | ||
| It's the gladiators. | ||
| It's also, you know, particularly as we get more and more static, as we sit around on our phones, we miss that. | ||
| You miss that as a kid. | ||
| You miss playing. | ||
| You miss that feeling of, One of the things that I know rheumatoid arthritis took away from me was my sense of physical well-being. | ||
| That ability to spring out of bed and feel like you could run around and run for hours. | ||
| And it's that idea of to see people achieving something physically at a high level inspires you and makes you feel motivated, I think, that it's possible. | ||
| Especially, you know, MMA or NFL. | ||
| We love watching exceptional performances. | ||
| With Ninja, what I think the appeal is, is the idea of, that could be me. | ||
| Maybe I have a chance to... | ||
| Turn this around and get back in shape one last time and do something amazing. | ||
| And I think that's, you know, we're looking for inspiration. | ||
| We're looking for hope. | ||
| I think that's part of humanity is we want to be inspired. | ||
| We want to find that spark and wake up and feel like there's hope in the world. | ||
| And that's why I love doing what I do. | ||
| I love, you know, with Ninja Warrior, with my comedy, I want people to leave feeling better. | ||
| You know, again, Love Stan Hope. | ||
| Love Ari Shaffir. | ||
| Love those guys who can tear a crowd apart. | ||
| Love it. | ||
| I can't do it. | ||
| I suck at it. | ||
| I've tried doing roasts. | ||
| I've bombed. | ||
|
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I'm so bad because I'm just like, I'm sorry, I don't know how to insult you to your face. | |
| I really suck at this. | ||
| Make fun of me! | ||
| And, you know, it's just, I think that's part of kind of finding Authentically where you are and what resonates with you and where you're comfortable and that's one of the things you know We talk about people hear this in comedy finding your voice Yeah Who you are and what you're comfortable with and that is one of the hardest things to do Because so often we emulate those we respect but that's not us. | ||
| Yeah, you really have to dig inside and say where do I live? | ||
| What's my sense of humor and Gary Gullman right now? | ||
| If you're a comedian, or even if you're just interested in expression, Gary Gellman is putting on a clinic. | ||
| Since January 1st, he's been putting out a writing tip every day, and they've been gold. | ||
| And one of the best was he put out Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on self-reliance. | ||
| And it talked about, so often we see our thoughts reflected in someone else and think they're genius, but when it comes to us, we dismiss them because it's ours. | ||
| We think it's common. | ||
| It's like, trust yourself. | ||
| Trust That you're enough. | ||
| You know, I'm paraphrasing here, but I thought it was just such a good... For someone who's creative, so often you think of something like, oh, that's not as funny as what Patrice would have said or George Collin would have said, but it's like, no. | ||
| Trust you're on the path and just keep developing it. | ||
| So before we wrap up, you mentioned that you had cancer, and you have rheumatoid arthritis, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's not something you kick, really, right? | ||
| It's just something that you control, basically. | ||
| Well, let's just talk a little bit about dealing with some serious health stuff, because the average person watching this, looking at you like you're jacked, and you look healthy, and all those things, but you've lived through it. | ||
| It's a battle. | ||
| And you talk about it. | ||
| Yeah, and that was one of the things. | ||
| So having been a doctor, or as my dad puts it, you're still a doctor, champ. | ||
| When I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I found out what it's like to be a patient. | ||
| And you go online and you look things up, and you see the worst case scenario, because that's the textbook. | ||
| They show you the typically deformed joints, and you think, this is my future. | ||
| And it gives you this sinking feeling. | ||
| And I realized, That's why it was so important for me to be out there, visible, telling my story, so that people would see there's alternatives. | ||
| Not everyone living with the disease is destroyed by it. | ||
| We have incredible new treatments. | ||
| And just the other day, I got a call from someone who I'd been baseball with in college, and he thought he had RA, and he was petrified. | ||
| And he's like, I was just googling it and I found, he's like, I didn't know you had it. | ||
| I just googled it and found you had it because you talked about it. | ||
| And I thought, you know, that's why I tell it. | ||
| So that this person could call me up and I could tell my story and say, look, there's hope, there's treatments. | ||
| Don't worry about this. | ||
| You know, whatever it is you're facing, there are incredible treatments out there. | ||
| And that's why I went on Celebrity Apprentice. | ||
| That was my charity. | ||
| We raised a million dollars to help with research. | ||
| And so It's, look, I would much prefer not to have rheumatoid arthritis and to feel- What level of pain were you going through when you realized- So it started, you know, it started with pain in my hand and it just, for those who don't know, RA essentially is an autoimmune disease where my body attacks my joints. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And the immune system erodes the joints and causes joint destruction, inflammation, and can impact the organs, stiffness in the back and neck. | ||
| And so I went from, you know, being, Working out five or six days a week to not working out at all. | ||
| My feet were in pain where I was wearing clogs and limping. | ||
| I couldn't sleep. | ||
| I was sleeping like 14 hours, but I was always exhausted. | ||
| I gained 55 pounds. | ||
| I felt like a shell of a man. | ||
| I was physically ruined. | ||
| And then it took 18 months to get the diagnosis. | ||
| And I was going to doctors. | ||
| I was having blood work. | ||
| It just took that long for the blood work to convert. | ||
| And when I started the treatment, I got my life back. | ||
| And I didn't realize how sick I was. | ||
| And not just physically, but emotionally, how drained I was. | ||
| And the thing that kept me going was comedy. | ||
| Was that, you know, the thing that I would get out of bed for, the thing that would motivate me was to go out and laugh. | ||
| And to realize Norman Cousins was right, like the catharsis of laughter and how good those endorphins are, how important it is. | ||
| I can't overstate it. | ||
| And that's one of the things I've talked about is You know, for people who are sick, it's telling your story. | ||
| Because so often, people with a disease feel defined by their disease. | ||
| And one of the things I've done is tried to make my stories, when I talk about rheumatoid arthritis or cancer, I want people to laugh. | ||
| I want people to laugh about it because if they do, they know I'm okay with it. | ||
| And I am okay with it. | ||
| Like cancer, I'm 10 years, I'm cured in the RA. | ||
| I've made my peace with it. | ||
| I'm doing well on my medications and I'm living the best life I can with it. | ||
| People take their cues from you, so teaching people how to tell their story, because so many people, when they tell a story of illness, they feel, they can see pity in people's eyes. | ||
| And they may not want that. | ||
| But it's hard to learn how to tell your story in a way that says, I'm okay with it. | ||
| And that's one of the things I've been working on, is trying to figure out how to help people take charge over their disease by doing what you can control, is how you tell your story. | ||
| And trying to use, for me it's humor, but for, you know, whatever, there are so many tools. | ||
| Uh, for people who are dealing with chronic illness, um, to try to make it, you know, don't let it define your life, because it's very easy, and it's very easy to, to fall into the victim, you know, and feeling sad for yourself. | ||
| That'd be a shame if you did that, Wilford Brimley. | ||
| You might have diabetes, feel sorry for yourself. | ||
| I hope you don't. | ||
| All right, so do what makes you happy. | ||
| That's how we started this thing. | ||
|
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That is. | |
| And live the best life that you can. | ||
| That's how we're gonna end it. | ||
| And I think you're doing it too, Dave, so I appreciate you having me on. | ||
| Right on, man. | ||
| It's been a pleasure chatting with you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And for more on Matt, you can follow him on Twitter. |
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