Yannis Pappas is a stand-up comedian and host of the podcast, "Long Days". Watch his new special "Mom Love" now available on YouTube.
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Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek
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Alright, I want to let you know that I've got some tour dates coming up.
Savannah, Georgia, June 2nd.
Augusta, Georgia, June 3rd.
Montgomery, Alabama, June 4. And Columbus, Georgia, June 5th.
As well, I'll be in Florida, Hollywood, Fort Myers, Daytona Beach, and Lakeland, June 23rd through June 26th.
And today's guest is here for the first time.
He's a comedian and he's an entertaining man.
And he is out of New York.
And you're going to learn about him as I do.
He and I have actually never met, but he has a new special on YouTube called Mom Love and his own podcast called Long Days.
I'm grateful to get to spend some time with him.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Giannis Papas.
For me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Ooh.
shine on me and i will find a song i've been singing just Yeah, you know what I've been realizing is what's dicey to me is if they get those little sandwiches, you know the ones, the little cut sandwiches?
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like zero cut up?
No, no, but more like just like the square ones and then somebody cuts it up like that.
You know what I'm talking about?
Like the triangle piece.
Conceptually, I know.
I'm trying to picture it, though.
So yeah, it just has meat, cheese, mayonnaise, and mustard mayonnaise in it.
Yeah.
It just like is a little triangle.
Yeah.
You know, somebody gets that little round tray of a bunch of those little triangles.
Yes, now I got you.
Yeah.
But then the weird part is when they start to sit there for a while and it gets hard on the side and people still eat them.
Yeah.
That's why you got to get to that plate early.
But it's some guys prefer.
Air damage.
Yeah.
Some guys prefer to go into the tray late in the game, bro.
Yeah, that's not the way you got to get there before the air damage hardens it up.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is air damage, man.
Yeah, there's a triangular.
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about?
Those triangular ones?
Are you talking about they come in like a plastic plate?
You pull it off?
Yes.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah, and they got the top on it.
Yeah.
Convenient way to throw a party.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't got to make sandwiches.
It's better that way.
Yeah, I think having it like that is probably makes things.
Yeah, somebody cracks open a thing of those.
As a kid, I hate this.
I was like, oh, those things look like they're for adults or something.
But as an adult, I'm like, oh, I'll have a one or two of those.
Yeah.
They're nice.
Yeah.
It's a perfect.
You can't go wrong with meat and cheese at an adult party.
Meat and cheese is always a hit.
Salami and cheese.
Yeah.
That's always, that's going to go first.
Yeah.
People aren't going to touch the salad.
People aren't going to touch, if you got the carrots and the ranch out, those will be there tomorrow.
The whole plate will be there.
But the salami and cheese is gone.
Yeah.
It's the Beyonce of that spread.
It is really, man.
Is Giannis' mic in his face, guys?
Do you guys want it somewhere different?
I always have mic problems.
I apologize.
Do you?
I do.
It's something like even on my own podcast or like, like, I just can't.
I have no, I might be challenged in that way, like a learning disability with like where the mic is supposed to be.
Yeah, I think it does get to be like.
I'm either too low, too high.
Yeah.
But you've been podcasting for a long time.
So a lot of my listeners might not even know you.
And you and I have just met.
We just met.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Well, I know you, you know?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like I know you comedy, but yeah, it's the first time we've been in the flesh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It feels good.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
You got a cozy, warm kind of vibe.
Yeah, energy.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah.
I feel right, like in the womb.
I feel in a womb.
You're good?
Yeah.
I like it, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for coming, man.
So I want to just like kind of just so my listeners know like how you even got started like in the comedy.
Just take me through a little bit of that, man, because you are from another country.
I'm from another country?
Are you from another country?
I'm from America.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I thought you were from, well, it would technically be right if you were from if you weren't from here.
Right.
And I would be from another country.
But were you born in another country?
No, I was born here.
Oh, I thought you were born in another country.
Dude, I look at you and I say, I can see why he would assume that because you're fucking American.
You're American American.
Like, if there can be more of a way to be American, it's on you.
So I know just hearing my name, you're like, I guess he's from, he must have been born in Romania or something.
I got an immigrant name.
Yeah, I would, I mean, I don't know if I would, I remember I said to one of my friends yesterday, I was like, oh, Giannis Pappas is coming on.
And they're like, oh, I thought, oh, who's the, they're like, oh, that reminds me of that guy who has the other name that's kind of like a double.
Oh, who's the Russian guy, the older Russian Jewish comedian?
Zelensky.
He's fighting a war right now.
No, not that guy.
He's Ukrainian, too.
Same shit.
He's doing cameos, somebody said.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I mean.
For $600 to raise money for Ukraine, that's crazy.
That is crazy that he's got time.
Where do they have that guy that he's got a camera set up?
And I tell you, I don't know who his barber is, but he's on call.
The dude is always crisp in the middle of a war.
I mean, he's got like a fade every three days.
Oh, yeah.
He's like the DJ Khaled, I feel like, of like bombings and shit.
Yeah, I think he just travels with his barber.
He's got a barber in the bomb shelter.
He really values whoever cuts his hair.
And dude, will somebody win this fucking war already?
Like, Jesus, what it feels like they just nobody will win it or they don't care.
Are they taking days off?
It feels like they're like, hey, let's do it on Tuesday.
I'll meet you guys on Friday.
We'll do another round on Friday.
It is hard to understand, right?
Because like, if there's a war going on, how is he safe to give talks and, you know, do a video Zoom for the Oscars?
And then Biden goes there.
He's walking around no problem.
I think Nancy Pelosi was wheeled out there.
So, like, where's the war?
Yeah, I don't know what's happening.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I think it's like a steal.
I think they got to go to court, like, maybe Johnny and Amber to solve it.
figure it out Yeah, I feel like Johnny is Russia in this scenario.
And Amber, no, I'm sorry.
Johnny.
Yeah, Johnny's Ukraine.
I'm sorry.
And Amber's Russia.
And no.
Yeah, who's the bad guy?
There's only two ways to do it.
I don't know.
The good guys are Ukraine.
I'm trying to depend on, it depends on which side of the political aisle, I guess you fall on to consider who's the bad guy.
But I think Johnny is Ukraine.
Johnny.
Because he got invaded by Amber.
So we need to figure out ways to funnel weapons to Johnny.
That's what we got to do, to help out Johnny.
Yeah, I saw Johnny Depp one night at the comedy store.
It was pretty crazy.
That is a crazy sighting to see Johnny.
Because I went up and Doug Stanhope is friends with me, introduced me to him, and then I realized I didn't know what to say.
And then I realized I didn't have anything to say to Johnny Depp.
That's almost the worst, but like when you're like, oh, there's not even, there's not even a 30th degree of separation.
Like, there's nothing to even say here.
It's like literally shook hands, and then I had nothing.
Yeah.
It's kind of similar to meeting you because what I wanted to say, I held it.
Maybe what you wanted to say, you held it because you felt like he's over it.
Like I would have opened with a 21 Jump Street thing because that's my closest emotional tie to Johnny was his hair back then with the earring.
He kind of said that my generation.
Pull that picture up of Johnny Depp 21 Jump Street.
Let's get an image of that.
I think he was like that hairstyle with the earring was like every white guy in America did that middle part with the earring.
And so I would open with a 21 Jump Street, like with you, Road Rules, but I didn't want to say it.
I know you from Road Rules.
I remember.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, and you're as big as I thought you were, like tall.
You're a tall drink of water.
You know, it's really funny people say that I'm tall.
And I don't, I've always just been, I mean, I've been this height for probably 21 years now.
And it's like, I don't think anything, I never thought I was tall, but people constantly say that.
Yeah, you're 61. Bro, you're taller than I thought.
So it's always Mexicans who comment on it.
I'm not going to say that.
But it's a lot of like Latinos, you know, or recent Americans.
Recent Americans.
Who are like, yeah, bro, you're taller than I thought.
Recent American is a better way than to call Mexican.
It's a way to scoot around it.
Well, not even Mexican, but just I feel like if we're going to be, because people, remember that people used to say illegal immigrants, right?
Yeah.
Because I'll meet a lot of Mexican guys.
I'll be like, you know, where did you come from?
How did you, you know, and they'll be like, oh, just don't tell anybody I'm here.
You know what I'm saying?
They all joke about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But it's like, so I think recent Americans, it at least gives both sides of the net like a little bit of like, okay, they're new.
And then other people are like, let's, you know.
You're running cover for them because you're not lying.
Right.
But you're also not telling them they may not have their papers.
They're recent Americans.
Interpret that the way you want to interpret it.
We got a couple recent Americans here.
God, Johnny Depp was just, man.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
He'd be a hot chick now, even.
Yeah, if he went trans, he would look good.
Some guys, you can tell if they transition, they would flawlessly transition.
Usually they don't have the neoendral brow.
That's a real impediment to like a smooth transition.
But he got a real nice girl guy face.
Oh.
Yeah.
God, man.
Yeah.
If he put some makeup on and grew the hair a little longer, I don't even think he'd need estrogen.
Well, he's a handsome kid.
He's an handsome guy.
And he used to definitely be more.
And I think he's partied pretty hard.
He's probably gone pretty hard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For a guy who did the amount of drugs he did, he looks good.
That's a good point.
He looks real good.
That's a good point.
I mean, I don't know how much LA has to do with that, Hollywood.
People who are stars tend to age very well.
Because I guess when your job is just staying in shape every day in between scripts, you dedicate a lot of time to it.
There's like a team of people who keep Johnny Tapp like camera ready.
Well, you can also get fluff.
You got fluffers.
That's a big thing.
Like a guy that's going to do work at Dunkin' Donitz or whatever, he ain't got that fluffer.
You know what I'm saying?
He don't have somebody meeting him in the parking lot an hour early to polish him up and trim off all the loose ends and take his dirty appendix out or whatever's going on.
But he's got those people where every day before he, you know, there's people like just really shining him up.
You think like if there was a competitor to come out that would compete against Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, if they use a strategy of like, you know what?
We're going to up the game of the people who work here and make them all beautiful with fluffers.
We'll hire fluffers too.
Even if the coffee's not as good, it'll give them the edge.
Like, how come nobody's sneaking outside the box like that?
So you're saying if they beautify the staff.
The staff.
Yeah.
With the help of fluffers.
They got the corporate money.
Right.
They can create extra jobs.
We don't have to live in this world where coffee shops have like ugly, untaken care of, I don't know if that's the way you say it.
Unquaffed?
Unkempt, yeah.
Unkept, unkept people.
Maybe we need to create jobs.
How about a couple fluffers for these Dunkin' Donuts employees?
Yeah, Cinderella's sisters is who you're talking about.
Yeah, it's exactly what it is.
Well, look at this.
You know, I was at the Starbucks the other day and a guy runs in homeless guy, right?
Yeah.
I'm not going to say homeless, but the guy was...
Recently unhomed?
I would say that, yeah.
I would say recently.
Recently American recently unhomed.
So this boy, he was out there and he came in.
He had no pants on, right?
And he walked past these two chicks outside and they got a little scared, you know, and I was like, scat, scat.
Like I did like that, you know, because like we had a lot of stray animals in our neighborhood growing up.
And if they came by my sisters, I would be like that.
Did he respond?
Did he scat or was he?
He kind of did.
You're working on him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He kind of did.
And then he went inside and stole all of the money right out of the tip thing.
He did.
Yeah.
And so the scat, you were like an accessory to the crime then.
You didn't tell him to scat he would have bothered the girls and may not have he could have done a rape and burgle oh yeah it's hard to know what would have happened right that could have been the lesser of the two evils well then i go in and there's a guy in there who's like very who's like probably about 11 different genders right this dude was coming in you know he had anchovies he had all of it and he um he was like oh my god i don't know what just happened right and
i was like y'all got robbed that's what just happened bro and nobody in here they had 11 of them and how is it they have 11 starbuck employees they all have on walkie talkies talking to each other right next to each other yeah it doesn't seem like they need that yeah you could just go like this it's like ordering a sandwich at wawaz you're like why can't i just give it the order to you why do i got to become a computer programmer back here yeah it's unnecessary technology oh a lot of unnecessary technology and so then uh yeah but
it was just crazy they were everybody was just so like like nobody there could have saved the day right you know because actually they had this one little mighty mouse bitch in her i think if she'd have seen it go down she wasn't she was dealing with an egg mc you know date breakfast or something but the moment when that thing when the guy hit but if she'd have freaking turned around she was a little less hungry she might have took her focus off the order and helped well she you could just tell she had a little bit more nuts in her than any of the uh fellas that were working in there right you know right they don't
care right they don't care but it was the tips though oh they care about that but i would have yeah yeah like that's my money like you know nobody stopped him no the guy was just like one guy this is the best one dude who probably was at least you know four or five different genders right this dude coming in bro you know this was a non-binary establishment this dude had his hands off like
what the bro and the guy didn't have a gun but he did have his pants off well he had i'll say this bro he was short and he it looked like he had a little bit of dick hanging out the bottom of his shirt and that is a that's a weapon too it could be a weapon especially if you don't know what gender you are you know bro you don't know how that thing's going to end up in you would you be more scared if a guy with a gun or a guy a naked guy is kind of you don't know what to do with a naked guy easy oh if i had to i'd get the bullets out
of him you know what i'm saying bro i'd freaking i'd handle them down to keep the pressure out of them if i had to you ever seen those videos where like the the like those prank shows in the hood where the guys talk shit to like tough dudes in the hood and the guy's like what and he's about to and then they just strip naked and the guy runs for some reason because i guess it's so jarring you don't know what to do when somebody's missing a piece of their uh outfit it's just kind of a weird thing i guess shirt off is more socially well shirt off we're gonna fight yeah shirt
offs we're gonna fight pants off are we we're gonna we may i might you so that gets a little that's probably what makes you nervous it's a novelty you have a no frame of reference like when the indians first saw the boats they couldn't tell what they were really yeah they said they didn't they had no frame of reference for the conquistador boats so they just couldn't almost see them they couldn't see them they couldn't understand it it was like an object they'd never seen so if you get into a situation with a guy with no pants and he's threatening you you might not even understand it and just free maybe put maybe that's why she put her hands up yeah maybe she didn't know she was like
is this what you're supposed to do yeah when a guy has no pants on a little bit of dick hanging out under the shirt he had a short shirt on too he was a black guy too which is unusual yeah because usually they got long shirts on if you go to black barbecue they down to their knees oh yeah yeah black guys like long shirts yeah black guys look good and stuff they look good in everything anything yeah you know uh black guys look good and a black guy could walk around literally with just with with shopping tags hang that that's why i think a lot of black guys keep the tags on
things because i think other people literally come up and shop off of them you know yeah i always like damn let me scan this up right now bro that's not a bad idea bro it's not a bad idea if you got a percentage of the sale yeah it's like damn let me scan two of those off of my boy and then he makes a little bit of bread yeah i had a black friend who used to wear his hat like that with the stickers and tags and we were having a conversation once and he was like you know his cops got to stop profiling me i'm like well maybe if it looks if you make it look a little less like you just stole
the hat out of the store you're wearing it like you just ran out past the sensors i mean maybe that'll help yeah they had a black kid i saw with just a chain made out of sensors like that's not gonna that's not helpful that's actually a good move if you want to steal a store if you come in with the sensors on and they're going off you're going no that's just my necklace yeah don't look through my don't don't profile me that's my necklace going off these are sensors that's pretty cool i think i think if someone was cool
enough they could make sensors cool yeah like you know like because fashion gets pretty ridiculous like if you look back in like the 1700s guys were wearing other dudes fucking hair and stockings and candy corn shoes so that and that just objectively looks ridiculous but that means at some point there was some dude who was so cool who was wearing it that everyone was like i want to be like him so they started wearing fucking ridiculous stockings candy corn shoes and somebody else's hair was just some real serial killer shit and
then the whole continent of europe started doing it so if there was a cool enough dude who started wearing sensors and gave it value like bitcoin which we all buy which we know is stupid then i think people would follow it depends on how fucking cool the person is wearing it fashion is completely subjective yeah i never thought about that that much i mean yeah i think if you see somebody with something and you feel like it looks good then if somebody else does it you'll you'll kind of get into it you know yeah like i i'm not even lying this
is a true story i saw a dude the other day he had a mullet and somebody else said you're going with the theo vaughan and he was like damn everyone keeps saying that i'm like maybe you are consciously or unconsciously there's very few dudes in this country who have a mullet still right that aren't at a state fair right right you know what i mean who are visible yeah like visible beyond the local word of mouth right right like you're visible with you're you're visible with a mullet past word of mouth yeah yeah and so if somebody has a mullet now you're going
like you're you're theo volleyball what are you doing here yeah yeah you're a theobo fan.
Yeah, I got into it, man.
I had it growing up, and then I got out of it trying to fit it in Hollywood, and then I got back into it.
It's the best choice I ever made.
Have you ever had long hair?
I have had long hair, but more of the Johnny Depp 21 Jump Street shit.
You never had the back go, huh?
No, dude.
I grew up in Brooklyn.
You can't.
You could.
You can.
I don't have the balls.
Yeah, I was like, that was.
Well, dude, it's like having balls.
It's like your hair has balls.
It's exactly what it's like.
Yeah.
Have you ever said that before?
It's like there's balls here and they're kind of, they're dangling around.
You can move them a little bit.
And there's power in it.
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing.
There's fucking power in it.
There is, right?
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You know, you get, you buy yourself a dang bagel box or something and you just wanted one bagel box and then they keep sending you the bagel bash every month and then you're just bashed out with bagels and they keep charging your credit card.
You know, I had a thing where I accidentally got me a extension cord and I didn't realize I signed up for unlimited extension cords.
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You know, and I only have damn two lamps.
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So I just want to get where you started, man.
Yeah, and I didn't mean to offend you if I said that you were from another country, man.
No, I didn't.
I thought that you were from another country.
No, did you think I was offended?
I wasn't offended at all.
Okay, good.
Yeah, yeah.
I was rolling with it.
Yeah.
Because I get it.
No, I'm from New York.
My parents are from another country.
Okay.
So yeah, I'm kind of recently American as well.
I fit into that category if we open up the bubble a little bit because my mom had to get her papers.
Oh, she did?
Yeah.
My mom had to get her papers.
And where did she come from?
She came from Greece.
Really?
Greece.
Did you have Greeks down?
There's no Greeks down in Louisiana.
We never had a Greek here.
On the show?
Never.
Yeah.
Never.
We've got a charter who, you know, other people, or we have pens and replaced from different countries people have come from.
Well, I'm glad to diversify that.
Yeah, I'm glad to represent for a whole nation.
There's not a...
My mother came here.
She was like kind of a refugee after World War II.
My mother was old.
She had me when she was in her 40s, which is a real today shit thing to do.
She did it back then.
And so she just recently passed away.
But she, yeah, she was there during the Nazi occupation.
And she was there, yeah, for World War II.
And then she immigrated here.
So my mother was born there.
My father was born in Brooklyn, but his parents were born over there in the old world, as we call it.
Wow.
As white people call it the old world.
Yeah.
Yeah, Europe, you know.
So I'm a one and a half first generation American.
I'm a recent, I'm a recent, I'm recently American.
Damn.
So you weren't, you weren't 100% wrong.
You weren't 100% right.
You were more right than wrong.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you smelled something.
Well, I just, and I think it's probably, yeah, just the name.
People are like, oh, what's going on here?
Yeah.
You know?
I did Theo Vaughn.
I don't know you.
I'm thinking black guy, linebacker, something, because Vaughn, boom.
And then I see you, Theo Vaughn.
Your name doesn't seem very, doesn't match you either.
Where does your name come from?
Well, my father's from Nicaragua.
My mother's from actually Illinois.
So.
Your mother's, wow, Nicaragua's in there.
So we got, and yeah, and then my father was part, I think, Pontiac Indian as well.
So we had some goods, you know, something, a little bit of here and there kind of, you know.
The Pontiac car is catching no heat.
I mean, it's like the Cleveland Indians are catching heat.
The Washington Redskins are catching heat.
Yeah, the Pontiac car is still floating.
Bring up a Pontiac if you can, brother.
Yeah, I mean, is cancer culture going to get to that?
It should.
When you think of how many things are named after Native American stuff, it's like you really, and I can't think of them right now.
Tom Hawk steak.
Oh, yeah.
It's a lot, brother.
Let me ask you this question.
As far as the Cleveland Indians, what's worse sounding to you?
The Cleveland Indians or the Cleveland Browns?
Cleveland Browns sounds a lot more like a slur to me.
Oh, that's Browns.
I hate these fucking Browns.
I hate the Browns every year.
Sounds a lot worse than I hate the Cleveland Indians.
Yeah, look at these Indians.
Look at these Indians.
Look at these Browns.
Or these India's.
These India's.
Yeah, I mean, look, I love a racial slur, honestly.
Who doesn't?
If it's said in just.
Yeah, bro, even if, here's the best.
If you're walking down the street, somebody yells at you, you don't see who yells it.
It's fucking great.
Yeah.
If somebody like is point blank, like ripping something, that's fucked up, dude.
But somebody's using, somebody, you know, drives by and they yell at, bro, fucking who, you know?
Yeah.
That enhances your day.
Oh.
Kurt Metzger has the best slur I've heard for Greeks ever.
Is that my phone?
I apologize.
Jesus Christ, that's my special needs brother.
Time for your daughter to wake up.
Kurt Metzger has the best slur for Greeks that I've ever heard because there's not many.
And he just, one time he was doing this stand-up set.
It's online somewhere, but he just goes, he was dating a Greek girl and her dad didn't approve, as Greek dads usually don't, of anyone.
Greeks hate everybody.
And he just goes, can you believe that, dude?
A diner monkey from ass fuck island.
And I was like, that's the best, that's the best slur.
Diner monkey from ass fuck island.
Doesn't get better than that.
So that's what I am.
I like that, man.
Because we do.
Diners is like the, that's like the Greek passport into America.
And why is it?
Because of all the dishes and stuff?
Because y'all guys are like, dishes is a big part of y'all's culture, huh?
Yeah, maybe that's why.
I never thought of it.
Maybe it's because access to dishes.
That's the first time I've heard that theory.
You came up with that in a split second, too.
Well, I guess the only thing.
We throw them.
We throw them.
Right.
It's part of the, it's like a tradition.
Yeah.
So yeah, I don't know that much about Greeks, man.
Is that.
We got a healthy history, man.
Oh, well, I know.
I've seen a lot of the artwork and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Now, that's beautiful.
Little penises, though.
A lot of statues, little penises.
Yeah.
Got around there.
I don't know why they did that, but all the penises are really small in the old statues.
Well, do Greek girls have big butts?
I think a lot of the penis size of the males of a culture has to do with the size.
If you have to reach the vagina of the woman, you know?
You're coming up with some theories that I haven't thought about.
So you're saying, you were saying without saying, correct me if I'm wrong.
You're saying without saying, black dudes got big dicks because black girls got big asses.
And to be able to reach the vagina.
They have to.
So it kind of evolved that way.
I think so.
It makes sense.
Yeah.
I mean, when I think about, a lot of times if I think about having sex with a black girl, it's like, well, I mean, this certainly depends, but it's like, I couldn't do it.
You got your dick has to wear lifts to get there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got to get on the dick's shoulders.
Yeah.
My dick didn't need to be like one of the ones with two kids in a top coat.
Like, oh, I'm here to let my kid go on the field trip.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
And Chinese, Asian, no buts.
No buts.
And also, corresponding, correlated.
Yeah, hypothetically.
Hypothetically, but we all know it's true.
Littler penises.
Yeah.
Holy shit.
Maybe.
Because, yeah, I mean, it's like about nature.
Like a hummingbird has to have that beak because it has to be able to.
You know what I'm saying, but it's not right.
I think you might have just lost confidence in it.
I mean, you might have been going somewhere.
Yeah.
Hummingbird has to have a beak.
Because it just, you know, it gets in a certain type of flowers and it's like the deep ones.
Was that the moment when you realized you didn't know that much about hummingbirds?
I think it's the moments I realized I didn't know that much.
Yeah.
You had enough knowledge to get you to that point.
Yeah.
And then you're like, what else do they do?
Yeah, I'm done.
Yeah, I'm done with that.
What?
Okay, so you got started in New York.
I know a lot of people know you, but I want to make sure that my audience knows you.
I appreciate that.
I forget that sometimes, like, even though, like, I have some knowledge of someone or, you know, I know that they're a great comedian, but my audience doesn't know.
So you started out in New York.
Started out in New York.
Grew up there.
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, Greek American.
I started there a long time ago, quit for a while, had some things happen and trauma and things like that.
My head's all messed up, which is a constant challenge.
And then I got back into it and I started doing stand-up consistently.
Donnell Rollings was really the guy who got me into comedy, like stand-up, got me back in after I quit.
And I was doing Sketch 2 and I did some viral characters on YouTube early in YouTube and started touring doing those.
But always was a stand-up.
I started as a stand-up and I've been doing it, you know, on and off because I took some time off, you know, like, I'd say close to 20 years, man, 15, 20 years.
I've been around.
I'm like the Bull Durham.
Even when I did New Faces in Montreal, which is like comics, that's like when the industry takes a look at you or whatever.
I was like the dude.
I mean, I was in, what was I?
I was in my late 30s.
I felt like Bull Durham.
Everybody else was these young prospects.
And I'm like, I was like an old catcher, been around.
You got icy hot on before the show?
Yeah, I have little tricks, oil here, like the dude from Major League, the old reliever.
Yeah, you're like, oh, the guy after you're like, oh, why does this mic have sap on it?
Yeah, I'm like, that's an old-timer trick, you know?
Wow.
So when you took time off, did you think, because I had a spot where I think for probably about seven months I took off, I just felt like I wasn't, maybe, I didn't know what I was doing.
Was there a reason that you took some time off?
Yeah.
So I got shot early on.
I started doing comedy in 2000.
I got shot in 2001.
By a gun?
By a gun, yeah.
No way.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
And what did it feel like?
It burns.
It's hot.
It's just hot.
Think about that.
Yeah, it's hot.
You know, your body takes care of you, like chemicals, whatever that is for the pain.
And like your body releases shit that kind of, but like.
Yeah, it's DMT, I guess.
But then afterwards, when all that adrenaline, adrenaline, and also adrenaline, when the adrenaline dies down, it's just heat.
It's hot.
You could actually see smoke coming out of the hole, like little bits of smoke.
Yeah.
Damn.
And so that was fine, though.
I went night in the hospital.
I got shot like close to, you know, my dick and ass.
Did you really?
Yeah, like right here.
Yeah.
Ooh, and you could see smoke coming out?
So for a second, yeah, you could see a little smoke coming out when they cut my plastic pants off of me, jogging pants or whatever you call them.
Like your femur's fucking vaping in there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what it looked like.
And then you feel the heat and then a little sting when all the chemical, when all the whatever adrenaline rushes, comes down.
I just got lucky it didn't hit an artery or anything like that.
But you know, that wasn't the problem was the panic attacks that started afterwards, like sort of the PTSD that I didn't know what it was.
And so I started having like these panic attacks and it was related to the trauma from that, like just walking around being scared, like, oh shit, that happened to me.
It could happen any moment.
And I didn't know what it was.
So I just dealt with it for a while.
I didn't know what trauma was or what was going on.
I would just get on a train in New York and I would just start bugging out and like hyperventilating.
Wow.
And then not knowing why is like my subconscious.
So I'm going, what the fuck is going on?
And I just lived like that for a while.
And so I quit comedy because I get up on stage and I'd have these massive panic attacks.
You're making me paint.
Yeah.
Right now.
It was a weird time.
And then I just kind of quit, started doing social work.
I did 9-11 disaster relief for a while.
And Donnell Rollings, like I said, was the guy who kind of pulled me in.
He saw me once, thought I was funny.
And then he had a room on the Upper East Side of New York City every Tuesday or Wednesday called Marion Square.
And I would get up there once a week.
And then Chappelle's show, this was about 2005, 6. Chappelle show took off.
He took me on the road with him, Charlie.
It was Bill Burr for a little bit, then Christian Finnegan from the show.
And that was real nice of him.
So I always owe him for that.
I always liked, you know, it was a real nice thing for like, you know, a comic to be like, hey, you're funny.
And then like try to help me, which he did.
I'd sell his posters and I'd do five minutes.
And it was nice to also go on the road and see success because I had never seen anyone like make it.
And I knew Donnell before he made it.
And then I saw his outfit change.
And I saw him go from Tim Bose to like a higher priced shoe.
Yeah.
Like the outfit change.
That's where you can tell money in comedy.
I've seen it with a lot of my friends now.
Really?
Yeah.
Even Tim Dylan's gone from like Bin Basket Polo to like Balanciago or some Italian name I can't even pronounce without sounding like I'm from New York too much.
Yeah, it's just an outfit change.
Now, did you, I'm going to go through a little bit of that.
So yeah, with the trauma stuff, did you know that it was part of like, so you felt a lot of anxiety, I'm guessing, like uncomfortable but were you able to relate immediately that it was because of the gunshot thing?
No, it took me, I had to go to therapy.
Finally, I went to therapy.
I just was like muscling through it, not knowing.
Like it was kind of emasculating for it to happen.
Be like, why am I so scared?
I would freeze up.
I would like, I wouldn't be.
There was one time I thought I was having a heart attack and I couldn't move and my whole body just kind of froze.
I couldn't move.
I guess that's what they call scared stiff.
And I told my friend, I was with my friend on the train.
I was like, call ambulance.
I'm having a heart attack.
And they came and they're like, you're fine.
Like, what?
They took all my vitals.
And I was like, I was like, because you don't feel fine.
So you're going like, you must be wrong.
You must be wrong.
I'm dying.
And I wasn't.
And it was just these panic attacks that would happen.
And I really didn't have a reprieve from them.
I didn't really get away from them until I started going to therapy.
Therapy works if you got issues.
I recommend therapy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I recommend therapy.
And were you able, so how did they, what was the process kind of of relating, of figuring out that that was it?
It was sitting with a therapist.
She was a female therapist.
I was attracted to her.
Did you tell her that?
I didn't tell her that, which felt like I wasn't being open in therapy, you know, because that must have been a thing, like a mommy issue or something.
But because of that, I was just more, I don't know, I was more vulnerable, open.
Like guys, you're always a little standoffish when you sit with a guy.
You're like, fuck, you're a guy.
Like, I can't be vulnerable around a guy.
You always got to be a guy.
But a woman, you just kind of, you can act a little more like a woman and talk about your feelings.
Right.
So I was able to, something about her opened me up and I was able to talk about it.
And I got over the fact that I wanted to sleep with her.
Maybe it's because of the connection.
You know, we're comics.
We're all fucked up.
We got walls up.
There's reasons why we stand on wood planks for chicken fingers for 10 years to have strangers give us a hug.
You know, it's because we didn't get something else.
So there's walls up.
But she was able to take those down.
She was beautiful, too.
God.
Her legs was the problem.
If she wore pants more, but maybe that's what opened me up.
I was always distracted with her legs.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they were just nice.
Oh, I noticed.
I'll be involved in anything.
Do not hear a set of high heels in the distance.
And I have no control over my ability to zone out of whatever is going on.
So the sound of high heels.
Yeah, and it's not even about sex.
It's just the idea that a woman could be around.
You know, I think when I was young, I didn't get that care.
And so it was like this simple idea that a woman could be coming around to give me some type of care affection.
Oh.
Like, it's like there's a part of me that just cannot help but go and listen for that.
Listen to that.
I read it the wrong way.
I was reading it like a predator hearing prey, like, you know, like a coyote hearing like movement in the brush.
Oh, no, yours was more of like a nurturing thing.
You need it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's where that kind of, yeah, with chicks, for me, that's the first part of it.
Did you like to suck tit?
Did you, were you breastfed?
By a small breast.
So when you get a big one, do you just...
I've overstayed my welcome.
Yeah.
On a big tit?
This is like the second or third time already in this podcast you've said something without saying something, and I picked up on it.
The first one was about now I know you were basically saying your mom had small breasts.
Oh, my mom knows it.
Yeah.
If she the one who breastfed, was it your mom who breastfed you?
Sometimes another woman will get in there in the African villages.
Yeah.
No, my sister's aunts, my sister's cousin-in-law, they would breastfeed each other's children.
But I believe that my mother did it as far as I know.
Right.
But yeah, small breast.
You never shake the trauma from breastfeeding out of a small breast.
You never, the fucking, just the rattle, just trying to rattle a drop of milk out of something so small.
It's insane.
It's insane that we let a child do it.
It's insane.
When you sit, think about right now a kid on like a lowercase A cup.
I just imagine you not being able to find anything you're trying to grab.
You know, you're just hitting the bag.
You just, you know, and there's just nothing in there.
You're like a wall climber looking for somewhere to put your fingers and there's just nothing.
It's just a flat wall.
It's traumatic.
It's definitely exactly what you said.
It's traumatic.
Crazy that you remember that too, even though there was no video evidence.
Well, I do believe that when I start to, I can feel the desperation of it and the why isn't there something there.
So you remember the feeling, not necessarily the facts.
Well, I think I always have that feeling.
Right.
Something I'm missing something.
Something isn't available.
Right.
Something isn't complete.
Right.
So I just take it back to usually things like that, probably, and not specifically breastfeeding, but just the feminine connect me to a, you know, connecting a feminine across the board.
Yeah.
You know?
But do you want things to be complete?
Like, even being alive is kind of incomplete.
We're only complete when we die and we, you know, God willing, we go up, we go to the party, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just think of your foundation as a, you know, if you got all the stair steps and you can get onto the porch, you know?
Yeah.
And so I always feel like we fucking just had a pile of wood right there.
No nails.
I like that analogy was very, like, that was like your background.
You like, you saw a porch, you went the stairs.
I would have gone like elevator, pushed the button.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Were you guys pretty well off growing up?
We were okay.
We were okay.
Yeah, I was, my friends had less money.
My parents were both lawyers.
Oh, wow.
Really?
Yeah, but they made like $100,000, which back then was like a lot of money.
Still a lot.
Still a lot, I guess.
But back then, I guess it was a lot.
A lot.
Yeah.
$100,000 back then, man, that was almost as much as you could have, it seemed like.
I don't even think it was possible to have more than $100,000, right?
Somebody had $100,000?
Yeah.
You never heard of anyone.
If someone had more than $100,000 back then, they hid it.
They did not talk about it.
They were, yeah, they were doing something real illegal after.
Oh, the only way to get more than $100,000 was illegal.
I felt like back then.
There was like a cap back then.
It seemed like it.
Yeah.
You know?
So we were okay.
We were pretty well off.
Like, I went to private school.
So they had enough to send me to private school.
Yeah.
But back then, private school was like, you know, 10 grand a year, 15 grand a year, something like that.
It wasn't like now, which is like a lot.
You have to have a lot more than $100,000 to go to private school now.
But all my friends went to public school.
So they would just, they would always.
Yeah, they would always steal money out of my dad's pocket when he left his pants up on the.
And do Greeks, yeah, do Greeks carry a lot, I feel like Greeks carry like a lot of cash on them.
Always cash.
Paranoid people.
Very paranoid defensive people.
Yeah.
We were formerly enslaved by the Turks.
I think all people who are like, you know, I think the Irish have it a little because the English fuck them.
It is heartbreaking, right?
Like largely think about it.
Yeah, because then all that trauma gets stuck in people and then it's coming out in crazy ways.
You know, it's coming out in some guy fucking, you know, beating somebody's face in with a hard Euro over here.
You know, common crime in the Greek community.
It never.
Yeah.
That's when the air damage we were talking about can happen to a Euro, too.
Yeah.
Okay.
So now you've been in New York for a long time.
You've done comedy over the years.
You got shot.
You took a break.
Who shot you?
Do you know?
I do know who shot me.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know him.
He's not like a, I didn't know him personally, but we had to go to trial and everything.
He pled not guilty.
Oh.
Yeah.
So I had to sit there and testify.
And yeah, it was just, it was an attempted robbery because I was with the friend I was with was a promoter.
So he carried a lot of cash with him.
So I assume it was an attempted robbery or carjacking or both, you know, and I was just wrong place, wrong time.
And I made the, maybe the wrong decision or right, I mean, in that moment, you know, you either like free, like I just grabbed his arm and tried to get it away and fired and I just point point blank range.
I got shot.
Maybe it would have been worse if he was farther away so the bullet had a little chance to, I don't know how fast, I don't know which bullet goes faster.
I'm not, I'm not a ballistics expert.
Like if a bullet picks up steam or loses it pick up steam?
I guess at a certain point it would pick up steam, right?
Certain distance.
There must be an apex if you're a certain distance away where it's the fastest where it can do the most damage.
I don't know.
Thank God it was a little fatter then because it got caught in my butt cheek and the bullet stayed in there.
Is it still in there?
No, they took it out a couple years later.
That was a wild moment when they took it out because they put you under and the way I came to was and they had me up in stirrups like I was at a gynecologist because the surgery happened right here.
So I came to like this with my legs up and I came to when I farted and I farted with the doctor and the nurse down there and they were like laughing because I farted but like I didn't know where I was and I had to pass gas and then they took it out.
And that's all I remember about that surgery and that put an end to that trauma.
Really?
Right when the bullet came out?
Do you feel like it was just having the bullet in you still?
Like, yeah, Carrie, it was in there.
Oh, totally.
Yeah, the spirit of it was in there.
Yeah.
The spirit of, it was like an invasion.
Like the bullet was like, you know, it was, it was in my, it wasn't paying rent.
It's part of my body.
All the rest of my organs pay rent.
Yeah.
And there was this thing in there that was just freeloading.
Damn.
And I was like, I got to get this freeloader.
So finally, we evicted that.
We evicted that bad tenant that was in my leg.
that's unbelievable, man.
I didn't even know that that happened to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've spoken about it a few times.
I never really joked about it or made jokes out of it because it wasn't funny to me.
It was like, that would make me sad.
And I didn't know what was funny about it.
Now I feel a lot better about it.
It happened a long time ago.
You know, I feel like I'm solidly a man now.
You know, as a comic, I don't think I became solidly a man until like two years ago.
Really?
Yeah.
We're all, yeah, don't you feel like, are you grown?
You have grandkids?
No, I don't have anything like that.
I don't even have original children.
Yeah.
Do you have fake ones or imaginary replica ones?
No, I don't have any wife or nothing like that yet.
I'm planning on getting it, though.
You do, I know.
I learned a lot about it.
Yeah, really.
And your special.
Yeah, I watched, let me see, 34 minutes of your special.
That's about, that's right.
That's probably more than what the algorithm is telling me that people watch.
He went farther than most people, yeah.
It's really, really cool.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate it.
What's the name of it?
I don't.
Oh, wait.
I do know what it is.
It's called something mom.
Mom love.
Mom love.
Sorry.
Mom love.
No, anything in the area of mom, it's like pronouncing my name.
I'll respond to Yannis, Yannis, Yannis.
Yeah.
And I could have looked at the Wikipedia page before I just forgot what it was named.
I'm not trying to say that I don't care.
No, I know.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Yes, you got the new special out, and this is on YouTube.
It's on YouTube.
Yeah.
It's on YouTube.
It's cool, man.
You shot it over there in Madison, which was nice.
Really cool spot.
Yeah, and when I shot it, I just decided to shoot it that night.
I had no plans.
I did my album a couple years ago at Comedy on State, too, which is like, it's a great club.
It's just run well, and the audience is always great.
And you know who runs it?
Greeks.
Greeks.
Yeah, Greeks.
Greeks.
Two Greek young ladies and their Greek father, who's really killed at.
I mean, he came to this country with like five bucks.
Now he owns the whole State Street.
They should rename it to like Stetaki Street.
It's like Greek.
Greeks conquered.
We came and we like, like Alexander, he came and he just took over all the restaurants there.
Alexander the Greek, right?
Alexander the Greek, yeah.
He was Alexander the Great, but yeah, he was Greek.
He was Greek?
Macedonians will say he's Macedonian.
Greeks will say he's Greek.
They fight about it.
And it's like, guys, who cares?
It's like one of those interfighting things where you're like, dude, like, it's like between like Serbs and Croats.
You're like, guys, I can't fucking tell the difference.
Like the Northern Irish and Southern Irish, they're fucking fighting.
The Ukrainians and Russians.
If I put a Ukrainian and Russian in here right now, do you think one out of 10 people from any country would be able to tell me what the difference is when they start fucking talking between Ukraine and Russia?
What are they fighting over?
Aren't they the same kind of like northern?
I think a syllable probably, I think there's a couple syllables still on the board for, or like a vowel maybe, probably.
If they're fighting over anything, it's probably a vowel over there.
Because if you hear those people talk, you don't, there's zero vowels involved.
Zero.
It's just all V's and L's.
No, it's crazy.
Yeah, and then the Norwegians and Swedes, they have their hate for each other.
Like, people just hate each.
Humans like to hate.
Yeah.
We'll hate whatever's closest.
And what do you think that is?
I think part of it is because you just want to feel there's some need to feel what?
Why do people want to hate?
I think part of it is...
If I can think this is worse.
Yeah.
If I can think that that person is not as good.
It's easier.
I think it's scary.
Like I think eye contact is scary.
I think making strong eye contact, if you keep making it for a long time, I think two people are either going to fight or fuck.
Okay.
Like I can, you have to look away at some point or else it gets too powerful.
Or like fall in love.
Like eye contact.
That's a good point.
I never thought about that.
There's like a spectrum of eye contact.
Yeah, you got at some point you got to like look away.
You're like, are we going to fuck?
Or somebody's going to see something in you that you don't want them to see.
Or that.
It's going to be, you're going to be too, you're too insecure.
You know, you don't want the person to know you're lying or whatever it is or you're hiding something.
So I think that's the thing that is a barrier always with people.
And they're like, fuck you.
I don't want you.
Yeah.
I'm hiding something.
I'm not comfortable with who I am.
So it just turns into like, hey, yeah, it's got to be that.
Right?
I would think, man.
I mean, it's interesting.
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You did?
I almost became a Quaker.
I almost chose to become a Quaker.
Were you going to marry into it or not?
No, I was just going to show up one day and be like, I'm down with what you guys are doing.
What's the deal?
Do I got to do paperwork or do I got to dunk me in water?
I want to do what you're doing.
Because the way they get married, I went to a Quaker school for a little while, Brooklyn Friends, right?
There's like these Quaker schools.
And their thing is real beautiful, man.
It's about silence.
Really?
So like every day they have a silent meeting and everyone just sits in silence and nobody speaks unless they're moved to speak.
And then the weddings, the bride and groom to be or whatever they're called, I don't know what the Quakers call them.
Yeah.
You know, whatever.
They may have some like allegories from particularly.
Quakers are, they call the weddings what?
I don't know.
But at a Quaker wedding, the way they get married is the guy and girl who are getting married just and all their friends gather around and the guy and girl just sit for about an hour and stare at each other.
And everyone sits in silence.
And then after about an hour or so, they're just married.
And nobody speaks unless God moves them to speak.
And that's it.
And I just thought that was so beautiful because if you're sitting with the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with and you're sitting there for an hour, you're probably having every fear, every hope, every insecurity, everything transpire in your head.
And you're just like, it must be a real, like, just roller coaster of emotions.
And if you feel good about it after that hour, you know, you're probably doing the right thing.
But if you start feeling some bad feelings, you probably know you're going to have to cheat.
Wow.
Yeah.
I guess at that point, you really, all you're left with sitting there after an hour probably is some pure ass honesty, probably.
That's right.
Yeah.
You said it a lot better than I did.
That's what I was trying to say.
Yeah.
And then I guess some of your friends, do they speak up in those instances or not?
If God moved them, supposedly.
Can you bring that up here?
What do we have, like a Quaker wedding sit-in?
Or is it like a um yeah, I wonder what they would call it?
I don't know.
Yeah, maybe they just call it a Quaker wedding.
Yeah, it's a good question, man.
What do they call it?
Do Quakers make often referred to as the silent ceremony.
Quaker weddings differ from the traditional Protestant ceremony in four significant ways.
There is no efficient, no giving away the bride.
A wedding certificate is signed, and there's a long period of silent open worship after which those attending may speak on the couple's behalf.
And you know, the Quakers were against slavery too early on.
They're pretty like clean.
Dude, I like that religion, man.
It's just kind of quiet and like no mantra, no dogma.
Bring up some images of these folks, huh?
Do you mind?
So we know who we're actually considering here.
Well, they look like the dude on the Quaker Oats box.
They all look like that dude.
Oh, God.
Really?
Still?
Yeah, they still kind of roll like that.
Hmm.
Get some vans or something at least.
They gotta change a little bit.
Throw on some damn quicksilver or something, you know?
Yeah, something a little more weather appropriate at least.
Orthodox Jews is the same thing.
They wear the same wool, like black suits, even like in the middle of July.
Oh, dude, I was at this halfway hour, like not a halfway house, but like a recovery house or whatever.
And this Orthodox Jewish dude had to roll in, right?
And this, and it's just like, you know, different guys staying in there and stuff.
And this guy rolls up, dude.
He was dressed like Biggie Smalls, right?
It was last summer.
Bro, it was, this was in Arizona.
It was 104 degrees.
This dude rolls up dress like Biggie Smalls and had a grill that he would cook his food on in his room at night.
Really?
Just grilling this like kind of shady fish, kind of like this fucking, you know, I don't know what type of fish it was, but it just, it was unbelievable.
The dude is pouring sweat.
His hands were all sweaty.
Every time you shook his hand, it felt like you were like babysitting one of those, like one of those oil spill animals, you know?
It was just disgusting, bro.
I'm like, oh my, I was like, if you were like, this will kill you.
You can't, this can't be like a heavenly choice or whatever.
You'll die in this.
Yeah.
I guess when their mantra or what do you, their dogma says this is how you dress, it doesn't change.
There's no update.
Yeah.
Like there's no, there's got to be Jesus, like whoever their Jesus is has to come back and be like, dude, I came back to tell you this because I can't watch you guys suffer anymore.
Yeah.
You don't have to.
You can take a couple layers off when it's hot.
Oh, we need tank tops out here, fam.
I like that you called it a shady fish.
Was it a shady fish because you just couldn't identify it?
I mean, anybody that's grilling fish in their room on a little grill like that at night, and he was trying to secretly do it, I think because one of the rules was you couldn't cook in your room because a lot of people are drug users in there.
So one dude's cooking a fish, one dude's cooking up a batch of whatever, you know, some fireball for his arm, you know.
So it's like the guys will cheat.
They'll be like, oh, he cooking.
I'm a cook.
So it wasn't the fish that was shady.
It was the whole situation of what was going on that way.
He was more shady.
It was breaking the rules.
Okay.
So the fish was just a fish.
Yeah.
All right.
Because I was trying to picture a shady fish being like.
And he kept wanting gum or something from me.
I think he couldn't have gum.
So he was like breaking.
It was like I had some kind of candy or something.
He kept wanting.
Oh, it was nerd ropes.
So this dude fucking kept, every time I get my nerd ropes open, he could hear the bag from the distance, bro, from across the desert, dude.
Like with high heels and you.
Oh, yeah, he'd come around and then watch him just nibble on this nerd rope.
This dude, oh, Goimel or something was his name.
I don't know.
That dude was...
Have you ever like, this is what I like in my background in New York, there's a lot of like Irish Catholic girls, like Catholic Puerto Ricans.
Catholic was a big religion.
It's very repressive sexually.
I almost felt like when you hooked up with one of those girls, that the repression was worth it for their energy.
They were so happy.
Like, you know, like a religious dude with nerd rope or whatever little thing he can get that's not allowed, it's almost worth it.
Like sexually, it's almost worth it for us all to be repressed to give it a little something extra.
Oh, I think that's what some of the value in having the repression in religion for sex is.
Yeah.
It's like to keep some energy in it, to keep some fuel in the tank.
Yeah.
And yeah, there's definitely been a gal when she gets a hold of your nerd rope, if you will, even, which is still, I didn't think about that, a great term for a weener.
It is a really good way to get it.
Yeah, they're definitely more keyed up about it.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, there's some girls that'll damn floss their teeth with it, you know, if you let them.
Because it's just like so forbidden.
Yeah, it's just that forbidden, you know, it's a real dessert.
But if you just, all day, you're just over there with your legs open at the bakery, then you're definitely...
It becomes, there's no value in it.
Yeah.
It's kind of a lot of our society.
We burnt out a lot of the value of things.
I think that's where we're at right now.
Me too.
We're almost like freedom's gotten too free.
Well, pornography's burned down like any, like a lot of sexual energy.
So I think you have a lot of marriages that probably are poor.
It's probably killed a lot.
Not even marriages, just sex drive and like imagination.
It's bad.
Pornography's bad.
And like, it's bad because there's no smells in it.
There's no people's feelings in it.
You're just, it's something got to be very unnatural about just staring at a modern screen moving pictures of something else that you can't smell.
It's just like visual.
And it's got to be something bad for your brain there.
Oh, dude, I remember biking across town.
I'd bike over there.
I knew a buddy had a couple of titty mags over there.
His daddy hit them, right?
And we'd bike.
I kept them in the bathroom.
And I'd bike over to his house.
It was like seven miles from my house.
Dude, it took me half of a Sunday to get over there.
And I'd bike over there and then just use their shitter all afternoon.
And I'd just be in there playing with myself.
They must have thought I was insane, dude.
I would come over there on the weekends and be all sweaty.
Go in there, just use a can for a while, touch myself, and then drink a bunch of water, take a nap, and then bike back home.
Hydrate.
You have to hydrate because you're not.
Thank God.
That means you had a vigorous masturbation.
It was young.
Everything you had was in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Back then, you really.
Yeah, it was unionized.
Yeah, the shit we got now.
You're lucky if you get ladder 14 out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The mags, because I'm from that generation too.
Ah, the mags.
So I used to put them out like that.
I used to put them out.
Yeah, and then we would share them.
One person would be, one friend would be done with them, pass them off to you, and there'd be a circle.
I would put the mags out like that, like four of them, and make my own moving picture just by looking at all of them.
Oh, just real fast?
Yeah, just real fast.
I would go like clockwise, too.
And I would just try to, you know.
Yeah.
So I was kind of ahead of the game.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
A little bit.
I was making it.
Yeah.
I used my imagination in some way to make this situation a little more valuable.
Yeah.
Because it's hard to just look at a Calvin Klein ad and just, it's tough.
Kate Moss only lasts, you know, it's just like, you know, you need movement.
You need something else.
Yeah.
I need more.
Yeah, I'm a guy who needs a little more.
You know, I need love.
I need a woman, you know, to be distant.
I need her to be adopted.
Like, that's what I need.
Yeah.
In order for me to feel something, I need her to have some real big issue that I'm trying to solve that'll never be solved that I can chase.
Like adoption's a good one.
Adopted women are like a Nicolas Cage movie almost.
That's a hole you can never fill.
The rejection from the mother.
So is Amber Heard adopted?
I would not be surprised if she was adopted.
She has that vibe to her.
Is she adopted?
Let's look it up.
I'm taking a guess.
Because adopted people just...
The rejection from the mom is just...
So there's something alluring to it.
Amber Heard.
I can't see those.
Do you find her attractive?
Amber Heard bringing it in here.
Amber Heard was born, but not adopted.
Yeah, I don't think she was adopted.
She's a younger sister named Whitney.
Um, do I, I actually, a buddy of mine had a birthday and she and I both like spoke at his birthday or whatever, did like a little I don't think it's like a eulogy.
I don't know what it is, but like a thing, you know?
And uh, so that was kind of interesting.
Just one time getting to like met her just briefly.
I don't know.
I don't, to me, she's not su that.
She's not my type, I don't think.
What's your type?
Just probably different than her, maybe.
Okay.
Not blonde, not.
Blonde hair girls don't like me, really.
No?
They've never.
I'm getting a lot of blonde, you know.
What do you get, man?
What do you have?
I know you got one.
You especially have some great jokes about weddings, man.
I was howling.
Thank you, dude.
I appreciate that.
I was howling, dude.
Thank you.
My wife, she's Greek.
Oh, wow.
Do you have to marry a Greek?
I didn't have to, and I did, which is weird because my parents didn't care about that at all.
And I did it, which makes me figure why did I do that?
But I love her.
I love my wife.
There you go.
Good.
That's a good story.
And I didn't marry her because she was Greek.
I just married her because the vibe was nice.
When I met her, I think I was at a point in my life where I'd made so many mistakes.
I don't regret any of them because they were all fun.
They were just meant to end.
Some of the funnest shit is just meant to end.
And so you can't ever, you just look back and go like, oh, that was fun, but it was meant to end.
Dude, that's such an interesting statement, man.
Yeah, I think so.
Because I think nobody ever hears that statement.
Yeah.
And so a lot of us get stuck in this space.
Oh, it has to keep going, or there's, but yeah, some of the fun is meant to end.
Wow, that's also what makes it fun.
That's what makes it so fun.
You know, this uh, this is powerful, dog.
Yeah, I mean, that's like damn Steve Austin, that's powerful, like Steve Austin.
Yeah, I mean, everything is a balance here.
It's a finite universe.
You run all the way in this direction, you're going to come out on the other side like Miss Pac-Man.
Like, this is not an infinite universe.
So it's always seeking balance.
And like, the funner something is, you know, the more you're going to pay for it later.
You're either going to pay in life.
People think they're not going to pay, but that's just because you didn't have to pay up top.
Sometimes you walk into a restaurant, you know, and you order first, get the food, but the check's coming.
Even though you ate, you think you ate and you're going to, now you got, or you're going to be washing dishes.
Yeah.
But you're going to pay.
There's always a cost.
It's just either you pay up front or you pay later.
Damn.
So, yeah, if it's that fun, it's like the check's coming.
Did you think you wouldn't get married?
Yeah, I didn't think I was getting married.
I didn't have kids.
All that stuff frightened me because of issues and stuff.
You know, parents were divorced.
Parents really had animosity towards each other.
And my mother was like a little cold.
You know, she wasn't very nurturing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So that makes it a little intimacy, a weird thing.
Did you ever go to any of the recovery meetings or get in the programs?
No, no.
No, no.
I do go to therapy, though.
Therapy helps.
Therapy helps me a lot.
My therapist, I love.
I think he's great.
I just connect with him and it works for me.
It's a man now.
You got a man.
It's a man.
Now I'm a man.
I think I'm a man enough now to be able to open up to a man.
Wow.
Back then, it was just like I had to be a woman because I felt too vulnerable.
Now, I could cry in front of a man, dude.
I could fucking cry in front of a man.
I mean, I don't cry a lot.
I haven't cried a lot, but I can.
Fuck you.
I can fucking do it.
Fuck you.
If it came to it, like, you know, we got into like a serious fucking convo, I wouldn't hide it.
Oh, I'll cry against anybody.
Yeah, I'll fucking cry.
I'll put on fucking shoulder pads and a helmet and cry.
Cry the fuck out of fucking fucking two tutties, dog.
I'll get two touchdowns and fucking cry.
You know what I'm saying?
Leave it down, son.
You're comfortable with who you are, then, that means, yeah.
Oh, dude, yeah.
I'll cry for 400 yards, dog.
Yeah.
And six touchdowns, dude.
I'm not afraid to do it.
You got like a, you got like a, I love your, I said it before.
I think I might have said it on someone's podcast, but like, you got a rhythm to you.
It's like listening to comedy jazz.
Oh, thanks, man.
And then you're imagining you're painting these pictures and you're like, you're just like there.
You go, wow, the fuck is a shady fish there.
You start to see it.
You start to see the fish acting shady.
You see the dude.
Like, you paint a picture with your comedy.
And it's jazz.
It's very, very, very rhythmic.
Thanks, man.
Like, is that, maybe that's like Louisiana?
Maybe that's that influence of kind of just like rhythm.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
When I'm feeling good, everything feels pretty good.
I always feel rude around a southerner.
Do you?
I feel rude.
I feel like my rhythm is rude.
Like, I'm, you know what I mean?
Like, because I'm good friends with Nate.
Like, me and Nate came up together.
Nate Bargatza.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I always felt rude around.
And he always kind of was like, like, always telling, his body language is always telling me, chill, like, chill.
Right.
Like, what are you?
And I'm like, I'm just living, man.
And he's like, yeah, but it's, you know, that's.
He's living at a high level.
Yeah.
A high octave.
At level that's like not where I want to be.
And I'm like, I'm sorry.
I'm taking, you know.
Yeah, Nate has a real pass.
He's real.
He has a real, not passiveness, but just like a pacificity to him.
Yeah.
He's real, real calm.
He seems organized.
Yeah.
Like he'd be a good general, I think.
Like a quiet general.
Yeah, maybe, maybe things would have been different if he was back then.
Maybe the South they lost.
Maybe they were a little too laid back.
Yeah.
You guys lost that.
Well, I think we had good generals, but I think we just didn't have...
Yeah, but the cause wasn't right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the whole thing was kind of discombobulated.
It was definitely discombobulated.
Yeah.
That was discombobulated is a good word to say.
Do you think that we could ever get back to another civil war?
Yeah, unfortunately.
Yeah.
I do.
Yeah.
But it wouldn't be the same states against each other this time.
Yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about.
It's different.
It's not like...
What would it be?
What would it be over?
It may not even be geographical.
It may be more city versus country.
where like the country's just had enough, dude.
I feel like...
Yeah.
Where people want more religious beliefs or religious-based beliefs.
I don't know.
I think maybe a religious dictator may be the only thing that could pull us back together.
Like Joel Osteen.
If he got in power at...
I was just thinking, I didn't even, he's got a mullet, kind of, right?
He's got kind of that softboy mullet, like somebody that plays second base that kind of gets a mullet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's not.
No, he's still trying to be handsome.
Yeah.
You got to grow it past handsome.
Yeah.
You got to have full balls.
Well, once you grow your mullet past handsome, dude, that's when you know you, that's when it knows you want it.
So it's comfortable with you.
You're comfortable with it.
It's a full commitment.
You're married.
At that point, you're in a relationship with your hair.
Yeah, once you've sat there for an hour together.
He's just dating his hair right now.
Yeah, he's still, it's still like, yeah.
Yeah.
It's still in the dating phase.
Yeah, what would a Civil War be about?
It would probably be about abortion.
Abortion would be one of them.
Bathrooms.
People are really upset about bathrooms.
Like, yo, man, one group's like, yo, we got enough bathrooms.
And another side's like, yo, we need more bathrooms.
Yeah.
And it's ironic because construction workers most of the time believe in less bathrooms, but it would be good for their business to build more.
You know what I mean?
That's a great point.
I mean, think about that.
Yeah.
And I always wanted to know if there should be like, I don't like, should there be gay and straight bathrooms?
Gay and straight as well.
Well, because if I'm a gay dude and I get to roll into a place where other dudes has their penises out.
Yeah, it's like a fat dude walking into a barbecue.
This is great.
But that's okay.
I'm not saying it's anything wrong with it.
No, but I understand what you're saying.
Or if there's a, should there be, hey, I'm a pedophile.
Can I just go pee by myself somewhere to keep me on whatever path, you know, to keep me away from, you know what I'm saying?
Like, how often do you separate it?
I know exactly.
These are really difficult problems to solve.
Because what if you know you're a pediophile, right?
You know it.
Pediophile.
And you don't want to go in there.
You don't want to go in there because it's just.
Pedophile is a very hydrating peda.
A very hydrated pedophile.
Because you mix pediolite and pedophile.
Let me just turn.
That's me on screen.
Turn the phone off.
Yeah, I just turned it off.
Yeah.
Crazy idea.
Yeah, because I don't know, because it's just like we keep separating everything.
We keep separating everything, you know?
But you kind of have to.
That's the problem.
Like to govern this whole thing, that's the problem with freedom.
It's like the oxymoronic thing about freedom is, you know, I need to be okay with you doing something different and you need to be okay with me doing something different.
But by virtue of the fact that we're okay with us doing something different because we're free, we don't want to hang out with each other.
So we separate.
And then somehow you got to be like, it's got to be like a detente.
Like, hey, man, you're going to that club.
We're going to this club.
You believe in that.
I believe in that.
Obviously, we're not going to hang out because we believe different things, but that's going to create separation and eventually cause a problem that threatens freedom.
So it's kind of like this built-in oxymoronic tenant to fucking what freedom is.
It's like built to fail.
And that's why authoritarians always come in and just make everything the same, you know?
And then you're like, fuck, that was inevitable.
And then that gets stale because, you know, you need Jewish people to complain in order for things to get better.
Yeah.
You know, like if Hitler got what he wanted, they wouldn't, nothing would get better because there's nobody around to be like, ah, this place is a little too small.
It's a little too hot.
We need to change this.
The food's a little cold.
And then nobody knows what's good or not.
But then that never ends, though.
You got to curtail it back.
I think at some point you got to Christian it back a little.
Christian it back.
Then it's like if you get so far down that this is wrong, then you're just at the point where it's like the freedom thing.
It's like, when is this ever.
Right.
It's like too negative, too negative, too negative.
Right, well, it's like we're never...
Right, right.
Like at some point, you can't always have a problem.
Right.
At some point, things have got to be like, this is good enough.
Right.
Because then that fosters greed.
Because you're like, it's not going to, this is bad, this is bad.
Maybe this will fix it.
This will fix it.
There's a problem every way you look at.
There's a problem everywhere you look at everything.
It's tough.
The only way to be okay is for us to just fucking die.
Do you think...
Like, do you think that humans are supposed to be here?
When you look at the rest of nature, it's really interesting.
It's like...
At this point in my life, I believe that our perspective is as involved in what reality is as reality is in and of itself.
You know what I mean?
Like me and you could be going through the same town.
Right.
And like, let's say I'm hungry.
Like, what, walking through it or driving?
Well, we're strolling.
Okay.
We're strolling.
Or does that even matter?
It doesn't even matter, but I like the visual of it.
We're walking, hanging out.
We're talking.
It's a real mellow talk.
We're chilling.
Your mote's moving a little bit because it's a little breeze.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
My hair looks stupid because my mother-in-law cut it.
Yeah.
And I got to figure out a way to get out of that, but that keeps happening.
Well, you guys live with her.
Well, you know, I told her once I got another haircut and she made some like passive aggressive comments.
And now I'm like, I'm locked into this haircut.
Dude, when I was young, this lady, Miss Bobby, used to cut my hair, right?
And she wasn't even, I don't know if she haircut or not, but she had a stroke one time and I didn't know what had happened.
I didn't know if she was doing something or whatever.
I just met her.
And so I fucking sat in this room, bro, in the haircutting chair while she laid on the floor for like six minutes, dude.
I had no idea what was going on.
Did you ever find out?
Yeah, her daughter came in the room and was like, oh my God, they're having a stroke and they call the ambulance.
But it was crazy, man.
I just remember I didn't know.
I didn't know if she had taken a nap or if she was just so old or something.
Did that cause any trauma for you while you're getting haircut?
Are you like, do you keep asking, are you okay?
I actually ended up cutting my own hair at some point in my life for like probably 17, 15, 17 years.
Yeah.
But so we're walking in the place.
Okay.
You're hungry.
I'll say you're hungry.
I want to fuck.
Right.
So since we're walking, we're inhabiting the same reality, but you're driven by a desire to eat.
I'm driven by a desire to fuck.
So you're going to notice all the food places.
I'm going to notice all the whores.
So our realities are different.
So our desires and our perceptions, I think, create what reality is as much as what it actually is.
We're walking through the same place, but we're noticing different things.
So the reality is different for both of us, even though there's this blank slate of what it is.
So it's sort of that thing.
Does a tree make a sound in the forest if nobody's there to hear it?
Yes and no, because you need the faculty of sound to be able to hear it.
So without humans at all, it doesn't make a sound.
But the only way, the reason why sound is a phenomenon is because we have ears.
So we wouldn't even be asking a question if there was no people here.
So you need both for even the question to be asked.
So we're part of this.
Like, look, you built this whole shit.
This is your imagination.
Like, this is like, this is just, this is just a manifestation of ideas.
This is part of reality now, but this was in you.
You were like, I like this picture here.
I want that thing there.
I want smart waters for my guests.
This is all, this is Theo, like manifested.
So like you've, this is reality, right?
But this is, you've made it.
And this is like, you've, you've built it.
You built reality.
You know, reality wasn't here without you.
It's like, you know, so it's, it's a little bit of a symbiotic relationship happening at the same time.
So we kind of like build reality while we're going, like a dark tunnel with nothing.
But do you think that we've sometimes I wonder if years from now we'll look back and be like, holy shit, we went down a crazy, uncomfortable path of the reality we built, you know?
And like, will we look back and be like, oh man, that whole path they took was wrong and this is the correct way to go?
Like, I just feel like sometimes we've gotten so far from like nature and things that it really like intrinsically like make us feel good.
Maybe, yeah.
That we're so far from those receptors even that it's getting like kind of not dour because life is, you know, there's a lot of great moments.
But overall, is it is and I wonder, it could just be American society doing well, you know, I don't know.
Comfort corrupts eventually.
It feels like that a little bit.
It does.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe like we would feel more fulfilled if we were still hunting and women still had hair on their vaginas and stuff like that.
There was a little more unpleasantries that we were used to.
Because when you make things pleasant, pleasant, pleasant, then you want more pleasant, more pleasant.
Like, oh, there's no hair to choke on where I'm meeting or pussy, but now I want her pussy to taste like honeydew.
And you just keep going and you keep going.
Yeah.
To like you actually start putting syrup in there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is where we're at.
Which is where we're at.
Like if there's no, if it doesn't taste like syrup, then we're a little dissatisfied.
Yeah.
I mean, people are selling freaking, you know, condiments and stuff like that for the body and the crotch.
Yeah.
What else, man?
We had some good news topics that came up.
What's happening in the news, guys?
Let me see.
What do we have here?
Is that you as Abraham Lincoln?
I guess it is.
Yeah.
Someone made that.
That's really a nice thing somebody drew with all the different faces on it.
That's very cool.
All the podcasts and before everything fell apart.
Yeah.
'Cause it used to be a real scene, right?
It's just like more individual scenes, you know?
Yeah.
Do you feel that?
because you guys were doing it.
You guys did...
Yeah, me and Chris.
And what happened?
Was there a reason you guys took it off?
He just run its course?
Yeah, it kind of ran its course.
He wanted to do different things.
And, you know, I wanted to do different things.
And, you know, we ended it kind of on a high note, I guess.
Like, you know, I know there's a lot of speculation about it and all this, but, you know, it was.
Is there?
Yeah, there's a lot of speculation.
But in retrospect, when you look back, you're like, yeah, we're probably both glad it ended when it did.
And fans should be happy it ended when it did.
You know, it got a real cult following.
People were really into it.
Me and Chris had a real rhythm that we built.
And it was this two-man comedy, which I love, man.
It's like a, I love that.
I love that.
I just love feeling, you know, it's like, me and you would be real good friends because it's not totally smooth, but there's moments where it's smooth.
But if we spent a lot of time together, it would get really smooth.
Oh, wow.
But it's real.
I mean, the bumpy moments are kind of real, right?
That's how I kind of like my wife.
Because usually I, like, if I was seduced by a girl, I'd fall in love with her and then it would turn to shit.
And I'm like, that's not the right way to go.
And then the people who I want to be around, it's always a little, but there's work.
Because anything that's real takes work.
Yeah.
So like my wife, I didn't have a great time the first time.
She bored the hell out of me.
I hope she doesn't watch this podcast.
Really?
Yeah.
She bored the hell out of me.
She just sat there fucking silent.
And I remember my friend, who unfortunately is going through a rough time right now, but he told me I was complaining about it.
I was like, she doesn't talk.
She doesn't say anything.
He's been married for a long time.
And he was going like that.
So you're complaining about that?
And then that changed my perspective, which changed my reality.
I was like, oh, shit, maybe that is a good thing long term, that she's kind of chill, comfortable in her own skin, doesn't need to talk all the time.
Because people who need to talk all the time are usually covering up for the fact that they feel insecure.
They're bored.
And I changed my whole fucking outlook on it.
Wow.
And then you end up marrying her.
And then I ended up marrying her.
So it's like, I love the two-man.
I love, like, I had a character and I had my friend who passed away, Angelo.
We did this live show and we did this two-man comedy, man.
Angelo Bowers?
No.
Angelo Lozada, New York comic.
And he passed away.
And it was just, there's something magical about when you're connecting with someone on a comedic vibe and the two of you don't know where it's going.
And you create something bigger than yourself.
Anytime you're creating something bigger than yourself is a beautiful thing.
I think a lot of times people get depressed or anxious because they're thinking about themselves too much because we're boring.
The thing is, we may think we're great, but we're all just kind of like shitty humans walking around shitting and pissing and having itchy balls and like we're dying slowly with air hardenings happening to us.
Isn't that wild that oxygen, the same thing that keeps us alive, is also slowly killing us?
That's what happens.
Really?
Just like a fruit.
Damn.
Fruit, the air gives the fruit life, but if you leave it too long, the air actually kills the fruit.
It rots it.
That's air exposure, overexposure.
Damn, it's like Aaron Brockovich kind of.
It's exactly like Aaron Brockovich.
And so I love that two-man thing, and that's what me and Chris had.
And maybe it just kind of reached its thing where it was like, all right, we did it, you know?
And like, when you look back, you're kind of like, that comedy exists for the three years, and then he's doing great stuff.
I'm doing something different.
Was it scary to change?
That would be the part that's scary for me, the scary part to change, to think like, okay, something else is going to come along that's going to fill this space or I'm going to, this is going to affect my creativity or it's going to affect my livelihood even, like my ticket sales or my people to be able to hear me.
Did those kind of things come into your head?
Because that comes into my head because I do another podcast.
You know, I think about, well, if I didn't do this or if I didn't do this, or, you know, now we're all our own businesses so much that it's like, if I let go of one little segment of my business, is that going to mess everything up?
It gets scary.
Yeah.
I used to worry a lot more.
With that, I didn't worry at all.
And even thinking about it when you were asking it, it's like, I don't know.
I guess that means I matured a little bit because it's like, maybe you believe in yourself a little more.
You just trust something's going to happen.
You believe in your talents.
And also taking me accepting my own mortality, which was something that always scared me.
Yeah.
Helps because it takes the pressure off everything.
It's like if it's good or it's not, it doesn't matter because it's ephemeral.
It's going away anyway.
So might as well try to connect to people.
Might as well try to have a good time whether there's money involved or not.
As long as I'm having a good time, the experience is the same.
Like if me and you were sitting here, this is a huge podcast, right?
If it was a small podcast, what would be the difference in the feeling that me and you were having?
There'd be no difference.
Yeah.
There'd be no difference between like what we're trying to do here, trying to get to know each other, which is a you know, a challenge for like we're just meeting each other too.
And if it's filmed, because why not monetize that in this era?
And like, sometimes my wife talks, I'm like, don't speak unless you fucking, we've got cameras rolling.
The other day I invited a friend up that I don't know, but like kind of a buddy out for lunch.
And I was like, fuck, it feels insane inviting somebody out, but not to podcast.
Because it gets so busy.
But go on, I interrupt you.
Yeah, no, but I was just saying it's that takes the pressure off for me a lot.
That takes the pressure off when I think about that.
I put things into perspective and go like, when you're talking about, do I get scared, like scared about like, oh, it's going to hurt my ticket sales or my livelihood.
That fear always creeps in.
But then I realize like, even if it does, you know, I'm dying anyway.
Or even if it doesn't and I get money, I'm still dying anyway.
So hopefully I'm having a good time.
Damn.
And the one thing I did, the silver lining from having that moment when I got shot and that I can share, and it is an experience that not a lot of people have that I did have where you think you're going to die.
In that moment, you think it's over.
And I did not like the way I felt because you have this moment.
It's like a dream where it's hard to explain.
Like, you know, like a dream, it's like, how did that happen in two seconds?
How did I, how did that whole story happen?
And then scientists are saying like it only happens in a second.
Your brain somehow does that thing where you get like this recap where you look at yourself, you have this feeling about who you are, what you've done, everything.
And I was like, oh, I didn't like it.
And so thankfully I was able to not die then.
But I also am burdened with this knowledge of like, fuck, I don't want to feel that again.
So like when I have that moment when I'm dying, I want to be chill.
I want to be able to be like, I like who I am.
I like what I did.
I like the way I lived.
I was true to whatever it is I want to do or who I am.
And I tried at least or to be brave or to be me or whatever it is was it felt important in that moment.
And like, so I guess that's the silver lining of that moment.
It sucked other than that.
And like knowing like, oh shit, that's what you live for.
You live for that moment.
You want that moment to be peaceful.
You want that moment because that moment is coming.
There's no way to avoid it for any of us.
So all this other shit comes and goes, ups and downs, but that shit is a certainty.
And you have that moment of awareness.
That's interesting.
Are you able to recreate that moment in any other way in your life that you've noticed since then?
Are there times you're like, oh, this is a little bit of a recreation of that?
No.
Wow.
No.
No.
There's so much going on.
It's so weird, that fucking moment, man.
It's a weird moment.
Fuck, where were you laying down?
No, I was in the car.
You were sitting in the car?
I was sitting in the car dealing with him while it was happening.
And also, that's why I'm saying it's so weird, was also like having all these thoughts, you know, and like feelings about people I love, bad things I've done.
You're bleeding.
I'm bleeding.
It's all happening.
It happens in a second.
The sound, I can't even remember the sequence of it.
It's just kind of happening.
And you're in the moment and you're in two places.
I'm in the moment reacting, doing the things I was doing with him.
Like we were tussling.
And I was also like someplace else in this fucking like last moment place where you're something in you knows like, oh shit, this is it.
Because I didn't think I was living.
I mean, I'm in a car.
I know I'm shot.
It feels ominous.
You know, I don't know.
I just, my mind just went, I'm dying.
This is it.
It's over.
The whole thing's over.
You're in this.
You can cognitively know.
You can cognitively say to yourself, life is finite, but you can't really feel it.
No, you can't feel it.
Unless you're in it.
And then you're like, oh, fuck.
And it's all like the reality of it being so ephemeral and all going away is just like, it's freaky, man.
It's like a, just now when I was talking about it, I was like, oh, that's free.
You feel it.
Oh, yeah.
When you get that feeling sometimes, like this is all going to disappear one day.
It's fucking.
Like just now I felt translucent.
I felt invisible just even when I was talking about it.
I felt like blurry.
It's like, oh, fuck.
This is all blurry.
You know, in its essence, it's like really like an abstract painting.
There's nothing defined and we're on the way.
It's weird.
And so I don't know.
That was a good, that was a silver lining of that moment.
Damn.
But it also takes the pressure off.
It's scary, but it takes the pressure of going like, well, you know, if you're having fun, what's the difference?
Yeah, because sometimes I'm like, am I how much fun?
What am I doing?
How much pressure am I putting on myself?
You know, I think about those things all the time.
Am I working?
You know, just like it's hard sometimes to.
Do you have any like hobbies you like to do outside, like something else where you're not thinking about?
Yeah, I like doing jiu-jitsu and I like doing, what else do I like doing?
Playing Wordle, playing Scrabble on my phone.
How do you feel when you're doing those things?
You probably feel no anxiety when you're doing those things.
Pretty chill, yeah.
Yeah, that's what I do.
I like talking to my brother.
Those are all chill fucking.
Having dessert?
Having dessert is a great moment.
It's good, huh?
That's a real good moment, yeah.
Fuck.
That brings a lot of good feelings.
I had a couple last night, boy, had too many.
I like going to different meetings and shit.
Let's pull that news story that came back up.
Let's get it one more time.
I'm curious as to what happened with the wedding and stuff.
Like, where you said, did you have dating issues?
Where was just some of your stuff there?
Because I have a ton of that shit, man.
Yeah, well, the wedding material you're talking about, right?
Oh, the wedding material.
But no, just like you had said, like, you know, you didn't think you were going to get married.
Because I worry about that sometimes.
I was scared, man.
Like when it came...
It's real hard.
And I had the same thing.
I give a lot of credit to my buddy Paul Verzi, who's a comic who has been married for a long time, has kids.
They're kind of grown up.
Was kind of like married before he started making money as a comedian.
And that was like his priority was family.
And that's what he wanted.
And he just helped me.
He kind of was my like, he was like my maverick.
He guided me in with that.
Like he helped me get the ring.
He showed me where to go.
He talked me through the feelings.
Like on the night I was going to propose, this is honest to God, the truth.
I felt everything in my body was like, I just want to leave.
Wow.
I just wanted to get in the car and drive like Thelma and Louise.
I don't even know where I was going.
Drive away?
I just want to drive away.
I didn't want to do it.
Every fear hit me.
And then I did it, and it felt incredible.
It was incredible when I did it.
But it was the opposite before.
I couldn't sit still in my skin.
Like, I was just uncomfortable.
I wanted to leave.
I wanted to get out of my body, out of the situation.
But, okay, so you have those feelings, but was it telling you the situation is wrong?
The feeling was, telling me the situation is wrong.
Everything's wrong.
I was doing everything, but it was just the fear of commitment.
You know, it was a fear of commitment.
It was the fear of the choice I was making, which I knew would have consequences.
That was something outside of myself and has to do with my issues growing up.
And it's hard.
It's hard to face that shit.
That's the scariest thing I could ever think of.
It's the scariest.
Yeah.
And look, marriage is like, it's work, but it's like stand-up's work too, right?
And we love stand-up.
We love comedy.
It's work sometimes.
But like flying on planes and doing all that shit's work.
But then when we're on stage, that's the good part.
So it's like, it's real.
Our love for stand-up is real.
And I look at my love for my wife and I'm like, it's real, you know?
We fight.
We have different opinions.
But overall, like we support each other.
All the good you get out of it is just puts everything in perspective about everything else is not being important.
And like it's family.
You have a new family and family never leaves.
And you have a womb.
You're like, you have a cozy place.
You have a cozy place where you can, she's asleep.
I go down in the basement.
I put my hand on my balls.
I watch a game and I feel I'm at home.
And that's just a nice feeling, even if she's not with me, which sometimes is nice.
She's in another room.
Jesus, more rooms.
That's why it's like fucking more rooms, basements, upper basements.
Yeah.
And then when you have a kid, it's like, that's the thing, man.
I mean, I hate to be so cynical about it, but.
No, this is all interesting because I feel a lot of these things.
A lot of people do, I think.
I mean, even when I'm watching your special and talking about the wedding and stuff and just a lot, it's like, fuck.
When you have a kid, you realize what the meaning of life is.
It's pretty cynical.
It's no different than a string bean or a cockroach.
The meaning of life is kind of just like to reproduce.
That's what all animals are doing.
And when you do it, it's like nature.
You don't even have a choice.
You just have these feelings of, you know, you loving something more than yourself.
And then you like, everything just feels easier because like, oh, you're like, oh, that's, that's what it's about.
You're a little like, oh, this is fucking, this isn't, this is, it's pretty cynical.
Like, there's no like great philosophy to figure out or no apex feeling.
It's just like to give to her or him or they or they be or whatever your kid I think.
Them.
Yeah.
Just one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You only have one seat.
Yeah.
But that that takes you out of yourself.
So maybe anything that takes you out of yourself makes you happy.
Something bigger than you or outside of you.
Yeah, that's the root of a lot of recovery stuff, too, is just feeling better is just getting out of yourself.
I respect addicts the most.
In fact, I tell my really good friend who's an addict that he's my role model.
And I mean that because I know what he has to do.
I know what he has to go through.
And he's built a family and he's sober and just being sober and that he works out so much and put his addiction in another place.
It's just, I know how hard what he does is.
I know what he's going through.
I have people very close to me who have, who have lost that battle for now in big ways that are painful.
And then him to be able to day by day, he's just my role.
That strength for me, like that's who I look up to.
Like I look up to him, really.
It has nothing to do with career or anything like that.
It's like, you know, I know he's he's fighting that battle.
And I just, I have all the respect for people who have to do, who go through that.
You know, I'm lucky enough.
It's just lucky that you don't have that.
It's like my dad, my dad told me, he was very cynical, but he told me everyone, it's luck.
Most of life is luck.
And that was very disconcerting to hear as a young person.
But the way he explained is like, even if you have your health, like Michael Jordan, you go, oh, Michael Jordan, that's not luck.
That's, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
But like, he's lucky he didn't get hit by a car.
He's lucky.
We're always lucky if we're like healthy or like, you know, nothing bad's happened because we don't control that shit.
Right.
There could be a shooter come in here right now and end us.
Yeah, you already got shot.
Yeah.
So at this point, probably going to be your boy right here.
Yeah, bro.
The chances happens twice.
I don't want that.
No, you don't want that.
But yeah, I can just totally, man, my whole life I've had that commit that when it comes to relationships and stuff like that commitment, you know, like not even, never wanting to be totally attached to somebody else, you know, like even my girlfriends, I would introduce them a lot of times by their first and I would just say, this is my friend, or this is like, I would never want to fucking have somebody else have a say in who I was, you know.
That means you're independent, you're strong.
It does, but it's also about commitment.
Like, you know, it's really about, that's true.
Some of it could be independence, but I think some of it's about like, yeah, I just want to be totally stand on my own.
And I don't want, if somebody thinks something of that person, I don't want it to them think of me, like it's like I have some.
You don't want it to negatively reflect on you?
Right.
Yeah.
Which is kind of a crazy, selfish way to think.
It's not even, it's not a choice I make.
It's something that was baked into me.
Right.
You know, it's something that I know isn't healthy or conducive to feeling okay.
Isn't it weird how we're like these sensitive, like of all the species, we're like this, this most sensitive with feelings and Freudian issues?
Like a turtle doesn't think about his childhood.
Yeah.
A turtle's not like my mom didn't, but it's very valid for humans.
It's weird.
Like they don't have issues.
They don't need therapy.
Animals don't need therapy.
Yeah, that's why sometimes I'm like, are we this loose end of existence that's not, are we like the appendix?
You know, are we like this thing that wasn't supposed to be there?
Like, you know, like the show lost kind of.
Are we like the thing that wasn't supposed to happen?
If you lined all the animals and stuff up, like we kind of fit in a little.
Yeah.
But we're definitely the outsider.
For sure.
Big time.
We need pavement.
We need toilets.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Maybe this is just an evolutionary mistake, like a you know, like a byproduct of like that evolutionary will that carries species through time into survival.
And maybe we're just, yeah, maybe we're just a product of that will and then you're like, ah, well, the end result of that is not supposed to be what it is because we've made, because we kind of mastered it.
All the other animals still have some weaknesses, but we're like Superman of the species.
Yeah, we're making shows about, I mean, it's like we're like, we're like, yes.
We're like, yeah, like we're making shows about life.
We're like, you're living it.
We're like, we're doing it twice.
Right.
We're doing holograms.
We're perfecting.
We're making it look perfect, even though it's not.
It's like, it's interesting, man.
It's interesting to think.
Yeah.
But then also, I can feel a God a lot of times.
I can feel that there's a power that's greater than me, you know?
It's got to be.
So it's like that makes you think you're connected to something else, that there is some purpose, you know, because I can, and I have no doubt that I feel a God, you know?
So, I mean, it's just my perception.
Maybe, maybe that's what it's, maybe we evolved in order to fucking bitch all the other species who think they're the shit.
Because they walk around arrogant.
They're not humble.
We're the only animals.
Yeah, right.
I mean, fucking lions walk around like their shit don't stink, dude.
And it's like, look, I get it.
You're beautiful.
They're so beautiful.
They're fucking killing machines and they run shit, but not anymore.
Not anymore, dude.
We'll get some fat, lazy trophy hunter who's a CEO over here who wants to feel because he's got too much who come and just shoot you for sport.
Damn.
So don't fucking walk around like all like that.
It's not like that anymore.
It's not all like that.
You can't be rolling around the jungle like that.
So maybe we, like we get humbled by God, maybe we're their God and that was our purpose because they were fucking acting up.
Maybe they were all sinning.
Like why the fuck they got to be dicks like that?
Why does a hyena have to kill his brother and sister just to, you know, just because he wants to be the bad one and show his mother that he can survive more?
Why not help him?
Why not find out what he's good at?
He's your brother.
He's not as strong as you, but maybe he's good at puzzles or some shit.
Yeah.
Raccoons eat their children if they want to have more sex.
They're probably going to hell.
That's bad.
That's sinning.
They have to.
So maybe we were like their God and be punishing them.
You could easily, if you open the door to, imagine you open the door to hell and there aren't a million raccoons in there.
You would have to be disappointed.
You'd be like, dude, they're allowed to do that and I'm going to hell because I cheated on my math test.
That would be bad.
Dude, there's a picture of some dogs having sex when we're young and my brother and I are both hugging one of the dogs around the neck.
Pretty cool.
Wait, say that again?
There's a picture of two dogs mating, our neighbor's dogs, and my brother and I are both hugging one of the dogs around the neck.
We don't know that they're mating.
We just think they're buddies or you know like that and I was like best friends.
That's a moment right there.
Yeah.
Well, they were fucking it.
You just guys got it.
Great picture.
Probably never, never happened.
Yeah.
You might, that might be one of the only times two people hugged two animals while they were mating and got a picture out of it.
Yeah.
Like that, that's one of those rare things.
You're like, is Theo and his brother the only people who did that?
Who made that happen?
Yeah, you could Google that right now.
It would not be there.
That's one of those things.
You could Google most things.
Something would come up.
I guarantee you if he Googles right now, two brothers hugging two animals fucking.
Two brothers hugging two animals fucking.
Zero comes up.
Yeah, brothers hugging mating animals.
Mating animals.
I told you.
I told you.
What's the closest thing we got?
Is there anything right there?
What's that picture with the humans in it?
Nope.
Oh, that's autism.
Bam.
Every time they sneak that autism hug in there, baby damn.
Every time, baby damn.
I love if there's anything like human hugging fuck, human hugging sex animals, it's always autism.
Let's hit a couple news topics, and then we'll get Giannis out of here.
You got to make sure to catch his special mom love.
I can only vouch for the first 34 minutes of it, but man, it was awesome.
Dude, thank you.
And thank you for saying that.
Thank you for having me.
I really appreciate it.
This is the way to get the word out.
And you got a big audience.
So I appreciate you having me, man.
Yeah, it's cool, man.
I'm glad to get to meet you and spend time with you.
Yeah, I can't believe we haven't over the years.
I don't know.
But then once podcasts have started, people don't see each other as much in a weird way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess so.
And there was always kind of the West Coast, East Coast thing that kind of kept people apart.
I guess you guys would come in and do O and A, and that's how you'd meet some East Coast guys.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah.
And otherwise, like, yeah, there was just that separation.
Podcast has kind of bridged that gap a little bit.
That's a good point.
Well, we started doing podcasts because we saw how rich you guys were getting.
Oh, people were thinking that?
Oh, hell yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the ones of us who are fucking, you know, have some smarts at least.
You're going, Jesus Christ.
Not only are they making money, but they're having a blast.
They're having a good fucking time.
Like, why would we go do six sets a night, you know, to go perform on some late night show, you know, when nobody's watching?
Well, these guys are having a great time.
Yeah.
We were like looking at a party.
We were like, you know, we were like looking at that party going on and we're like, our party sucks, but we didn't want to admit that it sucks.
Then finally someone's got to go, dude, just because it's our party, we got to stop thinking our party's great because we want to defend our party.
Because, you know, it's like that thing where like, I can make fun of my brother, but you can't kind of thing.
Like, even though I know he's stupid, but I, only I could say it, you can't.
And then you're going like, dude, just like join the party, man.
They're having a blast.
They're making comedy.
They're having fun.
They're talking to each other, laughing.
Yeah.
And making a new type of comedy.
This is a new thing.
Like, stand-up was a thing that came along during vaudeville when there was no technology where you could film anything.
And now it's like, this is a new thing.
It's like a mixture of like improv, riffing, stand-up.
I don't know what it is, but it's not just radio.
It's not just like jokes.
It's like a podcast.
It's a new ethos.
Yeah.
And it's so, I mean, there's so many now, too.
It's like, I mean, a few years ago, there was literally even three years ago.
And I feel like it like doubles, the amount of them doubles.
I wonder how often.
Because it's crazy.
Like people years ago that were like, I remember Chris Dillio was like, I'm never doing a fucking podcast.
I remember Amy Schumer was like, poo-poo, you know, and then now everybody's done one.
Or if they can do one, they do one.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Even people that's damn rich.
I think Biden does one.
I don't even know.
He doesn't even know if he does one.
If you ask him, he might say yes.
Oh, dude.
That freaking child pettitor.
Yeah.
Let's look at this right here.
Oh, did you see this?
The man.
What is this about?
This is the guy that attacked Chappelle.
Says he was triggered.
Yeah, what is it?
Which is it also says an apparent change of an apparent change of tune?
That seems like an attorney's probably told him to say this, huh?
Yeah, that's a good call.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That gives him much more of a leg to stand on, I feel like.
Yeah, it gets like, hey, this will get some people behind you.
I thought this was fake, actually, when I first heard about this.
Oh, Lee is quoted as saying, I identify as bisexual.
I wanted him to know what he said was triggering.
I wanted him to the next time he should consider first running his material by people it could affect.
Can you imagine the arrogance of that statement?
Well, if this guy's bi or, you know, the male side of him should have freaking attacked him.
He should have attacked himself before he said.
Well, it's just, I don't, you can't, you can't, then you don't need to listen to this man.
Go listen to a man or woman that you really enjoy, I think.
Right.
I thought they hired somebody to do this.
I really, really did.
I also like thought that with the slap, you know, Hollywood's 9-11, the Will Smith and Chris Rock slap.
At first, I was like, that's fake.
I think a lot of people thought because I guess a lot of people, you know, we stage shit now.
Everyone's got to make a spectacle to online.
That's what it's become, you know?
Yeah.
It's like because we, it gets views.
I mean, the news even does that, right?
They just create a spectacle with their headlines and their fear-mongering and all that because it gets views.
We're all competing to get attention.
So inevitably, you're like, did they stage that for attention?
There's always a question in your brain.
Yeah, and they beat the guy up pretty good.
But even if I'm somebody, I don't have anything going on.
You're like, hey, I'll give you half a million, 200,000.
Some guys are going to break a couple of your bones.
Can you handle it?
If I'm already bisexual, I'm probably by joints or whatever.
Sure.
I could probably take a shoulder out of socket.
So you said even though he got beat, there is a chance it could still be.
It could still be fake.
Oh, I'm not saying that it definitely isn't, but I would not have been shocked.
I think you could find a guy for 200 grand that would take an ass whooping and go potentially.
He's not going to go to jail.
Do you think he'll go to jail?
I heard he's getting out, but I mean, it happened in Los Angeles, right?
I feel like that's what happens in Los Angeles.
Criminals get out.
They get off now.
So, I mean, especially if he says he was triggered by jokes.
I feel like they go like, oh, we must have had the wrong guy.
But then I guess if you're trans, say if you're trans, and this guy isn't trans.
Well, he doesn't say he's, he says he's bi.
But then this dude is like, you're dang, he's like, you're a Rudy Rudiger, kind of, isn't he?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, if you're really on that side of the boat.
He's like your John Brown.
He's a...
John Brown was down for the bad.
Oh, for Cleveland?
No, John Brown was the dude who attacked the armory to protest slavery.
He was down for the, like, he did the crazy kind of suicide mission.
Oh, he did?
He attacked the armory.
And yeah, he was like down for the cause.
But are people like heroizing this guy?
Are the gay and trans community heroizing him?
I don't know.
That's a good question.
I don't know.
I don't know how they, I think he just came out saying this.
So maybe they're, maybe they're having their meeting now to figure out how to praise him.
Maybe they're having their media meeting to go like, oh, you know, now we can now we can like him.
I don't know what they're doing.
Oh, yeah, because he's adding in also, plus jokes earlier in the night made by an opener talking pediophilia rocked Lee as well.
He says he was sexually abused as a minor.
Well, that's one of the side effects of being a damn miner these days, I feel like, dude, you got to get, I mean, you got to get into a better industry.
If you guys are underground, somebody's going to touch your ass on the way up.
Yeah, I'm disconcerting how much of that is going on.
Like, how much.
I love how the guy's arm is out of socket and they still cuff him.
Oh, my God.
Like, dude, the Lord already cuffed this dude.
You know what I'm saying, bro?
Damn.
Seems a little redundant.
Yeah.
I mean, his arm is backwards.
How did they even get his arm back normal?
I mean, it looks like he's an action figure and you pop it out and put it out a different way.
That's 200,000, man.
They spat on me and twisted me as if on purpose.
Yeah, no, they definitely didn't do it on accident.
No, they weren't doing it on accident.
They didn't break your arm on accident, man.
At least he's aware of that.
This is interesting right here.
I told him my mother and grandmother, who fought for his civil rights to be able to speak, would be upset at the things he said.
This is a perfect example of what you were talking about earlier, where things go kind of this full circle way, where it's like you want.
What were you saying earlier?
You said it's like you want to get these freedoms, but at a certain point that kind of like- Yeah.
It eats itself.
There's nowhere to go.
Like, yeah, it's like, dude, do you know how contradictory what you're saying?
You're saying, my grandparents fought for this right.
You're doing what the cops would do to him back then, or maybe sometimes now.
But you're doing what like white America would have done to him back then.
So what you're saying makes no fucking sense.
You're being the bad person.
But he doesn't see that.
He has no awareness of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's shutting down a black man doing comedy, getting paid millions of dollars, being adorned by all these people who have paid to see him.
You're stopping that because you think you're doing it for civil rights.
It's twisted logic.
Well, it's interesting because it's like, well, what's the thing then?
Is it the fact that you don't want him to, like, if the money's not involved, then it kind of changes it.
What do you mean?
Well, I guess like, man, it's so hard to think and say stuff.
Like you want him to be able to speak.
I don't know what I'm saying exactly.
Well, you're saying if the money's not involved.
Well, it's like civil rights.
Like you want to, you know, freedom of speech.
Like if your grand, he says my grandmother fought free freedom of speech.
Right.
Right.
So now he has that freedom of speech.
Right.
But is it because he's making money?
Like why?
Why did he do it?
What's his reasoning why he did it?
And what determines like, is it, what determines if his speech is free or not?
Like at what point is it the fact that he's making, I don't know what I'm saying exactly.
Well, I mean, the ridiculous thing is he's making jokes.
Right.
So that's a weird.
It means your society's in a weird place when the jesters are being attacked because.
Right, this is specifically a place where he's making jokes.
He's making jokes, man.
He says on the sign, it's like this is a comedy show.
It's a comedy weekend.
I mean, even this guy knows that.
I mean, Dave Chappelle's a comedian.
Dave Chappelle does not work at an auto body shop.
He's a comedian.
Everyone knows who he is.
People aren't paying to go watch him fix a car.
They're watching him do jokes.
And so when comedians are getting attacked, you start going like, oh, society may be getting a little unhealthy because the kings, you know, they would keep a jester around to keep them honest, to tell them the truth with jokes.
That's what we do.
We sugarcoat the truth a little bit.
So it's like, you know, I just want to say like, hey, maybe the jester's right, right?
Isn't that what we do?
We kind of put a little candy over the truth.
Like, you know, if you don't want to hear the jester anymore, then that's a little bit strange.
Then there's something strange.
Something's off.
The society is not healthy.
And it's the black community keeps attacking their own kind.
Yeah.
Which is bizarre.
That is bizarre.
All right.
What else we got?
Any other good news story came in?
Sometimes it's nice to podcast because I don't have to go deal with the rest of my life.
Isn't that crazy?
Even though it's a great life, it's like you just have to make choices and do things.
I think it's the same reason why you listen to a podcast or watch a movie.
It's like sometimes it's like you just don't want to have to, I don't know, I sound ungrateful.
No, but I know what you're saying is right now you're in the moment.
You're not thinking about tough stuff.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's not having to think about tougher stuff.
My sister's trying to buy a house.
I'm going to help her look at that.
It's like I'm going to have to make choices about, you know, all cool stuff, but it's like, there just feels like less responsibility right now.
Well, that's why the audience probably connects with it so much because, like you said, you're doing the same thing they're doing.
We're both taking a break.
You're taking a break, the audience is taking a break.
Then when it's over, it's like, oh, now I got to go help my sister buy a house.
I got to get back to shit.
Yeah.
There's probably someone watching right now who also is helping their sister buy a house.
That's true.
What do we have here?
Yeah, here's an interesting one.
New York High Court to determine if Bronx Zoo elephant is a person.
Why not?
Why not?
2022.
Why not?
Is it a person?
I mean, what is going on?
Has it paid taxes?
That's what I want to know.
I mean, how would they even mix those two up?
How would they, if it was a person, how did it get to a point where an article needed to be written that they were going to investigate whether it was true?
How do you mistake those two things?
One's like 10 tons.
The other is like 300 pounds if it eats fast food.
There's a big difference.
Jesus Christ.
Can the elephant be considered a person?
That question was before New York's highest court Wednesday in a closely watched case of whether a basic human right can be extended to an animal.
Oh, so it's more that.
Okay, it's more the rights of the animal.
They said it's in a one-acre prison.
You know, this goes back to like black.
Have you seen that movie black fish?
It's about like black, something happened to black fish even, like whenever whales or whatever with the zoo and they put them in there in San Diego and people got upset about it.
But it's like, do you think if you see a, like, the animal's safer in this space, but is it getting its true existence?
I think that's the question.
And it's almost the same thing we've been talking about with humans.
It's like, we're safer in this space, for sure.
There's bumpers on everything.
There's insurance.
There's lawyer.
There's, you're as safe as you could be.
You can buy braces through the mail.
A woman the other night had me sign her metal leg and it had like a little thing in it where it also sorts coins on the side of it, right?
Like we're living in a fucking brookstone, right?
But are we getting the most the most natural experience?
That's almost what's happening here, right?
Right.
Are we not fulfilling?
Is it the most fulfilling?
Yeah, it's exactly what's happening here.
Yeah, the non-human rights project wants her to move from a one-acre prison at the zoo to a more spacious sanctuary.
Because with all these things, they're like, just set them free.
Yeah, well, this doesn't even sound like they're returning them to their natural habitat where they'd be.
This is like they're getting, they're just, they're upgrading from a condo to a mansion to have more spacious, you know, they'd still have That same safety, or whatever.
Yeah, I'd say maybe the more humane thing, ironically, would be to put them back into the being an elephant is suited for nature, where it can look around, you know, because elephants can intimidate lions, you know?
Yeah, and that probably makes them feel good.
And now they don't have that.
That's taken away.
You know, that must build an elephant's self-esteem when lions come around and be like, you know, we're hungry.
We may take you down.
Yeah.
And elephant goes, dude, I'm 10 tons.
You can try it, but I may stop one of you.
Yeah, it's going to be bad for somebody.
Yeah.
Is something going to come down and say, hey, you guys are doing it wrong.
Right.
Go back to.
But here's the weird thing.
If we went back, wouldn't we try to get back here to be safer?
I don't know.
That's the thing.
And what or who would keep you in line to yeah?
Like if someone came up, like if we had to survive against predators that were trying to kill us like back in the day, like hyenas, saber-toothed tigers, and then there was a dude who figured out a way to like effectively keep them at bay, who would be, would there be a judge, some sort of judge that came in and be like, dude, dude, dude, you can't advance that much.
We got to keep it like that.
But then even having that judge is kind of advanced.
So you can't get out of the quagmire.
You can't escape it.
We're always going to try to find a smart way to outsmart these predators.
And that makes us more human and softer because we use our brain.
That's what we have.
Gorillas got strength.
Right.
This is almost, is this the best case scenario where we are?
Dude, if we're just left to deal with predators with jiu-jitsu, I don't know how effective it would be because that's essentially what we're advocating for.
One more generation, we'll have some freaking gangsters out there.
Take out a lion?
I think so.
Probably, yeah.
People, they're getting some talent, man.
John Jones could beat a lot of animals.
You think so?
I think so for a second.
Yeah.
For a little bit, man.
I think there's room.
I mean, there's old stories of Dustin Poirier beating, you know, 20 raccoons outside of a bar in Lafayette.
He tried to get jumped by raccoons.
Bro, it's a dangerous game down there, bro.
I'm just saying.
Look, there's a lot of, I think, mythology out there about humans fighting animals.
The Greeks used to have a lot of it.
Did they?
Yeah, fighting animals.
Yeah.
Because, or is this the best?
Is this where we are?
Obviously, this is where we are.
This is.
We would probably just do this again.
I know what you're saying.
You're basically saying we overdid it, where we took the fun out of it.
We took like the game out of it, which makes you like think and immerses you in the game of like survival.
Because now we can just nuke predators.
That's too much.
It's not fair.
It's not fair, man.
I always like the idea that people can do, like if somebody wants to fight an animal with a knife or something, I think that's fair.
You know, I don't, sometimes with the hunting stuff, I'm not an anti-hunter at all.
But I would love to see more hand-to-hand combat with animals.
That would be great.
That would be great to see.
Yeah, it's more of a fair fight.
I feel like we'd lose a lot, though, is my only problem.
Hell yeah, we would do this.
Every week there's a video of some guy losing to a goose at a damn local watering hole.
Yeah.
There's some guy's kid getting one of his ears nipped off by a damn goslin or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, even if the goslin cuts weight, it's still unfair.
It's still fucking, he's got that animal strength always.
Got the advantage, and that's why I think like we'll always invent the knife in order to compete or else we go extinct.
Like, dude, you know what the crazy shit is?
We were not the apex predator for most of our existence.
Only the past couple thousand years did we figure some shit out.
But for like hundreds of thousands of years, fucking, we got eaten.
Wow.
We didn't figure it out until we teamed up with dogs.
They ran.
They did a lot of the recon.
They did recon for us.
And like, yo, bad shit's coming.
We hid whatever we need.
And they fought off lions for us and shit.
And then we were able to, they gave us some time to sit around and think about it and figure shit out, build a knife.
Because you can't figure out how to build a knife when you're constantly being hunted.
Yeah.
You can't think.
It's not a moment to think.
It's like having anxiety all the time.
You can't, you know, you can't do your best work when you're anxious.
So.
Oh, amen, man.
Amen, dude.
I feel that at a deep level, dude.
Giannis, thanks so much for coming, man.
Thank you, man.
It's cool, bro.
Really, really appreciate it.
Nice to meet you on camera, chat.
Yeah.
It was nice.
It was a fun ride.
Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
And you can check out his special mom love.
It's on YouTube right now.
And he's got some amazing characters that you got to watch on YouTube as well.
I know they're old.
I know you may feel past those in some ways or whatever.
But man, so crazy, bro.
You got to go watch some more Giannis Papas if you're not familiar with them.
And yeah, man, thank you so much for coming on.
Dude, thank you.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Now I'm just footing on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.
I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking break and
let myself fast on
the runaway train with a heavy load of past.
And these wheels that I've been riding on, they're once so thin that they're damn near gone.
I guess now they just were built to lay.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
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Jamain.
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