This Past Weekend - Theo Von - #617 - Aziz Ansari

Oct. 15, 2025 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

01:45:42

#617 - Aziz Ansari

Aziz Ansari is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer and filmmaker. His new movie “Good Fortune” is in theaters Oct. 17th. Aziz joins Theo to talk about writing and directing his first film, the mystery of mini anamalia, and how his family found community in the south when he was growing up. Aziz Ansari: https://www.instagram.com/azizansari/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Prize Picks: Go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/THEO and use code THEO to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! NBA Tip Off Max Discount: Steph Curry 99% Off - More Than 0.5 Point on PrizePicks. Acorns: Go to https://acorns.com/THEO to sign up and get your $20 bonus investment. Quo: Go to http://quo.com/theo for 20% off of your first 6 months. Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo and download their new web browser Comet at https://comet.perplexity.ai/ ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	There are some new uh things in the merch shop I want to let you know about.
	We got the uh tour merch.
	If you were unable to come to one of the cities, if you were unable to grab a piece of tour merch then and you want to get something, um we've put whatever we have remaining uh there online.
	We also have some uh new mmm Bubby uh tees that have been restocked, and we've got hoodies coming on those.
	Um some camo gang, hit or hunt club, a lot of uh new items in there.
	And um, and thank you so much.
	Some people are getting um gifts for their friends for family for Christmas.
	So thank you for letting us be a part of your holidays, and thanks for supporting the show, the Ovonstore.com.
	Uh thank you guys.
	Today's guest is a stand-up comedian.
	He's an actor and a filmmaker.
	Um he just directed his first film called Good Fortune, uh, which we're gonna talk about, and I'm looking forward to getting to meet him really.
	We never even known each other.
	So we're gonna do that now.
	Today's guest is Mr. Aziz Ansari.
	I'm lonely and I will fall.
	find a song Sweet, man.
	Let me get a hit of this.
	What do you drink, man?
	What's your do you have a beverage of choice kind of?
	Just espresso and water.
	Really?
	I mean, not not together, but espresso I drink espresso a lot.
	And then um and then water, and then if I'm drinking like, you know, wine or whatever, a martini or whatever, but ooh, a martini, huh?
	Check, check.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Do Indian people react well to Martines.
	Are you is your family Indian by nature?
	Yeah, by by nature, they are Indian.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Um, yeah, my family's from India.
	I was born in South Carolina.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Wait, are we going now or no?
	Yeah, we can be.
	Yeah, whatever.
	Okay, wait.
	So where are you from?
	You're from Louisiana.
	I'm from Louisiana, yeah.
	Okay.
	Cause, you know, whenever I hear someone else from a with a southern accent, it's almost like when I see someone that's Indian.
	I'm a little like, oh, oh, I need to.
	But I we've never really met, I don't think, properly.
	I've I was around you were at Chris Rock's birthday party.
	I saw you there, but you know, that was a crazy thing.
	I didn't really get to say hi.
	But do you have that when you when you hear someone with a southern accent?
	Because to me, there's so few people.
	I don't have one, but I'm from South Carolina.
	I lost my accent.
	It comes out when I start talking to other people that have a even the the guy that picked me up at the airport, he was from Atlanta, and I and I started and I like it started seeping in.
	Yeah.
	But yours has stayed strong.
	Mine is gone, but uh I remember when I met Danny McBride, because you there's so few people that have southern accents that are in our what kind of acting Hollywood comedian.
	Strange.
	I think right before our generation, it was more prevalent.
	Before.
	Well, there was the whole like uh blue collar.
	Right, those guys.
	Those guys, they had their run.
	That was that was their they all had southern accents.
	Yeah.
	Larry the cable guy, definitely southern accent.
	Yeah, he's going back on tour, I just saw.
	Um Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, you know, I grew up in a small town in South Carolina called Bennettville.
	There's like 8,000 people there.
	No one ever toured there or anything.
	And I remember some kids went and saw Jeff Foxworthy, and he came to Florence, South Carolina, which is like 45 minutes.
	And like, we saw Jeff Fox Right.
	That was the first time I'd ever heard of someone going to a live comedy show.
	Oh, wow.
	By the way, I'm shivering a little bit because so I I you know, I came from I was in Chicago and I had to get up at like five in the morning, and you had a coal plunge, and your producer was like, if you want to jump in the coal plunge, and I was like, Are you are you kidding?
	Are you serious?
	Because I'm a little tired and I didn't really sleep yesterday and I did it.
	But like I'm a little cold.
	I'm a little cold.
	I triggered a little bit.
	It'll rattle you.
	Yeah, no, I'm glad you got in, dude.
	Yeah, I got in.
	I was in there earlier this morning.
	I get in now because I don't want to.
	So I'm like, let me go do something I don't want to do to start my day.
	And I think it adjusts my attitude, which I need a lot.
	Um and dude, I just went to I just went to University of South Carolina.
	We had We met a chauffeur over there.
	His girlfriend had thrown Fettuccine, like hot thing of boiling Fettuccine on him.
	And yeah, and he had to be like it.
	And like, dude, it's crazy.
	That story took a dark turn really fast.
	That's the last thing I expected to happen on this guy in the story is uh is boiling Fettuccine thrown on him.
	Bro, a hundred percent.
	And but he was our with the water, not yeah, okay, because if it was just the fencini, that that's not too bad.
	Yeah, water even the mix too, though.
	That's that's that's a crime.
	Yeah, oh it was a crime.
	And his yeah, his neck was like dripping off of him and stuff.
	It was he went through a lot, but anyway, met him.
	He's a chauffeur over there.
	Uh Stan, he's out of the he's out of the Bronx originally, but we just had him come in.
	He was just like kind of a unique character.
	So um, but hey Trev, will you cut the uh AC off just in case?
	I don't want to fucking lose Aziz.
	Am I looking crazy?
	No, you seem fine.
	Okay, I didn't know if I was sitting there.
	But no, I know what you mean.
	Sometimes if you get that in and that AC's on, it's kind of a lot.
	Um dude, is it is this true?
	Uh and thanks so much for coming in today, man.
	Oh, man, I I really appreciate it.
	And you know, I I'm not really super familiar with a lot of podcasts, and I haven't done a big press tour in like a long time.
	Because, you know, the last time I had something come out was during COVID, so that was weird.
	You didn't really do the normal stuff, and then um I've been working on these films for a bit, and and um so before I was like, they were like, oh, do all these podcasts.
	I was like, Well, I'm I'm gonna listen to episodes, and I uh and I listened to a couple of years.
	I listened to the Bernie Sanders one.
	Oh, yeah.
	Which I really liked, and and to me really connected with my film because the stuff you guys were talking about.
	Um, you're talking about something that I hadn't heard where the the number one cause of bankruptcy is is medical bills.
	Yeah.
	And in my character in the film, you're never really given a clear explanation of what happened to this guy.
	The guy's, you know, he's lost his job, he's sleeping in his car, but oh, in good fortune, you mean?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And but but it made me think of that.
	What your conversation with Bernie Sanders, and I was like, oh man, this is really um on the in the same kind of realm.
	And then um, and I loved your episode with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
	I'm always fascinated by Arnold.
	Really?
	Yeah, because I think he's so I think he's so smart, and and um, yeah, I don't know why.
	I I I think you realize like the more you're in this business, especially the in the kind of movie acting world to like be an actor that's kind of had a few hits, like a lot of things have to come together, and it's not an accident.
	You know what I mean?
	When these guys have this run of hits, like they've got to be really sharp.
	Yeah, yeah, it was pretty fascinating.
	I guess we went to his office, and there's like the his like Conan thing is in there, and like the sword, he's like wait, did you meet that little donkey he has?
	I don't know if the donkey was there.
	There was some hair on that.
	That's in his house.
	This was at his office.
	Oh no, yeah, this was his office, yeah.
	There was some hair on the floor, but I don't know what it was from, I don't think.
	Um my god, he's yeah, there's a donkey.
	Oh, because I think he's very Dutch like that or something.
	Oh, he's very Oh my god, yeah.
	Those are mini donkeys.
	They look mixed too.
	I met a small donkey in Nashville once.
	Oh first off, I love Nashville.
	I I I go to Zany's a lot when I'm like working on sets.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I think I remember that's what the last thing I remember.
	I remember hearing you came to Zanies and did like six or seven nights or something over there.
	Yeah, and one time one of my favorite shows, the power went out, and I had to do the show.
	Like the power went out, and we're like, what do we do?
	And the staff there was amazing.
	They like immediately brought candles out, and I was like yelling my set, and then some guy like brought like a speaker and a microphone.
	It was incredible.
	Oh, dude, I think didn't they?
	I think it was an article or something about that.
	I even remember.
	I remember seeing a picture about that, or at least just hearing about it like in local lore, you know.
	Um, one thing about Nashville is, dude, it's a very small city.
	Like it's small.
	It's like people, it's you hear something happened, you hear about it.
	It's not like it just feels like a huge town.
	Like how long you lived here, a really big town.
	I lived here for I think almost four years.
	Where were you before?
	The pandemic.
	I was in LA.
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah, and I moved directly from there because during the pandemic, I remember seeing like Kid Rocks bar, you know, and people are having a blast there.
	And meanwhile, like my landlord is like making us wear hazmat suits to get our fucking mail and shit because everybody's all paranoid and shit out there.
	And I was like, fuck this shit.
	Um I gotta fucking go, you know.
	I I've always loved Nashville.
	I I did a series for Netflix, uh, and we filmed an episode here, and I always come here for stand-up.
	I did the rhyme, and I'd never done the rhyme, and I'd always done some other theater and I did the rhyming on this tour that I uh a few months ago, and that's that's one of the best best places I've ever performed.
	Yeah, yeah, there's that thing.
	Yes, that it isn't that so crazy, yeah.
	A power outage force comedian Aziz, and started finished his set in the dark Monday night, dude.
	That was cool.
	That was like one of those cool cool moments.
	That was fun.
	But when I was here for that trip to get back to the donkeys, my wife, uh, she's Danish and she loves she loves donkeys.
	And there was some fair here, and they had miniature donkeys.
	Oh, beautiful.
	And we sought them out, and we we said what's up to him.
	One of them's name was uh his name was Roger, and he was born October October 4th.
	So Roger 10-4.
	Ooh.
	So we met Roger, and there was another little donkey named Lily, but I I she was she was a little big.
	I don't know if she was a micro donkey.
	Rod Roger was straight up micro.
	Lily was a little big.
	I don't know if she was micro.
	At that size, I don't judge their weight, to be honest with them.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because the bodies are there's already a lot going on, you know.
	It's like, yeah, I think I think that I mean, look, I think they're beautiful.
	I remember I met the world's smallest horse one time.
	When was that and where?
	And this is his name was Tom Thumb.
	And I met him in Alameda, I believe.
	And how did that how did that intro come about?
	Well, people are like, you gotta go meet him and shit.
	And I remember I'd been at a bar.
	Alameda is where?
	California?
	California, yeah.
	Okay.
	So you were doing a show in Alameda, and then like you gotta you gotta meet the smallest horse.
	No, we'd been out there for a f I was just, I think I'd heard about it.
	I think I'd been in conversations about like smaller animals, animalia generally.
	Uh the world's the one I met was Tom Thumb.
	And if you can also look up separately on Perplexity here, if you can just look up uh Theo Vaughn Tom Thumb.
	I did a post on it.
	Uh it was pretty fascinating.
	What's perplexity?
	Perplexity is like a different AI.
	It does for me.
	I like it because it's uh it can help me like edit and pull clips out of things that you can put something in it and be like, like the what clips do you like in this?
	What do you suggest?
	That sort of thing.
	Oh whoa.
	So it's kind of like it's like a it's like an AI, you know.
	It's far beyond my what?
	I don't know any of this stuff.
	Dude, what are you talking about?
	Do people how do your parents feel about that?
	That I don't know uh perplexity?
	That you don't know about the AIs.
	I mean, I know what it is.
	I I I uh I don't really use that stuff much.
	Yeah, I don't you I don't really use uh internet or phone or anything very much.
	I try to stay off.
	Yes.
	Oh, here we go, right here.
	Let's take a video.
	Let's see, let's I am into this.
	So everyone can eat the world.
	How long you gonna be here today for?
	He'll be here all day.
	Now small is it.
	De las grandes canores de Kansas and Smash Pequeno, Calgunes, Calcutta.
	Whoa.
	And he's alive too.
	That would be dark.
	You don't know what people are doing, dude.
	But yeah, so just to let you know, I guess we have a lot of symbiosis there in our love for the small horses.
	Small, uh, what are horses and donkeys?
	What's that?
	Ask the AI, what is that called?
	What are that that kind of animal?
	Horses, donkeys, the four-legged kind of they're they're similar.
	There must be some group.
	Yeah, what is that called?
	The equus.
	Yeah, the equus.
	The equine.
	The equines.
	But dude, when you think that God took all the beauty of a huge horse and put it into like a baby snicker of a horse, a little horse.
	Yeah, I there's not.
	Is there any other animals that have minis?
	Like, cause there's mini horses, there's many donkeys.
	What is it?
	There's mini cows.
	There are.
	Oh, wow.
	Oh, God, that'd be a dark moment.
	You go to a steakhouse, they're like, just so you know, these are all mini cows.
	Yeah.
	It's still that's too dark.
	I'd have a little.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You probably could only have a little.
	That's true, dude.
	It's not like a 40 ounce mini cow steak.
	That's not that's not happening.
	It's like it's a one ounce.
	It's like it's like when you go to a sushi restaurant, they have that one little piece of wagyu.
	This is from this is from a mini cow.
	Oh my god, they're all furry.
	Oh, those maybe I'm gonna finish the show and get addicted to the internet because this is this is pretty fun.
	I never knew about mini cows.
	I didn't know.
	I would have just been wondering about equines, equus.
	Well, look, dude, I think you could get your wife one of these.
	Let me see these miniature horses rarely exceed 34 inches in height.
	Minute your donkeys also max out at around 34 inches.
	But there's mini micro pigs.
	Oh, wait, this is a whole list of everything there's many of.
	There's mini horses, donkeys, pygmy goats.
	They don't call them micro goats.
	They prefer to be referred to as pygmy goats.
	Micro pigs, I've heard of.
	Imagine a mini sheep, though.
	Hmm.
	He'd make a very small sweater.
	Yeah.
	You're just sitting there.
	Oh, dude, we gotta get some of these animals.
	But dude, when I was a kid, they only had big dogs, and then the dog started getting littler.
	A lot of this, I think, is crossbreeding and inbreeding.
	You know, I grew up in a kind of an not an inbreeding district, but I grew up in like certainly like the stray animal belt and the inbreeding belt, kind of like they you can they run across some of the same plains in America.
	Okay.
	And we would see a lot of you know, people start getting smaller over time in the area because you and that's when you knew like, okay, people need to start walking farther or driving farther for sex, you know.
	Because you just knew the in-reading was heating up, you know, you know the kettle, the kettle was getting a little warm, you know.
	Um when somebody'd have a baby and they could just put it on like a key ring or whatever, it was like that thing's too small, you know.
	Um good to see you, man, because we've never really gotten to talk, and it's good to laugh with somebody.
	Um, I and you know, I I love meeting comedians that I haven't met before.
	I I uh I I was thinking this the other day, like when I was on tour, I I was you know, I bring the some of the same guys out with me.
	And who do you take with you?
	Sorry to interject.
	Um Will Sylvance.
	Uh he holds he's in the movie, isn't he?
	Will's in the movie and uh Ricky Velez, they they uh they came out with me a lot um early this year, and then uh our our tour manager Beth, who I love, Will especially have you ever met Will?
	Do you know Will at all?
	I don't know him, but I recognized him immediately.
	I this I know I know him, but I don't know him well.
	The hardest I laugh in my life is after shows going to dinner with Will.
	Yeah, because he's just the most ridiculous guy.
	And he just he's so funny.
	Like just this stuff, like I this is one of my favorite Will anecdotes.
	One time I told him, I said, uh, I wanted to send him a sp uh a playlist of some music, and he's like, I don't use Spotify.
	And I was like, Well, what do you use?
	He goes, I use Amazon music.
	Oh, type shit.
	And I was like, Why do you use Amazon music?
	He's like, 'cause I like to download the MP3s and burn them on the CDs.
	I was like, this this is this is such a unique dude.
	Yeah, I mean, it sounds illegal, but it also sounds like I respect it, you know.
	Um let's say I love comedians.
	Comedians are my favorite people.
	Well, I think in the end, it's like you have to realize how rare it is that people do it, and that uh that we do all have something in common.
	Yeah.
	And it used to feel like a lot more like again, it's like the southern accent.
	It's like when I see another Indian person, there's something that pulls me towards them.
	Yeah, it makes me comfortable.
	Yeah, I think we'll some of that's just tribes, you know.
	There's a little bit of like whatever's built into us.
	Um what a specific tribe to you know, because most people's you know, most people's worst fear is public speaking, and it's what we do for a living.
	Yeah, so there's something deep inside that's a bond with all of us, has to be.
	Oh, we're like Satan's mini donkeys, mini donkeys of self-esteem.
	Yeah, mini self-esteem.
	That's why we need so much approval with laughter.
	It's like if you pet me enough micro self-esteem people.
	Yeah, if you pet me enough, I'll grow into a regular size horse, you know.
	Yeah, yeah.
	We get enough laughs, we play enough theaters or if we if you graduate to arenas, then we become multiple-sized people.
	This is enough.
	That's hilarious.
	It's almost like our Pinocchio story.
	Yeah.
	Um, yeah, dude.
	I stayed up watching the movie last night, Good Fortune.
	That's your it's a new movie.
	Yeah.
	Um, dude, the amount of turns that were that started to happen.
	I'm about like, I guess maybe 45 minutes in.
	The amount of turns that started to happen in the plot really were making it heat up.
	Oh, well, thank you.
	It's cool, dude.
	And Keanu Reeves, he's like this, like, he almost reminds me of like a surfer dude that won best in show at Westminster type of vibe.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, there's a little bit of uh California kind of um, but he's very sweet, like uh like a little pup.
	And his posture is so good.
	It seemed like he would win best in show.
	Like he seems like he has very good posture.
	I never noticed this posture, but you didn't?
	No, but you know, I remember when we first started screening the movie.
	As soon as he came up on screen, I could tell there was something like, Whoa, this dude's a movie star.
	And it's not just that he's handsome.
	There's something, this other, you know, there's this other thing that he has, and and he's so funny in the movie.
	I mean, he he just he just kills.
	And and by the end of the movie, when I I've watched it with crowds, like he's just doing the smallest thing and just getting huge laughs, and um yeah, but um You directed and wrote in your in it, right?
	You wrote it too.
	I wrote it.
	Dude, that's awesome, bro.
	Produced, acted everything too much.
	So you have control issues, you think?
	Yeah, a little bit, but uh, but in a positive way as well, you know.
	Seth Rogan's in the movie, and he he does his show, the studio, and we've talked about that uh about you know, kind of doing everything because he does everything on that, and there's something that's kind of streamlined about it, you know, to like, oh, I had this idea, this is how I'm gonna write it, and I and you kinda have I for me.
	Whenever I'm writing something, I kind of have a you know, an idea in my head of how I want it to sound and look and everything, and directing is pretty much just conveying that to a group of people to execute it.
	Yeah.
	So if all if it's all coming from one person, and if you're one of the people acting, it does make things easier in a sense.
	Yeah, man, that does make a lot of sense, dude.
	Yeah, and and you know, you have other people like Seth and Keanu who, you know, they have iconic voices.
	So when I'm writing, I have their voice in the head, and then when they're there, they do it like even funnier than you think they were gonna do it when he had in your head.
	They add something or you know, improvise and and um you know, the goal is really you have like the version in your head, and then you have this whole crew and cast, and and you kind of convey your vision, and then they take that and then they give you something else that's something from them, and it and it becomes better than you thought.
	How long was you guys to shoot for?
	Um, well, it was a little weird because we shot like one or two days, and then the writer's strike happened.
	We have to stop for a few months.
	Yeah.
	And then we came back, and um this sounds crazy when I'm saying it out loud.
	So we came back after the writer's strike, which was like I don't know, seven months or something.
	It was a while.
	And were people pregnant and stuff?
	Like, was it different?
	No, no one got pregnant, but okay.
	No, everyone was still the same.
	But um, thank god.
	We we shot for like a couple of days, and then Keanu broke his knee.
	He broke his kneecap, like on our like second or third day back.
	What was he doing?
	It I mean, it sounds insane as I'm saying it out loud, because this guy's done all the Matrix movies, all the John Wick movies, never got hurt.
	Yeah.
	We filmed a scene in a cold plunge, and he was going back to his dressing room.
	He was all wrapped up in a robe and everything, and he like tripped on a rug and fell on his knee and broke his kneecap.
	Oh yeah, they got pictures of him in the crutches here on on Perplexity.
	Uh no, he broke his freaking kneecap.
	And when you guys write there, could you hear it?
	No, no, I it was in his in his dressing room.
	So I I just heard like someone on the on the walkie's like, Oh, I'm Keanu's down.
	I'm like, Oh, so he went through it alone.
	Yeah, he fell down, and then they were like, he's hurt, and then he came down, he was ready to film right away.
	His knee was like bleeding like crazy, and we're like, hey man, maybe you should go to a doctor.
	And he was like, No, no, no, let's shoot.
	Let he he he loves he loves shooting.
	He just wants to shoot.
	But anyway, we could film most of his stuff.
	He had like a knee brace that we like edited out with VFX.
	He didn't get that stupid one with the wheels on it.
	No, he didn't have the wheel.
	Well, it was kind of mean to call it stupid, man.
	People are that's something people gotta use.
	But dude, I saw some drunk lady and her husband, they were going down Broadway in Nashville, and uh she I know the thing you're talking about.
	It's like a kind of like a scoot this thing, yeah.
	Yeah, it's like a mini scooter, and then my friend broke his Achilly Tori's Achilles heel, and he had to use that for a while.
	Yeah, it's like the ex games of being crippled or whatever.
	Yeah, it's it's a little weird.
	Yeah, it seems a little silly.
	Yeah, but he didn't have one of those.
	He just had a big knee brace.
	But we had these scenes where he had like most of the stuff we could kind of figure it out, but there was a couple of scenes where we needed him to dance.
	There's a whole thing where he starts dancing cumbia, and we're like, Keanu, we can't shoot the cumbia stuff.
	So we came back after his leg healed and shot a few more days.
	But it was like a 30-day shoot, you know.
	Oh wow, it's fast.
	That's a lot of work.
	Yeah, that's not too much, but it's not too little.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we just I just David Spade and I made a movie, and I can't talk about it anymore on here because we've talked about it a lot.
	But how many days?
	Twenty-three days.
	That's pretty tight.
	I mean, I don't know the script or anything, but twenty three, it's you know, that's a lot of work.
	But over 30, yeah, we probably had a few days off in between, you know, but it was a lot.
	It was like the fires that happened, so we had to move.
	And then one scene that just happens to be fire in it, and you're like, okay, well, this has to be part of it because you've already set up for the day in whatever this space is gonna be.
	So like one day it's crazy winds, the winds are like 45 miles an hour.
	I remember that.
	I was in LA during right during the fires.
	I remember the day before there was a crazy winds.
	I was like, what's happening?
	Okay, so we're like talking about kites.
	We wrote that into the script.
	Like, yeah, we should get some kites.
	You wrote it in afterwards.
	Yeah, just to add, like, yeah, maybe we'll get some kites after you know we like threw an alliance.
	Like just trying to make things make sense, you know, because you just have you're already set up.
	Everybody's already driven there, the people are there.
	There's a lady standing there with makeup, you know what I'm saying?
	Like people have washed their bodies and gotten in their vehicles and gotten over there.
	People have put on deodorant, people have put on clean panties and men's panties or whatever they're called, under men's underwear.
	They put on their undergarments and they showed up.
	And it's a lot of people.
	Yeah, and it's crazy because you know you write these random things, and then all these people get to work to do it, and it's like some silly joke about a pillowcase or whatever.
	It's like, oh, which pillowcase do you want to use?
	Yeah.
	Sometimes it's something as dumb as that.
	Like all these people will drive to one place just so somebody can be like, Ricky's a bitch.
	And you're like, okay, that's lunch.
	You're like, that fucking took four hours.
	God, and Ricky's not even a bitch anymore.
	He's had a surgery by the end of the day, you know what I'm saying?
	So everything's changed.
	It it blows my mind that, you know, because it's like stand-up, it you you you do these things and you're just on a mic and there's people there listening.
	But when you write a joke for a movie, there's all these trucks, everybody's showed up.
	It's it's it really makes you pause for a second.
	I don't know if you had this thing where you're like, well, man, this is a lot of hope.
	Oh, this is worth it for these people.
	Oh, yeah.
	I remember the first day we got to do to set, I was like, holy shit, I thought this had just been a bunch of emails, you know?
	And it was like all the emails that come together in real life.
	Like there was trailers, there was some guy got electrocuted.
	Like, yeah.
	Yeah.
	But it was like everything, you know, you were like, Oh, people are acting.
	There's some guy practicing his things, they're like firing an extra, like all the shit was going on, you know, like some guys just like, you know, had bought the wrong peanut.
	Just all the shit's happening, you know.
	There's no coffee.
	There was always no coffee when I got over there.
	It's fine.
	But it was just like, it's fascinating to see it happen.
	And it's one of those things that has to like it's so expensive to do that you have to get it done on that day.
	It's like whatever elements come, if somebody breaks their leg, if somebody goes missing, you have to for an hour, you have to like shoot around it.
	Just all these little things that kind of go on, you know.
	I I was telling someone, because people always ask me, like, what's the difference between doing stand-up and doing a film?
	To me, doing stand-up, it's like you're you're running around a track and you go, hey, I'm ready to go.
	And then you you go to all these cities and you you run around the track and and you're done.
	And a movie is like you have to go to these people and go, hey, I want to climb this mountain.
	Can you give me money to climb this mountain?
	And they're like, let me see your plan, which is like your script.
	And they're like, hmm, well, we can give you this much.
	Oh, that's not really enough supplies.
	And then they're like, well, can Brad Pitt climb the mountain with you?
	Can you can you get, you know, these other famous can get you know, and yeah, and then if you're lucky enough to even get to start climbing the mountain, then people just start throwing boulders at you.
	Hey, here's the writer's strike.
	Hey, uh there's the fires in LA.
	Oh, wait, Keanu's broke his kneecap.
	And it is a positive blood test.
	And you're like, oh that's rough.
	It's it's all just you're just trying to avoid all these different disasters.
	And if you're lucky, you you you make it to the top.
	But it's it's so much harder to either so much more to to that's out of your control.
	Stand up is so in your control.
	Yeah, there's something so pure and beautiful about stand up.
	I like doing both, but there is something so pure and beautiful about stand-up where it's just literally a person talking in a microphone.
	It it's kind of uh such a pure and direct art form.
	And filmmaking, there's so many other things that are out of your control, and it's a lot more complex, but it's rewarding in its own way.
	I mean, I I I think about how, you know, I'll I'm working on other scripts now, and I'll I'll have some joke, and it'll it'll be like, well, this will be maybe years from now before I'll see this joke play in a theater and hear a crowd of people laugh.
	And then a stand-up joke, you know, you or I could think of something tonight and go to a comedy club and try it and hear it get a laugh, and that's so satisfying.
	But there's also something crazy about like I remember I started writing Good Fortune, like probably in the pandemic, I started writing it on and off.
	And there's jokes I wrote in, and then years later, it's like I'm in a theater in Burbank, and Keanu Reeves is saying the joke, and you know, a crowdful of people goes crazy.
	And they're both amazing, but in different ways.
	Yeah.
	That's so wild, dude.
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	Is there a movie that like you'll never get to make, but you think it would be cool?
	Like it's so ridiculous.
	Have there ever been something like that?
	Well, I mean, right now it's so hard to get any movie made.
	They all feel like, oh man, I hope I can make this.
	You know, I've got two movies that I uh two other scripts that I've written.
	I had this movie with Bill Murray that I was doing that got shut down.
	I want to finish that.
	Why?
	What happened?
	Oh, well, uh Bill Murray uh was part of this movie we did called Being Mortal.
	Being Mortal is a book by this gentleman named Atul Gawande.
	It's all about like end of life issues.
	It's about stuff, you know, uh that people my age are dealing with with their parents, you know, some maybe not All the people might be people older, but you know, they're getting sick, you gotta put them in retirement homes and you gotta figure all this this stuff out.
	Very, you know, very interesting book.
	And it's a book.
	Very highly recommend this book.
	Have you met Atul Gawanda?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I had to talk to a tool to get rights to the book, and and when I decided to turn into script, he um he helped me.
	And and um Is he cool?
	There he is.
	Very cool, very smart guy.
	And um, so I thought, okay, this is like the the book is not a fiction book, it's nonfiction.
	But I was like, oh man, if you turn this into a story, there's things that are funny, even though it's dark, you know.
	Like there's things that are funny about like, you know, you have to go like take your parents to like all or your mom or dad, you have to take them to all these different retirement homes.
	And like they, you know, all these people in his book, they'd always be like, I don't want to be in here, everybody in here's old.
	It's like that's people's perspective.
	It's kind of funny.
	And uh, and just like how out of depth you are talking to these doctors, doctors talk to you like you know, you know, these super complicated things.
	They're like, anyway, so what do you want to do?
	If you do this, you know, he might be paralyzed, but if you do this, you know, you're like, wait, what?
	Yeah, but if you do this, he might be able to do a backflip.
	And you're like, Well, that's a that's a mixed bag.
	It it's it's so you're you you're just immediately out of your depth.
	But anyway, I read the story and read the book, and and you you notice these patterns, like the parents are like, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, and then they like drive their car through the house or something, and then you're like, Oh, we gotta take you to home, man.
	Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.
	But that's really how it happens, though, for people.
	It's really how it happens.
	And I was like, Well, if you did a story about this, and the guy was Bill Murray, that could be really funny and really poignant because he, you know, I think about him in like Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers, and and he's one of these, he's got this rare ability to be so funny, but so grounded and touching and and sincere.
	So I wrote the whole thing with him in mind.
	And then there was no like, oh, I'll get another guy.
	It was like, this movie only works in my head if it's Bill Murray.
	I can't think of anybody else.
	I wrote it, and he's like famously the hardest guy to get a hold of to be a.
	You can't even get him.
	Yeah.
	I I knew him a little bit socially.
	I had his number.
	I call him, he answers the phone.
	I said, Hey, I have a script that I wrote.
	Uh, you know, I said hello, whatever, and we talked for a minute.
	And I said, I was calling him because I wrote the script, and and I think you'd be great.
	And he's like, Oh, that's wonderful.
	You know, mail it to my house.
	Very old school.
	He's like, Print it out, send it in my house.
	So I sent it to him.
	He calls me like a couple of weeks later, he's like, Yeah, I I like this.
	Can you send me the book?
	I sent him the book.
	He was really into the book as well.
	And um we eventually set it up.
	Seth Rogan plays his son.
	Kiki Palmer is playing Seth's wife.
	And um, we shot for like three weeks, and then um something happened on set where uh Bill was inappropriate with uh someone uh that was working on the film.
	Oh, I remember something about that.
	Yeah.
	Um was it real or was it fabricated?
	Who knows?
	Uh I mean, something really happened.
	Okay, so something occurred and people felt their ways about it, right?
	Yeah, I don't want to get into it too much because it's not my story to tell.
	So something happened on set.
	You had to shut the movie down.
	Yeah, he he had a mask on, a COVID mask, and uh this is from what I understand.
	He had a code mask on, and he was trying to be funny, and he was kissing this woman that he was friends with with the mask on, trying to be funny, but this woman didn't like this and was was upset.
	And um, and eventually it turned into this whole thing, and they shut the whole movie down.
	No, yeah.
	There's a Wikipedia page.
	Uh but uh yes, this is what Bill said at the time.
	I did something I thought was funny, it wasn't taken that way.
	Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
	The company movies theater wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out.
	Investigated, so they stopped a production.
	Yeah, the the the whole whole movie shut down.
	Um sorry shared the 75%, it wasn't 75%.
	We shot like half of it.
	But anyway, I can't remember what what were how we started on this, but that um yeah, I'd love to finish that at some point, you know, if we can, because you know, it was it was uh it was very special, but gosh, that must have been I mean it's been heartbreaking for everybody.
	It was, but it was one of those things that was so crazy.
	I don't think I ever fully processed it.
	I mean, you want to know something crazy.
	I remember the week it happened.
	I was getting married that summer, and my friends had uh they wanted to plan some sort of bachelor party for you.
	Not like uh Iowa, I'm not like a hey, let's go to the strip club kind of guy.
	They were like gonna we were gonna go to restaurant and go to the spa or something like that, like a very silly kind of sort of like a mathathon or something.
	Yeah.
	What's a math-a-thon?
	We just do a bunch of math?
	Math, yeah.
	Is that a real thing or did you just make up that word?
	I don't know.
	But I could see, for some reason, I just think it's-You think that's what I'm into?
	No, I'm not into math-a-thons.
	Wait, it's a real thing.
	It's a fundraising event where you do math.
	Wow.
	Yeah, it is.
	Zuckerberg was a mathlete.
	Andrew Wang was a mathlete.
	No, Alexander Wang was a mathlete.
	A lot of those tech bros were mathletes, dude.
	Alexander Wang, the fashion guy?
	No, there's a new one.
	a new Alexander Wang?
	That
	that guy died or something I think I don't think he did this is a different guy oh this is a Gen Z billionaire this Alexander without the E. A Wang they call him in the streets boy whoa he's 28 years old in the tech trenches deep in the motor is this screen with the guy looking stuff up with you around all the time or just when you do the podcast that would be so great because I'm the opposite of this I never look anything up you know I don't you know what my wife said to me yesterday I you know I don't have I
	I don't keep a smartphone on me.
	I don't, I blocked all the shit on the internet.
	I don't really use the internet.
	So sometimes I'll just ask my wife stuff the same way you're asking this guy.
	And she's like, you know, I'm not the internet.
	I'm your wife.
	Cause I, what I'm secretly asking without asking is like, can you look that up for me?
	Cause I can't look it up.
	And she was like, I'm not the internet.
	It was a dark moment.
	You married, you married just to have the internet.
	That's so great.
	needed to have a smartphone without having one so that's why I got married she said that to me I'm not the internet she loves me very much we're just texting about how much we love each other but it sounds like you look we believe all that it's tough man it's tough I mean I I've you know crazy I've I've gotten lost and had to call her and and been like hey where where are we yeah I can't find a map because I I I live in London and you know there's you live in London?
	Yeah most of the time I'm there because we met in London we lived there and um oh your wife is lun is a pull up the ex-girlfriend she's in some of these are wrong um but anyway we live in uh we live in in London we met there and um you know does she speak Danish as well?
	Yeah she speaks Danish and I love languages but Danish is pretty tough.
	Is it it's tough yeah is it romantic is it considered a romantic language oh this gets this just back to the donkey thing okay so she said that um I was like well what's like a Danish term of affection like maybe we can use that and she said it was like skit and I was like that that sounds harsh that doesn't sound very sweet and we were somewhere where we saw donkey and she and I said what's the word for donkey and she said Sl.
	And she said asshole and uh and she said it was her first word and that she loved donkeys and I was like why don't we call each other that and so we started calling each other that and now I have you see that AE that that's here on this this chain the AE and that's what led to us me and the little mini donkey in Nashville.
	Where we are now boom God did oh you're my little isle yeah exactly but yeah it's pretty close yeah that's that's it pretty close I mean no you said it right you're actually saying it better than I do you you're doing the AE the combined AE.
	Yeah that Danish is you know it's like wait a second now we're now we're coming up with new letters you're combining the A and E. I'm you know I can speak Italian okay my my family speaks Tumul it's uh Indian language I can speak that a little bit well but yeah but Danish is it's a tricky one.
	Well a lot of our mixed uh cis and by gender now some some vowels are like there'll be a vowel that has is is trans now you know you're it's changing identity yeah it's like what's the other one they AE How do we even pronounce you bro that's all we want hey we just want to show you respect and do it right do whatever you want but just tell we just need to know how to use you in a word and some vowels now are like I don't want to be in your fucking words or whatever.
	And we're like bitch or sir just be in the fucking word dude you're a letter but that's where it's at now man it's it Dan is it's tough because when we'll be there that's not a real thing.
	Which thing the O with the circle?
	Elon's kid's name I don't know.
	You're saying it right that that's pretty good pronunciation.
	No and whenever I whenever we're in Denmark and I try to read a word I'll try to pronounce it right and it's just I just don't know the the pronunciation rules I get everything wrong.
	But wait how do we start talking oh because I use her as a phone.
	Sometimes I'm walking around in London and London, there's a lot of like maps on the street.
	So if I get lost, I can find the map and kind of make my way.
	But sometimes I I'll like keep walking around hoping to run into one of these maps, and I won't run into one, and I have to call her and I'll have to be like, hey, I'm over here.
	You gotta you gotta tell me how to get to the tube station.
	And I remember that even when I first came to LA, I don't know whatever you first came to LA, how long ago it was, but you know, there wasn't GPS and stuff.
	GPS was like a fancy thing if they had it at all.
	So I would like print out directions on map quest, and I remember, you know, I would call my little brother.
	Uh my little brother is a few years younger than me, he was still in South Carolina, and I'd call him and be like, hey man, I'm on a Caesar shop.
	Like, how do I get back?
	Because we didn't have the stuff.
	When you came to LA, was it like that?
	Yeah, dude.
	People had maps, drawings.
	You'd have a guy who had directions tattooed on his arm of how to get home if he was an alcoholic or whatever.
	Oh my god.
	Like shit was definitely more primitive back then.
	People would like just write on their dashboard how to get home.
	Like, yeah, people had to remember.
	Remember when you just remember everybody's phone number.
	Yeah, but also when somebody would give you directions, dude, and if you missed one of them or something, and you were going to a party, you just drove around their neighborhood for an hour and then went home.
	Like you would drive and roll your windows down and see if you heard a party from the backyard.
	Yeah.
	We're basically like a bunch of like um uh Magellans, you know.
	And it's strange to think there's there's people that grew up without knowing that at all.
	And it really does seem nuts that we were able to be okay without it.
	Yeah, you know?
	Well, it's like you imagine now, it's like when you go to the airport and nobody's gonna go through TSA, right?
	Because that's how it was.
	I barely remember that.
	Like that you could go up to the gate and all that stuff.
	You know, all of my travel, you know, I started doing comedy by the time I was touring and stuff and traveling all the time like we do.
	That was.
	So you were already big touring when you started doing comedy or no?
	No, no, no.
	I'm saying like I didn't start traveling a bunch, you know, touring and doing all this stuff until after TSA and all these kind of things.
	You know, I barely remember traveling.
	Um, I wasn't on that many, you know, I wasn't flying all the time like you know, I do now.
	So I barely remembered that time where like you could walk up to the gate, you know.
	I might not even remember it actually.
	Yeah, I mean, that all happened after 9-11, so it's after 2001, you know.
	Yeah, maybe a couple fights I'd taken, probably, but yeah, dude.
	Imagine if we went back to that now.
	Do you think, say right now you go to the airport, there's no TSA.
	Would you trust everyone enough to be like, okay, we're all gonna fly home together, guys?
	Does everybody promise they're not gonna cause any problems?
	I mean, uh I don't know.
	It'd be it's it's it's wild times right now.
	I don't know.
	And they would ask you twice about it.
	Yeah, I was in the airport these past couple days, and you know, the government's been shut down.
	Those people are there, they're working for free.
	Like I was like, hey, just so you know, guys, we're working for free.
	And I was like, oh my god.
	That's unbelievable.
	It's wild.
	Yeah, the government's just turned into like a shitty vehicle.
	It's like every now and then it just fucking shuts down or whatever.
	Dude, I mean, you gotta understand.
	For me to like be in London and read about all the stuff happening here and then come here.
	Like I was in Chicago yesterday, and the and so my friends like, wow, time to be in Chicago.
	I was like, what do you mean?
	They're like, oh, the National Guards there just grabbing Mexican people.
	I was like, what?
	What?
	When did that happen?
	I'm just over here trying to tell people about good fortune.
	And they're like, oh, they're grabbing, they're grabbing Mexican people and the National Guards there, and bop uh, TSA.
	Oh, yeah, they're oh yeah, what are you you you getting on a plane later to fly to Nashville?
	Oh yeah, they the government shut down like most of the air traffic people went home.
	Oh, great, thanks.
	Yeah, I'm I'm it's okay.
	I'm gonna I'm gonna fly to Nashville and then get on another plane back to New York same day.
	Cool weekend to be on all these planes.
	Yeah, you're like, it's just the bad news bears of TSA right now.
	You got all the people that are like down to come and work in for free.
	Yeah, dude.
	You have just like the militant guy.
	You have the guy who's been waiting to get in the game.
	Like wait, like no training, but just fucking waiting to get.
	I'm glad back today.
	This is gonna be a really dark last interview snippet.
	And here's the clip where Aziz predicts.
	Oh my god, bro, that's so hilarious that there's like backup of everybody's backup right now.
	Like the park wardens are like, bro, welcome to the fucking park, bro.
	It's like it's just like the second string, dude.
	He's like, dude, the owls are fucking monumental right now, bro.
	Take all these people for granted.
	That's so true, huh?
	Well, the the raids and stuff like that are crazy because we they let so many people into the country, right?
	Like without having a pattern of like, this is an organized way to do something, right?
	Because I think they need to organize it.
	It needs to be organized, right?
	Because it's it's odd if people are here that they live in fear that they're always gonna be like they you know, found out or something, and then it's odd that people are that there's nefarious people here that don't want to be found out, you know?
	So I think like they need some organization of it.
	But yeah, the fact that it gets like where people are being ripped out of places, and then you don't know also some of these days.
	I I really believe you don't know what's real and what's not when you see it sometimes.
	Like it could literally be a scene that was put together, like some of like the Antifa stuff you would see in the park during the pandemic is.
	I watch I watched that movie, you see one battle after another.
	It's good.
	It it's amazing, but it's it's it's crazy because you know, he wrote that movie a long time ago, and it's like I was in Chicago and I was like, damn, this is one battle after another because you know, in the movie, it's it's very much like uh a military state, and like the military is just you know, around going and doing this kind of stuff, and it's kind of wild the dude, you know, he's supposedly been working on a movie for like 15 years or something.
	Wow.
	And and it's it's out now when this stuff is you know so top of mind, so so in there, you know.
	Yeah, Eddington was really great.
	You see Eddington?
	I didn't see Eddington, but I've heard it's it's it's kind of they're they're dealing with similar stuff.
	I need to see that.
	Yeah, just a lot of things happening at once.
	Um but I believe we're headed to a uh surveillance state.
	You know, I believe that we're that's why they're trying that that that happened like a long time ago, no?
	I'm talking about drones in the sky surveillance, like that vibe.
	Oh my god.
	I mean that's where we're headed.
	Like, dude, the movie I want to see.
	This is how I think it ends.
	Blacks versus drones, dude.
	Black What?
	That's how it ends, bro.
	That is people are wondering how does time, how does this all where do Indian people fit in this?
	Are we running?
	We're just running the door.
	Okay, the right.
	Where do the Indians fit in this movie?
	Okay, we need Kyrie Irving to move over to the you're just like, let's see, okay.
	No, I mean, I'm just thinking of a cool black guy.
	Um, but yeah, you're like, okay.
	Uh, but dude, that's how it ends.
	Like, I think you're everybody's like, well, what's going on in society and like these different groups and people back and like, you know, genocide, all these stuff going on, and you're like, how does it all and I think it's blacks first drones?
	I don't know.
	For me, any as someone that used to live here and now comes here occasionally for work, every time I come back, it just feels wild.
	And it feels, I think it feels wilder to me because I think for people that are here, it's like, oh, they're slowly seeing it get crazy, so they're not going from like one to a hundred like I do.
	Like, you know, my time in LA, you know, I remember, you know, just seeing the amount of tents and all that stuff, you know, coming, you know, going to LA and in New York after COVID, because during COVID, I was in London the whole time with my wife.
	So coming to back to both those cities after COVID, I was like, whoa.
	Yeah, it's like a slipknot tailgate out there now, you know?
	It's fucking crazy.
	You know, my wife loves slipknot.
	You're lying.
	My wife has a PhD in physics.
	Or how?
	She's a genius.
	And she loves it's like she had this emo phase.
	And I I every now and then I'll just I'll I'll just bring up that she loves my two favorite facts about my wife.
	She's gonna hate that I'm bringing this stuff up.
	No, it's important.
	One is that she loves slipknot.
	And the other thing is that she was little Miss Denmark.
	That was a little competition for little kids when she was like five, six years old.
	And she won two years in a row, and then they stopped the contest.
	No.
	Because she kept winning.
	God.
	They shut it down.
	They shut it down.
	What?
	They don't like somebody really stepping out of the norm.
	I think they were just like, we should this is we shouldn't be doing these little pageants for these kids.
	And my wife, she said, like they would have a, you know, like, oh, you'd have the talent portion or whatever, and and she would be like, you know, doing her dance, whatever, and they're like, all right, that's good.
	And she's like, no, no, I'm not finished with my routine.
	I don't mean to be an SOL.
	Uh yeah.
	But I'm about to win this bitch for a third time, dude.
	Holy shit.
	Stop.
	She's like the Boston Celtics of those fucking Danish competitions.
	Yeah, and then she had her Ebo phase and got really into slipknot.
	Rebelled against the pageant life.
	You shut down a pageant queen like that where they can't even perform anymore.
	That is a direct avenue to slip knot.
	Corey understands.
	How else do you even manage that sort of stress and strain?
	Where are you gonna put those fucking pirouettes, bro?
	You're gonna package those bitches and put them into a slipknot mosh pit.
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	Important disclosure.com slash the I I didn't think we'd get into little little Miss Denmark.
	My wife's gonna be thrilled.
	Oh, that's awesome.
	I'm glad that you found love out there, man.
	Did you uh were you good with the ladies growing up?
	What was your energy like?
	Um, you know, I grew up in it's weird because I I grew up in South Carolina.
	I remember every school, like in the South kind of had a had an Indian guy.
	Was it like that at your school or is there a big Indian group?
	There's two, there's two versions of this.
	Okay.
	There's like, oh, if you're in like Atlanta or something, there's like the Indian crew and they hang out.
	And then there's what I grew up with, which is like just me.
	And when I was little, I I kind of forget this sometimes.
	In like first and second grade, there was this Thai girl, and her name was Tisha.
	Which doesn't make sense.
	That doesn't really sound like a Thai name, but her name was Tisha.
	But they left.
	Kind of a black tie.
	It's a fair.
	Sounds like a black tie.
	It sounds like a black tie affair.
	She was Thai.
	And uh, but they they left, and then it was just me as Indian, and it's in the 80s.
	And you know, it's so interesting to look back.
	I was thinking about this, and I had a conversation with my mom a while ago that really like blew me away.
	So, first off, you know, as soon as I tell people I grew up in South Carolina, they're always like, oh, must have been so racist, all this stuff.
	And of course, there was there's moments where it wasn't nice and like people calling you almost in word or something like that.
	Oh, inward, not almost.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, yeah.
	English people are nearsighted or whatever.
	I don't know.
	That's crazy.
	But there was also, I feel like, you know, there was a time I was writing something, and I asked my parents to just tell me, like, I didn't want to write uh stuff about people being racist to people.
	I wanted to write something positive.
	So I was like, tell me things you remember that were positive, like experiences you had, you know, being because uh someone because you know, my parents were there in the 80s.
	Yeah, it was different for sure.
	They don't people there didn't even know what Indian people were, they didn't see them in the culture, they didn't see nothing.
	Yeah, they didn't understand.
	It looks like a black person that they didn't finish the job on or whatever.
	Kind of, you know, no judgment.
	That let's just make sure that quote is attributed to you.
	Uh sure, dude.
	But I think it's like sometimes you do see that Indian dude.
	You're like, is this a black dude or an Indian?
	This is but we're joking, but it is what people were saying.
	They had never seen Indian people before.
	And they were not in the media or anything.
	And so my experience, you know, I'm I'm talking about the positive stuff.
	First off, I skipped first and second grade.
	I did first and second grade in one year.
	So people were like, people were like, oh my god, this genius little brown boy.
	Yeah.
	And so I was like, I had and I I was in a small school.
	There was like 30 kids in my class.
	There's 8,000 people that live in my town.
	Um but uh, you know, I was raised by my parents, but uh first grade's fucking easy, dude.
	First grade is easy.
	My dad would like show me the fact that it takes a whole year, you're like, what the fuck are we doing?
	My dad would like write little math problems and stuff for me, so I was really advanced in like math and stuff.
	So we go back and look at it.
	Yeah, no, it's it's yeah, you you should be able to teach your kid all that stuff before they're gonna be.
	It's like this is so fucking easy, dude.
	I wish I had a ring camera in there and just be giving the kids the answers and shit.
	What?
	It's yellow.
	If they had like one of those ring cameras you could talk in like a children's class or whatever.
	I mean, back then, no ring camera.
	Just had my dad teaching me stuff.
	So by the time I was like halfway through first grade, they called my parents like, this is you gotta get him out of here.
	He's he's gotta go up to second grade.
	And so I went to second grade, and that was like this big story in the school that some kid had skipped the grade.
	Yeah, it's like when LeBron left the Miami.
	It was exactly like LeBron.
	I was like LeBron with like very elementary math problems.
	Yeah.
	LeBron.
	Yes, exactly.
	And uh, but you know, when I was thinking about my childhood and time with my parents, and and you know, there was these two ladies that uh took care of us.
	First off, I I was talking to my mom, and she's talking about how when she came to South Carolina.
	My dad had been in America, he was in New Jersey doing his residency.
	Then he went back to India, married my mom, and then they came to South Carolina where my dad moved because he applied for these jobs all over the country, and in South Carolina, they didn't have a lot of the doctor he was, he was a gastroenterologist.
	So then they moved to South Carolina.
	My mom comes to South Carolina, Slim's never left India like this.
	Fuck that's crazy.
	She's in Bennett'sville, South Carolina.
	Not like, oh, you're in New York City.
	No, Bennett'sville, South Carolina.
	And uh my dad brings her home, and then he has to go to work.
	And I asked my mom, I was like, you know, what was that day like?
	And she was like, uh, and I put this in my show.
	She said, Oh, I I just sat on the couch and I cried, and I was like, oh my god, it's so dark.
	It was like so much braver than I I could be, you know.
	I mean, this is no, there's no FaceTime, nothing, none of that.
	You're really alone.
	It was hard to do.
	Yeah, but I'm talking about like to have a connection with your family or anything.
	There's no way to communicate.
	You're just praying and like lighting candles and putting those oranges in that little thing.
	There's no even like making a long distance call was a different thing back then.
	It was like $11.
	Yeah, it was not the way it is now where you could, you know, so she was really alone.
	But she used to go and do laundry all the time to just be around other people.
	And there was some lady there, an older white lady that recognized that you know, became saw her with me.
	And uh and and became friendly with her.
	And they called her grandma.
	I don't know the woman's real name, actually.
	When and and I called her grandma, and she would take care of me and like kind of looked out for our family.
	And she eventually, I I I think she moved or something or uh whatever, but she she she couldn't take care of us anymore.
	And this woman uh who we called Nana, it's what her grandkids called her.
	She started taking care of us, and then there was this woman named Miss Beulah who who would take care of us after school.
	She has some tits on her, I bet Miss Beulah rests in peace.
	I'm not gonna come back.
	Yeah, I didn't know that.
	Let's not Miss Beulah, as you might guess from the name Beulah, black woman from the South, and would cook the meanest Southern food for us.
	So I would eat Indian food and southern food, and um, and so Nana and Miss Bueller are part of my life.
	And um, you know, I uh I I had a sister that passed away, and she was uh a few years younger than me, and she had a very rare, she had a um something called Hurler syndrome, it's a super rare um liver disease.
	Sorry, uh it's obviously a little heavy for me, but um so she she passed away.
	What's her name?
	Her name is Nafis.
	Nafis.
	That's a pretty name, huh?
	Yeah.
	Um and uh she passed away.
	And uh Nana um Nana passed away a few years ago when I was in college.
	It was a while ago now.
	And um, you know, I didn't get a chance to Miss Beulah, I got to say a proper goodbye to.
	I went and saw her when she was staying in retirement home.
	Nana, I didn't have that same moment I was in college, and and it wasn't uh the same kind of thing where I had that opportunity to say bye.
	Um but my mom had told me that she went to go see um uh visit my sister at cemetery.
	And and you know, we're my sister's buried in in in South Carolina in Bennett's Fill.
	And, you know, that is a tricky thing because my family's from a Muslim background, and they wanted to do they were asked in the cemetery, can we do the things we do for our culture?
	And this and the cemetery was like, Yeah, of course, whatever you need to do, which is which is just so cool to me that they they they were open to that, and the whole community, you know, were visiting our family and everything, and um I remember even like a priest came by to just, you know, even though we were different religion, he came and like wanted to talk to us and stuff, and uh everyone was just so kind about it.
	And then um my mom told me that she went to go see uh my sister at the cemetery, and she said, Oh, and we saw Nana too.
	I was like, what do you mean?
	She's like, Well, Nana's uh buried right next to her.
	No.
	And I just I like melted as a human because I I I did not know that.
	And and to me, like I heard that, and and I was like, wow, like, you know, I was saying all this stuff about crazy this country is and how crazy it feels right now.
	But that story, that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world, man.
	Like those two people, my sister and this woman that befriended you guys.
	Yeah, have that close a bond where she's like, I I don't want to be buried next to her.
	I mean, it as it was I did not know that.
	And and and you know, I I I heard that and I was like, I I I don't know why it popped in my head, but I'm so glad it did, and then I got to share that with you because I I heard that story and I was like, man, people need to hear that story.
	Because it's not the story people want to tell.
	Oh, it's not the story that the media wants to tell.
	It's not a story that it's a story that doesn't really get the clicks.
	But it's a story that's probably it's the truth that most people that the human part of us is what makes us special.
	And that's the part that we should all try and lean into the most is that we're this special thing that can care about each other, you know?
	Yeah.
	I mean, the the the fact that these people saw my parents and and and tried to forge this bond with them.
	And I mean I I hope we're still a place where that kind of stuff can happen.
	I think it happens a lot.
	I think you're just right.
	I think it's not the n like the new it's not the news, you know.
	But I think it is more common probably than we think.
	Um Thanks for sharing that, dude.
	It is an important story.
	That's a great story.
	Oh, sorry.
	Um, did your sister have it the whole time when she was growing up when she was born from birth?
	Yeah, it was it was one of these things where uh you know the life expectancy with that uh hurlers is not um it's not very long.
	It she passed when she was like six, eight years old.
	Oh yeah.
	And was she um and it's one of these things I I I don't really talk about it very much, and a lot of people even that know me don't know I had a sister because people would ask me, like, oh, do you have any siblings?
	And I'd be like, Oh yeah, I got a little brother and and I had a sister that passed away, and I would say it like that, and then people like, oh like it's a very like heavy thing to hear all of a sudden.
	And so I was like, Oh, I don't want to make people uncomfortable.
	Uh so I'll just say, Oh, I I have a little brother, and then they'll be like, What's you guys' gap?
	Oh, uh, he's seven years earlier.
	Wow, that's a big gap.
	Uh yeah, I'm gonna not go down this thing because I don't want to bum everybody out because we're all just hanging out at chick play right now.
	What are we doing here?
	No, dude, it's um my sister was born with a rare liver disease and she had to get a liver transplant when we're kids.
	Oh, wow.
	We spent most of our childhood, like um, you know, she was always this thing that we couldn't touch because she always had to have these surgeries and stuff.
	So I think it just reminds me like a lot of that.
	I think some of that kind of that stuff.
	You know, I think it's just interesting when you grow up with a sibling that's sick because I think it I never even thought about it till you were saying some of this.
	It just like I don't know, you have to adjust yourself, I think, to try and maybe like my sister got most of the care, right?
	But she needed most of it.
	So it was weird.
	So there were times where I'd be like, I don't you know, later on in life, I'd be like, Oh, I didn't get this care, but it was like I didn't need it the most, you know.
	What was you guys' age difference?
	Um two years.
	And she's still alive.
	She ended up getting a liver transplant.
	She got one of the first liver transplants in um we moved to Arizona, she got it out there.
	And but um that's incredible.
	But it was just this whole time when she was a kid, she was always being flown off to these places and they sounded magical, like Rochester, Minnesota, just different places where there's these big hospitals, and she'd come back like this, like almost like this build-a bear that somebody done a shitty job with.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like just all these scars and stuff.
	But it was just she was always this, it was weird because you like couldn't hold it.
	She was just like a it was interesting.
	Did you have any experience like that with your sister or what was it like?
	There wasn't that kind of um there wasn't like all these things to try because uh the hurlers is pretty, they don't really have a thing.
	You know, there's like, you know, oh, you can maybe do a bone trans, bone marrow transplant, and but it was it's not really a thing they've made much progress on.
	So there was never anything like that.
	And I don't know.
	It it's interesting talking to you about this because it because you think about it's like when you're a kid, it it's so hard to understand what's happening.
	You have no frame of reference.
	And you know, when I look back on that stuff as as an adult, I I can't imagine how hard it was for my parents.
	Like you know, to to to to have a child that has something like that, and then to to lose a child.
	It's it's it's uh, you know, I I can't it's strange to like step outside of yourself.
	And honestly, this is like some of the most I've talked about it.
	Yeah with anybody.
	And I don't mean to pry about it.
	It's just And it's also a thing in the no, and not at all.
	I don't think prying at all, and I I I think it's really interesting that you know, you had something your sister had something as well.
	And and um, but you know, there's a thing with like Indian families and uh you know, I maybe it's it's a lot of families in that time.
	It's like you don't talk about stuff.
	Oh, really?
	Is that like an Indian thing kind of?
	I think there's something of like, oh, you're not as open about your feelings and stuff, and you're just a little bit more closed off.
	I think so, yeah, with Asian families, Indian families, I think with the with emotional stuff like that, you know.
	But you guys do reincarnation, so you can you're probably just like, oh, we can have the feelings later, we can have this.
	That's that's in Hinduism.
	That's a different thing, but Oh, really?
	Fuck.
	Yeah.
	So you guys are one time only?
	Islam, it's it's the same as Christianity.
	It's uh, you know, in terms of that stuff.
	As far as I know, I'm not a super religious guy, but yes, that's uh there's the reincarnation is is is just in in Hindu culture.
	So you guys are one and done, huh?
	I mean, it's so is a lot of people.
	Okay.
	I'm insane.
	Yeah.
	But yeah.
	Man, this got really we really went for a heavy turn after micro donkeys.
	This is this is uh you're teared up over here.
	I'm teared up.
	Is but it it's it's good to talk about this stuff, and and and um, you know, it it's it's it's so strange to think back about you know, those times and and um Yeah, to think about your family went through, especially my parents, you know.
	I never think about that.
	I always think about things.
	This is one place that I kind of like struggle with, I think.
	A lot of times I'll think about certain periods and things that happen, and I'll only think about it like as to how it affected me.
	And it's like man, to get into that place of where you're even thinking like, well, how did this affect my uh parents?
	Like I was eating dinner with some friends yesterday, and in the background, she has like these four kids and they're beautiful kids.
	They have the cutest kids.
	Um they're all going haywire.
	And I it was the first time I thought, holy shit, my mom had four kids and nobody to fucking help.
	Like there was And it was Can you imagine what that would be like these days?
	That's it sounds impossible.
	Impossible.
	And our parents were able to do that kind of stuff.
	But it was the first time that I had like even had a perspective moment like that that was that clear, you know.
	Oh, yeah.
	I I uh just just for you to have that, I think is pretty cool that you think like, oh, how mu what my parents must have went through, you know?
	Because it's like, yeah, it's like for us, it's a sibling for but for them it's like you know, it's probably something that feels far greater, you know.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, I didn't mean to delve into that, man.
	No, no, I I'm glad we did, and I I think it's a really interesting thing to talk about.
	And and and for me, I I I you know, um I bet you'd be so proud of you.
	Oh I you know who I think about sometimes is there is do you know the comic strip?
	Comic strip live in in New York?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	You you you know that club?
	Yep.
	That was the first club I ever got passed at.
	And uh there was a guy, his name was Lucian Hold, and he was a guy that would pass you.
	You know, you've heard of like Esty at the cellar.
	He was like SD at the cellar.
	He was the guy.
	Yeah, it's always that person.
	There's always a person that was a gatekeeper.
	And I went in there when I was like 18.
	And what was cool about the comic strip was they had a um thing where anybody could audition.
	Like you just lined up and then you could audition.
	It's just kind of crazy.
	Which is like because you know, I I don't know if this was your experience when you're starting out, but it's like you just wanted a shot, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	You just wanted a shot.
	And the idea of that you could be a regular at the comedy club.
	I remember I used to go to the comedy cellar, and I'd just be like, oh my God, could you imagine just getting spots here?
	Could you imagine just how amazing it would be to get spots?
	That was my dream.
	I know, you're so right.
	And so I went to the comedy comic strip.
	They had this, you know, open call, like you just had to wait in line, and then you'd pick from uh uh I I believe what would do is you'd pick from uh a lottery and it would give you a date.
	A date?
	Yeah, like a m they would do on Mondays, they'd have a certain number of people that were from this audition.
	That's cool.
	So I picked a date, and then I showed up and you went through this one woman, and if she said, Okay, you can see Lucian, you'd audition for Lucian.
	And so I got through it, and then I um I auditioned for Lucian, and um, you know, you wait around, you wait around.
	All these kind of things.
	Even like SNL, you hear these stories that be like, yeah, you didn't just wait around.
	They just make you weigh around.
	And then he's and he spoke to me at the end and he was like, he was like, You could start working at the club.
	And I was like, oh and and and and I was terrible.
	I was not good.
	But I was like very young and I was very comfortable on stage.
	And he told me he was like, you know, when people your age come in here, he was like, you're you're still at NYU, right?
	And I was like, yeah, yeah.
	He said, you know, um, Adam Sandler was in NYU when I passed him.
	And so was Sarah Silverman.
	And I was like, oh wow.
	I mean, I and I remember I said, oh wow, it'd be amazing if I had a career like that.
	He's like, I don't know if that's in the cards for you.
	But you could he was he was like the most straight shooting guy.
	I mean, they there's a very few people that are honest like that that I've met in my 20-something years.
	No.
	He was a guy that was like that.
	And he was like, I don't know if that's uh it's not an impression of him, but he was like, I I I I don't know if that's uh something that's in the cards for you.
	But you could start working in the club and and um I would do uh you would do like late night, which is like uh they'd have the show, and then you could sign up to go on at the end of the show.
	So there'd be like nobody there.
	I do that all the time.
	Sure, but getting up on stage, even just walking up.
	When you're coming up, you it feels if there's six people there, it feels like a million people.
	It's you're so excited.
	The feeling that is the energy that the the the fear and that energy and that nervous, it feels like a million.
	And and sometimes the I mean, and I'll say this, and you're gonna light up because you'll know this feeling.
	Sometimes someone on the bill like that was supposed to be on at like nine o'clock wouldn't show up, and they'd pull someone from late night.
	And so you'd get to go on when people were still there, still there, yes.
	And I remember one time like I'm gonna show these bitches, that's what I would say.
	This I had kind of an aggressive nature, but go ahead.
	Yeah, but it was like this kind of like, oh, I I'm gonna get to prove myself a little bit.
	But um, oh, one time I remember Chris Rock dropped in and I went after went on after him.
	Yeah, and like everybody was everyone's like, oh, Chris Rock just went on.
	They just all start leaving.
	And I told Chris the story the other day.
	I was like, I forgot this.
	I forgot that.
	I mean, and now he's he's my fucking friend.
	It's the craziest thing in the world to me.
	Um, but Lucian, he had a disease called uh uh skeleterma.
	I don't know why I'm saying the disease he had, but anyway, he passed.
	It's like a skin problem.
	Yeah, yeah, I don't know what it is exactly.
	But um Skelloderma and this dude stopped looking up stuff because it's gotten too dark that the stuff we're talking about.
	He's like, I'm not gonna pull up this stuff on Wikipedia, it's too dark.
	He's like, oh, I I don't think it's appropriate.
	I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna let this be.
	I'll wait till they start talking about mini cows again, and I can pull up those cute pictures.
	He has like a whole, he has a whole barrel full of.
	Well, you know, maybe I do bring it up because if someone wants to donate to to his fund or whatever, so Lucian had this disease, and we knew he was passing away, and I went and visited him, and and it was like that movie Being Mortal.
	You know, it was like I knew he was passing away.
	I knew this was probably our last conversation.
	And um, he and dude, this dude passed away.
	Oh, you know, Chris spoke at his funeral.
	Um, I think Seinfeld may have said something.
	I can't remember.
	I remember I went to the funeral and I was like a little kid.
	I remember I like went and like was crying in the bathroom and stuff, because this dude was the first dude ever to genuinely believe that I could do something in our world.
	The first person to say, hey, I'm gonna give you like fucking 10 bucks or whatever, but he was like, I believe in the idea of paying you to tell jokes.
	And he um we had that conversation, and and uh I remember he said something to me, and he he talked about some comic that he used to know that went to LA and um not like a super successful guy, but a guy that did okay, and he was like, you know, he said, This guy told him that he was in LA and he said that uh that's Lucian, yes, that's Lucian Hall.
	Uh yeah.
	But all I mean, he's he's like, you know, if you talk to guys like they love him.
	Yeah, yeah, and they remember him from back in the day, like he was a character.
	He he he's the guy that passed, you know, Eddie Murphy, and like the famous story of of Chris Rock is like Eddie Murphy was at the club, and uh he asked Lucian, do you have any do you have any uh black comics?
	And uh he said, Yeah, I got one.
	I'll put him up if you'll watch him.
	And it was Chris Rock.
	Wow.
	And then Eddie Murphy watched him and then put him in in Beverly Hills Cop 2.
	But anyway, dude, that's so great though.
	It was it's a huge deal.
	It's a huge amount of validation because it's it's uh I I can't really explain.
	It's still like when I think of all the things I've done in my career, it's still I I was excited as about that.
	I mean, dude, I uh it was like I think it was like 10 years ago I did Madison Square Garden.
	I the it was a similar feeling to get past.
	Yeah, you know, and um, but anyway, he told me this story about some guy in uh in LA, and he said that guy told him, like, you know, there's all these idiots in LA, and and and if if they're able to do it, I can do it too.
	Something to that extent.
	Like, and uh it was a more said it more eloquent than that.
	I'm not doing it justice.
	But he basically said to me, You're gonna be okay.
	And he left me with that.
	And it was really cool.
	Lucian did, yeah.
	He said, You're gonna be okay.
	Like you're a smart guy and you're gonna be okay.
	And um I mean, I I've been fortunate enough, and I think I'm I I mean, that was when I was a little kid, you know.
	I hadn't done anything really, and and you know, I I feel like I've been fortunate enough in my career to to be uh more than okay, uh, and done a lot of great things I never would have thought possible when I was,
	you know, interacting with Lucian, and um, you know, one of my not regrets or I don't know, not uh just just one of my uh oh man kind of feelings is that like, oh, this guy that was the first guy to believe in me to see me, yeah.
	Didn't get to see that how far I really went, you know.
	And and weird.
	I sorry, I feel like I'm like taking up too much of your time because it's well you're a great storyteller, I'm realizing that's what honestly one thing I've realized sitting here, and uh, and I can see why you're able to do what you do even more, like writing your movies and knowing, like, yeah, saying how streamlined it is.
	Uh I'm enjoying it.
	So go on.
	Sorry.
	You know, it's uh I I I was in a cab one time in London, and I was like, it's weird because once you become successful, it's weird when you drop into a comedy club, everyone goes nuts, and and everything's a little sweeter because they're excited because you're famous.
	And I I was in a cab with my wife in in London, and I and someone was like, Tell tell us about this thing or whatever.
	And I told uh talked about this whole story of something that happened to us.
	And when I left, the cab driver said, Hey, you're a really good storyteller.
	And I was like, Holy shit.
	That was like winning an Emmy for me.
	Because I was like, that guy has no clue who I am, and he went out of his way to tell me that.
	That that made me feel really good.
	Was he an Indian guy?
	No, why would he be Indian, Theo?
	Racism.
	He he was like a black guy that was fully finished.
	Okay, okay.
	Okay, very good.
	He was a fully finished black guy.
	He was a black guy.
	Um I love I mean, I love race stuff.
	It's fun to joke about and think about because it's so different and it's fun, you know.
	Well, that's funny as stuff.
	But that's uh you're right, man.
	Sorry.
	But yes, somebody telling you a great storyteller, it's so funny.
	It's sometimes it's that one word or one thing.
	It's like and to get it from someone that doesn't know anything.
	It was because sometimes you feel like, oh man, like not like oh, people uh you feel like I don't know how much of this is sweetened up because of whatever.
	And and and and it's very frustrating because I don't think anyone that's successful like that wants any of that.
	But you know, uh you get a little bit of that when you you drop in and you're working on material, and and you know, uh when you're on stage for a while, eventually.
	That's the worst part.
	You're like, is this even good?
	And you're like, are you just getting unfair reactions?
	But then hopefully if you're self-aware enough, and that judge inside of you, that little party that's always hated you is still like in lurking.
	You gotta have that guy in there.
	That guy needs to be there.
	That guy needs to be there, and if he's there, you know, because you know, all your people, oh man, it's it's your best hour.
	It's like, yeah, it's it's getting there.
	Right.
	But you gotta have that little guy, and you gotta have that little guy.
	And look, that's that's you know, uh whether it's a movie or stand-up show, like you know, screening a movie, it's like, yeah, people don't lie eventually.
	Like they'll they'll be sweet for a little bit, but eventually they are like, all right, come on, you know, they that that that drops after a few minutes.
	Yeah, and if you start smoking your own bullshit too, that's when it can get really spooky.
	Oh, that's that's when you gotta make sure you, you know.
	I I've uh I've been around people enough to be like, oh, that when you start having a bunch of people around you that tell you you're awesome, that's when the everything starts falling apart.
	Have you ever had ego problems?
	You ever had anything like that?
	Like are you ever able to check your own ego kind of type of things?
	Because ego is so dangerous because it can kind of grow in the distance.
	It's almost like something that you don't see growing.
	It's almost like you're standing there with your shadow and then your shadow gets bigger without you noticing it, you know.
	You know, I think I think the way I I hopefully have been able to avoid that kind of problem is is um I'm not around all the time.
	You know what I mean?
	I kind of go away in a hole and work on stuff.
	This is like the most shit I've done.
	I haven't I haven't been on your podcast, I haven't been on anybody's podcast, I haven't done anything.
	I've just been working.
	And you know, being back out in in kind of wild yeah, in the kind of press world, it's been kind of a little overwhelming for me.
	I get very overwhelmed.
	Whenever I finished like season one and two of my show, like whenever it came on Netflix, like I left the country because I was just a little bit it was just too much for me.
	Like I went to uh I went to Japan for a couple of months because like I'm gonna do it.
	Really for months?
	Did you see Kanye or not?
	He wasn't there at the time, but you know, I I I wanted to be somewhere where people didn't really know who I was.
	It was it felt a bit it it can be a little overwhelming, like that that part of our jobs of of red carpets and interviews, not it it it's a lot.
	Yeah, I never done a lot of that stuff, so I I yeah, that part I don't know about, but I can imagine.
	But you know, it I I'm here and I've been doing all stuff.
	I love doing this because we're just having a great conversation.
	Um not everything is this fun.
	Um, but you know, I do it because I I I feel like it's a part of the job and I gotta support the work and the studio that paid for the movie and everything, so I do it, but it's it's not my I I I like the work.
	I mean, all I'm looking forward to is getting back on to work.
	Uh getting back to work, like doing like being on set with some people and and and being like, hey, do this.
	Or, you know, I'm I'm going back on the road for a little bit, like being on the road, like that, that is a billion times more fun than some of the stuff you have to do, excluding like this.
	And I I actually like that podcasts are a thing now because I did Amy Polar's podcast.
	That was so fun.
	So great.
	She's great.
	I hadn't seen her in a while, and it's like, oh bad, I'm just excited to like be with you for an hour and change because I hadn't seen you in so long.
	But uh Yeah, dude, thanks for making me think about.
	We had a guy named Tommy at the comedy store, and I and he was like the guy, and he's like this character, everyone I've heard his name, yeah, yeah.
	And people impersonated him all the time.
	Uh huh.
	And he really was.
	He had this long hair and he looked like a rock and roll guy, and I believe he was.
	I think he also played in a band.
	And um and he made jellies and jams and he would bring this.
	He was this very uh like eccentric type of guy.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Um, but he took care of Mitzi Shore, but he would be the guy and he'd sit there and he'd open the little curtains of the little Will Call booth had little curtains on it, and he'd be like, You're doing good.
	But I happened to I went to the comedy store one time, I was trying to find out how do they do sign-ups.
	I remember and I was buying a beer on the porch, and he thought I was somebody else.
	He's like, haven't seen you around here in a while.
	You know, we miss you coming around.
	And uh I was like, Yeah, I and he goes, Why don't you come in?
	Come back in on Sunday, man.
	I'm gonna I want to I want to see you back up there.
	And he fucking had me confused with it.
	Whoa, and did you do the other spot?
	Yeah, this is fine.
	And did you put your name down?
	Or I just I I I didn't even think about that.
	And I just kept fucking doing this.
	And how'd your set go?
	And it went good enough where I got to keep going.
	But it was but before that for sure, I went and signed up and waited outside, and there's like a guy that's j practicing juggling who can't even talk, and he's like telling his jokes through like like bowling pins and shit.
	It's like there's all types of stuff.
	There's somebody training a bird or whatever, and he's like barely trained it and he's like trying to train it really fast in the parking lot.
	It's like you cannot train a train a bird really fast.
	But this is the same thing I was talking about earlier.
	It's so interesting to me that you know, comedy comedians were all having, you know, it's just a crazy moment to be a comedian, and people are having such overwhelming amounts of success.
	But at the end of the day, like all of us started just wanting a room full of people.
	Just a crowd.
	And to be able to perform.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, one one thing that was great about uh good fortune, dude, and and I haven't finished it, but I really I like it and I'm excited to see the end of it.
	It's not that long a movie, by the way.
	But I didn't get home last night until probably 11 30.
	No, I'm just saying for people that are worried that if it's a big thing.
	Oh, yeah, no, no, it's an hour.
	It's an hour and a half movie.
	Um, but it's good, dude.
	The the the there were so many, like, start there's starting to be some really good plot changes for me that I really dug like right around the spot where I'm at um where the you think it's gonna go one way and now it starts to change up and then I don't want to give too much of it away.
	But one thing that was really amazing about it, and my friend was watching with me, uh was that you felt of how tough it is that first year or two in LA.
	You felt of like when uh your character is sleeping in his car, right?
	Yeah, or like when there's DoorDash delivery and just like the jobs you get when you first get to a big city to try to survive the parking tickets and how you lose your car, you just come out of a place you barely had enough money to go get some avocados.
	It was the one thing you were treating yourself to this week.
	It was like two avocados.
	I'm gonna cut those bitches up and I'm gonna eat those bitches, right?
	And then I'm gonna go to sleep.
	Right?
	You were so excited and you come out and your fucking car has been towed because you didn't pay tickets.
	All that shit, dude.
	My friend and I slept in the McDonald's ball pit.
	We would jump the fence and sleep in that fucking ball pit.
	Whoa.
	Because it was like kind of some more space to lay out, right?
	Like if you got under the balls.
	There's hair in there, there's coins under there, but it is there's a little bit more room for your body than like because we tried to sleep in his car one night and it was just a nightmare.
	But going through all of that, yeah.
	And there is the hair goes to the bottom, which I don't understand how that works.
	That's science.
	But uh and yeah, they should do a sh they should see what's in the bottom of a lot of these.
	It's not good.
	But yeah, we we would jump over the fence and and sleep in one that you know that that closed at 10, we'd get in and just get five, five hours of sleep or something, you know.
	Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
	I could relate.
	No, it was awesome.
	It was fucking great.
	One night we're in there, dude.
	We're talking shit to each other laughing and stuff, and a fucking Asian guy's on the slide, he's asleep.
	He's on the slide.
	I feel like he's very very exposed.
	No, like in one of those high slides where there was room where you could kind of get uh, you know, it was encompassed.
	He was in the best spot.
	Oh my gosh.
	Yes, he was in one of the tubes.
	Oh, damn, that's better than the ball pit.
	That's a pro move.
	Yeah, and he even came up to the window, it was like a little hamster showing up to pretty fucking dope.
	But dude, that was like, but I forget you forget about all the pieces of the things and the moments that like were so big.
	Um And that was in LA?
	And that was in LA.
	And I think we also McDonald's in LA.
	Uh it's on Wilshire Boulevard, like Wilshire and Does that Asian guy have a podcast now too?
	I hope he does.
	I think it's Ronnie Chang.
	You know, I was doing a uh I was doing a uh one of those shows at the comedy seller where people don't know who's gonna show up.
	Uh-huh.
	It was like surprise headliner, and it's just me working on stuff.
	And I walk by the line and some lady goes, I hope it's not Ronnie Chang.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, but then I I found out that it's because she'd been to another one of these and it was Ronnie Chang.
	Oh and we talked about it at the show, but it wasn't because she doesn't like all love to Ronnie Chang.
	I love Ronnie Chang.
	I just got to see him last week.
	I bumped into him, I went into the comedy comedy cellar.
	Okay, yeah, yeah.
	Just stopped there and he was in there.
	It was awesome, dude.
	Just to get to see him.
	He is great.
	But I just got some great specials too.
	If you haven't seen it, if you haven't seen him.
	We I get to get him to come in and talk sometime.
	Yeah, I know.
	He he's great, but I I just thought it was funny to walk by and through that.
	So funny, dude.
	Yeah.
	Um, but yeah, that's one thing I loved about Good Fortune.
	Uh you and Seth Rogan are just you guys are buddies, or I guess it is.
	Yeah, or buddies in the.
	We'd spoke about this movie, and you know, if anyone listening is gonna see the movie, please you know, see it in a theater with the crowd.
	Because we were talking about these movies like I think it's worth it for sure.
	It definitely felt like a real movie to me.
	It didn't feel like some forced shit, you know.
	I know like there, like, you know, sometimes you get these movies and it's like uh you know, they're getting it felt shit feels forced or too fake or like it's not real.
	I didn't feel any of that.
	I didn't feel like any pandering for some like social causes or any shit.
	No, it's just trying to be very real and um and very funny.
	And and you know it's good, dude.
	I'm fucking excited about finishing it.
	Oh because your character starts to get like, what the fuck?
	I thought he was great, and then he's like, but you see the different parts of us that can come out and come to the surface when different things like are attached to us.
	Yeah.
	But when we were making the movie, Seth and I would talk about like, you know, how we'd go to movie theaters and see movies like Anchor Man or Super Bad or you know, Pineapple Express, and and and you'd have like a room.
	It'd be like a stand-up show, you know, like a room full of people erupting.
	And you know, it's like what we feel when you do stand up.
	Like, if we did stand-up and there was only like one person in the crowd, that's not the same thing.
	Like the people make a difference.
	So, like seeing a movie, uh, a comedy in theaters, it's something that's kind of gone away after the pandemic and everything.
	And and um I I hope we can bring it back.
	I mean, we were just in Chicago last night, and we we screened the movie.
	We've been doing these like little secret screenings, and and I've been s sitting in a little bit and watching it, and I'm like, I I don't even remember the last time I've been in a pack theater watching a comedy.
	So I I hope the movie works and that people get to make more comedies and they get to see them in theaters because uh you know it's something that I miss, and um, yeah, I mean, especially because our movies like an original movie, um, a comedy, theatrical.
	It's it's tough to get it.
	I mean, I really I'm not even lying or joking or pandering to you or to our fans.
	I wouldn't say that.
	I think it's worth going to see.
	I think if you took a date or a friend or your buddy, you guys would have a good time.
	It would be worth your money, it'd be worth driving over there and sitting in there so far.
	And I'm not even done with it unless it gets really bad in the city.
	No, no, the backgast.
	Oh, bad.
	The background's great.
	We'd have to talk about it afterwards.
	Because it really relates to a lot of the things, some of the stuff we were talking about earlier, some of the emotional things we were talking about in terms of just just kind of seeing other people and seeing what they're going through and just kind of giving them a look.
	You know, I it I was thinking about that when my mom was telling me that story, but yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that was a great story, man.
	Do you feel like why do you feel like you have to do so much?
	Because this is something I've struggled with in my own life.
	Like, I think I need to have a kid or something because I I feel like as I've gotten older, you know, I do things like, oh yeah, I you know, I was uh prolific.
	You've done so many TV shows, you've written, you've directed, you've won.
	Haven't you won an Emmy before?
	Yeah, one two Emmys.
	Damn, bro.
	Gang.
	Yeah.
	But I'm just saying, like, and sorry I don't know, I I don't know a lot about that.
	No, it's fine.
	Um but uh but the doing too much why do you have do you know do you ever know why you feel like you some people they could do half of that and feel extremely accomplished and they would be.
	But do you feel like is it is it financial, which is fine, it's definitely nice to have money and have security.
	Is it like is there something that you find because it's not financial because doing movies, I you know, uh I I technically would make way more money touring.
	Like losing money doing these movies, like try to make a movie for theaters.
	It's kind of like trying to be like, hey, I want to build a tower records.
	Uh good luck, Aziz.
	Um it's it's not what's the lucrative thing.
	You know what I mean?
	Like it's interesting because I I my like heyday of touring and everything was probably you know, 10 years ago when I did um the garden and all that stuff, I was touring like crazy.
	And back in that time, not many people were doing theaters and arenas.
	Like there was only a few people, and now it's like fucking everybody does.
	And when I go on tour, I'm like, who the f who's Alton Brown, the chef?
	He's playing the the D-Pack Center in Durham.
	What if he's just chopping food up and people are coming?
	Everybody's on tour, dude.
	There'll be a dude Julianing a carrot for 11,000 people.
	Yes, and you're like, what is it happening?
	That TV show is it cake is going on tour.
	I'm like, yes, who gives a fuck?
	Is it cake tour?
	And you're like, wait, I I'm that's what I'm competing with people in the stands with binoculars trying to figure out if it's not like this.
	That's 70 yards.
	It's ridiculous.
	Who cares?
	Not like this in the middle.
	It's fond it.
	It was not like this.
	And in that time, there was a whole podcast boom, everybody found an audience.
	You didn't, you cut out the middleman of Netflix or whatever.
	People are putting stuff on YouTube, but now all these people are touring, and there's been this massive boom.
	And I, during that time, made my TV series, worked on these movies, and have kind of uh stepped away.
	Um we're coming back.
	You're still you're touring again.
	Yeah, I'm touring again now, and and it's been so fun.
	And I have uh I've had a great time, but I'm also like, damn, dude, the travel, it's hits me in a different way.
	And like I'm yeah, you see, October 23rd, I'm getting stressed.
	I'm like, I can't I can't go to Temecula.
	I gotta I gotta cancel Temecula, San Diego, oh God, uh Modesta, Monterey, oh god, at least I can hub out of LA.
	Oh no, then I gotta fly to Cincinnati on the 13th.
	Oh god, then we gotta fly to Louisville, TSA is gonna be closed.
	There's gonna be like one air traffic controller.
	Then I'm probably gonna go down on my way to St. Louis.
	That's gonna be delayed.
	Oh, Indianapolis will be fun, dude.
	Indianapolis.
	Then I go see my family in Charlotte.
	That's nice.
	I love Asheville.
	Asheville's a great, great town.
	And Savannah's a great town.
	Savannah's beautiful too.
	Yeah, that the no, I love the show, and I love being in the different cities because you know when you tour, you form a relationship with with these cities.
	And you have to sure.
	Oh, you're excited to go back.
	You're excited to see, like, oh, look at this crowd.
	This one's different.
	This energy, this place is different.
	Yeah, and and and what's so cool is is, and I think this is why people like to go to live standup is like, even if you're watching special, it's not the same as that show in that town.
	And it's really fun.
	And um, you know, for me, like this tour, it's been fun because I haven't toured in a while, so it's a lot of stuff that happened.
	You know, I've been married, we're me and my wife were trying to have a kid.
	And to go back to the thing we were talking about of like doing too much, like the movies.
	I feel like that comes from like I have an idea, and I have this vision of it sounds cheesy to say vision, but I have a vision of something I want to execute, and it's something I'm really excited about.
	And I'm like racing to be on set to do like it could just be like I'm writing something now.
	I have this one seed.
	I'm like, oh man, I just want to shoot that scene.
	I like think this would be so I gotta get there.
	And it's a long time to get there.
	Movies are so slow, you gotta work with so many other people.
	It's a nightmare.
	But I do it because I really love films and and and I want to make more films.
	Um, but I do think I realized recently, like I've gotta calm down.
	Like, I I think I've overestimated my ability to work, and and and as I get older, I'm you know you burn out.
	They get stressed, the stress builds.
	I've seen friends that are burned out.
	Oh, dude, you're looking at one of them.
	We're not even friends, but uh you're looking at somebody that's been burnt out, but we could maybe be friends.
	I mean, I I I hope so.
	Dude, we went we went deep here.
	This is this is deeper than I went on any other podcast.
	We were talking about some heavy stuff, yeah, and in a great way.
	I love it.
	I mean, I think this is so.
	We talked about a lot of this stuff on here.
	It's important, you know.
	It's nice to like I really I really like it.
	But no, I that burnout feeling, it's like it's real.
	I started shedding hair recently, dude.
	We had a freaking retired Boston detective who has some of the craziest stories, found a wiener on the sidewalk, and it was like a real who done it or whatever.
	Um obviously the person missing the wiener did it.
	But uh, so it was pretty kind of uh easy.
	It wasn't like knives out.
	Actually, it was like knives out.
	It's a long story.
	Well, but um anyway.
	Oh shit, I forgot what I was talking about.
	We're talking about like just the burnout and oh yeah, the burnout is real, it happens, dude.
	Yeah, it started shedding hair, all that kind of stuff.
	It's tough to say no too, because you know, you're having a moment right now, and I've had a moment, and you know, people start telling you to do all this stuff, and no one on your side of the business is gonna be like, dude, you gotta you gotta chill, you gotta take some rest.
	No one ever says that.
	Like, well, that's a great opportunity.
	You should you should do it.
	And you're like, well, that's a great opportunity.
	I should do it.
	And when I was younger, I could do all that stuff.
	When I look back at schedules and stuff I did, I'm like, how did I do all this?
	I can't do it anymore at this age.
	It's it's a different thing.
	And and I'm married now.
	It's like I'm I've been away from my wife a lot, and it's it's not I I don't feel nice about it sometimes.
	And look, I have a suggestion that help you relax.
	Go watch good fortune.
	Go to your go with your wife.
	I'm not even joking.
	Go sit and watch it.
	You know, you'll like it.
	You guys will laugh, you'll get to spend some time together.
	It's good.
	I do know it's out October 17th.
	I do want to remind everybody about that.
	Um, thank you.
	I feel lucky you get to be in London.
	One of my uh favorite musicians, James Blake lives over there.
	Dermot Kennedy is a is a um he's in the United Kingdom.
	He's a guy that I really love.
	Um, who uh who actually is coming in town soon.
	Um, yeah, I would love to get to live over this sometimes.
	People feel very it's nice you're a little bit, I mean, you probably feel this here too, like you're a little bit away from the circus.
	Oh, yeah, I feel totally good.
	And the circus is dissolved, the circus is.
	It's a different thing, you don't really need to be there anymore.
	They're finding new places, there's new mini circuses popping up.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But then, but yeah, but is Nashville becoming a circus?
	No, I don't think so.
	Not too much.
	It still feels kind of small.
	There's a lot of people moving here and a lot of stuff going on, but it still feels pretty small.
	No, I mean, I feel like that in London that I'm away from things.
	Whenever I go back to LA, I start feeling like, oh my god, I'm falling behind.
	I need to do this.
	I because you hear about it.
	Oh, I've just made this, I'm working on it.
	I'm like, oh shit, what am I doing?
	I'm not doing anything.
	You've done so much, dude.
	I mean, from always from television to um, I think you had that series I watched for while I was on Netflix, it was just you.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That was messing on.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Um, the book that you wrote, I know about dating and like struggling of love.
	Yeah.
	Um, you've done enough, you've done.
	Let me tell you this.
	If nobody ever tells you, you've done enough.
	No, but finishing the movie was a big deal, and I'm glad I did it because it took a minute to get it done, and and I'm really proud of it and proud of the work that I did.
	My my whole team did, all the actors did, and I'd love to make more, but yeah, I definitely I hear you.
	And um it it's uh You've done a lot, that's what I mean.
	I didn't mean enough.
	I didn't mean it.
	No, no, I know I know you mean it.
	I appreciate it, yeah.
	And I think uh Yeah, and your sister would be so proud of you.
	What was her name again?
	I want to say what we're saying.
	Nafice Nafis?
	Yes.
	Oh, it's such a pretty name.
	How do you spell it?
	N-A-F-E-E-Z.
	Ooh, nafis.
	Um I'm so glad we we talked about that.
	Because I I I I I feel like I'm here with some people that work with me, and then they're like, wait, what?
	I think when we say people's names out loud, people that have been a part of our lives, like even when we're talking about like if you wanted to say something to Lucian, I think when when when people we say people's names, they feel that wherever they are, that is a felt thing.
	Uh because otherwise, why would we feel it?
	You know what I'm saying?
	No, it's it's it's bringing their it's it's it's putting them in the streets.
	Yeah, and I believe it's like Yeah.
	I believe they feel it wherever they are, they feel it, you know.
	I think you definitely, if you're here for this long, you definitely keep an anchor locked in.
	I mean, the other person I was gonna mention and and tell me we can we if you I don't want you to run late for whatever, but the other person I was thinking of when I was talking about Lucian was have you ever heard of Manny that ran the comedy cellar?
	Manny Dworman was the owner of the comedy seller, his son Gnome's there now.
	Um but he Oh yeah, no Gnome.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So Gnome's dad is Manny.
	Okay.
	First time I ever did comedy was uh at the comedy seller.
	They had a they had a new talent night, which doesn't even exist anymore.
	Now they just have like fucking 10 comedy sellers and 10 shows.
	But this was like back in the day, they had a new talent night at like six o'clock, and you'd bring like a couple of friends and they'd give you stage time.
	And I did that, and I was 18 years old.
	Summer of my freshman year in college.
	Didn't do good at all.
	I I did well, my material was terrible, but I did well because I was very comfortable on stage and public speaking, and I was just kind of funny and it worked.
	And I came back and did it again, and I did a couple of open mics and you know, had a reality check, like, oh fuck, this is really hard.
	And then um the third time I did stand-up, third time I ever did stand-up was again at the comedy cellar.
	And it was one of these new talent nights, and I for some reason this crowd and me, it just it I wasn't go well.
	No, no, went super well.
	Oh fuck.
	All your stories in a way that go good.
	But uh and and they went nuts.
	And I like said something at the end.
	I was like, oh, by the way, like whatever we perform, where we have to bring a certain number of friends.
	I'm I I'm I'm I'm running out of friends, so if you want to come, like come see, say hi backstage and and or whatever, you know.
	And and I was just being serious, and they're they were all just losing it.
	And Manny saw this, and he said, like, you're yeah, there's Manny.
	And he goes, You're he basically came up and it was like some old Hollywood thing.
	He was like, You're ready for the big room.
	I done stand-up like three times.
	There's no way I was ready to perform at the hardest comedy club.
	And this is like comedy cellar, where it's like a tell Geraldo, Jim Norton.
	He's like, You're ready for the big broom.
	And uh, and so I would show up there and and uh they would put me on late at night, almost like a late night.
	They would it was like really odd because I I probably I shouldn't have been doing it.
	I was just so green, and I was doing it, and eventually, you know, Estee uh Estee, who's the you know famously runs a comedy seller, passes comics.
	She's like, okay, let's you go on.
	And I went on, and she was like, Yeah, you you you can't be performing here.
	Because it's good and less.
	Yeah, she's like, You can't be can't be doing this.
	She's fucking tough.
	I was like a little kid.
	She was like, You can't, you can't be doing this.
	You're not ready.
	And I was like, okay.
	And then um, you know, now again, one of the, you know, Emmy, masquare garden, whatever, like this to me is the coolest thing, is that I can perform at the comedy cellar and just drop in, and they'll just let me do material.
	Yeah.
	And and perform.
	And then the crowd goes nuts and knows who I am.
	That's the craziest thing to me.
	It's crazy.
	That's like kind of above everything else.
	And my biggest dream, I've told people is like that I'm just like 90 years old, and I drop into the comedy cellar, and maybe a couple of people knew who I am, but that I'm able to fucking hold my own.
	But anyway, I I was there at the comedy cellar one night, and me and Este were talking about this, and she was like, you know, man, Manny saw you whenever you were really young, and and he must be up there smiling now, seeing all you've done.
	And uh yeah, that that uh that made me smile.
	And um I I will I wasn't super super close with Manny, but um, but he was another guy before Lucian, oddly, even saw me and just said something.
	What's a reminder, I think, for anybody that has a has been in a field for a while of when you take a moment to connect with somebody that's just coming into it, you know, that it could have an effect, you know.
	That's a nice reminder.
	It means the world to them, and you don't realize because I think we're all like we're all in our own head and don't realize I mean, yeah, especially when you're young, there's one person having to believe, like, oh, good job, just little things like that.
	And I I'm still grateful.
	Uh it reminded me that Neil Brennan and Amy Schumer are the ones that helped me get past at the comedy cellar.
	Oh, wow.
	And I've only performed that like probably six, seven times, or maybe ten.
	But I walked in the other night and I was so nervous, like, you want to go up?
	I was like, no way, I'm not freaking going up, dude.
	But I think some of that's just places you used to be in, you know.
	So um Aziz, I gotta go, man.
	Thank you so much.
	Oh man, this was such a great conversation.
	I'm I um I really enjoyed it, and and we talked about so many uh interesting things uh and um and and really some some heavy stuff, but I I thought it was great, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do it.
	I appreciate it, man.
	I think it's exciting that you get to live in London and have a new experience.
	It sounds like you've had a lot of unique experiences, and that's like that's such a gift, you know.
	Um God's had a lot of grace, it seems like, in your whole just like ability to be creative and like man, thank you for sharing that with us.
	Oh, thanks, man.
	Thank you for having me.
	You bet, and best of luck with the film, dude.
	I'll uh out October 17th, so this week, I think.
	And uh, all right, everybody, be good.
	Thanks so much.
	Now I'm just falling on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be corner stone.
	Oh, but when I reach that round, I'll share this piece of my life out.

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