Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Let's go, Shemmy.

Shemmy, shemmy, shemmy.

Most people don't know about Shemmy. They don't know about your alter ego.

No. Well, you were the one who brought it out of me. You were, right?

Well, we do shows. We would do shows in New York, and you would go full shimmy. I'd be on the side of the stage, yelling out, Shimmy.

Well, when we first started, by the way, we did the Joe Rogan experience 30 years ago. It just wasn't millions of people. Just hanging out. Exactly. Just playing pool. I remember Sussman brought you into town. You started at Nix. Was it Nix?

I started at Stitches in Boston. Stitches. Then I was two years in when I met you. And then I think we met at Eastside, which was awesome.

What a great club. What a great club.

I was just there. Shout out to Richie Manoveni.

Yes, my man. It was the greatest. The greatest place to go. I remember it would be a line around the block, two shows on a Wednesday night. It was insane. Comedy then. That place was just jammed.

The golden age of comedy at the time. 1990? Yes. Oh, my God. It was incredible back then. '91-ish.

I started at '89. I think I met you in, what was it?

'91, maybe? '90, '91, somewhere around there.

Yeah, somewhere in there. I was following everybody. That was my thing. I was being the stand-up comedian with the jacket sleeves pushed up and the bolo tie. Do you know what I'm talking about? I was just that straight thing. You came into town and we were like, Who is this dude? You just didn't care about anything. It was like, you always remained the same. It was just incredible to watch. We were like, Whoa, he just doesn't care. That's what you were... You would work with me on that. You would be like, Brother, you can't be like you're handing out a platter of food for these people. Do what you want to do. I was like, I just got to get good. Yeah, I got to wrap my head around that. You're right. I I was just try to make the audience so happy. You're like, Stop it, stop it. You got to let go. You'd get me going crazy. I get all fired up there. I'd be yelling at people. They'd be like, Whoa. It's like, Why? Maybe we bring it back a little bit. But it was different, man. It It really was. It really taught me to, most of all, to be comfortable in front of the audience and not care about them.

I literally battled with it to this day, that anxiety of, oh, gosh, I get nervous and I start overthinking things. But it really helped me to say, just do what you do. It's almost like the... Because the audience is like a dog. They sense fear. 100%. Yeah.

They're animals. Just like we are. We're all animals.

That's right. It's like they know. And if you're comfortable, even if you're faking it, they'll go with you. You do a joke and you're confident, they'll laugh just because they think it's funny. They look around and everybody's like, oh, it must be funny because he's just got confidence by it. And you had that confidence always, man. You were always insanely intense and just never looked back. Way to go, man.

Way to go for you, too. You just always needed a hype, man. You just need someone to let you go. Give them the green light. Give him the green light.

It's so funny. You're right.

Yeah, you I just needed a hype, man.

You were the one who did it for me in Montreal, too. Yeah. Do you remember that? Going this place? By the way, do you remember the beer we would drink? There were two kinds of this. I can't remember this Canadian beer. I've been racking my brain to think about it. There was a gold version of it and an Amber, and it was just the greatest stuff. When we get fired up up there, and I loved it, man. I loved going to that Montreal Comedy Festival.

Oh, it was the best. Back when it was, I think it's gone under. I I think they just announced they're going bankrupt.

Oh, really?

Yeah, unfortunately. See, she'd tell people what it was. What it was during our time when we were young was the Montreal Comedy Festival was where a Young comedians would go up and you could get a deal. And that's where you got the deal to do the King Queens.

Well, I got the deal to do the NBC. Right. Then that turned in. Then that turned in. Once that failed, that went into the CBS.

But once you get in, the thing about people No. In the '90s, there was this thing that was happening where everybody looked at a comedian like, This could be the next Rosanne. This could be the next Tim Allen. This could be the next Seinfeld. So every time they looked at you, they're like, What do you got? What do you got for me? And the agents would try to put it together as a sitcom. Yes. They had this showcase called the Montreal Comedy Festival, the Just For Laps Comedy Festival. It was the most insane thing. You would go there and it would change your life. You could have one set, one 15-minute set, and all of a sudden, you got a half a million dollars.

A hundred %. You have one set that pops and people talking about there's a buzz, and it's like, you're in, you're set.

And they have bidding wars. Yes. So like, CBS would be, Fox would be, they all be throwing in. And there's guys that walk, do you remember Chicken?

Chicken was the crazy guy? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Chicken got the deal that killed the deal.

Yes. He got like 800,000 or something. It was some crazy money, or I don't know what it was.

Some nutty amount of money.

But he had no act, right? It was after that, they thought he It was- He just tricked everybody. He did.

I don't know how he did it. I wonder if he had a hype man, if you could have kept tricking people. Maybe he just went off the rails with anxiety when success starts. Because that's one of the things that does happen. I've talked about it. I think everybody admits it. When it first starts happening, you think it's going to go away. You get super anxiety ridden. You feel like an imposter. You'd show up on the set and you're like, Are they kicking me out? I'm still My bud, I'm telling you, I still deal with that.

I'm not even kidding. You obviously don't, and you haven't. I do, though. Do you really?

Yeah, I do. I just ignore it. I tell it to shut the fuck up.

Well, that's what you got to do, I guess. And that's what I don't do enough because I start thinking and I start overthinking both sides. I'm like, oh, gosh, what if this happens or this means something? To this day, if I'm doing a theater and it's my people, and I know that they're coming to pay to see me, I'm pretty confident. I feel like I'm going to do well. But if I do a club that they don't know me, I did a corporate gig a month ago in Miami. And I was like, oh, boy, because corporate gigs, they can go either way. They could be horrible. Well, I get there. It's in Miami. Really good-looking people. It's in a lobby of a hotel. I thought this was in a theater. I'm there, and it's a good... And now I'm getting worried. I'm like, I got to do how much? They're like, You got to do an hour. And then I find out nobody there wants to see me. The woman who was CEO of this company, it was her birthday, and she liked me. She brought me in for all her friends to see, Dude, I'm sitting in the lobby and I'm finding all this information out as I'm sitting there.

I started, I'm not kidding, I started. I've never had a panic attack. I start going, What do you mean? Nobody else knows I'm here or this or that, or they don't know. They go, No, they don't know. This is a company. I'm looking in the room, it's in the lobby. I can see through a little glass window, and they're drinking, they're having, they're talking a table. We're set up for comedy, too. Just round tables, booths, not even facing you. I see a postage stamp of a stage that I got to stand on, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh. I start hyperventilating. I really do. I go, I wish I was good. I start going, I can't do this. I'm talking to Skyler, my assistant buddy. He's helping me out here, and I'm like, Hey, just tell them we can't do it. He's like, What are you talking about? I go, Just tell them we're going to give them the money back? We're just not going to do it. We don't need to do this. I don't want to do it. This is not going to go well. I started really panicking. Then they started going up.

She's up on stage now, introducing me. I go, Oh, my gosh, we're going. Oh, my gosh. I start freaking out. Heart is going like, exactly. I've been doing comedy for 30 years. I've been doing stand-up. I go, I don't need this. I'm ready to call Sussy and go, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do it. I get up there and go, I go, Just get him with that first joke. If you do, you settle it. Because if you don't, you know if they don't buy you on that first joke? You're fucked. You're gone. You're gone for an hour.

For an hour, you're gone.

Oh, gosh. They're not even listening. They're loud when they bring me up. When I came up, it wasn't even like they all turned and went nuts. But I got him. I don't know what I said. I just said one joke about the lady thanking me, thanking for bringing me up. I just won them over in one little sweet way. They turned and they clapped and they laughed at one thing. Then I went into another joke very gingerly, just going this, that, and they laughed at that. I go, Okay, I just settled in. I go, I got them. And they were great. They were great. They were really great. And I was sweating the whole time. I really feeling the sweat. You know what I'm saying? It was rough.

That's so nerve-wracking. I'm glad it worked out great. I hate it. But I ran into Sandler when I missed you at the airport. I ran into Sandler. He was just telling me about the fucking worst corporate gig that he just had to do.

Yeah, I called him about it. He had the same thing. He had the same thing. So it's nice to see somebody like that as it, too.

Yeah, a guy like him can still eat dick.

I talked to Billy Joel, and he says, literally, he was like, I've gone through those. I'm like, You, but when you're playing music, it's different, man.

They'll throw that Saudi money at him.

He threw crazy money at him, and he did a corporate gig or whatever it was, and he says they weren't even listening. They turned away, and it's like just you and the band and you just go, Let's go, boys. And they play.

Dana White had a 40th birthday party and Stone Temple Pilots played. It was insane. These dudes played like it was a packed arena.

Where?

It was at a fucking conference room in a hotel somewhere.

They didn't care.

They didn't give a fuck. They had a beautiful stage set up. The stage was set up nice. But all of a sudden, they were like, Hey, everybody, Stone Temple pilots. And then they fucking...

They just went...

I was so impressed by his ability to perform. I mean, it took a while for people to even filter to the dance floor in front of them and to watch the show. This dude did it like there was 50,000 people out there. It was incredible. I mean, he didn't back off at all.

He who cares less has more power. It's literally like, that's it. I'm going around with a tree. You guys think this is funny? He's like, I don't care.

He didn't give a fuck.

And everybody jumps in.

Full commitment. When someone just fully commits to something like that, it's very inspiring. And you'll never forget that. Because if you never see anybody fully commit, that's why. You never see great comics ever that exists where there's no other great comics. The best comic in the world never comes out of Tallahassee. Out of nowhere, no scene. We all need to see other people do something special. And if you're lucky, you live in New York or you live in LA or now you live in Texas, and you get to see these killers all the time. Then you get a sense of it. You know where the watermark is. Until you see a guy jump in front of a fucking 40th birthday party who's a platinum selling artist in this insane band that's iconic and perform like they're performing in front of a Marine. He had the bullhorn and everything. It was incredible. It was incredible. The show was amazing. It was so good. But it was like that fucking guy worked for his money. He didn't have like, I'll give him a seven tonight. I want to give him an eight. Every night is 10.

Based on the area we were playing.

It's like guns blazing.

That's the way you got to be, man. I got to do it. You need a hype, man. I need a hype, man. I'm doing I'm two different guys.

I am. You know me. You know me.

If I'm left to my own devices, I go into a little hole. I do. It's my whole life, everything, sports, everything. But this is the thing. I'm playing my first arena coming up, and I'm freaking out. I've never done that before.

Are you doing it in the round?

No.

That's the way to do it. You know why?

I'm a little late for that.

It's okay. You'll still have a great time. They're still great. The arenas are great. They're fun. It's a wild experience. But the round is the best because it's actually intimate in the strangest way.

I don't- The Westbury Music Fair- Because everybody is facing everybody.

So all the people see each other, and they're all in it together.

I love that. I love that idea. But does the stage does it turn?

No, you walk around.

I used to do the Westbury Music Fair. Oh, it walks. It would spin for you. It would spin for you, and you wouldn't even know where the hell you are. Then you have to walk off. It's the awkward walk off. You don't know where the stairs are. You don't know where they are. It moved and everybody shifted, and you don't know who you're looking at.

You have to find some distinctive person in the audience that sits near the stage.

That big guy is my marker right there.

The one in Phoenix spins around, too. Was that the celebrity theater? I haven't been there. You can turn it on or off. Really? Yeah. That's a good one, too, because it's a comedy club, but it's in the round. It's like a 2000 seat comedy club in the round. That's what it's like.

I would feel guilty. Like half the crowd is looking. I'd be thinking now I got another thing to think about. They've seen my ass for the last 40 minutes. I got to spend. And do you set up Can you joke over here and deliver the punchline there, or how do you break it up?

Well, you have giant screens. So the thing about the arena is they have massive screens. So if for some reason, we did these ones in Ohio and Chapelle came down, and it was very interesting to watch because they didn't know he was supposed to be there. And it was my show, and Tony didn't know whether he was going to bring Dave up or me because Dave hadn't gotten there yet. Oh, wow. And so it's like, Tony's on stage, and he's got five minutes before he should go on stage, and all of a sudden, Dave rolls up. Posse, fucking limos.

This is a guy who doesn't overthink things. He don't need the hype man.

He just strolled in. He just came to say hi, and he's always like, Should I go up? I go, What do you mean should you go up? I go, Go up. Let's go. He goes, When? I go, You'll be up in five minutes. He goes, Well, let's have a drink. So we had a drink, and then we're sitting in the green room, and I go, Dude, he's got about one minute to go. I go, I'll walk out there with you. Because he needs to know that it's not me, that he's bringing up Dave. So he starts bringing me up. This is one of my best friends, one of my favorite. And then I'm flashing the light and he sees Dave, and the crowd slowly starts to realize it's Dave when they see me and Dave walk to the stage. And by the time he says, Ohio's Own, Dave Chapelle, it is one full minute of a standing ovation. One full minute. So So he takes this victory lap around the stage for like one... I mean, a full minute, man. I filmed it. I put it up on my Instagram. It's insane. It's inspiring. I mean, Tony, we're just looking at each other and looking around going, wow.

It just felt special. It felt like special that you could be there. Like, wow. And then he goes, O-H, and he puts the mic out. Oh, no.

They just even bigger.

It It was insane. It was so fucking cool because he's from Ohio. He lives in Yellow Spring, which is right outside of Dayton. For him to go there like that, but to be in the round. See, the round is Everybody sees everybody. It's not just you facing this crowd, and then you're in the crowd, they're there. In the round, it seems like everyone's all in this together.

It's so much better. It's intimate in a special way. Yeah.

And the screens are giant, so you just walk around. But when Dave was facing that way, I'd see his face on the screen. It's not bad. It's still awesome because you're there, and everybody just walks around. You just get used to walking around. Nobody really stands still and points in one direction in an arena in the round. That'll be rude.

Well, the screens help. I mean, that is true. Oh, it's massive.

They're everywhere. They're giant. They're 50 feet wide. They're fucking everywhere. It makes it easy.

It's an experience. I would love to be in there. I think I'm in Denver, in Salt Lake City, I'm worried about this in my first arenas, and it's like, You're going to have fun.

You're going to have fun. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. Now, this is Dave. Here it is. Listen to this.

You're going to experience a real special treat. I get to bring up one of my best friends, one of my favorite comedians, and two of the best in the world, E. Z. J. It's like a fight. Oh, my God.

I mean, you literally can't even hear him bring up Dave Chappelle. Look at this. Look at this.

That's insane. No. No. It's like, that's the sickest thing I've ever seen.

It was amazing. I felt like we were seeing the Beatles. I felt like it was like Hendrix got on stage.

Well done for you bringing him up before. I mean, that's insane.

It was awesome.

That's incredible.

It was so fun. But that's the thing. But I do that all the time. When I'm at the club, I'll have five, six guys are going on in front of me. They're all headliners. I'm going on stage an hour and a half into the show.

Again, my theaters, I'd be comfortable. Your club, I would be afraid. I'd be afraid because you got such heavy headers and I come up and I'm talking about weird little observational stuff, and it's like, whoa. It would get in my head. It would.

No. There's a lot of weird observational There's a lot of comedians kill there. It's a fun place. Like, Duncan kills there. It's all great. It's all a bunch of different... But for me, it's like to have... I want the audience to see the best possible show they could see. They're going to see Ron White, they're going to see Shane Gillis and Tony Hinchcliff and Brian Simpson. That's insane. And all these monsters that come into town. In any given week, it's Chris DiStefano or fucking Dave Smith. It's like there's so many killers.

How often during the week are you there? How often are guys working out their stuff there? Are there different nights?

It's open seven nights a week. Seven nights a week? Seven nights a week. Two shows each night in each room, except for Mondays and Sundays, which are open mic nights. So Open mic night, there's a show in the small room. There's only one show, but then there's at least one show in the main room that's a regular show, regular comedians.

Wow. That's incredible.

Yeah. And it's two shows a night in each room, so four shows a night.

How big are each room?

One's 250 and one's about 110 to 120.

You feel a difference? Oh, yeah.

The little one is super intimate. The little one is like, if you remember the belly room at the Comedy Store, it's like the belly room in the original room had a baby, and that's the little one. It's medium-sized little. And then the big room is the original room and the main room at the Comedy Store had a baby. That's what it's like.

When you're trying that stuff, people are going up there with notepads and stuff like that.

Yeah, Christina Pizzitzky does it all the time. She goes up with a notepad. A lot of guys go up with notepads. Yeah, it's like if you got some new shit you're working on, Seguro, he goes up with notepads if you have new shit. Because you want to be able to remember. You don't want to fuck up the bit. They The audience appreciates like, Oh, this is so new. They feel that it's- They have to look at it. Yeah, it's not polished. Then Brian Simpson hosts this show called Bottom of the Barrel, and that's a really fun show where you go up there and you have no material. You just reach into this whiskey barrel, and there's a bunch of different premises that the audience members have written down. And you pull it out, you open it up.

And you do a bit on that?

Yeah, you just start talking shit. But the audience knows that's what you're doing. Because they know what you're doing, it's really fun. They're not expecting polished material. Everybody knows what the show is. The show is fucking around.

If I was to go there and do my act, I would pretend like I pulled that out of the whiskey bottle first, the barrel.

Did you ever notice? Oh, man. But if you have a bit on a subject and you just tell them, I actually have a bit on the subject, and then you could do it. Sometimes, the other night, there's something that I've been writing that I've never done on stage before. And just by sheer coincidence, the same subject was something that I pulled out of the piece of paper. Are you kidding? Yeah. So it was like, oh, it was Robot Fuck Dolls, which is like...

You know, you can see something coming. I have a whole chunk on that. Now I'm going to throw it away because you're working on it. I don't want to.

But it was one of those moments where I was like, Oh, last night, I spent two hours writing stuff on this. Right. So let's just run with it here, see what happens.

Have you ever had a dip? Because they must go nuts when they see you, right? Yeah. And then because back on Long Island, I'll work out at a little club like Governor's. I don't know if you remember that. Oh, yeah. Governor's Lever Town. Yeah. And I'll go out there and I'm a hometown boy, and I go up there and they go nuts for a minute or so. Not like that, but they go crazy. It's fun to see you. And then within two minutes, they're ordering sausage rolls, and they're talking, and it's like putting weight on the bar. I'm like, whoa.

Yeah. Well, New York audiences, too, they don't have much patience for bullshit. It's a good place to start comedy, New York and Boston, both. Good place to start comedy because people don't have any patience for bullshit. Yeah, we're happy to see you, but come with the jokes. Exactly. Let's go. Come on. I'm here to laugh.

I do a lot of writing while I have a tour. If I have a tour in the theaters where I'll try to... If I have a set, theme set, I'll try to add some stuff in there for the next one. Have you ever done that?

Do you ever Yeah. When you're doing a lot of shows, it's great because you get a sense of where you could stick stuff in and you start saying- You always have the safety net of I can go here if it's going nowhere.

Yeah. That's my problem. That's what I do, too. I'll write a huge chunk on something and wouldn't know when to bail on it if it's not going. It's dependent on this thing. I got to follow through with it now. And if they're not in, they don't buy in right away. I'm like, Wow, I got three more minutes of this stuff.

Oftentimes, I realized it's because I didn't buy in.

Right.

That's what it is mostly with If I'm in during a bit like, Oh, I don't even want to be talking about this. I wish I didn't bring this one up. If I ever get to that place, you just have to fight off that thought. There's this thought that comes in your mind like, Oh, why did I bring this up? I don't want to do this bit. But you can't say, You know what? Fuck that bit. Because then the audience will be like, What? You just have to never let yourself get to the mindset where you're like, I don't want to do this. You got to remember, there was something, whatever the subject is, there was something about that subject that when you When you initially started writing a joke about it, it was resonating with you, and you were like, What the fuck is this? But if you hear it too many times, it's like anything else. You get tired of it. It loses its luster. But that's just a mental weakness. You just have to realize, get your head wrapped around that you can't allow yourself to think that way. Surely this thought originally was valid because that's why you're so excited about it.

That's why you wrote a bit about it. The audience doesn't know that you've said it a hundred over the last year or more. They just want to hear it. They want to hear it from fresh eyes. You have to put yourself in fresh eyes. You have to be able to do that. That's the trick. It's not like you're faking it either. You have to actually really be thinking about it like you think about it. If you want it to work at the best, like when a bit is really sharp, you have to be thinking about it as you're enthusiastically, as you would be actually engaged I'm engaged with each part of it while it's happening.

Well, when I write a new bit and if I write a big chunk and it's too much, I'll go up with too much stuff, and I didn't rehearse it because words are so efficient. You'd say one word or you're repeating a word, it stumbles you up, and then you're like, And then it blows it for this, the next part of the bit. So it's like, I got to work more at really rehearsing my bits, just really getting through how I'm going to speak because I stumble all the time.

Well, the problem is then you start thinking about it. And with new bits, they're just not etched into your brain yet. So as you go up with them, they're like a little Bambi walking on ice.

It's not steady.

But that's what small shows are good for. That's what fucking around is good for. And that's when it's really important that you're inspired by whatever this idea is. If I'm inspired by the idea, I can always talk about it. If there's a thing that I can get behind where I'll go, You explain this to me. And then if I'm in that mindset, I can make it happen. But I just can't ever let myself not be interested in what I'm talking about. That's a problem that people have and that I've had. But you have to recognize it. It's like throwing a toaster in a bathtub.

Well, what I'm trying to do now is because I used to write just separate jokes, joke, joke, joke, joke here. And every time I would bring up a new subject, it was like the is starting from scratch again to try to catch up. And it's exhausting to try to understand. So if I try to put it in a story or a theme to my set, at least they know what's happening before. So they know, Oh, you tend to do these type of things. And then you talk about something like that. They go with you. It's like you're not starting a... It's easy to... What does it? Push a moving car? Momentum. Momentum, exactly. And that's been working better for me because everything was just isolated bits of jokes that I would put, and I'd go, I just put them anywhere, put a lazy connective tissue to it, and it would be like, it would work. You get to laugh, but it's like there's no building.

That's why I always admired guys like Steven Wright. Oh, man. He do those nonsense non-sequiters. I'm like, How do you do that? And how do you write? God, that's going to be so hard to write.

Who's the guy? He's such a great- Mitch Hedberg?

Yes. Same thing. Yeah, same thing. Great. Non-sequitors.

Just didn't match. And you were with him every That's what made it even funnier.

God, who does that now? Are there any non-sequiters guys that just go joke? I guess Jimmy Carr is non-secretor. But some guys, they're just one bit to the next, one subject to the next. With Mitch Hedberg, it was always super ridiculous. And Steven Wright, same thing. Everything was really ridiculous.

That became something that actually elevated it, right? Yeah. They weren't storytellers.

That's so funny. It was part of the fun. So out of it.

Yeah.

This guy was like- Out of nowhere. Somebody asked me, Do I want a frozen banana? I said, No, but I want a regular banana later. So yes.

He's the best. That's a fucking great joke. He's the best.

He was amazing, man. That was a guy, he just didn't want to kick heroine. They were trying to get him to kick heroine. He was like, Uh-uh. I like it.

Is that what it was?

He liked it. He wasn't going to kick it. He was hospitalized while we were on The Man Show, and Doug Stanhope and he and Mitch were very close. And I admired him deeply as a comedian. He was a great comic, man. And that was when he was I think he was in a hospital with Gangrene because he was shooting it, allegedly. Heroin is a scary one because it seems to touch this part of people that makes them very creative. It resonates with people. So much music that's great. It's made on heroine. But God, what a curse. What a curse. When you watch someone who gets caught in the opiate web, it's so terrifying. It's so sad to see. And when you have someone who's just like this, I mean, imagine the bits that Mitch Hedberg could have come up with over all these decades. After that. What a talent. Yeah. And he was all non-secretor. It was all one bit leads into the next bit, DoubleTree Hotel. I love it. Double tree hotel.

I love it. I love that humor, man. He was amazing.

Yeah, he was. It's just that guy had a hard time in the beginning because people didn't know what he was doing. So he would go on after these high energy music acts. Guys would sing songs and shit, and they'd have a dirty rap, and they'd bring up Mitchell and Birkin. Just destroy it.

Yeah. It'd be different like that. It would be deaf.

And you're in the middle of Ohio or whatever.

So they're not used to that, and they want the song.

They don't know who you are. You're just the headliner. Oh, he's on Evening at the Improv? Okay. Then they go to see you. They really didn't know. They just said, Oh, look, MTV Half-Hour Comedy. It must be good. Then they go to the local Comedy Club because it's a thing to do on a Friday night.

But when they don't know you, that's one thing that has made it a little bit easier is when people are coming to see you and they know you, as opposed to who's this next guy? It's just make me laugh.

Way, way, way easier. But also comes with a trap because the laugh at stuff that's not that good. We've all seen guys who only perform for their crowds only in big places. They only do theaters, only do their crowds only. That act can get soft. It can get soft and still will work because they're not being tested. They're not performing with other comics all the time.

Well, you see a lot of these guys now that are developing an act because they did something on Instagram or whatever. They developed these audiences that they get popular, and then they put together an act. They go and the clubs are like, Well, let's put this guy up. And they sell out like crazy because they got a big following. But it's not like working your stand Man, it's a different game.

Well, there's also a lot of guys who do crowd control. They do crowd work stuff. It's like just fucking around with the crowd, and that's most of these clips. You've seen a lot of guys who put up clips of cloud work because That way they don't have to crowd work because you don't have to burn your material. Just talking to the crowd, just talk to them. It's fine.

That can go bad.

It can go bad. But if you do it enough and you get some funny moments. Right. You get your safety net. Andrew Schulte has a lot of great moments. He's really good at it. You take those clips, and that way you're putting shit up, but you're not burning any of your jokes. The problem is some of those guys can only do that. Schultz is a great comic. He could do great bits. He could do great... I mean, he can do anything. But some of these guys are only good at talking to the audience. Then when they have to do, Did you ever notice? Everybody's like, Whoa.

The audience can feel the shift. When I go back to my own material, you wrote this.

What is this whack-ass bullshit you've been thinking about all day? You're better off responding. There's certain guys that their thing is really just talking to the crowd, and that's a different thing. It's a great thing. It's really great when someone's funny at it, but it's also a different thing than the actual jokes.

See, I fear that. I don't like doing that. I've built my act with the speed of it that no one has the chance to get in and ask a question or heckle or whatever. You build this shell around you. It's just not enough time. You can't even get it in. So if someone says something, it's like you're off them quick. Because I don't want to have to depend on doing that going what and stopping and then trying to get back to the bit that you were doing.

Yeah, you don't need that. Some people like it. Some people like to interact with the crowd. It's extra juice. The audience realizes it's happening. It's real. It is. This is crazy. And then if you get good one-liners in the moment.

It's a great tool to have. I wish I could depend on it more.

Do you talk to the crowd I do. Occasionally, you have to. And then at the Comedy Store, you had to. The Comedy Store, you had to. The Comedy Store for the longest time had zero crowd control. They do a good job now of policing the room. But back then, it was comics that were the door people. It was comics that seated people. It was the comics that took the money at the cash register. It was comics working there, and they were all like, they didn't want to do that job. They were the worst bouncer, and nobody ever quieted the audience. It was just you need to learn how to do it in the fire.

But you toughen up that way? You build a...

You understand how to go with the flow. But some people don't do that, and they did not like the Comedy Store for that reason. They just go up there and they like to have a slow pace and do their bits and build.

That's me. That's more me. I was always afraid of the Comedy Store.

It's just when you go up. Something like Adam Eget, who's brilliant at scheduling and really understands talent and where people go, you just want to put them in the right place. You don't want to put them after a music act. That's the death.

That is absolute death.

The death is the guy who has the funny songs. You're not following that.

You just see the guitar in the back and the guy's… No. Tuning it up and you're like, Oh, no. When is he on? He's like, He's on next. Then you're up. Then it's like, No.

No, the guy with the guitar always ruined the show. They always killed. They would kill and you couldn't follow him. Yeah. Musical acts, rap Anybody could do a rap. Remember Red Johnny and the Round guy? Oh, yeah. Those guys would do that rap. You're done. The show was over, bitch.

You see them go. I'm getting in my car. I'm leaving. I'll see you later. I go, There's no need for me to be here.

It's crazy how a song or just a funny song. It tops everything.

Yeah.

Who was that guy that used to be on Dr. Demento? There was that guy that used to have Dirty Songs back in the day, and he was famous. He would tour around with Dirty Songs.

John Valby? Yes.

Thank you. That guy. Remember that guy?

Dr. Dirty.

Dr. Dirty. Yeah.

That's right. He would light up a room. He would light up a room.

You're not going on after him. No. It's over. Everybody knew who he was, and you would hear his songs on Dr. Demento. Remember late Night on the radio? You hear his songs? Yeah. He would tour and do just dirty blowjob songs, and everybody go, That guy had a business, man.

I'm going up there talking about puppies afterwards.

Hey, you guys ever You ever lose your keys?

And you're searching.

This guy's talking about getting a blow job while you're taking a shit. But he had that following of people that would just come to see just those songs, so they would hear the same songs over and over again. They loved it. Yes. That's another thing. Yes. Like, Dice had that. Dice could always do the rimes, and the audience wanted to hear those rimes. What's in the bow, bitch? You don't have write as much.

It's great, right?

But you're going to get bored. Have you ever see that Keneson song about the Beach Boys? Keneson had a bit about the Beach Boys, about like, imagine them 35 years later singing the song. Same fucking song, not wanting to be there anymore. That it's just not the same experience.

That's tough.

Yeah. You want to be able to do new stuff. The new stuff is scary, but it's fine.

It's so exciting. I mean, I've found like it's... I never really worked my act. When I started doing the show and getting involved with that, my stand-up, the writing and all that, I would still go to Vegas with Ray to do it on a weekend, but I wasn't working my stuff. I wasn't a comedian. You know what I'm saying? You got to really... And I felt that. You're delivering the same act year after year, changing here a little bit here and there, and then you're going out and doing it. And it was bothering me so much. I hated my act. I couldn't stand doing it anymore and didn't have time to write that much. So a few years back, I just stopped and said, I love stand-up so much. I just want to start and really get into it. And I tell you, it's the great-How much time did you take off of it? I wasn't really off. I would keep it going, but just doing shows, no writing. I really wasn't writing for years. Just doing bits. Yeah. I mean, if something funny hit me, I would write it down, but not working it, not writing.

It's so hard when you're doing a television show, and When I was doing news radio, I fell into a spot over a period, at least a year, where I wasn't writing at all. I didn't do any new jokes. I had the same tired-ass jokes.

I remember jumping in your Supra and heading to the Comedy store. You would go up a lot. You would still do things there, no?

Yeah, but maybe that was a different time. That was when I snatched out of it.

Okay. There was a period when I first moved there in '94, where we were working 16 hours a day, and I was tired all the time.

I would just show up at the club and do my set and then go. I was just doing it because I was still a comic.

That's what I felt like I was doing.

In my head, I was always like, They're going to realize I'm not an actor. I'm going to get fired. This is the last TV show I ever work. I almost got fired from the first show I ever was on, where I was the star of the show. Hardball? Yeah, I almost got fired from that. I remember that one. Because I was getting in an argument with the producer. They hired some new producer, and he wrote these terrible lines. I was like, This is insane. This is so bad. It's insane. They were going to fire me.

You didn't stomach it, man.

I was like, This is crazy. The thing is, the guys who wrote the original show were brilliant. They wrote were married with children. They wrote for the Simpsons. Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran. When they had their show, the pilot was their show. Jim Brewer was the mascot. I remember that. It was fun. Mike Star from Good Fellas was in it. It was Bruce Greenwood, the guy that went on to be in the Star Trek movies. These guys have been in everything. He was in Hardball.

I remember. I go to your tapings, man.

It was so much fun. They were going to fire me because I was like, This is terrible. I love that. They hired a new producer. The new producer came in and took over and turned it into the sloppiest, most obvious, terrible sitcom. That prototypical sitcom where you're watching, you go,. You just got to get out of the room. The jokes are so goddamn obvious. They wanted to fire him, but it was between me and him. It literally got down to this thing where they're calling my agency and this kid is ruining his career. That's hilarious. I was like, Oh, no, I'm ruining my career. I always thought that eventually they were going to figure out that I'm not built for this. This is not my thing. When I would show up on the set of news radio, it's like at any moment in time, they're going to figure out that I'm not supposed to be here.

But we were working- only because you didn't want to, though. I I thought you were funny as hell in that stuff. You just didn't like it.

You're insecure, didn't have any experience about actors, didn't know how to hang around with them. I was so used to comics. For me, it was like fighters and then comics. It's just crazy people. I was just only around crazy people. When I was around normal people or people that were really sensitive, really, really sensitive, sensitive on purpose, where they're trying to be offended by things.

That's sitcom people. When you get into that. It was exhausting.

That's hilarious. It was exhausting. You'd always hear about tyrants. You'd always hear about the Brett Butler and the people that would scream and throw coffee in the face of the writers.

Newsradio Was that bad? Like, those guys were-Oh, there was none of that there. Right. That was cool.

No, there was a party. The writers were great. It was a totally different experience. But what was my point? My point was that... What was my point?

You were saying that-Thought I was going to get fired.

Yeah, it wasn't for you.

You thought they're going to find you out.

Oh, so I had to just do stand-up just to prove that I was still a comic? Because I remember at one point in time, the producer of news radio said to me, he was like, Why are you still doing stand-up? You're an actor now. I was like, Oh, no.

Don't ever take that away from me.

I was like, Oh, no. I got to get out of here. I was literally thinking like, Oh, this is a trap.

They're changing you. This is a trap.

Then I had one really bad set one night in front of one of the producers and of the writers. Fucking ate shit. I went up at the store late at night at 1:00 AM in the main room and just had a terrible set. Just bombed. And then I really got to work after that. Then I realized, Oh, I've been slacking off.

That's what I felt, man.

I've been slacking up because I've been working 16 hours days, and I use it as an excuse to not write. And then from then on, everything got way better. Like, way better. My standup, I dialed it in much more.

How do you write? Are you the guy sitting down?

I sit down in front of a computer and I just write. I don't write like this is exactly how I'm going to say it. I just spill my thoughts out because I feel like it takes me a lot longer to write the words than it does for me to think about things. So the more time that I'm actually just writing the words, it's extra time thinking about the thing. Do you speak it into a computer?

Do you talk it?

No, I just type.

Really? Yeah, I type.

And I just whatever the subject is, there's just one subject project that I'm doing right now where I've written it, written about the subject four times. So I start a whole new Microsoft Word file four times and just completely revisit it. Just one more time.

What program are you using? Because I'm not using it because I'm not just that. Just Word.

I just use Microsoft Word and I go into there's focus mode. Have you seen focus mode?

Yeah. It blocks everything else out. Yeah.

I used to use Right Room. I'll still use Right Room.

I did Scrivner. I use Scrivner.

Yeah.

But I'll find one thing about it, and then I'll go, I don't like this, that it sets my bits up this way, or it can't do this or it can't transfer that. And then I'll spend the whole day looking up for apps for the perfect app, and I'm not writing. Yeah, you're distracting yourself.

Of course. Yeah, I try to avoid that. But what I do with Scrivner is I make each individual bit. Once I have it boiled down, then I put it in the columns. So the way Scrivner set up, whatever the subject is.

I I love Scrivener. The only thing it didn't do, it didn't transfer to my phone or the other. When I'm at a gig and I want to look it up quick, you have to go to a Dropbox. It was annoying. I go, I need it right away.

Yeah, that's where notes on iPhone is the best.

The best? The problem with notes? You ready for this? I got them all. You can't categorize. It either goes alphabetical. So if you have your bits, I like seeing my bits on the side where I go, okay, I'm working on this, and be able to move them anywhere you want, you can't. Because it'll fall into that. That screws me up.

That's true.

You can't keep it in order. That's the only thing about it. Then I'm off that one. Then I'm looking for five more hours. I'm looking for other apps.

Because if you have a folder in your notes and then you open up that folder and edit any one of those things, any one of those subjects, it'll move to the top. Yes. Because that's the newest one now. Yeah. That's not done. That should be an option.

Somebody should make a... Just stand up for one of those things. I would love it. I would love it.

Yeah, but most comics don't use them. Most comics just write things down. You ever see Mark Norman's stack? No. It's crazy. He's got a stack like a fucking a phone book, like that thick of index cards and napkins that he keeps in his pocket. And he's so crazy. You try to read it, it's literally like an insane person because his handwriting is illegible. And there's no order to them. There's just stacks. I mean, he might... How many did he have in his pocket? 150? Probably easy. Way more than that. Easy. 200 index cards? Where do you-In his pocket.

How do you go? Here's what I'm going to do tonight. Card 167 to one.

No, it's a-How do you do it? It's a window into the madness. That is the brilliance of his comedy. It's just all, wow.

I remember Richard Lewis would throw out. I mean, there'd be a piano up there, and he threw out a scroll. It was just legal pads of paper and crazy stuff all over, set it all up. It was a little He was nuts with that.

Yeah. That was also part of his thing, right? There's Norman's. Look at Norman's stack. Look at that. Look at that. What? Yeah. I can't believe you carry this around with you. 90% of it. You're going to get a bad back. I'm worried about his back. You can get a bad back from that.

It's like sitting on a fat wallet. Exactly.

Taxi grab drivers. If they have too much shit in their wallet, you'll have a little bit of a lean, you'll get a bulge in your back.

I could never do it. I don't even know. I need to have it organized.

Yeah, you were always an organized guy, even back in the day. I have to be. I admire that. I think that's a very important thing that some comics feel like they don't have to do, and you don't have to do it. Some of the greats don't write anything down. Don't get me wrong. But I feel like when I write, if I just physically write, there's jokes that I will get that I won't get if I don't physically write. And not a few of them, a lot of them. Some of my best bits ever came from sitting down and writing.

Do you find if you write the bit out, physically write it out, that you will remember it better, too?

Or not? By hand. If you write it by hand, you remember it better. That's proven. If I do an arena, I got this from you, by the way. I got this from you because- Because I'm not doing it anymore.

I need to do it.

No, this is what I got from you because I didn't have a rider because I'm lazy. So When I would go do theaters, they would just use Kevin James Ryder. When I would... Because we have the same manager. Yes, we have the same manager. I was like, What's Jimmy eating?

Did you see that?

Yeah, it was all normal stuff. Maybe I added whiskey to it or whatever it was. But one thing you had was index cards and Sharpies. I was like, Oh, that's a great idea. Every time I do an arena now, I set up index cards, and I will get there an hour early and write out all my bits. Write out all the key points of the bits, all the things I want to talk about, and set that there. And then next bit, set that there. And so I have this coffee table, and I've got all these things, index cards laid out.

Why don't you just do a prompter or something like that? You don't want to do a prompter?

No, I don't need that. I'm fine. Once I write it all out, I've been doing it every night. I know. Every night. I just like to do that as an extra little detail, just an extra little, just really dot in all your eyes and cross all your tea, so I feel good when I get up there.

I don't know if it's I'm losing my memory, whatever, but it's like I need bullet points up there.

Let me get you some of this. Do you take any utropics?

I take nothing.

Okay, this is what you're going to get. I'm going to give you this. Just take this one and I'll get you some more. I'll send you some more. That's Alpha Brain. I'm really feeling it. That's the black label Alpha Brain. That is the top of the food chain Alpha Brain, the strongest one.

Am I going to see unicorns?

No, it helps memory. It's It's really good for memory, and it's really good for focus. It gives you a little extra juice mentally. Now, if you're a moron, you're not going to notice it. I try it, I'm in fucking shit, bullshit, snake oil. Trust me, as someone who makes a living using his brain, there are certain things that you can take that are not bad for you, that are just nutrients that enhance brain function. You know what another one is? Creatine.

Creatine. Creatine is okay. It's okay to do that? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, creatine is very safe. Creatine is one of the safest supplements. It's also-What does that do, though? It adds water to your body. Your body has more water, and that's one of the functions of it. It's one of the reasons why it makes your muscles look bigger, it makes you stronger. It really does work as a fitness supplement. If you're training and lifting weights, creatine is one of the very best things you could take. Creatine, I would say beta-alanine. That's another one.

I got to give you this thing that Weidman gave me, these herbal pills, completely natural. He gave me. We were playing golf in, I think we were in Atlanta or whatever it was with DC. Cormier was there. It was just the three of us went out, and I get up in the morning, my back is killing me. Everything, my joints are hurting. I get to the course. You're walking around hills up and down all day. I'm like, I'm going to be so gone on this thing. And Wybin says, take a couple of these pills. You got these things that are completely herbal. What is it? It's ashwagand. I don't know. But the key with this stuff is, I said, why? Because he gave it to me and he said, Just do me a favor. Mark right now where you feel, how you How are you joint? I go, I feel horrible. My knees are killing me, my ankle. I feel everything. My back, you're swinging in a golf club. It's brutal. So he goes, And just take three and tell me how you feel in a few hours, whatever it was. And I forgot about it.

And around the The ninth hole, I swear, around the turn, it's a couple hours later, I'm going, I feel amazing. All the joints, like the jiu-jitsu finger thing when you get when you first come back and it's like, I have that pain. I had all that joint pain, and It was gone. I was literally pummeling with DC. I'm like, Come on, let's go, man. I feel amazing. I go, It's the pills. I go, This is insane. I go, Can you give me... And DC tried them, too. Dc said, I haven't wrestled in a long time. He goes, He tried them. He goes, I love it. I know nothing. I'm trying to figure out this is a placebo effect or what it was. He gave them to me again. Same thing. Felt amazing.

Does Wideman have those on his Instagram? Can we find out what that stuff is?

I want to I'm literally, I don't go in a business, but I want in on this thing, whatever it is. Dude, I'm going to give you. I have some. Try it. Yes, just try it. Just mark how you feel if you have any pain. Because if you go, I felt nothing. It might be the case. But these things, I did it a few times, and they ran out of him. He couldn't get him, and then he got him again. Everybody has given to him.

How long before they make that illegal? Whatever it is.

I know.

They just made BPC 157 illegal.

I know. I'm telling you, I'm out of shape now. It is literally the only thing that gets me up, and I'm like, Well, I could work out. I could do it. Really? I took them.

Again, I want to know what's in there.

Yeah, I'll find out from him. It's all natural stuff, but the thing about it is-Spe is natural, too. I don't know.

It's all from Earth.

I know.

Everything's natural.

The key, what they said in these things is the guy throws out... Because even if you get ashwagandha, the active ingredient in it will... Once it's gone, people sell it anyway, and it's dust. It's like crap in there. He throws out 70% of the stuff he said. I was like, I don't know. I don't care what it is. I just want it. I want to give it to my family because I wanted to feel better. I'm just an older guy. You You got to help me with that work. I'm telling you, I am literally right now, I feel like I am on the cusp of either being that athletic guy, go back into where I get in shape like crazy or I'm wearing cardigan sweaters and literally You know, grandpa?

Well, just get a trainer.

I'm doing a documentary right now.

Yeah.

I started it in January. I'm assembling the best guys. Like Dolce is going to help out with this thing. He's awesome. We already did one. We already did a documentary. I did it on... It was called Cheat Day, where I thought you could work out six days a week and just have one day to eat what you want and just do it that way. I had Dolce come in and be in it with me and work me out and do it. He kept going, You're not going to be able to do this. I go, Why? Because your one day is going to destroy everything. He said, and I remember this, he goes, You can't outwork a bad diet. And he was right. It was like, I would crush it so hard. People don't know what I can eat. You know what I'm saying? When people go, I'm a foodie, it's like, You have no idea how much I can crush food. And that one day would just destroy it for the rest. Yeah.

The food thing is you can't outrun a bad diet. You can't. You can't. It's the best phrase. It's real. That's where it all comes from. It all comes from food and we're all addicted to food. It's the craziest thing if you're addicted to food because you have to eat it. It's not like heroin. If you're addicted to heroin, like, Oh, I've got a heroin problem, and I'm going to take a little bit of heroin. No, you're going to go full bore again. You're going to be fucked. It's one of the very few things where you're addicted to it and you got to not be addicted to it anymore, but yet you still need to eat it. What? That's crazy. That's a crazy conundrum. And most people's minds can't really process that.

That's right. I can't. Because he's given me the diet, Dolce & Dior, just do this, this, and this, and this. It's very simple. I mean, by the way, who would need another grown man to tell you what to eat? You know by now. You know, seriously, you know. Same thing with working out. You don't know. Move your body, whatever it is, you know what to do. You may not know the intricate stuff of split squats and this and that, work this thing. But general health, you know what I got to I move my body more, eat better foods, less processed. We know it. But yet, man, I can't. That's what this documentary I'm doing about. It's like, why I have access to the greatest guys, why can't I still do it? And part of it is I need the goggins. You know the thing.

Yeah, you need a hype man. You do. You need someone around you who's also doing it.

Well, that's it. It's community. I don't have that. It's like when I'm with Dolce, if we're on a movie together or he's got me in shape. He's giving me the meals. When I'm my own captain, Yeah. Homeboy, I'm gone. I'm just gone.

One thing that you can try that I guarantee will help you lose weight is the carnivore diet. Because if you do it, the one thing that you're going to not eat is any carbohydrates. You're only going to eat meat. And if you cut out all bread, all pasta, all sugar, all bullshit. I'm not saying this is a great diet. I'm not saying this is the way to live. I'm saying this is the best way for me to eat. I've done every other diet. This one works the best for me, and it's the one that keeps me lean. Because when you're eating just protein, your body hits a satiety level. If you're just eating steak, just steak. Your body will hit a level and you're going, This is all I need, and then you won't want to eat more. But if I'm in that same mind space and there's steak there, but it's next to mashed potatoes with gravy, a bowl of pasta, ice cream, then I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to get another 7,000 calories. I'm going to keep going. But if I just eat the steak, then my body starts processing ketones.

I start, instead of using carbohydrates, I'm only eating protein and fats. Your body goes into a ketogenic state. You think better. It gives you an extra gear with thinking.

The ketogenic thing is, I mean, that for me has worked. It's because Dolce & Wilming hate me for saying... When they say carbs, he's like, Carbs are fine for you. The right carbs.

There's nothing wrong with carbs. It's a fuel for your body. But what I'm saying is if you're trying to lose weight, one of the best ways to regulate your appetite is a carnivore diet because you don't over eat with it.

But I think it's deeper than that for me. I think it's mental. I think it's like anything will work. I fasted that. I've done everything. It all works for a while, but why am This size now? Every I'm like, just recently, I started to stop comparing myself to other people and trying to just say, get better than yourself. Yes, literally that concept for me works. It's like when I'm in there, because he'll give me workouts, Dolce to do, too. And I can't do. I don't do them. I can't do the reps. Four sets of 16. I get so bored by myself. I start doing my own stuff. I'll do eclectic stuff. Great stuff on a treadmill, all movement stuff. I love it. Just throwing punches, doing things. But I walk around and then there's no way to measure it, though, because the next day I'm not doing that. So it's like I'm the guy who walks up to the bag, hits the bag a couple of times, then walks, Oh, look at this thing. I have every piece of equipment in my gym. I do. If you saw my gym, you go, The Rock live here?

It's literally, they see me and they're like, What are you doing? I buy everything because I buy into it. Because it's a little piece of hope.

That's what it is. A treadmill is a little piece of hope.

It's a hope, a new thing. Like I got the Jacob's Ladder. I go, Oh, it's great. It's Jujutsu. You're grabbing the wing. This is great.

Functional.

Yeah, it's collecting dust is what it's doing. Because I don't use it. So I need something. That's what this thing is. What can get me because I am like most people. I'm telling you, you don't need a lot of stuff, but you need something to engage yourself every day. There's got to be a bridge between what the Gargans way and people who do nothing. You got to get that. I saw you were doing this the other comedians, which I love. It's like where you go, I just want them to walk or just get them down there. That is so important, man, because if you can get into that groove, you do feel better. That's what blows my mind. I've gotten in shape a couple of times, and I'm like, I don't need to eat anymore, crap. I love the working. I love the way I feel.

And then it slides right back. What happens? It's one of the things about you that makes you really funny is you're indulgent. You're a wild dude who's trying to stay buttoned up. It's like part of what's really funny about you. And that indulgence, it goes into other things. And for you, it's food. Luckily, it's not gambling or something really crazy.

But I quit things, too. I feel like I have the same almost intensity that you have, but I'm not a finisher.

We started jiu-jitsu.

Did we start at the same time? Yeah, basically the same time. Beverly Hills Jiu-jitsu. You were the one brought me down there. I'm a blue belt. And barely 30. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, because I start, stop. I don't think. You know what I'm saying? And that's in my head. I'm like, If I would have done what Joe did, man, look where I could have been. I'm trying to, why? And then I start comparing. You can do it now. You do that. If I play that game, I'm done because I can never catch up to other people.

A lot of it's like learned behavior patterns. You just have you get stuck in. And If you're unlucky, you can get a bad behavior pattern or constantly quitting things. But if you're lucky, I got very lucky that when I was 15, I got obsessed with martial arts because that was the first thing I ever did in my life where I didn't think I was a loser anymore. I was like, I realized that if you work really hard at something and you're completely obsessed with something, it could transform your life. So my life from the time I was 15 to the time I I was 18, I was a different human. From 14, 15, I was insecure. I get bad social anxiety. We moved around a lot. I get picked on a lot. I went from that to being completely confident, being just a different human being. I was fighting all the time. To me, the fear of conflict was pretty much gone because I was just engaging in conflict all over the country. Flying around my whole high school all my time. So I got in my head that the way to feel better and to get life to improve is to just fucking dig in and keep going and don't ever quit.

Don't fucking quit.

That's so great.

But I got lucky that that's something that I fell into when I was 15. I often think about there was one day, dude, one day when I was coming home from a baseball game where I walked up the stairs We were getting ready to ride the T, which is like the Boston Subway. And we were getting ready to ride the Tee, but the line after the baseball game was really long. There were so many people that were on the T. So we, just for a goof, walked up the stairs to see this Taekwondo school. As we were walking up the stairs, this guy, John Lee, who was a national champion at the time, was preparing for the World Cup. He was 28 years old. He was in his prime, and he was kicking this back. As I was going up the stairs, I was hearing a wump. Then the sound of a chain, like, and I went up and watched this guy kick the bag, and I was like, what the fuck is that?

It's like, What the fuck is that? He was kicking the pole. I I was like, I want to learn how to do that.

I was there the next day. I signed up. I had enough money to pay for the class. I signed up, and I was there every day. From then on, I was there every day. I mean, every day. I worked out every day of the week. I worked Sunday. I worked out every day. I never took time off. I was there for hours every day. I just eat food, go there, and be starving by the time I left, and then head home and go back again.

You're blessed, brother, because you have something that Most people don't have that. Everybody has the intensity in the beginning when they see something like, I want to do this. I want to say, I do. I get all pumped up. I'm like, This is it. This is all I want to do. Then it's like, you don't want to suffer. You don't want to put the work in. That's the difference between we are. We both love jiu-jitsu. Well, to love something, you got to know it. You have to know it, right? You can't love something you don't know. Well, I love it. But you know what I don't love? Obviously, I don't love the mornings, getting the cold gear on. There's things about getting in with a... You know what I'm saying? Getting on the mats. They're sweating. They've been there since five o'clock in the morning. I got to travel to do it. It's going to hurt. These guys are coming after me. It's like You're in there and I'm nervous. So I get back into it. I'll let it go for a while. You do. You go through that and you overcome those little things.

And it's like, that's how you grow. It's like, I get right up to the edge of it. And then I'm like, I don't love it as much as you. It's like you commit. You have to suffer. That's the only way you're going to show your love for anything is you got to suffer for it. There's got to be that. You've got to overcome that. Otherwise, you don't. You die.

Everybody has two people inside of them. Everybody has the person inside of them that wants to go to sleep, the person inside of them that wants to quit.

That guy's winning, by the way. That's the guy who's, you see before you right now.

And the other guy that's like, no, this is what you need to do. But the problem is with a lot of people, that other guy that's like, No, that's what you need to do. That person is really timid. And that person, they just Well, maybe it'd be better if we just went for a run. Shut the fuck up. I'm going to eat chips. And that timid version of you is what you need to cultivate into being the boss. That's the boss. I have a boss. My boss is that voice. I let that voice win every time. I love it. That voice says, Shut the fuck up and get in the cold water, pussy.

That's dying to yourself, man. That's literally saying, I'm not going to go where I'm comfortable. I'm I'd much rather do this. I'm sure you'd much rather do something than jump in a cold plunge every... Get a cup of coffee and go hang out and talk. You do that, and that's something I need to do more and more. We all do. It's the only way you're going to embrace it and get better at things. I'm literally flying. I used to, I drive everywhere these gigs, and it was getting so much that I'm afraid of flying, but I'm like, I got to just die to myself, just do this, have faith. You're going to be fine. Just do it. Each time you do it, you're like, All right, we did it. And you have a bad fight. You're like, I'm not doing that again. But it's like...

You just got to give the boss some strength. Yes. The boss has to win a bunch of battles. And when the boss wins a bunch of battles, then he wins them every day, then eventually the boss becomes a louder voice. And then you get it to the point where the boss gets to tell you what to do and you don't deviate. And even though you have all those feelings, every time I lift the lid on the cold punch, I'm like, Let's not do this. Every time. But the boss is like, Shut the fuck up. The boss gets mad if those voices pop up. So I'll make you do an extra minute, bitch. Get the fuck in there. I love it. There's two pieces of advice I always give comics, or just young men in general, aspire to be the person you pretend to be when you're trying to get laid. Just be that person. Instead of pretending to be that person, become that person. Right. Become a person that you would admire. It's It's possible to do. If you can pretend to be that person, you can actually be that person. Right. Aspire to be that person.

And then the second one is, live your life like a documentary crew is following you around. Live your life like if you wanted the whole world to go, wow, that guy's really killing it. I love the way that guy handles things. And then you're going to fail. You're going to fuck up. You're a human. Everyone's going to fall into like, God, what a loser I am. Just go back with the same ethic. Get back into it with the same mindset. Live your life like a documentary crew is following you around everywhere. How would you want to be seen? Well, be that person. Actually be that person. Become that person. You can become that person.

It's funny. We're doing that now. We started in January, and I think I might have went up 4 pounds. I don't even know. Because I go down and then it's like, But you're right. I'm going to show it all because that's That's what it is. It's the struggle. It's the process.

Dude, you just need a hype, man. If we were neighbors.

Oh, buddy. By the way, I love Austin. I'm coming here. I want-Come move here. I would be here every day. Come move here.

Fucking move here. Move here. The club's always available. You'll have fun. Great place to work out. Come here to my gym. We can work out together. Come on, we got a beautiful gym here.

Dude, I think I'm just going to rip my kids out of school. We're going. Let's just do it.

It's great here, man. It is amazing. It really is great here. The people are so friendly. The way they treat freedom here is a Like a religion. Freedom is a different thing in Texas. They are not interested in controlling what you buy and where you go and what you do on your land. You can own a zebra. They don't give a fuck. There's more wild tigers Or there's more tigers, actual tigers, in captivity, in private collections in Texas, than there are of all of the wild of the world.

That's insane. Well, you just sold me. I need zebras and tigers.

I drove by a place the other day that had girafes. People have girafes. That's incredible. You can have whatever the fuck you want. If it's your land, they just leave you alone. They're like, This is your land. You do whatever you want.

The comedy here, they love And the comedy here they love. It's booming. I got my beard trimmed at a place just yesterday, and they were talking about the mothership. They go, And it's great. It's a whole different vibe here, and everybody's great. And I'm like, Really? And he was like, Oh, yeah.

Well, this is the first time in our lives where a scene emerged. There was a little bit of a scene here in Austin. There was a few clubs, a few comics, some good comics came out of Austin for sure. But there was no real scene where a bunch of assassins lived in town. And now there's Shane Gillis lives here. Duncan Trussle lives here. Tom Segura lives here. Christina Pizitzky lives here. Tony Hinchcliff lives here. David Lucas lives here. It's like, Holy shit. Brian Simpson lives here. Tim Dylan lives here. He's got a house. He's got multiple houses. He lives everywhere. But there's so many killers here. It's just every night you go to that club and it's just packed with great comedy.

You know what it is? I'm telling you, it's community. I don't have that. I have it in little bursts when I'm with people on a movie set or whatever it is, but it's like, I don't have that in my everyday life. I need that. I think I really think that's a big thing because I need the hype man. But I need to be in that group where you just start doing it. I did one training camp with Wyman and those guys earlier on with Aljo and these guys. I just jumped in with them. I was with them for, I don't know, a few weeks, three weeks, and then I had to go out. But it was like you developed this brotherhood. Yes, it was so much fun. It was going through everything, you eating together, you're running sprints together. I was like, whoa, this is really, really cool.

That's one of the great things about fight teams, especially like Cere Longo. It's like, those guys are so tight. They're all friends. Always. Such a tight group. They're all friends, and they got so many killers there, too. Oh, my gosh. Jesus Christ. Aljo, Marab, Chris Wyman.

Marab, this is the funniest thing ever. I came my first day on the camp, whatever, and they were sparring in the octagon, and I had my headgear on, and everybody's pairing off with everybody. Wyman goes, Longo's setting it up. You guys with you guys, everybody, and switching around this and that. I was like, worried because I go, Chris, I don't want to go in. He's getting there, get in and just mix it up. I'm going, I'm not even a fighter. I can't do this. Whatever. I got in there. Everybody else, Aljo knows me. These guys know me. Marab thinks I'm a fat old fighter. He thinks he doesn't know me. I get the headgear on. He doesn't recognize me as an actor. He starts dancing around. I'm going, whoa. I know right away he doesn't know I'm an outside guy. He thinks I'm a guy in the camp. He just starts going crazy. I go, Oh, my God. I'm doing no punches. This guy's moving around like crazy on me. I'm like, I'm looking for wide men. It was amazing. He was the sweetest guy ever. But I got lit up by him in two seconds.

I take it off. I go, I'm an actor, man.

That guy does not get tired. Nothing. He's wild to watch. Do you see him with Henry Sohuto? He's got Henry Sohuto picked up over his shoulders, and he's talking, and he walks him over towards Mark Zuckerberg. It's Henry Sohuto. That's an Olympic gold medalist, and you're carrying him around like he's a kid in a schoolyard who fucked up. It's a different breed, man. Oh, man, he's an animal. Marab is an animal.

And the sweetest guy. The best. Yeah, he was really cool. The best.

I love that dude. Everybody loves him. The response he gets from the audience, people love him. His last speech was so ridiculous. When he wins, he just gets so fired up. He's amazing. They fucking love Marab, man. Look at that. Look at him. That's Henry Sohuto, dude. That is crazy. You have to understand how crazy it is that he's carrying around that guy on his back.

With a smile. Two division UFC champion.

He won the Flyweight medal, the Flyweight belt, and he won the Bantamweight belt. And Marab is literally toying with him. He's smiling and carrying him. I mean, that is so wild to see. That was one of the most shocking things. I mean, I've seen a lot of shocking things, people getting knocked out. I've seen a lot of things. But to see someone treat Henry Sohuto like that, carry him around like that, laughing with a smile on his face, I was like, Oh.

Now I could say I sparred with that guy.

There you go. But yeah, that camaraderie, we need it as comics. That's why we opened up the club. We opened up the club because we realized that one of the functions that the Comedy Store had for all of us, it was home base. We had a home base, and it was a great old club with this amazing history, and we were proud to be a part of it. We'd all get together, and we were proud. We were Comedy Store comics. It was fun.

You go out on the road, you come back home, and you see family. Yeah, we were back at the store.

Some of the best shows that we would have all year would be Tuesday night, Wednesday night shows at the store. We'd go there, and it was just so fun. Everybody's just so happy to be around each other, other comedians, just have fun and talk about jokes and talk about stand-up. And then when we came out here, I was like, well, there's no home base. We did the Vulcan, but it's not set up good for a green room. I was like, we need a real home base. And then I started I started looking right away. And the first place I bought was a cult theater. It was owned by a cult. That fell apart. And then we got this opportunity to get that place on sixth Street. I was like, all right, this is it. And then we just started building. It's better than I ever could have hoped. It's a real community now. You go into that green room and there's fucking 20 dudes in there just talking, laughing, having fun. Soda is there and Louis is there. It's like people from the road, guys from New York, guys from LA, people are coming in out of town every week.

It's fun, man. I miss that, man, because I have it when Sandler goes on tour and he'll bring me out and I go with him. It's just so much fun. It's so much fun, man.

That's what we're missing. If you're the guy who just does the theaters and you're with your family all week and then you have your opening act and you go on the road, it's not the same experience. It's not.

I've been that for years. That's the guy I am. I I miss it, man. I really do.

Come to Texas, Jimmy.

I know.

Come on, buddy.

I got you. You got to... Once they take this...

It's a good place to live.

Alpha brain, man. It's going to change everything.

I want to take those wide-run pills. Do we find out what the fuck they are?

I'm going to bring them in. I have some. Just try them.

I'm ready. You're going to be honest. I'm going to try them right away. I can't wait to try them. In my mind, I've already tried it.

They had me restaurant DC.

That's ridiculous. Wrestling DC and playing golf.

That was the fun. I go in to pummel him just messing around while he's holding a golf club, and you just feel, you're like, Oh, my gosh.

He's a bear.

Oh, my gosh.

Dc's bear. Two division champion, man.

You're almost like you're playing with him, but you get scared. It was like I was with Boss. When you introduced me to Boss, you got me to Boss. When I met Boss, I remember I first had... It was just the King of Queens started, and I was like, We could have this guy come and train us. This guy that we used to watch. What was it? Pancreas. Pancreas. He had the high boots and stuff like that. Then I was like, Whoa, man, we can get this guy to our dressing room, and we can work out with him. I had a little space on the set where we would train, and I brought him in that first day, and he couldn't even speak English. It was me and Rock, and I think my brother was there. I'm talking to him and trying to keep the conversation going. He's just sitting here. He doesn't even know what's going on, really. Just looking at me. Then those guys left the room, and I felt like I was in the room with a leopard. Where you go, as long as you're feeding it, conversation stuff, it's okay, it keeps eating it, and it looks at you again.

He was just looking at me, and I ran out of conversation. I ran out of conversation. I'm like, All right. He's just looking at me. I'm like, This is a different human in front of me. Especially back then. Oh, gosh, things could go bad.

Yeah, boss was a scary dude in his fighting days. He was the first guy that the UFC hired that I got excited about because he was a guy that I knew who he was because I had seen him fight in Pancrase. He was one of the very first high-level strikers that made it into MMA, that Dutch kickboxing style. It does here. Oh, yeah. In Pancrase, you'd have to hit with the palms. And Boss figured out that instead of bitch slapping people, you just spear them with your palm like a punch.

Spear him? And he would say he would hit this part of the wrist. He would say, as opposed to even the palm. He did the bone. It was his bone, and he just work the bag.

Yeah, he worked the bag with his palms to develop that power. And he had this crazy ability to pull his hand back. My hand doesn't really go much back further than that, but Boss's hand goes way back like this.

He's got these freaky long fingers. Crazy hands. He's a weird-He's a real freak. Every injury I have to this day, from turf to an end, came from him. He's the greatest guy in the world, by the way. Once we got to know each other. No, he's awesome. He's one of my best friends. We threw Matt in my garage in Ceno, I remember, and he would come over and train me. We would start on our knees and stuff like that. I remember one time we would just start on our knees and we were locked up. I remember I outmuscled him and I pulled him to the side. Then two seconds later, he reversed me. I was like, Whoa, but I got him right there. It was pretty sick. The next go, we had it. He pushed, he goes, You don't have it. He rolled me back and I heard a pop. I I thought it was my knee, but it was my toe, my big toe.

Oh, no. Turf toe.

Furf. Still here. Really? Yeah. Never got rid of it. So is it tendon? These pills help. These pills help that. These pills are everything.

I'm telling you. These pills should be the back of a wagon. Dude, I'm-This is for everything.

I got to find a way to-Diarrier, gonerier. I just want to make sure because you're going to be like, Dude, they do nothing, which I love them.

I bet they do something. I guarantee if you're having That experience with them. They do something. I just wish I knew what they were.

So does the audience. Well, I'll find it out for you. I don't want to do it now when we don't have it.

Why don't you go grab them? Go grab them and bring them in here. I want to know what they are. Otherwise, we'll be leaving people in this mess.

How are you going to know? Will you look at it and know what they are? Yeah.

Well, is it just a pill by themselves?

It's a pill by themselves.

Oh, it's no bottle?

No, no, no. It's not sketchy. No, no, no. It's not sketchy. I promise you it's not sketchy. No, no, no. Because I'm telling you, we will figure it out. You're going to love this stuff. Yeah, I don't know about all this. No, I think you will. You and I will sit down with this stuff with Wyman, and I'm telling you, we're going to save the world with this stuff. If an old man is telling you this, I'm telling you, it's the one thing that's like, whoa.

We're both old now. Isn't that wild? Remember when we were kids? Never thought you're going to be an old man. Never. Never. How am I going to be an old man? How is that possible? I'm a young guy.

I'm always a young... Still a young guy. That's exactly it.

Also, you never got beaten down by life. Because you have a great job. If you have a job that sucks, you can get beaten down by life. But if you have a job like we have, we enjoy our job. It's like a thing. It is what we do for work, but it's also what we enjoy. It is work, but it's fun.

It's great. There's nothing. The stress in work is different. But they say you're only as happy as your least happy kid, right? Oh, that's true. It's like when you got that going on, it always bounces that out where you're like, Man, the greatest life here ever. And then it's like, Oh, my gosh, I got to deal with this.

Yeah. It's not easy for kids. No. Especially today with social media and just the weirdness of the world. If you're a fucking kid today, you're a 15-year-old kid and you're in high school and you see what the President is. You're like, what? That's the guy running the world? What is happening? How crazy is this? And then you've just gone through COVID, so everyone's confused. What happened? It's a very confusing time. Why was that locked up for two years? What happened? And then here you are, you're about to make it out there in the world, and you're on social media all the time. It's a tough ride for kids today. It is a very, very, very tough ride with new challenges that we never had to experience.

Dude, my oldest daughter is on the spectrum. And so we started seeing this anxiety and this disconnection. And she developed these ticks, really bad, where she started hitting herself. Uncontrollable. She's a big, strong girl. She was about, I think, 16, 15 at the time. I remember, it was so scary for me that I had to lay on her at night and hold her down. I'm pretty sure she was hitting so hard and she's apologizing. She's like, I'm sorry. I'm like, What are you kidding? It broke my heart. So we brought her to the hospital. We went to the hospital, find out what... We didn't even know what this was. We where it was coming from. They got her to calm down and she was still ticking and stuff. I talked to the neurologist. Is that what it is? I guess, I don't know, the doctor. I go, What is this? What can we do? He basically said, She's developed these ticks. It's like, this is something you're just going to have to learn to deal with. You're going to have a child like this, and you have to prepare yourself that you and your wife are going to have to deal with this for the rest of your life this way.

I was like, There's got to be a different way. He's like, There's no way of really... We don't know. I went, Oh, man, it crushed me. So it was like me and my wife were like, What do we do? And my wife read this book. She was just doing all this crazy research, and she found this book, Disconnected Kids, and it was by Dr. Robert Malillo. So I got involved with him. I called him, and he literally took my daughter. He was, I know what this is. He was, It's okay. He says, I can work with her. And we were just out of... We were lost. We didn't know what to do. I mean, I mean, violent. It was like, whewf. So we took it to this doctor, and within two weeks, no drugs, anything, two weeks, ticks were gone. And he said, They're going to still be there. They're going to come up every once in a while. But he fixed her, man. And I'm like, whoa. It blew my mind, man. So I was like, I just want to give other parents hope. And I knew another guy who had a daughter who's severely autistic, and she was nonverbal and violent, too.

And he said, he goes, I will... And he worked with them, and she's getting so much better now in speaking. And it's an amazing thing this guy does.

He's great. How's he doing? What is he doing?

I don't know at all. He works with the brainwaves. And again, not a doctor, but there's no medication in there involved, which was very important because that's what they were recommending the hospital. Just put her on I'm like, and turn her into a zombie. Exactly. I can't do that. And she's so much better now. She still has a tic every once in a while, but she's great. She's connected. He gets her connected. He does all these brain things and he works with the... And how it all ties into the motor, whatever that is.

It's so fascinating.

It is. He's another guy. Is this it?

I've been told via your assistant, this is what it is. Okay. There's no name for it, apparently. No name? What's the name for it? What do you mean there's no name? What do you mean there's no name? Okay, so it has ashwagandha, Shadavari.

Shadavari.

Shadavari, Kavach seed,, Fennu, Greek seed, papali, guaduchy, shijalit, oh, shalajit. Shalajit. I've heard of that stuff before. I've heard of shalajit. Gocsura and sunthi. Oh, boy. But that's a mouthful, isn't it?

I think it's not that the ingredients are that unique. I think it's the fact that the way they do it is, I don't know, that he says he doesn't use anything that's been... He throws out a majority of it, which that's why it's hard to come by. It's like active ingredients for everything. They could sell you all this stuff, but if you don't get it from the right place, it's just not going to do anything. Whatever it is, I give it to you. Really?

Okay. I'm interested. I've never tried ashwagandha.

Here's something that has the same... I'm not saying this is it.

This just has the same ingredients. Influx 6.50 herbal supplement. It has the same ingredients. Healthy Muscular Response. Maintain healthy Skeletomuscular System. Okay. Interesting. Give it a shot. Send me that. I'll send you. That Is it the same ingredients? I mean, I literally copied and pasted and googled.

They're showing the same thing, same dosage.

That looked like a bullshit, low-res image company.

Try it.

Okay.

I know nothing. I'm I want to try it.Thank.

You.i'm.

Excited.i'm excited to try this.You give it to everybody? I need this. For me, I want it for me. Yeah. I know I'm not going to... I sense to be it. If If it's not working, it's not working. Actually, here you go. It's on Dolce's website. If it works for me- Dolce has it? Yes. Okay. That might be it.It must be it.It.

Must be it. If it's on his website, that's it. Info 650. Okay.

But Yeah, it works.

Herbs work. There's a lot of them that work. Some of them are really good. That's what's interesting about pharmaceutical drugs is the vast majority of them were sourced originally from plants. A lot of them from the Amazon. They've come up with a bunch of different pharmaceutical drugs just based on compounds they found on the Amazon.

I don't even know. I know nothing about this stuff.

So when you started doing this documentary, what was the purpose?

To find out the process because it's like, I'm going to do a movie right now. Every time I try to get in shape, it's always like, I always have to get in shape. It's almost like a fighter who fights and then gets so out of shape again. It's like, well, that's it. I mean, I shot a movie two years ago where I play an exorcist priest, and I wanted it to be... It was really crazy, legit story. I wanted to look a little different, be right in the part and just have a different character. I got down to 2:30. I really worked hard. That's low for me. And shot it and thought we were done with it. I got to pick up a couple of scenes. I'm 2:80.

No.

Dude, I'm going to have to look like either right in this priest got stung by a bee and it just swelled up, or I got to get in shape for it. So I got to get in shape for it. I got to get back down to that again. How much time did you have? I have as much as I... We'll shoot it when I'm ready, but it's waiting there to do a couple of scenes. Fifty pounds?

How long does it take you?

I could lose it really quick. I could fast and lose it. Seriously, I can lose it. I could lose it quick.

How many weeks? For 50?

I could do it in a month.

What? That sounds so insane.

Less than a month. I could do less. Really? Yeah. 50 pounds? That's amazing. I can do it fast. Fasting, just not... But that's eating nothing. You must feel like shit, though. No.

No?

No. When I fast, I didn't...

How many days have you fast in a row?

You don't want to know. How many days?

41 and a half. What?

41 and a half.

You went 41 days with no food? Water.

And a little salt in the water, like a little electrolytes. And I lost. Wow. Yeah. See, when I lock on, I can do something.

Oh, I know that. But that's a crazy lock on. 41 days.

How much did you lose? I was fasting for... It was mental. It was like I felt so bad for my daughter. I said, I'm going to do this for you. It was something that I could do and apply it to. And it was so emotionally tied into me. And I started fasting and I go, I I didn't say I'm going to do 40 days. I just said, I'm going to do whatever I can. I'm going to start fasting right now. I was praying for it. I was worried. I did four or five days, and I was getting through it, but I was like, I was wanting to get off it then. I was like, Well, I got to start to eat because I'm really hungry. I talked to my daughter. I go, How are you feeling? She goes, I've been feeling good. She goes, Have you been fasting for me? I go, Yeah. She goes, Thank you so much. I literally went, Okay, I got to keep going. I couldn't stop then. I just kept going a day at a time. But it's amazing how your body, you don't need it. As long as you have fat on you like that.

I lost, I think, 60 pounds. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. There's that guy that was in the 1960s, right, Jamie? That one dude. He fasted for 360 something days.

He was really big, right?

Yeah. You can do it. All he did was just take IV vitamins. Just water and vitamins.

I didn't even take vitamin. You don't need anything.

And I felt-You took no vitamins?

Nothing. Wow. But it cleansed everything out of me. I'm not saying it's the way to go for everybody. I don't know. Again, not a done.

There's definitely some health benefits to fasting, especially short term fasting. But if you're big and you can do it, why not?

That's it. It's like, well, how are you going to survive? Your body eats fat. That's it. That's what it was doing. It was surviving.

You probably had good energy.

I was pretty good for a while. Then you'd have these dips, and you'd feel like, Wow, I feel miserable. I'm off. I'm done. Then you fight through it, and the next day you wake up, you're like, I'm okay. It's like, Keep going. Just keep going.

The body just says, All right, this is what we're What are you dealing with. We're eating fat.

I literally wrapped up the 41 and a half days at You're going to Crack Up. I went to Pizza University, which is a university to learn how to make pizzas, and I didn't even eat. I forgot I had booked it, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh. I go, I'm not going to kill while I'm there. It was a three-day course where you get a little diploma. I wanted to know how to make the dough and everything like that. I went, Oh, no, this falls within my diet. I just wanted to make it past 40 days. I went down there and I did the whole thing and I never ate a bite. Wow. It was crazy. But then you blow back up to this. That's what the documentary is about. The documentary is about the process and finding something where you can help people with their health. It is what you were talking about. It's just get up and do something, walk. Do it a little bit more each day is the key. You don't even notice it's happening, and all of a sudden you're this active.

A big part of the key is having other people to deal with. That's one of the great things about, like you were saying, training with Wideman and those guys. It's like you're in a group where everybody else is working hard, too, and it's contagious. You get caught up in the momentum, and it's great, and everybody comes out of there feeling better, and you all went through something together.

Yes, that's it.

That helps. It's It's very hard to do it by yourself.

It not only helps, it's like we need it. I think we're built for that. We're made for that community.

100%.

When you don't have it, it's hard.

Yeah, it's not a good life if you don't have it. It's just not. You don't want to be by yourself. You always hear about those Howard Hughes type characters by themselves are scared of germs. The world gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Yeah. The bigger you get, the world gets smaller. And it's Not good. Not good for you. No. Yeah, you could lose your marbles.

Got to come to Texas, Jimmy. I'm coming. I think I'm coming. My wife's hearing this. She's going to hear this for the first time. But I think this is it. It's a great place to live. I look here in Florida and Yeah.

This is a great place to live.

It's fantastic. Again, I've never spent time here in Austin. I was here for a few days writing.

I felt immediately at home. Like the moment I moved here, I was like, this is where I was supposed to It made sense. It made sense.

It's like, of course, Texas. I thought you'd never leave LA, too. I'm so glad. That was so cool.

Well, I've been wanting to leave for a while. I tried Colorado for a little bit.

You moved out. You moved out even from LA, further out in the stick, right? In the hills. Yeah, I was out in the hills.

I was always trying to be... When I bought my first house, I bought my first house out in the hills on four acres. Because I was like, I don't want be around people. I want quiet. I want animals. I want to look out my window and see a Hawk fly by. That's what I want to see. That's what I like.

You got that here.

Yeah, but that's what I like. I don't want to be overwhelmed by people. I don't think that's healthy for you. And with me, LA just got sketchy during COVID. The George Floyd riots, I was like, this is sketchy. I was watching a bunch of looting. I saw these kids break into a clothes store. I was like, God damn it. This is sketchy. These cops can't do anything. They're overwhelmed. And then there's all this defund the police shit going on. And everywhere I would go, I would go like, you'd see tents. And I was like, This is a society that's fallen apart. And if you don't get out now, you're going to get stuck in something unrecognizable. This is not what you signed up for. When I lived in LA in the '90s, LA was great. It was great. It was a lot of traffic, but other than that, it was cool. Great place to live. All these comedians and artists and fun. Sunny out all the time. Yay, we're in the right spot. But after COVID, after the George Floyd riots, I was like, I'm getting the fuck out of here. And then it's just the lockdowns and all the ridiculousness and the RSC and just realizing you have to pay attention to how fucking stupid the mayor is.

I never paid attention to the mayor. I didn't give a fuck who the mayor was. And then when COVID comes along, I'm like, Oh, that guy's a real problem. These people can become a real problem. If they can tell you, you have to close your family business. You've had a business for 30 years. This fucking dips shit who shouldn't be managing a fucking taco Bell is managing the entire city's economy. Like, oh, my God. And then they went after him, too, which is even great. Like, Black Lives Matter was protesting in front of his house like 30 days in a row. That's what you get, bitch. That's what you get.

It just turns on itself. Yeah. And then you brought it here and you planted these seeds and look It's growing, man. It's just so amazing.

Luckily, a lot of other comics decided to move out here. That was the big one. Ron White was the king. He was always here. Ron White was here before COVID. Ron White, I remember calling Ron White up. I go, Why are you living in Austin? He goes, I'll still come to the comics store, but I fucking love it. He goes, I love Texas. I love being here. I love living in Austin. It's a good city. I was like, Damn, it sounds like a good fucking city. And so when the pandemic came around and we were looking for places to live, we had some friends that were coming to Let's look in Austin. I was like, let's look in Austin. And we came and we saw this house on the lake. I was like, let's go.

I have my buddy, Scott Voss. He lived in New York, most of his life, in the city. And then he just abruptly moved to New Brunfills. You know New Brunfills? He's always like a bow hunter and all this stuff. He loved that stuff. That's where boss is. Boss is? Yeah. They're great friends. Boss is out here, too, now. Yeah, I know. I know. I know the whole thing. Yeah, they're amazing. He loves it. I'm always like, How is it? Are you missing New York? He's like, not a stitch. You could always visit New York.

I love New York. I love to go back and visit. I love to visit and eat.

Yeah. Well, I'm on the island, so it's not in the craziness. The island is a different state. Yes, it really is. It's a different state. A hundred %.

It really is. It's a different state.

It's not New York City. No. No. No. No. It's very right wing. Yeah, it's different.

Yeah, it's much more families. Yeah, much more normal.

Which is what I need. I used to love working on the island.

That was my favorite place to work. Governors.

Chuckles. Do you remember Chuckles? Chuckles?

Yes. Is that Miniola?

Is that Miniola? It was a miniola.

That's right.

East Side was great.

That was a sad day when East Side died.

Closed. Then they opened another one, Richie, and it just got away from him. It was just not a great... He took on a massive store, a massive warehouse, and started rebuilding it and just got in over his head with stuff. The boom was slowing down a little bit. It just got tough.

Long Island has always been a good place for comedy. It's always real good comics coming out of Long Island. There's always a Long Island attitude. You get guys who come into the city from Long Island.

I was always afraid of that. That was another move. Like, oh, my God. Making that move to the city. People are like, you're going to go to the city? I'm like, I'm not going to the city yet. I'm not ready. I'm not ready.

I was so scared the first time I performed in the city. I was so scared.

The Salar. Where'd you go? Boston Common? No.

Catch a Rising Star.

Yes, me too. Louis Frianda. Yes.

I was so terrified. I thought I was going to bomb. I was so nervous. I've never been more nervous for a show in my life.

Because all the grades went through there.

I remember I watched a video that was online of Richard Pryer. I guess back then, I must have watched a tape because we're talking about the early '90s. It must have been a tape, but I watched a VHS tape of Richard Pryer on stage at Catch, and I was like, Oh, my God. I'm going to perform in the same place. I knew Richard Belzer had performed there. It was just a legendary club. I couldn't believe I was there. I couldn't believe I was allowed to be on the stage.

Me too, man.

Yeah, but it went okay. It went good. I was like, Okay. Then the next show I did, The City, I was loose. I was like, This is just a crowd.

These are just people. That's it.

Then I just got loose. But the allure of the city was always like, you can't trick them. They're going to be the smart people. You can trick all those losers that come to see you at a bar in the middle of Massachusetts. But if you're going to go to a New York fucking city, you better have your act together. And your act has to be tight.

Standup New York, the comic strip. The comic strip, remember? Eddie Murphy was there. Yeah, that was a tough one. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, Eddie was here. Yeah. When you see that Chris Rock and these guys, I'm like, whoa.

Well, the clubs in New York, there were so many of them. Boston Comedy Club, Dangerfields.

Dangerfields. I played in front of probably three people, right? One o'clock in the morning at Dangerfield.

Yeah. I was there once at Dangerfields, and my spot was at 9:30, and I got there at 9:00, and everyone was by the bar. I'm like, What's going on? There's no crowd. While we were there, two people showed up. You remember Bobby?

He put the show on. Yeah, he was crazy, Bobby.

Welcome to Dangerfield. He brought them in. You started the show. Then the show started. We all did stand up for two people. I love it. They were held hostage. How could they leave? We're going to get out of here. This sucks. Like, What? There's five more guys coming.

There was something about back then that I miss so much. I guess it's the community again, but that whole drive to the newness of being in these clubs, the comedy seller.

Also, we didn't know if we were going to make it.

That's it.

Back then, you were like, Am I going to be a real professional, or is this just bullshit? Should I think about getting a job job?

I quit my last job way early. Did you? Yeah. I was working at a place called Granger in the in the warehouse just pulling orders. It was like an industrial equipment company, and I hated it. It was so hot, and I'm miserable. I'm doing an improv class, and a couple of dates I have here and there, and I was like, I I think I'm going to turn into comedy. I think I could make a living of this stuff. It's pulled out way too... Living at home, my folks, and it's like, I might have pulled that a little early, but you know.

But that's the way you do it, though. You'll find jobs and things to do to make money while you're struggling. But if you have a net, you'll fall.

You're right.

You have to be 100% all in. In the beginning, in the first days when you and I knew each other, we were just opening acts, which is like, you're not really making much money. Maybe you could headline some little scrub room in the middle of nowhere, make a couple of hundred bucks that night, drive to Connecticut. So it was precarious. Who knows what's going to happen? I could fall, but we all knew guys who fell apart. It was guys who were like headliners who were big comics, and they just fell apart. They fell apart. They couldn't handle it for whatever reason.

It's weird. Fear of success or just whatever it is. They didn't know how to go to the next level?

I think for them, it's a lot of that they didn't have community. I think back then, even more so than it's a problem now, it was way more of a problem back then because everybody was in competition with each other. Nobody looked at other people like other people that are just like me, that are out there doing great, and so that's awesome for everybody. Back then, if you and I were friends and there was a Tonight Show host spot available, and they were going to talk to you and they were going to talk to me, we couldn't be friends. The people would turn on each other. They would backstab each other, like the famous David Letterman and Jay Leno things. Right. Lena was like hiding in the closet. Closet? Yeah.

They were in competition with each other. Did you ever have a group of guys in Boston around you? When you first started, or no, was it just you?

Me and Fitzsimmons were always tight. We started out literally a week apart from each other in open mics. Then Chris McGuire, I was always tight with Chris. There was a few guys from that era that I stayed friends with that we did a lot of road gigs together and we were tight, and that was real fun. Mostly Fitzsimmons because Fitzsimmons, he was a good buddy, and we did a lot of gigs together when we were starting out. We'd drive to Rhode Island for free and just do open mics.

I drove to Allen, Pennsylvania for, I mean, like 20 bucks or something. I remember, I go, this has cost me more than tolls. I was like, but I went.

Yeah, but that's the only way to do it. You have to put in those hours in that time. If you're with someone else who's also doing it, it makes it way easier. So, yeah, it made it easier for sure to be friends at Fits Evans because we were both doing the same thing at the same time. But there wasn't a group like we had in LA. In LA, that was a different thing. That was a real brother and sisterhood. It was like everybody was so tight and everybody was so supportive because it coincided with the Internet. When the internet came along, then instead of everybody being in competition with each other for a sitcom or a TV show, Now everybody was on each other's podcast. So now it was only beneficial. It was like, if I could go do Schultz's podcast, that would make my Netflix special, get more people to watch it. If I could go do this, it would do that. If I could do all these different things, it would actually promote stuff, and it would make it bigger and better. Then it was like everybody's podcast grew because they were on other people's podcast, and no one suffered.

There was no negative... Of all the people that I ever had on my podcast that went on to do podcasts and tour and do arenas, it only helped me.

It only helps.

It never hurt. It only helps. It helps them. It helps me. It helps the audience.

It helps everybody. Helping them is insane. I mean, look at the careers you've built from this.

I just exposed people to talented people that already existed, and that benefits me.

Absolutely, 100%. But it's like you're given this platform, and it does. It grows because then they're able to do it and bring up other people.

Then other people are seeing that, and they're applying that in their own lives, too.

It definitely It wasn't the case. Back in the day, I felt like I had my brother Gary and Rock and Adam Ferrara and Richie Minerva. We had this tight group that we would look out for each other. We would try to do that. But other than that, it was backstab. It was like, they were just trying to get in the way and don't tell this guy about this audition. It's like, I hated that.

I hated that. Well, that's why I loved hanging out with you and Ferrara. It's like you could find good dudes and you all hang together and all enjoy each other's success and do shows together, too. That was the most fun thing when you and I got to do shows together.

The best, man. Wasn't that the best?

It was the best. Oh, I loved it so much. We had so many fun gigs. It was such a good time. Just to be on the sideline because you're one of those guys that if I'm laughing hard in the room, you go crazy.

Oh, you get me nuts. You build me up. You are. You are the hype man because you'd fire me up and we'd-Well, I always knew you at your best.

I always knew who you were. If we were just at a bar and you just started going off about something We're crying, laughing. You had this ability to get fucking furious about something in the most hilarious way. I was like, You got to bring Shimmy out. I know. You got to bring Shemmy out on that stage.

You were one of the few guys. I'm telling you and Sam are guys that believe in me more than I believe in me. You know what I'm saying? Really. I mean, it's amazing.

Sometimes your special quality is to be comfortable around your friends, and then that's where you show your full potential. Then it's up to your friends to say, You got to just carry that with you on the stage because that's you. Like the bit that you do about pulling up to the curb and the lock cancels out with a girl grabs the hand. That's a full chimie bit.

You got me. You built it for me. You were like, You got to go nuts with it. I was like, more and more and adding it and going… I literally jumped in the audience because you got me. When we were up at Montreal, you were like, You got to go chimie. I went nuts. I literally I jumped on some guy in the crowd. I've never done that before, ever. I free… This was like, But that got me my deal. That's literally being that nuts.

Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. But that's you at your best. But sometimes, Sometimes people need a coach. As long as you need a hype man. My friends do that all the time. We do it for each other. They do it to me. They'll say, Tony, last night, we were going over a bit. He's like, I really think that when you're saying this, maybe say that first. I was like, damn, maybe you're right. Every now and then someone will see things with fresh eyes, and they got to pull you aside and go, I think you should do it this way. You're like, I like it. Let me try it. I'll try it the next show and like, Oh, my God, you're right.

That's it. You hug. It's a comfort level. It's a comfort level. When you're comfortable with somebody and you get past that, you open up and you try to and you know each other. That's exactly what it was. Like I said, we You would go out and do this, and that would be it. You would give me these things and get me all hiked up. It changed who I was. It changed what I... Again, that comedian that with the standing up there in the middle with the mic stand. You were just that guy to me. You were that guy that was just like, You didn't care. I was like, I want to be that.

I remember one time we were at one of the improv, the Brea Improf, one of those impros. And one of the fucking guys who's working the sound booths goes, What did you do to him? I go, That's him. That's That's him. That's the real chimie. That's when it comes out because you were just going nuts. You're just going nuts. You're like, Dude, he goes so crazy when you're here. That's him.

I need you in my life that way. I need you to do that with everything. I'm telling you, that's what I miss when I'm on Because, again, my own captain, I go off the rails. I'll start overthinking things. That happens with fighters, too. I'm sure.

Yeah. Fighters decide that they're the boss, and then they don't have a guy. That happened with Tyson. Tyson was with Customado, Customado died, and now he doesn't have a boss anymore. He doesn't have the alpha. He doesn't have this wise person who's overseeing all of it going, No, not this. This. And this is why. This is why you have to approach it this way. Like, Yeah, this is why. Sometimes people need a coach. You need someone around you who knows exactly what's going on.

I don't care if it's you. I need it. If I'm writing a movie or doing whatever it is, I need people to say, Hey, you got to see it because you're in your own head. Everything has that same flavor. I'm always like, We're writing the same type of movies in this net because I'm controlling everything. Sometimes I got to relinquish that control and say, Let someone else say, believe me, trust them. Just go with it. I struggle with that because I'm like, No, no, no, no. That's the key to it. I could see that in the fight game. It must be where I take over and I know better and I got to switch camps and do all this stuff.

Especially if you're the champ. If you're beating everybody and you think I'm fucking everybody up because I'm the best. Then your manager is looking at Clover Lange and Rocky. He's like, No, this fucking guy is doing the real thing.

You better watch out. You don't see this coming.

You don't see this coming. You have to have that guy around you. Otherwise, you'll be delusional. And you wind up with a flashlight in your face.

That's right.

They're wheeling you out in a stretcher. That's the thing with success. Also, the part of success is to get successful, you have to get really uncomfortable. Once you get to a certain level of comfort, you're like, I don't want to be uncomfortable anymore. I did all that, but that's over. I'm done. But the only way you keep getting better is to be uncomfortable.

That's it. That's the ice bath every morning. That's literally going, Why do you... You don't have to do this anymore. It's like, but why?

So you got to build up the boss in your head. I made my own coach because I realized there's not going to be enough coaches around me. I had coaches when I was doing martial arts. There was a giant factor for me that I went to that J-hun Kim Taekwondo, this gym, Boston, which was one of the best gyms in the country. Just dumb luck happened to be there at the right time. But once I realized you're not going to have a coach everywhere, you got to be able to coach yourself. I write out my training routines all myself. I write them out. So I know what I have to do, and I just do it.

I found an old journal. When I was literally doing... I did karate for four... I don't know how many years it was. I got to a a Brown Belt, when I was in high school and stuff like that, or a little just as... I guess it was ending then. Maybe it was just going to the college. I was a Brown Belt by then. But I never felt that we had a guy named Al Wilson in our school who was a boxer, and I was learning all the karate stuff, and I was really good. I had the moves and stuff like that, and the kata's down like crazy, crank them out, like rip them, like really powerful. And this guy was just different. It was boxing. I didn't have that. So I never had that confidence even then. As a Brownbell, I was like, I need to know something. I got to learn. Boxing is an eye opener. Oh, my gosh. And wrestling. It's all these things. That's what I'm saying. As far as that stuff, it's like, There's a two big eye openers, especially if you think that you know how to fight because you know how to do karate.

And then you box with somebody, you're like, Oh, this is a totally different thing. I got to learn this now. Learn it like I learned everything else.

I remember when you took me to Beverly Hills Jujutsu, I remember probably the first class, a guy grabbed me and held me just against his chest, and my face was in his gee, and I couldn't breathe. I didn't know what to do. So I reached up and I was like, grabbing his throat, which you're not allowed to do. But I was panicking. And he was like, whoa, whatever. I was like, whoa, I didn't know. I just played it off. But I was gone. I was going to tap from a chest.

Yeah, people do that in black belt.

I do it all the time.

It's a smother joke.

Yeah, I can't do that.

People smother tap people. Big guys would get on top of people and tuck them in between their pecs.

Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm out. I feel like I'm drowning. Yeah, you are. Yeah, it's scary.

It is scary. But if you can learn defense of that, then you're always going to be safe. That's the thing. It's like if you can just figure out how to defend yourself in those positions just to stay alive. And it's the worst feeling in the world to be trapped under someone for five minutes while they're trying to kill you. But if you can develop enough confidence that you're safe no matter what, that's what Hicks and Gracie always said. He goes, I am always safe. He goes, It's always defense. My defense is perfect. I am always safe. So he never worried about being tapped because he was always putting himself in these terrible positions. He would have black belt start on his back with a fully locked in rear naked choke. That's how you have them start.

Yeah, then you're not afraid of anything. You've been there before. You got defense.

Yes. Yeah, you got your defense.

If I applied what I think about all day long to actually practicing it, I don't. But I think about it all the time. You got to build that coach up in your mind. Dude, I would literally look up things and I go, I would watch everything and be like... I saw Eddie Bravo once say, or I heard that he said, I won't even teach anybody until you can do the butterfly. You can get it to your knees to the mat.

No, he said, you can't get a black belt. Oh, is that what it was? You can't get a black belt until you get your knees to the mat.

Okay. I thought he was like, Oh, I took it that way. And I'm like, I started pushing it. But then I fated. I don't do it.

He gave up on that, by the way. Oh, did it? Yeah, he gave up on that because he realized you could be a black belt without putting your knees to the mat.

Yeah, because I can't move.

It's just, Eddie has a very specific style, and it's super effective, and it's very dangerous. He was one of the most dangerous guys ever off his back. He developed this style based on flexibility and movement. I could always do that because I was very lucky that I'd-You've always done flexible. Because I did Taekwondo when I was really young and I always stretched. I didn't have any problem adopting his techniques, but a lot of people did just because of the dexterity issues.

I would think because that was like the rubber guard and stuff like that, right? It was like I was always a big guy, so I didn't know whether in my head I would go, I shouldn't train this way because it's not my style of fighting or whatever, or should I be a big guy that can do that? I would go back and forth, go… Some trainers would be like, You shouldn't do this. Don't waste your time doing that. You'll never do that. I'm like, Well, what if I'm… Nothing's scarier than a heavyweight that can move around and be like that.

A heavyweight that can fight off his back is one of the most dangerous guys. I can. I got it. That was always Noguera's big thing. Because Minnitaro, back in the day when Minnitaro was the pride champion, Noguera was a lethal black belt off his back. So these guys are so used to wrestling guys and taking them down. But you get taken down, you're in Noguera's guard. You're in trouble. Fabrício Verdu, he tapped all the greats from his back. Fabrício Verdu, he tapped Fedor from his back. I mean, come on, man. Fedor from his back. He was the first guy to beat Fedor. And everybody was like, holy shit. And the way he did it with just pure jiu-jitsu, he got him an arm bar, triangle combination. He's like, This is a checkmate, motherfucker. Just slap that down. Boy, Fabrício Verdu had the most wicked of all guards. He tapped all the greats. He tapped Cain Velasquez. He tapped Minetaro, He tapped Fedor. He tapped some of the greatest of all time. That guy tapped off his back.

That's crazy. That's what I have to... I literally... I have to get back to it. I really got to get back to it because that fear of those positions that you just don't want to ever get in. It's the suffocation. It's this and that. Every time I start up again, I hate the warmups. That warmup, I'm like, Dizy. I'm doing these crab walks and stuff. I'm already out. But it's I have a guy that Weidman hooked me up with. I was going to go to Sarah because Sarah's out there. It's great jiu-jitsu. But for some reason, Weidman goes, Go to this guy. He'll be great with you. His name is Derek Manji. He does I understood jiu-jitsu, but it was an hour away from me. But he's the greatest guy, and he comes to my house, and he trains me and stuff, and he's just a beast. But it's like, I've got to get passed, literally out of my head and get in these positions. But when I train with him, he's so I get on his back or whatever it is, and he just gets up. It's like an apartment building just coming up.

I can't even hold. It's so frustrating to me. He's flexible and big, and he can move around. It's like, This is where I don't finish. I quit. I'm like, I get frustrated and I don't- Honestly, the thing about training with someone who's really good, the problem is you're never going to get good enough to tap them because they're always going to be ahead of you.

You really should train with people that are okay. That's the best way to train. The best way to get really good at jiu-jitsu, I've always said, and Eddie Bravo used to always say this, is strangle blue belts. Really? Find people that could resist a little bit, but they're not really on your level, and just drill on them. You drill on them. And that way, then when you get to brown belts and you get to black belts, you're sharp, and you have all these reps of finishing the technique. Reps. All these reps of closing.

That's the other thing.

Closing the technique off.

Do you recommend just drilling?

A hundred %. Drilling is almost more important than anything. Really? Yeah, because it solidifies move in your head. When I got really good, the best I got at jiu-jitsu when I went from blue belt to purple belt was when I was training with Eddie, and we were drilling all the time. We were drilling multiple times a week. So we get together and for an hour and a half, we would just drill. And it sucks. You don't want to. You want to roll. Rolling is fun. Sparring is fun. It's like you're playing a video game. But if you can just force yourself to do the work and do a lot of drilling, your technique will get really sharp. All the best guys drill. They drill all the time. They do either live drills, where you all start from a certain position, or they'll do drills, where they'll go over a specific path. Like, Eddie was big on going over paths. Like, I want you to do this. You pass the guard, he goes to block You set this up, and then you counter with that. And then we would drill that very position over. So then when that would come up in training, when you would go to pass and someone would block and then you would take their back, it's like, oh, it's all synced in to your nervous system.

And that enables you to, when you're in a position, to think two or three moves ahead.

You're not going to get that if you're training with some big black belt. You're not going to get that. You're never going to get to the point where you could do that to him.

It's not going to happen. He's great. It's not him. No, it's not him. It's me. But even you, even if he lets you do it, it's not the same.

You got to be able to do it to someone who's not letting you do it and someone who you don't know.

Well, that's the key. Once you start learning someone and you're...

Yeah, you don't want to know them. You want to be able to solve a human puzzle. Some person is pulling on your shit and he's freaking out a little bit.

Not only that, it's the fear of it. I hate that. I don't like that. You love it. I hate going to a class where I don't know everything. First of all, I hate the gay. I hate everything. I suffocate in that thing. That thing is cement hard. Why don't you try noogie? Go noogie. Because then I feel like you're not learning the techniques. You are.

You are? Yeah, 100%. I have a black belt in gee and I have a black belt in noogie. I can do both of them. I've done both of them. I trained both of them at the same time. But one of the things that I did from learning from Eddie was because I was training so much no gee, but I was also training gee, I would go in and do the gee, but I wouldn't use it. I would let them use it on me. But I was just concentrating on overhooks and underhooks, and I was concentrating on all the same grips that I would use so that I would never be deficient. Because if you get used to grabbing collars and sleeves and you get used to adjusting people with butterfly sweeps and stuff like that based on grips, the problem with that is all those grips go away when everyone's slippery and it's just bare chest. I was all about clenching and I was all about a tight game. It was all about learning what Eddie's moves were. Eddie's moves were all overhooks and underhooks. It was all wrestling-based. It was all because of Jean-Jacques Machado.

Our instructor, Jean-Jacques, his left hand, he only has a thumb. I know.

He trained me a couple of days in Encino. He came to my house. He was such a great guy.

He's the best. He really is. He's the best.

When I look at these videos where they take the belt or whatever it is and underneath and wrap it around this thing, it's like, I always go... It's not that it can't work or whatever, but I always look for things that are applicable. I want to be able... It's like, to me, I can't do that. But I always heard that for you to get better at no gee, you want to train gee because it's like taking a bat and swinging with the donut on it.

That doesn't make any sense. Okay. No, you want to train. It's like to get really good at racquetball, you need to play in this. It doesn't make any sense.

Well, I got four massive gees. If you want to use them for something, you could throw them over your couch or whatever you feel like doing because I'm happy to get rid of them.

Listen, there's nothing wrong with the gee. The gee is still great. What the gee does do is it forces you to be very technical because you can't muscle a lot of things. You can't just pull out of stuff because you're trapped. You have to learn how to use the proper defense and also never let you get yourself into a position where someone's completely cinched up on you. If someone has... There's certain chokes, like a clock choke. If they reach into your collar and they grab a hold of your collar like this, and then they get this arm wrapped around here, you're in a bad spot because then I'm going to spin.

Oh, gosh. I'm going to go-It's like a tourniquet, right? It's terrible. It's a tourniquet. It's death.

It's death. It's such a horrible choke to get stuck in. In those situations, the geek can be... If you're in a street fight with a guy who's got a winter jacket on, some guy's got a leather jacket and he grabs you, and you grab a hold of that collar, and you pull him to the side, and you fish that arm underneath his shoulder, that's a dead man. He didn't even know he's dead. He's a dead man. If you get a hold of someone's leather jacket and then you get your arm under there and you get this like this. You're like, Oh, son, you're going for a gator roll.

I love that.

Yeah. So a judo player who is fighting someone with a winter jacket, you're fucked. That guy's going to hit you with the world. He's going to spike you on your fucking head on the concrete, and you're not even going to be able to stop it. You're not going to be able to do a goddamn thing. So it's good to learn the gee because most people are wearing clothes.

Yeah, I'm just going to go out shirtless from now on, just not even wear anything.

You could easily basically, you'll choke someone with a hoodie. You get on top of someone with a hoodie, and you get up in here, and you fucking...

This is different level. This is not what I'm literally... I need to.

Yeah.

I've got to start. I really do. I got to do something because it's like it's...

There's nothing wrong with the Gee. The Gee is great. The Gee is great. I still love the Gee.

It also slows it down. It does slow the game down for older guys, too. That's the one thing. That's why they keep saying, You don't want to go no Gee because it's going to be… But it'll be a lot quicker. But I don't mind. I like that. As long as it's a guy I love, it does slow the game down. But also, to me, I just feel suffocated. Everybody's always grabbing me and I'm like, I'm out. I'm tapping like crazy. I'm like… Plus, my grip strength, I ripped. First of all, tore this bicep when I was… Did you get it repaired?

Or was it just Matt Serra?

This one happened about five, six years ago. I hired a personal trainer, and she came to my house. I didn't even know. She was almost like the CrossFit person. She was like, We're going to work on strength. I had never deadlifted or did anything. They started doing deadlifts. She was like, I didn't even literally know to do it. She was showing me, and she was getting so excited. She goes, That's pretty good weight. Can we bump it up a little bit? It was like, 135, 225, 275. Then she goes, Can we go a little bit more? She put 315 on it. Then I go, and I got it. She was like, Can we go 405, whatever. She bumped up and I'm starting to feel a little tired. I go, I don't know. I don't know if we should do this. I don't know what this is getting me. But she was so happy. She's like, This is really good. It was like a personal... I go, I've never done it. I did 405, and I felt a little something. I got it. I just got it. And she was like, This is amazing. And then she said, Can we go like 4:50?Oh.

No.yes..

And I went pop right away. I got it up for a little bit and I just went. I go, Oh, my gosh. But it didn't... It was such a bad... It didn't tear away from the bone. It looked like it was like chopped meat, and it ripped a hole in the middle of it. So it was weird. The guy looked at it and he goes, We can't even do anything with it. So it's like, you just got to let it heal.

Does it still have a hole? Like when you flex?

You can't see this one as much. You can see a little divot. You see a little divot here. But then just recently, I did a movie with Joey Diaz. I did that movie. I did a movie with him, and there was a lot of fighting in it. I'm fight training with the guys, and we're rehearsing all the choreography and going through the moves, and we did it a lot. It was the end of the time. He's like, Do you want to run it one more time? And I was like, All right. He I was just running slow just to get it because I was getting tired and I had to go and double leg the guy or whatever it was. I went in to double leg him, and it was very slow. He moved to the side, and he went this way, and it stretched my arm, and it went, I go, and they go, Oh, that looked awesome. Awesome, guys. I go, No, I literally have it recorded. I go, Something's wrong. I go, Something's wrong. And this one, this one's bad. It's nasty. It's the Matt Serra one. It rolled up on me and I got it checked out, and they go, It's completely torn.

The guy was doing PT on me. This guy, Amado, he's awesome. Johnny Amado, he's an awesome guy to do PT. He was telling me, he's like, Well, the good thing about it is it's torn completely because you're going to be able to do everything with it. I had to go into the movie, so they go, Do you want to get it fixed? You should get it fixed. It was like one of those things where it's like, you don't gain that much strength. Believe it or not, the bicep doesn't do that much. The bicep itself, it's like a turning a key, and it's like, that's where it'll be affected a lot, which that's actually not that bad. Did you get it fixed or no? I didn't. I couldn't because I had to go into the movie and shoot the movie. Because if you do that, you get it fixed. The rehab is long. So I go, I can't do it. So they said, Can I get it done after the movie? And they go, You can't because it's a window of the muscle. If you don't attach it right away, it won't take. So I did it.

I didn't do it. And It's bad. At the end, it still hurts. It cramps every time. I don't feel like I can do anything. I've lost so much strength on this thing now.

You wish you'd gotten the surgery? I do. That sucks. I always wondered about Matt's arm.

He's strong as hell. It doesn't affect him, though. I think he says it's fine.

Bunch of guys get that one. That's a real common one. It's common with a lot of times when people throw a punch. The punch gets blocked. The bicep will pop and curl up. I've seen that a couple of times.

Yeah. This is ugly and it's bad.

Remember Kyle Parisian had that with his hamstring?

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Did he?

Yeah. He had a hole in his hamstring. His hamstring just ripped apart, and it shriveled up, and it always fucked with him the rest of his career. Oh, it's in your head. Well, also it was His one leg just was not as strong. Right. So his one leg was always compromised. He should have had a surgery on it right from the beginning.

Yeah.

Yeah, but guys try to rehab stuff. There's that fine window, that small window between fixing something and not being able to ever fix it. Like, T. J. Dillashaw went through that with his shoulders. He tried to just rehab his shoulders, and his shoulders wind up becoming chronic, and now they've ruined his career. Any injury to a joint, I always say, get the surgery if you can. If it's that bad, get the surgery. But also it depends on what it is. If it's a bicep, yeah, get the surgery. But there's certain things like stem cells might be able to fix that better than surgery. So it's like knowing where to go and who to talk to and what doctors have actually gone through this before.

But you can't do that now.

With what?

With stem cell or anything like that.

With the bicep? No. Once it's shriveled up, it's shriveled up. You have a very small window. I think a bicep, the window is just a couple of weeks.

You get it repaired really quickly. I should have done it because I really-That sucks. It does.

That's a bummer.

It's slowing me down for sure.

I tore my MCL getting on stage once. What? Yes. At Stuv Stubbs. It's Stubbs in Texas. I was walking up to the stage. Stubbs is this outdoor amphitheater, and as you're turning the corner, it's these concrete stairs, but they're spaced differently. And so I was like, check I was turning my recorder on on my phone and walking up the stairs, being called up to the stage, and I misstepped and twisted my foot, and it popped my knee bad, where when I went on stage, my leg was shaking like I was nervous.

You didn't stop? I was in agony. You did this set?

I was in agony. Yeah, I just did my set. Oh, my God. Yeah, I just power through it, but I was like, My leg is shaking so bad. It looks like I'm so nervous. Everyone can see this? Oh, no. But it was just pain. I should have addressed it. I should have said, I just blew my knee out. I should have said that so people know why my knee is shaking. Because otherwise, I was like, God, how do I stop my knee from shaking?

This guy's nervous.

Yeah, it shook for the first, fuck, 10 minutes at least. Did you sit down? No.

You're nuts.

Did my set. It still went great. The show was fun, but then my knee was fucked up for a year after that. I had to get a bunch of stem cells. I got stem cells in it like three times before it finally got to the point where it doesn't bother me anymore.

How is it now? It's great.

Yeah, now it's great. Now, I can kick the bag. No problems. Wow. Yeah, I did a lot of knee over toe stuff, too. That Ben Patrick program.

Yeah, that's great stuff.

It's a big game changer. I strengthened my legs quite a bit more since I did that, since I had that injury. The Nordic Curls and the Slant Board Squats, Goblet Squats.

That Sled, too, on the wheels, whatever it's called. Torx Sled. Yes. I just push it light and then just walk back with it slow and just keep going digging in. I feel it in my legs, and it's great.

The Walking back is huge. That's such a crazy way to strengthen your legs, to pull a sled backwards. Such a good way to strengthen your knees. It just keeps everything strong and firm. As long as you stay flexible as well and you're strong, you have stability. You have range of motion, but you also have stability. That's giant. That's key.

I'm doing this movie now where it's me, and it's an action movie I'm literally leaving tonight to Vancouver. It's like a crazy action movie, and I wanted to get in shape for it, and it didn't happen. So I'm like, I don't know. I'm next to this beast, too. Alan Richen from The Reacher. Oh, that guy?

For The Reacher? That guy's huge.

Oh, my gosh. I was like, I got a train to get ready for it. I'm like, nothing happened. Now I'm like, oh, boy, we're going into this thing.

That guy is the perfect guy for that show because they did that movie with Tom Cruise He was like, the character was never that small, right? No. In the book, the character was this monster. The character in the book was Alan Richmond.

Yeah. Richson. He's a beast. Richson. Yeah, really good. Look at this dude.

Look at that. He's ridiculous.

He's amazing. He's a house.

That guy's a house. Great dude, too. Yeah, he seems like a really nice guy. Unbelievable. I've seen him in interviews. He seems like a really nice guy, but he's the perfect guy for that series. Tom Cruise is the Blockbuster boy, so they're like, Let's just do it with Tom Cruise. But he's 5'9. This guy's got to be a gorilla. He's got to be a fucking linebacker. He's a linebacker with a genius brain. He can kill people.

This guy is-Yeah, he's perfect for it. He is. Butso you have to do an action movie with him?

Yeah. Oh, no. Just start fasting. How much time do you have before the camera rolls?

I just suck it out. It's crazy, man. It's like fighting that age, but it's like, you're right. You look at you doing it, man. It's like such a difference how you are with what you do and what you've implemented. We're a different species, I'm telling you. I just stayed on it.

I just never let off the gas. That's the key. But also being careful, knowing what's fucked up and what's not, knowing not to try to work through injuries, but to heal them and making sure that they don't happen anymore by increasing range of motion, strengthening things, and just making sure your whole system is strong. I do a lot of non-sexy exercises, like Turkish get-ups and things like that. Things to strengthen the whole body, windmills. Those are the things that I like.

No one likes to do them. When I walk around to the gym and do a couple of it. It's like, that's where I have to change my mindset to go into the places where it hurt. Where does it hurt? When you bend, where the ankle strength, foot, all this stuff to get comfortable in that. It's like, that's the stuff that's so important. Turkish get-ups, I hate those. Everybody hates those. I don't like to do it.

There's no... Bench press is cool. You bang out 10 reps. Like, yeah, we did it. Turkish get-ups, you never feel like you're done.

No, exactly.

It's hard. And everything's working. Your legs are working, your core is working.

Do you do a specific set? Or are you more on your own? Do you go, I'm just going to work this area, and I'm going to do as many as I just want to drill it. Or do you have a set?

No, I have sets. You do? Yeah. I'll do my warm up. My warm up after the cold plunge is always 100 pushups and 100 bodyweight squats. So that's the warm up. So that gets you going. That gets you warm after you've done the cold. So now you're heated up again.

And then I do my-Wait a second. 100 pushups?

And a hundred bodyweight squats.

That's more than my week right now. This is your warm up?

That's the warm up every day. Yeah, that's 15 minutes. So 15 minutes it takes to do 100 pushups and a hundred bodyweight squats. I do those. And then I do swings. So depending upon whether or not I'm feeling good or whether I need more warm up, I either go with 50 or 70 pounds. So if I go to 70 pounds, that means I'm ready to go. So I do three sets of 10 swings with each arm with 70 pounds. And then I do clean press, three sets of 10 with each arm, clean press. And then I do three sets of windmills with each arm. And then I do three sets of renegade rows. You know renegade rows, where you're doing a push-up on the kettlebell. So you got the kettlebells, two on the ground, same distance apart as your shoulders. And you do a push-up, and And in the lock push-up position, you do a row with one side, boom. And then a row with the other side, boom. Back down for a push-up, back up. Row with one side, boom. So your core is totally engaged the entire time. You're in a plank the entire time.

And the entire time, you're either going down to do a push-up, you lock up, and then you're stabilizing yourself as you pull the one kettlebell up.

That's core, that's everything.

Boom, put that down. Yeah, boom. And you do that with 70 pounds, three sets of 10 on each your side, and you get worn the fuck out. So you're doing 20 reps. Every time I'm doing this, I'm doing 10 reps with each hand. So I'm doing that with 70 pounds. And so I do three sets of those. And then once I get done with that, then I usually either do the sled or I'll do something else. I'll do like rounds on the bag. I'll do like something else.

And is that time, then all that stuff, too? Or is it- No.

I like to give myself time in between sets because I want to be fully before I get into the set again. I don't believe in... I follow this Russian principle, this strong first principle, which is the most important thing is how much weight are you pushing and for how many reps? And it doesn't matter if those reps come over five minutes or they come over 20 minutes. And it's probably better if they come over 20 minutes than over five minutes because you have a lot of time. I'll take five, maybe even 10 minutes in between sets, so I'm fully ready to go. And then when I'm doing the clean press with 70 pounds and I'm doing 10 reps each side, I'm no problem doing that. I'm not fatigued. I'm fatigued. It's difficult, but it's not where I'm at the point of failure, ever. If my point of failure was 10 reps, I would do five. And then I would wait a long time, and then I do another five.

That makes sense. Yeah.

I'm getting a lot of reps.

You're never getting to that point where you're pushing yourself to the point where you can hurt yourself?

Never. Never. That's all I do. I don't lift anything heavier than 70 pounds.

You don't need to, right? You don't need to.

People think you do. It's one thing if you're a football player. Exactly. If you're a power athlete, you need to do cleans and squats and deadlifts, that's great. But I don't need to do that. I just keep my body strong. And then I do my endurance work. My endurance work is either sled pulling or it's tabatas on the air bike or it's rounds on the back. And then I get in the sauna. And the saunas, that's That's it. See, go in there right when you're tired. And you just step in that 195 degrees.195?I'm sitting there for 20 minutes.

What's your cold plunge at? 34 degrees. I would have a heart attack. It's fine. Instantly, I would be gone. I have mine ready. I have one. It was 52 degrees. It was 52, which I was shaking, man. But I was in there for 15 though. I would do that. You don't need to go that long.

You don't need to, but you can do that if it's 50. Is it? Yeah. It's probably giving you the same result if you do 15 minutes at 50 as you're doing three minutes at 34. That's crazy. It's probably giving you the same result or similar result. The whole idea is you freak your body out and it produces cold shock proteins.

How does that compare to the chamber one where you get the air? Is it just like a... Does that get you cold? You know the one where you stand?

They're both brutal. They're both I think the cold water is a different animal, though.

It gets in your bones more, right?

You feel colder. When you get out of the cryotherapy machine, when you get out of there, and then a couple of minutes, you're like, you're okay. You get out of that cold water for a fucking half an hour. You're like, Jesus Christ. But that was the way I would warm up. I would just go right into the bodyweight squats and the pushups. So that was my way of heating my body back up after of the cold.

But don't your joints feel just frozen at that point?

No, you're all right. You're all right. It's a bodyweight, so it's not much weight. So you're just pushing. You could easily do 20 pushups. You just do the 20 pushups, take a break, do the 20 bodyweight squats, take a break. Heart rate drops back down. Next set. 20 bodyweight squats, 20 pushups. Next set. Do it five times. You've got 100. And then by that time, I'm warm. And so then I'll do whatever the other workout is. Maybe I'll jump rope, I'm building. It depends on what I'm doing that. But I always write it out. You do? Yeah, because if you write it out, you don't give yourself any room for fuckery because you know this is what you have to do. It's all written out. That's the boss. The boss gets in there and writes it all out before the ego steps in. And they're like, let's eat.

I'm hungry. Once it's there.

It's like, get a better workout if you have some fruit first. Let's go have some fruit. You get a better workout if you eat. You know what? I have a window between three and four-third. I'm going to get a really good workout then. And then right now, I'll just go I watch TV.

That's me.

Yeah, that's everybody. But you just got to have that boss in your brain has to be in control.

And once you get it subdued like that much, it becomes it's not that hard, right?

The whole thing is momentum. The whole thing is everybody that has ever had a good day, you have a good day where you really get your shit together, you start feeling good about yourself. And you go, the key is just carry that forward and keep going and don't let yourself fuck off. And if you do give yourself a day off, recognize that just like an alcoholic that starts drinking again, this could be a slippery slope. So if you give yourself that day off, be real aware of what you're doing.

I self-sabotage. If I go, I'll start Monday again or I'll start tomorrow, that hope of starting the next day. I have it so much. I remember when I was training and Weidman said this to me, he goes, When you're training and you get a flat, you don't get out and fix the flat. You get out and pop the other three tires. You literally do. I do. It's like once I go off, I go, All right, I'm off. I'll start Monday. I do. I crush it. I do. Man, I would love to eat with you. You know that. But I'm saying you're right. You can eat and do it in the right way. I'm sure you enjoy food.

It's just the boss has to be fully in control before you get a day off. It is almost like sobriety in that way. You You have to get so much momentum that you're fully confident that you could take a day off and just eat ice cream. There's nothing wrong with that if you do have a hold of it.

Even if that's got to be tempered, though. I notice I can't do a day off where I'm just crushing myself. It's like there's no coming back.

The next day, you'll feel like shit.

A hundred %. But the thing is you have gone on schedule and gotten in shape before.

You have done it, so you know you can do it. So it's maybe even more frustrating than someone who's never done it. That's right. Because you have dropped 60 pounds. You have gotten in shape again. I remember when you were training Mitz with De La Grande, I was watching you hit the pound. When you got in shape for here comes the boom, you got in fucking shape, and you were training hard, and I was watching some of those sessions. It's like, so I know you can get to that spot. It's just maintaining. I know.

That's the thing is maintaining. Now as I go, it's like God takes a little thing away from me. The bicep pull now, it's like Another new reason. It's a little... Yeah, it's like, I got to fight it, man. Like I said, I'm teetering. Teetering between that. I got to go back. I got to go back. You're right, man.

You just got to decide. One of the best ways to decide is to write things down. It's so easy to just keep a thought in your head, and you don't really give it what it deserves. You got to write things down occasionally. You have to really do. I write down my workouts.

I have a big whiteboard in my gym, too. Just put it up there, write it up.

Just write it down before you do it and give yourself a realistic goal. Don't be nutty at the point where the next day you're going to be a dead man. Give yourself a realistic goal.

Daltri, he was, Get up, go for a walk. Just go for a walk for 40 minutes, whatever. And really what happens is when I start walking, I'll start moving around, I feel good. I go, whatever, and I start adding more. And it's like, my goodness. Then I start wanting to throw. I'll get the egg weights, and I'll just start throwing with those. I love it. It's something that is really addictive in in a good way. Once you start doing it, and it's a little bit... It's the pressure of you don't have to do so much. Just do this. Yeah. If your pressure is, okay, now you have to lift weights for an hour and then go to a 90-minute yoga class, run a marathon.

Fuck that. It needs to be very realistic. We're going to start off today, you're going to do 20 push-ups, 20 bodyweight squats, 10 cleans, 10 presses, a couple of chin-ups, and then you're done. That's a wrap. That's 20 minutes. It's 20 minutes, and never be exhausted. Then the next day, you're going to do something different, but equally light, and you do that for a couple of weeks. If you write it all out, it shouldn't take you more than even 20 minutes to work out. You can get through 20 minutes. Just write it all out. Make sure you follow it. One of the best things for me is I have a TV in the gym, and I'll put fights on. I'll be watching fights. That's right. You get inspired watching fights, and then you go through your routine, and you're good. And as long as you ride it out, and if you write it out and you know, I know I wrote this down on paper. I have to do what this says.

You're committing to it. You have to do it. It's great.

If you just hold it in your head, I'm going to go work out. What am I going to do? Oh, my fucking crurals. I don't know. Maybe I'll do some bench press. You need a structure so you can give it to yourself.

You're right. That's awesome, man. I'll do it in this documentary, and we'll come back, and I'm going to show you that I'm starting.

Next time you're here.

I promise.

You'll be looking for houses.

I promise.

We'll work out together. I love it.

All right.

My man, it's good to see you, brother. You're the best.

I love you, man. You're the greatest. You're the greatest. Thank you for doing everything you're doing, man.

My pleasure. You're awesome. It's a lot of fun. It's great to see you out there killing it. I love it. All right. Bye, everybody.