 It's 3 a.m. Tuesday May 23rd 2017. I'm David Feldman. We're watching the news right now. We taped a show with comics Greg Fitzsimmons, Joe DeVito, David Juskow and film critic Michael Snyder earlier before all this happened. So who do you think got the better better deal? You or me? I have a theory that I ended up getting the better deal. I was trying to be generous. Are we recording? Yeah. Oh. David's referring to the fact that we just did my podcast and radio show first, and now we're doing your podcast. I feel like we nailed the podcast, home run, hysterical. And then we went to do the Howard Stern show. And I think my podcasting is so intense that I lost my track a little bit during it, and I feel like it wasn't as strong as the podcast. But I'm sure it's better than- You're saying doing a podcast is so intense that you were spent doing Howard? No, but we did two hours straight basically, or an hour and 45 minutes straight. And I think with the podcast, I think it's much more like free flowing, goes wherever. And then with the radio show, I'm always thinking, this is for the Stern fans. And so I'm thinking more about what they want rather than just what I want to do. And it can fuck with my head a little bit. I try to make it more linear, which isn't really my style to be linear. So the Stern podcast that you do, the radio for serious is more like stand-up. You have to meet the audience halfway. I think so. I feel a responsibility to that institution, that it's the Stern brand. And I want to make sure that I'm being representative of that. But that's not the same as doing a podcast where it's just, these are just my listeners and it's me. We also talked about Trump during the Stern show. Is that going to cause, to his fans, like Trump? Are they on the fence? I think a lot of them do. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to talk about it. Even though you're touching a third rail. But no, when I say that, I don't want to go on Stern's channel and necessarily cater to what I think they want. I want to do entertainment that relates to them. And I think liking Trump when they don't relates to them. I think it's important that there's a voice that, because you know, for, I think Stern show kind of avoids the topic of Trump pretty much. I don't think that they come down one way or the other on it because it's just not what the show is about. And my show is not political, but I also feel like I'm trying to incite something with the listener sometimes. So, you know, by the way, this is Greg Fitzsimons, Fitzdog Radio. You should listen to his podcast. Yes. I think everybody who's listening to my podcast already listens to your podcast. I think a lot of them found me through you. I was nervous doing your podcast. Yeah, why were you nervous? Because every time I do your podcast, and of course, it won't happen this time, I get an explosive reaction. It reminds me of doing Conan or doing a television show. All of a sudden, a week or two later, my email is filled up. I don't get recognized on the street, but I go into a club and people walk up to me, hey, I heard you on Fitzdog, I heard you. And for some reason, you and I, your show, but then you and I have some kind of chemistry. We have great chemistry. I don't know what it is. Yeah. And I was nervous that we weren't going to have the chemistry this time around. And we did. We did. I thought we did. Yeah. But I was worried because it's a different setting. And yeah, so how have you been doing the podcast? Seven years. I think I've done about 700 episodes or something crazy. I do twice a week. Twice a week. And what is the analog to stand-up? There's a clock to stand-up. Tell me what your stand-up clock is and what is your podcast clock in terms of growth? What do you mean? You started doing stand-up and you had to learn patience. Right. You had to learn that there are seasons to a stand-up career and it takes a certain amount of time to get to certain levels. Did you have an analog for podcasting? Do you have a certain time frame where you say, four years in, it'll be this way? No, I say. Well, I started by doing the series show first. So I sort of got, I got to be comfortable behind the microphone for a couple years before I started the podcast. And then it just became this thing where we already had a guest. Like I'd have Ray Romano come in for the series show and it was an hour long and all of a sudden Ray was like, that's it. So my producer said, why don't you just start a podcast when you just keep going. So it was never like a plan and I never really envisioned how it would lay out over time. And so the one thing I try to avoid is like thinking too much about the money because it comes and goes. With podcast. With podcasting. Sometimes I have tons of ads and I'm like, holy shit. And you start like adding it up and you go like, oh, this is like real money. And then it kind of goes away. And then you go like, oh, am I doing it? Am I doing a bad job? And I realize it's like the only thing, it's like the purest form of entertainment now. It's like all you got to do is be honest and try to connect to your guests and then everything is just going to work out. You can't worry about, you know, like when you're writing on a TV show or even stand up to some degree, you feel like, you know, you're in their club, you're in St. Louis, you're taking all these podcasting is this like absolutely pure, no barrier experience with the listener. And if you're being honest and you're like, you know, looking at your own life and your vulnerabilities and you're putting it out and hopefully making it funny, it just, I see the listenership go up. The more brave I am, the more people talk about it and the more people listen. And so it's like, as much as it's a comedy podcast, it's like good comedy. It comes from like me talking about, you know, my sadness of being away from my wife and kids right now and how I'm here, I am in New York and I should be having a fucking blast and hang. But I'm just like home talking to my wife and feeling kind of pathetic and wondering, you know, who I am. And like, that's the stuff that people respond to with the podcast as much as funny. With podcasting, they can't take it away from you. Right. It's up to you to decide to stop doing it. And the other thing with podcasting is the, you can do it forever. Right. There's something you can, when I started doing it, I thought, what can I do that I'll always be able to do no matter what? And this is it. Right. This is the one thing. There's no ageism with podcasting. No. And it's also you, nobody's paying you to do it either. Nobody's calling you up and saying, where's the podcast? So it's completely for guys like you and me that are irresponsible, slackers, lazy, all the things that nobody thinks we are, but we think we are. All of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm creating my own deadlines and I'm turning in my own work and I'm doing my own quality control and promoting my own product. It's like, holy shit, I'm really fucking responsible. How hard is it to do a podcast? It depends on the week. And the person. You mean the actual podcast? Yeah. I mean, because everybody's doing one. Yeah. How hard, to me, it feels effortless. Somebody said to me, is it ever a job? I go, this is all I've got. Right. It's not a job. But how hard is it? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by it? Once in a while, but I find the key is if I've got a couple in the bank ahead of me, then I love it. But when I'm recording and airing the next day and I don't have another one in the bank and I'm doing two a week, then I start to feel the pressure of like, fuck, what am I going to do for the second one this week? And then it starts to not be fun. So I try to always make sure that I have a couple of weeks where I get four people in a week and I put those aside and then I can kind of not book people that I don't necessarily want to just because it's the 11th hour and I got to get one done. Why are you looking at me? Oh, I'm the only one in the room. Oh, okay. How much prep do you do? Well, for you, I did more of topics, like when I just had you on, I had a bunch of topics that I wanted to talk about, because I feel like I've already talked about your life. And so, you know, I'll usually research you guess the first time they come on. And then if it goes well, then I don't need to research the next one. But if it's like an actress, sometimes I have a booker that gets me people and they'll be like, you know, this woman has got a interesting IFC show and I'll watch it and it's good and I'll bring her in. And then I'll be like, all right, I got to prep a lot because if she sucks, I've got to carry this thing. So I'll have like, you know, a bunch of questions about her life. I'll have watched enough of her work that I can refer to that. And then if it's somebody good, I do almost no preparation. How many live versions of Fittstock have you done in front of an audience? Probably like 15 or 20. Have they been rewarding? I'll ask you, let me drill down there. Have they been creatively rewarding and then has the audience enjoyed it? The audience loves it because the audience in the room. The audience in the room loves it because they're so okay. They're so used to just being alone and experiencing it in their cubicle or with their headphones on doing whatever they do. And I'm always curious about what people are doing when they're listening to a podcast. I'm fascinated. I always ask me, what do you mean you listen? Somebody just answered. Yeah. And so now they're sitting communally. And I think they're good when you book a guest that's able to perform a little bit because it is a show. And instead of like, you and I are looking at each other, talking to each other. If there was an audience, we would be facing them and sort of glancing back at each other. And so if you've got a writer or an actor that's not really acclimated to audiences the way a comedian would be, then it can be kind of a bummer. Jackie the Joke Man, Mark Ling was on the show and we had just done a live episode. I said, do you want to do a live episode with me? He said, I don't think a live episode of a podcast has any merit to it. I said, but there's an audience. He said, radio and podcasting is intimacy. Yeah. The audience is not tuning in to hear other people laughing at you. They're tuning in to hear you and what you're thinking and what your guest is thinking. I thought about that there's some, I think he's kind of, I don't know. I would think if the live shows that everybody does, because I used to do these live in front of an audience at the fake gallery in Los Angeles, the show became more popular when we just went into a studio and talked. Really? That the live shows were not as interesting to the listeners as what we're doing right now. Right, right. Which is kind of counterintuitive, especially if you're a stand-up comic. Well, I think it goes back to what am I trying to accomplish on this podcast? If I do a podcast by myself, which I did last week, I'll write down a bunch of notes and I know you do solo ones as well, right? When I don't have guests. Right. It's an experience where it's like, it's so fucking pure. It's like... Where you're just talking to the listener. You're just talking to the listener. Not even to the listener. Who are you even talking to? I'm sitting alone in a room with a microphone with ideas that have just stated to some degree, some not at all, some I'm literally just spewing off and it's like, I don't even think about who's receiving it. I don't know who I'm talking to and there's a beauty to that. It's like, it's like the most kind of pure version of looking into somebody's mind. You're mine. Yeah. Then when you put it, and then you put a guess there, now you've got me talking to another person, so you're seeing it deflected. Now you put an audience there, it's another deflection. So when you see somebody like Bill Burr do his podcast, where it's just him, I think he does it twice a week by himself. It's amazing. That to me is like, who could imagine that anybody would want to listen to that? But then once you do, you can't stop. Like you can't look away because there's something about it that you give the person so much credit that they're just talking alone and you're kind of curious what the machinations of this thing are. But we all agree Bill Burr is one of the greats of all time. Right. Right. If you were his manager, you would say, don't do that. Don't let too much sunshine into your creative process. Don't let them see everything. Yeah. You're showing way too much. Don't you think you would have said that 10 years ago to somebody like Bill Burr? Yes. You have to create scarcity. Right. That's where the value is. Right. That's sort of where entertainment changed with the digital age, where it became about, and I was talking about it before about sending out tweets and that you really are supposed to send out 50 a day and that there is an expectation and a demand for content that is greater than the need for quality. And not to say what he's doing is in quality, but it obviously is not the same quality as his TV show, which is, he's got this animated show that's fucking great, by the way. So the audience knows what it is. The audience wants unfiltered. It's like we don't understand how to write tweets the way young people do because to them, it's not a relationship. They don't take it seriously. And if you're seen of putting too much care into your content, it's almost like anathema. That's what I do. That's why I don't do well on Twitter. I test jokes on Twitter for this show. Right. And it smells sweaty. People, they go, oh, he's just trying to be clever here. Right. And Ken guys like us make the transition because we came from a world where stand-up comedy wasn't on TV a lot when I started and it started to become saturated very quickly. And so you did one act for a while before all the sudden you were selling it out. And there was something that you cared about. You felt like you were investing a lot of time and care into creating a great act. And now, you know, Netflix is switching to half hour specials from one hour specials. Did you hear this? No. Everything's moving backwards. It's going to like, you know, people want, they want to absorb you constantly and they don't care how good it is, but there's a relationship that you have with them that they feel is intimate. And it's not intimate. It's not at all. I don't even know who the fuck you are. That's what I can't get through my head is like, if I'm going to write all these things into my phone that are going to go out to the world, who am I talking to? It's like existential. And yet, on their end, you're talking to them. Right. And it is existential and it's dangerous. And I haven't been doing, like I'm doing stand-up tonight, which is real. There are days where I'm just tweeting Facebook and the podcast and answering emails and it's all in the ether. There's no, this is like, I'm having human contact with you. But there are days where I'll do the show completely electronically with guests over the phone where there's no human contact. Yeah. The shows are actually pretty good that way, because I think I relate to the listener who wants human contact, but I can go like a day or two without any actual human contact, which is not healthy. Right. Do you ever have days like that? Oh, yeah. Where you're holding the phone, you're an addict, right? Sure. I'll be holding the, I was doing this last night. I kept looking at my phone. I was done reading on my phone. I was done answering everything that had to be, and I kept, you know, like that rat pressing the button for the sugar cube. I was just, I actually said, you're lighting up that part of your brain right now. Yeah. You're looking for something. You're looking, there's nothing here. You're done. There's nothing here. There's no email. There's no fan. But you just keep hitting these apps, looking for something to light up the brain. Yeah, right. And when I put it down, even watching television for me, which used to be sinful, is better than that effing phone. Yeah. Right? Yeah. What's your relationship with the phone? Well, I feel really bad about it because my, you know, my kids, I'm watching their childhoods get sapped away by these little blasts, these little drips of, you know, stimulant, you know, and I see that my son is supposed to be in his room reading of mice and men, and he should be carried away into another place and feeling transcendent about literature. And instead I know that his phone is buzzing every minute. He's talking to Lenny. He's talking to Lenny. He's saying, tell me about the rabbits, George. And it's like, I just feel like so much being robbed of them because they're never, in the moment, they're never, boredom is the great inspiration for... Okay. By the way, this is completely different than the two hours we did previously. Right. Because you're the guest and I'm very relaxed now. What did you... There are certain things that I thought were absolute truths about show business, podcasting, and 10 years ago. Right. Things that to me were just written in stone about human nature. Are we being rewired? I mean, the idea that you talk about speaking into a microphone without an audience, where do you get the courage to run ideas past an audience? Where does Bill Burr, where do I get the courage to talk into a microphone without any audience and think it's good enough to put it out there? Doesn't that terrify you? Shouldn't it terrify you? There's times where it does. There's times where I can't wait to do it because I feel like I'm overflowing with funny ideas or at least... No, I shouldn't even say... I never think about anything as funny anymore. I really don't. I think I've transitioned into just thinking, does this interest me? Does this excite me? Does this trouble me? And then I just go from there. But you will never go on stage and keep drilling down without a laugh. You'll go into panic mode and say something to make the audience laugh. Right, but I can go deeper than I used to. I think every year that I do this, I can go longer without a laugh. And is that good or bad? I think it's great. And I think that audiences, if you watch, there's certain performers that can go up there and talk for a long time without a laugh. And when they get one, it's fucking explosive and it means more because... See, that is what I'm talking about. That's one of the rules that I know that's true. But it's one of those rules that are written in stone. You have to get a laugh every 10 seconds. How do I trim? How do I trim? How do I get a laugh here? I'm always looking for that laugh somewhere, that extra laugh. But that's not necessarily what you're supposed to be doing. I mean, I just know from me what feels right to me is that I've done the faster pastes and I've gotten the rewards from it. And now I feel like maybe I'm not as good of a comic. I watched my old Letterman sets and I'm like, holy shit, I was fucking hard. It was like, bam, bam, bam, like tight. And now I don't know that I could even write that kind of comedy anymore. And maybe it's because I'm not interested in it or maybe it's because I'm not capable of it. But I know now that it has to... I have to be connected to how I'm feeling about it. Louis Armstrong said, according to Ken Burns, there'd be no jazz if it weren't for Louis Armstrong. He said, when I got older, I played fewer notes, but I played them better. He said, when I was younger, I played a lot of notes. Now I play just a couple, but they sound a lot better. For him, it works. So you don't... Suppose you were living in New York, because when you were doing the first couple of years, you were in New York doing how many sets a night? Yeah, six, seven sets a night. Isn't that going to inform the stand-up more than aging? If you were in New York with your family in a studio apartment and I got to do sets, I cannot stand living with... I got to get out. So you'd be out every night doing six sets. Yeah. Wouldn't it be pow, pow, pow, pow? Or would it... No, no. I think it would be just the opposite. I think that with going on more and more, your confidence... I go on the road a lot. So I'm doing hour-long sets, five, six shows a week on the road. And it's like, you know this, you've got your tool belt, you've always got a hand grenade. If you need it, you can launch it. You've got that one joke that's going to fucking horrify them into getting back in line. They start trying to control you. They start moaning at something and you go, oh really? Hold on, I got an abortion, but I'm going to do it real quick. How's that? Are we back on my page again? All right, good. Like you know how to manipulate them with different stuff. And for me, it's like now it's just about, you know, if I'm on stage and I feel like what I'm saying is true, then I feel like nothing can go wrong. You know, if I don't get a laugh for two minutes, but I'm telling a story that to me is profound, then I find they don't fucking talk. I find the audience shuts the fuck. It's just the opposite. I used to be afraid of silence because I started in Boston where it was always, you know, fucking hecklers and saloon comedy, and you really couldn't let them breathe. And then I think the luxury of doing it longer and longer is that they don't talk if you're really meaning what you're saying. They shut up. Hmm. I remember Larry Brown in San Francisco. Larry Bubbles Brown. Larry Bubbles Brown dragged me to see you. I was in town doing something, and you were headlining the punchline. This must have been 15 years ago. He said, you should go see Greg Fitzsimmons. He's hysterical. I said, I've seen them. I've seen them on Letterman, Icona. He's great. And Larry goes, no, you really need to see them live. I'm like, I don't want to go to a client. Let's come to San Frans. I got better things to do than go see Greg Fitzsimmons. Larry goes, you got to go see Fitzsimmons. He's as good as Slayton, which is high praise. So we go to see you. And the thing you're right, because I remember going, wow, you were totally in the moment. I've told you this. Yeah, very nice. The thing I do remember is you're saying this. You told the story that I remember. I don't remember what the punchline is. And I just think you were being in the moment about having to fly home. You had last Sunday, you said it was Father's Day or Mother's Day, and you had to take your family rollerblading in Santa Monica. And you just described this ugly feeling, this ugly picture of getting up early and flying back from Milwaukee to land on a Sunday at noon with no sleep and having to put on rollerblades and go rollerblading. On my day, on my Father's Day. Yeah, with your mother-in-law. Yeah. And it just stuck with me. I remember laughing. I can't remember one single joke that you said. I just remember suffering with you about being exhausted and seeing your mother-in-law on rollerblades and just being so weak. I remember that. Yeah, it was like Venice Boulevard and the trucks are driving by and people are honking. My mother-in-law is on these rollerblades. They were missing one wheel and she had a bad back and I ended up holding her arm. I got my daughter's hand in mine. I'm dragging her and it's like, this is Father's Day. This is my fucking day. And I snapped and I got really mad and I fucking left them. Yeah. I skated away from them. I left them on the boardwalk in Venice Beach. How old are the kids? Owen's 16. Oh. Jojo's 13. Owen is a very normal good kid, you know, captain of the soccer team, gets good grades. Clock is ticking. Clock is ticking. Yeah. Is he your best friend? No. God no. When did he discover, you know what? The worst thing, I don't mind them discovering girls. It's when they discover boys. That's when it's over. I don't mean the gay thing. It's when they, when they decide that, when my son discovered that his friend Chocta was cooler than I was. Right. That just broke my heart. When he wanted to be around Chocta more than he wanted to be around. And I was so pathetic I would say things like, was Chocta on MTV? I would literally bring him in and I'd show like old, look at this. Don't you want to hang out with me? And I sometimes was able to get him to come with me. I would, this is horrible, like Dom Herrera. I'm opening for Dom Herrera. Bobby Slaton. And how old was he at this point? 13, 14. And he, I could see the, and my wife would go, let him go. Let him go. No, I'm not going to get, I'm going to squeeze every minute I possibly can. Do you take the kids to see? The first time I had him come see me do stand-up, it was Denver. And it was a year ago, this past April, he came, the family came to, you know, we're going to go skiing after I did Denver. So they came out and my wife took my daughter to a movie and I said, Oh, and I want you to come see me do stand-up for the first time. He's never seen you do stand-up? No. So he was 15 at the time. My kids saw- He had seen like a couple clips on the internet. He might have even seen my one hour special on Netflix, but he'd never seen me live do a show. So that's a conscious decision that you made? I was like, it's time. And I do think it was influenced by, I want him to see that I'm cool, you know? So I brought him to the Denver Comedy Works, which is one of the greatest rooms ever sold out Saturday night early show. And the manager put him in the crowd, like right in the middle of the crowd towards the back. And the waitresses were bringing him food and coax and he's got his own seat and he's like dialed in and, you know, and the local Denver comics are great. So he's watching a couple of funny guys go on first, Kevin Fitzgerald. And then I went up and I ripped the fucking tits off the place. I was like, oh no, there was no question. There was no question. It's, you know those crowds, you can't lose and then you just strangle them. You squeeze every fucking bit out of every joke. And I got off and we're walking down the street to go get some pizza. And the waitress told me that he was wiping tears from his face the whole time. From laughter, I hope. From laughter. And he said, usually there's some other liquid he's wiping from his face when he's around you. I don't know if you get that. Do you get that? Do you get what I'm saying? Do you get that? Okay, go ahead. And so he goes, he goes, dad, that was the funniest hour I've ever seen in my entire life. He goes, Borat, you know, he's like, that was, he goes, he was just shaking his head. And there was a part of me that was like proud and excited. And there's a part of me that felt cheap and like there was like a loss of innocence. Because he was talking to me the way I've heard people talk to me after shows, which is, oh my God, that was so amazing. And you've heard, I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way. You asked him to buy merch, right? I signed a DVD and yeah, I got him. It was so embarrassing because I really felt like, like you shrug off when people say nice things to you because you've, it doesn't mean anything anymore. And I don't want this to sound the wrong way. Well, you're probably thinking to him, you know, there's another side of me that you don't like, it's like you're saying that's just, that's my act. That's not who I am. But he, but he knows that. He knows that. But you felt obligated to kind of convey that, right? But yeah, this is just a side. Yeah, it was like, it was like, I wanted him to see that what I do on stage isn't literally, you know, my life that it's jokes that he's in. He's in a lot of the jokes. He's a huge part of my act. And because I think there's something very edible about watching your son grow up and you start to feel threatened, you feel threatened, definitely like physically he's bigger than me now. And I wonder like, if we got into a fight, who would win and who your wife would be rooting for? That's right. She'd be rooting for him. That's right. I never thought about that part. Yeah. And so, so it's, it's, you know, my, my act is, you don't realize until you watch yourself do a whole hour and you go like, wow, I talk a lot about 17 year old girl's pussies. Like I just realized that recently. Like I have a bunch of jokes about underage girls and I didn't plan it out. I didn't say like, oh, this will be my new angle. It's like, no, I just seem to have collected a bunch of jokes about fucking underage girls. And I, and I stop and I go like, am I doing that because I think the audience wants to see that? Or like, am I fixated on something? Well, you're doing it because that's the taboo. It's, if you wanted to fuck underage girls, you wouldn't make jokes about it. Right. Yeah. That's probably true. You'd be on your best behavior. Yes. But my friend, Fred Reese used to say, there's no polite or cop than one on the take. You know, show me a cop who's taking bribes and I'll show you this. And I used to say that to my kids when the cops used to come to the house because my wife, there'd be something going on. And my kids would go, that cop is so nice. I go, of course he was nice because he just tortured a Mexican or a black person. And now they want to feel good about themselves. So they're going to be, you know, public servants to the white guy. Right. Which is true. I never trusted priests. I always felt like I'd sit in church and we grew up very Catholic, sitting in church and watching these guys be so sanctimonious and, you know, and I always think something's fucked up with it. This is before I knew about priests fucking with little boys or anything. I just never bought it. And then I found out about the boys and I was like, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let's go back to you fucking over your son. Yeah. So what happens afterwards? Now it's different, right? He knows, has he seen you bomb? He saw me again on New Year's Eve in San Francisco at Cobbs, which is also one of the greatest clubs in the country. And afterwards he goes, so, so you'll do like a lot of the same jokes. And I was like, oh yeah, I guess, I guess I haven't written a lot this year. And I was embarrassed because I think he thought that, you know, you change up your act like every time you go up. And I think that's every comic's worst fear is that you're going to be seen as somebody who's not writing a lot. Was this a discussion with your wife about when he could see you? She was all for it. Yeah, she was fine with it. Did you have an age in mind? Did you know that this age was coming? How did you arrive at 16? Well, it was 15. I think it was because... Oh, he was 15. He's 16 now, but it was 15. He was 15 then. I think it was because like a lot of his friends' fathers listen to my podcast and watch my stand up. And so he had heard them talking about it and he was kind of curious Do you feel that's an invasion of your privacy? No, I think I made a choice when I had kids as a comedian that, you know, I'm going to talk about them and they have a right to see it and not to dictate what it's going to be. But my father was a radio guy and he talked about me as a kid. And I think so I kind of came into the family business knowing that it's a family business, you know, the material... But what I'm saying is your friend, your son's friend's father listening to your podcast. Oh. Isn't that an invasion of your privacy? Yes. Yes. It is. Yes, definitely. You would prefer that they didn't listen? Yes. I don't want anybody listening to my podcast that knows me. My wife's never heard my podcast. I mean, according to her, she's never once listened to my podcast in seven years. But so what about like you've got the kids for the weekend, you got to do a set, you don't bring them. They're five years old. You don't bring them to the Comedy Magic Club. No. No. You don't bring them to the Comedy Magic Club. They walk around Hermosa Beach. They get a great salmon dinner and dessert. When they're five? Yeah. No, I always felt like, you know, I never wanted to be doing an act that was made for my kids to see. So I've always... So what? Well, if they're five and I'm up there talking about fucking their mother and sticking a finger in her ass. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, now he saw me talk about that kind of shit recently. And I was like, you know, and I just realized he's a grown up. He's 16. He can handle it. Well, see, I would have no, I'm trying to think, because my kids came from the time they were like, they could walk, they were coming to crime. Really? Absolutely. I, we, it was a whole different. We were, I didn't have any say in the parenting. It was, I took orders and rightfully so. And my wife, big Irish Catholic family, and life is messy, life is sloppy. You can't shield the kids. All you can do is hug them, kiss them and tell them you love them and protect them. But you don't have to protect them from what you do for a living. And if you have to protect them from what you do for a living, then you shouldn't be doing that for a living. Right. So I used to bring them, I remember I brought, I was headlining, Sully McCullough was opening for me. My son was three at the punchline. And we were all sitting in the green room. And I said, I have to go up on stage. I'm going to cry. It was so cute. Who'd, I don't always get somebody to monitor him. I pick a comic. I'm going to be up on stage for an hour. If this kid is missing, I'm going to kill you. Right. So I said, there were a bunch of comics in the dressing room. And I said, who do you want to watch you? And he looks at Sully and he goes, the black guy. And it was so sweet. And he's so, my son is black basically. All his friends are black. He's the black guy. We all looked at each other and Sully sat with him for an hour. It's hilarious. Yeah. I don't know. I, my happiest memories were taking my kids. And I always wanted them to see me, this bomb. I would take, remember Borders used to, Jackie Walner, she used, oh, you, well you were living in LA. Borders in LA? Yeah. I remember that. San Diego. Yeah. It was a great gig. It was in a bookstore. And I always took my kids. So my, those are some of my happiest memories. Really? Taking the kids to Borders bookstore, doing stand-up and bombing. Yeah. Or not bombing, but not killing. Yeah. Or taking them to, what's that horrible, is it Sandman Well Casino? You're way beyond this. There was this horrible gig in the desert where you would literally just be driving to the desert to bomb, pick up cash and turn around and come up. Yeah. And I would take my kids to that because it was just so horrible. Really? Yeah. I wanted them to see me fail really badly, as Dennis Miller would say. That's not that hard to do. Why did you want them to see that? Because I wanted them to see me bomb and not care. Yeah. And I was more insecure after I'd killed in front of them. Because I'd go, what about that joke? Did that work? And then they, they're good kids. My son has since started, you're gonna love this. Doing stand-up? No. Podcasting. Him and his friends started a Santa Monica High School podcast. There's five of them and they get together every Saturday. And I got them all the equipment, the microphones, and the recorders. That's amazing. And they get together and they talk about concerts that they all went to or they'll talk about. One week they talked about atheism versus agnosticism and what they each believed. And one kid is from a Ethiopian family, Muslim. One is from a, one's a Jewish kid. And they have these like, it's a very eclectic group of kids. Do you listen to it? I sit in on it. I produce it. Really? Yeah. Every Saturday. You should get that. I have to start listening. You know what you should do? And this is great advice. They should grade the girls. They should talk about all the girls in the high school. By body part. By body part. Because I think it would help their body image, the women's body, if they could hear who they think is the prettiest. If the girls don't know, then how, how will they know? Right. And the ugly ones, they should isolate the ugly ones. It's kind of how Facebook got started. Yes. And it's good for body image. I think it's important for just, you know, you can tell kids that there's a presidential fitness exercise test, or you can just tell them they're fat. Uh-huh. Same results. And trash teachers. Yeah. Because they love, boy, if you and I had access to this kind of stuff, we'd be the trench coat mafia. That's right. We'd be Dylan Klebold. If we had access to this stuff, right? Yeah. It wouldn't be good. I know. We'd be thrown out of school. Right. There's no way. No, they're very responsible about it. They're like really, they're, they speak very honestly, and they're very raw, and they're very personal. But at the same time. Do they curse? Not really. No. But they talk about race in a very real way. And, you know, they're, they're good, interesting kids. They're like the kids I couldn't, I couldn't handpick more interesting friends for my son to have. Right. And, you know, a couple jocks, but not, not real jocky, not nerdy, just, just normal fucking. That's why I think the podcast is going to be huge. They haven't put it out yet. They just keep recording them. And I think when it goes out, it might be really popular because what high schooler in the country that lives in some fucking farm in the middle of Ohio doesn't want to hear about a bunch of kids who like skateboard to the beach and then go see rap concerts on the weekends, on the train. And you're, you sold, you got advertising for Doc Johnson's sex toys, I understand. Yeah, Adam and Eve disposable douches. Family business. Yeah. They're going into the family business. Third generation. Happiest memories watching your dad going in with him sitting in. Yeah. Yeah, I remember going in and he had this partner, Al Rosenberg, you know, Al Rosenberg, he was, he was a stern, he was almost stern for a lot of years. He was on with Don Imus for a lot of years. And I would go in and I would watch my, I'd watch my dad and him and they had a, Al was the, he was the Jewish guy and he would set him up and, and they, they would, they just had this amazing chemistry. And I remember just sitting there and thinking like, wow, this is what my dad was born to do. He, he found what he's supposed to do. And it made me feel like that in life is like, you shouldn't stop short of finding exactly what will make you as happy as I'm watching him be right now. Right. And this relationship that he had with Al was so like, joyous. It was so like the respect they had for each other and the, the amount they laughed at each other. Did your, and your dad knew Howard? Yeah, he, they didn't like each other. Really? Well, Howard used to shit on my dad a lot because Howard was coming up and my dad was already like one of the big guys. So Howard would attack, you know, Gene Flavin and all these guys and call them has-beens and call my dad a has-been because he hosted the Jerry Lewis telethon and, and so my father did, you know, my father never took it personally. I think he got it. He understood Howard's MO and, you know, he was, he was kind of fine. My mom hated Howard, probably still does. And, but then when I came on Howard's show, he said to me the first time I came on, he's like, so, so do you hate me? And I was like, no, I go when my, because my dad had died and Howard had eulogized him on the air and he said some really beautiful things about him and how he felt bad that he said all these things about my dad, but that ultimately he taught him a lot about broadcasting and he's like, you know, he was the most well-liked guy in radio and all these amazing things. And so I was like, all right, well then we're good. And so I came on and, you know, Howard always treated me, I feel like better than any guests ever. He just always- So what did your dad, like what do you, this is an unfair question, but what do you, is there one thing, one piece of advice that you got that gets you through the podcasting? Like there's, somebody gave me, a guy named Henry Morgan gave me this great advice when I was starting out and stand up. He said, if you're bombing, slow down. If you're doing well, speed up. And it became this thing that, oh my God, that's the greatest piece of advice I've ever gotten in my life because it applies to everything, not just stand-up comedy. If you're doing badly, slow the F down. The audience doesn't want more of you, they want less of you. Talk slower. And I find in life, when things aren't going well, slow down. People don't want you. Lay low. Don't push. When things start picking up, then you pick up. Kind of read the audience. Is there any advice that your dad gave you that you could share? Well, I think what I learned from him is that it's really about listening. You know, it's all about listening. And then I went to, I went to acting school and I studied the Meisner technique for like two years straight, and which is all just putting all your attention on the other person. And I found that, you know, what my father did well was he made people feel funny. He was not a fake laugher. He was a genuine laugher. And he locked in when somebody was talking. You felt like the most important person in the world because he hung on what you were saying. And I find that- Which is dangerous to do because it's live. Right. You're trusting. Right. You have to trust that what this person is giving you is going to make you react in a way that's entertaining. And you have to trust your audience. Right. So I found with podcasting that if I'm in trouble, just listen. Just get out of your head, put your focus on the other person, listen to what they're saying, experience it, and react naturally. And don't force it. You know, don't start coming up with clever ideas or try to ramp up the energy to save it. Just put your attention on the other person. And does that work with stand-up? I would assume it does. I'm sorry? Yeah. It totally works with stand-up. If I listen to the audience, then I find my rhythm. If I, when I'm not doing well, I realize that I'm thinking about my jokes and I'm not I'm not listening to when the laughter is ending. I'm not looking in their eyes. Like you really got to look in the audience's eyes because they're telling you when they're ready to hear more and when they're done laughing. And it's like you said, you definitely, when you're doing well, go faster means if you're killing, don't let them clap. They're going to try to clap, do another joke on top of that and just keep fucking building it up like a volcano until finally you let them clap and then they really clap. Right. Right. Interesting. Are you signaling me? We got to go. That's it? That's, you're going to be here all summer. I'm here all summer. Why don't we talk about what you're doing? Because, okay, what are you doing? Why are you in New York? Normally you're in New York. Well, the main thing is I'm doing the bell house in Brooklyn on June 3rd, which I'm really excited about that show. How are ticket sales? Ticket sales are a little light. They're a little light. We're looking to beef those up. If you go to fitsdog.com, you can get your tickets to the bell house on June 3rd. June 3rd. There are several dozens of tickets left. You can pick those up. Folks, we just did two hours for Fits Dog, the podcast, and then for Howard. And Greg was complaining that ticket sales are a little light. A little light. My agent lets me know. Well, I didn't promote it. I haven't promoted it really. So that's why I'm excited that you're having me on. My listeners, my listeners, are going to come out and support you. So give them marching orders right now. Go to fitsdog.com, go to the website, click on the link, buy the tickets, and then after the show, come up. And if you say to me, I heard you on David Feldman's podcast, then I am going to hug you. I will hug every person that tells me that. But really, I'm here because I'm working on Crashing, the Judd Apatow show with you starring Pete Holmes. So I'm in Brooklyn for three months writing and shooting that. And we got about eight scripts locked right now. Just going to punch them up, make them funnier, and then go into season two. That's fantastic. Yeah. That's great. I'm glad you're here. So we're going to just tear up the town. I love it. Let's spend some time together. We're going to hang out, and you're going to be my best friend. And then a week later, I can't hang out with that. No. This guy is depressed. No, I need a friend. I need a friend in town. Do you have male friends? Yeah. Who's your closest friend? Probably Mike Gibbons, who's a guy I went to college. Oh, you know Gibbons, of course. I love Gibbons. Yeah, yeah. And he's got some big show now. He had a sitcom on the air this past year, The Great Indoors, on CBS, just got canceled. Oh, F. Lasted a full year, got a full order. They canceled that? Yeah. He's one of the few guys, when you tell me that, I actually feel bad. Yeah, he'll get another show on the air pretty soon. Good. Yeah, he's got, he's got, his dance card will be full very soon. He's always worked. He's a great guy. Yeah, he's great. And he get, you know what, have you ever worked for him? I don't think so. No. He's pretty, he knows what he's doing. Yeah. Everybody raves about working with him. Well, yeah, he doesn't, yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah. I just wish he'd stop smacking women around at the office. It's just like, this has to stop. Well, you got to keep the laughter going on. That's the key. I mean, he just hits everybody. He's worse than Bob Beckel. Thank you, Greg. All right, thank you, Dave. I love, I love you, having you on the show. Thank you. Thank you. David Justkowski here. Hello. I love you. I love you too. You made my night. I'll tell you what you did for me, because I've been very happy lately and thrilled about what's going on in my life and the world. So Alex Brazell has been telling me about, he's just the guy who is destroying my career. Single-handedly. Single-handedly. He's got showbiz studios. He's building it on my back. It's worth it. It's amazing. It's incredible. Beautiful. He's got Andy Kinler now. He doesn't need me. What? He's got J. Elvis Weinstein. Is that true? Yeah, and Andy Kinler. They have a new podcast called Thought Spiral, which is hysterical. I'm sure it is. And... Kinler's good. Oh my God. And J. Elvis Weinstein? I don't know who he is. Oh, Mystery Science Theater, Freaks and Geeks. He's a great writer. Oh, he's a writer. Okay, right. From Minnesota. Joel, something, was the guy from Mystery Science Theater. Joel Hodgson. Right, right. But that's not him. No. He didn't change his name, right? No. But he did change his name. Unfortunately, he didn't... He wasn't told you're supposed to change Weinstein. Right, exactly. That's why I never understood. So I remember that girl from the Love Boat, Lauren Tweez, remember the Julie? Yeah. She changed her first name instead of that ridiculous last name that nobody could pronounce. I remember that as a kid. I'm like, what the hell's the matter with her? What's the matter with her? She's crazy. Is that a joke? Is there something like, my name is David Feldman and yes, I changed it for show business. My real name is Fred Feldman. Is that a joke? I said it seems like that would be funny. That's really funny. Okay. Fred Feldman's funny anyway. So Fred... By the way, did you grow up in New York? New Jersey. There was a Fred Feldman on WOR who was a traffic copter guy. Oh, he was? Yeah. I definitely grew up watching all that stuff, but I don't remember Fred Feldman. He was on WOR and we'd be driving and my mother... WOR the radio? On the radio. Oh, okay. My mother would be driving me to music lessons. Now, let's go to Helicopters at 74 to check in with Fred Feldman. My mother goes, see, you don't need to change your last name. Well, that's probably why you remember because you had that. I never would have remembered. I mean, I only listened to Harry Harrison on WABC and all those guys. Well, I'm going to tell you how... I'm just waking up, by the way. I understand. You're in show business. I know. You get up late. I have a regular job. Let me introduce David Justkow again and why I love you even more than I thought I loved you. You've been doing a year of the Godfather at the cellar where you bring your friends, comedians. And this is a compliment. A Mad Magazine version of the Godfather. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. Yeah, it was nodding my head when he said it. That's interesting. Yeah. I thought... Of course, I worship Mad Magazine, so it makes sense. I thought this is a Mad Magazine interpretation of the Godfather and you have Jim Norton and Artie Lang and Rachel Feinstein or Feinstein. It's starring. It took me a long time to figure that out. The whites, you'd want it more Jewish. That's the way I remember it. And you get up, do the Godfather. Do a couple of scenes. You worked your entire way through the Godfather this year. Kind of like the Torah. It's exactly like that, that we're going to start the reading again and not cover. So I was in a bad mood. Feinstein's in pastora, we should have done. Yeah. I got a Jew down this show. Sorry. Sorry, Feldman. Yeah, I know. So Alex took me to the cellar. I'll give you another compliment. Pat and Oswell and David Cross, you sustained readings of the Day of the Clown Cross. Yes, I remember and one of them was kind enough to give me the script because I wasn't in LA when they were doing it. I remember they gave me the script so I could read it. David Cross, genius. Genius. Read the script. He was the narrator. And he was doing that 15 years ago. Yeah. And he would read it verbatim. He would read the action and treat it as though it were citizen cane. And then all the comedians would act it out. My God, the first time I said, okay, this is just an event. I'm going to go. I know it's not going to be great, but I'll watch it anyway because it's just, it'll be a goo. I'll leave a half hour in, but at least I can say so, some of it. I showed up. I think I laughed. I think Borat made me laugh harder. That's the only thing that made me laugh harder. Then I took some people. They did it again. I took some people. I laughed even harder. It was even funnier. Wow. So Alex told me about the Godfather. You staged the Godfather reading. I knew I was going to love it. I knew I was going to love it. Because we had spoken before because if we hadn't spoken before and I didn't tell you maybe some of the gags, you might have thought they're going to destroy you know what memory I have. So this is, it's a risky thing. This is the thing that I was thinking. And then I'll shut up. I have to stop talking. Why? Because you're a show. This is exactly where you're supposed to talk. I know, I know, but you know, I'm so lonely and I see you and I want to talk. I want to talk at you. Listen, that's a character flaw. I showed up. I cannot see the Godfather anymore. I've been watching it on my Kindle. On a small screen to the point where it's like watching a home movie. It's just like, I can't. Right. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. Watching your version of the Godfather. This is what I, this is a terrible thing to say. This is what I thought. This is how mentally ill I am. If I were in hospice, this is what I was thinking. If I were in hospice, this is what I would want every day. If I had the money, I would ask you and all the comedians to come in every day and do this. This is how I would want to leave this mortal coil. Wow. Just every day looking forward. That's what I was thinking because I'm mentally ill. You play Marlon Brando. Yeah. You sit on the lines. It's like we knew there were certain lines that we're waiting for like reads of the funny papers. Right. When you said reads and the expression on your, okay, all right, I'm going to shut up. But it was just so, it was just great. Well, you see, you and I know it's like, the next day I always go on my podcast and yell at all the comedians that are in the show. Because they- What's the name of your podcast? The Dave Jessica podcast. I got it. It's very creative. I have to do it. I just always, I call out everybody on their horribleness in the fact that I'm like, how can the men not have, it seems like nobody's seen the Godfather. And you and I know one lines to hit and no, the owner of the cellar knows exactly what to hit and you should see him yelling at Natterman when Natterman doesn't get it. But we can let that go because Natterman's what we used to call a retard. So we let that go. But the other guys, I just don't understand. I really feel like they haven't seen the Godfather or they are just the worst actors in the plan. I don't know. And that's why- You see, you get why I'm hitting those lines that we're waiting for, you and I. All right. And I don't know why. I mean, we work with Natterman, we tell him, we're like, no, you have to pause here because that's what the people are- It's a very important line in the show that everyone who's here who's actually knows the Godfather's waiting for, he just doesn't understand. It's like if we tell him, he makes it worse. I don't know whether he's doing it to disrespect authority or- I was so frustrated that I'm not a success watching this because- I see in my mind you are a success. Well, yeah. Alex Brazil and I left and we kept saying, if only I were Lauren Michaels, if I had the power, because I would stage this at the Tribeca Film Festival. I would call up Scorsese, notice I said Scorsese. I would call Coppola. I would call- Well, you know, it's funny- I would do it with Godfather actors. When they were doing that- I mean with Sopranos actors. Oh, God, that would be funny too. Do you remember when they were doing the 40th anniversary last weekend at Radio City? I said to- I was like, we should send them, the show before this, we had come back after a little like six month break. So I had the Star Wars crawl as the Godfather credits. You know, so it said when last seen the evil Barzini, the evil gangster Barzini, has put Michael into hiding in the remote planet of Sicily. And we did it just like that, but they complete the way they write Empire Strikes Back. And we thought that would be funny. They would probably like that at the Radio City they would get it. Let me hear Barzini's a pimp. Barzini's a pimp. Right, remember I played it out to- Barzini's a pimp. But I wasn't until today- No, no, it's Tatalia's a pimp. That's what it is. Oh, that's right. Right, right, right. Now I mix it up too. I'm cloudy. I'm cloudy. Tatalia's a pimp. You never could have thought, you know? I'm sorry, I interrupted. Say that again, please. Tatalia's a pimp. I really went for it. Well, I had to exaggerate a little more because I know you're waiting for it. I know only you is waiting for it. I think I said it on my pocket. I'm like, thank God David Felba was there. I'm not sure who else would get the Clyde Tolson joke. I feel like I only wrote that for you. You can hear you laughing on the tape. Put it on the show. It's clearly you laughing. Exactly where you were sitting. And so somebody said, who was that guy in the back on the side who was laughing at every- Oh, that was David Felden. I was in heaven. I wish I didn't have my laugh. It's I have- Kindler and I have- Kindler has a sweeter laugh. My laugh is aggressive. It's- It's maniacal. I laugh like a hyena. Yeah, I can't- There's certain laughs that I have. My ex-wife had a loud laugh too. And when we thought something was funny- Your ex-wife was Esther Koo? Thank you. Hey-oo! I'm not going to say anything. I know. I have something that I'd like to say. But let me weigh how much it would cost. Yes, so the Godf- Let's- By the way, I know it's hard to believe David Justkow, but people don't know what we're talking about. So why don't we start from the beginning? What do you do at the cellar? A year of the Godfather. What did I see last week? It's something I've been planning for a long time. It's just- It's a- It's a- It's just like you were talking about the day the clown cried. We are reading from the script of the Godfather, but I changed the script. Just a little though. And I doctor it. Yeah. Just a little to make- Right, to add in the jokes. Which makes it so funny. Yeah, well, we're basically taking all the stuff you and I know about the Godfather and bringing attention to it. Like, for instance, the smallest of instances, like when Abe Fagoda is on the phone at the end, like, we're on our way to Brooklyn. And how is it possible that- No, the guy who's on the phone doesn't know everyone's dead or- I know there's no internet or cell phones or anything, but- By the way. Is the timing that is in- brings in question. By the way. Yeah. You referenced something that has been annoying me about the Godfather for centuries when they send Michael Corleone to kill Sterling Hayden at an Italian restaurant. How's that Italian food here? Right. Is it salatso? Salatso, they tried to kill the salatso. Yeah, and McCluskey. And McCluskey. I played McCluskey. Right. How's that Italian food? You gotta go, you gotta go. I know. Say, why weren't you with that one? See, I hate you now. I needed you at all of them. Abe Fagoda knows about the toilet. There's a chain pull down. We talked about that last time. Yeah. And then I- yeah, I think I did a good- I mean, I- Like, who knows about toilet? You have a clip? I told him to pull that clip if he- Let's play a clip. If you have it. We don't- we never- I've never played a clip. That's all I do on my show. Oh. I play clips all the time. I've clipped a couple of people on this show. But I've never played a clip. What is this? I think that's when they said, I'll kill them both. Maybe. Is that what it is, or? Hours pass. The laughter continues. There is more laughter after this one line from Michael when Nazini beats Wesley in a game of wits in The Princess Bride. There is more laughter from this one line than when Pee-wee Herman asks if there's a basement at the Alamo. Who's the narrator? There is more laughter from this one line than there is at a Dan Natterman headlining weekend at the Chuckle Hut in Cleveland. Hey! Hey. That's Rick Crowley. What are you going to do? Nice college boy, huh? Didn't want to get mixed up in a family business, huh? The line we were looking for is later. What are you going to do? You're going to go down like Captain. This is coming up. Right. Because he slapped you in the face a little bit. Not for a while, because doesn't it- It goes when they're eating the Chinese food like so it's later on. You're going to get up close like this and bada bing! You blow the brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. Come here! Sonny! I got this suit at Gimbal's. Why weren't you there? Let me hear this. You are taking this very personal. Tom, this is business, and this man is taking it very, very personal. Where does it say that you can't kill a cop? Come on, Mikey. Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a cop. A dishonest cop. He's so bad. A crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets. It's like Groucho. And got what he was coming to him. That's a terrific story, and we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom? They might like a story like that. They might. It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business. But if I'm being honest, it's a little personal too. I knew it! He's Al Pacino now. Yeah, yeah. He's playing him like Al Pacino. You say you want to be the CIA? The horrible Al Pacino. Well, let me hear Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in the 70s. We got people on the payroll. I'm not doing it like Jimmy Kim Palsy. I can't forget it right. Come on. There's people, people on the press. Go ahead. Your rank isn't trying your divorce yet. I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing it right. You're doing it perfectly. Yeah, am I? But that wasn't a scene. That was what we did was, he says, sure, I know the place. It's got one of those old-fashioned poach-changed toilets. I really got into the Apagoda character. I did it really well. And then he goes, like, why do you know so much about toilets? And then he goes, I'm going to test you here. I'm going to be like, whatever the place is. Lou Chow's on the second side. Sure, it's got one of those dual flush systems. He goes through all the toilets in the city. Why do you know all the toilets? I don't know. I spend a lot of time on the berth. It's a gift. Something like that. They go through the whole system. He quizzes them on three restaurants in the city. I love you. I love you. That's the funniest thing. And it's like this flaw in the Godfather that I... Yeah, why does he know all the toilets in the city? Look, Mike. Sure, I know the place. Good family place. Everyone minds their own business. We might be able to plant the gun. Mike, can you take off the handcuffs? I think I gotta even go to down pretty good. That was the problem, too. I'm the only one that's doing imitations. Everybody else is just doing it straight. So, you know, it's kind of a bummer. Like, I wish... I just wish other people had seen the Godfather. I don't know. It seems like nobody's seen it. How? It drives me insane. You know what? You know what happened? You have the clip? You know what? You know where he has the clip? You and I watched it too much. We drained all the... Go ahead. Is that reliable? That's my man in McCluskey's precinct. A police captain's gotta be on call 24 hours a day. He signed out at that number between 8 and 10. 24 hours a day? Geez, no wonder he's so crazy. Anybody know this joint? Yeah, sure I do. It's perfect for us. A small family place, food, food. Everyone minds this business. It's perfect. Now, wait a minute. How do you know it so well? Since when have you been hanging out in the Bronx? I hang out in the Bronx sometimes. Lots of times. Bullshit. Name a time. I can't think of one right now. Oh, you can't think of one right now. Hey, will you guys knock it off? I'm keeping my eye on you, Tess, yo. I don't know what it is about you, but I know something, Detective Fishy. And yes, I said Detective Fishy to acknowledge your television work. Nobody gets that. Fish. Pete, they got an old fish in toilet. You know, the box and the chain. We might be able to tape the gun behind it. Absolutely not. I'm not putting my hand back there. Looks like a box full of water with duty in it. And how in God's name are you so familiar with the toilets in a particular restaurant? Why would they name Louise in the Bronx register for you? Oh, yeah, the one with the pool chain. Now, hold on a second. I'm going to test you. Okay, sorry. The closed-coupled toilet with a pipe connecting the cistern to the pan is exposed. Lindy's on 49. That's a back-to-the-wall toilet where the pipes are discreetly hidden. Blue child. That's one of those new water-efficient blue flush systems. Well, the man knows his colors. All right, Mike, listen. Go to a restaurant, eat, talk for a while, relax. You make them relax. Oh, my God. That's an album. First of all, I want to apologize to Dan Natterman. He could... I finally thought I'm out of talking to the microphone. Yeah, that's all right. But you know what? He's right. He's an idiot. He plays Michael Corleone completely wrong, but it works. I know. It's amazing. And you know what? It's great that you bring that up because when I first was going to use him, what was going to happen, I was going to use him in the first one. And then I was going to play him in this one because it was more of a... Because Marlon Brando wasn't in this part. So I was going to play him. Oh, my God. And then Natterman did such a hilarious job. I just let him go. And he really is terrific when he talks to the mic and you can tell him... Like if we did an album where we could correct him, he would be fantastic. Yeah, you know what? And I also had him play Ebenezer Scrooge and the Christmas Carol in December. What's funny about Natterman is be very wary of an idiot because he plays it like an idiot and you think he's not getting it. Now I listen to him and I go, oh, he knows exactly what he's doing. Yeah, he knows. No, he knows. He's very intelligent. I mean, he's very, very bright. Yeah. He's right for playing it there. Boy, you could make an album of this. Yeah, it's funny when you hear it back, it sounds like one of those albums we used to grow up on as kids, you know. Well, I wish I ran show business. I wish you did too. Because if I were Lorne Michaels or who runs show business these days. Lorne's pretty good. Okay, good enough. I would pick up a phone and demand that you bring in the Sopranos, the original cast from the Godfather, mix up the parts. I actually called... Have Jimmy Khan play Marlon Brennan. Oh, my God. Can you imagine? I asked Carlo to see it. Sopranos versus good fellows doing the Godfather. I mean, you can mix it up. But it's also good with comics too, even though they can act. It drives me crazy. But if I could guide them through it, if we were recording. Well, I guess you want to record in front of a live audience. Sure. So I don't know. But you're right. I get mixed up. Sometimes I want to use actors, but then using comics is fun because they're our friends. This should be a mainstay of the Cherubeka Film Festival. Somebody's got to get this to De Niro and have him do it. That's amazing. It's so funny. It's so well written. And it's parody. I don't think you're going to get into any trouble. Yeah, I don't think so either. But I talked to Carlo, the guy who played Giannavano Robiso. No, that's the different actor, right? But whatever that guy who plays Carlo, I asked him to play Sonny in episode four. The guy who fingered Sonny. Yeah, for the Bosini people. He said he couldn't do it for legal reasons. And we all just made fun of him. Yeah. And we're like, yeah, okay. All right. Then I heard he was kind of a jerk off. Yeah. By the way, one of the things I've learned is... I used Todd Barry instead. Oh, my God. And he was hilarious. And then I'll write for the person... Well, wait. Todd Barry played Carlo. Oh, that's so funny. When he gets beaten up, he goes, hey, Sonny, that garbage can's pretty painful. You know, anyway, that's not bad. I'm Carlo bitches, you know. I write for the person playing it sometimes. Oh. Hey, Connie, shut up. Oh, man. All right. So that... All right. Let me calm down. Let me calm down. You're giving me a thumbs up as in calm down or... It's too funny. It's still we're having a good time. It's too funny. I've left there... There are a couple of times... You know, laughter. I always... I don't give a shit if the audience feels good. This is all about me. You know, I'm just like... People are in the audience and they happen to be laughing. That's important to me. Their laughter doesn't make me feel good, but making them laugh makes me feel good. Right, of course. Every comment's like that. Laughing the way I did at the cellar to what... I walked out of there for like three hours. I was buzzing. Oh. I was... That's the best. It really is. I forgot what it means to laugh that hard. That's... Thank you. You know, Gilbert did it to me at Caroline. I remember that too. Borat, a gold member, a couple of... Oh, really? Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, and I saw Mel Brooks do Blazing Saddles at Radio City Music Hall in September. What do you mean? They ran Blazing Saddles while... Mel Brooks was there. They talked about it afterwards. Oh, afterwards. Oh, wow. I didn't expect Blazing Saddles to be as funny as it is. I thought it was... I thought it was a moment in time Oh, that it holds up. I was shocked by how it holds up. Beyond holds up. It's funnier now. It's beyond holds up because now everybody's so PC. It's amazing that they were able to get this through anyway. When then, when you're thinking back then, and that it was like the first of its time where it's the first movie ever where they threw around curse words and just treated them like they were just regular words. And then when you think about it like that, and then you think about how politically incorrect it is and why it totally would hold up today. And it's offending a whole different aisle. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole different side of the aisle that it's offending. Absolutely. Yeah, it's fascinating. Really fascinating. Is that luck? I think that's luck. Really? Yes. Yes, I do. I think he got lucky in that sense. But I mean, you can never take away the fact that it's a forerunner to every comedy we've ever known as men or as young men or, you know, there'd be no caddy shack without Blazing Saddles or anything like that. And he knows that. Blazing Saddles was the one. He knows that. I think he knows his place in the world, which makes him kind of, and he should because he's terrific. Have you met him? No. John Fugel saying had him on the show. He did? Yeah, him and Carl Reiner. Oh my God, can you imagine? So, you had Sarah Silverman. She actually told me that she went to Mel's house and him and Carl Reiner, they eat together like every day like just from TV dinners like trade. They watch TV together and stuff. They're like so cute. They're best friends still. I'm going to say one bad thing about Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. They taught me through 2000 year old man and Dick Van Dyke and they taught me what comedy was. Me too. However, when I moved to LA, and I'm not going to trash the Chinese restaurant, they supposedly have Chinese takeout from a Chinese restaurant on Pico. So, when we moved to LA, I insisted that we eat at this Chinese. Totally understand. Because it was where Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. I would do the same. The worst Chinese food I have ever had in my life. And remember, you were in Los Angeles. I mean, I'm not sure what you were expecting there. However, I found that Chinese food is better than everywhere in New York. I can't find a good Chinese place here. But don't you think Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner... They should eat at a better place. And maybe they're affected. They've been in LA too long. They're not New Yorkers anymore. Yeah, or maybe they're operating at such a higher level of Chinese food. I didn't understand the nuance. Maybe. I mean, you're coming from New York. You're expecting a certain thing with Chinese food. Chinese food is different. No, it's coming from San Francisco. What'd you say? Nothing. I called you a derogatory gay term. They have great Chinese food. I think they have great Chinese food everywhere. The best Chinese food I've ever had has been in Montreal and London. And quite frankly, Los Angeles was better food than I've had here. I finally found a really good Chinese restaurant here in town on First Avenue and Delancey, which I think is really good. Which place? You come in. I can't hear you. Shanghai Cafe? Where's that? Where's that? Yeah. Why doesn't he turn his microphone on? He doesn't want to. He's like the worst producer ever. Hear me? Turn your microphone. You hear me? Yeah, now turn it off. He set you up. Shanghai Cafe. Where's that? The best. It's in Chinatown. It's on Mott Street. Of course it is. Motton Canal. Well, that's the thing. You have to find your place on Motton Canal where all those Chinese food restaurants are. But they're also a little dirty. This place is clean. Congee Village. Excellent Chinese food. There was a place when I was growing up called Nu Wa Door. And I'm not making this up. You're making it up. There's no name like that. Nu Wa Door. It was a Chinese restaurant. And Jackie Onassis was dating Maurice Templeton. I don't know who that is. Maurice Templeton was an ugly bald financier. Well, as soon as you said financier, I thought you were talking about myself and I don't remember dating Jackie Onassis. Short, dumpy, bald. Again, until you say financier, you son of a... And I look up with my parents and my mother and father going, It's Jackie Onassis. Wow. What's Jackie Onassis doing? And my father points to the bald, dumpy Jew. Of course they're in a Chinese restaurant. She's dating Maurice Templeton. I think his name was Maurice Templeton. I don't remember. Is Templeton a Jewish name? I don't know. I've never heard of Templeton as a Jewish name. Well, as the word temple in it. Yeah, but I've heard names that should have Judaism in it, but they're not. Like I can't think of any. But Chinese food, I've kind of swore off Chinese food. Really? I still worship it. I do too, but I can't stop eating it. Yeah, I know it's that joke, but it is so delicious. I can't stop eating it every day. And I know it's not good for you. Well, even the vegan Chinese food. That can't be bad for you, can it? Yes, because it never satisfies. So I just keep eating it and eating it. They have this shrimp with broccoli dish at my neighborhood that satisfies. That gets me really full. It gets me too full. I can't stop eating it. Yeah, you need a whole quart. This is so embarrassing because Jews are Jews. I know, I know. And you said you have to stop juicing up the public. I know, I know. Now it's getting worse. It's worse. And then there's this documentary about Shanghai. You mentioned Shanghai, Alex. About the actual restaurant or Shanghai, the town? The town. Because during World War II, they took in all the Jews. Oh, they did? Yeah, and it's nice. There's a document. I can't watch it because I know that if I see this documentary, it's all I'll talk about. I know what you mean. Did you see that 60 minutes ago? Hang on for one second. Just let me just tell you. Jerry, hang on. It's like I'm complaining about talking too much about being Jewish. And now I want to tell you about the document. They took in all these Jews during World War II. So there was Jew town in China. Oh, that's interesting. Which means every Sunday, the Chinese would say, I'm in the mood for Jew. But there was a little pocket in Shanghai. I didn't know that. Of Jews. Would never have guessed that. You don't suppose that's where the love of no. No. I believe the reason Jews like Chinese food is from what I've heard is that it used to be very cheap and it was easy. You know, it went in like Brooklyn area, something used to be very cheap and it was open on Sundays. Say cheap and Jew more. And it was open on Sundays. Just keep saying cheap and Jew. More importantly, they don't use cheese. So you can mix dairy and pork without violating. Aren't you always curious how Jews got connected to Chinese food? Yes, that's what it was explained to me. Somebody on the show explained that Jews became obsessed with Chinese food. Open on Sundays. Open on Sunday, inexpensive. You could eat pork with impunity because you don't know what's in there. Right. A lot of stuff has pork in it, but you don't know. Right, right. And you can order. Anything on the menu will not have cheese, so you could mix beef. You don't have to worry about dairy. Yeah. I mean, it is fascinating why I always wanted to know and that's what we've heard. Makes sense. Yeah. But to the point where people talk about Chinese restaurants, like it's the Kennedy assassination. You know Calvin Trillin from the New Yorker, right? I've heard of him. I don't know him. He's part of this group that follows. If they find a chef, I'm not making this up. Oh, I believe you. Mel Brooks, Joseph Heller used to have Chinese dinner together all the time with a group. They would find a chef and they would follow him from restaurants or they would know. Smart. Like a rock star. Calvin Trillin writes for the New Yorker, very fancy, upright member of Litterati. He and a group followed a Chinese chef down to South Carolina. Wow. To a strip mall. The guy moved and they spent a week in South Carolina eating at a strip mall because the chef. That's hilarious. Yeah. That's amazing. I could see doing that. If I had the money, I would probably follow a chef around if I thought he was amazing. Calvin Trillin is a Jew. Oh, I hope so. Yeah. Why would you find a Chinese chef? I like Asian cooking so I would totally follow a chef around. I know people do that with like Morimoto, the Japanese chef, or something. They'll go wherever he's going. It still happens. Is it healthy to be this obsessed with food? I think so. I mean, everybody's obsessed with food. That's the thing. You just have to try and put it in moderation. Not like, but now it's gotten so difficult. It's gotten to the point where it's obsessive in America and the world where... Yeah. I don't know. It's a good point. I don't think people talked like this back in the 50s or anything like that. I don't know what happened. Now I find myself eating just out of boredom because I have nothing to do, which is why I'm a little dumpy. I think food... But I hate, I'm not even hungry sometimes. I'm just like, I don't have any plans tonight. So I'm going to order something. That's why I think it's dangerous, especially since we're older. Older and the country's gotten morbidly obese. Yeah. I mean, half the country is fat. And they blame it on fast food and stuff, but it's not just fast food. Maybe it is. Maybe it's just so easy to get food and it's so easy to have it delivered. That's got to be half the problem, right? Because people just used to cook. And then they're like, and then you would say, yeah, I don't feel like I'm going to eat. But now it's so easy to just call for dominoes and get it in 20 minutes. I never did delivery when I lived in LA. Well, they didn't have it then, did they? They, you could have. Yeah, occasionally. It was very rare when they had somebody, it wasn't like now where you could get every, like they have a seamless app or something like that. Well, I mean, rest, you'd find there were Chinese and Italian restaurants that delivered. And occasionally we would treat the kids in order of pizza. You're talking around like the 90s and early 2000s, right? Yeah. Yeah, I remember being there that night. Remember the only places that delivered, I don't even know where the Chinese, maybe some Chinese places did, but mostly like that pig and whistle, whatever that place was, that little grocery store would deliver. And that was like, especially late at night. Pig and whistle is what Donald Trump calls Rosie O'Donnell's queefs. You stepped on my horrible joke. Rosie O'Donnell's queefs is what Donald Trump called. I'm a horrible human being. Have you ever, this is one of the things that I've noticed you can do in New York. Because I've been here for three years now. Just three? Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Why'd you move back? For some work. Right. Well, I figured. But are you gonna stay? Until those charges are dropped back in LA. So have you done this? I never knew that I could do this. You know, you step outside in Manhattan, it's 20 bucks. Right. Just you walk out and it's 20 bucks. Yeah. Have you ever said, you know what? I'm gonna stay inside today. And I'm gonna spend 40 bucks on takeout. But I'm not gonna leave the apartment. I do that every weekend. I do it every weekend. Well, you just don't leave. I don't leave sometimes from Fridays to Sunday. If I wasn't doing this podcast today, I wouldn't have left my house all weekend. I have never been like this before. But I have noticed. It's bad. It's bad. Is it a Manhattan phenomenon where you just say to yourself, I have nothing on the plate. Yeah. I'm not doing anything. I'm just gonna read and... It's a really good question because I wonder what would happen if I lived somewhere else. Well, you'd go for... But I think maybe I'm that kind of person because when I go to LA sometimes and I'm in a hotel, I'll stay there if I have nothing to do. If I'm having a miserable time and I don't have any plans. Everybody else has plans. I'll just stay in. I won't even... Or maybe there's just no place to walk. I don't know. Fortunately, there's this lady in my building. Sometimes she calls me for a dog walk. It's the only way I get out of the house. But I have totally stayed in the house for a full weekend. If I didn't have a job, I would never leave. Let me ask you a question. Are you married? No. Are you single? Yes. Are you in a relationship? No, I'm totally single because I think I'd never go out and meet anybody. So I was at FedEx yesterday. This was really depressing. I don't even know if I should talk about this. Oh, Alex is... This is... I was sending stuff at FedEx and there was an elderly lady flirting with me. And by elderly, I mean probably like two years younger than I am. I hear you. Totally understand. Bob Sack, I find women my age attractive. And Bob Sack says, well, I'll take you to the morgue. We can just... We can open up a couple of drawers. And there's a couple of people our age attractive. Put them on the marble slab. So, no, there was an older woman flirting with me. I mean literally flirting with me. And she was in a rascal. What's that? That's what old people who want attention, they're not really crippled. They just want you to know they're old and they're lazy and they want to gamble and they don't want to walk through the casino. So they ride a rascal. Oh, a rascal. Oh, God. That's not cool. And she was flirting with me. And there was this little part of me that thought, what the hell? What does that mean? Well, I don't know what it means. I mean, it's like if... I don't care what happens. Like, there's a woman in my building who's in her 60s, mid-60s, but she looks amazing. And I totally want to go out with her. But she's insane. She thinks she's... She thought she was the running mate for Hillary. But she's really pretty, so it's worth putting up with. She thought she... Yes. She, with a straight face, she will be like, yeah, I was supposed to be the running mate. And I don't know. You know, I think there's still a chance of going to be. I think, give me her number. I'll call her. She was in the movie Trading Places. I'd like to know... I think this is great. She's crazy going into the relationship. Yeah, completely insane. So you know what you're getting. But really hot. That is... So it's perfect. Yeah. No surprises. Yeah, no, I agree. Is this sexist... I'm going to say this about both men and women. In the dating pool in Manhattan, which is an island, is it safe to say that it's impossible to meet a good, decent human being in Manhattan? You can meet them in Queens. You can meet them in the Bronx. But on the island of Manhattan, where everything is transactional, people are here for reasons other than love. That's... Boy, that's a really excellent question. Having been single for so long, never been married, been in a few relationships. You know, I'm still trying to date. For me, I know that if I... If I go to New Jersey, I can meet, I think, more long-lasting relationships there, plus I'm kind of a hero there, because I have a regular job, and I know Sarah Silverman. Here, I have a meaningless job, and I'm just kind of a loser. Because there's other people that have more money, and there's people that are more famous. And why don't you know Amy Schumer? Exactly, exactly. So yeah, because in New Jersey, yeah, I think I can meet somebody like a more meaningful and, you know, work it out. But yeah, it is very difficult in Manhattan. It's the skyscrapers. Everybody's looking up. Yeah, that's a good point. If I meet... It's really difficult. I don't have high standards. A woman looks at me, and she goes, third floor, I want to live on the 16th floor. Then she gets to the 16th floor, and she says, you know what? I could probably get a penthouse. And I'm not saying in terms of money, I'm not saying they're money grover. I know what you're saying. But some of them are. They're just thinking, I can do better. I can do better. I think that with every woman I go out with, I'm sure they think of that. Because all comedians are like that. We're all, you know... I'm not like that. No? No, I think any woman who loves me, anybody who's stupid enough to love me. Well, you do what I'm saying, as you kind of say, right? Well, that's what I'm saying too. Any woman that's stupid enough. See, I did something smart. I moved to San Francisco. No, no, no. I'm not going to do it because I was smart. No, I know you, Marin, Liz, Wednesday. I remember at the time that a bunch of you guys all moved to San Francisco and did really well because there were lots of spots out there and stuff. You were able to... But there was unconditional love. It taught me what unconditional love is. I don't think people in Manhattan, Manhattan understand what unconditional love is. When I moved to San Francisco, I got married. I had unconditional love. It became conditional, but San Francisco taught me what unconditional love is. You don't have that in Manhattan. People love you on their terms in Manhattan. That's good. Don't you think? I do think. I mean, I don't have that much to compare it to. You know, I've been to LA a lot and spent some time there. For me, I think it's easier to find women out there, but it's like what you're saying. It's still the same as here, in a way, Los Angeles. But I've heard San Francisco is more... Yeah, you can find unconditional love there. I believe that. I don't know if you still can. When I move there, you could. I think it's changed because of the tech giants. I also think... The thing that I don't think most people understand in Manhattan that when it comes to love, we're incomplete. If you're looking for a love, it's because you're half a human being. And then once you hook up with somebody, you create something that's different than what you were and what she or he was. It's a whole different thing. You can't go into a relationship with preconceived ideas. You just have to surrender and say, okay, we're going to create something that we don't know. We don't know what this is going to be. It's like a screenplay. Everybody reads the Sid Field screenwriting book. Right. And they do... Okay, I'm going to do an outline first. This is Act 1. This is Act 2. I know exactly how Act 3 is going to be. You can't write... I took all these screenwriting classes and they always said, you can't start the screenplay until you know how it's going to end. And then, you know, my screenplay sucked because I was... I'd come up with an idea along the way. I got a stick to the ending. Then I met Harlan Ellison. I asked him, but he was... You met Harlan Ellison? He goes, F, no. F, you just write. Stephen King, you just write. Harlan Ellison wrote City on the Edge of Forever, right? That was... And I think people... Oh my God. People enter relationships. That's the greatest. Like a Sid Field screenwriting book. That's a good point. I need to know how Act 3 is going to be. Boy, that's good. That's a good analogy. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. We all do it. In Manhattan. I definitely... In Manhattan. I don't know. I think people... I think everyone does that. I don't know if that's just a strictly Manhattan thing. I guess what I'm saying is just blow me. We'll see where it goes. Josh, give me a handy. Nobody thinks like that. We'll see what happens. Especially women. I think they want to know where it's going, where it's ending right away. Maybe this is just a one-act play before you suck me off. Well, I'm like a girl. We'll think right away if I meet somebody, am I going to end up marrying this guy? I mean, I've always been like that. I think like that. Can this work? The first day. Really? I absolutely do. Well, because you're like me. You're lazy. You think that's all they think that's a thing of laziness? I think... I think I always looked at it as more of hope. I got it down to a science. Unfortunately, no other woman likes my calculations. I lie on the couch, read, work, eat, sex, exercise, movie, read, sex, exercise, work, movie, food, sex. It's just there are like five things I need. Well, that sounds pretty good. On my terms. Well, aren't those everybody's terms? Yeah. I mean, what are we missing? Well, I'm greedy with my time. That's the problem. Well, I think when if we were to meet girls, they think they take into consideration, we are stuck in our ways. I mean, I certainly am. You call them girls? Women. Yeah, sorry. No, because a year ago you were calling them who-ers. We have to take a break? Okay, we'll be back. Okay, Joe DeVito joins us. Finally, you're here. I know, it's very exciting. Can I call you the Italian Andy Kindler? I would love it if you would call me that. You're the Italian Andy Kindler. You open for Andy, right? Yeah, yeah, a couple of times. Love, Andy. Who doesn't? By the way, have you heard his new podcast? No. Thought Spiral? Oh, God. With J. Elvis Weinstein? Have you heard this? No. Well, download it on iTunes. Andy Kindler and J. Elvis Weinstein, Thought Spiral. Wow. That's great. You know what, I said this to J. Elvis. It's like my older brother has a friend over and he says, you can come into my bedroom, you can listen to us talk, but you can't say anything. Deal, I'll take that deal. Right, that's what, that's how I describe Thought Spiral. All right, Joe DeVito. This is the first time you've done my show. It is, it's very exciting. So, Dave, I'm going to introduce, I'm going to give them a proper introduction. Right, right. Joe DeVito. Clubs and colleges, is that what you're going for? Everywhere. He plays at clubs on Jersey and the island. Those are the old intros we used to get. Joe DeVito has appeared on a late, late show a couple of times. He's been on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham. He was a semifinalist on season five of NBC's Last Comic Standing. Chelsea Lately, CNN's headline news, Animal Planet's Wild 100, a regular on Fox News's Red Eye. You've also had another career before. You're a journalist. You've written for Maxim, MTV and you also appeared in the film Super Size. Right, I didn't appear in it. I did some punch-up stuff on Friends with Morgan. I tell people that... Morgan Spurlock. Morgan Spurlock, yeah. I tell people my name is so late in the credits, it's actually the last name you see before the next movie starts. So deep into it. I like that movie a lot, actually. Yeah, it's a great one. Yeah. I liked Super High Me, not Doug Benson. Oh, that's why I thought it was Doug Benson, yeah. No, no, the one about me just being very Jewish. Super High Me. Super High Me. By the way, Doug was on the show when that first came out, or he said, you're not the only one who's done that. That's the old Jesse Jackson line, right? High Me. High Me town. Want to take you to High Me town. I'm from High Me town. He didn't know. That's what makes it so racist. Well, it's not... No, because first of all, his campaign manager was Jewish, and they were referring to it as High Me town. No, that's the best. It's like when somebody says, oh, I'm going to Jew him down, and they have no idea that that's a completely derogatory term. They've had it said to me before, like, no, I just Jewed him down, and I'm like, yeah, I get it. I get it. But they have no idea. They have no idea. They're not even being racist. They've just been taught that that's the correct word for bargaining. Joe DeVito. Yes. Sorry. No, no, I was just going to... No, you were obviously... No, no, I was going to ask for a response to that. You're a little anti-Semitic the way you switch gears like that. I have to be honest. You're Italian. Yes, that is the correct pronunciation. You're an Italian. I taught my kids that I feel so guilty, but I taught my kids at a restaurant. They said, I'll have the Italian dressing, and I would tell my kids it's pronounced Italian. I'd just like to say that the Italian people are some of the finest people I've ever met, and I would hate for a few bad apples. Thank you. All right, here we go. We're getting right into it. It just seemed like it was the time... So here's my question. Hang on a second, that's J.T. Spradlin, who was an oil executive. He was a multimillionaire. In real life, really? In real life, and I think he was... I think my theory is he invested in the Godfather, and that's how he got the part. He was brilliant. She was great. She was going for one second. Okay, so with the hooker, do you remember that scene? Of course. She was laughing. We'd done it before. I just don't remember. And I'd just like to say, before I leave, he's proceeding. All right, so here's... Excuse me for one second, Mr. DeVito. We're going to interview you. I want you... I don't know how much we can do this, but you should just be here every... Any time you say something that sparks, right? But it's got to be the Godfather. Of course, that's what I'm saying. That sparks the Godfather, yeah. But that's what I do in the Godfather. I'd like to ask the senator a question. I've always been confused. Did he really kill the girl because you see, is it Al Neary in the background? Al Neary, yeah. So Al Neary killed the girl and they set him up? Well, I think they drugged him so he would be unconscious. Yeah. Yeah. And then Al Neary and they set him up. Yeah. Well, fortunately, my brother, Frida, owns this place. So the girl had no relatives. It's as if she never existed. What's left is our friendship. Yeah. That's what I look for in a woman and a friendship. Do you have a woman? Oh, I had just going through a breakup. You know, I don't even want to say going through a breakup because it was pretty definitively broken off a couple of weeks ago. But dealing with the aftermath is where I've been the past couple of weeks. Joe's just telling me that he lives, I can say you live in Long Island. Sure. No one's going to come. I'm at 35 Fairlane Lane. Yes. Well, but you were just talking about having a relationship outside of Manhattan. Did you guys live together? No, no, no, no. It's unfortunate because we were friends for a long time and decided to give this a whirl. And it was only five months. But for me, it was a big deal. You know, because I don't really date, you know. And so it's a bummer, you know. But I was thinking about that when I was walking around town here. I was thought, I don't know if I could, you see, I see all these beautiful New York women and I think it's a schlep. Like even my hormones don't make me think. So where was the girl? She lives in Astoria, but she was a Long Island girl originally. But Astoria, the women in Astoria are very sweet. Yes, you get a little of both. It's a small town feel in Astoria. Because I'm a suburban guy and I would need, I need parking. Totally important to me. You're like Tony Monaro meeting that girl in Manhattan. And he knew we couldn't keep up with him. David Bowie. Yeah, you know who came in the other day, David Bowie. I heard he's half a fag. No, he likes men and boys. Sorry. Every movie I take now. Supposedly if you go back and watch Saturday Night Fever, it's amazing. It's great. It's like an independent movie with the Bee Gees. I watch it once a month, probably. I swear, I love it. It's, it's, that's a strange movie because every time I watch it, I feel like, okay, I remember this being a comedy before. And then I watch it again. I'm like, this is the saddest, most tragic thing. And then you watch it again. You're like, this is hilarious. It's like the Godfather, not the Godfather, the Sopranos. I didn't know the Sopranos was funny until my mother. I watched it with my mother and she's laughing hysterically. Anyway, your mother's laughing like, those Italian people are hilarious. They're almost human. Anyway, so I taught my kids it's Italian. People are Italian, but it's Italian dressing. It has nothing to do with Italy. And I also taught them to call it Chinese town, not China town. And I think one day I was watching Family Guy and I think Peter refers to it as Chinese town as well. Do they do it as a cutaway? I don't know. You remember that time? And it's like, yeah, remember this bit from every show. So you've been on the Late Late Show, Comedy Central's live at Gotham, Last Comic Standing. Yes. I haven't edited any new credits since the last time you went through the list. I'm going through the list. How long have you been doing stand-up? Oh, this month's going to be 16 years. It's crazy. 16 years. Yeah. You met this woman, she was your friend, was she a comedian? Yes. That's... What's her name? So many bad decisions on my part. Excuse me for one second. What's her name? Answer. Could you repeat the question, Godfather? What's her name? I want them here. I want you here all the time. This is Hollywood for no kills. It's Waltz, Waltz. My voice, it's weak. Sorry. So friends... Yeah, friends... Well, don't women... There are some women who want to be friends first, right? I suppose, yeah. The strangest thing was that I never thought about her romantically until the end of last year and... What happened? A couple things. I knew her family moved away and she had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving and I thought... So she was desperate? She said, again, this is the way I like them. So smart. No, what I have done in the past is if there's comedian friends of mine who don't have family around, I've invited them to Thanksgiving with my family. And I asked her if she was interested in that, and she had other plans, but I was in session with my therapist and she said to me, I noticed you keep bringing her name up. And I thought, oh, and then I found a list of things that we'd made of attributes I was looking for in a partner, and she was like 10 out of the 13. So I mentioned to her, hey, would you like to date? And she said, yeah, but she's quite a bit younger than me, too. A lot of bad choices on my part. It's unfortunate. The Montreal Gazette rated your performance 9.5 out of 10, which you include in your resume, which I love. Yes. You don't want to hear more about how we got out of the friends zone? I do, but I need this knowledge. I know, I know. I would say she's currently rating my performance significantly lower than 4.5 out of 10 or whatever it was I got. So what were the three things you said she was 10 out of 13? Yeah. So what were the three things she didn't have? She didn't like cats. I've been alone a long time, okay. By the way, I find that a virtue not liking cats. Go ahead. And some people do. Cats are murderers. How dare you? They murdered my marriage. Go ahead. Usually it's just birds, but a whole marriage. You know, I think the one in retrospect was a person who had a lot of kindness, and she does not seem to be particularly empathetic person. She's a comedian. You're looking for kindness? I know. That was 11. That was one of the three. I agree with you about kindness is the most important thing. Kindness is the most important thing. I know exactly what you're talking about. I broke up with somebody because I was like, she wasn't a nice person. Yeah, you know. And it's strange because I look back now and I wonder, oh, did this idea had my head of this person was, was it really her? Was it just something I created in my own mind? Again, mind, pointless mind games. I love to play with myself, so. And what was number three? I don't remember. I don't remember, but the other ones. Number three was she had a good memory. That was what it was. That was good in case I misplaced. Hey, so let's review. The three things you're looking for that she didn't have. Yes. Number one was cats. We've talked about, I'll get to cats. She didn't have to have cats, but it is, I do like cats, so that would have been nice. How many cats do you have? I don't have any now, but I had two. So I have a cat. Two, and then I had one for 20 years, and I swear the moment he died, it dawned on me like, I should have been having a wife and kids these days. But the moment he died, I realized like, wow, this was bad call. All right, hang on for one second. 20 years. Fred Stoller was on the show last week. Love Fred Stoller. I love Fred Stoller. Pick up his new Kindle single, Five Minutes to Kill. Just read it. Just read it the other day. And very sensitively done too. Yeah. Fred has a lot of surprises. That's about the HBO young comics? Yeah. Okay, sorry. The 1989 Young Comedians Special. Okay, so we talked about Mitchell, his cat who died at 20. Hmm. What was the name of your 20-year-old cat? His name was Nookie. See, now I think you're healthier than Fred Stoller because my theory is that people who give human names to cats are out of their mind. It is? He's a Nookie. He's not a human being. Well, he came with that name, but I didn't change it. I changed my cat's name and I named it after her. What's your cat's name? Selena. Yeah, see. Why would? Because she was killed by her personal assistance. No, that's what Batgirl, Catwoman's name is. Selena Kyle. Okay, all right. The problem with the human names is when the cat dies and then you have a little thing of ashes in your apartment and it says Steven on it, you look like a weirdo. If it says Fluffy, people are like, all right, you know. I will not be doing that. Cats are the problem with America. Okay, sweeping statement. Everything that's wrong with this country. Anything you don't understand how subhuman we've become and then we go, how is this possible? It's because of cats. Cats are teaching us it's okay to be narcissistic, that it's okay to change your mind and be spontaneous and be inscrutable when you say how is it possible that one quarter of children in America can go hungry and we're okay with it. It's because of cats. It's because cats have taught us not to care and because we feed our cats instead of feeding our children. We have healthcare for cats but not for humans because let me finish, Mr. and then I'll shut up. I'm pointing, I'm angry because cats, I've seen this happen to people. I've seen this happen to women. I've been in relationships and I said she got a cat and my shrink said that's it, you're done. She got a cat, she's done with you because cats can replace human contact. Yes, well A, maybe if those kids would be a little bit more responsive to the laser pointer we could meet halfway and B, those women, the crazy cat women cannot help themselves because of the toxoplasmosis parasite that's found in cat feces. It makes women, it mimics the science of schizophrenia in women and that's why you have the crazy cat. For real, I've done quite a bit of research into toxoplasmosis. Calm down here for one second. How dare you say it to me when I'm discussing parasites? This is the most important thing in the world because my marriage was destroyed by cats because at any given time we had four cats. Who knew what they were doing? Who knew what they were doing? Any given time there were four cats in the house and then strays, so what is it called? Toxoplasmosis. Now I'm convinced that my wife was pregnant just so I had to change the cat. Of course, yeah. Well, it crosses the blood barrier into the fetus. You've got to be careful. Yeah, it's pretty amazing stuff. What this parasite does is it can only reproduce in the stomach of a cat. So what it does is it makes itself and gets some food that's attractive to rats and mice and when they eat it, it goes into their brain and messes with the chemistry of their brain so they're attracted to the smell of cat urine. So the rice, the- Slow down. If you're going way too fast, start from the beginning. The parasite can only reproduce in the cat's stomach. So how do you get into a cat's stomach? Well, what it does is it goes somewhere where rats and mice like to eat. Like it gets into grains and stuff like that. The rodents eat it. When it's in their body, it sends something to their brain that changes the part of their brain that usually makes them afraid of cat urine, which is self-preservation, and makes them attracted to it. So these mice and rats go to where this cat urine is, which is where cats are. Cats eat them. The parasite is then released in their stomach and it can reproduce its life cycle. Okay, what is this thing about the urine? Who's not attracted to urine? The mice, of course, would avoid cat urine because that's the smell of where cats are. But it changes it so they are attracted to it. So it pretty much sends them on a suicide mission. There's a lot of parasites that do this. They actually, in wasps and wasps, they'll take over the host's body and put them in a position where they'll get eaten by something to carry on the parasite's life cycle. That's cool. It's invasion of the body snatchers. It really is. Yeah, it's zombies. Zombies and- It's a parasite that changes the thinking of a rodent. And in humans, they believe it makes women schizophrenic and men take unnecessary risks. And I was listening to a lecture about it and the researcher mentioned to a friend who works in a morgue and he said, well, you're not going to believe it. A lot of the men we find who die in motorcycle accidents have toxoplasmosis. They don't know why it makes men do that, but- So it goes to show nature is constantly a war with us. Anybody says we need to be in harmony with nature? It's crazy. Hang on. By the way, I love you. This is great. This is great. This is fucking great. I have a vast breadth of useless knowledge. No, you don't. No, you don't. Okay, let me review here. Thank you, by the way. Taxoplasmosis, so is it conceivable that I would have this parasite inside of me if I'd been changing a cat box? Yeah. Does it go away? It can't, right? It's a parasite that stays forever until it finds another host. Yeah, until it, for whatever reason, dies there. Now, when you say a parasite in me, is he doing my bookings for my club dates? No, he's not clearing 10%. That's a different kind of parasite. 20, if it's a college parasite. You should get a little bit extra. That's it. Now, that goes to show you where there's morality, because even toxoplasmosis parasite isn't like, I can get you into a NACA showcase. It's only going to cost you $1,300. Alex, thank you. Thank you, Alex. I'm in heaven. Okay, this is great. This is making my day. So, it's conceivable that because I've had cats for, that one is inside of me. Seriously? I mean, could I have a parasite? Would I know? Well, as far as from what I understand, that the human biosphere. Is toxoplasmosis the parasite, or is it some kind of venom that's inside of me? No, I'm not sure how to say it. Toxoplasmosis, I think, is the condition, but the parasite is a toxoplasmosis parasite. I'm not sure what the correct ending of it is. Well, would I see it in my stool? No, it's not like a tapeworm. It's not? So, just... Look, I'm not going to stop you from looking. Okay? That's, you know, you do what you gotta do. I'm from how I hire somebody. Yeah, I'm just going to say you might want to hold off and yelling, hey, come take a look at this. I say, hey, come and take a look at this. That's how sick this relationship I have currently. No, so, yeah. If you have cats, it's changing the way you think. Is that what you're doing? Yeah, it does make sense. I never like cats, and I have one, and I am just completely like a different person about cats and her and the way I live. I think I agree. I mean, I think he's right. It makes a lot of sense. I've been a different, a completely changed person once I got that cat. So, they're aliens from... Don't you think cats are aliens? They've definitely figured us out. They're like cats pretty smart. Yeah, they're smart. I mean, and I just love the awfulness of their attitude. Either you enjoy it or you don't. Because a friend of mine is an EMT told me, he says that there's a lot of times someone will die at home and they'll find them days later with the loyal dog by the side. And they say the cat eats your face immediately. Really? Oh, the cat, without the moment you stop moving, the cat chows down. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Why hasn't this been exposed? Why aren't they... Norm has a whole bit about this. Oh, yeah? And it's special, and it's special. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dog is your friend for life, and a cat will eat you. The cats eat you when you're... No, they're not waiting. They're hungry. Do they cross the board? I don't know if they had a meeting of some kind. Why are they not having congressional hearings? Well, listen, they're predators. That's why they're in that family. I don't think they give a crap. It's just what they do. And I love the attitude that my cat always acted like he was living in a hotel where the service wasn't as good as it used to be. That an animal could look at you with disappointment. Like, that's what really... And you really spend your time like, what can I do? And they just... I mean, he rolled his eyes at me once. It's very hurtful. Are they capable of love? Well, is anyone... Is my question insane? I've learned a lot about myself over the past few weeks. Yeah, I mean, I guess what makes it nice with cats is when they are in the mood for affection, it's not like a dog is like, everything's great. You know, a cat comes by on their own terms and you enjoy that, but... And they pet you, they'll get on your chest, right? And they will kind of kneel when they're in the mood. They'll get on your chest. And it is very exciting when they're purring. It's like, oh, the cat likes me today. It's validated. It's a great day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm getting validated by an animal that poops in a box. Just even that alone, the idea of here's my feces where you live, scoop them up. But it is kind of great that they know to pee in that box and... They know right off the bat. Yeah, it's amazing, right off the bat. Yeah. That's how I knew he was losing his mind when he got old, where he just was pooping everywhere. Oh, that's when you know. I didn't take it personally. Yeah, how do they know? I don't know. They know because they want to bury their turds so other predators don't know that they're around. So it's a way of hiding where they are. It's like the opposite of when they pee to mark places. They hide their poop so that it can be stealthy. So when... It's a good animal. Is the cat kneading my chest or is it trying to bury me because it thinks I'm a turd? I can't get into specifics. I can't say what you and your cat's relationship would be. Well, they say they do that. It's mimicking stimulating the mammary gland in the mother before nursing. So that's why they do that kneading motion. That's why? Because what? When they were kitten, they would do that before nursing to stimulate the milk production in the mother's mammary gland. So it was a way to get the milk flowing. Did you ever see that cartoon with that giant dog, one of the Warner Brothers cartoons, Bugs Bunny one with the giant dog and the cat, the little cat that used to do that on the dogs. And he used to go crazy. He's like... Like because he was hurting because the cat was kneading. But then he was like found it so adorable. I don't remember that one. Is that the one who kept asking for gravy? No. This time I didn't forget the gravy. No, that's not the one. Hang on for one second. I saw something like that in the newspaper. My son at three was reading the funny papers. My other funny papers. I said, oh, I want to go back to that cat business again. But I said, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's go back to the year. It's okay. It's okay, Pop. It's okay. I don't know. I didn't want this for you. It's okay. Interviewing comedians, you must do your life. But then Senator Feldman, President Feldman. Some other person about it. Oh, Peslavanti, the church. I was wondering how many boxes do they have James Kahn standing on to look physically imposing? Every time that movie was like five foot two. All the famous actors, sir. Excuse me, I have a question. Can I be careless? Well, women and children can be careless, but not now. And I refuse. I refuse to be a puppet. I thought I would be you pulling the strings. I refuse to foolish. You know, I want, I have an idea next week. You just come in and just sit there. And I just say, I'll do it every time. Just throw it, throw it at different characters. I just think Corleone. I think it would just be funny. As a correspondent, I like podcasts. I like talking in the microphone. I don't know. I drink a lot more wine than I used to. What if I do a podcast about white powder? Listen, so they can't resist. I don't want to throw their schools. I don't want to throw the children. Well, they're the wrong community. The colors, the darkies. They're animals anyway. Let them lose their souls. And then did you see what I had in this room? I had the guy from Caddyshack come in. William Stevenson. And he couldn't pronounce Judge Smales. Never saw Caddyshack. He goes, Colored Boy. Why you little... And then he goes, Hey, Fino. What did he say? The Smales. We couldn't use the Smet Smet. It smells, you idiot. Like the one comedian I've ever met that's never seen Caddyshack. Smet, what is it? He had no idea what we were doing. I thought he'd be happy that we were calling attention to the fact that I say Colored Boy. I think he thought it was worse. Colored Boy. Why you little... Sorry. So, Joe DeVito, how many cats have you had? Let's run through those credits one more time. How many cats have you had in your lifetime? Can you name them all? Yeah. Well, the two that I had were Nooky and Bell. Nooky lasted 20 years. Bell died of an oral cancer. All that smoking. Bell died. Bell sounds like somebody who would smoke a lot. She did. And those were the two I had. And then my parents had patches for 18 years. My parents had a cat for 18 years and a cat for 15 years. And they have the little grave markers out and back. And it's very creepy because they live so long. It's like Civil War tombstones. You grew up with cats. Yeah. Where'd you grow up? We didn't have any pets. I grew up in a town in Connecticut. We moved there from the Bronx when I was a kid. It's a town called New Milford up by Danbury. Okay. And they moved to Long Island about almost 20 years ago. And were they outdoor cats or indoor cats? Indoor cats. Don't you think, I have a new theory about cats. I think you put a bell on them. You put a bell on bell and you let them go outside and murder. That's what they do. But if they have a bell, it's a fair fight. I feel like they work around it. Maybe they go after death birds or something. They do little reconnaissance. Because the choice is if they're indoors, they're going to murder your furniture. Yeah. So what? What's so great about your furniture? You can't declaw them. So? So they... So they... Who cares? What's so great about furniture? You can't... What are you, my mother? This is how they have us... What's a man think about that? What's the matter with you? How you gonna act like a man? I actually opened for Al Martino. No way. For Johnny Fontaine. Really? Yeah. I would imagine it was moments before he passed away. He was so old. Is that... Yeah. Yeah. My voice, it's weak. I don't know. Like a man. Do you ever see the SCTV version? That's a long sketch too. Yeah, you can start by giving me some of that cheese. No, I can't do it. I can't make it. Johnny Pavarotti. Yeah, Johnny Pavarotti. He's coming for the lasagna. That's John Candy. John Candy, yeah. You know, I was on a show the other day and we did some like OTB type, horse racing type stuff. Does OTB even exist? No. There's like two of them left. No, I don't think. Are you sure? There's one in Levittown, Long Island. Tell everybody where OTB is. It's off track betting and it's... To give you an example, there used to be one in Midtown and there was a restaurant attached to it called The Winner Circle, which always made me laugh. That's right by my house. It's on Second Avenue, 52nd, right? Yeah, I think so. Because until you go to an OTB, you won't find enough winners to make a triangle. It is the most depressing place. Yes, it was. I would be going there today because today is the preakness. Normally if it was still open, I would have gone today. Yeah. But we were doing what? What killed OTB? Well, because it was run by the government and it just goes to show even the government couldn't make gambling work in up the government. But we were doing that and I found that... Jack Walls, is that the name of the movie producer? Yeah, yeah. And I found as a joke, I sent that to my friends, but I realized like, like so many Godfather characters, I would watch a whole movie about him. Did you feel ridiculous sending it to them? Because a man in high position can't be made to look ridiculous. You'll get out of here. I like the TV edit where he says, she was the best piece of stuff I ever had. I like in Caddyshack, they change Rodney's line too, where they're like, hey everybody, we're all going to take a shower instead of getting laid. I love when they get so abstract. Well, of course to be the famous one is the diehard, Mr. Falcon. Instead of mother, they say Mr. Falcon. And it's like, okay, you're introducing a new character now. And what? And one of the diehards, Oh, it's diehard. I'm sorry. You said that. I thought you... Yeah. So you worked as a journalist for 10 years? I was mostly advertising stuff. I did the journalism on the side. I worked for Book of the Month Club. But you wrote for Maxim. I wrote for Maxim too. I wrote a couple articles. Did you work with that guy? Who was the head that Wanda was dating? Rose McGowan? Is that her name? What's the hot girl that used to date Marilyn Manson? Yeah, that's her. Yeah. Who was it? David something. I don't know because I obviously was a freelancer. So I was pretty... No, me too. Me too. I worked with the editor. Oh, you worked at Maxim? Yeah. Yeah, I wrote an article. My best one was how to pick up girls at the Holocaust Museum. Are you serious? Yeah, I am serious. You... Excuse me for one second. Yeah, I had to go down there and... You went down to... It was a travel piece about D.C. And to meet au pairs and how to pick up girls at the Holocaust Museum. But you must have gotten complaints, right? No, I got no complaints. Because I think I did it the right way where I kind of made myself look foolish. So it wasn't that bad. But I will... You can pick up a girl at that museum. I had this theory that only women can go... Men can't handle it. Women are better at handling this kind of horribleness. Because they create? They're smarter. I don't know. They're just better at compartmentalizing, I think. I find that. But you know what they do? They go, oh, look at those shoes. Look at all those shoes. Well, no, I was trying to put it in a good way where I think if you have two couples going to D.C., the women will say, well, we should probably go to the Holocaust Museum. The men will go to the Air and Space Museum. So there was a lot of... And my theory was correct. Well, it was a lot of women in there. There was a lot of two fallacies. We can learn about the moon landing or the Holocaust. Both of which were invented. Yes. They're all hoaxes. But no, what I found was there were a lot of women in there. A lot of women, a lot of single girls going in. Because they don't seem to mind it. And they have couches. It's candlelit in there. I mean, if you are a horrible human being, you can absolutely pick up a girl in there. Really? This sounds to me like the fawns teaching Richie how to hit women in the supermarket with the cart. Oh, my God, that's my favorite one. And he hits Richie with... Oh, no, he hits the fawns. Richie tries it and he ends up hitting the fawns with the cart. That is one of the funniest... Still makes me laugh. I want to rain this in for one second. Because I do a lot of Holocaust jokes on the show and I'm trying to cut back because I kind of... Give yourself a budget. Certainly not Holocaust jokes. I've exceeded them. I have. So there were no complaints? No, nobody complained. And did you pick up a woman? I was stalking, I guess this is the only way to say it. This one girl who was very attractive and I was going to... And I think in the article, I think I said, because it was about 10 years ago, that I couldn't do it. Couldn't bring myself to be that guy. You couldn't close it. Yeah, I would too. You can't. If you're a human being, especially a Jew, it's just too... You know, that's not right. But it would be easy if... I don't know, maybe if I had game of some sort or just was a horrible human being. Holocaust games, very high level. You're a real pick up artist. You know what, I'm ashamed to tell you this. There was a game we used to play in the house called Sophie's Choice. I'm being serious. Because we had four cats, always four cats, and at least three dogs. And my kids would have friends over and I'd walk into a room and they'd be playing with the animals. I'd go, Sophie's Choice! And they'd go, Cody. They would have to pick... The low, the low... If you're talking about the pets or the friend who had to go... The pet. They had to pick a pet that I was gonna... Wow. That's one way to prepare them to deal with loss. Some test runs. Is that wrong? That's the truth. It's wrong, but it's also brilliant. And it is only cats we have to keep remembering even though I worship my cat and everything. They are only cats. I have to keep putting my stuff in my head. My kids were watching South Park and Family Guy. And I told somebody, well, what are the bad things you used to do? We used to play Sophie's Choice with the animals. It's really funny. Is that horrible? No. That's funny. Another thing we used to do with the cat, we had a crazy Sammy. And he was black and white and I'd play fetch with him. I'd literally curl him up into a ball and he would start purring. And then I'd slide him down the hallway and he'd slide and then he'd turn around and come back and come back to have it done again. He had a good thing going then. Somebody said, how could you do that to the cat? I said, if he didn't like it, why do you keep coming back? Right, right. I know. I feel sometimes when I hear those articles and stuff of the way that people abuse animals and stuff, I think about it. It makes me upset. Men treat cats differently than women do. This is what I've noticed. And then we'll change the subject. Men do not pet cats. Men do deep tissue massage. We were off house. Oh, that's true. That's interesting. I've never seen a woman. I'd be interesting to see what Caitlyn does with a cat. I wonder if that changes with the transitioning because when a man sees a cat. So like Caitlyn Jenner. Caitlyn Jenner, yeah. When a man sees a cat, your first instinct is deep tissue massage. If the cat scratches and bites, we will leave the apartment covered in blood. It's game on. It's game on, right? And women go, what are you doing? What are you doing? I had baseball mitts. Somebody said, oh, you play softball? No, I play with my cat. I used to like to pet the head but hold the ears back so the eyes bulged out a little bit. And then usually do like a little movie dialogue. That would be kind of fun. I also used to do something. And I told a friend of mine who had a cat too. And I called it kitty bagpipe. And he said, I don't even know what that is, but that sounds like something my wife would yell at me for. What I would do is I would hold the cat and I would pet him and when he purred at the right moment, I would squeeze him. So he would go. And then you pretty much do that until they attack you for your transgressions. And rightfully so. I'd be like, I earned that one. Frank Conniff has a book about the trial between him and his cats. But he was serious. He came in one morning to do the show and I said, he had a band-aid on. And I said, what happened? He said, Barney, scratch me. He was just sitting next to me. Barney's his cat. And he said, he scratch me. And I said, what'd you do? He said, I said, fuck you, Barney. Again, this is why I think cats are ruining America because we are in a fake relationship with a living thing. It's not real and they replace human beings. You're so right. I think that's why I haven't been in a relationship since I've had a cat. I swear. They give you just enough humanity to satiate you. You get, you know, it feels good when they're next to you watching TV. They're warm. It's a combination for a guy. It's the combination of a blanket and a woman who. It's weird, you know, I've been trying to think of why I'm okay with like staying home on the weekends now whereas you used to get really depressed, you know, years ago. And I thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that there's so much to watch on TV and the internet and cell phones and you're so connected that I thought maybe that was the reason. But that all happened once I had a cat. So I can't decide which is the reason why I'm not upset about not going out anymore. Like that I feel like I'm not missing something. If you want to trace the decline of this country. We get so upset. Shark the increase of cat ownership. We own them. Cat ownership rises in direct relation to the popularity of tax cuts for the richest 1%. That's my, that's my theory. I think you've lost your mind. I haven't. I think there's also the appeal that the cat, you know, you mentioned it gives you just enough of the emotional thing, but it also lets you do enough care taking to appeal to that part of yourself. Exactly. That you're feeding something and keeping it warm. When you should be taking care of it. Taking care of the 25% of American children. Well, when you mentioned that, that's, yeah, I didn't think about that. You're so right. It gives you exactly right. Why am I pampering this cat when there's a whole bunch of, you're right. It's the same way that people think forwarding an online petition means they've actually done something. It doesn't actually do anything in the real world, but it still releases those endorphins and gives them that sense of superiority that they've made a contribution in a way when all they've done is press a button and haven't done anything. Right. And I'm a vegan, borderline vegan. Oh, you are? That's why you're vegan. Borderline personality, borderline. Which side of the borderline are you on? I'll have dairy occasionally and cheese. I don't understand vegan. I just, how could you become vegan? Because I don't want death inside of me. I already am dead enough inside as it is. I think that was my ex's main complaint. You believe in that stuff. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous? Yeah. What do you mean it's ridiculous? I understand being a vegetarian, but I don't- You can't say ridiculous without saying it like Jack Walsh. I thought we had already done it. That's why I was doing it again. Let's do it again. Because I'm out of my position, can't be made to look ridiculous. Now you'll get out of here and you'll tell the Godfather, I ain't no bad leader. Yeah. How do you hide that story? How's your, wait, what's in, SETV like, how's your Salisbury steak, Tom? Just double portions. Do you like singing zucchini? No, I'm a vegetarian slash vegan. I love animals, but they're not humans. And before we start taking care of all these animals, which we have to, you judge a society by how it takes care of the weakest among us. The weakest among us are human beings. We have humans to take care of first. Don't hurt an animal. You should have a cat. You should have a dog. But what you're getting from that cat or dog? Well, dogs I like, but... No, no, I know exactly what you're talking about and you're completely right because when they have those commercials of the ASPCA on the really sad ones, I have to turn them off. Yeah. But if they have the starving children, I'm like, what are you gonna do? Hey, it's what happens. That's a rough one to watch when you just sat down with the sandwich. Right, right, no. It is tough, but I can keep it on. It doesn't bother me as much as the animals. What's the matter with me? Well, what does that say about us? Well, you... He says we're idiots. I feel like emotionally, you have to draw a line somewhere or you just... Because life is suffering for the most part and we're so lucky that we don't have to deal with it. I think, you know, a friend of mine told me, he said, you know you're a real New Yorker the moment you step over a person lying in the street without breaking your conversation you're having with somebody that... And I've seen that in people visiting New York who just be like, my God, you just stepped over another human being and you'd be like, oh yeah, but you know, it's not really like that. It's like, well, it kind of is exactly like that. Yeah, you know, you're right. With the car crash that happened in Times Square, the guy murdering those people, if you look at the video... Did he do it on purpose? Yeah, yeah, he will. Yes, they just found out. I believe he wanted a cop to shoot him, so... Yeah, but he also was on half PCP, something like... But he did do it on purpose. He was trying to... But he's not with ISIS, so it's okay that those people died. No, he has died. So it's good, it's fine. Well, that's the way we have to look at it, right? But I saw people just kind of walking by. Like right while there's a picture of him, some guy got lucky and there's a picture of him going crazy and the thing, but you just see another guy and the car had just, you know, barreled in people, then you just see people just walking by in the photo. Yeah. It's just like... Got place to be. Yeah. It's like, oh, this happens in Times Square all the time. I have this theory that Trump has brought New York City, Manhattan specifically, to America. The idea that you can walk over a homeless person in Manhattan and not think twice, which is true. You cannot survive in Manhattan with empathy. Yeah. You'll get rung out two blocks. You do triage. We've been doing that since I was 12. You do triage. Dad told me, oh, you just step over him. Yeah. It's emotional triage. You have to say, no, I can't feed everybody. There's always going to be homeless people. There's always going to be the poor. That is a Manhattan mindset that Trump has brought to the country. What he's also brought to this country is, and it's true, there are no laws in Manhattan. Not for white people. The idea of a guy who pours cement in Manhattan. Donald Trump poured cement in Manhattan and he built casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, but it was financed by Wall Street. If you are surrounded by people who pour cement and Wall Street, there are no laws. Yeah, because of all the corner cutting and deal making that needed just to get to that point. Just make it. Make it. We'll worry about it later. Say anything. Just get this building built. They'll bring in the inspectors and we'll pay them off. And if we can't pay them off, we'll pay the fines. Just if you get the bill, they're not going to knock the building down. They're not going to knock it down. So just make the building. That's his thinking. Some ways I think that's one of the things I like about New York is that there's a sense of, even just when it comes to crossing the street in New York, there's a sense of, forget about what the lights are telling us. It's like, you think you can make it? Go for it. You think you can get to that other side? Give it a shot. That's why I've noticed when I drive through Manhattan that the people who cause trouble are not the ones driving like lunatics. As long as you're all driving like lunatics, there's a flow to it. It's the one person trying to be a decent human being that screws everything up. Excellent point. It's like, yeah, because they're not... You're so right. As long as you're all constantly trying to cut each other off, there's sort of a flow to it. When you're driving through and people are walking through red lights when you're driving, do you stop? Because I just keep going and I don't even beep. And I go like, no, they're going to move. But if somebody were to stop, it's going to cause trouble. Yeah, I feel like... When you have the right of way. Well, I don't run the person over, but I do feel like I need to teach them a lesson. That's what I'm talking about. But on the other side, I've also been a pedestrian who legitimately thought I could make a car stop by giving it a dirty look. That's how insane you get. I almost got hit by a car two days ago. And I was crossing the street and I had easily five ticks left on the thing. And this car took a right turn and it went so close to me that I was aware of like, oh, that almost touched my face. But I wasn't even... It didn't even bother me. And then I crossed the street and I see two homeless people staring at me, slack jawed. And they're like, that car almost hit you. And I was like, yeah. I really think said, what are you going to do? See, I think I don't want to get into New York versus the rest of the world. But I do believe that this is a Manhattan phenomenon. Sure. And through the prism of Trump, in Manhattan, you can say anything to anybody and not get punched. When I moved to San Francisco, I once gave a trucker the finger. Somebody cut me off. I gave the guy the finger and the guy followed. He was going to kill me. Yeah. I go, what's the big deal? I gave you the F and the finger. Yeah, right. But in New York, and I think that's what Trump thinks is you can say, I saw a like a 70-year-old white woman. I think she was Italian in a Moo Moo screaming at a six foot eight black guy who was not cleaning up after his poodle. He had a little teacup and she's screaming, I'll kill you. I'll kill you. And he's going, I like that. Yeah. And I'm thinking you can say with impunity, this woman in the Moo Moo and slippers on the streets of Manhattan is looking up at the six foot eight guy going, I'm going to kill you if you don't clean up after this F and he's going to blow it out your ass like, there's no violence. It's just. Well, it's also that instant emotional acceleration where it goes straight to the top. There's no back and forth of a buildup. But there's so many. It's always, I didn't mean it and people forget about it in Manhattan. But that doesn't apply anywhere else. No, it's considered a legitimate threat. I was hanging out with a friend of mine who's Brooklyn born and bred and we were getting ready to have dinner with her and a fiancee and her kid was running around the kitchen and it made me laugh because she just went, Michael, stop it. I'm going to strangle you. And to me, that was so Italian, the idea of like a specific way you're going to kill your child. And he didn't even care. It had no impact on him. I'm like, you just said you're going to strangle your child. This is what I don't think people understand about Trump, who has to be removed and he's a danger. He goes into meet with Kislev and the Russian foreign minister. He's making small. I just got rid of this Comey guy. He's a nut job. He wasn't saying, now I'm free to do your services, my overlords, my payment. He was just making New York small talk. I just got rid of this cop. He's out of his nut job. Can you believe it? How do you guys do it? That's right. That's this New York City small talk. Well, I think that's why the Russians have been so confused by us, because the Russians never do anything without thinking three level chess. So they're the masters of strategy manipulation. And I think they've looked at U.S. foreign policy over the past 20 years or so, and they're thinking, what could this grand plan possibly be? Because we've just been sort of flailing. But yeah, I think you're right about the New York differences. Like I've noticed, and I also think like, and I know we were talking about Andy Kinler earlier, he doesn't like any jokes about the homeless. Fair enough. But what I've learned in other parts of the country, when you say homeless, it means something very different. Outside of New York, when you're in New York and you say a homeless man, people think crazy guy, a guy yelling stuff and threatening you and being an aggressive panhandler. That's what you think homeless means. The rest of the country, they think, oh, that poor person lost their home. So they think of someone who had a home, there was an event, and now that person is no longer living indoors. That's really interesting. It's a completely different view of what that word means. So when you say a homeless guy was bothering me or something, people from outside New York think they have empathy for that person, whereas we have trouble seeing that person as anything other than an emblem and engram of what that word means. It used to be bum, remember? Yeah. A tramp. Journalism. Yes. Tell me about your journalism career. Well, I wrote a story for Maxim about testicle implants for pets. Nudicles. Nudicles, yes. That's true. Yeah. They make because for a while you couldn't get them for men and people were buying the animal ones to get put in. And the guy, of course, was complete loony tunes that I interviewed. But he said he made them for cats, dogs, horses, and bulls. And he said, the dogs know that when the animal has an empty sack at the dog run, like he has confidence issues. Oh. So that's what he said. So I said, all right, my cat's fixed. What if I got those bull balls and put them in? Would that give them a lift? And the guy got mad at me. And he was like, yeah, you know, what's the idea of like, you're not taking these silicon to pet implants seriously. Where do you get the nudicles to talk to a man like me? In that tone of voice. So I did that. But for most... Let's go back to nudicles. OK. Do they lick their nudicles? It's inside to them. I believe they're slow. Do they have a taste? Do they taste like, because I... No, they're on the inside. Yeah, but you lick your balls. I don't know if they really... It's not like you can get flavors of them. What are you talking about? Haven't you ever licked a pair of balls? I can tell a pair of nudicles... I know the scent of my balls, but... I do too. But I think that's all scrotum. The podcast has taken a very odd turn. Well, all right. OK, so you wrote about the nudicles. I thought it was a cosmetic thing. I thought it was a lot of Beverly Hills types and Manhattan types who were ashamed that their dog didn't have testicles. Yeah. Is that what it was about? I think so, because I don't... You said there was a... Oh, you said that guy said there was a confidence issue, but it makes sense to me if you're with other dogs. But I know so many people whose dogs have lost a leg, and once they come out of the anesthesia, they don't worry about it. That's true. I don't know. So what was your article about? My article was just about an interview with the guy. Dogs don't have confidence issues. They're either alphas or betas. And it's ingrained, or do they change? Can a dog suddenly become an alpha? Yeah, I think it depends on where you are in the pack. We're in the pack, yeah. Cody became an alpha. Cody was a beta, and then he eventually became an alpha. And then that's what happens to alpha animals when they get replaced. They usually just have to go off somewhere and die because they're kind of done. Once you're an alpha, you can't go back to being a beta. No, because then the guys who replace you know that you're nothing but a threat, so they kick your ass out. Suppose they sense that you're just getting old. Not a lot of compassion in the animal world. I don't think there's like a pension program for old lions. What about if I just give you a corner office? You come in, just... You punch a clock, you write it out, you move to Florida. It is really like corporate America, isn't it? It's exactly like... Well, I think it's corporate America really is like that. Like the animal kingdom. Yeah, we're animals. We're animals anyway. Let them lose their souls. What did you do before Maxim in terms of journalism? Did you want to be a reporter for... Not really, because well, my thing in college was... I wrote for the school newspaper, so that's where... That was my main benefit of going to college, was that I learned to write well and do it on a deadline and all that kind of stuff. I finished college in 90s. There was a recession going on, so there really wasn't much happening. And I lived in small town Connecticut. And I was very immature, so I used that as an opportunity to grow my hair out and play in rock bands and stuff and sell pot and work in a video store. And stuff like that. And I regret none of that, by the way. Would you have worked at a newspaper if you could have? You know, I tried and the local newspapers weren't interested, but you look back, a local newspaper has five employees who've been there for a hundred years. They don't want someone who's come in winning journalism awards and stuff like that. They don't want you around. I got lucky in the sense that I'm not a very good writer. Like, I don't know the, you know, I'm not smart. Articulate. Yeah, I think that's the word you were searching for. Yeah, I think senile is the word. So I got lucky that the magazines kind of changed when I got out of school, I got out of school four years earlier, and that they, I would never have been able to write for a magazine like U.S. World of News reported or The Times or something like that, but then publications like Maxim kind of dumbed it down. They were conversational. Yeah, I was able to write like I talk, and that made all the difference. I would never have been able to write because I don't know whether I told you this, but one time this girl had me write for Backstage West Magazine because she knew I wrote for Maxim, and she wanted me to interview this guy who I'd seen in this Broadway show and said nobody in LA knows about Broadway. I was the perfect guy to do it. So it was just a Q&A, but the first three paragraphs were supposed to be written like a journalist. She must have sent it back to me four or five times. And she's like, I don't understand how you got a job at Maxim because I didn't have... Yeah, that news sort of... What, where, when, why, how in the first paragraph. Yeah, it was very obvious. That all helped me a lot when I went into advertising writing, and I know advertising writing helped me with comedy because way before Twitter, I would have someone say you only have a certain number of letters in this headline to compel somebody to do something. And I worked on a little ad agency. We had boring, boring products, industrial stuff, writing brochures for like the thing that went into the machine that made the plastic for a pen and that helped me because you learned word economy and things like that. That's the one thing that drives me nuts about new comics is you just listen to them blathering on. And it's like no one stops them. No one takes them aside and tells them, no, you're not a storyteller. You're bullshit. Go on. I'm serious. Go on. It drives me nuts because it's so self-indulgent. And I don't know if it still goes on, but I remember a couple of years ago, there was a big phase where everyone was like, come see my one-person show. And you're like, oh, God, it's just... You mean I'm going to watch you for an hour with not even trying punchlines? Right. It's not going to happen. Yeah, plus a lot of the newcomers, like you said, they see Louie and they're like, yeah, I just do all new material every month. I throw it out because that's what Louie does. And they're not Louie at all. I agree with their throwing that material out part, but I'd rather they did it before we had to hear it. It's bad in that sense. Okay, I find this interesting because I run with the 20-somethings. I've noticed something. And I think it's pre... I always filtered through politics and the anxieties of influence, as they call it. I don't think you can look at what's going on without understanding the anxieties of influence. That's not my term. It's an old term, but we do things because of the air we're breathing. I think during the Obama administration, we had a very generous, forgiving country. And these comics who I was running with, they were doing open mics, trying new material. And I said, that bit worked. Why aren't you doing that again? It's old, kind of like what you're just saying. I said, don't you want to build an act? No, I don't need an act. I just want to keep building an act. And yeah, it's not like that anymore. I don't think it's... I remember it used to take... When we first started, when all of us first started, like it used to take seven years to be good. And now you can be good in like six months or whatever you consider good to go to the next level. It's completely different, let alone the... But it's better. The little... It is better. The little... The girls, the really pretty girls that think they're comics now that are younger, they're so interesting because they know how to work social media. So it makes it look like they are complete. I'm like, well, that girl's doing really well. They're like, no, she's not doing well. She just... It just looks like she's doing well on social media. She knows how to work it. And then they come out, you know, they're not good comics, of course they get work because they're pretty, but they know how to work to social media. So they'll be like, yeah, I'm working with, instead of saying opening or whatever, they know how to work it just the right way. Here's the danger you're running into. You're like the second chair violinist at the New York Philharmonic, who doesn't understand Bob Dylan, because the young comics are doing something completely different than what you're doing. Yeah. It's a whole... We don't understand. We don't... It's very personal. And they're saving comedy because it's so personal, because we're doing... We're doing John Phillips who's a marching music. They're doing folk songs. It's very personal. Yeah. It's very... And that's what people are hungering for. That's why an unfunny person can be a comedian. They'll come out and see you, even though you don't know comedic theory, the same way Bob Dylan didn't know musical theory. But it's so personal and it's all about the audience falling in love with the person. Like none of them like drink anymore. They don't hang out. You know, it's really a different... Don't get me wrong. I hate them, but only because of their youth. Yeah, because their knees don't hurt. Of course. Yeah, it is a strange thing, because I started this in 2001, because I was 32 years old, so I was kind of old to be starting this. And I look back to when we... My group used to do the open mics and stuff like that. We all sort of thought, well, we just want to go up and have our jokes work. And now when I stop in the open mics, I hear the young comics talking about industry and Montreal, and it's like, well, you don't have two jokes yet. So to me, that seems odd, but I understand what you're saying. It's the music industry. You got to... The analog is the music industry. Yeah, it's Nirvana cracking everything open. And for you and... And then file sharing and all that stuff. No, what I'm saying is when we start... I was going to say, when we start, they didn't even have an open mics. Right. They didn't have mics. They didn't even have the word open. Well, no, you had to... Everything was closed. You had to close the door to get in. You had to close the door to get out. They didn't have a word called open back when I was starting it. We just had to go to the clubs and wait around. It was horrible. And that doesn't mean it was good because of the door. I didn't say that. Yeah, it was horrible. Yeah, you don't want to... I wish there were open mics. You don't want to romanticize deprivation because to compare it to music, I think of... There's a band I love called Sonic's Rendezvous Band. It was a guy from the MC5. And they were an amazing band, but because no one signed them, all we have officially released by them is one single. Who played Kick Out the Jams? That's the MC5. Okay, Jerry Stahl turned me on to that. Great stuff. So now it's like... It's the price you pay. A great band now has within their own hands to distribute their music. And that's great. The problem is it means you're saturated with a lot of not-great bands who are able to do the same thing. And I think that's... Can I... Just medias like that. Maybe I sound like an old guy. My day, my father used to come home drunk. He would beat my mother and say to the kids, see what you make me do. And then we'd cower in the corner hoping he wasn't going to beat me. And then we'd go to sleep and we'd wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of my father beating my mother and drinking and smashing things. And that's what made me funny and strong and good. It's a horrible story. No, what I'm saying is... And that's to end up with iTunes. That's the end result of that. I mean, again, it's romanticizing horror because we're resilient. We always have to say... We have to be forgiving of our past. I can't read. Are we wrapping it up? Oh, the minute I start talking about beating... Well, Joe, you'll come back? I would love to. This is a lot of fun. Yeah, talking about old comedy like this, it's kind of fun. It's kind of the best. Well, I worry about being hostile towards young people. Here's what I do think. I do too. I know what you're talking about. Right. The thing about millennials, though, I will say this about them. Now that Trump is president, I think comedy is going to change. The millennials who started doing comedy under Obama, you know, the cliche, they all got a trophy. Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody, I did something. Mommy, I made a duty. Look at it. Oh, that's beautiful, son. Here's a trophy. I think those days are over and I think it's going to show up in comedy. I think the audiences are going to change because audiences always do change and they're going to demand something else. Hopefully older folks. Well, that's never going to be the case. I know. That's never going to be the case. But I don't want people talking about the six million dollar man and how great that show is. The hell's the matter with these people? What's so impressive about a man costing six million dollars? I know. Now it's like that's your regular health care cost. What did you get your spleen removed? Congratulations. Following he was six million dollars. He had an eye. All right. Let's plug some gigs. I believe David, you have a podcast. No, I have a podcast. The Dave Jessica podcast. The David Jessica podcast. I'm also doing a benefit show in June 14th. I put together this benefit show for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Organization at Gotham Comedy Club. I had to do it first to get out to some community service to get out of some trouble. But now. Is that true? Yes, it is true. Well, hang on, what did you do? I molested a little boy. He was impersonating a big sister. I've asked to be a big sister, but they will not let me do that. No, I changed my license plate to reflect a different number to park on the street. Didn't work out the way I would expect it. Let's make the long story short. You changed your license. Yes. I put some Play-Doh. No, I put some Play-Doh on it and I made a nine and eight. Then the cop caught you. Not for a year. No, the cop didn't catch me. The guy I had that number caught me. It never occurred to me. Somebody in Jersey had that number. That's how thieves get caught. That never occurred to me that somebody had that plate number that I made up. So they made you do community service? I had to do community service. I had to go to jail for a little bit, but I had to do community. You went to jail? Just for like a couple of days. Did you? Wow. The tombs. Are you? Really? Yeah, but I figured out when I was there, I seemed to go to jail every 15 years or something. Wow. You're like a criminal cicada. You have to come back. I heard you also had hand in your honk if you love Jesus bumpers. You have to come back and talk about blowing all those guys in. How quickly do you have to start blowing guys? No, you don't because I was like, after a while, I was like the senior tenant. So they were all coming to me, you know, being older, they were like, they figured I was a white crime guy and I could probably help them get out. We have to. I was like the birdie made off of the cell. How many days in jail? Just two, this time. But there was a problem. You know, when I went to court, I thought I was going to get four months because it was forgery and identity theft. But my guy who lives in my building knew the judge and totally he was like, oh, we're going to be good. I got the good fellows boys will be boys sentence. It was amazing. He was like, so as long as you don't do anything stupid, I think we're good. And then he goes to my lawyer, he gives him the thumbs up. Good. Good. Really? Yeah, I swear to God. I swear to God. And this guy is like a 76 year old guy in my building. He helped me out. Yeah, he went to the cop. Trump, this is how Trump, this is deals. The art of the deal. It's great being a white person in Manhattan. I mean, there's really no problems. Come on, Michael Flynn, he's a good guy. He made a mistake. Come on. This is why Trump, it's hard to dislike. I know you're going to rip, but I'm just saying it's like, this is the way I would run the country. I'm an idiot. This is the way I would do stuff. I'm like, yeah, let's fight that guy. He's a troublemaker. He's a nut job. Yeah. He's a nut job. How I wanted to go to jail for making a license plate when you think about it. Oh, I didn't even think about that. I can't believe nobody's ever fought that up before the opposite way. Great fucking great. You'll come back? I will. I will. Follow me at at Joe DeVito comedy on Twitter. That's like what I got for you. Oh, thank you. All kinds of links and stuff. I want to thank Alex Brazil for setting the show up. I'd like to thank Alex too. He's a nice boy. He's got Alex has excellent taste. In comedy. He does. He really does. And you and I don't know each other. I feel like we do now. We know, I know, but I didn't know who you were. And Joe's a nice guy. I know. And Alex said, trust me. Alex said, trust me. And wow. All right. Joe DeVito, D-E-V-I-T-O. And what's your website? JoeDeVito.com. Funny website, but I love the sparkles on your website. It's nice, isn't it? Thank you guys. Joining us is our resident film critic, Michael Snyder. These are the movies he's going to be talking about today. Alien Covenant. Everything, everything, Wakefield and Commune. Tell me about Alien Covenant. Alien Covenant is the sequel to a prequel. I know this is getting confusing. But the Hollywood studios find themselves a little tentpole franchise, like the Alien movies, from, you know, a decade plus back, and decide to milk it for all of this work. So Ridley Scott does it. And it's followed by James Cameron directing, directing Aliens, that plural. And we get a whole series of films about these extraterrestrial killing machines that encounter and attack humans in space. So the question is, how do we continue the franchise? Well, how about years later, if we go back and try to discuss the origins of where these alien creepos come from? So that's why they did Prometheus a couple years ago, which was directed by Ridley Scott, the guy who directed the first Alien film. It was an attempt to give an origin story for these perfect killing machines. And if you haven't seen Prometheus and want to avoid spoilers, here's an alert. In Prometheus, the makers in the advanced race seed Earth with their own DNA in prehistoric times, creating man and setting off the events where a human crew in our future gets in a spaceship with an android companion helping them out, and they go off in search of those interstellar origins only to encounter the proto aliens. And so Covenant takes that story a few steps further. In Covenant, the first ship is deemed lost, and this new ship from Earth is on its way to colonize a distant planet in a distant solar system with a crew and colonists and sleeping pods and an upgraded version of the android from Prometheus watching over the ship. So hey, what could go wrong? How about a cosmic storm that causes the ship to seek shelter on a planet that's been sending out a signal with a human voice? Now you're way out in outer space and you hear a human voice, and the few awakened crewmen and women decide we're going to find out what's going on here. Unfortunately, it turns out that this brings the humans in contact with aliens the next generation as we know them, and rather than leaving the aliens a species of danger mystery, this idea of a backstory diminishes the creatures. I kind of like the fact that she didn't know where they were coming from or what they were. They were just dangerous and destructive. Now the movie actually effectively reproduces some of the haunted house B movie stuff about the first alien film, albeit in the service of this origin. And so it made me think of like Star Wars, The Force Awakens, a movie that basically parrots the very very first Star Wars film that was released. And you know, we have a lot of the same beats of alien here, but the special effects are more elaborate. The scale is bigger. The action is, you know, full of chest busting excitement. And Michael Fastbender is quite good returning in the role of the android, a different android, as he was android in the first movie in this rebooted or revisited series. And the crew members are led by Catherine Waterson, who's a figure like Sigourney Weir's Ripley in the earlier alien movies. Billy Crudup, Damien McBride, Damien Beshear, this is a good cast. And you know, you still get hints of the original creature from designer HR Geiger's fantastic imaginative and really creepy vision. So I had a good time watching it and I thought it was kind of better or more satisfying than Prometheus. But it's sort of trying to shoehorn this story into something where it's not even necessary. And I still came away thinking, you know, well, it's a B movie, albeit a glorified one. Instead of reworking continuity or putting it in an unnecessary foundation, they might have just continued making more aliens films that took the creatures further instead of doing this retreat. You know, I wonder what people are thinking. And then I realize it's all about box office and familiarity and proof of concept, which seems to really motivate the studios to make things, particularly now that, you know, budgets have gotten a little out of control and blockbusters seem to be the only way the studios make their money. Everything, everything is a complete... I was going to ask you before we get to that. Go ahead. When you watch something like Alien Covenant, knowing that it's just studio tripe, are you able to maintain your interest? I mean, do you don't feel manipulated? Well, look, Ridley Scott, those had a direct, a big scale film. And again, there's action and there's good actors and good effects, and I love science fiction. So I go in giving it the benefit of the doubt and hoping I'm going to get something better than I fear I'm going to get. And, you know, in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy, they deliver the fun. It's a comic book, but it's a beautiful and glorious and exciting and funny comic book. In the case of Alien Covenant, it's, like I said, a glorified B movie, science fiction thriller with a lot of haunted house stuff going on. Because who knows if an alien's going to be waiting around the corner and, you know, attacking you limb from limb and feasting on your innards. Look, you know, it's product, plain and simple. Tell me about everything, everything. Okay, I will. It's the complete, it's 180 degrees away from Alien Covenant. It's a low-budget, small-scale film that actually made me think, well, this is kind of like a better Nicholas Sparks romance skewed at teenage girls. It's tender. It's the story of a teenage girl who's lived a very sheltered life because she's allergic to everything. It's boy in the bubble material. Oh, right, right, right. So her mom keeps her under lock and key in the house. And of course, you know, she's a smart, adorable girl and she looks out her window longingly and craves the smell of the spring air and the loom. And, you know, and I guess her mom has to be very careful about not bringing germs into the house and so on. So it's a very isolated life. When she sees a new family moving in next door and spots the teenage boy just maybe a year older than her at most, you know, cupids shooting off arrows. You hear heartbeats quicken and such. So she falls for this boy and, you know, they strike up a relationship, although it's blocked by, you know, this plastic window or this perfectly hermetically sealed house. And then romance takes its toll. She's forced to leave the house. She's going to do it. She's going to take a chance. It doesn't matter that she's possibly going to get ill. Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you saying she's taking a chance on love? Yes, she's taking a chance on love and also taking a chance on apparently death. Right. The trailer to this is the entire movie. The boy and the girl, they get in the car, they go on a vacation, they go to a tropical island, they see the beach, Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer are kidnapped. No, that's wait. That's the other film, the other horrible book. This is not so horrible. If you were a teenage girl, David, and boy, is that a stretch. I think you might like this. Its heart is in the right place. The actors who play the girl, Maddie and the guy, Ollie, it's Ollie and Maddie. Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson are quite good. It's rather modern insofar as forgive me, she's black and he's white, but nobody gives a rat's ass, which is a beautiful thing. It was directed by Stella Maggie, who I think did a pretty good job considering. Apparently there's a young adult novel by the same name written by someone named Nicola Yoon and maybe it's yet another attempt to launch, I don't know, a franchise where she keeps getting sick and then better and the next movie, she gets sick with a different disease. I don't know. I do know this. It was not objectionable. It just was like, what's the word? Piffle. Passable? Passable Piffle, P-I-F-F-L-V. Like, it just wasn't substantial enough. It's funny to note, speaking of young adult novels and speaking of aiming at a specific demographic, Amandla Stenberg, when she was younger, was one of the first victims in the Hunger Games movies. She was a little cutie pie and oh, she wasn't going to make it. And in this case, we're wishing that she makes it despite her immunodeficiency, but there's also twists and turns and there's an act three revelation. I look, I just wish someone would make a smart, canny, sharp adult film that didn't try to pluck at your heartstrings but managed to move you emotionally anyway. But that movie, everything, everything, that's not the one, at least not for me. Let me ask you about Liam Neeson's movies where the daughter keeps getting kidnapped. Yeah, every single movie, Give Me Back My Daughter. What about it? Is it the same daughter? You kind of wish it is. If it's not Give Me Back My Daughter, it's Give Me Back My Son, Give Me Back My Wife, Give Me Back My Pet Dog. I mean, it just seems to me that Liam Neeson is always out there trying to get something back that somebody took from him. But is it the same family member? Is there, is that a franchise too? Because I can't sit through that crap. Give Me Back My Daughter franchise. I think that's an idea that has not been brought to life yet. It's, it's hard. Well, wait a second. I saw the first one where she sold into child slavery or white slave taken. But wasn't there a sequel to that? Oh, yeah, Give Him Back. He wasn't buying it. I don't want my daughter anymore. That would have been great. But there was a take in two. I think she got into more hijinks. I don't know how. But, but, you know, he plays the voice of a magician in an animated film called Ponyo. And he's got all these little tadpoles that he's raising to become these intelligent sea creatures. And one runs away. And of course he wants the sea creature Ponyo to come back and I kept the Give Me Back My Tadpole. I mean to me, it's as if they've decided to just shoehorn him into this character. And that's it. I do love the guy by the way. What is Ponyo? How old is Ponyo? What is that based on? It's about 10 years ago. It was a Hayao Miyazaki film from Studio Ghibli, the great Japanese animation company that guys that brought you spirited away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle. Ponyo is one of their lesser films. But Liam Neeson is the English language voice of the wizard who raises all these sentient tadpoles. And Patrick Stewart is playing the poop emoji? That's kind of funny. Well, you know, the cat in the car got to eat. That's all I can tell you. But that's pretty funny to give the poop emoji a British accent. Well, no, he is a significant voice on Seth MacFarlane's American dad. He plays the head of the FBI or at least, you know, excuse me, the CIA, CIA assistant director Bullock. And he's been doing off the wall at broad humor for a long time. His show on cable, which ended after a couple seasons, I loved called Blunt Talk. And he played a kind of a more, can you imagine this? A more obnoxious Piers Morgan. You know, doped up, drunk, sex loving, former British soldier who had become a talk show host and commentator here in the States. You know, he's fearless, Patrick Stewart. I grant him anything. If he wants to play the poop emoji, whether I think it's a ridiculous and pathetic idea, I give Patrick Stewart my blessing. Have you seen him on YouTube petting an orphan dog that he took in? No, but that sounds awfully sweet. Yeah, it's just him petting a dog that he's taken care of for a little while. I guess for some, that's right up with his performance as Polonius in the revival of Hamlet. Who was he, was he Sir Janus and I, Claudius? I don't remember. I don't recall. But he was recently Polonius to David Tennant, well, not recently, about 10 years ago, eight years ago. The Royal Shakespeare Company did a Hamlet that's considered one of the best modern Hamlets. And he was Polonius and David Tennant of Broadchurch and Doctor Who was Hamlet. And they say that Tennant is one of the great modern Hamlets. And obviously, with support like Patrick Stewart, you're going to have a solid acting in the house. And those guys are both RSC members, despite their pop culture bona fides, respectively, the two sci-fi shows that they starred in. Okay, Wakefield. Wakefield is the best movie of the movies we've talked about so far. And it's a pretty wonderful tour de force for the great Brian Cranston. Writer-director Robin Swickord, who has done, he most recently, she wrote The Promise, the movie about the Armenian genocide, which was not a great film, but obviously meant well. It also wasn't a great genocide, by the way. No, it was, as genocides go, I don't know. It just, it didn't. It's pretty horrible. Yeah, as genocides go, yeah, pretty terrible. But Swickord also wrote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Memoirs of Agatia, The Screenplay to Matilda, did a version of Little Women in 1994. So a fairly accomplished writer and also previously directed a film called The Jane Austen Book Club, which was kind of a chick flick. In this case, she gets down and dirty. Wakefield is her adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's short story about a suburban commuter who decides he's just gonna retire from his life as a husband and father out of nowhere almost. He comes home to his suburban home and does not go in one night, instead goes into the carriage house next to the regular house and peers at his family that night through the window and watches as his wife played by Jennifer Garner and his two twin daughters go about their business and he watches as the wife gets more and more concerned about him and he never flinches. He stays in the carriage house and he figures out how to survive by scrounging. He watches her reaction and that of other people. There's an APB put out, cops show up and all of this is basically about a man coping with a marriage that might not have been the right thing for him and also with the life choices he's made and it's fascinating to watch Brian Cranston who is one of the great actors working in film and television here in the States and he creates a rich and sad and deep portrait of a very troubled soul and it was riveting to me and very, very subtle in some places and very sad in others but ultimately I thought Wakefield was kind of a triumph in particular for Cranston who plays Howard Wakefield, the title character. Beverly Dange-Lew and Jason O'Mara are in this as well. Jennifer Garner, she's fine, she's solid. She just has to play the wife who's either suffering or freed by the sudden absence of her husband. And commune. Well, Thomas Vinterberg is a Danish director that I like. He was part of the dogma group that used to make movies that eschewed, God bless me, that eschewed any use of artificial light or sound and this was sort of this dictate and Lars von Trier was among them and Lasse Holstram but Vinterberg did some really cool films including The Celebration and more recently The Hunt and in fact Vinterberg directed the recent adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd that stars Carrie Mulligan and that's a wonderful adaptation of the fantastic Thomas Hardy novel but this is a different thing entirely. The commune or collectivet in Danish is a period piece set in Copenhagen in the 70s about a husband and wife who inherit the husband's parents' house and he is an architecture teacher at a university and she is a very well-known television newswoman in Denmark and the two of them in the 1970s decide well we're going to get it should we sell this enormous house or should we figure out another way to hold on to it and they decide since it's so expensive they're going to bring in people but not as borders particularly they're going to create a commune so they start interviewing people and bringing them into the house and you know these are good and noble intentions communes in the late 60s and early 70s you know they were social experiments and I think they really took hold in Scandinavia during that period and so this is an interesting movie from that standpoint but what happens is you know all these noble intentions can't counter the baser human instincts and drives as you throw a bunch of people together in a house and let them deal with their feelings and their you know their bigotry well whatever is going to wrench people apart or bring them together in strange and unexpected combinations I thought it was a really wonderful film yes it's subtitled but man you know this guy's just a talented filmmaker I give the commune high marks and if you can seek it out go for it fantastic Michael Snyder as our resident film critic hopefully we'll talk to you next week okay buddy thank you for listening from the showbiz studios in downtown Manhattan Medicare for all