 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 you 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. 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… Do his fans like Trump? Are they on the fence? I think a lot of them do. 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 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 listeners sometimes. So by the way, this is Greg Fitzsimmons, Fitzdogg Radio. You should listen to his podcast. 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 today. 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 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 Fitzdogg, 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. 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 timeframe where you say four years in it will be this way? Oh, 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 of 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 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. It's up to you to decide to stop doing it. And the other thing with podcasting is you can do it forever. 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. 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 the 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, 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. Why would it? 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 a guest 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 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 Fitz Dogg 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 they 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 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, Markling 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. 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. 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. It's an experience where it's like it's so fucking pure. 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 I've 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 the most kind of pure version of looking into somebody's mind. Your mind. Yeah. Then when you put it and then you put a guest 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. 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 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 of a 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, 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. 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. The shows are actually pretty good that way, because I think I relate to the listener who's once human contact. But I can go like a day or two without any actual human contact, which is not healthy. Do you ever have days like that? You're holding the phone. You're an addict, right? Sure. I'll be holding the phone. 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 like that rat pressing the button for the sugar cube. I actually said, you're lighting up that part of your brain right now. 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. And when I put it down, even watching television for me, which used to be sinful, is better than that effing phone. What's your relationship with the phone? I feel really bad about it because my kids, I'm watching their childhoods get sapped away by these little blasts, these little drips of stimulant. 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 of 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 previous, right? Because you're the guest and I'm very relaxed now. There are certain things that I thought were absolute truths about show business, podcasting, 10 years ago. 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, 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... 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. Right. But that's not necessarily what you're supposed to be doing. I don't... 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. Yeah. He said, when I was younger, I played a lot of notes. Now I play just a couple, but they sound a lot better. Right. 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. Wouldn't it be pow, pow, pow, pow? 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. You know, 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. 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. Let him in Icona. He's great. And Larry goes, no, you really need to see him live. Like, I don't want to go to a client. Let's come at 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 this story that I remember and 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. Yes. 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. 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. Cock is ticking. Yeah. And 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 is when they discover boys. That's when it's over. I don't mean a gay thing. It's 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. Yeah. 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 Marrera. I'm opening for Dom Marrera. Bobby Slayton. And how old was he at this point? 13, 14. And I could see the, and my wife would go, let him go. No, I'm not going to get, I'm going to squeeze every minute I possibly could. 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 of 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 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 all the 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 that? 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 you shrug off when people say nice things to you because 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 it's like you're saying that's just, that's my act, that's not who I am, but he knows that. He knows that, but you felt obligated to kind of convey that, right? But 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 edipal 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 it's, you know, my act, 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 girls' 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 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. 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 politer cop than one on the take. 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 grow up very Catholic. Sitting in church and watching these guys be so sanctimonious and, you know, and I always think something's fucked up. And 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. But before, 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 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 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. And 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. 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 got a great salmon dinner and dessert and all. 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 club. 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. But I'd 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. 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 my son is black basically. All his friends are black. He's the black guy. So 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 boarders used to, Jackie Walner, she used, oh, you, well, you were living in LA. Boarders in LA? Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. I remember that. 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 boarders bookstore. Yeah. Doing stand-up and bombing. Yeah. Or not bombing, but not killing. Yeah. Or taking them to, what's that horrible, is it Sandman Whale Casino? You're way beyond this. But 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. 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 of that I'd go, well, 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 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 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. Same results. And trash teachers. Yeah. Because they love it. 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. And if we had access to this stuff, right? Yeah. It wouldn't be good. I know. We'd be thrown out of school. Right, right. There's no way. No, they're very responsible about it. They're like really, 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 good, interesting kids. They're like the kids I couldn't handpick more interesting friends for my son to have. Right. And you know, a couple jocks, but not real jocky, not nerdy, 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 sex toys. I understand that. Yeah. Adam and Eve disposable dishes. Family business. Yeah. Are they going into the family business? Third generation. Hmm. 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 a, 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 set. He was a 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 Hasbens and call my dad a Hasbin 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 is 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. Interesting. 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. It's all about listening. And then I went to acting school and I studied the Meisner technique for two years straight, and which is all just putting all your attention on the other person. And I found that what my father did well was he made people feel funny. He was not a fake laughter. He was a genuine laughter. 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? Does it- 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 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 gonna 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 gotta go. That's it? That's, you're gonna 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. A little light. 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 are gonna 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've got about eight scripts locked right now. Just gonna 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 gonna just tear up the town. I love it. Let's spend some time together. We're gonna hang out and you're gonna be my best friend. And in a week, 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 the guy I went to call. Oh, you know Gibbons, of course. I love Gibbons. 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, his dance card will be full very soon. He's always worked, he's a great guy. And 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, David. I love you, having you on the show. Thank you. Thank you.