 Okay, I'm gonna tell you something and as I tell this to you. I want you to think of Melania the look on her face whenever she's around Donald I want you to think of Donald and Melania pulling up to the White House on an inauguration day to have coffee with Michelle and Barack Obama the way Donald chore out of the car didn't hold the door open for Melania went up shook hands with Michelle and Barack Didn't even make eye contact with Melania. What should think of Melania, okay? Dr. Harold Bornstein announced this week that Donald Trump's hair is for Hair is for real and that the reason his hair is so luxurious is he's on Propecia. Propecia is a Prostate drug. It's a pill that you take for your prostate and the side effect Supposedly as it grows hair on your head This drug has been around for years and it doesn't work and it's certainly not Gonna give you that lion main that Donald has sewn into his scalp The truth about Propecia is it has side effects. Those side effects are impotence loss of interest in sex Trouble having an orgasm and an abnormal ejaculation if you have any ejaculation at all according to Dr. Harold Bornstein Trump's PSA level is 0.15 That is a very Very low number and that's due to he says the Propecia Donald Trump's taken a lot of Propecia, which means He's impotent has no interest in sex Has trouble having an orgasm and has abnormal ejaculation Do not Let him take us to war Do not let this man take us to war Welcome to broadcast. I'm David Feldman David Feldman show dot com Please remember to friend me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter go to David Feldman show dot com to do all your Amazon shopping and for only five dollars a month Or more depending on how much you want to give you can become a monthly subscriber and gain access To all our premium content. We have a YouTube channel. It's only audio so far, but I'd like you to subscribe to it I've mentioned this before on the show the YouTube channel is our show as a YouTube video Very easy to share to post on Twitter and Facebook on today's show. It's all great comedy writers Vic Berger from Super Deluxe Vic Berger is more than a comedian. He is a surreal video artist whose YouTube page You just have to go to or go to the Super Deluxe YouTube page and watch his work On today's show he talks about getting discovered by Tim and Eric and how he's able to take what appears to be a simple video clip and Turn it into a bizarre truth a truth That is more true Than what the clip originally was that the the Steve Harvey having a meltdown on Family Feud video is Beyond genius go see his work. It's amazing. We're also joined by one of my heroes Dr. Katz Jonathan Katz Joins us via Skype for a meandering conversation about daughters wives and joke writing Speaking of joke writers Steve Young is back Steve is a comedy writing legend We've talked about him on the show countless times just you know, David Letterman show he wrote for David Letterman for Since the beginning he is a comedy genius We plug a gig On today's show that he did earlier in the week We were going to originally run this conversation with him on our Tuesday drop But because of the Muslim ban and the horror show coming out of Washington DC I just felt we had a play it today on Friday. So we're plugging a gig. He already did Steve is the co-author along with sport Murphy of everything's coming up profits the golden age of industrial musicals It's an illustrated history of musicals written for company conventions and sales meetings It's a book. It's soon to be a documentary and it's also a traveling show And that's the gig that Steve did in Brooklyn earlier this week, which was sold out He didn't need to plug it on my show also Tony Zaret very brilliant young comedy writer joins us It's gonna be a light show. So there's good news. There's good news people are making their voices heard I'm a broken record. I talk about five calls dot org All the time the number five calls dot org simplify your life Turn off the TV turn off CNN turn off MSNBC You need a digital detox. You need a television detox Go buy a hard copy of the Washington Post or the New York Times or the nation magazine or the Progressive magazine Or your local newspaper hold paper in your hands Get off the computer Because you're just constantly inundated and distracted a digital detox three times a day Go four hours without your phone on go four hours each day without looking at your computer Read a book off paper Read the newspaper off paper It allows your brain to focus for long stretches of time without Interruptions, you know, there's a form of PTSD going on when you're trying to focus To relax just read and and then all of a sudden You know a message a phone call After a while your lizard brain starts shooting adrenaline because you just never know When you're going to be getting an alert about another crazy Trump decision Focus take a deep breath and go to five calls dot org This is a legal uprising that's going on in our country. There's been an awakening. This is bigger than the Tea Party echoes of Occupy Wall Street people know what they want and they're making their voices heard Five calls dot org and there's been good news uber very controversial company We did a story about uber on our show about two years ago. The episode is entitled uber sucks Travis Kalanick is the immigrant Owner of uber. It's still a private company. They're about to go public The chief executive of uber Travis Kalanick met with Donald Trump in December along with all the other Silicon Valley Tools and he agreed to sit on Donald Trump's economic advisory council but then the immigration order came down Friday where Americans are gonna have a moratorium on accepting refugees from seven Muslim majority countries and Protests broke out at JFK airport over the weekend. The taxis went on strike uber Responded by getting rid of surge pricing surge pricing at uber is no matter who picks you up the driver's name surge No, uh surge surge pricing if you don't use uber when when there's a big demand for Cars they triple quadruple the prices uber unfairly got accused of dropping surge pricing to capitalize on the Taxi strike that was going on to protest Trump's decision to ban Muslims from seven countries in all fairness to uber They dropped the surge pricing after the taxi drivers ended their strike and went back to work It was only a one-hour strike. It was on Saturday. It was just a one-hour strike But people overreacted people are gunning for uber and rightfully so they play hardball. They do whatever they want They introduced driverless cars in San Francisco without any permission From the city council they they act like Donald Trump build the building with the violations and then pay the fines later That's how uber thinks and that's how Donald Trump thinks. Well, there was a backlash to uber and 200,000 customers deleted their accounts after Lyft donated a million dollars to the ACLU And the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sent emails to various news organizations Accusing uber of being in bed with Donald Trump and a protest the New York Taxi Workers Alliance Organized a protest in front of uber's New York office out in Queens Well, there was a meeting on Tuesday that Travis Kalanick had with the uber employees And he said any questions and two employees raised their hand and they both said Why don't you quit Donald Trump's economic council and on Thursday yesterday Travis Kalanick quit he quit Donald Trump's economic council Elon Musk an immigrant sits on it He's the founder of Tesla and SpaceX and Mary Barra of General Motors Also sits on the president's economic advisory team GM as you know has had a lot of problems with the Obama Justice Department with their Ignition switches. I'm sure with Mary Barra of GM sitting on Donald Trump's Economic advisory team. She expects special treatment from the Justice Department Which she was not getting from the Obama administration 200,000 apps 200,000 uber apps were deleted because uber had a whiff of collaboration with the Trump administration So they can't count our votes, but they can count our money If you want to take back this republic, you have to vote But you also have to watch where you spend your money You got to keep an eye on where your money goes knowing that Elon Musk Is normalizing Donald Trump by sitting on his Economic advisory team I'm not buying any rockets from SpaceX. I refuse to go into outer space Using any of Elon Musk's engines The Tesla we have to ask ourselves if you can afford a Tesla, would you buy it? Knowing that Elon Musk has normalized Donald Trump Will you buy a GM car knowing that Mary Barra is normalizing Donald Trump? You cannot give Donald Trump and Steve Bannon any quarter We have to legally stand up to these fascists We have to challenge them. The only way to stand up to them is by going after the one thing they care about money They only care about money Be careful how you spend your money. Pay attention to who's in bed With Donald Trump. Matthew McConaughey just gave an interview in London where he said, you know, we have to hug Donald Trump That's not all right. All right. All right You know Matthew McConaughey, you think it's okay that we have to give Donald Trump some time and give him a hug No, you have to punish fascists by voting by calling your congressman and making sure you're not supporting the collaborators Matthew McConaughey is a collaborator If he says we have to hug Donald Trump He's a collaborator if Mary Barra of General Motors Meets with Donald Trump and sits on his economic advisory team She's a collaborator and they'll always say well, you know We want to seat at the table Because on the inside we can really if you get a seat at the table on the inside we can really affect change No No, you don't sit at that table Nobody sits at that table Nobody There's a big white tie charity ball Tomorrow Saturday at Mar-a-Lago. That's the Palm Beach Club that Donald Trump bought in the 80s They just raised the dues to two hundred thousand dollars in order to join Now you have to pony up two hundred thousand dollars to join Mar-a-Lago Trump who lost the popular vote by three million is flying down tomorrow lago This weekend and while he's there the american red cross will be Holding their annual fundraising gal. It's a white tie charity ball to raise money for the red cross Good organization, right? That's what you think It's the first charity that everybody goes to when you think of giving money to a charity Oh, let's give to the red cross elizabeth pennamon. She's the red cross's vice president of communication She would not come to the phone today. We called I couldn't get her on the line She said that the event at Mar-a-Lago had been booked many many many months in advance And she was asked well if you knew that donald trump had gotten elected president, would you still hold The event at Mar-a-Lago and she said well, we're not We're not political. We're just trying to raise money to help those affected by disasters and people who need blood And we want to support our military and their families and provide international Humanitarian aid that's what she said she said the red cross is all about providing international humanitarian aid meanwhile While they're busy raising money to provide international humanitarian aid They're holding a ball a charity ball at Mar-a-Lago One week after Donald Trump said there's going to be a 120 day ban on Muslim refugees from seven Countries there's going to be a ban on their coming into this country But the red cross normalizes Mar-a-Lago they are pretty much Giving their imprimatur their stamp of approval to Mar-a-Lago to donald trump by holding this event at his showcase resort Mar-a-Lago not only is the red cross making donald trump look benevolent By holding the event at Mar-a-Lago They are feathering his nest the red cross Is not getting Mar-a-Lago for free Donald trump isn't donating Mar-a-Lago According to the Associated Press The event is going to raise $925,000 well, that's a lot of money right you're pulling in a lot of money for one day's event But Mar-a-Lago is charging them $400,000 to put it on Okay, so do the math. What's $925,000 minus $400,000? What is it? It's uh $525,000 I believe right they're raising $925,000 it costs $400,000 to put it on They're hiring Mar-a-Lago's chefs their waiters the band The rental fees for the room donald trump is not donating that $400,000. He's charging The red cross $400,000 Because he sees charity as a way to make money Which is why the trump foundation the money donated to the trump foundation was used to Hire somebody to do a nine-foot portrait of our fearless leader the red cross Does not spend your money properly In fact, my friend robin adams found this for me. It's an article from the washington post from march 4th 2006 The headline red cross gave ousted executive $780,000 deal Former red cross chief executive marsha j evans received a severance package valued at about $780,000 After she was fired in december of 2005 Bernadine healy was the chief executive of red cross from 1991 and was forced out in 2001 She had been receiving a two million dollar a year salary plus a severance package Two million dollars a year to run red cross if you're making two million dollars a year You know you get fired. You're always thinking about your next job Of course, you would hold the event at mara lago and pay out $400,000 to put it on because That tells the plutocrats who are showing up for this black tie event that You play ball the money's getting spread around. It's not going to where it's needed It's going into the pockets of people like donald trump The money is getting moved around. That's the idea when you work for these big charities Two million dollars a year is a lot of money for anybody To be paid especially an organization that requires donations go to charity navigator charity navigator.org These are the 10 highly rated charities with low paid ceo's Okay The charity navigator says the median compensation for all registered charities is $150,000 a year It's a charity. You're not supposed to get rich off a charity when I donate money to a charity It's not supposed to go to the executives and people say Well, you know, how are you going to get a great executive if you don't pay them what they're worth You know what there are people who will do the job for $150,000 You don't need two million dollars to do the lord's work If you need two million dollars to do the lord's work, you're not doing the lord's work The top 10 highly rated charities with low paid ceo's Are the gospel mission. That's number one. It pays its ceo $50,000 disciple makers global health ministries napal youth foundation house of bread food bank of the Alburn oral united way of southern shatakwa county North country food bank incorporated valley outreach international children's fund International children's fund. They pay their ceo $63,000 charity navigator.org before you give money to any group Go to charity navigator.org to make sure you're giving Money to the right charities Make sure the charity you're giving to doesn't pay its ceo their chief executive $2 million a year like they paid bernadine healy who was fired in 2001 I don't know what they pay the current ceo of red cross But if they were paying bernadine healy 2 million a year in 2001 I bet it's double I bet it's a lot more If you go to charity navigator.org to look for charities with perfect scores, you won't see You will not see the red cross Under international Nope child aid direct relief Kids alive international meds and food for kids palestine children's relief fund Houston food bank Nope, don't see Don't see the red cross. I see the red cross going to mara lago I see the red cross holding a big party at mara lago this Saturday Where they're going to spend $400,000 to raise $925,000 I see them giving a stamp of approval to donald trump who's banning muslims from entering this country when the red cross Is all about providing international humanitarian aid and yet they're in bed with donald trump You have to punish these people you can't allow this You can't sit back and allow this you have to give to other charities And it's not good enough that you give to other charities You need to let the red cross know when you write the check to another charity You have to Send a note to the red cross and say because you're doing business with donald trump because you gave him your stamp of approval I am no longer donating money to the red cross the red cross Has a brand it's a brand it's it's the name you always go to so everybody donates to the red cross first article in the new york times about How to help the syrian refugees who do you give your money to well the new york times About seven months ago And they really do vet charities These are the charities that they recommended Hope for syria catholic relief services islamic relief usa interaction international rescue committee oxfam america doctors without borders I don't see The red cross here. I see the international rescue committee. I see save the children I see the world food program I don't see the red cross in this list of reputable Charities to save The refugees 60 million people around the world Were displaced from their homes In 2015 due to war Persecution It's the largest number of refugees since world war two World war two the syrians 11 million syrians have been displaced You know that picture of the three-year-old syrian boy dead on the turkish beach in september of last year We remember that But it's not just him And I don't mean there are other refugees who died I mean in his family that boy's father lost another son and his wife When they crossed the Mediterranean into Greece To get away from syria Right now in lebanon at least a quarter maybe a third of lebanon's population Is syrian refugees the united nations high commissioner for refugees Say that 4.4 million syrians have had to leave syria While 6.5 million syrians have just been displaced from their home and are living somewhere else In syria this is a crisis a magnitude that's almost incomprehensible And what does america do? We take 10 000 refugees We take 10 000 syrian refugees and then this president is installed Who says we're not taking anybody we're not taking he gets into a fight with the prime minister of australia over the weekend We're not taking anybody This is grotesque and for the american red cross Which says that it's dedicated to international humanitarian aid for them A week after this travel ban has been announced for them to stage this ball At mara lago and spend 400 000 to raise 925 000 The math isn't there to justify that pro publica pro publica has an article about the red cross the red cross which saturday is holding this big event at mara lago The red cross according to pro publica. It's i'll link to this on my website pro publica wrote peace with npr Speaking of people who waste donations But pro publica is a good organization pro publica. Here's the headline from this article how the red cross raised half a billion dollars for haydy And built how many homes do you think they built? for half a billion dollars six homes You may not remember but back in 2011 there was a massive earthquake in haydy The red cross received a flood of donations half a billion dollars The leader of the red cross Said we are on this and we are going to save the people of haydy collected half a billion dollars And according to pro publica they squandered all the money and lied about it according to pro publica the red cross Claimed that it provided homes to more than 130 000 Haitians. That's what they told us The investigation by pro publica shows They only built six homes pro publica goes on to say that it's part of a larger problem that it's not just haydy That they botched delivery of aid after superstorm sandy Even though it's the charity of choice for most americans and corporations They are unable to take that money and distribute What's necessary after a disaster the red cross They need to be put on notice if you give money to the red cross Instead of the other charities. I'm recommending through the new york times or charity navigator You are throwing your money away. I recommend that you go to charity navigator dot org If you god willing have any money To give make sure you go to charity navigator dot org And give your money and then send a note to the red cross telling them that you gave to i don't know doctors without borders Because of the red cross doing business and I do mean business with donald trump There is a protest outside the gates of mara lago for saturday. It's called march to mara lago for humanity 1000 people say they plan to attend the march There's a facebook page if you want to find out more information about the protest the facebook page is called march to mara lago for humanity And that protest is this saturday tomorrow outside Mara lago and as the red cross pulls up and the 500 plutocrats show up You will make your your voice heard and shame these people as as well. They should be five calls dot org the number five calls dot org Call your congressman call your congresswoman call your senator And five calls dot org will tell you what to say and who to call you type in your zip code And it tells you who your congressperson is who your senator is they give you five scripts and you call Your congressperson senator takes one minute And if you've been following this you know that the staffers Their ears are ringing We're doing good. We're doing good Well, I was going to talk about this raid that steve bannon ordered five days Into his presidency that left a navy seal dead and an eight-year-old american girl was killed in the raid Nobody's really talking about the eight-year-old girl. And I just want to mention Who she is This was a disaster there a navy seal team six did a raid in Yemen was five days into the the trump presidency The obama administration was reluctant to go through with this plan because The last time they tried an operation in yemen was in december of 2014 Seal team six stormed southern yemen to free an american photo journalist who was being held hostage by al qaeda But the raid was a failure the the kidnappers killed the journalist in the south african who was being held with them So the obama administration was a little reluctant to go through with this mission But steve bannon was salivating to to do something They went in chief petty officer william owens died A 75 million dollar aircraft had to be destroyed because it had been shot down This is the story that is just getting buried. We heard that an eight-year-old girl had been killed in the raid But they're really not telling us that she is the daughter of anwar al Owlaki He is the american born al qaeda leader who president obama killed in 2011 with a drone strike This is an extrajudicial killing of an american citizen. I believe they also killed his son later somehow Now the eight-year-old daughter of Anwar al laki was killed In this failed strike They killed an eight-year-old american girl now this was not a successful Raid everything that could have gone wrong went wrong This was a raid that the obama administration did not think was a good idea And yet afterwards donald trump Said it was a tremendous success that this raid that was that was approved of by steve bannon and jared kushner and defense secretary jim mattis On sunday trump said this was his first counter terrorism operation. He said it was a tremendous success He claimed that seal team six captured important intelligence that will assist the us in preventing terrorism Against its citizens and people around the world But we're hearing otherwise The reason i mentioned this There are two reasons one is we killed an eight-year-old american citizen who is the daughter of American born al qaeda leader who we killed without a trial We also killed the american son of anwar al owaki Was that an accident Or did they intentionally kill the daughter of this al qaeda leader? That's the first thing Secondly This was not a successful operation And trump is lying to us And saying it was a success. We're learning otherwise When his approval dips even further He's going to take us to war And I said this After the inauguration when the president looks at aerial photos of his inauguration and says There were more people at my inauguration than there were president obama's these photos from the park service are lies these photos From the press are lies when the president lies over little things Like how many people showed up to his inauguration He's going to lie on the much more important things Like seal team six raids in yemen That didn't go well There's going to come a time And the not too distant future When donald trump is going to address america from the oval office Telling us why we need to commit troops Somewhere someplace Are you willing to believe him can you trust him to send your child Into battle And that's why I say bring back the draft Because As long as american citizens don't have skin in the game We will believe Our commander in chief even though we know he's a liar As long as it's not our children Being victimized by not just the lies but the incompetence We will give donald trump a chance When he addresses us from the oval office and tells us it's time to go to war Are you going to let him take us to war? Are you are you going to believe him? Bring back the draft Let's have some fun Copy and paste the link to this show and send it to all your friends Coming up from super deluxe thick burger Do we know each other? um I don't I don't really think so. I mean I One of the first podcasts probably maybe the first podcast I ever got into was yours So I feel like I know you a little bit But personally, I don't think we do oh good. We can talk about me instead of you because you're a genius You really are I mean you're you I love your stuff And uh, thank you and I didn't want to Because I don't I'm not happy for anybody's I'm happy for people. Here's what I'm happy from happy for people's success But I'm not happy for there. I'm not happy for their genius Oh Because I don't even know how to describe you Uh, you have to really see what vik berger is doing on super deluxe on adult swim and on his youtube channel he I would say you're a video cartoonist where you take Actual video and then repurpose it for your own storyline It's a it's an art form that could only come about Now You you would you would not say so. Yeah. Yeah, you would not exist I'd say 10 years ago. Let me walk my audience through what you're doing because I don't know if they've seen your stuff So just let's do some short quick questions and then we'll get to other stuff. What is super? What what is super deluxe? It's uh, they're a media company. Um, it's it's owned by turner and it's a sister company of adult swim and Basically, it's a lot of different artists that are making videos and writing Uh, you know pilots and and they're moving on to tv shows and everything But right now it's pretty much based online and what I'm doing for them Well, we'll get to that in a second. We'll get to that. Oh, yeah, sorry I just I just want to I want to get I want the audience to get the context of what what this is So it's right and it's kind of for it's sort of I mean geared towards, you know millennials. I guess in a way No, you know high school kids to you know people in their thirties They're owned by they're owned by adult swim Are they're owned by turner and and turner owns adult swim and super deluxe And So if people want to find what you're doing, they would just Type in super deluxe and go to the youtube channel Yeah, yeah, I think yeah type in you can yeah Just go to youtube channel or the facebook or the twitter type in super deluxe and then um on on youtube and And facebook the the videos that have an orange logo in the left hand corner are the ones that I make Okay, I have a lot to talk to you about I just want the but a lot of my listeners Need to know before we get there and who are tim and erin? I'm ashamed to have to ask you this question But who who are right? They're they're uh geniuses. They're absurdist artists that um do comedy And they have they run a production company make some of the funniest things out there. Um Like Nathan for you is an example of one of their shows that they do Um, but they they they did a show called tom tom goes to the mayor and then they did tim and erik Awesome awesome show a great job and tim has You know, he's been a they've been around a while and bob odin kirk picked them up and kind of They helped them through to show them the ropes when they were starting out and tim Kind of has taken upon himself to you know as he calls it pull an odin kirk and kind of helped me along and you know Show me what you know give me tips and critique my work and and kind of helped me You know become funnier in a way and and move me along and you know, and so I started working with tim Right if you look at tim and erik you would think they are the least savvy Show business are right. Are they are they savvy? Are are they on top? Yeah? Yeah Oh, yeah, they are they're together and and they're constantly creating things That's that's what I like most about them is that they're always making things even if it's like not for money It's just like like tim is just creating stuff all the time and and I just you know, I really admire that about them How did you end up on their radar through through you kind of went through it But what give me the process of what it's like to be discovered by somebody The phone call, I mean, where were you at the time and how that happened? Well, I like, you know Because i'm 34 now for the you know since high school and I uh, you know for the past 20 years I have been doing music and I I went to the berkeley college of music up in boston And I thought my producer our producer alex brazil went to berkeley college of music. Oh awesome. Oh great great. That's awesome um He or um, you know from from there. I thought I was gonna I wanted to be brian wilson Is basically what I wanted to do the beach boys And you know, I'd write all these songs and record them and And I got nowhere. So you know from there I got a day job doing music therapy for people with with disabilities and I did that for about 10 years And you know near the end of my career there I started getting into tim's show called on cinema Where it's him and um Greg turkinton Who is also you may have heard of neil hamberger. I love He's the guy who does this on stage I love neil hamberg He's the greatest. He's the greatest. Yeah Yeah, so so from there they they have this show and I would write a um every episode that would come out I would write a fans response In song to that specific episode And um, which you know tim liked and and I had a video attached to that So you just mailed it in video at it. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. You mailed it in I would mail it in like through I would email it in. Yes I'm solicited I'm solicited I'm totally unsolicited and I wasn't trying to like get a job in anything I just like making things and that was something, you know, that was the way to show You know my My what I was I like their stuff and I just wanted to do something creative and show my gratitude to them for what they're doing, you know, so um So I I sent in maybe eight of these songs You know based on specific episodes of their show And to you know to send it to them. I would make a quick video That was attached to them. So tim really liked them these songs and but I think I guess he liked the videos more Maybe because he thought I was a video editor So so he all of a sudden asked me to to just out of the blue Asked me to edit something for their oscar special that they were doing And I had never done anything like that And there was green screen involved. I never did anything green screen I didn't even have like I didn't have like a fast enough computer to do this So I had to like I I I put one on my credit card and I got a I got an apple computer that's fast and everything and And they sent me the footage and it has jonah praya in it and joe estivez in it And and yeah, it's crazy and and I edited it and thankfully it came together and they loved it So then I was an editor and that was only you know, that was only like three years ago Really? Yeah, and then from there I did a music video for neil hamburgers and and some other things Just picked up and I you know all of a sudden and you know, so I was doing this thing on the side as I was working, you know doing music therapy during the day So the fan became the fanny you became I All right, so we look let's let's talk about this for a second You had never worked in final cut or avid or I move what would not Okay, but obviously you're pretty if you went to berkeley school of music obviously you have some kind of mathematical Genius behind no, I don't want to use the word genius. Yeah, I don't use it. Yeah. Yeah because so but obviously you can You have that kind of mind where you can figure stuff out So, okay So yeah, so you you put everything on your credit card and you buy an apple and so what Program are you using? Well, like I had that like a like a like a like a sample version of Oh, what was it? Like final or and I forget what it was on my on my pc But then I started using final cut. So I got the 30 day free trial of a final cut and that's what I Started using and I'm still using today. It's you know, is it final cut 10? Yeah final cut 10. Okay, because the the final cut seven Is considered state-of-the-art one of the greatest video editing programs ever hang on for one second and then and then about five six years ago Apple decided to change final cut and they killed it at one point final cut was killing avid and then When they launched final cut 10 Everybody swore off final cut and went back to avid and now I'm being told that final cut 10 Has like a drag and drop simplicity right is variant. Oh intoxicating where you just get a it's like whittling, right? It's yeah It pretty much is it's very intuitive and you just kind of move things along It's it's it's how I like I didn't have any experience with the previous version So I started on 10, you know, and that and I found a very intuitive You know, I could that's where I did my first editing for tim on that And I learned it in like a day or two, you know You learned it in a day or two because you had to do it Because I had to do it. I had no choice. You know, I had to do it. So in turn My audience is gonna get mad because I'm going down a detour here. I apologize. So That's fine, but The thing with Having to make something If you have to make something You will learn just enough software In order to do it The same way The Ramones and the sex pistols learned just enough guitar to express themselves So people should not be intimidated by software they should just Make something And don't worry how good it looks or how good it sounds because I yeah I always say, you know, the the final product is what matters and the messages that you get across, you know Like no one is going to be I mean, like at least most people aren't going to be like What did you do here at this point with, you know, with the volume level or the eq? Did you need to roll off the highs here? You know, like nobody's going to really Pay attention to specifics. They just want to let, you know, see the final product and Whatever you got to do to make a good product in the end is is what you got to do. I think It gets down to soup That sure, you know, if you're eating soup and the vegetables aren't cut properly Or i'm a vegan so but you know, let's say you have chicken in there and It's If it tastes good, you don't care how it was prepared and you're willing to forgive some slights as long as it's For, you know, it fills you up. So tim and eric. So you sent this three years ago and then you I'm gonna let me Shut up. I'm excited talking to you um you Make these videos. This is what I think is going on and then you tell me I think I have this fantasy that you're sitting on a couch Watching 16 hours of television today in your underwear you find something Like, you know, uh, james bake or the evangelist's new survival food or you know, or you Accidentally stumble upon jimmy fallon rubbing donald trump's to pay and you're so enraged You just grab it off your vcr or dvr Mm-hmm and sit down and just start editing it and as you're editing it You completely repurpose it into another story. So you're no longer angry You kind of work out you kind of work out your rage at what you saw it so you can finally accept Accept it and then go back and watch tv Yeah, that's exactly what happens. Um, I don't watch that much tv though I'll be honest with you but I do Find clips online and and uh, you know people send me stuff to to anger me Like, you know that they want me to work my magic with and I do and and that's it's totally you're exactly right It's a way to work through my anger and You know of being upset and And most of the time, you know, when I finish these these videos I I do feel better, you know until the next thing happens till the next clip comes along but but I think it does it is a way to to work through my my stress about these things and and you know, I I don't always Have I don't always talk these things out with a lot of people because it's You know, sometimes it gets too heated or or whatever, but I just find I also i'm not super eloquent with with my um You know arguing or or whatever you want to call it in my conversation So I I find that when I do get mad it's easier to to make a video to show my point Well, it's therapy. It's music. Yeah Is music did you turn to music because you felt you're in articulate and could only express yourself through yeah, yeah That was a that was a huge thing. Um, you know, I think like a lot of people Um, you know In that age, you know, you know 15 16 we're trying to figure it all out what's going on and you know And I had you know, like a lot of people anxiety and depression and things like that I would turn to the art of music to to express myself and to To possibly, you know work through some things and and it always, you know I always thought did the complete a song or even just write something Uh to get something off your chest that you always can't you know work through You know, if you don't have the perfect way to work is to work it out and I think that that these videos have become an extension of that because Um, it does it does feel, you know cathartic in a way to To to edit these things things If you don't get them out of you it eats you up it consumes you So if you're angry, they're they're two directions anger can go it can go inward or outward Outward you can either fight with somebody Or or make art inward you self-destruct Is that is that a fair statement? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so definitely if you if you bottled it up for so long You know what it's not it's not good to keep all that negative energy in you So if you if you can find a way to channel it, you know any any form of art I think is uh important Art is sorry. Yeah art is necessary and I wrestle with that in the nude And then I get an erection and then I feel gay and Oh, hang on. I'm sorry. No, I oh wait a minute. That's another but that's something that's something I do at truck stops or the restroom Yeah um involves Bibles and men's rooms And yeah, I'm not proud of it. That's pretty cool. Yeah if you look at certain types of people In our in America right now there there's a lot of anger And and so it Anger is the colorado river if you can dam it up and Send send it into the proper tributary. You can create electricity or you can create Flooding you can create a tsunami of rage and lies. It's how you channel the mighty river Everybody has a mighty river Of hatred and hatred Is sacred I I I especially told this to my daughters That hatred and anger is is sacred and it has to be nurtured and channeled into sports music writing You know passion for the underdog and the two people Who harnessed it in 2016 were bernie and the guy who lost the popular vote by three million There's a right way to channel anger and a wrong way Not to admit that the anger is there Is the problem because then you have these red state republicans who are angry have no introspection so they eat they drink And they punch Right, that's what they do That's what they do. How angry are you? Um, you know, I think every morning I wake up. I'm like, how's it gonna be a New day and uh, I don't think about everything because I've been sleeping but then you know, I stupidly look at uh, trump's tweets and i'm instantly enraged, um Which which is not good to do but I mean I mean Like you said, you know, like we're talking about the Have to channel it for now and And uh work on some art and you know, but I'm honestly though, wouldn't you be Listen, he's a war criminal. He hasn't even started the war yet. I'm already I'm already I think we should put him on trial at the Hague right now and get it over with I mean, listen, that's a that's a little chase But even if president obama, we're doing a third term You and I would still be in a rage. We'd still be angry. Oh, totally right still find things to be angry about Yeah, there's there's stuff all the time, you know, I mean Because you know, there's there's a lot to be angry about and It's hard not to be angry. I think and there'll always will be Something to be there always will be right, but now there's something That's made me angry than I've ever been and I think a lot of people too You know it's having mr. Mr. Trump in the White House. Yeah, and I just to the listeners I want to get back to your art and how you create and push your stuff but I want the listeners to understand that hatred doesn't go away It never disappears. It just moves into art And you'll always have this hatred and anger because you're human. We're vicious people and that that that hatred can be passion and can Bring down walls Not just in government, but you know love and if you if it's it's it's the juice Hatred is the juice love is the juice and hatred is the juice and hatred can be a beautiful thing Anger can be a beautiful thing When you when you're using it properly Okay, let's get back to I I apologize. Um, I'm always I'm always saying I'm sorry. Where'd you grow up? Yeah, where'd you grow up? I I grew up in Pennsylvania you go up where? Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where the Bethlehem Steel is right or what if I should say? Um, how far is that from Pittsburgh? From Pittsburgh. I think it's seven hours about so what what on the other side? Yeah What I mean, what is on the other side of the state? What's the city that you look to to move it, you know when you grow up in What is it Bethlehem? Yeah, Bethlehem. It's right next to allentown It's you know an old steel town that and the steel hasn't been, you know Running since I don't know the early 90s. Like I said shut down So we have You know on in the city is a huge All these, you know blast furnaces and rusted out, you know machinery just like sitting That's what you see when you drive through the city Um, but they're you know slowly starting to like revitalize it and of course a casino came in On the grounds of that, uh, but it's it's you know, it's a nice small town You know, there's good restaurants and it's your average town. I guess you would say but it has Steel stacks in the background. Yeah Pennsylvania and there's yeah, Pennsylvania is The second prettiest state in america. I think new mexico That's the opposite end of the coin Uh, but pennsylvania is the most beautiful state in america. There's it's one of the Best kept secrets in america. Yeah, there's um, I mean driving through, you know, I mean It was obviously more populated on on the ends of it, uh, you know, pittsburgh in philadelphia But driving through there's a lot of farmland. There's a lot of beautiful Areas and there's a lot of nothing to you know going going through there through the center of the state Well, and uh, the trees, you know, sylvania. Yeah, the trees. It was pennsylvania was named Because of all the trees sylvania means trees Uh, or a tv. I can't remember but uh The wood that's known for its wood. I think jerry sandusky when he used to call me and say I've got so much wood How old are you? I hate myself. I just hate I do. I just I'm just not good at anything You can be driving on june 21st You know the longest day of the year the sun is shining and you're driving through pennsylvania You look to your right and you see the trees and it might as well be nighttime. It's so thick inside those forests You get up every morning and how do you know what you're going to do? I I don't I mean some you know, it's a lot of times I'll I'll you know skim through the internet and and get enraged about things and Usually whatever, you know pisses me off the most. That's what I start working on um, but often I'm I'm you know, I try to Did I do you know A lot of the politics stuff that I I work on Got more well known obviously because of the the election and and everything and all the debates and everything that we're going on But I do try to to work in pop culture sometimes too to change it up a bit So it's not always so dreary. So I'll you know, I'll work with jimmy fowlin You know edit him doing some interviews with people or or like steve harvey or you know, a lot of these daytime Oh, the family feud thing That's me that was You just cut family feud The right way and you just showed steve harvey hating his job You just decided it was a new episode of family feud where steve harvey was having a meltdown and decided he no longer It was it was a It became a tragedy Right, right. He's living in his nightmare. Just repeating over and over again. He just wants to get out of it Am I done? How do you how do you arrive at that? Do you are you watching it? And you say, okay, I'm gonna this clip here if I take out the audio I can make it look like steve harvey has finally realized that or do you start Go ahead. Oh, oh I mean because I watch it and a lot of times like I'm thinking like what You know, if you would change the context of a certain look What could you imply, you know, and and I think it's really funny because the show is so Like light-hearted and and dumb, you know, everything like there's nothing serious about it. It's just like people shouting You know vulgarity that steve That it's funny to take it to a dark place and and that's my my first instinct is to take it to a dark place Like a sad sad state like I did with jeb But um, I think it's just funny to try that out. But yeah, it really comes from looking at his His his facial reactions of just staring, you know often the distance, you know And just taking that, you know with the music and the and the mood to to take it to a different place And um, but is it true? I mean what I the the steve harvey thing I watch I watched that and I'm thinking well, this is the truth Yeah, right. I mean did you feel like do you feel like This is what is really happening Yeah, yeah, definitely because he's you know, he's doing an act and and and the shows are always the same the same thing happens And and he but the thing is he's the highest paid Uh tv guy he gets like something like 14 million a year to do family feud So, you know, he's he's got to stick it through to to get that paycheck So I think it there is some truth to that that he's just going through the motions Doing what he has to do to cash that check I I don't usually tell anybody this but I get paid 16 million a year to watch family feud I that's how much amazing. Yeah, they have to pay me 16 million a year just to watch family How are you able to sit through an episode of family feud? Are you able to enjoy television? Can you sit for like six hours a day and just veg out in front of the tv? No, no, I can't I can't really do that. I Whenever I try to like to watch something Um, well for also we have kids too. So it's kind of tough like we aren't really on kids right now So it's kind of tough to do that anyway, but but yeah when I'm watching something You know, I'll if it's if it's like news or anything like that I I am, you know, usually fine. I find something that I want to you know, make fun of or edit or something You know, there's some guy in the background doing something Um, so that's why maybe it's good that because I did a lot of work on uh, on vine So and that would that would take up a lot of my time because it's only a six second video And I but I would you know be looking to make a vine all the time whenever I'm watching anything So maybe it's good that it it closed up so I can have some more free time But I'm not focusing on all these moments, you know, are you videotaping your kids every move? Are you living in the moment? Are you high or is your eye inside a camera? Trying to capture everything or it's it's split between that say I do I I am thinking about all this stuff all the time and I'd like to shut my uh Internet and everything off and my editing is awful and take a break for a while But right now it's it's kind of tough with all that's going on. Do you do it? Do you do a Sabbath? Do you do? Internet detox I try to do that I did um, yeah, it was great at at christmas time around christmas time. I um I took like two weeks off of twitter and and that was that was nice to to just You know not think about that and it does help your brain, you know to uh To not be always focusing on that. So I would like to do that more often So it's but it's tough though too because I you know, I have to If i'm not creating these things I I can't pay my mortgage so I You know, I mean, so I kind of have to do it in a way, uh To to make sure I can pay the bills Yeah, let's talk about chubby checker because that one I found I that one I found very disturbing Uh because Uh He you obsessed on the move the twist the move and I began to realize that There was um, but the the thrusting that he was doing in the early 60s Was more menacing than Right, is that yeah, totally totally and and he like nowadays He's he's getting up there. So he'll just explain to the audience like what what this dance is and and but Nothing, there's nothing dirtier though than the the hawkle buck if you've seen him talk about that. It's disturbing So all these dances are basically him mimicking, you know, having sex. That's what you're doing. That's I mean I I I didn't um I want to be careful here because there's almost okay, so This is art you're making art and the perversity of the chubby checker video. This is the way it affected me At first I thought Is this racist? Because it's it's it's chubby checker in front By the way chubby checker Was tell us who chubby checker is first and then I'll tell you my artistic. How why this is art and Disturbing chubby check So he in I think it was 1959 He re-recorded um Like a hit called the twist. It was a hank ballad song hank ballad wrote it and And chubby was like 18 or something at the time and I think so in high school He he recorded he sang on the twist and then they put that out and it became a hit and then they had him You know go around the country Pushing this move that he borrowed from some other performer. I think Um and but he pushed this twist and he was known as the man of the twist, you know the The the twister or whatever you want to call him He was associated with that dance and he would go around to high schools and everywhere Was he from pennsylvania? Where was he from? He is yeah, he's from I think art more. I believe which is no My filly there. Um, he still he still lives there. Okay, so great art great art is disturbing And this is you're an artist. So this is what I experienced Watching the chubby checker video that you made Chubby checker To me is like bill cosby also from pennsylvania right and Chubby checker came about At a time when people like pat boone were stealing from black performers Everybody everybody stole music from black performers in the 50s in the 60s And the rolling stones are still you know leds out. They're all stealing. Hey, all right So chubby checker was hey, what what if we push a black guy who's non-threatening as a High pitched voice smiles a lot and Why don't we just have a black guy steal from black people Right. They even took his name from from fat domino, you know chubby checker fat domino What's his real name Ernest Evans Ernest Evans. Yeah, that would be more threatening than chubby checker Right. Ernie Ernie Evans would have been great. Okay. And so now you have At the height of The civil rights movement or the beginnings of the civil rights movement a palatable Black guy who would be no threat to White men Not white women because black men are a threat. This is what I this is I'm haunted by your video black men Are a threat to white men Right Right, right That's why there are that's why lynchings Existed You know and we've just found out that Emmett till his the woman he Allegedly whistled that finally she finally gave an interview last week and said yeah, I lied so So now I'm watching your video And he's menacing in your video and he's and that thrust and his bulge And I'm thinking wait a second. Is this racist? I never I never thought of it that way. I I um because I grew up, you know Listening to trevagenica's greatest hits and everything and I I more I never I never Thought of it that way of taking race into it. But um, but I see how you can though I see not it. Now you mentioned it In the video more of yeah Go ahead. I thought it was more of the of this like, you know, this Gentle man who who has you know, hit a couple hit songs and he's like this real nice guy, but And then but the more I would watch him I would watch like a lot of his live performances where he would bring up women From the audience to twist with and he would get, you know, a bit too close As he's doing it, but but but he's this old man. So he just got to let him do it Just got to do it. He doesn't know what he's doing, you know, but but I but he does Appear to know what he's doing When he was so this is you know, so then I went back And watched him From you know at the height of his fame in the 60s Yeah, wasn't he feeling Because I watched your video and the thrusting and the balls that I'm thinking You all think I'm a nice guy Yeah, but I'm your women. I'm exciting your women and you don't even know that Wasn't that the message of your video? I think it was that that's pretty much where I was focusing on this Yeah, he's he's not who you think he is There's a dark. There's a darkness here. Uh, it's a chubby. Uh-huh That's a watch out for the chub Yeah So I wrestled with this because I'm thinking Because the same way I'm wrestling with you know, bill Cosby who presented himself as this harmless Black performer who was no threat to black men No, it's a white man. Morals, you know, yeah Uh, and then I think And that's what art is and now I'm reading way too much into your video Yeah I don't know. I mean, I think I mean I wasn't I was kind of like always like the focus It for me is I want it to be funny rather than you know, always making a point, you know But I want the the humor to outweigh the Whatever point I might be making But but I think that I think it was More more that you don't you know, this chubby is somebody else. He's he's not exactly what You know avatars it tires and record companies wanting to think he is there's there's a little darkness there Does it bother you if people bring their own baggage? to your art And see something like like me just now I saw something that wasn't there because I have my own agenda Is that right? Is art supposed to Be a representation of the artists Slant or can it be used By the viewer to bring their own slant to the art and is that why some art is so nonspecific Yeah, that's something like I kind of struggle with a lot because I I did a whole series of the of the republican debates There are like 12 of them. I think and I made an edit of each of those and As I'm editing them I made trump into this massive bully which he already is but I made him even more grotesque and more hideous and And just constantly, you know, his main target was jeb bush so Through that the you know the line jeb is a mess kind of came in came into it and that would be His repeated line that he would use it and everything but I found That as I'm making trump look more and more disgusting and more horrible and this big bully that trump supporters Grabbed on to my videos and were they love them They look like so so they're misinterpreting what I was creating And I mean eventually you got to the point where Where people are sending me pictures of themselves at trump rallies wearing jeb is a mess t-shirts And and and there's even video of Of somebody yelling, you know Trump is talking about jeb and somebody yells. He's a mess. He's a mess and like trump starts laughing So it got it just became this weird, you know, that you know Backfire in a way, I guess that that these people are misinterpreting what I was creating And I don't I mean It's it's weird. I don't know. I so I struggle with that So I don't know how exactly to handle that but I mean I was more Uh aware of that as I was as I moved on from there that That all of these people really they like the things that I hate most about trump Well I forgive me Play-doh, I'm gonna get to a point here just indulge me because I'm trying to impress you I'm just trying to make you like me. That's all I'm not there. I'm not quite impressed yet All right, okay. This might do it. So maybe this will I'll bring up play-doh because that will intimidate you into thinking. Oh play-doh, right like play-doh Yeah, yeah, yeah And I'm making this shit up he never said this Okay, all right No in the republic Which I read Every day I'm kidding but in the republic And how to run a perfect democracy. It's play-doh and socrates Play-doh Was against poetry and music Because he felt it obfuscates. Do you like me using the word obfuscate? Do you love me now? Do you love me? Do you respect? I want you to like me I know. Okay. I do. I do. I do. Okay. All right. So he's against Music and poetry because it doesn't say what it means and it confuses the citizenry and you went to Berkeley School of Music and you taught music therapy. I've always resented musicians who are political because Ronald Reagan played born in the usa at israelis You know all these republicans co-opped left Leaning jackson brown songs because nobody really it's you know, it's a great Tune and it can be whatever you want and even the Beatles you say you want a revolution. I mean even that is saying Not so many parts of that those lyrics are to calm down Right people right but people shoot because the tagline and and yeah They don't get it and I even like you got like chris christy is like Is brist springsteen's biggest fan? He's been to like 300 springsteen concerts But he doesn't know how he doesn't know what what the lyrics mean. He doesn't agree with those lyrics If you were truly truly to understand them, isn't that obscene that chris christy? Yeah, would horrible He doesn't read lyrics or the side of a hostess cupcake Packaging to see what's inside. I went to a My friend jeff ross the roast master general of the united states Which by the way, that's not an official cabinet position The roast master not yet not yet. Well, they made a president actually so Jeff was performing for these hedge fund managers julian margolis The good wife she's married to a hedge fund guy and it was a christmas party and southside johnny and max Weinberg and tom morello from rage against the machine were performing and Jeff said I have to go down there and do 15 minutes of comedy and then I said tom morello is performing So I went with him and you know, I love southside johnny and you know max Weinberg and but tom morello and he did in front of these Sea suckers, I can't say the word These m m effers who just tanked our economy. He starts doing the ghost of tom jode The bruce springsteen song And and some and they're jumping up and down Raging against the machine And I you know, I don't drink so i'm in a constant state of where's my baseball bat I got to crack some skulls and these the euro trash super models who are smoking even though you're not allowed to smoke inside And they're jumping up and down and i'm thinking well F music if tom morello Can sing the ghost of tom jode In front of hedge fund managers and they're jumping up and down and having a great time f music And play dough is right. Socrates was for music Nobody You music music doesn't it just makes you feel good. There's no many people are going to get pissed off. So you're you're being misinterpreted Right does it and are you okay with that? And is no no no, I I mean I don't want to be misinterpreted. Um, and I don't I don't want those kinds of fans. Um But I mean so I so Well, you know when I found that out um, I Did you know, I was like, all right I got to be a little more pointed, you know with with these videos and and that's how you know That's where I did a video of megan kelly interviewing trump And I think that was one of the first Or where I was like, okay I'm gonna you know think about what I really want to say here and what what point I want to have and But have it be I still wanted to be funny, you know, I wanted to be funnier than the point But I still the though, you know the percentage of funny versus The point I'm making you know Became closer and and that's the one where you know, they're in trump tower And there's they're they're interviewing and trump's trying to whatever he's saying But down on the street below him, I keep cutting to the riots and the police fighting with you know And you can hear throughout the whole video you can hear they're like Ah, I'm like yelling and everything and all those horrible stuff going on as they're you know having this conversation about how many twitter followers trump has Do you uh one of the One of the my greatest joys is watching robert smigel Editing triumphancel comic dog and marty short editing Jiminy glick because They laugh hysterically When they're not not all the time, but I mean they actually get joy From these characters they created and laugh at the character. They're able to Disassociate themselves from that. Do you laugh when you're editing? Do you start cracking up and laughing or is it just very serious? It's it's usually, you know, if it's one of these bigger videos You don't have to answer the question. Yeah, I don't want to hear. I just wanted you to know that I know Smigelin marty short, so we'll move on. Yeah Anyway, socrates no go. I'm sorry. I go ahead No, I yeah, I do I um But usually if it's something like really horrible that I'm working on that's really depressing It'll take longer, but but usually I know it's a pretty good video if there is a moment that like Really, you know makes me laugh out loud Um, and then and then I know I'm I'm doing something pretty good, you know And what's the feedback that you get? Because you know with stand-up you can hear the audience laugh. Yeah How do you know that you're not crazy? Because usually Yeah, usually usually um, I mean it's I hate it because it's it's usually these You know comment sections or or you know replies and tweets or whatever And I I really try to stay out of the comments because they're dark And you don't really know what everyone's intentions are right I get a lot of these trump people that are so mad at me that That their their big thing is because they know they know it upsets me They'll say your videos used to be funny during the the republican primaries when you're you know, when you're doing the edits of Of Trump during that date. Well get to that in a second, but let me get back to where I mean the the problem with doing what You're doing and tv in a bubble without a live audience is Where do you how do you get sated? You know numbers I have found You get a number and no matter what the number is It's never good enough. So how do you feel nourished? How do what's the feedback that sates you? You can go for a walk and say that was good and How do you find the the satisfaction? Um I mean well people that I respect well if they if they tell me they like it like Like if tim, you know Will text me or give me a call or whatever and tell me he likes it then that's that's great But but there never I mean It's silence, you know when and when I am getting like when I'm reading these comments or anything like that or Or if if my boss is like, oh it hit a million or whatever, you know, it's a go. Okay You know, it's that's cool, but it's It's not really there. So I mean, I think I guess I have to still find that Find out what that is that would get that, you know, like like actually hearing people laugh That that is nice if I am able to do that like if if I show it to my wife and And she like she laughs then I guess that works, but there isn't really that the immediate, you know um reaction and And feeling good about it like like normal comedians get when they're on stage and so hopefully there's a way to So evolve that and make that happen for me one day, but To do a lot. I mean, maybe have you ever done live live shows where you show your videos? I did um at a neil hamburgers show about a year ago I played a couple videos and that that was the like the greatest experience for me. Um To actually hear people laugh at moments Would you consider would you consider would it would it still be art? If you Showed the videos to an audience To test them before releasing them Would it still be art because then you're letting the audience dictate? Oh, what's funny? Is it still art if you do that? interesting um I think I think so. I mean it's it's a different kind of of art of what you know It would take it to a different level more calculated um level and that would maybe help it reach A wider audience. I guess I don't know. You know, I don't I don't know. I I don't know if I would really want to do that but um But but that might be something, you know, I guess it would still be some kind of art I want to get to community and comments and fans and The internet and how it's changed the dynamic between artists. Yeah How are you doing on time? I'll wrap it up. I know you've got another thing to do. Oh, I don't even know what time it is I'm just Let's see what time it is here Okay, let me check real quick Oh, we're good. I got about five minutes. Good. Good. Good. Okay. I and you were incredibly generous Did I mention that I know robert smigel and martin short? How well do you know them? Do you know them very well? Uh, well, I've been able to quote socrates in front of them And ask them if they respect and love me for that Do they do they respond? What do they say? The neediness for me is is this when I do stand up I per For a day afterwards. I just feel satisfied with the internet stuff the podcast Or you know, we're working, you know doing a job in television It lights up a pleasure center in my brain For a nanosecond and I need more more more more. It's like it's it's like it's a slot machine It's I need more. This is not enough. It's not enough Right. Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, but you're but you're living there in all in town and I was going to quote billy joe, but you're living in Bethlehem. So it's you're around good people and with values and Um, let me ask you about community community is very important. You live in pennsylvania. There's a community there It's been stripped by greed and Globalization and there's also a community on the internet In order to succeed now We all have to reach out to our fans you Reached out to tim and harrick and not only connected with them It became a source of income A validation When what are the dangers? What are the pitfalls to? Communing with your community uh, it's um I mean a lot like most most I think people most celebrities would not respond to a fan like that. Um I mean, I get a lot of people sending me stuff You know wanting, you know, my opinion or or you want me to help them And it's it's impossible to to you know respond to all these people and help them You know do what tim did to me um But it but it's also, I mean it's it's scary for for you know to work with a guy that I've you know admired for So long and and like he's like a you know comedy hero of mine um a little intimidating at times, but Um But I'm sorry. Did I answer your question? I looked like it's your question. No, I was just thinking about The republic and what I could say next to like me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I might not have answered that Well, what do you what do you owe? What do you owe your community? You obviously there's the comment section You say right. So what do you owe them and? And is how how is it a rabbit hole? Do you fall down a rabbit hole sometimes because I find I get When somebody writes me What goes to good? I've turned this into me about me I get a comment when people connect with me on the website david feldman show.com I will respond and I get it lights up a part of my brain And then I feel guilty if I Don't respond quickly enough. I mean, how do you negotiate that? That's that's that's very tough. Um, because I I mean I do have my email address Dress out there for you know people to find and and they can find me on twitter and everything But it's I I mean you just have to some people are just good at they may have a policy of not responding to anybody Or you know the only you know a handful of them and you know, I'm not you know Super famous or anything. I don't have like, you know hundreds of emails coming in But I do do get enough where the people admire my stuff and and want to tell me that so Those I try and respond with with like a thank you very much. I really appreciate thanks for watching you know that kind of thing um to You know because it took the time out of their day to to write me, but um It's I also, you know get a lot of you know, like critical stuff That's more just hate because mainly because of the trump stuff, but so I try and ignore those and and you know just Think of your think of those people Not the bad people, but the good people as you you know how when I would write tim You know I don't expect them to give you something don't expect, you know Exactly what you're looking for just you know Uh respect your idols. I guess respect those people and know that they are people and they're they're not going to be They don't not everybody has you know time in their day to the focus on you forever, you know, so And You've been very generous with your time and I you'll come back Oh, definitely. I would love to okay. Thank you Very quickly. I you can respond to this any way you choose Because I don't want to bring up the other stuff that you went through because it's just oh, yeah Yeah, and yeah, but this is what I tell you if you ever want to talk about it. I yeah Yeah, I I do and I don't because it's But this is what I tell my listeners and then we'll wrap it up Sure, they're only 24 hours in the day Right, and you want to spend time Uh channeling your rage and making love loving the people around you and that the internet Is a succubus and you'll go down certain rabbit holes Interacting with people to light up your brain, but really Signifying nothing You'll you're not going to move certain people all you can do All you can do is make them stay home on election day Do you think without going into specifics that you may have wasted time? Dealing with those people Dealing totally. Yeah. Yeah Oh, totally. There's no doubt about it. Um I mean, I I saw it, you know from the start as more of something to to poke at and and satirize in a way Because I was dealing with these people that are, you know, do all right Pizza gate conspiracy pushers and I saw there's something There's an opportunity to to laugh at these people and laugh at, you know The horrible mess and point out also there's an importance because people in trump's cabinet are part of this This thing this pizza gate stuff and general flin and his son and everything So there was that tie to trump. Um that I thought need to be seen and a lot of people didn't know about it And so yeah, but but in the end poking at them Yeah, they wasted way more time and and a lot of horrible mess, you know happened in there and You know death threats and everything so so yeah, so I mean I don't know what the right way to to deal with these people I guess maybe ignore them and and not give them any legitimacy and Don't you know, don't mess with them. But on the other hand that guy is running for congress now so So but but like you said it what I went through was it was probably a time waste Yeah, but and then this guy this is I wrestle with this because I have to let you go, but I wrestle with this. I I think that Fighting with people online Isn't real And one of the things that I've done is I've created an alter ego online D murphy I'm a retired CFO for fidelity investments And I live in pennsylvania, believe it or not and and I'm a republican. I'm a republican amazing. This is true I'm d murphy and I'm a female. I made it in the the male dominated corporate world And I go online and troll republicans as a republican And to kind of like creep them out and and to get into and I'm a woman. I'm d murphy So when I do this I wear dress and red lipstick and mascara Just because I feel it it helps get into character and Then I'll I live in new york and then I'll ride the subways all night As you're dressed as d murphy wearing a lot of Chanel number five knock off. I can't afford the real but I wear a lot of it I wear a lot and then I'll go into the men's room with bibles And I'll make eye contact with Runaways from minnesota. They usually have blonde hair And I'll just ask them to pray with me. I just and next thing I know I'm black and blue And waking up next to a urinal crying Being poked at by the police And I guess what I'm saying is you got to be careful with the online stuff Yeah, that's my yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, especially if I'm using my real name So I gotta I gotta put some lipstick on is what you're saying Hey vic thank you so much for putting up with me. Thank you david. I just want you to like me. It's so important I I like you. I'd be like me. Okay. I do. I do like it. You're I'm it's an honor to have you on the show Let's give all your information So that people Can watch your work and contact you to tell you how much they love and appreciate you Right You can um, you can find me on twitter It's it's vex v i c burger b e r g e r I v because I'm the fourth. Um, are you really burger four? I am. Yeah, I'm the fourth Yeah, wow, we uh, we we stopped it. I have a son, but we didn't name them vex So we don't there's no chef. We didn't do that. I would have been overkill But I wouldn't it would have been cool. It would be v burger v Right v v v. Yeah, you know, I don't have a middle name. So but We didn't do it. So me maybe maybe if we have another son, we'll see I'll let you know I'll keep posted on that. Um, last question you can check Oh, yeah, or and then also super deluxe too. You can if you go there, um, you know on the youtube facebook Twitter and you can see my videos there. Okay before you go this I've made a decision to ask all my guests this question People who I truly respect Okay What are you most successful at and why why are you most successful at the thing you're most successful at? I think it's because I what are you most successful at? Um Well, I guess if I mean in the arts, it would be it would be video editing even Um, even though music was my main focus, but I would say if it's you know career oriented, I would say it's um It's a video editing and that would be because You know, I tried to make myself laugh first. The audience was myself And I wasn't trying to gear the work that I was doing towards a specific audience and trying to Make money or anything like that. It was trying to be true to yourself. I think it's really the key Vic Berger will talk to you later. Thank you. Thank you, David Coming up comedy writer steve young Friend me on facebook follow me on twitter and give us a good review on itunes This is so exciting. I love bringing two people together. This is a good booking alex Once again alex puts two great people together Steve young I'll introduce you in a second. You're no stranger to the show Thank you. This is my third time. That must mean that we're both enjoying it. Yes Tony zaret great to be here You are a comedian. Yes a comedy writer. Yeah a very Influential internet person. I think that's probably really what I'm most known for Tony zaret Well, you're writing for scott regowski's running late show. Yes, you're very funny comedian And today we're going to talk steve. You're going to love this guy because He's into the same stuff you are. All right. Well, I'm leery any time someone says you're going to love this person No, you guys are I hate almost everyone and everything Including you have I mentioned that we'll get into that He is into minutiae things that have no bearing on the world. No, all right. You're right. You win I like He he spends most of his time looking for things that just will have That don't move the ball forward for anybody other than himself. Well, I respect that. I find that I've made a great deal of uh, if not career, uh material at least personal and artistic satisfaction out of Finding the things that other people thought were not worth looking at yes, and we'll get to that in a second Uh, Tony zaret is a curator of bad content Much like steve young Now you've gone too far You find dank memes. Yes. Well, I uh I would say that the memes when I curate, uh, I don't uh Tend to find uh dank memes dank memes are memes that are deliberately made to be kind of wrong or bad I like to find uh memes that I guess you could say are unintentionally dank Uh dank meaning kind of absurd. Uh, this is internet content. That's so Bad so stupid. Uh, you can kind of see the sense that how someone would think it would make sense But it doesn't and it's just a great window into kind of how Poor the human mind can work sometimes. Uh, you know, just stuff like it'll like a picture of a minion You know what a minion is A minion is a little yellow. Oh, I thought you meant however many people get together for a jewish Yeah, ten ten men get together. That's also called a minion. Well, get with the times Y a n Well, that those kind of minions are dead because today's teams like these little yellow cartoon characters And what people will do they'll take them and then they'll put them over some text That's like you think you're gonna can we curse on this podcast? I'd rather you know I won't you think you're gonna f with me. No way You know I'm I'm the queen and it's just sort of like weirdly aggressive Sort of text on like children's pictures tweedy bird will often be on these things. Yeah Well, you're about to meet somebody who is your hero and you don't even know it really have you met steve young before Steve young. I mean he seems awesome. He hates everybody And he uh, what uh, why don't tell me more. All right. Well, first of all, I sometimes oversell the hate I'm usually a rather cheerful joyous person. Yes, and uh, I bring out the worst and you do I don't know why I keep coming back here. I'm already seething with rage I tend to wish the best for humanity and and and Want my fellow man to progress and have a wonderful time on this planet Person by person. I'm very skeptical But I I do find enough People out there that I I like in respect to feel like it's worth continuing. So, uh, how should I sum myself up to? I'll sum you all right. I'm gonna brag about you. Yes I'm gonna brag about steve young Whenever you mention steve young's name to a comedy writer They just you ever see a baby the first time it experiences gas I mean, I can imagine they get the same look on their face when you mentioned So you're saying it looks like people are smiling. They're actually grimacing. Well, it could be Steve young is uh Considered to be let's say one Of the greatest comedy writers in the history Of comedy writing you are He spent I don't know. You were like 26 years with the letterman show 25 25 if I had come in for the extra year the show wouldn't have been there and it wouldn't have counted Yeah, well, he's a legend. Oh, that's awesome. Well, yes. He's a legend among comedy writers The meetings don't start until steve young arrives. That's the that's I've been I've been hearing things about you steve I've been hearing about you at the letterman show since we've worked together Meetings didn't start until you arrived. Well, I tried to be punctual anyway Mayan marty And that's where David and I met just last spring and you are presenting at the writer's guild awards Yes, uh, a dear friend and mentor of mine steve o donnell another I think probably Truly legendary comedy writer Is receiving the herb sergeant award the sort of lifetime great comedy person writer plus uh somebody who's known to be Wonderfully supportive of up-and-coming writers. He's receiving this award named for the late writer's guild president herb sergeant and I was asked if I would present it to him live at the ceremony since he hired me for the letterman show in 1990 and kind of took me under his wing and I've remained Friends with him and see him all the time whenever I can when he's in new york or if I'm in LA and It made him very happy when he heard about this which made me very happy I Were you saying something? I was just seething with so much jealousy and resentment. I couldn't possibly hear Who was herb sergeant herb sergeant? Uh, I think worked on snl for a long. Yes. He did. He ran the weekend update I think that's right. And then he was the writer's guild president for I don't know how many terms But he seemed to be one of these Eternal names on the correspondence that you received during a certain generation and I think he passed away in 2005 maybe So I think the guild and the membership decided oh, we need to honor his great efforts and work and spirit through this award for recognizing an outstanding comedy writer who may not be nominated for something specific this year or who knows when but Yeah, steve o'Donnell of course very self deprecating and Doesn't believe he's deserving of an award which usually is not a bad clue that maybe he really is because he has the right sort of soul that Makes him downplay his own worth, but uh, you know herb sergeant. Yeah herb sergeant did something very smart When loren michaels was starting What's the show called saturday night saturday it's something it's something about a day part and not a tv guy Just mostly just looking memes. I don't even know what a tv is when loren michaels was starting saturday night live He met with herb sergeant for advice because herb sergeant was an older comedy writer And loren just assumed that herb would not be interested because the money wasn't good. It was on 11 30 Is it saturday night? I think it varies Whether it's the gregorian calendar or yes and uh herb said i'll work on this and loren was kind of surprised and taken aback that and and herb wanted to be around young people and wanted in on something that he recognized was new and exciting and Jumpstarted his career, you know, uh, so have you prepared any remarks? It's a little ways out yet. It's february 19th and I feel like I Will give it good attention when the time comes. I don't know yet. How long i'm supposed to speak for i suspect They don't want me to fill 20 minutes So I think it'll just be short sweet heartfelt Hopefully a couple laughs and then on to the real star who is steve o'Donnell And you're nominated for a writer's guild of work. Yes, I am it was a great Vindication for us on the maya and marty show that we got this recognition from our peers. There was a Some fine material on there. I'm glad that uh Got a got a little shout out and they're fun the writer's guild awards are fun because it's the union and It's like a clubhouse It's the one thing that I do remember I remember taking my daughter to the writer's guild awards in los angeles And this upset me in los angeles. They have a red carpet at the writer's guild awards And they wouldn't allow the writers to walk the red carpet. They said it's only for actors At celebrities this was the writers awards. These are the writers awards But they were only allowing the presenters Who the famous people to walk and I said the hell it is My daughter and I walked the red carpet and we stood in front of the paparazzi And I insisted that they take my picture. I did not believe that my own union was you're kind of a modern day rosa parks We're doing that Very brave I wouldn't have gotten up to to go to the back of the bus just because i'm i'm just too lazy I just wouldn't want to stand up and walk Well, that does seem absurd and awfully tin-eared. I hope the guild has not stuck with that policy Well, I first of all, I love the writer's guild and it's a miracle It's terrific. It's a miracles health insurance pension Just the assurance that you're not being Sliding down a slope into some sort of sweatshop area of television, which is out there but schulberg Who name names? Wrote What makes sammy run? And also wrote on the waterfront Which was directed by ilia kazan who also named names But schulberg didn't need to name names. He was very rich. His father ran a studio He wrote what makes sammy run before he named names or while he was naming names And at the end it's the story of the writer's guild I really recommend Reading that because it's the story of the miracle That writers in hollywood were able to come together And form a union which is still pretty strong Holding steady. It doesn't seem to be sliding backwards. I think it's very hard to Scratch ahead and make incremental progress, which does happen from time to time But at least you feel like we're not sliding backwards. Yeah But as I recall the guild in its modern form dates to about 1954 But prior to that there was some earlier version. It was just for movie writers Uh, you would know better than I I wouldn't necessarily except I guess I do I could pretend to know more That usually works for me Well, let me tell you tony zaret why you and steve are going to be best friends Because one of the jobs that mr. You're over at harry right now. I'm uh working on the harry connec jr Daytime show harry harry is a very charming talented energetic wonderful entertainer. Yes tony zaret one of steve young's jobs Besides writing brilliant comedy Was to research For david letterman to spend his weekends Kind of doing what you're now doing on the internet. Tell tony what you used to do Oh, well, if if you're referring to what I think you're talking about it was not for dav on his weekends This was a comedy piece on the show But you had to spend your weekends doing well I suppose eventually it became a little blurry about what I was doing for dav versus what I was doing for myself because I stumbled into a hidden world that Unfolded into a vast terrain which I'm still exploring I used to go out to Used record stores and thrift shops around new york to collect material for the dav's record collection segment Which if you were a letterman fan of a certain vintage you recall as Dave would hold up actual real unintentionally funny record albums. So already I think we're in your wheelhouse exactly the things that uh Made sense to someone at a certain time For whatever reason, but we now see through the lens of history or different smart ass perspective or whatever But he would play clips and he would have a joke, but it had to be real and unintentionally funny So I was out looking for stuff like that and for a long time it was The celebrities who were singing who shouldn't have been singing William Shatner was kind of the the mother low to that. I think that was mined out Pretty thoroughly by the time I even got there But it was instructional records and learn how to touch type and things like that you could get some funny clip out of But I started finding Souvenir record albums from corporate events that were not speeches But were full-fledged custom written musicals Many of which were on such an astonishing high level of production value and ambition and genius writing and performance I I concluded correctly that I had found I didn't know it at the time at first when I found the first few but it turned out I do believe it's the last Significant piece of 20th century american culture that had never been really looked at or understood because it had been Completely off limits to the public. It was only a show you could go to if you were a tractor dealer for ford Or if you were a coca-cola route salesman or if you were selling Munro Calculators or if you were an exxon gas station owner And if you were one of these people you would only see what your own company did and you never knew the 15,000 other shows that other companies were doing so for decades the money that poured into this stuff using Times real Broadway writers and performers to create this Dark matter universe of alternate show business that we were not supposed to know about and I peeled back the corner of it Just through this accidental encounter And that was 20 years ago, and I'm still going now. There's a book There's a documentary film the book name of the book and the book is called Everything's coming up profits the golden age of industrial musicals and I wrote it with my friend sport murphy marvellously talented and knowledgeable Music fan and is that really his name murphy? Uh, yeah Just wanted to do that. Okay. Sorry. You did it No, it's fine. Uh, so there was this book and the book has, uh Spawned two parallel movie projects now. There's the documentary film which I am A character in I mean you follow me as I Go to find out more about this and meet my heroes because much of my work was tracking down the people who wrote this stuff And performed in it who never thought anyone would ask them about their work Wow, that's rather charming to get these people decades later to realize somebody Knows what you did and thinks it's great and wants to talk to you about it And then the book has now been It was optioned and is now set up as a scripted movie Uh, the producer mark platt who's now red hot from la la land Has got this set up as a project at amblin and he's got Uh, will ferrell and christin wigg set to potentially star in it and he's got a team of uh song writers the guys uh Mark shaman and scott whitman who did the songs for hairspray who are gonna apparently write original music for it and they've got a a writer who's uh Very hot now from the dear evan hanson Show on broadway, which I have not seen yet and I mean too, but so this is not green lit It's not in production. I know very little about it other than what's appeared in the news, but it seems like a a terrific vindication of Just this kernel of curiosity 20 years ago about what is this? How much is there? What does it mean? what does it tell us about america and Corporate relations between the company and and employees and also If you're somebody who's writing this stuff or performing in it. Do you feel good about it? Do you feel proud about it? Do you feel conflicted? Like it's what did florence henderson say florence henderson Uh, the late great the late great florence henderson. So glad I got to meet her and talk to her when I did she was already established on broadway In the mid fifties and then she got married and started having kids and could not do like a serious broadway gig But she was asked would she had three kids of her own and then three kids from the other marriage Well, I guess that's unavoidable isn't to bring that in but well done So she was asked would you like a a nice short-term gig and she did like four years in a row With the oldsmobile dealer shows and these were hugely elaborate expensive musicals performed only for oldsmobile dealers and she Said to me that you you had to I don't remember exactly all the things she said It will have to watch the documentary when it comes out But she she said it was as good as anything you would see on that's true. Yes She says she would put it up against any Broadway show the production level of Expertise and craft and artistry the top examples of these really were I think Just shoulder to shoulder with what the world thinks are real standard toilet. What was the name of the Standard toilet. No, what was the American standard American standard toilet? They did all of different bathroom fixtures, but they now the American standard song book Those are these are these are all the songs that Gershwin and Irving Berlin wrote about toilets and b-days. Yeah There was a Toilet musical there was a bathroom fixture musical in 1969 for distributors of american standard Plumbing fixtures it was live in las vegas and then it was in atlanta and I only found out Quite a bit later after the book came out that there was a film version of it And I now have that thanks to one of the original cast members It's among the films that i'll be screening in brooklyn on february 2nd You will be at the alamo draught house. You've been touring the country Intermittently when schedule permits. Yeah With your kind of lecture series with Clips until the lost world of industrial musicals. You'll be at the Alamo draught house in brooklyn thursday february 2nd people should call the alamo draught house Oh, I don't think they want to answer phone calls. I think that the how would they buy tickets? Well the website of if you go an alamo draught house look it up on your Internet machine and then you'll find the the brooklyn location and if you plug in in the search box or whatever It might be featured somewhere by now but the lost world of industrial musicals and It's it's sold out a 90 seat theater in a few days and they moved it up to 170 seat theater. Wow. Wow So There there's only like 30 something tickets left there So I don't know what day this uh podcast will go out, but I hope a few tickets will be left I'm going it sounds wonderful. It sounds like you might be the right kind of person I didn't even realize there was this whole world There is one thing that I have kind of obsessed with which is this Wendy's training video, but it's from probably about 1990, but it's it's done. It's a wrap You had do you know this one there? Well, there. Yeah, there was a this is a related field Which I know I'm sure less than you know about but in addition to Dave's record collection for a while We were also doing Dave's video collection and we would get I think we were early adopters at the letterman show of some of this Stuff, but I've seen a kfc wrap training video about how to put together the chicken sandwich I think yeah, there's for a while the sort of Knock off watered down quote unquote rap music was a big way to go with the corporate training videos This Wendy's one just had my favorite line. It goes if a burger falls down Don't worry. Just scoop it up and put it in the chili And no, they didn't say that. Yes. It's in the it's amazing. They can't say that. No, it's in the training video This is Wendy's. Yeah, uh Wendy's see if the burger falls down. Don't worry. Just scoop it up and put it in the chili They're using the chunks of burger that have not Up to Wendy's standards. That's what the chili is and ever since then I've been very wary Of the sort of the I mean, you know, I I never assumed it was like Of the laying of the owner is to be wary Of ordering the chili I'd say, uh, yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's all you need and I believe that's the guy who ran Wendy's Proof it or prove it is now going to be our secretary of labor. Oh god. Wait. I thought it was Dave Thomas This was below Dave. I'm afraid I have some bad news about mr. Thomas. No. Yes. He's gonna live forever, right? Well, bad news is he's just he was on track to live forever and then something happened Apparently he ate at Wendy's Got thrown in the chili Oh, you're you're you're younger than we are. Yeah, and you go online The thing with Dave Letterman was you would see this stuff that steve and the other writers would find and you go I cannot believe That somebody actually took the time to make this but now with all the tools that we have Is it is it is still outrageous and shocking to you that somebody has made something? Isn't it Well, I think what we're getting is what's amazing an even lower quality Of content and a greater level of cluelessness because the tools have been democratized So now people in order to make A training video maybe someone writing the rap for a wendy's training video is not going to be as You know good on the mic as uh, you know, eric b and rakim, but that's a maybe by the way Maybe again, we don't know. I don't maybe they were the greatest people but now To make a meme all you need is I mean A computer the ability to type a little bit Uh, I'm sort of you don't even really need to know the language. Tell me what a meme is. Okay. Well Now I've gotten into trouble because there's kind of two definitions of a meme and I've got I've had I've been insulted on reddit by Because I tell me what an insult is all right. Well, here's the thing a meme there's I think of a meme is just any picture that someone Makes on their computer and posts online And shares online that that's like the but other people say a meme has to be something that is repeatedly Shared and used by lots of people it doesn't even be a picture But I get I guess that's the technical it comes from something Richard Dawkins wrote or something like that And like a nerd will yell at you about this But to me a meme is just a I Generally uses a picture that people share online a picture with text That's how I usually with text that seems to be how I mean, I'm sure 20 years from now somebody's doctoral dissertation will show the branching of the the trunk of the tree of meme into the 14 different major branches that we now know in the year 2041 or whatever. Well, I've gotten yelled at because Supposedly a meme according to meme purists has to be a picture with text But the picture has to be one that lots of people use right, okay Whereas if it's just a picture with text, that's they say that's an image macro Okay, but I mean if this is the kind of thing that's bothering you, I guess you need to sort of I don't know Let's go volunteer somewhere. I don't know. Can I ask a question? Sure Um, just as an aside, we'll get back to memes because I think it's important But what are some of the other reasons people yell at you? I mean I mean in real life. I feel like I almost I never get yelled at but on the internet I would say it's almost a hundred percent because of Posting memes and the wrong message boards. And that's really what makes people mad I mean, and I have you want anyone over by your reasoned discourse on this topic No, because it's if someone what I do is I if someone is kind of insulting me I start responding as if I'm I litter it and really stupid and just sort of see how long I can kind of draw it I guess it's trolling, but I feel that it's like yeah, you're a big stupid head. Yes, exactly stuff like that You don't know nothing. I'll call someone a libtard stuff like that. How old are you? Well, I'm 39. So frankly, I'm too old to be doing this Do you know what I mean? I should probably be curating vintage. So you're you're you're going online And you're looking for garbage. Yes And where do you go to find this garbage? Well, uh, number one place is reddit, which is kind of uh Just a message board that anybody can post to but my favorite place to get it is this, uh, nigerian spam Facebook group call it's called Facebook famous. It used to be called make facebook famous. It got shut down. There was a lot of Unfortunately pornography on there, but now it's called make facebook famous 2017 and I think it's based out of nigeria And uh, I just think you know usually with facebook They're very good at getting rid of You know add scams porn, but whatever maybe This page is still going and I just I love going on there because it's everything's really crazy It's one guy posted a meme on there is a picture of a woman with her hand down her pants and with the caption Do you master bath? Yes or no It was clearly a misspelling of master bait and the guy who posted it said he had the first comment He just said yes, and he was and other people like why are you asking this other people are like no One guy was like yes every day and the guy who posted it said can we be friends? So I don't know if they didn't Know that it's weird to talk about this in a public page or I don't so anyway, I kind of like the insanity of a master bath I think isn't is a nice Maybe it was a nice way of saying it. I think a lot of women use their You know sonic water I've heard about very close to getting back to the american standard music I would I don't understand. Is this a website or is it part? It's a facebook group and on facebook right facebook group is like you could sort of make your own website on facebook It's like you can you can start your own kind of page that people can go to Like-minded people right that can discuss stuff for example I was mentioning earlier that i'm a fan of uh, this was before in guitar Shredders and my favorite guitar shredder got you know guitar was this guy bucket head and I like to go these guys great the best for the engineer is having a bucket head I've heard of bucket head. Was he involved at some point with guns? He did he he played with them for about a year and a half But he quit what tell us what guitar shredding is okay guitar shredding is playing the guitar with the aim Not of creating beautiful music, but of impressing other guitar players with the number of notes and Obscure scales you can play In a short period of time So it's gonna stunt guitar playing in a way. It's our player. I'm uh, yeah, I'm not a shredder I'm an acoustic finger picker who actually cares about melody and harmony and pleasantness, but Those things have their place in a way We keep seeing different versions of this in different kinds of artistic endeavors there's the sort of mainstream where people live who want to Do something that's nice and Popularly appealing in a powerful way and then you get out to the edges where aficionados want to only impress other and aficionados whether it's by uh bizarre atonal modern music of the past 80 years or whatever that quote-unquote ordinary people would not want to listen to or Modern art that becomes so abstruse in its intent that Someone like me goes in the museum and say why am I looking at a painting of a gray square and being told This is important and it's playing on an abstract Field of discourse that makes no sense to normal people as something entertaining or engaging Is there that element in the shredding? Yes. I think yeah I know I've kind of got three steps away from what I was saying, but maybe we can connect but anyway bucket head Not that many people like it. The music is I can't I can't go anywhere I can't go to a bar and have a discussion about bucket head with anyone. You know what I mean? So I go there's a do you enjoy it? I enjoy guitar shredding the sound. I like it Does it make you feel good? You know it does I somehow it gives me a thrill It's like oh my god. I can't believe this guy did this. I I guess it's like people that enjoy watching skate boarding Yeah, perfect pitch Uh, no, I don't I but you know guitar is a fretted instrument So it's usually not that you play the guitar. I do play the guitar very well Well, I mean, I I don't want to say that. I mean, I guess I'm okay But uh, you know compared to a bucket head. I'm are you smoking dope or drinking while you're listening to this No, uh, I I don't I don't think you need to smoke dope. Uh, do you master bath? Yeah, I put what I do is I smoke some dope I put on some bucket head and I just master bath and to me that's a little date night with myself But uh, anyway, it's uh, I don't I guess it's the thrill of I seeing someone that has mastered a A talent but I can't find anyone to talk about it because it does not It does not fit what most people enjoy from music, which is this is pleasant as melody As my understanding of the internet is that you could find a million people who are into guitar shredding And that exactly brings me around to what facebook groups are Or reddit or subreddits, uh, which are the same kind of thing, which is uh, you don't have to make your own website you've just these overall Internet conglomerates like reddit and facebook allow you to make a page For your interests and then you can go Commingle with people that have the same interests So I was saying for example, like there's a bucket head forever Facebook page uh that I go to and it's just people posting about bucket head You know, there's a great meme on there It was a picture of an angry the joker from the Heath Ledger, uh, Batman movie And he's really mad and it said, uh, dr. Dre puts out one album every 16 years And nobody cares bucket head puts out 143 albums a year. No, I did this wrong. You see where I was going I blew the meme dr. Dre puts out one album every 16 years and everybody goes nuts bucket head puts out 143 albums in a year Nobody pays attention and the guy was very mad. Did he really put out 140? Yes He puts out about two albums a week sometimes three Bucket head. Yes, I mean he just turns the machine on the tape rolling and he just goes 79 minutes I don't know. I would see each they'll they're broken up into 15 minute songs. Oh, that sounds charming. I mean It's very low. I mean, I don't know. I've seen him in concert He also won't call he does he'll play a few and he's wearing a bucket. He wears a bucket a Kentucky fried chicken I thought it was Kentucky fried chicken. Does he get any like is that product placement? Do they give him like free fried chicken in fact for television appearances? I've noticed he's had to black it out with gaffers tape. I think maybe they don't want to be associated with this maniac I do want to get back to the bucket because I think that's In its own way a kind of human meme that he has developed and we can maybe explore that but Didn't diva were they they had like flower pot type things. Yeah, yeah Headgear, but that's why it's better. He you know anything. I am gonna that he's on my bucket list. I'm gonna listen to him Kill me somebody kill me. Go ahead. Okay. We'll get to it I recognize the value and interest in anybody displaying mastery of something arcane And so I as a collector of something weird who's gone very far down the rabbit hole in certain areas I certainly have only respect for Somebody number one who does something Crazy and out on the edge just because they love it and want to do it and somebody else who admires it and Curates it and all that so good for you on all that. Thank you If he what shows has he been on? I'm giving his name again bucket head bucket head. I mean it was shortened from bucket head steen And and and where's he from? I believe he's from uh, I don't la he's he I mean I've looked into his whole story. He was uh It's he kind of a normal guy. I guess there's well There's no pictures of him without the bucket. He's kind of a pinch and esk character very robert johnson Sort of oh finally one picture of him wearing the bucket surface Yeah, there's supposedly there's this picture of this italian guitar player that has been circulating that people are Saying his bucket head, but it's not so if you're if you go on the and there's been a lot of heated debate on the bucket head forever Facebook group where some idiot will pose as italian shredder Saying his bucket head and he's got to be you know destroyed in the comments But he was never he was for some point. I read an interview with him He decided that he was too shy that sort of perform his best Without a bucket on his head or anything over his face and uh made him some sort of persona that he could then Okay, and how many People do you think how many fans do you think he has? I would say he probably has 300,000 fans diehard fans. Yes all over the world. I mean just like I don't know. I would be maybe that's Uh, maybe that's generous, but the long tail of the comet. They talk about this new internet economy. Yeah, is he the beneficiary? He's he would not exist Without the internet. I think he would exist in the way that he would be some kind of local He probably wouldn't be able to make a full-time living or maybe he would he would exist in the way of i'm trying to Maybe like uh a lot of kind of weird outsider artists moon dog or somebody like that that Few cult people would know about he probably would have to work a second job at the post office But then some fanatic like me would be able to get some right money together to bring him to town but now With he could put out now with spotify he could put out 150 albums a year And it goes all over the world and people in mongolia That's what i'm trying to do with this show Because I want to find that i'm gonna i'm gonna Say a joke And I believe if I could find the one million people who get it Then I would make The 40 dollars 40. I suggest something if you're looking for model I suggest mr. Feldman you go with the dr. Dre model at one podcast every 16 years People would pay me to do that. They would go crazy for it They would just so they wouldn't have to listen to it. No, there's a joke that I have that only That that buckethead the real buckethead is marie langston Yeah, and they're only like There a couple of my listeners get that Is that the that wasn't the god the unknown comment. Yeah, very good. Okay. All right But there's I would say slightly too hip for me not hip old and decrepit Look, I'm trying to help you here. Let's say hip, but I need I need to find the Would you say he has 400,000 followers? I mean, I don't know a few minutes ago. It's 300,000. I know this is a complete My show wow I just need to find the people who get that marie langston reference, right? I got it. I wouldn't say I laughed because it took me too long He's the unknown god now I get it. Yeah, and I think if I knew who he was I would have been right like but I think you're I think people are going to love it I think this is going to be your most popular episode yet because the langston sphere is That you reference their hero So and I will share the link to this on buckethead forever and hopefully it'll be some and how many hours do you spend per day searching for garbage I mean, I don't calculate it. It's kind of a sad now that I think about it, but I I guess I would say looking at garbage. I would say maybe I spend about an hour A day Just how much gold do you have to sift through to find the garbage? That must be I mean, you know, that's hard work, right? No, it's mostly what I'm sifting through is the sort of pedestrian garbage to find the Truly bad garbage. Yeah, you laugh out loud You know like this do you master bath thing right like that made me laugh out loud? It was so bad at so many levels is you why Facebook you have to put your name and face on there. Why would you share a picture? It's spelled the word master bait wrong It's just like why And then he commented on his own thing So to me that's like a high level of just of like kind of garbage and but that's like one a day Maybe I find something like everybody wants David Letterman's approval. Yeah Everybody would wants to make David Letterman laugh I suppose so yes, and you spent 26 years with him working closely with him. It's awesome, but not too close I would assume there were certain jokes that you wrote That made him laugh really hard Steve Young and it Bubbled inside your heart for months that David Letterman laughed at that joke Did you take pride in finding albums and silly stuff That made Dave laugh because that's not really comedy writing Did you is there something that you found that made him laugh really hard Did it make your heart bubble? and Did it make you feel as good as writing a joke I guess so there were a few record collection bits Toward the end of the show after the book Sport Murphy and I wrote came out. I got to be a guest on the show And talk about the book and I brought records on and we played clips So it was like doing record collection except I was doing all the heavy lifting of explaining what they were and all that So he enjoyed that but there was one that I remember he just started laughing And while the clip was playing and he doesn't have to laugh at it at everything But I think he was genuinely laughing it was this 1979 record from A branch of Westinghouse that made office furniture And they had had what they billed as the world's first disco sales meeting and Souvenir record is like it's this one track of it is like this just eight or nine minute long Uh Summary of everything that happened over three days at this meeting set to this disco beat that's likely Then we had a wonderful dinner and then we all enjoyed some entertainment and then but just the beginning of it was just I don't know how it went like We just danced through 1978 with our disco shoes on and our sales or rock It just was a sort of Sad corporate clunkiness that was trying to be so with it at the time and he just what are the legal issues Can you put can you play that on letterman with that permission? Or do you just run it and then wait for them to come after you? um the letterman show, uh, I think For records like that we just sort of wrote down what we had and what the Every bit of information about the record was and sent it off to Some branch of the cbs legal department that I never actually spoke to and everyone seemed fine with that They were all just very brief clips. Is there a record you found? That was too funny to put on Letterman some of them you can't get the full import of the Weirdness in a 10 or 15 second clip some of them. It really does have to do the slow burn of of A longer time so some of the industrial stuff we did get on the show like you could immediately just start laughing at the musical called my insurance man with its Big opening number about my insurance man the man we rely on He serves all coverage needs. That's why he succeeds Something like that. That's pretty pointed and we'll get a laugh, but I think that's why I just after a while realized Record collection in its current form on the letterman show is never going to be the Full right way to present this stuff in a way that syncs in all the way with people because Because some of the songs, I mean, they're regular size songs two three four minutes long and have a sort of The best ones are just have this Grand juror and sweep to them. You need the whole thing and some of them are funny in 10 seconds But many of them are not You were on the harvard lampoon Do you feel that Looking for garbage Has a nobility to it. I mean consider me that you were Raised to read the great books and study and focus on what's important Do you or is that a disservice to your The way you were raised to be spending your time looking at Junk I wasn't really raised To with the hope that I would become a scholar. I was just a kid out in the country in semi suburban Massachusetts, but my family was always interested in old things and collecting I remember as a kid we'd say we'd all get in the car. All right We got a pretty good lead on a spot where we think there's an A hundred-year-old dump behind a a cellar hole where there was a house and we're all speaking of a hundred-year-old dump I hang on this the toilet thing. No, I'm not gonna do it. No, probably not But I mean my family at times were amateur archaeologists trying to just dig up Sites where there might be beautiful and that's what your father told you he was doing when he was digging in the backyard Well I have dark psychological issues So he got the you know always wanted to be a clown John Wayne Gacy was a clown. So he's the best Steve is very fun That's that's the direct line Uh, yeah, I was growing up being interested in old things and not being afraid of digging in the dirt and Excavating stuff and I did want to be an archaeologist when I was a kid I really fantasized about like finding lost Mayan cities in the jungles within you to enjoy my stand-up act And and there's a snobbery of because you were saying Tony that you were reading lord jim and You're reading the you were reading the great books, but there's something precious and snooty about not wanting to Look at stuff that most people would think is garbage and finding the beauty in it I mean, there's something spiritual to certainly with the Uh industrial musicals to to finding the glory right I think what what steve is doing is very beautiful I think what I'm doing is a true waste of time and I think that's sort of the difference Does it come from a place of hate? Maybe it's just me making myself feel better about what is a dank? So what does a dank mean? Well, I didn't come up with this term dank is a slang term used to describe As you called it dope that's uh makes it's very strong. It's dank. It's stanky stinky dope. So dank Has been applied to memes that are it kind of ironically A dank meme is a meme that It would not be how do I explain it's a meme that's Weird on purpose Yeah, I guess I was you're looking for things that are Uh wrong in the right way. Yes. Yes, but I the the memes I'm talking about that I find funny are not meant to be dank memes dank memes are people that are a little have a little better sense of humor Give me an example of a dank meme. I mean, I guess a dank meme would be like Something was one I saw the other day. It's uh, there's a I feel like there's so many things as well Okay, there's a dating website for farmers called farmers only and it was a picture of a bunch of farmers Looking at iPads and it said when uh You look at farmers only and see a city slicker and then they all had their Whoever used photoshop to like extend their eyes out like they were horrified. Mm-hmm. So it was just weird It was kind of funny and kind of clever. You chuck it all. So that's a dank meme Whereas like this meme I was I just found no, no, you gotta don't show it to me because I was going to describe Okay, you're just just pulling it out. Yeah, I know I forgot what it was because I wanted to get something Okay, this is a uh, yeah, don't look at it. So this is not a dank meme This is a what it's called a normie meme. This is nor a what a normie meme n or m i e and these are all about this stuff I've heard of the word meme Normie I feel so bad talking about this this guy's had the most amazing No, no, we need to know what that's garbage. Okay. We need to know this stuff. Well, okay So this is a picture of a minion they get which is this Cartoon movie. I saw it without seeing on the airplane look pretty bad, but uh, by the way Minion is also how a person with a hair lip Counts before he gets to a billion minion I'd like to hear more about these uh speech defect joke By the way, not only was it offensive. It was clumsy And stupid was it dank? Was that a dank verbal meme? No, I would say that is more like a bad normie meme It's kind of like a little bit racist or something like that that uh, so yeah, I wouldn't say a dank unless you were doing it ironically I want to apologize to the minions of listeners who have hair lips Would I Anyway, well, this is what I would call this is a non dank meme It's a just a picture of a minion dressed kind of like a pirates of the caribbean character and it says Am I captain jack sparrow or just an awesome minion? So that's a picture I don't know and does it have minions and minions of downloads? I probably does I didn't look because I know I don't want to be uh, you know looking at my phone I was trying to just sort of blow by in a smooth way, but uh I felt more every say yeah, it kind of makes be like so I don't know what's funny about it, but I must the person who made it must have thought it was funny I I can't quite figure out why I don't think it was funny someone Is sharing this Someone that can afford a computer Has saw this and said I gotta put this on facebook Everyone in the I whenever if you went to a party if you're an adult and you go to a party And you brought a picture of this kid's cartoon character out of your pocket that you had drawn Uh captioned on and went around showing it to people everyone would think you were a lunatic Now you're a stand-up comic. Yeah You you perform in front of people and there's nothing better than that live yeah human interaction. Yeah Does this stuff that you're doing on the internet Does it feel real to you? Well or virtual Uh, I I guess getting a like I would say if 80 people liking a picture is probably the same value as One person laughing out loud at a joke, but I don't go ahead So so it's like the coupon says cash value one one hundredth of one cent exactly Yeah, it's a similar feeling, but it's the value seems to be is very much lower I think facebook and twitter I think they're dangerous and I think That a like or retweet or a new friend Lights up a certain part of your brain for just a millisecond And then you crash you get this little jolt and then you crash Because it's a numbers game And it's never enough and it's addictive but when you do stand-up or Perform in front of real people It resonates and you hold on to it. I you know, I did two shows last night Not didn't do great didn't do great, but a couple of new jokes worked The audience may have disagreed with me But I had a an afterglow a buzz a spiritual feeling of being part of something The internet, you know facebook and twitter I like communicating Especially with my listeners But throwing things out into the world To strangers Uh Not a satisfying but you you're willing to spend How many hours a day? Well, I mean I guess between looking at bad stuff and then I'm making my own stuff or my own content I guess I do spend time doing it, but I think it's it's not as good as stand-up, but it's a similar Feeling like if I have a good stand-up said I still there is a crash I might feel good for a couple hours and but what you're doing on the internet can only be done on the internet So it's not like you're just posting jokes that could be said aloud to an audience You're doing things that have to exist within that that medium, right exactly. It's a it's content that's making fun of content that's on the internet and I guess part of the humor of it is that it's on Facebook or something because it's a spoof of other stuff I've done shows where I kind of like did slideshows of stuff, but oh anyway I want to add before we go because I want to Leave on a really profound deep question because I want to impress steve young. Yeah, this is the guy's amazing I'm not gonna see this. I know Nobody because you love shit. Yeah, I love shit. I make shit I'll point out that I had a very long-running artistic project Which you might also like and check out Celebrigum.com It was a piece of gum on a hardened window Hardened old piece of gum on a window ledge near david levin letterman's dressing room And for years I photographed the same piece of gum Day in and day out with in the background celebrities getting out of limos and waving to paparazzi and all that Oh my god, it's fantastic and they had an art. They had a showing right mr. Letterman was so taken by the persistent Implacable absurdity of this project that he spent a considerable amount of his own money to have a Full gallery show mounted, uh, which was then the late show holiday party one year That's amazing Just because it was a piece of garbage literal garbage stuck on a window ledge and I decided And it did become philosophical like are we saying that celebrities are just like to be discarded like an old piece of gum All these things if you want to think about it like that you could or you could just say that's a weird picture I I like it or or maybe I don't like it, but the next day there was another one Wow You know what my takeaway from it was from Celebrigum. I'm being serious. Okay There's a lot of bubblegum music that I like. Yeah, uh, elton john elo My friends used to make fun of me for listening to billy joel. Okay What has endured from the 70s is el o elton john billy joel a lot of the stuff that was dismissed as bubblegum And then I looked at Celebrigum and I realized Calling something bubblegum music. It's dismissive. It's something you chew and you spit out and won't last Bubblegum lasts it has an afterlife Uh, you can throw the piece of gum away. It doesn't mean it's gone It's just gonna they say it sits in your stomach for eight years or whatever and that's why you don't swallow it I don't know if this really ties into your metaphor, but this is what's fun to do And this is a little scatological, but I promise you kids. This is true and you should all do it Get bubblegum get a big wad of hubba bubba bubblegum And you're gonna hate me for telling kids to do this, but trust me You have a lot of uh kids listen A lot of kids a lot of kids they're gonna love your yellow talk and the Murray Langston reference Mommy guess what uncle Feldo told me to do kids. This is what I want you to do get a can of beans Lime of beans or kidney beans trust me on this open the can And don't rinse the beans because there's a lot of Chemicals, you know the methane you're supposed to drain the beans and put water over them. No eat the beans with The dirty water that they've been soaking in and then get some hubba bubba bubblegum And eat about five pieces of bubblegum And you know where I'm going with this this is how you've got your MacArthur genius grand Trust me you will blow the most amazing Bubblegum bubble at your ass. I do this all the time and It is and then get a get a lighter and put your face really close Okay, um, let me before we was this the profound part No, this is this is my question This is the week of mart luther king's celebration the birthday and all that he said That anything that separates you from humans is a sin. I talk about this all the time And it it was life changing for me gambling's a sin. He said because it separates you You you just focus on the game at the expense of your family and money drinking is a sin because You retreat into yourself your own pleasures as opposed to The needs of others Segregation is a sin because it separates people that we're all supposed to be connected to a single fabric and anything that pulls you away from The community is sinful and I and I do believe that I think the internet is sinful I think it's the the devil I think the internet gives the illusion of connect connectivity connectivity And what it's really doing what we're really doing on facebook Is retreating deeper and deeper into ourselves Our fantasies Our narcissism And I think it's the devil Your thoughts. Well, it's also, you know, just It's sort of easier way of doing the same thing that newspapers and television did and you can also just see it as just an extension of existing media you know 500 years ago were people and I think I may have read that this was actually the case that Gutenberg's printing press there was a great scandal people will be reading all the time They won't be interacting. They won't be in real life anymore because they're they'll be looking at printed matter And well, I I think it may sound Uh a little simplistic, but it it may be a case of Everything in moderation, but I also I mean and saying that I want to go specifically to drinking Which you said was an example of something that separates people There are people who drink alone and people who have drinking problems, but I think there's I hope it's a majority of people who's drinking Is inextricably linked to convivial social situations And I think for myself the way I Use facebook which I think is pretty moderately compared to some people more than others For me it has been a way to actually meet some people I then become friends with in real life. I agree. I agree it like so many things It becomes what you've already brought to it There are some people who are very gregarious in the real world and very gregarious on facebook There are some people who might be Less gregarious in the real world, but feel like they're better at being friends with people on facebook or other social media platform That all said that positive stuff all said. Yes, there's A great chasm you can fall into and not in a healthy way. I remember my first experience with facebook This must have been about 2009. I started connecting with people who I had not seen In decades and I remember writing to them. This is like heaven. This is like I've died after life You get how was your life? Yeah. Yeah, and you start catching up But then you go then it gets dangerous because A lot of marriages and relationships get destroyed Because people start looking up old boy friends and girlfriends and lovers and reconnect In the in that kind of uh, you have mail kind of way There's it's I agree with you moderation Yeah, I mean if you're if you're really cracking under that use of facebook There was something wrong before you got on the internet. I mean, I think for me It's really just cut into the time I used to spend Watching cable tv You know, I really it's just replaced the time I would spend staring at infomercials music videos You know flipping through six different channels I just stopped doing that and now when I want to just Put my brain off. I just stare at facebook So I don't but there the only times I felt really bad After like a binge and you know, it is when I've looked at political stuff And I will look at like these, you know hate Stuff for like a while and then I do feel bad But I feel like I used to get that same bad buzz if I go to the library and look at a national review So I don't know it's hard to say if it's I don't know. Maybe it is bad, but I don't know it's also I I warn against any sort of wisdom that fits on a bumper sticker Including the internet or facebook is the devil Suppose it's a bumper sticker for the world's largest car Oh, like one of those giant Things that used to transport the space shuttle up to the lawn. Yeah So it's long enough to have a very yeah, you would like 70 even with 72 point type You could fit a pretty good paragraph on there. Okay, let's do that. That'd be a funny bit Get letterman back so we can do this bit the bumper sticker bit letterman comes out of retirement to do a bumper sticker bit This was a very interesting show. You'll come back. I'd love to get fun. This is this was amazing It was so great to be both of you guys. I gotta see what you're doing with the good booking alley It's smart. Give me a follow me on instagram to and why z a r e t This was smart. All right. Let me just take care of some business here. Tony zaret. How do you spell zaret? z a r e t That's Tony with a z Tony with a t Tony zaret and people follow you on twitter and facebook Yeah, instagram. I think is the best place Just because I feel like I feel like twitter is going to go out of business and facebook you have a limit of 5000 friends So follow me on instagram to and why z a r e t I believe in twitter. I've rediscovered twitter. No, but this is what you do. This is what you do on twitter It's a utility. It's a news feed Have your I have a personal account But now I have a new twitter feed and I only follow I have a fake name and I just follow you know Reuters and Newsweek and all the and I use it as a news feed Now and it's pretty remarkable. I recommend separating Your twitter accounts have one personal account and then one as like a ticker tape where you follow the new york times CNN the economists the nation magazine and that feed without your friends on it Is profound so first of all that assumes you have friends, but I find twitter I don't know I Fills me with existential dread and I'm not I'm sure why I can if I can even Articulate why but I like it far less than looking at facebook. Let me let me we're gonna wrap it up I taught people how to read the new york times and I've gotten a couple people to thank me Because I taught people how to read the new york times. Let me teach you how to do twitter Create a new account have a personal account And then one account no friends Just News feed and it'll change your life. You will be brought up to speed. You'll be on it You'll follow donald trump follow and you'll just you will know everything That's going on as long as you follow the right sources So create a separate twitter account And follow the important news sources and and you'll really find that twitter is a utility Much like the new york times and very necessary And don't argue with people don't argue with them. I'm not I'm not arguing with you. Yes, you are Stop arguing now everybody go to the alamo draft house february 2nd And see the lost world of industrial musicals with a brilliant steve young And you are One of the highlights of 2016 was finally getting to meet you work with you And get you to hate me That wasn't hard and and tony zaret follow you on instagram and twitter Against tony zaret to and yzaret instagram twitter facebook. I'm on everything tumblr peach yik yak I haven't heard of these things I'm on the face thing and the I am on twitter, but I have a little piece of news to tell you steve young you wrote on the harvard lampoon. Yeah I'm in the new yorker next week. Oh, wonderful. Yes, they're doing a story about flowmax and I Blowing the lid off that stand and I was interviewed Please friend david feldman on facebook. I answer all My letters on facebook. They're not why don't wonder you think facebook is the devil No, I mean not to my friends and fans twitter Uh david feldman show website. There's a contact button contact me there We have a youtube channel now you can listen to this show on youtube Yeah, and you know we get like a hundred sometimes a couple thousand downloads on youtube picture There's no picture, but here's how you do it You create a second window. So when you're surfing the net like if you're on You get you're on safari create a new window So you can listen to this show I mean too when I'm on the safari website not when I'm in africa Right or if you're on you know chrome or whatever create two windows Listen to this while you're surfing the web And do all your amazon shopping via the david feldman show website And for five dollars a month you become a monthly subscriber you get access to our premium content Tell your friends about the show forward the links Stay in touch with me and uh don't fight with conservatives teach That's my message. All right. Don't fight with conservatives teach them we want their vote In 2018 that's what we want. We want their vote. Don't make them feel stupid Don't get emotional try to win over their vote Coming up jonathan cats copy and paste this link and Share it on social media through facebook twitter dig reddit stumble upon Drop it into an email and send it to all your friends Spread the knowledge spread the love Joining us From I don't know where via skype is dr. Cats dr. Jonathan cats who I believe you've left california You were at sketch fest. Is that correct sir? Another one in la and I got to work with this amazing guy named david wane. Do you know david? Yes, the actor. He was in the elliott queen Mysteries with jim hutton. Oh shut up david wane No, no, no david wane was he wrote the movie wet hot american summer Oh, i'm thinking of a different david wane. Yeah, this is w a i and And his comedy is so wonderful That was in los angeles and the show that all Incredible david wane who's one of the driest comedians I ever met and bob saket who's not Yeah, he and I uh bob and I and i'm sure you two will start texting each other These are like career-ending texts if if any if any of these texts Accidentally got sent to somebody else. I would just say okay. Yeah, let me get my checkbook I write the check and i'm done. I'm gonna just retire When we were working on on this show together raising dad, which It was a wb show. We would spend hours writing the most disgusting theme songs Yeah, we should probably Stop this line of Conversation. Oh, but david I want to ask you who is this image i'm staring at now. It used to be Somebody who looked a lot like Joseph mccarthy. I guess it was ted cruise and now it's a woman. Yeah Well, I do a radio show with ralph nadir and a lot of times we do it via skype And so I started my image was ted cruise because he looked like joe mccarthy Right, and then ralph said he was getting sick of looking at ted cruise's face So I put roy cone's face up right, and then he got sick of Roy cone and I replaced roy cone with this woman Who nobody even ralph couldn't figure out who it was you know it could be The day before elena rosso became unattractive She does look vaguely like it, isn't it very good I'm going to give you a hint because you've talked you're close Think of your dad. What what did your dad do for a living? He used to be the secretary treasurer of the a of l c i o in washington dc in baltimore Okay And my mom was the head of the women's auxiliary uh-huh So you're close to it's francis perkins The first secretary the first female secretary of labor under right under uh franklin roosevelt She must have been your dad had an affair with francis perkins if i know Right, I hope so I mean elena roosevelt is the only woman who could make my mother look attractive Well, you know my theory about franklin roosevelt is that he really didn't have polio It was just hey honey You know, oh, you mean he just Was comfortable sitting down. Well, he just it was an excuse for not having to bed elinor Now, where are you? Are you in massachusetts? Are you in la? Are you in philadelphia? Are you in san francisco? massachusetts and the movers came today. So it's real Hey, david, i'm gonna suggest another method of recording. That's okay Well, let's do this. It's working I don't like to be the dead horse, but it's not the worst thing i've ever done Hey, that's what i'm looking for Well, you know How bad is it to be the dead horse? Yeah, I mean it's it's dead. So it's not like it's Gonna feel anything right No, and you know that I used to work I used to do some work with the with with the animal rights organization Around the area of horses and and sexual harassment. No, I didn't know this Oh, yeah, because our feeling is that when a horse says nay, that's exactly what he means My friend vicki told me this is a street joke. What does a gay horse say? Perhaps. No, what is a gay horse asked for? Hey Oh Hey But you're giving me original material and i'm telling you street jokes No, that's okay. So, yeah, you know about beating a horse I agree with you that it's it's wrong to beat A horse that's alive. So what I do is I kill it first Then I beat it. So I don't feel this is see you're a gentle soul and i'm just a bad human being I I think you got it backwards. I think you're you're the gentle soul No Yeah, I I pay a therapist Hundreds of dollars a week just so I can forgive myself By the way, can I can I Did you have another thought on that because my mind is racing on what on the gentle soul thing? No on the animals Oh, no, no, I just was thinking about how smart it was of me to bury both of my parents on a rotisserie You see where I'm going with this. No Oh, just because I know I know they're turning over the in the graves I mean, what have we done But there's this way they're turning over evenly. I I see would you yes Yeah, and without any kind of effort Can I get back to a joke that I came up with while talking to judy gold? Please. Okay I believe that you should only Get animals from a shelter You should not buy animals. You should go to a shelter and rescue one But I like purebred. So what I do is I'll go out and buy a purebred dog, but I'll let it go and then I go rescue it at the shelter Yeah, is there any hope there or is that just too mean people won't laugh at jokes about No, I think I think maybe if you brought two purebred dogs Breed them and then let them go and rescue them. I don't know why that is that twice as funny or just twice as long You know, I've talked to Barry Crimmons about this, but but he's so Emotional about dogs. Yeah I don't know why we focus less on rescuing Dogs and more and rescuing people well dogs Remind us how to be a perfect person We need dogs to remind us Of how to behave Do you have a dog? I had Well, I got you know, I've been thrown out of my house. I'm divorced But at one time we had about eight We had four dogs and three cats then sometimes it was four cats three dogs at any given time There were about seven to eight animals in our house Right and and believe it or not We're not animal people We have a 15 year old poodle named bongo And my wife is allergic to the dog a poodle. She's allergic to a poodle Yeah, she's allergic to cats and dogs and there is no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog. It's a myth When she said she's allergic to cats She was taught hang on. Let me get to the punchline here. Let me just take a sip of water here You can need something stronger than water to get to the punchline dude We're talking with jonathan cats and i'm about to uh do a joke about his wife being allergic to cats Uh, but let me take a sip of water. So I do the joke properly my audience cannot even predict where i'm going to go with this Hang on When your wife said she was allergic to cats She was talking about you Dr. Cats jonathan cat. I used to do this You know when i'm a senior writer on a writing staff And they're younger writers who for some reason are afraid of me out of respect and stupidity And it's ridiculous to have any respect for me. I will when the most When the most obvious joke is In the room and it's just there I'll I'll stand up and go I got it I got it And then I'll hang on. I need a sip of water and I'll drag it out for a minute. I got the joke And then I'll do the joke that everybody has already gotten to and won't do at a pride and That's why nobody likes me. So poodles are hyper allergenic Yeah, my wife is allergic and and I came home with this dog 15 years ago for my daughter who is 10 at the time she's not 25 Wait, how did that happen in 15 years? But she was in dog years or human years She's 25. Yeah, but I mean i'm just telling you facts, which is so far from comedy I want to talk more about these festivals but tell me about tell me about bongo. So bongo's 15 15 he's been neutered twice That was my fault. I didn't realize I could do it in one procedure But you know, he's a very sweet creature he I love him my daughter loves him But my wife is allergic. She takes a lot of medication to live this with this dog And that's one of the reasons we're moving to philadelphia without he's here. I shouldn't say A certain b o n g o is not coming with us. Oh Yeah, that's My ex-wife took a lot of medication to live with me What kind like antidepressants? Cialis and viagra was always in her I always noticed it was by whenever I came home off the road There would be cialis and viagra On the the nightstand Did your wife have erectile dysfunction? She just said women it's it's a moot elevator and they're and condoms and Old spice I had the country's first therapy based theme park Yeah, I'll tell you some of the things I had that we had the emotional roller coaster We we had mood swings for the kids That's what reminded me and um, you could ride through the tunnel of south lowland But That's great. No, that's great. Is it still open? No, no open only for about one year after after dr. Katz was I can't even use the word was um After I agreed with comedy central to stop making the show Oh Yeah People still walk up to me People still say hey, I I saw you on dr. Katz Wow Yeah, that's you know, that's dom's experience and even in places like ireland People know know him from dr. Katz almost more than anything So you were doing live shows in At sketch fest in in san francisco. Yeah You know the show begins with me doing 10 minutes of stand-up Which is my favorite part oddly enough Because I'm in control and then I walk over to my to the set of my office And laura announces my first patient Laura silverman Yeah, just her in san francisco and mostly it's we just used her voice, but l.a. She was actually there But she she danced in san francisco The guy who really surprised me was tom papa Who had never met before and he comes out in character And that hasn't happened since we did the show in aspen colorado and larry miller did that Hmm And he was so good And funny and his whole thing is about how difficult it is to be a person So it fit into the therapy part really well And then also, uh natasha legerro. Do you know? Oh, yeah Also very funny and really and her husband mocha kosher. I love them. I love them. They're a golden golden couple. They really yeah I love mocha Would you ever consider marrying somebody in the comedy business? No No, that's the only thing I don't get about them as well What that must be like Because they have self-esteem. They know they're funny. They're not threatened They're supportive of each other. They enjoy each other's company I could not handle the insecurity of another comic Maybe now maybe now that i'm divorced. Maybe I don't know I just Also, yeah And scott arkham and who is the guy who really Scared me the most because he looks like such an incredibly earnest guy and I And talks very earnestly about podcasting, but she was wonderful. He's really right on the money Very funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Have you ever had comedians who started talking to you and got so relaxed? They revealed something and felt uncomfortable Well, I think it happened I invited natasha and mocha to come back and do some couple counseling And I think I think I actually helped them deal with the issue whether or not They should have kids. I really I really felt like we had an actual breakthrough What did they decide? I know they were thinking mocha told me was thinking of adopting a syrian refugee And and natasha wants to adopt a highway And But whatever breakthrough they were about to have it was interrupted by the music Oh, yeah, that happens because it's a talk show Well, it's dr. Cads. Yeah, we're all out of time. Yeah Did you ever do this joke because I thought of this? I figured this is like a doctor cat I I thought I adopted a highway But I wanted to find out who its real father was No, I never did the joke and I and I because I have an adopted daughter I can only do one adopted joke, which is a runny shakes joke Which is a I asked my parents if I was adopted and they said yes, but they returned you Oh, and I do another joke about my wife You know, we're expecting the second kid and my wife had the had the ultrasound, which is not really necessary when you're adopted Yeah So your daughter's adopted Right and we have one biological daughter julia and our younger daughter is adopted and all the daughter has two kids of her own Wow, I have a friend. I'm not going to tell you who it is, but you know him and He does this thing. He's I'll tell you It's a violation, but he's incredibly funny And he has an adopted grand son And let's give me a name. I just I'm gonna say David till No, no, no, no. I want to call him make up a name for grandson Eric Eric So I'll say what are you doing this weekend? Oh, my grandchildren are coming over John Andrew Barry My adopted grandson Eric So he's just always whenever he mentions Eric. He always says my adopted grandson Eric whenever he talks It sounds so much like David Till. Yeah, I don't think Dave Yeah, I don't think he has kids No Hey, you know who was performing right near me last night and I didn't go with scott blakeman I love scott blake. I've known him for so long and I'm such a fan of his Yes, he's a what we would call a A good jew. He represents the jewish people Very well, you know, he's working very hard For for a two-state solution as am I I think america needs a two-state solution Just california and new york and the rest of the country can go f itself, but Yes, scott blakeman great guy very sweet guy. Yeah, and a very Natty dresser Yes He's a clothes horse Clothes horse. Yeah, you know, I'm still working on this book with mammoth About the home for troubled animals The what the home for troubled animals. No, I don't know this. Oh, yeah, it's a book of puns and illustrations by him And also with my joke about a goose with down syndrome From from there we went to a nervous tick Wow An amoeba with separation anxiety And an over-the-counter drug mule, you know, and these are And these are, you know all illustrated by david and they're wonderful When are you going to do when is this going to be published? Well, we've been writing it for more than 10 years and I think We're about to switch agents. Oh, maybe I shouldn't say that publicly I think we're trying very hard to get it published It's not that easy to get it for him to get anything published. It's not a play Yeah David mammoth Yeah, and I've only had one book published which is a which is the to-do list of the dead Do you have a did I ever send you a copy of that book? No, put it on your to-do list. Yeah. Oh That's a good idea. Um I met david mammoth when I was opening for you At catcherizing star in cambridge at at harvard, right you were writing screenplays with him at the time I believe it was house of cards or house of lies house of games house of games That you wrote and it's one of my wife ex-wife's favorite movies Just a great movie and so I get off stage and I go into the dressing room when I look up and there's shell silverstein and david mammoth Who are hanging out with you and they wrote the movie things changed together I clutched my heart and I apologized for my act I said to them This is in the late 80s and george herbert walker bush was president Right, and I remember saying to them. Oh, I'm so sorry. I it was second show friday night And I did that joke about barb. I said Barbara the first lady Barbara bush I've got her in the car, but I cracked a window the joke was she's a dog She's got and then I said she's got bigger bags underneath her eyes Then I've got Underneath my scrotum something like that are my testicles just a bad joke that Used to get laughs. I was so ashamed and and david Man that grabbed me by the arm. He said never apologize. No joke can be mean enough And then I looked up at you and your jokes aren't mean and your best friends with him so Well, no, he makes He's made some incredibly mean spirited jokes over the years, but he's funnier than I am much funnier Nobody's funnier than jonathan cats. Nobody. Hey, hey, come here and say that you're you were Loved You know who's loved more than me is my fucking likeness. I'm so jealous of dr. Cats People love him You know, it's crazy now. Were you I'm sure you get asked this all the time Were you involved with the richard speck murders? No, um, I'm sure I'm sure you get asked this all the time therapy Does it work at real therapy? Do you recommend because I have been an analyst not analysis, but I've been seeing a shrink Since I was 18 the minute I left home. I and I non-stop I can't go a week without checking in with my my shrink I'm a believer in therapy. I I see my my therapist on a need-to-know basis And she she she needs to know Tuesdays at 2 30 No, I I'm on I'm on hiatus now for my therapist, but but I have made I really would have been lost with other therapists when I was when I was diagnosed with ms She specializes in people with ms and right if she really helped me through some very difficult times Yeah And There are therapists who are not that good. I've never had a female therapist I I had a female I have a female therapist and a female internist who's about six feet tall and she dresses in black leather Hmm and she's and she's very attractive. I'm lowering my voice because my wife is upstairs You know she Being examined by her is kind of exciting, you know, I'm always it's titillating as what it is. Yeah That's one of the things about my act that people didn't like is that I Didn't talk of them. I was not who they had in mind in the early days of comedy for me What do you mean they you you weren't titillating enough for them? I would show up at a at a one-nighter in the in the Boston area and I would feel like I was wearing a tutu performing for pirates They hated me Yeah, well, I mean, but The the the good comedians don't do well in in those settings. They're right. If you do well, you're doing something wrong It's like being healthy in a sick society I guess, you know, that's that's very kind of you to say No, I think you're right You pick up bad habits on the road. You pick up bad habits working Bars and catering to the lowest common denominator You know, you know who saved me from taking the wrong root in comedy Was a guy named Jack Rollins a late Jack Rollins. Yeah Who managed Woody Allen Robin Williams David Letterman He invited me to his office after seeing me do a set at Caroline's and he said to me Jonathan what you need is a manager So my heart starts racing and the next thing he says is but who's going to manage you? Yeah What he was saying is that I what he'd explain to me is that I'm doing an act that would succeed in the 60s And this is then this was in the 90s And it's a little too gentle for the audience And he also told there were two jokes I used to make which he talked me out of doing And one is about um I went to a lesbian bar one night mistaken and there were women writing the mechanical bulldike I could see why he talked you out of it. Yeah, do you agree with him for not doing that joke? Oh, yeah, that was a really it wasn't that funny and it was and it was hurtful Yeah To the bull Yeah, who would want to be associated with an animal cruelty I don't like to be a dead bull What was the second joke the second one was about having homosexual panic Which was if I if I went to radio check to buy something and the guy said, let me put a roper in your unit That's a better joke, but it's also not You know, I mean the whole world of homophobia is not Really a good subject for comedy. It's a good check subject for therapy when we were starting out I was told I I never met Jack Rollins, but there were I Was up in their offices and they had people like Jake Johansson people who Very elegant letterman comics and what was instilled in me in the 80s was Work smart Don't play to the back of the room But don't play to the crowd Play to your highest angel and Larry Miller Who many would say Was one of the Maybe one of the best most reputable stand-up comics of the 80s and the 90s just in terms of volume of work how clean he was and Right, is that a fair statement that Larry Miller was So he was a really he was he did this incredible slow-burning comedy and it was wonderful really wonderful And and there was an there's integrity to his act. He doesn't take the easy route In san francisco if you wanted stage time, there was a purity test. You could not be a hack You could not get stage time if you were Unoriginal and larry miller. I was hoping for larry miller. I never forgot this. This was in the 80s He said to me. Oh, you're really funny. You got some smart stuff, but you pepper it With filth And it hurts you he said the role of a stand-up On stage is to build equity with the audience and trust The mistake you're making is you are sucking the audience in and telling them that you're clean and you're smart And your heart is in the right place And then you cut them off at the knees with these disgusting jokes One of the best pieces of advice I ever got is that that that you know, when you tell a joke That's cruel and tasteless Or filthy You are getting an easy laugh. You'll get the laugh But then it's hard to follow it then it's hard to go back and do the stuff you really want to do So I don't know I've I've done that because of because of the This enormous fear of being on stage and not succeeding. I was performing at club called stitches in boston nothing was working and I just needed to close the laugh. So I said I was with my grandfather when he died His dying words were blow me And the the audience loved it. But when I went when I went to the What pass of the green room brian kiley and junebra The scowling jenine Yeah, oh wow this oh wow. I thought of a tag for that joke Okay Now every time I blow a guy I think of my grandfather Oh, I have a joke like that. But thank you. Now. Let me tell you my joke was about I finally quit smoking I saw a hypnotist and now every time I'm about to light up a cigarette. I just blow a hypnotist And And ricky jay is not a hypnotist But it did bump into him in san francisco for 10 minutes, which was great He's somebody I know through passive games and other mammoth movies one of the great great magicians So funny. He's somebody I would love to meet. There's a new I think it was on american masters. They did a Pet an hour and a half documentary about him, which I really recommend Brilliant brilliant student of of magic. Did you ever get interested in magic? No, but I always think that comedy is like magic without the tricks And And the same could be said about magic is like comedy without the jokes I mean the comedy like the kind of comedy you and I do is like sleight of hand Or misdirection. Yeah, they're not so different I I worked as a mind reader for three years in new york, and then I stopped because It's just so hard to tell what people are thinking I never was maybe as a kid it was into magic me too Yeah, woody allen steve martin johnny carson We're all as kids. We're all into magic. There's no question that No, we're tricksters. I was I was very much into into magic as a kid I remember thinking well, this is something that you have to spend 10 hours a day Working on and I thought this is I don't see Why this would be? But I like close-up magic and ricky jay the best the best have you ever spent an evening with him? Yeah, I have and he also when I when we were doing things changed together He taught me how to juggle which I forgot immediately after later that day but Juggling is so easy if you practice it and if you understand the basic concept The way juggling works is I can juggle you have to be able to juggle two balls in one hand Right, which I learned from my uncle That's funny. I don't know why that cracks. What was his name? to noose I would say uncle to noose is coming. Is that a danny thomas reference? Well uncle to noose From fractured fairy tales. What was his name the guy played uncle to noose On the danny thomas show. Yeah, that was his name. Yeah uncle to noose. I don't know who the actor was Oh, he was great. He used to be on Sherman and Peabody and fractured If he was a narrator on fractured fairy tales, do you know that I used to think that Oh, I have to do this. I have to do this. Okay. Okay. I made a vow anytime somebody does a danny thomas joke Or a you know coffee table joke. I plug st. Jude's because Are you there? Yeah St. Jude's was one of robin's charities and They take everybody So if you have an extra five dollars go to their website and give money to the st. Jude's hospital It's it's the real deal. It's it's been vetted by people who don't lend their name to Fake organizations. I decided because I've done several shows Over the years That were dedicated to danny thomas and coffee tables. So I I thought, you know, who am I To make fun of danny thomas, especially like a curse jar Now i'm asking my listeners to give money to st. Jude's. You know who got me into st. Jude's was gail berman From rosanne No, gail berman uh married to bill masters for masters and johnson. They were a great team Nobody gets that No, but do you know what? I mean, I can't I can't tell you this because it's too disgusting But in show business What a danny thomas is St. Jude's hospital. They will not turn down A kid Yeah, I promise you this if you go to st. Jude's Go to the website give five dollars. That's as much as you possibly they do not turn down any children I promise you that it's been vetted by people. I truly respect go ahead Okay, can you hold on good go do that now? No, no, I want to hear what a danny thomas is No, I can't I can't tell you that I really have to tell you when we're not talking when we're talking more privately But david, do you know any good comedians in the philadelphia area? Damarera well except he lives in la Oh, uh, bill cosby's gonna be spending a lot of time in philadelphia again. I think and what about do you know either Any of the actors on broad city? No, but I worship them Yeah, aren't they amazing? They are and I think they live in that part of the world So you're moving to philadelphia Yeah, but i'm also doing a show for my daughter's organization in may I'm trying to find somebody to commit to that date. What's the organization? It's called himlers. Yes efficiency. Yeah job one art well Art well Art well, they use art to teach kids and this is a new term I've learned Kids who are Shit, it's not I just wrote it down the other day. My wife is training me in describing this organization. They help kids Shit, I feel like I'm reading the script every time I talk about this Yeah, that's more important than helping kids. It's that's so bad. Yeah This is the term I was looking for underserved kids Oh, like a chunky cheese. Yeah, you have to go get your own pizza. They don't have waiters there. It's terrible I my children. I didn't know they actually had a charity for kids who Just can't sit and have the coke and birthday cake brought to them. I am a horrible comedian Everybody's sitting along with me So it's art well, it's helping underserved kids and and using art and Kids who who might fall victim to violence or drugs in a city like philadelphia We're doing a fundraiser for them on may 6 and I've been trying to get A name that I can use to attract an audience Sometimes I forget that I am a name Yeah But I'm I'm I reached out to and I hate the expression reached out and you used to say I called But now we reach out to um rachel dratch I love rachel dratch debbie downer Yeah And also to um, wow Well janine was the first person I asked and she's going to be in portland, or a gun that day I just asked janine to do this show Oh, I'm sure she did she say yes. I hope yeah, but I wanted to do it This week because Anyway, go ahead. You know, I don't think she owns a computer janine. Okay I mean just in terms of Skype and I knew or I guess she could do that on her phone. What about saggot? You know he I don't think he'd make the trip He did dr. Katz live because it was an la and also he's I don't think The audience would to claim Yeah, no, I'm trying to get a diverse cast of patience I want to get a Jew and a Gentile I know man the woman Maybe somebody who's black I've been asking one to Sykes to do this for years and she's impossible to nail down Hey, you know, I'll tell you who's not impossible to nail down Don't go there. Don't do it. Okay. I won't Well, you know, I'm just trying I was gonna be a jerk. I'm not gonna do it. Uh, so Philadelphia Do you know Joe DeRosa? I know the name. Yeah I don't know if he still lives there. He seems like a pretty funny guy Yeah Philadelphia we were there for the convention. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that and I fell in love with that city Yeah, it's a really unusual place. Where did you stay when you were there? Well, you couldn't get a hotel downtown. We were out in the sub we're about we had to stay about It was like a 40 minute drive To get down there for the convention You know, we shot it was with the triumph series and we shot around Philadelphia It's just beautiful and historic and the people are nice. It's kind of changed. I remember playing there in the Oh the laugh factory or one of the clubs in the 90s and You know, everybody looked like nicky scarfo And I just felt I was going to get cold cocked and punched but Maybe I was just, you know, putting that out there So you were in Los Angeles. You remember the incredible weed Yeah, the who yeah, who was that? He was like an amazing prop act Really funny and he made me feel good because he brought more stuff to a gig than I did I had to get there so early to set up and check my make sure the sound was working But you just brought a guitar and and a beautiful White pressed shirt that the first time I saw you you had this beautiful white cotton shirt Really, yeah, jeez That's what I remember. I wonder if you're thinking of my lens suit No, you wore a white shirt. I remember that and a white hood. It was more like a A gown and a cross. No Well, let's plug some gigs Shall we? I've signed a non disclosure agreement I'm serious. I have a very exciting project that you're going to be able to hear but not see coming up very soon Being produced by audible.com Oh, okay This sounds exciting, but I can't tell you what it is. Can I turn non disclosure and how can people reach you? I think you'll read about it online This was so effortless. Yeah, I wish it was I'm sorry. We didn't do more jokes Oh, believe me. We did plenty of there. We moved a lot of jokes And once I calmed down and you told me, you know, just relax And this was a nice gentle conversation. This was very good And I have said so many truly reprehensible things in the name of comedy Here are some of my favorites Okay, no, that's that's just how I open shows lately What is the worst Show you would say the answer of course is this but the worst stand-up show that you ever did where you Got off stage and you said I'm I quit. This is I don't want to be a comedian anymore. It was in Danvers, Connecticut at a bar When I arrived there, it said deal young knight Oh, that's me calling you. Yeah, is it worth it to answer it might be funny. Yeah, answer it Hello. Hi, jonathan. It's me. It's davin. How you doing? How's my show going? Oh, is it really you no No, no, I answered on this speaker, but nobody's there. Nobody's there. No. Well, that's me. I'm a nobody Don't talk like that. Oh, it's the art of self defecation Do you know the poem? I'm nobody. Who are you? No Oh, it's one of the three poems. I know by heart, but I'm not going to do poetry for you I refuse don't show up at this club. It says on the door And the first time I'm been paid to go anywhere It says Neil young knight I get in there. I set up my my pa. I traveled with a pa I do my soundtrack and then in walk a softball team that has just been defeated And they are pissed off and then and I get drunker and drunker and after about Five minutes minutes of them ignoring what I'm doing the owner comes up on stage takes the mic out of my hand Says you have no business being on the stage You should get a job in a factory And I say wait, but I have I have administrator skills That was that was that might have been the worst night And how long did it take before you got back up on stage after that? Well, the next night I worked at the sky top lounge was which was a bowling alley About about 10 miles away and we were sharing the pa with the guy who was calling the games So I would say you ever hear the expression and on lane 33 Um, I I can't stop telling jokes You know, I used to think I was not one of those guys who needs to be on all the time I think I could stop telling jokes Do you I think people who have seen me perform could attest to that could I go vary? I think I might Be Because I've got kids who are very funny Right and they want to do this and I keep saying to them, you know, you there are Funny lawyers. There are funny rabbis. There are funny serial killers. You know, you can do things You could be the funniest salesman at the car lot I think if you're Witty and funny it means you are literate or Smart and interested and the funniest people I know are People who don't do this for a living. Yeah, I feel the same way. Yeah. I mean, there's a desperation One of the things when I was starting out is I remember thinking well stand-up comedy isn't so much about being funny As it is desperation a willingness to show up at a club Sign up for the open mic and wait five hours for stage time and then do it again You know, it's it's not about so much about being funny as it is Do I have a six hour block of time each night to get good at this? Were you doing it at the holy city zoo? Is that what you yeah? I love the holy city zoo. I did not like Waiting six hours to get on stage But it's kind of what like what lauren michaels does When he interviews a cast member you sit in his Waiting room in the lobby. They say lauren will be with you shortly And you're left to wait there pretty much all day And a lot of people I know one person who just got up and left How dare he treat me this way and I'm not defending lauren. I'm not being a suck up But I say well if you're going to work on SNL You have to be willing to do that to sit For six hours and wait for the boss in the early 90s. He offered me a spot on that show to join the cast Right of saturday night live and I said any other night Before you go Yeah What is the joke bj note that you told at bj novics bar mitzvah? Old jewish woman. Well first of all you did you performed at bj novics bar mitzvah, correct? What was he doing at the time? What show was he on at the time? With his bar mitzvah He was he was running SNL But he was 13 years old Yeah And they hired you for his bar mitzvah. Who hired you? His dad who's a good friend of mine who Is a ghost writer and wrote books about pretty horrendous people one of whom I met Oliver north But um, he also wrote a book about michael milkin. Yeah, I I met michael milkin. He was actually at a prison. He Yeah But I but the the night that I went over to michael milkin's home for dinner There was a a young man who was having Uh dinner upstairs with bill novex kids and that was michael jackson You're putting me on no i'm serious I I just saw his red shirt or something run off the stairs with the kids and that was it Oh, hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. My mind is racing now How but what's true and what's not that that's not true about michael. That's a true story and I and And they're don't glad you and you brought that up because I tell a lot of stories that are not true and my wife has been calling me on them Like jackie robinson never came to my home for dinner I never played ping-pong at halftime for the harlem globetrotters But what is true is that I was the new york state table tennis champion. That's true that I remember you telling me Yeah, but didn't your Didn't your brother break the color barrier on the uh harlem globetrotters wasn't either first That's a bad joke hang on for one second. We've talked about the table tennis before But but very quickly the thing about michael jackson is a joke, right? No, it's a true story I had no idea he was going to be there because I guess milken Had become friends with him. Was this after he got out of prison? Well, he was in his home In la No, no, he he lived in newton for a while michael milken did yeah michael milken for Drexel bernum he and iven boski they created junk bonds And milken went to prison for selling worthless paper He got out. He contracted prostate cancer. I met him in 94 or 95. He was out of prison He took the two pay off. He was very nice to me He hired me to do a benefit and was very I liked him and he's done some good things I'd have to look them up. I I know he's Donated a lot of money to charity and try to be but he was friendly with milken was friendly with michael jackson Yeah, somehow they got connected and might have been I don't I can't imagine what the connection was So what kids were upstairs with michael jackson? Well bill Novak has three sons bj is the oldest and jesse used to Oh, I get it. So they said to michael jackson. Hey Upstairs bj's upstairs. The joke is hey michael jackson bj's upstairs. Yeah, that's that's a joke John again. Do you like me? That's a kind of joke that larry miller would have discouraged you from doing I'm so desperate for your approval Now you have my approval. You're you're a great comedian and a wonderful accomplished writer Look, I don't I'm not like bill Novak. I bet your your audience doesn't know your favorite verb What is it? No, I don't know. I'm just guessing as a writer. You must have a favorite verb that you that you can conjugate a sentence while juggling So you performed at bj novak's bar mitzvah There are two jokes Tell the joke and then somebody quoted a joke of yours I should I should tell the joke first so you get the last joke and then we'll wrap it up. Okay Did you write this joke because a friend of mine says every Passover they do this joke So is this a street joker? Did you write it? We're a blind guy at At a Passover satyr picks up the matzah Puts his hand all over and says who wrote this shit No, I didn't write the joke. I love that joke though. But you didn't write it No, I did write I did write my in-laws are orthodox Jews. They have two satellite dishes Okay, so this is old Jewish woman goes to the doctor He says Mrs. Schwartz is nothing wrong with you. You just need to have more sex And oh my father would say why don't you have to be Jewish? I said dad. It's a joke. She's Jewish And so the doctor says mr. Schwartz. You just need to have more sex. You need to have sex eight ten times a week She calls her husband. He says put me down for two I have told that joke to my mother and her friends I thought I was gonna kill them. They were laughing so hard. Put me down for two. It's just that's a perfect joke Hey, this just it flew by Can I tell you one joker? I saw jan marie tell on stage in the Atlantic city Sure An old a whole make a make this guy Jewish man for the hell of it an old Jewish man goes into an orthopedist office And he's hunched over he's like almost parallel to his body Very bad very badly disfigured comes out about a half hour later Into waiting with people all in the similar condition But this time he's standing upright perfectly straight looking strong and healthy And one of the patients asked what did he give you and then he says a new cane Dr. Katz, yeah, that may not make the final cut, but anyway, I love it. Do you have a website jenith and cats.com Do you have a twitter handle? I think you could it's just jenith and cats. Are you on facebook? No, I I don't use facebook professionally I use it with my family and kelly rogers That's Thank you jonathan. Do you know who that is? Of course when I first he was one of the first people I interviewed I used to be a in in college. I was a cub reporter for the hudson dispatch For two summers. I interviewed Richard belzer I went to catch a rising star And and kelly rogers was one of the comedians I interviewed. Yeah, I saw him recently Oh, really? Yeah, no, like it's so weird that I can't I don't allow people to grow up in my imagination They say the same age. Yeah. All right jonathan. Katz. Dr. Katz. I love you We got to do this more often. Yep, I agree. Okay. Thank you, buddy. Bye. Bye Thanks for listening remember to friend me on facebook follow me on twitter Do all your amazon shopping via the david feldman show website We got a small percentage of everything you make For as little as five dollars a month you can become a monthly subscriber and gain access to all our premium content Do me a favor subscribe to my youtube channel. Give us a good review on iTunes that helps us it really does and spread the word just copy And paste this link however, you're listening to this show forward it to a friend Put it up on facebook put it up on twitter get the word out From the show briz studios in downtown manhattan stay strong