 Well, this is really exciting news. Joining us from Los Angeles is Graham Elwood from Comedy Film Nerds. How are you, sir? I'm good, David. How are you doing? Well, I want to thank you so much and congratulate you on this great news for the podcasting community. We're the brotherhood of podcasting. We have a new feather in our cap and you're partly responsible. Comedy Dynamics has announced that it has acquired Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini's documentary film, Earbuds, the podcasting documentary. Congratulations. So proud of you, Graham Elwood, and this is just so good for our brothers in the podcasting industry. Yeah, it's been really great. We raised $140,000 on Kickstarter to get this movie made and the whole podcast community came on board. Chris and I did about 30 interviews during the whole Kickstarter campaign and then we interviewed a bunch of people, fans, and we traveled all over the U.S. with Australia and Japan. It was really a fantastic experience to show the kind of connection between the listener and the podcaster and how unique it is. We're like, there's no other media doing it. Well, the podcasting documentary features Chris Hardwick, Joe Rogan, Doug Benson, Mark Marron, Ayesha Tyler, Tide Glass, and seems to me... I think you guys interviewed me, didn't you? I mean, we did interview you and there's like a smaller, like a quick cut, you know? We see part of you. Really? Yeah. I mean, there's like a... It's not a huge part, but we like we see, you know, what you'll probably recognize as you, which I think is the, you know, where it really, what counts. So you're doing a... You're releasing a documentary about podcasting. Mm-hmm. I do remember doing comedy film nerds with you and Mr. Mancini. I remember you were filming it for the documentary and I remember I talked about podcasting and how important it is and how there's a brotherhood. We're all in this together. If you succeed, I succeed, right? Yeah. And that we're really not competitors. We're all part of the podcasting family. Do you remember that part? Yeah, I do. It was great. It was really, really poignant stuff, you know, and that's the trick of a directing a documentary. You get so much great footage. You got to figure out, you know, we can't have a four-hour movie, so it's like we got to make some tough calls, you know? But it really, I think overall it's a really solid film and we're real proud of it. So it's all about podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. And the connection between the fans and the listeners and got people saying, you know, podcasting helped me get through depression and a tough time. I was battling cancer. Yeah, let's get back to it. So I did an interview and I said that when you succeed, I succeed and unlike old movies or television or radio, in podcasting, you run your own race. You compete against yourself, right? Yeah. And that didn't make the cut? No. I mean, yeah, it was, no. I mean, we kind of had some other people, you know, saying kind of similar stuff and we didn't want to repeat and, you know, really focused on the connection between the fan and the podcast. Yeah. But I gave this whole thing about how we share this big thing called podcasting and nobody can really own it and that we're all part of the same fabric. We're all united as one. Yeah, which is great. It was very spiritual. It was very spiritual. Yeah, it was a great, and I think it helped with the sort of overall spirituality of the documentary. But it didn't make the cut. There's, you are on camera. You're in there. But people see you and your name, you know, I think is pretty much spelled, you know, as correctly as you can get it. And, you know, I think it was, you know, it's real, it's just great that you and all these other people helped out. Yeah, but I mean, like, but I like really looked into the camera. I remember I did like a 45 minute interview with tears in my eyes and saying that I never really felt part of anything until I started to podcast. And then I felt I was part of this larger thing, like a family, a group, a community. Yeah, but you are. I mean, I think, I think, you know, there's comics that gave 45 minute interviews like that. And we cut them. They're not even in it at all. 45 minutes. I talked about running your own race. Don't count somebody else's success. Just worry about your own. And so it just, that didn't make. So that sounds like great advice, though, for you to take, you know, with, you know, in this situation, I think it's wonderful. Like you're, you're such a sage that you can say that kind of stuff. And then obviously, you're not going to count minutes in a movie or whatever. You're more about the overall thing. Well, I hear you correctly. I mean, notice Chris Hardwick. I was doing a podcast before Chris Hardwick was what about seniority? Joe Rogan, my podcast started before Joe Rogan's Mark Marin, Aisha Tyler. What about seniority? Doesn't that count for anything that I was doing this before these guys? Why? Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a valuable thing. And I think also, you know, you know, they're big names. I mean, they're bigger names than I am, you know. So we need, you know, we need people with names like an oppressor, Lee, someone's going to go, oh, wow, they've got Hardwick, they've got Aisha, they've got Rogan. I mean, these are people that are, you know, But I have seniority. I have seniority over them. I've done more podcasts. I've been doing it longer. Don't I get any respect for that? Well, I think so. I think, yeah. And I think that's reflected in the fact that, you know, there's people that might be even bigger names than you, that weren't even in it. You know, I mean, like Bill Burr and Al Madrigal, they're not in it. Really? They're big names. Really? They're not. They're not in it? Why not? What happened? Well, they, they didn't have seniority. Ah, yeah. So they're not in the documentary? No, but you, you're in it. I'm in it. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. Who else isn't in it? Um, who else didn't make the cut? So Bill Burr wasn't good enough to make the cut. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people we didn't get. I mean, you can't interview everyone. We're just trying to, there's a lot of people, you know, so you made, you made, you know, very solid impression. Bill Maher, they do a podcast version of his HBO series. Is he in the documentary? Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. There you go. And that was, that was clearly made. I mean, we had a chart of seniority and, and I think yours started even before. What about Alec Baldwin? Is he in it? No. Here's the thing. That's a big podcast. But I'm in it. You're in it. Wow. You know, that's great. That is so great. Wow. The podcasting documentary, where's it going to be released? Well, currently it's available at ComedyFilmers.com. You can get as a download. Oh, okay. But then it's going to go wide in the next couple months over the summer through Comedy Dynamics. It'll be available on all the other platforms and stuff like that. In all seriousness, it's an honor to have you on the phone. It really is. As you know, I'm a big fan of Graham Elwood. I let you open for me in Tahoe, I believe. Yeah. I think I was headlining. I mean, I let you headline for me in, in Lake Tahoe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a great, I mean, thanks. I think it was just sort of built, built, booked kind of independently through the Hollywood Improper. No, no, I always, no, no, I put a good word in for it. I always pick my headliners. I always like a guy who can follow me. That's great. And that, yeah, it was, it was a, well, thanks. I didn't, I didn't know that. I knew. Well, I did a good job, by the way, following me. So I'm going to recommend you again in the not too distant future. Oh, thank you, David. That's a very kind of comment. How long have you been doing a podcast? I was laughing. I was having such a hard time laughing when you kept going, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks. But I was, you said I had seniority. I would love to do that in a meeting, like, go pitch a television show to a network executive and say, you should just buy this based on my, my seniority. I have seniority and I have seniority in show business that counts. You know, I remember Doug Benson, by the way, who I know you are very close to. You wouldn't be doing a podcast if it weren't for Doug Benson, because I think you first appeared on Doug Love's movies and then you two had a falling out. You felt he wasn't giving you a big enough part and you, you felt you were becoming a bigger star than Doug and he fired you on, on the show, I remember, kind of like Arthur Godfrey and Julius LaRosa. Yeah. What happened between you and Doug? Have you made up? Yeah, we've made, yeah, there's nothing happened. It was, it was, we're just on the road a lot. The first one was controversy. I remember though, all the other people that worked in the documentary, that was fucking made me laugh out loud when you said that. Here's the thing about Doug Benson that I remember. When we first started doing podcasts, this was back in 2009, Doug had already been doing one and you were doing that and then launching comedy film nerds. I do remember Doug saying to me, there's room for everybody and everybody has to share information. He was very, he was very collaborative. He was one of the first podcasters and I remember he sat me down and told me everything I needed to know about podcasting. Honestly, that's the thing that was really cool when at first, like I was the first person I was, I was a guest on, I think, Never Not Funny when Jimmy Pardo started doing that. And then I was a guest on like, Nadine Rujabi had a show on this thing called the Now Live Network and I was like, well, this was cool. They had a studio in like Encino and I started doing a podcast. The first podcast I ever did was called, Comedians in Combat and we would talk about, I would have other comics on that had done tours in war zones and we would just tell crazy stories of that and I started doing comedians in combat and then Doug started doing his and then like... What year are we talking about? This is like 2006. 2006 is when you did your first podcast? Because everything else you've been saying has not been but this is... Are you multitasking? Are you fixing a printer while you're talking to me? What do you do? I have some, I have some correlation entry and tax costs so I think that's usually, when I do phone interviews with comedians that have seniority from the East Coast they usually try to get a bunch of work done at the same time. What are you doing? This is a big... Huh? You have my full attention. I'm totally focused on this interview. Okay. Because didn't I congratulate you on doing my show? I mean you got on my show. Are you just bored of New York and you need to talk to guys? Is that what this is really about? So 2006 is when you did your first podcast. I did my first podcast, I think around 2008. I did Todd Glass and Jimmy Doris podcast, Comedy and Everything Else. Yeah. Yeah. I remember going at Todd Glass's house to do the podcast thinking this is masturbation. What the hell are they doing? This is insane. Right. Yeah. Nobody's listening to this. Well, I was surprised. Honestly, the first podcast I did, the comedians and combat one, I did it for a while, a couple, I don't know, three, four months or something or maybe a year. I can't remember. I did it for a while and I had that same thing. I was like, what am I doing? Like who's listening? Like I didn't get it. I was like, I'm driving to the valley to do radio for free. But come on. Like I just was like, we really need to do this. And I didn't get it. I didn't understand what the power that it could be. And I started to see, I really, it was doing never not funny a lot and going on the road and having fans come up to me like doing stand-up and they were like, oh, I loved you on never not funny. Like I remember Jimmy Pardo and I went on and on about how much we love men's warehouse. And right, we just, we're talking about how much we love men's warehouse. And I was performing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And these two guys came up to me and showed me their men's warehouse card after the show. And I was like, what? And that's when I was like, well, I started to go hunt. And then when I was on the road with Doug and I saw he started when I first was on the road with him in like, oh, oh, eight, I think we were on the road. Oh, nine. And then so everyone was coming out to see him because of super high me. And he was the big stoner comedian. And then his podcast started to sort of take off. And I noticed the podcast fans were showing up and sitting in the front row with name tags and wanting to play the Leonard Malton game. And that's when I was like, I started to see it on the road as a stand of comic, the power of it. And that's when I started to kind of wake up. Do you think that podcasting took off? I mean, you did, you just did a documentary about, do you think podcasting took off because of companies like Claire Channel destroying radio? I think it's a combination. I think there's some of that happened. It was, it was a bunch of things happened at the same time, one of which was the technology. So when the iPad first came out and iTunes started carrying, so was the ease of delivery. And that made it, that sort of was the first tipping point, I think. And then there was stuff like that too. So radio, I remember in that time too, so the recession hit the end of 08 and doing morning radio in 09 and 2010 during the whole, you know, the economy was bad and all the advertising money pulled out of radio and radio was really struggling. And I think it's kind of similar to what you said. There was also then this, well, where do I get my audio content? And people started turning to podcast and then like a lot of name comedians started doing them. Pardo, you know, Hardwick, Doug, Rogan, Adam Corolla lost his radio gig and he took all of his radio fans over to his podcast. And so I think it was a combination of sort of the technology growing and then the radio industry being hit by the economy and maybe making some mistakes. Is podcasting different from radio? Is podcasting in and of itself an art form different from anything else? Yes. Because, well, commercial, let's talk about commercial radio versus like NPR or something like that. So I think NPR and podcasting are more similar because they're not so ad heavy, but commercial radio, I think is a completely different thing. And I, for the Doc for Earbuds, I interviewed so many just, you know, fans and listeners who were like, yeah, that's why I love podcasting is there's not, you know, ads all the time. There's not weather and station IDs and all this other business that has to happen. And podcasting became, they basically took the sort of talk radio format and delivered it in an even more personal way and in a more unfiltered way. And I think that's, and now it's become, it's growing in so many ways because it's not just like a couple of people talking about whatever. Now you have really, you have scripted podcasts, you have, you know, it's like radio plays and you have history and podcast can be literally about any subject and everyone has a podcast now. I mean, sports league, like every major league baseball team has a podcast, you know, every ESPN has podcast, like there's a podcast, you know, there's something like 350,000 podcasts just in iTunes covering every subject you could imagine. So it really feels like a podcast can be whatever you want it to be. Are podcasts viral? Well, they can be. I think a lot of podcasts have, have, you know, have had that happen to them as can kind of sort of happen anywhere on the internet. Like, you could take a podcast like, let's say my favorite murder, right? So that woman Georgia and Karen Kilgarov just got together because they like talking about murder stories and they were then featured on another bigger podcast. And then it kind of took off. When I say viral, I mean, do people share podcasts through email? Do they post them on Facebook and Twitter? I sometimes wonder where people are finding podcasts. I know how they find videos. Like YouTube, I know that people share YouTube videos. Do you find people sharing podcasts? That's a great question. Because it's not like iTunes doesn't have that sort of algorithm the way YouTube does, which is the more people that like, if you make a YouTube video about having seniority in show business, a bunch of people start watching it, then the more it gets watched and people click likes, then the more YouTube puts it in their search algorithm on the right side. If you're in YouTube, it's like if you like this video, you'll like these, you know? So the more something gets watched, the more it gets watched because of the algorithm. So, you know, iTunes and other podcast delivery services don't necessarily have that. But I do think there are Facebook pages and people just talk socially. And I think people are on the internet, whatever, Twitter or Facebook saying, oh man, I love this episode of this. And I think a lot of the podcasts are using social media quite well. And the social media maybe gets viral and gets shared about a specific episode or something. So I'm noticing these little kind of communities. But I think also it does, it can go viral in the sense that some people are just, if you are typing in a search for something, that episode or that podcast can then get up there. And then it also is viral, at least in iTunes. If a podcast gets a lot of downloads and a lot of likes, then iTunes puts it up in their rankings. You know, they have that like the top 200 podcasts or the top 200 episodes of that week. And so there's a place where it can get viral. Because some people will just go to iTunes and say, well, what's this? And I think that helps. Yeah. As you're talking, I realize that iTunes is far different than YouTube. YouTube is a much more vulgar arena. And that iTunes kind of protects its podcasters. You post your audio, you're not living and dying based on views or listens. They don't even post the number of listens. I wonder why they do that. I kind of like that. I kind of like the fact that you don't come up and see, you know, Mark Marin's podcast and see the number of downloads, as though that makes it worth listening to. Whereas with YouTube, it's all about views or you have to see this as 19 million views. Well, I think that's part of the, that's a great point. And I think that really has to come with the difference between Google, which owns YouTube and Apple's business model in the sense that YouTube is, YouTube wants your video to get seen a lot because the more, because that's where they make their money is on the ads, right? So they play an ad in front of the YouTube video. And if you watch it, like I have a YouTube channel called the political vigilani I started doing. So if you watch the ad that plays in front of it, I get a little money. If you click through the ad, I get a little more. If you click through and buy, I get even more. So YouTube set up this business model to where the more your videos get watched and liked and shared, the more people that view the more their advertisers make money, the more they make money off of their advertisers. So YouTube's whole model is to get, they want you to, and the more you get viewed, the more they promote it, which means they'll make more money and you get more views like it feeds itself. Whereas iTunes, you know, podcasts are primarily free content. So I don't know that Apple doesn't have a vested interest in promoting free content other than just wanting people to use their platform overall versus listening to podcasts elsewhere. That makes sense. Yeah. And so podcasts, audio podcasts feel less sweaty than YouTube. It feels like you can really hone your craft through audio. You can get intimate. It's less competitive. People aren't counting your views. Right? I mean, there's something sweaty about YouTube. Yeah. I mean, YouTube is its own animal. And there's, there's all these different sort of subsects in, in, in YouTube and people can comment directly. I mean, people can comment in iTunes, but it's not as, I don't know, public. It's not as up front, I guess. There's less trolling. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. On iTunes. There is less trolling. Yeah. I would agree with that. And I think I think you're right. What you said about, you know, a podcast, I think, I've seen with a YouTube channel, but I think a podcast, you need, you're given a little more room to kind of grow and, as you say, work on your craft and, and listen to it. And I think podcasting is just consumed differently. You know, most YouTube people are watching on a laptop or a computer or something, and they're just kind of banging through a couple of videos versus more people, I think binge listen to audio. They're more like, oh, I'd rather download, you know, five, six episodes of your podcast and listen to them all in a row when I'm working or my commute or I have a long drive or I do whatever. I have a job where I just kind of sit there and do mindless stuff and I need to listen. So I think the consumption of it also makes it a different experience too. And you're one on one too. So, when I'm watching a YouTube video, there's comments and all this stuff is kind of happening all at once. So you sort of feel like you can comment and you're encouraged to jump in and there's a comment thing right below it and blah, blah, blah. Whereas iTunes or a podcast in general, I download it to my phone or I use a podcast streaming service and I listen to it one-on-one. And then so to go back into iTunes or something or go online and make a comment or a post or even if I'm like, I hate your podcast, fuck you, it takes more effort. I have to really remember to go do that or stop, hit pause and go to my computer or go to my phone and do that versus YouTube. It's designed for you to just keep watching and make comments and like and share and keep you sort of in that loop. So it's more superficial? It can be, but that's not necessarily true because I'm, it can be for sure, but I think YouTube, you know, you referenced Jimmy Doar. So I was on his YouTube show, the Jimmy Doar show, which he has really blown up into this huge thing. And it's now people are coming to YouTube for independent media because they don't really trust the corporate media because it's like, well, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, they're all kind of lying to me. So you're getting, I don't think YouTube is just the domain of like 13-year-olds trolling. And I don't think it's that anymore. It's grown way past that. So it can be those things you're talking about, but I've just noticed it from starting to do like independent news, independent media and like being on the young Turks and being on Jimmy Doar show and watching other people and the comments that I'm getting seem very well informed people that are participating in politics and trying to stay aware. And they know they're kind of being lied to and they want to get more, they're really hungry for real information versus just, you know, like if I was just posting comedy videos, I think I maybe would get more of what you're talking about. People just, you stupid fuck you or whatever versus I'm getting real legitimate comments and people's giving me their political perspective and they're, you know, it's really fascinating to see. Do you think the audiences have changed? I would assume that when you first started doing a podcast, you were getting first time users, trend setters, they always talk about the taste makers. These are hip people who want to be the first to discover a new device. So they may not necessarily be, in your case, film nerds, but they're into the whole idea of a podcast. So they listen to your show. I found that to be the case back in 2009 when I started that a lot of my listeners weren't necessarily comedy savvy. They were more technological savvy. Yeah. I think there's, I think obviously the people that came to it first were tech savvy. I think they still are fairly tech savvy, but I think more and more people are coming over to podcasts just because they've heard so much of it because of stuff. Events like, like, you know, when Obama was on Mark Merritt, that got mainstream coverage or the cereal podcast. Like everybody heard about cereal, right? And I think some people, and it's so funny, I still do this all the time. Like when I took earbuds to all these festivals, I had people coming up to me saying, you know, I wanted to, I came to watch your docs because I didn't know anything about this. And I'm like, do you have an iPhone? They're like, yeah, I go, you can get podcasts on your phone. They're like, I don't think so. I go, yeah, you can pull out your phone. There's the podcast app. They're like, oh, wow, look at that. I think we're finally getting an older audience because older people are discovering Facebook finally, older people, and by older, I mean 30 and above, that they're figuring out, you know, their kids are showing them how to use their phone. Yeah. And I think too, because, and I think that the technology is both so progressive in every aspect of our lives and is becoming easier to use that I think, you know, I always use my mom, she's in her seventies. I use your mom too. Hang on. I just made Hey, hang on, everybody. Hang on. Let's all wow. I use your mom. Go ahead. Let me just mark that down. You're going to timestamp that? Go ahead. I'm sorry, you use your mom. Like I use my mom as an example when she figures like she's on Facebook now. And she she has figured out kind of how to listen to my podcast. And she is like the least technically savvy person, you know, that I've met or no. And so a thing, it kind of says what you're saying, which is, and she's telling her friends about it and showing now that I think it is kind of slowly permeating mainstream culture of past, as you said, the early adapters who were more just tech savvy people looking for stuff. Now video, do you do a video version of comedy film nerds? You know, we just started. We moved from, we do the show now of all things comedy studios and they have a camera set up and I said, because I started to see more podcasts doing this and basically they just videotape their podcast and then they cut up the video and put it on their YouTube channel. And you can get a whole new set of audience, you know, you can get a whole new revenue stream you can get. So we just started doing that. And so are you uncomfortable being on camera? Because I know your bunkmate in prison disfigured you. Yeah, it's I typically wear a prosthetic hat or one of those. So yeah, it's I get over my fear. That's the thing though, I wanted to address the video thing. I think we're all sort of, aside from the handful of people like the Hardwick and those folks who are making really good money, I think the rest of us are just trying to scramble or whatever to figure out to make this a full on profession versus a part-time paying thing that we really like. And to me, the multiple use of content being audio and video I think is the way to go because we're not spending extra time really for the same content and you make the multi-purpose and put it in different places because there's no it. That's the thing that's so crazy. And I know you know this of your audience comes from all over the like you have they find you in the weirdest ways, you know. And so I think you have to kind of have a presence out there as much like the widest net you can have to catch people and hopefully convert them into like full on followers. Let me ask you about doing the televised version of your podcast. I've been against it. I fought it for two reasons. One is I don't believe anybody's going to sit in front of a computer and watch an audio podcast. But then I find myself doing that. Like I watched Joe Rogan. I'm going to say the same thing. I had the same reaction and then I was watching like a 10-minute segment from Joe Rogan. Like literally like him and Neil deGrasse Tyson just talking about you know this one's subject. Like am I going to sit and watch them talk for an hour and a half? No, but I'm consuming it completely differently. I just want to hear them talk about why Joe Rogan used to think deny the moon landing and how he turned the corner on that. And it was a really fascinating discussion. It was about 10-11 minutes long or something like that. And I think that's the reason why plus and I learned this from Jimmy Dore. He said, Graham, when we started putting the video on there, some of the audience overlaps but we found a whole new audience on YouTube that's different than the people that were downloading the whole podcast. The audio podcast. So I think that's the key to it is you're expanding your audience because some people just you know in this day and age everything's on demand. So everyone's going to consume their content in the way that they want. So why not give them an opportunity to do that? Like you could take your hour and a half podcast and cut it up into you know seven or eight highly annoying segments. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what the young Turks do. They cut up their show. That's in fact what I do with YouTube is I do have a YouTube channel, but it's just audio. And what I do is I post the entire show to YouTube. We don't get a lot of viewers. And then I post the individual segments of the show up to YouTube. If they just want to listen to Graham Elwood, they can go to YouTube and just hear this. Would you say that you're more likely to lose somebody when you bore them on YouTube than you would on iTunes? When somebody's in the car, they're going to stick with you longer. They're going to suffer through. They're going to soldier through a difficult conversation that requires heavy mental. Well, I didn't want to say anything. Like if you just want to wrap up the interview, you could just say we're out of time. You don't have to go through this fucking biz and team. No, I'm no, no, no, I'm actually this is in all honesty and all honesty. This is my life. I mean, podcasting is my life. This is what I think about. It's it's very important to me and you've done a documentary about it. This is incredibly important to me. I suspect that people tune out on YouTube very quickly. I think it's called retention rate. I think people if if the conversation doesn't go the way the audience wants it, they turn away from it. Whereas if they're driving or they're doing a job restoring art or their glass blowers, you blew Todd Glass, didn't you? And yes, but you know, if you have a job where you can listen to podcasts, like I listen to your podcast when I'm doing my job, which is the show right now. I'm listening to your podcast. I think you get a smarter, more engaged audience through audio. I don't think you're going to get as an engaged audience on YouTube. I I'm probably wrong. That's the one thing I've learned about this new media. I don't know anything. I think you're right on that. And I think it's why you have to sort of make the YouTube content shorter. But I think that's slowly changing. And here's why it goes back to the delivery of it, which is and again, I look at my own sort of habits to kind of get a gauge for it. I cut my cable, right? So I have an antenna that I get the network channels that I barely watch. And then I have an Apple TV. And that's what I watch, Netflix and Hulu and, you know, I can get HBO go on there and ESPN and stuff like that. But they also have a YouTube one. And I was watching Jimmy Dorda's that show aggressive progressive. And I was watching that. And I was like, Oh, and I just watched several clips that in a row. And I was sitting in my living room, watching that on my flat screen TV. And I went, Oh, I just watched the news on YouTube. What's aggressive progressive? It's a show that Jimmy Dorda's on Young Turks on TYT. And I've been on it a couple of times. And the first time he asked me, I was like, I got to see what the format of the show is. And it's a new show. And it covers topics. And, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty fascinating. But I was sitting there watching YouTube the way I would watch, you know, CNN or the ABC Nightly News or something like that. And I think that that delivery system will affect the retention time thing that you're talking about. And I think when people are at their laptop and they're at work, then they're watching a video. And after a couple of minutes, if it doesn't catch their attention, they might click to something else. But you know what I mean? I think you're right. And I think the audio listener is more inclined to just stay for the long haul. But I think as the delivery systems are changed and cables getting, you know, people are cutting their cable, I think you're going to have more long form video content on YouTube that people will watch all the way through. Yeah. You know, that's interesting. That guy named Sir Howard Stringer. He worked for CBS. And then he went over to Sony about 20 years ago. He gave a speech about the new media. He said something very interesting. He said, we'll always need networks because watching television is passive that the audience wants to be told what to watch. And I agree with you, there's something physical about laying on the couch, watching something as opposed to seeing it on your computer, even on your phone. It's weird. But I don't know if young people know the difference. Kids who are like 20, I think they're just accustomed to watching things on the phone. And I don't know if they understand what it means to be a couch potato. That's an interesting question. I wonder if, again, though, I'd go back to the delivery of it. Maybe they're just used to sitting and watching stuff on their phone or their laptop. But I think you can deliver the content they're used to watching on their phone to a bigger screen. I think ultimately people are going to still want to do the bigger screen. I think even that age group, though, is still like binge watching shows on Netflix or Hulu or whatever. I think they're still watching long form content at times. Because everyone's like, oh, you gotta watch Game of Thrones or whatever the thing is. And so I think there's still some of that. I think that's still happening. But I know it's hard to say. It's really hard to say because I think it's everything so fractalized now. You know, there isn't this, because of the streaming services and the on demand everything, it's hard to say what any one or any group is doing, any demographic, because it's all fractionalized within each demographic, probably. I've straddled both eras of old media and new media. And I remember you and I did a show for NBC. I don't know. It was some comedy show that came on Friday nights and I don't know. But I remember you played a film law detective, but it was NBC. It's about, I would say this was 17 years ago. Is that fair? Somewhere in there 2001, 2002 maybe. Yeah. The idea back then in 2001 was you get on NBC. That's all you need to do. Yeah. You don't need to contact your fans. You don't need to stand outside a show and thank people for coming. Your job was to become funny and famous. Yeah. I think that's absolutely true. It's so funny to see this new thing of like when we, you know, we all first started it was, yeah, get on TV. That was it. You get on TV and you get famous and you're booming. Now, you know, there's people that are hugely famous on YouTube that you've never heard of. We've never, I've never heard of. And they can sell out huge theaters. And it is a whole new era. And I think in some ways it favors the performer. I think it many, many ways it does because there's no gatekeepers because it's the people at NBC didn't think you were funny. Guess what? You didn't get on NBC. You know, if just one executive went, nope, it didn't happen. Yeah. And how much of that is retail politics? One of the things at first that was difficult for me was the idea that this is retail politics. Everybody who listens to your show, you have to connect with. You have to answer their emails. And at first I didn't understand that. Now I live for it. Now when I get an email from a listener, I can engage with them for as long as they want to. How much time do you spend per day engaging with your listeners? I try to spend, you know, at least a couple hours because I know how valuable that is to respond across all the social media and the comment section of my YouTube page and our Facebook page. And like there's, I try to do that a couple hours every day because it is so important because it's more empowering this format but it's a lot more work. In the old days, you got on NBC and then you were famous. And like you said, you didn't have to wait outside after the show and hand out cards and take photos for people to post on social media and hashtag. But now you have more control over your career and your money. Some of the stuff that I was told when I was starting out is there has to be a mystery to the performer. The audience shouldn't see you before you go on that hanging out after a show. You're letting too much sunlight in and it destroys the magic. Do you believe that? Because now you're supposed to let all the sun shine in. That's a really interesting thing. I don't know. Because I started in San Francisco and they had a star making machinery in San Francisco. They really did. Once you got good, you became kind of famous in San Francisco. Just in San Francisco but you had a following and people knew who you were. I'm talking about the 80s and early 90s. The idea was you should not be that accessible because if they get to know you, especially you, David Feldman, they will stop being fans. I think that's completely changed because if you look at the popularity of, let's say, Marc Maron, his popularity sprung out of him being completely honest about who he was as a flawed being on his podcast. I think some of that mystery still applies in certain situations but there is also plenty of examples of people saying, I'm going to put it all out there and people responding. I think going back to the podcast thing, why people, there's such a deep connection. There was an article several years ago, I think in the New York Times saying, don't listen to comedian podcasts for the comedy. Listen for the truth. When they would hear, oh man, you were struggling too. I have a connection because sometimes I think they had that, oh, all you comedians out in Hollywood, you're just living in mansions and you're out at limousines and they didn't realize like, oh, I've suffered tough times. I've gone battle depression or whatever and I think in this day and age, I think it's a completely different ballgame because of social media and instant access to everything. I'm just wondering about accessibility. That may not be the same thing as honesty. I think Mark Marin can open up his heart but there's a difference between that and being available to everybody who listens to your show. I don't know, it's interesting. It's a good point. I mean, I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm too accessible. Maybe that's why I'm not a millionaire. Maybe I should just be more of a, that's an interesting, I don't know, that's a really interesting question. I don't know but I have a definitive answer for that. And video to me, I resist video because I think podcasts are theater of the vagina. Radio is theater of the mind. I view podcasts as theater of the vagina. It makes great perfect sense. Very generous with your time and I want to congratulate you on Earbuds, the movie that you have made, the documentary you have made with Chris Mancini, the podcasting documentary. It's about the history of podcasting. Is it about the history or are you just interviewing great podcasters? It's a little, not really. We don't go into that much of the history because it's still too young in my opinion and we really wanted to show how literally we have, like, you know, we ask the question, so what would a a decorative tainter in the Capitol building, a drill instructor for the army, a Japanese housewife, a minor in the Australian Outback, and a woman that coaches gymnastics in Indiana? What could any of them possibly have in common? And the answer is podcasting. I was going to say Chlamydia from Tom Sizemore. Well, that too, and that's my favorite podcast. The most remote listeners are from where? Where did you discover the most remote listener? A guy that works in an iron ore mine in the Australian Outback. Wow. No joke. Like, we interviewed him. We went out there. We went out to the Australian Outback and interviewed this guy. He's out in the middle of nowhere. And who does he listen to? Comedy film nerds. He listens to Will Anderson's Toefop and a couple other shows. I think The Dollop, maybe. Boy, The Dollop has taken off. Yeah. That's another great example. Dave really, you know, he has to do a lot of research and writing for that show but it's really resonated with people. Congratulations. Sorry to hear about you and Chris Mancini breaking up. What happened? Was it the same thing that happened between you and Doug Benson where you felt that Chris didn't appreciate you and you were a bigger star than he was? Yeah, well, Chris spoke a lot of weed, too. So it's just the one big giant. No. Comedy film nerds. One of the things I love what you guys have done is you've built a website and you encourage people to write and do reviews. Who are some of the comics who review movies for you? You know, we've had Laura House, David Huntsberger, Susy Nakamura's written for us, our guy Neil Weekly's written. They really would think, if you want to write reviews, we always need new content for comedyfilmers.com and then we have a whole online store. We don't just sell our comedy film nerd stuff. We sell Dana Gold stuff, Pat Naswell, T.J. Miller, Doug Benson, Jackie Cation, you know, Crab Feast people. So we've built this whole store where we just like selling comedians that we like various albums and DVDs and shirts and whatnot. Great. And how is your Brazilian martial arts coming? It's a cattle stalled. I had some, you know, had some back issues that I had to fix and then I put a lot of money into, you know, getting earbuds done. So hopefully when we start selling this movie more, I'll be able to do more martial arts. Can't you kill a man with a hangnail? Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, aren't you capable of doing severe damage to a human being? Yeah. I just, I study martial arts, so I think I could defend myself if some guy came at me and maybe hold my own, I think. Some kind of Brazilian martial arts, right? Well, there's Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I studied a little bit of that, not a lot. I'd like to study more of that. How many men have you killed? Ah, seven, eight. How do you resist, how do you, how do you resist the temptation not to just kick somebody in the face? How does that, how do you get, if I could, if I could kick somebody, side kick somebody and just knock out a couple of their teeth, I'd be doing that all day. There are two things I wish I could do. If I could talk like Bill Cosby, I would just talk like Bill Cosby all day and I would kick people's teeth out. Yeah. I mean, you know, someday you wish you could just go down and start kicking people's teeth in. So, I don't know, I guess that'd be the upside of an apocalypse. Is it knowing that you can do it that makes you not want to do it? Is it the power to do it? No, I think it's, well, if you have the right instructor, you should be taught that it's only used for self-defense, that you shouldn't be going around bullying people and only if someone is like physically, if your physical safety is in danger or somebody else's, like, that's the only time you use it. So, it's not about, unless you go to the Cobra Kai dojo from the karate kid, where you're taught to strike first, strike hard, show no mercy, then maybe you're looking more of the Feldman kicked teeth in throughout my day, mantra. Maybe I just need a shiv. Graham Elwood, I miss you. I haven't heard your voice in a long time, except when I listened to a cup. New York is, I'm in Manhattan. There is no God here. It is a unnatural place. But what brought you there? A plane. Graham Elwood has written and executive produced and directed Earbuds, the podcasting documentary. He did it with Chris Mancini. We've been doing comedy film nerds for about almost 10 years. Wow. Well, give my best and give my love to everybody. Graham Elwood. Can you stand on the line for one second? Yeah, yeah.