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david Um Felipe Esparza yes is a great uh stand-up comedian our
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guest today on Flat Al Good dude I actually uh was quite entertained by him
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He had a great story and and you know that was one of the ones I have to say
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I'm not tight with but I think you had met him and I was introduced to him
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through you as far as his comedy And then when I looked him up I thought "Oh my god this guy has been around doing
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great." And it's just one of those blind spots when you're not in the same places as people But he has a huge career huge
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huge following Uh his story is so interesting because uh he came through
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the border illegally years ago with his mom and his brother and I think his brother had to be
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dressed up as a girl or something But anyway his stories of how he got to America
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um and how he started his career in America and how he's become so successful It's just a great great ride
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and he's he's funny and charming as well I think you're going to really like him Yeah I had a great time talking to him
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He's a good-looking dude Uh if that matters to anyone does to me does every every He's very young for his age and
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he's has a great head of hair We couldn't get over Yeah Cool hair and and uh a good attitude and I had a lot of
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fun with him So yeah hope you like it Here here he is Felipe
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[Music] I just thought of a a rich person's metric or people have a little extra
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money Either you go to a salon you go to a barber shop to get a haircut or the
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haircut person comes to you It's the first sign of having a couple extra
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bucks in your pocket Also depend on if like who you're working with too Because
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um in Comedy Central they don't have like a hair stylist So when you're working with like BET or Def Jab there's
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like two barbers there from the hood and they give you there's a barber shop on
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the side You don't even know what's going on You sit down and go and you you hear the comedian go "Give me a Chicago
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fade." I've heard that And I'm like "Give me
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I'm like I have long hair Give me a cholo number five
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Yeahum cholo number any kind of food product with that You just get hair done There's no sense of any sort of food
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with that A cho stand up My hair was really short like a gang member It was really short
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and then you know I I used to get pulled over on the way home So I just started letting it grow and I just let it grow and then I haven't let I haven't cut it
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yet What length is it past gang member yeah When does the length of the hair reduce being pulled over oh man you got
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to be like um like uh Bill Bird
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Yeah officer Who's [ __ ] speeding here all right I'm going to the [ __ ] comedy store All right He's aggressive
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That Bill Listen give me some pickles [Laughter]
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You know what drives me out of my [ __ ] mind meet mates Get a [ __ ] car I don't need a golf cart Give me a
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pocketing ticket you [ __ ] meter mate Meet head Anyway that's kind of Bill Bar
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I used to do that I used to do just east coast stand up But so for our audience
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why don't we just quickly go who where you came from and who you are is
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extraordinary So we've never had a guest quite with your story So don't be shy But yeah don't be
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shy Don't you grew up in Mexico and you made your way to America and you know
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you're incredibly successful You play giant places have a huge amount of fans
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So it's just kind of an American dream would you call it or Mexican dream or what is it how are you processing i got
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here when I was like four years old or five my my brothers and I with my with
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my mom We came here illegally My father was already here living in America and
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so were all my my dad's relatives They were working for Warner Brothers Um it's
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funny They they all had jobs putting the record inside of the the cardboard They
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were at the press the record pressing company Oh fascinating
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That's someone has to do it man Dude it's not bad I'm telling you Felipe I used to work when I moved to LA tried
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stand up Of course I wasn't doing that well because I'm in Glendale putting the A team dolls in boxes in a warehouse to
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send to anyone who ordered one But it was kind of boring But every day I'm like did they want the They want the A
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team actual figure They also want the headband Nope they didn't order that So I'd have to figure out from the order
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what they wanted tape it up physically So I'm with you dude Jeez I'm This I'm
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just going to say it I pity the fool He pity me for sure Mr T I used to work at
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the back of um um North Broadway where the Broadway
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warehouse used to be And I used to separate all the clothes hangers the
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plastic ones Oh yeah You got to keep them separated So I was in a room full
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of hangers bro Like the whole room with hangers And my friend and I would just get high during lunch and start grabbing
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hangers all day Uh okay Those type of jobs are just
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mind-numbing You have to do We used to take dexatum to wake up It was like so stupid But anything
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Did you ever grab your friend by the scruffies of his neck and say "We got to get out of here man I can't hang here no
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more." I don't know Good night I can't do it I can't hang
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I so you when you came across the border okay illegally I'm not going to judge
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you know came across illegally how hard was that and were how old were you were you scared you had your little brother
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with you right was it scary we were kids I don't remember being scared I remember
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being caught we made it cuz we made it through the border
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like the right around Sanro the border we made it through there
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But there was another uh checkpoint like I guess they were they were medic men or
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something or but there was like the the sher the s clemente sheriff department
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or somebody had a there was an extra checkpoint that the death city made
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randomly stopping cars that were in the on the five south on the five north
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Right Right I guess So they stopped us and our driver was he was a um a Mexican travel agent
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you know a wild coyote A coyote He was a coyote A travel agent
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My favorite Yeah man It was a Mexican um coyote um travel agent So he was
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American They let him go and um my mom and my brothers and I we got arrested
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and my mom was released to go back to Mexico and then we were released like 3
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hours later and we we cross the border and we stood there another month figuring out plan B
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Then um we borrowed our our cousins passports and it was two boys and one
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girl on a passport and my mom looked at my brother my little brother and said "Well I guess you're going to have to be
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potty." Start growing your hair You made What did What did you do to make him look
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like his passport photo i mean Oh man he had to wear a dress for a whole week just to get in character Get in
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character Get in character Yeah Yeah man He he went all like he went all into it
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man And when um when we got to a border they had like makeup on him and a little
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dress and they asked him "What's your name?" My name is Pip and he's gay now
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but you know what he took one for the team That's all that matter That was nice
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Okay When we'll get that's a whole another podcast He's gay now Starring Philip Uh nothing wrong with any of that
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But so was he I feel a hard top By the way did you I mean you're looking at
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your mom as the adult and she's like sinking Are you reading her feelings at that moment you know like oh we're
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getting caught but then really determined a month later you go back and then you do this thing and now
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you're in America Yeah And Yeah When do you figure out like
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you've got this gift of gab for laughter took a while We didn't know like like we
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didn't know everything we did back then was bad Nobody like sat us down and said
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"Hey everything you did was bad Don't do it again." And we didn't know we were
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illegal man I remember calling kids illegal and I was
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illegal I I remember telling kids "Go back to go back to uh El Salvador or go
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back to wherever you came from and I should be going with them
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I would just tell her listen when you get when you come out of school don't talk to strangers Don't talk to anybody
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Just run home Jesus No matter what you're doing in life just run back home No after run back home Scary Wow How
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long did that go on that kind of fear When did when did it turn for you i mean
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I don't know Oh I guess um when we were we were we were in America for a while
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and we went back to Mexico to uh take care of some paperwork and then we
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crossed the border and we went to um we went back we uh we crossed the
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border We went to the section for um illegal immigrants but not the deported
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ones I guess Mhm and we had um Mexican IDs and we filed for green cards right
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there How scary So you went and it was almost like admitting it So you're like here we're going illegal cuz it's hard
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to get back the second time I'm sure So we had a bunch of um I don't know what
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we did to I know that we had to leave we had to um we self deepported I guess
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what we did first Mhm We went back to Mexico on our on our own when we went
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when we went back and then um I guess like a week later we all came in illegally How scary though to go back
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and go I we know once we go back it could that could be it Yeah I forgot that part I never I never mentioned that
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part about the our voyage that we actually sell the reported ourselves
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Yeah for and then we we decided to come back in the legal way And what growing
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up in Mexico to that age and then what was your vibe of America and and I kind of want to know do when did you go to
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Disneyland i mean what did you what was it like is it was it Oh man First of all
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uh when we got here the coolest thing was that the bathroom was inside the house cuz we we our bathroom was out
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house and you were that was an inside bathroom Blow your mind
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Okay Yeah man And uh we could flush the toilet
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Do you ever miss an out house toilet paper We could flush toilet paper inside the toilet We couldn't do that at um
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Well And some houses in Mexico they will they'll tell you "Hey don't don't flush anything down the toilet." Literally
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anything Not even poop Nothing Anything bro Put in a little pocket
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Did you have Yeah that's funny cuz Yeah Did you When did you kind of um sort of
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be feel American or you know what was that we were in kindergarten Mhm Um we
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went to we went to um we went to elementary school kindergarten and all the kids were speaking English
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and I was the only one who didn't speak English well but like I caught on fast I started watching American shows That's
00:12:37
all we watched And um we didn't know how to pronounce a lot of words with like um
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they had like um a K in the middle for some reason Like we didn't know how
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to say bionic or binoculars or any any word with a C
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in the middle like that Yeah It was hard for us to pronounce cuz we were my
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brother would call Bionic Woman Balion Woman So what were you what were you watching
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i'm sorry What shows we were watch um we would watch um we would watch um all the
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shows that were on CBS for some reason man That channel would come in looking
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good on that TV with no antenna Crispy So we have no antenna So whatever
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channels look good I guess it was on channel 9 Telemundo Of course Telmundo
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You could break your television unplug it and Telemundo still come off
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What about what do you People say they learn from watching TV I don't I've been overseas I don't learn anything from
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watching a foreign language but it must be easy I guess to pick up phrases or how do you do that yeah we watch a lot
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of movies My dad he like watching movies so we will go to a drive-ins a lot and um he like clean Eastwood and Ste and
00:14:01
Charles Bronson Yeah Charles Bronson But that was wearing the beanie just like
00:14:07
him Even though he was not a vigilante and he always look at the go
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[Laughter] I saw it Yeah Yeah Charles Bronson used to be a big impression to do in the
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clubs in the 70s I can't I never There were some good ones You couldn't do it
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of all people Well I didn't get excited about it I just I took by the way I took
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basically Spanish for like eight years and all I know is Don Estala Bibloteka
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esta gracias That's a lot Uh mucho tobaho Um that's much because we we work
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with a lot of people from south of the border They were they we have skilled
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gardeners all kinds of people Uh so yeah but I wouldn't take their their Spanish
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for granted because my dad uh he dropped out of he dropped out of school in a sixth grade Mhm So his Spanish is pretty
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much basically as good as any American speaking Spanish Is it Spang English is that a real thing where it's like I
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don't know man And in where I grew up they call it chic The mixture of cho and
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English Ebonics to ch Hey man like "Hey man hire the radio."
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Hire the radio Yeah Or they say "Oh they mix English and
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Spanish." Oh right now I have grand You know what I mean grande
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Yeah I know some Look at that Being bilingual and and working in both
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languages which we get to first one to do a special on both languages What can
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you tell us about English and Spanish i mean is one more romantic is one easy or lands harder laughs for you when you do
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your set in Spanish or is it just it's just something we have no experience
00:15:59
better in one language and they kill the other language The phrasing and the timing in English and Spanish is
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different right i mean well what happens with me was that a lot of the words that I was speaking in in Spanish were chic
00:16:13
Mhm You know like words that um along Mexican-Americans in the southwest have
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used as Spanish But when I went to Mexico those words don't even exist in a Spanish language Like when I was saying
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I was saying fix my brakes in spa in English and in Spanish I would say I
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would add an a s Um breas and breas not even a a Spanish
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word Word for I don't know how to say breaks
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in Spanish apparently I was just saying like cuz I know that white people they add a O after every English word when
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they can't know what to say like your sono is not doing his homework or you
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know Yeah I did I did that in Italy People do that We had as in the
00:17:05
beginning when we don't know English we're like esite you know or
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[Laughter] excuse me
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So then so I had to go to Mexico and and um I started I actually started off open
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micing in Spanish first and I started building up a set till I got to one hour
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when I was comfortable in Mexico Wait so in Mexico you're doing a Spanish set
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basically if things everyone can relate to there and then you come over after
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you got that's an hour is a lot Yeah I um I I translated my jokes first
00:17:50
of the of the hour in English into like um in their language they could understand Okay Except some words were
00:17:57
play on words so I had to get rid of the whole joke Yeah for sure And by the way
00:18:02
this is on Netflix right now It was done in 2020 Bad decisions English Spanish
00:18:08
versions Pretty translate
00:18:14
When I was in Tijuana Mexico a lot of the audience were uh people that were deported by by all the previous
00:18:22
presidents There's people there that were deported by President Obama There were people there deported from Bush
00:18:28
People deported from um from Clinton A lot of Clinton gang members
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Was that like Hey I'm a Clinton man I'm a Clinton deported me Did you hang out
00:18:41
with the people that were deported by your president yes And I even hung out with a bunch of
00:18:47
um military Marines that were deported during um the last
00:18:52
administration Like there's a whole neighborhood with nothing but um
00:18:58
deporty uh military people like people from that fought in Korea people who fought in um in uh the Gulf War people
00:19:06
who fought in Afghanistan Iraq but somehow they got deported and and then get deported after they do that That's
00:19:13
horrible Well some of these guys have PTSD so they never really fixed their papers and some of them um are not with
00:19:21
it but um they're all they were all um they were not born in America but they were promised citizenship Sure And some
00:19:28
of them didn't they didn't go file I know this one one guy that I spoke to
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he's 74 He got pulled over in Echo Park because there was a shooting in Echo
00:19:40
Park and he was coming out of the grocery store where they got a milk and the police they they held they pulled
00:19:46
everybody to the side in that area and they were checking everybody's IDs and he had a he didn't even know he had a he
00:19:54
had a deport on site on his ID So he went straight to Mexico He didn't call
00:19:59
his family Oh man He was 74 Yeah 74 and
00:20:05
he thinks he's just he's he's done with all that and then they just it seemed like the danger is still there What
00:20:11
what's your advice for people in uh Southport border now with Trump in there stay away Come in Try to come legally I
00:20:18
mean what do you Oh man If you're going to be here in America illegally first of all don't hang around with no gang
00:20:25
members Don't hang around with anybody with a bald head anybody with a low rider for work and come straight home
00:20:33
Straight home Tell your kids "Dude don't hang around with bad people Uh just do
00:20:38
your job and just live like a normal citizen and uh you know if you have a
00:20:45
you're going to be driving no driver license man I will stop at every red light and look both ways." Even the
00:20:51
green light So just be boring Be boring and be simple Be boring or they won't get deport They won't deport you
00:20:57
right i mean ideally the idea is to get really horrible trouble makers out Yeah
00:21:04
Yeah I could see getting caught in a crossfire of just again I became a US citizen in October Really oh good Good
00:21:12
job Wow After all the specials and all the successes still they held you out
00:21:18
You know [Music]
00:21:23
one thing that was kind of interesting I don't know if you want to go in this direction but at some point you were kind of seduced by gang life or went in
00:21:31
a gang and went through all that So what was that like was it hilarious oh when I
00:21:36
was a kid um I I hung out with a bunch of kids that were into break dancing at the time And they were we go to we would
00:21:44
go to Venice Beach and compete with other kids but I was never good at um
00:21:50
break dancing but I was good at shoplifting you know Me too So I was I
00:21:55
was like in charge of merch So I was in charge of stealing all the white gloves for people and I would sell them to them
00:22:03
I used to carry the cardboard in my break group So um after break dancing
00:22:08
died out and then crack cocaine moved into our neighborhood All my friends got
00:22:14
into the same gang except me And then they were all like 16 years old 17 And I
00:22:21
avoided them forever till I turned 19 I was 20 years old I was too old to be in
00:22:28
the gang but they still jumped me in Oh you know Shane it's funny because in
00:22:34
this movie Bus Boys when we join to be a bus boy we get jumped in And then one
00:22:40
time I quit for an hour and I had to get jumped in again I'm like God I quit for one hour and they're like that's you know the rules Spades doing a movie I
00:22:47
thought about I had a joke about that when people were leaving California to live somewhere else I said you're
00:22:53
leaving California you should get jumped out first Yeah See Dana we know all I know This movie with Theo Von is you you
00:23:00
guys flee to Mexico or something right no we go we get stuck at the border on
00:23:06
the way to Mexico We try to go to Mexico but we can't get across So we work at a little restaurant on the border America
00:23:13
and uh we we want to be waiters so we get job as bus boys first to move up in
00:23:19
three days but it takes years cuz we're not any good But yeah everyone there is
00:23:25
Spanish I mean most of the cast because we're right there Felipe in that movie man H we should have actually I didn't
00:23:31
even know about too busy So you could have turned it down It would have been great So wherever you
00:23:37
want to go but I mean you're in gang stuff You get to America I mean I just like when did you do your first first
00:23:43
set in America where was it oh it was um it was in 1993
00:23:50
probably or 94 at the Natural Fudge Theater and um it's on Fountain
00:23:58
Avenue in um Silver Lake Natural Fudge Theater from the from that church that
00:24:06
Tom Cruz goes to Oh yeah Scientology Scientology I know it well Yeah Yeah
00:24:11
That church That huge building You mean that monstrosity huge monster across the street from that It's a theater It's
00:24:18
called the Fountain Theater now but it was called before it was called the um
00:24:24
the Natural Fudge It was a vegan studio It was a vegan vegetarian um coffee shop
00:24:31
I have no idea that it was vegan till after I left So we were It was a open
00:24:36
mic on Monday nights with punk rock music So they have a comed two comedians go up and then where the comedians are
00:24:44
performing the punk band is behind them setting up their band Oh my god So then
00:24:50
like two bands will perform punk music and then while they're checking their [ __ ] down three more comedians are
00:24:57
performing for the punk audience which is probably not the best Yeah punk Hollywood
00:25:03
runaways kids I think it was 18 and over That seems like a Jamie Kenny there
00:25:10
Jamie Kennedy Yeah Great com Jamie Kenny did there Alonzo Bowden Brian
00:25:16
Holtzman Met a lot of a lot of people there Do you remember that first set do
00:25:21
you remember what line killed did you have a bit that worked or were you humiliated or what was it like i had a
00:25:27
line that killed but it was um it was um Oh I said that um this is Romeo and
00:25:35
Juliet if it was um shot in my neighborhood And then I pretended that I
00:25:41
pretended Romeo was like a crackhead Like I was shaking you know with my elbows I was acting like a crackhead you
00:25:47
know right and I was biting my fingers and I was looking at the floor like a
00:25:52
crackhead does rock the real and then I would say and I I was yelling out "Julia
00:26:00
you [ __ ] [ __ ] Where's my [ __ ] fight?"
00:26:06
That one sounds like it would get a big laugh in a rowdy club It's high energy Yeah it got you got a laugh there from
00:26:12
the people that were homeless And um and then the owner of the place his name was
00:26:17
Johnny Roberts He had a local access show at um Tuesdays at 10 p.m on channel
00:26:26
3 on um on cable some cable network Yeah It was just a free public access show
00:26:33
and I didn't know what public access was I didn't have cable People me going "Kiden that was amazing I want you to be
00:26:40
in my my show We tape every every Wednesday morning." It was It's a t It's
00:26:45
a big comedy show I thought I made it right I thought it was going to be like one of those Yeah
00:26:51
You thought it was evening at the Apollo but it was local actors And um and I
00:26:57
looked at the way other comedians were dressed and I and I went to a thrift store and I bought like a a a ' 80s like
00:27:04
a a coat a jacket and I was trying to find a tie to wear like a ' 80s comic
00:27:09
but I couldn't find anything And then the guy at the thrift store he said "I don't have a tie but try this on." And I
00:27:16
didn't know what it was Yeah I remember it was somebody told me it was called a I don't know what bobo or bow tie Yeah
00:27:26
Yeah It was it was like a metal thing Mhm I look like FY bear if you were Native American
00:27:33
It's a good look So So but that sounds like a big deal
00:27:39
though You're on a TV show It's not a big deal but in your head it's a compliment like "Hey I did a set They're
00:27:45
asking me to come on this show We all We all did that that era I mean
00:27:51
you should have a you should have a show called Loco Access Loco Access Yeah it's
00:27:56
not bad So I met these guys there and then they told me to go to another place
00:28:02
that that does comedy on Saturday nights called Waldo Comedy Station And then
00:28:09
that was on right on Highland on Highland The back then it was called a Hollywood Hotel So they do we did comedy
00:28:16
there and then I finally made it to the comedy store How how many how much longer oh to
00:28:23
audition for Mitsy How'd that go the original room of Mity back then yeah it was five years later and it was like 90
00:28:32
oh Mitsie still there in her booth This comedy store is
00:28:37
huge You what happened comedy store is huge but not that many people are going to the comedy store back then Not like
00:28:45
now in our way Not like now It was dead There was a comedian that they used to
00:28:50
bring their dogs on stage I mean you were back then man It was
00:28:56
like if you if you wanted to be a comedian like if you stuck around those days you're probably doing well right
00:29:03
now because um I remember it was like so many people were getting bumped when I
00:29:10
first started off Like really bumped like um I remember there was a b a big
00:29:15
showcase and um a bunch of comedians that were supposed to be seen by Mitsy
00:29:21
Shore and she didn't show up so the the showcase was cancelled but there was a
00:29:27
lot of people who actually made that trip from other parts of the country to
00:29:33
audition man I only took one bus and nobody know what I was doing but there
00:29:38
were people there from Jersey they call their parents and And then um the dice man shows up and
00:29:46
does five hours on the stage Didn't even get to go up Dice Andrew dice clay Oh my
00:29:53
god I put the sticker out on the rise Yeah Oh yeah
00:30:00
On stage and then like five hours I was waiting I I didn't
00:30:07
leave after shows up He does four hours
00:30:12
Who eddie Griffin Oh Eddie Griffin It's a [ __ ] marathon Four hours So it's a 9 hour show You've
00:30:20
seen two comics Okay Who's next yeah And then 1:45 in the morning bro I go up at
00:30:26
1:45 right before Robert William Oh did you say I only have two and a
00:30:33
half hours of material because I'm new yeah Like three minutes
00:30:39
Did you dude I Let's do a side note Dana for the people listening It's not crazy
00:30:45
to think because I was from Arizona and if someone said Mity will see you this Monday I would fly out It's too
00:30:52
important to have someone in the business see you or Bud Freedman at the improv So that's a really really big
00:30:59
deal I understand why everyone came and if she casually didn't show up what a
00:31:04
heartbreaker And also we all got bumped up in San Francisco where I started You
00:31:09
know they'd say Robin's here the great Robin Williams And uh I thought I was gonna maybe have a 9:30 spot and then
00:31:17
Robin would do three hours Oh I can't believe it Oh someone's on Oh look Oh
00:31:23
spaceship Look Oh it's a Frisbee But anyway he was brilliant And he would he would le I call it levitate the room He
00:31:29
would kill so hard that you're like "Fuck I got to work harder." Did you see someone early in that time and went
00:31:36
"Damn that guy or woman is at another level?" Did you have somebody who kind of blew you away and made made you want
00:31:42
to get better right I saw um what's his name dane Cook Dane Cook and Dane Cook
00:31:49
World when he when he became kind of at his height He was doing um Sufi
00:31:54
Okay Whatever it was Sufi What was it i don't know the bit but it
00:32:00
looks funny I like it He's flipping you off He spit about you know uh I don't
00:32:06
know how to do it but he'll be like um you know how people they they flip
00:32:12
you off Oh I see They go "Fuck you." That's right But [ __ ] that It should be a super [ __ ] you called Sufi Oh yeah He
00:32:20
think he told us about this day huh something like that right yeah Yeah he did that And he would storm around the
00:32:26
stage He was super physical hyper confident really clear with his jokes
00:32:31
and Yeah And he's that highly skilled to follow that you know Yeah And um I
00:32:38
remember people would have it tattooed women would have it tattooed on their on the back of their butt like a like a
00:32:44
stam stamp That's fine Oh boy Oh interesting Any of those Thank you When
00:32:50
did you have women trying to hit on you or I know you're happily married now We don't want to go into it but some women
00:32:57
love funny funny men Hell yeah man I had a I have people tattooed my name on
00:33:04
their back I'm not even famous [ __ ] You had a young lady You look Yeah
00:33:11
By the way he looks young I thought you were like 28 or something I had a woman um in Las Vegas She told me to um
00:33:18
autograph her arm and she was like 21 and I was like 40 and um I uh I tattooed
00:33:27
I wrote my name sloppy on her arm right she she had a little chubby arm you know
00:33:33
it was my pen was getting sure to do Yeah I wrote Felipe on it And then later
00:33:38
on she sent me a photo of her in a thong with um not showing her boobs but
00:33:45
showing her ass And then her arm and she tattooed right there Filipe she tattooed
00:33:50
over your autograph Okay Yeah that's that's something people do I like that
00:33:55
You want to bring her home to mom That's somebody you know Hell yeah man Especially with her next boyfriend
00:34:03
So also that was cool So then so you're at least 40 That's So you're 45 You look
00:34:09
You look 27 now Yeah you do look No I'm not 45 I'm 55 Get out of town I just
00:34:16
told Dana he looks so young I don't know Black don't crack beige don't age and white ain't right Also I don't drink so
00:34:24
that helped too Yeah that Yeah the booze face it can really age you you know Um
00:34:30
so so now I mean just because we we have limited time You really you're doing
00:34:36
you're doing the clubs When's I just curious when's the first time it became your job like okay I'm I'm a standup and
00:34:43
that's how I earn money I don't I don't need any side hustle How long um
00:34:50
well I I had child support They were they were coming after me and they were garnishing my paycheck So I was making
00:34:57
half So that kind of helped me decide to quit my regular job since I wasn't
00:35:02
making no money anymore at my regular job Mhm Sure So I just went straight to
00:35:09
doing standup And then like in 96 they were doing this big standup show in um
00:35:15
San Antonio Texas Some guy named Jeff Valdez and the owner of the the River
00:35:21
Center Comedy Club um Kylen and and Jeff
00:35:27
uh Borsha I I don't know their names but they they produced a a show for Showtime
00:35:32
called the Latino Laugh Festival hosted by Dave Fuentes and Paul Rodriguez Yeah
00:35:37
Yeah because they try to grab all the Latino comedians they can find and I was one of the younger ones that actually
00:35:43
auditioned for the show and got it I met comedians there who I didn't know were
00:35:48
Latino like Greg Geraldo and John Mendoza Was Geraldo i didn't know those
00:35:55
guys Yeah Yeah I didn't know grace I I was very shocked to see John Mendoza
00:36:01
because I always thought he was Irish but I guess he's Puerto Rican and Irish and he was one of my favorite comics and
00:36:07
Paul Rodriguez was the original Latino comic at at least at the improv you know
00:36:13
he was the store it was totally the American Express card
00:36:20
where he bring a knife with him consequently Paul always starts off his sentences with a big word so they're
00:36:26
going to be in the afternoon consequently
00:36:32
Consequently that's a huge over their head You can I was the first one I heard
00:36:37
say stuff like that You can laugh now but my cousin Julio is stealing your hubcaps Yeah that brought down the house
00:36:44
at the improv in 1985 Yeah man I remember um the first time I
00:36:49
I saw him was in a glimpse of um television before I wanted to be a comedian Then I was my dad was like he
00:36:57
would change the channels from CBS Duca Hazard all the way back to the UHF
00:37:04
channel 34 But he you know he could he could go left you know just go left and
00:37:09
boom he's there right he's there Boom He'll be at channel 34 Yeah He likes to
00:37:16
mess with us and he'll turn the knob all to see all the channels so he could see um all the all everything we're missing
00:37:24
So so what I was like Leonardo de Caprio in that movie point like this Whoa whoa
00:37:31
whoa whoa whoa whoa wait wait wait Don't change it Mexican on TV
00:37:37
And Paul Rodriguez he was doing his set um on that show AK Pablo He said uh the
00:37:43
bit was um he goes I remember when my family came over from Mexico it was 17 of us in
00:37:50
an inner tube and we were singing ain't no stopping us now we're on the move
00:37:58
killed yeah he always killed so so um last comic standing you make your way
00:38:03
you're going through the clubs you're doing well and then something happens
00:38:09
it's a big move big moment right oh yeah And when I won standing it was $250,000
00:38:16
and my son's mom fought for child support the next day Oh they wanted a
00:38:22
little slice wet The last baby mama standing
00:38:27
dude She She's like "We won." Yeah man Yeah Daddy's funny We're going to get a
00:38:34
swimming pool finally He's responsible
00:38:39
Yeah Well that's a big one to win that And then last comic standing is that the
00:38:44
one I think Todd Glass you don't remember this but yeah man shout out to Peter Engles the producer of the last
00:38:51
comic standing and save by the bell he passed away I think um a week ago Oh
00:38:56
okay we'll get that shout out to him somehow And um also so you get that now
00:39:03
what are you are you immediately a headliner or were you already a headliner yes Um as soon as I win last come standing we go on a 80 city tour
00:39:10
all over America Ah wow Yeah So that's tough We're hitting townwood
00:39:18
Pennsylvania Bro places I only hear in songs Yeah Traffic report So you wait
00:39:25
Yeah How do you do it do you go with some other w like runners up and you're like the headliner yeah Other other
00:39:32
people that were on the show i think it was Mike Stefano Roy was Jr Mike Kaplan
00:39:37
and uh the other guy who who was second place Tommy John We all went on tour We
00:39:44
all were doing 20 minutes on stage for 80 80 cities on a on a tour bus Was it a
00:39:51
bus okay A bus Wow Those guys are good too Does anyone start getting too good on the trip like or do they rotate you
00:39:57
or you always Everybody It was the order how how we won So I was last [ __ ] that's
00:40:04
tough Literally the last comic standing Yep Did anyone kill before you and as
00:40:10
you're crossing on onto the mic to close the show they just kind of say to you "Follow that motherfucker." Did that
00:40:16
ever happen yes You know what what was saving me from that was there was an
00:40:21
intermission Oh okay Yeah So
00:40:26
he was murdering He he he passed away also God bless him um he had HIV and on
00:40:34
the show he had HIV also and um he was a exh heroin addict so he was all messed up but he he ended up I thought he was
00:40:41
my biggest competition cuz he was likable on stage and his type of comedy
00:40:46
is very popular now so he was doing a lot of dark comedy back then that's kind
00:40:52
of it's like acceptable now and um he was likable and I really thought he was
00:40:58
going to win but this guy murdering bro Like he will when we did San Francisco we did the filmore I remember him saying
00:41:05
I knew there was a lot of gays in San Francisco but god damn I tripped over a dick on the way in here you know and
00:41:11
everybody went crazy Ah He would say stuff like uh cuz he would
00:41:17
say stuff like um stuff like "Oh man I got into a fight with watermelon guy and um he said "Fuck
00:41:24
you I'm not watermelon." He goes "I'm Puerto Rican." Listen [ __ ] I'm
00:41:30
not I'm not anthropologist I don't know what the [ __ ] he's saying When you go on these tours so you get
00:41:36
250 to win And do you get a set fee every night as part of your deal to tour
00:41:42
or is it part of your 250 cuz you guys should make some money We had it was
00:41:48
250,000 for the winning the show plus um
00:41:53
whatever they were giving us to headline was looked like was 3,000 for me some
00:41:59
show 3,000 for one show 3,000 a night So you're playing pretty big You're playing
00:42:04
theaters 2,000 Places that a normal comic headlining by
00:42:10
himself will probably make 52,000 maybe Oh [ __ ] Yeah Some places were 3,000
00:42:17
seaters 4,000 seaters They were all sold out And you're only getting three But so they're going to make some money too
00:42:23
Yeah Normally you'd make a lot That's another 240,000 on top of the 250 pre-tax You're looking
00:42:31
just south of 500k Yeah And also we had a I had a development deal with NBC that went
00:42:38
nowhere Oh but you get paid up front for that right That's
00:42:44
nice It's nicer if they find a show for you But yeah that that's for the people at home They give you money up front to
00:42:50
hold you for a year to maybe find a show for you Something like that Yeah What happens i got I got I had a TV deal with
00:42:57
a comedian named Dustin Ibara with ABC and they made us money not to It's
00:43:03
funny I never thought that they'll pay you money not to work and and pay you money for saying no Yes They call it a
00:43:11
holding deal They take you off the field
00:43:16
[Music] Now by the way I some a little birdie told me a gentleman told me that you had
00:43:22
a run in with um Eddie Murphy What was that what was that about oh man I was in
00:43:28
a set of you people Jonah Hill movie Jonah Hill Yeah And Amy Murphy We're
00:43:35
like in a like in a stripper scene in Hollywood A bunch of strippers And uh man one of those
00:43:43
strippers on a one of those strippers on a in a movie that an actual stripper she ended up giving somebody a laptop for
00:43:49
for two grand on a set when nobody was around Horny ass [ __ ] Horny ass [ __ ]
00:43:58
That's a special name That's your next special Yeah man So Eddie Murphy walks
00:44:03
in and he looks right at me He goes "Man you're a funny [ __ ] man." Oh man
00:44:09
just [ __ ] myself and I forgot I had one line in the movie and I forgot it when he told me that So
00:44:16
Oh so he knew you That's great Yeah he's cool And then um the next day
00:44:23
he'll come up to me Hey man wasn't that rad the way Eddie Murphy told you were funny in front of
00:44:30
everybody And then yeah that was cool Wasn't that rad and then Andrew Schultz he mentioned on his podcast I thought
00:44:37
that was cool And u the director of the movie came up to me He said that was cool And then the next day he comes back
00:44:44
to do the same scene and he tells me hello only Not not everybody Just just
00:44:50
telling me hello Whoa And then the next day same thing Then I'm getting paranoid you know I'm like okay man you're trying
00:44:56
to get everybody in this set to hate me now Yeah I'm not liking you already because of this Hey Eddie could I get a
00:45:02
you're a funny [ __ ] just to start the day yeah you don't have to do it but if I could get a "Hey you're a
00:45:07
funny motherfucker." No you go tell this guy he's okay too He has like three people that look like him on the set I
00:45:14
don't know Like you got to be nice to really because of fear of being shot or something He's got look alikes
00:45:21
Like standins and wide shot guys When you read the lines to Eddie Murphy like
00:45:27
you're you're um he's he's reading lines to you but when it's your turn to get the camera he leaves and then you get a
00:45:34
stunt man Oh you get the other guy Oh really that's that's kind of a a movie star move Catch you all later So he gets
00:45:42
to do that That's So now we're at a point where this is pretty You've done a lot since 2017 These four four specials
00:45:51
in seven years the current one on Netflix right now Raging raging fool
00:45:56
Fool And by the way I just want to ask you something stylistically when it started because I really like the way
00:46:03
you move on stage Like you're you're telling jokes and you're moving forward
00:46:09
and then you're moving backward and then you're move A lot of guys go side to side or just stick to the mic but
00:46:15
there's this little kind of physical thing you do almost like a boxer You kind of back up you come in you land it
00:46:22
and then you do this move back It's it's it's pretty cool to watch It's a little bit like you're dancing up there So when
00:46:29
did that come in was it just someone pointed out to you or you just do it organically that I was nervous before
00:46:36
when I when I when I was the last standing I had a I had a coat with a little tiny tie and I had a pocket and I
00:46:43
used to always hold on to the pocket and move it like this You know the way Ronnie then you go hey I get no respect
00:46:50
no respect I was an ugly baby I tell you when I was born the doctor slapped my mother
00:46:56
hey we love him so so from nervousness you did that and now that you're
00:47:02
confident you sort of kept it as a as as a signature in a way you know
00:47:09
yeah I tried to do it so much because I felt like if I know the joke is funny I start moving fast like
00:47:16
like a pincher giving away his knuckle ball Yeah Yeah We all have our our way
00:47:21
David funny when you got a bit in your act that you know is going to kill or you think it is you give a big wind up
00:47:27
doesn't work you go "What the fuck?" I think you stay quiet Um you slow down
00:47:32
when David when your punch line is going to come I feel like when you when the big punch lines are going to come maybe
00:47:39
maybe your perfect timing you do your stand up timing but I noticed that you
00:47:44
start to get a little quiet and then there's like a big explosion David will modulate that way and he's never thirsty
00:47:51
up there as the people would say No he's very funny Like I remember watching your young comic show when when you're doing
00:47:57
the special You said you saw you two and you had little [ __ ] seats right here
00:48:03
but you were way over there and they were you didn't know what the [ __ ] they were saying Oh he was yelling no war and
00:48:09
I was yelling no war I didn't know what he meant And like like there's so many
00:48:14
like oh man as a comic like me like there's so many tags left There's more
00:48:20
to the truck he could have done Oh yeah I kept going He takes a [ __ ] out My favorite one is oh man
00:48:27
uh a woman feels a sharp pain in her hand while she's doing
00:48:33
dishes Six miles away her daughter is giving somebody a hand job A hand job Oh
00:48:39
my god that was time life books A woman doing the dishes feels a cramp in her
00:48:46
hand I feel like you may have been That's great That's a great memory memory I mean you're kind of maybe
00:48:53
influenced by David in the sense that you have a high ratio of laugh points and punchlines in your stories like boom
00:48:59
boom boom consistently you know and David does tell a story but just subtly
00:49:05
starts building all the all the punchlines the masseuse bit you're doing If you can have little tent poles in it
00:49:11
before you get to like the big ending it's keeps them around That's the hard part though Like I have a one of my
00:49:17
specials because I remember I saw a woman with a tattoo and she had a Ouija board
00:49:24
tattoo like a Ouija board tattoo in her back and I could just I was like "Oh man
00:49:31
imagine being who am I what's my name?" You got to hold her back like "All right let me let's find out [ __ ] Let's see
00:49:36
who the [ __ ] you are." Why does it have to be [ __ ] who the
00:49:42
[ __ ] you are it can't be hi Hi ma'am Let's check this out But uh yeah that
00:49:48
was so good lord I don't know Look at this I'm looking everything Well you did a lot It's nice to meet you finally Uh
00:49:56
and uh this is great And uh thank you for coming on Look at you got so much
00:50:01
four specials is a lot I remember um you um when um when um when I I remember
00:50:08
like when I was bummed out about Oh man they're not [ __ ] headlining me Oh you know when you get when you go to the the
00:50:14
12 year mark when you see all your friends making it and you're not headlining Oh yeah Can I remember you
00:50:20
said David that um you had to leave the Tempe improv and go make it so Dan Mir
00:50:27
could headline you Ah God the old because I'm from Tempe It was even more embarrassing Yeah Yeah Sometimes you
00:50:34
just don't but sometimes you know you think you have longer material and it's not as good You know it's you think
00:50:40
you've got an hour and other people like I don't think you do So or you have to be pretty you have to be a little harder
00:50:46
on your material So you go I got a good because you can do a great hour and the next time you can do your set and it's
00:50:52
like 46 because you didn't get as many laughs You're like oh [ __ ] I don't think I had and the the waitresses are putting
00:50:59
down the checks and you're like "Oh I got one minute left." They're doing math
00:51:04
during your closer checks 20% Give it to me I'll do
00:51:09
the math Checks go out right toward the end of your act and then you got to you get like a l a built-in lull while they
00:51:15
try to figure out who's paying for the potato skins That's a hard one You got to get past that when you're headline
00:51:21
You're like "Shit I got to stay alive during this." Jesus For the comedian before you you being a opener that's a
00:51:26
killer Oh yeah They give you opener a middle that kills I when you do good as a middle that was my problem is I was
00:51:32
doing good as a middle going I could headline and you get and then I'm following a good middle which is hard
00:51:39
and also you got the checks to deal with and you're like oh [ __ ] I don't think I'm ready for that Then you you realize
00:51:45
you picked up on more chick as a middle hanging out by the bathroom than the headliner Oh that's true You just got to
00:51:52
hang out You stand by the door when everyone leaves Hey did you like the middle um can we well just for one
00:52:00
minute because he'll be listening to this I just we have a mutual friend So Larry Bubbles Brown who's the famous San
00:52:07
Francisco comedian who I've known for years really good friends tours with uh
00:52:13
Felipe offered him a lot of opening spots and he's someone with with a he
00:52:18
sort of plays a sad sack character and after each line you know um I lost my
00:52:24
identity or someone stole my identity now they can't get laid Mah
00:52:30
So let me give you your what's your how do you do it how do you do his Mah
00:52:36
there's another one I forgot how he says the um I don't know I can't remember his
00:52:42
jokes right now There's another guy that that's friends with him He's from
00:52:47
Minnesota and the other kind of like sim he's more darker His name is Chuck Bartell
00:52:54
and he's dark opens up for Tom Papa sometimes Oh Tom Yeah but this guy Chuck
00:53:00
Bartell he has no social media Like you can't even find him But he has very dark
00:53:06
humor He has a joke where he says that um um what they saying uh oh I got
00:53:13
kicked out of a Chinese restaurant for Oh I forgot my I forgot my reading glasses And I went to a Chinese
00:53:19
restaurant They kicked me out for squinting chuck bartell.com Check him out Find him
00:53:28
Myrr So anyway about I I took him with me to I took me
00:53:34
with with me to to open up in Hawaii at the Blue Note Mhm And the whole time we
00:53:40
were there he had a hernia Well he still has the hernia He's afraid
00:53:45
to get surgery Right But I'll be with a hooker anytime Mr
00:53:50
I I got a mia All right Thanks Philip Thanks Philip
00:53:56
Thanks for having me This has been a presentation of Odyssey Please follow subscribe leave a like a review all the
00:54:04
stuff Smash that button whatever it is wherever you get your podcasts Fly in the Wall is executive produced by Dana
00:54:09
Carvey and David Spade Jenna Weiss Burman of Odyssey and Heather Santoro The show's lead producer is Greg
00:54:15
Holtzman