Introducing: The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast | Sitting Down! with Pete Dominick (Network Drop)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Laugh with Me – Featuring The Black Guy Who Tips & Pete Dominick

Podcast: Laugh with Me (iHeartPodcasts)
Episode: Introducing: The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast | Sitting Down! with Pete Dominick
Date: July 21, 2026
Host: Jeremy Odem (not heard on this network drop; episode content is a simulcast from The Black Guy Who Tips)
Guests: Rod & Karen (The Black Guy Who Tips), Pete Dominick (Stand Up! with Pete Dominick, SiriusXM, CNN)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a crossover between The Black Guy Who Tips (Rod & Karen) and Pete Dominick, a standup comedian and media veteran. The conversation centers on comedy, community, cross-cultural humor, authenticity, experiences with media, and the value of open conversations across lines of race, gender, and belief. The hosts dig deep into what makes communities (online and in-person) resilient, how comedians build connections, and why vulnerability and introspection are central to great comedy and activism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building Community in the Age of Social Isolation

Timestamps: 04:20 – 11:19

• Pete describes "Pod Jam 3," a multi-day, in-person event for podcast listeners to transcend online connection and reinforce the importance of community after COVID and amid political division.

  “Every single philosophy, religious or moral or psychological, says that community matters…The goal being the thing that fights loneliness which kills people.” (Pete, 06:40)

• Community now forms not just in person, but through digital means, often around shared humor and political values—and sometimes, as Karen notes, around toxic ideas like QAnon.

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2. Comedy as Connection & Coping

Timestamps: 11:19 – 17:41

• COVID and the Internet eroded many traditional community institutions, making intentional connection through podcasts even more vital.
• Podcasts require "opt-in" from listeners, leading to more active, loyal communities versus the passive audiences of radio or TV.

  “I want something similar…I want to create something similar. What I learned basically was if you’re on the air live…the opposite of that is overwhelming bravado and genius and brilliance…My show was like, Pete’s an idiot, let’s do it.” (Pete, 13:36)

• Vulnerability and authenticity—not bravado—are what really connect people, in comedy and beyond.

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3. From Standup to Radio to Podcasting

Timestamps: 12:17 – 16:10

• Pete reflects on his trajectory from lone-wolf standup to hosting radio and podcasts, and how each format builds different types of “communities.”
• The deep relationships built with podcast audiences are “an embarrassment of riches,” but loneliness still creeps in.

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4. The Craft of Comedy & The Art of the Setup

Timestamps: 24:50 – 31:59

• Warm-up comics: Pete shares war stories from warming up crowds for The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
• Not all comedians, actors, or writers are great at being quick and improvisational. Some guests are magic at bantering, while others clam up, causing hosts to “act like you ain’t in the room.”
• The best guest interactions are when both parties can “dance”—improvising and jabbing with respect.

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5. Cross-Cultural Comedy & Authenticity

Timestamps: 51:13 – 68:51

• Pete describes growing up as both “jock and theater kid” and being drawn to humor as both shield and bridge, especially as the smallest kid in his class.
• He takes a nuanced look at differences and overlaps between “white, black, and Jewish comedy.”

  "The best white comics…worked those black rooms. And then once I did, it was the greatest achievement. It felt the greatest." (Pete, 60:14)

• True acceptance, he says, comes from authenticity—not imitating, but being oneself.

  “Some of my favorite white people are just regular white people... It’s like how Eminem is respected in rap because Eminem never really tried to be black." (Rod, 67:00)

• The exchange between comedic cultures is celebrated, not derided as "appropriation," when based on honesty and mutual respect.

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6. Comedy, Suffering, and Solidarity

Timestamps: 64:36 – 69:38

• Both Jewish and Black traditions, forged in historical suffering, are notably funny—humor as both shield and sword.
• Pete notes, “the lotus flower grows out of the mud,” so do jokes.

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7. Political Comedy’s Boundaries & Responsibilities

Timestamps: 79:05 – 85:29

• The ongoing debate: “punching up” vs. “punching down.”

  “Don’t punch down. The greats didn’t really do that.” (Pete, 79:09)

• A good comedian can joke about anything—“Even the Holocaust can be funny. Cancer can be. Anything…if done the right way, by the right person, the right tone.”
• Conservative comedy is critiqued for lacking self-awareness and for being more about reinforcing in-group affirmation than pursuing laughs through self-deprecation or universal insight.

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8. Standing Up for Your Values—Online and Off

Timestamps: 91:52 – 101:13

• Both Rod and Pete describe the challenges and pride in confronting bigotry or ignorance among friends and family, especially around issues like vaccines or Trump-era politics.

  “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” (Pete, 98:00)

• Social courage—standing up for others (even when not present) matters not only for defending the marginalized, but out of self-respect.

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9. Racial & Gender Dynamics in Comedy, “Locker Room Talk,” and Real-World Conduct

Timestamps: 108:15 – 111:10

• Pete discusses being on Bill Maher’s show with Billy Bush, challenging the normalization of misogyny and “locker room talk”.

  “I did mature at a certain point…and more importantly, I was never in a group of friends…talked about taking sex, or joking about assaulting women. What we did, what most guys I know do…was: I want to f*** that girl. And then your buddy’s going, she’ll never f*** you. And that was the end of it.” (Pete, 109:35)

• Comedy, at its best, relies on mutual respect and boundaries.

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10. “White People News” & Pop Culture Blind Spots

Timestamps: 113:10 – 119:47

• The group plays a “white people news” trivia game (with funny confusion over pop culture figures like Zachary Ty Bryan and Ian Ziering).
• Pete reflects on how TV was the primary way he (as a white kid) learned about Black culture, with shows like The Jeffersons shaping his perception.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you’re vulnerable on the air, you talk about your struggles…It connects you with an audience in a way that nothing else can.” (Pete, 13:36)
• “Black people will stop you and recognize you and pay you really nice compliments…White people will whisper.” (Pete, 22:12)
• “Sometimes it’s good to realize you’re not alone.” (Karen, 08:10)
• “The bounce you get from killing in front of a black room—there’s nothing better. People are running around!” (Pete, 62:29)
• “You either going to be in a community somebody created for you or one that you created for yourself.” (Karen, 12:09)
• “Conservative comedians—they can’t laugh at themselves…That’s also why they’re not very funny.” (Pete, 83:08)
• “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” (Pete, 98:00)

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Episode Structure & Flow

• [04:20] Introduction of guest Pete Dominick and the topic of community
• [06:40] The creation and importance of in-person podcast events (Pod Jam)
• [12:17] Comedy’s different formats and how each builds community
• [22:10] Recognition in public and race/culture differences in audience approach
• [24:50] Life as an audience warm-up comedian (Daily Show, Colbert Report)
• [51:13] Pete’s upbringing and the roots of his comedic voice
• [60:14] The nuances of performing in different comedic cultures
• [79:05] Responsibility of comedians with political and social subjects
• [91:52] Practicing what you preach—standing up against bigotry and anti-science
• [113:10] Pop culture trivia and cultural blind spots

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Conclusion & Where to Find The Guests

• Pete Dominick: Stand Up! with Pete Dominick podcast, daily expert interviews, community news recaps. More info and tickets for April’s Pod Jam event at standupwithpete.com and on YouTube/Substack.
• Rod & Karen (The Black Guy Who Tips): Daily comedy podcast with a focus on race, pop culture, and social issues. Upcoming events and segments like “White People News.”

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Overall:
A fast-paced, candid, and sharply funny crossover that explores the messy, joyful intersection of comedy and activism in turbulent times. Veteran comic Pete Dominick’s stories about media, comedy rooms, and identity intersect seamlessly with Rod & Karen’s insights about Black humor, resilience, and truth-telling. For podcast fans, comics, and everyone seeking laughter with depth and meaning—it’s a must-listen.

Transcript

[Tab Ramos]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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[Pete Dominic]

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[Rod]

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[Pete Dominic]

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[Tab Ramos]

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[Pete Dominic]

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[Rod]

Hey welcome to another episode of the Blackout Tips podcast. I'm your host Rod joined as always by my co host Aaron. And we're live on a Tuesday. Yes the last Tuesday of 2025. And you can see from Karen's festive

[Karen]

gear I should have never stopped this motherfucking trend. Cause Lord knows I love these motherfucking things. They glitter and blink and shit.

[Rod]

But we're in a festive mood.

[Karen]

Yes we are.

[Rod]

And like all festivities it's better with guests. And we have a guest today. First time guest that we that he's had ever been on our show. We were just on his show last week can check it out on YouTube. I posted the feed, I shared it on our social medias. But he is a stand up comedian, professional speaker, radio show host, now host of the Stand up with Pete Dominic podcast. Pete Dominic, what's up man?

[Pete Dominic]

Yeah Rod and Karen, great to be here. I think I should have been warned about my pacemaker. I'm not sure that that strobe light is helping me at all. Any of your other viewers 3 probably should have been told as well.

[Karen]

There you go.

[Pete Dominic]

I'm just kidding I'm just kidding.

[Rod]

Light them up.

[Pete Dominic]

It's new year.

[Karen]

Okay. I like them blinking.

[Rod]

We're doing everything but getting drunk like cnn. Right, Pete, man. First of all, we're going to be hanging out with you in April.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Rod]

For a thing called Pod Jam 3. What is Pod Jam 3? Can you tell our audience from firsthand experience? Because we've just been telling them what we think it's going to be, but

[Pete Dominic]

you know, yes, it's a show and an experience. So it's like two to three day event, depending on how long people want to come. If you want to come and just see the podcast taping, you can do that. But there are just parties, we hang out. There's. My friend has an awesome house with an amazing pool and a dj, and we go and we eat and we drink and we dance and it's just people hanging out. My goal since COVID since I left Sirius xm, my corporate media career kind of like ending, starting this own independent thing, was not actually to create community, but it accidentally became that as a result of COVID Because I started having these zoom hangouts during lockdown, more and more people would come. We created this kind of online community and we're like, is it's gonna be weird if we get together in person? Right. But we were like, we put our social anxiety and our introversion away if we had that and people met up. And the first time was two years ago and it was amazing. And the second time was last year. It was even better in many ways. And this year, inviting you guys, trying to connect our community to your community. The goal being the thing that fights loneliness which kills people is every single philosophy, religious or moral or psychological, says that community matters. I'm reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning right now. You know, Holocaust victims and community in the concentration camps. So not to get too dark, but you got to go as dark about it as you can to talk about the importance and the light, which is what we bring a lot of light like that on Karen's head of People Connecting. And you know, like, I think it's fair to say that there's similar values. They're progressive, I guess is the easiest way. There's a lot of ethnic diversity, there's a lot of age diversity, gender. We got a lot of members of the LGBT community and then we have like a lot of male models like me.

[Rod]

Oh, nice. Listen, we all, we could always use more 8 pack abs and come gutters and all that good stuff. We love to see It, I am here for.

[Karen]

When you talk about community, community is very important. And I think for a lot of people, covet, kind of killed community because people kind of went inward and they never came back out. You know what I'm saying? Like. Like they never came out to society and to reality and the things around them. So community is great because it allows people to talk, it allows people to open up. It allows them to realize that you actually are not alone. Well, guess what? We all are struggling. We all are going through something. We all are facing difficulties. And so sometimes it's good to realize that you're not alone.

[Rod]

I also think community is what a lot of people are going to have to lean on to get through this era of the Trump administration. Yes, they are, because they have so many of the levers of power right now and they're passing laws and stuff that the only way around those laws is for us to help each other to look past, like a law or a rule and be like, I just see you as a person, right? How, how can I help you get something to eat today, Today? Like, like, rather than be like, well, don't worry, in a couple of years it'll be time to vote again. Like, that shit's not going to do it for a lot of people.

[Pete Dominic]

It's, it's. Those are all really important points. And I can't say enough about the importance of community and community building, and I can't also say enough about how rewarding it feels to be involved in connecting people with each other. And I think that part of, as you said, Karen, like Covid, really killed community in a lot of ways. The Internet did, you know, the kind of degradation of religion and churches where people had. Community did. And there's a lot of different reasons for it, but as you said, it's so important, it's so valuable to your life, to your life force. We all have a bag of rocks that we're dragging. And more specifically, when it comes to politics and the political and technological world we're living in, it's important to be like, connect with other people in other parts of the country and the world and be like, hey, man, are you seeing this?

[Rod]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pete Dominic]

What I see looks cray cray in such a way that I can't even believe that it's today. And we did. And here's the thing, when you. I call it Earth One, we're connecting people who live on Earth One. We don't agree on everything. We have some pretty good arguments, some fun arguments about stupid shit. And some important arguments about important stuff. But we do agree on a certain set of ideas, critical thinking, open mindedness, expertise, trust. And we communicate in such a, I think, nuanced way that we're not, we're not trying to like blow each other up. So we are over here on Earth one saying, are you seeing this? Because it's important that we recognize with the rise of AI and this political narrative and movement that is so hard to wake up and be in it every day, but it's harder to wake up and find people that you know and love that are in it.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Pete Dominic]

And so it's a lot of, are you seeing this? Are you okay? Am I? You know, through Covid, through Trump fascism, through the rise of AI, all the other things that scare us, connecting with other people and being like, hey man, I'm a 50 year old white guy, I live in the burbs. You're a 43 year old black woman, you live in Houston, you're a older white woman who lives all over the country. All types of people who all are on Earth one. That's what we're going for.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Yeah. And also something I realized too is when I talked about it killing community, it also created community, but it created a lot of toxic community for people. So it's a lot of people that were looking for community and couldn't find that positive community. So they found a negative community because they wanted a community like, like they,

[Rod]

they wanted a group of like, what happened with QAnon? Yes. What happened? Like, that could not have happened without the pandemic happening at the same time.

[Karen]

Yes. And so you, you have a collective of people like, hey, I want to be a part of a community so bad that, that I will sacrifice my morals, I will sacrifice my humanity, I will sac. I will do things that I normally would not do to be a part of, of this community versus taking it and making, like you said, make something more positive out of it. Because you're going to end up in a community whether you want to be or not. I'm not trying to be funny. Like, you're going to be in somebody's community. You either going to be in a community somebody created for you or one that you created for yourself.

[Pete Dominic]

Really good point. Yeah.

[Rod]

What was it like going from like stand up to radio to your own podcast? Because as you said, I think community changes based on like being a stand up comedian is almost like a lone wolf.

[Karen]

Right.

[Rod]

You don't, you have followers and fans that you don't have to create a Community. If you don't want to, you could be like, man, I just get up

[Karen]

here and kill and tell my joke.

[Rod]

Take my ass home. Radio is kind of like a community because you get your callers and stuff, but, you know, they can be anywhere and all that stuff. But sometimes you get regulars. But I feel like a podcast, you. You start having a real community. Like, these are the people that are talking to you every week. These are the people that are listening to you. These are people that come out to events. So, like, has it been different for you at different stages?

[Pete Dominic]

I mean, each stage that you mentioned, just there is a huge chapter of my life that I could, you know, have fun talking about for a long time. But I think to specifically to answer your question, I think live radio builds community. All the way back when I was growing up, when we were growing up and I worked at SiriusXM, and so I worked with all the Howard Stern show guys, and Artie Lang was Howard Stern's sidekick, and Artie Lang and I were really good friends. And I was Artie Lang's opening act for years. And during that time, I was also hosting my own radio show and then opening for Artie. And I watched the listeners of Howard Stern come up to him, you know, after shows or just on the street. And the way they talked to him, guys was like they knew him and that he was their friend. And then we learned there's a word for that, a parasocial relationship where you think you're friends with the show host in this case. And I saw that and I was like, I want something similar. I want to create something similar. What I learned basically was if you're on the air live the way I was and still am every day, and you share stuff about your personal life, if you're vulnerable on the air, you talk about your struggles, your suffering, you make fun of yourself. It connects you with an audience in a way that nothing else can. The opposite of that is overwhelming bravado and genius and brilliance, which is what so many of the right wing radio show hosts of my day did and still do. The great one brain is on loan from God now. Back to the throne. My show was like, pete's an idiot, let's do it. My show is interviewing experts. To say that and still is, is the shortest way to explain it, but it created a community. Live radio, old school, you know, terrestrial radio, satellite radio to a large. And I think podcasts are probably create that community even more niche. And I think there's probably a safety element in it. Where you actually start to get to know people. You see them at virtual hangouts, you meet them in events. And I think there can be like, I have a deep personal relationship with lots and lots of people who've been listening to my show from SiriusXM to now. I mean hundreds of friends. I have a, like just an embarrassment of riches of people in my life. And yet Rod and Karen, I get lonely too.

[Rod]

We all do. We all do. I think also like with podcasts, you opt in. For our audio listeners, you gotta go back to like the 20 minute mark. But the, I think also like podcast is such an opt in format.

[Karen]

Like, and you have to find it too.

[Rod]

Yeah, that's what I mean. You have to want to get it. Like radio can be passive sometimes. Like not as much so it's serious. Like you gotta pay for that. And then you start finding your channels and then that become like, who you with. But like a lot of stuff is just kind of like, oh, this is on tv, it's on the. This is what I was listening to. I got in the car. Podcast is like, I want to find your voice. So I feel like that's one of the reasons that the community gets so tight for podcasts.

[Pete Dominic]

Well, yeah, I mean, for sure. I think it's true though still of a political radio show. It's a specific brand of politics where you have a similar values as that person on the right and left or whatever else, conspiracy, whatever. But you're absolutely right. I think we could talk about, you know, the pros and cons of that, but for me it's just been who I never thought that my. Because I started as a stand up comic, I was living, I live my dreams. I did everything I wanted to do in comedy, I really did. And I'm super proud of everything I accomplished in my career in broadcasting, radio and television. And most importantly, I'm proud of my girls. My wife and I are now separated, but we have an awesome relationship. My girls are 18 to 21. That's what I'm most proud of. But like to build a community and to have that be basically my job and to try to maintain and nurture that community. It's really hard because I'm like the HR department. We don't have a lot of problems, but you know, and I try not to get overly invested in them and I try to just keep people connected. I try to create a safe space, keep people connected to reality and to our suffering as we help navigate it with each other, especially as we get older, you know, we're just getting older is the real deal too. Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint's story is better. Every plan $15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending, zero tears. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

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[Tab Ramos]

See Terms Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Tirzepatide may be able to help Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is Approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 5.15mg injection. Zepbound contains Tirzepatide and should not be used with other Tirzepatide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor, call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbound.lilly.com this is Tab Ramos from

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[Kal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Hearsay. The Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen]

Yeah, how was it when you first got recognized? Because you know, you were watching other people get recognized. But it's completely different when it, when it's you. Because I know it was very different when it was me when I was kind of out in public and somebody yelled my name and I had to look at them. I had to go down my mental Rolodex. I was like, okay, I don't know you're here. I don't know you're here.

[Pete Dominic]

I don't know you're here.

[Karen]

I don't know here. Then they say, I know you're from the show.

[Pete Dominic]

I was like, okay, well, let's just talk about, let's just talk about the racial component of that, which is black people will overwhelmingly Black people of color. Black people overwhelmingly. Because it's not like an Indian guy. Black people in America will stop you and recognize you and pay you really nice compliments. And you can almost see it coming. It's often in an airport, white people will whisper, not bother you. It wouldn't be bothersome for a white person to stop me and react the same way a black person does. But my first, like, you know, I would get from doing stand up to a certain extent after shows and stuff like that. But that was like on a. But once I started doing, I started doing CNN every night. I was on at 8pm every night live on CNN. And so during, and, and then after that year I was on TV a lot. But during that year and after that year for those, those couple years, I was getting recognized like everywhere I went and was mostly black folks who would say stuff. And I love that. And I just want to talk about why that is why I think I love us too. We're funny, but white people are more likely like, hey, I think that's the weird guy from cnn. Is that James Carville or Daughtry? Like, it's neither. Black people like, hey, man, you're the guy.

[Rod]

Yeah, you're the guy.

[Pete Dominic]

I'm like, yes, hi, what's your name? And then I have a new friend at the airport.

[Rod]

What were you doing on CNN? Every day at 8 I did a

[Pete Dominic]

Man on the street segment. I got hired to do like a, like an Andy Rooney commentary piece at the end. That's what they wanted me to do, but I'm not a good writer. So I knew unless I had help, I couldn't write something like that every night. That would be worth. But I, But I'm. My other skill set is like hosting and talking to people, you know, interviewing people. So I go, how about I do a man on the street thing. So literally every morning, I went into the streets of several cities in the country. CNN sent me all over the place, and I put a microphone in people's face. Like, I was the original. Not the original.

[Rod]

Sorry.

[Pete Dominic]

There was a lot of people did man on the street before me, but I was one of the first people to really do it the way I did it on cable television. It was like 2010. But I did it in a lighthearted way, too. We cut it up, we edited it, and then at the end. And then at night, they would air at the end of the show to end the hour and kind of a lighthearted note asking people in the streets, heal it. And it was called Pete on the Street. Let's go to Pete on the Street. And then John King, who was the host of the show and hates laughing and comedy, he and I would close it live.

[Tab Ramos]

We would do.

[Pete Dominic]

We would. We would show them. Show my man on the street piece. And then he would go back to me, and then I would give my daughters a signal that they can go tonight on live tv. They can go to bed. Daddy loves you. Go to bed. And then I would talk to John, and then they would throw to the 8pm hour.

[Rod]

Man, that's always interesting, too, in the mix of comedy and serious stuff. Like, I'm a guest on this podcast, Marvel Cinematic University. I love it. It's all nerd stuff. I love talking Marvel. But. Okay, so Howard Bryant is a guest on there sometimes, too. Howard Bryant is a very studious, serious, like, writer. Like, he writes books about sports and race. And he's. And when he's on there, the amount of effort I'm putting in trying to get this motherfucker to laugh is insane. It is insane. I take it as a challenge because it is the mix. I'm like, he wants to come in here and be like, listen, the very serious function of Galactus is about racial disparity. And I want to be like, oh, man, how big you think his underwear are? Whatever. Just to see if I can break this man. Did you take that challenge when you were working there?

[Pete Dominic]

I used to describe it because we would be live. You know, when you're on the air with someone live, like we are now, like, I think my style at least is to throw the ball to you and hope that you see it coming and hit it, like, setting you up. I'm often a setup guy, and I also think if you set me up, I better see it, catch it, and do what I need to do with it to continue the Sports metaphor. I'm on live TV with John King, who, God love him, he was real good to me and he does have a great sense of humor. But he too had that issue where I don't think he ever really wanted to do that segment. He's a serious newsman. I don't think he wanted to report all the things he's reported and throw this Dumb, dumb, to be fair. But I would like set him up. I'd throw him the ball. I'm out, you know, via satellite, outside, always freezing my ass off. And he's in the studio in D.C. i was usually in New York. So I would throw him the ball, guys, and it would just hit him in the chest and bounce off.

[Rod]

That's the worst. That's the worst. What I know he getting hit being. Being a correspondent on the street. What is up with that one one to four second fucking delay? How have we not solved that?

[Pete Dominic]

Oh, have we?

[Tab Ramos]

Not really.

[Pete Dominic]

I don't know what that. But I could tell you, like, being live on the street, the way that people come up to you is it.

[Kal Penn]

It's.

[Pete Dominic]

It's a lot worse for women. But it can be really weird and it can make you feel uncomfortable. But it's mostly like when you're live, you're terrified someone's going to like jump into your shot. Worse. But one time, you guys, this is true story. You could find the clip. I was live on CNN and Michael Richards, who played Kramer in Seinfeld, walks up into my live shot, like. And I go, michael Richards is here. And then John interviewed him, but I had the earpiece, so I had to like repeat the question. But he was like, I don't want any problems or I'll find.

[Rod]

That's crazy.

[Pete Dominic]

A lot of things happened. But that was the craziest one that ever happened.

[Rod]

It's always, it's always funny to me with the news because they're like, you know, we're gonna go live on the scene to so and so. It's always that, like where I want to see. I'm like, we. Everything else has been fixed. And we have AI. We have like flyovers. You can send a drone and kill somebody in another country tonight, but we cannot stop the one fucking second delay. Well, we can't edit that out in post or nothing. We just got to. With this delay for the rest of my life. Oh, man, it's fucking crazy.

[Pete Dominic]

I don't know who's still got that delay, who you're noticing. You got to. I mean, it happened. It does happen. But I was, I was just on with an Australian show earlier, celebrating New Year's Eve with them on an Australian new show. And I was just, I was like, I can't believe there's no delay. We have such a strong connection, no delay all the way to the bottom of the earth and back. And I was also lying to their whole audience that I was in Times Square. I was like, it was just in my backyard.

[Rod]

Where are you located in the United States now?

[Pete Dominic]

It's called Rockland County, New York. It's just north of New York City on the border of New Jersey and on the Hudson river, the beautiful Hudson Valley, New York.

[Rod]

And also I saw that you used to open for like the Daily show and stuff too. Is that is. What was that like? Is that like hard? Is it, does it get repetitive? Like, how's, how's that work?

[Pete Dominic]

Oh, man. Well, I was the audience warm up comedian for the Daily show with Jon Stewart. And then I did that for about a year. And then Stephen Colbert show spun off. He was a correspondent and they spun off the Colbert Report. And I went with Stephen and did that show for six years. And then I left for cnn. But I did like eight years of radio audience warm up tv. But to get there is the interesting part, to get the Daily show and the Colbert. I also worked on John Oliver's show for three years, last week tonight on hbo. So I worked on all those shows. I've always been part of that kind of political comedy world and staff and family. And I created a channel in, in that, in that image on Sirius xm, you know, politics done by comedians. Right, left. I didn't care what you want. I just want to try to bring more entertainment to it. But those jobs were the greatest, man. Those were the smartest shows in television and they were the smartest audiences on television. They were young, they were diverse, they were experimenting in so many different ways. They were just brilliant writing staffs. And I was the fluffer. I was the audience warm up comedian. And it was an amazing. God, the money was amazing, first of all. But it wasn't repetitive because you couldn't be contrived. You couldn't make that audience think that you had done this before. I mean, I did, but I usually, I mean it was, it was all improv every night in front of this really smart audience. So it was really challenging. It made me a much better comedian, smarter person. Also made me way more judgmental and sensitive.

[Rod]

When I did, when I wrote for Game Theory with Bomani Jones, Sidney Castillo sometimes would Warm up the audience. And they'd sometimes bring in comedians to warm up the audience. And it was so funny because, like, there was all these stand up comics on staff. There were writers and shit. And they always would be like, looking down on the idea of doing the warm up. Like, they're like, oh, I gotta do that. And then they go out there and start doing their thing. And I'm just like, no, this is like, I don't know why y' all are on this. Not. Not everybody can do this. These people don't fucking know you. They're coming to have an experience in this show. They're not even looking forward to you personally. Like, you're kind of in the way.

[Karen]

Yes. They, like, I came for something else and I'm getting comedy.

[Rod]

And like, between. Between, like different segments. You got to come back out there and be like, all right, guys, we're about to do this. You know, warm them up.

[Karen]

You got to play games. Because I. I've attended several of the live tapes and that's what happens. You have a comedian come out when we up, the host comes, they take a break because, you know, you're filming. And then they gotta be like, hey, y', all, we're taking a breaker. Hey, y', all, something happened. It's a delay. Waka, waka, waka, waka.

[Pete Dominic]

Yeah, I could. And so could other warm up comics. We could do a show just about warm up and the history of it, the different shows. It is really hard. You have to have a certain skill set, certain talent for it. Luckily, I got to the point where I was working on the best shows, had the best guests, the best audiences, that people, you know, tickets were free, but there was always a long wait to get a ticket because the shows were such a big deal. So those audience came to laugh. They were comedy shows. But I worked on shows where the audience did not plan to be there that day. You know, sometimes they were. Sometimes they were homeless. I asked a guy in the audience one time, I'm doing crowd work. That's what you do. Yeah, and warm up. Where are you from? He said, outside.

[Rod]

Oh, no, Michael, why?

[Pete Dominic]

What brought you here? He said, they said there would be pizza. It can be really depressing. It can be really sad. The one moment you talk about when you have to come back out, I usually didn't do that. I usually could get milk. Production staff. It was so awkward to have to come back out during a break and try something new. And I just. I just couldn't, so. But one time I did have to do that. And this is on a show for the New York Yankees television network in New York. And the episode of the show is called Captains. And they had on panel four of the most famous New York athletes ever. Harry Carson, New York Giants, Michael Ruzzioni, New York Rangers, US Olympic team to beat Russia, Derek Jeter, Dom Adding Lee, the Yankees, okay, I'm backstage with them. These are my boyhood idols, especially the baseball players. And I introduced my dad to Yogi Berra that night. It was an amazing, magical night. But there was a production issue, there's a lights lighting issue. And they go, pete, get back out there. So I walk out and now I'm standing in front of these four legends, trying to get this audience's attention. Like, how? Why would you want to hear from this guy? They've never heard of me. I'm a monkey. I'm just out there juggling, trying to make. But I'm too smart for that. I'm like, I'm not going to act like I can do anything to distract these people from those legends. So I, I start to say, I'm going to talk to these guys. Let's do a little Q and A with these guys while, you know, the lights are down and. Or while the tech issue is being fixed. And that's when Dom Mattingly, whose poster I had as a 12 year old, who I went to New York City the first time to see him, sat on the first baseline whose rookie card I saved up to buy. He said, dom Manley, my boyhood idol, yelled to me, hey, Derek. He goes, hey, Jeter doesn't think you're funny.

[Rod]

Shit.

[Karen]

Oh, no.

[Pete Dominic]

Maddeningly yelled to me that another New York legend didn't think I was funny. So these two guys are talking about me. I go, oh, no. Derek Jeter doesn't think I'm funny. All that matters to me right now is that my boyhood idol just said my other idol doesn't acknowledge that I

[Rod]

know my name, right?

[Karen]

Y' all know I exist.

[Pete Dominic]

And then in that moment, I realized what my strategy was going to be. And it was what I. What every comedian does. It doesn't matter who it is. It is time to attack. So I come for Jeter's family. He was wearing a yellow suit. I go, I can't believe Derek Jeter is making fun of me. I would never want to say anything that would upset him. Certainly not the fact that he's dressed like a mustard packet Alpha.

[Rod]

I have the mic.

[Kal Penn]

Yeah.

[Rod]

Now that's. That's hilarious, man. It's also, like, such a vulnerable thing to be on a microphone talking in front of people in the first place. And I think, you know, especially in that situation, you kind of get a little bit of a boost if you're a gamer. Like, it's. It's like, all right, I got to get up for this. And, like, it was so funny watching these, you know, veteran comedians that are at my job be like, oh, fucking door. And then they just fucking turn it on. Like a muscle.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Rod]

What the fuck? You were just back here, and I

[Karen]

was going to ask you, that is you've been on live tv, live radio, and all these other different things. What is. What is it that drives you to continue to go like, it's a muscle? Because I didn't even realize I have a muscle for this. Because for those of you that don't realize, we. You know, we do Balls Deep, which is our sports show with Justin. And just one time, Justin told me, he said, you have a switch. I said, what do you mean? He said, we could be casually talking. And he said, the second we go live, he said, it's just something kind of changes. And all of a sudden, I don't. I don't even realize I'm doing it. Like, when is it that things became so automatic that you go, okay, I can adjust to anybody?

[Pete Dominic]

Well, that's a very. That's a great question and a very flattering suggestion that that's a talent that I possess. But I think it is. I think it's survival. I mean, I can. I. I definitely fashion myself to be the kind of comedian who could entertain any audience anywhere. So a corporate, you know, gig at an industry event or, you know, all black people in Harlem or Jewish, like a synagogue or like, even. I used to do this gig every summer. Young kids at a synagogue. I'm not Jewish. I didn't know anything about growing up Jewish or being in the synagogue. They had boys on one side, girls on the other side. It was religious. And I just went in there and did an impression of a cat barfing, got my 200 bucks and went home. I wanted to make money, so I made myself as adaptable, and I want it. And I love people, all people. So I want to make everybody laugh. I want to entertain everybody. And I also think, like, you're the reason that. Why you. You have that quality, why anybody does is because when the lights turn on, when you go live, in this case, there are people watching. We should be entertaining. We should do our job. Our job is to entertain. I hate These people are like, you know, I don't want to promote my show. You know, I just want to show up like, no people are there. Because you have a microphone and there's a camera, and you should use all of it, and you should be interesting and entertaining and smart or whatever. Or don't waste people's time. So the lights go on when you go live. Be good. Be. Be interesting. Be engaging.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Particularly if you want their money. Because, like, oh, people are paying to be here or paying for. For whatever this thing is at a later date or whatever. Yeah.

[Rod]

When we will have. Every once while, we'd have a podcast guest back in the day who was like, too cool for school. Yes. It's like, dude, you're fucking killing me. Like, what are you doing?

[Karen]

You're giving me nothing to work with. And so not trying fun. Because me and Roger got professionals. If you are a drywall, we will look at each other and act like you ain't in the room.

[Rod]

Yeah, we'll bounce. We'll just bounce off each other if it gets that bad. I remember once, as a joke, though, this was on purpose. This is when we were still experimenting with what is a podcast. It's 16 years ago. And my brother came on as a joke because we were like, me and him were riffing one day in real life, and we were like, dude, you know, it sucks. Rappers who do radio interviews, and they just are so vague because they're trying to be cool. I hate. I was like, I love hip hop. I hate a rap interview. Now it's changed over my lifetime because all these got old and they went to therapy and they're all opened up, and now you just. You know, they're like, method Man's talking about depression. And. But back in the day, it used to be like, yeah. You know what I'm saying? I mean. And so one time we had.

[Karen]

Use your words.

[Rod]

We had my brother come on the show and pretend to be this rapper that we just made up the name, like, it was like, MC no Name.

[Karen]

I remember that years ago.

[Rod]

And the audience got. Because we did. We didn't tell the audience it was a skit. That was so cool.

[Pete Dominic]

They got so mad.

[Rod]

It was like, what is this shit? And I was like. I was like, we learned two lessons today. One, that was much funnier to me and my brother than it was to everyone else. Two, you got to let the audience in on the joke, because that was. It was. It's still funny to me. But, man, that did not. That did not work.

[Pete Dominic]

But it's also just like one of the coolest things about working at SiriusXM almost 15 years. But I hosted a live show there. And at first it was on the comedy channels, then it was on the political channels, then it was on, like this hybrid channel. So I had all types of people coming in, being guests on the show, and huge, big name stars. Actors, musicians, comedians, obviously artists, journalists, politicians, you name it. You know, anybody was promoting any book, I got to interview everybody. And so I have a billion stories just about that. But the point that I think is really, you know, relevant. It's like when an actor or a rapper or musician especially come in and they're. They're not interesting. It's like, yeah, because someone wrote your shit for you. Yes, comedian is an interesting. That's just sacrosanct. There's no compassion for that guy. Cause he should be good. He writes his own stuff. He's supposed to be able to do improv and be good in the moment. But I was always so excited when someone came in, whether they were a big name or not, and they could banter, they could play, they knew how to improv. And just one quick one. And there's so many. My favorite moment probably ever was the actor Jeffrey Tambor, who was in the Larry Sanders show and Arrested Development and so many other things. One of the funniest guys ever in the moment. And when you get him, he's just. He's a master. So he would. Those guys would come in and they didn't know me. I knew them, but they would always test me. Another example would be Norm MacDonald or William Shatner or Bob Saget, like, coming in and boom, boom, boom, boom. Kevin Hart, like, oh, I knew him because he's a comic. But like, somebody. So they would test me. And once they knew I got the game, then we danced, right? The third time Tambor comes in, he knows that I know the rule is comedy doesn't matter who gets hurt. That's the rule. Top of the interview, he goes, pete, I'm glad to see that you're still here. A little surprised. I go, why are you saying that, Jeffrey? Right away, he said he opened the interview. I go, things are going great. I actually just launched this new channel. I spearheaded it. It's going great. Things have not been going better. I go, why are you saying it like that? He goes, no, no, no. I'm just surprised. I go, why are you surprised? And he goes, because you're not good

[Rod]

off the top rope and start the show

[Pete Dominic]

at the opening of the interview, knowing that he had to be there for another 30 minutes, he said, you're not good. He was like, just this, like such a pro move. And it was such a. It was a test for me. And so many other people did that same thing right at the top, because they didn't. They needed to know if they could have fun. They didn't care at that point about what side they're so famous. This person or that person. Jeff Goldblum's another one. I mean, I could think of. They just come in and they play, and if you play with them, they're happy. And if you don't, by the way, they don't come back.

[Rod]

Yeah, and they've been doing it so often. Some of these people, when they're promoting

[Karen]

shit, stuff gets better. Boring.

[Rod]

Especially those guys who promote books. Cuz like, if you, you know, if you guys on this side of the aisle, I know fans, y' all might not know this, but we get like PR releases. And, and it's like so. And so has a book and they'll even send you like, here's the 10 questions to ask. And. And like, you know, so it doesn't. You don't even have to read the book. You just go in, you ask them some basic. Like, so the economy. What's going on with that? And. And it sucks.

[Pete Dominic]

I don't think one of the suggested questions is, so the economy.

[Rod]

Yeah, it's like Byron Allen. It's like Byron Allen. It's just like, yeah, I know you have a joke about airplanes. Like, so you ever been on an airplane? It's like, where could this possibly go?

[Kal Penn]

And.

[Karen]

And the thing is, whenever Roger has authors on, he actually reads the books. And they're shocked and surprised because he's asking like these very in depth and deep questions that's like, oh, you ready?

[Rod]

It does take a lot longer for them to be guests, though.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Rod]

Because I'm like, I'm gonna read the. I'm not gonna.

[Kal Penn]

You.

[Rod]

But maybe you got to wait a month to come on the show. If I actually read your. But you know, if you give me an advanced copy, you know, hey, it's still gonna line up with when it's time to sell the books, man. But yeah, I, I do like that stuff. But. But it's mostly because I hate so many of these generic like.

[Karen]

And they all sound the same.

[Rod]

They're just, they're just doing the thing. They're holding up the book to the camera and being like, so it's a

[Pete Dominic]

book about this Always Try to be different. I always try to make the guests my show. And that's what I've been doing for years. I mean, used to do three guests a day, five days a week. Now I do one or two a day. But either way, you can see just like, some of the books behind me. I have thousands of books whose authors I've had the great privilege to interview, and I love it. And I try to give them as much respect as I can in the prep. But also I try to give. Be different and make sure the audience isn't bored by this subject matter or this guest. Because a lot of times the guest is a real good writer, Right? Journalist.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

But not a good.

[Karen]

No, they're not. I've heard terrible interviews. Like, your writing is beautiful, but I'm

[Rod]

not gonna say no names, man. But, like, I was one time I was in a situation where I was so disappointed because I read this book and this dude was so funny. I was like, oh, my. Like, crying, laughing, reading this book. And it's like, oh, he's gonna be here today. I was like, oh, it's gonna be fucking. But he was. He didn't have the. He didn't have a gift of. Gabby had to put the gift of writing.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Rod]

And I was like, that's a different. This interview would be awesome if you could, like, maybe type out a page and then come back in 10 minutes and then say the answer to this question. But, like, right now, I just want to fucking jump out the studio. Yes. And go to commercial and never come back. And just pretend like, this is not selling your book. This is 100% getting your book returned. No one's believing me when I'm like, no, this guy's fucking hilarious. You guys got to read the book. Okay, you know what? Shut up. Let me read your book. Okay. But, yeah, it is the worst. How'd you grow up? Like, were you into theater? Were you into sports? Like, what'd you. How'd you grow up and get into this lane of entertainment?

[Tab Ramos]

Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Tirzepatide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is Approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15mg injection. Zepbound contains Tirzepatide and should not be used with other tirzepatide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if the Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor, call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbound.lilly.com this is Tab Ramos from

Inside American Soccer and this summer Topgolf is turning into the ultimate soccer destination. They're not just throwing games on in the background. Topgolf is going all in on soccer. They've got a new soccer themed game you can play with your group, special in venue activations, exclusive food and drink items inspired by the global game and at more than 60 locations. They've even installed full size soccer goals so you can try to hit golf balls right into the net and every match all summer long will be on throughout the venue. So it's a great place to watch with friends, hang out, compete a little bit and enjoy the atmosphere. And if you want to keep the fun going all summer, you can get the topgolf Summer Fun Pass, which lets you play every single day and bring up to five guests every visit. Get yours [e-mail] Fun Pass Summer hits

[Pete Dominic]

different at Topgolf, summer is here at Orderly Meds.

[Orderly Meds Announcer]

We know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next, this season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options. Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com podcast orderlymeds.com podcast because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward. Compounded medication are not FDA approved, eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

[Kal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Irsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tab Ramos]

Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams or order tests doctors do. At the American Medical association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation with someone who understands the science and your unique health. So stay curious. Ask questions. But when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn more at amahealth versus hype.org that's amahealthvshipe.org I was into everything.

[Pete Dominic]

I was a social butterfly. But I was both a jock and a theater kid. I went from lacrosse practice to to play rehearsal. I did the morning announcements.

[Rod]

That's very rare.

[Pete Dominic]

I was ski club president, student government president. I made it my business to know everybody. I never missed a day of school. I did the morning announcements. Like my junior and senior year. I hosted the talent show. My junior and senior year. It was a graduating class like 500. Upstate New York, outside Syracuse. A pretty, pretty rural area, almost entirely white Christian. So very homogenous and very country. And I grew up that way. My dad grew up in the city of Syracuse. My mom was a public school teacher in the city of Syracuse. But there's two types of people who become comedians. My theory, if I want to be so binary, those who didn't get enough hugs and seek it out and those who had too many hugs and seek constant love. I had constant love in my home growing up, and I wouldn't change that or trade that for the world. Maybe makes it harder to establish resilience when you struggle when you're older. I found. But my parents are still alive and still love me and are still super proud of me. And so I think I. I've always kind of sought that out. But it is weird.

[Rod]

It is weird having good parents. It is. I didn't think it would be weird, but the older I get, the weirder that I see it is because I. There's so many people that are just like, oh, man, my parents suck. Right? Don't they all suck? They're just the goddamn worst. I. Oh, Thanksgiving. I gotta see these again. And I'm just like, I'm not gonna say anything because it's just gonna feel like I'm either rubbing it in or being. Trying to be contrarian. Not. You know, this is not. When we were growing up and there were movies about this, it was supposed to be like a cool time. But it is cool for me. But I'm sorry it's not cool for you, but you're right, a lot of funny people. It. I feel like it's all like a coping mechanism or trauma response or whatever. I think a lot of my humor comes from when my parents would argue. I would kind of be this weird mediator between them. And I think that's like how it's like. But if we're all laughing, nobody's mad,

[Pete Dominic]

you know, it's always interesting to wear. Yeah, you're dancing in the corner, trying to distract. I did that too. My brother, my. My dad had some issues, but more than anything else. And I think the answer to your question, I didn't quite like why humor. I was tiny little feller. I was the smallest person in my class for sure. And almost every year, including high school, when it really mattered, especially to boys, junior high and high school, I went through pretty late and lost my hair early, which was a bit my actual year. And yeah, the simp. Thank you.

[Rod]

Thank you.

[Pete Dominic]

For the right response. That's tough, baby. What kind of a God would do that? I was small and so being small, you know, and wanting people to like me and also just as a protection mechanism as a boy to not be bullied by other boys. If, if they bullied me, you know, they were all. They could beat me in a, in a fight and I got beat up. But they were more likely to want to be friends with me than to suffer my verbal. I would be, I would take them down. And also my brother was bullied, my older brother was bullied. And I watched that happen. It's very much a part of the who I am today. Why I'm very much into righteousness and justice and equal rights and human rights and civil rights. I mean, because it started with my brother being bullied and he was also got radicalized by Noam Chomsky and made me like an anti racist, anti sexist when I was younger. I'm still racist and sexist, don't get me wrong. But I understand the idea and I'm trying not to be all the time, especially against Malaysians. I don't know if you met any Dominicans either.

[Karen]

I don't know many.

[Rod]

But you know, I, I mean I can, if I can be talked into being racist against people, I don't know, I think that's the easiest way is if you know them, it's harder to be racist.

[Karen]

It is, it's.

[Pete Dominic]

I lived in a Dominican neighborhood and I didn't know anything about them. And then I learned and all I needed and I was out of there because the music. Horrible.

[Rod]

Oh, you had. You can't, you can't. Is it that you can't dance, Pete? Is that. We're going to find out.

[Karen]

Let us know. You got two left feet.

[Rod]

Is it. Is the Dominican music too, too? Is it too much for you?

[Pete Dominic]

I'll have, you know, if there's a dance floor, I'll have everybody in a circle around me, which is another early aspect of me as a performer. Roller skating parties, break dance in the middle of the gym. The whole entire class was watching me break dance. I made it my business for everybody to know who I was. I was the center of attention whenever I could be. And I used that, like I say, skill set to punch up. So when the bullies were in my age and younger, bullying kids who are non conformist artists, whatever, I would crush those kids. They were my friends already. So I just had it recently. I'm still very good friends. A lot of my guys, my buddies from high school and one of the biggest, meanest jocks. He said I was mean to him in high school. I go, well, you probably deserved it. You would probably be mean to me or somebody else marginalizing somebody else. And he goes, you don't understand. I go, what? This guy's still like 6 5, good looking guy, very successful. And he goes, you called me disproportionate body boy.

[Rod]

He remembered that

[Karen]

you sketched that on that man's heart.

[Pete Dominic]

As soon as he said that, I just started dying laughing because it was my joke. I was like, that's how. Look at you.

[Rod]

Yeah, I mean, it's good. You gotta give it up.

[Karen]

That's hilarious. And for me and I sometimes I think about me and Roger Roderick actually helped me get into comedy. I feel bad for Roger because I grew up in a non funny household. Like, literally everything was serious, everything was taking the heart, like all that stuff. So when Rogers first started dating me, he actually had to be like, hey, calm down, it's a joke. Like he actually had to do that several times before. I was like, oh, you're not serious.

[Rod]

He was like, I'm not. I think one of the. I still, I still live by the. I still live by this. Comedy only really works in safety when you feel safe. I'm not saying you are safe, because I don't think anything's safe in comedy. You just one thing and you're like, God damn that one up. But the idea of we're collaborating, you're in a place where the intentions are good and we're having that's. It's hard to build that with people. But once you build it, I mean, it's basically, it's sacred, you know, like, and I think

[Pete Dominic]

speak to the different cultures of comedy. And I would talk about three in particular. Like, kind of white boy comedy. Like where I grew up, Jewish comedy and black comedy, we could do gender. But I don't think it really changes any of these things because I think it's more about the culture. And I could speak to each of what my opinion of each of those genres is. But I'll just say this. I grew up in my culture, the homogenous culture that I grew up in the 80s and 90s in upstate New York. Like I said, white, mostly Christian, very little diversity. And I was exposed to more diversity because my mom was a public school teacher and cousins who are mixed race and a couple of other experiences my parents luckily put me into. But mostly pretty much. So I grew up with that humor, which is still within itself. Diverse.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

My six of my closest friends were all funnier than me. Funny guys, really funny guys. And there was another tier. Guys were also funny, but not as funny as us. And then there was the other guys that tried to be, but they weren't.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

Then I went to college and I. That's when I became. I knew I wanted to be a comedian, so I became a student of comedy. And in college, I met a lot of gay people, Jewish people, a lot of Hispanic people. But I gravitated towards black people, and it was because of humor. And I could talk about that experience. I kind of want to write a book about it, but I would want to write it with them. Those guys who I'm still friends with, and they taught me a whole different brand of comedy that I can speak to. And then when I moved to New York and lived in Upper west side and was around a lot of comedians, so many more Jewish comedians that were very influential. Gay comedians, different women, for sure. But that's something I think I always was curious about, what made people laugh. And obviously, culturally, there are similar experiences. Nobody's monolithic, blah, blah, blah. But let's be honest. Like, we have jokes about hunting deer, and it's mostly a white person thing. Oh, what about my friend? My black friend who hunts deer? All right, he can laugh too, but he doesn't.

[Rod]

Right? Right. This is not gonna kill in this black room, and you know it.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Rod]

Like, you have.

[Karen]

You have to kind of figure it out.

[Pete Dominic]

Like I said earlier, I wanted to make every audience laugh. And best comics, to me, the best white comics there kind of was like, black comics and white comics.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

Like the black. And on the pantheon of the best, it's mostly black comics.

[Rod]

Right.

[Tab Ramos]

It's.

[Pete Dominic]

Then it's George Carlin and, you know, a couple of others, whatever. But I thought watching Bill. Bill Burr and I came up together and watching Bill and a couple of other white comics who, name you, probably don't know, but everybody knows Bill. He worked those black rooms. And I was like, I want to work those black rooms. And because of my college experience, those guys brought me up. And then once I did, it was the greatest achievement. It felt the greatest. Just because I'm white and they're all black. And I think everybody knows what that's like to some extent.

[Rod]

And there's a bump to get over when you walk in that room because

[Karen]

people will fold their arms, look at you, and it's different. It's like, make me laugh.

[Rod]

But as with all things too, there's also the curve the other way. Right. There's like the bounce that you get off of it because it's, it's like white people being good at anything that black people feel like we're the best at. Right. If you can dance, there's an extra level. Like the white boy can dance. If you can play back. If you can play basketball, it's like an extra level. Like, hey, check out the white dude. He could actually play basketball.

[Pete Dominic]

There's, there's always a make me laugh posture for any audience. But black people have the righteous, like, opinion of like, why would I laugh at you?

[Rod]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

And so. And, and it's also true for black comics too. Don't get me wrong. I mean, certainly if a white comic walks in front of a black room, but if a black comic, Black people are just as afraid to perform in front of black. Everybody knows what happens when you, when you bomb in front of a black audience. It happens.

[Rod]

It's the worst.

[Pete Dominic]

And it hurts real bad.

[Rod]

It's the worst.

[Pete Dominic]

White audiences are far less verbal, more patient. But the true. You just said the bounce. If you, if you're a white person or a black person. But if you're any comic, but especially if you're a white guy, I'll say, yeah, it seems a little better to make people who aren't your quote people, people who don't look like you haven't lived your experience. To go and kill in front of a black room, which I, I did a lot in the late 90s and early aughts. There is nothing better. People are running around.

[Rod]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Rod]

It's the best.

[Karen]

Yeah. We, we have. It's the expression. Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

Physically react. Kicking legs.

[Ray Porter]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

The kind of, the kind of like physical jubilation that you get from a black audience is so wonderful. And it's only.

[Rod]

You can only that from stand up and sleight of hand magic. Those are the only two times I've seen it.

[Karen]

Now. We love sleight of hand magic because

[Rod]

me, it's not even, it's not even like on purpose.

[Karen]

No.

[Rod]

Remember we went to that bowling alley thing and that dude came over and started doing sleight of hand magic in front of us. And some weird with the phone call, man. I, it took everything for me not to get up and run. I was like holding out my seat, like I want to clap at him.

[Pete Dominic]

I'll give you two more. I can't attest to it, but do you think black folks will watch a hilarious tick tock video where someone slips and Falls or gets scared and run around. I think they'll laugh.

[Kal Penn]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

Also black people. Not all black people, but a lot of black people will laugh at black people beating up white people with chairs.

[Rod]

That was good. That was a good one. That was a great day. We don't have enough of those, to be honest.

[Karen]

We do not.

[Rod]

Like, we should. We should. We should. We should make that an annual tradition. You know, Find some allies that are willing to reenactment, like, Civil War reenactments. But it's just a chair at the dock.

[Karen]

Never forget.

[Rod]

Yeah. Like, we're both like, hey, we get some cool white people to line up, we won't beat you too hard. You know, it's just like the Civil War. There's no gun. There's no real bullets in the musket.

[Karen]

They'll be like, why don't you name the boat SS Folding Chair? Cause that was the name of the boat. It was not sir, but that's what

[Rod]

we gonna name it today. I love it. We should have a whole alternate history, man.

[Kal Penn]

Yes.

[Pete Dominic]

The first time you watch it, like, damn. And the second time you watch it, you are dying.

[Rod]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[Tab Ramos]

That is.

[Rod]

That is another thing, too, because I feel like, you know, the gallows humor of, like, having to go through, like, oppression for any group. Right. Not just black people, any group. Like, you have, like, that's.

[Pete Dominic]

I think it's fair to say that there's a lot of truth to why the Jewish community and the black community are so funny. And obviously, art comes out of. Not always. Not always out of suffering, but a lot of times out of suffering. Obviously, a lot of the best art. I used to think I'm never going to be a great comedian because I had a lot of privilege and I had a good childhood. And I was always, like. I always felt like I'm a good comedian, but I'm not a great comedian because I didn't have. I wasn't molested. You know, I watched Jimmy Norton go up and talk about being molested, and he's, like, dying, laughing, like suicide. Or I'm just like, all the worst. No, but I think that, yeah, human suffering is where a lot of times the lotus flower grows out of the mud, and so did the jokes. And people have studied that pretty well. But it's also, like, through solidarity, too. And, you know, that's like hanging out with all those black guys in college. Like, they taught me a kind of humor and a brand and almost a way to laugh, a way to react. Facial expressions, noises. You name it and I couldn't. Like, I never wanted to appropriate, but I'm sure I did, and I'm sure I do a little bit.

[Rod]

But I think, like. So appropriation has gotten like a weird rep because. Yes, it has. I don't. I think some stuff isn't appropriation. It's like cross cultural.

[Pete Dominic]

I agree with you. Yeah. I mean, like, I didn't want to be. Appear to be like, you want to

[Rod]

be like an art, like a cultural archivist or like. Like Indiana Jones of comedy. Like, you just show up and be like, oh, so what y' all think is funny? And you're just writing in this corner with a notepad

[Pete Dominic]

from them and wear it if it wasn't mine.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

Is that I was this kind of. I wasn't myself such a redneck. I was in between kind of like. But.

[Kal Penn]

But.

[Pete Dominic]

But they. The way I dressed versus the way that all the black guys dressed in 1995. 93 to 95. When I was in college, those guys all had a very similar fashion with their clothes. Like, I don't have to explain it to you or anybody. I was more filthy tight. All the things. My hats. All my hats are all beat up. And like, that gave them jokes every day. But also, they also. The rules were very quickly established, and that's why I was let in. That's why I lived with them. They were my roommates and I ate with them every day. And they were. Because I knew the rules. Just like.

[Rod]

I think a big part of that

[Pete Dominic]

too, is I went after them hard.

[Rod]

Yeah, I think a big part of that too is like, there's this thing that happens where, like, some of my favorite white people are just regular white people. I don't like the, like, it's like how Eminem is respected in rap because Eminem never really tried to be black. Eminem is just rapping about like, I'm. I hate my mom and I'm on these pills. And you're like, I don't even relate to this, but I appreciate you staying in your lane.

[Karen]

And you are. And my thing is he was authentic to his itself, and that's kind of all that matters.

[Ray Porter]

Yeah.

[Rod]

And. And like, when there would be a rap battle or a beef or this, black people would diss Eminem sometimes and he come back hard. But it would. You. You respected it because he wasn't, like, trying to come at it from a lane of like, I'm a better black person than you, which. Which can often be the, like, death nail. Like, that's the thing That'll kill everything. Is when. I remember once, back when I used to have white friends, this one dude told me, he was like, hey, Rod, you know what, man? I'm blacker than you. And I was like, how so? And he was like, I've been to jail. I was like, you stupid. Like, I will slap the out of you. What are you talking about? He's like, I probably have sex with more black women than you. I was like, what is this?

[Karen]

What.

[Rod]

What does that mean? What does that mean? Like, let's talk about it. And I just made it get very. Like, I just. I could have bailed him out and laughed, but instead I just got very serious at the table. And so it just got real quiet, and everybody's leaning forward, waiting for the answer, like, yeah, Ben, what does it mean to go to jail and have sex makes you more black? And he's like, oh, never mind. I was just joking. But if, if. If you just kind of stay more in your lane, like, like, there's a level of respect that comes and a level acceptance that comes. That's why I say it's not really appropriation, it's like cross cultural exchange.

[Pete Dominic]

Exactly. All that. And if you be real, you will be respected. And so when it came to me hanging out, not only a lot of black men, it was a lot of black women. As a matter of fact, I just. I just got together with five black women that I went to college with and just me at a house in Martha's Vineyard for a weekend. And it was like one of the most. We reconnected on the way, but the humor was back right away and to the point. Like, I was always just me. And I think what was different from me with humor when I was with all those black folks in the 90s was I was less inhibited than them, the men especially. I was a silly goose. And the best thing you could hear for me, the nicest comment was, pete, you so stupid. The girl is the best.

[Karen]

That's a compliment.

[Pete Dominic]

Yeah, it was always a compliment. It was an acceptance. And, you know, but I never. I never. You know, he's. You talked about the guy that says he's blacker than you. Like, I did anti racist jokes with them or I asked them ignorant questions to set them up for a joke. Like, one time we were like walking back from cafeteria dorms, nine of us, and I finally just go. And there's always, like. Like always an alpha. And he was my closest friend and biggest guy. And I just. My dad told me to make friends with the biggest guy in school. And that will always worked. And I said to him, I go, his name is Ty Kwan. I go, hey, man, why do. Why do black people walk so slow? Why are we walking so slow? It's cold. It's cold. And he just stopped. Like it should be in a movie. This scene should be in a movie. He just stopped and everybody stopped. And he just looked at me and he goes, why do white people walk so fast? And there was. That was all. It was always stuff like that. Like about your friend saying, I'm blacker than you. I was in jail. Like, I made like anti racist jokes. I don't know where this came from, but I remember going to him, you are black and I am white. You'll be blamed for a crime I commit tonight.

[Rod]

Oh, no.

[Pete Dominic]

We were hilarious doing stuff like that. They were just always taking shots at each other in the most brutal ways. And it was such an unique. It was like an internship. It was like a cultural experience you could never design. But I give myself credit for diving into people who weren't like me. Always the case. The gay community, Jewish community. I've always been more interested in them than the people I came from. To a certain extent, you're not as interested in the people you come from. And to another extent, white people are. That can be boring.

[Rod]

Yeah, well, they're kind of default, right? Salt and pepper to taste. They're, they're the. You know, it's like, who does? Even for us, right? We have to know white culture to move in and out of America, right? So it's like, it's like more of a survival skill. Like, yeah, you gotta know, you know, like, you'll see this often with certain people. Like, people be like, you know, the secret to such and such. You're like, what? I know how to talk to these white people. It's just like, hey, man, it's a, it's a valuable skill, but, you know, it's not necessarily something a white person has to have in other areas unless they decide to go into those areas. Like you. Like, if you just decide, I'm staying in my pond, I'm never leaving. I can be a mainstream success without ever really trying to explore other areas. But once again, once you step out of those areas, it does behoove you to know how to talk to other people.

[Karen]

Stay where you were.

[Pete Dominic]

The simplest way to illustrate what you just said is you could do a segment as guests on my show where I take callers and say, ask black people a question. And white people Would call in and ask all kinds of fun, ignorant, maybe racist questions. But you would never be me on your show and be like, black people ask white people questions. Because you already know the answer better than we do. You know the answer better than we do about us. If you were like, do white people wash their legs? I would be like, I actually, I don't know if I don't.

[Rod]

Yeah, the answer is no, you missed it. Just cause you wash your legs, it doesn't mean shit.

[Pete Dominic]

Okay, We've done the research. Black people have to know if you're the. We're not supposed to use the word minority, I'm told, anymore. But if you're the minority in a room, you need to be able to protect yourself. So you need to know who's in the room and what they might do. Women know more about men, black people know more about white people to protect themselves from generations of predation. I mean, I don't think that's breaking any new ground. I don't think that's a genius thing. But I think it's, it's why you would never be like, I don't know about these white people, I just don't understand why people.

[Rod]

But white people are also mean to white people in a way that's so weird. Like, as a white dude, I'm sure you've experienced this or at least seen it, but it's like the dude that gets drunk around the homies and they're just like, fold them up, throw them in the fridge or whatever the fuck,

[Karen]

draw a dick on his face.

[Rod]

Why? Back when I had white friends, I remember one time they sent me a picture on my phone of one of the homies and he was butt ass naked, folded up, sat into a sink and, and like drawn on. And they sent it to me like, haha. And I was like, is he okay? Where's he at? Do we need to go get him? And they're like, no, it's funny. It was like, who did this to him? And they're like, we did. I was like, y' all right, that's,

[Karen]

that's, that's not funny.

[Pete Dominic]

My friend got drunk, he had a bad issue with the alcohol. He would drink. You pass out. We did a lot of camping and drinking and so we, we stood him up against a tree and we duct taped him to the tree. And then of course, the obligatory white guy thing, we drew a dick in his face. That's kind of. And then we took a picture of it.

[Rod]

Why is that a culture? I've never understood that why do you do this? Right? I'm like, that's supposed to be cool. This is what happens when you don't have apex predators. You just start doing weird to each other because you're like, no, we're enforcing our own rules. We're like polar bears. Black.

[Pete Dominic]

I would say that black humor.

[Tab Ramos]

The.

[Pete Dominic]

The jokes. I had an. I had a fun argument with Van Nathan. You know, he is Van Lathan.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

About this. I said, black comedy is meaner than white comedy.

[Karen]

It is much meaner.

[Pete Dominic]

He disagrees with me. And. But what you're saying is, like, why do white guys do that to each other? It's a white guy thing more, but it's a white thing. Pranks and stuff like that. And I don't know if this is along those lines, but all I'll say about black culture or black people is they don't like that very much. And to a certain extent, let's get to specifically eating and food. So there we were. I'm 18, sitting next to this guy, grew up in the Bronx around almost entirely black people. And I reached onto his tray to take some of his food to take a French fry. And do you know what he did?

[Rod]

Slapped your hand away.

[Pete Dominic]

Worse.

[Rod]

Punching your face.

[Pete Dominic]

Not as bad.

[Rod]

Spitting the food. What'd he do?

[Pete Dominic]

Stabbed my hand with his fork.

[Rod]

Okay, that's okay.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Rod]

That'll teach you.

[Tab Ramos]

Food.

[Pete Dominic]

I will say this. Then all those black guys did have a prank that wouldn't work on white people because we wouldn't care. But the prank was this. When you got your food, usually your dessert, at the cafeteria in the dorm at college, you sit down a piece of cake, one guy would jam his finger into the cake, and then the guy couldn't eat it because his fingers in it. That would not happen to a white guy. If you jammed your finger into my cake, I would be like. I would. I would just be like, eat it.

[Rod]

Well, I think. I think the thing with white comedy and meanness, I feel like. I feel like white comedy is mean to people who are in the room. I feel like black comedy. Everybody in the room is on the menu like that. And that's the. That's the rule. That's the deal. Like, we can fuck everybody up in here. Like, I. The. The amount of times you watch, like, either Def Comedy Jam or you go to a comedy club and you just realize, oh, shit, I'm on the menu. Like, Like. Like they're looking around the room like, hey, look at this motherfucker. You like, God damn, I did not want to be part of this, whatever this is.

[Pete Dominic]

I mean, the great talking about in college, I mean, that's where I learned that. But then sitting at the table at the Comedy Cellar with Patrice o' Neill and Keith Robinson and I mean, I could just name every black comedian, you know, I mean, when Kevin Hart started, Kevin Hart used to come up from Philadelphia with Big J Okerson, and he'd come in the comedy club, everybody knew he's funny and stuff, but he was obvious as, you know, he's tiny. He would get roasted by Patrice was huge. And so many other comedy. Everybody. And we all would. And it was just. It was always a firing squad. And, you know, whatever your insecurity was, that's what they were coming for. Like, I remember college, this tall black guy couldn't dunk. I thought he was gonna kill himself with the insults, but they were funny.

[Rod]

Yeah. Racism, we love it, guys, right? It's giving us so much now. What about with politics and comedy? Cause I feel like there's definitely been a tightening of the, like, political, like, what. What can we love? What are we doing here? Like, don't. You know, over the years, and I think a lot of that's because the advent of social media, I always think, I always say bloggers and stand up comedians were like the worst Venn diagram to ever meet. Because it's like two myopic people that, like, only my point of view is valid. And then they're both just on each other. And it just. I feel like that just bloomed into the entire Internet now. And that's kind of like a lot of the culture. It's definitely not that way in the room. Right. So, like, you go to a stand up comedy special or, or just whatever, just stand up comedy in your area. It doesn't feel like that. It's not tight like that. But a lot of the way we consume comedy now is not in the room anymore. It's for everyone outside the room. So, like, going into politics after coming out of comedy, did you feel that tightening? Do you feel it loosening it back? Is like, how does it feel to you now?

[Pete Dominic]

Such a really important question and conversation to have, but I generally have always felt like a lot of that has been overblown. I feel like the main primary rule of comedy is still the truth, which is don't punch down the greats. Didn't really do that. You know, George Carlin didn't go after vulnerable communities. You know, Richard Pryor didn't go after your own people. You can say you can you can punch down, to a certain extent, make a funny joke, but, like, you know, targeting today, like, there's so many comedians, like, going after trans people. It's so, like, I find that so uninteresting and almost always not funny. Because if you just knew anything about the trans community, you know, like, a lot of them are really, really struggling and suicidal, the suicide rates. It's like, why would you go after a community who, you know, like, has a lot of suicidal ideation or going after, like, the gay community making gay jokes? Like, when I started as a comedy, a comedian, I didn't even like to put, like, my then girlfriend and then wife down. I never punched down at her. My jokes were about me being, like, short. My shortcomings in the marriage. Poor her, she has to deal with me because I just felt like that kind of overt sexism of male comedians talking about their wives, I just felt like that was over. And so I just never was really impressed with that. So I think, like, that whole idea of punching down and punching up, I still feel like that should be the rule. There are exceptions. Sexism and racism can be funny. The Holocaust can be funny. Cancer can be. Anything can be funny if it done the right way by the right person, the right tone, the right home. But I think that you need to know who you are and who you're talking to and who your audience is.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

And not all comedy obviously has a political bent. A lot of it doesn't. You know, third of George Carlin's act was fart jokes and observational humor and jokes on language. Brilliant jokes on language. And then a lot of the other stuff was social and cultural and political. But it depends on who you are and how you fashion yourself. But it has really interestingly changed in terms of, like, from liberal to conservative, the left to the right in the spectrum, in terms of what we laugh at, what we're allowed to laugh at.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

And I think the one thing that is so often we believe narratives because they seem to fit. But, like, the idea that liberals are more sensitive is probably true in a lot of ways, at least in that we care about strangers.

[Rod]

Yeah. It's like. It's like when Rob Reiner died and people were like, I didn't agree with his politics, but let me. And I'm like, his politics of inclusion, diversity, care, empathy. You should kind of be a little bit ashamed to say that part out loud. You should just go straight to the, like, man, it's sad that he's dead. You should just skip that Part about, I didn't like that he was like, such a nice guy. I wanted everyone to have equality. That was kind of crazy.

[Pete Dominic]

I just think that the difference between. Yeah, it's ridiculous. The difference between like a liberal and conservative comedian to a certain extent or person.

[Rod]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

When it comes to comedy, it's like they can't laugh at themselves.

[Karen]

No, they can't. And a lot of them don't have a sense of humor. They're like, like proper.

[Pete Dominic]

Like, I had a trumper come on. You know, some MAGA guy in the live chat, I was doing a. I think it was with jl and some guy in the comments said some nonsense, but then he said some stupid MAGA nonsense. But then he called me, he said I look like a baby hamster. And I was like, funny. Yeah, I do, I do. Look, I do think that about myself. I do think that's funny. I can laugh at that joke, which is a direct insult to how I look, and I think it's funny. So you can definitely make fun of my beliefs. You can make fun of all kinds of things about me. And I'm able to laugh at myself because A, I'm confident and B, I don't take myself so serious. But those guys, they. They can't laugh at themselves. They.

[Kal Penn]

That.

[Pete Dominic]

That's why. Also why they're not very funny. There's not very many conservative comedians that are very funny at all.

[Rod]

It's much more like cultural signifying. Right. Like, it's a lot of, A lot of the conservative stand up now is very much like, because we all agree on. And it's a premise that only if you're in like, a certain circle of the world would you be like, this premise makes sense. So if you're like, look, man, these trans people are shooting up schools. There's no factual basis for that joke. But if you're in a certain, of a certain belief system and you're in that room, you're like, we are going with that premise now. You make the funny joke about trans people shooting up schools where even though it's not true and that. And, and that does suck because it feels like they have taken the, the, the, the universal appeal of what comedy's supposed to do. They just kind of bastardize it. Like, it's like, I prefer that even if you fail, I prefer you're attempting to make us all laugh. Like, I like, hey, it's hard. It's not an easy job, but I understand the attempt when you're like, boom, I said this thing, it didn't work. As opposed to just, I know this joke is not that funny, but I know it'll work because the people in this room want it to work more than they want it to be funny.

[Pete Dominic]

The rules are the rules. Like I said, you can make comedians and satirists and everybody. You know, the rules are anything. So the example that you gave is a tough one to make funny. School shooting, tough to make funny. But I will help you and everybody who wants to think about making a joke. If you want to make a joke about school shooting, best to make it truest, which is about a white guy. Those are the jokes about school shootings that work. It's. Why is it always a white guy?

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

Why is it always a white guy? It's always, you know, and that's where the comedy in that subject, there's not a lot of it, but if you want to find it, it's in. Why is it white guy? Lots of comedians are doing that joke, right?

[Rod]

Yeah, it's the. It's the people that go, I pick on everybody. And I'm like, not a lot of dead cop comedians out here. Not a lot of. Not a lot of making that premise work, huh?

[Karen]

Right?

[Rod]

Yeah. No one picks on everybody. You pick on war jokes out here.

[Karen]

Here, come on now. Dead soldiers.

[Rod]

What are we doing? You want to leave? You want to leave the. You want to leave the room alive?

[Pete Dominic]

Don't lie to me. I like soldiers who don't die.

[Rod]

Yeah. Speaking of which, man, how'd you meet J.L. kovan, man? Because we are meeting you through J.L.

[Karen]

yes.

[Rod]

Which is probably the first positive thing that's happened through us knowing JL So, like, how did. How did you meet?

[Pete Dominic]

Stand up comedy? I was probably five, six, maybe a few years more ahead of him in, you know, I'd started meaning like 5 or 10 years maybe even ahead of him. I think I recognized his talent right away, and I also recognized his character, and we became friends. Like, I like this guy. I think he's funny, he's helpful to me. I'm gonna help him. And also, I think. I think I probably had him open for me a lot of events, or at least a few, because I recognize A, how funny he was, and B, how smart he was. And for me, I always wanted to give opportunities to all kinds of people. But if I was gonna be on the road with somebody, or if I'd be doing a gig with somebody in a car with somebody, I wanted to be with somebody who is, you know, better than me in general, those Are my friends. They're better than me. Their character, their intellect, their humor. I think Jail's better than me in all those ways. And so I probably, you know, that's. I gravitated towards him, and I always just thought he was underrated. Still do. And always wanted to promote him. He's always good to come on my show. He always knocks it out of the park then and now. And so I just. I love him. I admire him. I feel bad for him when he's in pain, which is most of the time.

[Rod]

All the time.

[Karen]

Oh, yeah.

[Rod]

When is he not in pain?

[Karen]

Great question.

[Rod]

Like, Karen always try. When he comes on here, Karen tries to fix them. I'm just like, no, I'm sorry, Dan.

[Karen]

I'll let you stay.

[Pete Dominic]

Broken.

[Rod]

He needs the misery in the way that, like, Michael Jordan made up that people used to talk bad about it, and then later on we would find out in the documentary, like, that guy never even said that to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan made up that that guy called him a piece of just so he could put 50 points on him. I feel like that's JL. You just gotta let him cook, and then eventually life will throw him some curveballs, and we'll create great comedy out of it. And that's what I'm in it for. Okay.

[Karen]

Good comedy.

[Tab Ramos]

Yes.

[Rod]

Though I'll get excited when I hear something bad happen in New Jersey. I'm like, oh, a train was late. All right, let me tune into the podcast, see what's going on over there.

[Pete Dominic]

Yeah, I mean, I think he's happiest when he's making people laugh. That's for damn sure. If you've seen him performing live and see him killing, like, he also is happiest to laugh. He's happy to. He's as happy to appreciate your joke as he is to make a joke. He loves humor and comedy, especially when it's good and when it's original. I think he's probably happy when he's around his dogs. He seems to really like his girlfriend. He has moments of joy. I wish for him and for all of us to have more moments of joy, But I think it's important to recognize that life is filled with suffering. It's mostly suffering, a lot of it. So when you find the joy, it's awesome and get to it. That's my practice Buddhism, and that's. That's what I, you know, focus on. I try to spread that to him, but I also, you know, try to get. Get him to leave that Catholic church. But he's he's the real deal in that.

[Rod]

He's all up in it.

[Pete Dominic]

He, he. Yeah, he. I mean I've seen him and know a lot of things he does privately.

[Rod]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

That are part of, I think influenced at least by his faith. I like to think I do similar things and don't have to be a member of an institution that is. Protects pedophiles same. But that's just.

[Rod]

Well, you know, look, some people need, you know, they need a fight to fight the system from the inside, I guess. But I prefer to be on the outside part of the church.

[Pete Dominic]

That would allow my daughter to rise to a position of leadership.

[Rod]

That would be nice. You know, just basically like if you weren't patting the Pope on the back for being like gay people, they. All right. What

[Pete Dominic]

human.

[Rod]

Yeah, listen, I'm.

[Tab Ramos]

I'm a new.

[Rod]

I'm a different type of pope.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Rod]

I take the money from the gay people, I take the money from the straight people. I don't give a fuck. Black people bring the money. We need 10% of everything. But, but it is, it is funny that to see him like earnestly running for office like, because like in. On the one hand I'm like, damn, this dude is so funny. And he's such a. But also like he's such a. He's so used to running up against this brick wall of comedy.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Rod]

That I feel like politics can't be that much harder.

[Karen]

He may.

[Rod]

Than ever. Brick wall than what he's already been doing. I feel like him coming up to people cold turkey to say sign this petition. How's that different than a bringer show? I think he was built for this.

[Pete Dominic]

I think that, I think that there's been parts of his career that are obviously really like, his impressions have gotten him a lot more attention than his standup. And it's only because like he's not for enough people. It's not because he's not funny. It's not because he's not brilliant. It's like there are certain people who always have smaller cult followings because, you know, they don't have the kind of universal appeal. And part of that is because he's so smart, a lot of his jokes are too high brow for a larger mass audience and appeal and his style and his demeanor and a lot of those things. But also, and I've always said this, you know, at his heart he's a public servant. He's always done service, acts of service as a volunteer, as a student, for all different kinds of communities. And that's what he's doing now, this nonprofit that he's working in to fight homelessness and eviction, and that's why he went to law school, and that's what his family brought him up to be. His, you know, dad was very influential on him. And, you know, I think. I think that this is really suited for him. And I think in this day and age of politics, where you need people who can fight and can banter, who can, you know, that's. He's the kind of person you need. You need people who are good performers and who are good fighters and who are smart. He's all those things. And New Jersey's 11th district would be real lucky to have him represented.

[Rod]

Absolutely.

[Karen]

I think so too.

[Rod]

Like, I definitely agree with the fighter part too. Man. I'm really focused on that in 2026 because I'm. I'm tired of arguing with people over degrees of difference on the left. It's. It's so fruitless. We're not getting much out of it except eroding the goodwill we have for each other.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Rod]

I think. I think I'm just gonna practice the next year is just when somebody says something, and I would have normally been like, well, wouldn't it be better? I'm just gonna be like, I don't know. You gonna what? You gonna vote for the Democrat when it's time to vote it? No. Cool. Like, I'm tired of arguing about. That's just not. It's like, ultimately, it would be a luxury for it to matter, but we need to get in a position to be in a luxury. Like, to have that luxury of, like, no. 17 minimum wage, rather than starting with this says 16 minimum wage. I'm staying home. Like, we gotta figure a way out of that part so we can get to this other part.

[Pete Dominic]

I fully agree with that. I would only add along the line, that's like politics. Like, I have lost my patience with at least certain people in certain situations. I'll say around scientific consensus, specifically, obviously, climate. I've never had any patience for people's skepticism about the census consensus around climate change.

[Karen]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

But specifically on the vaccines. I was talking to a friend of mine, a guy I hadn't talked to in years. Guy I used to be really good friends with, colleagues with, worked in media, did a lot of good things for me. But he also looked up to me and admired me. And so I decided when he was. Said some ignorant nonsense about vaccines, I was just like. He's like, we just had our daughter. We just had a kid. And I was like, oh my God, I haven't talked to him in years. I was like, congratulations, you're a dad. That's amazing. How old is one years old? And what do you think about the vaccines? I was like, what? He's like, I don't think we're not going to do them. We're not going to do them all at once. Whatever. So my, this time, because of who he was in my life and because of what his background does and because what I know, I go, what are you, stupid? I thought you a stupid person. And he did this whole, you know, I'm doing my research, I'm being responsible. I'm like, you don't know how to do research. You're a stupid. You're in media. You don't do research. I read a study. You don't know how to read a study.

[Orderly Meds Announcer]

Stupid.

[Rod]

Right? Most of us don't.

[Pete Dominic]

Was conducted. Do you know who conducted it? Do you know if they used a blind randomized control variable? Do you know how many studies there were on that?

[Karen]

I don't know what none of that means.

[Tab Ramos]

Studies.

[Pete Dominic]

Do you know any of the words that I'm saying? Because I just learned them from a guy who does research. I don't know. You stupid.

[Karen]

Stupid.

[Rod]

I, I, I feel like I, and it seems like you have it too, but I definitely have this like, bit of a Debbie Downer in me. This like hyper vigilance part that I try to keep in check, but it pops out like that because. And it's, it pops out more if I care about you. Like, like if I don't, if I don't, like, if I'm at the basketball court and you say some ignorant or whatever, it's like, I don't know this, but if it's like my brother and he's like, yeah, I'm not getting my kids vaccinated. I'm like, Hulk rage. I can't, like, I can't stop myself from it. And I, I think that does come from being a nerdy kid that got picked on and, and, and all that type of shit too. Like, it's still in me to this day. Like, like there's times, matter of fact, my friend Justin, one of my best friends, we became cool because we were playing basketball against these guys and the guy goes to insult Justin and he called just, he's some form of like, gay. I don't think it was a slur, but it was like, the implication is Justin is gay. And we're in the middle of the game and we just stopped the clock. And I was like, so what would be the problem if he was gay? He's like, man, just, you know, man, just check up, man. That's just some. We're like, no, but, like, like, so if he was gay, like, what, he. He wouldn't be as good at basketball or whatever. And everybody's like, take the ball up. Just play the ball. And I was like, no, but it's serious, because, like, why would you do that? And like, another time, there were these two girls that waited all day to play with us. And all the guys, there's like 10 guys, and they're just like, nah, man, we got 10. And I was like, well, the girls have next, right? No, no, they can't play, man. I was like, they're gonna play or no one's gonna play, right? And it's like, I. I. Part of me is like, life would be easier if that didn't exist in me. But it'd be harder for them, right? It'd be harder for those two girls because they. They never get the play because the guys are just so selfish.

[Kal Penn]

And.

[Rod]

And it was an easy solution. One girl on one team, one girl on the other team. Oh, I just solved the goddamn.

[Karen]

They. They play each other.

[Rod]

I just solved for pie. It wasn't even hard to solve, but it's just that, that unwillingness and selfishness that people have. And. Yeah, like I said, part of me, I. I hate that I can't stop it. But part of me, I. I don't. I can't imagine being a person that didn't have it, because I look at those people as, like, cowards.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

I love the way that you talked about that quality of yours, and it makes me like you a lot more, admire you a lot more, and probably think that might be why we are connected to a certain extent. Because I live by a couple of simple ideas. Be the change you want to see in the world. So if someone is putting someone down, treating someone poorly, what are you doing in that moment? If you don't. If you want to save the environment, what are you doing about it? Another one is surround yourself with people who fight for you in rooms that you're not in. Right. If someone. If I'm in a room with all white guys and they say something about black people, or more likely, you know, I guess the best example is in the 19 guys I talked to in a text chain from high school after Charlie Kirk died. The one. There's a couple Trumpers in there. I hate them and didn't want them invited, but they're in there, but I'm there to confront them. So this guy went off on Charlie Kirk and how good he was, and I was like, wrong place. I lit him on fire. And we haven't heard from him since. And I'm proud of that.

[Rod]

Right?

[Pete Dominic]

Act like, you know, surround yourself with people who fight for you in the rooms that you're not in. And finally, the one that I think about all the time, I heard this Australian general say it years ago. I was covering this issue in the news. It was during. They had some horrible incident of sexual harassment, which all militaries have an epidemic of it. Men harassing women and other men, generally speaking. But there was some horrible issue. And so this Australian general, in his cool Australian accent, basically he said, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. So if someone's over here making gay jokes and you're just allowing it, or making racist jokes and you're just allowing it. Million ways to handle it. I know it's uncomfortable, right? But I know that I. If my Jewish friends, my gay friend, my black friend or loved one knew that I stood by and allowed that, they would be disappointed and ashamed of me. And I personally can't live with their disrespect, right? So I've been that way pretty much my whole life, and it is. Made me a lot more friends than it's lost me. It's gave me a lot more respect than it's lost me, and it's my favorite quality because in some.

[Rod]

In some ways, like, it. Like, in a way, it's not even really about the other. It's about me. Like, I'll just. Like, in a way, it is about me where I'm just like, I'm not gonna be in a place where this is where. And. And I don't know if you found this too, but all this talk, like, alpha male this. All the men are so easy to just be like, nah, we're not doing that. And the vast majority of time are just like, oh, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. Like, it's like, it's not always a fight. Like, the. The way I lost my white friends was when they. When Trump was running. I remember he was saying the first time, he's like, mexicans are rapists. And. And I was like, this guy's a racist. What the.

[Ray Porter]

No. 1.

[Rod]

You can't vote for this. It was like, well, you know, I mean, I'm most about the economy I was like, you and that. Don't you vote for this dude. We won't be hanging out anymore. And one of them, like, got a little chippy and was like, what do you know? You just have, like, a podcast and. And all this. You don't know what the you're talking about. And I was like, oh, okay. My little podcast. Okay, cool. So I was like, I'm gonna read. I'm gonna read this email on our pot little podcast that no one listens to that you don't respect. And the way this man got scared, I didn't say his name or anything. Like, he was like, man, take it down. Take it down. I was like, no, I'm just gonna post screenshots without your name, and I'm just gonna say on my little platform, hey, this is what the fuck white people are talking about with Trump and the excuses they're making for his racism and bigotry. And that's. And that was when the other white friends popped up to be like, hey, man, you made me take it down, man. Or whatever. And I was like, fuck everybody.

[Karen]

Right?

[Rod]

That's how I lost him, because I was like, I'm not gonna be in an environment where him saying that to me. Y' all didn't say right when I was like, hey, man, this guy's racist. And I thought you guys weren't. Y' all were like, crickets. Like, rattle.

[Kal Penn]

Handle it.

[Rod]

But then when I'm like, hey, man, I'm. Put you on blaster. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now, let's not go too far. And I think, you know, I'd rather. I'd rather be like this than to be like that.

[Pete Dominic]

You know, I think one of the major issues that we've seen loss as a result, specifically of Trump and the genre, the movement, that there's a loss of shame.

[Tab Ramos]

Yes.

[Pete Dominic]

You can say anything you want to anyone you want. And so I'm always for putting someone on blast. Oh, if that doesn't matter if you. I love these videos. When someone says. Says some horrible stuff and people tape it and, you know, they. They have their lives, you know, destroyed. I wouldn't wish that on somebody, but it's important that the rest of us see that. Be like, I should keep some things myself. Yeah, I'd be out here. Shame is a really, really important thing. I mean, I try to change, and I could tell you, you know, we all should be able to have a lot of stories where we stood up and did the right thing. It's like, you know, like, when a Woman's being cat called in the street one time in New York City, this, you know, guy's leaning out of his truck. He's like, hey, mommy. Hey, Poppy. Why don't you come over here to Poppy, let me get some of that whatever. And the woman's like, looking at him. He's walking. I just walk up to him, lean up to his truck. I was like, hey, Poppy.

[Karen]

It don't feel good doing when it's unwanted.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Rod]

One time I was at the court, not my boy mount. Saw some chick walking up.

[Pete Dominic]

Let me finish. I ended up selling that guy's dick.

[Rod]

Oh, of course. Yeah. No, I. I assume that that's why I didn't cut you off, because I was like, you don't even need to tell her. I know how this goes.

[Karen]

I hope you charged a fair price for your services.

[Rod]

Don't do it for free now. Now, yeah. The games will be sold, not told. Ain't that the truth. Okay, but I remember my friend MT There was some girl walking up on the track when we were playing ball. And she was attractive, but he was like, hey, hey, girl. Or whatever. MT Is white, by the way. But he's like, hey, girl, hey. And I was like, what are you. Are you doing that to impress me? Like, she can barely hear you. And she's definitely not gonna be like, oh, my God, I need to run downstairs and give this guy some boots.

[Kal Penn]

Busy.

[Rod]

So what? Like, what is. You're clearly just doing this so that I know that you think that girl's attractive. I can see from down here now you just got us looking corny. And I just kept calling them corny, but, like, a lot. Like I said, it's so funny. People get so, like, worried about not fitting in or whatever since we were like, kids. And it is so funny how you flip the power like that. And almost every time it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm much cooler than that. I. I actually could have walked up there and got her number because I' real cool, Kyle. Like that. I'm like, yeah, you were corny. And don't let me catch you being corny in front of me again.

[Tab Ramos]

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[Orderly Meds Announcer]

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[Kal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible, and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary, massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Hearsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tab Ramos]

Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams or order tests doctors do. At the American Medical association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation with someone who understands the science and your unique health. So stay curious, ask questions. But when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn [e-mail] that's amahealthvshipe.org yeah, well, it's sexist.

[Pete Dominic]

And, and like, we're all sexist, and we need to recognize it and, and see it for what it is and try to be better. And the best example of that behavior you just mentioned, the best national example was Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape.

[Rod]

Oh, God.

[Pete Dominic]

And Hot Mic catches, then celebrity Trump saying, you're famous. You can grab him by the pussy. And Billy Bush just laughs and doesn't say anything. And then the world finds that out later. Well, I was on Real Time with Bill Maher on hbo, and Billy Bush was on that episode. You go watch the clip. Because Billy Bush still didn't seem contrite even though Bill Maher brought him back to, like, do A rehabilitation tour, you know, And I went after Billy Bush. Similar to what I said here about the principles I live by. I said that, quote, the stand you'd walk past is the stand you accept. Mar did not like what I said. So he attacks me, and he's like, oh, Pete, you've always been great with women, and you've never this and that. And I said, no, man, no. I absolutely objectified women in my life. I've absolutely thought about women as vessels to be conquered. I still catch myself doing it and thinking and saying inappropriate things. But I did mature at a certain point. And more importantly, I was never in a group of friends or with a bunch of men that talked about taking sex, right? Or joking about assaulting women. What we did, what most guys I know do locker room talk, right, was this. I want to fuck that girl. And then your buddy's going, she'll never you. And that was the end of it.

[Rod]

Yeah, exactly. The real locker room talk. Oh, man.

[Karen]

The talk I'm not privileged to. Sometimes Roger got to say, roger, Tammy, we don't talk like that.

[Rod]

Yeah, that was actually the most offensive thing about that Trump was when they were like, his locker room talk. I was like, no, it's not. Well, I don't know what the you guys talk about in the locker room. That is not the locker room talk is like, put your old balls away.

[Pete Dominic]

Like, Even in my 20s, I don't know how you were raised or how that guy was raised, but in my 20s or my 30s, obviously, now I have daughters, for God's sake. Sometimes you be like, oh, you shouldn't be like a pro woman feminist type of person just because you have daughters. I'm like, well, I would care more about cerebral palsy if my kid had that. So I have daughters. I think a lot about women, and I've worked on issues, you know, with women's equity and reproductive rights and domestic violence and all these things. And the bottom line is, like, in my 20s or 30s or now, like, if I knew a man I knew, whether. If he was a stranger or even as we're talking about much less like, I knew, touched a woman, right? Roped a woman, right, that, like, what would my react? I'd probably slap the shit out of him. But I would certainly say something, right? And it would be horrible. I don't know if I would, like, who's doing that?

[Rod]

And that's definitely not the home.

[Pete Dominic]

We'll see this.

[Rod]

Like, it's definitely, like, he's definitely also not the guy that's like you're kicking it with like. He comes back and he's like, dude, I just grabbed so many pussies. And you're like, bro, whoa.

[Pete Dominic]

I'm gonna out. I will out my friend. This summer, I was at a birthday party for my buddy's 50th. So we're all 50 and my friend's 80 year old mom was there and he gets so drunk that he put his arm around her and what I thought was not an appropriate way, but she didn't care. I don't think because he's so small and non threatening and so drunk, but it is weird that he put his arm around an 80 year old our friend's mom. Like he basically passed as a 50 year old at our friend's 80 year old mom. I was like, what are. I mean, I grabbed him and pulled him out situation. But still like, what are you doing? She's 80, bro.

[Rod]

Mama gotta have a life too.

[Ray Porter]

All right.

[Karen]

Trying to find him a sugar mama.

[Rod]

Was, was she upset with you? Was she like, dude, I almost got some action. What are you doing? I've been, I've been, I've been working this 50 year old dude all goddamn night.

[Karen]

I've been working this room.

[Pete Dominic]

I end up hooking up with her

[Rod]

like a gentleman.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Pete Dominic]

I was sober. Consent was like, absolutely.

[Rod]

Okay, listen, I hear what's going on in these old folks home communities, man.

[Kal Penn]

Me too.

[Rod]

They're spreading this STDs around, bro. They, they know what's up. They like, we ain't got much longer to live. So like what's living? Six more months with the clap. You know what I'm saying? Like, why are we, why am I even stressing that right now? Oh, I caught, I caught syphilis. Oh, no, not, not, not me at 90.

[Pete Dominic]

I mean, I like to think that at that point in my life I'll have so few shits to care about and so much less time to live that I would sign up to live in a nursing home called the Clap.

[Tab Ramos]

Yes.

[Rod]

Honestly, I think that's, that's when you let loose with the drugs. I'm up at the Clap. The Clap community home. Shady Shady Acres. The Clap division. Pete, man, this has been so fun, man. You have to come back another time. We'll do less of a interview thing and we'll do some pop culture.

[Karen]

We do some games.

[Rod]

Yeah, we'll. We'll play some games. We'll actually about white people. Cuz we don't know that much about white people and we have a lot

[Karen]

of News about white people segment called White People News.

[Rod]

And we're just always hopeful that maybe the white people we have as guests might know who these people are. Like, okay, let's do one. Zachary Ty Bryan could face full prison sentence.

[Tab Ramos]

Yeah.

[Rod]

You know who that is? Karen actors.

[Karen]

I have no idea.

[Rod]

Karen's going with actor Pete. Do you know who Zachary Ty Bryant is?

[Pete Dominic]

Yeah. He was on the show Home Improvement.

[Rod]

That's a magic trick. I'm gonna get up and run away.

[Pete Dominic]

Running around. Yeah. Zachary Ty Bryant.

[Karen]

Roger can stand stuff up.

[Rod]

I'm dropping stuff because that was. That was a magic trick. That's what that was. Sleight of hand. I, I, I don't know who that man is, but Pete did.

[Karen]

We can't hear him. Baby, you're frozen.

[Rod]

Oh, I'm frozen.

[Karen]

Uhhuh. Oh,

[Rod]

my Internet disconnected for a second. Let me try refreshing it. Oh, my God. That really just happened. Oh, man. They're gonna hear this later and be like, what the happened? Oh, Joy.

[Pete Dominic]

Hacked himself right off the Internet. That's how good it was. I'll be right back.

[Rod]

It was so good. It was a magic trick. I literally. I dropped my picture. I dropped my picture off the wall because I ran away. Because that sleight of hand that he just did was. Was a magic trick to me, guys. That was amazing. I don't know who the fuck. Zachary Bryant. Ty Bryant. He has three first names. I have no idea. Those are three white first names. Except unless it's Tyrone, and I would have never known.

[Pete Dominic]

I just read a new story. I got one for you guys. Do you know in. In the news right now, there's a controversial story about someone. Do you know who Ian Ziering is? Ian Ziering.

[Rod]

He's got to be an actor I know or musician. I know this.

[Karen]

You know, I don't. It.

[Pete Dominic]

God.

[Rod]

90210.

[Pete Dominic]

That's right. Steve Sanders. 90210. Here's what we've got for you, Rod. Since you won, we do have very excited. Small sandpaper block.

[Rod]

Yes. I've never, you know, for. Never watched that show. You haven't? Not a one episode.

[Karen]

I loved that show when I was younger.

[Rod]

Oh, man. Yeah.

[Karen]

It was my Friends because I never saw Friends.

[Rod]

I have such huge cultural holes in my, My life from the, in the 90s because I went through, like, the 90s. Spike Lee, Malcolm X hat days where I would just be like, that's white people shit. And then I just wouldn't watch it.

[Karen]

I never saw Friends. I never saw Seinfeld.

[Rod]

And then I remember I got a TV in my room with me and my little brother and it couldn't get cable. It could only get the, like, regular over the air channels. And so every day I would watch Seinfeld. I was like, this is the fucking funniest shit I've ever seen in my life.

[Pete Dominic]

The opposite. Like growing up white in the 80s and 90s and the access you had, like, the references I had to black people in black culture were mostly television, entertainment, music. And I was never a big music person of any genre, but a lot of what I thought about, I used to do this joke in my stand up act in front of black audiences. A lot about what I thought about black people and black culture was something I learned from, you know, predominantly black show, which, you know, most of the time did a pretty good job right in the 70s, 80s, of, of representing what. But the show that was most indelible to me, the, the show that I laughed the hardest at, and I wouldn't say it was like typical of black culture, whatever, and it was mixed, was the Jeffersons.

[Rod]

Yes, I love the Jeffersons.

[Pete Dominic]

Is a show to this day. And I can still hear my brother, we would what we call scream, laugh, screaming, laughing at George Jefferson and Florence. Whose name? What's her name? The actress name. She's still alive. Marla. I think so. I think that show for me was Marla Gibbs. I think Marla Gibbs. And there were a lot of other, you know, predominantly black shows too, that I like. I liked black, like sitcom and, and comedy.

[Rod]

Oh, that's the thing, dude. Black culture is basically American culture. Right? Like so much of our cultural export in America has just been like black people. Like even stuff that's white people now was black people did. It was rock and roll, it was jazz. Yeah, but

[Pete Dominic]

I'm just speaking of, I'm speaking out of a lot of ignorance, but I think it's true. TV was overwhelmingly dominated by white actors and white shows always to the point where you could talk about the first black on screen, Kiss with like Sidney Poitier, the first black lead or, or even the awards, we could. This is more nonsense, but like, so for white people who were at least trying to be open mind or curious whether they knew anything or not, but certainly I was grown, I was curious that way. Like, it was hard. TV was your thing. Music was never my thing. If music was more a thing. Music radicalizes people in all kinds of ways. And I just never got into it. It's my cultural blind spot. But television, and particularly Comedy. That was where.

[Rod]

And I guess what I mean to say with that is like, you would think the Jeffersons would be like a niche show because. But it's. But it's like a lot of people love the Jeffersons because it was. I mean, it was just dope.

[Pete Dominic]

There was a thing in a lot of black comedians. A lot of comedians have done this joke. But there was. There is a. There was also a thing. There's all kinds of things that it did that didn't help white folks.

[Rod]

Right? Yeah.

[Pete Dominic]

Used to be all the jokes that, you know. Well, I thought black people didn't this or that.

[Rod]

Right.

[Pete Dominic]

But. But one of the jokes is that, like, growing up white America, watching a lot of tv, you might have been vulnerable to the idea that there were a lot of young black boys with that disease where they didn't grow into full men. There was only like nine shows on TV and one was Emmanuel Lewis and one was Gary Coleman. Why would Hollywood casting these cute young black boys?

[Karen]

They got nine threatenings, partially because they

[Pete Dominic]

had the maturity of an older boy and they could play a kid and they had those funny line. They were so good at comedy as a result. What you talk about, Willis. But it was also where white people were like, like, what's wrong with little. Why are those little black boys not growing?

[Rod]

I think like cartoons. I think Larry Wilmore in his book I Wish We Got Casinos. I think he's called those Shetland Negroes.

[Karen]

That's hilarious.

[Rod]

Like little.

[Pete Dominic]

Oh, God. That's not nice. That is hilarious.

[Karen]

Yeah, that's funny.

[Rod]

I remember reading that chapter. Crying Man. Oh, God. My. My God, Pete, man, this has been fun, dude.

[Karen]

It has.

[Rod]

Tell the people where to find you.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Rod]

You know, and, and, and, and like how to be down with Pod Jam

[Pete Dominic]

3 Pod Jam, April 9th. Check it out. There's. There's a link for people to go buy tickets on my website. Stand up with Pete. That my show is a daily show. Every day I interview really smart experts, really great entertaining people. I do a full news recap every day, too. It's my whole job, my whole life. My kids are 18 and 21 and don't need me much anymore. I love my work and I. So I produce a show every day. It's a lot. But if. If you want to check it out, subscribe on YouTube and substack or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Stand up with Pete Dominic and I can't wait to join forces with you guys more throughout the year and certainly up to April and connecting our communities as Much as we can, hopefully in person.

[Rod]

Yes, sir.

[Pete Dominic]

Jam three.

[Rod]

Yeah, man. Looking forward to it. Never been to Vegas, so, you know, we'll see what, what that's like. I know Pete famously does not like the city, and I've already got listeners that are like, no, I'm gonna show you the real Vegas or whatever. We'll see. Guys, I. I don't want to end up with my hand in a vice.

[Pete Dominic]

The new. The new sphere.

[Rod]

The sphere. Yeah, the, the, the, the. The energy sucking.

[Karen]

He got his own time zone.

[Rod]

I do want to see the sphere, though. I feel like I'm part of the problem because I'm like, as much. I mean, it's already there. I do want to look out the side of a plane and be like, that's a big ass tv.

[Karen]

Yes. That's what I want to do too.

[Pete Dominic]

We came over the hill and we're in the car in Vegas and my friend Nick, he sees it and he goes, is that the sphere? I was like, no, you stupid motherfucker, the moon landed. Of course it's the. What else could it be? Is that the sphere?

[Rod]

That's amazing. We'll be back throughout the week, everybody, for premium people. We're doing our sports show tomorrow and we're gonna do our nerd off with just me and Karen where we're gonna talk about our favorite nerd things we did this year and, and give you all our raps. Like, here's the video game we played the most. You know, all that they send you. We're gonna do that Thursday, so we do have a busy week for people behind a paywall. And the rest of you guys will see you Saturday. So until next time, I love you.

[Karen]

I love you too.

[Tab Ramos]

Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Tirzepatide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is Approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 15mg injection. Zepbound contains Tirzepatide and should not be used with other Tirzepatide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor, call 1-800-545-5979 or visit Zepbound.

[Pete Dominic]

Some so called SUVs feel more like toys. You need a real vehicle that'll handle real life. A real SUV like the all new 2027 Kia Seltos with its best in class interior room, it'll make the others feel like toys.

[Karen]

Check out the new 2027 Kia Seltos X line.

[Pete Dominic]

It's real world ready Kia Movement that inspires limited inventory. Available comparison based on publicly available data regarding Cargo Room in 2026 entry All Wheel Drive Drive CUVs as of May 2026 entry All Wheel Drive CUV class as defined by Kia Segmentation When Kohler,

[Rod]

global design leader and luxurious kitchen and bath products, asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said, I'm in. Soon after, I was in their Kohler Wisconsin foundry watching molten iron poured, enamel applied by hand and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans and seeing it firsthand gave me a whole new appreciation for their craftsmanship. Now I am proud to lend my stamp of approval to my favorite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and enduring style. Shop my curated [e-mail] as the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.

[Pete Dominic]

Now, more than ever, America needs a laugh. Enter the Super Troopers to the rescue. Vermont's finest and most shockingly offensive mustachioed highway patrol officers return to the big screen in Super Troopers 3 with more pullover pranks and more over the top shenanigans than ever. In this latest installment of the cult comedy classic Rock, Barva's wildly over the top Indian engagement to Thorny's sister spirals out of control. A debaucherous bachelor party, a wedding that Thorny is desperate to stop and a dangerous drug smuggling ring all threaten the troupe's friendships and future. Fill your leader of Cola, grab your buds and roll up to the multiplex for Super Troopers 3. Only in theaters August 7th.

[Rod]

Get tickets.

[Karen]

Meow.

[Kal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kalpen. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.