Roy Wood Jr. Returns

Summary

Podcast Summary

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Guest: Roy Wood Jr. (Returns)
Date: January 22, 2025
Episode theme: Two veteran comedians dig into standup craft, grief and connection, career pivots, Roy’s backstory, and the ways our professional and private lives shape each other. Roy shares insights about his new special, “Lonely Flowers,” and the off-stage experiences, risks (and weirdness) that comedians share.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• A celebration of Roy Wood Jr.’s latest comedy special "Lonely Flowers," its themes of loneliness and connection.
• A deeply personal look at Roy's career, including how early adversity and brushes with the law led him to comedy, and how his craft and life are intertwined.
• Honest conversations about grief, struggling with connection, professional stress, and the state of standup comedy.
• Reflections on comedic style, the evolution of “cool,” and the ever-shifting landscape of show business.
• Sharing the secret “weirdness” that professionals in the comedy world live with.
• Insights on moving forward after near-misses (e.g., The Daily Show hosting), and what constitutes happiness and connection in modern life.

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Detailed Episode Breakdown

1. The Evolution of “Cool,” Joke Writing, and Timing

• Discussion about the shifting idea of "cool" over generations and how comedians process cultural change ([01:30–04:30]):
  • Pete tries to work out a bit on how “trying to be cool” has shifted and now looks desperate, referencing Richard Gere.
  • Roy riffs about "animal joke" premises and the delicate timing of addressing recent tragedies.

Quote:
“I have an animal joke… I was like, they already have animals, they're animals you could have got last week before the fires. So what makes that animal special?... Next wildfire, the LA Humane Society got to release all the animals in the path of the fire.”
—Roy, [03:00]

2. Comedian Grief, Funeral Fatigue, and Club Trauma

• Roy and Pete open up about the emotional exhaustion that comes from losing colleagues and working in environments where grief gets recycled ([04:48–07:19]):
  • The unavoidable “dead comedian” energy at the club
  • The awkwardness of people greenlighting dark jokes using the deceased's memory

Quotes:
“It's a weird job where the longer you do it, the more dead co-workers you acquire.”
—Roy, [06:14]

“Stop using a dead person's legacy to greenlight your terrible riff.”
—Pete, [07:13]

3. The Stress and Craft of Filming a Standup Special

• Revelations about the anxiety, logistics, and minute choices behind taping a special ([07:36–12:17]):
  • Wardrobe choices as part of branding and performance pressure.
  • The challenge of balancing current events vs. evergreen material.

Quote:
“I didn't want to do no more politics… I did three specials… If you want to hear me talk about race and reform and equality… I just noticed… everybody is just miserable. How did that happen? … That’s what it became.”
—Roy, [11:25]

4. Navigating Setbacks: Losing His Voice Before Recording

• Roy describes nearly losing his voice pre-taping, relying on “Mr. Miyagi” vocal hacks, and the magic of a “second show” ([17:09–26:16]):
  • Anxiety of not being able to redo a performance.
  • Physical tricks from stagecraft and the psychology of audience connection.

Quote:
“My voice was about at that or going into the day before on my ‘Lonely Flowers’ taping. So now I'm on vocal rest… We shoot the first special. It's fine. We could use it. But… only used a single joke from the first show. The entirety of ‘Lonely Flowers,’ 99% of it is the second show.”
—Roy, [17:36]

5. Wardrobe, Branding, and “Looking Strong” on Stage

• Comics riff on wearing jackets, water bottle stage etiquette, and the accidental (and intentional) details that become your trademark ([26:23–32:34]):

Highlight:
“My mom thinks that a good performer does not need hydration… which she's wrong. But also, I want my mom to respect me.”
—Roy, [26:23]

“Does he drink water or does he just throw it in and swallow it? We like boy-ass, wet-throat motherfuckers.”
—Pete, [28:13]

6. The Riffs that Stay and Die, and the Value of In-the-Moment Humanity

• Discussing how some bits resonate, some don’t, the “earthworm” theory of comedy, and the rise of authenticity in an AI era ([36:35–43:43]):
  • The importance of memorable, shareable bits (e.g., the “security question” bleep).
  • “Earthworm comedy”—how a throwaway line can take on a life of its own online.

Quote:
“You have a special. It is one worm, and then you have to take that and chop it into multiple pieces, and each of those pieces go off and live individually.”
—Roy, [38:14]

7. Deep Dive: Arrest, Probation, and The Birth of A Comedian

• Roy opens up about stealing credit cards as a broke college kid, being arrested, jail at Thanksgiving, and how Golden Corral/kindness and depression led to standup career ([52:46–76:16]):
  • Describes crime as “community,” and the hollow transactional nature of those relationships.
  • The “pivot” moment in jail, saved from violence by a customer he’d once been kind to.

Quotes:
“Every ounce of social currency I had in this city was rooted around my ability to provide something to someone… Transactional. No one was fucking with me because of me.”
—Roy, [73:54]

“I've never been more alone than 1999… but comedy as a whole is an isolating job.”
—Roy, [76:14]

8. Standup as a Craft — Discipline, Survival, and Not Falling Into Traps

• Life on the road: routines, learning from clean comics, everyday risks and temptations, the legend of Vince Champ, and the aftermath of campus crime ([81:17–93:56]):

Quote:
“I got lucky: I didn’t do none of that, man… probation... really stepping on, in your case, probation worked… it was the guardrail.”
—Pete, [97:48]

9. Moving Forward After “The Daily Show” & Life in Showbiz

• Roy discusses the emotional process of being in the running to host The Daily Show, missing out, and deciding when to leave while on a high ([109:04–118:42]):

Quotes:
“All your jobs are temporary… if there's ever a time to leave and do something else… I first need to exit this... This way feels like I'm in control.”
—Roy, [111:24 and 118:10]

10. Happiness, Connection & Trimming Negativity

• Roy’s philosophy on fulfillment, human connection, and no longer tolerating negative people ([119:45–124:28]):
  • Stillness as happiness; real relationships over “old friends” with mismatched vibe levels.
  • Being intentional about who you let into your personal and professional orbit.

Quotes:
“Happiness is a choice. The act of trying to be happy is a choice… For me, stillness is happiness.”
—Roy, [119:45]

“Genuine people are more important than positive people… you can't keep [negative people] in the mix.”
—Roy, [121:50]

11. Weirdest Encounters: Angels, Ghosts, and Supernatural Glitches

• Audience Q: Has Roy seen a ghost? Yes — and more ([125:06–130:51]):
  • Recalls being rescued by a mysterious old man; hearing his father's ghost posthumously; a “stop it!” voice during an awkward romantic encounter; and a single, overwhelming ayahuasca trip.

Quotes:
“When my pops died, I heard his ghost for a couple of weeks downstairs, still going through the motions of going to work. That was weird.”
—Roy, [126:44]

“I can't say the ghost of your dead husband is cock-blocking the fuck out of me... That sounds crazier than just—‘Are you telling me I’m a tease?’”
—Roy, [128:14]

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• Roy’s “Earthworm” Comedy theory: ([37:30])
  “Earthworm comedy: you can chop [the act] and then it grows into two separate earthworms.”

• On water on stage: ([26:23])
  “Why you need a water for five minutes? Luther Vandross. Sing for two hours. Don't sip nothing, dude.”

• Reflecting on regret and moving on: ([46:57])
  “Living in regret is extremely dangerous because you're not facing forward, you're looking in the rearview and you can't live like that.”

• Advice on seeking happiness: ([119:45])
  “For me, stillness is happiness… surround yourself with people that are positive, if you can. Genuine people are more important than positive people.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |---|---| | Opening banter and discussing "cool" | 01:30–04:30 | | Grief and “dead comedian” energy | 04:48–07:19 | | Filming a special: stress and craft | 07:36–12:17 | | Losing voice before taping | 17:09–26:16 | | Why comedians avoid water on stage | 26:23–32:34 | | Viral bits & “earthworm” comedy | 36:35–43:43 | | Roy’s arrest, jail, kindness “paying off” | 52:46–76:16 | | Standup “guardrails” and avoiding pitfalls | 81:17–93:56 | | The Daily Show: hopes & letting go | 109:04–118:42 | | Roy on happiness and connection | 119:45–124:28 | | Ghosts, angels, and ayahuasca | 125:06–130:51 |

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Final Thoughts

• Roy Wood Jr. shares illuminating, vulnerable stories that blend humor, pain, and insight. The special "Lonely Flowers" arises from reflection on real loneliness — not only in society but in his own journey.
• Both comedians stress the importance of creating art that is real, not just polished — and of learning from defeats, pivots, and everyday weirdness.
• The episode is a masterclass in conversation, story, resilience, and humanity, with plenty of laughs and poignant takeaways for creators and civilians alike.

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Memorable Sign-off:
“Keep it crispy, y’all.” ([132:32]) —Roy Wood Jr.

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Transcript

[A]

You made it weird. Yes, you made it weird. You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[B]

What's happening, weirdos? This is the return of Roy Wood Jr. He was on the show, I don't know, seven, eight years ago. Long time ago. And I'm so glad that he's back. He is, as I tell him on the show, a day off. He has so many interesting things to say, so many funny things to say. I'm so glad you guys are here. This is a great episode. Check out Roy's new standup special. It is incredible. I'm not just saying that. It is fantastic. I laughed the whole way through. It's on Hulu. It's called Lonely flowers. Roy Wood Jr. Check it out now, don't wait. It's fantastic. And if you like stand up comedy, why not come see me? Go to peteholmes.com for all my tour dates. We have Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Los Angeles, obviously once a month at Largo, Vancouver. We just added a second show for Vancouver, Austin and Nashville. Hope to see you out on the road. We'll be adding more dates on there as well. So whenever you hear this, go to PeteHomes.com and see when and where I will be. So I hope to see you out on the road and thank you to everybody who's been coming out. In the meantime, enjoy this chat with the wonderful Roy Wood Jr. Get into it. First of all, it's really great to see you. Second of all, I loved your special. I watched it this morning, I fucking think.

[A]

Thank you, man. It's dope.

[B]

It really is dope. I get so excited when I see somebody doing like a, like a craftsman like that does stand up comedy brilliantly. So it's really, really special. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you, bro.

[B]

No, I will. We'll go on and on about that. Let me tell you. Let me give you this premise that I can't make work because it goes back to cool edit. In the 90s and early 2000s, you could just be cool. Like you could have sunglasses on and a jacket and lean on a Ferrari.

[A]

And that was counterculture. Yeah, that was it.

[B]

And now you look stupid if you're being cool in that way. If you're trying to be cool, dare you. You look dumb.

[A]

But you do.

[B]

Like now it's like less effort is cool. You should look like you're not trying. But in. Remember Richard Gere? Richard Gere was just trying to be cool and it was working.

[A]

Yeah, in the 90s that worked. It was like a dad's idea of what cool was. In the 70s was Richard Gere in the 90s, that we were like charisma approved, world's sexiest man.

[B]

You're so right. Because you know how show business takes a couple generations. Like you and I write a show about high school. We write it kind of like our high school. So people are watching a show about high school in the 90s.

[A]

The.

[B]

That was made in the late 2000 and 20s, you know what I'm saying? There's a delay. So Richard Gere was the seventies idea of cool. Based on a guy who grew up in the 70s writing it for a guy who would. Acted in the 90s?

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Like that's what it is, man. And that joke, I could see why that would be difficult to infuse into people because there's so many layers of ins. It's hard what you're trying to do. I have an animal joke that I. I'm gonna try later on after the wildfires. It might be too close to the tragedy, you know, but like. But I don't even have the joke, like, laid out, but the base premise. I have a friend who was unable to meet me for lunch when I was in LA because she adopted one of the animals that was displaced from the wildfires. And she's going through the paperwork process and what it is. And that's kinda. And I was like, you know, they already have animals. They're animals you could have got last week before the fires. So what makes that animal special? And okay, cool. Went through a trauma. Scoop him up. So that's the secret to promoting animal. Yeah, so that's the secret to promoting animal adoption. Then the next wildfire, the LA Humane Society got to release all the animals in the path of the fire. That we have to turn these animals.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Into survivors. That and that. But because people love animals because the fires are still going on. And I also did the joke in L. A. About two out two miles from a fire line. Probably not the best timing. Time. Tragedy plus time. So I'm going to rework that recipe.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can feel that way. My. I wouldn't call it a bit, but I was just saying to Caroline and Katie, before you jumped on, I was like, I'm having funeral chat fatigue. You know when you're at a funeral and it gets really old just saying how tragic it is and how sad it is. And I'm talking about when people I love have died. You get tired of talking about your uncle being dead. You know what I'm saying? And that's my Angle, but sometimes you're like, maybe people aren't ready for the angle yet. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if I'm going to do that on stage, but that is how we're feeling. That's like. That's like when you whisper, you go, roy, it's kind of tiring being like. I know it sucks to everyone you see.

[A]

Yeah, everyone you see. You know what mine is? And this isn't a bit. And even if you want to run with it, run with it. But for me, my issue. And this is going to get dark. Dead comedian. Comedian just died. Energy at the comedy club.

[B]

Yeah, I get that.

[A]

Like, I am for the People don't understand what I'm saying. When a comedian dies tragically, regardless the circumstance, pick. Pick a death. Pick a cause of death. The comedy club is this place where we all kind of come to commit like that on tv, when the cops all go to the bar after old Jimmy saved the kid but died at the end of the movie. And.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that energy, I'm. I'm emotionally exhausted on. This is a weird job where the longer you do it, the more dead people, the more dead co workers you acquire.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And the idea of just being. And it's weird because I'm 25. I started in 98. But you're seeing the young comics three years, four years in, and they're getting hit with death way more than I feel like you and I did early on. I feel like we got a death, like, every five to eight years, and then that gap started closing more and more. So, yeah, I get what you're saying about the funeral chit chat. It's just the energy of trying to act like nothing's wrong.

[B]

I'll add to that.

[A]

Everybody's in shambles.

[B]

What I hated. And I remember when Bob Saget passed, this is the last time I saw this. People would make a really dark joke, a really dark joke about him, about whatever, and then go, bob would have loved it. Bob would have loved that joke. And I'm like, first of all, he wouldn't, because it sucked. It was horrible. Stop using a dead person's legacy to greenlight your terrible riff.

[A]

He would have loved it. He would.

[B]

He said nothing. You just offended everybody. So you get it. Let's go back. I want. I do want to talk a little bit about your special. You know, it's funny, dude, I'm wearing. I just filmed my special in Portland, and we're wearing very similar jackets.

[A]

Yellow. You did some yellow action.

[B]

Mine's the khaki version of the same jacket you're wearing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Not quite right.

[A]

Yeah. Yours do custom buttons, which is so silly, but it's the one thing I like. So like the kind of the magenta buttons on my jacket for my special, those aren't the. That's not off the rack. I, I buy it. It was brown buttons. And then I go to the stylist and I go put some magenta on my. Because I want some flowers. It's gonna match what's on the stage. And. And I did that for my. The special before this one. I just put different color buttons on. Okay, I'll be the button guy.

[B]

That's a pro tip. Little, little accent.

[A]

There was a comedian I worked with, man, year one, year two, I don't even remember his name. Lou something. But he was the comic in the red shoes. That was his thing. Like, that was his branding was just no matter what he wore ankles up, you getting red shoes. And that was gonna be like his branding thing or whatever he was. He was a late night rider out of LA. But I remember that 25 years later and I go, fine, I get it. But it's funny that you say that.

[B]

Dude, because I, I'm so glad I'm done with my special. I'd love to hear about your experience when you're done. After the fact, I realized just how much thought and consideration and really stress I was carrying leading up to the filming of it. Because you're going like a normal show. I'm not like, what shoes am I going to wear? And a special. I always think of Ellen. Ellen did a special where she was wearing blue sneakers. And I always remember that one as the blue sneaker special. And I'm like, well, what am I going to wear for this? Never worry about the length of my hair or like even how fit I am or what I'm wearing. The stress. Did you experience that stress going into that? I mean, like, you got a lot of production. It's a nice theater. Did you feel under the gun to get it right?

[A]

My issue was more the Runway to shoot it. Lou Dick is his name. I want to give respect to comedians. We're gonna shoot that, edit that out. My issue was the amount of Runway that I had to shoot the special. So I, who and I, we, we make the deal top of 20, 24 and we go, all right, we'll shoot this at some point this year. And my idea was the CNN show happened. I get the CNN contract in like March and we' the fall So I go to Hulu. Hey, I think I want to shoot the special close to the election. That way we can do it. And if the tone of the country is changing, I will have the freshes, whatever. And then the closer and closer we got that summer, I was like, I don't know if I want to be doing a CNN show for the first time and going out on the road on the weekend and hosting. I mean, you know, you're touring and hosting. You did that with the TBS shit back in the day. It's psychopathic behavior.

[B]

And so, dude, to quote your special, it's seven shotguns. Yeah, that right there. That's seven shotguns right there. And that's how good your special is. There's so many good little nuggets of language that are so good. Anyway, keep going, bro.

[A]

So I go back to Hulu, and I'm like, can we move this up a little bit to the fall? And I only had three or four months of Runway. The jokes were already about 70% there anyway, so let's just get in a blender for three months to go out on the road hard every week and really get the set tight. And let's just shoot it and get it out of the way, and then I can focus solely on the CNN thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it actually worked out perfectly because the more I started writing the material, the less I wanted to be political and the more I felt like, to your point about joke development, I didn't want to do no more politics. Like, I did that for eight years in Daily Show. I did three specials. If you want to hear me talk about race and reform and equality and all of the letters and coalitions and, yeah, I just noticed that are lonely. Everybody is just miserable. How the did that happen? Yeah, okay, I'll do the special about that. And that's what it became. And so I'm glad that I didn't try to force any Joe and Kamala material in there, because now you get to January, when you're finally airing, the political winds change too much. But loneliness and social abandonment. Oh, that's going to be around for a long time.

[B]

That's right. And social media scoops you so fast. So fast. Anything that happens, take, like the Will Smith slap the day. Day one, it happens. Someone's going to get the bit. Someone's going to get the angle. You're not going to top it. That's my strategy. I'm like, don't even try.

[A]

But only two people, only two comedians, in my opinion, did slap material that I Feel like will be evergreen past the moment of the zeitgeist. Chris Rock himself and Marlon Wayans did a Netflix special the year after the slap. And the special was told from the point of view of him knowing all three parties involved. Will, Jada, and Chris. They're all his friends. So, like, oh, he's had a front row seat for 20 years and interacted. So his perspective is deeper than if that had been me, motherfucker wouldn't have been no more Oscars. Like, okay, that's fine, but put that on YouTube. Like, for me, that I wouldn't want to joke like that. Immortalized forever in a special.

[B]

What was his take? I know you're not Marlon Wayans, but we brought it up. I'm interested. Did he have an interesting interpretation?

[A]

Yeah, it was more of a. I can understand how this happened. How did they get to this place emotionally?

[B]

Like the history.

[A]

Correct. And he back. Well, he back. He basically take he flashbacks in time and walks you through his relationship with Will, then this relationship before Will and Jada even dated. He's like, talking. So that was very Ali Sadiq ish in the sense of. Here's a perspective that no one else has on this topic. So, yes, I want to hear Marlon Wayans talk about the slap, but for me, man, it was. It was that the logistics of shooting, we shot in D.C. we went to the Lincoln Theater, which is a beautiful venue, Country Wayne shot there. Nick Kroll shot his special there. So I know they have crew that can do the job, right? But for me, wardrobe, it's the last thing I decide on, because it's. What's the theme of the special? What do you want it to be? And. And then once I get to that place, it's like, oh, okay. Well, until then, what I opted for was a single flower on the stage on a big graphic, you know, behind me, with the idea that, you know, people are all beautiful, but if we come together, we're a beautiful bouquet. Like, that's the. The corny summation of why I call it lonely Flowers. I go, well, what do I want to wear? And I'm like, well, it. I like that flower up there on the wall. I'll wear that too. And it took Hannibal Burris to point this out. He said he texted me when he saw the trailer. He goes, amen. You know, Hannibal talks Amen. I think you're the first comedian in his special to wear the background of his special. On the shirt he wore in his special. I was like, thanks. And, you know, you're not sure if that's a compliment or not.

[B]

Like, do I thank you? Like, what did I say here?

[A]

Yeah, but when you explained it, it made sense because the flower and the symbolism of it is important, and I'm trying to draw people's attention to it without, like, pointing it out explicitly. So, yeah, it worked out.

[B]

But no, every detail. But most, most, most, most importantly, the set. I can't believe. Well, let's just say respect. If you were like, okay, it's 70 there. I'll tour it hard and we'll shoot this, because this feels like an act. It's tight. It's tight, it's polished, it's thematic. You are saying something. I feel like this is old man talk, but when I watch stand up, I'm just like, they're not saying anything. It could be clean, it could be dirty, it could be this, it could be that doesn't matter. But I'm just like, tell me something about what it feels like to be you. Because it is weird. We are isolated. It is lonely. It doesn't have to be lofty. But I want to learn something about your perspective and every bit you have. I'm like, I know Roy better. I know Roy better, and I know the world a little better. I know how people are looking at the world a little better. So it's really, really, really, really tight. I am curious. I. Again, just to infuse this with where I'm coming from. I've been doing this over 20 years. I'm still surprised that when I do a special, you know, you do two. I'm assuming you did two.

[A]

Yeah, two. One night.

[B]

The two on one night. The first one, I'm always a little bit like, oh, my God, this is it. We're doing the special.

[A]

This is the bit. That was it. I got it. I filmed it.

[B]

I'm over there. You're such a cool customer at the correspondence dinner and stuff, and I'm wondering if you. Is that your experience? And if not, how do you do that?

[A]

I think it was Chris Rock who said that, you know, nervousness is good, and you should always be a little nervous.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's never left me. The horrors of. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. If I'm taping this and I it up. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Isn't it? We're not gonna have another chance.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You want to know some real wild about my taping? I lost my voice the week leading up to the special.

[B]

What?

[A]

I didn't have my voice for the most part for the first taping. I needed the entire first taping just to get my vocal cords warm. What only. Only used a single joke from the first show. A single joke. The entirety of Lonely Flowers, 99 of it is the second show. I did so many sets leading up to the special that I didn't budget in rest because I'm a. There is footage of me that, that your listeners can go find. It's still on YouTube. It's the congressional correspondence dinner. It's like the AAA ball precursor to the White House Correspondence Dinner. If you do well at Congressional, you get the call up to the big leagues. I lost my voice for that and completely lost it. And Trevor Noah put me on to this vocal coach. He's retired now. Like a voice doctor. A vocal ent. Whatever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And my voice is on Thursday. We're doing. We're doing this on like a Saturday in D.C. and Trevor Noah just hands me a phone number. Tell him I gave you this number and tell him and go and see him. And I go to this office on the east side and it's every Tony and Grammy Award winning vocalist you can name since the 1960s. There is an autographed headshot on the wall. Thank you, doctor. Thank you, doctor. Thank of, doctor. So this dude, all he does is fix entertainers vocal cords. And this gave me some sort of Mr. Miyagi concoction. He goes, sip this an hour before you perform. Take these two pills 20 minutes before you perform. Take this one as you're walking to the stage. And I'll be damned if as I'm walking to the stage, my voice worked just long enough to get through the Congressional Correspondence Dinner. My voice was about at that or going into the day before on my lonely flowers taping. So now I'm on vocal rest. So now I can't even direct and tell people what I need during the day. Vocal rest. We shoot the first special. It's fine. We could use it. And honestly, in a real wild world, probably could ADR it. But you don't want to adr, you know, voice dub. You know, dub your voice. Sync your voice in studio with the performance from a couple days ago. Not ideal.

[B]

No, not ideal. Can you give me a little taste? What did you sound like? I don't want you to hurt your voice, but what did I tell you?

[A]

Hey, how is it? Hey, how y' all feeling? Oh, good. No Roy pushing you.

[B]

It's things like that that make you realize that the audience needs to know you're in control. Would you Agree with that. Like, they relax when you're fully functioning, fully resourced. And if you come out and you're like, hey. And especially some of the stuff you're saying, I love to say this. You got some hot takes. You got hot takes in the special, which makes me excited, you know, from the. From the first minute you're saying something. And if you're saying that in a hoarse voice, I don't know if they're gonna follow you.

[A]

They're not. Because my comedic strength is changing octaves and speeds.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Congressional correspondence. Then I could get away with. Because that's podium jokes. That's all in one. You know, he's hearing her.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Versus we ain't gonna make it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You haven't been to. You ever been stuck in the traffic of a protest you agree with.

[B]

That's right. Yeah, that.

[A]

That man. I went backstage between shows and I called the doctor again. He giving me some double Mr. Miyagi. Rub his. Your hands together. Do this, do this, do this. Hot towel around your neck. 45 minutes to a show. Put this on, put the ointment. And you like some sort of smelling the vapors. Like whatever is in Vic's vapor rub.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's a little vial where it's just that juice, whatever the grease rub on your ch. Like, give me just the vapor rub of Vic's vapor rub.

[B]

Take the rub out.

[A]

Just give me the vapo vapor. And you put that in a steamer. And that steam getting in your nose. Yeah, And I got on stage, man, and that was. I was out of gas. I was out of gas.

[B]

So wait, Roy, am I hearing you right? The first show where you didn't have your voice, you did all your Miyagi stuff?

[A]

No, I did the Mia. I did the Miyagi stuff starting that show. But you need. It needs a little bit more time to work.

[B]

I see. So you. You're warming up.

[A]

Yeah, it's just the Miyagi worked the first time at the Congressional Correspondence Dinner, and I think it worked faster because I was not stressing my vocal cords as much, but for me to work my vocal cords in the performative range that I need for stand up comedy. You need to wait a little longer for results to roll in. And it's not like it's all secret shit. A lot of it is steroids to get the swelling down. You take antihistamines to get the mucus off of your throat. The VapoRub stuff is to help open up the airways and all of that stuff. So there's some anti super aggressive antibiotics to deal with anything viral that's going on in system penicillin and all of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like. And then there's like an alkaline wash where it's like a saline solution you run through your nose to clear out your. You flush your sinuses.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Of anything. Because the phlegm is what's keeping. It's stopping the vibration of the air properly across it. He explained it more scientifically. But I think you're doing a great job on your vocal cord, bro. And you gotta get the snot off your. That's why you can't hit the mock jokes.

[B]

Let me ask you this, right. Oh, sorry, finish.

[A]

No, no, no, that's it.

[B]

I was just gonna say, and this is a leading question, I'm just gonna show my hand. My first show at my taping, this was about a month ago, I go out and it was fine, but it wasn't where I wanted it to be. Connection wise. Your show's all about connection. I'm like, I said the jokes and they laughed at the jokes. But I wasn't in the pocket of connection. It wasn't music to me yet. And then in between show one and two, I just like rock said, I got nervous. And just like you just said, I was like, this is it.

[A]

Like I'm done.

[B]

I can't do it anymore. I suck. Not, not quite I suck. I'm not that hard on myself, but I was like getting scared. And a voice in my head said, good, get scared. Get scared. Like I want you to fight for it. And, and dude, if I didn't go out and what I said to my wife after was like, first show I was asking. Second show I was telling, you know, I wasn't asking. I'm telling you. This is the show. This is the show. This is the show. It's happening right now. You're missing it. This is the show. It was amazing. Now I'm wondering, your second show, which I just watched 99% of it, which I really do think is just a plus. I just think it's a plus. It's fucking. And what you said, I wrote it down octaves and speed. You're a master. You're not just speed bagging it. You're going here, you're drawing them in. You're making me think you're going to touch my heart. Sometimes you do and then sometimes you slap me. It's exactly what you want. It's exactly what an audience wants. But you're not. You're all over the place tonally and, and, and, and performatively. And it's. And it's really a masterwork. My question for you is the first show of your taping doesn't go great and you're raspy and you're bad. Did that help you elevate to a higher standard the second show? Because you were like, this is it. I gotta fucking do it now.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. If I was holding back, I can hold nothing back this show.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the thing that I was most scared about the whole time. And then also, I don't know why this is a thing for me performatively. I don't drink water on stage.

[B]

Me neither.

[A]

For two.

[B]

Two reasons I'm with you right away, though.

[A]

One, I don't like the continuity of it when I'm watching it with me. If I'm watching a comedian has water on stage, I can see the levels change. With the exception of Ron White, who has scotch or tequila. And you see it gradually going down. Because Ron White doesn't really need to edit and blend two shows.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the idea of the depleting bottle of alcohol is part of the whole thing. And he pours himself a drink periodically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he can't cheat that. Two, when my mom saw me perform, I don't know, it might have been Comic View or Premium Bland or just some random five minute TV show. She just goes, why you need a water for five minutes? Luther Vandross. Sing for two hours. Don't sip nothing, dude. And that is. And that is with me for the entirety of my career. Because my mom thinks that a good performer does not need hydration, which she's wrong. But also, I want my mom to respect me.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So I don't put water on stage.

[B]

Well, Royce, I. I think. Okay. One, yes, of course we need to hydrate. Two, I think it's flip flops. I think it's flip flops. I never wear flip flops on stage. Why? Because I need to look like I can run and kick.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I can't drink water because it looks. It does look weak. I'm sorry. I'm not saying it is weak. I'm saying it's eating soup alone in an airport. It just looks weak.

[A]

Are your vocal core. Are you not a man? Are you vocal, Sebastian? Aren't you embarrassed? Like.

[B]

They'Re drinking a cup of water?

[A]

You got.

[B]

You got to hydrate. You just do the jokes. Look, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but we are pack animals and we want the leader to Be strong. Let me tell you, Roy, let me tell you something. In a movie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney. Who? Denzel takes a pill. Does he drink water or does he just throw it in and swallow it? We like boy ass, wet throat motherfuckers. Not a joke. We are so. We're still primates. And we go, he's. He's wet inside. He doesn't even need water. Every time in a movie swallows Tylenol plain. He doesn't even count them. He throws them in. It's the same as a stand up, not drinking water. I'm with you.

[A]

So the second show I'm going, if I run out of voice, I'm gonna have to stop and sip water. And there's no water out here. Oh my God. How the do we stop down in a record for me to go, wait a minute, audience. Which is worse than bringing the water on stage is leaving the stage. Excuse me a second, I need a sip of water. I'd be really dag.

[B]

You might as well go get a back rub, like. Or be like, I need to go pee pee.

[A]

You can't. You know, the most, the most, the. The most chaotic comic leaving the stage thing I've ever witnessed was Pauly Shore in Birmingham. He was touring, going home tour, bringing. He was showing the pictures on stage or whatever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he has to piss and he just leaves the stage with the mic and continues the show.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, the star dome, the green room is like, you know, it's less than 10, 15ft off the side of the stage. So you could conceivably go take a piss while still perform. And he just did it. And it was just so normal that we just accepted it and like the audience was with it.

[B]

He had the mic.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And he went tinkle, tinkle.

[A]

Sorry, I had to pee. It didn't. It didn't. The rhythm was not lost in his performance.

[B]

This is.

[A]

I don't have that.

[B]

Me neither.

[A]

Whatever that is that Paulie has. I don't have that.

[B]

So I don't have leave the stage charisma.

[A]

What are you nuts? The only two people I've ever seen leave the stage is Paulie and Mitch Hedbert. I don't know. Probably drugs, God bless his soul. I don't know.

[B]

But he.

[A]

He stepped off and was like just murmuring in the back, talking, and then just walked back on stage and just didn't explain it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Didn't say what it was. But that's Hedberg. Like, that's.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Just happy he's one of those guys. You're just happy he's here and performing for you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't trip on it.

[B]

No. It's like seeing a jack.

[A]

I don't have that.

[B]

I don't have that either. And I already mentioned him at the Comedy Connection in Providence, Rhode Island. One of the first clubs I performed at. Yeah, right. The old bank. The green room of that club was the Vault.

[A]

Ice cold, no insulation. If it's 40 outside, it's 42 in the green room.

[B]

Oh, my God. You've worked there. That is crazy. So Bob Saget, he left the stage and went and took a leak. I'm just like, I don't have that. And I once saw Wyatt's neck. I've referenced it many times. Order a scotch from stage. And he just waited for it. I actually disagree with that. And I would disagree with that to Wyatt's face. I disagreed with it then and I disagree with it now. There's no reason to sit in silence and wait for your drink.

[A]

But he did. He didn't like crowd work and, like, Solar Buster a little bit.

[B]

The bit was that he was just gonna wait for it. But to me, I was like, this is insane.

[A]

Just would be horrified. But Wyatt knows how to live in awkwardness. Like, that's what he bathes himself in.

[B]

Yeah, no, I know, I know. And this was young Wyatt. This was Wyatt right when he got the Daily Show. So he already had that, like, gravitas, and I'm not like that. I'm not cool. This is what we're really talking about. I'm not cool like that at all. I'm not going to order a scotch and make it, and that's fine.

[A]

I just. I was just scared, man. I was scared of losing my voice. But once I got through the first couple of jokes, and then you can feel all the medicine starting to work.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Then I was really into it. But then after that, I was done for, like, ten days.

[B]

Oh, really? Toast?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I just got the chills because you're reminding me. But my last two specials, the second show was better. And in the first 10 seconds, you knew this is the one. You know what I mean? It's sort of like there's a magic to it. Would you agree? It's like, oh, we did it. We started the song on the right note, and here we are, and we're staying there, and we're still there. And now I'm not even gonna think about it because we're off, like, a good date, you know?

[A]

What?

[B]

I mean, it's like. It has a flow, bro.

[A]

There's like, callbacks and stuff that I was doing second show that weren't even in my act shot and just in the zone. Just.

[B]

Not the rifle. Not the rifle. That callback.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

No.

[B]

If you're riffing that, I'd be like, you should be embarrassed because that has to be there.

[A]

The whole tour. That had to be there. There was some of the footlocker stuff. So much so that I don't even think the camera guys were like, God bless my director. See, Craig, because he knew how to get the coverage on it because he had watched my act for months, so he already had an idea of what shots he wanted to call for what moments or whatever. And then I'm just goofing off and pretending to be an old Foot Locker employee.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, that joke was just. I think the basic joke was, I don't like young employees because they try to make me feel young, which makes me feel older.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, oh, for connection. The whole thing. Correct. If you want to feel connected, shop retail, because certain stores still have employees. Yeah, I like Foot Locker and the guy. Whatever. And I just go. An old guy just goes, I know what you need. And then I just start acting out an old man telling me why I need park support.

[B]

And you're telling me he goes, he looks like Stanley from the Office on Ozempic. Was that a riff?

[A]

Stanley from the Office was a riff. And then there was a. There was a second line. That part was a riff. And then there was, like, the radio thing. Yeah. Bring me up a pair of shoes. Black dude, little, like, standard.

[B]

I.

[A]

That part. Rift.

[B]

I should have known because you were having fun with it.

[A]

You. You realize when. When you see me doing act outs like that, that's not my wheelhouse.

[B]

That kick you do to get the lady away from you that's trying to steal your employee. That's a good kick.

[A]

And that's. That's.

[B]

Craig, Your director got a good shot of it, too. I was like, that's the shot you want, and that's the shot we got.

[A]

Yeah, I just. I was. I was real lucky, man, with this special. And. And I say this. It's hard to compliment Hulu without it sounding like an insult to Comedy Central. But the difference is that in my first three specials at Comedy Central, a lot of that is budget limitations, because they're not gonna put the same amount of money into something that Hulu will. Hulu's Back by Disney and Parks Comedy. It's Daily show in South Park. Whatever they do, whatever money's left from that pot. Here's a couple dollars, Roy. Get you another. Get you a fourth cameraman.

[B]

Cartman. Had a good summer. Go get another cameraman.

[A]

Yeah, so, you know, the people at Hulu, man, they're. They're really serious about committing to showcasing comedy. And that's part of why I decided to jump with them for this fourth special. You know, they put a lot of don't tell comedy sets on their channel. Now they've acquired some other comedians. There's a bunch of Ali Sadiq over there. And to me it's like, oh, y' all are serious about building comedy as a thing and showcasing comics at various levels. It feels like Comedy Central. O2, Oh3, if they do it right, you know, and that's not the. On Netflix, but in terms of the mid tier, the AAA ball type comedians who are, they're funny, but no one's going to give them an hour yet. There's not as many places for that to be seen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

On Netflix. So I thought Hulu was doing something different with that. So I'm like, all right, it, you know, you, you going after Bird, you got Bird, you got Gaffigan, like you, you got big names in the hopper. So I'm like, it's an honor to be a part of it, just to have my name alongside them in a press release, man. So.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You know, so the promotion on the back side of this has, is that part has been amazing too, man.

[B]

That's great. I'm happy to hear that. Dude. I wondered. I had one specific question about the special. You bleep the name. You're gonna get this a lot. You're gonna get this a lot. Oh, yeah, this is the early press. You're gonna get it a lot. You say you do. You're talking about the woman that you should have married, but you were scared and you riff it and then you say a name and you bleep it. And it really looks like that happened. Did that happen?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I said the real name and yeah.

[B]

Yeah, we're gonna get some lip reading experts in there.

[A]

What's the name of the woman you should have married but didn't because you were scared and now you're lonely. Yeah, like, basically man level account security questions was the premise.

[B]

Yeah, great, great. I had premise envy on that one. That's a great premise. And it's a standalone, you know, like, you clip that. Not that it's all about clips. I'm just saying that one in particular. It's a good clip. It is about clips.

[A]

That's a nice separate. It's all. I call it earthworm comedy. Where, you know, an earthworm you can chop and then it grows into two separate earthworms.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

That's. Don't ask me why I know nerd like that, but I do. I don't. So you're an interesting guy. So it's like, is it the gila monster that gets a new tail as well? That's not the same. But it's like lizards.

[B]

Iguanas do. Iguanas do, yeah.

[A]

So you have a special. It is one worm, and then you have to take that and chop it into multiple pieces, and each of those pieces go off and live individually and create their own lives and threads and analysis of the world.

[B]

Dude, a lot of my bits that went the most viral online didn't work in the special. Like, they're not hot bits in the special, but they're interesting, they're unique. They have their own flavor, and that's what the Internet is for.

[A]

They will. They will find it, and it'll be something specific that you didn't even think anybody got. There's a joke from my third special that started getting passed around early January of this year where some. There was a woman with a really big ass on Twitter, as there are a lot of big asses on Twitter.

[B]

As they are.

[A]

And some guy just simply replies to the equivalent of, my dick's not big enough to hit that from the back. That's not what he said. But he basically is one with a big. He goes, I ain't got the meat for that. Oh, my God. And then someone replies, that's like that Roy Wood Jr. Bit. And I have a whole bit about how women will get a big ass. And then ask you on Instagram, on social media, do you have enough dick for this? No, I don't. You put a foot of meat in front of it. I can't reach it. It's such a throwaway. Like, this is a joke on the way to some other point. And they chop that little piece of the earthworm, and now that's growing into its own little separate thing over there.

[B]

So I don't have the depth, Roy. I don't have the depth.

[A]

I can't. I can't get there. We can't. We can't drill.

[B]

We can't drill that deep. The drill can't break the top crust.

[A]

Thanks. Fucking Armageddon. I need another drill. It is. We gotta get 800ft.

[B]

I'm having sex with something you can't feel. You're not even aware what's happening. Oh, my God. That's good. Okay, so you said the name. We're talking about the security questions, and that'll stand as an equality.

[A]

That's fun for the audience, though.

[B]

It is fun.

[A]

Here's something for you while you're here. And then it's fun to edit it, because I think the concealing of it eludes more truth than me actually leaving the name in.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. The whole thing is real and fun. And I think as we're rolling into this age of AI being able to create so many things. Like, I did this. I say this all the time, but Steven Wright did my podcast. I actually recommend you listen to it just because it's a. It's a fascinating conversation where we're kind of missing each other and. And it's. It's a little bit weird, and it's a little bit awkward at times, and it's fascinating. It's one of my favorite episodes and one of my favorite comics. And I'm like, what I said in the intro is, I go, AI can't make this. You know what I mean? It's so human. So that moment in your special, and I think we're gonna see that going up. Less perfection, more humanity in our art, because we're going to have things that can make things perfectly, including a Roy Wood special, maybe. You know what I mean? So you need to include those foibles.

[A]

I think you have to be okay with the roughness of it, because I think that's what looks and feels authentic to people now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, if you look at the way, like. All right, so I think of comedy journalistically, just inherently as a craft. Like going back to what you were saying at the top about you're not saying anything. Okay. Well, I feel like every joke. Every joke I write for, every joke I've ever respected, either tells me who you are or it gives me information about how you see the world. Any joke, I don't care how funny it is. If it doesn't achieve one of those two things, rewrite the joke. It needs to be reworked. I'm not saying it's a bad joke, but I'm saying you're not informing. You're not giving me enough. Right. So I love it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Either report on what you see or report on who you are. That's how I feel about comedy. That's journalism. Right. So if you look at the way journalism has been, has been ingested over the last five to six years, where you have more citizen journalism and you have more people that are just out with a selfie cam and you know, even grittier than Vice news type shit, right? Tiny microphones, just whatever it is, whatever thing to make it look weird. We're more inclined to trust. And look at that. And that shit is not polished. There are no graphics, there's no flashy studio lights. So if you accept information in that form, it's a no brainer that people are accepting humor in that form too. So if comedy always looks like it was shot in 4K with 6 camera, but 7 if you would Hulu, because they gonna give you that. They living off south park scraps over there. Big fan. Comedy Central. They got all three of my specials for free on YouTube. I gotta stop eating. But that you need specials and that's part of it because that's comedy at its most highest. That's fine cuisine, that's five star dining. But you also need the delicious food truck equivalent to comedy now. And I think that performers would be better served if they have both restaurants, you know, kind of like you have like, I don't know, Panera and then Panera Express.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

[A]

You know, some restaurants have a get the fuck out of here door.

[B]

No seats. There's no seating. There's no seating for a reason that actually. Okay, well, I, I won't forget to ask you about that because that was one of my favorite parts of the special. I am curious. When you research your life, there's not a lot about your personal life. And this isn't that show. This is your episode. I'm not here to make you uncomfortable.

[A]

But do you. I'm fine. I talk. I talk with you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You did the podcast before and I remember. I don't know if we went into this, but when you said like, oh, there's one that got away. Do you have those feelings? Are you like. Because you're not married, right? I mean, I wasn't even.

[A]

No, I'm not married. Yeah, no, I'm not married. I. I co parent a beautiful, beautiful child with a woman. But for me I think that. And I think maybe this is more the next special. Like the. Because the thing with this special, this is kind of the beginning of the introspection because it starts about loneliness within the world and the idea that we're not connected and then it gets more into me and my lack of connections and oh, the relationship stuff and oh, how do you make friends at 46 years old and like that's all into me. I think the deeper I get into my shit a lot of it is about my relationship with my father. That's the book I sold is about lessons I learned from men after my dad died. But what I realized in writing the book, I can't really talk about just learning some value from a random dude without getting into the values I had pre installed before I got. Before my dad died. Which means I got to delve into that. That's not all funny. Now we're drifting into Birbiglia one man show land.

[B]

Yeah sure.

[A]

You know some of that Gary Goldman, you know, great depression.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Type where you really getting inside.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know your own issues. So I think when it comes to relationships and like ah, you know what? Damn that one. Was that one up. And you can have relationships and dating stuff to work out but you go but that one. How do you carry that? How do you release yourself from that? I release yourself from regret. Living in regret is extremely dangerous because you're not facing forward, you're looking in the wind, you're looking in the rear view and you can't live like that. That takes time. You know the, the idea of forgiving yourself, you know, you have to just take your mistakes as lessons but to accept that as truth, that's still a process that if I go any further down the road of should coulda. Well now as an audience member I've got to explain to you what happened and give my side of this because the assumption is that the dude ain't and you but you have to know the year and the mile marker and the different factors that went into the mistake like and that's too much. Dang me. That's not. That's maybe the comedic wheelhouse yet. Yeah, that's maybe book and I think the book is going to help me inform what the next thing is. I think you if I do it right it's on some one man show slash stand up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know I think that Gerard Carmichael is probably the best at that hybrid right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When he chooses to Ali Sadiq as well is pretty superior. And the idea of introspective story about me but connected to the world. And I think that to me that's. That's the difference between Gerard and Ali. Gerard said we tell you about me jokes. Good night. Well at least I can tell you about me. And now here's why. Now this, this and this. So if I can figure that out then yeah I'll get into it a little bit more because to me, all of this is just so my son can figure out how to carry himself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Around us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I know that's terrible to say, but I think that few children. I don't know if every child has an opportunity to truly know their parents, you know, And I have an opportunity because, you know, this is a bit I've never been able to work out. But just. Just the idea, the thought that you'll ask your parents about, you know, tell me the stressful thing or the traumatic thing. Why did y' all divorce your parents, man? They'll never tell you the truth, but then they'll give you a recipe to some cornbread or some casserole so you can pass that down. Give me the trauma.

[B]

How about the recipe to healing?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The recipe to moving on. The recipe mistakes that you make that I can avoid.

[A]

So I can. Yeah, I can avoid. So if I have an opportunity through a performative tone to list that and then get into a little bit more detail about it, then I'm. I'm better off for it. That's why. That's part of why I talk about the arrest. Like, I don't talk about that on stage. And that's easily the most monumental thing that's ever happened to me. It literally changed the trajectory of my life. You want me to hold for the siren, producer?

[B]

I kind of like it. You're talking about the arrest and we got a siren.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, shit. They come in.

[B]

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[A]

Whip smart.

[B]

And then I started reading and I.

[A]

Lost my train of thought.

[B]

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[A]

No, but it's like, okay, when I'm 19, I still, I still. I was a mail sorter at the post office. I stole a credit card. Because back in the 90s, kids, there was no sticker on a credit card saying, call this number to activate credit cards. Came hot in the envelope, ready to use.

[B]

It was just cash, basically.

[A]

Oh, basically. So I'm taking credit cards out the post office. Get caught, get probation. During the time I get suspended from school as well for like a year. During that year, I'm just living in tallahassee. I'm working 20 hours a week ago in Corral. All right, let me try this comedy. And that's a whole road, man. And it wasn't even until I really started writing the book and really getting into talking about the arrest and psychologically, what that meant and what I felt, that I was like, oh, wow, this probably could be meaningful to other people. But for sure, let me mine all of it in book form first.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then go from there.

[B]

But, yeah, well, I don't even. I think that's great. I. I don't even trust myself as a dad that I might lie to my daughter. That's why I like that I've been doing this podcast for over a decade. It's like, there it is. You want to hear what I sounded like when I was 35? There I am. You know what I'm saying? I think that's gonna be insurance that I have to be a certain amount of real with my daughter.

[A]

It's a valuable way to be, to leave breadcrumbs for your children who are trying to still figure out who they are after you're gone. Should I not be alive long enough for my son to be at the age to ask the questions he needs answers to? Yeah, go listen to that Pete holmes podcast from 20 years ago.

[B]

Well, dude, we have one from 10 years ago, too. Yeah, week. I. I think about that too. We'll load them all into An AI. When you and I are in nursing homes and we'll just talk to younger versions of ourselves. Love it. We'll fudgeing. Love it. How did you forgive me? If you've talked about this or if you don't again, if you don't want to talk about it. How did you get stealing credit cards? What was the moment where you're like. You feel the hand on your shoulder and somebody's like, come with us.

[A]

We were. We were at, I'll say Macy's. It wasn't really Macy's, but I'll say, wait, it's been 98. It's been long enough. We were at Dillard's.

[B]

All right.

[A]

And Tallahassee Mall. And so there's a. There's a girl we knew who worked at Dillard's. Now, what we have been doing, let's say we. It's me as the ringleader. I'm not putting anybody else under the bus. You get a car, you buy clothes, you sell the clothes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you spend the money. And I like and like, after, like going to like therapy and writing the book and really looking at it really what a lot of the activity and the criminalistic nature of it boiled down to which I didn't want to be a burden to my mother. I did not like calling my mother for money because I knew how hard she'd work. And I heard her for years when I was in elementary school borrowing money from friends. And when my father passed, the IRS came to take the house. And so that was a very. This is my senior year of high school. My dad died October of my senior year of high school. I was working 30 hours a week in high school, you know, which is extremely illegal in the Alabama state, child labor or whatever. But needed the bread. We trying to keep. You know what I'm saying? Trying to avoid eviction. So I get to college and the first thing I want to do is not bother my mom because I know what the last year was. So a lot of it was driven by that, which. So much so that I don't allow myself to be stressed about anything in front of my child because I do not know what that is going. I don't know what seed I'm planting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and granted my mama didn't know I was listening. She didn't know I could hear her right from around the corner down the hall. So that has changed how I parent when you really sit and start evolving and really looking at, okay, well, I'm not going to be stressed about My son needs to never feel like he's a burden. If I do that, he'll know he can at least come to me for anything. And maybe not, but if he does crime, it'll be for some other reason than not wanting to ask me, you know, so, so that's, that's, that's more backstory and for the story. So we know a girl that works at Dillard's, and because she works at Dillard's, she's on register. She can charge us less for the. What's the, the, the, the clothing we're buying. Right. So she can underrate stuff. So, like, if a shirt costs $80, supercharged that for 12, which leaves more credit space on the car to do more chaos. So we're. I'm 19 years old.

[B]

I might be jumping ahead. What's the resale? If you even have a shirt that's worth $80 when you sell it, isn't it like pennies on the dollar, like 50 off?

[A]

But, but what's my overhead? I stole a credit card.

[B]

Right, but what are you getting?

[A]

Nothing for this.

[B]

You think you're gonna get 40 bucks for that 80 shirt?

[A]

Yeah, if it's, if it's, if it was like Tommy Hilfiger or some shit like that. Yeah, it's, this is real and it's 50 off. This is still. This is cheaper than bootleg.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's real. Where are you selling it with this price? Like, that's not just to other people on campus. So I go to Florida State. I was at Florida A and M. This is in. All this is in Tallahassee. So once you've sold something for cheap to one person, word gets around. You ain't got to put up a Facebook sponsored post to get the word out. Yeah, it's college. Everybody's poor. And then one person goes, I know a guy who can get your blah, blah, blah. So I'm the guy. So that's how I spent the first two years of college, was just selling shit. And sometimes it would be food, but food is a tougher sell. Like if you get like a pizza on a stolen credit card, it's like, it's a pain in the ass. Because if nobody eats this and you got nine pizzas in your dorm room.

[B]

Right. That's also what's wrong with the pizza. Did someone sneeze on the pizza? You can wash a shirt.

[A]

You've got a two hour window during Monday Night Football to sell all of this pizza. Yeah, and then, and then the kids got smart the other Students got smart and they would just wait me out two hours because they would just rather eat a cheap pizza two hours from now. That's, you know, 70 off versus the pizza. That's 50 off. That's hot and fresh.

[B]

Oh, my God. Wow.

[A]

And it would just go in microwave. And so that's kind of what inspired the transition to clothing. I'm like, we can't. Boys, we're burning. We're burning our inventory over here.

[B]

You're learning all these business lessons. Demand, supply, scarcity, all that stuff. The same thing.

[A]

But what you also do, and I think this is very under understated about crime, is that no matter what type of crime you were committing on a regular basis, eventually you meet all of the other criminalistic people in that ecosystem. Like, that part of it, I think is your competition. You mean, not really competition, just. All right, I. I sell. I'm gonna sell some stolen jeans. Well, sooner or later, I'm gonna meet a drug dealer that wants stolen jeans. I see. Now I know a drug dealer. Now I know someone that does set fraud. Now I have. Don't need one. But now I have a fake ID guy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I need a passport to leave the country. I'm 19. I have a guy. Yeah, I don't need one. But now, guys. Yeah, but, but I'm saying, like, for real, like, but now. Oh, my drug dealer. I went to drop off some jeans and the drug dealer guy thinks he needs to leave the country. Hey, man, I got a guy for you. So you can you get a little climbers. I mean, you know, people that are like, steal DVDs and written DVDs on campus. That's their thing. So. Yeah, go buy me 40 copies of Independence Day.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

Stupid. You know, you know, I mean, like whatever movie was out at that time. So.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You meet the weird. You just. I can't explain it, man. You just. You meet all the weird, interesting people. Do you meet strippers? You meet escorts? Who. Fucking professors and politicians. Like students.

[B]

You've. It's like you've crossed a membrane. Yeah. Say what?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And then the next day you're in fucking mass media law class working on your broadcast journalism degree.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of. It's like Fight Club. Once you start Fight Club, it's kind of turns the volume down on the rest of your life. You probably had. Or am I wrong? It sounds more exciting than school.

[A]

Yeah. But in hindsight, I probably could have been a little bit better about balancing the two. But you become. I think I Think what crime also provided in the pre comedy days for me was a sense of community and friendship, which I was cool in high school. I wasn't one of the cool kids, but I didn't get bullied. I had enough friends and it was fine. But in college, I was the man. You had to know me. You had to. With me, you had to, like. And there's no one else really doing what I was doing at that level at the time. So the idea of knowing me meant you. I'm the guy, you know? No, you got a guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so. So, like that that's going on. And so we. We meet a woman and she's doing. She's working at Dillard to Birdirons. I can't even remember the department store. And she just basically says, I'm gonna just charge you less for this. And we were like, all right, sounds good to me. Just sucking. Use the card again.

[B]

But was she getting a cut or anything? She wasn't even involved in the scheme, really.

[A]

I think we're just buying some clothes for her. Like, just pick some out for yourself. Like, tell us before we get there what it is or whatever. And so we get the store. And when we get to the store, you know, one of my buddies knew her, and so, you know, he goes and, you know, gives her a hug or whatever, and we start shopping and we bring our stuff to the register. And in this instance, I don't think we went all over the store because she just worked in one department of the store. I think we just bought stuff from her department with the intention of bringing it back for store credit and then using store credit to do the proper shopping list that people are giving. And so she undercharges us for the stuff. Unbeknownst to us, I guess, at this particular store, they had the camera set up where we're loss prevention and security with loss prevention can see the register from above. They have a POV straight down on the register. Almost like a drone cam, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But they can also see the item that is being rung up and the cost of the item. So they were watching in real time, seeing her undercharge us.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

For stuff. So we get the stuff, we dip. And this is everything I'm saying now. It's just paperwork. I didn't witness any of this. They pull her to the side and go, yeah, what you charging for $6. And got down. Ralph Lauren department is $6. And. Yeah, and I give her credit, you know, like. And she tried to stand tall. Like, I Don't know who. That I was flirting. I can't remember what she said exactly, but it was something along the lines of, I did it because I thought I would be cool with those guys. Or, like, she tried. Yeah, yeah, she tried to not snitch. You know, I was flirting. That was my way of flirting. And then they ran back the tape, and they saw my dog give her a hug. That was it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So. So we know you know them. Tell us where they are. We gonna hit you with all these charges. And like a smart young woman in trouble with the law as a teenager, she snitched so she can get her life back. And to your question of when did you know it was over? It's a long way to get to the answer. We were at the house, you know, just celebrating as always. And I had a watch. I bought a watch that night about a Seiko. About a Seiko kinetic watch. And that was, like, the one thing that I like. Okay, it's like, yeah, I want a watch. And I finally had a watch. We ordered some pizzas, and about 30 minutes later, there's a knock at the door. And I open the door, and it's the fucking Tallahassee Police Department.

[B]

I'm like, fuck, when you want it to be pizza? That's the only way. It could be worse to get arrested. You thought it was pizza, bro.

[A]

I open the door and they just go, are you rolling? Are you rolling? I just went, maybe I wasn't even a comic yet, but I had the time. And, bro, maybe I go, maybe. And they bum rush in, everybody's cuffed, and we're sitting in the living room, like. And they're asking questions. Where's the. Where are the credit cards? And while we're sitting there, like, being interrogated, the actual pizza shows up.

[B]

Oh, my God, look at the pizza man.

[A]

You're late. And I'm praying. I'm praying to God that the. The pizza. That the pizza man doesn't show the receipt because we bought the pizza on the stolen credit car.

[B]

The pizza was more evident.

[A]

Yeah, you're being detained for stealing. And then a stone. Some stolen food just shows up to the crib. I'm like, oh, sir, could you please get the out of here? You don't mind.

[B]

Exhibit a came in 30 minutes or less.

[A]

And please get the out. If you don't mind the dog, I sure would appreciate that.

[B]

But then that led to stand up.

[A]

That.

[B]

That changed your life.

[A]

Well, yeah, because that night, you go to jail, you get out, it's recognizing if I'm not mistaken. And then I take a plea that. Jay, this is Thanksgiving. It's the night before Thanksgiving. Oh, you take a plea. And I spent, like, two, three days in jail because of the holiday. But then I get. I plead guilty.

[B]

Wait, you were in jail on Thanksgiving?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Thanksgiving is, like, the most meaningful holiday to me, which. Because I was alone and it was like, where the shift of. Yeah, I'm not gonna do this again.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

There's a. There's a story I told you. Just search my name in Golden Corral. There was a story on YouTube I told about that night in jail, about that first night in jail and how this guy wanted to beat my ass because he thought that somebody. All he knew was that someone was arrested today for beating his mother in a domestic dispute. So anyone that came to jail that day, he assumed was the person who beat his mama. And so his mission was to beat the. Out of anyone new that came on that pod that day just to make sure that he up the person who beat up his mother. And it's a long story, but I end up being saved by a customer that I was really nice to at Golden Corral, who was also in jail at the exact same time. And saw me, I was like, nah, he's cool. Like, just.

[B]

What?

[A]

Don't beat him. Yeah, it's wild.

[B]

Someone you were nice to happened to be in jail and saved you from getting beat up.

[A]

A regular customer from Golden Corral, who I'd served on a weekly basis for about a year, saw me like, yeah, we're not gonna beat up him. He's a good kid.

[B]

Holy.

[A]

So. Which is also part of why I'm always nice to people. Well, that's in your. Oh, Roy is so nice. Why Roy so nice? Like. Well, because that shit comes around in a good way sometimes.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that. That's what I wrote down from your act. When you talk about. I actually found it to be deeply moving. You're talking about, we need. We don't need self checkout. We need cashiers. And you got. I'm not trying to ruin the bit. I'm saying people got to hear this bit where you're talking about lonely, maybe mentally ill people. If we're being real. That's what we're saying. That might have some bad ideas. Go to the supermarket and they have that little interaction, and you're absolutely.

[A]

And they feel seen.

[B]

Dude, I'll take it one click back. A smile on the sidewalk. I know that sounds like some Mr. Rogers, but it's Real. Like, sometimes you just look at somebody and you witness them. You hold them in your mind and your heart for a second. That can stop something bad from happening.

[A]

It doesn't have to be.

[B]

It can stop a lot of bad things from happening, and the ripples of that are crazy. So that bit, I wrote it down right here. I wrote down cashier. Because I was like, that joke is real. And we're the. We're similar age. So I know what you're talking about. It's like, you know how lonely people go shopping? There's a line in Glengarry Glen Ross. Where. Do you know that movie? The Play? Oh, Glenn, a lot of comics love Glengarry Gun Ross. Anyway, there's a part where some salesman is like, they bought all this land. And they were like, they're crazy. They just like talking to salesmen. And I'm like, yeah, that's like part of the service. Like, if you work in a store, part of your service is just a person you're allowed to talk to. Like how in Japan they have bars where you can just have a friend. Like people like actors, essentially, it's set.

[A]

Up like a friend where you just be my friend.

[B]

It turns out it doesn't matter if it's real or fake or whatever. Sometimes you just need someone to look you in the eye and smile and like you say in the bed, I like this flavor, too. That shit can golden corral a lot of people, I think. I think you should be proud of what you're putting out with that message in the special.

[A]

And so what happened on the other side of that? So what happened on the other side of that? What happened on the other side of that is that I am alone for the first time that Thanksgiving or 98.

[B]

Yeah, alone.

[A]

You get out of jail a couple days later, now you have no friends. And now you have the reality that, oh, every ounce of social currency that I had in this city was rooted around my ability to provide something to someone.

[B]

Transactional. It was transactional.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No one with me because of me. It was because I could do the thing. Oh, but that's fucked up, dude.

[B]

Can I. Can I interject here? I was thinking about, like, crisis situations, obviously, with what's going on in California, and if there's gridlock, traffic, and. And people are like, oh, you need a motorcycle because you can zip between cars.

[A]

Right?

[B]

That's how, like, one person and one guest can get the fuck out of a city in a bad situation. I'm like, yeah, until you get a flat tire. Because there's nothing worse than the dude that was zipping through traffic. Then you get a flat tire. And then you remember real quick, we need each other. So we can't go zipping around selling shit, skirting the law, whatever it is. We need each other. We need it because you're going to need help with that flat tire. Motorcycle only works if your tires. And you, you were only respected if you do the thing and now you can't do the thing anymore.

[A]

And so now you are trying to figure out what you want to do. And so I get a, I got a financial aid check for like seven GS that January. And then I take a plea and, and then I get suspended from school. So now I can't, I don't even have class. So I don't even have the idea of group work assignments and just the idea of just, well, let me try and get an education. No, go home, go sit at home. And so Now I'm working 20 hours a week at Golden Corral and show me temp service jobs. And I started doing stand up as a way to deal with the depression of what I think at the time is I'm going to go to prison. But Now I have $7,000 and I have nowhere, I have no classes to spend it on. So it, I'm gonna use this money to just take the bus places and go tour and I'm just going to do open mics all over the south and I am going to just do comedy until I go to prison. I end up getting probation instead of prison and been doing comedy ever since. Like that was the thing. But that year of 99, it's kind of that Bruce Wayne went to China to be a criminal to understand criminals type thing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I've never been more alone than 1999. I had one or two friends that I was cool with. Still, in spite of everything. But comedy as a whole is an isolating job. I was 20, I'm opening for 50 year old alcoholics and wife beaters and drugs. It's not good gigs, you know, some are cool, but for the most part I'm working with people I have nothing in common with. There's no open mic scene in the south at that time. Yeah, I don't just live in Atlanta. I can't just show up to the same place every week and build friendships. I live in Tallahassee where there's a weekend room and there's no, there's like a comedy scene, but it's once every six weeks. We do A show, Right. I'm going to prison. I have time to wait another five weeks to perform. So I'm gonna take the bus to Charlotte and sleep in the bus station, and then I'm gonna perform that night. And so I think the dangerous thing, which brings it back to now, the dangerous thing about that year for me is that I learned how to be alone. And once you've learned and you've mastered the skill of isolating yourself from people, the idea of doing any work to connect with people again just doesn't seem like, why would I do that? I'm comfortable. I know how to do this. I have friends now like that, and it's fine. But I'm extremely selective about who I kick it with and who I let in. Because, you know, you start realizing things. You start realizing that relationships that you thought were sincere were transactional.

[B]

Well, because that stinks. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, that stings. You know? And so I learned that I was. I'm blessed to have learned that lesson at an early age, you know, but, you know, without any of that, I don't achieve what I've achieved. I don't get into comedy because I needed that as a catalyst. I'd always been curious about stand up, but it wasn't until, oh, my life could be taken from me. What do I really want to do? So I do the stand up for a year. I get back in school, make the dean's list. Me and my mom kind of amend because we weren't really getting along during that time either. Because I'm sleeping in bus stations, and she's going, you should go to class. And I'm. You should mind your business. But I get it. You don't want your kid, like, hey, yeah, I know. I'm on probation for one crime. I'm gonna start a career where there's nothing but drug abuse and suicide and loneliness and generally just take all of your depressive thoughts and perform them for strangers. I'll be fine. Trust me.

[B]

Joyce got to you in a tuxedo at the Correspondence.

[A]

Giving my mom a shout out, who was there in the building.

[B]

Yeah, there you go. But how crazy we were, basically. Look, not to fluff our feathers too much, but, like, when we got into comedy, it was like people on cocaine in leather jackets.

[A]

It just felt Funk. Leather jackets.

[B]

It just felt so dastardly. It did.

[A]

I. I opened for a guy I know he's not doing it anymore because I tried to Google him. You can't even find a clip of his act. That's how long ago this was. It was a guitar act and he was performing. It's one of those gigs where you perform in the hotel, in the hotel bar, and then you stay at the hotel where you're performing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he's a guitar act. And he walks out the room. He walks out the bar with, like, three girls on his arms. Yeah, man. Good night. You're pretty funny, kid. Keep it up. And he walks off. Oh, I stay and I'm drinking. And then I look at the stage, and this is the last night of the. The week. He's left his. Left his guitar on stage. So I go to the club manager. Hey, man, you know, he left his. Bob left his up on the stage. I'll take it to him. What rooms he in. He gives it a room number. I go get the guitar and I take it upstairs, and I knock on the door. He's butt naked. It's been 10 minutes since I've saw him last. Yeah, it's not a long time. We're not talking hours later. It's been 10 minutes. Bob's butt naked. Two of the three women are butt naked. The third one is laying out another rail of coke for them to snort. And music's it's some 70 in 1999 Tallahassee. And he takes the guitar. Slap it. Doesn't even try to cover his meat. Nothing. Oh, thanks, man. Thanks, kid. You're really funny, man. Come on. Yeah, come on in and party, man. And it just felt like one of those moments where boogie nights. This. Yeah. This choice.

[B]

It's your.

[A]

It's this. Follow the white rabbit, but the reverse.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Run from the white rabbit Matrix. Run.

[A]

So I. I didn't. Because I was on probation, man, and I was dead serious about not getting dirty piss and losing my travel, you know, I ended up. I was on probation for like, two, three years, man. And that kept me straight and narrow, which kept me from a lot of those. I believe, with most comics, a lot of the addiction, habits, or introduction to things that you eventually abuse happens within the first five years. Whatever habits you start having then. Yeah, social. Your social habits.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's. Especially if you start in your teens or you start early 20s where you're already wilding out to begin with. And then you add the existential pressure of, oh, my God, am I gonna make it? Did I choose right? Oh, no. I've wasted a decade.

[B]

Yeah. Yep.

[A]

That's why I got. I got lucky, man. I didn't do none of that, man.

[B]

Well, when I was talking about how sort of rock and roll or whatever you want to call it was when we were starting, I. And I mentioned Ellen already, but Ellen, Ray, Romano, Seinfeld, the, the clean guys, the, the people that were just doing comedy. And it's not just those people, but the people that were going out not to be in an orgy after the show. They just like comedy, I guess you.

[A]

Could say comedy books.

[B]

And I was like, grateful for those. Unfortunately, one of them is Cosby. Yikes. But there were examples of people where it was where I was like, let's, let's, let's be the guy that eats a bowl of Wheaties after the show. Thank you, Jerry.

[A]

You know, one of the, the, the best weekends I ever got, and I did not realize it at the time, was opening for Eddie Gosling at the Comedy Cafe in Appleton, Wisconsin. And yeah, in those days you share a condo. I was all three comedians.

[B]

I've been in that condo. You mean the Skyline comedy Captain Milwaukee? Sorry. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. JD, yeah. Shout out to JD's. But yeah. So Skyline, it's three comics in an apartment basically for four days.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you learn a. Just sitting there for all day and it's cold. You're not going nowhere. Yeah, you sit right here. To Patton Cliff, come pick your ass up for this show tonight.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So I watched Eddie Gosling every day in this condo. And this is pre Uber Eats. So if you wanted food and you didn't have a car, you had to hike for that. This Eddie Gosling went grocery shopping the first day in town. And I'm like sitting there like, look at this dumb cooking. This cooking all day, eating right. And now like 20 years since that weekend, I'm like, yeah, you gotta buy a rotisserie chicken when you get to town. And that's how you keep your health and stay out of mischief. And you gotta have a root. The importance of a routine is what I like. No, that's true performance. I got to sit and watch a comic.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

On. Oh, this is the day to Day life tutorial. Right?

[B]

Dude, don't get me started. People think it's easy, like having a free day. There's an art to it and you got to be really disciplined and traveling and taking care of your day is, is so much more of the job than doing the show. Wouldn't you agree?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. There's no one to teach you that. There's no book for that. There's no stand up road day trip. How to handle your off days. How. Hey, don't that girl, she's a little Weird. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I remember having off days between colleges, and I'm just glad I put a lot of it on religion. And it put, like, a fear in me. It's not like the top grade, like love of God or something. That kept me clean. I was just like, don't be after school special. Just get to the hotel, eat some Chinese food, go to bed, you know.

[A]

Bro, when they told me about this champion on them on that college tip, I was like, oh, baby, y' all never gonna catch me doing anything crazy.

[B]

Oh, is this a.

[A]

The. The story of Vince Champ has defined my behavior at comedy clubs for the last 28 years. I'm going to. You are ready. I'm going to read the. The Wikipedia on this one, big dog. Vince Champ, I saw you American.

[B]

I knew we were getting something good.

[A]

I can't even summarize this. I have to read it.

[B]

I have to read it. If it pleases the court, we will now read from the Wikipedia of Vince Champ.

[A]

Vince Champ is an American former comedian and convicted rapist. Champ was a touring comedian who had gained minor renown for winning first place on Star Search in 97. Five years later, he was identified as a serial rapist when his DNA and tour schedule matched up with a series of rapes on college campuses. He is currently serving 30 to 40 years in Nebraska with the projected release date of 2033, after which he will then serve two consecutive life terms in Iowa. Yikes. Yikes. So Vince Chance, as it was told to me, this is before I started comedy. He. He got arrested in 97. I started comedy in 98. I started doing colleges about two years later. This. Champ was going to these shows and then spitting game. And this is a grown man, you know, at least 30. He's doing these shows. And then the stories that was told to me, allegedly, in case my interesting spin game to these young students after the show. And then we'll either circle back and go out to a bar with them, go do something with them, whatever. Right. And then crimes would happen. So by the time I got into the college circuit, which was around 2002. 2003, ish. Was when I first started kind of dabbling in college gigs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There was no more interacting with students after performance. The advisors, like, we don't have to get into how Champ was caught. Just know that every student activities advisor was now in communication with one another across all colleges. Every level of division one, Division two.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And protocols were in place. An advisor will be here with you with these students when you Take these pictures after the show, and when you're done with your performance, you will leave campus and we will watch you drive off.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yep. Yeah, you know, go ahead.

[A]

You know, thankfully, that behavior was already burned into me because I saw fucking Bob. But naked in Tallahassee.

[B]

Yes. I mean, I feel like I saw Bob. That story is so vivid. I mean, it's real.

[A]

You know, Bob Saget, Let me just say.

[B]

No, that's right. I'll add to that Christian Finnegan. Remember when Christian Finnegan was on Chappelle's show, the. The Mad Real World? Do you remember that?

[A]

Yeah. Chad. He was Chad.

[B]

Yeah, he was Chad. And he really blew him up. And we were doing colleges around then, and he told me a story that he went out to a bar and he. Well, what it was, was we went to a college and I was like, you know, I was probably like 24. I wasn't that much older than college kids, but we. But I still felt like a 34 year old. I was one of those older young people. But anyway, went to a college and I was like, so what do we do? Like, I. I never partied, even when I was in college. I was like, is this. Does everyone go out and party? And Christian was like, no. And I was like, why? And he was like, he told me a story. I hope I'm getting the facts right. Christian, if you hear this, it's not a fancy story. He just went out. Somebody recognized him. And it was basically like, you think you're better than me? Or like, do you want to dance with my girlfriend? Like, bullshit like that. Like old 70s New York traps, like hustles. Like, you think my girlfriend's hot like that. And like, there's no way to win that. You say, yes, you're fucked. You say no, like, you ignore. And he's just trying to get out of this engagement. And it wasn't a fight, but it was like. Like, oh, I'm not going out anymore. Like, even for a drink with the booker, I'm not doing it. It's a bad scene. Get the out of there.

[A]

I'm with it. Go home. Go home. And if you met somebody that went to the show or some audience member, you better move slow and evaluate that too, because that can go left real fast. That's. You know, you start bar hopping. I think Doug Stanhope has a. I don't know if it's a bit or just an observation where he says that I'm famous for 30 minutes after the show within 100ft of the place where the show occurred. And that's where I will drink. Because once you leave the club and go out into the town with the local. Yeah, anything can happen, man. And I don't want. Because you could have something. And I know stories of comedians who have, you know, hung with students a little too late. Too many students in the green room. And then one other student just can go back to an advisor. Yeah, he was back there with y'. All. And then they don't know what was going on. And just on the strength that we believe you, the students, even if it's consensual, we're not going to have you back. And then when those academic advisors have a meeting amongst themselves about, hey. And they have these meetings. They have meetings every convention. Hey, y', all, who are the crazy? You're reminding me not to book the crazy to this day.

[B]

We go to clubs. Me and my opener, Matt. My dear friend Matt McCarthy. We go to clubs and we try to be the most boring people in the world. They come the green room. You need anything? We're like, we. We have no needs. We have no needs.

[A]

They love it.

[B]

Do you do a meet and greet? We don't do a meet and greet. It was there. Do you mind if we start the show? You start. Show whatever you want. And we leave. We say thank you. And it's almost like this is some real 45 year old shit. When I leave a hotel, I leave it clean.

[A]

Like, my room is clean. I got to draw a line there. Wait a minute.

[B]

Trash in the trash. It's become my new. The bed is semi made. The bed is semi made. And the. And the towels are in a pile. That's what they like in the.

[A]

In the.

[B]

In the bathroom. And there's a tip. I get that out there. You got to be tipping the housekeeper.

[A]

I tip. But do you let housekeeping in?

[B]

No.

[A]

Every day.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Do not disturb the whole time.

[A]

Yeah. Like, all right. If we're getting into day three.

[B]

Yeah, maybe.

[A]

All right, give me some sheets. I've been. That's fine. But don't. Don't come in here every day to dust something. Oh, beat it. I came up with a lot of OG comedians who just had proper paranoia about housekeeping. Like, you know, my career is weird, man, because I crossed over very early in my career so I could be opening for Ron White or Alex Raymundo, and then the next week be doing a black room and be paired with a headliner who literally told me one day all right, when you people, after the show, put your wallet in a Ziploc and hide it in the toilet, then. And then that way these hoes won't steal your money. Oh. Which is just as valuable a piece of information as watching Eddie Gosling eat grocery store rotisserie chickens for his health. Filling the skin off both quality tips. Hide your wallet in a Ziploc bag and hide it in the toilet tag. Yeah.

[B]

Upper deck your wallet.

[A]

Because these girls will you and then steal your. And you know, those are the conspiracy theories that sit with me for a long time. I'm like, okay, well, maybe I shouldn't be having sex after the show. I wonder if, I wonder if Bob got his money back when he was butt naked in that room. Until last.

[B]

This episode is brought to us by our friends at Ritual. If one of your resolutions in this new year is to get healthy, to feel better, and to fill gaps in your nutrient diet. Nutrient gaps. You need to get ritual in your life and make it, pun intended. A ritual. I've been taking ritual for years. I take their daily men's one a day. I also take their symbiotic plus, which is a pro pre and and postbiotic. So it takes care of my gut health in one minty delightful pill that I take in the morning and two multivitamins. And I am a mostly vegan, which means I have gaps in my diet. I have gaps. But when I go to the doctor and they check my blood, this is just me saying I knock it out of the park. And I think that has a lot to do with our friends at ritual. So if you want to get traceable non gmo, we're talking major allergen free, vegan, gluten free, gentle on your stomach, vitamins that actually get into your system. So many times people don't want to take multivitamins because you think you just pee them out. You ever notice your pee turns like bright yellow? You just feel like none of this is getting into you. Well, ritual has fixed that is a delayed release capsule breaks down in your large intestine where it can actually be absorbed, yet it's gentle on your empty stomach. So if you're fasting, as I mentioned, as I am today, you take something like zinc that can upset your stomach. Not with ritual because it's not breaking down till it's in your intestine. So it's not going to make you nauseous, it's not going to make you feel weird. And it is fantastic. And men need this more than ever. Men over prioritize exercise, they undervalue nutrition. And ritual is here to help fill in those gaps with 10 key nutrients that the CDC is recommending men get in their bodies because they are doing too much exercise and not getting enough fruit and veg. So get ritual in your life. I've been taking it for years. I absolutely love it. You can get 20% off your first month for a limited time by going to ritual.com weird get started. Or add essential4men to your subscription today by going to ritual.com weird for 20% off. Get that quality multivitamin from a company you can actually trust. We're also brought to us by our friends at onit. You guys know I am an on it Alpha brain mega fan. I'm going to say mega fan. Truly obsessed. I wish I knew about this in college because it is making my using my brain so much easier. Access to my memory, my recall, my focus. It is an absolute game changer. It is earth grown ingredients. It's not a stimulant. It's not like caffeine or coffee. It's not going to keep you jittery. It's just going to give your brain the nutrition it needs to function at its optimum memory, concentration, focus. Before I do stand up, before I do this podcast, before I sit down to read sometimes before I just go out, hang out with friends. I'm taking two, three alpha brain 15 minutes before and the difference is huge. This is a game changer. So if there's something you're doing out there that involves your brain and chances are there is you are going to lose your mind. For Onnit Alpha Brain, go to onnit o N-N-I t.com weird. You'll get 10 off everything you see on that landing page. That's onit.com weird for 10 off support your brain, support the show.

[A]

So it's just there's enough wild in my and keep in mind, bro, I'm on probation the first three years of this career.

[B]

Well, you're making me think probation really stepping on like in your case, probation worked. Like probation was the guardrail that you, you benefited from it.

[A]

But I also had a probation officer who supported what I was pursuing and was not looking at themselves as an arbiter of. Ha ha. Gotcha now go to prison.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

A lot of recidivism is just set up as a booby trap to get people to jail.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

See murder said probation for 10 years don't mean you free. And that's there's been. No. There's more people on papers than in prison. So if you own papers, you got to be on pins and needles. That's a bro. I had a. At a. At a pilot for Comedy Central where I played a probation officer who approaches recidivism and what I consider to be the right way because I want to tell the story of me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As you know, I play the probation officer, but I'm like that other perspective. Yeah, yeah, bro. You can. You can have something as simple like. And I can only speak on State of Florida. Right. Where you have to be. You have to be gainfully employed. As part of your terms of probation, you must retain employment. Okay, cool. You get a job. You got a job. Let's say your car breaks down. Well, now you have to take the bus to get to work. But what if you live on a bus line that doesn't match up with your shifts?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you can't get a ride to work. And then your supervisor goes, I'm sorry, but I must fire you now because you cannot come to work no more because you have no car. Well, now you have maybe a month to find a job before you're in violation of your probation. And all it was was because a fan belt broke on your car and you literally don't have the money to fix it yet. And no one will hire you because you're on probation. And now you're back in jail because you can't afford a forty dollar car part. That's the trap. And so those are the things that get set up for a lot of people, man. And, you know, I just. I feel really lucky. That's part of why, like, the Daily show, in a way, was an opportunity for me to, like, try to, you know, I hate shine a light, but try to do stories that speak to people who can't. We ain't got no microphone and no camera to say what the is going on with.

[B]

But you do that, you do that in the special as well. This is what I mean. Like journalism. You're either telling me about yourself or you're telling me about the world. So when you talk about. Is it Dion, the photographer?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, White Dion.

[B]

Yeah, White Dion. WD as we know him, White Dion, who's a veteran. And you do take just one little moment to, like, be real about it and talk about how hard it is to do three tours and come back. And. And people don't understand why. You don't understand why you're acting weird, whatever it might be. And that's what you're doing here and that's what you're doing in your work. Shining a light is. I understand why you might. It might sound corny or something, but it's real and it's a great thing to do with a voice.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And like those days on the road, I wouldn't trade them for the world. Like that was a primer and understanding people, it. Sociology.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like it was a thousand percent the best thing that ever happened to me. You know, we taught, you know, just a rest and you know what moment was a life training. It was, it was 98. It was Thanksgiving in 98. Top to bottom, you know, so you just, you just learn people, you know. I wish I could go back to that sometimes, man, I wish I could just be at a bar after a show as a feature act where, you know, over the course of the show ending, there's more people in the bar who weren't at the show. And now that you're just talking with regular man, I miss that.

[B]

What if I was like, Roy, you ain't that famous.

[A]

According to Doug Stanhope, I'm still, I can still see the stage from where I'm sitting. I. You know what? After shows now I'll do pictures. Sometimes I'm not always. It depends, and this is crazy to say, but a lot of it depends on energy because I don't charge for pictures. So I feel like this is bonus, you know, you're getting bonus. You get an extra gravy if I'm not here for pictures. Because what I've learned over the course of a weekend is that it's not pictures, it's 45 minutes of talking for me.

[B]

Yeah. Yep.

[A]

And so it's not that I don't want to take the picture, it's just that you do something that touches people, most people, and people want to have a quick little 30, you know, a 90 second chit chat before the picture, which I love. But if I take these pictures, I've talked for 45 minutes, two shows over the course of two nights. Two shows each night. That's three hours of non performative talking.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And if I gotta go do the thing next week and the week after, I don't want to keep drinking this Mr. Miyagi potion.

[B]

Yep. And it's hard.

[A]

It's hard. Yeah. So, you know, some nights I'll do pictures, some nights I'll wait. I learned this from, of all people, the Righteous Brothers open for them once, only once. Because it was very evident that my race based humor Was not the thing that the Righteous Brothers audience of white people over 55.

[B]

It sounds like the headline, the race based humor of Roy Wood Jr. Not a fit feeling.

[A]

I wasn't even going hard. This is 03. This is like. Yeah, there's some joke about the police pulling black people over and when it takes too long for dispatch, it was just silly. But they would do this strategy where they would just essentially. And I can say this because they don't tour anymore. I think one of them's passed RIP they would just wait a minute. Like they wouldn't go out because they would be by the loading dock door. So they would just wait. They would perform and then defrag at the venue.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For another 30, 40 minutes and just relax and everything so that, you know now if there's anybody still in that lobby. Yeah, they really want it. They're either a psychopath or. That's a real fan.

[B]

No, that's a real one. That's. That's what it is. Yeah, I, I don't do that on purpose. In fact, I love saying hi to fans. I don't do meet and greets, but if we usually take our time leaving and if there's still someone there and we were in there for 40 minutes while Matt ate a fried chicken sandwich. When you go out, you give it your all because that's a.

[A]

That's. You deserve it.

[B]

Well, honestly, you. I know you must have a version of this. There's. There's just a kind of fan or person that just knows that you are on TV and that. That's just not a very fulfilling interaction for either of you.

[A]

You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean it's people that oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. He's over there. Let's get a picture. You didn't want a picture until you saw the motherfucker who wanted a picture. That's right. Picture. So it's like that picture and you're drunk.

[B]

It's weird. Yeah.

[A]

This shit's going to go into the cloud. I. I want to take a picture with the person who I know is going to print this. They're going to print it. Like there was a guy. I did.

[B]

I want a print fan.

[A]

I want to print this fan, bro. They. I did tops baseball cards. They do these limited edition Allen and gter sets where sometimes they have. Have non baseball players get a baseball card. And they gave me a baseball card one year.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

And there was a guy. It's probably an hour after the show. We just back there goofing off and he's standing still in the lobby with my baseball card and a Sharpie.

[B]

And I'm like, yeah, that's him.

[A]

Let's get a picture.

[B]

You got a great baseball name. Roy Wood Jr. Sounds like a baseball player, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a little Ken Griffey Jr. But definitely Roy Wood. Sounds like a baseball name.

[A]

I'm so happy I get to do shit with MLB Network now because it's like, it's two things I've done while I'm on cloud nine now. I've taken batting practice at Wrigley Field, and I wrote a fire truck in Compton.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Actively out on a run with engine 16. And both of those, I'm like, these were the two things I really wanted to do. Wow.

[B]

Why the fire truck one? I don't. You just.

[A]

Like, I've loved. I think there's an adrenaline to it also. I just liked fire. Maybe that was. I mean.

[B]

Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah.

[A]

It's better I got into credit cards than arson, I would argue. But, yeah, like, just that job, it's thankful. It's thankless. You get to help people. There's a little action to it. Of course, there's the danger of dying, but it very much. How can I put it? Like, it very much is a job that. If I had not been doing comedy, I would have been trying to do this. Now, granted, I would have been eating like Eddie Gosling to stay in shape. It took me years after that to finally eat rotisserie chicken. Yeah. When the wildfires were rolling in la, I went to a station that was covering the areas where the firefighters who were dispatched to the hill rules were. Because essentially, like, hey, all the firefighters are in the heels, so you have to cover twice the area with half the manpower and half the rest and go. So I wrote with them, just, you know, see what that was like. Talking a little bit about just urban firefighting and just being out with them. It was like, this is. I call it zero tabs open. One of those experiences where you're not thinking about.

[B]

Yeah. Anything else?

[A]

Yeah, I just didn't. I didn't. You know, I had my phone out just to record some stuff, but I wasn't texting. I wasn't taking a bunch of selfies. That's what it was like.

[B]

Immersed in it when my wife was in labor. Zero tabs open. You know what I mean? What we said. I go, this is real. It's like, it's not. It's not like second screen time. It's like, this is what's happening. Someone's born, we gotta do it. You. You allude to this. We're. I want to be respectful of your time.

[A]

So I was there for my kid. I. I had to go right back. Did you take maternity leave? I'm sorry to cut you off before the last.

[B]

Not at all, not at all. Maternity leave. We just happened to. I was there. I. I wasn't working, I wasn't touring. So, yeah, we. We. Although I did film a special and my daughter was about six weeks old, so not really.

[A]

That's fair. But that's fair, though. That's. You got to make the bread to provide. I did not take maternity leave.

[B]

And yeah.

[A]

It'S not saying I regret it, but it's just like, I don't see how there was another scenario for what I do for a living where it would have made. You know, my son was born mid rise of Trump in 2016, three or four months before the election. And I work at the Daily show and it was. I was still on my first year contract.

[B]

Right, that. That's a. You had a job. You had a job.

[A]

A job. Right. If I do it right this year, then I get to be here for a while.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

So.

[B]

Well, that's funny.

[A]

I'm happy you're born. Good to meet you, bro. I'm gonna hang around for a week. You look pretty healthy. All right. I'm gonna go secure this job so then you and your mom can come to New York.

[B]

Yeah, I get it.

[A]

I'll check in once a month.

[B]

I get it. That's what I was going to ask. You alluded to it in the special, like it was something I bet people know about, but I didn't know about it was that you thought you were going to host the Daily show. And forgive me if everyone asks you about this, but there was a moment where it looked like Trevor was going to step down and you were going to take over.

[A]

Yeah, I just. I think I feel like I played it up a little more comedically. I know some of the outlets had taken it to frame it as he knew for sure he. No, I just looked at the odds and I thought, hey, I got some pretty good odds. I have as good a chance as anybody else. I have done this, this and this and this. This and this guy guest hosted. I had good ratings for my guest host week. I've done the Correspondent to dinner. I got good reviews for that. Okay. I don't know who they're gonna pick, but I've made the Case.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I. I've made no fumbles. Hey, Bar, it's me. Yeah, I'm gonna get you a house. Pretty soon, fast forward, and it didn't feel like it was me. And I'm like, calling my mom back. Yeah, mom, you didn't. You didn't quit your job yet, did you?

[B]

It's funny that you could say we didn't get it.

[A]

It's not just me.

[B]

We didn't get it. But wait, I'm in the dark. Is he leaving? Is someone replacing you?

[A]

No. When Trevor left the Daily show, so, you know. Trevor left. Trevor put in his resignation in 2022.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so for all of 23, there were guest hosts. Every week there was a different celebrity guest host, and they wrote it in correspondence. And while we weigh the pros and cons. And then the writer strike happened, so there was no show. And so then on the other side of that, there was rumors that, you know, the homie Hassan Minhaj was going to be the guy, and that that was. That was a done deal. And for whatever reason, that didn't happen. So it was. The rumor was they're going to reopen the search again. Oh, okay. Well, I wonder if I still have a chance and in my reps, reaching out to Comedy Central about it. And this has nothing to do with the Daily show proper and the crew over there, because the decision is going to come from up high, from the Overlook. We didn't. We didn't. I just didn't feel like, okay, well, they're gonna reevaluate. And this is before Jon Stewart came back. This is before Jon Stewart's name was in the conversation to come back home and, you know, Return of the Jedi, if you will. Right. So my thought process was, well, sooner or later, I'm not going to work here anymore. Even if it's not this next year. Sooner or later. All your bro. All these jobs are temporary. If you don't work for yourself, you're. Sooner or later, the job goes to someone else or the job gets eliminated. That's it. That's the. That's the game. So if there's ever a time to leave and do something else. Like what? What am I going to do after this Server's got me thinking now, well, what's next for me? But maybe I should just go do that now because they don't. They don't know what they want to do. And that's fine. I get it. It's your behemoth of a show, and you've got to Be meticulous about the data and exactly who is the right person. All right, that's fine. If there's ever a time to grow and build something new, I suspect it would be during an election year. So I'm going to leave now. I'm going to leave now, and then I have all of 2024 to figure out what's next for me on the political satire side of the game. And in the meantime, to pay the bills. All right, I know I got about 45 minutes in my back pocket, and I know between now and next fall, I could have the other 15 minutes. Call the agent. Hey, I heard a rumor that Hulu is going to be starting to do a stand up comedy initiative. See what you can find out about Hulu entering the stand up space to compete with Netflix and get back to me. Cool with the show. Hulu deal comes down the pipe. Start writing the book. Because I sold a book over the writer strike, sold a couple TV scripts, and I go, okay, this is, this is this. We got enough pots on the stove. Whereas a man, the bills are paid, My son's straight, his mama straight. Everything starts with them. So if they're straight, I can start looking at the rest of the landscape of media. Everything's imploding. Everybody's merging. Nobody's making anything new. So now all of these shows that I thought I would be able to make after leaving the Daily show, none of them are getting a bite. They're not even taking meetings on new show ideas at this time. Top of 2024. So. And that was something that I thought would only apply to scripted television. Well, they're doing remakes and reboots and they're casting big. If it's an original idea, they need a huge star. Otherwise it's got to be a genre or something that feels familiar. Well, that doesn't apply to political satire. Surely the market needs a new voice. No. Get the out of here. And then CNN calls with, sure enough, a, you know, have I got news for you. It's a. It's a remake of a British show and it's a panel show. But it felt bold. You know, panel shows don't really do. Haven't done traditionally well in America, but it seemed like CNN was committed to trying something different and something that was fun and didn't have to sit in the same real estate as John Oliver or Daily Show. You know, in terms of getting to the solution or getting to the things that make you cry or make you mad about the topic. And so they just, it was a very simple pitch. I met with the boys from Hat Trick Productions. Hey. It's a fake quiz show that quizzes you on the last six days of news with a couple guests. You're a host. Oh, perfect. So I do less work. Great. Sign me up. And. And if you look at the landscape of unscripted, since I left Daily show, there's only been two new shows. Us and After Midnight. And both shows are created from pre existing ip. And so there's a lot of bit hedging going on out there. I couldn't have predicted any of this when I left the show. All I knew was that for whatever to happen next, I first need to exit this. It wasn't anger, it wasn't beef. It wasn't, you know, this idea of it was leaving. Because you don't.

[B]

You went with the momentum, your own momentum.

[A]

Yeah. It's. It's literally, if there was ever a time to jump, it's probably now versus leaving two years from now. And I would have stayed under Jon Stewart. There's. I'm sure there's a lot to learn. I didn't know he was go. They. They didn't know. With the information I had at the time, I. You know what?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let me just see. And. And there's no fear in that because I've slept in my car. I slept at a bus station.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've been fired out the blue. I've had sitcoms where I was told we were getting renewed and we were.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I know that the other way that this could end in to be very sudden and jarring.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This way feels like I'm in control.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

You're going with your gut and you're keeping sovereignty a little bit of agency.

[A]

Yeah. I've had love there, man. I quit Daily show and then went on tour with Jordan Clifford. So.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I hate nobody in the building. I just. This what you're proposing to do, we have done for a while and I don't know how much longer we're going to be doing that now, and neither do you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm gonna leave now.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Just leaving is inevitable. So let me just leave now and then good luck to y' all and I'll see you at the Emmys sooner or later when I get a show that can get nominated.

[B]

Right. There you go. That's good. Yeah, I love that. Well, this is. This is towards the end here. This is the end, I guess we should say last final sort of thing. We usually talk About God. What I thought was interesting was you talk about happiness and connection in your special. So maybe we could end with a word about if you want to tie God into that, you can, but it's totally up to you. I loved what you said about if you have a good day, memorize what you did that day and then do it again. Like, who did you talk to? What did you do? Like, and you. So you linked connection to it. Could you leave us? You've. You've said so many great things. I've enjoyed every second of this with something about happiness, especially during these weird times. I think we could all use it. What's your philosophy on connection and happiness?

[A]

And if I don't think I should force it, I don't think you can force happiness. You know, happiness is a choice. The act of trying to be happy is a choice. Whether or not you achieve that on a regular is debatable. For me, it's been about. All right, there are things that are stressing me, but it does not change the need for stillness. For me, stillness is happiness. You know, I'm not really a religious guy. You know, I grew up in Southern Baptist Church, and, you know, I probably went to church through college and then dabbled a little bit after college. But, you know, in terms of practicing religion regularly, in terms of showing up to the building and doing and saying the words, and I haven't. I haven't done that probably in 20 years, bro. And like, that part of it, I still think that, you know, but oddly, I will still pray. You know, I don't not believe. It's just the structure of religion is something I've always been a little 5050 on, just because it's touched by man. And for me, whatever your course is for stillness and. And the thing that I said in the special, it's a bit of a borrow from a Chappelle quote from a magazine. I don't know, probably during his Went to Africa era, Chappelle, where he talked about how every comedian needs to identify their joke machine and how if you're creatively, whenever your creativity is at its highest, recognize the stimuli that you were feeding your mind with. And when you hit writer's block, do things that recreate those choices. So I love, to a degree, happiness in the people that you're around is, you know, that matters. I will say, you know, to answer your question, I think the single most important thing that you can do to help your mental health is to surround yourself with people that are positive, if you can. Yeah, genuine people. Are more important than positive people. But if you got relationships you're holding on to just because that's been your friend forever, well, people grow apart. That negative and always sad and always frustrated and always all this other. You can't keep them in the mix.

[B]

Dude, that reminds me of two things. Bill Burr says, if you're arguing with someone in your car and they're not there, that person's out. That person's out of your life. And then this isn't quite as on the nose, but you made me think of it. Jay Z said, people say you've changed. My old friends say you've changed. He's like, you think I did all that work to stay the same so that those two things kind of together, it's natural. Sometimes just because something ends or reaches its natural conclusion or if your. Your vibrations don't really sync up anymore doesn't mean they're a bad person. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's okay to go like. That's not really the energy I'm working with these days. I did that. I did a big house cleaning. I hate calling it a house cleaning. I wasn't sweeping anybody away. I was just going like. Like my wife. That's the energy I want. You know what I mean? And now that you have it, once you see it, you go, well, I'm not going to settle for friends that make me feel like shit.

[A]

And I'm on some shit now where even the people that I plan to hire down the road. I'm calming social media. And it ain't even about you cracking some joke that could get us canceled. It's more about looking through your socials and just seeing how you carry. How you carry pain, you know, I like that. Because you're going to be around other people and, you know, and like, that's something that, you know, I can't bring somebody in and hire them for my company and do a full psych eval. I'm sure that's evasive and rude, but, yeah, I think that someone's state of mind shouldn't matter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If they're going to be around you. So, you know, especially in kind of poking fried that I think you should. And if you can change it or be a vessel of help to them, cool. But if they're just wanting to pull themselves down and crash the car, I'm not. I'm not down for that ride anymore. I don't. With negative people. I can't no more.

[B]

It's harder if you're standing on a table, it's harder for someone to pull you off than for you to pull them up. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. But like if you're doing show or something, 90% of your effort can't be like, let's, let's fix your attitude. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's, that's beyond. Making a show is hard enough. You know what I mean? Managing people's. I, I think that's really right on. And then the final, final. Have you ever seen a ghost? You seem like I, you're a person that. I would put a. A a quarter in the jukebox and pick any subject. But I would love to hear If Roy Wood Jr. Has ever seen a ghost or an alien or had some sort of psychic encounter that you can't explain.

[A]

I got jumped. I got jumped by some gangster disciples in the fourth grade when we first moved to Birmingham. And to get to the Five Points west library. Birmingham, west side. I don't know what I'm talking about. But they used to be the south park projects right by these railroad tracks on South Park Road. And to get to the library for, for computer classes. This is apple to E. Yeah. 6 87ish.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You have to walk through the south park projects. That's the shortest way. Or you go 45 minutes out your way in a 95 degree heat index. That ain't the move. And they push me down and get ready and some old dude comes up. Get off. Gave that boy alone. And he like shoes him away. And when I get up to tell him thank you and I turn around, he's gone. And the length of time from when I got pushed down to them jumping him and his proximity to us and breaking up the fight to the time when I got up and looked the sight lines where he was, he should have still been in my sight.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

We got some guardian angel. I gotta find one of them disciples and see if they.

[B]

Yeah, what's their version? They watch it get beamed up. That's a good one, man.

[A]

When my pops died, I heard his ghosts for a couple of weeks downstairs. Still going through the motions of going to work. That was weird. Whoa. I never saw it. I never went downstairs, you know, like there was.

[B]

But you heard the sounds of that.

[A]

Yeah. The sink running, him walking across the linoleum. I could hear the car start even though there was no car there. Like, like whoa. I distinctly heard that. The echo.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So I. For sure I haven't Seen evidence otherwise, but I for sure believe in that. And then did I. I tell the story on cnn. I don't remember where. I've never told it in detail, but I was. I was with this woman who had a dead husband. And the first time we tried to have sex, I got a real strong Charlie horse. And then I heard stop it in my ear. No. And I thought it was her telling me to stop. So I stopped. And then we just cuddled. And then I left after an hour. And then she cursed me out for wasting her time. Like, she's sending, like, me, like, in this day, she's saying, like, mean text messages and all of this. And I call her. What the is your problem? You told me to stop. Ain't nobody said stop. Who the said stop? But it wasn't me. And I'm just like, it was that. And. And you can't say that to a woman. Like, you just have to just go, yeah, you right. I wasted your time.

[B]

Husband guarding your bed.

[A]

Yeah. I can't say the ghost of your dead husband is caught blocking the. I'm sorry, I cannot come over anymore. That sounds crazier than just, are you telling? Absolutely. Right. I am not.

[B]

You took the bullet, you said, you're right. I am a tease.

[A]

Oh, how am I helping her get over him die now? In the husband's defense, it had only been four months since he died. I didn't know that at the time, but I found out, like, once I got to the house. So maybe there's like a period of time. You're a funny person.

[B]

You had a tag to a story in. In his defense. In the ghost's defense, it had only been four months. Months. And I think you got to wait at least six.

[A]

Those are.

[B]

Those are the ghost rules.

[A]

Those are my three supernatural, other world, whatever, what have you, encounters. The other one is ayahuasca. And I don't know if that counts because that's like portal only once. It only did it for half the day. It was a two day thing. I left after the first day. I'm like, this is too much.

[B]

It was too much. The experience.

[A]

Yeah. No, the experience, it was emotionally overwhelming. And like, yeah, on some. I'm not saying you see ghosts, but you find, I guess in a dialogue with yourself, you discover new truths about yourself. And like, that's part of where I came to the conclusion, like, oh, my dad cheated a lot because he just wanted to be loved, because he never got love. And so he sought love in the wrong way form. And that's why he behaved like that. It wasn't that he hated me and my mom. He was just trying to heal. But he was going about it wrong. Someone could have told him. Why couldn't I told him if he stayed alive longer. Oh, wow. And then you sober up, you have a banana and you go, hey, man, I'm gonna leave. I'm going back to Los Angeles. This is too much.

[B]

And Neil Brennan goes, roy, you didn't even give it a chance.

[A]

Chance.

[B]

You didn't even give it a chance.

[A]

It was a Neil's guy.

[B]

It was put down and try it again. Roy, tried. I can. I can't do it. I can hear my voice.

[A]

Why are you running?

[B]

What are you running?

[A]

Just stop running.

[B]

Just stop.

[A]

You should stay a week. You should stay a week. Turn your phone off.

[B]

It's disrespectful. He's playing the Quachiu Tutua. You got a song?

[A]

Yeah. You gotta be really comfortable with strangers to vomit in a bucket. That's getting passed around. There's like some hygiene parts of it too, that I was a little like this. I'm gonna bring my own bucket next time.

[B]

Gotta bring your own bucket. Bring your own bucket.

[A]

This is too much, sir.

[B]

Roy, you are. This is my favorite show business compliment. I got it from Conan. He called Martin Short a day off. He goes, if Martin Short's on the show, it's a day off. Meaning you don't have to do any work. You, sir, are a day off. I. I love every second. You are a true talent. And Lonely Flowers is on Hulu. Well, this will drop whenever you want, but it'll.

[A]

We can just say it's streaming now. It comes out January 17th. It comes out Friday.

[B]

Oh, it'll be out. It'll be out.

[A]

Out.

[B]

It's out. It's out now. No matter when we drop it, because we drop on Wednesdays, so it is out now. And it. You really are a master. And I. I'm just so. I don't know, like, for. You ever feel about standups? Like, it's our people and like, you did our group something good by showing how it's done and doing it properly.

[A]

Thank you, brother.

[B]

So I'm really, you know, grateful for what you did. So. And I laugh my ass off off. I really did. And I needed it. I needed it.

[A]

I appreciate you, man. Always a good conversation with you. Yeah.

[B]

I hope to see you. Yeah, man, I do. And I. I hope to see you in person. And check it out on Hulu. And we end the show with the guest saying, keep it crispy. It doesn't mean anything. It's not a trap. You just say, keep it crispy and we're done.

[A]

Yeah, keep it crispy, y'. All.

[B]

There it is. Thank you, Roy. That was great.

[A]

Oh, yeah, you made it with? You made it with? You made it with? Oh, yeah, you made it with? You made it with? You made it with? Oh, yeah, you made it with? You made it with? You made it with. Oh, yeah.