Skyler Higley

Summary

Podcast Summary: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes — Skyler Higley (Dec 18, 2024)

---

Main Theme / Purpose

This episode features comedian and writer Skyler Higley joining Pete Holmes for a wide-ranging, honest, and frequently hilarious conversation about identity, comedy, social media, race, personal weirdness, family history, and the evolving world of stand-up. Higley, known for his work on "Conan," "The Onion," and "After Midnight," brings his unique background—being adopted, raised Mormon, and Black in Utah—into an open exploration of how those experiences shape his art and worldview.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why We Do the Things We Do: Humor, Self-Awareness, and Motivation

• Pete opens up about becoming vegan largely to upset his parents, leading to honest admissions about self-motivation:

  "I am a vegan, first and foremost, because it upsets my parents." — Pete (01:32)

• Skyler reflects on the performative aspect of identity:

  "Am I smart and do I like reading or do I just like that... people see me as somebody who reads?" (01:59)

• The pair riff comedically on being “caught reading” and being hyper-aware of how others perceive them, setting a tone of self-aware honesty.

---

2. Hypervigilance, Stand-up, and Identity on Stage

• The conversation transitions into how hypervigilance and social self-awareness infect both stand-up and daily life in the social media age (05:45).
• Skyler talks about the difference between starting out and finding your voice, especially as a Black comedian in predominantly white spaces, and the idea of "hedging" jokes early in his career (06:03, 06:26).
• They discuss the post-2020 shift in comedy and the increased pressure from both audience and the internet, plus the challenges of stand-ups promoting themselves online (07:43).

---

3. Comedy in the Era of Social Media: The 'Clip Factory' Problem

• Both comedians share concerns about comedy adapting to the demands of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube:

  "Comedy should suck. It should be like swinging three baseball bats at the beginning, because then when you get one baseball bat, you're real fast. But... when you get really big, now they laugh at the threes. And now you suck." — Pete (16:50)

• Pete and Skyler discuss UK ("threes" & "puns") vs. US (big “tens” laughs) stand-up, riff on the "objectivity" of funny, and how different cultures laugh at different things (17:42–21:31).
• Social media's effect on art and validation:

  "You are basically an employee for Big Tech now as a creative." — Skyler (28:13)

---

4. Groupthink, Authenticity, and The Problem of the Internet

• Pete recounts the classic conformity experiment (the "lines are the same length" study) and how groupthink flourishes online (10:48–11:49).
• Layered identities: Skyler discusses how identity—racial, social—affects conformity and self-perception, especially in the comedy world (12:10–12:55).

---

5. Race, Comedy, and Code-Switching

• Skyler speaks candidly about being a Black comedian adopted by white Mormon parents in Utah:

  "Living in a post-black-nerd world where sort of the king of black nerds became Donald Glover in 2013, and now we're 10 years after that... It's sort of harder to go in front of an audience and interpolate yourself." (52:19)

• He explains code-switching and writing material for both Black and white audiences, and how expectations and pressure differ as a Black performer (53:34–54:49).

---

6. Dealing with Shame, Belonging, and Comedy as Self-Therapy

• In a powerful segment, Skyler describes ongoing feelings of imposter syndrome within Black communities due to his upbringing, economic background, and cultural exposure:

  "If I bomb in front of a black crowd... it makes me feel, like, deeply like I'm inauthentic." (102:47)

• He credits stand-up as an outlet that helped him process these issues, test his identity, and reconcile different parts of his experience (97:49).

---

7. Mormonism, Adoption, Trauma, and Family

• Skyler gives an unflinching look at his family life, detailing his adoption, the racial and cultural alienation of growing up Black in Utah, and a fraught relationship with his father:

  "I was adopted because... there was a power differential. And then I ended up in a family... my adopted dad wasn’t even all in on doing the adoption... Now I don't consider him a father." (88:16)

• The pair bond over the universal weirdness and often pain of family trauma, using dark humor as a tool for healing (81:48–82:00).

---

8. Spirituality After Mormonism

• Skyler’s spiritual evolution: raised Mormon, went through atheism, then explored psychedelics, ayahuasca, and spirituality:

  "I listened to this podcast, and then I also had the Internet, and it was like the same time I was getting interested in comedy..." (108:22)

• He discusses the pitfalls of spiritual bypassing (“once you convince yourself you’re enlightened, you can be a real dick”) and the complex relationship between trauma, spirituality, and healing (115:21–117:15).

---

9. Memorable Jokes & Moments

• On Comedy & Reading:

  "Being caught reading is the opposite of being caught masturbating. The ideal conditions are the same."
  — Pete & Skyler, bantering (02:25)

• On adoption:

  "Our whole family is just paper... An agency put this together. We had reps." — Skyler (72:56–73:24)

• On fitting in:

  "You take your glasses off, and now suddenly, Superman." — Pete (50:15)

• Recurring Arby’s bits:
  The “we have the meats” running gag as a stand-in for American corporate culture and assimilation (60:23–61:12).

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "I am a vegan, first and foremost, because it upsets my parents."
  — Pete Holmes (01:32)
• "Am I smart, or do I just like that people see me as somebody who reads?"
  — Skyler Higley (01:59)
• "Comedy should suck. It should be like swinging three baseball bats at the beginning..."
  — Pete Holmes (16:50)
• "You are basically an employee for Big Tech now as a creative."
  — Skyler Higley (28:13)
• "Improv, when it's fantastic, is really untouchable... and bad improv, I think, is a little bit worse."
  — Pete Holmes (24:45)
• "If you killed for them, what does that mean about you?"
  — Skyler Higley (21:39)
• "Belonging is... It's so much more... It's like the father stuff. Do you claim me?"
  — Pete Holmes (103:54)
• "Living in a post-black-nerd world... it's harder to go in front of an audience and interpolate yourself."
  — Skyler Higley (52:19)
• "If I bomb in front of a black crowd... I feel, like, deeply like I'm inauthentic."
  — Skyler Higley (102:47)
• "I was adopted because... there was a power differential... there's no bond of blood that makes us actually family."
  — Skyler Higley (88:16)
• "Once you convince yourself you’re enlightened, holy shit... you can be a complete dick."
  — Skyler Higley (116:22)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–02:46: Opening banter; self-aware humor about reading and image
• 05:45–07:19: Hypervigilance, early career comedy, and adapting material
• 10:48–12:55: Groupthink, Internet dynamics, and identity
• 16:50–21:31: Comedy writing, audience standards, culture, and validation
• 28:13–29:37: Social media's impact on creativity and credit
• 52:19–54:49: Interpolating identity on stage as a Black nerd
• 72:56–73:24: Adoption, family as paperwork, and the "casting" of family
• 88:16–90:44: White savior complex, family relationships, social power
• 108:22–109:28: Spiritual transition, effects of podcast and Bo Burnham
• 115:21–116:22: Spiritual bypass, privilege, and systemic issues
• 102:47–104:07: Imposter syndrome, bombing in different audiences

---

Tone and Language

The podcast is candid, self-deprecating, vulnerable, and often darkly funny. Both Holmes and Higley use humor to defuse and explore uncomfortable truths about family, race, artistry, and modern society, with a generous blend of riffs, honest insights, and the occasional digression into absurdist territory.

---

Conclusion

This episode is a rich, relatable tapestry of comedy, therapy, and cultural commentary—Skyler Higley’s story and perspective lend depth and humor to core questions about family, race, identity, and the changing world of comedy. Pete Holmes matches his guest’s honesty, making for a conversation that feels both meaningful and mischievously "weird." Fans of stand-up, identity talk, or weird comedy will find plenty to chew on here.

---

Final Sign-off:

"Keep it crispy. Normal." — Skyler Higley & Pete Holmes (119:24)

Transcript

[Skyler Higley]

You made it weird. You made it weird. You made it weird. Oh, yeah. You made it weird. Yes, you did.

[Pete Holmes]

You made it weird with Pete Holmes. What's happening, weirdos? This is Skyler Higley, who, if you don't know, you're about to find out, is one of the funniest comedians. I love him. He's incredible. He's a wonderful writer. He's written for Conan. I believe he won an award. Let me see. He won a WGA award while on staff at conan he's currently writing for the Onion. He's also working on After Midnight, which is where I see him most often. We work together whenever I'm on that show. And I also hosted his New Faces at Just for Laughs. He's an incredible comedian. Conan agrees. Says he makes him laugh so hard. Skyler makes me laugh so hard. And he has an incredible, incredible story. So I'm so glad you guys are here to check out Skyler Higley. And not too much to plug up top before we just jump right in. I do have some shows coming up. I'll just say the cities. Seattle, I think that's pretty much sold out. Portland is sold out. Eugene is sold out. That's really great. Thank you, everybody. We just added looks like Atlanta at Helium, Los Angeles for my monthly show here at Largo, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Vancouver, and Austin, Texas. Go to peteholmes.com for tickets to all of those. And. And in the meantime, enjoy my chat with my wonderful, My wonderful friend. My wonderful friend, Skyler Hegley. Get into it. Can I say something?

[Skyler Higley]

Go ahead.

[Pete Holmes]

I said to Val on the ride. Down I go, it's time to be honest. I am a vegan, first and foremost, because it upsets my parents.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, that's the number one reason. Damn. And that's the first step towards, like, stop trying to fix people. Get real about your shit. Even your good shit is still shit.

[Skyler Higley]

It's still 100%.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm still in the mire of shit. Like, I think I love animals, and I do, but let's be real, right? I really love confusing and upsetting my parents.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, it's also like, I got to write that down. No, you must go on. I need that made me think of. Yeah, no, I'm going to pitch everything to you and you just write it down if you want. I. It is like this thing I had a realization of a while ago where I'm like, am I. Am I. Am I smart and do I like reading or do I just like that the idea that people see Me, as somebody who reads, can you tell me.

[Pete Holmes]

Sky, is there anything better than being caught reading? It's the opposite of being caught, masturbated.

[Skyler Higley]

You know, it's. And the ideal conditions are the same.

[Pete Holmes]

Alone.

[Skyler Higley]

Alone.

[Pete Holmes]

Reclined.

[Skyler Higley]

Getting into it.

[Pete Holmes]

Pantless.

[Skyler Higley]

Not understanding what's happening.

[Pete Holmes]

Expanding your mind.

[Skyler Higley]

Getting into some new shit I never would have thought I'd be into before.

[Pete Holmes]

The foot can be on the back of my knee somehow.

[Skyler Higley]

Wait, that was too braggy. You know, when you ever. You know, when you come to the table of contents.

[Pete Holmes]

I jizz at the index so hard it's hard to wait till the index. But I will.

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

It's better if you wait.

[Skyler Higley]

The acknowledgement of the dedication don't come during the dedication. Who's Janice?

[Pete Holmes]

Who is that sexy lady? You know, she's good. Cause when you're reading, she can look like whatever you want. You ever read a book and you have an image and then they start describing them and you're like, fuck you, man.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I had her my way.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Or him. I had him my way.

[Skyler Higley]

I don't read a lot of like, novels and fiction anymore. What are you reading?

[Pete Holmes]

What are you.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm reading, like, I just gotta see, now we're doing exactly the thing that I was self aware about.

[Pete Holmes]

What's that?

[Skyler Higley]

I was talking about reading. I don't know why I'm like, so, like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he thinks he's the best.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, he thinks he's. Anyway, how old are you? 28.

[Pete Holmes]

You need to be telling everyone to read about you. Yeah, I'm saying it.

[Skyler Higley]

All right?

[Pete Holmes]

And yes, it's cause you're black.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

LeVar Burton. LeVar Burton, the people.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh my God.

[Pete Holmes]

We need it, Skyler.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, we need it. All right, so hey, y', all. Butterfly in the sky, you know, reading Rainbow.

[Pete Holmes]

I can fly twice as high.

[Skyler Higley]

Twice as high. I just got a James Baldwin book.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, man, everyone's got to own one Reading. It's the pickle.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, I've read. I read every time.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you read some.

[Skyler Higley]

I've read some. Okay, good for you. It's very good. And well, anytime you hear him speak.

[Pete Holmes]

You'Re just like, yeah, it's like the most stirring content. It's stupid to call it.

[Skyler Higley]

No, it's content, but it's like stirring. He posted his clips because he didn't do crowd work, Pete. He just did speeches.

[Pete Holmes]

He was like, tell you how many times I wanted to put my Instagram bio 100% crowd work free. But I realize what a fucking privileged Place, that is. That's why I don't do it.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Because my people, the standups. We need to be posting.

[Skyler Higley]

Be posting. We need to post. Your people as opposed to my people. No, our people. Our people.

[Pete Holmes]

This can't be racially tense.

[Skyler Higley]

This. Well, you can't. You already. You went. You're black and you read.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I wanted to show my hand and say, in case you're wondering, let's not waste time wondering.

[Skyler Higley]

I didn't think it.

[Pete Holmes]

Your blackness informed my riff on LeVar Burton or I would have said it anyway. But I wanted to, like, go, like, just so you know, I'm aware that you're black and I'm saying you're like this other black guy.

[Skyler Higley]

Clip that. I'm aware. This is the clip. This is the clip. Clip that. Clip that I don't like. To your point. I do not like how self aware I am about reading. No. Reading and everything. Everything has become so self aware now. And everything is so like. I know exactly. I'm aware that I'm being observed. And now it's like, oh, well, now I'm thinking about that instead. That's what that was. Yes. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The hype. We were talking about hypervigilance. There's a hyper vigilance where you're having a thought and then you're thinking of how the thought might be perceived by you, but also the audience.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you're like, well, let me get ahead of that. Sure. Like little politicians or like. And I understand, like, we want to, like, we want everyone to be like, this is good person. This is.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, you also. It's also like, are you. Is. Are these people approaching me in good faith? Because I don't know. And sometimes you're in a. And it's. Especially now with comedy. You're in this place where it's like, people come to see you, they know you. People don't usually know me when they come to see me, so I can't get away with saying, like, there's more hedging that I have to do where I go, look, I'm not saying this because you don't know who I am.

[Pete Holmes]

The first 15 years.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe 10:15, but like so much of early comedy. And when did you start?

[Skyler Higley]

I started in 2016.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so you're still in your first 10.

[Skyler Higley]

First 10 I'm getting into. This is eight. This is eight. Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

But to be eight in and like nine jobs and you're so funny. Respect.

[Skyler Higley]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

It's great. So you're like an old eight?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, old eight. I mean, I would say I'm an old eight dude.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes you see someone's like, in 20s and you're like, well, this dude's more like a eight.

[Skyler Higley]

Well.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're like.

[Skyler Higley]

It feels like an. Yeah. Like part of it for me now is that it feels like right in the middle of my career in doing standup, everything changed, like right in the middle. Four years in 2020, and then suddenly everything's different now.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And so now there's a whole new world of ethics and ideas to navigate.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is what you were starting to talk about. The hyper vigilance.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And it's. Now I'm vigilant about how I'm coming across and who is going to see it and who cares. And also that it's like, comedy is so subjective that you're like, oh, yeah, show the shirt.

[Pete Holmes]

Got it.

[Skyler Higley]

Got it.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like that's the way.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

No, now I feel like I'm seducing you, but.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, no, it's fine. I was seduced.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a fire.

[Skyler Higley]

I was seduced of the fire. Next time, James Baldwin circle back. Yeah, I can do something. You do Callbacks. People don't care about anymore. Because of the Internet. Everything's 30 seconds.

[Pete Holmes]

Don Glover.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Because of the Internet.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah. Did you read that screenplay, by the way?

[Pete Holmes]

Which one?

[Skyler Higley]

The screenplay that he wrote with the album.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Skyler Higley]

You want to get into this? This is one of my. Look at me, look at me.

[Pete Holmes]

Tell me what I'm looking at.

[Skyler Higley]

He. Because the Internet, that album. He also released a screenplay that goes along with it that, like, describes the story of the album and it's like a precursor to Atlanta. Like that stylistic lighting that he does. It was a big deal. If you were a black suburban kid in 2013, you loved that shit.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I wasn't.

[Skyler Higley]

I. Oh, I didn't know that.

[Pete Holmes]

I. I don't take any of those. Yeah, except suburban.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But even then I was urban.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

2013.

[Skyler Higley]

I understand. Herb, anyway.

[Pete Holmes]

You smoke herb.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Yeah. So already.

[Pete Holmes]

Already you were on something good, though. You were talking about James Baldwin.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, and reading.

[Pete Holmes]

But you were also talking about. Oh, dude, I had something for you.

[Skyler Higley]

Go ahead.

[Pete Holmes]

Just to interject. But it also get you back on track.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

You're on any track you want. But this track was interesting. You got disrupted four years in.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And, dude, not to say everything needs to be the way I was, but I like the way I was. How my soil was in comedy.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Meaning the crop of people that I came up with. And you know what we had in common? We were doing it about three years when 911 happened.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, shit.

[Pete Holmes]

Not that Covid or 911 are here to help the artists. Obviously not.

[Skyler Higley]

Of course.

[Pete Holmes]

See, that's the hyper vigilance.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So those things are tragedies. And there's something about, like this, like, global thing. And 911 was less global, but changed the world. That adds urgency to the artists and adds like a sort of like, we might die to the artists. You tell me if that.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I wasn't even framing it like that. I was sort of thinking about how sort of the. The economics of it and sort of the value system with social media and everything and the TikTok. It just. I think it really fundamentally changes, like the art form when it's like it's being. Yeah. It's inter. It's. What is the thing. It's like being distributed by this platform instead of. It's weird.

[Pete Holmes]

The medium has changed.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And it's like the. Yeah. The medium is what the art is. So you're going to get a bunch of people who see it in one way or another, and they're not engaging with it live like this. They're engaging with it from behind a screen.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

And then we also, my friend made this point that now we don't just see stuff, we also see the thing and the comment at the same time.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

And that changes your interpretation of what it is.

[Pete Holmes]

This is to make a comment.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I will comment on this.

[Skyler Higley]

Before you even have formed a comment, there's a comment for you from someone else and you don't. How do you know what you think anymore? Where. It's like. The first thing I saw was this.

[Pete Holmes]

I completely agree. So here's. There's this study and I'm. You're a reader. I think about it all the time. When it comes to politics, when it comes to the Internet, when it comes to Donald Glover's 2013 script, which you read. Which I read because I was a black teen growing up in the suburbs.

[Skyler Higley]

100%.

[Pete Holmes]

But there's. Tell me, tell me this doesn't just resonate real big.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Real big. Real bigly. They bring in 10 people into a room.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

They show them an image. It's not the first test. Let's say it's the third test. So everyone's warm. There's a line and then there's another line that's shorter than the second line. So it's just two lines. Line A is this long line. Line B is this long.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

They ask the group which line is longer. You're number 10 in the study. Everyone is a plant except number 10. You're the only real test subject.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, I know where this is going.

[Pete Holmes]

1 through 9 all say they're the same length. Dude, it's like high 80s. 90% of the 10th person say it's the same.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Even though it's clearly shorter. It's like group thing. So to your comment, to your point, it's like, we're so susceptible. We think we're not.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But advertising that study, I think political, religious identities, we're all spending a lot of our life going like, no, that line is the same as day line.

[Skyler Higley]

And you know what's really funny, because you bring up identity. I love the idea of what. How identity factors into that study where if I'm in the room with nine white people and nine white people are being like, this line is longer than this line. I'm like, white people be crazy. You know, white people be thinking lines are longer than they are, et cetera. Whereas, like, you look at my hand.

[Pete Holmes]

Like church, because that's blowing my mind.

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

You're absolutely right. The next variable is what are the other nine people?

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I think in the study it's assumed that they're peers, meaning they're like the 10th person.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't be the outlier. You have to see yourself as them. But I'm the same way.

[Skyler Higley]

If it was all old people, you're like, they're wrong.

[Pete Holmes]

I'd be like, these old people are wrong. And I'm young and I'm okay with that.

[Skyler Higley]

They can't see well.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but if they're all like, you know, whatever. If I can see myself in them, then I might feel that pressure.

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

But we're back to my veganism. Like, I love outlying. Like, I love, like, being healthy during the holidays. Because it's just another way to be.

[Skyler Higley]

Like, oh, cause you. Fuck you. I'm not going to eat that shit that you. Oh, I don't have cookies you like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but it's not about the cookies. It's not about my health. It's about you.

[Skyler Higley]

That's what I'm not gonna eat the cheese. I'm gonna eat the worst cheese.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Skyler Higley]

It tastes weird, the vegan cheese. Yeah, it's weird. It's got a viscousness to it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, veg cheese is the worst.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't get me started on vegan cheese.

[Skyler Higley]

That is interesting, but it is, you Know, like a trauma response to whatever. Whatever feeling you have about eating. You're like, I. It feels like, oh, yeah, I have evolved and I have advanced.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Skyler Higley]

And that's. I think, why. I think that informs a good amount of what I do. Like, I completely agree with you. Yes. Why do you think. Why are we doing stand Up?

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I have a line where I say, you think I'd be doing this if, you know, if my mom knew how old I was? That's the line, is I go, I don't know how old my mom is? And I go, it goes both ways. You think I'd be doing this for a living if my mom knew how old I was? And it gets a laugh. And sometimes it gets, like, sad sounds. I'm like, no, no, no. It all. It'll work out.

[Skyler Higley]

I hate the sad sound.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't need the sad sound.

[Skyler Higley]

I've done a good amount of it because I talk about, you know, being adopted, raised Mormon, blah, blah, blah. And all of that stuff that. There's a good amount of stuff that historically has gotten that sad sound thing. Yeah, yeah. And you go, oh, that's really sort of the opposite of laugh.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm gonna tell you something. That'll go away.

[Skyler Higley]

I know.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not even. It's not even. It better. It's better than that'll go away. That is where it's kind of the point is. Maybe that'll go away, but I think it's better because I was watching the. The clip of you at the stand, and I said to Katie, katie will vouch. He'll believe me. I go, man, starting on stand up is rough. Here's why. It's a great set. They only laugh at the tens. When you kind of, like, get more of your fans there, they'll laugh at the sixes. And by the way, you should laugh at a six.

[Skyler Higley]

It's a six. What is this clip at the stand? I don't even know this one.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the one you're represent.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, my fucking God.

[Pete Holmes]

All right, I'll give you an example. You. You have a line where you go, my father is white. When I was 15, he kicked me out of the house. He goes, that means my dad is so white, he gentrified his own house. They don't really laugh at that.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Then they laugh when you go, I checked. There's a Whole Foods where my bedroom used to be. They laugh at that. That's the 10.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Because the one. The one leading up to It.

[Pete Holmes]

I might even call that an eight.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But they don't. And that really brought me back. And I'm really just trying to compliment you. It's like, don't drop those lines. It's just. What I'm not. I'm not giving you advice. You don't need my advice. I'm just saying it just is what comedy is at the beginning.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Is they only laugh at the 10.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. I complete. I. Yes. And I think that is good, because then you write more. That is higher.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Skyler Higley]

I will have my own thing, like justifying and, like, you know, saving myself. The set that must have been sent to you had to have been from, like, four years ago.

[Pete Holmes]

If you didn't speak defensively about it, I'd say, what's wrong?

[Skyler Higley]

Four to five years ago, I'm like, that. What? I'm like, the st. When the. Was. The last time I was at the stand, it would have been. Yeah, yeah, yeah. New York comedy festival in 2019.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's an old clip. It's an old clip, but to your point.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, now I know to talk to somebody about something.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. You can say, stop sending that clip. I thought it was a great clip. I actually don't think you need to change the clip. But, but, and.

[Skyler Higley]

But as a comedian, you know, I'm 20. I'm 28 now. And now I would have been 24 then. That's. I.

[Pete Holmes]

That's absurd.

[Skyler Higley]

I feel differently. That's a big changes in both your personality and as a person and the way you want to perform comedy. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Totally. The other thing. And I think this is the other side of that. Good point you just made. Comedy should suck. It should be like swinging three baseball bats at the beginning, because then when you get one baseball bat, you're real fast. But, like, when you get really big, now they laugh at the threes.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And now you suck.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And then you start threes only.

[Pete Holmes]

You only do threes.

[Skyler Higley]

Or like, the way these. I mean, whoever. My feeling about a lot of British comedy is the way that they're like threes all the way through, and they're like, oh, they're all proud of their threes.

[Pete Holmes]

What am I. What am I agreeing with right now? I'm just helping me agree because I want to.

[Skyler Higley]

To me, for an American ear and audience, I'm dying. I think that a lot of British comedy can be very sort of intellectual and rhetorically. Whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

And the punchline will be like, okay. And then a lot of times there Is this sort of celebration that they do or there's like a smugness about the way they're doing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

Comedy. And it's like, okay, that was, I guess, pretty good for all the people who came to see you. But it's not. It's not actually making me laugh and it's not fun for me to watch, but it is what they value over there. So we're talking about different value systems. But I'm just saying, to me, that's ain't funny to me.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. There is a different style. I'll agree with that for sure. And that is why, look, I'm sure I have blind spots. I'm positive of it. But when I do a club. I was just in Raleigh. I know at least 20%, it's great. I know at least 20% are people that are just kind of like giving it a shot.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe they are fans, but they're fans of not my stand up. So they're just kind of coming in cold.

[Skyler Higley]

That's good though.

[Pete Holmes]

That is.

[Skyler Higley]

You want that.

[Pete Holmes]

You want it.

[Skyler Higley]

That's granola in your yogurt or whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

It absolutely is granola in my yogurt. And if you go out and it's just fans and now you're the threes guy.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Or maybe you could even. I think I know what you're trying to. What you are saying about the British thing. It's the way that they love puns because puns are like the fencing of comedy. There's like a very on guard quality, like, and I've got you, but you don't actually hit them.

[Skyler Higley]

But you go like, oh, points I've been gotten. Yeah, I've been.

[Pete Holmes]

That's where I would slice you.

[Skyler Higley]

The Cheerio Chap.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, exactly. Imagine if I was savage.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I actually got you.

[Skyler Higley]

Imagine if I was a savage.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Like those Def Jam savages.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God. Not what I meant. But there's your clip. Just clip every time. It's a lift. Little dicey.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I mean, like, that is their version of. You know what. Yeah, yeah. Like, I do understand what it is. But then again, to the subjectivity of audience and comedy, there is a whole. If they would potentially see the. The crowd that likes that would see, let's say, a death jam on the other end of the spectrum, stylistically, and go. What the hell is I. There's not. There's nothing here that really resonates with me at all. Right. Because it is all about the audience and how they're receiving it, which is why I get very frustrated at this idea that we have learned of, like, this objectivity in comedy, and funny is funny and whatever, where it's like, on a technical level, there are certain things that are better, but it's. I think it's just so clear from the way we live in even a different country and this nation that it's insane to be like, you should be able to kill anywhere. What? You don't even want to be around people from anywhere. You don't even want to, like, the election. I never want to hear after, like, the election of people being like, we live in completely different realities. Someone go, oh, well, funny is just funny. And it's like, you know, it's not.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

You know, it's nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

Is nothing. Is nothing. There is no standard.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

You're absolutely right. No, I really relate to that. And maybe you've heard me say this before, but I bombed in Germantown, Wisconsin. I shouldn't say that it was Germantown, Wisconsin, but I think it was Germantown, Wisconsin. But it was a bad crowd. I'm not saying Germantown, Wisconsin's bad. I'm just saying we had a bad show in Germantown, Wisconsin. And Jim Gaffigan also did badly. He was the headliner. He didn't. He didn't bomb, but neither of us felt good.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I remember the Middle did really well, and he was pretty bad.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And Jim said to me, I'm feeling like shit. And I'm kind of curious how he feels. You know what I mean? Like, we both just did badly.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I thought we were supposed to be able to kill anywhere. And he just goes, you shouldn't kill for everyone.

[Skyler Higley]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no. He goes, I'm sorry. He goes, there's some crowds you shouldn't kill for.

[Skyler Higley]

It's true.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, whoa. Never thought of that.

[Skyler Higley]

If you killed for them, like, what does that mean about you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I could have gone out and juggle dildos, and it would have been incredible. Maybe.

[Skyler Higley]

And you know what? People are doing that now. That's what people do.

[Pete Holmes]

These clowns?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, these clowns. These clowns. Which clowns? The. The clowning community of L. A.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a clowning community?

[Skyler Higley]

He literally. Oh, my. Katie knows they're clowns, and they do. They just kind of do bullshit. They just kind of do bullshit. And they go, this is comedy. Right. Because it's funny that I'm even doing the bullshit. And it's. Right. The worst thing I've ever seen.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God. Really? I can't wait.

[Skyler Higley]

I mean, I know there's good. I know it's. There's good of it. You know, like with everything. There's the good top of it that people talk about. Chad Damiani, I think his name is. And Natalie P. Something Palamides.

[Pete Holmes]

And then Natalie Palamides, doesn't she do that character?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, it's like character stuff. Clown work kind of stuff. And. But then that's become sort of a new comedy wave in a way. And my interpretation of it is that it's a lot of just like theater kids that aren't funny enough to ever write anything, doing a lot of random physical comedy and weird bits that aren't grounded in anything.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And I personally hate it. I.

[Pete Holmes]

The reason I said yeah was because I'm like, that's always been. I don't want to be the old guy here. But I'm like, yeah, that sounds a lot like it's funny. I was going to say the far.

[Skyler Higley]

Alt, but it is far. Right? It's. The far is a political spectrum. It is far alt. It is a far alt movement and they're ruining all. They're ruining all.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, they can give all to bad name.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because there comes a time and believe me, there's some far alts that I've seen in my life. They were literally geniuses. But then there's a fine line between Charlie Kaufman.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm sorry, Andy Kaufman. And like somebody who, I don't know, just maybe shouldn't be there.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. I don't know how to say it. And as with anything, right. There's the top version of it and what is good. And then there is sort of the rest of everything that's around and you know, what exactly is the best and the rest of it. But when some, you know, experiencing a bad improv show and the same with this bad stand up show. It's excruciating.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

You're like, this is CIA level torture. How could I even. Why are we here?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And because it's just. Because it's cornier. Because people are just up there just kind of make it if it's not going well. And I'm pretending to juggle dildos and there's not even dildos there and I'm doing object work and it's perfect. But then everybody's just like sitting there in like silence. It's like, yeah. What are we doing?

[Pete Holmes]

Bombing. At least a stand up. I'll say this, a bombing stand up at least isn't pretending to be opening cupboards. While.

[Skyler Higley]

You know what I mean? Right. You're like watching someone play pretend. Yeah, yeah. And I've done enough improv that I can say stuff like this.

[Pete Holmes]

I think improv, when it's fantastic, is really untouchable.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, man.

[Pete Holmes]

If you're in the room and you're watching it, it's like a magic spell. It's like seeing a flying saucer land. It's something that. That's why it doesn't really translate to TV very well. And bad improv, I think, is a little bit worse. Is. Is worse. Here's why. Because bad stand up. It's just one mind. Just can't find it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not there. And maybe they're sweating and they're uncomfortable and you hate it. But bad improv is like there's five of them and none of them.

[Skyler Higley]

You as a group couldn't do it. You couldn't do it as a group.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God. Like you're in a scene and it sucks. And the guy comes in and goes like, I'm Wilford Brimley.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, no.

[Pete Holmes]

And it still doesn't work. Or better. It's worse because you added Wil.

[Skyler Higley]

Now I like Wilford Brimley less. I hate Wilford Brimley now because of you. You're ruining my reality with this fake witch.

[Pete Holmes]

Brim. Brimley.

[Skyler Higley]

Wilford Brimley.

[Pete Holmes]

Never thought of his name being Brimley before. So anyway, you're right that the British style and Def Jam do like. Like a hoity toity, I suppose, would say. And then the Def Jam. I remember the first time I saw Def Jam. It's so honest, it can be kind of blunt. That's where you get the like, Victorian heavens.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, imagine it.

[Skyler Higley]

You know, the reason why this came up is because last night, for no reason at all, I just put on an old Martin Lawrence special.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

It was like, oh, God, I don't even remember what it's called.

[Pete Holmes]

You gotta wipe away from the pussy.

[Skyler Higley]

I mean, it might have. I didn't watch the whole thing.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm old enough now that I am. Like, come on.

[Skyler Higley]

No, there's some. That's great in there.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Skyler Higley]

For sure. He was talking about Rodney King and said like, they whooped his. And it was just the way he was saying it where they, like. They didn't just whoop his ass, they whizzed up his ass. And it was just like. So like. It's just the way he performed. It's. It's. They whiz wh he just like added extra syllables to whooped his ass in a way that is like, very simple, but also very, you know, it was just the. A lot of it, I will say doesn't hold up to me. Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Sure.

[Skyler Higley]

From what I watched, obviously, this was like 1990 or 80s or something. It was like, yeah, this is not quite right. Something that I'm gonna consider good now. But what is in there and like the style of it and being like, this is a version as legitimate as any other version of comedy and would be rewarded in different ways.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Is, you know, it's an interesting factor to me when now pursuing it where you have to build like, okay, what am I going to do going forward and how am I going to be. And I think that there is a. There is a thing that's happened because of social media that people have stopped trying to get better. Like, like actually better at the craft of it. Because. Yes. And it's all like, they just want.

[Pete Holmes]

To be good enough to get clips.

[Skyler Higley]

Ye, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

[Skyler Higley]

And you.

[Pete Holmes]

It podcast too.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, if we just bullshit for 90 minutes, we'll probably get one clip. It's like just making clips.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And it's like, I don't want to be a clip factory. No, no, no, that's. I don't. I never got into this. So I can be like, oh, I can. You are basically an employee for Big Tech now as a creative.

[Pete Holmes]

You're exactly right. You're selling ads for them.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

At that point. And really, it's short. It's short money.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I can get clips. I can go viral. Well, you know what really struck me? I'm such an old person, but I was talking about this is a couple weeks ago, I went on Instagram reels for the first time. And I've told the story before, but I'll make it quick. I was crying, laughing. Imagine if you've never seen any of those kinds of jokes. It's your first time seeing, like, I think you should leave, like, what? With like a different caption.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

So it's all new to me and I'm dying. I don't even realize some of it's hack or some of it stolen or whatever. But then like, and I've told this before, but I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger singing Bone Thunks in Harmony and it was. I think it was AI. It might have been a great impression or it might have been AI. I don't know. But here's the point. I loved that more than anything. I'VE ever seen. When judgment comes for you. I was dying.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't know who made it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Who posted it? I think they were just reposting. You know, they put themselves in the corner being like, check this out.

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

No one's getting the following. No one's getting the fan. No one's getting the credit. There's no name attached to it. I'm not buying a ticket. I'm not seeing you in town. It's nothing you made. I don't know what you made. You made like a tile in a mall. That's what you made. I walk on you on my way to a store, and the store makes the money.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You make nothing. So the long money is to, you know, get good at stand up.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I was gonna make a big.

[Skyler Higley]

Point, but I was like, the long money is no, but also get better, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Skyler Higley]

To me, what you're also saying is moving with, you know, creative intent.

[Pete Holmes]

But judgment comes for you, everybody.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Keep going. No do Crossroads.

[Pete Holmes]

I miss my Uncle Charge, y'.

[Skyler Higley]

All.

[Pete Holmes]

What we did was wrong.

[Skyler Higley]

Ye. I'm not even gonna do it. I'm not. I know I'm. No, because I know I'm not gonna nail it, everybody. I can't. Pete, I would love to commit to this bit with you. I would love to commit to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bone Thugs. I would. I would, but I know I'm not gonna nail it.

[Pete Holmes]

And you know what?

[Skyler Higley]

You go.

[Pete Holmes]

No to my point. Katie, can you look up who did that the first time just so we can give them credit?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Sorry to no good to ask you.

[Pete Holmes]

With that, but someone thought of that.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What would be the funniest song for Schwarzenegger to sing?

[Skyler Higley]

I didn't know. Is that okay? I did a similar point.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I was interrupting.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no. I forgot what the point was. We both have adhd. Of course. I'll get back to it. You know what? It's something I talk about all the time. And I'll get back to it. I remember it. I made a similar video. That was Cat Williams's Daniel Plainview.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Skyler Higley]

Because.

[Pete Holmes]

AI.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I just did it. And because I thought. Because I don't. I. Why. Why would we.

[Pete Holmes]

So that's my point. You can't find it.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't find it.

[Skyler Higley]

It's.

[Pete Holmes]

It's. You just wrote it on a piece of paper and put it in a tornado.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

It's gone.

[Skyler Higley]

And that's why I don't want to do. Like, when I came out and was like, you can make this person do this. And it's like, that can be funny. But it's also like, okay, well, this makes it irrelevant to. Not to do an impression for how close you sound to the person. What I would like and the reason why I would still watch an impressionist on SNL or something or somebody who's doing an impression like that is like the art of you being able to do that. I don't care. A computer can do anything. I do not give a shit.

[Pete Holmes]

Val did an impression. Oh. Of a five year old. We know. On the way down. And when she did it first it was perfect and we cried. Then she did it again and I literally. We laughed. It was like it's veering into caricature. But I still love it, of course. But like, that was. Human beings have an analysis. We all have it. My mom has it. An engine that when she hears an impression goes, is it real? Is it good? Where is it? Oh, it's getting a little wobbly. It's like watching a basketball go around the rim and then it goes in. That's the thrill, a computer being like, perfect, like, hey, cool. My Schwarzenegger isn't as good as that AI Schwarzenegger. But you can tell it's me and you can tell it's a guy trying and then there's a thrill when I accidentally nail it.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. Well, it's like a painting. As in like, you know, hugging the Joker.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, there it is.

[Skyler Higley]

You could have just like mocked up a Photoshop of that happening and it being like a thing. It's like, okay, well, there's that. You could have AI'd that. Well, there's that image. Who?

[Pete Holmes]

Why?

[Skyler Higley]

I don't give a shit.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm trying to teach this to my daughter. Well, does this come up, like, how to do.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, shit.

[Pete Holmes]

Is how.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, my God.

[Pete Holmes]

This is the painting we're talking about. The making of this painting was the joy.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I like when I made this. The quiet and the detail. And it's not perfect, but it's.

[Skyler Higley]

It's mine. But it's.

[Pete Holmes]

Dang it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, but it's also. It's also very good. It's. It's an artistic. You know, there's at least an interpolation of what is the world. And then that came through me and then now goes out to everybody else.

[Pete Holmes]

But if I typed in to, you know, mid journey or whatever, Batman hugging the Joker, it would do a perfect one.

[Skyler Higley]

It's not about seeing Batman hugging the Joker. It's about making Batman, hugging the Joker and then sharing that. And. And the connection that it creates between humans to share something that was made right.

[Pete Holmes]

That, I would say is also the point of comedy.

[Skyler Higley]

I agree.

[Pete Holmes]

I've said this a million times. But. But I'm gonna have a bad set if I'm like, how do I open? What do I say? And you go, like, everything is an excuse to hang out is one way to put it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, to be together. I would say everything is an excuse to, like, love, meaning, like, to see ourselves in each other. Like, to come together is another way to put it.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And, like, this podcast is an excuse to do it. We know each other would never have a meal. Stand up is an excuse for all these strangers to get together and merge and all that stuff. And it feels fantastic. Right? And art. I've been telling this to my daughter because we'll be coloring something, and I can see that she's rushing, and it's really hard to teach my daughter. She doesn't want to be taught directly. So I'll just kind of, like, say, like, you know, one of the things I like about drawing is how I feel while I'm drawing. Like, I'm not trying to finish. I like that it's quiet. I like that I can focus on something and kind of disappear while I'm doing it. But I couldn't tell her that. But that's the point. Like, we could have a machine do it. But, like, when you're doing it, who are you and where are you and how do you feel?

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And then when I look at that painting, I'm remembering how I felt when I made it. And when we see the brushstrokes of an artist, we get a sense of how they were feeling and how they evoke that in you.

[Skyler Higley]

I remember the first time I did acid in the woods. Yeah. Up your alley, of course. What?

[Pete Holmes]

Tim Robinson.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, what. What is acid? The first time I did it, I remember my friends started, like, playing music on the guitar. And I remember while I was painting, something like, I. In my brain, I also don't know how this connects to what we were saying before, but in my brain, I was like, this somehow, this blue that I'm painting, what this is right now is. Is the same thing as that note that he's playing. These are the same thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Skyler.

[Skyler Higley]

You know what I mean, Peter? You know what I mean, guy? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What you're saying, unfortunately, I think is in the category of the most interesting thing that very few people are interested in.

[Skyler Higley]

And you know what? That's where my comedy has always suffered.

[Pete Holmes]

That's been my problem. No, I say this all the time. Why do you have to be stoned for that to be interesting? But I am not stoned, and I find that deeply interesting. The idea that the blue of your paintbrush is the same as a music note is what I would call the great mystery. The great truth is that, like, a sound is made of the knowing of the sound, and a sensation, like rubbing my fingers together, is made of the knowing of the sensation. So they are the same thing. Seeing is made of the knowing of seeing, and hearing is made of the. So you could say they're both experiencing and they're both modulations of consciousness. One is a color, one is a sound. But the epiphany that those are the same thing is literally what you would say if you were doing an impression of, like, an unstable person or a prophet.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. It really just depends on how showered they are, I think. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

How dirty are their shoes?

[Skyler Higley]

How dirty are they? And then we'll find out. If someone's real crisp, and then they say that you go, I think he got it. Probably Jesus. Like, that's why Terrence Howard's getting away with all his math stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

Because he looks fantastic.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Because he's rich.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Skyler Higley]

You can make new math if you're rich. Sorry, what were you saying about Jesus?

[Pete Holmes]

What you already said about Terrence Howard, actually, is because I think Rob Bell wrote this interesting book where he was like, there were people. There were systems in place to take care of holy people. Meaning someone paid Jesus's bills. Like the people with him, like the disciples and the women that were with did, like, sponsored. No, no, no. I mean, they handled his affairs like everyone has stuff.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I wish I could summarize this better. I just remember reading a chapter called who Paid Jesus's Bills?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. I mean, I've never thought of the financials of Jesus before, and now I'm.

[Pete Holmes]

Really like, well, there's other examples.

[Skyler Higley]

There's like, did he have to do, like, corporates? You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

You mean, like, to make money?

[Skyler Higley]

Make a lot of money.

[Pete Holmes]

Sermon on the mound.

[Skyler Higley]

He's like, I kind of did that.

[Pete Holmes]

I wanted to.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay. You know, if you have bre. Can multiply the bread if you.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, people are bringing in rolls.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Prodigal son.

[Skyler Higley]

Do that one trick where you make them see again. Do that one trick.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Skyler Higley]

Do you ever think Jesus was, like, preaching and he was like, this. This one sucks. Like, he wasn't in it where he's like, bombing. Can I say, did Jesus ever bomb?

[Pete Holmes]

The way that I think of Jesus? See, people do fully God with Jesus a lot, which is the. The. I would say the. A shortcoming of the way I was raised. Jesus just became Superman. I mean, Clark Kent, like, Superman. Superman. Totally, totally perfect. Born perfect. Never sinned, never doubted, nothing. No transformation. He was just a straight line. He was born and he stayed there. And I'm like, what a bummer.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, I really.

[Pete Holmes]

And this makes my Jesus so much more. I was gonna say delectable, but, like, enjoyable. Amazing is that there were. I'm sure there were sermons where he was just sort of like. Like they were not vibing.

[Skyler Higley]

People were like, that was Jesus kind of overrated? He's everywhere right now. The industry loves him. He's nothing. There's a dude going, jesus. You guys, I traveled all the way from Nicaea for this and now, God damn. I got a babysitter. I got a babysitter and Jesus just bombed.

[Pete Holmes]

I got a babysitter and Jesus did not have it. He had food poisoning. Yeah, like, he just wasn't feeling it.

[Skyler Higley]

Didn't have it that day.

[Pete Holmes]

This episode is brought to us by our friends at Living Libations. If you listen to the show, you hear me talk about living libations all the time, and it's no surprise I'm mindful about what I put in my body. Try to be careful about that. But I wasn't always careful about what I was putting on my body. And that meant using health and beauty products that weren't good, filled with toxicity levels never intended for humans, of course. That stuff gets in your skin, gets in your blood, gets in your body. So enter living libations to fix all of that. They make high end, wonderful gift, by the way, for the holiday season here that we're in. Wonderful gift. They make high end, badass, effective products with ingredients that you can pronounce, recognize, and are safe for your body. And they work. It's the most effective skin care I found for hair, eyes, teeth, even baby care products, even sunblock, everything you need. This is a wonderful way to support the show, but it's also the most natural. That doesn't mean it's like, weak or middle of the road. It's badass, effective, powerful stuff like their exfoliant that they make you recognize all the ingredients. And it is the grittiest, most effective, most exfoliating exfoliant. Never said exfoliant. So much that I've ever used in my Life. I love their love. Best Skin Ever Face Moisturizer Love the sun. Sunblock. Anything you have in your medicine cabinet, Living Libations has a premium and natural replacement for it. It's a wonderful way to support the show. Get something small, get something big, get something for someone you love. 15% off by going to livinglibations.com weird that's livinglibations.com weird makes a great gift. Also, you guys know I'm obsessed with my immunity with gut health as well as fitness, endurance, metabolism as well as hair and skin radiance. And I recently discovered one product that does all of those things, that handles all of those things and it couldn't be easier. Talking about Armor Colostrum Colostrum is the first nutrition we receive in life and it contains all of the essential nutrients our bodies need to thrive. Talking about reactivating hair growth and glowing skin, talking about igniting your metabolism and fortifying gut health so you feel less bloated, that's the first thing I noticed. As well as fueling your fitness performance and recovery and stabilizing your blood sugar and accelerating fat burning, Colostrum is Armor. Colostrum is a proprietary concentrate of bovine Colostrum that harnesses over 400 living bioactive nutrients that rebuild the barriers of your body and fuel cellular health for a host of research backed health benefits. It's flavorless, it's easy to take. Sometimes I just throw it straight in my mouth and wash it down with water. I also like the packets they make. Blood Orange is my favorite flavored armor. It's wholly natural, sustainable and was developed with the highest integrity grass fed in the US and they guarantee the highest potency and bioavailability of any Colostrum on the market. You can work it out with a special deal. 15 off your first order go to tryarma.com weird or enter weird at checkout for 15 off. That's T R Y A R M R-A dot com weird back to the show. I feel this way about my own life sometimes when I'm suffering or struggling or doubting or just like kind of being a crispy bitch, like I hate everybody or I'm depressed or whatever it might be, it doesn't always work. But I go like, yeah, and what good are you if you never feel that way? Okay, what good is that, dude? If you come to me, you're my friend and you say I feel depressed and I'm just like, just try to.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, make a list of sunshine things to fix it.

[Pete Holmes]

Rainbows like you want Someone that goes like, I get it. Yeah, it's fucking nuts.

[Skyler Higley]

And yeah, it's. It's a lot of that now. And it's. It's. I think that.

[Pete Holmes]

What's a lot of what?

[Skyler Higley]

It's just people being like, I get it because it sucks. Because it does suck a lot for a lot of people right now. But it's like, so, you know, it. It's hard to then go like. Like, eventually you do have to climb out of that, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And is that kind of like, is that your. Is. Are you feeling that as a young person that that's your group.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, that everybody's depressed? Well, of course.

[Pete Holmes]

I was saying. What was I saying on the way down? There's something really, really funny. Val and I did. Tell me what. How you relate to this as a 28 year old. We were talking about the system, right? Val just got her hair.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, I love talking about the system.

[Pete Holmes]

We're gonna talk about the system. Val just had her hair done and she looks beautiful. And she was telling me that she noticed that some of our guy friends were treating her differently. She, like, had a very nice color and everything, so her hair looks great. And they were like, you look great. And they're giving her attention. And she was talking to another one of her girlfriends that she kind of feels like a crispy bitch, that she's like, here I am playing into the patriarchy and all that stuff. And her friend was like, yeah, but at the end of the day, it's about you. You want to game the system. You can do your hair and people will be nicer to you. This is a. This is a big one, and I'm gonna give it to you in a moment. I'm thinking about it. Go ahead. And then I was like, val, I know I'm a man and it's different, but like, I. I'm also playing the game. It's not necessarily how I look, but something that was very profound for me was when we shot at the Comedy Cellar, when we were doing Crashing. And the Comedy Cellar for a decade was this very scary place. And I wouldn't say people were mean to me, but it was kind of cold in there. Let's just say then we shoot now we've taken it over. We got. We got cameras on rails and. And it's my show. And now everyone's being kind of nice. I'm not saying all of that was insincere, but I kind of felt like I had gotten a boob job, you know what I mean? So now people are kind of like, nobody was kissing my ass. I'm just saying, like, wow, Boy, there's an Eminem lyric where he goes, all of a sudden, I have some 5,000 cousins or something. So I felt like, oh. But then it made me feel kind of sad in the same way that Val's hair getting her positive treatment made her kind of feel sad and a little bit lonely and a little bit phony. But then I was like, yes, and it's just kind of what's happening. Meaning in Mario Brothers, there's a mushroom, and if you eat it, you double in size. And now I feel like people would be like, and this is fair. It's valid, but I should be big in your eyes even if I don't eat the mushroom. And then someone's just like, yeah, but in this game, if you eat the mushroom, you double in size. And it's like, well, what if I don't feel like eating a mushroom? I get it. But if you eat the mushroom, you'll double in size. But I'm valuable even when I'm small. Yeah, that's true. But if a goomba hits you, you'll die. So you should eat the mushroom when you double in size. But people don't want to play the game. Did that.

[Skyler Higley]

That made me think a lot of things, Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'm gonna unplug my mic.

[Skyler Higley]

First of all. First of all, I've never done this before. That's crazy. That's crazy. He unplugged the mic. He comes back and he's back. No, of course. Give me a couple preaches. Yeah, No, I think that it. Well, it's interesting that you go. Someone goes, I'm experiencing sort of this patriarchal male gaze situation. That. What I call the situation.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And. And then you're like, oh, yeah, that's like when I had a TV show.

[Pete Holmes]

Because.

[Skyler Higley]

Facts. Because that is. Thank you. That is something that I think is not. I think I know that women have to deal with all the time. And. And as you were saying, part of the game is sort of the patriarchy and the male gaze and stuff. And. And is what happening? What is happening? But what I do have to push back on is that in sort of that metaphor, we go, okay, there's this mushroom. It makes you big. You should be big, even if it's not fair. But. But. But we are. A lot of what we're doing now culturally, is going well, okay? So maybe there shouldn't be that mushroom that some people can get and others can't.

[Pete Holmes]

Get.

[Skyler Higley]

Or that you. That you need that mushroom for this to happen. And you can say it is what it is, but that is part of the Matrix saying, well, you can't wake up from the.

[Pete Holmes]

Why would you wake up from the Matrix perpetuating it.

[Skyler Higley]

It does.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but don't.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Ask where the. Where the Nikes come from. Yeah, just wear them.

[Skyler Higley]

You can't really, like, down it's. Or you can acknowledge it, but I think it's. It's weird to fully downplay something like that. And all, I guess in this specific scenario, all you can do is commiserate and go, damn, like, things are unfair. And let's talk about it and think about it and. And engage in having a deeper understanding of what it is to be a woman with a body in this society and how it might feel. Because, like, for the two of us, I'm assuming, unless either of us transitions. That's not a joke. That's truly. Like, if we did, we would never really experience or understand that. So you have to be aware without being like, oh, I'm going to kind of downplay this stuff and say, it is a part of the system. Because we can easily bury that. You can. You can really easily, easily move on with your day. Whereas, like, Val's going, like, yeah, I'm going through sort of an identity shift because I got a haircut, because I'm feeling the perception on me shift. That would be fucking crazy, right? That would be fucking crazy. And it's like, I relate to that in my ways as well, but it's still, like, not the same as, like, you know, on a physical level that you would have to deal with knowing that this is embedded into the way people are valuing you all the time.

[Pete Holmes]

Totally.

[Skyler Higley]

That's.

[Pete Holmes]

And by the way, just to be clear, this is the hyper consciousness. I wasn't saying it was one for one. I was saying the lonely feeling I got when people were nice to me at the seller was similar to, like, upgrading my appearance.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Not one for one. And it's deeply unrelatable. I want to concede.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I completely understand. I just was.

[Pete Holmes]

But you're. You're right.

[Skyler Higley]

I was talking about how the. Because everything is sort of hierarchy and status.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

And I was talking. I was just.

[Pete Holmes]

No, this is awesome.

[Skyler Higley]

This is how we. I relate to that even more directly. I am. I perceive. To audiences especially, I feel like I'm a different person or a different comedian based on whether or not I'm wearing glasses to an audience. Oh, because I wear glasses. I'm a black nerd. I don't. I can. I still am a black nerd or whatever, but I. It's. There's less of a.

[Pete Holmes]

Sort of interesting is that guitar was noticing that I wasn't noticing because I said you looked. I said crisper, I think, than when I see you.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I do wear glasses at work.

[Skyler Higley]

Wear glasses at work a lot. Because it's often like, whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I. Skyler and I do After Midnight a lot.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah. After Midnight on cbs. Everybody watch it. Shout out. Nick Spurnstein.

[Pete Holmes]

Edit that out.

[Skyler Higley]

Don't edit it out. You want to be. You want to work on After Midnight? No, I'm just kidding. I would never.

[Pete Holmes]

I would never. Are you kidding? I love it.

[Skyler Higley]

Interesting.

[Pete Holmes]

You're saying black nerd.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah. Sort of that social concept.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's a great. We're having the same conversation.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You take your glasses off, and now suddenly Superman. Yeah. Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

It's a weird, like, perception thing. And especially, you know, I also think this applies to women. I can only speak for myself. If you are a black person, you are put into these categories.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh.

[Skyler Higley]

That are like, oh, well, I'm gonna perceive you in a specific way based.

[Pete Holmes]

On not just black people, but all people. We want a category.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

We love a category.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

But you're absolutely. I'm just. I'm saying, even from my experience, you'll go like Jordan Carlos. You go, oh, black kind of black nerd.

[Skyler Higley]

Like that.

[Pete Holmes]

When he got. The reason Jordan Carlos came to mind was he did his audition and for Montreal, and he said. I think he said something like, I'm a black nerd. I'm a dorky black guy.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what he said. And that was the year he got it because he had figured out a category. I don't know, Jordan. I don't mean to be speaking out of school year, but, like, people love a category 100, and Montreal loves a category 100%. I got it. When I said I'm a fun dad, that was my category.

[Skyler Higley]

You have to interpolate yourself to people, especially in an audience that doesn't know you. And again, you're like, well, you should see me if I'm small before I take the mushroom. But the mushroom in this scenario is being able to explain yourself in plain terms. I think the problem comes in where, like, when it comes to whiteness and blackness, there is a different perception of being able to be white in moving spaces and being black and move in spaces that there are. There's so much More that is expected of you, I think, from quote unquote, your own people. And then also so much more of a perception that you either have to play into or play against and be aware of it at all times.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what Jordan's doing, isn't he?

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, by saying, I'm a black.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm a black nerd.

[Pete Holmes]

Isn't that why.

[Skyler Higley]

It's like a caveat. You're like, I'm a. I'm a. This category.

[Pete Holmes]

This category.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. It's like, oh, I'm black. Caveat, nerd.

[Pete Holmes]

Or, by the way, Jordan, I'm not saying that was you selling out or anything. I'm saying that's what people kind of want.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. And I don't think it's selling out. I think the difference for me, because I'm kind of working on a bit about being a black nerd, but it's also living in a post black nerd world where sort of the king of black nerds became Donald Glover in 2013, and now we're 10 years after that. And the way race relations work and how people see each other is in a lot of ways a lot better, but also a lot less simplistic. And it's sort of harder to go in front of an audience and sort of interpolate yourself and know that you could be speaking to two different groups of people at the same time. In my case, it's white and black. And this runs deeper because I was adopted by white people as a baby and whatever. But then it leads to this, like, sort of bifurcated way in which I'm writing my material. Because you're like, oh, like, find your voice. And it's like, well, I have a voice, but I also have to code switch. And when I'm writing a joke, I go, this is like, how it would feel to say it to a black audience. And this is how it would feel to say it to a white audience. Yeah. And that doesn't. I'm not saying, oh, I've mastered that. I'm the king of that. But it's like, I know why. I know how different things sound to different people, in a way.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

So I just.

[Pete Holmes]

We're fascinated with that as. As people. That reminds me of the Departed, where they say to Leo, Leonardo DiCaprio's character, they're like, did you have two accents, two voices? Because he was with the upper class and then he was with the. You drop your Oz on the weekend. That sort of thing. But I've also. There's Lots of examples of that. For some reason, we love the person that can code switch because they have that heightened awareness of what they're doing in each situation instead of like just being in one situation and not even knowing that they're in that situation.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

You had the. The contrast. I guess that helps you know yourself.

[Skyler Higley]

There's a lot of contra. I just think in knowing myself and knowing and like coming from an all white world and space and then moving to Chicago and then going and navigating more spaces that had more black people in them, knowing that when you speak, you're like, supposed to sort of. In a way, there is like a burden of like, speaking for black people in a way. If I were to get super famous and say stuff, it'd be like, okay, this is what is speaking for black people. There is that sort of thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Sure.

[Skyler Higley]

Whereas, like, nobody's being like Pete Holmes speak for the white guys, you know, like, it's a different.

[Pete Holmes]

This goes back to the mushroom thing. There's something. There's a parallel to be made with the mushroom thing is there's like a. There's an unfair power that I can just be Pete.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Not an entire race.

[Skyler Higley]

You're like, yeah, but it's Rainbow Road. But it's like, yeah, but we gotta march down Rainbow Road.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? That's right. Here's another. I was gonna put this to you about the mushroom idea. So this idea of going with the flow or just going like the matrix is just the matrix. It's. It's eating the steak going, ignorance is bliss. Right. Cipher. In the Matrix, there's also something talking about short money and long money again is like. It can seem to someone like me that's going like, just keep marching. Let. And let's drop the. The. And I don't mean protest march. I mean, like, there's a. There's a moment.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm in a protest march. I'm in a protest as much. Go ahead.

[Pete Holmes]

When. If everyone is. Go like, so now we're literally afloat. It's like a river of people walk. Walking in one direction. And that's the patriarchy, and that's all the institutionalized things that are benefiting some and impressing others. And we're just going with the flow. So I'm saying to Val, just get your hair done and people will be nicer to you. Like, let's not.

[Skyler Higley]

That would be a crazy thing to say.

[Pete Holmes]

Right? No, I know, I know you never said that.

[Skyler Higley]

But let's just get your hair Done. People be nicer to you. You smoke a cigarette.

[Pete Holmes]

That's actually kind of what her lady friend was saying to her was like, yeah, yeah, I didn't say that. That she was saying like at the end of the day you're kind of like, it's self care, but it's short term self care. But like the people that break away from the group. I'm going to switch metaphors. It's like Supermarket Sweep. Remember that game doesn't matter. Or Nintendo Video Power. Any, any game show where you get to run around and grab prizes. So there's a people running around this sort of rigged system grabbing prizes. And if you opt out of that system, and this is what we're seeing with some of the, like, you should, I should be powerful before I eat your mushroom. Like, why do I have to eat your mushroom? Why do I have to get my hair colored? Why do I have to have a TV show or whatever. It might to be important. So they break off. So if you're looking at that, you see people running around a supermarket filled with prizes that the system put in. Those are the available titillations. And then there's this group that from above, you're like, well, this group is just not in the supermarket getting prizes. Looks really stupid. But if that group spends enough time and ferments and organizes and strategizes and lays out their beliefs, now they build their own a new supermarket. And that's what human beings have been doing over and over and over and over. Yes, but for the short term it looks stupid. You're like, why just get in the supermarket? I know it's not great, but just get in the supermarket. That's kind of what that idea was, which I like that we're unpacking.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes. But I think the trick is, is going. Because again, we start off talking about clips and all this. That is like, that is the supermarket. And then you have to go, okay, if I'm gonna do the Supermarket Sweep, how am I going to do it? And am I going to do it in a way that feels good and know that I could participate in building another supermarket? And how do we make that other supermarket not. Not the same as the one that already exists. That's right, because that will happen. You know, these people who I being ex Mormon, there's these people who, if they're in it a little bit longer than me, they suddenly make their whole lives about being ex Mormon in this way that is very like, no, to me, you left so that you didn't have to really be a part of that and think about it all the time. And now your whole thing is like, oh, the Mormon Church does this and this, and I hate this. And they're always, like, mad about it and they're, like, railing against it. Which, I mean, they are, technically. Right. But I'm also just like. Yeah, but, like, put it down. Like, you had all of this. Put it down.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Don't get into your own world of.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't let raging against that machine be a way for the machine to sneak in the back door.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It still has you.

[Skyler Higley]

Matrix two.

[Pete Holmes]

Matrix two.

[Skyler Higley]

Because he. Remember, he gets out and they go. This was part of the Matrix the whole time of you to get out. Where he talks to the guy with all the screens. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The architect.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. The arch. Yeah. The guy. I call him the guy with all the screens. He's billed. In my mind is the guy with all the screens.

[Pete Holmes]

It's fine. There's just a lot of issues with the second Matrix.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, yes, but I'm just. I'm. I don't like the movie. I'm just talking about metaphorically. Peter, have you heard of a metaphor?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. No, I got. I got lost in thinking about how that scene was, how that. How it's so much talking.

[Skyler Higley]

I only watched it once, but, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I gave it a lot of tries.

[Skyler Higley]

Point being.

[Pete Holmes]

So they were like. You were always. You're the. You're like the seventh Neo.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It's always been built in that somebody leaves, but then they always choose, Save everybody. And he chooses Save Trinity.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. But the point being that all of the. Because we existed in a world of supermarkets and Super Marios and other super things.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Then we go do our own thing and then suddenly we're building our own problematic supermarket.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's. Right.

[Skyler Higley]

That's what we tend to do.

[Pete Holmes]

It's hard to be truly free. And in a weird way, we're back to me being vegan to.

[Skyler Higley]

I was gonna say that.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Skyler Higley]

I was gonna say that you're not free because you're, like, being like, I'm doing this.

[Pete Holmes]

I actually think that's exactly what we're saying with Mormonism. It's like, I'm going to be vegan to upset my parents. But in that way, I'm. By the way, I'm vegan for other reasons. But to oversimplify, in the same way, I am doing it because of my parents. I'm still the result of my parents, even though I'm doing it to be free of my parents. That's not actual freedom. Actual freedom would be enjoying a delicious Arby's. Whatever they make at Arby's.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, Horse sauce, triple pork meat.

[Pete Holmes]

Triple pork meat.

[Skyler Higley]

Arby's. Horse meat sauce.

[Pete Holmes]

Or was horse sauce.

[Skyler Higley]

We have the meats.

[Pete Holmes]

We have the meat.

[Skyler Higley]

Crazy. That's gross.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so disgusting.

[Skyler Higley]

We have the meat. Jesus, the meats. Yeah, the meats. Okay, why not Just not like Arby's. Let's come eat food. Maybe something nice.

[Pete Holmes]

How about Arby's? It's a roast beef sandwich. You know it?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know us?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's Arby's on your porch. Why are you acting like this? It's Arby's. Let me in.

[Skyler Higley]

Just come on. Come on, come on. It's me, Arby's.

[Pete Holmes]

You know Arby's. Look at my hat.

[Skyler Higley]

Gotta vote for mics. Gotta vote for mics.

[Pete Holmes]

I got a hat.

[Skyler Higley]

Got a hat.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on.

[Skyler Higley]

It's a hat.

[Pete Holmes]

There is your clip. All right.

[Skyler Higley]

The whole time we're talking about freedom and then also just being like, clip.

[Pete Holmes]

Clip, clip, clip, clip, clip it, clip it.

[Skyler Higley]

Which sucks. Which I don't like. It is again, like, I got into this to be free, and now suddenly you're like this self aware. Stand up.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no, no.

[Pete Holmes]

You're right.

[Skyler Higley]

But then now suddenly it's this self. Aware. Like, I'm aware of how trapped I am within an identity and a brand and a system and an industry and all this stuff. And you're like, wow, maybe I'm less free than I ever could have been psychically, especially in the world of social media.

[Pete Holmes]

Sorry to go back to this, but, like, go ahead. To rob an artist of the. Of the drive, of the motivation to become really good.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So when I was starting, the difference was no clips, no nothing. Maybe you could get on a late night show, but the only thing you could do is get really good at stand up. But now you really are losing something as a young stand up. If you are rewarded with these. It reminds me of, like getting someone hooked on a drug.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So I get them hooked on this.

[Skyler Higley]

Get them.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you like affirmation? We have the synthetic affirmation. And I know it's maybe silly to say that stand up is a better affirmation, but there's a. There's a deeper quality to it. When you do an hour of stand up with people, you've all been through something together. When someone watches, like, once a clip of mine gets a lot of views, it doesn't really do anything for me. I'M just sort of like, well, maybe more people will come to shows. That'd be nice.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But like, even that. Well, I. I don't know who that gonna miss. Everybody. I don't know who that is. And they don't know who I am.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. Well, the thing is, I think that you can, because also now I'm feeling that we're being overly Internet negative and you know, after Midnight Dog. You know what I mean? But.

[Pete Holmes]

But Taylor even makes jokes about how she doesn't care about the Internet on the show.

[Skyler Higley]

She doesn't give a shit about the Internet. It's fun. Yeah, but I mean, like, I do think that you can be creative and create things for the Internet, which I've done. You film sketches, you shoot sketches and make little bits. That is fun. But the affirmation does feel different. Yeah, it is sort of condom on, condom off, validation. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

I completely agree. I'm going for the raw dog feel.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes, of course. Why would you not? That is what we're all going for. But I think that we can. Yes. Become very addicted to that and then just go, oh, well, it does become about. And of course I have enough trauma that of course I want a lot of validation. But then it becomes more about the validation than the art of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Where it's like I want the validation of taking something that potentially traumatized me or was really bad and shitty and turning that into a joke and then everybody laughs at it and I expel some of what that demon is. And.

[Pete Holmes]

And they do too.

[Skyler Higley]

And they do too. And then it also can speak to a larger point of what we're all experiencing.

[Pete Holmes]

I completely agree. It's a trick. It's a benevolent trick. It's like, this will feel good.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You'll be get affirmation. People will laugh. But it's a trick. It's an excuse to hang out and it's an excuse to exorcise those demons. Let's go to the mid roll here because I have to pee and I'll be right back. This almost never happens, but I had a lot to drink. I'll be right back. And for anybody that's like, oh, that's enough, enough. After the break, let's talk about. I want to talk about Mormonism and I want to talk about your family, because that sounds really, really interesting.

[Skyler Higley]

We'll be right back.

[Pete Holmes]

This episode is also brought to us by On IT and Alpha Brain. Alpha Brain is a nootropic. What does that mean? It means it's Earth grown ingredients. It's not a stimulant. It's not like caffeine. It just gives your noodle, your noggin the nutrition that it needs from the earth to concentrate, to focus and to thrive. Everything that I do that's creative, I take two or three alpha brain 15 minutes prior to I've done this for years and years and years. It is absolutely a secret weapon. Before this podcast, before I sit down to write, before I sit down to do stand up, before I stand up to do stand up. And even when I'm just going out for a party and I want to be able to access my full vocabulary and my memory, my concentration and my engagement with my brain and the power of it is an absolute secret weapon. I wish I knew about it in college. I'm so glad I know about it now. I keep it in my car, I keep it in my travel bag. I keep it in the pockets of my coat. On it. Alpha Brain is a game changer and a life changer for me. If you like 1/10 as much as I do, you're gonna. It's gonna blow your mind. Go to onit.com weird you'll get 10 everything you see 10 off everything you see on that landing page. Oh n n I-t.com weird. Support your brain. Support this show. We're also brought to us by our friends at Roosevelts. That's R S V L T s. Who has time for vellum? Roosevelts are the makers of the most fun, best feeling, best fitting, best looking clothing that I have found in years. They are an apparel brand born for their passion for pop culture in Americana which means they have amazing Star Wars, Disney, Nickelodeon, Big Lebowski, the Office. These are statement pieces. Wonderful fun. They have Batman stuff too. Fun and funny and interesting shirts that get the conversation rolling. They also just make some incredibly high quality, well made, perfect fitting, perfect looking dress clothes, dress, button down shirts, everything. It fits so damn nice. Moisture wicking. It's extremely breathable. It's made from Kuna Flex which is a four way stretch material. They have shirts for everyone. That means toddler, youth, men, women and I'm talking about those fun patterns. Jurassic park, the Office. More. They even have some more laid back bespoke original designs which I love and I always wear when I do late night night or stand up on television. They won't shrink or wrinkle after washing. I can attest to that. I just throw them in my carry on. It's amazing. They also have hats, bomber jackets, performance hoodies, and shorts. We won't blame you if you never want to take it off. They are based out of Hoboken, New Jersey, and they are bold and fun for those who dare mighty things, just like their namesake, Teddy Roosevelt. So if you want to get some, check out RSVLTS.com or follow them on Instagram @RSVLTS. Support your wardrobe. Support this show. Tell them we sent you at rsvlts back to the show.

[Skyler Higley]

When I started, I, I, I weirdly didn't think I was gonna talk about race at all. And then people found out that I was adopted and that I was raised Mormon, and they were like, no, you should talk about that. And I was like, why? Come on, why?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but your first couple years, everyone. I feel like not everyone, but that's your time to pretend like you're not gonna talk about the thing.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And then. And then everybody told me. But see, that's the thing. I think now. I think now when people start out and I this. I weirdly feel like I'm the old person now because it's different than when I started. Significantly.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

I. I think now when people start out, they know to talk about the thing, and they go into it. Talking about the thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And that's weird.

[Pete Holmes]

I prefer it the way you did it, but that is the way that I did it. I'm also thinking of Kumail, who never talked about being from. He talked a little bit about being from Pakistan, but, like, never wanted to lean into it too much and then ended up doing the Big Sick, a movie that was really about his experience. But I kind of think there's something right. About that. You don't want to start by being like, this is what you expect me to talk about, and I'm going to talk about it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Well, then you start to feel a little boxed in. And then the problem is, I think something that I've experienced, too, is then going, like, I have even more to talk about with all this. And then also, I am a little tired of talking about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Skyler Higley]

Like, with the Mormon stuff, I'm like, people still hear it and go, like, do stuff about that. And I am even doing a show right now that's about, like, Mormonism.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a one person.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And I did one version of it that was very rough, and I was like, like, you know, I'm only doing this because I thought this is what other people wanted, and I'm not as interested in it as. I shouldn't say this, like, right before I'm about to do it. Again, but. Yeah, but I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'm as interested in this form of this. And I. I was talking to my girlfriend the other day and I was like, you know, a lot of people, and I think it might be more of a white thing. Will go, oh, Mormonism. And want to, like, talk about it. And I. And I'll be like, yeah, it was weird, but the weirdness of being adopted and growing up in a white household in an all white place was, I think, overwhelmingly weirder. And they intersect. It's like a phenomenal sort of intersection of like, yeah, of course, the religion itself is built around sort of white patriarchy. And so too was the city and state built around that religion and all the laws and stuff. And so that led to it being weird. But it's like, it wasn't just weird because of Mormonism. It was weird because it was.

[Pete Holmes]

Mormonism was also there. Mormonism was in the backseat.

[Skyler Higley]

I mean, I think. I mean, maybe the passenger seat. You know what I mean? But like, the driver's seat was just like whiteness and what. Because it's just like a very specific form of.

[Pete Holmes]

So you were. Both your mom and dad are white?

[Skyler Higley]

Yes. So I was adopted. I. I said, here's why.

[Pete Holmes]

I said, I just noticed in your stand up, you say white dad. But I was like, maybe his mom. No, thing.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

That confuses the premise or something.

[Skyler Higley]

I. I had white mom. I can't believe they sent you that. The oldest set in the world. Jesus Christ. You know what? What? Like, what if. What was your first. What was your first album? Someone said that and like, Pete, this Pete Holmes guy, check him out.

[Pete Holmes]

You'd be like, what still happens.

[Skyler Higley]

What the hell? The.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I tell you something? Look, I can't stop saying this, but there's an expression. I saw it on Facebook, and my goal. I'm just kidding. Is to have it attributed to me.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm just kidding. Take it, take it, take it.

[Pete Holmes]

I do want to take it, but I. I can't take it. It was. But I can't find it anywhere. And it was just over a picture of Snoop Dogg and it was a quote. And I've googled the quote. It's not Snoop Dogg. It's nobody from what I can tell. But the quote is, don't get upset hearing something you already knew. And isn't that good?

[Skyler Higley]

That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

My manager occasionally will send the wrong headshot, the wrong clip, the wrong bio, and you just go, like, don't get upset. You know that happens, right? It's not personal. It's just something that happens is fine.

[Skyler Higley]

I don't feel. It's not that. If I was.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not for you.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, okay.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not telling you that.

[Skyler Higley]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just letting you know you're not alone.

[Skyler Higley]

I understand. No, it happens to everybody. I think that what happens. What's happening in me is like, it gives that imposter syndrome flare up where it's like. Well, I probably know the quality of what that was. And somebody watching something from like five years ago when I'm only eight years in, it's a significant. Yeah, like that.

[Pete Holmes]

But I thought it was great. I really thought it was great. I know everybody. I did mention that the crowd wasn't white hot, but I thought. I thought the material is great. Anyway, whatever it. Talking about, past is the past 15 and you're dead. So you're adopted. There's something like. If I was just talking to you.

[Skyler Higley]

Off mic, I would say, what's the off mic question?

[Pete Holmes]

It's not a question. It's. I'm gonna. There's something really funny about someone adopting you, which is electing to let you into their home and then kicking you out.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like your own kid. You know what I mean by that? Like your birth child. Maybe that was an accident.

[Skyler Higley]

You know what I mean? Like, who knows?

[Pete Holmes]

But they signed up the papers, they got them. There you were.

[Skyler Higley]

And then they were like, material. I have.

[Pete Holmes]

What's that?

[Skyler Higley]

It is getting close. I'm working.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what I mean. We're very close to the nerve of the issue with that kind of grotesque wording that I just offered you. Tell me what you.

[Skyler Higley]

No, but it's like. It's really like. It is. It was strange to go because they got divorced. The joke I've been doing is they go, well, marriage is just paper. And I'm like, well, I'm adopted, so our whole family is just paper. You know, it's very funny. Like, it's. It just. Yeah, it, it and it. This whole family. This whole family.

[Pete Holmes]

Trees in an accordion file.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly 100. An agency put this together.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

We had reps for our family. We were cast exactly way. Damn.

[Pete Holmes]

Adoption is like getting casted.

[Skyler Higley]

It is.

[Pete Holmes]

They looked at the headshots.

[Skyler Higley]

Headshots. They go, what are the special skills? Can he drive? Is he in la?

[Pete Holmes]

Swimming?

[Skyler Higley]

You know, he don't have that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's because if you. If you're not laughing, it's because there's a stereotype that Black people can't swim.

[Skyler Higley]

There's a stereotype that black people can't swim.

[Pete Holmes]

I learned to make it. I learned that from Amy Schumer.

[Skyler Higley]

You learned it from Amy Schumer?

[Pete Holmes]

That's where I first heard.

[Skyler Higley]

She would know. I don't know why I said. Just random. Hate it.

[Pete Holmes]

She said she had a joke where she goes, I'm dating a black guy. He's teaching me how to dance. I'm teaching him how to swim. That was the joke.

[Skyler Higley]

That's cool. That's really cool for a white person to make that joke. I'm sorry. I think I can say that. I think that I can make a criticism about that, and I think it's okay. I don't think it's fully hating on a comedian to go.

[Pete Holmes]

I hope this is in the wide.

[Skyler Higley]

I was wondering if it was supposed to be cut off.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no. I'm, like, trying to touch you in different places.

[Skyler Higley]

Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. No. Oh. Oh, my God. No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Skyler Higley]

It's okay.

[Pete Holmes]

In her. Not even in her defense, just as a point of fact. That was 20 years ago.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I mean, exactly, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm not, I'm not defending. I'm just saying I'm.

[Skyler Higley]

I know, but I, I. This is where I will. I agree with that. Because it's like, again, things change and everything's on the record.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And you tell me that now, and I go, wow. And. But Right. Also. Yeah. Martin Lawrence special that I was watching, he pretty early on goes into a whole bit about getting raped in prison. And it was like, very, like. Yeah, I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it real?

[Skyler Higley]

No, like, like, just if. Oh, I can't go to the. And then it's. And it's a pretty long chunk and it's just like, I'm just gonna wait until this is over to get to somewhere that I'm like, I don't want. I don't want any of this. Yeah. So it's.

[Pete Holmes]

Again, you had to hold your nose through like a 10 minute.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, like, I get it.

[Pete Holmes]

I get it. No, no, no. You're in bounce back. I'm only embarrassed that you thought I was trying to signal you off.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Every part of me was hoping that this is in the episode, this body.

[Skyler Higley]

That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. Mormonism. Fifteen. They got divorced.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. So they got divorced when I was nine. And me and. Me and my adopted dad haven't really had a relationship since I was about 15 or so because we were in a dispute over a. I think it Was, honestly, weirdly enough, a PlayStation 3. I had bought myself a PlayStation 3. He's like, you can't take that to your mom's house. I'm like, well, I bought it. I, like, worked to get the money to buy this, and then it was like, it just became a bigger and bigger thing. That didn't.

[Pete Holmes]

What was his.

[Skyler Higley]

His perspective on it was. Well, I. I'm gonna need. No, no, I'll give context.

[Pete Holmes]

Your family broke up because of a plus thousand?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. I'm like, look, give me that Sly Cooper. That's mine. Senior dad. PlayStation. Yeah. It's a good system, Pete. It's a good system. I wouldn't have done it over a Wii. We weren't breaking up the damn family over a damn Nintendo Wii.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't leave your dad for a switch either.

[Skyler Higley]

No, of course not.

[Pete Holmes]

You need Premium Triple M PlayStation.

[Skyler Higley]

Come on. Yeah. Three iconic.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

I would have done it for her, too.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what you say when you're leaving, Dad. I would have done this for a.

[Skyler Higley]

I would have done this for the PS2. There's some classic on there. I need Crash Bandicoot more than I need a day.

[Pete Holmes]

He's like, I'm gonna Google that and have my feelings hurt later. So what was his perspective?

[Skyler Higley]

So I would work for his dad, my grandpa, and go out into, like, this. This piece of property, this, like, junkyard that they owned out in, like, middle of nowhere, Utah, and, like, make money for, like, painting and mowing lawns and like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Skyler Higley]

And doing weird, odd jobs. I didn't really. It was, like, a thing where I wasn't fully actually needed. It was like, a really old property that had burned down once, and he would pay me to do stuff, and it was, like, my first, like, side gig making money for a while, and I would have, you know, regular job and side gig and do that kind of stuff. So it was his dad. So he's like, well, you made that money through my lineage or whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the most Mormon thing ever. But you begot that money from my seed.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, exactly. So it was. So he was like, well, you can't take it over there. You earned it through my family or whatever. And I was just like, okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it because of spite for your mom?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, 100%.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, he didn't want you to, like, have fun. Now I kind of understand. He's like, I want my house to be fun.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you play here. Here.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't have fun at your mom's house.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly. My dad and that's why I didn't pay child support. He's like, no fun over there. You don't have no money over there, but look over here, it's PlayStation. You know what I mean? It's a. It's a controlling thing. And that gives you sort of perspective on this guy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

So I was like, you know, it was a moment of like, you know, I was like. I remember the last, like, real sort of conversation that we had that wasn't like fully just shouting at each other. Because over the years there's been, you know, one or the other thing. But I was like, well, if I. If I go right, I was old enough to where first he was like. He had gotten weirder and weirder, where I remember saying to him at one point, like, I learned the world. Child abuse. I'm like, this is child abuse. You're doing child abuse right now. Because he was, like, manipulative. He goes, no, you're doing adult abuse. And adults. Children can abuse adults. And I'm going to call the police on you. You. This is what my dad said to me. My white father said this to me. And it's just like, okay, so you're a crazy person. So, Yeah, I remember that.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't think I've ever made this face.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. I mean, just sharing trauma and it's got to be a good bit eventually. There's.

[Pete Holmes]

There's zero discomfort. No, but you're safe and welcome. I'm just like. The face I'm making is like, shock.

[Skyler Higley]

Jesus Christ.

[Pete Holmes]

Horror.

[Skyler Higley]

Of course.

[Pete Holmes]

And also you are kind of saying it funny.

[Skyler Higley]

It's.

[Pete Holmes]

It is kind of interesting.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Because it's going to be a bit. Eventually.

[Pete Holmes]

It will be.

[Skyler Higley]

But I keep. I keep. I keep, like, going back.

[Pete Holmes]

This is an adult abuse.

[Skyler Higley]

This is. It's adult abuse. You can't. What? You can't flip that around. What are you saying?

[Pete Holmes]

I have it written down to try it tonight.

[Skyler Higley]

Drugs are abusing me. What?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Slippery. That's all I'll say. Slippery.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, keep going. But drugs are abusing me. Exactly. It doesn't make any sense. Like, whatever, because that's what it is to be sort of a manipulative, gaslighting narcissist.

[Pete Holmes]

Have you seen the Sidney Poitier Guess who's Coming to Dinner clip? No, I'm going to send it to you.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm going to watch it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's one of the things ever. If you just kind of need someone to speak up for the child, it'll make you cry. And give you the chills, and I. I can't do it justice. But there's. He's. He's confronting his dad. Like, his dad is like, I gave you everything. And he's like, you're damn right you gave me everything. You should give me everything. I'm trying to do his voice, and he's like, if you walk me a thousand miles in the desert, you should walk a thousand miles more because you brought me into this world. I didn't ask to be brought. I'm your child. It's like that?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know if that voice is okay, but I'm trying to do it justice, and it's better at coming at it.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you feel about it? I, like, speak for all black people.

[Skyler Higley]

What's up, y'? All? I was gonna do it, too. What's up, y'? All? What's up, y'? All?

[Pete Holmes]

What's up, y'?

[Skyler Higley]

All? What's up, y'? All? Read more books. Oh, my God. But not in a. Not in a. Not in a Cosby you need to read books way, but just everybody across the board should read more books. I think nobody reads anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

That was my Cosby Exhale.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, I didn't mean to be sort of condescending to Cosby.

[Pete Holmes]

Sending.

[Skyler Higley]

There you go. And that saved it. That saved it.

[Pete Holmes]

All right, so your dad. We got it. We got an image. There's some trauma. There's some abuse.

[Skyler Higley]

It's.

[Pete Holmes]

It's getting funky. Chunky.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. So he was like, you know, I'll get out. He kicked me out one time, and he goes. And I go, you know, if I leave right now, I'm never coming back. And he was like, well, good. Last thing he said. Such a hack line. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. And I remember in that moment, Peter, in that moment, I. In my mind, as I was leaving, I went, it's gonna hack. Like, literally. Literally. I was like, that's a real cliche. Like, he thought he was having, like, a moment, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

But I'm like, he's not smart enough to know that, like, he can't speak honestly and is speaking from, like, what media has taught him to handle these.

[Pete Holmes]

I had it.

[Skyler Higley]

I was like, that's kind of fucking heck, dude.

[Pete Holmes]

The most traumatic night of my life, which actually happened at this house.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

With my family. And there was a big fight. It was this explosion of all this repression. And one night.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, if you were doing it as the movie, it would be like a Full moon. There was something in the air.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It just came to a head.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm a vegan. That's you screaming at your goddamn vegan eating chicken.

[Pete Holmes]

But it was actually kind of similar. What provoked it was like a spiritual thing. My mom was like. Cause I had a statue of Hanuman, which again, was to upset my parents way more than it was an appreciation for Hinduism.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Literally, it did its job. It upset my mother, and I had a statue of Jesus and they were next to each other.

[Skyler Higley]

You're being a white girl that dates a black guy in college is. Is getting involved in his do ism. Yeah, yeah, it's Hanuman. What do you think about that? Mom, you're freaking me out.

[Pete Holmes]

You're freaking me out. This is Hanuman. Anyway, so there was this big explosion where I was like. The line was like, I wrote a book about it. She was like, how do those things coalesce, right? I was like, I wrote a book about it. And I could tell in that moment how hurt my feelings were.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That I had written my book in a large part so that my parents could read who I am, because they wouldn't listen to me for that long, but if I wrote it out, they could read it. So there's a lot of, like, hurt, wounded child in that. And we're. We're coming back to you. But, like, in the fight that, like, ensued, I said to my dad, and it was a real like. Like the full grown person would be like, no, my feelings were hurt. That's how I feel. And I'm sorry if that's not convenient or if it's uncomfortable, but that's how I feel. I didn't do that. I went full. I'd like to think I would do that now, but I went full little boy. And I was like, I'm sorry. I was like, sorry, dad, I'm sorry. And I was really putting it on. And my dad went, love means never having to say you're sorry.

[Skyler Higley]

And I was like, that's crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

Also, it's incorrect, right?

[Skyler Higley]

I believe in the movie.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but I believe in the movie. Love means never having to say you're sorry. Doesn't mean when you love someone, you never have to say you're sorry. Like, it's wrong. It's like reversed.

[Skyler Higley]

Who. What is that? What is this movie?

[Pete Holmes]

Do you know what movie that's from? I think it's just. It's Carly Simon song maybe.

[Skyler Higley]

It's crazy that, that, you know, you'd have a moment and then someone says something that's like written by Nora Epro.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I mean.

[Skyler Higley]

You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Skyler Higley]

A movie called Love Story.

[Pete Holmes]

Love Story.

[Skyler Higley]

Source novel. It's also a novel. Oh, all right.

[Pete Holmes]

I want to ask Chat GPT what it means, but we're getting off subject. So your dad said, don't let the door hit you in the butt.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And I was like, okay, that's corny. And like, that's actually what he said. Yeah. So I. We just. Just haven't really had a relationship since. And there were times in. In high school when I was like, older and older that we would sort of just be on the phone like, screaming at each other, but, like, still no real relationship.

[Pete Holmes]

What is the topic of contention when you were be on the phone and scream at each other?

[Skyler Higley]

It would be like, he wouldn't pay child support and say some really nasty, mean things to my mom, and I would find out about it and then I would call him and be like, how dare you say that you're evil person? And don't, because it was really horrible things to say.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Skyler Higley]

And. But I also, with. At the time, I thought that was like a good thing to do. And then I also, like, with time be like, oh, I shouldn't have been in the position to do that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, I shouldn't have been doing that at all.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you're 28, so if you're anything like me, it'll be another almost 20 years when you'll start going like, wait, I shouldn't have been in that position.

[Skyler Higley]

No. And the whole thing, that's.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not saying you don't know that.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean really unpacking. And maybe you'll do it now. Maybe you already did it. But like, there's a lot of, like, why was I mom's lawyer?

[Skyler Higley]

Well, yes, I know that I've seen. Thought about this because I was like doing bits about that too, because I think I've done a lot of unpacking based on the adoption thing of being like, why was I in that position? But then you got to think about it globally. Why was I in the position at all? Why was I adopted in a way. And this is to. This is to frame it in a certain way. But I was adopted because of. There was a person who couldn't afford to take care of a baby. And then there were people that were at the, you know, pre divorce at the time, well off enough that felt like they could take it over. But then Also in the 90s, there was this Wave of sort of like white liberalism. That was savior complexy. And so they saw it like, we're with. What's the Sandra Bullock movie? Blindside. They thought we. We are going to. The joke I just wrote down is like, well, of course we'll take a savage and teach him the ways of man. You know, like, it. They thought they were going to. That they were doing a good, fair lady.

[Pete Holmes]

How much is of turning a scoundrel lady into a. Like, a fair lady? Sure is about the guy.

[Skyler Higley]

100%.

[Pete Holmes]

100%.

[Skyler Higley]

100% of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And it's like, that is.

[Pete Holmes]

It's another mastery over nature, right? It's like, we're gonna cut down those trees and we're gonna build schools. Is also about the guy being like, look what I have done.

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

So, yes, I'm hearing you.

[Skyler Higley]

So. And it is a function of a white supremacist system to be patriarchal to say, I am, you know, white savior my way through this. And, oh, look, we saved this poor, poor child.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, this is very similar to the mushroom thing, too. Cause it's like. Like, yeah, it might be a white savory thing, but they're. They're. They're saving you.

[Skyler Higley]

And that's what happens when you do bits about it and just put it online. That I've had people, when I had a Comedy Central set come out, they.

[Pete Holmes]

That wasn't the point I was making.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no, no, I know, I know. But what. What I'm saying is them people will receive it and hear it like that. Where you go, you called your parents white supremacists, but they saved you. And you're being, you know, and they obviously. And I've had people say, like, really vile, very specific things because they were offended by just jokes about, like, what I was saying about my parents, where it's like, well, no, I'm not saying. I'm saying it's complicated. But what I am saying is that something that I never realized growing up, which is this situation existed because there was a power differential. And then I ended up in a family where I think, even thinking about it now, I think my adopted dad wasn't even all in on doing the adoption and being that person. Like, I think, yes, there was love there, and, yes, he was, you know, a father to me at that time. But I do think that, like, now I don't consider him a father really in any way. We have it spoken, and there's no bond of blood that makes us actually family. So it's like, who Is that guy. He's like a landlord for a time in. My child is my child landlord.

[Pete Holmes]

A deeply, psychologically and maybe even spiritually disappointing landlord, though.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I'm saying?

[Skyler Higley]

Like, yeah, a landlord that can give you trauma.

[Pete Holmes]

You got to be. Well, you don't have to do anything. But like, our, our protectors want to say, like. Like, when I got divorced, I go, well, she wasn't my blood. She's a breakup with paperwork. And then you go, like. And there's another part of you that was like, buying into it. I'm saying, for me, sure. Well, yeah, my wife, this is my person, and she leaves, has an affair. And you. And you want to do a bit where you're like, you're just a stranger.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

And I remember people saying that, like, that was just someone you met in the wild.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're like, yes and no. And I've seen other people do bits about like. Like, I grew up without a dad, but, like, I never had a dad, so who cares? Like. And it's like, yeah, but every time you went to someone else's house, they had a dad.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. You understood the concept of dad.

[Pete Holmes]

You knew dads, you heard dads on tv.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Their dad's in stories.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So it can be tricky and, and completely understandable. And I'm not saying this is what you're doing to want to, like, dismiss it to save ourselves, but then we're vegan to piss off our brains again.

[Skyler Higley]

I don't think, I don't think I'm. I've dismissed it. I understand how much it has affect me. Affected me. But I, I'm thinking about it on a maybe material and. Yeah, like a material and structural level. I go. And the reason why I'm even saying this now is because it's something that I had to think about later in life. I didn't think about everything I just said about it until I was maybe 22, 23. And it was kind of a big revelation because I'm like, like, obviously it's true, but I had never thought about it in those terms because I was like, yeah, this is just my family. And it, it happened how it happened, but it, the reasons for it were based on, you know, race and economics and that kind of thing which led.

[Pete Holmes]

Up to the adoption in the first place.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, it was, it was the byproduct of a. A system already in place of the system. Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. And so that is why I can't ever stop thinking about the system, because most people's home lives and their identity are not built around or the direct product of. I mean, I don't want to say most, actually, I don't. Let me not say that. I think everybody's a product of the system, but I think. Oh, okay, cool. Okay, cool.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm clean.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay, good. We have the meats. Arby's.

[Pete Holmes]

Arby's dot com. Skyler.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, get 20 off your Arby's at the next checkout. What was I saying?

[Pete Holmes]

You were saying product of assistance.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yes. And so I've been, like, kind of keenly aware of that the whole time because I've always been, for one reason or another, alienated by the circumstance. Not always, but, you know, through my childhood. And. And so then it really makes me focus on the mechanisms of why things are the way they are. And it's. I've been sort of. I've been just kind of hyper aware of that the whole time. Whereas, like.

[Pete Holmes]

That's like the gift, right?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's a gift in a. You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, I understand. It doesn't sound very convenient.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But it also seems like what you've. For better or worse, it's what's grown in your garden, what I've built my career on. And now you have. And now you share it, though I consider it a gift. I thought it was very interesting in your standup when you talked about your mom, your white mom, explaining, like, civil rights and slavery and the N word. And I'd love just to, again, not to represent black people, but your experience, your emotional experience of, like, what is that like?

[Skyler Higley]

Well, I think that. That knowing it, because at the time, I'm not perceiving as this is being heard from a white narrative. Right. But I did know about it after the fact. And I also really, like. You get that narrative that, you know, in 2020 where everybody was like, oh, we thought Martin Luther King solved everything and he didn't, you know, and that was like a big, big thing with all the protests. It was crazy for me to realize that that is the narrative that a lot of America had still, because I had progressed really far beyond that. And that was sort of what I grew up with, was this sort of civil rights. Yes. But this is like white liberal version of civil rights, where you're like, there's struggle and all this stuff, but to know about all that and then not really have access to any black culture really, except for what is being appropriated and assimilated through white culture is like a very weird experience. Of blackness, because you go, okay, well, then I'm just part of a people who struggled, and I'm also different from everybody else, and that's it. And I don't know. There's only a handful of stuff that crosses over, really. And so I'm getting that. So it felt like. You don't know how weird it is at the time. I mean, the real moment that occurred.

[Pete Holmes]

To me now that you're saying I'm like, yeah, didn't. You didn't know that was happening.

[Skyler Higley]

I didn't know it. I didn't really know. I didn't have a concept of how weirdly I grew up until I moved to Chicago. And when I, you know, I started figuring it out because people would ask more and more questions as I got older and older, and, you know, 18 and 19, people were like, whatever. But when I moved to Chicago and people were like, wait, what? Like, that's a lot. You got a lot going on there. I was like, oh, yeah. Because, you know, to you, that's just, like, your story. But people are like, yeah, that's not. A lot of people have that. Right. And you're like, oh, okay. I guess that is exceptional in a way.

[Pete Holmes]

And then did you find, to put it just plainly, black mentors? Did you start finding some community?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's like Chicago, obviously.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And then consuming. But I still have to go out of my way to, like, consume black stuff just because there was basically 18 years of not getting any of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Skyler Higley]

And then now going, like, consuming it and feeling. However I feel about it now is, well, that's.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you feel about it now? Because I wonder if. Because you were raised so supremely, Utah white.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. Which is a specific brand. It's the white people of white people.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. Even the whites look at Utah.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you ever have to overcome a feeling of, like, imposter syndrome?

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, all the time.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

I think that's.

[Pete Holmes]

If we're talking absurd, of course.

[Skyler Higley]

But, yeah, if we're talking about, like, core, you know, wounds and stuff, that's like, probably the main thing that is like. Like, you have to, first of all, take it on the chin when somebody who is. I hate it when white people do it. But if somebody black makes a joke about me not being black, you have to just kind of whatever, you know, you could. Well, what does that mean? What does black. Whatever. Right, right, right, right. But, yeah, like, I know it's a specific thing, and I'm a specific type of Person and come from a specific place or whatever. But I still feel like I've reconciled that a lot. But at the same time, like, you with your parents, it's not completely going to be. It's gonna. It's gonna take a long time of, like, figuring it out and, of course, becoming more and more grounded in myself. But you also can only be who you are. And sometimes you're like, well, who is that? And you really. I get thrown into a crisis, identity crisis sometimes. But because I've done so much, like, that's what comedy has helped with a lot of.

[Pete Holmes]

And so comedy makes so much sense for you.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm so glad you have it.

[Skyler Higley]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Because the. The code switching that you did as a child, that you've done your whole life.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Looking for yourself. Stand up is a great way to, like, test and. And get feedback. Like, is this. Is this right? Is this who I am? Does it feel right when I say it? Does it feel right the way they're laughing? You know, this is only whenever I'm having conversations with people I can't fully relate to. I'm always worried that it sounds like I'm comparing.

[Skyler Higley]

No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

My experience. But the closest I can come to something in my own life. I just want to hear what it makes you think of. Of is. I remember when people would question my manliness, my manhood. So. Because I was like, why would it bother you? This isn't what I was thinking, but I was thinking, why would it bother you if a black person made fun of your blackness? And then I was like, well, when a man made fun of my manliness, I got the chills just then. It would make me so much more hurt than you'd think I should be.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, it's shame.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so much shame. And I remember thinking, like. Like, but I am a man. Like, meaning we're not getting into gender politics. I'm just saying, like, this is 2000.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm like, I have a penis. I am a man. I remember saying to my friends, I was like, it's so weird. I was writing little sayings, and I probably journaled this. I was like, a man is what I am. It's not something I'm trying to be.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But then there is a concept just, like, correct me if I'm wrong, which is, like, blackness or all sorts of different cultural identities. You are black. No one's questioning that. But are you being black?

[Skyler Higley]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Am I. Are we in the same page?

[Skyler Higley]

Why is that? Why is there a. And we can. Yes. You're on the same page. I also to say, oh, I'm not going to get into gender politics. And saying the most gender politicsy thing about being a man was hilarious. It's like, well, that is gender. That is what we are stuck with. And I see what you're saying. There's a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

What I really meant was I can see that I'm not. And I'm not making a fully fleshed out.

[Skyler Higley]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Statement. I'm saying in 2000, I thought, I have a penis, I'm a man. The end of the conversation.

[Skyler Higley]

Right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

And we've added more nuance.

[Skyler Higley]

And I'm. And. And the very same way. So my skin color is dark, and therefore I am black. Okay. But then there's all of this culture and there's all of this idea of authenticity and validity and what. What authenticity is and what it is to be valid. So is it. You know, it. Here's something that's really real for me. I feel this for the wrong reasons. I think that I've internalized. I think I feel more validated by the fact in my blackness by the fact that after my parents got divorced, we were very poor for a while, me and my mom and my brothers living in an apartment, and she would just like, put herself through nursing school and go to the hospital. That. Because I had that struggle, which I didn't really have before. Even if it was like suburban, it makes me feel more closer to like, oh, okay, like, I am black because of this identity or idea that's been built up. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

I already mentioned Eminem. Eminem's like, yeah, but I was raised by a single mother and in poverty.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And everyone's like, okay, it's kind of in the ballpark. Is that what we're saying?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, exactly. And so it feels like. Because there's this sort of black essentialist idea of like, well, you're this amount black. If this. And obviously that's all become very complicated and changed over time. But like, think about the way we were talking about people of different races sort of 20 years ago. Things were ghetto or not ghetto.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Skyler Higley]

And the way we talk about it now.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

You know, it's so. It's. It does feel very like. The fact that I still feel shame about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Is at times is annoying. But I know there are certain people from certain places who have different viewpoints of everything. And it's always like, well, that's just the easiest route that your brain can take is go, I can Invalidate this for this reason. And I don't feel that way as much as I did five years ago, 10 years ago. The amount of shame. But I think when I first started discovering how weird I was, I felt so much shame because I was like, I. I don't relate to any people who grew up more traditionally black, really. At all. You know, and now it's like, well, I'm an adult, and I figured most of that out. But it's definitely something that can strike a nerve in the wrong way. If I bomb. If I bomb in front of a black crowd, the way it's not the same as a normal bomb. The way it makes me feel, like, deeply like I'm in. I am inauthentic.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

And they hated me because they were sort of like, you know, Kendrick style. They not like us. Who is that? Why is. And then. So I sort of do this. This then. And I try to do this dance of like. No, like, I'm not that weird. I know I sound like this.

[Pete Holmes]

But also, again, I'm relating. Yes. But in Boston, if I bomb in Boston.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. It feels.

[Pete Holmes]

And I might be a little bit more Bostony when I'm in Boston.

[Skyler Higley]

100. And you're like, I. I. But I just want to be accepted among people that I understand to be my people. Because it is specifically hard where you go. I've gone through this version of being alienated by white people because of the color of my skin and the racist things that happens to everybody, and then not being able to go a lot of times into a space where people were like, well, yeah, you're part of us. And I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that that is fully how it is now, especially. But it is something that I had to deal with. With. Especially in my early 20s.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course. Yeah. Belonging is. I'm not trying to be funny. It's a trip.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so much more. It's like the father stuff.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, do you claim me? Yeah. It's heavy. It's heavy.

[Skyler Higley]

It is heavy.

[Pete Holmes]

So you mentioned. Sorry.

[Skyler Higley]

No, go ahead. No, I didn't. I didn't have anything.

[Pete Holmes]

You do.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I just said it was heavy. I agreed with you. Okay. So what's Philadelphia born and raised. We just start rapping.

[Pete Holmes]

So funny. I've always wanted to do a bit. Well, I guess I have done it where I'm like, why do the. Yeah, you're 28. Why do you know the stuff? I know. It's so weird.

[Skyler Higley]

Reruns Nick at night.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I know why, literally. But like nothing really replaced you. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm not even doing it as a premise. I'm not doing it as a bit. But I'm like, we both know Harry Potter, we both know Star wars, we both know Marvel.

[Skyler Higley]

It's all, it's all the same mainstream stuff. Yeah, just mainstream. I think that is. I think there was a cutoff and I don't know where it was, but I think a lot of that's different now. Like the things that cut across do. But I, I think that like a 12 year old culture is kind of.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, that's interesting because we had a friends giving last night and one of my friend's daughters is about 12 and I know she doesn't know what the I'm talking about, but it's not us. Yeah, yeah, they not like us.

[Skyler Higley]

They don't like us.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I'm saying.

[Skyler Higley]

And that's true.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's true. So we were talking a little bit. I don't want to miss.

[Skyler Higley]

Go ahead.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, we only have 15 minutes. You've been a real pleasure, man.

[Skyler Higley]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

Check out that clip of Skyler at the stand.

[Skyler Higley]

It's hopefully not online. Check out my Comedy Central if you.

[Pete Holmes]

If you do on YouTube.

[Skyler Higley]

I don't even like that I'm this insecure about this.

[Pete Holmes]

If you weren't this insecure, you wouldn't be funny. It's an appropriation of Jerry Seinfeld, Gary Shandling. They're like in their 40s. And Gary goes like, why am I uncomfortable at this party? And Jerry goes, if you were comfortable, you wouldn't be funny. Is that good?

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, it's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Talk about, quote, when you get folded into a group. Comedy is another little family culture.

[Skyler Higley]

And that really helps. I mean, it can also be deeply toxic and deranged, obviously, but also it can very much.

[Pete Holmes]

No, again, this is, this I will say to you, although I really feel like you're living one of these like presidential things. Like every year you've lived is like four years.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh my God.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like, like I'm definitely talking to someone who knows everything. I know. So I won't phrase it as advice, but looking back, how many people were criminally insane? I can't even tell you. Like there were just a lot of maybe not criminally insane, but you know, like just like unstable.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a certain attraction and of course there would be to get up on stage and everyone listens to literally the Joker to Certain. Exactly.

[Skyler Higley]

Exactly. And a lot of these people. Yeah. Were at Mike's.

[Pete Holmes]

And you go, that's.

[Skyler Higley]

That's a. That's a crazy. But then you also just kind of were around them, and you go, yeah, that's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, there's something beautiful about that, too, where you're just kind of like. And I was friends with people that you probably would have been like, stay away. And. And there's something beautiful about that.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. We all got older.

[Pete Holmes]

You took lsd. But I. I just wanted to know where you at, where you're at spiritually. Just because it's fun. You were raised Mormon.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you know that blue is the same as a sound. That's pretty.

[Skyler Higley]

Blue is the same as a sound. Sound. And don't steal that premise. Y' all like blue. Y' all know that. Same as the sound. That's. I'm gonna do that.

[Pete Holmes]

I. If you did a def jam, Blue is the same as the sound.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

All the best things sound like absolute insanity.

[Skyler Higley]

It does sound well. And I do the same thing. Not to fully digress, but I do the same thing that you do where I will say a joke about. I have a joke.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no. Yeah, go ahead. I've seen you say some profound stuff on stage.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. I. I have a joke that I'm doing right now about I can't focus on. I can't get too high having sex because I. I don't want to. I can't focus on sex while I'm wondering if the universe is a simulation. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Skyler Higley]

Right. That premise is very, like, all of this weird stuff. For whatever reason, all you have to do is say that you got high and then it works. But then if you don't say that, people are like, why is he saying that? That I completely. You're like, but I'm. I'm still right.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Skyler Higley]

I'm still right.

[Pete Holmes]

And if you said it was a daydream instead of a dream.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Suddenly it's out of.

[Skyler Higley]

It's just. And that should be out of control. Yeah. And that's the thing about comedy that's interesting is it's just like, you gotta get as grounded as you can so that then you can get into whatever you want to say. And that is sort of the trick of it anyway.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. No, that's really well put. Yeah, you're right on the.

[Skyler Higley]

Where I'm at now. Well, I was Mormon very much. And then I remember going, also this podcast factors into that very much. So I should say that my intellectual transition out of Mormonism was. You know, I listened to this podcast, and then I also had the Internet, and it was like the same time I was getting interested in comedy because of this podcast. Saying so much about it and how it worked and. And things, and then also being like, I don't think Mormonism is. I remember the first time I heard this podcast, I was. I was a huge fan of Bo Burnham Prime Age. To be a fan of him at that time, because he was, like, doing stuff and he came on this and he railed against religion and made these arguments for atheism that I was like. It made so much sense that it scared me that I. That I turned it off, that I was like, I was a huge fan of him. But this. Wait, like. But it made logical sense and it.

[Pete Holmes]

Was scary because Elevator in the Shining, it's All the blood comes on.

[Skyler Higley]

You're like. I was like, wait, I think he's right. But that's really scary. And I think if I'm even thinking about what this cultural moment is right now, I think people are so in their cults and camps intellectually, because that feeling is really that. That feeling of, oh, shit is everything I believe and I'm wrong. That is a very uncomfortable feeling.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'd rather be wrong in a tribe or comfortable than right.

[Skyler Higley]

100%. Short line, long line, long line, short line. Arby's Studio Portier. Anything? Yeah, just free associating words we said before. So, yeah, then I was atheist for a time. I came back to the podcast was. Went pretty hard atheist for a time because I'm like, none of it makes sense. And didn't go back to church after I turned 18 and was like, I'm done with all that. And then I got kind of spiritual and started doing psychedelics and have done ayahuasca quite a few times. I think I've done it like seven times.

[Pete Holmes]

Seven times.

[Skyler Higley]

What?

[Pete Holmes]

And this is a dumb question, but so you get a positive result out of it.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it made me spiritual because, you know, the things you kind of see and feel on psychedelics and all that kind of stuff really shifts your perception of reality and knowing that, oh, okay. Like, maybe the narratives and stories that I have heard don't make any sense. I don't think Joseph Smith went into the woods and anybody appeared to him. I think he went into the woods and jerk off. Went into the woods to jerk off and then sort of just kind of made something up. That's what I think that's what it was. That must have been 14 years old. He goes into the woods and then he's like, oh, God. And Jesus appeared to me. Yeah, I know it appeared to you. And it was white.

[Pete Holmes]

That is the funniest. Got caught masturbating.

[Skyler Higley]

I mean, it was God and Jesus, and they were. They were here. Whatever. I found a book. You want to read my book? Just.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't believe me?

[Skyler Higley]

A whole religion covering for golden tablets.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow, this is a rough riff. I mean, I like it, but it's a rough road.

[Skyler Higley]

Anyway, when I was young, I was.

[Pete Holmes]

Always just like, where are the tablets? Because I wanted all that stuff to be real. And I'm just like, just show me.

[Skyler Higley]

The tablets took him back up to heaven.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a book that I actually liked. Well, I mean, I enjoyed it. It's called the Disappearance of the Universe. And it was supposedly told to this guy by two angels, and he would record them audio. So they visited him and he. And he. It sort of fell apart for me because I was like, all these characters talk the same. You know what I mean?

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

They all sound like the same person anyway. But I was like. And there's always the line where he goes, like, what's that?

[Skyler Higley]

There's no angel from Brooklyn. Yeah, that's what I mean. Come on.

[Pete Holmes]

There's not even like. It's all. They talk exactly the same. And they all fell apart for me in that way. No disrespect to anybody that loves that book, because some of my friends love that book. But there's always the line where it's like, and of course I destroyed the tape.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm like, of course he did. And we destroyed the tablets. Or the tablets disappeared.

[Skyler Higley]

I'm like, yeah, it's a lot of excuses.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on, guys. Yeah, keep the tablets. Keep the tapes.

[Skyler Higley]

You gotta. You want.

[Pete Holmes]

You have a tape of an angel talking.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah. But then, of course, they go, well, but you should have faith. And it's like, well, faith is just the biggest sort of manipulative tactic that you can throw on anybody.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Skyler Higley]

So after all that, I. I became, like, kind of quasi spiritual for a while, and now I'm kind of past that, too, in this way that I think a lot of spirituality can be, like spiritual bypass, where I. I think I just met enough of these people that were, like, turned out to be bad, but were very spiritual. And I was like, oh, this is. You can use certain words or just people. You know, there are certain people who are just. They are spiritual. But then you're like, but you're you're like actually a genuine narcissist or whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

And so like with comedy, spiritual leadership in particular, but also just spirituality generally speaking, has a certain appeal to the self centered. I would say.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes. And I think that there's a lot of words that people can use that are ways to avoid sort of accountability. And I think there's.

[Pete Holmes]

I think that the problem, by the way, as somebody who struggles with being self centered.

[Skyler Higley]

No, I understand.

[Pete Holmes]

I recognize that in myself.

[Skyler Higley]

Well, it's interesting because it's like the. I think especially. And again, I'm suddenly self aware of how much I've brought up race. But I think it really factors into all of the stuff that I talk about, the way that white people have consumed spiritual messages from a sort of westernized mind. And then. And understanding the appeal of them can be very like, well, you haven't done any of this other work that involves what reality is and how reality works. And now you're sort of getting into like, well, we are not. We're. I'm a, I'm a spiritual being having a human experience meanwhile, you know, like hardcore racist or something like that. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Skyler Higley]

And so it can be a way to abstract some of the structural and functional and look the other way on the mushrooms. Yeah. And then you can go, oh, well, the mushrooms aren't real. No, this is real. This is just a video game. I'm just driving a car. It's like, well, there are people who are really suffering from stuff like that. And so I, it appeals to me less in the current moment, but I'm sort of reconnecting with, with some of that for a semblance of, of calm and, and centeredness and peace. But yeah, I guess that's where I'm at right now is just.

[Pete Holmes]

I get it, by the way. You're just post, post, post, you don't need my seal of approval. But like, you're so right on. Like, it's hard to look past that packaging, you know what I mean? The Santa Monica crystal kind of.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But also the bypassing of like, I am God, I am the universe.

[Skyler Higley]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And like meanwhile.

[Skyler Higley]

Yes. And it's not even just like the packaging. It's just very much what I read because I got super into Alan Watts for a time. I was really into Aldous Huxley. I was really into, you know, psychedelics, that world of things. But when. And it. I am a product of my environment, then like, you know, 2016 happens and everything continues to happen and we realize that like the US Government is. Is maybe even worse than we thought. And anything that you want to say, it's just like, oh, yeah, there are real ways that sort of like structural oppression has happened. That when you live in sort of a white middle class world that you do not have to engage in at all, that is very present in exploiting everybody else. And I think that, that a lot of the spirituality stuff, those people are just like, really far on. On that angle and don't engage with, like, the realities of the world. So I. I became less interested in that as I started maturing more and more, because you can. Once you convince yourself you're enlightened, holy shit. You know what I mean? You can be a. You can be a complete dick, but you're like, yeah, but I stamped my enlightened card. And that was the same thing that happened in Mormonism where people would be like, like, I'm a good person because I did all the things. It's the same. Creating your own supermarket. That happened. Everything is recursive and loops and everything.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you see that in. We don't have time to get into this. But the. What was it? Sweet, Nice and quiet or whatever.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah, Beast. Oh, the Mother God stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Not Mother God.

[Skyler Higley]

No, it's not that one.

[Pete Holmes]

One Mother God is. Love wins. Oh, that one was good.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

The Mormon one, it's called oh, sweet be sweet and.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, something, whatever. I know, I know what you're.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's using the. Like, I have achieved Mormon enlightenment and now I will have my work camp, basically of. Of the men and horrible rape. Right, Basically. Anyway, I wish we had more time. I have to go. I have to go.

[Skyler Higley]

Wow. Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

I guess.

[Skyler Higley]

I think we did it.

[Pete Holmes]

We did do it.

[Skyler Higley]

We did do it.

[Pete Holmes]

There is a feeling of like, oh, I wish we had more time. But it's also like, no, I think.

[Skyler Higley]

But we.

[Pete Holmes]

No, we did do it. We did do it. We had tons of laughs.

[Skyler Higley]

Tons of laughs. We touched on the stuff that I.

[Pete Holmes]

Very wonderful.

[Skyler Higley]

Thanks.

[Pete Holmes]

Brilliant.

[Skyler Higley]

Thanks, man.

[Pete Holmes]

Funny.

[Skyler Higley]

Thanks, man.

[Pete Holmes]

And people are gonna love it.

[Skyler Higley]

And everybody, you know, go to. Go to Arby's.

[Pete Holmes]

Go to Arby's because we got the meats.

[Skyler Higley]

And of course, you know, we. How we have to have butterfly in the sky.

[Pete Holmes]

I can fly twice as high.

[Skyler Higley]

Take a look. It's in a book.

[Pete Holmes]

Reading rainbow.

[Skyler Higley]

Reading rainbow. Keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

Everybody, you know what? Here. Not everybody gets one, but you get a Shakti map.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, shit.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, those are dope.

[Skyler Higley]

That's cool.

[Pete Holmes]

You'll like that.

[Skyler Higley]

What is this? What is this?

[Pete Holmes]

It's like lying on a bed of nails.

[Skyler Higley]

Oh, yeah?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. It's really sharp and pokey, but if you have, like, a knot in your back.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Lay on it for, like, 10 minutes.

[Skyler Higley]

So it's like it. Because bed of nail didn't sound.

[Pete Holmes]

No, you're gonna think I'm nuts.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

At first, you're gonna be. It's like cold exposure. You're gonna lay on it. You'll be like, what the. And then I swear I fall asleep every time I use it.

[Skyler Higley]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

It's awesome. They are a sponsor. It's shock. Dmat.com promo code. Weird. Probably, but that's for you.

[Skyler Higley]

Cool.

[Pete Holmes]

Thanks. Yeah. That's not a paid promotion. That's just a gift.

[Skyler Higley]

Whoa. Thank you, man.

[Pete Holmes]

All right. You already said it.

[Skyler Higley]

Yeah, I can say it again. Keep it crispy. Normal.

[Pete Holmes]

What was that?

[Skyler Higley]

I said, keep it. Keep it crispy. Then you said something, and then I said normal. Because we. It was the tag to the song, and then I said normal.

[Pete Holmes]

All right. Sidney Poitier. Sidney Poitier. Poitier.

[Skyler Higley]

Keep it Poitier.

[Pete Holmes]

Let me whitesplain how to say thanks, guys.

[Skyler Higley]

It.