This is the downbeat on ninety seven to one in the Freak It sure is.
You start at six am every single morning. Guess on me I heart
Radio app podcast every single segment after the show. Ten fifteen minutes out of
the show, and we were awaiting comedian TJ. Miller, who'll be calling
in. He's playing at Hyenas Friday, December first, Saturday December second.
I think he's gonna stand you up. No, I think he's on the
ball. I bet he stands you up. He's in the middle of a
huge tour. Who would voluntarily take time out of their day to talk to
you or us three? That is? I mean, if you can talk
to Danny. Yeah, I can see that. I would love to talk
to Danny. I mean a lot of people want to ask me a lot
of hot thoughts about the world. Whenever t J. Miller calls in,
just give him the opportunity to ask you any questions he has for you,
Kevin Turner, and make that the whole base of the interview. Okay,
maybe we can do that. Joining us now in the free cut line.
You can see him on his Gentle Giant tour at Hyenas on Friday December first
and Saturday, December second. It is comedian TJ. Miller. Oh hello,
oh thank you. The first thing first, Katie, when have time
you've got in our court? H? Well, I'm asexual, so never
he claims to be asexual? Why hell? And what? But he's also
really horny. He has a serious porn addiction. Yeah, but then that's
not asexual. It's sort of he's into the two D yeah, yeah,
and nod to two d's you guys are thinking about just two demand show,
likes to see it on his screen, right, No, that doesn't make
sense. But as with most things, he says words that he doesn't fully
understand their definition. So I think that's why he throws out asexual a lot.
But he definitely doesn't get it. You know. Again, I think
he's like, I'm a sexual B really a deportent having a tough time not
masturbating at work. D like that. I think all of us. Yeah,
and that's why I believe in a communist society. Oh, I don't
know what it means. Yeah, I have no no idea. I think
it's that everybody has intercom. You out today York City, New York City,
at my spot, I just got up and went right on the radio
with you guys, which I like. And yeah, I just got back
from being on tour in UH in Minneapolis, which is really really fun,
and yeah, I'm having a great time with the tour. I'm excited for
Dallas because we have some really good friends that are there and I don't know
if you guys have sort of older friends who still really party and they are
damn so we're gonna be excited to go down there. And they are from
Dallas and lived in Dallas for a But I love that club, Hyenas.
Have you guys been, Yeah, yeah, that's haven't been. Yeah,
it is really really a great club. It's just it's been around since you
know, I don't even know, but twenty thirty years, and it's just
it's it's a perfect room for comedy and it perfectly represents an eighties club because
the green room is in the sound boot and you know, you're just packed
in there. You're in the back helping people with drinks. That feels like
I must, and then you go on stage and just killaller room. Yeah,
it's awesome though it's super intimate. Are you traveling with any support?
Are you just grabbing local dudes when you go through these sounds. No,
I travel with support. This actually will be my friend. It's brilliant comedy
in cash Levy and he and I do a podcast together called Cashing In with
TJ. Miller. Everybody should check it out. He's the host. He
has a tough time getting guests, and so I've been the only on the
show for seven years. But he's an excellent he's an excellent, excellent comedian,
and so he tours with me when he is available. He's a headliner.
I only tour with headliner and he's a headliner. But We're also going
to do podcasts while I'm there, so we might do one live one that
will be announced lator but these all all sell out and there's such such that's
so I wanted to get on early. You know, it's December first and
second, who shows you to night? But it's going to be great,
and we're hoping maybe to tell people ahead of time. If it sells out
early, who knows, maybe I'll had a show, maybe not. Either
way, get in there fast. So yeah, I'm excited. It's fun
to tour with friends and also people that I can really you know, trust,
to go and and kill. Absolutely. I haven't even told this story
yet. So my buddy, who I'm writing a movie with for Michael Bay
it's actually another Christmas movie, is an Office Christmas Party, but we're doing
another Christmas movie. This time is gonna be PG thirteen. So I won't
be doing cocaine in this Christmas movie. Get this guy off the phone,
I mean, yeah, right, well, listen, I'll do a trailer.
It won't be part of the content. I'm just kidding. I've never
done cocaine this, yeah, never. KP's like, I've done a lot
of cocaine, and he's like, you're talking about Coca cola right Europe.
It's why it is a hard time masturbating. We think, yeah, well,
you know what, he's drinking too much coke and having a tough time
keeping his hand on it all. So so I went. I went to
to the club in Minneapolis, and my buddy came with me. He's a
musician and a writer. He wrote a rock opera. He's one of the
funniest people I've ever met, but he is not a stand up comedian,
and so I asked him to open for me with some music. Is what
I assumed, and he said okay, and then my features something went wrong,
so he had to do a full like fifteen or twenty minutes. I
said, that's fine, just play like, you know, five or six
songs and then talk a little bit whatever. And then I realized he didn't
have a guitar, and I go, so, what are you doing?
Are you doing harmonica stuff or what? And he said no. She took
a helicopter the airport. He goes, no, I couldn't fit my my
you know, my guitar with me. But I'll figure something out. I
think I know what I'm gonna do. And I said what are you gonna
do? And he's like, well, I'm some bittritt and I think I'll
just do stand up And I was like, what the are you talking?
Like in my mind, I was like, you're insane. What are you
talking about? Because he'd never done stand up before, so that would be
like me saying him saying, hey, do you want to come and do
some music, like, you know, as a joke or whatever. That
would be like me saying no, I bought a violin and I think I'll
seriously play violin. There's the exact same thing it's the exact same thing.
It's like, well, you don't know how to play the violin. It's
like, oh yeah, no no, but I'll just figure it out.
I mean, I you know, I've heard violin. That's how you learned
the violin, DJ, you just figure it out. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, that's right. You can't learn it, no, just see enough
of it. And so he went and I thought, okay, well,
and I told him, I was like, this, give you the worst
idea you've ever had in your life. And I was like, and it'll
really screw my situation up. I love that you were trying to discourage him.
That's great. Oh dude. If he was anybody else, I would
have gone, no, that would be the only thing that I say,
except know and buy a guitar right now and then do that. But he
is a comic. He's a comedic guy. And so what I decided was,
I thought, you know what I'm going to I'm going to let him
sort of hang himself so that he knows. And then I got an opener
who could actually do like a strong fifteen or twenty, and so I thought,
I it's going to let him hang himself up there, so that he
knows that you can't just figure it out and do stand up and these are
sold out crowds, you know, is the other part of this. So
what we did was it's four shows. The first show we introduced him as
having all this is his first time during a stand up, which is true,
and so he got up there. He's really funny guy. So he
did pretty well. You know, people are clapping and laughing, but you
had his energy of like, this is my first time, and you have
sort of the audience's energy of oh, we got to support him, you
know. So he got off stage and then I was like, oh,
great, now he's going to be like it's it's easy whatever, you know,
anyone can do it. He just got to kind of be airrogant and
just get up there. And then the second show, which is late Friday,
which is the very like a drug drug show and often disruptive. Then
he got up there and it did not go as well. I mean it's
like you could feel him on stage and be like, well, what happened?
I thought? We just did it? And then like the last show,
it's every show is like that. It's like no Jay, It's a
little bit different each show. So then he got up stage then and I
also had a really terrible set. I mean, you know, the audience
had a great time, but I did not like my set after him,
And that's because the audience was like, why does this guy in the middle,
Why is he clearly not a professional comedian? That's what he came off
at. Then Saturday we came in and so what I told him to do
was I said, look, and the second show I was like, instead
of fifteen, why don't you do work closer to ten, ten to twelve.
And then on Saturday I said, this needs to be no longer than
ten, and then on the last show I told him it needs to be
five minutes. So I made him compact and edit the thing real time,
and during the day on Saturday he was like, hey, somebody else doing
to guess that? Right on the second show tonight, I go, yeah,
he goes, well, you know, I don't have to get up
like maybe just have heard of it. And then I was like, son
of a gun, now I'm going to turn this through, you see.
And so I made him do the Sattery Show and he opened the Saty Show
with a bit that like he thought was strong about a rogue, you know,
a rogue pubic hair starting to grow from his forearm, which I don't
think it's really masterful. Sort of we we see k Chappelle level stuff,
But that joke bomb for a show. And when when something bombs, you
know, when somebody's really bombing on stage, it's very uncomfortable because there's no
laugh there's just people watching you like you're crazy to even be talking or being
there. And I'll tell you what, bombing is tough, but when you
bomb a thirty second or minute long bit in front of sold out like three
hundred people is a terrible experience. And so I just saw him up there
starting to sweat and freak out, and then luckily his next bit did really
well. But then after that that show, he was like, I don't
know. I mean, I don't have to do this. I said,
you know what you want? You just thought you could stand up and figure
out, So you got to do. It's a job, Jay, it's
a job. So you don't get to pick and choose what fun shows you
want to do. And he was like okay, and then like how you
And He's like that was really an amazing experience. Wow, what a journey
yeah, I don't think I'll ever do it yet. Yeah, exactly.
So we I kind of in one weekend showed him that what I do is
not really easy. Because you guys know this, A lot of people.
I think, you tell me, Kat, I'm really interested in if you're
going to understand these words. If you think he won't, but you he
won't, you know. But I think a lot of people think they can
do radio. So I got I'll just get on you guys, just talk,
that's all you do. You you like that about radio because I've done
so much radio that I know that is ucate. It takes incredible skill and
unmoch nobody can do it, don't you guys have people as there. I
could get on there. Yeah, for sure. Most people think. My
mom definitely thinks that we do nothing and just kind of crack some jokes and
call it a day at ten am after do in the morning show every time.
But I don't know. It's right on the edge. But yes,
I agree, four hours every day, twenty hours a week. That's a
lot of dead air to fill. And you probably TJ. Miller, thank
you for again for joining us today. We'll plugger performance in just a second.
But it's probably very similar because I've had experiences where you've had a listener
that wants to come up and do a segment or something like that, and
this is way back in the day, and their eyes are so wide and
they're excited, and they issue their first line that they've been thinking about and
preparing it, and then you try to follow up with them and it's just
blank stares and you you end up you come in there loaded, and you
realize that doing a twenty minute segment is a lot longer than you think it
is when you first get into it, much like your boy Jay bombing after
his long setup joke, and the expectation is this is going to kill and
when it doesn't, what's your backup plan? Yeah, that's that's a great
point. And I also think you guys do the thing you said twenty hours
a week, and I love to love that. Your mother is like,
and then you're done working at ten am, Yeah, and that'd be nice
to have your entire day and you're like, I went to bed at four
thirty pm, Okay, yeah, five in the morning. In the first
hour is just me being like, why I make this joy, why I
go into this location? And then you kind of finally get through it.
But I think it's people kind of just think that talking on a microphone is
so easy or it'll come so easily. And the harder thing about radio is
that you can't hear the laugh ever, so you could be bombing. We
could be bombing right now. People are listening right now, could be like,
oh golly, learn the violin, TJ. Why are you even talking
to this about? But I, you know, I think that it's just
it's funny because what you guys do and what I do seems so extemporaneous.
It seems just so easy, organic, whatever. And I've been on the
radio and seen such awkward moments or things at work, and then a great
DJ, just a great radio personality that won't even matter, that's just something
to be talked about. Whoa that was this? And then just scooping right
back into traffic and weather or going. And then the greatest genius of what
you guys do is these liners or when you sort of read with it,
add or the sponsor, the sort of hawking, and you kind of make
it funny, make it sound organic, and nobody is like irritated by it.
They're just like oh okay, I'll hear about this from one of my
favorite people. Could you guys also like me, make a money, make
your living. Being someone that everybody lists would be friends with, Like everybody
that likes us is like a but we'd have a good time at the bar,
you know, or if he came up for a game day like that
would be really really fun. And so that's something too. It's like to
keep that charisma up all the time. It's not easy. It's a job,
you know, And so I think that's really interesting that you said that
that you'll get a viewer to do a segment, or even people who call
in sometimes like they're so ready to to call a long time caller, you
know, first time. Let's just like okay, here we go, let's
do what it's all about. And then they get on. You're like,
okay, Dale from Grand Rapids, You're on. What's on? They're like,
I love you got that man? It's like, okay, what do
you do? I mean like car wow, yeah, yeah exactly. But
they just suddenly they're on the radio and they can't believe, like okay,
I'm on, what do I do? So it's that deer in the headlights
thing. So that was good. So I guess it's the thing. Is
the PSA to tell everyone do not try stand up. You won't be able
to. You're a dream crusher TV. You can see me. You can
see me. The uh what I'm doing is real radio step since you can
see me, to stand out, because you should encourage me. On December
first and second, Hyenas Comedy Club right next to the arc light. I
think there's a pokey bowl around there, all right, vape shop as well.
Do you know what you know what? Poke is absolutely some of my
favorite chicken Kevin Jesus Christ. Okay, that's any thinks it is. I
want to be Okay, Okay, you can go to Hyenas, get a
nice poke bowl and then TJ you walk right to the shop next door and
get your check cashed from Hyenas. Right, Yeah, I'll do that.
Their problem this segment, I got a oh sorry. So this is a
segment's also brought to you by it Almo Draft House Cinema five locations in the
Metroplex and next month our movie of the Month. We've decided it's not final,
we're waiting to see, but we've asked it to do office Christmas Party
as our big event with the rosters to come watch it. Have we made
a good decision? TJ. Absolutely, especially if you like cocaine. I
saw it and that's all I remember is cocaine and the fan. Right,
Cocaine gets stuck in a fan and I think they're trying to make it look
like it's snowing. We've said cocaine seven times. That makes it okay.
I. I think it's a great movie. And it's so fun to watch
families come up to me and say, oh, our kids looking how to
treat your drag in? Her favorite is big here a stick? And we
love how that. We love off It's Christmas Party. The yeah, we
were to show a teenager Deadpool. We love off It's Christmas Party. We
watch it every year and I'm like, you watch it with your twin thirteen
year old girls and they're like no, no, no, yeah, yeah,
we have. It's fun for the whole family, especially if you're a
bad parent. Modern gentle parenting. How's uh, how's Bateman has a big
arrested development fan? How's how's he to work with? And? Oh,
he's really incredible And what's interesting about him is that he can do such.
I mean, this is why we love the rest development. He can do
the tiniest, most subtle sort of comedic turn and they're really funny. And
the coolest thing I saw was he said, Okay, did you get the
line? I think it's like, he goes, you're sure about that?
It's in the opening in my eyes? You sure about that? You sure
about that? And they say yeah, we got and he goes, all
right, let me just do a like a run of them, and everyone's
like okay, and they just rolled on him and he did you sure about
that? He did it about I don't know twelve or fifteen different ways,
and all of them were funny, and they were barely different. They were
really, really, really minutely different. And so he's just a master.
He's a master of dry nuance. Man. Yeah, you know what nuance
means. Right, it will take us ten minutes. He's looking absolutely.
I love when people are real direct with me that old you have an old
non and you got to get rid of it. Jesus got what it is.
You won't hear that? Yes, you will be hand closed with it.
I bookend the whole set with something even my father would be like Tjman
you leave the rep I think, uh, I think that he's you don't
think it's such a funny dude. But guys like him and Aniston these different
types of movies. Starts right, and so I have a tough time I'm
understanding or relating to guys like Baban and Anson that are so like rigid is
the wrong word, so regimented. Like he gets up every morning, I
don't know, at five or something and runs five miles or a mile,
and then Jennifer Aniston is like hyper aware of what she's eating and how much
water she's drinking and exactly what vegetables she's having. And then I kind of
really sometimes will be like I'm not gonna have a third piece of pizza an
adult, and then to celebrate, I'll get ice cream. So it's like,
I personally see no difference in the levels of discipline between the three of
you like that, so it's interesting to kind of talk to them. And
it's like Bateman doesn't eat dinner ever, which is something that I do when
I'm not like when I'm cutting away for a role. But he definitely he
go, I go, do you let me get you like a green Machia
tea latte thing from Starbucks. They're going, He's like, yeah, sure,
and then they brought it to us and he came to me afterwards.
It was like one of those whips to me, Starbucks, you a thing
and he is really eating sugar if he came to you after, he goes,
what is that thing that you got to be giving? You gave me?
And I was like, that was the Macha latte swirl thing or whatever.
That wasn't a latte, that was a That was a milkshake, TJ.
That was a milkshake, all right, And I go, oh,
I'm sorry. Oh yeah, it does have sugar in it. I think,
yeah, I'm sorry because it has a lot of sugar. It was
a milkshake. And I go, okay, well, I'm sorry you didn't
have to have Did you eat it? He goes, of course I ate
it, your golt stake. It's like it's sugar. Fine. Of course.
I was gon' think and all I want to do is get a second
one. It's really funny. It's like with him, I gave him like
a sugar eat Starbucks drake, and it was like he had gotten drugs.
It's like I had given him cocaine. Well, you didn't have to do
that. Yes, I did all of the cocaine, and I want more
cocaine right now. He comes across like that guy that only smokes when he
drinks, and then you hang out with him and he's like rifled through your
entire pack by the end of the night. Yeah, that's right. And
also he's sober. And so one of the things too, is that you
know, he's got that kind of discipline the words you used before, he's
got the kind of discipline about everything else. And so I kind of screwed
him over with the with the I don't need sugar at all things. So
you know, it's to each sort of movie star it sound, but I
feel like it's it's really fun to be around those people because they're so different.
And then like Christian Stewart, it's kind of her whole other sort of
own thing that's sort of discipline and then very not disciplined of times. And
I prefer that. I prefer people that are allow themselves to get kind of
crazy and have fun and go out and that type of thing. But she's
also younger, she's like younger than I am. But it's strange to be
around these people because like, I'm a comic. I started as a stand
up comedian as an improviser also, and so it's fun to sort of live
in that world when I'm not really an actor, Like that's not my identity,
I don't think, but that's how most people know me. And so
it's really fun when people see me and they come and I see the show
and they go cheeze that. You know, I love you from moving to
television, but you're actually pretty funny. And I'm like, well, you
don't have to say actually or pretty. You can just say I'm funny.
But it's people kind of realizing like, whoa have you? Like have you
done this before? Yeah? Yeah, for like twenty years. Well,
teach, we want to come and see me stand up. And it's a
lot of improvisation, a lot of interacting with the audience, and a lot
of just talking about Dallas and what it's all about. Hell yeah, we
look forward to that Friday, December one and Saturday December second at the Great
Hyenas. Go get your tickets everyone to see TJ. Miller. Thank you
so much for your time this morning, TJ. We appreciate it. Man
thanks for having me on Kat. I'm excited for when you find out what
a textual mean one of these days, one of these days. Then after
you find that out, you can realize you're not you're non binary. Thanks
guys, Bye DJ here he goes bye TJA. All right, TJ Miller,
that was great. We're super late, so let's get to the hot
mop your messages from the top Back radio app next on ninety seven of the Freak