WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.879
This is a downbeat on ninety seven
one The Freak. All right, here

2
00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:08.560
we go. We are back Friday
morning. Hope you're doing well, kicking

3
00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.759
ass. Smell the weekend mail.
It didn't work today. If you want

4
00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:16.800
truly your choice, if you mean
ready to get that turkey based you're out

5
00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.519
for your wife, Yes, pull
that out of the We have the receipt

6
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:22.320
for that too. If you need
to take it back and get a new

7
00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.960
one, We're gonna need a bigger
both. This segment's brought to you by

8
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.960
Alamo Draft House Cinema. We love
Alamo Draft House Cinema. I want to

9
00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:33.119
remind you Ben and Skin if you
got that special screening of hot Rod next

10
00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:37.240
week, tickets only seven dollars ninety
seven to one the Freak dot Com.

11
00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:40.880
That's gonna be Tuesday. That's gonna
be Almo Draft House in Denton, So

12
00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:45.600
that's gonna be good stuff. Speak
easy about there the day before that broadcasting

13
00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.759
as well. Ninety seven one the
Freak dot Com Join us now in studio

14
00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.600
is comedy man Paul mccurio, and
you can see him at the Plano House

15
00:00:53.640 --> 00:01:00.560
of Comedy tonight and tomorrow night.
Both either or do your thing TX dot

16
00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.439
House of Comedy dot net. That's
TX dot House of Comedy dot net for

17
00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:10.480
your tickets. And Paul works well, he does a lot of things right,

18
00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:14.879
but he worked with The Daily Show
for many years works now for Late

19
00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:19.120
Night with Stephen Colbert. I was
listening to the Strikeforce five podcast a little

20
00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:22.480
bit, yeah, and uh they
were talking about getting back into it,

21
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:26.439
and Steven mentioned people were up his
ass about he forgot about these eleven am

22
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:30.879
meetings and he said he's pretty scatterbrained
and he needs people to keep him on

23
00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:36.159
track. And I don't know how
associated with that you are. Yeah,

24
00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:38.840
well, there's different meetings that happened
during the course of the day because like

25
00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:41.680
you're starting the show, like you
got to plan, like everything has to

26
00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:45.840
happen that day basically, like you're
doing a show that day for that night.

27
00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:49.280
At five point thirty, we tape
it so like it's it's two hundred

28
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:52.799
and something people to make the show
go. And if the guy running it

29
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:56.079
is you know wrongk at eleven o'clock
in the morning, it's not going to

30
00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:59.599
work. And that's why Steven has
to be removed. And I think I'm

31
00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:02.519
going to be the to the show. Now, all right, congratulations man,

32
00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:07.959
if you need some staff riders,
good at it. So you guys

33
00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:12.080
to submit your resume if you want
to. If you want a job,

34
00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:15.159
I need rice, chrisp retreats and
a turkey baser and you got it.

35
00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:19.599
What's a resume? We can just
anything on the back of the now.

36
00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:22.479
No, yeah, so we we
kind of the whole thing is just you

37
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.520
know, it's a it's a We
went from like, uh, the Daily

38
00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:29.680
Show had about eighty eighty five people, The Colbert Report had eighty eighty five

39
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:34.319
people, and then when it went
to this show and went to like over

40
00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:37.319
two hundred people. It's a beast. It's an hour. We were doing

41
00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:40.439
a half hour show four days a
week, two hours of total content a

42
00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:46.840
week at Comedy Central to five hours
a week at you know, a major

43
00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:52.319
broadcast network, and you know,
pressure every day, every day, every

44
00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:55.240
day day. Yeah, yeah,
I wanted to talk to you about the

45
00:02:55.240 --> 00:03:01.080
pressure thing. I bet there was
such a underdog beauty to the early days

46
00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:06.479
of the Daily Show. When you're
not on a major network, the expectations

47
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:14.159
are probably pretty low and you are
invariably daily for lack of a better word,

48
00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:17.520
trying to find out where the line
is pushing the envelope, being creative,

49
00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:23.039
going for an idea that maybe you
hadn't considered that you had that freedom

50
00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:25.280
to do what you wanted to.
And the only time you probably even knew

51
00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:30.280
that the bosses knew you existed is
when you pushed the boundary a little bit

52
00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:34.520
too far. We were just talking
about the previous segment about like two instances

53
00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:37.360
where we got yelled at because we
went too far, but it was like

54
00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:43.000
getting yelled at by the President network
literally, but the stuff was getting yelled

55
00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.919
at over comedy, so he could
not he was yelling at us. It

56
00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:50.879
was about like you know, showing
pictures of like things that were like dildo's

57
00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:53.639
and saying dildo too many times and
stuff like that for people who weren't listening

58
00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:57.840
earlier. But he would yell at
us, but like he was laughing through

59
00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.919
the yell, like you can't and
I not to laugh because at the end

60
00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:03.919
of the day, it's just comedy, sure, but like he was smart

61
00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:10.159
enough to know let him just blow
the chemistry set up in the basement and

62
00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:14.400
see what happens. Because when you
know where the line is, that now

63
00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:16.399
people are gonna start watching because you're
like, can you believe? As opposed

64
00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:20.079
I was doing the same old joke
like whatever, you know, it's you

65
00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:24.920
know, like that everybody would be
doing it late night. We wanted to

66
00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:29.680
just do one step beyond and go
whoa, whoa? Did they just say

67
00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:31.800
that? Yeah? And so that's
so now like the back and Black segment.

68
00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:34.839
Lewis Black's a good friend of mine, so my writing partner and I

69
00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.439
created that segment with him because we
were trying to find stuff to do.

70
00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:42.319
And you guys, know you're creative, you have a show, you do

71
00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:46.360
segments. The best stuff comes when
you try are not trying to come up

72
00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:47.399
with something like you just sit in
a room and go, okay, we

73
00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:51.639
need a bit from like from from
nine forty to nine p. Fifty.

74
00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:55.399
We just need a bit that we
can, like a refillable bit that we

75
00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:58.480
could do. And then we throw
ideas around and nothing happens. And then

76
00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:01.839
like you're in the bathroom taking a
dump and then something comes to you based

77
00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:05.279
on toilet paper, right, So
what happened was when we would pitch the

78
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:11.639
way we pitched shows for The Daily
Show was you pitch uh articles or stories

79
00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:15.519
and papers and magazines and then you
pitch video, so we'd have a producer

80
00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:17.439
coming because we would run like a
news feed, like like a news show.

81
00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:20.600
So we get us we paid for
a subscription for Associated Press. We

82
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:24.800
get news stories from all over the
country, so we get locals, like

83
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:28.920
stories from Plano or Fort Worth,
Texas, or Providence, Rhode Island or

84
00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.920
wherever whatever, Right, and you
call through it the stories, the stories

85
00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:41.560
you were getting like crazy, like
crazy, like whatever, sorry and so

86
00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:44.879
like, and we're like, but
but they were too small to do as

87
00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:46.639
a national story. For John at
the top of the show. They always

88
00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:49.720
had to be national stories. It
had to be like a sub segment maybe

89
00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:55.560
later on. Yeah, and even
then, like we had small town news,

90
00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.920
right, you watched the Early Days
show, there was even with John

91
00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:01.120
in the beginning, there were three
It was called headline News, and the

92
00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:05.279
second act was this just in and
then the third act was other news.

93
00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:09.639
And as you went along it could
be a small or smaller story. But

94
00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:13.560
still these were too like and a
lot of times it was like a Florida

95
00:06:13.639 --> 00:06:15.720
man dot dot dot right like and
then we would get these stories like,

96
00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:18.800
oh yeah, so Florida man says
he saw an image of the Virgin Mary

97
00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:21.240
and some melted butter. Like it
was crazy, right, yeah, and

98
00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:23.800
like what are we gonna do with
these? We're like, we know,

99
00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:27.319
we'll look up for something for Lewis
to do. He could just rant.

100
00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.759
So we would just find three stories
that sort of had something to do with

101
00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:34.199
each other. We'd make up this
spine among them, and then we'd give

102
00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:36.959
it to him and he'd rant,
and that's it was. It will be

103
00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.439
to the day my dying day.
The most fun that I ever had was

104
00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:45.759
sitting in this room every like Tuesday
to produce this piece. So we would

105
00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.839
sit with the producer Lewis, myself
and my writing partner and just go through

106
00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:53.680
video for like three hours. And
it was like hanging out with your buddies

107
00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:57.680
in a basement, just saying the
most inappropriate stuff. Ninety percent of what

108
00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:00.720
we're saying could never get on the
air, but the other ten percent was

109
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.079
gold. And and by the way, I'm surprised I'm not dead from cancer

110
00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:08.279
because he was a chainsmoker, Lewis, and so was the producer. And

111
00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:11.519
this is when you could smoke in
a building and all the windows were closed

112
00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:16.319
and we're like, it was just
insane and nothing was better when Lewis would

113
00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:23.240
get so crazed on camera that he
would blow the read because he and he

114
00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:27.040
couldn't stop, and then we'd have
to retake and everybody's laughing in the studio,

115
00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:30.560
and it was it was, it
was beautiful because it came out of

116
00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:34.519
this like there was this thing.
It was like this thing that came out.

117
00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:36.759
It was like a necessity that came
out of like, you know,

118
00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:39.759
just having all these stories and what
are you going to do with them?

119
00:07:39.839 --> 00:07:42.519
Right, so we gave the Lewis
and when we're off and running and you

120
00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:47.120
go from that, you know,
kind of renegade TV on a on a

121
00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:51.879
non major network into evolving and growing
and doing what you're doing now where I'm

122
00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:57.000
sure you know you said you've talked
about more than doubling the amount of people

123
00:07:57.040 --> 00:08:03.720
that are working on the Cold Bear
Show. And even then, isn't it

124
00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:05.560
amazing you talked about the creative process
and you're talking about, hey, we

125
00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:09.600
need a five minute bit for nine
o'clock and you don't have anything, and

126
00:08:09.639 --> 00:08:13.680
you end up cramming something in there
and forcing something and that stuff never lands.

127
00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:16.600
You know, that's going to be
the worst thing that you do.

128
00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.600
But even with all the creative minds
working together, all of the writers mate.

129
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:22.879
Like you mentioned earlier, you know, either you have a group of

130
00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:26.519
writers because one day I've got nothing
and I need to be carried that day.

131
00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:30.399
Will you get that person's best idea? And then it goes through all

132
00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:33.600
of the different filters and processes and
producers, and then you run it by

133
00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:35.559
the network to see if it's okay
to air, and you put it on

134
00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:39.159
the air and it just doesn't land. That's still a reality. There's no

135
00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:41.840
science to this that we're all just
schlubs, just winging it, trying to

136
00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:45.360
do the best that we can,
you know, on a day to day

137
00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:50.759
basis. And I think that's all
of us in this vast sea of people

138
00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:56.399
that want to entertain and produce content, as they say nowadays, and we're

139
00:08:56.440 --> 00:08:58.080
all just trying to do the effing
best that we can. And it's it's

140
00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:03.279
a struggle. And that's why there's
a rehearsal. And you know, you

141
00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:05.720
go in with I don't know,
say fifteen jokes, knowing that five of

142
00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:09.679
them you're probably gonna kill because you're
not sure. You can't find it.

143
00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:11.919
Sometimes you just can't find it.
Yeah, I mean, I can tell

144
00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:16.600
you how many times, like I
found it like falling asleep at midnight.

145
00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:20.159
That was the line I should have
put in there, because it's like taking

146
00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:22.519
a final, like you never have
enough time. At one point there were

147
00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:30.840
just six of us writing six headline
jokes a show with multiple punchlines, so

148
00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:33.879
you'd have to write six different topics
in three hours and try to come up

149
00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:37.480
with as many shokes you could.
It was like crazy. And now you

150
00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:41.639
know, then we could say stuff
that I don't even know now, like

151
00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:45.519
even for my act. Like there's
this whole political correctness thing, which is

152
00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:50.559
like like it's kind of you know, really taking control of some comedy and

153
00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:54.600
content and stuff like that, and
like and I think it's gotten. And

154
00:09:54.679 --> 00:09:58.639
I think comedy should be, whether
it's stand up live or these shows should

155
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:03.080
be pushed back and saying the things
that you should be able to say.

156
00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:05.240
Like I think the I believe in
political correctness. I just think the pendulum

157
00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.919
swung too far. Yeah. I
also believe comedy is a bit of a

158
00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:11.200
safe space too. Yeah, I
think so too. You know, full

159
00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:16.360
anything goes, But come to see
my show. I'm just going to tell

160
00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:18.399
you what I think. I'm not
going to try to offend you. But

161
00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:20.919
I'm not going to worry that.
Like, the problem is social media is

162
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.559
empowered everybody. Everybody's trying to catch
everybody. That's what I noticed. What

163
00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:28.000
did he mean by especially if you're
a white guy, It's like, what

164
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.360
did he and? And it's gotten
not just like in society. It's funny

165
00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:33.879
because this just happened the other day. My wife and I were talking about

166
00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:37.960
the last two nights ago. So
my wife and I walk on our dog

167
00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:39.320
in Central Park. We live in
New York, so it's lawyer especially have

168
00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:43.039
a dog on a leash, and
our dog was on a leash, and

169
00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:45.960
this is the guy who's dog wasn't
on a leash, big dog and little

170
00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:48.399
kids around. It was scaring people. And my wife, who's like the

171
00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:50.480
nicest person in the world, just
went up. He goes, excuse me,

172
00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:52.919
sure your dog should be on a
leash, just like that, just

173
00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:56.200
like that. What does he do? He goes, why because it's a

174
00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:01.360
pitbull, like implying that we were
like racist to a pitbulls. And then

175
00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:03.600
I and I snapped and I went
no, because it's got a baby in

176
00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:07.759
its mouth, that's why. Okay, because because it has prison tattoos and

177
00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:11.840
he's smoking Marlboros and he's packing a
switchblade. Okay, like can we just

178
00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:15.960
stop? Like it's too much?
Like can we just all just sort of

179
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:24.519
not try to be at each other's
can't? We are just such little sad,

180
00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:30.519
insecure week beings just going through this
life just being offended and defending ourselves

181
00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:35.480
and lashing out because we're just afraid. We're just always afraid of something.

182
00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:39.360
It's also people don't have I don't. I just look at the glasses half

183
00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:43.559
full. I don't always assign nefarious
motives to people, like just like people

184
00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:46.960
do things innocently, like because my
buddy of mine and I were talking about

185
00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:48.600
it, because like what are you
gonna go for Halloween? And I remember

186
00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:52.879
you couldn't do this today, but
it was innocent when we did it.

187
00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:56.240
My parents would dress me every year
as a hobo. That's what they called

188
00:11:56.279 --> 00:12:01.279
it, like hobo hobo, which
is which is basically we didn't have money

189
00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:03.039
for a costume. Oh and they
always forgot it was Halloween. It was

190
00:12:03.039 --> 00:12:07.679
like five o'clock. Just take some
of daddy's old clothes and they put like

191
00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:11.240
cock on, get some little shopos
something on your face looked like a beard,

192
00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:15.639
and they send out, well,
you couldn't do that now because I

193
00:12:15.639 --> 00:12:18.960
was a homeless person. It would
be considered insensitive. And it's true,

194
00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:22.080
like it was kind of weird if
you think about it. That and and

195
00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.360
our parents dressed us as homeless people
and then sent us out onto the streets

196
00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:31.960
at night to collect free food in
front of real homeless training. It was

197
00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.360
like when your creative career failure,
you're not gonna get candy and that,

198
00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:39.159
so you're gonna get baked beans and
a harmonica. That's all you're gonna get.

199
00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:46.480
And it's like it's so it's just
become this like so like I like

200
00:12:46.519 --> 00:12:50.480
to talk to the audience, right, I like I really and so in

201
00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:52.360
fact, and may even be bringing
it here. We're taking I got a

202
00:12:52.399 --> 00:12:58.000
show called Permission to Speak, which
is uh, it's a theater show that

203
00:12:58.080 --> 00:13:01.960
I was doing before COVID and New
York Broadway, and it's directed by Frank

204
00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:07.159
Oz who is Yokol created the Muppets
and awesome, yeah, and and so

205
00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:13.399
we're taking it out on tour and
it's I I think that we're nameless and

206
00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:18.519
faceless to each other, but if
we talk and share stories, personal stories.

207
00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:22.039
We connect because we realize we have
more in common than we think,

208
00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:24.879
and we're not so divisive. And
anyway, it just calms down. Like

209
00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:26.840
I've been talking my act lately,
I go, can I just be the

210
00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:30.559
guy in the middle? Can I
be the guy that sort of believes a

211
00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:33.440
little bit of what you do over
here? But I'm not the devil to

212
00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:35.960
you because I don't believe in everything, and I'm a little bit of a

213
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.120
little bit of what you believe over
here, And I'm not the devil too.

214
00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:41.440
Like life lives in the gray area. That's the interesting part of life,

215
00:13:41.480 --> 00:13:43.360
the nuances I have to believe.
Like can I believe that you should

216
00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:46.120
have a gun, but maybe you
shouldn't aboard children? Can I like all

217
00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:48.039
this stuff? Right? Like?
You can have all of that stuff?

218
00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:50.639
And I don't talk politics in my
act. I just think it's like,

219
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:56.120
can we all just relax. It's
just so this show that I've been doing,

220
00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:00.600
I just bring people on stage and
they tell stories from no life cool.

221
00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:05.200
It's randos, not planned, not
picked ahead of time, not planted,

222
00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:09.399
and you've got a plan of how
you kind of manage manage them or

223
00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:13.600
less. They go up stuck on
the quote unquote on the air or at

224
00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:15.840
the time. Yeah, well it's
not good. What if they got nothing?

225
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.440
They everybody has something, I swear
to go. I mean, I

226
00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:22.559
you're skilled enough to pull that out
of clips. Y next time I come

227
00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:24.720
on, I'll give you. I'll
bring some clips with me. I got

228
00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:26.799
clips. But you're deft and skilled
enough to be able to what I'm talking

229
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:31.039
about, to to kind of manage
getting the most out of them. If

230
00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:35.600
they are, you know, very
timid or spoken what I'm said, that's

231
00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:37.639
a good point. I know,
within about twenty or thirty seconds. I

232
00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:39.600
mean, look, you guys are
great at what you do. You're great

233
00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:43.679
listeners and that's why you're great interviewers. And that's half of it. So

234
00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:46.759
the key for me is I can't
get ahead of myself. I got to

235
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:48.159
let the game come to me,
right. So like, if I'm talking

236
00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.639
to you, you have a Texas
Rangers set on and you say something amazing

237
00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:54.799
about your life, and I missed
it because I've been for two minutes saying

238
00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:58.759
I got a really good baseball cap
joke that I'm going to do. Then

239
00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.399
I screwed myself and I shouldn't.
But if I just listen and listen and

240
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:05.080
listen, and you go to the
second question, and then the third question

241
00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:11.519
you get gold. I had a
guy come on stage right and like,

242
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:13.600
this is in New York and he
happened to be a New York guy,

243
00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:15.720
but we were getting people from all
over the world because it was in Times

244
00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:18.480
Square. War was doing one of
the theaters there, and he goes,

245
00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:20.840
he just seemed like he was angry, Like so whatever, I go,

246
00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:22.320
what's going on? He goes,
I'm all right, go what do you

247
00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:24.639
do? Like I go, and
then I finally said, like the third

248
00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:26.639
go you seem upset. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. My

249
00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:30.320
wife goes, you want a story. I got a story for you,

250
00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:35.720
because, uh, my wife is
having an affair with a priest in Lichtenstein.

251
00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.840
And everybody starts laughing, and I
said, look, I only have

252
00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:41.600
one rule in the show, which
is you can't tell jokes. Because it

253
00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:45.399
sounded like it was like a guy
went into a bar joke right yeah,

254
00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:46.679
And he goes, oh, no, I'm not joking. I'm not joking.

255
00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:50.360
Now everybody's leaning in. Now I
understand. All I'm doing is I'm

256
00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:54.320
going up and I set the premise
of the show, which is what I

257
00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:56.360
just described, but we have a
set behind me. It's a set piece

258
00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:00.399
with boxes. My set was designed
by the set designer for The Late Show

259
00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:02.440
is Stephen Colbert, because he says, when he's seen me do this,

260
00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:04.279
he feels like, I am box
people, and we're all in our own

261
00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:07.559
boxes. And if we come out
of these boxes, we realize, you

262
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:10.799
know what, you might be far
right and I might be far left,

263
00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:12.360
but you know so, I'm never
We're never going to change each other on

264
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.840
politics. But we start to connect
and I realized, Oh, this guy's

265
00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:18.039
got a dog that craps on his
furniture, and I got a dog that

266
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:21.720
creps on my furniture. And he's
gonna in law that he hates. And

267
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:23.679
I got to well, then maybe
he's not so bad, and then maybe

268
00:16:23.720 --> 00:16:27.000
I'll listen to his politics. And
that's hopefully what can happen, but that's

269
00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:30.200
up to them. So the guy
goes, yeah, I got a story

270
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:33.039
for you. Yeah. So my
wife's mother dies. She lives in Lichtenstein.

271
00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:34.120
So we go over there for the
and he's talking just like this.

272
00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:37.480
He goes, we go over there
for the we go over there for the

273
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:40.399
funeral. So my uh the priest, you know, big fat priest.

274
00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:45.080
He's fat, fat, fat bastard
fat because and so and so we go

275
00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:47.679
okay and he goes, So I
have to go back. You know,

276
00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:49.399
my wife stays to take care of
the estate, and one thing lets or

277
00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:53.120
another. Apparently the priest starts hitting
on my wife. Yeah, so I

278
00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:56.679
find all this out later he goes, of course, and so then my

279
00:16:56.679 --> 00:16:59.559
wife, you know, she's like
uh so then they start sleeping together.

280
00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.679
And my wife's into working out,
so she would go on hikes and so

281
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.079
he could get in his pants,
her pants. He would go on hikes

282
00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:07.279
with her. So now the guy
lost thirty pounds. So because of me,

283
00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:15.200
that fat f is is is bring
my wife and he's down thirty pounds.

284
00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:18.839
It looks great. The place is
like what And then I go,

285
00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:21.960
so where's your wife? Now?
Oh, she's living with me in the

286
00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:26.920
house in Brooklyn. Oh like what
they worked it out or they apartments.

287
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.000
And I go, you're getting divorced, yeah, I think, so I

288
00:17:29.039 --> 00:17:30.839
go, well, you got to
let her go. Man. People were

289
00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.480
yelling literally yelling out like you got
a divorce or like that is so New

290
00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:38.319
York idea. And so it's called
permission to speak. And I really love

291
00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:42.079
this area and the audiences are great
here, and I want to take it

292
00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:45.799
here. And so so I like
to another woman. I go, what's

293
00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:49.799
your name? She goes Nydia.
I go Lydia with an L. And

294
00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:52.119
you could tell she was annoyed,
because everybody does that. She goes,

295
00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.759
no, Nydia with an N as
a Nancy Nydia. I go, oh,

296
00:17:55.759 --> 00:17:59.039
that's an unusual name. How'd you
get that name? That's all I

297
00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:03.559
said. And the reason this works
is because I I think people want to

298
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:07.519
tell their stories and sometimes need to
tell their stories because everybody's been told to

299
00:18:07.559 --> 00:18:11.920
be quiet and be careful what you
say. And this is a safe space.

300
00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:14.079
You could say whatever you want.
I'm not gonna let you insult people

301
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:15.799
and be racist or whatever. Course, I don't care what you say.

302
00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:25.359
Leave that to John Stewart's exact pay
wearing that tiny dog shirp and living dog

303
00:18:25.480 --> 00:18:29.200
whatever. Yes, exactly. And
so I go, how'd you get that

304
00:18:29.319 --> 00:18:32.759
name? She goes, well,
my father, She starts laughing. She

305
00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:34.559
goes, my father got my mother
pregnant with me, but at the same

306
00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:37.559
time was having an affair with a
woman named Nidia. And he named me

307
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.839
after the woman he was having an
affair. Way everybody did what you guys

308
00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:45.400
just said, they went, oh
my god. And so we've talked a

309
00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:48.920
lot about writing today. We would
sit in a room. I would give

310
00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:52.720
you these stories and we would start
writing them and then you say, tear

311
00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.000
it up. No one's going to
believe it. It's not believable. I

312
00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:59.240
am telling you. Yea, So
we should do that here, let's do

313
00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:00.799
it. We'll make it happen.
Yeah. So I basically like, yeah,

314
00:19:02.039 --> 00:19:03.920
I'd love to and love to come
on and you know, promote it

315
00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:07.839
with you guys and everything. So
we have this really cool set that we

316
00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:11.920
designed and we're doing rear projection and
my animator is JJ Settlemeyer. He did

317
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:18.400
Beavis and Butt, heead, he
did all the STV Funhouse and Frank Oz

318
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:19.960
fell in love with it. I
had him on my podcast and I just

319
00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:23.000
met him once. And I love
to talk about process. I'm like a

320
00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:27.279
process key because my feeling is like
I've worked in late night TV, but

321
00:19:27.319 --> 00:19:32.680
they're really marketing shows like the Late
Show, Tonight Show, the marketing shows

322
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:34.519
for people to come on in ten
six. So we would have like Bruce

323
00:19:34.519 --> 00:19:37.759
Springsteen on You have him for two
segments, so that's ten minutes. The

324
00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:41.519
guy's a musical genius. She talked
to him for three hours. Right,

325
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:45.200
It's like, and I my podcast
is just long form? How do you

326
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:48.720
do what you do? And Frank
explained how they created them up, It's

327
00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:53.839
like, puppeteers are not guys that
just like do voices. They imbue their

328
00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:59.799
own personality traits into the character.
So he created Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear,

329
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:04.319
all of them, right, Cookie
Monster. Miss Piggy is insecure because

330
00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:10.160
Frank was insecure, and that's why
she's verbose and loud and whatever and in

331
00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:11.720
your face. Fascinating. I get
chills just talking about it. Right,

332
00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:15.519
Like, this is the mind of
that show. At its peak had two

333
00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:19.559
hundred million viewers around the world.
Right, yeah, I have that guy

334
00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:22.440
in my seat here. I want
to talk to him in his process.

335
00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:25.440
So I was trying to get this
thing off the ground. I'm like,

336
00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:26.720
I need somebody to direct me.
So I said, I just called him.

337
00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:29.559
I only met him once. I
go, would you look at my

338
00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:30.920
show? I need I'll pay you. He goes, no, no,

339
00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:33.000
no, sorry, I'll come and
look at it. And he really fell

340
00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:37.039
in love with it because he said, I feel like there's a humanity to

341
00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:40.680
the show and we need a show
like this now that can actually kind of

342
00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:44.599
bring people together in a cool way. But so take that on the road

343
00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:48.839
man, Yeah, really really.
November eleventh is our first show in New

344
00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.559
Jersey. The November eighteenth, we're
going to Chicago and we're booking we're going

345
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.599
to be Milwaukee. So it's a
theater show with the set that travels with

346
00:20:56.680 --> 00:20:59.680
me. Yeah, and when you're
like the thousand, two thousand, three

347
00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:02.880
thousand, probably a thousand and below, okay, just to see how I

348
00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:06.279
do. Yes, I don't know
what. Yeah, horn would be great.

349
00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:07.559
Maybe what was it? Eric Andre
was just here. It was a

350
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:14.599
long horn that's we'll touch you,
break and give you a few places.

351
00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.519
And yeah, my podcast is called
Inside Out with Paul mccurrey. I had

352
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:21.640
Paul McCartney and I'll tell you that
story next time I come on. Please.

353
00:21:21.880 --> 00:21:23.759
Yes, you guys are awesome man. Thanks for taking the time and

354
00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:27.079
hanging out to talk like this on
radio and have this kind of I kind

355
00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:30.200
of feel like we've done. They
don't like it when we do this.

356
00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.559
They want to bite size, you
know, bite size quick stories hit them

357
00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:37.680
past. So we just did basically
an hour. We did a podcast live

358
00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:41.359
on the air. We're probably gonna
get in trouble. I absolutely worth.

359
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:44.519
I can give you more funny if
you want. No, no, no

360
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:48.480
no, We got to go anywhere
Mercurio, t X dot House of Comedy

361
00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:52.559
dot net for your tickets. He's
at the plane Out House of Comedy tonight

362
00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:57.599
and tomorrow night again. Get your
tickets t X dot House of Comedy dot

363
00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:02.160
net. Paul, thank you for
the time on man. We'll talk to

364
00:22:02.200 --> 00:22:04.279
you next time you're in town and
we'll go around and let's get this take

365
00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:10.039
Staples button with me. Yeah,
please start. Thanks guys. Coming up

366
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:14.240
next, we got your messages from
the iHeartRadio app, plus a little more

367
00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:17.960
Rangers Astros news game at four today. Got a little update for you next

368
00:22:17.960 --> 00:22:18.000
to nice having won the Freak