Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media been there. I'm Johnny Mack with your
Speaker 1: daily comedy news Jim Gaffing. Until the La Times that
Speaker 1: stand up has changed so much, to the notion that
Speaker 1: people are putting out multiple specials didn't exist when I
Speaker 1: started stand up. But I think that people who consume
Speaker 1: a stand up comedian's material, there's a familiarity, but it's
Speaker 1: like a friendship. You can't have the exact same conversation.
Speaker 1: Even though we all have friends where it's like we're
Speaker 1: having the same conversation about high school. It has to
Speaker 1: be different. You both have to challenge each other. So
Speaker 1: for me working on the special or working on this
Speaker 1: new hour that I'm working on now, it's self assignment.
Speaker 1: So some of it. Any creative person's like, what can
Speaker 1: I talk about that is embarrassing or revealing. I think
Speaker 1: that people that have tracked me along the way in
Speaker 1: my stand up would be interested in my view and parenting.
Speaker 1: I've always had the view that I suck at it,
Speaker 1: but I have greater empathy for what all parents are
Speaker 1: dealing with, and I think also parents of this era,
Speaker 1: we've made mistakes and it doesn't help. With social media
Speaker 1: and the apps and the screens. And that's something that's
Speaker 1: revealed in doing my stand up and in reading some
Speaker 1: of the parenting books. Parents of teenagers have this perspective.
Speaker 1: Adults have an impression of what their teenage years were like,
Speaker 1: and I'm providing this point of view about what it's
Speaker 1: like to live with these people. It's kind of a cliche
Speaker 1: raising teenagers is like raising a mentally ill person. It
Speaker 1: sounds harsh. We know this is a natural separation process
Speaker 1: where teenagers challenge things. But I love that I've gained
Speaker 1: this perspective of was my data jerkface? Or maybe I
Speaker 1: was a jerk face? He used the D word. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's kind of basic, but that's something that's universal. We
Speaker 1: all went through being teenagers, and not necessarily the conflict,
Speaker 1: but the misunderstanding between the teenager and the parent, which
Speaker 1: I find fascinating. Jim Jeffreys told Rolling Stone that he
Speaker 1: wants to act more. Name dropper Jim said, I texted
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe excuse me, and I said, Russell, I've got
Speaker 1: an acting job. Can I call you quickly for some tips?
Speaker 1: And I think he thought I just wanted acting tips,
Speaker 1: and I was asking him more about when you talk
Speaker 1: to a director, what do you do here? Is it
Speaker 1: too much for me to add a line here or there?
Speaker 1: Do you not do that? In trauma? But Russell sent
Speaker 1: me a quote from Hamlet and told me to hold
Speaker 1: up a mirror to nature and I went, thanks, mate.
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone asked him if stand up could take a
Speaker 1: back seat to film. Jim said, that's like saying, do
Speaker 1: you think you'll have sex with more tractive women? It's
Speaker 1: not my decision, is it. They get to make the choice. Now.
Speaker 1: Obviously I'm joking, I'm a happily married man. Blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But you get what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 1: up to the movie industry. It's not up to me.
Speaker 1: I look at Sammy Davis Junior. I watched a documentary
Speaker 1: about him. He was a really good singer, an amazing dancer,
Speaker 1: and outstanding impersonator and all that type of stuff. He
Speaker 1: was a ball of entertainment, and I'd like to be that.
Speaker 1: I like the idea that I can entertain at any time.
Speaker 1: So whether it be TV presenting or acting or doing
Speaker 1: stand up, I just consider myself to be an entertainer
Speaker 1: first and foremost. I don't think I can because of
Speaker 1: my voice or whatever. But I'd like to do a
Speaker 1: bit of musical theater or something like that. I'd give
Speaker 1: that a crack. I'm up for doing everything but juggling
Speaker 1: and mime. Anthony Jesson expoke to crack dot com about
Speaker 1: his influences Stephen Right, Ronnie Dangershfield, and Mitch Hedberg. They
Speaker 1: were curious where he discovered those guys. Anthony said, it
Speaker 1: must have been late night TV as a kid, waiting
Speaker 1: for those last five minutes of Carson to see who
Speaker 1: would show up. I remember watching a lot of end
Speaker 1: of Carson's waiting for Letterman to come on. They would
Speaker 1: usually have a comic at the end. I'm sure, well,
Speaker 1: Stephen writes HBO special at some point, but I must
Speaker 1: have been introduced through late night sets Hebburg. I didn't
Speaker 1: find out about until i'd been doing comedy for about
Speaker 1: a year, but Stephen Wright was the first, and then
Speaker 1: Dangerfield was like, oh, I'm into this guy too. But
Speaker 1: Stephen Wright to me was huge. Did Jessinic try and mimic,
Speaker 1: writs Cadence. He said, no, surprisingly not. You could say
Speaker 1: Christopher walk In for sure has had an impact on
Speaker 1: how I speak, even though my dad gets the same comparison,
Speaker 1: But Stephen Wright was almost too much of a departure
Speaker 1: from my character. Maybe there would have been a couple
Speaker 1: of years in college when I was smoking too much
Speaker 1: pot that I could have had a Hebburg kind of personality.
Speaker 1: But I never had that burnout thing either, which just
Speaker 1: more of how did they think of? That? Crazy twist?
Speaker 1: Never really entered into my persona with my friends in
Speaker 1: the beginning. Has the Anthony Justinic character evolved over time,
Speaker 1: and he said, I think of the character as an
Speaker 1: aging punk rocker. At this point. In the beginning, it
Speaker 1: was like, there are no lines. If everybody offend everybody,
Speaker 1: let's go. And I'm glad I did that in my
Speaker 1: twenties and that helped me out a lot my idols
Speaker 1: who have softened as they get older. I find that
Speaker 1: to be interesting, and as the world changes, you find
Speaker 1: yourself going from the villain of the hero. My past
Speaker 1: is my past, then I'll never apologize for it or
Speaker 1: try to whitewash it. But I think I've gained a
Speaker 1: lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge and life experience.
Speaker 1: I like that I've softened and that the act isn't
Speaker 1: as hardcore as it used to be. I think that's good,
Speaker 1: and I think that's more interesting. I don't think of
Speaker 1: the character evolving, but as I write, I'm reacting to
Speaker 1: what's popular around me. If the biggest comics in the
Speaker 1: world started getting real family friendly, maybe I would go
Speaker 1: darker and would go harder. There's plenty of comics now
Speaker 1: that are just as dark and hardcore as I used
Speaker 1: to be. It's next part too justting listen to this.
Speaker 1: I think they lack my writing talent now. I just
Speaker 1: see a lot of culture personality. I think having a
Speaker 1: popular podcast is more important than having a good act.
Speaker 1: That's how it dies with the podcasting. You don't really
Speaker 1: have to do anything other than have a popular podcast
Speaker 1: to sell tickets, and you'll have a great show because
Speaker 1: the audience loves it, and you're never really testing anything out.
Speaker 1: That's why I see all these podcasts put out a special.
Speaker 1: They're immediately savage by critics and forgotten about to the
Speaker 1: point that people don't even want to write about it,
Speaker 1: because there's no point in writing a negative review of
Speaker 1: something that's just friends hanging out, which is what comedy's becoming.
Speaker 1: He's both not wrong and somewhat wrong. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get what he's saying about things having less artistic reaching.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, from the consumer point of view, Hey,
Speaker 1: I went out, I saw somebody I dig. I had
Speaker 1: a good time and laughed, and I went home hopefully,
Speaker 1: and I'm home by ten thirty because I'm old. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything wrong with that. Not everything has
Speaker 1: to be art, and I know I sometimes argue that
Speaker 1: both ways, but I don't know. If you go out
Speaker 1: and you have a good time, that's fine. Like as
Speaker 1: I reviewed these specials, some of them are just fine.
Speaker 1: I can be a comedy snob, I admit it. Shang Wang,
Speaker 1: I like him a lot. He spoke to The Texas
Speaker 1: Standard talked about his friendship with Ali Wang, who executive
Speaker 1: produced a special, and said, yeah, she's a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: We met in the early days of doing stand up.
Speaker 1: We were both in the open mic scene in San
Speaker 1: Francisco in the early two thousands, and we've been friends
Speaker 1: ever since. I mean we got closer later on. We
Speaker 1: both moved to New York together around the same time.
Speaker 1: She moved to LA to be a writer, and I
Speaker 1: followed her out there, And so I've been sort of
Speaker 1: following her footsteps and just kind of following her playbook
Speaker 1: in a way, so to speak. I kind of live
Speaker 1: in the ghost of Alley's past. I have her old furniture,
Speaker 1: her old couch or old nightstand, and I might even
Speaker 1: tape my second special where she taped her second special.
Speaker 1: So I'm just kind of following the Alley Wong playbook
Speaker 1: in a weird way because it works. But I'm very
Speaker 1: grateful for our friendship and for all the sports she's
Speaker 1: given me. It's pretty incredible to have a friend like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's an incredibly talented person, but I think
Speaker 1: it's also helpful to have a friend succeed to that
Speaker 1: level where you get a sense of like, this is
Speaker 1: a friend. This person also kind of looks like me,
Speaker 1: she's an Asian American, and just makes it feel a
Speaker 1: little bit more accessible, like these things are possible. Of course,
Speaker 1: it helps when she produces a direction comedy special. JB.
Speaker 1: Smooth as advice for aspiring comics, it is find who
Speaker 1: you are, constantly work on your style, matristylity of personality,
Speaker 1: say things that only you would say, and talk about
Speaker 1: what you know about. Don't be stuck in one place.
Speaker 1: It's great to have material, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: be a robot. You want to be able to connect
Speaker 1: with people. If you can walk on stage and grab
Speaker 1: that microphone, you're fifty percent there already fifty percent of
Speaker 1: what it takes is to get up there. There's rules,
Speaker 1: of course, you gotta have an intro, you gotta have
Speaker 1: a presence on stage, you gotta have a certain amount
Speaker 1: of last person minute. But you don't have to go
Speaker 1: buy those rules. There's something being offbeat and true to
Speaker 1: yourself and talking about what you know about, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely golden because you're taking people on vacation, on a
Speaker 1: trip through your brain. Kevin Nielan said cancel culture has
Speaker 1: stifled some comedians. For someone like me, I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with it because I never really ventured in
Speaker 1: that area. I may touch on something where someone's like,
Speaker 1: hey man, you can't do that, but some people get
Speaker 1: away with still. I don't really have a problem with
Speaker 1: the woke stuff. Although my wife and son won't come
Speaker 1: to see my shows because they're afraid I'll get canceled
Speaker 1: and be the last person to get canceled. People won't
Speaker 1: even cancel my reservation if I don't show up. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of comedians hopefully will evolve, like people
Speaker 1: do in their profession or whatever it is, They'll find
Speaker 1: better ways of doing it. I always try to be
Speaker 1: unique in my voice, because that's what matters, That's how
Speaker 1: you stand apart from other comedians. Now that we have
Speaker 1: zillions of comedians, it's hard for comedians to become unique
Speaker 1: or be unique and also have something original say that
Speaker 1: isn't about McDonald's or whatever. A hard reporter I spoke
Speaker 1: to Matt Rife who said other comics have told me
Speaker 1: they miss not only the pace of stand up, but
Speaker 1: the level of control. Do you want to be an actor? Right? Said?
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I need control. I'm not a
Speaker 1: point now where I want to learn something new. I
Speaker 1: want to get better at something else. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: getting so much better, so much faster at stand up,
Speaker 1: and I'm learning how to hopefully prepare for a lifetime
Speaker 1: of this, And now that I see that that's achievable,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, awesome. What are some other skills that
Speaker 1: I can sharpen along the way that are only going
Speaker 1: to help everything else that I do. The better comedian
Speaker 1: I am, the more people are gonna want to watch
Speaker 1: the movies that I'm in, and the more movies I'm in,
Speaker 1: the more people are gonna want to see what I
Speaker 1: do live at a stand up show. Whose career mighty
Speaker 1: want to emulate? You have the Big Three Robin Williams,
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey, and Adam Sandler. Imagine Matt Riife doing Adam
Speaker 1: Sandler type movies. I might have to quit the podcast.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones who did best, and I don't
Speaker 1: know that anybody will ever do it at that level again,
Speaker 1: That's my dream. Comedians who took their fan base into
Speaker 1: the theaters with their comedic talents and then they were
Speaker 1: able to transition over to different genres, especially dramas. I mean,
Speaker 1: my god, Robin Williams A Goodwill Hunting is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite acting performances of all time. Ryan Reynolds is
Speaker 1: my idol. That's who I'd love to work with more
Speaker 1: than anything, and he has this type of acting career
Speaker 1: that I'd love to try to emulate, and he's done
Speaker 1: everything new top Egg Mett Rife, Who do you see
Speaker 1: is your core audience at this point? Young people, older women?
Speaker 1: Rife said, it's a mix of everybody, which is so
Speaker 1: crazy and so cool. That's a non answer. Nobody has everybody,
Speaker 1: most comedians, and this is exactly why you'd asked this question.
Speaker 1: I have a relatively specific audience, whether it's a specific
Speaker 1: race or gender or age range. But for us, it's
Speaker 1: kind of everybody. There's many people in their early twenties
Speaker 1: as there are fifty and up, just people who love comedy.
Speaker 1: What's on your bucket list? I'd love to do more
Speaker 1: movies and TV, and I'd love to work with Ricky Gervais.
Speaker 1: Adam Carolla and Jay Leno are getting ready to do
Speaker 1: a Comedy Fantasy Camp in La January twenty third through
Speaker 1: to twenty sixth. The four day camp offers workshops, Q
Speaker 1: and as and panels on all things comedy, from TV
Speaker 1: writing and podcasting to performing on stage. The Rap spoke
Speaker 1: with them. They pointed out that Adam's from Southern California,
Speaker 1: Jay's from Boston. Is there a difference between the comic
Speaker 1: sensibilities you know, Southern California vers East Coast? Leto said, no,
Speaker 1: you know. Mark Twain said travel is the enemy of bigotry,
Speaker 1: and the fact is more you travel, the more you
Speaker 1: can pick things up and take them from other people.
Speaker 1: When I started to get popular in Boston and I
Speaker 1: left town because I was gonna wind up having a
Speaker 1: Boston base act. And I left and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go someplace else. But back in New England, I
Speaker 1: was a lazy guy. I came here and suddenly I
Speaker 1: was the hardest working person because I didn't have the
Speaker 1: southern California mentality. I didn't go surfing in the daytime.
Speaker 1: So I think it's good to travel around. If you
Speaker 1: got a joke that works in Texas and Anchorage, it's
Speaker 1: gonna work everywhere. Awful things happen to you your first
Speaker 1: year you come here, you learn who's a crook, whose
Speaker 1: agent is bad. Second year you get a couple jobs.
Speaker 1: Takes three or four years before things clicked. This sounds horrible.
Speaker 1: You sort of learn who's in town, who's a real agent,
Speaker 1: who could really do something for you. You know, it
Speaker 1: takes a while. It's a lot of fun. It's a
Speaker 1: great way to make a living. I mean, I figured
Speaker 1: I'd do it until I had to get a real job.
Speaker 1: I just never had to get a real job. It's
Speaker 1: a job. Don't hang out with your pals at night.
Speaker 1: I mean I saw it at the comedy store. It
Speaker 1: became people just live there. You're doing coke in the back.
Speaker 1: You have jokes about the thing on the wall the
Speaker 1: comedy store and about the window, and then you go
Speaker 1: to a real place and it doesn't have those things.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what you're talking about. I'd say that happen
Speaker 1: in Boston. Guys have twenty minutes on Kenmore Square. Then
Speaker 1: you go to Hartford and people go what. And that
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