Saying Goodbye to Hollywood w/ Mike Postalakis

Renaissance man, Mike Postalakis joins the pod to discuss the entertainment business, how Obama created the improv boom, and the nature of a great idea. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Because you're such a narcissist, I don't understand how that is so funny to do it. Interviewing people is hilarious because I'm always right. I watched the one with Chris Dunn. I watched the one with Chris Dunn, and within two minutes of the podcast, you were like, What does what should the audience know about me?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

So we we so we actually strategized this before that episode. That was the second episode, and we were trying to find the sea legs of the whole thing. And I was like, I don't want it to be the like Judson navel gazing hour. Uh huh. And I was like, there still needs to be some context for what we're doing. So we were like, what if up top I almost cut that part? Because I was like, this there's a lot that got cut. But I was all the cut. That's all the uh some of the sharp jump cuts.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

There were more jump cuts than a guitar movie in that thing. You're not delusional, though. I would say that. That's like where that's your saving grace, is that you're not delusional.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

That's good. And and he is credentialed in narcissism.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, I'm not a narcissist at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

What's your issue?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Um I mean how long is this thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

We were talking about this the other day. Like it would almost be better for you if you had more delusion. Is that what the ingredient that you think would help?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah. I think there's But I'm I'm I mean, stubborn, uh OCD, resentful. Uh I mean, I could I could I could I could text my therapist. Embittered, sad. Yeah. Um but yeah, I'm not not not narcissistic at all. Okay. Well In fact, I but I dreaded coming over here. You dreaded? It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be chill. Yeah, I know, but it's like I'm uh to my core, I'm two things, which is Midwestern and Catholic. And to talk about yourself just growing up, like to talk about yourself was like impolite. Like you just didn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Oh wow, yeah. 2026, that is kind of the only thing left. Yeah, but I think that's all changing. I think hopefully we're going back to making stuff, having ideas, doing cool things.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, I think it'll hit that peak when everybody is like, oh wait, I'm now I'm a social media star. Because to combat AI, sure, I think what Instagram and TikTok are gonna do is just give everyone 10 million view videos.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Because it's got to keep you on the thing. With to to kind of get you on the platform, like a loss leader pricing. I've wondered that too.

SPEAKER_06 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Where you even if it's a couple of videos where they're like, let's make them uh a user of this application in a new way. They're not just consuming, they're creating now.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So then what then what is like if you do a video that is just a trend in the long run, what is that getting you?

SPEAKER_02 2:42

I think very little.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah. I think very little. So I think to go back to what you just said, I think it might come back to ideas and creating things. Because we need and I I I do think like we saw with like obsession the movie. Yeah, that was a real seismic shift in the industry. Because it was a less than it was a sub one million dollar movie. Yeah. They made it it's not, it's as a as a screenwriter, I I've been told for 10 years, high concept, right? High concept, high concept. People won't even read it if it's not high concept. Obsession's not high concept.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And in fact, what made it brilliant, because I even went in being a little like, let's see if this is what it is. Yeah. And I it's better than I thought. It subverts every idea you have of what's gonna happen. There's just constant things where they set up the tropes of every horror movie of the past decade and they don't do it.

unknown 3:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

And I think people were like, Oh, that was cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

You gave me something different. Well, novelty is big. And well, I don't think it's a novelty. I think it was a I think the other's the novelty. That's my point, which is when you're just doing what everyone else is doing, that's the ice cream. Yeah. That's just like, oh, they want ice cream here, here, here, here.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Oh, yeah. Not not novelty like in the grocery store, the novelty's aisle. I mean like something novel happens. I know. Um, but we but let's give let's give a little context. Episode eight of All Most Funny, today's guest, screenwriter, stand-up comedian, and already making his himself known in the podcast studio today, making a crash landing, chaotic energy. I love it, sunglasses and all. It's Mike Postilakis, baby. Oh yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

You're here. It's really nice of West Elm to let you film in here.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Your shirt fits the right. Yeah, it does, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

That's why.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

I did I did pick this way.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Wasting away, fell asleep in this. Very nice. Yeah. But let's pick up where we were, which is we're talking about gatekeeping. Well, I kind of want to talk about you.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I'll tell you fun credit. Uh I'm in a movie that you can find on Tubi. There we go. Called The Night Is Young. Okay. Directed, written and directed by my good buddy Matt Jones, famous for playing Badger on uh Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad. I'm in it's I'm in the opening scene with Kevin Pollack. Do you know Kevin Pollock? Uh I do. Um, okay. Yeah, a few good men, other stuff. Yeah, okay, okay. And the guy who plays Magnum P.I. on CBS. Okay. And then and then Matt. And uh didn't bombed the movie, but uh that's how I met my wife is that movie.

SPEAKER_06 5:11

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

What was she doing on the movie? She wasn't on the movie, it premiered in Austin, and uh we went down there, it premiered at the Austin Film Festival, it was the opening night movie, and uh my wife happened to be in attendance and hung out with her after the uh after party, and the rest is uh history, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, the rest will be in the deposition. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Um that's cool. I I think the the thing I find interesting uh about getting to talk to you in more of like an interview setting, like the creative life, the all of the elements of acting, directing, you've been in a band, making movies, yeah, and the kind of old model Hollywood into new model um phone. Sure. I feel like you've seen the evolution of that. Were you finding it um okay, this has been doing the same thing for 50 years, and then all of a sudden one day it changed? Or how did you see everything go from like the old ways to the new ways while you were in LA and now eventually in Nashville?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Well, it was sort of already changing because uh I mean that's early internet, like early YouTube, early internet. And then like a big one I would say is funny or die, which funny or die was it reminds me a lot of this place because I I did a lot of stuff at Funny or Die. Um so already it was like we gotta make stuff for the internet, and I and I had a sketch group back in those days called the Dickheads. And uh so we we had a lot of uh success on Funny or Die. We had sketches shown on TV, like um what was that show called? Attack the Attack of the Show. Uh yeah, I was like you remember G4, like a like there used to be like a ton of networks. That's what actually changed is like all there when I moved there, there was like I they're probably still around. I mean MTV closed down. Like I sold a show to MTV once and I sold it in the room, which is rare. Uh-huh. So I'm I'm in I'm pitching a show to MTV. All these executives, they're loving it. They're like, they're they all look at each other and they go, let's do it. We're gonna do it. I'm like, I'm like, holy shit. Me and my partner, JD, get in the fucking elevator. The elevator is like, you know, got the MTV logo on it. Yeah, you know, and him and I are about the same age. We're we're MTV generation kids. I used to just I used to just plant myself in front of MTV when it was the weather wasn't good. And um, you know, like we walk by like a moon man, you know, their their Oscar right? And we look at each other and we're like, we just sold a fucking show to MTV. Two weeks later, that entire executive uh uh whatever was team was fired.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Oh, so then that your show disappears.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yes. But funny though to continue the to continue this story, we then sh sold resold the show to the pop network.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah, yeah, because uh of Shits Creek. That's how I know pop.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yes, beautiful. So so we sold it uh to the pop network, worked on it for like a year. What was the show? Um I'm gonna tell you the show, and you're gonna be like, I can't believe that didn't make it.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Oh, it's a strong concept.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yes, very high concept. In fact, had it made it to air, I firmly believe I would still be making that show. Which was it was called and the title probably was one thing that killed it, but titles can change, but it was called Run and Gun. And what it was was uh we took JD and I have this long improv background.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Shoot people while I do a 40-yard dash, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, um almost funny. And uh um does anybody roast him on this thing? Frequently, yeah. Okay, I'd say, right? Yeah, it's so easy to um the show was we took we had we took two improvisers, Allison Becker, who was on Parks and Wreck, and Jeff Davis of uh Whose Line, who I think is the best improviser I've ever seen. And they would um go up to people, strangers, and say, Do you want to be in our movie? Okay. And uh at the top of every episode, we would give them where we we would have given them a genre of a movie. So the pilot was spy movie. Um then we, if the person said yes, we would cast them. So we would say, You're gonna be the villain, you're gonna be uh the cue, okay, you know, whatever. And then we would just like shoot a scene with them. Okay. Just right there, just improvise a scene. And then at the end of the episode, we cut all that together and made a movie trailer. That's fun. It was fun. I can't to this day. I'm like, I've had a lot of like uh things that didn't work out that I'm like, how did that work? That's the most.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

That's that smells like 2010 MTV to me. That's that just feels like that would crush.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, no, the one that got away for sure. This is why I'm dead inside. When my my wife looks at me and she's like, Are you like dead inside? And I'm like, Yeah. I've everything I've done is like conditioned me to not care.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

It's kind of like sales, you know, you just get used to rejection, yeah, and that becomes the norm. And so you you have a I guess you're dead inside or a thick skin.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah. Yeah. So we sold the show to the pop network, and the year before, the pop network had been the TV guide channel. Okay. You know, the scrolling, yeah. Or it's not even scrolling. The the joke I I said was when DirecTV came up with the thing where you could just scroll and find the thing, the TV guide channel was like, fuck, we gotta rebrand. We gotta do something else.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

We gotta do something else. Let's get Eugene Levy in here.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Let's start making shows. Yeah. Uh so we sold the show, we're developing it, right? And we got Allison and we got Jeff. But then we wanted to like put in other cameos, like we were gonna have surprise things if somebody said, Yeah, I'll be in your movie, okay, come around this corner and it's hairs and forward. Yeah, sure. Which is what they wanted. They want, they always want um top shelf people, yeah. Industry people, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I would say, like, hey, I'm buddies with uh Matt Jones, uh, Beaver or Badger from Breaking Bad, and uh he's really funny, he's a great improviser, you know. We were we performed together for a decade together, and they would always be like, no, can we go bigger? Okay, and I was like, All right, so I tried a few other connections, got shot down, come back, come back to pop and go, no, no, no. Matt will do this, he'll be great at this. Yeah, people love him.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

You had a yes from Matt.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah. Okay, but finally we couldn't get anybody, and they were like, All right, yeah, ask your friend Matt. So Matt did it. We did shot the pilot. He's very funny in it. So funny, in fact, that they go, they call him and they go, Hey, we're developing this other show. Yeah, yeah. What if you starred in it?

unknown 12:13

Hey.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Now, prior to prior to this, when I told people what I'm working on, and I said for the pop network, nobody knew what it was, including my friend Matt. And I he'd be like, Well, what's the pop network? And I'd be like, I was like, uh, it used to be the TV guide channel, but now it's this, you know. It's it didn't sound real. Because one of the one of the things that you're most terrified in LA is even when you're working, if it doesn't sound like a real thing. Yeah, if it's not so I didn't know what to say. Nobody knew what this network was. So now I'm developing this show for a year. They cast Matt in this other show. By the time that one goes on the air, they they pass on my show. And then I have to spend another, I think that only lasted a season, but I had to listen for a whole year of people coming up to him and me being like, Oh, I gotta show I'm starting a show in the pop network. I'd be like, fuck motherfucker. Shout out to him. I love that guy.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

But that's uh kind of encapsulates an LA, an old-world LA experience. Everything's gatekeepers, everything's you're getting yeses and no's. Sure. And you're you're trying to work connections, and oftentimes just nothing works out, despite the fact that it's a great concept and it's funny or whatever the thing is. You you are not in control of at all. This is leading me kind of to a good spot to try our first blind ranking.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Um, you've done everything in entertainment, right? I feel like you've got pretty close. And so these should be things that you have context for. Now I want to do a 2026 version. So I don't want you to think of this in like 2010 Hollywood brain. Think of this in 2026, just the world of entertainment brain. Okay. But we're gonna blind rank the best entertainment professions to make a living in 2026. Okay to make money. So blind ranking the best entertainment professions to make money in 2026. How many, how many are there?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Seven. Seven. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

All right. Number one, commercial actor. Number one would be the easiest to make money, number seven would be the toughest to make money.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, yeah. Six. Uh that's how I used to make my living. And I could show you guys a commercial. I showed it on uh the Buffett podcast. I could show you guys a Weight Watchers commercial I did. Um You're looking great, by the way. Thank you. And uh and um I'm in it for at the end for five or you were you the before or the after? No, it's actually a cool commercial. Um it's it was a campaign they did where uh a woman who I I play her husband, but she's struggling with cravings. Okay. And she's at the office, and everywhere she looks, uh it something turns into like a food item. Got it. So she looks over, and one of her cubicle uh uh co-workers is on the phone and they see bites the phone because the phone was made of marshmallow. And you show up and you're a hot dog. I show up, she comes home after fighting cravings all day, and I was sitting on a couch made of tortilla chips, real tortilla chips. Oh, nice. And I had like a built-in uh guac thing, and I I just I'm scooping guac and I go, uh, you know, hey, hey, honey, or whatever the line was. That paid like 70 grand. Wow. I had one line, I'm in it for five seconds. Whoa. So what year was that? 2013, 14, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Okay, so it was still cooking, but you're saying now not so much?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

No, not not so much. This thing has changed everything. The internet has changed everything.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Well, if you were gonna guess, if you did that same Weight Watchers commercial in 2026, what would you make? Five grand.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Whoa. Yeah. All right, so it's because they have a thing for the longest time. I don't I I don't really pay attention that much anymore, but um they used to have a thing called new media. Okay. And new media was like streaming. Yeah. So when you booked a commercial, you either booked like a regional commercial, which is like this is just playing in the tri-state area or the Midwest or something. And that only paid like a little bit. So so that commercial I might only get national. I might only get 10 to 15 grand. Got it. But but a national commercial, which was the Weight Watchers one and other ones I've done, that's when you get really paid. And then there were there were cycles, like the advert the the ad agency and everybody had to buy cycles. So if it was like it'd be like a three-month cycle. Okay. So the commercial's running for three months, you got paid for that. If they wanted to re-up it for another cycle, you got paid again.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So I've I had ones that just kept re-upping. Nice. And I've had some friends who made tons of money because it's just a huge campaign. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. But when new media came around, that changed everything. Because they they basically said it was the internet, and and the if I'm remembering correctly, like basically like the streaming was considered internet.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

So I remember I booked one commercial that they said was new media. So I only got like I don't know, like $3,000 for it. But I can't remember what I was watching at the time, but I was watching some a lot of uh uh of Hulu. Yeah. I was watching something on Hulu. That commercial would play all the time. All the time on Hulu. And it was a million grand. And every and I was like, everybody's watching Hulu. Nobody's watching uh CBS, nobody's watching uh whatever these cable channels are. So yeah, it's a huge uh money loss.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

That's a very interesting context. I'm gonna get it.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

It's probably it's probably seven, but I want to see what you come up with. Okay, six. So six, that's a no, it's well all these I think are probably seven, but let's just see where they go. Because nobody's making any money anymore.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

All right. This this one's gonna be rough. Stand-up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Um I'm gonna put it at five. Well, that's a complicated question.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

I agree because it's big winners and big losers.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, but it's also takes time. Yeah, the investment is huge. So somebody look, I mean, I'm I moved to LA and uh within months, I was I happened to be on an episode of Monk, and then I put I booked like a non-union commercial, but I was still I was working like almost right away. So but stand-up take as we know, it takes forever to sell tickets. So that's that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Um I think that's a fair place to put it because there is upside and it is a skill. So once you have the skill, you can kind of pick up the skill and take it with you in a way that um it's probably harder to differentiate yourself as a lot of different things as an actor and and that.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

But I also think if we're looking at 2026, I think a lot of people are having now having a tough time selling tickets. Yeah. I think personally, I think the comedy bubble has bust. So it's gonna be rough moving forward. Yeah, um the tide's going out. Yeah, they're just the the supply and demand got uh way out of whack with comedy.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah, they uh as you know, the market's correct. Uh all right, next screenwriter. I'm gonna put two. Okay. Yeah. You've had some success in this. I feel like that's kind of what's keeping you afloat most consistently. Yeah. So if you because that that also feels like a genuine skill to be able to write.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah. Well, it's also like what uh and obviously like AI people are threatened by it, but uh it's not there yet. I don't think it's gonna be there to write scripts. I mean, it absolutely will be there to write scripts for for things that aren't good.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And there will be producers who want to just because deal producers and writers, that's a tough relationship. I have a lot of friends who are producers, like and some very close friends. Um, but even then it's like again, everything has to line up, it has to be what they want to make.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

You know, one of my uh one of my buddies is a producer. We've never worked on anything together. We're like very close. And because he makes something different than I want to make.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And that's just how it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

That is it, that is a tough dynamic in the relationship. And I differ incentives.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And I think some producers will just be like, well, I don't I don't want to have to deal with this guy or this woman. So I'm just plugging into AI. Yeah. But I I've tried it, and I'm I'm just seeing a lot of like nonsense about it. Like um, you know, Paul Schrader is? It's so familiar. Who is this? He's a you know he's I know the name. Yeah, yeah. He's uh uh he wrote Taxi Driver, wrote uh American Gigolo, directed some great movies himself. He's like 80 some years old. He's also like a contrarian uh by nature. And he he was quoted that there was some article and he was like, he was like, he's big on AI, and he was like, it's already there. And he was like, I I asked uh whatever Claude or Chat GPT to uh write me a quint uh Quentin Tarantino script. There you go. And he goes, and it can do it. And then I I I prompted that and I worked on it for like an hour. I just didn't prompt, I mean, I like worked on the prompt, and it's nowhere near as you know what I mean? Like it's it's not there, and you can tell, like you can literally tell. And I'm uh and I use uh Chat GPT a lot when I write. I use it as like a research assistant and and a feedback thing. And anytime it tries to write, I scold it. Yeah, I'm like, I didn't ask you to write anything. Yeah, because it'll do it. It'll just be like, what if this is the scene? And I'm like, don't do that. I'm writing here. You are you have your job. But it always goes, it's just uh what's the word I'm looking for? Amalgamation Amalgamation. Amalgamation of because it's just pulling from so many things. Yeah. So like the Tarantino one that I prompted and I spent an hour doing, it's just like two hit men go into this uh, you know, Yakuza thing. Thing and they they're eating cheeseburgers. So it's just pulling literally from every Tarantino movie. Yes. Yeah, it's derivative. It's derivative. By nature derivative. And there's no, and this again is why I think we could be seeing like a new golden age of cinema. There's no details. There's no to make anything good. The reason why we like Tarantino, why we like Paul Thomas Anderson, whoever. What I think makes great art is putting, and I don't mean this in a sexual way, but I mean putting your fetishes on display. Okay. The things I don't know what that means, yeah. The things you're obsessed. I weirdly agree, though. Yeah. Wait, what you weirdly agree?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Like I agree with, like, I see what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

I'm saying like the things you're obsessed with.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously the go-to with Tarantino is the bare feet, right? The whim chick's feet. But also it's he's got a million things. It's a million things. It's surf rock. It's uh it's Elmore Leonard novels, and it's Paul Thomas Anderson has his own things he's obsessed with. Yep. Great filmmakers, great writers, great whatever, are sharing this thing they're into. Yeah. Hoping that you're into it. But also, if you're not, hey man, there's like a whole world here that you can find out.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

And that before this nonsense, that's what the algorithm was. Like my friends and I, we saw we saw pulp fiction in theaters 11 times.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Mostly at the dollar theater, so we didn't we because we didn't have that much money. But and we would we would call each other on a landline phone and recite dialogue to it. And and then I would watch, I would watch like every interview Tarantino did if he was on like Charlie Rose and whoever. Or being interviewed in a magazine. And he was great. He was a fountain of all this. He would just say, like, I I love uh Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movies. Yeah. And as a 15, 16-year-old, I was like, I gotta find these Shaw Brothers movies. Yeah. And that that's sort of how it went forever. The original viral. Yeah, the original viral, yeah. So I think the only the way to just um you know, I just worked on a I just wrote this um drag racing movie set in like the 60s and 70s uh for these producers. And it's a really fun script. And it took a while to kind of find like the groove of the movie. What gear to be in? Yeah. It was pretty good. Are you almost funny? And uh um, but I was putting all these, and that's where uh ChatGPT was great because I'd be like, what's like uh what was like a a dive bar in Miami in 1969 in the U.S.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

That's what I think. You're gonna optimize yourself through AI, yeah, but it's not gonna replace the human element. No, because the human element, what you're saying, being obsessed with things, yeah, being neurotic, being uh flawed, broken human beings, yeah, exploring those flaws and obsessions and things to the nth degree, and then yes, supplement with uh an incredible language learning technology that can help us in the gaps that are hard for people. Right. But it's gonna be people-driven.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Right. It's gotta be people-driven. And what's fascinating is that, you know, as we know as comics, like timing's everything, right? It's interesting that AI is coming about right when all the IP movies have been kind of tanking.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

When all the superhero movies, all the stuff is people are kind of losing momentum, a fatigue of it. And it's like, that's what AI is built for. Yes. AI's built for so you can make Superman 20. It's so generic, yes. But already now people are like, I don't want that shit.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah. Well, I think our appetite is 100% satiated on the this is generic. If you've seen one, you've seen 100, and it just looks crazy and it's a spectacle.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

And the and the the incoming um gargantuan lawsuit that will happen when like I'm surprised it wasn't the Brad Pitt Tom Cruise fighting video. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, is there an AI video? There's an AI video of Tom Cruise and fighting. I was surprised they didn't do it there. It's interesting, uh, but somebody is going to be like, you cannot use my likeness to make my likeness.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

You're right. I don't know how that didn't get.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Well, but I mean, some of them, those two in in particular, I'm surprised they didn't.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

They probably didn't even see it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

No, they don't. I'm sure they saw it.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Um No, but if you're making money off of someone's likeness and you don't have the rights to do it. Well that's so far.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

I don't think that guy made any money off of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

But that's the big difference. Because then, like, what's the harm and what are the damages?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Because Well, it's like well, I mean, I think you're parodying, it's but you're misrepresenting me. Yeah, well, if it's defamatory, you could do that. But it's also just like people might think that there's a movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, it's misleading. It's misleading. It's yeah, misleading, but that's hard. Internet is just is all misleading.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Something will happen where Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

No, there's gonna be a reckoning and it's gonna happen. So then what then what do you have?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

What do you have on AI? You have uncanny valley human beings that you're not like you know, there's like an actress, uh, an AI actress. Oh, that's like that's Tilly Norwood. Do you know what I'm talking about? What the fuck? Some some company uh built her, which I think which is funny, like male producers just want to get around that V2 stuff. They're like, what if we just create on the robot? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Um, but yeah, it's don't put your finger on my zero.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, but uh I don't know, man. We'll we'll see. It's gonna be wild, but I think it'll uh it'll uh level itself out.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

You know what I don't you know what I hate about AI? It doesn't tell me when my idea sucks. They're too nice.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

We were just saying no, I've uh you have to work at it. You do you have to work at it because I test it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

So one you you do the thing at which everyone says, be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it'll give me a thing. And then I'll definitely go back and say, is this 100% what you think? And it'll always go like, all right, well, I'm actually doing this. But then I then I go, do not do that. This I will turn this off. Yeah. If I will turn this, go back to it. But then uh, but I'll also plug, I'll plug in, you know. Basically, what I'm doing is like I'll plug in a script and I'll say, go through this, go through what doesn't make sense, or if there's like something that doesn't line up, go through the structure of it. Am I hitting beats where I should be hitting them?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah, it's so useful for that.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Are these characters distinct enough? Blah, blah, blah. I'm asking it a bunch of questions.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

But it's as good as the prompt that you give it. That's a good prompt. You know what it can do.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, this is but I'll also plug in scripts that I've written that I know do not work. Oh, and so then you go, hey, yeah, what do you think? Give me a brutally honest thing. And it, to its credit, has given me like this doesn't work at all. The third act peters out, blah, blah. So it just takes a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

You're not pushing it enough.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

You're not pushing it enough. Right. Oh, yeah. Because it yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I'll like put like sketches in there, and it'll be sketches I don't feel good about, and it'll still be like, you've got a really strong foundation. You just need to tighten this, this, this. And I'm like, but maybe it's just but comedy's still tough. True.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Because it can't do comedy. Can't do comedy. It cannot, and it'll never be able to do comedy. Doesn't understand jokes.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Yeah, there's something uniquely in the frequency of humanity that it hasn't gotten. Sometimes it can do math jokes, not like about one, two, three, but like if it's just a misdirect, you know, where it's like this, this, and then whoa, blah, blah, blah, pun. Yeah. Yeah. It can kind of do those hickory dickory dock things.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

There's no structure, but sometimes what makes something work is not. It has no intuition, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:38

So it can't be intuitively funny, which is what gets you the gaffawing laugh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Now it's also sometimes it's like you gotta ignore what it says. Yeah. Like I've had to do that. But I'm like, no, you're right. Because the other thing I would say about art, at least what I like, particularly about movies and other things, is imperfections. Exactly. Because imperfections are human.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Well, sometimes it goes too imperfect, because I'll be in there, and every once in a while, still it'll be like, and then president Lindsay Lohan, and you're like, what the fuck? Like it will be like just why and you go, What do you mean? And they go, sorry. Yeah, it's like totally wrong. It's like wildly wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you get it.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

No, but it'll I but I'm saying like it'll give me notes like an executive, which is like, I don't think you should do this to the character. And I'm like, I know you're wrong.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, I know the character.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Because you're you're guiding me in what everything else again, back to the it's derivative, derivative. You're looking at guiding me this, but I'm like, this is a real choice I'm making. And then it'll always go like, yeah, I think you're right. But that part I don't care about.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

That part I'm just I can just breeze right through. Exactly. Um, all right. The next one, out the shoot. Remember the game we're playing.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Can you give me a we've got the list? Okay, great.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

So where are we at thus far? We've had three. So commercial actor, you put at six, stand-up, you put at five, screenwriter, you put at two. That's all we've done. That's all we've done. Next, improv artist. Eleven? Bro, improv. You you I I feel like you are the right person to ask for this. This was your thing. Yeah, for a long time. Not lucrative in 26. Not lucrative ever. Yeah. Ever. That is just a passion.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Um, well, it's lucrative to the theater. It opens doors to maybe doing other things, but you have to be at a very high level.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah, you have to. I mean, uh, yeah. It's like you you can get jobs off of it. Like uh when but no one's putting on their taxes improv artist. No, I think maybe six people. Well, there's there's four people on whose line. Almost. I think they have two uh two like alternates, like my friend Heather Ann Campbell, who's amazing. She's an alternate, so that's six.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

TJ and Dave, which is a great show of two guys from Chicago, uh, and they tour. Um, I think they do pretty well, so that's eight. He got them on two hands. Before Thomas Middleditch uh got into some uh issues, him and Ben Schwartz were doing a two-man shirt show. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Did you think so? I didn't I they're they're both very good improvisers, and very and very nice guys.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

I'm not gonna be able to look at improv with a critical enough eye. So I'm probably a mark, but I thought it was super fun and enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

That's cool. Um I just don't I don't think improv is like a filmable thing. Yeah, stand up you're right. Stand-up kind of, but like in improv, you have to be there. Yeah, I think that's right.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

So are you putting it seven? Yeah. Seven. Improv is seven.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

And I mean, I'm like I I toured or I didn't tour, but I I I would do uh shows out of you know, I'd go to places to do shows and you make like the same amount of money as you do uh we we doing doing stand-up stand-up, but like 50 bucks here. Few and far between. But it's great for the theater, and particularly when I moved to LA is when Upright Citizens Brigade opened. Yep. And that was like a big bang moment in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

And you were working with them?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I was never like um it's I had a tricky relationship with them. I was never officially part of the theater, but I did a good amount of shows there.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

And then I ended up like making uh a lot of sketches and music videos with like a lot of the core um upright Citizens Brigade people like like Matt Walsh and Rob Cordry and Rich Fulcher and uh Seth Morris and all these like really funny uh Brian Husky. These are all guys that like you might not know by name, but like I show you a picture and you're like, oh that guy's amazing. That guy's amazing, you know? Yeah, and I also saw it ruin people, if I'm being honest. I don't think anybody's gonna get stuck in the bit. What happens? They can't stop. No, it was like um at the car wash in l no, I mean like in LA, like at that moment, stand-up comedy was kind of dipping.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Yeah. This is what would have been like 2008 to 2015?

SPEAKER_01 34:06

About 2007, yeah. I would say about 2007 to when did Obama get out of office? 2012. No, 2016. 2016, so that was the end.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Well, improv's a very like when the world's good, I see. Improv really thrives. I see. When the world's not good, what are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Like, why are we doing this? So it just seems like uh indulgent or something.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, it's because it's total bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

It's not anything, it's not writing. Yeah. It's not acting, it's it's not even really comedy. It's pretending. It's pretending. Yeah. It's playing. But are you but are you you're writing in your mind and you're you're sort of acting, you're playing a character.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

It's really hard and it's really impressive when people are good, but I I think I do understand the spirit of what you're saying. Yeah. Where people are like, there's a lack of seriousness to this, and I want to hear somebody like vr vocalize my frustration, maybe, or like have a take or because you're never in your point of view.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

I mean, you are, I guess, kind of, but like it's not easily identifiable point of view, like so.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

The heyday of improv was the Obama years because people were in a good mood. Yep. Wow, that's really interesting. And especially that audience, because the the improv audience is not going to be like good old boys who are like, let's go see somebody, you know, pretend they're at the restaurant. They're that's not they're not doing that. So it's liberal people who want to go to a theater, watch an improv show. Yeah, and once they become distressed and stressed out about society, yeah, they're like, I want to hear somebody have like a cultural commentary. Yeah, I need to like be soothed. I need a context for what I'm witnessing. I don't want to just watch somebody pretend.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah. That's really fascinating. And improv's a fascinating thing in my life because when I started doing it, um I I used to have to tell people what it was.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, like that's how long I'd been doing it. Or, you know. So I'd I would talk to friends and I'd be like, hey, I got an improv show uh this weekend you if you want to go. And they're like, What's that?

SPEAKER_02 36:03

I feel like who's line's been big for so long. It's like ABC family.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Like that's yeah, that's uh short form improv, so it's a slightly different. Gotcha. Yeah. This is long form. Yep, you know? Yep. So, and even when people would come to a show, they'd be like, That was really good. Like, who wrote that?

unknown 36:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

We even say up top we're making it. Well, yeah, you you have to give the game.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I think I'm too young for who's what was Who's Line like a live improv?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Who's Line? Yeah, well, it was a TV show that originated in Britain on the BBC. Um, and it's just it's usually four players and they just do games.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

So um, I don't know. I've been kidd off the top of my head, but uh like Wayne Brady was like the king of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

And it ran forever and was syndicated forever on ABC Family. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

But the British one is like the one I learned because I watched it as a teenager. I was obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Um thinking of improv, I'm thinking like it's always sunny. But would you consider that improv or is that like I'm sure they're improvising?

SPEAKER_01 36:57

That's part of also why comedy stuff crashed and burned.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Um, I mean, we're all over the place here, but uh but like because like movies like Anchor Man and Stepbrothers were coming out, and and Will Farrell was a Groundlings guy.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Help because no one's gonna know what you're talking about when you say that.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

So Groundlings is Oh Gro oh yeah, Groundlings was like it started in the 70s, I want to say. It's just it was like the first LA improv uh institution. Like improv started in Chicago with um the compass players um in like the 50s. And these were just University of Chicago students who uh just started making stuff up. Yeah and and it and it got huge. It was like a huge like jazz was big. This was like white jazz. Improv was white jazz. Yeah, yeah. Um then some of those people formed uh Second City uh which is still around, huge, and then that obviously was like you know the breeding ground for a factory system for SNL. Yeah, John Belushi, Bill Murray, uh John Candy up in Toronto, Martin Short, all these great people. Then uh there was a schism, like in the like in the church, yeah, between the Orthodox and the Catholics, and Del Close uh invented or created uh Improv Olympic. Chris Farley was improv Olympic. Um that's where I'm that's where I sort of I'm an alumni of is Improv Olympic. Um but all those things were Chicago based. Groundlings was LA, and Groundlings was very character-based. Yeah. Whereas Improv Olympic, Del Close was trying to create this like realness and and truth, but being funny and he's a fascinating character. Do you even know any have you ever even heard of it? I know the name, but I don't know anything about him. Fascinating guy? A bit of like he's revered by like Tina Faye, Amy Polar, those people. Like that, like he's a god to them. I never met him. So I have a couple friends who studied under him, like at the end of his life. He kind of also like a bit of a bullshit artist, drug addict. I mean, like very interesting guy. I highly recommend reading up on him. But uh Bob Odenkirk was a big was a big disciple.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Um and then you're saying, but Groundlings was then the NLA faction that's kind of siphoned off.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

But it was it was Upright Citizens Brigade that like exploded. They did such a brilliant thing, I always thought, you know, when you go into like a place like a comedy club or whatever and you see the photos on the wall, yeah, you know, right in the the minute you stepped into the lobby of the Franklin Theater UCB, still one of the greatest comedy rooms I've ever been in, by the way. All black, low ceilings, just a killbox, love it, were just all these frame photos of the most successful people on television at that moment. Yeah, like it was Zach Aliphonakis, Paul Schear, you know, Matt Walsh, like all these people. Just like and and so the way improv worked was once that happened, they gotta keep they gotta pay the rent. You don't really make money on the shows, the shows were like five bucks, but you gotta teach classes. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

That's that's the game of improv, is it's a little bit of like a multi-level marketing.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

And the problem is it got too incestual. So when I when I started, you would have regular audience people, people that had never seen an improv show, people that had never done whatever. Oh, and improv is not stand-up, it's not acting, it's not writing, it's not any of these things. Anybody can do it. Okay, it takes no preparation. You're not supposed to prepare, actually. Yeah, that's true. So anybody could just be like, I'll take a class. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it went from I mean, I I would do it, we would do it in bars, you know, for people. But it but uh towards the end, when I kind of stepped away from it, dude, you would just see like other students. Yes, it was all students, yes, and the those students would then have a show and it would be other students, yeah. And it became so incestual, and that's what killed comedy in LA. Yeah, was that it was just this uh feedback feedback loop. Yeah, that's why it hasn't a feedback that's why it hasn't produced a funny movie and a funny television show in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Well, and it's number seven on our list for making money. So there you go. Next, out the shoot. TV film actor.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

I mean, that's that's still a three. It depends on yeah, that's still a three. I have a lot of friends who are TV film actors and they're uh they're all having a tough time. But the the industry is just like trying to figure out where it's going and what it's doing.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

If you were a TV film actor out there in the world, what would you say is like this is the best way to get your bread buttered? Do this.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

The problem it's a network sitcom, but the problem is those are going away. Can you even name a network sitcom? A network sitcom? Yeah, name it. Like a newer one? Yeah, what's on name a network sitcom on NBC right now. I know it's summer, so it's on should be on hiatus, but like what's an NBC sitcom?

SPEAKER_00 42:00

I don't know. I I would just think they're all on streaming. They all go straight to streaming.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

That's only well, I guess it was stream, but take the streaming part out. Is it what about uh is Abbott Elementary's on ABC? Yeah, is that still going?

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Okay, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Um yeah, you've made a good point.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah. I've had uh again, my friend Matt is uh been on two different Chuck Laurie sitcoms. Yeah, and those were those were great runs, but even Chuck Laurie now is like doing streaming shows. Yeah, so it's like you don't get paid as much. And uh you don't get paid as much as well. There's no residuals. Residuals is obviously a a big thing that they just took away. Yeah, they literally just took that away.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And we've talked you and I have talked about this before, and I I think I had to like convince you why I I thought this was wrong. And I'm not like you, I mean, you know me, I'm like go make your money. Yeah, I'm not uh on these commies, but um the the famous actor in the commercial has ruined so many people's lives.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yes, because now the the person who used to be a no-name, I'm a working actor, middle class actor, I'll go sell Hertz. Now it's like Jennifer Aniston.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Right, right. You know, you if back in the day you would watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Yeah, you'd have John Travolta on there. Yeah, and they would always do the same thing and be like, me, you know, me the commercial, you know, and John Travolta would be like, oh man, don't show it. You know, and he would show some soap commercial, John Travolta. It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing for him. But that was what you did to sustain life. That's what I was doing to make a topic.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

You're saying like you would see these big A-list actors, they'd show a commercial when they were 22 and they had to sell McDonald's, and they go, isn't that funny?

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Or even not even just being a young person. Be I know I have a handful of friends who were the dad in commercials.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

That's all going away.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Yeah, I'd kill to be the dad in the commercial.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

100%. And in two thousand. You probably would have made a good living doing that. I know, I missed my window. But now the dad is played by uh, I don't know, Matthew McConaughey. You know what I mean? Like it's played by or you're just standing next to Matthew McConaughey with a line while he's like, you gotta buy uh glad bags. Yeah, that was a terrible McConaughey. That's actually not bad. And he would be selling glad bags. But you wouldn't have a line. Correct. You would just like a dope be like, and that pays different. That's a different pay scale. Yeah. So when and things like, you know, uh look, I don't have proof on hand, but like, you know, those Jennifer Garner ads. Oh, she's everywhere, she's everywhere, but those are it's always just kind of like her.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

And it's clearly a green screen.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

And it's clearly like And the people that she's around, you're right, they don't they don't say anything.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Yeah. So they that's true. They took so really all these, I you know, we're ranking them, but they're all sevens because they took everything away. Yeah, they took literally took everything away uh means to make money away. That's dark.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

I miss the I miss the commercial people. Like I miss the Sonic guys. You remember the Sonic guys?

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Well, those actually those uh the guys I mentioned, TJ and Dave. It's either both of them or one of them. And my friend uh Clay Weiner is a famous commercial director, he directed all of those.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Those sonic commercials.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

All of them. That's awesome. Those people were making so much money. The Toyota girl. You know what the Toyota? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I I I don't really know her, but I she was in the improv, she was in the improv world. She's been doing those for 20 years. Wow, that's great. Bank. If you can get that, you're a millionaire. You're set. Because especially now because the um Verizon guy changed the game on that. Yeah. Remember when then T Mobile he they dropped him and then T Mobile was like, come do this. Come do it. Yep. And that that changed that. So if you can get that spokesmanship, I mean you're richer than uh, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Well, because you're you're synonymous with a brand, and then the brand wants to just keep you and then you don't do anything else ever.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yep. You're never in a movie, you're never in a television show, you're not even an actor anymore. Yeah, you're just the Toyota girl. Yeah. But it's not real life. Yeah. Or flow. Or yeah, absolutely. But yeah, those uh those were great. Those were those were like little improv scenes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

There's some there's some that are still trying to do it. Like give Limu emu. What's that? What brand is that? What is it? Uh Liberty Mutual. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And he's got like an emu with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that could be a couple guys.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

The guy for State Farm is doing the mayhem guy.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Mayhem guy. Yeah. The insurance people sometimes will, yeah, but that it turns it into a celebrity. Like when we know him like that, it is almost like that. It's not, there used to be, like when we were growing up, it'd be like, this guy is selling you tricks cereal. Yeah. And I you've never seen him before, you won't see him again, but this actor got this opportunity for this six months to sell tricks. Yeah. And then, but now that's that's toast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um uh next one, out the shoot. Online sketch performer. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

I mean, it's what's open? Yeah, what's open?

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Uh, one in four.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

I mean, it's gotta be four, I think. But yeah. I mean, I think it's like, yeah, I guess because that's right above stand-up comedy. I especially think now that's gonna be much better.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Yeah, I think there's a lane for it at least. I don't know how you monetize perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Well, because there's again, there's avenues you could do. If you're uh, I mean, you could go to SNL, you could go, you could just be in a um I mean, you look at people like Tim Robinson, you look at people like Connor O'Malley.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Um, you know, the Connor O'Malley is like crushing it.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Well, and again, these are like, I think in any industry, you can find people who are like just the the top of the top. So if you were like, I'm gonna try to make sketches, put them online, and somehow monetize this, you have to have a pretty big following. You have to you have to create something.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

But but what I'm saying is like it'll lead to more avenues than a stand-up. That's I mean, obsession is directed by a kid that's doing stuff. Exactly. Exactly. It shows that you can write, it shows that you can act, it shows that you're funny. Um, and you can get a job where it's like you don't have to sell tickets. Like we're we're putting you in a writer's room or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

So yeah, I think four is a pretty good spot for that.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

So we only got one spot left. This is gonna be your top spot. Uh OnlyFans.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Oh, yeah, that is number one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's surprising. That 100% is number one. That adds up. If you're a hot chick, I think it again we'd talk about evil and demonic. I truly think it is.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

But uh I feel like people are getting pushed into it that don't want to necessarily be doing it because it's it's a hard way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

That's how you know it's evil and demonic. When these things become the mainstream, yeah, society's in trouble. Sure. These are things that should be like hidden and ashamed.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

This is a perfect segue into the next thing that I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Shame's a very good emotion for humans.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Shame is a good emotion for humans.

unknown 48:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

I think it is a a good corrective, especially for people inside of a group. I think it's an important tool. I think in our society, it is the root of a lot of problems because shame presents itself in the wild in our kingdom through people just being a piece of shit a lot of times. Like there's a shame that then you start to form your whole personality around, and then you present in problematic ways. But are you feeling shame if you're doing that? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

If you're a piece of shit, are you like, oh, I shouldn't have done that?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Well, I just can only speak from my own personal experience, but there's never been a moment in my life where I've been feeling ashamed that it made me a better dad, a better husband. Really?

SPEAKER_01 49:38

You're not course correcting off something? I feel like that's what shame does.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

No, because there's a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is these are my values and I'm not acting in accordance with them. So I feel guilty, and that's a good course correct. Shame is I'm bad because of this. And if you think you're bad, that's toxic. If you think you, the person, is bad. So what you might be talking about is guilt, because guilt is a good course corrector. You should have a healthy sense of guilt, but you should not be attaching to shame because if you think that you are bad, you either are frozen in shame or you're operating through, I need to avoid my shame all the time. Then you get the narcissistic personality, then you get all these problems. Interesting. I I trust me, as someone who's had to deal with all sorts of issues, shame being uh front and center, it's not fun and it doesn't make you a better person. Interesting. Okay. But I'll look into it.

unknown 50:37

I'll look into it.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

Uh at that time. Shame. What a shame. Um you go as far into this water as you want to go. But what brought you to Nashville was a hot opportunity at one of Nashville's fastest growing uh media companies at the time. Yeah, sure. Uh the Daily Wire. Yeah, yeah. And now I'm not taking a position on the company one way or another, but I think it's fascinating to get a little bit of an inside look because I wouldn't say that you're overtly ideological. I'd say you were kind of joining them from a creative-driven angle.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Yeah, it's it's non-creative people trying to be creative. Yes. And they don't know how to do it. Yes. And the truth is, most conservatives had been, when it comes to like pop culture at least, had been in a coma for about 20 years. Yeah. And and Trump won and blah blah. And so they sort of woke up and they were like, got woke. Yeah. And they were like, oh, we can make things. There was nothing for us to watch. Look, I mean, for for a long time, decades, you can just make fun of the rural white guy.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

That guy that you just make NASCAR jokes, cousin fucking jokes, whatever. They're dumb, they're whatever. And to their credit, the the rural people were fine with it for a while. They're like, that's good. Yeah, that's a high. I do love NASCAR. She was, you know. Sure. But then after a while, it was just like, yeah, all right. Okay, enough. We've heard that joke. We've heard and then you couldn't, but any other joke, any other group, if you made a joke, was like nuclear.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

That kind of like uh Trump enters, yeah, like you were saying earlier, when everything was glowing and going good, people had a different attitude. Yeah, and then when things turned uh like uh it did feel like there was a darker tint, like whether you're again, I'm not trying to like stake a claim, but it was it was just darker and dirtier and sour.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

The problem is like when I came to the DW, they weren't serving those people. Uh, who were they serving? They they were serving, you know, what I would say like uh yeah, intellectual coastal conservatives. So we were still kind of serving the coast. Yeah, we're still not nobody nobody cares about the rural people. I mean, and I look I mean uh this is touchy for me because like all my family is rural Ohio people.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

So I I love these people.

SPEAKER_02 53:21

I'm also uh Ohio, Columbus, that's the thing we share. And yeah, Ohio is a great microcosm because it's got like the three belts. We have like the Rust belt, yeah, where everybody lost their jobs because of um, you know, the overseas and the car industry. Uh the middle, which is doing either great if you're like corporate Columbus.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah, yeah. I can't tell if Columbus, I every time I go back there, I'm like, is this actually doing well or is this like a house of cards?

SPEAKER_02 53:47

I I think it's fine because it's it's uh it's just so corporate. Yeah. It's like so middle America corporate. It's what this is gonna be. This time, yes. It's what's I mean, same with Atlanta. It's like Columbus, Nashville, Atlanta all have the same heart and soul of if it's corporatized, it's middle managey, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

In Nashville and within 10 years, it's gonna be all corporate restaurants and corporate everything. Yep. They're squeeze they're squeezing everybody out. Yeah. But I hold on, there was a there was a point I wanted to.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Well, you I liked where you were going with your sympathies for people who are from Ohio and that they're there you should just unplug.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Oh, but the the thing about LA and the industry, what they're so they made fun of these rural people for so long without ever giving consideration that these people had lost their means, they had lost their um uh uh not reason to live, but a purpose. Sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris, I think Chris and I were on the same tour. It was pre-Trump, but I think they were running. So 2015, maybe. Okay. We toured the entire United States, and we so we hit towns like have you ever been to Buffalo? No, I was just in Buffalo. I've been near Buffalo. Buffalo is the 1970s.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Like my wife and I, we drove around there, and there's nothing modern about Buffalo. Yeah, there's no like what you have here where you could see like an old house, old house, weird shoe uh upright shoebox house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Buffalo's so old that I we we passed somebody driving a Pontiac Fierro. Jeez. They stopped making those in 1989. So they it's like a time machine stuff. And it wasn't like cruising, let's go out there. This was like the data.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

I get from point A to point B.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

So the people making all these jokes about uh rural people and stuff just never factored that in that they had lost everything. That the the factory that used to employ 80% of the town, that it was generational, went away and went overseas.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

The criticism we hear in comedy, it's punching down, as they say.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Yeah, I mean, I don't even look, I think everything should be made fun of. I think you can make fun of rural Americans, but of course you can. They like ridiculous shit.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

But it's really hard to make fun of things that you don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

You don't, that's right, and that you don't love. That's that's the key. Yeah, that's why the Trump jokes are never that funny because they come from a place of I just hate this guy.

SPEAKER_02 56:14

That's an that's an incredibly important uh distinction for comedy. I like that theory, and I think that is how you get away with if you're gonna do jokes, if you're gonna do race joke, if you're gonna do a gay joke or whatever. I like that as the rule.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

I really do. But the thing that that LA just didn't see coming was their industry being taken away.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

And you go there, and those big movie lots that fed the town for 100 years are empty.

SPEAKER_02 56:45

It's an interesting question to kind of fast forward through the Daily Wire story. Why do you think it didn't necessarily work? Which one? The the DW going into conservative. 100% I can tell you.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

One, there were no I there weren't enough, I don't know how much I can this I can say, but I just this is my opinion of all things, let's just say.

SPEAKER_05 57:08

Allegedly.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

No, no, it don't even it doesn't really have to do with Daily Wire, it has to do with everything. Okay, which is ideas.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

You have to have ideas, and ideas are not just like, hey, what if we uh what if we did this? Like immediately I'm like, that's not really an idea. That's probably something you saw somebody else do. An idea is there's a great book by David Lynch, Room to Dream, but he calls it like fishing. Like you're just sitting out there and you're just fishing. And what is fishing? It's a lot of meditative, quiet time. You might not even catch anything. But if you do, you you try your best to reel it in and whatever.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

Mike, I need to hear this right now. This is exactly where I'm stuck. Yeah, I need to be meditative in fishing and have ideas.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Because you're you're putting so much out there. Yeah. And that to me is crazy. I mean, I do give you credit that, like, of all of our comic friends, you're the only person, and James Holiday. So shout out to him. Yeah, but because he does a very similar thing, yeah. Where you're just connecting with people on a daily basis, and that's the only thing I've seen move the numbers. Yeah, there's so many comics we who we won't name, but I've seen, and and myself, I'm in there, where you're just stuck at a number of followers, yeah, because you're not big you're the only thing I've seen that has grown. Right. And we don't have to do this, but you also know I think there's negatives to that.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

Yes, but but what you're touching on is a really important negative. And it's it's hard to stay connected to ideas. Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

And they're they're delicate. Yeah, they're these uh we don't have to get too weird, but I they're like, I think they're kind of living things.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

I agree with you. Well, is that what's happening with DW?

SPEAKER_01 58:52

So you know how many times I heard, what if we did our version of the office? What if we did our version of blank?

SPEAKER_03 59:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

And I'm like, that serves nobody. Yeah, they have it.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

We have the office.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

They have the office.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

You, I would like, I'm like, and I would be like, I would uh say to uh somebody in particular, I but I'd be like, uh, well, what do you watch when you go home? Just like the office. And I'm like, yeah, you don't even need your the own thing you're pitching.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

So they just never there were just never like original ideas that would carry it through. Now the movie we did was hitting on that because again, nobody was talking about um DEI, and then also nobody in the conservative movement for to match credit was going out there and playing kind of a character and interviewing. He's he actually is legitimately good at sitting across from somebody and letting them say they're batshit, crazy.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

Well, that is such a uh well-worn tool on liberal media, yeah. Where they put themselves, it's it's like the funny version of a straw man argument. Yeah, where you you send the guy from the daily show to the rally, yeah, you're filming it, you control the edit, you get some idiot to sign a waiver or release, yeah, you talk with to them, and they struggle through the conversation and look bad, yeah, and then you make jokes. Right. That is like so well worn. That's the Sasha Barron Cohen. That's that's um and that's who Matt wanted to sort of emulate. And so that that is an idea in a sense where it's not like out of thin air, but there is you're you're taking your own way in. That that's enough of an idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Yeah. And so that's like the main thing I worked on, or that's really the only thing I worked on. Most of the time, I was just kind of getting paid to do nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Well, let's let's do this. Is the game. Uh-huh. We this is the last two things we're doing. Um, the game, which is we know you're uh we don't know, but I know you're a big fan of restaurants. Okay. And you are uniquely situated via your background uh at the Daily Wire to tell me whether these restaurants are liberal or conservative coded. So I'm gonna give you a restaurant and then I want you to tell me if it's liberal or conservative coded.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

Think about it from the perspective of the consumer and the environment from the top. McDonald's. Conservative Chipotle liberal Arby's conservative.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:25

Hi Hop. Conservative, Starbucks, liberal, and express liberal liberal conservative liberal.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

Liberal Chili? Conservative. Waffle House. Conservative. Panera. Liberal. Olive Garden. This was the toughest one on the list, I thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Yeah, yeah, I've never eaten it at an Olive Garden.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

I haven't in 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Yeah, never done it. Um, so I don't really know that one. I I would I would my gut says conservative, but uh I don't know. I really don't know. I feel like it's like I'm just every time you mention one, I just try to picture who do I know eats it the most.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

Yeah. Uh what do you got, Hayden? Liberal conservative for Olive Garden.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Liberal. I would say liberal.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:53

I feel like it's just old.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Nonpartisan. Well, that's nonpartisan. Well, that yeah, but that's where I'm getting tripped up, which is which is it's it's old. It's like an a relic. When you're there, you're family. But you're right, the family aspect, obviously, but it's also giving stuff away, like free breadsticks. Oh I don't I don't really know. But I get I haven't eaten there, so I can't really uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

They're giving you the unlimited breadsticks that yeah, in this economy, I mean that's insane. That's good. Uh Mike, let's do the bonus round. Okay. You I think you might have a good one for this. In your life, have you ever seen something mystical? Ghost aliens, etc. Hmm. It's okay if the answer is no.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

I don't think so, but I would say like feelings. Does that count? No, I'll tell you. I don't think I've like I've never seen like, oh, that was a ghost. Right. But I've had I've I have felt um, I've certainly felt like presence and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

Is there like a one that's jumping out at you? I mean the comedy store. You ever been in the comedy store in LA? No. And the minute you walk in there, especially if you're new. If you ever do that, if you ever go out there, the first time you step in that place, you feel it. Yeah, dude. It's like it's yeah, there's something bad. Bad things have happened in here? Not even bad things. I think like all sorts of things. All I mean, it's well, it's been around for 50 some years, right? I like that. This is a place where people um uh went with their dreams and their and they tried hard and a lot of people succeeded. More people failed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

I mean being haunted by an ambitious ghost. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

What's the what's the what's the thing where um the belief that like objects can can take on energy? I don't know what it's called, but I know what you're talking about. Something about that, right? Yeah, but I that to me is like it's absorbed all of it. Absorbed the energy. I mean, also also with comedy, like you're given out so much energy. Vibe, and the audience is given out energy. That has to go somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

Something's captured in there. Ooh, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

I feel it in Zany's too. I mean, when you go to Zane's, like the main room, you're like, there's something here.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

There's an energy, there's an electricity. Yeah, yeah. Um well at the comedy cellar, you feel it when you go down in the it's like, ooh, yeah, this is a this is a space.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Yeah. Um, and you know, also LA is just like a haunted town.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

It's again, it's yeah, it's everyone's that's what you hear is you hear it's like it's spooky. It's got like the spooky haunted LA areas.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Um, okay, I like that. Movie that changed your life.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:25

Uh, I would say pulp fiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

I have a handful, but uh, I mean, I saw Jaws 3 as a kid with my family.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

I don't know if I've ever seen Jaws 3.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not the best, but uh when you're like eight years old or seven years old, however old I was. Sharks Eating People is Sharks Eating People, and we were also watching it in the living room, but the th and I was terrified. And I remember it was like we were at my aunt and uncle's house, the whole family was watching it. And then the movie ended, and people kind of dispersed doing other things. And immediately following the movie on television was the making of. And I was like, I was like, oh wait, that was all fake. You thought it was documentary? I mean, I I don't think I I don't know what documentary was. Yeah, I'm just gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:09

Oh, you're young enough to be like, I'm not clocking that there's all this stuff happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

Yeah, and then I'm just then then I'm looking at uh the the guy puppeteering this the shark.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

Oh, but that does change your life because it's your relationship to cinema.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

There's there's uh behind the scenes, this is a making relationship to yeah, all that magic, yeah, trickery, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

Yeah, and you can participate.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

But pulp fiction was like huge. It like kind of made my aesthetic.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

How old were you when you watched it the first time?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

I'd have been 16, so I also like had just gotten a car. Oh yeah. I just like a lot of things were happening, you know. It's high school, it's uh, you know, we're starting to like drink beers and smoke cigarettes and coming of age. And I like I have an older brother, um, so a lot of my a lot of my aesthetic previously had kind of been passed down from him, things things that I liked. Yeah, and so that's like a period where you're like figuring out who you are, and yeah, and that movie is just huge, you know. So like you would have been what?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

Well, I didn't see it like when it came out, but I I probably saw it for the first time when I was like 13. Yeah. And it was I remember immediately I was like, wow, there's something different going on here. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Yeah, and to see it in the theaters when it came out was just uh just like a whole new zeitgeist, like a whole new universe like uh opened up in front of you. Yeah, and and and it was all people talked about for like months. Yeah, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

That's cool to like be a part of the the beginning of that to see that in theater.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

There's like that's still monoculture stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

No, that that feels special. All right, and the last one in the bonus round uh what is one quality that you would give as a gift if you had like a magical power to give one quality to a young person in your life, like a niece, a nephew, a kid, a grandkid. One young soul gets this quality from you. From me, so I have to possess it? No, you just get to say whatever it is. You could say, like, I don't have this at all, or I have it in spades, but you get it and it's my gift to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

Is like loyalty one of those? That's great. Yeah. Loyalty. Yeah. Just be loyal. Loyal to people. People that help you out, people that you're friends with. You know. It says a lot about character if you like kind of fuck somebody over.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:23

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

So it just sort of tells me the whole story of your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:28

Yep. Yep. How you treat people, yeah, and honoring your commitments.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

Yeah, you can you can have disagreements, you can have all sorts of things, and you know, but I mean if you're just you know which again is like what was so weird about LA by the time I left, just watching people throw each other under the bus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:47

I was like, eh, you're all you've lost yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Even if somebody does bad, I have friends that have, you know, not done great things, but uh, and I know it, and I've talked to them about it, but that's still my friend. That's still like I'm not just gonna throw that person out like trash. Yeah, that's crazy to me. Um, and you know, though somebody can't be a serial offender either. I mean, obviously, but uh, you know, OJ had uh AC Cowens, you know, driving him in that van. That's loyalty, man. That is loyalty. That's loyalty. Yeah, that doesn't mean AC was like, I'm glad you murdered those people, but that is like you're my boy, yeah, and you're at your lowest. I'm not gonna like walk away from you. In fact, let's get in the car and take take a ride.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

That's a great note to end on, Mike. Uh dude, we did it. Yeah, we did it. We we finished our episode. Thank you for coming in, dude. Of course, brother, that was fun. It was more fun than I was expecting.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:42

Let's go!

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

That was almost funny. That was almost funny.