#2110 - Fahim Anwar
2024-02-28 03:10:11
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Stream by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
My man.
How are you? Good to see you, brother. Good to be back, thank you for having me. I miss you too.
I used to get to see you every week.
I thought about that the other day, like, yeah. Yeah. You forget that. that's like a period of time and it's not going to be forever, sometimes, you know?
Yeah, well, it almost was. You were one of the first people to take the trip out here.
I was. It was clear as day when I first came out, I'm like, why wouldn't you be out here? Because I remember I had this writing job, right? And so I was just like on Zoom every day and life kind of sucked because you couldn't go out. So I was just trapped in my house.
Right. And then, in between a lunch break, I'm on Instagram and I see Tony, you know, Tony Hinchcliffe's post. He's, this is like in the infancy of him, him coming out here, you know? He's like sold out Antons, you know what I mean? It seemed like this bizarro universe where, like life, is still happening.
And I love standup so much and I was just kind of miserable. And I'm like, if this is happening out there, I can do standup. So then I started asking questions. I hit up the EPs. I'm like, yo, cause we're on Zoom.
Could I, could I just write from Austin, just Zoom by day and then do standup out here with like all you guys at night? And they're like, we don't see why not. So it was awesome. I got an apartment out here. I would Zoom by day.
I would just be doing awesome shows at Vulcan and stuff at night. It was, it felt like a life hack.
It was a life hack.
Yeah. It was great. I'm so glad I did that.
Have you been to the mothership yet?
Of course, dude. Yeah. It's amazing. I got to do, um, I think you're on vacation. Then Adam had me do where you normally do in the middle of the week.
The Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So I got to do like six shows in that beautiful big room. Both rooms are great. You know, I like that small one, for, uh, working on stuff. It's kind of like the belly.
It's very much like it. The small room is a combination of the belly and the OR. It's a little bit bigger than the belly room and a little more. Locked in the belly room. And then the big room is like combination of the OR and the main room.
That's what I tell everybody. Cause they go, what's it like? And it is, it's like if those rooms had babies, like they're in, they're in the middle of both those, of all three of those rooms.
They're both perfect. Yeah. They're the perfect size.
You know, it's kind of funny. I think the store has started to like get a facelift because of what you've done at mothership. Cause so many comics would come back and be like, yo, they just give you all your sets. You know what I mean? The sounds amazing.
Like, cause. it's so state of the art.
Well, there's also the screens in the green room that show you what's going on on stage and the time. you can't miss your spot.
Yeah.
You can't miss your spot. And there's lights everywhere. Yeah. So let you know, there's lights and there's two sets of lights in the hallway, one of the beginning of the hallway, one of the top of the stairs. You always know when the guy's got the light.
Yeah.
So, I think, and if you have any suggestions, by the way, Just throw them out. We'll use them. Okay. Half of the club is built on suggestions.
Well, you can tell, you know,
I think it was Tony's idea to have the lights in the green room. It might've been Tony's idea also to have the monitors in the green room. It was Louie's idea to lower the ceiling. It was Louie's idea to change the size of the stage in the little room and lower the ceiling in the little room too.
How big was the stage before Louie suggested the change?
It was like four feet more on each side.
Too big?
Yeah, it was too big. It was too big. He was right. Yeah.
It's an intimate room. Yeah, you're right. But it was just, you know, we just kind of walked into this empty space when it was just a movie theater. So when it was a movie theater, we had to change everything, right? So we changed the way the stairs are.
So in a movie theater, the stairs slant way down at a steep angle, right? So you could all watch the big screen. We raised the floor up. So we had to build a concrete, like a rebar and concrete floor. So it's a totally different floor.
Yeah, it's crazy.
So we raised it up. And then Louie wanted me to lower the ceiling even more, so I did that as well.
After the fact when it was all said and done?
No, it wasn't all said and done. We were in the middle of everything. Luckily, we did have to recut the stage in the small room because we, it was, but the concrete hadn't been poured yet. So they just had to recut the steel and put it all. But it's very interesting.
It's very interesting. I've never been a part of building anything like that before.
Yeah. You could tell, though, because you're a stand-up of several years, but you could tell it was designed by a comedian.
It's all done with comics. Yeah. Comics input. And also Richard, the architect, who was amazing. Shout out to Richard Wise.
He's the man. He's the man. He's so good. I'll have him on the podcast someday. He's a really interesting guy.
And he also came up with the idea of making the tunnel.
Oh, the tunnel's awesome.
The tunnel's the shit. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a cool hangout. The whole thing's just such, it's all set up just for a hang. You know, everybody feels good.
The most valuable asset to comedians, especially nowadays, is getting that footage, dude.
The footage is big. Yeah, we film you. And then also, it's like really high quality.
Yes, it's 8K. Yeah. The sound's great. So I've been pushing for that at the store, and I think they're starting to. It's just a process.
You also have to put people's phones in bags so they pay attention. People are so goddamn distracted, me included. It's so hard to sit there. It's one of the things that I love about podcasts is that for three hours, I'm not going to see what's going on in the world. You're locked in.
I'm locked in. I don't have to think about other things. And I'm really lucky. I think it's a form of therapy in a weird way, in this bizarre digitally sort of intertwined world. You can't escape it.
I can never escape it. It's so hard to get away from emails and text messages. It's just I cannot keep up. I have 185 unanswered text messages.
Are you good about clearing them, or do you have all that red?
Who has time to clear things?
I have to clear them. I have this OCD thing where I need to have a clean. I can't have red.
Okay, it's 183.
. 183. unanswered texts. How?
How do I do that? Well, you're a popular guy, dude.
No, no. How do you keep up? You can't.
You literally can't keep up. It's hard for you. I can keep up. I'm always surprised, for how busy you are and what a figure you are, how quickly you respond. still.
But I love you. Well, thank you. You're my friend. Thank you. But I have friends and people who are much lower than you in the pantheon of things who take so much longer.
Well, sometimes I do take long, though, if I'm out doing something. Yeah. There's times where I'll come home and there's 60 text messages, and there's not a chance in hell that I can just bang all those out. Right. Otherwise I'll go insane.
That's what I'm saying. It's just like. it's not that I have too many people contacting me. It's not. That's not what it is.
It's you find a fucking excuse to use that thing.
Oh, the phone. The phone.
Yeah. It's cool to be in contact with people. It's fun. I like that. I love the text messages I have between friends, sending each other memes, talking shit.
It's fun. It's silly. It's silly fun. It's a nice relief when Ari sends me a funny thing, you know, or says something funny. It's a nice little relief.
The text thread. you're in, they're great. You live for the text thread. Yes.
I've got a few of those text threads going on between me and comics, and it's the most fun thing, man. The fucking phone runs. your goddamn life, dude. It does. And it's made it so, especially if you're a person who, like, if you're booking shows, you have to be in contact with your agent.
You have to be in contact with the opening acts.
It's a tool for everything. I've got to docu-sign something. I have to edit a video. I have to post it on TikTok. I have to post it on Facebook.
I have to post it on literally a computer. It's like work never ends.
You know what the most hilarious thing to me is? When you have to sign things online.
Like. it's such bullshit. It's an exercise in everyone believing.
It's a fake signature. It's not even my real signature. It's a fake signature. Like a docu-sign? Yeah.
And you just agree that you're going to accept that as your signature. You say, okay. Right. And you click it, and then it's your signature.
It's just Joe Rogan in text. I guess that's a signature.
There's one way around that. If you have, like a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, their new phone, it has a stylus that's built into the phone, and you can use it to sign PDFs.
Does somebody care enough to be buying that phone just to sign documents?
No, but you can sign all kinds of stuff. Like you can write on it, like a notepad. It's really fascinating. It's a very fascinating piece of tech.
We're going back to PalmPilot. We've gone full circle.
A little bit, but it also allows you to take photographs. So you could use it as a shutter. So you could like stand across the room and take a photo of yourself or a video, and you press that button, and it starts recording, and it starts taking a picture.
You could be like an old-timey photographer. Just put a blanket over you.
Do they still do that? Do they have like enthusiasts who do old-timey?
I bet there's some kid in Silver Lake who's like, yo, pose everybody at some cool bar, and he has to flash.
Yo, I used to get fascinated by this one dude who would make old-timey wooden farm tools. This guy would make like old-timey, what are those things, planes? He would make old-timey planes and old-timey like...
Like Wright Brothers planes?
No, no, planes, like when you're planing wood. He was like a wood shop guy, but it was all handmade. He made all of his tools.
Who's the market for that? Me.
I watched that show. I couldn't stop watching it.
But, like when he makes the tools, is there a market to buy those, or is it novelty?
I think it's novelty. I bet at the time, this was pre-internet, or maybe like the internet was just starting. But this guy had a cool show, and I used to watch it all the time. I love when people love things. That's what I figured out about me.
It doesn't even have to be something that I love, but I love when people love things. And that's when I really got into Bourdain's show, because I was like, god damn, this dude loves food. He loves cooking. He loves cuisine. Is that me or are you the distinct?
I think it's you. I'm an airplane man. I respect the format.
I usually do, bro.
Come on. You think I'd be so bold to not turn up? This guy I follow on Instagram makes the photos that way with a truck. He turned a whole truck into a camera, essentially. Oh, that's cool.
The process of it is crazy. It could be a myth, sometimes because of how much work he's doing instead of that. Imagine trying to convince these women. it's a camera and not some creepy...
Oh, yeah. No, no, it's a camera. You are a psycho.
Just come into the woods and pose for me.
So he turned his truck into a camera. He built his own camera.
The whole thing is the darkroom, everything, and then he does the chemical process. It makes really cool photos on metal. He's printing them right to metal. Whoa. That is kind of.
the.
. Most of the photos we have is a transfer to metal. These are directly to metal.
Is that how they first started making photos? Did they put them on metal? I don't think it was metal.
Well, plates. Yeah, I think it would be plates. He's returning it to nature.
Oh, that one didn't work? Yeah. So he's just throwing it? Yeah. Hey, dude, don't litter.
Yeah. He's down on himself.
Come on. I know you're mad that your fucking homemade camera doesn't work, but you better pick that up, bitch.
That's the beauty of YouTube.
You know, imagine that? The guy just littered.
Yeah. You think that's not natural?
You can't litter in those places, bro. There's too many people to visit. Think about how many people visit national parks. It's so important not to litter. No one's going in there cleaning up after you, you fucking animals.
Don't do it. Don't litter, and you're in the woods, man. My friend Adam Greentree, he goes on these big backpacking hunts where he'll go into the Montana mountains, Colorado mountains, for like a month at a time, and he's just picking up bags of people's shit that they left behind, bags of empty water bottles, bags of trash, and he just brings a bag with him, and he collects it while he's out there hunting. It's disgusting.
Nice of him to do. I'm sure there's tons of stuff out there.
It's so disturbing, though, that people do that. It's the worst aspect of us, this total willingness, through completely being selfish, of just destroying one of the most amazing things we have in this country, which is national parks and public lands, and a place where you can just walk out into the woods. Yeah. There's tons of places in this country where you can just go on a hike in the fucking woods with bears and moose and all kinds of shit. You can just go out there, man.
Hopefully you know what you're doing, but nobody really tests you. Nobody says, Hey, Fahim, how long can you hike before you die?
Let's find out.
Hey, Fahim, are you doing any cardio at all? No. Hey, Fahim, do you know how to use a compass? Hey, Fahim, do you guys have fucking something to start fire with?
Well, that's when you make the local news, and then there's a file photo of me, and this search has been going on for six days.
Bro, it's so hard to stay alive. It's so hard. I've never stayed alive. I'm obviously just talking out of my ass, but I have been camping, and one of the things that you realize when you go camping, if you just go camping just a few nights in a row, you realize what fucking bitches people are. These animals, they sleep on the ground every night.
They don't give a fuck. They're out there wild. There's no doors. There's no borders, and they have all these defense mechanisms. they developed to protect them from predators.
because of that, because there's no hiding. Every day is war. If you're a fucking deer, every day is listening for branches snapping.
Yeah, that's just life.
Every day.
I remember I was snorkeling in Hawaii, and you get to see all that marine life down there, and I just saw this sea turtle, so peaceful, and then part of me was like, he doesn't have to worry about rent. He doesn't have to make money to exist, which was an interesting concept, but he has so many other problems too. He's got problems. He's got problems, but there's just something about that being enough for this turtle just kind of floating.
apart, man. You know what I mean? All these things humans need to do to exist.
The turtle's, a residual effect of evolution. that's no longer necessary, but we think they're beautiful.
I think they're beautiful, man.
We think they're cool.
Cool guys.
They live a long time. When you see a turtle, you're like, hey, bro, this design is not going to survive.
Man, I can watch a turtle eat lettuce forever. Doesn't Stallone still have his turtle from Rocky?
Whoa, is it that old?
It's old, man. They live a long time.
I had turtles. I had to get rid of them when I had babies, because turtles are dirty little creatures. You don't want to have that stuff around. But they were ruthless.
Slowly, ruthless?
No, I would feed them goldfish. Dude, I had piranhas at one point in time.
Of course you did. That's like the most, Joe Rogan pet.
And they were not nearly as ruthless as these fucking turtles.
Yeah.
Look at that. Rocky's still got the same turtle. 44 years old.
Wow. This is five years ago. Turtle looks great. He looks 10..
I'm sure they're not dead yet. I bet they do. Because tortoises live like a thousand years, don't they?
Something.
I think sea turtles live a long fucking time too, which is like the saddest thing. when you see people kill them and eat them. You're like, oh. How good must they be, though?
How tasty if they're doing that?
You think so?
Sometimes I think of like shark fin soup. You're like, how good must it be?
Aquatic turtles will commonly live 20 to 30 years in captivity, but many can live much longer. Tortoises are some estimated to live 100 to 150 years. So it's not tortoises. Is it sea turtles that live forever? Who are the old ones?
So some of them can live up to 250 years. What about sea turtles? Maybe it's sea turtles.
Do you think there's like-?
I think they're really old.
A family that has a turtle that's been in the family for generations? Like it's 249 years old?
Wow. That's a good question.
This is my great, great grandfather's turtle.
That's a solid question.
That'd be awesome.
I think there's sharks that are alive today, that are the oldest living creatures. I think there's sharks-.
Estimated up to- Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
10?
. 1?.
1,000 years, right?
1 in 1,000?
. Oh, that's surviving. I was reading it wrong. Sorry. Too many words.
Lifespan, 100 years. But there's one turtle. There's some fucking turtle that they think gets really old.
Estimated up to 500 years old?
Oh, okay.
Here's one right here. I don't know. That's it. They just look old. You never see a turtle like this.
Large turtles. That's what I'm talking about.
500 years old. That's fucking bonkers, man. That's like pre-George Washington. Wrap your head around that. You're a baby turtle.
You're just fucking chilling. All of a sudden these boats pull up. You're like, this isn't going to be anything.
Do you think some of these turtles are not that progressive because they're pretty old and they haven't been-.
They're probably super conservative.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they probably watch Fox News.
and they're like, women are wearing pants? What is this?
I see ankles.
This wasn't happening when I came up.
Yeah. You ever see, there's a snapping turtle? What do they call them? The really crazy looking ones? It's like a dinosaur looking thing.
It's a type of snapping turtle, but there's like a gator snapping turtle. I think maybe that's what they call it. Alligator snapping turtle. It's crazy looking, dude. You can't believe it's a real creature.
And these assholes are picking them up. And you're like, bro, if you fuck up, that thing's taking your hand. It's literally taking your hand. They're big.
Yeah, it wouldn't do that. Jesus.
Look at that fucking mouth. But there's some big ones. Look at the size of that one. That's what I'm talking about. Like, that guy has.
That guy's out of his fucking mind. If that maw gets a hold of one of those fingers, that shit is so gone. You're trusting your grip. Look at that thing, man. You're trusting your grip.
Look at its nose.
Bro. Fucking pig snout. Fuck all that. That is a monster. If that was big and storming into a village in Mongolia a thousand years ago in some crazy movie, you'd be like, oh my God.
You know some Lord of the Rings type movie? Yeah. That would exactly be what it would look like. And there would be guys with straps around that thing, riding it. Oh, yeah.
Right? That's like those scenes.
in the movies. Look at that thing.
Yeah, where the heroes are against the wall, but then the people riding these things come in from the side. They go, yeah.
Bro, we are so weak.
What, just humans?
Humans. We're so weak. What an amazing trade-off, though.
But we have bombs.
Yeah, we have guns. We have everything. We have houses. We have cars. We have so many different things.
We're way made up for it. But isn't it interesting that as you make up for it, you have to give away your physical defenses. We're the most vulnerable. A good house cat could fuck you up.
A house cat could fuck you up, dude.
A rat, for sure. A rat the size of a house cat could fuck you up. You'd be so scared of that.
I saw this video. You know, you see videos on Twitter and stuff. This guy in New York, there's a possum just on the side of this building, and then this white guy helps the neighborhood out. He just grabs it off the wall, and it's like, and everyone's just thanking this guy, and he just knows how to handle the possum, and he walks it down the street, and he just throws it into an alley.
Yeah. My dog Marshall likes possums. That's the person who grew up on a farm. That lady just grabbed that thing.
I just love how this is a subgenre on the internet, grabbing possums. That lady just grabbed that thing.
She knew exactly what the fuck she was doing. Look at her. walk out confidently. Look at her. She's all confident and shit, holding onto that wild rat.
Does she have experience? I wouldn't... She must.
She must, unless it's hers. That's true. Maybe it's a YouTube gag.
She's like, my bad, guys. She got out.
She's releasing possums. You got a little crazy. Roscoe.
You cut that out. Roscoe.
You cut that out, Roscoe.
You weren't an Applebee's. Come on.
Roscoe. They have a disease, a very specific disease, right? Don't possums have something nasty?
I think they have something nasty. I was worried because my dogs got them a couple of times. Yeah. They just lock up. They don't even fight back.
They get scared, yeah.
No, they lock up. They play possum. They're dead. That's where it comes from. Yeah.
It's a weird response.
You mean the possums have the same technique?
They don't know if it's a response to escape coyotes, because coyotes sometimes will kill you and not eat you immediately.
And maybe there's some sort of an evolutionary advantage to playing dead, and they leave you there, but you're not actually dead. And so they give up on trying to eat you. yet. She got a parasite, toxo,
and then something called leptose.
Yeah.
All kinds of bad shit.
Coccidysis. How do you say that first one? Coccidiosis. Come on, dude. You went to college?
I didn't study this. I didn't study possums.
How do you say that?
Coccidiosis.
A microscopic parasite found in a possum feces spreads a disease known as coccidiosis. When a possum is immune to this disease, they're carriers and spread it to other animals.
Mmm. Diarrhea.
Yeah. Bloody diarrhea, dehydration, weight loss, general decline in health. If untreated, it can result in complications or death. Oh, shit. This one sounds tough.
Death by parasites. You know what they give you when you have parasites?
What? Ivermectin. Oh, really? Yeah.
Yeah, that's what it's originally for.
Dogs are susceptible to this one.
Dogs are susceptible to leptospirosis. Leptospirosis. Bacterial infection through contact with a possum, urine or contaminated water. Both pets and humans can... So it doesn't...
I wonder if that means if they bite them. If they bite them, they definitely can get toxo. They eat them.
So the moral of the story is just stay away from possums, if you can, right? I would imagine. Toxo is the wildest. Yeah.
Do you know that they think that somewhere in some places, like at France, at one point in time, 50% of the population was positive for toxo?
No. Why? From what? Cats.
Ah. From feral cats. Feral cats leave cat shit around and that's why they tell pregnant women never touch cat litter. It's really bad for the kid if the woman's pregnant and she gets toxo.
Oh, fuck.
But it's a parasite that infects your brain, and the wildest thing about it is what it does to rats, because it rewires the rat sexual reward system. this parasite does and gets the rat horny for cat piss. So the cat is like pissing somewhere. The rat finds where the cat's pissing and he's literally erect.
Is he just fucking illiquid or what?
No fear of cats. Zero fear of cats. Their fear of cats completely goes away to the point where they pursue cats. So the cats eat the rats because toxo can only grow and can only reproduce inside the cat's digestive tract. So inside the cat's gut it's reproducing.
The cat shits it out and then the cycle repeats itself. The rats eat it. The rats eat the cat shit. Rats always eat shit. They get toxo.
They give it to other cats.
Vicious cycle.
And it gets to people and it makes people reckless. It's a disproportionate amount of high instances of toxo are connected to successful soccer teams.
How do you know so much about toxo?
I'm fascinated by it. There's this guy, Robert Sapolsky, out of Stanford. Is he out of Stanford? Yeah, I believe so. Brilliant guy.
But he did all this work on toxoplasmosis. One of the things they found when he was a resident or maybe it was one of his friends that was a resident. They found that there was a disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims who tested positive for toxo. So they started testing motorcycle victims for toxo and they found that there was a disproportionate amount. Enough to indicate that there's probably something going on there.
That maybe the toxo makes people more reckless.
That's so weird. how that can make you do that.
It's nuts, dude. Think of how many people have feral cats. How many people probably have it. You can have it and not even have any idea of no inclination that you have it.
I'm going to get tested for toxo now.
You're just a little cuckoo.
Dude, I had it the whole time.
You're just a little cuckoo.
What's that? Forty percent. Damn. Of the population in America.
Forty percent. That's so much. Forty percent has toxo.
Up to. Could be.
Sixteen to forty percent. Let's just say it's only sixteen. Do you know how nuts that is? It's a parasite that affects your behavior? That's so, bananas.
I know.
How nuts is that?
It's pretty.
And most people aren't even aware of that?
Get tested, guys. This is like a PSA. Get tested for toxo.
Yeah. What are the side effects? What are the effects? I know there's like a loss of inhibition, I think, that comes with it. Something along those lines.
Maybe that's good before you hit the stage. More recklessness. Toxo, just makes you fearless as a comedian.
Well, that, you know, a good head injury.
This guy has toxo.
Good head injuries. Good for that, too.
Yeah. A good head injury.
A good head injury. When you're younger. Like, you, wouldn't recommend it, but two of the all-time greats had like big head injuries, and they turned into.
Kinnison?
Kinnison and Roseanne.
Roseanne. I didn't know she had a head injury.
She got hit by a car. Yeah.
Adam Devine got hit by a car, too.
Oh, Jesus. Yeah, yeah.
I think he broke his bones and stuff when he was a kid.
That's so scary. Yeah. I've been watching more car accidents because of Instagram than at any other time in my life. Instagram just wants to show you people dying.
Well, X, too, man.
X, too. Well, X is everything. X has porn on it, which is so wild that during the time where they were trying to take, people, take their accounts away for COVID information that they didn't think was correct at the time, they were allowing, like hardcore porn.
I know. You forget, it's the Wild Wild West on there?
And I'm not saying they shouldn't. Sure. I'd love that it's the Wild Wild West.
It's such whiplash. Like, I'll be watching a cat video, and then there's just some guy, you know, getting hit by a car. And I'm like, Jesus, like, give me a minute. Let me brace myself.
Instagram knows that I watch those.
Those motherfuckers. It's just serving you up. It knows your alibi.
It's just serving me up. There's a lot of these. I'm not even following these accounts.
You're like this guy, dying. You may like this guy.
Yeah, it's like, it's weird. Like, should your feed be only people you follow? Or should they show you a bunch of shit?
Well, that's what these companies are struggling with, because when it was all just your circle, people weren't consuming as much as the suggested videos. You know, what's funny is like, I got shadow banned on Instagram for like around Thanksgiving.
What did you do?
Hardly anything. And it sucks because I'm trying to do a special via non-traditional means, you know? Like, it's not Netflix. It's not Comedy Central. Like, this is a model now because of like you, and YouTube.
Like, this is a viable alternative to like the Netflix Comedy Central special, whatever. So it's like you need the power of these social media companies to reach people. So like, doing podcasts and you do the YouTube special, that's like an arm of it. And then you disseminate. Ari Shafir has like been very helpful with like trying to self-release a special.
So you like chop it up into clips. Like, this is what I did in my last one, you know? And you just chop up, because most people are going to access you via clips. Like, everyone has time for 30 seconds. Right.
Because the hour-long special is kind of for jazz heads. You got to be a real stand-up comedy nerd to like sit down and watch an hour.
It's for real. Right. Like, your guy's got vinyl.
I swear it is because, like I was talking to Roy Wood Jr. and like sometimes because we're in stand-up, we just think it's the world because it is our world. And we think that it translates to the rest. And he kind of, he, like bird's-eye-viewed it. for me.
He's like, yo, when you go on Spotify, stand-up is under jazz. You know what I mean? He goes, as an art form? Right. It's under jazz.
Jazz is more popular. And I'm like, it kind of put everything into focus for me, where, you know, I don't have to be as invested. I'm like, okay, there's a ceiling to what you can do. Right. But anyway, you, I need the clips.
Like, I need the arm of the clips, because I had some clips do like 12 mil and stuff. And people were able to find me via Instagram reels. So when they shadow, ban me, like it tells you, you can look at your account status and there'll be marks on there. It'll say, there's like three strikes and stuff. And then one of the things it said is, your content will not be shown to non-followers.
And that's kind of how the machine works. Like your stuff gets suggested to people who may not have known about you. So you need that as an artist, if you want to grow, like to see your special and your standup. So you're, you're being suppressed. You're being limited.
How do you know you were shadow banned?
Cause it tells you on your account status. And then I had people talking to, people who work at IG or Meta or whatever. And they're like, yeah, it's shadow banned.
What did you do?
I think it's because it's an election cycle or something. Like. it's not even a human doing it. I think it just scrapes for buzzwords and just blanket, uh, has these suppression on it.
So I had this joke. It sounds so creepy.
Well, it's a, it sucks because there's no nuance to it. It was just a joke. You know, my theme works on stuff show. I do it on YouTube. sometimes where I'm just working on material.
I just do it to feed the algo. And sometimes there's a great joke that works. And I just post it on a reel. Cause it's like 80% of the way there. And I'm just feeding the algo.
So this joke I post, I posted on all of them, all the social media platforms. So it remained on Tik TOK and all the other ones was fine. And usually Tik TOK is very draconian. Like they don't like, cause it's mostly kids. So the joke, it's a, I just go, it's a non sequitur, you know, just out of nowhere.
I'm like, Oh, I just, I just want to let you guys know, Hamas is hiding at my ex girlfriend's house. So that's the joke. It's like saying something without saying something. It's just, you know, it's a joke. And like,
Oh, my God,
that's all I said.
Oh, my God.
And, and then I think it just saw Hamas on the thumbnail, you know, when you post on the grid, and then I got a strike for that. And then there was no way to reach people, and I'm just fucked.
Wait a minute. So any mention of Hamas gets you shot a bit? Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, pretty much. I think it just, it's this machine learning or whatever it is. It's just scraping the internet for like buzzwords. So that was like a hot button issue and stuff. And there's no nuance applied to the situation or the joke.
So it just sees Hamas. And then my account got hit like that.
So is it any joke about Hamas or just mentioning?
I don't think the joke was even taken into consideration. I think they just saw Hamas on a thumbnail or Hamas on a caption, not knowing that it's a guy on stage doing a joke. Right. And there's layers to it. Yes.
I tried to appeal it and then it was just stuck in review forever. So nothing was going to happen. Like I was, I was pretty much fucked. So I know influencers in LA and stuff. And I was like, and sometimes when they're pretty high up on IG, they have a contact or something more than a nebulous.
Cause you can't, these companies are, so there's no point person. I think it's like that for a reason. So they tried to help me out. They had a guy and we're going back and forth and nothing was getting done. And luckily I met a large agency, like a talent agency, and they were going at it too, trying to help.
And, like just a week ago, it got lifted. Because yes. And then, so the joke is up. Whereas before it wasn't. So it's like, it didn't even happen.
It's like I had someone vouch for me and then they, like hands, were off. It was fine, but only because I had the might of this talent agency. If I was like a regular guy, I would just be fucked.
that is the thing about. an agency can get in contact with someone who there's a value in that for sure.
Yeah.
So much in this weird time, but you also have to realize from their perspective, they're managing at scale, literally billions of people.
Yes.
So I mean, Facebook and Instagram are all the same company, right? It's all meta. So like, how many, how many meta customers are there? Let's just guess.
So many. Well, isn't like a small nation when you add up how many Facebook users?
I don't think it's very small nation. I think it's, I think it's a really big one. I think it's a really big one. I want to say it's north of 2 billion. Yeah.
That's a big ass country.
But it's, it's, it's an imperfect solution. Active users on meta products.
Yeah.
3.
19 billion.
Yeah. That's half. That's so many people. That's a lot of people. you have to think, from their perspective, that they think they have an obligation somehow to maintain a certain level of discourse on their platform.
This is how you could establish it initially. But then, when you get people in there that are very politically biased and you get people in there that are socially biased and you, and they only want one perspective being heard. And then you get a lot of people self-censoring because they self-censor because they're like, Hey, I don't know what I can say and what I can't say.
Now I'm, now. I'm like that. Right?
Exactly.
That's what I'm saying.
Twitter does not do that. X does not do that. Right. I don't like calling it X. I still call it Twitter.
I'm old school, bro. It's cause. it's not an X. You can't make an X. You make a tweet.
Right? I tweeted it. You X'd it?
No, I say X'd it. I ride hard for Elon. I'm like, I was on X and I was just drafting a bunch of X's. And then I X'd it. What do you call it?
Tweet? Oh, that's, that's, that's Jack Dorsey. This is Elon.
The old days, kids. It just.
So it's nice to have my account back.
But I love that. it's wild. That's the, the Twitter thing is it's, I mean, some of it is disturbing when people get comfortable enough to, just like, really speak their mind about things. I'm like, oh my God.
Well, that's the thing about social media too, is, uh, uh, sometimes when you're a close knit circle, your buddies kind of check you like, Hey, what are you doing? But social media, some people have a lot of rope and you're like, oh no.
Yeah. And especially like isolated people.
Yes. I see my friends getting nutty on the road. I'll get nutty. Like you could tell your buddy has been on the road for too long. Like they do a video in a hotel room or something, and you're like, oh no, they're losing their mind.
Yeah.
I've been guilty of that too. Just when you're not surrounded by community and people and you're just a brain floating on the road.
The number one key that I found very early is go on the road with your friends.
I'm lucky. I've entered a phase of my career where now I'm starting to be able to do that. Whereas before you're not making enough money. So you're just beholden to whoever they book as a feature and you're just stuck in a hotel. You're walking across a freeway to go to a Cracker Barrel and kill time.
I just had a long time ago. I'm like 98 to do that. Just pay more money. Give them the money. Just make less money, but have a good time.
It's worth it.
Dude, it's everything. It's everything. Make less money. Have a good time. Make more money.
Have a bad time. Not fun. You don't like that. That's not a good feeling. Make less money.
Have a good time. And have everybody else have a good time too. So it's a bunch of guys who are really good friends, who love each other, been on the road forever, going to dinners forever. I've had hundreds of dinners with Ari and Joey Diaz and Duncan. So when we get together, it's just joy.
It's the best.
It's just joy. It's just being with your favorite people, having a good time, and doing the thing that you can't believe you get paid to do.
I'm able to do that now, I think. I mean I have to say thank you for-.
No, you're able to do it from your talent.
I know, but I mean this is a platform because I wasn't a Netflix guy. I wasn't a Comedy Central guy.
Which doesn't make any sense to me. It just shows me that Comedy Central and Netflix don't stick.
Well, look at how many of my friends and peers are just skyrocketing, and they weren't the guys they picked. You know what I mean? So it's kind of validating and refreshing, and it's cool to see comedy policing itself and just promoting guys who are in the trenches and know what's up, not some guy who has a communications degree.
Well, I think there's a lot of comedy nerds now too that are really into comedy. Because they get to see how the sausage is made from all the podcasts. You know, really before that, I always said this, there's so few conversations with great stand-ups that exist from the George Carlin days or Richard Pryor days. There's not hours and hours of Pryor just sitting around talking about things, which would have been amazing. Yeah.
Amazing. Can you imagine if Richard Pryor or George Carlin had a podcast?
Pretty nuts, I know.
Oh my God, it'd be insane. It'd be insane. And George has done some conversations where he talked about his writing process. He talked about the art form itself, but he had a very specific way of doing it that most people don't do it that way. He would write a monologue.
Yeah, I saw that.
And then he would just sort of punch it up a little bit. That monologue would be his monologue for the year.
It was amazing, but it was rigid and he knew his beats and stuff, but yeah, brilliant.
Totally different process. Because in the end, he became this guy who was a comic as much as he was a social critic. It was like both things were this, it was still a great comic, clearly, but he was also a great social critic. And he had, because he didn't have a podcast, his view of the world came out in a stand-up and he had to figure out a way to make that funny. And that was like his great challenge.
Well, it gets so distilled when that's here, because we can talk at length and approximate it, and we have-.
And you can go back on what you said and go, you know, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I could see how you would look at it the other way too, which is so goddamn important.
Comedy fans are getting very granular. It's kind of cool. I think comedy has always been popular, but not like this. And I almost feel like people are discovering stand-up this day and age, sort of like the way they used to discover music. People are taking ownership of discovering comedians.
Because even me, I'm kind of like under the radar, I'm pretty niche. And when a comedy fan likes me, there's just like a level of fandom. It's like they found a cool record at a record shop. Because of the advent of YouTube and Instagram, people aren't just accepting whatever is being fed to them through a corporate pipe.
Right. Which used to be the case. Like if you weren't picked before, you couldn't do anything.
That was the only way to even get in front of people, is like you had to be the corporate pick. Otherwise, you were just toiling in obscurity. There's no way to even be seen. But now there's all these ways to circumvent the traditional, like Schultz was saying, something is like, like the younger generations and stuff, they don't know where they saw it, or like what the medium is or the branding. They just know they saw it on a TV, whether it's YouTube, whether it's Netflix, whether it's Amazon, like that type of branding is almost like legacy thinking from when I was coming up and you were coming up and there was a way to do it.
People just like good now.
Well, they like what they like too, and there's plenty of variety. There's all sorts of different comics out there now that are really popular. It's really interesting time. I think, like for standup, like for the art form, I don't think there's ever been a better time. There's never been more of it.
There's never been more good ones. There's never been more good ones coming up. And that's one of the more interesting things about watching the club is occasionally I get to see these people that auditioned to be door people. Those are all comics. And I get to see them grow.
It's fun. It's fun to watch, man. It's fun to watch people inspired, and that energy is in the whole room, you know, because there's all these different levels, you know, this guy's like a song, Derek, we're now going on the road.
Great guys on the road.
David Lucas is killing on the road. William Montgomery's killing it on the road. And then there's like the headliners that come in that are there all the time, like Shane and Duncan and Tom Segura, and all these people that come in to fuck around. But there's this feeling that starts at the bottom. It starts with the base.
It starts with the people that are inspired about making it still. And then there's the people that are just getting in and the people that are in. And then there's the people that are on television, and everybody knows they are on the screen when they go on stage. And there's Ron White. You know, there's those people.
So it's like you get to see how we're all just the same thing. We're all just artists, for lack of a pretentious word.
We're like Pokemon, just different evolution.
We're just doing a weird art form. We're doing a weird art form that hasn't really, until now, been documented as to how to go about doing the process and how each one of us went about doing the process. And I think people are interested in that, just like I'm interested in that motherfucker that makes wood, wood tools. I love when people love things. I do.
Even if it's something that I don't do. I love when people love things. Anything, man. Anything.
Well, it's so interesting how the blueprint as to make it whatever you want to call it in comedy has shifted so fast in the past couple of years. Because when I was coming up, it was SNL. It was doing like a late night set. It was doing premium blend, like these smaller showcase type sets. And then you do a half hour.
Like a half hour on Comedy Central was huge. Like Dane had a monster half hour. Just Gaffigan. Louie. You know, these were like people's entry points, these people.
And then now there's really, those things don't exist. I was taking...
Well, it's the viral clip now.
Yes. So I was on the road and I took, I was doing Cobbs and I brought Matt Lockwood, he's a comedian from the store. And we're just sitting eating ice cream on the bench and I'm, you know, talking to the young comics and I'm like, what do you guys pine for now? Like, what is the thing? And he's like, I'll tell you what the thing was.
Like, what we all wanted. Right. It was like a JFL showcase. It was a late night set.
Just for laughs. Just for laughs. Montreal.
The biggest set of your life is in French Canon.
It is.
And then you make an Arby's joke and you're like, oh, you don't have Arby's? That would have been good to know in front of all these suits. What else is in the news? So I go, what's your thing? What are you?
And he's like, there's really nothing. That was weird to me that they had no touchstone. When he goes, maybe like a clip goes viral or a podcast. It's just so nebulous now.
Right.
There's no hard blueprint.
Well, the blueprint before was kind of the problem. was it involved other stuff. The blueprint involved, like getting a sitcom, getting a talk show, getting a something. Yes. It always involved that.
A means to an end. A springboard. Like you couldn't just be a comic. No. You gotta be a wacky neighbor.
But that was the thing that always bummed me out the most about Richard Jenning. Richard Jenning, when he died, was one of the best comics ever, but felt like a failure because he didn't become Jim Carrey, because he didn't become the guy who did the movies. He had a TV show. It was called Platypus Man. that was on one of those burgeoning networks, one of those new networks.
What was it?
WB.
WB, one of those.
It was the 2B of today.
It was one of those weird networks where they started offering people deals to do shows that maybe wouldn't have got a show at NBC or ABC. But he was a great comic man, a great fucking comic, and he never liked the fact that he was just a comic.
What was crazy is, if you plug him in today, he'd be a killer. Yeah. Arenas. You're enough. As a comic?
Yeah. You're enough. Whereas that used to never be the case. It was like, what else do you do?
It's such a disrespected art form. It's something that everybody loves, but nobody takes that seriously, because it seems like the person on stage is doing what you can do. They're just talking.
I know. I know. But they get up there and they learn very quickly. Yeah.
Well, if they get up there. Yeah.
Well, you ever have a drunk person who's like, I'll do it. sometimes. I'm like, all right, let's try it. Let's see what you got. And they go, uh.
And then everyone hates them. You wanted this, dude.
Yeah. Well, it's just people think, and then there's people that want to do it and just don't know how to do it. Yeah. There's a lot of that.
I'll get that after shows. Some young comics. Yeah. What do I do? I've been writing stuff.
Yeah. You just got to do that first open mic night. After the first one, it'll be a lot easier. The first one's the hardest one, for sure. I was fucking terrified.
Yeah.
But the fact, if you even do it, do three minutes, and even if it's terrible, that is 99% further than most people ever do. So many people talk, but they never even like bomb for three minutes. That is a win, even for real, because you know what it feels like at least.
If you have gotten laughs and then you bomb, I think that's better, because at least you know you can get laughs. But if you start off bombing, the road to actually getting, like if you bomb out of the gate, first time on stage, just death, not even a chuckle.
Well, if you come back after that happens, then yeah.
Or you're a crazy person.
Sure. Those are both great assets as a standup comedian.
Occasionally. The crazy person isn't always, you know, the crazy person isn't always, it's not really.
Right. You have to harness the crazy.
Yeah. Some people, it's not harnessable. You know, it's a thousand horsepower engine on a fucking kid's bike.
Like. what do I do with this?
They have like a little kid's bike with a fucking giant Corvette engine on it.
Oh, I also got to thank you, because, I mean, it reminds me, I brought my parents to Tonight Show, and that's because of your podcast. I remember I was doing, I forget which one, I've been on a few times, but, like, you're like, have your parents seen you before? And I'm like, uh, no. They saw me do the Apollo when I was 18.. And then I got booed at the Apollo.
And that was the first, I was like a few months into doing standup. And they're from Afghanistan, and this is not a thing you do. And they wanted me to quit. And it was just very disgraceful, me doing this. And they see me get booed by 4,000 people.
I'm telling the story on the, I think the one or two, I guess. So I get booed off stage and all that. And then you're like, they got to come see you again, man. You're great. And I go, I just have this mental block because that was so bad.
Right. That, um, I just, it's like an emotional thing. you just put in a closet and you just ignore it. Yeah. Cause, I just wanted to keep on doing comedy on my own and keeping my, my parents and stuff like separate.
And then you're like, they got to come see you. And then, on the podcast, I was like, uh, I just always had this fantasy of like it. When they see me, it being so good to counteract how bad that experience was, that it would be like a celebration, that everything is okay. Your son turned out okay. Right.
All the worries you had, uh, you don't have to worry anymore. So I think, after I spoke it into existence on your pod, I actually went about doing it. So I hit up the Booker of the Tonight Show and I'm like, I mean, I guess I could have always done it. I just never, I know the Booker. I go, can I do the Tonight Show?
Like? I'd love to do it. I told him the whole story of like, my parents have never seen me since that thing. This is like an emotional thing I need to take care of. Like.
this isn't even about comedy anymore. This is just like healing. It's been this monkey on my back for 20 years, 21 years, you know? And then he's like, send me a tape. I sent him a tape.
So I actually did the work. I finally just went about doing the work. I went to the improv. I put a tape together. I sent it to him.
He's like, this is great. Come and do it. So then I flew my parents out to New York and it was just very therapeutic to be able to give this to my parents, because they know what the Tonight Show is. It was a celebration. It was like, this is way bigger than this.
Like, I love the Tonight Show. Thank you for letting me do it and all that stuff. But in the grand scheme of like entertainment and needle moving, it's not what it used to be. You know, you used to do Tonight Show and people like honking and shouting your name from cars and shit.
That's how I found out about Richard Jemmy.
Oh, his Tonight Show appearance?
Yeah, I saw him on the Tonight Show.
But this was just to give my parents a night out and a memory and a story for their parents. So I wore a suit. I brought them out. They got to meet Jimmy. They got to meet the Roots.
The Roots came in. Nice. Because I'm like friends with the Roots somehow.
That's amazing. Yeah.
They're like, oh, your son is amazing. Blah, blah, blah. You raised a good kid and all that. So it was everything I could ever dream of it being. And that stems from your pod.
Well, it stems from you, dude. I know. You put it together.
But still, when you talk about things and you speak something into existence, I think that's valuable.
Sure, but you also have to work at it. Think about it. You got to put that set together. You got to work at it.
Yeah.
Got to be real careful with that. speak things into existence. talk. Because you're a very dedicated and disciplined writer.
Right.
You write all the time. You're always working on new material. You're always working on your material. You put a lot of time and effort into stand-up comedy.
People say that. That's nice. Thank you. But, I mean, I just develop systems where it doesn't feel, because when people are like, oh, you write a lot, it doesn't feel like I write a lot because I just have systems and processes where over time I look at my notes and I just have a bunch of stuff. It's not.
I think people have such an aversion to writing. They think that you have to go to a log cabin. You know what I mean? And there's a typewriter and then you do a pipe and you're like, what's funny? Exactly.
Whereas I've gotten my process to a point where I just live life and if something happens, I jot it in my phone. And you jot enough things in your phone, that list is pretty long.
Yeah.
And then I developed that. Fahim works on stuff and his friends drop by his show. I developed it during COVID on accident. Like the jam in the van was the only venue doing shows and I had already headlined there. They go, you want to do another one?
I'm like, how about this? for an idea? I go, I just have all these bits that I never get around to trying. I emcee the show. I have a piece of paper up there.
I'm just kind of like a reading. I'm just like spaghetti against a wall. And this goes back to people, comedy fans being savvy now, where they know the process. And I have enough fans at this point now where they want to see how the sausage gets made. So I do like 10 minutes in between acts, just trying stuff out.
And then I bring up people doing great sets. You know what I mean? So the bulk of the integrity of the show isn't based on me trying new stuff, because I have great comics interspersed. So it's a very low stakes way for me to try a bunch of new material. So after the great act goes, I do 10 more minutes of bullshit or whatever, bring up the next comic.
So it's a safe space for me to be able to try new stuff.
And they know what you're doing too. Yeah.
The show is called Fahim Works on Stuff. His friends drop by.
It's a good name of a show.
Yeah. And it mitigates expectations. I think a lot of times comics, when they're like, oh man, I'm so afraid. I can't write stuff. It's like, make the show where you can.
Because I'm Bobby sometimes. First of all, it's very cool to see Bobby on the pod. I'm surprised it took.
I know. It took forever.
It took forever. I told Bobby, I'm like, I'm so glad that you finally did it.
He wouldn't do it forever.
Forever. Bobby's weird like that sometimes.
Yeah. Not yet. Not yet.
I don't even remember.
We talked about doing it like a hundred times. Whenever I'd see him at the store.
I know.
And he's just not in the middle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What made him want to do it this time? What put him over the top? I don't know. I should ask him.
He just, you know, he's going to be in town.
When the time's right.
He hooked it up. It was fun. It was fun hanging out with him. Yeah. He's awesome.
I love Bobby. He was the first comic to take me on the road. Like a headliner, to actually take me on the road with him.
He's a genuinely sweet guy. Genuinely sweet guy. Always has been.
Yeah. He's always good with other comics too.
So funny. He's hilarious to hang out with too.
He's a feral cat dude. I had him on my pod one time. And like, I had an idea of where I wanted the pod to go. And I'm just kind of like mentally trying to corral Bobby. And there's no way.
You can't, corral Bobby. You can't. You need like a red cape.
Yeah. Toro. I need a possum guy just to grab Bobby off the wall.
I spent, this is how stupid I am. I spent 20 minutes today watching dudes do flips over bulls.
Yeah.
Because there's dudes, this is a new sport. Where the bulls run at them and they flip over the bulls. They do like front flips. So they're acrobats.
The red cloth isn't enough?
Not enough. You're now counting.
This is the next evolution.
You're counting on your knees and your ankles. These guys. Oh, that guy got hit. Whoa. Look at this motherfucker.
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