Casey Neistat on the PROBLEM w/ daily vlogging, His New Fav Creator, & DYING IN NEW YORK!

[Music] so today's the day finally doing the uh flagrant podcast pretty excited about what you guys doing Casey hey hey buddy we're trying to Vlog what's up man yeah where'd you get my jacket from oh dude I got this great uh feed pick website is that where you got it what's up everybody and welcome to flicker today we are joined by um one of the most prolific creators I would say in history and one the worst drivers I would also say in history we have Casey okay uh now Casey I I called your brother last night Dean and I was like Hey Dean uh do you have any like funny stories about Casey that we could bring up blah blah no no first of all the worst person to call your military he's very do your kids are square he wouldn't give me anything you know he has top secret clearance within the U.S military I realized on the call I was like what's what's a wild thing that happened he goes we went to Prague once we got drunk we slept outside that's all I can tell you okay and then he goes I can tell you this he says Casey has crashed every single car he's ever had that's true is that true absolutely he tells me this really sad story he goes I remember once before I even had my license my parents bought me a Hyundai Elantra he goes they put a red bow on it and everything that's awesome hey guys it's an 87. it he goes and Casey crashed his car so what did my parents do they gave them my red boat Hyundai Elantra and what did Casey do with that totaled it yeah not that was the worst accident I think I've ever had I was on the freeway with our older older van something you know you're like 16 I'm paying attention by the way that is the least safe car that's ever been made oh it's the car yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah in front of me jammed on the brick something happened we smashed into it spun around in the freeway I just remember looking up and there was a tractor trailer truck coming straight towards me holy [ __ ] and on the floor I threw it in reverse and just hit the gas like that so we're going backwards on the freeway going like you know 55 and then I cut the wheel and we just spun and hit a guardrail and zoomed backwards that's where we finally came to a stop and like windshield smashed in doors are smashed glass everywhere I turned to my brother van and I was like what were we just talking about [Laughter] like we couldn't afford to dispose of the car so the flatbed just dropped it off like in the apartment complex where we lived and it just sat there but I just destroyed wrecked Vehicles yeah we just brought you you're absolute Detroit because they were going to charge us to keep it yeah I remember that was Vivid I remember when we went surfing this is this is before that I've ever I've ever met you right obviously very familiar with you know everything you've done to change the way that people make uh content but uh I go I'm curious what this guy's gonna be is he going to be like a version of the guy I've seen in the I would argue that in the Vlogs it's a tamed down version of the chaos that ensues when you're creating something yeah I gotta I gotta edit out I gotta diffuse the I can't scare off the audience it was I mean I don't think you start you were like what's up let's go upstairs go upstairs calm down surfboards wetsuits come downstairs I look at the car there's scratches on both sides of the car right like it looked like something the Taliban drives right like it doesn't look like yeah it was not with the red button rocket launcher and everything it was ready to go and um and literally and and I remember us driving as you're driving you're vlogging you're giving miles instructions to Vlog you're pointing at things I don't think you look straight out the window the entire time you know I drive I can afford safer cars now so it has like a thing if you're about to hit someone it stops it for you oh wow yeah it gives you a lot of latitude it's a driver what about someone's Drive yeah someone that stops for you yeah it's not Vlog while you're driving she's not gonna not do that but you could not drive that car is a brand new it's like a 2022 or 2023 Land Rover and it has like you know doesn't have many miles on it or whatever so it's a Land Rover what Defender it's been defended yeah I couldn't it had to go to Land Rover of Manhattan on a flatbed because it wouldn't start and after they worked on it for like a week they're like this is the most [ __ ] up Defender we've seen in these cars only been out for a year and we have not seen one this [ __ ] up um I got it back to the day that still runs yes well that's that's impressive for a 2022. it's got 4 000 miles on it it's not a terrible driver dude uh I'm stoked that you're here and um I I've been obviously brushing up on a lot of your content right you guys have like [ __ ] fancy wrist watches yeah there's like gold no that's the base model Apple watch what do you mean what is this it's a classic base model dude this this watch is 17. it's got a 10-year battery oh it's got a light oh he's got a real problem no light battery life no life No Light No Light it's just intimidating we have white okay cool yeah you feel intimidated by the fancy watches yeah I didn't think they were small I didn't think there was anything that would intimidate Casey how do you know anyway you were saying awesome stuff about me yeah we're gonna you know more things about you guys so we could fluff it I remember watching uh the this this Vlog that you put out where you asked chat gbt to uh curate the dialogue do you know that like a bunch yeah so what the video was is I wrote to chat or gbt4 the latest which you have to pay like nine dollars a month yeah get your credits out dude nine dollars a month for God I know how dare they and I the product was like Casey neistat Vlog and then I just made that Vlog exactly as it said to make it yeah and it was like funny it was meant to be funny and silly because it was so basic when it's like the script was just really silly but like the AI folks like the real hardcore AI people on Twitter were like super [ __ ] angry at me why why because they're like had you worked harder had you trained that AI yeah had you put real effort into this you could have really shown what its true potential is and it could have better mimicked your creativity and I was like that's not the [ __ ] point no one knows what the [ __ ] you're talking about Everyone's an idiot like me I don't know how to use this thing it's brand new right it's not for like like you give it a basic prompt then what it gives you back like that was the interestingness for me yeah was not how good you could make it but it was like at first glance like remember Google like 2001 were just like it was amazing yeah and this was kind of amazing it was meant to be playful there are two things in it that I thought were brilliant one was uh you saying afterwards the importance of Soul yeah and like heart and content and that's the thing that we connect to and the fact is the AI it it can't even really mimic that yet and you were like maybe if I give it more prompts it could mimic like heart and soul and like passion and but that's kind of what separates a great piece of work but the other thing that I liked is it looked at every single one of your Vlogs right and one of the things that I've always loved about your content is there's not bitterness in it you're not [ __ ] bitter when you're angry about something you make fun of it yeah when you're angry about the bike ticket you don't go [ __ ] the police this is why this City's falling apart and which is like the easiest lowest form of content is just to be like this sucks everybody sucks I know how the world works you all suck everybody's work to me instead you just prove how absurd it is to give somebody a bike ticket when they're not in the bike lane that might be your most impressive Vlog because the amount of times you fell off the bike how old were you then I was not a young man anything right now I'm like I might not ever get up no that might be it you're just throwing yourself off a bicycle I knew when we were shooting that it was like how committed the Falls were was gonna sell that video no helmet was crazy also because you know you gotta [ __ ] take it on the end man I was trying to make it literally video but yeah look I think there's like it's not interesting watching people [ __ ] or complain or be mad like it's not it's not fun yep but everybody's mad and frustrated about everything all the time so if you can sort of tap into that like the first video I ever ever made that was seen the iPod the iPod my brother van and I made this in 2003 it's three years before YouTube was a thing and my iPad I was [ __ ] broke I had no money to my name this thing was it was 399 dollars it was a gift yeah and the battery died a year later and I called apple and they're like nah just buy a new one so I called them back and I recorded the call yeah they're like just buy a new one and I was like yeah okay and I was like [ __ ] great audio and then they had those posters where it's like the black silhouette or the white silhouette where you see the coordinates like color and we put like cigarette disclaimers on every poster with a spray paint stencil iPads iPods Irreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months and we put it on a splash page like a we made an iPod 30secret.com because there's no YouTube and it went so viral so quickly and by the way in 2003 viral means you copy the the URL you put in an email you type in friends names you click Send there's no YouTube there is no you there's no Twitter there's no Instagram and like it was so blew up so quickly that the head of the hosting company called my cell phone and he's like I want you to know we have not pulled your site yet but you're a lot like monthly allowance is 10 gigabytes of bandwidth and right now you're at like four terabytes oh wow because so many people have gone to this yes especially in 2003 yeah so I posted on this I was like we need help hosting this and I think it was like maybe a couple universities were like we'll put it on our University servers you're good and then it was like slowing them down and it just kept like we could not find a place to sustain it and then this is such a fun story and then we figured out the time like now you've got iCloud but back then you had something that's called idisc then you could have like an apple hosted website to share like baby videos and stuff there was no bandwidth limitations so Apple hosted the video in the end of 13 a month or something oh that's about it yeah great and then they changed the policy they did but if it was just a video of me bitching I don't think anybody would give it was fun it was funny yeah and the style in which you did it it carried through like did you I'm curious your processing creating that did you know what you were doing with the stencil and all the yeah I mean that video that one in particular like much credit to my brother van like everything I have ever known or learned or done that's creative is like all credit goes to my older brother van like he taught me everything I know I'm just like a very mediocre photocopy of his like truly virtuous creative Brilliance and like that video in particular like that video was mostly his idea like I edited it and I put the like Easy E Track under it and like did all that but like the idea of like let's cut out a stencil like the stencil scene those are his hands yeah like all credit to Van nuestat yeah like total [ __ ] such a unique way to tell a story even now and this is we all you're 22 I don't know how old van is but that's 20 years ago literally it's wild and that style was even now you're like that's a great it's Unique you know the 20 years ago thing so like I had the daily Vlog started in 2015 I think yeah and I was cognizant of this when I was making it but it's like I'm I have a daily record of my life it's like pretty well produced yeah oh yeah of my whole life and I was like Someday I'm gonna look back at this yeah and it's going to be interesting but I've always been so close to it then last week when elon's rocket [ __ ] exploded or whatever my buddy texted me he's like we gotta go see it next time have you ever seen a like a rocket have you guys ever seen a [ __ ] rocket person you have yeah I grew up in Florida so we're ready life changing yeah it's crazy like you when you look at it there's a [ __ ] human in there yeah and I went for the last space shuttle Blast Off ever it was like a dream of mine I grabbed my girlfriend we drove down there like a Winnebago and we watched it in 2013. yeah and I made a movie it was like the trip where I fell in love with her and like we're like married now a bunch of kids and stuff but I was like playing that back just trying to find the scene where the rocket blasts off for that moment and like I watched the whole like 10 minutes I'm like sitting there crying because it's like we're like dating were like young and I was like oh [ __ ] that thing where I looked back at it and I'm able to see my life in such like such a vivid portrayal like that's happened it's like having a wedding video for every single day yeah three years instead of it being just like a [ __ ] terrible wedding video it's like an interesting it's a reminder of the happiest day of your life there's there's a video you put out recently that I was watching I thought it was very good very uh very introspective and what what something you struggle with which was the inauthenticity of living through a vlog yeah yeah and how that kind of pulled at you at the end of those 800 days where you're like am I ever present or am I always thinking about the video and one thing that I thought really separated you from the other people who copied you was well one story but we can get to that later you actually understand story but but also authenticity you are incredibly comfortable talking to a camera it feels like you're talking to me and I do not like doing that [ __ ] I hate it I I don't know I for some reason I don't connect it to I don't know what the [ __ ] it is but but when do you start to feel yourself almost doing is it an impression of yourself why do you feel inauthentic what I don't know like the Vlog particularly in like uniquely was it was about my life like every day I would just sort of pull interestingness from my life and if you start to examine your life from like a third person perspective it's really interesting for a while like the place where you go and I don't mean I live a particularly interesting life I just mean like I go to this place and get a smoothie I know the owner we say what's up like I know I've got friends like it's interesting you have to see some but like that works for like a couple days the next 797. you had to promote something fresh and like so like that starts to fade and you start to feel it being repetitive and get insecure and those sort of like those very introspective insecurities really start to build over time so then you start to seek interestingness elsewhere and I think this is like this is why I've seen the rise and fall of so many YouTubers it's like okay I need to be more interesting like let me Rush towards sensationalism yeah like you know it's interesting a car accident you know it's interesting like anything extreme like that's so let me Rush towards that I never wanted to do that ever like none of that I did not want to seek sensationalism so you just start pulling you start creating and all of a sudden yeah you start to feel a little bit of you're like playing a character of yourself and that was tough like confronting that was tough so instead of living your life and then making content about it you're like yo how can I live my life in a way that makes interesting content and that felt inauthentic to you okay there were weird like um unintended consequences though I was thinking about this a lot this morning I might run particularly this morning I was so drilled in on this my wife and I were fighting about something yesterday and this is what I was thinking about my wife is the most amazing character on camera because she gives zero [ __ ] she does not give a [ __ ] and like a lot of like partners and YouTube Vlogs were always like hey what are you doing you know it's a very very turned up you're like I've met a lot of people never met a human that's actually yeah yeah yeah this is an inconvenience to her she doesn't give a [ __ ] and no matter what yeah she'd say something interesting but please say it again like you can go [ __ ] yourself I'm gonna use that yeah um but I remember vividly like I needed her so much for those moments that when we get in actual fights I'd be like I can't afford this fight right now I can't afford this fight right now wow and that sounds like a little bit evil and awful but I think there's another side to it which is like what you're married like you know like you get into a fight over [ __ ] [ __ ] and if you step away and you're like you know if something were to happen if lightning were to strike tonight would I give a [ __ ] about this what we're fighting about like no this is meaningless it's stupid just put it just push it aside and love her yeah and like the Vlog in its most virtuous take forced me to do that with her like I couldn't let the [ __ ] Fester yeah which sounds virtuous but I couldn't let the [ __ ] Fester because I needed her to make my [ __ ] video yeah but the outcome was the same and I think about that now because that thing that I was thinking about that we were fighting about in the like this morning is that I literally like didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher last night yeah and I'm like you know if I don't want to [ __ ] put them in the dishwasher the [ __ ] is she she can put in the [ __ ] dishwasher I'm not you know who pays for the maid I pay for the maid I'm not putting it works yeah I pay for it yeah why do they love that so much what is it what is it about women when you tell them that you provide a particularly yeah and if that doesn't work you just you say you know what you're acting like your mother right now yeah wow yeah yeah oh you're on your period yeah [Applause] [Laughter] the thing is she's always right yes and I am the problem I acknowledge that yeah instead of couples therapy just started vlogging that will save you man yeah you know it's like there is genuine truth behind that outrageous did you ever give her bad edits because you were annoying but no honestly it was the always the other way around it's like she would always like when I would look back at the footage I would always realize how [ __ ] wrong I was like [ __ ] like slept in the edit because she's always right yeah she's like a very kind smart beautiful loving I'm like a [ __ ] monster so you're doing retakes on green screen you're like I love you babe what I'm curious what kept you away from sensationalism if all these other YouTubers are going down that track was it the Detachment from the data or the monetization or was it just a dedication to the art um you know it's more just like watching my peers do that and just such [ __ ] disgust and that's not a judgment on everyone but like I want like my little daughter she's eight now she's not so little but like when she's on YouTube unsupervised yeah then we have her [ __ ] iPad our iPad locked up but she's smarter than us yeah you can put all these filters on it and [ __ ] she's figured out all she has to do is sign out of iCloud and all the filters disappear there's no beating her yeah um when no one's looking she's watching these family vlogs and like it's the grossest [ __ ] you've ever seen and it's like really yucky I hate it and everything's like wow what are we gonna do today guys and it's like let's go throw Mommy's car in the river and it's like this [ __ ] just lunacy yeah and it was so gross that I had this tremendous insecurity that I'd ever get even close even near that yeah because like make no mistake like I'm an ABS like I am a YouTuber I'm a vlogger I make videos about myself yeah they're very self-centered they're very like self-aggrandizing like I was me talking to a camera with the like presumption that the world gives a [ __ ] about what I think like I don't hide from any of that but there's still a little thread that like I like to think of myself as like a filmmaker or storyteller and so it's like a there I've got that insecurity on one side and that that driving like desire to still maintain some of that filmmaker you know Integrity on the other and I think it's a needle that sometimes I thread well and other times I don't you think any of it is an advantage of being older so because when YouTube came around huge yeah we grew up in a generation where like you need to be a little self-conscious about what the [ __ ] you're putting out there kids don't have that yeah I also think it's like you wanted to make films and I think a lot of people want to be famous and they just see YouTube as the way to get Fame so they're chasing whatever brings them Fame and that might be sensationalism that might be throwing a car in a river it might be whatever but the thing that you would probably be most self-critical about wouldn't be a lack of success it would be being a hack filmmaker yeah yeah I wrote a video this morning called um I'm not sure if I can make it if I talk about it I'll talk about it anyways it's called YouTube makes me sad and it's because I I'd like to think and this could be my naivety speaking but like I like to think that like the driving desire yeah to be on YouTube for for aspiring creators is that they want an outlet for Creative expression yeah they want to make art and they want to make interesting things they want to tell stories they want to do all that and when when I know that's that's my soul driving force so I never look at metrics I never pay attention so I didn't monetize my channel like it's why I never focused on any of that [ __ ] I just wanted to make things that were I thought was good yeah and now I think the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction yeah um where it's just about like monetization I remember was that like this YouTube conference thing a year a year and a half ago and like the guy was interviewing me was like so the first person you should hire when you are are getting big as an editor what do you think the second person you should hire us and I'm like who the [ __ ] says you should hire an editor I was like I've never worked with an editor I was like the edit is where I write the story the editors and he's like you know the the assumption that he was making yeah is that like the purpose of this solely is to grow yeah not to make something that is about creativity and I reject that so so like wholeheartedly so handily I [ __ ] hate that yeah and I think that that is what sort of YouTube culture has become yeah um and it's a bummer and I like to think that like back in the Vlog days you know six seven years ago it was much more about creativity and now it's much more about metrics numbers like [ __ ] juking the algorithm yeah maximizing retention I don't give a [ __ ] about any of that yeah I don't that's why my brother Van Nuys that's my favorite YouTuber he literally doesn't look at that his wife uploads his videos he finishes them and then and then starts making another one yeah he doesn't even look at his back he doesn't have access to his back he doesn't give a [ __ ] yeah he just makes what he creation for creation that's exactly right and I think there's that's the most beautiful thing yeah how long did you go before you decided to monetize for what I want to be clear here I [ __ ] regret it and it was stupid if I could go back in time I would have push that button on these good too yeah yeah but um 100 million views before I turned on monetization and I didn't know how to do it my reason was like I still get a YouTube panel about it when I slide not turned on monetization and it was like the reason why is I felt like one this was back when not all videos had ads and like when a video would have an ad I'd like and sometimes I'd click away yeah I had like one I don't want to alienate my audience and then two for me I like I made money as directing TV commercials then yeah like doing other work so I wanted to think of YouTube purely as just like an outlet for passion projects and the minute it started making me money it would stop being that I want to be clear both of those things were grossly misguided and I [ __ ] regret it and it was a mistake I should have clicked that [ __ ] button you know how much how many dollars 100 million views is yeah yeah could have bought another car to [ __ ] crash I did the same thing like when I started uploading I didn't put the ad because I was worried that people would click away because I would always click away me too so nice and then I didn't realize until much later on that like YouTube wants there to be ads you get more views yeah they if they're making money right then they might show your [ __ ] to more people yeah no you know this is not a paid promotion yeah [Applause] the money is good how much is Logan paying you bro zero this is I'm bringing this up because this is something I'm embarrassed about and I needed someone to talk to about it and I thought this would be an appropriate event you love Prime energy Logan's a friend I love the guy yes and he told me about prime before he launched it yeah and I don't know if it's him or just the smart people running his company but cases of this [ __ ] shows up in my office yes and I have like an unbelievable addiction to it have you tried this [ __ ] we have he sends us cases to our old office and I just haven't corrected her in it and they stockpile they literally DM me once a month ago can we send you that Prime I go absolutely yeah so it's just sitting in some Hasidic Jewish guys like apartment I'm in Williamsburg somewhere there's an artist in Bushwick that's just primed out every day I don't know what kind of [ __ ] fentanyl [ __ ] they put in there but my God good stuff I try not to drink more than three a day there's like nine cups of coffee worth of caffeine in that gets you going yeah he's definitely not getting paid for that yes 100 million [Applause] because it looks like in the next year or two you're gonna see YouTubers monetize their fan base in a different way not through the ads but through products you know Jimmy's obviously doing it with the feastables and the cookies and uh Logan and KSI are doing this do you ever wish that you had a product that you sold yeah um the other thing that I wish I had done sooner was merch I always thought merch was sort of a lame sellout sort of thing yeah and I think I'm wrong about that like I did do merch and it was very successful and I think back when I was like a kid and like I got a Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt I wore that thing every I just was so psyched to show the world that like this is who I like yeah there's something valid about that with merch I think there's like a growth side of it too when you're like sort of predatorily if that's a word like focusing on young kids tell your parents to buy you this [ __ ] like that's bad yeah but I think there's a medium there where you can sell something and people are excited to support you and you're giving them something of equity so I've done nothing against it um I just have a tough time getting excited about it getting excited about yeah like I see Logan with Prime and like that's the thing yeah literally jumping off the top rope at WrestleMania with a prime in his hand and it's like [ __ ] brilliant and I love it and it's genius and it's awesome and it's the greatest marketing coup in the history of sports beverages yeah ah I can't do it and the product's good but like there's no way I could commit my existence to like a a drink or a something like I just like making videos that's that's the tricky thing it's like all of your art has to be centered around promoting this one thing to me I just would feel inauthentic don't get me wrong I love the idea of having a billion dollar exit on a drink I'll take the exit is it worth every single video that I do I'm walking around the bottle I'm on stage I'm drinking it every joke is centered around Prime I mean I will say like my my Technology Company B was very much so I think a parallel to that it was just a piece of software instead of a sports drink or a t-shirt yeah um can you tell us how you Hoodwinked CNN that's so great yeah can you break down how you stole money favorite thing yeah well we can get into the we can get into all the intimacies of that yeah um especially now that my NDA is up oh really here we go ask oh fire away okay so you create this tech company yeah okay you are how old at this time 35 maybe 36. you were already vlogging yeah okay you're already married yep by this time you have two kids yep two kids sure and so you're just trying to find ways to just be away from the family what is the purpose of this tech company what is the real core purpose of it I mean like the actual history of of the like the inspiration behind the tech companies I was at um I was invited to MIT as a fellow like the MIT media lab as a fellow which was a big deal because I'm a high school dropout yeah into the best of my professor's knowledge I'm the only both High School Dropout who is also an invited at MIT um I still carry my MIT ID it's in my wallet in my office um did you graduate high school no it's great to have my team that's exactly right as an Indian that's a thing in your career I'm most jealous of yeah you graduated MIT um and when I was there like I really I like stopped making videos I just enveloped myself into that world and I worked with a group called The Social Computing Group which was like super you know about coding and the social implications of software in 2015. I read this amazing book by Nick Bilton called hatching Twitter which was about sort of the birth of Twitter where they get into the fact that like at its Inception the guys that were starting Twitter were just kind of these Knuckleheads who had an idea they hobbled it together and it became Twitter and I was like you know I'm like I have ideas and like I I realize that MIT like I don't just because I don't know how to write code doesn't mean I can't realize this and I had this idea for like a video product this is when like videos I thought social media rather was getting really gross and it was all about filters and lying and like I could create something that's really honest and I found like this amazing partner and this guy named Matt Hackett who he was like the the CTO or the head of uh I don't know what his title was but he's very senior at Tumblr super capable like unbelievably brilliant technologist he became my partner we raised Venture money and we built this product it was called beam it was originally called be me because the idea was like you post videos that are unfiltered and raw and people get to experience sort of your life through your perspective and it was awesome and it was great and it was like uh that was part of the idea behind the Vlogs like I can use my Vlog to talk about this company it's just not that interesting like a bunch of dudes sitting around coding but once we launched the product it became like there's such Synergy between the Vlog and the product and we had this wildly successful launch and like an unbelievable amount of people downloaded the app and loved it and used it but ultimately like Snapchat was better and Snapchat laces right when Snapchat stories came out when Snapchat stories came out I'm like well this is like what we built but better in every [ __ ] way like they're really this is so good and ours man yeah I was like [ __ ] this is so much better than what we built yeah and you know we've pivoted we did a bunch of stuff we built a really strong Community we built a really strong but ultimately like the app just did not succeed but the funny thing about the tech space is like just because your product fails doesn't mean you don't have something of value and I met with Jeff sucker at uh CNN because his son was a fan of mine I remember like at the time so I was daily vlogging like I had to rule no meetings and my agent called me he's like I have a meeting for you I was like I can't afford a [ __ ] meeting I have to make a video every day yeah he's like this one you might want to take it's the head of CNN I was like okay and I met with them and Jeff was like how can we work together and he's like a super cool guy and I was like there's no way I got my own thing and I'm bigger than you are more people watch my Vlogs and watch CNN like I'm happy there and then like as I was like you know what though your technology sucks I was like CNN has bad Tech your app is like [ __ ] like late 2000s app like your website looks like something that was like belongs on AOL like it's [ __ ] terrible I was like There's an opportunity there and he handed me off to his people who were very smart and we got excited like let's buy your company and they weren't buying an app because the app was not successful just by the tech behind it they were buying the tech behind they're buying this amazing team that we had built they're buying like access to Matt my partner buying access to me and my insight and like we had all these ideas together and like that's how they bought my company for like a lot of money yeah can we say how much maybe it just comes out of your mail but it's 200 million I wish I wish um damn I thought that was gonna make you so like the number that was public was 25 million and then what's the private number that was that was good wow that was well-worded sentences that's the public number 25 million yeah do you get a trip anywhere crazy do they take you to some like wild sex parties Anderson Coopers Epstein's Island yeah no I will say they acquired the company like and Reyes we were getting up to speed we went to South by Southwest and I was like the keynote speaker at South by and CNN had this huge event like that not a huge party to like celebrate and talk what we're doing together and stuff and I remember I was like all the executives were there like I was like how long are you guys here for like oh we're all going back tonight and I'm like we're like flying back I was like it's too late and they're like no no we got like the CNN plan we're flying back tonight and I was like can I go with you and I didn't get I said no I didn't get to go on the CNN plane what now hold on hold on one second hold on one second Casey you know there was an extra I would have sat in the bathroom yeah you've been on pjs you know in the bathroom you could there's a thing you put over the toilet and there's a seat belt I don't sit in the bathroom right above that just bring me back snacks yeah it's almost better actually in the bathroom yeah it's a private room and then if someone needs to use it I would step out get out go back I'll bring the stacks out 100 and then when they were done I'll go back out clean yep and they'll eat my snacks now you harbored this feeling of rejection I still do but how did you get around it how did you overcome overcome not being depressed what was the first thing that you did once you got that big deal what is the first thing that you and your family did you started doing this once you got that big CNN deal what was it you know I don't how did you guys start flying around the world Casey what'd you do Aaron is that I bought my own 737 business check take that CNN get outside right now wow you texting over here yeah oh nice dude none of this is true skateboard here no did you start flying private afterwards okay this is a fun story yeah I I like I remember because that was like that was the year like like the CNN and not only like Not only was there that payout but like they hired Matt and I we had salary I was on Saturday and like also that was when it was like raining with YouTube money it was the first time in my life that I had money yeah and like I was like when my first kid was born I was [ __ ] 16 years I was on welfare yeah like my first apartment in New York City was an SRO a halfway house where I bribed the guy at the front with the 100 Bill and a carton of cigarettes to give me a room I had no bathroom and no kitchen and it was just [ __ ] like I've been with cigarette he doesn't even know he's not gonna cross out somebody's name there's 400 bucks a month Upper West Side like right in the edge of Harlem yeah and it was a place to sleep every night you would [ __ ] up [ __ ] happened in there like [ __ ] up [ __ ] happened they're like I would live in there with my kid I remember going to the bathroom once my kid he's like two years old he's gonna have to go to the party and it's like we have to put our shoes on we have to take like our basket with all of our toiletries and we go to the bathroom [ __ ] bathroom was covered in blood and I like froze the door so he didn't see it I was like come on up here to the other bathroom and go down a flight of steps like that was my life wow so like boom all of a sudden like I get paid so like I remember saying to my wife I was like look this is gonna end but like I'm we're gonna like while it's happening while it's happening we went and bought an apartment and then like we didn't get a 737 or whatever I said two minutes ago but like we like got like a thing where you get to go on a plane for like you like rent hours but it was like like once we like we're in Miami and our kid was sick and I was like I'll get us their own plane to go home it was like 8 000 bucks [ __ ] I wish I had eight thousand bucks right now but it was [ __ ] fun but it was fun it was fun all right guys I'm gonna take a break for a second because let's say for example you're involved in a horrible car crash now Casey's not driving that much anymore so it probably wouldn't be him but if he was it could be him now what are you gonna do you need to make some money off of that crash it has affected your life it has affect your ability to work you deserve compensation okay and Morgan Morgan could help you get that money that you deserve okay they have over 100 offices Nationwide and more than 800 lawyers with over 15 billion dollars recovered for clients more in the morning has a proven track record of fighting to get you full and fair conversation submitting an injury claim with Morgan Morgan is so easy it's more like using an app than hiring a lawyer okay with Morgan Morgan literally you're ordering takeout you're not hiring lower it is that easy you submit a com a claim without ever having to leave your couch in eight clicks or less you can submit a claim to Morgan and Morgan and if that accident you're in was absolutely horrible hopefully it wasn't but if it is you might not be able to get off the couch so let Morgan and Morgan help you get your life back together they could possibly do it so if you're ever injured you can check Morgan and Morgan their fee is free unless they win for more information go to forthepeople.com flagrant or dial pound law pound 529 from your cell phone that's for the people.com flagrant or pound law pound 529 from your cell now let's get back to the show all right guys we're gonna take a break for a second because we all like saving money doing absolutely nothing different than we already do okay I'm not telling you to save money by buying different products I'm not telling you to save money by stopping your purchase uh activity here okay I'm not telling you do any of that what I'm telling you right now is honey is gonna find a way to save you money if there is a coupon code on the internet for a discount for Whatever item you're buying online honey is going to search for it for you and insert it okay and you're gonna get that discount I'm telling you it doesn't matter what it is whether it's sneakers okay maybe it's groceries if there's a coupon code available on the internet honey is finding it for you honey is a browser extension I'm telling you it is so simple don't get thrown off by browser says what the hell does that mean honey is the simplest way for you to save money buying the things you're already buying okay this is how simple it is okay imagine when you're shopping one of your favorite sites when you check out the honey button appears that all you have to do is Click apply coupons you wait a few seconds as honey searches for the coupons they can find on that site if honey finds a working coupon you'll watch the prices drop that simple honey doesn't just work on desktop it works on your iPhone too just activate it on Safari on your phone and save on the go so if you don't already have honey you can be straight up missing out and by getting it you'll be doing yourself a solid and supporting this show so get PayPal honey for free at joinhoney.com flagrant that is joinhoney.com flagrant save that money now let's get back to the show also guys the bum ass cities tour still going strong Denver fantastic start every show sold out it was so fun best comedy club in America also May 3rd East Providence it's also sold out no tickets for that left St Louis May 10th tickets are still left and even if you don't like me last time I was there I almost got killed my mom got death threats there's a whole thing let's make it happen again the magic at Helium Comedy Club May 11th I'm gonna be in Kansas City Missouri May 31st Cleveland Ohio June 1st Columbus Ohio get your tickets at akashing.com now let's get back to the show have you ever in your life uh felt uh an aversion to risk I was talking to Dean about this a little bit now I do yeah yeah like I never felt it it's funny like when you have nothing yeah there's a freedom to that right there's a freedom when you're working you have nothing to lose that's exactly right it's [ __ ] let's go like there's nothing to lose and now it's like look at my kids I gotta pay for their school and it's like I gotta play it safe like I my biggest fear is not being able to like pay for school and like not being like have like a place for us to live where they feel safe and like those are my fears you can live with nothing you can't live with nothing and you can't be the reason they don't have it yeah they get scary it gets scary um so can we go back to nothing you you drop out of school at what 15 yeah 14 15. 14 15. yeah like ninth period was the first year last year I finished freshman year what was happening in school it was less school it's more like kind of a [ __ ] a [ __ ] at home um I say that gently like we parents were they're not like like in the grand scheme of things it was fine yeah but it was like I was the one who I'd like tell my dad like Dad mom's cheating on you oh really and like you saw what happened it was yeah it was like like I had to tell my father that and that's [ __ ] weird yeah and then my mother you know my mother really like blamed the kids in a very like classic like after school special like Hallmark movie kind of way which was just [ __ ] up and then I just like we all kind of did but my sister had a car then my older brother was just in college dean was little he's three years younger than me and I was just sort of like this weird stuck teenager so it's just like full Rebellion you were acting out in school yeah rebelling against her Rebellion it's everything like I started like selling weed really good because I remember like I discovered weed this is a fun little parenthetical here a little tangent for us but I like first time I smoked weed I was like yeah it was a lot of fun I was like well let me get this straight like a [ __ ] paper route all week long for like a [ __ ] this much I was like this is like not cost effective yeah and then I remember we like all chipped in and we got a half an ounce and I was like you know mine was gone by Wednesday and my boy was like mine's gone too but I got more money I'm buying one I had to get more money I got sold half of mine I was like how much how much you sell it for and he's like I sold it for 50. I was like but you only chipped in 50 and he's like yeah but and I was like oh and I started like doing the math and I started yeah yeah yeah yeah start doing the math and I'm like okay so you're telling me if I buy a half a pound I can get a sixteen hundred percent return on that if I'm selling you that's really good math for a Dropout yeah and that's what I did and I was just [ __ ] making bank and how I did like the house we lived in everybody slept on the second floor my bedroom was on the first floor oh so you were free so they had a pager so they Park a block away yeah all right this is old school drug dealers in my window this is like cranking the window to my parents house like they come up the window and be like they're like yeah it was good and they'd be like you got the eighth I was like yeah like I remember I always show them the scale because you're doing it from the crib yeah from my bedroom my parents are like chill they're like going through [ __ ] yeah like they don't have time like they're [ __ ] my dad like I'm the poor guy man it's a great guy my mother [ __ ] like [ __ ] up [ __ ] in the house nobody's paying attention I like that was one of the ways I was acting out and like I had some degree of Financial Freedom because like you know I had like a under the water bed was hella loot like I was good and um and then just got in a lot of trouble at school like a lot of fighting a lot of fighting like to this day like these are all teeth scars on my Knuckles from like really are you pretty good no I was just like I got picked on I was like a little kid who's [ __ ] weird looking I got into a lot of fist fights like kids would pick on me but like kids would like people like beat me for weed like I'd give them the weed they wouldn't give me the money like you got you got two choices when that happens you shut it down or you're like the guy that people can steal from so you have to shut it down to shut it down and I was little but you had to learn how to fight and I could fight so you're [ __ ] people up in Connecticut or what I mean it was like it's a stretch you're like talking about kids who barely hit puberty like fighting in the backyard in the back parking lots Alex is seven and four and like eight of those fights are all in the backyard nah I hit puberty yeah but no so it's like it was rough and then like finally like I got in a lot of trouble in school like something really bad happened can you talk about I think it was either a fight or when they caught me smoking weed in the bathroom and it was like a 10-day suspension and it was also like you're allowed or 30 detentions and you get thrown out of school I had 29 detentions at that point in time it was like my sixth suspension and I just remember my mom being like um either you live by my rules or you get out of this house and I remember just like like I know what you're like I know what you're doing yeah you can't tell me like if it was my dad saying that it would have been like I remember my dad when he gave me the drug talk and he found out like me and my friends tried acid once like to this day I've done acid once when I was like 13 and after my dad talked to me about it it was such an effective talk oh wow he was like you know you're you know you know my friend I'm changing the guy's name for his you know my friend Chris and I was like yeah and he was like you know how he is and I was like yeah and he's like after he graduated high school he spent the whole summer doing acid in the basement and that's why he's like that and I was like I will never and like that's good that was like solid but it was like coming from her at that moment and I was like fine I'm out but you respect you respect your dad a lot yeah yeah and like I was like I'm out and I like I remember I had like a hardcover book under the water bed like under the bubble that was filled up with money so keep it flat and I was like nine or ten thousand dollars I just like shoved in my pocket I took my box fan if I can't sleep without like a fan on me yeah and I just walked out like walked out and like walked down the street it's like a teenager just like left like nine o'clock at night on a Monday no cost no nothing yeah nothing so where you go you go see I went to like I remember his name was Ethan this kid down the End of the Street there were a couple of things like this kid and I like called him from the Payphone I was like can I stay with you and he was like hippie parents like yeah you can come sleep over and I stayed at his house for two nights and like there was this other kid Dan who he also sold a lot of weed and his mother used to like steal his weed she didn't give a [ __ ] and I was like can I stay with you he's like yes and I stayed with him for a few days and then I met these two girls who were like 18 they had their own apartment oh [ __ ] now you can stay with us no drug dealing and you gotta chipping on rent and I was like I got money and I was like I guess I should stop doing drugs anyways I think moved in with them so you risked two 18 year old girls to the point where they just let you move in yeah and then like 30 seconds later one of them was pregnant okay [Laughter] um at that time I was like I was 15 yeah and she was 18. yeah that's good yeah what was it what was like your personal reflection [Music] okay so so you're sleeping with one of them yeah does the other one know does she hear it in the night is [ __ ] like I mean I was like 15 that sound never happened it was like you know a second sometimes a glance I'm sorry [Applause] your dick was a boosted board quick it was like was that it you know like there's a lot of that there's a lot of that like you know I like I did we had a great relationship like I liked her yeah she was awesome she was cool she was like it was really independent strong-willed girl whose parents had like like she had been on her own since she was young too oh wow and she was just like a g she worked hard she was like I had a job then washing dishes so I wasn't doing drugs anymore she was like driving to work every day and like you know we didn't know she was pregnant and me but like you can you know you can start at the end and then work back yes and I'm not joking when I say like it was within weeks now was that was that was that like tricky to get to that point did you hit on her like were you like oh yeah this is awesome how do you cross that threshold because you're homeless yeah so you're already grateful yeah and then you've been your landlord yeah that's pretty impressive what is that like I don't know what is that's pretty awesome I haven't thought in those terms in a long time because it's like she uniquely doesn't like she represents like my son's mother and this woman that I've had this fantastic relationship with for 26 years now she's this wonderful person that I know so I've never like thought of her in those terms because I like she was this like hot teenager and I was this kid for like this much of them and then for this much of her life we're just like adults together sharing this responsibility being parents so I never got to think in those terms but like you know back then it was like you're a teenager you're just learning about girls or like hot girls in high school was that your first time having sex no but it was you know it wasn't far from that it wasn't far from that I wasn't sure like it wasn't yeah like it was very the first time having sex to pregnancy it was it was close but it wasn't the first time okay um you know there were like some fun parties where like silly [ __ ] happens before that but like there was no I was not by any means experience I had to move you out I didn't know I didn't know what was going on like looking back at it like in the immediate aftermath like when she was pregnant like how did this happen it was like oh no I definitely know how this happened yeah right like you realize like this is like not to take it from this fun bro conversation to get real but it's like the importance of sex ed I am dead [ __ ] serious right now they need to teach kids I had no clue that you didn't know where babies came yeah I knew where babies came from but it was like [Music] I was a kid like none of it made sense to me like I was just a kid like obviously when you're when I'm in my 20s and I'm single it's all very Vivid and yes but like young people have sex without any understanding of what the actual consequences are you thought the pull out method was like 100 oh 100 and I would pull out after I finished like I didn't none of it yeah I I understood I understood none of it and it like it they teach you in sex ed that's the most fun it's like I didn't get to that question like Connecticut public school education we had like you know like one day a year dedicated towards sex ed and it sounds silly but like the time frame from like kissing girls being like yo I got to touch her boobs like that point in your immaturity and your relationship with women to me literally having a girlfriend of mine be pregnant that was like we're talking about months you know it's not a long time and like I wasn't dumb I just had no idea and that part I remember like I mean that's more like reflecting back as a parent and as a mature adult like I remember as I entered my 20s in New York City and I was actually single and I started like a normal life with girls and dating and sex and [ __ ] like that it was obviously super clear how things work but for that like short window of time and I know like a lot of people that were like around my age and mine was no [ __ ] up part of the world who like also got girls pregnant and either had kids or students were clarified to explain parents I'm terrified you're talking to my daughters about it my wife is like a hero about it yeah how did you feel when she told you were you scared in that moment yeah weirdly like no um and I look back at that and like much credit to her she's really like an exceptional human being she's a very strong super smart like tough independent woman um but she was terrified and I remember like one time she was crying and I was like why are you crying I was like we're gonna have a kid this is gonna be fine and like looking back at that what a who the [ __ ] was I to say that yeah I was like 16 for like driving me to my dishwashing job in like a 1988 Ford Taurus that had mismatched color like door panels on the outside that wasn't registered and we only enough gas money to get me to and from work we could not drive anywhere else where we'd like run out of gas they're like we're gonna be fine we're golden and um no I think then for me it was such like a vivid thing that was um like I was like Drop Out drug dealer [ __ ] up and it was like no no here's how I can do good this is like being a parent yeah this is your opportunity this is my key like this is what's gonna like fix it and you can maybe be a better parent that's exactly what happened yeah see what happens it gave you what Focus determination yeah yeah it's like the minute you have a child you sort of externalize your priorities where it's like it's not about you me it's about this like amazing thing this child this kid but that's not the only time that you're broke I know it's still broke and you but then you go on to have some success so you move out of Connecticut success was like there was still many years right years and years and years away or like a decade away because in that moment babies born what 97. yeah and then when do you go live with Van so yeah so this is like this gets a little nuanced but like like she was pregnant the entire time we moved to live with dance what happens my brother van was in college at William and Marion in Virginia we lived in Connecticut and like she and I really started to like each other we like you know we like We're In It Together We didn't know she was pregnant and we like get like let's get the [ __ ] out of here she got into sort of a little tiff with her girlfriend who was the roommate and she was like I don't want to be here anymore and I was like I got nothing holding me down let's go so we ran away and we moved to Virginia where my brother Ben was in college and we like he like lived in this Flop House we had a room in the Flop House uh he had to adopt me my brother van oh wow yeah so you could go to school and [ __ ] yeah I wasn't oh they I was only 15. yeah so he had to adopt me that's a [ __ ] up story why um well one we had we had to go in front of a judge he's [ __ ] He's 21. I'm 15. we had bleached our hair the day before then we put hair nets over like plastic like shower caps over yeah and we went to Golden Corral because we were hungry yeah but we didn't know you're not supposed to leave it in there that long so our [ __ ] scallops are bleeding and we washed out half our hair fell out so we go in there with like flaming red scallops and white translucent [ __ ] polar bear looking hair yeah and we're wearing suits that we got at like the thrift store like don't fit us and she's the judge is like what are you doing here yeah and we had a good story which was which was like I just want to go to school and this is the only way I can go to school I remember she was like all right well I guess my better against my better judgment I will grant you this wow that is not the last time again what do you tell that story please that one is in the distant future but we can get to that okay we'll get there we'll get there okay but that's like your dad yeah and then when we get into it did he make you call calling dad a little bit no that's [ __ ] weird but oh my God what about daddy when we got into the park Big Daddy I just remember van was like couldn't get his lighter to work and he's like trying to get his lighter to work to light my Winston cigarette and he finally got it look up and the judge is standing there and you just lit my cigarette and we're like thanks yeah and left um okay so you're living in Virginia for a little bit and then like and then it became like clear like clear that you oh yeah and it was like you can't live in it nobody said that to us but it was like we can't live in a [ __ ] Flop House right um and it was like also like ourselves like we couldn't deny it anymore right like we had sort of knew but it was like the idea of someone being pregnant when you're that young it's like unfathomable like yeah neither of us could comprehend that that was real yeah what's a flop house I never heard that so uh this was literally called the hippie house and it no longer exists on the campus of William and Mary but it was like a big huge Victorian house that was kind of [ __ ] up but it had like 19 bedrooms in it so everybody just chip in a couple hundred bucks and all of a sudden you could afford this gigantic house and like you know the nicer the bedroom the more expensive it was like eight people lived in the Attic you just got like a spot that was like 100 bucks a month and campus on campus with hippies that's exactly yeah um it's now the university bought it it's not like one of the administrative buildings I went back years ago and it was like heartbreaking um yeah but that's where we lived okay so you guys moved back to Connecticut we moved in with like her cousin who had four kids of her own very nice people they were just looking after us we had nowhere to live and we lived in their basement and unfinished like concrete basement I remember like I remember like I got a job washing dishes for eight bucks an hour which was like two bucks more than I'd ever been paid for washing dishes yeah I remember I came home and like the dad like her her cousins husband he was like how did the interview go and I was like I got the job eight bucks an hour and I was expecting to be like my man instead he like I just saw the look of Terror because he's an adult father yeah he was like like if you work a hundred hours a week you might be able to afford groceries was like the look on his face and I didn't understand that yeah but no eight bucks now I was like [ __ ] got it you never thought about selling things selling the song weird again you never thought about no no like that was no too risky yeah and it was also just like the the child was a it was a pivot point it was like a psyched to like prove that I was like good now okay so you're back in Connecticut when do you make that move to New York after she dumped me which was like like we lived in a really dumpy apartment that was dope that was great but it was like 300 bucks a month 400 bucks a month in Connecticut in in part of Connecticut and then I remember we bought some real estate um I was waiting for that I was like you're just setting up the you're setting up the pins right now I'm ready to bowl a strike we bought a trailer yeah okay that we were able to park on a piece of land the trailer was twelve thousand dollars that we were able to get a mortgage on so our mortgage on that trailer was like 110 a month and then to rent the piece of land that we parked our Caravan on was 200 bucks a month so it cost us less monthly to live in like a mobile home and that's where we live yeah holy [ __ ] and but then it meant I could walk to work because it was closer so you didn't have to spend any money so we live in like this trailer park it's like Caravan Park and it was not bad living yeah but I will say like um there's a line in Juicy about like no heat on Christmas day like one morning we woke up it was Christmas morning and like the heater for our trailer had completely fried and like we had woke up Christmas morning it was like [ __ ] freezing um but eventually she dumped me why I mean you had so much going I'm making eight bucks up to like nine and change you want real estate she's got me for all the right reasons okay um and I thank the Lord every day that she did dump me because it was the kicking the ass that I need and I moved in with uh the cook at the restaurant who's also a single dad yeah I like lived in his condo with him and then like I started coming into New York on Metro North to see Vans to see my brother he this is a fun story we had to drop out of willing to marry because my mother spent his tuition money on a new car oh wow did you crash it I was never allowed to drive it um but I would have well yeah of course um so van moved to New York City and like New York City was like for me as a child like like some kids had like the [ __ ] Testarossa or the like the Countach poster Kathy Ireland poster I had like the New York City poster like I obsessed over the city when I was a kid like the movie big was my favorite he's this little kid like me and he got to move to New York oh yeah New York City was like there was nothing greater in the world that's your favorite movie when I was a kid there was I watched it every single day because I know every word of that movie I literally wrote down in my notes you're Tom Hanks from Big yeah that's my goal my whole goal my whole life mission accomplished that's it wow that's all I've ever wanted to be like he lived in a law for the [ __ ] toys you ever seen my office they're the same space I mean it just makes perfect sense it's all I've ever wanted exuberance about life you're just so excited about everything that you do and that is what a child in an adult's body that can do whatever the [ __ ] they want to do would have yeah there's no bitterness there's no hate unless we're talking about types of content do you know that Tom Hanks was nominated for the Academy Award for best best supporting actor best actor in that movie little known fact that might not be true [Laughter] okay so continue um so now you get to start feeling the city yeah so it's like going into Metro and coming in like buying myself is a big deal and I remember I was like drive my car to like New Haven then get on the train it was like nine bucks each way and then I'd like come in and we'd like talk about ideas and the future like had this Five-Year Plan to move to New York City and then something just kind of clicked and I was like no I gotta go like I gotta I gotta do this I gotta go and my brother's girlfriend's friend had this like shitty place in the East Village like an alphabet City in 2001 and it was like 800 bucks a month for the summer and my brother's girlfriend paid the rent of 2400 bucks so I'd have a place for the summer and so I had three months where I had a room in a studio apartment converted into a two-bedroom and the room was so small my futon when laid into a bed would go to a v so it was like a taco Chef like it couldn't go flat wow yeah and that's where I slept and that's why I like moved here with like a [ __ ] two-year-old and I was like bring him back and forth on the train I would go back and it was like 50 bucks round trip to go there or like there was a cheat where if I didn't have the 50 bucks you could take a bus to Foxwood Casino Foxwoods Casino subsidized the cost of the bus so people go there to gamble and it was close enough to where I lived where I could like get there so that was like a cheaper way to do it wow um so I like so I never was like never stepped away from the kid or my role as a parent did you ever go to FAO Schwartz like in the movie yeah yeah when he was little that's what we would do yeah like that's we had so much fun um but that was like that was like as crazy as this sounds that was way lower and way scarier financially than even when I was on welfare in Connecticut there was something say like I lived in a trailer I lived in a caravan but I knew that that was there every night and I knew there'd be I worked in a restaurant there's always food and when I got to New York there was like I had nothing I was like a bike messenger and I remember being a bike messenger and like my first paycheck for a bike messenger was like 270 bucks but they contact you on your personal cell phone and my cell phone bill was like fifty dollars more than my paycheck and I'm like losing money and it was just [ __ ] scary what are your aspirations at this point in your life exactly what they were right exactly what they are right now like I just wanted to make movies okay like that thing that would come into the city to talk to my brother van about he had bought the computer that you could edit video on and I had the camcorder to make videos of my kid like I gotta I got a WWF Brett The Hitman heart credit card Max it out at tweeter which was like an electronic store in the [ __ ] Crystal Mall to buy a camcorder to film my kid and then had the computer I had the camera so we would like join for us to make little videos and I was like this is all I want to do for the rest of my life ah so they come in like that was the dream but instead I was like a bike messenger and it was just rough it was like really really [ __ ] brutal those were like the scariest months when do you get the break not even the big break and I mean so like I met this artist um who has like a studio near here Tom sacks and like I started working for him for like 10 bucks an hour under the table doing like odd jobs and and doing [ __ ] and that sort of was something it was more than being a bike messenger at least I knew it was sort of a Dependable thing which just wasn't much money and like I remember like one point in time he had this like um model girlfriend who's a friend of his or a friend of the studios or something and she needed a house sitter so I like went and stayed at her cushy apartment all I had to do was look after her two like [ __ ] half cheetah half cat those are cool very fancy [ __ ] awful cats that destroy everything and she's like they each get two cans of this like fancy cat food and she just never came back she was supposed to be back in three weeks and it was like a month and a half later and I was like we're out of [ __ ] cat food and I just remember thinking it was like it's the cats are me I'm like I'm not going hungry so I was like these cats went from getting two cans of each a day they would share one can of whatever the cheapest [ __ ] that the [ __ ] Bodega would sell me that's it and let me tell you these cats were [ __ ] hungry because like I didn't have I eat this food equivalent like I'll buy bags of rice and bags of pasta she was so cheap yeah from like a calorie to Dollar perspective it was cheap and the cats would just watch me eat my plain pasta and I'd be like yeah like you ever seen cat eat plain pasta no hungry a cat has to eat like lady in the [ __ ] they just like slurp it up it was no it was like they were like fight like scratching me they would scratch me in bed um and like that felt like that went on that felt like that went on for a really long time yeah so New York is is a struggle for you you're living a scariest year in my life yeah in the formative years of your life yeah but you're kind of okay with it you're almost like comfortable in the chaos and then you come to New York and that's the difficult part that's that's when like chaos was like quite literally off the charts and when I say off the charts I mean like imagine what you your scope of chaos like welfare uncertainty like no education no skills no discernible skills no way to make a living yeah and then like you come into a city with no skills to transfer into this city I wouldn't I couldn't get a job washing dishes here because it was like too competitive and like yeah nobody was just I was too young and it was weird like I couldn't get the [ __ ] gig yeah and then like the really key part is that apartment that my brother's girlfriend rented for me was from June 1 to September one so it's three months it was up September one like I had no place to stay I met this like really cool friend of my bro brother's girlfriend she was like in his acting class as a cool gay guy who had Rich parents and he's like I've got this Loft my dad's paying for Ronnie Tash if you give me 500 bucks a month you can stay on my couch and I was like sweet moved into his place on Rector Street dope apartment there was like three roommates in there me girl named Kamara and him and like my 11th another kid oh that would have been that probably would have been easier to under to cope with but we lived on Rector Street I moved in on September 1 2001. oh 10 days into my tenure I was woken up because all the windows glass blew it hey like our whole apartment exploded [ __ ] and like God your son wasn't I was like thank God he wasn't ready and I like I just remember like panicking and like putting on shorts I'm not like they're up like what do we do and I was like I'm getting the [ __ ] out of here and they're like do not leave the house the worst thing you can do and I was like all right [ __ ] that I'm I'm late like good luck guys and I bailed and I went outside and it was just like it was like like PTSD is something I don't especially I'm friends with a lot of former soldiers my kid brothers are a veteran I don't use that lightly but like I could describe for you in the most Vivid detail yeah like if I could I could export this if I could draw I could paint for you a frame by frame 24 frames per second what I experienced for the proceeding four hours with the most Vivid smells tastes colors everything yeah like stepped outside of my apartment I just see someone frantically not in uniform a human just [ __ ] dressed like you were running on frankly with a stack of sheets this High taking the cheeks with one hand wring it out and then dropping them and I was like what the [ __ ] is that person doing and as they drop them they'd turn red and I realize they're dropping their sheets on remains that had fallen and when I realized that my brain just no no nothing could remains of human beings instead of fallen from the plane no to cover them I thought you're talking about like sheets bed sheets and like my brain like you now I couldn't understand that yeah and then I definitely couldn't understand and I just like got on my bike and like I had my video camera and I was like trying to bike away and I stopped and I just see like all these cops running and I said paper falling and it's like could not make sense of it and then like a fire engine starts screaming I'm like get out of here like for my own safety it was not being a jerk and I was like start biking away and then just like like heat like you never imagined just throws me off my bike and that was the second like second plane hit it like skin my knees get up and like race the van's apartment on 14th Street and I get van like like what do we do and I was like we gotta go to the hospital and we're gonna go help people and like we went to St Vincent's they sent then since rest in peace this has been closed down and turned into overpriced Condominiums and we were like out front there and like helping and I just remember like no one knew what to do yeah and we're like the cops showed up and the cops were like who's in charge who's in charge and I was like what's the question and they're like what do we do yeah and I was like I need you to shut down that street shut down traffic here shut down traffic here only let the ambulances through create a way for the ambulance come through you have flares they're like they're in the trunk I was like get the flares and I was literally on New York one like [ __ ] commanding the situation as like a 20 year old yeah outside of Saint Vincent's because there was just nothing and I remember like the one thing I was like is like we have to start lining [ __ ] up and they're like we're out of cuts and I was like get rolling chairs put sheets over line them up we like all this they're like everybody was ready and no one came like there was no one to be saved and I was like that's where I was standing like you know that view on Sixth Ave looking straight down at the World Trade Centers they're right there and I just like stand there in slow motion watching them fall and it was like CGI before CGI it was like so like this flower there was like a beauty to it that was like it was like you're again you're watching you're like I don't know what I'm seeing but that's not that's and that's not real it's too crazy for you to even comprehend yeah yeah did you film any of it I mean like I have a couple shots of me biking away and I made videos about it but like I'm biking away and the camera's behind me at one point in time I switch hands and it crosses my face and you go through it frame by frame and you just see like the terror yeah wow on my face yeah so today event that was cool and I remember that moment affected the way you viewed creation or like the way you lived your life after that like it is a trip how does that change you no I mean I remember like vividly calling like my dad like I called like my kid's mom like crying I was like get him out of school she's like Casey's fine yeah he's fine now like I called my dad and my dad was like it's time to come home it's time to come back to Connecticut and I just remember like being like what are you talking about and then I called the the husband of the cousins that we lived with because he was sort of a mentor and he was like it's time to come back I was like I'm not coming back yeah and I was like no this is it like I can make it through this then I'm good like I'm good yeah that was when I got like the SRO and like I started to figure it out after that like it started to make sense after that yeah my uh my brother was I was in high school at the time I was going to high school Baruch College campus high school so I was up on 23rd yeah my brother was going to middle school there's a middle school a couple blocks away from the Trade Center and he was like calling he was like calling my parents because all the kids got to use the pay phone to like call home and like looks out the window and he sees people jumping out hitting the ground and I always think about that for him specifically like imagine having a little anxiety as a kid and then seeing a literal worst case catastrophic situation happen informative years of your life sure yeah it's like how that can affect you how do you get past that how do you I think about your brother a couple times a year with that story that would be the most I don't know how you overcome that man I just remember the energy that day like I remember they they wouldn't let us leave school and then when we didn't know the first thing was we thought we were being attacked like I thought there was going to be an army of some country I don't know who the [ __ ] like walking through the streets and I was like do we get guns like I didn't know what was going on like you can't even comprehend yeah planes flew into the building yeah it just wasn't at any part of our culture exist yeah just it was incomprehensible and then my friend Carlos shows up to school and he goes he goes he shows up late and he had one more lateness before they called his parents and uh he showed up late and he's like please don't call my parents uh him the teachers were like we this is your final agency he goes no you don't understand like I saw a plane go and hit the World Trade Center that's why I'm late they were buying this excuse me you would do better than that yeah bro and it was just like and then once we found out we're like and you still came to school it was just this like crazy collection of events you guys are actually all met Carlos he came to the Radio City show yeah that's right I mean just an unbelievable day man yeah what was the energy like in the city following that like the two weeks after like [ __ ] tanks there weren't tanks but there were Humvees like up armored Humvees military it was just wild I just like that night the night of September 11th it was like I've only been scared twice in my life like the only time in my life I can only remember like laying in bed being genuinely scared and that was one of those times like only twice my whole [ __ ] life I've slept at 21 000 feet like I've slept in the death zone I've slept in [ __ ] Afghanistan during the war where like we get woken up out of bed and we have to go climb into concrete tubes because the base is being attacked like I've been in some [ __ ] up situations before and like something on the streets of Prague with Dean like I've been some [ __ ] up situations and not like nothing no fear whatsoever why that night um because like if you remember the f-16s [ __ ] trying to fall asleep super low flying F-16 and just the uncertainty you're like where does this end there's no internet there's no Twitter that's the other thing all you got is New York one in [ __ ] CNN and the way that we reflect on it it's like here are these five isolated attacks and then it's over but at that point we didn't know no you have no idea it could all planes are grounded you know you've got it but you hear an F-16 you're like is that the next plane that's gonna hit a [ __ ] building are they shooting something down it's like how do we get out of the city my roommates that were like don't leave don't leave we didn't hear from them for five days I was just about to ask what happened to them they found so what happened was the fire department was doing door to door they found them because after the buildings fell all that broken glass just turned into dust also keep in mind like they for everybody watching at home is like the area that you were in is Ground Zero adjacent we're up against the World Trade Center yeah so you're getting hit by the dust and their windows are already bloated yeah pulled them out put them on a boat yeah that brought them to a school in New Jersey but they didn't have cell phone or anything it's like they called their loved ones their parents but it wasn't like we were calling their so we said no yeah and we finally figured out they were fine but like like there's no like thank God I left yeah because that thing was so scary for me because I was in school high school in a Broad Channel which is on Rockaway but it's right against the water and we can actually see the World Trade like we can see the buildings yeah and I know my mom worked really close she worked in the courts and so that day I couldn't get a hold of her at all yeah and then the trains were shut down and it's like Yeah by train it's like an hour and a half just to get to Rockaway sure so like I eventually I finally got in contact with my mom maybe at 9 00 pm at night you had to walk across Brooklyn Bridge Walk all through um Brooklyn I think she wasn't able to get into a car until maybe like Rockaway Boulevard but she didn't get home till 11 p.m that night and you didn't you didn't you hadn't heard oh no so many people at home like you just had no clue covered in soot like yeah I will say though now like we're 22 years later yeah it's like when people want to like when you need to show you're like because you're born and raised here but like when people need are you a New Yorker or not oh yeah I just pull out that 911 card yeah you are a [ __ ] me if you like that is just like the bond that created with the city intense intense there's a there's a great story that I heard so on 9 11 2001. I've probably told us before there were unbelievable I thought you were talking about JC's yeah no no no no no no no no no this is uh also another incredible so so uh a few hits that day no so uh so there was unbelievable waves that time so all the New York City die hard about this went out to Rockaway and they surfed Perfection six foot barrels clean offshore winds and that's the other thing if you actually look at the towers and the way that the wind is blowing off the towers the wind is blowing to Brooklyn yep right and that's why Brooklyn was actually a little bit affected by something like the dust and stuff so with that means it's offshore for the island so people are at Rockaway they're out and a lot of these Surfers took the train out to Rockaway so they have the best surf session that they can possibly imagine they're like nothing can go wrong this is the greatest day of my life I've got the best ways of my life and they get out of the water and they look and they try to get on the subway they can't and then they see in the distance the smoke coming off yeah think about that think about the Euphoria you're experiencing after surfing I mean obviously you know but anybody who surfaces known like you come out of the pool you come out of the ocean it's like yeah Cloud9 Cloud9 are just floating you're just in heaven yeah and then seeing that and finding out and then not being able to get in touch with with anybody not being able to get back to the city not being able to get to speak to your parents your brothers your kids like my brother-in-law went to school downtown had to run across a Brooklyn Bridge then he had like a couple of friends fall but he was in good shape back then he was on the basketball team so he'd have to like go back and pick him up and carry him however he could and like help them get across it was a [ __ ] insane thing and then he was a senior so I don't even think I had a graduation because it was just like you're not but you're not doing school I thought I thought this was a comedy podcast we'll find some comedy at 9 11. no uh but yes okay so you go through this a traumatic events the only thing in your life that [ __ ] scares you what was the other time you were scared I don't want to skip too far no like my daughter was sick my baby daughter was there was a moment and it was like that eclipsed everything else but she's fine but it was like kids will [ __ ] you up uncertainty and a thing that you can't control both events yeah you know yeah yeah because I don't know if you come across to me as someone who I feel as if you believe that you can control most situations or get yourself out of most situations so like and you'll put yourself in quite naughty almost devious situations knowing that like I can probably wiggle my way out of here look if you were stuck in like a Thai prison for smuggling with Heroin you could call me I'll [ __ ] get you out by themselves and these kind of like even watching the Oscars video you're kind of just exploring we've got a lot of trouble for that but most people wouldn't even put themselves back there because they go oh what if they kick me out I'd get embarrassed and you know people you know what happened I don't think we showed in the video no what happened so we had passes and we had tickets to sit but they gave us Pat media passes so we could have the only reason why we had those passes is so we're at the Academy Awards it just meant we were allowed to have cameras they issued the wrong passes to us so our passes not only did that but when you put them up to the security gates it said we had on we had the same degree of access as the official Academy Award cameraman we were allowed in places that Brad Pitt was not allowed this is good and I remember the moment where it was like we pushed it too far after you win your Academy Award they take you to this like winners room up in an elevator and it's this like small bar as big as your studio here and it's just the people who have just won it's a place to decompress before you go talk to the media and all and I'm in there and sounds cool but there was a little bit like once I realized what was going on that I was like I was like just looking at you like what the [ __ ] is this but I was like you know I didn't earn this and I just bounced like I left because I was like maybe someday awards are not part of my goal or dream in life but someday yeah but the point was everybody in there had earned it and I was like I'm a [ __ ] interloper and I didn't use any of the footage from up there even though I have it and it's [ __ ] I earned it do you mean like you I didn't win an Academy Award and I cheated my way into this room but they also blew Harvey Weinstein again in there so like it's true they got the award for specifically okay yeah that distinction was Vivid there yes yes okay that was his buying the camera you know what I mean but yeah what the [ __ ] were you asking we were talking about it that was the other blueprint even Brad Pitt bro you know what over Brad has to do to get on but uh no no we were talking about how you don't uh most people in these situations rooms they're maybe not supposed to be in uh caution tape they're not supposed to pass they won't and it's not always like a fear of what will happen it's specifically a fear of like embarrassment of being kicked out right that just doesn't register for you at all yeah but it's also maybe but like it's more it's more like a a it comes down to agency and it's like you know like my whole life it was like do as you're told follow the rules and everything will be fine and you just realize you get older that's a [ __ ] lie everyone I know that was well behaved in high school that got the job that they get [ __ ] laid off yeah we're downsizing [ __ ] you you're out like everybody who does that so it's like my whole life it's like there's always been a million sheep going in that direction everybody's saying get in line with the Sheep but the more I step out of that the more the more success I have the more happiness I find in everything I do so like once you realize that and then you start to understand the parameters of the universe you just start to see everything through that lens like a good example yesterday you run on the west side yeah you know on like 14th Street it's all [ __ ] up because of the construction and there's like there's a bike path and a running path and they mash them together at this bottleneck and on a nice warm sunny day it was like dangerous and [ __ ] but the construction doesn't happen on Sunday and I'm looking at thousands of people and like a bikers yelling at me and I just walk I stop pause my watch I walk over I open the [ __ ] gate where the construction is and now I have my own path for a mile that's like yeah it's a little [ __ ] up you had to jump over some rebar but I have my own path and as I'm running down this path and I'm watching all these people putting themselves at risk and like running into bike I'm like not one of you [ __ ] not one of you saw this right here and thought to yourself there's another way there's a safer way there's a better way you just got in line with all the Sheep pesto so I think it's just like it it comes down to agency it comes down to like a willingness to look at the situation and forget about the right way or the way you were told but just say What's the best way the way you're supposed to do it is to stay in the apartment right now and it's like okay but says who and it's like a very jobsian philosophy is that like the world is just created by people that are no smarter than you you grew up in your eyes no like most of the people that make the rules are [ __ ] idiots you ever seen an interview with Ted Cruz he makes the rules that we are supposed to yeah like these are the people making the rules yeah yeah and so it's like I don't like I believe in rules that I believe in laws and I think they keep Society safe for the most part if it's yellow like can just push the gas and go right through it yeah has that ever gotten you in trouble yes my life suspended right now okay now you have kids yeah you want your kids to do as you tell them but at the same time you don't want to raise children that are sheep it's [ __ ] so much easier said than done so my older daughter is she's challenging really independent thinker she's a fighter she's weird you like and you admire but it must drive you [ __ ] crazy it's tough it's tough but my little daughter is an angel she behaves so much but but every once in a while we leave the two of them alone and we'll hear them fighting and my older daughter is just like you know she's eight little one's four she's outsmarting her she's manipulating the little one she's bullying the little one and my I'm like I gotta go in my life let them figure it out and like you just hear things get quiet and then you just hear ah and the old one comes running out and little one just snapped beat the [ __ ] out of her let's go and it's a little bit like the kid's gonna be all right it's gonna be all right yeah so no as a parent it's challenging but like I don't like my my son who's like a [ __ ] angel 4.0 like graduated college I mean this kid had a [ __ ] up upbringing yeah like the most [ __ ] up upbringing like a parent separated from really early age one lived in New York one lived in Connecticut never knew where his home was and like he and I like lived on my before we lived on my grandmother's couch we lived in like the attic of my dad's office where we like pinned up sheets to try to build a room and it was like uninsulated attic of this old ass building and like we were like we were like proper homeless it was [ __ ] up for like a number of years but he liked the kid's a star like like like graduated college did everything right he's like in [ __ ] Indonesia right now in a yoga retreat yeah he's like doing his thing so it's like he parenting is this very malleable mushy gooey thing and my biggest fear is like growing up raising a kid who thinks that the way to success is following the rules and doing it as they're told but then I parent them to follow the rules and do as they're so and I don't know the answer to any of these questions there's a I I won't say the person's name I'll tell you afterwards but he said something interesting he had like kind of rough uh relationship with his pops and um his his father said to him he's a very successful dude and his father goes to him uh yeah but look how successful you are see this is what happens yeah it was tough on you but look how successful you are he said an interesting thing he goes uh I was successful despite you yeah yeah I would have been successful no matter what it'd be nice if I got some [ __ ] love um but don't think you made me Successful by being shitty to me yeah you don't get that credit I thought that was fire it's yeah it's tough because like my entire life I'm 42 now my entire life is just a vendetta against my seventh grade vice principal name right his name is Trent alexopoulos he's still alive yeah yeah yeah we want him to watch this yeah well what did Chad do he's just a [ __ ] [ __ ] and if I ever saw him to say I would call him out on it now he said something to you that was [ __ ] what was it I mean he said a bunch of things that were [ __ ] to me but like you know the thing that he said to me most he was like you're either going to be working at a gas station or you're going to be in prison you know like saying that to a little kid is crazy and I'll tell you now that like I work with a lot of kids I've volunteered a lot I've like I've got kids [ __ ] love kids like the most you don't say that to a kid to a 12 year old even though the 12 year old's [ __ ] up you don't say that yeah you lead them you guide them you [ __ ] motivate them you inspire them even if they're tough like you figure it out you'd be tough with them but you don't [ __ ] disparage in the way that they used to [ __ ] disparage me and I say that it was like him and I remember like my guidance counselor same [ __ ] just like putting me down and putting me down and like because I was acting out yeah and like the the antithesis of that the [ __ ] furthest out of that spectrum is like Dr Lou gabordi my 10th grade ninth grade ninth grade uh English teacher like I remember like when I dropped out of school I just stopped going to school my sister got in touch me and she's like look Mr gaboris before he's a doctor before he had his PhD she's like Mysterio boardy says if you show up for the final he'll pass you I was like I'm not going back to school and she comes back a few days later and she's like look he says if you show up any day this week because there's no school that week he'll pass you and I went in and I sat there and I just remember he was like you like put the final in front of me did my best I don't know he probably gave me a c minus he just was like what's wrong with you like I couldn't answer he like pushed me and he's like what's going on I just broke down and started crying but like I'll never forget he gave you some time yeah he was interested in you he cared yeah I care so [ __ ] Trent Alex do you think part of your excitement to have a kid was to be a better parent than all these people were for you even if they weren't parents necessarily I mean maybe but probably not all right well I had a fun theory for a second I mean that would make sense that'd be a neat little bow to put on it but no I never thought in those terms I never thought in those terms up to like 30 detentions and like six suspensions do you sound like a difficult ass kid yeah that wasn't easy I invented some fun games too like past the stapler was one of my greatest um I mean he's a pretty difficult adult by the way it was past the stapler and take one and pass it down what we do is like in the middle of class and the teacher is teaching the less you just take the stapler and you just pass it to someone and then someone's taking passing a stapler and we would keep that going the whole class so funny and the teacher would know but you know how [ __ ] funny that is yes no one needed the stapler yeah I want to interview Trent alexopoulos or whatever it is and I can't wait for him to be like yeah the kid told me his dream was to work in a gas station I just believed in the [ __ ] kid yeah I got you all right guys let's take a break for a second because there's a lot of you out there that are small business owners your business is shipping stuff and you're getting absolutely demolished on these shipping prices and ship station has got your back it's going to save you money make you profitable here's how they're going to do it very simple okay shipstation gives you access to discounts of up to 84 percent off USPS and UPS rates and you can manage every order from one simple to use dashboard I'm telling you this is the easiest thing 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free 60-day trial that's shipstation.com code flagrant now let's get back to the show all right guys we'll take a break for a second because some of y'all are in debt and you need to pay that off and PDS debt has got you back okay how many of you wish that there was a better solution to pay off your debt PDS debt has customized zero interest options for anyone struggling with credit cards personal loans collections or medical bills with Rising interest rates and the cost of living in all-time high now is the time to finally take initiative with your debt stop waiting and start saving with your own custom debt savings options from PDS debt PDS debt is giving our qualified listeners a free debt savings analysis just for completing the 30-second online debt assessment at pdsdead.com flagrant you'll receive a full breakdown on how to save on interest each month and the quickest way to take care of your debt listen here if you're making payments every month on your debt and your balances 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and his omnipotence he's just this wonderful human being very close to them to this day his husband was turning 50. and he was like I want to make a birthday video for my husband we're going to play it at his his birthday dinner and I was like well I can do that van and I yeah we can nail that for you and he's like great let me know how much it costs so then I met were like it's probably cost us like we never need four DV tapes um and maybe a new tripod so that's like it's gonna cost us like 90 bucks to make so what do we charge him and we decided on five thousand dollars because if he said he'd give us a thousand we're like that's a win yeah so we're like we can do it for five times he's like done just to give you some context the dinner was at Le Cirque you know what I mean like that is less than like he's dropping that on a bottom yeah exactly like you're dropping that in a bottle no question um very very wealthy couple um Fred had built a hundred million multiple 100 million dollar businesses with very so then he's like right here the list of people to interview and just call these names and we'll set up those interviews and the list of people's interview are like Bill Clinton heads of state like [ __ ] business and then they're like oh [ __ ] and we like knocked that out of the park like Bill Clinton was the best wait a minute you got to interview bill yeah and that was he just left the White House he was at his office in Harlem and I remember we went up there we had this really [ __ ] funny idea um Fred the guy whose birthday it was he ran a company called Lillian Vernon Lillian Vernon was the biggest mail order catalog in the 60s 70s 80s 90s it was his mother he built that company um and she was a huge donor to Bill Clinton so what we our idea was that we give him a t-shirt to Bill Clinton to President Clinton that says Lillian Fred hochberg turned 50 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt from Lillian Vernon that's great but we get there and his handlers are like you want to do what now I'm like we have an idea and they're like no ideas you can give me your script and I was like what do you mean script and she's like the script we received is it says happy birthday Fred I can't believe you made it to 50. that's what we've approved you have a different script and we're like nope we'll do that that's fine she's like okay and she was very tough with us yeah she leaves game time yeah her laptop's open oh teleprompters out oh Ron Burgundy yeah delete delete everything this is exactly what I'm talking about not thinking about the repercussions shut everything down he comes in and he said I'm like good to see you Mr President we like sit down secret services like these [ __ ] guys who the [ __ ] are we have this little Rinky Dink camera we didn't have a teleprompter she had to have their time and she's sitting there I just remember her like you're interviewing the president on the camera you bought when you were flat broken like 16 years yeah we didn't have we'd have a lavalier mic we just had the onboard and she's like I'm sorry Mr President and he's like Jessica I gotta get out of here and I was like Mr President I have an idea and like when right out and I remember Secret Service like jumping up yeah yeah and like I like run across my hand out and I was like here's the idea and I was like we made you this and he's like boys I love it you're recording and we're like yep and he like one hit one take Wonder [ __ ] Nails it but the video was like a big hit at the dinner yeah like we play the dinner everybody [ __ ] loved it the president was there he loved it like it was everyone you need to that's awesome because this is something that you keep doing in your life and it's very intriguing to me it's really good the moments where you could get in trouble or you're doing something naughty there could be repercussions you could be spanked you just go for it constantly do you think at all in that moment what could happen if this doesn't go right no you're just so locked into what could happen if it goes if it does go right I never think about if it goes wrong there's never even never even a consideration okay I'm not lying to you that's a superpower okay okay but it doesn't even there's no that doesn't even exist interesting yeah I mean what a huge competitive advantage and you've just always had that your whole life yeah okay so you get Clinton Clinton all-time Charisma guy or whatever I mean this is when he was like young and like holy his Swagger he had just left the office he just left the office if you remember like remember what a big deal it was at his office in Harlem was like coming up then it was beautiful and like he loved it it brought down the house so was he there for the actual birthday yes oh so everybody's coming up to him yeah that's so hilarious yeah you were the hit of the movie the whole thing and then like you know Tom because he's so great like he introduced us to the whole party is these are the guys that made the video um and it was a lot of art people there and a lot of these art collectors come like what do you do like what are you guys doing then van and I were like we went into the Fine Art world and we started making videos and then calling them Fine Art um and we didn't know and like sure why the [ __ ] not and we did make a lot of videos that I think are now art but we didn't know what we're doing and we would just make them because all we could afford to make like we did one it was like a really close-up video of building a little Log Cabin if you can imagine out of Match six but we're building it on top of an electric burner so at some point in time the whole thing is going to combust and it was this beautiful thing which is another one where it's like if you take moth balls and you put them in vinegar the mothballs sink but then bubbles Rich go on them and then they rise the bubbles pop and then they fall and they start dancing art and we did a bunch of those we learned all of those from a book called Mr Wizard's world's science experiments you can do at home great book and we made them wow and we called that series of videos science experiments great title and we like an art gallerist was like I'd like to show that hilarious and he showed it at Miami Art Basel like in 2002 or 2003 whatever and um it was like a big hit and we like sold them we like sold limited edition DVDs you're the first nft yes yeah [ __ ] created and we sold like and then we took stills from it and blew them up yeah and we sold those and like where we got the money to like blow up those that same like wonderful incredible human being Tom Healey was like I will bankroll your art career and he did you know we did an art show at his house and like people like came and saw our pictures and our and they bought those this wasn't a lot of money but this was like enough to keep it going yeah and I remember then like this is when we got a studio this is 2002 I think maybe 2003 we got a studio that I'm in now to this day and we went there and I was like gonna afford 500 and she was like let me show you can get for 500 and I remember it was like this little old Chinese woman because it's in Chinatown oh she had toilet paper coming out of her like panties going down and like attached to her foot and like the person that was with Tom Healy was like looking at these places he just kept nudging me and I'm like I'm not there's no way I'm gonna tell her right and she showed us all these spaces and they were all awful no windows yeah and she's like I have one with Windows and she showed it to me to us it was three times the budget and Tom was like Tom Healey was like you have to take this place and I was like if we take this place we have 30 days until we're completely out of money and he's like he'll figure it out and I was like okay so he like co-signed the lease he got the place so the one time you thought about consequences a guy next to you like don't think about it yeah yeah I mean it was also just like it was it was less about the consideration of the consequence more just being practical it was like I'm not you know like I was thinking 500 bucks and we're good for like three or four months to figure out how to make our next dollar and we have 30 days and it was like [ __ ] fight man it was like guns at the back of your head what are you gonna do yeah and if I can figure it out how'd you figure it out that's when like we started selling those paintings we started doing like turn that into something else making more art people like the art can you do a video project for me yeah I mean like we started doing videos like I want to work for Nike I want to work for this brand like remember truth the anti-smoking campaign that was like big in the early 2000s like they wouldn't hire us we just started making our own truth videos like companies that we wanted to work with that would never hire us we just would make the [ __ ] commercials and put them on our website and pretend that they had hired us that's how I got my first job for Nike the Nike video is fantastic but the Nike video you're talking about happened 10 years later no so you made the fake you make a fake a whole bunch of fake Nike videos how Nike first learned about us and the first Nike video I ever got was like a guy who had like a tiny discretionary budget and he's like I like your fake Nike videos we're doing a little Meetup in the East Village would you make a video for that meet up and I was like [ __ ] yeah I'll make that and it was like where's the Meetup I don't remember this is like 2005 2006 but it was at a bike store go go go they were doing like an event and we made them I made him this like five minute Nike video and they played it there and like believe me from that moment forward when people were like what do you do for a living I was like I make Nike commercials so you become Commercial Success commercially successful in my head in reality I had made one five thousand dollars was it scratching the creative like it's not filmmaking but it is yeah I mean the idea that someone would pay me to do anything with a camera yeah is so I I mean mind-boggling yeah someone's gonna write you a check to tell a joke like that is yeah when your whole life yeah you're like no no I will literally pay yeah to do like I used to drive around to deliver VHS tapes of my videos so people would watch that yeah um so yeah I was like so it was amazing and like that just picked up momentum like there was just one opportunity led to another and there were ups and downs or times when I would get like and we got a Microsoft job when they were trying to compete with YouTube yeah and it was 200 000 maybe it's a hundred thousand dollars but it's something outrageous and we knocked it out of the park and it was like a home run they put on like their Microsoft version of YouTube at the time so we saw it it was like that we were [ __ ] flush yeah we moved into better apartments and I went out to eat a bunch of times and like four months later it was like well what the [ __ ] we're gonna eat now you know so it was like that went on for a very long did you ever have any failures in that strip like someone hit you up you do the commercial and they're kind of like yeah and it depends on how you define failures I remember like we got a music video and I remember like went to task to land this music video like I did everything I could it was on easy ease label it was like this cool rock band they were bringing up we like I did everything and the shoot was a [ __ ] disaster and the video objectively sucked like we just it sucked we did not do a good job and then and that just that hurt and then on top of that the producer stole all of the budget he's some two-bit [ __ ] producer from from like North Carolina Virginia where we shot it and it was like he stole the whole budget and like that was tough and how did you the next time you have your next job not reminisce on the pain and not fear feeling that it was like no it was like [ __ ] [ __ ] fight what are they you could go back to Connecticut wash dishes yeah yeah you know it was like okay so at what point do you guys turn the camera on yourselves when do you invent vlogging do people know that you guys invented that no I don't think I mean they know that you're the most popular person but I truly believe that style of filmmaking yeah what was interesting is like so our HBO show which is which is kind of like the first really like version of it yeah please make break for us that was the first like truly life-changing and how the HBO show came together is we had met a bunch of people one of the people we met was this super cool guy you know Nantucket nectar's the juice yeah yeah well a different guy not the Tom from the art career earlier this guy named Tom Scott another just incredible human being it just sold that company for a lot of money and he started a small like cable Access TV channel he's like make content for us and we're like hell yeah and he was like I'm opening up a cable access in Aspen Colorado will you go to Aspen and make videos about it and I was like [ __ ] yeah I'll go there and make videos about it and he gave us a budget of twenty thousand bucks and he wanted 10 videos for twenty thousand dollars which were like [ __ ] that's wonderful the only thing we knew about Aspen is what we learned from the movie Dumb and Dumber um so instead of going to Aspen and making videos we bought a 1985 Ford Econoline van and two mini bikes that we put in the back and we drove there and we made a video that was like a [ __ ] Dumb and Dumber video of us traveling there like the there's all these little vignettes like at the beginning how to [ __ ] cheat the DMV to register a car that has no business being registered then like car breaks down the highways we go to our mini bikes like just this wild adventure when he was like gave us no creative parameters except he's like look this is a respectable Channel please be responsible here so we called the responsibility tour maybe we called it the respectability tour I don't remember van says it's the greatest thing we ever made together but that was effectively vlogging it was like really in a tendency and he loved that we made that even though no one on his cable access Channel had any [ __ ] clue what to do with it are you familiar with the term Gonzo journalism yeah we were big I'm a huge fan of Hunter Thompson like huge I've read every one of his books that's what I yeah we went there like he was still alive the first time we went there and it was like didn't get to meet him tried but like that was like he was a big part of that and why we were doing that putting yourself and making yourself you know the the Forefront of what you're writing about and experiencing it and I think that's what you guys have done with vlogging so brilliantly you use your experience as sort of the Catalyst for this did you guys kind of realize through shooting yourself that you're more interesting than a lot of the subjects that you were shooting before it was more like the only way we and this is true to this day the only way I know how to communicate interestingness is by sharing how I experience that interestingness yeah I don't know I can't tell you that that energy drink is good I can tell you why I like that energy drink and it'll be compelling but I can't tell you that it's good every time I try to [ __ ] fail yeah um but that guy the the guy who's the cable access guy loved it and he was like let's do something big together and he was thinking a feature film and Van and I were like look I only know how to do is make these little videos yeah so I went to him and I was like look give us this much money and it will cover all of our expenses and for a year all we'll do is make little videos and he was like I don't know what that means but sure it was not a lot of money and that's what we did for the year in like six months into I remember he's like I'm gonna bring over a friend to see what you guys have done and the friend that he brought over was Doug Lyman oh wow Doug Lyman who made you know swingers one of my favorite movies ever but he also made Bourne Identity he's a wildly successful huge big deal filmmaker and he watches it and Doug is not an emoted guy you don't know and he's watching like when he's watching the screen we're just staring at him and they're like he does not like this and when it's over he stops and he sort of is quiet and he turns to Tom who just bankroll this [ __ ] and he's like you've got something here oh wow and then I were like what and he was like this is a TV show and we're like oh okay so we started making everything 22 minutes we put a tail credits we put a thing at the beginning and when we had six of those we went out to LA we just started showing it to people and most people were like what the [ __ ] is this I remember we met with like one channel and they're like we can put this on our website and this is 2007. nobody looks at a website yeah yeah we're like no thanks that's not right and it's not like FX really liked it they just signed It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that one season it was a huge hit we like that fact so like we like it like there's something we can do with this we don't know how we're gonna put this on TV but maybe and then we came back and our producer Christine called she's like HBO really likes this huh and we're like you're [ __ ] kidding me wow like HBO like the greatest Channel this is 2007. this is Sopranos this is sex in the city but also the wire but also outside is scripted uh real sex this is their this is like the salad days of HBO yeah but they were dabbling in a lot of unscripted content that was docusiled it was amazing it just it was so next level what they were putting out yeah um so we went back and we met with them and I just remember like that [ __ ] meeting with them it was gnarly like the the head of content like she had a chair like yours and the couch that we sat in was like this but had no legs so you sit with your leg knees up and you just feel it's such a [ __ ] La move and I remember we get there and her assistant was like can I get either of you anything before she comes in and Dan was like ham and cheese omelette chocolate milkshake and she was like I was thinking water and he's like that's fine too right that's great and yeah and then they they bought the show for a couple million dollars and it was like the greatest thing ever insane not so much then they fired the head of the head of content that bought our show yeah fired her like a week later yeah they still went through the deal probably because they had to the new head of content didn't get our show shelved it yeah nobody saw it so we tell everybody we know we sold it it's like a big deal oh so it never aired for two years it didn't there and then finally like we're gonna air it and then give us like a zero dollar marketing budget and they aired it on Friday nights at midnight and I just remember like imagine if you could only watch my YouTube imagine if people could only watch this podcast Friday nights at midnight and if they didn't tune in for that window they didn't get to see this yeah and it was [ __ ] soul-crushing it was just devastating um and in that window too van and I kind of went our different ways I wanted to go more commercial the opportunities at that point in time really make money were were well you know like they were coming from everywhere and I wanted to take advantage of that van is not into that so he moved to LA to focus on his art we kind of were like on our own then um and it was tough I made like another show that was like the HBO show um and I brought it to MTV and they loved it I would want to do this but we're not sure if it works obviously you love your brother a lot and you're still close but was that a contentious point for y'all it was tough it was really tough yeah it was super super duper really hard why can't you guys create I don't see you being able to create with anybody else telling you what to do why with him does it work just because he was there was I just looked up to him so much so it's just admirable completely completely interesting you know and do you think everyone else sucks I mean I don't know I don't trust my ability to work with anyone else I think they're I recognize Talent everywhere but van was just sort of a genius it was very easy for me to follow yeah but it got to a point where it was like you know we're in our 30s we're still young but I have a [ __ ] kid yeah yeah and like it's fun being broke and young like it's cool and then for what it's worth like when we came back together and got really close again is when he had a kid yeah and for the first time in his life he's like how do you know like now it's time for me to figure out how to make a living off of my creativity and like I stepped in and shared with him what I had learned right so it was this really funny sort of Full Circle yin and yang situation yeah that's very poetic and like we're as close now as we've ever been but it was it was definitely challenging um but I brought the show to MTV they [ __ ] loved it but they're like we don't know how this works on TV and out of that frustration you did it yeah I just was like [ __ ] it then I went on YouTube and like a year later my YouTube channel was doing more views than any one 24-hour period than like every [ __ ] Viacom property that was out Wow have have New Yorkers shared with you how we feel you represented the city do you feel like New Yorkers you kind of feel like ours I know this is an odd thing to say but you kind of feel like hours I appreciate that not that we own you but that's our guy there's a great moment in a Spider-Man movie that I love I don't know which one it is and it's when Spider-Man is on the subway and he's trying to stop the subway from going off of like this you know fake Subway track into the water and he's shooting these like ropes out and he's basically like webs or whatever like he's doing he's trying to stop the train he's about to like fall off and I forget the doc doc or something like that is trying to like take off his mask and all these New Yorkers in the subway step to them because they're like nah that's our guy you know what I mean yeah like when you were on your daily Vlog grind and even now the videos that you put up I just feel like you've represented the magic of the city so well and it is [ __ ] magical and I think that people don't really understand that like your community is who you choose it to be whether if it's Marlin the guy who's at the you know delivering your packages or the guy that you meet at the [ __ ] Diner I used to see my father who admire him on anything in the world create a community from nothing and I think that's the thing a lot of people that don't grow up here don't get it's you get to crook your community and you [ __ ] did it it's impossible to get if you don't experience because when I we moved to LA we tried to be with family that's why we moved all of our family was in LA my brother van his kid his his wife like my sister my other brother my my sister-in-law their kids my in-laws everyone's in L.A in a very small area but like I it was like the way I described I felt like a hollow man I felt like a shell of a human being I also felt like a [ __ ] Judas when covet happened that I wasn't here I felt like a [ __ ] like a like I felt like such a two-timing like what do you mean what do you mean by that no this is this isn't because [ __ ] New York City was [ __ ] on man yeah he would see it was [ __ ] on during that time and [ __ ] you like I know what the reality of the city was like then and I had a unique ability to communicate that yeah like I could have used my I would have used every Power every Outlet I had to say no no no no everything you're saying is a [ __ ] lie like where Marjorie Taylor whatever her name is on [ __ ] Tucker talking about how [ __ ] up this city is [ __ ] you yeah that is not what this city is you wanna know what this city is go to any subway station any subway station at all five boroughs push your [ __ ] stroller up to the stairs Watch What Happens yeah they'll still last one [ __ ] second and someone yeah well there's like some [ __ ] 300 pound homeless guy yeah some old lady someone's gonna pick up that stroller yeah they're gonna [ __ ] help you yeah of course we got criminals we have nine [ __ ] million people here some of them are animals yes but this city is like that thing yeah and it's like my Affinity that like [ __ ] Tom Hanks and big the little kid with the [ __ ] poster page 57 in my fifth grade social studies book which was a two-page lead of the New York City skyline that has never faded my entire cell phone is pictures of the city more pictures of this city than of my children yeah my wife is like please stop talking about the city that's all I talk about do you know you know how to like uh they say like immigrants love America more than Americans many times yeah I feel like my own mother like and I sometimes it takes someone from the outside to observe the greatness of the city and you coming here at a young enough age where it could kind of like mold your identity but still having enough time away from it where you got to like lust over it and dream about it and I I still do like guys it is like could you do 800 days in a row in L.A no there's no way there's just not that I can't exit my wife right now is like her in-laws are coming to watch our kids she's gonna be mad at me when she sees this and it's like four days we can go anywhere in the world Casey romantic trip and I'm like how to leave the city man I don't want to leave this like it doesn't get better than this when I was a little kid we go to like this is the best family vacations or whatever and I remember like being on the airplane so upset we have to go back home and I hated it as a grain yeah this is heaven I wake up every day I wake up at 4 30 this morning I do it every [ __ ] day you know why so I can go run for hours through the city by myself I have a game I play all winter long the game is to try to get from one end of the Brooklyn Bridge to the other without seeing a single person you know how hard that is yeah how [ __ ] hard that is how you done it yes are you three times this winter that morning was the bomb Cyclone where it was 20 below zero and they had warnings about not going outside I [ __ ] ran 10 miles because no one else was on the bridge that morning crazy in the snow in the pouring rain like I [ __ ] love it how about this morning 13 miles this morning at 4 30 in the morning this city is like I like cannot get enough of it it is like [ __ ] heroin and I want it pumped directly into my veins and it doesn't fade like when we moved back here last September remember and I was riding my skateboard around and it was just like I was like barely holding it together and like not one person but like the fourth person that yelled out the king in New York like the tears were just like I was just like on my sunglasses just trying to hide it like I couldn't hold it together man it is like it is like a woman a partner something you've wanted your whole life and then you just [ __ ] get it and it's better than you imagined yeah like there's no word there's no video I can make that shows you how good this city is this guy loves living in a trailer park so I get it persistence it's not my anything that I uniquely have like everything I have has given to me from the city everything I had nothing when I came here [ __ ] nothing all I had was the 1200 in debt twenty four hundred dollars in debt to my brother's girlfriend for that [ __ ] that's all I had when I came here nothing everything I have and including my [ __ ] up car is because of this city what do you think is the most misunderstood thing about New York especially for the people that I think it's the people yeah you know it's like Los Angeles is a sunny place for shady people and I think New York City is like people are [ __ ] harsh on the outside and they're so good on the inside yeah and personally I think there's honesty in that trust like yeah New Yorkers will [ __ ] stab you in the face but they'll do it while making eye contact with you you know there's such a truth to that yeah you know what you're getting with people and when you multiply that to 9 million like there there are some people here that were born here maybe they don't want to be here there are some people here that like they're here by chance I get but most of the people especially the people the fortunate people like all of us that we get to interact with they're here because they [ __ ] want to be here how many people have you met there was like I didn't know where I wanted to go after college so I was just sort of walk by New York City and I was like yeah I love living in a 200 square foot rat infested apartment for 3 800 a month I'm gonna stay here forever no everybody is like I [ __ ] fought to be here that's the thing that I don't think a lot of people understand when uh people who aren't from New York they criticize like the apartment size and stuff in New York they're like why would I want to live in a 600 square foot apartment with like mices and rats whatever and it's like that's how dope the city is you're willing to live with rats and cockroaches in a tiny apartment that doesn't have an oven because of what's around it yeah yeah unintended concert like my apartment was so shitty the one with the taco yeah that I would just sit on my stoop I didn't know anybody in the city I knew one person my brother van he had a girlfriend I couldn't spend all this time I'd sit on the stoop guess what I was gonna sit on stoop people walk by they say hi you meet people you make friends yeah if I had a nice apartment with a TV I wouldn't have been on this side of them yeah no the way I describe it the way when I visualize in my head is it's like one of those [ __ ] medieval towns or like cities or buildings with like the tallest fence with a moat with alligators and if you want to get into that so you gotta swim across that moat in the [ __ ] crocodiles tear off all your closing our climb that fence there's arrows being shot at you you're [ __ ] [ __ ] up you got to leave everything you've got just to get the top of that fence and when you finally fall over on the other side you stand up and you're like beat up covered in mud bloodied you're stripped naked you've got nothing and you're on the inside and if you can [ __ ] figure it out from there then you get to be here yeah and that at scale is what New York said every person you walk by every [ __ ] waiter every bartender every garbage person like [ __ ] everyone every cop every person you meet is a part of that yeah [ __ ] Marlon the delivery guy everyone it's incredible I mean I you know I want I don't like the Subways safe you know they're working on it yeah they are you know everybody loves to [ __ ] on the NYPD it's like do you not realize that the only thing standing between us and [ __ ] Anarchy is the New York City Police Department yes they need to be better yeah with criminal justice policing we need to work at that to make it better without them this is just Anarchy yeah but uh no like it's the city to me just I don't ever remember it feeling this good really yeah because Bloomberg had it nicer cleaner safer yeah but every cool place we know was chased out and replaced by a [ __ ] Chase Bank in a Duane Reade yeah ever one of them then kovid [ __ ] that up good yeah and now it's a little bit nasty yeah but all those plays all those Dwayne reasons we're used to nasty that's the thing that's not shocking to people who've been here at the Time Square was like seedier I mean I don't go about 14th Street okay fair yeah but like back in the day like people are like oh yeah Times Square was shitty and there was crime and this neighborhood was run down like do you miss that grittiness yeah I don't think people realize like how detached New Yorkers are from Times Square yeah yeah it's it's really not a place that we go to so like when people go oh Times Square isn't what it used to be it's like like in the 70s like yeah I spend more time in Cleveland than I do in times yeah yeah sometimes quick to look however it wants to look they could put Eminem stairs like we don't give a [ __ ] yeah it's like when it's like when Houston Street charge starts changing yeah that's when we're like whoa whoa what's happening over here yeah or like the Lower East Side so there's this fun little edgy place and now it's a little bit more like Yuppie and like big high rises and stuff and I think that's where that's where there's often like pushback but another thing I learned I mean I grew up in the East Village I saw my neighborhood turn over so much that was my expectation of New York yeah it was turnover so I don't I don't get angry when I see neighborhoods change because I was constantly used to change like I saw my neighbor go from like drug Haven to Japanese restaurants I don't know what those things have in common I'm fast I remember but quick quick real quick like sex stores buy weed Japanese restaurants done so if when we take the kids out we go to almost exclusively to Chinatown because Chinatown is kind of like one of the last holes it doesn't change and I think it's because like whatever [ __ ] Chinese Mafia situation is holding it down yeah they're like nah we're cool people are afraid to go to go to business there yeah yeah yeah can't you find somewhere else exactly you can open up your [ __ ] bookstore in the East Village or Alphabet City Don't Go Near Chinatown you're [ __ ] up I love Chinatown plus they're building one of the biggest prisons in the country in China central they're building a new one no they're building a mega prison there for whom they're [ __ ] getting rid of uh prisoners holding situation they're trying to get rid of at least marginalized Rikers yeah and to do that they're building new [ __ ] it's not a prison like a jail in all five boroughs these Mega complexes so you get rid of what we're getting is three blocks from here which is fine by me I'd rather if it wasn't but I get it the only thing that bothers me is during this five years of construction it's [ __ ] up all my restaurants man not trying Center had to go out of business not trying one so he's hanging around by a thread yeah a poor guy yeah there's a there's they're thinking about building a halfway house this is kind of an interesting thing that's happening this is so funny so and Soho there's a guy who wants to sell his building and he owns a building in like Prime Soho okay and he wants way over the asking price and nobody's willing to pay for it so he's essentially holding his neighbor's hostage by threatening to sell his whole building to the city where they will then build a halfway house for violent criminals rape murder assault now all of the neighbors who have dumped Millions into their Soho Lofts are now going whoa whoa what do you mean okay we'll pay you 60 million even though the buildings were 12 or whatever the [ __ ] it is because of the second that halfway house goes up goodbye so the greatest deal in all of New York City right now and it's a risk it is Aloft on [ __ ] Wooster Street oh yeah they're up right now and they are half the price that they should be because everybody on that street is trying to get out because they think the halfway house is terrifying yeah yeah yeah and the city wants it of course the city wants that coverage they like they can't just keep building and I have mixed emotions about this mainly because I'm like a [ __ ] rich white guy who lives in one of these safe neighborhoods but like they they can't just be building these homeless shelters and halfway houses and outer boroughs like I get it it's not fair yeah what's it NIMBY not in my background so like cool why don't we just build one in literally the most expensive real estate per square foot in the world in the world yeah imagine going from prison to Soho yeah Felix every weekend like this is the good maybe that does rehab them the best what if they see the good life and they're like I don't want to do crime yeah they can work at one of the restaurants they're [ __ ] dishwashing they meet people who knows this might be you turn the whole thing around yeah I love that idea yeah we might have to get into a halfway house I might pick up a drug addiction just to [ __ ] pop in there Prime real estate Prime real estate so you'll never leave New York again [ __ ] I'm [ __ ] dying here I am never leaving the city I love it I'm never leaving this city and I'll say that like no regrets about the three years we sent away yeah because it's like the thing that I like to liken it too is my wife and I we met and fell in love immediately and then like had a really tumultuous couple years we broke up we spent 18 months apart dated other people and then we came back together and we often reflect on the fact that like had we not done that I don't think we've realized that like we can't be with anybody else very romantic and had I not moved away to La which is like oh the beach fam like all these really amazing things great weather um I don't think I would have appreciated New York as much as I do now dude when we were during the pandemic for four months we moved down to Miami and it was amazing that the city was so welcoming people were so incredible there and uh I couldn't write a joke man and I was like why can't I write a joke and it was a really interesting it was a really interesting just like um I guess this awareness I started to have about like where my comedy often comes from but I needed to be removed from the city to kind of to appreciate that yeah yeah so like coming back into it and starting to like feel the things again like seeing somebody be really upset over something that I didn't think that they needed to be upset about and immediately my brain starts churning I'm like oh there's the material there it is what can I antagonize what can I bother people and I love my ime and they [ __ ] welcomed us with open arms it was incredible I don't regret going down at all but there's something about this city that inspires creation man I can't step outside I I step outside of an offset it's punched in the face of the story immediately what is a story for you it's an interestingness in any capacity break down a story because that's I think one of the competitive advantages you have over a lot of the people in your field and we talked about the first day that we met when we went out surfing and it's the importance of story and understanding the difference between just an adventure and a story yeah so look there's there's There are rules in the in in the universe and like a story is three acts a beginning a middle and an end you can apply that to anything comply that to Jack and Jill you can apply that to the [ __ ] Godfather there's a beginning a middle and an end there's a a setup a conflict and a resolution that is every story that you've ever been told if it doesn't contain those three parts it wasn't a story setup conflict resolution yeah like that's go through one of you that's a cup of water that is not a story I was thirsty I walked around your space I got a cup of water that's a story set up conflict resolution there's there's three Acts and so with me with every movie I make I try to make sure that that's there and it's not always as deliberate like I'm not conscious about it I'm like that's a good First Act that's a good size it's just something much more natural but in the same way they can talk about a cup of water it's like once you start thinking like that it's also like like when I see my wife after like her fourth glass of wine she's telling a funny story about something that happened as she's telling the story I'm like oh you're losing them not too much emphasis on the setup the Storyteller in me can't be turned off because I know what a good story is yeah and it's the story does not be good it just has to be told well and that's what I would say like it's not that I live an interesting life it's just that I get I can tell it really well what makes a great setup um I think for me personally it's when you're inviting the audience in on it with you I know when I'm watching a movie and I feel like I'm part of it then I'm the most excited to keep going so the chat GPT video is just the last one I uploaded it's not one of my best videos at all just some average Casey video the whole point of me reading the script that chat TPT gave me on a piece of paper which cost us an extra day because I didn't own a printer I had to go get one and for me to show the audience that I'm holding a piece of paper it was just to constantly remind you the viewer that hey man you and I you viewer me we're in this together and we're kind of making fun of this silly AI thing yeah but you and I are in on the joke you're not outside the joke if you're watching a movie if you're hearing a story that you don't get you feel outside it's like two friends selling inside joke you feel like a dick bag like why don't I get to be a part so for me my favorite kinds of stories are ones that bring you in it's why I like The Godfather is like one of my favorites because I've watched it [ __ ] 7 000 times and I know it so I'm with them like I'm with it so for me that's sort of at the core of telling a story and when I tell stories it's like I'm always leaning on my personal experience but if I can touch on universal universalities I don't know if that's a word Universal subject matter that we've all experienced so like I think like one of my favorite movies I've made recently is like um my Marathon movie that's great if you've never run before I had like strangers stop me on the West Side Highway being like I don't know you your video made me cry and it's about me failing running a man like I've run 25 marathons that was my worst race ever you didn't fail though you persevered you just didn't run it as fast that's right I did not achieve my objectives I finished because I'm not a [ __ ] [ __ ] um but like that movie as I'm editing that movie especially because it did not turn out as I expected I wanted to be this movie of Triumph like where I finally achieved the goal I've been trying to achieve for 25 attempts as I'm making I'm like you know what the struggle as I'm going through all my personal like the struggle is so much more interesting than the victory because we've all been there we've all had our asses kicked before not everybody is run a really fast Marathon like that's not that's not so Universal but like this idea of just getting beaten down and having to [ __ ] you get that eight count you get back up you're like [ __ ] no I'm not taking this you just stand up and start swinging again we've all been there so that's what I try to zero there's also a message of accountability in that that was just kind of cool to see is you cut in the middle of him running a marathon he cuts to the day before and he goes all right here's my target time I could have hit that Target time but I didn't train hard enough so I'm probably gonna be and then he has like a graph with like a kind of shitty time for him he's like I'm probably gonna be somewhere closer to here and it's my [ __ ] fault and then he cuts back to the race and it's him immediately being like God damn it dude I need to walk this Mile and it's just like a cool like I don't know I thought it was a really cool way of telling the story of also holding yourself accountable yes to me those those are devices to communicate those Universal subject I mean like the day you and I went surfing that like no one surfs no one serves you know what I mean like there's not that many people that Surf and then there's like no one lives in New York City no one even knows or surf so what's interesting about that the only thing that's compelling about that video is the chemistry between you me Dean like the group in the car yeah like it's just [ __ ] fun yeah being like this stick up guy is like kind of stiff yeah we're not none of us are good Surfers we're just out there getting our [ __ ] trying not to drown yeah the surf footage wasn't even that good yeah but it was like getting to see three [ __ ] dope dopes I don't mean dope isn't cool like [ __ ] idiot yeah like we're grown ass men go and have a fun time playing in the water look at us go we're taking it seriously that is like that's I get that you had a good observation uh when you were putting the movie together you're like they don't really care about the surfing I go what do you mean he goes watching the greatest Surfers of the world is boring yeah they don't care about us doing it no it's the story around it yeah it's like it's that chemistry that's fun it's why like nobody cares about me going to get a smoothie but that was like that happened probably 200 of my 800 Vlogs I do that every morning but it's like seeing if that's my thing every day seeing I have to have a little relationship with the girls that make it and the owner of the place and like they eventually put my [ __ ] face up on the wall of juice press which my friend then sold my face is still up all I got for that was a [ __ ] hot sauce [ __ ] I love your video with the uh the Drone and like the mission of you having to get it back that's like one of my favorite videos because it was just stupid it was the most inconsequential nothingness but like we've all been obsessed about something that is meaningless to everyone else yeah no one gives a [ __ ] but if you care and you can communicate that that's exciting yeah like that's fun that's [ __ ] great and like for me New York City is that everywhere I go like one of my favorite videos I made this year is about um I think it's called like New York City Insanity that's some generic title like that which is me hanging around the city doing nothing and like I linked up with that kid who takes the city bikes off of jumps and stuff oh yeah City by Boys yeah yeah by the way and but like other [ __ ] happens and my favorite scene in that is when he's trying to jump a garbage can and this woman you know the city does this thing where they give people who don't have access to jobs they give them jobs changing garbage bags and things like that one of those non-profits this woman comes over to this old lady and the garbage games in the middle of the [ __ ] street with a jump in front of it and she goes up to it and she starts changing the and I'm like I was like I was like no no no we're just we're feeling she's like oh and like it wasn't mad because she was because she's trying to do her job yeah she wasn't pissed off because she's like got a tough tough she had dealt with a tough hand yeah and we're goofing off she was just psyched yeah she was [ __ ] and I was like that's the movie like that energy is the movie like the end of that video there's a thing where he's in the East Village and he's jumping the bike and he's like going up the wall and smashing off the bars of someone's [ __ ] bedroom window and come through a wall ride and he does that and all of a sudden the window comes flying open the girl goes what the [ __ ] was that he does it again she goes this is awesome she comes out to watch it and it's just like my God like I'm editing that video and I'm like [ __ ] applauding the whole time because I want to do a bigger jump and I was like what do you need he's like I need wood and I was like where did we get wood and he's like maybe a scaffolding we find guys putting up a scaffolding I was like can we borrow but you know they're like yeah YouTuber and I was like yeah yeah and like I was like grandpa or something like we'll setting up for you [ __ ] construction workers hired to put up scaffolding they're in the middle of Fourth Street Building ramps for us yeah we broke one they were psyched yeah like that thing like that for me is like when I say a story punches me in the face it's like that woman trying to change a garbage bag I see that and I'm like the world needs to know about you you're the Spike Lee of YouTube Bro yes I love that you get a New York Brooke [ __ ] just the like this city it is my muse on a level that's like like I fall asleep thinking about this like the apartment we live in right now all I remember about it when we went and looked at the apartment was the view and then we moved in and I was like Candace this place is really nice and she's like you looked at it three times and all I did we looked at the front window straight to the window like facing the guys against the glass like that deep breath close your left eye you can see the Empire State Building like that no joke are you ever a victim of your own success in the city because so much of the beauty of your movies is the authenticity but when people are around you because you're so successful so famous now it might be difficult to be authentic I mean New Yorkers so like there's this video going around today of um what's his name is Dick yeah big dick come on the comedian yeah yeah yeah and he like kind of flips out and like hits somebody but that dude was a pain in the ass that's what I'm saying stop yeah that happened so seldom yeah in this same most New Yorkers are good about that the reason why you know it's a New Yorker you know it's a tourist of Taurus comes running I was like can I get a selfie Joshua come here he said it's fine Joshua sorry to interrupt Joshua and like that's a Taurus a New Yorker [ __ ] with your contest yeah and then they take off yeah yeah they want nothing from this yeah and like I love that I was watching a pod you did right before you moved back here and you said the second time I do New York I know how to do it and not be so I think was like consumed by the work have you been able to do New York in a in a quote-unquote better way the second time yeah yeah I'm not as good at working and I'm struggling I struggle with that what do you mean I mean like for me it's like it's like if you're a ditch digger I've been a ditch digger if you're a ditch digger you start digging a ditch throw the shovel down go get lunch go to sleep go to [ __ ] Hawaii come back a week later ditches right where you left to pick the shovel up you go back but for me making videos is more like Sisyphus pushing that [ __ ] Stone up the hill where it's like the minute I stop pushing it rolls down my back the bottom if I go away and come back I'm at the bottom of the hill and every time it's like starting from it's very hard to find that momentum so if it's every day I gotta post a video I can ride that wave like till I'm [ __ ] dead I will ride that wave you can't just pop in every few weeks and make something and that was the strain the first time right that's why you had to leave New York yeah it's kind of a compulsivity that is like um can be sublimated it can be harnessed in a really positive way but turning it on and off is so [ __ ] hard for me so what do you do well luckily like I don't have um I'm very fortunate not to have the financial burden suggestion do you just work on longer projects so you always have someone to work on can't do long projects either really don't have the attention span interesting none yeah I don't like it I like to make I like to I Love The instant gratification of YouTube That's not just making a video in a day or two or in a week yeah but then releasing it to an audience and then within seconds yeah feeling that knowing that people are viewing it and then you get to see them talking about it that's why stand-ups like stand up to tell the joke yeah and like that feeling that gives me I've worked on Long projects I've made shows that take a year plus I made movies that took years and years and years like no this is what I love but that on and off switch I underestimated how challenging it would be and it's what like we were talking about earlier like now these things that I want to do and it requires me hiring people yeah if I have somebody working for immediately my focus is on management getting the most out of our professional relation and like I'm not making movies yeah so like sitting in my office alone that's why I don't do meetings why I don't do phone calls that's why I've been blowing you off to do this podcast for how many months now like it just means I know it's like well I'll get something done in the morning take a quick break come back to it it's like no the day's gone most likely the week's gone yeah and so finding that balance has been challenging but I think like I'm getting I'm getting much better yeah because if the options are I do a vlog every day puts a strand on my marriage or I don't really know how to work it's a it's an important balance to find I would assume because clearly it's yeah it's it's existential yeah I'm also just so good at [ __ ] off because I can be so busy and do nothing are you like I made a plywood computer it took me three weeks there's no Roi on that there is nothing I just was like my laptop and then I've got a monitor and my hard drive and then there's my mouse I'm like it's like my whole table has all this [ __ ] on it I was like what I want is like a unit that's self-contained I start drawing it up and I was like I'll just done by dinner three weeks later just like that it's amazing you should see my plywood computer it's got a [ __ ] handle on it like a boom box three weeks this is in L.A this is here in my office oh wow I wanted to build a tree fort for my kids in my office this is what you blew off the [ __ ] podcast for yeah little arts and crafts yeah you should see the tree fort I built for the girls it's unbelievable they've got a patio I can't wait they've got carpet they've got TV up there yeah they've got a system like [ __ ] Swiss Family Robinsons where they can pull up their food on pulleys the kids come to my office they got a place to chill now yeah no return on that investment that was months well that's kids happiness the plywood computers it's my happiness yeah yeah also like sometimes like I have a TV in my office you could just click play on anything and it's just you just go to HBO max.com you know how many movies are on there no one's telling me not to is your TV show on there well technically they lost their um the window was like five years so I got it back so I could do something oh [ __ ] I just don't have to re-licens all those songs yeah it's kind of annoying Dan's done some stuff with it he did yeah he's probably like segments of it that were really intimate to him and just contextualize them and things like that yeah I always think about revisiting it but like like I was telling the story about the rocket ship and my wife and like how that [ __ ] me up yeah if I start watching videos from 2007 like I will lose myself really oh yeah why why I don't know the same way like I have photo albums in my office from like back in the day he's a point and shoot instead of like four iPhones and stuff and if I start looking at those pictures days gone yeah get lost in it interesting like I love Nostalgia is my favorite emotion yeah so if I can like stressed app on the iPhone oh yeah it's the photo app yeah if I can conjure um nostalgia I'll just like a warm hot tub just [ __ ] send it I love it if I can make myself cry make myself smile you're the best it's like if I need to pull up a video like I have every shot that I've ever taken back to like 2012 I can pull it up within minutes it's so perfectly like Dewey Decimal System across the world you have all the raw footage everything never never leave the clip and when I need to do that like it it takes me five minutes to find the clip and then eight or nine hours of watching old video clips yeah so yeah so if I start watching the HBO show I'm gonna lose like van keeps telling me to watch the respectability tour he's like it's so good and I don't remember it I Remember Broad strokes but like I don't remember the specifics of it I'm curious what's the story behind the glasses well I started I mean there's a number of answers but the most honest one is just like one time somebody asked Jack Nicholson like why do you wear sunglasses indoors and Jack Nicholson's like without my sunglasses on just another fat old guy with my sunglasses I'm Jack Nicholson so me without my sunglasses I'm just like a funny looking guy and with my sunglasses I'm Jack Nicholson so you're trying to be Jack Nicholson really just at the end of the day yeah but the reason why it started was because um like and I made a video about this but like if you look at your cameras there if you flip around the screen so it faces you yeah like oh it's one of my least favorite things about when YouTubers do they're talking to camera but their line of sight is off yeah it's just like it means they're watching themselves and it's like you [ __ ] vain yeah monster you're pretending to talk to me I know you're looking at yourself yeah fixing your [ __ ] hair so I can keep my face to camera my eyes are over here so I did it for like a really practical reason oh wow Hydra vanity yeah and then it just or just to make me seem more authentic you know like I'm actually checking my framing at all times but it looks like I'm looking in the lens but then it just kind of became part of it and then I just owned it and then if you really want to go deep what my therapist said before I fired her because the glasses are a way of like never having to like really put my real self out there it's like a way of always keeping like a layer between me and the world which is healthy really I think so I think it's beautiful but that sounds way too like intellectualized kind of the point of your your documentary that you made though is like this thing can swallow you up and there needs to be some you need to be somewhat grounded in this world of I think so blogging and all that so these sunglasses provide me with that yeah good job firing her I think that we've realized she's a [ __ ] idiot yeah lady I don't pay you to tell me the truth those scripts and let me leave you know um people have been good too yeah all the stories you've told me so far in one and that's some stuff with family at home are about people that let you live with them people you moved in on people were there for you in a situation where you were in need and they've constantly looked out for you people You observe in the city you find these amazing characters and people doing the most mundane things like changing a garbage can it's quite interesting that you come from a situation that's quite tumultuous your parents you could have a lot of resentment for what you saw yet you find so much love and appreciation in humanity like it seems like everything that you've curated is look how awesome these people I get to interact with on a daily basis are what do you think about us as a species as human beings most people are awesome yeah like I think most people are just [ __ ] great almost everyone like you travel around the world like everyone's [ __ ] great I don't think you get like a little bit of Fame oh my God yeah yeah they get really nice like I know you asked a sincere question but like the one thing about Fame is a lot of bad sides but the one thing about Fame is I get to understand what it must be like to be a really [ __ ] beautiful woman you know what I mean like you spend time with a beautiful woman like a normal woman like like a supermodel like I'm friends I know some and like everyone stares you show up at a restaurant it's like of course we have a table for like whatever you need the [ __ ] C Parts yeah when you're that beautiful of a woman I I have to give you pushback here people respect you I was not taking this to a place of it's my looks that grant me no my point is the way that they're treating those supermodels has nothing to do with them respecting their brains respecting their creativity I appreciate that nothing the reason why you're getting that love like if I was one of those supermodels I would [ __ ] hate it I'd resent all them I'd like you just think I'm a whole everybody wants to just [ __ ] me whereas they like what you do and what you create and the way that you make them feel that's why you're getting that kindness that's why you're getting that warmth they're giving it back to you you've made them feel that way well I appreciate that and I was gonna just [ __ ] put an asterisk at the end of the supermodel thing which is like I understand there's a lot of negativity to that like yeah I think Brooke Shields maybe some famous beautiful who's now wrote a whole book was just reading the synopsis in New York Times about how hard it was to be young and beautiful because that's all you're ever judged for sure this is an experience I know nothing about it yeah I've never had to worry about being judged for my beauty but like No And that what you're describing is real and like like my [ __ ] the guy in my garage who Parks my car like he knows my videos yeah like yesterday we're in New Jersey bringing my kids back from a water park and like we pull up to get gas and like the window goes down I was like hey can you fill it up with regular please sir and he's like yeah YouTube and I was like yes and he was like psyched and like I no I love that get the best version of people Norm Macdonald had a great uh you know observation about it he's like my life has been so incredible because the people have been excited to meet me constantly throughout my life and I get the best version of they're happy yeah they're smiling like most people go through their day and they're kind of frustrated maybe angry they're disappointed things they had to go through but when they meet me they smile so for me to complain about Fame would be [ __ ] ridiculous and I loved that take because it's so easy for like celebs to get caught up in this oh someone asked me for a picture when I didn't want to take one it's just like that is the focus not the fact that you get joy from every human being that you meet yeah I mean yeah I mean I probably take depending on how much I'm outside you know I take a lot of selfies always happy to and like I can think of one I've said No I say no when I'm with my kids I say no yeah if it means taking my eyes off of my children yeah and it's just like the idea that something could happen in that moment yeah but like I there's only been one time where like it's I where there's been like an incident because I've said no what happened we were at Ikea and Franny was like a little newborn baby she's like two months old and she's hysterically crying yeah and there was like this grown man he wasn't a child grown man and he was like harassing me for a picture I was like I'm really sorry I certain with the kid and he's like I'm with my baby and the baby is screaming and like you're red in the face the wife's freaking out and it's like all this and he just was so persistent he was like I just want a picture and he was like and then he got like a little bit of like Candace started freaking out at him and he got aggressive about that and there's a baby and it was just like that moment was really like I remember that moment but that's once yeah yeah I think like five selfies today that was once I've only said no to a picture one time the kid thing is completely different but it was just someone who who said uh they they said uh they're like yo I was like what's up man and then they went yo come here they were like sitting down and I was walking and I was like that's not how this goes you know it was something about the person didn't even know my name and I'm walking here yeah yo get over here while I'm still have my pasta in my hand I was like yeah that's nice you know who's the best at that is Logan Paul really is he he delivers his nose which are much more like go [ __ ] yourself yeah with such like Grace and charm yeah but it's unbelievable like I was with him in in like we're at the beach yeah and this mom comes over and she's like I want you to take a picture with my kids yeah and the way he shut her down was unbelievable where I promise you she left being like he was hysterical let me tell you the story oh really but it was so well done and he is so crass about it given his fans are all like that's a much younger much more male demo like mine mine are all like adults yeah and it's harder with adults because there is a level of respect and like appreciation his are just [ __ ] kids yeah but like he is so good and so funny about that yeah it is it is a trait to be admired do you remember what he told the lady no but I remember when he went away and then the kids came back and they're like you're just talking to my mom he's like kid how old's your mom and like that shut the kids up yeah I don't know it just seems like such a little thing I literally never say no I just feel like it's the tiniest it's just you stop when people touch me it's hard don't like when somebody puts their arm around you that's a little bit yeah people touch you by the side it makes me very uncomfortable they pull you in yeah yeah I don't know what what it is oh yeah hot super motto yeah like when you can smell someone's breath it's oh you have like a proximity thing dude nothing I never thought I did then like when I'm like arguing with my wife and somebody comes up and asks for a picture and I think I'd be more than happy or know how lucky she is right now take another and then I make my wife take it she's not busy oh my God I do have technique that I would encourage you to embrace yeah I estimate that I've reclaimed years worth of my life you take the picture always always I tear the phone out of their hand with like a [ __ ] 42nd Street [ __ ] pickpocketers level of prison with aggression yep most people like especially when they're like from the Midwest they're here on vacation yeah I can open any phone Android flip phone iPhone any jet I can get it to selfie faster than you can because the worst thing in the world is a stranger they take out their phone they get their face next to yours and they're waiting for something oh yeah and you're like hand shaking they're nervous what the [ __ ] are you waiting for right now what are they wearing taste your breath they're waiting for like the right frame or for both of you just they don't take selfies what kind of a sociopath normally takes selfies all women at Coachella but if you do it yeah it's just like I can get in and out because I don't give a [ __ ] if you have a bad picture yeah I know I look good next I know exactly that's why you really do it I get the arm far away never low down never close yeah boom boom boom boom boom and usually their mouth is open asking me mid questions gone back in their hand and I'm out the other thing too is when someone comes up like his search like I've always wanted to meet you and I just it's like brother I appreciate you but I know you're here for the picture oh do you know what I mean sometimes they're not not like in my seldom sometimes yeah we're talking like minuscule percentage points here mostly it's just what they want and I understand it's like I think it's very respectful they want to be respectful and have a conversation not make it a transaction yeah but I want to get back to him you want the transaction yeah just because I'm sufficiency yeah usually I'm in the middle of something yes so and it's it's no big deal I'm not trying to be insulting or anything like that I respect them the same way but it's just like I'll be like you want a picture and they're like oh I'd love one I didn't know if I should and it's like yeah so it's like if I can take that burden away from the awkwardness of this that's very cool of you yeah you just say it because you can tell they're a little shy I remember I was at the airport with my wife and there was a she takes those Peloton classes there was an instructor that she like loves and then I was like say something to her and then my wife was like hey hi and she's like kind of nervous and the girl just goes hi which I get that was a little awkward and then my wife was like I just want to let you know I really love taking your classes and I just it's really nice to meet you and then the girl goes okay and then I was like yo you're a f i mean like I've seen this guy I get recognized sometimes I've seen this guy get recognized thousands of times always humility magnanimity or however you say it same with you and then when someone does that you look at them forever and you're just like yo you suck yeah how's that Peloton stock doing now there you go there you go it goes like this those moments for those people for someone who takes all that guts to go up and ask yeah they're gonna remember that for the rest of you so even though you're gonna forget about it in a second with respect like it's you know you do it a lot and it's they're a stranger to you but you're not a stranger to them yeah so no I would say yeah with very few and even when I'm with my kids I don't say no I say not when I'm with my children yeah yeah and if someone doesn't understand that then they can just go [ __ ] themselves yeah and I don't care but at least in that moment they're like no he was with his kids you get a selfie now he's with his kids uh you know have your kids ever been like why do you take the pictures when they're hot do they say that like I thought you don't take pictures Daddy but then when they're hot and they're huge fat tits like all of a sudden you have time I do find myself I do find myself almost always being nicer to girls than to men because I imagine that way [Laughter] [Music] no my kids my older daughter not only does she recognize it but she has since figured out who I am on YouTube oh so she's watching yes she loves like she's watches all the old videos to break down and understand her I don't know that it's awesome call me in like 10 years and I will let you know yeah but like she's figured it out and then also like our kids aren't allowed to have social media we never post their picture we get mad at my mother-in-law and she posts my kids on Facebook like it's just because we want them to have a fighting chance man we're just [ __ ] trying here and my little daughter like when someone asks for a selfie she wants to be in it oh because she wants to be a part of it so it's like literally there are so many pictures of the top of her head jumping up to try to be over just her little blonde hair comes in because I'm like they're like I have a selfie and I'll be like ah not when I'm and if it's a kid it's so it's a grown man like not when I'm with when it's like an eight-year-old it's like and I'm with Franny and she's like you can have a picture you can have a picture of my dad yeah come here and then the kid comes over like a squats out to the picture and Freddy like sticks her face in it and I was like push her head like movers like put my hand in front of her face and take the picture yeah but it's like for her it's it's become normal yeah it's excited yes I don't know how that's gonna manifest in adulthood for her but we try really hard to forget the questions about the old movies and like oh what about when you and Mom were doing this and and if you can quote them did she ask you difficult questions that you can't really answer sometimes she's not allowed to watch my videos in front of me and my wife enforces that too it's just too much man it's just [ __ ] does your wife ever show her videos and like see he's a dick like you don't know he's a dick because you didn't watch his video but look what he no she doesn't she doesn't need to yeah she just yeah she doesn't my wife has plenty we had children and he was trying to get into bike accidents my wife has unlimited material beyond the videos for that but no it's just strange and my wife recognizes this strangeness of it so no like we she still watches the videos and we'll like pick out details and like especially when she when she was a little baby she was in the videos and when she started like babies all look the same when they're babies and when she started to look a little bit more distinct like nine months you want to maintain the anonymity as much as we can um I think this is your fault my wife loves these ASMR videos and I think they're so popular because they all kind of steal your style of editing which is like open the drawer put the toothbrush in the door close the door shot shot you're cooking here's the onion chop the onion put the onion on the thing I I watch your videos and I was like this [ __ ] is the reason these ASMR videos are successful and they're ruining my marriage there's something like maybe she just wants you to whisper wow um there's something very like calming about watching process based videos dude I can't I go nuts you don't have the attention I don't it's something that my skin is crawling as it's happening I'm like yo get to something please it's an ASMR when they're like [ __ ] chewing on tick tocks of the microphone I think that's oh that's it but there's uh yeah there's ones where they're like cooking and you like hear everything of the onions yeah the oil yeah there's like a guy who goes camping I love that dude technology no no there's just setting up his [ __ ] it's the best of a few of those guys that I watch me too and they're just 20 minute videos setting it up and he's like opens up his little folding stove and he's like making rice not a word it's not a single [ __ ] people I'm upset that I can't remember the name of the guy right now because I want to give him a shot shout out what men with the pot no no there's another guy who cooks out in nature have you seen this guy with like the kind of no blade knife it's like a square almost kind of butcher blade knife those are cooler than this guy the guy here's the same car as me like you said like try like Land Rover Defender camping amsr Ace smrr yeah and like it's just the process and it is so nice your [ __ ] heart rate slows down uh [ __ ] I don't know man no that's not it oh God make it stop camp camping am I a uh in any event he's great there's a guy that also creates uh it's not just camping like he doesn't put up the tenses up he like creates structures to sleep in so he'll do it in a cave he'll do it I like that yeah it is me what's it called maybe let me see this is the same genre but I don't think it's this guy this is go for go four by four he's got a Jeep he drives a Jeep yeah but this is the yeah this like I [ __ ] [ __ ] the whole points the volume yeah I know oh okay oh my God this is why I can't work with anybody no no this guy's got music yeah this [ __ ] music's wrecking this [Laughter] oh wait no the music's gone this I'll watch this for days I'm already dude I can't you know what I mean like I'm there with him maybe do you like camping I mean I've never been camping but I imagine yeah isn't that crazy I mean I drove across country and slept in my truck the whole way but I've never done this but like this is Camp I'll watch this for like an hour do you watch the winter stuff sometimes I watch them okay there's this one channel it's like these two girls they know exactly what they're doing with how they dress you know what I mean there's no accidents in how they're dressed or the random thumbnails they pick of course of course but it's that plus very attractive young women instead of going down the rabbit hole you're about to be in like the van life videos with the girls have you watched those yet that's crazy I just did it's a very slippery slope but no I've been deleting my Instagram the I followed way too many like attractive women yeah camping it's just a combination of things that I find compelling yes yes you want to watch a man camp or you want to watch a woman Camp well it's just if I find a very healthier process to just simply watch men Camp yes my focus is on the camping right where it should be yes so all the people that want the daily Vlogs back it's the girls camping that's that's a stopwatch that's why Instagram yes it's just I am highly susceptible to distractions would you ever do that again the daily vlog I don't know I don't know that I'm capable of it but I do fan what are you doing some stuff I was just looking put that away there's no way this is even oh I can this is camping come on YouTube algorithm I just wanted to watch a guy set up his Jeep I can get distracted by this oh wow Jesus Christ yeah so in any event oh look at that split so in any event oh God slippery slope and um I'll tell you what else is slippery I just want to sip out of that now there's a five dudes just watching women she does yoga let's go dude camping is awesome did you think for a second she wasn't gonna do yoga did that even cross your mind that she might not oh my goodness that's how you sit down wow can you please close the solo Teddy see how distracted whoa that frame that's the thumbnail that is just that is the thumbnail what is her name what is it I don't know Teddy slow solo Teddy gotcha okay good good well listen Casey um do you have any other YouTube suggestions before we get out of here silly picks do you have any kids in sports should we check out Wiki feet no but that's my wife's biggest threat what is that whenever there's like a fight about money or something she's like I'll just start selling pictures of my feet and I'm like I don't know what you're talking dude I thank the Lord every day that I was not blessed or cursed with whatever an attraction defeat is what are you talking about oh never mind your wife got nice feet that's not a coincidence see my feet look like if Fred Flintstone like it fell into a [ __ ] blender yeah like my feet my feet are just they're just I'm not allowed to take socks off in the house we're not talking about our feet but like my wife is very you know she's she's my wife is a very beautiful woman and but feet I just if you're talking about beauty like there are so many aspects of the female form that is just yes and fun is yeah no we're not denying I mean things are also true yeah what do you want like she's just a very well proportioned beautiful female form yes but like there's a lot about her that's stunningly supports that form though you know what I mean what is it all standing on yeah good feet should be wobbling around like an [ __ ] excellent balance but a feet thing is just I just don't get it you don't understand it that's fine clearly listen it's not all of us thanks for having me this has been fantastic guys guys

Channel: FLAGRANT

Views: 1,819,352

Keywords: andrew schulz, andrew schultz, comedy, comedian, stand up, flagrant 2, sports, entertainment, pop culture, commentary, comedy club, near me, jokes, interviews, akaash singh, alexxmedia, alexx media, alex media, eddin, eddin media, Thankyoueddin

Id: sdUzors72GQ

Length: 172min 2sec (10322 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/ScottsdaleUnited1]

It’s a good one. I liked it.

[u/KNYLJNS]

Casey (obviously) is the top 5 best storyteller of all time.

[u/ApolloFarZenith]

No way omg i may finally listen

[u/Abepagalhaikya]

Amazing episode. Fucking great

[u/OtherImplement]

Who is the artist Neistat mentions, Healy — my quick google brings up a poet which doesn’t seem right

[u/CornBreadEarL84]

I’m actually listening to this now - I’ve always appreciated his insight tbh

[u/philolover7]

it just amazes me the vocab Casey uses. he picks his words with lazer-focus precision and intention that I wonder whether he would be a good intellectualist some day.