Mark Normand: Comedy! | Lex Fridman Podcast #255

the following is a conversation with mark normand a new york comedian who has a way with words that is often both dark and hilarious let that be a warning dear friends to proceed with caution and to wear protection you may in fact need it he has a special on his youtube called out to lunch and a new special on netflix as part of the stand up season 3 series i recommend you watch this is the lex friedman podcast to support it please check out our sponsors in the description and now here's my conversation with mark normand i asked him dylan about bukowski first so let me continue on that tradition and ask you about something that charles bukowski said about love wait are we rolling yes oh geez no hello no nothing nope i thought i was robotic buckowski said love is a fog that burns away with the first daylight of reality so uh mark norman let me first ask you about love uh what are your thoughts about love you talk about your relationships quite a bit do you think love can last i do but i think it's work everybody wants love to be this pre-packaged perfect euphoric thing but it you gotta it's like a good body you know we're all born with a good body but you gotta keep it in shape and it's the same with a loving relationship i think you uh nobody wants to do the work that's the problem you talked about i think you told a story about being unfaithful to a previous girlfriend or something like that i think the story goes that you were like drifting apart who are you talking to bert crusher maybe or something like that yeah high school sweethearts dated for like 12 years and then so that wasn't love anymore that was more like relation that was like it was comfort it was routine and uh we just slipped into that kind of married life autopilot world and uh i tried to break up i think and it didn't take it was one of those things our lives were just so baked in and then i think i uh cheated and she caught me and it was ugly and then we went to therapy to try to work it out but it's it's much like a car that gets into a wreck the door just never closed the same you know what i mean yeah so what are your thoughts about then um commitment like outside of love marriage i think it's an antiquated idea i think it's kind of silly and unrealistic and i think we're coming out of that as we get all polyamorous and non-binary and queefy and all this stuff i think we're slowly moving away from that but uh i think a lot of the ladies more majority women like marriage like the idea of it like i'm i'm i'm a fiance now or whatever you call it i'm engaged and i mean she is just going hog wild she's loving it she's got the dress thing pick a venue flow and she's she's deep in whereas i feel guilty because i'm just like oh geez is it planned already where's the wedding you see squid game i'm just living life uh yes it's it's uh planned it's in new orleans i'm from there and uh it's next year are you married no single virgin of course yeah i can't imagine i bet you'd be great in bed you ripped i had the best hairline in podcasting yeah i don't know i haven't tried yet so we'll have to see all right well let me know pretty big hog on you yeah i could see you packing a crazy crazy tool downtown that matters to girls apparently yeah that's all i hear about okay new orleans you grew up in new orleans yeah born and raised treme outside the french quarter you ever been yeah don't remember it oh you drink yeah i drink of course i drink i don't know i can't tell if you have fun no not really but russia i mean russian of course i drink all that kind of stuff beer was just labeled an alcoholic beverage in 2011. fun fact what do you mean in russia it was just drinks it was just like apple juice before it finally got declared legally as an alcoholic beverage which means you can regulate it that kind of thing i guess so yeah see that's where your brain goes yeah yeah i just go out of these [ __ ] ruskies i didn't even know there's rules about drinking that's good i'm learning about russia from you so um what's the difficult memory experience from childhood in new orleans that uh made you the man you are today um i don't know if it made me the man but uh jeez i had a lot of uh s scuffles in the neighborhood with i was the white kid in the neighborhood so i was uh automatically the odd man out the minority the weirdo the dork the dweeb the honky so uh just a lot of memories of like getting slapped in the face by guys and just having to take it because there's like five guys there and they'd be like oh look you don't even fight back and you're like what am i gonna do hit you and then get beat up by these guys so a lot of that stuff was a big bummer growing up got robbed all the time lost a lot of bicycles had a bicycle taken from under me that was pretty brutal uh these kids pulled up you know they're like 17 and i was 13 and i had a face paint on like i had a not black face but i was at a summer camp and i had a a rainbow face painted on me we were helping kids that day so i let them put paint on me and uh so now i'm riding home what a mark what uh what a goober i am i'm riding home and these guys see me a mile away i'm a sitting duck and they go we can take his bike he's got a [ __ ] rainbow on his cheek so uh they just go hey you're like cut in front of ya they go let me try your bike i go i'm good i'm good i knew what they wanted and uh they go let me try the bike and then just push me and took the bike so stuff like that was really uh shaping the insecurity the self-worth did it uh because i've been mugged when i was younger too really yeah it changes your view of human nature a little bit for sure you go wow i didn't know people could be this mean this yeah yeah inconsiderate i'm always worried about it did i fart too much am i annoying am i pissing this guy off but what a way to live just i want the bike i'm taking it [ __ ] his feelings for me that quickly turned into um realizing that that's just a temporary phase that those folks are in like they there's a they have a capacity to be good sure for some reason for me that was a motivation to see can we discover can can we incentivize them to find like a better path in life like i i wasn't like all like i don't know gandhi about it you know of course i was pissed and all those kinds of things but i don't know it seemed like just the kind of thing you might do when you're younger yeah hope what is adult crime obviously yeah i know but yeah exactly and then it solidifies and then you're beyond saving at some point but it's like there's always there's always an opportunity to uh to make a better uh life for yourself to to become a better version of yourself yeah and i remember coming home crying with no bike and my mom she's my parents are like liberal to a fault yeah you know where they were like oh well they need it they're poor kids in the neighborhood you're like all right but i i also like i have a bicycle that uh i ride around you know and i also like to live in an area that's not just you know riddled with uh theft and vandalism but they were like oh they need it and then it was it was a moot point we just moved on so i remember very young being like all right i gotta figure my [ __ ] out okay so you said you were beat up quite a bit like bullying and stuff pushed around i was never hospitalized or anything but you know you get a black guy here and there and a bloody nose stuff like that and it was just the outnumbered thing the violence didn't really bother me because you're just kids you're boys yeah but it was the predatory let's get him you know we can take him down he's you know he's an easy target that's what kills you yeah the mental part yeah you know until you actually said i didn't realize i've been in what do you call them scuffles and uh there's just one that stands out to me where yeah let's hear it fatty bring it on and you do jujitsu and all that stuff right yeah you can see the guns through the suit you're like john wick all right uh all right well i used to have now you're gonna start making fun of me i used to have long hair for for like a couple years i was in a band playing music and stuff like that and there was um like most of the fights i've been in were basically one-on-one maybe a little bit like a little extra stuff but not outnumbered and this one particular time i've learned a lot of lessons but one of them was i there's the fight started between me and this other person and then uh his buddies i guess were there uh-oh and they as opposed to like breaking up or letting it happen um one of them grabbed my hair it's the first time anybody grabbed like use my hair in a fight which i've since then realized that that's actually a really powerful grip and a powerful weapon oh very vulnerable of you and then my uh head got pulled back and they pulled me down to the guard like i couldn't do anything so i remember being exceptionally frustrated yeah like that was the feeling like i can't do anything here i'm like trapped and then they they were just like kicking me and hitting me and stuff like that and the outnumbered part of it um because i always kind of remember the trapped part because i just hated from a fighting grappling perspective how like like the feeling was this isn't fair yes that's what it is it's a deep deep unfairness yeah that you just can't you can't win the mob wins yeah the mob wins scary stuff and but it makes a mix of man out of it a weird way that builds character you realize life isn't fair early and you you go on from there yeah so there's something there and look at you today they're probably uh you know eaten out of a dumpster at a krispy kreme and you're here got eight podcasts yeah you're doing great talking to the giant titans of the industry no i i do remember returning home that night i mean that you said you were crying that's really formative like oh yeah that's the point in which you get to decide what do i make of this moment i mean especially when you're younger maybe it's not presented to you that way but like some of the greatest people in history were bullied in these kinds of ways and they made something of themselves in this moment like bully by life in some kind of way it's like an opportunity for growth it's um it's weird but like hardship even in small doses is like an opportunity for growth totally i mean look at richard pryor they say he's labeled as the best community of all time grew up in a whorehouse watch his mom get plowed by these guys in in the middle of indiana i want to say and uh just who had a harder life he would suck dick for drugs all this stuff growing up beat up and uh then the weird thing is oops sorry that's my birth control alarm and then the uh the whole world is like trying to get rid of bullying but we still do bullying but now it's accepted bullying it's very strange so you're uh your proponent of uh beating kids up is that yes and sex with them all right but no uh i just think it's part of life and it's horrible it is it's like rain you gotta have it look a rainy day is a bummer you know but you need it and uh i think it's similar to that what was your relationship like with your uh your mom your dad well what are some memorable moments with them what did you learn from them good parents the giving thoughtful uh a little out to lunch you know they were workaholics so there was it was hard to get a lot out of them and my dad was kind of an angry dad i think he just had like a weird childhood and he's just trying to make it he's trying to provide but it's hard and we live in this horrible neighborhood and we're getting robbed all the time um so life was kind of coming down on him all the time so then he'll take it out on you or whoever he would snap but great parents they cared they put us first um but there wasn't a lot of how do you see you know you ever go to a friend's house as a kid and there's like a picture of a ski trip and you're like ski trip what the hell is that about you know it was a lot of that and smart very smart people but i don't know how well they were at uh socializing so you never like bonded with them like on a deep human level like some bonnie but it rarely deep yeah it was just you know almost co-worker hey cold out huh what it's cold out huh oh yeah like that kind of stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah i gotcha get there a little bit but it my parents and i hope they never saw this but they would do a thing where my dad especially would do a thing where he would uh he knew how to cut you down right to the bone and so after a while you're like i'm not gonna interact with this guy because he he can get you so well one time we were at a uh like a thanksgiving some kind of family of event and all the cousins are there and i remember i was holding court i was a young boy finding my comedic legs in this weird tumultuous sea we call a family and i was killing and um my dad comes up and goes what are you holding court and i was like ah and i felt like i was this big i just shrunk down he just nailed it because in my head i'm like i'm holding court look at me i got the whole room and he goes what are you what are you holding cord here yeah like who the hell do you think you are and i was like he's right i should be holding guard who the [ __ ] am i i'm nobody so uh stuff like that was he aware that you think he wasn't he wasn't i don't think he was but do you do you give um parents a pass when they're unaware of the destructive like is it better when they're unaware because it seems like that's the way that's true that's why the way parents often fail is they're not intentionally malevolent they're just like clueless yeah it's a bittersweet thing cause you're like well okay he's not malicious he's not trying to hurt me but also he doesn't know he hurt me i don't know it's it's tough because if he was trying to hurt you i guess that would be worse so you're the fully baked mark norman cake at this point uh what yeah it's a cheap cake do you uh fruit salad you know the sense of self-worth you mentioned i think in your comedy there's a sense like you hate yourself you think i didn't know if that came through [ __ ] i was trying to hide that part god damn it i mean when you like in the privacy of your own mind are you able to love yourself or is it mostly self-hate oh jeez what happened to this podcast i didn't know it was on uh mr or dr phil dr phil i thought we were going to talk about engineering and and climate change and rockets uh we'll get there okay starts with love goes to rockets all right i like that i like that's a t-shirt um i mean like what's the question sorry do i feel love no no like i love myself yeah yeah so are you um like this engine of being self-critical of just being constantly anxious about how the world perceives you these kinds of things is this something that you just go to for for comedy or is this who you are as a human being i think i i don't want to explore it i think i get around it you know i tap dance around it but i get it out a little with my act maybe because i i can't do it i'm not doing it in real life so i'll get out this uh no love not loving myself i don't know who wants to love himself everybody always said you got to love yourself and then when you meet somebody who does love yourself you're like i [ __ ] hate this guy don't you hate the guy who's upset i'm great i'm awesome life is good like ah this guy sucks i'd rather an insecure guy so maybe i want to stay insecure maybe i don't want to find this love for myself well okay so self love like just appreciating who you are like appreciating the moment of being grateful doesn't have to express itself by the guy saying i'm awesome true it's more just like humility he's just like walking calmly to the world and just being grateful to be alive that kind of thing and just good and like being appreciative of all the accomplishments he made so far i say all this because mostly i'm extremely self-critical in everything i do and so uh and i kind of enjoy it i think it's a nice little engine that it makes it fun it makes life fun because it's like if you hate everything you do like you've done in the past that gives you like all right we can do better yes but that's the key is making itself critical always trying to get better i could change this i could tweak this i can improve this when you just go i hate that i do this i suck you just shut down so that's the key is is always being productive with the uh with the criticism yeah and the basics of life i'm just like grateful for it to be alive that's nice to be a couple like couple that with uh two legs again the hairline the hog the muscles the the the world you got a good brain on you i mean you're you're lucky you're in the top you know most people are fat as [ __ ] at burger king right now hitting their kids yeah you're in a ramada hotel sitting with the you know a low-level comedian for the record i ate mcdonald's last night all right well you're human well just you know this is not me defending i'm not sponsored by mcdonald's but i mostly eat meat and there's nothing wrong with the the beef they have it's actually one of the easiest ways late at night i think a two two i don't know if it's actually it's it's actually rats yeah you're right but hey it's just meat i'm a meat guy myself uh they say in 20 years we're going to look back and go uh can you believe people ate meat it's kind of like somebody like slavery yeah there's some ethical difficult things with uh factory farming yeah so let's ride it out now but we still got it and now it's on record tom waits says something about new york you like tom weights i think he's underrated i think he's got great he's got a great uh he's great at quips and quotes check him out on youtube he's got some montages and super cuts of him being hilarious what does he say about um i'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy that was the one that was the one that sold me i was like this guy's awesome yeah but his music because he's just a genius musician yeah anyway he was talking about new york i was walking around this i'm in new york right now we're in new york right now it's still a magical city to me a lot of people are quite cynical about it about the state of things but well not not like michael males like a lot of friends of mine they're just a lot of folks in san francisco and new york there's something about the pandemic where people have become quite cynical about the place they are and they tried to escape it's interesting i mean they're asking some difficult questions about what they are in life they're having like a self-imposed midlife crisis is it's good i think for everybody to go through this process but i think i hope new york reemerges it will as the flourishing place for the weirdos anyway the tom wade said new york of course is to be in endless surreal situations where a 50 000 gunmetal mercedes pulls up in a puddle of blood and outsteps a 25 karat blonde with a two dollar wristwatch and he goes he keeps going on so like it's like um that's like bars he's like a rabbit yeah he's good uh but basically just the absurdity of it all lots of money lots of weirdos uh degenerates and dreamers and the whole the whole mix of it do you think um i think that's an accurate description of what new york is today like is there still place for the weirdos and just the interesting artists the the edgy the comedians the the creators the the the entrepreneurs like as opposed to like wall street as opposed to like rich folk and then like hopeless folk yeah i think it's definitely changed a lot there's a there's a tiny corner for us weirdo artists new york used to be where you went to make it as a painter or whatever a comedian or a singer and there were all these dives and [ __ ] boxes and all these places you could go and now there's now it's more pinkberries and subway sandwiches and chase banks so it's definitely lost a lot of its uh creative edge it's just money money keeps coming in and now you see all these comedians moved to nashville austin denver whatever so uh it doesn't have the the power it used to have of like you gotta be here if you want to make it that's definitely gone uh so that hurt the city a lot the city is is way more soulless when i moved here in 07 i mean not only did i get mugged three times in the first year but it was a hub of like it felt like things were happening here you know it was it was an energy it was electricity and we still have the electricity but it's also maybe just because it's time square there's soho there's uh wall street so we got the staples but there is a little bit of that it's almost like a marriage like yeah we're in love but it's not as passionate as it once was that's how i would equate new york what gives you hope you're pretty hopeful about it though i'm hopeful just because i know it's magical and i and i think it has to be i mean it's the epicenter of america like this is where the immigrants came and this is where the stock market is and the entertainment industry a lot of it is here so i think it's it's gonna happen but it all something like the bottom has to fall out and then people have to move back here and all that so something the corporations are kind of [ __ ] us they're just buying everything well that's true for everything that's awesome for everything it's true for austin probably as well people just buying out land and all that kind of stuff you always hear a hemingway and dali and all these guys went to paris in the 20s or whatever that was yeah i get it now i'd be like why do these guys go to paris you know what are these artists and now i get it because it's like it's freer there that's why austin became like that paris where everybody's like i gotta get out of la i'm going there and uh maybe but we came back from that you know the 70s were wild and 90s were cool so maybe it'll come back might just take a decade well there's always that's how stories are told there's always pockets of like paris within new york right there's just an opportunity to let your weird flourish is there in new york i'm sure they're i mean um it's there you gotta find it before it was front and center what's your favorite thing about new york like what what kind of things just like i mean how long's this pod i could go on it's just it's too much to to put into one hour we've got other questions but i love that one neighborhood is wildly different than the next i'm in little italy and then you take four steps now i'm in chinatown i mean and then the history there and then the stories and the food and the culture and all that and then you go ten feet over here and now you're in brooklyn and this is insane there's a whole other world and it's it's almost like a little america in one you know uh city and it's great and uh just the fact that they pulled it off like fifth avenue goes way up and you're like there's a billionaire's house next to a hobo and then this is a black guy who's fighting with a cuban guy and an asian guy's uh trying to get in the middle of them and the cabbies from uh the middle east and there's so many beautiful women here and there's so many brilliant minds here and and the pace is great it keeps people moving i mean it just you can't beat it i mean the city will [ __ ] you in the ass too don't get me wrong you landed jfk and you're like oh god i got mugged my uh my uber driver called me a homo i stepped in and human [ __ ] where the [ __ ] am i um so yeah it's it's bad news but that bad news it's almost like the bullying it kills you in a weird way but it makes you stronger and you build more layers and layers and layers that's why some new guys some hayseed from milwaukee shows up you've been here 10 years and you go let me let me help you out because uh you're you you gotta adjust you're gonna get your ass kicked for like six months but i know the ropes a little and uh i think you need a little that if the treadmill is not on you're not gonna run new york the treadmill is on so it just makes you run and it makes you better look it wears on you you probably lose 10 years of your life living in new york versus uh you know indianapolis but it's a you know it's a better life have you seen 25th hour yeah um spike lee joint yeah sparkly joy i mean uh at norton there's a there's a whole like monologue there about they're talking about just he he has like a mix it's there's like melancholy music i think or just a melancholy feel to the whole thing but there's an anger and a disgust with the city but through the anger and the disgust comes out like a love for the city same with was taxi driver in new york oh yeah crazy yeah so like that there's something about what is that what is that that uh grit of the city that like pushes you down well that's the beauty of the city is it's this tribal human nature like the sex shops and fist fights and racism and all tension but yet it's the epicenter of technology and finance and sophistication on fifth avenue so you get that juxtaposition it's kind of like in boston you go to boston they got mit they got harvard they got all this [ __ ] and then they got the fishermen the blue-collar douchebags the irish guys the immigrants you know and you get that mix of like insanely smart with wicked pissa and these these two worlds and that's that's a good thing it's like when a black guy [ __ ] an asian lady that's a good looking kid you get a mix you know we're mixing two totally different things they're coming together and it makes it it's like peanut butter and chocolate peanut butter and chocolate i've never tried that what peanut butter maybe i haven't talked about reese's like reese's yeah yeah it's the best candy yeah without the fakeness of la without the without the kind of um with the facade yeah at least tough what's the difference between uh la comedy new york comedy to you um i think one place you kind of go to make it and be discovered and be loved and one place you go you can you can get all that in new york too but i think in new york it's more of a a school a boot camp of comedy let's make great comedy let's make original comedy let's watch the other guys and gals who are at the show at the clubs and learn from them and try to hang out with them and absorb some of them and in la it's like when am i on i'm next get out of my way i'm the star here i'm a bigger star than you oh this guy's actually a big star i gotta outwork you know it's just a lot of that instead of like damn that was funny i gotta be that funny damn i wish i had a joke and look i don't want to speak for la comics because there's you know bill burr anthony jeselnik this brilliant l.a comic but they all cut their teeth in new york just saying then they moved to l.a that's a good point ali wong all these people killer comics but new york started new york moved to new york there is something about comics that stay in new york for a long time though like david towel ah you know about dave yeah yeah he wants to do this podcast he does yeah i'm a huge fan of david oh yeah but it's like it almost like he doesn't want to make it i don't know i mean you probably know him but like it feels like you just maybe it's romanticizing it but you're like you almost just love the art of comedy like becoming funnier crafting the jokes becoming funnier than the other comics like competing with each other kind of thing not over like money or fame or any of that just just purely the comedy of it totally that's dave that's him in a nudge he's like that guy in the movies in the 80s action movies where they're like they go up to a a creek in montana and some guy's living in a cabin and he's sharpening a stick and they go the russians are coming they're invading we need you you're the best commando and he's like i gave that up man i'm done with that lifestyle like well you're the best we need you and he has to suit up eventually you know he looks at a picture of his dead wife and he goes [ __ ] it i'm going and then they you know fight the ruskies but uh he's that guy he just is gifted he's like got a gift from a la and he's the best yeah a lot of comics give him props it's always surprising to me i didn't because surprising to me because he hasn't really made it like big he did in the 90s he was huge he had his own tv show he was yeah yeah that show that show was awesome but i mean like as big as i think he deserves to be so i well that's art the mainstream [ __ ] is always the worst it's like mcdonald's versus some hole in the wall i know i'm [ __ ] on mcdonald's again but it's good and you know certain comics we could name are good but the the delicacy is going to be less talked about and less uh household namey than than the mainstream hacky [ __ ] yeah it's funny because he hasn't uh i think he was on uh joe rogan's show once maybe yeah once again and he was with somebody else um jeff raw yeah he met him with jeff ross oh yeah because they did that like two mikes thing with mike's yeah yeah um but he's the quickest guy there's no one funnier yeah yeah yeah him and you you're super quick get your appearance on recent appearance on roguelike solutions oh thanks just so fast you're wrong with the ari and shane gillis shane gills yeah that was fun we're going back in january yeah this has never come out neither will you we're having fun yeah all right so what does it feel like um to bomb in stand-up comedy like to fail maybe the psychology of it first like just take me through it because you were talking about being uh outnumbered in a fight just being beat up very similar uh by the way this is like a no eye contact off yeah yeah yeah it's great it's kind of nice to be with my people um but yeah you guys should have paper to look at her i'm going i got a good sweet spot right there yes yeah it's a nightmare but it's part of it you know it's it's it's the it's the validation too is the worst part like because you know whenever you do comedy and kill you can be a great comic but even david tell these brilliant guys they feel like they're getting you feel like you're getting away with something i don't have a day job i'm telling jokes for a living i'm talking about my dick up here and they're [ __ ] loving me and they call me a genius and all this i'm talking about my sack yeah you know and uh and it's great it makes people happy and it's funny but uh that bombing when you bomb you go your first thought is like yeah you're right at first you're like [ __ ] you guy what you don't like this [ __ ] and then you just start going in you're like yeah maybe it isn't that good maybe they're right i do suck i knew i sucked i should become a mailman you know and uh it stinks and it feel you feel alone and you feel like you wasted their time and then you're like what was i thinking i could be a comedian what the [ __ ] who am i you know eddie murphy what am i doing here so it's a lot of just spiraling out of horrible thoughts but i also love that it hurts so bad bombing [ __ ] hurts because now now everybody doesn't do it i think a lot more people could do comedy probably and figure it out but the bombing is so brutal that it keeps uh one time i went to minneapolis i was like this is a great city i mean the sun is shining why isn't the city like packed and they're like because the winners are so bad and we love it because it keeps everybody out and i feel the same about comedy the bombs are so brutal i've had bombs where i'm in i'm in bed i'm just staring at the ceiling like what the [ __ ] was that like you have ptsd i bombed at an arena once 20 000 people i did 30 minutes to silence so it's not just like one joke fails they start piling on like it's irrecoverable yes and one joke failing is very common like a lot of audience don't even notice like that bomb because you get you know you got so many jokes in a row you can sandwich a good one then a bad one then a good one but when you bomb it's almost like they chose we don't like you nothing you say will redeem yourself and uh it's hard to get out of it's like being pulled down by your hair you can't get back i can't win this fight no matter what can you like get him back by acknowledging like the alpha in the room that like that helps but they're still gonna go and that was funny when he made fun of it but he sucks he's still so he still sucks that's the worst part you're going no this is good you guys just don't like me just because you don't like me doesn't mean i'm bad yeah i like going to open mics a lot just just listening because first of all i think the audience and open mic at least the ones i've been to is uh mostly i guess other comedians it's it or like at least people who don't seem to want to laugh at anything and so i just love it because it's human nature and perseverance that is best that here's comedians like clearly uh this is mostly in austin they have a dream like why would you get up there right like maybe some weird you know new year's resolution [ __ ] but for the most part it's people who want to be comedian like a lot of the open mikers are people who clearly have done this for quite a long time like at least a year two maybe five years and they're often not very funny and um the just bombing in front of an audience of like 20 where they're just sitting there like almost like mocking them with their eyes or maybe and i don't know and they still push through they still they still like as if they're doing an arena and everybody's laughing yeah they still they still got that energy trying almost like to an audience that doesn't exist like an audience of their dreams because i guess you have to do that to keep the energy of the act going and it's just so beautiful to watch wow then try it it's uh and also the what happens open mic i don't know five minutes whatever they do they you know walk off and that walk back you know off stage and like you can't who do they look at like what do you look at do you make eye contact with people do you you look at your phone you look at your feet you just zone out you kind of kind of go white you know you just hear white noise and go out it's it's tough but you got it you need a little a little delusion to be a comedian to get into it it takes a little bit of delusion like you think you can do this you know you got 10 years ahead of you of hell and you're up for this and you know most comics we see a horrible crowd and we see our friend bomb and we go yeah he's bombing but i'll get him i'll get him and then you don't get them but that's that's human nature too is like i they don't like him but they'll like me and you need a little of that to keep going as a comedian but you don't want too much delusion because then you're a psycho but you need a little well a psycho could be good for a comedy that's true too a lot of psychos i mentioned to you offline um that i talked to elon and we talked about doing stand-up that he's thinking maybe do a few minutes of stand up say if you need a coach elon i gotcha um well maybe you should move to austin to coach him full time ah i hope he can fly me in so what what advice would you give to somebody who um who wants to try to do five minutes like the early steps of uh trying to go to an open mic and say something funny well that's the irony of comedy is i don't know if it's irony but it's like the beginning is the hardest part usually the beginning is the easy part hey i'm playing this level of mario i'd start jump over one koopa troopa whatever and then the end is like jesus christ i got 30 guys coming at me comedy is the opposite the beginning is like it's a gauntlet it's just obstacles and it's like you said open mics you i watch these famous comedians on netflix and you go this would all bomb on an open mic they're killing in you know radio city this would bomb it open mike that's the weird part so it's almost you have to go through hell just to get to the promised land and uh i would say rehearse the [ __ ] out of it because you're gonna get frazzled up there everybody thinks oh this is good material but you also forget about the other part of delivering it having confidence being likable having timing having a cadence figuring out who you are figure out what the audience thinks you are or how they perceive you because you can go up there and say all this but they go why's the guy he's clearly gay why is he acting like he's not gay you know that's all now they're not listening to the joke so like you got to know how you look and uh it's just repetition repetition and bombing is not failure that's what you got to remember i mean look if you if you do a a killer hour and then you take it to netflix and bomb you [ __ ] up but bombing is not failure it's just data it's going oh okay i gotta re retool that that didn't work something's wrong there they i missed a word there so you gotta treat the uh the act almost like uh like uh like ingredients in a cooking and a dish you know like oh that i put too many eggs in take an egg out you got to treat it like that and look when you pull a bad cake out of an oven you go i [ __ ] up but it doesn't hurt your feelings but when you bomb and [ __ ] up it hurts your feelings so you gotta factor that in too your feeling's gonna be hurt and just almost be a robot and just keep going towards that open mic you know how scary an open mic is bombing sucks but bombing in front of other comedians is way worse because they know what just happened and they could have saved you and they didn't so it's way worse and that they're going to be your quote-unquote friends for this journey yeah no these are evil people twisted [ __ ] up work people can you tell like in those early days let's just talk about that like at the open mic level that a joke is going to be good on paper like i'll give you my experience because uh um maybe you can be my coach in this particular moment so uh larry nasser that's fun huh joking everybody i hope nobody thinks seriously uh there's i now have an amazing team of folks who help me with editing and they're now currently sweating you gotta leave that one yeah that was quick yeah that's pretty good i'll eat that one that was good [Laughter] all right so uh you know uh going in front of an audience just even to give a lecture terrifies me uh which which i've done but uh open mic i mean that to me perhaps that's why i like going to open mics and listening is cause i just it terrifies me so much that idea yeah of going up there and bombing i mean it's scary and to do even like one minute to be honest is scary in five minutes i'm also watching enough open mics to realize that five minutes is a long time i mean it depends on your comedy but if you're doing fast stuff five minutes is a really long time oh it's eternity um i guess it was a long story two is a long time because if the story's not work you're building up to something if the story is gonna fail you just spent all that time telling the story that completely went flat completely got nothing i guess if you have a series of jokes you can at least try to recover and like do the mitch hedberg thing where like all right i'll cross that off yeah yeah uh well i'm able to like i've tried to write a few things and i'm able to tell that it's really bad well that's better than most most people's egos kick and they go no this is good no see i'm able to introspect that like it seems funny i mean i guess the thing i'm looking for is original like there's easy stuff that you think is funny but to me originality is the thing you should be looking for because then because then that's what's actually becomes funny like or rather if it's original even if it bombs that feels like more a beautiful art creation that you did like at least you swung for it like you did something unique because like even with open mic your first five minutes there's so many just go to enough open mics you'll hear like all the there's like a list of jokes that you just go to first of all you can make fun of the fact that you're at open mic that you're like doing this the first time and so on you could do a lot of stuff where you make fun of your appearance in some way yeah and so on but like yeah you could do that you know that takes actually that's way harder than people realize to do it in an original way yes to present who you are as a person very quickly enough to then put that person down in front of everybody else so you have to reveal the audiences like that because they go he knows what we're thinking yeah exactly but do it again in an original way and so like when i'm trying to write stuff not that i've tried long it's like 30 minutes but as enough to see like oh [ __ ] the to write something original is really difficult it is what do you you got a bit anything no you didn't write any one line or anything for this no well just in general ever in your life ever written a joke oh yeah yeah yeah yeah oh okay no but i don't have anything in my mind popped up so the the the jokes that i've written have more like for some reason my mind goes to like dark places so you know like and not actually dark in the mark norman dark because you go really dark to where it's like almost absurd yeah my natural inclination is to go to like a dark historical like place like hitler and stalin yeah and almost so go to that place and then talk about something absurd there so like don't go like uh like all the way i don't know i don't want to give examples because it would be clipped but the but the mark norma style look it up he has a special on his youtube uh that kind i i want to almost explore the dark aspects of human nature more kind of uh connected to actual historical figures that's the that's the inclination like i don't know nature's metal the the instagram channel that that explores like the darkness of nature like something there see that's good that you already know that you've kind of gotten to the core of your comedy already and that that's interesting that's a step ahead yeah i can hear i mean with most things i do in life i can like hear the music from a distance like in myself like okay if you have anything this is the direction it'll be yeah without actually knowing exactly all the steps and that's the nice motivation to be like all right well if you do this for a long time maybe you'll have a chance to get there right but you have to i that that's where the it's a feature to be super self-critical i think yes but then that's why it's [ __ ] terrifying to walk up to the stage stand there and probably forget everything yeah that's the other part nobody thinks about just goes right out of your head you go fight or flight it's ugly my first years were horrific bombing horrific stammering horrific not remembering the punch line like you got maybe you got a setup going and they're kind of on board and you're like ah how's that camera camera how it goes and you just hate yourself it's it's a nightmare but you've already kind of maybe if you haven't done stand-up or whatever but you kind of know your voice and that's yeah that's pretty advanced so you're not trying to be somebody else i guess yeah just for having done like podcasts and lecturing and so on that helps you i've embarrassed i already done some of the work of the stand-ups do which is embarrass yourself in front of others for long periods of time yes yeah so i've done that without actually developing the funny right right right but maybe the funny just is not that difficult to develop um no it's super difficult of course but i mean maybe the essential work of a stand-up comedian is just the embarrassment of like finding who you are yeah that's a part of it for sure you know in the beginning you're like water bottle what's funny about water bottle i'm a funny guy i can make this money but that ain't that's not it you know it's it's your [ __ ] your [ __ ] like your dark stuff for me i tend to gravitate towards dark but in a weird way where you know people say like hey don't objectify women but then they go caitlyn jenner's beautiful and you're like well wait i know something's off here why can you objectify her but not the supermodel so what's going on there and i like to play with that so i have this joke where i say uh caitlyn jenner oh women go caitlyn jenner's beautiful beautiful woman i go well you look like her and they go [ __ ] you and you're like there's a lot of truth there yeah but i like exploring that kind of oh you're trying to get one over on me or you're lying to yourself or what are we doing here and i like i like that kind of comedy i don't see color well i'm black no you're not ah you know that's fun because you're you're lying uh yeah okay so like big time comedians such as yourself don't like to think of yourself in this way but here we go yeah this is like where you overfill philosophize comedy but yeah definitely it seems like comedians don't say important nothing worse than a comedian who thinks they're important yeah so i was going there i was trying to find as i was trying to say these words i read realize how cliche it is and how uninteresting it is so i'm going to just but there is something uh i'm worried this whole thing is uninteresting i'm like who cares about comedy and there's like six comics on the planet but nobody cares okay this is just i trust you in the in the pilot seat you know what you're doing you got you got listeners they've tuned out long ago dan carlin on here huh is he around yeah we're just going back and forth on twitter just now because i'm a huge fan he was on here before he'll be back i've been actually really uh trying to volunteer myself aggressively with dan carlin for for like a russian episode where i could speak russian i there's there's certain documents same i talked with jocko about this too certain things i mean i just love the challenge of bringing russian documents that i can read in russian and they can translate and can try to capture the uh the depth of the writing in um in the russian language and communicate to the american audience so much is lost in translation like there's so much pain and poetry in the russian language it's just connected to the culture every language not every language but many languages are uniquely able to capture the culture of the people i mean in some way there's a representation of the culture of the people and so russian is definitely that it like represents the full history and culture of the 20th century with all the atrocities all the all the broken promises all those kinds of things norm says uh russian literature is it's the most tapped into human existence than anything else uh norm mcdonald yeah big big russian literature guy dostoyevsky all that [ __ ] it's funny that there is a gap with comedians too there's a culture of russian comedy uh like stand-up comedians that are told yeah yeah i don't know these russians i mean uh i don't know today and oh i mean more from the 80s and 90s and there's a yakov that's all i know that's not so there's like of course that's that's i've never seen that offended no no it's not if and there's a different uh there's there's a there's like the kinnisons and the there's the edgy is that russian what do you mean wait i thought you said there was russian comics yeah russian i mean i'm comparing that i'm giving you that i'm giving you like a style of darkness uh like that's the kind the people that kind of challenge uh they give again this is to how important comedians are is they give a voice to people where in the soviet union you really can't like express your opposition to the government and so comedians are exceptionally important there for just just i don't know channeling the anger even when sometimes it's not the actual opposition to the government they're just channeling the anger the frustration with the absurdity of life like you know when there's a shortage of food shortage of jobs the the the absurdity of the bureaucracy like the a top-heavy government just all of that can only sometimes be expressed with like dark absurd humor and that actually why there's a culture of that kind of humor you know you gather on the table with vodka yeah and all you can do is just talk [ __ ] yep and just be offensive say horrible [ __ ] ball bust i mean i make school shooting jokes and people go how do you do that i'm like well maybe that's how i deal with it yeah you know like how come i gotta i gotta empathize the way you do maybe we're different all right so now let's skip the whole open mic thing and crafting jokes that's tough kerouac said one day i will find the right words and they will be simple when do you know the joke is done it's perfect you're somebody that does like really sharp like fast uh jokes wow thanks so like there's somebody i don't know i don't know who you see yourself in the same school as like had your you're darker and faster than hedberg i think in terms of like just i don't know the turns you take it very fast hey thanks i appreciate it i think i got some norm mcdonald and maybe that's right you know obviously norm but uh chris rock was huge for me chris old like 90s chris rock was like i didn't know you could do jokes like that i always loved george carlin and groucho marx and bill murray there's so many different types of comedy but uh when i saw the bigger and blacker bring the pain i was like oh my god this like it hit me so that was big and then norm's just like the funniest guy on the planet so him him being the smartest guy in the room but acting dumb was great so uh yeah chris rock has that way of cutting to the the [ __ ] which i i mentioned earlier i like that cutting through the [ __ ] kind of style of comedy because you kind of go oh i'm not crazy that's what i thought too i was too scared to say but i thought that and he's saying in a room of people are laughing maybe i'm not an idiot so that helped me so it's observational but not jerry science observational it's like look going to the darker thing yeah like like wasn't great but i like him too but seeing it doing it about stuff like in your life society yeah race gender government yes politics all that kind of stuff exactly exactly sex human emotions jealousy whatever it is that that's the good stuff how'd you feel when norm passed away ah that was a bummer because uh he was you know what 61 and i just didn't see it coming and i just i've watched so many hours of his stuff and i i've met him and he he's like he was like this comedic bar like hey we got norm you know there's so much [ __ ] comedy then you see norm and you're like this is next level this is savant type [ __ ] and then to lose him is like ah norm had 20 more years at least of just content and content and thoughts and his point of view and that's we'll never get that that sucks yeah there is something about artists like jimi hendrix dying yeah too early it's like you wonder what was next yeah what was next but then part of it is like um you know it all ends for all of us and it's like walking away early is um it's kind of admirable it's almost like i did a pretty good job yeah i'm uh i'm i'm good with that and especially the way he did which is not telling anybody i know nine years his best friends didn't even know and in this world of like victimhood and i need clicks and i need people to love me he could have he got you know cancelled and yelled at in trouble and he could have pulled that cancer card and he never did i mean the integrity on this [ __ ] did you get a chance to interact with him like what how many how often did you meet him i met him once at the comedy cellar and we chatted for five minutes and then he went on and did the the letterman set that he did he was running the letterman set and uh sweet guy nice guy didn't know him that well but i mean he's just brilliant and i also love a brilliant guy who does stupid stuff that's a fun fun little combo there like silly guys who are actually brilliant also you know like louis ck is a brilliant comic and he'll do a a joke about farting on a kid and you're like that's great that he still finds farts funny and he's also this comedic genius guy i like that and doesn't really acknowledge the genius yeah yeah that's yeah i like i like smart people they're silly yes that's a good combo like you said elon is silly yeah yeah that's great yeah because we we taught we teach kids like hey put that down stop that quit cutting up quit horsing around but maybe that's some kind of sign of brilliance there yeah being like childlike and silly is a kind of wisdom i feel like those people are way wiser than the people that no offense to me wear a suit and take themselves way too seriously no but you got a spark in you a little here you got a little uh what's the word not elf imp little imp in yeah give that a goog you know what imp uh yeah it's like a little uh said uh uh tolkien character imp yeah my name is european mythological being similar to a fairy or are you calling me a fairy frequently no okay similar to a fairy or a demon i feel like that's a big leap big leap yeah that's not a great uh info bio there frequently described in folklore and superstition the word may perhaps derive from the term imp spell with the y used to denote a young grafted tree oh it's a little mischievous you got a twinkle you're the serious buttoned up guy but this is a twinkle as a twinkle wow and the audience can see the twinkle and that's why you resonate i think i'm sorry deep analysis by mark norman psychological analysis okay but then back to the crafting of the joke you said chris rock and norma mcdonald like what for you um how do you know when the joke is like done is are there some jokes or you're like are proud of like wow that that's uh that's well done yeah yeah the joke is done it's a tough question because there's so many different kinds of jokes that's what we call a chunk which is a big idea with a bunch of jokes in the middle of it and then a big crescendo at the end or there's a one-liner or there's a tag of a joke that's also a joke so the jokes come in different uh like i have a joke where i say i met my girl in that jewish app what's that jewish app called uh paypal nice that's the hell that's the reaction you want from the crowd but it's a fun turn because you say your thing and then i hit you with a misdirect and that's what a joke is a joke is basically me saying something that makes sense but you didn't see it coming yeah and that's a perfect example of that so uh that joke took forever to figure out by the way you know and you have to go through different services like paypal okay what's funniest exactly and i figured paypal is funny because it has the word pay in it yeah you know venmo it's also not really a good work venmo paypal it just hits better yeah paypal is funnier somehow it's funnier and that's the beauty of com there's a weird little magic into it you can get technical all day and formulaic but there's still that little bit of uh fairy dust that you don't know why this is funnier or imp dust imp dust yes the why okay so you know what joke is done when it kills and if this is a roundness to a joke when you feel like this is buttoned up this is done here yeah is simplicity the right word there yeah is it like you're chopping stuff away are you adding stuff like what does it feel like simplicity is always the best angle i mean you can get real high concept with a joke and still make it work but the simpler the better i saw uh dave chappelle on stage once and chris rock and dimitri martin were in the back watching in awe and dave schweller i can't remember the joke but he said something about sex or women and demetri martin goes that's a little easy and chris rock goes that's why it's good and i remember hearing that as some young comic like ah i'm getting this like you know comedy lesson right here from these two titans and so that was fun simple is key so the easy's okay that's such a weird uh i i think i remember um reading or hearing eminem say something about maybe the song some [ __ ] one of the songs he's like i knew it was going to be good because it got like really repetitive and annoying very quickly i mean that's the the sort of the music equivalent of um it's too easy like if it's like super catchy as a musician you might get very quickly bored of it right or like as you're creating it now it's too it's too easy it's like there needs to be some more complexity to it but i like complexity but the best guys who are the ones who make complex [ __ ] look simple like you ever heard that uh ben franklin story where he's talking to his friend his friends like i'm gonna start a hat store so he puts a sign out says hats for sale 12 and and ben frank looks at it goes uh well you don't need the twelve dollars because you know all they need to know is that you got hats for sale he's like all right so he loses to twelve dollars makes a new sign hats for sale and he goes you know you don't really need for sale because it's a business people can put that together so he just goes all right he makes a new sign it says hats and then ben franklin's like you know you don't really need the word hat you can just put a picture of a hat and he made a new sound which is a picture of a hat and like help the business or something that's like some old wives tale or whatever but i think about that all the time when i'm writing i thought this was going to like there was no sign it went like super like that could work too uh what like as a comedian so i'm a fan of yours i enjoy i really enjoy you in conversations like wow because you're now i'm getting nothing out of it this is all right i can't tell like emotion you're tough not to read cold inside i mean just the quickness you have obviously you're also a great stand-up comedian what's your favorite medium to shine in so you have a podcast yourself an excellent podcast um you're often a podcast guest yeah which is always fun to listen to how you're going to deal with the different people you're great on rogan oh thank you um what what do you enjoy most podcasts are great because you can you can stretch out a little more you can breathe a little you know with a stand-up set i like to be like boom boom boom boom boom but podcasts are great because it's conversational so you can be it's almost like you're being funny with your friends yeah whereas the stage is like a this is a piece this is a presentation uh but i think the the podcast is great but you don't get the reaction unless the host is laughing you can't hear the guy in his car in new jersey driving to work going ah every now and then i'll read a comment like i spit out my coffee when you said this and i'm like but it's not immediate you want the immediate so stand up will always be number one but there's no better feeling than killing in a room of people who don't know who you are strangers you're in the middle of nowhere you left your wife at home you left your kids you left your house you're in the middle of bum [ __ ] dickville and murdering for these hillbilly nobody whatever it is and they're slinging their beers and cheering you on and they carry out and you [ __ ] some fat lady and you leave and you get back to your hotel and you go holy [ __ ] what was that no one will ever know about it just lost in the ether that's the best feeling yeah killing an obscurity as bill burr would say yeah this is one of the things that sucks about giving lectures like at universities or giving lectures in general is when you look at the audience you know several hundred students they're all have a bored look on their face like even like my my face now probably looks bored but i'm actually excited to be talking to you but there's something about just uh there's something about a comedy called maybe this the contingent of laughter but like it gives people the freedom to just laugh to like to remove that facade of like you don't have to you don't have to pretend like you don't care like if you care you can show it and yeah have fun with it probably liquor is helpful too yeah it helps for sure but there is a especially and that's why comedy i think is so popular right now because hr is up our ass we're scared of old tweets that might come back to haunt us what did i say on that interview uh even people at offices are like i put something on facebook in 1999 that was about fat tits that i liked should i get rid of that even people say like there's no cancel whatever there is something in the air right now and that wasn't there before yeah it's the video i i'm a karen i got caught at trader joe whatever it is this people rat on each other now everybody's tattletailing because they want the clicks it's a horrible society we've crafted but stand-up comedy gets you to come out and now people do it at stand-up shows too sadly but it gets you to come out and let that inhibition down like because we're all human we've all had the [ __ ] up thoughts like man that guy's fat as [ __ ] you don't mean you hate the guy that mean you hate fat people then you're fat shaming but you can't say that at the office you can't go pop you're fat as [ __ ] you'll get fired for body shaming but at the club you go that guy's fat as [ __ ] the crowd goes he is bad as [ __ ] and it's this weird cathartic thing because all we do is tamp [ __ ] down it's kind of like you ever meet a girl who's like all prim and proper in the bedroom she's like put a lamp up my ass ah you know whatever it is it's cause we gotta get it out we're all repressed in some way so i guess what you're saying is uh comedy's important [Laughter] yes call back all right well played sir yeah what do you think about austin what do you think about the comedy scene austin talk about l.a in new york what do you think about what joe's trying to create there so i i i should say that the reason i moved to austin i have this dream of uh wouldn't be funny if i said this dream of becoming a comedian oh yeah an audience at least yeah that's true you know i always said you can hear the music in the distance i you know i have this dream around robotics and artificial intelligence whether it's a company whether it's something else that uh it was just pulling me to do i actually wanted to move to san francisco and then all my friends in san francisco said no it's the wrong place yeah to to uh it's no it's at this time the the the cynicism there is just not conducive to like taking big leaps into the unknown excited about the future kind of thing and and austin was that uh with um for me in particular with elon musk but also just the energy that everybody had including joe the excitement about the future i don't i don't care if austin burns to the ground and it actually is a complete failure yeah uh being excited about the future seems to be like optimism about the future it seems to be the thing that actually makes that future happen it makes a great future happen so it's always cool for me to see uh like joe super excited about creating like a a culture in austin like a making it a comedy hub like yeah i don't want to overstate it but he i mean i think he really believes it'll be a very big place for comedy yeah in the united states in general in the world and so just even believing that that's powerful like you start to make it you start to make it happen that energy uh is there anyway so but that's for me from just an outsider watching uh the fun of i should also mention for less of an outsider more insider in the martial arts world partially probably because of joe i'm not sure like john donahue gordon ryan the b team all those folks those are that might be gibberish to you but those are like some of the greatest grapplers and martial artists of all time so it's also becoming this hub of martial arts so the whole the whole thing is just beautiful anyway what uh what are your thoughts about that scene well there's a lot a lot here a lot of things to mention one i think joe did do that to at a degree you know like all these people segora lives there now a lot of comics live there he's opening clubs other clubs are opening i think it's happening that's the other thing is people go everybody's moving to austin austin's the new hub and then they look at their watch and they go five minutes went by nothing changed it's gonna take years you know but everybody wants it now now now um what awesome there's no industry there you know there's no netflix whatever and you're like yeah i know but it needs a minute you can't just do this overnight so people forget that so it could happen huge just give it some time i mean he's opening a club i went and saw it it's incredible like it's so perfect for comedy it's every detail it's incredible but uh so it could happen still i do think where there's a little biting off more than they can chew with austin because it's not that big so it's gonna spread out i mean yeah it's not big and the infrastructure is not quite exactly to support it but it has a lot of uh you know i'm comparing for my from the tech side for uh it has a lot of land to expand into so it might become this that helps like you're basically establishing it's kind of like when new york you're establishing these whole neighborhoods yeah and you have the freedom to do that because there's a lot of space on all sides yes okay so that helps so again maybe some time uh i do agree with this that new hope that's kind of built into human beings of like let's go to america let's go to utopia we even have it with space let's go to mars we gotta see what's over there and it's just red dusty [ __ ] but you still gotta go so i'm with you on that about this new hope this new land uh and i think that is beautiful and i think there's a lot of haters and there's a lot of naysayers who hate change who hate anything new and then i think you got to go hey that hurts that sucks but blow me [ __ ] i'm trying something you're a loser stop hating on me i mean how many people hate elon musk you know yeah it's hilarious i mean there's uh some of the criticism on austin it would be it's like a fad like a lot of people are really yeah yeah i really people are excited about austin and somehow that's like uh it's like when green day became famous you no longer want to be a fan of green day but to me like this uh austin was already a cool town like every comic five years ago was like oh i got austin this weekend i can't wait yeah so it already had a buzz but some people think maybe the buzz was the cool part the fact that it was like this off the beaten path city and now i get to visit it and then leave but i think it could still be this comedy tech booming place it just will take some time and people want it right now well on the tech side it's uh it's already there it's it's it's getting there very fast so i mean elon's really pushing that with the factory it's just a huge number of people are moving there with jobs like you're already starting and then the opportunities to launch new companies is just incredible i guess it's not right now it's like within months within a year that kind of thing but like it's an opportunity to just start to build [ __ ] in a new place and it's cool it's kind of like you know going to mars it's like you get to start over yeah and i like the hope aspect i think that's huge for people and uh i'm all for it i hope it works out i don't know if it will but i don't know anything about economies and city scans planning and all that [ __ ] so it might be too early to say but i hope it works are you still talking about austin or mars austin mars is uh there's nothing there there's no vagina there there's no food there there's no water there i don't know it seems i get space travel i think it's important but i i don't know mars is really gonna move the needle so what are your thoughts about uh elon musk and spacex and launching rockets into space i think it's all good because you could say hey we could just feed everybody and i was like yeah that's true by the way these guys give a ton of money to like philanthropy [ __ ] that nobody cares about by the way you know it's weird like he can feed the nigeria and with pocket change of his and you're like well maybe he has you know like i heard bill gates gave back so much money he saved six million lives yeah but that's a reverse holocaust by the way that's pretty good what have you done you're a barista so uh you know i just think uh i think space travel is good because you learn about the place you're living in from going to space it kind of helps you learn about this more you could say what's the point of going to this other there but it it does help i think yeah doing difficult things in the engineering space seems to be a way to develop like as a as almost like an accident as a side effect of doing a really difficult thing in a team of brilliant people you develop things like the internet and you could argue that the internet maybe is not so good for society no i'm just kidding that's good and bad yeah but it's like a pull-up you're trying to get your bicep going but hey before you know you got decent forearms but you weren't working on the forearms you wanted to buy but you got the four and i think that's kind of what space travel is i like how this like pivoted into uh to a out routine advice wow we're trying to get uh an analogy going here all right it worked pretty well i'll take it all right what are your thoughts about since i'm a robotics person i'd be curious to see like what um you think about the space at all about first of all autonomous vehicles with uh tesla autopilot and uh waymo self-driving car i'm not sure if you're familiar with all the autonomous vehicles and so on so those are robots on wheels and then there's also legged robots so next time you're in austin you get to meet some of the legged robots i've been working on and i find those kind of um a fascinating way to explore the nature of intelligence in our computers but also explore our own intelligence and also explore our own um like what makes us connect to other living beings whether it's dogs cats or other humans like there's some magic there that's beyond just intelligence and i like when i have the robot dog there's some aspect to it that i don't know brings me joy in a way that a dog does in a way that a good friend does yeah that's interesting and i'm not sure if that's some kind of anthropomorphism like where i'm projecting right my hopes for this what this thing is but maybe a little of that but it's kind of built in i mean it's just a source of joy maybe it it's connected to the fact that there's just like a loneliness within all of us within me and it's just nice to have other things in your life that move that recognize you that kind of thing i mean i suppose it's nice to even just have a plant yeah it is plant goes a long way you see a guy with plants in the department it changes the apartment because they're alive you got to water them you got to put sun on them so yeah i think there's something there and i think you can see people's reactions when you show them advanced technology like these dog robots or these robots that dance and [ __ ] people are like what the [ __ ] like it hits home in some way whether it's fear or or you want to [ __ ] them clearly whatever it is but it does connect with you in some way so uh i'm with you and i think this is why i don't think robots will take over you always say that robot they're making them too advanced they're going to wipe us out blah blah blah if robots get human emotions that is scary because they could they could get mad at us and kill us and they're stronger they don't need sleep they don't need food they don't need water they don't get jealous they don't you know but if they have emotions then i think we can dominate them because who's that emotion who knows emotions better than us we've got thousands of years of evolutionary emotional [ __ ] we can go hey robot i heard you uh your wife [ __ ] that black and decker huh they're gonna crumble we can bully them emotionally manipulate robots yes that's when we'll win right now they could kill us they could just we'd all die then we shoot them back bing bing bing bing that's no good but if they do get emotions then we can go hey you look like hell what is that a rusty bolt hey you're dropping some oil there you know you lose her i think we can win if we if they do get emotions this goes back to your father being able to undercut you with a single word you're right yeah so we're the creators of the robots and then the robots will just you you would say the the exact thing yeah where the robot would be like that son of a [ __ ] and then he goes back to his hole and just sits there miserable right yeah hardware looks more like software to me you can't get it up yadda yadda yeah but i'm not worried about robots and i think self what do you think about the self-driving cars is that just wiping out the horse and buggy isn't that just progression of technology yeah so i don't know if you've driven in a tesla for example i have i've i wrote in the uh the passage yeah there's several stages in that i think it's the problems way harder than people realize and for quite a while it'll just make driving more pleasant it'll make it less stressful it'll take over some of the boring bits for you and make it easier like there's something that happens actually when the car is driving for you in the following way like it's it's staying in the lane it's keeping distance to the car in front of you maybe it's changing lanes it allows you to relax a little bit like yes you become you still have to be alert but you become like a passenger and you get to like take in the world i mean somehow that's more relaxing without making you necessarily like bored more it's energized anymore so i just think it makes the driving experience more pleasant but when you actually fully automate cars when you can just completely tune out start reading a book or go to sleep that might change society like in ways we don't even understand because you'll have i mean the the they'll probably change the nature of roads because the cars because now you can be super productive and so it no longer quite matters to you as much how long it takes to get from point a to point b because you're not wasting that time you're just continue working yeah it's like public transit that comes to you exactly and so they there will be maybe less roads and bigger roads and it'll just change the nature of how we get from point a to point b i think you're right but that then couple that also with the fact that we seem to be more and more comfortable existing in the digital world yeah so like maybe we won't want to go outside more and more we'll just interact with each other virtually and i don't mean zoom meetings i mean just in other ways that's uh that's that's more fulfilling than a zoom meeting there's but then maybe not because like there's something deeply uncompelling about about zoom meetings like podcasts that are remote unless they're super information dense at least to me as a podcast fan kind of suck they suck there's no connect it goes back to the dog thing with the zoom there's no connection yeah and we're not you know i i don't understand why they're we're not even making eye contact no it's but it's just something there it's in the room there's pheromones and that's like out of our understanding probably it's just some kind of weird biological you know you ever have cheerios in a bowl the cheerios tend to they tend to go together you see a cluster of cheerios they're never really hanging out on the other side and that's kind of how people are in the industry real life i wonder what the physics of that is so they they come together and they stick especially with molecules yeah i don't know i camera what it was but it was fascinating and i think that's how people are and i think you try to write a tv show or or craft a movie with your team zoom not nothing there it's like phone sex versus penetration one day you'll learn that i i know nothing of either the i look forward because i think there's the phone sex netflix documentary there's a show or something like that that uh is really populated i want to go watch at least i can learn about that okay i could send you some links like really on the internet yeah yeah yeah but yeah self-driving car i think it's just inevitable it's coming and these truckers are gonna have to figure something out yeah i mean that's that's an understood industry actually because there's not uh there's a lot of trucking jobs oh yeah and people don't want to well people don't actually take them anymore because it's such a difficult job so it won't have or a lot of people believe it won't have as big of a negative impact as folks anticipate oh good there'll be other automation i think they'll have a huge impact yeah for sure i mean you already see it in mcdonald's you go to the people why do you want to get yelled at by the uh heavyset woman of color you know for making a bad order when you can just you know hit the screen but those interactions i think are human i mean that's part of life so it is scary taking away everything how long till we're not [ __ ] that's coming too yeah then there's gonna have two two types of people are you uh uh [ __ ] in real life are you a digital [ __ ] person i'm a digital i like real [ __ ] sorry we can't date that's coming well there's also the the reproduction side of sex which is like with genetic engineering you'll be able to specify a little bit of details i talked to uh jamie martial about that like where you can um specify like what you know uh it'll start with like i want my child not to have like a high likelihood of diabetes or something like that and then you get to specify like intelligence you just get to specify those kinds of parameters until you're like basically trying to create a perfect human and you lose some of the magic of the flaws that make us who we are yes and you know i i'm pretty sure in the full lineup of humans like the so let me uh give you some information i'm sure break it down i'm sure i'm sure you researched uh this thoroughly but uh a a male of the human species of the homo sapien uh produces 500 billion sperm cells in a lifetime so that's all uh some more than others that's all uniquely genetically unique humans that you could produce so even across those 500 billion you can select and so i mean like abort some or no you can choose which of them you want i mean just imagine all the genetic possibilities that are there like all the possible like you won the race yes uh shocking this is yeah this is the ball the 500 billion you have to imagine what the competition was oh just tards all day long handicap well so it's not actually the the fastest sperm or like it it's i think a lot of his timing and luck uh what it seems like there's actual papers on this and i've actually been reading them i hope so so it's not just like the fastest sperm to the egg okay there's a timing thing so you were just lucky all right i i believe that so it's interesting to think about like once you're able to specify some parameters of what your child is like how that changes the nature of um even just like the intimacy of two humans getting together and making creating together a child yeah i mean it changes it it's almost like uh i don't know it becomes like a factory line of some kind if you don't meet naturally yeah if you don't mean natural and then you don't and you get you get to optimize your child then it's yeah then it's something like you have to consider utilitarian type of things like what's good for society and it'll probably be regulation about what kind of children you can have or not like your child cannot have an iq below this or above us or something your child cannot we already kind of do that we know vip clubs like hey you're kind of ugly or women go hey he's not tall enough we kind of do it a little yeah especially sexually yeah we do can't get on the roller coaster if you're this short whatever it is you know we do it in some capacity but here this would be like fully transparent and to a degree that uh it's hard to imagine like the way we currently do it you can at least get around it yes you can at least like trick your way onto the roller coaster even if you're short right or the fat guy can get rich so he can get laid you know there's other ways at the risk of asking the totally wrong person this question uh what advice would you give to young people today in high school and college about how to um have a successful career or career that they're proud of or maybe have a life that they're proud of ooh well first of all you got to be you got to want a life you're proud of not everybody has any integrity people just a lot of people just want short money i want to feel good look good right now i want to do molly boom i'll feel good you know but you should space it out you should it's almost like saving money so you can use it later nobody wants to save money what do they say like 11 of america actually has money saved a thousand dollars or some [ __ ] it's wildly low everybody wants it now now what do you call it immediate gratification i think the key to happiness and satisfaction is working for something even if it's uh it's like a baby if you could have a baby in five minutes if a woman you gotta you [ __ ] in her and she had a baby five minutes boom newborn healthy i think he'd be more likely to throw it away if you can make it that quick it's the fact that you spent nine months back breaking the labor the lactating the ripped placenta and the hymen or whatever the [ __ ] that's what makes you love it and i think it's the same with comedy or or making money or whatever look at these kids who like child stars they all become heroin addicts at like 22 because they've just their sensors are burned out they're pleasure sensors you didn't have to earn it i think earning it is a big part of life and uh always try to do better try to do more try to learn new things hey i'm bored i life sucks like play the piano then you chooch but you you won't do it because it takes effort and failure and all that but that's the good part yeah and i know it's hard to see so i think that's uh that's a good good key to life is work hard it's something you care about and then love the result the hard work the journey is actually way more important than just getting something everybody wants to go on amazon i got a package then you feel good for 10 seconds and all right let's go on amazon again and then you're just it's just a dumb cycle of you being disgusting and gluttonous so work for it everybody wants to take steroids and just poop i'm buff why'd you point at me well i'm just rushing or what i saw the the icarus yeah but no i'm not saying you're on roids i'm just you'd be way bigger but uh i'm just saying you know work for something and then i would also young people eat [ __ ] early eat [ __ ] early i know a guy who kind of got cancelled or whatever and he had an out early but he tried to get by and he tried to ride it and it all came crumbling down but if he had eaten it early like yeah i [ __ ] up i did that whatever it was he would have he would have just kind of been been [ __ ] on for a month and then it would have gone away but now it's his whole identity and that sucks so eat [ __ ] early and i know it's hard to see what i mean early i'm in the present but look ahead look back this time will pass i mean look at high school high school was the biggest thing in our lives oh my god this exam susie q hates me the football player beat me up i'll never recover now you don't even think about high school it's just a blip in your dumb life you know and that's what this is now this will just be a blip so remember that and work towards something and uh work hard and care about the result if the result isn't good try it again and failure is not always bad failure we look at failure is this end-all be-all my life's over i failed but failure is really just learning so that's something so in summary eat [ __ ] early and eat [ __ ] often yes all right mark norman 8 ass that's the escalated quickly all right i have a list of random questions for you um what activities make you lose track of time oh um have that go into that zone you have this happiness contentment about you that you just truly enjoy yeah i think uh good conversation like i'll sit at the comedy cellar with friends maybe a little whiskey's flowing and when you're really just vibing and inhib inhib in in a bitty you can do it what is it inhibited uninhibited when you're just vibing you're uninhibited you're saying crazy [ __ ] and you're laughing and you're not worried am i seeming cool right now am i seeming likeable when you're just you 100 and it's all coming out of you and then they're saying stuff and you go back and forth and you feel that excitement oh they're talking but i want to say my thing and you know you get all keyed up i love that and and i look at my watch i'm like [ __ ] it's three in the morning this is we've been talking for five hours so i love that that makes the time fly by also i bought a speaking of self-driving cars i bought a 1973 bmw car and it's classic and it's stick shift and it's grizzly and gritty and rusty and it's a bucket of bolts but i love driving it bucket of bulls yeah tom waits they're poets have you uh have you taken like a long trip anywhere like road trip in your life or with this bmw not with it it's pretty new but i will it's it's a new 90s yeah yeah it's new to me and it just it it it goes in the face of everything we're doing now everything is digital everything is automated everything is hands off everything is delivered and this is the most hands-on thing in the world and i am dialed in man i got the tachometer i keep an eye on that oh i made i put the wrong gear in [ __ ] oh it's about to stall put some gas put some clutch and it's all just brain power and and staying in focus and all that and it's the opposite of tweeting and texting and uh watching porn or whatever so i almost needed that in my life so i bought this card just to have this little exercise i hope you don't mind that i'm just trying out random questions i wrote on you that are completely they're like completely insane i'm a guinea pig jizz in my face bring it on baby this would be edited down to five minutes oh if everyone on earth disappeared and it was just you left what would your days look like what would you do that's tough because i'm already an introvert and i try to avoid people mostly like i like a one-on-one but uh crowds and all that is tough so basically unchanged yeah that's what i was gonna say but then that's the irony is i would be so sad to not talk to anybody so it's this weird uh bittersweet thing but i don't know what i would do man i guess it's kind of like when you're hungover you just go into the primal survival mode i gotta get food i need water i'm horny jerk off you know you just go you're not like playing the piano or or painting or at the gym so i think i would just go into urges man primal urges find food store food am i safe make weapons build a shelter that i can't get attacked in i would go all survival mode and then once i maybe realized if i was safe or not there's no wild roaming dogs i would start exploring and uh you know maybe somehow get a vehicle and i would try to expand and that would be it and maybe i'd journal exploring to what to to try to find new experiences new new life if there's other maybe there is another guy out there oh so always there's a possibility yeah hope and then maybe there's a better place i could live let's find that and then moving on maybe there's more food over here so yeah the hope would drive me but it would be bleak and sad and horrible also so what you're saying is you really want other people to be there so you can hide from them yes yes well said all right what uh what's an item on your bucket list that you haven't done yet think about something you'd be very upset if you died and you haven't done well i'm terrified of having kids you know just because i'm a child myself and i'm i'm selfish and lazy in a way so kids are like this is your whole life now this is it you gotta not let this thing die you gotta love it you gotta raise it so kids scare the [ __ ] out of me but i also feel like if i don't have them i'll i'll i'll regret it well you've seen so many people like you who are fundamentally changed by kids yeah like it's a source it's it's a source of like a deep source of happiness even though you didn't anticipate it yeah so you like you penciled it into your bucket yes yes you're it might be on there okay and you want kids yeah well i want kids i want to get married um i want to have kids i kind of uh i don't like choice so in the following way like i appreciate the value of scarcity and the power of scarcity like i don't like the the modern dating culture it's not some religious thing whatever i just like one girl for a long time uh or at least swinging for that always like swinging for the fences and to be swinging right now i mean you're there's a different use of the word swinging sure sure but i'm saying you can be clear you look great you're handsome yeah thank you muscular thank you you get the job done so i feel like you wouldn't leave without an orgasm on her yeah i just like to you know about furries i like to dress up as animals and and i just have trouble finding others who would like to say out there i could show you some chat rooms you're also my coach for the internet okay uh what are you most afraid of i guess i'll done live life uh i'm a i'm i was a big fan growing up of like wild guys you know like these teddy roosevelts who would go out and hunt lions and uh like bar fighting guys i was obsessed with hunter s thompson types and look this is what i love about uh guys like who's a good example like hemingway hemingway was the manliest guy he had the rifle and the elephant gun and the whiskey and the writing and the women and the fistfights but people forget that the other side of that coin is i'm sure he was in a lot of hotel rooms weeping i'm sure he was lonely as [ __ ] i'm sure he had some wicked hangovers i mean he killed himself for christ's sake so obviously he was dealing with something so the key to me is having this adventurous life living to the fullest doing crazy [ __ ] scaring yourself but also not killing yourself like also not hating because i used to party a lot hard i used to bang a lot of gals and this is the flip side is like this girl hates you now or you got herpes or you're hungover or your mom is like where where are you you never call me anymore and you're like oh my mom i let let ties go with my mom i gotta connect so this horrible there's a horrible side of the party animal the keith richards we don't see is not pretty i mean he's already weird-looking but he's partying he's smoking he's living but there's another side of that coin and i think the key to life is living that [ __ ] crazy awesome badass life and also having some you know meaning and and a little bit of uh what's the word not just not killing yourself not going sad not being depressed right there's a medium there a sweet spot does that make sense yeah yeah so taking big leaps and uh hemingway grabbing life by the balls but at the same time not crushing the balls then yeah metaphor work it off perfect like evil knievel we all know him what a badass fearless oh man what a cool dude he's got balls of steel but he also lived like the back half of his life in a [ __ ] uh you know barca lounger where his legs were made of steel and he couldn't see straight and his dick didn't work so you know what i mean you got to have a balance but you still want the balance i'm willing to take a little bit of [ __ ] for a little bit of fun but you don't want to go too hard because you got to still risk it i mean hunter s thompson it didn't end well yeah that's quite a ride quite a ride what small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget wow that's a great question you're you're you're i just wrote these for the guinea pig you're the guinea that's great that's the keeper okay that's the keeper yeah this is where like workshopping questions here all right i'll take it now you're open biking yeah this is your version um let's see there's a couple ladies in high school who were kind enough to hand job me that was nice which i really appreciate i don't think women know how much that means to us you know when we're like i'm not a piece of meat or whatever and you're like i know but if you just gave me a hand job yeah i would it would make my world it's like telling a kid he's smart or loved see most people mention like a math teacher middle school that that would inspire them to get into science you you it's give a shout out to the well that's part of that's not the nicest but i'm just saying that goes a long way all right uh let's see kindness that's a great question uh i want to give you a good answer i uh i got lost when i was like six i was was walking around my dad and i zoned out and went away and next thing you know i don't know where i am i'm in a neighborhood this old guy finds me crying on a lawn somewhere and he goes uh come inside and he tried to call my parents and nothing came of it eventually they found me after like nine hours cops were there the fbi's out there [ __ ] helicopters and i guess you know that's nice this old guy took me in for a couple hours and just sat me down and kept me safe that's something yeah oh how about enos my transvestite nanny very kind he uh did you hear about this no okay we had this transvestite nanny he was like a drag queen but it was in the 90s so it was weird it was new and uh my bike got stolen and he you know my parents were like yeah what are you gonna do they're poor kids you know and he was like [ __ ] it let's we're gonna go get that bike and i was like this guy's in a wig in high heels big black guy and i'm like uh ah what are you gonna do you know it's gone and he's like no we're gonna go get it so we got in the van and drove around my neighborhood saw the kids [ __ ] with the bike you know five street tuffs and uh he goes all right you want to come out or should i just do this and i was like you do it i'm terrified what are you crazy and he got out of the van in full you know heels and wig and he went up to these guys and they went off oh my god look at this [ __ ] guy homo [ __ ] all this [ __ ] you know it's the 90s and he just stared at him long enough to where they were kind of like all right well i guess we're gonna fight you now and he goes uh that's not your bike and they go what are you gonna do about it and he puts his hand on the middle of the bike and they didn't do anything and he just picked it up and said that's what i thought put the bike over shoulder slid the van door open threw the bike in and we drove off somebody stuck up for you yeah and you know i mean he could have got i mean they have tools they could have [ __ ] tuned him up two seconds that actually like takes courage oh yeah real courage and then that the the the reason you do an act like that is that makes a kid like you feel like there's somebody on your side that's powerful someone on your side is big it's big that goes a long way especially when they have uh the risk of getting their ass kicked or their job taken away or whatever it is now we're gonna get uh philosophical maybe a little bit emotional would you rather lose all your old memories or never be able to make new ones it's a tough one but i'd go easy answer make new ones but don't you think all the shitty things that happened to you oh so my hard drive is wiped clean it's not is it memories or is it how every memory affected me too i mean this is a very how do they go hand in hand i i think the reality about memories is you replay them often you go back to them even when you're not aware of it you really go you go back often like that um and they change you change them too yeah you change them to suit your understanding of the world yes and so uh the the dark view you have both the hope and the cynicism you have about the world is so deeply grounded in the um in the memories that you're basically i would say if you erase all memories i think you're really starting over with maybe the wisdom of how the world works but not your so much your personality is gone you would really um it'd be interesting how your comedy would change maybe you would have a good sense of timing you have a good sense of like the writing process maybe but like now you're making some good points but let me ask you this let's say i go to lake cuomo with my girlfriend now like i wipe the memory or i keep my old memories let's say i go to you know the tuscany with the lady yeah i just won't remember that yeah but you get to experience it in the moment okay you'll get to enjoy it can i look at a photo of it yes but what the hell is this exactly oh fascinating it's exactly the rules are pretty simple yeah i think everyone knows how the rules go see but you you would uh yeah so what uh well i was gonna say start new ones but then i realized i wouldn't be who i was without them yeah that's what you're saying so i guess i'd keep them because i am 38 so i've gotten a good chunk out of life yeah and let's be honest how many years do you have left i know right i got aids is it better to have loved okay this question is ridiculous is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all the the it sounds cliche but yeah there's a question definitely better to loss so you enjoy the ups and downs yeah that's what that's life for sun and rain baby i kind of like both the whole thing the the loss every time you lose something it really makes you distinctly realize how much you valued it yes like am i when i'm sad like when i'm feeling alone and i'm sitting there alone at home and i wish i could hang out with somebody that's like a realization how awesome people are yeah so it's like the missing the yeah uh we don't have a lot of that in life anymore because we can have anything we want immediately so the missing has gone away which again drives down the joy of having it so i i think you're right you need both uh so like you said you have a condition that a terminal condition not much many years left do you think about your mortality all day every day are you afraid not afraid because it's inevitable so it's more like how are we going to handle this it's like the winner is coming let's stock up on some [ __ ] nuts but the existential nature of it like the fact that this ride ends like what the hell are you doing any of this for like is it your satisfaction happiness short term but like the there is a presumption there that it kind of goes on forever i think if you truly think about the fact that it ends um your brain almost shuts shut down yeah there's some kind of like protective like uh switch that just goes off i mean that's why the stoics you know encourage people to meditate on death because it somehow reorganizes your priorities it helps you like holy [ __ ] this ends make the most of the day yes it's just a nice thing but still you can't quite comprehend the thing ends uh little things too you know people go like oh we got a layover between our flights it's an hour what are we gonna do for an hour it's like we mean what are you gonna do for an hour you're gonna kill and let's kill how are we gonna kill this hour this is part of your life you're just trying to get rid of it you're trying to kill it that always blew my mind like hey [ __ ] it let's go hit the the airport bar let's get a you know a candy bar or something yeah anything with bar but uh it's just you gotta live i hate this like how are we going to burn oh the bar didn't open for 15 minutes what are we gonna do well we got 15 minutes we got the world is our oyster yeah make the most of it yeah and like the like you said in modern day actually the boredom is a gift like the when you're waiting for something that's that's that's a gift you get to be with your thoughts yeah those those are the same thoughts you'll have when you're on your deathbed there won't be a uh you won't be scrolling tick tock on your deathbed i hope not jesus you'd be a lot more actually maybe you would be what if that existed because it would be a good uh like content creators would be like oh i'm dying this would be good content yeah i want to be able to film the exact moment it goes like last words i wonder what my last year will be yeah good way to like end the the account with a bang yep i like that well you know you ever seen that meme or the old guy in bed he goes i wish i had tweeted more you know and then he dies it's so true it could be the future uh what do you think is the meaning of life i don't think there is one everybody always throws that out there there isn't a meaning i think we're here we're lucky to be here i think there's no afterlife there's no heaven that's that's all [ __ ] we tell ourselves to feel better and i think you gotta just it's like saying what is the meaning of this uh food i made well it's just you enjoy the food you try to get the most out of it you you built the food you've prepared it so just get what you can out of it don't die and try to make it last as long as possible yeah but you look at earth it's like four billion years old and uh life started early on like like simple cell bacterial life like a one billion years in and then it started like having lots of uh aggressive interaction eventually there's predator and prey and then sex lots of sex lots of sex oh yeah lots of violence oh yeah uh and then you know through natural selection there's just a whole evolutionary process of of animals that have loved and lost and murdered and gotten murdered and all that kind of stuff and it's somehow led to human civilization and we're super busy trying to create things and creating beautiful art creating beautiful comedy yeah um just always creating something new it feels like it's tending down or something like it's it's a little not dying if you die tomorrow you still have all these hours of pods so it's kind of you think you're cheating death in a subconscious way i think right you know who ernest becker is and i've heard the name um it's a book called denial of death this idea that that uh if you don't acknowledge what's on my shelf uh girls love it like uh no i'm just i'm saying you want to bring told story that's the russian literature it's the back to norm it's good to bring to uh because because uh no american has read any russian literature but they all appreciate it if you bring it and it's not like they're going to ask you any legitimate questions because they haven't read it yeah so you can always pretend like you've read it so it's a little dense can we get a shortened version cliff notes yes or make a movie with uh you know ben stiller that i that i can just go oh this is based on what is it uh life and death no what's the war and peace one piece yeah yeah yeah so ernest becker's theory and there's this whole terror management theory that basically says that like our terror of death our fear of death is one of the central creative forces of the human condition it's the reason we're trying to yeah cheat death we're trying to delude ourselves that somehow we can become immortal through our art that's why you've uploaded your special to youtube because you think you think you're special will outlive all of human civilization you think youtube will outlive all of your civilization i could go away tomorrow that can go away tomorrow all of this can go away so i'm truly grateful mr mark norman that you would spend your uh very valuable time with me today even though it could all go away this could be the the last day of our lives and won't you be quite upset this is how you spent it ah yeah you're a hotel room what am i yeah you're like harvey weinstein here you heard me up but now i feel [ __ ] just wait what we uh have ready for you after the podcast is over hi brother thanks so much for talking today thank you it was great comedy thanks for listening to this conversation with mark normand to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from mark norman himself on his twitter which you should definitely follow because it's hilarious the worst thing about getting omicron for christmas is you know it was re-gifted thank you for listening and hope to see you next time

Channel: Lex Fridman

Views: 453,008

Keywords: Dave Attell, Joe Rogan, Norm Macdonald, agi, ai, ai podcast, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence podcast, lex ai, lex fridman, lex jre, lex mit, lex podcast, mark normand, mit ai, netflix special

Id: WzsivT_Ap1w

Length: 110min 7sec (6607 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 08 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/fremenist]

Can’t believe how far Lex has come. Being able to get an A-lister like Kevin Hart here is just incredible. So happy for all Lex’s success.

[u/Desperate_Dirt14]

Well now I just can't stop wondering about Lex's hog

[u/TaborTalk1]

Holy fuck! Mark Normand on Lex Fridman??? Lex is getting deep into the world of comedy…NICE

[u/convie]

Lex played in a band and had long hair? Any pics floating around of this?

[u/clingklop]

! Is this a crossover episode?! Two of my favorite people.

I enjoyed Normand's recommendation of "The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy" I'm not sure where he recommended it

[u/ElCapitanMiCapitan]

If I heard correctly Mark actually got lex to say he’s a virgin in the first five minutes of their conversation. I’m rolling

[u/Left_Frame698]

I can't stop listening to lex's podcast. I think I got the lex's bug 😅🙈

[u/mrroboto695]

Fucking lets go

[u/Damnwhiskey]

I got most of the way through this episode. I haven't seen a lot of mark normand, and i'm going to give his stand up a listen to. I cant tell if he's constantly in character or if that's how he really talks. I feel like it led to some more than usual awkward moments.

That being said I really enjoyed how Lex was able to adapt from his cards on the fly and got out of his own element a bit. PS Dave Attell would be an absolutely great guest on the show. He's brilliantly funny, one of my all time favorites.