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August 19, 2024 149 mins

Comedian, writer and filmmaker Mike Birbiglia talks about real-life sleepwalking, his movie "Don't Think Twice" and the insatiable nature of success.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Hey it's unpaid Bill. On this week's Quest Love Supreme Classic,
we talked to comedian, writer and filmmaker Mike Erfiglia about
his real life sleepwalking his movie Don't Think Twice in
The Insatiable Nature of Success. This is from November nine,

(00:21):
two thousand sixteen. See you on the next go round.
Shut up Bill, Just start the episode. Suprema so Suprema,
roll call, Suprema su Suprema, role called Suprema Subprema, roll call,

(00:48):
Suprema Subrema roll call. I am Quest Love. Yeah, I
do not quit. Yeah. They we're gonna find out. Yeah,
I'll be ruined. Good ship roll Suprema so Suprema roll
call Subprema so Surema roll call. I am yeah, Electric ladies. Yeah,

(01:11):
we come to my crib. Yeah, but that rice and gravy.
Suprema su Sufdrema, roll call, Soprema sun Suprema. Roll car.
Name is Steve, Yeah, Sugar Steve. Yeah, I feel like
I'm not wanted. Yeah in this room, road call, Suprema

(01:37):
Suprema roll call. My name is Bill. Yeah, still unpaid. Yeah,
I got divorced. Yeah, I need to get rolla su
Frema roll call, suprima suprema road call my handbuss Bill. Yeah,
I like Tater Tots. Yeah, I run this show. Yeah,

(02:01):
don't believe me. Just watch road called. So Prima Prima
roll call my name yeah here, Yeah, please don't fight me. Yeah,
because I don't know how to do this. Ship Suma sorima,

(02:22):
roll call, so prema, so prima, roll call my name
is Mike. Yeah, I'm not going for a hike. Yeah,
I can look at my physique. Yea, Yeah, I'm so prima.
Roll call Prima Prima, roll call, so prima, so so

(02:45):
so prima, roll calm so prima, so so prima. Roll
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another edition of Course Love Supreme,
only on Pandora. Yes, I'm of course Love and we
got the team Supreme with us, and today we got
a really great show for you. Comedian writer, actor and

(03:06):
director Mike bar Bigley is on the show. He'll be
on in a bit and we're talking about his new
movie Don't Think Twice, which is out next Wednesday on
iTunes and on December six on Blu Ray and before
all that, we're gonna check in with the team Supreme.
We are here at our home at Electric Ladies Studios.
Yeah that, sugar, Steve. Yes, we're back at Electric Lady. Man.

(03:29):
We never left. We never left. I've been hiding under
this couch twenty years Steve. Steve and I first met
each other twenty years ago at uh where we are
right now, this location very uh to our anniversary tonight. Yeah, yeah,
so it's good to be here. I just never knew

(03:50):
that our return to Electric Ladies Studios would be a
radio show. Yeah exactly. Okay, So to my left, going clock, Uh,
Sugar Steve, what's up, pal? Feeling good? You're feeling good? No? Okay,
my kurts, my head is killing me. Okay, okay, I'm

(04:11):
paid Bill. How are you doing? Bro? Good man? Are
you I'm great? How's life fantastic? Really? Sometimes you look
like thank you coming from you? It's really really painful.
A little another day, another dollar? Brother? How's it going? Man?

(04:34):
I can't complain at all. Man, I'm sitting here in
quest lot Supreme an Electric Lady and chopping up his paper.
You couldn't leave it, you could, all right, we are
officially chopping up paper. What did that means? It's like

(04:55):
what I mean? Oh, you know for those that are
as well, tell everybody, chopping up paper is a colloquialism
used in the American South among negroes who are probably
making their money and the legal activities such as drug
dealing or money laundering, and it replied, it is referred

(05:15):
to as you know, I'm I'm gaining this currency at
an alarming rate. I'm amassing chopped eagle tender at at
at at as at a rate that is just incredible.
So I'm here about chopping up the paper. It doesn't
mean I'm literally putting blades to the paper and breaking

(05:37):
it off. It's just counterfeit money. You could be chopping
it up, you could. You could be breaking it up
like in the sheets like white. But it's just very
much you know, I'm chopping up that paper, boss Bill.
How are we doing? Doing? Really well? More importantly, how
am I doing? You're doing great, You're doing a good job.
But there's only the first like five minutes though, right, No,
we've been at this for like about ten minutes so far. Okay,

(06:00):
well's see, that's that's what you here for to keep
me in mind. Good, you're doing a great job. And
I guess the most notable thing to mention at the
top here is that the familiar female voice you've heard
on the past few episodes, A quest of supreme Yes, Layah,
she's officially part of our family now of our show. Yeah,

(06:20):
the team grows. Uh. I figured that we need uh
in the room to breast. What's breast? I've known this
lady since she since we were young and uh waits

(06:45):
a stripper in Atlantic. Now you know she's my my
comrade from Philadelphia. Uh No, you're from Philly. Okay, thank you?
Um yeah, now I'm already regretting this this decision. Welcome

(07:07):
like st Clair nickname. Sorry, I'm not good with compliments.
We're gonna have to give you a nickname. Well, she
used to be lady lay on Philadelphia. What do you
see a lady? Were she at? Were you not lady?
Like in syllables? What was your club name? What was

(07:27):
just like other chicks with like you know, it just
seems like it's gonna get me in trouble later. I mean,
you know, you don't make no money in a daytime
at the strict club oh, because you have to think, like,
what kind of person goes to the strip club? This
is the Gold Club right right? I know what I'm saying,

(07:54):
actually work. I felt it and then realized, just wait,
are we still in the air right now? Yeah? We are.
We've been yanked off the year. Um yeah, I went
to college, everybody. Yeah, I was gonna say, let's let's
pay in a different picture. Like I've been working with
Laya behind the scenes for several weeks now. She's very,

(08:16):
very smart, very intelligion we were were blessed to have
is No, no, no, no, let me. You're just saying
I'm lying. Well, yeah that she's not pleasant. Um now,
Laya is is actually uh Philadelphia Radio Royalty. She's been

(08:37):
You've been on radio in Philadelphia for at least uh
eleven since I was well eleven years. No, I knew
you since you were twelve. No, I just don't want
them to know that them. But yeah, that's fine. I've
been on for fifteen years. Let's just keep it real, okay, Okay, yeah, yeah,
you've done a great job. That's why you're here. I
just want to mention y'all say something about Source magazine

(08:58):
not being valid but it's still valid in twenty thirteen
and fourteen because I was in the top thirty in radio.
So as long as that's still going on magazine is
still valid. I just I wasn't on the radio in
two thousand and fourteen, but they still put me in there.
So I just want to get them to love shows
you how much credibility then I really he's gonna put
you on the ain't gotta goddamn show. Poody don't need

(09:21):
no words. Poody don't need no Poody, don't need no
radio show. Poody know what Poody do. Why I just
recently that Louis c. K wrote and direct movies that
shouldn't want Oscar pood shouldn't want to Pooty Jagscar and

(09:46):
Clifton Pile should get a Lifetime Achieving award. Dude, he's
black excellence, Like he's one of those black actors. He's
a black father. He's a black father. But then he'll
turn around and like he'll being fucking Star Wars like
he worked. He'd just be working and he was what
he wasn't in Star Wars. But he will be in
like some big but and then he'll be in he

(10:08):
was in SOCIETI but then his greatest role I think
was Pinky And next Friday he really just really there
was a rich emotional tapsture that just really fine, fine time,
you know, I'm time. Can we now? I have to
analyze you how like the sponge that is your brain

(10:38):
and the information that it retains. I said, that is
it amazing? You might need to be the guest next week?
Is that like no weed influence? Like seriously, is that
no weed influence? No? I don't know, I don't know.
I mean I would just eb. Since I was a kid,
I've just been able to just kind of pertains a reading.
I mean, I smoke, but I'm not I'm not a smoker.

(11:00):
I mean, if you know, I'll do it in the
gathering if like y'all got one here, Yeah, we're going in.
It's just a celebration. But no, I don't really smoke
no weed like that, because it's just it just it
kills my productivity. And it was just one episode I
had where I was driving back from the Wilf House
high and the road started Chris Prosy. I told God,

(11:20):
I wasn't doing that at no moment. Well, wait, I
want to ask you something because this is why I learned.
Haven't recently just visited uh Maui where the speed limit
the average speed limit thirty five? Like it would be
like something where it's like, okay, so where's the whole
foods at They'll be like, oh, it's eight miles away.

(11:41):
You'll get there and like forty minutes. Wow, yeah, and
you gotta drive. And the logic was that it stops
uh drunk driving uh incidents. But the thing is, I'm
like keep saying, if you if you're inebriated a good one.
If you're inebriated, Uh, will you see that thirty five

(12:07):
there dominant? Like will you see that? I don't know,
But if you're driving slow, like why don't that put
your life at risk more? I don't know. I don't
know what the one time I did it it was,
and that was it like that ship scared the ship
out of me due and that's not really like drugs
actually really like scared me. So that one experience, it
was me and a girl I was saying at the time,

(12:29):
and we were smoking, just smoking, like just smoking just
for smoking, and we had it at him and we're
just doing it. That was like seven smoking man, he
was just smoking, and she was actually I mean to
bring it all home to Electric Lady. This was after
one of your artists that you here produced had finished

(12:49):
her sophomore album, so we were kind of celebrating that
she was had finished. Related to that artist. Wasn't related,
Oh god, no, it wasn't her. I know you're talking about.
It wasn't related, But I wasn't related. No, No, disrespected
that person, but maybe not. I wasn't here. But but
now as we were hanging and so she had it
on the on the pipe, and you know, man, I

(13:11):
just I mean where I'm from, pipes mean crack. So
smoking off a pipe just felt real crackish to me,
you know what I'm saying. But I was like, I mean, whatever,
we're doing it. So I was smoking it off the
pipe and it's real pure. So I was like, damn
on Hunger's hell, we need to go to the guy
the wife house. And so I drove to the waffle
House and we went to the wiffle House on a

(13:33):
This was a Saturday night, and I remember sitting there
and the high I just came over me. I'm waiting
on my food and you know my thing with food,
Like I remember my my dude who was took our joint.
He had a jail tap named tap Daddy. And when
I saw the jail tat, I knew it not for real.
I'm not making this up. Dude, he had Daddy, and

(13:54):
so I knew then. You know, that was one from
my hypolitists that I knew the food was gonna be
great because I felling cook the best food, right, you know,
I mean like if it ain't at least three shout
out the Prodigies prison recipes. But ya know, if you
ain't got at least two felons in your if you

(14:14):
ain't got at least two felons in your restaurant, the
food is gonna be shitty. And if you don't have
at least one person to your black family that has
a black disease just cooking, Like if your grandma ain't
got the speedbag on her arm, I don't want her dinner.
I don't want it's not gonna be good. No, it's real,
it's real, but it's really person with a black disease

(14:39):
such as the galed bag is not a disease. It's
just like what happens to women when they it's called wings,
you know, no, it's it's I mean it's wings, and yeah,
chicken wings gotamn in. So feedbag is better than you need.
You got the speedbag. But anyway, So anyway, so it's

(14:59):
it's felling cooking my chicken legs. I know that she's
gonna be amazing. So I'm sitting here and the highs
just keeping coming down on me. Right, And so it's
Saturday night and the police is out there, and the
girl on with by the time she so got damn high,
she didn't feel asleep. She nodding off like they goddamn
dope fen lean looking like bubbles from the wine ship.

(15:20):
So I'm just like, yo, this is bad. So I
tell her to just go getting the cars and just
getting the car and just go to sleep. So the
police is out there because they because you know, it's
like the club. So man, I finally get the food
and I'm walking out and the police is looking at me.
I'm just like, dude, I'm looking at the d while
doing the right and I had to put the key

(15:41):
in my car. This is before. This was like when
I was a really broke nigger and like I didn't
have the remote control open key I had. I had
the old school, like you gotta get the kid, the
Latin turn Man. That was the most concentrated ship I
had to do about life. And I got it. And
you know, I remember driving home and man, the roads

(16:01):
started goddamn zigzaggly man, and uh, I just said to myself,
was like, guy, if you let me get home, I
would never get this high again. And I made it
home and I busted down them chicken the niggs and
I down. I never got that high in that was it? Man,
so um, wow, that was it. I got contact from

(16:24):
oh man, our coffee tail looks. Damn, you should just
move to walking distance from the wildflofts and you can
get high. Some research. Thank you. Every time I go there,
I try to figure out, uh, because I know there's
they claim that there's a million plus combinations of the

(16:49):
hash browns. Yeah, you can get them scattered some other
covered chunk cap Um, you can get them with chili.
You know what I'm saying. I I mean, I I
know that mean you pretty well. No, But there's a
scientific there's a scientific number of combination that says that, uh,
it's one million, it's one million plus different confer nomination. Yeah,

(17:13):
I get everything on mine? Oh work, what you get
on yours? What which on your cheese and anything? Dude,
I go full throttle. Oh damn, but I only do
like a quarter of it. Okay, you know I'm one
of those like I'm in the the god the am
I about to make this reference the Ron Perlman facing
my life. He orders everything and it does a little

(17:37):
bit of each thing and then leaves, which it's that's
probably the worst thing I can say, like, because there's
this unspoken rule that we can't waste food. And then
but then but see Wilfile's they don't upgraded a formula, bro.
So now wait what they don't upgraded the formula. They
messed with it. No they brother, So now what they
used to they used to just have the regular waffles,

(17:59):
just the regular Oh but now they got the peak in.
But now they got the new joint they do. They'll
do you a strawberry waffle. They put a little strawberry,
like a little something some cancer causing ship they put
in there, and they just cook it up and it
takes amazing. Oh boy, oh boy, wow, we really do
need to go to Wiffe House. Yeah, that would be

(18:21):
after that cancer comment. We really need to let's go. Yeah,
that was that. Did you see that story about the
girls that was got the waff House. I don't think
they got to shut down. They were fired. The girls
that were doing hair in the waff house. Wait, what
this is true? There was did you get your hair
did well? They were doing it. It was like it
was somewhere in Atlanta, I want to say side they

(18:44):
were doing shot totally. They were doing hair washing hair
in the waff House. They had so many World Star
videos about waffle House fights. It's a lot go down
because it's twenty four hours. It's twenty four hours. But
I got to imagine they only make I'm sure like
their profit margins are the highest from the hours of

(19:04):
like twelve midnight to like three four in the morning,
like eating waffle house. Much like you wonder about the
guy that goes to the strip club during the day.
I'm just I'm just thinking, dude, because like if you
go eating waffle House during the day, like for you
goddamn savage, wait wait for the dance, wait time out.

(19:30):
Really I mean because because for us, like when we
was coming up, wiff House was club it was after
the club food. It was after the club. It's late
night you go, and that's what it is now. I
will say during the morning, like if morning I'm with you,
we would we would hit it. Sometimes when when I
land before I go to the hotel, I go to

(19:52):
waffle house like I eat daytime waffiuse. But you go
to the strip club in the daytime too, though, So no,
I don't. Okay, So uh, let's let's dial back via
the food talk a bit here, guys and get a
little serious, uh, at least in line with our our
guest today, Um, who is a comedian. I feel um

(20:19):
it's probably one of the more probably one of the
most unique storytellers, uh in comedy, because this his level
of comedy isn't just like why did the chicken across
the road? Like? It's not just like set up punch line,
set up punch line. Like. He tells these stories of
his life and they're the most hilarious thing ever, except

(20:41):
they're all like real. They're the most painful, realists, most insecure,
most pie in the face, you know, self deprecating stories
I've ever heard. But the way he delivers it, uh
makes it so relatable, makes him so likable. UM. And

(21:03):
he's made two movies that I really feel that are important. UM.
I guess for artists Aliken and people that aren't into art, Um,
they speak to all areas of life. UM. I'm speaking
of a sleepwalk with me, and I'm speaking of his
newest film, Don't Think Twice. UM. And our guest is

(21:27):
Mike Berbiglia, and he's coming up in the next segment.
Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Mike Berbiglia. Man.
Thank you, guys, welcome to Quest Loves. Thanks man. How's
it going. I'm good, I'm good, I'm I'm I'm psyched

(21:50):
that you liked the movie. And I was just I
was talking to Bill beforehand because he I ran into
him a few months ago, and I was telling him
about the movie right not to be confused with Boss
Balls and and uh I ran into you at I'm

(22:12):
forgetting the name of the place Bar Central, Yeah, and uh.
And he was in a group uh for many years. Group.
I was in a group I still, I guess I
still am in a group called Freestyle Love Supreme. Sounds
a lot like Quest Surprises Abound. So I played it.
I played and still play. I guess in the hip
hop improv comedy group where we get suggestions from the

(22:35):
audience to make up hip hop tunes. And the people
who are in the group are the people that went
on sort of to create Hamilton's the Musical. They are
Lynn Miranda and Chris Jackson and David Diggs and all
the guys who are in that are in the same group.
And Mike reminded me that we were at the same
Aspen Comedy Festival together once many was that a Battle
of the Uh Now I was just doing stand up

(22:58):
and these guys were doing freestyle. Yeah. But then a
few months ago I ran into these guys because I
did something with Lynn Miranda a couple of years ago,
and I was like, Hey, I didn't know Bill. I
was like, hey, Lynn, I think you'll like this movie
I made. It's probably a little bit like your life.

(23:18):
Little did I know that it was, and Bill was
part of it. Yeah. So I watched the movie today,
I don't think twice an incredible film and was was
that's a whole lot like my life up straight? And
what mere? You and I were texting last night, who
do you relate to most in the movie I mean

(23:41):
in the beginning, I thought I was Jack, but then
I thought, then I thought maybe I was your character, Miles. Yeah,
because what I don't want to be is I don't
want to be the character that doesn't realize that the
party's over and the lights are out. Can we kind
of give them an overview? Yeah? Yeah. So the gist

(24:02):
of it is like, it's a movie about a bunch
of best friends in like an improv comedy group, and
they've been together for years, and then one of them
gets a chance to be on like a Saturday Night
Live type of show, and the rest of them don't.
And it's about That's why we're talking about in relation
to breakups, because it's what happens when not everybody makes
it in the same way like Michael, Like Michael Jackson

(24:23):
for example, Wait side note, because I'm gonna I'm gonna
interrupt with small, meaningless questions, all right, similar to Nike's
funt yeah, does does Broadway Video own that Weekend Live? Funt? No?
They don't own that font that fun? How did you
guys master that fun? Because that was impressive that font.

(24:45):
We went through fonts and we're like, yeah, that's similar
to Starrent Live. But it's not the same, okay, And uh,
it's funny you asked that question because I was one
and the same thing while I was watching well you
know what you were like, Yo, y'all nailed this perfectly.
And who who was? I was over? It's Has Myers.
One day, like when I was in prep for the
movie and we're doing all the production design stuff, aren't

(25:05):
trying to make it look like Sarrent Live. And I
was walking in to the hallways he you know, Causeth
Meyers is literally down the hall from S and L.
I was walking in just like taking photos of my phone,
and the security guard I was like, hey, yeah, you
can't take photos, And I was like, I got what
I needed? And who was your fake? Dom Pardo? That

(25:26):
was me? I did you? Yeah? But like, but what's
funny about it is and that's why I don't mind
talking about It's like if if Sarent Life sued us,
it would be literally the best thing that could have
ever the movie. It's like when Al Franken wrote that movie,
that book about Fox News, the lying wres lies in

(25:48):
the lying liers that tell them, and then Fox News
sued him. And before that it wasn't on the best
seller list, and then because of that it ended up
on the Best of It was so anyway hoping it's
a hit. Um, so yeah, I guess for those that
have yet to see it, I really feel like this
could be the the my big fat Greek wedding Tortoise

(26:11):
in the hair, uh success story, Little Train that could movie,
because this is everyone's story, um, and for me, the
bottom line, I'm obsessed with why people clearly choose to

(26:34):
ruin a good thing? Why do they self sabotage? Like
I can name about and I'm probably one of them.
I can name at least thirty people in my life
that kind of have If you're familiar with SNL trivia, uh,
the you know the Final Jeopardy where Trebec and Sean
Connery are kind of going at each other, and you know,

(26:57):
Final Jeopardy is like the answer is to All you
have to say is the answers to and then the
next thing, you know, that's the best analogy, right, and
then they'll say, like I'm Michigan, that's the answer for me.
The moment where I realized that this wasn't the average
film was was when uh, Joe Gillian's character clearly didn't go,

(27:22):
you know, to the audition to become a star, which
he clearly could have been one. And I mean, how
how did you even have the insight to to go
into that psychological level where to know that happens. I
feel like I know a lot of people who have
done that over the years, who have like who you're like,

(27:45):
you know how there's always the people you're like, yeah,
Eddie Murphy is good, but the real guy was always
like the real guy was this other dude. Yeah, oh yeah,
for every Jordan on the court, it was like seven
other and one that could have. Yeah. That was the
thing that was like the joke was how did Eddie
Murphy end up on Saturday Night Live? And because Charlie

(28:07):
Burnett couldn't read that, he's same the actual guy I
never named the street performer. He was a street performer
in d C. And he's the guy who pretty much
kind of who Chappelle used to watch and he's in
DC Calb. I don't know if you've seen, I've seen
he's in He was like that, he's one of the
guys DC cat but like, I mean, drugs everything, But

(28:29):
he was a street performer. He died in like late eighties.
Don't want to say, but he was like the man,
he was the dude, but he couldn't read wow, so
he just sabotaged it. Yeah. I mean there's a million
guys at the Seller like that. You guys you see
all the time, literally a funny student. You're like, how
come that person is not the most famous comic. This

(28:51):
is what I learned about at least my five years
of kind of being a New Yorker and and scope
in the comedy scene, which I do obsessively more than
musicians and more than chefs. Like comedians are a strange,
strange animal. I'm now realizing that humor is uh is

(29:12):
used as a means to deflect, uh, what the real
problem is going inside. And I didn't realize that until
I started hanging out at the Seller regularly. And this
is the time period where like I started working for humor.
She kind of showed me the ropes. And the thing was,

(29:35):
it was at the very beginning of her slow rise.
By that point, she was just doing you know, her
Comedy Central specials, and the show wasn't even thought about then.
Once the show started to develop, and then you know,
I would ask her like obsessively, like, Okay, so do
you feel a pressure now? Do you feel like you
have to bring everyone with you? Do you feel as

(29:57):
though like you know, and she kind of has. I'm
amazed that it's ridiculous people she puts on her show.
I'm in the comedy scene. She's she's like a more
organized Allan Iverson. How does Amy Schumer like a more
organized Allen ivers Because Okay, as a Philadelphia and as

(30:20):
the season ticket holder to the Sixers, um, you know,
especially during the period of Alan Iverson, I've never seen
someone like literally carry the weight of his family behind
that be cousins and like he would have cousins in
the third tier, uh, extended friends in the second tier,

(30:41):
family members in the first year, like and that's when
I learned, like, oh no, I never want to be
the person that has to like you can't take them
all with you. And so you either are gonna have
the crew of the posse that you have to take
care of, or you roll by yourself. Now, I personally

(31:04):
chose to roll by myself, to the chagrin of a
lot of people in my life. So it's it's you know,
damned if you do, damn if you don't. But you know,
I can't figure out how Like at the Comedy Celler,
at least can you explain what the what that environment
is like there? When I started at the Cellar, it

(31:25):
was in like two two, and it actually was I
think much even tougher than like it was like Colin Quinn.
It was around the time Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
was on Comedy Central. So it was like Colin Quinn
and Nick Depolo, Greg Giraldo and Patrese, who was like
I mean, like Neils, you know, one of the greats,

(31:48):
and like just I mean those guys were tough on
each other. Like Patrese could make you want to crawl
under a ross. No he used to how he addressed you,
You got the biggest head and that that literally he

(32:09):
would do that for a half hour. He was a
he was a mean guy. But but yeah, I know
there's a lot of like survival and and people going
at each other, and uh, I wasn't. I mean I
never thrived in the environment. I mean, I I still
play there. I love the seller, but like I never
you know, I never got into that culture. So I'm
saying I'm noticing, and at least the New York comedy world,

(32:32):
there's three avenues you can choose uh kind of above
uh Street, like sort of like to Midtown Manhattan. Um.
I don't know if like what you would call that area,
but that's where like more mainstream comedy is and I

(32:53):
don't know if people necessarily aspire to be there. I
would think that those that kind of thrive at that
particular strip could also play Vegas Carolines and I don't
know what you would call a David Brenner type or
that sort of thing. But then over in Brooklyn, yeah,
I'm discovering Littlefield Union Hall alternative kuse, Yeah, kind of

(33:17):
the snobby millennials. Yeah, and then there's that's what I like.
But it's I like performing there, but it's just like
performing for your friends. So you're doing stand up. There's
no challenge, no challenge to it at all. It's it's
like people like minded people. And that's why I like
The Seller is great because it's like a lot of tourists,

(33:37):
it's people from all over the place. It's just like
it's it's actually hard to kill at the Seller. It's
pretty hard unless you're really feeling like if you're Schumer
or yours, like you're famous and people are psyched that
you're there. People. Do you think people come there to
sort of star gaze and I think that's yeah, there's
a lot of just hoping for that night that Luis

(33:59):
is there, Louise. Yeah. Does that also does that make
for a bad set for you? Like has someone ever
just butted in line, like oh, Eddie Murphy wants to
do and then like you have to go on afterwards?
Or I remember I was on stage once for two
minutes and I got the light and like, what the
fun lever and it's Robin Williams. Yeah, when Patch Adams

(34:24):
want to get on this we got missed out fire
coming up. You gotta just short. I was so mad,
though I was good, you know, it's five or whatever.
I had an attitude. I thought I was better than
I was. I was like, fuck, Robin Williams, who's that?
You know? Walked off one of the things with your
movie Man, another movie I kind of saw a parallel to.

(34:47):
I don't know if you saw it inside Lewin Davis, Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.
It very much reminded me of that, just in the
sense if you have a person where you just realized,
what do you do with the realization that it's just
not and it happened, and you just have those characters
that's just like, look, dude, I know you thought you
were that guy, but you're not that fucking guy. Um
have you ever felt like that? I mean, I think

(35:10):
you're very funny. Why did you make yourself that character real?
Not for real? Because in my head I thought you
were going to be the chosen one. I thought no,
and I my buddy, you know, you know, he's a
buddy who wrote for us now for a lot of years,
and he gave notes in the script and he's a
friend of mine, and he he was like, you gotta

(35:31):
play Jack. And I was like, you gotta play Kegan's character.
And I was like, I don't know, I'm not talented
enough to play You don't understand, like you need somebody
who is so good that they're undeniable and on the
screen you're like when you're watching, you're like, Oh, it's
got to be him, because that's the guy who would

(35:52):
get it, because Keegan would have gotten it had he
not gone to Mad TV. You gotta asked to do
Matt TV before us to know, so then would good
for his life because then that's where he met Jordan
Peel and they made one of the greatest sketch comedy
shows of all time, I think. But talking about Keegan
Michael Key, Yeah, Keegan Michael Key. But but yeah, so
that's why I played Miles, which is the bitter guy,

(36:13):
which is uh, I don't I'm not like Miles. But
I also I'm pretty good at wearing bitterness. Petty. I
just I don't know if I'm I don't know if
I'm petty, but like when I do it, people believe that.
So we're petty, all right, this is the petty hour
on question. Yeah, we're here with Mike. Is pettiness a

(36:40):
positive character trait? I don't think so. Man, I realized
it's wrong, but it can. I wear proud like like
a like a scarlet letter that I'm happy. But but
you're such a son of a bitch if you're petty,
because there's so many people who are jealous of you,
and so it up. I want to be like everybody,

(37:04):
but I think it's relative. The grass is greener on
the other side, Yeah, I mean, because and that was
the thing. I'm like watching the movie, I didn't want
to say. I mean, I think we could peter much
tell people what happened. I mean we won't. I wouldn't
do it, but it's still I think we wouldn't be
spoiling anything because the way the story is told, it's
I mean, to me, the magic was in the way
you told a story, not necessarily in just the details themselves.

(37:26):
But the thing is, if we're too self aware of
what character we are, like it's sex in the City
that I feel like. I'm like, I feel like we're
all honestly, but it's been different parts. I feel like
I've been that guy. I've been every person different in
my career. I've been I've been every character in that movie. Yeah,

(37:46):
so lucky. I can't wait to be Jack, like I
was watching that movie, like, I know everybody struggled, but
my Jack moments may have not been we live moments,
but they've been moments were you definitely want more so
than right. Yeah, yeah, Well, can I get personal with
your situation? No? Cut cold over here, baby, let's go

(38:09):
all right. Well, I'm just saying that who whose character
did you relate to? Um? I could relate to all
of them. When you watch the film, did you see
your own group in this situation? Absolutely? Um, there were
definitely moments and not necessarily in the group between me,
Pool and ninth Um, you know, for you know, just

(38:31):
to give them back. So I was in a group
called Little Brother, a very influential group that kind of
you know a lot of today's mega you know mega
winners in the hip hop game always referred to as
like one of their favorite groups. Definitely one of my
favorite groups. Like that's why he's here because we love
the ship out a Little Brother when he came out

(38:52):
and so thank you man. And so the group was me,
I was an m C. My partner Big Pool, and
I produced a ninth Wonder who um you know went
on to produce like major artist jay Z Beyonce. Uh,
I mean just you know, do this really big records.
And so for me, when me and Food first started,
we had the conversation that listened. If you study hip hop,

(39:15):
you know the producer always goes on to do more,
and you want that to happen, you know what I'm saying.
You know your man is talented, you want him to
go on and go and do and and go forth.
So between me and him. It was cool when when
Knife got the jay Z. Look we came up here
to baseline, met jay Z. I mean that was surreal,
you know what I'm saying, because I remember being in

(39:35):
the dorm with that dude. Well you came up the baseline. Yeah, yeah,
because we mixed the missiles showing baseline. Wow, we met
and we like that. One day we met j he
was just there and he played us threats from the
Black album and so yeah, man, So for me to
see that journey of me and Knife being in the
dorm together and him looking at like you know, the

(39:55):
source and us him looking at you know, executive Bruce
by DJ Premier, and I'm saying like, yo, man, one
day I'm gonna have that executive produce a ninth one.
It like, that's gonna be me to see him go
from that to you know jay Z. That was amazing
to me and I wasn't I couldn't have been happier
for him. Um, where the disconnect was was in a
lot of people in our camp that really felt like

(40:19):
we left them behind, you know what I'm saying, and
felt that Okay, well the Knife, if you did it
with Jay why didn't you do it for me and
this person, this person, this person, this person, And it's
kind of like what you were saying, you know, you
can't save everybody. And so for me, my moment where
I kind of felt that Jack moment was then when
Minstrel Show, when we got you know, four and a

(40:40):
half mics in the source. At the time, the source
was still kind of four and a half and yeah, yeah,
you know, you got four and a half mics and
so which was the perfect five was what you could get,
but it was a really reputable rating. So that was my,
I guess my Jack moment where I had my uh
the girl that left up Samantha, she's the one that

(41:01):
didn't go to Gillian. Okay, where I had my Gillian
moment and not necessarily a self sabotage moment, but just
where you know, the scene where she was like, yo,
I'm good in the world. You know that that was
kind of when Drake happened, because that was when everybody
was like, yo, take Drake is the dude that you influence.

(41:22):
He big Drake was picking me up, old take my
favorite rapper and all this so ship and it was
just like people were like, yo, man, you could come
and you could do him, and you need to come
for Drake. He stole your styling this And I was
just like, dude, listen, oh they want you to come
from him. Oh my god, are you serious, dude? Oh?
I thought, see, I know battling. No, I know, battling

(41:43):
is a thing in hip hop, but I'm always like,
that's Penny, that would be I thought like it was
the thing of like work with Drake. Well, yeah it was.
It was work with It started like work with Drake,
But then there's always that small cardre of people that like, no,
you need to come, and we want you to you know,
we want you to do it because you could either man.
And so my thing was just like look, man, kind
of like with that character, I'm good where I am.

(42:05):
If my whole theory is like, look, if you're gonna
pull a coupe and try to throw over the government, right, Okay,
if you're gonna throw that dude out, then the government
that you put in place needs to be as good
or better than the government you out did. Else the
people gonna come for your fucking head next, you know
what I'm saying. So my thing is like, look, dude,
I'm not done to quote unquote come for uh you know,
Drake or whoever, because I'm not gonna serve his audience

(42:28):
the way that he is. I'm not about to hop
on fifth of them goddamn remixes with the hot drug
dealing nigga of the moment and do this and do
the auduct like and I'm not knocking that, but I
ain't gonna do that. Ship man at thirty six years old, nigger,
you serious? I really had a new clue. I thinking, like,
maybe you do a record like Kanye did it record

(42:49):
with Yeah, we got a record like way back Yeah,
I mean, and we may do one in the future.
I don't know. Did we didn't we had back in
the day, we did a record with him like that
would be back in the I guess if before you'm
it would be the equivalent of we did right to
sleep right. But then once the ship really pop, we didn't,
you know, do nothing that post Orange is the New

(43:10):
Black did? He was a new phone? Who did phone?
Who did O? What's good man? My fault? So now
that was my moment, man, I I it really hit
the chord with me. So for me, I'm just in
a place whereas many with I really related to that

(43:32):
character Guillion because I think she and I wanted to
ask you by that man. Because to me, I didn't
see it as sabotaged by her not going I talked
I would again. I looked at it as a person
knowing their own limitations and just knowing, like, you know what,
I know I could do this, but if I do this,
I'm gonna suck it up. So let me just not

(43:53):
like I don't have it in me to do this.
That was that was my interpretation of it. Or she
just didn't want it, she didn't want it. I think
she did just didn't want it. She didn't She felt
like it was a sellout moment. She said, like she
was like compromising, good this lily Pad, Like I'm good
on this little bad I'm really straight. No, I'm saying
it's selling out real. Well, I don't think selling out
is real now. I don't think it's no more. I

(44:16):
don't think it exists. Oh if y'all could just see
wait wait wait wait, because right now we're on radio,
so no one can see. I've never collective, I've never
collectively seen like all these teeth look at me like
scratching their heads. Selling out real, I think it is. Yeah,

(44:37):
I think it is. I think it is, But I
don't think it. I mean, back in the eighties and
the nineties, when you know, no, sellout was this whole
big thing real, Yeah, when the whole thing was around,
it was, it was. It was a different kind of
situation because I don't even know what I'm talking because
I don't know where I'm going with this. Opportunities weren't
there for the opportunities like LLL he would say, like

(44:59):
you know, back in the day, we would say, yo,
fun doing the movies and funk doing this because we
never thought it was possible to exactly. And then he
owned the house, so you know what I mean. It's look, no,
I don't think either. But let's let's take a cat
like Miles Davis who has constantly made a career out of, uh,

(45:24):
building a house and burning it down. I mean, he's
totally defined what jazz music is at least four or
five times, which is impossible, Like some people are lucky
to change music once, let alone five times. Um. But
then there was a point where, uh, when I was

(45:44):
reading his book and just studying, like a lot of
his uh uh late sixties mid seventies performances where he
you know, turned his back to the audience and you know,
he had this sort of uh wishy washy uh kind
of middle finger or attitude towards his audience. And initially,
of course, growing up, I thought, oh, man, that's cool,

(46:06):
like you know, like you know, he stands for something,
he stands for principles. But there's a period where I
just started reading so many psychology books and whatever, and
then I realized, like, uh, you're scared of rejections. So
it's like I'm gonna to me before you can. Yeah,
I'm yeah, I'm gonna reject you first before years like

(46:29):
Bunny Rabbit Ship. Yeah. And I don't I don't I
think that that the idea of I'm not saying that integrity,
it's not real. But if we were really artists, artists
with the Ethian or you know, slash, if we were all,
we all be performing free on the streets. Like all

(46:53):
of us in this room are business people, whether we
admit it or not, to eat to be able to
get the energy to perform. So I think that I
don't know, I just I don't believe in selling out
I'm not using that as excuse. Like, okay, well, whoever
has the next big check right right, I'm there for it,

(47:14):
Like I okay, I guess I can say I turned
down the biggest check of my life like two weeks
ago because I didn't believe in what I was being paid.
I guess. I guess you gotta understand the difference, right,

(47:35):
It's like there's selling out and cashing in, you know
what I mean. It's like, I'm not selling out, I'm
cashing in. So it's like to me cashing in. It's like, look,
if I'm quest love or if I'm unpaid bill, if
I got if y'alls is willing to give me a
check to do what it is I already do that
I love doing it. Yeah, it's like I'm getting paid

(47:56):
for what the funk? I do what I mean, But
if you ask me to change up the way I
do exactly. For instance, for example, like Premier, like me
and you know, we were talking DJ Premier um legendary
DJ one half Gang saw that he had an opportunity.
He was telling me he had an opportunity to do
the Grammys with Janet. This is back in nineties together again. Yeah,

(48:19):
she had that he had the chance to perform on
it with her, but they wanted him to act like
he was d It wasn't live. They wanted to pull
a fat boy slim yeah exactly. They wanted him to
be DJ. And so she wanted the credibility. Yeah, she
wanted credibility. But he was like, but she wanted you know,
I mean, it's pops so everything is synchronized in the minute.

(48:40):
And he was trying to tell her like, look, I
can do it live. This is what I do. I'm
not gonna sunk up, and she was just like, look,
I can't leave the chance. So he was walked away
from the gig. So to me like that, I would
have did it because I do it now. I've done
Soul Train, I've done won't you? But I think, but

(49:00):
I think with you man to next week. I think
when you man, you like thirty years in the game,
so your cred is solidified. See. But that's that's overthinking
the situation. And that's the number one thing that self
saboteurs do. They overthink. If you knew the amount of

(49:24):
hours I've I've wound up in the hospital myself trying
to take care of other saboteuris no, I'm no not
not bullshitting you. The amount of talking them off the ledge.
I say, my number one quote for there was some
sort of like tally of all a mere quotes for

(49:47):
the year. I'm certain that, dude, you're overthinking it. I
have to say that so many times too people just
to get them down to to the first floor again,
because once they it inside their head, it's no escape
because the thing is Okay, let's let's take premom situation. Now.
Who would be the judge in the jury that would say,

(50:10):
oh my, you know built Premiere. It's not DJ and Live.
But again, I'm but this is this is no he worked.
He he did that Janet remix. Uh was seven? Was
it right? Was it? Take? No? No, no, no, no,
this is before. I don't want to don't want to

(50:32):
be his story wherever. Okay, the earlier, the earlier Janet,
the even more I would have been like, oh, finally,
like we made it. Like I would have cheered that
one of us got in, you know, not like oh
he he's selling out because he's not plugged in. Like

(50:54):
it's it's overthinking it produced the record, so he already
made it. But no, no, even I'm just saying that
whatever the situation, if he produced or didn't produce it,
or whatever, the whole the whole point of it was
that she wanted Okay, she was drinking from his milkshakes.
She wanted some of that street cred and I drink

(51:15):
your milkshake. Yeah, I'm just a straw wait inside side note,
side note, I cannot wait. I cannot wait till Bundby
is a guest on this show. Soka cvs. Two Outcriterian
collection each Other a movie trivia. Um, yeah, I think

(51:38):
that's overthinking it. And a lot of our are artists,
are artistes, Um, they kind of just they. But you
gotta have a line though, I mean I think like
because yeah, you gotta have a cold man. And so
my thing is just like again, cashing out versus cashing
in versus selling out. To me, it's only a out

(52:00):
out move if you do something that is against your principles.
You know what I'm saying, That's against your core principles,
whatever they may be. You know what I'm saying. So
you know I will not betrayed my heart to quote
you know a famous you know what I mean? Room, Oh,
that is this quest up Supremere on Pandora, and we're

(52:24):
here with our guest comedian Mike Berbiglia uh talking about
his latest movie, Don't Think Twice, his amazing movie. By
the way, can I say the tweet that has like yes,
so right now, my Mike has discovered farts. Do you
just read like a lot of it is record? But
I like this promo, but I like it. My sophomore

(52:46):
solo album, No News Is Good News, will drop at
the top of two seventeen. My workload this year is
too hectic and I want to get it right. And
I was like, oh, that's really nice. He's like leveling
with his fans, and he's like being honest. I don't know,
it's like it's aunt promotional because you're actually opening up
and being like, I'm just a person. I'm trying my best. Yeah,
I gotta keep it rude with him. You want to

(53:06):
get in front of just go down, just scroll scroll.
I've been chilling lately. I've been you know, if you
caught me like, oh nine took a little when I
was really going hard. Oh man, I'm gonna change, man,
I'm coming in the blood of Jesus who's like the
who's like the Samantha, who's the gillions character in music?

(53:27):
Who's who's like the greatest? But never man, you're gonna
make me cough. Uh uh, all right, just just go
to my go to my disconts page. Just go to
my disconts page, and let's just assume that. No, let's

(53:50):
pick a number and then maybe of anyone I've ever
worked with, I'll say this, with the exception of jay Z.
Jay Z was probably one of the rare cats that, like,
it was a pleasure to work with him. That's why

(54:10):
I worked with him, not because like I saw like,
oh a payday or finally like a way out of
this crab barrel. You know. It's it's just that, you
know the amount of times I've had to Jedi mind
trick someone like, uh, say, I'm working on a song
with somebody and I feel as though, you know, a

(54:31):
particularly like the one is where this particular thing is
like battling over where the one is. It's like one
of my main arguments with people. So it's to the
point where I'll just naturally go to another count or whatever,
just so that they'll can you know, they'll contrary and
by nature, will just go to the opposite place until

(54:51):
they which is where you want them to be, anywhere
exactly exactly with me, I don't my my my theories
that if the crash symbol and the kick go at
the same time, that's that's the beginning of the sentence. Yeah,
all right, Now here's the thing though, I feel like

(55:12):
we kind of tarantinoed you in this situation. I kind
of wanted to build up to this movie, but it
was so powerful. Yeah, I kind of want to work
backwards because even before uh don't think twice sleepwalk with me.

(55:33):
When I saw it, even then, I thought like, oh man,
this is awesome my life story, like because you never,
at least with hip hop, especially after uh, in music
in general, Uh, there's this dividing line between the winners
and the losers, where winners are celebrated and the losers

(55:54):
are forgotten about or never celebrate it. To me, it
was always good to see the working man, the blue
collar working man. And you know in that film you
drive yourself. Yeah, I drive my mom's station wagon around
to tell us all the process of driving to your

(56:15):
own gigs. Uh. The especially tell me about the comedy
condo yeah, I can tell you. So every comedian stays in. Yeah.
So the comedy condo usually means you'll have a comedy
club in the town and like Nashville, Tennessee, and let's
say and like Zaney's Comedy Club. I'm not making up

(56:38):
that name. Uh, that's a real club and national it's
pretty good. It's really good club actually, and uh, and
then the owner will be like, well, it's less expensive.
If you can even imagine this, it's less expensive to
buy a condo to have all the comedians stay in
that condo. Then it would be to put them up
in hotels, so there would be the club and then

(57:00):
to be like the comedy condom, and it's like it's
always terrible. It's always like the no, just like you
just end up in I don't know, like like sheets
are horrible. Yeah, you know, it's like yeah, and you
by yourself were like you're with like two other comics usually,
so you're with like the the feature actor, the in

(57:23):
the m C and then uh yeah, I mean some
of them you know, some of them you don't. I
don't know. Like what happened was is I was working
the door at the DC Improv when I was in college.
That's sort of how I I broke in and the
first guy I ever opened for with Chappelle actually, and
so it's really true that he was four. Yeah, so

(57:44):
he was. He was headlining that club. I was nineteen.
He was like twenty three. Four Half Baked was about
to come out. What was fascinating about meeting Chappelle when
he was that young is that he was And I
learned this trick from him because I I do it now,
Like people come up to me now and they're like, hey,

(58:05):
I know you're from blah blah blah, and I'm like,
I have a movie out right now. It's called Don't
Think Twice. It's down the Street, blah blah. Because I
remember saying to Dave Chapelle, like, how do you come
to stand up? How do you do this? How do
you do this? And he was like he would give me.
He gave me advice, and then he would be like,
my movie Half Bakes coming out for four weeks and
it's at the street theater on the street, and get
all your friends to go, like there is you know.

(58:26):
Chappelle is like he's like Sam in the movie, but
he's like Jack. Also, like if you think about it.
He's got both of those in him. He's got insane
amounts of integrity. But he also he is he does
makes money, is a real businessman. No, you're just gonna
shake your head. No, I won't say Sam, and I

(58:49):
won't say Jack. You think he's Miles. Oh, I'm sorry
forgive me. You're right Sam, he's like Sam. Right, He's
definitely Sam. He is Sam because he walked away from
all that money Comedy Central. Yes, but he is like
Jack in the sense that he's ambitious. It's an ambitious person.

(59:12):
You don't write like nineteen hours of stand up and
not be an ambitious person. It just don't. Again, it's
the voices. I wish the world knew, Like I was
one of those guys that like and I don't want. Lately,
I've been on this kick, like on social media about
how important meditation is, and I mean, the only thing

(59:36):
I could logically say is that, you know, if you
look at Russell Simmons uh in the eighties looking like
a fifty year old, but see him now in the
early arts, still looking like he might be, and he's

(59:57):
approaching sixties. I I wish everyone really knew the addiction
and the magic of what meditation is and how it
can really truly save your life. You know, there's a
group of people in my life that overthink a lot
of things, and um kind of you know, it's a

(01:00:24):
it's I think it's just the fear of failure or
the fear of fumbling in public, you know. And I
know we live in a kind of a social media
world and whatever, which everything is documented and no one
wants to, you know, try the process in front of
the world watching them. But I just feel as though

(01:00:48):
crucial the way that the way that was explained to
me in a way that I truly understood how meditation
works is of course, uh they used the MacBook pro analogy,
which they said, Okay, so whenever you the rainbow wheel
that you hate and you have like nine jillion windows
open on Safari, you know, what's the thing you do
and you're like, well, you either forced quit or you reset,

(01:01:11):
and breathing literally deep breathing literally slows your mind down
and it closes all those windows and you make better
decisions in life with a clear head, Like where I
am right now in my life spent literally with fourteen
I mean, Boss Bill Will tell you what a nightmare

(01:01:33):
I am. This is why a thing called Team of
Mirror exists because logical thinking is out the window with me,
because I'm busy trying to figure out, like, you know,
which Woot Tang song is gonna go with which David

(01:01:55):
Byrne song at next month's show, Like like that's the
stuff I'm thinking about. So it's I don't know what
two plus two equals, Like there's some information that I'm
gonna lose and there's some information I'll retain and use.
But I'm just saying that I really think that meditation

(01:02:15):
is the answer, but I know it just sounds so
cosmic and weird. And the way that your eyebrows are
looking at me, like I don't know if you're full
of shit or not. Amusingly, that's my natural face. And
it's also like it takes some times to get to
a certain age to get to that point. But you're
totally right, And I know I don't say that to
you often, but can I ask you a question? I
ask you a question about that because we were talking

(01:02:37):
before about about being a businessman versus selling out whatever.
I feel like you you are saying that you're thinking
about what song is next and whatever. But you're also
a very like in tune business person, So it's not
like you're completely vacated the other part of this, because
you don't. You're not just like in your creative world
where you have not at all, look the furtherest, the

(01:02:59):
furthest I go with business. At least my business thought
is to make sure that I generate enough business so
that my mama don't move into my house. So wait, Mike,
can we start? Yeah? I wasn't. I wasn't kidding when

(01:03:22):
I said that we were tarantinoing this yours. So when
I started out, I was working the door at the
Comedy DC Improv, and I was opening for guys like
I said, Chappelle and like Brian Regan, Mitch Hedberg, David
tell guys who come in there. Yeah, that was he like, man,
how do you come up with so many? Just one? How?

(01:03:45):
You know what he said? He said, I think that
I think is really wise, which is he thinks that
people undervalue daydreaming. Mm hmm, you know, like just just
sitting there, just like thinking right and step down. Yeah,
A lot a lot of times i'd I'd see Mitch

(01:04:05):
somewhere like I I remember opening for him once in Dayton, Ohio.
That's where I met him. And then like years later
I run I ran into him like in Montreal and
festival and he was just like lying backstage before the show,
listening to music and it's with his headphones and he's
just like lying on his back and everybody else is

(01:04:26):
like networking talking to each other, and he was just
like daydreaming, like that's what he was all about. So
people would be like, where does his thoughts come from?
He just always kind of lost in his thoughts and
he'd write down, and you write down everything. I've never
heard of a person that does these nonsensical just or

(01:04:47):
just these random he was unbelievable all over the place.
Uh you know, these these thoughts so literally he was
just oh yeah, he had just like his wife Lynn
has just no piles and piles of notebooks. And uh.
One of one of the things that isn't even uh

(01:05:08):
in one of his jokes is in his notebook it says,
do you believe in Gosh? So they did like a
posthumous album of his stuff and they called it you
Believe in Gosh? Yeah, isn't that great? Where is that notebook.
Now she had all that up in the their cab.
They had a cabin in the woods and I think
big Bear and that's where they lived and and yeah,

(01:05:30):
she has all that stuff. It's pretty amazing. I when
I met mitchin Lynn, it was dating. OHI I was
at Joker's Comedy Club, which doesn't exist anymore, and I
was trying to like socialize with them, and I mean,
I didn't know anybody was like, hey, do you guys
want to go bowling? Is the dumbest thing. We were
next to a bowling alley and they were like all right,
and uh, And I was terrible. I'm nervous. I'm like

(01:05:52):
with my idol Like I really idolized match. I said,
so you knew him by that point, I was just
a fan of him. And then I was opening for
it was like the most real thing in my life.
And then I was just terrible of rolling like ones
and zeros and he said the funniest thing he goes.
I thought, when you suggested that we go bowling, that
you would be good at bowling. So so you working

(01:06:19):
in d C. That was your introduction comedy, that was it.
I mean, you weren't like the class clown at the
age of ten, or I really wasn't I was. I
was always sort of like I always felt out of place.
I always felt like when I when I would say
the things that I was thinking about, people would just
be like, that's that's what's weird, you know, and uh yeah.

(01:06:42):
And then then but I always I always thought I
was funny, you know what I mean, Like it was
one of those things like I think I'm very funny
and and they don't get it and that kind of thing.
And then at a certain point I got on stage
in college and and uh and it started to click.
And in Sleepwalk with Me, I have that joke where
I say, I'm my my girlfriend's starting to get the

(01:07:03):
age where she's thinking about having kids, which is exciting
because we're gonna have to break up and I don't
want to have kids until I'm sure that nothing else
good can happen in my life. And that was like
the first time that that was like the first time
I made a joke on stage. And it's in Sleepwalk
with Me. It's like this as a plot point, but

(01:07:24):
like it was the first time where I said something
it was true and it was a joke at the
same time. But that's comedy, is right, and that's ended
up being sort of what I what I do. But
like that was the first time before that, I was
like making jokes about cookie Monster, and then when I
started making jokes about myself was better. But I'll say

(01:07:45):
that you're a particular brand of comedy, especially at the
time where I really became aware of you. You don't
see many comedians on Broadway, and so initially I was
trying to figure out, well, okay, did you at least
cut your teeth in Midtown? I was trying to figure
out what side of the fence you want? Where you

(01:08:05):
alternative Brooklyn? Where you the varsity letter of the seller,
or were you the hacks Bille of midtown or uptown?
I had, I did my tone all of those three
worlds and the road. Can you please all three? Yeah?
I mean I think ultimately you have to. I mean,
it's complex question, but you just have to be you,

(01:08:27):
and it has to you have to get good enough
that what you're doing can kind of work anywhere. Okay,
so the joke has to work with the all crowd,
with the I'm smarter than new college crowd of the
village and the the hack, the drunk hacks that might Yeah,
although they're the hardest, of course. I mean that's why

(01:08:48):
I like, so I've never early on, I would always
get these gigs in Jersey because nobody wanted to do them.
Nobody wanted to work. And jer say sorry Jersey, but no,
I was gonna ask you. Now I know Chris Rocks
uh regiment and he chooses Jersey. Yeah right, and yeah

(01:09:11):
he he listened like four like before he starts in
HBO Special or whatever. He told me the five clubs
that he chooses, like place down south, place where only
old people go. He's like, if I can survive the
scrutiny in the heart, Like, so, what is your exercise
process of so might will be like I go to

(01:09:33):
the cellar, I go to the I go to the
to Brooklyn rooms to just like feel confident, to feel like,
oh this is work, this embrace or do they look
like you might be a suit You might be in Boklyn.
In Brooklyn, they like, because they know I live in Brooklyn.
I I have a lot of you know, there's a

(01:09:54):
lot of local references or whatever. But um, and then
and then I go to the seller, go on the
road to comedy clubs like I'll go to Charlie Good
Nights and Raleigh or you know, zaying He's and Nashville
or that kind of thing, because ultimately you wanted to
work everywhere because you want it to be human. You know,
the bottom line of everything is that like hearing you

(01:10:15):
guys talk about don't think twice and you're like, I'm
Miles or I'm Jack or whatever, that's like gold for me.
For for me, that's like the biggest compliment. When you
and I were texting last night and you're like, this
person in my life is like lindsay this person like this,
It's like, oh my god, it fucking worked, Like I
can't believe it. It's working because you wanted to be
so human that people just see themselves in it. And

(01:10:36):
that's what takes forever with stand up, that's what takes
for It takes years with material, you know, to get
it to that point, takes it so long. Why does
it takes so long to find that? I just think
because you you have to do this thing of simultaneously
having people see themselves in it and laugh and laughters
just like you either get something gets to laugh for

(01:10:58):
it doesn't how shows the stand up process versus the
movie screenplay process different For me, it's similar because I
I write a lot with the screenplay and then I
would have friends over like this, like literally, like like
ten of us in the room just sitting around would
read the screenplay and I would get and I would

(01:11:19):
ask people for notes that afterwards. And so I did
that about ten times with the movie and then see
you focus groups like people, Yeah, isn't that the hardest
thing in the World's It was really painful because afterwards
you get assaulted with notes and people are just like,
you know, Iron Glass, who is my producer ended up
being my producer, was just like early on was just

(01:11:41):
like Mike, like, it's just not a movie, Like it
just doesn't work. And I was like, no, it does,
and he was like, I was like, it's like it's
like The Big Chills set in the world of an
improv theater. And he was like, well, the characters have
to be more different from each other because at that
point the characters were too similar and the conflicts weren't there.
And yeah, but but yeah, I mean everything I do

(01:12:03):
is sort of I work. I put in front of people.
How long did it take what like from screenplay to shooting?
How long did it take to do? Took about a
year and a half writing it. I was in the
middle of writing another film called My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, which
is an adaptation on one of my shows. Wait you're
going to make that? I might? I might? Based on

(01:12:25):
the sketch. Yeah it's true that. Yeah, it's true. Story
the high school one. Yeah, yeah, you can play that.
You can play that track. I don't have to repeat
it seriously. Yeah, yeah, that's true. The gist of it.
I'll tell you the gist of it. When I was
in high school, I went out with this girl and

(01:12:47):
she was like, uh and I was. I was like,
really into her. And then she was like, I have
another boyfriend, but it's a kind of ending and that
kind of thing. This is going to be fine, and
and she invites me to meet her parents and I go,
and I was like, Oh, this is gonna be my
big moment. I drive your parents house and we're hanging

(01:13:09):
out and then this other guy comes over and I'm
realizing slowly that it's her other boyfriend, and like it's
going okay, you know, I know, I don't think so
I think he just thought I was a friend in retrospect,
I don't know for sure, but like and and and
so that yeah, who's yeah, yeah, no, no that I'm

(01:13:39):
sorry now that's from that's Abby's the character's name and
sleepwalk with Me, which is not her real name in
real life. But uh but but yeah, no, that was
this girl in high school and I was man, I yeah,
I was just really hung up on her and I
wanted to believe it was gonna see the led Zeppelin sloan. No, no,

(01:14:03):
that's different. That's different. Yeah, for some reason, like I've
you've jumbled my level. But so if if comedy, I
don't know if if that's a cliche, like comedy being
time and tragedy. Yeah the other day the other day
I tweeted, comedy is tragedy plus fuck itt Uh so

(01:14:28):
how do you make a joke of of you have
an insomnia? And oh? Yeah, I mean that was weird.
Yeah that's a true story. But you guys do you
guys know the story? I have a sleep disorder where
I where I sleepwalk and I jumped out a second
story window at Yeah, I was on the road. This
is like probably ten years ago. Now, I was at

(01:14:49):
la Quinta in and Walla Walla, Washington. Yeah, and uh.
And I had a dream that there was a guided
missile headed towards my room and I was like, I
jumped out of bed. I was like, there's military personnel
in my dream there. And I was like, what's the plan?
And I said, the missile coordinates are set on you.

(01:15:12):
And so I decided in my dream, as it turns
out it was in my life as well, to jump
out the window so as to detonate outside the window
for the sake of the platoon. So I jumped through
the window like the Hulk and uh. And I landed
on the front line of got up and I kept
running and I'm slowly realizing I'm on the front line

(01:15:32):
of Laquinta and Washington and my underwear bleeding. I was like,
oh no, but I swear to god, I was relieved
in that moment that I hadn't been hit by the missile.
I was like, that would have been a disaster. And
so yeah, it ended up being sort of the baseline
of what what my whole It was a one person

(01:15:52):
show off Broadway, and then it ended up in my
first movie. But yeah, and in response to what you're saying, Like,
how how am I comfortable talking about that? For a while,
I wasn't like for a while, I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna say this and people he was the first person.
Oh that's a good question. Well, the first person I
told was my wife, who at the time was my girlfriend.
And I called you know, I called her in the

(01:16:13):
middle of the night and I was just like, hey,
you're not You're not gonna believe it. From the hospital,
right or no. From it was weirdly, from the from
the front desk, walla walla, Washington, and I was bleeding
and everything, and uh no. I called her and I
was like, hey, this is what happened. And I called
my parents and and I went to the dot. I

(01:16:35):
went to the hospital. I went to check myself in
an emergency. I was like, I'm the Hulk. I'm the Hulk.
I'm the Hulk. Were like, no, you're you're Bruce Banner.
I was a point taken there, and uh and yeah.
So it was, yeah, it was. It was a really
weird thing to tell people, and I didn't really Actually,
it's funny, you should say we were talking about Hedberg.

(01:16:55):
Hedberg was one of the first people I told it
was it was at Caroline's. It was like a couple
of months later, and it was Mitch Hemburg and Lynch
Chakraw for there and I just told him what had happened.
And he, you know, he has he you know, he
had a lot of demons obviously, and h he had

(01:17:16):
a you know, he had a lot of issues. And
I think, you know, I think he understood it in
some way, like I think that there was a there
was a It was the closest I ever felt to
Mitch was when I explained to him that I jumped
through a second story window. So it wasn't like, yo,
the craziest it just happened to me last night. No,
I mean I was really fucked up from it, because
I mean I still him to this day, Like I'm

(01:17:37):
still when I go to you know, when I go
to bed at night, I sleep in a sleeping bag.
I'm not making this up. I take medication. I sleep
in sleeping bag. And for a while there I was
wearing mittens so I couldn't open the sleeping bag. Yeah,
and so so there's any is it? Nothing like that?
Can I guess cured? There's no cure there's no cure. Yeah,

(01:17:57):
I mean you can take medication. I take I take
clown of him. But but and I go to my
sleep my sleep doctor. But it's no, there's no cure.
There's never I'm gonna have to live with this for
the rest of my life. It might being intrusive if
I asked, when was the last time you sleep walked? No,
you're gonna ask. It's probably like it happens a handful

(01:18:17):
of times a year, so like six times a year
or so. I'll have an incident like I remember a
few years ago. It was like New Year's Eve, and
I did all the things that trigger it, like I
was eating red meat, and I was drinking, and I
was doing I was sleep deprived. Who were out to
like five am? And and then I had a dream

(01:18:37):
that there was a This is a kind of abstract,
but that there was a It was like an alien
was in my throat. And when I woke up, I
was trying to gorge myself in the bathroom. I was
trying to like rip like something out of my throat.
That's when I woke up and I and I had
I was and I lost my voice for the next

(01:18:58):
couple of days so least the next day or so. Yeah,
it's it's it's not yeah, no, it's tough. I mean
it's it's definitely like one of those things where that's
my you know, we all have our thing and it's
like that's my thing. I mean that it's pretty embarrassing
for me, but I kind of broke through the like
uncomfortability of discussing it and now I'm like, yeah, that's

(01:19:19):
just what I that's what But you say, like you
do know at least kind OF's what will trigger, so
is there Yeah, I mean you you know, there's just
a great book if anyone has a sleep just or
if anyone has bad sleep or whatever, this is a
great book called The Promise of Sleep. And you know
they basically say a few hours before bed, turn off
your phone, turn off the internet, uh, don't eat big meals,

(01:19:41):
you know, like that kind of thing, don't watch TV
news and of course like that's all yeah no, and
so that's you know, you're trying not to do that
stuff to silent that's yeah, that's that's the hope. Yeah.
Sometimes I listened to like meditation podcasts and things like that,
But what about like when you have a whole night

(01:20:01):
with your wife, Like, is she just puts you to sleep?
What do you do? Like, do you are automatically No, No,
She'll she'll like she'll like a lot of times she'll
be she'll like wake me up and be like, hey,
you should take your pill and that can and she'll
stick me in my sleeping bag. She literally said, my

(01:20:23):
wife calls it my pod. She'll be like she she calls,
she goes me mo. My name's Mike, uh not Jim,
but she'll go she'll go mo. She'll go, mo, it's
time to get in your pod, and she'll stick me in.
It's yeah, it's wow. That's very embarrassing. So if she
wants them, she gotta un zip zip. Man. Why it's embarrassing,

(01:20:48):
that's fascinating. I don't know why you why you'd be embarrassed,
But I'm not really it's a sleeping back part that's
embarrassed to sleep. Yeah. It's just one of those things
where I all that people think I was crazy, you know,
people think like, oh, this guy is just not all there.
I mean, it's the kind of thing that in the
eight hundreds they put you in a hospital and throw

(01:21:11):
away the key, you know, what I mean, Like, it's
if you jumped. Think about that another era, you jumped
through a second story window when you're sleep. Yeah, I'm
amazing that you said this guy is crazy. I'm a
phenomenal athlete. Looking at me people, I mean, people aren't
looking at me at home. So you can google image, man,

(01:21:34):
and you can R B G O B I R.
You are a Google nightmare. I didn't realize the R
was the third letter of your last name. So for
the longest I was looking at bub big Leia like, yeah,
it was, it was. It took me time. This is

(01:21:56):
a quest Love Supreme on Pandora here with the crew. So, Mike,
what is what is your okay? I hate to ask
this question because I also asked lim Manuel this question
as well. An he kind of rolled his eyes in
the air slightly worked. Um, but have you started working

(01:22:19):
on your next project? I only if if this becomes
so bar can't you win? That becomes a burden that
you know you could run the risk of writers black
or whatever. So are you immediately pushing for the next project?
I have like five Wow, I have like the three

(01:22:41):
or four movie ideas that are kicking around in my
head right now, and I like to kind of let
them fight with each other, like like I don't I
don't rush to write one of them. I just let
them kind of play around in my head and then
if one of them feel strong enough, then then that's
when I'm going to write it. But in the meantime,
I'm just trying to live, you know, and you know,

(01:23:02):
be I have a fifteen month old daughter, and I'm
just trying to hang out with my wife and my
daughter and live. Thanks. Just trying to live a bit,
you know. It's I feel like I've been I've been
kind of hustling for like fifteen years, sixty years, and
I'm trying to like you're trying to take a break now. Yeah,
it's an awesome looking hustle though, but wait, well it's

(01:23:26):
weird only because like I feel like you're about to
ride to such a a rival place, like now is
not the time to not. But I think he's I
think it well because I had a conversation about this
with uh uh correct page Carter Carter homy Car, who's

(01:23:47):
one to write us from how I much your mother
me and and we were talking earlier and we had
a conversation that was almost exactly what you're saying, Like
in the sense that once you get to this point
in your career, I think an age rather particularly when
you have a kid. Yeah, you work smarter, not harder.
I think that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah, you
gotta kind of read, you know what I'm saying. Like
the days of me staying up all night and just working,

(01:24:10):
you know, twelve sixteen, eighteen hours straight in the studio,
It's like, dude, that, yeah, I can't do that. I'm
the same exactly way working. Then I'm going to bed
because it's like I gotta be at car pool at
three thirty tomorrow. Bright, you know what I'm saying, and
like it. This shouldn't still be here when I like,

(01:24:34):
but Mike, are you cool with that? Like? Are you
cool with where you are right now? I think? I
mean it's kind of dope to look, like I said,
look at your IMD page and see that you've been
in train Wreck, you got Orange the New Black, you
got your own projects. Are you cool with that? Or
do you want to be like, you know, recognizable on
the streets and everybody. No, No, it's it's weird. I
I am cool with it. I when I when I wasn't.
Part of the reason I feel like I was able

(01:24:55):
to write the movie was in my twenties. I feel
like I wanted this one type of six sass, and
it's like what me and all my buddies wanted the
same fucking thing, like we want to like write for
Conan or SNL or this is that or whatever. And
then you get to be your thirties and you start
to be like, no, no, that that's not what success is.
Success is like any number of things on a spectrum,
and that it's personal to you. And so I'm just

(01:25:16):
starting to understand, like, no, no, I I'm my own thing,
and I don't need to be like you're saying, like
recognizing the street and all that kind of stuff, which
I think in my twenties I craved, certainly because I'm single.
So in your head and you and it's one in
your twenties, writing for Conan would have been the pinff.
It would have Yeah, it would have been the ultimate thing.

(01:25:39):
And but do you think it's more of an insatiable thing,
because I've had that thing where it's just like, yo, man,
if I just get one grammy, that's that's all. And
then it happens and then you're like, all right, if
we could just come home with like five thousand dollars,
that's all I went. Wait, if I lived a life

(01:26:01):
where like I could just get four pairs of Nikes
every month, that's all I want. And then it was like, okay,
five bedroom house and that's where I got no more.
That's well, the craziest thing I think it's I find that.
That's why I like about New York City is it's
less like that than Los Angeles. I think, in my opinion,
when you go to Los Angeles, I feel like you

(01:26:22):
see a lot of people who they got into it
for the right reasons, and then they start to take
money gigs just because they're around, and you know, there's
there's money all around in Hollywood, and I feel like
my goal is just to continue, like I think, I
don't think twice is better than Sleepwalk with Me. I
hope my third movie is better than my second movie.

(01:26:43):
I hope I can make about ten in my life
and then that'll be it for me, you know what
I mean, Like that's that's all I want to do.
So you see an endgame, you see, ah, I can
walk away from this. Yeah, I think about ten movies
to get back to Tarantino. I mean Tarantinos. That's what
he said. That's what he said. Yeah, I mean even

(01:27:04):
on a hip hop right. You know, Hank Shockley, who
is the main producer of Enemy, I'm talking for the
people for the I'm still I wasn't correcting you. I'm
still getting over the chill of stopping wn't well to
that point. Hank Shockley always said that bands after three
records they need to just be like fuck it. He

(01:27:27):
and I mean, and and to be fair, if you
look at a lot of bands like their first three,
not that they didn't make anything great after that, but
I mean, look at publicant me, look at outcast, look
at see what the thing is r. We didn't start
popping to our fourth record. Well, y'all didn't stop popping.
Popping is different. Y'all didn't pop into your for and

(01:27:49):
again y'all were one of the ones like I mean,
I brought all your records. But even still, y'all got
the opportunity to make that records. Y'all came along at
a time where you know, well when all particular situation,
you were giving that space to get to record three,
four or five, whereas now you know what I'm saying, Uh,

(01:28:09):
you know, particularly black artists, you're not getting that many
chances at back without a home run. It's just stopping never.
This is from if this woman, dude that took his
first vacation recently and to not work for five days,

(01:28:35):
it wasn't killing me as bad as I you know,
didn't think it was going to kill me because normally
when I tried to do that, Okay, I'm not gonna
work today whatever. And I just feel like like something's happening.
Someone's getting the advantage that you know, do you do
you want kids? And like do you want to be

(01:28:56):
married with kids? At some point? I want? But now
that changes things, dude, I think you'll relate to a
lot of what like what Mike is like just kids.
It just that it changes everything. Man, if you have
a conscious, If you have a conscious, changes things. I
know some ambitious people that put their family second. I

(01:29:22):
can see that. I don't think that I could do that.
But I'm also person that doesn't say why I'd never
do that. You won't do that because you waited this long.
Those other people started early, and they don't appreciate it,
you'll appreciate it more. I'm sorry just now that now
that's that's a bad point. I mean because right now,
I mean, I had my boys, Jo, I'm from the South.
We you know, we start earlier, so you know it was,

(01:29:44):
you know, not seriously for real. I mean my boys
are fifteen and ten. Yeah, yeah, no, we started. I mean,
it's the country. What then else were we gonna do
but cook out and not pull out? Jesus, that's just
that's just what you do. But but now, but like

(01:30:06):
a freight style, did you just coin like a I
don't even know what the kind of like really does
that count as an idiom or I don't know. I
just came. Mike should tweet that my career. But no, man,

(01:30:28):
I hear what you're saying. No, Mike, I mean I
think you know, particularly when you get to that, because
it's not from what I heard you say, it's like,
it's not like therapy and ship now what I heard
you say, it's not that it's necessarily stopping. I think
it's just necessarily just getting to that point where you
realize like, okay, I've done. Once you get to the
poin where you realize I've expressed myself to the on

(01:30:50):
the highest level that I can, whether it's a movie,
whether it's a radio show where it's a part whatever.
If I've done that on the highest level, right then
I which leads back to our earlier conversation of listening
to those voices in your head. Now, what what I'm
just saying is if you think that there's a limit,

(01:31:16):
like okay, now a lot logistically speaking, now, if we're
talking to uh uh, twenty year old Amir Thompson busking
on the corners of South Street in Philadelphia. Now, someone
came up to me and said, check it all right,

(01:31:38):
like my version of Jacob Marley that says, you know, okay,
now here's the deal. You're twenty now, and you know
I'm actively in hip hop now. Usually quote it's supposed
to go down at least in like two years. That's
when you get your your moment in time. Now, if
that voice told me you're gonna get your moment and

(01:32:04):
whatever quote your moment is is relative. I don't mean like,
you know, just to pour champagne when people or whatever.
But if someone would have told me that twenty five
years from now, when you're forty five, it's going to
be on in popping, But till then, it's gonna be

(01:32:25):
the slowest, most torturous ride of your life, Like it's
doing Biggie. What is stuck? Like if someone told Biggie alright, alright,
Christopher Wallace at nineteen, it's just not really gonna happen
for you till you're like forty three. Do you think
he would have been like he maybe he would have
stuck around. I mean, I don't know, but I mean,

(01:32:46):
but that's like it for everybody though, I think, I mean,
if you really look at it, you know, in terms
of but that's there's an and I can kind of
back it up with science a little bit pseudo whatever.
But there was an autoicle read while back they talk
about by how creative people why most of their creative
peaks happened in like you're late thirties, you know what

(01:33:08):
I'm saying, Like you'r late thirties, early forties, that's really
what you get to your money making years. And it's
something to do with that's when both sides of your
brain kind of learned to talk to each other. So
it's like you learned how to merge the creative and
the business, and you kind of what you're saying, you
kind of get out of your head a little more,

(01:33:28):
but you understand how to make those two sides co exist.
So that's why people have they creative breakthroughs. So I mean,
so for someone like Mike, I mean, you know, you
were just the comedy seller God. I mean, like, did
you ever think, like, man, I'm gonna make a movie.
I mean, was that you know? I always thought that
was gonna happen faster, like a mirror saying. I always thought,
like when I was like two, I was like, I'll

(01:33:48):
make my first movie at four. And then now it's
like when I was thirty two, it's like, we know,
it's like literally ten years longer than I thought it
was gonna be. Okay, Now, I'm just saying that in
your thirty eight Now, no, no, I don't mean impossibly,
are I mean in your in your eight movie plan,

(01:34:10):
in your eight movie plan, movie plan, eight more movies
in your tim movie plan. What if movie number seven
becomes You're a piece of resistance, What if you wins,
drop the mic and leave you mean, well, no, I'm
just saying that, what if it enables you to start

(01:34:30):
an empire. Oh, I see what you're saying, like like
Apataw or something where like like old Virgin kind of thing,
and then all of a sudden I could branch out
and make Burbiglia films that their stamp on a bunch
of different positive that Larry Sanders era Apataw didn't even
think that he would be the comedy go to god

(01:34:54):
he is right now. No, I don't think she probably,
but I think it takes that time, No, man, because
gotta think about it like ten your now you're saying
that two year old guy, right, I think sometimes we
have to grow into as an arts. You have to
give your times, give yourself space to grow into that
so you're ready for it. So if you were that
guy at twenty two beating on buckets and they gave

(01:35:16):
you the Tonight Show, you would have probably would have
sucked it up, you know what I'm saying, because you
weren't ready for that at that nobody's ready for that.
Like I mean you you don't have no there. Your
your brain is not even fully formed to like calculate
risk and ship, you know what I'm saying, Like it's
not even you're not ready. I never just I never
desired the show. It wasn't a dream like where like

(01:35:38):
Doc Severson's on the wall, like I'm gonna be that dude.
But like I take it as it comes. But if
I were when I was thirty eight, uh okay uh
two thousand nine, I have no shame in my safeness

(01:35:58):
and in my older states been whatever, I might get
a little irked if you know, millennial calls me O G.
But are you get um? Certainly in no, but I
mean has like like Cutty called you O G. Yeah, yeah,
like I've been called O G U O G. I
used to listen to you in middle school. Oh I

(01:36:20):
get that now. Really, I get people I ceping my
show saying I'd listen to you in middle school. Wow. Yeah,
it's crazy. But they don't call you O G. Nobody
calls me. Nobody would ever call me O G in
any context. Let me keep retweeting you will get an
wait a week. Well, I'm just saying that in two

(01:36:43):
thousand and eight, two thousand nine. I you know, I
don't know. I just feel like to say what your
plans are. I feel like that's desire, not planned, because
if you do become an apatat out or have an
opportunity to become or be greater than that, to become

(01:37:05):
Spielberg or greater I I would think that you that
might be a Sam zone that you're in. If you
walk away for it for any other reason, then you
absolutely must bond with your kids. But even then, like
Spielberg has kids and a family and that certain thing

(01:37:27):
is able to juggle it. So I'm saying that I
don't know if you see, but I relate most to
Sam in the movie. Like I, when I look at him,
I'm like, Oh, that's what That's what I I wish
I was. I wish I was someone who had complete
integrity and didn't care about all that. I didn't see her.

(01:37:50):
I didn't see it as well. Again, I didn't see
it as integrity, like she was just she was scared. Yeah,
I thought she checking out. At first she was scared,
but then when she broke down, she was not scared.
She explained that I really don't want to do that.
I really don't want to be that. I don't want
to be on that shot. So I still think there
might have been some fear in that I'm talking about.
I think, yeah, fear up yeah, well, fear of maybe

(01:38:13):
getting to that point where you think you might be
selling them. Okay, So one another scene that that that
that that Sam reminded me of. So where's the line,
right so Louis. You know, I don't know if you
watch Louis, the scene where Louie is in his uh
it's in like season four where he goes to his
agent he has the he has the opportunity to host,

(01:38:36):
and his agent just sits him down. It's like, look, dude,
this is what it is. You make eighty tho dollars
a year your stand up comic. You know she is
not going to get any better than this if you
were if you were waiting for that moment. This is
that moment right here, and if you don't take it,
you're done forever, you know what I mean? Just kind
of just that you know, that nut up, shut up

(01:38:56):
kind of moment, right and so he people just got
really excited anytime it list any time Sad I thought
it was put up, shut up when I come from
but that's what it is. But we're from different places.
Like just like a little he's watching lot of times

(01:39:20):
you took that one and I took that got it
the past diverge. But but now, so where is that
as an artist? For you might like, so, where where
is that moment? Because you could say, again, where I'm
just trying to understand how can you we say that
the person is sabotaging when again, it just may be

(01:39:42):
a thing where you just say, look, I know my limitations,
you know what I'm saying, and well, it's just it's
just what you I think. You ultimately have to do
what you love and not what you like. So it's
like people say to me now, like, oh, the next
we'll make will be with the studio. It'll be like
Universal or Paramount or whatever. And I'm like, I don't

(01:40:05):
really like those movies. I don't really like big movies.
I love small movies like I love movies. I don't
think twice and uh, you know, Captain Fantastic is a
good one. That's that right now? And tickled like there's
like indie small indie films. There's like what I love
so absolute final say on this film. Yeah, I final cut.
I finally cut of my first one. I just want

(01:40:27):
to in all my all my one person shows the
same thing that's Hollywood coming knocking. Yeah, they call okay
the congrats like I'm I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with any
not aggregates, but just any sort of rating system. And

(01:40:51):
you know, when I first saw that ninety nine Rotten
Tomatoes thing, I just thought like, oh, okay, one person
reviewed it, and then that was the area. And then
I really I was like, Yo, this is like across
the board. This is probably the highest rated uh movie
that has at least a minimum of twenty major reviews
to it. Like everyone's just yeah, I've been I mean,

(01:41:15):
I don't know what the humble thing to say is here,
people like people have been digging it, like I've been
really lucky. Yeah, like this, this, this is the equivalent
of This is really the equivalent of like, if I
gotta put in perspective of Allmatic getting five mics, Yeah,
this is the automatic five mic movement where you know,

(01:41:36):
like critics are really truly getting it. For those that
don't understand the reference, did your mom and all her
friends write all those rotten Tomato reviews? No? Okay, So
for hip hop heads, uh naz is illmatic and the

(01:41:59):
extremely glowing review that uh I guess we can reveal
that Minyo miss info was quote Shorty, you didn't know this, Yeah,
I didn't even know she was mean. No, I didn't
know miss info. Okay, thank you. Yeah, back when Mino
was at the Source magazine, back when that was our pitchfork,

(01:42:23):
it was that was our pitchfork, that was our rolling stone,
and there was a good six year stretch of it
being absolutely incredible. Last word on what was quality hip
hop or not? Mad Men got made? Men got four
and a half and it was just four and a half. Yeah,
it was just like a little Kim cough no, no, no,

(01:42:45):
look got five. Look, Kim got five? Got five? She
got five? No. Notorious was the one after that, the
Naked Truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that was crap because
the dude was like her, what was it her? It

(01:43:05):
well deserves lights. That was a tipping point track and
then Scott gave it to all right, do you remember that? Alright,
now we're falling down rabbit hole? Do you remember the
Senior Love Daddy shout out moment, do the right thing?
We love radio seeing you love that and when he
names all those groups, well, like I was watching that

(01:43:28):
and made a beat from that with Scott, and we
were going to take it. And then next thing. I know,
even here in the beginning, like hear my drumsticks and on, like, yeah,
that was a roots track, but now it's a five
my classic thank you, don't don't take Yeah, but no,
I'm just saying that when Nas Is Illmatic got reviewed,

(01:43:52):
that was it was well, it was a game changing
moment in hip hop, and I guess it wounded up
being a burden to nas at the end. Yeah, really did.
It became a burden. And so you know, I meant
to get a ninety. I think getting a ninety nine
is better than getting a hundred. No, I think, well

(01:44:15):
there's one, yeah, there's one negative one from the Washington
Post and he tweet even tweeted about it because Seth
Rogan tweeted like, I agree with all the critics. I agree,
like I agree with all the critics about don't think
twice or whatever, and then that motherfucker tweeted, well, I
won't even say his name, it's like not all the critics.

(01:44:39):
I was like, no, I'm not that. Yeah. I was like,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna write, but I'm not
gonna take that. Putting in my two cents on the
New Frankocean album. But I feel like you're the kind
of person that lives totally Bill. Bill's is the weird thing, though,

(01:45:00):
because I don't feel that bloss Bill is the guy
that genuinely feels that he needs to knock down your
Jinger game, but just part of him that just has
to Charlie Brown kick your Jinger game. I'll let you
play Jinger if if you know, if it looks like

(01:45:22):
you guys know what you're doing. But if you don't
know what you're doing, I'm gonna knock that ship down,
don't let somebody else play. All right? Did you all right?
More Rabbit Hole Falling? Did you love the Jenga metaphor?
I'm just saying that I don't is the jangamy metaphor
out of respect for the Jenga in the movie Good
I love it. I'm just saying that, Like, but part

(01:45:45):
of you knew that you didn't want to like it
in the first place. No, it's not I didn't go
into it, not one voice. I didn't go into it
knowing that I didn't want to like it. It's I
knew what to expect, and I knew so even though
expressed sadly knowing. Well, it's like I knew what to

(01:46:05):
expect and I didn't want to like just you know,
go off the cuff and say, oh it's trash and
I didn't even listen to it. I needed to get confirmation,
and I got confirmation. So but I don't think I
still say that you have to live with something, uh

(01:46:26):
for about three months before you really Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
it's like it's like I could listen to Jesus and
know that I never needed to listen to it again.
But you see, I had to change your heart about Jesus. Yeah,
you had to go to a loud ass stadium to
hear where. I believe Bob Power, who was our guests
when you told this story, said that if you play

(01:46:46):
anything at allowed volume, it automatically sounds better. So I mean,
come on or in a strip club that was so.
I mean, if you're if you're listening to at a
loud volume at Madison Square Garden, it's gonna sound like
it's gonna sound amazing because everything sounds And Send It
Up was the only one that stuck for me on
that album, Like Send It Up I cut for like
that one was like, okay, I'll send it up, and

(01:47:08):
Black skin Head is like great montage Navy seal training music.
That's cool, like you know what I'm saying. But other
than that, I mean, ever since they played it at
the engagement party and messed me up. So Cam and
Kanye's engagement party at the stadium, Jaden, then we're dancing
in the background the Black skin Head. It was like,

(01:47:29):
what are we doing? Who? Jaden and Kylie? Yes, I
missed this. It was at the San Francisco Stadium. You
watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians. You gotta you gotta
look on Black Twitter tomorrow. Yeah, that wasn't too Oh

(01:47:51):
my god, I'm not I'm not all right. I'm not
even gonna leave you out there like you twice a year.
You know, like when sometimes you have to handle your battery.
You'remoting what, I don't know what you think? What's happen

(01:48:14):
when your remote control batteries haven't been changed in a second?
You got you gotta find them furious styles, right, the
furious I was doing the Michael Jackson. Uh oh. For

(01:48:34):
those listening at home, you don't want to see what's
happening for those ladies, listening. You do want to see this, Okay,
So I'll maybe once or twice or three times a year,
you know, TV will be stuck on the E channel
and I'll fall into a Kardashian rabbit hole, and of
course you have about nine of those episodes will just

(01:48:55):
run and I can't stop watching it. Every man in
here has watched it at least one. I've roped speak
because Quiet speak on it, Mike speak on you watch it.
I've watched about half an episode of a Kardashian show
once and then I didn't. I I'm sorry I didn't
get into it. No, I just couldn't. I couldn't follow

(01:49:17):
it right, he couldn't keep up. Well, I was confused
because I I turned it on just because Kanye was
on it. Yeah, I thought he went in the rabbit hole.

(01:49:38):
But then I was like, if he's not on it more,
I'm not gonna watch this because I don't know what
the rest of him do. Nothing, Like what do they do? Like?
Why are they? Why is it? I think we're jealous
that they're able to monetize women's features. I don't want
to monetize. I don't like that's how that's how I

(01:50:00):
you know, that's a good example. I think. I think
it's a sellout adventure. Well, but they still out on
purpose they've never had like you know, yeah, I mean,
do you think that Chris Jenner was at the murder
trial of her boom that her ex husbin was defending
while sitting defending her side dude while with the new dude? Like,

(01:50:23):
that's that's like the boyfriend Mike and Amer confused, They don't.
That's like the boyfriend who came to Mike's girlfriend's house
and then Mike him there too, and those two boyfriends
the same, Yeah, without the murder murder? How do we

(01:50:45):
get to this? We just fell down rabbitals. I was
trying to explain the atmatic and we ended up like
the little Kim, which then led to so let's go
back to imatic. I guess. Yeah, so you got nine
unine and written to me and congratulations Mike. No, but
I feel I feel like, I feel lucky. I feel

(01:51:07):
luckier about like us sitting around talking about it and
how it relates to our lives. Then I feel about reviewers.
I feel like, because that's that's all. When you're making music,
or you're making a movie or whatever it is. All
you want is for people to go all that's like
my life and that's you know, that's all you want.
So I I that's all that. I feel very lucky. Okay,

(01:51:28):
you know they don't all work. Can we go bottom line?
Let's go bottom line across the room desires like, are
we really truly honest with what we want out of life? Steve? Steve, Steve,

(01:51:48):
what is it that you want out of life? To
be honestly, what do you want? You're going to hip
first of this because I know it's gonna be hilarious.
Pass I mean, but I think there's an instinct in

(01:52:08):
all of us that truly knows what we want. I
mean in what regard though, like personal relationships or professional Like,
at what point? At what point are we like I'm satisfied,
I'm gonna stop. Never happens. I don't think it. I

(01:52:31):
don't think you ever stopped. No one stopping. Yeah, I
don't think you ever stopped. I think you just can
reach a point of complacency. Yeah, right, you stopped chasing.
It's like the Bill Withers thing where he's like, you know,
if you're going through when when you're when you're going
through life. If you're on your way to excellent, right
at some point you're gonna get the pretty good. And
once you get the pretty good, look around, because that

(01:52:52):
maybe as far as you're gonna go. So it's just
kind of like I don't think no one ever stops,
but you have to think at some point right now,
if my life doesn't go past just being able to
talk ship with quest love and two Jews, um, have
my Jewish brothers, you know what I'm saying, like in
a room and alleged lady, just being able to talk

(01:53:15):
with my homies and have like anyone's head exploded in
the room behind me. Okay, we still not read anymore.
He's not ready know what I'm saying. If my life
doesn't go past this point, it's like, yo, I'm good.
I get to make a living working with people. I
really you know, love and respect and ship like what

(01:53:37):
else I got my answer? Okay inspired the Elvis album.
The we did an album with Elvis Costello. Alright, so
you're just you're contenting me when your achievements surpass your dreams, right,
so you got to produce your idol so you don't
feel like now like okay, next record. Yeah, there's more

(01:53:59):
he's gonna do. It's gonna do another song that I
wrote the lyrics for us, so it gets it gets bigger.
And you know what that's all bounced with. You know,
you gotta keep the family situation harmonious and you know,

(01:54:22):
keep the regular work job going. And if all those
things are cool, then you know you're cool. I think
so alright, being right, can we just let one episode
without diabetes being mentioned? Police? No? Bill? Yeah? What do

(01:54:44):
you want out of life besides getting laid? Which can happen.
That's it, It's gonna happen. Man, It's gonna happen. Thank you,
we all talk about that. I feel like we've all
been working so hard to get to a place where
we can plateau. Not like plateau in a negative sense,
but in like, you worked so hard to get to
this place where you can do what you want. And
I think that that's that was always my my desire was,

(01:55:06):
like I I did not intend to get involved in
any of the things I'm involved in it. Yes, okay,
but if you fulfill your ghetto you got we're not doing.
If you get your oh, if you get your oh,
then will you be like I did it, that's it.
I think I'd like to get the oh so that

(01:55:28):
we could stop talking about it more than more than
actually getting it in then, and you you don't have
an oscar. That's like the most potentious bullshit, Mike, I
don't have an oscar. You know how many you know

(01:55:51):
how many great films don't have oscars? How many? Man
like so many. I feel like I'm in superficial for
I don't think I want to boat. I think, well,

(01:56:12):
I don't know. I mean, there's just Angela Duckworth wrote
this column for The Times recently, where she said, when
you're to college graduates, she said, I don't recommend you.
I won't ask yourself what do I want to be
when I grow up? Ask yourself, what's the world I
want to live in? And how can I help make
that happen? And I feel like, now in my late thirties,

(01:56:34):
I'm starting to be like, that's what I want to do.
I just want to figure out how can I help.
M Hm, I gotta list, so skip and Bill, let's
just go. Oh no, I'm gonna list for Mike to help,
but don't skip, Bill, Oh my, my my, what I

(01:56:59):
want my ultimately is um to make as much money
as I can behind the scenes, so I can only
leave my house, and I feel like it that's real.
To make as much to have enough money to where
I don't gotta leave my house like NB seen, that
is real, you know what I mean. So that's that's awesome. Yeah,
that's what. That's olsomely what I want, you know what

(01:57:20):
I mean. It's just I think sometimes you know, when
we as desires, like you know how Mike you were saying,
you know, in your twenties, you think, man, I'm gonna
do this at UM. For me, it was very much
a thing where I think sometimes you know, whatever your
belief God, you know, whatever the universe, how do you
want to phrase it? I think sometimes people, you know,
in life, you'll get what you ask for, but not

(01:57:42):
what you wanted, you know what I mean. It's kind
of like the Henry Ford thing of like if I asked,
if I would ask the public what they wanted, they
to ask for a faster horse, you know what I mean.
So sometimes I think in life you can say if
you're that young kid and you just think, yo, I
want to record, deal, I want to record. I want
to record I want a record deal, and you get
the ID deal and then you realize, oh my god,
this is ship. So then in the midst of that

(01:58:04):
record deal you realize, you know, what what I really
want is freedom. But you don't get that until you
don't get the lesson, until you get that thing that
you thought that you really wanted. So for me, I'm
just at the point where I was like, you know,
I admire I like my privacy. I like just you know,
laying low. I really don't do people like that. Um

(01:58:24):
you know what I'm saying. I prefer just close companies
people you know I do. Oh yeah, and now everything.
His answer is my answer, get my bread and just
be able to lay low. And you ain't got to
know my name, you ain't gotta know, just know my
work and know where to send my checks. That I

(01:58:47):
want to be the kind of guy that can shut
a sight down like Gawker, just you know, pure Spike, yo,
who are you? It can't be like the mental terrorists
like I'm with fun Like, I just want to be
able to do my thing, you know how, I want

(01:59:08):
to do it without all the extra hullebaloo and recognition.
I want to be able to, you know, be a
regular person. But you know that just does extraordinary ship. Okay,
so let me look at my list, like a house
in Brazil, a house in d C. And in all

(01:59:29):
seriousness that I do want a house in Brazil and
a house in DC. But um, I'd just like to
get again. I've been doing good. I was doing good
getting paid to be myself. I like that. I would
like to be able to really make a living off
of that. That would be great. Um. And for a
man to say one day, hey, would you marry me?
Because you know, it's just I heard that's kind of nice.
What a dude does that. Don't mean to get all

(01:59:50):
girly on y'all when it never happens and you're of
a certain age, you're like, and then I'd like to
use this little coachi here for a little baby. I'm
used or you know, like a s firm. I will
take anybody. I have a couple of shortlists, Lady and John,

(02:00:12):
that's another episode, Steve. You don't have any babies. Do
you know that sugar hereditary? Or is it that was
that was man made? We'll talk caused it. I'll give
you one sperm. The little swimmer that could never had. Okay, yeah,

(02:00:41):
I just want this episode to be over. But what
do you want? What do you want? Now? I feel
like my life is superficial? Go in, go in, like
you're in the circle. Now, Okay, let me look before
you preface it, like, you have a skill set that
a lot of us don't have, and we can't make

(02:01:02):
money off of our skill set the way that you can.
So you know, if if if you feel like you know,
you're once a little bit more superficial. I'm not mad
at that because you have them. You got a lot
more tools to work where it's like, dude, no, seriously,
it's like because you DJ and you you're incredible drummer
and you're famous, so it's like you almost Okay, do

(02:01:23):
you know you have your Mario with the with the mushroom,
with the big mushroom and the flower. Would you shoot
out the fucking fireball? You're supermo You're super Mario with
all the fucking all your powers. All this ship is relative. Okay,
how so it's relative? Okay, so how can I make

(02:01:43):
a million dollars off of my skill set? And well
that's the thing, because if you're thirty eight years old
and you say, okay, well here's my final plan, and dada,
da da da. I don't know. I'm just saying that
I'd like putting a cap on it. I didn't see.

(02:02:05):
I didn't even imagine that that part of my life
was ever gonna happen. I mean, who starts winning at
forty four? Man? Yo, everybody, we just had this conversation,
not dude, we just had I had this conversation with
car Dude like actor, right, Steve Correll. We were talking

(02:02:26):
about with Steve Carrell. You know, he didn't really stop popping.
He was forty fucking Morgan Freeman. He didn't started he
was got damn sixty ship, you know what I mean? Like, alright, my, my, my, real.
I don't know if it's because of this mantra. All right,

(02:02:47):
There's there's a Spin magazine that Spike Lee was on
the cover of back in that's just like the Bible
to me? Was that the one he edited? Yeah, they
let Spike Lee edit when more Beta Blues came out
or no Jungle Fever? Uh, the Spin magazine and he

(02:03:07):
gave an article to Harry Allen Chuck d the right
of which those two accurately, um predicted what their life
would be like in twenty years now. It's and you know,
the bomb Squad in Public Enemy were so damnibiquitous, like

(02:03:28):
between Bell DeVos poison if you have a black planet,
excuse America's Most Wanted You soundtrack, Like they were the
stand They were the gold standard what the hip hop was.
And they said, um, we're probably gonna fall off in
about three to four years. Then our contemporaries will uh

(02:03:49):
sort of discard us out the window. Um the very
first time I ever heard of because Harry is such
a nerd, the idea of the Information super high a
you know, uh, we will probably you know, be kicked
off our labels, so we'll be forced to sell records
on our own. They want this whole thing, and Chuck's

(02:04:10):
whole thing was like, well, not to be a total
kill joy, but you know, I'm also in this business.
My endgame is to create five thousand black leaders, and
so I thought maybe I could be a black leader.
That that that sort of thing. I mean, it sounded
lofty and kind of just like weird, like the idea

(02:04:33):
of meditating or whatever. I just read it as like
that seems a little bitter and whatever. But then I realized, like,
oh man, that's some legacy ship. That's powerful, that's some
real legacy ship. Well one they were in that mission,
that eighteen point missions they were correct or what life

(02:04:55):
was gonna be in two thousand and two. Um, but
at that I I guess, my, my, oh, I guess
my goal is to create uh unmovable, un erasable graffiti.

(02:05:18):
So you don't think you've done that already. I mean,
at the rate where my last class, where six of
my eighteen students never heard a thriller. That scared me
because now I'm realizing that, you know, it's one thing

(02:05:40):
where it's like, okay, you might forget E. P. M.
D S fourth record, But now we got a generation
that may or may not know. I mean, I hate
to say that Prince had to go through his transitional
process to be forever etched in the memory of a
lot of people that he otherwise, especially with the way

(02:06:02):
he was going with the you know, being off the
internet and stuff. Uh, you know, like basic things that
we should take for granted, like there might be a
time in two thousand sixty where thriller might not matter.
You know what, I mean something like Thriller, the greatest
selling about you know. It's just that's scary to me.

(02:06:23):
So I'm trying to but what has lasted? I mean
other than I mean a song like I mean happy Birthday?
I mean what Yeah, that's there's a whole book about
this recently that Chuck Klosterman wrote about what what is
in what becomes history now? And he was saying, like,
of all the music that exists right now, probably Marching

(02:06:46):
Band because it's ubiquitous. It's in everything. It's ever, every
football game, everything, every movie, will never stop. That's like
the tuxedo of I think. I don't, I don't think whatever.
My contribution that will last is in music. So uh,

(02:07:08):
you know, you know, is it in the food world,
is it in radio? Is it in creating drum sets
for for kids? I don't know. I think you have
to keep going though. I think you have to just
you know, when we say like not stopping, it's not.
It's just you got to use all the tools in
your toolbox because you never know which one is going

(02:07:30):
to knock the wall now or knock a wall down,
you know what I'm saying. So it could be it
could be your fried chicken. I mean, who knows, right,
it just you have to just keep keep going ahead,
laugh like a double dog dad, not be your fried chicken.
That's what I'm I feel it's disingenuous of me to

(02:07:55):
just say what my goals were without pointing out that like,
I'm also like ambitious and I want things, but also
like you know, I don't know, like I I have
some Jack in me to like the Jack character in
me too. I mean, if my wife were here, she
would do you like, yell at me for my answer
and be like, that's not what you're like at all.

(02:08:16):
You're ambitious, yourselfish to be Jack, to write a movie yeah,
and direct a movie yeah, and starting it. Yeah, you
are Jack. I got some Oh we're here with Mike Brabiglia,

(02:08:36):
creator and star of Don't Think Twice and also Sleepwalk
with Me and a gazillion other projects. Yeah, well Orange, Yes,
and anyone else wanted uh uh Twitter, Bachelor of Suicide Squad.

(02:08:57):
I felt joined that thank you. I got mad at
m p a A because they gave me a yeah,
and for smoking smoking weed. That crazy. That's m p
a A. Man. There's a crazy movie. There's a crazy
documentary about this This movie is not rated and it's

(02:09:22):
it's I've heard of that. So wait, what is the process, like,
it's not available anywhere? Is it the Four Old People? Yeah,
I swear to god, it's hard. I know, I know,
but now it's pulled off. I feel like, is it
like the Huey Lewis High School Committee and Back to
the Future that watches your movie. It's like eight people
according to this movie. This movie is not yet rated.

(02:09:44):
It's like eight people and they've been doing it forever,
and I think it. It has sort of a moralistic
bent to it, you know, And a lot of times
they'll give notes in the movie. They'll be like, we
should only see her orgasming for eight seconds and not
eleven seconds, and it's like Bill Sherman's yeah, that's crazy,

(02:10:08):
that's crazy. Well, so these eight people watch every movie? Yeah, yeah,
So what if your film like is shown at like
uh one in the morning or something like. I feel
like it also depends just play art houses. You can
have your movie be not rated, but then it'll it

(02:10:30):
may not it may not end up anywhere. Yeah, they
can't play in the movie theaters. That kind of you
haven't even happened, So you wanted this to be yeah,
because there's it's harmless. I feel like teenagers can watch
it and there's nothing to it. I mean, it's just
a story about friends. Like I wanted it to be
like a big chill or like it's an almost fire
kind of movie for this generation. So I'm like the

(02:10:52):
fact that they're kind of making it like taboo for
anyone's it's just kind of annoying. Yeah, he is an
adult movie, but it's not like a vulgar It's nothing
in it that I thought wants it in our makes
it real? I felt about no. But the thing was
the main thing that turned me off about Suicide Squad

(02:11:13):
was as PG. Thirteen, I was just like, I'm just lame.
Like if it were are then I'd be like, word, okay,
I would you know, I have the desire to see it,
but I did. I know why yours are because you
point out how all the pettiness and adults people can

(02:11:33):
handle it like that was the most disturbing part to me.
And really the most memorable part was how they were
friends obviously, but um, but there you know, there's that
there's that part of it that's rooting for your friend,
that part that's jealous and all living side by side
and comes out, you know, like when when the people
in your movie say I just got this gig or

(02:11:54):
I got the writing gig or whatever, and there's those
moments of like nobody knows what to say because when
you they want to say it's fun. Why the crazy
thing about my movie is that I don't it's great
to talk about it because I can't watch anymore because
I get choked up. I like start crying every time.
Because I feel like I relate to all the characters.
I feel sad for them. What's the moment in the

(02:12:16):
movie that you must relate to? When the final scene
with Jack and Sam. But wait, I was gonna say
I was for a second, I thought you were gonna
make Jack sabotage his moment too. Yeah, he got well

(02:12:38):
for a second, he was like, maybe I won't take
the train of my dude, Lauren's gonna kill you. But
not Lauren, but I mean Timothy. Timothy. Timothy was rather
kind of doucy though, which I felt like you had
to make him super doucy so it wouldn't be what

(02:13:00):
you think that Lauren is. Because Lauren is the opposite
of that's different. It's different. Yeah, yeah, you know, it
just it's his own thing. I just wanted to make
the boss like cold, you know what I mean, just
like tough. Where did that bicycle come from? That was
my question. I'm sorry. So there's like the wooden bicycle
in the movie. I live in Brooklyn by this. I

(02:13:21):
always walked by this shop that has like Swedish bicycles,
and one day I walked by and it had like
a wooden bicycle. I was like, I gotta put that
in something. It's so funny. It's one of the funniest
looking things I've ever seen. And they're like expensive, is
that like? Yeah? I think they're like thousands of dollars. Yeah. Yeah.
And in the band on the show, Yeah that's a

(02:13:43):
real band. They were really exciting. Yeah yeah, they're called
l L Yeah. How did you? How did you? I
found them? Uh? Just like fishing around for new bands.
My wife and I just we listened to a lot
of new bands and and we just found that band's
well because who sang the Dylan song at the end

(02:14:07):
um it's piano by Roger Neil, It's piano instrumental who
there's composer, yeah in the credits and uh and Dylan
was nice enough to I mean, I don't I never
met Bob Dylan, but he was, you know, his manager,
Jeff Rosen, was nice enough to let us have that
sound for for next to nothing. It's really generous. I mean,

(02:14:30):
Bob Dylan is really good to independent film like he's
I have to say, like that guy like really gives
it up to a lot of movies for very little money.
It's nice talk about talk about legacy. He's a guy
who's i think very kind of focused on sort of passing,
you know, paying it forward to the next generation. Is
that like a small collective of no musicians that do

(02:14:53):
kind of kind of cater I don't know. I mean
for us as George Clinton is that well, George Clinton
always uh uh charge the lowest rate possible for music.
It was kind of the crack theory exactly, like you
give him get your test. I'm not gonna I'm not

(02:15:15):
gonna comment on that. Why George Georgie George George cleaned
himself up. So yeah, oh yeah, but yeah, it's the
crack theory. Just give you a little taste, not really yea, yeah,
giving your taste then and then get you addicted, and

(02:15:35):
then he keeps coming back. But oh, by the way,
Dylan is a great example of the guy who has
always he never he never stopped. He kept going. He
keeps making new albums. He's not like the Stones. He
doesn't go out and do the hits. He just he
keeps like making new music. Side note, the Dylan that

(02:15:56):
I know like the back of my hand, it's just
the Christian era. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Christian. There there's a
whole bunch of albums in there. Yeah, it's like four
records that between like seventy six and yeah. So when
my parents were on their Christian kick with only Christian

(02:16:16):
radio in the house, I thought Bob Dylan was a
Christian Artist's amazing. I didn't know about what's incredible, didn't
didn't deal and also do some records with Full Force
and No No, with Salon Remy and Curtis Blow. Whoa
what dog? Salam Remy was Salam's father, Uh was a

(02:16:40):
staff person at Mercury Um So he was already at
like thirteen fourteen years old, producing Curtis Blow that America
album The Kingdom Come Album, backed by Popular Salm salm
remy at like of teen, sixteen years old, you know,

(02:17:02):
salon me the the Payback makes the James Brown pa
that Wait, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
I did that Payback the Payback mix, which one was
it's that James Brown Like there's like a James Brown
Master mix. Yeah, you'd know it if you heard it.
Side rabbit Hole. That's a rabbit the rabbit Hole starting

(02:17:27):
quest Quest Los rabbit Hole. Now yeah, well, uh Mike, um,
I I have to say, uh, thank you really a
sincere thanks for creating a conversation piece and something really universal,

(02:17:53):
Like it's rare. It's super rare that uh that I
see or witness something that I totally relate to and
they don't necessarily look like me per se, but I
totally see myself in those characters. You know. I really

(02:18:13):
I can't thank you enough for it, like that I
needed to. I really need to see that film and
thank you for creating Thanks a lot of thanks for
giving up to the improv community too, like that was dope.
Thanks for having me on and uh this is this
is uh, this is awesome. Thank you, thank you. I'll

(02:18:35):
see the movie, go see yes, Yeah, it's in It's
in like a hundred and fifty theaters in a country
right now. And uh, I don't think twice movie dot com.
If you want to find out where it is, I
have to say, this is uh this, this is this
is one of them deep cut episode. I suppose it
is one of them deep cuts. All right, So what

(02:18:55):
did you learn today? Man? I learned today that A
mer Thompson is one of the most shallow motherfucker's fucking
paper chasing keep up with the Jones ass fucking Yo,
It's gonna be a great man. Uh nah, man I

(02:19:20):
learned that. Um, I learned it from from Mike. Just
that whole man, just the whole thing about the sleepwalking,
Like that's just I imagine, like I mean, just having
the courage to share something like that and uh, just
you know, knowing that you gotta deal with that all
your life. I mean, that's just something crazy. But I
mean he is, uh, definitely one of the favorite people

(02:19:42):
that I've introduced a lot of stuff that he's saying.
He um, I hear myself in that, you know what
I'm saying In terms of getting older, you know, hitting
that kind of late thirties, not being old but just
older and just being able to put things in perspective,
you know what I'm saying. Um, he was very you
know his his movie. Like hearing him talk about the
process of how you know, twenty two working the door

(02:20:05):
at the comedy seller and thinking you're gonna do your
first movie by twenty four, which you don't do it
till ten years later. I mean that resonates so much. Man.
Like that. You know when people say that the entertainment
and this is me and Unpaid. We've had this conversation
on Texas of before. When people say that the entertainment,
you know, it takes hard work. I don't think anyone
ever realizes how much hard work it is. I don't

(02:20:28):
think they realized that. It's like, no, it's gonna be ten, fifteen,
twenty years of just fucking slavery until one day you'll
see like and it's like, oh, ship, you know we
made it. But uh, yeah, man, I learned it. Uh.
A lot of our stories are very similar. Cool big
ups to Mike, Unpaid Bill, What did you learn today?

(02:20:49):
I learned that I need to keep a running document
of fontas quotes. Number one, number two I learned I
thought well, cashing inversus sell it out. I thought that
was fascinating idea because I've never ever heard that before.
I don't forget pulling out. Well, that's that the nutting. Yeah,

(02:21:11):
you know, And I would, honestly, I would not have
watched that movie had we not been here talking to Mike,
because I don't ever watch movies because I don't have
any goddamn time. But I was like, you're in the industry.
Well I know, but but I don't. I don't know.
It's the one thing that is foreign to me. I
don't I don't go to the movies. I don't know kids, man, kids.
But but I was I was saying that that I

(02:21:33):
haven't seen a movie like that in a while. That
was so universal that appealed to me in a way
that I thought I was almost after I watched it,
I was embarrassed coming here and to say to everybody
that's about me, like that movie is straight up my
life like that, like except the improv ship, which is
not that into but like having a group of friends
and I know I play we are IV. It's true.

(02:22:00):
It's true. Zap uh yeah yeah, yeah, So I I
was just I was it was just interesting to see
how universal your own story is and how other people
share that ship. And it's nice to know that the
Dirney on life is with other people. True. There you go,

(02:22:23):
Paige Steve to mock. So what would len? I learned
that Mike B. Bigley's name is not um. I learned
a lot about him. He's an introspective, right guy, that's

(02:22:46):
good grip on things, and it's creative and um but
like Unpaid Bill, Um, I didn't think I was going
to be into the movie. I'm not into independent films.
I'm not into improv I don't like being told to
watch a movie. Sorry. Um but but again, like these

(02:23:07):
guys that came out of it, sort of thinking, you know,
I can relate to Summer all of those characters in
the sense, especially in the sense of what I brought
up to him, that that's sort of duality of rooting
for your friends and also sort of having that constant
jealousy to beat them to the finish line. There's a
Oscar Wild quote about that, where it's like, you know,

(02:23:28):
it's something to the fact of you can it's easy. Basically,
it's easy to be friends in times of sympathy when
your friends need the sympathy, but can you be a
friend in their time of success? Like that's what tests friendships.
It's not just quote Oscar Wild Yeah, fuck you man.

(02:23:48):
Every every time we do this ship you you will
quote the dumbest television show, the dumbest, smartest philosopher Rapper
And then like I mean, when it wants who then
are you with my hands? You need to be alone
by yourself, like with money and just like like novels,

(02:24:11):
like you could be imprisoned for all I know. Anyway, Sorry,
so I'm paid Bill. Would you learn now that's paid?
I'm paid Bill? What did I learn? I mean, I
think everybody's pretty much already touched on it so far. Um,
you know, just watching the movie, which probably wasn't a
movie I would have normally watched, um, but like by

(02:24:32):
the end of it, I got so wrapped up in
it because, like like everybody said, it was like watching
my life on screen. Like I'm not I'm not in
improv I'm not you know, into I'm not a musician
or anything, but just so much much of it rang
true with just seeing being on Facebook every day and
see what my friends are doing and seeing where I
am in life and you know, uh, you know, and

(02:24:52):
some people I'm ahead of. Some people I'm way behind.
So you know, it's it's it's I don't know, it's
weird getting old. It's it kind of sucks. I don't
like it. How do you I'm thirty six, I said,
getting older? No, I thought you were like forty six.
Now I am a year in like a week or
something younger than Ponte. I'm a year younger than you. Look, man,

(02:25:19):
this I mean, look, I'm not saying everybody's journey gotta
be my journey. But again, I was kind of ready,
you know, thirty eight, thirty nine. I was like, uh, well,
this was nice. It was it was cool. But I'm
like you and then you know, Evin like a window opened.

(02:25:41):
I'm just saying that it can happen late. But but
but a lot of times I don't think that's That's
what I'm pressing. That's that's not late. I think that's
kind of poor for the course. I mean, well, yeah,
but just a lot you usually post thirty five, we
start like, okay, minus well, I think you're just looking
at it from the perspective of being in the music

(02:26:03):
industry and like in any any other field, you know,
just say man with like twelve syllables, okay, in any
other industry that most people don't find success in their twenties.
And so you know, man, talk about it. I think
we were the generation that was. I said, always say
that did he messed it up? I say that did
he messed it up? When he quit college and kept

(02:26:24):
doing those trips to New York and got to sexts
early and became millionaires. And everybody looked at ditty and
was like, you know what, it could be done by
twenty something, but not for you having a successful rap
career as a non rapper. That's how Kim Kardashian looked
at it. But I'm just saying that, well, yeah, did
He's the beginning of the Carter personality, right, So but yeah,

(02:26:47):
it starts with him and ends with Kim. Oh. But
here's what I learned today that you were asking Mr
leaf Um, Mr. I learned that, unlike y'all, I'm really
in the improv to stand up a couple of times
and whatnot. And so from Mike, I've realized that, you
know what, it's it's possible to live your dreams, and

(02:27:07):
it's possible to use all these tools for the greater good,
because I'm hoping at some point did all those classes
and improper groups and stuff lead us out mouse So
I'm just saying, that's what I learned today, it's led
you to this. Oh that's right, I made it. Yeah
you did? What did you learn? Like? Seeing being now
now as the leader of this flock, now I feel

(02:27:28):
like I'm gonna let you all down again because the
one thing I learned I'm gonna try tonight. Okay, I'm
gonna sleeping and sleeping, You're gonna pot it out. I
just make sure I have the inside zipper though, because
well no, only only because I'm one of those people

(02:27:49):
who's air conditioning. Like you ever, are you ever so
cold in the morning or hot in the morning that
you're too lazy to get out of bed just change
the temperature day you just rather suffer through it and
just hope that take your clothes off or right, I'm
one of those lazy can't walk to the air conditioner

(02:28:10):
just to turn it down or whatever. So right now
it's like my my joint is like on freeze freeze
times pie, Like my room is like just like tell
them we call that strip club weather is that we
call it yeah, because that's they kick the nipples hard.
That's how to keep the nipples hard. I just want

(02:28:35):
to say, let plays the bomb. Yeah, shout out, she
got couch and this is better than yes. Yes, it's it's,
it's it's important, quite awesome to come back home to
uh electrical lady And until next time, ladies and gentleman

(02:29:00):
on behalf of Boss Bill and Shot Steve and Unpaid
Bill and Lie Year and Fine take below. My name
is Love and this is between only m h M

(02:29:27):
course Love Supreme. It's a production of My Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Vandora.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Hosts And Creators

Laiya St. Clair

Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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