May 5, 2025 • 50 mins
In this hilarious and heartfelt episode of Pocket Party, comedians Darren Carter and Daniel Lobell brew up a storm of laughs and stories! From their love of coffee to bizarre jobs they've worked, the duo dives into wild tales of world travel and Danny's jaw-dropping experience diving in a shark tank—without a cage! They get real about navigating fallouts with friends and the tough moments when a comedian bombs on stage. Join these two for a rollercoaster of humor, reflection, and unforgettable anecdotes!
Grab your headphones and join the party for non-stop hilarity and real talk you won’t forget!
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Grab your headphones and join the party for non-stop hilarity and real talk you won’t forget!
https://linktr.ee/DarrenCarter
https://buymeacoffee.com/darrencarter
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/darren-carter-pocket-party--3090090/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Pocket Parties.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Part of my job then had to be to put
on gloves and shove my hands into the rectums of
these seat turtles to uh put medication you know, uh
suppositories in these seat turtles.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Must have been like, uh, I must have felt strange
to do that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I loved it every moment.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Everybody. J Carter. We all know he's the party Starter.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So if you want to listen.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
To a podcast, listen to a Pocket Party.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Pocket Party.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
They're wrong and we're back. Hey, everybody, it's your host,
Darren Carter, the Party Starter. Another episode of the Pocket
Party podcast. If you liked this episode and you want
to sorry your support, click that link below. It's called
buy Me a Coffee. I think it's like buy me
a coffee dot com slash Darren Carter. Anyways, the link
(01:08):
is in the description. My guest here is next to me,
and I don't I don't even know if he drinks coffee,
but here he is Daniel Lobell. He's back.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I'm Jewish, not Mormon. I drink coffee, Like I.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Don't know if this guy knows how to have a
good time with an espresso.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's that this guy even likes coffee over here. You
know this freaking guy. I mean, other people like, yeah,
but this guy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Come on, remember that when they used to say someone
he's a little light in.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The loafers, you calling me an American.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Hey likes a nice cup of jebba.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's like in slamming. This guy's not even American enough to.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Like a cup by coffee, if you know what I mean. No,
he likes coffee. Do you like coffee?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I do?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I was, I was, I was like, I really don't know. No,
you know what. The reason here's why he said that.
Actually I bring that up late at night because it
was late at night. Maybe I'm answering my own question.
I remember we did a show and you're like, hey,
let's get some tea. And I hadn't had tea a
long time, and we actually had some hot tea at
a hookah bar type of situation.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Because yeah, in a hookah bar, you gotta go tea.
Yeah you know, Actually that's not true because usually they'll
have a good Turkish coffee, which is nice, but it's
late at night. I don't want to get caffeinated like
that and stay up all night. Turkish coffee is very caffeinated,
so when you take away Turkish coffee. I mean, you're
gonna get a good cup of decaf coffee at a
(02:32):
hookah bar. You gotta go with the drinks of the
of the East, that's right. Yeah, in the Middle East
and the Far East.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You know, it's funny. I one of the ways that
I trim calories about fifteen years ago, I stopped putting
cream in my coffee, and no more sugar. I don't
even do like Irish I used to do like the
Irish cream and a hazel nut and all.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That, and do cream my own sugar. You drink it black,
just black. Yeah. I like my coffee like I like
my I love my women like I like my coffee.
Oh yeah, reversity, I like my women like I like.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
My coffee coffee like I like my women women black?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
With no cream in them?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Whoa hell dir?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah it's a family friendly podcast, is it? What was
I gonna tell you? What was your strangest job?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh? Yeah, there's the Far East. Oh yeah, there's the
Middle East. But I never hear about the Near East.
You ever hear of the nearest always far There's the
Far East and then there's the Middle Yeah, so there
should be the near, the near, and the far. Then
you'd have the middle, right.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, the Middle East, and you got the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, the Middle West. Do you have the mid mid East? No?
You never hear about the Mid East.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I don't know. Have you ever gone to the Mid East?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
No, I don't think have I I don't know mid East?
Would that be like Rhode Island?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Dude, I've only been to Canada and Mexico. Really, yeah,
those are the only countries you've been to. And the
Mexico was there every time Mexico. I twin to border towns,
I went to Tijuana, I went to somewhere near Browns.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Like, you're just dipping your toe and the country I
want to get too far into it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know that's interesting. You've never been to Europe? No,
I never have. Somebody once offered me to go to Egypt,
but it was also the Internet, and it looked kind
of suspicious.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You just don't go to Egypt. I know you're not Jewish,
but we we. Our entire culture is centered around leaving Egypt.
It's basically the whole story of Judaism. We were in
Egypt and we left. Isn't that great? Hey? You want
to go back.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I'm good, Yeah, I'm good. They Yeah. Somebody from the
internet years ago offered me to go to Cairo and
they said this is where you're be performing. And it
was like something something guarded and I googled it and
it looked like a legit place. But then it started
getting kind of crazy. They were like, you're gonna stay
at a you know, a four star hotel and you're
(05:09):
we'll fly you first class. But then it got you know,
then it went from from first class to business class
whatever little things. Even at the time, my manager goes,
you know, my spidery sense is tingling.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And then I was like, for all I know, maybe
because it said four star hotel, but I'm like, oh no,
my friend, we rate them over here by one hundred stars.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fought out the behind me and.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
My mother in law. God rest her soul. She was
gonna pay me money not to go. She's like, don't go, Darren,
don't go. I will Yeah. She was like I'll pay
you not to go, and I was like, all righty, because.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I'm not I gotta tell you a four star like
they're not going to say we're going to put you
in the Egyptian Motel six, the Red Pyramid Inn. You
take cameras as payment, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I was like, not gonna go. And then and then
there was a time when there was a comedian shout
out to a meta med he uh, he was trying
to hook up some stuff, and and I was like, ah,
and I never, I never, I don't know, it never
really quite came up and went through, and I was,
I'm okay with it. It wasn't like I was chomping
into bit to go.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, okay, yeah, you didn't want to play for the Pharaohs. No,
there they go the laf Factory crew. Oh nice, Yeah, yeah,
we're outside, Yeah, we're outside.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
The laugh Factory just had a really fun set. And
now we're in the parking lot once again, and you're
jeep and I go, I go.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Hey, let's let's I go with Darren's podcast studio, my
guest vehicles. I have an entire podcast studio. He's got
the tiniest microphone you've ever seen in your life. It's
the size of a toothpick. And he just goes, how
about that podcast studio that I've rented last time? In
my car?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I know, dude, you got a nice sweet set up. Man.
You guys have the cameras. It looks like a TV studio.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, I guess it essentially is nowadays a podcasts and TV.
It's hard to say where one where the line.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's called we think it's funny. You guys, I know
you enjoy Pocket Party podcast. If you're looking for another
podcast to put in the rotation, I highly recommend We
Think It's funny. Daniel Dan I know miss Daniel Lobell
and Daniel Lobell and Mark Schiff. These guys are hilarious man,
and they sometimes do like news topics like you guys
will pick a few stories.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And a few stories, a few stories, nothing too have you,
nothing too much. We have a little fun. We tell
some stories, we have some laughs. I don't know why
I'm talking like that, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Step it up, folks. Do you guys do any news
stories today that you want to regurgitate on my podcast?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That was because we didn't have a comedian on today.
We had an ex neo Nazi on today. By the
way I told him on the show. I always thought
they were neon Nazis, like they wore neon like colors,
like like from the nineties or something. Uh no, but
it's neo. Do you know what neo means?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I think it means new.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You're right, I didn't know that means new. Yeah. But
so the new Nazis have been around for a long
time and the old Nazis are not around. What would
happen if new Nazis come around now?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know they'd be like, yeah, they're like, you
know you guys, were you guys? We're billboard them? Were
we wear skinny jeans? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I wonder who came up with that, like instead of
just calling there like okay. So the old Nazis get
defeated World War two not that long ago, and then
you get these guys. They come around, they say, hey,
old Nazis are out, New Nazis are in. This guy
what we call ourselves the new Nazis. This guy was
a prisoner to go to prison, and he went to prison.
(08:39):
Who he kidnapped? Somebody? He kidnapped an Antifa he said,
an Antifa guy. Wow, And they beat him pretty bad
and they tried to get ransom money. And he told
me in the podcast, which was really interesting, there are
rules to kidnapping. There's like unwritten rules like you have
twelve hours eight hours to get the ransom amunt of money,
(09:01):
and then the next four hours you can drop the
price if you didn't get the first amount, and if
you don't get the lower amount, you have to either
kill them or let them go. And they let this
guy go, and he went to the police and got them.
But then he said, many many years later, he's, you know,
a reformed neo Nazi, and he's in recovery for alcohol
(09:25):
and drugs. And he run and he was like interviewed
on TV or something, and then he runs into the
guy he kidnapped at a bar randomly. Wow, and he goes, hey,
he used to be in like the ANTIFA or whatever.
He goes, uh, yeah, He goes, did you get kidnapped
one time? He goes, oh, hey, he goes, it's you.
(09:49):
He goes, look, I just want to make amends. I'm really,
really sorry that we kidnapped you and beat you up
and all that. Damn. And he goes, I saw you
on TV and I see that you're a changed man,
he says, and I'm sorry I went to the police
on you. He goes, No, you don't get to take
this away from me. Yeah, it's really interesting. He goes, no,
it's my apology. Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
They should do a sitcom together. Yeah, yeah, I didn't
know this, mister kidnapper. I'm mister wow.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah. There's all these subcultures wow, of Antifas and Nazis,
and they're all fighting while the rest of us are
just trying to figure out, you know, what's open to
get a bite.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, it's like an almond butter or peanut butter. You know,
elemend butter's better for you.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I heard. It's really interesting the disposition of how innocent
some of our lives are compared to like, you know,
when you watch Breaking Bad, they did a great job
of that, like just showing like the innocent life next
to the crazy life, and how they all exist and
brought in plain daylight right next to each other and
people don't see it. You know, were you.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Is your podcast studio? Is it a your home?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, you're a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Hey, we're inviting this guy or.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Reformed. Uh, you know, he goes around, you know, telling
people not to be Nazis anymore. So I don't know
that's cool, you see. And then he and then he
found out that he's Jewish.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It's always like that. I think I've heard that sort
of thing before, right, you know a lot of a
lot of times, Yeah, where they're like people you know,
hate something and then or hate on something, but nobody
ever finds.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Out they're black. I'm wait, I suck and he kind
of know that one. But yeah, I guess you can
find out if you're Jewish. You never find out you're Asian,
you know, like, yeah, turns out I'm Chinese. I had
no idea.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I had no idea. So before the show, I go,
what do you what? What do I what's a good
kicking off?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You do hear people, by the way who are against
gay people and then they you know, come out of
as gay themselves.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, it's usually like that, or like the person that's
you know, either going to find out they're gay or
Jewish or gay Jews. But that's about it. That's it. Yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
But anyways, I was gonna say, before the show, you go,
you asked me if I ever had a strange job,
So I'm gonna ask you, did you ever what was
one of your stranger jobs.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Or just had a strange job? What kind of question
is as you. I was in Israel for a year
in between high school and college and I did some
study abroad and it was a work study program and
(12:35):
I got offered different opportunities for the work for three months.
So it was the three months you get to work
in a job in Israel and see what it's like
to work in another country there. And one of the
options was to work at this place called Mitzpetta Me,
which is Hebrew for the Underwater Observatory, which was basically
(12:58):
a biologists study center and aquarium open to the public.
So I was like, I'll do that. I like fish,
you know, I like fish. I like them with mashed
potatoes and no, like when do we eat? So I uh,
So I went and I worked at this aquarium and
(13:21):
it was only three weeks and I'm sorry it was
three months. It was only three months, but that's a
long Yeah, I guess that's a significant amount of time
and and it felt like a long time. So the
first thing they'd have you do early in the morning is, uh,
you need to go outside and shovel sand. That's the
(13:42):
guy who was the boss. He kind of sounded like
an Israeli artol Schwartzenegger. I need to shovel sands. So
we go out with these big imagine those plastic garbage
cans that you'd get at like home depot. You had
to fill them up with sand from the beach. And
it's super hot. You're on the border of Egypt and Israel,
(14:02):
right and the Red Sea there and the sunny even
in early in the morning. You have to go out
early otherwise it's way too hot. You have to get
out there before it well, yeah, I guess, but much hotter.
How hot does it get? How hot does it get?
I'll tell you, I don't know, but I mean like overgrees. Yeah,
(14:25):
it's burning hot. It's the summer too that I was
working there, So it's the summer in a very hot
part of the country, and so you have to go
out before that before it gets really hot. But it's
still really hot. And I wasn't in as bad shape
physically as I am now, but I wasn't in great shape,
and you know, I'd be sweating like crazy. You have
to fill these uh garbage cans with sand and then
(14:49):
drag these heavy sand filled garbage cans from the beach
back to the observatory, which was right off of the beach.
But still, you know, it's still hard to move a
sand filled garbage can even an inch. So then you
had to do this every morning because or maybe it
(15:09):
was three mornings a week, I think, but because the
sand in the bottom of the I don't know what
you would call them, not displays, but where the fish
are collects bacteria, and so I'd have to then get
an underwater vacuum and vacuum up yeah wow, and vacuum
(15:29):
up the old sand and then replace it with these
dump these garbage cans with the new sand in so
that you know, the fish wouldn't die because they needed
whatever it is from the sand that wouldn't be bacteria filled,
So that was part of it. Then it gets a
little crazier then the sea turtles, which were massive there
(15:52):
may be about some of them were maybe about as
long as half of your body from your head to
your waist. That's big sea turtle, right. They got they
all got sick, and they got constipated. Support of my
job then had to be to put on gloves and
shove my hands into the rectums of these sea turtles
(16:15):
to put medication, you know, suppositories in these sea turtles.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Must have been like, uh, I must have felt strange.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
To do that. I loved it every moment.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Oh gosh, you're like all volunteer. Could I work extra hours?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I had to put suppositories. Yeah. I did watch an
octopus give birth. I was holding some of his arms. No,
I'm kidding, but push push. I watched an octopus give birth.
That was really interesting. And I saw the sea seahorses
have babies, like tons of babies. They just come out
of them. Tons and tons of little sea hoors come
(17:00):
out of the sea horse. And then in the last
month I kept they had a shark tank, and the
shark tank we're all rescues, like you know people talk
about their dogs a rescue. These were all like fishermen
injured a shark and they bring them in and these
were protected sharks and they rehabilitate them. And that's how
(17:23):
and that's the sharks that people would see. And I
was a little crazy back then, and I was young,
you know, so I didn't have a wife or kids
or any of those things that you might hesitate to
do this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
But I was like, looking, you don't tell me you
put your hand up or sharks rectum.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
More than that. These sharks were asking for it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Is there a song about that, like under the Sea
by Bobby Darren?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Uh, under the board? No?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Oh, you don't know under the Sea.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You know under the Sea, the Little Mermaid. Maybe. Anyway,
I was like, I'm like, I want to do the
So people, the way the shark tank was was you
could go right up to the glass and see the sharks,
or you could walk up the stairs and walk on
a bridge above the water and look down over the
(18:19):
bridge to the open water where you see the fins
in the sharks right. And because there's tourists coming throughout
the day, inevitably, what's going to happen, whether it's intentional
or unintentional. Garbage falls into the shark tank, A wrapper
from a candy or you know, potato chip bag or
(18:39):
whatever it is, gets into the water. Somebody has to
go at night, you know those guys who have the
pokers on the side of the highway and pick up
the litter. Someone has to go in scuba gear in
there with the poker and pick up the garbage. So
I said, I want to do it. I was looking
for a rush, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I was like, it was crazy I thought you're going
to say, like a like in the swimming pool with
a long butterfly net type of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You literally go in with the sharks. So they've gotten
this big two hundred pound tiger shark they called their
big Mama. She was injured by an Egyptian fisherman and
brought in and she was aggressive.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And did they give you a cage to be inside
of them?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
No, there's no cage. I mean it's it's Israel. I
don't know. The rules are different. You know, they know
you're looking foreigner in America. They got rockets falling all
over the place, like you're not getting a cage. Get
out of here. So so they said, look, I don't
know if I said, look, I took some scuba lessons.
(19:40):
I can do scuba. I could do a brush up
course here if you want. I'm good at scuba at
the time. And I said, I'd love to do it.
I want to get in with the sharks. And you know,
there's liabilities and stuff. I had to sign all these
contracts that if I got eaten by the sharks or whatever, uh,
(20:00):
there would be no legal repercussions for my family or
anything or for me.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The more I'm signing it, the more nervous. I was kidding,
but you're probably get even more excited.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Excited. I was like, it's an adrenaline drenalin rush. And
I like, I've always said how I.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Was when I got married. Yeah, all those papers, let's go.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Let's what you're saying. You felt like you were going
into a shark. You're like, let's affen go. So I
was like, yeah, I want to go in with the sharks.
And uh, and I asked them, I asked them. They
finally said, Okay, you're gonna have to sign all these
papers and uh and I got to do it. And
and so they give you all they give you. You
(20:38):
have the thing to pick up the trash, and then
you have how many are in there when you go
in there? Quite a lot, quite a lot. But the
big one was the tiger shark.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And that's the one you mainly wanted to keep your
eye on.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, the other ones were not tiger sharks. Tiger sharks
are you know the massive you know, like how big
is big?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Your body?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Much bigger?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Because I remember the turtle was half to your body,
so tiger this was bigger, like six feet seven eight
feet I think they said it was two hundred pounds.
I want more than two hundred pounds now, but I
don't know. It was like they're long though, they're long, yeah,
and they were swimming around like.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, it's a big, big shark.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Did they Would you guys feed the sharks first.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Before you go in. Yeah, they'll feed them first. They
throw in all kinds of stuff, squids and all stuff
that they eat, and you see them all going to
hag like you know, they all kind of swim lurk
up to the to the food and snatch it at
the same time and rip it apart, and they're crazy.
But then once they've had enough to eat, then you
go in. And the hope is that you don't bother them.
(21:41):
They don't bother you, but if they do bother you.
The other thing they give you is a stick, and
it's just basically looks like a giant match stick. It's
got a thing tied at the tip of it, which
is like, I think, like some kind of a softer material.
I don't remember what it was, but let's let's imagine
(22:04):
that there's a it's a cloth with the foam underneath
or something, and it's tied on and it looks like
a big match stick, and they say you jab them
with the stick if they come at you, like go
for the gills or the nose or nerve footballs. At
the end, they never had to do it. They never
came at me. But I always was like, if that happens,
that's it's probably the end of me, because I don't
(22:26):
think I'm going to have the coordination to hit the
shark in the right spot, or I'll just piss them
off more. But I went for it. To my credit,
it's one of the only things I can tell you
that that was a great brave moment for me. And
I got to go in with the sharks and uh
and collect the trash. And that's the craziest chilbd I
(22:48):
ever had.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, you're like your turn. Okay, So one time I
worked at a pizza and uh, yeah, did you did?
Did they ever bump up against your body?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
You were like, oh, what the fuck?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They didn't know. They never came. I never came in.
But when I did get to do, sharks shed their
teeth and so I would collect the teeth and I
give them to people.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
You still have any of them?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Now?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I wish did you ever feel like necklaces with them
and stuff? You know, yeah, it's like when you ride
a motorcycle. You know, you might go like thirty miles
an hour and then eventually like this is boring, then
you go forty. Did you ever get to the point
where you were like, okay, this is getting a little dull,
Like did you feel like I'm going to try to
get a little close to these sharks?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Now, it was never dull because you're in there. They're
still like, you know, inches away from you. Oh yeah,
they don't touch you, but there they swim right past you. Wow,
and like you're right there. There's no cage, there's no nothing.
And but they they didn't bother me. They didn't they
didn't try and and every time I was in there,
it's an adrenaline rush. It's so exciting to be in
(23:57):
the water like with with because you're just like you
just don't know what's gonna happen. And you know, if
you're young and you're not thinking like I really want
to be around necessarily, not that I just think I
don't want to be around, but you know, there's just
young people think differently, you.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Know, Yeah, they have those shark cages where people go
in there and they put them in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And then they try to do that in South Africa.
And I was in South Africa to do shows. In
Cape Town, you can go with the great whites in
a cage and so I was like very excited to
do that. And it's interesting. It's where two oceans meet,
the Indian Ocean and a.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
You're talking about sharks.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
No, in Cape Town there's the two oceans meet and
there's a spot there where the there's a ton of
great white sharks and there's you're a tourist, you can
go and they'll put you in a cage and they'll
drop you down so you can see the great white
sharks up close. So I was like, I gotta do this.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So I wonder what that neo Nazi would call those sharks.
They're really great whites, really really really really great.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Well they are skinheads.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Oh gosh. I knew there's a joke in there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So I go there. And then in South Africa the
currency is rand, and I think it was something like
fourteen hundred rand to do it. Wow, and I only
had twelve hundred rand, and they it was like a
cash business or something. And I was also, I don't
think I even had credit cards. I didn't that's what.
Maybe it wasn't a cash business, but I only had
cash I was living off. I was very broken when
(25:38):
I went to South Africa, which is a whole nother story,
but I'm like, look, it was my only day to
do it. I was leaving Cape Town the next day
and I'm begging them. I'm like, I'm just two hundred short,
please fourteen hundred. I got twelve hundred, let me go.
And there's like a little back and forth where they
seem like they're considering it and everything, and then they're
(26:00):
just like, no, no, you have to have the full amount.
And I couldn't go, and I was like devastated. And
I found out since then that those cages are not
very reliable, and more often than you'd believe, the sharks
break in through the cages.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I saw a video on TikTok where the thing like
it went into the cage and then and they were like,
oh my god, and then it freaked out and the
shark got itself out of it and there was a
person in there.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
But people do die. People die from those things. Yeah,
you know, it's and especially it's you're in South Africa.
Who cares? Nobody even knows you're down there. You know,
what do you think if you die, they're going to
report it? You know. It's like, okay, well I saw
even by a shark. We never met him, that's never happened.
(26:44):
I saw something for the first time. I saw there
was a rodeo and they had a shark cage type
of situation, and that you can be out there in
the middle of the rodeo and the bulk and like
as it's chasing the round and it kind of goes
right near your cage and it gives you a thrill. Yeah,
I didn't know. There's something about sharks. It's you know, mesmerizing.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You know, so.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
For me anyway, I think for a lot of people,
because they just they move in a majestic kind of
way and they never stop moving, and they're there's danger
involved in them, and they're they're beautiful, they're sleek.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You know, do you feel like you're a comedian. It's
like a shark, like you never stop moving.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You're oh no, I always stop moving.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
You've been on the ghost at seven am. You're sleek
and you're upstairs, you're downstairs your podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Now, I'm not sexy enough to be a shark. You're
a good and a hammerhead.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
We're land sharks.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, but like they do call cars land sharks, right, Like,
wasn't there a car that I think so land shark?
They designed cars to look like sharks, you know, because
sharks are sexy, the way they look, the shape of them,
something about sharks is very appealing to humans. That's all. Yeah,
(28:01):
I don't know why I'm even talking.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
About no, but that's cool. That's interesting that the job.
It's funny because you know, I've most of my jobs
came like in the beginning, you know, like even before
like as I was doing, you know, beginning to be
a comedian a stand up. Yeah, and you know, they're
they're mostly from that era, you know, like the late teens,
early twenties. I did get a job at a temp service,
(28:24):
and that was interesting because you got to see what
it's like to you know, working on an assembly line
for two weeks and then deliver radiators for a week,
and or work at a the weirdest it was the
weird nothing like your job. But we did get to
clean out a department store that went out of business,
so it basically like like a Macy's or something like that.
So you got to go in into the storage area
(28:46):
and just you know, load up all these mannequins and
put them in dumpsters.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
And it was a little creepy because it's like I'm
in the dumpsters.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, they had to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, oh that's sad for those mannequins. I know, it was.
It was. It was a little like I mean, it's
you know, you're like there's infinite amount of art students
that would have loved those.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I know, I know that was weird. I remember. One
of the cooler jobs is the delivering radiators. That was
fun because it's like, oh, you get to drive around
listen to like, you know, classic rock or whatever the
music was, and it was pretty easy to find the address.
So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Right like that, right, how am I doing? You're getting warmer?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I know.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Now we have GPS you don't even need, like, you know,
it's funny. Do you are you old enough to memorize?
Did you have phone numbers memorized or.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Is it all like on your phone memorize?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, me too, same thing with like I know how
to get certain places without GPS, like places I've been to.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Before seven eight three four nine four seven. You know
that is no my grandparents phone over. They're no longer around.
Thanks for bringing down the podcast, and that closes the
pocket party. I don't know that would reach now, but
that that used to be my grandparents' number, you know,
and I knew a lot of numbers, and you know,
(30:05):
it's funny. I have a story. There's a comedian that
I started out with and we used to be very
very close, and we grew apart, and he wasn't particularly nice.
Wasn't particularly nice after the friendship sort of well that's
(30:26):
why the friendship sort of like he wasn't a very
loyal friend and he wasn't anyway, he went on to
have some modicum of success. Not I think he had
like you know a lot of comics that they kind
of look like they're gonna hit it and then they
fizzle out, you know, and so that happened with this guy.
(30:47):
But we were like very very close friends when we
were starting out together, and I thought very highly of
him back then before things went bad. Anyway, I heard
him on a podcast like maybe seven years ago, and
he was talking about his life and he had a
(31:09):
really rough childhood. And I knew his dad, and I
was friends with him when his dad passed, and I
knew that his dad was a guy who worked in
the underworld. Let's say, right, he worked in the shadier
parts of the world. And so what I didn't understand
was the extent of that. So now he goes on
(31:32):
this podcast and he starts talking about his dad and
his dad's criminal behavior and activities that he did and
all this stuff. And I knew his dad, and anyway,
I was thinking to myself, you know, a guy who
grew up with that kind of father, in that kind
(31:53):
of world and that kind of life, you know, it's
not surprising that, you know, maybe he didn't act in
the most upstanding way. And he was going through a lot,
and his father had just died, and and we were
both young, and you know, there's a lot of emotions there,
(32:14):
and you know, we're starting out in comedy in Manhattan,
and it's exciting, and the stakes seem high, and everything
is everything is amplified. And I started thinking, you know,
he said on the podcast that he's married now, and
I think he said he was either had a kid
or he was having a kid, and I'm and I
(32:37):
was married or had just gotten married. And maybe it
wasn't seven years maybe it was five years ago, because yeah,
it was about five years ago, because my wife had
just gotten pregnant. And I said to myself, like or
six years ago. But anyway, he said, I said to myself.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
He was six and a half.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, I'm like, you know what, we're different people. Now
we're grown. Then we have families, we have wives. Yeah,
maybe I should reach out to this guy and give
him a call. And I still remembered his phone number
because it was from the era when you still remember
phone numbers. Yeah, so I called him, see if that's
(33:15):
still his number. I said, maybe we could hash things out.
And yeah, yeah, I'm just going, you know, let me
see if that's still his number. And I didn't have
it saved in my phone anymore, but it was still
saved in my mind. So I thought, you know, let
me give him a call and see if like there's
what to figure out here between the two of us,
(33:36):
and maybe we could get together or you know, get
a lunch at a diner or something and catch up
on old times. We have a lot of memories together.
So I called him up and he answered and he's like,
who's this because my number is different than I said,
you know it's me, And he goes, oh, hey, I said, hey,
(34:00):
I heard you on that podcast and you got pretty
deep and you you were talking about your dad and
I remember your dad and all that, and and I
thought i'd give you a call. And you know, I
didn't have your numbers saved, but it was still saved
in my memory. I still remember your number. And he goes, well,
that's kind of weird and creepy. I was like, oh,
(34:25):
all right, that's all I needed to know, you know,
Like I said, well, anyway, I hope you're doing good.
And I hung up.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
But like that was you know, wow, you know that
was he wasn't just being a comedian trying to do
a quick because he uncomfortable the way.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
He said it. I just felt like, oh yeah. I
just felt like, okay, well maybe there's no reason to
rekindle this. But you know, I said, okay, well we
should get together sometimes. He said oh yeah, sure, sure,
and I said okay, I'll talk to you later by
and then I never followed up again. But you know,
I thought it's cool that the number is saved because
you know, he's somebody who meant something.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
To when you know, yeah, like exactly, like there's before
Facebook new people's birthdays. There's a few people I knew.
I just I don't know I remember their birthday. I
don't know I know their birthday.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, So you do you see this guy pop
up online? Are you on Instagram or really? I don't
know that he does much comedy anymore or whatever, but
I don't know. Yeah, I wish him well. And our
lives back then and our lives now are completely different.
It was like a it was like a lifetime ago.
(35:28):
You know, we were we were, like I said, we
were kids and we were literally just starting you know.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, it's like I think about this. I remember I
think my son was in elementary school and he asked
me how many of my friends from elementary school I'm
still friends with? And it was kind of sad because
I'm like none, really, I mean, I mean, I know,
of if you're if you're a friend and you're listening,
I apologize, I just at the at the at the moment,
I can't remember, you know. But uh, but also it's
(35:56):
kind of a lesson, Like you know, like all these
drama and stuff that you go through like in school,
it's like it kind of don't matter. It's like you're
gonna you're gonna get new friends, and you will maybe
you still will have some friends from back then, but
you know, it's it's also like birds of a feather
flock together, as they say.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Right, yeah, and it's interesting, you know, Like I was
talking about that Israel program that I want to one
of the guys, well, the guy who I was closest
with from that program. He and I became roommates in Manhattan.
He went to Hunter College, I went to Berut College.
After Israel, we decided to get an apartment together. And
(36:36):
long story short, you know, he got very into drugs.
We didn't wind up rooming together anymore. For a while,
we fell out, we fell back in. You know, he
stole some money from me I forgave him. Right before
I got married. I was like holding onto this grudge.
I decided to call him, and I didn't want to
(36:56):
go into marriage with bad stuff on my chest. So
I had a few people I wanted a call. I
called him, We made amends. He wished me literally called
me right before I left my hotel room to go
get married, he called me back and he wished me
well on my wedding and gave me blessings and stuff,
and I said, well, let's get together, you know, let's
(37:18):
get together now that we're we're good. And then he
moved to Miami and became a very famous street artist
doing murals and became very respected and in the in
the For many years he'd been working his way up
in the basically the graffiti world, but then he became
very famous street artist. And then tragically, I think, you know,
(37:42):
he had a drug overdose and passed away. Oh and
I never got to see him again, but it was
it was a very important person to me. Anyway. The
other person who was my other roommate in Israel with him,
he and I when we got back, we kind of
long touch. We didn't have this whole thing. We didn't
(38:02):
become roommates. We didn't really you know, keep in contact.
We only wound up talking when this other guy died
for the first time in like I don't know, like
fifteen years or something like that. When that guy died,
I got a call from him saying, hey, you know,
let's talk you know, because we both he had kept
(38:24):
in touch with him, you know, and I had kept
in touch with that guy, the one who passed away,
but he and I had not kept in touch with
each other. So we both, you know, had what to
talk about memories with this guy who had passed away.
And then I never heard from him again until this
week and he called me up. He said, I'm in
la I'd love to get together, and I said, I'd
love to see you. And we made a time to
(38:46):
meet and then I called him to confirm and he said, actually,
I moved my airline ticket up because my kid has
got something going on and I don't want to miss it,
so going back. So we didn't connect. But it's the
reason I bring it up is because you have these
little relationships in your life that you just don't know
if they if they exist, or if they don't exist,
(39:06):
you know, and every now and then they kind of
pop up and and and sometimes you have these little like,
you know, I call him bottle episodes. You know, like
in a sitcom, you have a bottle episode where it's
like it doesn't really fit in with the whole rest
of the sitcom. Yeah, but like you have these bottle
episodes in life where it's like, oh, that's a ca
(39:28):
I like when that cast member you bring him in
he's a guest star. Yeah, you know, but there's a
backstory to the guest star, like they went to college together,
or they this or they that, right, and then they're
just there for that one episode and then they're gone again.
And you have people like that in your life, right,
and those relationships are wild.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, And like I have you know, my wife and
I've been married for twenty seven years, will be twenty
eight this August, and I have you know, I have
a couple of friends that've been married to four is
probably gonna get married again. It's all that weird stuff
where you're like, you know, you see how their relationships
and you're like, man, I'm really glad I have the
I was thinking about that, Like, you know, I married
(40:09):
my wife, you know, we were both in our twenties,
and it's like, and it's great. I'm really blessed that
I found her and she found she's blessed she found me.
You know that sounds terrible, no, but I'm I am
so lucky that I found there because I I she's
funny and she's smart and we get long great. We
don't you know, even when it's I was thinking about this,
(40:31):
like you ever have that friend, Like when it's quiet,
they get uncomfortable with silence, like they feel like they
have to constantly ask questions or talk or what you're
eating house?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
It taste?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
What's you going on? What are you doing tonight? It's
not like that with my wife and I. It's like,
it's great, you know, if we want to talk, we talk.
If we don't, it's great.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
You know. Differently, Yeah, it's not like that with my wife,
and it's always silence. We don't say it. They work
to each other. Nobody feels like they did.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
There's nothing to talk about and we talked about in
our twenties.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It's great my wife and I. It's totally cold in
the house. Nobody speaks. He said. At the dinner table,
you can hear the cutlery.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Scraping. No, Like I remember I had a comedian friend
that we did the road and I, uh, you know,
I said, he just crashed in my room. We're only
going to be you know, in the room for you know,
like after the show and then we'll leave early in
the morning. And it was one of those nights where
I got up to use the restroom. Yeah, yeah, three
in the morning. I got up to use the restaurant
three in the morning. Now, if this happens with me
(41:32):
and my wife, you know, it's like I might wake
her up briefly and then you know, she might see
the bathroom light and then I you know whatever, he's
the restroom, go back to bed. Boom, It's done, right,
that's you know, okay, my wife's said. But with this comedian,
he saw this as an opportunity to start talking. Dude.
It's like, literally, I've been asleep for three hours. I
(41:53):
woke up at like three or four in the morning,
and then I hear from the dark he's in the
other bed. He's like, are you still And I'm like yeah,
and he goes, did I really bomb tonight? And I'm like, no,
you did good, man, you did good. I'm just like
just one word answers.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I'm like, no, you did good.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Are you sure I felt like I bombed? No, man,
you did good. You did good. Okay, in like ten seconds,
thirty seconds go by, Man, I really ate it up there.
Just this thing went on for like an hour, dude,
like an hour, and I'm just like, oh my gosh,
(42:33):
I was just thinking like like you know what I mean,
It's like wow, like you know, I was like, man,
I miss like, you know, my wife and I have
this connection.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I'm like, it's just it's like, dude, like you well, yeah,
I mean people have a hard time processing it, you
know when they don't do well too, and yeah yeah.
It's like there's no amount of validation that you're that's
gonna fix that bad set. There's nothing you can say.
There's no repairing it. I mean, the part of it
is like he wants to almost talk you into thinking
(43:06):
that it wasn't as bad as it was, because it's
embarrassing that another comic saw this. It's almost like for
a comic, like it's almost like he saw you do
something very dirty and embarrassing, and now he's trying to
like wipe your memory up. You didn't see that, right.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, well you did great, you did great. He's like,
did I I don't know it?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You know, a bomb is so shameful for a comedian. Yeah,
you know that. You know, another comedian sees you bomb
and then you think, oh my gosh, I've just in
that person who I respects mine. I've just established myself
as a complete fraud. This person now thinks that I've
(43:53):
been pretending to be a comedian. Our entire friendship and
everything about me is now not trustworthy, you know, Like
it's like like that's what he's cheating. He's like he's
sitting there going because I'm I know this kind of thinking.
Like it's like he's sitting there going like, oh my gosh,
(44:13):
Darren thinks I'm a fraud, you know. Uncoupled that with
the fact that he needs some kind of validation because
of the insecurity of having bombed. But he's also going like,
oh man, yeah, I don't know if I can I
don't know if this is a salvageable relationship with this
guy anymore. I don't know if I could face him.
I don't know. He must think everything about me is
(44:34):
a lie because I've established myself. I said I'm funny.
He saw otherwise, So anything I tell him at this
point might not be true. If I say, you know,
I'm a good runner, he's gonna think he's not a
good runner. He's not good at anything he says he's
good at. So he's gonna I was thinking because I
thought he did great. I thought you had fine.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
He was he was the host. I mean, how good
could it host?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
You? Right?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
But I think what happens was the middle act was
one of those middle acts that likes to bust balls
and joke around, and so he was joking around, but
they didn't have that kind of friendship yet, a relationship yet,
so he was kind of like like the middle act,
you know, would would do jokes like like like he
would say, like he would tell the audience members like like, hey,
what'd you think of this guy? I kind of he
really he didn't do too good to or he'd make
(45:14):
those kind of jokes, right, And so the host was
like did I did I bomb?
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
And I'm thinking I was just in my mind, I'm thinking,
let's talk about it when the sun's out, like.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well, there's there's no there's nothing. Sleep is the best
remedy for any of that.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, right after your bomb, what do I always just like,
you know, like you said, take a shower, you know,
relax in the shower, put some music on, and then
just get ready for the next show. You know, like
there's another show coming around the mountain tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It is all technically meaningless. So you know, whether you
do great or you don't do great. What's the word ethereal,
it's doesn't these there are moments in time that you
know slip away and mean nothing in the greater scheme
of things. You know, as you're build towards something, you
(46:01):
know yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And usually you know it's we're at a stage now.
We're usually playing places that are receptive to comedy. Usually
when your bomb, it's usually because it's some weird place
with like round tables.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
And my friend Kalise Hawkins and I were talking recently.
She's so funny. She's a comedian in New York. I'll
give her a shout out. Kalise Hawkins, very funny. And
we were reflecting on the early days of comedy and
we used to play this place called the Village Lantern
and it could be tough there sometimes you know to
do well. And she said something so funny and insightful
(46:33):
to me, and she goes, She's like, we thought we
were there learning how to be comedians, she goes, and
we were, but we were comedians. The problem was a
lot of it was not that we weren't funny. A
lot of it was that the people we were performing
(46:54):
for hadn't learned how to be an audience. Yeah, She's like,
cause they were not. She's like, now that you go
up for comedy audiences, they know how to be an audience.
That they're like, we're a comedy audience. We're in for
a comedy show. She's like, these are people that were
just pulled off the street randomly. They had no concept
that they were going to a comedy show. And now
they're told, hey, you're a comedy audience, and they're like like,
(47:16):
hell I am.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
You know, like, I'm here to play pool. What are
you talking about it? My friend told me whenever he
played in a place where there was a pool table,
he would discreetly pick up the cue ball and stick
it in his pocket and way they couldn't play pool.
He was up there, and then he put it back
down after a second night. Everybody, Oh, here's a cueball
back good night. Everybody, Oh eight ball.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah. But these people they're like, you know, they're in
the village or in the west village. They're probably going
out to play beer pong, and then some desperate young
comic is like, hey, free show, free show downstairs, and
they're like I guess. I guess I'm, you know, in
meandering through life anyway, because they don't have plans. These
who are these people that have no plans? You know,
like I can't do that. I don't now. I look
(48:01):
back at it too, I'm always like, how did we
fill rooms with like fifty people who had no plans?
I never don't have plans. I'm never going nowhere and
can stop for a two hour.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Detour watch up and coming comedians.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, they're just sitting there perplexed, like, how did I
get pulled into this basement? What's what was that?
Speaker 1 (48:24):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (48:25):
What was I supposed to be doing? Well?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Danny? We gotta I gotta get going. But I want
to say thank you for being on the podcast Pocket Party,
and you'll be back again, I hope.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
And did I bomb? Was it good that you did?
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Great?
Speaker 2 (48:37):
You did great? Danny?
Speaker 1 (48:38):
You did great? Are you sure? Yeah? It was a great?
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Oh my gosh, Oh.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
All right, we gotta go. I'll see you later, buddy.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Thanks Dan, you did great.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Look at you. You made it all the way through
the Pocket Party podcast. If you like this episode, do
us a favorite, share, leave a comment. Those comments really
do help the algorithm and if you know, click that
link and buy me a coffee. You can do any
amount you want. You can do any amount, and check
out Daniel LaBelle. I'm still with Danny, and Danny he
thanks you also for starting the party.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Oh yeah, and I got a special out on Amazon
and you can rent it for two dollars and ninety
nine cents. It's called Reconquistador and I named it something
that you'll never be able to spell. But put in
Daniel Lobell lob e l and then try to spell
the word reconquistador and you'll see half documentary and half
(49:36):
stand up special about me performing in Spain.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
So I saw it with Fraser Smith in the movie
theater and it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Thank you, Thank you for that's cool.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
I got big stars on my show. That's right, man.
All right, you guys have a great rest of your
day and we'll talk to you soon. All right, everybody
listen to Darren Carter. We all know he's the party starter.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
So it you want to listen to a podcast for free,
listen to The Pocket Party
Pocket Parties.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Part of my job then had to be to put
on gloves and shove my hands into the rectums of
these seat turtles to uh put medication you know, uh
suppositories in these seat turtles.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Must have been like, uh, I must have felt strange
to do that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I loved it every moment.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Everybody. J Carter. We all know he's the party Starter.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So if you want to listen.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
To a podcast, listen to a Pocket Party.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Pocket Party.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
They're wrong and we're back. Hey, everybody, it's your host,
Darren Carter, the Party Starter. Another episode of the Pocket
Party podcast. If you liked this episode and you want
to sorry your support, click that link below. It's called
buy Me a Coffee. I think it's like buy me
a coffee dot com slash Darren Carter. Anyways, the link
(01:08):
is in the description. My guest here is next to me,
and I don't I don't even know if he drinks coffee,
but here he is Daniel Lobell. He's back.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I'm Jewish, not Mormon. I drink coffee, Like I.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Don't know if this guy knows how to have a
good time with an espresso.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's that this guy even likes coffee over here. You
know this freaking guy. I mean, other people like, yeah,
but this guy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Come on, remember that when they used to say someone
he's a little light in.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The loafers, you calling me an American.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Hey likes a nice cup of jebba.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's like in slamming. This guy's not even American enough to.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Like a cup by coffee, if you know what I mean. No,
he likes coffee. Do you like coffee?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I do?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I was, I was, I was like, I really don't know. No,
you know what. The reason here's why he said that.
Actually I bring that up late at night because it
was late at night. Maybe I'm answering my own question.
I remember we did a show and you're like, hey,
let's get some tea. And I hadn't had tea a
long time, and we actually had some hot tea at
a hookah bar type of situation.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Because yeah, in a hookah bar, you gotta go tea.
Yeah you know, Actually that's not true because usually they'll
have a good Turkish coffee, which is nice, but it's
late at night. I don't want to get caffeinated like
that and stay up all night. Turkish coffee is very caffeinated,
so when you take away Turkish coffee. I mean, you're
gonna get a good cup of decaf coffee at a
(02:32):
hookah bar. You gotta go with the drinks of the
of the East, that's right. Yeah, in the Middle East
and the Far East.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You know, it's funny. I one of the ways that
I trim calories about fifteen years ago, I stopped putting
cream in my coffee, and no more sugar. I don't
even do like Irish I used to do like the
Irish cream and a hazel nut and all.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That, and do cream my own sugar. You drink it black,
just black. Yeah. I like my coffee like I like
my I love my women like I like my coffee.
Oh yeah, reversity, I like my women like I like.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
My coffee coffee like I like my women women black?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
With no cream in them?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Whoa hell dir?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah it's a family friendly podcast, is it? What was
I gonna tell you? What was your strangest job?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh? Yeah, there's the Far East. Oh yeah, there's the
Middle East. But I never hear about the Near East.
You ever hear of the nearest always far There's the
Far East and then there's the Middle Yeah, so there
should be the near, the near, and the far. Then
you'd have the middle, right.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, the Middle East, and you got the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, the Middle West. Do you have the mid mid East? No?
You never hear about the Mid East.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I don't know. Have you ever gone to the Mid East?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
No, I don't think have I I don't know mid East?
Would that be like Rhode Island?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Dude, I've only been to Canada and Mexico. Really, yeah,
those are the only countries you've been to. And the
Mexico was there every time Mexico. I twin to border towns,
I went to Tijuana, I went to somewhere near Browns.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Like, you're just dipping your toe and the country I
want to get too far into it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know that's interesting. You've never been to Europe? No,
I never have. Somebody once offered me to go to Egypt,
but it was also the Internet, and it looked kind
of suspicious.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You just don't go to Egypt. I know you're not Jewish,
but we we. Our entire culture is centered around leaving Egypt.
It's basically the whole story of Judaism. We were in
Egypt and we left. Isn't that great? Hey? You want
to go back.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I'm good, Yeah, I'm good. They Yeah. Somebody from the
internet years ago offered me to go to Cairo and
they said this is where you're be performing. And it
was like something something guarded and I googled it and
it looked like a legit place. But then it started
getting kind of crazy. They were like, you're gonna stay
at a you know, a four star hotel and you're
(05:09):
we'll fly you first class. But then it got you know,
then it went from from first class to business class
whatever little things. Even at the time, my manager goes,
you know, my spidery sense is tingling.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And then I was like, for all I know, maybe
because it said four star hotel, but I'm like, oh no,
my friend, we rate them over here by one hundred stars.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fought out the behind me and.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
My mother in law. God rest her soul. She was
gonna pay me money not to go. She's like, don't go, Darren,
don't go. I will Yeah. She was like I'll pay
you not to go, and I was like, all righty, because.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I'm not I gotta tell you a four star like
they're not going to say we're going to put you
in the Egyptian Motel six, the Red Pyramid Inn. You
take cameras as payment, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I was like, not gonna go. And then and then
there was a time when there was a comedian shout
out to a meta med he uh, he was trying
to hook up some stuff, and and I was like, ah,
and I never, I never, I don't know, it never
really quite came up and went through, and I was,
I'm okay with it. It wasn't like I was chomping
into bit to go.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, okay, yeah, you didn't want to play for the Pharaohs. No,
there they go the laf Factory crew. Oh nice, Yeah, yeah,
we're outside, Yeah, we're outside.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
The laugh Factory just had a really fun set. And
now we're in the parking lot once again, and you're
jeep and I go, I go.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Hey, let's let's I go with Darren's podcast studio, my
guest vehicles. I have an entire podcast studio. He's got
the tiniest microphone you've ever seen in your life. It's
the size of a toothpick. And he just goes, how
about that podcast studio that I've rented last time? In
my car?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I know, dude, you got a nice sweet set up. Man.
You guys have the cameras. It looks like a TV studio.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, I guess it essentially is nowadays a podcasts and TV.
It's hard to say where one where the line.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's called we think it's funny. You guys, I know
you enjoy Pocket Party podcast. If you're looking for another
podcast to put in the rotation, I highly recommend We
Think It's funny. Daniel Dan I know miss Daniel Lobell
and Daniel Lobell and Mark Schiff. These guys are hilarious man,
and they sometimes do like news topics like you guys
will pick a few stories.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And a few stories, a few stories, nothing too have you,
nothing too much. We have a little fun. We tell
some stories, we have some laughs. I don't know why
I'm talking like that, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Step it up, folks. Do you guys do any news
stories today that you want to regurgitate on my podcast?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That was because we didn't have a comedian on today.
We had an ex neo Nazi on today. By the
way I told him on the show. I always thought
they were neon Nazis, like they wore neon like colors,
like like from the nineties or something. Uh no, but
it's neo. Do you know what neo means?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I think it means new.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You're right, I didn't know that means new. Yeah. But
so the new Nazis have been around for a long
time and the old Nazis are not around. What would
happen if new Nazis come around now?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I don't know they'd be like, yeah, they're like, you
know you guys, were you guys? We're billboard them? Were
we wear skinny jeans? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I wonder who came up with that, like instead of
just calling there like okay. So the old Nazis get
defeated World War two not that long ago, and then
you get these guys. They come around, they say, hey,
old Nazis are out, New Nazis are in. This guy
what we call ourselves the new Nazis. This guy was
a prisoner to go to prison, and he went to prison.
(08:39):
Who he kidnapped? Somebody? He kidnapped an Antifa he said,
an Antifa guy. Wow, And they beat him pretty bad
and they tried to get ransom money. And he told
me in the podcast, which was really interesting, there are
rules to kidnapping. There's like unwritten rules like you have
twelve hours eight hours to get the ransom amunt of money,
(09:01):
and then the next four hours you can drop the
price if you didn't get the first amount, and if
you don't get the lower amount, you have to either
kill them or let them go. And they let this
guy go, and he went to the police and got them.
But then he said, many many years later, he's, you know,
a reformed neo Nazi, and he's in recovery for alcohol
(09:25):
and drugs. And he run and he was like interviewed
on TV or something, and then he runs into the
guy he kidnapped at a bar randomly. Wow, and he goes, hey,
he used to be in like the ANTIFA or whatever.
He goes, uh, yeah, He goes, did you get kidnapped
one time? He goes, oh, hey, he goes, it's you.
(09:49):
He goes, look, I just want to make amends. I'm really,
really sorry that we kidnapped you and beat you up
and all that. Damn. And he goes, I saw you
on TV and I see that you're a changed man,
he says, and I'm sorry I went to the police
on you. He goes, No, you don't get to take
this away from me. Yeah, it's really interesting. He goes, no,
it's my apology. Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
They should do a sitcom together. Yeah, yeah, I didn't
know this, mister kidnapper. I'm mister wow.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah. There's all these subcultures wow, of Antifas and Nazis,
and they're all fighting while the rest of us are
just trying to figure out, you know, what's open to
get a bite.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, it's like an almond butter or peanut butter. You know,
elemend butter's better for you.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I heard. It's really interesting the disposition of how innocent
some of our lives are compared to like, you know,
when you watch Breaking Bad, they did a great job
of that, like just showing like the innocent life next
to the crazy life, and how they all exist and
brought in plain daylight right next to each other and
people don't see it. You know, were you.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Is your podcast studio? Is it a your home?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, you're a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Hey, we're inviting this guy or.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Reformed. Uh, you know, he goes around, you know, telling
people not to be Nazis anymore. So I don't know
that's cool, you see. And then he and then he
found out that he's Jewish.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It's always like that. I think I've heard that sort
of thing before, right, you know a lot of a
lot of times, Yeah, where they're like people you know,
hate something and then or hate on something, but nobody
ever finds.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Out they're black. I'm wait, I suck and he kind
of know that one. But yeah, I guess you can
find out if you're Jewish. You never find out you're Asian,
you know, like, yeah, turns out I'm Chinese. I had
no idea.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I had no idea. So before the show, I go,
what do you what? What do I what's a good
kicking off?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
You do hear people, by the way who are against
gay people and then they you know, come out of
as gay themselves.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, it's usually like that, or like the person that's
you know, either going to find out they're gay or
Jewish or gay Jews. But that's about it. That's it. Yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
But anyways, I was gonna say, before the show, you go,
you asked me if I ever had a strange job,
So I'm gonna ask you, did you ever what was
one of your stranger jobs.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Or just had a strange job? What kind of question
is as you. I was in Israel for a year
in between high school and college and I did some
study abroad and it was a work study program and
(12:35):
I got offered different opportunities for the work for three months.
So it was the three months you get to work
in a job in Israel and see what it's like
to work in another country there. And one of the
options was to work at this place called Mitzpetta Me,
which is Hebrew for the Underwater Observatory, which was basically
(12:58):
a biologists study center and aquarium open to the public.
So I was like, I'll do that. I like fish,
you know, I like fish. I like them with mashed
potatoes and no, like when do we eat? So I uh,
So I went and I worked at this aquarium and
(13:21):
it was only three weeks and I'm sorry it was
three months. It was only three months, but that's a
long Yeah, I guess that's a significant amount of time
and and it felt like a long time. So the
first thing they'd have you do early in the morning is, uh,
you need to go outside and shovel sand. That's the
(13:42):
guy who was the boss. He kind of sounded like
an Israeli artol Schwartzenegger. I need to shovel sands. So
we go out with these big imagine those plastic garbage
cans that you'd get at like home depot. You had
to fill them up with sand from the beach. And
it's super hot. You're on the border of Egypt and Israel,
(14:02):
right and the Red Sea there and the sunny even
in early in the morning. You have to go out
early otherwise it's way too hot. You have to get
out there before it well, yeah, I guess, but much hotter.
How hot does it get? How hot does it get?
I'll tell you, I don't know, but I mean like overgrees. Yeah,
(14:25):
it's burning hot. It's the summer too that I was
working there, So it's the summer in a very hot
part of the country, and so you have to go
out before that before it gets really hot. But it's
still really hot. And I wasn't in as bad shape
physically as I am now, but I wasn't in great shape,
and you know, I'd be sweating like crazy. You have
to fill these uh garbage cans with sand and then
(14:49):
drag these heavy sand filled garbage cans from the beach
back to the observatory, which was right off of the beach.
But still, you know, it's still hard to move a
sand filled garbage can even an inch. So then you
had to do this every morning because or maybe it
(15:09):
was three mornings a week, I think, but because the
sand in the bottom of the I don't know what
you would call them, not displays, but where the fish
are collects bacteria, and so I'd have to then get
an underwater vacuum and vacuum up yeah wow, and vacuum
(15:29):
up the old sand and then replace it with these
dump these garbage cans with the new sand in so
that you know, the fish wouldn't die because they needed
whatever it is from the sand that wouldn't be bacteria filled,
So that was part of it. Then it gets a
little crazier then the sea turtles, which were massive there
(15:52):
may be about some of them were maybe about as
long as half of your body from your head to
your waist. That's big sea turtle, right. They got they
all got sick, and they got constipated. Support of my
job then had to be to put on gloves and
shove my hands into the rectums of these sea turtles
(16:15):
to put medication, you know, suppositories in these sea turtles.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Must have been like, uh, I must have felt strange.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
To do that. I loved it every moment.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Oh gosh, you're like all volunteer. Could I work extra hours?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I had to put suppositories. Yeah. I did watch an
octopus give birth. I was holding some of his arms. No,
I'm kidding, but push push. I watched an octopus give birth.
That was really interesting. And I saw the sea seahorses
have babies, like tons of babies. They just come out
of them. Tons and tons of little sea hoors come
(17:00):
out of the sea horse. And then in the last
month I kept they had a shark tank, and the
shark tank we're all rescues, like you know people talk
about their dogs a rescue. These were all like fishermen
injured a shark and they bring them in and these
were protected sharks and they rehabilitate them. And that's how
(17:23):
and that's the sharks that people would see. And I
was a little crazy back then, and I was young,
you know, so I didn't have a wife or kids
or any of those things that you might hesitate to
do this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
But I was like, looking, you don't tell me you
put your hand up or sharks rectum.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
More than that. These sharks were asking for it.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Is there a song about that, like under the Sea
by Bobby Darren?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Uh, under the board? No?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Oh, you don't know under the Sea.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You know under the Sea, the Little Mermaid. Maybe. Anyway,
I was like, I'm like, I want to do the
So people, the way the shark tank was was you
could go right up to the glass and see the sharks,
or you could walk up the stairs and walk on
a bridge above the water and look down over the
(18:19):
bridge to the open water where you see the fins
in the sharks right. And because there's tourists coming throughout
the day, inevitably, what's going to happen, whether it's intentional
or unintentional. Garbage falls into the shark tank, A wrapper
from a candy or you know, potato chip bag or
(18:39):
whatever it is, gets into the water. Somebody has to
go at night, you know those guys who have the
pokers on the side of the highway and pick up
the litter. Someone has to go in scuba gear in
there with the poker and pick up the garbage. So
I said, I want to do it. I was looking
for a rush, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I was like, it was crazy I thought you're going
to say, like a like in the swimming pool with
a long butterfly net type of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You literally go in with the sharks. So they've gotten
this big two hundred pound tiger shark they called their
big Mama. She was injured by an Egyptian fisherman and
brought in and she was aggressive.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
And did they give you a cage to be inside
of them?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
No, there's no cage. I mean it's it's Israel. I
don't know. The rules are different. You know, they know
you're looking foreigner in America. They got rockets falling all
over the place, like you're not getting a cage. Get
out of here. So so they said, look, I don't
know if I said, look, I took some scuba lessons.
(19:40):
I can do scuba. I could do a brush up
course here if you want. I'm good at scuba at
the time. And I said, I'd love to do it.
I want to get in with the sharks. And you know,
there's liabilities and stuff. I had to sign all these
contracts that if I got eaten by the sharks or whatever, uh,
(20:00):
there would be no legal repercussions for my family or
anything or for me.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The more I'm signing it, the more nervous. I was kidding,
but you're probably get even more excited.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Excited. I was like, it's an adrenaline drenalin rush. And
I like, I've always said how I.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Was when I got married. Yeah, all those papers, let's go.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Let's what you're saying. You felt like you were going
into a shark. You're like, let's affen go. So I
was like, yeah, I want to go in with the sharks.
And uh, and I asked them, I asked them. They
finally said, Okay, you're gonna have to sign all these
papers and uh and I got to do it. And
and so they give you all they give you. You
(20:38):
have the thing to pick up the trash, and then
you have how many are in there when you go
in there? Quite a lot, quite a lot. But the
big one was the tiger shark.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And that's the one you mainly wanted to keep your
eye on.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, the other ones were not tiger sharks. Tiger sharks
are you know the massive you know, like how big
is big?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Your body?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Much bigger?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Because I remember the turtle was half to your body,
so tiger this was bigger, like six feet seven eight
feet I think they said it was two hundred pounds.
I want more than two hundred pounds now, but I
don't know. It was like they're long though, they're long, yeah,
and they were swimming around like.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, it's a big, big shark.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Did they Would you guys feed the sharks first.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Before you go in. Yeah, they'll feed them first. They
throw in all kinds of stuff, squids and all stuff
that they eat, and you see them all going to
hag like you know, they all kind of swim lurk
up to the to the food and snatch it at
the same time and rip it apart, and they're crazy.
But then once they've had enough to eat, then you
go in. And the hope is that you don't bother them.
(21:41):
They don't bother you, but if they do bother you.
The other thing they give you is a stick, and
it's just basically looks like a giant match stick. It's
got a thing tied at the tip of it, which
is like, I think, like some kind of a softer material.
I don't remember what it was, but let's let's imagine
(22:04):
that there's a it's a cloth with the foam underneath
or something, and it's tied on and it looks like
a big match stick, and they say you jab them
with the stick if they come at you, like go
for the gills or the nose or nerve footballs. At
the end, they never had to do it. They never
came at me. But I always was like, if that happens,
that's it's probably the end of me, because I don't
(22:26):
think I'm going to have the coordination to hit the
shark in the right spot, or I'll just piss them
off more. But I went for it. To my credit,
it's one of the only things I can tell you
that that was a great brave moment for me. And
I got to go in with the sharks and uh
and collect the trash. And that's the craziest chilbd I
(22:48):
ever had.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, you're like your turn. Okay, So one time I
worked at a pizza and uh, yeah, did you did?
Did they ever bump up against your body?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
You were like, oh, what the fuck?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They didn't know. They never came. I never came in.
But when I did get to do, sharks shed their
teeth and so I would collect the teeth and I
give them to people.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
You still have any of them?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Now?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I wish did you ever feel like necklaces with them
and stuff? You know, yeah, it's like when you ride
a motorcycle. You know, you might go like thirty miles
an hour and then eventually like this is boring, then
you go forty. Did you ever get to the point
where you were like, okay, this is getting a little dull,
Like did you feel like I'm going to try to
get a little close to these sharks?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Now, it was never dull because you're in there. They're
still like, you know, inches away from you. Oh yeah,
they don't touch you, but there they swim right past you. Wow,
and like you're right there. There's no cage, there's no nothing.
And but they they didn't bother me. They didn't they
didn't try and and every time I was in there,
it's an adrenaline rush. It's so exciting to be in
(23:57):
the water like with with because you're just like you
just don't know what's gonna happen. And you know, if
you're young and you're not thinking like I really want
to be around necessarily, not that I just think I
don't want to be around, but you know, there's just
young people think differently, you.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Know, Yeah, they have those shark cages where people go
in there and they put them in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And then they try to do that in South Africa.
And I was in South Africa to do shows. In
Cape Town, you can go with the great whites in
a cage and so I was like very excited to
do that. And it's interesting. It's where two oceans meet,
the Indian Ocean and a.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
You're talking about sharks.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
No, in Cape Town there's the two oceans meet and
there's a spot there where the there's a ton of
great white sharks and there's you're a tourist, you can
go and they'll put you in a cage and they'll
drop you down so you can see the great white
sharks up close. So I was like, I gotta do this.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So I wonder what that neo Nazi would call those sharks.
They're really great whites, really really really really great.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Well they are skinheads.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Oh gosh. I knew there's a joke in there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So I go there. And then in South Africa the
currency is rand, and I think it was something like
fourteen hundred rand to do it. Wow, and I only
had twelve hundred rand, and they it was like a
cash business or something. And I was also, I don't
think I even had credit cards. I didn't that's what.
Maybe it wasn't a cash business, but I only had
cash I was living off. I was very broken when
(25:38):
I went to South Africa, which is a whole nother story,
but I'm like, look, it was my only day to
do it. I was leaving Cape Town the next day
and I'm begging them. I'm like, I'm just two hundred short,
please fourteen hundred. I got twelve hundred, let me go.
And there's like a little back and forth where they
seem like they're considering it and everything, and then they're
(26:00):
just like, no, no, you have to have the full amount.
And I couldn't go, and I was like devastated. And
I found out since then that those cages are not
very reliable, and more often than you'd believe, the sharks
break in through the cages.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I saw a video on TikTok where the thing like
it went into the cage and then and they were like,
oh my god, and then it freaked out and the
shark got itself out of it and there was a
person in there.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
But people do die. People die from those things. Yeah,
you know, it's and especially it's you're in South Africa.
Who cares? Nobody even knows you're down there. You know,
what do you think if you die, they're going to
report it? You know. It's like, okay, well I saw
even by a shark. We never met him, that's never happened.
(26:44):
I saw something for the first time. I saw there
was a rodeo and they had a shark cage type
of situation, and that you can be out there in
the middle of the rodeo and the bulk and like
as it's chasing the round and it kind of goes
right near your cage and it gives you a thrill. Yeah,
I didn't know. There's something about sharks. It's you know, mesmerizing.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You know, so.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
For me anyway, I think for a lot of people,
because they just they move in a majestic kind of
way and they never stop moving, and they're there's danger
involved in them, and they're they're beautiful, they're sleek.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You know, do you feel like you're a comedian. It's
like a shark, like you never stop moving.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You're oh no, I always stop moving.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
You've been on the ghost at seven am. You're sleek
and you're upstairs, you're downstairs your podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Now, I'm not sexy enough to be a shark. You're
a good and a hammerhead.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
We're land sharks.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, but like they do call cars land sharks, right, Like,
wasn't there a car that I think so land shark?
They designed cars to look like sharks, you know, because
sharks are sexy, the way they look, the shape of them,
something about sharks is very appealing to humans. That's all. Yeah,
(28:01):
I don't know why I'm even talking.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
About no, but that's cool. That's interesting that the job.
It's funny because you know, I've most of my jobs
came like in the beginning, you know, like even before
like as I was doing, you know, beginning to be
a comedian a stand up. Yeah, and you know, they're
they're mostly from that era, you know, like the late teens,
early twenties. I did get a job at a temp service,
(28:24):
and that was interesting because you got to see what
it's like to you know, working on an assembly line
for two weeks and then deliver radiators for a week,
and or work at a the weirdest it was the
weird nothing like your job. But we did get to
clean out a department store that went out of business,
so it basically like like a Macy's or something like that.
So you got to go in into the storage area
(28:46):
and just you know, load up all these mannequins and
put them in dumpsters.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
And it was a little creepy because it's like I'm
in the dumpsters.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, they had to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, oh that's sad for those mannequins. I know, it was.
It was. It was a little like I mean, it's
you know, you're like there's infinite amount of art students
that would have loved those.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I know, I know that was weird. I remember. One
of the cooler jobs is the delivering radiators. That was
fun because it's like, oh, you get to drive around
listen to like, you know, classic rock or whatever the
music was, and it was pretty easy to find the address.
So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Right like that, right, how am I doing? You're getting warmer?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I know.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Now we have GPS you don't even need, like, you know,
it's funny. Do you are you old enough to memorize?
Did you have phone numbers memorized or.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Is it all like on your phone memorize?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, me too, same thing with like I know how
to get certain places without GPS, like places I've been to.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Before seven eight three four nine four seven. You know
that is no my grandparents phone over. They're no longer around.
Thanks for bringing down the podcast, and that closes the
pocket party. I don't know that would reach now, but
that that used to be my grandparents' number, you know,
and I knew a lot of numbers, and you know,
(30:05):
it's funny. I have a story. There's a comedian that
I started out with and we used to be very
very close, and we grew apart, and he wasn't particularly nice.
Wasn't particularly nice after the friendship sort of well that's
(30:26):
why the friendship sort of like he wasn't a very
loyal friend and he wasn't anyway, he went on to
have some modicum of success. Not I think he had
like you know a lot of comics that they kind
of look like they're gonna hit it and then they
fizzle out, you know, and so that happened with this guy.
(30:47):
But we were like very very close friends when we
were starting out together, and I thought very highly of
him back then before things went bad. Anyway, I heard
him on a podcast like maybe seven years ago, and
he was talking about his life and he had a
(31:09):
really rough childhood. And I knew his dad, and I
was friends with him when his dad passed, and I
knew that his dad was a guy who worked in
the underworld. Let's say, right, he worked in the shadier
parts of the world. And so what I didn't understand
was the extent of that. So now he goes on
(31:32):
this podcast and he starts talking about his dad and
his dad's criminal behavior and activities that he did and
all this stuff. And I knew his dad, and anyway,
I was thinking to myself, you know, a guy who
grew up with that kind of father, in that kind
(31:53):
of world and that kind of life, you know, it's
not surprising that, you know, maybe he didn't act in
the most upstanding way. And he was going through a lot,
and his father had just died, and and we were
both young, and you know, there's a lot of emotions there,
(32:14):
and you know, we're starting out in comedy in Manhattan,
and it's exciting, and the stakes seem high, and everything
is everything is amplified. And I started thinking, you know,
he said on the podcast that he's married now, and
I think he said he was either had a kid
or he was having a kid, and I'm and I
(32:37):
was married or had just gotten married. And maybe it
wasn't seven years maybe it was five years ago, because yeah,
it was about five years ago, because my wife had
just gotten pregnant. And I said to myself, like or
six years ago. But anyway, he said, I said to myself.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
He was six and a half.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, I'm like, you know what, we're different people. Now
we're grown. Then we have families, we have wives. Yeah,
maybe I should reach out to this guy and give
him a call. And I still remembered his phone number
because it was from the era when you still remember
phone numbers. Yeah, so I called him, see if that's
(33:15):
still his number. I said, maybe we could hash things out.
And yeah, yeah, I'm just going, you know, let me
see if that's still his number. And I didn't have
it saved in my phone anymore, but it was still
saved in my mind. So I thought, you know, let
me give him a call and see if like there's
what to figure out here between the two of us,
(33:36):
and maybe we could get together or you know, get
a lunch at a diner or something and catch up
on old times. We have a lot of memories together.
So I called him up and he answered and he's like,
who's this because my number is different than I said,
you know it's me, And he goes, oh, hey, I said, hey,
(34:00):
I heard you on that podcast and you got pretty
deep and you you were talking about your dad and
I remember your dad and all that, and and I
thought i'd give you a call. And you know, I
didn't have your numbers saved, but it was still saved
in my memory. I still remember your number. And he goes, well,
that's kind of weird and creepy. I was like, oh,
(34:25):
all right, that's all I needed to know, you know,
Like I said, well, anyway, I hope you're doing good.
And I hung up.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
But like that was you know, wow, you know that
was he wasn't just being a comedian trying to do
a quick because he uncomfortable the way.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
He said it. I just felt like, oh yeah. I
just felt like, okay, well maybe there's no reason to
rekindle this. But you know, I said, okay, well we
should get together sometimes. He said oh yeah, sure, sure,
and I said okay, I'll talk to you later by
and then I never followed up again. But you know,
I thought it's cool that the number is saved because
you know, he's somebody who meant something.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
To when you know, yeah, like exactly, like there's before
Facebook new people's birthdays. There's a few people I knew.
I just I don't know I remember their birthday. I
don't know I know their birthday.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, So you do you see this guy pop
up online? Are you on Instagram or really? I don't
know that he does much comedy anymore or whatever, but
I don't know. Yeah, I wish him well. And our
lives back then and our lives now are completely different.
It was like a it was like a lifetime ago.
(35:28):
You know, we were we were, like I said, we
were kids and we were literally just starting you know.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, it's like I think about this. I remember I
think my son was in elementary school and he asked
me how many of my friends from elementary school I'm
still friends with? And it was kind of sad because
I'm like none, really, I mean, I mean, I know,
of if you're if you're a friend and you're listening,
I apologize, I just at the at the at the moment,
I can't remember, you know. But uh, but also it's
(35:56):
kind of a lesson, Like you know, like all these
drama and stuff that you go through like in school,
it's like it kind of don't matter. It's like you're
gonna you're gonna get new friends, and you will maybe
you still will have some friends from back then, but
you know, it's it's also like birds of a feather
flock together, as they say.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Right, yeah, and it's interesting, you know, Like I was
talking about that Israel program that I want to one
of the guys, well, the guy who I was closest
with from that program. He and I became roommates in Manhattan.
He went to Hunter College, I went to Berut College.
After Israel, we decided to get an apartment together. And
(36:36):
long story short, you know, he got very into drugs.
We didn't wind up rooming together anymore. For a while,
we fell out, we fell back in. You know, he
stole some money from me I forgave him. Right before
I got married. I was like holding onto this grudge.
I decided to call him, and I didn't want to
(36:56):
go into marriage with bad stuff on my chest. So
I had a few people I wanted a call. I
called him, We made amends. He wished me literally called
me right before I left my hotel room to go
get married, he called me back and he wished me
well on my wedding and gave me blessings and stuff,
and I said, well, let's get together, you know, let's
(37:18):
get together now that we're we're good. And then he
moved to Miami and became a very famous street artist
doing murals and became very respected and in the in
the For many years he'd been working his way up
in the basically the graffiti world, but then he became
very famous street artist. And then tragically, I think, you know,
(37:42):
he had a drug overdose and passed away. Oh and
I never got to see him again, but it was
it was a very important person to me. Anyway. The
other person who was my other roommate in Israel with him,
he and I when we got back, we kind of
long touch. We didn't have this whole thing. We didn't
(38:02):
become roommates. We didn't really you know, keep in contact.
We only wound up talking when this other guy died
for the first time in like I don't know, like
fifteen years or something like that. When that guy died,
I got a call from him saying, hey, you know,
let's talk you know, because we both he had kept
(38:24):
in touch with him, you know, and I had kept
in touch with that guy, the one who passed away,
but he and I had not kept in touch with
each other. So we both, you know, had what to
talk about memories with this guy who had passed away.
And then I never heard from him again until this
week and he called me up. He said, I'm in
la I'd love to get together, and I said, I'd
love to see you. And we made a time to
(38:46):
meet and then I called him to confirm and he said, actually,
I moved my airline ticket up because my kid has
got something going on and I don't want to miss it,
so going back. So we didn't connect. But it's the
reason I bring it up is because you have these
little relationships in your life that you just don't know
if they if they exist, or if they don't exist,
(39:06):
you know, and every now and then they kind of
pop up and and and sometimes you have these little like,
you know, I call him bottle episodes. You know, like
in a sitcom, you have a bottle episode where it's
like it doesn't really fit in with the whole rest
of the sitcom. Yeah, but like you have these bottle
episodes in life where it's like, oh, that's a ca
(39:28):
I like when that cast member you bring him in
he's a guest star. Yeah, you know, but there's a
backstory to the guest star, like they went to college together,
or they this or they that, right, and then they're
just there for that one episode and then they're gone again.
And you have people like that in your life, right,
and those relationships are wild.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, And like I have you know, my wife and
I've been married for twenty seven years, will be twenty
eight this August, and I have you know, I have
a couple of friends that've been married to four is
probably gonna get married again. It's all that weird stuff
where you're like, you know, you see how their relationships
and you're like, man, I'm really glad I have the
I was thinking about that, Like, you know, I married
(40:09):
my wife, you know, we were both in our twenties,
and it's like, and it's great. I'm really blessed that
I found her and she found she's blessed she found me.
You know that sounds terrible, no, but I'm I am
so lucky that I found there because I I she's
funny and she's smart and we get long great. We
don't you know, even when it's I was thinking about this,
(40:31):
like you ever have that friend, Like when it's quiet,
they get uncomfortable with silence, like they feel like they
have to constantly ask questions or talk or what you're
eating house?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
It taste?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
What's you going on? What are you doing tonight? It's
not like that with my wife and I. It's like,
it's great, you know, if we want to talk, we talk.
If we don't, it's great.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
You know. Differently, Yeah, it's not like that with my wife,
and it's always silence. We don't say it. They work
to each other. Nobody feels like they did.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
There's nothing to talk about and we talked about in
our twenties.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It's great my wife and I. It's totally cold in
the house. Nobody speaks. He said. At the dinner table,
you can hear the cutlery.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Scraping. No, Like I remember I had a comedian friend
that we did the road and I, uh, you know,
I said, he just crashed in my room. We're only
going to be you know, in the room for you know,
like after the show and then we'll leave early in
the morning. And it was one of those nights where
I got up to use the restroom. Yeah, yeah, three
in the morning. I got up to use the restaurant
three in the morning. Now, if this happens with me
(41:32):
and my wife, you know, it's like I might wake
her up briefly and then you know, she might see
the bathroom light and then I you know whatever, he's
the restroom, go back to bed. Boom, It's done, right,
that's you know, okay, my wife's said. But with this comedian,
he saw this as an opportunity to start talking. Dude.
It's like, literally, I've been asleep for three hours. I
(41:53):
woke up at like three or four in the morning,
and then I hear from the dark he's in the
other bed. He's like, are you still And I'm like yeah,
and he goes, did I really bomb tonight? And I'm like, no,
you did good, man, you did good. I'm just like
just one word answers.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I'm like, no, you did good.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Are you sure I felt like I bombed? No, man,
you did good. You did good. Okay, in like ten seconds,
thirty seconds go by, Man, I really ate it up there.
Just this thing went on for like an hour, dude,
like an hour, and I'm just like, oh my gosh,
(42:33):
I was just thinking like like you know what I mean,
It's like wow, like you know, I was like, man,
I miss like, you know, my wife and I have
this connection.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I'm like, it's just it's like, dude, like you well, yeah,
I mean people have a hard time processing it, you
know when they don't do well too, and yeah yeah.
It's like there's no amount of validation that you're that's
gonna fix that bad set. There's nothing you can say.
There's no repairing it. I mean, the part of it
is like he wants to almost talk you into thinking
(43:06):
that it wasn't as bad as it was, because it's
embarrassing that another comic saw this. It's almost like for
a comic, like it's almost like he saw you do
something very dirty and embarrassing, and now he's trying to
like wipe your memory up. You didn't see that, right.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, well you did great, you did great. He's like,
did I I don't know it?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You know, a bomb is so shameful for a comedian. Yeah,
you know that. You know, another comedian sees you bomb
and then you think, oh my gosh, I've just in
that person who I respects mine. I've just established myself
as a complete fraud. This person now thinks that I've
(43:53):
been pretending to be a comedian. Our entire friendship and
everything about me is now not trustworthy, you know, Like
it's like like that's what he's cheating. He's like he's
sitting there going because I'm I know this kind of thinking.
Like it's like he's sitting there going like, oh my gosh,
(44:13):
Darren thinks I'm a fraud, you know. Uncoupled that with
the fact that he needs some kind of validation because
of the insecurity of having bombed. But he's also going like,
oh man, yeah, I don't know if I can I
don't know if this is a salvageable relationship with this
guy anymore. I don't know if I could face him.
I don't know. He must think everything about me is
(44:34):
a lie because I've established myself. I said I'm funny.
He saw otherwise, So anything I tell him at this
point might not be true. If I say, you know,
I'm a good runner, he's gonna think he's not a
good runner. He's not good at anything he says he's
good at. So he's gonna I was thinking because I
thought he did great. I thought you had fine.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
He was he was the host. I mean, how good
could it host?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
You? Right?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
But I think what happens was the middle act was
one of those middle acts that likes to bust balls
and joke around, and so he was joking around, but
they didn't have that kind of friendship yet, a relationship yet,
so he was kind of like like the middle act,
you know, would would do jokes like like like he
would say, like he would tell the audience members like like, hey,
what'd you think of this guy? I kind of he
really he didn't do too good to or he'd make
(45:14):
those kind of jokes, right, And so the host was
like did I did I bomb?
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
And I'm thinking I was just in my mind, I'm thinking,
let's talk about it when the sun's out, like.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well, there's there's no there's nothing. Sleep is the best
remedy for any of that.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, right after your bomb, what do I always just like,
you know, like you said, take a shower, you know,
relax in the shower, put some music on, and then
just get ready for the next show. You know, like
there's another show coming around the mountain tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It is all technically meaningless. So you know, whether you
do great or you don't do great. What's the word ethereal,
it's doesn't these there are moments in time that you
know slip away and mean nothing in the greater scheme
of things. You know, as you're build towards something, you
(46:01):
know yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And usually you know it's we're at a stage now.
We're usually playing places that are receptive to comedy. Usually
when your bomb, it's usually because it's some weird place
with like round tables.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
And my friend Kalise Hawkins and I were talking recently.
She's so funny. She's a comedian in New York. I'll
give her a shout out. Kalise Hawkins, very funny. And
we were reflecting on the early days of comedy and
we used to play this place called the Village Lantern
and it could be tough there sometimes you know to
do well. And she said something so funny and insightful
(46:33):
to me, and she goes, She's like, we thought we
were there learning how to be comedians, she goes, and
we were, but we were comedians. The problem was a
lot of it was not that we weren't funny. A
lot of it was that the people we were performing
(46:54):
for hadn't learned how to be an audience. Yeah, She's like,
cause they were not. She's like, now that you go
up for comedy audiences, they know how to be an audience.
That they're like, we're a comedy audience. We're in for
a comedy show. She's like, these are people that were
just pulled off the street randomly. They had no concept
that they were going to a comedy show. And now
they're told, hey, you're a comedy audience, and they're like like,
(47:16):
hell I am.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
You know, like, I'm here to play pool. What are
you talking about it? My friend told me whenever he
played in a place where there was a pool table,
he would discreetly pick up the cue ball and stick
it in his pocket and way they couldn't play pool.
He was up there, and then he put it back
down after a second night. Everybody, Oh, here's a cueball
back good night. Everybody, Oh eight ball.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah. But these people they're like, you know, they're in
the village or in the west village. They're probably going
out to play beer pong, and then some desperate young
comic is like, hey, free show, free show downstairs, and
they're like I guess. I guess I'm, you know, in
meandering through life anyway, because they don't have plans. These
who are these people that have no plans? You know,
like I can't do that. I don't now. I look
(48:01):
back at it too, I'm always like, how did we
fill rooms with like fifty people who had no plans?
I never don't have plans. I'm never going nowhere and
can stop for a two hour.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Detour watch up and coming comedians.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, they're just sitting there perplexed, like, how did I
get pulled into this basement? What's what was that?
Speaker 1 (48:24):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (48:25):
What was I supposed to be doing? Well?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Danny? We gotta I gotta get going. But I want
to say thank you for being on the podcast Pocket Party,
and you'll be back again, I hope.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
And did I bomb? Was it good that you did?
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Great?
Speaker 2 (48:37):
You did great? Danny?
Speaker 1 (48:38):
You did great? Are you sure? Yeah? It was a great?
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Oh my gosh, Oh.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
All right, we gotta go. I'll see you later, buddy.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Thanks Dan, you did great.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Look at you. You made it all the way through
the Pocket Party podcast. If you like this episode, do
us a favorite, share, leave a comment. Those comments really
do help the algorithm and if you know, click that
link and buy me a coffee. You can do any
amount you want. You can do any amount, and check
out Daniel LaBelle. I'm still with Danny, and Danny he
thanks you also for starting the party.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Oh yeah, and I got a special out on Amazon
and you can rent it for two dollars and ninety
nine cents. It's called Reconquistador and I named it something
that you'll never be able to spell. But put in
Daniel Lobell lob e l and then try to spell
the word reconquistador and you'll see half documentary and half
(49:36):
stand up special about me performing in Spain.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
So I saw it with Fraser Smith in the movie
theater and it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Thank you, Thank you for that's cool.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
I got big stars on my show. That's right, man.
All right, you guys have a great rest of your
day and we'll talk to you soon. All right, everybody
listen to Darren Carter. We all know he's the party starter.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
So it you want to listen to a podcast for free,
listen to The Pocket Party
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!