Comedian/Author JT Habersaat

JT Habersaat, known as the Godfather of Punk Rock Comedy, has spent decades innovating within the comedy scene. Beyond stand-up, he's authored several books, with his newest release being "Doing Time: Comedians Talk Stand-Up." This collection features conversations with notable comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Bobcat Goldthwait, Todd Glass, Brian Posehn,"Weird Al" Yankovic + many more. This episode explores Habersaat's experiences touring and the insights shared by the comedians featured in his book.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tftc-with-bob-nebel--4703586/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, folks, and welcome to my little corner of the world.
Over to you. Thank you so much for joining me.
It is summer twenty twenty five. Can you believe it?
We are more than halfway through this year, chugging along.
It is just absolutely beautiful, hot and humid here in
the lovely Southeastern United States of America. July seventh, twenty

(00:23):
twenty five. It is a day to commemorate in so
many ways. We're just on the heels of July fourth.
I hope you all had a wonderful July fourth with
your ballparks. And for me, it's always that ten k
here in the Atlanta area called the Peachtree Road Race.
But whether you did a five k ten k or

(00:45):
a marathon or whatever, marathon I'm July fourth, I can't
even imagine. I don't know if anybody does that, but
that might be happening, who knows. Anyway, So here it
is July seventh. Here we are at the beginning of
July and so much going on, and to commemorate it.
You know, it was Hawaii that was annexed on this

(01:08):
date back in eighteen ninety eight. Can you believe Hawaii
became a state? It is the southernmost state in the
United States. That's always a stumper for most people. Somebody's
always trying to get a zinger on you on that
one wins the seventy mini state it is Hawaii, and
then somebody would say, well, you know, not the continental US.

(01:32):
But that is the truth. So anything anybody throws that
trivia at you, go for it. It's Hawaii, the southern
most state. It's also a global Forgiveness day, so forgive
as much as you can on this beautiful date. Anyway,
here we are in sunny July, and I am speaking

(01:53):
today with a comedian, and I haven't spoken with comedians
in so long. I really really do miss that. I've
spoken with Al Franken of Saturday Night Live Fame, even
before he became a senator. I believe how many years ago.
That was Darryl Hammond from Saturday Night Live. John Lovett's

(02:14):
from that same program as well. Lewis Black of The
Daily Show Fame and Fortune, and there is a lot
of fortune, Lewis, you have earned it. I think he's
somewhat retired after his Goodbye Yeller Brick road tour, but
Lewis wow, great comedian. I love speaking with them, just

(02:34):
they're so honest and we really get into a good
groove every single time. There's some of the most wonderful interviews.
They really love talking about their craft. And j T habersout,
who I am speaking with today, is absolutely part of that.
I had a great discussion with him. JT's out there

(02:54):
just hustling and doing comedy in his own way and
has found major success in all of it. Along the way,
he's been an author, and he is out with a
new book where he speaks with other his fellow comedians,
ones you don't hear about very much and others who

(03:15):
you do like. We'red Al Yankovic and also Patton Oswalt,
so a lot of good people that he speaks with.
And this book is fantastic. Comes out on July the eighth,
So get it wherever you get those books, Barnes and Noble,
you can get it online, you can get it on

(03:35):
Did they even call it a nook anymore? I remember
I got that device a while back. I really enjoyed that,
and now I read books on my phone, but I
really really enjoyed that. So anyway, enjoy our talk. We
delve into so many different things, so many great stories.
J T. Haberswatt, Hey, how you doing? You good? Hanging

(03:59):
in there?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Good you hear me? Okay? Really cool.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, that's pretty good. Old to see you as well.
Thank you for the video as well. I put this
on YouTube as well, so thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, awesome.
So where are you at this morning as we speak?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Austin this morning where I'm based out of but back
in the airports tomorrow four am.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
So constant travel, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, that's the name of the game. So in Denver, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Denver, very good. Where you playing at in Austin? Is
that Joe Rogan's Club?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I've been there a bunch, but no, I live here,
so I'm just home and chilling for the moment. It's
funny because when I'm austin's such a crazy scene right now.
But when I'm home, I don't do a lot of
shows because I want to just that's that's when I
write books. We're working other things, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, it's a good atmosphere. How long have you been
in Austin?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Now? Twenty years actually as of October, so native New
Yorker have been done here since two thousand and five.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Nice change of pay to uh yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it's it's definitely a different vibe. It took be
a little while for my New York to kind of relax, you.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Know, Oh I know, I know, but it's really good
and good place to visit. So I would definitely tell
the CVB to get the word out so you don't
have too many people moving there.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, I mean it's it's definitely way different obviously, but
I still really like it here.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. Yeah, a lot to do there and and a
lot of opportunity, especially with what you're doing as well.
So yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Start comedy until I got down here, which was but
I mean way before. Everything is like it is now,
you know obviously. So yeah, it's it's a there's there's
a lot of opportunity here for sure.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, and then great place to fly out in and
out of. It's more of a central location, so that's crucial. Yeah,
we we've kind of outgrown the airport.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
It's a great airport, but it's it's you know, the
population is so larger now than what I got down
here initially that the airport can be zany, but it
still you know, it's twenty minutes away and goes pretty
much anywhere you want to go.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, Now have I have you been on Joe Rogan's podcast?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Is he No? I mean, we'll see what happens with
this new book now, because I his his head bartender
at the club is a very old friend of mine,
and her husband is in the book, a guy named
h Brett Ericson who's one of Dug stand hopes on
Bookables and you know and Brett so, so there's a

(06:29):
lot of crossover connect there, but I mainly go, it's
funny I avoid getting avoided getting COVID for four years
until I went and saw my buddy Joe DeRosa at
Rogan's club and got caught COVID in the green rooms.
Kind of hilarious to me.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
That, yeah, I know, he catches you. I got it
well outside of the original pandemic. Like, I think I'm
cool here, what's going on? I'm healthy, like Joe always says. I.
You know, I don't do the vitamin drip like Joe does. Right,
It's like but yeah, like it catches you when you
least expect, And I'm like, yeah, it.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Was hilarious that the four years of fairly solid vigilance
to yeah, I was in a Joe Rogan's green room
last night with UFC fighters smoking non stop wheat at me.
So yeah, that's definitely how I called it. But uh,
but yeah, I mean there's literally we went from so
many clubs that closed during pandemic. We're down to like,

(07:27):
I think two clubs that survived to now there's eleven
in like six square blocks downtown. It's crazy. It's crazy.
It's it's unsustainable, is what it is.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
But it's yeah. I remember back in the eighties, especially
when I first moved here to Atlanta, we had punchlines,
we had a numerous clubs. It was like a real
trajectory and got to see some really good local talent
and then people who had come in nationally. It's it was.
It was on a rise, and then there was a
dip there for a while.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Sure the nineties was a weird time first and up
because the boom, but people, you know, people over extended it. Suddenly,
every like Dairy Queen was a comedy club and that's unsustained.
I think that's kind of where we're at now a
little bit. We'll see what happens. But it's different with
podcasts and stuff too, and the Internet. It's totally different
than the eighties because you're not relying just on morning

(08:20):
radio and word of mouth. You know, like there's I
don't know, we'll see what happens. It's it's an interesting time.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, it was really really limited how you could promote
yourself back then, going those morning zoo cruse and.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, which are horrific. Those are those are being the
worst part of stand up and uh there's actually a
passage in the book where Doug stand Up talks about
He's like, you know, back then, you had either five
channels on TV, or it was let's go see live entertainment,
and it was like you know, you and some other
comic and no one cared if they knew who you
were or not. They were happy you were there. And

(08:53):
then the band mustang sallies up after us stick around,
you know, like very specifically funny.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I always hear those horror stories like comedians opening up
for musical acts and like, who's done.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
A lot of that. I've actually done a lot of that,
more more than most, and I've got the formula down.
I've toured with bands like punkin metal bands for like, yeah,
sometimes for like three weeks at a time. And the
key is you have to be advertised. They have to
know on the poster that there's a comedy aspect, so
it's not why is this person talking? And I always

(09:30):
have the lead singer of the headliner or someone notable
from the main band come out and introduce me. That's
the and then I can do the job. But otherwise
it goes real. It's real hard. It's like running up
hill on roller skates because people just don't know what's
happening and they're either annoyed or they're like, let's give
it a shot. But it's so loud with people, you know,

(09:52):
milling about waiting for whoever to blast your ears off.
You know, it can be tough.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, total different vibe. But I've heard like seventies and
into the eighties it was like why is somebody coming
up there with a spoken word when they're expecting a
loud band to come up and stay house lights come
down and mesmerized. It's just a little different thing, and.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
I mean, you know, it can obviously. I tour sometimes
with Lydia Lunch, who's a you know, spoken word combative
feminist and you know, for her or like a Henry
Rollins to go up back in the day like okay,
because that's like, that's that's kind of like aggression, just verbal, right,

(10:36):
but I need to go up and be like, let's
have levity. It's that's not what a Melvin's crowd wants
to hear or what you know. So, yeah, so how
long have you are You born and raised Atlanta? No.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. I remember growing up
there and there were comedy clubs down there in the
flats region over there. Bob Sagett for the first time,
I was floored. I was like, I never watched those
Friday night shows. I was already in college by the
time I saw it.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
They were super corny, but yeah, he was pretty.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Raw, and I was just blown away. This guy is like,
whoa really insanely fast?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah. Yeah, I saw one of his last shows. Actually
he did. He did a festival in Houston, and uh
he passed away like four weeks later.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Crazy, freaky, absolutely freaking yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Way to go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
And another time I was way younger, I was invited
to a fundraiser for then Senator Howard Metzenbaum and it
was Peter Paul and Mary along with along with Chevy
Chase and Robin Williams in a place called the front Row,

(11:54):
which was a theater in the round. And I loved
Robin Williams. I love chevy Chase. I was growing up
on them. I was. I had older sisters, so I
stayed up saw Saturday Night Live when it had started,
so I was like totally and all that stuff. And
Robin this was night maybe a few weeks after John
Belushi died, and he had spent the last night with him.

(12:17):
It's just like it was so freaky. Robin was completely
off the charts.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, Bob, bobcat Goldthwaite, Uh was like Robin's he was
he said, he said I was Robin's best man for
like three of his weddings or.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Something hilarious like that.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
And he tells a bunch of Robin Williams stories in
the book as well, and he was really close and
he's supposed to be the greatest guy, chevy Chase. I
hear its thorny like, what did he do on stage?
He ya, I was gonna say, because he's not he
doesn't really do stand up. I'd be curious what chevy
Chase on stage?

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Just goofing around and he just like immediately I saw
this very up close too. We had really good seats,
and it's like, no, wonder this guy had is she
is getting injured? I'm like, he really took the falls?

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well sure, yeah, yea, yeah, yeah he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yes, it was what it was, so yeah, I wasn't
really surprised that there was like a drug habit there
too as well.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Right, that's wild. Yeah, I've done Cleveland a few times.
I'm trying to think of the name of the club
that they're It's a good club, but it's in like
a the entertainment district strip, you know what I mean,
Like it's what I forget the name of the club,
but it's a good club. And I'll actually be in
Atlanta the beginning of August with Eddie peppatone.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Oh cool, Well is it one of the punchlines or no.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
We're we're doing what is it called? Uhhad Theater? It's
I was just there with are just talking about this
venue with a friend. Let me see, Yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Got some ones. It was just at the Buckhead Theater.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I love it that the Earl. It's like a rock club.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I think I've heard of that.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, I don't know. It's been a minute since I've
been to to that neck of the woods. But the
last time I was there, I did the Laughing Skull
Comedy Club. But I heard that's closing now.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah. Yeah, very I like that place too, Yeah, very
very nice. Yeah, Atlanta is like you know, it's a
pass through America's culture.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Sure, yeah, there was what was in the theater I
used to do too. There was a little theater there
that was great over but you do star bars sometimes.
They still have their Monday night show.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Sorry if I floated all my cat is trying to
make out with my computer at the moment.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
And everything. That's curious. Yeah, I had kiddy visitors here
for a long time. They show up at the front door,
come in, check out what I'm doing here.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, that's that's literally how she had her for a
few years and she just showed up at the door.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
This very cute. So doing this book, doing time this
is great. You did a lot of researcher, lots of talking,
lots of interview is kind of like how I do interviews.
It's just you do a zillion, it seems like, and
talk to.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah. Yeah, it was uh, definitely, well I you know,
I say in my author's intro, I say, you know
that I was once I realized there hadn't really been
an oral history, a stand up. Ah, I was like,
well there needs to be, you know, like there there
should be. Why why isn't there? And then I got

(15:29):
really annoyed when I'm like, well, I could do it,
you know, because because I'm a comic and so I
have a lot of comic pals or peers. You know,
not everyone in the book is a close friend, but
everyone in the book is someone that I could I said,
My main criteria for the being in the book was
that I had your cell phone number where I could

(15:50):
easily reach, because I'm sure you deal with this too,
running a show like the dreaded industry gatekeepers, a public
publicist can be great, but they can also be a
weird barrier to fun and rewarding things. And that's not
me just being an outsider saying oh I couldn't get

(16:12):
to this famous person. It's me being a comic and
seeing my friends also frustrated, going my goddamn manager or
whatever you know never told me about this show because
it was below my you know, theoretical pay grade. But
I tour a lot with Brian posin YEAHS Show and

(16:34):
Yeah Yeah brilliant, and we've been friends for a very
long time and work together a bunch. And he said,
he's like, the thing that the management and stuff forgets
is that we got into this for fun. And sometimes
if it's you know, half the money of what I
normally would get, the fun part is off the charts.
And I still want to know about those things, you know,

(16:55):
and a lot of times people just won't even bring
it to their attention. And so I started thinking, well,
I know this person. I've worked with this person a lot.
I you know, this person knows this person. And that's
just kind of how I looked and said, man, I
have like sixty to eighty real killers that are you know,

(17:18):
range from super household names of the Maria Bamford Is,
Patton Oswaltz, you know all those folks. Two comics' I
don't even want to say lesser because that's incorrect, but
working class comics that are, which is what I consider myself,
which are comics with real credits. You know, they've done

(17:39):
TV stuff, they've done the road extensively, They've worked with
really professional comics for a long time and it's their job.
But people like Carmen Morales out of Los Angeles, who's
done HBO and done all these things. But to hear
off the top of your head, Carlon Morales might say, oh,
that sounds a little familiar. But you know Vanessa Gonzalez,
who is blowing up right now, one of you know,

(18:02):
varieties comics to watch and all that sort of stuff,
and wars with Chelsea Handler, and you know, there's a
lot of people that you you may off the top
of your head and not know their name, but the
hope is well, in this mix of names that you

(18:22):
do know, hopefully by the end of the book you
feel like you know them, you know what I mean.
And so it was really important to me to not
just have it be all TV stars and stuff like that,
because that's kind of a different experience than a working
class comic, which is just someone that goes and does
the job and and has the more of the ups
and downs of is anybody coming tonight? You know? And

(18:44):
also oftentimes they are you know, oftentimes you're pleasantly surprised
doing a hundred seater and it's like, yeah, there's a
line out the door. And hooray, We're gonna have a
great show. So I really wanted it to be a
real look behind the curtain on the realities.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Of what it is, you know, yeah, yeah, because a
lot of people just don't see these things. You know.
Growing up, you know, Carson would call out somebody, you
don't know what's going on behind the curtain.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
That's something that's addressed too, is the evolution of how
Late Night used to be crucial, Like Late Night could
literally change you from being a club comic to a
theater comic within a week, you know, and and that,
but that was super rare, like to get that spot,
you really had to be a shining star or you know. Again,

(19:33):
Bobcat talks about that, and the book says, he's like,
the only time I've seen that happen was with Stephen Wright.
He's like, he's literally the only comic I've ever seen
where he, you know, the word of mouth was strong.
You know, think it might have been like USA today
or somebody came and saw him and wrote a piece
and he was in the newspaper, and then a week
later he was on the Tonight Show or what you know,

(19:55):
and and he said and after that it was straight
shot to the moon. He's like, but largely it's a myth,
you know, because and now I have many, many friends
who have done Late Night. You know, I work with
Eddy Pepatone, a ton. He's been on Conan and Jimmy
Kimmel and every aspect and not just doing stand up
like he's involved in sketches with them and all sorts

(20:18):
of stuff, and you know it's yeah. Gary Golman, who's
a really great comic aut of New York, has a
great quote in there where he says doing Late Night
is like having an extra birthday. He's like, you do it,
some people take you out to dinner, everybody calls and says,
great job, and then you move on. It's not It
just doesn't move the needle like it used to. So

(20:40):
the evolution of what's important is wild and always changing,
you know.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, and you know this as a performer. I did
a stand up class, like a lot of people have.
And when you do that, you do your bet, you
do your five minutes, and you feel like you're fifty
feet tall. Sure, and it's coming down off of that.
I'm sure that's something that you're so used to in
every comic you've spoken with hair.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's how I think people get
the bug, so to speak, you know, where you do
it a couple times and you get that kind of
rush of For me, it was always not patting the deck,
you know, like going into a place that has no
invested interest in liking me and then having it go well,
that's a real test, you know, that's a real litmus

(21:26):
But conversely, that fifty foot high. If it doesn't go well,
you feel fifty feet small.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
You know.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Oh, there's nothing I always say because people always say,
you know, I've always wanted to try it, you know.
I feel like stand up is one of those things
that you know, my office co workers always said I
should think and I always say, good, do it, but
do it twice. I'm like, you can't do it once
and then have that be the experience. You need to
do it twice because the first time anybody does it,

(21:55):
all of your coworkers who have been saying you're funny are.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Going to come right, all of.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Your you know, intermediate social circle is gonna come, your
family's gonna come, and it's going to go great because
you've padded the deck. In some regard the next time,
you say, well, that was amazing, and you have that
high for a few weeks, and then you say, man,
I want to try that again, and you go back
and the second time, we've got the kids tonight, or
you know whatever. People are a little more busy. Maybe

(22:22):
you get a handful of your friends there and the
rest are just paying strangers, or just as I most
comics will tell you, you know, an open mic is other
comics waiting to go up and could give a shit
about it. Whatever you're saying. They're looking at their notes
and it largely it doesn't even mean you necessarily bomb.
It just means it doesn't go as well. And that's

(22:45):
the reality of what most of the early stages is
is finding your footing, finding your voice, and dealing with
indifferent crowds or crowd But it's also a true test
to the material. Right, so if you do it twice
and you still want to stick with it, then I'm like, okay,
well then you have potent would maybe want to do this.
Most people don't. I think most people say, oh yeah,
I tried stand up once. It was fifty pat and

(23:07):
not fun at all. Right, nothing will deflate that ego
balloon faster and glowing. After last time, this was amazing
and this time, yeah, one one joke got a little
bit of a laugh and the you know, the waitress
kind of scowled at me, you know, like so, yeah,
it's it's I encourage everyone to try it, but the

(23:31):
people that it's such a tough job year after year.
Also in terms of financial stability, you know, because you're
you're you're essentially freelanced completely.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Oh it is it is acting, I.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Guess where you never you know, once your your current
job is done, you're unemployed until your next job shows up.
You know, That's just how it is.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, So they dubbed you the godfather of punk comed
punk rock comedy. That's yeah, an interesting time. How did
that stick with you all this time?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
That kind of was a little bit of a self
fulfilling prophecy, and that I was a punk rock kid,
like I still largely come came from that New York
world where I lived upstate. But once I could uh
gut my driver's license, I can go to the Metro
North train. I would take the train from Pokeepsie, New York,
down to the Lower East Side whenever I could, as

(24:23):
like a sixteen or at seventeen year old and and
go see shows at CBGB's or wherever. And so I
was very immersed in that world of the punk rock
scene of the early nineties into through the two thousands,
and saw not just punk rock with a capital P,
but avant garde bands. You know, bands like Boss Hog

(24:46):
with you know, John Spencer, Blues Explosion, Luna, stuff like
that that really was dy but also artsy in a
way that was you know, sometimes a little pretentious, I guess,
but you know, bands like the Yea Yeah, stuff like
that that I really raw and exciting and so out.

(25:10):
I was a college radio nerd also. I went to
Sondy Newpaultz and I was the music director of the
college radio station. It was all about that and promoting
shows and stuff like that. I was a show promoter.
I was in a couple of bands, but largely just
for fun, no like real like we're gonna make it,
you know, it's like fun bands. And so when I
moved to Austin in two thousand and five, that's when

(25:33):
I was like, well, I kind of wanted to break
from all that stuff. I was burned out on promoting
shows and I was running a zine called Altercation Magazine,
and I started saying, well, I've always wanted to try
stand up for real, let's try that. So around two
thousand and seven, I started doing stand up and I

(25:53):
didn't want to go the traditional route of go to
the comedy club. Wait. See, eventually you could host for
ten minutes, the whole you know way you're supposed to
do it, because I was used to just like, oh,
we don't have a venue. Well, I know this library
that's closed. Let's go put on a show there. You know,
what do you mean, yes we do. We just fought
the fine one. You know, just because the rock club

(26:14):
says no, it doesn't mean we don't do the show.
And so I had that mindset. So I just booked
myself shows with bands or even just you know, headlining,
even doing thirty minutes at a club, and a lot
of my rock friends would show up. So I was
very immersed in the music scene pretty quickly. And I

(26:37):
realized it was around the time too the Comedians of
Comedy was happening, and a lot of people were saying,
screw the clubs, Like the clubs aren't there, they're feeling
like dinosaurs and they don't yeah, it was the boom
of not the boom was the dawn of alt comedy,
what's known as alt comedy, which is also that's intentionally
when I wanted the book to start. So when it
says oral history, you know, I'm not talking about Lenny Bruce.

(26:57):
I'm really not talking about the eighties because that's been done,
and I really wanted to concentrate on contemporary, which to
me is nineties till today. And so you know, things
like Mister Show, things like the Kids in the Hall,
you know, and a lot of those kids in the
Hall are in the book, you know, and so things

(27:18):
that were really kind of groundbreaking and remain groundbreaking, but
were very against the mainstream at the time, not in
the combative way, not saying screw the mainstream, but just
in a nature of what they wanted to do creatively
was flying that weird flag. And I really related to that,
you know, the true alternative, back when that word meant something.

(27:38):
And so I looked at people like Jennine Garoffalo or
Doug Stanhope or the Comediance of Comedy and David Cross
and they were all doing rock clubs, and I said,
that's the way to do it. And so I started
doing shows around Austin in alternative venues, which at the

(27:59):
time was real weird people and comics were, you know,
because I was a new guy in town. Also by
that stage, comics were a little chip on their shoulder
about me. It's kind of like, who the hell do
you think you are to not do it the right way?

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, that's gonna be too.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
So if I'd show up to the Velveto Room, which
is like the legendary open mic small club here that's
still going, you know, I'd be very friendly and whatever.
But but I could get some sideways glances gone, oh,
that's the guy who thinks he's too good to do
the right way, and he's booked his own show. And
I checked it out and yeah, there were people there.
It was real piste off. That's not supposed to happen. Yeah,

(28:35):
And conversely, h it ended up being a little bit
of a way for me to stand out. So when
you know, the Jenneine garofflos or whoever came to town,
they said who's doing left of center stuff? And everybody said, oh,
that's that's JT is doing stuff, and they would book me.
So I was I was probably less than a year

(28:55):
in and I was opening for Doug stand Hope and
that's how Brian Posane and I met, and I did
a show with Andy dick Oh which was as insane
as you can imagine legendary. Yeah right, yeah, that was
probably I've been doing this almost fifteen years and that

(29:17):
was probably the most insane, hot mess of a show
I've ever seen. I was very happy to be a
part of that where it was not I didn't promote
the show. I was just the hired help, and so
I could just kind of stand back and go, wow,
this is really crazy. But anyway to your question, about

(29:42):
two thousand and nine ten, I decided I want my
own kind of comedians of comedy slash Ramones Vibe, and
so I booked this started booking this thing called the
Altercation Punk Comedy Tour, which was a branch off the
brand Altercation Magazine, which was my zine that I had run,
and I assembled some I had done Van's Warped Tour

(30:02):
at that time a couple spots on that and met
some comics that were I'm like, well, if around the
Van's Warped Tour, they kind of have a punk aesthetic probably,
and so I met a guy on there. I met
a spoken word heavy metal guy named Duncan Wilder Johnson
out of Boston who's still doing stuff. He's great. There
was a woman in Austin named Ruby Collins who I

(30:22):
thought was really funny and doing very unique and kind
of edgy for a woman at that time, like very
not dirty necessarily, but I was like, Wow, she's got
guts to say some of this stuff. And so I
assembled this rotating lineup of about four to six of us,

(30:43):
depending on where we were, and we toured like I'm
a Black Flag kid, so we just booked. We did
a tour one time. It was four weeks of shows
with one day off to fly from New York to
the West Coast. That was our only day off. Is
unsustainable and insane, so it. But however, I should also

(31:04):
mention that I was like thirty three when I started,
so I was not, by any means like a nineteen
year old. Different the Black Flag where we're to quote him,
you could live on a candy bar and.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Hatred can't last forever, it cat.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
I look back now on some of the scenarios, like
I we did a show one time in somewhere in
Oregon and the van had broken down and it was
at some pizza shop on a Sunday and I hadn't
booked the show of one of the other comics had
and we walked in there and it was no one

(31:41):
knew was I call it, you know, comedy hijack situation
where no one knew comedy was happening. It was very apparent.
And then you know, you're eating your pizza dinner and
then you look over to someone's just talking in the corner,
like what is happening? And all every TV was on
and it's showing sports and so it was not good.
And we were very tired and the car had broken

(32:03):
down that day and we needed to get it fixed.
And they basically said, oh, here's your pay, and they
gave us pizza. Pizza was the.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Peck Oh god.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
I was like aid literally in cheese and sauce. And
so I was like, well, we have no place to stay,
like we you know, we can't even sleep in the
car because the car is at the mechanics. Like, what
are we going to do? And I basically said the
comicwood book and I'm like, you need to find this
place to stay, and he basically shook down the promoter

(32:30):
and said, look, we have to stay at your house.
Like we'll take the pizza pay, but we have to
stay at your house. And of course, because it was
a promoter at a pizza venue, they had a very small,
one bedroom at most apartment. And I remember we all
I slept sitting up like I was in a like,
oh my gosh, an easy boy, lazy boy chair, sitting

(32:52):
up barely sleeping, and I was driving. So I'm like,
I have to drive the next day, and somehow figured
out how to pay for the repairs on this car.
And I woke up in the morning and my entire
arms and most of my legs were bitten by fleas.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Oh geez, all the orthopaedic things that are happening to you.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And then and then way got just like covered in
you know. And so that's obviously a bit of an
extreme thing, but also not that weird, you know, not
that it was just not that it wasn't that people
would rip you off, although that happened once or twice.
It was more that the circumstances were so unsustainable, and
you know, you're touring with four or five people, so

(33:32):
it's like take that pizza and divide it by four
or five. And so I look back now and was like,
how did I even survive that? How did I not
find a credit card and just get on a plane
and go home, Like I don't I don't know. It
was very determined not to. But boy, those circumstances are Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
It makes you stronger. Whatever's not going to kill you,
it's going to make you strong man.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know, there's times now, not to sound like a
princess or anything, but there's times now where if the
venue will be like, hey, you know, we have a
comedy condo, which is not weird, and some can be amazing,
like you know, I'm going to Denver this weekend. But
I was there with Posane back in when was it
earlier this year? I'll say maybe like March or February

(34:21):
because it was cold, but that forged. But you know,
the club there has a comedy condo, and I was like,
oh boy, here we go. Let's see what this is like.
And it was gorgeous. You know, it was like nicer
than most high rise apartments. But but that's not always
the case, and so there's certainly been somewhere I've gone

(34:41):
in and been like, man, all right, I'll tough this out.
But I I'd rather buy my own hotel than stay
in this kind of crummy dump, you know. And but
back in the day, I'd be happy to have a
roof and not have a flea couch. So but once
I applied the punk rock thing, you know, the punk
comedy tour, that stuck to me because it because it

(35:05):
was a rotating lineup and I handled all the booking
and routing, and I could do that easily. I could
book us easily because I had been in bands and
I put on shows. So I knew the promoter in Gainesville, Florida.
I knew the promoter in Atlanta, you know, Rodney Lee
of Starbar. You know, Rodney's old punk rock guy, you know.
And so it was easy to book because it's also

(35:27):
it's not like we were a huge guarantee. We're charging
five to ten dollars at the door. And some shows
were great, you know. So we were the first comics
to do fest in Gainesville, which was is still a
big punk rock festival. We were you know, we did
some really cool things, but it essentially became as lineups shifted.

(35:52):
Because the other thing is when you're in dire economic
situations and you're four to five creative essential lead singers,
because that's what stand ups are. They're so they're lone bowls,
you know, essentially, and varying degrees of drunkenness and stuff
like that. People not used to being on the road
and suddenly, whoo, you know, like this is not getting paid.

(36:12):
The drinks are usually free. I had to shift around
members quite a bit and it essentially became the Altercation
Punk Comedy Tour was JT and whoever he's bringing.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, that's a good I rotate them in and out right.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
And so in twenty twelve I did a show at
south By Southwest and as the Altercation Punk Comedy Tour,
and the crowd was it was insane. It was it
was a packed out show in a black box theater
and somebody got offended by something. My good friend Mac

(36:47):
Lindsay said, who's in the book? Mac and I met
on Warped Tour and he's such a great comic, and
the guy stood up and they almost got into a
fistfight on stage, and it was I had a it
up on stage and be like calm down, like like
and then and then I went up on stage and
somebody ran in and said, JT, they're on your van.

(37:10):
I said what, And I had a run off stage
and they were fighting on my van like this fighting,
and then somebody I don't know who it was started
shooting off fireworks like it was everywhere. It was bad luck.
And this guy Dan who runs Stand Up Records, which

(37:32):
is a Grammy winning label at Minneapolis, was at that
show and came up to me at the end and said, Hey,
I want to sign you. And so that I put
out a record as Me and the Altercation Punk Comedy
Tour with Stand Up Records. In twenty twelve, got Raymond
Petty Bond, who did all the Black Flag and Sonic
Youth artwork to do the cover, which was amazing cool

(37:55):
through various associations of having worked with Henry Rollins once
or twice and just kind of, you know, kind of
weaved my way through until I got to Raymond, and
he is an amazing He's a genius, but he's an
amazingly generous guy. You know, he refused to take money
for it and anything. He was great and we're still

(38:18):
pals is a weird term. Where i'd been to his
studio and stuff in New York, and during pandemic we
traded art in the mail, which was for fifteen year
old me. My head would have blown up if you
ever told me that, oh, I have the black flag
bars on my arm, and like, you know, to even
get to hang out with Raymond Petty one and any
association would have been mind going to me, but to
trade art, you know, he sent each other Christmas gifts. Anyway,

(38:40):
This is not to be all braggy, but it's to say,
you know, having the guy who was the punk rock
artist on my vinyl record reinforced the punk rock tag
for me. And then in two thoy fourteen, which is
when I left my last desk job went full time,
the Austin Ronicle put me on the cover and the

(39:04):
headline was like punkin punchlines and they had me dress
up like one of the misfits with the makeup and
I'll I'll show you the uh yeah yeah, I don't
know if I have a copy around, but they put
me on the cover for that, and so that was
kind of off to the races. And after that, every
interview I did was so what's punk comedy? You know?

(39:24):
I can tell you know, are you telling why did
dancing across the road? Like what what?

Speaker 1 (39:28):
What? What is that?

Speaker 2 (39:30):
And then I had to explain which to me and
this remains to me. The gist of what I was
going for is, I said, it's it's the fugazi discord
approach of just we're going to bypass clubs that put
parameters on you can't talk about atheism, or you can't
you know, talk about gay rights or you know, there's

(39:50):
certain things that would make the comedy crowd going public
who may not know they're just there for entertainment, uh
whistle a little bit, or you get a nasty comic
card of like, you know, I didn't like them attacking
my whatever, and that we would attack things, but we'd
talk about you know, I'm a George Carlin disciple.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So at that.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Time the concept of free speech and comedy was a
very different conversation than it is now. But at that
time that's what informed it. And uh, it was just
trying to not wait on the industry to come to you.
It was like, well, okay, if you're if if somewhere
along the line my career in industry meet, that's great,

(40:37):
and I'm happy to work with you, and I'm happy
to do clubs, but not under Hey, we'd love to
book you, but you can't do this, this, this, this, this,
I'm not interested in that. Yeah, And so that's how
the pump thing came about. That's uh, Chicago now called
me the Godfather punk Comedy, and that really kind of
that quote took off to the stratosphere. And so after that,

(40:58):
when I would do festivals, because I started doing essentially
around twenty thirteen twenty fourteen, that was the last time
I wound I wound down working with a group of
comics at a time. I just it was unsustainable and
I just went solo essentially and would bring a feature
with me that I liked. So I would headline and

(41:19):
bring one person and then the rest would be locals
or whatever. And that was just that was doable. And
I got lucky because I met some great comics that
became touring features and friends I'm friends with to this day.
You know Kristen Lady out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Josh
McLain out of Memphis, you know Jay Shonoine out of Manchester,

(41:42):
New Hampshire, and so these are all really strong comics
that I was happy to kind of like bring along
with me and help showcase and make it a better
show because they would make me work harder. There so
good and so that I know, it's the very long
answered I'm sorry, the long tail. That is where the

(42:04):
punk rock thing came from. And then i'd say, well,
I'm like, what year are we twenty twenty five? Ye,
I'd say by two thousand and sixteen, not two years
after I went full time, I started to find the
punk tag limiting in that people were throwing that into

(42:27):
every press thing I did, and you know, I'm like,
by this point, I have, you know, two additional albums out,
you know, it's two additional specials after that first Altercation
tour one, and I said, you know, I really need
to drop that tag because it's it's starting to that.
By that point, I was doing a lot of comedy
clubs and like, it's starting to limit more of a

(42:51):
question mark on the part of bookers that I'm working with, saying, oh,
is he going to throw chairs of people? Is going
to do some g g Allen shit? Like what does
that mean? You know?

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, like no, no, no, no, no, It's not gonna be combative
at all. It's not going to be, you know, inside.
They were also concerned to be so inside baseball with
the material that people. You know, hey, isn't it crazy
that you know, how many how many bass players from
the sex pistoles does it take to pull whatever? You know,
Like I didn't. The audience didn't feel like they needed

(43:21):
to have a leather jacket on to go in and
get the material. So so I dropped the punk rock tag,
and largely that was the one of the best things
I've done, and I say best in terms of it
opened me up to a larger audience, and it also

(43:41):
opened up to you know, getting the phone call from
Eddie peppatone saying, Hey, I'd really like to start touring
with you, you know, because Eddie's a big music guy.
But I honestly think if I was just the punk
rock comic, he might be a little scared of what
that means. Also, you know, like, so once I drop that,
it was a broader audience. But I also like having

(44:04):
that lineage because I don't think I would have I'm
the only stand up comic who's ever toured with Lydia Lunch,
and I don't think that would have come about if
I didn't have that lineage.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Well, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of having that background.
But also I don't really yell that to the rooftops anymore.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, it's a good idea not to paint yourself into
that corner because you're going to really limit yourself that way.
This way you could expand beyond it. I could see
them being nervous, like I remember Bobcat going crazy on
Larry Sanders if you're that episode, like he trashes it said.
I could see them like having visions, is he going
to come in here and just trash this place? It's
like punk Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is really offen.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
I think it's a great tagline, but it doesn't necessarily
mean people are going to come even be get pressed
because they're scared of what it might mean, or they
might feel like I'm not going to get it. Yeah,
they're just like I don't it's too cool for me
or something, you know, something I don't want that you
know I want, I want. The challenge for me then
was to say, Okay, I'm gonna take my sensibilities of

(45:03):
DIY and punk rock and I am going to do
this mainstream club and see if I can make these
people that don't know me and don't know that world left.
You know, there's nothing more rewarding to me now than
to have a crowd of people that are my parents'
age and you know, college kids and across section of

(45:24):
society and be able to get them all, you know
what I mean, to make them all and get them
all on board. That's that's what's really rewarding to me now.
And that doesn't mean catering to what's contemporarily popular or
catering to what's topical news wise. I don't do a
lot of like this is in the news, you know,
that type of stuff, but just hitting on things that

(45:46):
are universal in a way you know of and universal
for me is angst and you know, observational. What the
hell's you know like just and so yeah, I'm much
more satisfied, I think now with the end result then

(46:07):
back then in terms of I was kind of speaking
to and the people who liked it back then really
liked it, you know, but but it was kind of
speaking to the converted already a little bit.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, it seemed like you were heavily into the nineties
with the zines that that kind of brings back those
kind of memories. These days, it's you know, we got podcasts,
we got YouTube. People doing actual specials on YouTube. They
don't have to wait for Max HBO Max to come
get them. Yes, you could do this on your own netflixes.
So that's just totally exploded, you got. It's a great thing.

(46:39):
But the problem is, like everybody could do this now
it's just yes.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yes, but it's also I still think, like the YouTube thing,
that's a great example because you know, I've done film
specials and stuff. And my my most recent special I
just did audio was for eight hundred pound gorilla called
uh Swamp Beast, and I just did audio and vinyl,
you know, because it's a it's a pain in the
s carry around, but people like it, and I can

(47:04):
sell a decent amount of vinyl. But my last film
special was on DVD and it's still on DV and
people don't have a DVD player anymore, you know. It
it's just hard to people like it, but you can't,
like I don't know how to play it. You know.
It's like cars don't even have CD players in them anymore,
you know, And it's like you play a sk and
so part of it is just the technology thing. But

(47:25):
the YouTube thing I think is great because yes, anyone
can put it out there, but YouTube it doesn't mean
anyone has to watch, right, you know what I mean.
It's easy to get a chip on your shoulder saying, Wow,
this person got a Netflix special and probably got Netflix money,
and I'm watching this and boy does it suck. You know.
I I'm not naming names, but there's comics that I've

(47:48):
watched their specials and it's taken me two or three
times to get through it. And I'm the weirdo that
I'll watch stuff that isn't even for me because I
like to study the craft of it and be like, okay,
well why do people like this?

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, I'm just perplexed.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, the mainstream is sometimes wrong.
You know, somebody bought all those Creed records and it
wasn't me, so I can, you know, but good for them.
They can give a ship what I say. But you know,
there's a lot of stuff I think is real terrible

(48:23):
that's super popular. So some of it's just that, but
there's other times where I'm genuinely perplexed as to like,
who is who is the audience? Who's loving this?

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know, it's like the Applebee's of comedy, Like I
don't understand yeah, and it's just you know, it's not terrible,
it but it's so mediocre. And so the the YouTube
thing is really intriguing to me because you can have comics.
I do shows with this outfit called Don't Tell Comedy.
I don't know if you're familiar with it, Don't Tell,

(48:54):
but they put on secret shows. They started in La
New York, and they basically branched out and have produced
almost every city. And they do shows where you buy
a ticket, you don't know who's on the lineup, you
don't know the venue, and it's kind of a speakeasy vibe.
So I've done them in I did one in Minneapolis
in a car auto parts garage with cats running around.

(49:14):
I've done them in you know, weightlifting places, Like they're
all fun. So it's fun and they're usually byob and
tickets are twenty five or thirty bucks and so they
pay you pretty okay, and the audiences. I don't think
I've done one that hasn't sold out. Like they're just
really fun. But they started doing for the more kind

(49:35):
of on the rise comics. They'd film sets. Eddie Peppatone
just did one, and they film in New York or
LA and they're fifteen minute sets and their views can
number in the millions. Like that's been a game changer
because it's just on YouTube, and so it's a way
for you know, there's a guy, there's a lot of
comics that are people that I know, but I've seen

(49:57):
them kind of have their star elevated by doing those
and the audience is discovering them and so YouTube can
be really effective for that. And as far as I
understand it, if you get large numbers because you see
major because Ari Shafir, I think, released his last special
on YouTube. You know, it's a common thing now, it's
not a it doesn't feel like a nobody bought it.

(50:20):
So I guess I'll put it out on YouTube. It
feels like an actual move, you know, because if you
get well, Shane Gillis is another one. He put his
out on YouTube. They filmed out in Austin, and the
numbers are through the roof and undeniable, and you know,
you get money from YouTube for those views. You know,
it becomes a business model of itself. And so for me,

(50:43):
specials are always a a document in time obviously, but
more to the point, there's something that I want people
to hear. I want it to be asses and seats.
I want people to hear it and go, oh, I
like that. I'm going to check him out next time
he's in town. That's what a special is to an
end to me, in addition to, you know, a record
of where you are at that time.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah, it's not like I go back and listen to them.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
You know, some I like more than others, so I think,
you know, they're all pretty okay. But uh, the YouTube thing,
I think is really intriguing because it really is kind
of taking the middleman out of it. You know, anybody
can upload a special YouTube and if it takes off
paray for you and you know you I've also seen
people who put a lot of production money into filming

(51:25):
a special and it looks great and then it comes
out on YouTube and I check a month later and
it's got you know, eight hundred views, and I'm going to.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
You feel for them.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I do, but that doesn't mean it's always going to
be there. You know, it's got a long shelf life.
Maybe something pops down the road maybe you know who knows.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Yeah, like you were talking with where at Ali Yankovic
and UHF, which like bombed, Yeah, totally huge disappointment. Then
like it becomes his citizen came years later.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yes, yes, I mean it's you know, and it's funny
to think because weird al is such an icon, Like
if a weird movie came out, now, think of how
strong that audience would be, Like people would buy tickets
in advance, you know, like and so yeah, I mean
it's part of it is just time and place, you know,
because because when UHF came out, I think it was

(52:16):
still video stores. I don't think vud you know, so
it was like if you didn't see that the multiplex.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, disappear. Maybe it comes out on video tape, you know.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Way even then it was such a word of mouth,
you know. But I'm nostalgic for that too, Like I
like that because I was the real currency was Wow,
this is cool and you need to see it, you
know it was. But you know, you can't you can't
live there.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
You know, what's old is new again. I can't see
a track making this resurgence. But there are people who
collect that crap and VHS tapes and man, I never.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Thought I'd go into a club and see there was
I went into a club and there was a like
a cigarette machine, right, but it was for cassettes. It
was your cassette tapes. And I was like what And
so kids are buying boomboxes and listed which cool right on?
But I never would have guessed a cassette. Vinyl. Yeah,
vinyl has that kind of price and cool always will

(53:15):
come around again.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Thing cassettes, yeah, not really sustainable.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
You have an iraq like you know what's going on.
So but but also right on whatever you're into, right
but when you know, people approached me actually and said
would you ever When I was doing my last vinyl
for my swamp Pyece, I said, would you ever want
to do cassettes? And like, absolutely not. I am not.
I'm not carrying around cassettes like I just I'm not.

(53:43):
But bands do it, you know, I see it.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
If it works, it works. It's it's getting your your
stuff out there and any way to distribute that as well.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
The audience. They're just the reality is they're younger than
me and they know the people that they will reach
through that, and good for them. I don't know those people.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
It's weird to see that. So how long did this
book take to put together? You did all these interviews?

Speaker 2 (54:07):
It was so much work. Man, I've written two other
books before this, but this I got the idea fortunately
slash unfortunately at the end of COVID, like around twenty
twenty one is when I was like, I think I
want to tackle this. And so the good part was
when I started calling people. A lot of people were
still home and couldn't tour, and so they were available,

(54:28):
and so I could get a lot of people on
the phone. And then once around twenty twenty two, when
things were a little more sane and a little more social,
you know, I started doing as many in person as
I could, and so I would fly to LA or
when I was in LA or when I was in
New York doing stuff, I would find whoever was home
and would sit down with them. So that's it's sat

(54:50):
down with Todd Glass and Tom Rhodes and you know,
pat Oswalt and all those folks. And so start to
finish three years because what I had to do was
I think back now and I'm like, how it sounds
so insane.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Labor wise, I basically interviewed sixty to seventy comics or
whatever is in there, and then I transcribed all the interviews,
and then I went through interview by interview and broke
down the sections, the chunks of conversation, which could range
from a sentence to a paragraph depending on what was
being discussed topic wise, of what I thought was important

(55:29):
for the book out of those, because the interviews could
be anywhere from I think the shortest interview is probably
thirty minutes and the longest system. I talked to Greg
Turkington Neil Hamburger, who's such a great guy and he
hadn't done press in ten years. I had to do
an interview before the interview to say, hey, would you
be in the rest in doing this, and he said yes,

(55:49):
So that is I think it's probably Greg's last interview
that he will ever do, and it was this first
in ten years. And we talked for two and a
half hour, I think something like that. And so the
lengths were very varying, but not short. None were short,
and so I had to transcribe all those, pull out

(56:10):
the chunks that I thought were relevant, take those chunks
and put them into Okay, this needs to be in
the first part of the book, the second part of
the book, and the third because it's very much I
described it as an airplane ride where the beginning is
like early childhood influences, how you got into stuff. The
bulk of the book is about doing the job, and
the reality is of stand up, and the closing, you know,

(56:32):
the landing is essentially what did you learn advice things
like that. And so I took all those quotes and
I said, this goes in this first part of the book,
this part goes in the second part of the book,
this part goes in the third. And then once I
had all those quotes from everyone in the three sections,
I went through and started to compose the narrative because
I wanted to be one long conversation. I didn't want

(56:55):
I talked to a couple other publishers before I landed
with Jawbone, who were fantastic, and they wanted me to
kind of essentially dumb it down, Like they said, how
about we just do a chapter on Heckler's you know,
or a chapter you know. They wanted to chapter it
and make it kind of like a bathroom reader book.
And I was like, I want this to be able

(57:16):
to be picked up and put down because it's their words,
it's you know, I wanted to keep me out of it,
but I might. The narrative is very intentional. So the
book took a lot of time to organize in a
way that I wanted to feel like one long conversation
that delves into mental health and depression issues and stuff
like that and then moves into combativeness with the crowd

(57:39):
and then slides into you know, hotels, first, comedy club condos,
and so it took a very that took when I
had all the nuts and bolts of Okay, all the
stuff's transcribed, everything is chunked out. Now the easy part,
the fun part is is putting the book together. And boy,
that was when the work really started because I uh

(58:01):
not that I did a lot of revisions, but I
really had to trust my gut in being like, all right,
this flows into this, and this flows into this, and
this flows into this like a like a big mixtape,
you know, just kind of. It was essentially by that
point curating the story that I wanted to tell, more
so than just plugging in, because if you plug it in,
it's not going to be engaging, and if you plug

(58:22):
it in, it's going to feel like what it on
the surface is, which is a collection of interviews plugged in.
And I didn't want that. My job then was to
tell a story with these interviews, and so hopefully that
is the end result. I tried really hard to have
it happen, but I spent a good I would say,
one third of all that time on assembling the actual

(58:43):
book when all of the parts were done, and then
I had to sell it. Yeah, that's the other thing
is that, you know, because I'm a DIY guy. I
had my last two books, I had essentially self published,
but I had put out a zine and so I
had channels. You know, I can get it into barn people,
Ingram's who I used as my old distributor, and so

(59:05):
that was I could do that. I could put out
a book and people could get it, and they did fine.
But for this book, it needed a larger platform, like
I wanted it to be a you know, available in
airports and stuff like that. And so having done all
that work while doing stand up and everything else in

(59:25):
the meantime, you know, there's no guarantee of well, it's
like the YouTube thing, right, Like you can put all
the money into the production and the time, there's no
guarantee there's going to be a fancy carrot at the
end of that stick. And so I feel fortunate that
job bone. I've really loved their stuff and their aesthetic,

(59:46):
their London based. This is their first non music book ever,
so that's pretty great. Like, I feel really proud about that.
Eddie Pepatone wrote the forward and so, yeah, it was
a lot of work though, Man, it was a really
lot of work. But I think it's the most accomplished
thing I've done in terms of a product. And yeah,

(01:00:08):
the product sounding like commerce, that sounds like something that's
going to get hit with a tariff, but a product.
In terms of the end result, I'm very happy with it.
And as a creative person, that's hard to do, you know,
And so I'm satisfied with the end result. And now
hopefully people like now I just got.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
To get it out there, get it out there and
here we are available wherever. You're got to get it
on ebooks as well, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
It'll be all that. Essentially. It comes out July eighth, worldwide,
every format, everywhere, and I have some authors copies right now,
but essentially actually due to tariffs, like everything bottlenecked because
it's shipping from London via boat, you know, and so

(01:00:55):
it was supposed to be out right now, but we
had to push it to July because I didn't realize
Barnes and Noble and Amazon and all those places pre sales.
If your product is late, they just cancel the pre
sales and refund everyone's money. And I was like, what,
they don't say it's running late and we'll ship it
in two weeks. They just cancel everything and you have
to re order it. So what you told me that,

(01:01:16):
I'm like, we can't do that. So we pushed the
release date to give us a window. So yeah, July eighth,
it's out everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
On all So that's that's fantastic, great book, and you
got so many You got big names in here, and
then people who we haven't heard from or far from
being a household names, and it gives you the nuts
and bolts of, Hey, if I'm really interested in stand Up,
this is a great book to see, you know, how
it's done, how people feel going through all this, and

(01:01:46):
the dues you all have to pay to really get
out there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
It's yeah, that's that's great to hear because there's a
weird it's not weird, but there's a a circumstance where
people either fin you have to be Jerry Seinfeld or
it's not real, or you know, they just don't know.
And I think there's a lot of curiosity about like
what doesn't like what is this job? The day to

(01:02:10):
day of it, you know, what is the ups and
the downs of the career. And so I hope people
can kind of get value out of it. And I
also tried to make it a degree of evergreen in
terms of I didn't really dive in too hard into

(01:02:30):
current kind of controversies or you know, hot hot button
topics or anything like that, because I wanted to be
a book that in ten years, someone who's interested in
comedy or getting into stand up can pick it up
and still get value out of it. You know. I
didn't want it to feel dated.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Right exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
So there's a little yeah, so there's a little bit
at the end of the book about COVID and you know,
post COVID and what that was like, because some people quit,
you know, some people just never came back. They just
their life stopped and they said I like this better actually,
or or they just moved on to other things, you know,
and so it was felt important to mention that. But
it's really only a couple of pages talking about COVID stuff.

(01:03:12):
I didn't want to I didn't want to live there. Yeah,
So hopefully people get value out of it. Yeah, man
I I I appreciate you, uh yeah, having that experience
with it, because that's that's the goal, to kind of
open open people's eyes and kind of you know, a
little bit of a reveal warts and all, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Go, well, thanks for stopping, bio. Hope to see you
in Atlanta maybe one day.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah that I'll be there. Uh. I think
it's the first Friday in August.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
With nice, nice and hot. I moved down here close
to four decades ago in August. It's a little steamy
here at that time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah. I usually, uh well these days, I go where
they send me. But I remember that that air you
can get you get the humidity there, yeah, I usually
it's brutally humid right now in Austin, which is kind
of strange. But I've done New Orleans in July also
and went through like nine shirts going what am I
doing here like it's unsustainable, but yeah, doing Timecomedy dot

(01:04:17):
com has all the pre links and everything like that,
and I really appreciate you having me on. Man, it's great.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Yeah, thanks for coming by. I appreciate it. Take care
see well. Thank you for listening to our long discussion.
JT enjoys talking and I don't enjoy interrupting very much.
As you might know by listening to my podcast. I
like getting out as much as I can from my
interviewees and they tell their story. And he is insanely prolific.

(01:04:48):
Great guy, has really paid as is been all over
the country, probably the world, and has got so many
great stories. We probably he needs to go on. Joe Rogan,
I really thought he was on there. I don't why
I thought he was on there because he lives in Austin,
so I was like, that's the name there, But I
think he has played a Joe's Comedy Club there, as

(01:05:09):
he said earlier in this interview. Anyway, thank you so
much for dropping by, and we'll do it again. I'm
keeping this thing going. I know some podcasters are ending
their programs, but yeah, I'll keep getting people on here,
hopefully more comedians really enjoy that anyway, see you or
hear from you next time.