April 26, 2022 • 39 mins
Called one of the “Top 10 Comedians You Need to Know” by Rolling Stone, Tim Dillon is a whirlwind of hot takes and sharp observations about pop culture and society. His darkly funny brand of humor can be found touring around the world and on “The Tim Dillon Show,” his weekly podcast. Dillon has been featured on Netflix and Comedy Central specials and graced the stages of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and South by Southwest. Tim and Alec speak of the importance of comedy throughout the pandemic, their shared Long Island background and why having a difference of opinions is good for our culture.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. Brazen, blunt, unapologetic. These are
just a few of the words that describe the unexpected
comedy of my guest Today. Tim Dillon named one of
the top ten Comics you Need to Know by Rolling Stone.
(00:22):
This former child actor has released specials on Netflix and
Comedy Central, and graced the stages of the Glasgow Comedy
Festival and South By Southwest. Dylan is also a fellow
podcaster since two thousand sixteen. His blend of truth telling,
hot takes, and controversial opinions can be heard every week
on the Tim Dillon Show. Like many who make their
(00:45):
living on the road, Dylan was mostly sideline from touring
throughout the pandemic. We spoke about where and how he
spent his time during COVID. I was in Los Angeles,
and then I went out to Palm Springs, which is
a desert. Because if I don't have to be near work,
I can be in the desert. So I went out
to the desert. You have a home there too, No, no,
(01:05):
I have on your business card, he says, Palm Springs.
But part of are you in Yeah, Beverly Hills, Beverly Perfect. Yeah,
Beverly The office is of Tim Dillon. Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, Texas,
New York and New York. Yeah. I went out there
and we were able to podcast and make people laugh
on the internet. And thank god because that helped our
(01:26):
sanity and obviously we're able to monetize that and make money.
But you know, important for comedians is to be funny.
That's how we live. We're screwed up people that need
an outlet, and thank god we had an outlet. Well,
we're gonna get to your background, right, a glorious background.
You and I share a Long Island background, Long Island background,
(01:48):
which is don't all the most polished and sophisticated. You know,
I know that we're being funny, but maybe that is true.
It's true. Maybe it is true. When you're starting out,
you're in an age where you're not a kid. Did know?
And and and everything is not the Internet and the
way things are now. What was your comedy diet when
you were growing up? What it was a lot of SNL.
So it was a lot of SNL. It was a
(02:09):
lot of Farley in Spain and Chris Rock and Mike
Myers and and and even the next generation of Molly
Shannon and annagasta Ire and Rio Terry and Will Ferrell.
I loved SNL. I like Mad TV, which was you know,
was already Lang and all these other people. I love
sketch comedy. I would watch Carlin and Pryor and Hicks
and and Kinnison and Joan Rivers and all of these
(02:31):
people as I was growing up, so vintage people like Prior, yeah,
for sure. And I also loved, you know, sitcoms. So
I loved Fraser, and I loved I thought Kelsey Grammer
and David I. Pierce, I thought they were brilliant. You know.
Comedy to me was was kind of this very broad
thing that I didn't know what it was or or
how I would make a living at it. It seemed,
(02:54):
you know, incredibly unrealistic to make a living at comedy
because it was something that was so happening somewhere else,
far away, you know. And then as I you know,
got older, I was an actor as a kid, and
I did some you know, off Broadway, off off Broadway.
I toured around the country, came into the city, came
into the city a lot. I toured with any Get
(03:15):
Your Gun, which was they had a touring version of that.
But I was always in the city as an actor
and it didn't work. You know, I from the why
why do you think it didn't work? I had the
same voice I have now at seven, and that's challenging.
It's very hard for director. I have a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich and some strawberry quick. Yeah, it was
very jarring because I was a cute kid. But then
(03:37):
the director heard the voice and he went, you know,
this is a bit much. And it didn't work, but
it gave laid the groundwork and the foundation for the
idea that I loved being on stage and I love
the entertainment business and I love New York City. So
eventually it led me out of Long Island into New
York pursuing stand up comedy a decade later. But it was,
(04:00):
you know, the acting never it worked in the sense
that I was a part of a lot of really
cool things, but it never got to that next level.
I never booked in a part that took me to
l ayer. I think, do you think you could now?
Do you want to? I mean, I don't know that
I could or couldn't. I think that, Um, I'm not
the greatest actor. I'll be very honest, and I'm it's
(04:23):
actually stunning, how bad. I'm pretty good at uh being
me and being funny as me. But when I do auditions,
you know, I have friends who on lines with me.
It's stunning how not good I am. I'm surprised by
how bad If you don't have that appetite. I mean,
we just didn't audition. Eli Roth was doing a movie,
a video game movie. He's a fanny. He said, I
(04:45):
want you to work, and we didn't mean. My producer
drilled forty takes to get a really good take. They
went with an older guy who, in Eli's words, was
older and fatter and more Russian. And that's fair. Uh
and uh. But it takes me a while, but I
think I think it's a possibility. Well, the only reason
I say explored is because there's something about certain comics
(05:06):
that lead you to believe there's a kind of the
root of the comedy is to some extent, the trauma
of some experiences from childhood. Then both of those events
are there, and both of those events have been installed.
When Seinfeld did this show, he said a line once.
It really got to me. He said, when I go
out on stage, he said, I blow myself up, almost
(05:29):
like a Macy's day. You know, he says, I make
myself larger, and all of my presence is kind of
inflated and larger. Is that true of you? Are you
the same on stage as you are? Also? No, No,
I'm an exaggerated version of myself on stage. I think
I'm more animated on stage. I think off stage would
be exhausting. You couldn't get through a dinner with me
if I was not like Tom Arnold. No, it's not
(05:52):
exactly the same on camera. Really bless him. But I
know I need a, you know, some time to refuel.
And I think that, uh, I used that off stage,
and I think, but people meet me, they're a little surprised.
You go, oh, you're a little more scaled down. I go,
you will. Of course. Now you talked about how your
parents divorced and your mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, mother's kizophrenic,
(06:15):
and out that came. She came to that later in life.
That was when you were how old. I was in
my late teens when it started to come out. When
I started to go there's something wrong, and then you learn,
you know, you learn about mental illness, and you learn
that it's physical illness essentially right, and it's you know,
there's treatments and things. It can't really be helped. And like,
you know, I have jokes about it and I make
(06:36):
fun of and and and you know, I think to
certain people they'd hear that and they go, well, that
seems very callous or very cruel. But it's how I
deal with it in the same way that many people
deal with tragedies with humor. So I think, I love
my mother, and my mother, you know, did great things
for me, and I appreciate her. Your father was gone,
and no, he was there. He's there. They were still married.
(06:58):
They were still married and they got divorce eventually. Siblings none,
You were an only child, just me, Jesus Christ, just me.
They wanted one person to experience at all. They didn't
want to, you know, spread it out. They wanted one
guy to take all the all the fun of that
long island upbringing with the schizophrenic mother. For me, my
(07:18):
therapist said to me years ago, you don't want to
recreate the pain of what you experienced as a child.
You're going to restage the play, but in your version
of the play, you solve the problem that you couldn't
solve as a child. Yeah, I'm only mentioned that that's
something I carried over. What did you carry over? I
think I carried over a sense of chaos, A very
(07:39):
unhealthy sense of chaos. Um. I grew up in chaos,
and to me, I'm very comfortable around it. Right, I'm
very comfortable. I mean, as you said, what's my address?
Who knows? Right? I mean, that's kind of a good idea.
You know. I've moved every six months during the quarantine.
I liked the new things and new I mean, there's
many frustrated realtors out there. You I've left a lot
(08:00):
of them in my wake. But I do, I do.
I think unfortunately, maybe I've tied a little bit of
my creativity to the chaoss And there's a fear that
the cast is actually good, and the cast is actually
it's fuel and it's what I'm used to and what
I know, and hearing you say it, that's actually a
very interesting thing about recreating you know, those environments that
(08:21):
we grew up and we learned to thrive in, we
learned to survive in and I could see myself doing
that with a lot of some of the decisions I make.
How would you describe your style? How would you I
mean every comic has a style, your own style, or
who would you compare it to? No, I mean I
think that it's like it's it's certainly darker comedy, right,
(08:42):
So it's dark comedy. There's a lot of different comedians.
The problem with comedies whenever you compare yourself to somebody
or saying you're as good as them or anything, which
is not true at all. Right, So everyone hates doing that.
I hate doing that, But I mean I do think
it's somebody described it once they said it's very dark
in a light way, which I think is fun. Right,
There's there's darkness, but then there's also complaining about frozen yogurt. Uh.
(09:04):
I think there's a way to experience the unpleasantness of
the world in hopefully a light way that allows people
to laugh at things that they wouldn't necessarily laugh at
it on days when they don't want to laugh. That
to me is kind of what the show is about.
What the stand ups about is that when people reach
out to me and go the show has gotten me
(09:26):
through the last year, or your your live show was
so great. We're also happy. We had a rough week
and it made us happy. That's really good to me.
I don't really want or need happy people in my audience.
I need a challenge. I want someone coming in that
needs to laugh. If you're if you're twenty and yeah,
you know, i'd love them to be drunk. And but
(09:46):
I mean, if you're a model, and you you know,
sometimes they go on stage of the Hollywood Improblem, I
look at the audience and everyone's twenty three in a
model and I go, I don't know. I don't know
about this because you don't need this, and I don't
need this either. I don't need when you don't need me.
So we're on a bad day. Set, you're all set.
We're on a bad game. But that's okay too. But yeah, so,
(10:07):
I mean, I think that's the style is darkly funny
in a in a light way. Now because you don't
you don't do sitcoms. You're not on a sitcom. You've
had TV specials and stuff and things like that, Comedy
Central and that. I've never booked a role on a
recurring thing. But so for you stand up is the
main meats Well, it's stand up and the podcast is
not really big. Yeah, but that but that stand up
(10:29):
thing is your is your is your car with the podcast?
That's right? And when you do that? What is writing
like for you? Mean? They are you one of these
guys that's walking around saying, you know, squirrel, you know,
get the best acted me write that down, squirrel? No
are you constantly writing? No? I think I have like interests.
So I have these weird interests where I go, I'll
read stuff, and I'm interested in stuff. I have natural
(10:51):
curiosity about a lot of weird things. And usually the
things that interests me I find funny, I find amusing
because they amuse me. So whether it's uh, cryptocurrency now
that I'm interested in, and I don't really have a
hard position either way. I just find the world fascinating.
I find this that there's pictures of apes selling for
a million dollars online. This interests me. It seems like
(11:11):
it's all about to collapse, and again you know the darkness,
the pain running towards that. So stuff like that, I'll
start writing about that. I'll start writing about what's funny
about that? To me? What's funny about an economy based
on pictures of animals? Why is that funny to me?
Why is that ridiculous? Why is that absurd? And I'll
(11:32):
start writing about that. I'll start talking about it, maybe
on the show, and then I'll bring it to a
comedy club eventually. But I'm not a guy. I don't
have that skill set that some comedians have with ay
you can look at the squirrel or something and go immediately,
I have it immediately. I just kind of I have interests.
You don't seeking it comes to you. Yeah. I don't
sit down and write. Sometimes i'll write, but it will
(11:52):
be once I have an idea. I'll have an idea
about brunch. I hate brunch and I and I hate it,
and I want to write about why I hate it.
And I don't like Disney World. I don't like people
to go to Disney World without children. It's strange. And
I'll write about that. And I write about these things
that interest me, and and things that might look at
(12:14):
something that's not quite right. That's where it maybe starts.
That's not quite right. A picture of an ape seng
from million that's not quite right right to thirty five
ye olds to Disney World. Not a kid inside, not
quite right, brunch, a bunch of these young, boozy trunk
professionals eating you know, French toast and complaining wedding DJs.
Not quite right. So then I reverse engineer from that.
(12:37):
So the COVID you were locked down in h we're
locked down in l A. It was fine because it
was you know, the weather is great and you can
walk outside. Compared to the New York lockdown was much better.
We got away on the West Coast a lot easier
in terms of weather and just the natural, you know,
kind of beauty of the area. I'm not an l
A person in terms of I hate being in a
(12:58):
car what have and growing up on the island and
being I'm going to get to that in a second,
having being a New Yorker and a Long Island or
you love what in that l A? Do you love
being in a car and the noble being in a car?
I don't love being in a car. I do think
that LA's new and different, you know from me as
a guy that grew up in a Long Island, grew
up in New York, and I think there's a synergy
(13:20):
there that is good for creativity. Uh again, the chaos
right again, the idea of like, Okay, I'm happy and
comfortable in one place, let's move, Let's go somewhere else,
Let's find a new circle of people that. Yeah, and
so I enjoyed it, and I didn't think I'd like
it as much as I do. It came as a
surprise to me. I trash it all the time because
(13:42):
there's a lot of things worth trashing, but you learn
to live with it. You pick a coast, you know,
and I think that uh, you know, it was it was.
It was good. I love the comedy store, I love
the history, I love the you know, the idea of
you know, show business there, and I love the idea of,
you know, people that are really focused on making things happen.
(14:02):
But that also comes with the fact that you have
a lot of fake, spineless, hollow, shallow human beings. That
is tough, but you learn to love them. You'll learn
because we're all that in a way, we're all not
you know, we're not as ugly and exposed as they
are in l A. We're not as you know, naked
in the sense of our ambition as they are. But
(14:23):
I think that, like you learn to have a higher
tolerance for that out there than than you do. Like,
you know, when I went there and everyone in New
York was like living there's fake and they pretend to
like you, And I said, well, that sounds kind of nice.
There's something that's nice about that. You know, in the
beginning I hated that idea. Well, I don't want anyone
to pretend to like me unless they love me. Now,
people go, hey, how are you great to see? And
(14:45):
I get my card goes they hate me. But you
know what, that was lovely, So I think that there's
there's a you know, I know for a fact they
hate me. It's a delightful phone. But it was a
nice little meal we had and we're sitting near each
other in a restaurant. So to me, you get to
a point where you go that's okay. And then in
New York, immediately you land and people start unloading twenty
years of problems on you immediately, and you go, oh,
(15:06):
here's the problem with reality. Comedian Tim Dillon. If you
enjoy conversations with boundary pushing comedians, check out my episode
with Jordan Clepper. When I got into college, I did
the improv team and I think. What was so eye
opening for me at the time is what I found
(15:26):
in the arts and or improv specifically, was like I've
never been asked to kind of think in that way.
It was creative. There was no yes or no, there
was no right answer, and I was sudding around people
who were very curious in different ways and something It's like, well,
there's no right answer. We want to know how you
feel that. I think I had gone eighteen years where
I was like, oh, nobody asked me how I felt
about this. They just asked me like, what was the
(15:47):
slope of this this line or this angle? And for
that was that was really kind of a game changer
for me. To hear more of my conversation with Jordan Clepper,
go to our archives at Here's the Thing Org. After
the break, Tim Dillon shares with us how he thinks
we can find common ground in a contentious culture. I'm
(16:17):
Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the Thing. For a
stand up comedian, life on the road is a prerequisite,
but not all stops on tour are equal. Tim Dillon
shares with us his favorite places to perform. I love Denver,
It's a great comedy town and everybody there's hiking and
(16:38):
up and down taking edibles. They're all relaxed, they're all
ready to receive. They're very healthy, but they're also off.
They're off. There's something wrong when you look at them.
I like Denver a lot. I love Chicago. You know,
my big markets are Boston, Chicago, Denver, places where you
know you would. There are cultures in pep Bull that
(17:00):
you know enjoy comedy, and these are great towns and cities.
But then I also have the privilege of going to
other places. You know, Portland, Maine for example, place I
didn't know, but I'm sure when you say Boston, in Chicago,
places where let's be playing, where straight talking white guys
are a hit, well, they're a hit. But a lot
of things are hit. Comedies a hit, right, because there's
(17:21):
there's places where straight talking white guys are hip. A
comedy is not a hit. Oh yeah, Wyoming wouldn't work
for me. And if you're a straight talking white guy Wyoming,
you're a hit. But comedy doesn't work there because they
don't get irony. I really get satire. Uh they're not
with it now, and God bless them. And I'm sure
(17:42):
there's some lovely people that proved me wrong. But in
mass it's not a great state for comedy. It was
your family still on Long Island. Oh yeah, why leave
when the world is divided between people who Then they'll
write me on social media, well I left Bay Shore.
(18:02):
They've never left. They talked at one of years ago
and then and they'll say, oh no, I miss Robert Moses,
I missed the beaches of Lona. And there's people who
they're never leaving. Right. Well, my my friend's mother was interesting.
Every dinner we ever had. These were very good friends,
and they take us on vacations and we go to dinner.
Every dinner we had, she talked about a condo in Naples.
I mean, this was her dream of condo in Naples.
They're gonna get a condo in Naples. Name. She dragged
(18:23):
her husband down to Florida and they go endlessly look
at condos and Naples and this is all that she wanted.
And then her husband, Sadley, passed away. So I asked her,
you know a few years ago, I said, you ever
gonna get the condo Naples? She goes, well, what would
I do there? And I said, but that's all you
talked about for your whole life. And then I realized, oh,
that was the important thing. It was the idea that
she could escape, but there was no escape, So the
(18:44):
ideas that made the option. Many people talk about leaving,
but they never leave. My parents will never leave. They've
talked about Georgia and the Carolinas, They've talked about the
humidity and the nights and Charleston, but they're they're never
gonna leave. When I was a kid, my dear wrist
friends who lived in the house behind us on our
block and my best friends growing up until I was
(19:06):
nine years old. Kevin and Keith Cornelius were my best friends.
And their father, Harold Cornelius, the name they called him,
hap hap Cornelius, was a builder. And we're standing in
my drive and he turns to my daddy goes, we're
selling the house. We're moving. My Dad's like, wow, you're kidding.
He goes, yeah, we're gonna sell. We're gonna move out
to Smithtown. And this is back in the sixties. And
my father's like, wow, well, you know, God, we're gonna
(19:27):
miss you. In best of luck to And as he
walked away, my dad turned to my mother and he
goes Smithtown, Jesus, that's Siberia, and he said, can you imagine. Yeah, well,
I mean that's I think the attitude was it was
back then. It was intensely local. Everybody was very local,
and now everything's global. So now like you, you know,
I have people that messaged me. You know, a kid
(19:49):
from Pakistan messaged me the other day, young kid fifteen.
He goes, I like your podcast because you make fun
of your government. And I said, that's awesome. It was
this amazing, mind blowing moment. But it didn't even and
rock me. That's how global the world is right now.
Later on that night, I sat back and I and
I said to myself, I was like, you gotta really
think about how amazing that is, that moment that a
(20:11):
teenager in Pakistan has some have found the podcast and
likes it because you're doing something that they may not
be able to do. And he likes comedy and wants
to be a comedian. And so to me, I go,
that's a really wild thing. But we're so it's such
a global world that you don't stop and realize the
magic of that the way you should go back to
(20:33):
the island. Oh yeah, I mean we went back. I
love the food, so I always go to a strip
mall Italian restaurant and grab a bagel. I you know,
I love you. Every now and then I'll drive through
like you know, you know, King's Point, Sands Point and
look at the gads br mansions, the old mansions I
used to, you know, like, and I love the Hampton's.
I go back every summer for at least two weeks.
(20:53):
Then I rent a house and and I loved it,
and I swim at at Cooper's Beach and I and
I eat a bunch of seafood, and I see friends
and I I love it. It's the most my favorite
place in the world. But then I have to go
back to that hellish canyon on fire because it's the
choice I've made. And everyone I know who's bicoastal is
a little insane. Everyone in my business who tries to
do both coasts is crazy. And I developed an affinity
(21:16):
for Palm Springs during the quarantine to a lot of
history out there. Palm Springs got to be you know,
the stings. It was you had to be when the
old contracts came out. You could never be two hundred
more than two hundred miles away from Paramount Studios, so
Palm Springs is a hundred ninety nine miles away. It's
it's very interesting, yeah, and that's why this just this
desert town became this really kind of beautiful, interesting, perfect
(21:40):
you know Lee, you know, restored, you know, mid century
modern estates in these really some old cars and a
really kind of old Hollywood glam about it. It was
very interesting and it transported you back to the nineteen
fifties when people, I think we're somewhat optimistic about America.
Not everyone, but there there was certainly a feeling of optimism,
right it was post war, and you see that reflected
(22:01):
in the architecture and just the urban planning in the city.
You feel it, and you go, this is what it
feels like to build a city when things are going
really well, and when people believe that, you know, you know,
the cultural trends and everything are trending in the right direction.
So I I do like it out there, and I
do think that I was too quick to dismiss it.
(22:23):
You know, it will never be New York. It's not
ever gonna be news and it's apples and oranges. But
I've learned to like oranges. You know, someone said to
me once, they said, l A is just the chicist
suburb in the world. It's not really a city they're
running that doesn't have a They're a real reliable they're
absolutely public transportation system is out there. Very few people
(22:43):
know who their congressman is. Very people know who their
state assemblyment. If you do, know who their school board,
it's a very school board center political fabric out. Yes,
I'll think about a school If you put a gun
to my head, I couldn't tell you my congressman. I
know every major d of every restaurant. I know who's
working Craigs. I know who's working. You know all the
(23:04):
places I want to go, But you know who's it.
We're gonna go to Craig. We're gonna go to Craigs.
I love Craigs. That's where I saw Sydney party when
he died. Really I wrote a little quick memento and
I saw the online and I said, how I was
in Craig's. Yeah, I met him there. It's I like it.
I get into it. I think if you allow yourself
(23:24):
to get into it, and there's nothing wrong with you,
are in the business aren't you. I mean the business
and I get into it, and you know, it's like, listen,
it has its problems, sure, but at the end of
the day, it's like what place doesn't. And you know,
I tried a little bit of Austin, Texas during the quarantine.
A hellish place. Why. Um, I got a lot of
progressive friends, gay friends, people. They love that it's the
(23:46):
Republic of Austin. But I'm I'm a little spoiled by
l A and New York. So I need a tomato,
you know what I mean. I can't not have like
there are certain things I like. I can't have two
sushi restaurants that are booked out for a year, you
know what I mean? I need Yeah, I need choices
(24:07):
of places to eat and things to do and things
to see. It's you know, and then there's a lot
of people that listen, there's a lot of people that
live in Austin that didn't make it in New York
or l A. Let's just be very honest. It is
what it is. There's a little bit of a you know,
a little bit of a weirdness about that city that
I think comes from the fact that it is a
city that seems to cater to the unambitious for up
(24:29):
until recently when all the tech people are coming in
there and they'll ruin it. But for right now, forever
it's been people whose art wasn't commercially viable, so they
went to you know, get high and eat brisket. They
should have that, but not for mix um. Let me
ask you in the time we have you've done Rogan shows.
Are people mad at him? I don't know, I haven't
(24:51):
read the paper. What did you think about without commenting
on him? And I'm assuming he's a power, he's a
big pal's a pal, and but what did you think
about this whole Spotify thing? Well, again, I think a
mature country has to allow people to have conversations that
are uncomfortable and difficult. And I do think that I
love Joe. I know Joe. I'm an overweight guy who
(25:12):
smoked and you know, drank and use drugs in his life.
I was vaccinated the day it came out, because I said,
I talked to a doctor and I went, yeah, I
mean it seems to make a lot of sense for me.
I'm not I'm not gonna gamble this your sober Sober
twelve years. I got thirty seven years this month, congrats,
And I don't really go public too much about that,
but these days I don't know. Boy, what was your
(25:33):
drug of choice? Oh? I like booze. I liked coke too,
but but but booze was the down Don't you downplay
the coke thing to me? You know, coke was good,
but then you know, booze was so acceptable from an
Irish family that I was able to use this part
of cuisine. Yes, booze is part of pair with Pair,
the wines, the Chateau Brillon. Yeah, So what what I
(25:55):
think about that whole thing is that listen. I think
people should be able to have conversation. Joe's having conversations
of people that have vastly different ideas about the way
to handle coronavirus. I think that at the end of
the day, when you have a controversial topic, I don't
believe the best way to handle it is to shut
(26:15):
down speech. I think you should talk more about it
from more angles and get more views, more opinions, and
that way you flesh everything out, You get it all
out in the open, and then consensus is will emerge
and people will start seeing the avenues and what's right
and what's wrong. But to me, by shutting people down,
it doesn't necessarily help, and it makes people somewhat paranoid,
(26:38):
and they go, well, why are you not letting me
listen to that person? And why are you preventing me
from hearing this? I think a mature country has to
be able to engage in those conversations, you know, from
all sides. Comedian Tim Dillon, If you're enjoying this conversation,
tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the
(26:58):
thing on the I heart rate, EO app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Tim Dillon shares with us why the many facets of
his personality don't always make it into his act. By'm
(27:23):
Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear is the thing?
When Tim Dillon was he made several transformative decisions after
being cold for jury duty. It would ultimately change the
course of his life. I was a jouring to murder trial.
It was the whole distance. Yeah, it was two weeks
in Long Island. Murder and torture absolutely great for me,
(27:45):
a huge learning experience. It was kind of I couldn't
afford going on like the murdering, Well, when I want
to give you a chance to represent, the murder and
torture case wasn't great for you. The experience was great
for the experience of being on the jury was great
for you. Absolutely. I'm trying to help someone get there.
We go. I stepped in anyway someone was going to
have to sit in that box, and I did. And
it made me really look at my life at five
(28:07):
and go, you know, I haven't gone after what I
wanted to go after, which is being a comedian of
making people laugh. And you know, the jury, I would
make them laugh every day during lunch and they would go,
we hear the most horrible things every day, but you're
really funny. And you know, have you ever thought of,
you know, doing comedy? I go, yeah, you know, I
think about it. I've never done it. So after that trial,
I really started, you know, living the way I wanted
(28:30):
to live. So you were still using and drink. I
was still drinking during the trial. I forget what the
trial was really about. Yeah I didn't. Yeah, I didn't
pay too much attention. He'd seemed guilty. I didn't really,
you know, I didn't like the look of him, the
way he kind of just scowled. But no, I was
seemed guilty. He seemed guilty. He seemed odd and and
(28:52):
I'm like, well, I would even be in the room
if he's not guilty. But so, I mean, life was
fifty and he um. He was very guilty. He was
actually incredibly guilty. The only thing that was who did
he kill the mother of his children? And he was
he was stalked or he was a bad guy, and
I didn't feel bad putting away. I would have hated
to do a jury, and I wouldn't have done it
if it was like a drug dealer or somebody who
(29:15):
like makes a mistake and does something that they shouldn't have.
This was a guy who was a hardened criminal who
stalk and killed a woman. He go away, no problem there.
But you know, through that experience, I learned that I
had a talent for humor and I should sober room.
I was the guy. I mean, it was so fun
for people to be a part of this, and people
(29:37):
still message me and go great week of my life,
Great week of my life. So to me, it's a
test of your commuic ability to kind of go in
there where everybody. Every day it's murder, torture, murder, torture, lacerations,
and for me to go in there and just kind
of again a breath of fresh air. You know, as
soon as I heard that it was going to be
a big, high profile trial, I didn't want to get out.
I said, let me stay in because I knew that
(29:59):
it was gonna the impactful, so I am curious. I
answered questions that would get me in, like when the
prosecutor said, so, we've looked up your name, because when
they get seriously run your name, which goes you've had
your license suspended, you must hate the cops. And I said, well,
you know I didn't pay my tickets. I hate myself
for being irresponsible. And I just sit back and then
you know, the d A would look and go okay,
(30:19):
and then the defense attorney would come up and should go,
murder and torture. How can you be impartial when you
hear these things? And I go, they're just words. I've
seen no proof. So I finally got it after it
was my best audition, and I got it, and and
it changed my life. You know, I left that going, wow,
life is short. You gotta do what you want now
you are sexuality wise, you could identify as gay, Yes,
(30:43):
but what do people say to you. I don't seem like, yeah, no, no, no,
you said that that. I just canceled yourself. I said it,
you did, you just said that. But but my point
is that do people in the gay community say you're
not gay enough? Outside of the gay community, they do.
In the gay community. There's all different types of gay
(31:04):
people on television. There's one time I think that you
know that, but I'm saying that there's a lot of
I think you know, there's casting, so they cast, somebody
is gay, they cast, and it's usually you know, very
a young, good looking somebody in the design and very
stylish or whatever. But that's not It's a big community.
And I'm out of and I have you know, my
(31:26):
comedy is about who I am and honesty and all
that ship. So I don't care about anything. But I
think the gay community is a lot broader than people think.
And you don't play it up in your comedy. I
don't play it up. But I mean friends who I
won't comment on, sure are very funny, but they clearly
want they want it clear I'm gonna do a set
of gay. Yes, I have jokes a few jokes about it,
(31:47):
but not a ton. It's well known if you're a
fan of mine. But yeah, I've never felt it to
be the funniest thing. Whereas yeah, I've never felt it
to be the funniest part of me. When it works
and works in and it doesn't you leave it out. Yeah,
I just never felt like some people it is why
they are interesting, and that's not me. Some people it
(32:08):
is why they are different or where their perspective is
completely from There's nothing wrong with that in the slightest.
But with me, I think I have a lot of
different things going on, and uh, you know, it's it's
a part of my identity. There's only one tell Yeah,
there's only one clue mention ex Benedict, No, no, exactly
(32:29):
that discussing that was there was a close second when
you said Palm Springs my friends, yes, who are gay,
have gay people like the desert. We don't like the woods.
Lesbians like woods, So a lot of lesbian friends. Bomb
Springs is the street, Yes, a lot of gay people
in and and old people, people who are in their
(32:52):
nineties and hundreds. Now I want to finish with this, Yes,
first of all, we didn't get to Long Island. But
that's okay, you know, well we we've both done enough
for Long Island. But I no, no, I drove my
wife out there. We did in East Hampton, but we
we we we we go out there and take my
wife to Massive pequal go to we go to MASSI
people a lot, but I took her out here this
(33:13):
past summer. And we drive through and we do my
drive down want to a parkway. We go to Jones
Beach and here's gil Go and there's the water tower,
and here's where I was a lifeguard, and there's Fire Island,
and we go through Massive Piqua. Let me get to
my neighborhood I grew up in. And we go down
into the bowels into the south where the canals are
in the street sour shows and we go buy a house.
(33:34):
Now you would have thought this place it was a business.
They had so many Trump and Q and on flags fluttering.
It was a windy day and literally like you couldn't
get that out of designer Steven Spielberg couldn't be filmed
it better. All these things are flapping and pulsingting and
went Trump Q and on from my cold dead hands.
They must have had a hundred of them on the lawn.
(33:56):
And my wife said to me, she goes, this is
where you're from. I said, you know, we really didn't
have this when I was a kid. Yeah, it's wild.
It's I think it's always been a conservative place, but
it's now loudly political where it's like everybody, it's loudly political.
And I find that the politics and geography is the
most depressing thing to me, because I want to like
or hate a place on its merits. If you're a surfer,
(34:18):
and if you love Trump and you're a surfer, you
can't live in Texas. There's certain parts of the country
that makes sense for certain lifestyles, and now that everything
has become so crazy, Like I have friends in Florida
now that are like, well, we're here because it's free
and we love Trump. It's like, know, you're there because
you were tired at thirty two, Like you know what
(34:39):
I mean, You're there because you just want to drink
all day and God bless you. There's nothing wrong with that.
Don't tie it into politics. You just want to get
drunk on your boat. But I believe that people like
I'll look at people, and I'll say, not if you've
got to know me really like, Okay, there's no way
you can get to know me through social media or
through the business. If you got to know me, not, Oh,
if you knew me, you'd like me. But we'd at
(35:01):
least stand a chance. The way things are, there is
no chance. And I'm in Montana shooting a movie and
the weekend comes and I don't have my chargers with me.
I'm looking around my hotel. I'm like, you know, I
usually have a bag full of my charges. I gotta
go to the best buy. I call up uber. The
guy comes and picks for the hotel in a huge
pickup truck with a back cab in a second row,
(35:22):
and I get inside that I sit there and I said,
I'm so sorry. I said, where is this place? He said,
It's on the other side of town. And I go,
real tough cowboy guy, probably sixty, and he goes, it's
on the other side of town. He goes, well, this
time of day, on a weekend, it shouldn't be too bad,
he said, the traffic. He said, it's being Sunday, Sunday
morning because the place opened a ten And I go great,
and I said, I don't know this town. I'm here visiting.
(35:42):
And he literally goes. He goes to, you're a visit
of town because you're not here for that, Alex baldwoindn't
failm are you? And I so help me. God, I
got my sunglasses on and my mask and I go, no, no,
what's that? He goes, well, they're shooting some film here
with that Alex Baldwin. As a pause, he goes, I
can't stand him. He's a liar and a and a
(36:04):
wife beater. He names all this all the ship that
they've accused me of, which is true, and he and
he goes, I can't stand him. I go really, I go, wow,
I mean, I I mean, I know who he is.
I know his films, but I didn't know he was.
Is he he's all those things? He said, yeah. I
just can't stay in him. Then there's a pause, very pregnant.
He puts the music on, some country music, and we
get to the best Buy and we pull up and
(36:24):
his name is like Doug or something, it's on his
his license. And I take up my lessons and I go, Doug,
I am Alex Baldwin. And I hold up my license
and give it to him through the screen and he
takes my license, looks at it, and he looks at
me in the rear roomrror and he goes, Jesus Christ,
you are Alex. And I said, Doug, you can't believe
(36:47):
everything you read about people. I'm just asking you to
consider that. A lot of what you read it's just
fucking nonsense, and it's it's click bait for people who
want to sell things. I said, it really isn't true.
He said, well, you may be right. I'll read a
lot of stuff and I don't know what's true. I
don't know what's true. I go, well, you just tell
people that you drove me in the cabin, that we
had a nice conversation, what have you. There's is no
(37:08):
hope of how do you permeate that and talk to
understand you. Let me finish with this that I want
you to really consider acting. Well, that's very kind. Want
you to consider acting. I'll tell you why. I would
like to studios to consider me. Well, but i'd like
you to I'll tell you. I'll tell you why. Because
one thing people can't fake, which is very important in
some roles. You play one thing people have or don't
(37:31):
have it. You can't fake is authority. And if you
have that authority, you can go do twelve Angry Men.
You could you you could do the Skies the limit
and you have the intellectual velocity, you have the verbal
facility that you have with words, and the authority. You
could play the Lee J. Cob role in on the Waterfront.
(37:52):
You should really think about that. I'm gonna think about
you can't buy that. I Am going to think about it.
I do hope that, you know, more things come down
the pike, you know, I mean that is it's an
Asian for the movies. We have all the same people.
You should go make movies. You really should act all right. Well, hey,
it's self lobby if you don't, because you really because
(38:13):
you've got a great quality. Well, I appreciate it, and
thank you very much. My thanks to comedian Tim Dillon.
He'll be back on the road making people laugh this spring.
Check out his upcoming tour dates at Tim Dillon Comedy
dot com. This episode was recorded at c DM Studios
(38:33):
in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeese,
and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial, I'm at
like Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by
my Heart Radio
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. Brazen, blunt, unapologetic. These are
just a few of the words that describe the unexpected
comedy of my guest Today. Tim Dillon named one of
the top ten Comics you Need to Know by Rolling Stone.
(00:22):
This former child actor has released specials on Netflix and
Comedy Central, and graced the stages of the Glasgow Comedy
Festival and South By Southwest. Dylan is also a fellow
podcaster since two thousand sixteen. His blend of truth telling,
hot takes, and controversial opinions can be heard every week
on the Tim Dillon Show. Like many who make their
(00:45):
living on the road, Dylan was mostly sideline from touring
throughout the pandemic. We spoke about where and how he
spent his time during COVID. I was in Los Angeles,
and then I went out to Palm Springs, which is
a desert. Because if I don't have to be near work,
I can be in the desert. So I went out
to the desert. You have a home there too, No, no,
(01:05):
I have on your business card, he says, Palm Springs.
But part of are you in Yeah, Beverly Hills, Beverly Perfect. Yeah,
Beverly The office is of Tim Dillon. Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, Texas,
New York and New York. Yeah. I went out there
and we were able to podcast and make people laugh
on the internet. And thank god because that helped our
(01:26):
sanity and obviously we're able to monetize that and make money.
But you know, important for comedians is to be funny.
That's how we live. We're screwed up people that need
an outlet, and thank god we had an outlet. Well,
we're gonna get to your background, right, a glorious background.
You and I share a Long Island background, Long Island background,
(01:48):
which is don't all the most polished and sophisticated. You know,
I know that we're being funny, but maybe that is true.
It's true. Maybe it is true. When you're starting out,
you're in an age where you're not a kid. Did know?
And and and everything is not the Internet and the
way things are now. What was your comedy diet when
you were growing up? What it was a lot of SNL.
So it was a lot of SNL. It was a
(02:09):
lot of Farley in Spain and Chris Rock and Mike
Myers and and and even the next generation of Molly
Shannon and annagasta Ire and Rio Terry and Will Ferrell.
I loved SNL. I like Mad TV, which was you know,
was already Lang and all these other people. I love
sketch comedy. I would watch Carlin and Pryor and Hicks
and and Kinnison and Joan Rivers and all of these
(02:31):
people as I was growing up, so vintage people like Prior, yeah,
for sure. And I also loved, you know, sitcoms. So
I loved Fraser, and I loved I thought Kelsey Grammer
and David I. Pierce, I thought they were brilliant. You know.
Comedy to me was was kind of this very broad
thing that I didn't know what it was or or
how I would make a living at it. It seemed,
(02:54):
you know, incredibly unrealistic to make a living at comedy
because it was something that was so happening somewhere else,
far away, you know. And then as I you know,
got older, I was an actor as a kid, and
I did some you know, off Broadway, off off Broadway.
I toured around the country, came into the city, came
into the city a lot. I toured with any Get
(03:15):
Your Gun, which was they had a touring version of that.
But I was always in the city as an actor
and it didn't work. You know, I from the why
why do you think it didn't work? I had the
same voice I have now at seven, and that's challenging.
It's very hard for director. I have a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich and some strawberry quick. Yeah, it was
very jarring because I was a cute kid. But then
(03:37):
the director heard the voice and he went, you know,
this is a bit much. And it didn't work, but
it gave laid the groundwork and the foundation for the
idea that I loved being on stage and I love
the entertainment business and I love New York City. So
eventually it led me out of Long Island into New
York pursuing stand up comedy a decade later. But it was,
(04:00):
you know, the acting never it worked in the sense
that I was a part of a lot of really
cool things, but it never got to that next level.
I never booked in a part that took me to
l ayer. I think, do you think you could now?
Do you want to? I mean, I don't know that
I could or couldn't. I think that, Um, I'm not
the greatest actor. I'll be very honest, and I'm it's
(04:23):
actually stunning, how bad. I'm pretty good at uh being
me and being funny as me. But when I do auditions,
you know, I have friends who on lines with me.
It's stunning how not good I am. I'm surprised by
how bad If you don't have that appetite. I mean,
we just didn't audition. Eli Roth was doing a movie,
a video game movie. He's a fanny. He said, I
(04:45):
want you to work, and we didn't mean. My producer
drilled forty takes to get a really good take. They
went with an older guy who, in Eli's words, was
older and fatter and more Russian. And that's fair. Uh
and uh. But it takes me a while, but I
think I think it's a possibility. Well, the only reason
I say explored is because there's something about certain comics
(05:06):
that lead you to believe there's a kind of the
root of the comedy is to some extent, the trauma
of some experiences from childhood. Then both of those events
are there, and both of those events have been installed.
When Seinfeld did this show, he said a line once.
It really got to me. He said, when I go
out on stage, he said, I blow myself up, almost
(05:29):
like a Macy's day. You know, he says, I make
myself larger, and all of my presence is kind of
inflated and larger. Is that true of you? Are you
the same on stage as you are? Also? No, No,
I'm an exaggerated version of myself on stage. I think
I'm more animated on stage. I think off stage would
be exhausting. You couldn't get through a dinner with me
if I was not like Tom Arnold. No, it's not
(05:52):
exactly the same on camera. Really bless him. But I
know I need a, you know, some time to refuel.
And I think that, uh, I used that off stage,
and I think, but people meet me, they're a little surprised.
You go, oh, you're a little more scaled down. I go,
you will. Of course. Now you talked about how your
parents divorced and your mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, mother's kizophrenic,
(06:15):
and out that came. She came to that later in life.
That was when you were how old. I was in
my late teens when it started to come out. When
I started to go there's something wrong, and then you learn,
you know, you learn about mental illness, and you learn
that it's physical illness essentially right, and it's you know,
there's treatments and things. It can't really be helped. And like,
you know, I have jokes about it and I make
(06:36):
fun of and and and you know, I think to
certain people they'd hear that and they go, well, that
seems very callous or very cruel. But it's how I
deal with it in the same way that many people
deal with tragedies with humor. So I think, I love
my mother, and my mother, you know, did great things
for me, and I appreciate her. Your father was gone,
and no, he was there. He's there. They were still married.
(06:58):
They were still married and they got divorce eventually. Siblings none,
You were an only child, just me, Jesus Christ, just me.
They wanted one person to experience at all. They didn't
want to, you know, spread it out. They wanted one
guy to take all the all the fun of that
long island upbringing with the schizophrenic mother. For me, my
(07:18):
therapist said to me years ago, you don't want to
recreate the pain of what you experienced as a child.
You're going to restage the play, but in your version
of the play, you solve the problem that you couldn't
solve as a child. Yeah, I'm only mentioned that that's
something I carried over. What did you carry over? I
think I carried over a sense of chaos, A very
(07:39):
unhealthy sense of chaos. Um. I grew up in chaos,
and to me, I'm very comfortable around it. Right, I'm
very comfortable. I mean, as you said, what's my address?
Who knows? Right? I mean, that's kind of a good idea.
You know. I've moved every six months during the quarantine.
I liked the new things and new I mean, there's
many frustrated realtors out there. You I've left a lot
(08:00):
of them in my wake. But I do, I do.
I think unfortunately, maybe I've tied a little bit of
my creativity to the chaoss And there's a fear that
the cast is actually good, and the cast is actually
it's fuel and it's what I'm used to and what
I know, and hearing you say it, that's actually a
very interesting thing about recreating you know, those environments that
(08:21):
we grew up and we learned to thrive in, we
learned to survive in and I could see myself doing
that with a lot of some of the decisions I make.
How would you describe your style? How would you I
mean every comic has a style, your own style, or
who would you compare it to? No, I mean I
think that it's like it's it's certainly darker comedy, right,
(08:42):
So it's dark comedy. There's a lot of different comedians.
The problem with comedies whenever you compare yourself to somebody
or saying you're as good as them or anything, which
is not true at all. Right, So everyone hates doing that.
I hate doing that, But I mean I do think
it's somebody described it once they said it's very dark
in a light way, which I think is fun. Right,
There's there's darkness, but then there's also complaining about frozen yogurt. Uh.
(09:04):
I think there's a way to experience the unpleasantness of
the world in hopefully a light way that allows people
to laugh at things that they wouldn't necessarily laugh at
it on days when they don't want to laugh. That
to me is kind of what the show is about.
What the stand ups about is that when people reach
out to me and go the show has gotten me
(09:26):
through the last year, or your your live show was
so great. We're also happy. We had a rough week
and it made us happy. That's really good to me.
I don't really want or need happy people in my audience.
I need a challenge. I want someone coming in that
needs to laugh. If you're if you're twenty and yeah,
you know, i'd love them to be drunk. And but
(09:46):
I mean, if you're a model, and you you know,
sometimes they go on stage of the Hollywood Improblem, I
look at the audience and everyone's twenty three in a
model and I go, I don't know. I don't know
about this because you don't need this, and I don't
need this either. I don't need when you don't need me.
So we're on a bad day. Set, you're all set.
We're on a bad game. But that's okay too. But yeah, so,
(10:07):
I mean, I think that's the style is darkly funny
in a in a light way. Now because you don't
you don't do sitcoms. You're not on a sitcom. You've
had TV specials and stuff and things like that, Comedy
Central and that. I've never booked a role on a
recurring thing. But so for you stand up is the
main meats Well, it's stand up and the podcast is
not really big. Yeah, but that but that stand up
(10:29):
thing is your is your is your car with the podcast?
That's right? And when you do that? What is writing
like for you? Mean? They are you one of these
guys that's walking around saying, you know, squirrel, you know,
get the best acted me write that down, squirrel? No
are you constantly writing? No? I think I have like interests.
So I have these weird interests where I go, I'll
read stuff, and I'm interested in stuff. I have natural
(10:51):
curiosity about a lot of weird things. And usually the
things that interests me I find funny, I find amusing
because they amuse me. So whether it's uh, cryptocurrency now
that I'm interested in, and I don't really have a
hard position either way. I just find the world fascinating.
I find this that there's pictures of apes selling for
a million dollars online. This interests me. It seems like
(11:11):
it's all about to collapse, and again you know the darkness,
the pain running towards that. So stuff like that, I'll
start writing about that. I'll start writing about what's funny
about that? To me? What's funny about an economy based
on pictures of animals? Why is that funny to me?
Why is that ridiculous? Why is that absurd? And I'll
(11:32):
start writing about that. I'll start talking about it, maybe
on the show, and then I'll bring it to a
comedy club eventually. But I'm not a guy. I don't
have that skill set that some comedians have with ay
you can look at the squirrel or something and go immediately,
I have it immediately. I just kind of I have interests.
You don't seeking it comes to you. Yeah. I don't
sit down and write. Sometimes i'll write, but it will
(11:52):
be once I have an idea. I'll have an idea
about brunch. I hate brunch and I and I hate it,
and I want to write about why I hate it.
And I don't like Disney World. I don't like people
to go to Disney World without children. It's strange. And
I'll write about that. And I write about these things
that interest me, and and things that might look at
(12:14):
something that's not quite right. That's where it maybe starts.
That's not quite right. A picture of an ape seng
from million that's not quite right right to thirty five
ye olds to Disney World. Not a kid inside, not
quite right, brunch, a bunch of these young, boozy trunk
professionals eating you know, French toast and complaining wedding DJs.
Not quite right. So then I reverse engineer from that.
(12:37):
So the COVID you were locked down in h we're
locked down in l A. It was fine because it
was you know, the weather is great and you can
walk outside. Compared to the New York lockdown was much better.
We got away on the West Coast a lot easier
in terms of weather and just the natural, you know,
kind of beauty of the area. I'm not an l
A person in terms of I hate being in a
(12:58):
car what have and growing up on the island and
being I'm going to get to that in a second,
having being a New Yorker and a Long Island or
you love what in that l A? Do you love
being in a car and the noble being in a car?
I don't love being in a car. I do think
that LA's new and different, you know from me as
a guy that grew up in a Long Island, grew
up in New York, and I think there's a synergy
(13:20):
there that is good for creativity. Uh again, the chaos
right again, the idea of like, Okay, I'm happy and
comfortable in one place, let's move, Let's go somewhere else,
Let's find a new circle of people that. Yeah, and
so I enjoyed it, and I didn't think I'd like
it as much as I do. It came as a
surprise to me. I trash it all the time because
(13:42):
there's a lot of things worth trashing, but you learn
to live with it. You pick a coast, you know,
and I think that uh, you know, it was it was.
It was good. I love the comedy store, I love
the history, I love the you know, the idea of
you know, show business there, and I love the idea of,
you know, people that are really focused on making things happen.
(14:02):
But that also comes with the fact that you have
a lot of fake, spineless, hollow, shallow human beings. That
is tough, but you learn to love them. You'll learn
because we're all that in a way, we're all not
you know, we're not as ugly and exposed as they
are in l A. We're not as you know, naked
in the sense of our ambition as they are. But
(14:23):
I think that, like you learn to have a higher
tolerance for that out there than than you do. Like,
you know, when I went there and everyone in New
York was like living there's fake and they pretend to
like you, And I said, well, that sounds kind of nice.
There's something that's nice about that. You know, in the
beginning I hated that idea. Well, I don't want anyone
to pretend to like me unless they love me. Now,
people go, hey, how are you great to see? And
(14:45):
I get my card goes they hate me. But you
know what, that was lovely, So I think that there's
there's a you know, I know for a fact they
hate me. It's a delightful phone. But it was a
nice little meal we had and we're sitting near each
other in a restaurant. So to me, you get to
a point where you go that's okay. And then in
New York, immediately you land and people start unloading twenty
years of problems on you immediately, and you go, oh,
(15:06):
here's the problem with reality. Comedian Tim Dillon. If you
enjoy conversations with boundary pushing comedians, check out my episode
with Jordan Clepper. When I got into college, I did
the improv team and I think. What was so eye
opening for me at the time is what I found
(15:26):
in the arts and or improv specifically, was like I've
never been asked to kind of think in that way.
It was creative. There was no yes or no, there
was no right answer, and I was sudding around people
who were very curious in different ways and something It's like, well,
there's no right answer. We want to know how you
feel that. I think I had gone eighteen years where
I was like, oh, nobody asked me how I felt
about this. They just asked me like, what was the
(15:47):
slope of this this line or this angle? And for
that was that was really kind of a game changer
for me. To hear more of my conversation with Jordan Clepper,
go to our archives at Here's the Thing Org. After
the break, Tim Dillon shares with us how he thinks
we can find common ground in a contentious culture. I'm
(16:17):
Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the Thing. For a
stand up comedian, life on the road is a prerequisite,
but not all stops on tour are equal. Tim Dillon
shares with us his favorite places to perform. I love Denver,
It's a great comedy town and everybody there's hiking and
(16:38):
up and down taking edibles. They're all relaxed, they're all
ready to receive. They're very healthy, but they're also off.
They're off. There's something wrong when you look at them.
I like Denver a lot. I love Chicago. You know,
my big markets are Boston, Chicago, Denver, places where you
know you would. There are cultures in pep Bull that
(17:00):
you know enjoy comedy, and these are great towns and cities.
But then I also have the privilege of going to
other places. You know, Portland, Maine for example, place I
didn't know, but I'm sure when you say Boston, in Chicago,
places where let's be playing, where straight talking white guys
are a hit, well, they're a hit. But a lot
of things are hit. Comedies a hit, right, because there's
(17:21):
there's places where straight talking white guys are hip. A
comedy is not a hit. Oh yeah, Wyoming wouldn't work
for me. And if you're a straight talking white guy Wyoming,
you're a hit. But comedy doesn't work there because they
don't get irony. I really get satire. Uh they're not
with it now, and God bless them. And I'm sure
(17:42):
there's some lovely people that proved me wrong. But in
mass it's not a great state for comedy. It was
your family still on Long Island. Oh yeah, why leave
when the world is divided between people who Then they'll
write me on social media, well I left Bay Shore.
(18:02):
They've never left. They talked at one of years ago
and then and they'll say, oh no, I miss Robert Moses,
I missed the beaches of Lona. And there's people who
they're never leaving. Right. Well, my my friend's mother was interesting.
Every dinner we ever had. These were very good friends,
and they take us on vacations and we go to dinner.
Every dinner we had, she talked about a condo in Naples.
I mean, this was her dream of condo in Naples.
They're gonna get a condo in Naples. Name. She dragged
(18:23):
her husband down to Florida and they go endlessly look
at condos and Naples and this is all that she wanted.
And then her husband, Sadley, passed away. So I asked her,
you know a few years ago, I said, you ever
gonna get the condo Naples? She goes, well, what would
I do there? And I said, but that's all you
talked about for your whole life. And then I realized, oh,
that was the important thing. It was the idea that
she could escape, but there was no escape, So the
(18:44):
ideas that made the option. Many people talk about leaving,
but they never leave. My parents will never leave. They've
talked about Georgia and the Carolinas, They've talked about the
humidity and the nights and Charleston, but they're they're never
gonna leave. When I was a kid, my dear wrist
friends who lived in the house behind us on our
block and my best friends growing up until I was
(19:06):
nine years old. Kevin and Keith Cornelius were my best friends.
And their father, Harold Cornelius, the name they called him,
hap hap Cornelius, was a builder. And we're standing in
my drive and he turns to my daddy goes, we're
selling the house. We're moving. My Dad's like, wow, you're kidding.
He goes, yeah, we're gonna sell. We're gonna move out
to Smithtown. And this is back in the sixties. And
my father's like, wow, well, you know, God, we're gonna
(19:27):
miss you. In best of luck to And as he
walked away, my dad turned to my mother and he
goes Smithtown, Jesus, that's Siberia, and he said, can you imagine. Yeah, well,
I mean that's I think the attitude was it was
back then. It was intensely local. Everybody was very local,
and now everything's global. So now like you, you know,
I have people that messaged me. You know, a kid
(19:49):
from Pakistan messaged me the other day, young kid fifteen.
He goes, I like your podcast because you make fun
of your government. And I said, that's awesome. It was
this amazing, mind blowing moment. But it didn't even and
rock me. That's how global the world is right now.
Later on that night, I sat back and I and
I said to myself, I was like, you gotta really
think about how amazing that is, that moment that a
(20:11):
teenager in Pakistan has some have found the podcast and
likes it because you're doing something that they may not
be able to do. And he likes comedy and wants
to be a comedian. And so to me, I go,
that's a really wild thing. But we're so it's such
a global world that you don't stop and realize the
magic of that the way you should go back to
(20:33):
the island. Oh yeah, I mean we went back. I
love the food, so I always go to a strip
mall Italian restaurant and grab a bagel. I you know,
I love you. Every now and then I'll drive through
like you know, you know, King's Point, Sands Point and
look at the gads br mansions, the old mansions I
used to, you know, like, and I love the Hampton's.
I go back every summer for at least two weeks.
(20:53):
Then I rent a house and and I loved it,
and I swim at at Cooper's Beach and I and
I eat a bunch of seafood, and I see friends
and I I love it. It's the most my favorite
place in the world. But then I have to go
back to that hellish canyon on fire because it's the
choice I've made. And everyone I know who's bicoastal is
a little insane. Everyone in my business who tries to
do both coasts is crazy. And I developed an affinity
(21:16):
for Palm Springs during the quarantine to a lot of
history out there. Palm Springs got to be you know,
the stings. It was you had to be when the
old contracts came out. You could never be two hundred
more than two hundred miles away from Paramount Studios, so
Palm Springs is a hundred ninety nine miles away. It's
it's very interesting, yeah, and that's why this just this
desert town became this really kind of beautiful, interesting, perfect
(21:40):
you know Lee, you know, restored, you know, mid century
modern estates in these really some old cars and a
really kind of old Hollywood glam about it. It was
very interesting and it transported you back to the nineteen
fifties when people, I think we're somewhat optimistic about America.
Not everyone, but there there was certainly a feeling of optimism,
right it was post war, and you see that reflected
(22:01):
in the architecture and just the urban planning in the city.
You feel it, and you go, this is what it
feels like to build a city when things are going
really well, and when people believe that, you know, you know,
the cultural trends and everything are trending in the right direction.
So I I do like it out there, and I
do think that I was too quick to dismiss it.
(22:23):
You know, it will never be New York. It's not
ever gonna be news and it's apples and oranges. But
I've learned to like oranges. You know, someone said to
me once, they said, l A is just the chicist
suburb in the world. It's not really a city they're
running that doesn't have a They're a real reliable they're
absolutely public transportation system is out there. Very few people
(22:43):
know who their congressman is. Very people know who their
state assemblyment. If you do, know who their school board,
it's a very school board center political fabric out. Yes,
I'll think about a school If you put a gun
to my head, I couldn't tell you my congressman. I
know every major d of every restaurant. I know who's
working Craigs. I know who's working. You know all the
(23:04):
places I want to go, But you know who's it.
We're gonna go to Craig. We're gonna go to Craigs.
I love Craigs. That's where I saw Sydney party when
he died. Really I wrote a little quick memento and
I saw the online and I said, how I was
in Craig's. Yeah, I met him there. It's I like it.
I get into it. I think if you allow yourself
(23:24):
to get into it, and there's nothing wrong with you,
are in the business aren't you. I mean the business
and I get into it, and you know, it's like, listen,
it has its problems, sure, but at the end of
the day, it's like what place doesn't. And you know,
I tried a little bit of Austin, Texas during the quarantine.
A hellish place. Why. Um, I got a lot of
progressive friends, gay friends, people. They love that it's the
(23:46):
Republic of Austin. But I'm I'm a little spoiled by
l A and New York. So I need a tomato,
you know what I mean. I can't not have like
there are certain things I like. I can't have two
sushi restaurants that are booked out for a year, you
know what I mean? I need Yeah, I need choices
(24:07):
of places to eat and things to do and things
to see. It's you know, and then there's a lot
of people that listen, there's a lot of people that
live in Austin that didn't make it in New York
or l A. Let's just be very honest. It is
what it is. There's a little bit of a you know,
a little bit of a weirdness about that city that
I think comes from the fact that it is a
city that seems to cater to the unambitious for up
(24:29):
until recently when all the tech people are coming in
there and they'll ruin it. But for right now, forever
it's been people whose art wasn't commercially viable, so they
went to you know, get high and eat brisket. They
should have that, but not for mix um. Let me
ask you in the time we have you've done Rogan shows.
Are people mad at him? I don't know, I haven't
(24:51):
read the paper. What did you think about without commenting
on him? And I'm assuming he's a power, he's a
big pal's a pal, and but what did you think
about this whole Spotify thing? Well, again, I think a
mature country has to allow people to have conversations that
are uncomfortable and difficult. And I do think that I
love Joe. I know Joe. I'm an overweight guy who
(25:12):
smoked and you know, drank and use drugs in his life.
I was vaccinated the day it came out, because I said,
I talked to a doctor and I went, yeah, I
mean it seems to make a lot of sense for me.
I'm not I'm not gonna gamble this your sober Sober
twelve years. I got thirty seven years this month, congrats,
And I don't really go public too much about that,
but these days I don't know. Boy, what was your
(25:33):
drug of choice? Oh? I like booze. I liked coke too,
but but but booze was the down Don't you downplay
the coke thing to me? You know, coke was good,
but then you know, booze was so acceptable from an
Irish family that I was able to use this part
of cuisine. Yes, booze is part of pair with Pair,
the wines, the Chateau Brillon. Yeah, So what what I
(25:55):
think about that whole thing is that listen. I think
people should be able to have conversation. Joe's having conversations
of people that have vastly different ideas about the way
to handle coronavirus. I think that at the end of
the day, when you have a controversial topic, I don't
believe the best way to handle it is to shut
(26:15):
down speech. I think you should talk more about it
from more angles and get more views, more opinions, and
that way you flesh everything out, You get it all
out in the open, and then consensus is will emerge
and people will start seeing the avenues and what's right
and what's wrong. But to me, by shutting people down,
it doesn't necessarily help, and it makes people somewhat paranoid,
(26:38):
and they go, well, why are you not letting me
listen to that person? And why are you preventing me
from hearing this? I think a mature country has to
be able to engage in those conversations, you know, from
all sides. Comedian Tim Dillon, If you're enjoying this conversation,
tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the
(26:58):
thing on the I heart rate, EO app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Tim Dillon shares with us why the many facets of
his personality don't always make it into his act. By'm
(27:23):
Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear is the thing?
When Tim Dillon was he made several transformative decisions after
being cold for jury duty. It would ultimately change the
course of his life. I was a jouring to murder trial.
It was the whole distance. Yeah, it was two weeks
in Long Island. Murder and torture absolutely great for me,
(27:45):
a huge learning experience. It was kind of I couldn't
afford going on like the murdering, Well, when I want
to give you a chance to represent, the murder and
torture case wasn't great for you. The experience was great
for the experience of being on the jury was great
for you. Absolutely. I'm trying to help someone get there.
We go. I stepped in anyway someone was going to
have to sit in that box, and I did. And
it made me really look at my life at five
(28:07):
and go, you know, I haven't gone after what I
wanted to go after, which is being a comedian of
making people laugh. And you know, the jury, I would
make them laugh every day during lunch and they would go,
we hear the most horrible things every day, but you're
really funny. And you know, have you ever thought of,
you know, doing comedy? I go, yeah, you know, I
think about it. I've never done it. So after that trial,
I really started, you know, living the way I wanted
(28:30):
to live. So you were still using and drink. I
was still drinking during the trial. I forget what the
trial was really about. Yeah I didn't. Yeah, I didn't
pay too much attention. He'd seemed guilty. I didn't really,
you know, I didn't like the look of him, the
way he kind of just scowled. But no, I was
seemed guilty. He seemed guilty. He seemed odd and and
(28:52):
I'm like, well, I would even be in the room
if he's not guilty. But so, I mean, life was
fifty and he um. He was very guilty. He was
actually incredibly guilty. The only thing that was who did
he kill the mother of his children? And he was
he was stalked or he was a bad guy, and
I didn't feel bad putting away. I would have hated
to do a jury, and I wouldn't have done it
if it was like a drug dealer or somebody who
(29:15):
like makes a mistake and does something that they shouldn't have.
This was a guy who was a hardened criminal who
stalk and killed a woman. He go away, no problem there.
But you know, through that experience, I learned that I
had a talent for humor and I should sober room.
I was the guy. I mean, it was so fun
for people to be a part of this, and people
(29:37):
still message me and go great week of my life,
Great week of my life. So to me, it's a
test of your commuic ability to kind of go in
there where everybody. Every day it's murder, torture, murder, torture, lacerations,
and for me to go in there and just kind
of again a breath of fresh air. You know, as
soon as I heard that it was going to be
a big, high profile trial, I didn't want to get out.
I said, let me stay in because I knew that
(29:59):
it was gonna the impactful, so I am curious. I
answered questions that would get me in, like when the
prosecutor said, so, we've looked up your name, because when
they get seriously run your name, which goes you've had
your license suspended, you must hate the cops. And I said, well,
you know I didn't pay my tickets. I hate myself
for being irresponsible. And I just sit back and then
you know, the d A would look and go okay,
(30:19):
and then the defense attorney would come up and should go,
murder and torture. How can you be impartial when you
hear these things? And I go, they're just words. I've
seen no proof. So I finally got it after it
was my best audition, and I got it, and and
it changed my life. You know, I left that going, wow,
life is short. You gotta do what you want now
you are sexuality wise, you could identify as gay, Yes,
(30:43):
but what do people say to you. I don't seem like, yeah, no, no, no,
you said that that. I just canceled yourself. I said it,
you did, you just said that. But but my point
is that do people in the gay community say you're
not gay enough? Outside of the gay community, they do.
In the gay community. There's all different types of gay
(31:04):
people on television. There's one time I think that you
know that, but I'm saying that there's a lot of
I think you know, there's casting, so they cast, somebody
is gay, they cast, and it's usually you know, very
a young, good looking somebody in the design and very
stylish or whatever. But that's not It's a big community.
And I'm out of and I have you know, my
(31:26):
comedy is about who I am and honesty and all
that ship. So I don't care about anything. But I
think the gay community is a lot broader than people think.
And you don't play it up in your comedy. I
don't play it up. But I mean friends who I
won't comment on, sure are very funny, but they clearly
want they want it clear I'm gonna do a set
of gay. Yes, I have jokes a few jokes about it,
(31:47):
but not a ton. It's well known if you're a
fan of mine. But yeah, I've never felt it to
be the funniest thing. Whereas yeah, I've never felt it
to be the funniest part of me. When it works
and works in and it doesn't you leave it out. Yeah,
I just never felt like some people it is why
they are interesting, and that's not me. Some people it
(32:08):
is why they are different or where their perspective is
completely from There's nothing wrong with that in the slightest.
But with me, I think I have a lot of
different things going on, and uh, you know, it's it's
a part of my identity. There's only one tell Yeah,
there's only one clue mention ex Benedict, No, no, exactly
(32:29):
that discussing that was there was a close second when
you said Palm Springs my friends, yes, who are gay,
have gay people like the desert. We don't like the woods.
Lesbians like woods, So a lot of lesbian friends. Bomb
Springs is the street, Yes, a lot of gay people
in and and old people, people who are in their
(32:52):
nineties and hundreds. Now I want to finish with this, Yes,
first of all, we didn't get to Long Island. But
that's okay, you know, well we we've both done enough
for Long Island. But I no, no, I drove my
wife out there. We did in East Hampton, but we
we we we we go out there and take my
wife to Massive pequal go to we go to MASSI
people a lot, but I took her out here this
(33:13):
past summer. And we drive through and we do my
drive down want to a parkway. We go to Jones
Beach and here's gil Go and there's the water tower,
and here's where I was a lifeguard, and there's Fire Island,
and we go through Massive Piqua. Let me get to
my neighborhood I grew up in. And we go down
into the bowels into the south where the canals are
in the street sour shows and we go buy a house.
(33:34):
Now you would have thought this place it was a business.
They had so many Trump and Q and on flags fluttering.
It was a windy day and literally like you couldn't
get that out of designer Steven Spielberg couldn't be filmed
it better. All these things are flapping and pulsingting and
went Trump Q and on from my cold dead hands.
They must have had a hundred of them on the lawn.
(33:56):
And my wife said to me, she goes, this is
where you're from. I said, you know, we really didn't
have this when I was a kid. Yeah, it's wild.
It's I think it's always been a conservative place, but
it's now loudly political where it's like everybody, it's loudly political.
And I find that the politics and geography is the
most depressing thing to me, because I want to like
or hate a place on its merits. If you're a surfer,
(34:18):
and if you love Trump and you're a surfer, you
can't live in Texas. There's certain parts of the country
that makes sense for certain lifestyles, and now that everything
has become so crazy, Like I have friends in Florida
now that are like, well, we're here because it's free
and we love Trump. It's like, know, you're there because
you were tired at thirty two, Like you know what
(34:39):
I mean, You're there because you just want to drink
all day and God bless you. There's nothing wrong with that.
Don't tie it into politics. You just want to get
drunk on your boat. But I believe that people like
I'll look at people, and I'll say, not if you've
got to know me really like, Okay, there's no way
you can get to know me through social media or
through the business. If you got to know me, not, Oh,
if you knew me, you'd like me. But we'd at
(35:01):
least stand a chance. The way things are, there is
no chance. And I'm in Montana shooting a movie and
the weekend comes and I don't have my chargers with me.
I'm looking around my hotel. I'm like, you know, I
usually have a bag full of my charges. I gotta
go to the best buy. I call up uber. The
guy comes and picks for the hotel in a huge
pickup truck with a back cab in a second row,
(35:22):
and I get inside that I sit there and I said,
I'm so sorry. I said, where is this place? He said,
It's on the other side of town. And I go,
real tough cowboy guy, probably sixty, and he goes, it's
on the other side of town. He goes, well, this
time of day, on a weekend, it shouldn't be too bad,
he said, the traffic. He said, it's being Sunday, Sunday
morning because the place opened a ten And I go great,
and I said, I don't know this town. I'm here visiting.
(35:42):
And he literally goes. He goes to, you're a visit
of town because you're not here for that, Alex baldwoindn't
failm are you? And I so help me. God, I
got my sunglasses on and my mask and I go, no, no,
what's that? He goes, well, they're shooting some film here
with that Alex Baldwin. As a pause, he goes, I
can't stand him. He's a liar and a and a
(36:04):
wife beater. He names all this all the ship that
they've accused me of, which is true, and he and
he goes, I can't stand him. I go really, I go, wow,
I mean, I I mean, I know who he is.
I know his films, but I didn't know he was.
Is he he's all those things? He said, yeah. I
just can't stay in him. Then there's a pause, very pregnant.
He puts the music on, some country music, and we
get to the best Buy and we pull up and
(36:24):
his name is like Doug or something, it's on his
his license. And I take up my lessons and I go, Doug,
I am Alex Baldwin. And I hold up my license
and give it to him through the screen and he
takes my license, looks at it, and he looks at
me in the rear roomrror and he goes, Jesus Christ,
you are Alex. And I said, Doug, you can't believe
(36:47):
everything you read about people. I'm just asking you to
consider that. A lot of what you read it's just
fucking nonsense, and it's it's click bait for people who
want to sell things. I said, it really isn't true.
He said, well, you may be right. I'll read a
lot of stuff and I don't know what's true. I
don't know what's true. I go, well, you just tell
people that you drove me in the cabin, that we
had a nice conversation, what have you. There's is no
(37:08):
hope of how do you permeate that and talk to
understand you. Let me finish with this that I want
you to really consider acting. Well, that's very kind. Want
you to consider acting. I'll tell you why. I would
like to studios to consider me. Well, but i'd like
you to I'll tell you. I'll tell you why. Because
one thing people can't fake, which is very important in
some roles. You play one thing people have or don't
(37:31):
have it. You can't fake is authority. And if you
have that authority, you can go do twelve Angry Men.
You could you you could do the Skies the limit
and you have the intellectual velocity, you have the verbal
facility that you have with words, and the authority. You
could play the Lee J. Cob role in on the Waterfront.
(37:52):
You should really think about that. I'm gonna think about
you can't buy that. I Am going to think about it.
I do hope that, you know, more things come down
the pike, you know, I mean that is it's an
Asian for the movies. We have all the same people.
You should go make movies. You really should act all right. Well, hey,
it's self lobby if you don't, because you really because
(38:13):
you've got a great quality. Well, I appreciate it, and
thank you very much. My thanks to comedian Tim Dillon.
He'll be back on the road making people laugh this spring.
Check out his upcoming tour dates at Tim Dillon Comedy
dot com. This episode was recorded at c DM Studios
(38:33):
in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeese,
and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial, I'm at
like Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by
my Heart Radio
Host
Alec Baldwin
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