Fitzdog Radio - Harland Williams - Episode 1060

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

My accountant Harland Williams comes on to talk about IRA funds, wills and trusts and how to diversify into Index fund. He really gets this world and you will too! Follow Harland Williams on Instagram @HarlandWilliams

Alright, hey, welcome to Fitts Dog Radio. It's an exciting summer day. I'm recording this a little bit early because I'm heading off for Vermont. I've got a friend who's got a house in the woods with a pond and apple orchards. So we're gonna go up there, me and the wife. It's kind of our, it's our 25th anniversary this month and so this is kind of our celebration of it. I'm married to just the most wonderful, I hate to be the guy, some people don't trust the guy that says he loves his wife after all these years, But she is truly amazing. She is the most balanced, grounded,

egoless, funny. I just, I feel like we're still dating after 25 years. That's all I'm gonna say. Because some of you were divorced, some of you were in bad marriages. I'm sorry, I got lucky as shit. The day I met her, I knew I'd marry her, and I am just, what can I say?

I've never taken it for granted. I feel like, you know, we grow, whatever. I'm not gonna, shut the fuck up, Greg. Jesus. know we grow that whatever I'm not gonna shut the fuck up Greg Jesus it's also my daughter's 21st birthday this week so happy birthday to Jojo very cool chick she's the kind of girl that or should I say woman now she's a woman who attracts people to her. People want to be around her. They want to be her friend.

She's just like, she had a crazy teen years. She was a wild teenager and it was tough. It was like, I went to therapy. This chick sent me to therapy. Dealing with, because everybody talks about, if you're over 40 and you went to therapy, this chick sent me to therapy. Dealing with, because everybody talks about, if you're over 40 and you go to therapy and you talk about your parents, just fucking wrap it up. You're not allowed to talk about the parents at this point.

But kids, absolutely. You got to transfer what's fucking up your life. Thank God it was a phase that she's come out of, but from the time she was little she was obstinate. I remember when she was probably about six, probably six, seven. We went to this pool and family were there, friends were there, and the sun was going down, it started getting cold. I was like out of the pool.

She was the last one in the pool. She like is a water junkie. She's been a surfer her whole life. You can't, you couldn't get her out of water. And so I said, okay, JoJo, time to wrap it up. And she just looks at me and she swims towards the middle of the pool. And I'm like, JoJo, we're going now, let's do it.

I'm not, and I don't want to jump in the pool and get her out because I had just, I had methodically dried my bathing suit lied on the front the back the sides bathing suits dry we got a walk to the car it's getting chilly out Jojo come on and now so now everybody's watching everybody's like oh look at this poor asshole he has no control over his own child. What a bad parent. So now I'm now I'm doing all the mistakes. Okay JoJo if you get out now we'll go get ice cream on the way home. Oh he's trying to treat her. He's doing the treat. That's a rookie move. JoJo if

you don't get out of the pool no TV for the... Oh now he's threatening. Nothing's working. Nothing's working. So finally I'm just like are we gonna get the fuck out of here? I jump in the pool It's freezing. I grab her I pull her out and she reaches for the towel and I grab the towel I go, I don't think so So now we walk about a block to get to the car and it's chilly and she's wet. And I'm a fucked up parent for doing this, but I did it. And I let her walk to the car, wet and cold. And I felt bad about it, but also it's like,

what, you know, this kid. So we get to the car, I open up the back door and she gets in and then I hand her the towel and she takes her hand and she pushes it back at me and doesn't take the towel. And I thought this is a badass bitch and I have some rough teen years ahead of me. It was like Apocalypse Now when they were, they were giving penicillin shots to the villagers. So the heads of the village started chopping their arms off,

the people that got the shots. And he just, and Marlon Brando goes, the horror. That's how I felt at that moment, the horror. So anyway, happy birthday JoJo. She's now helping out with my podcast. She works at the studio and learning a lot about technology. She's teaching kids to swim this summer and babysitting.

And she's been taking classes to become a preschool teacher. We'll see where that's going. Who knows? She can do anything she wants. She's been taking classes to become a preschool teacher. We'll see where that's going. Who knows? She can do anything she wants. She's so fucking smart and funny. Anyway, happy birthday. I'm going to keep this short because my guest is so amazing today, Harlan Williams.

Very excited to announce my stand-up special is being moved back a couple weeks. We had some editing glitches. It will now be coming out on August 22nd. So there'll be a live YouTube stream leading up to the release of the special, and then there's gonna be a party in New York on the 25th. August 26th, I'll go on kill Tony the 27th. I will go on

Rogan, I think I'm on Marin that week and then I'll go to New York and do a bunch of those guys Sam and Mark and Ari and all those guys get the word out. Tell your friends. It'll be streaming on YouTube those guys get the word out tell your friends it'll be streaming on YouTube I'm very excited it's the way to put it out now there's a two-year wait if you show Netflix your special now there's a two-year wait to get it on the air so I was like fuck that I want people to see this I'm excited about it I'm excited to put the material behind me it's called you Know Me on YouTube on the 22nd. So, alright, let's get to my guest. Who is? A guy you know from Dumb and Dumber, you know him from Half Baked, Rocket Man, there's something about Mary, Freddy Got Fingered, a million movies, TV shows, he was a

regular on Letterman, Tonight Show, Conan, everybody loved him, he's a big talk show staple, one of the best stand-ups in the country. He has his own way of doing it that I am in awe of every time I watch him. He is one of the most creative minds and you'll see it on this podcast. He's just quick, he's uninhibited, he's silly, and and I love him. my accountant today, Harlan O. Williams. Accountant? Now I'm doing your taxes and stuff? Well, there's not a lot to write off.

I mean, my income is, it's okay. So what am I looking time-wise, like commitment to do your taxes, like a half hour or 40 minutes? Yeah, on Tuesdays. I can do that. You can do that, right? I'm in.

Were you good in school and math? Great. Really? Ask me any math equation. What is the first five digits of pie? Raspberry, strawberry. That's not it. It's a number.

You said pie, right? It said pie, P-I. Okay. Pastry, pie plate. What are we going, what are we, I'm the accountant here, not you. What are we doing here, guy? And that's a write-off. If I eat some pie, I take that right off the top.

You get a write-off and then you get a rebate and then you refi your mortgage and then you back tax your income and supplement your ovaries. My ovaries? That's the way I work it. Like I know the loopholes. I do what I do.

You don't ask questions really. And have any of your clients ever been audited by the IRS? It's hard to be audited when you're behind bars. Most of my clients, yeah, are in the big house. Right, right. Enjoy your time here in rainbow country. Right, right Isn't it nice got that breeze the snow? I love being by the ocean the smell of sea urchin clit in the air Just the waft of seahorse placenta and hold on. Oh endangered sea turtle diarrhea. Oh

God nervous, they're endangered whatever it Whatever it is. They can't keep a firm stool. They can't right? And they eat jellyfish right? Sea turtles diets can tell. How do you have a solid stool? How do you pinch a loaf underwater when you're ingesting jellyfish all day? You're going to be the king of diarrhea. No wonder they're endangered. They're dehydrated. They squirt all over the ocean. And there's very little toilet paper in the ocean. I mean, there's a lot of toilet paper in the ocean, but it's all used.

It's all like, it's very small, it's been pulped up. You gotta feel for them when they ingest a Portuguese man of war or a box jellyfish, because they're the ones that are lethal. They have the poisonous stingers on them. And imagine, you know, we've probably all had heartburn you've had a case of the Taco Bell runs but imagine a Portuguese man of war running through your bowels. And you're a turtle so you can't even go like this. No. When it hurts.

You can't touch your bowels. You won't even feel it. No. It's just so hard. Yep. Oh Jesus. No wonder they're in danger. I think that's gonna be the video clip is you going it's so hard. Look guy I'm an accountant. I don't do kinky stuff. I'm not into your swinger scene that you do. Look I just want to do your fucking taxes. Get you a rebate if I can and you do the other bait on your own time. Got it. Wow. Jesus. Tough being your accountant. But look, we're friends. I'll do it.

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever had an encounter with a sea turtle, by the way? Oh, yeah. We go to this place in Jupiter, Florida. It's a turtle hatchery. And they've got these three different types of sea turtles. And you sit on the eggs? You sit on the eggs, yes.

That's got to be like a six week commitment. It is. You and the whole family. Well if you fart it's less time, it heats them up a little faster. Oh, heats them up, yeah incubates them. You've heated eggs, you've heated eggs on the stove. Yeah, but I do the ones from Ralph's. I have thousands of chicklets around my little house. It's so fun because I come home, I got these little chickens, the little chicklets running around. And I come home at the end of a long day,

I kick the door open and I just yell, where's my peeps at? And hundreds, beep, beep, beep, beep, they just come running around my feet. Those are your peeps. I kick them and they stick to the ceiling fan. They're so fun, but. Do you eat them at all or are they considered one friend?

When they're mature. Yeah. When they mature, I kind of, it's sort of a bait and switch scenario. No, I pamper them, oh, you're so cute, I'll rub them while we're watching Murder, Shreerote, which is sort of a hint at what's coming. But we'll sit around, I'm smoking my Scottish pipe,

I've got my leather slippers on, and I'm petting them, some of them sit on my breasts, some sit on my nut bag, and I just pet them and peep peep peep, you know they're so darling, and then about nine months later I just snap their neck and now I'm the sea turtle. Right. Eat eat eat. It's almost like a woman, like you when they're young, right, you cuddle, you walk, you hold their hand, and then once they turn 19... Snap their necks. Snap their necks. I was going to say make love to them but your approach is... Either way it's fun.

They love it. Right, right. Yeah. It's a little weird sometimes when you think... Like I've had sex with 15 and 16 year old girls. I was 15 and 16, but it's weird to think that at a certain point, I was making love to a girl that age. Wow, yeah, you were 15.

15 on 15's legal. That's like high school love him. They call it the Romeo and Juliet clause in court. I know that. You do? I'm familiar with that. So you go to court and you read Shakespeare? Well, it's yeah, it's called courting. Oh, got it. Yeah, it's romantic in court. Isn't if you roll

back the tape, yeah, aren't those years in high school when you're just under starting to explore intimacy? Yeah. And the girl you're both the same're young teen, 13, 14, 15, 16. It's all new, it's all fresh, you're more excited than you're ever going to be in your life. But also, the weight of the world, the problems of the world, the psychology of the world isn't in your system yet. And so there's this purity, there's this love, the butterflies, the... You're so hungry and in love for each other. Yeah.

I gotta tell you, those are like, as much as you may love your wife or your girlfriend and you have great intimacy, those moments when you are just learning about it and with your first loves and your first experiences sexually or romantically, it's beautiful. Even if it's romantically, the fact that somebody, cause your buddies, you play hockey with them, you wrestle, whatever, but. I'm talking about girls. With the girls in my high school.

Not in the locker room. What are you talking about? I know, I was talking about the girls too, like girls hockey. I thought I heard the word wrestler. Maybe it's that the lights are making a hum. I heard wrestler and hockey. Wrestling, making love, it's all the point of view of the person

that it's going on with. I think I see where you're going with this. I did, some girls play hockey. Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever done this. I did this when I was 16, since we're talking about this. Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever done this. I did this when I was 16, since we're talking about this. I made love to a girl up in Saskatchewan, Canada.

We made love for seven hours, both of us wearing goalie pads while we were doing it. Did you get one between the legs? I sure did. I got a hat trick. Between the pads? Yeah. You got a hat trick.

She had three pads, I had two. Well, that shouldn't have been the time to do it then. I know, but that's the best time because they're never gonna get pregnant. That's right. Yeah, so. And you're never gonna get clean. And when you're a kid, you don't know that.

You just think you're so good that you made them bleed. Yeah. Yeah. That's horrible. That's power. That's power. No, but it's true, the romance of being that age, what I was trying to say before you took it down Gay Street is that your friends never communicate how they feel in any real way.

And from your parents, you're just used to it. Intimacy doesn't feel that powerful. But when you have a strange girl who's telling you that she loves you, even if she doesn't say it, wants to hold your hand, wants to look in your eyes, that is the most profoundly intense thing you've ever felt. It's beautiful. And to your point, holding hands, even holding hands when you were a teenager was magical. You would hold her and you calculated every little touch. You would hold her and every, you calculated every little touch. Like you would hold, but then if she went like that,

it meant something. If you squeezed her, like it was so beautiful. And I'm not saying that's gone when you're an adult, but that moment in time is just pure magic. I remember sitting at a school play. You know, it was one of those things where you come in on a Tuesday night and they put on a theater production of something like,

you know, like Scarface, you know, just like a fun school play. Scarface. Yeah. Right, right, school play. We did Cujo, did you ever see that play? Who played the dog? That was my girlfriend.

No! Yeah, goalie pads Karen. Jeez! So she could walk on all fours. She had the pads and they didn't have to fabricate the blood. You know, Kujo was violent dog. Got rabies, ripped people apart. And she was hairy? She was hairy. Yeah. Oh, wonderful Armenian girl. Yeah. So she was a dog. Yeah, she was played Kujo. But you had Scarface. So we had Scarface but I went to this play,

and I'm sitting next to Claire Levy, and we start holding hands. And we had never, you know, we had flirted, but we held hands in the dark. In the dark. How did it happen? Because I'm curious, did you just kind of reach over? Did she reach over? Did you kind of meet in the mirror? Our arms were both on the armrest, very purposefully.

So we were touching the sides of our hands, which like you said, even that was so erotic. It's just, yeah. And then I remember I was so nervous that my left leg jerked and jammed into her leg. And like actually I heard it, it went out. And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. She's like, no, no, no, no, it's fine.

Wow. I was like, I'm just out of control right now. Yeah, it's your whole body's alive. Nothing else matters. Yeah. Oh, it's the best. I remember when I was just starting in standup. There was a city outside of Toronto I'd go to.

Yeah. And me and my girlfriend, her mother lived out there. Yeah. And so we mother lived out there. Yeah, and so We would stay out there. But after my sets, this is when I still doing amateur night uh-huh, and she sort of knew the area and After we do after I do my set we'd go to this there was this old house That was abandoned it literally looked like the Psycho house from Psycho, you know that Alfred Hitchcock house?

It looked like, and we'd pull up in the driveway. The Bates Motel. Yeah, it wasn't the motel, but it was the house that was on the hill. Oh, right, right, right. The Bates Hotel was where Norman stayed, but his mother lived up in the Psycho house. So we'd pull up this dirt driveway,

this place was really unkept, and we'd park, shut off the lights, and she'd just like get on my lap and we would make that beautiful adolescent love in the car. And I was just like, beautiful. Oh my god. Yeah. I mean, you held hands, I went straight to making love, which doesn't seem sort of fair, but you do you and I'll do me.

Well you did her, it sounds like that night. I did, yeah. Now, do you keep in touch with her? When's the last time you saw her? Do you go to reunions? Do you go to, like, any of your? Here's the sad part. We were doing it in the car.

And you know you get out of control. You said you had the leg kick thing. Well, I had a similar kick. Knocked the emergency breakout. No, you didn't. We rolled right down onto the. Ha! So she didn't survive We rolled right down onto the... Ha ha ha ha ha. So she didn't survive.

She went through the front window. She did. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Just as she was orgasming. So if you've ever heard somebody get hit by an 18-wheeler, it's like pain and ecstasy meeting at the exit. She was like, ah, ah, you know?

It was just like right,, you never see it anymore. And for you, you got excited when you made her bleed. Now you killed her. That's gotta be powerful. It's powerful. It's hard for me to make love ever since. But if I'm near a highway or a busy intersection with confusing stop signs or lights that are,

maybe there was a power outage and things like, if things are a little wonky and I- Is that why you call your podcast The Harlan Highway? Just as an homage to her? It's sort of a little hint. Yeah. I noticed on your logo, there's a little blood in the breakdown lane. Yeah, most people think it's a dragonfly,

but we know what it is now. What was her name? Menstrual Sally. Oh, it wasn't! It was Menstrual Sally? Yeah, she was in a menstrual band. Wow. And coincidentally couldn't control her ovaries.

Yeah. It was just one of those weird nature's flukes. Yeah, right, right, right. What are the odds? Nature's flows. Nature flows, yeah. Wow. Yeah, have you ever had a period?

You look like you have. I had a hemorrhoid that bled once. Okay, did you use a tampon? Yes. What kind? Not the inside, the pad. Oh, with the wings? Yeah. So when you farted, did your ass flap? I took air. You literally lifted up. You got to be careful with those winged ones. They're called wings for a reason. You fart too hard, you could hit a ceiling fan. Right, and I think that we should talk to the US military about that because they're spending so much money on drones.

A wing tampon is like a dollar 29. So we give them beans, get them fully loaded with gas, put a tampon on their ass and send them over Cambodia. Are we still fighting there? We are, yeah. We're fighting over egg rolls, believe it or not. Jesus. Yeah, they want to go full spring roll, but we want egg rolls. There's this big kind of, you know, Asian slash Oriental battle going on. I think it's just Asian. I don't think they call it

Oriental anymore. They don't? No. They don't or we don't? Is it offensive to us or is it offensive to them? Because I have a feeling most people don't care but it's just in America we're so worried about it. It's not Scottish, it's Scottish. There's a shop on this corner that sells, it says oriental rugs and it's run by an Asian man. Figure that out. So if it really irked him that much, what would he put out there then? Change Oriental to what? Throw. Throw rug? Yeah that doesn't sound as good. I thought you were going to say throw an Asian, which isn't really... That's the shot next to it. That's the next shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to walk in front of that glass window. Right. But yeah, it's, you know,

I don't know. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but I wonder if Asian... I didn't really understand that Oriental was kind of a derogatory term. Yeah. What the... okay, educate me. What... I don't want to sound like an idiot, but what does... what is Oriental? What is the bad part of Oriental? What does it mean? It's a way for people to keep track of whether or not you are staying with what they're telling you you should say. Like I can write a check to the NAACP, but I can't say the words that that stands for. What does it stand for? Oh, you can't say the words that that stands for. What does it stand for? Oh, you can't say it.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But! Is that true? You never heard of the NAACP? I thought that was like a golf thing. It's college golf. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Right. So it's the National Association for the Advancement of Color People? Right. OK. How does that play into those? You can't say Oriental.

I'm just talking about how that word was acceptable at a time. And you're Oriental was. Well, why don't they change NAACP or United Negro College Fund? Yeah. Or what about H-C-F? What does that stand for?

Honky College Fund. Like I'm not, I don't worry about that. Maybe everyone else is just culturally sensitive. I don't know. I don't know. There's so much of that going on. I don't want to offend anybody, but sometimes you don't even know you are.

What are the words in Canada that are offensive? What would you call a Canadian that was considered offensive? Or you guys don't have that word. Well, that's the thing. We have fun with it. The Canadian, like a goofy Canadian, they're called hosers. Okay, that's kind of your Canadian who works out in the bush.

Bob and Doug, yeah. Bob and Doug you say hosers. They kind of coined that phrase, but it's kind of the Canadian version of a redneck. What does it refer to, a hoser? It refers to just kind of your guy who kind of talks like this, and oh right on for fuck's sake.

Let's go out behind the warehouse and smoke a fucking dart and then maybe we'll throw down and fucking go rip her up in the mud hey she goes jigging for squid later thereby you know Lord Tundra and Jeeze your sister looks like a fucking light post I'd like to take her out and pop her zits on a Thursday night there for fuck's sake put some donuts on her ass and call her creamsicle. You know, that type of thing. And if you're gonna laugh, that's culturally insensitive. I don't think it's right for me to laugh.

But here's the thing, we love it. We have fun with it, we get it that you're in jest. We actually embrace it, I think it accentuates us culturally. Absolutely. Because laughter is so important. And unless there's some kind of racial slur or something involved, I get it. You don't want that.

You don't want to be hurtful to people. But I don't know, have other cultures lost their sense? I think the Irish and the Scottish, they love jokes about themselves. Well, here's how you can tell. Can you do their accent? I can do, hey, what about you, lad? It's a soft A10 cord, look at the rainbow on you. You'll find a pot of gold at the end of it. And that is? Italian. Okay great. And then my Irish accent is, hey what

are you gonna do? You gonna go to your mama's house and get a pasta primavera. Perfect Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland. Sounds like an O'Donnell. Yes. Wow, you good guy. Now you do an Asian accent. Oh you and your friend get out of here. I'm gonna fucking come over there and rub your face in a sea scallop, motherfucker. See to me there's no difference. If I can do that then I can do a southern accent. I can do a British accent if I won't to after that. Yeah. And I can do a German accent, you know it doesn't matter. Can we roll back on the German one real quick? I'd like not to, I was doing a German with an epilepsy and that's not right. It's okay to do the German but you can't do the German epileptic. Not an F. No, you can't do that. That's where

you crop, but just to do the straight German, you're good. So if you can do Scottish, you can do an Indian. I can do an Indian accent. But some people think that's, is that not how they sound? Can you do an Indian talking to a Pakistani? Yes. Hello, how are you today? I am pretty good.

We are not that much different. The only thing separating us is a invisible border. And oh yes, we have nukes and you don't. Fuck off, asshole. Wait, who has the nukes, India? You don't know! No, they both do, actually. They both do.

Is that true? Yeah. Oh, that's not good. That's why there's so much simmering tension. But yeah, you should be able to do, it's all about intent. If you're having fun, people don't realize, because we're comedians, when you're doing that, you're embracing and holding up.

You're celebrating that diversity. You're celebrating that culture. You're having fun with it. The old roast thing, the line of, we roast the ones we love it really comes down to that. Like Tony Hinchcliffe getting in all that trouble because he was making Asian jokes after that guy went on that's the world of comedy we're in it together we're brothers and sisters in comedy we can

all take a joke. Did he get in trouble? I didn't see that. Did he get in trouble? He got in a lot. His agents dropped him and his sponsors dropped him. Oh, geez. Yeah, it cost him money. He's since come back with a, I would even say it helped him because he handled it just right. Oh, okay.

He didn't apologize. He doubled down on it. And he also started bringing an Asian guy on tour with him. Great, smart. Yeah. Did he belittle him? Of course, well they're little, they're Asian. Right, right, belittle.

That's their slogan. Belittle. Yeah. Interesting. See, we're having fun, aren't we having fun? Where's my Asian peeps at? Where's my Asian peeps at? Where's my Indian peeps at? Where's my Asian Indian peeps at?

You have Indian chickens at your house? Excuse you? You said that you call your little chickens peeps. Peeps, that's right. And then you just said, where's my Indian peeps? Why not? Who knows what a chicken is? Who knows what nationality any animal is?

Right. I mean, you can have a- All right, I'm gonna give you an animal and you tell me what nationality it is. Okay. All right. A dog. What kind of dog? Because there's a lot. Beagle. Beagle Jewish. Yep. Is it a onion beagle or a sesame beagle or? Well if you're gonna laugh at your own questions. Wow. And they're circumcised the bagels. There's no hole. Oh, wow.

God, it gives you that extra cream cheese. Yeah. Yep. Unbelievable. All right. What about a goat? Oh, OK. A goat, I would say they are British.

Right? That makes sense. I think they're British, right? That makes sense. I think they're British. I never thought of it that way, right. And that's really the only animal that can eat that food. Yeah. Right?

Yeah, that's right. You know, the bangers and the mash. Oh God. I gotta say in fairness, when I went to London years ago, you were right. I don't wanna, it sounds mean, but the food was not good over there. Very bland. Very bland. I don't want to, it sounds mean but the food was not good over there. Very bland.

Very bland. I had trouble finding, I was in London this year and they have turned it around. I heard that. It is a delectable, like the food there was amazing. Very cosmopolitan, very like eclectic. It was, oh I loved the food there. Do you think it was because of the Queen that the food was bad and then she died and now suddenly they're free to make better food? Oh did she have like an iron fist over what they could eat? I think so. Hello my citizens today we'll have boiled beef beans and bread. All bees. Yeah, bees. Cause they're British. They're British.

Dude, I already set it up for you. Let's not, come on bro. Do you think the food might've been better cause the last time you went, you were not as successful, so you weren't brought to the good restaurants. And now you, I have to say this, you've had a long career,

and it is the kind of career any entertainer would dream of because you had success fairly early on. I think you came to LA, and I think you told me that right away, things started to happen for you. You did one set in a club, and you were seen, and you were booked. I was it was it Letterman or something? No, no it was it was I did my first time on stage and I was I got off stage and

Back then in the the last in the late 80s I was at the Laugh Factory and they did all those shows like evening at the Improv comedy on the road There's one on Fox that they did on network every Friday night, it was called Comedy. Comic Strip. Something like that. Comic Strip Live. Yeah, yeah.

And so I walked off stage and like two different producers came up and said, oh, we wanna put you on these shows. And I couldn't believe it. And so it just sort of things, the momentum started right away. Now that being said, I didn't come to the States and just step on the stage. This is my first time doing comedy.

I spent seven years in Canada, like really honing my act, honing what I do, making sure my act was at a place where I knew if I went down and got in front of people, God willing, it would make some noise. And so it did. And when they haven't seen you, when you start here, it's almost like boiling a frog, you know,

that expression where they don't notice that you've gotten good because they've seen you for so long. Right, that's right. But when you're, like I kinda had the same experience in New York because I was in Boston for a lot of years when I came to New York. They hadn't seen me and I was developed enough where it stood out a little bit.

Yeah, right. So things happened. So you pop a little more because like who's this new guy and why is he so seasoned and he's funny, he's good, he's not searching, he's like there. I think also the stage time, like Canadian audiences are famously really supportive. And I think you probably, your confidence was probably higher than it would have been for a comic that was in LA

playing for nine people in a bowling alley at midnight in Rancho Cucamonga and everybody's Mexican. And you forgot to wear your pants that night, so you've got on gym shorts and your hair's starting to gray, but you're kind of denying it, so you're conscious of that. You're putting a lot on me. Can I tell you the real story?

Yeah. Wow. Whistling. Write novels much? It was all in the script. No, what you're saying is accurate, but it was sort of a mixture. Yeah.

I came down full of confidence. Like, you have to. I had it in my head, I'm not going down there till I'm ready. Yeah, I came down full of confidence like you have to I I had it in my head I'm not going down there till I'm ready Yeah, like I I mentally said to myself the urge was to go down after whoo I've done it for two years or yeah, I got to headline it for up for a year I'm gonna go down like I wasn't gonna be that stupid So I thought I want to be in a place where I just know I'm kicking ass and everyone else is taking notice

and it's time to go. So I came down full confidence, like 100%. Can I just ask you, were you that improvisational back then, or did you have more of a written act back then? I'd say it was a little less improvisational, but it was still there. But I'd say I leaned more on a written act.

But I was still finding my way into improv-ing because I always wanted to. I knew before I ever stepped on stage I wanted to improv, do crowd work, just riff and let stuff happen. But I was still a little tepid, a little nervous about that. So I was doing it, but not as much. So I came down 100% confident I got here and the one thing I didn't expect is the comedic sensibilities at least at that time were different.

What year was this? This was in the late 80s. And what I grew up in Canada with is we grew up with a huge British influence. Monty Python, Benny Hill. So absurd. Absurd, silly, a little more cerebral. And then in America, it was a little more, I always described it as John Belushi popping the zit from Animal House. Just that kind of in-your-face kind of brash,

kind of Jane, you ignorant bitch, from Saturday Night Live. It was a little more that over-your-head kind of, a little more- over your head kind of, a little more... Sam Kinnison. Sophomore-ic, a little more like locker room-ish. And then also you had the Canadian sensibility, because we were kind of the ice cream sandwich,

you guys were the outer layers, and here was us in the middle between the UK and the US. And here's Kenan, and we all had our own kind of sensibility, that kind of hoes are fucking absurd kind of stupid thing, you know, which you can only get in Canada. So I came in with that mishmash. Yeah, like Howie Mandel. Just like... Yeah, but he was a little more visual, so it was easier to get. I came in, if anything, I'd say a little more cerebral. A little more silly cerebral. I came in, if anything, I'd say a little more cerebral,

a little more silly cerebral. And when I got on stage, I'll never forget it, man. When I first came down here, some of my jokes that I literally would get standing ovations for in Canada, silence. And that was the thing. It was like a bucket of water in the face. Like not all of them, but I'd say about 40, 50% of my killer jokes in Canada, crickets down here. And that was the thing I didn't see coming. And man, did I have to adjust fast. I didn't compromise what I do. I didn't compromise my. But it was a little subtle for these audiences.

Some of them were a little subtle and just didn't register. And so I had to find a way to stay true to my style, my comedy, but now kind of try to find the American sensibility. And that was a real curve ball for me. But I was like, I didn't come down here to fuck around. Let's find it. Don't go cringy. That joke I spent so long doesn't work.

I was like, adjust. Like, it was like- And who were? Crungy that joke I spent so long doesn't work. I was like adjust like Like when I came to New York I think the guy I looked at that showed me the tone of New York that I learned from was probably David Tell Okay, there was there someone in LA that you sort of looked at and went. All right, this guy gets How how LA comedy works? What can I learn from from him or her? God, this is gonna sound pompous as hell, but I didn't wanna look at anybody.

I didn't wanna be influenced by anybody. I was just so, this is comedy, this is art. We all have our own brush strokes. Van Gogh doesn't paint like Picasso. So I love comedians, but I don't wanna be influenced by them. I just want to go down my own lane. And so I don't know if that's selfish or conceited, but it's all

I could see. And so I just stayed in my own lane. And I've been there ever since. I love other comedians and their styles and stuff, but I think all of us in a way have to be selfish that way. I think some people you'll talk to comedians, oh yeah, I was really influenced by Richard Pryor or George Carlin. Well, I didn't wanna be influenced. I just, I always go back to that thing.

I was talking about influence, right? I go, think about the very first comedians, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy. The Marx brothers. The Marx brothers, could they look at anybody? No. Could they look at someone behind them? No, they just had to go purely on their instinct

of what they thought was funny, and I just adopted that philosophy. I just want, I don't wanna be influenced by someone. I just wanna I don't want to be influenced by someone. I want to I just want to present my own thing and see if I can make it on my my own lure and you know. I'll tell you I watched my family's obsessed with the Marx Brothers. We had a 5 CD a DVD collection and since my kids were like four years old. Yeah. I mean it works for little kids. Yeah. And it works for experienced comedians.

And we still in Rote last night, we sat down, we had dinner and then we watched A Night at the Opera. And I'm telling you, I've seen that movie 30 times and I doubled over laughing about four times during that movie. Those guys, you can't describe what they do. The musicianship is off the charts. Harpo's harp playing, Chico's piano playing, Groucho was singing opera and it was pretty good in this movie. Oh yeah, back in those days actors and comedians, they were so multi-faceted. They could dance, they could sing, they could juggle.

They were in a time where it's like... And they did their own stunts. Everything. Oh Buster Keaton must have came close to dying every 10 days. Harpo was swinging across a rope and it was him. And then their timing, their interplay, the writing of the jokes. I mean, all of it, it was lightning in a bottle. I can't imagine, I mean, there's been great comedy troops over the years, but I don't think anybody matches with those guys. Mine were the three Stooges.

Really? They were a little more, the Marx brothers were good. To be honest, I didn't watch them that much, but I know of them, I've seen some of it, and they're obviously great. Mine were the three stooges, just because they were so silly and so brash, and I loved Curly and all the stupid,

but what, to your point, what's interesting is you take those old movies like Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, the Marx brothers, Buster Keaton, and you look at them, they're all black and white, look how they dress, look at the cheesy corn. But if you really take time to sit down and watch them, like you said, you will laugh. You will laugh because their comedy is timeless. Like it's a different sensibility, but base humor is base humor. And you will laugh if you let yourself get into it.

Yeah, and it's timeless. Like you think about so much of the comedy that happened in the 40s, 50s, 60s, is not gonna last. I can't think of that many. Like Lucille Ball, she was great, but I don't know that it holds up. I didn't even, not to sound mean,

I didn't even like that when I was growing up. But then you go back to these acts that came out of Vaudeville. The reason why they were so good is that they were doing, like Duck Soup, which I think was their first or second movie, yeah was a play that they'd been putting on on the road in 30 cities a year. Oh really? I didn't know that. So when they made that movie they knew every beat and if you watch the camera work it is one locked off wide shot and occasional singles but it's

almost all a long and the musical numbers one camera one long shot. Really? And occasional singles, but it's almost all along, and the musical numbers, one camera, one long shot. Dude, you sold me. You know what, I'm a movie guy. I've never watched Duck Soup. No, that's a great one. I'm gonna watch it. That's a great one.

And you're probably sitting here, because this happens to me when I hear someone who says they haven't seen Citizen Kane, or the original Blade Runner, I go, oh my God, you're so lucky because you still get to experience it for the first time. So I think because of you, I'm gonna watch it and I get to have that experience.

Yeah, thank you, thank you. And what's your gift to me? What movie should I see that maybe I haven't seen? When I was at that house years ago, we had a dash cam and we got to film a few of our little experiences making love in that car and I'm gonna send you that video and if you want to watch it with the family or just on your own it's up to you but and we even have the one

where she rolled out into the street that's sort of the action adventure one it's the end of the season would that be considered snuff depends that the genre that you'd put that? It depends how many episodes you watch in a night, but it could be a snuff. Right, right. Or you might want more. Okay. Yeah. Good. And now a guy like you. Did you miss that one? What did you say? I said it could be a snuff or you might want more. Yeah. Could be a snuff. Oh, snuff. You know what? You don't have a watch.

Well, I was checking my arthritis. Have you got, what the fuck's he, dude? Can't a guy have an ailment anymore? It looks pretty good. Well, this finger's a little fucked, but you know, that's the one I used in the car. Right. Oh, that's a lingering I used in the car. Right. Oh, that's a lingering from that night?

Yeah. Oh, so that's a constant reminder of menstrual sally. Yeah, I used to, I call it the horseshoe crap. It was a move I did. And most people don't bring their little finger into sexual activity, but I did it right out of the gate. Well, she was 15. This is too big for her.

You start with the pinky. Well, she was 15. This is when I was a little You start with the pinky. Well, she was in 15. This is when I was a little, this is when I was doing stand up. Yeah, she was 19. Okay, so that, so the pinky probably wasn't doing a lot for her. I think you might've stepped it up at that age

to the middle finger. Well, don't say I wasn't doing a lot. I mean, she did smash through the front window of a Prius and get hit by a truck. There was no Prius when you started coming. I meant priest. There was a priest in the back of the Ford Escort. So she got her last rites. Yeah, she got her last rites.

That's important. Yeah. Yeah. Now what's your feeling on priests at this point? Because Norm McDonald, who's a fellow Canadian. Norm, yeah, I came up with Norm in Toronto. No kidding. Oh yeah, we came up together. So I started in Toronto and Norm was in Ottawa, which is Canada's capital. And he started in Ottawa.

And then after, I was doing it about a year, maybe a little over a year, maybe a year and a half, and then Norm moved to Toronto because Ottawa was just too small of a market, so Norm moved to Toronto and we had a riot. Yeah, that's amazing. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, you were saying you were? No, I was just saying, he used to come on the podcast a lot and one time I brought up priests

and I made a derogatory, as a Catholic, I grew up Catholic, so I have pretty strong opinions about the priesthood. Yeah, you should. But I said something denigrating about them, and he full-on defended priests, and things they, because they have done a lot of good, and I just think Norm always had a different take, you did, I think you're similar.

I think that sometimes I stumble upon an issue with you that you have a take on that's not like other people's tags. Probably, but I'd like to see that footage of Norm because I knew Norm real well and I have a feeling he might have been having you on. No, because I've heard him do it multiple times since then. Might have been having everybody on. Really?

Yeah. Probably. If I knew Norm very well, we were buddies, so I can't say for Really? Yeah. If I know I knew Norm very well we were buddies so I can't say for sure. Yeah. In all the years I was with him he never got uptight about free so I'd like to see the footage. He was good like that. Let me ask you this. If you started up with Norm he famously never drove. So did you end up driving him places a lot? You know what?

I refused. Oh, you did. So we were buddies and I used to, when I got to Hollywood, I lived way up in Glendale and he lived right down in Hollywood, right near the Improv. And we were together all the time. We played tennis, we'd do everything. And then we joined a baseball team. And Norm would have people come over to his townhouse all the time.

He lived there with his wife and his little dog. And we were there all the time. And he'd always invite comics over. Comics, a lot of comics were enamored by Norm. He was like a bug light, and they would like drift to him, you know? And Norm would be like, hey, man, come on over.

Let's write some jokes. Come on over. We'll write some comedy, you know? I'd be there. I'd be there. These comics would come over all full of like, and guys I knew, like people that I knew, and they'd be all little yeah, they'd come to the door and hey, Norm Let's write some junkies. Ah, man. Can you drive me to Santa Monica for an audition? Like he literally lure them in with a promise of comedy Grandeur and he'd get them to drive them all over the city and you just saw their faces sag. They're like

It was like a kid their dad was saying let's go to the zoo, but daddy's gonna stop at the office first And he's and they drive to the gig and they're and he now he's reading the sides. You can't even talk to him He's oh, yeah, it was just it was that was it and and so he because I was so close to him I never like said I used to give him, I said, Norm, you can't do that. We actually sort of gotten a little bit of a heated thing about it because I didn't like it. And so he never did it to me, but I was always like, dude, just get your license. To this day, I still don't know why he, you know, he's a perfectly competent guy to get his license but he just I guess he had a food phobia about driving or something. Yeah and so

and he always had yeah people would always draw Adam Eaget or Mary Jo and they they were there for him but also he was kind of famous like I've talked to other friends of his that he was close to, and he could just ghost people. He could just kind of fall off for a while. Did you experience that? You know, I don't really want to get into the, you know, he was a really close friend. Okay, fair enough.

And I don't want to get into what he did and didn't do. I mean, we all have our things, but you know, there was a point in time where I had a falling out with him over things and I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't want to disparage him. I love him. We were great friends.

He was very special. If there's someone out there that experienced, I'll let them tell the story. I don't want to be the conduit for any hearsay or stories or any bad energy. I just love the guy. I'll tell you, one of the greatest things about the internet to me is the fact that somebody that you loved, if they were funny and prolific, you can always go back and spend some time with them on the internet. And I just can't seem to find every norm clip.

Every time I go down that rabbit hole again, there's another Conan interview, there's another old standup clip, there's something, there's just always something I haven't seen. Oh wow, cool. And it just makes, doesn't it make you feel good when you can go back and see the Kevin Meany, I'll watch old Kevin Meany clips. Oh, Kevin, I was just thinking to him this morning,

the big pants people. The big pants people. Yeah, no, the internet is great like like that and also it's not just a sentimental journey you can study them you know you can you can go back and watch people and kind of you know learn from them and it doesn't have to be like I said a comedy influence but you could just you know people don't realize that Norm was very prolific on the talk show circuit, and as was I, we did them a lot. We were part of the, and people didn't realize that that was a whole, if you study that,

that's a whole nother skill set. It's a whole, like stand up, you could go on to the Tonight Show or whatever, go out and do your eight minutes of stand up, but then to go and sit down and learn how to banter with these star level hosts like Letterman and Leno and Carson, like that was a whole, that was almost like a whole art form unto itself.

It's something you have to learn on the fly. Like I, when I started doing talk shows, they were sort of awkward and clunky. And then you just sort of, if you watch, if you watch the trail of Norm or you watch the trail of me or you watch the trail of any comic like Robin Williams, anyone who did the talk show circuit, if you watch the early ones, you'll see how they evolve.

And you can sort of see how you have to switch gears. I found it almost just as fascinating learning the talk show circuit and how to do it successfully as much as I. And really customizing it for each host because it's a very different experience. It is. Some guys really just like Jay Leno may just want,

give me the topics, I'm gonna set you up and you're gonna go as opposed to, Letterman seemed to enjoy when somebody could do something and he could he could poke them a little bit and then you could come back and it could be some interplay. Oh yeah that's what I mean it was a such a dance. First of all it was such a dance just to understand the talk show realm yeah but then the the rest of the came, well there was many tiers to this dance. Then there was understanding your host,

how to dance with the host, and then there was the tier of how to dance with the four cameras on you, how do you play them? Like go look at old guys like Milton Berle and Jack Benny and George Burns, these guys, they do a joke and then they just look at the, you know, they do a face to like, like the camera was a second entity to them.

And then the third one, just like stand up, you're there, you've got this wall of cameras between you, you're focusing on Jay Leno or Letterman, maybe John Travolta or Samuel Jackson sitting on the other side. So now you're dealing with these superstar guests that you would never, and then the other element is the live audience.

It's just like stand up. Now you're feeling their energy. You're figuring out how to break away from Letterman so you can give them a look or a nod or an ignore. It's such a dance. And you got the band. Sometimes the band gets involved. I would say if you really want to study a side element to stand up is to go in and watch

your favorite comedians like Seinfeld or Norm or Mitch Hedberg or whoever. Watch the dance in there. There's a lot of learning in there. It's a really interesting realm. And then there was people that didn't do stand-up, but were legendary guests, starting with Albert Brooks, who really only did, he did some stand-up. He did stand-up on The Tonight Show. Right, but he didn't do, he really, he broke in,

the first time he did The Tonight Show was doing a bit, because you know the whole story, right? Yeah, you can see that on YouTube. Yeah, right. And he would come up with these really funny conceptual things. He bought a Speak and Spell on one time and he did a comedy team with a Speak and Spell. He always had funny concepts that worked. And then you got Bill Murray who would come out and do one time he came, or Steve Martin. Steve Martin and Bill Murray came out. I remember Steve came out and he came out and he immediately bowed and he had his hands up

and the crowd was going crazy. They just kept bowing and he kept bowing and then finally he stood up and he had a sign that said world's longest bow. Great man, yeah that's what I mean. It was almost, people really don't talk about it that much but the art of doing the talk show, you can almost write a book about it.

It's sort of an untapped conversation piece maybe but the different levels and gears to it are fascinating and that's another thing you can really go into YouTube and go back and watch it and it's a whole different category of comedy. Yeah and those old ones are amazing. Like you go back, I've got this DVD collection of Dick Cavett's show and that was amazing because it wasn't just the comedy, but it was like he had this ability to bring on Jimi Hendrix or Bill Buckley or people.

And he would just get them to come out in a way, even John Lennon, they would come out in a way that you'd never seen before. Because it wasn't like, build to a clip, commercial break, set up a story. It was just, here's Dick Cavett, who's this, you know, got his PhD from Yale, he's a brilliant writer. And he just was such a, he was a warm intellectual

and people felt honored to sit with him and so they wanted to give him more. It was amazing. Yeah, he was, yeah, it's, that whole genre is its own kind of art form. Is that something you've ever wanted to do, host a talk show? Well, you know what? Back in the day, I entertained it because I thought,

you know, it's such a dynamic thing. And then at one point when, excuse me, I was up in Canada, I actually hosted a talk show for about, I don't know, for about maybe 10 or 12 episodes. It was a ridiculous talk show where I don't know, for about maybe 10 or 12 episodes. It was a ridiculous talk show where I was the host and the sidekick was a talking sock. It was called Ed the sock. On your hand? No, it was on, there was a guy hiding behind the couch. And it was actually really hilarious.

And I moved off to LA. I was just getting my start, and I went back to do some more, and the guy had just, without telling me, got rid of me and hired one of my buddies to be the host. A guy who I introduced him to. So needless to say, I never talked to that guy again for the rest of my life. It was really mean.

Yeah, he didn't even talk to me. And but. You should have showed up one night, knocked out the guy with the sock, and then you could have gone up with the puppet and just destroyed everything. All of his jokes. Just kill him. Yeah. Well, it was actually funny, but so I did this show where I had this sidekick was sort of like the Ed McMahon was this mean, abrasive talking sock. And so I did that for a little bit. And it was really hard at that point

because we didn't have like great talent. And get like, they'd bring in the guy from Dunkin' Donuts or a magician or, and I was trying to be- This is in Toronto? This was in Toronto. And I was trying to be like your typical talk show host. And I really struggled to ask real typical questions. And so I didn't like the experience it turned out.

But then later in life I became the host of my podcast, The Harlan Highway, but now I'm at a place where all my comedy gears are now fleshed out. They've come to fruition. I kind of know the medium, I know, like I said earlier, the lane I want to be in. And so now, like you, I think all of us are sort of like talk show hosts on our own podcasts. And we don't have to worry about a studio audience, we don't have to worry about commercial breaks, we invite the guests we want. They're not, you're not being given a guest that you're trying to figure out how it's gonna work.

You bring in your friends. You bring in your friends, or I even like to bring in people I've never even met, but kind of know about them. And now that I'm more advanced in my delivery and my ability to work with people and talk with people. I sort of like having people sometimes that I don't even know. Who was your best surprise in terms of bringing somebody in?

Oh wow, Corey Feldman. I brought Corey Feldman in. No kidding. And I never met him. I bumped into him at a party and I said, hey, you wanna be on my podcast? And I really didn't know much about, I mean I knew him as Corey Feldman,

but I wasn't sure how the podcast would go. And it was I finished as like, wow, that was a really beautiful, like funny, introspective, revealing. Really? He was very open and he was charming and funny. But I was able to find a way to, you know, it was a really gratifying interview. That's amazing. He was a guy I didn't know. And you know what's great about him is like, you know, think about show businesses. It doesn't matter how big the crowd is

or what your paycheck is. We're all doing the same process. You know, Tom Sager is on stage in front of 10,000 people. I might be in front of 225 that same night. And his paycheck is obviously where, we're doing the same thing. We're connecting to people with our thoughts.

We're being creative. And Corey Feldman is out there on the road and he plays these bar shows. And he is having the time of his life. He's playing kind of like Michael Jackson character. He's, you know, the music isn't, you know, for me, but I like to see him enjoying himself. I think it's amazing.

He's doing what he wants to do. He's following his artistic voice, and that's all any artist can do. And whether you like someone or hate them, it's as long as you have the drive and you feel you're giving something, and there's always gonna be people, you know, 80 people might hate it, but 80 people might like it. It's as long as you have the drive and you feel you're giving something and there's always gonna be people,

80 people might hate it, but 80 people might love it. So you can't think about pleasing everyone. You just have to go, what's special about me? What can I deliver? And hopefully you find people that wanna embrace it. Yeah. And the world will tell you if more people don't like it

than like it, then maybe you have to go, maybe this isn't for me. But hopefully your calling is true and pure and people rally around it. But that's part of the gamble of life. All right, well listen, let's get into, the Olympics is coming up. The regular ones or the special ones?

Well, I think they're pretty special special they all happen every four years. Yeah but well I guess the people and the special ones don't know about time and schedule so they could be for any time for them. Right. If you were to put together there's the pentathlon right? Oh I love that. That's you run 200 yards yeah you do a long jump you do a discus throw you do a javelin throw and then you shoot the rifle no that's a different one oh then you wrestle a guy like who put those together Wow you know wait say them again you it's a 200 yard run the long jump the dis discus throw, the jab throw,

and then you wrestle. Like it's all track and field and all of a sudden it's wrestling. It comes from the Greek, it's an old Greek competition. Yeah, it's almost like a Greek salad, too many ingredients. It's too many ingredients. And I feel like wrestling is the black olive. Yeah, yeah. There's a pit in it if you're kind of worried about. Yeah nothing like like doing eight other exhausting events. Yeah. And then at the end you have to do the one that requires the most strength and energy. Right and it's the one where everybody's sweaty. Yeah. Doing all the running and throwing. Oh God. Yeah. So I guess my question is in comedy, what would

be your pentathlon? That's a dinosaur by the way. You said the pentathlon? Right. That's from the Paleozoic era. Paleozoic? Yeah. They were large lizards just a little under the size of a T-Rex. Oh no kidding. They were under the size of a T-Rex. Oh, no kidding. They were the smaller version of the T-Rex. Wow. Is that what you wanted to talk about? So like a small T-Rex, not a capital T-Rex. That's right. Like underscore.

Right. Lowercase, lowercase T-Rex. So you're so there's the Comedy Olympics. OK. What's the pentathlon? What are the five events for comedy? Yeah. God, I guess it would be standup, crowd work, improv, maybe physical comedy,

like the kind of stuff Michael Richards does. Right. Like something where he- Like silent. Not necessarily silent, but you have to like, you remember how he would slide into a room or he could like- For Sebastian. Real physical comics, like to show that. But you have to like, you remember how he would slide into a room or he could like,

you know, real, real physical comics, like to show that. And then the fifth one would maybe be, uh, I don't know, acting comedy, acting. I don't know how you show that on stage, but you, maybe you, you act out a scene or something. Well that, that might fall under improv, but maybe a sketch. Because a sketch is more written out. So those might be, those are at least five strong comedy categories. And then wrestling at the end.

What about a Comedy Olympics? And wrestling at the end? Yes. I mean, pitch yourself doing all five of those. Improv, stand up, acting, sketch, and then you have to wrestle Elaine Boozler. You know? The booze.

Yeah, or Paula Poundstone. She comes out with just fucking grappling with her. Yeah, right. She'll take you down. Yep. Rosie O'Donnell in one of those spandex wrestling outfits. Right. You just finished like some improv.

Hey, we're doctors and we're trapped on an island and you do that whole thing. And then Rosie comes out and she's like, and you get a wrestler covered with olive oil. Olive oil. Unbelievable. Yeah. Well, not olive oil,

it's because she was probably eating before she came out. Oh, I thought you meant from Popeye that she- No, she spilled olive oil because she was probably Martian through a salad or some of that Italian bread right dip it in oil and just Spill it a lot of slippery things. Yeah Bacon, but what about that? What if we did a Comedy Olympics as a TV show? That might be kind of interesting I would be it'd be amazing, you know, I think all comedians like that challenge. At least I know I do.

There was a show on NBC years ago called Thank God You're Here. And it was so fun. It was hosted by David Alan Greer. And it was basically this concept where they got comedians and they basically took you behind stage, put you in a costume, and pushed you through a door onto a set like this, and on the set was a full set with other actors,

and as you walked in the door in your costume, the first line from one of the actors was like, oh, thank God you're here. That was the opening line for everybody. And then you had to walk in and just create a scene with them in the moment. That's amazing. It was wonderful.

So you're looking at the set. You're looking at the set. They're throwing lines at you. And you know, it's amazing. If anyone wants to see mine, I had a ride. I think it's on YouTube. Thank God you're here. Did you win the competition? I won it. I went up against Jane Lynch.

No way! I went up against Jane Lynch. Who's the guy from Seinfeld, the little fat guy? Jerry Seinfeld? No, the short fat guy. Elaine? Julie Louis-Dreyfus? She's fat. No.

Is she a guy? Jason Alexander? Yeah, the guy who played...reyfus? She was she's fat. Okay. No, she's a guy Jason Alexander. Yeah the guy who played What was his character's name? Larry or something George George Cassandra, so I went up against him Jane Lynch and Brian Poseyne And I went in somehow I won the thing but I gotta say I had a great like It was with a sane tough in the wrestling part? He's tall, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he really got behind it. Yeah, like a lumberjack. Yeah. But they set me up in this thing where it was kind of like, almost like a British, almost like a Sherlock Holmes sort of get up, like sort of the British old school. Tweed.

Yeah. And I walked through the door, and here's this set like an old British library with a stuffed bear. And all the other guys had the sideburns and the monocles. And they're like, oh, thank god you're here. And I just immediately went, oh, nice to see you. I immediately went into this British. And whenever you can do an accent.

And I find that costumes really help kind of narrate you as an actor and helps you find a character immediately so I just went right into it and it was it was glorious they were gonna do a second season but they they never did but and it seems like an inexpensive show I mean all you need is a set and so the actors that you performed with yeah were they the same for each of the other contestants? The other contestants. But different scenarios.

Different. So mine was like the British Library. Yeah. Frank Costanzo's was a Star Trek one, which was sort of like he came on to Star Trek. And then Jane Lynch was like, I think it was like a kind of a family sitcom, like kids and a father and a mother and I forget what Brian's was, but it was really fun. Oh, that's amazing. I wanna see that.

So anyways, my point was like, I think comics would really embrace dipping into other genres of comedy. Yeah. It's fun. Good. Challenging. Let's do it. Great. When do we start? You want to do it right now? We just did it. Some shows don't last, I guess. This is like your friend stealing

your shell up in Toronto. I want to get his name after the shell. Yeah, be true. All right, this is a part of the show we like to call Fastballs with Fitz. Okay. I'm gonna ask you some questions real quick. Are you Fitz or are you Fastballs, just so I'm clear? Well, right now I'm Fitz. Okay. But when I get going later on with the wife, they call me Fastballs. Wow. Yeah. How lucky is she? Well, meh. Have you ever borrowed a lot of money or lent a lot of money? Borrowed. Have I ever borrowed a lot of money or lent a lot of money? I think the most I ever borrowed when I was in, just out of college I wanted to buy a Fiero remember those cars? Pontiac Fiero. It looked like a little Porsche Boxster. Yeah it was amazing so I actually went to my dad and asked him if I could borrow like $3,000 I had half of it but I think it was like $3,000 is the most I've ever

borrowed outside of you know borrowing from the bank for mortgage on a house and stuff like that. That's common stuff. Did you pay him back? Oh yeah, I paid him back. I've never been in debt. I've never owed on anything. I've never been overdrawn on a credit card my whole life.

Has anyone ever asked you to borrow money? Yes, but not substantial amounts. And I've found that even with close friends, there's been a few scenarios where I've lent close friends money and kind of put... Some of them have paid me back but I always say, look, obviously they're in hard times so I'm going to lend them the money but I'm not going to put a constriction on them because they're going through some tough times.

So I say, when you're ready, when you're in a good place, pay me back. Now in a few of those scenarios, like a number of years drifted by. And I said, hey, you know, we're buddies. I see what you're doing. You just bought a house, this, that. I said, you remember that? And I've had people I've lent money to turn around

and get mad at me and say, what do you mean? I didn't borrow money or why would I pay you back? Like actually like, and so now I'm, unless it's like a tight family member or someone that really needs help, sometimes lending money can cause problems. Well, I almost feel like if somebody asked me to borrow money, like we have a housekeeper

and she's from Guatemala and she's undocumented and she's been with us for 23 years. Okay. Once in a while she comes and she says I need to borrow some money and we always just say it's not a loan and we just give whatever she has. Okay that's nice. You let go of it. And I think that with any loan it has to be in your mind a gift and if they end up giving it back that's icing icing. But you just. Yes, some people I have done that. They've asked for money saying that. And I know they can't give it back. I know that they're not good with money management.

I know that they're on this trajectory. So yes, I've done that too. But I think what's annoying. Is it Jeffrey Ross? Not gonna say no. The Rose Master? Not gonna say, I'm not saying yes, I'm not gonna say no. The Rose Master? Not gonna say I'm not saying yes I'm not saying no. What is have you ever not finished a set on stage while performing? Yes. What happened? I think you'll concur with this some of the

worst audiences you can have are stags, stagettes, and Christmas parties. For whatever reason, a pack mentality forms with those groups, and I find sometimes that if some of them decide not to laugh, they all decide not to laugh. Or if some of them get rambunctious and start heckling, they all kind of, oh, we're a group, and they feel safe, and since they're commande oh we're a group and they feel safe and since they're commandeering most of the room they feel strength in numbers and so they get emboldened too. And so this was early on in my career up in Toronto I think I was in my first year and

a half and some local tennis celebrity was getting married and had his stag at the comedy club. And so the whole club was him and his entourage. So they rented out the whole club and you know they were tennis, male tennis players, adolescents, like boisterous. And in the middle of the set, one of them went back to the bar and you know they chopped limes and lemons up. They found the whole lemons and limes. They stole them and then they went to the coat room

and while I was up there and the other comedians, they started throwing lemons, limes, and coat hangers at us on stage. No. It was unreal and I just, I wasn't having it. Like one lemon, one coat hanger hit the wall and I saw it there, I just said, see you fuckers and I just walked I wasn't having it. Like one lemon, one coat hanger hit the wall. And I saw it there, I just said, see you fuckers, and I just walked off.

Right. I was like, are you kidding me? Yeah. What am I, what is this, the Roman Coliseum? Like, I'm not here for you to like, you know? It was like, so, it was so, and it was nice. It felt good to just say, you know. And you gotta go home, you gotta get all that lemon

out of your clothes. You don't even have to use detergent. No. I guess you could just put it in the washing machine and get that lemony fresh. And that coat hanger. God. Yeah. What'd you do with the coat hanger? Hung a sweater.

You did? That was the only upside. I had this sweater that had been sitting in the corner for almost years. And I finally had something to hang it with. Now it was on the floor for years. How come you didn't go to a store and just like buy a hanger for yourself? I was in a bad state. I didn't have money, I was borrowing money from friends.

Still haven't paid it back. So you're driving a Pontiac Fiero. You drive brand new Pontiac Fiero, no hangers. It's all an illusion. I figure if you got the Fiero, you create the illusion. It's all about smoking mirrors when you're in show business. So as long as I had the Fiero, everyone thought, think daddy was doing okay. His sweaters are wrinkly, but man, this guy's got a nice car.

Oh God, his sweater's full of moth holes too. The only animals in the, you know, zebras eat hay, lions eat zebras, crocodiles eat fish, and the only animal in the animal kingdom, moths, they love a good sweater or a turtleneck. Very strange appetite. Yeah. All right, finally, we're gonna do a quick thing, which I believe I've done with you before.

It's a segment called Talk Your Way Out of It. I'm gonna give you a scenario, and on the spot you're gonna talk your way out of an uncomfortable situation. I'll try. I'm not good at this, but let's try. You're on the road. You're in Laughlin, Nevada.

It's a small casino town, and you're doing a corporate gig for oceanographers. And before the show you remember, you're starting to get nervous, they seem kind of nerdy, they're scientists, but then you remember that I, you know my classic bit about penguins and how it just seems like a lot of fat kids at a prom. Right. And so you think in your head, all right, nobody's ever going to see me. You go on stage, you open with it, and it crushes. And the rest of your set goes pretty well, but really that bit. And you get off stage, and I happen to have been doing an Adidas

convention on the other side of town. I stop by to see you. You walk off, I call you on it. Right. Talk your way out of it. So listen, how old are you? 58. And I'm a little bit older. So who's been on this planet longer? You. So who's had a chance to see penguins first? Well you. So who probably came up with a bit about penguins seeing you didn't even exist on this planet? They were right in my wheelhouse and I'm a comedian. There they are. They look like little short prom students. Yeah. You weren't around bro. I got to it first. And that's what we call a win. That's a win. Okay. By the way the ichthyologist is the term you were

looking for for not scientists Is that what it's called people who study fishes are ichthylogist. Is that true? Yes, is it because when you cut open the stomachs and that stuff comes out it's like ick. Yeah. Yeah Finally I Thought that was the last one. Oh, you don't want to go out losing. Okay, let's do another one. You are, you're watching women's gymnastics. Really, it's girls' gymnastics. And they're doing a lot of splits and they're rolling. Yeah.

And you get aroused, you get erect. And your dishwasher, who's a Guatemalan woman, sees you, sees what you're watching, talk your way out of it. Mr. Williams, what are you doing? You can't walk around the house erect! And I'm like, listen, I have this back injury. I got it when I was skiing 20 years ago. I've been laying on that bed for 20 years. Today I'm feeling good. I stood up and I'm erect. And let me walk around the house. So your penis is flazzed.

Were you talking about a penis? Oh. I meant I was standing erect. Two for two. Harlan Williams. Watched The Harlan Highway, which is on all streaming services. He's got a number of books, children's books, adult books. He's got a number of specials. If you go to harlanwilliams.com,

you can watch, I think there's like four specials on there you can watch. Actually, I took them. I don't, the only time where you can find my specials is just searching through YouTube. Okay. Yeah, my specials are old. I haven't done one in a long time. You getting ready to do another one? Not really. You don't care. I did so many in my career, I'm sort of over them,

but maybe I'll do one eventually. But, so they're all old if you want to, but I would say check out the podcast, The Harlan Highway. The podcast is blowing up. It is, you've only been doing, I mean you did it and then you took a break and now you brought it back. You've only been doing, I mean, you did it, and then you took a break, and now you brought it back. You've been back for about a year now? Well, originally, I just did it as audio for 11 years.

I took about a four-year break, and I thought, let's redo it on video on YouTube. And it's been up just a little bit over two years. Yeah. Oh, is it that long? Yeah, it's amazing. But we're doing good. And Greg's been on it like three times.

Another one coming up, so look for that. Yeah, those are, I can't think of a podcast I have more fun doing. I love hanging out with you, brother. You're the best, I love you. Thank you, love you, buddy. All right, we'll see you next time. You wanna wrestle?

Is this the Olympics? No, just for fun. Okay. Two buddies. Yeah, yeah, let's get a workout. We did just say we love each other. Yeah. this the Olympics just for fun okay two buddies yeah it's gonna work out we did just say we love each other yeah can we shut the cameras off at least cut the cameras