Fitzdog Radio - Pete Holmes Part 2 - Episode 1049
Episode Date: April 16, 2024The thrilling conclusion of my interview w/ Pete Holmes. It actually gets even better which is why we kept going. Pete’s new special “I am Not for Everyone” is tearing it up on Netflix right now.... Follow Pete Holmes on Instagram @PeteHolmes
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome back to FitzDawg Radio. I'm welcoming myself back. I haven't recorded a podcast
in a week. I haven't done Sunday Papers in two weeks cause I went to Florida and then Mexico.
And, um, this interview is from a couple of weeks ago with the great Pete Holmes. Oh dear,
is he talented? Um, this is part two. We did a, we did a long interview. It just,
we're good friends. It flows. He's funny as shit. And we ended up did a long interview it just we're good friends it flows he's funny as
shit and we ended up going so long that it became two podcasts so i hope you enjoyed the first half
this is the thrilling conclusion everything gets wrapped up we put the kids to bed it's done
anyway um thanks for joining me i'm just. I'm still buzzing from my trip to Mexico.
It's so funny because when you talk to the average American about going to Mexico,
they are so freaked out about getting killed by a cartel member.
Or, I don't know, Mexicans in general.
There's this overall fear of Mexicans,
the people that are all around us in the United States
that happen to be the most peaceful, loving, family-oriented,
religious, good people, everything that we claim we want in America.
They are.
They work their asses off, and they have a great society. I mean, I'm not, look,
if you're going to, if you're going to stereotype a people, I can back it up with facts. They,
of the crime rates among different ethnicities, Latinos have the lowest. And you go to the
country and we were in Mazatlan, which is in the mainland of Mexico,
but just below the Baja Peninsula,
so it's about a third of the way down the coastline,
and it's in Sinaloa, the state, Sinaloa County,
or the state of Sinaloa, which is fucking,
what's his name?
Who's the big, El Duce? El Duce, is that his name who's the big uh el el dute el duche el duche is that his name anyway
i think it's dangerous outside of there mazalan's beautiful and it's safe i went down there
uh we we flew out of the tijuana airport which sounds scary scary because Tijuana is considered a very dangerous spot.
But here's the key. Here's the great travel hack if you live in Los Angeles or San Diego,
is you drive to the San Diego side of Tijuana because it's on the border and you park in a lot
Tijuana because it's on the border and you park in a lot and you then walk through a little underpass and you're in the airport and the flights out of Tijuana are about 75% cheaper than the U.S.
flights out of L.A. So we did that and we get down, and as we're flying, my cousin Denny McCarthy,
who if you listen to the podcast, you know is a big golfer.
He's on the PGA Tour.
He's ranked number 30 in the world right now.
He is statistically one of the top two or three putters on the tour.
And the Texas Open was going on while we were down there and denny was
in second place there was a guy in first place i can't remember his name uh this guy was up by
like five strokes over denny denny was in second place and in the final round denny birdied eight
of the last nine holes which is fucking unheard of in golf, to put himself into sudden death with this other guy.
And we're listening. We're in the cab. And it's me, my son, and like three of his friends all piled into a taxi or an Airbnb, what am what i'm saying an uber in mazatlan and we are watching the sudden
death and we are fucking scree he kills his drive lays up perfect second shot and now the other guy
is in trouble the other guy has he pumped his fist when he went to overtime and uh dislocated
his shoulder his fucking shoulder snapped out they had to snap it back in and now the guy
his his trainer came out and taped him up in the fairway so now i'm like all right we're fucking
this is over denny's got this And the guy hits it in the rough.
And Denny's in the fairway.
And we're like, this is it.
He's going to finally win his first tournament.
And Denny steps up to his ball.
And he proceeds to chunk it.
To just hit a lot of dirt and grass.
And his ball goes in the water.
And the other guy hits it up, makes the put tournament's over he comes in second he came in second which means he won a million dollars so
takes the sting out of it a little bit but he showed fucking gumption he showed balls he was
uh it was really really exciting and you saw a guy who once again has put his name in the
ring as one of the top players in the game. And my family is all texting. I'm on a big group
chain. My mother is the McCarthy side. Everybody's texting. And anyway, it was a great way to start
the trip. So we get down there. I haven't seen Owen in five months and I see him and I just was so,
oh my God,
the joy that I felt and giving him a big hug.
He looks so good.
He's fucking tan and handsome and he's had a nice little beard going and he
doesn't wash his hair anymore.
And he's got,
he was down there with 11 frames traveling with one guy mostly.
And then one or two guys came on the second half of the trip.
Great dudes.
But the main guy he traveled with is named Gabriel, and he's also fluent in Spanish.
They're both fluent in Spanish.
But Gabriel is like this renaissance man.
He's this very good- guy he's got these black curly locks and he is uh uh he was like an eagle scout
so he knows how to do anything he travels with a fishing pole and uh and and somebody gave him a
fucking uh spear gun and he would wherever they would go he would like head off at the crack of
dawn to the ocean and he'd always talk his way onto a boat and come home with fish find a grill
he'd gut it clean it sir cook it serve it is the greatest guy to travel with and like just walks
up to anybody um he he's just a really good dude and he's got a really nice family they came down
for the for the trip so he went down to see the see the eclipse. And maybe you're eclipsed out,
but let me tell you my incredible experience with the eclipse. We go down and we're with my
niece, Julia, who lives in San Diego. And she's fun as shit. So we go down to the beach, and the eclipse is at 11 a.m.
We get down there around 9.30,
and everybody's,
they got two bottles of tequila,
they got cerveza,
and everybody's,
we got on this killer moon soundtrack,
Bad Moon Rising, Harvest Moon,
and so everybody's dancing.
Everybody's having a blast.
The beach is crowded.
And Mazatlan has a lot of tourists, but they're mostly Mexican tourists.
There's not a lot of gringos at all.
You rarely ran into an American.
And so everybody's dancing and getting along.
And then all of a sudden, the sun and the moon touch and you have to put on your glasses.
We all had the glasses and we're looking up and you started to feel this buzz.
You started to feel this kind of paranormal shift and nature, the wall between you and nature suddenly started to recede.
And as it got more and more over the moon, it looked like the Apple logo, you know, with
the bite taken out of the Apple and it kept sliding over and everybody's looking up, but
everybody's talking and you start to feel euphoric, and people were dancing like crazy.
And then all of a sudden, you got to total eclipse, and it's hard to describe the landscape.
It was like a glowing sunset in 360 degrees.
The whole, the ocean, the mountains, everything had a sunset going at the
same time. And you could take your glasses off and you stare it up and you just saw this
perfect glowing circle with light beams shooting out of it. And all of a sudden, I felt very much
and all of a sudden, I felt very much like I was tripping on mushrooms, and everybody else did.
One girl burst into tears, and for the entire four minutes, she was crying, and people were arm and arm in circles, jumping up and down. There was a sense of being exactly where you were meant to be.
I felt like we were in the center of the universe in tune with it.
I mean, I can't tell you enough how spiritual this was.
And then eventually the full eclipse ended and the sun started to come out
and we laid on our backs with the glasses on.
And I forgot to say, while the eclipse happened, everybody turned off their music. There was this
understanding that this was the time to be present. And then as soon as the eclipse ended
and the sun was coming away from the moon, we laid on our backs, all of
us, there was like 15 of us. And we laid end to end on our backs and somebody put the soundtrack
on and Dark Side of the Moon came out. And I felt a sense of community with everybody. Like I hadn't
felt, I was smiling from the time the eclipse started until a good 30 minutes later.
I had a beaming smile on my face that did not go away.
I felt like I just mainlined fucking Prozac or something.
I guess it's what MDMA must feel like.
I've never taken it.
And I wasn't on anything.
And I got up and then Harvest Moon came on and me and Aaron
danced together. And then everybody danced. And then it was just, you felt like the ocean was
calling and we just ran into the ocean and road waves. Oh, and the flocks of birds during the eclipse started to go crazy. They were,
they were swooping over the ocean and straight up in the air. It was, it was really hard to explain.
And, uh, and it was just, um, I don't know. Uh, it's hard. It was amazing. And to see all these
young people, I mean, my friend, my son is 23, my daughter's 20,
and all these kids are in that age range.
And to see youth, it was like full euphoric youth.
The way they behave was so unfiltered
and so raw and so emotional.
And it was incredible.
I can't go on enough about it.
I know that the next one is going to be in Majorca in 2026.
I will be there.
If you have gone through a total full eclipse,
I forget the word for it,
you need to go again.
It's like Coachella when Billie Eilish comes on stage. Can I get enough
of that in my fucking feed? Can people stop feeding me Billie Eilish coming on stage during
Dua Lipa? I don't know, some other fucking pop star. I don't care. It's not magic to me.
Anyway, I should get on with it because I know you guys want to hear Pete Holmes. I will be at the Irvine Improv this weekend, April 18th
through the 20th. Mamaroneck at the Emmeline Theater on May 31st. Escondido just announced
the Grand Comedy Club June 7th through the 8th. I was supposed to be at Joe Rogan's Club, June 7th through the 8th. I was supposed to be at Joe Rogan's Club, the mothership,
that weekend, but that is getting moved probably to July, but I'll update you.
Pittsburgh at the WDVE Festival with Harlan Williams, June 21st. Tickets for all these
are at FitzDawg.com. Support live comedy. get some tickets to come out, bring some friends. Also, don't forget, support for Fits Dog Radio comes from GameTime.
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All right.
My guest, once again, this is part two of this.
He has a new special out called I Am Not For Everyone.
He kind of is for everyone.
I don't know too many people that don't really appreciate Pete's sense of humor.
He's a real fucking craftsman.
He's so goddamn funny.
Check out the special.
He's had a bunch of specials in the past, Impregnated with Wonder. Nice Try the Devil.
Dirty Clean.
I wrote for him on Crashing.
We talk about that.
And he also had a sitcom called How We Roll on CBS this past year.
Great dude.
Here's part two.
And this will be a little jarring because we are not doing an intro because I literally just cut the interview in half.
So let's rejoin where we were with Pete Holmes.
So my daughter gets up around 7.
So I have between 5.30 and 7.
I have my coffee and I sit.
I read my Richard Rohr.
I read Rupert Spira.
I read Practice of the Presence of God.
Eckhart Tolle.
All that sort of stuff.
And I do a Tony Robbins meditation called Priming
where you flood yourself with oxygen
and you do a gratitude practice
it's incredible amazing absolutely change and that that is on youtube you can just look up the
tony robbins priming yeah if you're interested but do you want me to tell you this one interesting
thing about priming yeah please very interesting can we do it i know we can do it absolutely
but like what priming is it's basically why advertising works.
And it's, it's, it actually really shifts how I think about our words. Like when I tell you,
oh, you're, you're handsome. You're Ed Harris. You're, you're, you're so funny. You're a good
dad. That shit matters way more than we think it does. And it starts to get a little, I don't want
to make anybody paranoid, but if I said unkind things, it's like a spell. It really is. It ripples out. So anyway, what priming is,
and I've said this a million, so anybody that's heard me say it, I'm sorry, but they did one of
these studies. You know how science is always being tricky and they don't tell you what they're
actually studying? They tell you they're studying this, but they're actually studying that.
The long hallway going out into a room, there's magnetic poetry,
and they ask you to make a poem.
That's all they're doing.
And then you leave.
And everybody thinks, oh, they must be studying like, oh, I'm this age.
This is the kind of poem I make.
Actually, what they're studying is the speed at which you walk out of the hallway
when you walk back to your car.
And group one gets words like rapid fast swift you know
quickly yeah they walk and then the group two gets words like lethargic slow
stodgy Oh interesting lazy yeah group one the group that got words like quick
fast rapid they walk like 35% faster yeah everybody all different ages all
different types everybody walk factor because they were primed
with the words.
So the implications for this in comedy are kind of staggering.
I was literally just thinking that.
Staggering.
A comedian that says, don't drink and drive,
but they can't catch us all, you're complicit.
Yeah.
Like, I'm all for freedom of speech,
but I'm also aware of the interconnectivity of all of us.
And if I'm kind to of the interconnectivity of all of us.
And if I'm kind to you, the implications of that echo.
Well, and it goes back to madmen and them drinking and smoking and making it cool.
And what effect is that having on the population?
Dude, I still think a bowl of peas is the coolest thing a person can eat because that's
what my dad would eat watching TV, just a bowl of peas. Nothing cooler than a bowl of peas. Like coolest thing a person can eat. Cause that's what my dad would eat watching TV. Just a bowl of peas,
nothing cooler than a bowl of peas.
Like we're so impressionable.
So what,
when the morning priming exercise,
part of it,
you do this thing where you,
you do this breathing thing,
but then the second part is you think of three moments that you're grateful
for,
but you do them associated, not dissociated. Meaning like one of three moments that you're grateful for but you do them um associated
uh not dissociated meaning like one of the memories that i think about often is is me and val and lila
we were in canada and we were at this place and they had a sled like you just sleds and you go
down this big sled and the three of us got in it and the sled went down really steep it was scary
like dad went first i'll make sure i've got
to feel like a dad yeah i'll go first and it goes out and it lets out onto a frozen lake it's like
kind of fierce right and then we i did it with me and lila i'm holding on tight she's like scream
laugh and i remember this and then we all three did it. And it's not just remembering it. It's like putting yourself back in your body.
What did it feel?
What were you hearing?
I was hearing Lila laughing.
Like, remember the laugh.
What were you feeling?
I was feeling the hard ice, the cold.
How was I breathing?
I was breathing kind of excited, you know?
And it was cold.
I was feeling all this stuff.
And you put yourself back there,
and you would be shocked at how you can relive it.
Wow.
You did it once.
I've done that a hundred times.
And that's there for you to draw from.
It's inside you.
It was always there.
Right.
And this is, you're priming it.
You're remembering that life is worth living, to be honest.
Some days you're not sledding with your baby, but you're
kind of reheating this meal you already had. You do that one minute each for three different
memories. I think about, you know, a lot of them are vacations or little trips, but some of them
are just took Lila on our bike to this restaurant where they have strawberry shortcake, came out
with whipped cream up high. She just put her face in it. I've lived that moment 150 times because I do it every morning
and a smile creeps on your face.
You can't help it.
I think about moments on stage.
I could even think about this.
It doesn't have to be fancy.
I was like, I connected with Greg.
There's people out there.
And you're priming yourself with like there are moments like that.
And then you do this thing
where you imagine light going down your body kind of like a body scan and while you you say like
strengthen the best parts of me my courage my bravery my generosity my kindness my listening
my genius my humor my gen i already said generosity you don't have to be creative my love
my caring my compassion but you're doing that exercise for yourself.
It's not just picturing a thing.
That's not magic.
It's literally going like, I always say courage.
Courage is a big one for me.
I'm like, strengthen my courage.
Increase the best parts of me.
My playfulness, my laughter, my silliness.
You think when my babies get up val and lila the
dad is not a little bit better that he sat there for 15 fucking minutes going increase my joy uh-huh
it's fucking pepsico yeah has taken this and they spend a billion dollars you don't think it works
right fucking works right it's fucking free and it's getting me up at 5 30 in the morning yeah if you you know
what i'm saying like that it is moments i mean that's the thing like you talk about vacations
because it really is like skiing to me is such a pain in the ass you gotta collect all the clothing
you gotta rent the skis you gotta drive five hours maybe there, get up the mountain, get your fucking lift ticket, and then get on the chairlift.
And all of a sudden, you're floating down the,
and it's all worth it because it's that moment.
And life is really, and I'm realizing this more as I get older,
that make the effort to get those magic moments.
Absolutely.
Tom Papa did my podcast, and we think about it all the time.
He goes, I was the kind of family that you were like,
you can't go to the fireworks on 4th of July because there'll be traffic.
And he's like, we go?
No traffic.
Uh-huh.
It's fine.
We found parking.
Yep.
We watch the fireworks.
Right.
And we think about that all the time.
And this practice really makes me realize, you know,
on our honeymoon we went to Bora Bora. I know that's fancy, and it's a pain all the time. And this practice really makes me realize, on our honeymoon, we went to Bora Bora.
I know that's fancy, and it's a pain in the ass.
It's three flights.
It's expensive.
You kind of can't help but be like,
are we going to, am I going to regret this?
I've been there a thousand times. Yeah, yeah.
I relive it.
Right.
Over and over and over.
Yeah.
It's really, really powerful. Yeah, we're going to South Africa for the fourth time this coming Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Because they relive it. Right. Over and over and over. Yeah. It's really, really powerful.
Yeah, we're going to South Africa for the fourth time this coming Christmas.
That's good.
And it's three flights.
That's brutal.
You got to get shots.
Yeah.
You got to fucking spend.
Yeah, you got to spend a ton of money for each ticket.
And there's crime when you first, you know, you get into Johannesburg and it's fucking
crazy.
when you first you know you get into johannesburg and it's fucking crazy but once you hit cape town yeah and you're hiking and there's a french valley where they grow wine where they do a seven course
meal and and you just it's fucking yeah you're you're absolutely this is what we've been talking
about this whole time is is good life when and you'll notice that the memory stands go like this
is good life wine and you'll notice
that the memories
I think bike stands
go like this
don't you think
it should go like this
don't you come in
yeah
don't do it
do the fat
do the fat part
facing you
yeah
everybody relax
I'm just kidding
what if I'm a turd
shut the fuck up
I'm real mean
don't adjust that
what I'm saying is
what was I saying oh how many of these
moments when i'm doing my gratitude practice really taking an inventory of what matters most
in my life look i love what i do but very rarely is it like and i went on stage and i fucking
annihilated right or and i shut down when we were doing crashing.
I'm not saying I'm not grateful for it,
but I catch myself when I'm really going
for the top, top, top ones.
They're things that are available to most people.
They're making breakfast with my baby.
Yeah.
Or they're riding a bike with my daughter.
Right.
And I know that's a cliche,
but it's underreported that
these things are what matters no i i'm doing a bit now about the orgasm like it's the single
most enjoyable visceral yeah absolutely there's no second i mean there's orgasm you got to go
way down so you hit a second thing that's that enjoyable cold hot but yes yeah cold hot yeah
maybe the cold plunge and that and yet it is available
you don't have to be rich poor and i would even argue that poor people have better ones yeah
because rich people good shit's already happening all day that's so funny well dopamine does work
that way yeah uh you can get flooded with it and then even you're jizzing and you're like
that's why rich people come like this.
No, to the archery grounds.
You know, they're not.
Then you see a Mexican one coming.
I can't show you, but you've seen it.
You've seen it.
I don't know why.
What's the difference between a Mexican-American princess and a Jewish-American princess?
The Mexican-American princess, the jewelry's fake, but the orgasms are real.
My dad told me that when I was about 12.
Very good.
Yeah.
I love your dad.
Let's go to the script.
His cocktail.
There's so many things I want to ask you.
Where did you think Princess Kate was when she was missing?
Didn't know she was missing.
Good.
Was she missing?
Yeah.
How long?
Since Christmas.
And she just popped up this week.
Really?
Yeah.
Kate Middleton.
The prince.
Don't even know who that is.
Either William or Harry.
The one that didn't leave.
His wife.
Oh, William.
William's wife.
Yeah.
So William's wife.
I know from The Crown.
Yeah.
And the fucking, you know, the press in england like they're brutal but they're so mean you know she's
getting plastic surgery he's had an affair and she's got bruises on her face well guess what
she's got cancer she was getting surgery for cancer yeah take. Take that. The post or whatever they call it.
The sun.
They are really evil.
Which is it, England?
Are you classy?
Yeah.
Are you like,
look at that queen's mange?
I know.
Which is it?
Right.
I would never be caught
in white shoes on a Thursday.
Look at that piece of shit
where the tits are.
Which is it?
Pick a lane.
I would never be so undignified as to not wear a three-piece suit to work.
Oy, oy, oy.
The queen's got a scepter up her ass.
Which one?
I feel the same way about America, to be honest.
Which is it?
We're like, that's triggering.
I'm not even making fun of it.
I'm just saying, look at what we're doing.
You can't say that.
That hurts my feelings.
This, this, this, this.
Everything's hyper.
And the number one genre is horror.
Which is it?
Which fucking is it?
Right.
It's like everything needs to be like perfect.
And then at night we go into a dark room and there's a clown like, I fucked a cat.
That's how I got my powers.
And we're like, yay!
Right.
Which is it?
I know.
Pick a lane.
What about the feminists that are doing true crime podcasts
where the women are raped every week?
Well, this is what, you're in the ballpark, right?
The shadow needs reckoning.
Yeah.
Make no mistake.
They knew it in the 60s.
Yeah.
Human beings are complicated
fucking stormy weird swirls of purple in an infinite black and we don't even know what the
fuck we are yeah and we're going around you know what's happening look i'm not even i like how
sensitive we are that's real i think it's great i love modern parenting i love it all so i'm not
making fun of when i say to my daughter like big big feelings, I see, I respect you, I believe you.
I think all of that is great.
But it's, I sort of lost my train of thought.
Well, no, there's two sides.
No, I think of it as-
Goddammit, it was gonna be great.
I think it's great, but make no mistake.
We, there's a reckoning that needs to happen.
We are made of conflict.
We're made of weird violence and sex and rage and greed.
And what's happening is we're kind of doing what I did growing up,
which in the church, which was like,
if we wear khakis and we buckle our pants,
no one will know we're rageful.
You know what I mean?
Then you get in the parking lot and you're like,
fuck you, Joel.
Like you're fucking.
Right.
You got to find healthy ways to let out all of the feelings.
Right.
I think we can do that in a way that won't upset and won't, you know, I'm not here to
trigger people, but like make, when we see the horror genre, we go, right.
Like.
Yeah.
There's shit that we need to deal with.
Yeah.
As being a human.
That's interesting
um yeah true crime is and true crime is another one has been so big in the last since the pandemic
it's just gotten crazy yeah um but i think exercise i mean if you look at pictures sometimes
on the on uh you know facebook they'll show pictures of a crowd of people walking by in the 1950s. There is not an
overweight person there. And I think people exercise more. I think they were more physical.
I think it's the food too.
I think the food makes a huge difference.
We're being poisoned.
Right.
But look at how much, whatever, I don't even know if you call it obesity anymore. I don't
know what you call it, but heavier heavier people if you look at the percentage
you go like it's not willpower yeah it's not simply as overeating it's like it's it's big
food well it's chemicals that are addictive that are hooking people it's advertising it's
this whole system that's wiping our brains yeah starts at school lunches and it just goes
and nobody knows a better way i really i know I know everyone's like, oh, everyone's a victim. I'm like, no, I think people are victims
because I went to LA. I had more access to more different types of information.
I watched one green juice documentary and like turned my life around. People don't know.
Yeah.
People don't know.
Right. People live in food deserts. Like you go down south, the overweight food deserts you ever heard of that no it's great food desert is basically
usually in an urban area where in a in a bad neighborhood there's no whole foods there's no
fresh vegetables yeah there's a ton of fast food and that even if you wanted to eat well yeah you
live in a food desert so you can't even even get it. And you're taking public transportation.
That's my take.
I don't think it scrolls.
I think eating poison removes your motivation to move.
Yes.
But I don't think it's like the people.
I really think we're victims.
The top 15 most overweight cities are in the Deep South.
They just had a study come out.
Why do you think that is?
I don't know.
I don't know either.
I mean, deep fryers?
Probably.
Deep frying stuff.
Culture of deep fried and...
It's a tricky thing when your identity...
If you want to really solidify a behavior,
marry your identity to it.
Yeah.
And when you're like,
it's part of my identity
that we that you know and i had that i have that for certain things
how much are we capable of changing our baseline in terms of you're born catholic you're born
democrat you're born uh in a family that's overweight excluding how much of that is
biological because some of that is biological,
because some of it is...
I'm fascinated with all of this.
I think it starts with the pilot light has to be lit,
meaning the person has to have a pilot light of,
I want something different.
Otherwise, you could change somebody for a month or whatever.
It's like they take on house people.
They've done these experiments and they give them a house.
But if you don't fix the the the problem the whatever issue it is they elect to return to
the streets right in the study that i that i was that i'm referring to so i i used to lose sleep
going like we we could take anybody and clean up their diet and get them exercising get them fresh
air get them this get them slow get them meditating get them reading get them exercising, get them fresh air, get them this, get them slow, get them meditating, get them reading,
get them stimulated, get them community.
And I'm like, but if the pilot light isn't lit,
none of it'll work.
And I'm fascinated with that pilot light.
Like what lights the pilot light?
And that pilot light has to be the thing
that brings that person to the rehab.
If you push somebody in there, it ain't taken.
It won't work.
And even if it does work for a time, it won't stay.
Right.
And the pilot light is usually some sort of trauma.
I mean, for me, I remember my pilot light being lit
because I sort of felt invisible in my life.
So, of course, this is an overcorrection of a feeling I had as a child.
It's like everyone's gonna there will be a
reckoning yeah you will listen yeah to me but that life's a pilot light this is why spider-man
radioactive spider bite every it's a trauma that turns you into spider-man i'm not saying i'm
spider-man i'm saying anybody that makes a massive change and becomes an outlier yeah it's gamma rays
your parents are killed or it's a spider well. Well, it's not somebody who trains you.
One of the things they talk about with sobriety
is when the pain of staying the same
is greater than the pain of change.
Yeah, you associate, to really get someone to change,
they need to associate what they're doing
with massive amounts of pain.
It's not even change with pleasure,
it's current with pain.
Right.
And that's real Tony robbins stuff right there yeah
it's like the way that i got myself to exercise more is you're like do you like picking up your
kid that's so much better than like i should yeah my doctor says i should right right eat shit yeah
like do you like going up the stairs yeah i mean right walk it out like how does this and i think
that's tough too because in this job market and I think jobs are getting more stressful.
Very often,
like you're,
someone gets fired and you're waiting for the new guy to come in.
It's like,
no,
you're doing that now too.
And your job becomes more stressful,
less meaningful,
less part of a tapestry of something that's moving towards a goal where you
have job security.
And you're also parenting on your own.
You know what I mean?
I have one kid and I'm a famous comedian.
It almost destroyed us.
You know what I'm saying?
Like what the fuck?
It's crazy.
We're supposed to be doing this together.
We're supposed to be eating together.
Supposed to be talking together.
We're supposed to be hanging out together.
All of this comes down. Like what what love is is the recognition of your nature and my nature
is the same and we you ask anybody like what's the if there was a meaning to life what is it love
but what is love really it's it's seeing this interconnectivity it's what i was saying about
our words it's also saying like how do we relate to each other what do we do together who do we
eat how do we how do we help like your kids? What do we do together? Who do we eat? How do we help?
Like your kids should be my kids.
And a lot of problems come from like othering.
And a lot of solutions come from smothering.
I like that.
No, I look at society problems as like, they're ours.
We gotta stop seeing.
Well, Father Greg Boyle, who started Homeboy.
I'm just checking the time.
Who started Homeboy.
What time is it?
We're good.
I told Val 3.30 and it's 3.
Am I going to see her?
Yeah.
Okay, good.
I know you're the best.
I love that you, if the key to a comedian, to get into a comedian's heart, care about
their partner.
Yeah.
And you're so good at that.
I don't think you do it to win her over.
No, no, no.
She brings me great joy.
Val is the best.
She's great.
Father Greg Boyle, who started Homeboy Industries,
he said, the problem is we forgot we belong to each other.
And I think that's really it.
I like to go down the non-dual path and get real deep spiritual.
If you want a nice ham and egg breakfast,
we forgot we belong to each other.
And we other people.
And we love it.
We love cutting off heads.
We love taking people out at the knees
we love watching a struggling fucking mom it's like a joke like a tired mom yeah yeah i'm not
saying that's mostly i'm just saying somewhere in your heart you're kind of like well shouldn't
have had kids right yeah and i think it's also happened we build up celebrities to pull them down. That's the sport.
No, I know.
There's a reason why we want to exalt Beyonce.
The second she fucks up.
Well, look with Lizzo.
Right.
We loved watching Lizzo.
The whole thing is pornography.
Yeah.
The whole fucking thing. Right.
What can we jizz?
Yeah.
How can we jizz?
Is it a hate jizz?
Right.
I remember Lizzo's a flautist and she's the real deal and she writes her own stuff and
she's helping people love their bodies.
And then I don't know the details.
I'm not one of, I don't read this shit.
I just know she was scandalized.
So maybe it was the worst thing in the world.
I don't know.
I'm just saying there's a fervor.
Yeah.
People love to cannibalize it.
Yeah.
And the whole thing.
No, like Cosby.
to cannibalize it.
Yeah.
And the whole thing.
No, like Cosby.
So,
so the wind left my chest.
I was like,
and then you didn't look at me.
You just stared.
And I was like,
Oh, Bill. That was was like. Oh, Bill.
That was so funny.
Oh, Bill.
Marry me, Bill.
That's an old song.
I don't know how to sing it.
All right.
I want to talk about also.
This is a great studio.
Is it this guy's studio?
Yeah, it's Paul.
Paul Roman.
He is an old neighbor of mine
as a matter of fact
he's part of this old group
that I've talked about
what would it cost
to rent this studio
for five hours?
no just tell me now
this is a
Paul calls this
an incubator space
and he would welcome you
with
no charge
to come in here
and work out
anything you wanted to
is that real?
because I knew this is way better I have to shoot something is this great it's way
better he's got all these beautiful new cameras and lights and it includes the
camera rental
Jesus yeah that's incredible because we were gonna i have a studio but we're gonna roll out a green
screen this is nice is this great yeah um wow you never know who you're gonna meet
just a man losing his mind what was that
i know on thatcher oh my next door neighbor the way, has a place in Ojai,
and he's got kids.
You should meet him as well.
Have fun.
He's a great dude.
He's an art dealer,
was an actor,
did very well,
but then the guy who,
the woman that was Banksy's dealer
met him in New York,
and he went to Hollywood High
or Beverly Hills High
one of them
he knew everybody
fucking grew up with all the
and so
do you want to start selling Banksy's
for California
do you want to be the
and so he starts selling more
than they can even get him
he's at
Demi Moore's house one day
and he's at
you know
Sam Jackson's house
and so
he got so big that he just started dealing on the other and now he's at you know sam jackson's house and so he got so big that uh he just started
dealing another and now he's like this huge dealer but he's the most down-to-earth funny
cool dude i love it i want you to meet him honestly that move has been really great for us
yeah we just meet really interesting cool people yeah it's bikes on the lawn get an ice cream and go to the park town
nice it's just it's fucking unbelievable yeah i love it that's great um have you ever saved
somebody's life great question stealing it i'm just kidding wouldn't that break your heart
you're listening to you made it weird you're at an airport you have a layover you're like i'll
listen to pete and i'm like you ever save someone's life? And you're like, God damn it. And then I kill you and nobody can save you.
Have I ever saved somebody's life?
I guess I would know if I did.
Nothing's coming to mind.
I've had my life saved.
You have?
Yeah.
Well, that's just as good.
Yeah.
My life's been saved several times.
My dad and I were walking on the beach,
and there was a huge wave hit me, sucked me out,
and he held on.
Fucking crazy.
He pulled me out.
I was head to toe covered in sand.
Uh-huh.
Not a regular wave.
Yeah.
Like a widow wave. Like you would have been gone.
Gone.
Yeah.
Dad, save me.
Did you ever hear about, there was a woman,
this Jewish woman was on the beach with her son,
and this wave came, and the woman was on the beach with her son,
and this wave came, and the kid was like maybe three years old, and this wave came, and it hit them, and the kid just got sucked out, and she ran into the water, and she's looking around,
she can't find him, and she screamed, the kid's name was Joshua, And she's going, Joshua, Joshua.
And then she looked up at the sky and she goes,
God, if you just bring me back Joshua, I will do anything.
And there was a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning.
And then sitting on the beach on a dry towel was Joshua.
And he was dry and he was smiling.
And she's Jewish.
And she looked up at the sky and she went, he had a hat?
This is too good.
Can I tell you a joke, a street joke?
Yes, please.
Rabbi Mordecai Finley, who you should have on,
he's an incredible, very deeply interesting man.
He did my podcast.
So keep in mind, this joke was told to me by a rabbi.
So it's rabbi approved.
Okay.
It is about a Jewish stereotype, but I think it's much better than that, deeper than that.
These two Jewish men are walking down the street and they see a sign in front of a church and it
says, convert to Catholicism. We'll give you $40. And the first Jew says to the second one, he goes,
I'll go in. I'll see if it's real. Then you can go in. He goes in.
30 minutes later, he comes out.
Second guy goes, did you get the 40 bucks?
First guy goes, is that all you people think about?
Is that a good joke?
That's a great joke.
It's kind of a perfect joke.
It's a perfect joke.
And on the surface, it's just a Jewish stereotype joke.
But really, it's about how quickly we adopt and cannibalize,
how quickly we want to other.
It's what we were just talking about.
Right, right.
It's shining a light on that.
Like, as soon as you, your first day at Harvard,
you start acting like a Harvard guy.
Uh-huh.
It's like, you just got in.
And you're like, Yale, you just got here.
Yeah, I think Colin Quinn used to have a joke
about Ellis Island and how one guy walks up,
hands over his papers, gets sworn in,
takes two steps and turn around and he goes,
what's with all these fucking immigrants?
That's exactly the joke.
Yeah.
It's brilliant.
It's perfect.
And somebody, when I was on Best Week Ever,
it was one of my first- We were on Best Week Ever. That's right. It's perfect. And somebody, when I was on Best Week Ever, it was one of my first...
We were on Best Week Ever.
That's right.
Yeah.
So I go to one of my Best Week Ever parties,
and I didn't know anything about drinking,
and I didn't know I had a drinking problem.
And I'm doing shots, and I'm chasing it with tequila.
Like, I knew you were supposed to do a shot
and then chase it with something.
Like, can someone help this boy?
Yeah.
This sweet little boy.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm 25 years old.
Shot.
And I'm wobbling.
And I don't remember this,
but one of the producers,
God, I should remember his name.
Remember his face.
But we were walking in Times Square
and I just started walking into the street
and he pulled me out of the street
and a car whizzes by, saved my life.
Wow.
Yeah, so I've had my life saved a couple of times.
That's pretty sweet.
And you know, the dad answers,
I feel like I save Leela's life every day.
The truth is I don't.
But I've had some clutch,
I wish you'd seen, falling out of a tree, catching her.
Cause she's a rough and tumble.
When Owen was about five or six,
he was in a tree at my neighbor's house.
You know, the Dunsky's house, Paul.
And so Theo, their son,
who is a couple years older than Owen,
and he was on one limb
and Owen was on the other limb.
And then I'm standing underneath.
And then at the exact same time,
both boys jumped to me.
And I turned and I caught Owen.
And Theo landed flat on the ground.
Had a fat lip.
Cried hysterically.
But he was crying for so long that you realized part of it was the physical injury and part of it was the betrayal.
I made the choice.
Fitzy's choice.
Yes.
And the next day I went to Ross Dress for Less and I bought him
a Spider-Man pulley suitcase
because he was into superheroes and I gave it to
him and like
he loved me
so much. Oh it worked. Yeah yeah yeah.
I thought he was going to be like yeah
I'm moving out with this. He forgave me.
Good. But I saved Owen.
Saved Owen. Yeah he made your choice.
Yeah. This is called Fast Yeah, you made your choice. Yeah.
This is called Fastballs with Fitz, by the way.
What is something you've turned down recently?
You know, I did a movie in Winnipeg,
and I read the script, and I was like,
oh, I'm in 10 pages of this.
I'm in this movie for about seven minutes.
So they'll probably shoot me out in about seven days. seemed reasonable i was there for two months and uh it was a fine it was a good experience overall but there were just so many days off
and so many days where all i did was walk on set and like wave at somebody and i was wrapped
and winnipeg in january there's not a lot of options.
Yeah.
So going back to what really matters to you,
I just got an email, somebody nudging me about it,
just kind of some movie auditions, not offers, but auditions.
And I'm just like, I think I'm going to sit the next couple plays out.
Because it's like, I don't know if that's a real value of mine.
Right.
Like, I'm not sure.
So I've turned down a couple movie, small parts in movies.
What else would you turn down at this point?
You know, I was thinking about it.
You know, I did my talk show and I'm like,
I'm pretty sure if someone was like, do a talk show,
I'm 90% sure I would be like i know yeah because that is just
conan said to me once he was like that job is like putting your bone marrow in a wood
in a wood chipper uh-huh and i think he loved it but he was also just kind of like look out
yeah and i did it for not 80 episodes and i really loved it. And then we got canceled. And there was a part of me that was like,
that'll do pig.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like when Shanling turned down Letterman's post,
they offered it to Shanling and he turned it down.
I was like,
at that point in my career,
I was like,
what are you insane?
And I'm like,
no,
I get it.
Right.
No,
I've,
uh, I've staffed on shows that were daily and,
people get a bad reputation as stars of those shows conan
never did which is fucking astounding yeah kimmel never did astounding yeah um alan on the other
hand who i worked for uh people came down really hard on her and look she earned it to some degree
but i also always gave her a pass because i saw day in
and day out that she was the first one there she was doing interviews with the st louis local
station and then she was picking wardrobe and then she was hiring somebody for you know it never
ended yeah i didn't get to a place where it was inhuman for me, but I just did Angela Hartman,
who booked our show,
booked the talent.
She books the talent for,
I'm embarrassed.
I can't remember if it's the view or the talk.
It's one of those shows.
Yeah.
And I did that show and I saw her and she very casually,
she didn't mean it in a mean way,
but she was like,
oh,
I remember on your talk show,
we would joke that there were different Pete's.
And if your hoodie was up,
that meant like, leave him and i was like not like i would snap at anybody yeah but my way of coping with it was like i had signals to be like i'm closed yes because it was just like
i need 10 minutes yeah so when steve harvey my person that got a bad rap sympathize story
he wrote on that show?
No, no, no.
But Steve Harvey had that email where he was like,
when I'm at work, I'm at work.
Don't talk to me in the elevator.
Don't pitch me a show when I'm walking down the hall.
And I think he had Don't Look Me in the Eye.
You know, I would say it crossed a line for my taste
for a company-wide email.
But when I read it i was like
i get it i get it this guy's done 14 shows yeah and at that point you're like
eye contact is a very human thing until it's not yeah until it's someone trying to be like
you see will you sign this for my mom or whatever it is and this guy's just trying to protect his
energy yeah and i don't understand i don't expect anyone to even inside with me right now but in the people that are in that small
fraternity i'm like no letterman was famous for not wanting anybody to look at him when he was
going to the fucking stage yeah when he was juggling 15 monologue jokes guest questions
i was on a a multi-cam it's one one of my favorite things that I ever did, actually.
Talk about a work-life balance.
You roll in 11, you're done four, you go cocktail.
I just loved it so much.
But they would change the script, not but.
Often they would change the script, scenes not working.
They'd write a monologue, half a page of dialogue for me.
And I was working with this really nice kid mason played my son i i was wonderful kid but he would be trying to like riff with me just didn't know and i'd have to be like i'm trying to learn half
a page of lines and they're waiting so i started like going off in a corner started looking like a fucking Nosferatu weirdo right
like Letterman like all it's not easy guys yeah I mean it's a privilege and a dream job
but like sometimes there's pressure and sometimes it's tick tock tick tock well and it's also once
you get on that stage now you got a hundred crew members waiting on you to do it right and so to
have one person backstage go,
hey, you know, I remember you from when you were on Best Week Ever.
And don't forget that we are absolutely, and Letterman, I'm sure,
all of us, our whole species, are confident titty babies.
We're huge and confident, but somewhere in there,
there's something that's so tender and so vulnerable
that if you just so happen to say the wrong thing to me or to letterman or to anybody yeah it doesn't matter
how confident they seem could trigger some combination of words that it's like a porn star
they just can't get it up yeah you just said like your mom called and now you're gonna go to an orgy
yeah right fucking weird right and and there's a certain mojo-ness.
I was doing a show at the Wilbur in Boston.
I was about to go on stage.
And, you know, my opener, Paris Sechet,
very funny lady, was on stage.
She's closing.
And the PA, some theater employee,
has a headset and comes up and goes,
your dad's here
and I tell my parents
not to come
yeah
no I know
right
don't come
yeah
please
I love you
thank you for the support
please don't come
I can't do
I talk about this on stage
I go I can't do comedy
in front of the energy
that turned me into a comedian
right
doesn't work
yeah
don't let me be a grown man
I can't be a little boy up there.
And you turned me into a little boy.
Yeah, my mom is coming to see me in Florida next week.
At least you know.
Yeah, that helps.
I'm about to go on stage.
And I felt like, it was a great show.
I don't think, I hope, I pray nobody knew.
But I didn't have as much swagger.
And the jokes about my dad, Yeah. That became a new bit.
I have a new bit about I do the joke and then I go, let me tell you about the time I did
that joke with my dad watching.
I was like, I do it a lot more and I do it the way I did it.
Yeah.
It's not really true.
I did it full force.
You did.
I did do it full force.
Good.
And there was a line in the joke where I go, I say to my dad, I go, what are you doing?
And he goes, I'm trying to tip the Uber driver.
I go, give me a fucking phone.
I go, I didn't do that. I'm terrified of my dad. I went, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm trying to tip the Uber driver. I go, give me a fucking phone. And I go,
I didn't do that.
I'm terrified of my dad.
I went,
perhaps I could help you,
Papa.
And all,
the only thing my dad said after an hour and 15 standing ovation,
thousand people,
all he said was,
are you really scared of me,
Peter?
And he was like,
he kind of thought it was cool.
Yeah.
Oh,
that's awesome.
You're really scared of me.
And I was like,
why,
why is that the takeaway?
I love my dad.
I'm not even talking shit.
I get it.
That's kind of an old school thing.
He's like, what he hears is, you respect me?
So that's fine.
Yeah, back in the day, that was respect.
That was everything.
That was everything.
Just a different time.
I'm really trying to change the way I talk about my parents.
And it's been doing my innards you know what i mean the body you
go through a lot when you have your own kid you relive a lot of the dynamics that you went through
as a child sometimes it's subconscious sometimes you catch yourself going like why am i treating
my child like this and you go oh yeah that's that's how I was treated. And how do I rework those pathways?
You know, like I sometimes would be sarcastic with my kids as a way of changing their behavior.
And I caught myself and I was like, oh, that was the most scarring thing to me.
Because when somebody's four times your size and they are inflicting any kind of coercive
thing on you, it's devastating.
Oh, of course. And everything
is devastating. And just the fact
that you have that awareness makes me so happy.
I wrote about it in my book.
I was like, these two Greek gods.
You forget.
They're just legs to you.
It's a big fucking thing.
There are two types of people in the world.
Go.
Two types of people in the world.
People that liked Game of Thrones
and people that just couldn't get into it.
What if you were me
and you couldn't get into it
because of the genre
and then eventually you heard it so many times
that you tried it
and now it's your second favorite show of all time.
Really?
Yeah.
I got to try it again.
I've given it so many tries.
And I love fantasy.
Yeah.
I love fantasy.
So it is your genre.
It's my genre.
I love fantasy.
I like it.
Really?
I feel like it's making me work for it.
Do I fill out a 10W9?
Yeah.
What do I do?
Yeah.
I got to map this out?
Yeah.
Do you need to get the table
that they have
and put the troops
on the different areas
and move them around
every episode?
Because you said that,
respect,
I might just try it again
because I need a good solo show.
You know?
What do you need the solo show for?
A show I'm not watching with Val.
Why?
You know, airplanes.
Yep.
Fucking,
when she's out.
Have you done
Peaky Blinders?
What's that?
That's the show about me.
It's about like these
ratty ass hoods
in London
around 19...
Riff Raff?
1910,
1921.
Gypsies,
like Irish gypsies
that run the mob in that part of town.
But the lead actor is-
Dirty coins.
Dirty coins.
Into gloves with the fingers cut out.
The coins are in a bag.
Good on ya.
You let those rats out in the cheese shop, did ya?
Good on ya, filthy coin.
Gonna have bangers and mash tonight.
They run off in a wheelbarrow
that's a hard pass
no it's not
that's a hard pass
no
oi it's cold
no it's not like that
no
there's a lot of
barrel fires
yeah
and they're
and they're in a forge
uh
there's a lot of
but give it
give it an episode
first of all
the star of the show
is that guy uh Cillian Murphy.
Or is it Killian Murphy?
Cillian.
Is it Cillian or Killian?
It's Cillian Husk, Killian Murphy.
I think it's Killian Murphy.
He is, you cannot take your eyes off this man.
He's Don Draper.
Skinny Nick Kroll?
Oh, yeah.
I thought he looked like Nickroll oh yeah I could see that
he's got those big
eyes they're cartoonishly
yeah yeah big mouth how about those eyes
yeah
look at those fucking things
I don't know why I'm Jackie Mason all of a sudden
he had a hat
he had a hat
they give me a cup of burnt coffee
they have an audacity to put out a tip cup.
$15.
Oh.
Felt like you just came through me.
How do you feel about this?
I went to Walgreens the other day, and there's a line of people behind me.
It's my turn.
Cashier rings up my antidepressants.
And then she looks me in the eye, and she says,
do you want to give a dollar to childhood
leukemia loud so everybody can hear oh she says it loud how do you feel about that uh look when it
comes to kids with cancer i don't care if you're embarrassed you gotta cough it up you're like, I'd do it, but she asked for the money in the wrong way. Cut to some kid.
Beep.
Beep.
Did he do it?
You fucking dumbass.
You're going to embarrass me at a Walgreens?
Beep.
Beep.
Did the money come in?
Oh, there's a right way and a wrong way.
I'm hitting no.
And I'm going to take my Wellbutrin and snort it in the car.
Beep.
Beep.
Are the numbers from this quarter in?
Was there any surplus?
The kid is asking about the quarters?
I made it more about that because it was too sad
it was too sad oh all right we're gonna go on that we're not gonna get any better than that
that was pretty good i have to rethink everything because i did say no i did say no well i can talk
out the other side of my mouth i mean i've been playing a woman on sunset i was walking to the store and she went excuse you i wasn't even in her way so i i'll let go i won't let go of less petty shit yeah just to
stand up for you right right right i can do this is what comedians do i i want to point this out
as much as i can we see both sides you know what i mean that's a good live show we see both sides
we're just picking one to delight you.
Right.
And I went against you.
Yeah, you did.
Which is a fun choice.
Yeah, that is a fun choice.
It adds to the fun.
Because you knew which way I was going.
I knew.
Just knowing me, you knew which way I was going.
Well, what if I put my stick pole over here?
And the audience goes, that's context for you.
It's your show.
I'm the guest.
I'm going against you.
This is titillation.
This is delight. It's a live show where- You do'm going against you this is titillation let's do a
live show where you do it both ways you do it do we call it do it both ways yeah and and the audience
gives us a topic and we do it both ways and we they get the maybe we collect five or ten topics
from people everybody gives an idea for for a bit yeah And then backstage we pick five or six and then we each do it both ways.
I like it. We did it on the Pete Holmes show.
Not this
exactly, but we did a monologue
called, I think
it was like Cats and Dogs.
So you can still see it on YouTube. Not that it's that
unbelievable that you have to watch it, but
I liked it. I was very proud of it.
And I did a whole monologue called
Fuck Cats, Dogs Are The Best. And I did a whole monologue called, Fuck cats, dogs are the best.
And then halfway through, I go,
I think I explained what I was doing.
And I was like, and then I flopped it.
I go, fuck dogs, cats are the best.
I think we probably, because we're smart,
we did it in reverse.
Fuck dogs, cats are the best.
And then you go, fuck cats, dogs are the best.
But like, that's life.
And all I've been looking for
my whole life even if someone's mad at me it's just a little twinkle where they go like of course
i understand your side yeah that's all i want well that's the beauty of bill burr is that at the
wilbur at the wilbur 16th show sold out i told him I don't even have any bets.
Just going up and giving everyone a disapproving look.
Nah.
I'm serious.
I'm serious.
That's Joe DeRosa pointed that out.
That's how you do, Bill.
Yeah.
You go, I'm going to become a barber.
Nah, I'm serious.
Cut the hair.
Get all in there.
The barber assistant's like, you're going to cut the hair?
That's Joe DeRosa's impression.'s good is it good we didn't even bill burr produced my special
by the way it's on netflix it's called i am not for everybody oh that's what i meant to promote
well here's the beautiful thing is i do a monologue up top and i will promote the shit out of it yes
but um you know how it is he he produced it that That's amazing. That's how I got in. Billy Boy walked me through.
You mean at the beginning, like before?
How do you get on, it sounds like a street joke,
but how do you get Pete Holmes on Netflix?
Tape it to a Bill Burr.
Nice.
Duck tape it to Bill's back.
Was he involved in producing it
or he just kind of assigned his name to it afterwards?
I'm too scared to ask.
Right, right. it's all things comedy
which is his company yes i've got him writing a script for them right now and i uh yeah he
he said he left me a nice voicemail which meant a lot because i called him to thank him and i was
like i don't know if you've seen it i don't know if you had anything to do with it and he called
back and he was like but it's hard to know.
I'll believe him.
And he was like,
of course I had something to do with it.
Of course I saw it.
And you're great.
And it was so sweet.
When you can get a Bill Burr,
he's actually a very sweet guy.
He's the sweetest guy.
But like,
it still means more when you know this guy,
if he didn't feel that way,
wouldn't be saying it. Like you can take his word for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. He doesn't that way, wouldn't be saying it.
Like you can take his word for it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, right, right.
He doesn't say anything he doesn't mean.
Yeah.
So with that in mind, he did see it and he loved it.
But I was going to point out like that's the great thing about in his standup is because
there is a sort of like a currency of opinions in standup right now.
I think more so than ever.
It's like podcasting, I think it's had an effect
on how people take a hot, it's a hot take.
Everything's a hot take.
And Bill is the king of that.
He takes something that is kind of indefensible
and then he defends it.
And then at the end you kind of go like, all right.
Right, like fuck Steve Jobs.
Yeah, right.
Is the best, is the funniest take.
Or being a mother isn't the hardest job.
You just weren't allowed to say that before.
But then he started doing this thing where he goes,
you know I don't believe half this shit, right?
He says that now?
Yeah, which is amazing that he does that.
Yeah, maybe, I mean, I will say that sometimes Bill's fans,
I can't speak for them, I've done some shows with him and I'm like, I get the feeling that sometimes Bill's fans, I can't speak for them.
I've done some shows with him,
and I'm like, I get the feeling that this is kind of not a joke.
They're taking it on the face value.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm like, I don't know, man.
Well, that's a tough quandary for a lot of comics.
Like David Tell got into that.
With Insomniac, He started drawing just alcoholics,
people that just wanted to get fucked up.
And they were suddenly not noticing
that this is the greatest craftsman of joke,
jokes that we've had in the last 20 years.
This guy is writing, you know, distilled,
interesting, funny,
and they just want to do shots
and yelling out and heckling.
And he had to-
Skins for the Memories freaks me out.
The sound of the audience freaks me out.
Yeah, yeah.
I just watched, last night,
I watched his HBO Half Hour Comedy Hour
and just-
Like the old one.
He throttled them.
Yeah.
And this was a crowd that,
I think he wasn't big yet.
So this was a neutral,
this was an way game for him
and it was applause break after applause break i mean they you they cut to people and just
everybody's wiping tears he was just like a wildebeest he just fucking came at them
and he'd been you could just see the fucking smoke stained clothing from being in basement
clubs in New York
for the last 10 years.
Maybe he'd been doing standup 10 years.
And it was so boiled down.
It's so hard.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
He is a refinery.
Yeah.
It's like a steel refinery.
Right.
It's pouring into stones
with like the inverted sword shape.
Yeah.
That's what he does over there.
Right. And he still has the same commitment to that level of quality i talk to him on the phone all the time and he's
always coming down on himself about he's not writing enough he's a and it's just like dude
you're you're the best there's nobody i mean i don't know who you feel but i feel like there
has not been a better comedian in 20 years than david tell who's yours
well i yeah complicated guy yeah troubled guy in certain ways yep i'm with you on that
uh oh i don't mean to tell i mean my answer louis ck yeah yeah louis? With full apology to anybody, sincerely, if that's a disappointing answer,
just separating the artist from the art, I'm like, for me, for my money,
one year since the guy, two years since the guy, the Jesus thing.
He's like, Christianity won.
Christianity is the number one.
Yeah. no he's like we christian he's like christianity one christianity is the number one yeah we got
everyone to name the year after how long it's been since he come on he goes come on africa
one 13 years since you're just like what he has a lot of bits about god that actually and
that's sort of like my favorite thing he's like if God came back and saw what we were doing,
would be like,
we're so miserable.
There's,
we're,
we're,
we're stressed out.
God would be like,
why?
And it's like,
well,
we have to work all the time.
He's like,
why?
We need money.
And he's like,
why?
To buy food.
And he's like,
buy food.
I left that shit on the ground.
I left that shit on the ground. I left that shit on the ground.
Like, I'm with you in full respect
and with like full homage to whatever,
all the offenses.
Yeah.
I don't know how to say it to protect myself.
I'm just saying I can't help it.
I'm like, nobody beats that for me.
Well.
Those bits.
Cosby.
And I'm not just talking out of the other side of my face.
And Chappelle is complicated for his own reasons.
There's certain Chappelle specials that I'm just like.
Yeah.
That's just, that's, you know, those steakhouses that have like,
somewhere in Japan they massaged it and they fed it beer
yeah you can cut it with a butter knife and sometimes you watch stand-up and you're just
like oh that's like imported from japan yeah yeah the guy massaged it right right it's just a
different thing yeah it's also like you're in awe of i think with chappelle, it's hard to think of anybody who has more natural charisma as an orator on stage.
No, he is talent.
That's what he is.
Yeah.
But the work ethic sometimes is not there as much as other people.
I can't split the difference, but I lean just a tiny bit more to Louis. I don't know. I can't split the difference, but I lean a little,
just a tiny bit more to Louis.
Maybe it's,
I don't know.
I don't know who it is.
Yeah.
And then,
you know who else I love is Rory Scoville.
Yeah,
Rory is great.
I spend a lot of time going like,
how is the whole country not obsessed with Rory Scoville?
They're getting there.
He's blown up in the last two years.
Oh,
I'm glad.
Oh,
he went from being a guy that like,
I don't think went on the road at all. I think he was just an LA guy who did spots. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he's
selling out theaters. Oh, is he? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing great. Don't worry about Rory
Scoville. Oh, he's doing well. He's doing very well. Oh, he's doing fantastic. It's in that
Harris line from Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, and you basically just did it. Oh, he's doing well with
the nurses. Oh, he's doing well. He's doing very well.
I heard they were running cold.
Well, you hear a lot of things.
I know that whole movie.
Me and DeRosa just text each other lines from Glenn Gary Monroe.
All right, final question.
FQ.
What's the hackiest bit you've ever done?
Hackiest bit I've ever done. Oh I know the answer to this.
I had a joke about Paula Deen and it was a pre-scandal. She was the racist woman
who makes food? Yeah, it was before that. That's good. Yeah. That's better than my bit. But it was just about
like, it wasn't, I actually don't even than my bet but it was just about like it wasn't
I actually don't even mind it
but it was just kind of like about
how that woman
will put butter on anything
that is
that's a
that's in the 99 cent bin
for premises
uh huh
the line that I had
that I liked
she was like
I love Paula Deen
I don't know how I got into it
and she was like
the recipe's like
oh we're gonna make
we're gonna make
P.K. and Paul
the recipe is seven sticks butter I five, eight, six, five.
Just put in all the butter you have.
And I go, how's the recipe all the butter you have?
And she's like, throw it in y'all.
Tomorrow's not coming.
That wasn't bad.
That's not bad.
But it was, you know, as premises go.
Well, Paula Deen, you're going into terrain that's well-mined.
Yes, it was a whole Food Network bit.
Right.
And then it went into Rachel Ray, who I actually ended up,
she was on Crashing.
Do you remember?
Yeah, of course.
She's wonderful.
But it was about how she's so sunshiny.
What if she cuts herself on the air?
Which I realized, I really did after the fact,
that that's Dan Aykroyd, Julia Child.
The trap.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
Sometimes you got to be humble in comedy because every once in a while I'll go,
I'll be watching an old Simpsons and I'm like, oh, not the exact premise.
Yeah.
But sometimes it's the device.
It's the mechanism that I used here.
Right.
They were using in 1995.
Right, right.
Shut the fuck up.
Comedy is comedy.
Right.
But don't get me started on joke theft.
Whenever somebody's accused of joke theft,
I'm just like,
we had that in the writer's room in Crashing.
Remember?
You said somebody stole my wishing well.
Oh, right, right, right.
And I was like,
is it about basically how we have so much water
that we waste it and we throw money in it?
Yeah.
And you were like,
God damn it. And I'm not saying that to embarrass you.
I'm saying like,
that's just how it is.
Yeah.
Right.
Give 10 monkeys and 10 typewriters.
Yeah.
Like,
and that is the thing about Louie is there's only one typewriter and one
monkey.
Nobody else is thinking his thoughts.
That I think you,
you dialed in and I feel similarly about Chappelle.
It's just like,
I don't see where it's going. Yeah, I don't see where it's going.
Yeah.
I don't see where it's going.
Right.
All right, listen, Pete Holmes,
you've been generous with your time
and your love
and your insights into, you know.
Nudity.
Yeah, we went deep into some shit
and you also made me laugh.
Podcasting doesn't get any better than this.
Would you give me my favorite compliment? I'm going to give you a compliment to give me.. Podcasting doesn't get any better than this.
Would you give me my favorite compliment?
I'm going to give you a compliment to give me.
Okay.
Because I love it.
Yeah.
Will you say you were a day off?
Like you didn't have to work at all.
Okay.
Pete, you were a day off.
Even though I told you to say it, I loved it.
Conan used to say that.
I go, who's your favorite guest? He goes, Martin Short. He day off that's great so when you have a great you are a day off they're a day off i mean
i have a lot of script here that we didn't get to because that's a good sign yeah that's it that's
because well i love you man love you too i'm trying to plug my podcast as well yeah you made
it weird fitz dog was great on it it's just just hard to, you know, everybody has a podcast.
Yeah.
You're an OG podcast.
I'm an OG, and I'm trying to let people know that it's better than ever.
It's called You Made It Weird.
Right.
Please check it out.
All right, for sure.
And we've already talked about the special in the intro.
All right, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. you