History Hyenas with Chris Distefano and Yannis Pappas - 130 - James Altucher Is WILD!

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

Comedian, investor and Hyenas enthusiast James Altucher is in with the Cuzzies to talk making and losing fortunes, art in comedy and buying Greenland, plus one of the crew hits the nets.   Want more Hyena content? Check out www.patreon.com/bayridgeboys where things get really WILD!Follow us!: 🙆🏼‍♂️🐕🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏼‍♂️Chris Distefano on Instagram, Twitter, website🙆🏻‍♂️Yannis Pappas on Instagram, Twitter, website🐕History Hyenas on Instagram, Twitter, website Subscribe to the poddy woddy on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, and HH Clips

what's up cuzzy wuzzies you're listening to the bay ridge boys history hyenas bad This is when you guys are just sitting and not saying anything for the music. We're thinking of one. Hello out there to all of our listeners, our loyal hyenas, our matriarchy. We got a good friend. He's a good friend now. He's a good friend. Now. He's a good friend of ours because he gives us money. He gives us money.

Money by his friend. I need all the friends I can get. So I got to spend a lot of money to have friends. It's Mr. James L. Tutcher. Everyone. He's here and he's here to buy the Tim Dillon episode.

He's here to buy the Tim Dillon episode. He doesn't know that yet, but we got guys in there through that door that have fucking guns and knives and they'll hold your family at gunpointpoint if you don't buy the episode right now. Take my family. You can just have them. So I've got five kids. They're for sale.

So you can just have them. You got five kids? Five kids. Well, it was two and three. Nice. All right, because you told us on your podcast. Right. Nice.

Blended family. Yeah. That's the thing. Beautiful thing. When you do podcasts so close together, like we just did his, and now he's doing ours, we got to really struggle to remember if we talked about family. Yeah. That's the thing. Beautiful thing. When you do podcasts so close together, like we just did his and now he's doing ours, we got to really struggle to remember if we talked about that. Yeah. We're going to be like, oh, let's repeat.

Yeah, we'll just repeat it. No big deal. But James Altucher's here. James Altucher, who when Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, he's going to play her in the movie. That's what he's going to do. Yeah. I'd have to like, you could get a little. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a notorious RBG. You're laughing too hard. You're going to get disciplined. yeah i'd have to like you could get a little yeah yeah it's notorious rbg hey so we do rbg role play all the time so if it's right it's that's hot that's hot role play right there it's hot yeah stick a gavel in my ass i love i love how there's always like an article about her and about how healthy she is. Yeah, and you see her. She's like kind of mummified already. Like literally, I think that somebody unzips her out of a duffel bag every day and puts a roll bar

and just puts her out there. Well, they're just trying to hold on to some sort of balance or liberal skew on the Supreme Court. They're just trying to, they're propping her up and keeping her alive. I think it's going to be like Weekend at Bernie's, but with her. When she goes down, they're just going to prop her up

and pretend she's still alive just so abortion remains illegal. You know, I actually have money on her death. But I have money on her staying alive long enough for Stephen Breyer to die first. So he's the other Supreme Court justice in his 80s. And I got 13 to 1 odds that Stephen Breyer would die before RBG. I'll take that bet. I'll take that bet too. I mean, she

will not die. She won't die. She's not going to die. And I love they show those videos like she's still working out. It's just like her with the toothpick. It's like, wow, she looks great. Wait, I've never seen her actually move. Are you sure they don't just like put the weight in her arm and like freeze her?

I think it's a stop animation, actually. Yeah, and her head's going to fall off. She's like that parrot from Dumb and Dumber. They have to tape her head on. I'm telling you, they're keeping her alive. They're doing whatever magical kind of thing that those elite people know about. Keeping her alive. It's the same thing that Dick Cheney's taking.

I mean, that motherfucker won't die either yeah you know there's some evidence actually there's research that if you take fecal matter from a young like shit from a young person and feed it to an older person they're with rats the rats live longer so they're testing out with humans interesting is that true it's totally true that's all these people are researching this yeah so maybe all the poop is fascinating we need to do an episode on poop. The thing – I mean ancient people would liquefy their poop and drink it. Like it's a whole thing. My dog eats it.

And your dog's smart. I got to get some kids over my house to shit on the floor and then have him eat it. My dog will live forever. And look at how smart your dog is. Your dog's black and it lives in Westchester. Your dog's black. It's a black person that made it to Westchester. My dog made it all the way up there.

By the way, we're having an ongoing argument in my house. I want to run my fingers through your hair. We're having an argument in my house about what Wei Zhongxin means. Does it mean be careful? No. Okay. Wei Zhongxin. Her theory is this means be careful.

Do you want to explain or do you want me to explain? I want to say it, but I also want to just give James respect because his wife is a piece. His wife's beautiful. You know that his wife is gorgeous. You know she came after the money. That's what everyone always says. I can't argue with it. I don't know.

Yeah, she said. He said, hi, my name's James. She said, I don't give a fuck what your name is. Take me to Barney's. She said, I heard your Tony Robbins podcast got money. Where's those bitcoins, motherfucker? I don't even know where they are. I lost all my passwords.

I'm kidding. No. Is he okay? No, he's all right. We never know. We don't know. We got a bet going that he's going to die live on the podcast. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we try not to be funny because

he says, guys, I forgot my asthma inhaler. He's got asthma medication. He doesn't take it. You're not going to have a podcast if he goes. Yeah, if you start having asthma attack, you're not going to survive by breathing into a bag of Arby's. Did you bring your asthma inhaler? He won't bring it. Oh, you haven't?

You have it. Good. Thank God. Okay. Yeah. So so james what and and mrs james so what so so weishan xian what it means to us well first of all what it actually means what the name where it comes from stems from is he was an ancient eunuch in uh it's a person bc china, he was an ancient eunuch in some ancient Chinese emperor's harem. So we were just randomly talking about him in an episode, and our old sound guy, Zach, who's been fired, it just happens. Wait, wait, your sound guy, Zach's been fired? We got fired. Zach Isis? Yes, he's gone.

But now we replaced him with a Jew. Yeah, so it's just like the West Bank. One for you. We win. One One for you. We win. All right. One back for you. What's even weirder is they – Three jobs back for the Jews.

Yeah. The weirdest part about it is they actually live two blocks from each other in Astoria. It's what it is. So they have to pass each other when Zach is coming home from his temp job and he's going to Zach's old job. Yeah. That's just – it's a strange moment that happens in Astoria once a week. Yeah. So, so Wei Shan, so he had played the name Wei Shanxian.

We were, cause we were trying to figure out how to say it. We were just doing a random episode about this guy. And then he played the, the pronunciation of it on his, on his speaker. And we just started laughing at the way the robotic voice said Wei Shanxian. So, and then it kind of just blasted him into any time really I would say something crazy and wild we would hit the way Sean Sheehan button because

we just thought the pronunciation of the name was funny and then it kind of morphed into now if we say anything that is we understand how crazy and out of bounds we were we say the way Sean Sheehan to like save us and let our fans know like hey we knew that that was crossing the line it's a character piece we didn't mean it got it just a piece on way sean sheehan are synonyms yeah do you ever do you ever like try to break the record of how many times that button oh we may have done the last episode we made that came out swinging yeah well last episode i think we broke the record for the amount of content that had to be cackled out yeah i remember another episode where at the beginning you broke the record it was like

two seconds in and i got way shanxi it was like that knockout of jorge masvidal when he just ran in and need ben askren in the head yeah it was like the the quickest fucking knockout in podcast history but the good thing is is for our patreon fans patreon.com slash bay ridge boys for a certain tier they can hear it they can hear nothing no edits no way sean sheen oh no i like the way sean sheen i like the sound some people prefer it and and and you should get you should make t-shirts with the glossary like on the back without naming the podcast so this way everyone will ask the people with the t-shirt where what does that mean where is that from yeah and that's how a word will spread see why as a hot wife now yeah kid's fucking screwed and he knows what's going on the kid is okay so that's so somebody write that down because that's the t-shirt we're selling i mean what are you doing

it'll work you give us great million dollars ideas we could give you trail mix now i i do i do go broke a lot too so after you make the money don't listen to my advice anymore but until then listen to my advice yeah so you you you feel like you have like a gambler's personality a little bit uh like if you know like security no because i think true gamblers don't take risks so i don't like to take risk like you you want to make money with the taking as little risk as everyone thinks oh you have to take big risks to make money no the way to make big money is to take no risk let other people take the risk for you and so how interesting how then when i make the money that's when for some reason i psychologically get messed up and i think i can take risk after that and then i lose everything i've done this four times in a row that sounds like it sounds like a gambler to me what's the

most amount of money you've ever had in your bank account if there's i don't know if you're coming in like because yeah in a checking account yeah just like cash in a checking account, like all cash and everything was about $15,100,000. And two years later – Was that at Banco Popular? Wait a second. Hold on. Wait, wait. I got to get a towel because my seat's wet.

I just got wet. But wait, wait, but wait. That's – I'm not – that's the bad news because two years later – or that was the good news. Two years later, that same account had $143 left in it. And that's all the money you had to name. You didn't have money in your message. No, no, no. You were worth $143.

Yeah, $143. I lost a big apartment here in New York City that I had bought. And then I had no jobs, no opportunities. Nobody was returning calls. My parents wouldn't even lend me the money. And so I just had to figure it out. but that happened to me at least four times that's why that's why i felt comfortable asking because i know like the ups and downs of it but so amazing to me it was you could lose that much and then get it back well because because then i started to gamble then i

started to say oh i'm really smart i made this money so before i was totally i cashed out i like was really protected. I put it in. I didn't even want to put it in a savings account. I didn't want to risk it at all. Then finally I'm like, oh no, no, I'm smart. I made this money. I must be smart. So then I just started investing in all the worst possible things you can invest in. Like imagine like a sports portal for left-handed people only like things like that. Like I would just go insane and then I would double down when things went down and i and then i would borrow money and to invest more so i just went totally dead broke and and and then but this it's not even once it was like four times then

all the same down to zero interesting and it's it was so but there's a fearlessness you like we were talking about before about how when you hit rock bottom and come back from it there's a fearlessness. We were talking about before about how when you hit rock bottom and come back from it, there's a fearlessness and confidence that comes with that that I would imagine you have now. I don't know. You can always get it back. I think I can always get it back. Before, I didn't think I can get it back. Before, I thought, oh, man, I won the lottery. I wasn't really like a natural business guy.

I won the lottery, and now I lost it all. Just ruined my kids' lives, ruined my life, ruined everyone's life. But now I do think I can make it back, but I don't want to anymore. Like it's really depressing. I was suicidal each time. It's just imagine having that money and then having zero. Like losing your house and, I don't know, losing everything. So now you're trying – now you're like the money that I have,

I want to keep it and not go down to zero. Like want to invest because i realized this exactly then why'd you buy stand up new york yeah i kind of wish you had 15 million again so you could make a dumb decision and buy the patreon podcast for a million because we got an episode up there for a million dollars with tim dillon that i where's 15 million dollar james dummy al tucher i'd like to get a million when i get up to 100 i'll i'll do the million for the tim dillon that's a promise but yeah to i so i bought stand-up new york because i wanted that was like my my that was my dumb and i give myself one dumb investment for time now and that is the worst investment pot don't ever buy a comedy club i will sell you that comedy club for ten dollars right

now if you want to buy that comedy club's like it's hard for a comedy club. I will sell you that comedy club for $10 right now if you want to buy that comedy club. You should buy it. Comedy clubs, like it's hard for a comedy club to be the main business, right? You have to have like a restaurant business. No, you can't. Like anything that you could like touch is a bad investment. It goes in waves because I started comedy in 2009, 2010. And when I started, Stand Up New York was a line around the block every single night.

The comedy seller, which is the one who's doing the best now was doing well, but not like it's doing now. And Broadway comedy club is doing great. And now it's not. So it's like these things change so much for so many different reasons. I think though, comedy in general, comedy clubs in general, people just don't go out anymore. Like you, you watch YouTube.

People think you can, the comedy experience on YouTube is the same as a live comedy experience. And it just don't go out anymore like you you watch youtube people think you can the the comedy experience on youtube is the same as a live comedy experience and it just isn't like you'll laugh so much more in a live experience if the comedy is good but but comedy seller this place you there's a million people a day passed by the club right stand up new york is on a side street in the upper west side like literally nobody walks past that club so there's no foot traffic you depend on Times Square, Barker. Yeah, Times Square. The Barkers say, Chris Rock's performing tonight.

Then they buy the tickets. Oh, Chris Rock. Of course, Chris Rock's never performing there. Then there's the two drink men. You said you weren't really a business guy. What do you mean by that? How do you make $15 million and not really be a business guy? I was really into

I wanted to just write fiction. Like that was my dream. And I worked, I moved to New York. I worked at HBO thinking this will get me connections, but I was a software guy. That's how I got into HBO. And I knew, I happened to know how to make a website. It was like 1994, 1995.

So there was like six people in the city who knew how to make websites. And so somebody like 1994, 1995. So there was like six people in the city who knew how to make websites. And so somebody asked me, can you build a website for me? So I made one website, then I made another. I ended up making the, you could probably tell a little by the way I look, I made the websites for every gangster rap record label.

Really? Yeah, like the Source Magazine, Loud Records, Bad Boy Records, Death Row, Interscope, Jive. Like I did all the Wu-Tang Clan's websites. Wow. And then I did AmericanExpress.com, TimeWarner.com, ConEdison.com. That's you. You made that.

Yeah. So I had a business. And I had a full – this is the risk thing. I was so afraid that this business would fall apart, that everyone would think the internet would just disappear, that I kept my full-time job. I was making $40,000 a year at my full-time job i was making 40 000 a year at my full-time job at hbo i kept the job for 18 months american express paid us 260 000 for their little website uh the matrix movie was 250 000 just we did all these websites and i i wouldn't give up my full-time job and then at night i had 30 employees down the street making websites with

me so right so that was the first business. And then what did you do with that money? Like the money you made from that? That went to your ex-wife. Yeah, no, that was all part of the $15 million. And that went to zero. And then I got divorced. Oh, man.

But how did it go to zero? What did you put it in that it went to zero besides the divorce? So I took it all out of these internet stocks. then just a few months later what am i doing the internet's great and so i put it all back in internet stocks and then borrowed against it and put put more into internet stocks but he's an example so you were just investing in all bad app and also i thought i honestly this is the crazy part i honestly thought i needed to make more like i thought everyone's getting rich in this internet boom. How come I own, this is how stupid I was. How could I only make 15 million?

So I thought, oh, I need to make as much as these other guys. I'm stupid if I don't. And so it was just like, it was just insanity. I wish someone had like told me to do differently, but I just didn't know. I didn't know anything about money. That's what we were talking about with money. Episodes ago, eons ago, we talked about this guy. i forgot what their names were but it was there was two multi-millionaires

in germany one was worth like one was like the richest man in germany the second richest man in germany and the other one was like the third richest man or something like that and the one they both had like hundreds of millions of dollars and one guy as he's like the last 10 years of his life he wants to just give his money away like month by month to people that need it. He was like – he gave some to his wife and kids. He's like, I just want to get rid of my money. I felt like it was – my life was like ankle weights and I just want to give it away. He was so happy and he like died with all these people around him.

And he was a Nazi. And he was a Nazi. Yeah, that's the point I was getting to. No, I'm kidding. No, I'm kidding. So and then the other guy, because of like differences in stocks or whatever, went in just one month, went from being the second richest guy in Germany to like the fourth richest guy in Germany. So still worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he jumped off the roof of a building and killed himself.

Yeah, it was like it was just money was like who won. You both had the same money. One guy was so happy to give it away. And you. Right. It's all it's all mindset because money it's it's it doesn't mean you can't you can't even spend that kind of money in a lifetime if you're a reasonable person and and so it doesn't it doesn't matter how much you have after a certain amount it doesn't matter and yet people get like just so twisted is that what makes you lose it because the money is so

much it almost becomes meaningless so what has meaning is the gamble is the, let me play the game. Let me, let me put it back in. And, and so I don't know what it is. Like I was like, there's almost, there's like three scales to money.

There's making it, keeping it, growing it. So I had this making it ability, but I just couldn't keep it. Like it was just insane how the ways I would lose money over the years. Can I tell you one story? Please tell them.

So, so I was, um, I was invested in this one company and I was on the board and then it went public. I had this stock worth $9 million. This was like the third or fourth time. And, uh, I was on the set of the TV show billions cause I was like an advisor, one of their seasons. And I get this call, Hey, emergency board meeting in 10 minutes on the phone. And I figured, oh, my gosh, this is going to be great.

The company is getting acquired. I'm going to turn this nine into 30. Who knows how much? And so I get on the board call, and the CEO says, listen, we have bad news. Our largest shareholder didn't tell us he owed $90 million to the IRS, which goes against our bank loan. $90 million to the IRS, which goes against our bank loan. So the bank's going to come over here, shut down the company, and split it off to all these other companies.

So they literally shut down the company within hours of this news. The stock went from whatever to zero in a day. So the $9 million went to zero in a day, like just that day. And you had no hint that this, you had no idea. No i thought all i thought the news was going to be good right so i went from thinking like oh my god i'm going to be unimaginably rich to man i'm it happened to me again i'm dirt poor and uh because i had like a lot of all my money pretty much in that stock and then i was in the middle of nowhere like they were filming the it was the very first episode ever filmed for And then I was in the middle of nowhere. Like they were filming, it was the very first episode ever filmed for Billions. So we were in the middle of New Jersey somewhere at Axe Capital, if you ever watched Billions. And I remember thinking like, what am

I going to do? Like, am I going to be able to be calm for the rest of today? Am I going to, should I go home? So I just decided, you know what? I've been through this before. I'm just going to enjoy the day. I've never been on a set of a tv show like this before i'm gonna enjoy the day think about this later and that's what i did so that's that's when i finally realized oh i could learn start learning from the other times this has happened to me were you married or single then uh i was married you're married yeah i had to think about it but i was married so not not not to her that's a that's a tough convo when you get home hey how was your day i i don't think it was $9 million. Yeah.

We're broke. I don't think I told her. Yeah. You know how you're always calling me a zero? Well, you got your wish. Yeah, well, you know. That's what I am. You nailed it.

Self-fulfilling. Yeah. Quite fulfilling. Do you think the expression, bulls and bears make money, pigs get slaughtered, is 100% accurate or yeah yeah it is yeah because again it's all about so it's just not taking risk so the greed that that's what makes you lose the money you just go a little too far you get a you just want it you know yeah like

i could have sold that stock at any time it was it was nine million dollars worth of stock i could have sold it right instead i like no no no it's a billion in revenues like this is gonna go up more and i was just i wasn't making any sense at all like i was just every time this has happened to me i've been totally crazy and irrational yeah like i sometimes you think i'm crazy like when you know like because i've had situations where like my dad like you know i just don't trust you because of the way you look right because you look like a not you look german like do you get a Right. You look like a German. Do you get a little nervous around that face? I know all you guys are itching around. I just don't like

the way you look at me. I don't have a weapon. We all got eczema that suddenly broke out. Yeah, because right here, you got two Greeks. You went and you conquered us. You didn't do nice things to us. And then you got your main target over here. Yeah. And you keep looking at him like you're a painter and you put on one coat and you're looking at him like you missed the spot. Does anybody want to play soccer?

James, give me your hand. That's what makes me uncomfortable. Yeah. Stop looking at him like he's a missed spot that you missed in a painted room. I liked – no, but my – what was I – I forgot what I was asking. Yeah, you forgot what I was asking because I just revealed your true intention. Your dad. Your dad.

My dad would take, you know, like money from me. It was like really like hard. I was, you know, first started like I don't make anywhere near fucking, your dad, your dad. My dad would take, you know, like money from me. It was like really like hard. I was, you know, first started like, I don't make anywhere near fucking, you know, you guys like you make, but I made real good money from what my family is. And, you know, like my dad would take it from me or like other family members would take it from me

and like Giannis. And I would just be like, you know, that sucks, but whatever. And Giannis would be like, I can't fucking believe. How are you standing right now? Like I'd be dead on the floor. This happened to me. And I was like, I don't know, man, it's money. I feel like I'll can't fucking believe. How are you standing right now? Like, I'd be dead on the floor. This happened to me. And I was like, I don't know, man.

It's money. I feel like I'll get it back somehow. Or I don't want that to rule my life, the money. It wasn't the money part that made me think that. It was the emotional part. Oh, right. Yeah. Well, that's because I'm dead inside, German.

Exactly. My ancestors have done way worse. Yeah, I mean, you really shake off that. You really walk that off. When it comes comes to money i just have never been the guy that like wants to nickel and dime himself like i mean i need to make money i have a daughter to feed but you know i mean i'm i'm like that as well first off if you do any kind of anything at all related to comedy you're not in it for the money like maybe you are in the long run you know there's there's guys who make, you know, like Sebastian Maniscalco makes whatever, 20 million a year. But the other 5,000 people don't.

Right. So it's just, you know, or if you're doing a podcast, Joe Rogan maybe gets rich off of a podcast, but that's about it. Right. And almost everything I do is never for the money. The only times I've been really, really unhappy is when I did things just for the money. Wow. That's interesting. The only times I've been really, really unhappy is when I did things just for the money. Wow. Like when I worked for a while as because I wanted to make that first batch back, I figured, OK, I'm going to figure out this investing thing out. So I went full force into it, but I hated it and I was doing well at it.

But I was just I was depressed for like 12 years, like until I stopped doing it. I was just depressed the entire time. Let me ask you a question, because you're a guy who's done so many different things. Could you truly – do you think a person can truly do something well that they don't love? No, I don't think so. I think you have to be obsessed with something. Like think about it. How many shows a week – when you were like in years one through five or three through six, how many shows a week were you doing stand-up comedy?

I was doing like when open mics when I first started. My goal would always be How many shows a week were you doing stand-up comedy? I was doing, like, when open mics, when I first started, my goal would always be do 50 shows a month. Yeah, 50 shows a month. That's a lot, right? So you had to be, if you weren't obsessed with it, you couldn't do that. You would be, because each show, you kind of have to, like, think about it for an hour or two.

You prepare, and then afterwards you round up. So it's like a three-hour thing each show. show each so so that's miserable if you hate it and so that's what i would do basically for 12 years in the you know i was running a hedge fund it was just awful but starting around 2010 i only would do things i enjoy doing right so that was that was my role which most things don't make any money do you understand what a hedge fund is a A hedge fund. Because I still have no idea. It's basically people give you money and you can invest it however you want. So it's basically you guys just take rich people's money and invest it. So it's like a money manager for like billionaires.

Yeah, and then you can take a percentage fee. So money managers usually can't take a fee. A hedge fund manager can take like 20% of the profits, go to me. So you're a stockbroker? No, no. It's like just people give me, give money. It goes in the account, one big account, not like a stockbroker.

It's like all dealing with all these different accounts and they can't see what I do. I can do whatever. That's what Madoff was doing. That's why he was a criminal because nobody could see what he was doing. So he basically stole it all. Why would anyone trust complete strangers

to do that with their money without any oversight on where the money's going? So I actually let people have oversight. I let them actually view everything I did, so total transparency. But I don't know why anybody would trust Madoff. It was weird. It's funny. After Madoff was caught, so I visited Bernie at one point during his hedge fund days, and I wanted to raise money for him. Those were better times for Bernie Madoff.

And Bernie Madoff, you told us before, won't do your podcast. Yeah, he won't do my podcast. He's dying in prison. He sounds a lot like someone else. Her name's Allie Wong. She also won't do a podcast. And she won't invest money with me either. Yeah, she should.

So I wanted to raise money for my edge fund my neighbor uh you know worked for bernie main office he said you should you should meet this guy i didn't know who he was at all so i go into his office bernie gives me the whole tour of the office and he and then we sit in his office he's like okay what what are you interested in doing and i'm like well i'm hoping you could put money in my hedge fund. And he's like, listen, you could, you seem like a great guy. You could work here anytime you want. The door is always open. You could have a job here, but I don't know what you're doing with the money. You know, we don't want to take any reputation risk. You could be spending it on whatever for all I know.

And the last thing we need is to see the name Bernard Madoff Securities in the Wall Street Journal. So he he was he was nervous about what i was going to do with his money that's hilarious so ain't that the pot calling the kettle with so so then i left the building and i was really depressed because i figured well if he's not going to invest with me and supposedly he had 60 billion dollars under management i'm never going to be able to really get this business going. So I actually quit doing that business because of that meeting. That's wild. Wow.

And you saved yourself. Wow. I saved myself by not having a job because there were some people I knew. Sometimes the biggest failures end up being like the biggest successes. I had one friend who had a job there and he was caught in December. So it's like everybody was two weeks away from getting their bonus. So a friend of mine was going to get a $2 million bonus within two weeks and then it just all went to zero so you got no bonus do you feel like because you know like how like now with like comedy classes and everybody thinks that they can

do everything now like i could just be a comedian and i could just be a singer and there's a class for this a class for that do you think guys who could get to your level your peers levels like with able the way to manage money and make money like that do you think that can be taught either you have that in your brain and could do it or you can't? I think it can be taught. Yeah. Because I wasn't, I wasn't good at business at all or entrepreneur, whatever you want

to call it. Like, and yeah, cause you have to be good at, it's like comedy. Think about comedy. There's no one skill comedy, right? There's, there's, you know, humor, of course there's crowd work, there's stage presence, there's likability, there's all these other skills you have to get good at kind of at the same time. There's crowd work. There's stage presence. There's likability. There's all these other skills you have to get good at kind of at the same time. Same thing with business.

There's like sales, negotiating, execution, managing. There's all these different skills. And so I had like maybe one out of ten of the skills you needed to have. I was really not a good business person at all and still not actually. Like I really don't like running businesses at all. So you didn't graduate from some prominent business school or anything like that no no no i uh i went to devry you started in tech right yeah yeah i was a i was a software guy and then i got kicked out of uh school for various reasons so i knew how to do some software and i was interested in

writing so that's all i did and then i then i you know snuck in in the back door at hbo where i was you know a junior programmer and then on the side i was doing american express.com but then also i i pitch i was just pitching tv shows to hbo non-stop like the whole time i was there so i was always like juggling a bunch of different things instead of uh i never once focused on the business so what's the thing you love the thing with businesses by the way is that your employees end up having sex with each other and it's just it's really true that is how do you deal with that that is that is in every single business you have to deal with that we know and it's a drag i don't like dealing with venetia had

an affair with zach and we had to fire him we had to fire him we had to fire him right because he won't so you can't fire venetia you can't fire her and uh we we had to fire him. We had to fire him. We had to fire him. Right, because he won't sue you. You can't fire her. We had to just keep her safe from her dad because if her dad found out that she had sex with a Palestinian guy, I tell you what, she used to be Greek. She used to be alive. She's dead. Yeah, it's an honor kill is what we call it in our house.

It's called village justice. Yeah. That's what it is. So you do so many things. What would be the thing you would say is the thing you love then i like podcasting and i like writing and past five or six years not 50 not not not 15 times a week but i've been doing like maybe five to ten times a week stand up and i know you say oh everybody thinks they're gonna be a comedian and i agree with you everyone says that but for six years i've been going on 10 times a week when I can and, you know, trying it, giving it a try. Put the time in.

Yeah. We never have a problem. I think most of any comedian, no matter how funny or not funny you are, I think other stand-ups specifically, I can't speak for the improv world or the sketch world, but stand-ups, as long as you're putting the work in and not stealing jokes, everybody respects and supports you. Everybody. Yeah, I don't even care. I think, like, you know, if you can make the work in and not stealing jokes, everybody respects and supports you. Everybody. Yeah, I don't even care. I think if you can make it work, make it work. Make it work. And I have no goal with it.

I just, like you guys when you started, I'm guessing, it just is really fun when it works. It's really miserable. This is like money, too. It's like investing, too. It's really great when it works, and it's the worst when it doesn't work. And it's like managing those emotions is part of the skill as well like if you yeah if you bomb one day or the audience is just silent or whatever you can't get depressed about it you just have to like move forward no well that's that's why i like the road too like when it you know especially with stand-up

when it takes a little bit longer to get to hit your goals it's better because it's like you know you can come out like a lot of people come out they have a hot podcast and it's great because the thing that sells so many tickets now and for so many different reasons. And then they could just go start touring live with standup and they don't like, you know, they'll just go right to a theater and then they don't appreciate like how beautiful that is because we were sitting dying at these funny bones in the middle of the country for years and years and years. And just now can we get to the point 10, 12, 15 years later, we can go and do these theaters and sell the tickets? Well, and you've done theaters in New York City, right, with the podcast.

Yeah, Gramercy Theater, yeah. But have you thought about going on tour with the podcast? Yeah, we're going to try and start doing it. Because you could probably do theaters all over with the podcast. We're going to take a swing at it. We're going to, I think, maybe we'll time it for the fall, right? When Trump wins, we'll go, we'll follow his campaign. campaign we should just campaign we should just go wherever he's campaigning we should just go do a podcast yeah yeah the trump 2020 tour yeah where yeah i mean you'd be like

i'm not going yeah but you know what the funny thing is from business talking about business well you know uh there was a what was it david foster wallace he had a great quote he killed himself but it just had most geniuses do most geniuses do james altucher's only got a little So there was a, what was it, David Foster Wallace. He had a great quote. He killed himself. But it just had, most geniuses do. Most geniuses do. James Altucher's only got a little bit left. It's what it is. James Altucher's here for a good time, not a long time.

If you Google, though, I want to die, I'm probably like third or fourth on Google record. Like, I used to be first, and then enough people who actually were suicidal complained. So someone at Google told me this. It's the only time they manually change the album. put the national suicide prevention hotline first and so i was bumped down to second and now i'm like i don't know either fourth fifth or on the second page we'll get you back up there yeah i want to die let's let's let's make a move let's get it hashtag so yeah i think one of the quotes i remember he said that i always found fascinating they always remember is like i ironies abound as ironies do when cash and art do lunch,

you know, it's like reconciling your art with the marketplace is always like, um, it's always a challenge. It's always like, uh, it, it changes the art,

right? It's like, yeah, Van Gogh. Like if you're a great, like you're a great artist, usually you're not great at business. Because when you become great at business, it compromises the art.

So it's this kind of like constant paradox. I think that's right because you can't really be authentic if you're so focused on business because you have to pander. Just think about it in comedy. Let's say you go up on stage and you have a bunch of jokes or a point of view that suddenly the audience is like dying they're like you're you're you're killing it every time you'll kind of like say oh you'll feel this instinct like if i'm gonna really succeed and make money at this i better do all my jokes with what the what the audience is telling me they love instead of continuing to find your voice and at that moment it ceases being art and it becomes

marketing and i think a lot of people you know's a saying like, if you listen too much to the audience, you become part of the audience instead of being the artist. So I bet you that's why a lot of artists, comedians, writers fall apart is when they, and I have this challenge in writing is that, oh, this, it feels good. This works like this article got hundreds of likes or shares or whatever and then you feel like feeding that flame again but that's that's death well i think i think that's when it happens i know like you know i listen louis ck was talking once just at the back of the comedy cellar table and he was saying um somebody asked him some like random waiter was

like talking to him about ticket sales and what's going on his career and he said he just pulled out his deck and he just pulled out his dick and started yeah yeah let me french fries at that table yeah yeah i'll listen to what you got to say but just let me get a little more comfortable yeah yeah so he said um so he said that he really like he became like louie and became the the comedian that he is when he just started performing for him and not the audience he said once i started doing this every night just for me and not he said because he used to like respond to people's emails and used to tell oh i don't think that joke is funny i think that's funny he would be like oh well what do you think and try to like negotiate because he was like i would go into the impression that like every single person like any advice is good advice and your grandmother could have your next tagline

he was like and then i just realized like that's not true. Like I'm the artist for me and I'm just – are you okay? What's going on? Do you want to step outside? Do you need a water? I mean – Are you all right for real? I'm okay. It's like I kept coughing.

All right. But you're like safe, right? I'm safe. Okay, good. I'm going to use my inhaler. Okay. Go use your inhaler out there because yeah yeah all right but if you're gonna go what did you notice he just started snorting

and i just but he's okay though look see he's okay yeah okay he's okay he's okay i know what he did just fall down the stairs he did just fall down the stairs yeah i mean we're a podcast that just we need we need nets because the thing we need to do this show with nets the thing is to think because and because now we're just in a world, it's like, what do we do here? It's like, do we just let him go outside and do that? Or do we hide his inheritance and we let the Patreon fans know we're going to have a death coming? And do we just say, listen, for $5,000 right now, you can watch somebody suffocate. No, I'm kidding.

That was just a joke. No, he's fine. I looked over and he looked like Baby Yoda. So I didn't know what was happening. You heard him snort? I heard him snort. And I was like, did you hear like Baby Yoda, so I didn't know what was happening. You heard him snort? I heard him snort, and I was like, did you hear him snort? But how were you able – I'm very impressed by your – I'm a caring kid.

Your keen hearing, because how were you able to decipher whether it was a regular breathe or snort? Because that's how he sounds when he breathes. Because I'm 90% plant-based, 10% gay. That's what it is. So I got plants filling my brain, and also I got a homosexual wavelength flowing. So I'm listening to his breaths because right now I'm into the way men breathe. Right, right. Okay, that makes sense.

And I got multisleep, and I'm fueled by cauliflower. Yeah, you're plant-based right now. But yeah, if we hear a thump, we should go investigate. But also get the Instagram live going. Yeah, exactly. Get the camera going to go investigate. No, I'm kidding. Is he okay? Yeah, he'll live going. Yeah, exactly. Get the camera going to go investigate. No, I'm kidding. Is he okay?

Yeah, he'll be fine. Yeah. But yeah, I – So Louis C.K., that was – So Louis C.K., when I heard him say that, I was like – that and then Oprah said the money comes second. I remember watching Oprah once. My mom had a flare-up of her gout and I had sprayed my ankle.

And we were sitting there watching Oprah and she said the money always comes second. And I remember being 16 and always thinking about that and being like because I used to be a physical therapist and I love being I love that career um and then I was like you know I'm kind of doing this for my mom though like I wanted she would that's what she wanted to do and I did it and then I was like let me just do comedy in the beginning comedy is so nuts because you're paying to do open mics and I left a job with good health benefits and I something out of a doctorate degree and I left and my mother was beside herself but I out of a doctorate degree. And I left. And my mother was beside herself.

But I was like, this is just what I want to do. Like, I know the money will come. I don't care. I want to live my life. I want it to be at the end of my life and be like, you know what? I took a chance. I did it. And now, yes.

And now it's like I could be making $100,000 or $10 million. I'm just happy to do it every day. Like, I'm happy to be doing this. You get to do what you love and get paid for it. That's it. So nothing really could be better. It's not like you're going to have a second lifetime where you could do what you love.

No. It's just this. Every single day of my life now since 2013, number one, two things. I've never looked at the clock ever since doing this. You could be like, we're going to do six hours of podcasting. I would just be in with you. I'm not looking like, oh, you know, know that going to do six hours of podcasting. I would just be in with you. I'm not looking back.

Oh, I, you know, know that. And every day of my life feels like a Sunday afternoon. It just, the days are meaningless. It's truly a meaningless thing. Does it really feel like a Sunday afternoon? Because you'd be in church Sunday afternoon. Yeah. Cause then I'd be, I'd be getting pounded by father bill. Yeah.

So it feels like a little bit better. Saturday at two. Saturday at two. Yeah. But the, but, but having a child now, it's like, that's what I want my daughter's life to be. Because my mother, great person, worked every day in a job she hated as an HR manager, and then only realized when she retired two years ago how much she hated. And she's like, I feel like I wasted so much time.

And how much money she gave to people for taxes. Right. And how much money. Yeah. For welfare. How much money she had to give to the good for nothings. Well, the thing about all of our parents. Think about all our parents' generation, though. They were all

miserable. Everybody I know, their parents were miserable. Were your parents miserable? No. Are they? They did well. They were good. They were second generation. He was born and raised on the Upper West Side, bitch. Yeah. All right. Things are cool. Woke and dope. Things are cool. The only problem was, was like when Zabar's

fucking closed on that day that I needed to go shopping. Yeah. But my grandparents, they worked. They struggled. But they made something of themselves. But it's interesting because when you become a parent, as you are, it's like you just want – I just really, truly want my kid to do better than me. She doesn't have to be a comedian, of course, but it's like, I won't, I don't want her to settle for anything other than my life feels like a Sunday afternoon and

days of the week don't matter. I know, I know you have to work jobs you don't like and eventually to get there. I'm aware of that, but it's like, that's what I want for her. So I don't know what, whatever she wants to choose, but I want to make sure she gets that for me before her mother kills me in a domestic dispute. The problem is I think there's a little too much of that going on yeah that's you know it's always on the border like how much do you put boundaries around the kid and how much do you kind of let them go free and support whatever they do there's a little too much of like everyone wanting to do it specifically what they want it's like guy the world wasn't made for just what you want to do it's like certain people have certain talents it's like look if you have a curiosity, go do it.

And if you're good at something, that's great. But it's like, don't hear someone else's story and go like, well, he did it, I should do it. Because the truth is, you have to have some smart, some talent to be able to do it. And I don't think there's any shame to just working a normal job. Well, no, there's not.

But that's why when I was getting my doctorate degree, when I was in my 20s and I remember – Because we're not happy either. Nobody's happy. Yeah. But you – You're just a negative guy. Huh? You're just a negative guy that's tough to be around.

We're doing great. I think Mike is using himself because you're – I think – I mean you're killing Mike with your negativity. I think what you're doing is making other people feel bad about not fucking leaving their job and going to become a comedian. Here's the truth. Most people can't become comedians. I'm aware of that.

I mean, you fucking look like Clark Kent. You think that helps a little bit? And you look like a bald boy that's transitioning into a bald girl. So, Mike, welcome back. You okay? Okay, fine. So Mike, welcome back. You okay?

Okay, fine. But my point, I remember always telling myself, I would fucking lock myself in this library every weekend when I was getting my doctorate degree at New York Institute of Technology. That's where I went, NYIT, Shadow of the West Bay. But I do tell girls it was NYU. You told the girl in Ridgewood that they would think you were going to Harvard. Well, I said that my mother goes to Harvard, but she did go to LaGuardia Community College, which is the Harvard of Ridgewood. So I would say myself, I'm doing this. I'm getting my doctorate degree because at that time I thought I was just going to be a physical therapist and that was going to be a life choice that I really wanted to do. But I would say, I'm putting myself in this prison now in this library on these weekends

when all my other friends are going out and having fun and starting families and whatever it is, I'm like, I'm going to sacrifice my 20s to give myself a lifetime of freedom. That's what I kept saying to myself. I was like, you're buying your freedom right here, man. You're sacrificing so much. So I feel like in many ways, even though it didn't turn into physical therapy, I did put in the time and the sacrifice, which I want my daughter to do. And I just feel like all the sacrifice that I made playing sports and getting my education all leads up to now I can do what I want because I put the time in previously. But listening to you, I'm like, you know, I sometimes feel like I need to take more chances and need to sometimes I feel like I still am in this prison and I don't realize

it. I don't know about if it's taking chances. I think it's just trying lots of things like you have to basically whatever you're interested in just try it like you know i sent you guys that story i did a a kickstarter to buy greenland so that's like right an experiment just do as many things that are just crazy as possible and even a little scary so for instance louis think about that louis. quote. Just look at his last special, Louis 2017. He starts off joking about, you know, so I was thinking about abortion, which, you know, is like a hot, you know, a third rail in any comedy club. So he just starts with that. So you get the feeling that since he made that shift in his philosophy, like maybe around 2008, he I got the sense he never did a special unless he was a little bit scared what people were going to think. He was always experimenting. That first special where he was really talking about his life, he basically says, my kids are assholes.

Right? Because I remember it because I was playing it for my daughter. And she was like, oh, my God. She was like five years old. She was like, does his kids know that he just said that? And she was like really worried for Louis C.K.'s kids. She still should be. For different reasons. And she was like really worried for Louis C.K.'s kids. She still should be, but, you know.

For different reasons. But, you know, he was taking chances. Whereas before he just was doing the absurdist stuff. He wasn't taking as many chances. Right, right, right. There's that part of it too, yeah. Yeah, he started, he turned it into, he probably went for the art. He probably going, hey, let me just, let me do this for me.

Let me do it for me. And, but my point is this. My point is this. America kind of – the American dream is such a part of American culture. But it's an illusion. Don't you think? Totally. It's all on marketing.

This is why I asked you the last time why you own a home. Yeah, nobody ends up doing anything great who doesn't have the potential to do something great. It's like you can't just go like, hey, I'm going to try this. And you could become successful at it, I guess, a little bit. But it's like you're never going to make the top of the mountain unless you were bred, unless you were born to make the top of the mountain. Except on TikTok. On TikTok. TikTok, it's wide open.

Right. Yeah. Anything goes. That's a fucking crapshoot. Yeah. But I think that's what it is. Like Malcolm Gladwell that booked The Outliers like he talked so much about like when you were born like you know like what these guys were born just a year before a year after the life

would have changed so it's like now if you were born if you're coming into your late teens 20s 30s it's like the internet and podcasting if this is your ability that 20 30 years ago we would be nothing right we would we we were i'm happy to be born now because at least we have a shot at this. We may not become the biggest that ever did it. I just hate that there's this American thing that they like, we frown upon people. Like, if people work, like, if you go to Scandinavia and, like, someone's working in a restaurant or whatever, like, nobody looks at them like, oh, I guess it didn't work out or, you know what I mean? Here, there's a thing like, how come you don't go start a business but somebody but it's

like because i'm a fucking i'm a stupid guy yeah but some why can't i just be a stupid not everyone should i shouldn't start a business but we also shouldn't look down on those people because we're no happier it's like i've met the most successful people the richest people we're all fucking the same we're all dying and we're all – nobody's ever happy. Happiness is not like a constant state where everyone is just like, hey, I made a million dollars. Now I'm happy. Or hey, I'm doing comedy and now I'm happy. No, I mean you made a lot of money.

You're doing great. You chew your fingernails off every day. But I always did. Yeah, so you're not – nothing makes us happy. But I think – but it does. But I think you're – I'm telling you. Except for good-looking pussy. I said that, which, yeah, this is Papa's shout out.

But I think, I think when, you know, I gotta be honest though. I am happy when I'm with my daughter. I'm like really just truly like checked out and happy. I gotta be honest with you. Being a dad for me has changed a lot of what I get what you're saying. But are you happy or are you fulfilled? I'm happy. Well, you know what?

It's weird. It's a catch-22 because I'm so happy and fulfilled. But then I guess because of my Catholic guilt-ridden mind, I always think about or disaster mind. What happens if something happened to her and she was gone and out of my life? I wouldn't be able to live anymore. Yeah. Or just imagine this at some point she's going to be really desperately unhappy and you're not going to be there or at some point i always picture that with my kids yeah and the best case

scenario is i die way before her yeah and then she i'm without her like then i'm going to be without her one way or another so i think think about that, too. You know? Yeah. I guess having kids is depressing. It's having – it's beautiful. It's the most – isn't it like the biggest paradox? Because it's so depressingly happy. I don't know. Like when I first had kids, that's when I was – this period when I was going broke also. And everyone kept telling me, oh, spend time with your kids.

It will make you feel better. It just made me feel worse because I realized i just shat the bed on their future too that's how i was thinking and so i was just i i really thought they would be happier without me i had a life insurance policy so i really thought this is the way this is the way i can make them happy is by letting them get my life insurance policy somehow so that's how distorted my thinking was you know what i will say is a nice feeling though it's a good business though you're thinking like hey i shit the bed how can we make a little money out of this when you stop living like what your parents want you to do because like i you know my mother wanted to be a therapist my dad

wanted to be a therapist and i did it and then like even with my comedy they wanted me to be clean they were so happy when i did david letterman and now like my mother couldn't be less proud even though i've been doing well she couldn't be less proud of the things I say on this podcast, but because, but because I'm doing it for me and I really kind of like, it's like a Russian doll, your family, like it just gets small. Like now I just think about like me and my daughter.

I'm like, I'm proud of it. I'm proud. I'm having so much fun. It's like, I love my mom and respect her, but like, I don't care what she thinks about me anymore.

That's, I feel like I keep getting like released. Like I keep thinking like, Oh, I'm free. But then I'm like, Oh no released. I keep thinking, oh, I'm free. But then I'm like, oh, no, there's this chain. And then I break it. And then there's the next one and the next one.

And the last one is your sexuality. Let it go. Just be free, baby. As soon as my dad leaves his last breath, I mean, I am coming way out. I'm sprinting out of that fucking closet. Why? What would he do if you hypothetically did that if i hypothetically i just don't think he'd be able to take it but it is it is interesting you bring that

up because i was thinking about because he's always you called him this morning well because he's always trying to get his hands on my money a good way to kill him is to just come out so if i want him if i want if i want to be want him gone tomorrow i could just be like hey dad here's my grinder account yeah hey dad here's my life partner mateo lane yeah see i think i think though i'm kidding i'm kidding but the point is i think you're saying is honesty sort of buys freedom yes so that oh my god so i couldn't believe like there were so many points in my life where i just wasn't honest like about feelings and now i just am like saying no to gigs or you know being honest with someone about my feelings i'm just

like yeah it's so freeing i feel so great being honest because i used to be a liar well or or you or you would you would just not say things like you would be clean instead of you know saying what you really yeah wanted to say and like uh it everything changes so suddenly some people hate you who used to like you so you get new fans over here but some people who used to always like you start to hate you and just everything changes but it kind of gets better you know it is bill cosby you know for whatever you know he said something too that i saw once he said he said i don't know what the key to success is but i'm sure the key to failure is trying to please everyone yeah i was wow. That's a little weird coming from a guy who consciously made his comedy as appealing to the most amount of people possible.

Of course. I mean, he was as vanilla as it gets. It's the same thing like, you know, it's the same thing that people who are racist, they want to fuck the people they hate. It's all the bullshit in the mind. But I think there is a certain peace that comes with that because when you're a piece, when you're. Thank you. When you're trying to please everybody, you're just sacrificing too much of yourself. Right. You know what I mean?

You're just it's because nobody is for everybody. Nobody likes doing everything. Well, yeah. The only way to please everybody is to listen to everybody. And that's a drag. Yeah. Like most people have nothing to say. So I think that's why I think that's why a lot of like big stars go

crazy and lose it. Like Jim Carrey. You see these guys because in order to become that level of famous, you have to be the perfect person for so many different people that eventually you forget who you really are because you've created this person that's perfect

for a, you know, a plethora of different people and you're not you anymore. So you're like, who am I? And then you lose your mind, and you fucking reject it all, and you go live in the woods, and you try to blow up a building in Oklahoma City. It's just what it is. That's just what you do. Or you fucking paint all day and say you're happy. Jim Carrey's out of his mind.

He's out of his mind. Yeah. But he's also, he's like, yeah, I feel like that comes with being a genius, too, though. And you just start to snap. Yeah, but I think what he says is true. I think he became that you become a character because you have to be famous for so many people, which is what's very liberating about this era right now is you don't have to be famous for everyone. You can be niche, man.

You can be famous for the people who accept you for you, which is exhilarating. You could basically be a gay artist, but not be gay. Just gay for yourself. I'm like, you know who I am? Because people are like, hey, you shouldn't joke so much about being gay if you're not gay. It's like, listen, guy, I'll do whatever the fuck I want to do. One day I'll say I'm gay. One day I won't.

I don't give a fuck. You'll do what you want. My mother's not proud of me. It doesn't matter anymore. Yeah. Here's the thing. One day you can have an audience full of guys who made a lot of money in talk tech lost it got it back had two wives have 15 million dollars because there's like you can find your

specific audience yeah you can find a cage fight tony robbins yeah you set it up so i so he's your friend right yeah yeah how big is he in person he's he's massive because he's his head looks like it was made on easter island well that's just it it. He's not just tall. He's like weirdly tall. His head is like two feet tall. Yeah, he's a pro magnum. And when you do a podcast with him, all he does is he bangs on the table every word. Oh, my God. That would make me cum.

It's true. The entire room is shaking. So the audio engineer had to come in and like, you have to stop banging on the table and he's like oh sorry sorry and then he would just start banging again but he's uh he he was talking and he's like he doesn't know when to stop like he'll go on and on how and then i was 36 years old and president clinton called me during the impeachment and and i would have to yell at him to get him to shut up to say why would president clinton call this 36 year old guy yeah for advice about monica lewinsky like yeah because i listened to all his podcasts i listened to your interview i

liked i'm such a tony robbins fan and i always think about that too i'm like you're just casually saying that these things happen but i want to know why yeah i know that it happened you're tony robbins that's what happened i want to stop you right there because i want to know what why did he call him i know your mother used to fucking pour drano down your throat i know all the stories but i want to just know why yeah what happened you know he still wouldn't really say he just he just basically said that he got to know president clinton at these dinners or whatever that they would have and got to know him on epstein's on what who knows let's just say the truth to where Island head. To where a lot of people met. No, I'm kidding.

Yeah. And then Clinton would just call him for advice. He just wouldn't really elaborate. So are you still like actively friends with Tony Robbins? Like it's your boy? I mean. He's talking about you. Yeah.

If I wanted him to come on my podcast today, he'd probably come on. Like we only know each other through going on each other's podcast. But still, but not many people do that. Yeah. I mean, you're going to be a small group of people in his life yeah yeah the first podcast i did with him was at his house which he told me he had just finished that year paying off and it was like this enormous like 60 million dollar house in new york city no in uh palm beach oh nice so uh it was just it was just huge and then uh and he was he was actually kind of run down for that podcast he had just gotten back from some trip and i had never seen him like tired before his

energy is insane man it's when you watch that stuff i mean i've never met the guy but i mean the energy that he has is like it's really inspiring yeah it's cocaine he doesn't do cocaine and he's like cold bass the cold cold bass I know and every time like the water the heater goes out in my fucking pre-war building I gotta get out of the shower and wash myself off in the sink but this guy's jumping into cold pools yeah before every talk speech whatever

can you get him to do our podcast can he do the hyenas you should ask him out he'd probably do it I'll start tweeting at him he does a lot of those big shows in Florida now, right? I think a lot of them happen in Florida. I would go to one. I would love to go to one, but I'm not paying 10 Gs.

Yeah. It's definitely costly. You got to be rich to go to a seminar to learn how to get rich. I feel like actually it's weird to go to those things. Can you imagine just like suddenly you go to this thing and you're like jumping up and down with everybody else? It doesn't feel like a natural thing. It feels weird. Yeah.

Like a quasi religious movement. The same thing to me. And I'm humongous fan of Tony Robbins. Truly huge. But it's like the people that actually pay and go. It's like the same thing with like Jesus and the apostles and the disciples. It's like you need to be a certain kind of person to be an apostle. Like you need to be a guy that's like, I need help. Here's Jesusesus figure like i'm not a person that feel even though i'm such a fan of

it's like all right i'm not gonna i'm not gonna pay money though for you to tell i know what the fuck to do it's just not happening yet but it takes a certain kind of person to be like i have nothing left so i i got you have to give it help me now tony that's how i feel but a lot of people who see him a lot of people who see him aren't just those people a lot of people are like he advises like very powerful and rich people. But they still subconsciously, they still may feel they have the insecurities and all that stuff about them. It's not about money. Because those people have money.

Everybody needs a coach. Everybody needs a coach. Yeah. But, you know, I feel like a lot of people who are like, will pay the 10 G's, they're like avidly atheist. Right. Good point. You know, like nobody goes around saying, Oh, I'm not this or that. I'm an atheist. Like you're either nothing or you believe in something, but some people are like, no, I believe in atheism.

They make that into a religion. So, but they, then Tony Robbins or, or, you know, T transcendental meditation or whatever becomes their outlet. So they still transfer that energy to something else. What do you believe? What's your belief? I just don't believe in anything really. Right. It's just one life.

And that's how much you have a bar mitzvah. I did have a bar mitzvah. How much did you make? I mean, I think it was like $1,200, which I then, then I stole from my parents and it took them about four years to figure that out.

Not a good score. 1,200. No, out. That's not a good score, $1,200. No, no. My friends growing up, they would give me like $8,000, $10,000 for your apartment. No, my friends. I grew up with all Jews. Park Slope, Brooklyn.

I didn't meet my first Jewish person until I was 23 years old. Shout out Dana Strega. And I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. You grew up next to all the Hasidic Jews. I know, but my grandfather would drive to the neighborhoods and make us lock the doors. Well, my... Just kidding around.

No. But there was a game. If you hit one, you got 10 points. That would be a fun game. Weishan Chia. Hit the Weishan Chia, Andrew. What are you having a fucking asthma attack to? Oh.

Oh, sorry. It's funny how my grandparents actually hated the Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. We actually really weren't supposed to stop. All the Jews are related. Oh, yeah. Now I know. You think you're agnostic or atheist? Which way do you go? Agnostic.

Just sexy. Yeah, I focus on that. The sexiest ugly guy in the world. I'm of the opinion that agnostic is the most honest answer. I think that's the most honest. And what's agnostic again? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Atheists are saying God does not exist. Yeah. But you're really firm about it. Like, you'll argue about it with people. Like, God. Like, how do you know? Nobody knows anything.

Like, we just don't even know anything. We don't even know, you know, how the government is run really like and then they're gonna talk about god like everybody's kind of insane atheists are kind of like equally as unpleasant for for different reasons than like very religious people yeah like you start you could start talking about anything oh no no i can't i'm atheist but meanwhile i'm gonna pay five thousand dollars to get up my tm mantra and it happens to be this. Don't tell anybody. It happens to be the same mantra they give everybody else.

But that's why they keep it a big secret because it costs $5,000. Anyway, I'm ranting. No, but they also. I do TM. I paid the money to do the transitive. So you got the same mantra, though, as everyone else paid $5,000. I got the same mantra. And yeah, if I could have just asked, anybody would have told me it.

But I will say it does help me. It might be placebo. I believe meditation helps. It only helps me because it gets me away from my phone. I agree, but I just, I have a thing about TM, like meditation,

you could just sit down and meditate. You don't have to, you know, join an organization or subscribe to this one particular practice that costs money. Like sitting down and like thinking or not thinking or whatever doesn't have to cost

five thousand dollars prayer prayer is meditation right exactly yeah you don't have you don't pay money to pray so i mean well the catholic church you do you pay with a lot of things to the catholic church you pay money and you pay with your childhood yeah well you know and jews pay you have to buy tickets for their religious holidays i know smart screwed in at all smart screwed in kids well can we talk about Greenland quick? Because I just want to know, because you do have the Kickstarter for Greenland, which is still active?

No, no, no. They shut me down. Oh, they shut you down. Yeah. They censored me. What do you have to say to me about Greenland? First of all, Greenland was one of those ones where Greenland is not green.

No. Iceland is green. Greenland is made of ice, and Iceland is green. Right. Yeah, so Eric Lorette, I guess, found Greenland, and he wanted people to come from Iceland to Greenland, and so he called it Greenland. That's what it is. It's 97% ice. Right. Yeah, so Eric the Red, I guess, found Greenland, and he wanted people to come from Iceland to Greenland, and so he called it Greenland. That's what it is.

It's 97% ice. Or it was. I'm hoping for a global warning, and then the ice will disappear from there, and it'll be a good vacation spot. There's a lot of people who are angry at you right now because they think you don't believe in global warming. There you go.

They're coming at you. But when I'm just in my beach house in Greenland, and it's 90 degrees, I'll be laughing at them. Well, yeah, because we support. We support. We don't believe in it either. We know it's a made-up thing from the Chinese. So wait, what you're saying is-

Like coronavirus. Coronavirus is certainly from the Chinese, and I think they're putting it on the masks. Yeah, for sure. Those masks definitely don't work, by the way. They have corona. They're tainted with coronavirus. It's all an industry. Yeah.

There you go. masks definitely don't work by the way they have grown they're tainted with coronavirus stolen industry yeah there you go you're actually giving some very good advice right now because like if you believe in global warming right then you should invest and buy a little piece of greenland yeah you can you can you can get rich you can rent like a huge place in greenland for like a thousand bucks a month so how come we are you not doing that why don't you want to do that still cold there well i i did put out this kickstart once so so trump made this tweet that he wanted to buy greenland how much does it cost well we don't know nobody's so so denmark the the prime minister of denmark responded and the prime minister of greenland responded greenland's not for sale which is and i thought both of those tweets were kind of stupid like first off why would you tweet

you want to buy a country or an island or whatever and then why would you tweet back it's not for sales like people are negotiating on Twitter. Can I just make a point about that? That is Trump's superpower. That is his superpower. Yeah. Like he can tweet and get the entire world. And they just play his game.

Yeah. Like you're tweeting back thinking you're owning him, but you're just you've entered into the arena in which he's fighting. Yeah. And you can't win that game because he's just better at it than you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Look, your point is absolutely valid.

Why the fuck would you respond to such a fucking asinine thing? Like once you respond to Trump, you've lost. Yeah. Like literally, I think the queen of Denmark even tweeted back. Like it was insane. So I figured, okay, what is going on here? So I looked it up a little bit, and I guess Greenland is the second largest producer after China of these things called rare earth minerals, which is all your iPhones, all your batteries, the entire electric grid is powered by these elements that you could only get from China. And then I learned, and also Greenland.

And so China, if they get really upset at us, they can say, no, we're cutting off the supply. after grid is powered by these elements that you could only get from China. And then I learned, and also Greenland. Wow. And so China, if they get really upset at us, they can say, no, no, we're cutting off the supply. So that's why Trump wants to buy Greenland.

But then, so I looked at it, there's a company called Greenland minerals that does all the mining of these rare earth minerals. And it's a hundred percent owned by the Chinese nuclear commission. So, which is like the weirdest thing in the world. Like how did this happen?

That China basically controls all of it. So I figured, okay, I'll put up a Kickstarter. They shut me down. I put it on GoFundMe and I explained all the reasons. There was a bunch of reasons, really. And then people started actually donating and then GoFundMe shut me down. How much did you get up to on the Kickstarter?

Probably like on the GoFundMe, about a few thousand dollars. But in like one day. Yeah. And I was trying to raise $100 million. And what was the claim? Why did they check you down? What did they say? Because they didn't think I would raise the $100 million.

And then they take all the charges on the chargeback fees when they return people's money for their credit cards. Right. They thought it was too much risk. So is Greenland getting more and more land each year? Yeah. Well, I don't know. There's actually two completely opposite research that said one says the ice is melting the other said there's more snow than ever so

it's like any but in the capital of nuke that nu uk they people live there and are like native greenland people they're not like imports they were born and raised there for island people yeah yeah 90 90 of greenland is greenlandic some other you know native american kind of like an eskimo type of kind of yeah something and then but also greenland has the highest uh rate of suicide if it was a country greenland would have the highest suicide rate of all the countries in the world really it's like 83 per hundred thousand you should go there and start fucking thinking there yeah the greenland search engine i want want to die. I'm going to get number one there definitely. We do too.

Sweden, Finland, all of them that live in the north, they have the highest suicide rates because it's just a vitamin D deficiency. No, you know what? It goes up in the summer because people can't handle, they can't sleep because there's nonstop sunlight. Wow. So it's the insomnia that does it. It's a fascinating place. Can we right now, can we fly from JFK to Greenland? Yeah.

You can land and nuke. Should we go? I don't know. Should we just go and bring a Zoom mic and just do a potty wotty from Greenland? We would be the first podcast from Greenland. You know, I bet you if we went – I bet you there's a podcast in Greenland. No, I don't know.

We've got to beat Schultz, that piece of shit. Not only can we go there, I bet you we could probably meet with the prime minister. Who else – what else is that guy doing? Seriously, why don't we fucking do that? Yeah, we should do that. The three of us will bring Tim Dillon down and let him back. Tim Dillon would have fun. Let's let's do it.

How many people live in Greenland? Fifteen thousand. It's like fifty five thousand. OK, fifty thousand. Because, by the way, it's other than like the US, it's not that hard to go to one of these places and just meet the prime minister. Like you guys walk into their office and say, hey, we're from America.S. It's not that hard to go to one of these places and just meet the prime minister. Like you guys walk into their office and say, hey, we're from America. Yeah. And are you are you in?

Yeah. I've done a folding chair and then you're sitting with them. Yeah. Like one time I was going to Turks and Caicos and I literally tweeted to the prime minister. Hey, I want to meet you. It's a she's a woman and I never interviewed a prime minister before. So I want to meet, you know, come on my podcast. And so the last day I was there, she tweeted back and said, okay, can you come on over right now? Yeah, but she did that because you're somebody. Like if Mike Suarez was like, hey, I want to meet you,

they'd call security immediately. If we go, if we take the caravan to Greenland, I guarantee you we could. I really think we should do that. When's the optimal time to go? I guess in the summer would be the time to go. How cold is it in the summer? Is it like? I don't know. I think in the summer it's warm. Oh time to go? I guess in the summer. Yeah. Would be the time to go. How cold is it in the summer? Is it like. I don't know.

I think in the summer. Oh, June. Oh, June. It's warm in the summer. Well, you should really go. I mean, Iceland's like 40 or 50 degrees in the summer. It's probably the same. It's probably not even that long of a flight.

It's right by Canada. No, it's like four or five hours. It's like four hours. There's good reviews on Google Maps of the airport. There's like Delta go there. Like major airlines will go there or like you probably have to fly nuke fucking airlines. Yeah, I think there's some weird airline that goes there.

50 degrees Fahrenheit? I love that. It's, you know, light all day long. I see we do it. We should do a comedy festival there. Seriously, why don't we do that? They have comedy in Iceland and like. Yeah, but not Greenland. Let's just take over Greenland. Just imagine it. So let's say the U.S. did not Greenland. Let's just take over Greenland.

Just imagine this. Let's say the U.S. did buy Greenland. Can you imagine the pain? And I'm thinking now of your daughter, who's half Puerto Rican. Can you imagine if the Puerto Ricans look at Greenland and Greenland becomes the 51st state before Puerto Rico? Oh, my God. That would be rough. There'd be a lot of upset people in these streets.

I'm telling you, there'll be fucking civil unrest But the Puerto Ricans don't want to be put to a state They need to put me to a state Right now I'm already American There's going to be a lot of civil unrest If we're not put to a state Put me to fucking America My kid's grandma asked when Trump got elected

She was like can you protect me Because you're a US citizen I was like you are too lady You're Puerto Rican and you were born in New York. You're born in San Diego. Do you know what a passport is? No, I don't know. I don't know.

I just got these fool stamps. Can you just convince your baby mom for us to put that Iranian clip back up? Yeah, we're going to get back together just so I can put – there was a clip about Iranian women that we posted that was so funny that she asked me to take down because I was like – so I'm willing to get into another committed relationship and have another babe with her just so we can get that clip back up on

Instagram. Wait, why should we take it down? I forgot. I don't know. I actually don't even remember why, but was it a problem? I don't remember. She remembers. She just felt like it was too close to home. Well, what can you do? She's probably not wrong.

I've heard everything you've said in this podcast. That was the line that was too close? I know. That's interesting. You know what's going to be interesting? That's a very good point. As I got an animated show in development at Comedy Central, it just went to pilot, which is looking like could actually get on the air. And now they just told me they want me to host a show that's already going to the air.

They want me to be the host. No audition. Just be the host of a new show coming out of Comedy Central. And it's like I'm willing to say this to do this, but I'm fully aware that I'll probably be canceled for something that I said on the podcast before it even gets out or while it gets out. But I'm still willing to do it because I know that'll probably just help my career. It'll just help our podcast because it'll bring us to the next level because it's bullshit. Like, honestly, who – It's bullshit to cancel anybody for comedy.

I mean, out of the comedy – outside the comedy community, how many people actually knew who Shane Gillis was before he was hired? Now people know. It's a great – Because you should be canceled if you say something that actually, truly means – It's free press. But just to be a comedian, it's like – It's free press. It's almost like it's better for us to get on television shows and sitcoms and then they because then people start thinking what is this podcast but the thing is that you already said everything on the podcast yeah you know so they know they kind of know what they they're

getting and we already and we said weishan xian after it so you know that's legal that's legal it's fine legally if you say weishan qin it doesn't count yeah no they they yeah if you get anything that's that's how you know it's not about any sort of moral point it's about just ripping someone down because like yeah you could you could exist on your podcast forever ad infinitum and nobody's coming after you as soon as it's perceived that you've gotten something then they'll be like let's let's take it yeah and find something to take it and you know it's funny because everyone else uh before the comedy world was already canceled like you either were polarized or canceled before the now they're kind of figuring oh we can't let this happen the comedians have this

open voice that nobody questions we got to start canceling the comedians because everybody else has already been right everyone else has been through it right so like if you were if you were tony robbins and you said something five years ago they would have canceled you they did try to cancel them right so or even articles i wrote like eight nine years ago people would somebody would say something and then suddenly i would lose like you know half a million readers over one thing or another it's just something you said or i would get yeah i would get death threats like just the the worst stuff and it'd be like nothing but now they finally are attacking comedy because you're like the last frontier yep of canceling it's what's the i think right at the end of a civilization crashing that's

probably one of the last waves which is fine like everybody always says like oh uh you know we got to protect culture for the next generation for our grandkids why like what's so great about human human beings i say this is what we do i think we should euthanasia the planet because look we're gonna die anyway right like eventually the sun's gonna explode so we all know we're all dying we know the planet's dying we know the universe is expanding into probably nothing eventually so why don't we just dr cavorky in this thing why don't we take our fate into our own hands and just nuke ourselves like have a mass with the coronavirus we have a mass suicide and we all hold hands like fucking oh like a jim jones but for the planet all hold hands we all kind of breathe in coronavirus and we just go in at the

same time singing we are the world and we just go in at the same time singing We Are The World. And we just say, fuck you to this whole thing. Well, you know. I just want to go to Greenland first. But why not just enjoy it while it lasts? Like my kids say to me, oh, don't you care about our grandchildren? And I'm like, not really. Like I'm never going to know them.

I care about you. It's not as punk rock. That's why. Right. There you go. I mean, having a mass suicide the world over is fucking punk rock. I'm down to do the mass suicide. I just want to get two things off.

I want to go to Greenland and I want to get that post-op pussy. That's what I want to do. So you guys let me go to Greenland and Thailand in one trip. Would you be willing to pay for a sex change if I wanted to get one? I don't think so. Patriot level. But I will pay for the trip to Greenland. That's what I'll do.

Nice. Let's do the Greenland thing. We really should. Seriously, us, Schultz and Tim Dillon. Let's do it. And by the way, I think we're all mispronouncing Greenland anyway. So we might as well just go and be as annoying as possible in Greenland. I want your business opinion on this.

Will you think somebody will buy the Tim Dillon episode eventually? For a million dollars on.com possible patreon.com slash bay ridge boys one mil not you i'm just saying you think you think there's a conceivable scenario where the value of it is deemed enough that someone buys it yeah because think about think where's tim dillon gonna be in 10 years right everyone's yeah dead in a plate in a plate of fucking mac and cheese. So one way or the other way, if he's dead, then the last remaining comedy he has that people haven't seen is going to increase in value. Or if he's alive and his career shoots up

as it's doing right now, it's going to increase in value. Either way. Imagine if you had like Jim Carrey from like 1980 saying something outrageous. That might, you know, someone might pay for that. That's smart. You're absolutely right. You're confident somebody will buy this eventually.

Well, the two reasons. It may not be tomorrow. The two reasons he gave were just very cogent. Like, I see what he said. If it happens, somebody's going to want to buy it when that amount of money is still meaningful, but we don't need it like we need it now. We already have exploded by then. I'm like, I don't fucking take the money. We'll just give it for free.

Yeah. Yeah, well, then you might get canceled from your show. But I don't know what's on the video. You're going to have to. Well, we can let you listen to it. On the jet to Greenland, we're going to have to have a prior viewing. If you pay for the flight, that's what we'll do. That's what we'll pump in.

And I'll make sure, and I don't know this, I'll make sure we'll get the prime minister of Greenland on your podcast as well. Yeah. I'll pay for the hotel. I know a girl out there in Greenland. I'll tell you this about the Tim Dillon episode. It was one, it was the funny, it might have been the funniest episode we ever did. And just think how wild this podcast is.

We decided we couldn't release it. So if anyone ever does buy it, I think it is worth the hype. Some of you guys call me Chrissy SS, and we still couldn't release the Tim Dillon podcast. You know? It was organic. It wasn't planned. It was just something that happened organically, but we got to a point

where we were like, we can't put this out. It's kind of like a baseball card. Maybe if we wait and we wait and we wait, like 50 years. Yeah, it's a collectible. Yeah, it's a collectible. How much content is Tim Dillon going to put out? This is value. It's value.

It's supply and demand. Thank you so much, of course, at James Altucher, which you guys hear on this podcast every single episode. Anything else, James? No, I'm just happy to come on, come back on mine. Yes, love to. Let's hang out. Will you come back on ours? This was so much fun.

Beautiful. Mr. James Altucher, thank you for listening.'s hang out. Will you come back on ours? This was so much fun. Yeah. Beautiful. Mr. James Altucher, thank you for listening. I appreciate it. I hope he gets a blowy tonight. I hope so, too. We'll see. Yeah.

Great. Going to Cincinnati. I'm dragging her to Cincinnati tomorrow for Go Bananas. Oh, wow. She's soaked. Yeah. She's going, this isn't what I signed up for. Yeah.

She goes, I told you I had millions of dollars, guy. You're taking me to go bananas? You're making jokes in a basement in Cincinnati? That's what's happening? It's going to be great. Have you been out there to that club before? I'm one of the best clubs in the country. I've never been there.

Who are you bringing to work with you? Tony Woods. Oh, Tony Woods. So he's bringing me. Oh, he's bringing you. And then we're going to Amsterdam. All right. And you, family?

Yeah, everybody. Beautiful, man. That's awesome. You're a legend, man tony what's true legend all right thanks guys so much Thank you. Bye.