“My Autism Keeps Upsetting People” - Vittorio Angelone - #1119

Maybe you are quite Peterson-pilled, cleaning your room. Listen, I read the 12 Rules for Life book. Did you really? And I found it helpful. Did you really? When I was like 22. Are you an ex-Jordan Peterson fan? I'm so embarrassed. I'm so like spiritually, like, I don't know, something about me and my audience would hate the fact that I really found Jordan Peterson very helpful. And made my girlfriend watch it when I was 22. Be like, look at this guy. Kathy Newman's an idiot, isn't she? It's terrible. I'm so embarrassed by all of that. But like, he was like helpful and informative. And I think it was like self, it was self-help, really, that like 12 Rules for Life book. And I needed that. I needed someone to go fucking, come on, man. Grow up, get your shit together. Do you think that your audience would guess that you were a previous Jordan Peterson stan? Some of them. Some of them, I think, won't. Or like, wouldn't be like happy or like, maybe they'd be surprised. But I think that's where I like to, like, I try to be honest about that stuff. And I like, I would like, I would like to hear someone be like, oh yeah, I found that helpful. And then it went a bit crazy, you know? Um, so I try to be like open about that. I was like, I'm still a dumb idiot guy. This is the problem. I write like, like narrative, thoughtful, thematic standoff shows. But I'm a fucking idiot. Like, you know what I mean? So it's hard. You got spiked. I got spiked in Nashville. Listen, allegedly, I don't know. They were like, we could do a toxicology report on you, but it costs like X thousand dollars. And I was like, just give me whatever stops me vomiting right now and I'll be okay. But I thought it was like, I thought it was just like a really unjust hangover. I was in Nashville. I did a show. I went for a couple of drinks afterwards and a game of pool. And I was like, yeah, I had a couple of drinks. And then I remember like getting back to the, or like my friend giving me a lift back to the hotel and me being like, I am fucking trollied right now. Like, when did that happen? And then started playing him like Mongolian throat singing on Spotify, which was like that. I mean, I don't know if that's a symptom of being spiked. By a Mongolian. Yeah, maybe. Maybe a Mongolian spiked me. Um, but then. I don't remember lots of patches of the evening and I don't remember getting into the hotel room and like going to bed or whatever. And when I woke up, my phone was like in the bathroom, not plugged in. And like, all my shit was like all over the hotel room and I woke up and I just thought it was like a really, you know, when you get a bad hangover, but you don't think you deserve it. You're like, I didn't, I wasn't, this is unjust. Exactly. It was like, this is not karmically balanced right now. So I got up and then I like vomited and I was like, God, that was pretty bad. Um, did a shit also pretty bad. And then I was like, come on, you just gotta get your shit together. Like I, I went to, I went full Jordan Peters and I was like, I just gotta tidy my room and I'll be okay. And then I vomited like once every 30 minutes for like the whole month until I checked out. And then I checked out of the hotel and had to go to the toilet in the lobby and throw up there. And I was like, this is not, this is no hangover I've experienced and I've drank a lot in the past. And so the guy, this guy, Ian, who was like filming the show and stuff, he was like still in town and he was like, do you want me to take you to like an IV clinic? And I was like, this is the most like American shit of all time of like, go to some weird, like spa where they just hook up, hook you in a way to say jet you do a sound bowl. And then they were closed. So we were like, oh shit. So we went to urgent care, which I don't really know what that is. Like, I don't know the American healthcare system is like weird. It's not the emergency room, but it's like a step. It's a half A&E. But it's also beside a burger restaurant. I was like, this, this country's fucked. This country's, this is where there should be like a barbershop or like, you know, but there's a healthcare facility. So I walked in and I think because I was just being like polite to the woman behind the desk, I was like, oh, hi, blah, blah, blah. She thought you were minimizing how serious it was. She just thought I was like kind of fine. And I like signed in. And like. And I just did like persistent vomiting was like my symptom on the thing. And then, so I was sat there and like people kept getting called in before me. And then at one point I was like, oh, I'm getting that feeling where I'm going to like throw up again. I was like texting my mom at the time and her actual advice was throw up in the lobby. Cause then they'll see you, which is like crazy mom advice of like, just throw up on the floor. Pretty effective. And I didn't do that, but it was mainly because the bathroom was like right beside the reception desk. It's pretty egregious if the bathroom is within sight. Exactly. To just go, help. So I went into the bathroom and made a bit of the hullabaloo out of it to the point where I was like, okay, they can definitely hear me. Oh, you hammed it up. I didn't ham it up. I just am a loud vomiter. Okay. So naturally a loud vomiter. I mean. I'm screaming. Really? The whole time. I think I'm quite a shy vomiter. Oh really? Yeah. I liked, I don't want to, I don't want to make a fuss. I really don't want to make a fuss. I'm making a fuss. Are you? I'm kicking up a fuss if I'm throwing up, I'm just, I hate it so much. So I sort of walk out, I'd stick my head out the door, like finish vomiting, like nothing. There's nothing inside me, but it's just like, you know, the horrible yellow, like bile, awful stuff. So I stick my head out the door. I stick my head out and go, oh, I like, I keep vomiting. And they were like, they were like, yeah, we heard, I was like, I'm really sorry. They were like, someone's coming to see, you know, it's like, okay, good. So I went in and they checked my blood pressure and whatever, and did the basics. And they were like, okay, what's happened? I was like, listen, I had a few drinks last night, but this feels crazy. I've thrown up like seven times today and I have nothing left to throw up, but it keeps happening. Then I go. Okay. It feels like you probably had something slipped in your drink. Uh, it's very common in Nashville and like, particularly like certain areas of Nashville. And I was like, that's a crazy thing to like define yourselves by, but like, apparently it happens like all the time. And they were like, were you like looking after your drink? And I was like, no, I was farting around. I was just walking around, taking pictures, doing whatever. And my drink was just sat there and they were like, yeah. And they were like, were you hanging around any like weird people? And I was like, no, I sort of knew people and you know, people I'd worked with and they were like, okay, that's kind of weird. And I was like, oh, and then I did start playing pool and then these like real sort of like redneck guys challenged, they were like, we'll play you for the table. And I was like, yeah, cuz I'm like quite good at pool. So I just absolutely tore these guys apart and they got quite like aggro at one point where my buddy was like, you should, you should kill it on the pool thing. And you beat them so badly that you mean you started a fight. Well, I just think, cuz I was like in a fun, goofy, like I just done my show in Nashville. I was having a good, I was like laughing when stuff went in and like, you know, and then this guy came up and was like, you okay? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, all right, just fucking like this redneck. And I was like, okay, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm not saying you were showboating. Yeah, maybe. Right. And I don't look, I'm not saying those guys definitely spiked my drink. But if I had the, if I was a betting man, my money's on Jimbo, which is his actual name. Uh, shout out to Jimbo and his wife, Peter. Jimbo and his like really frightening looking wife. Actually, she was really, she, from the moment I was like, yeah, let's play for it. She was like really angry about it. I don't know what was going on. So that's the working theory. And I have eaten like one sandwich and three spoons of porridge in the last like day and a half. I could collapse at any moment, but they stabbed, they injected my ass with like an anti-vomiting drug. And I was like, this is nice. Sick. This is nice. And $200 as well. They didn't fuck me up. I was expecting like American healthcare to get like, really like, you know, cost shit loads. And $200 is crazy for like one injection or whatever. But like, certainly I stopped vomiting and I made my flight to Austin, which was delayed by two hours, which I actually think was good. I got, is this bad? I got assistance through the airport. Off who? I just like typed on the app that I needed a wheelchair. You got wheeled through the airport. You're kidding me. I was like, I can't stand up for that long. You got wheeled through Nashville airport. Yeah. They don't ask what's wrong. I think I said like ankle injury. Cause I liked it. Like a month ago I was getting wheeled through airports cause I fucked up my ankle. They don't ask. I know this is so bad. Like, but it's like a life hack. Well, you just click the button. You don't need to. What, what did you click it? When you're checking it? I don't think they're allowed to ask. I don't think they're allowed to be like, why can't you walk? Not all disabilities are visible. That kind of thing. I saw, I'm autistic. Sunflower lanyard. I don't know. It's crazy. And I felt like a little bit bad for the person like pushing me through the airport, but I truly think I would have collapsed if I'd like queued for security and all that shit, which feels valid. I didn't tell them that I was like potentially had been poisoned. by a redneck and, like, my. Because I don't think they would have let me on the flight. That's why I said ankle injury. In case you were infectious or something. I think that would have, or like, I think insurance. I think if they are, if I'd walked in and be like, I think I've been drugged, I don't know with what, I can't stop vomiting. I think they would have been like, you might like die on the flight. So like, I think that like airlines, their insurance. That's going to be an inconvenience for us. I think that would be a lot of paperwork. If I died on the flight. But yeah, got wheeled through. Pretty chill. It's like, it's a good move. That actually sounds like you had a nice time. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that while I was in Nashville airport, crying on the phone to my mom because I kept shaking. I spent too much time practicing pool. I've been cursed with my ability to beat a redneck. I'm Icarus of the pool world. You flew too close to the black. That sounds crazy. That's what Jimbo said to me. Yeah. So that's crazy. So I'm not, I'm in, we're in Austin. It's my first North American tour. I'm in the States for the whole month. And the whole thing was like, I, it's pretty like, you know, in the States pretty much by myself for the whole month. This is like stressful, but I'm going to be on top of it. And I am not, I'm not going to drink for the rest of the month. Have you been on top of it up until getting poisoned? I had a crazy one and this is going to become a standup routine, but like, no, the problem with the sign up routine at the minute is nobody believes that it happened. Uh, went to LA first. That was good fun. A terrible city. It's not really a city. It's not a place. It's just roads. It's roads with occasional things. Like I know that is what a city is, but it's not, it's got nothing tying it together. Um, and then went to New York and my girlfriend came at me in New York and we were like, let's do some. Like, you know, touristy things. Let's get a bagel. Let's do whatever. And, uh, so it was the day after I landed into New York, uh, we were walking around and we got a bagel and then we went to the nine 11 Memorial when we were like, it was just nearby. And we were like, that's pretty like, you know, important to see. And I, this is the bit that people don't believe in audiences. I, um, I shit myself at the nine 11 Memorial. Okay. So I turned to my girlfriend and was like, oh no. And she was like, yeah, it's so sad. And I was like, I've shit my pants, I've shit my full pants. Um, it was like a short, it was like pretty small, but not great. So this trip so far has actually been defined by your bowels. I don't think food in this country is good for you. It's not food. It's not food. It's not really food. I tried to get like a super plain sandwich at the airport in Nashville. And it's like this bread isn't bread. This Turkey isn't Turkey. None of this is food. No, that's something, that's something that American people I think are missing out on. Advanced country, military technology, AI, all this stuff, sandwich technology just has not crossed over from the UK. When you think about, they don't understand what the meal deal is. Oh, it's a gorgeous institution. Dude. You know, I found this out cause, uh, new tonics in the Sainsbury's meal deal now. So congratulations. Thank you very much. It's a bit. That's kind of a little bit like being a knight. It's like, it's getting an OBE or an MBE or something. It's not quite a knighthood yet. Um, anyway, the average British citizen has 70 meal deals a year. That's that is low. Is I, in my opinion, that is low. I know, but that's the average, right? There's going to be some people from home that you're never going to see a meal deal or whatever. Uh, but the fact that you can't get, I don't even know how to describe the institution. There's this almost quasi religion. That is the meal deal in the UK to Americans. 3.50 used to be three pounds and you get like, so it's a main aside and a drink, but those categories are like slightly, I think Bartlett's got his heel in the main section somehow. So you can get two drinks. Well, Bartlett would of course argue that it's not a drink, it's a meal, but, um, you know, does have lead in it. So that's fine. So you can get like. Like mostly sandwiches, wraps, like sushi. If you're a fancy salads, but it's just pasta, it's pasta, mayonnaise, chicken, and bacon, and they call it a chicken and bacon pasta salad with no salad and no vegetables at all. It's the sandwiches. There's a big difference. Sandwich is a big difference where you've got bread that's made from bread and you've got, you know, two cut diagonally as well. And I think when it comes to sandwiches, the increase. In the tastiness of a sandwich by cutting it corner to corner. Wow. Instant. What? 15% maybe improvement in the taste of the sandwich. I think. But what is the possible rationale for that? What's the mechanism that it's working on? Is that what you're saying? I completely agree, but I don't understand. I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you a piece of toast, right? But well buttered, warm toast done nicely. Sort of a six out of 10 to six and a half out of 10 toastiness. There it is. Just normal. Piece. And you're like, that was nice. It was a nice piece of toast. And now I cut it like that and give it to you. That's a treat. That's a real treat. It's a bit nice. Somebody's looking after you. It's the attention to detail. I think it's more difficult to cut something diagonally than it is to do that. Even though it's definitely like a machine that does that. But even still. Superior sandwich technology. But then Ireland is a step above the UK for sandwiches. Cause every shop has a deli counter where they will make you a sandwich. Make you a sandwich. In front of you with like a proper. Or like baguette. Like proper bread. Chicken fillet roll is like the big thing in Ireland. Chicken fillet roll. You mean the fillet of a chicken? Like, so it's like a chicken, uh, like breaded chicken. Right. Chocolate. Oh, okay. Put in like a long. Like goudron's type thing. Yeah. In a roll in like a baguette and then you can get like anything you want on it. And it's like every centre, every spa, like has a deli counter where they do chicken fillet rolls. It's, it's amazing. And they don't have it. Maybe Ireland has superior sandwich technology. Ireland's top of the sandwich tree. You think? I would say, yeah. I'm sure like Philadelphia would like be annoyed with me about that for their like cheese steak thing. New York might not be too happy either. But, uh, the other thing that I miss is saurine. Oh, that weird. I've never had that. I think we have an equivalent in Belfast, which is called VEDA. Or take a malt loaf. Yeah. Unbelievable. But in malt love dude. And again, corner to corner on that. Most people have no idea where their testosterone levels sit, but what if I told you there was a solution, something that identifies low T faster than a high school bully, and it won't cost you all your lunch money. That's where function comes in. Gives you access to over 160 lab tests, including a deep dive into your full hormone paddle. Every result is reviewed by clinicians. Anything out of range is flagged and you get clear explanations with a personalised protocol with actionable next steps. So if something's off, you know exactly what to do about it. Whether you just need to go to the gym more or you need to play Creed Louder in your car, function will tell you exactly where your testosterone and everything else stands. Normally this level of testing would usually cost thousands, but with function, it's $365 a year. That's $1 a day to stop guessing with your health and start knowing. And right now you can get $25 off, bringing it down to 340 bucks. So get the exact same blood panels that I do and save $25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. You mentioned before, uh, autism, adult autism diagnosis. Yeah, it's 29, right? Yeah. What's changed since that happened? Anything? I don't know. A lot of people who get the diagnosis are like, and everything suddenly made sense and I could manage my life and I could, you know, get over these obstacles that I'd always struggled with. But I think it's like, for me, it felt like an extremely gradual process where like. There was, it starts with like jokes, like your friends just call you autistic basically. And then I sort of socially bumped into a lot of people, like in a negative way, just got some things wrong and to the, but then like I would have an interaction with somebody that I thought was like positive and then I would get like a big message the next day saying how much I'd like insulted them. You'd stepped over some social faux pas that you didn't see. I'd like not, I was just. Like, what a nice chat. And then the next day they're like, you, you make me feel like shit every time we talk. Um, and those are just the people who are like. Prepared to reach out. Exactly. So I must be doing this all the fucking time. You're saying there's a wake of destruction, wake of autistic destruction. I mean, there may well be. And I just have no, completely oblivious, blissfully unaware, completely no idea. It's so it's definitely not blissful. It's on a way. I think this is a misconception about autism that we, that it's like blissful, lack of awareness of people socially. It's that I am constantly so worried that I've upset people, but I have no way to tell if that's the case whatsoever. So you're just like swinging punches with a blindfold on going, like apologizing when you didn't need to apologize and like. You're missing the mark on both sides. I'm fucking it. I'm fucking it in both directions. I'm apologizing when I had no need to apologize. I'm patting myself on the back when I've ruined somebody's day. And that I sort of, that made me reach out to a medical doctor. professional and go, hey, there's something there's something going on here um also i was like a very strange child i was very anxious i like had loads of panic attacks when i was like nine ten eleven years old um ran away from school and like tried to run home was like just couldn't had to be had to do lessons in like a different room to everybody else just do worksheets by myself had to go in through a different entry to primary school like different door because i just couldn't deal with like the crowds of people and all this stuff um i punched my primary school principal uh because i was trying to run away and she and she was trying to stop me running away how old were you nine at what point does a punch become a punch like at what age yeah it's like yeah it's like a puppy like nip like biting your ankle or whatever it's like oh that's cute up until the point yeah and then it's actually assault i would say like probably the cutoff is like 10 or 11 yeah you just nipped in yeah just before you're like inverse russell brand but then like full can we dig into that can we pick that apart i'm inverse russell brand yeah because russell flew very close to the sun but on the legal side and you for an hour yeah true true uh okay yeah you know what i mean so you there was an age cutoff that was about to happen and you got in just before it yes and there was an age cutoff that was about to happen and russell got in just after it okay inverse russell brand so i was like barely legal barely legal punch yeah yeah that was me that's what you are um so there's all that and it all sort of added up to me reaching out to a doctor just like my local gp in uh london and they were like yeah this sounds like worth investigating let's do like a phone call and i had a phone call with like the specialist on the nhs and they're like great we'll add you to the list the waiting list for the assessment and i was like okay how long does that normally take and they were like four years and i was like okay cool and then i sort of had a bit about it in my last tour show and as i was going around and touring i discovered along with my audience that i had a lot of autistic people attending my shows and a lot of autism practitioners attending my shows so i got five offers across the tour of people to do the assessment for free privately because they were just at the show and they were like oh that's my job and i can just you know rather than it costing like two grand to do it i'll just do it for you so i did the one that was closest to london went through the whole process you have like four or five different appointments you have to fill out forms my girlfriend and my mom had to fill out forms character reference yeah just like from your perspective what does this look like from your perspective what does this look like and then from like my own perspective what does that look like um and i came back and they were like you're like a little bit raised in lots of the things like the traits but then like incredibly high on masking so basically pretending you don't have autism um which basically sort of explains why these aren't as raised as you even managed to mask the test but i mean basically and apparently this is like it's a similar reason why like uh women it's much harder to diagnose autism because they're much more concerned with like the group dynamics so they're much more adept at masking and they're told to mask a bit more or expected to mask a bit more societally so i think i have like girl autism which is like quite exciting i also think it's like a comedian thing where i mask professionally like the job is say something you said a million times as if it's the first time you said it but that's also like being autistic in the world yeah is like somebody asked me this question i know what i'm going to say because i'm not conversing intuitively i'm doing a little script that i'm following that i've learned is how people like to be interacted with so i've like that's what stand-up is so i think i'm like just a touring masker which is quite i think that's why the but a global masker as well across the rest of your life yeah i think so and then that's a weird feeling to sort of like what does it mean to unmask like i don't want to be rude to people i think some people get diagnosed and then decide that they can just like freewheeling asshole be a dickhead yeah and i don't want to do that but i do hope that like maybe the diagnosis and me being like public about the diagnosis means that if i do fuck up socially then people like won't be as upset not even for my benefit i've got this autism card here that's not you're not allowed to be mean to me but not even for me i'm just like please don't take any of this personally i'm trying i won't have meant that like you know because i i hate upsetting people like it's my least favorite thing it is an interesting point why point are you culpable for your actions you have to be like that guy that had Tourette's uh was it the BAFTAs yeah fuck everybody that was mean to him fuck every single person that was mean to him about that i like i was so angry about that whole scenario i didn't think i was a particularly well-versed person on like Tourette's but apparently no one in america has ever done even the most base like what research like any awareness of what it is whatsoever and we've known about it in the uk i i don't know if you've heard of it but i don't know if you've heard of it but i don't ever remember a time of not knowing about Tourette's like even when i was a kid i think reggie yates did a documentary called super Tourette's is that is that that's an actual medical term super Tourette's and what's that so their tics like their physical tics are so intense that they like fall down and it's like funny and obviously like devastating and debilitating for them but like i think they should have come up with a different name it sounds desirable super Tourette's it sounds like what you get if you upgrade if you press the upgrade button when you're adding to the cart Tourette's yeah it is it's the it is it's the value meal it's a happy meal equivalent yeah yeah and you want to drink with that supersize it yeah supersize Tourette's yeah so and then so all these hollywood actors coming out and being like i think he meant that why was that word in his brain and i'm like because it's the worst thing you could say in that moment and that's that's the condition wasn't that's the same guy while on the documentary when his dog was about to cross the road was said to his dog like cross the road nope and then his fight not even his interactions with his favorite animal yeah like he's there's no i mean uh lewis capaldi like the pressure of his second album i don't know whether you gave him Tourette's but it sort of caused it to emerge yeah i think like it can brought it on stress and stuff i'm like being at the bath there's as a guy who's like a school caretaker like janitor i hated everybody going all these poor actors on stage just like who would you rather be hollywood elite millionaire on stage having a not nice word yeah i'm not nice word shouted at you or like working class guy who's just going to go back to like mopping floors when he leaves the baftas who has like struggled with a debilitating neurological condition for his whole life and now on the biggest stage he's ever had has displayed it to the entire world yeah in a room of people at the baftas they're all supposed to be members of the academy and they're all supposed to have watched all the films so they should all have seen the film about the guy who shouts inappropriate things and they were all like what is going on do your job watch the thing for the award just you're going to and if you don't understand something i just he was getting death threats online and at no point did anyone from like the jamie foxx side of things who like called him racist and all that stuff come out and go oh hey like it should have been edited out because that's a very embarrassing moment for those guys on stage but like it's not this guy's fault the guy's like got a disability so i i fucking i've been angry about that though since it happened basically it's pretty mean to see unfold uh weird isn't it sort of social decorum so saying the right things behaving in the right way in the right space is so highly sought after and and and that kind of deviation from that behavior it's like we're okay with disabilities for people for like young kids that need help in very obvious ways but this one that's socially difficult to deal with autism is another one like or people that have got um ocd and maybe unable to operate in the world in a way that's convenient for those ones the difficult conversations of where accessibility meets inclusivity meets like he should be like there's people coming out saying he shouldn't have been at the awards thing and i'm like what are we doing here like you're supposed to be the kind of progressive welcoming you see you're telling me that if there was a person in a wheelchair and there was no ramp that they shouldn't have been there fuck them army crawl your way onto the stage if a person in a wheelchair had won an award and everyone went ah it's too much fab yeah yeah yeah yeah just someone just launched them up yeah exactly shot put them have you got any shot putters that don't work on this evening you shot put that person up there and what's interesting was um listening to you tell your story about what childhood was like for you and some of those scripts uh certainly for me reflecting on my childhood one of my most common recurring uncomfortable dreams is me doing something to another person that i thought was just a bit of fun or i thought was a normal interaction yeah to then find out that i've crossed some invisible lines that I didn't know existed and to then immediately think feel horrendous about it yeah the last one of these i had was about two weeks ago or so and it was yasmin who does the guest booking that got you here uh we were walking down the street and i had a like a gatorade bottle like that that had water in and i thought we were just playing about and i sort of splashed some water at her and that turned out to be this huge yeah faux pas that i'd done and immediately i felt terrible and then i woke up and i was i was all i was all anxious and i just woke up and that was it and that's that is a consistent theme not only in my life but also in the dreams that i've had for like a like that is the if you were to pick the center of the bullseye of my awkwardness in reality it's me doing a thing and someone being mad at me without me realizing that i'd done it and then finding out importantly because occasionally you do something in your life whether it's in work or relationships where you go look this might upset this person but i'm going in with my eyes open and i like still think this is the right thing to do even though it's going to be like uncomfortable or upset them and that's one thing but then like just being so blindsided by it what do you think like are you are you interested in the post like do you think you might have autism like i don't want to be one of these i'm gonna wear your culture as my costume no but like and god there's enough autism i don't want to be one of these i'm gonna wear your culture as my costume no but like and god there's enough autism i don't want to be one of these i don't want to be one of these i don't want to be one of these people that go around diagnosing everyone else yeah that's true i like what would you i have no idea i have absolutely no idea there's certainly some trait i mean again pathologizing anything everything is just some some form of a spectrum right and at some point you breach the threshold for it to be said and now you are depressed and now you are anxious and now you are aspergers and but i i've always made this joke which is maybe a self-protection thing i don't know the difference between being an only child and being autistic you're just an unsocialized boy bingo you weren't introduced to other dogs when you were young or maybe that ramps up your predisposition a little bit because there's all of the memes around well you know people that have got autism can't hold eye contact or people that have got autism are unable to operate socially they need to do stimming they need to da da da da da da and then you realize actually there's an infinity number of ways that it can show up but then also people's desire to have some form of mental pathology so that they can have a thing i think autism is it is sort of the sexy new if you're going to have a mental malady it's one of the ones that people kind of typically like okay it's like i'm just like you know it's it's a word that gets thrown around an awful lot yeah and that's difficult i think it there's a great book there's two great books by comedians about adult autism diagnosis there's fern brady uh strong female character and there's uh pierre novelli why can't i just enjoy things and the real sort of like shot chaser like fern just like mad uh and pierre's is like and here's why i think but it's really really interesting and um pierre talks about a couple things in that uh where what i where he says like the the terminology like of the word like autism will probably become like defunct reasonably soon because it's a really big umbrella term like a really big umbrella term and a helpful thing was the asperger's category but you're not supposed to say that anymore because he was a nazi who was asperger he was the guy that discovered it yeah invented it i don't know what the word is but discovered or like categorized it as a thing he was like a nazi so it's not named after him but he was a nazi so it's not named after him but he was a nazi so it's not named after him anymore so the appropriate term now is like autism level one which is what i have which is asperger's or okay asperger's was okay and then autism level two and the three levels so you're actually a nazi in this regard i am a nazi that's i think that's what it means yes um but uh the in this regard in loads of regards yeah um the and then the level two and then level three and it's basically like how much help do you need to exist in like normal neurotypical life so like level one is like you don't need any outside assistance to like go through your life you have a wheelchair like you can cope with the world and then level two is like you might need some help like or like you know care or whatever and then level three is like you can't exist in the world you're basically full-time care all that stuff and like you know like to have me and then somebody who's non-verbal and hits himself in the head and like cuts their arms by like scratching so repeatedly like it's sort of crazy that we've got the same diagnosis and i get that like look there's people with cancer and then there's people with cancer you know it's like stage one stage two stage three stage four it's a similar thing i guess the autism doesn't develop hopefully hopefully um in that direction but i do think it feels strange what i like about it versus so i got diagnosed with adhd as well i just want to punch yeah i think it was like buy one get one free or something package deal yeah and uh they i don't like care about that one really it's much partly because i think it might be over diagnosed or i would worry that it's over diagnosed because there's medication for it so what's nice about autism is there's no like big pharma money that you can follow to go well they would be motivated to diagnose lots of people with autism because then they could sell these drugs or whatever whereas with adhd they are motivated to diagnose lots of people that he has to because there is medication for it so that's why i think the autism one feels a little bit you have been spending a good bit of time in america the big the big pharma conspiracies are already running rampant yeah well the thing is like the nhs is like an amazing thing that is like being a bit fucked over but the big pharma still gets their sort of claws in because they're just selling it to the nhs rather than you know you're sort of whether the money comes direct from you or comes from you through your taxes through the nhs and back out there's still money sort of at the end of it um so i would worry about that a little bit when i was a kid i would worry about that a little bit when i was a kid with the adhd diagnosis and i haven't tried the medication for adhd what is it it's like speed that's good yeah it's like fun yeah it's like riddling but apparently like if you have adhd you like it doesn't it's like just you can do your taxes that's a real that's a real uh like litmus test that feels like that should be how you should do it yeah you should say okay take this and then just see if this person's starts bouncing off the walls or if they do sit down and and and read i also read an interesting thing and i don't know if this is like even nearly scientifically true but there's a massive comorbidity with autism and a thing called ehlers-danlos syndrome which is like hyper mobility and like the soft tissue in your bones and joints and i am like quite hyper mobile like my wrist pops out and like things dislocate on me all the time and i have someone that plays a bit of sport great yeah wonderful terrible nightmare but so yeah that but then some people have said well what if like they are they're not like happening at the same time sort of by chance or whatever it's just the same thing as in like the soft tissue in your bones and joints it's also affecting you've got you've got bone autism no but it's affecting the soft tissue in your brain because there's different types of tissue in your brain and the connective stuff between all the bits you've got brain ehlers-danlos condition yeah i've got hyper mobile brain although hyper mobile doesn't feel like a good word for how autistic people's brains work they're not exactly flexible yeah what happened with this irish times article thing oh that was interesting i feel a little bit bad about that um i've spoken to the lady who wrote the article and i had spoken to her before she wrote the article and so to fill people in like i there was a write-up about a few different things in the irish times like me sally rooney and kneecap just the big three um and uh and it within it there was sort of like a couple paragraphs and i was like oh my god i'm gonna write a couple paragraphs of like a review of my uh show that they'd come and seen and i'd like spoken to her on the phone about it and she'd written like really interesting articles about like ireland has an incredibly high gdp and is a very wealthy country but the public service is like our dog shit like public transport's really bad there's no national health service there's like this that and the other like whereas we have the whole point of this like letting all these corporations come in to dublin and have their offices there is that you make some money off them and then that goes into like do you benefit from that north of the border and no right no but like the whole yeah um and i think she's really interesting i think she's really clever uh but when she wrote about my show she said that like it was unapologetically local and like if you don't get the references that's your problem and she like quoted another review that gave me two stars at the fringe of someone who clearly just like didn't get the show at all which is one of my favorite reviews actually the two-star one it really made me laugh quite a lot but i just like she'd phrased it in a way that i was like oh that's a bit annoying like this is quite a big like newspaper and if i were someone that didn't know who vittoria mangeloni was and i read that i would think that's just like it's a bit of a stereotype of northern irish comedians that we just do the you know it's funny because it's local thing of going and also it's inaccessible which means if i was maybe thinking that i was going to buy a ticket and like well i'm not i don't speak belfast yeah so it's just like whereas in the show like that was the point where i was the point i made when i did like a post about it on instagram being like i you know wrote this show in london trialed it all around england did it at the edmund fringe did it in new york i've now done it in america and in the article she said like i refuse to explain myself but i like truly don't like i do loads of expositioning like explain and that's like the fun of the show is like going hey this place i'm from is a bit fucked up here's why here's this here's that here's this weird quirk about it and like opening it out to the is like the sort of half of the point of the show that i've written and i was just like a little bit annoyed so i just was like oh you know i'll just post a little thing on instagram and this has happened a couple times recently and this is like i think this don't know if this is an autism thing but like maybe where i just think i'm like having a little bit of fun or like just informing people of something like my run of shows in belfast one of the nights uh like 20 people arrived 30 minutes late and i like asked the audience i was like oh like is it unclear on the website what time this starts and they were like yeah kind of you know um so in the interval i just went on my on instagram and did like a black square white text and was like oh 20 people just arrived half an hour late for my show um for the rest of this week doors are at this time shows this time except the matinees those are this time show this time thanks and it's gotten like more views than most of my stand-up clips i think because people think i'm being like tatty really fucking rude or whatever but it was just like here are the facts of the situation and here's how i can help and then i think with the irish times i was like just trying to do a little bit of a show and then i was like i'm going to do a little bit of a show and then uh it like just blew up in like a kind of mad way where it has like 40 000 likes or something and then some people going i think you've misread the article and i but i agree she was trying to compliment me in the article but i just i don't think it came across in a way that was like nice so i tried to do a little post about it and then she reached out and was like oh i think you've kind of taken me out of context and i was like you and me both sister like you know we're kind of it was a funny phone call she was like are you going to apologize and i was like are you like we both pissed each other off fucking standing armies yeah we're both probably in the wrong a little bit yeah yeah and didn't phrase ourselves perfectly and i maybe shouldn't have put her name like in the screenshot i kept her name and like the article but i'm also like your name's in the newspaper beside where the article is like it's not like it's hard to find out who wrote the article but then the problem with the internet is it's just full of cuts isn't it so like people sent her like horrible messages on instagram and stuff and i was like i don't know how much responsibility i need to take for my audience but like i'm sorry that that happened that wasn't my intention and like you know we're like friendly enough now and just have a sort of agree to disagree thing on that in it i think she didn't phrase herself well she thinks i didn't phrase myself well and like i don't know like it's very easy as a comedian to do this whole like fuck everybody i don't fucking care and if somebody has to go at me whoa i'm just a comedian or whatever like but i don't like that's not how i like to exist in the world like i upset somebody so i reached out to them and had a phone call and was like hey let's fucking talk this through we might not agree at the end of the conversation but i have a half apology yeah if even i don't think either of us really apologized but it was just like okay i sort of understand where you're coming from you sort of understand where i'm coming from it's nice you might not believe me but this is what peak sleep optimization looks like i'm not talking about the nightgown it's just for sex i'm talking about my eight sleep the eight sleep pod five comes with a smart cover you throw on your mattress that actively cools or heats each side of the bed up to 20 degrees and now they've added the world's first temperature regulating duvet and pillowcase so you've got 360 degree coverage for deep uninterrupted rest it's like being walt disney without the cryogenic chamber and the racism best of all their autopilot feature learns your sleep patterns and makes adjustments to improve your sleep in real time it even detects when you're snoring and lifts been clinically proven to add up to one hour of quality sleep per night they have a 30-day sleep trial so you can buy it and sleep on it for 29 nights if you don't like it they will give you your money back plus they ship internationally right now you can get up to 350 off the pod five by going to the link in the description below or heading to eight sleep.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout that's e-i-g-h-t sleep.com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout i've been watching the fallout after the roast of kevin hart thing and i've been it's been kind of fascinating to see and i was thinking about what would be the difference if it had happened in the uk because uh i don't know from i've been in the u.s for four years now but obviously still listen to a lot of you listen to a lot of finn listen to the screen rock boys you know listening to yeah i've said to you before this is my it's my way to tap back into a little bit of british culture it sort of reminds me that jaffa cakes and the in-betweeners and you know like wayne lineker still exists like it's very important for me to have my cultural way markers the three pillars of the uk correct jaffa cakes in betweeners and wayne lineker this is true um but i was thinking because you guys did a roast recently maybe not you know not netflix and kevin hart or whatever but and then what's happening with whatever we want to call it like british comedy now uh it seems like the new what i'm seeing is a new sort of half generation that's stepping through which have been mostly borne out by the internet although million years of standard i'm aware that everyone's driven to yeah like woking and shithouse exactly like done all of those things like they've done that for a long time and now they've just burst on the internet but from getting public awareness people are just starting to break through and that's really cool and it feels like there's this next sort of wave yeah that's that's on its way which is real exciting but to see the number of different factions and maybe this is just because america is such a big country so many people hate each other it's very contentious uh but it's like a an earthquake occurs this big thing happens and then there's all of these aftershocks that go on afterward so then chelsea handler's gonna go on don lemon's podcast and she's gonna talk about this and then shane's gonna talk to matt and they're gonna say this thing and then tony i don't know whether he's piped up yet but he's gonna and everyone's waiting it's almost you know what it is it's almost like someone's had a boxing fight and then you're waiting for the post-fight press conference yeah and you're waiting to hear well you know i just wasn't on form this evening the training camp was great but tonight i just wasn't about or he missed weight i can't believe we've had to pay the purse like then we need to run it back and i don't i haven't seen that level of cattiness in the uk i don't know whether it's not big enough for the factions to go whether i'm just not paying enough attention whether there's not a large enough pie for everybody to be worried about that you all need to keep in good friends because like the likelihood of you bumping into someone is probably higher than it is in the u.s so like i'm there's this enforcement mechanism if i just don't want to have to face i don't have to bump into you and feel like you've got this unsaid stuff like you and this journalist lady maybe or maybe there's more decorum more politeness i don't know i just i was thinking about it because a few clips popped up of your guys's roast from a little while ago and then the kevin hart one and i was comparing the two and i thought it was kind of interesting about how uh yeah the the difference in the post-fight press conference well i think like the roast thing is such a big like it's been an american culture for a long time like the don rickles stuff it's much older in this country than it is in the uk culturally whereas because like we've met like you could very easily i don't know if you would do it but like you could do like a roast of jimmy carr like in the uk on netflix but where you could do it in the uk in the uk you could do it in the uk in the uk and i think it was like that was the have a word podcast uh did that roast that we did in the uk and i think like it didn't it's sort of people who've been on their podcast and we all have our own followings and like and it was also just on their patreon and clips are just going out as like clips but like i don't know the roast thing's fun i think it's become like reaction has become such a big part of culture maybe particularly in america yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know where it's like this person reacts to this thing it's half of youtube is videos that have gone and then people just watching those videos did it start with two girls one cup maybe it might have that was patient zero of reaction double zero because like there's more videos of people watching two girls one cup than obviously the one video that is two girls one cup you know what i mean like there's all these people being like oh that's fucking disgusting and i think like i don't know i thought a lot of that roast stuff was like like they're all funny jokes i saw all the like lots of the jokes at the comedy store the week of because everybody was like practicing their jokes i was at that crazy night at the comedy store where chappelle showed up and then brought on gillis and then brought on louis ck and then brought on chris rock and then brought on uh kanye west kanye west was at the comedy store so i well it was the day after i landed in la i went to the uh i didn't have anything to do on the sunday night like the day before the netflix is a joke festival started and i was like i'll just go watch like the open mic at the comedy store to like i like to do that when i arrive in a place i've never been before like see some like really bad stand-up comedy to like picked a great night well i just like well because the problem with the comedy so as the open mic becomes the proper show um and i just as like a confidence boost wanted to be like let's fucking watch some shit people and to be fair they were shit and uh we're sort of enjoying there for like maybe an hour when the proper show started and then they started bringing on people problem is i arrived and was like tried to do like i i don't want to be like again i think didn't know what the social norm was but walked up to the dorm was like oh hi i'm a comedian in town for the netflix festival and i was just hoping to watch the show and they were like yes twenty dollars and i was like okay that's like fine whatever give them 20 i was like i don't think okay that's fine give them 20 and then they're like okay put your phone in this little bag and then they walk me through and sit me in the front row and i'm like this is uh this is silly that i'm here but like because i'm not a great laugher i like a comedy show i don't know like i'm okay but like not the worst but i sort of just sit there and like quietly enjoy and analyze it because i'm so like in the weeds of what it is yeah and uh but i'm sat at the front in the corner and like nearly every comedian on like the main show referenced the fact that i wasn't laughing like this guy fucking hates it not knowing that yeah i was loving it i was having a good time paulie shore called me gay for his whole set um this is like quite fun call me a gay nazi um it's like fun um and then uh yeah and then i noticed the security going around and taking people's apple watches even though they'd already got everybody's phones and like putting those in pockets and i was like oh somebody somebody famous is about to walk on and then that's when they brought chapelle on and then he brought on all those people so i saw a lot of those roasts i had so funny the one that's gotten like gillis in trouble on the internet or whatever or the one that chelsea hand was kicking up kicking up a fuss about like that's the one when gillis was on i was like oh i'm not a bad audience member i just have a high bar yeah i was just folded and half laughing it's just unbelievable yeah and um yeah the joke about uh kevin hart is so short they're gonna have to lynch him from a bonsai tree that's the one i was like recounting to people is the best one i'd heard that i was really excited to see on netflix and that's the one that everybody's like i can't believe you don't make jokes about lynching chelsea andrew said lynching's worse than rape i mean i don't know why we're doing a league table yeah i think it's not a competition i think they're both bad yeah it's not a competition i think they're both really bad i it's just it's interesting to see this fallout and to think how these people are on stage to try and achieve the same thing like to have a good time supposedly to have a good time i think that's that's a misunderstanding people have about roasts is some people think it's like a competition and like somebody wants to win and somebody won't like it's very american yeah but even roast battles i'm like this is a double act you're like that's how you should view it and that's more a dance partner than a fight it's an ensemble show and you're trying to perform for other people you're not trying to just be mean you're trying to say really funny things about your friends and colleagues and famous people and stuff and i think like yeah i don't know like i don't know i don't know i don't like i try not to get caught up in this like everybody's too offended nowadays everybody just has too much of an opinion nowadays it's like oh he didn't like it fucking and an infinite number of opportunities to talk about it yeah and broadcast it yeah yeah everyone has their own little platform and an incentive to say things and it's hard to fucking not like you know i'm on a podcast right now there's a big podcast and i could give my fucking hot take on the roast of kevin hart and it could be a clip and it could do well and whatever but like i liked it it was a bit long some people didn't do great but they're actresses not comedians so what the fuck do you want there we are that's it that's it that's a nice you know like there's the most lukewarm take that we can so much like so many people going oh you should do a post about this you should do a cat to camera video about this no i've written the show that i've spent loads of time on and that's what i'm you know there is this there is definitely a sense that comedians are like uh ammunition bullets in the chamber of one particular perspective or another that this thing has happened and we need someone to comment on it and we know that if we try and get someone who's too serious yeah it's going to come across as kind of stodgy and it doesn't really work on the internet but we've got this guy and we think that this guy mostly agrees with us yeah so if we can make him aware of this thing we can kind of point him like a rifle and then you can you can pull the trigger and he'll he'll do something and that'll take down i've been kind of obsessed with this this idea that this week of a cringe cancellation so you can cancel somebody because they did something illegal you can cancel somebody because they said something reprehensible or whatever it is but there's a much more pernicious type of cancellation which is i think what people are attempting to use comedians for which is i want you to make this person's brand equity so toxic to be associated with yeah wow that they become cringe cancelled yeah yeah i think that's probably quite powerful as an idea i wonder who who would i who what's an example of someone who you think has been like cringe cancelled somebody made a joke about them that was so funny uh shetty and bartlett got close to it when you and mike did that clip that's the canonical example wizards of nothing that was the one that's true that's one of my favorite that that went interstellar but that's what that's the kind of thing that i'm talking about which is like if if if and this maybe not even done in advance we're gonna try and say this thing to make it so uncool or whatever but for the most part like uh a lot of criticisms around russell brown this is a this is a two-pronged assault right the real cancellation but also the cringe cancellation which comes in because a lot of the time if someone's uh virtue gets chipped away at that opens up the opportunity for oh maybe the momentum slowing which means that we can also get in there and do the and do the cringe thing too yeah but it's not always prefabricated i'm not saying that every single time but that these things can happen by accident or they can be uh someone can try to construct them but either way if you make it basically uncool embarrassing to like to listen to someone yeah that is you know what the remember the r0 number from covid like for every person that gets infected however many more people so for instance um the psychology of money book by morgan housel my friend for every person that buys the book another one point two people buy the book okay well because they they like it so much and it's so widely applicable and managing your money is such an important thing that the total addressable market is like eight billion people yeah so they so every month i think i'm still right on this every month since it launched like three years ago it sold more copies yeah which is fucking insane well that's that that's like books word of mouth is like the only way to sell books yes like there's you can put you can't put up a billboard of a book like nobody fucking cares i don't care but if you say dude you need to read this or better i bought it for you so there it is money right literally um but if you can do the opposite of that if you can make the r0 number less yeah that for every person that sees this thing fewer people want to be associated you know what i mean yeah it's this sort of negative i listen to j sherry's podcast so you don't have to well i think uh uh um uh brian callan good friend fire in the kid that has been on the receiving end of this that is a real difficult spiral to come out because how do you reverse engineer someone that's having a that is saying this is not something that you should listen to and because i'm saying that you shouldn't listen to it fewer people want to listen to it which means it's very human and then if you try to push back against that it's just more cringe and more cringe and more cringe it's a horrible sort of spiral to get yourself into but it's like i think it's a worry of like social isolation isn't it of like it's cringe to be into that it's like oh better not yes well it's like that um bill burr joke about uh roller skating do you know he said like roller skating was massive until that one homophobic joke in the 90s and then everybody put the roller skates in the bin which is what's the hardest thing about roller skating telling your dad you're gay okay so yeah it's like a roller skating cancellation that's exactly what i mean yeah that's precisely what i mean but but this it can happen for anything right it can happen for bands it can happen for tv stations it can happen for what overexposure is a big thing i think for like actors as well where people are just sick of saying somebody who would be an example of that i think nick cage was probably not far off it at one point but then actually went through it so far he kind of did the full horseshoe that he full circled and came back out the other side of the yeah the cringe thing um the rock actually got cringe cancelled without being properly the rock is actually the canonical example of this and then it seems to me like he's trying to do another he's trying to do a rebrand with being edgy swearing more less family friendly uh and the kevin hart roast thing yeah because that was that felt like oh cat's out of the bag with saying retard the rock said it you know what i mean like the rock is the overton window that's exactly that is exactly what my friend george said precisely he's like holy fucking shit the rock's there yeah that is yeah he's yeah he's like the rock is the overton window that's exactly what my friend george said precisely as hollywood as overton window is you can get yeah i don't know if that's a good thing that the rock is the rock is the center of culture yeah that doesn't feel great that doesn't feel like all of the generally accepted opinions are represented an enormous sort of freak like he is a freak you know what i mean pisses in bottles on set and stuff apparently i didn't hear about that yeah that's interesting because he's working hard chris uh that's what i need that's what i need i need one of those down here to show just how hard i'm a little catheter that'd be cool that'd be cool yeah uh i i don't know that it's very surprising to think how far back would you need to go for that roast to not be allowed on the internet three years four years maybe as in the netflix roast allowed on the internet oh sorry allowed allowed on netflix yeah um shows how much i've seen it online but then it's just cycles isn't it isn't it just pendulum swinging and stuff like that you know if you look at the don rickles roasts i mean you always see racist jokes like talk to don rickles but i mean you couldn't have put that out in 2020 yeah people went a bit mad but what when was at what point would that have been allowed this year one year ago two years ago three years ago because it wouldn't have been six years pretty recent it's probably one or two really yeah and i try not to like i don't know pay much heed to that stuff like what is allowed what isn't allowed it's all because you're purposefully not trying to be an edgelord yeah well i'm purposely trying not to come across as an edgelord i'm not saying things because they're edgy aside from the fact that you have to say things that create tension in the room to be a stand-up comedian and like you know if if you're in a topic that people aren't comfortable with then you can get a nice laugh at the end of it but it's not just for the sake of being edgy well that's something everyone's talking about at the moment which is how often are the jokes funny and how often is it just a forbidden sentence yeah i mean i haven't been like around america for a few weeks like like there is something a little bit embarrassing about some of american comedy where it's like if you have a joke that doesn't work if you just stick a slur at the end people will clap because they think you're like fighting this good fight to like it's the right wing equivalent of we don't like that orange guy exactly yeah it's all just clatter and it's all really really boring and pandering and sort of nonsense like a big thing with my show that i'm touring at the minute is like i don't think anybody uh should be comfortable the whole time but for different reasons like i think some people who might lean more towards the right or be more there for the edgier dark stuff they'll be uncomfortable because i'm like reasonably vulnerable in the middle of the show and sincere at points and talk about difficult things personally but then the the people who like that vulnerable narrative thematic stuff will be uncomfortable with some of the jokes that i make later on and it's just like yeah you want to stretch your audience you don't want to like give them what they want and i think a lot of american comedians are big into getting big rounds of applause for being saying naughty words it's like you know when you're like 12 and you find out what a female dog is called and all your mates are like oh my god like you can say bitch like you can call it a bitch because it's a bitch that feels like what a lot of american comedy is at the minute where it's like we're allowed to say it's nice naughty i don't know what what's happening with the the vulnerability side but there's definitely a performative there's a performative element of both there's a performative element of pushing beyond what is allowed this is the this is the window i'm going to push on that side but then you also create the incentive to perform in the other direction which is to just have endless amounts of vulnerability like i heard this term recently speed running relatability someone trying to like hurry their way through just trauma dumping on you in a desperate attempt to be like i am a real person let me show you how much of a real person i am yeah and uh that also is performative and that also has the potential to be cringe but like when authenticity is uh incentivized because people people seem to like that they seem to resonate with that what you want to end up with is a world of people trying to work out how to reverse engineer authenticity that genuinely looks authentic but doesn't have to be authentic like it doesn't have to be sincere it just needs to appear authentic it just needs to align with whatever your brand is and whatever your stick is russell brand whatever sort of whatever people want to hear from you like i think that's a big thing with a lot of comedy audiences they want to know what angle you're coming from from the start you know particularly in america i think it's like nobody in america is american everybody i'm italian or i'm irish and this or i'm not it's like and then all their jokes are filtered through that lens where i sort of am slightly averse to that or it's like i tell you what i think it's nothing to do with me being irish none of these things that define me entirely i'm not just irish i'm not just autistic i'm not just italian i'm fucking none of those things really like this episode is brought to you by whoop according to and the thing that still 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now you can get the brand new whoop 5.0 and that 30-day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom that's join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom you built a show around a clip of a 10-pin bowler big time what is it about that clip that made you so fascinated with it so what's interesting is i so the show is called who do you think you are i am the 10-pin bowler is pete webber uh who you might have seen on the internet shouting who do you think you are i am and i knew when i was like working towards the show that it was going to be a show about identity and how people perceive me and how i perceive myself and i just thought that was like a funny meme title for that show but as i was writing the show and performing the show i realized that like loads of people hadn't seen the clip which is crazy to me because in my mind it goes viral like once a month to a crazy level um but like most people i performed on the tour hadn't seen the video i don't know so i had to like write an explanation of the video at the start of the show which was a fucking nightmare but like actually very fun and like exciting like a fun bit and a fun thing to explain um and then as i was working on the show i was like oh this is like i think he's me like in the show like i didn't sit down being like i'm gonna write a show where i sort of in the subtext of the show i am this professional bowler who is like kind of my hero because of this clip like it just sort of became evident to me as i was talking about my experiences of that last couple years of like coming across very arrogant to other people pissing people off without realizing i was pissing them off and then trying to re-find a bit of that swagger having like put myself in a bit of a box and avoided that for a while and like like doing that sort of like wrestling thing and pete weber's a big wrestling fan of like the heel turn of being like fuck you this is like a fun thing to play with of like staring into the skate like i'm arrogant and therefore like you know pete weber's the bad boy of bowling which is like a very funny thing to be like it's a crazy thing to be the bad boy of but so stand-up comedy like it's a very embarrassing sort of weird art form kind of and it's like so yeah it just came out of it um naturally and i was really annoyed because he lives in nashville but he was away when i was doing my show there and i was supposed to do my that show about him in nashville and i really wanted to do it for him and i don't know if he's watched it he follows me on instagram and i did message him being like oh hey this special came out on youtube and he was like yeah man i'm gonna watch it this week then he hasn't replied since but i don't know if he just really didn't like it what was the uh putting yourself in a box thing like regressing back and then coming back out i'm interested in so the story from that uh show is like i a clip of my podcast got screen recorded and sent around lots of media and whatsapp groups uh where i was saying talking about having unexpected having an unexpectedly good run at the edinburgh fringe festival and i was like oh people keep telling me i'm the guy this year like it's my year to be the guy i'm the fucking guy and i was saying that i was finding that really stressful i was having lots of panic attacks like how am i going to live up these weren't people who'd seen the show they just heard the buzz or whatever and i was like how do i live up to whatever this is it's kind of the lewis capaldi effect yeah i'm just like god like i can't i mean on a much smaller scale but like that kind of thing and then so i was being made fun of but like they cut off the podcast clip out of context where it's just me going people keep telling me i'm the fucking guy this year and that and that got sent around and then people come up to me during the festival and be like oh it's the fucking guy and i'd be like oh it's happening again because i didn't find out i didn't find out about the whatsapp groups until the month after so i'd had this month of my life that i was like this is the best month of my career so far so exciting really proud of what i achieved and i had a really fun time with lots of different comedians like it was difficult at points but i had a really fun time and then a month later all of that was like oh fuck like everybody was making fun the veil got lifted behind my back it's like my throwing water on yasmin dream yeah it's that i thought we were all having fun i thought this was a good time yeah and everybody just thought i was like a wanker which is like truly like if i'd been sent that clip of another comedian i would have like ripped into them endlessly because it's like funny um and i get how it came across but i think for fear of that happening again there was like maybe a year and a half two years where i like tried to put a lid on like a bit of the self-promotion a bit of the like bravado yeah that stuff which i think is like part of my like has always been part of my approach to comedy but from doing that show and touring that show like building that part of myself back up and being slightly less ashamed of like yeah i'm like ambitious i want to like it like do lots of cool stuff and i i think i can be really good at stand-up comedy and like the reason i do stand-up comedy is i think i can i think i can be one of the best in the world at it and i didn't have that when i was like a musician or whatever but i felt like with stand-up comedy i was like i'm not saying definitely and it's all subjective but i was like i think i can be one of the best in the world at this so i've kind of been working on getting my mojo back in that sense and you kind of have to because i tell you what's hard to do without any bravado is promote a stand-up comedy tour on instagram authentically yeah to be like hey come see the show it's like it's fine it's not gonna work and there's loads of comedians going around and go oh fucking hate doing this self-promo stuff and i'm like yeah that's the job i'm sorry you're sort of in marketing but you're also going to be sad if you only play to a half-filled theater so like you yeah i mean that's something else that really resonates with me uh i think certainly from childhood maybe this is working class you know i'm from stockton right stockton on t-shirt hole it's i i i've tried to put across just how horrendous the place is a beautiful theater yep and then everything else correct is off yeah you've played in stock i've done the ark in stockton i went to go and see that what's that fucking world war one um play about a horse war horse war horse it's like my dream all of the words it's like my dream all of the world war one about a horse sorry that was so mean of me but that was close what's that book about the jungle anyway i went to go and see that in art in the ark in ark um for a good while i don't know whether it's just a british thing northeast of the uk whether it is you need an amount of charm to be able to carry off bravado or ego or like confidence there's definitely the tall poppy thing if don't get too big for your boots i mean oh yeah me how many times i know island's got that like notions is what we call it he's got notions as in you have notions that you're somebody oh if you're accused of having notions that would be a bad thing i think i would be accused of having notions too keen just don't know your place yeah yeah it's tall poppy it's that's the exact same thing you're right i like that well i don't like it but you know what i mean yeah um and what i learned as being an incredibly unpopular kid in school highly under socialized who played cricket so like you know just in case i was going to make it worse on myself yeah i'm going to play cricket at a moderately high level and wear whites all the time uh what i learned was if you really aggressively downplay what it is that you've got going on if you don't talk about your ambitions if you don't sound like you're too big for your boots i think i reverse engineered that a lot of people find you more likable in that way that they don't see you as a threat it's not quite the same thing as humility it's like it's it's kind of like performative humility in a way it's meekness isn't it correct yeah that's a good way to put it yeah well they're going to inherit the earth according to the bible jordan peterson would agree yeah uh and but it's it's not genuine meekness it's more a fear of judgment where you're i'm not gonna i won't say too much i want to to the you know what changed this for me the movie coach carter i don't think i've ever seen that brother what is the point in talking to you you have to have watched coach carter i haven't what's it about basketball so samuel jackson is a basketball coach okay in a sort of impoverished neighborhood richmond the richmond oilers and there's this recurring thing where he asks a player timo cruz what's your deepest fear and he like refuses to answer and then he like just but it keeps coming what's your deepest fear what's your deepest fear and then when timo cruz i think like a family member of his gets like shot but he's like he turned his back on the team because he didn't want to go to class he didn't want to do all the strict like classic sports movie stuff like you have to have this gpa you have to turn up you have to blah blah and like be respectful wear a tie all that stuff he'd like stormed out but then he had like really horrible family stuff and then he got back into the team and blah blah blah really dramatic moment in the film uh he stands up and says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate it's that we are powerful beyond measure it is um it is not our darkness but our light that scares us the most and it's this poem that already exists i can't remember who it's by but he does the whole poem and like like i think at some point in my life i was like yeah you know if you shine your light it emboldens other people to shine theirs as well and i think yeah it's so easy to be like that tall poppy thing and yeah when do you think you got over that because it's like you're probably a very good example of that of like being like i'm gonna like there's a level of like who the fuck are you and why would we well yeah for sure i think to be honest i think i'm still playing it i'm still certainly still downplaying whenever i get asked about what's going on like i did this big interview with um for like high life magazine which is the british airways thing i did something in the times recently i did a bunch of others and if you read through it it sounds like it sounds like a comedian it sounds like a very very bad comedian trying to do self-deprecating like every single line is trying to be self-deprecating because well you know i i i'm being from the northeast of the uk i didn't have particularly big dreams anyway so it's nice that i've surpassed them some shit like that like at every single step of the way other than like you have goals the eighth biggest i'm the eighth biggest podcaster in the world yeah right like i just that's something that i can also you're not done you are you think you're annoyed that you're eighth yes you want to be seventh or sixth or fifth or fourth or third maybe maybe but like that's okay like it's okay it's certainly it's certainly a it's certainly still there and i think it gets to a point where it actually starts to seep inside of your own ambition a little bit and you go i'm believing my own reverse hype yeah in a way yeah it's nothing yeah i'll just i'll i'll sort of keep it where it is i don't want to make waves get too big for my boots have notions you know be a kino etc and uh like trying to work through that i think is is a really interesting challenge i i to be honest i still think it's there like i'm doing the thing in spite of it not because of it yeah i mean like in a way it's a good thing to keep an eye on not to have a runaway ego yeah and i think that's the sort of what the ego the superego the id like all of those things balancing each other out and like you got to keep a little bit of it in check but you just got to know what it is and when it's useful when is ego useful and when are you bragging versus being like grateful for what you've managed to achieve do you know what i think it might be i think it might be a deep down belief that i'm so unlikable that i need to compensate for that unlikeability by doing by adding in additional upgrades to the personality which includes not ever well i know that for the most part there is a you need to have like surplus likeability to be able to have an ego so if i don't ever display an ego that means that the likeability that i think is probably lower can be lower which means that i'm not going to push over and accidentally cause some sort of an issue i think that that's i think that's probably a big part of it and uh yeah it's interesting but one of the things that uh i certainly talk about at my live show is doing the thing in spite of not thinking that you should be able to like doing it anyway and being able to turn up and do the apollo or or sit down with matthew mcconaughey or you know whatever whatever the fuck um or turn down donald trump on the podcast like to say no to opportunities too like that you turned on only podcaster that did last year no two years ago i picked the right part of the manosphere yes we did it yes i was fucking i was so i we've met twice and i'm so proud of you that is that rocks and i know you're like like meek about like that i mean it shouldn't be a high bar to survive. to not like interview a guy that's sort of bringing in fascism but like nice one man i think fucking cool it was it was definitely a rarity to the the media team reached out to me after the election that's made my day i'm sorry this is so great is it really put on this put the hat on i'm gonna put this on instead so yeah the media team reached out to me and they're like you know that i think of all of the people that got offered it the only one that said no was you you are aware of that i was like okay i guess i don't know i didn't have i what what am i gonna i'm not gonna get anything out of that conversation was my yeah i would be far more interested in speaking to him now and i think it's far less um um influential and potentially yeah well it's not like world's changing or cantankerous or whatever and there's less pressure i was like i don't i don't i'm feel like i am going to be able to do the job that is necessary regardless of what you think about trump the guy is a generational communicator and in the space of 55 minutes i'm not going to be able to i sat down with bernie sanders and he was like a slippery eel and i i'm like wow this is um but he's like rolling with the brazilian jujitsu black belt or something they've been interviewed more times than you can even imagine he's been in congress longer than i've been alive yeah it's like so i'm like this is an unfair fight yeah uh but anyway um saying yes to things saying no to things having the dreams doing this yeah all of that all of that um but definitely is a a good role model for hey you cannot believe in yourself and still make it yeah like isn't that an incredible fucking like motivational that you know you've got to see it before you achieve it or whatever it's like hey what about if you achieve it and you still don't see it yeah because that is also a path and far more people i think have got at least in the uk have been held back by a lack of confidence than a lack of competence it's like hey you're way better than you think you are and there's a guy out there who's half as good as you with twice your confidence yeah making 10 times the progress yeah yeah because they're just putting themselves in the right situations and going to the rooms and all the rest of the things uh but yeah you can kind of you can just do things you can you can just do things and apparently that is kind of the same as believing in yourself but i think you sort of have to believe in your inherent like good stuff about you but like that you will keep yourself in check you know in like a way where it's like like knowing deep down like no i'm like a i'm not a bad guy i'm not a complete narcissist or whatever so i can step a little bit out into the world and like even if i push you with like everything i have to be as out there and confident as possible like because you've got all these worries like you're really now it's so unlikely that you're gonna really overshoot yeah yeah yeah isn't that interesting yeah it's so funny to think about uh the fear that you have of being that thing meaning that you're almost certainly never going to be that thing that line about like if you're worried that you're a psychopath you're probably not a psychopath yeah i worry about that with the autism stuff very similar like you've manifested your own autism no very psychopathy symptoms sociopath versus autism there's like there's like one thing that's not what's the thing i can't remember what it is but it's you're perilously close to being a sociopath yeah it does people probably do you reckon anyone's ever thought that before yeah i think lots of people who aren't diagnosed with autism before they get diagnosed with autism they're like like this i'm really worried that i'm like a incorrectly matched yeah i'm a bad person yeah not that i don't i don't care about other people i don't care about whatever like i don't know that authentic authenticity thing's really difficult as well like i think it's very easy for that to just make you do nothing it's like what do you want to do what aligns with like who you are deep down inside it's like i don't know i probably just want to sit in and like read my book you know like but like what i think i have like quite bad like anxiety maybe to do with the autism stuff so i've never been able to trust the gut thing you know when people go like i'll just trust your gut i'm like i am terrified of everything i ever do i'm terrified to leave the house every day i can't my god is not trustworthy it's very stressy little gut but you just have to fuck in if you're trying to go from joey chestnut to joey swole the rp strength app is the best place to start i've been in the gym for two decades and it wasn't until this last year that i had some of the best training sessions of my life and rp was a massive part of that actual scientist built this thing around the obsession to beat up their high school bullies and provide the most science-backed effective path to maximizing muscle gain it tells you your exercises how to do it how to do it how to do it how many sets reps the weights everything so all you have to do is show up and lift if the rp strength app could wipe your ass for you probably would and it adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing for me following a proper evidence-based plan has made a massive difference and if you're serious about your training it'll do the same for you right now you can follow the exact same training plan that i use and get up to 50 off the rp hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below heading to rp strength.com modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout that's rp strength.com modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout but it's interesting you i've heard you talk as well about how all of the interactions or many of the interactions that you have a kind of prefabricated there's a response that i went before somebody asks me a question i have an idea of what it is that i'm going to say already and uh i think that is a way to not need to rely on instinct as much i think because i think it's a way to not need to rely on instinct as much i think because i think it's a well my instincts are so like intense conversationally like i just want to ask really like difficult questions like i was hanging out with my uncle and he travels loads for work like he's all over the world doing this like big corporate thing and i was like we were just like i have a boring chat of like how's this person in the family how's that person in the family blah blah and then i was like are you still like enjoying the travel stuff and he was like no not really and i was like okay like i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that i'm not going to like what's your and i sort of stopped myself from going okay well how does it make you feel like what are you how can you fix that what's this what's that with you like i really want to interrogate people's like and it's not to be like i think they're wrong or they're doing the wrong thing and i want to pick it apart it's like i just want to like them to talk me through their thought process and just so i find that so interesting like the reasons people do things also because there's often no reason like they haven't actually conceptualized that there are other options and they might like want to do something else momentum is a fucking hell of a restrictor on that oh this is what i've always done or this is what i do do or whatever it's the next logical step let's keep going yeah yeah there's a a cool idea of sliding versus deciding and it's like from couples counseling stuff that you move on to the next step of the relationship we're hanging out on an evening and then it's a situationship and then it's a relationship and then you know you come over a bit and then you got a toothbrush and you got a drawer and we're kind of living together and now there's a golden retriever and oh we should get married and now there's a kid and you know you wake up with a couple of kids and a golden retriever in a house and you go at no point did i feel like i decided to get into this and it happens with a lot of things in life i think people slide through a career well you know i i didn't know what to do at university so i did business yeah business studies and then you know i got a job at i got a job at kpmg kpmg is great and then you know i just like you you stay here and then a promotion yeah i think it's the same a comedy like the next logical thing for me to do is like tour tour tour write another show turn it around get another tour on sale every year every year every year yeah i want to try and do like no stand-up in 2027 what are you going to do instead just like write scripts maybe write a book like just live you know you've got the podcast that keeps the lights on build that a bit more but like it'd be cool to do a year of like not doing it and then really want to go back to it yeah well also in order for you to do a year of like not doing it and then really want to go back to it for art to imitate life you have to live a life yeah and see comedians where all their stuff's about like airplanes and dinners yeah and backstages or green rooms yeah it's like gotta get out in the world a little bit and live a bit where did the name shit yourself at the 9-11 memorial that's true that was part of tour that's great uh the name guide to parenting yes people think it was like a jab but like parenting podcasts it truly wasn't it was mike and i had done like a couple trial versions of the podcast and we were like okay we're idiots like we are just talking absolute shit and we're like we're idiots and we're just talking absolute shit and the whole time and it's all silly and i was like right so we could call it mike and vittoria was very stupid podcast and that would be like an accurate description but surely the naming protocols should also match the vibe of the podcast where we just name it the stupidest thing that we can think of and we landed on mike and vittoria's guide to parenting do you think many people listen hoping to find some parenting advice we get a few messages i've put it in the children and family section of spotify so it's like in people's recommended pods if they like are new parents they like they get recommended also on spotify i started i started listening to the manosphere version thinking that it would educate me about what to worry about for my eight-year-old son yeah and i was horrified at what i heard yeah hmm Yeah, so we just thought it was the stupidest name. ever and the joke answer is we're trying to attract an audience of young moms what trouble have you guys gotten into has there been anything coming out of that of like the naming thing no no no of the show the podcast yeah no i think like look every so often we get a little message where someone goes oh i didn't like that bit i didn't like this bit and we have like i think we have all sorts of people listening to the podcast and i think a lot of people think it's like guys listen to the podcast but it's like girls with fringes i think there's something about like guys talking shit in like a playful silly fun way is a way where i think women generally like socially are like very good communicators and talk about their feelings there's that like kind of like hack stand-up bit of you know i went for a beer with my friend we spent three hours together i come back home and my partner goes how's his mom how's his work going is he seeing anyone and you're like why would i know any of that stuff and she's like you spent three hours together how did you not talk about that stuff and they can connect emotionally and really like learn about each other and sort of love each other in that way but i think men while we're shit at that first one and i'm trying to get better at it we're good at just abstract fucking around chat and like silly fun chat and i think like for some men listening to our podcast would be like well i can kind of just like chat to my friends and fuck around with them and that's what this is and that's nice when you're maybe like in a new city and you like don't have that set up yet but i think a lot of the women that listen to the podcast are like they don't get those conversations from like their group of girl mates and some this is all generalizations and all that stuff you know there's some women that are like have those conversations and have those chats or whatever but i think like we're providing a service that like isn't as readily available to women in a way which is like i wasn't expecting it we weren't targeting a demographic at all but it was like exciting do you know the basement yard you familiar i do yeah they're so funny so joe santagato was there i don't know last week or something and uh they did madison square garden sold that out 90 women unbelievable isn't it i think it's probably a similar thing it's the exact same thing it's the exact same thing and the sound when they walked out on stage the screams were so loud that everyone's apple watches went off warning people that they were in an unsafe noise environment like some fucking harry styles concert yeah unbelievable that is and i think like that's probably a shame like like why women feel like they can't be stupid or silly or fun in that way you know they're like i guess they've been told they're supposed to be buttoned up and like responsible maybe and men have more freedom to i think it's i definitely think when it comes to comedy podcasts it's hard most of them are guy centric about guy stuff and then begin to push into an amount of edginess that deselects for a lot of that female audience right um especially one of the more linear paths to pod success or online content creator success is to start to skew right if you're going to do that sort of stuff i think which again deselects for a lot of the women and um it's always going to get into some kind of you you orbit manosphere manosphere stuff which i'm aware that you brought it up earlier on i do need to clear my name you're not in the manosphere i'm not even fucking they hate me they hate me yeah but i don't know you're closer than i am but i know that's not hard that's not hard i'm a little bitch with your female autism i'm a low t female sort of with a little earring yeah i get called gay on the internet every day of my whole life like i don't know it's funny like it's funny like you maybe you sit in a very interesting place i think like you're not in the manosphere but i think to some people they would say you're like the nah and i don't think you're guilty of any of that shit either like the really problematic stuff but for some reason like maybe because you're like jacked like is it just that you're like in really good shape and maybe talk about it or like because there's a venn diagram of like talking about health and fitness and mindset and like those things which does exist in a more productive way and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think that's in a more problematic male media landscape but i think you managed to sort of i don't know and unkind views you're like the narrowest end of the wedge correct with the the uh accusation i got after uh me and bartlett went viral at the start of the year was that i'm the gateway drug to the manosphere that i'm the little pebble at the top of the avalanche well yeah you start off listening to chris williamson but before you know it you've pipelined your way into nick fuentes and andrew despite the fact that the day after the louis theroux documentary came out i managed to unite feminists and the manosphere in agreement that the worst part of the louis theroux documentary was him coming on my podcast that was what they were tweeting about the next day it wasn't about the documentary it was about me it was like a full half ai is it louis coming on yeah louis coming on my podcast got me every single most of the people who were in the documentary weren't tweeting about the documentary they were tweeting about me platforming louis theroux wow that that was that was unacceptable but only a couple of months before when i've been on bartlett massage i got called the lux maxa which i actually think is kind of a compliment uh all of the newspaper articles about that were right-wing manosphere misogynist but then when i went and did tucker carlson's podcast only a couple of months before that i was accused of being riddled with blue-pilled thinking and infected with feminist lies there's a quote yesterday literally yesterday on twitter the big reply that happened to like something i put up that was like some c.s lewis quote that i thought was really like cool and cute and it like talks it's both sides of the fence about uh the homemaker is the ultimate career and all other careers are just built to support that one i was like oh wow this is really interesting because it's like both it's supportive it's progressive it's regret old school whatever the fuck and uh someone was like more feminist bullshit in fact i answered that fucking question yesterday like um when are you going to admit that all that you do is spew the exact feminist lies that you that are creating the problems in the world i'm like i'm getting ideologically spit roasted because it's a difficult thing because we i've had like tv producers come to mine and mike's stand-up shows and be like do you ever worry that your audience are the type of audience that might be in the manosphere or might like have some of those incel tendencies or might drift towards that andrew tate type of thing and i'm like that's really the opposite of a worry for me because if i because if me and mike can get a hold of them before tate does then they're not going to become these sort of fucked up like misogynist violent like abusive partners of these women because we make fun of those guys and we're softer and we're more open and like i think a nice thing that i try to emulate on our podcast again not super actively but like as you know mortimer and white house gone fishing yes and how like lovely they are to each other as like older men and they like say each other i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each other's names i love the way they say each Like, how are you going? How are you doing, Bob? She's lovely. Like there's some real intimacy with like in a, in a friendship that I think is represented on that. And these like TV people were like, oh, we're just not, you know, that's, that's a bit of a worry for us. And I'm like, but someone has to talk to these people. Someone has to talk to young men. Or else you're abandoning that to all of the influences that you have the biggest concerns about. And it's hard to talk about like, like young men feeling abandoned or without feeling like you're heading towards that manosphere thing. But like, I think that's why I found that benefit from the Jordan Peters and stuff. It was someone talking to me in a way that I could understand and how I can take up a positive space in the world. It wasn't patronizing. It wasn't pushing you in a direction that you felt was unethical. And it wasn't telling me I was like a piece of shit for being like a man. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I look, I, uh, you're right. I think it is, it is definitely an interesting, whatever middle of the Venn diagram of talking about personal development, health and fitness and, and, you know, sex differences and challenges between the sexes and birth rates and stuff like that. Cause I think they're important issues, but it's the internet's really quick to pattern match. And especially if you present, yeah, maybe could like fucking hell, like, you know, someone could look a little bit fruity and you're like, might be, might be, might, you might swing both ways. And then this is. Well, he might be, you know, he could be manosphere, but then also again, insufficiently masculine for the manosphere because the gay accusations come thick and fast. Um, but like them coming thick and fast. Sorry. Uh, one of the things that there's this great, great article that I saw the other day about grind slop. So this is, and I think this is something that I've been feeling for a while that 1000 you'll be episode. Like 1110 or something like a lot, right? Uh, and much of that is me as a young man going, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to, how to operate in the world. I'm confused about emotions. And I sometimes, I sometimes have self doubt and I, I just sleep. I think I should sleep. I should probably sleep more and I should probably work out what I need to eat. And I'm going to find whoever I can get ahold of to, to, to understand that and understand myself and understand the world around me, especially as the, whatever. Late adolescent onset, like whatever the opposite of precocious development is. I'm like in my twenties, starting to understand me and, uh, but there is a, there is a degree at least when i have the conversations where i'm like a lot of the 80 20 of the development side of stuff like how to sleep well what a productivity strategy looks like this is how you should eat this is how you should train these are how you need friends in your life and all of these things like i think a lot of that has already been covered if not by me than by other people so i'm one of the reasons that i've got this studio and we've got this big table and there's we're doing these episodes with lots of people is i get the sense in the age of ai that just raw information dumping is probably not more of what people need it's probably not more of what i need i certainly want to learn about things and there'll be progress to make but given that lots of that territory has already been covered by me and by other people and i think people are feeling more alone and i know that i even i as somebody that's constantly around people have that sense too i'm like i want to listen i just want to listen to matt and shane i just want to have a hang and like or i'll tune into you guys or tune into like uh jacob and jake and just listen to them talk bullshit i just want to listen to them talk bullshit and um that's something that i'm actively sort of nudging the show in that direction and i'm gonna lose a big chunk of the audience from doing that to because once a week or once every couple of weeks it's me and my friends sat around talking about whatever the fuck has happened yeah and having that degree of like homework and when you've left you go to don't learn anything i had a nice time yeah i had a nice time yeah and uh that's it's just like an interesting pivot and that's kind of where i'm feeling at the moment that the grind slop like work until your eyes bleed thing i don't definitely been through that era but i don't think that more of that is necessarily needed so anyway that i don't even know what i'm saying there's a lot of funny parodies of the sort of grind slop thing is was named doug baldwin with the tiny little sunglasses he was sat in that seat yesterday yo get pissed call the police that's me on the floor he's so funny some of the bits that we did yesterday are fucking unbelievable he is so funny you know him and timmy no breaks uh the partners in a lot of things oh great okay cool yeah yeah i think he's the funniest guy he was here yesterday that's so funny yeah it was great so uh but yeah exactly exactly that and um i have a little hope for ai okay that it really like that it'll put a premium on like live experiences and music gigs people will buy tickets for them and stand-up gigs people buy tickets for them because you can't trust anything that's on your phone anymore yeah because it's like why like even watching the winter olympics i was like is this i don't think i don't think trump competed like you know yeah like there's just something about it where you go like it makes me the phone is slightly giving me the ick at the minute because it's like i can't quite trust it and i just go it already was no one was already that much of a fan of it and now but it's just like even the silly fun videos aren't like you know like like this propaganda cat videos but like cat videos were like what the internet was sort of built on and now you can't you don't know if it's a cat or if it's just some ai thing so it's i think being in the real world might come back in fashion i think so too i mean nightclubs aren't nightclubs are dying a death right which was my old industry for a long time i think it's an one one nightclub a week is closing down in the uk at the moment there's not that many to be able to go through i'm aware in the us it'd be like fucking rounding error on the number of nightclubs yeah you can't get away with that many and most of them were already a bit shit like you know when it is it's when flares closes down that's when you know that there's a real issue okay that's their patient they're the over to window for nightlife they've weathered a lot of storms they do they have indeed yeah with the light up dance floor uh speaking of that what's the most belfast way that anyone's ever threatened you threatened me i mean there's like fun like there's a thing that's happened twice now on the tour and this doesn't feel like a threat but it does a little bit there's a bit in the show where i ask if anyone's from where i'm from and i talk about and the joke is about the naming conventions of like some people don't say northern ireland because they don't agree with the fact that it exists some people say the north of ireland because they think ireland should be one whole big thing and that's like a big divide where catholics would call it the north of ireland protestants would call it northern ireland that's like i think so i have jokes about that and uh in those jokes i go obvious notice i haven't named where i'm from because in the first chunk of the show i don't name where i'm from i say belfast but i don't name northern ireland as a place and i say um have you noticed that i haven't named it and it happened in newcastle upon town and it happened in philadelphia and it happened in california uh no it was last night in nashville happened in nashville and newcastle where somebody shouted out the word trench which is the street my dad grew up on in west belfast which doesn't on the face of it scream threat but it's a bit like oh that's intense how did they know that like their family knows my family and in a show that's maybe a little bit contentious about northern ireland stuff it's just a bit like okay noted noted was the threat scarier in newcastle or nashville i would say newcastle that felt a bit more connected to the whole thing um but it feels like i was reading uh london falling patrick radden keefe's new book and you know patrick radden keefe he wrote say nothing um you should read say nothing i think it's a hint um no shut the fuck up um and in it he was talking about when he was like interviewing gangsters who were like around this murder that the book's about um and they would always mention like his kids names and his like dog's name it's just a little flex we know where you're from we know who you are i know exactly where you're from and who you are french fucking hell dad i was i was thinking it was going to be some fun jovial little like strange and in fact it's actually a private investigator guy who knows something deep and dark about but west belfast so small like i'm not from west belfast where my dad is right but like it's a small little word everybody's funny paddy galloway good friend of mine he there's something about the entirety of ireland that seems diplomatic enough to say the entirety of the island of ireland the island of ireland diplomatically okay also people are trying to spitball new names for the concept of the british isles because that claims ownership of over ireland by britain okay so you can't call them the british islands i think somebody said uh what if we called it the east caribbean uh so paddy paddy was every single person i know that's from the island of ireland has a story where there's some sort of family drama feud thing that goes all the way back to despite the fact that england is just as old and and and scotland is just as old and i don't hear i don't know anyone that's in the in england that's got that same kind of heritage my family and their family and this thing in the farm next door it just i don't know there seems to be way more like ossification do you think it's just rurality maybe of like like agricultural communities probably do like they're more embedded in their communities and they're a lot more on each other in the community if you're less cosmopolitan you're moving and grooving around and that's like a sad thing about living in a city but i try to like be connected in a city it's like a nice thing to try and build a community living in north london like there's a lady what's the community of north london like jewish uh the uh the uh there's a lady who lives in my block of flats um who's this old italian lady and she feeds the foxes so you'll just see her in the bushes every day like throwing chicken to foxes um and if she sees one of the foxes has like mange uh she'll phone a fox charity get medicine delivered put it in the chicken he's a fox lady give it to the fox she looks after the foxes and it means there's a real fox problem which is increasing our block of flats because they're very well looked after by this little italian lady and uh and uh but every so often she needs help sending a whatsapp so she comes up and knocks on the door and i'm fully integrated so it's like no i try to build that stuff and like i think it's really important and like i'm not even doing nearly enough of it as i should but like i think it's a really important part of life that's like like not easily fixable because it's really scary to just like say hello to somebody like on the street or your neighbor or whatever but like it is it's doable to build it's nice to be needed it's nice that that person's got something that they need you for yeah because the the worst thing would be everybody else is a digital nomad dgen just whatsapp in their way through their day and you go none of us need any of us yeah at all yeah yeah that's not fun what uh what do you think is something that italian families do that british people would i don't know consider psychological warfare psychological warfare i mean it's maybe so have you heard like so santa has become global but it wasn't always global like santa claus okay um like you know there was like a weird one called like the is it the krampus or something who like eats kids um if they're naughty like that's instead of like a lump of coal like you just get eaten by a sort of weird goblin reverse santa claus yeah yeah but i think you do get nice stuff if you're good or maybe you just avoid being eaten but our version is i think a labifana and i think i fucked this up but this is what i was told um where when the wise men were looking to find jesus they were knocking on all the doors in bethlehem because like they look for under a star but like that's not a good it's hardly google maps you know what i mean so they had the vague area that they were supposed to be in but couldn't find them so they knock on doors going oh we're looking for the son of god who's to be born or like who's just been born and uh we're trying to find him and basically this old lady who's like sort of an old witch type character just tells them to fuck off but then when they leave she feels bad and she's like god if that is like if that is the son of god like that's a pretty terrible thing that i've done not to help these guys sort of bestow gifts upon him so what she does to cover her bases she was like i need to give a gift to the newly born son of god but she obviously didn't know where he was so she gave gifts to all of them and she was like i need to give a gift to the newly born son of god and she was like i need to give a gift to the newly born son of god and she was like i need to give a gift to the newly born son of god all the children in the whole area in the hope that one of those would be the newly born son of god so in belfast growing up we would go to like a community hall with a bouncy castle and sandwiches and all this stuff and like have a fun day and then we would all sit down and a late an old lady dressed as a witch would come in and give us all presents isn't that fucking mad is that was that traumatic as a nervous slightly panicky child no i think i i was scared by weird things labifana the witch was absolutely fine um it's the uh what's his um i remember i went to disney world when i was a child terrified of the little mermaid burst into tears of the mermaid herself like no the mermaid herself like the lady like the actress or whatever the struggling actress who's playing the little mermaid at disney eight hours a day yeah sweating and like a wig and i think i was just like really freaked out that she didn't have legs you're overwhelmed by the fish lady yeah it was just all a bit much for me yeah i remember i went i went there as well and uh what was that what was the elevator you're going to do the same thing i'm terrified of saying the sentence with the name of the thing in it the elevator that went up and down and that was the ride do you remember this i don't remember the elevator i don't remember the elevator i don't remember the elevator i don't remember the tower of terror glad that it wasn't the tower that was terrifying you were fine uh i remember i went on that and someone's thing came loose as they fell and uh there was all of this hubbub there was a big i mean that's you know you said if you die on a plane there's going to be paperwork i think there was a lot of paperwork well i haven't really done roller coasters since was it alton tires where somebody lost their leg on nemesis didn't that happen twice can you chat gpt how many people got injured on nemesis at alton towers the smiler yes 16 people the smiler that seems tough name that seems ironic tough name a crash that injured 16 five what was just say what was the one where someone lost their leg like i think it was alton tires but i truly haven't been on a roller coaster since and i don't know it's just like i obviously know that's a possibility but you sort of think i'll be all right let's check all the safety on those things he's thinking of the smiler a traveling funfair yeah fuck me leg amputations two people they must have got crazy money five million it doesn't really matter you've lost a leg how much for a leg my leg yeah fuck it's a tough conundrum isn't it i really like my leg i like both of them equally if you had to lose one which one would you lose that's oh that's weird because you know the way you like you have your kicking foot but then you like you jump off the other one oh no which do i prefer kicking or jumping i don't think i would be doing much jumping as like a one-legged guy so how much kicking would you be doing loads i think you're mostly kicking crutch bang i think yeah i think i would keep my right leg and train for the paralympics as a one-legged football guy i think i'd keep my right leg as well i think that's the important one i don't know i've been thinking about are you left-handed by any chance no because that sometimes happens right with uh i think autistic people have got oh really we've swapped the as in you're right-footed and left-handed no that uh there's a disproportionate number of people who are autistic that are also left-handed wow i think let's google this one i'm worried about the whatever the whatever it is water usage or whatever it is that you're concerned about um uh my left hand is essentially for show it doesn't do anything well i had a lot because when i was a percussionist right a lot of the focus of that sort of training and just bringing the other hand up to the quality of the get this to stop being so fucking useless and do nearly what you can do with this is like basically the whole thing uh dude double wow what's what the fuck is that word echo echo echolash echolash that's when uh uh you sort of repeat words it's sort of like audiological stems or repeat words or noises so some of the repeat words are noises yeah and uh yeah yeah and they just sort of like get stuck in a loop i get that sometimes my girlfriend has to go hey well stop what was the last time that that happened i just got like if a word if i like the way a word sounds either that i've said or somebody else has said or like in a song i'll just be like indigo indigo indigo indigo indigo indigo indigo and she goes fuck vittorio angeloni ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for having me this is actually this was this was really good you were about to say actually no yes you were no yes i was gonna say this was actively enjoying uh where should people go to check out everything you're doing vittorio angeloni on instagram uh i'm a i'm touring stand-up comedy i don't know when this comes out but i've got two specials on youtube and that's probably the best place i always think like it's crazy after a podcast to be like buy a ticket to see me watch my shows on youtube see if you like that and then buy a ticket if you fancy it i can appreciate you man all right until next time everyone lovely dude wasn't that fun super fun hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta 3 cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for 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