Yedoye Travis is Stretching

fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross does checking your bank statements feel like digging through a dusty attic full of forgotten subscriptions and old free trials experian can help take the pain out of canceling by handling it for you think of it as operation get your sanity back over 200 subscriptions are cancelable so get started in the experian app and see how much you could save results will vary not all subscriptions eligible savings not guaranteed paid membership with connected payment account required to see experian.com for details i hate mondays king's hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite taylor hansen sure i'll try one hey let's get back to work please but taylor hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly king's hawaiian cinnamon bites taylor hansen nice try one king's hawaiian cinnamon bites there's nothing like it this is a head gum podcast are there like three books that you're like you would recommend them to anyone or to me specifically uh-huh that you're like you must read these okay what is your what are your goals in reading fantastic question i there is a girl who uh works at the bookstore fight club dude what's up oh you know we're just having a podcast you know what they call it having a podcast yeah you know what we should do we should have a podcast you know it's um having a podcast reminds me of like i got in trouble with a bunch of my friends when i after i went to europe for the first time uh-huh because i stole some of their turns of phrase everyone started making fun of me i couldn't help it i like the way they say some things oh you stole the european turns oh yeah oh they they talk bad though but you know what they say some fun stuff like they say like like someone i picked up from them someone say like oh are you gonna be in town on the 17th you say i'm meant to be okay okay i'm meant to be i like that that's very that's very british though yeah i i thought you were saying like like europe europe there there you go fake british europe okay i like i like the british what's another thing what's another thing another thing i did that you got mad at me for the biggest one by by a mile is you don't say come to my house you say come to mine come to mine oh that's that's evil yeah that's a little evil i cut you off what were you saying i i i think i like like black british phrase like my ute yeah my ute am i allowed to use that i don't know because i don't know i'm not as well versed in like the the um the gatekeeping of black britain yeah so i don't know i'm not gonna give it to you on their behalf no i'm not gonna try it either you can't take that off me just so you know yeah i'm not gonna try it at the moment okay what is that my what is well fuck what does that mean you're a ute you're my ute you know you're like my you're like my friend oh like buddy pal buddy okay like you look yeah yeah you lie i can definitely do you can't say it like that though no you look well it's just tricky because you it's it's the accents get tricky because sometimes it's not just british there's another element right going on and then it's like what am i doing right right right and i also don't know yeah i cannot tell no you have to tell me i'm begging you to tell me i'm reaching i'm reaching into other people's i truly don't know being a white guy yeah it's hard yeah yeah yeah yeah no i'd love to example i mean this for example like this was crazy can i say that can i not say that right even this moment right now yeah yeah can i say the thing can i say that's hard yeah well you can you can yeah i'm not gonna try it could you imagine i say it and we find out it's some horrible thing in britain i would love that so much you would love with my whole cancel yeah do you really i will see here's the thing is it's always fun to watch yeah it doesn't matter who it is yeah i think you're a very kind man you know you're you you you've been great to me you're a kind guy but like from a from a distance i'd watch whose cancellation have you enjoyed the most um you know what i didn't expect you to ask me for an example now i'm real now i'm thinking about it i got a kind heart man i i i don't like it you feel like a sweetie to me yeah i don't i don't i don't like watching people get canceled it's a it's a very bad experience i'm a i'm also notorious flip-flopper yeah it's my thing yeah yeah yeah yeah taking big stances and then taking it back yep yep i walk it right back what's your big what do you think should be your biggest flip-flop do you remember that one just now was your biggest ever that was it just now that's the one that established me as a flip-flopper yeah yeah before that you were not a flip-flopper before that i was absolutely not a flip-flopper genesis of your flip-flopping me becoming a flip-flopper is the biggest flip-flop for me oh man i'm so excited to have you here i haven't seen you in a minute last time i saw you i think was it uh the basement of union hall yeah yeah it was yeah that was this was like and i was on my way out too that was barely even a sighting no it was horrible i went upstairs to try and find you but i actually felt bad i i um we had a quick hug and a hello and then i lost you yeah and then i came up to be like i was like i put in my head i said i'm gonna talk to you do it when i get upstairs and then i went up there and you were gone yeah that's uh that's been my uh my way of being the past year yeah i'm very i've been very in and out slipping out what do you think that's about uh you know it's been it's been quite a year of uh i just don't want to be outside yeah you know i don't even know what there is more to it than that i just uh you know sometimes you have that uh you have those times in your life where you're like i've had enough yeah not in like a not in like a um like a no one be worried you know what i mean it's not in that kind of way no one be worried not nobody stress out yeah but you know sometimes you you're just like i've seen it yeah you know yeah i've been at union hall yeah before i know what goes on over there yeah and uh and it's been very much that kind of year for me it's been very much that kind of year for me it's been a year for me i've been doing the same thing the same three things all year what are they i've been i've been going to work i i'm a carpenter in the theater yeah uh i've been doing stand-up and i've been playing soccer you okay i knew all these things about you and i'll say a fourth thing that i think you're doing that you didn't mention yes you're stretching i'm stretching i'm stretching that in many ways is an auxiliary thing to playing soccer yeah but yes i am stretching you're really and i go i gotta stretch you gotta stretch because you're doing really good at it thank you and it's inspiring to me thank you i uh i i have definitely added that to my personality that's that's become a big part of me in the past year or so huge pillar of you to me now yeah is stretching yeah when i think of i'm not even kidding you i was at the gym the other day and i was i was kind of phoning in my stretching i'm dead serious in my head i was like you do i would hate this you know what he would hate to see you like this you know what here's the thing though um yes but also i think people i think people um this is gonna sound crazy after i've been established as the stretching guy yeah but i think people are are over emphasizing the stretch really when they or they're doing it they're doing the stretch at the wrong times because because sometimes you know when you stretch you're unlocking positions that you're not comfortable in yeah you're unlocking positions that you're not you don't have the strength yeah and then you're going out and you're playing sports or you're going and lifting weights you're you're putting yourself in a in a risky position yeah you gotta go go lift the stuff get your strength and then you stretch after you you know once you're you're tired and you're relaxed and you're you're not planning on exerting a bunch of energy you know i mean team stretch after the team stretch after the event okay yes yeah get you a nice warm-up uh lubricate the joints if you will yeah um and then stretch stretch after the fact you don't need you don't need to be able to do the splits yeah you don't need that oh i will never yeah you could i will never do the splits i won't you you could i could but i think we both know i would look hilarious doing the splits i'm not gonna look hilarious like that well tell me i wouldn't look hilarious if imagine me doing the splits right now and tell me you're not kind of giggling i'm a i'm giggling a little bit but i'll also i'll tell you whatever you want to hear you know what i mean yeah would you really yeah i guess i guess i do like that i love hearing what i want to hear it is tough because you want to hear what you don't want to hear yeah yeah and sometimes you know because the things you don't want to hear you got to hear them yeah you know i tell i've told um i've told a lot of people in my life that i don't want to be surrounded by yes men yes but every time i say it i there's a little part of my head that's like unless you really want to if you really want to say yes to me all the time i guess here's the thing i think you either gotta you gotta be around all yes men or all no men you know what i mean i don't think you can ever you know you don't think there could be harmony between the yes and no man i don't think no no because i think like if you're around if you're around like yes men all the time and you hear or no it feels like oh so i i'm just jeffrey epstein huh yeah i'm so i'm jeffrey i'm just jeffrey epstein huh oh i'm evil incarnate no i guess i'm just i'm just hitler i'm hearing no for the first time feels like being hitler yeah yeah if you're surrounded by yes men yeah yeah it does it does it does and then if you're surrounded by no man forever and you hear you hear your first yes it changes you yeah you know it changes you in a much less funny way yeah you know i don't have a bit prepared for that but you know it does it's a different experience you know i feel like you have a lot of yes men or no men in your life i i think i have almost exclusively no men in my life and it's and and it's great it's a great thing yeah i think um i think you're supposed to have people in your life that are like you don't do that don't do that you're not that guy yeah you know what i mean and it's not to say that like they're discouraging it's just to remind i feel like you need to be reminded of like who you are every now and then yeah i lived alone for like two years and like i think you live you leave that experience feeling like i could be anybody i could i have nobody seen me for for two years i could be i could be any guy yeah you know i don't know what's happened yeah they have no clue they know what's going on in here you know in my lair in my lair they don't know what links i got yeah they don't know what i'm clicking yeah you know what i'm clicking you know what i mean they don't know what i'm clicking yeah i feel like if you're living in the real world and you got you got your like reasonable no people around you yeah then you got you got somebody to be like hey you you were not on that yesterday yeah don't suddenly be on that today you know yeah yeah i guess maybe whoever said no to me i fired them or cut them off yeah and that's gonna change you you know in a crazy way it already has you woke i've become a bad guy and you know what maybe i met you as a bad guy and i don't know what a bad guy looks like yeah yeah so you're in on the illusion yeah so i'm like i met you at this point yeah and so my getting my character judgment is just do you think you're a good judge of character i think generally yes i think you are but if i if i if i meet you at else yeah yeah you know okay i'm a great judge of character that being said who knows i think i think everybody could i think everybody has a window in their life where they can kind of reset yeah you know what i mean where you can like gather new people around you and they can't tell for a little bit yeah you know what i mean i think that's true yeah so reception is real yeah so i think i think i'm a good judge of character but i think there's a lot of good judges of good judges of character yeah you can like you can spot who is a good judge of character and you can know not not to be around that person if that makes sense you can spot who's a good judge of character and you can know not you're saying if okay if you're a bad guy yes yeah you can spot who can tell and you stay away from stay away from those you don't want to be found out yes yes i'm with you 100 yes yeah that makes sense to me yeah yeah that makes sense to me yeah i think i'm a good judge of character i have been snowed very rarely but when i got snowed it hurt what does that mean to be snowed like to get the wool pulled over my eyes oh i've been tricked okay or bamboozled yes very rarely by people hoodwinked hoodwinked very rarely let it stray let it stray run amok um fooled uh what else is there you just pull up malcolm x's autobiography yeah would you mind yeah um yeah but i the the couple times it's happened to me it's hurt deeply because i don't view myself as someone who that happens to right you know yeah yes and i don't want it to happen again yeah yeah i won't get fooled again i won't get well fool me once what's that george bush quote fool me once it's a fool me once shame on you fool me twice for me twice well you can't get fooled again was it jay cole sample that who really one of his most iconic quotes bush uh yeah malcolm x what a guy so what you didn't need to really do that you didn't really need to we take guest requests seriously all right well whatever you need uh you have you been doing stand-up lately i have been i've been doing a little bit of stand-up recently i um maybe this is why this has been an inside year for me i taped uh i taped an hour in february congratulations thank you um and just have not been able to do anything until it's done you know you know sometimes you're just like i gotta finish the project or else i i can never move on um i wish i had that quality that sounds like an amazing quality to have well i think it's adhd is what it is is it okay yeah and so i'm i've just been like this thing has to be out in the world because i feel like it also informs everything that i'm gonna write from this point if that makes you know it does it feels like the um the way i went into it was like this is this this is the special that is going to establish um what my voice is or what i what i believe my voice to be um and after this point don't ask me no fucking questions about what my jokes are about because i'm not i'm not doing your little i'm not talking about uh how you can't say nothing no more because because you can yeah you can say something some more and you can reference the work you can yeah i have a piece that you can reference that this is how i feel about stuff yes and it's the foundation of the things i'll do moving forward yes what is good what's where you're at with in the process um i have accepted that i'm not a good editor myself i did most of the rough cut and i passed it off to a friend who actually knows what uh what they're doing um so hopefully it'll be done by the end of the month nice if not early next year where do you know where it's gonna live yeah it's gonna live on youtube hell yeah yeah i love that yeah so you're the plan is to put it out 2026 um the very rough plan is just within the next month oh put it out in the next month yeah oh hell yeah i mean i knew it would be done but i didn't know if we were gonna like put it out fuck yeah let's go yeah yeah i i can't sit on it anyway anymore that's exciting yeah i'm excited for that yeah thank you i can't wait everybody have to go watch everybody mark your calendars some point this thing will come out and you have to go watch it yeah i uh i don't know if i i think maybe i said the name publicly somewhere i don't but i don't but it's called fatherless behavior that's the behavior yeah cool i can't wait to see it i'm excited where'd you uh film it union hall hell yeah union hall is uh um of this like interesting i didn't i started out in chicago doing comedy and so like there was this big thing that you would hope for for a couple years when you were like starting out in chicago which is like man someday when i can like get venues in new york to book me yeah which is at first you know you're nowhere near that but then you start to get a little bit of traction you think like man if i got the right lineup i could maybe get like half the room full at union hall and it's just really a union hall is this place that's like so exciting yeah till i go and then you get here and it i kind of wondered like oh now that i i don't really play like venues that small as often anymore is it something that'll like fall out for me mentally and it actually is such like a touch point of the community yeah yeah it i think it and i think it kind of always will make sense like i don't think anybody grows out of it no you know david cross still runs his hour there however frequently he runs a new hour yeah you know like i i don't think anybody ever gets too big to go back there it's my favorite place to perform yeah it's so fun yeah i love running into buddies i love seeing shows there yeah i'd love to film something there someday like i just think it's the best yeah i mean it's just it's just like there are there are rare like perfect venues and i'm not you know the clientele upstairs pisses me off i don't i don't like the people that hang out there if i'm being honest yeah but like just in terms of shape yeah in terms of like room shape yeah it's such a perfect room just like the perfect like low ceilings and i feel like you know every time i go every time i do a show there that's like my own show just the the neighborhood itself and i feel like these are not like yeah but then i feel like when i when i put on my own show at union hall like somehow somehow my people show up yeah you know it's just like i don't know it feels like a room that you can really like mold to whatever experience you want to have which yeah you're not subject to the neighborhood as much it feels like your people will come and fill that basement for you yeah right yeah right it's just it's like it's just it's great did you you're from atlanta and you went to school you went to emory yes and you studied psychology when you were in school uh in atlanta had you started comedy yet like when did you i don't think i know when you started i started comedy when i was uh a junior in college or it was this it was the summer before my junior year so yeah yeah i was like 20 um and i think i only started that late because um i went to the other campus and emory which is in covington And so that there just wasn't a lot of places to do stand-up. I did it the first time when I was 18. at laughing skull not true i did it the first time when i was 12 yeah um and then as an adult laughing skull at 18 and then i didn't do it again for two years um so i was i was doing stand-up the last two years i was in college and moved to la immediately after i graduated which was I won't say a bad decision because I gained a bunch of you know life experience from it did a lot of things that I wouldn't have done otherwise but um it's not a city that I ever want to live in again in my life yeah so yeah and then you came out here yeah yeah yeah that's interesting why did you what do you think it why okay so why did you do stand up when you were 18 and then and then not do it for two years like were you just busy with school or what was the I was I was it was partly that I was busy with school and part of me thought that I just wanted to try it um because I was the I was the guy that it was always like like in school just everybody's like oh you're so funny you should try you should do stand up one yeah and so it felt like the it felt like a thing that like I should do it just to say I did it you know um and I didn't really think I was gonna do it again and then I once I was like close enough to it it felt like oh I've wanted to do this since I was a child book reports about about Eddie Murphy like what are you talking about why would you ever think you didn't want to do this book reports on Eddie Murphy is iconic yeah you know you know those like little those little like biographies this thing you would get at the school library yeah like I just got what I just checked one of those out and did a book report on the on that hell yeah that rocks have you met him I have never met Eddie Murphy damn you know um I don't know why I said that like I expected to ever meet him but I feel like I feel like you would have met Eddie Murphy by now yeah he's around he's he's not he's making movies again he's one of the most unaround people you're really right in black comedy you're really right he's not really coming around at all I met George Wallace you like George Wallace I do like George Wallace he's a great guy one of the greatest twitters in the history of twitter yeah absolutely he really made that whole platform his own yeah genuinely one of the funniest people I've ever seen where'd I've met him a couple times in Atlanta last time I saw him was at Gotham um the one time I've performed there yeah I weirdly enough Gotham got a new backdrop um on the stage in like 2017 that I helped install because I was working uh because I do like set carpentry stuff didn't perform there for like five years after that um and on the night that I was there George Wallace Jim Gaffigan and Jerry Seinfeld all walked in while I was on stage all told me I had a good set which was cool and then uh I think Seinfeld was supposed to follow me and I took great pleasure in being able to say hey man uh I would love to stick around and watch you but I got another show bye hey dude best of luck keep at it I got another set yeah I'm sure it would be a very regular set um but yeah who were your uh like when you were I mean obviously Eddie Murphy who who else were your like people when you were like uh growing up and coming into comedy um Richard Pryor was like my my absolute favorite I think um which is very easy to say obviously but like I I remember when I was in college I had I had no wi-fi at my at my apartment and my and my dad's place where I would go to visit um so I would just like whenever I would go to my mom's house I would download whatever movies I could and then take it back to or just like save them onto my little my playstation and watch them whenever I want and so the movies I had were The Prestige and then I had Richard Pryor live on Sunset Strip I've seen both of those like 30 times and actually the funniest line of the two is in The Prestige there's this scene where he's you know Dave David Bowie is Nikola Tesla and he's like they're they're testing this this uh cloning device uh that can clone not just uh organic matter but uh but also inorganic matter and they make a bunch of copies of um of Hugh Jackman's hat uh to test this cloning machine that he's using to fake like a teleportation device yeah and he goes out into this field with like dozens of the same hat just like have been transported have been cloned and transported out to this field and um and Hugh Jackman goes which one is mine and then David Bowie goes they're all your hat Mr. Angier that's the big one it's so funny to me and I don't know why to this day I don't know why it's so funny yeah but I think it's just the word hat yeah but also the the fact that he had to say the word hat in the first place like you see all these hats it's like in case you thought you forgot we were talking about a hat they're all your hat that's that is very funny I just I don't know I I I've done stand-up for 13 years and in all that time it has taken me um so much energy to resist the fact that I'm ultimately a pun guy I love puns so much I love I love stupid wordplay and that I feel like falls into that category yeah cup I think is the funniest word of all time cup is a good one up is a great it's the hard sounds yes it's the c and the p of it all yeah and yeah and the yeah yeah yep I love uh Richard Pryor was a favorite of mine growing up as well and I actually just for the first time read have you ever read um the Hilton Alls essay on Richard Pryor that's in white girls no I have not it's really good uh I just read it for the first time and I yeah I had never read something so like I I've seen a lot of Richard Pryor growing up my dad showed me a lot of Richard Pryor and I've always loved his work but I hadn't ever read something so um like thorough and like kind of I don't know about beautiful but thorough and like care careful about him um it was really really well done that whole book is great but the essay on Richard Pryor I think you might like okay um it was great yeah I would love that if you if you sent that to me I'll send it to you yeah I'll make it happen I'll just give you the book I'll I'll um I'll bring it over to you oh thank you um um yeah he has one of my one of my favorite bits ever in that special is um I I just love that book I love it I love it I love it I love it the way he is really great at like personifying inanimate objects and like animals and things like that like his bit where his wife is leaving him and uh she's like she's like getting in the car to drive away and he's like uh you're not leaving me in this motherfucker you ain't and he shoots the tire and the tire goes ah but he has this great bit about how his uh he had he had these two pet monkeys uh he got one originally and the monkey would just like try to fuck everybody and everything you know because the monkey was too horny so he got a girl monkey so they could go out and fuck in the trees or whatever when the monkey was lonely and um and then the monkeys died um I forget what happened I think it was like a carbon monoxide like poisoning thing and they both died and he was really sad about it and there was this dog that lived next door that saw him the dog saw him sulking in his yard and he was like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die and he just jumps over the fence and he goes hey what's wrong Richard he goes my monkeys died man he goes oh man you mean them little monkeys that used to be fucking up in the trees man I was gonna eat them too and he's just like man I'm sad man I miss my monkeys and he goes well Richard it's gonna be okay man you know you just gotta keep your chin up Richard you know and he hops back over the fence and then uh he turns back around as he's walking away and goes now you know I'm gonna be chasing you again tomorrow Richard a brief mea culpa a moment of allyship but tomorrow it's back on yeah I hate Mondays King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite uh Taylor Hanson sure I'll try one hey let's get back to work please but Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites Taylor Hanson nice try one King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites there's nothing like it fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross him in uh um prior and carlin are both so interesting to me because they like they both came up doing like almost like borch belt like clean like suit and tie type of rooms yeah and then they both like basically had like they hit breaking points and like i can't fucking do this anymore yeah and both then evolved into like their actual act yeah and i'm so fascinated by both of them having that path yeah i i think it must have been just the era you know they both came up in the in the 60s uh prior kind of wanted to be bill cosby in a way carlin just kind of coming up like got successful really early you know and i i think about that a lot because um in some ways i had a similar trajectory not that i was like bad success like i was on tv i was in writers rooms and stuff like that and i i do think about like the guy i could have been had i just like kept my head down and never thought about about anything and just like i i get it i get it especially being especially being like that guy like as vietnam is starting and like just the world feels like it's getting shaken at its core people are questioning fundamental things about like the about america as an institution um you know i i i think i would question more of the people that like just kind of stuck to what they were doing you know and just like kept their head down and never never said anything you know that was all the advice too like that was the the advice that they both got that the big advice for i was in this essay was talking about the big advice for richard was like if you want to be black and make it be because be yeah like just keep keep it cool do do the sweaters do the like tame thing for the white audiences yeah and for both of them way more radically obviously for prior but like for both of them to choose to talk about actual shit and to break out of that thing that like they probably could have made a pretty decent living for the rest of their lives just doing that uh but they would have like there it would have meant nothing it would have mattered not at all right their work would have died with them right and now they're gonna live on as legends forever because they actually decided to pay attention and give a shit and i think that's so interesting and applicable applicable to right now because i'm so bored and disappointed by so many people that are just kind of like cashing in and keeping it tame right now yeah when i'm like this everything is so bad and could be so you could be making such better jokes yeah and you're just like putting it right down the middle so that you don't lose any brand deals or whatever yeah and i'm fucking bored yeah and you know what i you know um i've struggled to to like escape the feeling that it's in the nature of comedy uh as it is to do that just because comedy did like it didn't have to be this way but it was born out of capitalism it was it exists because vaudeville was too expensive yeah you know uh and people were just like well what if one guy stood on a stage with a microphone by himself what if there was no overhead yeah it's literally that and everybody's like yeah nobody wants to fucking see that yeah at first um and then you know people got better at it and it started to look like a thing that could be marketable but even now like the the comedy booms as they've happened have sort of like happened as the economy booms also it's sort of i don't know just ebbs and flows with capitalism as it is and so it it does make sense in a way that people do that but like it just it is really disappointing to watch that like uh that people are content to sort of live unexamined and not really think and i don't know i i think part of it is like you know i i i got a lot of perspective because like i i did get a little bit um fed up at one point and i just i just started playing music again i started playing bass and i was just going to jams a lot pretty much and i just started playing music again and pretty much all last year and just gaining perspective about what like preparation looks like as an artist realizing like so much of the preparation happens off stage all the serious stuff happens off stage um and you i forget who said i think maybe it was frank zappa that said like you know the like he put out a lot of silly ass music yeah and it's like yeah the the there's a silly element to it but like the music itself is deadly serious yeah you know and i think because the nature of performing comedy it just feels like it's a fucking joke all the time it feels like you just know how to do it and nobody really wants to do the the difficult prep work required to like say something new you know nobody wants to actually nobody wants to question their worldview nobody wants to read a fucking book that challenges anything they believe in already yeah and and the easy way to do comedy is just play to what everybody fucking knows already you know and it's it's just not interesting to me it's so fucking boring and you know it just it i don't know i think comics also sit in this in this space of like not knowing no not knowing if we're important or not yeah you know um because in many ways like you look at the comics and you're like oh my god i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know for example and like putting putting out four specials back to back just like railing on trans people for no for no reason as you get this rise in transphobic sentiment um in policy and on the ground just like person to person and like you wonder how much of an influence he has on it and i'm and when that was happening i i was sort of of the mind that like maybe he's influencing that like his work is pushing this forward and i'm like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't this narrative forward and now i'm just like it feels like it's a lot more pathetic to me that like y'all are really just y'all are really just riding the wave of what's already happening yeah you're not even like pushing you're not even pushing the negative part forward you're just riding you're just coasting on on bullshit that's already happening you're truly just trying that hard to have a good set it is yeah yeah because we all know every comic knows when you're thinking you're like yeah i'd like to kill tonight i'd like to do great on my buddy's show if i'm dropping in or i'd like to i'm doing a headlining set the pressure is even harder or bigger more intense that you're like i know i'll write a joke sometimes that i'm like this is not very good but it'll kill yeah you know and and i sometimes i say it and sometimes i don't but like that is the more pathetic thing actually is that when chapelle's doing shit like that he actually does know better and he actually is just that desperate to kill yeah and the sad part about it is he's smarter and better than that like he's not just that desperate to kill yeah and the sad part about it he could kill without it yeah but he's just riding the moment yeah which sucks yeah and it's really sad to like to look at somebody that like i idolize as a kid that was one of my one of my heroes you know um especially in terms of like this legacy of uh of like cosby to prior to murphy to uh paul mooney to him yeah you know it's like he's like one of the six guys that's really significant in terms of like in terms of black comedy and i don't know it's just such a sad thing to watch go down um fully lost my train of thought you were about to fix comedy oh right i was like ready to i'm like ready to support and join in yeah yeah yeah yeah right right right right the the daunting weight of uh intelligence yeah yeah yeah uh the what was the heartbreaking work of staggering genius is what we were about to do together right what's the nicholas cage movie oh yeah um oh the what is that nickel he just did it was a really funny one actually it was like the pressure the immense pressure of the unbearable weight of massive talent thank you yes yes that's what we were in the middle of the unbearable weight of massive talent yeah yeah tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale store and she's like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bj's dot com slash mesquite and save ten cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save yeah um i yeah i i don't know i i i feel like um i can't help but feel that stand-up comedy is not really going to change until we sort of stand-up and art in general is not really going to change until we figure out how to remove the um the like yoke of capital from it um that makes sense like i don't know the the um what i've been trying to do with my specials is like and what i would like to be able to do going forward is like not not not have it not have it be a situation of like here's this piece of art you pay for this um i'd i'd much rather i'd much rather put it put myself in a situation where like hey i gotta i gotta exist the whole time between these things so like if you got a couple dollars you know a month just like throw it my way so that i can not have to stress about rent till the next one yeah you know and um just not be in a position where i'm like where i have to take whatever the fuck comes my way um between now and then and i can really like focus on the thing um i just i don't know i just feel like there has to be um there has to be some type of way to organize this thing economically where you know we're not blowing up on twitter every six months because our heroes went to saudi arabia for for a weekend yeah you know and like or where like everybody's funny until they get rich and then they're not yeah you know um it just feels like it's it's sort of set up in this like pretty predictable boom and bust cycle um just like capitalism where like everybody gets a bag and then they stop being like relatable and then they whine about how nobody thinks they're funny anymore and and then they get canceled and then we and like can't eat anymore because we've attached them being a shitty person to their ability to generate revenue you know um it just it just it feels like it's so it feels like such an obvious like um an obviously flawed model that we refuse to do anything about yeah i there's been there's interesting interesting thing happening lately that's been causing me to think a lot about that is like i there's been this uh like sometimes the lefty like political accounts will clip this show and put it out and be like look the podcasters are talking about this or whatever yeah i'm like go nuts whatever if it helps the cause but they they reclipped something recently about me talking about we turned down ai deals on this show yeah and rock on said it and left it in the episode for a reason but then there's this interesting thing where people are like using it to attack anyone who's ever done an ai deal and i'm like i'm actually not so interested in that i i don't want to be i don't know everyone's finances i don't know everyone's situation yeah i don't know there's so many things i don't know and when i say something like that on this show that i'm like you know we don't do deals with ai or we don't do deals with gambling or whatever the situation is it's not because i think i'm existing ethically under capitalism i'm certainly not yeah i don't none of us get to i still take money from bad places yeah and i'm still involved in the process but i just wish that more people who had the opportunity to think about these things wouldn't just like it's almost like you talk to people in this business and they're like well it's five hundred thousand dollars i couldn't say no and it's like well you could i think you could have because if you're making the kind of money i suspect that you're making i think you easily could have yeah like i think actually i i couldn't say no yeah yeah yeah a lot of people couldn't say no you could have said no yeah yeah that's the thing and then yeah and then it's i yeah i got like uh there was a group of people online who were mad at me about that same thing that they were like that it's the it's the privileged person take to tell people to turn that down and i'm like well no i'm not telling you random twitter user to turn it down i'm saying why shouldn't i if i know that my bills are paid without it yeah i just i don't there's this thing that happens i think where when we're having these conversations about like the the nexus of being an artist and uh trying to be like a somewhat moral like principled person who exists in the world doing that stuff and also uh existing under capitalism the way that we all are trying to figure out how that all melds together i feel like this thing happens where it's like anything you say is supposed to be a prescription for everybody yeah and i'm like no i'm just i just wish we would all ask a little bit more questions is really the only takeaway i have yeah yeah i mean the fact is we all have to contend with capitalism in some way you know um it's like i i have uh i have this show jaded forum that i've been doing for a couple years that is like pretty explicitly um i don't like using the term leftist because people that you know you say that and people think you democrat like you love the democrats that's low-key like my those are your family those are my guys yeah those are my those are my guys fucking barry and joe and them yeah um shout out they're back there yeah yeah that kente cloth on um but yeah for lack of a better phrase like it's uh pretty explicit explicitly leftist show but like uh i don't know like we all have our different jobs and different like um different ways of like existing within capitalism like um you know like some sometimes a guy with a lot of money will show up and like i don't know the term class trader exists for a reason like you gotta just you know if they're gonna give you money no strings attached and you can like get that in writing take that money you know like um i don't know it's just it's like you have to uh you know you have to have you have to be ethical you also have to have the wherewithal to know like when it is and isn't gonna affect you yeah you know yeah um like i don't know if if you're not asking me to like go and like advertise some bullshit or like put this money towards yeah i'm taking give me the money no strings attached money i'm interested yeah if anybody out there has no strings attached money for me give me a call well me me first but yeah but yeah give us both a call give us both a call what uh What is so true to you? Oh, what is so true to you? I think in this era, a lot of people may look at everything that's going on in the world and say humans are looking pretty stupid right now. I think we are too smart for our own good. I think our intelligence is getting in the way of so, so much of what we could achieve just by feeling shit out. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think, I don't know. I think we've existed for thousands of years and sort of like the last few hundred years of it, we just decided, hey, all those instincts and feelings that you have, those are bullshit. Ignore all that. Ignore all that. Science. Yeah. Science. You know, maybe a better way to say this is System of a Down lyrics have started to make a lot more sense to me in my adult life. I was a big fan in middle school and I was just like, and I was just that guy. And as I've gotten older, I realized, oh, they might have actually been on to something. Yeah. They might have actually been saying, except the drummer. He's a weirdo. But like, you know, as a collective. In those types of bands, there's always going to be one guy that you have to go, except for him and his crimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's one guy that just doesn't understand the lyrics of his own group. He was sort of just vibing. He didn't really check in on the meanings or the themes. Yeah. I'm on percussion, man. I don't know what you want from me. I'm not writing this shit. I've got the beat. Does it mean anything else for me or are we good? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I love that. Yeah. That's a great so true. Yeah. It's so funny. The so true, uh, the so true segment, you're one of, you're one of a handful of people who actually had a thought prepared, which is lovely. No, I, no one comes with one. Well, to be fair, I did forget it and then it came back to me briefly and, uh, did I stick the landing in my mind? Yeah, sure. Didn't you? I think he did. Hey, thank you. What's, uh, what's making you excited right now? What are you looking forward to? What's making you happy? Um, you know what? It's really, it's really this, this special and just like hope, hopefully getting it out very soon. I feel like, um, um, just as far as like. Uh, and I, I, I want to stress that I don't, I don't want to make it sound like I think these ideas are so important to the world or whatever, but I feel like as far as it's just like what I want to express as a comic, I feel like it's so, um, just so crucial to what I want to do going forward. And just like, um, I don't know, it kind of feels like the, the first step in the rest of my, uh, artistic life in a, in a. In a very meaningful way for me. So I'm really excited about that. I love that. Yeah. Uh, there's something I know about you that I wanted to ask you about. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's bad. No, you're a big, if I'm not mistaken, you're a big Dragon Ball Z fan. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Now I don't know anything about this and it came up somewhat recently. Was it some Ananias episode? Um, what, how did you get into Dragon Ball Z and what do I need to know and where can I start? If I'm interested? Um, okay. I, I got into Dragon Ball Z because every black man on the planet is into Dragon Ball Z. so so that's kind of how that's kind of how that happens uh so maybe the next life yeah uh yeah no worries genuinely one of the one of very few stereotypes well that i will fully embrace every every black man i i don't think i've met a black man that doesn't have some relationship with drag mosey but um the the access point is uh is toonami which is like the anime block on cartoon network and from like 97 to mid 2000s mid to late 2000s um this is like what brought anime to the u.s um in the first place um or like what brought it to the u.s in a way that wasn't like creepy and orientalist um in the way that a lot of things were a lot of networks sort of presented it it's like what is this mysterious media from the east like you I genuinely they build it like that it's like it's cartoons yeah yeah we have those they just fuck with disney like what i don't know what you want yeah um but yeah that's a that is a that is a good access point there is a um there are there have been a lot of um like adaptations to like sort of slim it down over the years because the original dragon mosey was um like notoriously kind of beefed out padded out yeah uh in a sense um so if you watch dragon ball z kai that's like the the sort of reanimated one with it or not reanimated but they cut out all the filler and all this stuff and like kind of fixed up the dubs and all that do you how do you feel about that do you like the the cut down ones or i think there's a very um something very important to the experience of like really sitting through five episodes of somebody charging up yeah i think that's a really important part of it yeah but i think if you just want to know what people are talking about watch dragon ball z kai yeah um there's also um there's also dragon ball daima is like the new the newest iteration that's like it's kind of just trying to get kids into it um because it's been around for 40 years and that you know they just need an entry point to these characters um i don't know if i would recommend that for an adult i also don't know if i would recommend dragon ball in general for an adult yeah but again if you if you want if you want to be involved in the discourse well it's just come up now in a number of ways that i'm like maybe i need to tap it and i'm feeling like there's a big blind spot well in what in what ways does it come up well people keep telling me they fucking love it and i'm like i gotta fucking get involved i can't have this thing that a bunch of people i know love and i don't know anything about it what right do you have plans of going to peru anytime soon i could okay it's not hey look it's on there's nothing on the calendar right now but i could go to peru should i i mean i'm just i would just check because if you're feeling that in the u.s it's gonna feel way worse in latin america it's just uh latin american anime love is just on a different level so i need to before i go to peru yes i need to get involved in dragon ball z yes um yeah i think i think i would recommend dragon ball z kai if you're really if you if you're really desperate to get involved in dragon ball z dedicated uh the original dragon ball is a little bit shorter yeah um and it's it's based on um uh journey to the west which is like a chinese um novel uh a really old chinese novel um so there's like a there's there's like a another entry point that way just to get just to understand like the the the characters and such and such and dragon ball z itself is it's just like they kind of just stole superman yeah the story of superman yeah yeah hell yeah yeah i feel like you read are you a reader i am i am a reader what okay what are okay this might be too big of a question and feel free if you hate this to tell me to shut up but i am i'm on a big journey right now to get people to tell me like the best books they've ever read are there like three books that you're like you would recommend them to anyone or to me specifically uh-huh that you're like you must read these okay what is your what are your goals in reading fantastic question i there is a girl who uh works at the bookstore fight club there's a girl who works at the bookstore that i go to a lot that's trying to get me more into fiction because i'm historically very like non-fiction essays that's where i live and love yeah i'm trying to get a little more into fiction i do love non-fiction if you've got some good non-fiction recs i want them but if you have a fiction that you think a non-fiction guy like me would love i'm not a non-fiction guy i'm not a non-fiction guy i'm not a non-fiction guy i'm interested okay i also have that problem of uh reading way too much non-fiction nice and i'm also trying to um i'm i've been trying to just like start with um classics in a sense but or just like stuff that just kind of has a hold on like some um pretty broad group of people i guess um so i'm i'm i started lord of the rings recently i really like ursula le guin um okay who is um who's a science fiction writer um the the first book i read of hers was um was the dispossessed which is a really great book about a um there's two there's two planets that are sort of in each other's orbit i don't remember which if one of if one is like a moon of the other or nothing but as far as the story it doesn't matter yeah um but one is sort of like a capitalist like planet like ours and then the other one is like um is basically anarchist and the there is a scientist from this anarchist planet who invents uh this thing called the ansible which is um a device that basically um like cuts the the time for like interplanetary communication to like milliseconds and she has this whole universe of books that are sort of dealing with the implications of that um i'm interested in that it's her name's come up a bunch in my journey yeah by the way she's uh she's great she's sort of like um if you have any like anarchist friends or if you're familiar with the term social ecology a lot of people that sit in those uh worlds bring her up a lot yeah um because she is she's like she's an artist of like what we're talking about somebody who's just sort of like very principled and like um just like really great and expressive and knowledgeable uh speculative fiction writer nice um and then as far as non-fiction uh the dawn of everything yeah i'm like three-fourths of the way through it right now yeah that's a great book fuck it's dense yeah it's it's hefty yeah i'm at school when i'm reading it yeah um it's one of it's one of those and i like it but well since you've heard it is it is also the spiritual successor to a arguably denser and uh arguably definitely denser book called uh ecology of freedom ecology of freedom yes this one i have not heard of this is this one is by murray bookchin who's like an old new york anarchist who actually inspired um the uh leader of the kurdish uh of a kurdish militia in like the border of iraq syria and iran uh to basically drop his whole nationalist like ethnic nationalist program and um and develop a whole theory of like called democratic confederalism in the middle east um and they just like changed up their whole after being at war with the turkish government for like 30 years changed up their whole program is it you know what new thing yeah yeah basically yeah let's go basically oh fuck it new thing new thing yeah yeah okay so ursula uh dawn of everything slash ecology of freedom yes okay is there anything else i have to tap in on um hmm because i'm open there there there absolutely is you're like no there's no other books man those are the ones those are the ones you got them um i guess um i am in i'm in the middle of reading a book by uh that guy who was inspired by murray bookchin who's abdullah erjalan uh this book is called um beyond state power and violence um also really good really good book it's just like um it sort of details the the this juncture of like sort of the start of like written history um starting with like um epic of gilgamesh and all this stuff like these just mythological ethics epics that talk about the the histories of in terms of like these heroic men it basically frames those as like the beginning of a break from early like uh women-centered societies that were sort of like the first sort of centered around that's some look at that timing that's good what a piece of women-centric societies turn it off what a piece of shit turn it off uh michelle will you grab them for me and give us a second thank you um yeah it basically frames like the beginning oh um all these epics and like the beginning of monotheistic religion as a break from um early like women-centered societies that were centered around like um communal living and like and this is what i mean when i say like uh when i say we've gotten too smart for our own good and we're like destroying our own instincts with our intelligence yeah he talks about sort of um the the replacing of um of like our communal instincts with like the need for like concrete science and things like that um and how it sort of basically locked us in like this eternal dialectical conflict with the state being like a cumulative like power-based hierarchical society and this communal-based society that we broke from like 5 000 years ago yeah um also basically what dot of everything is about and what ecology of freedom is about so what it was reminding me of yeah yeah but i have one more segment for you okay and i am going to tap in on these books yes okay true false segment i'm going to read you 15 statements you're going to tell me as quickly as you can if you think what i just said was true or false okay if you get 10 or more correct we're going to give you 50 us dollars this is a big high money game oh my god uh you ready yes water boils at 117 degrees fahrenheit false false 212 there are no amc movie theaters in brooklyn uh true true sudan has most pyramids of any country most pyramids yeah that's true that is true the john thomas karnes family log house is in winston georgia say that one more time the john thomas karnes family log house is in winston georgia i don't know shit about winston aside from my mom lives there so i'm gonna say true true ringo star is not the original drummer for the beatles true true uranus is the sixth planet from the sun uh false false it's the seventh the cricket that lives on king kai's planet is named gregory true true walmart is older than dwayne reed true false damn damn you were on a generational run dude one of emory university's mascots is duly the skeleton true true komodo dragon females can give birth without having mated with a male oh i i feel like because the question is in there it's true true matches malone is an alias clark kent sometimes uses i don't even know and i wrote uh comic books false false bruce wayne a rainbow can only be seen in the morning or late afternoon false true lego is still releasing new bionicle figures oh oh that's a question for my friend mama do uh false false they're discontinued a group of rhinos is called a smash true false a crash there's only one shake shack in alaska true false there are none how do you do 11 that was a good showing dude that was a good showing uh thank you so much for doing it we love you we'd love to have you back anytime we tell people where they can find you uh i am on instagram uh at yedoya underscore uh pretty much everywhere at yedoya underscore twitter uh the threads all this stuff special is going to be on youtube uh my social security number is uh thanks so much for doing it dude thank you for having me it was a good time yeah that was a hate gun podcast daydreaming about fiori's soft dream knit fabric meet the halo essential wide leg pant designed with fiori's softest premium stretch dream knit fabric invest in your happiness with some of the most comfortable clothes on the planet get 20 off your first purchase at fiori.com halo 20 that's v u o r i dot com slash h a l o two zero exclusions apply visit the website for full terms and conditions tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bj's dot com slash mesquite and save ten cents per gallon for six months and soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save does checking your bank statements feel like digging through a dusty attic full of forgotten subscriptions and old free trials experian can help take the pain out of canceling by handling it for you think of it as operation get your sanity back over 200 subscriptions are cancelable so get started in the experian app 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