304 - Dov Davidoff: Vulnerability is Good. (It Can Set You Apart)

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network. Today on the James Altiger Show. Somebody once described art to me as a bouquet of complexity. If you're just doing one thing, it's not as interesting to me. What I liked about Pryor is he would let go of the laugh and go into something that was sad and then ultimately funny, but it was sad. And so that's always where I wanted to go. I think it's that valley where you're going from peaks into the valley to another peak. But that's what life is. What do you mean that's what life is? You're always sad at some point in life, and there are entertainers that go on. It is just about the jokes. It is a disembodied experience for me. And some of them may get an art form. They do it really well and I can enjoy it for a bit. It's just not my voice. My voice has got to acknowledge the f**king loneliness and sadness associated with the reason I had to get the comedy in the first place. Producing an experience that is worth having. And I think that's where you start to border from, let's say, comedy or anything into artistry. Yeah. Because you're creating an experience with the audience. Yeah. And that is unique, an individual. It's like a canvas. You're experience with the audience. Yeah. And that is unique, individual. It's like a canvas you're painting on. And so what does that mean? Because that's gonna be unique to every audience. So I'm so excited to have Dove Davidoff Yes. Comedian, actor, author of the book Road Dog, life and reflections from the road as a stand up comic. Dove, you're also on the show Shades of Blue. Yeah. You're on HBO's Crashing. Yeah. You do real estate. You've been all you've been all over the world as stand up. I wanna describe one story from the first evening we met. We went up to Gotham Comedy Club together. Yes. And Seinfeld had performed right before you. He was the guy Right. Guy on right before you. I mean, we I even saw him leave with, like, his bodyguards, and then you had to go on. Sure. So my first question is, knowing that Steinfeld had just gone on and the audience in their heads, they're just all they're thinking is, I just saw Jerry Seinfeld. I just saw Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. How do you kind of, like, go in as a performer and break their mental, emotional connection with what they just saw? Yeah. If you're a musician and you're following Michael Jackson, that kind of thing, the, it's, I don't know. I don't I don't experience it as that hard. You just try to acknowledge whatever's going on and let it dissipate organically, that energy that that just was brought into the room. It's not that he's so funny that it's challenging to follow him. They're trying to get around their idea. He's an icon. He's an icon. You know, that kind of thing. But they they're having a New York experience. They're having a New York experience. Necessarily. It's an emotional lingering thing, you know. And it's, it's almost like seeing something. It's like there's an elephant in the room. You just acknowledge the elephant, and then you make sure you have your own energy. You don't jump up and try to do material into the wake. The wake is that thing behind the boat. And if you if you just if you follow that boat too closely, so to speak, you're gonna just travel in whatever kind of rut it's left behind it. I don't know if I'm describing this well. But if you separate the moment, give it a little bit of time and space, and then bring your own energy and thing, the rest of it, it'll follow. They'll come around. You know? Yeah. Well, I I think I think the first thing you said was really important, which is that you have to you you said you just have to I don't think it's that simple for people to realize that. That simple. You have you have to acknowledge that Seinfeld was there. Yes. And you did that in in the first few minutes of your act. You were like, oh, did Seinfeld yeah. There was some kind of, some musical stand. It's like a music stand. And, like, did did Seinfeld put his notes here, and you, like, move the stand to the side. Like, almost, like, physically removing his presence from the stage. Yes. So I don't know if that's, like, instinctive or planned or you're That's instinctive. You you work with the tools in front of you. Whatever is there. If he had a stool there, did he sit here and then move the stool? We're we're getting out of the way. Let's let's let's all move on with our lives now, and you're gonna see something just as funny but different. And and then and then you're you start off with, like I wouldn't even call them, like, standard stand up comedy jokes. You just had a lot of energy Yeah. Addressing, you know, current events in a funny way. And then you switched to more kinda standard jokes. You had some Donald Trump stuff. You had you had you had jokes then. Yeah. That was by probably by then, the Seinfeld, Everybody's settled. That energy dissipates. It's like when the music changes. If you're watching I don't know. I I guess if you were watching a band and then another band comes on. There's usually the reason I think an emcee has traditionally been a part of a show is that it creates a a a before and after, a sort of an interstitial. Is that is that a word? It's like if even if there's a good act, regardless of whether or not Seinfeld or anybody else, if there's somebody who was really funny and you you feel that rhythm in the room. Some people don't even like to watch any other comics that have a specific type of rhythm. You can watch how other there are comedians who will adopt that rhythm too closely. There were a bunch of Richard Pryor clones. And there have been clones of lots of people. But, I mean, if if you can you gotta maintain your own voice. And oftentimes, if an emcee brings me up right away after a middle act, if I'm headlining on the road, If the middle act has done really well, I won't just jump up and try to do jokes because it's a different kind of music. You know? So if we just all acknowledge that there's something, that the music, so to speak, is changing, then we can relax into whatever the new voice is, provided that the new voice then comes and brings it. I won't hang around just chit chatting because then the crowd's gonna drift. People are gonna begin talking to one another. I'll do something that will galvanize or draw their attention. And then once people have settled in a bit, I'll do something that is funny. Ideally, it's spontaneous. If it's a joke, that's okay too. So let's say let's say you're you're you're on the road, and and, we're gonna get into a lot of topics, but this this one particular because of the Seinfeld thing intrigued me. Let's say you're on the road. The the you're the headliner. The guy right before you kills it. Like, he's just hilariously funny. Great jokes. How's you in and you like the fact that the energy of the crowd is high, but you still wanna bring your own you don't wanna just, live off of the energy of the last comic. You wanna bring your own. So what would you what would you be thinking as you're approaching the stage? What would you what would you do? Use something, whatever is in front of me to separate that there was a thing that just happened that you guys all experienced, and now that thing is changing. Mhmm. So I might even just get up. Sometimes there's a musical interlude when you go and work the village underground, the comedy cellar. There's a they have really good musicians that play the acts up. And then there's a point during the show where they just play music for a couple of minutes. And the music's really good, and it's catchy. And then if you have to get up and follow that right away, just acknowledge the idea. Like, sometimes I'll just say I'd rather be listening to that music right now than having to do stand up. And people laugh because there's a certain tension there. There are a couple of giggles. There's a little bit of tension, but then it dissipates, and it creates space between the music and the rhythm that everybody was experiencing and what it's going to transition into. And without that, you're just trying to match the energy of a thing that existed before you. And it never works for whoever's on. You know, it's like And it especially doesn't work There are people for whom it might work if it's a really high energy act that's really physical. But if you have your own kind of voice, you you need to separate what they just experienced, whether it's a musical act that I've followed bands, or it's Seinfeld, or just another funny dude. Well, okay. Now let's let's take it to another thing. You know, when you say you're auditioning for a part in a TV show or a movie Yeah. You wanna break the energy of whatever happened between the guy who auditioned right before you and you. How do you know that? Kind of broken in that scenario. The door is closed. They know someone else is coming in. It's not an audience that's really operating on some emotional level. You might walk in, say hi. There's usually some introductory kind of thing that goes on when you walk in. That's done for you for the most part. The stage can be tricky because you have to have the confidence to let that energy go. You you almost have to throw a wet blanket on it. You know? They're all they're sometimes How do you do that? Well, for instance, the MC will go, hey. Yeah. And they're whipping the crowd into a frenzy, and the music is up, and then you jump up. My voice is to start out slow. I I wanna bring people down so that we can go up from there. I don't wanna start up so that I have to match some inorganic pitch. That's interesting because most, I would I I you can't say most, but a lot of comics take the reverse approach where they just go out and say, you know, yeah, everybody. Keep it up. And they want the energy to keep going. Yeah. I don't. And and and, Although you are a high energy comic. I will get into energy, but it's gotta be organic. I'm not gonna try to match oftentimes, like, Arty, he's a he's a black MC. He he comes from those rooms. Arty Fuqua? Arty Fuqua. He'll come up, and he does it. He's a lot of energy upfront, and that's fine. It's good for the crowd, but it doesn't help me. And so I I it helps bring the show together and get the crowd back involved. But then it's my job to sort of, it's almost like, I've said this before. I've heard Chris Rock say it. I had never heard him say it before I said it, but I just said lower your expectations initially. Because you can't match that. There's no we haven't we haven't gotten to know one another yet in the crowd. Right? The audience is there. And a few of them may know me, but a lot of them don't. And even if they did, like, I'm gonna start up by at some point, I wanna talk to people. I don't wanna match energy. And, and so you just gotta create space that you can have your own experience. You know? And it's otherwise, it doesn't serve what I'm trying to do. It just doesn't work to jump on for me. There are maybe there are people that do, but usually, I find it's not. I've followed everybody, You know, whether it's Chris Rock or Seinfeld. I I I don't think twice about it. It doesn't bother me to follow anybody in the world. But Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you I'm gonna ask you more about this, but I wanna I wanna get to the book. We've known each other somewhat for for a while and and but I learned about you from a lot about you in the book. You grew up, in a your parents, I guess, divorced early on. I'll explain it real quick. Yeah. My father was an uneducated Jewish business guy from the Bronx. My mother was a, hippie WASP analyst, kind of intellectual from, California. Totally different. Yeah. Polar opposites. And she was on her way to India to teach piano when she stopped off to meet her friend who was this, lesbian woman who owned a monkey. And they were She owned a monkey? Yeah, monkey. So the monkey owner was renting this s**tty little house from my father in a rural part of Jersey. Anyway, that's how they met. And Oh, and my mother was wrapped up on a commune, and my father ran a junkyard. Right. So you kinda half grew up, like, on a junkyard. No. 95% on a junkyard and then 5% as as as as a relative part of my mother's cult. I would go to the place where they built earth integrated housing. My mother spent a lot of her money on freeze dried food awaiting the inevitable nuclear apocalypse. And so the hard part probably wouldn't even have been the cult life. That makes sense if you're in it. If you're in it, you believe that s**t, and everybody else you know is in it and believes that stuff. You can ride with that for a while. The problem was the dissonance. The problem was growing up around oftentimes violent, working class kids in Jersey, in a junkyard. I don't exaggerate when I say, like, that junkyard isn't a euphemism. It was a literal junkyard. I feel like the only example of a junkyard I could think of, of course, is Sanford and Son, the the TV show in the seventies. Yeah. Junkyard. Right. What does it even mean? Like, what is it A few acres of crushed cars, metal parts, you'd be in the metal shipping business. You'd clean radiators to get the the, the you'd try to get as much aluminum as you could because aluminum was worth more than steel. And so you I buy a car from you, or you drop it off. You got a piece of junk. You don't want it at your house. You say, can you come get this out of my front yard? And I come in. And these are the demographic you work with. It's often poor people, people that work on their own motors. So there's a lot of, when you work, somebody once asked this, Dick Gregory, I think why, why he cursed so much in his act. And he said, Because my life has been profane. And it's kind of, it's a profane environment. It's it's, the survivors in the junkyard. Plus kind of how the other kids were treating you as the kid who grew up at a junkyard. And so it's almost like, and and you describe it in this in in the book, like, comedy almost becomes this self defense mechanism Yeah. To to sort of deal with all the situation, deal with your your dad who was somewhat, for whatever reason. My father was banging guys, and my and but my mother knew about it. And he didn't seem gay, and I never I mean, gay was not even, you know, in the air at that time. Like, that was not okay. You know? You were not in the village. And you wouldn't expect that even though this is a stereotype, you wouldn't expect a a kind of, almost gangsterish sounding Yeah. Junkyard owning Yeah. Jewish guy Right. Right. To Yeah. Be be have that other lifestyle. Well, that's why it was all so f**king odd. 2 kids. All so odd. Yeah. That's what makes it genuinely kind of odd. You know? Everybody thinks their situation was odd. This was this was really very odd. Well well, it gets it gets even more odd. Your your mom obviously was in this cult. But then, sadly, I know I was bringing it up. Your dad you bring it up in the book. Your dad died of AIDS. Yes. When did he die of AIDS? He died of AIDS when he died. I don't know when he got it. He hid it for a long time and then told me that, that that, you know, I was pressing him. He was complaining complaining about s**t. You know? His back, his f**king head or whatever. And, and so finally he said, listen. The doctor told me 2 years ago that I had about 2 years to live, but that was 2 years ago when he left. And then he finally, you know, he said, I'm dying, but, you know, don't tell anybody. You can't tell your mother. You can't tell your brother. And, Why do you wanna tell your brother? He didn't wanna distract him, and I and I was You wanted to distract you? Well, I was more confrontational about what are you complaining about all the time. You know? And my my brother was away at school. My brother was living in Rhode Island at the time. That's what it was. And so I was back and forth from the East Village. I lived in the Lower East Side since I was about 17. And so, yeah. Yeah. It was very, strange. I don't know. I mean, how did you how did you feel once you once you heard that he had AIDS? Was that the Well, it wasn't AIDS. He just said he was dying. He wasn't he he didn't get into it, and I wasn't gonna push. I could tell it was uncomfortable. And they weren't clear. Nobody dies of AIDS. They die of a manifestation of AIDS. So then you put the when my mother met my father, he was banging, he he had f**ked guys or something. And she knew it, but her big problem with him was that he ate too much sugar and that he was angry, you know? And she never really identified the not being fully heterosexual as a potential problem in the relationship like a f**king wacko. You know? And, that kind of thing. Yeah. It was odd. And and did when he said he was dying, did you know he was gay? No. No. I I I didn't know. And, also, I didn't ask. You know, my mother had mentioned something. I didn't I I was I was a real, a sort of a street ish Jersey. You know, that point in my life, I was around a relatively rough crew. And so, that's not something that I would have wanted to confront. And he was never open with any of that. But but, you know, having communicated with my mother, you knew what was going on in the background. And it wasn't the kind of environment, of course, where you could be openly gay. He was the boss of it was a rough environment. So And and, you know, once once you did fully find out and accept, was it Yeah. Before he died? Was it after he died? Well, no. No. It no. He he died before, he died. I never really accepted it. Or I don't know. I mean, we could do another hour on what acceptance means, but I I I just understood. I just accepted the idea that I love him regardless and that he did what he did, and he is who he is. And, When you say when you say you love him regardless Yeah. Of course Yeah. You know, if you love someone, it doesn't matter, straight, gay, whatever. But, also, in many ways, he was kind of emotionally abusive to you as well, at least as it's described in the book. I mean, sometimes you're saying it sort of humorously, but the humor, of course, is a way of, telling the truth in a broad sort of way. Yeah. You know, you would say he was always yelling at you, but that was his way of communicating. Right. Yeah. That's how he communicated. And and, that's how his people, his parents commune I mean, his father. He didn't really have a mother. And, yeah, it was it was in that kind of environment, though, it never felt like abuse. You know why? Because well, But sometimes, you know, there's Stockholm Syndrome. Like, sometimes the person subject to abuse, doesn't recognize. Right. Just recognize that and even ends up loving the person abusing them. Absolutely. It's a bit yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I would compare it more like, Sebastian Junger wrote that book Tribal, and he talks about PTSD rates in Israel relative to the United States. And the returning GIs in the States report PTSD symptoms at a vastly higher rate than the people that have seen conflict. The GIs over in Israel. And they've seen more conflict as a percentage of the population. But because everybody was in the military at one point or another in Israel, the PTSD arguably isn't necessarily created by the bomb that goes off as much as it is by the inability to communicate your experience when you come home. And that you're left alone with that experience when you return to the United States. You're around a bunch of other people that probably haven't been to Iraq. So, yeah, I mean, the whole environment yelled at everybody. And so I never experienced it necessarily as that. What did that do on a subconscious level? I'm not aware of that. Certainly, I now have trouble communicating with my wife because I can be overly directed, overly assertive, you know, because it's like prison. You know, it's like That's kind of funny. Well, the idea that I'm saying, yeah, I remember this guy got stabbed in a documentary. He was stabbed over a, can of soda. And the interviewer said, you stabbed that guy over a can of soda? He said, it's not over the soda. If I allow him to take that from me without reprisal, he'll take something from me every day. And so, when you grow up in that kind of environment that I did, I'm sort of I mean, not so much now. I'm 44 years old. But but back in the day, it could get pretty violent pretty quick because I had to let people know that that you weren't gonna take advantage of me. You know? You can either sort of retreat, or you almost become a kind of, not so much the aggressor. I I I never f**ked with people. I was always sensitive like that. But, Well, maybe a way you you fought was by developing this sense of humor in this comedy. I mean, you you mentioned instances in school where your sense of humor just comes out. Yes. I didn't know what it was. Yeah. Right. And you didn't know whether you were being sensitive or insensitive. You were just being funny. And that became, like, this defense mechanism. Yes. And and I wonder if I mean, I mean, Jerry Seinfeld, just to use him as an example, again, he always says he didn't really have a troubled background. He had a very loving middle class family. That's right. And, but you often hear from comedians that their comedy really comes from this deep source of conflict from childhood and soul. That's why I never connected with Seinfeld. You know? I mean, his material, I can acknowledge that it's very funny. It's not the thing that I would probably turn on for an hour. Although, I don't watch much stand up or turn it on. But when Pryor talked about growing up in a w***ehouse and those experiences, for me, they were much more resonant than Seinfeld. You know? Well, Pryor is interesting, and I'm gonna compare that to, so to HBO's TV show Crashing. Yeah. So you're on Crashing. It's produced by Judd Apatow starring Pete Holmes, but you play pretty significant role on it. Yeah. And, Prior was kind of your your standard, run of the mill. I don't know what this even means. Sixties comedian. And then suddenly, he started He was doing Cosby until he found himself. Right. And even Cosby was doing pre Cosby until he found his voice. And and and, yeah, Pryor suddenly set started telling the truth. He started dressing how he would dress and talking about the w***ehouse and talking about, the condition of, you know, black people. And and and and he became the best comedian of, arguably, all time. And I on Crashing, there's this great scene, which I really think is the the pivotal scene of the series where peep so you're running, a comedy club. Yeah. You're playing a comedy club owner, which is, for anyone who wants to know Crashing Trivia, is the the grizzly pear in in, the village. And, and by the way, I performed there. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So, and, Pete Holmes is is sort of working for you. He's a barker. He's handing out That's right. Pamphlets. Hey. Check out his comedy club. And then in exchange, he gets a few minutes of time. That's right. And his parents come and visit one time. Right. And he tells kind of, like the show is kind of his arc as a growing comedian, and it shows him telling his sort of kind of plain vanilla jokes that are, okay. They're jokes. Yeah. And his his mom his parents don't really laugh, but his mom and then you go on, and you tell the crudest, most insane Yeah. Right. Jokes. And, of course, it's all scripted then, but I feel it really is you're playing yourself. Like, you're I I've seen you do stand up. Yeah. I I feel like that was your your stand up. And the the mom says you know, Pete Holmes' mom says to him, you know, like, Pete says, why did you like him? He was so crude and not me. I'm I'm paraphrasing. I was like, wow. Right. And, the mom says, well, you were just telling these jokes, and he's really he's really having problems. And I I don't remember the exact I know the episode. Yeah. Yeah. And and he he's he's having problems and kinda showing it through his conversation. She she had her own way of saying, he's telling the truth, and that's what I'm saying. Like, his despair is, like, coming off of him. Right. Right. Which is the way I've also heard Louis CK described as opposed to Seinfeld. Like, his is just sort of coming off of him. Yeah. And that's what I really get from your comedy. And so I think I think that does separate out, as it's explained in crashing, the professional from the amateur who's sort of rising up. Yeah. Maybe. Well, certainly, some people call it a voice. Right? And I think what you're describing is a voice becomes integrated when you found some angle or perspective that feels organic to you, right? So Louis' talking about his kids and he's not doing, he's not trying to parrot, an observational comic. If he has an observation, he'll make it funny, but like when Seinfeld, when, Pryor starts talking about having grown up in a in a w***ehouse, yeah, you experience that as as a part of, his real or unique perspective, what am I trying to say? The idea is, you can have a guy that talks about their pain and growing up in the hood and whatever it was, and they can still be hack really, really hacky. It's about the way you do it, you know. There are plenty of acts. I've worked, you know, any number of rooms. Somebody that's talking about whatever it is. If it's in the hood, they call it the chitlin circuit. Black guys will work around these these often these black rooms. And, you can tell sometimes there's just hacky and not hacky, even if they're being honest about What does it mean hacky? Because I've I've heard the phrase, but I wanna know how you define hacky versus not hacky. Like, let's take an extreme. Knock knock jokes is not told are not told by stand up comedians on the stage. But nobody tells them. Right? So that that would be beyond hack. That would be something else. Hacky is doing very derivative stuff. It's like, there is a script. It's almost like a rapper that gets up and without putting his own spin on something, he's just like, it's another line about cocaine and, you know, violence and like you're a f**king hack after a while. If you don't do your own experience of that or put your own spin on it in some way, every it's just so derivative. But but but but look. This is always interesting to me because this comes up in in every part of life, really. So let's say Every part of life. You're happy. Let's say you're going into a Yes. A a sales meeting, and and Yeah. I mentioned before, you also do real estate. You've been in, obviously, many business meetings Yeah. Or any context. If you're scared beforehand, people often give this advice, oh, just be you. But that's not that easy to do. No. No. That doesn't even really mean anything. Be authentic. That doesn't really mean anything. No. So so what do you mean? And and and it really comes through in your comedy that somehow you are being you, but what does that mean? Like, how do you cultivate that voice? Those are big questions. How do you cultivate that voice just by doing it enough? And then when you have enough confidence to not get a laugh, which is hard That is hard. Yeah. You're going up there to get people to laugh. And often, you're saying what you want, but people won't laugh. Yeah. It's the paradox. Like, you gotta be okay with, failing a little bit to find a richer vein, so to speak. You know, it's like you gotta the gold, the good stuff is in really specific things that can at first be challenging to communicate. The reason why Seinfeld's stuff is is good comedy is because, I think he's taken that observational thing that he does. 1, he's the first guy to really get known with that style, so to speak. He identified his own voice, and he's very good at the minutiae and describing it. And that's really a lot of what he thinks about, I would imagine. I mean, I I don't I don't know him personally, but I know people that do. You know, it's like, and so it's honest to him, you know? If I talked about that, it would be a hacky version of what he's doing. Whereas for me, comedy was more about reconciling my strange existence. So, I have to so I would be more drawn to somebody like Louis' material. Or, you know, it's like and also Seinfeld, you know, my childhood had more violence and more profanity. And it was a much more difficult place to be than Jerry Seinfeld's childhood. It's funny though, because you don't you don't, for instance I'm sure you have a lot of great funny stories about growing up, but you don't necessarily tell those in your stand alone. I don't have many. They all are so sad to me at times on level. Well, not funny. They're stories, but they're not necessarily I mean, you tell the stories, and you're both so sad. Some of them ironic. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to write more from that place, but I haven't identified many. I'm doing some material now about my father and you know, s**t about couples therapy. I mean, anything can be funny if told. Right? But I don't have a ton of I don't think I've ever mentioned I I don't have a joke about the junkyard. I don't have a joke about my grandfather, and these were deeply funny places and people. But Why do you think why do you think just and, again, in this search for authenticity, it doesn't necessarily mean take yesterday and talk about it today in a funny way. Right. It it sort of means what's going on even at a deeper level inside of you. Like, right now, everything that happened to you when you were 13 at the junkyard Yeah. Kind of comes out in this, you know, this happens in the book, and I've also seen it in your stand up. Let's say in this kind of weird I don't wanna say use the word anger, but, like, you have a lot of, tension with your wife. Oh, yeah. I I remember seeing you doing stand up. You're, like, trashing her on stage, and she's just standing right there Yeah. Laughing like she realized it's a joke. It's, like, coming up. True. Yeah. You know? And and I don't think of it as trashing. I think of it as telling the truth, and that truth may may or may not be a little bit challenging to hear. But if I'm being honest, then then then that's the truth. And what happens after that, you know, the other person's gonna have to live with. I mean, I'm not going to set out to embarrass anybody. But if it's the kind of truth that is genuinely funny. Like, that's the bar in all this s**t. Right? So, you can't talk about rape. You can't talk about the base. You can't, you know, talk about race from the perspective of, you know, it's like you can talk about anything. You can talk about anything if you can make it funny. And if you can make it funny, it means when I say funny, if it's thoughtful, you if you're approaching it from a number of angles. If I want to make fun of black culture, I'm not really allowed to do that unless I approach it from a more of a 3 60 type of perspective. You know? It's like if it's clear that I'm not looking to attack somebody, then I can if I'm not, you know, if I'm not looking to impugn somebody's character, then I can talk about my experiences, whether or not they may be a bit a bit, I don't know, difficult to hear or something like that. When I talk about my mother, I call it right war, wrong battle. The idea that she married this guy who's f**king guys in this strange environment, but her problem with my father was that he ate too much sugar. It's a paradox that though it may be painful for her to hear on some level, it I I can't not talk about it. Right. Because it seems like It's f**king crazy. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. I hope you enjoy what I've been doing. I don't ask for a lot, but please take a moment to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you get your podcast. It will only take you a second, but it will help other people discover the podcast. And my goal is to share this great content with as many people as possible. To see the show notes, just head on over to jamesaltitude.com/podcast. While you are there, you can join my free insider's list to get notified when I post a new podcast. Once again, thanks so much for joining me on the journey of this podcast. You make jokes about what bothers you. And so that bothers you that there's this dissonance between the reality and how she approached it. And my guess is you've you've probably tried to confront her on it at some point, and there's been some kind of either denial or whatever. Oh, no. No. There hasn't been a denial. And I have confronted her. And she laughs at it because it's her truth. And, I had a therapist that said, listen. You guys are never gonna you see the world so differently. You must alter your ex expectation, or you're always gonna be met with some sadness or or disconnect. Right. So you alter your expectation Yeah. Of how your mother could could think and feel. Yeah. Like, you're able to take it out on stage. Yeah. This is what bothers you. Yeah. And I see the same thing that you do with your wife, both in the book Yeah. And on the stage. It's a reconciliation. It's a cathartic. Right. Like, you're kinda bringing together how how what you think is rational with what they are doing as irrational, but you can't explain it to them. Yes. And you and you make a joke out of it. Yeah. And the audience agrees with me. They're both irrational. But but I would say watching you is that, is that maybe you're angrier than you think you are. Maybe. Yeah. Like like Maybe. You know? Because because, you know, obviously, nobody knows what what is going on between the sheets no matter what you read in a book or what I hear from you guys. But, it's not always the case that she's got this mental problem. No. It's not. And I'm I'm in this f**king couple's therapy. That part is that's where some of my best recent material has come from, all of these iMessage stuff, the the interpersonal kind of styles we lapse into. And it's so challenging to to get out of them or to see them from the inside. And, yeah. And I'm learning to access more of the the sadness and the fear that I have associated with, my own core insecurities. Like, you learn growing up in the environment I did, you learn to mask them really, really well. It's a lot like jail. You know, you don't you can't show that you feel things because that would be taken advantage of. And so through I'm learning to show more of that. And I have to because if I don't, my the art form won't evolve, and that would be very sad. What do you mean the art form won't evolve? Because to bring the whole truth, you have to be able to explore your own fragility, your own sadness, your own otherwise then otherwise, you're just an entertainer. You're just a guy that can go up and make people laugh, but that's never what I wanted to do, you know? Like, that's yeah. It's like, if you can get into your own sadness and vulnerability, especially for me, that because it's a hard place to go. If your reflexive thing is to Dan Adam is one of my favorite comedians. If your reflexive thing is to talk about your fragility, if that's what you're comfortable talking about. You know, Woody Allen makes fun of himself. It's that whole, you know, nebbishy kinda But for me, it's challenging because I wasn't not like that at all. So for me to communicate a kind of vulnerability is, it makes it more whole. It makes it more human. Somebody once described art to me as a bouquet of complexity. And, you know, if you're just doing one thing, it's not as interesting to me. But if it's complex what I liked about Pryor is he would let go of the laugh and go into something that was sad, and then ultimately funny, but it was sad. And, you know, and so that that's always where I wanted to go. I I think I think it's that it's that valley where you're going from peak into the valley to another peak. But that's what life is. Yeah. So so so okay. What do you mean best what life is? Well, because you're always sad at some point in life. And then, I mean, those highs and lows. Whereas a real there are entertainers that go on, and it's just about the jokes. It is a disembodied experience for me. And some of them make it an art form. And it's really they do it really well, and I can enjoy it for a bit. It's just not my voice. My voice has got to acknowledge the f**king loneliness and sadness associated with the reason I had to get into comedy in the 1st place. So it's like, you know, you do you write from where you write from. Like, you try to identify some, whatever your soul, whatever the f**k that word means, you know, has got to otherwise, how do you create art? You know? I mean, you you you're trying to like like, yeah. I I don't know. Yeah. That's that's that's the thing. And and I think, again, that that Otherwise, you're doing it for money, and that's okay too. You know? But, there's gotta be something something else. You know? I I used to work on Wall Street when I was 20 years old. If I wanted to just do something for money, there's a much cleaner path to money than stand up comedy. Yeah. That that's definitely for sure. Yeah. And but but you have actually kind of, you know, taken stand up comedy and, as you should, explore all the outlets of where it could take you. So for instance Yes. You're a regular on Shades of Blue. Yeah. I play on a drama, which is very rare for a comedian to be able to to to book a part on a primetime drama, a real drama with, you know, movie stars and all that, with Jennifer and and Ray Liotta and those guys. Like, there are lots of people that on Broadway, I had to beat out lots of guys from The Sopranos, lots of Broadway people. It's like, And how do you how do you beat them out? Like, I used to take a ton of action. Audition. Yeah. But I'm good at it. Because I'm good at acting. What what's the skill of acting? I don't know. I don't know what's the skill is. There. Oh, there's absolutely a skill. Most of it is you have to listen. I mean, if you want to do it well, you have to know why you're talking. What you want from the other person. And then you have to listen intently. Because that will determine whether or not you're plastic or not. If you're really listening and really feeling, as opposed to trying to hit some punch line or doing your own idea of how that character would look in that way, in that scene, it's just gonna you're not gonna sell. You're not gonna sell it. It's the one thing the human animal really is good at is is sort of picking up on what is genuine, what isn't. So if something's a bad performance, people can feel that. You know, and it's like, so good acting is, I don't know. It's a f**king broad, broad question. You know, James Lipton. What what would he say? You know, the actor studio guy? That f**king that puff, whatever he is. But, yeah. I mean, it's just hard. The what I like that I I had done is that if you're not really famous as a stand up, it's particularly challenging to go and get a dramatic part on a in a movie or a television show, because a lot of stand ups just aren't very good at it. But the ones that are, I think, have real trouble with the crossover. You know? There aren't many examples, I don't think. Right? Well, I'm thinking, well, Jerry Seinfeld and Seinfeld, and Larry David and Cobra Your Enthusiasm. But they're playing in comedy. Right. Okay. So let's say Dan Soder in Billions. Yeah. That's not a real drama. You'd have to be more substantial role. You'll find there aren't many. There's improv guys like Steve Carell. Movie star before they gave him anything serious. If you have to be really famous before you got the serious thing, it doesn't mean you're not good. You can be brilliant. Steve Carell's brilliant at drama. But you didn't go in and win the part when you weren't. Right. You know what I mean? Like, Jim Carrey's done drama. But he was Jim Carrey before anybody let him near a, a in a dramatic scenario. You know? I guess I wouldn't know, though, who was a dramatic actor. If they if they started off as a dramatic actor but they were a stand up right before then, I wouldn't know because I would know them as a dramatic actor. Or or you would have heard that some stand up like, Judah Friedlander's had a couple of part. Like, sometimes you hear that they were stand ups, and then they were doing this other thing that wasn't comedic. You know? Like, oh, the guy that was a stand up in he plays a cop, you know, on CSO. Like Belzer, somebody like that. Every now and then, there are you know, it's just anyway, I don't know that it's an important point as much as it is. I like to explore other things. My dream has never been just, you know, 100% stand up. Any one thing. I mean, stand up is the thing that is more self deterministic. So in the entertainment business, the idea of doing something as an actor is you're a part of a number of pieces. You're a cog, so to speak. And the only thing you have control over is your performance. If you're an auteur, like Louis, if you're gonna write it and shoot it and perform it, that's more attractive to me. But I don't love writing things. And I'm not I don't have that kind of talent where I want to, you know, work on screenplays and really break stories. And I've done my own show several times. I mean, I've had development deals, and I've worked with really real quality, well known show runners. But, I don't, I don't love, you know, I like acting, and I like stand up because it's more self deterministic. But the process in Los Angeles of going out, developing an idea, pitching that idea to a network executive, then the network executive tells you whether or not they're gonna buy your pitch. Meaning, they'll pay you to write that thing. So now you get x amount of money to write it if your pitch was successful. And then, they they give you notes, and then you rewrite it. And then that process goes on for sometimes 6 months, sometimes more. And then they'll determine whether or not they wanna shoot the script that they've bought. If they don't, it's gone at that point. And if they do, then you shoot a pilot. Then you wait for that pilot for the network to determine whether or not they wanna pick it up. And then if they pick up that pilot, meaning they'll order an episode order. They'll order 8, 10, 12 episode. Then if they order it, the chances are you're not gonna make it to the 2nd season. I don't care about those odds. I believe in myself. I'm not worried about the odds. I just know that unless you love that process, the likelihood of that show becoming successful is so thin. And then even if it does become successful, the likelihood that it had, you know, that they couldn't have replaced almost any actor is, you know, they replace people all the time. And you don't have control over any of this. Whereas the stand up, you do. It's just you. It's your voice. I wrote everything that I said, You know? I performed it. I wrote it. I you know? Stand up seems like such a pure art form in the sense that you're on there on the stage. You're sort of naked on the stage there. And It's the purest. And it's and it's visceral in that people are either gonna laugh or they're not. They're not gonna kinda, like, There's no cut. There's no edit. There's no we're gonna do this again. And there's no listening politely and then telling you later, oh, you're good. Yeah. Nobody gives a f**k. No. Yeah. So so so it seems like a a real pure art form in that sense, and it's incredibly difficult skill to to build up. Like, how long have you been doing it? Oh, a long time. First time I did it, I was 21 and 44. So the I for 23 years, though, less diligently early on, I mean, I was on a TV show in Los Angeles early on, and, I was doing a show with Jeff Goldblum. And, I played a cop again. And then, You play cops a lot. I cop for a criminal or somebody from the wrong side of the tracks, you know? I mean, if you want somebody that seems like, you know, they run a sort of the sales side of a, you know, high end golfing resort or something, you know, it's not gonna be me you're gonna choose. So, yeah. But it's, yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, although the cop I play on Shades of Blue, he's like at least he he was a Rhodes scholar, then then got back into being a cop for this other reason. So I got to play with you. He's a smart guy. But, yeah, it it, Well, let's how did you get involved with, Crashing? Because Crashing's produced by Judd Apatow and who's who's basically one of the the best kind of comic artist creatives out there. Yeah. Judd has really identified his voice. He's that voice. He's that guy. Although it seems like he's he has his his voice is expanding. Like, crashing's different than the 40 year old virgin. You know, he has this whole kind of no? You don't think? Fundamentally, no. It's it's a real super vulnerable guy who can't go out into the world and do certain things. And, even in comedian, he took that guy and just made him rich and famous and the loneliness associated with that. But it's usually he's tracking a really vulnerable, not physical, kind of psychology, I think, right? -For instance, geeks. I guess that's right. And then and then there's a buddy aspect to his movies. He's not doing Scorsese material. Right. He's doing a specific type of guy. But There's a buddy aspect to his movies. But I guess in Crashing, the the buddy aspect happens kind of almost episode by episode. There's Artie Lange, and there's TJ Miller and Sarah Silverman. You to an extent Yeah. That's more of a conflict relationship, but you still sort of have mutual respect for each other. So how did you did he approach you? Like, that's a pretty big deal. I met you know, I know Judd from the clubs, but I don't, I went in and auditioned for the role. Initially, I I didn't I didn't even want the audition because it was just so broad. It was, like, it was too when I got the audition, it was we're seeing all ethnicities, all peoples. It's like, oh, there's a 100 people going out for this this role. And, I don't know. I forget what it was. But anyway, I ended up going in. I made the the the hike to Greenpoint to go, you know, and then I just I went in and read with Pete, and I stood up, and I worked it out, and they said, Yeah, that's the guy. Yeah, because I knew that guy. I mean, I knew who my idea of that guy was, and I thought I could, you know, I could could do the right thing by that guy. And and, how do you see so so working on the show and working with guys like Judd and and Lee, but but I'm thinking particularly Judd here. How do you see how does someone like that bring out the best in you as a as a They just let you do your thing. You know? The parameters are looser. Right? So on a drama, it's more specific. So, you know, it's more traditional kind of screen acting in that you have to the logistics are very important. Right? So you have a mark that your line has to land on a certain mark. If there's an action, if you're turning, you're drinking a glass of water. You have to know when you drank that water. And there's continuity in what Judd's doing as well. It's just there's more space to play. And so a lot of that stuff comes in you improv a lot. You do alts, ALT alts. So you'll run the scene, and then there'll be a part of it that you land on. And then you'll pitch your own stuff. They let you play with your own ideas. So if I have a line you know, there's one scene where I yell, I'm angry with this couple walking on the sidewalk. And I yell, I hope you have to I hope you 2 have kids, and you have to deal with all of the associated responsibilities, something like that, as an insult. That was just something I yelled while I'm running while they're running away on the sidewalk. And they kept it because it worked. So that's what he does. There's a lot of spontaneity in what he does, which makes it different from other things, you know. And you're coming back on the next season? I would imagine. You know, I just did a panel in New York, a panel with Pete about all that stuff. And so I've been on the first two seasons. So I would imagine if it's still set in the village and all. But, you know, they'll they'll just let you know. Started airing it. I don't know. They haven't even started airing the 2nd season yet. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I I don't know what they're doing with the 3rd, and I don't know that they've been ordered for a 3rd. I imagine though, like well, I guess everybody no matter how one thing that always astonishes me with TV is no matter how much success and no matter how high you are Yeah. Nobody cares. Yeah. You can always get canceled at the last point. No. No. No. This whole star bulls**t. This is why perception is so much different from reality. If you were running business model comparisons, you know, it's like and I've worked with I don't wanna name them, but, I don't know. You know, we're trying to finance a movie with Renee Zellweger. You know, like some people that were were big stars at certain points. So a star, 1, how are we defining it? Right? Is it is it just somebody who's really talented? Is it somebody who can sell tickets? Because if you're a movie star, meaning your name can really influence whether or not a film gets made, a film with a very substantial budget, there's about 7 movie stars on the planet. You know? It's like and then when those you know, it's I don't know. I mean, it's a start isn't a thing, almost. It's like Particularly in today's world where I think Yeah. There's so many. I mean, now with with 8,000 channels and Yeah. All these different things. So everybody's got their own favorite little niche, and and they kinda stick in that in that ghetto. Yes. You can move more tickets on the road in terms of Livegate than you can, with a podcast than you can with the average role on a television show. You know, if you're Seinfeld of Seinfeld and it catches fire, that's a different story. But in general, yeah, it's the personal connection. And so now the marketing scenario is to be more specific as opposed to more broad. For a while, you know, the television it's I think the rise of in cable, whether it's subscription or viewership, has correlated with the rise of Like, Louie runs a very specific His name is brought up a lot because he's a very influential figure in comedy now. But it's a relatively small viewership in terms of the show. Right? It's a groundbreaking show. But How many viewers does the show have? I don't know. I remember a showrunner telling me it's it was in the neighborhood of 700,000 then when we were talking about it. I I don't know. Still. That was, like, 5 years ago. It was the last season of it. Exactly. -Exactly. I rewatch the series quite a bit, but it's actually been a long time since there's been a season. -It has. It has. And it was never a it was never a CBS, NBC. You know, Seinfeld was gonna get pulled, too. I mean, Seinfeld, for the first season, I mean, in today's environment, in terms of today's business model, you know, Seinfeld would've been yanked in the first season. Yeah. And you mentioned Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow's first TV show. That didn't even, last the entire season. I think there was just 12 episodes ordered. I think they ran 11. Right. That's like the show I was on on NBC where I yeah. Yeah. With Jeff Goldblum. They ordered 12, and we shot 9, something like that. So so they'll yank it anytime. They'll yank it in the middle of the season. Every star name, what whatever that means in today's context, has been has had their show canceled. Most if you think of most big, this is funny, working with, Bruce Helford who, created, what did he call it? It was the he created the George Lopez show. He ran. He was the showrunner on Roseanne when it was really, really hot. And he said, it's, almost never are you able to come back and make another hit. So think of any television star, and whether or not they've all had their own development deal after that show went off the air. Everybody from Seinfeld, everybody would that she's an example of an exception, the Louise Dreyfus from Seinfeld. Although she had several before Veep Yes. Was a hit. Several canceled. Several canceled Yeah. Shows. Right. And, and even Georgia and you're talking about the most famous show of all time with the exception of a few other enormous shows. Right? So outside of the psychologist character on Cheers, -Yeah, Frasier. -Everybody, every actor that you've ever seen on it, from the people from Friends, the people from whatever big show, They've it's almost never have another hit again. There's almost never another star in that capacity. They don't recreate that ever, with very, very few exceptions. And so that's the environment we're dealing with. And so Although it's interesting because I guess in movies, that's not always the case. Like, take a guy like Robert De Niro, where his just raw talent shines Reinvent yourself. Your book. He's reinvented him. I mean, he's been able to ride that, you know And actually, he's a very comedic actor. Right, that's what I mean. He's been able to do other things. And and he's a really interesting guy to watch. And he is a real exception to to the rule. But, in movies, that's interesting. In movies, they it's a different scenario. You're watching an actor, but they they're rarely able to build a series around a character so you can do it again. And sometimes, whether it's entourage or friends or a lot of times, I mean, you almost never see them again. -Yeah. -Let alone in their own series, you know. And then every now and then, they'll go on to George Clooney was a guy character. You know? Every now and then, there are plenty of exceptions to every rule. But as a rule, you better understand something about money, you know, and how to how to hold on to it, how to work with it, what you're gonna do with it. Because if you think that s**t's gonna last, think again. I mean, that was always my problem. Like, I had my first company. I made money Yeah. And lost it all. Sure. And then I thought, ugh. That is just it. Like, I had my one shot. Yeah. And Yeah. Yeah. That must have happened to a lot of people. Like Everybody. These stars and Oh my god. Robert Downey Junior is in financial trouble. Right? I mean, you hear all these stories. Somebody's always in financial trouble. No matter how much money they've made. Right? I mean, you know, you you you you have an economics mind. You know, you can blow anything, if you've if if depending on what you do with it or whether or not you're watching it. So So so this brings me to the to the book. Yeah. So so Roadhog, a lot of comics, even comics we haven't heard of or barely even think of Right. Actually have enormous success going on the road and doing and doing Some of them have if success, you mean money, yes. They they'll make, they can make yeah, there are guys that make many 1,000,000 of dollars that you haven't heard of, that they play to their own audience. I mean, I don't know if the average person knows who Bill Burr is, you know, who sold out The Garden. It's like, and that goes for a number of people. But, there's Gabe Iglesias. There are a number of guys out there that do very well. I'll even I'll even take a step down from I I I shouldn't say step down, but I'll go to look at it in a different way from Bill Burr Right. Who's highly respected among Yeah. Comedians. But, like, let's take Carrot Top probably makes 1,000,000 a year. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But people don't really think of him as a comedian. But, certainly, he's a comedic act. Yes. And he makes many, many yeah. I mean And and so you went on the road. Why'd you go on the road? Oh, to, well, to build an hour to be a real you know, to be a comedian. So you thought you needed to learn you you thought you needed you couldn't just do the clubs here in New York City. I mean No. I wanted to be a headliner. I wanted to be a headliner, and and, also, I can make a living for the most part as a headliner. And so then that gives me an option to go out and headline. Why? Like being a 15 minute guy at the top of the hill? Yeah, there's a vast difference in what you can make money wise. If you wanna make money, you have to leave New York City, and you have to go headline because that's the only place they're gonna pay you. In New York City, that's where all the guys are coming to play. So nobody pays much money in New York City. And LA is the same way. They're called showcase clubs, where you'll have 5, 6 acts on it. The Comedy Cellar, and they're all headliners usually. And they're just doing 15 minutes. And they get off, and somebody else comes on. And that's what makes it an interesting place to go. A number of New York City clubs. Also on the Upper West Side, your club. Yeah. Stand up New York. Stand up New York. Yes. How come when you come back to stand up? Shoot me an email. Tell me when. I'll come by. Alright. Good. I'll come by. So okay. So you let's say you're you're one of these guys who's who's who's past the seller, which is Yeah. The the the best club in New York. And, now you call up your your your booking agent calls up Sirius. Gotta get an agent. Yeah. Yeah. And, he says, Dove's available. Yeah. They they then hire you. How does it work? Yeah. Well, it all depends on the market and whether or not they think they can sell you. Right? So sometimes it's sometimes you need to have a number of credits. Sometimes it's you need to have a bit of a following or something they can sell. So I mean, that's how that kind of works. It's like this guy's been on this, this, this, and this. You know, he's and and they know that they'll have a good product when they come there. And so, and then some guys had, you know, Mark Maron talks about how he couldn't, you know, really get booked as a headliner out there for whatever reason. And he had plenty of credits, but he's a specific kind of act. So he had to really find his people. And we all want that. But I don't know. I mean, I was relatively fortunate in that regard. You know, I had a kind of a I've been headlining for a long time, and, and I can reliably get x amount of gigs per year. I go into, you know, Denver. We're good clubs, egg clubs all over the country. And then, I'll go in and out. And so when you're working on an hour, an hour special, if you wanna sell your hour special to Comedy Central, whoever the buyer is. It's hard to work that stuff out in 15 minute clips at a New York City Comedy Club. You know? And so you go out on the road. Because you don't have the time. Because the audience is always new. They're going to the Comedy Cellar because they're tourists in New York. They heard this was the club to go to. Yeah. They wait online for tickets. They go It's not about that club at any club in New York. They're all they're all showcase clubs, meaning you're doing 15 minute spots. You're doing 15, 20 minutes. And so to some extent, the format, it's not people and I think people don't fully understand this. It's not like 15 minutes worth of jokes versus 45 minutes worth of jokes. You have to spend like, if you have if you have 40 if you have 40 minutes, it's an entirely different structure in the sense that you can spend more time building up likability, which buys you the ability to do Buys you time, and you gotta sustain interest over the course of an hour as opposed to spitting 15 minutes worth of jokes. It's a different muscle. It's a marathon relative to a sprint. Yeah. So you're not you're not trying to, like, push out laughs every 15 seconds. Pacing often. A relationship with the audience. You build a rapport, a relationship. Yeah. How do you build that rapport with audience? Because I think that's important for everything. But, you know, here's here's what I find that's interesting. A lot of correlates. So so so I have done a lot of public speaking for 20 years. And now this past year, I've been doing a lot of stand up. Public speaking does not help stand up at all. Like, there's zero help that it's done. Maybe a tiny bit that I'm not aware of, but Right. It really doesn't help. Stand up helps public speaking enormously Right. Because there's all these extras there's, like, an extra 100 skills required to be good at stand up Yes. That that you're not even really aware of in public speaking until you start doing them. Yes. And so having those 40 minutes allows you to to kind of build these more subtle skills, I would imagine, in comedy Yeah. That are very difficult, like like like likeability, building that rapport. But how do how do you build the rapport with audience? It's a good question. I mean, I think, initially, you gotta be funny. And once you you've sold them on the idea that you'll be able to create laughter, they'll give you a little bit of leeway. But if they don't like you, they're not gonna laugh, even if it's funny. Yeah. For the most part. Yeah. Like but that's a trap too because likability can impede your voice. If you're trying to be likable, then it's difficult to just be honest. You gotta find a way to connect with them. It's a paradoxical thing because my I don't get on stage, and I'm not trying to be likable. I mean, I wanna be open. But by admitting your faults, though, being fragile, as you said earlier, that's gonna be likable because everyone's gonna relate to it, at least deep down. You're earning it through your own voice. But it would be a mistake to go on and just with an idea of, I'm gonna smile a lot, and compliment people. There's something hacky about that. Unless it's your real voice. It's pandering. So there's It's a line. It's all a tight rope. It's all a line in between the thing. You know? I mean, let's let's look at a a comic for a second that's that's very different from you, someone like an Anthony Jeselnik. So he goes out there, and it's very, written material, very written jokes. That's his voice. His thing. And his his his personality is not even necessarily his stage personality. I don't know him well, but yeah. So so I don't know him at all. I don't know how to but he but he does and and he's insulting the audience Right. In in a lot of parts. But because he's kinda smiling and plays that persona, I think Don Rickles is a good example of somebody who's able to insult, insult, insult, and that's why they're coming to see him. You know? It's like that's his voice. He's not trying to be like but he is likable. And maybe that's what allows him to sell the insult. Yeah. You have to be able to be likable to sell the insult. Yeah. Louis is not a particularly likable guy. Nobody Louis doesn't get on stage, and then everybody goes, this guy's really likable, you know? Although although when he was He's vulnerable when he's vulnerable. Quote, unquote finding his voice, you know, let's say in the mid o o's, he was going up there and saying, I'm poor. You know, anyone else here? It's likability just he earned it because he's just honest. And so if vulnerability, I find it likable, and it lets me in. And so I try to just be honest about what's going on. And I end up really vibing. And audiences like me, and I work all over the country. But I'm not trying to be likable. I'm really just trying, same when I walk into a room. I'm looking to connect, you know? And if that connection serves my likability, that's great. But the objective isn't I'm going to smile, wear something nice, and, and be affable. You know? Like, that's more of an affectation as opposed to I I feel like yeah. What's what's what's the worst experience you've had in terms of not connecting with people? People that smile and are really good at being likable aren't the best people. For me, the best people I don't know. I mean, it was a it's tricky because there are so many exceptions. People that I like to be around are people that are being themselves. And if we find common sort of connections, then we can create relationship, you know, and and and, have and produce an experience that feels worthy of having as opposed to one that is, you know, just more and more surface affect. Producing an experience that is worth having. And I think that's where you start to border from, let's say, comedy or anything into artistry. Yeah. You're creating an experience with the audience. Yeah. And that is is unique. The individual is like a canvas you're painting on. And so so what does what does that mean? Because that's gonna be unique to every audience. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to just I can imagine a lot of comics just do the road thinking they can get easy laughs in Indianapolis because they know how to do it in New York. So it's gonna be not necessarily easier in Indianapolis, but it's a Yeah. Yeah. It's a different type of humor. Yeah. The expectations can can be a bit lower in some places. And you can sell hack more easily other places, just like you can sell not good food. And Louisa Kaye specifically said those communities will cap their careers because that's the furthest they can get. Totally. Yeah. Because you're gonna be there are people who do the road, and then there are road guys. If you wanna be a headliner, you always have to go work through it. Seinfeld's still working the road. He's doing it in a theater. You get there in a private jet or whatever. It's still the f**king road. You still go in. You stay somewhere else. -I love the bags. -Because he's in the road. That's how he feels alive. You know? And, yeah. And so, yeah. I mean, if you want it yeah. You gotta have some mental horsepower, I think. I don't know anybody who's writing good jokes that doesn't that isn't doesn't think reasonably well. And I think that's what caps a lot of people. But, also, it's, you gotta be willing to go to certain places and try to keep, if not keep evolving. I don't know. I mean, it was prior keep like, who keep? Keeps? Does Woody Allen continue to evolve? I mean, if that were the case, you know, his movies at 80 would be better than they were at 42, and they're not. But you think that's depressing, Tim? Death? Yeah. That's why he makes movies, to keep him from thinking about our inevitable demise. It's, Ernst Becker, The Denial of Death. That's a big influential book. But do you think, the fact that his movies are not as good now as they were when he was making Manhattan? Yeah. I don't know. I think he tries not to think about it, and he makes 1 a year. Right? It's like he's still clearly capable of doing he's still he's still more talented than everybody else on the planet. I mean, you know, with the exception of very few, I would imagine. I mean, and certainly, overall, it's like but, yeah, I would imagine. Right? I mean, if you made Annie Hall in Crimes and Misdemeanors, and then you make something that seems a bit goofy, you know, it's like you can't pry. I mean, unless you're out of touch. So so when you go out now, and let's say you don't do as well Yeah. Does it get depressing, or you Well, it would it would all be about the circumstances. If I'm working some What what would depress you? Well, it's a good question. If I didn't do the right thing by them, by the audience, if I'm not in it mentally for whatever reason, if I took a gig, and one time, I literally I was I was sick, and I couldn't get words out at times. It f**ked up the rhythm and the time, and I felt bad. I was like, oh, God. I felt bad that people pay for a babysitter to come out and do whatever. But sometimes there's circumstances. I worked. I went to do that gig. It's called Rock on the Range. It's a big, big it's like one of the big national metal festivals. It's in Ohio in a stadium. It's like 40 or 50,000 people. And I was just working. There was a little venue, like a 1,000 person venue, little relative to that, on the side. It was like a comedy venue. So they'll have different venues. They'll have the main stage where Metallica comes to play, and then they'll have the other stages. But I got there the day that Chris Cornell killed himself. Right? So they were supposed to headline Cornell's band, Soundgarden. They were supposed to headline. And so anyway, people end up in this comedy venue. And there's a f**king mosh pit 200 feet away, and you can hear the music banging. And then I go up, and it's like, I think I did okay. I could barely hear, and I had to holler the material. And it's like the circumstances were almost impossible. I don't feel bad about that as long as I do my best. You know? If if the people couldn't hear, they weren't into it because this guy just killed himself, and there's a mosh pit 200 feet away. I'm not blaming me. Right. You know? So what's the time when you have felt bad? What's the worst? Worst? I once I felt bad the next day when I passed out on stage. I was in South Carolina North Carolina, one of the Carolinas. And, this f**king guy I have never been around, I haven't really been around pills. I'm never experienced with pills, oxy, not oxy, or Xanax. I thought they were all painkillers. And this jerk off, I'd like to find this motherf**ker. But this guy, I was drinking. I was sipping vodka. And anyway, I I had I had when I had a knee surgery, I had some pain. Long story short, there were, I had taken, like, I don't know if it was a Valium or whatever one time, and I thought, oh, this feels nice. And the guy tells me he's got these Xanax. And I said, oh, yeah? And in my mind, I should have done some more due diligence. It's my fault ultimately, of course. But the guy clearly knew I didn't know what the f**k I was doing. I said, what are they? And he goes, ah, it's just these little bars. He goes, I got Zenny bars, he called them. So I'm sipping on a drink. My throat's jammed up. I have a headache. He goes, you want one of these? I was like, I don't know. And then he goes, yeah. Here. Have a bar. Little did I know, a bar is very powerful, apparently. I took the bar half less than half, 20 minutes into my act. The room began spinning a bit. And then, you know, I'm headlining. It was the full room on Saturday night in my How many minutes were you supposed to do? 50. 50, 55 minutes, and then I hit the ground at about 20 minutes, and I blacked out. I didn't get back up. First time ever I'd done that. First time I've you know? That's the first and only time that will ever happen to me, I would imagine. But I didn't know what I had taken the next day. I said, that I was so f**king stupid for just taking that because that guy offered it to me without knowing what it was that I was taking. But he was a fan, and he was a nice guy, and I assumed I made it clear that I didn't know what they were. And, and he still said, Oh, sure. It's a good time. That kind of thing. Like, you could almost see somebody coming onto a 13 year old. And I'm relatively worldly, if nothing else. And the idea that that happened to me, the level of naivete kind of I experienced, and stupidity, and irresponsibility, I guess. Admittedly, it was under your control and that you shouldn't have taken a substance. You didn't know what it was. So whatever. But I let the audience down. I let everybody down. So you let them down, and you're disappointed in yourself. Yeah. What's a time when you were trying hard, and you were on your best, and you let the audience down, and, and and you didn't expect it? That's a good question. f**k. I don't know, man. I can't think of too many situations. At this point in my life, like, early on, it's an obstacle course of insecurity and, feeling horrible, and what am I doing with my life and all of that. It's like, you know, I mean, I write about it in the book, but when I used to try to get I was trying to get stage time, and it's really difficult to get stage time early on. Nobody wants you until somebody wants you. And then, I was there was a Puerto Rican show that took place after midnight in this real s**thole comedy room. And, anyway, it was all Puerto Rican. Anyway, I changed my name to Dove Dominguez just for Tuesday nights, you know, just to get those 7 minutes of stage time. And so that kind of thing, you walk away going, this is funny but weird, and the crowd was drunk, and sometimes there were 6 people in it, and it sucked. And you walk away feeling bad, but I didn't So there was then. But you felt bad for different reasons. You felt depressed, and you don't know what's going on, and there's no clear line. Nobody gives you degree. You're still learning what to do. You're still learning what to do. And so I think people realize that and this is true for every area of life. You gotta go through whether it's 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. There's this whole period where you love something, but you don't know what to do. Yeah. And the customers or the audience or whoever is gonna call you on it again and again, and you have to push through it. You can't give up. Right. That's right. And why didn't you give up? I because I couldn't. I I I I I, because it it it's dangerous to tell people not to I heard you on a podcast talk talk about sort of what to do with when to pull out of something, knowing when to stop doing something. And, you made a really good point, and it was really articulate. And I'm not gonna try to recreate it, but I felt that I had the talent. And I knew it deeply enough that I thought if I can go through this, you know, then you contextualize the experience. There are people that it's not like, I've seen people doing whatever. Like, there's somebody that's clearly hoping against hope. Weird expression. I don't know the etymology of it or where it comes from. But the, like, if you meant if you speak that language, you know, everybody has a story where it didn't go well many, many, many times. That's the learning curve, you know? But, but if you feel like it makes sense, and it's a language that not only are you interested in learning to speak, but it's a language that you have an ability to speak, you know, it's gonna take a while to pick up the language and the nuances. But but if you believe that you'll get there, you know, but you gotta have that that belief has to be grounded in something. Otherwise, we're sending people out with these f**king overly positive messages. It's like when somebody goes, you can do whatever you want. No. You can't. No, you can't. There are physical limitations. There are mental limitations. I don't care how interested I am in physics. I could not do, I could not be a physicist. I don't. I'm a little dyslexic. I don't have that kind of math jams me up in certain areas. I'm, you know, But, you know, I mean, physics is hard for anybody, even if you're good at math. And you had some evidence early on that people were laughing at yourself. Yeah, yeah. I have talent. I know I knew I had talent. And you loved it. And I liked doing it, and it meant something to me. Beyond loving it, it was something I needed to do to reconcile this f**king weird life I lived. I didn't know how else to create meaning that would exceed the meaning I was creating at that time doing that. You know? And yeah, like, getting laid and all that, that's fun too. But if you're just doing it for that, you're gonna burn out. I mean, you can't continue to do it for that, you know, that nightlife. So so so what's next for you now? Like, now I'm I'm a not as well. Estate developer right now, in part. I'm developing shades of blue and in Crashing. Yeah. But the the thing about TV shows is that unless you're 1 or 2 on the call sheet, meaning unless you have a ton of stuff to do, they don't require that much time. It's this thing of being an actor. It's every actor should be learning something else and doing something else for the most part because, one, you're depending on something that isn't self deterministic, And 2, it doesn't usually require that much time. If you're Matt Damon, you're pretty booked up. If you're almost everybody else, tons of downtime. So, you know, it's, but I need that in your book, Reinventing Yourself. Meaning, whether or not you go and do something else isn't really the point. The idea of always thinking about something new to be engaged in or reinventing whatever it was that you were already doing. You know? It's like, so I'll go, and I can I can pitch projects? I'll go out and think of another television idea. I just had a good pitch that we shot a sizzle reel for. And I'm When you say sizzle reels, that's a A sizzle reel for a pitch. A sizzle reel is an actual reel that you would watch. It's 10 minutes long, roughly. And you get to see a piece of what you're asking the network to produce. So I come in, I say, here's my idea. I'm going to make a show about my family doing this, doing that. Here's what I do in the show. I'm a corporate executive or a garbage man, whatever the f**k you are. You pitch the idea. You show them something that you shot, and that communicates some proof of concept. And you hope to get an order, or at least a pilot order out of a network, a distributor. So that's one area. And then you go out on the road, and then you do stand up. And then I'll go and audition for more television shows and films if they have them. Although it's funny there aren't that many auditions. That's why it's such a bad business. That's why it's a because the numbers are horrendous, in terms of the viability of any one project. So you have to, mitigate that through, optionality. So optionality, meaning you give your you're trying many things. Yes. You're not just trying TV. Not not just many things like you're throwing s**t up against the wall. If you're a really good stand up and you think you can be a good actor and you're working on that, you believe that you can book roles in a professional capacity and get paid well-to-do it, then maybe spend some more time approaching auditions seriously, or doing some other types of work, to try to generate that kind of opportunity or income. You know, you don't start in fields where you're not genuinely interested. You're trying to find ways to plumb, you know, whatever. It's like most artists do this, right? It's like if you look at an actor, they want range. Nobody wants to get locked into playing the same character if they're real actors. They're looking to go out and do other stuff, You know? It's like, within that world. Or they'll wanna try to write something, or try to direct something. It's all the same thing. You know? Well, and your life's an excellent example. You obviously you do stand up. You go on the road and do stand up. Yeah. You're an actor in a bunch of different projects. You're doing Yeah. Real estate. And I've been all of these things to some degree for 20 years, but I try to reinvent wherever I'm at to some degree in that if I can get job in drama. Like, I enjoy doing drama. I would like to do more of that. I mean, I like and also comedy and also that. So in a business where probability is so low, the more you can do, the more you increase the probability that something works. Particularly if you spent the year putting in the years of developing the talent Yeah. The skills, the credits. And the relationship even with representatives. You know? An agent that's gonna go and get on the phone and go, I want you to see this guy. He's really good. To get somebody with a reputation to do that is can be challenging. So and, of course, your latest development, which is this book Yeah. Road Dog. Right. Road Dog comes out on October 31st. Road is a stand up comic. Yeah. Dove Davidoff. And the thing I like about this is just, you know Colin Quinn called it one of the one of the one of the funniest and most personal books he'd he'd ever read. Ray Liotta has a quote on the back. Well, no. This is just the galley. There's lots of quotes on the on the actual book, the one that comes out. And, and this kinda shows what it's like, to go on the road, as a comic and the and the skills that you build and and Yeah. Interweaving that with your relationships. Yeah. I like, there's definitely a lot of stories in between relationships that are pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all related. You know? It's all part of that that milieu. The idea of being on the road is inextricably linked to where you come from personally, you know, and your experience of the road. Yeah. So I I I enjoyed it, and, I highly recommend people read it. And I am gonna, talk to you about coming back to stand up New York. Let's do it. Let's come let's come back. We'll we'll We got we got Dan Adam back there. To talk. Yes. With the great Dan Adam, the one, the only. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, thanks so much, Dove Yeah. Thanks. For joining us. Road dog. Yes. Road dog. Thanks. Thanks, James. Next time on the James Altucher Show. In law school, a teacher would be like, oh, so, what kind of law do you wanna practice? And I would say bold face in a class, I'm gonna be a comedian. I told the solicitor general of Illinois all this stuff, and there I kind of felt people pull back. And that's when I felt the shame, like, what am I really doing? What if this doesn't work out? It's almost like you have to break out of the matrix to kind of say, okay. I just spent 12 years in grade school, 4 years in college, 3 years in law school, all for this one goal, to become a lawyer, and society approves. Yep. And you broke out of the shackles. There must have been this enormous psychological dissonance at that moment. Well, at first, I kind of felt like a fraud because I would tell people I wanna be a comedian, but I knew I sucked. And so, like, you know, I'm telling my parents, I'm telling all these people I'm gonna be a comedian, and I was bad. And that's what kinda tortured me more than anything. So why did you decide not to be a lawyer and go for a stand up comedy? At the end of the day, what I'm pursuing is, like, trying to be my own fan. You know, I just wanna say thank you to everyone listening to this. I would say doing a podcast is the activity that I've enjoyed most in these past few years. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever it is you get your podcast. It will only take a second, but it will help other people discover the podcast, and it will really show people in general that this is a quality show and that it's worth listening to. You can also check out the show notes at jamesaltitude.com/podcast. 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