Tim Dillon (Comedian): "The Boomers Are A Selfish Generation!". "Gen Z Has Exposed Society's Scam!". "Bosses Are Being Threatened By Mental Illnesses!"

Making a living by telling jokes, takes making it through a life that’s no joke. Tim Dillon is a comedian, actor, and host of the Tim Dillon Show podcast. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine named him as one of the top 10 comics you need to know, and in 2022, he released his first Netflix standup special, 'Tim Dillon: A Real Hero’. In this conversation Tim and Steven discuss topics such as, how his mother’s illness inspired him to become funny, his addiction, how Generation Z has exposed society’s scams, and the mental health struggles that pushed him into becoming a comedian. 00:00 Intro 01:01 I Was a Closeted Gay Addict 02:23 Which One of Your Parents Were Depressed? 06:03 The Impact of Your Parent's Mental Illnesses on You 08:05 Your Parents' Divorce 11:32 Childhood Trauma & Taking Drugs 14:51 Hitting Rock Bottom 18:40 AA Meetings 22:15 Trying to Get Sober 23:27 Being a Juror on a Murder Crime 26:41 His First Open Mic Comedy Show 28:25 The Taboos in Comedy 32:20 Why You Don't Get Cancelled 35:09 The Podcasting World 38:42 What’s Up With the Different Generations? 47:09 What Are His Goals in Comedy 48:18 Have You Processed Your Trauma? 54:38 His Experience with Therapy 57:24 Coming Out as Gay & Dating 01:00:50 What Do You Love About Yourself? 01:04:00 Mental Health Coping Mechanisms 01:06:27 Elon Musk Buying Twitter 01:07:35 Social Media Criticism 01:08:46 Touring The World 01:14:03 What Happens in Hollywood? 01:16:40 Rising to the Top: The American Dream 01:19:51 New Generations Don't Work Hard 01:20:49 Remote Working 01:24:05 The Future of AI 01:29:26 Men's Mental Health 01:32:53 Andrew Tate's Influence 01:33:49 Who Should You Have Apologized to and You Didn't? You can purchase tickets to Tim’s new show, ‘American Royalty’, here: https://bit.ly/4aHE6JN You can watch ‘The Tim Dillon Show,’ here: https://bit.ly/3U1DOYp Follow Tim: Twitter - https://bit.ly/49oMOLV Instagram - https://bit.ly/3PPbRRb YouTube - https://bit.ly/3U1DOYp Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/3kxINCANKsb My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook Conversations Cards: https://thediary.com/products/the-conversation-cards-1st-edition Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Zoomers, some of them have figured out that the country's a scam. They invent mental health ailments they don't have. They take days off on end. They terrify their superiors. They found the flaw in the system. They go, "Why are you late?" They go, "I'm gay." You go, "Don't worry about it." Are we still on YouTube? Tim Dillon.

• 0:19Steven Bartlett?

  He's a comic icon? A master of improv. One of the best in the world.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  I like making people laugh at stuff that is inherently maybe a little darker because from 13 to 25, I was a closeted gay cocaine addict. But some of our best qualities don't come about because of the best reasons. There's no one better at those random rants.

• 0:40Steven Bartlett?

  Tim, there's a lot of topics I want to go through with you. And the first is the future of AI.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  We've bred some of the least interesting people on the planet. Influencers, these generic barcodes with feet. Those people don't need to exist. They need to be replaced by an AI version of that.

• 0:57Steven Bartlett?

  What's your assessment of different generations?

• 0:59Speaker 00

  Well, we've given up on the children. They're being raised by algorithms. The Boomers, they are the funniest generation because to be funny, you kind of have to just not care. And there's no generation of people that have cared less about the future of this planet, about their children. And then the Millennials were this very shitty generation of like, want to constantly be patted on the back and told how great they are. I believe the right things. I tweeted the right thing. I am good. I know that's unpopular maybe to say, but I'll just keep going.

• 1:37Steven Bartlett?

  Tim, I've watched you for many a year now, and I think you're one of the most exceptional, interesting, provocative, talented comedians because you have a remarkable ability to improvise, it seems.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Well, thank you.

• 1:59Steven Bartlett?

  And I wonder how someone learns to do that. Where does that talent come from?

• 2:06Speaker 00

  I was a closeted gay cocaine addict for many years.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  You really have to be good on your feet. When you are a closeted gay cocaine addict from like thirteen to twenty five, you you're going to run into situations where you're going to need to lie and you're gonna need to be able to kind of, you know, filibuster. And I guess I got good at it then. I was always good at talking, but I think that was good. That kind of allowed me to think on my feet more than other people would have to, perhaps. Not always for the best reasons. Some of our best qualities don't come about because of the best reasons. But it's good that I have that quality now, I guess.

• 2:58Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know Jimmy Carr?

• 3:00Speaker 00

  I don't know him personally. I adore his comedy and he's like an amazing comedian, but I don't I don't know if we've met.

• 3:06Steven Bartlett?

  I was sat here with him two weeks ago and he said to me, he says, Steve, when you meet a comedian, you don't ask a comedian if they're depressed, you ask them which one of their parents is depressed.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  That's a good way to say it, sure. Well, my mother was a schizophrenic, so I tend to think on the mental illness hierarchy. She was kind of kind of the gold standard, whereas depression, all due respect, is slightly less. And then I think my father might have been on and off depressed. But schizophrenia was the that was the, you know, central challenge in her life.

• 3:41Steven Bartlett?

  For people that don't know what that is or haven't experienced it, what is? How does it sort of manifest being schizophrenic? Especially for you as a, you know, ten year old, when you have a schizophrenic parent.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, it started to really come out when when I was about thirteen and twelve or thirteen. It's a lot of paranoia. It's a lot of confusion that as a child you're trying to contextualize. You don't really understand why your mother is talking about people following her or these grand elaborate stories that aren't true. And even at twelve or thirteen, you know they're not true. And you're worried for her because. Physical illness is very easy to kind of understand as a child. Because, you know, somebody gets sick. As a child, you get sick. So you get it.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Mental illness is much tougher to understand. As a child, you only really start to understand it. As you go through life and when you become more of an adult. You start to look back at it. Because you've had your own mental struggles. You know, people that have had mental struggles at 12. You really don't. For most 12 year olds. So it's something that I've understood more as I got older. And then it was kind of just very disorienting and confusing.

• 5:01Steven Bartlett?

  And what was the, the sort of cost or the impact that that confusion had? Cause you're so right. With schizophrenia in particular, when you can compare how your parents are acting to other parents. That sort of disparity of that like distinction must be quite.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  It's jarring.

• 5:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  It's jarring. When you're young and you are at somebody else's house and you see the way their mother is talking. And you see the way that the family interacts. And in your house, when that is different. And my mother was a very fun person. Very eccentric, a free spirit. Her whole entire life, she had been. It wasn't hellish to grow up with her. I, I loved her and she loved me a lot. But around my early teen years, it became apparent that something was wrong. I think I was in the car one day. And I remember she said, there are people that are following us, but don't worry, they're protecting me.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  And I found that to be so crazy, like doubly crazy, right? Not only did she believe that there were people following her, but that they were doing it to protect her. I thought that was so crazy. And I remember being young and hearing that. And internalizing that as something is actually really wrong. And I remember thinking about it and telling a friend of mine, like. I think my mother, you know, is crazy, you know? And I, I don't, you know? And, and that got progressively worse as I got older.

• 6:38Steven Bartlett?

  And what was the impact of all of that on you? Like, growing up in that family home? How does that shape you? And does that leave any sort of fingerprints on you that are still with you today in terms of comedy or who you are?

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. The fragility of mental health is something that I understand in a way that other people don't. I understand that people can have a nervous breakdown, people can, you know, have, you know, a stress-related event that tips them in a direction where, you know, and I've had friends that have had this, right? Like, you know, it's a difficult thing to understand at 12 or 13. But that was a huge impact on me, uh, growing up, uh, was basically, your world is rocked a little bit.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  When someone is suffering from a mental health issue, you feel less secure, less safe. You kind of feel like, uh, something is coming that isn't good. You know, schizophrenia is a degenerative disorder. There is no real cure. There are medications that can, um, make, uh, the effects less apparent for periods of time. Those medications have really bad physical side effects. So watching my mother go through a lot of, like, physical side effects from those medications, you know, rocking back and forth, right? Uh, muscle twitches and things like that, uh, was also very, was very tough to watch

• 8:12Speaker 00

  as, you know, as I got older and, and, and she was medicated, uh, with some very strong drugs to try to like, you know, I guess, uh, mitigate the schizophrenia. It's very tough. It's, it's akin to a loved one getting a physical ailment. It's very similar to that in the sense that, um, you know, you are saying goodbye in a way to someone, little by little.

• 8:40Steven Bartlett?

  And your father, your parents divorced around this time as well?

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:45Steven Bartlett?

  And that sort of confounds things, I imagine.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Yes, I believe that that was an event that probably was, I believe she was always a schizophrenic. There was an underlying predilection for that. I mean, from speaking to doctors, this is what I believe. I believe that the divorce, the stress, that was, but she initiated the divorce. I think it was a catalyst for her to feel perhaps vulnerable or she, you know, I think a lot of stress brought on kind of the symptoms because I had never, there were always indications. She was kind of a, again, a wild person, right? She would go out and collect these Disney toy sets at McDonald's. She would collect Beanie Babies. She would pick up junk on the street and say, we're going to fix it up and refurbish it.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  And these are antiques and everything. There was a lot of compulsive obsession, obsessive kind of behavior. Some of the behavior now, you know, a little conspiratorial. I do a joke now that where I talk about it, I go, you know, the people that are saying the things that my mother said for years are now in Congress. So, you know, had we known about YouTube, we could have thrown her on there. She would have made a good living. You know, really, she would have done well. She was a personable woman. But yeah, I mean, that was, that was tough because he was out of the house. She was there and she was struggling. And because I'm from an Irish Catholic family, nobody talked about it.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  And people would use words like eccentric or she's fun. Be like Patty's fun. Nobody would really go, wow, I think she's got a real problem.

• 10:24Steven Bartlett?

  And you're sort of 13 years old. So you're going through all of the, you know, the stuff 13 year olds go through figuring out life. You got any siblings?

• 10:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 10:32Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Just me.

• 10:34Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Just me.

• 10:36Steven Bartlett?

  That's.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  All the fun for me.

• 10:39Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Just one. Uh, yeah, it was just me.

• 10:42Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you were parented from that point onwards?

• 10:44Speaker 00

  No, no, I kind of grew up. And it's the generation to a degree as well. I think I'm more of an extreme case because my mother cared about me and she wanted, you know, she hated drugs and alcohol. She hated cigarettes. She hated all these things that if, you know, she would, you know, find a thing, she would go nuts and scream. She was never like a permissive person. She did not encourage any of my behaviors. She always wanted me to succeed and she was always very, you know, critical of of my behavior. So there was that sense. There was parenting in that sense where it wasn't a free for all, right? But generationally, you know, we just weren't parented the way kids today are parented.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  There were no cell phones. There was no, uh, you know, where is your location? Nobody was being tracked. You were able to spend hours on your bike, riding around the suburbs with your friends. You had a curfew. You had to be in by curfew. You had to make sure that your eyes weren't bloodshot when you went home because, you know, you were smoking weed for the entire time you were gone. So there were things like that. But in addition to that, which is a kind of a generational difference in parenting, there was just the idea that she was dealing with her own issues and my father was out of the picture. So I had this freedom where it's kind of like, I kind of raised myself in a weird way.

• 12:08Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of freedom and a lot of trauma by the sounds of it.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. Yeah, there was a lot, I would say, um, unprocessed for a long time.

• 12:18Steven Bartlett?

  And that tends to find an avenue, unprocessed trauma, right?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  It tends to find an avenue. For many years it was drugs. That was the avenue, which is where a lot of it goes, you know? Um, and then.

• 12:31Steven Bartlett?

  How old were you when you started drugs?

• 12:32Speaker 00

  I was, I started smoking weed in eighth grade and, uh, seventh, seventh grade, the summer.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  Between seventh grade and eighth grade, I smoked weed a few times in seventh grade. And the summer between seventh and eighth grade, we really ramped it up. We really, you know. I was friends with a girl in my town who was fun. She was a lesbian who rollerbladed everywhere, which I thought was an interesting archetype, and I still do. And she always was smoking weed while she rollerbladed. I thought it was a very cool, you know. She was kind of a goth lesbian who smoked weed and just kind of, very London, to be honest. And she would just kind of rollerblade places high all the time. And I just became friends with her and I said, this seems like a good way to live. And I just, you know, started smoking weed with her.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  And then very quickly, you know, within a year that, you know, we were doing blow and acid. You know, I dropped acid on stage at my eighth grade graduation. You know, with her and another buddy of mine, we, you know, dropped tabs of acid. We were doing ecstasy, we were doing lines of Special K. It was a good time, you know. I mean, this was obviously a response to everything I just talked about. But, you know, drugs are a lot of fun. They have a lot of negatives. But that period of my life was a lot of fun and terrible. But, you know, that's why I haven't done any drugs or had a drink in 14 years. So I'm not advising it. It's not a course of action I advise. But looking back at it, you know, there were certainly good times.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  I know that's unpopular maybe to say. I don't think that, you know, it wasn't all terrible, is my point. But don't do it. But you know what I mean? But I wouldn't have traded those moments for anything. But it's not a good thing to do. I would have rather been like a hot surfer or have gotten into sports or something.

• 14:30Steven Bartlett?

  What about, were you comedic at that age?

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Probably, yeah. I was always kind of a goofball.

• 14:35Steven Bartlett?

  So were people telling you at that age that you were funny?

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Yes, I would like to make people laugh. I, you know, would imitate, we had a teacher who died. She was a smoker and she died of lung cancer. And she had a voice like this and I would imitate her in the back of class. And I would be like, I'm here and I'm in hell now because of you, you know, things like that. And I would, I would just, we would, you know, it was always kind of like, we'd drive around Long Island, we'd smoke marijuana in cars and I would point at big houses. That's kind of a lot of what we did, you know, we'd drive around like rich areas because no one was ever home. No one's ever home in these rich areas, by the way, to real, you know, that's just something your audience can take with them, which people don't, they're never home. So we would just smoke pot and, you know, drive around and then I would just

• 15:20Speaker 00

  try to be funny and sometimes I would be funny and sometimes I guess I would be annoying. But I was always trying to be funny.

• 15:27Steven Bartlett?

  What was the, um, the age range of drug usage in turn? Was there a?

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:32Steven Bartlett?

  A, a rock bottom? I was gonna say a peak, but it actually goes the other way when we talk about drugs, doesn't it?

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Yes. So the rock bottom was I was 25. I owned a house that I had bought with a subprime mortgage in a town called Baldwin, New York. And I was an alcoholic. I had not come out of the closet. I had not done any kind of standup comedy. I was working at a mortgage bank in Long Island. Several years after the mortgage, uh, um, industry had completely collapsed. It was really nothing to do. It was an incredibly depressing place. I worked next to a guy who, uh, was kind of losing his mind. He was just, he was losing his house, but he was ordering koi fish for a pond. He wanted to have a nice koi pond and he would spend the majority of the day. His wife would call and scream at him, we

• 16:20Speaker 00

  have nothing, we're gonna die. And he would always just call people and he'd go, what, what size are the fish? And how many of the fish can I get? You know, so everybody was kind of losing their mind at that point in, in this particular very bleak office, um, you know, kind of industrial park in Long Island. And I was just sitting there trying to be a billionaire in real estate, I guess. And, uh, I was hanging out with my friend's father, who's, who's passed away, but he was a really fun guy. Um, he was such a fun guy. I was in two boating accidents with him. That's how fun he was. Most people tap out after one boating accident. I was in two boating accidents with this man. Um, he had

• 17:04Speaker 00

  three D wees and a B we. A B we is boating while intoxicated. It's incredibly difficult to get a boating while intoxicated. It's an actual accomplishment.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  He was a fun guy. He never had a job his whole life. He sold drugs. Um, and his wife worked and I was friends with his son. I went to high school with his son, but this guy was so much fun. I, we adored him. There was one time me and my friend were sitting at a bar. It was an outdoor bar in Long Island, you know, that kind of dumb tiki bar vibe. And his father came up to us, it was me and my friend and a few girls that we were friends with. And he said, um, I want, I want you guys like, I'm gonna buy all your drinks. And we said, okay, thanks. And then he walked to the bartender. He pointed at us. He pointed at himself, the bartender thumbs up. We give him a thumbs up. We said, okay. We never got the drinks. We forgot. About an hour later, we got a tab that was like twenty five hundred dollars. We go, what, what the hell is going on?

• 17:59Speaker 00

  And the bartender said, you just, you agreed to pay that man's tab. He pointed at you. You said thumbs up. He's been drinking here for two days. He has no money. That's the type of guy he was, right? He was just a fun guy. I mean, you know, so we would go for, uh, uh, out on Long Island from bar to bar. In his little boat. He had like this little, little cigarette boat, like a little, little, you know, and we'd go from bar to bar to bar. And one time I was twenty four years old, we, we were going really fast, it was late at night and we just ran up on like a marsh and we were both thrown out of the boat. And I like, I literally came to in like a nest of egrets, that bird. At those big white birds that, and I was just in the middle of it.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  And I felt to my side, I said, my life is kind of out of control. That was the rock bottom. That was kind of the, where I said to myself, I said, you know what this is? I could have been paralyzed. I could have been killed. I'm like, this is probably not gonna end well if I keep drinking. So I was laying in that egrets nest. At probably one o'clock in the morning in the middle, uh, of, uh, you know, the Long Island Sound or wherever I was. I think we were in the ocean, we were in, we were in Freeport. And, uh, I was just basically going like, this is a real problem. So then I went to, to AA, you know, I started, I, I was like, this is, this is probably time to like, fix this.

• 19:16Steven Bartlett?

  So you made the decision to go to AA?

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:19Steven Bartlett?

  I'm, I'm trying to figure out how you get from that egrets nest.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:21Steven Bartlett?

  To that first AA session, cause it doesn't seem like one just wakes up the next day and goes, okay, I'm gonna go to AA.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Well, I, it wasn't the next day, but I, I woke up and what, what basically happened was I. I was around a lot of really, uh, end-stage alcoholics, meaning like, these people had drank their entire lives. I was hanging at this bar called Lisa's Lounge, which was a bar in Long Island. It was in the town I lived in and up the block from the house that was foreclosed was this bar. I could walk to it. It was named, I kid you not, after a woman who died in a drunk driving accident. Her father had named the bar after her. She had died, she was hit by a drunk driver, and he named a bar after her. And people would, and she, her picture was on the, I mean, this is unreal, this is true.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Her picture was on the wall of the bar and people would toast her to Lisa. And everybody would get drunk. It was, it was a great community of people and it was a lot of drugs and alcohol and people that had, uh, you know, nowhere to go, nowhere to go. Like the, the owner told me once, he goes, as people doing coke on the pool table. He goes, I, I opened this bar, I swear to God, he said this, because I opened this bar because I really wanted people that didn't have a place to go, to have somewhere to go on Christmas. And then he just did a line of cocaine. And I said, well, that's a nice thing. At 24 years old, I thought that was a great thing. Um, and I was just like hanging out in this old man bar. This was not a fun bar. This is not where you'd go to get laid. This was not a club.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  This was not, this was the end, the end. A late-stage alcoholism after decades, people found themselves here. And it was so close to my house, I went there. And, um, that was, you know, that was a weight. Every night when I went to bed, I, I looked at their lives and I said, I'm young, but this is where I'm going. This is where I'm heading. I had that example kind of right in front of me. And that, together with my friend's father, together with that accident, started to basically, I said, I've got to make a choice now or this is where I'm going,

• 21:39Speaker 00

  which seemed a little bit worse than death. Sitting there in a bar every night, being afraid of who I was, being afraid of trying something in life that I loved, trying to make something of myself, sitting in that bar, drinking my life away, felt... Like a huge failure. I didn't want to fail. So that's why I stopped.

• 22:02Steven Bartlett?

  There was still something in you. There was still some kind of desire of fight in you, which isn't always there for some people who are in sort of that late stage addiction. There was some reason to persist, right?

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Yes, well, I thought that I could have a better life and that's all you need. I think, and I think that that is the primary motivating factor for anyone to change anything in their life is that they have the hope or the idea, they have the imagination that they can have a better life. If you can conceive of a better life. So I said, there's probably a version of me that's not drunk every day. That's not working at a dead end job that's doing something that he likes. And it was tough. It's not hard to change. It's very difficult to change anything, but that was, that was my, you know, moment where I had that realization.

• 22:51Steven Bartlett?

  Did you know what that better life looked like specifically, or did you just know that it existed?

• 22:55Speaker 00

  Well, I I knew that it was sobriety. So I knew that it was being sober. I I didn't have a roadmap for exactly what it would be, but I knew that it wouldn't involve sitting in a bar, getting drunk next to someone named Marge, you know, for example, right? I knew that it would be sobriety. I knew that it would be honesty. And those two things go hand in hand. So that was what I knew and I and I'd always wanted, you know, as an actor as a little kid, right? From six years old to thirteen to twelve, I acted. I was in theater. I was at plays. I was in Sesame Street on on the show Sesame Street a few times. I toured around the country in sixth grade with my mother right before the divorce, right before the onset of her symptoms.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  With a Broadway show, Annie, Get Your Gun. I I was an actor. I I liked performing. I enjoyed that life. I had given up to do drugs when I was like thirteen. But then when I sobered up around twenty five, about exactly twenty five, I went to a stand up comedy open mic and that that was the thing that kind of pivoted the direction of my life.

• 24:03Steven Bartlett?

  So does this all happen around the same time? The AA meeting, the first stand-up comedy?

• 24:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:09Steven Bartlett?

  The AA thing in particular, was that difficult for you? Because I I kind of understand the 12-step program. And there's some quite challenging elements of that.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. I was also around this time a juror on a murder trial. This is something that I shouldn't leave out because this really did impact me as well. There was a murder trial in Long Island that was pretty well-known. I was unknown to me at the time I was selected. But a guy had murdered the mother of his children. And he was an informant for the police. And they had failed to follow up on many orders of protection that this woman had against him because he was providing them information. They subsequently, after the verdict, settled an $8 million lawsuit with her family, paid paid her $8 million. So this was like a pretty big case.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  It involved police, you know, malfeasance and things like that. And I was selected as a juror. And I really wanted to be a juror on this case because I was bored in my life. And I thought that maybe it would be interesting to be a juror on a murder trial. You know, I thought it was going to be something stupid like someone fell in a Wendy's and wanted $100,000. But I heard it was murder one, you know? And I'm like, well, that's fun. You sit there every day and every day it's just mortality is is the theme of every single day. Life, her life, his life, his life being taken, you know, him losing his freedom, her life being taken.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  And that really kind of impacted me too because I was going to bars every night, drinking after that, thinking about life and going, I'm on a really bad course and I got to change. And AA was tough. It was difficult because it's hard to be vulnerable.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Like as a comedian, you hide behind the jokes and the bits and things like that. But in that room, you can't do that. So that is difficult. The god thing was difficult. The higher power, I had to come to that in a different way. There's there are challenges. You know, being honest is it was a big challenge. I was like, God, they're like, you have to be honest. And I'm like, OK, I can stop drinking. I can stop using drugs. I don't know if I could be honest. That seems insane. Look at the world we live in. Why would anyone be honest? That doesn't seem to get you anywhere. And they were like, yeah, but if you are become a liar and you're a compulsive liar, you will go back to drinking drugs. That's the way it works. So that was the toughest thing for me.

• 26:47Steven Bartlett?

  And you had to forgive?

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Yourself. You have to forgive yourself. You have to forgive other people. You have to make an inventory of people you've wronged. You have to go to those people and say, I apologize for what I've done for taking money from your drawer and using it on drugs, for lying to you, for making you worry about me. These are all important things and you have to do it. And it's it's really hard to do, but it's important to get over that hump.

• 27:17Steven Bartlett?

  That first stand up gig?

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:20Steven Bartlett?

  That you do?

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:21Steven Bartlett?

  How did you get on?

• 27:21Speaker 00

  It was an open mic and it was a coffee shop in Long Island in a place called Merrick.

• 27:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it was sort of 25 years old, 25 at the time.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  I was 25 and it was also a tattoo shop. So you would hear like tattoo needles as you if you weren't doing well, it would zzzzz. And it would just be guys having, you know, having their girlfriends like tattoos like changed because they were no longer in the relationship. So they were like, they were making them into missiles and like patriotic things or nine 11 remembrances, you know, whatever the case may be. And occasionally they would chuckle and then there was a few like local people that liked comedy that would come to the coffee house. But it was kind of an everybody gets on thing. So that's the beginning of comedy is like everyone gets on. It's an open mic. You just go and you're on.

• 28:11Steven Bartlett?

  And it went well?

• 28:13Speaker 00

  It went as well as it could have gone for the first time. I got some laughs. Certain things didn't hit, but I felt confident and I felt like I belonged and I felt like I was doing the right thing. And I, for the first time in my life, was like. I I felt kind of certain that I would keep doing this. There was a certainty and for the majority of my life, I wasn't certain of anything. I was kind of trying different identities out, trying things out, seeing what would work. And then this this was like, okay, this is I'm good at this.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  I can get better at it and I like it enough to work hard at it.

• 29:01Steven Bartlett?

  Comedy, comedy is um comedy is in an interesting time. It appears to someone that's not at all involved in comedy at all because you have these like four these two forces almost colliding more so than I've really ever seen in my lifetime, which is.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Good and evil. No, I'm kidding.

• 29:17Steven Bartlett?

  No, but it's like correctness and comedy.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:21Steven Bartlett?

  Are at war, it seems.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Sure, well.

• 29:25Steven Bartlett?

  And even correctness is now.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:27Steven Bartlett?

  Made its way on to the stage of comedy.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I think that there is always going to be taboo subjects. There's always going to be things that are harder to make funny than other things. There's always going to be a line, as George Carlin said, your job is to find out where the line is, cross it, you know? You gotta get good at stuff to make people laugh at stuff. I like making people laugh at stuff that is inherently maybe a little darker because of the way I grew up, but I gotta make sure those jokes are funny enough so that people will laugh at them. And then there's some people that will never laugh at them. There's some people that don't understand comedy. They take it very literally. They don't like it. They like to be bothered by it.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  They get angry about it. They're unhappy about it. Someone's making someone laugh somewhere and they're angry.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  I don't know what to do with those people. I don't know how much we can pay attention to those people. I know many of them write articles and, you know, uh, you know, uh, the monologue on television about that they're upset about something. I just don't know, uh, how much attention we've paid. We've paid a lot of attention to them over the last four years. I think people are a bit exhausted by it. I think people are a bit over it. I think there are people in society that they, they're allowed to have their reactions to anything you do. You're allowed to hate me, find something I've said offensive, disagree with me. You can write about it, talk about it, whatever you want to do. I, it, it's really kind of not my business and there's only so much attention that I can pay to it. I think that's kind of the way comedians have to look at this stuff. They go like, hey, man,

• 31:05Speaker 00

  we're, we're making jokes, we're having fun. You have the right to be very angry about it and be upset about it. But I mean, again, that's a little crazy in my estimation to be that upset, uh, by comedians that have no real power. The thing about comedians, we don't have, but now people say, well, you have cultural power, soft power, whatever. That's sure. But we don't have the type of power that CEOs of large companies do. Our job is not to, you know, move a conversation forward. Our job is not to, it's, uh, our job is to be funny. Now, if we do some other things, if we happen to shed light on something that's good, if we move a conversation forward, if we illustrate a truth, that's a great thing and it's secondary.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Our primary job is to be funny and that can be, that's being wrong. That's being stupid. That's being short sighted. It might be even being bigoted. If it's funny. Uh, we're not in the, we're not in the job of being right. We're not in the job of being correct. There are people whose jobs are they have to be right. A surgeon has to be right. They can't just wing it. We are in the job of being funny, so if you confuse those things, which a lot of people out there do, that's where you get this tension, you know? But again, I'm a clown. I perform at comedy clubs and theaters. I do a podcast.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  If I say something you don't like, there's, it's really, really, an infinitesimal chance that anything I say is really going to have the gravity and weight that these people think it does. You want to be looking at other people that have more power. Direct that energy somewhere else.

• 32:55Steven Bartlett?

  You say, direct that energy somewhere else, but I watched that video of you getting very irate because Rogan, he gets canceled and you don't. And you say some pretty amazing-

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Yes, to try and get canceled, yes.

• 33:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, you seem uncancellable in many respects.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Well, no, no, no, I'm not uncancellable. I'm a goofball. I wear crazy glasses. I'm a comedian. I say things that probably are intelligent and sometimes people will look at me and go, that's a good take. A lot of the things I say are completely absurd. And, you know, I don't even know which is which when I say it because I do two hours of broadcasting. I've done it for eight years and I don't know what I'm going to say until I sit down and I talk. And some of the things I say that are absurd start intelligently and some of the things I say that are intelligent maybe start absurdly. And that's the fun of it to me. If I knew what I was going to say or if I had an agenda, if I wanted to say a certain

• 33:55Speaker 00

  thing, I would get very bored very quickly. But I just try to look at stuff and go, what do I think? What do I think? I'm being told this, you know, what's my reaction, you know? And that's kind of like what I try to do. But yeah, I think I'm goofy and if people are mad at me, they're kind of, they look stupid sometimes because of how over the top I am about certain things and how wild. And again, a lot of it I think is funny, right? So Joe has a different podcast. He has like a, he has a podcast where it sometimes is funny, but he has very serious people on, he has the biggest podcast, I think, in the world. I think you guys are maybe the second, right? You're up there.

• 34:36Steven Bartlett?

  I have no idea.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  You have no idea? Okay, clever. You know, like, he's hugely successful and he, you know, does all these really amazing interviews where he researches and he reads books. And he's smart and he's talking to somebody and I'm like, shooting from the hip. I'm just going off the top of my head and like halfway through a story, I'll go, oh no. And I'll just go the other way on it because I'll realize I'll sometimes I'll read the third paragraph. I'll be dismissing the whole thing. And then when I get to the third paragraph, I go, oh, this is a problem. So it is, and that's what I think makes it funny.

• 35:12Steven Bartlett?

  Joe Rogan.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:13Steven Bartlett?

  Um, going on his show, you you described that as being really pivotal for you in your career.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  He's the most generous person that I've met with his audience, with his fan base. All he wants is other people to succeed. He brings on comedians, he brings on writers, he brings on journalists. He helps them promote whatever they're doing. He has this huge fan base. He shares it with people. So I'm very lucky that he's had me on a show a bunch of times. And he's a very good friend and like when I go on the show, we just have the conversation that we would have. Privately, we have it on a show. So I think that's why people like it.

• 35:45Steven Bartlett?

  Podcasting.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:46Steven Bartlett?

  It's, I mean, it's taken on a life of its own. What do you think of podcasting? I mean, it's been on a bit of a journey. Obviously, there's, um, there was this big, I think podcasting was like the OGs of podcasting, like Rogan started out and then.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan.

• 35:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Keith and the Girl, a show in New York City, Mark Maron, those guys were in the very, very early.

• 36:03Steven Bartlett?

  Before it was cool, before anyone was really like, before the money was there.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 36:07Steven Bartlett?

  And then the celebrity show up. It was like a bit of an experiment for a couple of years. It seems Spotify have kind of rolled back from that.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Yes, because they have nothing to say. Um, most celebrities don't. A lot of them, uh, uh, you know, are invented people. Who are created in a laboratory. The laboratory is CAA, uh, my agency. And, uh, and they create a person and they get, um, uh, public relations people, they get lawyers. They get all these people, business managers, agents, they come in and they go, this is who you are. This is what plays. These are the things you highlight about your past. These are the things we don't talk about. Let's leave the Confederate flag at home. You know, they create a person. That person then goes and they're now famous. Um, it's a terrible idea to give that person a microphone and tell them to talk for an hour. It's terrible. You know, many of these people aren't that talented. Some of them are, some of them are amazingly talented.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  Some of them are very, very kind of banal people. People tend to think of Hollywood as this place where it's all satanic pedophiles eating children. Now, undoubtedly, some of that is true, but a lot of it is just very banal, boring people that have been created by these corporations that when you realize how boring they are and then you look at how much money they have and where they live, that's what will drive you nuts. You'll go, oh, my God. So that's why podcasting is a really, really bad idea for these people. They should be kept somewhere. They should have very managed things where they come out on the red carpet and they go, how are you doing? And they just go, climate change, and then walk into the auditorium and get an award.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  They should be allowed to speak two to three words at once, and they should know what those words are beforehand. It is a terrible idea to give someone, again, these people that all of their interactions are with other famous people, all of their thoughts are filtered through a prism of, you know, corporate lawyers before they can say anything. This is not what podcasting is, in my estimation. Is there any celebrity podcast that you think is? I'm sure there's some that are really good. This is not everyone, right? I'm sure there are people that have really good podcasts, but like, if we're just talking in general about, let's give A-list actors a microphone, probably not the best idea. Just probably not the best idea, you know?

• 38:26Speaker 00

  What's your? Because I know they give Meghan Markle money, they gave, they give a lot of people money there at Spotify, and, you know? And so I don't know that that, but that, then they came out and said, we made a mistake. We shouldn't have given these people money. Do you think you should have gotten the money instead? Of course. I absolutely believe that, but, you know, I, I, I can't compel them to give me the money. I can't compel them. I can't get a member of the royal family to marry me. And I would have stayed in that castle, no matter what was said. And but I can't have that happen. So I can't, you know, Oprah doesn't interview me. So you got you.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  I have enough money, but the um, sure, you know, I I think it's podcasting to me. The fun of podcasting is being unfiltered, free and just having fun.

• 39:18Steven Bartlett?

  What's your assessment of these sort of different generations? We have these Gen Zs, millennials, and we have the boomers. What's your read on?

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Well, we've given up on the children. The future is not the children. The children are no longer the future. The future is AI. The future is robotics. We're very clear on that. We don't even talk about the children anymore. We talk mainly about AI. No one's even said anything about the children in months, years, really. We've given up on the children. They're dead eyed little monsters. They're running around killing each other. We can't deal with it. It's very traumatic. I've even stopped thinking about what they're doing because it's crazy. I'm more excited about AI than the children, just like anyone else. Who's reviving the economy of San Francisco? The children? No, AI. So AI is next. We don't know what we're going to do with the children. Build prisons. That's what I say for children. They're crazy. They're being raised by algorithms. They're all on fentanyl. They're all on drugs.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  We're all running around trying to kill each other and and record it. There was a case in Phoenix, Arizona, these rich white kids running around beating up kids at random, filming it and putting it on TikTok. No motive, nothing, just for clout, just for things psych. And they killed a kid. And finally, now because they're all white, of course, the cops didn't do anything for a year. And they were like, wow, just a couple of kids having fun killing the other kids. This is how people grow up. So this Gilbert, Arizona Police Department does nothing about the whole thing. Finally, they just arrested these kids because they they killed somebody. But this is not only there. I mean, it's kind of an epidemic where like all over the place, you see like, you know, young people, unfortunately,

• 40:54Speaker 00

  you know, these crazy acts of violence that are now being uploaded for clout. People go and look at what I did. And what they did was like. You know, assault someone or kill someone. This is a real problem. So we have to deal with the kids in some way. Jail them, put, I don't know what to do with them. But AI is big, robotics is big. That's what is next. The boomers, I have a book coming out about them. I love the boomers. They're a selfish generation of people. The state of the boomers, these paranoid people who refuse to leave their McMansions. They will not leave. They will not retire. They lord around their houses. They diminish their children. They say, I can't believe you don't own something like this.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  They like holding these houses over their kids' heads. They retire to bigger houses. They have thousands and thousands of square feet. They're very sick people. They refuse to give up their jobs. They're dying in the Senate, they're collapsing in Congress. They will not leave. They will not cede any of their power. They're emotional terrorists. And I grew up with them. They're very interesting people. They've proven the lie of the 60s. These hippies that everybody thought were like progressive, they're actually not. They were always just selfish drug addicts. They never cared about anything they purported to care about. They just wanted to get high and roll around in the mud. And then as soon as the drugs changed from, you know, whatever, from, you know, acid to money,

• 42:23Speaker 00

  they, you know, became this very like materialistic, soulless group of people. But the funniest generation that has ever lived, nobody's funnier. Nobody's funnier because to be funny, like we talked about, you kind of have to just not care about anything. And there's no generation of people that have cared less about the future of this planet, about their children, about anything than the boomers. They're all little islands and they all are about themselves forever and ever. And there's something actually refreshing about that, funny. And they're holding the planet hostage. They won't die, they won't leave. I've suggested they be forcibly evicted from their homes and committed to mental institutions. Legally, we have some problems. That's not easy to do. I've spoken to some lawyers.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  There are problems doing that. And then the millennials were this very shitty. Generation of like, pin a medal on me, pin a ribbon on me, I'm right. I went to the right college. I got the right internship. I believe the right things. I tweeted the right thing. I did the right thing. I have all the right beliefs. I have the good politics. I have this. Shower me with, tell me I'm good, because my boomer parents, they don't care about me, but you tell me I'm good. The world needs to fill the void that exists inside of me. And these millennials are these kind of ambitious people that want to constantly be patted on the back and told how great they are. So they're kind of shape shifters that conform to any popular sentiment. They crowdsource all of their opinions. They just want.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Whereas the boomers just kind of didn't care about anyone or anything. You have the millennials who are kind of like more like, I am good and you tell me that I'm good. Because they're not, they're good to be told to be good. Their politics are aesthetic. They want everyone to look at them and to tell them how great they are. And then the zoomers are the younger generation after the millennials. They seem to be, you know, somewhat like they're self starters. They're very skeptical of institutions or a little more cynical. That's some of their positive qualities, that they're more independent minded. The negative qualities are the aforementioned murder and the filming of the murders and the killings and the drugs and the fentanyl vapes and all of that. That seems to be less.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  I mean, we need a draft, to be honest, you know, now that I'm kind of older and fat. Now we need a draft. Young people should probably just go into the military. I, I, I've, I've, I know that's going to be a controversial thing to say, but if they're just going to do fentanyl and attack each other in malls and put it on TikTok, they can go die in the Ukraine so that Boeing can make some money.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Are we still on YouTube?

• 45:02Steven Bartlett?

  So you, um, would you consider yourself to be optimistic about the future? There's a lot going on in the world.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  No, no, I, I, I don't, I'm sane. So I don't, I don't, I, I think there's good things happening, but I mean, optimism for the future overall, I don't know. That's tough to be, maybe, right?

• 45:19Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, you've got, you've got elections coming up this year as well here in the US, which is a big.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Well, we all know elections solve everything.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  We all know that's where the real power lies, the elections. Now, yeah.

• 45:31Steven Bartlett?

  When you're talking about refusing to relinquish control and power, the boomer generation, I was thinking a lot about Biden there.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 45:37Steven Bartlett?

  Because it seems like your presidents are getting older and older and refusing to.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, Biden seems to be a bit old. Trump's old. You know, Biden seems to be in a stage of mental decline, though. He was really good at the State of the Union. They gave him something, they shot him up with something, which is great. We have no new talent in the country. Nobody wants to be a politician anymore unless they're psychotic. You need young people that care about the country and that want to change it. And what you're getting now, more and more, is, you know, all of the interesting people in our country are, and the people that are ambitious and the people that have talent, they don't want to be in politics. They want to be somewhere else. It's more fun to go to Miami and trade

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Bitcoin on a yacht. You know what I mean? They just don't want to be in politics. They don't want to do it. So you end up with these octogenarian, drooling, somewhat, you know, like dementia-ridden elderly people who are incapable of even understanding what's happening in there. Because they don't even know what it is. They barely know what TikTok is. TikTok is something their grandchild shows them, you know, at some party they're having in Maine. They're sitting on a hill in Maine, eating lobsters falling out of their mouth. They go, "Look, grandpa, look at the TikTok." And then they have to then go into Congress

• 47:03Speaker 00

  and hash this out? No, so, I mean, the problem really is we just don't have young people that care enough about the country, because the press is going to rip their lives apart, right? They're going, there's so much more money elsewhere, there's so much more, and the system's so toxic and so corrupt, they go, "I don't want to get involved in that."

• 47:21Steven Bartlett?

  They're going to ban TikTok, aren't they? They're talking a lot about banning it.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  They're talking about it. I have no followers on it, so I'm for the ban. You know, for personal, completely personal reasons, I'm for the band. And I also think it's probab-- I don't know, I don't know anything about it. I, I just know that people are making a lot of money on it. And so if I say I'm for the band, people get angry with me. It's not a good, it's not a good cultural force, but what is?

• 47:45Steven Bartlett?

  Do you have goals in terms of your comedy and your career more generally? Do you have like stated goals?

• 47:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have things I want to do. I have, you know, the boomer thing, I want to do a show about boomers. I've always wanted to, the book is going to be a large part of that. I want to do either a movie or a show. There's something, I find it very funny, the way I grew up. My friends' families, their parents were very funny people. And I want to do something that kind of immortalizes that because they are about to leave. They're about to go. And there's something very funny about them. And I want to make something about, I think a lot of comedians, maybe everyone wants to do something about their childhood or do something about how they grew up or, but you know, I, mine will be good. That would be the difference. No, I, I really like the idea that that's a goal, just to tell that story is a goal.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  Bang on the desk, I apologize. Um, and then it's just to keep making people laugh and to keep having fun. You know, I mean, all the things that I, there are certain, that, that boomer story is something I want to tell. They got to find the right platform, the right medium, but that's something I want to do.

• 48:54Steven Bartlett?

  The, um, the, the, all those early experiences that you've had have quite clearly manifested in your work in various ways. You talked about the unprocessed trauma from your earliest years.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:04Steven Bartlett?

  Have you processed it?

• 49:05Speaker 00

  No, no, I mean, I, I processed some of it, some of it. I mean, I don't know that I processed all of it. I don't, in, in one lifetime, it's a tough thing to process all of it. But I've processed a good amount of it. And I've come to a point where there's always more work to do. You could always be in a better place mentally and you should try that, try to get there. Uh, but I think I've done a good job of processing it. I lost my mother about six months ago. Uh, I think, I don't know, it was August, she died in August, maybe, maybe six months. Um, and.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  It was a very difficult thing to go through because her life was not great at the end, but it was in the beginning. She had a lovely, amazing life in the beginning. Her and my father were married for 10 years before they had me. She loved surfing and boating and she spent a lot of time in Florida and she was kinda, she was voted best looking in her high school. She was very, very attractive early on. The front nine were good, the back nine were a little tough. But I had her out to my house on Long Island and the whole family was kinda there. We had a really nice day of everybody, my cousins, my, her sister, everybody being there. And that was a good moment. That's what I'm remembering.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  And it was, you know, she was as good as she could be. I, I try to get more religious as I get older and more faith. I, I think faith is a good thing to have. You know, obviously, religion being a human institution, there's, there's pitfalls, there's problems, you know, we don't have to rehash them. The idea of there being a spiritual realm to me is, I think, very interesting. I think it seems to be quite possible. I think that people are more than their bodies, they're more than the flesh, they're more than, there is a spirit there and I think there was a spirit

• 51:11Speaker 00

  in my mother that was trapped in a very difficult situation. And I think that spirit is free. And I think that's the way that I feel about a lot of things now is that I seem to be getting more into this idea of, you know, the physical not being everything. And that we, we should develop a spiritual side of ourselves. And I'm, I, I, I looked at the struggles that she had later on in her life and I was like, keeping her in a body and in a mind that is actively fighting against her was a selfish thing.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  So letting her, having her be free, I think is, is the best, you know, outcome. It's a complex set of feelings. It is.

• 52:03Steven Bartlett?

  Because there's grief on one end and then there's something else on the other, right? There's like a

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Well, there's relief because she was in pain. So when someone's in pain and they depart this world, you are, there's a relief that you have because watching them go through that is terrible. It's hard. And this is people that suffer in all kinds of ways. So, you know, again, I think people are more than their bodies. And, you know, I think they are, you know, the soul, I believe, is a real thing. I believe the spirit is real. And I was raised Catholic. There's parts of the Catholicism I don't vibe with as much, obviously, the terrible lineage of abuses. But then there's parts of it that I think are really good, having a spiritual dimension to your life. I think is really good. So, you know, I, I look at it and I would never say like it was time,

• 52:52Speaker 00

  but she had suffered greatly for a while. And having her out at the house and having her be with everybody kind of for the last time, nobody knew she was gonna die. But like, that was just kind of a moment where I think she might have felt like it was okay to let go. I don't know if that's true or not.

• 53:10Steven Bartlett?

  Have you, have you been to therapy?

• 53:11Speaker 00

  I have, I've been, yeah. I'm not in it currently, um, because I'm on tour, but I, and I haven't been in it in a bit, but I, I certainly have. And I think it can be very good.

• 53:21Steven Bartlett?

  I've been to therapy.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, it can also not be good.

• 53:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it can also be, yeah.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  It can also not be good, but it can be good.

• 53:29Steven Bartlett?

  Cause you, presumably you wanna have your own family someday? I'm presuming.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  Perhaps, yeah. I mean, I don't know, I've done, I've done a lot of career stuff for a very long time. And I think at the age I'm at, in your late 30s, you kind of start realizing that there's just a ceiling, not even career wise, but in how happy it'll make you. So, my career might get a lot better, but the, the amount of joy you derive from accomplishments as you get older starts to dim and you actually start enjoying other people's accomplishments. You start looking around, community makes you happy, being involved in things makes you happy. Um, helping people makes you happy. It starts to shift.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  If you are, you know, on a good path, I think you start to shift from like, me, me, me, look what I've done to like, hey, can I help somebody or can I be part of something that has a value?

• 54:32Steven Bartlett?

  What's the the bigger side of you that your audience don't don't understand or don't know? Cause I've watched you for years and I think I've watched a one dimension of you.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Yes, a funny one, hopefully.

• 54:43Steven Bartlett?

  Really funny, but.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  That, you know, I think everyone that they watch, me as well, is a human being and not always on all the time. And I think that, you know, there there's a dimension of me that you get on the show. There's a dimension of a lot of, you get a lot of what I think on the show, like if you went out to dinner with me, I and the things that I'm saying on the show are what I would say there. Like I would, I'm not gonna have an opinion on the show and then sit down and go, well, actually, this is the way I really feel. Everything you hear is what I think. And some of it's really funny, some of it's not. But I think it's just like, just a dimension of like being a human being apart from being a product, right? Where people just consume

• 55:30Speaker 00

  the things you're saying and doing. A lot of people probably didn't know a lot of this. Some of them did, because I'm pretty open about it. But like, you know, I think that a lot of people just see one side of you where here's a guy who makes everything funny or tries to make everything funny, but then there are a lot of things too where, you know, I have interests that aren't comedy, I have interests or not. You know, my career, I've interested or not, and I like to, you know, you know, talk about the spirituality stuff. That's probably something that I don't talk about. Maybe I'll bring it up, it's like an aside, but there are interests that I have that are varied, but for whatever reason, I'm like, it's not funny. Or it doesn't fit the show that I'm doing. So there's a show and then there's a person, right?

• 56:16Speaker 00

  That's not me, that's every entertainer everywhere.

• 56:19Steven Bartlett?

  Your show at the Royal Albert Hall that's coming up, it's in a couple of days' time.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:24Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things that I am always shocked by with you, and you've said it earlier, is that when you do your podcast, or when you do these sort of long long form bits, it appears that you're basically freestyling.

• 56:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:34Steven Bartlett?

  What's going through your head? Like, I've always wondered.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:37Steven Bartlett?

  When, if you're sat on Rogan or if you're sat on your podcast and, you know, your producer pulls up some article.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:42Steven Bartlett?

  Do you just kind of trust?

• 56:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:45Steven Bartlett?

  That you're fine.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  It's what I used to do when I was a drunk. I would sit at a bar and talk. And now I just do that without alcohol. Like, I, I've, I, I like looking at things and trying to figure out what's going on and trying to make them funny. And that's the value and the service that I provide is like, here's a landscape of stories and articles and things. And what the hell's going on? And let, let's see if we can make it funny. And let's see if we can understand it on a deeper level. Because there's so, you know, the press has all these agendas about like, what they want you to believe all over the place. Left wing, right wing, whatever. Centrist, corporate, just buy things, whatever it is. And what I like to do is look at them and go,

• 57:27Speaker 00

  well, maybe there's a dimension here that's more human, that I can flesh out because I'm looking at it. I, I don't have an agenda. I don't care either way. I'm not sponsored by the person in this article. I don't have a alliance or an allegiance to anything. I'm looking at it and going like, what's the funniest take? And how does this, you know, how, how does this explain something larger that's going on? That's interesting to me. That's fun to me. I like doing that. So I think it's been successful because I enjoy it.

• 58:00Steven Bartlett?

  You came out as gay at roughly sort of 25 years old during that period of your time, during that period of your life.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Very late. By today's standards, most people statistically today come out at the age of two.

• 58:16Steven Bartlett?

  You came, so where do you fit love into all of this?

• 58:19Speaker 00

  You try to fit it as, as, in, into it as, as much as you can. You know, you try to, you gotta, you know, it's hard because you travel a lot. And it's hard because you are spending a lot of time doing the things that are benefiting you in one part of your life. But sometimes that hurts another part of your life. So you try to, and again, like, once you start, like, you know, having success, it's, so a lot of comics like marry other comedians or somebody in that world who gets it, who understands it. So. You know, I think, you know, that's been something I've seen and and that works a lot of times. Like, people are really happy and bring up great families, kind of in the world of comedy,

• 59:03Speaker 00

  because their partner gets it. But for me, I I don't know if that's gonna, I don't want that, really. I would like somebody who's completely like not involved with this at all.

• 59:13Steven Bartlett?

  You dating?

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Yes, but not in not one person in like a serious way. You know, like, just around and, you know, kind of meeting people and seeing like, what's fun.

• 59:24Steven Bartlett?

  Have you ever been?

• 59:24Speaker 00

  Homosexuality is slightly different. So it's not like a whole, you know what I mean? It's not the royal wedding, per se. It's not like moving to the castle. But maybe one day, you know?

• 59:35Steven Bartlett?

  Have you ever been in a long term relationship, seriously?

• 59:37Speaker 00

  On and off, but not not serious where it's like, again, like, it's gonna lead to marriage and children. There is kind of that difference where like, you know, not that gay people can't get married and have kids. They can and have and blah, blah, blah, we know that. But I personally have not been in a relationship where it was like, this is where it's going. And I think it's a lot of it is because I was just so hyper focused on like, trying to figure out a way to do this really hard thing, which was like be a comedian. But, you know, now I think I'm more open to that stuff because, like I said, you know, you do some stuff, you do some cool stuff, and then you like want to enlarge those other parts of your life that you've neglected.

• 1:00:15Steven Bartlett?

  I was the same for most of my life, but I actually think when I look back, I just had, uh, I think the first model of what love is, you learn from observing your parents.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh oh, yeah, but you're right.

• 1:00:26Steven Bartlett?

  You know, and then you go, okay, this is this is love. Okay, so this man, this woman, how they interact. And then you grow up and you go, that never leaves your brain and you think, is that what I want?

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right, that's right. Yeah, it is, it is not, but you're right. And a lot of it is an excuse when when I go, oh, it's all the it's all the career. That's me being kind of a selfish person that you I needed to be selfish to figure out a way to like, get to where I wanted to go. But, you know, I could have made more time, but I didn't, right? So it's like, you know, you battle a lot in life with like the things you want, the things you think you want. You know, it's kind of you. Want the thing, you want the nice stuff, you want the nice cars, you want the nice things. But then you realize that the things you really like are the things that you feel drawn to.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  And you feel drawn to, obviously, making people laugh, but you also feel drawn to being, you know, in a, like, a situation where you're being appreciated, loved, and, you know, taken care of.

• 1:01:26Steven Bartlett?

  What do you love about yourself?

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  My ability to do it and keep doing it. And like, I don't, I'm not an excuse person, I don't, I, you know, I take rejection and I, I kinda move on pretty quickly. I've done that since I'm a kid. I have a lot of the qualities that a lot of the YouTube guys try to, not, not the go to the gym every day and do this and do that, obviously, but like, I don't let someone tell me something's not gonna happen. I'll just keep going until I figure out a way to make it happen on my terms, and I like that about myself at all. Um, you know, I like that about myself a lot. I think that that's a good quality to have, growing up the way I grew up.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  There's a version of me that's just a druggie, that's just on the street, that's dead, that is blaming everyone else for every other thing, that's talking about how, you know, whatever. So many people had it so much harder than me, right? I had a mom that was sick and, you know, a dad that was maybe not as involved as maybe he could have been, but they're both really good people, both very supportive of me. The drugs were something that I did, that, you know what I mean? Like, so many people grow up in genuinely abusive environments. And they succeed wildly. So I'm inspired by people like that. So I'm not trying to say like it's woe is me or anything, but like, I did come from a, an environment,

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  and I do have that thing in me, we all do, where I could just offload everything and say, hey, I didn't get what I wanted, it wasn't a perfect scenario, I'm gonna use drugs for the rest of my life, I'm gonna mismanage my money, I'm gonna go broke, I'm gonna, you know, blame everybody else. I could have been that guy. I was that guy for many years, and I know who that guy is. I'm happy I was able to get rid of that. That doesn't mean the guy that I am now is a perfect person, not at all. There's a whole host of other problems you have, once you get rid of that guy, but I'm glad I got rid of that guy.

• 1:03:31Steven Bartlett?

  And what are you working on now, over there?

• 1:03:34Speaker 00

  I mean, everything, eating better, sleeping better, spending more time with people, going on dates and listening to actually what people say. You know, even if they're terribly uninteresting, as most of them are, right? But you have to, you know, bless them. You have to, God bless them, they're children of God. You have to just kind of listen and you did, you majored in marketing. So, you know, you, but, but all that stuff, I'm obviously, I'm kidding, but like, all the stuff that human beings have to do, their mental, physical health, uh, you know, the way they balance their lives, it's, it's all, once you sober up, it's not like, wow, the journey's done, it's like, wow, the journey can actually begin. And I can learn how to negotiate all this stuff as a human being.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  And you fail all the time, across the board. But what you don't do is you don't start using drugs, you don't start drinking, you don't start becoming a pathological liar, you don't start doing the things that you used to do when you were out there, you know, being the worst version of yourself.

• 1:04:36Steven Bartlett?

  Coping mechanisms.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Steven Bartlett?

  Mental health coping mechanisms. Uh, what's, what's, how is your mental health? And, um, what are your new sort of mechanisms for managing mental health?

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  Well, I, it's just, I think it's good, I'm a comedian, so it can't be great. If it was great, I probably, I wouldn't have became a comedian, probably. Um, I think talking to people, you know, taking long walks, again, helping people, enlarging your life, your spiritual life, trying to be a better person, is, is what everyone should do all the time. I think that's what I try to do. I try not to get too caught up in, you know, the insanity of the world, of spending too much time online, looking at the internet too much, you know, not being around real people, being in your head, obsessing about things you can't control. All of that, if you can, if you can find ways to not watch the murders on TikTok

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  and go somewhere else and just sit on a beach or take a walk or do something. It's much better for your mental health than just watching this parade of insanity. You know, it is fun to do, I do it sometimes, I have to do it as part of my show. But I think if you can get away from it, I, as I get older, I spend less time online. I grew up without it and then it became your life. And now, if you spend less time on it, I actually think you look at it as, oh, this is something I do for my career. But then you actually have a real life, you can read a book. Go somewhere like that to me has more value now than just scrolling and the endless that that to me is a recipe for unhappiness. We know it too. All these young kids, we know

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  how bad it is. We know how bad the effects of a lot of this stuff are and we will lie about it and all these tech companies like there's no correlation between the mass suicide and my new app, which tells them how to do it. Like there's no, you know, there's no, you know, they have a new app suicider. They're like, that has nothing to do with that. Um, you know, it's like, you know, uh, just filters which you can kill yourself. They go, that has nothing to do with what's happening. It's for entertainment. The kids know it. So we know how bad this stuff is. We know how toxic it is. Um, we're seeing it with young people now, the way we've never seen it before. And, uh, you know, so I think

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  that's another thing. Your mental health can be really dramatically improved if you have a human, human interaction.

• 1:07:03Steven Bartlett?

  Elon obviously bought Twitter and that seems to have kind of balanced the scales in terms of giving, you know, one could call it free speech, but another outlet for people to just speak in a more uncensored, freer way without.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:07:14Steven Bartlett?

  Are you, are you happy that he, he bought?

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  I think it was good. Yeah. I mean, listen, Twitter had become a really unfortunate example of censorship in American society. Twitter itself, you know, as a thing is not a holistic thing. It never was. It was always this kind of battleground where people would just be crazy and, you know, fight with each other and this, that and the other thing. I don't know that it is, you know, people say it's the town square. It might be. I don't know if it is. Uh, I think it's good that he bought it. I think it's good that people can say what they want to say. Again, I, I just, I think that at the end of the day, it's like, whatever Twitter is for people, if they really enjoy it or they like it, use it. You know, there are times when I enjoy it and I use it. There's times when

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  I just don't care as much and I'd rather put those thoughts on my show and develop them more. I think that's, you know, where I'm at.

• 1:08:10Steven Bartlett?

  Do you ever get, um, bothered by feedback you get?

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Sure. Everyone does. Everyone does. But I don't get a lot of, I've tried to limit feedback because feedback can work in two ways. You can also start doing something you think people will like and then end up. Destroying the beauty of what you do or what you enjoy. So I think when people go, well, why don't you do more of this? Well, I don't like this. This sucks. Do more of that. You shouldn't be in that headspace. You should go out and do what you do. And then the responses to it are all valid because the people that are having them, this is their reaction. But you don't have to consume their reactions as a way to program your mind about the things you create.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  I think you can let them have their reactions and, you know, you can tell, you know, you can look and, and, you know, does what you're doing feel good? Does it make you laugh? Is it funny? Do people you trust and like enjoy it? And, you know, you know, in comedy, there are metrics, right? There's all kinds of things. The internet, there's all kinds of metrics. Are people liking it? Do they buy tickets? Do they, are they enjoying it? People communicate in all kinds of ways.

• 1:09:23Steven Bartlett?

  So your tour comes to the UK. Very, very excited. I'm going to do my very, very best to make sure I'm, I'm at least one of the shows.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  I would love to you to go to the one in Finland where 19 people have bought tickets. No, I'm kidding. Um, that's, uh, I love the finish. A woman sent me a message. She goes, it's not London and it's not the Hamptons. But she goes, it's what we have and I'll show it to you. And I was like, well, I like that. I like someone who's very grounded like that, who really knows what it is.

• 1:09:47Steven Bartlett?

  But the Royal Albert Hall.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  That's the iconic venue and I'm, I'm really happy to do it. And I'm so mad you're in Australia. We would have, you know.

• 1:09:56Steven Bartlett?

  I'm pretty sure I'm in Australia on that day, aren't I? Cause I, when I saw you post on Twitter that you were coming to London, I sent it to my team within about a millisecond and said, oh my God, let's all get tickets. And then someone rebuttled and said, you're in Australia at that time, but you're doing, you're in Manchester and Liverpool as well. For the 7th of April, the Royal Albert Hall. What, what can one expect from that show?

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  I think if you. Are into darker comedy, if you like, you know, kind of, it's, it's a lot of it's somewhat, you know, topical to a degree. I look back at the year that we've kind of had and, you know, I talk about stories that have interested me in funny ways, you know, obviously, and there are, there are cultural trends in America and probably a lot of them in Britain that, you know, we talk about all these things. A lot of the things that we've covered today, whether it's social media and its effect on children and mental health, all of these things are themes in the hour of comedy, right? And like, people getting cancelled for certain things and homelessness I talk about because that's an epidemic in American

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  cities, like drugs, everything. So a lot of what we've discussed today, it's, it's funnier there.

• 1:11:05Steven Bartlett?

  And you, um,

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  Hopefully.

• 1:11:07Steven Bartlett?

  You, I, I think I heard you say you were thinking about potentially moving to London at one point.

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  I wanna, I'd love to own something in London. I like One Hyde Park, but it's very expensive. And the reason that I like it is because it's the most expensive residential real estate building in the world. No one really lives there, but you see these young Saudi kids drive their Bugattis and stuff, and every now and then one or two lights is on. And to me, it symbolizes the utter coldness and emptiness of having things. And I think there's a beauty to that. There's something very interesting about it. You know, that whole city of London really interests me. And I don't mean the city of London, I mean that city of London, that city within a city, which most people don't know about. There's a great article in Vanity Fair, read it or don't. The point is, that whole area of Knightsbridge is very interesting to me. And One Hyde Park is interesting because

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  the, the banality and the hollowness of extreme wealth really shocks. But we, we tend to, and listen, we know the rich are doing crazy things, right? The mega-rich, they create the yachts, the this, the that, the Epstein stuff, a lot of it, not good, regrettable, we understand it. There's also an element I think people don't understand, and that's the banality. How boring, how passionless a lot of people are at that level of, and that's always made me.

• 1:12:23Steven Bartlett?

  You would like to join the Knightsbridge crowd?

• 1:12:25Speaker 00

  I, I, well, to observe, you know, they'll never let me in. That's the other thing I love about, I'm addicted to rejection, right? Since I'm six, I've been auditioning and have, no, no, so they'll never let me in. But it's just fun to kind of look at, and you don't even want to be in per se, because it's not fun. That's the thing, it's not really that fun. But it is funny to me when I look at like, you know, the secrecy and how, you know, some of it really, yeah, is really bad. And people are doing crazy things and they're overthrowing governments and that's probably 10% of them. And then 90% of them, it's just they're fighting extreme, suffocating boredom.

• 1:13:01Steven Bartlett?

  And the north of England's very different, as you've observed.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  Very spirited, lively, fun, interesting. I love it there.

• 1:13:08Steven Bartlett?

  They like alcohol a little bit more, they have more fun.

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  They have a lot of fun.

• 1:13:11Steven Bartlett?

  I guess they probably heckle you more.

• 1:13:13Speaker 00

  Perhaps, yeah. I mean, I haven't been in the north. This is my first time in the north. I've been to Glasgow, which is Scotland, I've been to Dublin, uh, but this is my first time in the north. I did a show, the second, first show in Dublin I did last year, one of the greatest shows I've ever done, second show, uh, was a late show. And it was just drunk, so drunk, they were crazy. And one woman screamed, fuck Catholics. And then there was a big fight in the audience. And then I screamed at them, I said, this is why Dubai is winning. This is why China is winning. Like, look at you people. You're screaming, you all look alike, you all, you look like me, you're all potatoes screaming at other potatoes. That they're slightly different kinds of potatoes. It's stupid. Um, and they like that, they cheer.

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  And I said, this is why you guys are losers and Dubai is taking over. They're building buildings that reach the sky and they all cheer, they understood, you know? They get it. I mean, that's where I'm from, that's where culturally I'm from, so.

• 1:14:04Steven Bartlett?

  Dubai really is, um, doing well by, by all sort of economic accounts.

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  People love it, people love it.

• 1:14:09Steven Bartlett?

  You, you like it?

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  I've never been.

• 1:14:11Steven Bartlett?

  You've never been?

• 1:14:12Speaker 00

  I've never been.

• 1:14:13Steven Bartlett?

  Uh, it's a beautiful, clean, orderly. Seems like there's nowhere left.

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  That's the themes, right? I mean, this is, this is what, you know, we're seeing is that this is what people want. They want beautiful, clean and orderly. And, you know, now there's an underbelly there, obviously, you know? This is not ideal, right?

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  You know, but these are the things that America is struggling with right now. A lot of our cities are in disarray.

• 1:14:39Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I mean, California is a good example of a city in disarray. I couldn't quite believe it because the image we all have of California as Brits is this beautiful,

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  No, no. Lie, lies, Hollywood, lies.

• 1:14:50Steven Bartlett?

  That's what we've seen on our TVs.

• 1:14:51Speaker 00

  There are some, there are some beautiful parts of this state that are incredibly stunning. And you are, but it, the people are hollow. They're empty. They don't exist. All the people you meet in L.A. are figments of your imagination. They're fractals. They're not real. You didn't meet them. They are an entity of which they are, they go between worlds, but they're not physically in reality, the way that you are or I am. So keep that in mind as you're navigating the city that the people, many of them that you're seeing, it's just kind of, you know, some of them are attractive and whatever, but they actually don't meaningfully exist in any way that you would understand.

• 1:15:35Steven Bartlett?

  There's quite actually, as you say that, there's a thin line between the two polar sides of L.A. The extreme like wealth and then the extreme poverty. There's like a thin line psychologically between.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  Most of L.A. is people waiting for instructions. That's what it is. Now, because everybody here is on the chopping block from the CEO of Paramount to a bus boy who's trying to get a showcase to get a spot at the Hollywood Improv or maybe he wants to be an actor, whatever. Everybody in this town is replaceable. Everybody feels that, everybody. So everybody's waiting for instructions. Nobody wants to act. Everybody's waiting for somebody else to let them know it's okay because that is how the town works. And people tend to wait for consensus to build before they do something. You know, again, they don't believe anything. The town is not a town of people who believe things.

• 1:16:31Speaker 00

  They're, they sit in their house, they're sitting, you know, you look at these houses in Beverly Hills or wherever you are in Malibu, they're just sitting like this. They're just sitting like this, they're very still. And they don't, you know, and then they go out, the trainer works them out, they go back and they sit and they stare. And they're waiting for instruction, waiting for the phone to call, they're waiting for an email. They're waiting to be told what to believe and who to believe in. And what reality is the reality of today? Are fat women in? Great, get them on. Get a bunch of women in this on oxygen machines. What are we in today? Are we doing something else tomorrow? Are we back to hot people? Get them. They're waiting for instructions. They have no beliefs. They are empty, they're hollow, they're vessels. But it is pretty and the tacos are good.

• 1:17:15Steven Bartlett?

  The, um, the thing that we've, you know, as Brits, we've watched America for so long and we see California, Hollywood, we, you know, we, it seems glamorous. We see New York, which looks like an amazing place as well.

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  New York's amazing. Very different.

• 1:17:26Steven Bartlett?

  I love, I love New York.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  New York's an actual city. This is an idea and not a good one.

• 1:17:32Steven Bartlett?

  And you said at the start of this, this, you said the phrase that like you can, that it's bad advice that you can do anything and be anything. But to us, that's always been like the American dream is you come here and then you can do anything and be anything. That's what we see as the American dream in the UK. Like the land of possibilities. You can become anyone and you rise to the top.

• 1:17:51Speaker 00

  Well, yes, we market that quite well.

• 1:17:55Speaker 00

  And sure, I mean, listen. Yeah, I mean, could you? Yeah, but the reality of the situation is that journey is a bit more involved than people say. When you go, oh, you can be the president of the United States. When you tell a kid who's an eighth, you know, eight years old or whatever, you can be the president. Yeah, but the journeys have been involved. You leave out a lot. You leave out a lot about the compromises that you have to make to become the president of the United States. It's kind of like telling someone they can be a superhero. Yes, I'm sure that you can be a version of that, but there's a little bit you're gonna have to do.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  I think it's a very bad overall thing to tell masses of people that they should, without regard to reality, without regard to their own limitations, or their own, without regard to their own tolerance for work, and how much work they want to be, without regard for any of that, telling them that they can just be anything they want to be, it's such a deeper conversation, and it's such a, it's a catchphrase, it's a license plate, it's something to put on a shirt, it's a bumper sticker, it's not a philosophy for life, because there's a lot more, there's a lot more that goes into that statement, and I think

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  that's what I mean. Not that people can't do great things, people can absolutely do great things, I think people can do great things in the UK, too, right? People can do things in the UK. I mean, maybe the class systems are more stratified there than it is here, but I just think that like, you know, what we mean when we say you can be whatever you want in America is you can make as much money as you want. That's what we're really saying. We're really pushing this idea that the only route to happiness is this upwardly mobile vertical where you have to grab everything and be a boss and be an entrepreneur and run an empire, and that's the way to happiness. That's not the way to happiness. That's what we're pushing. We're not telling everybody they can be anything

• 1:20:07Speaker 00

  they want to be, so that we have a lot of challenges to like our ideas and stuff. We're not, we're not looking for that type of feedback. We just want people going out and working themselves to death. That's what we really want. When we say that you can be anything you want to be, the translation is, work yourself to death, I'm going on my boat.

• 1:20:27Steven Bartlett?

  But this younger generation aren't apparently working themselves to death. If you, if you observe things like TikTok where they're having like the Mocha Choco Frappuccino and doing the yoga and the, working at the big tech company and quiet quitting and

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  Some of them have figured out that the country's a scam. And here's the good news. They're not wrong. And when, when you figured out the country's a scam, You can approach it the way a con artist or a scammer would approach it, which is what a lot of them do. They invent mental health ailments they don't have. They take days off on end. They terrify their superiors into respecting their mediocre, shoddy quality of work. This is something that Gen Z has latched on to. This is something that I fully support. Um, this is their way of rising through the ranks. They're taking advantage of people that they work with. Um, and, and, uh, you know, making them tolerate less and less work and work of a lower and lower quality because they've realized that a lot of this is bullshit.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  So they're like, why shouldn't I get in on it?

• 1:21:26Steven Bartlett?

  And there's obviously the remote work now as well. That's a big thing post pandemic, which is.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  Absolutely. We've realized over the pandemic, I, I think a lot of people that a lot of the things that we thought were guarantees aren't. And a lot of the things we tended to believe in fervently, we at the very least right now question. I think young people like, why in the hell should I spend 40 hours doing a job I hate when I can pretend to do it? And threaten my boss if they try to fire me? And fake a mental illness that I don't have? And demand everybody conform to what I want? And then use whatever diversity chips I have to go out and, and

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  throw a scare into anyone that tries to call me to account for any of my behavior. And I think that's a beautiful thing. I mean, it's very interesting. It's really destabilizing a lot of, uh, society, you know? Now, obviously the sane thing is to shut those people up and say, shut up. You have to do these things or get out. But nobody's going to do that. They found the flaw in the system. They've kind of exposed the scam. And once the scam is exposed, it's for all to be seen. And now everybody can kinda just approach it the way it is. Everybody now is kinda like, even big companies. Everybody's like in it for themselves and just trying to figure out like, how do I get the most? And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the most American thing ever, right? Is to try to get something for yourself.

• 1:22:56Speaker 00

  There's no, there shouldn't. Be any hate for that. It's a bit silly, ridiculous and crazy how they do it. But they're only taking the tools that you've given to them and that you've allowed them to use, right? So they use these things, you know?

• 1:23:11Steven Bartlett?

  Smart.

• 1:23:11Speaker 00

  They go, why are you late today? They go, I'm gay. You go, don't worry about it. You know, like what you're there, there you, it's the most American thing ever to use. The playbook that someone hands you and goes, here's the playbook and you go, great. I have anxiety. I have anxiety. You keep coming into my physical space. Great words. You keep coming into my physical space. You're using volume right now. I have anxiety. I need time right now. To I do, this report is not ready, but I need time right now. And I have, and you know what I need right now is just to be a little quiet. So it's great. I mean, I'm for it.

• 1:23:49Steven Bartlett?

  I've, I've interviewed a lot of people about AI. Experts at the very top of these AI companies, but you, you mentioned it earlier and I was, when I knew you were coming today, I thought this is the guy I need to ask about.

• 1:23:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Steven Bartlett?

  The future of AI, because as it relates to that generation, the thing that's going to disrupt them, but also many other generations is the advent of. Superintelligence where, you know, apparently all of the things we do, that report can be done by some kind of robot or AI. So you must have a, a pretty, you know, informed view about artificial intelligence.

• 1:24:17Speaker 00

  Well, listen, it's affecting the industry that I'm in greatly. I think I'm lucky enough and comedians are lucky enough that we won't be replaced as quickly perhaps. As other people, but it's certainly going to disrupt the, the world of writing, the world of acting. Certainly, you know, Tyler Perry just canceled an. Eight hundred million dollar expansion because he looked at this new AI. It was generating locations because why do we have to have on location shoots? Then you start thinking about set dressers, prop companies, all these things. That will be, you know, you know, maybe unnecessary now with AI. So the business that I'm in, it, it seems like, and again, not to be.

• 1:24:58Speaker 00

  overly dramatic about it, but people are looking at it like an apocalyptic event. Because there are jobs that when we look at how profoundly AI is going to impact the business, that just simply won't exist. You know, we have AI influencers now that are actually because we've bred in this country, some of the least interesting people on the planet and some of the most interesting. But some of the least interesting people, the most generic people are making millions and millions of dollars, essentially just hawking products on the internet. That's all they do. They go, someone asked me about my skincare routine and I thought I would share something with you guys. I'd share a promo code with you guys because a lot of people come up to me and they go, your skin is really glistening. It looks really good. So I'm really excited to share this promo.

• 1:25:43Speaker 00

  And so those people don't need to exist. In fact, they really don't. They don't exist as human beings. So they need to be just replaced by a pixelated version of that, an AI version of that. There's now going from Robert De Niro to AI, that's going to be a thing. Going from, you know, Tina Turner to AI, that's a big deal. Going from these people, these generic barcodes with feet, these promo codes, going from them to AI is going to be literally unnoticed. Let it happen.

• 1:26:15Steven Bartlett?

  I saw an AI influencer the day that had 200,000 followers.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:26:19Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:26:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:20Steven Bartlett?

  And there's some with millions, there's that Lin, what's that Lin AI influencer that's got millions and millions. And I was thinking, gee, and then the crazy thing was the comment section

• 1:26:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:28Steven Bartlett?

  of like these men

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:26:29Steven Bartlett?

  that were genuinely messaging this AI influencer.

• 1:26:32Speaker 00

  Very healthy, very healthy men. Yes, genuinely, yes. Well, you know, not everyone's happy with women right now. And this AI woman might be, you know, doing better. I don't know.

• 1:26:44Steven Bartlett?

  If you, if you play this forward, you talked about robotics earlier, AI robotics, people are getting lonelier than ever. It seems like a lot of people in the future are going to be dating these AI sex robots.

• 1:26:55Speaker 00

  That might be where I finally find someone that respects my autonomy and respects me. And it might be someone I like. I mean, I'm very open to that, to dating kind of an AI.

• 1:27:06Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:27:07Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, you never say never. You never say never. I mean, humans are over. We've had a run. It's ending. Um, it's all around us. That's why I mean, the whole thing about the children, no one cares. Politicians used to talk endlessly about children and families. Now, the only reason children come up is if they're using a bathroom and it's a gender thing. Other than that, no one cares. No one care. They're only a battering ram about like a cultural conversation or whatever. It has nothing to do with like, are they being educated? Do they, are they gonna have any money? Can they own anything ever? And, you know, all these, all these companies that own everything now, and they have excluded people, have locked people out of owning them, the BlackRock, things like that.

• 1:27:49Speaker 00

  Basically, they're just having, they're just like, the internet's your home now. That's what you, that's your home. You can't own a house, you can't own anything, but you own your avatar, you can date someone who's AI. You can have any comment on anything you want. If, you know, something comes out and you don't like it, you can type about it, you'll never own a thing, you'll never own a house, you'll never own a car, you'll never have any money. Uh, the best parts of the world will be colonized by the super rich. The rest will be ravaged by climate change. The good news is, you can close the door to your little pod, talk to your AI influencer and have an opinion, but it won't change anything. And it won't matter because you'll be living in this world that we've created for you to feel like you have a purpose. But we've robbed you of all of the things, uh, that you could say,

• 1:28:34Speaker 00

  uh, that are yours. And everything that is yours, even your own thoughts, we now own. Even your, your locations are digital. The way you, you know, where you park your memories are digital. We own all of that. We've taken everything from you. The, the physical dimension of your life, we've just completely removed it. We've let the cities you used to love get invaded with hordes of, uh, drug addicts, and you're scared to leave your home. And isn't that, isn't that great? Because you don't really need to leave your home anyway. So after we've taken all of this from you, we're gonna give you a nice AI influencer to date. So am I optimistic about the future? The answer is yes. It's gonna be beautiful.

• 1:29:11Steven Bartlett?

  What about men? Men are struggling, it seems.

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:13Steven Bartlett?

  If you look at the data, there's, men seem to be lonelier than ever. There's higher rates of sort of suicidality. There's lots of sort of addictions, pornography addictions and stuff like that. You know, now we have these sort of quote unquote masculine influences emerging that are presenting a set of answers and telling them that they're losers.

• 1:29:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:29:30Steven Bartlett?

  And those people seem to be the most compelling to that group.

• 1:29:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I, I, I think it's, again, I think that. Dividing the world into interest groups and having them only be interest groups and, you know, giving our humanity away to this idea that we should all be pitted against each other, whether it's men and women, whether it's different races, whether it's different religions. At the end of the day, it all feeds the same type of isolation that you're seeing now, right? It feeds that. It is an ideology that is not about building anything, it's not about constructing something, it's about tearing something apart. So when everybody endlessly talks about how terrible men are, or that men are the result,

• 1:30:15Speaker 00

  all of these horrible things happen because of men, and that, you know, having a man in something, or giving a man an opportunity for whatever reason. Now, obviously, men do great in the world, right? So even as people hear me say this, they're gonna get angry, they're gonna go, "No, every president's been a man." But no, the reality is, you know, hearing if you're a young guy, you're a young boy that goes to school, and you hear that you're toxic, and there's traits about you that are toxic, and that you're contributing to a worldview that is unknowingly, or that you're inherently racist, or that you're inherently sexist, learning that, and hearing that, and feeling that, and everything else I just talked about, this world that is harder and harder to stand out in.

• 1:30:58Speaker 00

  It's harder and harder to get something that feels like it's worthwhile. It's more difficult now to carve out a space for yourself, for everybody, you know? But I think nobody wants to hear men talk about it. Nobody wants to hear men commiserate about the difficulties and the challenges they're having, because I think a lot of people's knee-jerk reaction is to just tell men, "You've had it good, shut up, nobody wants to hear you." That's terrible. These are also the same people who talk about the importance of mental health, and how important it is to talk about mental health. So I think we have to, we have to stop. Pitting people against each other and stop, you know,

• 1:31:42Speaker 00

  tearing everything apart and start to build things based on values. And the values cannot be just this rampant tribalism of you're a man, you're straight, you're gay, you're white, you're black, you're indigenous, you're... I think we have to build it on values, like what do we believe? What do we believe? And then you should be around like-minded people who believe the things you believe in. They all don't have to be the same thing. America is a very big country. The people that live in Malibu, California don't believe the same things. The people that live in Louisiana, that's okay. We're all gonna die if we keep trying to convince each other to think the way other people think. There is not a bigger waste of time on this planet than for me to go to people and convince them

• 1:32:26Speaker 00

  to have the same thoughts I'm having and the same experience on this planet than I am having. The way forward is to respect people's differences and to create a world where different people can thrive.

• 1:32:37Steven Bartlett?

  And Andrew Tate has shown up as kind of a symbol for that group of people, with the Lamborghini and the muscles and the fighting and the money and the women.

• 1:32:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Steven Bartlett?

  And that's drawn in a big group of men who say, you know...

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I think I've met Andrew Tate. I've had him on my show and he's very, very, very lovely to me. He was a nice guy. I think what he speaks to, and he says wacky things like everyone does, like I do, like a lot of people do, he's not, again, he shouldn't be a senator. But I think what he speaks to is that desire that a lot of people have, a lot of men have, to be respected. They wanna be respected. And they wanna do things in life that bring them respect. And I think he's preaching certain things that can get you respect, can raise your status as a male. Now, some of those things have negative connotations and some of those things might have unintended consequences. But the things he's talking about, it's easy why

• 1:33:33Speaker 00

  young people understand why they would wanna have money and have status and, you know, be in good shape. And all these things that are, you know, somewhat demonized, you know, potentially by people. But then also at the same time coveted. Meaning that a lot of the people that demonize the Andrew Tates of the world are doing the same thing he's doing in another way. Nobody would ever, you know, if you're, if, if someone goes and celebrates female CEOs, they would never be criticized. It would actually be a great thing. If I had an event for women leaders, if I had an event for women leaders and I got up and I said, these women are rich. You have money. You have status. Look what you've

• 1:34:18Speaker 00

  done. It would be cheered. This would be the Aspen Ideas Conference. It would be anywhere, right? Now, what Andrew Tate has said to men, among other things that are probably not all great, but one of his things is go get your financial status up because that's how you're going to get respect in this world is by having money and not relying on other people. That is demonized endlessly as this crazy thing that is terrible and the worst advice for men to get. And he says, yes, it'll get you women. By having these things will get you women. And then people demonize that. They go, how dare he? That's crazy. But on the flip side, if I'm celebrating the material accomplishments of women, that's

• 1:34:59Speaker 00

  in our culture, great. And telling girls that they all should be girl bosses and they all should get material things and own your house and own a company and be, so I think there's a little bit of a double standard where we're kind of, we look at the Andrew Tates of the world, we, we completely demonize the idea that they're telling men, money gets you status. These things get you status and get you women. However, on the other side, we're constantly telling, uh, young women that career oriented goals are the most important thing in life.

• 1:35:33Steven Bartlett?

  We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to leave it for.

• 1:35:38Speaker 00

  Interesting. Wow. That's a good one.

• 1:35:42Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, I think you know this person.

• 1:35:44Speaker 00

  But I, okay, but interesting. After I say the question, can you tell me who it is?

• 1:35:49Steven Bartlett?

  Well, that violates the rules a little bit.

• 1:35:51Speaker 00

  Okay, all right, all right. Then I won't violate the rules.

• 1:35:53Steven Bartlett?

  But you, you would be able to figure it out if you, if you cared enough to figure. Actually, we, we turn these into cards, which are over there. So it's a stack of cards. And if you turn over your question, the question you'll, well, if you, if you find this question in there, you turn it over and you scan the back of the card, it will show you answering it. So you would be able to figure it out.

• 1:36:11Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting. Okay, so I have to leave a question for.

• 1:36:14Steven Bartlett?

  The next person.

• 1:36:15Speaker 00

  The next person.

• 1:36:15Steven Bartlett?

  And you don't know who that's gonna be either.

• 1:36:17Speaker 00

  Do I answer their question first?

• 1:36:18Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, you answer this one first.

• 1:36:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:36:20Steven Bartlett?

  Who should you have apologized to but didn't? And why?

• 1:36:25Speaker 00

  Good question.

• 1:36:29Speaker 00

  Meghan Markle. Because when she launched her lifestyle brand,

• 1:36:35Speaker 00

  American Riviera Orchard, which is a beautiful collection of glassware and dishes for the upwardly mobile woman.

• 1:36:43Speaker 00

  I really thought, I had doubted her level of shamelessness. I am now, I respect it, I like it, I'd have lunch with her. I've come full circle on her.

• 1:36:55Speaker 00

  Using all of that social capital about this supposed racist treatment you received, using all of that social capital to launch a lifestyle brand so that people have glasses of which they can drink Chardonnay in, in Santa Barbara. Perfect. So I am sorry, Meghan, that I had ever doubted you. I am on board now in a major way. And if there is a job for me at American Riviera Orchard, three words that don't really make sense together, but yet sound lovely, I would love to, I would love to be, I'd love to be considered for a position.

• 1:37:32Steven Bartlett?

  So you're a fan of Meghan Markle's now?

• 1:37:33Speaker 00

  Big time. Big time. It's gone the other way. Often with me, it does. I'll criticize a person for being sort of grotesque, and then they start to own their grotesqueness, and it makes them, you inevitably have to like them because they're just so shameless. You just go, I like this. I adore this. You know, like I saw, I saw her and she's like, American Revere Orchard, Montecito. It's just so funny. It's everything she supposedly hates, which is privilege and class and all this stuff, and it's just right there. You know, it's great. It's actually fun, and it gives me hope for the future.

• 1:38:15Steven Bartlett?

  I sense you aren't being serious with that answer.

• 1:38:17Speaker 00

  But I am. I would apologize to her. I would say to her, I doubted you. And, you know, and I am kind of deadly serious about that. Meghan Markle is at her essence. Okay, a climber. This is all she is. A Hollywood actress, a climber. Look where she's climbed. Look where she's climbed. She's living in a mansion in Montecito. She's got all these idiots. Like, she has climbed. We're not talking about her character. We're not talking about that. And I'm hitting the desk again. We're not talking about her character. We're talking only about the results. You have to give it to her. A lot of C-list actresses end up a lot of places. Very few of them end up in Buckingham Palace, or our version of Buckingham

• 1:39:02Speaker 00

  Palace, which is Montecito. So, good for her.

• 1:39:04Steven Bartlett?

  I'm not gonna let you leave until you give me another answer.

• 1:39:08Speaker 00

  Another answer about who I should have apologized to? I don't know. I've apologized to so many people. I guess my grandmother, who died, I should have been more apologetic about, you know, when I was a druggie, and when I was out there, and how much she worried about me. I think people tend to not realize how much anxiety their behavior causes. Like, I didn't realize how me going out, staying out late, and doing these things, she just spent a lot of time worrying about me, and she was such a positive force in my life. If I could speak to her again, I would apologize for, you know, how, you know, inconsiderate I was.

• 1:39:54Steven Bartlett?

  Tim, thank you.

• 1:39:56Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:39:56Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:40:00Steven Bartlett?

  You're potentially my favorite comedian. And I only say that because I've never seen you live. But I absolutely, you've given me so many moments of joy, laughter amongst a life that's sometimes difficult. I'm not going to say I've got a very difficult life these days, but sometimes I struggle like everyone else.

• 1:40:14Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:40:15Steven Bartlett?

  And in those moments, I actually find myself gravitating towards you because I think you represent the other side of my brain, which I'm not sort of publicly allowed to.

• 1:40:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:40:24Steven Bartlett?

  You know.

• 1:40:26Speaker 00

  Well, that's good.

• 1:40:27Steven Bartlett?

  Because your humor is so unacceptable at times.

• 1:40:29Speaker 00

  Yes, it is.

• 1:40:30Steven Bartlett?

  That it is so wonderful.

• 1:40:31Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much.

• 1:40:32Steven Bartlett?

  And it's rare in a world where people are increasingly scared. I always, it's funny, the amount of times I've played clips or videos of yours to all of my team here. Way before, you know, I knew we were sitting down together. It's incredible. And to hear that you're coming to London and you're going to be doing the show is very, very exciting. And I would recommend everybody, every single person, to go and get tickets to Tim Dillon's tour called American Royalty.

• 1:40:55Speaker 00

  It's the American Royalty Tour. And we're all over the UK. And Royal Albert's the, you know, the penultimate, the really, the great one, you know. But then there's also places like Finland and other places that, you know, are of less importance to me and the world.

• 1:41:11Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much. The links to your tour are all below, in the description below, so everyone can go and get those, go and get those tickets right now before they all sell out. So, Tim, thank you.

• 1:41:19Speaker 00

  Thank you very much.

• 1:41:20Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you for everything you do. And I don't think you'll ever, you're probably not very good at taking compliments. I can kind of see that.

• 1:41:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not creating it, but I'm usually being yelled at. But thank you. Thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed this.