Muse

I was in Vegas one time, and I put $20 on one of those wheels, or I put $1 on the $20, and they spun it, and it hit, and I won $20, and I was like, fuck, I should have put $20 and won $400, and I'm like, ah, that's why guys lose their house, because you lose that.

I mean, there's a great story, like, I don't know if it was Norm or Artie, but, like, apparently they did the gig in Vegas, and it was, like, the most money they'd ever made on a gig, and on the flight home, they were down $10,000. Yeah, of course. They spent the whole, I don't know if it was a hundred, I don't know if it was a million bucks, I don't know what these guys were making, but somehow they managed to lose the money.

Yeah, I usually get texts and calls from Voss all the time, because Voss is a very bad gambler, and he would call from Vegas. He'd be there for a day or two, and he would have blown through his money, and he would need people to send him money. I think that they booked acts like that on purpose. I think, and this is how smart Dice is. I toured with Dice for three years. I love Dice. and he was the first comic to work the venetian in vegas yeah so i remember we went to the venetian before it was just opening they'd never done comedy and he went and gambled and he had a duffel bag full of money and i think it was he dropped 250 000 in cash uh at the venetian wow and after that he got a two-year deal to perform in the venetian because they're like oh this guy he's gonna spend and i always wondered did andrew do that on purpose like He was a smart guy and he worked every casino. So if they think that you're a high roller and you gamble, they're much more likely to give you a concert. So they book him four times a year.

He never gambles again and then he just cleans up. Oh, no, he did. They were right then. That is clever. You drop 100K at once and you get booked for four shows. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I always thought that might have been a strategy because he went in there and he thought I was bad luck. He thought I was a mush. And he was probably right. So he made me leave the casino. I was so upset. Yeah, he was like, tell Norton he's got to go. so I had to walk into another casino because he was fucking down like 120,000. I mean, what are you going to do in Vegas? You know what I mean? You of all people. I know. There was one escort I used to see every time I went out there. I would go out at night early before the shows and I would always see this one girl. I forget her name. And there was one woman who would dress like a nurse and come over.

Did you ask for this?

No, she just did. Her picture, she had a little nurse's hat on. And she would come over and piss on me. That was a great trip, man.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flankin' It. Today we're joined by comedy legend, Jim Norton. The sexual dick, first of all, I'm looking back into so many of your stuff, and there's just these amazing stories because you've been talking on air for decades, so there's a lot. But the one that Sam Roberts hits me up with, he goes, you got to ask him about when he had a pregnant prostitute in his grandma's basement?

That was, you know, something we look back on and we're not proud of them. That was, I had just gotten sober and my buddy and I went down to New Brunswick and picked up a pregnant prostitute because I would get them off it. And my grandmother used to live in the basement of my parents' house. But then she had a heart attack and she died, but the bed was still there. So I would bring, sometimes when you say these things, you're like, not a good time in life. But we had her little living room down there and her book on Kennedy. And we brought back a pregnant prostitute and she sparked up a crack pipe. And my parents were asleep upstairs. And I think I had just gotten blown or my buddy had just gotten blown. And I just smelled, I don't know if you ever smelled crack, but it's a very distinctive smell. It's like a medicinal smell almost. And she was standing there about eight months pregnant smoking a crack pipe in my grandmother's, my dead grandmother's basement. while I kind of was like, wow, you're supposed to be a sober guy.

You're just getting sober? Just getting sober.

I was worried my parents were going to smell the crack coming up into their bedroom. So that was kind of a story I wish I didn't have to remember.

What would be the type of escort you got when you were sober?

I didn't do it when I was drinking. You got sober at 18, right? 18, right. So I started going down to New Brunswick when I was about 18 or 19 when I first started driving. I never did it before that. I would just drive down Commercial Avenue, Remsen Avenue, George Street, kind of where the stress factory is. And I would loop and loop and loop for hours. And find like streetwalkers? Yeah, yeah, always, always streetwalkers. And how old are you when you start with the streetwalkers? About 18 or 19.

And what happens at 18 where you're like, I think I'm going to fuck prostitutes?

I don't, you know, you strike out enough times and then you just remember, I would see that girl when I would drive by. and uh it's it's literally i don't know what a religious experience feels like but the first time somebody gets in your car and sucks your dick and leaves you're like wow I am home. It just felt like it was the addiction. Just kind of like, it was, it was like a dopamine shot. It was like, same feeling from drugs. Yeah, exactly. Same feeling. Okay. So you're

freshly sober. Now you get this like rush. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like it's going to be too

detrimental. Right. Cause you don't know where it's going to go or how much money you're going to eventually spend or how much energy you're eventually going to put into it. What were you spending? You know, back then not much. I mean, it was 20 or 30 bucks, but as life goes on and you start doing better you spend a lot of money i remember when charlie sheen said he spent 50 000 in a year and the whole country was shocked and uh years later i was like what's the big deal what do you think the most you spent is i never i was the most i ever spent with one person was a thousand i never went crazy with like the high priced you know it was just it was volume i was a volume shopper um yeah it was fogos yeah a lot four or five nights a week sometimes really once a day sometimes twice a day yeah it was really bad it was just obsession did you ever have to deal with pimps no not really i was very paranoid like i was very uh careful when i would ride around it was like a ritual it was like it was literally like i would ride around i would only pick up a hooker if she came to the left side of my my my car like it was bizarre how i would ritualize the whole thing so sometimes i'd ride around for five hours and not get anybody and i would just piss into a cup and keep dumping it out the window that's so funny you're like i don't do gambling but i will find street walker 100 yeah i did that for years um but it was also like my favorite part of it when i look back i remember i used to love talking to them on the way back like i i was like i used to enjoy the conversations after it was almost like i was lonely and i didn't know how to talk to girls and then after we had like sex i would chat with them and i always loved hanging with them afterwards and having a conversation with them yeah that was i i realized like that was kind of my favorite part but was it like the talks like oh you don't have to do this i can get you out of this like were you trying to save them yeah you do go through that uh that where i'm gonna rescue you and show you what a liberal which i wasn't um i had a girl say that to me she's like uh she's like you're a nice looking guy why are you doing this you don't have to do this And it really affected me. I was probably 20 when she said that. And I still look back and go, like, that was a really impactful moment. Didn't slow me down at all, but I made me think. Did you ever date any of them? Like, did it ever become, like, a relationship? There was some that I would see after. There was one dominatrix who I saw for a year who became a long-term girlfriend. Yeah, I would fall in love quick. I loved, like, I never looked at sex workers like they were less than. I looked at them like, wow, she's actually spending time with me. And I loved them. I thought they were amazing, yeah.

So Sam said that, he said that you love the chat, like you love the dirty talk. Like Sam was like.

With him. Can you explain who Sam is for people? Oh, yeah, Sam Roberts.

Absolute legends. You guys probably know him from WWE. You know him from the Jim and Sam show. You know him from Opie and Anthony. I think he was interning back then. Yeah, he would just send me voice notes about wrestling and I would jerk off. But he said that he would see you, It could be 7 in the morning. You guys are on the radio. But, like, once you're engaged in the chat.

Yeah.

Now, he also told me there was a story where you were driving somewhere with him.

Oh, God, yeah. My road manager wasn't available, so Sam came to help me sell merchandise. And I think as we were driving back, I think I was voice talking. I think I was voice texting, if I remember correctly, with this one girl who I just, once you lock in, man, it's kind of hard because they're talking. And I can never tell someone, like, all right, get back to you. I'm all lathered up. But I think he was in the passenger seat. The passenger seat is just ripping and saying, dirty talk, voice notes. Yeah, sending dirty voice notes. But it felt like I was so comfortable with him, I didn't care. I mean, I knew the guy for years. I'm like, sorry, this is the negative side of being friends with Jim Norton, is once in a while you're going to have to hear how big is your clip while I'm flying, doing 80 miles an hour down Route 78.

Dude, that was a joke I remember from your special, what was it, Monster? Was it Monster?

Maybe it was Monster Rain. Monster Rain, I like a big pussy. Looking like a basset hound, was it a...

Oh, a basset hound might have been Monster Rain. Poorly packed luggage was one of the later ones. You can see through snow pants. Yeah, there was a lot of naughty references to large vaginas.

When you were doing this, were you ever ashamed to tell your friends? Like, was there a period of, like, hiding?

Or were you always open? Certain things I was quiet about for a long time. But, like, early on in stand-up, like, in 91, 92, I was still doing open mics. And guys like Florentine, who got me my first paid gig, and Bobby Levy, they would come and they would always, like, we would all be on the same show. And they would laugh at the stuff that was honest and that was about myself.

my life. And I kind of realized like, wow, if the comedians think this is funny, you should talk

about this. And it felt original and it was mine. So I didn't have to memorize it. I just knew it.

So you were talking about this shit early on open mics. Yeah. Like, like, you know, again,

in New Jersey, when we would do, uh, do the, like this, this, uh, hotel had an open mic. It's funny. It's where I first met Aries Spears. He was a kid. His mom would bring him to open mics. He was underage at the time. He's been at it a long time, man. Um, and he was funny. You could see he was doing robocop and you're like this kid is great but this is probably 91 or 92 so yeah i started talking about all this but you limit your options when you're talking about that stuff what do you

mean like certain guys don't want you to open for them because they're dirty yeah and you know you

you understand you're you're not going to have a necessarily a tv root uh you know what i mean there's no way to to make big clit tonight show clean how do i say that in like euphemisms uh Or I can get that through on TV. So you realize early on, my path is not going to be that.

And then what about, like, friends and family?

My parents didn't see me for seven years. I didn't let them come because I never wanted... Have you ever seen the movie Fame? There was a... It was, like, from 1980. David Bowie movie or something like that? No. What am I thinking about? Irene Caro is in this one. But there's a comedian named Ralph Garcy, and he performs, and he kills in front of his friends, and then he bombs when he's drunk and alone in front of an audience with no friends. And I always remember that. I'm like, never have your friends there because you're going to get a fake

reaction. So I was like terrified of having my friends there. Oh my goodness.

It's embarrassing to certain things. I never understood these guys

that want to bring their friends. I walk into

an open mic, there's 40 people. I'm like, why are there so many people here? And they're like, oh, so-and-so is doing his first open mic. I'm like, what? Never, dude. He brought 40 people to see him bomb?

To this day, if I see someone I know in like the front row or something like that like i if if i could i would just remove them and put them in another

part of it dude it's crazy i would rather have fucking oswald in the front row than my friends i hate seeing a recognizable face my parents come always in the back yeah i don't want to see i want just a you know blackout uh light and they're in the back and i don't see them i don't want to see my buddy sean came with his family one time to caroline's and they don't the people just sat them and it was right up front my buddy and family it's brutal i was just you know it's humiliating because i know what i talk about that's why i don't want your parents there you're talking about this shit i'm talking what do they say after the show oh you were wonderful my parents are great like they were just so happy i stopped drinking and fucking you know oh so they were supportive and everything 100 with everything in my life so where is this like because all of your

childhood stories are kind of insane are you aware of how your childhood stories are insane or did You'd think it was normal because that's what everybody was doing in the neighborhood.

To me, they feel very, very run-of-the-mill and very uneventful.

Even when you would talk about them and get these big reactions?

The reactions I would get from people told me, like, wow, I guess everybody didn't have this childhood. But, I mean, it was all me. Like, my parents did the best they could. But, you know, we were in Edison. It was kind of in the 70s. It was a different time. Yeah. You weren't supposed to be monitored all the time. Right. You know what I mean? if you and your friend snuck off and did whatever you did. Yeah. It was what it was. Just throw a couch on the highway or whatever. Oh, that's when I was a teenager. Yeah, yeah. This bodybuilder I knew used to come by, and me and his 13-year-old brother would hang out, and we would just do destructive things. We tried to set the couch on fire and push it onto the highway. We were hoping a car would hit it. We were very bad people. We were very bad people, Stanley.

But you did push it in, right? Oh, yeah. went on to the highway and it just didn't end up hitting a car but like someone could have died

and the horrible things yeah yeah but i was 13 at the time i mean uh you didn't uh you didn't care what about the story with the the ice cream on the furry seat same people yeah we would ride around we used to take motor oil and put it in um in these margarine dishes and we would find people's open car windows and throw motor oil on their dashboards it was just piece of shit like it really was it was like i was the living embodiment of reddit when i was 13 years old i was a living message boy i was that's what it was that was our day of trolling yeah and uh one time we found ice cream a big thing of melted chocolate ice cream we put it all over this seat and this guy had like this uh fur back you know the fur yeah and we came back like five minutes later and we saw this like 80 year old woman wiping chocolate off her husband's back so he just sat on it he sat right in it and she was just wiping chocolate off this old man's back and I and it was it was it was victory I felt

because it was

harmless it didn't hurt them I mean now I look back and I'm like kind of like oh that was not nice to do but you're 13 I mean no it's a great prank come on people are shooting up schools now all we did was

fuck

I mean, come on.

That was fucking innocent.

Did you always know that you were like, another funny thing about you that I've always appreciated is like how inclined you are to cheat and how you haven't gotten better at it.

Cheating with women? Yeah.

Like as long as I've known you,

you've gotten caught cheating. I have, yeah. And I've also gotten away with it a lot. And the reason I don't, until, you know, while with my wife, I've been really surprisingly good. I mean, what am I going to say? You've been good at not cheating. At not cheating. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Learn what to do. No, I haven't, but it was because I was, but when I met her, I was kind of at the end of my run. It doesn't mean it's easy or that I'm not still a fucking pervert at heart, but it was like one of these things where I had done it for so many years so recklessly. And I, you know, I got busted by a couple of different girls who I really liked. And then I hurt people and I ended relationships. And I'm like, you got to fucking stop.

Guys, here's all of our dates in 30 seconds. June 5th and 6th, I'm going to be in Virginia Beach. And then August 8th, I'm going to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia with SNL's Cam Patterson, Lucas Zelnick, and Mark Gagnon. Theandrosshills.com for those. And then also, we have the Life Paddle Classic Charity Tournament, June 4th. Shout out NeuroGum for doing this with us. All the proceeds go to BabyQuest, which is the IVF charity that my wife and I work with, many other people work with, and it's helping people start families. A very expensive process, so it's alleviating that pressure for them. And NeuroGum has the dad bundle, the Andrew Scholl's dad bundle that they're selling right now on their website. And if you buy that or you just want to donate, you don't have to just buy that, But the proceeds will be going to BabyQuest so you can help support. Also, come out to the tournament. It would be absolutely great. You can sign up. You can play. And, yeah, we're just going to raise a bunch of money for people trying to start families playing the most fun sport that there is. Awesome. I hope to see you guys there June 4th. Paddlehouse in Dumbo, New York. Love you guys. Mark, what you got?

Great news, everybody. I'm going to many, many cities at the end of the year. I'm going to Plano, Texas, Chandler, Arizona, Pasadena, California, San Diego, Detroit, Michigan, and Salt Lake City, Utah. It'll be a wonderful time, and I can't wait to see you guys all there.

Alex. And I'm doing a lot of stuff in New York this summer. We have canceled comedy. We have another canceled comedy show. That is June 24th. Head over to canceledcomedyx.com. And then I have another one of my tennis series that is on July 25th. And you can get that at theallloveclub.com.

see you guys there peace you tell the story about when the dirty text got printed oh my god that was uh and she's one of my best friends today that was uh my girlfriend at the time who was great she was fucking dirty she would do anything but it didn't matter it's like when you're an addiction you know it's not about you know what i mean like when you're a compulsive overeater you have a steak it doesn't mean that you're not going to go home and fucking pig out on junk food It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. So I was dirty texting with this woman, and it was really fucking good. And I saved it, and I saved it to my hard drive because I was going to jerk off reading it later. Because that's the best part of intrigue. It's the going back, the euphoric recall. Euphoric recall. I had a 12-step sponsor teach me that. Euphoric recall. I'm like, fuck it, that's exactly what it is. Fucking twiddling my nipple.

He's going to recall to the AA guy.

it was such a good dirty talk session and it was a saturday morning and i was doing radio five days a week so it was like saturday mornings i slept in and i just uh i heard jim jim get up and i opened my eyes and my girlfriend was standing in the bedroom doorway and i just knew something was like bad something bad um had been discovered because she never would have woken me on a saturday morning knowing that that was my weekend and her term her tone of voice i just knew i was fucking in trouble she goes get up and i'm like what and she goes i read your fucking conversation i'm like what do you mean i'm like i didn't do nothing and then she she mentioned the girls uh like the the screen name or whatever what might have been like an aim chat i don't know whatever it was but she mentioned something that i knew she had read it and i'm like um she goes you printed it i had sent it to my printer by mistake i meant to save it to a hard drive but i had printed seven fucking uh pages of filthy text and it went and the reason she found it is because she was taking a college course and had printed out a paper to hand in to her professor and fucking got it out of the thing and she goes thank god i looked through it before I hate it. It was her paper and me going, can I smell it if you put it on my nose? No. Oh, my God. And I firmly believe that if she had handed that in, that she would have stabbed me in my sleep. Because she had a temper, and she was very, let's say, volatile at times. And if she had also, and she also, there was an email address I had, which is gone. I deleted it that day. But I just realized, like, wow, man, she almost got the motherlode. And there was more. Oh.

What is the motherlode? What's in there?

It was nothing. It was literally stuff. It was just a volume of dirty talking and perverted pictures. Just people sending me shit. Like, you know what I mean? It was more intrigue than anything else.

What is the dirty talk like? Like, what are you trying to get into? And is there a moment where you cross, like, the threshold of normalcy? where you're like seeing how they're going to respond it has to be it has to be something

she's into talking about it doesn't turn me on at all if it's me making her like i that doesn't like hey pretend you're uh pretend you're this yeah now you're doing improv yeah which sucks for everyone improv is never fun especially when you're fucking trying to get off i mean i need organic yeah yeah yeah because somebody's real perversion i think is very sexy it's like i love that there's a weird connection with somebody when you're being dirty and they're being dirty and they're like showing you things that people who have known them for a decade don't know yeah so

even even if you're not into the things they're talking about you just like the fact that they're

some things yeah certain things i probably wouldn't term like you know what i mean like there's there's certain certain things i might not like doing and i but i would never judge somebody like i'm okay with you talking about anything you want even though certain things wouldn't probably turn me on, but I would never shame somebody or scold them for being that way. I don't seem better than that. No, I'm in no position. I'm in no position. But like, you know, the word sniff became like a great intrigue word. Like if a girl says she's going to put her ass on my face, I'd go, all right, and she'd go, and you're going to sniff it. I'd go, oh, this is a, I'm onto something here. This is a fucking, she's locked in. She gets, you know what I mean? She understands these weird trigger words

uh as you got famous did people did girls start like knowing that that's what you're into and start kind of curating their identity around that i don't know like i said a lot of times you don't

know them when when they're coming in like so you don't know who they are before they show up so i don't know what their real mentality was before right but you know how it is like when you're known uh like especially with radio because it was 25 hours a week it was you know people really

know your life and this is the heyday of radio that's another thing that we got to understand so like the show opie and anthony and i want to get into that a little bit too but just like radio is as big as it possibly can be and this show was massive and also like a cult following yeah and also kind of like a rebellion against traditional radio and also massive in new york

city and like jersey philly like you're walking around the city and people see you like you are

existing within the space where it's being consumed boston yeah it was it was uh it was regular radio for for a while i was on regular like terrestrial radio for a couple years this was cbs this was uh yes cbs it was originally infinity broadcasting i think but then it became cbs kind of bought it and uh viacom bought the whole thing uh and we eventually got uh got fired but we came back on satellite in 2004 you know you're talking for there's no we had like literally four-hour show at first and there was no commercials at that point so we would play carlin bits just so we could stop talking wow but your first break was an hour hour and a half um so on slow news days personal shit comes out because you have you know august was a rough month oh man because everyone's on vacation not much is happening and you know what i mean it's like you know it's august 11th and you're like yeah what's going on read the text jim I see my friends would jerk off together when I was seven you just start spitting stuff out because you have to fill four and at some points five hours people get to know you, they become very invested in you in a good way and a bad way

so then these girls who are maybe a little freaky are like, okay, I got my guy who I can kind of really open up to and kind of explore this side of me yeah, I think so

have you met someone, a woman with your level of freakiness? oh yeah, I've met way dirtier than I of course, yeah, women are the same they're not allowed to let it all hang out because the line would be out the door so they have to be more selective as to who they show like if you're a guy and you're like I'm a fucking pig so what but if you're a woman and you're like I'm into fucking spanking and dirty like you know there'd be too many you'll be overrun with people willing to engage

oh that's interesting so they hide it but then when they meet someone then maybe they're a little more open with

Yeah, and I can reciprocate. I think so. Yeah, they think they know they're not gonna be judged I always thought women knew I was never gonna judge them either Like I don't whatever you're gonna say to me I'm never gonna think that you're a fucking piece of shit or you're less at least I hope that's there anything that they said dude

Was there a girl that went to a point where you felt uncomfortable? Not really no because it was all talk like you know what I mean it was

Can I can I pitch you a list of paraphilias and then you tell me if you have any what is paraphilia a paraphilia would be just like like some type of different erotic fixation. Sure, okay. So, like, for example, acrotomophilia, that's people with amputations. Not my thing.

I heard a cop one time reference it and he called them stump fuckers. Guys who are into that face.

Wait, had you done it? No, not my thing. What about a wheelchair?

I never had, but I don't think I would be inclined not to. I don't know. To be real honest with you, I've never encountered that. But if I had been, it would depend on what our conversations had been up till then. Just throwing them legs around. I don't know if I would like that or not, though. You know what I mean? If you've got fucking puppet legs and I've got to throw one over. Like a windshield wiper. I don't know. I've never encountered that. But I never talked about it either, so I can't. I don't know.

What about potophilia? That would be a foot fetish.

Oh, yeah. You know, foot fetish stuff. I got into at one point, it's almost like you start to, it's like you run out of things. Like, you know what I mean? Like how much ass worship can I do? And the answer is a lot. A whole bunch. But then you start getting into other things and someone says the right trigger word and all of a sudden it becomes a thing. It's very weird.

You love the talking. The talking I love. So if a woman just comes and wants to get straight into the sex, like, do you like that? Or you need the buildup? I need the buildup. You need the buildup.

I envy people who are tactile and just, like, what's in front of them, what they feel is what they like. Yeah. Like, you know those guys that can just climb on a woman and put their face in her neck and go, just pump away. I envy that. What an easy life you have. To you, my friend. I've never been able to do that. Tweedle these. What if you were getting fucked and he was better than me? Like, it's just psychotic. So it's all mental for you. Well, almost all mental, yeah. The physical feels good, but it's almost all.

What about a... Mental. Celerophilia. Celerophilia. That's the soiling of pants. Like peeing pants. Peeing pants could be...

I wouldn't want somebody shitting their pants. That'd be a bit much. That'd be a rough go. That's a rough haul. That's when he pulls down their pants and they're like, huh? And it's filled with pudding. Yeah, right.

But you like the pee stuff? Yeah. What is exciting about the pee? You sound like me in the mirror.

I'm like, I'm fucking with a pistol under my shit. Who are we? What happened to you, Jim? I don't know. That's a great question. I first experienced it as a kid. I don't know. And I've told this story before, but, like, there was this bully. I used to blow this kid. He was a bully. I was probably. Wait, hold on.

We need more context, Jim. I'm going to come back a little.

This was in Edison, New Jersey. and I have a time frame because of when I was we moved from Edison to North Brunswick my first day of school in North Brunswick was Halloween of 4th grade so I know that anything in Edison that happened was before Halloween in 4th grade so this bully I used to have oral sex with and he would I don't remember how it started but I would blow him in the hallway in the apartment building I was probably I was young, it was like 1st grade But he was like a year older than me. It wasn't like he was 51. He was mighty. Wait, so were you gay back then? I mean, no. At that age, I mean, I certainly would have a hard time selling straight in court. Your Honor, he was my bully. He was all the fantasy. I don't know, this is overwhelming.

It's a crime of passion.

That would be a rough one to get across. But no, but that was, again, I definitely liked it, though. Like, you know what I mean? I enjoyed doing it. Like, so I, my therapist told me I was molested, but I don't see it. Like I felt, I showed up for it. You know what I mean? I enjoyed it. I was staring with your therapist.

It's also funny. It's also funny that like he bullied you, but that wasn't the bullying.

I like that part. Yeah, that was the bonding after the beat up. After the beat up. That was the apology. No, he would, but I was terrified of this kid. I remember being really scared of him because I remember him and his friend came out of a building one time and I was so scared. And I ran and I fell and I split my head open. So I have a photo of me with a bandage on my head from October of 73.

so I know that by that time we were already active because I have a date stamp on a photo of when I fell and split my head open um but anyway the pee thing we were in the public pool um and I was at that age where I didn't like I would go underwater and I would suck his dick and I didn't think anybody around the pool could see like I didn't know um like that's the that's where you're at so he he peed in my mouth and um I didn't care for that and I came up and I'm like don't do that again and i went back down is this all real or it's all real it's all real i know this is real i mean what a weird this would be a weird bit to write public pool 1974 but he peed in my mouth and i said don't do that again and he said he wouldn't but i went back down i went back down and he did it again um so i learned a real lesson about trust uh that was so anyway at that age that's the first time i experienced that but i i i was young because i didn't think that anyone above the water could see like you know what i mean like when you're a kid you hide you're like no one can see me so that's kind of these weird vague murky time stamps i have on when this stuff started happening but that's do you look at

that period of life like uh with grief or like victimization do you feel that you were taken advantage of in that moment or were you just like oh i'm a kid being a kid both i don't know

if it was taken back. I don't like to play victim in anything. Like, again, I enjoyed a lot of it. It felt good. Again, there's a lot of it's murky. I don't remember a lot of it, but the stuff I do remember I felt good doing, so you know, I always tell my therapist that I just kind of showed up for it.

Do you think anything happened before then? Because I'm like, first grade, I don't even think I knew about

sucking dick. I can count ten before fourth grade. Like, there was ten different people in my neighborhood that we were sexual, but we were all sexual together. And again, back then there was very little parental supervision. You know, your parents were doing what they were doing. But yeah, I used to, oh my god, these two twins. You're asking about pee smell. These two twins. They weren't twins. No, they weren't twins. They were brother and sister. One was my age. The boy was my age and the sister was a year older. But for some reason, they both would wet their pants a lot. Like, I don't know what was going on in their house, but they were both pissing their pants a lot. So I would lay behind the bushes, and I would get both of them to sit on my face at different times. I liked the way it smelled.

What?

I'll be appearing in Tampa. See, this is why I say dudes in Jersey, bro.

Jersey's different, bro. So, Al, you never had experience like that,

where, like, you were peeing on people or getting peed on?

It's weird enough being around y'all with the white boy fun, and this is next-level shit. This is the most extreme version.

yeah the honesty is so admirable yeah i do like yeah like when you're never insecure about sharing it that's what i've always been like shocked by you is that like you're around people especially comedians who will and obviously you're fucking proficient at this too like if someone's gonna come at you they better be ready but like you never felt like they would use any of this to

belittle you or it's you know people make fun of you for sure i mean but you you whenever you put something into the stratosphere you understand that it's going to be uh used to make fun of you but i didn't care i'm not sensitive about it it's it's life experience like if it's not ever sensitive what's that like you were never saying maybe coming up like you you know you you learn you you lose shame the more you talk about it the more you own something the more you talk about the less shame you have with it yeah because shame is the killer like you know i mean it's it's shame for things it's self-hatred which again there was a lot of that mixed in as well but uh talking about it and making it funny uh i mean it was like what i don't care if they like it you start to not care because i don't believe anybody i know all of you have the dirty see everyone has them i don't care if you have a totally regular marriage there's something you like that you'd be humiliated if all of us knew that's the same for every person um and the more the more school teachers i met that wanted to be spanked the more people i realized were never what you think publicly uh you lose shame because you're like we're all uh and if anything you're being more honest than everybody else is yeah and i don't even think i'm doing anything great like it's just i just like to talk about it and be funny with it and uh i don't judge other people for it

and weirdly no one seems to judge you about it that's the thing and maybe it's your comfort with it like when i say nobody i mean like especially in the comedy community it's just like oh yeah jim's into like weird shit anyway where there are certain people who like hide maybe their deviants oh yeah and it feels like there's more judgment there because it's like hey you're lying well we're a gotcha culture we like to get people we like to nail people gotcha

but if you talk about it and you're not you don't care if they know about it there's no joy it's more about people's desire to punish other people for stuff uh it's not even

the thing it's the desire to punish the thing is just a tool that they're using 100 that's all fake so you're doing like the m&m eight mile before m&m eight mile like you're owning all these things about yourself so it's like say whatever you want about me i already said yeah

it was more it was more jim norton yellow brick road

what about tickling uh kenosmo malagnia interesting fetish never my thing um i i'm

familiar with it as a fetish but it's never done anything for me to do it i might have met one woman who was into it and i don't again i don't think it's crazy but it's just you know it's just too childlike yeah for me like you know what i mean like somebody being dirty i like but somebody innocence i don't think is sexy at all right um i like dirty like you know what i mean like locked in a fucking perverted brain like somebody being tickled and coochie cooing them would you ever do

like hotlines like call up like those uh there's a name for it telephonicophilia really yeah oh all right but like i would check i would see these things like 3 a.m where it's like call for a sexy

phone call or whatever no i remember though there was it used to be like in these in like these magazines, this is for the internet, they would advertise these dirty phone lines. So I remember there was one where you sent in money, like I mailed in cash and through the US mail. And I got a code with a bunch of phone numbers on it mailed back to me. And you would call any one of these phone numbers and one of the women would answer and you had 30 days and talk dirty to you. So I would call at all hours of the morning before i worked a day job uh probably late 80s and you would call them and different women would answer and you could talk dirty but a lot of times they were in california so it was 4 a.m when it was 7 a.m from i remember some woman got really mad at me she's like you want to talk about that at this time of morning and i'm fucking angry i'm like i paid 90 for this month there's a lot of money back then man when you have no money 90 bucks is a big nut for a month yeah so i was never big on the 900 numbers though right i did them um but it was never my thing necessarily because it was too much. Ooh, what are you doing, baby? And that performative shit never did anything for me.

Oh, yeah, because you need it to be real. It needs to be real.

Yeah, it's more of a turn on if it's somebody's... But what about the prostitutes who you know the goal is for them to not be real, I would imagine? How do you lock into their deviance? That's why he liked the talking part after.

That's why I liked the talking part, but also I didn't do anything crazy with them. I wasn't... It would have to be something like if they were advertising kind of fetish stuff or domination, then I would assume that it was something that they, but anybody, I never wanted somebody going crazy and going like, oh, oh, because I'm like, look, I know the fuck I'm giving you. It's not worthy of that. You know what I mean? I'm giving you a five here. Let's keep it at a five. And would you tell them stop if they were doing that? No, but I would indicate that I didn't need it, like somehow indicate it or just talk normal. Like I didn't need porn star. Would you rather than do the opposite? Would you rather them? I didn't want complete honesty. I mean, nobody wants, nobody wants that face.

Some people like to be berated. They like to be like, oh, your fucking dick's short or some other guy fucks me, but you wouldn't. Oh, cuck stuff. You're into the cuck stuff. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you ever watched? I have, yeah. Your girl? Only with one girlfriend I did. No, I did it with two girlfriends. One girlfriend I just watched fool around with another girl. Oh, but that's not. But her boyfriend was there and we liked it.

Wait, so the two of you as boyfriends were watching the two girlfriends?

The two girls together, and then we would each fool around with our own girl. Like, we didn't swap. But then with one girl, we got escorts twice, and I watched her blow this escort. And it was really hot and dirty, but I wanted an escort because I didn't want anybody who would get attached. Because it was in my house, so I didn't want somebody who knew where this woman was going to be all the time. uh but that it hurt the relationship in the end like i realized like that stuff is so much better talked about because when you see it real jealousies can creep in on your part a little bit i became insecure the third time we tried it like the rule was whichever one of us wants to stop the experience can stop it without any hesitation but i indicated i was kind of getting uncomfortable and she got a little annoyed at me so that kind of blew up into more but by then i I didn't, you know, first of all, I don't blame her for getting annoyed at me. I was cheating and she knew I was cheating. You know what I mean? I was in no position to go like, hey, now you, you know, easy with that nine inch penis. Like, you know, I just, but that, but it was the final nail in the coffin for relationship that I was destroying anyway. Yeah. Whoa.

I was ruining it. And so you never did it again because of that experience.

Right. I've talked about it. I love to talk about it. I love the idea of it.

like i love when a woman will talk about ex-lovers and guys she would rather be fucking it's hot to me but so many things in fantasy are okay in fantasy but in real life you know that's when things get messy yeah it is interesting the mental stimulation like that's what they would say about

uh like stephen hawking still being able to get a boner or whatever like that like it is yeah it's not just a purely physical thing i don't even know if there are many guys that exist like that who could just bury their face in a girl's neck

and then fuck. There is enough of them to where I wish I was one of them.

A new girl? A new girl, sure, but a girl you've been with forever. You've been married for 20 years. You think you're just burying your fucking head in your wife's neck? No, there needs to be something. Even with a new girl. I'm trying my best. I'm T&B right now. Touch a bus. Are you really? Serious? Yeah, it never came off. Oh, my God, you're so lucky. And I do consider myself lucky, to be honest with you.

You really are. Those guys that were like, oh, man, I'm too pumpy. I'd be like, oh, man, you should thank God every night for that. Your life is so serious. But he's only been one night for his entire life.

Yeah, I haven't had very much other sexual stimulation, so it's easy for me.

Oh, you married? Yeah. Oh, you met her really young, fell in love with her. Precisely that. That's an interesting life, man. You haven't, and you still enjoy the sex?

That's great.

That's an interesting life. that's a great way to be like that's a healthy like that I am

I think it's partially because I have no other frame of reference really

that's exactly it like if you're raised eating broccoli that's all you're ever going to have it's sweet exactly broccoli is delicious but the minute someone shoves a fucking dick in their mouth you're like wow broccoli has been lacking yes exactly

I feel like an African tribesman you know what I mean I don't need gushers I don't think about Oreos I've never tried Pepsi Yeah, exactly. I'm just eating elves.

Can you say I love you when you have sex to somebody that you actually love? Yeah. Yeah, that's the whole thing. Ah, it must be fun. What do you mean? Tell us, Jim. Tell us, tell us.

You just asked us, can you be honest with someone that you're honest with? Yeah.

Sure, but I can't say I love you because it breaks something. Like, if I love you, I want it to be dirty, and you're talking about other guys you'd rather fuck. And if I just met you, I can say I love you. Because it's not real. It's flipped.

This is like the Madonna whore complex. 100%. Wait a minute. Explain this. Explain this. So like you're, you do love the person. Oh, very much. Obviously you love your wife. You love your girlfriends you've been in. But you're transporting yourself to this like dirty version when you're having sex. And that breaks the frame.

Yeah. So whatever is the, like, you know, like if I was with a sex worker, I didn't want to call her like oh yeah you fucking whore it wasn't like that it was more like I liked it to be kind of nice and like oh like she's she's kind of enjoying this and being dirty with me like and then there's been times where I said I love you like oh man there was one one girl we were having we would kiss a lot and uh we were gonna have sex and I didn't and before I put it in she's like I have condoms if you want and when she said if you want I was like uh-uh and she was like all right if you're ready to be a daddy and i just put it in and i had sex with her without a condom i think i told her i loved her it was so fucking hot and did you leave it in not with her but i had with a couple of other ones you know yeah i actually i actually do like gambling yeah yeah yeah you were you were shooting up the club with prostitutes i i uh i shot inside yeah a couple times yeah yeah immediate paranoia afterwards the day the next day i think the last time i did that it's so funny was this again these weird frames of reference was i believe it was at the end of the year in 2011 because i remember afterwards she and i were sitting around talking and she was she knew who patrice was and he was in the hospital at that point he had a stroke but he was still alive so i think that was at the end of 2011 that i did that and i saw her a year 18 months later you know what i mean and uh she was very sexy i remember i had full unprotected sex with her told her i loved her when i came inside of her and then a nine month old kid well no but she was pregnant when i saw her again oh shit she was pregnant when i saw her again but it was like it was a year and a half later um and we didn't have sex we just fooled around a little bit but she was so honest she goes yeah it's a client um and she goes he got me pregnant and i told him i get the abortion for this much money but he didn't want to do it and i know how much money he makes and now he's gonna be paying uh x amount percent for the next 18 years so I'm like I realized like wow I would have been in big trouble but I was very happy she told me that like she was very honest about how she got pregnant and with who

You were fooling around with her while she was pregnant? Only one time, but I don't think I knew she was when she came over, until she came over. But, you know, again, we had always kind of stayed in touch. But you came in her then, right? No, not the second time. I didn't have sex with her when she was pregnant. This was like, you know, and again, 2012, maybe I saw her. We just had oral sex. I didn't have sex with her. I would never have been into pregnancy. Like, I mean, the idea of pregnancy, some guys fetishize it. I certainly didn't want it in my life, as is pretty obvious. I'm like, we're going to avoid that at all costs. But I never, like, a lot of guys like pregnant women. They like lactating, and I just want, that's not my thing.

Yeah, I knew a dude that would, like, find women on Craigslist and buy their breast milk. And he was like, that was my favorite thing. And he's like, if you paid, like, an extra, like, thousand bucks, they would let you rip it from the tap. And that was, like, his thing. He loved it. Jesus, what else did he enjoy doing?

Like, taking toys from kids? Like, that's basically taking a kid's lunch. For all of my dirtiness, I've never wanted to steal a kid's fucking lunch. hey i'm gonna jerk off and eat those lunchables kids screaming the other room

yeah that's never been my thing with your level of like profile but also like being so public with certain levels of deviance did you have people reaching out to you that maybe had some type of profile themselves that were like hey keep this between us but like i would love to explore this

thing with you no i wish i did really no man no no other people in public life never uh i mean you know there was women in porn who i got to know um and they were like me because i didn't talk about them like they were punchline like i i like people in porn i respect it it's a fucking hard job man you know guys use i've been on porn sets and i've uh hosted the avn awards twice and the first time i hosted was with uh it was to january of 04 with jenna jameson and uh so i got to go to jenna's shoot and i it was like a fucking craft services it was like any film set you're on and then you go one level lower and it's like there's a crew and there's a director but you know it's kind of lower budget and then i went and saw like with that just one guy with a camera filming a woman and you see the different levels but that's a fucking hard job man porn porn is really difficult like so to have sex in front of a room full of people with an unsexy atmosphere you know what i mean there's a director uh that's why you hear dumb music but you don't hear the director oh come on let's go look this way a little bit more i'm gonna need the pop i'm gonna do the pop and you're like i don't know how these guys stay hard or how these women stay into it it's fucking crazy so i've always respected people in that business so they kind of they tended to like me because i didn't think they were you like yeah like i didn't look at them like that right and i always hate people who do because it's like you jerk off looking at them motherfucker yeah so who are you yeah the fuck are you you with your fucking dumpy spouse look at her she's a whore you married a fucking lady with skin tags on her neck don't fuck this I always hated that attitude about you know what I mean they always deserved a certain level of respect that they didn't get I thought

right right what about like industry people do they feel comfortable opening up to you and telling you about their stuff industry as in the business world yeah no not at all that's surprising no

really there wasn't like more honesty around you because you're so oh maybe comedians sure maybe friends yeah yeah yeah that type of stuff

sure but i mean like as far as at large no i think it made people a little uncomfortable you think you were making people uncomfortable at a certain point sure like early on yeah or even when you're on the radio like people in the business don't want to hear that shit like you know what i mean it's weird to hear some of that stuff you know what i mean like to me it's not

weird i none of it's weird at all can we talk about how insane the radio run was sure a little because i don't know it's just as i've like been in the business for a while there's like these ebbs and flows with certain things and like when it's happening in the moment it feels like the biggest thing that could ever exist yes and it's interesting how like five ten years could go away and it's not that people forget that it happened right but like it doesn't have that same you know velocity it doesn't have that same like illumination not at all yeah it is a kind of crazy experience Because I remember Opie and Anthony, especially, like, in this part of America, having, like, a stranglehold on culture. Yeah. And, like, just insane. Like, you even think about, like, early things that pop certain guys. Definitely you. But, like, Bill Burr's thing in Philly. Do you know that thing where he, like, was ripped? That's an Opie and Anthony show. I was on that show. You were on the show.

I remember it happened, yeah. And I remember it happened to him in Cleveland, too. And Bill... Because was Bill Frequently on... This was right... We were the first show on – we were the first, like, show of our kind on satellite. It was October of 2004, whereas Stern came on satellite January of 2006. So we were there for about 14 months before, and this was only when XM and Sirius were separate. So we had a – we started small. We had to rebuild our audience from when we got fired, but it was a very kind of hardcore show early on. And Bill –

Bill would be on the satellite show all the time. But then we started, we got this weird split deal, which is when we were doing five hours a day where we would do the first three hours on regular radio and satellite together. And then the final two hours, we would walk down the street, we would broadcast walking down 57th Street, go back to the XM studios, do the final two hours on XM alone. So when the regular radio audience started to hear us, they knew me, they knew Opie and Anthony, they didn't know Bill. because Bill wasn't famous then and only the satellite audience knew him. So a lot of these audiences in these traveling virus shows were from Terrestrial Radio, this new K-Rock show we were doing. So they started booing Bill. They booed Don Marrera. I think they booed like Jimmy Schubert, like real Philly guys. And Bill just did his legendary rant and they eventually turned it around. It was incredible.

Yeah.

so in Cleveland they tried doing the same thing to him and I remember he was having a meltdown he was so fucking pissed off that they were just booing him and I remember talking to him and we were in his hotel room and it was like you did something amazing and they're just trying to recreate it like they don't hate you

they heard about the moment and they want that to happen

they wanted him to do it in Cleveland like they understood that the moment was so great what he had done organically that's one of the first viral stand up clips it really is It's like Russell Peters and Bill Burr. Yeah, that clip, I remember it was shot like with not a very good camera. It looked like it was from the audience or something like that. Yeah, I believe it was. I think it's multiple phones.

Oh, was it what? There's a part where there's no video. From what I remember, it's just audio. And then a couple people spliced together other angles from the crowd. Oh, they did. Okay. Okay, so you guys get fired. So you're on regular radio.

Yeah, in like 20 markets, yeah.

Okay, and would that be, 20 markets, would that be huge?

like is that decent like we were on new york uh for radio standards i'm saying is that um it's good size for fm uh for what we were doing i mean rush limbaugh was on probably two or three hundreds day like howard was on what uh probably 50 or more he was big howard was always bigger okay um but ona had a reputation they had been fired in boston um you know what i mean it was

like it seems like the radio guys that got this like escape velocity because charloman's the same thing like he got fired from a bunch of different markets then finds a home that's going to support him that's right and see you later same thing with howard same thing with you guys so you guys get fired from regular radio yes what happened well is that the second sex with sam thing sex for sam

yeah it was uh the sam the sam was sam adams beer they sponsored this thing that only they would do every year where people go around and have sex in all these weird places in new york um and if you had sex you would get points and if you had anal it was a two-point conversion and they would have a spotter from this yes they would have a spotter from the show go whether it was a producer or a video guy just to watch the couple and make sure they were having sex and not lying and they would call in right now we're you know we're in the fucking we're in the dressing room in macy's and he's having anal weather like it was that type stuff so this is on regular radio the terrestrial

radio yeah just to put things in perspective like so crazy the things that people get and i hate the word like triggered or offended yeah it's just like so overused but like culturally now i feel like there we would be way more sensitive to something there's like no way this could happen yes we can say certain words now yeah but actual action like this hijinks the height the radio hijinks happening back in the day far more insane than anything happening right now it was it was

crazy and they were having sex all over the city and i didn't sam adams sponsored it they sponsored a major beer company it would spot the guy the head of the company would always come in he was because they were on an ONA was massive in Boston too so he was from Boston so I didn't go out I was not a spotter I wouldn't go out and do it because I guess it was a sometime 2001 maybe I'm worried you enjoy it but we know Jim Jim you there get out of there guys You have to start jerking off. No, it would be more like, get out of here, guys. But no, me and I, we had been, Louis Black and I had been arrested for the radio show probably a year before. We were on this bus called The Voyeur. It's a, you know. What happened with the arrest? Well, there was a company that came in. This is, again, we were on WNEW in the afternoon. It was an afternoon show. And these people came in and they were driving around with a bus with giant windows and half-naked girls, like topless girls, promoting this, The Voyeur bus. so lewis black myself and a couple guys from the radio show get on the bus and we're just kind of going around with them as they drive through seasonal rush hour traffic in in december of 2001 and that's what the city needed it was amazing giuliani was mayor yeah they needed a break but there was all these naked girls just showing their tits to people but we so lewis and i were calling in the radio show just That's it.

of updating them with what was going on and apparently clinton was was he had a route that was mapped off president clinton and we got too close to his route um so they they pulled us over like cnn had gotten on the bus and done a live report uh and and we got we went on to sixth avenue to go back to the studio and there was probably like 12 cop cars all these white shirt like fucking cops like you know high ranking cops and they arrested us because we were getting too close to Clinton's marked route.

Jeffrey Clinton was going to come on.

They'll ruin every dress on the bus. So they arrested us and we went down to the tombs and spent 27 hours in jail. Just for being near his route? No, no, for being on the bus. But they didn't know what to charge us with. They didn't know. So the prosecutor tried to charge us with promotion of the lewdness of a body. That was the charge. And the judge threw it out immediately. He said, you're wasting everybody's time to the prosecutor. but it was just a lesson in I don't ever want to get arrested again. Spent some time in the tombs, man. 27 hours, I had to shit. And one of the guys told me to fucking, he goes, you got to take toilet paper and roll it up and shove it in your asshole. To stop the shit from coming out. To stop from shitting. And I thank him very much. This transformative moment in their life. They're like, I do that anyway.

That's fine.

But anyway, that taught me never to get arrested. So when they did Sex for Sam, I didn't go out. So anyway, there was a couple, One of the locations they picked was St. Patrick's Cathedral. And our producer at the time, or our associate producer, was going, don't do it, don't fuck with it. And he was right because there was a couple that had anal in one of the pews or I forget where it was. Not the first time. What's that?

Come on, dude.

The church is going to come for you, bro. Just watch, dude.

Might be a little familiarity. Right? It was definitely not the first time. Um, it was, it was probably the first time that the person having it done wasn't lisping going, what's happening? There'll be no consensual anal in this church. Um, yeah. So anyway, there was an arrest made and then the, uh, Catholic league, blah, blah, blah, came after the show. Oh. And, uh. Got it. You had the religious institution come after the show. That's a little different than you have some like fledgling business that's bussing around the city. Oh yeah. this was uh the power of god yeah they were very angry and in fairness we shouldn't have been fired but they suspended the show uh this was like a few months into a three-year deal and i was finally getting paid and my salary was posted double at the time i was making 52 grand a year like a grand a week and it was just about to double to 100 grand and we got kicked off the air before yeah you already spent that money too oh my god i just moved into new york i dude i was paying i was living in new jersey with jim florentine and his girlfriend three of us were splitting 900 rent we had fucking black mold on the walls it was a shithole yeah so we move into new york because the prices are a little lower now because of uh of 9-11 a lot of the prices went down after 9-11 yeah um so i got my own apartment 2400 bucks a month i couldn't i'm like i'll be fine yeah we're kicked off the air and i remember looking up at my i'm gonna throw myself out the 22nd floor I was like, I was really, I was like, I'm done. My life is getting good. I'm starting to sell theaters and it's fucking gone. I was so, I was suicidal. But anyway, we got kicked off. Opie and Anthony got paid for the whole time. Did you guys get paid? I got paid for six months and that was it. But they didn't have to pay me because I didn't, I hadn't, the contract hadn't been done yet. But they did the right thing. They did the right thing for me and they let me go on other shows. That's why I love Ron and Fez so much because they would always have me on back then. Got it, got it. All these shows would have me on to promote my shows because they knew I didn't, you know, They knew I was just the fucking, the third wheel guy. I didn't come up with this.

This is such a full circle moment. So I grew up on like Cotton 97, BLS, the little Z100. Yeah, Star and Buck Wild. Yeah, so I missed Opie and Anthony. But I remember this story and that inspired a time in my life where I just started having sex in public in different places. Wow. Swear to God. Really?

Oh.

And I did it in a church. Did you really? Sorry. Well, here goes the show.

Now, the church, was it empty? Yeah, it was empty. Oh, all right. Good for you. I'm so happy. It's so far. It's six degrees. Jim wanted details. Yeah, exactly. How many people are in there? Yeah, but that's six degrees of separation. Oh, nice. Were you ever a connoisseur of public sex? No.

Never a bathroom stall?

No, occasionally the idea of it, but I like private and dirty.

Wait, but when you hooked up with the escorts, wasn't that like in the car? Brought them back.

Yeah, but I would find a desolate spot. Like, you know, I mean, I liked, again, I liked private and just one-on-one. I was never into group things or, that was never my thing.

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Yeah, I mean, they were big before, though. They were big before I came on board. I mean, before I came on, but it was only on in New York. Opie and Anthony was only on in New York, and eventually we got syndicated to Philly, but by then I was on the show.

Is it true that Howard Stern said that you guys weren't allowed to talk about him?

Yeah, at one point he did. I always thought Howard handled Opie and Anthony wrong because he knew that they were a funny show and he was accusing them of ripping him off and they were definitely influenced by him. Everybody was. And they would say it. Opie would say it, Ant would say it. But I always thought he should have looked at those guys as, hey, these guys are funny, give them a shot. and they would have worshipped him. Like, because they really respected Howard.

Of course, yeah.

But it just got so nasty and back and forth. And, you know, our show and those guys were not afraid of any show at all. Like, it was brutal, and there was no one was going to say anything about opening up without a horrible response.

So what do you mean? So, like, you guys are clocking every other radio show that's talking shit, and then you're immediately hammering back?

You would get word, and if Howard talked about you, you would absolutely know, because he was the biggest. Of course. But yeah, at one point they weren't even allowed to. I remember when Nicole and Nicole Smith had a show and her lover was Howard K. Stern. And they couldn't even say his name, Howard K. Stern, because the guy down the hall, Al, would dump out. They had a dump button on live radio in case you said one of the FCC violations. So he would dump out every time they would say it. So they had to reference around it. But yeah, that was at the end of the terrestrial run. he said that they couldn't talk about him

what do you think was the event that catapulted the show

I mean Sex for Sam made it pretty legendary them getting fired in Boston before I even came on made it legendary what about with you guys during the Sirius run we had some funny moments at SiriusXM with the cult following like John Valby who's one of my favorite comics of all time dr dirty he would play dirty piano um he was prolific and he was brutal but we were in the building above the steinway piano place that was our building we were on the fifth floor i think and steinway was downstairs so he went into the steinway thing because he's an accomplished pianist and he played in this beautiful steinway store he started singing his fucking filthy songs at full volume.

volume, you know, eat her pussy, grab her and they fucking, and we played it live on the air and they threw them out of the store. But that type of stuff got fans like, you don't know what's going to happen on this show and you don't know where it's going to happen. That began and cherry darts. Cherry darts? It was a bunch of girls would come in and they would like, you would have a cherry and they would put whipped cream in their assholes and you would throw the cherry to see who could get closest to the asshole and whoever did would win whatever the prize was. Got to eat the cherry? Yeah, that was the winner, yeah. But I think I ate all the cherries. Sweet boy. But, like, stuff like that, like, all this stuff you couldn't do on regular radio, which we then did on XM.

It's almost like, I'm sure you see streaming now and how these streamers will go out into, you know, real life and, like, they'll interface with people. You guys are kind of doing, like, an early version of that where this guy's going to the Steinway store and interfacing with real employees that are now on the radio kicking him out.

When we did the walkover, which was, again, the technology then was so weird. How the fuck could you guys do it? Well, we had portable units, and we would push a shopping cart with equipment in it. Hilarious. From 57th Street, Hayrock, to 57th Street, the Steinway building. It was about a two-block walk, and the group of listeners would come and follow us and interact with us and meet with us. And Voss would do comedy. We would have Voss, because Voss is fearless. He's the rottenest man in the business. He's a mean little bastard. He's also the sweetest. So he's the nicest guy behind your back. This is Ridley. He's a complete piece of shit when you're in the room, and he's nice when you leave the room. He's like, he's really funny. He's the best. He's the epitome of, like, he... Also, he takes a joke well.

This is something, there's a lot of guys who can dish it out, and the second they start getting made fun of, they get all fucking sensitive.

Yes. Voss likes it. Voss' problem is he's greedy, so he'll always punch himself out. And the key with Voss is to just cover up and take the beating, because when he's giving you a beating, it's relentless. If he gets momentum, it's over. He gets momentum, and his little legs start going downhill. And you're in deep trouble.

Bro, there's a great clip of you guys. Colin's on. I wonder if it's Jim and Sam or your own opening, but Colin's on. He's wearing like a Purdue something shirt. A Boilermakers, yeah. Purdue Boilermakers shirt. And like Colin starts going, and you guys know that Voss is coming on the show. And Colin's like, ah, Voss. i can't do i can't do a good columbia yes how long do you think before voss makes a joke about this shirt how long what do you think he's like yeah something you eat chicken oh you need a lot of chicken or whatever like that like you guys call out what's going to happen voss walks in

the room and then what is the first immediately sits down and goes are you doing colleges again

he hits one he hits another right and then he does a third and it doesn't land and then literally

Colin goes see that's your problem you're too greedy he had us he had us every time they were on my podcast a couple of the people's favorite episodes of my podcast are when Anthony comes on

or when Voss and Colin are on bro the one where Voss is on and Colin's on and you're there and uh you you go my dad once said and Voss just goes less teeth and you it flew over your head

you missed it I think when he said it first I think for I know I for a second I was like I couldn't believe he had just said that because i'm hard to shock with a mean joke yeah and it was it's such a funny i'm like you can't not love that joke it was one of the meanest things anybody's it was such a barbaric rotten thing to say so voss is yeah voss is like a guy who really and he's fearless rich is fucking fearless and he would go on and we would mic him and he would go into these places and do uh i forget what we call stand up in a diner in a diner or a bus he just started yeah club soda kenny would go ladies and gentlemen rich voss and he would just walk in and start working the crowd and people you know they didn't want to make of it they hated it yeah and we would walk over and then finish our show at xm but it was it was what it was like that the homeless shopping spree uh the stuff like that where they would get all these homeless people and just invade a mall and a thousand listeners would show up but they treated the homeless people well they would buy them clothes buy them shoes and the homeless guys were like celebrities on the on the show on the show yeah they were loved like we would joke with them but they were really treated well and people would spend a lot of money on them um and then once xm and sirius merged they shut a lot of that down the antics yeah they wouldn't let any more nude girls in the fucking uh oh wow is there a video of us doing this oh wow

For Glass Conic Standing, please welcome Richard Voss. Is that Bonnie? Yeah. Hey, how we doing? It's good to see you guys. We're going to do a little show because my career is like, oh, this is how pathetic my life is. He's got his headphones on. I owe my eight-year-old six dollars for Girl Scout cookies, and I'm dodging her. He calls me and tries to disguise her voice, but I know it's...

her to go hello is daddy home not bad sure i'm doing it so you can watch give me a few minutes all right what's your name newman are you two married how unfortunately i got a car and i'm not like the black guys i'll leave well anyhow okay don't get upset all right turn on bett comic view and watch black comics tricks white people for an hour all right white people crazy they pay taxes you know what i'm saying we had the girl turn her back on me what country are you guys from where are you guys from oklahoma there's a nice little oklahoma pub you might want to go to on 168th and amsterdam it's called run whitey run uh i'm killing they're loving me

yeah he's fearless i mean he was just going to start working the crowd he didn't care Yeah, I mean, you've seen him go up. I think it was Comic View or Def Jam.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at that taping. He was the first white guy in Def Jam.

Yeah. You were at the taping?

I was at that taping. Oh, yeah, Vos and I have been friends since 1990.

So, okay, when you're going, what are you thinking? Are you going like, this is going to be hilarious? Or are you going like, oh, I've got to support my boy?

You're rooting for him. I want him, because Rich was the white comic who could work all the black rooms and, like, do really well and be funny.

Yeah.

And I think Steve Harvey was hosting that episode. and Rich went up and he did great. Like, you know, he had a good set. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Voss was always, but he's the only comic, he's the first comic my parents met that they didn't like. They loved every comedian, but Voss makes the worst first impression. He's an awful first impression. They loved him after that, but the first time they met him, they were like, he's not a very nice person. What did he say to your parents? I don't know. It was just him. He's just sarcastic. Like, you know what I mean? He's lucky he's working. Like, the first time I met him, I fucking didn't like him. I was doing a gig with him and Vinnie Brand. And I was getting 50 bucks to emcee. And I used to love when shows would get canceled because I was so scared to perform. Oh, wow. So when they got canceled, I was like, oh, good. I didn't have to do it, but I tried. And we all got paid 50 bucks, which is all I was supposed to make. And Voss goes, and don't think we don't know that you're getting full pay and we're not. And I was like, all right, fuck this guy. What a dick. He was just an asshole. And no one likes him when they first meet him.

So maybe I just knew what to expect. I've always loved Rich. You remember Just for Laughs? I think that was the first place I met. In Montreal? Yeah, in Montreal, yeah. And then I'm his full-time videographer at the time. I come in the green room, and he just starts ripping on me. Before hello and anything, I forgot the jokes. Something watermelon, chicken something, whatever. It just gives me a big hug. What's up, bro? It's just hilarious.

He had the whole green room just cracking up. It's hard to be mad at him. like he's just because he really is just like a little machine gun a rotten little machine gun who just fires at everybody

and he's always clocking like Mark got hit by a classic boss line the other day yeah yeah yeah this is a classic which Mark this is Mark oh yeah yeah yeah

by Mark Dormant no no no no we were at the cellar and like he just like came around the table and just immediately on the energy just like oh what you guys what you guys chatting about and then he's talking with someone and then I try to chime in the conversation he goes yeah yeah this conversation is for headliners anyway

did he take out the dollar and ask you to get him a coffee yeah yeah how long are you doing comedy

four years get me a coffee yeah he rubs everyone the wrong way but i but i the reputation preceded

him so i already knew that's the thing for me i was honored in a way i was like oh i get the

whole show i didn't know i'm like who is this fucking reformed crackhead with a fucking ponytail He was awful. Like, I knew he was. We all knew Rich. He was headlining back, you know, even when I was new. But, you know, he was a guy who would shit on you in person, but he was not a sneak. Like, he would always treat you well when it mattered behind your back. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I love Voss. He's one of my closest friends.

Okay, so during that break, like, when you guys get fired, you guys create this show, which is the show that, like, is my kind of, like, entire New York understanding of comedy and identity, which is, like, Tough Crowd, which is, to me, it felt always, and I imagine this was, like, the inspiration for it, but, like, the back table at the cellar. Yes, that was it, yeah. That's the idea. It's, like, Colin Quinn is hosting it. You're on it. Patrice is on it. Voss is on it. And there's a bunch of other comic. Geraldo. And Keith is on it. Geraldo's killing on it, right? Yeah, he's great. And, but, like, to me, that was always the idea. Like, I grew up in East Village. I would go to the cellar as a kid, like, and I was like, I understood you guys when I was getting into comedy and the heyday for me, for New York comedy was you guys at the back table. And I kind of was like at the tail end of it. So I kind of just came in observing it, you know, but like watching you guys just absolutely beat on each other was like a true joy for a young comic. And like, I feel now maybe people are like a little bit separate.

Maybe they're a little kinder in person, but I don't know what it was. But you guys, for whatever reason, it just felt like best friends in the back of the school bus just ripping each other apart. And I don't know if something's changed. I don't know what it is.

I think it's because like now being wounded is a rung in the ladder to climb or we're pointing out when someone says something that's not appropriate. That fucking shit scolding culture has become a way of climbing the ladder.

Oh, you can get points for shitting on other comics.

Or publicly or for being like, if they say something really rotten to you, you go out and you go.

He was so mean to me. Yeah. You see that a lot of times, like comics, like talking about how another comedian was mean to them at a comedy club or something like that. And that was the culture that I kind of saw and really admired and thought was the most awesome thing coming up.

And just handle it with that person. Like, again, we're talking about just guys saying mean things, but you have to be friends, too. Like, we were all friends.

I think that's the difference. I think a lot of people now have like made it in different ways and they're all going to the cellar, but they didn't really come up together through open mics, through hell gigs and build that camaraderie where you could just rip somebody apart and it's OK. Yeah. It feels personal now, maybe.

It does. And I think that everyone feels like there's more at stake with everything you say. Like my first gig with Keith Robinson was a fucking it was a place called Casey O'Toole's in Wayne, New Jersey. And it was probably 1991. And I was opening. Keith was featuring and Jim Brewer closed. And I think that was my first time meeting Brewer.

Great storyteller, by the way, Jim.

Jim Brewer is the, the fact that people will, there's certain people who don't like his political views. I don't care about them at all. Jim Brewer is a very, he's a great comic. And he's one of the best storytellers I've ever seen.

If you just hang out with him. Like, we did a show, like it was in Europe or Iceland or something. We were randomly together on this thing. And he was just like chopping it up backstage. and like him telling a story he will act out each person in the story, his like face will transform into these different characters like it's unbelievable

it's a gift and like people who think he's not a good comic because they're no no no he's good and he's amazing, I've done radio with him for years and I would just sit there and watch him talk for an hour but it was interesting, it was funny and it was, I mean me I'm a terrible and I've talked about this, I'm just not a good storyteller I'm just I've never been good my jokes were fast and they just move different because no I hold no one's interest I really don't you've done a pretty good job today but Jim Brewer has a gift for storytelling so anyway Keith bombed I bombed and Brewer fucking murdered in this horrible KCO Tools gig but that's how long I know these guys me and Patrice our first gig with Patrice was a fucking college where for this guy Jamie Duke it it was a nooner an afternoon gig and uh oh yeah that's that's probably uh 2007 maybe uh we did this uh anti-social tour it was uh I would host it and we would have Bill we would have uh Attell and Brewer or Artie did them uh Stanhope did a couple sorry I cut you off on a story about Patrice there oh that's okay I was saying the first gig I did for it with him was a it was a college and I bombed hosting Patrice I think Jamie Dukit was bringing in from Boston so he was like high on Patrice Patrice bombed as a feature I had a zero Patrice might have had a two and then this guy Dom Fig went on and completely bombed worse than both of us and I had to drop Patrice back off in the city and he was just kind of shitting on me the whole time and my stage presence and the way I talked I'm like fuck you I'm like who is this cocksucker you didn't know him at all that was the first no he'd get another awful first impression who likes this person i'm like you bomb too stupid he's like yeah he thought he actually did really well so he was also delusional yeah but like that when you come up like that and you you know you're comfortable being mean to each other it's just you're friends you love each

other that's the relationship i've always had with my friends yes and like the comedians that i kind of came up with but again it was it was a different like rite of passage because I remember with you guys, anybody who sat down at the table, you're going to get it.

Yeah.

There's no passive observers at the table back in the day at the cellar. No.

And that's the worst sound you could hear was Keith Robinson, whose laugh is just – it's very rare that a laugh makes you feel bad. But Keith has a laugh. Oh, dude. It's just – you know it's bad news. Like when you're walking in and they'll be sitting in here, ah, you're like, oh, I'm not ready. I know it's going to be ugly the second I get it. remember some of the biggest slams that people had like i've heard lure the biggest one and and it is was i mean we gave bill barrett a savaging one time because we found out he was doing comedy on a bus for the world series tickets he was i think it was a world series it might have been 2001 i don't remember uh or maybe no it might Thank you. one of the later Yankee runs. I just don't remember. But I don't remember what was said, but I remember it was probably a 45-minute savage beating of Bill and everybody was in on it. It was like, what were you guys saying? They were just mocking. I don't remember any of the jokes. I just remember the fact that it's weird to see Bill just sit there and have nothing. Because Bill's so funny and fast and also very mean when he wants to be. And there was just no defense. I mean, you know what I mean? There was no defense. You're doing comedy on a bus and there's nothing you can say but there was a guy named Eddie

Voss was like what's the gig

and there was a guy named Eddie and him and Patrice were going back and forth and Patrice was destroying him Eddie who? Ift? and I like Eddie and I'm sure he's fine with this at that point but you know we all got a beating and it was Eddie's turn so it was such a bad beating that none of us even chimed in there was a lot of guys there too I was there Voss was there Bill might have been there it was just a bunch of guys watching this be this this this mauling and really enjoying it and i remember eddie just got mad and he goes yeah well fuck you i do colleges you don't do colleges and voss goes yeah you do colleges you do pu because you stink and that might be one of the purely most perfect things i've ever said i've ever seen said to level a guy that was perfection that was a perfect a perfect uh line what was your relationship like with patrice i loved him i mean he was my friend he was just you know to me he was just my you know everyone knew he was the funniest guy like he's the funniest he was the funniest meanest guy yeah but he also would laugh and he could take a joke and he could take a beating who gave him the best beatings it's it's hard to say all of us because he was he told me he gave me a good compliment one time he came in there was a big guy who came in and patrice just started shitting on him because everybody was afraid of the guy can we say who was i don't know it was a stranger it was a stranger it wasn't a comedian yeah like a guy who was mentally off yeah um and uh and i remember saying to him something about like you just did that because you wanted that guy to think that you weren't afraid of him and that you were that so i was just shitting on him a little bit and he said you you use you're the only one that picks out my phoniness and it made me feel very good he goes you're the only one that spots my phoniness which i wasn't by the way many of us thought but he could take it too like he knew he was the same as we are um and i remember he called me one time this was like he was like 40 and he was really like he was like man i'm irrelevant like he felt irrelevant he felt like he's so interesting i'm irrelevant i'm off the grid he just felt like really he wasn't really yeah yeah this is before elephant in the room or after don't remember i stopped into the taping of elephant on the room but i didn't watch it we had the same manager for many years i watched it i was there um oh you

saw the whole taping yeah i mean like i'm a huge patrice fan this is my number one yeah he's the greatest yeah he was brilliant yeah but uh okay you were saying you stopped him oh just that he

had these same feelings every comic like p i i get a kick out of um and i'm sure he secretly enjoys this if there is an afterlife is the fact that people will torment all of us with what would Patrice, I wish Patrice could see this like when you're being a douche or about my fucking married life, what would Patrice say first of all it wouldn't be kind but he's still being used 15 years later to torture his friend I'm sure he would enjoy that

you have the best description of Patrice and I don't want to butcher it but like he lived his life as if his friend as if a documentary was being made of it and only his friends were going to watch it oh remember saying something i don't but it sounds accurate for like the patrice doc or something i

don't know i saw this clip oh i don't remember it i mean uh but he did he did like his whole thing was he kind of had to be who he was in front of everybody like at all times we had we had an argument one time like it was at the colin quinn show which was before tough crowd there was three episodes he did it was live on the snl stage on nbc oh it was 9 30 on monday i think and it went out live and lauren produced it and i think i did the final two episodes and the precursor for tough crowd was this little thing the segment he would have called the town hall where there'd be like four comedians just sitting on the stoop but you were doing a bit from your act uh joey vega did it i did it kind of like comics unleashed-esque in a way yes but it was without the pleasantness like byron allen's it's a different energy yeah it's a positive fun energy yeah yeah supportive sweet like where you don't call each other out but whereas tough crowd was like you just couldn't wait for someone to flop um but we would we would do our uh our uh our little one minute or two minute bit to the camera and i remember i was going over some sensor was talking to the standards and practices backstage at nbc and patrice was just taunting me just taunting me but and i'm like i'm trying to get a bit through standards and practices i just fucking snapped at him i'm like You

you shut the fuck up. I know you're a comic. And it just got, like, real. So once in a while, you would get angry at each other. And I think of all the people to mediate, it was Keith Robinson. No way. Which, when Keith has to come in and actually be the voice of reason, when that obnoxious Philly asshole has to come in, and you're like, wow, Keith is right. But, you know, once in a while, you would get frustrated with each other. But we were doing one of them. And it might have been the third episode. And I'm watching Patrice do his bit. And, you know, he would do this thing where he would act like he was just thinking of it on the spot yeah yeah yeah mr casual you know mr brilliant just stopped in to be a conduit for funny yeah and uh and i was watching him i'm just sitting right next to him and i'm looking at him and he's he's going and i'm like he forgot his joke no and i was the joy i'm like oh this fucking asshole forgot his joke on live television I was so happy. But he did get it. He recovered it, and he found where he was going. But I remember just watching it and watching him stumble and going, oh, this is going to be a wonderful moment. He forgot his thing on live television. But he recovered, and he found it. But again, he was like all of it. He was flawed. He was just our buddy. You know what I mean? Like I love that he has this respect.

We've mythologized him.

And I'm okay with it because he really was a very real guy and a very real talker. and you know again i did hours of radio with him so i watched his brain work in real time and he was brilliant i mean you know you he was a brilliant thinker um you know so i love that he's got this and i've said many times we did a lot more benefits for him than he would have done for any of us i would have been lucky if i died of a stroke if that fucking idiot showed up to the first show he would have done one jim norton benefit and then by year two he would have been like he didn't have insurance like he would he would not have done a bunch of every year they

do the patrice o'neill benefit yeah i think they stopped i haven't done the last few years they

did this year i think i think that that might have been the last one for a while uh but yeah i love that he has this uh this this kind of aura whenever you die young people look at it like that

but he was deserved of the respect yeah i mean dies the same year that elephant in the room comes

out. Oh, was it the same year? I didn't even remember.

Oh, sure? I'm pretty sure that... Elephant in the Room was... It comes out in 2011. He died in 2011. He died in... Wow. I think it was... Yeah, this comes out in February 2011. We watched that

like it was a playoff game. Like we had a

watch party. Oh, really? Yeah. That was the same year. So he was starting to get the Charlie Sheen roast where he just kind of went off book. He was on late. Then he just leaned in and kind of did his thing. He kind of roasted the roast. in a lot of ways yeah yeah and he was really funny i mean he really was and the stand-up was great

like the bits were great he was a great writer and he had this like casual way of like talking through the audience you know it wasn't like the crowd was involved but it was always like him imposing his ideas on the crowd yes it wasn't him like asking them what they think it was this is what i think and you're gonna fucking agree eventually and if you don't agree you're still

going to listen to it the entire time you know i was talking to louis recently about like when you're doing stand-up how a bit becomes stale sometimes yeah uh and he's like he we were just we were i was out with him for seven weeks on a tour recently and he said uh he goes yeah i was really thinking about everything i was saying tonight and making sure i was like that's how you keep a bit alive you think about what you're actually wanting to say to the audience not these are just words coming out while i think it's like and batrice would always do that like everything he said he wanted to say to the audience you could tell he really wanted to say this thing about relationships so it never felt it didn't feel like an excuse to get a laugh no it felt like

even if he wasn't on stage this is what he would be telling you about oh yeah off stage yeah he

would talk about the same stuff on stage off stage yeah i mean it was we would just go there we would be at the cellar at 2 30 in the morning playing chess i would i would be out with dice again this is between 97 and 2000 so i would fly home from vegas get to the cellar at like 11 p.m to midnight, do a late spot. I'd be overtired. I hadn't slept. And we would just play chess and just scream at each other in the street for three in the morning.

It was great. And this is a time where, like, the cellar is starting to really pop off. But it's not what it is now where there's, you know, four different rooms and multiple shows. There was a time where there would be, it was just the McDougal, and then there would be an early show, and the late show would have people that just stayed from the early show.

It was, yeah, where you would just do, I think at one point it was just, you would do one long show, and you'd get food spots. I started there making money. I wouldn't get paid. I would just do food spots where you would do, like the show started at 9 p.m. And then like, I think after 11 or 12, you would do a 10-minute spot, not a 20-minute spot, and you got paid in a meal. Yeah.

So for the first couple years there, I would just, I was just, you know, you'd get food. Also, there were so few comics in at the cellar at the time. I would, I remember when Mike DiStefano Yes. got packed.

Wow.

Okay, that's got to be 98, around there, right? I don't know the exact. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, is it 2000s? I think this is 2000s because I remember he was working at Comedy Village. Remember the Comedy Village? Yes, I don't think I did, but I remember the name. Right, and it used to be, it was like on top of that Irish bar. It was like around the block from. Oh, that was the Boston Comedy Club. Well, it was Boston, and then it turned into Comedy Village when PJ Landers took it over. So it was the Boston early, and then went to Comedy Village. Anyway, but I remember Mike being there, and I remember Mike getting past. But it was this – there were so few people that were working the cellar because there were so few shows. Yeah. That, like, a new person getting past there was, like, a big fucking deal.

It was a big deal. And now there's so many people I don't know. A lot of them I don't know because I'm usually on the same – Sometimes I feel old, man. Yeah.

Like, I'll see somebody up. But, like, I don't know. When we were – like, when I was coming up, I'm sure you feel the same way. It's like I feel like I knew every single person doing comedy. Yeah.

Yeah. I knew who everybody was. and now I'll see clips and somebody's got like 300,000 followers. I'm like, wow, I don't know that guy. It doesn't mean anything that I don't know him. I'm just, I'm not on that late and I don't watch stand-up, so. But there's a lot of funny guys. A lot of people have these weird clips going around where they're like, yeah, comedy sucks now and there's all these lousy comedians. Yeah, there's a lot of shit comics. There's good shit. There's a lot of really good comics.

Yes, dude. There's a lot. I mean, I think that's what happens. When there's more, there's more good. There's more, yeah.

There's also more shit. There's a lot of terrible comedians and hacks, but there's also a lot of really funny guys. Yeah. You know, and there's not this exclusive club of just a few funny people who see it the way it should be seen. That was your guys' era. Well, we were just judging people on whether or not they were funny. We didn't care about politics. We didn't care about your views on race. We didn't care about your views on gender. Like, none of that mattered.

Because comedy wasn't important back then. No. So the only thing you could really hang your hat on was if you were funny. Yeah. Now, I mean, important is the wrong word, but, like, now comedy is so fucking popular Like, you know, you're seeing this, like, intersection with all these other different things. But back in the day when nobody's really making that much money doing it, being funny is the only currency. So these seem to be the only thing everybody cared about.

You could get busted. Like, Dice was one of the first ones to get canceled. I mean, Lenny Bruce. But, I mean, Dice got canceled in, like, the late 80s when they yanked Ford Fairlane out of the theaters. And I believe Andrew had a three-picture deal at that point. And I've heard that my cousin Vinny was originally supposed to be Dice. Get the fuck out of Pesci's character? I think so, yeah. Oh, wow. And again, I believe that's true. Andrew, I'm sure, will tell me if I'm wrong. But I mean, Zeiss had three, and they fucked him. They paid him out just to shut him up because he was getting so popular and doing arenas. Yeah. And then they just, again, his gay jokes they didn't like. So he was canceled before any of us were. So around then, they were going after people in the early 90s. But back then, they called it political correctness.

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cultural relevance of comedy i came in at a bottleneck like which was good though because you had to be better to work like because all these places were shutting down the clubs yeah yeah yeah so it was a little bit more competitive but i missed the boom of the 80s but i would see guys 10 years later still doing the same jokes from the 80s because they were headlining making 2500 a week and they didn't want to let that go uh but this boom is massive this is this is bigger I believe, you're in part responsible for that. It's funny, I just had Dane on my, and I've always credited Dane Cook because he did MySpace before any of us did social media, and he captured, he took it the way the business couldn't control it. And the business, I think, eventually liked him, and you did it on Instagram. You came in on my show at Sam, or our show, Sam would want to say. But you were talking about getting people to the YouTube channel, putting out clips, So you took what Dane started and revolutionized it in a different way. And that's a huge part of what's happening now. Good thing I waited. But I couldn't do a podcast because I had a – Like a restriction deal? I had a – Non-compete. I was not allowed to, yeah, until they stopped negotiating with me.

You know what I think Dane also did is I think he ushered in a new group of people that weren't stand-up fans. He did, yeah. In a similar way that Matt Reif, I think, is doing. Yes. Where it's just like you see a lot of young women going to comedy shows, even at the cellar. And I think that that's a Reif effect. There are other people who also have these young girl audiences. But you see them start to matriculate in the clubs. And you're like, oh, this is downstream from these people who really weren't stand-up fans now making it part of their identity.

Which is why I don't get the animosity towards Matt or towards Dane at the time.

because it's like you guys are all making so much more money because that happened yeah you're

creating a bigger funnel to bring all these new people in and then all these other people like

at my level can eat off it it's also people who don't have the balls to attack other guys like they they becomes a safe target and dane at one point was the target that you could hit and not suffer any real repercussions for but it was all fake like you know day you don't have to like dane zach what was he doing he was just out making money and doing it i saw him shoot a special in front of 17,000 people. And I was like, this belongs in an arena. Like it was, you know, say what you want about it.

He was in an arena. I remember like hearing people, this is when I'm like super young in, right? But I was, I'd be at the cellar and people would be like talking shit about Dane. I remember Dane came to the cellar once and all those same people were fucking kissing that fucking ass. Yeah, of course, that's how it is. And I was like, oh, it's all phony. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's all bullshit. The second he walks in the room, everybody's trying to go on tour. Everybody's trying to hit the road, do whatever. yeah i think there was a little disappointment in it because i i think i in my head i was like well oh yeah everybody's just gonna patrice it right they're gonna keep that same energy right now and say exactly how they feel and i think a lot of times people are kind of loyal to their opportunities

100 i'm also a backtracking phony and i got when when what happened um i i i wrote two books and the second one was i i was angry monster rain is one right no no no happy endings happy endings And then the second one was I Hate Your Guts. And I regret some of the things in that book because I was angry because this was when people were like, I just got fired. And I was just so fucking sick of people getting punished for jokes and things they were saying. So a lot of where I came from was kind of a shittier point of view. I think the book was funny, but I wish I had been. So I trashed Steve Martin in the book for doing The Pink Panther. Why? Because it was a Peter Sellers role and I was just being a dick. Right. That was unreasonable. Right. Because I've always been a Steve Martin fan. I actually admire him. I think he's brilliant. Fantastic. Richard Pryor thought he was brilliant. By the way, his book, Born Standing Up. I'm sure it's amazing.

I mean, like, really the doldrums of comedy. Yeah. You know, like, doing a fucking gig for four people at Knott's Berry Farm or whatever it was. Yeah. Just, like, very cool exploration into that.

He was one of the—he was a real pioneer, and he was original and brilliant, but I was just being a dick in this book. So anyway, I wrote the book. A couple years later, I'm doing field pieces for The Tonight Show for Leno, and we were at the Grammys. And this dumb bit I was doing was I was handing people my CD, asking them if they would try to get me nominated, you know, whatever. And Steve Martin and his band came through. Boss told me you stole it from him. Oh, the CD. No, no, no, the seeing CDs sexually, that I stole from him. So I handed Steve Martin my CD, and he goes, Jim Norton, you said some unkind things about me in your book. Yeah. And I was immediately the fucking you're right. I'm sorry. I was being a dick. Good for you. But I but I was like I was being truthful. I'm like, I'm a fan. I was just being an asshole.

And he was very kind. He's like, no, no, you're forgiven. And he talked and did the interview. But I don't think they aired that part. But he handled it really nicely. But that's why I hate anonymity so much. Because I had to suffer through the embarrassment. Of doing it in person. Of doing it in person and getting called out like a fuck. And I did exactly what everybody else does. Yeah. Oh, I didn't mean it. I mean, because I was being a dick. And he's not a guy I hated. If it was a guy I hated, I'm okay with being confrontational. I'm not afraid of confrontation. We've seen it. I've had a lot of it. Yeah, I've had a lot of it on the air. I mean, you know, you can't have that many hours without a lot of back and forth. But he was the guy that I really did admire, and I had no desire to—

He's also a comic, Jim. Yeah. He's felt the exact same way about other people. I'm sure he has, but he was too smart to put it in a book. I was just dumb. Or he got successful, because I think that's the other thing. It's like once you get some success, a lot of those feelings kind of go away.

Yeah, and you're less angry because there's so many good things happening and so much going on for you.

And then you don't care if somebody else is also successful. I think that sometimes it exists in a vacuum where it's like you're grinding, you're trying to get your opportunity, and you're not getting it. And you see these people getting it. It's like, well, fuck them for getting it. Yeah. And then you get your opportunity and it ends up working out. And you're like, well, they weren't that bad. Yeah, they were okay. They were decent. They've always been nice to me.

Even Patrice, though, at the end of his life, he started to feel bad about the way he had treated certain people. Because he got some success, man. He got some success, and he dealt with a guy on his set. He had a show he was doing. I don't remember. We did a movie together called Furry Vengeance, which was about talking animals with Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields. And I'm going to go on the record and say it was not the finest film. Not the greatest of all films.

I saw different types of furries. I have a list of feelings.

And he was very difficult. on the set um i can say to the director patrice was a he was he was a rough it was a rough road for that director yeah but uh we were after afterwards he was telling me that time that he had done some show and there's a guy on the set who has been a fucking dick and patrice goes i realized am i that guy on other people's shit yeah and it really affected him yeah and i remember he started feeling like lisa lampanelli he had been very unkind to and a few other comics and I think Jeff Garland told a story where Patrice apologized to him but Patrice started apologizing to people but it wasn't for career gain it was just because he legitimately felt like you grow out of certain things and you become older, I think even Lennon at the end of his life was doing an interview where he was going like he had changed at 40 like you're just not the same guy you were coming up he evolved as a person too and felt shitty about certain mean not with us not things you say just to be funny but things that were actually mean you feel a little bad about like yeah they didn't attack me first what was i doing yeah you know i've been a dick to a lot of people verbally yeah i got called out for it yeah yeah it's uh

that's an important lesson i feel like that i got to learn just even doing this show like so young and like through you and just like watching other people and then also uh craig ferguson he has like a great moment on his show where like britney spears is going through something and I think she like shaved her head and fucking threw an umbrella at someone. And he was like, I'm not going to make fun of her because she's going through a mental health thing right now. And I did make fun of someone at a different time and I ran into him at an event and he was like, yeah, dude, that really sucked when you said that. And Craig like pointed that out. And then I try to keep that in mind where like we talk about people all the time and I try not to, basically my litmus is like if I wouldn't say this to him in person,

then I'm not going to say it.

Then I'm not going to say it. Dude, yeah. And then a joke is a different thing. Like I'll make a joke about whatever. Yeah, of course. If I'm going to really take a stance, like, I want to be able to make sure that if they were in the room, I would say the same thing.

Yeah, if I'm going to go in on somebody, like, for real, I want to know that I would say that in front of that person. That's why I don't yell at old ladies when they drive poorly. Because I'm like, would I, if that was Francis Ngannou in the next car, would I scream, bitch? That's why I don't yell at old people, because I wouldn't do it to somebody that could punch me through a fucking wall.

I remember I was at a, I had said something, like, so stupid on Twitter. this is like years ago we were in Miami and I was like I think Pete was like Davidson was like hosting something maybe a Jake Paul fight or something I don't know something happened I said something stupid and flippant I remember I bumped into him at like a WWE event who Jake or Pete uh Pete and I was just like dude you know what I said that that this thing I don't even know if you even remember whatever like that it was really stupid and I'm sorry for that I said that yeah and it was so interesting like he was just like hey man I really appreciate you saying that and uh yeah no who cares like we all say dumb stuff i've said dumb stuff and it was just like the easiest way of going through it yeah it kind of like cleansed me a little bit

yeah sometimes if you mean it like there's the saccharine douchebag publicist apology and i would like to say i apologize for anybody's words And then there's the legit, hey, man, I'm really sorry about that. Yeah. And there's no shame in being sorry about something if you legitimately are. Yeah. Or if you fucked up or you wronged a person or you were an asshole, like.

It's liberating. It's okay. Because you feel like more of an asshole to hold on to it. Yeah. For what? For your ego? For something? Like, I fucked up. It's fine. I fucked up. Whatever. I made a mistake.

And an apology in a private setting like that is much different than, like I did. Because it's not fucking performance. Like when cameras were on. Did I say that, Steve? I don't know what I was thinking. I love the pink pan. You know, I stand by Peter Sellers. That's his role, but I was really... But the performative apology, I think, is the one we don't believe. Yeah. I apologize to Dr. Phil because I was... I don't know Dr. Phil. We interviewed him one time. He was very nice.

You were like, where the fuck were you when I was blowing kids? Exactly.

I could have used your hand on the back of my head. Made me not feel like I was enjoying this so much. For Pete's sake, Phil. What would you say to Dr. Pops? But I wrote, he was a chapter in my book, and it was a shitty chapter. And I was too critical. Making fun of somebody is one thing, but it came, like I said, I was in a bad place at that point.

Came from a place of anger, not like, let's make jokes.

Anger and funny, but the anger was more than it should have been. So I apologized to him. And then he asked me, what's the name of your book? And I'm like, oh, boy, I wish I didn't. But again, I just felt like I'm not an honest person. Good for you. Nancy Grace, this is a clip of Sam and I, it's one of our first shows, where she walks off our show. because I had crashed her relentlessly for a long time because I thought she was a phony and I thought she capitalized off dead kids. But she was in studio with us and I felt like I had to, I didn't attack her, but I said, just so you know, I had to say it because if I don't say it, then I'm just a fucking coward who's doing it behind a screen. Yeah. And I believe she knew who I was because she was very unpleasant. Or doing it for attention.

For attention. It's like, if I don't really believe this, am I just doing it for attention?

Yeah, but I believe that. I didn't like her. Yeah. And I didn't know she had suffered a personal tragedy in her life. Somebody, I think, that she loved was murdered. So that kind of motivates her worldview. In a way, yeah. But hashtag Tot Mom is still capitalizing on fucking, I mean.

Well, that's the problem is a lot of people are capitalizing on shit. Yeah, absolutely. It was easy to call them out for it.

Yeah, and it was fun to call her out. It felt good.

And, yeah, I don't know if that's the wrong one.

No, I didn't feel terrible about that. But I feel like I have to say, I had to say something to her and just, you know, otherwise I'm a pussy.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? You don't want to be, but again, you are, you have these moments. I'm sure you've had tense moments on this where it gets real with somebody and you're like, I'm not going to back off on this. For sure. I don't want to.

It's almost like, those are the more interesting discussions. Like anytime I would go do like press or do podcasts, I almost like wanted, I'd almost rather start every interview with like, what do we, what do you think we disagree on? Ah, yeah. you know like because it's like let's just get there sometimes it's pleasantries and all this other stuff and you can tell like they actually want to get to something but like i'd rather talk about the thing you think we disagree on because one you maybe like feel like i have a certain worldview which i don't and if i do have that worldview i would love to defend it yeah of course right like tell you why i feel the way i feel exactly i don't mind being aided for the way i feel about the world yeah i'm just kind of like one of the cool things about being a comedian yeah it's like if we actually feel it some way that's fine i think maybe what can be like grading is to be to receive like criticism for something that i don't actually believe

it's you realize when you when people start talking about you yeah like we were you know i was getting trashed on message boards in 2001 so it's like you this is pre this is the internet

exists but this is pre like reddit before that stuff yeah but you learn you become very immune

to it after a while what people are saying oh no what's he saying about me yeah you learn not to give a fuck about that yeah a long time ago yeah um but i realized people were so wrong like they would say things they would think they know something that happened or they would think they know my motivation for doing something right right and i'm like i'm the person so i know the truth yeah and i'm like wow you really think you're right but you're a like you're you couldn't be more wrong so how'd you do with that uh it made me angry but it also changed how i viewed other people and i became much more like well i mean because i realize what an asshole you are if you always think you know the answers because so many people had said things that were incorrect yeah that i 100 knew were incorrect that it changed the way my worldview to the point where i don't want to be that stubborn douchebag like whoever coined the phrase identity politics whoever coined that phrase is fucking but i think we talked about yeah yeah it's brilliant because people's identity becomes wrapped up in these things yes and then proving you wrong well once your identity is is wrapped up in it you have to defend it with everything it has to be yeah and my identity is kind of wrapped up in just the things i've talked about and light which is not always great yeah i mean there's i mean we had i was on fight i did fallon one time when it was still a late show the

tonight show they did they didn't want me like a like a five minute set or as a guest appearance Yeah, I remember seeing something. Excited to Jim. He was a nice guy. He was still a very nice guy. But his show is not interested in being in the Jim Norton business in 2026. But I told a story, a true story. I'd gone to like some transsexual bar the night before and left my wallet at the bar. So I had to go back and get my wallet from this fucking- Damn. Well, no. Don't you hate when that happens?

You got to go twice? Ah, shucks.

But no, I think I had already, I think I had already, you know, I had already been relieved. You had to leave. so there was no desire to go back in i was like get my wallet toilet paper stuck to my dick but i think i told that story on his show on panel and it was just like that's not always a good identity to have like when that's your identity because that's the type of stuff you talk about because that's the life you lead yeah it's not always helpful

helpful meaning like the internet now can kind of like frame you in a specific way or box you in

in a way in the business itself like the business is filled with fake allies they're fucking fake oh yes they are fake allies um and and i've come to like like i watch all these comedians getting called nazis and yeah and it's like you know you progressive fucking babbling fake allies the guys who are called nazis they're the ones who have been nicest to me and my wife like they're the ones who have welcomed us and been nicest to it so i i've got a really strange view of this now for the listeners your wife is trance yes but i i've seen so many uh people who are like these fucking these real public allies and then you're like hey you want to come on the podcast i'm not i'd love to but i'm bad yeah and it's like you don't want to be close you don't want to be helpful and they're not obligated don't get me wrong they have no obligation no but it's performative it's all bullshit and they attack rogan and uh i hated that it's it's annoying because like i i know these guys before they did podcasts and i see how they've he's the same guy it's the same fucking dude it was also you know him like just go talk to him you know this person

call him go have a conversation with and also you just went on the pod every time that you asked him to go on the pod because it was good for you yeah and all of a sudden you're like whoa hey but this is a this is a unique thing and that like uh just talking to you over the last few weeks it was interesting it's like you seem to be very grateful for the people that have helped you get to where you are very and i think they're i'm not saying that there are other people that aren't grateful but i think that their north star is opportunity and it's not like this opportunity would not be

possible without the people that helped you out 100 and nobody again nobody owes you know to quote rocky three you know friends don't know they do because they won't but nobody owes anybody anything Like, you know, guys we had on the radio show, they helped our radio show. They were funny on the radio show. So it was a two-way street. I feel like I owe so much to Charlemagne, so much to Rogan, so much to everybody. Yeah, and I owe a lot to Dice, and I owe a lot to Opie and Anthony, too. And I've always been very public about how much those guys did for me because they changed my life. I mean— Didn't you shout them out on your special? I used to bring Opie and Anthony to my specials, and I would always insist on them standing up and me pointing them out. I thought that was such a cool moment. Yeah, HBO wanted to cut that, but I really fought for it. They're like, yeah, they're not national. And I'm like, I have to.

Sometimes the narcissism that allows you to be successful in the business of entertainment can kind of like frame your worldview like this was all supposed to happen. And there's so many lucky things that happen and so many incredibly generous people around you that allow that luck to proliferate. Yes. and uh yeah if you if you're not like a complete fucking narcissist you can show gratitude to those

people yeah and be loyal to them and there are a lot of people where they're in a club and they just they don't want touching you to risk the club they're in or they're afraid that if they have you on or you have them on that it will damage the club that they're a member of um

because they don't really feel like they're in the club maybe not they don't have the confidence that they're in they don't have the confidence what they think is that they're a guest and they're like if i ruffle one feather it's not going to happen and like one of the coolest things about the internet is like you get to kind of create your club man you get to have your people that support you and fuck with you and you're supposed to have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want because of that yes and otherwise we're just back in that same system that we're all annoyed with where we're like basically begging for an opportunity yeah but now i'm in

my 50s and i'm begging people to come on my podcast so there's a humiliation but you kind like humiliation you know i do but it's funny i wish i could jerk off to no i'd love to but i'm busy but i can't for some reason that just doesn't that doesn't motivate my balls to move at all i wish they would turn me on believe me i would have a lot of great fodder um but you know you you know who is who is a real person like david tell i i had said to a tell one time i'm like hey man i would love to have you on he goes i can't i'm on the road for the next week then i saw him at the cellar like a month later he goes oh hey man i'm back so if you want to the man that's how you know a person who's being real with you and genuinely

with you is they they it's it's not you following up eight times with the same fuckhead um so yeah you develop yeah yeah i don't trash people because nobody owes me anything so no one is wronging me they're not wronging me i'm not being wronged i'm not a victim in that yeah but you just make a mental note like oh all right i hope you die in a fire dave is such an interesting character

because he's one of the few people whose mythology exists while he's alive.

Yes, and it's 100% deserved. 100% deserved. He's also a really... David Tell we're talking about. David Tell, and he's a generous guy. He's good to every comedian around him. And I remember we did, we went to the Pentagon. It was with Bill and Jim. What? We were doing that tour, the... The USO? The anti-social tour. Yeah, yeah. It was, this time it was Bill, Jim, Dave, and myself.

Yeah.

And they had us to go to the Pentagon to talk to wounded warriors. And none of us knew what to say to somebody who lost a limb in a thing. We were just supposed to make them feel better. But Attell was great. He was walking right up to people. Wow, what happened to you, man? What the fuck is that from? And they were so happy. That someone was treating them normally. To talk to him. Yeah. Oh, man, I was over in Desert Storm. And like, he's such a real person. And it was so genuine. We were all like, Attell has been funny at some of the worst periods. Like when Manny from the Comedy Cellar got sick, Dave made me laugh in the hospital room. I was devastated. He made me laugh. He made all of us laugh when Patrice fucking died. We were trying to raise money. He was on the air. And he goes, come on, people, chip in. We got to pay for a purple suit and a giant coffin. He's the fucking funniest guy in the world. So he would always make me laugh in terrible fucking moments. Moments where I just was not, you know, I was kind of personally devastated. But Dave is deserved. His legacy is deserved.

I'm curious in that vein, what was doing comedy in the city right after 9-11 like?

The cellar was closed. I was living in Jersey at the time. I was right over the bridge in Cliffside Park, and you could smell it. You could smell the burning, whatever, for months after it. And I think below 14th Street, Manhattan was closed to traffic. So the cellar was closed for a while. And I remember when we started going back, and we didn't know how we were going to talk about stuff. And on Opie and Anthony, like, they kept those guys home on 9-11. So I just kind of called in, and we were talking through what had happened in the morning. And the way that ONA started making 9-11 funny was people were writing these fucking melodramatic, drippy shit songs about the towers and the pain. so we were getting copies of these songs and trying to guess what they were going to do to rhyme or how they were going to ruin this and mocking these songs so it was a way in so you're

not mocking 9-11 you're mocking the songs these like yes and they were awful and it let people

kind of step back into it and on the stage we were all at the cellar talking about our daydream like we all daydreamed what would i have done if i was on one of those planes all of us had stupid daydreams i forget what patrice's was but the end of it was he would have then walked out and got into a cab and said take me to brooklyn like it was such an asshole but none of us were kidding we were all being legit yeah and keith had one uh which was just childlike in its stupidity so i remember i went on stage keith was hosting and i told his uh and that's not how every comic got back into it but i just remember telling the audience how stupid i just wanted you to know how stupid your host is and i talked about what his fantasy was to stop 9-11 and guys were kind of working through it like that and talking through it like that giving our own daydreams on stage and people related to it because you weren't shitting on the victims right right you're talking about what you thought you would do in that circumstance and everyone thought what would

i do yes i remember exactly that moment like what should we do i was in high school yeah how would i handle this yeah yeah we thought it was like an attack so we were like we kind of kind of no meaning like we thought it was sorry we thought it was an invasion so we're like do we get guns like what do we do you know you have this like hubris is like a 17 year old kid in new york

you're like yeah we gotta get a couch on fire throw it at the tower yeah that's how we're

gonna stop terrorism yeah let's get our mouth tinkled in and go back for seconds

i remember being in high school i was like all they had was razor blades like we could have fought these guys you're a bunch of kids just thinking oh we could have took these well they thought

they had bombs because they said they had bombs and that was why they opened up their cockpit doors because they were told that they had fake bombs

so everyone thought

they had an explosive device they gotta lead with that yeah you have to open with the bombs the razors are what you really had but then the pilots were trained to open the door and negotiate that's why they opened the door right just so they trained them differently after

they also said they were gonna land that bombs will land will hostage you guys and get money.

Yes, yeah, they did.

It's just such an interesting time as far as like comedically in New York, like these tragedies and how comics come back from it. Like I remember hearing stories about like Gilbert Gottfried doing something. I think he did like... On a roast. Yeah, he did a roast like a week later or something like that and he did a 9-11 joke. It might have been a month later.

It was one of the Comedy Central roasts,

wasn't it? Yeah.

It was within a close time frame.

He's taken a flight but they're going to make a stopover at the Empire State Building. It was a really... And everybody got mad and butthurt. You know, all the fake. It's all fake. I can't even get mad at it anymore. The anger's all fake. It's all a perform... It's all pretend. And it's rewarded now.

It's interesting. Like, when you saw it on, like, a forum back in the day, maybe it was rewarded by the community, but I don't even know if there was, like, upvotes or anything in it. Like, now you have the most reward for the most performative response or whatever it is.

Yeah, like, the outrage. It's all dopamine. Everyone's chasing their own dopamine. And I know that because I've seen people I didn't like getting in trouble for like usually for language stuff yeah and i never contribute to it but i've watched it and enjoyed it yeah i'm like wow i'm happy that's happening to that person it is a

weird thing because it comes for everybody and i think like before you're there you don't think that it'll come for you sure of course it come for anybody people like you can't be canceled

anybody because canceling is not it's not a rational thing it's not based on real things it's arbitrary and it's random and it's based on the the the mood the the punishment is meted out according to the mood of the crowd according to the uh their perception of the person to begin so it's all fucking arbitrary and bullshit so anyone can fall victim to it you said an interesting

thing i think i don't know if it was opie or anthony but they said that eventually the audience will start entertaining themselves yes and turn on us and they did and we kind of knew oh i think was opie who actually said it can you explain what that was like you're saying in these forums

that happened or well we had the fans were very hardcore like they were really they were great i mean they were animals a lot of them are really funny like a lot of the people that hate me the most today i know on some level don't hate me they've been following you for fucking three decades and i'm still a part of their life like i'm still i mean they're you know you know their their screen name is still something that i said yeah and then they even if they hate me now yeah um but eventually you know that again people are not just going to be autistic in my favor people are going to somehow you know that can turn on you in a dime um and and then after a while they're just making each other laugh and a lot of them are really funny like and what am i going to do pretend that i'm above it like no you're a comedian also like you can appreciate the funny some of it yeah and some of it's mean and just shitty and it's not meant to be funny yeah but again i've said a lot of fucking horrible things in my life i mean a lot of horrible things publicly about people about tragedies and about deaths yeah um and about pedophilia and i've mocked it all and i'm in no position to pretend that i am not completely fair

game to be made fun of yeah outside before the pod you mentioned you used to get a bunch of death

threats oh yeah yeah yeah why because of stuff we would say on the air like you have to use a fake name at the cellar i started doing that because of guys calling in and i remember a couple of guys i would get emails all the time um and i'd have people say they're going to kill me but they would do it under their real name and that's when i stopped responding i used to go back and forth with emails fuck you you cock like i was i you know but then a few of them use their real name and when they're threatening to shoot you and using their real name i'm like that's a guy who has a problem yeah um and then i told the the roy story um when the guy who sued me and i've told the story before but i got sued by a guy who challenged me to a duel for defame a long story he was a lawyer uh challenged me to a duel he said we'll go to south america we'll get guns uh it was 2008 he sued me it went away and then one of the old-fashioned duels like you take 10 paces yes that's what he was suggesting but during the pandemic he dressed up like a fedex worker and went to a judge's house and killed her adult son oh um he was gonna shoot her he wanted to kill sonia sotomayor from the supreme court he was a crazy he had cancer stage four cancer so he shot He was going to go kill this judge, and he wound up shooting himself in the woods. So, like, that's a guy who I had a back and forth with. He put me in his manifesto. So you learn, like, there's real people that you're interacting with and listening to you. So you know what I mean? Like, I was always paranoid about the cellar being hassled, and I didn't want to just be there randomly every night and have some fucking lunatic. Did you read the manifesto? Yeah, he said I look like Gollum. That's good. I know. That's good. I know. And I've even said I had no defamation case. But yeah, he was a real piece of shit. And I'm glad that his demise happened. But it's unfortunate that somebody innocent had to get it.

I mean, you know, a great stroke of irony is in that manifesto. He was like, this guy used to blow me in a pool and then he just never talked to me again.

And he used teeth one time for this to defend myself. And then he mocked me. He victimized me by making fun of me. Yeah, he was, that was, but you realize there are people watching you who you don't know what they're thinking and you don't know who they are. Yeah. So you have to, I mean, there's real life psychopaths out there. Yeah. It wasn't me thinking I was important. It was me getting enough death threats from enough different places. And most of them are lies. Almost always lies.

Yeah.

But you're only worried about one person. Right. did you get stuff for your wife being trans uh oh it's been all positive i can't believe no but

like like like did you have any like maybe more conservative leading that's the tricky thing because they've known this about you for decades they've known 20 years over 20 years so it's not before the trend yeah you were early yeah before it was cool yeah i i really was you were there before the surgery got good i yes i was i mean i was fucking you were like those russian astronauts

yeah i was i was back in the days where you would you would tip the wig like a hat good evening how early did you find that you were into the trans teen stuff a teen stuff and i or maybe even before that i saw and uh the story i've told is it's truth was there was a star a woman named sulka she was a trans porn star and i saw her when i was a teenager in my friend's porn his dad's porn collection or whatever it was a magazine and it just hit me i was like oh i don't know why but it made sense uh it just made sense there's certain things that you can't say exactly why but there was something about that that i just was like i understand this was there any point

at that time where you were like okay am i gay like of course i mean i was getting dressed this

morning i was just saying that into my into my socks um but no of course you wonder the people it's amazing how stupid people are like so many people will go just come out of the closet bro i'm like you're in a public fucking relationship closet it's a fucking it's a glass room yeah penises and vaginas all over it yeah it's talking about yeah i'm not secretive about this stuff and i'm not being dishonest but i won't claim yes i'm a homosexual when i'm not like i don't And I mean this very genuinely, but I'm definitely not straight. There's no way you're in a relationship with a partner who has a penis and you're a heterosexual. That's where all that fucking jargon nonsense has to stop because you're losing people. No one is taking you seriously. No one thinks that you're saying anything real when you just throw fucking phrases and terms at people. You know, it's not, I don't know exactly how to describe it. And I'm okay not knowing the answer. yeah um but the idea like you three guys and i'll say this like the idea of being sexual with any of you and this is the truth is as awful for me thinking it as it is for you thank god like yes

100 if you had to rank us though what's that if you had to rank us i i i would always go with the

money i mean i'm not a fucking idiot but the idea of being physical or sexual with my friend like it's it's repulsive to me like you know what i mean and people misinterpret sometimes my life with the way i view them and it's just not that way but do you like dudes that look like dudes no no i've never liked masculine energy i don't like masculine energy at all i just i don't think it's sexy at all um you know like with transgender depends on the person really there's been plenty of trans people i've been with and i hate when they sometimes trans people get mad at me like you're fetishizing i'm like i fetishize every person in my life i think i am yeah why is that

like uh why is that a pejorative i don't know it's it's just one of these things what's the difference between being attracted to something and then fetishizing it i guess if you're only

attracted to it in the dark they consider it a fetish you're in the light oh but are you kidding me it's spotlight that i turned on i didn't get caught i fucking turned the light on i'm like hey because again I get sick of guys getting outed who got caught with a trans person just admit it you fucking pussy just shut up and admit it admit who you like especially if you're in your 50s or 60s at this point just come out and say it that always annoyed me but I would never ever out a person

but you've heard it and you've heard the whispers and maybe even trans girls in the community have said certain things

if you want to know who fucks trans people they'll tell you immediately oh it's because they don't care they're having a good time chatting they don't mean for public consumption of course but i mean and i also hate this fake thing from men who are so like a lot of people if they're not attracted to it at all yeah and i hate when people go you're transphobic if you don't like trans women no you're not you're not transphobic if you don't want a penis in your face yeah that's not transphobia that's just who you are and that's your life yeah but i also hate when straight men like i was on theo's podcast and i love theo and we were joking about something and I showed him a picture of my wife's dick. Yeah, but he had led into it saying, somebody had showed him a picture of something but it was like she wouldn't believe me she would care i wouldn't do it yeah she doesn't and he was you know he was funny with it he was theo he's like oh and but all the comments of people like dude that's fucking disgusting i'm like shut the fuck up you watch porn what do you look for small dick porn no you don't no you don't you're not that shocked by a penis yeah you stop pretending and role-playing what did they think was wrong with

They were just white knighting, like virtue signaling. They were like, yeah, fuck that shit.

I know that doesn't offend me, but it's the fake shock at a penis. Like, again, you don't have to like it. I believe that you don't like it. I think that you're straight. I think that the idea of doing something like that probably disgusts you, and I'm fine with that.

Yeah.

But it's this whole, like, whoa, bro. It's like that. It's like, shut your face.

I thought the shock was showing nudes of your wife. Like, that's a crazy point.

That's kind of what I thought it was. That's a fair point. But I know her well enough to know, believe me, she's fine with it. She would not be.

Does it work as well, the penis, when she's taking the hormones?

I mean, I spent a lot of money on immigration lawyers, and you wouldn't do that if it didn't. Okay.

you know you gotta call up trump like we need to get her out of here this thing isn't working

like it was in norway hey i you know we did it really legally it was a frustrating process but you learn a lot about immigration because we did it 100 percent weren't you living in like

montreal for a year and nobody knew or something like that 15 months i went up there during the

pandemic i heard that they were going to close the border so i just drove up one day i can't be without this safe no not at all please i'm addicted come on folks get your tickets but no i had fallen in love at first it was just about you know a sex i was attracted to her how'd you guys even meet she's not from here she sent me an email because i had always talked about this stuff it was like a facebook message because i'd always talked about this stuff in interviews right and most you know a lot i've got a lot of messages from girl hey i'm so happy you talked about this and it's nice to hear somebody be honest um and she sent me a message and we just started talking but then they she wasn't allowed to come and visit because they thought she was just going to live here illegally which she wouldn't have right but again immigration can be tough sometimes if you're you know you're under a certain age i think you're gonna so we just had to talk every day and we became very close over the next couple of eight months and then i finally booked gigs overseas to meet her but i kind of started falling in love with her through talking to her, like, before we ever had any intercourse.

Where did she grow up? She's Norway.

Norway. So getting to know each other. Yeah, we definitely talked to her. I mean, there was a lot of Skype sex talk. But it was also like, you just, it became a real relationship. And it wasn't just somebody who I was going to have sex with. So I just fell in love with her.

And did she embrace your deviancy? Was there judgment of any of the shit? She didn't judge it at all, no. She's still a wife at the end of the day. Like, there's a certain point in time where they're like, we're not doing any of that anymore.

There are certain differences and there are certain complete similarities. She's been very open. But my ex-girlfriend, who was biologically a woman, was not at all thrown off by, like I said, the one who was a dominatrix. She knew all my secrets. But she's in the biz, though. She was when I met her, but then she got out and then just changed her life completely. Right. She got out and stopped. You said she went back to school or something like that? Went back to school, started making film. And then she's a hustler, man. She works her ass off. She got into the restaurant business. like she did so much with her life like you know i mean like uh but no she didn't judge any of it either i couldn't have been with somebody who judged it i'm bored with somebody who judged i dated a woman once uh and i was so attracted to her but there were certain things about my past she's like you can never tell me that again and i remember in my mind going i will never be with this person again i wasn't angry and i wasn't offended yeah but i'm like i'm not gonna shame to this shit yeah you felt the shame like she wanted me to yeah but i didn't feel ashamed i was more annoyed like how fucking dare you i know you're dirt well she feels discomfort yeah she was very uncomfortable with it right um not that my wife is proud of my history i mean but again we all have a history right no matter how nice a girl you and your wife are a little bit different but you guys are rare exceptions you know i mean that's a rare exception i'm curious it do you ever at what age did she transition i think she was about 15 she started but in norway it's a different process it's you have to be diagnosed before they give you anything i think you have to live in that lifestyle as a year dressing that way and living that way to see if it's legit for you or if you're somebody who is just

stumbling into it because you don't know who you who you are like that's you know i mean like right now when you know you see because whatever the the personality of the day is people will accidentally stumble into like people in the in the 90s it was emo and in the 80s it was devil worship yes um and there were the people who legitimately are emo and but then there's people

who weren't we're so tribal that sometimes we can adopt certain trends that can have you know negative impacts long term so you have to give people a little bit and there's a social contagion

even if there's a contingent of people that are legitimately assertive. 100%.

And there are real trans people. I've known a lot of them and I've known them for years and I know who they are. And they're real. You're a real transgender person. And then you have somebody else who comes in by no intention and they think they are, but they're a little confused and oh yeah, that, and they think they fall under an umbrella in some weird way.

Well, there's also like a social award for it. Like, you know, if you're like a straight white person in Hollywood and you go, well, I'm actually non-binary, it's like your way out of straight whiteness, Yeah. Which might be like the bad guy in progressive ideology.

I'll tell you what there's no reward in the business for being a white guy who blinks a lot, who marries one. Oh, there is no Hollywood reward. But I knew there wouldn't be, and I'm okay with it.

Is it ever a strange feeling seeing photos from before the transition? I mean, Grant's a little different because she was a kid. It is, yeah, when she was younger.

Do you guys have childhood pictures up in the apartment? I think she has one, yeah, and it's very... What is it like feeling? disconnect i can't connect that to the person i'm married to not because i'm angry about it

but i just so you have a problem with her past too

i don't judge it i'm just like i really understand it but it's never it's never like a bad thing i it's just hard for me to in my mind marry those two people because i didn't know her when she transitioned i knew her after she transitioned um but she's very logical about this stuff and i i respect her brain a lot like i'm she's more conservative about it than i am um and i she's actually changed my opinions in certain what do you mean by that meaning that she's like again people should be diagnosed and everybody who goes in for it is not exactly uh you you you she thinks you should have to have a diagnosis because she did and to get on uh hormones and to have surgeries there should be a certain age so you and i think you should be a certain age too just so you've worked through maybe making a mistake like 100 yeah you know i don't think it's irrational to say that no the problem is we just can't be shitty to people who say they are that like that's another problem is like you force trans people into this position because you treat them fucking horribly yeah and you're cruel to them and then you wonder why they go hey fuck you if you don't honor my pronouns you're fucked yeah so there's got to be a balance there like you got to at least be respectful and treat people with dignity yeah um if you want them to to be

logical and walk through this slowly yeah that's how i see it with all due respect does she still have the peace oh does she and now is she is she planning on cutting it off not with jim's money

not with my money and if she does hey i'll miss her i love her as she is i don't want her to change anything really yes and some people again there's trans people who say oh then you don't really love her if you know that's just not true if you i love her you only really love her what yeah i love her who how she is is how i love her yeah um so if you marry somebody and they have a vagina and they go i'm gonna transition and get a dick you don't love them if you don't want that i mean come on stop it's people get so obsessed in the jargon that it's just it's silly oh so

wait what not because i'm like what if you're with someone and they gain some weight or whatever

it's like same thing get by get the road so quick do you there is a reversibility with that whereas

like some type of gender reassignment surgery is oh yeah that's right but she doesn't want to do

it she likes how she is is there is there like uh is there like a hierarchy or scrutiny within the community when people get like the full surgery or when they keep the part good question

i don't know i mean that i don't know the answer to because my interaction i've i've known so many trans people over the years but i've never gotten involved in activism i i just and there's nothing wrong with it but i just live my life like my job i've lost a lot of fans because of it really yeah i'm okay with that like uh but i don't preach about it like i don't know why they would go anywhere like i've never messaged i don't lecture like people you talked about these stories for

decades it was never an issue and the second you marry one now it's like oh i thought he was

kidding no you didn't no you didn't and i don't i might and my material is still good like i i mean i try to be funny um and when i talk about it in my act i don't it's great i don't lecture my job is not to change your opinion yeah my job is to live my life and give you my report here's the report here's what's going on yeah do whatever the fuck you want and make them laugh yeah make you laugh because if you're lecturing then you're not doing stand-up yeah it's awful who the fuck wants to go to laugh and here's some boar standing up there scolding them i want you to laugh at like what I left.

had in my life exactly right it's an interesting paradigm are there any things relationally with a trans woman that are different than a like a biological woman outside of the obvious no the

nagging the fucking i didn't i didn't go shopping this week can we just order food it's exactly the same can she pick a restaurant quickly no no she can't no she can't um no it's it really is is the same personal relationship i've had with anyone i've dated any woman i've dated and nikki there is no i'm not like whoa this is a lot again like you said the obvious and the challenges and you have to worry about when you're going to travel you have to think about can i go to this destination is this safe for her oh really um yeah and when you're out in public you're like is somebody going to say something am i going to have to has that ever happened no not really a couple of looks or comment, but very rarely, and I can't even think of a comment I've ever heard.

Are there countries you've avoided?

I won't go in the Middle East. But again, only with her I wouldn't. Because again, this wouldn't be good.

Because her passport still is male. No, it's

female, because she's from Norway. Norway used a female passport. Yeah, Norway is different, and she's got a female passport. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for a long time. So she's good there. But even if they had to change it, I wouldn't like it, but, you know.

It's a little crazy, but does she bend you over no oh no and it's not out of masculinity i'm like i just i'll wind up in the hospital it's for safety you gotta understand you're blowing alex's mind right now like so he so but he's probably just like a little scared to ask questions but you you are you are with an absolute open book he's probably one of the most unique individuals in comedy in that way so you You could probably ask him anything you want. Circumcised? No.

Whoa. Unclipped. Wow. I am uncircumcised. You're a European. That's what I'm saying. That's right, European. Yeah, she's an unclipped gal. You know, the white picket fence, the wife with an uncut dick. You know how it is.

Well, I don't think women should get circumcised, so I'm with you.

Yeah, I wish people didn't either.

No, I just mean women specifically. Oh, yeah.

No, no, but I'm actually trying to push for clitoral circumcision. I believe very strongly in that. I'm like, enough with this pleasure of shit. I'm a big proponent of lopping that clit off and get to work.

And now, is your relationship open? No. Oh, so you're not, like, still sexual addict?

I mean, I am. I still watch porn and all that stuff, but I'm not sleeping with anybody.

But you've got to fight it, right? Yeah, yes and no. What if, like, an ad comes up for, like, you know, some dating service or some shit?

I mean, I look at the ad and I can get turned on by it. But again, I was kind of running out a lot of my behaviors when I first met her. Because I just, as they say, you run out your string, whatever. You just kind of like, after a while, you know what I mean? I still love dirty talk and I still love like watching porn and stuff like that. But as far as actively fucking people and all, like you do enough of it. You're like, I've done it. Do you miss vagina at all? Sometimes, sure. I loved it. I love vagina. But, you know, married guys a lot of times will like say to me, like, you don't have any. you guys are only up on me one nothing I mean that's how I look you know one more than I do

and we don't, we all miss vaginas of course

I mean we all miss many vaginas I have that in common with every married guy I miss 99.9% of the pussies on earth I miss them, I miss seeing them I miss seeing the panties, pictures are they big, are they small, does he have big lips and small lips, you know what I mean it'd be funny if you guys were all just filed out and I was still talking, is the clit big

and what about her like now she's got a public you know persona like do people hit up her is

i'm sure sometimes yeah but she's pretty clear she's not you know she's very fine being married she's way more traditional than a lot of people would think she's much more like just wants to be a married person and i it's funny how people will see our relationship and because she hasn't been on the podcast for a while we did one together because i was allowed to do it contractually and then i started doing mine and she was getting a little shy publicly but people will say like your wife is full and i'm like no she's home she's doing good and everything's fine like yeah you're reading into the relationship wrong are there cultural elements that make things tricky like

the fact she's from norway does it add a ripple or does it make it easier in any way no it's

because they're very much open over there like they don't care that much i mean the citizens are a little i mean they're conservative too but yeah no problem we don't have that big of a cultural difference again if she was like from turkey or somewhere like you know me somewhere maybe a little more religiously or islamic like there might be a little more difficulty but you know she's from it's just from a uh scandinavian country so right no one cares so interesting have you ever talked

about on stage and seen disbelief and yeah and i try to get into it like especially now where i'm I'm not giving shots.

information because i'm not trying to go like guess who i'm married to i'm just i have things to talk about with it so i have to to let people know every time you're on stage you kind of have to acknowledge yeah you mentioned i've done sets without mentioning it but i have bits around it or jokes around it um where i tie in the i'm working on the thing where it's i'm talking about i hate the the no military because they're all mentally ill argument especially like when it comes from religious people and i talk about the mental illness that is in religion yeah um and it annoys me a lot so i'm trying to so i have to set it up properly to get into that bit or that

concept right is there ever a moment where like she's really acting up on something and you're

like well maybe you guys are mentally ill like no it's never been crazy like that she's actually a

better arguer than i am yeah yeah but you're better at cutting people's legs off yes i am

but you have to hold back because it's your wife at the end of the day yeah yes you do you have to watch what you say we both said mean shit to each other that you kind of she's better at stopping the fight your level of mean is better than most yeah but i've also i've also i've been i've dated women who are good at it like my ex before that was good at it and she's good at it my ex before that was talking about some guy being good looking and i was really mad at her i'm like you fucking bitch and she's like what did nobody ever tell you you're not an abercrombie model

i was like has the cultural conversation around transgenderism been helpful that like maybe when you were doing jokes about this like 20 years ago it's like oh you're a deviant you're a weirdo but

now it's like oh i'm actually progressive no because it's become lectures no one talks about it nobody wants to listen it's not fun yet it's not fun everybody's lecturing now it's like but

when you do it at least the audience is aware of what this is you don't have to explain this is so

interesting it's like initially initially when you're doing it it's so out there provocative right that like it fills in your identity as this like deviant yeah right so they don't even take it seriously probably right it's just like oh he's it's just like a cartoonish backstory the things that have happened in your life are like so insane that you can almost like separate them from reality and then it becomes more open and progressive but now people are white knighting about it so it's like it's hard to be funny about it without yes like the audience the audience now feels like they should embrace it but maybe they don't know where they are emotionally i think

people who are progressive like the fact that at least i talk about it and i'm in the real life with it and i think the people who are conservative like the fact that i'm not trying to lecture them and tell them they have to feel any kind of way or scold them yeah for being who they are i mean that's just my take on it it's it's not my my job to do that it's not my job to you know but i but i tell every audience and you know in texas you notice the reaction to the religious stuff is different in the city they love it it is what it is um but no the conversation has not been helpful because it's not a real conversation it's different people standing over a red line lecturing each other uh and saying this is what it is and if you don't agree this is what's wrong with you nobody is actually talking about it in a real way and like being okay let me think about what you're saying and let me hear you know is that transphobia or is that just logical pushback to where progressives became unreasonable and infuriated nobody is doing it like that how long you think we live in this oh it's never going to change i mean you know we were talking about this since political correctness in the air i mean con were talking about this in the early 2000s it's going to change it's going to swing back it swung back a little it did because the generation now is rebelling against their parents and their parents are fucking like you know are very uh delicate delicate with language and oh my god you shouldn't do that yeah so these young kids are like fucking hey let's get some hitler videos and drink and laugh it's a rebellion it's also insincere it's as insincere as performative as the yeah all bullshit this whole fucking fuck you everyone's a nazi it's all bullshit i thought we had a few years where it was like i thought we

were past it there was like a couple year run where i was like you know what we're past it let's have some fun everything's good and then it's almost like the pendulum swung too far

nope it's exactly it but here's the problem it's like saying we're past heroin it's a drug it's a drug it's not a a real thing it's people getting high yeah and getting stoned on punishing and on arguing that will never go away yeah because it's too seductive trans issues racial issues religious issues it's all excuses to do what we really want to do which is fucking get the dopamine of shaming and fighting that's it so these are all just peripheral things we grab onto as our sword but it's all bullshit it's about punishing people the trans issue i still feel

that pops up every once in a while is like uh no trans in sports like yeah that's a rough one

because there's a there's a physical advantage to being born in a male body it's not it's not a more it's not like you're less than as a person you're not a morally inferior person but there is a physical difference i mean i don't know how people can pretend they don't notice that

yeah i'm curious where does your wife stand on that she's against it really yeah yeah okay yeah she's against it um so who's fighting for it there are people who because i think people are saying that they're they're saying that if you're against it you're transphobic or you're not against trans people having rights and it's just a biological thing it's like that's like saying that if you're a middleweight you should be able to fight a bantamweight there's no anger behind saying that they should but i also want to see trans people be able to do sports yeah i also wish that there was either open divisions or another way to figure it out yeah because i think that a lot of those people are genuine and they just want to compete and they're not trying to hurt girl like they're just real people trying to compete but we don't have an answer for it yet oh what's that new olympics where they can do enhance games yeah oh you're allowed to do steroids yeah it's encouraged under like medical supervision oh yeah there you go jim norton everybody thank you so much for being here that was awesome It was fun, man. That was great, brother. Thank you so much.