- 2 days ago
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00:00What was Norm Macdonald like? I never had a chance to meet him.
00:02That's one of those guys, meet your heroes.
00:03He was the funniest guy on set I have ever worked with,
00:06and he barely used the words we wrote.
00:09He just said funnier things.
00:10Jamie, great to see you. Are you in Ohio today?
00:14I am currently at the lounge at the LaGuardia Airport on my way to Columbus, Ohio.
00:20Wow, that's unbelievable.
00:21I've never talked to somebody that's actually kind of chilling.
00:23What time is your flight leave? I mean, how long do you have?
00:26You know, I have plenty of time.
00:28I actually love it here at LaGuardia.
00:30LaGuardia is my favorite airport.
00:32I'm not even kidding.
00:32I buy all my clothes at the LaGuardia Airport.
00:36There's like this great men shop.
00:37My wife's like, where'd you get that suit?
00:38I go LGA, you know, I buy all my stuff.
00:41It's bizarre.
00:42But I flew into here early so I could do interviews in the lounge.
00:47Well, we've got about three hours, so let's get right at it.
00:50Dude, let's get right into it, man.
00:54So anyways, you're coming to town.
00:55You're playing, if I'm not mistaken, you're playing six shows coming at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle.
01:00You've probably been there before, right?
01:02I've been there before I was there.
01:03We did one show last year.
01:05We only did one.
01:06Sold out pretty quickly.
01:07And so we decided to come back and do a weekend.
01:09But before that show last year, I probably had not been there in about 15 years.
01:14But absolutely legendary club, if you talk to comedians.
01:19Still kind of run by, you know, it's kind of cool to see Ridley out there doing his thing.
01:23And it's psyched to go back.
01:25Yeah, it's a really cool place.
01:27And like I said, you got the, let's see, the 24th, 25th, and 26th, if I'm not mistaken.
01:30We'll make sure to put that in the description.
01:33But so you got the afternoon and the evening show.
01:35Or is it two evening shows, like 7 and 9 or something like that?
01:39So I think it's like 7 and 9, which I'll be honest with you, a little bit late for me
01:42these days.
01:43I've been doing the earlier shows.
01:44I just did Naples, Florida.
01:46They do a midnight show at 6 p.m.
01:49Is that right?
01:49It's unbelievable.
01:50People are so old, man.
01:52I love my old fans, by the way.
01:53I'm not throwing any shade whatsoever.
01:54But people in Naples, the crowds were so old.
01:58You could be as offensive as you wanted to.
02:00And they couldn't walk out if they wanted to.
02:02So it was kind of nice.
02:04That is nice.
02:05Yeah, that's where our headquarters are located.
02:07I wish I was in Naples, Florida.
02:09I don't know about what you've seen on the news this year.
02:12But the weather's been pretty brutal now.
02:15You live in Alaska, correct?
02:17I do live in Alaska, yeah.
02:19That is crazy.
02:20How do you manage this career when you live so far away?
02:24I honestly ask myself that question every 30 minutes or so.
02:28And it's not the easiest.
02:30It's an ex-wife situation.
02:32She's from there.
02:33And years ago, man, I was doing a gig up in Fairbanks, Alaska, like 25 years ago.
02:37And a waitress brings me a drink.
02:39And I go, that's a pretty girl.
02:40And I turn to the owner, who's like a big Alaskan guy.
02:43I remember he had a gun on him, which I thought was interesting.
02:46And I remember I went up to him and I go, dude, who is that?
02:50And he goes, that's my daughter.
02:52And I go, oh, cool.
02:52I was just asking who everybody is.
02:55And we ended up getting married like a year later.
02:58And it's an ex-wife.
03:00But it's all good, man.
03:01You've got to co-parent and you've got to still communicate with you.
03:06I still talk to my ex-wife all the time.
03:08She actually texted me right before I came on with you.
03:10I'm not even kidding.
03:11It says, F you.
03:12It says.
03:13You sound like you have a great relationship.
03:15Yeah, I've heard many things about your ex.
03:19Of course, the tour is called the Better Off Dad Tour.
03:22And it says here in big letters, his first North American tour.
03:27How is that possible?
03:30I think they mean, first of all, they just write whatever they want.
03:34And I don't even find out what it says.
03:35So that's number one.
03:36Number two is I've never done a North American theater and club tour before.
03:41And so I partner with like Outback for a bunch of my theaters.
03:43And then I'm only doing cities like clubs and cities where it's like a legendary club
03:48or like a club that comedians really like.
03:50I do the theater if it's a club we're not sure of.
03:53And then I do the club if it's going to be like a banger.
03:55And so I've definitely toured I toured with Rob Schneider for many years.
04:00And but this is my first solo, you know, theater club tour.
04:04Yeah.
04:04You know, I go down to Kid Rock's Comedy Jam every year.
04:07And this year it's on April 13th.
04:09I saw that you weren't doing anything on April 13th.
04:11So I don't know.
04:12But anyways, that's always a lot of fun.
04:15I love Kid Rock.
04:16We got to we got to hook this up.
04:18Yeah.
04:19See, you guys got Eminem.
04:21You guys got Eminem.
04:22You guys got it all over there.
04:23Yeah.
04:23Are you a Detroit music fan?
04:24I mean, we got the White Stripes, Eminem, Kid Rock.
04:27There's other bands coming out.
04:29You're a big music fan.
04:31Love Kid Rock.
04:32I loved Eminem for many years.
04:34My favorite artist.
04:35And now my daughter, who is 14 years old, loves Eminem.
04:39And it's the most incredible bonding we've ever done.
04:42Have you ever listened to kids music?
04:43It's not good.
04:44And the fact that she likes Eminem is she knows every word, every song.
04:48I have alerts if he announces a concert.
04:51I mean, we are going.
04:52And so I am so I'm like way back into it again.
04:55Yeah.
04:55Are you a rock fan at all?
04:58I enjoy rock, but I am all over.
05:00I am all over the place, man.
05:02With my I kind of enjoy everything.
05:04Yeah, it's funny.
05:05So I think my kids are a little bit older than your kids.
05:07But I remember walking to my son's room one night and I'm like, what is this crap he is listening
05:11to?
05:11He was like sleeping and his phone was still playing whatever garbage he had on.
05:15It was it was somewhat scary.
05:18So your kids are still back in Alaska.
05:21Yeah, kids are in Alaska and pretty good music taste, man.
05:24I'm not trying to brag, but pretty they kind of go old school.
05:27All of them go pretty old school, even on the movies.
05:29My son is very into like early Adam Sandler movies.
05:33And I've been I've been going through just, you know, every movie we loved when we were kids.
05:36It's it's the best.
05:37They're not really up on those.
05:40They're not with those trends like that where I don't know where we don't know what each other are talking
05:44about.
05:45Thank God they have like this love for, you know, some of the older stuff because some of the new
05:48stuff, dude, you said it, man.
05:50It's I don't know we're listening to.
05:52Yeah, that's for sure.
05:53So when it comes to older movies and stuff, what kind of stuff are you into?
05:56I was just talking to Zach Wild and he quoted, you know, surely you can't be serious.
06:01You know, it's like what kind of older stuff are you into?
06:04That was one of my favorites.
06:05Airplane was one of my favorites.
06:07I've been a huge Adam Sandler fan my entire life.
06:10I am a sucker for a happy ending.
06:13I love a happy ending.
06:15I don't care how corny it is.
06:16Yeah.
06:17And like, I'm not the smartest guy.
06:20So like when I watch movies that are too serious, like I'll watch like a historical movie.
06:24Like I watched Pearl Harbor.
06:25I was surprised by the ending.
06:27I know so little about history.
06:29All right.
06:30I don't know what's going to happen.
06:31I'm not going to tell you how miracle ends.
06:37But so you just said you went down to Naples and stuff and you got these shows coming up.
06:41Now, do you have like just a set set list of kind of stuff that you do?
06:45I know that you're constantly working on stuff and churning out stuff as we were talking about before we started.
06:51I mean, do you do any crowd work?
06:54What's your shows like?
06:56Yeah, so I do.
06:57I do like a new hour year to year, depending on where I am with my life.
07:00Like last year was like the divorced dad, a little more bitter, making fun of my ex.
07:03This is more about like blending families and kids and stuff.
07:06But I would say every show, even if you came to two shows in the same weekend at Comedy Castle,
07:14they won't be the same.
07:15That's for sure.
07:16Like I've never been good at reciting my jokes word for word.
07:21And you could take that as a strength or a weakness.
07:23But I feel like it makes it a little more of like a live show that I every night I
07:28something happens where I end up involving someone from the audience for like a good part of the show.
07:34And I love doing that because it's a break from rehearsed stand up comedy, even on like the show I
07:40do on TV, like they're still ad libbing, even though there's three million people watching.
07:44And there's something to me that's more of like a live experience or else you just watch my comedy special.
07:51You know, I want to make this like a bit of a different thing.
07:54I want to make it so people can come back and see something different every time.
07:57And it's only for them.
07:58Like whatever happened tonight only happened tonight.
08:00So I do a little bit of crowd work.
08:02Now, you grew up in Rochester, outside of Rochester.
08:05Is that correct?
08:06New York?
08:06Yeah, that's right.
08:07It looks like Rochester outside your window there.
08:09Well, trust me.
08:10Very similar.
08:11Yeah, I grew up by Darien Lake.
08:13So I know.
08:14Come on, dude.
08:15Darien Lake.
08:15Hey, there you go.
08:16Get out of here.
08:17Get out of here.
08:18So 1995.
08:19I've been at this radio station since 1995.
08:22But what started your comedic bug?
08:25Or was it after you left Rochester or what?
08:28Yeah, yeah.
08:29And by the way, we're very poor.
08:30We're a Seabreeze family.
08:32Not a Darien Lake family.
08:34I don't know if you know.
08:35Seabreeze is the, it's like the TJ Maxx to the Nordstrom Rack.
08:39It's like a little bit lower, lower end.
08:42But we used to go to Seabreeze all the time.
08:44Yeah, I started, I started like, I tried stand up in Rochester.
08:47And then I went to the University of Buffalo Law School.
08:51You did?
08:52For two weeks.
08:53For two weeks.
08:54And I dropped out to try comedy.
08:56And then just like never, every year I go, am I going to have to go back to law school?
09:01And then another year passes.
09:02And now it's been like 25 years.
09:03But yeah, pretty much after I just left there, I just went on the road from Rochester.
09:08Now, do you remember the first joke or the first joke that got a laugh that maybe, because
09:12I've been up on stage before, when people laugh, it's like, it's kind of a little bit of a
09:16rush.
09:17It's kind of a little addiction, isn't it?
09:19I do.
09:20I remember my first joke that people told me, like, that's going to get you on TV.
09:25I remember like my first good joke.
09:26And it was, I said, I'm looking around.
09:32You're looking around.
09:36Making sure my audience is, I, um, I said, I go, people like, don't think I go to people
09:41don't think very much before they speak.
09:43And I was walking the other day and this gorgeous girl, like a beautiful girl rode by on a bicycle.
09:47Right.
09:48And one of the guys that were behind me, he looked at her and he goes, man, look at her.
09:52Wish I could be that bicycle seat.
09:54And I go, man, I feel like that's a little bit of an unrealistic goal.
09:58You know, that seems hard to do.
09:59Besides if you're going for it, why not just aim to be the guy that's sleeping with her?
10:04You know, maybe something that doesn't require sorcery.
10:07And, uh, I did that.
10:09And that's how I got on the tonight show was that joke.
10:11They go, we like that joke.
10:12If you have more like that, you can do the tonight show.
10:15And then I ended up doing like two weeks later.
10:17That was with, uh, Jay Leno.
10:19Jay Leno.
10:20Yeah.
10:21Yeah.
10:21You said, hold on on you.
10:23That was your first joke that you got to laugh.
10:24And then you did Jay Leno two weeks later.
10:27So I, I'm not good with dates and times.
10:29Sometimes I merge stories.
10:30So that joke was the one where all the guys for, for a couple of years, people would go
10:35that that's your best joke.
10:36That's whatever.
10:37And so then a couple of years in, I did the Montreal comedy festival and, um, the
10:42tonight show guy saw me and they said, we want to put you on.
10:45But like, if you have more stuff like that, we want to look at that set.
10:48So I recorded a different set, but then it was very fast.
10:50It was like from them seeing me to being on was, was about nine days and, uh, was on
10:56nine days later for those people that don't know, when you go on a show like that, um,
11:00they, they kind of, they, they, you have to, you have to show them your material first,
11:05right?
11:05I mean, you just can't go on there cold and they don't know what's coming.
11:09Not only that you back then you had to, they would ascribe your set, like every single
11:14word.
11:15And they would go, don't say this word, say this word instead.
11:18It's all very not fun.
11:20Like you're, you're really having to like, you know, you're having your set like, and
11:26you have to go do it.
11:27They had me do my set in front of like a white crowd, a black crowd, uh, like they want
11:31to
11:31make sure like it worked everywhere at five at night at 10 at night.
11:35They, they had me like running at all these different places to make sure like it would
11:38get a laugh in front of everybody.
11:39And then they do that running up to your set.
11:42You do about two weeks of that.
11:43And then, um, yeah, then just do the show.
11:46Now, what, what is it like being a comedian on the road?
11:49I mean, I, I know, I know some guys here and there, we were just talking about Don Jameson,
11:53you know, um, dusty slate guys like that, but it's like, uh, for you, you're in an airport
11:57doing an interview with some, you know, nitwit in Detroit.
11:59I mean, what is it like?
12:01Well, dude, you're doing an interview with a nitwit in New York city.
12:04So, I mean, we're kind of, um, it's, it's, it's cool, man.
12:08Like after a while it does get, it certainly gets a little lonely on the road.
12:11And I recently started traveling with my wife, like almost full time.
12:17Like, and I'm to the point where after having her travel with me, I don't want to, I don't
12:21want to do shows anymore unless she's with me.
12:23Like you have to have that other part of your life or it just becomes a grind.
12:28And if you, I feel like the more I bring the important parts of life in with work, I feel
12:33like the better it's gotten.
12:34Like I find my kids out all the time.
12:36My 10 year old just came to his first show of mine and like sold merch for me after the
12:39show.
12:40And so I'm trying to, I'm trying to like, get, you know, like make, bring parts of home
12:44on the road because it does get a little bit, you know, monotonous.
12:47Would you, would you suggest this for your son?
12:51Uh, bringing his wife on the road, it would depend on the relationship.
12:54I'm just kidding.
12:55Um, I don't know, man, that it's funny.
12:58Me and my wife talk about that all the time.
12:59She's a physician and we talk about all the time, like, would we let our kids follow in
13:04our footsteps?
13:04And I just, I don't know, man.
13:06I don't know.
13:06Because also what's kind of weird is I think back on my dropping out of law school, my dad,
13:12I, I remember when I decided to drop out, I go, I talked to my dad about this and I
13:15went in this, he was like reading the newspaper.
13:17And I go, dad, I go, I'm thinking about dropping out of law school for at least a year and
13:22trying
13:22standup comedy.
13:23And he puts the newspaper down.
13:25He goes, I love this idea.
13:27I love this idea.
13:28And he drove me to school and got all my stuff.
13:30And I, I think back on that.
13:32And I think that's terrible parenting, but, but it did like work out, but there's so many
13:38just lucky things, man.
13:39Like I was doing morning radio in Rochester and Rob Schneider called one day he was just
13:45performing and I had a back and forth with him.
13:47And he said, why don't you come like open for me at the show tonight?
13:50And I was like, Oh my God.
13:51Okay.
13:52And I have worked with him ever since.
13:54Yeah.
13:54So like without, without that phone call, do I have a Netflix show without, and so it's
13:59just a tough, you get, you got to get lucky when people go like, how did you do it?
14:02I go, I don't know.
14:03You got to do morning radio, be friends with Rob Schneider.
14:06Like, I don't know what to tell you because everybody has such a different story.
14:08That's a pretty easy plan.
14:09Right.
14:10So, um, so let me ask you about this.
14:12So you were doing morning radio in Rochester.
14:14Was that, that wasn't with brother Weez, was it?
14:17It was, it was, I was in the brother Weez show.
14:18All right.
14:19Yeah.
14:20Yeah.
14:20Five years.
14:21Yeah.
14:21So when I first got into radio and this is, you know, back in the ancient times, um,
14:26I worked with Opie.
14:28Mm-hmm.
14:29Mm-hmm.
14:29So I worked.
14:30Where'd you work with Opie?
14:31In Buffalo.
14:33And like 90.
14:34Opie's the greatest man from.
14:36Yeah.
14:36For anyone that doesn't know Opie and Anthony were the Kings, man, for many, many years.
14:40Yeah.
14:40They were great.
14:41And, uh, I worked with Opie in 89 and 90 and, um, you know, that was, you know, a billion
14:45years ago, like I said, but it's just, uh, it's just cool.
14:49So what was it like to work with brother Weez?
14:50And for those that don't know, he was a, he was, he still is a radio legend.
14:54He's a legend, which I, he's still going.
14:56And I think he was 80 years old, 30 years ago.
14:58So I'm not even sure how he's pulling it off.
14:59That's right.
15:00Yeah.
15:01But when open Anthony was huge, when I took the job on brother Weez, I was a huge.
15:06Opie and Anthony fan, like never missed one minute of their show.
15:09And we started like 4th of July, I'd be at brother Weez's house with Opie and I almost
15:15like couldn't get over it because they were, they were such good friends and everything.
15:18And then we used to simulcast with them on Fridays and I loved it, man.
15:22I think it was, uh, my son had just been born and I wanted to be home for, instead of
15:27like
15:27being in Omaha or something.
15:29And so I did five years on there and I look back on it very, very fond memories, man.
15:33It was a, a very easy, we did a five and a half hour talk show, uh, that went from
15:37six
15:38in the morning to 1130.
15:39Yeah.
15:40And, uh, but thank God Weez talks about 110% of the time.
15:45So it's a very easy job.
15:47So you got out of radio just 10 years ago.
15:50Yeah.
15:51Yeah.
15:51I stand up first break for radio and then back to stand up and basically, you know, in radio,
15:58you don't often, uh, give your two weeks notice in radio.
16:01Yeah.
16:02Right.
16:02You're oftentimes called in and immediately, and I was, I was kind of fired or quit.
16:06I got to know.
16:07Uh, it depends on who you ask.
16:08But right after that, I wrote the show with, uh, I called Schneider when I got fired or
16:12quit and I said, I don't know what to do, man.
16:14Like I have no, nothing booked.
16:15And he was like, let's write a TV show.
16:17And I was like, okay.
16:18And so I wrote the show with him and somehow like two years later, it was on Netflix.
16:22Hmm.
16:23Oh yeah, that's right.
16:24Yeah.
16:24That's the show.
16:24That's a Rob, Rob's show.
16:26Correct.
16:27Yeah.
16:27Yeah.
16:27Uh-huh.
16:28Yeah.
16:29Yeah.
16:29Sandler did it.
16:30We had Sandler, Norm Macdonald, David Spade.
16:32It was, it was wild.
16:33What was Norm Macdonald like?
16:35I never had a chance to meet him.
16:36Oh dude.
16:37He's everything you wanted.
16:38It's like, that's one of those guys, meet your heroes.
16:40He was the funniest guy on set I have ever worked with.
16:43And he barely used the words we wrote.
16:46He just said funnier things.
16:48Like it was, it was incredible.
16:50I do.
16:50We filmed that show.
16:51It was a Rob Schneider financed production.
16:53We had no money.
16:54We sold it to Netflix, but they did.
16:56They were had no involvement in making.
16:57And we shot it at, um, we shot it at Rob Schneider's house and he lives in a gated community
17:03and you're not allowed to film in his gated community.
17:06And so every morning we snuck in, in like gardening trucks, you know, those trucks that people have all the
17:12things we snuck an entire crew and for 68 days and film visit his house.
17:17And we got busted.
17:18We got busted kind of the last week.
17:20Like we were already kind of wrapped up, but he got in a lot of trouble.
17:23We already, we were like, all right, it's already done.
17:25You know?
17:26Yeah.
17:26No kidding.
17:27Wow.
17:27Yeah.
17:28I did watch some of that show.
17:29I was watching it kind of a here and there.
17:31Uh, but yeah, working in a gated community, I guess that'd probably be a little bit of a problem, especially
17:35if he's got celebrity neighbors.
17:38Yeah, exactly.
17:40Every day we were just like sweating, man.
17:42Every day we would drive up to that guard gate.
17:44All these people were being quiet in the back.
17:46And day one was like, oh my God, what if they shut us down?
17:49We have nowhere else to go.
17:50And then we, we filmed the entire show.
17:53I think we had to change locations on a couple of places after they busted us, but we got it
17:58done.
17:59Yeah.
17:59That's great.
18:00You know, speaking of improvising, are you a, did that, were you a spinal tap fan?
18:04Cause I don't, a lot of that is improvised.
18:06You, you spinal tap fan.
18:07Oh, do you know what's funny about the filming at Rob's house?
18:09We would have, they do have a lot of gardeners cause it's like in a fluid neighborhood.
18:13And oftentimes you're filming a scene and there's a guy outside blowing leaves and you're like, man, we only have
18:18Norm Macdonald for one day.
18:20Like we gotta, and so I remember Rob goes, um, he goes, yeah, dude, go outside.
18:25Here's a hundred dollars.
18:26Go outside and give that guy a hundred dollars to stop working for two hours.
18:30And I was like, really?
18:32And so I would just go outside and go, Hey man, I'm sorry.
18:34We're like filming this thing.
18:34We're not supposed to, I'll give you a hundred dollars if you just stop.
18:37And he's like, the guy goes, okay.
18:39And the next day, 30 people showed up with leaf flowers.
18:44I can imagine that.
18:46Yeah.
18:46We spent like 10 grand.
18:48We'll end on that.
18:49Uh, Jamie coming to town in April, April 24th, 25th and 26th at, uh, at Mark Ridley's comedy castle.
18:55Really great to talk to you.
18:57Uh, looking forward to the shows.
18:58I I'll be in town.
18:59So I'm going to stop by, I think, uh, maybe one of those shows.
19:01Okay.
19:02Love it, man.
19:03I would love to see it.
19:03If people want to get tickets, I know my name is not a household name.
19:05So if you want to go to, uh, my website is, uh, Rob Schneider's friend.com.
19:12We'll send everybody that way.
19:14All right.
19:15Thank you, man.
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