Craig Shoemaker | A Prescription for Laughter

This is what I try to get people to look inside.

There's where your answers are and you are funny.

You know, everybody thinks, oh, you're a stand up.

I don't have any training.

My training was my mom belly dancing my high school graduation party.

There's my training.

Welcome to Story Craft.

Now, here's your host, Mark Preston.

Well, here we are.

Debut episode.

Thank you for checking it out.

Story and craft has arrived and uh, my name is Mark Preston.

Maybe you know me, maybe you don't.

Uh, but a little handshake to get to know you here and uh, thank

you for, for joining the program.

Been, been working on this for some time now and finally, we get it off the ground,

taking off with our very first episode.

Um, now, right about here at this part of the show, usually, uh, I'm

going to just kind of check in with you and uh, see how you're doing.

Let you know what's going on with me and just kind of chat for a moment

But today I just kind of want to get after it I want to jump into our very

first episode because I had a lot of fun Craig Shoemaker first guest and

there's a reason why I wanted him to be the first guest known Craig for Gosh,

like 25 years or something like that.

He is a really really funny guy Uh, comedian, uh, of course,

actor, writer, uh, producer.

He's an author and even an entrepreneur.

Uh, he's known by many as the love master.

And if you are not familiar YouTube type in the love master.

Well, I don't know what's going to pull up.

Hopefully you're pulling up something from Craig Shoemaker, but I don't

know what happens on YouTube.

Maybe other things show up.

Not quite sure.

Here's the thing.

Craig has been on the scene for decades.

Uh, just making people laugh.

Uh, he has won Emmys.

He's won an American comedy award.

Uh, he's, he's still touring now.

He's also had a lot of, uh, specials like Comedy Central,

Showtime, Netflix, uh, Amazon prime.

And, uh, right now Craig is working on something pretty cool.

Uh, he's working on laughter as medicine.

Laughter is healing.

And I think that's such a, especially in the times we're

living in now, such a cool idea.

Uh, we'll discuss that.

Also going to talk about Bob Saget and Louis Anderson.

And I think you'll enjoy this episode.

Hey, don't forget, since we are just getting rolling, go to Story Craft.

pod.

com.

That's the website.

All of the social media links are there and just make sure to, of course, as we

get going here, uh, go to Apple podcasts, if you would please, uh, subscribe,

uh, download every episode, enjoy it.

Uh, but of course, uh, give us a little review, you know, uh,

great guests again, coming up.

But today It's Craig Shoemaker day.

So let's get after it right here on story and craft.

Doing much better.

I got a cough drop in cause I got a little bit of a cough still.

Hopefully it wasn't the COVID, was it?

Yeah.

Oh no.

I'm so sorry to hear that, man.

But, uh, yeah, you got the, uh.

It wasn't

bad.

It wasn't that bad.

But you got the vaccine and all that.

So it was, it kind of kind of took the edge off a little bit, I guess.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm fine.

You know, it just, it hit me like a common cold, I guess.

I think more people have had it.

And don't know they've had it.

Uh, like my son had it barely bothered him, but he's still, I mean,

we're over about almost exactly a year later and he doesn't, he still

can't taste, uh, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

That did not happen.

I I'm fully, uh, fully full taste buds and a full smell.

And, uh, yeah, so didn't get me bad.

I'm not a guy that gets sick very, I haven't missed a day of

work in 20 years until last week.

So how things been going over the last, uh, my God,

since the pandemic, I mean, here you are knowing your vocation,

how have you been navigating going into clubs and stuff like that?

Has it been a kind of a challenge at all?

Challenge to say the least.

I mean, You know, I'm in a business where people are not socially distanced.

They're, they're, they're laughing, you know, spreading out those germs.

Spewing good stuff right at the stage.

Spewing, yeah, spewing on each other.

And, uh, people are afraid to go out and unfortunately my

audience in particular, which is.

No, over 40.

Are we really that age now?

It's like, yeah, we're at that age, we're at that age where the, when they're giving

you those statistics on people that end up in hospitals and, you know, it's,

it's us, you know, so I'm personally not dialed into that energy, that fear energy

at all, like that's not my jam, but I can't convince other people that that's,

you know, the way to live is to live the way to live is to laugh, you know,

live to laugh and what it does for your.

You know, we're healing.

Yeah, you literally, I have an organization called Laughter Heals.

Yeah, I meant to ask you about that.

How long has that been kind of an endeavor of yours?

About 20 years.

My friend got brain cancer, gave him three months to live, formed it.

And it's a, it's a, what's happened lately though, is if you've noticed,

The world is doing the opposite.

They're cutting out the laughter.

They're censoring the laughter.

They're canceling the laughter.

They're so on top of that, where that's like the mandate now is like, let's

find evidence to cancel another comedian for words that he said in the past

words that he or she says now, whatever it is, it's like, so we're letting.

You know, uh, corporations, you know, poison our water,

our drugs, opioid addiction.

That's okay.

They don't get canceled, but tell a bad joke.

Tell a joke that someone's offended by.

No one's offended by poisoning, toxicity, all this negative stuff, killing,

all of that we mindlessly accept.

And yet we're after the comedians, censorship.

You know, we're on a podcast.

I guess I can curse.

Indeed.

Yes.

You, you, you can't curse because some illusion is that

it's going to destroy lives because you said a word that's offensive

to someone because they've been programmed, but it's offensive.

So,

you know, it's ironic.

They'll pay for a ticket to a movie.

I want to shift the paradigm.

I mean, I really do.

I want to shift this paradigm into we.

Need to focus on the positive, on the laughter, on the joy, on the

happiness, pursue Happiness as they say you're supposed to but they're

really not about that at all.

That's actually a note I made to myself I want to ask you about

today the whole cancel thing But Bill Maher, I think has been kind of on

point talking about this talking about how you know Uh, I, I, along with my

kids, I, you know, trying to be as safe as possible during the COVID times.

Uh, but we've been vaccinated.

Now we're kind of at a point we got to get back to it.

But as far as what you're talking about, the whole cancel thing, what do you think

as far as let's go back in time, let's say a Sam Kenison, you know, the guys

that we were paying attention to in the eighties, they couldn't exist today.

You know, is it, is it the internet?

Is it just change?

I can't quite figure out what that is.

What is your take on that?

The internet definitely is a big impact

because now everyone has a voice.

You know, I used to spread the word about my shows through word of mouth,

through postcards, through, you know, I mean, this is how I built a career

and it was just based on talent.

Now it's based on trends.

It's, it's, it's not scalable, sustainable.

It's just, everything's temporary trends and fixes and temp fixes.

This is how we're operating right now, where we don't have a strong

base, a foundation of who we are.

So who we are is predicated upon a trend, or so what someone else feeds

back to you, the amount of likes you get.

So we've, we've taken our own sense of self.

I'm actually coaching this now.

I am so dedicated to this shift, this paradigm shift that

needs to take place right now.

To me, It's a spiritual rebooting call that we're going through right now.

That's what this pandemic has done.

This has taken all the politics and everything else and just, just

put it on steroids, and now you're either going to retreat, which

people are doing with distancing and masking and rules and mandates.

That's the retreat.

That's the response.

That's the fear response.

Or you can immerse yourself in truly becoming a better person,

a more healthy person, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically.

That's the direction that I choose.

And that's the direction I'm choosing to coach.

Now I'm working with clients, personal clients in classes, because Look, it's

great that I've done all this laughter.

I probably brought a billion laughs to people.

That's a really cool thing Absolutely.

It is but I can't rest on those morals.

I gotta go Okay, what was that all about that led to this that these experiences?

led to I get to share this gift now back.

I get to give it back.

Yeah.

But you're at that age now where you can kind of look back on the, in the

rear view and go, okay, now I've done this, this, this, and this, what's

that culminated into, you know, it's an opportunity now to kind of perspective.

Isn't that what age gives you a little bit more perspective.

And I was thinking about the comedians that I was, especially, um, gosh,

just in the last, A couple of months you have Norm Macdonald, Bob Saget,

Louis Anderson, you know, you know,

yeah,

you know, these are guys who, who, who in the, I'm not saying

they're necessarily on the Mount Rushmore of the eighties comedians, but these

are guys that had a tone and had a vibe.

And it seems like now comedians, I mean, there's a lot of great guys out there.

Don't get me wrong, but it seems, everything seems more homogenized.

Does that make, does that, does that, you know, it makes

sense.

It makes sense in a way.

And I.

I tend to sort of go that way sometimes, but then I step back and

I, I look at, it could be one of those cases where we're going the good

old days and all this kind of stuff.

Like you asked me a question a lot of people ask me, like, could

kinesin or rickles even exist today?

The answer is absolutely yes.

And they do exist today.

They are constantly, there are comedians pushing the envelope constantly.

They're just, they are the Kennisons of today.

The Richard Pryors of today.

They still do exist.

There's a pushback though, from society.

And like I said, it's a cancel of actual laughter and comedy,

because what that is, is you're really tapping into your true self.

And the corporations, the people in charge, the system, the paradigm

that's in charge right now, they don't want you to be yourself.

They don't want you to have this power within that we all have.

They don't want this light and levity.

They want to control that so that you get in their line.

I'm writing a new book called to get out of line and get out

of line and into alignment.

And if we're in our own alignment, that's going to inform what we laugh at.

That's going to inform where we gravitate towards, where we, where our energy goes.

That's what will dictate it when we're in the line.

But we're out of these lines because we're in their line.

They tell us where, how to get in line.

Now.

Now the, the mandates and the rules lately, really, you know, it started with

TSA by the way, which is a bunch of crap.

You know what I mean?

Like, uh, oh, you can have four ounce, three ounces.

You can't have four ounces of, of a, of a liquid.

I mean, all of this, you know, 'cause one guy with shoes that were

gonna explode, but it really didn't.

So everything is in chaos and disarray.

And then I, you know, I talk about like, when I'm on the

tarmac, get off your cell phone.

I said, why?

You know, well, you're going to interfere with the radio waves from the tower.

I said, meanwhile, there's 900 people, you know, 50 feet away in

the airport on their cell phone.

But 8B took the plane down, you know, like he's trying to back up, going, I'm

trying to back up 8B, you know, you're interfering with, it's so ridiculous

when you break these things down.

It doesn't make any sense, but we don't have the wherewithal anymore, the common

sense, the new thought to actually break something down to what it really is.

This whole pandemic has been There's a lot of corruption going on here, and we

don't even want to research it because now they have a new word called Misinformation

or they have a new word the old word that the CIA came up with is Conspiracy

theory you get that label affixed to you.

It goes in the Internet And bye bye conversation.

Yeah.

There's that whole cancel a thing that's going on.

That didn't, I don't remember that ever being a thing.

I think most people like, Oh, that was kind of ridiculous.

Whatever onto the next thing.

Now it's now don't get me wrong.

There's some people doing some knucklehead stuff that probably do

need to be called out occasionally.

But I mean, I, when it comes to comedians, I look back to, um.

George Carlin.

Uh, I remember when people said, well, he's just really snarky and,

uh, he's just, you know, he's old boy.

Was he right?

Huh?

You know, when he, it's almost like he had this predictive sense of

what was, what we were heading into.

I think, because I think comedians almost have in a, in a way, a social commentary.

It's not a responsibility, but, uh, you know, if you're a comedian, You're

not beholden to, you know, I, after I worked in media for years, I don't think

anybody ever told me to say something or not say something, but most certainly

if you keep going one direction too far, they're going to try to reel you back in.

Sure they did.

They have an FCC.

They control you.

That's true.

Yeah.

There's seven words you can't say.

Absolutely they did.

There's way more than seven words.

It's, it's amazing to me, but if there's money behind it, Like, if

I talked about, on your radio show, one of your old radio shows, right?

If I talked about boners, erections, you would, you would go, Okay, it's a

family show, that would be your response, that's your conditioned response.

If you cut to a commercial with a, with erectile dysfunction,

Because there's money behind it.

People are so mindlessly accepting of this with people in separate tubs.

I got to explain to my kids or what an erection is.

I have to explain to my kids now, but if I joke about it, they'll

throw me off the air or I do the love master with innuendos, you know,

the year baby, you know, it's all the, yeah, I'm doing a love master.

People go, Hey, it's a family show.

I said.

Family show.

How do you think you have a family?

If I have a family from sex, you had sex.

Did you, you know, here's a guy that's joking about it.

They'd say in the

morning shows, you couldn't do that.

But the irony is that's when the parents have the most control over the

radio, if they're in the car, they can manage, you know, what the kids here.

They said, well, it's safe Harbor after 7.

PM, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

And that's the time the parents have no control over the radio.

The kids are in the room listening to whatever.

So, you know, the rules weren't really balancing out to the, the intended.

Intent, you know, but who's coming up with the rules?

A bunch of white guys in Washington.

Yeah

Yeah, what's who comes up with the rules and the rules

are all about control That's what the rules are about if you dissect the

rules if you jump back on the rules you go Okay, what's this really about?

This is about they're trying to control me this whole thing with the pandemic

I couldn't go into an open park You know, and they, that was the rule,

like, like they were throwing me out of parks and golf courses, you know,

with all this open space and vitamin D and sunshine, none of it made sense.

But if you say something about it, you're a conspiracy theorist, you're a rebel,

you're, you're not doing your duty, you know, because they decided that this

would be your duty is to stay indoors.

And that's what, it doesn't make it right because they're, because it's a mess.

You know, mandate.

It doesn't make it right.

Well, you're living in Los Angeles.

You've had kind of a front row seat to a probably more regulations in this.

So, I mean, we all kind of were at the beginning.

We're like, okay, what do I need to do to make sure I'm safe?

Family safe.

The people around me are safe.

Then the data started rolling in.

And then you, okay, the vaccine came out.

We did what we should do.

Um, you know, it made the most sense.

By the way,

the vaccine came out.

And people acted like it was a panacea and everybody still gets sick.

And then, and then they go, and then they, then they hear from the, you know,

the powers that be, well, it's sick, but you won't end up in a hospital and die.

You know, so everything completely keeps flipping and flipping and changing.

But what doesn't change is we're empowering these people to dictate

how we live a healthy life.

And there's nothing about, this is why you were talking about Bill Maher earlier.

I'm not a fan of him personally.

I, I, he's, he's really not a nice guy.

I like nice people.

He's not a nice guy.

I've known him for 40 years.

Not a nice guy.

Not my jam.

You know, we don't hang, but I watch his show and I cannot believe some of the

things that he's saying that I'm feeling.

And that's what comedians do is we are curtain pullers like

Toto and the wizard of Oz.

And we're going to show you the charlatans.

You're not going to like it.

That's the best

way to put it.

Why did you wait?

Oh, I just saying that you're social commentary, but no, I think pulling the

curtain back and actually kind of, okay.

It's a really raw look at what's going on in the world.

I met George Carlin.

That's what he did.

We examine in a way that has freedom to it.

You know, we have the freedom.

We are artists and we answer to something within.

We don't answer to the out, outside.

Most people listen to the outside, outside forces that dictate

how you feel, how you think.

I mean, even the cursing is all dictated by them.

It's ridiculous.

If I called you a sniff now.

In my language, that could be the worst F word ever.

It means nothing to you.

You're laughing.

I just called you a snuff nut.

You have no idea what that even means, but in my language from some

FCC and my other European language or whatever it is, that could be the

worst thing that's banned from the radio, but it doesn't mean anything.

It's all the meaning we put to it that they put to it.

You know, Penn and Teller did a great episode of

their TV show, Bullshit, where they talked about language.

That was, it was, oh God, it was such a great episode.

It just, at the end, you're going, yeah, that is kind of silly.

I mean, people will complain, but go pay money for a movie ticket.

Where?

There is all manner of colorful language, you know, it's like, well, yeah, I

think right now that people, I think in general, both sides of the aisle, the

political spectrum, whatever, you know, I think that everybody having grown up,

you know, in a kind of more liberal side, grew up more conservative area in Texas.

And I think, I think what's happened over the course of years is, you

know, people feel more and more car blush to tell you how to, to live.

You know, and to me, comedy was kind of that freedom.

You go into a comedy club, this kind of dark space.

That's, you know, you grab a beverage, maybe a cheese stick or whatever, you

know, a 20 basket or whatever they're selling you and you can sit back and you

can kind of just department and you kind of could laugh at yourself a little bit

and look at, look at, look at.

How people resist even going.

They'll pay a lot of money for a prescription of a drug that

was manufactured with chemicals.

You have no idea what's really in them.

You don't know if they're addictive.

They've obviously caused deaths and deaths and deaths.

And that's okay.

You'll pay any amount of money.

But ask for a 25 cover charge for laughter being the best

medicine, coming for your medicine.

There's your pharmacy.

And how people resist.

It's the, it's the last on their list.

We're essential workers with medicine, and yet comedy clubs closed down.

We had to go Zoom, we had to adjust, and here we are just wanting to offer

something that's an alternative to what you're getting on the news.

The news is 24 7 fear.

And then they have the commercials.

Every commercial has to do with the fear that they just gave you.

The anxiety they just gave you.

It's this, we got your fix for you, but the fix is never joy,

laughter, happiness, levity, laugh.

It's never the answer.

Cause laughter is more relief.

And I think what they're looking for is passion.

Uh, I, I'm teaching, I teach, you know, voiceover to many

students over the last 20 years.

And one of the things I talk about, I said, Passion motivates and advertising.

You look at a, they say sex sells, you know, what really sells his passion.

You know, I mean, you look at a political ad, you know, it makes

you angry or inspired or fearful.

And over the course of years, I've learned and the people that I've

watched that I admire, you know, the whole idea is kind of distilled down

to make decisions from love, not fear.

And you're probably going to be in a better place.

And to me, the, the, uh, when you talk about laughter,

That is, what is that relief?

This is serotonin, not serotonin.

Uh, what, what is it when they say dopamine, dopamine, and, you know,

laughing for me, uh, or just experiencing it, it's kind of a, it's a relief.

It's a weight off the shoulders.

And I can't think of any time that's more applicable or needed

than over the last couple of years.

To talk about one more Bill Maher note, one of the things he keeps talking

about, I wish more people would.

The comorbidities with, with COVID.

Talk about people who are, you look at people that are of a certain

age, who haven't been vaccinated and are overweight, 90 percentile

range, but take the vaccination

out of it.

Take that vaccination out of it.

We are unhealthy.

Oh, indeed.

Here's the other thing.

I, I peeled this one back that no one wants to hear about.

People talk about Fauci has been there for all these administrations.

What does that tell you?

He's also overseen the worst.

Health in the history of the United States for 30 years.

We've declined.

Does anyone want to talk about that?

You're going to call me a conspiracy theorist.

That's just the fact that we are more overweight.

We're obese.

We have diabetes, all of these things that are self inflicted because we

eat these horrible foods and we're not, we're encouraged 24 seven.

The biggest people with all the money have crap that they're selling us.

We're literally eating crap.

And yet comedians are going to get canceled.

Don't go see this comedian because they told a bad joke, you

know, you can have a bad burger.

You get food poisoning.

We all have food poisoning, right?

Now you'll go right back to the place.

But, but you get a bad joke and you're done with that comedian.

I remember I said something political once and this guy

goes, I'll never watch you again.

I'll never pay a dime for you.

Because I said one thing.

That he didn't understand and he didn't have the wherewithal to look

within himself or examine it closer or even have a conversation about

what it was that bothered him.

He would just much rather, which we're taught now, just abandon yourself.

Just abandon everything.

Just to go with the party.

I was, I watched this movie King Richard.

Did you see King Richard?

Uh, no, I have been

wanting to see it though.

Well, there's a, there's a scene where a guy has a gun

to his head and it's a gang member, and he, and he, I said, smoke 'em.

Smoke 'em.

And I thought to myself, you know how we look at gangs?

We go, oh, that's so horrible.

And I thought to myself, you know what?

That's what people do every day.

Religions do it.

You're going to smoke people that smoke, metaphorically, whether

it's killing them literally, or just killing them figuratively.

We're taught to get rid of things instead of, like, having compassion,

having an understanding, all that.

That's what we're taught.

Smoke them.

So we're all in gangs now.

Right wing, left wing.

Smoke the other one.

If I say one thing, It's outside of my alleged party.

Oh, look at you.

You're, you know, you're, you're, oh, you joined the other party.

Do you have any thought, you know, who's telling me this, do you have

any thought that's outside of your box that you're in, that you're fed all

of this information and you're fed the information to go smoke them, smoke them.

That's what we do in gangs now.

Religions do

it and parties do it.

Party politics.

That's what they do.

Well, I mean,

we're more than binary.

You know, I think that's the, the big screw up in our society is that

you're either this or you're that.

Yeah.

There's gray area.

And as we grow, as it develops.

Remember, that's like one of the things that kids think

black and white, good and bad.

Well, there is gray area, you know, people want to make decisions.

They want to put you in a box.

I don't know the cycle.

I'm no psychologist.

Give me a six years.

I'll go, I'll get a degree.

Um, but no, to, to break it down, what, what exactly, uh, is going

on, what has kind of changed.

I remember when you're when I was younger, you could disagree with people

politically like, ah, you're full of it.

Whatever.

Let's go grab a beer, you know?

And that's kind of where it stopped.

Now it's a rage thing.

And I think that when you talk about laughter, you talk about humor, you

talk about the levity that that brings.

I think there's, there's kind of a balanced diet of emotions

that we have on a daily basis.

And if all of it's kind of, especially last couple of years, fear and stress

and everybody's been dealing with it.

And then you don't have that levity, you don't have that, even if the, even if

the supposed comedy is kind of gnarly.

Uh, I think it's going to put us in an overall bad spot for being able

to be empathetic to one another.

Oh,

absolutely, and you're cancelling your own joy.

You're just cancelling, that's what you're doing, is you're

going, I'm going to limit my joy.

There is no limit to joy and happiness, there's no limit.

We live in abundance.

But the world will tell you that you live in limitations and you live in their walls

And you must go under their rules and don't defy their rules where Comics what

I love about being a comic is we are true independence We listen to a creator within

ourselves and that's what informs us.

That's what you know Has us speak that's what has us speak our

mind our thoughts whatever it is.

We are expressing it freely See What's happening now, you know, this

whole Joe Rogan thing is exploding.

I'm going to tell you what it is.

People are afraid to hear a different perspective than

they're pounded with daily.

They're pounded with something daily.

So they are afraid.

And this guy has brought in tremendous fear because he has like two or

three guests on that went against the norm, which is absolutely abnormal.

He had guests on.

And that's what he's guilty of to me We should encourage him to have guests

that have another voice and go research the voice go see if you know See if they

indeed are frauds or whatever it is But to cancel him is you're just cancelling

an entire side of yourself that you don't want to see You don't want to see

that you might have been fooled people people have such egos that they can't

say to themselves You know, I got fooled.

I have to tell you i'll be i'll admit something to you right now You Major,

I became, I was a conservative, raised a conservative, and this is a label

by the way, I don't even like labels, but just for lack of another term.

Went to liberal, I can tell you the exact day that it happened.

And I became a liberal because of my empathy, because I believe that

liberals, that was their jam is, you know, everybody's included and, you

know, humanity and, you know, it doesn't matter color, you know, but all that

kind of stuff, that's what I'm about.

That's my heart sings to me.

So nobody can convince me otherwise, but the difference is I have now left the

liberals because what they're as guilty of as the others is empowering people.

Empowering people to dictate how they feel, how they think.

They're just as guilty, they're just as guilty as labeling, cancelling,

gang, gang thought, all of that stuff, the liberals are now guilty.

So I am right, and I have my own party, it's called Centered.

I'm centered in me, I'm centered in what, I'll pull in my

own information from within.

a lot of what I do.

So I'm out of the party.

Cause everybody goes all in, they go all in.

And like, I'll say something that I said to a guy, I go, well, how

come if I question like some of the stuff that's going on now?

I said, what, why do people freak at me?

He goes, cause they think you're a Trumper.

So that's where we are now.

That's where we are now.

So we, Oh, that label gets affixed to you.

And if you're not a Trump or that's not a good thing to be a

Trump or, you know what I mean?

So you're, so we're divided so much so that there's no conversation going on.

You can't get any better.

If you can't have conversations, if you can't, you can't get any better

until you listen to creative artists.

One of the things I was curious about is when you go

to the, when you're doing a show at a club now, how have cell phones

changed the way you do comedy?

Uh, is it, is it, does it, does it put you on edge a little bit knowing that somebody

may whip out the camera, just film the five seconds that they pull out of context

and it's gonna, it's gonna ding you?

You're right.

Um, it's changed it in a, in a number of ways and I, and,

and not, and not good ways.

Um, there's also the, just the, the distraction of can

we all be together as one?

Because, so I, when I perform, I take people like a, like a orchestra leader,

and everyone is in the orchestra.

Every person is important in that audience.

So if you have someone who goes solo, goes rogue, they're off, they're

texting something, you know, they're out, they're out of the orchestra.

You now do not have harmonious moment because they take you out of it.

One person can do it by the way.

So now with cell phones, it's a distraction.

It's taking you off of your, like, I love to conduct this beautiful

symphony is amazing to me.

And, you know, you've maybe seen my shows and this is not

in a braggy way, but I get.

You know, everybody says I get the, I'm the only one that gets standing

ovations, just about every show.

And you know, your club owners tell me that waitresses, waiters, the reason

is, this is not like I'm some, you know, great talent, but the reason

is I conduct it like that, like that.

We're all one.

We are in this together and bring them into that force, that force field.

So that genuine energy flow, which is what I teach when I coach, So if you're

in that genuine flow and you take yourself out, so now what they've done

is, so I'll stop the show by the way.

And I'll say, Hey, what are you doing?

You know, I've, you know, I do whatever I can do to get them off of

this cell phone, but now guess what?

Mark, they have, they said, I'm just ordering.

So now they order with their son.

So as much as that's a nice convenient thing, you don't have to chitter

chatter of waiters and waitresses.

Now you've got these bright lights.

I, I, you know, they have on their crotch.

I said, it looks like a smurf has giving you head with this blue light.

I said, you know, I, so it's just taken us away from, the goal is

to, we're having a night off.

We're having a night off of distractions.

We're all one, we're all unified there.

There's no political party, there's no religion, there's no judgment.

There's no labeling.

We're just in this and that's what I love to do and the cell phones take you

away But you know these days some of the bigger comedians that have more power

They have you put this, the phone in some sort of like a purse or whatever,

and you get it later because they're so afraid of their stuff being recorded.

Yeah,

you know, it's almost the same thing of going to a theater now.

Yeah, it's great having a big 75 inch TV, watch your stuff, you stream it

at home, but there is that communal feeling when you go to the theater.

It's a communal feeling, yeah.

Yeah, when you go, when you're around other people.

That's exactly right.

And by, and by the way, you know what really

bothers me is when they film you, And I've been guilty of it as well.

Like I went to, you know, my friend, REO Speedwagon the other

day and I'm filming, I'm, I'm going, what am I going to do with this?

Am I going to like have a film night at my house and go, let's watch, let's

watch me on my iPhone so I can show you what good seats I had, you know,

and let's go listen to this through the iPhone, through a television, you

weren't even there for the experience.

When is it ever going to be shown?

This is how silly we've become.

It's, it's, it's ridiculous that we film.

So now you're detached.

You're getting all your spacing it, you know, okay, let me zoom or whatever it

is, instead of taking in this music, taking in this art, taking in this comedy

for what it is in its natural form.

You're now getting in the way of that.

So I don't want to be the cranky guy, you know, here.

I do want to encourage people to take a pause for yourself.

Get off of it for just that hour and a half.

I do a 90 minute show.

Just join me.

Just take 90 minutes.

Well, you've got young kids.

I've got a point.

I'll snap a couple pictures and then I'm done with my phone.

Then I'm watching whatever is going on back.

My kids are in their late teens now, but when they were younger, if you're

sitting there with a phone, you're videotaping their play or whatever.

It's like, it reminds me of that scene from daddy's home and the lady on the

stage before performance like, okay, everybody, don't worry videographer,

you can get it after the show.

And then, you know, every parent just whips out their

iPad or the phone or whatever.

If you are looking at it through your phone, you're not looking at it.

And experiencing it and you got to trust your memory a little bit.

You're not experiencing it.

You're not in the moment You're teaching your kids not to be in the moment.

You're by the way the kids this is the funny thing is look I'm guilty of it.

I have never had one of my kids say Let's have family movie night.

Let's see me in that pool when I was four years old.

Nobody's ever done that.

I keep souvenirs for them.

It's just projection because I'm thinking this is what I would have wanted.

They don't, I have game balls that they, I said, let's have a garage sale.

And I look and there's a pile of game balls.

You know, it says Jackson Jew maker, you know, number one today.

He's like, just give them, just sell them.

He doesn't care.

They don't care about any of this memorabilia.

They don't care about any of this.

Because that's the way they've been raised.

So we were raised, and we're projecting our own stuff onto them.

I mean, I think years down the road they'll have perspective

and go, Man, maybe I don't want that.

I don't agree, because I've been asking, and

I've been checking this out.

I don't agree.

It's, it's a different society that we're in right now.

There's so much of it.

They've already been, been, been bombarded by posts.

By, you know, the seeing it, the, you know, lot, all that.

That is true, yeah.

They don't have this longing to have, because it's a big bombardment anyway.

I mean, it's like, which ones do you choose to show them?

Which ones do they want to look back?

Everything has been documented now, as opposed to think about you.

Think about you.

Have you ever seen a video of you when you were younger?

I've got like three.

Three, maybe, maybe, and wish,

I do say, I wish I had some more, and you know what I wish I

had more of, is more like family stuff.

Like people that are no longer with us, you know.

Like, you know, grandparents around talking about whatever.

I wish I had some of that kind of stuff.

A little bit of that.

But as far as me, I got pictures, I know what I look like, I know what

kind of goofball I was, you know.

It's how you,

it's how you felt though that's the most important thing.

Uh, precisely.

You know, I, I was talking to a client this morning and, Um, You

know, I was, I was, um, you know, I do, I do psychic work as well.

You know, that's what makes a really good comedian is we have very deep empathy

that we can see even into the past.

And I saw into her past.

And one of the things that happened for her was.

She stopped being her true self at a certain age.

She stopped being a child and had to grow up really fast.

And a lot of people do have that happen where it's like, you're forced to grow up

and you're forced to take things serious.

And you're forced to cancel your laughter happens at a very early age.

You're taught not to be silly in class, right?

Yeah.

I think it all, can it also happen when, uh, going through a traumatic

relationship, going through traumatic experience, and you kind of,

yeah.

You kind of shift all your focus to the new paradigm and

you kind of leave something behind.

You weren't loose.

You weren't really supposed to leave that behind you.

That's who you are.

You know, it's who

you are is light and levity and laughter.

So you know what I did with her?

I call her name's Beth.

I call her Bethy because Bethy was when she was that girl who was just

all about love and light and happiness.

And then it stopped and she giggles every time I call her Bethy.

Marky, uh, Marky, see you even giggled it.

So, but that's when we're kids, when we're called with the E or the end, you

know, then we become adults and it's Elizabeth or Beth or whatever it is.

I said, no, let's bring back that child like essence that we all want.

You know, kids laugh 200 times a day and adults laugh 20.

So why don't we go catch the kids?

You know what I mean?

Is that

like you grew up in a Philly and I know you still keep

up with a lot of your friends.

Isn't it great when you get together with your friends and

they're still referencing it.

I talked to a good friend of mine last night.

I've known him 30 years.

He's kind of retired now and talking to him, man, that's like

a zips you right back to that.

To get your head space and those people you can't be asked because they know

where your bodies are buried, you know, they know you and that's that's

a really, uh, I know you got, you got friends back home in Philadelphia.

You, you, you stay in touch with them and they kind of keep you grounded

to kind of keep you from getting a little bit too full of yourself.

I'm sure.

Well, the other thing they do is there's your videos.

The videos are through stories.

And I'd much rather recall a story with them with laughter.

Again, there's one of the things I coach is I say, tell me about some

stories about you and your friends.

And everybody has those stories.

We all have, our best friends are the ones that make us laugh and bring us joy.

Are our best friends the ones that tell us, you know, Uh, that we're telling a bad

joke, or telling us that, that we should be cancelled, or we should join a certain

party, or we should listen to this.

Are they our best friends?

No.

They're not our best friends.

They're trying to control us.

Our best friends are just simply We don't care about politics.

We don't care about the outside world that's chosen for us.

We care about our world that we create together and we have fun.

I get together.

I swear my family, I'm sure very sick of the stories that when I get together with

the uncle, uncle Saram, you know, but.

We will tell these stories till we are dead, you know, and I was about to ask

you, do you tell your kids, do you sit down and do something

like I take my kids, I grew up going to South Padre Island on the South

Texas coast and I took my kids there.

It's become a kind of a done it a few times, uh, Christmas time, New

Year's, we take them down there and when I go to a restaurant or I see

a thing, it'll bring back a memory.

Yeah.

Uh, 40 years ago.

Yeah.

And I'll tell, I, I, I don't know if they're like, oh, that's cool.

I'm getting insight into my daddy.

Or if it's like, Jesus, here we go again.

I've heard this story five times.

, you know, well,

I, I don't know the, I, you know, it's funny, I've

had that same introspection as I, I wonder, but I'm going to continue

to do it because that's who I am.

And by the way, the results are, they come, sometimes

the results sneak up on you.

Like, where do you wanna go on vacation?

You know what both kids told me.

One of them said, I want to go, whatever our vacation is,

I want to go to Pizza City.

That's the pizza parlor I grew up with, and Tony is still there,

and that's where he wanted to go.

Like, literally, you could, I was like, where in the world do you want to go?

You want to go to Ireland?

You want to go to Africa?

What do you want to do?

I want to go to Pizza City in Philadelphia, this small,

tiny little pizza shop.

It's 60 years old.

And that's what he wants.

And then my daughter says, I want to go to the Jersey Shore.

That's where I grew up going.

So we live 3, 000 miles from there in California with

beaches and everything else.

And we go to the Jersey Shore.

So it is an answer to your question is it, it gets into them because it's tradition,

it's something that's very simple,

something they're connected to, you know,

it's, I think they want that.

Yeah,

exactly.

There's a connection that's there and it's a connection to dad.

It's a heart connection.

They, they are, oh, those are, oh, My friends are their uncles

and aunts and they know this.

It's loyalty.

It's something that you cannot teach.

And my son to this day, the oldest son, 23.

Oh, he says, one of his biggest things is he has his, he is, he says,

I have my Saram is his friend Cade.

I've got my Frank.

And that's his friend Shay.

You know, he has those for life.

And he said, if anything, I passed on to him, it was to value these things that are

indeed.

Indeed.

Yes.

And it doesn't matter who Frank, who just passed

away, by the way, last week, one of the saddest moments of my life.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I'm unbelievable.

I mean, I just, it was such a shock and you know, and all the memories that

came up and, you know, at the funeral and people speaking, it was all about,

How beloved he was because he was always a giving person and that's his

energy that he brought and instilled in others and he was beloved and that's

what's the phrase Native Americans

have that that you die two deaths one uh when you're physically

you die and the second is the last time somebody mentions your name and

you know being I'm Jewish and I we have there's hardwired into that as

well you Keep talking about people.

It keeps them alive and tell my kids about what would be their great grandfather,

my grandfather learned so much from him.

And I just keep talking, going, you know what I kind of, uh, maybe you're

getting to that space in life also is what, what are you, uh, leaving?

What lessons are you leaving?

What's your, what's your legacy or what, you know, you get all

highfalutin and it really boils back down to like, how do you, yeah.

How do you want, at least for my kids.

How would you like to be remembered?

How do you want to be remembered?

It's like, I want to be remembered for how I make people feel.

And if I can inspire, uplift them, make them laugh, then

I've done my job on the planet.

And, and by the way, when I talk about my grandmother, I don't do tell some

phony story of, you know, honoring her.

I tell the story about her being drunk and passed out on the, on the floor.

And my kids imitate her to this day.

They've never met her.

You know, they never will.

Is this

one with a loose joint?

I picked her up.

Oh yeah.

With the joints.

She was

a

trip

man.

And I'm going to talk about her and that's how I honor her is she was not.

A grandmother that you revere, that has all this respect.

Nah, she was a drunk pot smoker, big Genesee cream ale shitter pants.

You know, I picked her up this one time and she sees this guy that

she would flirt with my friends.

And she's upside down and she looks at him.

And she sees him upside down because I've got her, you know,

cradled and she goes, Is that Herb?

Is that Herb?

I don't want him to see me like this.

And then she looks at him and she goes, with her flirting, she goes, Hi, Herb.

And I tell my kids that, my kids to this day will go, Is that herb?

Well, you're touching on something that kind of goes

back to what we were talking about before that the whole cancel thing

expecting people to be perfect.

Yeah.

When you're telling real honest stories, you remind your kids, you

remind the people you're talking or speaking with that, Hey, these

aren't, these are imperfect people.

But.

They occupy a space in this world and they had something to contribute.

They have sometimes it turns into a funny story.

I mean, let's be honest.

When you're a kid, some of the stories where you almost died and

like, Oh my God, it's catastrophic.

Now are the things you laugh about over, you know, a beverage or just, but I'm not

encouraging, you know, Potentially, you know deadly activities, but the things you

do when you're a kid you can sit around.

What's that phrase?

I keep seeing uh shows up in on facebook It's if you can't look

back on your life and realize that you're an idiot when you're younger.

You're still an idiot Yeah, I know yeah that uh that idea but didn't

you write on uh fuller house?

Didn't you didn't were you as a writer and I i'm i'm a Amateur budding screenwriter.

I just for me, it's fun.

It's hobby.

Maybe one day I'll sell screenplay.

Do you find catharsis in and putting a story?

This isn't on a stage.

Naturally, the audience a little bit different on Netflix.

It's family driven, but is there a catharsis in writing, crafting stories,

you know, that kind of thing where you're creating or, or, or, um, you

have empathy for characters to tell me what that's like to, to write and

to create on when you're not on stage.

On that show in particular, like I had a

writing session yesterday.

I'm minting a, um, NFT right now, uh, based on an animated project