What Actually Makes People Laugh? A Comedian Tells All

Dustin (00:00:12 --> 00:00:42)
It's often said that dissecting comedy ruins it. Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You might understand how it works, but it dies in the process. And that's exactly what we're going to do for the next hour. Sitting across from me is the man who has built a reputation on making strangers laugh, whether on stage in Boston on TikTok with great face for radio, or just being the guy who. You're never totally sure what he's going to say. Jim Stallion, thank you for coming on the radio edition of Curiously.

Jim (00:00:42 --> 00:00:44)
It is my pleasure to be here

undefined (00:00:44 --> 00:00:46)
or, uh, being anywhere, actually.a

Jim (00:00:46 --> 00:00:53)
Um, yeah, no, I, um, I think this is going to be a fun hour. I will try to stay within the

undefined (00:00:53 --> 00:00:54)
guidelines for at least the first five

Jim (00:00:54 --> 00:00:57)
minutes and then, uh, after that we'll, uh, see where it goes.

Dustin (00:00:57 --> 00:01:02)
While you look cool for a Tuesday, uh, morning, I feel great.

Jim (00:01:02 --> 00:01:08)
I did spend a little extra time prepping this morning, getting ready to go and, uh, you know, as you can tell, I look wonderful.

Dustin (00:01:08 --> 00:01:20)
You look m. Well manscaped. I will not describe what you just did. Uh, uh, thank you. Because it's not video. Yeah, but it was obscene, it was grotesque, and it violated a lot of FCC regulations.

Jim (00:01:20 --> 00:01:23)
Well, yeah, I'm gonna try to get them all today. So we'll go from there.

Dustin (00:01:23 --> 00:01:44)
Let's put the listener where we are. We're in Massasoia Community College in the Dale Dorman Radio stud. And we're gonna be talking about comedy, how it works and what makes people laugh. And before we get to the questions, I wanna start by confirming your TikTok handle. Uh, you do possess one of the most radio friendly faces I've ever encountered.

undefined (00:01:44 --> 00:01:45)
I agree.

Dustin (00:01:45 --> 00:01:48)
Generally struggling to look, make eye contact.

undefined (00:01:49 --> 00:01:59)
It's very difficult to, uh, do the same thing on stage. Most people don't make eye contact. It's like the teacher and the kid in school are afraid they're gonna get picked on. You know what I mean? Like, oh, don't call me.

Dustin (00:02:00 --> 00:02:16)
Isn't it some of the best. They come right out and say exactly what you're thinking, which is like sometimes if someone looks a little different, they'll just say it. Like if someone comes out overweight, they say exactly what the audience is thinking, which, yeah, I have got some extra pounds.

Jim (00:02:16 --> 00:02:18)
See me, I'm a very sensitive guy

undefined (00:02:18 --> 00:02:29)
and I'm very sensitive to my audience. Uh, said no one ever, but, um, I try not to offend other people and.

Dustin (00:02:29 --> 00:02:31)
No, but offend yourself. Like self deprecating.

Jim (00:02:31 --> 00:02:33)
Oh, I've self deprecated Deprecate.

Dustin (00:02:33 --> 00:02:35)
You self defecated.

undefined (00:02:35 --> 00:02:37)
Defecated many times on stage.

Dustin (00:02:37 --> 00:02:38)
Mostly in adulthood.

undefined (00:02:38 --> 00:02:40)
Most, yes, of course.

Dustin (00:02:40 --> 00:02:42)
Yourself defecating right now?

undefined (00:02:42 --> 00:02:42)
Yes.

Jim (00:02:42 --> 00:02:44)
Well, mostly in my drinking days, I,

undefined (00:02:44 --> 00:02:48)
uh, I was, I was very well known for that.

Jim (00:02:49 --> 00:02:54)
Uh, but, yeah, no, you know, most comedians will do just about anything to

undefined (00:02:54 --> 00:02:58)
make someone laugh, you know, sans taking off their pants, which, you know, I've done.

Jim (00:02:59 --> 00:03:02)
Uh, but other than that, you know, it's.

undefined (00:03:02 --> 00:03:13)
It's a process. Uh, I mean, a lot of people say to me, they say, you know, did you go to school for that? Did you, did you, uh, study to learn how to be funny?

Jim (00:03:13 --> 00:03:15)
And I think most people that are

undefined (00:03:15 --> 00:03:30)
funny did it through negative experiences in life, you know, through some sort of, um, bad things that have happened to them. Now, I've never been a, you know, choir boy or anything like that, so we're not talking about that kind of adversity.

Jim (00:03:30 --> 00:03:33)
But there are, uh, a lot of

undefined (00:03:33 --> 00:04:28)
I am a unenrolled, unemployed, unenjoyed independent voter. I don't belong to any political party. Uh, the only parties I ever go to are orgies. But other than that, I don't, I don't subscribe to that. Because in today's world, if you make a political joke, you just lost half your audience.

Unless you're in Cambridge, you know, um, you really. That's when you're gonna offend people and they're never gonna listen to you again. So I stay away from the politics aspect of it most of the time, unless I'm out having lunch with my friend Bernie Sanders. Cause he knows where all the free stuff is. So, uh, you know, I'll go with him.

Jim (00:04:28 --> 00:04:33)
try to stay away from religion or things like that. And it's.

undefined (00:04:33 --> 00:05:02)
I don't know, it's a tough thing to describe. Some people just have to be funny. In my case, I really had no choice. Being unapologetically Jewish, uh, I never went to medical school. I never went to, um, law school. I, I'm not a hedge fund manager. So the only thing left was being a diamond merchant or, uh, a comedian. So I picked to do something funny, something I could have a little fun with.

Jim (00:05:02 --> 00:05:04)
And that's pretty much where it is.

Dustin (00:05:04 --> 00:05:14)
Take, uh, me on the journey. How did you get into stand up. How did you decide to do this kind of professionally? Why make funny a job?

Jim (00:05:14 --> 00:05:17)
Well, cause every time, even growing up,

undefined (00:05:17 --> 00:05:56)
I was the one that always said something that everybody was thinking but were terrified to say. And, and, uh, whether it was my first marriage and divorce that kind of brought out a little bit more of me or some of the hard times or the setbacks. Going broke, uh, at one point and going bankrupt at one point, you have to make fun of it so you don't go insane. So I see things differently, I think, than other people. Um, I can look at a normal situation, a normal conversation, and kind of read into what they're really thinking, or at least I think I can.

Dustin (00:05:56 --> 00:06:05)
Um, so it takes some self awareness, it takes some emotional intelligence to be able to see the subtext. And then it takes some guts to kind of spit it back out, to

Jim (00:06:05 --> 00:06:06)
say it out loud, you know?

undefined (00:06:07 --> 00:06:18)
Um, all my friends used to joke and say when I was around, they never knew what I was gonna say. And I'd say, well, that includes me. Cause I just say things and sometimes I'll say things and people will. How did you get away with that?

Dustin (00:06:20 --> 00:06:32)
Cause it was funny. Like, if you say it funny, if you say the truth in a straight way, they'll kill you. But if you say it in a funny way, you can get away with almost anything if it's funny.

undefined (00:06:32 --> 00:06:32)
Yeah.

Jim (00:06:32 --> 00:06:33)
As long as the voices in my

undefined (00:06:33 --> 00:06:37)
head are laughing, I really don't care what the other people that are actually in the room.

Dustin (00:06:37 --> 00:06:49)
There's also the way you say it is in such a, I don't know, like, whimsical, I'm making myself laugh way that people can't help not be funny. Even if it was like, you know, overtly offensive or something.

Jim (00:06:50 --> 00:06:54)
Yeah, well, you know, I'll tell you, it's funny. Um, people say to me, you know,

undefined (00:06:54 --> 00:07:10)
do you have any limits, anything like that? You worry about offending people. And, uh, I don't, I really don't. Um, I'm not really an offensive person. I'm not a. I don't like or dislike one group of people most of the other.

Dustin (00:07:10 --> 00:07:13)
No, you're not mean spirited. That's a totally different thing.

undefined (00:07:14 --> 00:07:21)
I just, I have this attitude. Just don't, don't be, uh. I don't want to say it because the dump button will come in.

Dustin (00:07:21 --> 00:07:22)
Don't be a jerk.

undefined (00:07:22 --> 00:07:24)
Yeah, yeah. Don't be. Yeah, that's.

Jim (00:07:24 --> 00:07:28)
We can use word jerk. Yeah, sure, yeah. But just don't be that person that

undefined (00:07:28 --> 00:07:31)
it's Mean spirited, you know, don't pick on somebody.

Jim (00:07:31 --> 00:07:34)
If I see somebody who's maybe is a little different or a little on

undefined (00:07:34 --> 00:07:37)
the slow side, I would never make fun of that.

Dustin (00:07:37 --> 00:07:46)
That's how I felt about you. I was like, he's a little slow. Yeah. He's not, he's dim witted. Would be double digit IQ high 70s, 100%.

Jim (00:07:46 --> 00:07:48)
Could use a call to the elevator

undefined (00:07:48 --> 00:07:51)
company because it's not going all the way up. It's. It's definitely.

Dustin (00:07:51 --> 00:07:52)
That thing's stuck on two.

undefined (00:07:52 --> 00:07:55)
Yeah, it's stuck in the basement. It really is.

Dustin (00:07:55 --> 00:07:57)
It's out of order. Yeah. That's an elevator. Who's out of order?

undefined (00:07:57 --> 00:08:07)
You're out of order. No, um. So, yeah, I don't, but I don't, I don't look at, to target a certain.

Dustin (00:08:07 --> 00:08:07)
Yeah.

undefined (00:08:07 --> 00:08:11)
A certain group or, or anything like that. I could, I could care less what people do.

Dustin (00:08:11 --> 00:08:43)
Yeah, yeah. It's not. Yeah. It doesn't have an unexpected quality to it, but it also is too mean spirited. So it's like, I don't want to do that.

Like, so how do you make something that's maybe, uh. It's got some like, edge to it. It's, it's like a critique, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't really hurt. You're not trying to hurt people's feelings.

Jim (00:08:43 --> 00:08:44)
You know, you're gonna hurt every.

undefined (00:08:44 --> 00:08:46)
You're gonna hurt somebody's feelings. You never.

Jim (00:08:46 --> 00:08:47)
If you, if you try to be

undefined (00:08:47 --> 00:09:19)
I could tell a joke with 50 people in the room and 25 of them will think it's funny. And the other five, you know, the other. Not a mathematician here. The other 25 will be upset, you know, for one reason or another. That's why I stay away from politics.

You're gonna lose half the room. Giddy up. Right off the giddyup. You know, like I said, unless you're in Cambridge and then you just say Donald Trump bad. You know.

Dustin (00:09:19 --> 00:09:20)
Right. Anything anti Trump.

undefined (00:09:20 --> 00:09:22)
Yeah, they're gonna love you.

Dustin (00:09:22 --> 00:09:23)
Count Somerville in on that too.

undefined (00:09:23 --> 00:09:28)
Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of places where you really have to watch what you say you gotta read the room.

Dustin (00:09:28 --> 00:09:29)
Yeah.

undefined (00:09:29 --> 00:09:37)
You know, there are people like Nikki Glazer and, uh, Sarah Silverman who are very funny. They do a lot of blue comedy, a lot of. A lot of sex type stuff.

Jim (00:09:37 --> 00:09:41)
Now, would that work if they look like Susan Boyle? I beg to differ. I don't think it would.

undefined (00:09:41 --> 00:09:43)
Yeah, you know, uh, you know, if

Jim (00:09:43 --> 00:09:49)
Susan Boyle got up and started saying some of the things that those two say, you'd be like, yeah, I don't get a visual on that.

Dustin (00:09:49 --> 00:09:57)
Yeah. Nikki Glaser, she kind of leaned into, like, the promiscuous hot girl. She said, uh, I would buy a lottery ticket to suck Tom Brady's dick.

undefined (00:09:57 --> 00:09:57)
Yes.

Dustin (00:09:58 --> 00:09:59)
Wow. And she.

Jim (00:09:59 --> 00:10:01)
I sold her ticket. Yes.

Dustin (00:10:02 --> 00:10:03)
She vetted that with her boyfriend, too.

Jim (00:10:03 --> 00:10:04)
Yes.

Dustin (00:10:04 --> 00:10:05)
And she was just like, this is my.

undefined (00:10:05 --> 00:10:11)
She also bought a ticket, by the way. I just. You know, two tickets. From what I heard. Yes. I'm not here to judge.

Dustin (00:10:11 --> 00:10:28)
Yeah. Why is it that you are the way you are? You comedically just instinctually comedic? You got funny stuff going on in your head? Or did you train yourself that way? Or is it the pain, suffering, adversity creates funny? Or what is.

undefined (00:10:28 --> 00:10:31)
I think it's just I see things a certain way.

Dustin (00:10:31 --> 00:10:32)
What way?

undefined (00:10:33 --> 00:10:48)
All right, I'll give you an example. Uh, a job I was at probably 25 years ago. We had a boss who was the disciplinarian, and I was, you know, constantly in trouble because of my mouth, of course. And, uh, thanks. Thanks for that little minor agreement. Thanks.

Dustin (00:10:49 --> 00:10:51)
No, I mean, I'm right there with you. Yeah.

undefined (00:10:51 --> 00:10:52)
Jackass. Uh, but I.

Dustin (00:10:53 --> 00:10:54)
Get this fucking guy out of here.

Jim (00:10:54 --> 00:10:54)
Yeah.

undefined (00:10:55 --> 00:10:56)
I don't know why I showed up for here.

Jim (00:10:57 --> 00:10:58)
Should have just stayed at Dunkin Donuts

undefined (00:10:58 --> 00:10:59)
and hit on the girl.

Jim (00:10:59 --> 00:11:02)
But, uh, no, he was trying to

undefined (00:11:02 --> 00:11:10)
explain things to me, the way he viewed the, you know, the way I should be. And I. And I just went, oh, my God, I'm getting so bored with this conversation.

Jim (00:11:10 --> 00:11:11)
He said, you.

undefined (00:11:11 --> 00:11:31)
I just want to leave you with this one thing. Can I put a little something in the back of your head? And I just looked at him without even hesitating. I said, as long as it's not a 9 millimeter ball. And his jaw fell. He goes, why would you say that? And I'm thinking to myself, because I want to kill myself right now. Uh, this conversation was over 20 minutes ago. And you just keep babbling and babbling and babbling.

Dustin (00:11:31 --> 00:11:46)
So when you're dealing with someone who's real straight laced, real uptight, real vanilla normie style. And you get super dark like that. Why is that? No, but why does that offend them or why does that blow their minds? You're just making a dark joke.

undefined (00:11:47 --> 00:11:49)
I don't know. And I don't try to. I don't.

Dustin (00:11:49 --> 00:11:50)
You don't get into it.

undefined (00:11:50 --> 00:11:53)
Uh, yeah, I don't care. It's like if you're offended, it's you.

Dustin (00:11:53 --> 00:11:54)
Did he fire you on the spot?

undefined (00:11:55 --> 00:11:57)
No, no, no, we dated. For what? No, just kidding.

Dustin (00:11:58 --> 00:12:00)
That was your second marriage through his wife.

undefined (00:12:00 --> 00:12:06)
But I mean, we did date. Yes, yes. I think that's what the whole disciplinary thing was about. But, you know, hey.

Dustin (00:12:07 --> 00:12:11)
Yeah. Can comedians be employed? Are they employable? Because they're always.

undefined (00:12:11 --> 00:12:12)
As long as they don't talk much.

Dustin (00:12:13 --> 00:12:14)
Right. Stay silent.

undefined (00:12:14 --> 00:12:18)
Stay silent. Yeah, be like Silent Bob in that show, whatever it was.

Dustin (00:12:18 --> 00:12:18)
Yeah.

undefined (00:12:18 --> 00:12:22)
You know, wear a trench coat, which I did once and of course I got arrested.

Dustin (00:12:22 --> 00:12:24)
Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't wear that today.

Jim (00:12:24 --> 00:12:26)
But, uh, yeah, no, I just figured

undefined (00:12:26 --> 00:12:33)
I'd go all natural and, you know, go from there. My favorite thing is making people tongue tied. That's, that's, that's, that's my specialty.

Dustin (00:12:33 --> 00:12:34)
What's the.

undefined (00:12:34 --> 00:12:34)
Even with my clothes on?

Jim (00:12:34 --> 00:12:35)
Go ahead.

Dustin (00:12:35 --> 00:12:44)
So, yeah, like, what's this, this long standing idea that, you know, comedy comes from pain and struggle? Like, why do you think that is? And how's that been true in your life?

undefined (00:12:44 --> 00:12:46)
It's, uh, a coping mechanism, you know.

Dustin (00:12:46 --> 00:12:46)
Okay.

Jim (00:12:46 --> 00:12:48)
Yeah, it's, you know, there are people

undefined (00:12:48 --> 00:12:51)
that climb the tower. Luckily, I'm afraid of heights, but, uh,

Jim (00:12:52 --> 00:12:57)
you know, there are people that handle things differently. There are some people that grab a

undefined (00:12:57 --> 00:13:18)
coloring book and hide in the corner and cry. And, you know, there's others that lash out and become violent. Um, and then there's others that just make fun of it and try to absorb it that way. You know, um, my first marriage was, you know, was kind of painful. I joke about it quite often. People say, oh, you must miss your ex wife.

Jim (00:13:18 --> 00:13:20)
I go, yeah, well, I do miss her.

undefined (00:13:20 --> 00:13:24)
I said, maybe someday I'll have enough money to buy another scope. I mean, I don't know.

Dustin (00:13:26 --> 00:13:32)
But, um. Yeah, you do. You do joke. We know each other for a month and a half. Yeah, I've heard about your ex wife a few times.

undefined (00:13:32 --> 00:13:34)
Yeah. Yeah, everybody has.

Jim (00:13:34 --> 00:13:37)
You probably slept with her. If we were friends back then, you would have.

Dustin (00:13:37 --> 00:13:41)
But I follow her OnlyFans. It's only 5.99amonth, so it's not that big of a deal.

undefined (00:13:41 --> 00:13:42)
It's Overpriced. Trust me.

Dustin (00:13:44 --> 00:13:52)
So what is it like, uh, are you like. Obviously you're a little bitter, but you want to kind of make jokes about it.

undefined (00:13:52 --> 00:14:01)
Strangely, I'm really not. Because, um, the good news is she is with somebody else. And I know they are now the miserable one. You know what I mean?

Dustin (00:14:01 --> 00:14:05)
Right. There's some pleasure in knowing that she's with someone else's life up.

Jim (00:14:05 --> 00:14:06)
Oh, yeah.

undefined (00:14:06 --> 00:14:11)
And all his friends. Yes, absolutely. She's draining his bank account, which is.

Jim (00:14:11 --> 00:14:13)
Is, you know, for me, it's good.

Dustin (00:14:13 --> 00:14:14)
Right. Right.

undefined (00:14:14 --> 00:14:15)
It's, uh.

Jim (00:14:15 --> 00:14:18)
No, she was. I mean, the only thing I will say about her, she was good in bed.

undefined (00:14:18 --> 00:14:27)
I mean, you could ask anybody, including the pool boy, which I never understood because we don't have a pole. But that's. But I'm not. Yeah, yeah.

Dustin (00:14:27 --> 00:14:28)
Ah, no, you're not better.

undefined (00:14:28 --> 00:14:28)
Yeah, you're.

Dustin (00:14:28 --> 00:14:31)
You're totally healthy on that.

undefined (00:14:31 --> 00:14:32)
Completely over it.

Dustin (00:14:32 --> 00:14:44)
So you. So funny. Comedy as coping. Interesting. You know, for me it is. Yeah. Like if they're. You've seen some shit, so I'm gonna make some jokes about it.

undefined (00:14:44 --> 00:14:44)
Uh, yeah.

Jim (00:14:44 --> 00:14:46)
Uh, yeah. I mean, it's that of.

undefined (00:14:46 --> 00:14:48)
You go insane. You know, you can't hold things up.

Jim (00:14:48 --> 00:14:49)
And I think that's why

undefined (00:14:51 --> 00:15:01)
I express myself the way I do. I just say things, um, because I don't. Like, I'm not one of these people that'll hold it in and feel bitter about it. Cause it just eats your soul.

Jim (00:15:01 --> 00:15:03)
It's like drinking poison and expecting the

undefined (00:15:03 --> 00:15:08)
other person to die. You know what? I. I mean, you just. And you can't be angry, man. Life's way too short.

Dustin (00:15:09 --> 00:15:14)
So comedy, uh, making a joke or listening to a joke too. Like, audience going to a standup. It's medicine.

undefined (00:15:14 --> 00:15:26)
It's just 100%. You have to laugh at least. You should belly laugh at least three times a week. Uh, and in your case, you're lucky. Cause two of those days of the week we have, you know, we see each other in class.

Dustin (00:15:26 --> 00:15:27)
100%.

Jim (00:15:27 --> 00:15:28)
Yeah.

undefined (00:15:28 --> 00:15:39)
And we get to see, uh, the abnormalities of life. Uh, and that's the fun thing, you know, but even when I'm serious, I'm not serious. So, I mean, unless somebody's.

Dustin (00:15:39 --> 00:15:44)
So what do you say to someone who's taking it too seriously? I know I've done that.

undefined (00:15:45 --> 00:15:45)
Just don't.

Dustin (00:15:45 --> 00:15:53)
Yeah, so how do you do that, though? How do you just, like, lighten up and see the levity or the quality of life?

Jim (00:15:53 --> 00:15:54)
Here's the deal.

undefined (00:15:54 --> 00:15:57)
Like, when you're online and you're scrolling and you see a post you don't like.

Jim (00:15:58 --> 00:15:59)
There's two types of people.

undefined (00:15:59 --> 00:16:01)
There's the one that'll scroll or block

Jim (00:16:01 --> 00:16:03)
it, and then there's the other one

undefined (00:16:03 --> 00:16:10)
that'll put in their two cents, their comment, and tell everybody how upset they are, which helps the person's algorithm because now they're getting traffic on their site.

Dustin (00:16:10 --> 00:16:10)
Right.

undefined (00:16:11 --> 00:16:12)
I just scroll.

Dustin (00:16:12 --> 00:16:13)
So you scroll by.

undefined (00:16:13 --> 00:16:21)
Yeah, I just scroll by it. And if somebody doesn't like something I say ignore it. You know, hang around, I'll say something else that's offensive to somebody else, and you'll think that's funny.

Jim (00:16:21 --> 00:16:23)
It's funny when I'm offending somebody else,

undefined (00:16:23 --> 00:16:25)
but not when I'm offending you.

Jim (00:16:25 --> 00:16:26)
But so, I mean, people have said

undefined (00:16:26 --> 00:16:37)
offensive things to me and, uh, you know, they've made fun of my physical appearance. You know, say I look like a circus freak having one leg longer than the other two. But, you know, I don't. I'm not offended by that.

Dustin (00:16:37 --> 00:16:42)
Right. The guy who, uh, is like the, um, kind of like deformed small creature who lives.

undefined (00:16:42 --> 00:16:43)
Yeah, Right.

Dustin (00:16:43 --> 00:16:47)
And everyone pays a nickel to come. Come on in and see Jim Stallion.

Jim (00:16:47 --> 00:16:48)
Yes, yes.

undefined (00:16:48 --> 00:16:53)
The guy who looks like one of the knights in armor, you know, but it's a. It's not a lance in his hand.

Dustin (00:16:53 --> 00:16:57)
He's a genetic wonder. And it's 20, 26 and people are still paying a nickel and.

undefined (00:16:58 --> 00:17:00)
Which is still again, overpriced, I think.

Dustin (00:17:02 --> 00:17:18)
Um, rules. Any rules to comedy? Does anything come close to a rule? I mean, a lot of this shit's just. Especially in conversational. In conversation, it's just instinctual that you just pop off. Yeah, but like, when you write a joke, when you really design one, how do you start?

undefined (00:17:18 --> 00:18:32)
Well, I'll tell you. It's funny. Funny story. I was, uh, probably 10 years ago, I was doing a thing, an open mic night. Because that's what everybody does.

They go to an open mic night with a bunch of new jokes they wrote and they try it out on the audience. Most of them are comedians or their friends. And you see who laughs and who doesn't, who gets offended, who just ignores it. And that's the worst. Um, and I had this whole thing written out at this place over in Jamaica Plain.

And I get there, and as I get there, there's a fight and physical fight, a physical fight. The bouncer's throwing this Spanish kid out of the place because he was drunk and he was acting up and he was calling them names. And this bouncer was enormous. Very, very well tempered. But you know, this little skinny, he's calling him a homosexual.

He's telling him he's got no friends, he's got this, he's gonna come back with his boys and this, that and the other thing. And I watched it, and everybody else is running to the other side of the bar, and I'm standing there going, wow, this is cool. I just got a new opening to my act, and at that point, I wrote my new opening spiel, and it evolved around that interaction. So I just saw it and everybody else saw it as a dangerous situation. I saw it as pure comedy gold.

Dustin (00:18:32 --> 00:18:34)
Do you remember what you said?

undefined (00:18:34 --> 00:18:40)
Oh, 100%. Yeah, I did. Uh, I got up and I introduced myself and I said, how you doing, folks?

Jim (00:18:40 --> 00:18:41)
My name is Jim Stallions.

undefined (00:18:41 --> 00:18:46)
I says, and no, that's not a stage name for a porn movie. I said, that's, uh. I have another name for that.

Dustin (00:18:47 --> 00:18:52)
By the way. You leaned right into your name Stallions, which is like, yeah, some people are thinking it.

undefined (00:18:52 --> 00:19:03)
I hear it all the time. I had a guy ask me once at a job interview. He goes, is that your real name or is that a porn star name? I says, no, my porn star name is something else. I'll tell it to you later. You can look me up on pornhub. And he just looked at me like.

Jim (00:19:03 --> 00:19:05)
And I just thought of saying that

undefined (00:19:05 --> 00:19:51)
Luckily, I got the job. But, um, you know, I said, you know my name. Ba ba ba. And, uh, I said, you know, but I need a name that sounds powerful. You know, I said, that name for comedy isn't really a powerful name.

I said, I need something that sounds successful. I need a name that sounds Jewish, you know. I said, so I made a thing. I said, I called all my friends, every single one of them, and I put out a flyer and said, on this day and date, we're gonna go to a catered restaurant. I'm, um, gonna pay for everything.

Jim (00:19:51 --> 00:19:54)
97 Subaru and off to Burger King

undefined (00:19:54 --> 00:20:42)
I said, so all my friends were there. I said, and I said, okay, guys, when you look at me, what do you think of? Dominic looked at me and said, well, you know, geez, you look, you know, kind of like downtrodden. You look kind of useless. Fat and you're stupid.

You're bald. I said, okay, Carlos, you know, uh, can you stop eating for a second? I says, you know, the food's not going to go away. I said, what do you think when I look at you? Look at me?

And he goes, well, you mean, you know, when I look at you, I think Marikon and Dominic looked at him and got very offended. He says, how can you say that? I go, no, that's perfect, Mari Cohen. It sounds Jewish. It sounds successful.

Dustin (00:20:42 --> 00:20:43)
Oh, is, uh, it.

undefined (00:20:43 --> 00:20:43)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:20:43 --> 00:20:44)
Oh, okay.

undefined (00:20:44 --> 00:20:51)
That's what maricon means. And, uh, so I twisted it a little bit to Marty Cohen instead of Mari Cohen.

Dustin (00:20:51 --> 00:20:52)
Oh, okay.

undefined (00:20:52 --> 00:20:57)
And when he was yelling at the bouncer, calling him Marcon, I said, wow,

Dustin (00:20:57 --> 00:21:01)
that's a risk, though, because there's only four people in there. You said, who?

undefined (00:21:01 --> 00:21:18)
Well, it was only four Spanish people that actually got the joke right, so. And it's. It was. It was. It not only generated a few laughs, but one of those guys kept winking at me for the rest of the show. So, you know, you guys went home together? Yeah, well, not. We didn't go home, just, you know, to his car.

Dustin (00:21:18 --> 00:21:20)
But, uh, there's a storage closet.

undefined (00:21:20 --> 00:21:24)
Yeah, exactly. Saw some stuff behind the bar next to the two people that were passed out.

Dustin (00:21:25 --> 00:21:39)
When you think about, um, stand up or you're performing, how much of comedy is just taking the audience in one direction and then kind of like yanking the steering wheel? And how much is it the unexpected?

undefined (00:21:39 --> 00:22:47)
It should all be misdirection and then, uh, a, uh, comeback around. Yeah, I used to call it a reach around, but you direct them in a way. They think they know what you're gonna say. And then you come back, and that's the anatomy of a joke. You know, you set something up.

There's a. There's a guy, uh, he did the Tom Brady roast. I can't remember his name. Very funny guy. Um, he does that.

He'll say, you know, he'll say something very deadpan, and then you think, you know, that that's the joke. And then he'll come back and he'll add something else. Nikki Glazier does it, too, I think, a few times. Um, and it all depends on your timing. If you've got good Timing.

You can do that. You can come back around. So I used to write with two different guys. Um, they were like rubber wall. I used to call them my rubber walls.

Dustin (00:22:47 --> 00:22:48)
Trying to make each other laugh.

undefined (00:22:48 --> 00:23:05)
Yes, 100%. Just tearing a subject apart. And I go, oh, I like that. I'd like that. But sometimes I'll see something and I'll say, wow, that's really funny. But it doesn't hit. You know what I mean? Like, they're not going to get that. It's more of an inside joke. And you got to be careful because

Jim (00:23:05 --> 00:23:07)
sometimes I may say something to you.

undefined (00:23:07 --> 00:23:28)
We may know, uh, a guy, Joe Smith. And you know, I apologize for any Joe Smiths out there that I may know. But, um, you may look at him and he may have a feature about him that we find funny. And if I say that to a crowd of people that have never seen Joe Smith, they're gonna go, what was that joke? That. That was nothing. That wasn't funny.

Dustin (00:23:28 --> 00:23:30)
You have to have kind of your pulse.

Jim (00:23:30 --> 00:23:31)
You have to have a setup.

Dustin (00:23:31 --> 00:23:44)
Popular culture, knowing what's kind of what's what right now and where you are and. Yeah, location, geography dependent. Some joke is gonna work on the coasts and it's not gonna work in Iowa or whatever.

undefined (00:23:45 --> 00:23:48)
Um, I've yet to known the joke that works in Iowa, but. Yeah.

Dustin (00:23:49 --> 00:23:50)
Have you ever been outside?

Jim (00:23:51 --> 00:23:51)
Uh, no.

undefined (00:23:51 --> 00:23:52)
Mostly New England.

Dustin (00:23:52 --> 00:23:53)
Okay.

undefined (00:23:53 --> 00:23:54)
Just New England.

Dustin (00:23:54 --> 00:23:54)
Okay.

undefined (00:23:54 --> 00:23:59)
I mean, I've been out of the country, but I've never performed outside of the country. Oh, I've performed, but not comedy.

Dustin (00:23:59 --> 00:24:11)
Yeah. Um, so influences. Who'd you grow up watching? Who'd you admire? Who. Who's your guy?

undefined (00:24:11 --> 00:24:20)
I'm gonna date myself now. Um, you know, I. I always admired the people that could make you laugh without referring to their genitals.

Dustin (00:24:21 --> 00:24:22)
Um, so non raunchy.

undefined (00:24:22 --> 00:24:27)
Yeah. Talking about, like the Marx Brothers. Uh, Mel Brooks.

Dustin (00:24:27 --> 00:24:28)
Yeah.

undefined (00:24:28 --> 00:25:01)
Where there'd be a nuance here and there. Um, guys like that, they were just funny. Uh, they could say things and you could get away with it. Um, Robin Williams in more recent times. Because he was unfiltered.

I mean, most of it was cocaine fueled. But, uh, he was a funny, funny man. And he would do absurd things. He would actually act out the voices in his head. Uh, and I always.

Dustin (00:25:01 --> 00:25:21)
I did, too. And he's just so brave in the sense that like, he'll step. He'll be on like a live, you know, interview, and he'll just step into the void of not knowing exactly where he's going, and he'll just go, uh, follow it. Yeah, yeah. And it's almost invariably hilarious. Conan o' Brien does that too. It's like he just kind of pops

undefined (00:25:21 --> 00:25:23)
off and looks too much like Howdy Doody. I don't like him.

Dustin (00:25:23 --> 00:25:28)
Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, Newman, big fan of George Carlin.

undefined (00:25:28 --> 00:25:31)
Uh, George Carlin was huge for me when I was younger. Growing up, he was another one, you

Jim (00:25:31 --> 00:25:32)
know, I mean, if you go back

undefined (00:25:32 --> 00:25:43)
into guys like Lenny Bruce that were banned for saying certain things, you know, and now they got rap artists and. And, well, not just rap artist. Any musician out there saying some of the things, you just like, roll your eyes and go, where's the car?

Dustin (00:25:43 --> 00:25:46)
Had a bit that was like the words you can't say.

undefined (00:25:46 --> 00:25:47)
Seven. The heavy seven.

Dustin (00:25:47 --> 00:25:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

undefined (00:25:48 --> 00:25:50)
I remember them. You know, he.

Dustin (00:25:51 --> 00:25:55)
There. Yeah. So so much of his comedy was like social critique.

undefined (00:25:55 --> 00:25:55)
It's.

Dustin (00:25:55 --> 00:26:00)
He just anarchist, atheist, very anti government.

Jim (00:26:00 --> 00:26:00)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:26:00 --> 00:26:06)
Oh, for sure. And all just totally independent. Independent of every ideology, way, uh, of thinking, perspective.

undefined (00:26:06 --> 00:26:07)
But he made a lot of sense. I mean, like.

Dustin (00:26:07 --> 00:26:08)
Oh, yeah.

Jim (00:26:08 --> 00:26:08)
A lot of the things he.

undefined (00:26:08 --> 00:26:11)
He would say to me, I mean,

Jim (00:26:11 --> 00:26:13)
especially at a young age, even was.

undefined (00:26:13 --> 00:26:17)
That was logical. And now as I'm older, I'm like, no, it really was logical, you know.

Dustin (00:26:17 --> 00:26:23)
Yeah. Like maybe we don't live in a democracy. Maybe like the business class and the government politicians are full of shit.

undefined (00:26:23 --> 00:26:24)
Yeah. They. Maybe they are trying to screw us.

Jim (00:26:24 --> 00:26:24)
Hmm.

undefined (00:26:24 --> 00:26:28)
M. You know, how do they get away with that? And I can't.

Dustin (00:26:28 --> 00:27:00)
Right. Maybe the rich steal from the poor and, you know. Yeah. And he kind of spoke about the hypocrisy. And I remember watching it just being like. So like there was something a little cathartic and good about it because it's like, here is the. Here's someone trying to get to the truth. Uh, he may not be nailing it, but it's coming close. Like. Cause you always have this feeling of like, oh, that sounds hypocritical, or that sounds like a lie, or that's just straight bullshit. And you can't be quite sure. But he took it took a lot of time. Just figure it out.

Jim (00:27:00 --> 00:27:04)
He's like, yeah, he was a breath of fresh air.

undefined (00:27:04 --> 00:27:09)
And, you know, in modern times now, uh, I'd say probably my favorite living

Jim (00:27:09 --> 00:27:11)
comedian would be Ricky Gervais.

undefined (00:27:12 --> 00:27:23)
I, uh, think Ricky Gervais does an excellent job of just not going. Not staying on the road. You know what I mean? Just going off road whenever he wants.

Jim (00:27:23 --> 00:27:25)
Jimmy Kyle to a degree, but he's.

undefined (00:27:26 --> 00:27:58)
He has to go raunchy. Uh, Gervais does it in a much more subtle way. You know, he'll say things that are funny. Um, I think the worst thing, the quickest thing for me to ignore a politician. Ah, politician, A ah, comedian is when they start telling us how to think politically. Um, that to me is even subtextually. Yeah. To m. Me, it's like a really hot chick that smokes. You know, it's like, all right, you know, bone are gone. Bone to be gone. Here we go.

Dustin (00:27:58 --> 00:28:01)
Yeah. And you know when you hear it too, because you're like, oh, man.

undefined (00:28:01 --> 00:28:21)
That was like, I don't care how you vote. I don't. I really don't care. Like I've got my own brain. I don't need to be told by, you know, Fox or CNN or anybody else, you know, how I should feel about certain things or that and this. I know what morality is because, you know, I violate it every day.

Dustin (00:28:22 --> 00:28:24)
Um, yeah, you're just a walking.

undefined (00:28:24 --> 00:28:34)
You know, I'm just a lawsuit waiting to happen. That's why I refuse to become rich and famous. Because, you know, if I ever had money, then I'd be a target. I'd be a huge target.

Dustin (00:28:34 --> 00:28:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you like the uh, Nick, uh, uh, Bargetze. Have you seen him? He's, he's white guy, graying hair, 40s. He has a very non. Raunchy routine. Uh, it's all about like his family and his.

Jim (00:28:51 --> 00:28:53)
See the one that's married to a comedian.

Dustin (00:28:53 --> 00:28:54)
I don't know.

undefined (00:28:54 --> 00:28:55)
There's a guy.

Dustin (00:28:55 --> 00:28:57)
Here's the, here's the picture of him. You probably.

Jim (00:28:59 --> 00:29:02)
Why doesn't he have any clothes on in this picture?

Dustin (00:29:03 --> 00:29:20)
Um, he had this joke once where he talked about. I don't know, he was like, he likes pancakes. And so he started having pancakes for breakfast. And he asked his wife, he was like, man, why am I so tired right now? He's like, well, probably because he just ate a fucking loaf of bread. You know, it's stuff like that.

undefined (00:29:20 --> 00:29:20)
Yeah.

Jim (00:29:20 --> 00:29:22)
See if you can make fun of a.

undefined (00:29:22 --> 00:29:25)
Just a daily observation.

Jim (00:29:25 --> 00:29:26)
You're good.

undefined (00:29:26 --> 00:29:27)
You know, if you.

Dustin (00:29:27 --> 00:29:28)
Observational humor.

undefined (00:29:28 --> 00:29:34)
Yeah. If you, if you have to resort to the shock jock type of thing,

Jim (00:29:35 --> 00:29:36)
you know, and that's, that's the safety

undefined (00:29:36 --> 00:29:38)
net that everyone falls on, you know.

Dustin (00:29:38 --> 00:29:39)
Yeah.

undefined (00:29:39 --> 00:29:41)
Uh, but I've gone places and you

Jim (00:29:41 --> 00:29:43)
know, especially Open mic nights.

undefined (00:29:43 --> 00:29:49)
You write everything. Most people now, the kids, younger people will, um.

Dustin (00:29:49 --> 00:29:50)
You're in your 20s, right?

undefined (00:29:50 --> 00:29:50)
Yeah.

Jim (00:29:51 --> 00:29:52)
Uh, 30s.

undefined (00:29:52 --> 00:29:53)
30s.

Dustin (00:29:53 --> 00:29:53)
Okay. Yeah.

Jim (00:29:53 --> 00:30:02)
Early 20 if you count each leg. Yeah. Um, but they, um, they write. They read their.

undefined (00:30:02 --> 00:30:12)
Their whole spiel off their phones. You know, they're basically up there reciting their jokes because they're just trying them out. Anyway. At an open mic, I always write things on a, um, an index card.

Jim (00:30:12 --> 00:30:12)
And I'll.

undefined (00:30:13 --> 00:30:40)
I'll do two. Uh, you get like five to ten minutes, depending on the venue and how many people show up. I would write like a half hour on each side of the card, and one would be in one direction of stuff I want to try out. And then there'd be other stuff that I've known will hit. So if I'm doing stuff and people are just yawning and, you know, picking their nose, um, you'll go to the big guns. I'll just flip it over and go to something that, that I know is going to hit.

Dustin (00:30:40 --> 00:30:41)
And that's just dropping your pants and.

undefined (00:30:41 --> 00:30:48)
Yeah. Doing the propeller trick. Knocking the chandelier down again. And that's, you know, telling the owner, don't worry, I'll pay for it.

Dustin (00:30:48 --> 00:30:50)
Right. And you, don't you stiff that bill.

undefined (00:30:50 --> 00:30:50)
Yeah, of course.

Dustin (00:30:51 --> 00:30:51)
Never.

undefined (00:30:51 --> 00:30:52)
Operative word. Yes.

Dustin (00:30:55 --> 00:31:14)
But it's okay. That makes sense. Observational stuff. Do you like Jerry Seinfeld? I think of, uh, George Carlin.

He wasn't always just anarchist. What, whatever. He did the stuff bit, the famous stuff bit, like, why do we have a house so we can buy more stuff. And you know, you know, why. Why do we feel uncomfortable when we're in someone else's house?

undefined (00:31:14 --> 00:31:15)
Yeah, yeah.

Jim (00:31:15 --> 00:31:17)
No, he was, he was brilliant because

undefined (00:31:18 --> 00:31:38)
he broke down what really matters in life. I mean, you know, a lot of his stuff is very accurate. Um, there are some people like that I just don't follow. And everybody says, oh, isn't this guy hilarious? You know, And I'm like, eh, you know, I've seen, uh.

Jim (00:31:38 --> 00:31:41)
I don't know if you realize it back, they used to have a place

undefined (00:31:41 --> 00:32:01)
in, um, Cambridge on Prospect street called, uh, Improv Boston, actually. And I had taken an improv class there. I had taken a bunch of stuff there. I actually performed there one night. But on, I think it was one, the first Thursday of every month, they had in their back studio, their big studio, naked comedy.

Dustin (00:32:02 --> 00:32:03)
I heard of that. Yeah.

undefined (00:32:03 --> 00:32:07)
And nobody, everybody thought it was like this big myth, but it was 100% real.

Dustin (00:32:07 --> 00:32:08)
Did you do it.

undefined (00:32:08 --> 00:32:11)
Um, so next question.

Jim (00:32:12 --> 00:32:14)
No, they would tell you if they

undefined (00:32:14 --> 00:32:16)
see you with the phone out, they take your phone.

Dustin (00:32:16 --> 00:32:18)
Oh, of course, that's not, uh.

Jim (00:32:18 --> 00:32:26)
And it was pretty well regulated. But it's a great exercise because a

undefined (00:32:26 --> 00:32:43)
lot of people, they go out and they rely on certain things and they'll. They'll hide certain attributes. But when you go out your mind, you know, when you think about it, when you're naked, you have nothing to hide behind, right? And you're so self conscious about that.

Jim (00:32:43 --> 00:32:44)
If you can be funny when you're

undefined (00:32:44 --> 00:33:07)
standing there naked and not referencing your nudity, it's funny. You know what I mean? That's when you know you're kind of funny, Uh, I mean, unless you're very weird in that respect and you use that as part of your act. But, um, I used to go every month, um, not because I'm a pervert.

Dustin (00:33:07 --> 00:33:12)
Um, just there, 10 minutes early, right in the front with a coffee

Jim (00:33:14 --> 00:33:15)
and a coat.

undefined (00:33:15 --> 00:33:18)
Also naked with a trench coat.

Jim (00:33:18 --> 00:33:20)
Uh, and they would invite somebody in

undefined (00:33:20 --> 00:33:27)
the audience at the end and say, you can come up, go in the back, take off your clothes, and, uh, if you don't, if you're not a

Jim (00:33:27 --> 00:33:28)
comedian, we will give you a joke

undefined (00:33:28 --> 00:33:47)
to tell just so you can get up and see what these comedians are going through. And a lot of people would do it, you know, and it was. It was real funny. And I was. I went there one night and this, this girl who I was. I was friendly with her, you know, we weren't buddies or anything. And, uh, she goes, oh, you here for naked comedy tonight?

Jim (00:33:47 --> 00:33:48)
And I says, oh, yeah.

undefined (00:33:48 --> 00:33:57)
And she goes, yeah, me too. And she goes, do you know what you're gonna do? And I'm like, huh, huh? And she says, yeah, you're gonna perform, right?

Jim (00:33:57 --> 00:34:03)
And I says, no, tonight I'm just. I'm just going up there to, you know, just to watch, just see who's out, you know, who's doing what.

undefined (00:34:03 --> 00:34:20)
And she said, yeah. She goes, I'm terrified. I said, you're a very funny person. I said, why are you terrified? She goes, I'm gonna be naked.

I go, be funny. Just. Just do your thing, you know? And she did. And she was, she was.

Jim (00:34:20 --> 00:34:21)
She killed it.

undefined (00:34:21 --> 00:34:22)
She was funny.

Dustin (00:34:22 --> 00:34:25)
And what came over, she just kind of.

undefined (00:34:25 --> 00:34:26)
I did,

Dustin (00:34:28 --> 00:34:29)
uh, walked into that.

undefined (00:34:29 --> 00:34:31)
You do have an editor for this, right?

Dustin (00:34:31 --> 00:34:39)
Yeah, yeah. There's about seven seconds there that are gone. Cutting room floor, or I clip it. And that's actually the, uh, you know, the.

undefined (00:34:39 --> 00:34:40)
The money. The money shot.

Dustin (00:34:40 --> 00:34:56)
That's right. I just send it right to npr. Yeah. Robin Young will play on here and now. Uh, so you remind me of the comedian who doesn't wear a shirt. Who's that guy? Remember that guy? He's got a big old belly. Yeah.

undefined (00:34:56 --> 00:34:58)
I just watched a movie with him.

Dustin (00:34:58 --> 00:35:03)
That's right. It's like, oh, Brett, was it? Kreischer. Brett Kreischer. That guy.

undefined (00:35:03 --> 00:35:04)
Yes.

Dustin (00:35:04 --> 00:35:16)
Yeah. He's got, uh. You know, he's got big beard, huge belly, never wears a shirt on comedy, and it's always shocking. And why does he think he does that? It's just. It obviously distinguishes him.

undefined (00:35:16 --> 00:35:17)
It's.

Dustin (00:35:17 --> 00:35:17)
Right.

undefined (00:35:17 --> 00:35:22)
That's his hook. That's. That's how people just. Now, I couldn't remember his name, but I remember the guy without a shirt.

Dustin (00:35:22 --> 00:35:25)
Right, right. You know, everybody remembers the guy without a shirt.

undefined (00:35:25 --> 00:35:29)
Right? And it's, uh. Everybody's got their thing.

Dustin (00:35:29 --> 00:35:32)
You gotta have a thing. Jim Gaffigan. He's got his little things.

undefined (00:35:32 --> 00:35:35)
There was Gallagher, and that's right. Uh, the other one, who.

Jim (00:35:35 --> 00:35:36)
With a bag on his head, was

undefined (00:35:36 --> 00:35:39)
that Gallagher or the unknown comic or something?

Dustin (00:35:39 --> 00:35:45)
Gallagher was the watermelon guy or smash him. But he also has some wordplay stuff, which is pretty cool and pretty funny.

undefined (00:35:45 --> 00:35:45)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:35:46 --> 00:36:22)
Um, which reminds me, like, language. How much of this is language, too? Because George Carlin is. I mean, guys, it's a genius with language. He's like. He's got this kind of, like. He's saying the most, like, intense, truthful, potentially, like, provocative stuff that you, like, really don't want to hear and you may want to just deny is true, but he's got this kind of rhythm to it where he likes. It's like, just mathematically funny, you know? And how much of good standup is just that timing, that rhythm, the pacing, getting the, like, dropping the. You know.

undefined (00:36:22 --> 00:36:44)
Well, the timing is very important. Um. One of the things I never really did, uh, very rarely did, I should say, is crowd work. Cause you never know what direction it's gonna go, right? I mean, there's guys like Jimmy Carr, and, uh. There's another guy who goes, uh, Hofstadter, I think his name is, uh, Goes after, like, the hecklers and stuff.

Dustin (00:36:44 --> 00:36:44)
Yeah, yeah.

undefined (00:36:45 --> 00:36:47)
You know, Jimmy Kaz got that famous thing.

Jim (00:36:47 --> 00:36:51)
I know you're waiting for my comeback. Well, if you want my comeback, scrape it off your mom's teeth, you know?

undefined (00:36:51 --> 00:36:53)
I mean, that's his favorite line.

Dustin (00:36:53 --> 00:36:57)
You don't like the unpredictability of it, though. You know, roll with the punches.

Jim (00:36:57 --> 00:36:58)
You don't know if you're gonna get

undefined (00:36:58 --> 00:37:02)
somebody who's really drunk and gonna become really offensive to either somebody else in

Dustin (00:37:02 --> 00:37:04)
the crowd or couldn't you just put them in the ground?

undefined (00:37:04 --> 00:37:13)
Uh, uh, I mean, I could. I could fall on them. I mean, if they were in the front row, just club them like a seal up on the Antarctic.

Dustin (00:37:13 --> 00:37:56)
I often wonder how much that crowd work is already planned. Anyways, not that they're like an overt plant, but, like, they already know. I saw this one guy, he's on Netflix right now, and he's kind of like a. I don't know, he's like a gay guy and a little bit effeminate, and he like leans into that. And he did this high five with an audience member. And the high five was very like, delicate and gentle.

And he spent like two minutes talking about how delicate his audience audience is with their high fives. And he kind of like got this money shot with it. And it was hilarious because we all saw it. It was just very, you know, kind of a very, you know, gentle thing. And I often, I was like.

Jim (00:37:56 --> 00:37:57)
Yeah, I wouldn't doubt.

undefined (00:37:57 --> 00:38:10)
I mean, I know people for a fact that have had other comedians in, you know, especially on open mic night, they'll have them in the crowd and they'll say something, somebody will yell something out, and they'll have a and forth, and everybody thinks it's hilarious.

Dustin (00:38:10 --> 00:38:10)
Yeah.

undefined (00:38:10 --> 00:38:14)
And I'm like, uh, that was. That was hack, you know?

Dustin (00:38:14 --> 00:38:14)
Yeah.

undefined (00:38:14 --> 00:38:18)
I know they're friends. I know they, I see them over in the corner writing, Writing jokes together, so.

Dustin (00:38:18 --> 00:38:19)
Right, right, right.

undefined (00:38:19 --> 00:38:25)
You know, but it works, you know, for the, for the unexpecting audience member, it works. And if you're making people laugh, you.

Jim (00:38:25 --> 00:38:26)
You've kind of completed the mission.

Dustin (00:38:26 --> 00:38:28)
Yeah. Isn't that the rule? Yeah, yeah.

undefined (00:38:28 --> 00:38:30)
If they laugh, it's funny, you know.

Dustin (00:38:31 --> 00:38:31)
Right, right.

undefined (00:38:31 --> 00:38:53)
You know, so it does work. I mean, when you know it, you're like, ah, the, ah, guy's not so good, but he's funny. You know, he did his job, he made people laugh. And that's really what it is. It's.

You, uh, know, you don't want to go out there. There's people who go out there and just piss everybody off. You want. You, you know, you want to make the people enjoy themselves. You want to make them glad they Came out.

Dustin (00:38:53 --> 00:39:07)
Right, right, right. Let's make the radio people happy here. You're listening to the radio edition of Curiously. Today's guest is Jim Stallion. We're talking about comedy and how it works. If you have thoughts on what's funny, share them with me@dustin.cornellmail.com.

undefined (00:39:08 --> 00:39:09)
that's.

Jim (00:39:09 --> 00:39:10)
That's very good.

Dustin (00:39:10 --> 00:39:12)
That was my best radio voice. We're learning.

Jim (00:39:12 --> 00:39:13)
That was. That was very sexy.

undefined (00:39:13 --> 00:39:17)
I just want you to know, I mean, thank God they can't see you. That it's not a, uh.

Dustin (00:39:17 --> 00:39:19)
Yeah, no, I. There's a. There's a, uh.

undefined (00:39:19 --> 00:39:22)
There's again.

Jim (00:39:22 --> 00:39:23)
I've got your tongue tied.

Dustin (00:39:23 --> 00:39:25)
Just close my mouth on that one.

undefined (00:39:26 --> 00:39:27)
That's what she said.

Dustin (00:39:28 --> 00:39:29)
Not too fast, though.

Jim (00:39:29 --> 00:39:37)
That's another phrase that you know is ridiculously silly, but is. Stood the test. Stood the test of time.

Dustin (00:39:37 --> 00:39:38)
Who's tongue tied now?

Jim (00:39:38 --> 00:39:41)
Ah.

Dustin (00:39:41 --> 00:40:09)
Um, okay, so you're sitting with your friends, you're workshopping, you're going over what's funny, what's not funny. I know Conan Bryan was talking about how he's got this one guy, this one guy from Boston, I can't remember his name, but he's written all the jokes for him. He's written jokes for the White House correspondents dinner, for the Emmys, whatever, the Oscars and stuff, and they just sit around and they shoot the shit. So what's that process like? Put us into the workshop realm?

undefined (00:40:10 --> 00:40:38)
Go out, uh, I mean, go to place someplace like the Cantab over in Cambridge, get some ribs, couple of drinks, and you sit in there and somebody will walk in and you just hone in on them or, you know, hey, did you hear what happened with so and so today? Or did you see the news that, that this one said this or that one said that? Or did you hear about the guy they arrested at, uh, this. And. Oh, what was he thinking? Did he. Was he. Was it his ex wife?

Jim (00:40:38 --> 00:40:39)
Was it this?

undefined (00:40:39 --> 00:40:43)
Um, you just kind of riff off

Jim (00:40:43 --> 00:40:45)
that and then you go down rabbit holes.

undefined (00:40:45 --> 00:41:14)
Yeah, you just go with it if something's funny. I record things all the time. Uh, I'll see something in traffic and I'll grab my phone and hit memo and start talking into it. And then I'll go back at the end of the day and listen to them and name them. Um, you know, I'll hear people. I'll overhear a conversation on, um, the subway. Cause I ride the subway a lot. I'll see things on the subway, you know, and again, not what's the last thing.

Jim (00:41:15 --> 00:41:17)
Well, there was a couple of things.

Dustin (00:41:18 --> 00:41:21)
What's the thing you can say out loud?

undefined (00:41:21 --> 00:41:51)
I was at, uh, Ashmont Station, and I saw a woman. Um, I'm pretty sure it was a woman, uh, probably about four burgers deep. She was. She had to be at least £400. And she had looked like a piece of dental floss hanging from her finger. But I realized later it was a, uh, leash with a little Chihuahua at the end of it. And I thought, wow, she didn't have a lunchbox. She just brought her lunch on a leash. And, uh, you know, I just thought of that. I just saw that.

Dustin (00:41:51 --> 00:41:55)
I'm going to ask. Totally obnoxious. So you recorded it?

undefined (00:41:55 --> 00:42:03)
Oh, I did. I just. I took a picture of her. Uh, you know, it wasn't like she was gonna snap her neck around and, you know, chase me anywhere and.

Dustin (00:42:03 --> 00:42:04)
Captured the moment.

undefined (00:42:04 --> 00:42:04)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:42:05 --> 00:42:11)
So what's the. The thing, too, about it is that you're not making fun of her.

Jim (00:42:12 --> 00:42:12)
You.

Dustin (00:42:12 --> 00:42:20)
What you. What do you recognize there is. It's like. It's incongruous. It's like a very large person with a very small dog. Or it's.

Jim (00:42:20 --> 00:42:23)
She was gonna eat the dog before we got to Park Street.

Dustin (00:42:23 --> 00:42:26)
Exactly. Why is it that she was not Asian?

undefined (00:42:26 --> 00:42:30)
She was not Asian. I just don't want. I just don't want to be attacked by some cultures.

Dustin (00:42:30 --> 00:42:33)
Uh, would. Would consider that an actual delicacy.

Jim (00:42:33 --> 00:42:34)
Yeah, absolutely.

Dustin (00:42:34 --> 00:42:50)
But why did you. Someone else. There's a whole range of people who would have thought, like, oh, maybe that's, you know, Support dog. Yeah. Or like, they may have, uh, silently judged her weight or something. But you. You thought of her eating that dog like I did. What is it? Why does your brain go there?

undefined (00:42:50 --> 00:42:51)
I just.

Dustin (00:42:51 --> 00:42:56)
Because if you said that to me, I would think that's funny, too, because I wouldn't have. I probably wouldn't have occurred to me.

undefined (00:42:56 --> 00:43:10)
Well, I think mainly because the Chihuahua also has those huge eyes that look terrified all the time. And when he would look up at her, don't eat me. It was just like, oh, my gosh, am I gonna make it to Andrew? Am I gonna make it to. Am I gonna make it all the way to Parks?

Dustin (00:43:10 --> 00:43:15)
That dog is just constantly, like, assessing her glucose levels. Just make sure they're high, making sure

undefined (00:43:15 --> 00:44:02)
That she doesn't have a lighter in her hand. She's not gonna start barbecuing him right there on the spot.

I did hear another. I heard. I overheard people talking one time. It was, uh, two. Two uh, gay guys and a woman, and they were.

They were insulting each other, and I had no part of this conversation. And one of them, um, asked the. The girl, the woman, uh, what. What do you call a, um, a lesbian on fire? And she goes, what?

He goes, lb. Uh, l. Lgbbq. I think he called her or something. And the three of them just started laughing. And that.

Dustin (00:44:02 --> 00:44:10)
Isn't it nice, too, if, like, if someone was, uh, gay or within that LGBTQ community, if they laughed at it?

undefined (00:44:10 --> 00:44:46)
Well, that's why I thought it was funny because they were all beating each other up in a fun way. And people do it all the time. You see straight guys calling each other gay, and you see it all the time. Uh, I used to have a lot of, uh, lesbian friends, and the joke would always be a girl would see somebody that she thought was attractive, and I'd say, oh, should I rent the U Haul now? Should I make the reservation? Because that's the. The big joke, you know, in a lesbian relationship. It's, first go to the U Haul so they can move in together, and then they go down to the cat adoption agency, get a cat, and then they get the restraining order about two months later.

Dustin (00:44:46 --> 00:44:52)
Right. And something about your joke, was it tapped in on some truth of the situation, like, like, lesbians move quick.

undefined (00:44:52 --> 00:44:53)
Yeah. Oh, big time.

Dustin (00:44:53 --> 00:44:53)
Way quick.

undefined (00:44:53 --> 00:44:54)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:44:54 --> 00:45:07)
Um, and you could have said something about a Subaru or short hair or whatever, and, like, you're tapping into kind of like public knowledge, pop culture, public stereotype. Yeah, I guess. A stereotype, right.

Jim (00:45:07 --> 00:45:08)
I never picked on the Subaru because

undefined (00:45:08 --> 00:45:10)
I drove one for 20 years, and

Jim (00:45:11 --> 00:45:13)
people used to call my Lesborough, you

undefined (00:45:13 --> 00:45:19)
know, I mean, they go, hey, I didn't know you drove a Lesborough. I'm like, yeah, well, you know, you are what you eat, you know.

Dustin (00:45:22 --> 00:45:34)
Okay. Yeah. So, um, you know, still, the whole joke writing process, like, I don't know, throughout my life, people said, oh, yeah, you know, you're funny. You should, like, do stand up and whatever.

Jim (00:45:34 --> 00:45:36)
And it's like, were you clothed when they said that? I mean,

Dustin (00:45:38 --> 00:45:42)
um, yeah, I was impaired and, uh, without apparel. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim (00:45:42 --> 00:45:44)
It wasn't right after sex, was it?

Dustin (00:45:44 --> 00:45:51)
Yeah. And it's like, okay. I guess the thing I'm circling on is, like, it doesn't. So what if you're funny? It's another thing to write jokes.

undefined (00:45:51 --> 00:45:52)
Yeah.

Jim (00:45:52 --> 00:46:02)
You've got to. It's like teachers and knowledgeable people. You have certain people that are extremely knowledgeable on a subject but can't teach.

undefined (00:46:03 --> 00:46:06)
They can't convey that information to save their lives.

Dustin (00:46:06 --> 00:46:07)
Those things teach, can't do.

undefined (00:46:07 --> 00:46:09)
Right. You know, that was the old expression.

Dustin (00:46:09 --> 00:46:10)
Right.

undefined (00:46:10 --> 00:46:15)
Those who can do. Those. Those who can do, do. Those who can't teach. Which isn't always the case.

Dustin (00:46:15 --> 00:46:15)
Right.

undefined (00:46:15 --> 00:46:24)
Um, I know people that are language teachers that are extremely good at teaching because there's a process to teaching.

Jim (00:46:24 --> 00:46:26)
The last job I had just before.

Dustin (00:46:26 --> 00:46:27)
It's a craft. Yeah.

Jim (00:46:27 --> 00:46:28)
Oh, it is.

undefined (00:46:28 --> 00:46:35)
And there's a process to that and you have to know it. And you gotta be kind of a half psychologist.

Jim (00:46:35 --> 00:46:38)
Uh, because certain people, everybody learns in a different way.

undefined (00:46:38 --> 00:46:49)
And it's the same thing with a joke. People find different things funny. And like I say, it's very rare that you will see a comedian tell a joke and the entire audience laughs.

Jim (00:46:50 --> 00:46:51)
There'll always be one or two people

undefined (00:46:51 --> 00:47:00)
that are like, that was stupid. You know, because they either didn't understand it, um, or it just hit home. It hit too close to home.

Dustin (00:47:00 --> 00:47:12)
And that's why comedians will go out and workshop stuff because they want to find things that are maximally funny. Like, how do I get 80, 90%. Yeah. Because what's funny to me on paper, what's funny to me and my friends?

undefined (00:47:12 --> 00:47:12)
Right.

Dustin (00:47:13 --> 00:47:20)
It doesn't. You don't know till you get it out there and get some feedback. And you're gonna just pick the cream of the crop for your set.

undefined (00:47:20 --> 00:47:21)
True.

Jim (00:47:21 --> 00:47:23)
I mean, the thing that stinks about

undefined (00:47:23 --> 00:47:30)
that is, you know, your feedback usually comes with a oh my. That's why you gotta open mic.

Dustin (00:47:30 --> 00:47:31)
You have to kind of bomb. Right.

undefined (00:47:31 --> 00:47:48)
You definitely have to shoot yourself in the pee pee before you realize that. Okay, this joke really sucks. Uh, and I've heard jokes that I thought were like, disgusting and they hit every time. Like in certain audiences is there is

Dustin (00:47:48 --> 00:47:56)
the one you could think of or one you thought like that was it contradicted. You thought it was going to be great. It wasn't. You thought it wasn't going to be great.

undefined (00:47:56 --> 00:48:07)
It was, uh, blown up so many times it's hard to say. Um, you know, it's just part of the process. It's, um.

Dustin (00:48:07 --> 00:48:08)
And that rolls off your shoulders.

undefined (00:48:09 --> 00:48:13)
Yeah. You have to. You can't. You can never ever take anything personal.

Dustin (00:48:13 --> 00:48:15)
Cause you just collapse. I would collapse.

Jim (00:48:15 --> 00:48:15)
Yeah.

undefined (00:48:15 --> 00:48:20)
It's like dating. You know what I mean? You know, for those guys that are still out there trying to figure out

Jim (00:48:20 --> 00:48:21)
who it is they're dating.

undefined (00:48:21 --> 00:48:24)
Um, you go out there and you

Jim (00:48:24 --> 00:48:25)
go up to a girl and you

undefined (00:48:25 --> 00:48:36)
throw out what you think is your best line. And she just looks at you like, you know, and you see her reaching for the pepper spray. You know, if you thought, if you built your life around that, you'd never,

Jim (00:48:36 --> 00:48:37)
uh, talk to another person.

undefined (00:48:37 --> 00:48:39)
And, you know, you just go, eh.

Jim (00:48:39 --> 00:48:40)
Okay.

Dustin (00:48:40 --> 00:49:00)
I think that, like they say, Gen Z isn't approaching as much. Gen Z. Men, they're not, like, going up to women as much, even though they may want them to do it. And it's because of this, like, fixed mindset. It's because of a lack of experimental mindset.

They don't want to look stupid. They don't want to look cringe. That's the word. And it's like your whole fucking life is cringe. You gotta get out there and mess it up.

undefined (00:49:02 --> 00:49:16)
again. I blame this on that. That politically correct woke culture. Whereas if you say something, I'm of the age where I call everybody yes, honey and deer. I used to answer my phone no matter who it was.

Jim (00:49:16 --> 00:49:17)
Yes, dear.

Dustin (00:49:17 --> 00:49:26)
Yeah, you creep everybody the fuck out, right? Yeah. Uh, all the women in our, um, Intro to Mass Communications class. You're, like, that close to just getting, like, official complaint.

undefined (00:49:26 --> 00:49:31)
Oh, yes, from me. Security. Yeah, security, room 330.

Dustin (00:49:32 --> 00:49:42)
Constantly staring at my backside. Getting handsy. Yes. Uh, um, but, you know, I don't mind it. No, I invite it, obviously, but there's other people.

Jim (00:49:42 --> 00:49:43)
You take the apple out of your

undefined (00:49:43 --> 00:49:46)
mouth and say something, but what the hell?

Dustin (00:49:46 --> 00:49:48)
Um, yeah, so keep.

Jim (00:49:48 --> 00:49:50)
Yeah, no, I just think it's.

undefined (00:49:50 --> 00:50:00)
It's okay. For example, I was in HR one time, if you can believe that, at my job. Weren't you were in, ah, hr? No, no, no, I was in there. I was called in there for something I had said to somebody.

Dustin (00:50:00 --> 00:50:01)
Yeah.

undefined (00:50:01 --> 00:50:05)
And, um, my phone rang, and it was the owner of the company who I was friends with.

Jim (00:50:06 --> 00:50:08)
And I answered the phone, I went, yes, dear.

undefined (00:50:08 --> 00:50:28)
And the. The girl from HR rolls her eyes and she goes, that's what I'm talking about, you know? And I said, hang on for a minute. I said, what's the problem? She goes.

The way you answer your phone, she goes, who is that? And I said, it's your boss. And I showed her the caller, um, id, and her face dropped. She goes, you called him dear? I go, yeah.

Dustin (00:50:28 --> 00:50:34)
Is there any bigger fucking scold in the world than, like, an HR professional? You know, no fucking sense of humor.

undefined (00:50:34 --> 00:50:35)
0a.

Dustin (00:50:35 --> 00:50:40)
Constantly, like the ultimate bureaucrat, you know? And it's like. Right.

undefined (00:50:40 --> 00:50:42)
And they were afraid. They were all. Everybody was afraid.

Dustin (00:50:42 --> 00:50:43)
And it's gotten way worse.

undefined (00:50:44 --> 00:50:50)
And that's again, why, why I think younger people don't go up and talk to people.

Dustin (00:50:50 --> 00:50:51)
You can't risk it.

undefined (00:50:51 --> 00:51:05)
No, I mean, when I was a kid, uh, and I'm going. When I say kid, I'm using that. Like, up into my 30s, uh, you know, I would go up and say to people. I'd go up to a girl, you know, we'd be at a club. Because back then, that's what you. You went to. To meet somebody. You didn't go on, you know.

Dustin (00:51:05 --> 00:51:06)
Yeah.

undefined (00:51:06 --> 00:51:07)
Whatever these websites are.

Dustin (00:51:07 --> 00:51:08)
Yeah, yeah.

undefined (00:51:08 --> 00:51:09)
You went up to somebody and said,

Jim (00:51:09 --> 00:51:10)
hey, what's your name?

undefined (00:51:10 --> 00:51:13)
And if they studied, go, oh, you don't know, you know, or something like that.

Dustin (00:51:13 --> 00:51:14)
Right, right, right, right.

undefined (00:51:14 --> 00:51:23)
You know, uh, what do you do? Uh, you know, what do you take? You know, she goes, oh, I'm a college student. Oh, what do you take up other than space? You know, and that would be a great opening line.

Dustin (00:51:23 --> 00:51:31)
You could get someone who was kind of loose and like, you know, didn't take them. They would like that. But someone who was stiff and thought that you guys aren't friends now.

Jim (00:51:31 --> 00:51:31)
Right.

undefined (00:51:31 --> 00:51:37)
If you didn't get that joke, I could see right now that I'm going to offend you at some point during the night.

Dustin (00:51:37 --> 00:51:37)
Oh, yeah.

undefined (00:51:37 --> 00:51:55)
Way before I take my clothes off. You know what I mean? So, uh, I know that this conversation is already stuck in the mud now. If there's no other prospects, I may stay there and just dig that. Stick deeper in the mud for your own enjoyment.

Dustin (00:51:55 --> 00:51:59)
Yeah. You get some sort of, like, hate thing going on, and then we usually

undefined (00:51:59 --> 00:52:02)
end up having a kid together, but that's a whole nother thing.

Jim (00:52:03 --> 00:52:05)
And there are some people that you

undefined (00:52:05 --> 00:52:10)
just don't get along with when you first meet them, which is like me and, um, everybody.

Jim (00:52:10 --> 00:52:14)
But you eventually grow into that, or you don't.

undefined (00:52:14 --> 00:52:20)
And there are some people that are just offended. That's their career. That's their goal in life, is I'm offended

Dustin (00:52:22 --> 00:52:24)
the victim constantly.

Jim (00:52:24 --> 00:52:26)
That's the one thing. That's the one word I wish they

undefined (00:52:26 --> 00:52:52)
would remove from, uh, the dictionary. Victim. Because, I mean, don't get me wrong, there are people that are victims in society, but everybody. It's like racist. If your computer doesn't work, your computer's racist. If you didn't get, you know, the last scone at the bakery, then the girl that was serving you, regardless of her color, religion, or race or gender or anything. She's racist.

Dustin (00:52:52 --> 00:52:52)
Right.

undefined (00:52:52 --> 00:52:54)
You know, everybody's racist.

Jim (00:52:54 --> 00:52:56)
Everybody's, uh, this.

Dustin (00:52:56 --> 00:53:01)
Yeah. Misogynistic, bigoted. Yeah, there's a list. But the thing is, too, is if you.

Jim (00:53:01 --> 00:53:02)
So there's no meaning to those words.

Dustin (00:53:02 --> 00:53:20)
It's kind of like. Right. If you're kind of like, trained or hypersensitive to see it, you will see it more. It's a classic thing. So if you. Yeah, so I don't. Yeah, it's like race relations and gender relations. They couldn't be in a. More like, you know, uh, it's worse

undefined (00:53:20 --> 00:53:23)
than the 60s because they keep talking about it, you know.

Dustin (00:53:23 --> 00:53:35)
That's right. We keep bringing attention to it, and then everybody thinks they see it all the time, and then it gets worse, and then we're just being driven further and further apart. Now, is it a good time for comedy because of that or a bad time for comedy because of that?

Jim (00:53:36 --> 00:53:36)
Yes.

undefined (00:53:36 --> 00:53:39)
Uh, it's like the question you asked.

Dustin (00:53:39 --> 00:53:55)
Yeah. Because, like, Chappelle just leans into the trans stuff. Like, he's like, I'm gonna, you know, say the most overtly offensive thing because it. Because in my opinion, needs to be said. But other comedians, they'll tap dance around it because they don't want to be canceled and all that. So it's either the best time or the worst time, or you just live in the middle.

undefined (00:53:55 --> 00:53:56)
It.

Jim (00:53:56 --> 00:54:00)
It's. You've got to test the water without

undefined (00:54:00 --> 00:54:03)
burning yourself or getting too much shrinkage.

Jim (00:54:04 --> 00:54:09)
You know, you've got to kind of gauge where the middle of the pond is.

undefined (00:54:09 --> 00:54:16)
Um, you know, if I hear people arguing and one of them calls the

Jim (00:54:16 --> 00:54:18)
other a racist, just.

undefined (00:54:18 --> 00:54:29)
And there's no. Clearly no racism involved. Yeah, My, uh, ears already shut off. You know, when I hear someone say, well, uh, I'm a victim of this, I, uh, My ears shut off.

Jim (00:54:30 --> 00:54:32)
I'm like, please, you have no idea.

undefined (00:54:32 --> 00:54:55)
There are so many problems going on throughout the world where people are struggling and you're upset because he took your parking spot. And there are all these things. And, uh, the thing that I think annoys me the most is when they compare. Uh, most of the time it's Trump, but any politician or any person to Hitler.

Dustin (00:54:56 --> 00:54:56)
Yeah.

undefined (00:54:56 --> 00:55:02)
I'm like, okay, so show me the analogy. Show me an actual analogy. Um, you know.

Dustin (00:55:02 --> 00:55:04)
Yeah, like, did that person kill. Ah.

undefined (00:55:04 --> 00:55:05)
Anybody?

Dustin (00:55:05 --> 00:55:06)
Right.

undefined (00:55:06 --> 00:55:09)
Or never mind. Six million. And that's just.

Dustin (00:55:09 --> 00:56:23)
But right now, we're not there yet, you know? No, no, no. And so you still guys like us of whatever perspective. Right. Um, we know what a real Nazi is, and that's not Nazi behavior.

Um, and actually, you're acting a little bit like the useful idiots. Yeah, yeah, it's like, uh, the useful idiots that help the Third Reich come to power. You know, just kind of like, you know, that kind of like, banality of evil, you know, like. And then all of a sudden, yeah, you're sort of the mob that jumps on and oppresses other people. And it's so paradoxical and hypocritical, and yet you can't say anything about it.

undefined (00:56:23 --> 00:56:41)
It's like, oh, uh, that's right out of the playbook. If I want to do something, I'm going to accuse you of it and put you on the backside. I'm going to make you stop backpedaling. So I seem, like, virtuous, but yet

Dustin (00:56:41 --> 00:56:44)
on the side of the good. Virtuous, because I called you.

undefined (00:56:44 --> 00:56:54)
You out. Whether it was true or not does not matter. Um, and. And it's. That's why I. I give it no credence. I don't give it any weight whatsoever.

Dustin (00:56:54 --> 00:56:58)
When it's like an age of. Well, it's the victim Olympics. But it's also like the age of the scold.

undefined (00:56:59 --> 00:56:59)
It is.

Dustin (00:56:59 --> 00:57:00)
It's the scold age.

undefined (00:57:01 --> 00:57:01)
Yeah.

Dustin (00:57:01 --> 00:57:07)
And it's terrible for guys like us who are a little more. I don't know, we got a little wisdom in our bones where it's like,

Jim (00:57:07 --> 00:57:08)
come on, years of experience.

undefined (00:57:08 --> 00:57:18)
I mean, the. The things I. I mean, I watched the Vietnam War on TV. Um, yeah, I'm old, not 29.

Dustin (00:57:18 --> 00:57:19)
Okay, got it.

undefined (00:57:21 --> 00:57:47)
Uh, you know, so I saw things that, growing up and I saw race riots in the 70s and things like that. And then when I hear somebody, you know, have an argument at McDonald's about whatever, and then they go, oh, you're racist. My gosh, you have no idea what that means, you know, and annoys me and I make a joke of it

Jim (00:57:47 --> 00:57:49)
because it is, to me, jokeable.

undefined (00:57:49 --> 00:57:53)
It's funny, you know, uh, that you're so stupid.

Dustin (00:57:53 --> 00:58:05)
Bill Maher leans into it all the time. You know, he. All of his monologues and his rants are about how younger people have no perspective. And, you know, he even.

Jim (00:58:06 --> 00:58:08)
Yeah, so Gervais does it, too.

Dustin (00:58:08 --> 00:58:08)
Yeah, for sure.

undefined (00:58:08 --> 00:58:11)
He just. And he is.

Jim (00:58:11 --> 00:58:12)
I love him.

Dustin (00:58:12 --> 00:58:13)
Happy warrior.

undefined (00:58:13 --> 00:58:15)
He's just so unapologetic.

Dustin (00:58:15 --> 00:58:15)
Right?

undefined (00:58:15 --> 00:58:25)
I mean, that's my new favorite word, unapologetic. Because I just am m. Unapologetic for many reasons, but I just, you know,

Jim (00:58:25 --> 00:58:26)
and I'm sure I do offend certain

undefined (00:58:26 --> 00:58:33)
people, and it's never my intention. I. I would never look at somebody and make them feel bad.

Dustin (00:58:33 --> 00:58:44)
Exactly. That's what's so kind of, um, obvious about you. It's like you're, like, empathetic.

undefined (00:58:44 --> 00:58:45)
Yeah, I am.

Dustin (00:58:45 --> 00:58:46)
I mean, don't let that.

Jim (00:58:46 --> 00:58:48)
I mean, we probably shouldn't put that

undefined (00:58:48 --> 00:58:49)
on the ear, that I am empathetic.

Dustin (00:58:49 --> 00:58:49)
We'll cut that out.

undefined (00:58:49 --> 00:58:52)
Yeah, definitely cut that out, because then people are gonna think I'm human.

Dustin (00:58:52 --> 00:58:55)
Well, it's like, you're not a fucking asshole. You're not, like, trying to sit here

Jim (00:58:55 --> 00:58:56)
and you've never dated me, but.

Dustin (00:58:56 --> 00:58:59)
Yeah. I mean, we slept together.

undefined (00:58:59 --> 00:59:00)
Yeah. Yeah, but that wasn't really a date.

Dustin (00:59:00 --> 00:59:01)
That's, like, a situation.

undefined (00:59:01 --> 00:59:04)
It was just because we wanted. I wanted free Burger King. Yeah.

Dustin (00:59:06 --> 00:59:11)
That was a expensive, uh, night for me. But, you know, as my dad was saying, you're paying for it somehow.

Jim (00:59:11 --> 00:59:13)
Yeah, we both supersized it. Yeah.

Dustin (00:59:13 --> 00:59:31)
What is. What is so fucking intoxicating about making someone laugh? Like, an unexpected one, too. When I said, oh, so you're not 29. You never saw that coming. It was. I was real subtle and dry about it, but you kind of. You had a belly laugh. You put your head back, and I was like, man, I feel like a million bucks right now.

undefined (00:59:31 --> 00:59:32)
Yeah, I was angry.

Dustin (00:59:32 --> 00:59:35)
Yeah. I don't. I was like, I can't remember.

undefined (00:59:35 --> 00:59:35)
Son of a bitch.

Jim (00:59:35 --> 00:59:37)
What is he gonna say that for?

undefined (00:59:37 --> 00:59:37)
But.

Dustin (00:59:37 --> 00:59:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

undefined (00:59:38 --> 00:59:38)
No.

Dustin (00:59:38 --> 00:59:40)
Why does that feel so good?

Jim (00:59:40 --> 00:59:47)
You know, because, you know, you heal. You know, it is a healing process. It's almost like, uh, you know, from Fletch. You know, demons out.

Dustin (00:59:47 --> 00:59:48)
Right?

Jim (00:59:48 --> 00:59:50)
You know, when. When somebody laughs, they.

undefined (00:59:51 --> 00:59:54)
I mean, it's a proven fact the human mind can only think of one thing at a time.

Jim (00:59:54 --> 00:59:55)
And there were some people that can't

undefined (00:59:55 --> 01:00:03)
even think of one thing at a time. You know, the OCD or HDHD or whatever, the chat EBTs or whatever they are. There are.

Jim (01:00:05 --> 01:00:06)
So the human mind can only think

undefined (01:00:06 --> 01:00:45)
of one thing at a time. So if you're upset about your water bill that just came today and your heating bill, which is ridiculous in Massachusetts, Right. You know, all the utility bills are. I'm m not going to use the other R word, but that's what they are. And you know, if you can think of, uh, a girl who's not going to be walking the Runway holding onto a chihuahua and possibly eating that and it makes you chuckle, uh, you know, you're not thinking about that bill. You're not thinking about that. You're laughing at someone else's expense, but

Jim (01:00:45 --> 01:00:50)
you're not like, I'm not attacking. Like, that girl will never see me

undefined (01:00:52 --> 01:00:55)
do my act and know that I'm talking about her.

Dustin (01:00:55 --> 01:00:55)
Right?

Jim (01:00:55 --> 01:00:56)
I'm talking about.

Dustin (01:00:56 --> 01:00:57)
You've anonymized her.

undefined (01:00:57 --> 01:01:05)
Heavyset people in general. I just lost almost 40 pounds. I'm down. I was way heavy.

Dustin (01:01:05 --> 01:01:08)
I was, uh, from 450 to 410.

undefined (01:01:08 --> 01:01:10)
I was in each leg.

Jim (01:01:12 --> 01:01:14)
I was, uh, almost 220.

undefined (01:01:15 --> 01:01:20)
I'm down into my 180s now, which I haven't been in since, uh, the 80s, actually.

Dustin (01:01:20 --> 01:01:23)
Good for you. Yeah, um, I'd fuck you.

undefined (01:01:23 --> 01:01:23)
I mean.

Jim (01:01:23 --> 01:01:24)
Yeah, I would too.

undefined (01:01:24 --> 01:01:33)
I mean, actually I do every night. They said I needed resistance training and I figured, hey, what better way? Kill two birds with one side.

Dustin (01:01:33 --> 01:01:37)
I did notice your right arm is markedly larger than your left arm.

Jim (01:01:37 --> 01:01:37)
It is.

undefined (01:01:37 --> 01:01:42)
It's from slapping my left arm. Telling it to get in line. Get with the program.

Dustin (01:01:43 --> 01:01:53)
Um. Holy shit, dude. Do you. So when you're on stage and you're doing stand up, are you a totally different person than who you are, like right now or just hanging out with me? So you're you.

undefined (01:01:53 --> 01:01:53)
I'm just.

Dustin (01:01:53 --> 01:01:56)
You're just you kind of performing, Just being.

undefined (01:01:56 --> 01:01:59)
Yeah, I'm just seeing things and saying them.

Jim (01:01:59 --> 01:02:02)
You know, if I. The only time I'm not me is

undefined (01:02:02 --> 01:02:08)
if I am trying to sell something. You know what I mean? If I'm. If I'm trying to get.

Jim (01:02:08 --> 01:02:11)
Yeah, no, that sells itself.

Dustin (01:02:11 --> 01:02:12)
Uh, true.

Jim (01:02:12 --> 01:02:19)
Uh, if I were to, um, try to get somebody in, in some sort

undefined (01:02:19 --> 01:02:23)
of a business situation, um.

Dustin (01:02:23 --> 01:02:24)
I bought some cuckold knives off you.

Jim (01:02:24 --> 01:02:26)
Yes, yes, yes.

undefined (01:02:27 --> 01:02:31)
With, uh, uh, restraints attached. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Dustin (01:02:31 --> 01:02:43)
The deluxe cuckold chair for, uh, the Hilton universally fits any corner in the room for the most, uh, enthusiastic cuckold

Jim (01:02:43 --> 01:02:45)
and any of the Kardashians. Yes.

undefined (01:02:47 --> 01:03:11)
But, um, for actual cash and money, Um, I sell real estate, and one of the projects that I'm now involved in is placing homeless veterans. So we have a thing with the VA and HUD and VASH and everything. And we go with the caseworkers, and then we find, uh, people that have apartment buildings, and we try to use these vouchers, and we get the veterans housed.

Jim (01:03:11 --> 01:03:16)
So in that case, I am still kind of who I am, but I'm

undefined (01:03:16 --> 01:03:18)
a little bit more serious, like when

Jim (01:03:18 --> 01:03:19)
I sit down and talk to them

undefined (01:03:19 --> 01:03:22)
about risk management and the voucher program

Jim (01:03:22 --> 01:03:24)
and how it's good for them.

undefined (01:03:24 --> 01:03:34)
Uh, I'm not trying to be, like, a used car salesman or like a regular real estate agent. I am, uh, I'm trying to actually help somebody, so I'm a little bit

Jim (01:03:34 --> 01:03:35)
more on the serious side.

undefined (01:03:35 --> 01:03:44)
But once I've met them and we've got a relationship going, you know, the real me comes out, and I'm back to being insane.

Dustin (01:03:44 --> 01:03:48)
Yeah, yeah. So you turn the dial up and down?

undefined (01:03:48 --> 01:04:00)
Oh, yeah, yeah, I try to turn it down. Sometimes I'll say the most, uh, inappropriate things, the most inappropriate places. You know, sometimes I go places with people, and they'll say, okay, here's the plan.

Dustin (01:04:00 --> 01:04:00)
Huh?

undefined (01:04:00 --> 01:04:05)
Don't speak. You know, like, okay, yeah, that doesn't work, you know.

Dustin (01:04:07 --> 01:04:30)
Well, you're listening to the radio edition of Curiously. How Incongruous was that? Uh, today's guest is Jim Stallion. Great last name with an S. We're talking about comedy and how it works. If you have any thoughts on what's funny, share them at dustin grinnell mail.com. someone is not funny. Can you make them funny?

undefined (01:04:30 --> 01:04:31)
Yes.

Jim (01:04:32 --> 01:04:33)
You bring them on.

undefined (01:04:33 --> 01:04:38)
Like Gervais brought on Kyle Plinkington there or whatever. Pinkington, whatever his name is.

Dustin (01:04:38 --> 01:04:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Jim (01:04:39 --> 01:04:43)
Um, you can. You can teach people the anatomy of a joke.

undefined (01:04:43 --> 01:04:44)
You teach them how to write a joke.

Dustin (01:04:44 --> 01:04:46)
The craft of it. Yeah, the craft.

Jim (01:04:47 --> 01:04:53)
You can suggest timing, uh, you can do all that. But if they don't make the observations,

Dustin (01:04:53 --> 01:04:55)
uh, you need an insight.

undefined (01:04:55 --> 01:04:59)
You definitely. You definitely have to be able to read. Read the room.

Jim (01:04:59 --> 01:05:01)
Um, I know people that are just

undefined (01:05:01 --> 01:05:16)
in daily life, the driest people in the world. And I've seen them get up on stage, and I go, this guy's gonna commit suicide on stage. The only way I'm gonna laugh. And, um, he'll get up and he'll be funny. You know, they have it because written

Dustin (01:05:16 --> 01:05:19)
out, they have good subject matter.

Jim (01:05:19 --> 01:05:20)
They have good subject matter.

undefined (01:05:20 --> 01:05:21)
They've owned timing.

Jim (01:05:21 --> 01:05:22)
They've sharpened it.

undefined (01:05:22 --> 01:05:30)
You know, wherever they Sharpened it, whether it was at an open mic night or wherever. And, uh, they were funny, you know,

Jim (01:05:30 --> 01:05:36)
and it's a lot of times people's jokes aren't theirs. I don't, I don't usually tell other

undefined (01:05:36 --> 01:05:42)
people's jokes unless I, I say, oh, and I heard from blah, blah, and I'll give them the credit for it because I don't want to be known as a hack.

Dustin (01:05:43 --> 01:05:45)
Yeah. So that's called a hack. If you steal some shit.

undefined (01:05:45 --> 01:05:46)
That's.

Dustin (01:05:46 --> 01:05:48)
That's, that's pretty frowned upon. Yeah.

Jim (01:05:48 --> 01:05:50)
Ah, you know, people do it all the time.

undefined (01:05:50 --> 01:05:51)
You, uh, know.

Jim (01:05:51 --> 01:05:51)
And you see it.

Dustin (01:05:51 --> 01:05:51)
Sure.

Jim (01:05:51 --> 01:05:59)
You see it on YouTube. People say, oh, so and so stole my joke. It's not really a joke. You know what I mean? Like, did you real.

undefined (01:05:59 --> 01:06:06)
I mean, the, the joke, uh, when I saw the girl with the dog, for example, I saw that. That's mine.

Jim (01:06:07 --> 01:06:15)
Yeah, but did you see somebody just like that two years ago and make that comment? Then it's your joke.

undefined (01:06:15 --> 01:06:21)
So you don't really own a joke unless it's a current event. You know what I mean?

Jim (01:06:22 --> 01:06:23)
Uh, you know, if they start talking

undefined (01:06:23 --> 01:06:58)
about all the new, um, supreme leaders in Iran, I mean, that would be your joke, because it's never happened before. You know, that's a situational thing. If, you know, and you see in it, you know, now. And now more and more jokes, they're written an hour after the next guy blows up or is taken out or neutralized or whatever they want to call it. Um, there'll be a new joke about him. And that's an original joke, you know, but doesn't mean that I didn't think of something very, very, very similar, you know, at, uh, my round table.

Dustin (01:06:59 --> 01:06:59)
Yeah.

undefined (01:06:59 --> 01:07:00)
You know, so.

Dustin (01:07:00 --> 01:07:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim (01:07:01 --> 01:07:03)
You gotta be very. If you say it word for word.

undefined (01:07:03 --> 01:07:03)
Yeah, it's hacked.

Dustin (01:07:04 --> 01:07:04)
Totally.

undefined (01:07:05 --> 01:07:06)
It's totally hack.

Dustin (01:07:07 --> 01:07:15)
Uh, any advice for younger people who want to get into comedy? How do you find your subject matter? How do you find your voice? How do you learn craft? How do you, well, find the guts?

Jim (01:07:15 --> 01:07:19)
Well, the first thing I would say is ignore all your age group people.

undefined (01:07:19 --> 01:07:24)
Um, don't listen to people, you know, when they say, don't say that.

Dustin (01:07:24 --> 01:07:26)
Right. If you want to say it, I

undefined (01:07:26 --> 01:07:27)
won't say it to you.

Jim (01:07:27 --> 01:07:36)
But, you know, if you think it's funny, try it with a few different people. Try it, you know, in conversation when you, when you're just talking to somebody, you know, you bring up, bring up

undefined (01:07:36 --> 01:07:40)
a subject matter and throw it out there. And some people Might not think it's funny.

Jim (01:07:40 --> 01:07:45)
I mean, you know, you hear a lot of people, um, talk about the

undefined (01:07:45 --> 01:07:48)
Charlie Kirk thing or, uh, something, and

Jim (01:07:48 --> 01:07:49)
there's a lot of people that are

undefined (01:07:49 --> 01:07:52)
offended by that because they, you know, and they go, oh, too soon.

Jim (01:07:53 --> 01:07:55)
For some people it is, and other people it's not.

undefined (01:07:56 --> 01:07:58)
So if you want to throw that

Jim (01:07:58 --> 01:08:06)
joke out there, you know, you're rolling the dice, really. Uh, but for young people, I would just say don't listen to the.

undefined (01:08:07 --> 01:08:09)
Don't worry about offending people, because you're going to.

Dustin (01:08:09 --> 01:08:12)
You gotta sort of trust your own instincts.

Jim (01:08:13 --> 01:08:16)
Yeah. And they'll be wrong. You'll be wrong a ton of times.

undefined (01:08:16 --> 01:08:17)
And don't take anything personal, because so

Dustin (01:08:17 --> 01:08:26)
much I think of this creative art, you could call it, is like, just getting feedback and rolling with how it's kind of adjusting. Yeah.

undefined (01:08:26 --> 01:08:28)
And, yeah, it's all an adjustment.

Jim (01:08:28 --> 01:08:30)
It's. It's like a date, you know, Just think of it.

undefined (01:08:30 --> 01:08:35)
Oh. I mean, kids today don't date. They, you know, they set it up on their phone. But, you know, when you. When you.

Jim (01:08:35 --> 01:08:41)
Again, when you meet somebody, you know, you don't want to jump out in the middle of the conversation and start

undefined (01:08:41 --> 01:08:43)
doing Bernie Sanders imitations and.

Dustin (01:08:43 --> 01:08:43)
Right.

undefined (01:08:43 --> 01:08:45)
And saying how the billionaire class.

Jim (01:08:45 --> 01:08:46)
Yeah, yeah.

undefined (01:08:46 --> 01:08:51)
And then the Democrats are this or the Republicans are that, because you don't. Yeah, right.

Dustin (01:08:51 --> 01:08:51)
Yeah.

undefined (01:08:51 --> 01:08:54)
The eating dogs in Minnesota or whatever the hell that thing was.

Dustin (01:08:54 --> 01:08:55)
They're eating the dogs.

Jim (01:08:55 --> 01:08:56)
Eating the dogs.

Dustin (01:08:56 --> 01:09:00)
You know, but he's a. He's. I mean, come on. He's.

undefined (01:09:00 --> 01:09:01)
He's comedic gold.

Dustin (01:09:01 --> 01:09:03)
Yeah. I mean, he's easy to make fun of, too, though.

undefined (01:09:03 --> 01:09:04)
Yeah, he is. Yeah, he is.

Jim (01:09:04 --> 01:09:05)
He's comedic gold.

Dustin (01:09:05 --> 01:09:09)
Naturally. Accidentally hilarious. Yeah.

undefined (01:09:11 --> 01:09:13)
Again, I always try to stay away,

Jim (01:09:13 --> 01:09:17)
you know, like, even AOC and, uh,

Dustin (01:09:17 --> 01:09:21)
Kamala, you know, Kamala, you know, profoundly unfunny people.

Jim (01:09:22 --> 01:09:22)
Right.

Dustin (01:09:22 --> 01:09:24)
You know, Biden, they're just unfunny.

Jim (01:09:24 --> 01:09:31)
There's word salads and some of the things he says. You will. You will offend people, though, because they

undefined (01:09:31 --> 01:09:34)
think you're attacking the entire Democratic Party.

Dustin (01:09:34 --> 01:09:34)
Right.

undefined (01:09:34 --> 01:09:44)
When you talk about a doting old man who falls up the stairs four times getting onto a plane, and they're gonna go, I knew he was a Republican. He's a Trump panzee. Had a kid to work on me. A Trump Panzee.

Dustin (01:09:44 --> 01:09:52)
Yeah. It became like making. Making fun of anybody, any leader in the Democratic Party. It was like Ray coded, when you're just like, I don't know. I laughed.

undefined (01:09:52 --> 01:09:53)
Yeah, right.

Dustin (01:09:53 --> 01:09:56)
You murder babies no, no, it's the worst. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

undefined (01:09:56 --> 01:10:14)
You've, you know, committed genocide and whatever. It's like. No, really, it was just a joke on that one person. The one thing that one person said or did. It wasn't an attack on that person's life. It's not. I'm not saying this person's a disgusting human being and they should be wiped out.

Jim (01:10:15 --> 01:10:17)
I'm saying it was funny what they

undefined (01:10:17 --> 01:10:21)
said, because it didn't make sense. It was a little stupid.

Jim (01:10:21 --> 01:10:22)
Little ridiculous.

Dustin (01:10:22 --> 01:10:42)
Yeah. And everybody kind of knows it's ridiculous to be, like, um, kind of, like, scolding each other and whatever. And some part of a good comedy show is like, everybody's got a job, and you go and get in this room, and you listen to someone distract you and make you laugh, and.

Jim (01:10:42 --> 01:10:43)
That's a great analogy.

undefined (01:10:43 --> 01:10:45)
It's a distraction. It's all.

Dustin (01:10:45 --> 01:10:46)
It's escape.

Jim (01:10:46 --> 01:10:47)
It is.

Dustin (01:10:47 --> 01:11:13)
And, you know, that could be 50, 60% of it. It's just so, like, for. You just talked about the gas bills. This morning, I got an email from Xfinity that said my wi fi is going from 40 to 60. I was like, this. This is. This is a problem. I'm gonna have to make a phone call later. I'm gonna have to haggle. I'm gonna have to see if they have any promos going on right now and stuff like that. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Just, like, point out their genocidal tendencies.

Jim (01:11:13 --> 01:11:13)
Yeah, uh, absolutely.

Dustin (01:11:13 --> 01:11:20)
But like this. When we. We've been. We've been talking for over an hour. Haven't been thinking about Xfinity.

undefined (01:11:20 --> 01:11:21)
Exactly.

Dustin (01:11:21 --> 01:11:23)
I haven't been thinking about anything. We are in the moment.

Jim (01:11:23 --> 01:11:24)
You're just thinking about where is the

undefined (01:11:24 --> 01:11:26)
escape route of this room? Yeah, I'm gonna get through that door.

Dustin (01:11:26 --> 01:11:31)
This guy got a belt on, like. Yeah, right. Um, I'm thinking about how you look without your shirt.

undefined (01:11:31 --> 01:11:34)
Uh, is he gonna take that trench coat off ever?

Dustin (01:11:35 --> 01:11:48)
Right. And, like, that's medicine man. It's escape. And whether or not you're reading a novel, watching a play, getting lost in a movie, uh, you know, having a good conversation, it's just. Get out of real life.

Jim (01:11:49 --> 01:11:50)
Well, that's the beauty of meditation.

undefined (01:11:51 --> 01:11:59)
Again, going back to the premise that your mind can only think of one thing, and if you're thinking of breathing, you can't think of anything else. You know?

Dustin (01:11:59 --> 01:12:03)
To the dying man, God is bread. Yeah, that was. That was a big one. That was.

undefined (01:12:04 --> 01:12:05)
I'm gonna have to think about that one.

Dustin (01:12:05 --> 01:12:18)
So if you're Starving. You're not going to be thinking about higher level Maslow's hierarchy stuff. You're not going to be thinking about God because you're starving and you just need bread. I'm gonna cut that. That's getting cut.

undefined (01:12:18 --> 01:12:18)
That's.

Dustin (01:12:18 --> 01:12:21)
Yeah, but it's big, though, if you think about it. To the dying man.

Jim (01:12:21 --> 01:12:22)
Want to see big?

Dustin (01:12:22 --> 01:12:22)
God is.

undefined (01:12:23 --> 01:12:33)
Yeah, that's. That's. Yeah, that's. That's like really deep, man. I think we should put that on for another podcast. That was, uh, you know, if you

Dustin (01:12:33 --> 01:12:35)
want a tattoo of that, it's yours.

undefined (01:12:35 --> 01:12:40)
Uh, I'll just use a shoppie and I can get most of it out if I'm semi aroused.

Dustin (01:12:42 --> 01:12:49)
I rudely interrupted with just deep wisdom. And what were you saying?

undefined (01:12:49 --> 01:12:51)
I have no idea. Dude.

Dustin (01:12:51 --> 01:12:55)
You're just so. I seduced you. You're like just. You got those bedroom eyes right now.

Jim (01:12:55 --> 01:12:56)
That was just.

undefined (01:12:56 --> 01:13:01)
Just, uh, yeah, that was like, you know, is it a train coming or is it. Is it the light from above?

Dustin (01:13:02 --> 01:13:02)
Right.

undefined (01:13:03 --> 01:13:11)
You know, which, you know, always reminded me about the old man that used to always pray every night to hit the lottery. I don't know what's with my throat today.

Dustin (01:13:11 --> 01:13:25)
Yeah, I think you just had a fucking aneurysm. Uh, does massasoia College have a cardiologist on call? Because we got some. Your face. Your left flat or your face is drooping? Actually, your whole face.

undefined (01:13:25 --> 01:13:28)
Troops. That's baseline. Yeah. You should see my boobs.

Dustin (01:13:28 --> 01:13:31)
Uh, I have someday.

undefined (01:13:31 --> 01:13:37)
Yeah, I saw your only fans page 599. Dustin.

Dustin (01:13:37 --> 01:13:41)
Uh, Cornell. OnlyFans. Uh, edu.

undefined (01:13:41 --> 01:13:44)
Yeah, massive toilet dot com.

Dustin (01:13:45 --> 01:13:56)
Do not slander the place we are in right now. Say the name correctly. We got about. We're way over time.

Jim (01:13:56 --> 01:13:58)
Thank God there's plenty to cut then.

Dustin (01:13:58 --> 01:14:01)
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of offensive material in here.

Jim (01:14:02 --> 01:14:10)
What was I just saying? I was saying something, I think that was actually, uh, insightful and helpful.

Dustin (01:14:11 --> 01:14:25)
Probably sucked. Yeah, probably did at its core. Jim. Yeah. If you think of what you're gonna say, you can pop in. What is, what is comedy for? What makes people go out of their way to just sit in a fucking room and laugh with strangers?

Jim (01:14:26 --> 01:14:30)
That's a distraction. And, you know, you want to see girls with big boobs laugh a lot

undefined (01:14:30 --> 01:14:32)
and see if they bounce.

Dustin (01:14:32 --> 01:14:34)
Okay. M. Yeah, that's honest.

Jim (01:14:34 --> 01:14:37)
That's another, you know, honest motivation to

undefined (01:14:37 --> 01:14:40)
make, you know, the well endowed girls laugh.

Jim (01:14:40 --> 01:14:43)
But you can, um, you just can get away.

undefined (01:14:44 --> 01:15:09)
And to me, that's really what comedy is. Um, it's just that 15 minutes or half hour or two hours or one hour. That's why people watch comedy specials, and that's why they turn them off. They watch them on tv. If they're not laughing, they're not just trying to kill time. They want to be entertained by somebody who's not. And that's why I don't like the political aspect of it.

Jim (01:15:09 --> 01:15:12)
Because when I want to be entertained, I don't want to be reminded of

undefined (01:15:12 --> 01:15:31)
what I just saw on the news. Um, you know, I want to be. I want to laugh. I want to hear things that are absurd that, you know, I didn't think of. Uh, that I wish I had. Um, and then go, wow, he's right. You know, that was crazy.

Jim (01:15:33 --> 01:15:36)
But, you know, again, we were talking

undefined (01:15:36 --> 01:15:38)
about young people and, um.

Dustin (01:15:38 --> 01:15:39)
Such as yourself.

Jim (01:15:39 --> 01:15:46)
M. Yes. And again, I would just say, uh, don't worry.

undefined (01:15:46 --> 01:15:47)
You know what I mean?

Jim (01:15:47 --> 01:15:55)
Think of what's funny. And it might be funny to the young kids, but they don't know young kids today. They don't talk.

undefined (01:15:55 --> 01:15:56)
They don't talk to each other.

Jim (01:15:57 --> 01:15:58)
You see them, they all go out

undefined (01:15:58 --> 01:15:59)
to eat, and they don't.

Dustin (01:15:59 --> 01:16:00)
On their phone.

Jim (01:16:00 --> 01:16:02)
Yeah, they don't have the conversation.

undefined (01:16:03 --> 01:16:05)
They don't know how to joke with people.

Dustin (01:16:06 --> 01:16:09)
Uh, it seems like they're often in the virtual world more than the real world.

undefined (01:16:09 --> 01:16:10)
100%.

Dustin (01:16:10 --> 01:16:10)
Yeah.

undefined (01:16:10 --> 01:16:34)
You know, they don't. They don't understand that you've got to. You got to communicate with people. At some point, your battery is going to die, you know, and if you. You get locked somewhere or if you're on a trip and your phone is dead, what do you do? You know, you either have to stare out the window and make a comment about your location, or you're going to have to communicate, uh, of how your day was and stuff.

Dustin (01:16:35 --> 01:17:19)
Yeah. I noticed something in one of my other classes, the radio production class, we had this. We're learning how to use this radio board here. And, um, a couple younger kids sat down and we did this kind of, uh, you know, you run the board, you be two guests or whatever and do, like a mock conversation. So essentially improv. And, um, a couple of the younger kids, they just had marbles in their mouth. They just couldn't get it out. They couldn't. I don't know whether they didn't. They just felt a little shy, which is totally cool, or they didn't feel experimental that day, or they were too tired. But I actually started to wonder when I was reflecting on it, I was like, oh, uh, wouldn't it be really tragic if they kind of lost the tools to do it where it was like they didn't know even how to do it?

Jim (01:17:19 --> 01:17:21)
They're in fear of being judged.

Dustin (01:17:21 --> 01:17:22)
Yeah. Fear of being cringe.

undefined (01:17:22 --> 01:17:22)
Yeah.

Jim (01:17:22 --> 01:17:24)
And whatever that means.

undefined (01:17:24 --> 01:17:25)
But, uh, because I'm old.

Jim (01:17:25 --> 01:17:36)
Um, but they are. And I think that's even with some of the older people. They were afraid that they're going to be looked at differently if they can't

undefined (01:17:36 --> 01:17:37)
say the right thing.

Dustin (01:17:37 --> 01:17:45)
What an absolute tragedy to also be cringe for just being someone who sticks their neck out. Uh, someone who innovates.

Jim (01:17:46 --> 01:17:49)
It's the death of society 100%.

Dustin (01:17:49 --> 01:17:50)
You're gonna need. Yeah.

Jim (01:17:50 --> 01:17:52)
Nobody's gonna experiment.

Dustin (01:17:52 --> 01:17:53)
Who's gonna take risks?

Jim (01:17:53 --> 01:17:54)
Nobody's gonna.

undefined (01:17:54 --> 01:17:58)
No, they're gonna go with the norm until the norm is so outdated.

Dustin (01:17:58 --> 01:18:00)
It's gonna be society of HR professionals.

undefined (01:18:00 --> 01:18:06)
It's. That's exact. I can't stand hr. Uh, professional. I mean, sure, when they're helping you

Dustin (01:18:06 --> 01:18:10)
with your insurance, they're worthwhile or you're negotiating a severance.

undefined (01:18:10 --> 01:18:11)
Yeah,

Jim (01:18:13 --> 01:18:22)
usually that's my lawyer. But, um, it does hurt society when they're afraid.

undefined (01:18:23 --> 01:18:26)
Try it. If it doesn't work, try something else.

Jim (01:18:27 --> 01:18:28)
That's how you learn what works.

undefined (01:18:28 --> 01:18:30)
Like knowing what doesn't work.

Dustin (01:18:30 --> 01:18:40)
Yeah, but it's, there's a, there's the cringe factor. Like, you know, your peers are gonna be like saying like, oh, that was politically incorrect. Or though that was stupid, or though,

Jim (01:18:40 --> 01:18:43)
you know, I don't think you can say stupid anymore.

undefined (01:18:43 --> 01:18:45)
I think that's a dim, uh, witted, offensive.

Dustin (01:18:46 --> 01:18:46)
Yeah.

Jim (01:18:46 --> 01:18:49)
I don't know so many words now.

undefined (01:18:49 --> 01:18:49)
You can't say.

Dustin (01:18:50 --> 01:18:56)
I grew up saying, we need a George Carlin. Here's your next bit. George Carlin. Do the words you can't say right now in culture not be everything.

undefined (01:18:56 --> 01:18:58)
It'd just be a diction, basically.

Dustin (01:18:58 --> 01:18:58)
Yeah.

undefined (01:18:58 --> 01:19:01)
Uh, yeah, it'd be a two hour show just reading the dictionary.

Dustin (01:19:01 --> 01:19:10)
Yeah. Anything you want to leave the listeners as we, uh, think about wrapping up besides, you know, removing your shirt.

undefined (01:19:10 --> 01:19:11)
Yeah.

Jim (01:19:11 --> 01:19:13)
As long as it's not a DNA sample. I have to leave.

Dustin (01:19:13 --> 01:19:15)
Yeah. Can I swab your mouth real quick?

undefined (01:19:16 --> 01:19:16)
Yeah.

Jim (01:19:16 --> 01:19:39)
Just go to the courthouse. Uh, no, I mean, I think I just say go out and do it. Just go out and offend as many people as you can and then you'll know what, you know not supposed to say and then what works. And then occasionally you'll say something that you're afraid to and you'll say it and you'll get a chuckle, and people won't find it. And the other thing, too, is people see things differently. I'll say something that I think is

undefined (01:19:39 --> 01:19:45)
funny, and they'll think it's funny, and it's for a different reason, because something in their life, it's touched upon.

Jim (01:19:45 --> 01:19:49)
But, you know, it's a tough, uh.

Dustin (01:19:49 --> 01:19:59)
But find something universal, too, because, like, if you talk about divorce, I haven't been married, so. But I've had relationships. So, like, I'm gonna. If you make a joke about divorce, I'm gonna think about a past relationship.

Jim (01:19:59 --> 01:20:09)
I don't think stalking is considered a relationship. I mean, you know, when you told me you were seeing somebody new, and then I walked by your house and saw you looking in that girl's window, I'm like, yeah, you're seeing her because

Dustin (01:20:09 --> 01:20:13)
she hasn't realized I was in a public park with. I was in the tree.

Jim (01:20:13 --> 01:20:13)
Yes.

Dustin (01:20:13 --> 01:20:19)
And that's my right as a citizen to be in that park that was only 20ft away from that one window.

undefined (01:20:19 --> 01:20:30)
You know, so funny you say that. Just triggered something else in my mind when you talk about, uh, my right as a citizen. These, uh, First Amendment auditors. Sure.

Dustin (01:20:30 --> 01:20:33)
Oh, yeah. Conversation, that is.

undefined (01:20:33 --> 01:20:36)
Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna hold off on that.

Dustin (01:20:37 --> 01:20:52)
What? Anything else that comes to mind right now. I mean, let's. For the record. Um, so where can people find your stuff? Where do they go?

Jim (01:20:53 --> 01:20:54)
It's just below my belt buckle.

Dustin (01:20:56 --> 01:20:56)
Digitally.

Jim (01:20:56 --> 01:21:03)
Oh, digitally, yeah. That would be on onlyfans. Um, my TikTok is great face for radio.

Dustin (01:21:03 --> 01:21:04)
Yep.

undefined (01:21:04 --> 01:21:09)
And there's two accounts for Great Face for radio. Because I have been stolen.

Dustin (01:21:09 --> 01:21:11)
Uh, you've been copied.

undefined (01:21:11 --> 01:21:11)
I've been copied.

Dustin (01:21:11 --> 01:21:12)
You're that good.

undefined (01:21:12 --> 01:21:13)
I am.

Jim (01:21:13 --> 01:21:18)
According to this individual, I am. And if you look at the followers,

undefined (01:21:18 --> 01:21:21)
if there are over 10,000 followers, that is me.

Dustin (01:21:22 --> 01:21:24)
Those were all bought and paid for.

undefined (01:21:24 --> 01:21:24)
Yes.

Jim (01:21:26 --> 01:21:26)
I had to show.

undefined (01:21:26 --> 01:21:32)
I had to show women things for that. Yeah. For their subscription. Uh, and two guys.

Jim (01:21:33 --> 01:21:36)
But, um, the, uh, other guy, the

undefined (01:21:36 --> 01:21:38)
imposter, only has about 3,000.

Jim (01:21:39 --> 01:21:45)
And I have contacted him and told him to cease and desist. And he told me he wanted money. And I said, you got a better

undefined (01:21:45 --> 01:21:49)
chance at getting a full sentence out of Biden than getting money from me. It's just not going to happen, dude.

Dustin (01:21:50 --> 01:21:51)
How much, by the way?

undefined (01:21:51 --> 01:21:55)
And I talked about his mother. I. We never got to that point. I was too busy insulting his mother.

Dustin (01:21:55 --> 01:21:57)
Okay. Yeah.

undefined (01:21:57 --> 01:22:01)
I'm sure he didn't know who his father was, so I Just, uh, but yeah, I was a little upset.

Dustin (01:22:01 --> 01:22:03)
Yeah. He copied you. Yeah.

Jim (01:22:03 --> 01:22:06)
And I am going to be opening a YouTube channel as soon as I

undefined (01:22:06 --> 01:22:13)
learn how to video edit. Uh, because that will definitely need editing because I can only be banned so many times before I think they shut you down. Down completely.

Dustin (01:22:13 --> 01:22:14)
For sure.

Jim (01:22:14 --> 01:22:24)
For sure. You know, it's, yeah, great, great, uh, face for Radio. Tick tock. Um, there is a, I'm pretty sure there is a, a way to contact

undefined (01:22:24 --> 01:22:34)
me through email that way also if, uh, if not the, uh, the. Yeah, it's. I think it's called Great Face for

Jim (01:22:34 --> 01:22:35)
Radio at either Yahoo.

undefined (01:22:35 --> 01:22:39)
Gmail. Jeez, you know, wow. To a certain age.

Dustin (01:22:39 --> 01:22:40)
Remember my first beer?

undefined (01:22:40 --> 01:22:40)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:22:41 --> 01:22:42)
So your Phone number's still 911?

undefined (01:22:43 --> 01:22:43)
Uh, yeah.

Jim (01:22:43 --> 01:22:44)
Yeah, it is.

Dustin (01:22:44 --> 01:22:45)
Okay, that's good.

Jim (01:22:46 --> 01:22:49)
What the hell. Okay, there it is.

undefined (01:22:49 --> 01:22:54)
It's greatfaceforradio1number1mail.com.

Jim (01:22:55 --> 01:22:57)
And if you're offended by any of

undefined (01:22:57 --> 01:23:03)
this, it's greatface for radio number 728@gofuckyourself.com.

Dustin (01:23:03 --> 01:23:23)
yeah, you just open up the floodgates. That, my friend, feels like a good place to leave it. Um, comedian Jim Stallion. Thanks for coming on and talking about the mechanics of comedy. You've been listening to the radio edition of Curiously recorded at Massasoit Community College's Dale Dorman Studio. Any last words, Jim?

undefined (01:23:23 --> 01:23:25)
I've already got a cease and desist

Jim (01:23:25 --> 01:23:27)
order in my emails.

undefined (01:23:27 --> 01:23:28)
No, I. Thank God.

Jim (01:23:28 --> 01:23:35)
No, I, I enjoyed this. It was, uh, it was fun, you know, speaking to someone else and kind

undefined (01:23:35 --> 01:23:37)
of reminds me of an interview room I didn't have to get fingerprinted.

Jim (01:23:37 --> 01:23:43)
It was, uh, was good. It was very enjoyable. Uh, these headphones are very wonderful.

Dustin (01:23:43 --> 01:23:44)
Glad you enjoyed it.

Jim (01:23:44 --> 01:23:44)
Yeah.

Dustin (01:23:44 --> 01:23:52)
I'm Dustin Grinnell and thanks for spending time with us. To hear more episodes, visit curiouslypod.com and we'll see you next time.

Jim (01:23:53 --> 01:23:59)
Bye, everybody.

undefined (01:23:59 --> 01:24:06)
Sam.