JRE #1977 – Dave Smith

[00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:30.860] Let’s fucking go. Oh, we’re live. Hello, Dave Smith. Hello, sir. Good to see you, my brother. Yeah, it’s great to be back. Fun times last night. Unbelievable, man. Yeah, that was your first voyage aboard the mothership. Yes, it sure was. If you’re gonna get abducted by
[00:00:30.900 –> 00:00:41.900] aliens at a comedy club, it’s the one to be at. Yeah, imagine if they showed up there. I imagine if they were gonna pick a comedy club to start abducting people, it would be yours.
[00:00:41.900 –> 00:00:54.900] Well, they would know that we’d be open. That’s true. Jim Probs would probably like charge them. Or you would welcome them in. Yeah, put them on the guest list. It is. I know I just feel
[00:00:54.900 –> 00:01:02.940] like I’m just saying the same thing everyone does, but the club is really amazing, man. You did an incredible job. It’s pretty dope. Well, it wasn’t me. I mean, it was sort of, but it was a lot of people.
[00:01:02.940 –> 00:01:16.940] And a lot of it, Richard Weiss, the architect and designer, he’s the fucking man. He did an incredible job. The whole thing’s just very bizarre, you know? It wasn’t mine. I’d really be able to appreciate it.
[00:01:16.940 –> 00:01:24.940] Yeah, I’m sure that’s true. But it’s cool to see something, you know, like, there’s something cool about having a concept in your head and then seeing it manifest into reality. Yeah.
[00:01:24.980 –> 00:01:31.980] Because I remember, you know, you talking about this over the last couple years, like, we’re going to do this and it’s going to be like this. And then, like, it’s cool to see it materialize.
[00:01:31.980 –> 00:01:47.980] I’ve never done anything like this before, obviously. But I mean, to have an idea and to just, like, go all in on this idea and just really try to cut in zero corners and just do the best version of it.
[00:01:48.020 –> 00:01:58.020] And there was a lot of delays because, you know, we said, okay, let’s change this. Let’s change that. Let’s do this. Let’s do that. And when I had an idea, you know, an idea to change things,
[00:01:58.020 –> 00:02:10.020] it’s just like, you have to kind of follow through with it. You just, you know, it’s like, you have one chance to do it right and you don’t want to go back and close for two weeks
[00:02:10.020 –> 00:02:23.060] so you can do new construction and fix something. And so we just, you know, took a long ass fucking time. You know, there’s a lot of people saying, whenever you’re not opening your clothes, bullshit. It’s all bullshit.
[00:02:23.060 –> 00:02:34.060] They just didn’t, I knew once it got, I’m like, talk all that shit because once this thing gets open, they’re all going to want to come and then once you can’t, a lot of FOMO.
[00:02:34.060 –> 00:02:49.100] Dude, I thought, do you remember this is like, was it like a month ago or something like that? You texted me or I texted you congratulating you that for the club opening. It was like right around when it opened and you texted me back,
[00:02:49.100 –> 00:02:57.100] I can wait for you to come see it. I think you meant to say, I can’t wait for you to come see it. But I thought there was something so funny about just texting me.
[00:02:57.100 –> 00:03:07.100] Like if that was your way of telling me, you don’t want me at the club. I can wait. I can wait for you to see it actually. Oh, that’s hilarious. It has been a problem though because there’s, you know,
[00:03:07.100 –> 00:03:21.140] a lot of people want to come and some of them are just, you know, people are weird like that want a headline and you know, they know, like you know that you’re not really a headliner. Like what are you talking about?
[00:03:21.140 –> 00:03:29.140] Now I’m in the position where I was talking to Adam about it because I’m trying to find a, he’s trying to find me a weekend and then he was like, I was like, I’m free this weekend and he’s like,
[00:03:29.140 –> 00:03:38.140] you know, I offered that to Schultz but let me see and then I have to be like, you know, you don’t want to book Andrew Schultz, man. He harasses the staff and stuff. So like, you know, I just have to lie about my friends.
[00:03:38.180 –> 00:03:48.180] He’s actually gotten really into drugs, man. He’s been assaulting people. You don’t want to have him here. Yeah, he like loses it on stage. Yeah, it’s really not cool. He yells at people. It’s weird when you hear stories like that.
[00:03:48.180 –> 00:04:04.180] Like someone like losing it, yelling at people and shit. First like weird stories about people. Yeah. I think the pressure of stand up, like the constant performance, it’s like running an engine at very hot at high RPMs for many, many miles. Like things blow.
[00:04:04.180 –> 00:04:18.220] And we’re all kind of crazy people to begin with. So some people have that more in check than others. But yeah, I don’t want to name any names, but I’ve seen a couple hot ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The most fun people know. Yeah.
[00:04:18.220 –> 00:04:28.220] That fucking green room, like the hang in the green room. It’s like one of the greatest things of all time. It’s just excellent, man. It’s set up like you can just tell it was designed by a comedian.
[00:04:28.220 –> 00:04:40.260] You know what I mean? Or at least like there was a… That perspective was taken into account. And tonight after the show we’ll go to the bar. Because the bar becomes like a speakeasy at 11 p.m. It’s a private club from 11 p.m. on.
[00:04:40.260 –> 00:04:54.260] So it’s open to the public until 11. And then after the shows, the comics and the staff all come down and hang. Amen. It’s the best dude. Hell yeah. We just like created what I thought would be the perfect environment to develop comedy.
[00:04:54.260 –> 00:05:06.300] So there’s two nights of open mics, which I think is very important. And Bill Burd and I were talking about this when he was in town. And he was like, that’s something that a lot of these clubs just forgot.
[00:05:06.300 –> 00:05:18.300] They just want to fill the place every night and make a lot of money. But you’ve got to have a farm team. You’ve got to have guys coming up. You’ve got to have places where women can go on stage,
[00:05:18.300 –> 00:05:28.340] where men can go on stage, where anyone can go on stage. Where you can just fucking… You don’t have to have any experience. You don’t have to have nothing. You just have to have a dream and some ideas and a sense that you think you can be funny.
[00:05:28.340 –> 00:05:44.340] And you can get up. Yeah, and one of the things that’s cool about it, and I think a lot of this is because it’s your club, that there’s this kind of… There’s just this thing in you where you’re like, you can be fearless here.
[00:05:44.340 –> 00:05:56.380] You know this is like to borrow a safe space to be a comedian. Like go for it. And it’s almost because it’s your club and you know the crowd knows that. They know that they’re coming for comedy here.
[00:05:56.380 –> 00:06:09.380] And it’s just great because that’s one of the things that’s… Especially in cities across America now. Like in terms of regular showcase clubs, it’s different when you go out in headline because that’s kind of like your crowd coming. But just random spots and stuff.
[00:06:09.380 –> 00:06:21.380] That’s a lot of comics that’s kind of in the back of their mind. Like oh man, is there going to be someone here who’s looking to get offended at something I’m saying. Yeah. That’s a real thing. There are… I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it at clubs.
[00:06:21.420 –> 00:06:33.420] It’s fucking bizarre where someone will start a premise and then someone will yell out, bullshit! Fuck that! Like they’ll yell out like to like virtue. They’ll have my flag of virtue.
[00:06:33.420 –> 00:06:49.420] I will hold it up in this crowd of people that are trying to enjoy something that’s obviously not real. It’s called stand-up comedy. You know what it is. I remember I had a bit about this on my hour that I put out in 2017.
[00:06:49.460 –> 00:07:02.460] And it was just like right when Donald Trump, you know like first came into office. But I remember like working out stuff at clubs in New York City. And if you started a premise about Donald Trump, you could feel the tension in the room
[00:07:02.460 –> 00:07:13.460] where people are being like, you better not like him. Like you better get to the point where you’re against him. Like are you on my team? Are you not on my team yet? Or you could like feel it in, you know… Especially New York. Yeah.
[00:07:13.460 –> 00:07:28.500] Dude I was there when he got elected. And me and my friend Cam Haynes. Were you there Jamie? We were walking down the street and Jamie too. We were walking down the street. And there was an anti-Trump protest. And I was watching this guy.
[00:07:28.500 –> 00:07:54.540] And this guy, this fucking stereotypical liberal progressive white guy was walking down the street and he was chanting out Donald Trump KKK racist sexist anti-gay. Donald Trump. And then he saw this black couple walking towards him and he starts going, Black lives matter. Black lives matter.
[00:07:54.540 –> 00:08:11.540] He just like on cue. He’s like he got a… Oh yeah, yeah, yeah that part. Black lives matter. He just starts and I’m like this is adorable. These people are adorable. It’s really… It’s something bonk. He really… Donald Trump, he broke a lot of brains. I don’t know.
[00:08:11.580 –> 00:08:24.580] It’s a really weird impact that he had on people where he just got them so angry that they could no longer think straight. I remember, I was living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan at the time when he first got elected
[00:08:24.580 –> 00:08:36.580] and I remember seeing like some of those like protests. I remember seeing… You know like I remember that a couple with like their little girl like maybe she was like 12 or something like that and she was holding up a worst president ever sign.
[00:08:36.580 –> 00:08:49.620] And you’re like okay first off he’s had the job for two months. Second off, this is very disrespectful to all of the horrible presidents before him. Like LBJ slaughtered like two million Vietnamese. He doesn’t even get like a shot at contention here. You’re already giving it to Trump.
[00:08:49.620 –> 00:09:02.620] Give him time. He’ll do some bad things. He’s probably involved in the Kennedy assassination as well. Almost certainly. Yeah, probably. You don’t want to talk about that. Seems like he didn’t like JFK. Seems like maybe he liked the CIA.
[00:09:02.620 –> 00:09:13.660] It seems that way but you don’t want to talk about it too much Joe. You could lose your Fox News gig that way. You know what I love about LBJ? He used to take a shit with the reporters like standing there. Yeah. For the stall open.
[00:09:13.660 –> 00:09:26.660] He was a wild dude. Just take a shit. Come on, come on, let’s talk. We just sit there and fucking grunt one out. It’s the strangest but yet most alpha thing to possibly do. Yeah. To just comfortably shit. Come watch me shit.
[00:09:26.660 –> 00:09:43.650] While you talk to someone about Cambodia. Yeah. But yeah, that’s a wild move watching people shit. It’s a wild move watching people… It’s more wild to just have the confidence to just shit in front of people. He’s like, I’m the fucking president. Yeah, he was just… I guess.
[00:09:43.650 –> 00:09:57.650] Yeah, he was a bad guy. Would have never been elected. Would have never been elected. You can’t say never. Because if Biden was running against him, he probably would have been elected. Yeah. Our podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy and this is a better help advertisement.
[00:09:57.650 –> 00:10:10.690] It’s crazy how fast the year seems to be going by. Like, I can’t believe it’s already summer and basketball season is already almost over. Jamie’s very sad about that. Sometimes it feels like it just started. But you know, even with so much going on,
[00:10:10.690 –> 00:10:24.690] sometimes it’s important to slow down. Take a minute to reflect in yourself and what you’re doing. And if you need a little help with that, I recommend therapy. It’s a great tool you can use to work through anything. Not just major traumas.
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[00:10:59.730 –> 00:11:12.770] The fact that he’s running again is so wild. When you watch him talk, the fact that there’s no leadership that can find a solution to this, because there really is no solution. I mean, we’ve bantered about it, you and I,
[00:11:12.770 –> 00:11:28.770] and a lot of other people have as well. Like, what are they gonna do? Like, what is the… Other than Biden dying, like, very soon, and then someone stepping up in a big way that makes sense. Which is not beyond the realm of possibility.
[00:11:28.770 –> 00:11:46.810] He’s older than the average life expectancy, I believe, already. Not saying he will die, but that is possible. I’m sure there are a lot of people, like, in the Democratic establishment, who have been… Like, I could just imagine there’s a boardroom with, like, very powerful people meeting
[00:11:46.810 –> 00:11:58.810] who they’re like, okay, we’re getting them out. What’s the plan? Like, how do we do this? And I think they just cannot come up with one. I can’t come up with one. Well, I mean, I’m not a political strategist, but, you know, I know the landscape.
[00:11:58.810 –> 00:12:12.850] You know who’s out there. He’s perhaps brilliantly insulated himself by making Kamala Harris his vice president. It’s not a bad move. Because they’re like, well, we can’t have her. It’s like with Dan Quayle, with Bush. What do you want? Yeah, you think Bush is dumb?
[00:12:12.850 –> 00:12:27.850] You want this guy? Look at this fucking guy. Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s a good move. I mean, it’s kind of a bitch move, though. You know what it’s kind of like? It’s kind of like those headliner comics who bring terrible openers. Yes, that’s what it is. You know?
[00:12:27.890 –> 00:12:43.890] It’s like, yeah, you really want to do an hour after Kamala Harris? Like, all right. The crowd’s dead, but all right. Time is like time. It just passes and time is something that we’re all aware of. I gotta say, I don’t understand a joke,
[00:12:43.890 –> 00:12:54.890] because sometimes you’ll see it and you’re like, all right, you’re doing a thing here. Like this isn’t real. You’re like, are you like, is this a strategy of some sort? To just say nothing and like sound as dumb as possible? Because you can’t be this dumb.
[00:12:54.890 –> 00:13:10.930] I think it’s panic. Maybe. I think it’s anxiety and I think it’s panic and I think no one can understand, even you and I who perform live in front of strangers all the time. We would never be able to understand the kind of pressure
[00:13:10.930 –> 00:13:24.930] that must be on a person who’s deeply unqualified for the job and then all of a sudden finds herself in there through, you know, some, I mean, he went out of his way to say that he was going to have a black woman.
[00:13:24.970 –> 00:13:40.970] Like it was a thing that he wanted to do. It was like they had these diversity and inclusivity checkpoints that they had to reach. Which is also just a really shitty thing to do to her. It’s like a really profoundly selfish thing
[00:13:40.970 –> 00:13:52.970] if you think about it, because if you wanted, say, you wanted to make Kamala Harris your vice president because you know she’s a, you want a woman of color in there or whatever. The thing to do would be to say,
[00:13:53.010 –> 00:14:06.010] I’m going to find the absolute best most qualified person and then pick her. But if you do that, like that would be more generous toward her because then it makes it look at least like she was the best person for the job.
[00:14:06.010 –> 00:14:19.010] Whereas if you say, I’m going to make sure I pick a black woman, now you get all the brownie points for like, oh how woke you are. But now you kind of undermine her as like, well, she’s the best black woman I could find.
[00:14:19.010 –> 00:14:33.050] Not necessarily the best candidate. You know, so it’s a shitty move. I think it’s a good thing. I’ve talked to a lot of intelligent people that think it’s important for representation. And I’m like, I could see how you would say that
[00:14:33.050 –> 00:14:54.050] in a lot of jobs, but this is probably the most important one that anyone could ever have ever. It’s got to be a meritocracy. What’s weird about it is it’s almost as if there’s some weird prejudice built into that idea. Because if you don’t believe in like superiority
[00:14:54.050 –> 00:15:09.050] or inferiority of different races or different groups. Or genders. Right, different genders. Then you would just go, we’ll make it a meritocracy and let the absolute best person have the job and I’m confident in that system that lots of different people will be represented.
[00:15:09.050 –> 00:15:24.090] Whereas if you’re saying like, well no, we need to make sure it’s like, wouldn’t it be more ideal to just have the best person at every job and then to have any type of forced diversity? Right. Why would that not be better? Everyone in society is better off
[00:15:24.090 –> 00:15:40.090] if the best person qualified for jobs gets those jobs. Yes. You want the best scientist and the best doctors and the best pilots and the best. You want everyone to be the best. Yeah. No one ever wants like your surgeon to be picked based on anything other than
[00:15:40.090 –> 00:15:56.130] the best at performing this surgery. Yes, yeah. You don’t ever say I want a white man doing surgery on me. No. Who the fuck, is that Chinese lady the best? Bring her in. Yeah, like do more people survive when she does this? Jesus Christ. I’d like her.
[00:15:56.130 –> 00:16:16.130] Who’s the expert? Fix my brain. Yeah. It’s interesting because it’s like, it’s very similar in some ways to affirmative action, right? And affirmative action in my opinion is you’re addressing a problem without addressing the root of the problem. The root of the problem is why are
[00:16:16.170 –> 00:16:35.170] so many people of color disenfranchised? Why are so many people who grow up in neighborhoods where there’s rampant crime and violence and why haven’t they fixed those fucking neighborhoods? They’re dumping so much money into all these problems overseas, we have systemic problems in America that never get addressed.
[00:16:35.170 –> 00:16:51.210] And this is like generations it takes to fix these problems. Generate, it’s like a long-term strategy. But I always said this, if you want to make America the best, what would be the best way to do that? Well, you want less losers, right?
[00:16:51.210 –> 00:17:07.210] So what’s the best way to have fewer losers to give more people opportunities? So who are the people that have the least opportunities? The people that are in the most fucked places. You could fix that. There’s ways you could dump tons of money and resources into inner cities,
[00:17:07.210 –> 00:17:31.250] into these problem areas with law enforcement, with community centers, places where people could go, where they have things to do and people can train them in whether it’s athletics or different jobs and show them and mentor them. That’s not prohibitively impossible. You’re not saying they all deserve
[00:17:31.250 –> 00:17:51.290] their own nuclear power plant. You know what I’m saying? What you’re saying is totally doable. And that’s the way to fix all these problems of disparity because people that grow up in wealthy communities where everyone is sort of trying to achieve things, there’s a vibe of those places
[00:17:51.290 –> 00:18:05.290] and so many of those people from those places wind up succeeding. Yeah, I think it’s… A lot of it I think also is that there’s a very kind of like shallow narrative about what it is that keeps people in these areas down
[00:18:05.290 –> 00:18:23.330] and so it’s kind of like, you know, it’s just all… racism or it’s systemic racism, just these kind of terms that aren’t specific. It’s like, what is actually happening here? Right. And so much of the problem is that like the kind of culture and family units
[00:18:23.330 –> 00:18:39.370] have just been destroyed. Like they’ve been decimated. And then it’s like you can pump money into like the public schools there, which we do, we spend a lot of money on public schools and they’re still crappy schools and the results are still bad. Even back in…
[00:18:39.370 –> 00:18:53.370] And there’s a lot of like Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell who are both like two black conservative really brilliant thinkers, they both wrote a lot about this. How like in the 40s even during…there was, you know, segregation in the South
[00:18:53.370 –> 00:19:07.410] and there was like a whole bunch of horrible policies. But even back then, you know, you could walk around Harlem with no threat of like violence or anything like that and family units were together. And the white legitimacy rate was higher
[00:19:07.410 –> 00:19:23.410] than the white legitimacy rate at the time. And there were a lot of policies that came in that really destroyed like the family unit. Like what policies? Well, the rise of the welfare state was a really big one. It kind of subsidized single parenthood,
[00:19:23.410 –> 00:19:39.450] which is people respond to incentives even though it seems like that’s an ugly thing to think but if you pay people for having children out of wedlock, you know, the other policies would have and the other major one to meet was the war on drugs,
[00:19:39.450 –> 00:19:55.450] which I just think was absolutely devastating to these neighborhoods. You know, just like with prohibition of alcohol where we I think was still the highest homicide rate in American history was under prohibition of alcohol and then once they legalized alcohol again it drastically reduced
[00:19:55.450 –> 00:20:11.490] in the next few years. The same thing with the prohibition of drugs you create these black markets, really destroying these neighborhoods is like the violent gang culture and it’s all built and funded around drugs that would the black markets for which would not exist
[00:20:11.490 –> 00:20:25.490] if we just called the whole thing off. It’s just calling the whole thing off is so scary politically because if you were a guy like Joe Biden that said I’m going to legalize all drugs people would turn on you they’d freak the fuck out.
[00:20:25.490 –> 00:20:39.530] Yeah, well getting the political will up to do it is something that’s going to be easy year now and so much of it is driven by the fact that people are getting fentanyl in shit that they don’t even know that’s not supposed to have fentanyl in it
[00:20:39.530 –> 00:20:55.530] because it’s in black markets and Joe Biden is absolutely I mean it’s hard to like hate him so much now because he’s so old and senile it’s hard to even hold him responsible but his career he was like probably the worst person on this issue.
[00:20:55.530 –> 00:21:13.570] Joe Biden since the 80s he challenged Ronald Reagan from the right partnered up with Strom Thurman and was criticizing Reagan for being too soft on drugs and then he was the one who authored the crime bill that Bill Clinton signed into law.
[00:21:13.570 –> 00:21:33.610] He’s got a lot of death and destruction on his old hands. Yeah, that crime bill. The whole just war on drugs thing is such a strange issue because logically everyone knows that when you legalize things and certainly when you decriminalize things you get a giant drop
[00:21:33.610 –> 00:21:51.610] in violent crime you get a giant drop in addiction it’s so counterintuitive but people are so terrified because drugs have been so devastating like the eye because I think that if we did legalize all drugs and it happened quickly you’re going to have more overdoses
[00:21:51.610 –> 00:22:03.650] you’re going to have more deaths you’re just going to because there’s going to be more access Yeah, but when do people when does it balance out? Well I don’t know, I think there will be more access for sure
[00:22:03.650 –> 00:22:17.650] but I don’t, I think so many of the overdoses now are because people become addicted to pain pills or become addicted to heroin and get fentanyl in it and you wouldn’t have that if drugs were legal so you wouldn’t have, you would have
[00:22:17.650 –> 00:22:29.690] like there’s not a problem with people smoking cigarettes and finding out there was fentanyl in their cigarettes or there could be if it was on a black market and you were just getting it from some gang member you know? So I think it would reduce overdoses
[00:22:29.690 –> 00:22:45.690] in that sense there’s no question it’s a trade-off there’s no good perfect solution where there’s not any costs but the major benefit would be you would eliminate like the gang violence and already even I think when they
[