Brandt Tobler is one of the funniest people I know. He is from my hometown of Cheyenne. I really wanted to talk to him for the podcast because I believe humor is the secret key to reality creation. Humor can reduce importance and bring energy.
So I wanted to talk to a master.
Brandt has done standup for a decade, playing shows all over the country. You may have seen him on Comedy Central, being interviewed by Jay Mohr or doing shots with Bert Kreischer.
You can find Brandt most nights at the Comedy Store in Denver one of the best comedy clubs in the country.
Brandt is also a terrific writer who wrote the mind blowing book Free Roll.
In this interview we find ouut about Brandt’s story and the secrets to his success. How he uses visualization in his comedy, how he chooses what to use, the energy of groups, how to overcome failure, ignoring your present reality and most importantly if Drew Lock will be a Franchise quarterback for the Denver Broncos.
In any case please help Brandt get over 1000 subscribers on Youtube. You can subscribe here
Welcome to the reality revolution. This is one of the most exciting days on the podcast. I get to interview my hometown hero, Brent Tobler from Cheyenne, Wyoming, three Oh seven all the way. Uh, I’ve known and followed Brandt my whole life cause you know, every, every town has that one dude that becomes famous. And so I’ve lived vicariously through brand, like watching you on Sunday with Terry Bradshaw or drinking shots with Bert Kreischer, doing interviews with Jay Moore. It’s just the coolest thing. I think everybody in Cheyenne, so many people like live vicariously like, Oh dude, that’s, it’s the coolest thing. But the thing that’s cool about brand, he’s a great writer. Free roll. One of the best books that you can read. I have, they bought the rights for this because I seriously, this is Terentino’s [inaudible] man, all the way we’re working on it. I hope so. It’s that kind of stuff’s out of my control.
So, Oh man, this is, I hope so man. So I’m on top of that. He’s just one of the funniest people that I’ve ever met. Uh, you can see him on comedy central. He has a podcast of the 31 and, and the, uh, Oh, fantastic YouTube channel. We’re trying to get it over a thousand subs. So if you watch us go and subscribe, I’ll put a link to brand’s YouTube channel. He is hilariously funny. There are so many stories. Of course I’ve been following you so long. There’s so many stories that are outside of it. We have so many interconnections being that we’re from the hometown, from the same place, but my podcast deals with reality creation and law of attraction and metaphysics and, and how we deal with success. And so I have an episode on if you guys want to check it out, it’s reality and version.
The idea is what the most powerful technique, even more powerful than a meditator or Yogi, uh, to create reality and is comedy and humor. I’m a huge student of comedy and humor. I’m like Jerry Seinfeld when I watched that show. He’s like, he meets every single comic and wants to know everything about how they, how they’re funny. He’s like that kind of fascination. Uh, you know, I’ve, I don’t think you can teach comedy. Steve Martin or you know, of course I took his masterclass. I’ve never been very funny. But there’s something about learning about comedy. It’s, it’s the hardest science. There’s no actual book there. You can’t go take a class. You can, you can. And then if you hear something funny, well of course you can’t repeat that same joke cause that’s their joke. That’s their funny is you come to this place where you learn about yourself and people are, they live longer.
I think that five minutes of of laughing is, is it powerful? Three hours of meditating. That’s that. That’s my belief. And so, um, I’m sorry to keep on going on, but I just want to introduce everybody. Brandt Tobler welcome to the reality revolution. Thank you. Thank you for that. Nice central and thank you for having me. So, uh, one I wanted to ask you that question. You, if anybody reads your book, you had a bunch of like crises in your life where you easily could have just said, Aw man, my life is so terrible. You know, you had like with your father, the story, if everybody reads the book about what, what happened with your father, how he wasn’t there and you had so many points in time, but you chose to ignore what was in your present reality and like had a vision of what you wanted to do and you followed it with like joy. So tell me more about that. I want to break it down. Like I’m like, if I wanted to follow your path, what have you learned? Tell me about it.
Well, you know, to be honest, like people always say, did you dream of being a comedian growing up? And the truth is no because growing up where we grew up, there was no comedy clubs. It just wasn’t even a dream. I dream. Yeah, it’d be like a PE teacher and like a JV basketball coach. But then I moved to Phoenix and then eventually, um, I started someone cause I was like class clown in junior high class clown in high school. And then one of my friends suggest that I should try stand up. So, but I didn’t know anything about it. And then so I, I thought about it and then I, a couple of times I talked into a microphone and like a in like a hotel conference room or something. Just when there was a mic on I could, but no one was around and I talked to no microphone and it wouldn’t to hearing my own voice amplified would make my eyes water. Yes. I was like, I can’t be a comedian. He’s not very funny to sit up here and cry. So I chicken out, chicken out. And then eventually
I taught public speaking and it’s one for just anybody just getting in front of the mic. One of the greatest fears to overcome. And at the same time you’re trying to make people laugh. So you, how did you get to that point where you were like relaxed in your skin enough to get in front of these, these crazy people that sometimes they’re vicious man, some of these crazy,
you know, luckily when I first, so I checked out a bunch of times and I finally did it and I think that helped me cause I was pretty prepared. But honestly I invited like 12 people and had a couple of drinks and then I was like, I got it. You don’t have it. All those people there kind of forced me to go up cause I didn’t want to disappoint them. It was one thing when I’d sign up and then I could just back out when nobody was coming. But all my friends, you know, got babysitters or took a night off from work or whatever it was and then they came. So I was like, here we go. I got to do it. And then luckily for me that first time went really good. I was hooked immediately and then I walked off stage at night and I was like, that was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. And then [inaudible] and there was no turning back.
Right. Tell me about that feeling when you get a group of people to laugh, that little moment in time when it’s something that came from you, it’s like genuinely you, it’s your joke. It’s not some joke you heard somebody else give and you have everybody laughing. Like there’s this energy, the exchange almost, right? It’s like better than any drug, right?
Yeah. There’s nothing like it because you, so I’ll write something and then I’ll go through that day gone because sometimes I think it’s going to be great and then it’s not, which is another feeling. Yeah. Well when it, when it works and you’re just like, it’s so cool to, you know, I, I keep a positive mindset about it because I’m going to get paid to do, I can go up there and make fart noises and people give me money. And so it’s like once you, once I figured it out, kind of the rush of it is, is so much fun. And it’s like a, it’s kind of a corny thing to say. Like when you’re in high school, you’ve got his counselor. It’d be like, if you, if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. And at the time I had crappy jobs and I was like, that’s the dumbest thing. Well, like I have a sold out show tonight. I’m on and I’m just waiting for it, counting down the minutes where that’s not, yeah,
we’re a comedy store every night. That’s the one in downtown or the one near Ted’s Montana grill and the tech center.
There’s two of them. So we rotate. So last night I did both and then tonight I’m downtown
both in their great clubs. I’m just so excited the fact that every time you go there, I’ve seen so many great shows there. You know, the audiences are great.
Yeah. Most people consider it the best club in the country outside of LA. And so we’re very spoiled. You get to work with the best comedians in the world and uh, [inaudible] just set up for comedy. The key thing that we do here in Denver is they take everybody’s phones and they put them in a yonder thing so you can’t be on your phone, which is such a help to us as artists. Cause then there’s nothing more frustrating than working on a joke and then looking down and seeing someone, the glow of their phone and their face, it’s like, Oh, they’re not even paying attention to that 100% so yeah, we’re, we’re very spoiled here in Denver.
Yeah. After doing it for a while. There’s a creative part that’s like being a writer or a musician where you have these moments that come to you. And so everybody has a different creative process. So, uh, you know, w what is your, do you do, you just do, right? Do you record, did you like, do you have somebody you feed off of? I mean w what’s your process, your creative?
So my process in the beginning, cause I didn’t know what to do. This is like a, there’s no real school for it. You can read a book, but honestly the, in the beginning somehow I had like a rhyming dictionary and then I w and it was just words that rhymed with each other. And then I would go through on a word and see if it, it started anything in my head and then that caused me to ride a lot of pun jokes. But then as you get better at comedy, you write about your life. So now if something happens in my life, I’ll take a long walk and I’ll just work it out in my head, work it out in my head. And then I’ll go, just try it on stage. I don’t, I don’t run it by, I run stuff a little by my girlfriend, but, right. It’s not fair to hurt cause if I think it’s good and then she doesn’t like it, I’m like, what’s she going to say? Right. Or if she is honest, I’m like, well you’re, that’s negative. And then so
about comedy in the age of puns, like that’s my con. Like my kids get annoyed with me. I say, no, no, none of my puns get laughs. But I’m like pointing all the time. Right. So there’s a some point in time in comedy that some dude was like the first like [inaudible] like he got up and people are like, Oh, right now you can’t, there’s no pun comedy. Right.
So yeah, it’s kind of frown. I mean, it’s just what you do when you’re, you’re starting out, but right. To me, the guys I look up to talk about their own lives and uh, and then like you said earlier, you can’t use jokes. You can’t like use another person’s joke. It’s not like a band where you can, you know, a band can play their new stuff and if it’s bad, they can just cover the greatest song ever. Like we can’t do that. So it’s like the only rule in comedies, you don’t have jokes similar to somebody. So that’s why you just talk about your own life because then no one can say that. You know, you don’t, you don’t ever want to be on a show and and have a similar pun joke or the same joke. Or if I talk about my life,
yeah, there’s that part of you that’s always analyzing your joke. So that the thing about a comedian that’s fascinating is you have to separate yourself from that party. That’s always like critical of all your jokes. Right? Right.
Yeah. You just learn to just go up there and fire away. And what did the key thing is once you realize that if you bomb, you’re going to be okay. You know when it’s like, what do you do if it goes bad? I go, I just get off stage like I do. If it goes good. It’s, the thing is, is it’s not a, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And once you realize that part of the process is bombing, so you actually lie. Sometimes I like to bomb. As absurd as that is because it gives you a different rush. Everybody bombs, everybody bombs and then it’s, it brings you back to starting when you bombed a lot. So, and it’s funny, that’s kind of what the way the comedy gods work. Anytime I feel like I’m really good. The next show I have, you’ll both probably bomb. It’s like they just always remind you like, no,
the comedy gods. I like that. So when I lived in, um, I’ve been in Huntington beach and walked into club and Jay Leno is still playing, doing stand up like almost every day. You know, it’s that kind of a Jones, right? Like smoking cigarettes, right?
I did. I did both shows last night at the best clubs and then I went to this awful open Mike, that’s just awful. And then I just ate it there. But part of it, just the comradery about around being around comics. Once you become a comic, you just want to be around comics. Like you’ll hear these guys of Seinfeld and rock, they’ll say, I’m at this big event, all these famous people are there, but I just find a comic across the room. I’m, I’m drawn to them. So it’s, it’s a kind of secret, like for fraternity,
I get that. I get that 100% even the worst comics, the comics love each other. And that’s what I noticed. Yeah.
Because we were bad at one time. You know, it’s like people always asked me about starting comedy and I’m like, you have it. Just go do it. And then you’re one of us. It’s the easiest fraternity to get in because no matter what, if you’d come up to me after a show and you’re like, Hey man, good show. I’m like, thank you, I appreciate it. But if you’re like, Hey, great show, I’m a comic, I’ll go, okay, hold on. Stay right here. Let me talk to the people and then let me talk to you. And then I, and then, you know, you could just talk it, I could talk comedy all day long because I just love it. So it’s, it’s a weird, it’s a, it’s the best, uh,
addiction I think you can, I mean, there’s other parts of it. It’s ruined a lot of relationships. It’s all, it really is an addiction where
so many touch points in my life when it was like, if a girl wasn’t on board, then I just said, sorry. You know, like I got to go to these shows, but they don’t understand. Like I had, I did a show last, I did those two shows and was at another show late. But you’re out working, but you’re also in a bar drinking and it looks like you’re hanging out. But that’s a lot of the job is networking and meeting people. And it’s a weird dynamic that a lot of times a partner in a relationship doesn’t understand cause it looks like you’re just out goofing around. But that’s when you book shows and stuff. It’s such a weird, weird world.
Yeah. So how, how dirty is too dirty, personal. That’s a personal thing right now. But that would be the thing that would start. Okay. I want to tell some jokes, but how that’s going to be a question that came to your mind at some point, right? You were like how dirty is too dirty, right?
Yeah. Well, Oh, that’s the thing I always tell people there’s no rules,
right? There is no rules. But still there’s rules. You have your own rules, right?
Yeah. Well the rule is just be funny. If you can be dirty and be funny, then you’ll be fine. But if you’re dirty and you’re not funny, you’re going to have more of a problem than if you’re clean and not funny. For me. So comedy went down into this bad place and we’re bringing it back where everyone was so woken, offended by everything.
So the PC culture like has changed everything that college campuses, college, you can’t do those college tours anymore because it doesn’t matter what you say, right? Whatever you say, there’s going to be some side that’s going to be offended
in some manner, right? Yeah. But that’s what, but it’s coming back around and like, and over time you just realize like every night I know I’m not gonna make everybody happy and I don’t want to like my analogy, if you’d come to my show, it’s like getting in a car with me and we’re going to go for a ride. And sometimes I might go a little faster than you want or I might go a little into a dark neighborhood you don’t like. But I think that’s better than the comics that I see that just pander and go up there and just say to me, when you pander like that, that I compare it to getting in a car, packing as many people as you can get in a car and then just stay in a neutral, like that’s not fun. I guess it’s safe. You’re never going to get in a crash. You’re never, but it’s not to me, the comics, I look up to take chances and like, and I do bits now and that’s what’s inspiring. When I see someone come in, like when Chappelle comes or somebody, right. And they’d take chances and then
they take chances, right? Yes.
You don’t want to make everybody [inaudible]
like Chappelle says, like I could say something now and my whole career is over. Right. Just one thing. Right. So,
yeah, exactly. I mean people try to cancel it. It was bad for awhile, but I think people, it got too far and in society it was like a 10% wild and then society got so PC, it brought it down to like 1% and then everyone’s like, ah, we don’t want it this far down. Let’s try to find a happy, happy medium. Right. Which is still, but like Chappelle’s out there as a voice for all of us. Like, you know, you don’t tell us how to do comedy and we don’t know. Like I said, I don’t know. I’ll try something. I think it’s funny and then it won’t work. Or you know, someone will come up to me and be like, ah, that joke ha, I have a brother that’s whatever. And it’s just like, okay, I don’t know your brother. I don’t know, but the rest of the crowd didn’t like I would say, I would say we’re just, we just want to make you laugh, man, and if you don’t like it, then just go on with your lives. Go on. Right? Yeah. You go see a band you don’t like,
you just go home. You never see that. They don’t walk up to him and say, you know that song, it really offended me because of my brother. You don’t say that with the song, right? Yeah, I get it.
The other thing is like if you’re going to a band, you do a little research. You don’t just go to a venue and go, whatever it is, heavy metal, country Christian. Whereas calm, just show up. I’m on the marquee, I’m all over the internet. You could have Googled me if I’m a little, if I talk about stuff you don’t like, then just go to something else, but for some reason people are so entitled. They think going to a comedy show, it needs to be the comedy they like, which you would never do that. You could never go to a music venue and let’s say you like country music and they’re playing heavy metal. You couldn’t go over to the manager and be like, why are they playing heavy metal? I don’t like heavy metal. It’s like, well that’s what we do. You could have done it. So stuff like that. So frustrating and people just love to complain, you know, like, but we’re lucky that we, Wendy, the owner of the clubs here backs us and she understands like we know people will get mad at the start of a joke. They don’t even see where it goes.
Right? They just, some people, I’ve been in crowds where people clearly just came there to be mad. Like beforehand, they were mad when they walked in. So you get that. And so, so the next question, how soon is too soon? Again, it’s, it’s funny, right? Cause that’s always going to be a question. How soon is too soon, right?
For me it’s funny because once again, it’s a different answer for everybody,
right? Science, comedy is one of those sciences. There is no exact answers, but it does deserve deep study because every time I learn and watch different comedians, I learn more. Even though I’m not a comedian myself, there is something to it. There’s something about this energy. I think it’s like an almost an individual spirit energy of laughing that you can see it in your, when you’re in a room, when everybody starts laughing, it’s almost like higher vibration occurs, right? You’ve seen crowds, what you’ve been in and just like they’ve become, it’s a rolling crowd of energy, right? Just from your laugh. The laugh has this power.
Yeah. When it, when you get your crowd can go, when it gets together like that, those are the best.
It’s like a pendulum, but it’s like a positive pendulum you’re using. You’re getting, people are getting something back from it. Yeah. I love
it. Right on those nights then you’re just like floating up there. It’s like you just come off and you’re like, that was crazy. Watching a Pearl jam show up close and thinking the same thing, like they’re just riding this wave of energy from the crowd that’s coming down. It doesn’t even matter. There’s this other thing that happens. People don’t even really talk about. They go to live shows. There’s this other energy. It’s, it’s truly amazing, right? Yeah. That’s why I’m a, I’m a, I love going to, I’ll go to pretty much any live. Yeah. I won every national championship and yeah, whatever event you’re going to go cause and so that’s part of the comedian. Is that feeding on that group energy almost a little bit, right? The energy, like a group energy vampire.
I can find that energy. If I’m not performing, like I can’t really go to a movie. I haven’t been to a movie forever because it doesn’t, I mean a laugh and a movie together is cool, but like for me, I’m, I’m big energy guy. Like I liked the moment, I liked the hair on my arms to stand up in a sporting event or on a concert or, or at a show like so. So theory just coming to me a theoretical. If we can tune into that group energy, we can, if you, if you’re wanting to be a comedian or you want to be a comic or feed into some, anything that involves a group tuning, what you’re telling me is something that I would pull from as like a secret technique. Like you are, you’re, you’re feeding on the energy outside of you just performing in crowds.
You’re just, you’re at that frequency, right? You kind of like seek it out natural. You don’t even think about it. Right? It’s the more of that in your life, the more you feel it even in your crowds that you’re on, right? Yeah, for sure. I’m just drawn to that. Like if I’m just walking through a neighborhood and then I hear, hear that crowd noise or something, I’m like, I got to go and I want to see it and I want to feel, and then I like watching other performers and I like just the whole energy of like, there’s nothing better than, than seeing it live. So, uh, I could do a stand up. Do you visualize your, your mood? Like, do you visualize your movements of how it’s gonna look when you’re looking out on the crowd? Do you go into the moment of it as if you’re delivering it or how do you practice it out in your mind?
You know, in my mind I don’t, in my mind, I’m more thinking about the jokes and not the crowd. So you can never, you know, friends since like when you start, if you visualize the crowd, you visualize, you know, the room or whatever, but then you come out, come out, and then you look at the crowd and everybody be having fun except for one person. And then for some reason you focus on that one person. Right? So now in my head I just visualize, you know, I don’t visualize it as much. I probably should. I, there’s other comics that do that, but it’s hard to visualize because you never know what’s going to happen. Right. So when I come, you try to bring up that feeling, what the joke’s gonna
feel like if it’s successful when you tell it.
Does that make sense? Yeah, no, in my head. But then it’s sometimes it’s just not successful. Sonia, in my head I always do think, Oh, this is going to crush. And then as I write it in my head, when I come out, there’ll be pauses where I assume there’ll be laughter. So I visualize a lap here, but then sometimes those passes, there’s no laughter and you’re like, Oh crap, this is how we visualize this. So it’s like a, it’s definitely in the moment because I don’t really know what I’m, people are always like, do you know what it is?
The moment the better. That’s why those improv comics were the best, like Robin Williams and those dudes that didn’t come prepared at all. Right.
That’s the rush out of it. Like I love writing material, so if I write something new tonight and it works, I liked that for like the first week, but then what I really like is last night, like I went off the cuff and I was talking to these people and then if you nail it right there and the crowd, that’s when you get the biggest energy. There you go. God just did that. What he just did was so good and he just did it. It’s sometimes people come up after and go and did you guys plan that? And I’m like, I don’t know that dude. I have no, I, that’s the most frustrating. But for me up there
so fascinated by it because you’re tuning into almost an outside of your body energy that takes over.
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the energy again, when you feel like you’re floating. Like when I came off last night, like I just had a line that I just, that’s when I’m the most happy too, when I’m like, I was cool where I, you know, when I just do the same stories over and over or jokes and you’re perfecting them and okay, you change a word or you put something in that makes you feel good. But in the moment when you just hit, when S when they say something and you say something right back and then the crowds just like, that’s the feeling when you’re like, that’ll keep you up at night. Like that’s why it’s hard to come home and sleep
living in LA. And for a long time, I’ve had so many friends that are comedians. And the thing I’ve noticed I want to ask you about is, and you live here for a while, and even if you’re living in Denver, part of the process of being a comedian is the thousands of auditions and hopes that you get up. People tell you you’re going to get this gig or that job. And there’s so, it’s just a, you’re, you’re constantly being told of stuff that never happens. And then it’s like, you know, you get that one thing, but it’s the thing that you’re balancing that people aren’t aware of is that you’re going to, you’ve had like a hundred things told you that you’re going to get like for sure like movies and gigs and scrape. Right. And it seems like every comedian, it’s like a hundred times.
It’s like there’s no doubt. And then it’s like something happens and it’s like, so you have to always be like, some people when they get told no or it doesn’t work out, they just become so devastated. It becomes so important. Like they like, Hey, you know, they can’t go to the next right. Probably put together some ways of dealing with it. Cause I mean when you were in LA, how many auditions did you go to? How many times hear about right unbelief people, people think that if they’re watching it’s like 10 or 12 no, we’re talking about thousands. Like a daily thing of being constantly told. No, not, not right now. Right in the nicest, most polite way.
Like the thing a lot of people think that you have to have like a bad childhood to be a comedian or have a rough life growing up. But that’s not true. But I think it makes you ready for standup because standup is just up, down, up, down. So as weird as it is by, like in the book I talk about, I just had a bad father that was in prison and he would come and he would show up and there’d be these amazing highs and then he promised me that he’d be there and then he wouldn’t show up, you know, crushed me at like a 10 year old birthday party or something. Or way of dealing in some weird way, like going through the, when I got to LA, you know, when I first got there, I believed that every time I would, you know, I’d say all this is going to happen.
And then I’d call back home. I said, I think I got this. And then you realize then you don’t get it. And then everyone back home is like, uh, I thought I’m going to be on TV this week. And then they don’t understand. So now it’s like now, so like even with my girlfriend, I’ll get a big email and a lot of times I won’t even tell her, right. Because it doesn’t matter until it, it happens. You just, you know, it’s just a lot of people, anyone can write anything they want on an email to actually do it. But the beauty of standup, the beauty of entertainment, everything is what we’re doing right now. Did you just do it yourself? Right. That’s the thing that I learned is like,
but let me ask you this. I teach this on my podcast. The ones where you don’t make them too important or the ones that seem to happen the most often. Right. The ones that you’re, Oh, that one’s so important. I’ve got to get this one. Those are the ones that don’t. Right. The ones that you put the pedestal, am I right?
Yeah, for sure. And a lot of like famous actors will say that like when they, when they cared the least is when they got it and cared. But when they just went in the room and they were themselves and like
when it’s, it’s hard sometimes cause it’s, it would be so cool. Right. So you might get right. So imagine like in that moment, okay, I’m not going to make this important. Not this time. Right. It’s hard. Right? It’s like a learning experience. I bet.
Yeah. Dude, a dude posted something today about, he had a meeting in his early twenties and he, he went to the gym every day and worked out and bought a new outfit and everything and he went in and nothing happened. And now in his early forties he took a meeting yesterday. Didn’t shower anything. Just went in there and of course he like got it. But that’s the thing you don’t know until,
do you think that there a, there’s a link or two that like the ones that you kind of just do, it’s cool. I think even you probably perform better or whatever in those moments that you reduce the importance of it. It’s Zen like thing you learn. I think you’re learning something else. You’re doing comedy about just life in general. It kind of applies to everything you know.
Well weird energy that I’ve been talking about a lot with my girlfriend lately is that it’s just like if you just do the work, the, the world will just bring you opportunities. Like I, I’ve worked harder in the last couple months than ever and it’s like, and just stuff just come
right. I didn’t work. Stop hoping or wanting and all that is time that you can be doing the work. Right. So I think that you just said like a super, a master key for people that are in a similar situation. It doesn’t even have to apply to comedy. I just think for people that are trying to move up or be successful in whatever industry, we can learn lessons from what you’ve been through because you’ve had it on a maximum scale. Like some people go job interviews and they deal with two or three and imagine what for comedian, imagine going on a thousand job interviews, right? You’re constantly going on job interviews and being told that you’re going to get the job all the time. Right? Until the last minute.
Yeah, no. Well that’s like what I’m most proud about with my book is like, I’d never thought I’d write a book and people always ask me, how did you do it? I said, I just did it, man. I sat down, you know, I think the first thing I wrote was like, I wanted to dedicate it to my grandparents, so I wrote that, which is like a two sentence thing. Then I came up with like a title, then I came did it, and I just worked on it and there’s people always looking for a shortcut.
I would have to say one of the biggest motivations for me writing my book was, Hey man, Brent did it. I can do it. I’m sure there’s people there that have said that to you too, right? Like you did it. Um, it gives me like, Hey, that means I can do it too. Right. No. Well written if you did that, the stories in it. I wish we could have time on this podcast to go over, but I’m sure you’ve told some of those stories hundreds of times. And I, and I want people to read them for the first time cause they’re so insane. The stories in free roll are so insane. So I was, I know everything about that. The reason it’s special to me is that I, that mall is my mall and my dad and I was my special relationship with my dad when I would go and visit her, even during high school, we would always meet for lunch at that pizza place that you were at.
So we would always meet for lunch cause that was our dad would have lunch. Okay. Brian, let’s meet like at 12 right. We’d meet and we’d eat there and I knew all those guys you were describing in the book. I knew and I had those same thoughts and I remember the the Walden books right there and the the mall, the whole, the whole setup and you have like the mall mafia stories, so please read the book. We can go with that again. But the thing about the book that really struck at me is that you had these incidents that anybody else, they would be freaking out. Like, I lost this incredible amount of money or my dad did this or something terrible. Right? And you always found a way of, in those moments to react in almost a humorous manner and it’s reason for your success. Like you could have had that stuff just completely destroy you. Right. I want to talk about you kind of like it helped you, like you had big stuff happening, you were like that that stuff’s not going to matter. I’m going to keep doing what I want to do and find my goal.
Right? Yeah. Again, it’s like cheesy advice, but I just tell people, you just got to keep going, man. There’s, you just gotta keep going. I didn’t know. And, and some of the stuff that at the time, like I have about a couple of months ago, I had a real like weird week where I th I really thought about some decisions in my life. If a certain thing would’ve went wrong, different in that five minutes, my whole life would’ve been a whole different. I mean, like just simple things of like at an audition, if I’d had done this, I would have probably lived in New York right now. I wouldn’t have my girlfriend. I wouldn’t everything on the most little uh, decisions. And then,
and it’s just some producer out there is watching this right now and I’m just telling you, read the book. There’s some scenarios in that book. There is so classic for a movie, such incredible tension, like Quintin Tarantino style stuff happening that you added humor to it, like in the most improbable of ways and you’re able to get through it that it’s amazing. You can joke about it or anybody else, they’d be in prison or some other crazy thing. Right. That you went through so
well, yeah, that’s what I learned earlier is just, just laughter makes everything better. And that’s been my defense mechanism is I’m not like a tough guy or like, yeah, I just figured out humor, humor works with everybody, you know, like no one doesn’t like to laugh. So I figured out early in life like, but just being funny, it’s just always benefited me. So then I, I w I don’t know how much you work on. I mean I, I guess I work on it, but part of it I think is just natural part of it I guess is who I’m around growing up, you know, I can’t, cause honestly my mom’s not funny. People always ask me, how’d you get funny? And I, I would, I guess the kids I grew up with, but a little bit of me just thinks you’re born with it. Like,
yeah,
cause I don’t, there’s no reason in Cheyenne I should have, you know, there was no, it just wasn’t a thing to be funny really.
So it doesn’t matter your circumstances, what your family is, that the brand story will tell you that it doesn’t matter what you’re going through right now, what, what small town you’re living in. It doesn’t matter. You can still achieve your dreams. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Podunk, Wyoming or Cheyenne, Wyoming. Right. So, um, brand kept his hair because I lost mine. Cause of the wind just in Cheyenne alone. Right. You, um, this is unrelated, but do you remember the first time we met? No. No. When was it? We had Thanksgiving dinner. It was a Thanksgiving at the mall. Akins. You were hanging out with FIA. You had come over during Thanksgiving. That was the first time I met. Right. We have a love for the Broncos and Martha Mullikin. She’s the, she’s the coolest. Right. So I remember that. But, and you were a pretty good basketball player too, right?
Yeah. That was all I spent my whole life in hindsight, I wish I had done like theater, anything that would help my career. Right. Yeah.
I would say that everything that you did was perfect because it brought you to change anything. Know
it all. Uh, it all got me to here to do, you know, I, I, like I say in my book, I out dream my dreams. I never dreamed I’d do any of them. I mean, I have two CDs. I wrote a book performed all over the world. I mean, I’ve never, growing up in Wyoming, I just never even [inaudible] wasn’t even a, I never, and in fact, I lived in Hollywood for eight years. I never even thought maybe I’d go to California once in my life or so. I don’t even think I ever thought I could do it. So that’s what’s crazy about it is like,
but I get people that message me that say, Hey, I live in this terrible town or country or something and you know, I’m saying, I promise you it does not matter if you just, if you decide on your dream and you go for it, there’s people I meet like you all the time that don’t let that bother you.
Yeah. We could be doing what we’re doing wherever you live. There’s always excuses. Like not to make you all the motivation, but I’m telling you, just start. If you have just go, you just got to start going and then like people ask me what the book, you know, I saw I had a title. Then I was like, let me get like a thousand words and I got it and I was like, let me get 2,500 and then let me get to 5,000 and I was motivated by numbers, but over time it was fun. Then all of a sudden I was like, man, I’m at 20,000 words. To the point when I got the book done and I’ll never forget I got the book, my first copy, and I was holding it in a chick filet [inaudible] and I just started crying. I was like, this is my book. I couldn’t believe that I had wrote a book. I had never went to college.
Did you imagine that beforehand holding your book in your hand?
Yeah, well as it,
as a group, as a group, you started to imagine holding it in your hand.
And I would like, and then I was like, that day will come and it was so worth it. But even the way I visualized it, I never knew how much it would mean until I had it. And then I’m holding that book and then I’m telling myself, what if no one buys it? And then I said, who cares? I wrote a book, this book that’ll be here forever. And then of course people bought it and then that’s like the nicest thing. You know, those kind of a funny to show how much people didn’t think I could write a book, including me. Then all my friends and family and people, everyone bought it and that would get this message a lot. It’d be like, I just bought your book cause I love you, but it’s actually like,
it’s actually pretty good. No, I, I remember going, okay, I’m going to buy it anyway. And I was like, Holy shit, this is really, really good. You know? Wow. I couldn’t believe all the stories. Right. It spoke to me of course, cause I grew up in Cheyenne. Right. So,
but that’s the thing. I’m so proud of it. And if I don’t sell one ever again, you know, I see it sitting next to you right there. There’s one my first copies sitting here in my studio and sometimes I’ll just glance at it and no one [inaudible] I didn’t ride it for money or anything. I hope it gets made to movie all that. But, and it’s made me money. It was cool. But there’s no, I didn’t know that feeling. Bye.
Right. So you’ve got another one coming cause I’m buying it as soon as you, I’m on list, right?
Yeah. No, no, I wrote it. I have another one almost done. And then, uh, I’m in a, I’m in a personal dilemma with it because I really am in love with the girl. I have a, I’ve been dating a girl a little over a year and, but this book that I wrote is called you couldn’t and you want it. And it’s 10 stories about girls I had sex with that most dudes couldn’t. And 10 stories about flex that I understand. I got to read that book man. So it’s good. It’s really funny and it has some great stories, but I’ve been, um, it’s just been a debate. Uh, cause I really, I’ve never been married. I really want kids and I
just tell her about it. I think she’ll,
yeah, no, she’s been cool. She said, she said you could do it, but then you know, I’ve had people in my past telling me they could do stuff and then I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. And it was a book I wrote when I was single and then too, you know, we’ll have to read all these stories about me having sex with other people. Mmm. It’s just something I [inaudible] it’s not, I really, I’m really in love with this girl and I, it’s not, I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or ruin a relationship. Like
everybody put comments on this video right now telling her that it’s okay. Explain that. It’s okay. See, sometimes those are the things when you come from the heart to stuff that’s dangerous a little bit. The ones that are are the best.
Well, I’m proud of it. I think it would be life changing because it’s, it’s very vulnerable and real.
We’ve also had like a famous movie star sleep with one of your girls
[inaudible] sides of it. Right. There’s some incredible,
well, it could be your girlfriend now. That’s why it’d be a great, it’s a redemption story, right? The ending of the book is that it’s a love story, right?
Yeah. You know what? That’s a great idea, actually. Maybe that towel,
I mean that’s how the movies always would be like, it’s like 10, you know, and at the end it’s like that one girl that’s always the one that, that’s the one, right. It’s made for like the perfect, perfect moving. Right.
Been, I’ve never, that might be the way I do this and then that would be
and make her a part of the story and right.
Yeah. That’s a good, well that’s a great idea, honestly. And then I could still publish it without hurting her feelings and saying, that’s a really good idea. Yeah. I think that, I think we figured it out. I’m not to pitch it to her tonight cause it sucks. Cause I did, I worked so hard on it and it was almost done right when I met her. And then, and now it’s like,
well I get that because there was a time when I could have published books and I was like, my parents are gonna read that man. I am, they’re going to think I’m completely insane or crazy with some kids. Like I would never would have had my podcast if my parents would have been around, you know, they’re not around and it’s part of just me. I know they would have been totally cool with it. Right. But I was always thinking about what other people would think and it stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Right. I think we’d always have those thoughts. Right.
Yeah. No.
Well, you know, like my parents don’t think I’m crazy, you know, so. Right. I get it.
No, that’s awesome man. Now you did it.
Right. Right. So, but the, the thing that, that is related to the podcast that we kind of got out earlier was, uh, I believe that we create our reality with our thoughts. That’s a big part of it. I, I’m trying to go through the dynamics of that and it’s really fun to meet somebody that I think that one of the keys to creating reality is tuning into the energy of comedy. Because when you, when you have a problem, if you can find some comedy in it, it reduces it if you can. And also to talk to a comedian, it’s like you’re at like an intense maximize level of trying to reach success on a daily basis with a thousand different things. So you’re actually experience like a quantum computer of success. Like it’s not just, there are people out there that have one dream and you have like thousands of them that there’s, that’s part of what you have to do to do what you’re doing. Right. So, yeah, it’s interesting. Have you found any techniques or things that help that you could suggest to people that may not be comedians as to like, you know, future success or people that are trying to achieve their goals? Kind of like what we’ve talked about?
Yeah. Well I think the visualization for sure is uh, there’s some that I would have learned about more or earlier in life just as far as even sports-wise a few times when I really focused and visualized what I wanted to accomplish before where some of the best games ever had at the time. I don’t think I was probably mature enough to have that focus. Unfortunately. It was like after I graduated high school and they were meaningless, like city league games or something. But I did when I was like, this game’s important and it’s Friday night and on Monday I start visualizing. And those were the best games I ever had it. And as comedy wise, I mean I guess you do visualize, I mean I’ve visualized doing the tonight show or when I did the comedy central thing, I visualized that moment of just be in ready for the moment. And just so I think to me the visualization is definitely a key, a key part of any success because then if you think about it and it’s just part of it, just being prepared, right? So the visualization just kind of prepares me for it.
And then there’s been times when I visualize something bad to happening and then it did happen and I was like, yeah, yeah. So it’s a, it’s very powerful that it’s something I’m fascinated,
but I think you also have extra power when you’re accessing comedy all the time. It’s like your visualizations happen faster. That’s my theory. I, there’s no way for me to prove it, but my theory is that when you’re accessing this energy, it’s like this creative energy, this free joy is creative energy, like your visualizations, bam. They’re happening way faster. Yeah. What do you think about that theory?
No, I agree that, yeah. So I could visualize days out, but then even in the moment, I can visualize something about, cause like if I’m doing one of my jokes that I’ve done, so if I’m doing like, let’s say a story that’s seven minutes long, but I’ve already perfected it, a lot of times I am actually in the moment that story is like on cruise control. I can perform that story, but think about something totally different, which is key to thinking about. So let’s say I do like a story, like that story about the famous person having sex with my girlfriend. I’ve worked on it, I’ve perfected it. I don’t really need to mess with it. Well, as I’m telling it. So then part of my brain is like, okay, when this ends, we’re going to go this direction next or, and when this ends, this table over here is not paying attention. So I, I can, I’m seeing words and it looks like I’m pref, I am performing. But honestly, the comedies on cruise control because I’m so used to doing it, like if you were driving, you’re going to get there. But, um, but in my head I’m like, okay, this is going to end in about 45 seconds. When it ends. Do I go to the next story or joke or do I address this? And if I address this, I can see in my head this is probably going to be a problem.
I think there’s a myth and I want to explore this other part where with comedy, um, people say, well comics, it’s just there’s a darkness behind all comedy. We look at Robin Williams, look at, you know, a other committee. I don’t believe that people have this belief that all comedians have this deep, dark, suicidal. They’re all depressed in the background. And do you with your friends and comics that you meet, do you really think that’s true?
I think comics glamorize it a little bit. Like any job, there’s some ups and downs, but like I’m not, you know, I would say no stress express. That’s how I live my life. I don’t really sweat anything. And when I had bad days in LA, so I live with two guys from Seattle and when one of them would have a bad day, I would remind them, Hey man, we live in Hollywood. We’re standup comedians. Like never dreamed this is crazy. You never thought you were going to do this. Like I always say I want to be a PE teacher so I don’t, right. You know, you go to the ups and downs, but I think people glamorize it. Especially maybe on social media for attention a lot. But if you’re not enjoying this life, like you know, I don’t, I’m talking to you doing whatever I want. Then tonight I’m going to go do a sold out show, say whatever I want. They’re going to give me booze, food. People are going to come up afterwards and shake my hand, take pictures and give me money. Like, you know, and I don’t know what Robin Williams or some of those people are going through, but I think in any profession, you know, people, there’s depression in any job. But I think somehow in standup, like I said, it got grand prize. People like to victim and be like, [inaudible],
well, you can’t be funny without these dark, dark, sad thoughts that you have. And I don’t think that’s true. I just think there’s some people
are just genuinely funny and I think maybe the dark stuff made me be funny as a coping mechanism of like, but you don’t have to be like, I don’t, I think it’s a myth. Like I said, I think a lot of us comics did have a, a rough childhood or rough points in our life and that’s what keeps us going because we’ve been through, we’ve weathered the storm and made it out where if you are a spoiled rich kid, comedy’s not for you because you’ve been given everything you’ve ever wanted and this, the crowds aren’t just going to, your daddy can’t pay the crowd to like you. Right? So if you, if you don’t know how to go through the ups and downs, you’re not going to make it in comedy because no matter, you know, [inaudible] like I said, your dad can’t pay for people to like you or by you, by you last comedian that you’ve ever heard.
The funniest one I’ve ever heard and pretty hard to do. Well, my favorite community is Mitch Hedberg. You’re the only one that I really fell in love with. And then, you know, I like storytellers. So what I really like is guys that I would motivates me now is guys that I used to open for in front of 75 a hundred people are now selling out arenas and stuff. So, but I mean like, I think Chris Rock’s great Seinfeld, there’s so many that are, they’re good in any genre. Like Brian Regan is incredible, super clean, Chappelle, right? It’s hard. It’s such a hard thing to answer as a one [inaudible] especially [inaudible] cause it and, and the thing is with comedy, they always say, you don’t want to meet your heroes. This is the opposite to meet your heroes, right? Your comic, I’ve met the cooler they were because they know, like we talked about, Oh, they know what you’ve been through.
So not only are my favorite comics, my favorites, but there also have become friends because they’re, they’re just cool. We have that bond of doing it. So, you know, but then what I would say is wherever you’re at, wherever you’re listening to just go see live comedy. Cause there’s so many really, really, really competent people have never even heard of. And it’s a [inaudible]. Yeah. And we, and we need people always, I mean, people always come out, but if you’re in somewhere weird and like Montana or Idaho or someone, they’re doing a show, you should go out because you’ll be surprised. So the funniest comedian you’ve heard like live like Ben too and seen live like the crowd is Amish in pal. No, I’ll just crush. But he, there’s like a cheat code when you’re famous as far as like, you’re going to be funny anyway, just kind of starstruck.
They always say you get that first 10 minutes for free just with the audience’s mind of like, this is a celebrity in front of us, which Chappelle’s is great. Like I love Burt Kreischer, I love Thompson Jura. I mean there’s so many. There’s a guy named Ian bag that just does all Crowdwork that that is great every single time because it’s different. But to me the best committee in the world is probably Chappelle. And then I like earlier Chris rock and earlier the, the, I like the special that made them famous because now that they’re famous, you can’t really relate to them because you know, they’re just famous. They have, they’re too famous to tell their real stories that are vulnerable. But then they talk about private jets and sh I don’t care about that.
Well, Rob, back in the, when Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy was so good and some, I’m ashamed of it, but early bill Cosby was, well, he was incredible comedian. You know, thought the, cause I listened to his stuff on record, on my record player, right? His standup routines, they were incredible. Right? He’s like, Michael Jackson
person’s awful. But yeah, there’s just a, as a comedy fan, there’s just so many, so many good, good comments. And on any night you can see somebody just, there’s been times that I didn’t know people. And the first time I saw people, like there’s a girl name Allie Wong, that is so good. Andrew Andrew Schultz is like, some of these people come in and like first time I saw a cow Canadian, I was still doing pun jokes and he was doing the story jokes and I was like, I watched him, I went home and I just like, I want to throw away all my material.
Right. I wonder about that. Like you see some comedians in like I’m a, I can see, I see that with writing and other people, like they’re so good. It’s like, ah, I can never even reach that level. Right.
Well,
well you don’t, you don’t want to compare yourself.
You never, it’s not a race, it’s just a one person race. There’s no competition. Yeah. In this, because you really just on your own path is the best thing. You know, when you start out, you get jealous and there’s still a little jealousy. I’ll see someone to get that. And you always think you’re funny and then some people. But to be good at this job, you have to remind yourself, Hey, this is a solo path. And I’ve had other comics tell me like we were, we were complaining about somebody getting something in a green room, like getting a TV show. And he’s like, guys, that’s a comedian on TV. We need to root for her no matter what you think of her because we need more comedians. If she does good, then they’re going to go, Hey, we need a comedian for another show, which could be you or you. And we, and I always thought that was good advice. And like, and again, people have their own tastes. Like there’s comics I don’t like, but I get it. Like I’ll see someone who’s like, Oh, I wouldn’t do that, but he’s going to make a lot of money. So you just can’t worry about, you know, you just got to do your own thing. And, and, uh,
I mean I like to go back and look at old shows because they’re still good. Like the robot comic back in the eighties do dress like robot. Uh, there’s some, the, the dude that was, that came out drunk, well I forgot his name. The guy that remember, he would just, his whole shtick was he was super drunk even though I don’t know if he was, I remember that. Who was that guy? I don’t know that I know a lot. I’m talking about right there. I’ve been super drunk, but he was clearly just being purposely super drunk. Right. That’s the thing. Good whole good
conduct. Comedy holds up forever. You know, up forever. True. Like if you, if caused me, if you can get over the fact that he’s did horrible things, if you just put, if let’s say you never, somehow you didn’t know had happened at this point. Young people that maybe don’t know any of the bill Kaiser stuff. If you just threw on, you know, some of his stuff, people would be like, Oh, if you could separate the person from the art, I think his stuff would still, I can listen to Mitch Hedberg forever. Like yeah, when it comes on it just makes me laugh. Or
did you want a Netflix special? Cause I listened to Netflix. I’m on the radio all the time. That’s like my, my gig, you know, and we need to, I want to hear your voice come on there seeing that’d be awesome, wouldn’t it?
Yeah. And that’s like the Joe Rogan podcast and Netflix will change. Right?
Joe Rogan, of course. Joe Rogan and Brent over would be fantastic. I would love to see you on Joe Rogan. Your Rogan is a fellow comic too. I, I’ve been in watched your show and he, he’s there just like you. He has the same juice that he gets from the, it’s exactly the same.
It’s 100 comics. He’s a good dude too. And he’s a comic’s comic and he, he’s a comic’s comic and he just knows, I mean, he knows like a, once again, the bigger they are, the cooler they are. I can’t, the people that are you don’t want to deal with in this business are the people that booked the shows. And then there’s like a little patch of guys that didn’t make it that are like better. And instead of taking responsibility, you know, if you didn’t make it, it’s your fault. It’s nobody people that blame. Like, cause if you’re fun and you’re gonna make it,
there’s no, so how did you, there’s there, there’s the classic, there’s these like professional hecklers I’ve been in Vegas at, there’s that one dude, remember he would go to LA, he would go and purposely heckled. Everybody that got up like that was his, his whole thing, right? Yeah. How’d that happen? The first time you probably were like taking it kind of personally, right. And you had to, you know.
Yeah. And then when you start out, you’re worried about hecklers. But then what you have to realize is the crowds rooting for you. You have a microphone, you’re funny or you wouldn’t be a comedian. People has asked me young comics like, what do I do with a heckler? I was like, just be funny. Just you’re funny. Just believe you know, and now it’s a different time. You can’t, when I started, if a girl was mean, you could just destroy her. You can’t destroy girls no matter how bad they are, how loud the bachelor party is. [inaudible] even if you’re [inaudible] people around, let’s say there’s a bachelorette party, which is every comics nightmare and they’re loud and then you just rip one of them. You can do it softly. But if you go to any woman’s physical appearance, no matter every woman in there will hate that woman.
The whole show for being loud and needing attention. But if you’d like, say she’s ugly or fat, you’ll lose the whole room as much like, so if a dude’s bad, I could say anything to you. You can say could be the most ruthless person in the world. And that’s kinda changed over time because you used to just be able to destroy anybody. But I mean again, the once you know that you got it, I mean I love a heckler. I would love it because it’s, I’m built for this. You’re, you’re just drunk. You got one line, one line you think is going to be funny. And that’s the thing. They’re like, Oh I’ll say this and I’ll be like, okay. And then I’ll go and then it’s just destroy. And then they’re like, why? Why did you do this to me? I was like, you did this, you didn’t have to do this now you don’t want attention cause just a minute ago you’re the one that wanted all the attention. So the hecklers thing is like, and we’re spoiled here at comedy works. They don’t put up with it. They’ll just kick you out. But yeah, but we’ll starting in Vegas doing those shows, nothing scares me. We, we did the worst shows. Vegas is probably the worst part place to start standup comedy. So my mentality that you can’t phase, I mean I, I did so many bad shows so it’s like, and nothing ever, it can’t bother me. Another point that I make on my show. All those shows
prepared you for what you’re going through now. Right? People are going through shitty stuff right now. They don’t realize it’s all for a reason. Preparing them for what’s going to happen later and it’s like, it sounded like you were given the perfect little road journey of hecklers and weird crowds and audiences, what you where you’re at.
No, right. But again, you don’t know that in the time. So once again, it’s generic but you’ve got to keep going and just trust in the process of like everything I had about a week ago, I just had a frustration with you put out so much content, you believe in what you’re putting out and then like you, you just think you should get more listens or more people should be at our, and then I was like, that’s not how this works. Just keep working. And then sure enough instead of pouting about it, I just came down here and worked and then again, it’s like the universe is like, okay, I see what you did earlier today. You’d gone through it. How God’s like, you know what, let me throw you this gig or let me throw you this opportunity cause I see you working instead of I can, I have two level house.
This is where I’m sitting now. There’s a podcast studio and comedy studio and then upstairs is Parkville and when I’m up there Poulton nothing happened when I’m down here working. It’s crazy. It’s when it happens, but it’s like, and like you said, I didn’t know what I was preparing for. I just, you just, I the first tech goes or whatever. Maybe they got me and then you and then you learn. It’s like anything. That’s what I tell people. You just got to do the reps because let’s say the Mike breaks more, a light falls or someone breaks a glass the first time. You don’t handle it the way you want it to because on the drive home you go, damn, I should’ve said that. When this happens I should. The next time it’s going to happen again. And then you nail it and then the crowds like, Oh my God, he is so quick. That lady dropped a glass and he said this, he didn’t say mazal Tov or what? All the, what everyone says, he said something clever and then you’re like, then they’re like, how’d you do that? [inaudible] being there and then you go, okay, then something will happen. It’s a solid reps and then you know, you just keep going. It was just get better. I just like when I played basketball my whole life couldn’t make any until I just kept shooting him and then I couldn’t miss.
What would be hard for me, uh, would be, man, some political stuff right now is so funny, but I just want to avoid it. Right? Like there’s like [inaudible] there’s some, if you were to talk politics, then you’re going to just be the political comic, right? Then once you’re in that territory, it’s like you’re in it forever, right? Once you go let it close, then you can’t go back. Right.
Drinks or religion. But the thing is like, again, if you, and I don’t care about politics at all, but if I say Trump,
you’re going to get a reaction no matter [inaudible]
I’m going to get a reaction. But unfortunately they, or if I say Hillary or whatever, that it can go both sides. I say the word [inaudible] cut off listening to the joke. They just go, Oh, that’s my guy. If he’s about to shit on my guy, I have to be mad. Which you can joke about anything. You can still like your guy. I mean, I make fun of my mom. I still love my mom, my brother. He’s like, you know, that’s the problem with it is then, and then people are like, well, I don’t know why he had to talk about Trump. First of all. I don’t know. I’m talking about whatever I want. That’s the thing, right? Like if I, I wouldn’t do any politic jokes, but if you, we’re in the audience and you said, Hey man, if I say Trump’s name or something, or I say Hillary’s name, he said, Hey, don’t talk about Hillary. Then I have to not even my act. Then we’re just going to talk about it. And then I’m not even an educated about politics, but like if you tell, here’s the worst thing you could tell a comic, don’t do something because then we have to do it. We have to. That’s not why we, we did this.
Well, I could see myself self-regulating if I was a comic and I’d be like, Oh, I want, that is the funniest thing right now. I would love to talk about that, but it’s political so I can’t, or you know it’s religion, right? Like you said,
but over time then you just become a comic and you go, no, I have to. That’s our job. That’s why we became comics, right? We earned this right to talk about whatever we want. We’ve worked our asses off. You’re not going to tell me what I’m going to say or not when you, you know, that’s the thing. So it’s more of a, like if they tell us not to do it, then then I have to do it. Did you have to do it out of like the calm, the unwritten comedy rule of like,
right. What’s your opinion on like insult comedy? I mean, you’ve see it come up even like at presidential, uh, you know, uh, events where they have this and even most recently at the, uh, golden Globes, right? He gets up and it’s not just humor, but it’s just like this level of insult. What’s your opinion on that? I mean, it’s, I thought it was funny. Right?
Good. And then, and like, no one’s above it. Like, and they’re just jokes like what he said and everything he said, I liked that he was true and he had an opinion on something. It goes back to my pandering. Things are in neutral. Maybe it’s not for you, but part of it, I mean, yeah, it was great. It’s just like, and those are, you know, everyone likes to make fun of rich, famous people, you know? And I, if you’re like, I’d never someone to hurt their feelings. Like I would never just come out and be like, you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re stupid. Goodnight. But like if you had called me or something you might can tell, but in our world that’s like how I show love. Like if I mess with you, that means I like you. Right. Do you know there’s a couple of times life I’ve had to pull people aside and go, Hey, I only joke around you because that’s my way of showing affection. That’s the comic world and I hope you and theirs tend to be blabbed to take it off and go, Oh, okay, you’re just not built for this. So insecure of like, you know, it’s not for everybody. Yeah,
that’s, that’s the humor question. When somebody that it was, when that kind of insult comedy comes up is like when is it the insult and like when is it funny? Like you know what I mean? Just knowing your audience. Like if you can,
again, like the world we live in, if I,
so
if I pick on a black person, the white people get so nervous and weird. It’s just dumb. But then I’ll be like, you want, you said we should treat each other all equal, but I can’t mess with this. Like it’s so right. Here’s a, here’s a thing that blows people mind blows my mind is that in the comedy business it’s, it’s the only business I believe. If you own a comedy club, it’s the only business you don’t want rich white people to come to. Which is crazy cause any other business you want, interesting. But they just want to complain, man. Like I do jokes about everybody and they get so black people are the best audience. They don’t want it. They’re not there to get offended. They’ve been busting balls insulting each other. That’s their culture. So, and I grew up around black people. I have great black jokes and, and I’ve never, I shouldn’t say never, but
the problem I have
would making jokes about another race is not the race. It’s just rich old white ladies that want to complain that don’t, I don’t know why he made that joke about a black that made me uncomfortable. I was like, the black people loved it. You don’t even know how many, like that’s the kind of stuff you deal with. It’s like, man, you just want to be offended. You don’t. If you had, you know like that, like I like to do race jokes, I like to talk about everybody and then I have to remind them sometimes like I do a joke about black people can’t swim and then all the white people get all weird and I go, Hey, let me tell you something. Every black comedian in the history of the worlds came up on the stage and said, why people can’t dance and now he like, we can joke like it’s jokes and it’s, and it’s a great job and it’s like that kind of stuff is like when you’re just raised to be, when you want to be offended for another race.
It’s like we’re not under these situations. Sometimes we can make it better between cultures and societies, races and genders. We can come together through comedy, not apart. That’s the thing about it. That’s the unifying thing that we can laugh about this together. Then we’re going to start enjoying being around each other and it’s going to change, right. All doing.
That’s what we’re all doing except for those people that, but they’re the same people that complain about everything. You know, like you said earlier, if some people just love to complain and we are lucky that our club supports us. The best comedy clubs go, I don’t care about this Yelp review. I know you have to take chances. And once again, sometimes it just doesn’t go how you think it’s going to go. I don’t know if this joke’s gonna work or not. And there’s only one way to find out. And then if it doesn’t work, if I do 50 jokes, if I, let’s say I do an hour show, I do 60 jokes and 50 of them or 58 of them are great and two of them didn’t work. That’s pretty good percentage, you know. But somehow those people like, well he did this one joke. What about the rest of the hour when you were having, and what about 70% of the room that liked that joke? You know, cause some of the jokes you liked, 30% of the room didn’t like it. It’s like it’s not about, and again, you’re allowed to just go that joke. I didn’t like it. And just move on with your lives.
But of course I’ve had a couple, I’ve seen comedians, it’s a very small number, but like that’s not funny and I don’t get it. Like that’s not like this dude is just weird. You’re not a couple like, okay man. I guess if somebody else laughed,
Hey there’s a podcast out there, not for you. There’s music out there, not for you. Right. You as you go, you take it in and then you go, okay, that’s not for me. And that’s fine. And then you’re just, you could just go and then if someone says, Hey, I saw this comedian and you go out and like it, it’s, I don’t, which is fine. You can always give your opinion. But then to race home, there’s no other really business that you, you know, like I said, you don’t race home [inaudible] send the house of blues a message. Like, I didn’t like that song.
It’s like with any, every video of mine that I do, there’s going to be one or three people that that negative. Right? It’s just, there’s always, out of every hundred there’s a couple of people that are going to dislike. There’s the dislike or that bad comments or the complainer. That’s always how everything is just like, I think that there’s mathematically just that’s, we have to accept it.
I think it’s, Neil Brennan has a great bit about that. Like you get on YouTube and you go to like Beethoven and it’s like 95,000 people put thumbs down and you’re like,
and are these people? You took the time to actually go and put the thumb down and took energy from your life. Yeah,
that’s it. That’s the one thing I never read comments like, I don’t know.
That’s the thing that I was going to ask is that as a comedian, as somebody that’s written a book, you’re going to start reading the reviews and stuff and then you start hearing what people say and like it’s probably better to let that stuff go. It doesn’t matter if you’re following your heart and your purpose. Who cares
when I started, you know it’s just, I’m not even a picture there. It’s just drew seven four, eight, six, nine bro, this guy’s fat or this guy sucks. It would hurt my feelings, but then I was like, but now I just don’t read them because inevitably no matter, I mean it just goes back to that Beethoven thing. No matter what. You could put the nicest thing on there. Like man helps lady cross the street, saves baby and pets a puppy and it would get a thousand thumbs down. Someone would be like, why do you wear that shirt for that? You know, like, so I don’t, that’s another good lesson I learned is if you’re creating, you can get criticism, not from the internet. Constructive criticism. I don’t think common criticism is all right. It’s just not for me. I get that. I’ve learned and then there’s sometimes when people don’t, sometimes people don’t like me and then I can flip them, which is like, then I’ll just talk to him like a person. Then eventually they’ll be like, Oh, you know what, that was my bad. Or sometimes I’ll just say beat it. I don’t, you know, just block them. I don’t need that stress in my life of like someone I never see, never meet, watched 45 seconds of a 10 minute video and was like, I didn’t like this. You suck. Okay.
But it’s human nature to look at those three people that didn’t like it. It’s human nature to focus on those even though 10,000 like there, right. It’s just human.
Yeah, of course. But then you just learn to, not unless you want to torture yourself, but like I don’t have time for that. I just don’t want to do that. Cause you right. If I could have a hundred good reviews and one bad one, it’s like I said earlier in the show, you come out and you’re looking at everybody, everyone’s having a blast and there’s one dude that’s not, and then in my old days I would focus on that. But then a lot of times after the show they, that dude would come up and be like, Hey man, great show. I was like, great show you look like you hated it. And he’s like, Oh no I don’t. I just laughed. I’m not a big like laugh. I had a great time. You were awesome. So I’d never instead of dwell on that one. And like I said, I don’t want everyone to like me.
I mean that’d be an ideal world, but that’s not if I make fun of the Packers, someone’s a Vikings fan. If I make fun of burger King, someone likes McDonald’s. If I do, people are going to be like, so I can’t, no one has a universal act where like, and it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter if, if you could get it, if I think the majority of people had fun, you know? And then sometimes if someone comes up, I was like, Hey, that joke hurt my feelings. That’s the only I know. I never want to hurt someone’s feelings. But then I also just got to stick to my guns and be like, Hey man, that joke. Everyone else liked or that’s something new I tried. Or like I don’t want comedy advice from you because you don’t know.
So what do you do about those times when you know your people are expecting you to be funny? Like I don’t want to be funny right now. Like do you are or do you always have to be on, do you ever get this expectation or you’re just with certain people? Like you know, I could see that like you’re around. Oh yeah, that’s the comedian.
Well that’s why we all are here. That’s why we pretty much only hang out with each other. But no, every time I meet someone, like if I’m on a plane or something and they’re like, what do you do? I say I’m a comedian. A lot of people won’t say it, but I’m so proud of it. I always say, cause I am, I’m a comedian and that it’s amazing that I’m a comedian, so I always say it, but then they’re like, every single time say something,
say something funny. Right.
I go, I mean there’s, there’s comments we’ll do like, where do you work though? You, you work at McDonald’s. I wouldn’t say make me fries or whatever, but I’ll, if I’m around somebody, I’d go, Hey man, I’m just, if we just hang out, I’ll be funny. Don’t worry. By the end of the day, you’ll laugh plenty, but I’m not going to do a show for you. Or sometimes you just have to remind them. But usually, you know, like if I’m with my girlfriend or if I’m with my close friends and then someone’s introduced me to me, then that person says that my crew or whoever’s with me, we’ll just give a look like, Oh you said that. And then they’ll be like, Oh sorry, I didn’t call him on it. Like, Ooh, you know, it’s crazy. Or it’s like
just if anybody out there, if you meet a comedian, don’t say that.
Yeah, don’t say that. But the other thing that happens is like, let’s say if I’m on a plane, just spent half my life on planes. I sit down and someone says, Hey, what are you doing? I’m flying here to do a show. And then I’ll see that person will try to be like extra funny with the stewardess or whoever. But I just like it, but I don’t, I don’t, it doesn’t annoy me or anything.
Bringing out their funny man. I guess that’s the power of funny, right?
Yeah. Watch this. I can be funny too. So that’s kinda always makes me laugh of like, cause there’s nothing worse than like trying too hard. But I also, I’m kind of flattered cause I’m like, Oh this dude is bombing with the stewardess but doing it to try to make me laugh. So it’s cool. But yeah. Yeah. So yeah, just tell it. I mean it’ll always happen and people think they’re so funny when they ask when people will be like, Oh, you’re not that funny. [inaudible] all right, you don’t, or I get you don’t look funny or something that I just got, I pretty much, then I’m like, okay, get me back to my comics.
I’m sure that there are times when you don’t say that you’re a comedian. Do you purposely don’t say, right?
I always do. I’ve worked my ass off for it. First of all. Usually it is a, it’s a benefit. Like, if I get pulled over, I get a hotel, run a car. People are usually fascinated by it and, and I love it. I’m so proud of being a comedian. I know a lot of people won’t do it, but I like talking to people and that’s how, um, I’m just naturally like to talk to people and like I said, I’m proud of it. I’m a stand up comedian, which I think is one of the coolest jobs in the world. And I’ve worked my ass off on it. So if you ask me, I’m going to say it was, you know, I was trying to write like, you know, you have a good job when you’re walking through the mall and like those kiosk people, Hey, what do you do for a living? Most people would just, I always say I’m a comedian.
You say that to yourself all the time to wake up in the morning going home comedian, right. I could see myself going, I’m a freaking comedian. I’d say it all the time. Right?
Well, I have a bad day. Or if I get myself down, I’m like, I’m a standup comedian. Man. I’m a this, I did, I did. I’m a comedian. So it’s like a, it’s just something, it’s so cool. It is really, it is really the coolest in it. Yeah.
It’s been cool to live vicariously through you following your Facebook adventures. There’s so many cool stories about Brenda, the Jersey story. Look it up on YouTube. It’s hilarious though. Jersey story being kicked out of casino for life. It’s classic. Variously funny. There’s so many stories. I, you’ve said them so many times. I’m telling people to go and look at your videos and your YouTube channel. You’ll have new stuff coming up and
we got up from lunch. Uh, so there’s like a, the, I have a story I did on comedy central about trying to kill my dad, which is like a, which is crazy and crazy and I’m very proud of it. It’s got like 4 million dudes. It’s a really, I worked my butt off on that. Then I have a bunch of standup
and then that’s, then has he contacted you?
No, I haven’t spoke to him in like 19 years. So he’s out there somewhere, but he, uh,
you think he actually saw like you go in through YouTube when they popped up, they wonder like, what are you thinking?
Yeah, I didn’t talk to anybody on that side of the family, but I assume there’s like a little curiosity because there was a couple of times in life when I’ve like just Googled his name or something. So I’d have to, and I’d have to imagine people have told them right. Somehow in life. I mean, his name’s David and my name is Brad Tobler. So I’m sure he know and my family knows, I mean the book, that side of family bought the book and then he, uh, no, I don’t know. I just hope
incredible story. I’m don’t mean to make light of it, but you did. So it makes me laugh. Right. You know what I’m saying? So
first of all, like you said, in the moment of going through all that with my dad, I never thought would get me on TV. Never thought I’d write book. Like it’s part of the journey in life,
that moment, the moment that scares that I felt the most was, cause you always had to bring money home and you had this money under your bed, like a ton, like hundred thousand like thought, like a ton of money. Right? Like in the movies money. Right. And it’s gone. And like in the movies that you know, that means I’m freaking dead. Like I’m thinking like the mom’s going to come after me for this money. So that’s on top of everything else. It’s a, it’s a family thing going on. But also you have this other, but you were like, I’m not going to let that worry me. I’m just going to,
you know, that was the biggest fear is like my boss
is he going to go after me?
I love my boss and I looked up to him so much and that was the hardest part was to tell him because when I, so I was just a little Baxter. I worked for like kind of like the mafia, like I was a runner for a bunch of professional gamblers. And then one of the first things they ever told me is like, all you have in this business is your reputation. When your reputation is gone, you’re gone. And when my dad’s stole $80,000 cash, I knew I had to go tell him. That was a, that was probably the hardest thing to let down. You know, the person that he changed my life. He, he, you know, in the book, he’s the first person I think he changed my life and I’ll always be grateful, but to go to his house and I talk about in a book is sitting outside his house trying to get out of my car to go inside. I must have said I was in front of his house for an hour and a half. Just opening the door, shutting at your brine. I couldn’t, I just didn’t want to disappoint him. And then, um, so that was like a, it was a crazy, it was, like I said, came from Wyoming. I never, all the way, all this happened. It’s so crazy. Just one little thing. The way the ball bounces, one different direction or something. I’m not, I don’t do any of it. I don’t, I don’t know what I do. It’s so crazy. So
yeah, but it’s also a story of whatever crazy. Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. Don’t let it affect you. Keep on going for what you want. That’s the story I get from free roll, then it’s more than just a funny story. It’s a, it’s a story of hope and it’s a story, a lesson that we can learn from what you went through that whatever you’re going through. Yeah. You know, if you have this certain attitude and you tap into it, then it’s cool. So the next and most important question,
yes, it’s drew lock our franchise quarterback. Man, I hope so man. As a dire,
I got a hope man. But there’s, you know, that nagging doubt that you have in the back of your head and there’s all these great quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Philip Rivers might be available. And I’m going, come on Andrew Locke. Better not hose it in the first three games. Right?
It’s so hard. I mean, I moved back up and got enough sample size on drew lock. I’ve been back two years and they’ve struggled. I mean I went to every home game. I went to green Bay this year and it’s just so hard cause in LA I just missed it so much. It’s part of the reason I moved back home and then, uh, to come back and just have them suck is like torture. But I think
time as a Bronco fan ever, even though we were sucky in the past, it’s felt like I’ve actually like cut the connection with the Broncos a little bit. Like I didn’t, I woke up not wanting to watch him play. And I’ve watched every game, right. All the way back to like 1974 I watched every single game. Like if I was in Hawaii, I would go to the bar and find a place where the game is and I would watch the game. Right. It didn’t matter. But now it’s like, like it was so is so hard to watch. That was like,
yeah, we were just spoiled for too long. Well, we’ll be back next year, I hope. Right. And what did I miss it already? I’m sad.
Well, I know you always get good tickets, but if you ever need some in the 500 section,
all right, send me up to is the best section. Okay. But yeah, so if you’re in Denver, go to the comedy store. There’s a good chance
that you’ll see Brent. He’s hilarious by his book. Free will subscribe to his channel on YouTube.
You have some CDs, buys CDs, check out his party, get them on Spotify, they’re free, right? Check out his podcast,
31 it’s hilarious. He asks 31 questions and
they’re awesome. My new podcast, Craig’s was chaos is my favorite. I just get on Craigslist and go from town to town and just call people and try to get jobs. There’s clips of it on YouTube. If you go to my YouTube channel, there’s clips, but the full episodes are on there. And then the full episodes are everywhere else. But it’s a, it’s everyone’s most, I mean everyone likes the 31 cause I’m had all the biggest comics in the world on there. But uh, people really like Craigslist chaos now because it’s just me off the top of my brain. And you know, if someone’s selling a rooster or if someone needs a ride to Washington, I just call them up and I uh, and there’s some crazy people on Craigslist, so
crank Yankers are going back. Like the whole idea of the prank phone call. I remember sitting in Cheyenne with my friends and we would go pull up, open the phone book and just prank call somebody, just pick a name out and make some weird scenario up to get them to go somewhere. Right. And then I remember just laughing and so that’s that same idea. Right. You know.
Well that’s what I love about it. It’s so I never know where it’s going to go so I just go, I throw, I start recording, I have people pick cities, I go to that city and then I just put call me in the search bar and then anything that
sure
pulls up then I just go from whatever you know, like one of my favorite ones to do is if someone found like a phone or something, I call them and try to pretend like it’s mine and they get so mad at me. Cause like, what kind of phone is it? I’ll be like, it’s like a red and black. It’s kind of like the iPhone, Android, and I’m obviously just messing with them and then they’ll be like, it’s not your fault why you’re doing this. I’ll bet it is my [inaudible]. It just mean like, you know, mess it. And then occasionally I stumble on people that I help him out or he just never know where it’s going to go. Sometimes I call somebody with the intentions of messing with them. And then I
sounds like another TV series is in the hopper man from that. Yeah, I can see that. Right.
It’s fun, man. I’ve got, I just released episode 19 this morning and they’re just fun rides of like, they’re good podcasts. You can stop and go if you’re doing something because you’re like, it just calls for an hour.
Right, right. Galifianakis doesn’t have to be the only bearded one. We need to get brat in the game. Right. One of the best beards in comedy. So thank you. It’s so nice. It’s like a Marvel team up to people. Diane, you know. Uh, it’s so, uh, you know, I’ll always love Cheyenne even if I rarely go. When I went back there, I could, you know, uh, went to the mall and hung out and it was so windy that day. It was probably just, you know, I know it’s not windy like that every day. I still love it. But, um, so everybody, I actually might have people watch this from Cheyenne cause I can see like the maps over the, where people watch, nobody in chain watches it. So we might actually get a couple people Cheyenne to watch
well and congratulations to you on your book and 10,000 subscribers and you know, as Wyoming guides, we just all root for each other. Just mandatory thing. So especially as a Cheyenne guy, I love it that we’re in, you know, that
this is so cool forever, man. Even if I don’t live there.
Yeah, it’s three Oh seven. Yeah, I got the Wyoming hat on the Wyoming. Right? That’s right. It’s just like a, if it’s a weird thing where we’re just, it’s so cool to see people
53,000 people in the state. I mean, it’s smaller than like a small town. The whole state is, so, yeah. It’s like we’re all the whole state. It’s all like, we’re from the same, you know,
it’s helped me so much with this set of Wyoming bond is helped me so much. Surf Wyoming, one of the, does that surf Wyoming right there? Yeah, this had a circle. Okay. All right, cool. It’s a three Oh seven world, so that’s right, man. Well, hopefully you can come on again soon. We have more questions about common planning time. I would love to keep doing it, man. I’m happy for you. Can’t wait to get your book and keep pushing. Thanks man. I appreciate it. Fantastic.
chiefexecutiveprime
Epiphany addict, inner space astronaut, writer, coach, dad, lover, friend.
