Clay talks with comedian Nate Bargatze

know Nate's awesome. We had a great conversation. You're gonna love it, but it gets better, So I don't want you all tweet me be an audio guy saying hey, the audio audio is not great for the first few minutes, and then it's gonna be great after that, so just trust me on it and thanks for listening to Wins and Losses this week. Fun guest a guy who's almost exactly my age I think, graduated from high school in Nashville in the exact same year. He is Nate Bargasky.

He's been doing comedy comedy I think basically since uh since he graduated from high school and he is killing it of late, he's got a Netflix special. I want to bring him in. First of all, thanks for being on Nate. Uh. Secondly, am I correct? Are we the exact same year graduating from Nashville area? Think seven yet seven represent which used to be a big deal back when you're in high school the class of nineties seven.

So you are forty years old as well as I am, and you graduate from high school and immediately good decide you're going to be a comedian? Is that what you did? Like? At what age did you decide this is what I'm gonna attempt to do in my life? Now? I started, and I started when I graduated. Uh d c A is where I went. And then uh so I graduated ninety seven, and I was like, I thought I've been doing comment in but I didn't touch a twenty three.

I just like did whatever jobs like I've worked. Uh actually's uh I delivered, Like you know I do this to Mac. I say this to Mac now, but there's I've never had a job that I can't go back to, Like it's like nothing's nothing's changed. Every job I had is just like lifting objects, Uh, just stuff so but I so I've start I mean Chicago, and I was twenty three. So you graduate from high school in eighteen

A lot of people decided to go to college. You went to Donaldson Christian Academy, which is a private school. How did you decide not to go to college? Well, we went, We got to go there. My dad was a teacher to so this week there it's not and I fare to graduate. So it was I tried to go to college, but there was like there was no sign that was like, hey, the kids should be in college. I went to Volunteer State for one year. I tell

this joke. I went one year, no credit, all medio classes. Uh. And I at what I say, a good local joker that went the Vulteers State. This is a Vanderbilt Galaton and the strict local jokes and but they so I went there and I was there for a year no credit. Uh. We went to Western Kentucky for one semester, chilled, no credit, fell go way. Uh. So it just what was happening.

And then that's when I had done out just like whatever job and then then until I decided to go to outread Water meeting my funnel jump green Water meter that I do it. So I'm curious. So you go to Western Kentucky for a semester and it's not like Western Kentucky is the most elite academic institution on the planet. Neither is Vall State. How did you end up getting no credits? Like? What did you do at Western Kentucky? Yeah? Man,

it's hard to do that. And uh, did you know, I just say, go to class at a at an unbelievable time. Uh, the greatest whatever smest of four months of my life. And it just I just partnered and like I didn't go to anything, and I was already in like when I was to went out to the ball Street, I think, I mean unless the T was like real bad. Even when he took I forget what it's like eat like they're like it's the little lowest

at worst. And I was either an eighteen or right under it was real bad, and I was like a like a college astute, Like you know who took him? The year was his name, Jonathan, you'reson got ten and Jack. He was like in our grouper like my buddies groups when we took THET and my buddy said, he just toild this thing. Out and put it head down, which tweets it didn't matter if he was going to like um, but I didn't have that luxture, so I just didn't happen.

How I just didn't have a great And that's like school was just like kind of I just didn't care. So at what point do you start thinking? So you gratuate, you you graduate from high school, you kind of mess around, you have all these different kind of wacky jobs. At what point do you start thinking, Hey, maybe I'll try comedy.

I've always kind of thought about it, you know, my dada that you and so I grew up around that, and so it was it was didn't you know, it was always kind of in the back room line, and uh I always kind of wanted to do it. And then I was working at Bread Water Meters at that company, and I julious in my buddy Michael Clay that I worked with their uh he. I had another friend that said that he wanted to go to Shogle the Second City, and I was like, oh, I kind of only like

do stand up. So I just was like, you know, sway three, I'm like I can see that, and uh so I just preached Shago. I date, the money, uh and and um. Then moved to Chicago and the thirty Pub. I mean I started in Chicago. It was like two thousands. I mean there, you know, I started in two thousand three. But there's a lot of guys umel not be and he started with me, uh Hannibal birth pet Home. There's a like a lot of TJ. Miller, a lot of people in that uh Chicago seeing that was all starting

at the same time. So would you go out and you do your So you moved to Chicago and you're like, I'm going to get into comedy. How do you even go about making that decision? So you you do you? I'm fascinated by that. So do you How did you have to get accepted into into like Second City? How how do you show up? Is it just like anybody can show up and start taking comedy classes? I have

no idea how that works. Yeah, anybody job second to you could just like people that are also saving classes a po mention or be better speaker, that's his job. Say so they taking class second to anybody can find it. And I did that for like eight weeks of it and not any like improv because it was you were allowing on too many people, Like improv is like very

you know you're gonna hope that everybody's funny. There's nothing funnier to me than some of that's not good at improv because the whole pointment problem is you say yes, and so it's someone's like I went to the zoo. The next person should be like, oh I was at the zoo too, Like they gotta keep it going so then everybody can play off that stuff. And if someone's really bad and then brought, it's beautiful because they go.

Someone will be like, oh, look at the zoo. They're like, we have to zoo with closes though, and you're like, well now this whole thing's ruined because you just shut down the zoo. So I started, which is so funny to see. If you ever see bad improfit's so funny just because it's usually one person out of the group that just doesn't get it. And but so I started there. I started taking class seas and then I did that

and I didn't want to be that more. I want to be stand up And I actually signed up for a class like just a guy that appliers and said come take learn how to do stand up comedy, and I'm very pro class at some comedians tait them, but they're not gonna teach you how to be funny, Like I think you have to learn that. But then you just get around a group of people that are also started. Because it's very scary to start giving you about yourself.

You're showing up to some bar and you don't know anybody and you're about to go in front of them and talking a microphone and trying to tell some jokes. So it's very like scary and very neaty to like to turn around you like, now, I'm not I don't want to do this at all. So when's the first time you get up and actually tell a joke in front of a crowd? And so I started taking the

stand up class at the beginning to three. I have a VHS my first three times on stage, I have a DHS of it, and I mean it's brutal, dude, it's ah, I have like a chain beard. That was the thing that you're rocking backed in? Uh you know it was. I mean, it's just it's it's the disgusting. I don't think I could even watch it. How many people are in the crowd. You know, your first time, sometimes they're pretty good because a lot of times you

have friends come and so they're rooting for you. So I worked at a restaurant in Chicago, and so I already had made some friends and I told him I was doing it, so they came and watched. So your first time doing stand ups can sometimes be okay, and then it's the time. It's the time after that that gets real bad. Uh. That's when you get into jokes and nobody here and you know, I mean you're doing like two or three minutes at least. Have a open mic. In Chicago, the lines in and then would start at

I think eight o'clock. You would sign up and then they would be like a bucket and uh, then they put all this stuff and it would run from eight to like two in the morning, and you wanted to be you wanted to get help age. Around ten that was like the sweet spot where like some regular people would come in if you went on first or last. I mean, you're performing just for like five comedians, and so you get up and you're trying to do like two or three minutes. So is that how long you

went the first time that you did stand up? Yeah? I believe it was. I believe it might have been five minutes, but it was. It's two to five. Uh, I mean you're just saying that, and it feels like an eternity. I mean right now now where I'm at now, I mean five minutes. It's not like it's not enough time. But at that point when we first started, five minutes is you know, if you had to stare at the wall for five minutes, you'll see how long five minutes

steel like. And so if you're talking to a group of people that are not laughing and just staring at you, it feels even longer. It's uh, it's remarkable, crazy that you know what that feels like. And uh, you both you know, if you just have a lot of different people, you see a lot of different comedians. There was guys that were because they were good. You need see you guys that have put open mics for ten years or nowhere.

They you know, they know what they're doing. There's guys that would just plague the ring just like do like make fun of the comedy, you know stage and those guys are very fun to watch. But you can tell, like you can would be that guy, like that guy who's gonna know you know, he's very funny here, but he's not gonna be that's not in this room. Laught. So you get up the first time in two thousand three and you do a you do a bit. What's your bit? Like, what's your joke that you're going for

at that point? And how long did you craft what that joke would be? Like how much time did you spend to have three to five minutes or whatever it was going to be the first time you got up on the stage. I don't you know, I don't remember the exact like how much time, but mean you worked on it for a while and you would just think of the jokes. I believe one of my first I can't remember this is my first joke. One of it

was about the rats in Chicago. We had rats in our apartment and in Chicago and they're they're they're bigger than squirrels, you know, like their rats are like it's another thing. So it was a joke about that, like and then like given the rat like a life and just you know, like we have these rats. He comes in and I just wake up and he's like and he's got the refrigerator open, getting some of the drink um,

and it was, you know, like talking about that. And the other one was like about directions in Chicago when you move. When I moved to Chicago, they would they would always tell if you asked for directions, someone would be like, you got to go south about five blocks, you gotta go north about eight blocks, and uh, you know, I was like, I don't. I don't know north and south,

like I've never told that ever. And then they would always tell you what the lake is east and you're like, yeah, I can't see the lake though, Like I can't, but you know it's not I don't want to cut you off. That's so funny because my wife is from Michigan and when she moved out to Nashville, she was always well, like, am I going south? Am I going north? Am I

going to east? Or I go with I'm like, I don't nobody talks like that, Like you just say you're going to like this particular town, you know, like or you know, like I'm going to this part of the city or whatever else. I don't know, Like, you know, She's like, am I when I'm getting off at this exit, am I gonna go east or west? I'm like, I don't know, I've never thought about that in my entire

life North talking about it. I don't carry a compass around, but yeah, it's something in the West where everybody's like that, like that they've all got compasses. I always think of it when I hear traffic reports, like when they're like going when they say south going on to four or forty, You're like, is this Am I listening to the right town? Like they're saying, they say where there's in traffic? And I never I'm like, where is this? What are they

talking about? Because they just give like these references of between Briley and Donald's and Pike And You're like why, You're like, where is that? Yeah? All that so and so you do that. And you're also, by the way, you said, working in a restaurant at the same time. So then you are you trying to do everything in Chicago? Yeah at the beginning, I am. You know when I was working there was during Bartman. Oh yeah, the Bartman game. So I worked that night and if you watch them Bartman,

uh the thirty or thirty embartment. So when he left to go, um, you know, when he got escorted out and that girl had like take him to his apart her apartment. I worked with a girl that that was that was her roommate. So like the next morning, during that time, she comes back and tells us that when she got home, you know, we're watching all this on TV. This is for social media, but you would see it

all on TV. And uh, she came home and the next day she's like, I walked to my door embartment, was just sitting in her living room and she's like, yeah, it's unbelievable, Like it's the craziest thing. Uh it was. It was just wild, like you know, just to be like she has no concept that he would be there

and then he's just there. Uh. So I worked, Yeah, So I was just working, you know, I was waiting tables during the day, summer night, and then you would go do open mics, you know, once or twice a week, and then you started like just doing a little bit more three, four or five times, and then you start going out every single night. A big move, a big thing. I watched, Uh Comedian came out with Seinfeld. I don't know if Netflix, it's unreal, And so I went and

watched that in a theater by myself. And so right when I watched that, I was like, I need to move to New York, Like that's where we need That's where I need to be going. And so I was in Chicago for those two years and then I moved to New York. And so you moved to you do you have a job at all or your you know your years old? I guess what's your job when you moved to New York. So when I moved to New York, Uh, I started there was a I started barking where you

handed out flyers to get people in this club. It's exactly like there's a HBO crashing a show on HBO with Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes got me barking at that comedy club. I didn't what that show showed. I barked at that Boston comedy club. And so you would do that all day. And what I did when I first went to New York, I started delivering. I worked for FedEx, and uh, because I was already I knew how to deliver. This was back when you had to read yet to do it by a map, you would have to book.

It's a map. And since I knew, I knew how to do that stuff. So a guy got me a job at FedEx, and so I started delivering and uh I was like I delivered in New York. Uh just driving a FedEx truck up and down the streets of New York Brooklyn, Queens truck in New York City. Yeah, yeah, I was done. One day we went to New Jersey and it was more like how I used to. I'm used to delivering where it was just regular houses, and

I mean I did so good. The guy was like that the fastest I've ever seen, Like he was, I delivered faster than anybody they've ever had there. Uh So I knew I had a good fallback playing because I was crushing at FedEx. And uh so I got stuck

in a snow storm. And I mean I remember being on Martin Luther Team Boulevard in Brooklyn and I have this truck and I will try to go up a hill and I it was just this major snowstorm and just got spun sideways and they had to like slide all the way back down and then make it back u to the make it back to just were the the you know, the fed X place to drop the truck off. And it was like I would may just no, I would think that. So I've never known anybody to deliver.

And we're talking to night bar Gassy, this is Wins and Losses podcast. I've never But what's like the best thing that can happen on a delivery? Is it like you show up your twenty five year old guy and there's like a good looking girl who comes to the door. Like, when you're a delivery guy, what is the best thing that can happen for you? Did anybody ever like a good looking person, a good looking girl ever come to the door naked? Like, did you ever have exciting deliveries?

Not that I remember. I remember I delivered peaches too. That's how I saved money up before I moved to when I was in Mount Joliott and uh, the only thing I remember there. I do remember. I remember going to someone's house and they gave me money to go buy them beer. It's like adults, like we can't go dry. You go to Yeah, so when you go to Kroger

and like buy us some beer. And I went and bought them beer and brought it back and they're like giving money like that was the only like think the only kind of weird I mean, yeah, obviously a very attractive lady would be your your biggest hope. But I don't think we ever did. We never had anything when we when I delivered U mattresses, I've delivered everything, but I delivered matches. Is that was in uh Nashville. This

is my buddy Hunter, Jimmy Hunter. He only Hunter's Delivery Service, and we, uh, we delivered since one ladies house a refrigerator. We take her old refrigerator out and there's a dead cat behind it, and she's like, oh, that's where that cat, that's that's where he went. She didn't know where he's been. She was like super old. And so then you just got to you're like, yeah, that's crazy, right you just kind of talk to this old ladies like you're like

like literally like how how dead was the cat? Like was it like something dead like or like no, no, no, And she just she just didn't know, she didn't smell it, like she didn't know what was there. No. No, I mean just I mean she was just like see now like it was just like it was it me the very you know, poor neighborhood. It was in Nashville, like he was. And we and then we got caught in a drive by right after that. This all sounds made up.

This We we were driving and then we're going back out and then we hear like some pops, sounds like fire truck fire, and we look and at this car behind us was like shooting up this house. And then they shot at our car on our truck. We had like a twenty six ft box truck, and they shot at and we swerved over, and then they drove by us and drove away. Yeah, we got he had and went through the back of the the back door and

went out above where I was sitting. So this is this is gonna sound ridiculous because I've also been in a car in Nashville and gotten shot at and had the car get hit. So we were saying earlier, you're a class of nineties seven too, So for people who are from Nashville, this will probably make some sense at least. Um. So I went to Martin Luther King Magnet High School in Nashville, and the cheerleaders at our high school this

was our senior year of high school. We're having a sleepover, and so I mean it's probably I mean for guys out there now, you're like that sounds awesome. I mean, when you're a senior in high school, the cheerleaders are all having a sleepover. So we decided we were going to roll the house. Right, it's a it's a house in Antioch. And so it's me and like six of my buddies, and we're in two different cars. It might have been eight of us, six six or eight of us, right,

all guys. And so we pull up at the house and we've got toilet paper in our hands and everything else, and we're like throwing the toilet paper rolls all in the trees. And there are two cars. And my buddy who would later be the best man in my wedding, he had an old SOB convertible and he had put like it was. It was awful car, but he had put like somehow he had decided to turn it into a shark, so it had like a shark fin on the top of it. And he parked his car back.

It was a dead end street. He parked his car fairly far back, and then there was another car full of people that was parked closer. So while we're rolling, all of a sudden, we hear like a shotgun, like a you know, like a like somebody clearly like cocks a gun and then fires into the air, and we're like, holy crap, what's going on? So we all panic and we all run, and a bunch of dudes get in the front car, and then me and my buddy Ian and my friend Paul, we all get into the back

of his car. There's like five people. It's probably eight of us. There's like five people who get in the front car. They drive away, they're fine. The guy who lived across the street from the head cheerleader has got a gun and we dive in the back. We're in the back seat. My friend Ian is driving and he has got his his gun, and as we drive by his rifle, he takes aim at the car and he fires once, aiming at the tire well, and he misses.

But when the car gets hit, like you can totally feel it, you know, like the car I didn't felt like to have a are get hit, but the car like jolts right. And then as we piss him, he aims for the back window and he barely misses and just hits right below the back windows. So there's this huge embedded bullet directly beneath it, and so the guy later said, oh, I thought they were robbing the house, and I'm like this guy. First of all, I don't think they did anything to this guy, but I'm like,

we were at toilet paper. This would be the worst robbery of all time if you're throwing toilet paper into the house, white toilet paper, so that everybody can see what you're doing. Like the guy totally lied. I sometimes wonder what that guy does now and if he's still alive. But that happened to us in Antioch, and so we were like terrified. So maybe, but I didn't know you worked as a delivery guy. So you're working as a delivery guy in Manhattan FedEx guy and then like are

you up late at night going into comedy clubs? Like how does that work? So I did that and then I realized that, like, well, someone a strong FedEx career, like this is I'm I'm you know. I was like sometimes working until eight nine o'clock a night. Uh, somethings you get off at two in that soon somethings it's longer. So it was two. I was like, I can't do this, Like so then I switched to just loading trucks, which was like five am. And what I would do is we'd go in at like seven pm. I'd go into

the city. I would hand out flyers for the shows that would start at like eight, and the show would run from eight to one to and I think two in the morning, maybe even three somethings like uh, and we would just stand out there and do that all night, and I would get up. I would get to go up late at night, like one of the last spots, so you were lucky if there was five people in there,

and uh. And then what I would do is I would just stay awake, Like I would just stay up and go into fed X at five am, worked at ten am, and then sleep during the day and then started again at seven. And you did every night because he was you know, uh, there's no nights off. That's what I'm here. They're due is stand up. And I mean that was like, I mean, this is there, like Chappelle's show was going on. So Chappelle used to come

in there. Uh you know, it's like two four, and I mean we would just be standing outside hiding these flyers out and Chappelle would just like pop in and go up and there'd be eight people in the crowd and he would just go on. I remember him and having uh makeup on his ear, like behind his ear. One day, it was like, tell us about it, and it was like, I don't know if it was the it was like he was either painted like as a white person when he's doing some sketch, one of those

sketches like that, and uh. But he would come in and would watch him go up in front of nobody and just sit there and you know, talk and whatever, and then we go outside and say like Chappelle's on stage, and then I mean he would take fifteen minutes in the room would be sold out because we led him in for free, and we just like Chappelle's on stage, so then everybody would just come in. I'll never get one couple, I said Chappelle's day sapells on stage and

they were like I don't believe you. And I go, why why would I make this up? Like is that a comedy? I'm telling him, like why would I lie about this? And the like, I think you're just trying to make us come in the room. I was like, go to that window and if you do not see Dave Chappelle, turn around and leave and they were like no, and then just left. I've never always think about those people like what, like, you know, they literally, what do you think we're trying to kill you? Like, it's a

comedy club. He's a comedian. It's not that far off. It's actually perfect. It makes perfect sense that he would be there. Uh but yeah, you so I would get to sit and watch him. Bill Burr, Patrese O'Neil another unbelievable comedian that passed away. Uh, Greg Giraldo, I mean collin Quin. Like all of these people would just come in.

They'd come in like they would just stop in whenever, and they would go up and then you would just you know, you get to start meeting these guys and hanging around them, and that was like, you know, just kind of where you learn everything. So when do you start thinking I'm decent at this? There would be more, you know, you could have moments where I mean I remember the bad moments of the ones that I remember

that hurt the most. I remember one time getting the ghost on a weekend, like the place would sell out and uh so you get to go up on the late show. Uh one you you do get into one spot. It's from the late show, and I remember this crowd was so hot and so great, and uh, they this girl that went up that I knew that I didn't think was I thought I was better than her. And she goes up and murders and I was like, all right, she's murdering, I'm gonna just slaughtered like two A big problem.

I go up and bomb the hardest you could bomb. I bombed so hard, like it was like I never wore the shirt I had on ever again because I thought it was the shirt I go. I would just anything in my head I could make up. And I left. I had to go walk around like the West Village, like by myself. Like I was like sick to my stomach. I was like, you know where you just kind of have a moment of just like I'm terrible. I don't know what's going on. Uh why were you so bad

then at night? Uh? You know that. I mean I was never that like I I mean, I bombed definitely a lot of times. It's situations when you bomb. It's I mean, there's there's comics that are definitely terrible comedians. But if you're if you have jokes and you're you know, and your jokes are funny, it's usually gonna be a crowd problem. Like it's usually like they're drunk. They're not, you know. I mean there's situations. One day, I had to weight tables at that comedy club because the waiter

didn't show up. So I was like, well, I knew how to wait tables, so I waited tables and then I would go Then I went on stage and like then came off stage and went to the table, and it's like and brought them more beer. Yeah, I mean there's just a lot of like that situation is like no one would take you serious. No one really takes you to you know, if I'm hatting a flyer, trying to make you come into this show, and then you watched me on stage, you're not like, oh wow, that's

cool man, Like you're like, who is this? You're not predisposed to think that guy's good, which oftentimes can impact initial reaction. But on that particular night, when you're out having your West Village walk of like shame what happened that your jokes didn't work that night? I think I got too cocky, Like I got to like I thought, if she did good, there's no way I can't. I'm better than her, And there was like two confident, too cocky. You may be walking up there with more of a

swagger than I've hearned. And you know, a big thing for us is like if you ever if you see if I see a comics sit down on the stool, I mean like it's a big no note. Like it's like and if a comic does sit down, you better be unbelievable. Like Bill Cosby sat down on a stool. So unless you're that level of comedian, You're like, you don't deserve to sit down on the stool, like because

it gives a fake confidence. I don't. I hate fake confidence, and people like, you know, it's like there, it's not a real they can just they're like, I'm gonna sit down, and you know, I don't know. It's very cocky, and

I think I had that. I was very I didn't sit down on the stool, but I'm like there was like a mantle kind of behind you and people would lean on it, and I'm like leaning on it, like just very nonchalantly talking like I got everything and I just and then once like the first joke doesn't work, then it's like I mean, now you're just like you're just struggling hard. They're like, oh, even now if I do comedy, if one joke doesn't work, you felt the next one out quicker and then quicker, you know, and

then it's like then they're like, what's going on? And then you never really get the back and then you're just done. So like that night that happened, I mean, everybody murders except me, and I mean I got no laugh so it just like destroyed me. I still remember, like, you know, like it was like that it affected me that much. So that would have been at what age? So two dozen does rights four, two five, twenty three,

twenty four? Maybe when when do you start being able to make a living off of touring and other things? Like at what point do you say, Okay, I've you know, kind of served my apprenticeship. How much time do you put in doing the you know, sending out get trying to get people to come into the comedy club and working full time doing another job. At what point do you kind of take that next step? I would say, I mean, so I started two thousand four, I mean

I got married in two thousands six. Uh, that helps my wife was working in New York should a good job. So I'm still doing like some like temp work where you would just you know, I don't know, do whatever you go. Like I'd go to the convention center and just like ask some questions if you need help or something. I remember still doing that, like a two six two seven,

I'd take two. I'm not really making I mean, I'm not making much money to the day you get to where I just remember I wanted to get to where the amount of money I would make if I waited tables, you know, I just need to make like twenty gran a year. Like if I can get to twenty gran a year, like that's how much, you know, And that was like a big deal. I was like, oh wow, I'm making this same amount of money I was making waiting tables, like you know, And you were like that

was like a big mark. And then you get you know, then it just keeps in. Then the mark kind of goes in the next year, you might make thirty and then you remember, you know, you might make fifty. And now you're like, oh, this is like a like if I had a regular job, you're making what would be a regular person salary, and like you're just like can't

believe you're you know, that's all you're doing. And so it's two doan dight was like a big year for me, Like that was I did Montreal Comedy Festival just for last and they had a thing called New Faces, and that was I got. I did that. Uh, and then I did a Conan and Live a Gotham. So I did all of that in two thousand and eight. Live and Gotham was a little comedy Central where you do like five minutes, and then uh, I did in Late

Night with Conan was my first time. But for for it in I was very nervous, like so they came in. There's a couple of stories with it. So the first time I go do it. I have have these managers and they're good guys, but they were like kind of crazy, like they're kind of lunatics. Like I would always say, like if you saw a manager, if someone walked into the room and you're like, who's your manager, and I would be like, who'd you thinks about to get kicked

out of here? That's my manager. Like he was a guy that would he'd wear a cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache and they're Jewish and they just like he just was like he was just like kind of a redneck kind of Jewish person. And um, so I go and the first time I do toll In. I tell this in my act now, but like it's I I go do what they picked me in my wife up at our house and we go to thirty Rock where

I mean, pull up the thirty Rock. All these pop rocks as are taking pictures of the celebrities going into thirty Rock. So they come to the car because they think, you know, I'm gonna be some celebrity. And so then I opened the door and I opened it. Uh, they all got their cameras up, and one guy just goes, it's nobody, just yells it out, and they all turned

and walk away from me. And it was just so like deflating to like, you know, and I know I'm not acting like I'm somebody, but it's like you don't, like in my head, I'm like, just to let the picture, you know, you got to shout it out, like just pretend to take it or something like you know. Uh.

But so that was the first time. So then I did so I did conan and uh, and then a couple of months later, they were doing auditions again for Conan, like, and I told my managers, like, I want to try to do it again, and uh, they were like, you can't do it again. Nobody does it within three months of each other. And I was like, well, I think I can try. Why not trying? They were like, no, these done. These managers they were like no, So I go. Uh. So I just went and got it set up on

my own and I got it again. And I wasn't even going to tell them. I was at the point of just like I just want these men. I want my managers just just see me on Conan again. Uh, just to be like, yeah, I went into it again because you game. And uh they end up finding out they came to the audition and I then I got it and they came to Conan and they're like, oh that's cool, man. But you know, they just played off. So what's the benefit for people out there? We're talking

to night bar Gassy, I'm Clay Travis. It's wins and wasses. What's the benefit for and And I'm just kind of fascinated by the comedic industry in general, but I think I'm kind of the average a listener here. The benefit of doing a show like Conan is what it's a legitimizing, it's a stamp of approval. It's the amount of people who are watching. Could you tell any difference in your career before and after you did Conan? No, you don't. I mean you could mostly that do Conan for the

first time, go back to a day job. Yeah, like they're they they haven't made it. They're making you know there there there, You're struggling the whole time. The point of doing it, you have every time you think this could be at the time, like you know, because when you used to do Carson Carson, that changed. Those guys live like they was back then. They would get a tour around the country and they was you know, if

they're if they're on a once, you know. But Steve Martin says it took him like eleven times on Carson. He said that in his book. So I always thought it was just like you did it once, But like you know, a lot of guys Seinfeld took off. Stephen Wright, Uh, he got asked back. That was when Carson waved him over and he got asked back on the show that next week. That's how good he did, so that was

like huge, but that was there's three channels. So when I did Conan, you're doing it just to like you hope it's going to be something crazy, but it's all just check marks in your career that like means you keep moving forward. So now I've done I think thirteen Late Night Steps, maybe fourteen elements. But it was like so it's like all of it is just like you're

just staying around your faces on everything. You're going through the system of like trying to move up to a special and like so it's that's what that's the the huge benefit of it is that I mean like when I did Conan, I mean I wasn't even headline. I don't know if I could have even done in an hour or worth of material. Uh, you know, you probably have like thirty forty good minutes. So you just do it just to it's a check mark. It's a good

thing to get. You have a credit that helps you with when I go trying to play clubs in New York. Like in clubs of New York, it's not like a typical it's not like going to Zanies in Nashville or like you know, an improv or something where you have one headliner and then they have an opener. Clubs in New York there's like seven guys go on, so you have like, you know, every night is like seven comics are on every show and everybody's doing like twelve to

fifteen minutes. Those credits like a conan helps you get into those clubs because now the club can be like, well, this guy was on a Conan, you know, and no one knows that you're on. No one's like, oh I know that guy, you know, but it's just he's been on late night. So it, you know, reaffirms that we're a professional comedy clubs, you know. So it's I'm fascinated

on the economics of this. So has comedy become like you're either a superstar and you make a good living or it's like you can barely afford to make a living at all, Like there's almost no middle class of comedy. Would that be accurate or inaccurate? Um? I would say so. I mean, look, there's like the problem with comedy is like the problem with you know, probably what you do

is like someone doing the podcast. Anybody can have a podcast, it's gonna sw skew the skew the numbers because like I can have a podcast, you know, like anybody on earth can do a podcast and no one listens. I mean you see it all the time. There's nothing greater than we've been seeing comedians post videos to their fans and you'll see like four people like it. You're like, who're you talking to? It's insanity. But that guy says he's a comedian. So that guy's walking around saying he's

a comedian. So there's there's way more of those people then there are that actually you're doing it. But when you're in the the meat of it, of the guys that are you're doing it, I think there's your gaffigans, just Seinfeld's Sebastian, I think Special Meniscalco, like these guys now I mean Gascan, Sebastian Menscalco, Brian Reagan, Anotherland. But like they're they're guys that have made their livings from

stand up. Like it's not their shows, that's not anything else, and they make crazy livings down like they're on those Forbes lists. I mean, you know they they can make fifty million dollars a year, like just touring and if you can sell the tickets then you can do these arenas, you can do these big things. So there is that there is these guys that are making a ton of money. There's a lot of guys though, that can make under a million, make two thousand dollars a year, like you

could do like I'm clean. So if you're a clean comedian and you say you just have some of the if you don't have any of my specials, but I just have like my Late Night my Tonight Show appearances, those are the check marks you have in your career. So I remember my career. At first, you're just you want to get to where like, no matter what, I could do cruises, I could do private gigs, like you know, I have enough credits where you know, I could probably

make a hundred thousand dollars a year. Like just you just want to get to that point where you're just like, all right, I can do this now. You have like it's like a safety net. You feel I have an hour worth of material that I can go do these gigs or whatever that you know you don't want to be doing. But they're good, you know, they're not bad gigs,

and guys can make livings. So there's a lot of guys in that I would say a hundred to they can make hundreds of three hundred, four hundred thousand dollars a year, you know, and and and do and do pretty good. I mean, like, you know, and then there's

another leap. And I think once you get above that, like people are starting to leap into like where you know, I think you can be making you know, you can make a million, two million, then you get and then as you get up it's like four or five and you get gas and I mean some of them are making thirty forty million dollars a year and they're just touring. So I'm curious on this. Can you tell the difference?

I'll give you an example, like, um, I feel like a lot of times with music, you can't really tell the difference between somebody who is the most talented musician. It might just be the person who gets the most

marketing behind them and everything else. Do you feel like comedy is a meritocracy and that the guys who do the best and the girls tend to be the best comedians or when you guys sit around like you know, for instance, writing there are a lot of great writers who don't make great livings because they're not writing for the masses. Do you think that the people who tend to make the best livings in comedy are the best

at what they do or their comics? Comics and you guys are like, man, this guy or this girl is incredible, but they just don't make that They never cross over, do you know what I'm talking about? Like the like people in the in the craft that appreciate them in a way maybe that the masses don't. Yes, I think a lot of like you know, a lot of guy eyes. I mean, look the top right now, Chapelle and burg Bill Bird. That bird has had a special come out too.

So there's your two top guys and those guys. The thing that separates a lot of them is a point of view. Like there you you get what their point of view is. And so when they have a point of view and they're talking to themselves, whatever they talk about is like their own thing. There, HiT's their own take on it. Everything's original. You want to you you want to know what they think about those things, and

the point of view is what separates. I've listened to I'll do it a lot with myself, Like I'll listen to like comedians like on the radio like serious, you know, Netflix and Comedy Central Radio or laft all laugh uts say whatever. You're listening to all these like comedians and also listen to guys and be like, why why is that guy not famous? Like that was a funny joke. Why is he not making any money? He's just like a dude that's just like plugging along making sixty grand

a year maybe. Uh. And it's like it all comes from point of you. And that's that's like the main thing to me that I that I see the difference is like everybody has to have a point of view. You have to have something. I mean, you're in a business that no one cares if you do stand up. No one needs you, no one you know, no one's begging us to do stand up. We're trying to, you know, do something that's you know that no one's asked us

to do. So you have to be you have to have something that makes people want to be like I want to listen to this guy. So I think that's what separates those guys. I think if you're there's no one that's terrible that that's at the top, they couldn't be not your cup of tea you cannot like what they do or that you don't enjoy it. But even know, if you see people always you know, like they're the cable guy. Like I remember guys saying like, oh about him, like you know, he's just doing get or done and

all these stuff, and they act like it's easy. And I would just you know, all I would say is like, didn't go do that? You go do it. If you can do that and makes sixty million dollars a year, then why would you not go do that? But they can't because he did create something, So like that's what that's what's great is he did create something you might not like. It might not be your thing, but it is a lot of people's things. Kevin Hard, he's created something.

People love what he does. There's different guys, you know, to me, the best right now is Bill Burn and Chappelle. I mean, which is pretty clear, but that's the best between even comics. We all think that those guys are that's the best comics working gask into uh. But then yeah, there's plenty of people that are like, yeah, they're not like my thing, but there's a market for Look that Hannah Gatsby, you know, she put that special out whatever.

You know, it's like that's why she didn't have doing comedy on it, Like she's just like doing it, you know, but if there's a huge market for people want to hear it, so she's doing something. She's like figured something out. So it's like what you just sometimes have to like you gotta take yourself out of it, Like I was. Sometimes what I'll say, I it why they are even if it's not someone that I like, I'll be like I get it though, I get why people would like them,

and that's what I think those people as Uh. You mentioned Chappelle and Burr. You also mentioned that you're a

quote unquote you know, kind of clean comedian. So how I want to I'm gonna come back to Chappelle and burg because I've watched those comedy specials as well, But I want to come back to the decision when and how do you decide, Okay, I'm gonna be a clean comedian And for people out there, I'm assuming that means that you don't like tell off color jokes, you don't really curse in your specials, Like how do you make the decision that that is going to be your avenue?

Were you ever not a clean comedian? Did you try different persona so to speak, before you found your voice? How did you come to do comedy the way that you do it? I started like, you know, I grew up here, So I mean, that's all a love let's do. I mean, you grew up. You know, you're Southern Baptist Christian family, just typical national you know family, and so you just I've never was allowed to like listen to any of this stuff. And uh so I just grew

up like that's just how I grew up. And then so when I started coming, I knew I couldn't be dirty, and it's mainly because of my parts. I was like, my parents are gonna they would kill me if I was like filthy, and so that's been that's been my thing ever since the beginning. I was saying, like what I've learned, I this is something I've learned about my stuff recently. It's like all the stuff that I write, I write to not make my parents mad at me,

Like I don't want him to be embarrassed. So every joke is like I'm writing to make them not be embarrassed, or like they're gonna be mad at me. And I think it helps because you're writing for something so specific that it didn't relate to a broader instead of trying to I'm not trying to relate to everybody. I'm trying

to not make them mad at me. And uh so it's like I just always I've always started that way, and I was doing like midnight uncensored shows, like that's how the shows were advertised, and everybody in the show is just filthy, and then I just I never had I never had those jokes. I never had sex jokes. I just never did. And but I learned that I would have to tell these jokes and I didn't want the audience to be like, oh, this is a clean guy. So like I you know, because people just write you

off when they're like, oh, you're a clean comedian. My thing that I like the most that people tell me is when they is that they don't realize I'm clean. And that's the ultimate goal is like for you to be like, oh, I didn't even think about it and like that, and that's what you wanted. That's what you want to be, is you know, to be like, yeah, they don't think about it. And I look at like, look,

there's plenty of dirty guys. Whatever, there's there's whatever you want, we can send you to someone that does that thing. So there was plenty of people being dirty. So then once I started that way, then you're realizing, like, well, I'm like not being dirty just because every single comedian is being dirty. So why would I? Why would I put myself with them? Why would I? Why would I? You know, if I talk about sex, They're all talking about sex, every one of them. So why would I?

Why would I want to try to write a better sex joke than the thousand of them that are out there. If I don't do that, then that's just one extra joke I have. That is something different, that's something that no one's thought of. So I want to go back to the Chappelle and the burr Um when you watch a special and you are in the same industry as those guys. I remember when I first started writing, people said,

you have to find your own voice. And it's an interesting dynamic because, uh, you want to find your voice, which sounds different than everybody else's voice, but also you're trying to learn simultaneously from the voices that surround you. Right. In other words, for a writer, the best way to learn how to write is to read the people who are the best writers, and then hopefully you develop your own voice that builds upon whatever they have created. I'm

assuming the same thing is true of comedians. Do you still kind of you said you listen to the radio and you're talking about Burr and Chappelle and things like that. Do you find yourself taking notes almost watching it like it's film if you were an athlete, right, if you're a quarterback, you want to go watch what Tom Brady and Peyton Manning do because you can learn from them because you do the same thing. You just don't necessarily do quite as well. Do you watch comedy the same

way as a young quarterback might watch game film? You? Uh, yeah, I watched Burds such a last time, and like, so I was with ber like a year ago or something, maybe your hash I went to Talladega and so I've done Dayton and Talladega with him, and like, so I gotta see some of this, like whenever you're like first starting to put it together, and uh, what you take from Look, when you first start, the biggest thing you take is you take people's cadences. So that's the that's

the thing that you get influenced with the most. The speech pattern, like the speech pattern, the thing it makes him laugh like Brian Reagan's is you know, whatever he is, you know, it's thing that he has that makes people ask Burger is like, you know, he burd has his arm on the like stand, he props up and puts his arm. So you would start seeing everybody, every younger comics starting to do that, and they grabbed the mic stand and they start moving it a little bit more Chappelle,

he hits the microphone on his leg. I mean, I hate it that he does it, but that's like what he does. And you can start seeing some other guys do it like and you start seeing it and like when you first start, everybody in New York, everybody sounded like David Tell. David Tell was probably the pound from Pound, the funniest comedian has ever lived. Truth, Like, if I if I had to pay to watch someone, I'd watch him because it will there will be nothing fun er,

nothing is more fun than watching him. And uh so U Tell was like everybody sounded like a Tell. Everybody just you would like if you went and watched him, you just you would start you know, you start taking the cadence from him, because they you gotta learn a cadence that makes people laugh. So the way they can talk is like the way they say something is like

they just figured something out and it's their thing. So you start, like you get influenced by it very heavily, and you have to be very aware of it, like you have to, like, you know, you would realize that Like there's times I was like, oh, I can't go watch David Tell anymore because I would might I feel like I'm sounding like him or Bird or like whoever Chappelle.

Like you, just every every young Southern novelist sounds for a while like William Faulkner, right because they're like, oh, this is the guy who's got the most pronounced and voice that kind of defines a region and you grow up reading him or whatever else, and so everybody has a falkinery and twist, and for you, it would be that guy that you're talking about right now, where everybody mimics him because he's literally the master of the craft. Yeah,

David Tell. Have you heard of David Tel? You know Insombiac Central. He's unreal, so uh, just very jokes, very quick whatever. Yes, but you you so you catch yourself doing that, so you have to you have to like learn to like sometimes get you still need to be watching them because you need to see you know. That was the big thing about moving to New York, because like I would see people make it. I remember these

I'm sorry getting passed at the Comedy Seller. Past means he's allowed to play there, and and he was was doing open mics with him, and then he's like, now he's playing at the Comedy Seller. And then he was hosting the MTV Movie Awards and you're like what, So, like you need to be around it happened very fast, and you need to see that. I saw Bill Burr like Birds is almost entire. He was probably a ten year comic when I moved to New York, and he

was unbelievable. And so I watched him go from that comic to the comic key is right now and so and I've seen birds like my guy, Like that's the guy that, like I I couldn't believe when I first saw him. I went to HBO one night Stand taping, and I mean he murdered so hard you could still the crowd like be like you know, like they were like what what was that? Like what happened? Because they just they were laughing so hard and you were just like you just knew, like, oh, this is it's happening

right now. This dude's about to shoot off on a rocket and become the guy he that he is right now. And so it was very neat to like see that stuff. Yes you have so now when I watch it now, I will sometimes watch Old Bird specials if I but I'll do it to get motivated, Like I'll do it. I get very excited when I hear a joke like really working and a joke that's really funny. It gets you like all juice uff and you're excited and you're like, yeah, yeah,

I want to create something like that. So you're not doing it like learns, I'm not, Like I'm not, you know, now, I wouldn't like what I would learn from like like I opened for Chris Rock and like so I would just learn from Chris, like you know, some of it's just even how to be Chris Rock, Like you know, some of it's you know, it's like how do you tour?

What do you do like on the road, and like you know, seeing how they you know, when you do theaters, like you could just be asking them, like you do an encore, do you do how do people come out? Not that I'm at that level that those guys are at, but you know you're just like asking them like some little questions like that. But for if I watched this special, I'm a lot of it is motivation, Like it's just to like get you up and writing and like get

you excited again about like stand up. So when is the first time so you're you get married and uh and obviously your wife you probably give a shout out here, has to be pretty supportive. I would imagine when do you start thinking, hey, like I like I'm getting so the career trajectories. You get on cone and you pull up and people have no idea who you are, but

you keep plugging away. I mean you're talking years now, and you said initially your goal is to make twenty dollars a year, and you know you're putting in years to be able to get just twenty tho dollars a year. And obviously this podcast called Wins and Losses and we're talking to a parkassy. But you gotta get years in to get to there. And that's what I say from a writing perspective, I had to put in years before

I made anything right writing online. I just didn't grind and grind and grind, And I feel like there's this idea that you're gonna be instantaneously successful. It really doesn't happen like that for most people in comedy. No, it doesn't happen. It takes them all. I mean Burr Louis c k Uh, you know some guys. You know, I think a lot of times it's either people make it like very young or like they're forty, and like that's when they that's just what it happens. That's when they

make it. Like so, you know, I remember Bird tell me something a long time ago, like he has some advice, Like he was like he saw me and uh, this is one of the first times he saw me do stand up. This is like, you know, I'm prinds of burn now, Like but like this is a longer where's a big deal When he like knew my name and you're like you can't believe you know he knows you. Uh, and everybody's like just keep doing it means they look

it takes us. Is it takes comics like us a lot longer, but you, when you get fans, you get them for life. And it was just like that advice of just like, yeah, you gotta keep doing this, but when you get new fans, they will stay with you. Like you're not You're not a flash in the pan. You're not getting people that are not invested in you.

You're getting fans people that are discovering you. And then like I know it now when my on my show, my live show, I say that there's a lot of right when I started, I look, there's a lot of pressure on me for this show to be good. I know there's a lot of pressure on a lot of you because I know a lot of people introduce my comedy to their friends and bring them to the shows. So this needs to go as good as for you as it is it does for me. Are you never

going to suggest anything in that friendship ever? Yet? And then yeah, I say you. I was like they're really like, oh you heard about a new restaurant, and like as that neapor gets too good, I think we'll pass. Uh. So it's like that's you know, but it's like I know that these people are invested, Like so when they come and they're fans of you. Like there there's a

lot of them have been. I mean, I've got some people that have been there since two thousand and eight and like they saw me alive a Gotham and then they you know, and then it slowly just gets bigger and bigger, and you just get people that like, you know, how do you I mean you probably know, like you get fans, you know when sometimes when your fans become your friends, because like you can't believe that somebody even

likes what you do. And then you end up like talking to these people like you're like, oh, now I like know them, like because they were they talked to me when nobody knew who I was. And then you end up like just kind of knowing them in your life. Um. So it's like you just you know, you slowly just get these people and they become way more invested because you're not you know, Seinfeld, You're not like a Walmart

or a Target. You're not just this gigantic thing You're you know, it's I don't know, people are really rooting for you. And that's what I've learned is that you want you want people of the root for you and so as people are rooting for you, you also then have some awful I'm sure times. Like I I talked about from a writing perspective, the worst thing that can happen to you for a writer is you have a

book signing and nobody shows up right. And I think every single writer has had that opportunity happen right where you show up and you know you do like I tell this, and I've talked about it before, like I had when I did dixieland Delight, my first book, I drove down to Birmingham. I had a signing at Books a Million on the north side of Birmingham and I showed up there and not one person bought a book and not one person showed up right. And I I

love that. I would I would have paid good money to just sit and want you sit there for two hours at a Birmingham area. I mean I did a book signing. Everybody, Yeah they're like and and by the way, I wrote a book about SEC football in Birmingham, which is like the most hardcore market imaginable right for college football. It's not like I was trying to sell, you know,

like something that the market had no interest in. And I did like book signings at dead at Walmart, like not even I tell people, not even the good Walmart. Like there's good Walmarts if you if you are you know your neighborhoods, like there's like, oh, that's the good Walmart, right like I did. I did bad Walmarts and Knoxville and you know, like there's just like fat people with you know, carts full of diet dr pepper and you're like, hey, you interest didn't read you know, a book too, and

you're I mean you're there for like an hour. You don't want to leave because like you know, I I don't want to look like a diva. But you're just like, I mean, this is a long time to be here, right, And so I'm sure for comedians you guys all have experiences like that too, right where you show up and like there's nobody there or there's one or two people and you're like you just want to sit at the table. I'll tell you my routine, you know, like, well you

have a beat. I had the hairline Carolines on Broadway. They were doing my first headlining thing. They gave me they would do these like uh, they would give like the New York comics, like the guys that were kind of coming up. They give us like a Wednesday night and it'd be like, we get a headline, Ney Bar gets I get a poster outside of Carolines on Broadway Club. Huge deal, and you're like, I can't believe this is happening.

And so I go downstairs and they they told me and the audience that they don't have enough people and canceled the show. They told us all together, and I was just in the bar and they're like, there's no show and I just have to walk out with these people. Um, so you're yeah, you would get I mean, I mean I would said I performed for one guy once. Uh he wouldn't leave and I asked him to leave in the microphone and he said no. And then uh, you

would get two people, three people, four. I mean at the beginning, you're I mean six, You were like, this is all starting to come together. It's happening. Uh. It was unbelievable. And that that's why New York comics are the best, because you have I mean it's a hard three to four years of just you know, because because when they would run shows, they you would run a show like you just be in a basement and it'd be like eight o'clock and if you've got two people

to go down there, be free. And if you've got two people to go down there, and then someone would be like, hey, they're about to leave, and then you're like, well, then someone's got to go up and though someone would go on stage for those two people, and then you would other people be out front trying to get more people down there. You're just trying to get something started

so we can get a show. So yeah, you're regularly performing in front of I mean, and you do gigs like where you would uh I mean you you'd be at a sports bar and they would like, not cut the TVs off, and you would, you know, just the TVs are on like over your head and people don't even know what show is happening. Uh, I mean this is and it's just the norm. Like you just get there and then they tell you like, I don't know, last week was packed, I don't know what happened this week.

They always tell you that it happened the week before it was like the greatest show they've ever had, and now it's the worst show. I remember doing the show once at some Italian restaurant and the stage was in the middle behind the bar. But when you stood up, uh, no one could see you because of the wine glasses,

so no one could do your head. So you would have to just like you would have to there's no chair, you have to like just bend over and like talk to this crowd that you know, and no one's invested. One show was in the people were in two different rooms and you just stood in the middle so they couldn't. But like when you're doing that, it feels like you're performing for your two different audiences. No one's laughing at

the same time. It's very weird. And you just and I mean you do that all the time, and like you would do it for like free food, like they're like we're gonna pay, We're gonna be a free food and you drive out there, uh you know and spend all this gas money or whatever you're spending. You're just

making no money. I just remember it was like that's why the one thing good comments It was never about the money for me, because if it was, I would have never made it to this point because you just can't have it be about the money at the beginning, because you're gonna lose money. You're gonna just lose a ton of money. So if you not taking gigs because of money, then you're not getting up enough. So I just remembered, like, you know, you would get paid twenty

dollars if someone didn't pay me. I would just remember thinking like this, if this twenty matters to me this much, like I'm doing something I shouldn't even be doing this, like if I'm like, dude, I need this twenty dollar. Like you just keep a day job until you don't have to. That's basically all you do. So how close did you ever come to quitting? How many were there times you were like this is just not gonna happen for me, or at least maybe not quitting, but like,

I've got to focus on something else. I gotta have a different career goal. The only I never I never thought I was gonna quit. I remember my wife when we only had one conversation, she was like how much She's like, how long would you do this? If before it worked? Because it is it's five, seven, eight, nine years, you're not making any money. Uh, And I mean I've I told her. I was like, I'm not gonna quit.

I was like I was like, I'm gonna do this forever, so you know about very That's what I was telling young comedians. If you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, if someone's like, you know, how long are you gonna do it? Like you know, you need to be like, look, this is what's happening, so either on board or you can leave. But like, I'm not quitting this for you, like, and you have to dive in that much and you have to be like that up front about it. You

just have to trade up, you know. When God, I just so many dudes, uh, they getting relationships and they're like, my girl wants me to hang out on Monday, you know, And it was like ridiculous to me that he was like what are you talking about? Like you don't you don't like, you know, sit there and be like, oh oh oh that's cool. So you can't go out of the show on Monday because your girl wants to watch

the Bachelor or something like. You're like, it's insanity, Like you have to go out, So you have to just always like do that. The only time I would the only thing I would have done that was crazy. My buddy, I remember, for money, he went to this was in like to only say, two thousand and eight was my year. That was good. Uh. He went to Iraq and did like he was a contractor where you would like he worked in like the Camp Liberty or something, and they

were just like checking people in and out. And it was like one of these gigs that you go over there for like eight months and you can make like a hundred grand or something, but I don't remember what it was because something like that, and they just you go work there, but and then you come back. And I almost did that because I thought if I could go there for eight months make a hundred thousand dollars, I could come back and then I wouldn't have to

have a day job and I'll just you know. But I ended up not doing it, uh, which I'm glad I didn't, because you know, you don't need to take yourself out of something too when you're in it. That was the only time I ever did something. When did you file taxes and you were like, wow, I had a really good year. Was there a dollar figure as a comedian or you're like, boom, check this out. I remember making fifty was fifty was a big number. And uh,

I remember twenty two. I remember like twenty, I remember twenty,

I remember fifty. Then it's like sixty, you know, and then like you know, and then you get the point when you I mean like you know, not talking all about like when you get to you do an LLC, Like when you get to that, and then you're like that's insane, like you think you all you want is like you're like, I just want to get like I gonna make up a name that people have to write these checks to me, and like you know, and so you get to that point where you do it, so

it all just starts getting like where it gets more and more and then you have no concept of like I have no you know, money, Like I have no concept of any of this money like or like how what to do like or anything. So it's all like new. Uh. But it's like, yeah, I would say it was like fifty.

I remember making fifty and then sixty, you know, and then get into like sixty and I always just maybe these jumps and then you know where you're like, oh man, I have like a regular job, Like you're like you know, you can go eat, you take a cab home instead of taking the train. Uh, And then you know and then it all just kind of keeps you hope, it just keeps building from there like a hundred You're like,

oh my god, this is like the richest person alive. Uh. You know if many earned, how many days a year are you on the road as your career starts developing? Now? When I was in New York, I stayed in New York and then I moved to l A. Uh, I moved on like this out of the money. This is my advice, the best advice I've ever read. Jerry Wintrob had a great book. He was Elvis's manager and then became a big producer, produced Ocean's eleven, all this stuff.

He's a great book. And Uh, the best advice that I've ever heard was he I remember in his book he said he knew any time he was starting to feel comfortable, it was time to make a change. And I have like lived my life by that. When I heard that, I moved to Los Angeles two months after I read that, because I knew that I was comfortable. I knew like I was in New York, I was getting up at all the clubs. I was not like chasing anything in New York anymore. I was in late

night spots. You know, I could be making like I was making probably like the round sixty grand a year or something like that, you know, where You're like, all right, I got a living in all this, and I knew that if I stay here, next thing, I know, I will be fifty calling in you know, calling in a vails, you know, trying to make a thousand dollars a week if I'm lucky, and uh so I knew at that point, I was like, I need to go to afenses and put myself in a situation that I'm not comfortable with

that that then is going to make me like, you know, have to like work like now now, you know, Like there I was like settled. I was like I went up every single night. I wasn't fighting for these spots. I wasn't having to hang out. And then I moved to l A and then nobody knows me and I'm back to you know, you're not at square one, but you're you're you're starting your lower than what you just left from. And then you're you know, you gotta go back. Well and what was the other thing that's you said?

What you said? Other than that, I don't even remember now because I got so the idea of once you get comfortable, you gotta you gotta shake yourself off. It's it's the best of advice I've ever heard. Man. Once you I mean it's true literally and everything that uh I've ever done. If I start feel uncomfortable, I I mix it up and you do that until you're you know,

I mean, you really should never be comfortable. You should always be like and like always like, oh, I need to go to another thing and I come to you know, I mean I'm starting to tour now, and like so now these people are coming and then you know, then we you know, it was like doing this show that I just did, that TV show, like doing that that was like a very thing that was uncomfortable, that made me uncomfortable, and like, you know, we talked that. We

talked about that. Yeah. Yeah, alright. So so first of all, um, when did we I came and watched your act And I'm trying to think of when it was. I think we had you on the radio show that I did in Nashville, right a couple of times back in the day, uh, back in the day one or four five, you came with me to uh to third Man Records at the UFC Nashville event. That's right. I was town and uh, I saw my wife and I were out and we were like we were trying to decide what we were

going to do, and we just in the fight. Yeah yeah, and I said, hey, we're going to do a show. We were doing a recording at Third Man Records, and so I was like, we're going over there. We took a golf cart and drove over and you you absolutely killed it. You were telling the story about going to the North Carolina like the Guse or whatever. Yes, uh,

and you know like you absolutely killed it. Like, I mean, that's the tiny I don't know what a hundred people there maybe in Third Man Records, like in their back room, which is really cool. And so we saw that in person, and then we stayed in touch for a little while, you know, texting back and forth and everything else. Because you're a big we haven't even mentioned this, but you're a huge Vanderbilt sports fan, right, I mean, for people out there, I don't know, like, how big of a

Vanderbilt fan are you. I grew up and watching my cousin Ronnie Bargetti coach at Vanderbilt in the basketball in the seventies and uh and then was the color commentator forever. So we just grew up around Vanderbilt and my mom works in a ticket office and uh, I've been my vall State. My one experience. The one thing I did

good at vall State. I gave a speech about Vanderbilt's uh nineteen nineties six football season where we uh we won five games, and I had and I had a highlight reel of those games and it was uh and I just talked I knew every player, my favorite player of Vanderbilts, Corey Chavis and uh and then so every I knew every player at that point, and I'm like just talking about Vanderbilt, and I just remember I was

like very passionate about it. And it's like something I think back now with comedy, like you learned that, like, oh, when you're really passionate, like then that's when people want to hear because they're like, this dude's way into this.

So like I would listen to you listen to anybody if they care and uh, and so like I remember just giving this speech, I showed like some of the highlight thing and then then it showed up to that LSU game where we got that was the year the land l Shoe where we had two delay of game penalties trying to go for two and then we got an extra point blocked and lost the l S which is, by the way, the story of Vanderbilt football in a nutshell.

That was actually good Tennessee Tennessee for Yeah. Remember, I mean I've watched all these games over the years. I mean we're the same fun, have fun, expect to win. Yeah, that was very Logan's fun. And then, by the way, Wood he wouldn't offer, ended up working as a as I hope he's still alive, but he was working on the destined toll bridge in Florida. Do you remember that?

Oh wow, you know what that does? Sounding my co host on three h L back in the day, we were going down to do the SEC spring meetings and he's like, he's Brent Doherty and he's like uh and he he we we we met up and he was like, dude, you're not gonna believe this. He's like, I just like, I just drove over the toll bridge and I looked down.

The guy's got like a world, you know, like a super Bowl ring and it's what he wouldn't offer who used to be the head coach of Vanderbilt and he's now working in the toll booth at Deston, Like, I mean, but have fun, expect to win. Uh you tell him that that's what you should told him when you paid him to win. What an amazing Yeah, but there can't be anybody else who's ever won a Super Bowl that's worked at a toll booth before. But I mean literally had a Super Bowl ring on working in the toll

booth one day sec I had SEC football coach. He was like, yeah, I just like this job. But so you go to like Memorial Jim, you would go to all these different Vanderbilt athletic events when you were a kid. Yeah yeah we we Uh we used to be to go on Vanderbilt's football field like you could just walk on it. Yeah. I remember going on it and like playing football with like my parents. Yeah you know when we were really young, like they never had it locked up. Uh yeah, So I mean I would go. I mean

he know was I was basketball Drew. You know, I'm a dreamatics around our age a little bit older, but like, uh, you know, seeing all damn Ron Mercer when he was going to maybe go to Andy. I asked him, Actually, I I golf with him, and I mean I told my buddy, uh, when we were gonna get Adam saw another guy to play basketball Belmont and he I grew up with him, and so I told him, I go, how long do you think will it'll take? Before I asked Ron Mercer how close he was to go to

Vandy and I didn't. I didn't make it off the range. And I mean literally maybe the second sentence that to the Ron Mercer was like, were you were you going to go to Vanderbilte And he said no, He said he never was going to go to Vanderbille. Yeah. For people who don't know out there, Ron Mercer is one of the greatest UH Nashville area basketball players of all time.

And obviously he became a lottery pick, went to Kentucky, won a national championship up and Vanderbilt their board of admissions refused to admit him, and it was a huge story in Nashville, and the idea was, oh, he was going to go there because he was friends with Drew Mott dramatics. They played together at a high school locally Good Past your high school and they were gonna go together and it was gonna be like the greatest tandem ever.

Vanderbilt basketball was gonna be incredibly relevant. And they didn't let him in. And so you asked him, I've never heard him like he said he was never gonna go. He said he never was going to go. I mean, maybe they didn't let him in, but like, uh, he said, he said he was never going to go. Yeah, I mean he was the top high school player the country. Like, I mean, it was it was going to be very insane.

It's like Darius Garland actually went to Vanderbilt, like you know, but he's he was that high of a level of a player, So it didn't make complete sense. I mean I watched him play in high school and in high school basketball, he was as good of a high school basketball player as you could possibly be. Like you went and watched him play, and it was like watching I'm trying to think of an equivalent outside of the world

of sports. I mean, he was Lebron for Nashville, right, I mean, like that's how good he was in high school. You watched him, and even if you didn't know anything about basketball, somebody could watch for like five minutes and be like, oh my god, that that guy is so much better than everybody else. Yeah. Um, and so you grew up a Vanderbilt fan. And so the reason why bring up the Vanderbilt thing is I'm circling back around.

So uh, when we were finishing Walking in season one, there is a hotel, the Intercontinental Hotel on Avenue with the Stars in Los Angeles that overlooks the Fox lot. And so I was sitting at the bar they're talking to I think the Fox bet people who are now you know, running the betting universe, and I see you walking in and you were checking in for how many

days at that hotel? You went went to the front desk because I've spent months at that hotel, maybe years of my life now because working at Fox, like you're right there, you can just walk back and forth. And you checked in and they were like, oh, we got you here for fifty days, Mr Barghassi. Yeah, and the lady says, the longest she's ever she's ever checked in, yeah,

because she's never seen that. Yeah, fifty days. So uh, and so like then we hang out for a little bit and I've stayed there so many times, Like I was like, Hey, you need to check out the room that I always stay in. It's got the sun deck. Like I'm giving you tips because you're gonna be there for fifty days. We leave, uh, finished shooting season one of Locking In. Then we get like six weeks off. We come back to start the second season, and you're

still at the same hotel. And while you're there, you've been doing this pilot, uh, the Nate Bargazzi show, which they're filming on the Fox A lot. It's with Disney because Disney now controls a lot of the Fox A lot because of the asset purchase and everything else. And so you're like, hey, come by and check out the set. And I gotta say, the set is unbelievable. It's set at Nashville, and I mean there's a zany stage, but

all the details, like I was wown away. They basically built a Nashville house on its l a sound stage and we're walking around in all the details, like there's a flyer for Titans tickets, there's like the mayoral election was about to happen in Nashville. Like every detail is so incredible. I mean my mind was blown by it. Yeah, it was it's how much detail they you know, the

people that put all that together. Uh, they're just it's like what they do and like, you know, I remember them talking to me about the house and like what do we want the house? Because the show is basically and everybody loves Raymond. Uh so it's like every you know, we have the parents and the parents on that Sevenie show. The wife is Katie Adeleton and she was on the league. Um and so like that they made us like when we were designing the house, it was like, how do

you want to design? Like, you know, what do you what's Nashville Like it's all this stuff that you You're like, well, I don't know, I don't know you know what stands out you know? Uh, but you slowly starting. I remember, and I don't wanted an island, and I remember I wanted to like the garage either to go everybody enters through the garage in Nashville, like are a lot of people you get your garage doors are open always and

uh they you know, just this incredible detail. The lighting guy he grew up in the South, but he made the light the lighting look like Nashville lighting where it's humid and hot, and it's just like thicker, so like the airs thicker. So the lighting, like the sunlight looks different than it would in California, So they may they make it all look like this crazy. Uh, they're just just such a different thing. And it feels like a you know, I mean it's a real home, you know.

And so you're out there for all this time working on this show and then you guys eventually do a version of the show, like you tape a pilot, and I mean it's amazing, like how detailed it is and how everything is put together, and has there been any like you're sitting around now waiting to hear have you heard of any verdict on what the pilot looks like? Or has it been flipped put four together yet? Yeah, I've seen it. Uh, I've seen it. We're editing it

and putting it all together now. So I watched it a few times and then uh, we're no. We turned it in shortly in uh week was two or something like that, and then we give it to ABC and then it's kind of out of our hands. So, uh, it's twenty three minutes. How many hours do you think you worked to put together one three minute pilot. Boy, it was those fifth I mean it's every day you were doing something for those fifty days. I mean I've been you know, we started selling the show two years ago.

So this show has been around for two years and has been told no twice. And then we got very stuck in the Fox Disney merger. Uh and because we were at Fox originally that we were at ABC and then they got told o it again, and then my special came out and like just some other stuff happened and then they were like, oh, let's let's try it again. And so you're I mean you're working on it the all time. It changes. I mean we had casting. Casting took like two months, um, and I'm then all the

casting things, I'm like, you know, I'm who you're gonna get. Uh, it's every It's every single day of your life. You're just like just absorbing and taking all this stuff in. And then you start writing. I mean you're in the writer's room and you're in there for you know, you could be in there for ten hours and you're just you know, and you write a script. I mean, how

many times you change the script is? That's the thing that I'm most like always blown away because when you first write it, you think like, this is it, you know, like Seinfeld, like when George stands is like, this isn't the show. So that's how you feel. Like you're just like this is it. It's perfect, and then it just changes to thirty times and you're blown away, you know, because you think it's good. And then the next day

you're like this is maybe the one. This is unwatchable, and then you you just go through these big extremes and like you know, as a comedian, you want to put in jokes, but jokes just don't matter if they don't matter at the beginning, like the story really matters. Uh, So you and the jokes, I mean the jokes like you're and then when we tape, because we do it

in front of a live audience. The night we taped, I mean, you're getting they're giving you jokes and then like if a joke doesn't really land, uh, then they come and say, like we'll say this now, and you change it up, and like you just kind of change it up on the fly, and uh, you know, and I've never done acting and this so I mean I was like I was doing meeting with an acting coach like you know, four to ten hours a week whatever I could do, and we would just like work on stuff.

I had a dialect coach there, uh because you know with Southern people like I, I don't we don't say words correctly. I really don't and I mumble, so you know, they he would like work with me, so they like how to say something like like well, like I was like, if you say we will be right back, We're like,

we'll be right back. And we tend to like throw an R in there because of the South doesn't really like use their jaw, and so we would spell it on my script W I L L and I would just say we'll be right back, and if I said it like that, it sounded correctly. So we would go through and like you know, put those just to make sure I'm saying because I'm not trying to get rid of my accent, but you know some stuff that like no one knows what you're saying, dude, like no one

can understand it. And uh so yeah, it was I mean it was every day. It was like you'd go in at like seven in the morning and I would go back to hotel one in the morning, and you just did that for a week because I was writing too. If you're acting, you're usually done about four and then you go back the next day. So like, I mean, it's basically like, uh, I don't know, show production boot camp. I mean, is that a good way to describe it.

I mean, because you're you're basically just going back and forth the whole time, and you're putting in these hundreds of hours and then you'll put together a finished product and then if they say yes, boom, you gotta do how many shows? Like you just mean? I mean that's yeah, you do. I mean it could be three the sixteen thirties probably the most. And then uh so you just see what they want to order. I mean, there's so much of it plays to like where you would be,

where you would be placed on in the an ABC's lineup. Um, there's a million different ways that different directions of this can go. But yeah, you learn a lot of stuff. I mean, like I learned, you know, like the TV just learned. How like specific I mean, you gotta be careful when you say stuff, because I would say if I said something, I said I wanted a refrigerator a certain way in the parents house, and then refrigerators there. Then you're like, I don't like the refrigerator. I wanted

a different way. And then they're like, you know, but like if you just even say that in passing, they like someone's doing it. And then you're like, oh, I gotta make sure when I say something, I really want it, because like there's people here that will do that. They will get that, and they will get you whatever. You know, they're your job is to make sure that this house is believable. And you know, I mean they had newspapers

from there. We're Williamson County or Davidson County newspapers. Yeah, like on the tables, so you would just know that, you know. So it just so everybody like gets in the mood of you know what the show is. You're also a really unassuming you know, like I would say, totally normal guy. I like to think that that also defines the way that I kind of carry myself. Right. Um. I think Nashville in some way, I don't. I think Nashville in some way maybe is I mean, you're born

and raised here. I was too. I think maybe it's a city that doesn't really kind of it's it's I don't know, maybe it's different now for kids who are growing up now, But it seems like a city where, uh, you know, like putting on airs is not really a thing people do, And so I think it tends to be a very normal, like middle of the road kind of place, at least in the era that we grew up in. And I know, when I walked on that Fox lot for the first time, I was like, holy hell, Like,

what in the world am I doing being here? And I'm on the Fox lot, you know, like doing our television shows or whatever else. I can't even imagine when they build a version of the house that I live in in Nashville and the entire show is built around me, Like that has to just be a mind blowing experience, right, it can't possibly feel real? No, it doesn't. I mean like it feels. I mean, you know, yes, I try

to ever make anything lost on me. I try to, uh you know, you just be nice to everybody and you appreciate it, and you you know, I mean you just kind of like, yeah, you give off. I don't want anybody to think that they can't come talk to me, like, you know, because in that world they can, Like that world they that it is called the Naparkes Show. So and you get it in this world where you're like, I if I want an ice coffee in the morning, it's just there. When I get to like, I'm not

even as you know, like everything is like that. So you try to always like be very aware that this stuff is happening and like then also being very appreciative and make sure that you're like saying that stuff because it is tough and there's a lot of stuff on your show. I mean, I mean I remember the night

we take. I mean I almost cried before we take because it was so overwhelming, Like it was you know, I started and I wanted to be sign film and then now I'm doing this sitcom and then you're like, it's happen. You know, it's here. It's taken sixteen years, but it's happened. And then your name is on this thing. You're like, you know, when you when you think about you like, if I'm the only person that can't leave this show, everybody else can leave, I'm the only if

I stay, then we do this like I can't. You know, It's like I used to have a joke about quitting and staying in comedy. I was like, it's a weird job because there's no one. I don't have anybody quit too, Like I'm you know, I can't call Signfeld and be like I'm out, Like there's nobody to quit too. And so it's a very weird kind of thing. And then you're doing this job now where you're like if I quit, all these people like don't work here now and they have to go find different jobs and they have to

go do different things. Uh so he yeah, it was, it was. It was wild, and but you also got to do a good product. You gotta do a good thing. I mean, the best way that I feel like we're doing this show is you always want to go like, this show would change my life if it goes, it

would change about what life wildly. But that being said, if I didn't have this show, I'm gonna be fine too, Like you always want to get to that point to where you go you want to almost when you do a show you want to like is then you can work on it being like, hey, I don't need this show and like and it is, I think it gives a better product instead of being like please let me I need this show so bad, Like you know that was like when you're doing spots when you're making twenty dollars.

I never wanted to be like I have to have this twenty dollars and I'm not going to eat tonight like you just you know you. I'd have a day job. I would figure a way out. But like to do in this show is that you'd like to get to a point we're like, look, I don't need this if this. If this doesn't go like, I'm gonna be fine. I'll keep doing my stand up. That being said, I want this show to go more than anything. Yeah, I I

absolutely do. But it's nice to be able to do it and not have the weight of my life depending on this show. I get it completely now. Um. And it's also wild to be when when you guys turn it in to be at the beck and call of your phone when you don't know when you're gonna get the word right, Like I remember before Locking got picked up right, I did a bunch of pilots with Fox on the Fox Sports a lot, and you don't necessarily

know what's going to happen. I did two different OutKick shows and you do it, you think you put a good product out there, and then things can change. Like, right, you mentioned that you got caught up in the Fox

Disney uh you know interlude. Well, you know, they changed the leadership of Fox Sports, and so there's different people making decisions, and you know, it's like it's like being a player on a on a franchise, right, the coach likes you, the coach is gonna be able to maybe build around you and like they create a system for you and everything else. Or you're just some other guy, you know, another recruit and they're like, yeah, I don't really think this guy is gonna execute my game plan

that well. And so but when you're waiting on that stuff, it's like every time your phone buzzes you like skip over right, You're like, oh my god, is this what's the new? We're going to get a three window? You're like, oh, somebody, and Beverly, who is this gonna be? Is this gonna be it? Um? And so it's it's a crazy process to be in, but it's a good spot to be in where you're like, if it happens, that's awesome. I want it to happen more than anything. But if it

doesn't happen, my world's not gonna end. Yes, it's that, and that's what you want to do. Do you want to you want to build yourself up to be like you always want to be in control, especially in something like this, uh, like something that's not the norm. Uh maybe even it is the norm. Yeah, it feels nice to be in control, to be like, all right, I've created this thing. That's why I'm staying up so good.

That's why I'm so glad I'm not an actor. An actor's entire life is just waiting, just waiting to see if you get something. You're either you're either gonna make zero money or maybe ten million dollars, like it's you know, it's like you and you're just always waiting for that kind of like saying you're either not famous now you're Tom Cruise like you know, it's like and you're just always waiting. Like so I'm glad like to have that outlet to be with stand up. That's why I stuck

with stand up. Like I knew a lot of guys in their starting people would do like different videos or different this or different that, and then they would do stand up and I was like, well, I should just be great at one thing, Like if I could be

great at one thing that opens doors to everything. But if I'm but if I'm just whatever, if I'm like, you know, also being like well I do this, and I do that, and I'm making these sketches and I'm trying to like, you know, see what lands It's like, well, that's not gonna you know, it says Steve Martin, be undeniable. That's what he That's what he always said. That's what you gotta get to be undeniable, and then all the doors will open because you're bringing something to the table.

Then if I never got this show before and it was like like it was brutal because it was I couldn't I probably couldn't have handled this show. But now it's nice to get it and then you're like, oh, yeah, you know, you're actually bringing something to the table, like you actually have an audience and fans. You know, we're talking to a BARGATSI. This is wins and losses. It's it's it's interesting, like the reason why I haven't given

up writing. A lot of people who start doing radio and start doing TV, they decide, you know, I'm not gonna write anymore because writing is tough. I've continued to write.

But it's funny you mentioned that because I remember the first time I went out to Fox they had a Terranea Resort, which is a fabulous place out in l A. And they had everybody who's on Fox Sports was showing up because it was the launch of f S one, and so like there's Troy Aigman, and there's Jimmy Johnson, and there's Michael Strahan and like every famous person you can think of that's ever been associated with Fox Sports, Aaron Andrews, who at least I knew a little bit,

Joe Buck, you know, like all these just massive, huge, famous people. And I remember having like an almost mini panic attack because I'm there and I'm like, oh my, what am I doing here? Like I feel like, you know, like, am I sure, I'm thirty, you know, three or whatever I am. But I'm like at that point, I had been working, you know, for a long time to kind of get an opportunity there, but I was like, I don't,

am I supposed to be doing television? Like, and so what I was getting at with the like the Nate Bargatsky Show is and I think this is very l A and Hollywood related. It's very hierarchical. So you mentioned like if I want an ice coffee, it's gonna show up there. Uh. Trying to treat everybody the exact same

has always been. I think I think maybe that's a Nate Nashville trade at least of our generation, Like, is something that I try to aspire to do, whether it's the twenty two year old p A who has just started or you know, the president of a network. And it's just it's it's such an overwhelming experience that sometimes you're like, you know, I don't know, do you understand what I'm meaning? Like, it's it's just it's such it's

even hard to quantify, sir. Yes, Like yes, like growing up like learning to be nice like that, and then and then whatever level you're at, you treat everybody like that and everybody just wants to work with you. Everybody would just and eventually when you get higher, like it's like the work experience is wonderful because everybody feels like, oh, it's a nice place to work. Do what you mean?

Like growing up like yeah, it's like you're just you're yeah, you're just like like growing up here, you know, we grew up. It's you know, it's just everybody's normal. Everybody's doing their own thing, and you just like everybody's very polite and nice to people, which I always think naturals

to something. I think it's too nice, Like that's like you know, how to like where it's like no one do driving, no one's going, no one's hanking, and it's like a nightmare because you're like everybody's being too polite and like, you know, get people are not even like near like they're pulling out of a store, Someone's like, nah, come on out. You're like they're not even up there yet,

but they want to let that person go. Uh. But it, yes, it translates into like regular business where it's you're you know, you just are more appreciative and then people are willing to help more, which produces the best product. Yeah, and I guess I should say like people may be listening to this right now and they're like, like, Travis, you're a total asshole, And I don't think that's true. But I certainly don't think that's true for people that I

work with. Right Like, I'm in the opinion business, so sometimes I might have to be you know, brusque, and certainly in social media or my radio show or television or whatever else in the way I deliver my opinion. But it's important to me that the people that I work with like don't hate their job, right. In fact, they like hanging out and they have a good time and it's a good environment. And I could tell, even in the limited amount of time that I've spent around you,

that your show would be like that. All right, we've been talking for a while. I want to get to just a couple more things. What's the impact of Netflix now? Like for a comedian, what did getting your special on Netflix do for your career? How important is that? Uh? It's huge? I mean it changed. Uh that was the first big changed, uh in my career. And I did the half hour on the Stand Ups are right at that point, I already did an hour on Comedy Central

and Conversation was always great. But they aired my special on my hour on Conversational They aired it the same night of the Mayweather packy off fight, like it was I didn't even watch it. I watched the fight like nobody watched it. So when that happens, the conversationals consent us make it. You know, they don't re air it a thousand times, so people cannot even know that I even have that. And then so when I went to a half hour Netflix, at first, I was like, I

don't want to go down. I just did an hour. I don't want to go to a half hour. And I knew Netflix was this big force and stand up and so I knew. I was like, look, I'm gonna get more people probably see that. If I'm lucky, then I would. And so I did a thing called the stand Ups and it was like six of us and we all did a half hour, and uh so that

was the first thing. And that was pretty immediate, Like I remember the first time on the road, maybe two weeks after it aired on Netflix, Like my shows were like it wasn't the like Fried, Like Saturday Night was sold out and I could tell they knew who I was and they were there for that reason. So like you just you know, it's it's not crazy when you

slowly start building. And then I did that hour special and it was you know, and and then and now it's jumped to a very big like now we're doing theaters and uh, you know, I just said Salt Lake and Denver and you walk out and everybody knows you and the crowd is excited when you walk out, and it's because Netflix, because you're staying up just stays up there. It's just always sitting there, and so people flip around Netflix and then they catch you and they're like, oh,

I think I heard about this guy. I always said, you want to be the guy like remember when you go to conty clubs and you could be like, oh yeah, I think I know who that guy is. Like that's your first like thing. It's just to be that like where you're like, oh yeah, I think I know who that guy is and then you just keep going forward. But net for is uh. I mean it's given stand ups where they just can do stand up comedy there,

we have to do other things so well. And this may be the last question, So I'm just kind of fascinated by the process. So you have an hour, let's say, Stand Up Special. Do you feel obligated to let that hour disappear and like not do that material again? As probably millions of people will see it on Netflix and yes they love it, But do you feel an obligation to go back and recreate something new or do you

keep those jokes and keep them forever? Like Seinfeld, for instance, would be a guy who if he has a joke that he really likes and he's refined it and he uses it, he'll use it over and over and over again at his stand up act. Are you what is your process now, Like when you do a full hour special on Netflix, is it your idea that like, Okay, that's gone and now it's time to go back to the to the drawing board and come up with new stuff.

Or do you think you'll use this stuff from a one hour special for the next fifteen years, ten years of your career or whatever it may be. Yeah, it's gone. It's like, so now when I go out on tour, I do an hour of new stuff and then and then I've been doing like an Encore, I come out. I'll do ten minutes of old jokes, some more from my old time in Central special. I'll do like ice coffee with milk is like my big joke could really so like I'll do like that kind of stuff. But yeah,

it's gone. I mean like when you first you know, I'll do the same act until it goes on something. You do the same act for as long as you can, and then once you especially when people are now coming because of you. If you look, they could they can even say they want to see that old stuff, and they could think I wish you would do you know, but you will lose people dramatically if you do not

create new things. If you if they go and see you, and you know, right when the special comes out, you're you know, I was probably like four, I could do forty new minutes, and he's got on all of that's great, But I could do like forty new minutes. Uh and and I would maybe have to do twenty from the special,

and then you slowly get that out. And so now I do like an I can do an hour do and I would say thirty of it is could be special worthy, and then the front thirty is kind of like you know, some of the stuff I've even said on this talking to you, like the Conan story, Like I'll just tell some stories and you whatever, just like some filler at the beginning, just like trying to be funny and making it funny, and then like and then I'll slowly just be working in new stuff until I

could have that whole new hour. So you have to turn it over. If you don't turn it over, I mean, Louis c. K started, I don't think guys like they're trying to put out special every year, and I always thought that was too much, Like no one needs that. Uh So, I think it's like, you know, you probably every two to three years, you know, depending on what's

going on in your career. If I get this show, then I'll probably back off completely and like I'll probably just hang on to this hour I have just so I can tour with it. If I'm working on the show, I would just hang onto my new hour and wait to put it back out because I don't need to put a special because I will have a TV show. Uh But if your creative energy is being poured into trying to do the television show as opposed to understand,

it's different mindset. Yeah, it's just as completely different like how you create like when I yeah, when you're creating jokes, you're like thinking of stories and stuff like this, and when you're creating a show, you're I'm thinking of like the parents that you know. Different, it's just a different kind of mindset and uh so, yeah, so I would just I would just dive into that and give that and then stand up just kind of hold back, hold this new hour, and that way I could still too

or some to just kind of keep active. Uh, but I have an hour that no one sees. But if that doesn't, if this show doesn't go, then I'll probably shoot to try to take a special the end of May and try to you know, have that come out. Probably would be like the next one, and then that would be like that would be like two years. Uh, you do a special every two or three years. All right, So in thing here, first of all, I think the pilot's gonna get picked up. So I I think it will,

and if it doesn't, at some points canna happen. But if the Nashville Show pilot gets picked up, my request to you is, I want to play myself at some point on the show. Can you allow me to have a line or two at some point when the pilot gets picked up and you've got multiple episodes where I have in some way a role on the show, yes, Well you do this wins and Losses podcast where the losses, yeah, or I can you know, be in some way just right in a reason and that also gives you a

reason to talk about sports on the show too. But it can be golfing. It can be something related, but uh, that's my only We'll see it's a big request. Your only request is to be on a network sitcom. That's it. Not a recurring role, just like I got to do. They they had me on Blue First of all, I can't act, so they had me on Blue Mountain State. I got to play myself on Blue Mountain State. I didn't know anybody created with Blue Mountain State, and I

got to come on and play myself. So I don't think it's an landish request, but it is a yeah, yeah, I mean well and yeah, two mass Right Park guys, Yes, I'll get you. We have on the show. The odds would have been low on two people playing baseball Moss Right Park. Uh working on the Fox lot in Los Angeles. Uh, if if we've been setting off, not that not that one of those teams made it to the uh Little League World Series, just through the roof from that for that to end, uh to end up working on the

Fox a lot at the same time. All right, so this has been fantastic. Uh, you can go follow Nate. Your Twitter handle is just at Nate Barghassy right now. I'll tweet it out obviously, when this podcast goes up, but encourage people to go check out the Netflix special and hopefully, like when if the pilot gets picked up? Is that something you just weed out. I don't have any idea how that works, so you're just like, hey, guys, I've got to teach that show now, Like so just

watch your Twitter feed and that's how you'll be announced. Yeah, I'll be announced in the Uh. I definitely, we would definitely be letting everybody know. So yeah, that's understanding. Awesome, man, Well, congrats, I've loved it. The congrats on all the success and it's awesome to get to watch and I appreciate all the time. Today I think people are gonna love this. Yeah, man, thank dude. I appreciate it too. If you enjoyed this,

I'm Clay Travis is Wins and Losses podcast. We talked to people about the wins and losses in their careers and how they ended up where they did. Uh. You can go listen to this one. Obviously you just did. And there's lots of others, whether it's Colin Cowherd, Jason Whitlock, Kirk herb Street. We've had some fun convos. So I hope you enjoy it, Don Clay, Travis and this has been wins and losses