Internet, we are very excited share with you our conversation with the profoundly personable stand up comedian Chris Mata. A hilarious non-stop assault on the topic of blended families, Chris’s stand up act focuses on parenting fails, raising children, how to be a parent, and how to make sure your child will grow up to be a great human being. On the podcast, Chris shares with us his insights on parenting coming from a background in martial arts and history scholarship while growing up with an absent father of his own. We traverse all of these topics as we jeer at common parenting failures, question the values of combat, ponder the path of the United States, and laugh a whole lot along the way.
Chris released his first comedy album “Parental Guidance” this year; the album has been described as, “A solid and hilarious conversational style that is packed with rational insight on parenting, spoiled children and the consistencies necessary for an affectionate relationship.”
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Viva Comcastro Viva la Revolution on this is Max Groves. Please introduce to you Chris Mata Chris has become colloquially known in comedy as the Cesar Milan of parenting. He is also a martial arts instructor and a history scholar. I want to go through all of it in the conversation. Personally I believe that the children are of the future teach them well but let them lead the way. And Chris is going to say in response bullshit you discipline them hard and fast. We had so much fun talking to Chris. You guys are going to love this. Here we go. And she showed us. Well a couple stand up it’s got online and it was very funny at the what the Cesar Milan of parenting. Yeah this is a lot of parenting I thought it was funny to write and then and apparently was well I’m glad you wrote it just like someone wasn’t actually the only races along the way. Yeah that you know what though I have played I have played a double in commercial whites. Yeah yeah that would be good. I do not see that happening in my life but it was actually extremely excited because it’s so rare that we have like someone who talks about family and you know it’s such a funny way when I saw the system a lot of children and I kind of ripping on parents for being shitty parents. I just I guess because me and my brother has a pair of small kids and they are particularly real where they’ll they’ll they’ll admit behind the scenes like my daughter was being a cunt today and it’s like what do you have to say that. Yeah you are you have to see it to get more parents and to their children as a matter of fact you’re being an asshole right now and you need to. Yeah I think that a lot of parents. There’s this whole child worshipping thing that’s going on in the country and it’s I. Feel like it’s affecting us as a society that children aren’t you know you know don’t make your child feel that but I think it’s necessary that way they understand what feelings are like why are you trying to why would you try to shield them from anything. So I used to be a martial arts instructor and I would tell these parents this is what you do with your child and then they would say that you know what we are doing that and then when I got married I married one of those parents who were saying I didn’t do that and then to see their version of doing that was it was appalling it go you know you’re not doing that and I see now why parents go we are doing that and then going No you’re not doing that. And then actually living it living with somebody who thought they were being were doing what I was saying and then they’re not doing it at all and then going oh that’s a problem. And so much I couldn’t stop talking about it. So I I think that Bill Hicks said something like jokes are what you tell when you have nothing else to say. Well I decided to stop telling jokes and actually say something that I can just talk about for hours and hours. Exactly so I am slow slow pitch question. What’s the biggest problem you see with parenting in general. Consistency not being consistent. That’s that’s the one thing that I see parents making a mistake on is their consistency when they’ve said if you don’t clean your room you’re not going to go to your friend’s house or whatever and then roommate in Queens but still they go to the front house and then you know the parents have no integrity and what are they teaching the children so it’s these turn. Make rules in the middle of our dreams a little bit like children expect when they do something good they expect a reward and the parents are quick to reward because it’s easy there’s happy feelings but then when it comes to consequence because the child did something bad the parents don’t want to give the consequence because they don’t want to deal with the quote unquote wrath of the child so they just give up on it but you know I’m just being like a consistent human like when I’m when I’m litigating in court and someone says if you know did something I’ll file something against you and I don’t file something from then on then I just know I can roll over this person I will not give a shit about what they say. I mean that’s right. I mean that doesn’t seem like that’s that sounds like less of a like a parenting flaw and moral more like a like a lens into something larger with those people. It is that’s exactly right you are correct. When children see that their parents won’t follow through they go I’m not going to fare well it seems like they just need it’s almost like they’re looking to be like right from like the kid to a kid you know want to be OK Oh yeah the parents want to be like that much. There’s never been a class on being a parent. So they they just wing it and easier than than telling your kids yeah sure you can have it and everybody happy and then you end up with these spoiled kids that just that once you give your child something for because they’ve done nothing they expect it all the time and when you don’t do that that’s when the child becomes really spoiled and entitled The problem with being a parent you know it’s kind of like trying to minimize like the disaster you’re creating in your community. There’s a child with a piece of shit. Yeah because you know how much is on your shoulders mean like probably fucking Oprah now let’s at least keep that part of the best. The parent who openly says I’m fucking up like that’s probably the person who’s going. Have like the most well adjusted and level headed child who is all right that’s so true. If we had more parents looking around at other fairs going Look I know I messed up. I know my back and I just know it’s like Madame A We’re like very fortunate right now because we’re in like the smug the middle ground where we can look at misbehaving kids go look at other people as we don’t have children right now we have several friends with children which exec like Max said smug because whenever whenever we see problems like oh man you should’ve corrected that minutes ago. Yeah yeah I corrected corrected it a minute because it just yeah yeah it has to be too I’m telling you in my in my experience the children the punishment has to be swift and just like you can’t be an unfair punishment. So there is never a time when you’re a parent you have to it’s like playing Monopoly and you’re and you land up and go to jail. You wait to make your friend go to jail you don’t get to negotiate go to jail you go directly to jail you don’t post correctly and everybody’s like you go to jail then you know the roles and that’s how it is being a parent you have to be you have to set the rules and then swift punishment this is you know the rule and this is what happened and it and it everybody knows how to play monopoly then it makes it much easier for household you know the way you describe the scene will sound like like the daredevil superhero or something it’s like Justice must pass. We have to deliver and you have to show up in black. Amazing. Being a parent is great you know it’s funny is that you since you said Justice must be swept I just thought of. I swear to god I just saw this yesterday I was in Kroger and a little boy with was with grandma and all I see in the corner and I I was just I just I hear and then I see wish of blueberry. He’s flying across KROGER I mean like these berries must go like thirty feet out in front of they they hadn’t got like the variety like giganto fourteen dollars blueberry plastic container and gravel extended says what did I tell you to do and he said stop the lawn around the plastic thing and she said what were you doing. Is that fill in around the plastic thing and then he said am I going to get a spanking and she said yes. Later And that’s when I started I thought I was like I don’t know yet exactly. He she should have beat his ass in the middle of Kroger in Him there is ten days. Exactly it’s like it’s like Jerry Maguire at the end of the movie when he goes in in that circle of ladies right like you this is where you have to have been this is where it has to happen. I get there’s no perfect place to be a parent is that that this show that the stage right there. And if Kroger was that that old lady stage then it is so be it. Well it could be they might have it their own ritual for it though. Like maybe the kid has to go find his own switch but he can’t do that you know so this is so he knows it and it’s like filling up the bank he’s depositing punishments. Very good nine hundred forty S. analogy go cut me a switch. Yeah yeah I’m like whatever doesn’t carry switches in the south we all have and they’re on sale this week actually where I sit down at least which is why we’re in Atlanta sort of work you have to be bilingual. Yeah buddy. But there’s no way you could have a redneck So how many people go to that which is just like different times you would have well the rednecks would be more industrious to find their own switch of paying for one point I was going to say that Kroger your clientele will definitely vary depending on your location so you can you can do that. You know some red neck or some hood just depending on where the Kroger’s but Kroger accept all customers that’s not me easily if I had my own west I might be an equally Atlanta thing just because we’ve nicknamed them all. There’s one there’s a murder Kroger where a guy was killed in a parking lot actually once ten years ago and once two months ago. Actually Chris you don’t know if somebody was murdered in the parking lot. So the beautiful part about murder Kroger is that it’s part of a beautiful part of it and there is there are so many Kroger’s around here we have the disco Kroeger we have the gay Kroger you’ve got the tranny Kroger you’ve got the ghetto Kroger you’ve got murder Kroger is just again one of many. The Disco Kroeger got its name because once upon a time that particular shopping center was a disco back in the seventy’s. So you can see there’s like there’s a little bit a logic behind what you’re asking. Actually yeah it’s been a weird bit of news but about two months ago someone was murdered in the Kroger parking lot trying to stop a carjacking and so the joke behind murder Kroger is that so yeah that was the first murder that gave it its name and then engine so I mean yeah this this this murder Kroger is on what’s called the Atlanta belt line in this loop. Is this really a big urban investment like the city of Atlanta is throwing literally seven or eight figures at this annually to make sure Kroger pays for this up so badly. Yeah yeah yeah screw that company unless you know throws money so they throw so much money at this thing called the Atlanta beltline and so murder Kroger will start to get like a whole bunch of like art on the side it’s like really family friendly and like this it’s bad to share the name murder someone stab again you know when it’s in the name you gotta you gotta keep the legacy goal like I think you have murdered her. So when I lived in Santa Monica there was I was working right across the street from this Albertsons and we we walk up and I don’t know I think it’s a month or something and. It was a police tape wrapped around this Albertsons and I’m like what was going on. Well this cashier hurt her disgruntled lover or whatever because you need to start stabbing her through it sort of and I don’t know where. So in Santa Monica they have a murder Albertsons. Do you think it’s this franchise. Well I suppose like every grocery store line deserves at least one murders right around midnight murder is a franchise. I mean we can franchise that people invest in murder. Matthew it’s called Game of Thrones. I’m going to go the military industrial bears but you know whatever murder murder Kroeger murder Albertson’s that it’s a great way to sell paper towels. Do they need to make rival softball teams in the choke is can they play a whole game without somebody getting murdered. There can only be one or two that I would love to see that game the murder Kroger staff versus the murder Albertsons for who truly is the most vicious of the grocery store. So should we start off with something innocuous like kickball or just go straight for the throat. Dodgeball you know I say let it go it’s just that maybe rampant softball is an embarrassing sport for me because I never played baseball as a kid and so like all the any out feel in like left field or something and just trying to hide from the ball and then it comes toward me in every every second it’s in the air going don’t fuck up don’t fuck up don’t fuck up and then what happens is I get right on there and it lands at my toes and and you go do that awkward throw it to second base because now suddenly a double shot and then a double and everybody knows you messed up everybody. No you messed up now and I don’t care about that one person I’m trying to impress the reason your place in the first yourself. So you come from a tough parenting kind of background. Growing up I came from a truth be told I came from a no parenting background but when my dad would show up he was a pretty strict parent so that’s where I get the passion from it that if somebody was around I would I would have been a well adjusted human being instead of having to learn it on my own for stand up comedy. So so I decided to learn all these things teach it teach these kids these things so they don’t have to grow up guessing you know as you grew up and often as you see it built. Now who have no idea what they’re doing and where where their parents and white and their parents and so I decided if you just teach the kids things early on they will know what to do when they’re grown up and they understand sometimes adults don’t know what they’re doing because they were not taught these things. Then it becomes much easier for the child that you’re trying to raise it just accelerates evolution that society is you past going down and getting lost. So you know I didn’t have my parents were absent completely absent and all the things that I had to learn on my own I decided that it’s best to teach these children the things that comes from a comes from a lack and when they were saying that it reminded me suddenly of Especially when you mention evolution as a culture it reminded me of the widely covered in the press the mother who started beating her son when she saw him going to participate in the Baltimore riots. Yes I get. What’s that story I don’t know but I’m totally behind her but she is just put on like a hood to go jump start like losing stuff. Some starts putting him on the head of the person drags him in the best part of well yeah no not on the best part about his like of course this the story went viral because you know word in South and we see down in horrible horrible Baltimore or up in Baltimore they’re doing nothing on this the store all Atlanta special at Baltimore because the bottom two cities were crime every year is always Atlanta or Baltimore and it’s always a race who can be a little less criminal. The other one I refuse to identify with any city that produced the Ravens no matter how good Edgar Allen Poe maybe I just said I just don’t like then I say I think that if he if he was going to go for the robbery he was going to go do it to loot. He wouldn’t do it to protest Big Brother or that decision that the government he was going to go to it because he just thought it would be fun. Right. Well yeah that is a tricky thing like to try to assemble and then have elements of kind of get shaky like who are going to join unions to create chaos. Yeah I mean if you if while she was beating him or before she beat him anything no mom I would like you protest big brother I would like to get my voice heard she might have stopped eating and gone you know I’ll go with you. Yeah you know there’s we have the anarchists uniform for that one right now that’s a good point because like you just wanted to cause trouble I’m just. If my son were to say you know God we have to take up prices. And if our rights in our government doesn’t give us a curfew and will do what we want and it murder is much much bigger offense been looting you know and we’re going to issue we’re going to demonstrate our anger by tearing up the city because apparently our protectors don’t care so why should I care. And now I’m going to do something about it and the only way I know how the if you were to say that and I would be different. The logic there are. Wrong but the problem with rioting is that the places that you’re tearing down are your brothers and sisters around you it’s always at the same socioeconomic class. I mean let’s face it you know if you knock down General Motors they’re going to be back up tomorrow they have insurance. If you knock down the the grocery store like down the street you know May’s place Ray might not have insurance. So the the amount of devastation you do to a small business is is so much larger than what would happen if you were to take down a big business. But what’s the point in living in a community where there’s going to be anarchy anyway. I mean if if you can get shot by a police officer or have the or have the authorities take advantage of you what’s the point. And in that case it isn’t Anarky And it’s you know it’s just demonstrating that point where you’ve got a very serious spot but my follow up question was like What. As a responsible family leader or a parent. Like if your plan is to get out you know just to have not have that environment like it’s almost as if the rest of it what’s left behind doesn’t have a model to to improve itself upon I don’t know it just seems like a very it seems like a complex problem. You know it is I think I think when you when you’re raising children you and still within them beliefs and whatever their beliefs are so long as it’s not so long as the beliefs come from a place of compassion love and it will be then you can fault your child for it. But if it comes from just anger and feeling they can just retribution then it’s time to have a talk with them but if at some point you that your child is like oh I feel this strongly about it and then you just have to back them up for if their reasons are just and come from a good place then it’s your job as a parent to be very supportive of that were going no matter what their actions may be you know I think again. Just completely fantasizing about I think I’d respect a son or a daughter if they came to know something they’d fight or die for so long late like you’re saying songs the logic is strong. You know if you saw a comic book and suddenly you want to you you’re suddenly inspired to be a damn good comic book. But you know if you’re if your life leads you to a place where you sit there and say that you know I’m having a tough time finding my place in the society that is fundamentally toxic or diseased then yeah yeah I could have done a lot of time for that. Yeah I’ve seen the wire the wires break for saying about about when it what it comes down to is no matter who your parents were that and who you become I mean a lot of kids will be like well I’m this way because my get this or I don’t give my get any credit because he was gone. No way your dad left because he was terrible. But he also gave you the opportunity to be a great person because of his absence. And it’s you’re either love or hate her that person that that man or or father or or mother has created you to be this person. So when you are as you grow up and you have these beliefs and you decide that you’re going to fight for them even if your parents are there or they weren’t there or they were terrible it or they were good they were integral in inst instilling those beliefs morals and values in fact that that child. So whatever you have going on over in Birmingham or or Birmingham modern Yeah I’m against the civil rights movement that’s why I was having comments. Well I just felt like whatever is going on in Baltimore I mean they have a good reason for it. I don’t call them some very very close like the philosophical approach you see in martial arts training which she said was her background. Like you know the real values of fighting like when it’s appropriate. Like oh man that is you know what I would say I’m going to go if it’s never good never appropriate you know and I’m sorry but that’s never good. But sometimes it’s you you can’t you can’t run from it. I’ve been in those positions where you try to run from it and it’s just this trouble is going to follow you it’s going to follow you. And that’s another thing that I try to teach my children it’s that you deal with your problems head on. You don’t you don’t learn from them. You face it and as soon as you face that do you want to just let it go or are you going to are you or are you going to overcome it but so long as you look it in the eye and when it comes to confrontation such as fighting it’s this is it worth it and and if it is then go for it. Do you train you. Do you train your kids. Yeah I train them to train my I have an eight year old and a thirteen year old and my eight year old I train them without him knowing it’s happening you know I just got to go now here comes and then he like move and I go now to stepping out of the way and then he pushes me and so you know the no use in training. It’s pretty interesting for you need someone who acts as the car and paints the fence and then I give him a big yellow car and he drives it you try to go for an hour. I think M.M. is great I what I think is when you take a single style and you glorify that single file. It’s where you’re going to have trouble because I train specifically in Toronto from the time I was care and the time I was seventeen and then when I got my black belt I started are big and that’s what you do and you just wipe the floor with me and I was like what is what happened. So after that I just started doing jujitsu and then we try kick boxing and kick window and a little bit you know for the takedown and when I first moved to L.A. I thought you know things aren’t always great for a comedian stand up comedian so you know financially one Albertson at a time so I felt with these these karate folks these fighters and it turns out that one of the guys that I worked with was he the U.F.C. trainer and he goes oh I know this guy a kickboxer he could be coming here and blah blah blah and I go on a Interesting. So I started training with the kickboxer and then I started training with the I mean I was training but then I started training with heat on and entered Gracie at the Gracie Academy. So yes so Gracie he was his name. Helio Gracie your name. But he started it with a don’t like the other greatly and he was the owner of Bit Torrent great academy and that’s where I was training and that’s what I so I trained with him directly. And his son or his yeah he don’t enter. And so I was training with the Gracies at the Grace Academy I was trained with P.T. Cunningham who at one point in his career the greatest kickboxer in the world and his if you look him up Peter Cunningham his record is unmatched in kickboxing so train with him and then it got to the point where I was so hard up for money that I thought I was going to start fighting it. They took me to smokers which are underground fight and I thought I was going to have to start fighting for money. So I just really started trying and then luckily right amount of normal is you know one thing the common good out of the strap on the bar Morkel actually Claude Van Dam is going to go on some like mixed martial art like on the ground tournaments like Mr taekwondo. First assume it’s like tons. It was intimidating because the guy was like look you do get hurt they’re just going to throw you out side there are there is no insurance if you get hurt you get hurt and I was like I need to work on getting a better job or something but it was I thought at one point I was going to be my life for a little while it’s pretty scary. So yeah I trained to train extensively and I and I try to pass by it on my voice because million still value you know. Yeah one thing I actually did compete very nothing like you but I didn’t even really did you know no no and I did attack in college. Yeah I don’t you think you want to L.A. No no no I’m not a real fighter. I did I do. Horses are the worst as far as martial art. They teach you the worst kind of martial arts in college that you’ll ever again if you think I was already thank you are now saying that there is no way you’d be able to set yourself up against anybody who would say. On years or older it was like it was like a really intense aerobic exercise. Yeah like really intense you know security is the worst it is so bad. Yeah it was a called a typo D.V.D. and you just do the whole workout routine. OK fine fine I exercised real with other people but I think that North and South Korea came together and put a fighting together that would ensure that they would be able to beat out the United States at some point if it ever came down to bare knuckle parole because there’s they have to have made if you if you can bring your hand and put it above your belt and you throw one and you want to sit out that is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard of and I believe that whole heartedly when I was taking it from ten to seventeen that oh if I changed my hand and I took my times that I’m going to be able to have the most amazing power totally like you. Sounds like the legend of Bruce Lee’s film Scott looking great as I can walk the dragon and just the soul of my head of this virus and that’s literally what they teach at Georgia. Thanks a twister Ponce because it adds torque. Yeah. Jolene wanted one they want you to eat. They want you to be flat footed you have both feet flat on the floor and one leg fully extended. There is no way you can get power from a fully extended like because your legs are already that it completely. That’s that’s a good point because there’s one time I kick someone they had and it’s not that I get that I remember that when a conversation with somebody and I would like you never feel you know that that you could defend yourself and they go well. Six and I go well if you look at a condo If you better land something and knock this person out. So in order to go to work you have to hurt that other person. But that’s the only way to make it happen. The only way for to want to be effective but you just do you can actually subdue somebody without hurting them. You take a little bit but there’s no there’s you know you’re out leading There’s no broken bones it’s just you put somebody to sleep or you make it or you talk sense into them while they were in pain while you had them in an arm bar or something you could break his arm off at the same move. You could take on know that there is no talking in take one do all taekwondo as the strikes it’s quick kicks and quick strikes and I guess if they’re aimed Well you could do some damage by you got to be really fucking dead if you know you’re reading and then to say that you can block a kick with one of your arm against somebody Gleg we’re going to like Joe Rogan territory. You’re assuming I don’t have a make like you’re assuming or throwing a real kick. If you’re if it’s some drunkard coming at you and you at least have the wherewithal to block some awkwardly thrown kick. You’re better off than not and that’s in it so that’s what I think like the guy had optimum you’re fighting a drug guy that’s all you have. Yeah yeah no I’m not I’m not saying you know take on a trailer guy or way that feels wasted on anyone’s really likely you like feeling like you like through the punch like HAVE to the punch he was like do I want to do this like yeah yeah you can pick it is an ass college taekwondo. That’s right. Well I yeah. So I’ve been training exposed and I researched and just but after a while I just thought this is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard by thirty. It’s are second to none. Life has been back. Psychics are very ineffective and fight you’re going to go the round you know front leg or back way back it may be frantic definitely but to say who knows. Thank you. You’re not going to try to kill somebody with a spoon or kick or an accident or did that come from. OK So if you’re on your own way above your head and then come down and kick somebody on their head or chest and there’s a lot of good points and it’s funny because all of your points are well taken where I always kind of felt it was silly was doing the random forms. Now some of them I got because you know if you’re practicing like wax on wax off I was like All right OK I get it but then there were some words like we like to this giant spinning move with our arms like we’re doing like the butterfly backstroke or something I was like What is this and they’re like well we’re going to what would happen if you were to rip off a man’s testicles I was like I’m not doing that well number one I wear a cup. But number two is just that’s not one of my go to moves. So it’s good to have a reserve like just to see a crime. There will never be a crowd when you’re ripping off somebody that’s people ever in the history of your life ever you were in prison because you know what Lee happening you know there’s a situation where there was that there was a drunken brawl in Texas between a University of Texas fan in and fan and the University of Texas band lifted up the A and M. fan bias testicles and accidentally ripped his scrollable open apparently his testicles were hanging out and they only found this out later because like like he picks them up by a scrum and they start seeing blood so he you know lets him go and the guy walks outside calls on one is balls are hanging out of a sack to the game. Two things the testicles were still attached so they were not ripped off and then Point number two that’s just on their way to calls after exposing your degree get it. And it taxes rule so well as taxes rules are basically if a man deserves killing but it was really murder we learned after all this is not a joke. There was there was a situation where a man walked in on his wife just like having like coffee with another dude but he just didn’t know about it so he went upstairs come back down with a shotgun told him what an asshole he was then shot him threatened his wife. But like a gentleman didn’t shoot her and then he went upstairs and acted like nothing was going when I got a Bros guess they sweep up some brains. She calls the cops the cops show up he gets arrested. Jury Trial. Innocent. Well let’s look at the steps made correctly there he immediately applied consequences to the misbehavior. Kate. If they are left with a view to your parenting really he was you know not saying a model for the father IMO to say you can be very certain that any children that his wife has her right. I mean how many times have I told my child if you catch your wife having coffee with somebody else going to shoot him. I can’t tell you how many times that’s why it’s important that you understand the ground rules coming into the situation and because the rules aren’t expressed beforehand that it’s it doesn’t make sense it’s not an actual you know policies for. I can’t I can’t tell you how how disappointed I was to find out that what I train for for seven years to a condo and giving up like how useless it was but he did teach me about perseverance and discipline and you know your spirit and all that other good stuff. Mental exercise but as far as physical it was an extreme let down it was that. Well I had had a similar experience with music when I was in high school I was not an athlete. I did a marching band because that was literally the first in my life that was the first thing I ever got good at. I was just naturally kind of sort of better than everyone else at an instrument that didn’t have too much competition it was the trombone. So I ran with it and it and my father the entire time was like behind the scenes like he was like the Green Goblin manipulating like several villains that you never see like he never let me new that band sucked. But he never let me go in the direction of majoring in music and it was a very wise move. He was playing us. He was playing a long con the entire time so number one I was very wise on his part. But number two wasn’t until I was twenty four years old that I figured it out. I was in the band but I don’t like classical music. I don’t really give a shit about the trombone as an instrument. You know what I really enjoyed was I liked beating other people I enjoyed the creative challenge and quite quite frankly it was an ego boost just to be good at something at all and notice how none of the things I like are actually the performance aspect of music. It’s sounds like you’ve lost. Like where the lesson was supposed to be. None of them are complex. Do you realize how complex or classical music is the yes no I don’t have to explain that. Everyone knows classical music is hard to shift. So the real lesson is that I was learning. We’re not math you get good at an instrument it was math you don’t fail math you take this shit that’s hard as hell and do it even if it says divorced from normal everyday life as classical Travon performance. The act of going through that much like the act of learning taekwondo makes you a better a better person then you bring your confidence which will get you by through ignorance and arrogance all things are possible. So if the blind leading the blind. That’s right to believe in yourself you can do anything. Be Superman but that’s it. I think the government has a clue. I mean it is the blind leading the blind it’s other people who wake up every morning going. Nobody figures it out yet. Like they’re just as any of us. So as the martial arts instructor would you I would agree with confidence you have but certainly not false comfort because now that what I learned all of that other good stuff now I’m like I want to teach the real thing and with that comes an insane amount of confidence knowing that I you know I’ve been in the ring with with great fighters and been taught by them that what you want to completely different level because I don’t I mean he is the so. Have you ever done any martial arts or lack of practice and wrestling in high school and computer to rugby through college and it’s not it’s Lawrence but wrestling is kind of the wrestling is the ultimate martial art. I mean you just you just versus him in his feet. It’s not just length but will things pretty intense man. But the problem with that is that I remember I was I had some friends you get wrestling and they and I did you do and they were like your band and I was like oh yeah that’s right that’s right when you break it off and he’s like I don’t have a move so I just I felt like after. After learning I always felt like a condo. I never felt one hundred percent confident although I was told that I should be but I could take care of myself. But then once I started once I present my my instructor who was I think he’s a big part of who I am today he is the greatest teacher I’ve ever known. He once he learned about you jitsu. He didn’t know any of it. So he started learning it through and and any time I had a question if he didn’t know the answer he would say. Send me to the person who have the answer he would find somebody that had the answer for me and then somebody go talk to them tell me to go sit with them or learn from them. He sent me off on a couple of times for weeks at a time to go learn from other people and you pay for it and he was really good about about teaching and humility he goes look I don’t know the answers but I will find somebody who does know the answer and that actually is the ultimate parent when your parent can tell you. I don’t know the answer but I will find it for you to hear that the lessons never you just feel that you just build that human being you just make a better person. He was like he was one of those guys that he didn’t care he said he didn’t mind not knowing but he would find the answer and that was that was huge that played a big part of my life you know. I would imagine there’s probably a lot of people not not just fathers and not just mothers to a lot of people who would have a real hard Hugo issue with death. The concept of sending out your child and having them glorify someone other than you. You know someone else like even for a brief moment. It’s got to be it’s got to be a thing for some people. You know that’s a great point that you can have children at the time so I could see where he was coming from. But even now I’ve contacted him and just talking about only go to the spider are going to go do this and you just these very very receptive and helpful and in ways that my own father wasn’t. You know I mean because my dad wasn’t even there. So when I see what you’re saying now that that makes a lot of sense that parents would be like they want to be the end all be all and they don’t want to look stupid in front of their children. It’s a lot of ego and pride. That’s a really good point. The only thing in there that was good laughs. But I I’ve been on a couple of projects and it’s always because I’m a comedian that I know well personally I never feel pressure to be funny because I don’t know I’m pretty much off the clock whenever you know it comes to if I’m not on station it’s just that punch out and then oh it’s kind of funny. So. Or or punch in and like the trying to be funny and then once I’m gone I like I really do feel the thing I’m talking about when you talk when other comedians you podcast. I very hard for me to try to be by I just I’m like let’s just talk about things that interest like you said in the e-mail. So it was very easy for me to come in to something like this. I’m not I’m more thoughtful than I am funny unless I’m on stage and that’s why that’s why I started getting a book or I was talking about kids and it just I had no idea that what I was going to talk about was in any way funny like in any way humorous. But I think I think it’s a fact and I think it’s a serious that people like this because that’s a lot of people might be like yeah that’s right. It’s almost like you know exactly I have an agenda and the agenda is to. We were talking about earlier I guess the culture and civilization or whatever that my agenda is to. I want to get into politics but I understand that that might not happen. Well anything’s possible but I think for a while I start to become very very disgruntled with the way the direction of the United States is going and I’m a history major so I would I’m fucking up. The pattern of of the things that are going on the similarities between the Roman Empire and the United States and between the British Empire in the United States are the same things are happening and that there is nothing that I’m going to be able to do in this lifetime to change things but if I’m able to go on stage and and somehow subconsciously change these people’s minds about how to raise their children into great compassionate human beings and sympathetic that within four or five generations this country will be different. That’s the agenda. So I’ve done some small amount of lobbying not not in a real lobbying more just like a nonprofit has a request and I know how to find a legislator. So I whatever you would call that. And what strikes me about at least the state level politicians is how powerless they feel it’s not even us saying like gay guys can’t do shit it’s they themselves I mean I was talking to one she said You’re saying like that’s a great idea though and promise like here’s like three or four different enemies I have in the insurance industry all of whom are on the insurance committee and are going to fight against us all you have to worry about Health and Human Services not mention ways and means blah blah blah blah she gave me all these different foes that we would have to vanquish or at least cajole onto our side before we could get something done that the like several other people of like high ranking stature were saying Yeah that’s a that’s a very logical well meaning idea. We should we should get behind us immediately like it’s it’s so difficult. But even the powered the M. powered to make meaningful change. Well I think that reinforces what Chris said in a letter speaking on that it seems that top down solutions for the sake of society don’t really find like a way to reach and help things but when as a community people find beams just inspire each other bring up the next step of culture I think and I think in a way we might have out. Our own traditional notions of this can be a big one. All right asshole asshole or I think without grown democracy to to a large extent I’m dead serious about this too. Well we don’t have democracy in a country we live in a republic. You’re exactly right. Yeah. So if I think you’ve outgrown being in a Republican society that yet so clearly we need some other to come and lead us into our next greatest. I mean evolution and here’s here’s what I mean like I’m not saying that divorced from reality. I mean I don’t want a monarchy or dictatorship by any stretch but democracy worked really well in city states of five to ten thousand people and republics work really well for some period of time. But here we have I mean let’s just take modern America. Barack Obama has smoked pot beforehand George Bush did coke and pot before him Bill Clinton did pot. Yet the guy who has all the power in the White House still can’t get just a basic I’m going to be talking about changing the law and saying something is totally under the purview of the executive branch which is changing whether or not marijuana is a Schedule one substance or not. That is totally one hundred percent or even where the DEA is going to do a raid. He well he hasn’t he has said that he’s going to reduce the spread of pot shit. But you know Barack Obama has the ability to essentially legalize marijuana through some backdoor channels and yet he still can’t do so I don’t believe that he won’t. I genuinely believe that if you look at the people who are in power there. They just can’t do it. I think I think I think the whole legalization of marijuana is totally a state issue. I just leave it to the States it’s not a federal issue. This is the same as I think when you look at it when you look at the Civil War I think that. A precedent for the federal government. That was Abraham Lincoln thought Abraham Lincoln Ted he thought there are no two United States it is one and one. One part of the United States is as in essence broken the law and his job was to make sure that they understood that that’s how he saw it that’s how the federal government these things. So when you look at the civil rights movement especially in one thousand nine hundred eighty four when you know that the Birmingham Alabama thing happened and then Johnson sent in those those trips that was another way to say to the state no the federal government is in charge of the National Guard was to say yes forced applicants to gas and that’s when it was used for I would say good but as of late it’s been it’s been used for just the wrong things and you look at it through through how they use the media to get their agendas pushed through. They use television for this way to convince the American public to do all these terrible things because of the talking heads. But way back when when you look at how Lincoln I mean you know they set the precedent for what it was going to be and now it’s turned into something different. Thanks like it wasn’t for that new audience we’re trying to be national police be receptive to more thoughts of those evil slave owners who are willing to but it was just that process going to give the executive branch’s feeling of that we don’t have a king it’s we do have a king you know it’s whether the Obama or Bush whoever it is an executive order is just simply a way of saying I’m a king in this is what I decree and that’s that’s all it is. That’s absolutely right and what’s interesting about the presidency as an army to back it up. And Congress has money to back it up. The Supreme Court. As a couple men to be honest I don’t know why they’re saying that Army is our army to the soul of tyrants and that’s what that’s what we have. I mean whether it be Obama or the Bush administration I mean it started early on it’s the especially I’d like to look back at the Clinton years when it was yet that Lewinsky scandal but he was still munching come up missile that was like let’s use this distraction. And I want to do what I’m doing here. You know an Army is a tyrant. That’s what they’re doing. Well America bombing Iraq are places to make this expression of tyranny just by having I think I think I think that’s why we spend so much on defense is because I mean you you you measure somebody and you have all these enemies you better have security because otherwise they’ll be coming out you we make more enemies by doing these things. Well you know but I I I also feel like any time we go to war or any and or and this is going back to being a parent there is no way I would want my children to fight in the wars that we have now it’s a win win. My point of view and I don’t tell this to my children because I’m going to let them read and whatever and let them make their own decisions. It’s all it’s all about money and oil and corporations and we the U.S. is in the business of building the government so that we can tell them what to do. That’s my opinion. Not saying that it’s fact that’s how I feel. But when. When it comes to sending the children to war. How about I just put in my all of my years developing this child to spend them to go try for something that I don’t. So I feel like there should be a law that says if we’re going to go to war and it’s. And it Congress approved to go to war that they have to spend one of their children to that war and we’ll see how important that is. You know it’s interesting you bring that up I was just listening to a podcast earlier today about World War One And in World War One the general E. Simo the general of all generals of the allied forces lost I believe two children one of whom was a pilot in World War One Teddy Roosevelt lost a child in World War One the that number one General Lute north of Germany. He lost at least what I think you lost two children in World War one. The point being that little one is the last war in which our leaders actually lost family members in World War two when you look at the Kennedys who did actually some of them did fight in there. They weren’t in charge at the time. Joe Kennedy didn’t rise to power until subsequent to World War two when if you look at like Vietnam and stuff like that all those kids all those senators and all those administrators at the high levels of government they all had National Guard deferment well that there is a there are a bunch of different right there like for example for that specific example there is John McCain who was the child of either a general or senator at the time and he was interned as a prisoner of war for a long time. Korea was. But were any of them in the cabinet. But the point being so I think it’s different when we’re going to general the first time we want to get out though because that would want to want to era that you’re describing they were more proud of their children who died and the ones who survived. Like I don’t think there are I don’t think we necessarily had a stronger a better value structure out of it just by this marriage I think it was just a different kind of neurosis. Well you definitely you hit on something there that has passed from America and in many places in the West. The romance is a romanticized Zeeshan of war and. With World War One And you know I like that the deaths now and I guess the coffin was nailed shut with World War two when we were one you’d have to march past mounds of bodies to get to the front lines like this the biggest seemingly most pointless giant expression of death ever. Yeah now now it’s now a war we don’t even see it because it’s not allowed to be televised and if it were allowed to be like Vietnam was televised and they and they condemned it the American public condemned it but there is no more. Tell it you don’t televise it anymore and you don’t really cover it you don’t show that bodies become disconnected to it and those are our children that are dying and if I ever win. When my brother joined the Army I was like oh and he was like well if I’m called up or I’m called up for but I just thought I started thinking. Do any do any Does anybody in Congress have to have to say those words and I remember thinking I’m going to lose my brother if he goes off to Afghanistan I don’t I don’t ever want to feel that and much less if it’s my child. So soon will be losing our brothers will be losing our drone planes when they hack the G.P.S. system to make a collapse and that’s going to turn the Simpsons. This is grown point I do not want to lose a drone point those are the very best part I think that they went to military school or something they got when they graduated because of wars of the future will not be fought by men but by robots and it will be your job to build and maintain Congresswoman Kaptur they will be they will be American robots killing people off in foreign lands. Whatever I just put putting I think Teddy Roosevelt was a great president he was able to he was able to look at you know Rip for Republicans and Democrats and you’re both sides and become this great this great president you know with all of these social programs but I don’t think we get enough of that anymore it’s all one sided. Now where it’s all your family do to repeal Republican or Democrat and I think you need both. Right well it starts from the family. Teaching your kids to be able to have a rational conversation with people you disagree with and just exactly. And from there we have a culture that’s rational I think the interesting thing about politics is that if you’re a cynic you’re generally right. If you just assume that they’re trying to sell you some line of bullshit nine times out of ten maybe even more you’re going to be correct in assuming that the politicians lying about something. Yeah my most cynical attitude is that while I find it all horrifically corrupts our entire government structure I value that it keeps all the corrupt people in competition with each other instead of consolidating one masterfully corrupt guy. That’s where we keep alive. That’s where tenure is not trust busting. That’s what’s important. You don’t want to you know we’re going to have a monopoly you want to have all separate. Every word allowed to be villainous but they have to be fighting each other just to keep it at bay. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Well I think that’s not what Churchill said like democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others we found I mean it’s precisely the same the same thing we have competing factions against each other. Capitalism works the same way you know I just assume Comcast is going to fuck me but they can’t fuck me as hard when Google Fiber is out there. Or they might try to fuck us but they can’t when we have a First Amendment Bill. Remember show after them. I know my name that way it’s a portmanteau between the Fidel Castro and Comcast. We like monsters. I was just in Georgia as a matter of fact I had to be the improv there there was a little shopping center that you know of. Yeah did I go there frequently I just saw I saw Harlem Williams are free a few a few weeks ago. There’s a nice space you guys if you guys are going very. Yes you go I love it. It’s such a great it’s such a nice club you know we’ve been fortunate. Then I have a comic establishment here are very excited to share like Festival promotion such as two or three already to stand by. We’re just on the show this year. Do you do the improv out in L.A. as well. Did you hit do you hit like all of these subsidiaries of the of the improbable. It’s really funny I do. The Ontario Bray in Irvine in Prague and I have been in the Hollywood Improv It’s been years. For whatever reason in L.A. it’s just not happening. I live right smack dab in the middle of L.A. and I have to go I do every improv every other improv in the country except for the one in Hollywood. It’s been years and I have no idea what I actually love the one in Hollywood. I’ve been there I saw Dave Chappelle there and I think it was a it Chris Daniel Tosh. They killed I mean absolutely I think it’s great. Well soon as Comcast goes to the top of the i Tunes podcast or it’s over it’s going to go on book press by soon. Let’s listen to him talk about the war and take on this but politics and parenting. Let’s go. I think what I think I I I follow Dave Chappelle or not follow him around it just so happened that when I lived in New York he would I would be at a club and he would just show up at whatever club and then Daniel Tosh I remember I worked with him twice and then it’s funny oh before he was really big and just listening to what comics go through all their struggles and first off that Chappelle was so after I I didn’t see him until after the comedy central thing after he passed up the few million dollars And so I’m in I’m at the Comedy Cellar New York just sitting here watching the show and here comes Dave and and I don’t know if there are a lot I would just watch the shows and just the around great great comedians like Patrice O’Neill and Jim Norton were there Judith Regan or with their call and Colin Quinn Wizards. Just in a really good time for stand up comedy in New York and Dave Chappelle decided he would come through and I watched him and this is where this is where I took some solace in and trying to find a new actor trying to find what what you’re trying to say he would go and just say anything on stage and you could tell it was unscripted and I knew it because I would go and I can’t transcript if you would go in with an idea of what he wanted to talk about and then talk about it. And by the end of that week he had a really good chunk of material but people would walk out going I thought he was supposed to be funny and and people would walk out of going come on this is that I take it it’s I’m not here to watch people work out material people are walking out saying that well I remember Chris Rock was really frustrated with like people taken cell phone footage of you just figure it out you know they just say all is lost yet you know it’s hard when when you are when you’re famous like that because you’re open mike all of a sudden it’s somebody real show like like George Carlin. When you watch is H.B.O. specials his open mikes were in Vegas like developing. He was getting paid having a full audience every night watching him work on material and by the time it was done that’s when you put it on H.B.O. So he is open mikes were actual page shows. Did you just fuckin I.D.M. a burglar so that’s my brother saw Coraline live at Georgia Tech saw the finished product blues mind and it was the what you would expect George Carlin to perturb to perform and that was shortly before he released a very big special on on H.B.O. circa one thousand nine hundred six or seven years subsequent to that. Two or three years later is a Vegas bachelor party doing the thing they’re looking at where they’re going to go see this happen in Tyler this hour George Carlin Penn and Teller killed. George Carlin says at least according to my brother but I’m going to. Perspectives if Broadway shows. Yeah yeah. Makes sense now I mean where else I mean most comics can can bomb in anonymity while we work on our you know US was doing that I got to watch him do that and then go oh oh and I saw and I and I are going to stand up for six five or six years of time and going I understand it now and then got to a year later I’m working at the punch line attempts the skills and all of a sudden the book club owner calls and says Hey Chappelle call we’re canceling your shows. He’s doing the show and we’re like What. And I go Well what about long story short he said he would take two openers or two people who were supposed to be on the show put them on the show let him open for him and then we’ll go up. So I got to watch him work that set up that I watched him working out in New York and it destroyed standing up to his shows were two hours long because he was still working on material. But the material that I remember of him working out New York I saw him in some Cisco and now he wasn’t just dropping in guest spots at the cellar. Now he was charging money to see him work this stuff out and then his last all of it he gets sick showed up for the weekend and they all still doubt within thirty minutes. His last show or of a night didn’t start until three in the morning and people waited and you know you can’t serve drinks until after you know after two you can’t. So she thought everybody in the in the punch line. Everybody in the audience chocolate milk or hot chocolate because it was cold out and they sat until five or five thirty remember talking to Molly and she was just like he was here. She runs a punch line and Pepsico and she go in and get out of your collective in the morning because he was there going. So I so I got to see that and it was a change might you want to turn up and it gave me the the OK to say oh I because I had just come off like a Premium Blend you know on Comedy Central and I and I thought oh I’m getting more spots and then I thought I would die. I’m not in the spotlight as much as he was you know. So it’s all right if I just bomb in and try to figure out my way and stand up. And so and so I did that and it and it took it took a little while and then that’s when I realized that my passion was talking about kids and all this other good stuff. This is a really good experience watching watching I got to watch him I got to watch Jim Gaffigan it was just a really good time and stamps also watching Chris Rock. You know Chris Rock is the Chris Rock that you see on H.B.O. He’s a really good stand up. But when you take this drug do you want Chris Rock to be Chris Rock. You know talking like Chris Rock does looking like Chris Rock does. But I saw in that state of New York and he was just sitting on the stool and go to him and work some stuff out. Just because you enjoy it very personable very considerate and just said here are my jokes what you say the word Sherman Oaks but literature your way back off. So I think I think if you really care about stand up it’s always evolving just when you think you’ve found it it’s going to change. For me it took for me it took I thought three years and I thought oh a minute this is what I want to do and then three years later or two years later I was on Comedy Central I went what I was doing two years ago is nothing what I want to do and then three years after that I’m going to for seven years I thought oh this is what I want to do and that’s what I’m talking about. And then cut to ten years and then I was completely lost and realized I had no idea so and then fifteen years later that’s when I started talking about children and being a parent and those sorts of things and I had a dog and I walked the earth. So if you were to ask any any other to me any another comedian they might take I’m different a lot of comedians go to is oh it takes you ten years to find your voice. Some comedians find their voice within five years but it evolves and you see that evolution so their voice isn’t the same but you get to see them grow up and in front of your eyes. So it but you know Eric’s answer would be Oh it takes ten years because so many hours and then your brain gets used to this certain thing but you as a comedian you’re if you’re not evolving you’re going to die. Case in point would be energised clay. Remember how he was in in the early ninety’s. So you want Andrew Dice Clay to evolve and then when you go and see him still and you know it’s him and he’s still doing the same how do you feel about it. Exactly exactly. So you’re hoping for these comedy euros to evolve you want to see them grow. The moment there was a breakout to like lose a case goes a long period of them finally starts talking about actual depression failure and it blows everyone’s mind. Yeah if you talk to you tomorrow. You know it’s funny it’s like you take everything you just said sounds like how they describe the act of writing primarily fiction but I mean and that’s exactly what they say you’ll have an eighteen or nineteen year old kid who’s a gifted with prose. I mean really knows how to put together a sentence and it’s kind of like being the class clown in a sense like yeah you can make people laugh or if you go over to the worlds of literature. Yeah you can put together like a little story you know Johnny goes down to the grocery store and comes back you can make it look pretty but you don’t have anything to say like What the fuck have you done at age eighteen in one thousand taken a big shit and if you’re lucky you get laid that’s it that’s your life as of age eighteen or nineteen. But when you’re much older you know with just a couple exceptions here and there it’s not until your mid thirty’s and early forty’s that you start to see masterpieces really produced by authors. That’s because there’s no there’s there’s no better teachers and life where you have lived with those. There’s not there’s something to be said for just time passing and you really do. I mean even now we really have no concept of time. You look at somebody who is like George Burns who is you know ninety or one hundred or whatever and he’s he was he just kept getting better and better