#367: How To Get Your Comedy Special In The Hands of the Commies w/ Jonny Loquasto

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, wrestling, youtube, watch, stand, comedy, special, comedy club, open mic, put, la, tampa, talking, play, job, easy, living, big, guess, years

SPEAKERS

Law (47%), Speaker 3 (42%), Eric (9%)

Law Smith

0:00

sweat equity podcast and streaming shows the number one comedy slash business business slash comedy podcast in the world to listen to us on iTunes, Apple podcast Spotify, we got Johnny like Costco, comedian. Wrestler announcer guide.

Eric Readinger

0:21

Yeah, looks like they say under his name on a little thing.

Law Smith

0:24

Every third. He's got a special Costco special qu a s t o special.com. If you want to watch his special from 2018 that came out a year later. Recently,

Eric Readinger

0:36

lots of Ebola jokes.

Law Smith

0:38

Lots of SARS humor. Weird. Mister making

Eric Readinger

0:42

my joke not

Law Smith

0:44

this episode. You're gonna pile on top of that one. This is why we're the best

Eric Readinger

0:49

out there disease.

Law Smith

0:51

Hey, lots, botulism. Botulism humor. All right, this episode is brought to you by Squarespace. The all one drag and drop content management system, you can make a website with no experience and website building. Easy templates, easy to do lots of resources to find out what you need to do when you're making a website. You gotta look you gotta want to cute shop to make turquoise jewelry. You want to sell it online, have your own website. You got the ecommerce platform right there you want to do email list straight out of the website platform you can do with their profile.

Eric Readinger

1:25

Don't let people tell you you can't do stuff with Squarespace. You can you just have to learn how

Law Smith

1:29

Yeah, we might have to do we have managed to do another episode or two on our WordPress dorks. But Squarespace can do anything the other content management systems can do. AKA WordPress, and it looks a little bit better. You don't need to be a nerd or hire a bunch of nerds you can do it with your two little paws. I agree. Link is in the description. Let's get it going with a little joint the clown about my sweat equity sweat equity my sweat equity we're good.

3

Speaker 3

2:15

We're good. Is this a question? Is this a video or audio for the most part? Oh, we do both. Okay, I want to make sure that my my background doesn't look like I'm in my garage.

Law Smith

2:25

You know, Johnny and Luke. Kosta just slipped his his name in there real smooth like

Eric Readinger

2:31

yeah, and then you talked about I talked about it.

Law Smith

2:33

Why don't you throw me plugs, website social all that stuff. And then if you're watching on video, he looks like an evil version of this. This Johnny I knew growing up because the right? Oh,

3

Speaker 3

2:47

I am Wario questo at this point with my goatee. So are we recording already? That's my question. Yeah. Where

Law Smith

2:54

do people find you? We're gonna we've

3

Speaker 3

2:56

already started my God. We are sweating already.

Law Smith

2:59

We're inside you, man. Who? But whatever. Yeah.

3:05

Both wearing tank tops. I like it.

Law Smith

3:07

It's hot as shit. I don't know if you know that used to live in Florida. It is so goddamn hot. Plus, We're bros. I mean, that's what we do.

3

Speaker 3

3:15

Well, I like the fact that graphic behind you. You're both dressed like pit bull. That's pretty sweet.

Eric Readinger

3:20

Yeah, it is pretty sweet.

Law Smith

3:22

That's a pretty good way. Yeah,

3

Speaker 3

3:23

yeah. Anyways, find me on social media at Jay Kosta? That's JQUAS to that's pretty much every social media handle. costco.com More importantly, right now if you want to watch my special Costco special.com You can click on a whole bunch of different ways to watch it. So well. There we go. Oh, Costco

Law Smith

3:42

special. So you are living in? Alright, let's backtrack. We Yeah, wait, you

Eric Readinger

3:48

guys know each other? Well, yeah, in LA.

Law Smith

3:51

We were doing the cool open mic circuit in Oh, six.

Eric Readinger

3:56

Good for your cabinets.

Law Smith

3:57

I moved out to LA when I was 21. You're not You're maybe the same age. I think

3

Speaker 3

4:04

I stopped counting to me. I mean, all I know is you and I both have bigger foreheads than when we met so

Law Smith

4:10

well. Mine was going to happen.

4:13

Dog. Dog Dog gonna lose. There you go. Bard grayed out. Anyway.

Law Smith

4:20

So you I'm 38 just turned 38. You couldn't you can't be that much older if you are older than me. But you came out from Philly to La right.

3

Speaker 3

4:30

You pretty much yeah, Pennsylvania to start it off in Orange County, went to Long Beach, went to the South Bay and then creeped up to Hollywood for probably about a decade, I'd say.

Law Smith

4:40

And then you didn't remember the story. You were doing side splitters in Tampa a month ago or something like that. And I was trying to tell you the story. You don't remember this bad open mic or you know, bad open mic guys like, yeah, they got their thing. Like they got the one joke that maybe did well 12 years ago and they do Every time and this one we used to do in Santa Monica was a guitar act. And all I could remember was kind of play the guitar and he was just like, the only line I can remember was like, You fuck your cat for Satan or something like that. I said it to Johnny. He was like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. And I was just like, what?

Eric Readinger

5:17

Without any context, I mean, it's not comedically

Law Smith

5:22

every Monday in Santa Monica. Like Santa Monica. I want to say, like 14th Street ish. Oh,

Eric Readinger

5:28

is that a cat around his dick?

3

Speaker 3

5:29

Wait a minute, or you're not talking Westwood bruco are you talking about Ryan's bar? That yes, that one? Yeah. Oh, Brian's was like the longest running something something comedy show on the west side. Like it was just every it had multiple Booker's over the years. But yeah, I remember going to that. I mean,

Law Smith

5:48

that's, that's, I thought you were like, I thought you ran it because I was so green. Oh, I didn't know it. I don't know. You don't know anything when you're 21. Yeah. And then like, I remember I lived with Brendan T. Gleason. And I just remember his Monday nights and like, there's a shitty Monday night football game on. I was like, Come on, we gotta go. Let's go do this open mic. And he's like, I'm like, it's literally within two miles. We can get their seven minutes. Oh, Titans and Falcons. He's like, nah. And I was like, God, what are we? What are we doing out here? I remember having this conversation like, what are we doing out here? Like, come on, let's go. Let's do this.

Eric Readinger

6:23

I'd rather watch Titan. So go out and go to No offense, for sure. I guess that's pretty offensive. But like,

Law Smith

6:29

it was like one of those things where like, he's, he's five years older than me. So I was like getting into I'm like, Dude, I am the kid. I'm the kid in this place. And this whole scenario, and I'm trying to get you to be my

Eric Readinger

6:39

dad. Well, it's

3

Speaker 3

6:40

funny. You say that though. It's very, very easy. To get lazy in a city like LA even though you wouldn't think so. Because LA is supposed to be it's the biggest entertainment capital. Yeah, okay, Vegas, but la really? Technically the entertainment capital. You know, aside from maybe New York and of course, Vegas, but it's easy to live. There you go. Atlanta's killing it. It's easy to kind of like

Law Smith

7:06

Mexico City easy to lose. It's number six. Yeah, yeah.

3

Speaker 3

7:10

It's easy to lose hope and kind of give up but then come up with excuses as to why you're just chilling. Like, you know, in the comedy scene. I know so many comics that I've known for so many years, who have pretty much just hung out. And I've never really progressed like, Yeah, they'll still do spots based off of relationships. But they're doing essentially the same shit. What they've been doing because they don't work me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no,

Law Smith

7:33

totally. It's really, it's definitely like, stand up just by itself. No matter what city is really easy to just not go. Because it's not fun. It's not fun to sit there. Like, it's not fun to just wait when you're starting out. Wait for an open mic. And you just hope

Eric Readinger

7:51

that somebody doesn't do your bit. Do the thing I saw on the news last night. I mean,

Law Smith

7:56

Eric's got a great Roe vs. Wade bit. And you know, Mike earned to find me done dude. I don't know. Someone five comics talked about it before he got up and then it's not like, and then you can talk yourself out of it. Because you're like, well, this isn't like a real show. This is mostly abortion in LA at least over here. You know, what's odd in in LA, no open mic had anybody else but other comics, at least in some of the ones over and we're at in the Tampa Bay area. There's some open mics that like I don't know what how bad your life is that you gotta go sit at a booth open mic or something. But there's like an actual audience that the ones I frequent. When you were starting out, you're I remember you were wearing like a 76 tracks at it too. If I have wrong or that I made that up in my head.

3

Speaker 3

8:46

Yeah, I mean, in all likelihood, I was probably wearing something 70 Sixers related, so yeah, you're probably on point with

Law Smith

8:52

no, because I was like, I can't pull that off. I can't get a heat. A heat. tracksuit and pull that off.

Eric Readinger

8:57

Literally. You have an orange. Adidas tracksuit. That's right. And then you pull it off. Give it to you. Hey, thanks. No one at

Law Smith

9:06

it. forgot. Forgot to do my family pictures with me. My kids were in tracksuits. Yeah. Like real Italian to them. Let's do it. What's it called? So Alright, so let's fast forward a little bit. So I did like, you have work ethic. I could tell every but we all have that kind of lazy vibe at us, because that's why you do stand up a little bit, because you don't really want to do real work. But you were like a physical therapist, right? Yep. So you got to go to you got a lot of school to do to do that. Yep. And I always kind of gravitated towards the people that had some kind of some kind of grit or some kind of work application. Yeah, because I was I was working at a mutual fund company in LA as a first job I had my my former boss won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 20. Oh

Eric Readinger

9:52

my God again with this guy. The past no passive investing

Law Smith

9:55

theory. What up Eugene Fama?

9:58

Little abou ski urban and fever.

Law Smith

10:00

Yeah. So, but you're, you're a hard worker. And you were just living in Florida near us in Orlando. And I was I was tickled pink that you had been. Tell us about the wrestling side of you what like your announcer for I forget the the league but it's right underneath the WWE. I don't know the wrestling world I

3

Speaker 3

10:26

just know in Florida in Florida I was with that's why I was in Florida with WWE. Okay, so

Law Smith

10:30

tell us about that journey, I guess. Oh,

3

Speaker 3

10:33

man. So yeah, started, Stanhope was like the first thing, entertainment related and you know, still working as a physical therapist the whole way through. And after like a year or two in standup kind of around the time we met. I was like, Well, I'm either going to make a career out of this, or I'm just going to quit because I don't I didn't want to half ass it. You know what I mean? And so when you and I met, I was kind of just like diving in trying to get up as much as possible. Almost every night of the week, I was single, I had nothing else to do, like, Yes, I had work. But otherwise, it's like, I'm not the kind of person that I've never been the sit at home and watch TV guy. So I just want to go out and do that. And then you know, you just do stand up. Then I kind of fell into hosting on camera. Got a chance, right? I won this little comedy competition. That got me a hosting job. So I learned how to read teleprompter. On the Job started doing hosting work. And then this is back like over 10 years ago, before all the hosting jobs went to tick talkers and celebrities like you could actually be a regular person and host jobs of your talent. You know what I mean? Right? So I'm doing that. One day, I'm on this hosting job. And I'm talking to the camera guy, we just start talking about wrestling. I don't know how it happened. And he loved wrestling. I love wrestling whatever. Couple of weeks later, I get a phone call from this guy, David Marquez. He said, Hey, so and so told me about you. I'm starting to wrestling television show here in LA. I need someone to do interviews, I think you'd be a great fit. So I came in. We had a meeting at a Starbucks in the valley. He said this is what I need you for. He's like, I can't promise it's gonna lead to anything. But you know, if you want a job in wrestling, here it is. And I said, Yeah, I was gonna say yes,

Law Smith

12:03

by the way that that coffee meet up you do for these random things like this almost never come to fruition. I feel like I had I had a handful of those. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll meet you at Cpk amici, California Pizza Kitchen to talk about like, whatever, you need a mumbling voiceover or something like that. And then like, my record was over 50 or whatever, have those kind of meetings but yeah,

3

Speaker 3

12:26

well, this one was legit. It's it started on KT OC and it's been airing it's it initially was affiliated with the NWA. Now it's its own brand. It's the United wrestling network. It's Championship Wrestling. And I was with the company essentially, for almost nine years over 400 episodes. I did everything from interviews to entering stuff. And then started doing play by play and color commentary over the years. And it just got to the point where you know, over the years, yeah, WWE was my dream, but I had no idea how to get there because I'm all the way in California and the way it works in wrestling. The West Coast is kind of neglected, in my opinion. And in the wrestling world. Most most of the wrestling shows are in the south in the East in the Northeast. So for

Eric Readinger

13:13

me You've Kearns is wrestling school down here that a lot of those guys go through. Kind of like a wrestling.

Law Smith

13:22

It was wrestling, wrestling and wrestling and boxing were huge and it was not the Mecca but it was definitely the big hub.

Eric Readinger

13:29

Or this is where they all come to die from steroids.

3

Speaker 3

13:32

I mean, Florida has got so many and Steve Kearns a legend in his own

Law Smith

13:37

school this son Cory Oh, nice. The clown right? Yeah, right.

3

Speaker 3

13:43

Well, Steve Kern was actually people would know him as Skinner when he was with WWE totally like the clown Yeah, dark dank the clown was Matt born different guy but whatever.

Law Smith

13:57

What really? I thought I thought he was doing we thought the IV we call them joy kids in high school.

3

Speaker 3

14:03

No, no joint decline was a guy named I mean there were a couple of different joints but the original joint the clown was a guy named Matt born

Law Smith

14:09

fucking wow we don't really on Earth a lot of things on the show but

Eric Readinger

14:14

you heard it here.

14:15

Wow. Yeah,

3

Speaker 3

14:17

no But Steve current man if you go back and watch his Skinner promos, he would legit be in like Louisiana style waters and like come up out of the water with a knife in his mouth. And oh, I

Eric Readinger

14:28

love I love a good wrestling promo. Oh,

3

Speaker 3

14:31

there were probably alligators around him. Like, Kern was such a badass for this character. Like he talked about commitment. That was what he did you know? So yes, over the years, you make your relationships, people get jobs at WWE. And it's all about timing and a position came open from what I understand. One of the managers slash commentators reached out to me I sent my stuff they realize, Oh, this guy has done everything with a microphone and wrestling. And so even though WWE hasn't since changed from the pandemic, they are Now, trying to hire people from other backgrounds and then training them their way, which is whatever, that's their prerogative. They knew like

Law Smith

15:07

why you like diversity hire stuff, or like not so much that

15:11

no like, since I since I left inks,

Eric Readinger

15:13

let's dance. Oh, wow. Like the

Law Smith

15:17

HR slogan.

3

Speaker 3

15:19

They brought in, you know, people from like, what it'd be the football world or the soccer world? Oh, gotcha,

Law Smith

15:25

gotcha. Yeah. Stuff like that. Because it seems like if you watch ESPN like they just cycle through all these retired guys and then you can see like, I'm a dork and watch NFL live almost every day. And you can see like guys that are about to retire. They're giving him a trial for a week to see if the right kind of thing.

Eric Readinger

15:42

painful sometimes.

15:43

It's amazing.

Law Smith

15:44

It's some are good, some are bad. Most, most are bad. Most are really bad because they freeze up Emmitt Smith. Well, they don't have the reps.

Eric Readinger

15:53

He was old timers.

3

Speaker 3

15:55

Well, the good ones end up doing radio as well. Like if you can be killer on a radio show. Like Bart, Bart Scott is like one of my favorites. He's He's Crusher. Like, he's so good. And he could do anything. You know,

Law Smith

16:07

he's got opinions. That's that's the thing that makes him different. He actually sits and thinks like a comic and writes stuff down and like, this is the slant where the other guy is just like, I don't know. I just mean I'll just go on there and be

3

Speaker 3

16:19

and then there's Tony Romo, who's got a childlike joy for what he does. Like he's having the best time of anyone watching the game. And that to that translates Eric's favorite announcer

Eric Readinger

16:27

we have is a whole thing. I think he's the best. He's so smarmy, just, he's

Law Smith

16:33

I love that. I love the smart.

Eric Readinger

16:35

I called the play. I knew what they were gonna do.

Law Smith

16:38

He called the play. That's amazing. He's like, look, this Trichy trips, right? They're gonna hit Tyreke hill over on this curl route right here. He's gonna set in 1515

Eric Readinger

16:49

curl. I mean, that's fantastic. But he has a whole week to watch them practice and know exactly what they're gonna do. And why wouldn't anybody else do that? Why wasn't he doing that on the field? If he knew what play they were gonna run every time he did he called the play

Law Smith

17:01

his back. Right. He had

Eric Readinger

17:04

got a couple of Romo apologists a

3

Speaker 3

17:06

lot of back issues. But anyways, yeah, so they knew I could be a utility guy. So they brought me in and over the course of the the time I was there, I did every possible job with a microphone and a headsets. there so that's and then since then, I've transitioned to doing still in wrestling, but also MMA and boxing. And so aside from stand up in health care also doing now, you know, combat sports and pretty much anything else I'm hired for.

Law Smith

17:32

So, if people want to hire him, they can. Yeah, I want Can you throw Eric, you're you're moving that week. You were telling me you were moving. You're doing a show here in town. And I was like, I got I started like getting sweats. Like thinking about you having to do it. It wasn't even me. But you were like, Okay, so after this show, I gotta get out of soda. And then we got to move everything out and go into Orange County. Then we gotta go to Orlando. There was some crazy shit. Can you walk me through that week? I guess we made it.

3

Speaker 3

18:02

Yeah. No, not Sarasota. The show we did together was in Tampa on a Wednesday. I had to fly to Richmond, Virginia, the next day to do three nights shows. Flew back to Tampa on a Sunday. And basically, we had to get ready to move a couple days later. So yeah, that's pretty much

Law Smith

18:22

no, no, no. Did you? Wait, there's way more to this story. You're the baby. Are you living in Orlando? You had a girlfriend in Sarasota, or some shit like that?

3

Speaker 3

18:31

Tampa? Yeah. So I finished up in Orlando. I got out of my place. Two days before we did our show together. Yeah. And then at that point, I was going to be in Tampa until we moved moved. And so yeah, it was just a lot of a lot of prep. But at the same time, it's like I had a weekend booked for this comedy club. I don't want to say no to work. So

Law Smith

18:47

you have to move to houses in like a seven day span with a gig in between or something like that. I was just like, yeah, that's insane. So tell tell us about the physical therapy class. So special.com QU A sto special.com.

Eric Readinger

19:04

Physical therapy. There you go.

Law Smith

19:08

I want to hear about this process of recording this situation. Do it on your own?

19:12

Yeah, every cent. Yeah.

Law Smith

19:15

What is if I'm going to do this for my own selfish reasons, if I'm going to do one, what is the advice you would give? I just want to film something. I just want to do like a 30 minute guy and just put it up. Is that thing is heard? Well, the sad thing is we know that digital advertising space, so it's kind of like that thing of like you get it up. We know how to get stuff out there for other people for this show. We it's we haven't done it yet. And by the way, I is that the Living Color Cast in your bottom left hand frame? It sure is yes. If you just want to challenge my fighter pilot vision, they're good,

Eric Readinger

19:57

pretty good eyes. I mean, you know I think you're being a little bit racist. Based on Jim Carrey top left diversity of eight like I see races of people there's

3

Speaker 3

20:09

the original cast from season one right next to it I have the Barclay versus Godzilla poster followed by Weird Al from UHF but no and living colors. My favorite show of all time and it's the if it wasn't for living color I don't think I ever would have tried stand up

Law Smith

20:23

your office is like a 13 year olds room.

3

Speaker 3

20:27

Oh, yeah, I'm still tinkering with it because it just you know I'm but I'm moving stuff around and whatnot. And it's it's look at all right

Law Smith

20:33

now. Alright, so if I if I'm, I'm to film something or there is a comic that wants to film their own thing, or maybe there's a motivational speaker listening to this that's trying to hoodwink a lot of people out of money. And they want to film something. What What advice would you give about that? Because I'm the best thing I've heard as Jo Koy talking about microphones and you need to get as many mics scattered throughout as you can.

21:01

Hell yes.

Law Smith

21:03

Is that Absolutely. Is that an issue? No, not

3

Speaker 3

21:05

with my specialty. I mean, if you watch it, the crowd was miked up perfectly. But we were like really painstakingly on top of everything. But I mean, you could honestly even in the three and a half years, since I filmed my special you can. Gosh, you can do it's so much easier now than it used you see comments release and specials on YouTube, where it's just them at a comedy club, with a couple of cameras kind of like guerilla style, almost. But it's good audio, that's the most important thing, good audio, good video, and boom, you put it out on YouTube. And I kind of understand why comics are doing it on YouTube now. Because not everyone can be on Netflix. And there's really successful comics that get turned down by Netflix, they're like, Alright, I'm gonna go the YouTube route. I didn't go that route. Because I filmed every you know, I had my whole team, we put it all together, we edited the whole thing. I went with a distribution company. And, you know, they were able to get it on Roku. And on Tubi, it was featured on Roku, Sling TV zumo. And that's that's what we got so far. But the financial return from that was way lower than I ever would have anticipated. Yeah, not to say people didn't watch but it's free. And it's ad revenue. So it's like, you got to watch the two ad breaks, whatever. But like, in hindsight, and

Law Smith

22:20

you can get a cut of the ad revenue, just a percentage of that ad revenue, right?

3

Speaker 3

22:24

Yeah, we had a 6040 deal. We're, which is I keep 60 They get 40. And so, in hindsight, if I would have known, I think there's a deal on my contract where I think I have to wait 10 years to put it on YouTube. But honestly, I might bring it up to

Law Smith

22:37

you get it back. That's nice. At least you can get by it back. Because that shows has a new special, I guess it was presumably was gonna go on Netflix. They wanted him to cut some stuff out. He bought it back in the is putting it on YouTube. And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. Because I think he says like I had to pay use all my life savings to buy it back or something like that. So he can put it out there. Well, he's got he's got the built in audience.

Eric Readinger

23:06

Exactly right. If anybody he's but he is first one to do it.

Law Smith

23:09

But he is the guy to look at, as I'm trying to figure out what he did and a bunch of other guys to get to get their audience built up. You know, he's the pioneer in one way.

3

Speaker 3

23:21

Yeah, definitely helps to have a built in following like his co host cash thing just put out a 20 minute special, maybe two months ago. Yeah. And it was phenomenal. It was just him doing a couple different bits. And I think a few different comedy clubs, because he you know, different, it was almost like different scenes. And he mashed it up into a 20 minute set. And from what I understand, it's just killing it. And it should because it's funny. But like, that was a simple way of doing it. And with shows he knows his following like you see some of these comments, their specials are getting millions of views. And you guys might know better than me from what I understand with YouTube. The longer the content is, the more likelihood they're going to show it to people because it's professional, it's in HD. It looks good. And so in hindsight, if I would have known the financial return, like I'm still proud of the fact that I can say it's on Roku, it's on to be like, That's cool, right? But I think way more eyes would have gotten on it. If it was just a strict straight up YouTube release. Yeah,

Law Smith

24:19

you know, you went out you segmented it out. But it was three years ago is a lot a lot has changed, especially in the comedy world. But YouTube does incentivize everybody to stay there. So like our kids, my son's now getting into this fucking kids that play video games, videos of kids playing endless hours of video games, and I'm like, I'm trying to like see if I can knock it out of them because I know his son's addicted to it. But it's all about attention span. Can I keep them there? Instead of jumping over from YouTube to Netflix or Disney plus or whatever, right? Same with comedy but I heard the number with Netflix they said like 20 minutes about where the big majority of the crowd if they bow out is right there,

Eric Readinger

25:05

right. So that Anything over that i don't i in terms of its, in terms of like SEO of it, I don't know if length of it necessarily matters, but in terms of engagement with the audience itself, there is they definitely have that data or whatever, 28 minutes, I don't know, which matters how long

Law Smith

25:24

and that's the, that's the secondary part of it, you get to know all the stats right there. If you wanted to check in on what you put on YouTube, you can check it every day if you want. Or I know Netflix

3

Speaker 3

25:33

is super analytical like that would explain why they do the 15 Minute specials and the 30 Minute specials primarily they'll get they'll do the full specials for the well known people. But I remember. So I filmed it in late 2018. It didn't actually come out until about a year ago. And so I remember talked, I talked to a friend of mine at Netflix at the time. And I sent my special to him. And he said I have I have like a four minute and 22nd opening sketch. That kind of like, tells people who I am. Because my thought process is if people watch this, they're not going to know me. I've never been a big fan of the comedy specials where it's like, please welcome and they jump on stage and they tell the jokes and they leave. I wanted variety. I wanted this to be like an hour for someone to sit down and be like that dude can do a lot more than stand up. So that's why I put all the effort in you wanted to showcase a little bit. Exactly. And my friend who worked there said, Well, if Netflix wanted it, they would make you get rid of this entire first sketch. Because their analytics show that if a comic is not hitting the microphone in the first 25 seconds, people will tune out Yeah, like, well, I don't want that audience.

Law Smith

26:39

Appreciate I want the I want the audience from 1993 They live in color,

Eric Readinger

26:42

right? Audience, but if they don't know you, you know, it's, I'm gonna want stand up comedy. Put it on, like, how long is this gonna be? Well, that I mean, then they do the fast forward through the NAC. Fuck, that's kind of what we'll do. That's what a lot of what's happening? No, I know, I remember all that everybody had an intro. Like they had an opening thing that they did like for them to just come out, you put in the microphone.

3

Speaker 3

27:05

I love that. And for me, it's like I didn't going into this. I didn't care what the end game was going to be. I wanted to make a special that 30 years down the road, I could look back and be like, that was really cool. Yeah, that's, that's what I did. Same thing with my previous album. It was a whole concept album from start to finish. It wasn't just stand up. And with a special I want to do the same thing. It's got an opening sketch. It's got a couple of fake commercials where like the special cuts the commercial, and then it's got a completely insane ending. And I'm really proud of how it was because I think it was unlike any other special in recent memory is, you know, we'll see who ends up how many people end up watching it. But I know it's something that I'm proud of, and that I can move on and say, you know, I'm really happy with it. That's the key. You're proud of it.

Law Smith

27:48

Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of the inertia for me to do some things because I've been doing stand up for on time. I don't have a thing. I don't have anything to go here's, here's, here's a special or here's like, here's something commoditize at some point, you know, here's something I can tangibly go like, here you go check this out. I guess it'd be intangible too. But what I would say if I'm you I make I blown a call and see didn't just every, every three months or so to see if you can buy it back for nothing on the dollar or whatever. You still

Eric Readinger

28:19

want that do that old. Laying.

Law Smith

28:24

Chop up, chop it up, have it have it full length premiere on it, but also chop up each of those parts and put it out there too. Or maybe

Eric Readinger

28:33

a little bit extra in there.

3

Speaker 3

28:35

What's weird as the reason that apparently that is not on Amazon is I guess, Amazon at some point. I think it was around election time. Amazon I guess did a very very poor job of policing who put content on there. Yep. And I guess a lot of like blatantly insane conspiracy shit got on Amazon right around election time. Yeah, I don't know. That's fine.

Law Smith

28:57

Yeah, they tried to make it almost user enabled like YouTube to get their stuff on the platform. And then was

3

Speaker 3

29:04

like, That's why a lot of a lot of people can say, Oh, you can watch my shit on Amazon. Yeah, cuz they're paying to put it on Amazon. Like, it may be garbage. But it's there. So I guess at one point, Amazon got rid of all what they consider unscripted content. So they they grouped documentaries and comedy specials in together. Yeah. And so I didn't hear this. Yeah, yeah. And so the distribution company was like, sorry, we can't get it on Amazon right now. We're trying and I was like, you have to get this on Amazon. It's a comedy special. And it's one of the biggest, you know, things out there for people to watch. And so I'm still I'm still waiting. If it doesn't happen soon. I don't know. I might just ask like, Hey, do I have the freedom to put this on YouTube? Because clearly, I don't I don't think any more money's coming in. I want people to see this.

Law Smith

29:46

How about how about a very uncouth idea. And I've heard this talk to Bert about this Bert kreischer. He his you know, Russian mafia story went berserk on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, are really Facebook first than YouTube. But the thing that helped them a lot more that it was ripped put on the different YouTubes of different countries too. So, so like, so all these people were ripping it and his management was like, Oh, well, we'll tell them, we'll get it taken down. He's like, no, no, this is great. Keep it up.

Eric Readinger

30:24

You know how to work in a VPN? Yeah. So.

Law Smith

30:27

So putting it out there. I'm just saying this is uncouth way to go about it. But maybe you can be big in Finland, and go over there. But all the English speaking countries had, they had their they have their own YouTube by country, right. And then everybody's ripped it and put it up there. And he got a lot of following that way, too.

3

Speaker 3

30:46

Wow. That's, that's great for us that on his end to be like, No, don't do anything. Let the people watch the bits. Like that's the most right. And that's where it comics because like nowadays, you guys see it. comedy clubs are booking tick talkers. And like viral celebrities who don't even do stand up and people are buying tickets, they are selling out clubs, because people just want to see these people make an appearance and whether they're drinking wine and doing a PowerPoint. They don't give a damn so like as a comic. The more views you get on your stuff that's like, surely the best way to get people to want to come see you.

Law Smith

31:19

Well, that I mean, that's Ralphie Mays theory. Hey, man, that's like, if a pig fucker was on stage and sold out 11 shows in a week, guess who's going to headline the comedy club guy fucking a pig in your life.

3

Speaker 3

31:31

And I can't really blame the clubs either. No clubs need to make money. Now granted, comedy clubs don't promote like they used to. And that's, that's on them. But at some point, it's like, yeah, if you have an act that's going to sell 300 Plus tickets on a Sunday at 7pm. You're going to book them even if it's not traditional stand up, even if it's not good.

Law Smith

31:50

Yeah, I think about the model. It's a really flawed model, because it's not multipurpose because like you, you can you got seven shots a week to make your nut right. So and if someone comes in for the full weekend, it just doesn't pull people. I always think like, you should make a comedy club. If you made it from scratch, you should make a multipurpose it should be a music club during the day. You can use it as a meeting hall. Kind of modular, so you get the most utility out of the spot. That's the problem with the club model is you're basically a bar it'd be game one of that crusty club fee. Oh, do you want that? Yeah,

Eric Readinger

32:25

well, that's why you know, when

Law Smith

32:26

do you want that old carpet smell? Right?

Eric Readinger

32:30

You know not to take things seriously. They don't take cleaning the floors. Seriously, I'm not gonna take my life too

Law Smith

32:35

seriously. Okay, so we can make a modular aim kind of grind

Eric Readinger

32:39

easy. So you guys know.

Law Smith

32:43

All right, we ask everybody that comes on the pod this question first time Eric hates the question, but I'm gonna keep doing it. I forgot to go over the new one. He forgot to come up with a new one. What if? What advice would you give your 13 year old self?

32:58

You can travel us tartar sauce.

Law Smith

33:00

Jesus Christ so quick. I was so quick with that. He's very quick.

Eric Readinger

33:04

What happened with the tartar sauce? Yeah, it

3

Speaker 3

33:06

was a fat fat child. And I tartar sauce. Well, that was a big part of

Law Smith

33:11

Pennsylvania. It wasn't like you're eating like you know a lot of weird Pennsylvania where you went in Philly.

33:18

I grew up in like an hour north.

Eric Readinger

33:20

Where an hour an hour. He's got

Law Smith

33:22

family. I got family. We're going to we're going to the Auburn Penn State game this year. That's going to happen.

3

Speaker 3

33:27

Okay. And I grew up in the Lehigh Valley Northampton to be exact. Okay. Allen town.

Eric Readinger

33:33

I lived in Allentown growing up. You did? Yeah. Wait, okay. I grew up here. Amish country, dude.

Law Smith

33:40

Yeah, sweet. Yeah, man. When did when did you live in Allentown?

Eric Readinger

33:44

When I was a little kid. I was like three or four? Huh? I knew that Pennsylvania was born there.

Law Smith

33:49

Oh, shit. Okay,

Eric Readinger

33:50

there we go. Cool.

3

Speaker 3

33:51

How about that? Let's tartar sauce, less desserts. Those that'd be but as far as career advice as a 13 year,

Law Smith

33:59

it's whatever you want tartar sauce plays. But if you have something else you can, you can travel back in time to grab yourself by the lapels. Pull your fat little chubby face to your face now.

3

Speaker 3

34:10

I was okay. Yeah, I would say if I could give advice to my 13 year old self. I would have said hey, that thing you like doing? Start doing it earlier. Like basically like I always loved comedy. Like I wrote.

Law Smith

34:26

jerking, jerking off for sure.

34:28

Oh, by 13 I was already professional.

Law Smith

34:32

I thought you're like you're wasting your golden years.

3

Speaker 3

34:38

Like I wrote like a I remember right. I wrote a movie script when I was in college, but like, I wish I would have I had the urge to try stand up and like, you know, so I wish I would have I wish I would have considered doing like, you know, I started staying up at 24 So it's not like I started super late. I just, you know, I wish I would have went it jumped into that even sooner and Ah, and I would say I also wish I would have focused on the broadcasting side of things a lot earlier. Like, it's one of those things I didn't know. I truly didn't realize, like, the talent I had for it. Until way to not wait too late because things are going great. But I think I wish I would have jumped into that part of it a lot sooner, like trying to figure out how to work in wrestling first, and then it could have led to other things. But luckily, I've been able to make up for a lot of last time the last you know, couple of years.

Law Smith

35:31

Yeah, you get a lot of horseshit people that are like if you got to play on b You're not gonna make it and stand up on my fuck you did like everybody has a side gig eventually and stand up you do stand up and then it's like, you're gonna branch out into something else to that's probably comedy related. So it's always like, I never really liked that. But I also I get the perspective of don't spread yourself too thin kind of thing.

Eric Readinger

35:54

Yeah, dude, have you ever tried to Jim Rome impression I feel like you totally pull off a killer

Law Smith

36:00

go to you got I do

3

Speaker 3

36:02

the I do the EA Sports guy really? Well. Jim Rome. I'd have to listen to but I know he has. Because things Jim aren't. He's got those odd pauses. Yeah, man. Like, his pauses make no sense where he's like, I don't know. Give me Give me a topic. I'll just try to wing it. Who should I talk about

Eric Readinger

36:17

Carmelo Anthony. All right.

3

Speaker 3

36:20

Carmelo Anthony. Good shooter. Old now. What's he going to do? Go to the Lakers team up with Lebron again. Guess where it led them? 32 and 50 don't think it's time for Carmela to come back.

Eric Readinger

36:33

I think that's not the first time you did Jim. I

Law Smith

36:35

think you know it's got legs. Do you think you got to get a good score? I

Eric Readinger

36:38

was saying that because the look is there. Like you throw a suit on dude. You can wake in throwing his name around like it matters. I

Law Smith

36:44

don't know. What's the video calls the guy whatever Chrissy or whatever.

36:49

Oh, Jim Everett, Jim Everett. Oh, yeah.

Eric Readinger

36:51

Okay, Chris. That was pretty awesome. Yeah,

36:55

that was way back we're talking 30 years ago now.

Law Smith

36:57

Yeah, that's a legendary video though. I think you gotta get a green screen and maybe do a fake Jim Rome show

3

Speaker 3

37:03

bro I got a six footer green screen just off to the right of me

Law Smith

37:07

humblebrag All right, dude. Well, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it Costco special you know maybe go check it out cost a special bout calm we'll put it in the the description

Eric Readinger

37:18

maybe rip it put it in your camera I

3

Speaker 3

37:20

want to get your guy's advice on how to get this damn thing out to more people because

Law Smith

37:24

email list be number one

Eric Readinger

37:28

that off camera. I

Law Smith

37:30

look it this this shows to help the people that listen to it to export or everybody you've ever emailed ever put it in? Excel. Put it in MailChimp put it out there. Make a campaign out. Yeah,

3

Speaker 3

37:43

I pay a stupid amount to MailChimp every month mostly for nothing. So yeah, I should still

Law Smith

37:47

should utilize that still the number one? Yeah, I mean, for relationship marketing still number one, but yeah, yeah. I'll give you a ring buddy. All right, man.

37:59

Appreciate it. Thank you boys. See ya.