Comedian Eric Toms

Episode 2

Matt interviews Eric Toms

www.whatcanyoutellme.com
instagram @whatcanyoutellme
facebook @whatcanyoutellme
twitter @whatcanutellme

Social Media @TomsFunny
Website: http://www.erictoms.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nightofshortsnight/
Comedian, Writer, Actor, Filmmaker and hear about some of his recommended reading and listening, giving up a kidney, eating smashed peanut butter and jelly as a kid, drinking IPA and walking his kids to school in LA
MENTIONS
SJCMT - now CMTSJ, one of the nations largets and oldest childrens musical theaters located in San Jose, CA
https://www.cmtsj.org/
SUTN videos - Party with Jesus Sketch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeC1R8mBJKs&t=114s
Night of Shorts at Night Night Bar 
820 S Spring St, Los Angeles 
First Tuesday of each month
Independent Comic Books Recommended by Eric: 
Y : The Last Man
Paper Girls
Alan Morre’s Swamp Thing
I Am Not Okay With This
The Killing Joke
Podcasts:
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Podcast for Screenwriting Script Notes
WTF with Marc Maron
Music 
The Black Keys
Lana Del Ray
Movies
Relaxer by Joel Potrykus
Buzzard by Joel Potrykus
Rashoman by Akira Kurasawa
Kanopy a service where your public library card gets you access to the entire Criterion Collection
Music by My Boy Elroy
Logo by Lisa Larson Jensen

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check My jacket on my bike on Really well to me is that it? Is Mickey. You ready for this? Welcome, Everybody know what? Can

spk_1:   0:19
you tell me the

spk_0:   0:20
podcast today? I talked to my good friend Eric. Tom's

spk_1:   0:23
either. Eric Toms. I met Robin. How are you? I am very good, sir. How are you?

spk_0:   0:29
I'm great. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

spk_1:   0:31
I am delighted to be here. It's always good to hang out with you.

spk_0:   0:34
I know, right? Virtually virtually speaking, we're staring at each other through Ah, it's been a very technical set up. Two iPhones staring back at each other, muted on audio. It's it's complex. But we gotta work right now. Tell me. Ah, tell me, Mr Eric Tomes.

spk_1:   0:48
Tell me about yourself. Actually, tell me what? What? Today I

spk_0:   0:50
wanted to speak to you because because of what you do and who you are, So Ah, I don't want to put words in your mouth. So how would you describe yourself?

spk_1:   0:58
My name is Eric Tom's. I am from the San Jose Bay Area, but I currently live in Los Angeles and I am a comedian and writer and actor and filmmaker. I have, I think, probably about six short films under my belt. I'm currently working on my first feature right now. Um, toured a lot of the United States doing stand up on end. I have written for multiple television shows. That's exciting. Yeah, One of the reasons I

spk_0:   1:33
wanted you here is because I feel like everybody always. You know, you hear that like, 1% of actors in SAG after are actually the ones who make all the money. So that means the other 99% are basically working actors or human beings who live a normal regular life. And I think you're a very awesome example of one of those people who, like, lives a normal life. Like, you know, the dad next door to you might, ah, you know, work for I t for some company. And you're like, Now I'm a working actor, writer, director,

spk_1:   2:01
producer. Let's, uh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's Ah, it is fun. It's ah, I like to believe it's funny. I feel in the last especially five years, but probably it's been closer to 10. There has been a really switch from saying, Oh, I'm an actor or I'm a writer or I'm a director, too, and I hate the term, But you're kind of a content creator, which is terrible because I hate referring to the thing that I poured my heart and soul into as content. I like to believe, Yeah, it's art. I don't believe that I make a little something like that. It's maybe come across a little highfalutin, but at the same time, I certainly think of it. And maybe it's not art, but is not content eso. But I believe that is just kind of a shortcut, because now there are so many people like yourself who, you know, who make things like I love the term maker. But when you say to somebody your maker than that kind of has pangs of carpentry or uh, you know ah, needlework or something of that regards, whereas I feel that you know the creative arts, you are still a maker. But having said that, you are making something entertainment or something of that for

spk_0:   3:23
sure, and I think the tough part is that everyone has to have a label for what you are or what Yes, they do. And ah, it's just not. It's not a thing that most people understand if they don't do it. And I think the biggest misconception a lot of people have is that you and it's because of what we've heard in the past. You're an actor and therefore you have an agent and your agent gets all this work for you and books you and does all these things. And you have a manager and it's like Nope, if you're not that 1% you are your agent, you are your manager

spk_1:   3:52
and you

spk_0:   3:52
obviously will have agents who help you. But it's still you do in the hustle in and it's also you created your website and it's you updating your website and you doing the social media and you doing the videos. I mean, you really have to be a ah ah, I guess, for lack of better turns, like a poly math of ah, of the performing, writing, creating variety in order to sell yourself.

spk_1:   4:14
Yes and I I I've spoken with a few performers as well and writers, and I do believe now, once upon a time, I think that you could be you've mentioned that 1% of actors and like those of the people that are very lucky, who may be straight from drama school or not long after drama school were allowed to be actors and then immediately started their career. Ah, and those people, I think they do live that lifestyle where they got themselves an agent. They got on a show or they got into, like, a movie that did very well. And then they were just ableto hopscotch under the next thing. So they there's a There is a class of working actor or writer or director who doesn't have to really worry about things like how many people they have on social media and how many followers or creating contents or those things. They're able to just focus on doing their job. And then that's it. That's fantastic. As you mentioned for the more blue collar guys like myself, blue collar people, you know, that is absolutely a rhea life thing that we have to contend with. How many followers do you have on Instagram because that might come down to you booking a job or them passing on to somebody else because you are part of a demographic or your audience is a part of a demographic that maybe they're trying to get ahold of, Um and that's just something That's the what We have to deal with them much like you said, like building the website. Putting that together, making sure that's updated. Uh, and so it's There is a certain level of technology. It's almost a paywall, I believe, to a certain extent, like I'm lucky in the fact that I can afford a ah computer and a website and all of these and I have, ah, smartphone all of these things I use, and I mean, we kind of take for granted as well. Like, of course, like I have these things and anybody else I interact with has these things. Uh, there's a podcast I listen to. It's a terrific podcast for screenwriting specifically, and it's called script Notes. Ah, and it's hosted by John August, who wrote the movie Go and Frankenweenie and Charlie's Angels and just ah, litany of uh oh, the the last, the Latin movie that came out. He wrote that as well. Connection, uh, exactly purple Will Smith. I

spk_0:   6:41
might have shed a tear when I was watching that on an airplane at the

spk_1:   6:44
mall just reminded me of my child. Yeah, yeah, it's a great story. Um, he hosted along with a guy named Craig Mason who just recently did the HBO series Chernobyl. And he did the hangover. Siri's, um, but they had talked about like, Well, the only thing you really need to write is a pen and paper. And yes, that's true. You're never going to sell that, though. You're just because there is a certain snobbery I think that comes with. But also, there's only so many hours of the day I could only talk to so many people. I can only try and generate so much work for myself. And if a person comes up and they said, Hey, I'm a writer and I'd like to work with you I say, Great. And then they were toe, hand me a sheaf of pages that were hand written. I would probably say, Well, you're a crazy person. Yeah, Thank you. Why don't you

spk_0:   7:34
fax that to me and I'll get right on that?

spk_1:   7:37
I mean, if nothing else, go to the library and type that up. You know something but s o I I do believe there are certain programs that you need and you need to be able to come be compatible with somebody on a technical level in order just to get in the game. Absolutely so that

spk_0:   7:53
I literally lost jobs in the past because I was out with my family like my parents are in town visiting from California and we're in Chicago going out for the day and I take him to the aquarium and we spend five hours of the aquarium and I see that I've got an email or a text message from one of the companies I do gigs for. And I'm like, I'll get to him when I'm done in three hours and literally three hours later it's like, Oh, sorry we had to give the gig to somebody else because you didn't respond and I'm like,

spk_1:   8:17
It's not for a month, You kidding

spk_0:   8:20
me? But that's I mean, if you don't have that instance now you're you're out of it.

spk_1:   8:25
You are you you have to move at the speed of business, and the speed of business at this point is so incredibly fast.

spk_0:   8:33
Dude, you just wrote a commercial. They're like move at the speed of business.

spk_1:   8:37
Can I be honest? Gonna be honest. I stole that from a commercial

spk_0:   8:41
bag. I was going to say this podcast brought to you by the speed of business

spk_1:   8:45
that looks like an 80 anti commercial from, like 15 years ago. Moving invasion business.

spk_0:   8:51
They won't remember. We'll just use a perfect this podcast brought to you by A T and T.

spk_1:   8:56
That's right. That's gotta be I mean, that's got to be free domain.

spk_0:   9:01
Oh, for sure, it right? It's like 100 years old at this point, if it's 15 okay. And

spk_1:   9:04
so like. But

spk_0:   9:05
how did you get to hear? Let's see, Let's go back. Let's go back to younger Eric Tom's. Where'd you grow up?

spk_1:   9:09
I grew up in Sunnyvale, California, which is a little suburb of San Jose in the Bay Area. Sure, not far from where I grew up, not too far from right down the street, and my dad sells mutual funds, and my mom was a lunch lady at the high school where I went to school, and I have two older sisters. So the first time I ever performed was in my living room. Uh, my sister's put a bed sheet up over the hallway and then we came out and they did a magic show and I was their assistant. Night and 1/2 they didn't know. Luckily, I think I just I guess since I was a table, I just held stuff for them and then it would ask for it and I'd say what and then they just take it out of my hands. But nonetheless, it was That was really I love the idea of performing, you know? And then, of course, you know, getting the adulation from my parents was terrific, and that's really where I started. Um, and then, you know, it was kind of typical stuff. It was school plays and the musicals and whatever was happening was

spk_0:   10:20
going on and adding a tree.

spk_1:   10:21
Yeah, I Luckily, I never had to worry about being a tree because I was, I don't mind saying at least a a local high school middle school, elementary school level. I was. I was head and shoulders above other people like there. You realize once you get into like school, you do form these cliques and the theater kids. You know, of course, click up and you find right away is like, Well, there's really, like four kids in your school that air pretty good. The rest of them, Yeah, we're gonna be the tree or they'll be the ensemble and they're fine And they're just kind of doing it for fun and that that might be it for them. I mean, I don't know what your experience is, how many people at that level, like middle school high school, actually went on to to be in in the entertainment business.

spk_0:   11:10
So I have a couple who I could give good examples of, and in particular because I did shows with the San is a Children's musical theatre, which was at the time, I think the oldest or one of the biggest Children's theaters in the country. Yeah, and we truly had an amazing experience. My first show I auditioned for was around the world in 80 days, and we performed it at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts, which

spk_1:   11:32
is a

spk_0:   11:32
2000 person theater. S O. That was my first intro to performing was having a dressing room that could hold 25 people, cause that was you know, the chorus dressing room, and we had an inflatable elephant that had to be 25 feet tall. I feel like in the Shelley was ridiculous. The budget for this relative to the typical theater show and even the ones you are I have probably done as adults was insane. Um, but it was a pay to play sort of a thing, but it just may need the experience on. And then from there I did a bunch of other shows. But out of that group one kid, actually, ah, is legit, a huge Broadway star right now. He was a few years after me, but ah, guy named Alex Brightman, who's currently Beetlejuice on Broadway Traffic, also played Jack Black's character in School of Rock on Broadway. So this is a guy who's had immense levels of success. Ah, one of the girls I grew up with was in The Little Mermaid musical on Broadway. Another guy's still to this day, performing all over Broadway off Broadway and doing ah lot of tours as a dancer and ah oh, yes. Oh, there's ah, a small handful of people, but I mean, that is out of a place that was already ah, focus of those who are essentially already better than just like this is just for fun, like we're already there. So yeah. Ah, and then a lot of people who went and took that either went from performing there to kind of some entertainment industry related thing, but not necessarily at, you know, like Broadway star level. So, yeah, not many is the whole point.

spk_1:   12:54
Yeah, I had, you know, the high school that I went to now Granted, I didn't keep in contact with a lot of people who were ahead of me or behind me, but certainly in my class there's one other guy who who is still in the entertain business today. He really wanted to be a director more than anything. And now he Ah, he works on sitcoms. This guy literally have noticed since kindergarten. He likes his works in the art department, and he makes a very good living and has for many, many years he's not. You know, I think we're probably in the same class or like he's not a rich guy. He's

spk_0:   13:33
amazing. Driving around his Maserati this week on like he

spk_1:   13:36
exactly lunch is probably is Ah, very nice Prius s. So that's

spk_0:   13:42
admirable Vehicle. Exactly. Exactly. Fuel consultant, open fuel. And, I don't know, I know nothing about the price. Yeah, and one of the guys I went to high school with, who I did ballet with, of all things. Ah. Turns out he is a producer of a lot of Broadway shows. So he got in, you know, he kind of started. I'm assuming state and dancing for a while out of high school and college and then just got into that realm. And any time I go see kind of a Broadway in Chicago type performance where it has come from Broadway, I will, I'd say one out of five or 10 times See his name in the program for producing. So, you know, I'm sure he's not at that, You know, the the guy doing the penthouse parties. But maybe he is. I don't know. It's ah, cool to see, though, so

spk_1:   14:25
yeah, and I know you know, I take it back. I do. There was a few people that popped that pop up like on my social media, who were I knew very casually in school, but one guy became a producer of reality. television shows. And then also there's a woman that I went to school with. Ah, and she performs in Vegas. She she does the shows out there. Having said that, I think you know she's not the lead in the shows, but she's, I think she's She's working pretty regularly and but also is at the level where she has a side hustle. So it's not 100% of her income is coming from performing or producing. It's, you know, there's a 50 50 I think.

spk_0:   15:04
And that's such a frustrating thing, too, because, you know, you just wanted to vote 100% of your time to this art that you do as opposed to Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be at that shift at Bennigan's. Okay,

spk_1:   15:16
I I will say, you know, just because I've been in the game for so long now, um, how that I am 40 years old. I turned 40 in August. Old man man. Oh, boy. The one nice thing that turning 40 is really? You give zero fucks like I I I I don't care anymore about so many things. It's just like, Well, I'm

spk_0:   15:42
you know, I'm glad you said that phrase because ah, and you also mentioned earlier needle work. Um, I have recently taken up doing cross stitch like, Oh, very godlike granny, you know, like sewing through a piece of muslin And the reason I decided to take it up as I saw this woman selling a kit. And it's a ah, it's like an eight by 10 picture with, like, a nice border. You you needle point into it or cross stitch on Duh. It has a picture. Are you needle point in? Ah, very sad looking tree and like a field of dead grass and on the thing instead of like, bless this home and heart It says, Behold the field in which I grow my fucks there and not see that I have none. And that's literally what I'm spending my free time on right now.

spk_1:   16:26
That's kind of amazing. Yeah, well say yeah, there. I I know so many people, and there's a whole class of comedian or actor or writer or filmmaker. That is exactly that. Like it's you're never quite. Do you have pockets where you're only doing what you do full time? Uh, there are plenty of people, and especially since the advent of gig culture. You know where you deliver for Postmates or they're driving for uber or lift or whatever it happens to be who's still are supplementing their income in some way. Yeah, And I think you know, I know you haven't posed the question yet, but I know this is one of the kind of mission statements of your podcasts of just, you know, imparting knowledge to people who may be starting off. That is one of the questions. I think every artist, no matter what medium it happens to be if you're a dancer or if you're, uh, you, ah, drop pictures or you're a painter or whatever it is, you have to ask yourself very early on. If this is never your full time job, are you gonna be okay with that? Sure. If women make zero money doing this, will it still be worth it to you?

spk_0:   17:36
Yeah. And I think a big thing, too, is Ah, and this is something I saw early on. A couple of my friends at a circus school were instantly hired by Cirque du Soleil and literally 10 15 years later, I'd run into them, and they were working in still for Cirque du Soleil, and one of them was on after 10 years. I hadn't seen her for 10 years. Ah, she was working in her second show in 10 years. That was that She had done two different shows over the course of 10 years, and she had done one show like 6000 performances and the other show, like 4000 performances. Good Lord and I sat there was like Oh, man, I'm so jealous in a sense, like she's working for Cirque du Soleil, this company that I always dreamed of being on stage for. But at the same time, I said, You know, I don't know that I really would be happy doing the state the same show 567 10,000 times.

spk_1:   18:26
I'll do

spk_0:   18:26
a show for eight weeks and I'm kind of ready to move on to the next thing. It's sure, you know, and maybe it's because it's not some huge, glorious touring production. But even then when I was doing shows where I was traveling, the country are working on a cruise ship and you know, it seems like it's a lot of fun, but it gets monotonous I mean, I called, you know, worked on a cruise ship for six months, and I would refer to that as being a prisoner in paradise. You know, you and it's, you know, Oh boo hoo, It's the middle of February. I'm working in the Caribbean, but you're also like every single week is kind of, Ah, ground Hog's Day sort of effect, like every Monday is the exact same thing every Tuesdays, the exact same thing everyone's you know. And not that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the same. It's that the first day of your cruise is always the exact same, you know, concept like Welcome to the boat. And then the second day is the captain's cocktail on the third day is

spk_1:   19:16
we're in

spk_0:   19:17
Mexico and you know it's which is not bad. But when you've been to Qasim L 25 times and you realize, OK, we've got Senor Frogs and Carlos and Charlie's and a lot of really warm bad tequila shots to Dio. Yeah, it, uh, you know, it's it's fun the first few times, and then you're like, Oh, God, I don't know if a I don't know, my liver can handle this and be like, I need something to do so that you and I would go scuba diving as much as I could, but yeah,

spk_1:   19:39
yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, I completely I think the dream of most performers, anyway, is the idea. At a young age, you get on something like a sitcom that runs for five years. You make a boatload of money so that you have set financially, and then you can kind of make your decisions, not based on how much you need to survive as a person. You know what? Even swim in Europe. Yeah, exactly. Something along those lines you're given the freedom to, actually, you know, do what you do. Yeah. Ah, And if you want to do an off Broadway play that pays you no money, you you have the means in which to do that well and the thing

spk_0:   20:17
people don't realize that even in Chicago ah, theater company like Steppin Wolf. And I'm probably not dead accurate on the numbers. But basic equity pay is like $800 a week. So you could legitimately be performing on one of the best stages in the country. And if you did that show year round. You're making $40,000.

spk_1:   20:39
Yes. I think we just difficult to live on. Yeah. Yeah, that

spk_0:   20:44
was crazy. Um, I mean, we did, you know when When I was ah needing money, we started doing Airbnb, which was awesome, because it's a very low, Uh, time I don't want to say lo time. You do put a lot of effort into kind of creating the space and if you can spending time with your guests. But it was, ah, thing that worked with my schedule. Like we were able to make money, doing Airbnb, hosting people in a spare room and then ultimately, in the apartment above us, That's part of our home. And that was a great way to make money because obviously the 1st 5 10 years I was working when I wasn't doing gigs, it was, ah, literally anything from like working at a roller skating rink when I lived in Florida to working as a waiter to I mean, like the 900 jobs we've all had, bartending and all the side hustle gigs you do. And a lot of people think a while you're making all this money doing gigs, but You know, a lot of these gigs are soul sucking, mind numbing work that you have zero desire to do other than cash that paycheck at the end. And they give you something for sure, like you still learn how to be a good performer from it. But it's not the reason you or I or anybody I feel like went into performing like you really want to do something creative and wonderful and you're like, Yeah, I'm doing another one of these.

spk_1:   21:57
It's why, you know, and the you know, certainly I when I think nearly everyone starts out, you need that job with that flexibility. And that's why the joke is always Oh, you're an actor. Where do you serve tables? Yeah, because when Yeah, When? When I met you, we were working for a company called Big Lil's and we were getting paid nothing. We and the difficult part about working in a theater is that majority of theaters are nonprofits. Um, besides a handful of one's, you know, here in Los Angeles, we have the Geffen or in a Disney concert hall. If you're playing there, then you're probably making some good money. But still the vast majority of the money coming into those places are from donors. Yeah, even your subscribers are only maybe 25% of your revenue. But yeah, When we started, I was working at Bennigan's Ah, at a chili's and, ah, number of places that I ultimately got fired from. But they would they would offer you because you're in rehearsals Tuesday and Thursday. You're putting up a show Friday and Saturday and then Sunday during the day. You're writing material for the next week? Sure. And so because you have such a strange schedule, you need to be able to like Well, Aiken, do stand up Monday nights and Wednesday nights. But then I need you know, to be ableto work from 10. 30 in the morning to maybe four in the afternoon. Like I can't have a real 9 to 5 s. Oh, that's why serving tables or bartending is such a great option.

spk_0:   23:32
Well, in doing stand up, I mean, we'd be out till what, 11 12 o'clock at night minimum, doing open mikes, and obviously are now out. And you're you're you're juiced up. You're like I just got off stage. I'm gonna drink like that I'm freaking beers and shots of Jameson, you know.

spk_1:   23:48
Yes. Yes, it is. Make

spk_0:   23:50
it very easy to show up at work the next day.

spk_1:   23:52
No, no, it does not. It it is funny, because that is another thing. And I started stand up the first time I did stand up. I believe I was 20. And I just about to turn 21. And the vast majority of the places you're performing at our bars or places that sell alcohol in some capacity to. And I had started in the year 2000 2000 2001 is right around the time that I started, eh?

spk_0:   24:24
So you started like you must have gotten it just a little before. I did. And let's be very clear. Eric was a great stand of comedian. Very funny.

spk_1:   24:33
I wouldn't say

spk_0:   24:34
I was so much,

spk_1:   24:36
but I had fun with it. I felt like a good host. It was good at hosting you. Very good energy on stage the west that you had very, very good energy on stage.

spk_0:   24:44
Thank you. Which is it's like saying she's a really nice girl.

spk_1:   24:50
You have some good jokes as well. The problem is It's the Malcolm Gladwell. 10,000 hours sort of a thing. You just absolutely, it's it's How many times can you get punched in the face repeatedly by strangers? Yeah, like a Oh, God. How many shows do you do where you walk in and you start telling jokes? I'm standing on stage telling jokes, and people are just watching the football game on television, and it's their prerogative. How long do I have to do this gig before? And I won't say Thank

spk_0:   25:22
God when I started doing well started and finished doing because it was only over the course of a couple of years. But when I was doing stand up, it was before smartphones were a thing. I can't imagine being in a room now where everybody's tied to their phone and staring at the screen. When the moment you lose him and you're just you're done there, they've started reading the news. They want to know what's going on on Super Tuesday or what? The latest thing, that who said it's no pina, So glad it's not right now.

spk_1:   25:49
It is so difficult. But, um, I will say the to give board background, because I do feel that we had a unique opportunity that not a lot of people had, Uh, I had started working at this theater called Working for tips. We're not getting paid in any regular capacity. Ah, but it was a, ah, vaudeville and cabaret theater.

spk_0:   26:12
Yeah, no way. Freaking ridiculous.

spk_1:   26:16
It was ridiculous. It was, uh It was really a place for people who, like we're between jail sentences. That's kind of that's the majority of the people that work there. What? I'm not in prison. That I do shows a big wheels. Uh

spk_0:   26:31
oh, my God.

spk_1:   26:32
People were drug dealers,

spk_0:   26:35
the other half for drug users. So

spk_1:   26:38
big losers. It worked out very well. It's a very symbiotic relationship, but we work there. And also it was in the barrier, which is a very expensive place. Ah, and the dot com boom was happening there in the early two thousands, and they the owners needed to make more money. So they started a sketch comedy weekly variety show. Uh, that provided a lot of opportunity. I don't think many people have. You continue to be a stand up is fairly simple. If especially if you live in a small to midsize or large city, it's is not too difficult. There's listings using for open mikes. You just you write material, you go on stage. Maybe you have to buy a drink or something. Uh, but you go on stage and you can perform that way. The thing that was provided to us was because it was a weekly show. You could be as involved as you want it, too. So I immediately was writing sketches. Every week I wrote a sketch for I think two and 1/2 years S O. I do the quick math on that is probably only got 150 sketches that I write and as well. I was a video producer because we had taped bits that we would show in between the sketches that were performing live on stage was also given the opportunity to perform live on stage as well as being videotaped, which I feel like is is less of a novelty now because everyone is walking around with a smartphone in their pockets. So people are used to what lighting looks like or what they look like on camera. Where is back in 2000 you had to go buy a dedicated camera now for us and for even the generation before us. People who had eight millimeter, you know? Ah, shooters. You know, in the slate seventies and early eighties. And then we kind of grew up with video cameras. Yeah, we kind of had a better grasp on it, but that was still something. Toe. Have a crew of people and actually have a a sound person actually have a DP or just a camera operator? Well, just the amount of equipment

spk_0:   28:46
you needed to that point. It's not like you now where you can literally your your eight k cellphone camera that has nine lend IDs and literally does better video work than probably every camera released up until the early two thousands. Like it's insane. What everyone has in their pocket now versus back then. Yes, absolutely. 20 years ago, my friend.

spk_1:   29:08
Yeah, which you and you know it. That does also become a slippery slope as well. Just to go back to the kind of firewall that I think of the pay wall that that it has exist now because we have such a high level of technology. People now expect a high level of technology. So if you have static or if you have ah, you know Ah, low resolution people fly by it kind of quickly, which is difficult, but but yeah, I mean, when we were at Big Wheels, we did a show called S ut n which the acronym stayed the same. But it changed because it used to be. It was stand up. It's Thursday night, and then it changed, too. Um, what was the what was the 2nd 1? Because it was stand up. It's Thursday night because we did the show on Thursday night. Sure,

spk_0:   29:58
which was weird, because it then wasn't it on TV, Unlike Friday night at, like, 1 a.m. or something.

spk_1:   30:05
It was Friday night, Saturday morning, 1 a.m. which you could never explain to somebody without sounding like What's. Is this the first time you've ever spoken about time zones? Teoh. Right, So and then that's what you had had to change later on, because the acronym no longer made sense. But we we did a show for Channel four k r. O. And, uh, we

spk_0:   30:29
did number one in our time slot

spk_1:   30:30
number one in our time slot. What about reruns of Oprah. I mean, sometimes we did.

spk_0:   30:37
I tell you my most favorite moment of eh? So we would go. We would do this show and you can do a much better job of kind of describing the week, but basically we would spend the week getting ready for it. Then we would actually film it live. There would always be a band and a stand up comedian who was the host, and we would do sketches. And we would have a live studio audience and was actually filmed in a TV studio in the Chron Caroline Channel four, uh, studios, which was really awesome, like we were legit doing a TV show. But, uh, we would then, you know, the it would probably take a week till it actually went on the air or however many weeks until that episode would air and, ah, the best part was one day we were actually believe at Bennigan's what, you know, doing her watch party at one o'clock in the morning type thing and on the ah, you know how, like the news scroll goes below the bottom of the screen, like tells you like what's going on? You know what this time, you know? Ah, were, you know, whatever. Ah, this is post 9 11 So probably something about the Iraq Afghanistan war. Um, and there's along the bottom of the screen is ah to California Raisins thrown off the Golden Gate Bridge after publicity stunts by police. Well, I happened to be one of those two California raisins. Hey, so we're, like dogging across the Golden Gate Bridge in giant raisin costumes. And the bridge police came and threw us often basically said, you guys are causing such a distraction to traffic that you're gonna cause an accident. So timeto leave. And it was hilarious, because here we're about to watch the TV show we're both on. And I'm infamous in from this infinite for almost getting arrested for being a raisin. It was great.

spk_1:   32:09
I'm so glad you explained that. Because when you said threw them off, I was just like my God. They tossed you into the San Francisco Bay there. They kicked you off. They made sure that you weren't upset in traffic.

spk_0:   32:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to do it.

spk_1:   32:24
You got to do it, man. Sometimes you gotta be a reason, but

spk_0:   32:26
yes, so amazing opportunity with his TV show and the ability to write every week. And I mean, that's huge, you know, like you mentioned the 10,000 hours, Like having the ability, Not even the ability. The requirement you had to write every single week.

spk_1:   32:38
Yes, yes. And it was just It was nice, because, um, one of the things that you realize at some point in your career, unless you are one of those people, I think even if you're a super successful person, just finding getting together, a crew of people who want to do a particular project takes up. I don't know. Probably a solid 75% of your time. Yeah, just getting those people together. And that was one of the luxuries that we had. We did not have to worry about that. Like, I was just assigned to time. And I showed up and there was a group of people there, and we would do something. Yep. Um, so that was that was a real luxury that we had, but yeah, that show we did it, I think, 52 or 56 episodes every week at Kron, and then it stopped for a period of time. And that's actually when I started doing stand up, because, um, at the time I was 20. I had dropped out of college. Um, I was gonna perform full time, and that did not happen. I had an aunt a 1,000,000,000. Exactly. So it stopped. I mean, literally was a sort of thing. We had a show on Thursday. I showed up to record something on a Saturday, and the guy in charge just said, Oh, uh, yeah, we're not doing it anymore.

spk_0:   34:00
Was this prayer post finger accident?

spk_1:   34:04
This was This was pre finger accidents. So to give the listeners some idea, you get to that, we'll get to the finger, we're gonna figure problem. So the nice thing in doing the show, like you said, we had to stand up comics that performed at every show when we were on stage. Once we moved to a television format, it just became one stamp comic. It was a guest comic was a brand new one every week, So I got to meet in a very level playing field sort of sort of way. All of the comedians that were performing in the Bay Area, they were very nice, and also there was no competition. They didn't feel like they had to compete against me because we were doing two different mediums. So when the show's stopped, this sounds so cliche. But literally. I walked out of the theater and I felt as though I had a giant hole in my chest. Yeah, because I did not enjoy serving tables. It was something that was meant to be short term, not long term, and I was always able to hold on to the fact that I just do that for money. But my real passion is performing, and I have a weekly show that I do, and we're on television and its public access right now. But where they That's just a stepping stone. And once it ended, I was just a server. That's all I was. And if your job is to be a server and you enjoy that terrific, I did not. And so I needed something immediately. I needed a some sort of fix. And so that was the nice thing about stand up comedy with an open mic. Literally, you write material during the day, you sign up for an open mic, you performing that night. Yeah, and that becae that was also, um, such a revelation. Because when you do sketch comedy or you do theater or you do film, realistically speaking, yes, you can do it by yourself to a degree. But more often than not, you need a large group of dedicated people who can do very specific jobs. And so just scheduling that, like I said, takes up so much of your time. When you're a stand up comedian, it's just you. You write the material, you get the gig you perform. There is a great line by a comic, that Barry comic who quite a few years ahead of me, who had said the great thing about stand up comedy is if when you perform it and you do well, it's all thanks to you. But when you perform stand up comedy and you do poorly, it's all thanks to you. So it's you live and die based on your own material, but it's the nice thing is it's so plug it so fast. It happens immediately if you want it. Thio

spk_0:   36:41
writings obviously been something that's clearly been there for you, from kind of the get go whether it was writing sketches or getting into writing for comedy. I mean, writing is something you you still to this day? Do I mean, like you said, you've got, what, 66 shorts under You're under your belt

spk_1:   36:56
and I have eight full screen plays, one produced,

spk_0:   37:02
That's awesome. And then

spk_1:   37:03
we'll actually speaking of shorts, tell me about your your night of shorts

spk_0:   37:06
night that you're you're producing.

spk_1:   37:08
Uh, so, uh, I guess about three and 1/2 years ago I had an idea for a short film and I contacted a couple of guys here in Los Angeles. The deal. Your brothers, James and Dave and, uh, had said, Hey, I got an idea. I don't think it'll cost much. We can do this fairly quickly. And we shot a short film and we submitted to film festivals which, if you've never submitted to a film festival, anyone can do it. It does not take anything special, but to submit to each film festival is between $20 to $100 per film festival. And if you want to really get any sort of traction in the film festival world, you need to submit to between 20 to 50 film festivals to get any real traction where people are actually seeing your work. And so that money adds up very fast. So we had done that and we'd made it into a few film festivals and we would show up to these things. And they were so poorly put together and so poorly run and are short was I think, five minutes. It was a five minute short, and we were put in a four hour block with other material. And so there was no way we could invite people to come out for four hours to attend this festival to tow watch our things. And so we kind of joked around the idea of like there should be a place where just filmmakers can get together for free. We show their stuff like in a bar, and everyone can sit comfortably and relax and have a drink and get to know one another and just show their work. Because one of the things that people also don't know about a lot of film festivals is when you see those laurels that are around like, you know, voted ah, audience favorites or best actor or best short film. The way that a lot of film festivals achieve this is that the audience is voting for the majority of those things, at least on a lower level. When you get to something like Cannes or Sundance, you know, when you're in the upper tier that is voted upon by a, um, a committee. But for all lower film festivals, it's voted on by the audience that happens to be in attendance that day or that night. So what that does is it compels thief filmmakers to invite all of their friends to come out to the show so that, in essence, you're stacking the deck in your favor. This gets very, very tiresome if you are performing. If your show, if you're short I'm sorry, is being showcased in 2030 different film festivals. There's no way you can bug your friends and family to come out to every one of these things. So and please? Yeah, next Thursday. What are you doing, man? Uh, come to Mandalay Bay. Yeah. So we wanted to. We wanted to be a short film festival. Not even a festival. A screening where filmmakers could get together for free. It would cost them nothing to exhibit their work. It would cost them nothing to come and watch. And we would do just have a good time. And so we found a place, and it was called the sand the Sand lot. Ah, and it was on Melrose in Los Angeles, and I contacted the manager and they said, Yeah, that sounds great. You were gonna do it on a Monday night. I know, because Monday nights typically bars and restaurants are fairly empty. Nobody really goes out to him. So they said, Great. You're gonna bring a crowd. You can do it for free. So I contacted a bunch of friends and we had our short film of the six other friends and they were going to show their short films. So the wife and I got a baby sitter. We showed up, I sent out flyers, and we get there on the night and the doors were locked and the lights are off and no one is answering the phone. So to this day, I have no idea what happened. They set us up for a date that they were not going to be there. Uh, my friends started showing up and my wife and one of our good friends that woman by the name Allison Ball said, Well, hey, let's you know there's a lot of bars on Melrose. Let's go find another place And honestly, I was kind of shitty about it. I was in a bad mood and I did not think that they were going to succeed. I said, Go, go, go, go find a place. No, here.

spk_0:   41:32
That's gonna happen.

spk_1:   41:33
Yeah, two minutes later, Matt Robe in. Two minutes later, I get a text for my wife and she says, We've had a place come on down and it's a you know, it's a block away. Crate eso I hustled all of my friends to a place called the Parlor and sure enough, they had a sidebar that they opened for us and they were just dead. There was just nobody in there. And so we brought 20 people in, So they were on sell food and they were able to buy drinks. Ah, and we showed our shorts and we had a fun night. And about halfway through the evening, the manager a TTE the time had said, Hey, listen, if you guys want to do this again, then you give me a call and he gave me his card and I spoke with these guys and said, Would you want to make this into a regularly monthly thing? And they said Yes. So that started the night of Shorts night, which was the first Tuesday of every sort which originally was the first Monday of every month at this place, the parlor. And it was not without its problems, but having said that, we're very proud with what we built. We went from having 10 people every month. Thio. I think our our highest was 60 people every month. So this wasn't, you know, we weren't selling out stadiums by any stretch, but as I said, it was a small operation and it was 100% free. For the filmmakers, it was free for the audience. It never cost us anything because there was a symbiotic relationship with the bar and performing

spk_0:   42:53
is knowing how an audience reacts to what you're giving. So I think the toughest part when we were younger and performing was you didn't get to watch a video of your performance until days or weeks after the show was done, whereas now you could be like, Hey, can you fill me with my cell phone so I can see what's going on? You're like, Oh, man, I look like that Or that's how that looks on change that

spk_1:   43:15
well, the thing and this is the thing that I wanted to bring to a lot of filmmakers is if you have ever shot anything, especially if you're in a vacuum. If it's just you by yourself, you edit and you spend just countless hours editing and editing, and you get to the point where you can't see the forest from the trees and you know exactly how it looks and you think yourself it looks perfect, and then you show it to a friend, and all of a sudden it's as if you're watching it. For the first time you noticed. This is really slow. This this joke that I thought was funny is not working at all. This music cue doesn't work or this needs to be longer. This needs to be shorter, and that was one of the things we wanted to provide the community as well as like, come out and watch this in front of a crowd. That way you can You're not showing it to your friends. You're not showing it to your family who are kind of inclined to say, Hey, good job. You know, if you have good for apparently, you are showing it to absolute strangers who have no problem not laughing at your jokes. Or I'm not crying at your sad moments. So that was what it was really important for me to provide some people as well. When you're making shorts, by and large you are on a shoestring budget or even if you have a fairly good size budget, you don't have money for maybe a test screening or you don't have money for a wrap party. And that's where we would come into play as well. It was a good opportunity for just We're gonna show this at a bar with a large group of people with an audience, and you and your friends can come out and have a beer and just sit and relax. Yeah, uh,

spk_0:   44:50
so what? Three and 1/2 years?

spk_1:   44:52
It's Ah, that was three to have years ago, but we really started the night of shorts that really started about two and 1/2 years ago, we got it, like, up and running. Ah, and so we did it for about for two and 1/2 years at the first location. And then new management came in and it was primarily a sports bar, and I think they just didn't want to deal with us anymore. And so they said that we could keep it going, But then we needed to pay $750 a month come ons like that. And so I had a bit of ah, existential crisis, and I thought to myself, Do we keep this going, or do we just be thankful? For the last two and 1/2 years, we had a really good community. We had a good crew of people, and that's it. If you showed up, then you got to experience this thing and I was ready to let it go. And then one of the filmmakers reached out to me and said a friend of mine just started a bar. He opened a bar call night night bar in downtown Los Angeles, and, you know he'd be interested in throwing events like this. Would you want to meet with him. So I sat down with this guy and yeah, he was very open to the idea and said, All right, let's give it a shot. And it turned out to be incredible because last night was our first show. The location was so much better The bar so much better the technology that they have a so much better we were on a laptop, a Dell laptop from, I think the year 2000 in the old place Great Conan O'Brien sketch. Ah, and so this is a far better set up and we do a little silly giveaway as well. We, ah, raffle off. We do a free raffle for DVDs, which is ridiculous, because in this day and age, most people

spk_0:   46:34
right, throw you later. You don't have a DVD player,

spk_1:   46:37
but we have a great coach. Yeah, I reached out to Fox Searchlight and also Warner Brothers Home Video and asked them if they would donate some DVDs and they sent me boxes of old DVDs that they had had. Yeah, and I think, honestly, they were just kind of cleaning out their garage and they were like, Yeah, I sent him to this guy for

spk_0:   46:59
storage in this guy's house.

spk_1:   47:01
So it's terrific. It's it's really, really fun. And, ah, we'll say to anybody who's listening to this podcast. If you live in the L A area

spk_0:   47:09
happens of them

spk_1:   47:10
for now, this good? We could be talking to somebody in the year 2030. Right now they're listening to the old school. Stop blowing it up, Blown it up. Uh, but yeah, if you live in the l A area and you're a filmmaker and you would like to screen your work, send it to me confined me on all the social media at Tom's. Funny like Tom's like the shoe company and funny Um, and you can find me at eric toms dot com. Send me a copy or a link to your work. I will check it out. If we put it up, then it will cost you absolutely nothing. We do ask that the filmmaker show up. Just the filmmaker by themselves seems reasonable. At least one person, so we can introduce them and talk to them. Ah and yeah, it's at the Night Night bar, which is South Spring Street between eighth and ninth in downtown Los Angeles. The first Tuesday of every month, and you can check us out on the Interwebs either. It's facebook dot com forward slash

spk_0:   48:06
willing to you later in the show Notes Man. Yeah, no. Yeah, I I appreciate you saying that we can absolutely get in there and make people's lives. Not like What

spk_1:   48:13
am I writing down? Scribble, scribble, scribble?

spk_0:   48:15
Yeah, get those in the show notes.

spk_1:   48:18
Cool. Okay. And then tell me Completely

spk_0:   48:21
unrelated to being a performer. Tell me, like what? What is Eric Tom's like to do with his free time? I mean, who's Who's Eric? Tom's not the performer.

spk_1:   48:27
What? You know, that is a very interesting question, because about 10 years ago, um, I had kids. I have two boys, Nick and Fletcher, and for the first, many, many years, Eric Thomas did not have free time. I was writing or performing in some capacity and taking care of my kids. And then in the last, the last I would say two years. All of a sudden, everything switched. All of a sudden, my kids were old enough to where they could go outside and play by themselves, and they would take their scooters. Their friends would come and get him, and they would go right there scooters or ride their bikes around the neighborhood. And all of a sudden I found myself with with free time again. And I will. And you go through a strange period of time as, ah, parents where you're like, Who am I again? Yeah. And who is this lady that I'm married to? And what do I like to do now? Because it's been this large stretch of time where you haven't checked in with yourself? Um, man, Yeah. I like drinking beer and smoking pot, but that can't be an everyday thing. You haven't have actual hobbies. Ah, and so I have rekindled my love for comic books of a big comic book fan. Um, I tend to read independent comic books. I'm not a huge fan of Marvel or DC They're fun. But for the most part, there's gonna be fighting and the good guys gonna win. Yes, Boiler, I Yeah, I know. I tend to like what I like to call kitchen table books where it's not the people fighting is the people sitting and talking at the kitchen table at tends to be more human stories and with comic books, I find that you you can have kind of like a Twilight Zone was an excellent allegory machine for humanity and people and how they interact and how they feel. I feel comic books are capable of doing the same thing where you can maybe make these large, sweeping metaphors about life or about the times that we happen to live in in the context of comics. I also rekindled my, uh, my love for woodworking. I finally set up my yeah, finally set up my wood shop. You and I have built quite a few projects, some of them good, and there's there's a thing that I love in woodworking. They say you don't make any mistakes if there's a chip that's taken out of AA piece of wood, or if there's a split, that's not a mistake. That's a feature.

spk_0:   51:05
So a lot of ages is what you're saying.

spk_1:   51:08
I make a lot of features and all projects when it comes the one working. But it's a fantastic thing that just it has nothing that I get to be creative, certainly, but I don't need to worry about this, um, fueling me in any way other than just for fun.

spk_0:   51:24
Yeah, that's that's how I am with my entire backyard, all the animals on the farm, and, like building the deck that they live underneath or building the ah, you know, the chicken coop. I mean, anything. Everything is a ah project for me and I I want to make it as nice as I can, but I'm not trying to sell it. I'm just making it for function. And because it is so much fun to play with power tools. I mean, I finally get that, like, being a man and having a garage thing. I'm like, I have weed whackers and rodeo tillers and, you know, belt Sanders. And drill says like, Oh, this is so much fun. Like, I really I I now get the Tim the tool, Man Taylor sort of a thing. Really, It's I get it, I get it.

spk_1:   52:05
I recently set up a ah vacuum hose s so that I can plug all of my machines into that, and it automatically takes all the sawdust. Yeah, collects all the dust and the amount of jubilation I felt in gay that up and running was just kind of ridiculous to degree nobody. And I think that's one

spk_0:   52:26
of the key things, you know. And you had mentioned it earlier. If you're not finding joy out of performing, um, you know, or anything like you're not necessarily going to make a living at it, so you better find a way out of it. And that's where I think some of these hobbies can be really fun because you're not ever intending what? So I mean, I'm not intending to make a living with my podcast. I wanna have some interesting conversations with some really interesting people and share them with people. That's it. This is so you know, I'm looking for financial freedom, you know. No, it's just it's a fun way to spend my time and learn things. That's that's the key for me learning things and sharing that with other people.

spk_1:   53:01
I and I found that it's very important to have that because living in Los Angeles there is no shortage of bitter, angry people here who showed up with the expectation that they were going to make it and they were gonna make it at a young age and that they were going to turn the world of entertainment upside down, and it did not happen. And now they're, you know, they work in coffee shops. Or maybe they have, like, you know, AA landscaping business, which is fine if they were just happy doing that. But they're not. They're angry people who really spend a lot of time making other people's lives miserable or tearing people down to make themselves feel better. And I that was always a benchmark for me. If I ever got bitter, I was going to leave the business because I don't want to trade my soul for from performing.

spk_0:   53:51
Well, put my friend, um, tell me something people don't really know about you or that Ah, a story I know, But something that would probably be a big surprise to a lot of people. What did you do? Ah, a couple of years back

spk_1:   54:03
a couple years back. Ah, my best friend's guy by the name of Mike Hogan. Uh, got sick. A kind of came out of nowhere. He didn't know it is a young guy in his early thirties who had just happened tohave ah, high sodium content. And as a result, his kidneys failed. And so he At first it seemed like the sort of thing it wasn't that big a deal. They just had him on light dialysis. And then things went from Ah, from bad to worse, very quickly. And it became ah ah ah very clear that he was going to need a kidney transplant and he was immediately put on lists. And finally I stepped in and said, Why don't you just take mine? I'll give you my kidney. I'd like to sit here and tell you Matt Robin, that the moment he found out he needed a kidney, I was the first phone call. No, I I let that play out a little while. I was questioning him, though. Don't you

spk_0:   55:01
have to, like match parameters of a person? I mean, it's not like any of the only work for anybody. Or is it

spk_1:   55:07
the only thing you need to matches? Blood type? Okay,

spk_0:   55:10
okay, so that's it. That's it. You're all right?

spk_1:   55:13
Yeah, it is much easier than it's. Finding the kidney usually isn't the difficult thing that the problem is. Of course, there's far more people who need organs than there are organs around. That's why I always tell people like be an organ donor. When you die, your your pieces can save nine lives. Um, but the more difficult part is when you are introducing a foreign object into a person's body, they have to take medicine for the rest of their life. They have and read your your body, yet may reject it. So it's this anti rejection medicine. The so, Yeah, we did that. The unfortunate story with Mike was that yes, I I donated the kidney. We went through the procedure as a donor. I had. It was very easy for me. I was in recovery for about 10 days. It was hard for me to sit up, but now I forget that I only have one kidney, uh, Mike Slive for about a year afterwards. Unfortunately, when you have, um, when you undergo a procedure like that, your chances for infection and uh to your amino system just really falls off a cliff. And he got sick and they caught it pretty quickly. And he was literally walking around with, like, a fanny pack of antibiotics that we're just being pumped into his system at all time, and they were trying to slowly wean him off of that. And in doing so, he immediately got sick. And so within the course of I think, two weeks, hey, went from being kind of a normal walking around guy, too. He was dead. Um, it was it was soul crushing it. I'm still recovering from it away. These years later, having said that, anyone who has gone through any sort of loss, which I know you have a swell it really gives you a new perspective on life. And that's why I talk about the idea of getting out of this business before becoming bidders. Like, Look, acting is not going to make give me everlasting life. It's just gonna be a job just to me. Something I do while I'm here on earth. Once I die, that's it. So you better really enjoy the time that you have.

spk_0:   57:41
Yeah, that's so key. It's I I think this is something that comes up every time I talk to somebody. It's not about the destination, it's the journey. I mean, it's 100%. What are you doing along there? And you can, you know, be head down and just like barrel forward and not enjoy the view or you can kind of Hey, I'm gonna get there. Is whether you want to use quickly as award or not. I'm gonna get there one way or the other. I'm getting there. So guess what? I might as well enjoy myself on that ride.

spk_1:   58:11
And it I do think I would like Thio. There's something I just want to throw this out there here in Los Angeles and I assume this is probably many other places. But there is definitely a push in Los Angeles. Have a sunny disposition and everything is great all the time and you're always happy. And I do. The wellness is a thing that is trending right now. There's, ah, more than a few Hashtags and I think that it's very nice to have a positive outlook on life. I think there needs to be a push for It's okay to be a person. It's OK to wake up. Just have a bad day or not to be excited about today, Or

spk_0:   58:54
did you just say to be not okay? I mean that

spk_1:   58:56
it's okay to be not Okay. There you go. That's the That's the hash tag, right?

spk_0:   59:01
Well, I've been improving it really known. And it is because we yeah, especially like you're saying in this business

spk_1:   59:06
now, you

spk_0:   59:06
just be happy all the time, you know, sell yourself. Hey,

spk_1:   59:09
Yeah, You always having a good time, which is not the case at all. And I think that feeds into things like, um, mental health issues and problems that a lot of people don't want to talk about because they're difficult to talk about. Absolutely. If you're feeling down, that's okay. If you're feeling down all the time, you should probably talk to somebody about absolutely well. And even

spk_0:   59:28
if you're feeling not good at that moment, there's no reason that calling a friend and hopefully you have a friend going somewhere. But we're so locked away in our little worlds of ah, you know, you see on social media that somebody's having so much fun and you're not. And how does that not affect you? You know, I'm so glad we didn't grow up with that as Children like Good God don't want to imagine what that's gonna be like for your kids or, you know, my name,

spk_1:   59:51
my nieces and nephews. No, thanks. Yeah. Oh, that's funny, because my kids have a YouTube channel. Ah, they don't even have a YouTube channel. Come on. You have a podcast, though, so I feel like it's Ah, it's less work. You just have the audio you don't need were about how you on video but the number wouldn't think that I did was I turned off comments process.

spk_0:   1:0:13
Very smart idea.

spk_1:   1:0:15
I It's fine. If you wanna have a YouTube channel, you put it out there. You do not want them having any feedback. What soul crushing feedback. So quick. Wishing feedback. But another nine year old like what? Did you still you still can't kind of deal with it because there's still the thumbs up and thumbs down which you can't turn off. And Dad, there's some kid who in turn and like you gave a thumbs down to every one of their videos a little. Okay, so let's go find that

spk_0:   1:0:42
egg. His house.

spk_1:   1:0:44
Well, there is a side of me that was, you know, of course, as a father crushed. But at the same time as a human being, it was like, this is good for you to see. It's like not everyone's gonna like everything that you put out there. And in fact, there's no doubt this is some kid who's just being mean. And that's just something you have to deal with as a person. But also certainly have some you have to deal with online. Yeah, I

spk_0:   1:1:07
mean, it could also be that you have horrifyingly untalented Children, so

spk_1:   1:1:12
it's also a very real possibility. I mean, everything I make is incredible, but actually, it's not a 1 to 1 ratio when

spk_0:   1:1:21
you're giving either love knows little gentlemen. Okay, I got a few more questions I want to ask you, and then we're gonna have things wrapped up, and then you can go on with your day. Does that sound good?

spk_1:   1:1:31
That sounds good to me, sir. Fantastic. All

spk_0:   1:1:32
right. And they're just fun questions. These aren't Ah, you know, there's no right or wrong answers. Just plain plain and simple, right? What did you wanna be when you grow up?

spk_1:   1:1:40
Ah, Richard. I remember somebody asking me that when I was in the sixth grade, and I said I wanted to be a clown because I wanted to be a cloud. May I? I know it's funny because I didn't know what a comedian was called. I didn't know what that was like. I want to perform, and I want to make people laugh. Who does that clowns do that? I guess. I guess I want to be a clown. But I don't want to wear bake up.

spk_0:   1:2:03
Basically wanted to be a mat. Reuben is what you're saying.

spk_1:   1:2:05
Basically wanted to be Matt Robot

spk_0:   1:2:07
with All right. And now, at this point in your life, what do you want to be when you grow up? Where you going

spk_1:   1:2:14
from here? Oh, I still I think I want to write for the rest of my life. I don't know if I'll perform for the rest of my life. I do. Still, I desperately enjoy it. I mean, I will certainly do it for the next 2030 years. I don't know, though. Once I get into the autumn of my life for the winter, I don't know if I'll still want that you're getting get in there. Also, I've been teaching a little bit lately and I've really been enjoying that. So the idea of I that's the new dream that I do get some traction. I do become a part of a large project here, Um, and get some notoriety. So then that way I can retire to Santa Cruz, California. Yeah. And and be a professor at UC Santa Cruz

spk_0:   1:3:04
deficit suede jacket with elbow patches and a high

spk_1:   1:3:07
set. Yeah, Mike. Yes. And I'll have glasses that Aiken tilt down whenever I'm trying to make, like, a really interesting boy

spk_0:   1:3:13
like All right. Okay. All right. Let's see. Favorite food from your childhood, maybe something your mom made, or just something you just loved. What was it?

spk_1:   1:3:21
I will give you two. Just because they were so weird. Uh, my mom used to make me every day a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Delicious. But she used to give it to me in a sack lunch. And inevitably, what would happen is you know, I throw my backpack around my say, which would get smushed you so it would be almost I mean, like cardboard fin. It was so squished together. And so the bread was no longer spongy. It was now just this one solid mass, and it tasted so good every day I look forward to a smashed peanut butter and jelly saying Alright. And the other thing that was very odd. Ah, was at the restaurant, um Windies. They have a thing called the frosty. Yeah, and the frosty is somewhere between milkshake and ice cream. It's You can't really drink it through a straw. You have to use a spoon. But it's still kind of Ah ah, little more viscous. And what I would do is I would order a cheeseburger and I would dip it in the frosty, and they don't eat it. Okay? It's No, It's like I was just racing towards diabetes. Like I really wanted to get there as fast as I possibly could

spk_0:   1:4:34
get listed. You You're clearly it didn't affect your weight wise. So, uh, I don't think it was a big deal. All right. What's your favorite beverage right now? Yeah, Yeah.

spk_1:   1:4:46
I have really been getting into um ah, I p A's all right. Ah, and I'm a big fan of 805 as I have been having, uh and then as well there's a company. Oh, called. It's down here in Los Angeles called Angel City Brewery. They have an I p. A. That is delicious. I really, really

spk_0:   1:5:09
love it. Yeah, love Numa beers. That's all right. You're going out to the bar, you drink that favorite i p a. And there's karaoke E. What's tune is Eric. Tom's Gonna sing

spk_1:   1:5:19
There's one song and holy singing Karaoke. Yeah, I've only ever sung in karaoke E It is Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley. The reason being, um, Elvis had a fantastic voice for a lot of his ballads. So of, like, fools Russian or something like that is a terrific voice. You can really be a horrible singer, which I am, and get away with a pretty good version of Jailhouse Rock because it's just like a lot of screaming and then kind of like under your breath kind of look Lou from, you know, he has a lot of that. So a

spk_0:   1:5:54
lot of herring operation, which you doesn't want to do that on stage.

spk_1:   1:5:56
Exactly. And also, when it comes on, people are usually so delighted that you get a lot of, uh ah kind of gratification from everyone without really having to do anything.

spk_0:   1:6:06
All right. Ah, and then, ah, what's in the playlist right now? Either podcasts or music. What do you Ah, do you listen to when you got something plugged into your ears.

spk_1:   1:6:13
Um, podcast. I love science shows. I'm a big fan of science. And so there is a through, I believe, BBC four. There's a podcast called the Infinite Monkey Cage, which is, um, they will bring on, um The last one they did was quantum theory. They would bring in, like quantum theory scientists, astrophysicists and then as well, comedians s. Oh, it's very fun. It's very funny. It's very informative. So I will download a couple of those, as I mentioned, the script notes podcast, which is about screenwriting and things that are interesting. The screenwriters, Um, I'm also a big fan of Marc Maron's podcast. I think he's fantastic. Interviewer, um, music wise. I'm really getting into the Black Keys. I'm I feel like I'm late to that party. But those guys are absolutely phenomenal. Anything that Jack White does, I will listen to that as well. Lana del Rey. Anything. Any song written by a sad girl I love it. Sad girl songs get me 100% of the time.

spk_0:   1:7:22
You are a bad girl, aren't you?

spk_1:   1:7:25
I am a sad girl at my heart. Uh, yeah, I would say that's that's what I'm listening to, um and then I don't Can I say stuff for movies to know? Yeah. Please.

spk_0:   1:7:35
Yeah. What a couple of your favorites.

spk_1:   1:7:37
Ah, I will say I always have a big fan of a local filmmaker. He's not local to Los Angeles. He is local to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I love this guy stuff. His name's Joe Potrykus. Um, he's made I only like five films, but four of them. I believe it premiered at South by Southwest and f I. So he performs at a very high level. But in no way does he want to leave Grand Rapids. He teaches at the college there. He is kind of living. The dream has got his family. His last film was a film called Relaxer that you can find on the Amazon. Um, I believe also, Canopy has it, uh, the first film of his that I really fell in love with. There's a film called Buzzard, which is the story of a just this young loser who, uh, is performing this misguided rebellion, and you just watch him go down in flames. And it's a fantastic and kind of heartbreaking and really well directed and really well shot but clearly for no money as well. Um, there's also I mentioned Canopy, if you do, you know, canopy, I don't Can it be, uh, with a K? Okay. If you have a library, a public library card, you can get canopy for free. You get 10 viewings every month, and it has the entire criterion collection. So I highly recommended for people. It's terrific. And there's, um I just re watched Rochemont, uh, which, if you've never seen it before, is an absolutely incredible film by Karasawa Ah, and its cure a sour 100%. A lot of people know him for the Seven Samurai, which is a great film. I think that Row Sherman is infinitely more interesting because it is. It's the story that is told from four same actions told from four different perspectives. Very cool. And so it's a, uh, somebody is telling the story of a bandit that was caught and this bandit apparently jumped a samurai and his wife and according to the first account, raped the wife and killed the samurai and then stole their things and ran away.

spk_0:   1:10:08
I'm pretty sure that's a three amigos plot line. Isn't it way. We learned the village with,

spk_1:   1:10:16
well, rape the horses right off on the women.

spk_0:   1:10:18
We would prune the hedges of many small villages,

spk_1:   1:10:22
but ah, but that that is from the bandits standpoint. That's what he did from the woman's standpoint, she says. No, he didn't rape me. I was unhappy with my husband because he couldn't satisfy me. So I had sex with this bandit. He couldn't satisfy B and then, like I didn't run away. I left because those guys were losers. Ah, and then they are able through magic realism, able to contact the spirits of the samurai. That's who has died on. And then the final person is, in essence, God. God is able to show you what really happened.

spk_0:   1:10:56
The all knowing you yeah,

spk_1:   1:10:58
the all knowing, all of mission view. And it's

spk_0:   1:11:01
you're probably aware with kid, that's like there's well in Fletcher. Next case. There's Fletcher Side, There's Nick's Side. And then there's the truth.

spk_1:   1:11:09
Yes, 100% 100%

spk_0:   1:11:11
parenting. That's awesome. All right, well, I don't mind my last question, I'd like to ask, especially in Chicago, but I think I know the answer to this one based on where you have Ah, you ride a bike? Are you? Ah, driver of a car. Do you Do you take public transportation?

spk_1:   1:11:26
I am a driver of a car because I live in Los Angeles. Although I will say, I take the kids to school today and we walked. That's exempt. And they rode their scooters. Yeah, so it's not too far. It's Ah, it's 1/2 mile roundtrip. Unfortunately, the thing about Los Angeles is, uh it is so sprawling. Yeah, that it is very difficult to get from point A to point B without a bike. Now, I will say much like the Bay Area. We had this problem in the Bay Area. They were, they expand. They passed multiple bills that expanded public transportation, including Bart and Cal Trade. And it was going to be fantastic. And revolution ever revolutionize the the area in 20 years. Yeah, the exact same thing has happened here the couple of years ago. I want to say it was about four years ago. Los Angelenos passed the bill, and we're going to put $1.1 billion into public transportation. So they're expanding the subway. They're putting more light rail, they Ah, And this thing literally is all been happening. And the nice thing about it is the subway. Now, my boys and I, we take it to go to the beach because we can go from our place in Culver City Thio to Santa Monica very quickly. We can also go to downtown for a long time. The only place you could drive you could only take on the subway was from the North Valley into downtown, and that was it. But now they're putting in something like I think I think they're putting it something like 50 to 100 miles of new tracks. And you'll actually be able to take the subway from tthe e l a X Airport, the major airport in Los Angeles, to your destination, which were the only major city in all of the United States where you cannot jump on a train immediately getting off of an airport. And it is embarrassing. So they're making a big push for the 2028 Olympics, which will be here. Um ah, uh, Gavin Newsom just ordered the largest fleet of Elektronik buses, so 100 and 50 Elektronik buses will be Ah will be driving up and down the streets of Los Angeles, hopefully reducing some of the insane carbon emissions. We have that. Did you know that Los Angeles has got pollution? Did you know that? So, has anybody heard of this? Okay, it's just a thing. I'm Woodward and Bernstein ing this whole thing right now.

spk_0:   1:13:58
I'm letting you go in and let me know how that goes.

spk_1:   1:14:01
There's there's pollution here in l A.

spk_0:   1:14:04
Ah, some Well, no, not that pollution. Is that awesome? Awesome is the conversation that its head with you awesome is you spending the time to talk to me and awesome is that we're done. What you think

spk_1:   1:14:14
about they? I had a fantastic time is terrific talking. Thanks for being here, man. I

spk_0:   1:14:19
I wish we could have done it in person, but we got to have some fun. Ah, video chat, podcast conversation.

spk_1:   1:14:26
I have to get out to Chicago. That's just what this comes.

spk_0:   1:14:28
Yeah. Yeah, you do. You've got a place to stay here. The Airbnb is always open the air. Tom wing of the of the ranch. A robin always available.

spk_1:   1:14:36
Thank you, buddy. This has been a terrific time and yes, you I will. I will echo the words of your captain in that you are the most interesting person I have ever met in my life. No, uh, you're back that you do as many things you do inspires me every day to go learn something else. Well, thanks,

spk_0:   1:14:58
buddy. I just like to have fun and, ah, you know, learn a 1,000,000 things. So, uh, I, uh I love you, and I'll talk to you soon.

spk_1:   1:15:05
I love you too, but

spk_0:   1:15:06
All right. Eric. Tom's ladies and gentlemen. Comedian, writer, actor, filmmaker. Some of his recommended reading and listening, giving up a kidney, eating smashed peanut butter and jelly is a kid drinking I p a. And walking his kids to school in L. A. You just heard it all here. What? Can you tell me? The podcast. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast, please do me a huge favor. That'll only take a moment of your time and won't cost you anything. Share with your friends. A quick message on social media or just mentioning in a conversation would be great. Also, leave me a review on iTunes. Thanks