Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. Brazen, blunt, unapologetic. These are
Speaker 1: just a few of the words that describe the unexpected
Speaker 1: comedy of my guest Today. Tim Dillon named one of
Speaker 1: the top ten Comics you Need to Know by Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: This former child actor has released specials on Netflix and
Speaker 1: Comedy Central, and graced the stages of the Glasgow Comedy
Speaker 1: Festival and South By Southwest. Dylan is also a fellow
Speaker 1: podcaster since two thousand sixteen. His blend of truth telling,
Speaker 1: hot takes, and controversial opinions can be heard every week
Speaker 1: on the Tim Dillon Show. Like many who make their
Speaker 1: living on the road, Dylan was mostly sideline from touring
Speaker 1: throughout the pandemic. We spoke about where and how he
Speaker 1: spent his time during COVID. I was in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and then I went out to Palm Springs, which is
Speaker 1: a desert. Because if I don't have to be near work,
Speaker 1: I can be in the desert. So I went out
Speaker 1: to the desert. You have a home there too, No, no,
Speaker 1: I have on your business card, he says, Palm Springs.
Speaker 1: But part of are you in Yeah, Beverly Hills, Beverly Perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Beverly The office is of Tim Dillon. Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, Texas,
Speaker 1: New York and New York. Yeah. I went out there
Speaker 1: and we were able to podcast and make people laugh
Speaker 1: on the internet. And thank god because that helped our
Speaker 1: sanity and obviously we're able to monetize that and make money.
Speaker 1: But you know, important for comedians is to be funny.
Speaker 1: That's how we live. We're screwed up people that need
Speaker 1: an outlet, and thank god we had an outlet. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to your background, right, a glorious background.
Speaker 1: You and I share a Long Island background, Long Island background,
Speaker 1: which is don't all the most polished and sophisticated. You know,
Speaker 1: I know that we're being funny, but maybe that is true.
Speaker 1: It's true. Maybe it is true. When you're starting out,
Speaker 1: you're in an age where you're not a kid. Did know?
Speaker 1: And and and everything is not the Internet and the
Speaker 1: way things are now. What was your comedy diet when
Speaker 1: you were growing up? What it was a lot of SNL.
Speaker 1: So it was a lot of SNL. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of Farley in Spain and Chris Rock and Mike
Speaker 1: Myers and and and even the next generation of Molly
Speaker 1: Shannon and annagasta Ire and Rio Terry and Will Ferrell.
Speaker 1: I loved SNL. I like Mad TV, which was you know,
Speaker 1: was already Lang and all these other people. I love
Speaker 1: sketch comedy. I would watch Carlin and Pryor and Hicks
Speaker 1: and and Kinnison and Joan Rivers and all of these
Speaker 1: people as I was growing up, so vintage people like Prior, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. And I also loved, you know, sitcoms. So
Speaker 1: I loved Fraser, and I loved I thought Kelsey Grammer
Speaker 1: and David I. Pierce, I thought they were brilliant. You know.
Speaker 1: Comedy to me was was kind of this very broad
Speaker 1: thing that I didn't know what it was or or
Speaker 1: how I would make a living at it. It seemed,
Speaker 1: you know, incredibly unrealistic to make a living at comedy
Speaker 1: because it was something that was so happening somewhere else,
Speaker 1: far away, you know. And then as I you know,
Speaker 1: got older, I was an actor as a kid, and
Speaker 1: I did some you know, off Broadway, off off Broadway.
Speaker 1: I toured around the country, came into the city, came
Speaker 1: into the city a lot. I toured with any Get
Speaker 1: Your Gun, which was they had a touring version of that.
Speaker 1: But I was always in the city as an actor
Speaker 1: and it didn't work. You know, I from the why
Speaker 1: why do you think it didn't work? I had the
Speaker 1: same voice I have now at seven, and that's challenging.
Speaker 1: It's very hard for director. I have a peanut butter
Speaker 1: and jelly sandwich and some strawberry quick. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: very jarring because I was a cute kid. But then
Speaker 1: the director heard the voice and he went, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a bit much. And it didn't work, but
Speaker 1: it gave laid the groundwork and the foundation for the
Speaker 1: idea that I loved being on stage and I love
Speaker 1: the entertainment business and I love New York City. So
Speaker 1: eventually it led me out of Long Island into New
Speaker 1: York pursuing stand up comedy a decade later. But it was,
Speaker 1: you know, the acting never it worked in the sense
Speaker 1: that I was a part of a lot of really
Speaker 1: cool things, but it never got to that next level.
Speaker 1: I never booked in a part that took me to
Speaker 1: l ayer. I think, do you think you could now?
Speaker 1: Do you want to? I mean, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I could or couldn't. I think that, Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: the greatest actor. I'll be very honest, and I'm it's
Speaker 1: actually stunning, how bad. I'm pretty good at uh being
Speaker 1: me and being funny as me. But when I do auditions,
Speaker 1: you know, I have friends who on lines with me.
Speaker 1: It's stunning how not good I am. I'm surprised by
Speaker 1: how bad If you don't have that appetite. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just didn't audition. Eli Roth was doing a movie,
Speaker 1: a video game movie. He's a fanny. He said, I
Speaker 1: want you to work, and we didn't mean. My producer
Speaker 1: drilled forty takes to get a really good take. They
Speaker 1: went with an older guy who, in Eli's words, was
Speaker 1: older and fatter and more Russian. And that's fair. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh. But it takes me a while, but I
Speaker 1: think I think it's a possibility. Well, the only reason
Speaker 1: I say explored is because there's something about certain comics
Speaker 1: that lead you to believe there's a kind of the
Speaker 1: root of the comedy is to some extent, the trauma
Speaker 1: of some experiences from childhood. Then both of those events
Speaker 1: are there, and both of those events have been installed.
Speaker 1: When Seinfeld did this show, he said a line once.
Speaker 1: It really got to me. He said, when I go
Speaker 1: out on stage, he said, I blow myself up, almost
Speaker 1: like a Macy's day. You know, he says, I make
Speaker 1: myself larger, and all of my presence is kind of
Speaker 1: inflated and larger. Is that true of you? Are you
Speaker 1: the same on stage as you are? Also? No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm an exaggerated version of myself on stage. I think
Speaker 1: I'm more animated on stage. I think off stage would
Speaker 1: be exhausting. You couldn't get through a dinner with me
Speaker 1: if I was not like Tom Arnold. No, it's not
Speaker 1: exactly the same on camera. Really bless him. But I
Speaker 1: know I need a, you know, some time to refuel.
Speaker 1: And I think that, uh, I used that off stage,
Speaker 1: and I think, but people meet me, they're a little surprised.
Speaker 1: You go, oh, you're a little more scaled down. I go,
Speaker 1: you will. Of course. Now you talked about how your
Speaker 1: parents divorced and your mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, mother's kizophrenic,
Speaker 1: and out that came. She came to that later in life.
Speaker 1: That was when you were how old. I was in
Speaker 1: my late teens when it started to come out. When
Speaker 1: I started to go there's something wrong, and then you learn,
Speaker 1: you know, you learn about mental illness, and you learn
Speaker 1: that it's physical illness essentially right, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: there's treatments and things. It can't really be helped. And like,
Speaker 1: you know, I have jokes about it and I make
Speaker 1: fun of and and and you know, I think to
Speaker 1: certain people they'd hear that and they go, well, that
Speaker 1: seems very callous or very cruel. But it's how I
Speaker 1: deal with it in the same way that many people
Speaker 1: deal with tragedies with humor. So I think, I love
Speaker 1: my mother, and my mother, you know, did great things
Speaker 1: for me, and I appreciate her. Your father was gone,
Speaker 1: and no, he was there. He's there. They were still married.
Speaker 1: They were still married and they got divorce eventually. Siblings none,
Speaker 1: You were an only child, just me, Jesus Christ, just me.
Speaker 1: They wanted one person to experience at all. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to, you know, spread it out. They wanted one
Speaker 1: guy to take all the all the fun of that
Speaker 1: long island upbringing with the schizophrenic mother. For me, my
Speaker 1: therapist said to me years ago, you don't want to
Speaker 1: recreate the pain of what you experienced as a child.
Speaker 1: You're going to restage the play, but in your version
Speaker 1: of the play, you solve the problem that you couldn't
Speaker 1: solve as a child. Yeah, I'm only mentioned that that's
Speaker 1: something I carried over. What did you carry over? I
Speaker 1: think I carried over a sense of chaos, A very
Speaker 1: unhealthy sense of chaos. Um. I grew up in chaos,
Speaker 1: and to me, I'm very comfortable around it. Right, I'm
Speaker 1: very comfortable. I mean, as you said, what's my address?
Speaker 1: Who knows? Right? I mean, that's kind of a good idea.
Speaker 1: You know. I've moved every six months during the quarantine.
Speaker 1: I liked the new things and new I mean, there's
Speaker 1: many frustrated realtors out there. You I've left a lot
Speaker 1: of them in my wake. But I do, I do.
Speaker 1: I think unfortunately, maybe I've tied a little bit of
Speaker 1: my creativity to the chaoss And there's a fear that
Speaker 1: the cast is actually good, and the cast is actually
Speaker 1: it's fuel and it's what I'm used to and what
Speaker 1: I know, and hearing you say it, that's actually a
Speaker 1: very interesting thing about recreating you know, those environments that
Speaker 1: we grew up and we learned to thrive in, we
Speaker 1: learned to survive in and I could see myself doing
Speaker 1: that with a lot of some of the decisions I make.
Speaker 1: How would you describe your style? How would you I
Speaker 1: mean every comic has a style, your own style, or
Speaker 1: who would you compare it to? No, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that it's like it's it's certainly darker comedy, right,
Speaker 1: So it's dark comedy. There's a lot of different comedians.
Speaker 1: The problem with comedies whenever you compare yourself to somebody
Speaker 1: or saying you're as good as them or anything, which
Speaker 1: is not true at all. Right, So everyone hates doing that.
Speaker 1: I hate doing that, But I mean I do think
Speaker 1: it's somebody described it once they said it's very dark
Speaker 1: in a light way, which I think is fun. Right,
Speaker 1: There's there's darkness, but then there's also complaining about frozen yogurt. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think there's a way to experience the unpleasantness of
Speaker 1: the world in hopefully a light way that allows people
Speaker 1: to laugh at things that they wouldn't necessarily laugh at
Speaker 1: it on days when they don't want to laugh. That
Speaker 1: to me is kind of what the show is about.
Speaker 1: What the stand ups about is that when people reach
Speaker 1: out to me and go the show has gotten me
Speaker 1: through the last year, or your your live show was
Speaker 1: so great. We're also happy. We had a rough week
Speaker 1: and it made us happy. That's really good to me.
Speaker 1: I don't really want or need happy people in my audience.
Speaker 1: I need a challenge. I want someone coming in that
Speaker 1: needs to laugh. If you're if you're twenty and yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, i'd love them to be drunk. And but
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a model, and you you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they go on stage of the Hollywood Improblem, I
Speaker 1: look at the audience and everyone's twenty three in a
Speaker 1: model and I go, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: about this because you don't need this, and I don't
Speaker 1: need this either. I don't need when you don't need me.
Speaker 1: So we're on a bad day. Set, you're all set.
Speaker 1: We're on a bad game. But that's okay too. But yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's the style is darkly funny
Speaker 1: in a in a light way. Now because you don't
Speaker 1: you don't do sitcoms. You're not on a sitcom. You've
Speaker 1: had TV specials and stuff and things like that, Comedy
Speaker 1: Central and that. I've never booked a role on a
Speaker 1: recurring thing. But so for you stand up is the
Speaker 1: main meats Well, it's stand up and the podcast is
Speaker 1: not really big. Yeah, but that but that stand up
Speaker 1: thing is your is your is your car with the podcast?
Speaker 1: That's right? And when you do that? What is writing
Speaker 1: like for you? Mean? They are you one of these
Speaker 1: guys that's walking around saying, you know, squirrel, you know,
Speaker 1: get the best acted me write that down, squirrel? No
Speaker 1: are you constantly writing? No? I think I have like interests.
Speaker 1: So I have these weird interests where I go, I'll
Speaker 1: read stuff, and I'm interested in stuff. I have natural
Speaker 1: curiosity about a lot of weird things. And usually the
Speaker 1: things that interests me I find funny, I find amusing
Speaker 1: because they amuse me. So whether it's uh, cryptocurrency now
Speaker 1: that I'm interested in, and I don't really have a
Speaker 1: hard position either way. I just find the world fascinating.
Speaker 1: I find this that there's pictures of apes selling for
Speaker 1: a million dollars online. This interests me. It seems like
Speaker 1: it's all about to collapse, and again you know the darkness,
Speaker 1: the pain running towards that. So stuff like that, I'll
Speaker 1: start writing about that. I'll start writing about what's funny
Speaker 1: about that? To me? What's funny about an economy based
Speaker 1: on pictures of animals? Why is that funny to me?
Speaker 1: Why is that ridiculous? Why is that absurd? And I'll
Speaker 1: start writing about that. I'll start talking about it, maybe
Speaker 1: on the show, and then I'll bring it to a
Speaker 1: comedy club eventually. But I'm not a guy. I don't
Speaker 1: have that skill set that some comedians have with ay
Speaker 1: you can look at the squirrel or something and go immediately,
Speaker 1: I have it immediately. I just kind of I have interests.
Speaker 1: You don't seeking it comes to you. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: sit down and write. Sometimes i'll write, but it will
Speaker 1: be once I have an idea. I'll have an idea
Speaker 1: about brunch. I hate brunch and I and I hate it,
Speaker 1: and I want to write about why I hate it.
Speaker 1: And I don't like Disney World. I don't like people
Speaker 1: to go to Disney World without children. It's strange. And
Speaker 1: I'll write about that. And I write about these things
Speaker 1: that interest me, and and things that might look at
Speaker 1: something that's not quite right. That's where it maybe starts.
Speaker 1: That's not quite right. A picture of an ape seng
Speaker 1: from million that's not quite right right to thirty five
Speaker 1: ye olds to Disney World. Not a kid inside, not
Speaker 1: quite right, brunch, a bunch of these young, boozy trunk
Speaker 1: professionals eating you know, French toast and complaining wedding DJs.
Speaker 1: Not quite right. So then I reverse engineer from that.
Speaker 1: So the COVID you were locked down in h we're
Speaker 1: locked down in l A. It was fine because it
Speaker 1: was you know, the weather is great and you can
Speaker 1: walk outside. Compared to the New York lockdown was much better.
Speaker 1: We got away on the West Coast a lot easier
Speaker 1: in terms of weather and just the natural, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of beauty of the area. I'm not an l
Speaker 1: A person in terms of I hate being in a
Speaker 1: car what have and growing up on the island and
Speaker 1: being I'm going to get to that in a second,
Speaker 1: having being a New Yorker and a Long Island or
Speaker 1: you love what in that l A? Do you love
Speaker 1: being in a car and the noble being in a car?
Speaker 1: I don't love being in a car. I do think
Speaker 1: that LA's new and different, you know from me as
Speaker 1: a guy that grew up in a Long Island, grew
Speaker 1: up in New York, and I think there's a synergy
Speaker 1: there that is good for creativity. Uh again, the chaos
Speaker 1: right again, the idea of like, Okay, I'm happy and
Speaker 1: comfortable in one place, let's move, Let's go somewhere else,
Speaker 1: Let's find a new circle of people that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I enjoyed it, and I didn't think I'd like
Speaker 1: it as much as I do. It came as a
Speaker 1: surprise to me. I trash it all the time because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things worth trashing, but you learn
Speaker 1: to live with it. You pick a coast, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that uh, you know, it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was good. I love the comedy store, I love
Speaker 1: the history, I love the you know, the idea of
Speaker 1: you know, show business there, and I love the idea of,
Speaker 1: you know, people that are really focused on making things happen.
Speaker 1: But that also comes with the fact that you have
Speaker 1: a lot of fake, spineless, hollow, shallow human beings. That
Speaker 1: is tough, but you learn to love them. You'll learn
Speaker 1: because we're all that in a way, we're all not
Speaker 1: you know, we're not as ugly and exposed as they
Speaker 1: are in l A. We're not as you know, naked
Speaker 1: in the sense of our ambition as they are. But
Speaker 1: I think that, like you learn to have a higher
Speaker 1: tolerance for that out there than than you do. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, when I went there and everyone in New
Speaker 1: York was like living there's fake and they pretend to
Speaker 1: like you, And I said, well, that sounds kind of nice.
Speaker 1: There's something that's nice about that. You know, in the
Speaker 1: beginning I hated that idea. Well, I don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to pretend to like me unless they love me. Now,
Speaker 1: people go, hey, how are you great to see? And
Speaker 1: I get my card goes they hate me. But you
Speaker 1: know what, that was lovely, So I think that there's
Speaker 1: there's a you know, I know for a fact they
Speaker 1: hate me. It's a delightful phone. But it was a
Speaker 1: nice little meal we had and we're sitting near each
Speaker 1: other in a restaurant. So to me, you get to
Speaker 1: a point where you go that's okay. And then in
Speaker 1: New York, immediately you land and people start unloading twenty
Speaker 1: years of problems on you immediately, and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: here's the problem with reality. Comedian Tim Dillon. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy conversations with boundary pushing comedians, check out my episode
Speaker 1: with Jordan Clepper. When I got into college, I did
Speaker 1: the improv team and I think. What was so eye
Speaker 1: opening for me at the time is what I found
Speaker 1: in the arts and or improv specifically, was like I've
Speaker 1: never been asked to kind of think in that way.
Speaker 1: It was creative. There was no yes or no, there
Speaker 1: was no right answer, and I was sudding around people
Speaker 1: who were very curious in different ways and something It's like, well,
Speaker 1: there's no right answer. We want to know how you
Speaker 1: feel that. I think I had gone eighteen years where
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, nobody asked me how I felt
Speaker 1: about this. They just asked me like, what was the
Speaker 1: slope of this this line or this angle? And for
Speaker 1: that was that was really kind of a game changer
Speaker 1: for me. To hear more of my conversation with Jordan Clepper,
Speaker 1: go to our archives at Here's the Thing Org. After
Speaker 1: the break, Tim Dillon shares with us how he thinks
Speaker 1: we can find common ground in a contentious culture. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the Thing. For a
Speaker 1: stand up comedian, life on the road is a prerequisite,
Speaker 1: but not all stops on tour are equal. Tim Dillon
Speaker 1: shares with us his favorite places to perform. I love Denver,
Speaker 1: It's a great comedy town and everybody there's hiking and
Speaker 1: up and down taking edibles. They're all relaxed, they're all
Speaker 1: ready to receive. They're very healthy, but they're also off.
Speaker 1: They're off. There's something wrong when you look at them.
Speaker 1: I like Denver a lot. I love Chicago. You know,
Speaker 1: my big markets are Boston, Chicago, Denver, places where you
Speaker 1: know you would. There are cultures in pep Bull that
Speaker 1: you know enjoy comedy, and these are great towns and cities.
Speaker 1: But then I also have the privilege of going to
Speaker 1: other places. You know, Portland, Maine for example, place I
Speaker 1: didn't know, but I'm sure when you say Boston, in Chicago,
Speaker 1: places where let's be playing, where straight talking white guys
Speaker 1: are a hit, well, they're a hit. But a lot
Speaker 1: of things are hit. Comedies a hit, right, because there's
Speaker 1: there's places where straight talking white guys are hip. A
Speaker 1: comedy is not a hit. Oh yeah, Wyoming wouldn't work
Speaker 1: for me. And if you're a straight talking white guy Wyoming,
Speaker 1: you're a hit. But comedy doesn't work there because they
Speaker 1: don't get irony. I really get satire. Uh they're not
Speaker 1: with it now, and God bless them. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's some lovely people that proved me wrong. But in
Speaker 1: mass it's not a great state for comedy. It was
Speaker 1: your family still on Long Island. Oh yeah, why leave
Speaker 1: when the world is divided between people who Then they'll
Speaker 1: write me on social media, well I left Bay Shore.
Speaker 1: They've never left. They talked at one of years ago
Speaker 1: and then and they'll say, oh no, I miss Robert Moses,
Speaker 1: I missed the beaches of Lona. And there's people who
Speaker 1: they're never leaving. Right. Well, my my friend's mother was interesting.
Speaker 1: Every dinner we ever had. These were very good friends,
Speaker 1: and they take us on vacations and we go to dinner.
Speaker 1: Every dinner we had, she talked about a condo in Naples.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was her dream of condo in Naples.
Speaker 1: They're gonna get a condo in Naples. Name. She dragged
Speaker 1: her husband down to Florida and they go endlessly look
Speaker 1: at condos and Naples and this is all that she wanted.
Speaker 1: And then her husband, Sadley, passed away. So I asked her,
Speaker 1: you know a few years ago, I said, you ever
Speaker 1: gonna get the condo Naples? She goes, well, what would
Speaker 1: I do there? And I said, but that's all you
Speaker 1: talked about for your whole life. And then I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: that was the important thing. It was the idea that
Speaker 1: she could escape, but there was no escape, So the
Speaker 1: ideas that made the option. Many people talk about leaving,
Speaker 1: but they never leave. My parents will never leave. They've
Speaker 1: talked about Georgia and the Carolinas, They've talked about the
Speaker 1: humidity and the nights and Charleston, but they're they're never
Speaker 1: gonna leave. When I was a kid, my dear wrist
Speaker 1: friends who lived in the house behind us on our
Speaker 1: block and my best friends growing up until I was
Speaker 1: nine years old. Kevin and Keith Cornelius were my best friends.
Speaker 1: And their father, Harold Cornelius, the name they called him,
Speaker 1: hap hap Cornelius, was a builder. And we're standing in
Speaker 1: my drive and he turns to my daddy goes, we're
Speaker 1: selling the house. We're moving. My Dad's like, wow, you're kidding.
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, we're gonna sell. We're gonna move out
Speaker 1: to Smithtown. And this is back in the sixties. And
Speaker 1: my father's like, wow, well, you know, God, we're gonna
Speaker 1: miss you. In best of luck to And as he
Speaker 1: walked away, my dad turned to my mother and he
Speaker 1: goes Smithtown, Jesus, that's Siberia, and he said, can you imagine. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's I think the attitude was it was
Speaker 1: back then. It was intensely local. Everybody was very local,
Speaker 1: and now everything's global. So now like you, you know,
Speaker 1: I have people that messaged me. You know, a kid
Speaker 1: from Pakistan messaged me the other day, young kid fifteen.
Speaker 1: He goes, I like your podcast because you make fun
Speaker 1: of your government. And I said, that's awesome. It was
Speaker 1: this amazing, mind blowing moment. But it didn't even and
Speaker 1: rock me. That's how global the world is right now.
Speaker 1: Later on that night, I sat back and I and
Speaker 1: I said to myself, I was like, you gotta really
Speaker 1: think about how amazing that is, that moment that a
Speaker 1: teenager in Pakistan has some have found the podcast and
Speaker 1: likes it because you're doing something that they may not
Speaker 1: be able to do. And he likes comedy and wants
Speaker 1: to be a comedian. And so to me, I go,
Speaker 1: that's a really wild thing. But we're so it's such
Speaker 1: a global world that you don't stop and realize the
Speaker 1: magic of that the way you should go back to
Speaker 1: the island. Oh yeah, I mean we went back. I
Speaker 1: love the food, so I always go to a strip
Speaker 1: mall Italian restaurant and grab a bagel. I you know,
Speaker 1: I love you. Every now and then I'll drive through
Speaker 1: like you know, you know, King's Point, Sands Point and
Speaker 1: look at the gads br mansions, the old mansions I
Speaker 1: used to, you know, like, and I love the Hampton's.
Speaker 1: I go back every summer for at least two weeks.
Speaker 1: Then I rent a house and and I loved it,
Speaker 1: and I swim at at Cooper's Beach and I and
Speaker 1: I eat a bunch of seafood, and I see friends
Speaker 1: and I I love it. It's the most my favorite
Speaker 1: place in the world. But then I have to go
Speaker 1: back to that hellish canyon on fire because it's the
Speaker 1: choice I've made. And everyone I know who's bicoastal is
Speaker 1: a little insane. Everyone in my business who tries to
Speaker 1: do both coasts is crazy. And I developed an affinity
Speaker 1: for Palm Springs during the quarantine to a lot of
Speaker 1: history out there. Palm Springs got to be you know,
Speaker 1: the stings. It was you had to be when the
Speaker 1: old contracts came out. You could never be two hundred
Speaker 1: more than two hundred miles away from Paramount Studios, so
Speaker 1: Palm Springs is a hundred ninety nine miles away. It's
Speaker 1: it's very interesting, yeah, and that's why this just this
Speaker 1: desert town became this really kind of beautiful, interesting, perfect
Speaker 1: you know Lee, you know, restored, you know, mid century
Speaker 1: modern estates in these really some old cars and a
Speaker 1: really kind of old Hollywood glam about it. It was
Speaker 1: very interesting and it transported you back to the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties when people, I think we're somewhat optimistic about America.
Speaker 1: Not everyone, but there there was certainly a feeling of optimism,
Speaker 1: right it was post war, and you see that reflected
Speaker 1: in the architecture and just the urban planning in the city.
Speaker 1: You feel it, and you go, this is what it
Speaker 1: feels like to build a city when things are going
Speaker 1: really well, and when people believe that, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the cultural trends and everything are trending in the right direction.
Speaker 1: So I I do like it out there, and I
Speaker 1: do think that I was too quick to dismiss it.
Speaker 1: You know, it will never be New York. It's not
Speaker 1: ever gonna be news and it's apples and oranges. But
Speaker 1: I've learned to like oranges. You know, someone said to
Speaker 1: me once, they said, l A is just the chicist
Speaker 1: suburb in the world. It's not really a city they're
Speaker 1: running that doesn't have a They're a real reliable they're
Speaker 1: absolutely public transportation system is out there. Very few people
Speaker 1: know who their congressman is. Very people know who their
Speaker 1: state assemblyment. If you do, know who their school board,
Speaker 1: it's a very school board center political fabric out. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll think about a school If you put a gun
Speaker 1: to my head, I couldn't tell you my congressman. I
Speaker 1: know every major d of every restaurant. I know who's
Speaker 1: working Craigs. I know who's working. You know all the
Speaker 1: places I want to go, But you know who's it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to Craig. We're gonna go to Craigs.
Speaker 1: I love Craigs. That's where I saw Sydney party when
Speaker 1: he died. Really I wrote a little quick memento and
Speaker 1: I saw the online and I said, how I was
Speaker 1: in Craig's. Yeah, I met him there. It's I like it.
Speaker 1: I get into it. I think if you allow yourself
Speaker 1: to get into it, and there's nothing wrong with you,
Speaker 1: are in the business aren't you. I mean the business
Speaker 1: and I get into it, and you know, it's like, listen,
Speaker 1: it has its problems, sure, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's like what place doesn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: I tried a little bit of Austin, Texas during the quarantine.
Speaker 1: A hellish place. Why. Um, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: progressive friends, gay friends, people. They love that it's the
Speaker 1: Republic of Austin. But I'm I'm a little spoiled by
Speaker 1: l A and New York. So I need a tomato,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I can't not have like
Speaker 1: there are certain things I like. I can't have two
Speaker 1: sushi restaurants that are booked out for a year, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I need Yeah, I need choices
Speaker 1: of places to eat and things to do and things
Speaker 1: to see. It's you know, and then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that listen, there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: live in Austin that didn't make it in New York
Speaker 1: or l A. Let's just be very honest. It is
Speaker 1: what it is. There's a little bit of a you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a weirdness about that city that
Speaker 1: I think comes from the fact that it is a
Speaker 1: city that seems to cater to the unambitious for up
Speaker 1: until recently when all the tech people are coming in
Speaker 1: there and they'll ruin it. But for right now, forever
Speaker 1: it's been people whose art wasn't commercially viable, so they
Speaker 1: went to you know, get high and eat brisket. They
Speaker 1: should have that, but not for mix um. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you in the time we have you've done Rogan shows.
Speaker 1: Are people mad at him? I don't know, I haven't
Speaker 1: read the paper. What did you think about without commenting
Speaker 1: on him? And I'm assuming he's a power, he's a
Speaker 1: big pal's a pal, and but what did you think
Speaker 1: about this whole Spotify thing? Well, again, I think a
Speaker 1: mature country has to allow people to have conversations that
Speaker 1: are uncomfortable and difficult. And I do think that I
Speaker 1: love Joe. I know Joe. I'm an overweight guy who
Speaker 1: smoked and you know, drank and use drugs in his life.
Speaker 1: I was vaccinated the day it came out, because I said,
Speaker 1: I talked to a doctor and I went, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it seems to make a lot of sense for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna gamble this your sober Sober
Speaker 1: twelve years. I got thirty seven years this month, congrats,
Speaker 1: And I don't really go public too much about that,
Speaker 1: but these days I don't know. Boy, what was your
Speaker 1: drug of choice? Oh? I like booze. I liked coke too,
Speaker 1: but but but booze was the down Don't you downplay
Speaker 1: the coke thing to me? You know, coke was good,
Speaker 1: but then you know, booze was so acceptable from an
Speaker 1: Irish family that I was able to use this part
Speaker 1: of cuisine. Yes, booze is part of pair with Pair,
Speaker 1: the wines, the Chateau Brillon. Yeah, So what what I
Speaker 1: think about that whole thing is that listen. I think
Speaker 1: people should be able to have conversation. Joe's having conversations
Speaker 1: of people that have vastly different ideas about the way
Speaker 1: to handle coronavirus. I think that at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, when you have a controversial topic, I don't
Speaker 1: believe the best way to handle it is to shut
Speaker 1: down speech. I think you should talk more about it
Speaker 1: from more angles and get more views, more opinions, and
Speaker 1: that way you flesh everything out, You get it all
Speaker 1: out in the open, and then consensus is will emerge
Speaker 1: and people will start seeing the avenues and what's right
Speaker 1: and what's wrong. But to me, by shutting people down,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily help, and it makes people somewhat paranoid,
Speaker 1: and they go, well, why are you not letting me
Speaker 1: listen to that person? And why are you preventing me
Speaker 1: from hearing this? I think a mature country has to
Speaker 1: be able to engage in those conversations, you know, from
Speaker 1: all sides. Comedian Tim Dillon, If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing on the I heart rate, EO app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Tim Dillon shares with us why the many facets of
Speaker 1: his personality don't always make it into his act. By'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear is the thing?
Speaker 1: When Tim Dillon was he made several transformative decisions after
Speaker 1: being cold for jury duty. It would ultimately change the
Speaker 1: course of his life. I was a jouring to murder trial.
Speaker 1: It was the whole distance. Yeah, it was two weeks
Speaker 1: in Long Island. Murder and torture absolutely great for me,
Speaker 1: a huge learning experience. It was kind of I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford going on like the murdering, Well, when I want
Speaker 1: to give you a chance to represent, the murder and
Speaker 1: torture case wasn't great for you. The experience was great
Speaker 1: for the experience of being on the jury was great
Speaker 1: for you. Absolutely. I'm trying to help someone get there.
Speaker 1: We go. I stepped in anyway someone was going to
Speaker 1: have to sit in that box, and I did. And
Speaker 1: it made me really look at my life at five
Speaker 1: and go, you know, I haven't gone after what I
Speaker 1: wanted to go after, which is being a comedian of
Speaker 1: making people laugh. And you know, the jury, I would
Speaker 1: make them laugh every day during lunch and they would go,
Speaker 1: we hear the most horrible things every day, but you're
Speaker 1: really funny. And you know, have you ever thought of,
Speaker 1: you know, doing comedy? I go, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: think about it. I've never done it. So after that trial,
Speaker 1: I really started, you know, living the way I wanted
Speaker 1: to live. So you were still using and drink. I
Speaker 1: was still drinking during the trial. I forget what the
Speaker 1: trial was really about. Yeah I didn't. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: pay too much attention. He'd seemed guilty. I didn't really,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't like the look of him, the
Speaker 1: way he kind of just scowled. But no, I was
Speaker 1: seemed guilty. He seemed guilty. He seemed odd and and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I would even be in the room
Speaker 1: if he's not guilty. But so, I mean, life was
Speaker 1: fifty and he um. He was very guilty. He was
Speaker 1: actually incredibly guilty. The only thing that was who did
Speaker 1: he kill the mother of his children? And he was
Speaker 1: he was stalked or he was a bad guy, and
Speaker 1: I didn't feel bad putting away. I would have hated
Speaker 1: to do a jury, and I wouldn't have done it
Speaker 1: if it was like a drug dealer or somebody who
Speaker 1: like makes a mistake and does something that they shouldn't have.
Speaker 1: This was a guy who was a hardened criminal who
Speaker 1: stalk and killed a woman. He go away, no problem there.
Speaker 1: But you know, through that experience, I learned that I
Speaker 1: had a talent for humor and I should sober room.
Speaker 1: I was the guy. I mean, it was so fun
Speaker 1: for people to be a part of this, and people
Speaker 1: still message me and go great week of my life,
Speaker 1: Great week of my life. So to me, it's a
Speaker 1: test of your commuic ability to kind of go in
Speaker 1: there where everybody. Every day it's murder, torture, murder, torture, lacerations,
Speaker 1: and for me to go in there and just kind
Speaker 1: of again a breath of fresh air. You know, as
Speaker 1: soon as I heard that it was going to be
Speaker 1: a big, high profile trial, I didn't want to get out.
Speaker 1: I said, let me stay in because I knew that
Speaker 1: it was gonna the impactful, so I am curious. I
Speaker 1: answered questions that would get me in, like when the
Speaker 1: prosecutor said, so, we've looked up your name, because when
Speaker 1: they get seriously run your name, which goes you've had
Speaker 1: your license suspended, you must hate the cops. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know I didn't pay my tickets. I hate myself
Speaker 1: for being irresponsible. And I just sit back and then
Speaker 1: you know, the d A would look and go okay,
Speaker 1: and then the defense attorney would come up and should go,
Speaker 1: murder and torture. How can you be impartial when you
Speaker 1: hear these things? And I go, they're just words. I've
Speaker 1: seen no proof. So I finally got it after it
Speaker 1: was my best audition, and I got it, and and
Speaker 1: it changed my life. You know, I left that going, wow,
Speaker 1: life is short. You gotta do what you want now
Speaker 1: you are sexuality wise, you could identify as gay, Yes,
Speaker 1: but what do people say to you. I don't seem like, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you said that that. I just canceled yourself. I said it,
Speaker 1: you did, you just said that. But but my point
Speaker 1: is that do people in the gay community say you're
Speaker 1: not gay enough? Outside of the gay community, they do.
Speaker 1: In the gay community. There's all different types of gay
Speaker 1: people on television. There's one time I think that you
Speaker 1: know that, but I'm saying that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: I think you know, there's casting, so they cast, somebody
Speaker 1: is gay, they cast, and it's usually you know, very
Speaker 1: a young, good looking somebody in the design and very
Speaker 1: stylish or whatever. But that's not It's a big community.
Speaker 1: And I'm out of and I have you know, my
Speaker 1: comedy is about who I am and honesty and all
Speaker 1: that ship. So I don't care about anything. But I
Speaker 1: think the gay community is a lot broader than people think.
Speaker 1: And you don't play it up in your comedy. I
Speaker 1: don't play it up. But I mean friends who I
Speaker 1: won't comment on, sure are very funny, but they clearly
Speaker 1: want they want it clear I'm gonna do a set
Speaker 1: of gay. Yes, I have jokes a few jokes about it,
Speaker 1: but not a ton. It's well known if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of mine. But yeah, I've never felt it to
Speaker 1: be the funniest thing. Whereas yeah, I've never felt it
Speaker 1: to be the funniest part of me. When it works
Speaker 1: and works in and it doesn't you leave it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just never felt like some people it is why
Speaker 1: they are interesting, and that's not me. Some people it
Speaker 1: is why they are different or where their perspective is
Speaker 1: completely from There's nothing wrong with that in the slightest.
Speaker 1: But with me, I think I have a lot of
Speaker 1: different things going on, and uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a part of my identity. There's only one tell Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's only one clue mention ex Benedict, No, no, exactly
Speaker 1: that discussing that was there was a close second when
Speaker 1: you said Palm Springs my friends, yes, who are gay,
Speaker 1: have gay people like the desert. We don't like the woods.
Speaker 1: Lesbians like woods, So a lot of lesbian friends. Bomb
Speaker 1: Springs is the street, Yes, a lot of gay people
Speaker 1: in and and old people, people who are in their
Speaker 1: nineties and hundreds. Now I want to finish with this, Yes,
Speaker 1: first of all, we didn't get to Long Island. But
Speaker 1: that's okay, you know, well we we've both done enough
Speaker 1: for Long Island. But I no, no, I drove my
Speaker 1: wife out there. We did in East Hampton, but we
Speaker 1: we we we we go out there and take my
Speaker 1: wife to Massive pequal go to we go to MASSI
Speaker 1: people a lot, but I took her out here this
Speaker 1: past summer. And we drive through and we do my
Speaker 1: drive down want to a parkway. We go to Jones
Speaker 1: Beach and here's gil Go and there's the water tower,
Speaker 1: and here's where I was a lifeguard, and there's Fire Island,
Speaker 1: and we go through Massive Piqua. Let me get to
Speaker 1: my neighborhood I grew up in. And we go down
Speaker 1: into the bowels into the south where the canals are
Speaker 1: in the street sour shows and we go buy a house.
Speaker 1: Now you would have thought this place it was a business.
Speaker 1: They had so many Trump and Q and on flags fluttering.
Speaker 1: It was a windy day and literally like you couldn't
Speaker 1: get that out of designer Steven Spielberg couldn't be filmed
Speaker 1: it better. All these things are flapping and pulsingting and
Speaker 1: went Trump Q and on from my cold dead hands.
Speaker 1: They must have had a hundred of them on the lawn.
Speaker 1: And my wife said to me, she goes, this is
Speaker 1: where you're from. I said, you know, we really didn't
Speaker 1: have this when I was a kid. Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's always been a conservative place, but
Speaker 1: it's now loudly political where it's like everybody, it's loudly political.
Speaker 1: And I find that the politics and geography is the
Speaker 1: most depressing thing to me, because I want to like
Speaker 1: or hate a place on its merits. If you're a surfer,
Speaker 1: and if you love Trump and you're a surfer, you
Speaker 1: can't live in Texas. There's certain parts of the country
Speaker 1: that makes sense for certain lifestyles, and now that everything
Speaker 1: has become so crazy, Like I have friends in Florida
Speaker 1: now that are like, well, we're here because it's free
Speaker 1: and we love Trump. It's like, know, you're there because
Speaker 1: you were tired at thirty two, Like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, You're there because you just want to drink
Speaker 1: all day and God bless you. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: Don't tie it into politics. You just want to get
Speaker 1: drunk on your boat. But I believe that people like
Speaker 1: I'll look at people, and I'll say, not if you've
Speaker 1: got to know me really like, Okay, there's no way
Speaker 1: you can get to know me through social media or
Speaker 1: through the business. If you got to know me, not, Oh,
Speaker 1: if you knew me, you'd like me. But we'd at
Speaker 1: least stand a chance. The way things are, there is
Speaker 1: no chance. And I'm in Montana shooting a movie and
Speaker 1: the weekend comes and I don't have my chargers with me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking around my hotel. I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 1: usually have a bag full of my charges. I gotta
Speaker 1: go to the best buy. I call up uber. The
Speaker 1: guy comes and picks for the hotel in a huge
Speaker 1: pickup truck with a back cab in a second row,
Speaker 1: and I get inside that I sit there and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I said, where is this place? He said,
Speaker 1: It's on the other side of town. And I go,
Speaker 1: real tough cowboy guy, probably sixty, and he goes, it's
Speaker 1: on the other side of town. He goes, well, this
Speaker 1: time of day, on a weekend, it shouldn't be too bad,
Speaker 1: he said, the traffic. He said, it's being Sunday, Sunday
Speaker 1: morning because the place opened a ten And I go great,
Speaker 1: and I said, I don't know this town. I'm here visiting.
Speaker 1: And he literally goes. He goes to, you're a visit
Speaker 1: of town because you're not here for that, Alex baldwoindn't
Speaker 1: failm are you? And I so help me. God, I
Speaker 1: got my sunglasses on and my mask and I go, no, no,
Speaker 1: what's that? He goes, well, they're shooting some film here
Speaker 1: with that Alex Baldwin. As a pause, he goes, I
Speaker 1: can't stand him. He's a liar and a and a
Speaker 1: wife beater. He names all this all the ship that
Speaker 1: they've accused me of, which is true, and he and
Speaker 1: he goes, I can't stand him. I go really, I go, wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I mean, I know who he is.
Speaker 1: I know his films, but I didn't know he was.
Speaker 1: Is he he's all those things? He said, yeah. I
Speaker 1: just can't stay in him. Then there's a pause, very pregnant.
Speaker 1: He puts the music on, some country music, and we
Speaker 1: get to the best Buy and we pull up and
Speaker 1: his name is like Doug or something, it's on his
Speaker 1: his license. And I take up my lessons and I go, Doug,
Speaker 1: I am Alex Baldwin. And I hold up my license
Speaker 1: and give it to him through the screen and he
Speaker 1: takes my license, looks at it, and he looks at
Speaker 1: me in the rear roomrror and he goes, Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: you are Alex. And I said, Doug, you can't believe
Speaker 1: everything you read about people. I'm just asking you to
Speaker 1: consider that. A lot of what you read it's just
Speaker 1: fucking nonsense, and it's it's click bait for people who
Speaker 1: want to sell things. I said, it really isn't true.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you may be right. I'll read a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff and I don't know what's true. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's true. I go, well, you just tell
Speaker 1: people that you drove me in the cabin, that we
Speaker 1: had a nice conversation, what have you. There's is no
Speaker 1: hope of how do you permeate that and talk to
Speaker 1: understand you. Let me finish with this that I want
Speaker 1: you to really consider acting. Well, that's very kind. Want
Speaker 1: you to consider acting. I'll tell you why. I would
Speaker 1: like to studios to consider me. Well, but i'd like
Speaker 1: you to I'll tell you. I'll tell you why. Because
Speaker 1: one thing people can't fake, which is very important in
Speaker 1: some roles. You play one thing people have or don't
Speaker 1: have it. You can't fake is authority. And if you
Speaker 1: have that authority, you can go do twelve Angry Men.
Speaker 1: You could you you could do the Skies the limit
Speaker 1: and you have the intellectual velocity, you have the verbal
Speaker 1: facility that you have with words, and the authority. You
Speaker 1: could play the Lee J. Cob role in on the Waterfront.
Speaker 1: You should really think about that. I'm gonna think about
Speaker 1: you can't buy that. I Am going to think about it.
Speaker 1: I do hope that, you know, more things come down
Speaker 1: the pike, you know, I mean that is it's an
Speaker 1: Asian for the movies. We have all the same people.
Speaker 1: You should go make movies. You really should act all right. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: it's self lobby if you don't, because you really because
Speaker 1: you've got a great quality. Well, I appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: thank you very much. My thanks to comedian Tim Dillon.
Speaker 1: He'll be back on the road making people laugh this spring.
Speaker 1: Check out his upcoming tour dates at Tim Dillon Comedy
Speaker 1: dot com. This episode was recorded at c DM Studios
Speaker 1: in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeese,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial, I'm at
Speaker 1: like Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio