Josiah: 0:00

Let's do it. Welcome to the Jokes by Jo show. I am your host, Josiah James. I'm here with the lovely co host, Doug McKizzle. And finally, we got on the show, The very, the second funniest guy in the Lehigh Valley, Sam Grim. Welcome to the show. I'm

Sam Grim: 0:32

the second funniest man in the Lehigh Valley.

Josiah: 0:35

Yeah, can you try to go a little closer to the mic? I don't think it's picking you up. It's gonna be like the picture that we had of him. Why am I not hearing him through? Can you say something? Can you hear him in your headphones? Sounds like

Doug: 0:51

he's pretty far.

Josiah: 0:52

He's pretty far? Why am I not hearing him?

Sam Grim: 0:56

You gotta pick a, you gotta go into settings and hit the static ratio. Increase the static ratio.

Josiah: 1:02

Do you wanna be my, my tech guy, tech guy? Because Doug was my non-tech tech guy.

Sam Grim: 1:08

As long as you're cool with me not knowing anything . Oh, so you would also be a non-tech

Doug: 1:12

tech guy? I'm a tech critique. No, he's up. I critique all the tech.

Josiah: 1:15

What's

Sam Grim: 1:15

going on? I'm a

Josiah: 1:16

detective. He's good. I don't know. If you talk, I'm going to just see if I'm getting levels here. Go ahead. All right. We're good. Yeah. I just think he was far away from it. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Just try to try to stay within like six inches. Yeah. We can also make sure that that's up like

Sam Grim: 1:37

that. Oh, okay. There we go. That's the back. Oh, okay. I thought it was like a front. There is no

Josiah: 1:46

front.

Sam Grim: 1:46

So there's, that's a good question. What is the front of the penis do you think?

Josiah: 1:50

The front? I would think the tip.

Sam Grim: 1:53

The tip? Yeah. But if it's flaccid, then like the top is the front, right? What if

Doug: 1:58

you're laying on your back?

Sam Grim: 1:59

Yeah, I know. It's a matter of perspective, I think. I

Josiah: 2:03

know, you're getting right into asking the penis question. I guess it has

Doug: 2:08

to, uh, It could be like, like stage front. Like how, when you're on stage. It all depends on the audience.

Sam Grim: 2:17

Where are you guys? I'm, uh, I'm on the left.

Josiah: 2:21

Now, I have a question. You're not going to ask me to edit out that penis comment, are you? No, you can put that out. Okay, thank you. Thank you. No, I'm just kidding. Shane, Shane, we love you. Are you guys house left or penis left? God, they got me down, down in the mezzanine. Yeah. No, that would be up, wouldn't it? Yeah, in the balls. Never mind. We do have some housekeeping stuff that we need to take care of before we, before we introduce Sam. Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up dicks too fast. No, I love it. What's the front of a penis look like? Um, but yeah everyone, this is Ah, fucking dog. I'm so sorry. Portia! So this is on auto now. So anyway I did want to mention a lot of people are asking about my hoodie. Okay. I don't know. What do you think?

Doug: 3:08

How many people asked?

Josiah: 3:09

Um, well,

Doug: 3:11

I feel like you just asked yourself. I

Josiah: 3:12

did. Can you, can you ask about it please?

Doug: 3:15

Hey, uh, what's going on with that hoodie?

Josiah: 3:17

Yeah, yeah. Oh, so, so glad you asked. Okay. We should have discussed this off air. Anyway, so my company is Publicis. It's a French company and they're headquartered in Champs Elysees in Paris. And they're an ad, it's a giant ad agency. And when, when Snoop Dogg was in Paris for the Olympics, They hired him to come in and help them design a new logo. And so this is Snoop Dogg. Snoop Lion. Yeah. The Snoop Lion. Yeah. And so every year my company, they've, they put out a a holiday video to say thank you for all your work that you've done throughout the years and everything. And I wanted to share that with you just because it's pretty damn cool. Let me just see if I can get this to work.

Snoop Dog: 4:00

Let me put this up. Bonjour. It's that time of the year again. The wishes 2024 was a remarkable year and we have so many reasons to be proud. Thanks to you, your hard work, we had a strong growth, won a lot of new business, even agency of the year at Cairns. Hold up, confused? Asking yourself why, moi, Snoop Dogg is doing the wishes? Well, it's our turn. Hi everyone, let me explain. As you know,

Arthur - CEO Publicis: 4:28

Mr. Snoop actually took over Paris this summer, right? He's a guitarist now. You were Olympic, as we say, although we're gonna get sued for that.

Snoop Dog: 4:38

Yes, sir.

Arthur - CEO Publicis: 4:39

Now, we ask him if he would be so kind to help our little French holding company, Publicis, to get ready for 2025.

Snoop Dog: 4:48

That's right. What's Publicis Holding? I don't know. But what I do know is that Americans, Brits, and French have been competing to see which holding company is the top dog. And this year, Public Seas is overtaking them all. Le Nouveau F ing One. They've been rocking and rolling. They won't stop till the casket drop. You heard it. France is gonna win gold. And more than just swimming, fencing, and canoeing. But you look a bit bad. No, it's not that bad. But you know, I was so hyped that this inspired me to change my name to Le Snoop. Cause I got some ideas. Oh, Arthur, you dipped and whipped, suited and booted, gooted and looted, and you're wearing my logo redesign.

Music Bed: 5:33

Did

Snoop Dog: 5:33

you get those for free? Mission 2025.

Arthur - CEO Publicis: 5:36

Thank you. Um, I like it. It's just that, you know. I don't know if Maurice is not gonna prefer the lion. Man, he gonna like the dog. Yeah, he has to like the dog. I agree. Let's wrap up. Okay. Do

Snoop Dog: 5:47

you know how to say Happy New Year in French? Oh man, for sure. Watch this. Happy, Tres born, Annie, Publy, Zizzles. Publy

Doug: 5:56

Zizzles. What take was that? Was that like take 27? To all

Arthur - CEO Publicis: 6:01

of our Publicist family, Thank you for all of your Olympic effort this year. Happy Holidays! And see you all in 2025. And now, hit it!

Josiah: 6:13

Check this out. He got the CEO of Ubersys

Music Bed: 6:16

to Hey, I didn't know you could

Josiah: 6:19

tripwalk.

Music Bed: 6:19

Tripwalk.

Doug: 6:22

Oh, shit. Fuckin amazing. Here's what I find amazing.

Snoop Dog: 6:31

How many people, how many people died doing that dance? Like how

Doug: 6:36

many, when, cause that used to be a dance that you did to show that you were a crip. Like, how many people have been shot

Music Bed: 6:43

dead

Doug: 6:43

in the

Music Bed: 6:43

street,

Doug: 6:44

and this guy's

Music Bed: 6:45

like,

Sam Grim: 6:46

doing it on set. I want to know how much Snoop Dogg got paid for that. Yeah, absolutely. Just to let you guys know, I would do that for like a thousand dollars. Yeah, that's what I mean. If you need a new person next

Music Bed: 7:00

year.

Josiah: 7:01

Yeah, so interesting. I'm so glad you brought that up. It's very timely. My niece is dating someone in finance at Publicis and I just saw him for my mom's birthday on Sunday And he was like, yeah We were kind of like trying to go through the numbers and try to figure out how much we paid Snoop to do that thing And people are saying over a million dollars Get the fuck out of here I would

Sam Grim: 7:24

do that for 2, 000. Knowing that it was over a million dollars, I've upped my value now to 2, 000.

Josiah: 7:31

Yeah, so this is the, uh, this is the Snoop logo, the hoodie, and they gave them out to us as a thank you present. We got some swag. Yeah, that's pretty dope. Merry Christmas. I

Doug: 7:40

like the logo.

Josiah: 7:40

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty dope, right? So anyway wanted to start with that. And then before we get to our lovely guest, Sam Doug and I have to settle a score. because we have a couple episodes have come up. There's some tension now between Doug and I. I have no intention. This is no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you listen to the last clip, you had some tension. You're like, dude, I never said that. So Sam, okay. I don't care if I did say it. I know what he's talking about. I don't, he thinks I give a shit about this. Well, you texted me the other day and you're like, did you get the clip? Yeah. I was

Doug: 8:11

just wondering. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I was like, you didn't, you didn't play it. I said, I, he said that I said that I said, uh, women aren't funny. Right. And what I meant to say, if I did say that, is that women suck at telling stories.

Music Bed: 8:26

Yeah.

Doug: 8:26

And so now he thinks in his brain, because I misspoke, that that is my belief, that there is no woman that is funny. After all the examples that I gave him. Not that that is your belief. And I said, I never said that. We're just trying to, I'm just trying

Josiah: 8:40

to settle the score. That I was saying that he said women aren't funny, and he's like, I never said that. Mm-hmm . So let's play. I brought some receipts. Let's, let's listen to this one. Yeah. Even I, this is the K Hughes episode. I

Arthur - CEO Publicis: 8:51

really think that I'm, like, I, there's, we had an entire podcast.

Doug: 8:54

I don't think it's, that women aren't funny. I just think that. We should play back the tape, Doug. I never said women aren't funny. I said women suck at telling stories. Yeah. I still hold to that.

Josiah: 9:06

Yeah, yeah. So that's the Kate Hughes episode. He claims he did not say women aren't funny.

Doug: 9:11

And now play the AI.

Josiah: 9:13

This is the Shane Cohen episode. I'm waiting. Doug is going to say, and this proves my point, women are not funny.

Doug: 9:20

Go ahead. That's not what I was gonna say. Okay, and I've never said women are not funny. Okay, never said that you can go back and listen to the show. Do you think I said those words? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, I'm gonna get a sound bite. I never said women are not funny. You sound pretty mad there. I sound mad? I don't think you've ever heard me mad. You certainly haven't. If you think that's mad. Here we go.

Josiah: 9:45

So now here's my there's a lot of people who I had to by the way Coco is useful because she helped me discover this. She has a use. Here we go.

Co-Co: 9:53

But hey, you got to find the fun where you can right? What do you think? Feel free to tweak it to match your style.

Doug: 10:01

I think I think she just proved something. Women aren't funny.

Josiah: 10:04

Oh, there it is.

Doug: 10:07

Okay, you got me. I think he thought, I think he thought I was going to be

Josiah: 10:10

like, no.

Doug: 10:11

Yeah, so what? I said it.

Sam Grim: 10:13

Joking. Me and Kate Hughes get into fights at shows all the time Like not, not real fights. We just, like, we just insult each other on stage and it's become a thing now, you know? Is that

Doug: 10:24

but

Sam Grim: 10:24

we're really good friends. Okay. I'm not, I'm not actually bashing on you. Okay, okay,

Doug: 10:28

okay. You know what that felt like? It felt like that episode of Seinfeld when George Costanza was waiting, like, trying his best to come up with a comeback, and it just, nobody gave a shit about it.

Sam Grim: 10:38

I didn't really watch Seinfeld. I was,

Doug: 10:40

uh I'm trying to say that wasn't

Josiah: 10:42

a good

Sam Grim: 10:42

You know how much I, how hard I had

Josiah: 10:45

to work to get these so I could push a button? I would just push a button, and then it would just play. Women aren't funny. Oh! He never said that.

Doug: 10:54

Hey, I'll make it, I'll make it, I'll make it a, I'll make it a more clear, Women aren't funny. You

Josiah: 11:00

can use that now.

Doug: 11:01

I don't care.

Josiah: 11:03

No, but I was trying to get Coco to be like, Yo, when did Doug say women aren't funny? And she's like, I don't have any record of that. What he did say was that they're not funny telling stories. Yeah, absolutely. So she had your back, actually, even though you hate her. She had your back. Again, I don't hate her. We might need to bring Coco back. You

Doug: 11:20

have an idea of what I perceive things as that is not true at all. You sound like my wife. Maybe there's something to it then, Josiah. But we do have a guest here.

Josiah: 11:32

Yes, yes. We want to introduce Sam Grimm. I'm here. Yes. Hi, Sam. Hi. Welcome to the Jokes by Joe show. Thank you so much. Glad we could finally get you on. Sam, I met him at Open Mics as you did as well, I'm sure, Doug. And he competed in Lehigh Valley's Funniest Competition, as so did I as well as I did. And you actually came in second place. Yes. Yep. So congratulations. Thank you.

Doug: 11:56

He didn't do as well as he did.

Josiah: 11:59

It's funny you say that, because one time he was doing comedy at the Tally Ho, and I was saying like, Hey Sam, good luck at the thing, or whatever, and then when he came up to do his set, he's like, You think you're gonna win? Well, now wait a minute. That's not how it went.

Sam Grim: 12:19

You, you came up and you were like, you introduced yourself. I'm Josiah James, future winner. Oh, did I say that? Yes, that's

Josiah: 12:30

You know what? I went one step further than that. I got a t shirt made that said on the back, Lee Havali's Funniest Comedian. Wow. Yeah. Can you believe that? Will it

Sam Grim: 12:39

fit me? I get it. So, my parents came to every one of those. They're super proud. I don't know why. I won 200. It was cool. It was great. But they're super supportive no matter what I do, and they bought me a, a first place trophy, and then they gave it to me afterwards, and I was

Josiah: 13:03

just like Oh no, that's almost as bad as, uh, buying a t shirt, you know? Or making, I made the t shirt because I was gonna wear it on stage. For like my, my set and I was gonna be like, you know, vote for me because otherwise I have to give this t shirt back and my wife said, my wife's like, don't do that, but maybe I should have. Maybe I would have won. I don't know. Maybe, maybe that would have put you over

Doug: 13:26

the top subliminal messaging. What how many rounds was it that you were in?

Sam Grim: 13:30

Four,

Doug: 13:31

four and it can't, did it, did it did it narrowed down to three people, four people? So

Sam Grim: 13:36

it narrowed down the final round was four people, which I thought was crazy cause they only did like first, second and third place. So on the last day, one of us had to just leave the other three were brought up on stage and one of us just had to leave with no prize money. And like. But yeah so it went like, it was like 85 people to start and then it narrowed down to like 40 and then like 16 and then four. Yeah, I was happy to make it

Josiah: 14:09

to semi finals, which, you know, which was cool. And yeah, that's awesome. And so the guy who won, Tory Seward, is he funny?

Sam Grim: 14:18

Yeah, he's very funny. He's a really funny guy. We hung out all night afterwards. Should he have been

Josiah: 14:23

disqualified?

Sam Grim: 14:24

Why? He's from New

Josiah: 14:25

York.

Sam Grim: 14:25

No. It wasn't a stipulation of the contest.

Josiah: 14:29

I know.

Sam Grim: 14:30

To be honest with you, like, you know How does it make

Josiah: 14:33

you feel, though, that, you know, you're from the Lehigh Valley and someone who's not beat you? Well, I think that says a lot about the Lehigh Valley.

Sam Grim: 14:42

I mean, it was close, the judge said it was close. Yeah. So I don't know if you ever watched the, I had the clip, I don't know what happened to it, but like my, Well, we did a 15 minute set and I crushed. I don't feel bad at all about it. I did really well Oh,

Josiah: 14:55

no, I wish I should have asked you to we could have we could have watched it

Sam Grim: 14:58

Yeah, it might be somewhere. It's on like google drive somewhere, but I can't find it

Josiah: 15:03

Oh, because Paul videotaped it and sent it to you? Yeah, and I

Sam Grim: 15:06

think maybe I tried to download it to my drive, but it never downloaded. It just hadn't shared it. I had the same issue. Yeah. And then when he deleted it, because, you know, he's not going to keep my clip forever I think it just deleted all of it. But I, I was actually doing a bunch of stuff, like, I started at UPS driving that week, which I'd never done. I had to like take all these commercial vehicle tests and they like, you're in a classroom for like 10 hours a day. And then that day you're like in those classrooms for like a week and a half. And then that day was our first day, like on the road. And this supervisor that I have, Well, had he was just like losing it on me. So I'm like, I'm driving down the road and he's like, he's like, what, what is the, you know, TOT first, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? I have to like recite all this crap. And I was like, so nervous. This guy was like. for for all like all day basically while I'm trying to drive this humongous fucking box truck through traffic and trying to go over the Set in your head. He's like, yeah, and I'm like stressed about the thing because I really wanted to take first place Yeah, of course. Yeah, and so when I got out of work Well, when I woke up that day, I was like, I was like all itchy. And when I got out of work, I had hives all over my face. You think it was

Josiah: 16:23

a reaction from being nervous or stress? Yeah. Cause

Sam Grim: 16:26

it was between the job and just being nervous about the, the competition. It was just like, and I was like pushing myself to go to Mike's every night and just like, I don't know, like living for this thing. And it, so I like got on stage and I had, I had hives and I was like, how am I ever going to fucking do this? You know what I mean? So I started out with like some bits about having bagel bite face and like God shitting on me. Also, my car was falling apart. It was like it was like a perfect storm of like But, but,

Doug: 16:59

that's the, that's the thing about it is, like, I could sit, I do 12 hour shifts at work. I work a weird schedule, but if I know I'm gonna do a mic that night, or if I know I'm doing a show or something, it's, that 12 hours means nothing to me. It's I want to kill on that stage. Yeah, but

Sam Grim: 17:16

this was like, I can't, you know, this guy's like,

Doug: 17:19

yeah, you were being, you know, I'm getting tested. I'm getting graded. And then my,

Sam Grim: 17:22

my future at this job depended on, you know what I mean? And I'm like, also in like, I don't know if you've ever seen like these UPS or they're huge, dude. It's like, it's a really big show. You have like four inches on each side, you know what I mean? And you're driving in like heavy traffic, you know what I mean? And he's like, yeah, right, dude. He's like screaming at me. And is it

Josiah: 17:44

true that you can only make right turns?

Sam Grim: 17:47

No, you can make left turns. Okay. You can only stop on the right side.

Josiah: 17:50

All right. I thought they programmed all the routes so that there was all right turns. So that I

Sam Grim: 17:56

think I remember taking left turns. I don't know. But and so you're

Josiah: 18:00

long, you're no longer there.

Sam Grim: 18:01

No, no, I got laid off right after Christmas. Oh,

Josiah: 18:04

man.

Sam Grim: 18:05

Yeah, after all that, it's okay. I'm going to the post office now, so that should be good.

Josiah: 18:10

Yeah, so I wanted to talk I remember talking to you at Tally Ho before your first performance at Lehigh Valley's Funniest. And I remember you saying something like you were worried that you were gonna blow your load, blow, blow your load. Like you didn't want to get rid of all your good stuff at once

Sam Grim: 18:27

Yeah, yeah, I mean like so the different nights on the competition. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah, like I tried to put together some of my best stuff, but

Josiah: 18:35

did you repeat stuff at the different night? Yeah, but that was my problem. I didn't I can't really completely new set

Sam Grim: 18:41

everybody. Yeah, everybody did like But in the third round, every, everybody who did the same exact set that they've been doing got disqualified, got, got cut. So like, I, the third round, I like rewrote a set. I was kind of suspicious, you know what I mean? Cause I like noticed that there was like two nights for people, you know what I mean? Like one night had six people on it. The other night had another six people on it and that was round three. So I like noticed that the people who did their usual sets got kind of like bumped off when people who plugged in new stuff Got passed on to the next round. So that's kind of where I, what I did.

Doug: 19:23

Was it the same, excuse me. Was it the same judges throughout the competition?

Sam Grim: 19:27

Yeah. So what, what they did is like, they had audience participation for the first three rounds, but like a decreasing amount. Okay. You know what I mean? The, it was, they weighed it against the judge's opinions for each rounds. But they weighed the judge's opinions higher and higher as the competition went further. Okay. You know, it was fair. Cause you know what I mean? I don't want to win just because I got a lot of people to come out. Right. I mean, and you know, I had a lot of support. It was like crazy to see like how many friends, not just friends I had, but like people who really wanted to see me win, come out, you know, even, Got, you know, eliminated from the competition early on. We're like coming out for me. So it was really cool, but it's strange because I got so stressed out. And so like the balloon popped when I got like second place, which was still awesome because there was a lot of like comedians that I liked. as more accomplished comedians that I, like, got further. Yeah, I thought,

Josiah: 20:30

I thought Walter Britt was going to go a little further. Yeah, Walker. Walker. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, he's yeah, great. Like,

Sam Grim: 20:37

he, him Brendan Smith, they're like incredible joke writers, and I was like really nervous going into that third round because of that. So it was like It was a good experience, but also like, I don't know if I would do a comedy competition anywhere in the near future because it's

Josiah: 20:52

stressful.

Sam Grim: 20:53

Yeah. And I don't want comedy to be stressful. Yeah. I mean, I want it like I want to succeed and I want to do my best. Which was cool to see, like, how sharp I could get my set, you know what I mean? Yeah, you'll have to,

Josiah: 21:07

You'll have to send that into the show, and maybe the next time you're on, we can, we can watch it. You made it a, uh, you made it

Doug: 21:12

a, you made it a job. Yeah, right. You never, you never looked at it like a job as much as that did. I think it was

Sam Grim: 21:19

even, like, more Stronger than like, you know what I mean? When you, when you have somebody like Mark Norman, who's doing shows like all the time, you know, he goes up there like, yeah, he has pressure to do a great job because he's getting paid a lot of money. Being put on, you know, like, what do you call those marionettes or whatever? You know what I mean? He's got like a profile to maintain but I don't think like he has to compete Right, you know what? I mean? He can still go up there and have fun. Yeah, where it was like cop the competition made me feel like But maybe that was me. Maybe it was me like ramping up that pressure in my head. I don't know when I felt a

Josiah: 21:59

lot of pressure, too. We talked about it on the show after I because I wanted to win the thing, like, because I really never put myself out there like that, and I didn't repeat my jokes, which was probably something that I should have done. I should have untried and true stuff for my 2nd round, but I did all new material that wasn't tested or anything. And I was kind of that was my fault. But and I don't watch my stuff. And so Paul sent me the video and then I lost it. And then Doug and I were talking on the show and I was like, I can't watch it because I screwed up one part and I just feel very uncomfortable watching myself.

Doug: 22:34

But then I explained to him that that's the part you need to watch. You have to watch that part because that's the part that You'll, it'll be a millisecond. I have this one set from like, I don't know, 2011 or something like that. It was an open mic I did at Brewworks, where there's this one second, millisecond, that I knew where I screwed something up, and I just kind of, I just, I, you know, I kept it moving. The audience never knew, but every time I watched that, I see that one. It bothered you one second. Yeah. And I don't know, I hold onto that shit. You see the

Josiah: 23:09

difference here is that I don't do that. Mine was obvious because I was like stumbling over my lines and stuff. Mm. And so,

Sam Grim: 23:15

yeah, I think most people don't notice. Yeah. And I, I, I don't, I never really. I don't record a lot of my sets, which I should, you know what I mean? I really need to generate an online presence. I don't think I have that and I think I could really succeed and benefit more from that than Any amount of mics and shows that I do, you know what I mean? Yeah, I like your,

Josiah: 23:36

I like your style a lot of comedy because you come off as like, like, like it's not scripted and I love that. Oh, thanks. So it's like, Yeah, it's very conversational. Very conversational. And also, A lot of it's, like, off the top of your head, it seems like. Sometimes. I

Sam Grim: 23:54

open mics, I do that stuff. Yeah, and you're really good

Josiah: 23:58

at it. So, I really like your style. A lot. Tell me more about how this went.

Doug: 24:04

When did you start doing

Josiah: 24:05

comedy? Yeah, yeah, when did you start?

Sam Grim: 24:06

So the first time I ever did comedy I'll ask

Music Bed: 24:09

the

Sam Grim: 24:09

questions,

Doug: 24:09

Doug. I'll ask them.

Sam Grim: 24:12

I like, I always was a funny person. You know, I got picked on a lot as a kid. And I didn't have like the machismo to like, I, I beat people up when I was like in middle school. But it didn't make me feel, it made me feel like worse. You know what I mean? Just to be like a jerk. And ultimately then when I moved to like Whitehall, I moved to like a bigger school. I tried to like beat somebody up right away and I got my ass kicked in front of the whole school. By this guy that was like half my size. He was just like a sick ass athlete. Yeah, yeah. I tripped over my shoelace and this kid jumped on the back of my head and just beat the shit out of me. And yeah, so I was like, this isn't going to work, you know, I don't, I don't really have a new career. I'm like, it was, it was the

Josiah: 24:55

kids in your class lining up behind you where you're laying down after you fell on your shoelaces to just hit you. Right. And that was the punch line. It was like, let me get in that punch line. I want to punch Sam and you're like punchline punchline. What can I do with that? And that's why he turned to comedy.

Sam Grim: 25:11

No, I was always a funny kid before that, I think. I was like, I'm like the Thought I had something there. The runt of my siblings, and I was always getting, like, beat up. I was always the test kid, you know what I mean? So I, like, kinda developed a funny personality. My dad's really funny. My mom's kind of funny, but she's a woman, you know? Yeah, Doug

Josiah: 25:33

wouldn't think she's funny at all. But it was like trying to

Sam Grim: 25:36

find a way to defuse people that wasn't like, violence, because I didn't want to do that. And then, you know, I went through college, and then when I was in college, I started seeing this gallery called the Alternative Gallery in Allentown had an open mic, a comedy mic on Sunday nights. Was that on,

Josiah: 25:54

was that on 4th, 4th Street? Yeah, it's still there. I

Sam Grim: 25:56

don't know what they do so far as comedy. I know they still have shows and functions and stuff there, but so I went to this open mic and started watching open micers, and it was like, It's still there. You know, like the first time you go to an open mic with the, with the intention of like signing up, you're like hearts racing. You think like this moment's going to define your life. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I, I tried to go there and then I, the, the weekend, I was like, this weekend. I'm not going to just sit there and watch. I'm going to sign up. And my, my dog died and I came back from like Philadelphia, visiting a friend of mine and my dad was like, your dog got out and got hit by a car. Oh no. So it wasn't

Josiah: 26:36

age. It was just accident. No, it was an accident. Yeah.

Sam Grim: 26:40

And I was like, I was like really upset, but I was like, you know what? You got to go, you know what I mean? You got to go and at least watch it. And then I was like, you know what? I'm sitting there. I'm like. I'm going to sign up. My dog would have wanted that. And then I told this story about this woman who, who knocked, she knocked, I was sitting there crying and like all day I was alone and everybody else was gone and I was like upset and this woman knocked on my door and said, I was the person who saw your dog get hit and I like found your family and like, you know, so she's like, did the dog bake? And I was like, no, you know, he didn't, unfortunately. And she was like, Cause of the accident. I thought she was joking, but he had doggy

Doug: 27:27

AIDS and the accident just flared it up.

Sam Grim: 27:30

Yeah. So I went I went up and I told that story cause I had no jokes prepared. And and the audience had the same reaction that I had to that woman. They just went, uh, and I was like, That's like, tearing up. They were like, dude, why'd you do that? I think your dog died today. You know what I mean? Like, you weren't ready to do that. So, like, I put the mic back and I walked right out of the building. And this guy Jason Brown.

Josiah: 27:59

Yeah, I know him. He's an

Sam Grim: 28:00

affiliate of ArtsQuest. Right. I don't know.

Josiah: 28:02

We came up, we came up with Jason Brown. Yeah. In the comedy scene in Lehigh Valley, so we know him.

Sam Grim: 28:07

Yeah, so he came out after me and he's like, dude, you know what I mean? And he, like, kind of gave me some tips, some pointers. Some like direction because I really didn't have any, I didn't like know anybody who did comedy. So I just like went because I thought I was funny, you know what I mean? And then I I didn't I didn't go back and do an open mic again for like five or six years. Oh, wow Yeah, then it was like you were finding yourself probably. Yeah Well, no, I was drinking a lot and getting in trouble and like, you know, being in my early twenties, I just had no like focus for anything. But I just thought like I was a funny guy at parties. So I just thought eventually somebody is going to be like that guy. And then I'll be famous. I didn't like understand there was a process. You know, and I don't know if I'll ever be famous, but Well, you

Josiah: 29:00

are, you are doing the Jokes by Joe show. Oh yeah, that's true. And we have a lot. This is the launchpad. This could go viral. Hell yeah, I hope so.

Sam Grim: 29:09

Oh, hell yeah. But yeah, then, uh, right before COVID, I started doing mics again. I started going to Where

Josiah: 29:15

was your when you got back into it like five, six years later, what was your First venue, the

Sam Grim: 29:20

Brewers, the Bethlehem Brewers. Yeah. Yeah, that was my first Mike and I started going to that one. There was like one or two others, but I can't remember where was

Josiah: 29:29

Was Ryan Hill doing it then like the tickle me Tuesdays or was it something?

Sam Grim: 29:32

No, it was.

Josiah: 29:34

Oh, that was way, way before that. Yeah.

Sam Grim: 29:36

Harmony. Oh, yeah, I know that.

Josiah: 29:38

Yeah.

Sam Grim: 29:39

Yeah. So they used to post it upstairs in the fishbowl and then they started doing it in the basement and then COVID hit and they stopped, you know, everybody stopped. So that kind of sucked because it was like, I started doing comedy again in like, I started going to like, like 2016. Okay. And then two, I went like, you know, three years and then boom, there was not another Mike for a year and a half. So that only kind of took a chunk out of like our sales and everything. And

Josiah: 30:10

do you remember the first joke you told on stage?

Sam Grim: 30:13

Well, besides the dog, the when you came back, the first one that worked, uh, I used to do, so I used to, I did this joke. My, my girlfriend likes, uh, my girlfriend likes being talked dirty to in exotic languages.

Josiah: 30:31

Sorry, I was talking to the camera. That was a silent heckle, I think. That was a silent heckle. Sorry, you're losing

Sam Grim: 30:39

your boobs. Your girlfriend likes My girlfriend likes being talked sexy to in exotic languages, but I only know sign language. So, I whisper in her ear, Baby, I'm gonna write you a letter. Finger undulating through left hand circle shape is so hard. And

Music Bed: 30:56

I was like,

Sam Grim: 31:00

yeah, I don't really do that. You don't do it. You should. That's funny. It

Doug: 31:04

doesn't expire. Yeah.

Sam Grim: 31:07

And then why do, where do urinal cakes get off calling themselves cakes? They taste like shit. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! That's funny. A couple of small jokes like that. Yeah, I had one

Josiah: 31:18

about urinal cakes that I don't do anymore, where I was like Why, why are they printing, why are they printing ads on urinal cakes? Like, say no to drugs. You know, like, what do you What are you telling him for? He's not, he's not doing drugs. That's the moment ass crack, but that's,

Sam Grim: 31:36

and if I'm going to, it is addicting,

Josiah: 31:38

you know, but yeah,

Sam Grim: 31:39

I'm going to change my life. It's not looking down. Right.

Josiah: 31:42

Exactly.

Doug: 31:43

Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Well, yeah, that's what I always think about. Like, what, what is the ratio of success versus not success on how many cakes they made, how many they advertised on How many people are coming to them and to the company and going, I just want to thank you. You changed my life. I was taking a leak at the, at the old brewery tavern bathroom in your ad.

Josiah: 32:07

Wouldn't it be great if that was all? That's how all like big decisions were made in life.

Doug: 32:13

Well, it seems to be right now.

Sam Grim: 32:14

Pop the question. You're right here, okay?

Josiah: 32:18

Divorce your

Sam Grim: 32:19

That girl's amazing.

Josiah: 32:20

Divorce your wife.

Sam Grim: 32:23

They really need to put it on the back of the toilet because that's where everybody's doing drugs. Yeah Yeah, I mean if you're gonna say say no to drugs put it on the back of the toilet Yeah, who's

Josiah: 32:33

doing drugs in a urinal? That's a good point say no to this Change your mind right now. This is this is your moment. Nobody's ever gonna change blow it away blow it away

Doug: 32:44

How about you? Doug, do you remember your first joke? I can't remember the first one I, I, I remember the, the day and, and I, I know I practiced the set for like two weeks where I was just walking around 'cause I, I didn't want to think about any of the syllables. I wanted to know it syllable for syllables by heart. Yeah. And it killed, I, like, I couldn't believe it. I actually went outside and started crying. Like this was like a dream of mine. And here I am. I packed the, the fishbowl. Like I, I had like. And I ended up going like number 27. Oh, Jesus. And so I packed the place right with like 50 people. And then when I got off stage, everybody left and I was like, I was like, no, no, no, go support the other comedians. Like don't just leave like that. And yeah, there was like four people left in the room, but so that made me more nervous. Yeah. These were people from work, my family, like friends that all have been saying we, we, I can't wait to hear you on stage. Um, You need to be a comedian and all this stuff and I couldn't I couldn't believe it how I killed But I don't remember any of that set at all I just

Josiah: 33:51

remember it. Did you tape your first set? You didn't know.

Doug: 33:53

Uh uh. No, I got a picture Somebody took of me on stage and it it is such a great representation of my first time because my hat was this low And I had the microphone in my face like this. I was terrified of hiding. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, but I mean shit that was 15 years ago. I I don't remember Yeah, I think there was a no, I don't know. I don't know what I talked about.

Josiah: 34:22

I remember mine only because I I Recycled it for the Emmaus round one.

Key and Peele: 34:27

Mm

Doug: 34:27

hmm

Josiah: 34:28

And it's always like a good opener, no matter what town you're in. You just say the name of the town. So yeah, crime in whatever town you're in. So I crime in Allentown is getting pretty bad. You know, went shopping last night, got shot at. I was like, Jesus Christ. It's the last time I'm robbing this place. Fucking shoot at me. So you can, you can insert that wherever you go, you know, because I'm a tour. I think the

Sam Grim: 34:51

first, the first joke I ever remember, the first time I ever remember seeing you guys. He like meet a lot of people at open mics that you like don't remember until you see him like three or four times, right? But I remember you like pulled your pants down on the stage at at ArtsQuest. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to go up there and I'm just going to pull my pants down and do my set regularly. You I remember, I know,

Josiah: 35:20

I'm glad that I have to take my pants down for you to remember me, Sam. I remember, I remember you Do you remember why

Doug: 35:25

he took his pants

Josiah: 35:26

down? Do you remember the joke? It was

Sam Grim: 35:27

like, it was a joke about him pooping in the basement. And you couldn't, like, you didn't have toilet paper, so you're like shuffling around. Yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 35:34

And I remember you getting up there and I think we talked about this on the podcast. I was a little pissed about it because you got up and you're like, and you're like who was hosting? Was it Aaliyah? It's like Jason Brown's daughter. You're like hey, Aaliyah. Uh, we allowed to take our pants off at this, uh, this mic or what? Well, he said that, right? Yeah, he said that. I know, but I didn't know you. I was like, dude, this guy's like fucking throwing me under the bus.

Doug: 35:57

But that was, I mean, that

Josiah: 35:58

was a great, that was a great opening. It was more of a jab towards him. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Doug: 36:03

I thought it was hilarious. I think that was, I thought that was hilarious. No, it was. And

Josiah: 36:06

then so I was like, so I was like, oh man. And then I like went to Tally Ho and I was like, I was talking all this shit about the mic at the steel stacks, and I like, threw, I threw Jake Wahlberg under the bus, and I'm like, throwing Sam Grim under the bus, and I'm like, this is not the way, the right way to approach things. This is not the way to make friends in comedy. I didn't mean anything by it. Yeah, I know, it's fine. I didn't even

Doug: 36:26

take it that way at all. I, I I just remember when you were, cause I was videoing it for you. And I remember when you started taking your pants off, I couldn't stop laughing because, It wasn't so much the joke. It was just, you're fucking doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you tape it? Cause I don't think I have video of that. If you taped it, maybe, maybe it was on, maybe it was the other one. Maybe it was the other one where you, yeah, I've only done that once. Where she came and talked to you.

Josiah: 36:52

Yeah, she did come and talk to me. About doing accents and stuff. That's why I haven't been back there.

Doug: 36:57

Yeah, I mean, the thing about What I noticed different is when I first did it, how I practiced every syllable, that that that's not what works. You got to get up there and just talk. You got to get up there like how you do it. You know, you get up there. I try to get up there. I have a premise. I practice

Sam Grim: 37:15

my vocabulary pretty hard. I find like changing words like from and to or can completely change the whole thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what I mean? And like that's really,

Josiah: 37:27

that's impressive though, because When you're up there, it doesn't sound rehearsed and that's what's so yeah, that's the that's the trick. Yeah Louis CK

Sam Grim: 37:35

is great.

Josiah: 37:36

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Sam Grim: 37:38

Yeah. I mean there's always like so the big thing I think is like Segways, you know, I mean, so I like I have I have all my jokes written down in my phone because I like the challenge of remembering them when my cheap ass phone inevitably shits out and I lose all my jokes. But I have like every one of them just like,

Doug: 38:00

yeah, that's like, uh,

Sam Grim: 38:01

that's, that's the root joke list that I have there. You know what I mean? And that's like,

Doug: 38:09

Yeah, I got a, so a notes thing that, that yeah, there's like a ton of them in there.

Sam Grim: 38:13

So I try to find like what's relevant and then plug it in in a way. Like I can go from like, you know, animals to like homeless people to like food. Right. You know, and I have like a sequence of jokes. Mm-hmm . That works like that, or. I can do food, dating, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? So it's, so it is

Josiah: 38:33

very well thought out when you get up there and that's,

Sam Grim: 38:35

yeah, it's just like, I practice all my jokes in like different, different structures, you know what I mean? Like I structured it, look at the set rather than individual jokes. You know what I mean? That's good. And I go to Mike's to like sharpen up my jokes and make sure I know how to tell them. But then like sets, you know what I mean? You're building like you want to build a flow, you know what I mean? Uh, compared to what you think the audience is going to absolutely. Yeah. Like I did a, I did a police benefit show, uh, the other day. Cause I love the cops.

Josiah: 39:07

I don't think it got your reaction. Was that the one, was that the one that was on the same day as this one? Yeah. That you had to cancel last week?

Sam Grim: 39:21

Uh, no, I canceled last week. Cause my,

Josiah: 39:25

no, no. The week before that

Sam Grim: 39:27

parents were sick. Uh, maybe I don't remember. It was like, I have a

Josiah: 39:32

gig. Oh, it was a Saturday. Okay. Nevermind. No,

Sam Grim: 39:35

probably not. But it was, it was a friend of mine called me up and like asked me if If I could cover a show for him, cause he was sick and I went down there and did it and they were really cool people. But I like started in on cop jokes right away and I was like, I wonder how it's going to go. Or like, well, it's going to go one or two ways and I'd rather get it out right away, right away. So

Josiah: 39:54

yeah,

Sam Grim: 39:55

they were, they, they were, there was a couple of people that were like, but like the, the rest of the audience laughed enough that they couldn't, you know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Make a fuss. You know, they're just kind of taking it as a joke. And then I went into like Christmas, Santa Claus. I have a lot of Santa Claus.

Doug: 40:12

Yeah, I like your Santa Claus stuff. Yeah,

Sam Grim: 40:13

Santa is, it's a very funny subject. It's like a weird, it's, you, you have a fat god. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That, and it's like the wackiest god. Fat god. It is, it is, he's like the wackiest demigod there is. Yeah. Like there's like, you know, there's like Thor, the god of thunder, and there's like, You know, like, I don't know what I don't really know. St. Patrick. I thought, I thought, yeah, St. Patrick, you know what I mean? Or something. There's like, there's a Valentine or whatever.

Josiah: 40:44

Maui, the demigod from Moana.

Sam Grim: 40:46

Yeah. Right. There's all kinds of stuff, but they're like, but they're, they're all like elementals, you know what I mean? And then there's like Santa who like gives you shit from Walmart. He's got like a really weird mode of transportation and a really weird mode of entering your house. And he gives you stuff from Walmart

Doug: 41:04

that you pay for.

Sam Grim: 41:05

Yeah. That's true. And it's, you know, and he's also fat and demands cookies. He's jolly. Jolly. Yeah.

Doug: 41:16

One night a week.

Sam Grim: 41:18

One night a week. Or one night a year he works. One night a year he works, a great work ethic. Yeah, he lets all the elves do it. I don't know. It's just a, it's a crazy, it's like a whole, there's so much lore around Santa Claus. It's like fascinating, you know what I mean? I don think Now

Josiah: 41:32

when you have, when you have kids or if you have kids would you are you gonna continue the tradition of Santa Claus, would you?

Sam Grim: 41:37

I I, I like, kinda almost assure you, I'm never having children. Okay.. You don't want kids or you don't see No, I don't want kids. Okay. It just, I've never been with a person I thought like I, okay, I see all my friends with like, they love their children. You know what I mean? But they hate the other parent and it like makes a living hell and I've always been like I'd love to have a kid Yeah, I'll just get a dog Then you

Josiah: 42:08

run the risk of it getting hit by a car Well,

Sam Grim: 42:11

you

Josiah: 42:11

could,

Sam Grim: 42:12

I don't know, kick a kid in the back too. That's true, that's true. You're not very bright, you know, that was I had a, I had a And then you bury him in the fuckin pet cemetery, and then they come back and cut your Achilles tendon. It's even worse than the doctor said. That's the worst, that's the worst scene in a movie

Doug: 42:29

when the Achilles heel gets sliced. Yeah, yeah. Disgusting. Yeah, it gets me every time. Who, who who was your, did you have a comedian that you just was like, that's my favorite dude. And that inspired you to, to want to do comedy? Like for me, it was like Richard Pryor growing up when I was a kid, when I was like five, six years old, I used to play his records and that's what I wanted to do.

Sam Grim: 42:51

I remember watching mad TV a lot and I thought I could be that funny. You know what I mean? I was like already that funny. And I was like. In high school, sorry. Drinking beer and belching and I'm like But,

Josiah: 43:04

You can ask us to cut that out, we will.

Sam Grim: 43:07

No, I want you to keep it. Burps and

Doug: 43:10

midgets we cut out.

Josiah: 43:12

Burping midgets, that's what we need to get on this show.

Sam Grim: 43:15

My taste in comedians has changed drastically from when I was a kid. You know, I really liked Mad TV and I liked Saturday Night Live. I liked skit comedy growing up more than I liked stand up comedy. And I still probably do. I like skit comedy a lot, but When I started to get into stand up, you know, when I started watching stand up specials, Norm Macdonald really was like the one He's amazing. Yeah, it was just like Have you read his book? No, I haven't. Oh, it's

Josiah: 43:43

so good.

Sam Grim: 43:44

There was like Norm Macdonald Dimitri Martin, like blew my mind. I was like, oh my god, this guy's the funniest person. I still think like one of the most underrated comedians. Those one liner comedians, even though Norm really isn't a one liner, But the one liner comedians, I'm always like, you know, Mitch Hedberg. Oh, yeah, and Anthony Jesselnik I just yeah, they blow me away because it's it's not only is it like the great part about reducing your joke to a one liner Is that it's like so juicy. Yeah, I mean, it's like a hot little morsel Yeah, cut out all the fat, but then you have to remember so much. Yeah, you have to know so much

Doug: 44:23

material But every bit of the material, like every, like you said, every little, every little joke is an entire story within one sentence. I wouldn't

Josiah: 44:32

consider Jeselnik a one liner comedian. He definitely

Doug: 44:36

does short jokes.

Sam Grim: 44:37

Yeah, I mean, he has, he has bits, but I, I, he's, It's mainly like stories with like

Josiah: 44:42

a shock, a shock punchline, right? Isn't that, that's his thing. But he

Doug: 44:46

does like, he does one line or two, yeah. Okay,

Josiah: 44:48

yeah.

Doug: 44:49

And maybe I don't watch him enough. I

Sam Grim: 44:50

would say he's shorter prose. Okay. In the grand spectrum, he's, he is like a shorter prose. Yeah, he's, he's

Doug: 44:56

not like Stephen Wright. Right. But he does do, you know. Yeah, Stephen Wright is one of my favorites. Mitch

Josiah: 45:01

Hedberg is very good. I've been listening to a lot of Chris D'Elia. Oh, yeah, he's hilarious. Chris D'Elia's funny. I'm amazed by that dude's crowd work. Yeah. I know we talk about this on the show, is that I'm hor I don't do crowd work. I'm not a crowd work comedian. You can't do what everybody else can do. I know. You gotta just do you. But I wanna Oh, sorry, I could've opened that for you. No, that's cool. Shit. Came prepared. But like, There's I don't know. I want to get better at crowd work. So I'm trying to work that into my, my sets and stuff. But I was, I was I came up on this post on Reddit. I wanted to share that, share it with you guys. Boom, boom, boom. Is it this one? Yeah. So there's a post on Reddit and in the subreddit, our stand up. Please, for the love of God, stop with the crowd work. I went to a comedy show at a prominent expensive comedy club. It was a sold out show. Maybe a dozen comedians came up So many of them did not have any material and said coming up and just looking at someone and saying so what do you do? And then not having any material or joke to build on none of the comedians watched each other's bits So awkwardly many comedians called on the same people People were groaning about the third time. Everyone was so ready and willing to laugh. One guy who did a pretty funny set about homeless people had everyone dying. It's fucking lazy, and I don't care if you're trying to get some good content for your Instagram reels. I feel scammed. I'm begging you, stop this shit. If you don't, if you can't be funny without crowd work, then maybe you're not a good comedian. I don't agree with that.

Doug: 46:25

Who cares what this person says.

Josiah: 46:27

Well, I just wanted to bring it up for one discussion. This

Doug: 46:30

is one. Yeah. This is one person writing about one show that they went to . Yes, exactly. Yeah. Right. But what

Sam Grim: 46:36

do you feel about crowd work? You know what I mean? It's the, i,

Doug: 46:39

I think if you're a host, you gotta do crowd work. So, right, right. And I think crowd work works if it's your thing that you can do. Me, I can do crowd work, but it's more me jumping in and out. I'm not going to go out there with the intent of doing crowd work. Sounds

Josiah: 46:56

like this OP. Let's read it slang for original poster. Oh, okay. Was saying that he, the crowd work didn't work in his scenario because they were just calling on the same person. So he didn't have a good experience. But if crowd work when done correctly by a professional like Chris D'Elia can be absolutely the best thing. That you can't replicate. Absolutely. And

Doug: 47:21

it's on the spot. It's, you know, it's not anything that you made up. Yeah. Chris Lee.

Josiah: 47:26

I just did a 40 minute. He posted a 40 minute crowd work in some fucking town and it's God. So genius. He's amazing. Not one, not one prepared thing. He's just riffing. Yeah. You can't do that. Yeah.

Doug: 47:42

So I can't, I can't do that. So I'm not going to try it.

Sam Grim: 47:44

I have an interesting theory about why crowd work is becoming more popular as an avenue for, for standup comedy, because it is, it's like dominating all the Instagram reels. Like this guy was saying, yeah, crowd work. I, I don't not like crowd work. I like doing crowd work. I think that, I think it's interesting that the. The perception from like, non comedians are like, crowd work must be so hard. It's the e it's like way easier. Oh yeah. When you get trying to write a joke in a technical, when you get use, get comfortable in front of crowds. Mm-hmm. It's like way easier because A, you don't have to write it. It's like, it's like hiring, hiring the the crowd to make comedy. Right, but

Josiah: 48:28

there's such a high risk, though, too, because it might not pay off. Like, in my example, when I tried crowd work at the Tally Ho. Well, you did that. That

Doug: 48:36

was not a good example of crowd work. Right, because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think you should stop trying to do crowd work. Yeah, right, I'm not going to. But don't do it like that.

Josiah: 48:45

Right. But here's, here's the other thing. I happened to pick on the lesbians that were sitting at the, at the table. Right. And it was very awkward.

Sam Grim: 48:53

Yeah, you can't pick on those. Don't cry. I didn't know there was. Yeah, that's like a golden rule. Well, but the other

Doug: 49:00

part too is the second you see it not working. Get out of it. Bail. Right. And you just kept on for like a full minute and a half. Yeah. As

Sam Grim: 49:08

a whole, as a whole. Crowd work is becoming more popular because of Instagram reels, because reels and tick tock and Facebook stories people want crowd work because they want to be part of the show. They see those reels online and they're like, Oh, it's so funny. And then like when they get picked for a crowd work, they're like, Oh, you don't want to be in a clip or something. And I think that's like, Comedy is becoming shorter and faster. You know what I mean? I think there's a lot of comedians that go like wildly viral for even if they're just doing a bit for doing a bit and it's like a really good bit and then maybe like check out some of their other stuff and it's like, it might not be all that good. So you're saying the

Josiah: 49:56

short morsels are working better? Is that because of our attention spans? Well, yeah, of course. Like, So that has something to do with it as well. I'm

Sam Grim: 50:06

looking at like the future of like, movies, like some people, I don't feel like the generation, like that are kids now, you know, like 6 to 10 year olds that are getting into media now, you know what I mean, getting into using iPad pads or whatever, it's probably even earlier than that. But I don't think like, I don't think they're gonna have any desire as full grown as adults to watch a two hour movie that's gonna sound like ridiculous I just asked my wife the other day. I'm gonna watch a two hour clip. I just I just

Doug: 50:31

I said to my wife the other day I was like you think Joey my son's a seven. I was like, do you think he would watch an entire episode of the Brady Bunch? Like a 20, like a just a half an hour show. Yeah. Do you think he would be able to get through that right now? You know what I mean? I have an answer. I have an answer for, for you. He's on his iPad watching YouTube and Yeah. You know, only, he only watches videos that have to do with his video games. Yeah. You know what I mean? My

Josiah: 50:54

9-year-old put on Family Matters. The first episode. Yeah. The other night. Mm-hmm . And watch the whole thing. Yeah. So I think it depends

Doug: 51:02

what you're watching because I wanna start showing 'em these shows. Yeah. Like, I want 'em, I want 'em to. Even though those shows are not real, there's some sort of structure to it instead of just colors and sounds. Right. Act one, act two, act three. He's not learning anything.

Sam Grim: 51:17

It's wild, man. I mean, like I'm watching. I'll find myself like staring at something like crazy and like the ultra violence that you can find on on instagram It just blows my mind violence Yeah violence. Oh my god What do you mean violence specifically? I don't know about like Facebook I don't really see it on I have and I have tiktok but I usually stick to instagram It's like you can like go from like watching I do a joke about this watching like a cat video It's like so cute and there's like Cats doing stupid stuff, you know what I mean? And then you know, you go to like the next video and it's some like third world guy making some crazy shit out of clay and you're like, whoa. And then you go like the next video and like a person just gets crushed in a heavy machinery accident and they die. Like they died right in front of your face. And you're like, you're, this is like, There should have been a warning taking a shit before you go to work. This is like, you've just watched a person die 30 seconds ago. You

Doug: 52:15

were loving kittens. Yeah, right. And now you're witnessing witnessing death.

Sam Grim: 52:19

Like, but it's, it's like funny that you say like the colors and sounds, it's like, I find myself having less patience to like watch TV because of Instagram I like, yeah,

Josiah: 52:32

it's shortening all of our attention spans. Right. Well, the top three people that show up in my algorithm We've talked about on the show that they're selling out everywhere. Nate Jackson, Matt Reif, and Jeff Arcuri sold out all over the place. And all the only stuff that they're posting is crowd work stuff. Well, here, here's the,

Key and Peele: 52:52

yeah. Here's the part I wonder

Doug: 52:53

though, I wonder, I would love, I would, I wonder if people in the crowd now, cause I've, is there more heckling now, so that they can try to be in the clip. At the Chris D'Elia show, he did, I gotta, I gotta send

Josiah: 53:06

this to you guys. He did a show, In a town where there was gang members in the show or in the crowd. All right. And they, and like, he's like, I'm going to get shot or stabbed or something, but he like turned it around and made it funny and then had them. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, yeah, you run that risk of more and people just yelling out. You know, and I mean

Doug: 53:31

that's, that's the part about hecklers. That is the fine line you gotta be on. You gotta let them know that you're in charge, but you can't go too far.'cause then the crowd, you know, all right, you know, well, you also have to make sure you're in command, right? It's this weird battle you gotta have. Unless it's a fucking drunk chick, oh my god, I just fucking destroy them.. Sam Grim: Do you ever see the key and like, uh, the crowd work comedian. I think I did Jordan Peele's

Sam Grim: 54:01

in the, he's in the audience, he's in like a wheelchair, and he's got like, he's like burn damage all over him, and he's like, you know me. You know, and Keegan's like, Keegan like calls on him, and then he's like, he's like, dude jokes about the, yeah, bring it up dude, it's so funny. It's like one of the funniest Keegan Peele skits I've ever seen. I love Keegan Peele. But I think, I think people, yeah, definitely want to be crowd work. They want to be part of the show and it's become a really popular thing and it's cool. Oh yeah, there

Josiah: 54:29

it is right there. Oh my God.

Sam Grim: 54:31

But it's also like, I, I kinda, I like watching a comedian, like I like watching a special of just stuff that they wrote. Oh yeah. You know what I mean?

Doug: 54:43

Absolutely. I like the technical part of comedy, stand up comedy. Yeah. I like all those other attributes of it. All the, you know, the crowd work and the, the, you know, slipping and, and figuring something out on stage and all that. But I, I, I think it will fizzle

Sam Grim: 54:59

out like any trend. Yeah. Because it, for me already, it's like, you know, hey, who are you? What do you do? And they're like, I'm a hairdresser. And they're like, ah, she's a slut. It's like that same joke is going to be made with a different person in a different town. I do have it

Josiah: 55:16

queued up. Let's just see if it switches, if the camera auto switches to it. Oh, alright.

Key and Peele: 55:23

Alright. Hi everybody. How's everybody doing?

Music Bed: 55:27

I

Key and Peele: 55:27

did not and you guys can all hear me okay. Yeah, I know this guy can right here. Boy, this guy's ears are so big. He's laughing at jokes from the yuck, yuck club all the way on the other side of town.. Alright. And you, sir, you, you're doing. Right. And you're getting enough to eat. Is that even possible?

Josiah: 55:43

Oh, Jesus.

Key and Peele: 55:45

Thank you, sir. Folks, I'm sorry, I'm gonna get everybody tonight. Nobody is safe. I'm getting everybody. Except for you, sir. I'm gonna leave you know

Doug: 55:52

the club they're at. Just

Key and Peele: 55:52

like your date did tonight. Hello! You do?

Doug: 55:54

Yeah. You know the club they're at? I'm pretty sure that's it's right down from the cellar. I forget the name of it, but, um, Last and a half? Oh, that's what I just figured. It's something Black

Sam Grim: 56:03

Cozy Cat?

Doug: 56:04

No, that's around the corner. This one is Oh, I just went with Lauren in September. But anyway, I didn't mean to cut it off.

Josiah: 56:10

That's the one that you couldn't get into the seller, so you went to that one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the one. You said the comics were like really, really good. Oh my god, they were so good. Yeah, when you go

Doug: 56:19

to New York and you do comedy, it's, you, you, it really makes you go, Shit, I gotta stop. Alright,

Key and Peele: 56:25

okay, who's next? Who is next? Oh,

Josiah: 56:31

Jesus. Oh, Jesus.

Key and Peele: 56:35

Hey, ma'am. I get it. You have breasts. Okay? Look at this chick over here. Her cleavage is giving the Grand Canyon an inferiority complex. You skipped me.

Music Bed: 56:52

Kill

Key and Peele: 56:52

me. It is a form of breast cancer. I am letting go. Go for it. I can take it. Oh yeah, yeah. No. Hey. Yeah, don't you worry about that, man. gloves are coming off. Okay. right there. Right there. What's with the three drinks, man? Alcoholic, much . This is my pain medication. Of course, that's your pain medication because, uh, he is in pain right now. Make fun of the burns of the what? What did you say goes? Here's the problem, sir. Is it's really dark in here and it's right. Are you burned?'cause I can't make it out. Thanks so much man., I appreciate that. Oh, those burns. Make fun of the robot. Voice . I dunno. Come on. I can take it . Well, no, you know what? I feel like or in a wheelchair. sir. There is nothing funny about you being in a wheelchair and we can all but there is something funny about me being fat All right. All right. Fine. Fine. I've got it. I've got it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it I just didn't want to go after this guy because I didn't want him to kill me in my dream Like like freddy krueger No No, did you know freddy krueger's his face is burned off That's not You. Ass. He said he could take it, that's what he said. Oh, is he crying? He's not laughing? I thought I could, but I can't. What's he saying? How do we even know if he's crying right now? I just heard tear ducts. Oh, shit. It just

Music Bed: 59:10

sounds like

Key and Peele: 59:10

an electronic sound. Tears. Hey! Yeah,

Music Bed: 59:14

it's my favorite key and peel. What's

Josiah: 59:19

so funny man? I can't remember anything better.

Sam Grim: 59:23

Dude, key and peel, I love their stuff. I've been

Josiah: 59:29

lucky enough to never crowd

Sam Grim: 59:32

work somebody and have that happen. Yeah!

Josiah: 59:35

Oh my God. So that's called the crowd work comedian. I had this concept of the and then we'll talk about this real quick and then we can wrap it up because we're over an hour. The cover comedian. Okay. So this comedian that just goes and just does famous people jokes. Okay. He does dice clay does George Carlin. Jerry Seinfeld like that dude from mad TV. Yeah, all of them just does them all right and announces it right and people are like boo boo You know, you can't do that. But then he's like wait a minute There was just a cover band up here that was playing all the hits and you guys cheered and danced How come they can play other people's songs, but I can't tell other people's jokes

Key and Peele: 1:00:12

Yeah

Josiah: 1:00:13

And I think that would be like a good sketch comedy of a cut of a cover comedian going all these different clubs Telling different people's jokes There was there was it

Sam Grim: 1:00:20

say Hurley stunt double on lost. Wow. I've

Josiah: 1:00:24

been doing this whole show

Sam Grim: 1:00:26

the entire

Josiah: 1:00:26

time. Is that what it says? Let's just pull that up. Yes, Hurley stunt double on lost.

Sam Grim: 1:00:34

I'm not even Puerto Rican, dude. That's so fucked up. He wasn't Puerto Rican. Yeah, that was his whole character. He was Hawaiian, I thought. Hawaiian or Puerto Rican. Yeah, he was. That was like, that was the discerning, dude. Part of his character. Yeah. I was like, that's what you remembered him by. I was trying to

Josiah: 1:00:50

think of who you remind me of. And I was like, yeah, it's Hurley from Lost. Cause you have like the same personality, funny, likable. Yeah. Same hair. No, no, no. Oh

Sam Grim: 1:01:03

my God, I feel like the clear discernible features of Hurley on LOST.

Doug: 1:01:07

That's like when a girl goes, what do you like about me? It's like, oh, your eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, no, so there was a, there was a joke that I wrote that I will never do again because it worked so good this one time that I was like, it'll, that'll never happen again. And the joke involved me pointing out a white guy in the. And it was, whenever I did a show with a DJ, I would tell them to cue up the song by Biggie and then I'd talk about how, you know, I don't say the N word. I don't

Sam Grim: 1:01:39

know.

Doug: 1:01:39

I never, I never really, did you say why not?

Sam Grim: 1:01:42

Yeah, you can. And you're like, I don't want to, you know how bad I don't think anybody should. I

Doug: 1:01:48

think it's like, it's too, it's to me as a comedian. That's it's hacky. I mean, it's a 400 year old hacky word. And like there's so many other words that you can use, but that's not the point. That's not the point. The point is I say, there is one particular time that it's okay for a white guy to say it. And four times I did this joke and four times it worked where the DJ would start playing the one song by Biggie and the whole crowd would be into it. I'm like, all right, this is your moment, sir. And if you don't know, now, you know, and the DJ turns the music down. And I'm like, c'mon! This is it! This is it! You can do it now! And that happened. You don't do that joke anymore? Well, let me finish what I'm saying. So that happened four times, right? And then I did a show where there was only one white guy in the crowd. It was all black crowd. One white guy sitting up front. And the DJ was there, this DJ who I've done this joke with before. So he knew exactly what to do. And I go, I go, yeah, you know, you know, there's only one time, you know, I get back into the joke and all that. And then this song's playing. I was like, Come on, we all know this song. I know you know it, right? Like that. And I go, and if you don't know, now you know. And then the song, everything goes quiet. And he grabbed the mic and goes, Nigga, oh no! And then like this! And the crowd was just, He was, he was better than anybody who performed that night. They, I mean, they were all coming up to him, like hugging him, like, like just they so got a good reaction. I never had a moment where an entire fucking club, and I mean, there was like maybe 80 people in there. Do you remember where this was? Yeah, it was, uh, diamonds. The, it was diamonds. Is this strip club? Yeah. Uh, no. It was just a gay club. Okay. But this guy I knew was doing a show there and he asked me to be on it, but, the point is, though, I never had a crowd fully erupt the way that happened. So you retired it because you can't top it? It'll never happen that good again. Yeah, so I don't, I don't

Josiah: 1:03:46

want to ruin. But here's, here's a question though. In your mind, you can't top it, but at another show, new audience, they've never heard it before. I mean, it would still do very well. Yeah, but

Doug: 1:03:58

I just, I, I, I want to remember it like that. Okay. Because I never thought in my mind that that was a possibility. Interesting. And then I gotten, I gotten so used to trusting the fact that the guy, the guy was just going to be like, no, no, I'm not saying it. Cause that happened four times. I don't think I have a process for retiring jokes. And then, and then the one time, I mean he grabbed the mic like he, Cause I leaned in on him. That was fucking

Josiah: 1:04:18

hilarious. Like that, and I, and I,

Doug: 1:04:20

I was like, That's like something out of a movie, man. Now mind you, the crowd fucking erupted immediately. Like they were like, BWAAAHH! Like that, and I took the mic, I was like, Give me that mic! I was like, sir, this is the last time I'm doing this joke. It's getting out of hand. You're getting too used to it. That's hilarious. But that was a joke where I sort of, uh, wrote in crowd work. So yeah, yeah,

Josiah: 1:04:44

yeah, yeah. I know we're we're over time. I know you said you had to get out of here.

Doug: 1:04:49

Yeah, I got to get back.

Josiah: 1:04:50

I know we usually do a workshop, but I don't think we have time. So

Doug: 1:04:53

I got one thing I wrote the other night. A friend of mine sent me something with snakes in it, and she said I hope snakes don't freak you out. And I was like, I don't like anything without shoulders. I don't like snakes, sharks, spiders, highways, dildos near my butt. And I, so I wrote that part and I said, I said, Oh my God, I'm writing. That's funny. That is the punchline to a joke that I gotta think of. Uh,

Josiah: 1:05:21

Tiny thinks you're telling her to zoom in. Oh yeah, I talk with my hands

Doug: 1:05:24

all the time. You know what, I gotta turn off your gestures. Yeah, I think you're right. But that is a punchline to a joke that I haven't written yet. I want to write a joke about everybody has that one friend who raises snakes. You know what I mean? You go to their house and they're like,

Sam Grim: 1:05:38

I was talking about the fucking When I went to do that cop show in Jersey, I was talking about how they have weed legalized and like I'm tired of buying weed from a drug dealer Like I really just like to buy it from a store. Yeah, he's like, I don't want to see his weird pet He's has like an iguana. Yeah, not in a cage You don't want to buy A

Doug: 1:06:01

ferret, a ferret crawling up on your Yeah, just like weird, why do you have a weird animal? Yeah, exactly. I,

Sam Grim: 1:06:06

like, drug dealers, I swear to God they're drug dealers because they know if they didn't sell drugs, nobody would fucking talk to them. Nope. They're like always the weirdest people. They are.

Doug: 1:06:16

That's what the whole premise of the Pineapple Express was about. See, I don't

Josiah: 1:06:20

watch stoner videos. Oh, that movie was hilarious. Yeah. So that's the one that you're working on? What's that? Is that a joke that you're workshopping? Oh, yeah, I

Sam Grim: 1:06:28

just did that. Uh, well, I wrote a joke yesterday. I was driving down the highway and I saw a billboard that said, Talk to your kids about fentanyl. And I'm like, well, that's a good message. Unless the parents are doing fentanyl. Cause then they're just like, Hey buddy, you know, it's really fun. That's probably

Josiah: 1:06:46

the billboard, the same company that does the you know, say no to drugs on the urinal cakes. Like why are they putting the message on the billboard?

Sam Grim: 1:06:55

Yeah.

Doug: 1:06:55

I mean, billboards, I don't, I still don't know why they're such a great form of advertising. If I'm driving down the road, especially like if I'm in 22 traffic, I, yeah, I don't, I don't need a divorce lawyer right now. They're a banned in some states . I don't need a divorce

Sam Grim: 1:07:09

lawyer. They're abandoned in some states. Really? Yeah. There's, they're banned in like Colorado and like Montana and stuff. For real? Yeah, because it's like it. They want people to enjoy the forestry like people. Okay. Yeah. Yeah tourists come to those states for like the forest Yeah, there's billboards every fucking Lauren

Doug: 1:07:26

just asked me that when we were driving from South Jersey. She goes She goes I wonder why there's some places that you go and there's not a lot of billboards Yeah, and I thought I thought it had to do it in the places that

Josiah: 1:07:36

that do have billboards They're regulated so you can only have a certain amount mile. Right. Right. And it's because of the, there's the one to block the trees and the scenery and

Doug: 1:07:47

all that stuff. But on 22, they don't mind blocking all of Allentown. They're like, don't look

Sam Grim: 1:07:52

over here. And there's like Morgan and Morgan, there's like giant people on the billboards, like showing their kids.

Doug: 1:07:59

Just don't look at Allentown.

Sam Grim: 1:08:03

Can I plug, can I play your show? Yeah,

Josiah: 1:08:04

you can. Let me just Yeah, go ahead. Well, you plug it at the end because I want to just go over real quick. The joke I'm always dropping it in the end. Yeah, plug it in the end. So the song by the what is going on there? Hey, stop tracking me. There we go. The the song by the the Ting Tings. That's not my name. Oh, yeah. They call me Hell. They call me Stacy. They call me whatever. That's not my name. That's not my name, right? You listened to the whole song. No. She never Sorry, I just kept zooming in. I figured out how to do it. You listened to the whole song. She never tells you what her fucking name is. Like if she's so upset that no one's calling her by her real name, that she's going to write an entire song and then never tell you what her name is, that fucking pisses me off. It reminds me of The NeverEnding Story, one of my favorite movies growing up. Right? The kid, he's, he's in the attic and

Doug: 1:08:58

Oh yeah, I know where you're getting at. You know where I'm going with

Josiah: 1:09:00

this? The kid's in the attic. You've seen The NeverEnding Story, right? Yeah. Kids in the attic, he's reading this book, and it's come to life, and he's gotta give the princess a name, right? And the prince the world is crumbling, right? Craters are falling, and cracks are fissuring in the earth. And she's like, Say my name, Bastien! He's like, What do I need to do? Say my name! So, and it's storming, and thundering, and lightning, and he throws open the windows. and you're waiting the whole movie to find out what this woman this girl's name is and he's just like You have no idea what the fuck he said That pisses me off too. So I hate fucking never ending story and I hate that fucking song and that's

Doug: 1:09:41

I think it's because they're no premise their names are cunt That's

Josiah: 1:09:46

the premise

Doug: 1:09:47

for my job,

Josiah: 1:09:47

I

Doug: 1:09:48

don't know

Josiah: 1:09:49

I don't have a

Doug: 1:09:49

punchline yet. Yeah That's why they can't say that on the song. My name is cunt.

Josiah: 1:09:58

Stacy's name is cut. No, it's not Stacy,

Doug: 1:10:00

right? You don't know what it is. I'm going to give it to her. I'm going to give her a name.

Josiah: 1:10:07

So yeah, I don't know how to tie that together. Maybe like the princess from never ending story grew up and she's like, The singer for the ting tangs or the ting tings. She wrote a song. That's not my name or something like he's like he's like Stacy and then she's just like that's not my name Bastion and the whole world just explodes because

Doug: 1:10:31

she's a cunt.

Josiah: 1:10:31

Yeah Thank you, oh wait, no you want to plug some shows Just

Sam Grim: 1:10:37

one show March 1st. I have a show every First Saturday of every month at hijinks brewing tap room. Where is that 100? It's right out free 100, right? Right, I guess north of Alton you host. Yeah, I open my I produce the show To show Oh March 1st. We're having Naeem Ali Along with a bunch of other great guys. So come out to free show, get done my show.

Doug: 1:11:04

I've done, he, I was, I was lucky enough that he got me on that show. And the audience, the whole stage, everything is, it's just a really good venue.

Josiah: 1:11:11

Oh, awesome. Awesome. I'll check that out. I'm

Sam Grim: 1:11:13

trying to. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to like pack this place out. This is like my baby here, so. Let me, uh, next time you have an open

Josiah: 1:11:19

slot, let me know. I'd love to do it. Uh, unless I'm on your do not book list. We can never, you can never tell. Just don't talk

Sam Grim: 1:11:24

about midgets. Or, or call me Hurley from, from LoL. Or, or take your pants down. I know it's all in good fun. You labeled yourself as a comedian, so. No, no, no, no, no, no. Check this out. Comedian question mark. Oh, there we

Josiah: 1:11:44

go. Touche. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think

Doug: 1:11:47

we know that we've

Josiah: 1:11:50

We have We have Country Club Comedy coming up. It's February 7th at 7pm. That's a show that I produce at the Country Club Comedy. It's Country Club Brewing, so come out to that. And Doug will be at a comedy for a cause at the Iron Mule in Easton, PA on March 23rd at 4pm. And you're also doing a roast battle. Do you know the game? Yeah,

Doug: 1:12:07

I'm battling Dan Smelly.

Josiah: 1:12:09

Oh, he gave away one of the jokes. When are you, do you know what that date is? It's, uh, in March. Okay. Some point in March. No, I, I forget the We'll be back in time. I

Sam Grim: 1:12:19

forget the entire

Josiah: 1:12:20

month of March. You know how many jokes I gotta write? It's Dan Shelley month, right? Following Black History Month. Awesome. Sam, thank you so much for joining the show. Thanks for having me on. Glad we could finally have you on. Hope you had a good time. It was a blast. And we will see you guys next time. Boom.

Sam Grim: 1:12:41

Alright, thanks. Grabbing. Thanks, dude. That was fun. Hell yeah.. Oh, I have see though.

Doug: 1:12:50

Oh, no. Down to the right, the opposite side of this wall. Is that a,

Sam Grim: 1:12:55

is that a dog shocker? Yes, it is. I know, I wanted to like bring it up in the show, but I didn't know how you

Josiah: 1:13:01

feel about it. No, that's fine. I called you the stunt double for Hurley, so you owe me a bunch of ribbings. Alright.