7 Years as a Waiter to Top-Paid Comedian | Sebastian Maniscalco

 I was never the class clown, pretty shy kid.
 Not the center of attention.
 But when given the center of attention, I tend to fwerp.
 Guys, is that a normal question?
 That is really it.
 That's where I belong.
 I'm made for this.
 The median actor and podcast house
 hold out shows on subjects like his own Italian-American
 family.
 This man has got to the top of the comedy game
 and is a polished bitch.
 The best humanist gogo!
 She gave me the opportunity to belong to her club.
 You walk through the halls of the comedy story.
 You see, you know, as you haven't carried
 Paul Rodriguez, Robin Williams, I didn't speak to this lady.
 And she gave me the biggest opportunity.
 I think I could have asked for.
 It wasn't just me.
 It was a family effort.
 They're not together anymore.
 No matter how old you get always look at your parents
 through the lens of a child, you hit me with that.
 Stand-up comedy spoke to me in a way,
 even though I failed doing it the first time.
 I just always knew that this is something I want to do.
 Worst night ever bombing.
 It did awful.
 That could kill your confidence.
 But what was the lesson?
 After I got off stage, I can't wait to do this again.
 We'd like to begin as we always do with this.
 Yes, Mitsy Shore, owner of the comedy store.
 First thoughts that come to mind as you look at that photo.
 It takes me back to 1998, March, when I moved out here,
 because I had seen a photo or photos of Mitsy Shore
 prior to moving to LA from Chicago.
 And I always knew that the comedy store kind of was the mecca,
 the epicenter of stand-up comedy.
 Not only here in Los Angeles, but I think the world.
 So I saw a comedy special on HBO.
 I think it was a 20 anniversary special of the comedy store.
 And I was a huge fan of comedy from a young age.
 But when I saw that special, it spoke to me in the sense
 like I got to go to the comedy store.
 That's something I need to do in the future.
 I was young when I saw it.
 So I just always knew that I was funny.
 I had the ability to make people laugh.
 I was never the class clown.
 I just love getting up in front of people,
 whether it be a book report or the family
 and making them laugh.
 But pretty shy kid, not the center of attention.
 But when given the center of attention, I tend to flourish.
 I used to look at the kids, given book reports.
 And I used to get angry that they were boring
 and not entertaining.
 So I felt when I got up there, I felt like I'm
 going to make these people laugh.
 But I was just talking to my father before I came here.
 I was telling him I was doing this.
 And he's like, who'd you pick?
 I said, Missy Shore, and he's gone.
 That's a good one.
 Because why her?
 Well, she gave me the opportunity to belong to her club.
 They call it an artist colony.
 Back then, it was not really a comedy club.
 It was a place for a comedian to go and find his or her voice
 on stage.
 And you look at comedians and it looks like it's easy.
 But it's repetition.
 It's having a place where you could go that you feel
 comfortable.
 For whatever the reason, the OR, which
 is the original room at the comedy store,
 I feel so comfortable on that stage.
 And I did from day one when I auditioned for her that I still
 to this day go.
 I go every Tuesday and Wednesday for 30 minutes
 to work out new material there.
 Because I just feel like I could be myself.
 I could try.
 I could fail.
 And something about those walls with all the comedy
 that's been through there is very comforting.
 And she gave me the opportunity to vote.
 Tell us the audition story.
 It's a good one.
 Audition story.
 So hanging out at the comedy store,
 I'm not like a mover and shaker by any means.
 I'm not the Hollywood type, trying to work my way in.
 I'm more of a quiet kind of observer type, kind of looking
 around.
 I kind of let my talking, I let the stage, my act, do my talking.
 So I felt like if I was funny, people would kind of take
 notice.
 And there was a comedian there by the name of Michael
 Wheels Parisi, who had seen my act and had recommended me
 to have an audition in front of Mitsy Shore.
 There was a thing called potlock.
 I think they still have it.
 You'd go, you'd pick your name out of a hat.
 And if your name got picked, you did three minutes of an open
 mic.
 Mitsy wasn't in the room.
 He just got three minutes.
 From that three minutes, he saw me.
 Recommended me to do the set in front of her.
 I did the three minutes.
 And as I was leaving the room, she grabbed me and said,
 you know, come back for 10 minutes next week.
 So it was generally three, six, 10.
 But I skipped a six and went right to the 10.
 So I was like feeling confident that she wanted to see more
 of my comedy.
 And then I did the 10 minutes and then left the room.
 And then I got a call on that Monday, saying I was a paid
 regular.
 And what a paid regular means at the comedy store is you
 call in weekly to give your availability.
 And then Mitsy then puts you in the lineup where she
 thinks you belong.
 Now, I was getting hot spots from the get call.
 I was getting 9.15, 9.30, you know,
 show starts at whatever 8.38, 45.
 If you get up early on in the night, it's considered a nice spot
 because you know, people have their drink already.
 They're kind of loosening up.
 But then next thing, you know, I'm getting spots at 1 o'clock,
 1.30, four people in the audience.
 Two of them are sleeping.
 The other one are the other two are making out.
 So you had it like really, really, you know, work.
 Why would she do that to you?
 Well, she give you a taste of like what's good.
 And then she give you a taste of, okay, now try this.
 So it puts you in a lot of different situations.
 She would also manipulate the lineup where you might be
 following somebody who's dirty.
 You might be following somebody who's clean.
 You might be following somebody
 who's completely opposite of what you're doing.
 So she had like a method to her madness of how she
 created and developed your thick skin.
 And you know, at the time you don't know what's going on.
 You're just happy to get spots.
 But in retrospect, I'm looking back how she did the lineups
 was definitely beneficial for me because I got to work
 in front and in back of a lot of different comedians.
 But weren't there some people who were like,
 why the hell she put this Sebastian guy in the beginning?
 There was, and I didn't know that at the time,
 which could have really hurt my confidence.
 But I thought I thought I was good,
 but not anywhere where I need to be to be a working comedian.
 I knew I needed stage time and help,
 but I knew I was a funny guy.
 But I later heard that some people at the comedy store
 didn't think I was deserving of being a paid regular there.
 Help our audience understand how formative she was
 for some of the biggest names we know.
 Yeah, I mean, you walk through the halls of the comedy store.
 You see a gym carry, you see a Richard Pryor,
 a Paul Rodriguez, Robin Williams.
 Robin Williams, you know, I mean,
 she provided a place for comedians to thrive.
 And she was kind of the gatekeeper of the comedy store
 since it opened, I believe, in 1976.
 Paulie Shore's mother.
 Paulie Shore's mother, yes.
 So, yeah, I mean, Paulie Shore grew up there at the comedy store.
 When I first came here in 1998,
 I met Paulie Shore.
 And when you're young comedian coming from Chicago,
 not really knowing celebrity or not knowing, you know,
 these are people that I was seeing on TV.
 And now I'm meeting Bill Burr in the elevator
 of the St. James apartment complex
 where I moved in the first day I'm moving in
 that door opens, it's Bill Burr.
 Now I've seen Bill Burr on TV prior to getting there.
 And he's like, right there in front of me,
 I'm like, you're Bill Burr and he's like, yeah, Bill Burr.
 And I go, yeah, I'm a fan.
 He invited me to the laugh factory
 where he was doing a set that night to check him out.
 So, right from day one, I'm at a comedy club.
 And I'm watching one of my favorite comedians,
 Bill Burr, do his thing.
 And yeah, and then subsequently going to the comedy store.
 Throughout the course of this,
 I want to kind of dovetail into some different things.
 I spoke with a friend of yours
 who told me one of the funniest things.
 I said, what can I do that would make Sebastian laugh?
 And your friend Freddie Wexler said,
 Sebastian is the alpha on stage.
 All dude all the time, Rosebro.
 But he loves getting his nails done.
 He loves a facial.
 He's like the gaze who go to the equinox
 in West Hollywood who loves to take care of himself.
 Yeah, yeah, totally.
 I'm like a spa.
 I love the spa.
 I love the spa and I'm a sense of,
 I just cry this morning.
 I'm in the gym,
 watching the Hulk Hogan documentary
 that just came out.
 Yeah, yeah, yeah, is it good?
 I'm crying because I'm looking at this guy's life.
 And I'm now, you know, he was on the road a lot
 away from his family a lot,
 which I am too, not as much as he was,
 but he was saying in the documentary,
 he missed it all.
 He missed the childhood.
 He missed his kids growing up.
 And I often wrestle with that myself.
 Like how much is enough work?
 You know, how long am I going to be doing this?
 Or am I missing moments?
 Am I, am I, am I balancing the work
 and my family in a way where I'm not going to be,
 you know, 75 years old going?
 The hell was I doing in Montana
 when my kid had a recital?
 But I think I'm doing really, really good in that sense.
 At least I'm aware of it.
 You know, I'm not, I'm aware of it now
 and I always have been.
 So I'm watching this and I'm kind of like
 relating to some of his experiences
 and then I'm also having an nostalgia moment
 going back to when I was growing up
 when the Hulk was kind of coming up.
 And you know, I just started going back
 in my past and reflecting on where I was,
 where I am now.
 It was not so much about the documentary.
 It was just causing some emotion in me that,
 and to be honest with you,
 I think I needed a good cry, bro.
 I mean, you don't really appreciate a good cry
 until after it's done, you know?
 Speaking of sort of a good cry and vulnerability,
 I heard that you told my producer,
 there was sort of a point where early in your career,
 somebody said to you, dude, you look angry on stage.
 Why are you so angry?
 And you kind of went from the perceived angry guy
 to what is my favorite, just the uphold guy.
 Like, who would do that?
 Yeah, went from anger to disbelief.
 Yes.
 And that takes time.
 It just takes time to go on stage,
 peel back the onion, peel back the layers.
 You know, obviously I was being angry for me
 was a kind of a crutch or something that I could lean on
 because maybe I didn't want you to see other sides of me.
 The whole goal in stand up is to be kind of who you are
 off stage, and then just bring that on stage
 and be comfortable telling stories.
 It's like storytelling.
 When I tell a story to my family,
 it's similar to what I'm doing on stage.
 Yeah, there's a little bit of heightened
 whatever facial expression and exaggerations with body movements,
 but pretty much the same stories I would be telling my family
 is what I'm telling on stage.
 And it was difficult to get there because for me,
 it's like a bodybuilder.
 You're not going to do a bodybuilding show
 with two weeks in the gym.
 The training is immense.
 And the same thing with stand up comedy.
 You got to work it out.
 You got to go up there and constantly be working on your material.
 I never thought of it like a bodybuild.
 I guess that's the reason you still go
 to the comedy story each week.
 Yeah, what am I going to do?
 It's like I said that.
 I mean, you don't get, you don't,
 I can't, I can't look at this and get like rusty.
 You know, I have to always be kind of oil in the parts,
 getting up there and keeping current, you know, doing,
 because if I don't do the material weekly,
 I forget the material or because it's all life-based,
 you know, my dad's visiting right now.
 If I don't go on stage next Tuesday,
 I'm going to forget or not really have the passion I have
 with the material that I'm going to get from this man
 over the next four days.
 I need to like throw it up right away.
 And if you don't do that,
 if you sit on the sidelines for three, four months
 or whatever, you kind of get stale.
 I saw that during the COVID.
 I mean, two and a half years, I was on the sidelines
 and then I got back up on stage and I'm like,
 it's like working out and then we haven't worked out
 in three weeks.
 The body soar and it takes a while
 to kind of get back into the swing of things.
 Something that never got stale
 were the nuts at the four seasons I'm told.
 So the nuts at the four seasons, by the way,
 in Beverly Hills are with such a popular snack
 that I would actually talk about getting angry.
 I would get very angry that people would order
 the nuts like they were appetizers.
 So my seventh refill I'm bringing back
 then not there.
 Can you get like a chicken satay or something?
 I mean, geez, I'm the only one you're going to eat.
 But yeah, the nuts at the four seasons
 and I've waited on plenty of celebrities there
 over the last, since 1998 to 2005 I worked there.
 And I've waited on Robert De Niro.
 I waited on Al Pacino
 I subsequently worked with, you know, 25 years later
 which was, you know, to remember you from the four seasons.
 No, no, no, I didn't go there.
 And I'm an actor, I'm trying again, I'm a comedian.
 I just did my job.
 I was very polite.
 I didn't like sneak my way into like letting them know
 I was in the entertainment businesses.
 It was actually against company policy
 to like tell these people what you were actually doing.
 Your dad, you mentioned him a couple of times.
 You roast that man on stage.
 But you say I wouldn't roast him
 if I didn't love him as much as I do.
 Yeah, I mean, it's all out of love and affection for the man.
 He's my biggest fan, my biggest critic.
 He's...
 Cecilion was a hairdresser growing up in Chicago.
 Still is.
 He's still cut in hair.
 I mean, he's still doing it.
 79 years old.
 He's going to be 80 in June.
 And we just, again, just talked about this morning.
 The patio.
 He feels if he retires, he's got nothing to do.
 He's not a golfer.
 He doesn't have a hobby.
 He's not building train sets and a basement.
 If he doesn't work at the salon,
 he feels that it's over.
 He's going to die.
 I don't know what his reviews are on cutting,
 but I'm wondering how a hairdresser
 let this walk out now.
 Yeah, and this was, this is back in 1989.
 This is considered a masterpiece, right?
 Make a good grinder profile.
 LAUGHTER
 Well, yeah, this is...
 No, this is my dad's specialty was women, OK?
 So he didn't do a lot of men.
 He did, like, a lot of, you know,
 perms back in the age and die jobs and what have you.
 But, yeah, this is, this is a 15, 16,
 and I don't know what this is.
 It looks like a peacock, it's embarrassing.
 Tell me the story of you are cutting grass.
 It's the summer.
 You're doing it with your buddy.
 Your dad says you can use the lawnmower,
 but he rents it to you.
 Yeah, basically teaching me that, you know,
 in order to run a business,
 there's expenses associated with the business.
 So I had to rent the lawnmower from him and pay for the gas.
 So, again, you know, looking back on it,
 thank God that these lessons were taught to me at a young age,
 you know, especially now, and I'm sure you see it, you know, kids think,
 you know, and I don't want to be one of these guys, he's 52.
 It's like, my day, my, it's not about that.
 It's about, like, just parenting correctly
 and teaching your kids kind of the dos and don'ts.
 What was not allowed in the men of Skelco household?
 What was not allowed?
 Or what was expected?
 You grew up with, like, don't do anything to embarrass the family, okay?
 So it's not, like, you were out there representing the man of Skelco name,
 not necessarily.
 Yeah, yourself, but there was other people behind you, you know,
 and not to, not to tarnish the name.
 Work was expected, you know, I had this lawn cutting business at 12,
 we had about four or five lawns in the neighborhood.
 I was allergic to grass, dust, and ragweed,
 but I was still cutting lawn with a mask on because my father said
 that I needed to make money and he didn't really care if I was allergic or not.
 So yeah, I came home crying from every lawn, lawn job I ever did.
 So I mean, just having that foundation, though,
 it's funny because I look at my kids now they're obviously growing up
 in a different environment than I grew up in.
 But I still want to instill in them like the work ethic and the morals
 and the manners that I grew up with,
 even though the environment might be a little bit challenging for a parent,
 you know, I mean, it's, I want the McDonald's growing up and working middle class,
 but I was aware that, you know, I didn't want to make my dad have to pay for a big
 mac. So I got a cheeseburger.
 I was aware young age that I didn't want to like put the guy out.
 We shared a fry, you know, and even when I went out with other parents,
 this is another thing I see today that I'm bothered by.
 It's like when I went out and another parent took me to McDonald's,
 I got, I didn't, I didn't get the shake and the big mac and the large fry and the toy.
 I got, you know, just a cheeseburger and maybe I skipped the fries and I got a water,
 you know, just because I didn't want to like be rude and, and, and, and take,
 and hosing these people or today it's like these kids have no like wear with all of like,
 you know, they're getting whatever they get when they're with their parents
 because they're spoiled and it's translating over into my family.
 What's your take on Gen Z?
 Is Gen Z what 20s now?
 Yeah.
 Uh, I don't come into a lot of interaction with Gen Z.
 I, uh, I just think every generation, including my own.
 I mean, I'm not the guy my father was as far as he's a mule.
 It's guys working at 80 years old standing on his feet.
 Uh, his legs look like we call it an Italian shishiti.
 It's like a varicose veins.
 You know, it's just like, it's like he looked like he's been through it, you know,
 because he's been on his feet 60 years.
 Now, am I going to be working when I'm 80?
 A probably, but I, uh, this, this guy is,
 God, I don't know if I should tell this story.
 I can't, I can't tell it, I can't.
 That's too fresh.
 He might, he might get upset.
 But he's got to work.
 I think that's that I've never seen before.
 Never seen before.
 Don't tell that story, but tell a story that hints at that story.
 He had a medical issue, right?
 And I'm not going to tell you the story, because I'm probably going to tell it on stage.
 And I don't want to tell it here.
 And put it this way, he, he wanted to go to work
 through the medical issue, but there's, there's no reason this man should have been
 even thinking about work dealing what he was dealing with.
 Just even when he had a, he had a quadruple bypass surgery, right?
 And he had 99% blockage, right?
 And he, he said the hospital bed hugging the pillow they gave you.
 And the first words on his mom that went,
 when I kind of go back to work, I got there.
 You chest is open, you know,
 you're bleeding out of your chest, though.
 And he's worried about whether he's going to do
 this next blowout.
 So it's
 I don't know too many people that have that frame of
 tell tell me the story.
 He gives you $10,000, right?
 And he's like, pay me back.
 But I heard that he's very persistent on being paid back and counts every penny.
 Yes, I fell on hard times.
 I went into that with the credit card companies.
 Trying to make it in how I quit the four seasons at one point.
 That quit.
 I took a leave of absence because I thought you could make more money selling
 satellite dishes out of a kiasque in the ghetto.
 I,
 I worked at a mall, Baldwin Hills Mall here in Los Angeles.
 Oh, South L.A.
 Yeah, yeah, selling satellite dishes.
 And I was right across the street from the gas company,
 like right across from the gas company.
 So people would go in, pay their gas bill, come out and, you know, ask,
 what's going on here?
 And then I would try and sell these satellite dishes.
 And you looked at how you what did people think about you?
 It was the most entertaining job I've ever had in my life due to the fact that
 the people I came across were were such characters.
 I remember putting I had my kiasque
 and I put Billy Michael Jackson had just done
 some big special on TV.
 And I played it on a loop right to attract people to my kiasque.
 Because I blasted Billy Jean and people like, what's going on?
 I had people dancing to Billy Jean and people were moonwalking in front of my kiasque.
 And here I'm sitting there trying to go, well, you get 100 channels,
 49, 99 of London in the background.
 Some guys doing a kick, Michael Jackson kick.
 So it was just one of those jobs where it was, it was like kiasque.
 It never, it didn't work out.
 There's a story on September 11th.
 I went to work September 11th.
 Okay.
 I'm watching the buildings get hit.
 And here I am getting ready for work.
 You know, the whole world thinks this is the end.
 And I'm in my car going to Baldwin Hills Mall to open up my kiasque.
 So I look around.
 It's me and the jeweler and nobody else in the mall.
 And September 11th, waiting for people to come by a saddle like this
 when the when the the Pentagon just got it.
 If I would have met this kid, cutest can be at that age.
 What would I have experienced describe him?
 This is a happy shy kid you're looking at.
 Total mama's boy loved his mother still do.
 She's still here.
 She's not really the character that my father is.
 But she's funny in our own right.
 But for whatever the reason, I never touch my mom on stage.
 You don't get a lot of time.
 No, and she's pissed.
 She's like, why am I, why am I not in there?
 By the way, can we comment on the
 the visuals here?
 Yeah, no, sir, it's a 12 out of 10.
 It's a 12 out of 10 on the cutest.
 Yeah, this, no, no, no.
 I'm talking about these little things you keep bringing out.
 I keep going over to go, what else is this game at?
 Oh, we got more, we got more, we got more.
 Yeah, we do our research here, Sebastian.
 Oh, God.
 Would the people who knew that little boy be surprised to see where you are today?
 Or would they say, yeah, no, expected it.
 He'd go to Hollywood, become a big name.
 No, this is they would they would have never they would have never known.
 This was in the cards.
 Based on this kid, they would have never known this.
 Shy, just very reserved, very no, no spotlight, no, no, no, you know, older, I got,
 I started to become a lot more into humor.
 I was funny or as I got older, but at this age, they're looking at me going, there's no way.
 It's funny. I look at this photo and I see my son who's six.
 I don't know how old I am here, but I see my son who's six.
 Similar to me in the sense that he's like, it's like a souffle.
 It takes a while to, you know, get an order to souffle 30 minutes ahead of time.
 You know, that's that's my son.
 It's like a long runway in order for him to kind of warm up.
 One up to being a father.
 Is it something you dreamed of looked forward to?
 I never even wanted kids for the longest time.
 I just didn't think it was in the cards for me.
 I was so heavily concentrated on the career, doing stand-up, going on the road.
 I didn't want anything to repeat my progress.
 I felt like having a family would, because I know how I am.
 If I had a family, it would be all about the family.
 And I would kind of like maybe put the career on hold.
 I had to put the gas pedal down 180 miles an hour to make it.
 And if I felt like I had a family, I would have to light up on the gas
 and it might have not happened for me.
 So when it did happen for me, I was kind of on my way.
 And it was the right time.
 Not that I told myself I want to get married,
 but I think I just allowed myself to be a little bit more open to it.
 Would your wife say the family comes first or second?
 I think the family, she would say definitely comes first.
 I ask you that question because my partner once said to me, I come second and I'm okay with it.
 And I was not okay with it.
 Okay, here we go.
 I'm uncomfortable hearing that.
 Is it, I love stand up, but if I had to choose between my family
 and stand up, I would definitely choose my family.
 And I think I've done a really good job of family first.
 Do you feel somewhat responsible for looking after your family?
 Yeah, I do.
 Again, we had a big discussion this morning.
 A lot happened in the discussion with my father talking about
 was cheap hereditary, like being cheap.
 Okay, are you born that way?
 Or is it a learned behavior?
 And we are talking about being generous.
 Is that a learned behavior?
 Do you see your father being generous and then all of a sudden you're generous
 to your father, mother cheap and now you're cheap?
 Give me everybody's takes.
 I'm cheap, I'll spend $1,000 on shoes but be 20 minutes late to a dinner
 because I won't pay the $20 for the valet parking.
 Is that cheap or is that responsible?
 I don't know.
 Well, listen, are you a good tipper?
 Do you tip?
 I'm a good tipper.
 Yeah, I'm a good tipper.
 My partner is a better tipper because his business relies on tips.
 And I've learned from him that I could be a better tipper
 and that's all I became a better tipper.
 Okay, so in your case, it's learned.
 When your dad say them, what do you think?
 Listen.
 Because my partner is a colorist by the way.
 He's also in the hair business.
 Oh, okay.
 Yeah, so he's relying on tips as I was as a waiter.
 If you are in the hospitality business, I definitely think you have a
 you're going to tip because you know how it is.
 You're going to tip good.
 And you being around it, it's rubbed off on you.
 Correct.
 But we were talking about,
 and the reason I'm saying cheap and generous and whatnot,
 for my sister,
 she has three daughters and she was working.
 And I wanted to give her an opportunity to work with me
 so she could spend more time with her family
 because working for me is not like working for a corporation.
 It's over time.
 You have to be there.
 You know, she could call me and go,
 hey, I got to take the kids to the doctor.
 You know, take the day off, whatever.
 She works for me, but the reason she does work for me,
 I'm not taking anything away from her talent.
 She's unbelievably talented.
 But if I was in a position to have her
 spend more time with her family,
 I would feel a real good doing that.
 And I bought my parents a car last year,
 both of them a car.
 Just because, again, you know,
 I look at this photo and it goes like,
 so it was a family,
 it was a family effort.
 It wasn't just me.
 So,
 I feel an obligation to take care of them.
 They're not together anymore.
 And I'm reflecting on this.
 I once heard that you, no matter how old you get
 always look at your parents through the lens of a child.
 And I wonder if it still hurts to see them not together.
 Oh yeah, absolutely.
 It does.
 I don't know.
 I'm sitting here thinking about like,
 it's funny.
 I told you I cried.
 This morning looking at the Hulk.
 And now I'm crying now looking at this photo.
 And again, nostalgic.
 I'm looking at it going.
 This is when we were a unit.
 So yeah, it, uh, it's still there.
 You'll eat dinner every night together.
 Oh, absolutely.
 I mean, that's where I developed my comedy chops.
 It was, um,
 at the dinner table, you know.
 I know a lot of women come on this show.
 And they crawl when they cry.
 They tend to have a, although that is an Oscar-winning tear.
 That's right.
 Kleenex.
 Uh, do we buy if I get like a Kleenex?
 It's just that or, or, yeah, sure.
 They told me you were high maintenance.
 So I'll get, I'll get you a clue.
 Oh, I want to continue the interview,
 but I want to be able to see it.
 Please.
 Oh my god.
 Oh, it's something in the air, bro.
 I don't know what it is, but you hit me with that.
 I got makeup on, too.
 Oh, jeez.
 Damn, Barbara Walters had it tough for them.
 Oh my god.
 What do you think?
 I mean, when you, when you have somebody
 that you are talking with, right?
 And they start to get emotional and cry.
 What is going through you?
 What's like, what is in your head?
 I just, I, because I was actually thinking that while I'm crying,
 because you let it sit, you let it breathe.
 And I'm like, oh, he's, he's not talking.
 He's letting me like find it.
 And because you're not talking, because you kind of like uncomfortable,
 because I would have, I would have got uncomfortable if you started crying.
 And I was talking to you.
 What just happened for me was my Super Bowl.
 Was your Super Bowl?
 It's my Super Bowl.
 As an interviewer, when someone comes in and does that,
 that's a moment that you didn't expect, that I didn't expect,
 that was triggered by something meaningful.
 But to answer your question,
 it took me 25 years to learn how to shut up and sit in silence.
 Because what I could feel myself like wanting to jump in with the follow,
 and I was like, shut up and sit here.
 That's funny.
 Because nothing makes people more uncomfortable than silence.
 Nothing.
 And so I was like, just let it breathe.
 Right, bro.
 You have like a, they do that in sales.
 They say, yeah, do you want to get it or not?
 And then they just shut up.
 And then the person just has to hollow in the silence.
 And you're totally right on that.
 It does make, it's good, man.
 It was the kudos to you, man.
 25 years you could tell, make a people cry over.
 What makes you laugh in real life?
 Geez.
 I tend to laugh at things probably you're not supposed to be laughing at.
 I laugh at funerals.
 I laugh at drama.
 I don't typically laugh when it's supposed to be funny, you know what I'm saying?
 Like, oh, you're going to get to see a comedy.
 You're supposed to laugh at what have you.
 But the man that makes me laugh the most is my friend George Beckholm in Chicago.
 He is by far the funniest guy I know.
 And it's talking to him and it's like having my own little private comedy show every day.
 It's beautiful.
 I heard that you use AI.
 Yeah.
 And you send some pretty interesting AI emails.
 Yeah, I always say my favorite prompt is send this.
 Please rewrite this in a business casual tone with a subject that I don't know.
 I feel like AI for me in communicating kind of information.
 Yes.
 Not necessarily, I'm not going to use it to write my wife a letter or something in a card
 because she's going to know it's not genuine.
 But like if I'm communicating with people, just information, I find that it's very useful tool.
 What is your opinion on AI?
 Like, do you use AI to help you come up with jokes?
 I mean, it concepts?
 I did it two weeks ago at a corporate gig.
 Corporate gig was a mortgage company run by a father and his two sons worked at the company.
 So I went to AI and I asked it to give me some premises of
 funny premises of a family run business.
 And how the sons look at the dead, how the dead looks at the sons,
 how the sons look at each other.
 Give me some ideas.
 I came back.
 I'm like, wow, there's three out of 10 that I liked that I took and used in my own voice.
 So just a morsel of an idea gave me the ability to take that idea and then do it in my own voice.
 But it was like a brainstorming session for me.
 If I had like 10 writers in the room and go,
 guy, give me stuff and people pitching ideas.
 I said, thank you.
 And I went and then I, but yeah, I think it's an amazing tool and I definitely use it.
 Not, not all the time because a lot of, like I said, a lot of my material is from life experiences.
 And you can't really, yeah, it's not going to generate a life experience.
 I find it, I will be talking about me crying on this show,
 on my own show on Sirius XM and making it a funny, funny moment.
 Is there a concern that some people will just have AI right there, jokes,
 and they'll just get on stage and deliver them?
 So if they are, and people are laughing at them,
 isn't that the goal?
 Now you run into this whole thing about, are these jokes regenerated from other
 comedians, material, and jokes?
 I don't know that.
 I don't know how it is when it comes to plagiarism and what have you.
 But if they could use it as a tool for ideas, yeah, I don't know about, like,
 rewriting the whole act.
 I don't know where that comes in.
 Here we go.
 This is Sebastian using AI to send an email to the guard at the guard gate.
 Dear so-and-so, just wanted to take a moment to express my solidarity with you
 and to give you the utmost respect for guarding our lives.
 That was early AI when I didn't really know how to massage the engine to make it sound a little
 because a lot of it, when I first started using it, people were like, who's writing your email?
 That's what the source said.
 He didn't know to edit AI.
 And so he said these things and people were like, did you read what?
 Yeah, so I didn't like look over it and go, oh, this doesn't sound like, there's words in
 that I would never use.
 And people were like, what's going on since then, solidarity, since that email.
 I've learned to massage your word.
 Definitely solid.
 A lot like me.
 Okay, I want to go back to Mitzi at the comedy store.
 William Morris mixed up.
 So you come to the club, she's there.
 Mitzi mistakes you for an agent.
 Yeah, so I just got past and now I'm at the club.
 Back then I was wearing a suit.
 I always dressed up in a suit to perform.
 This is coming off the tail of the 80s where every comedian had that little skinny tie.
 In a suit, it was kind of like the thing.
 I wasn't doing necessarily to be like other comedians in the 80s.
 I just felt like if I could wear and I could look
 cool doing stand up that I would stand out amongst the rest just because
 comedians generally speaking, yeah, that's it's like kind of like a slabs.
 You know what I'm saying?
 A lot of them.
 Is that how you describe the snake skin shirt used to wear?
 That that was a mistake.
 A mistake.
 I used to wear.
 You're referring to a snake again trying to find myself on stage.
 I'm Melrose Avardou back in 1998.
 It was littered with these stores that had these like, you know, club shirts.
 And I went and I bought like a, it was a brown and light beige snake print
 see-through.
 You know, I nipples the whole fucking thing.
 The guy's in there even laughing.
 He's talking about our control room.
 So I had this on and I was trying out all these different like prints on stage.
 Some were see-through, some were like very like big collar and what have you.
 But yeah, that was that was definitely a lapse in judgment.
 Are you a handsome guy?
 Am I handsome?
 Yeah, I like to consider myself a handsome-looking guy, yeah.
 Guys, is that a normal question?
 We don't ask that everybody.
 The grind.
 You talked a lot about how your dad had this work ethic and but I want to,
 I want to kind of understand the grind that you sort of set for yourself, right?
 So back then, around LA, you only get like 15 minutes on stage.
 So in order to get more time, you got to leave Los Angeles and go to
 La Jolla or Mantika places where they're doing comedy.
 It's comedy night at the bowling alley.
 Yep.
 So I go to Mantika with two other comedians and-
 Which by the way is about an hour outside of Sacramento.
 Yeah, drove up there, got a motel six room and we went to the venue.
 Now the venue was a bar with a boxing ring in the bar.
 A boxing ring.
 Yeah, so they had like bar, bar boxing.
 It was odd.
 It was like a strange setup and then in the background, there was a bowling alley.
 This is the problem with the stand-up comedy.
 People think they could just put it up anywhere.
 You know, they could just like, oh, you could just do your show here.
 You know, I remember doing a show in Santa Barbara, Italian restaurant and I walked in,
 I go, where's the stage?
 Oh, no, it's a crate in the corner.
 Just get up there and, you know, just start.
 You know, people are eating chicken parm and then, you know, they're like,
 what is this a comedy going on?
 So the same thing with this, I go, where's the stage?
 They're like, it's the boxing ring.
 And then you walk in the boxing ring and there's like blood on it.
 The canvas from the night before.
 And you start doing comedy.
 Unbeknownst to anybody in the room.
 You know, they're watching the game and I'm doing stand-up and
 behind me, somebody's picking up a spare.
 I mean, it's like, this is, this is what you've got to do,
 but they gave you 35 minutes, 40 minutes.
 So that's why you would do those things.
 For a hundred bucks, back then, a hundred bucks, I'm like,
 geez, where am I going to make a hundred dollars?
 I'm going to make it maybe wait in tables,
 but I'm going to be doing what I love to do in Manthique or California for a hundred.
 Tell me the time you bombed the biggest, but learned the most.
 It was the first time I did stand up at Northern Illinois University.
 I, they had a contest open up for the national headliner that's coming to the school.
 So I did a three-minute set in front of students in a room similar to this.
 And I won.
 So I got to do the opening for the national headliner.
 I never done stand-up comedy.
 They gave me ten minutes.
 And I was up there and it was a primarily black audience who was,
 they were screaming Sandman during my set.
 Just, and I didn't know what it was.
 I didn't know what was going on.
 I was like,
 Sandman, it was like, that's all I heard.
 Sandman, I'm like, what the hell?
 Sandman did awful.
 Terrible.
 It was one of the worst nights of my life.
 I got off and I found out that Sandman is what they yell at the showtime at the Apollo
 when the X-socks, they have a guy come out like with a hook.
 That's what they were yelling for me.
 Now, worst night ever bombing was the lesson.
 The lesson was I made for this.
 There was a morsel of like hope in that act where I'm like,
 it's where I belong.
 This is what I need to be doing.
 Even though it was the worst that I've ever had,
 I, you know, that could kill you.
 That could kill your confidence.
 But, and I had my parents come up,
 my parents are spending all this money to send me to school,
 room and board, this, that, and the other thing.
 And here I am dying on stage doing stand-up comedy.
 There must be thinking, what is going on?
 But there was something that was telling me after I got off stage,
 although horrified that I can't wait to do this again.
 And if I never would have thought that,
 I would have been working in the Northwest suburbs of Illinois selling
 Motorola phones.
 I mean, it was a huge turning point.
 But help us understand, because there will,
 there will be a lot of people who listen to this,
 who will have their own Sandman moment story to tell.
 But what triggered that thought?
 Because I didn't expect you to say,
 yeah, but I came away with it saying,
 that's it, that's meant for me.
 So how can we apply that to our own life lessons?
 Well, I knew that I was good enough to be there
 out of all the people that they saw.
 So I won the contest.
 I just didn't win that night.
 I just, I had a lot of confidence going in,
 and yes, it was shattered.
 But I think the residual confidence I had from winning the contest
 still permeated through the, the set that I, that I had.
 And I guess, too, I knew in second grade
 that I was going to be a stand-up comedian,
 because that's what I told my second grade teacher
 during career day when they went around the room
 and asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?
 And I said, stand-up comedian.
 And I got looked at like, what?
 I said, stand-up comedian,
 because I used to watch Johnny Carson with my father
 at a young age and really fell in love
 with the comedians that came up on the Carson show.
 And I, it's just like, you can't explain it.
 Like, for whatever reason, it spoke to me.
 Stand-up comedian spoke to me in a way where,
 as a young kid, I had it in the back of my head,
 and even though I failed doing it the first time,
 I just always knew that this is, this is something I want to do.
 Are you more comfortable?
 I'll tell you why I'm asking this question.
 Are you more comfortable in front of those 91,000 people?
 Are more comfortable in front of a room of 91 people?
 It doesn't matter.
 I think the 91,000, let me clarify that.
 The 91,000 is 91,000 tickets, which is over five shows
 at Madison Square Garden.
 It wasn't one show.
 Okay.
 But that being said, 20,020, it doesn't...
 Okay, but let me tell you why I ask it.
 I am far more nervous in front of a group of 100 people
 than I am in front of a camera broadcasting to 100 million people,
 because I can see all the eyes.
 Yeah.
 I can see who's into it and who's not.
 Yeah.
 I'm more uncomfortable talking
 in a group of four people at a party.
 Oh, okay.
 If a month's stage, it doesn't really matter
 how many people are in the audience.
 In front of the four, do you feel like the obligation
 to have to entertain?
 No, I feel a sense of...
 I feel bored sometimes.
 Do people bore you?
 It's not that people bore me.
 It's...
 I have such an exciting career
 and profession that the level of excitement
 that I'm experiencing on stage
 and feeling, making people laugh
 is so high
 when I am paired down into a group of four people
 and talking about kind of mundane things.
 And this is probably for everybody.
 No one likes to like talk about like boring things.
 I mean, if there's something that...
 No, but that's interesting.
 So does that make you a little bit more reclusive
 and want to stay home more than...
 Yeah.
 Yeah, I don't generally like to go out.
 Not that I don't like people.
 I enjoy the company of people,
 feel friends and family,
 but random nights out
 with a party and, you know,
 just kind of like sitting there and like,
 I just, I don't know,
 idle chitchat doesn't really...
 Excite me.
 I totally get that.
 Where do you go to recharge on stage or home alone?
 Recharge is...
 I like to get out of town.
 I love home.
 Don't get me wrong.
 Love home, but love to go with my family.
 Like a vacation.
 No, but I mean introvert, right?
 Like introvert,
 how do they say if you're an extrovert,
 you go to the 91,000 people on a stage
 to kind of recharge your batteries.
 If you're an introvert,
 you go home to be alone.
 I go home to...
 in the steam room.
 In the steam room.
 That's where I...
 For whatever the reason you can't be bothered
 when you're getting a steam,
 it's just as you do there alone,
 you collect your thoughts.
 There's that's kind of my safe space.
 Put the steam on, sweat it out.
 And then I do it every night
 before I kind of reenter the house.
 It's in a...
 it's off to the side of the house.
 So then I have to go outside to get to it.
 But when I go back in the side,
 I feel like...
 I don't know, I feel...
 I feel recharge.
 I could insert myself back into the family.
 Do you find it you sleep better after that?
 I'm trying to figure out sleep.
 It's been a huge struggle,
 my adult life,
 to get proper rest.
 And, you know,
 you hear hot cold,
 with no screens.
 Right.
 You know...
 Is it hard for you to get eight hours?
 Yeah, I mean, I sleep with a sleep ring.
 You know, this or even...
 You know, it's a regular thing, yeah.
 And I'm in bed for more than eight hours.
 It's just I'm not getting eight hours of sleep.
 I went to the doctor.
 They said I had a mild case of sleep apnea,
 where I had to wear sleep tape,
 or I have to wear sleep tape.
 I'm not gonna try that.
 It doesn't work for me.
 But getting good quality rest,
 especially when you're a touring comedian,
 is very difficult to do just because of the travel.
 Same when I was working as a news reporter
 going all over the country.
 It was so hard to sleep.
 I feel like there's a good, funny bit about that damn or a ring,
 because that or a ring
 causes me more stress than it detects.
 Because I don't want to download the freaking data.
 It's like my wife.
 My wife says the exact same thing.
 And...
 Like, dude.
 So you're telling me you wake up,
 and if you look at your or a ring,
 and it said you had a 67 for your sleep score,
 you're going to behave now as you did not get enough sleep.
 It's going to start my day off on the wrong foot.
 Do you feel when you do get proper rest,
 that it's, you definitely feel the difference from...
 Yeah, but I sometimes I wake up and I'm like,
 man, that was a good night.
 And the shit's still 67.
 Other times I wake up and I'm like,
 yo, it's fine.
 And it's 88.
 I'm like, make that make sense.
 What's your highest sleep score?
 I don't think, if you got into the 90s?
 I think 89 might be my best.
 Oh, all right.
 That's good.
 You can brag with yours.
 92.
 I hit it last week.
 You know what I feel?
 I feel you have to do a lot during the day
 to get yourself tired enough to have a great sleep.
 I agree, I agree.
 All right, we asked some of our fans of the show
 to submit some questions that they would want to ask you.
 And I feel like we got some really good ones.
 So, okay, here we go.
 So, how much of your material is real life
 and how much is imagination?
 I'd say 90% is real life.
 10% is stuff that I've added to make it funnier.
 After a successful career in both comedy and acting,
 which one do you prefer and why?
 Stand up comedy.
 You can't beat it to live audience
 and the immediate response that you get
 night in and night out,
 opposed to going to a film set
 and waiting 14 hours to...
 It's boring.
 It's boring.
 Most surreal moment you've had at an open mic night.
 I went to an open mic night at a place
 called Highland Grounds.
 It used to be a place on
 Highland that served coffee.
 It was one of my first open mic nights
 and it was in everything open mic night.
 So, it was stand-up, poetry,
 guitar, ukulele.
 You could...
 It was...
 It was all of it.
 So, I was on stage doing jokes and, you know,
 I got sent a back to this guitar.
 So, it's like...
 I was like, I couldn't believe like,
 this is what I got to do to do comedy,
 but yeah, it's probably...
 probably that moment.
 A lot of people have had you want to talk
 about the SNL skit.
 Does that bore you?
 It's flattering.
 I mean, it's very flattering.
 It's very flattering.
 It doesn't really bore me.
 It's something that I never thought was...
 I never thought that would be a thing.
 He called me in...
 Marcelo.
 Marcelo called me and said they were going to do it.
 And my first question was,
 are they even going to know who the hell you're doing?
 You know, I thought people were going to think
 this was a character he came up with.
 Because, you know, doing what I do,
 I don't know exactly where I fall and like,
 do people know what I do?
 And, you know, I was talking about this.
 I met like the band Green Day recently.
 And I go into this...
 And my thought process is they don't know who I am.
 They don't know who I am.
 They don't know my comedy.
 That's why when I meet anybody,
 I always have this in the back of my head.
 Interesting.
 They don't know what I do.
 I have to introduce myself, you know.
 But the guy did, which if I just find surprising,
 I just don't know where I fall in the like,
 popularity meter in the entertainment world.
 Who would you like to see impersonate you next?
 I mean, Marcelo does a great job.
 Yes.
 You know who's a good impersonator is Leonardo DiCaprio.
 That's the only one I could think of at the top of my head.
 Missy, did you ever tell her how much she meant to you?
 No.
 Did you ever go back and thank her?
 I've thanked her on, I think every special in my credits that I've ever done.
 Oh, have you really?
 Yeah.
 Oh, that's classy.
 I have never...
 I want your audience to realize that my relationship with Missy Shore wasn't a,
 like, it's hard to...
 wasn't a verbal communication.
 Yeah.
 I never spoke with her on the phone, but maybe once, I think, really quick.
 But it was never a, she never really got to know me and never really got to know her.
 This relationship for me was from afar.
 And I think her love for me was given through the amount of sets that she gave me,
 and my love for her was never letting her down or doing my best I could possibly do
 with the opportunity that she gave me.
 So it was odd.
 When this opportunity first came and presented itself,
 I first thought about my family.
 Those who believed in me, my wife believed in me.
 Not your family.
 And I'm like, wait a minute, like, who?
 It made me think.
 And then I went back and I'm like, that, that, that's it.
 Even though I thought it in the past, but this is where I really honed in on it.
 And then I thought, you know, you have other guests on here.
 So I was my teacher to this day.
 You know, they came into the Oscars or whatever.
 And we're communicating.
 We talk and then I didn't speak to this lady.
 She gave me the biggest opportunity that I think I could have asked for.
 But here's the beauty about your story.
 It's so incredibly relatable.
 But it also is a bit of a cautionary tale in that
 don't overlook who you have limited encounters with
 that you can have a big impact on.
 Yeah.
 No, that is definitely true.
 And it took this show to actually go back and reflect on my relationship with her
 because, you know, as I was talking to your producer,
 and like, you know, what did she say when
 that nothing is the only thing I remember her saying to me clearly was come back for 10.
 And that's it.
 But when the king or in that case, the queen says that, it means everything.
 Are you where you are today without Mitzi?
 No, I don't think.
 I don't think God, the importance of the comedy store for me,
 you can't even, it was my place where I could go
 and just work on my stuff and not worry about like,
 because back then it was bringer shows, Miyagi.
 There was a place called Miyagi's on Sunset.
 There's a Dublin's across the street.
 Those were the two kind of like hot shows.
 And then everything else was these like,
 can you bring 10 people to the show tonight?
 And then we'll give you five minutes.
 I don't know anybody in LA.
 You know, I can't bring 10 people anywhere.
 So to have a comedy club that you don't have to bring anybody
 and work out your craft is, no, no way I would have been around that today.
 Lastly, if you were to be able to pick up the phone and call her,
 she died in 2018, what would you say?
 I would tell her I, you know, as we're talking here,
 I wish I would have maybe reached out to her more when she was alive.
 But it is what it was.
 And I would just say, thank you for giving me the opportunity.
 You don't know how much it has meant to me over my entire 28 year career.
 The beauty is almost a decade later.
 You're thanking her publicly.
 That is the beauty of it.
 So thank you, Metzy.
 You are a doll.
 Who would you like to see on this show that you think
 would want to sit in that chair and have a conversation about the person?
 So you asked me this in the beginning and...
 I wanted to give you plenty of time to prep.
 I had the name right when you asked me.
 And you forgot.
 No.
 I think you would have a ball and who is a really great storyteller.
 And I don't know if you've interviewed him in the past, but Lionel Richey.
 Well, you think Lionel would be good.
 It would be a good guy for you to sit and talk to.
 Well, it has to go out a lot.
 I interviewed him for his book and I have been out to dinner with him
 and he is a great storyteller.
 That man, I think he's in his 70s, looks...
 tremendous.
 Infrick incredible.
 Yeah.
 He looks amazing.
 I mean...
 Totally.
 You know what I heard?
 You know why he looks so good?
 Why is that?
 95 on his aura ring.
 Thanks for loving the day.
 By the way, do you always show up like showing these guns off?
 I tell you that.
 You flexed like a half dozen times during the show.
 It's not even the flex.
 I tell you what, it's an illusion.
 It's an illusion.
 An illusion.
 I have two ruptured biceps, one here and one here.
 So if I go, do you see the hole?
 Oh, yeah, interesting.
 So there's an indentation in my arm here and it's here.
 Are you going to tell me that ruptured because you worked out too hard in the muscle?
 No, I don't know how this happened.
 I woke up and I had a hole in my arm.
 I don't know what...
 I don't know how.
 Nothing hurt, nothing.
 So it's actually an illusion.
 If I took my shirt off, you would go,
 not so big bicep.
 But you take the sleeve and you just cover the hole and the effect is amazing.
 May we all have the illusion problem?
 May we all have that one day?
 Sebastian Manescalco, the show on Sirius XM Radio is called?
 The Sebastian Manescalco show on Channel 99,
 Sebastian Manescalco Comedy Radio.
 Wow.
 Such an original name.
 Yeah, just amazing.
 What a pleasure.
 Thank you for having me.
 Appreciate it.
 Wow.
 Sometimes I'm unexpected.
 I'm Sebastian Manescalco and the person who believed in me was Mitzi Shore.
 I thought you might want to know, but this podcast is at the heart of a company I found
 and called Do Good Crew.
 I've spent 25 years telling stories.
 It used to be the bad news and now I want to focus on the good news.
 The everyday heroes who are doing extraordinary things.
 You can join us.
 We do live events, but we also have the newsletter.
 It's free.
 You can sign up for it by going to www.TheDoGoodCrew.com.
 Our podcast was created by me, David Begnell.
 Our executive producer is Olivier Delphos.
 Our booker is Sully Block.
 Foster Parks is our director of photography.
 Audio-technical production is Joseph Gabay and will Whitley from Static Creative.
 Our associate producer is Jonah Johnson.
 Our director of social media is Mariah Mall.
 The theme music for our show was created by our friends at Slippstream.
 Post-production and edit was done by Longwave Digital.
 This podcast was brought to you by Canva.
 If this episode moved you in any way,
 consider subscribing to our YouTube channel
 or following and rating our show on whatever platform you're listening on.
 This really is the best way to help our show grow and touch more people.
 And we thank you for it.
 And one more thing before you go.
 If you want to join our crew, go to TheDoGoodCrew.com.
 You'll love what we're doing.