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Intro Welcome to the Dangerous Ones. Our guest today is an Emmy award-winning comedy mastermind who has written episodes of The Simpsons, The Tracy Alman Show, Frasier, Malcolm in the Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond, and School of Rock among others. Done it all. He's also refined scripts for movies like The Nutty Professor, Austin Powers, Shrek, and many more. He's a passionate advocate for creators rights, marching alongside fellow WGA and SAG after members in 2023. Now, aside from dipping his toe back into stand-up comedy, he's hosting what we're calling one of the best podcasts of 2025, Don't Be Alone with Jay Kogan, mixing laugh out loud moments with real heart as he sits down with comics, musicians, actors, and family. Please welcome a Meet Jay Kogan true comedy legend and activist, Jay Kogan. Welcome. Wow, I sound so much better. Uh, based on what you're saying. Well, we told when we had Billy Ray on the show, we told him we do these big intros so uh it entices them to come back. Yeah. All right. That's what we say. You don't you you just have to say there's a time to speak for Billy Ray to come back. He'll come back at that. And you guys are like childhood friends. No. Yeah. They've known each other since seventh grade. Oh my god. I I wanted to ask you, have you seen him since the election? And did you ever get to the Dodger game? I have seen him since the election and we never got to the Dodger game. But I uh uh but but we've had a lot of Dodger talk, but we've not gone to a Dodger game together. I've seen him since the election. And you know, listen, he worked very hard on the election and uh and we lost. That's a kick in the stomach. It takes a little time to recover. So, we're recovering. Oh, man. I'm I'm still I'm still feeling it at this point. I'm not okay. And how Man, uh that was brutal. Yeah, we worked with Billy Ray uh in 2020 on quite a few uh videos and and uh and a few things since then. He came on the show. He was fantastic and just really just a bomb of uh critical Democratic messaging and just great great stuff. I just think stuff we all needed to hear, you know. And total total side note, in preparation for this interview, I must have said Jake Hogan like a [ __ ] million times. Oh my god. Because I told about the podcast with Michael Jam and I never should have said anything cuz now I got to deal with this all day. Here's the thing. When I was in elementary school, everybody called me Jay like they do. They they don't call you by your first lesson. So Jay and then sometimes they call me Jay Kogan. And then in junior high, most people called me Jay Kogan. As we started to get older and people started to get rushed in their lives, they started to cause it Jake Hogan and then it become Jake Oan and or Jake Hogan. And ever since then, people have been mushing them together. And the truth is I don't care. It's fine. Call me anything you like. It doesn't Jake Hogan. Jake I have baseball trophies that are misspelled. Oh no. I have It doesn't None of it matters. That can't Kogan K O G N isn't even a real name. It's uh it's Cohen. It's what Russians a Russian spelling of Cohen. Is that right? You know, I mean, my great great-grandfather was sort of like, you know, the the the the bootleger or something. So, it doesn't matter. They're like, "This is your name now." So, yeah. So, Jay, you wrote multiple episodes uh of The Simpsons uh back in the 90s, I believe. And um it was, you know, the [ __ ] golden age, too. And uh you wrote uh one of the episodes you wrote, Lisa the Greek correctly predicted the Washington Redskins would defeat the Buffalo Bills in uh Super Bowl 26. I didn't believe you and I lost my life savings. No, we we it didn't correctly predict it. We went back and fixed it. Did the internet burn me again? The plan was internet's all full of [ __ ] and some prediction. So this is just another one. We we had you know had made a prediction of some kind. I think we were wrong. And then in postp production, we fixed it. We we we recorded the show in such a way that was easy to redo the score. It's a verbal thing. It's not Get the [ __ ] out of town. You're kidding me. So did Well, that's all right. The internet has burned me before. I once told a senator to his face that he had a baseball uh field named after him right here. He was right here in this studio. I couldn't believe it. I told This is why you don't ask JPT certain things. Oh my god. Oh, JPT is going to lie to you. That's the thing. Uh AI, AI, although Simpsons, you can do it on Google, too. AI specifically is going to tell you incorrect information all the time. Uh that seems like correct information, but you cannot ask uh any AI Grock or Chad GPT about facts with confidence to your face. Yeah. With confidence, it lies to you. I'll give you an example. Yeah. I uh I had to replace my mother-in-law's dishwasher. So, I asked for the specific dimensions of a dishwasher. I had the the the model number, the make, and the serial number. And then it printed out this beautiful grid of depth, width, and and all this stuff. And none of it was true. They just go, they just took what seemed like dishwasher information, amalgamated it, and gave it to me in a beautiful graph. Oh my god. That's what AI does. AI is not interested in telling the truth. AI is interested in presenting you with an approximation of something that looks good that seems like uh an average person would like it. Yeah. See, that's how I got caught using cliffnotes back in the day. It's like the teacher was like, "You didn't read this. You read the notes." Well, Cliffnotes is right. They just Cliffnotes was exactly right. They just left out key pieces of information so that these teachers could catch you lying. Yes. Very key pieces. I would also say I think partly I I The Simpsons Prediction Theory actually pulled part of that information from uh Wiki as well. So that tells you they're both they're both screwed. But so okay. Well then let me ask you this. So if that is not uh true then is that whole Simpsons phenomenon of them predicting the future is that all [ __ ] Well of course it's [ __ ] I mean we don't predict the future. I mean what if we were soothsayers? Would we be comedy writers? No. Going to catch him the lottery. But I mean here's the thing. We did predict some stuff. We did predict I mean we made a joke about Donald Trump being president. we made a joke about certain things and the explanation of that is if you say a billion jokes one or two of them might be right like oh there's a one in a billion chance there's a one in and we have a very high joke per minute uh rate on the Simpsons and so if you keep joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke joke for you know I don't know 35 years some things are going to turn out the dumbest things you thought of were actually going to happen that is so crazy, too, because especially back in the '90s, you know, you would think that they it's so hard to like, you know, physically make an episode of The Simpsons that there's no way they could have went back that fast. And Wow. Okay. We didn't We didn't We didn't I'm saying the football one was an exception. Lisa the Greek was an exception. We had a lot of football betterers on uh on the show, including the executive producer Sam Simon and George Meyer, who cared very much about who was going to win the Super Bowl. And so we they made it so that we're gonna make the Simpsons seem like we picked the right winner. Even though we add we've created the whole we didn't know who was going to be in the Super Bowl. We created a whole episode before we figure out who's going to be in the Super Bowl. And at the end we sort of put names the right names in uh and the the right score at the end. There's not like a secret episode where like Hulk Hogan, Theo Huxable, and Azie all die in the same week, right? Because No, that would be very that would be very unusual. And as a matter of fact, there's a thing on the internet I saw of of uh Trump coming down the escalator. It's like it's like they we didn't animate that. Uh we didn't animate that before Trump was president and before that happened. That that that was after if it happened at all. I don't think it happened at all because I think it was is it was created on by fans. But um if it happened at all, it would happen after that because we were doing a parody of that thing. So like the timeline is all [ __ ] up because they're uh Can you swear on the show? Yeah. Yeah. The timeline is all messed up because they want the Simpsons to have predicted things that they didn't predict. So they'll take something that happened after and say this h was on the show before. So none of it's none of it's true. Anything that was really amazing is not true. Anything that seems random probably true. I mean that's AAM's razor guys. Yeah. Well, the internet's going to lose its mind. So breaking news. You heard it here first on the danger. I mean, other other than the uh you know, the the the Illuminati giving us the information early, which also happens. I swear to God, I was going to ask you, are you in the Illuminati? Please tell me. I'm definitely in the Illuminat. Um and I know Tiff, I know you wanted to ask about the WGA SAG after stuff. I did. So, I know that you were on the front lines in 2023. Uh I sure and uh you were talking you said a really great thing about how unions have to stick together and support one another. It was back when UPS was striking and teachers and hotel brave of me. That was very brave of me. Yeah. I mean here's the thing. Of course when when you have to uh amalgamate when you're fighting big power, you have to amalgamate your power. And to amalgamate your power, we need movements of large groups of people to fight big powerful companies. the same. It's still true right now. There's no fighting MAGA or Trump without a movement. We can't just sit at home and complain or right you have to gather the no kings thing the where it was fantastic. Millions of millions of people fought. We can't do it every three months. We have to together and and create a an active viable movement that actually is real for two reasons. One is to make change. Two is the idea of walking with thousands of people like I did in Los Angeles realize makes you realize you're not alone. Yeah. There's not it's not like they they have all the power. We have a [ __ ] ton of power. We just don't realize it because we don't gather together enough uh either on the internet or in person or in in groups. We need to bond together in groups. This the union is exactly that thing. when when uh people were fighting, the delivery people were fighting and the hotel workers were fighting and the writers were fighting, we should gather and help each other. Why not? Yes. Thank you. Louder for the kids in the back. WGA Strike I'm a vested teamster and was for uh I was in the teeners for probably 10 plus years or whatever and just absolutely loved uh being in a union. Um but it was funny because you just said, "Oh, you know, I was very brave for going." I was very brave. But you know, the odd thing is I would say is that it's surprising how many people don't get off the couch and go do things like that. I know you're making a joke about being brave or whatever, but like I mean like when the when it all came down with the the women's rights thing with the uh Supreme Court, it's like women have rights when when let's stop that. But when they came when that happened, I you know, I've talked with many many people about this. Like I can't believe the entire [ __ ] country didn't come out of their houses. It's amazing what it takes nowadays to get people out of their houses. Uh when we went to No King's Day, like you said, it was very boy, it was cathartic seeing everybody else out there with us. Uh it was really really uh uh felt good. But back to the uh WGA SE after stuff, what was going on at the time and and why did you get involved? My unions were were striking for better pay and better treatment. Uh so uh and and we were worried about the future of television sort of collapsing in front of us and figuring out how the best can we protect protect the workers in this situation. I'm not sure that we stopped any collapse that's happening. I the show business is still collapsing around us but you know we tried and we're sort of trying to still fight off AI as a as an issue for writers and for actors. It's it's hard when I can go online right now and and go to certain um you know AI uh programs and create uh pretty realistic looking actors or animation and and use that without hiring anybody without hiring union people to draw it, union people to write it. you. So, it's it may be the cat's out of the bag, but we were trying our best to try and sort of reel it back in so that people could make a living doing this thing that we've always been able to make a living at. Yeah. Go ahead. How do you feel about uh SAG AFRA this year in 2025 with the slate? Do is it is it their year? Is it the union's year this year? I mean, there it's union's year every year. Like I mean, every union slate is a slate that's trying to fight for the actors, right? I mean, none nobody's running on, hey, I'm giving away your healthcare and your rights. Everybody everybody who's running wants to help the union. Uh uh I'm on Sean Aton's team. I'm like on some kind of delegate or trying to run as a delegate for Sean Aton, who I like very much. But uh you know what? I know so many actors and writers and cameramen and sound people who can't make a living anymore. Yeah. Um, so what do we what can we do about that? We can try we we can only do what we can do and try to protect the jobs we can protect and then figure out how our industry is re refiguring itself. It's trying to figure out how it's going to make money in the future. And right now we don't know. You know, I I uh having been a musician for a lot of years and and I can now I once I took um a teamster and a musician and like what did you ever keep a job? That's how he got me to go out with him. That's right. That's right. But I I Artificial Intelligence typed in the lyrics of a song I wrote years and years ago and I put it into AI and had it make a song and it did it made almost a better song than the one I had written. It was unbelievable. Have you ever seen anything where you went AI wrote that? There's no [ __ ] way. Like immediately as a writer, do you have you seen something on television or in movies? You're like, "Oh, AI wrote that." No. There's so much mediocre stuff written by humans that I can't differentiate the mediocre stuff that's written by AI. I tell you that my experiments with AI as a tool because we're trying to figure out, you know, is it a tool? Like musicians used to b against drum machines saying drum machines are the ruination of rock and roll and then suddenly they figured out how to use it or or loes an arm and then they're like this is the greatest technology on earth or logic or anything you know these are tools so can I use it as a tool right now I can't I can't put things in I've tried I put stories in to a computer uh into chatgpt or to any of the and it comes out with really shitty versions shittier. I have to keep it as well. I mean, there's no reason any time. Yes, in an instant, something terrible can be instantly, you know, printed and made, but it's not the thing that makes the sale, and it's not the thing that makes the good story, and it's not the thing. So, there they can't do it yet. Maybe they can at some point. I I'll give you an example of of what I'm talking about. I was writing a show about a South Asian family with a South Asian coowwriter and I and I typed into AI like what are 10 situations that only a South Asian family would face who immigrated to America and then it came back the number one suggestion was the husband forgets the wife's birthday or anniversary and it's like well that is the most comp hokey sitcom premise for anyone of any culture. That's a Gilligans Island episode. They're not taking into account anything that I'm saying about the specifics of South Asian cult like this family that's from India or what. They're not using any of that. And then you type in only for Indian culture and they still get back, you know, it's it's uh the the kid gets a bad report card and hides it from his parents like that. It's nothing interesting and and and gerine to a specific culture and that's the only value of it, you know. So yeah, I've had I've used it. Uh, I've I should say I've tested it with writing political videos and it is awful. It's terrible. It's so bad. It sees other videos that are mostly awful and says, "Let's do that." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can tell that it's just like skimming the top of what's the most popular on the internet which is already fallible and it's just feeding you this crap that it's really bad. Yeah. worse for actors because actors faces can be scanned and actor's face voices can be used and I can now right now I'm not going to but I can right now get uh an image of an actor uh let's say Fran Dresser who's the president of SAG right now and steal her v steal her face and voice and put it in something without her permission. I mean I guess maybe she'd sue me later but but uh but honestly it's like it's not fair. That's a real person with a real talent and you can't shouldn't be able to steal their their image and their voice uh without AI is a Tool their permission. Yeah, I I think the what you said is absolutely right. It it it's a tool and I've actually said this multiple times. It it it's a tool. I for this podcast, the only way we use AI is is to help us with some research things. It can help Oh, yeah. And some audio things. And this episode is proof it has already burned me. You know what I mean? I [ __ ] told the guy he had a baseball stadium after. You know what I mean? Even though I double checked that thing today, too, and was still wrong. There you go. The internet is full of misinformation, too. So, I I mean, that's a bigger problem that we're not going to answer today. Is how going forward how are we going to figure out what is true and what is not true? And and and by the way, you're not coming from a place of of not knowing. You actually, if I'm correct, let's see if we get burned. Uh, you teach writing at USC? No, I do teach writing at USC. Currently, for last several years, I've been teaching uh movie and TV uh screenwriting. And that's, you know, and and one of the things we have to figure out is, are we allowing our students to use AI to write their scripts? And there's a real uh dichotomy of opinions. Some people say, well, our students should learn how to use it because it's going to be a tool that people are going to use. and other people are saying so much more important that the writer figure out how they write and and make things better. So it's it's uh it's controversial. In my class, I encourage my students to write things themselves because that's how they're going to learn. But I have no way of checking and I'm not going to even bother try to check because I'm just going to uh you know that's that's not my job. My job is to sort of help them learn structure and form and uh tone and other things that are going to be helpful. We've noticed when just making digital content that the American attention span has literally been shrunk down to just like grunting and pointing at this point. Have you noticed in teaching storytelling that it's becoming like an abridged art form? Uh I wasn't paying attention. You want to say that again? It's an easy joke. Uh yeah, of course. I mean, listen, we're we're being inundated with images and sounds and that whole dopamine addiction thing is easy and and I am, believe me, I'm on TikTok. I'm on these things. I'm like, I I I get it. Um, but yeah, I mean, things if you watch a show from, it's kind of a joke. I don't know if you ever watch you younger people who probably never saw Colbo. Columbo is a TV perspective. So, they show reruns of old Columbbo shows, and it's very fascinating. There's a two-hour episode of Columbbo, and they show Columbbo pulling up to somebody's house, getting out of the car, walking up to the door, right? Knocking on the door, waiting for the door to be answered, adjusting is closed. The adjusting is closed, looking at ring the bell again. Ah, I'm It's me, Officer Columbo. And then the door opens. Like any TV show made today would not include any of that. It'd be so much people are pulling their hair out. Get the answer the door. Get inside. Cut inside. You hear the doorbell as he's pulling up. You know exactly. I mean, we we don't we don't have the time. We know what's going on. We don't have the time to wait and watch this stuff. If there's no extra story being told, go fast. That's that's our our taste now. It wasn't people's taste in 1975. You said something really great when uh you had Neil Brennan on your show and you said that you hate when uh like a main character talks to himself and you teach your students not to do that and he said I talk to myself all the time and he goes you said I don't care don't put it in the story it's so lazy people people tell me that all the time I talk to I don't care it's lazy storytelling like boy I wonder if I should ask Amelia out like don't talk to yourself and tell me show me something. Show me the character deciding about asking this girl out in another way. He's got a picture. He's got her phone number. He's going to call. He's not going to call. He's There's other There's other things going on. There's other way to to show it. It's lazy. Yeah. To have the character talk. Exposition to speaking exposition out loud all the time that way is is lazy. I've totally nerded out over your podcast in the last week and your episodes with uh Will Forte and Neil Brent. Well, Pat Nswwell, all the Kevin Elen, all the ones are really great, but you really taught me that walking around and talking out loud in voices is not mentally ill. Like, I have just not been around the right people. And I I can't tell you how comforting that is. We do it all the time. All the time. Oh, we made voices for our moms that is just if they knew they would be My mom would be mortified if she knew what she sounds like in here. My wife speaks out loud to herself all the time. And then but but she also speaks to me and I can't tell the difference and she's mad when she speaks to me and I don't pay attention because I think she's talking to herself and then and then when she's talking to herself and I said what' you say? I'm talking to myself she's mad at me. So there's no winning. I have a no- win situation. People at home uh I can either supposed to be listening, not listening. I don't know when that's supposed to be happening. I think you and Jim have the same problem because that's he just he just I see him go am I supposed to say something or ignore you? I don't know what to do. Yeah. I mean I I mean I'm trying I air on the side of saying something because at least then she knows I know she's alive. Yeah. Right. Let me ask you this. Our son has uh like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers on on TikTok and he makes cinematic movies that are uh you know about a minute and a half long. Uh he does very very well. He's he's very very good at what he does. But one of his biggest gripes is he goes, "I [ __ ] hate making content for a robot." Oh, for the algorithm. For the algorithm. He goes, "I'm not." He goes, "I would much rather make it for real people." Does he use swear words in front of you? Oh, he's 20, so grown up. They're all grown up. But um but he hates making. And as we've been doing this podcast, uh you know, if you watch the very first episode and then watch the our last episode, they're completely [ __ ] different. and you run into that situation where you're sort of you have to kind of adjust what you do to uh appease the algorithm to some extent. The algorithm keeps changing. I agree. That's true. So it's it's like it's like trying to figure out what America thinks is going to be popular. You can try your very best to try and make something that's going to work towards the algorithm or or hear me out, just make what you want and then figure out if that's going to work. That's for me. I don't know what's going to be popular. I only know what I like. So, I can only make things that I like and then maybe it'll be popular and maybe it won't. I don't even the tricks to sort of make it work with the algorithm sometimes work and sometimes don't and then they change all the time. So, uh, it's a a little bit of a fool's errand to try and chase that. Yeah. And listen, you could we can all joke and laugh about it. It's [ __ ] like I we spend a lot of time uh this is one of the things I really like about your show, too, is is it physically looks good. You're not sitting behind a [ __ ] webcam and it's three guys on a webcam or something. We take We have cinema cameras in here. We take Tiffany and I physically edit the show. Uh, we take a lot of time to make this show. We've got this We do the audio, we do the cameras. Yeah. And so I'm going to give it the best, you know, I'm going to give my baby the best uh, you know, uh, chance to grow up out there. So I have to play the game a little bit, but uh, I feel like we're playing the game and it's good good enough. Like I you're probably doing a better job of it than me. I'm I'm not capable of fully uh, following all those rules and I'm it's just not in me. I'm what's in me. My podcast, if anybody chooses to listen and go through my boring ads because I don't do anything exciting, uh, and actually try to follow it, is a conversation with somebody, but it's a conversation that usually is about somebody solving a problem for me. Like I ask them, how can you help me? And it's usually somebody funny or interesting or somebody who has an expertise in something. And hopefully, I think I got a lot of positive feedback that people like it. Maybe it's not going to be the most popular podcast in the world. probably not. Uh, you know, it's not, but it's not that controversial. It's not angry. It's not uh vehement. We're not screaming at each other. It doesn't hit any of those buttons. It's just a conversation with people who probably like each other. That's why I love it. It's a It's so authentic and it's so humanizing to people that like, you know, we've been watching people like Kevin Nean, Patton Oswald our whole lives. And to have them on your show and you're just talking like two regular people, that's the best. as a regular person out here like some little scrub who like worked her whole life. It's really really great to see. I really love it. And and I love the I love really quick Tiffany was uh I was work doing some work over the last few days and she's just been cracking out to your show and I just love uh the titles of of the episodes. Oh yeah. Whether you're trying to hit the algorithm with it or not, you've got the best titles of episodes ever. So you're not I'm not I'm just trying to make jokes. I just try like what I've done my whole life is try to make jokes. But uh yes, little self-deprecating titles about how horrible I am and how wonderful everybody else is. You're dipping your toe back into standup like I think it was a couple of weeks ago was your first time back in 36 years. How'd it go? It was fun. I'm I'm doing it better now. You know, it's uh it's I'm doing it different. Before I was just trying to be splashy and crazy, and now I'm actually trying to say stuff that that means something to me and also be connective. I'm doing the same thing. Like my my goal is to make people laugh, but it's not really that's my goal. My goal is to be a better actor. I was not a great actor and I'm still not a great actor, but I'm taking memorized material and I'm going to say that material, but not say it as though it's memorized, not say it as though I'm a robot. If I can say it so it doesn't look like I'm a wooden machine saying something, that's a victory to me. I don't have to be great. I'm not people don't have to leave in tears, but if I had a moment where it seems like I was off the cuff talking about something that was important to me, even though it was something I wrote out and I memorized and edited and then I'm I feel so good about myself. Oh, I did something that's this close to acting and um and and that that's exciting to me and I'm having fun. People seem to be they don't hate me. Nothing's been thrown at me. So that fantastic. Yeah, that's great. People who do standup comedy are [ __ ] giants because I don't that is like that is ball Z to get up there and [ __ ] I mean that above acting above being a musician I've done thousands of shows that ain't nothing compared to the balls it [ __ ] takes I would imagine to get up and tell jokes with nothing. There's no guitar. There's no [ __ ] nothing. Going to see standup is one of my favorite things ever. And it's one of my least favorite. Well, I love I love standup comedy, but Go ahead. Yeah. So, one of my bucket list things was to go to the comedy store and sit front row and see a great show. And so, I this poor man. I drag him all the way to LA. We get to the comedy store, we sit in the front row, and it's Kevin Nean, uh, Anthony Jezeleneck, uh, Mana Scalco, and then Jeff Ross comes out and Great show. Great show. So they picked picked on you every time. They didn't. And nobody had picked on us all night. And then Jeff Ross comes out to do his his and he's looking at me and he's looking at James and I'm mentally sending him like, "Please God, don't vibes. Please no." Cuz I'll never ever get him to a comedy cuz I have a little social anxiety. And so I'm sitting there and I'm just and we're in front row and there's Jeff Ross. I'm like, "I know he's going to [ __ ] say something. I know he's going to say something." And they're all they're all nice people. I mean, everybody but Nick is nice and even he's well, he's nice. He's just very cocky. So, it's like it's it's all f and deservedly so. He's one of the greats. So, like, okay. But he he thinks he's also one of the greats. So, that's also uh that's funny. But but but here's the here's the the dirty little secret. I spent the last I started doing improv when I was 16 at the Groundlings and other places. So, I'm used to doing things that aren't funny and used to doing things that occasionally don't get laughs. It's not about so I can be on stage and and eat [ __ ] as they say. Uh I'm used to it. So it's not rough for me my ego to just be there and not get laughs. Uh I don't want my standup comedy to be that. But for improv, you have to be willing to fail. Yeah. You willing to jump in and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Uh so I'm okay if a joke that I say that I think is funny doesn't get a laugh. I I'm It's not a brutal stab in the chest. It's sort of like, okay, move on. [ __ ] That's iron, dude. Go home and cry in the corner. I don't I couldn't do it. Real quick, we saw a fantastic documentary, which we've actually Paul Rubin watched like four times now of Paul Rubin's who was in the Growlings. And we wanted to ask you, were you there at the same time? We saw a fantastic documentary which we've actually watched like four times now of Paul Rubin's who was in the Growlings and we wanted to ask you were you there at the same time? I was a fanboy of the Groundlings when he was doing stuff and I was at the Groundlings in the beginner world when he was doing the the main show and so I knew uh you know Phil Hartman and I know Paul Ruben and I knew all those uh par John Paragon and Lynn Stewart and all the original Groundlings Lorraine Newman. Yeah, and and Tracy Newman. So I those people I knew I was like the 16-year-old kid hanging around saying how look how do you do it guys? So I I do I I I met all of those people and hung out with some of them but again they were here and I was here and it was not uh we were in different worlds but uh I I knew them. Paul Rubin was somebody who I I met many many times and don't know you know well at all and even growing up like and then when you watch the documentary you realize oh he was like that with everybody. I was going to say I don't think anybody did. It wasn't just me, but I didn't know that until I watched the documentary. I just thought, "Okay, well, I annoy him." And so, uh Oh, yeah. That was a just That was a fantastic documentary, too. Yeah, it was really cool. Yeah. And got improv. Um, so you've done a probably a decent amount of improv. Yes. Um, uh, just what is your insight on that? What is that like? That has got to be like you got to have like you just got to know that listen, I'm going to fail and I'm okay with that. Well, no. You might fail. You're not going to fail. You're doing it because you might fail, but you're just going to jump off a cliff and see what happens. You might land on the water. You might not. But here here's what's great about it. There's so many great things about taking it. Everybody should take it. If you're not a performer, it doesn't matter. You should take it because you learn to uh you learn to feel safer if you have social anxiety. Jim. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, so you learn that every situation, every as a writer, you learn every situation is a possibly great scene. There's no bad ideas. None. So, if you give me any situation, it could be a great scene. It could be a really bad scene. We don't know until we explore it. It's how it's done. Okay? So, there's no bad ideas. What a great lesson to learn from a writer, uh, as a writer. Another great lesson is inhabit a character. When you're in a scene, you get to inhabit a character. When you're writer, you have to inhabit all the characters. you have to switch like like uh uh somebody with mental disorder, but from this to this to this to this to this. That's what it teaches you how to do and it's exciting and fun and it puts you in the mindset of the place and the physicality of places. So that's good. And it teaches you to fight the anxiety that you have about being in front of people. So if you public speaking becomes easier, meetings with other people become easier. It's easier to sort of say that idea you're afraid to say because you're afraid it's going to go poorly. Well, it probably won't go poorly. And maybe even if it not wellreceived, they appreciate the suggestion. Like more you you learn that more people appreciate you putting out the that energy than not putting out that energy. So, everybody should take it. Uh I I encourage everyone to. It's really helpful. I love that. I love that. It made me a writer. It gave me a career. It honestly would writer without having taken improv. My god. I want to go I want to take your [ __ ] class, honey. Can I go to USC, please? Jesus Christ. It only costs 80,000 a year. Why? What's the price? Oh, well, when our last graduates, maybe we'll take that off. We got one one daughter left in college and then we're done. And she's a senior this year. So, but you don't have to go. That's the other. You know, the USC probably doesn't want me to say this, but we're going to film school. Like, what are you doing? Just go make your movies. Everybody should be making their movies. It's uh I college is great and all the kids should go through college because it's a good place to grow up. But it's not necessarily the place you're gonna learn a vocation. Yeah. I think it was Kent Burns said one Kent Burns time uh and probably other uh directors too is like, you know, you you don't know how to make a movie until you just go [ __ ] do it. You know, he goes, "I made my first movie about uh the Brooklyn Bridge." I think it was his first documentary. And he's like, you know, I didn't know what the [ __ ] I was doing. You know, it's a great document. That Brooklyn Bridge was amazing. So that's his first one. Oh my god. That was his very first one. Yeah. Well, he he was born to do it then because that was that's one of my favorite documentaries. He's my Yeah. and he's my favorite uh documentary and as well. Um well, fantastic. I I would like to just kind of end on this and and I we always try to ask people, you know, what advice and this is the same old thing, but what advice would you give to somebody like it's different advice too, you know, like somebody who's starting a podcast, somebody who wants to be a writer, somebody what would advice would you give to people who uh want to kind of get in one of these businesses like a risky business? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh well that's every business so I don't know that's that's anybody who wants to do anything anywhere is going to get into what is now a risky business. There is no easy path to anything anymore. Right? So my advice to everyone uh all the time is uh learn the landscape. Figure out what you're getting into. Really decide if you like that world. Maybe get a a job working for somebody in that landscape to sort of really sus it out. And then if you really love it, dive in. Try. Like that's it. But learn about the world. Don't just say, um, well, I like movies, so I'm going to, uh, write a movie and then sell it. Learn how people are selling movies first and then figure out, can I write something that I think can be sold right now? Or should I figure out I'm not going to sell it to a a corporation anymore. I'm going to write a movie that I can make myself because it has to be in within a budget and a and a and a frame so I can make myself and then use that to put that out onto YouTube and then try to make my name that way. Like there's a there's things change, the industry changes. Just sort of get be aware of it. But my son's a singer songwriter. His name is Charlie Kogan. He's fantastic. Uh he's on Spotify and Apple Music and and Amazon and everywhere else. He's he's great. He's a singer songwriter. really wants to be a songwriter, producer, but you have to sing your own songs in order for anybody else to get them. It's a terrible business. It's a shitty shitty business. I don't have to tell you teamster musician. Um, it's it's the it's a bad business model because, you know, very few people sort of reach the place where they can actually make a really good living at it. I mean, some people can make a a modest living at it, but it's very very hard. But I'm not going to tell them not to do it. What I tell them is learn about that business. Learn what it takes to book yourself in clubs. Learn what it takes to make a release a record. All that stuff is changing all the time. Uh and but if but if he loves the music, you got to do what you love. I I couldn't agree more with that because when we finally decided to do a podcast, I mean, I said, I'm going to learn everything there is to know because I didn't I didn't even listen to podcast. I'm going to learn everything there is to know about podcasts. How do you distribute them? How do you make them? How long should they generally be? Like what? You know, you listen to them now. I'm sorry. Do you listen to them now? You know, I to be honest, Wow, I'm getting called out. I actually don't listen to podcasts very often. And it's not because I don't now enjoy the medium. It's that I don't have time. I just don't find my And I'm not somebody who can listen to like a podcast and write or do things like that. I I mean I might be able to cook or something while listening to a podcast, but you know, no, I don't I don't listen to a lot of I think if we didn't have to do like all the post-p production, we probably would listen more. I I tend to watch in the mornings. Um yeah, a couple, but I'm not like a regular, you know, staunch I listen to podcasts. I drive in in LA. We drive and we listen to things. Who do you like? Who do you like right now? Uh well, I love the rest is history. I don't know if you're listening to this history podcast. Writing them down. No, go for it. There's a there's something called the Script Notes podcast. If you're interested in writing, Script Notes podcast is the best. And Craig Maine and John August tell you all you need to know about writing uh scripts. You made it Weird by Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes is a genius and his podcasts are genius and really funny and really sharp. Odds America is fantastic. Uh Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. Always talking to great artists. Blocks with Neil Brennan. fantastic podcast. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Conan O'Brien friend. I'm going to listen to that all the time. Now, there's also one that no one should listen to called Thought Spiral. This is where Andy Kler and uh Jay Elvis Weinstein talk with each other and it's just two hours of oh my god, listen to them argue with each other and fight with each other and it's I don't know if there's any other listener but me, but I listen to this all the time. I exercise to these things. I listen to books on tape. I'm very oral. Love it. Love it. Now, we'll add add the dangerous ones and see if you like it. Well, you know, well, the one Thank you. The one thing I would say I really like uh uh about this is is we're finally starting to branch out of things that aren't hardcore political, you know, all the time. And it's nice to cuz I think with politics these days, it's so [ __ ] brutal that it's nice to have that. Not a lot to laugh and smile about, you know. I guess so. But it's very important to sort of get your political ducks in a row because this is a fight. Yeah. Yeah. And we and unless you're willing to sort of get in the fray, uh people are saying, "What are we going to do about Trump?" And and he's like, you fight him. This is all we can do is fight. I mean, that's all there is. Band together as a movement. You're not going to fight him individually. We have to create a movement. So if podcasts like this can create a movement, if we can gather together, make everybody feel that there's comfort and safety in our big numbers, uh, which is what has to be in order to move them and and we have to take action, which means not just marching the street, but also just not buying products from people that we don't like and not supporting financially things that we don't like and really make people feel the pain. uh you know what whatever that is you know this is how Martin Luther King did it and this is how Gandhi did it and this is how we'll have to do it. I couldn't agree more and I and one of the things we say on this show all all the time is when you go out and physically protest it's surprising and this is a weird thing to say but how much fun it actually is. Yep. You're there for a serious reason. Yep. You're there to they want to but I'm telling you folks go out and protest. It's a lot of fun. Uh, and your we had we we paddled around with the National Guard. You know, the National Guard was out there honestly downtown LA guarding buildings that nobody was attacking and they were queuing us on and and we're exchanging water. It was really great because they're not the enemy. The enemy is is uh is people who have real strange political views that want to just, you know, steal our money and make us slaves and make us hate each other. Yeah. Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, folks, the podcast is called Don't Be Alone with Jay Kogan. Are you uh doing any standup anytime soon? Yes, but no, nobody will know until unless they happen to be in that place when I do it. Like, I'm not going to billboard it, but I do it all the time. Then I would say still check out the podcast. We'll put a uh link in the description. We can't thank you from the bottom of our hearts enough for coming on the show, Jay. It truly means a lot to us. Thank you from the middle of your heart. You don't have to go all the way to the bottom. The metal's gone. That was ced out by the first administration. Have scar tissue. It's bad in there. It's gone in there. But I get it. But truly, thank you for coming on and uh please come back. Uh my pleasure. Thanks for having me. You bet. [Music]

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