My first guest,
you know him from his comedy central special.
He's got a sketch special with comedy central,
with the Hasan Minhaj called Goatface.
Please welcome the very funny, Fahim Anwar.
(audience cheering)
[Moses] Fahim, how are you?
Thank you hold for applause, hold on.
Let's talk about your career.
What new forms of revenue Yeah let's talk about
multiple specials. I know.
Hey, how do we survive in this COVID world,
in this uncertain times, Moses?
I don't know, it seems like you kind of knew
how to pivot immediately.
You do a lot of online videos.
Yeah kind of, like, I think of you as a comedian too.
It's like standup is our main jam.
And then we have these other outlets, like, all right,
I'll do a dumb thing on Instagram
or I'll do a tweet, and once the stage is gone,
I guess you just kind of lean in on what's still available.
Yeah, because the stage, I think it's still kind of works
if you're a one-liner guy, but I think you and I,
I mean you're on a much higher level.
are very physical performers,
a lot of it, it's like in your body,
which you can't really do.
Totally, and it's a conversation with the audience.
So it's like, if they're really liking something,
that informs, you go, oh, let me milk this.
So it's the song and dance with an audience
and that's kind of informs your act.
So when you strip an audience away,
you're kind of creating in a vacuum
and that's tough for a standup live performer.
Yeah, 'cause unlike a musician,
where you just play your three minutes song,
stand up, if you're doing it right,
when you get beyond like out of your head
and you're doing it long enough,
you're essentially asking the audience for permission
every 15 seconds or so.
It's like, can I keep talking about,
my dick, my dick sucks. (Fahim agreed)
Yeah, so you've seen my new stuff?
Yeah, I've seen it.
I had an hour, it was about to come out.
We were about to tape, it was gonna be called
"My Dick Sucks".
And we had like MSG, and we had that rent out,
it was gonna be three nights.
Yeah, My Dick sucks.
And that's now my big catch phrase.
Oh my God.
But now it's like on hold.
And then you had the merch already printed out.
Yeah, I had so many boxes of my Dick sucks
and I don't know where to put it.
I have some of it in my place right now.
And it's not gonna make sense when things open up.
And my Dick is getting better. My dick is soft
My dick's as soft as this shirt.
It's not even true anymore.
It's not, it's a false narrative.
It's completely healed since the accident.
Totally.
I mean, there's some very sad options.
Like I was talking to Tom.
I mean, you can perform in a-
Wait, you did the truck show?
Yeah it's the best version,
I heard it's good.
I got asked to do it, but I think I was in Denver
for that week or whatever, but I hear it's great.
Oh yeah, you were in a COVID's fake protest in Denver.
Forgot about that.
No, I did some charity gig. I did some like charity gig
and it was in a airplane hangar
and they were all in tuxedos.
It was just like upper crust Denver.
I swear to God it's like I was doing stand up
in a bond movie.
Insane, all the hell gigs are things that were
essentially competing for.
Like yeah absolutely, airport hangar, who books that?
Like the tallest ceilings.
You know, the best thing for comedy is like in a basement,
low ceilings, packed together.
This was a hangar, like the voice just evaporates.
They're sitting so far away from each other,
but they were still happy.
Yeah, it's like, what can you do?
So that's the thing about standup comedy and yesteryear,
that we were just a distraction,
to shovel food and drinks into people's mouths.
Like we were there to keep them in their seats long enough
to pull up a dump truck and put it in their mouth.
Yeah people wonder like,
why do you do 45 to an hour of material?
Cause that's how long it takes to order a drink,
some food and then another drink.
Yeah.
That's what this art form is,
no painting is fueled by like how many people
can sit through it Yeah totally,
and I love how nimble this art form is too.
Where like, if they're a little late
they're putting the checks out on the table,
they'll tell you to like, to go like this.
You know, like go along, stretch it out.
And then you just, you know, do some more bullshit
for 10 more minutes until everyone signs their checks.
Nothing else, you couldn't do that like with a magician,
be like, more magic.
More cards, just get more cards, introduce more decks.
Just the magicians just vamping,
just trying to make some tricks on the fly.
Yeah that's why I used to go like, ugh,
I always cringe when people make the argument,
but let me say this is free speech.
And it's like, it's really, it's chicken wing speech.
It's just long enough.
The thing is, I think that there is that free speech thing
and you should be able to.
But it's up to you to jump over the hurdle of making it
funny for the room.
If like people are turned off all the time,
you haven't done the work.
The real trick and the beauty of standup
is taking that controversial idea or whatever your idea is
and doing the gymnastics and massaging it enough
where it's digestible for even someone
who has opposing view.
Like Bill Burr will do that all the time and it's great.
Like they earn the laugh.
You can still get your idea across,
you just got to do the work
instead of like free speech man, you don't like it.
People confuse just bombing with
people don't like free speech.
Yeah, like you didn't...
Your writing wasn't good enough.
Don't pretend you're Bill Hicks or something.
Right, I don't need structure. I'm screaming about--
Or they don't get it!
Like you're part of the problem!
No, just write a little more.
If you're doing your job, they should get it.
They should get it and like it.
So does everyone in your life
know that you have all this time off,
you're not performing on stage?
Like, are your parents being like,
Hey, why are you living out there?
Do you want to come home?
I have this thought, like, you get a sense of how much
your parents really believe in you,
by how quickly they tell you to get into real estate.
You know what I mean?
To like start selling houses.
For me, it was like, a few days like.
Yeah, the shutdown, like a week later,
like you should sell houses.
Like, Oh, you never believed in me.
(chuckles)
I'm finding out now and I always like
how that's the solution for like parents everywhere.
It's just like, if your kid was like
kind of a fuck up to begin with,
you think they're gonna kill it in the real estate market.
Like suddenly they're gonna be awesome.
If someone can't be a comedian
and muster to work for 15 minutes a night
(Fahim laughs) and post some Instagram clips.
what are the odds they're gonna be free on a Sunday
for an open house.
Sure, you think they're gonna be on Selling Sunset?
Like, Hey thanks, mom and dad.
I was spinning my wheels with this art stuff.
But now I'm a world class real estate agent.
I'd love to show you some properties.
Like he's probably gonna suck at that too.
Right, there's no way the women at Selling Sunset
are actually selling those properties.
I wouldn't buy a house after that very quick walkthrough,
where they're also having a huge fight.
I'm like, well, that's the house for me.
Yeah, I don't know. Like they all look the same.
Like do you have to be gorgeous to sell houses?
I think in LA for selling that.
I couldn't be like, I wanna show you some properties.
There's one on Mulholland. (Moses laughs)
It's got this open floor plan, you're gonna love it.
Okay. All right.
Take my card, take my card.
You talk it over with your wife.
You don't want to make a rash decision.
I'm not trying to pressure you, but I'm one of the bests.
And you live in this area?
Well, I do mostly stuff in Torrance,
but they gave me a shot at the big time here on sunset.
What about one of the women from from the show?
You know, I wanted the, you know they're all made up.
They're busy right now.
That's why they sent me to show you the property.
It's the same property.
It's just a different person showing it to you.
My Ford focus, I gotta put money in the meter real quick.
I'll be back.
It's at the bottom of sunset, all the way down the hill.
(chuckles)
Can you give me a ride to my car?
I've gotta put money in my meter for my Ford focus.
Soaking wet.
Dude that's what I noticed too,
like if you're a real estate agent,
you have to, even if you're not doing well,
you have to lease a bomb ass car. It's all exuding this,
even if you're really good at what you do,
you can't drive like a Honda Fit.
Yeah, you gotta show up.
Cause' you're selling an image and a lifestyle.
And you're like, yeah, I want my guy to be cutthroat.
Right, you need to make people feel
like shit about their life.
Or just like, Oh man, this guy, he deals with high society
or I'm visiting this world or he's gonna get me the best.
Like you don't wanna practical, like you do,
but you want the fantasy of this
Armani suit, Lamborghini, real estate agent.
Not the hell that I live in showing up in it. Honda Fit
Chips falling out. Yeah you're like
this guy looks like me.
I could just go on Redfin.
Right, this is guy is not gonna brokage deal for me.
He came to Cleveland with empty Gatorade bottles
out of his car.
(talking over each other)
You ever taken an Uber ride where they go like,
yeah, just like shove it over, yeah, just push it over.
Hey, you had one job.
Like, you're not my friend doing me a solid.
This is a transaction.
Hey, just push those roller blades over.
Hey, commit to the job.
(indistinct) that was built back there.
What I loved about taxi drivers
is like, they knew they were a taxi driver.
They accept, they're like, yes, I drive people around.
And you know, like, this is my life, I like doing it.
And there was a clear distinction,
but people Ubering and lifts, sometimes they're in denial.
They're like, yeah, I'm just doing this
for a few weeks until, yeah just shove it over.
They gotta tell you that immediately
that this isn't their job.
No other job is like, this isn't my job by the way.
Which is not reassuring
when someone's in charge of your life.
You're up in a helicopter like,
listen, this is just my side gig.
My real passion is children's modeling.
Just so you know, I don't enjoy doing this,
but where are you headed to?
I am one foot out the door.
I'm not even here for this job.
I miss like, cause' with the stars,
you know how you rate each other,
everyone's on their best behavior.
Cause' you can still be affected.
There's a beauty to taking a taxi.
You can like clip your toenails in the back
and there's no repercussions whatsoever.
It will never come back to you.
You may be paying a premium,
but you can be like, you know, fuck your mother.
Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?
And like you have no stars to be affected.
That's what you like to do,
you're in the backseat rock hard,
It's not a sexual thing.
It's more of a power dominance thing.
I just berate them and I clip my toenails and I go,
what are you gonna do? You can't rate me.
Toenails don't even need to be clipped.
You just like really down to the bone.
Yeah, You look great man. I feel like, look,
this isn't the most high res,
but I feel like you have great skin.
Yeah there's several filters on this.
Remember when Michael Jackson would get interviewed,
he would have his own lighting team to look like a human.
Or like when Martin Bashir was doing
like that documentary or whatever.
Yeah.
They showed the set. Like they had several scientists
bouncing the light to make it look like a human face.
Just burning some Uranium in the back?
Yeah, like, I love MJ,
but it was so funny to think like, you know,
it had been carved up so much that he needs this,
the lighting like this so that the shadows can kind of
fill in for the gaps.
Yeah it always looked like a gas leak was happening.
Like the air is wavy.
(laughs)
Someones about to pass out.
Martin Bashir is like, Michael, in the eighties...
All right.
Can I do like a quick dance just for my fans, real quick.
Yeah, it's what they tune in for, do the full thing.
It's great that the whole apartment shakes when you dance.
Well, you're on a sofa, so and we are in LA.
So there are earthquakes, we had one a few weeks ago.
Very important, that we stay here while it burns
and it's on fire and there's no opportunities here.
Hey Quibi could be around the corner.
Come on Quibi. I need that Quibi cash.
This section of my house is on fire,
but I will not leave until I get a fitting for Quibi.
Yeah man, it's worth it.
All right, So people can find you
@fahimanwar, you're been on the Joe Rogan podcast
a couple of times, some people know you from that.
And then your podcast, you guys started back up again
called dance hour.
Yeah, Fahim Anwar Dance Hour,
So that's on Spotify, Apple, all that stuff.
And then I'm on Instagram @FahimAnwar.
Oh yeah, my special, my one hour special.
It's free on YouTube, comedy central put it out.
It's called, There's No Business Like Show Business.
So check out, a free hour of standup.
Well thank you so much man, for talking to me.
Yeah man, it was good seeing you.
And it's cool to do something during all of this, you know?
I know it's nice to have a thing to do.
I'll see you in a parking lot.
I'll see you on the circuit.
Yeah, I'll see you out there on the hot circuit.
Yeah, yeah!
All right, Fahim Anwar, everyone.
Peace.