- What are the people in line behind you doing?
They're like watching an episode of Long Lost Brothers
or something like that.
- Well, it's Walmart so they're used to it.
They're like, "Oh, got this."
You know what I mean?
These are other Walmart customers.
- No I don't know what you mean this is insane.
- You get that first real joke on stage
and you're just like,
"Oh, this is what I was meant to do forever."
- That's funny.
I thought that as I was taking the mic out of the mic stand.
- I guess I just mocked things a lot
and then people thought I was a bad person.
And I kind of embraced that into comedy, I suppose.
- You're one of, like an amount of kids
that you don't even know?
They said like 13 to 16.
- Yeah, I'm still discovering siblings as I go through life.
- How does that work?
- Cause my dad and my mom both have a lot of kids.
And they're older, they had me at an old age.
So by the time I came around they had beef
with the adult kids and they wouldn't speak.
So they're like a stranger, they don't talk.
So you'll just meet somebody randomly
and find out it's your brother or your sister.
- Yeah they were saying you were like in Walmart one time.
- I ran into my brother, yeah.
I met my brother at Walmart.
- How did that conversation go down?
- It was awkward, man.
We just started small talk, you know,
like, "Where you from?"
this and that stuff.
It started adding up, like wait, a red house
on the corner of this and that.
Do you know what I mean?
We just started connecting the dots.
- Wait, he's so much older than you he grew up
in the same damn house and he was already gone?
- It was other things that led to that, but yeah.
He is older than us but him and my dad
had a falling out over money.
Probably over a game or just something
and they didn't speak.
So now I'm meeting this dude randomly at Walmart.
- They didn't speak to the point that they had another kid
he didn't know about and then you grew up?
- Exactly.
- Old enough to go to Walmart by yourself.
- Yeah.
- Beard or no beard.
- Probably beard, yeah.
- Beard.
Old enough to go to Walmart by yourself with a fucking beard
and you run into.
- You've never met an adult sibling is what you're saying.
- So there's something when you're just sort
of coming down the aisle and you're just,
"Man, that guy looks like me, hey."
- We just started talking.
We were talking about Boston,
and he's like, "Yeah I grew up on this side."
I don't know where you grew up in Boston
but like you grow up in Jamaica Plains.
And I was like, "Oh, I lived in Jamaica Plains."
He was like, "I lived on the corner of this."
I was like, "I lived on the corner!"
- "My mom's name was Carol!"
- Exactly. - Wait a minute.
- So we started connecting the dots
and it was like, "Oh, okay, we blood."
And we figured it out later that we were related.
- So how does this conversation end?
- Your total is.
You know what I mean, you just get your total and pay it.
And you hit each other up on Facebook later.
It was the weirdest thing cause that never happened.
But it's just a regular transaction.
- Were you guys vibing?
Were you getting along?
- No, it was cool, it was normal but it was still weird
cause you're meeting somebody but the transaction
still has to go down.
- Oh, they were working the register.
- Yeah, so you still need to pay for your socks
or whatever you're buying at Walmart.
You know what I mean?
So it was a weird thing of like, "Oh, good to meet you,
but also, yeah, chip or swipe."
Do you know what I mean?
You still gotta be like, put it in.
- What are the people in line behind you doing?
They're like watching an episode of Long Lost Brothers
or something like that.
- Well, it's Walmart so they're used to it.
They're like, "Oh, got this."
You know what I mean?
These are other Walmart customers.
- No I don't know what you mean this is insane.
- It's just like when you have a big family.
I have younger siblings too.
So I have siblings that are five or six,
siblings that are 40.
We just have a big family.
- Wait, so then you leave Walmart and it's like,
"All right, take it easy."
- Yeah, we exchanged numbers and Facebooks.
- My whole life in school I did terrible
and I thought I was like, you know, a dope.
- Yeah. - Or whatever.
And all of a sudden all this stuff about being dyslexic.
Which you're dyslexic? - I'm super dyslexic.
Crazy dyslexic.
- Well cause I was just in the bathroom taking a leak
and there was a sticker in there that said Soul,
like this guy's got soul, Soul Much Music.
And I when I first looked at it I thought it said
Soul Music Sucks.
- Oh, yeah, fuck that guy.
(laughter)
- No, is that a form of dyslexia?
- I think so. - Or am I just bad at reading.
- It's a little column A column B, probably.
But certain signs, like if things are written a certain way.
Like yesterday, I looked at a sign on a building
and I had to go to my girlfriend, "What's that say?
"Cause I can't read any of it."
- You can't read any of it?
- It just had crazy lines through it and light bulbs in it
and I was like, "Nah, just tell me the name
"of that business."
- Dyslexic?
Dude you're tripping.
- Yeah and it messes with your short term memory too.
So you might have a place you go to a bunch
but you just can't remember the name of that business.
It's like what the hell is the name
of that place that we go to?
- I do that all the time.
- Yeah, that's dyslexia.
- I have nicknames for every place that we go to.
- Oh really?
- And my wife thinks it's funny.
Now I can't even remember the nicknames.
- Yeah.
- Like there's this one place,
it just makes these giant pancakes
and just puts all kinds of whipped cream
and like craziness on it.
And I call it Pancake Circus.
It just combines breakfast with clowns.
Cause I can never remember the name of it.
Wow, I'm a mess.
- Yeah.
- It's another thing I gotta worry about.
- There's books about it.
There's like nothing you can do for it though.
That's what I've kind of realized.
You just accept it and move on.
And you just make fun of it.
- How do you handle if you're driving?
- Oh I can basically make out what street signs are
but a lot of times I'll see a word
and I'll say what it is.
And my girlfriend's will just be like,
"That's not that word."
And I'm like, "Eh, it's close enough."
We're there, we're pretty much there.
- How old were you when you found out that you had it?
- Young, I was in like second grade.
And I went to New York City public schools so nobody cared.
They were just like, "All right, you're dyslexic.
"So that's why you're not good in school."
- Oh so you were doing so bad by second grade.
- When I was in like eighth grade
I had a second grade reading level.
- Oh my god.
- Yeah, but you make fun of it.
That's the reason why I think I ended up a comic.
I'm dyslexic, I have nerve damage in my hands
caused my hands to shake.
I have cerebral palsy.
A mild case of it, luckily.
- Well, how did you get nerve damage?
- Runs in my family.
My dad has it, my aunt has it.
I could take beta blockers but also like,
I'm not going to see a doctor.
- If you take a beta blocker what does that mess
with your liver or something?
- Maybe.
And I used to be an alcoholic so god forbid
that I do anything else to that.
- Oh yeah?
I'm laying off the booze right now.
- Just to slim down?
- That and I got the kid now.
I don't want to be the guy at home drinking.
- Yeah.
- I'm an asshole and Irish and awful.
I don't want to be that guy.
I already look like a leprechaun do I need
to be that much of the stereotype
so I kind of laid off it.
All right, so you're in Miami.
- I'm in Miami, we do the first show.
The show goes great.
I got heckled but they loved Dice.
We're sitting in the green room after the show
and the manager, I think his name was Joel or something,
comes back there.
- Yeah, Joel, yeah.
- He goes, "Hey, O.J. Simpson is here, he watched the show.
"He loved it, he wants to meet you guys."
- Oh, no way.
- And I'm like, this is awesome.
In my mind, O.J. to me has always been Norberg
from The Naked Gun.
So I'm like, "This is awesome."
I didn't know O.J. the football player, I was too young.
So I'm like, that's great, I know the murder thing
but you leave that part out.
- The mid-90s were a little rough for him.
Other than that the guy crushed it.
- Incredible man other than that.
So Dice refuses.
He's like, "I'm not gonna meet O.J."
And Joel's like, "Why, he's a big fan."
He goes, "No that guy hates women."
And in my mind I'm like what is Dice talking about
his whole act is hating women.
But real Dice is not that guy,
so he doesn't want to meet him.
He's like, "Will you go meet him?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, I guess so."
So then Joel takes me up to the front.
- Are you nervous?
- I'm pretty nervous.
- I just would always think the double murder
is always hanging in the air.
- It is, and I started talking to him,
I go up and sit down next to him
and he's got like a 26-year-old blonde girl with him.
- Oh boy.
- And I'm just like, history repeats.
She doesn't know, apparently.
- Talk about complete failure as a father.
Can you imagine if that was your daughter?
- Just dating O.J. post murder?
- Hey, how's your daughter?
How old is she now?
26.
- What's she doing?
- Dating O.J.
- Yeah, just terrifying.
That's my biggest fear as a parent,
like who is going to be the O.J. then?
- Now did you feel a pressure to keep him in a good mood
so he wouldn't take it out on her later?
- First of all, O.J. had one of those disposable cameras
that were popular.
This was like 2003, the little Kodak ones.
And so he probably, 10 or 15 times through the 20 minutes
I sat with O.J., screams at her,
"Take some pictures of us!"
So somewhere O.J. has a camera that just has pictures
of me and O.J. sitting at a bar in Miami.
And I'm like.
O.J. keep putting his arm around me.
Biggest hand I've ever felt in my life.
Like literally goes from my sternum all the way up
over my shoulder.
- Well you remember the gloves didn't fit.
- Clearly.
- What did you guys talk about?
- Comedy.
He remembered the entire 15-minute set that I did.
Went through all of my jokes.
Tell me what he liked about them.
And I'm sitting there thinking, I was bombing.
People were screaming at me.
O.J., he doesn't hear any of that.
He's so focused on the comedy, he remembered it.
- This guy was blocking out crowds,
he had a whole playbook between his ears.
- He made me feel like this was a great set.
This was my first fan, ever in comedy is O.J.
And so then he starts telling me,
"Who else you going on the road with?"
I said, "Well, I went on the road with Pauly."
He's like, "Oh man, I love Pauly!"
And he told me this elaborate five minute story
about how Pauly used to come to his house
when he was a kid and swim in his pool.
Later I asked Pauly about it and Pauly's like,
"I never met O.J. Simpson."
Which means O.J. is lying to me about people he knows
so that I feel like we're relating.
So I talked to him for a little while.
I bring up Naked Gun, how much I love it.
He's, "Oh man, thank you.
"No one ever says that stuff to me."
In my mind I'm like, "Yeah man, that's not really what
"You're famous for at this point."
- That's not your biggest credit on the IMDB at this point.
- You've done some other things.
So yeah, I talk to him.
He keeps giving me drinks.
"I'm gonna buy you a drink."
"I'm a comic, they just give me free drinks."
"No, I'm buying you a drink."
I go, "All right."
- Honey, get him a fucking drink!
- What's fucking wrong with you?
Why don't you listen?
So he was getting me drinks and I'm drinking,
and then someone taps me on my shoulder
and I turn around and it's Mitch Hedberg.
And Mitch Hedberg is there with his wife,
or his fiance, and his parents.
- Okay.
- And he's like, "Hey man, just wanted to tell you
"I enjoyed your set.
"I was here last weekend, we stayed to see Dice."
I'm like, "Oh, cool."
And so he's talking to me, and then he glances over
and he goes, "Hey, are you friends with O.J.?"
And I'm like, "I mean I just met him tonight."
And I introduce O.J., "Oh, this is Mitch Hedberg."
He's like, "Oh cool, are you a comic?"
And he's like, "Yeah, man."
And he's just kind of looking at me like
what is going on?
And so then, I talk to Mitch for a little bit
and he's like, "Hey man we saw you earlier today.
"When you walked on stage I'm like
hey that's the guy from earlier."
I go, "Really, where did you see me?"
And he goes, "We were driving,
"and you were standing in front of Hooters.
"And I was like hey doesn't that guy standing by himself
"in front of Hooters look really sad?"
I was like, "Okay."
Then he goes, "There's a bit in there somewhere.
"I'll figure it out."
I'm like, "All right man."
- I think he already had the bit.
- He already had the sad Hooters bit.