Interview with Chili Davidson

Chili Davidson is fully committed to making it in the comedy world. He talks about “the grind” and how you have to be willing to embrace failure in order to succeed.
Watch: https://youtu.be/mD03drStwho

Unedited Transcript.

Jim Allan: I've always been fascinated by stand-up comedians and comedy in general. I love comedy. Who doesn't? I've got a real, live, up-and-coming comedian with me today. Welcome, Chili Davidson.

Chili Davidson: Hello. Hi. Nice to be here.

Jim Allan: First question I'm going to ask you is the first question probably everyone asks you. What's the deal with the name Chili?

Chili Davidson: Ah, yes.

Jim Allan: How did you get that? We can't just ignore that.

Chili Davidson: Well, so I was named after a baseball player. My parents were very into sports, particularly baseball and hockey, I guess, for a little bit in the 80s and 90s. And my brother was named after Kirby Puckett. My sister, her nickname is after Mookie Wilson. And myself, I'm named after Chili Davis.

Jim Allan: Chili Davis.

Chili Davidson: He's been the nicest to us.

Jim Allan: And you've met him, right?

Chili Davidson: Several times, yeah. I don't know if he has a job right now, but he became a hitting coach.

Jim Allan: Famous player.

Chili Davidson: Yeah, and nobody's less famous, so whenever he'd come into town as a hitting coach and you'd hear people yelling Chili, he knew it was us.

Jim Allan: You are out there hustling. You're pursuing every angle of comedy you can. There's sketch comedy, improv, stand-up, comic acting. You produce live and virtual comedy shows, thanks to the pandemic, no doubt, where you're responsible for finding, hiring, and paying all the acts. You do two podcasts. This is something that you've wanted to do your whole life, right? Is that fair to say?

Chili Davidson: Yeah, yeah. As a kid, I was just like always kind of trying to entertain and trying to perform, put on shows in the house. And I was also just a comedy nerd from like the time I was young. At a very young age, my dad started playing records for me, Monty Python, George Carlin. And I got really into The Monkees, which was like a comedy show. And then I started watching early SNL, early SCTV, and just loved those people. Steve Martin, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and just became a Peter Sellers, became obsessed with these people, Leslie Nielsen. And I just, I wanted to emulate that at any cost. Jerry Seinfeld, I would watch his special from 2001 or 98, I think, actually.

Jim Allan:You memorize these things.

Chili Davidson: And I would memorize it.

Jim Allan: You memorize it.

Chili Davidson: And I would do it over and over. And I would physically like stand up and get so excited. Like it just brought so much joy to me to watch him do a stand-up comedy because I  loved it. Even if I didn't get every single joke, which I think he's fairly accessible to young kids because it's not super, you don't have to know a lot. But I just would get excited by the intonation, the way it works, the just wonderful craftsmanship that he came together with. And I just became sort of entranced by this stuff and the joy that I saw that it would bring, you know, to my parents, how much they loved it. Watching my dad watch Python or Young Frankenstein, just the joy that came to his eyes was like, whoa, this is something really special. And I want to do this. I saw.

Jim Allan: So I had an older brother. When he was 15 or 16, he took me to see George Carlin.

Chili Davidson: Wow.

Jim Allan: So I was like 12 or 13. And you could almost feel all the eyes on you, like I'm probably too young to be there. And that was when he was doing the seven words you can't say on television.

Chili Davidson: So this was still pretty good, Carlin, I would consider. I would consider this, many people would consider great Carlin.

Well, you know, he was probably peak Carlin. At that point. I can't remember. You know, I'm probably laughing because everyone else is laughing. I mean, who knows what I'm getting and who I'm not. I understood. We say that word and someone whispered that word to me. I mean, I knew the words, but it was, you know, it was pretty cool. Yeah. I remember seeing Seinfeld in person after the TV show. It was like seeing the Beatles in person, like everyone. There he is. There he is.

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Yeah. The reason I say pretty good Carlin is because I'm a weird person that I actually really liked early Carlin. He hates that part of himself. So he was all very, very clean cut and in a suit. AMFM was the album that I listened to that's sort of like his transition into like the new Carlin. But like half of it's all like characters, like the divorce game show, the hippie dippy weatherman, this type of stuff. And I like some of the stuff he did after that. Don't get me wrong. That's sort of post 2000 that I really don't like. But I'm sort of weird and that I liked the early Carlin stuff a lot.

Jim Allan: So I mean, you really studied this stuff. Is that fair?

Chili Davidson: Oh, yeah, I became obsessed with a lot of this stuff. And, you know, instead of most Friday and Saturday nights where people go out, I go, I really think I got to watch Pink Panther three again. I think that's the one I want to watch. Right. And you just you need to watch it. Oh, I found this this one that I've never seen with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. This is what I got to watch this weekend. And you just you get entranced by it.

Jim Allan: So we're a big supporter of Google on this program. So when I was going to interview you, I immediately Googled questions to ask a stand up comedian. But luckily for you, I threw them all out. So I'll get some tougher ones for you.

Chili Davidson: Great, great.

Jim Allan: In general. OK. And because we can we can, you know, talk about comedy here. Sure. In general, in recent years, college campuses have this reputation for political correctness, for lack of a better term.

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Right. To the point where professional comedians don't even want to tour college campuses. Now, I know you're not in school anymore, but you are younger than me.

Jim Allan: So you're here to defend all young people.

Chili Davidson: Yeah, I'm happy to.

Jim Allan: So what's the deal?  I am not a believer. I don't even really like the term political correctness all that much. Everyone's always gotten offended at any point in history. We're speaking about Mark Maron before this. He did a great podcast recently about how people used to be jailed for the things they say. Now, people get tweeted about. Oh, boohoo. Like, what's the big deal?

Chili Davidson: Now, it's just because it's more accessible and people are talking about it. There are great comedians who do college campuses who don't do very well. That's just not their audience. Just don't go there because you're not doing well and they're not expecting that. But if you're young and you're relevant, what age is is meaningless and you're going to be speaking to them and they're going to laugh. And that's just because you're relevant or not relevant to what they're thinking about. And some of these people, like I remember Jerry Seinfeld said something about it and then he walked it back about a year later going, I think I was in the wrong in that situation and sort of apologized for it or denied it weirdly because probably his publicist or something said, don't say that.

But I think I'm not really a believer in that there's things you can and can't say. I think it's all about relevancy. And if you're talking about something you don't know very much about, people are going to see through it really quickly.

Jim Allan: So just the other night Bill Maher said on this program, sort of on this topic, kids used to go to college to lose their virginity. Now they go to lose their sense of humor.

Chili Davidson: Well, I have a lot of respect for Bill Maher and I sometimes watch his show because I like the roundtable format a lot. But I don't really like him anymore. He is getting a little cranky. He's getting a little cranky and unnecessary and stuff he said in the last few years on the program. Sometimes it's like, why do you feel like you can use racial slurs because you're someone different than, I don't know. I'm not, again, I have tons of respect. I do think he's a great standup comedian and he's done great stuff. And I think that his old show was more relevant than he is now, the politically incorrect show that he used to do. And now I think he just is a curmudgeon libertarian who likes to just incite. Am I already? No, no, that's cool. I like that.

Jim Allan: I got to get a dictionary to figure out what libertarian means. I don't think libertarians really know what it means. The interesting thing about you, though, is given all of this, some people think being on a college campus is a tough crowd.

Chili Davidson: Sure.

Jim Allan: And sometimes because they're studying politics for the first time or being, and I get that.

Chili Davidson: Right, right.

Jim Allan: Because I have a couple of daughters that are, well, one in particular is taking sociology and stuff. And it's like she's at that point where everything's very dogmatic and she's just offended. But as soon as you launch into anything, a little off color or whatever you want to describe it. And yet of all things, given that background, of all things, you actually went to school for standup comedy. So you deliberately went into the eye of the storm. So was it possible for you to talk to anyone outside of your course? Or did everyone hate you?

Chili Davidson: I could talk to people outside my course, but we did. I mean, we wanted to talk to each other. I mean, it was cool in the sense that you finally find like-minded people. That was the best thing about any arts program is you find like-minded people. I mean, it's usually and I say this because every it's an open secret. No arts program is worth the cost that you you know, you're not immediately going to get a job. Lauren Michaels doesn't look at your degree and go, oh, this is perfect. You're going to be a writer on the show next year. You go there to meet people and you find like-minded people and things like that. But in terms of talking to people outside the program, you could. And people I do think there's sort of a mystic culture around standup comedians like, oh, man, let's go see the comedians. And then they'll go see one of our student shows at Yuck Yucks one night and go, OK, I think we're not going to go back for a while because they're working it out. While you're working it out,

Jim Allan: I guess the real question, though, is can you teach funny?

Chili Davidson: I don't think you can teach funny, but I think you can teach people tricks and tools and help people develop along the way and find ways. You know, Humber's big slogan is we make funny people funnier. And I do think there is some truth in that. And it's not for everybody. And some people are great and they really never clicked at Humber. And some people decided that they didn't want to do comedy at all. But I do think that you can. I mean, we can teach improv, which is my favorite thing to do in the world. It's like always say yes and yes and and so don't listening, you know, object work and the building upon what the other person has done. And, you know, don't don't teach people or don't get into a negotiation scene. And there's different things you can do. It's fun to throw them out the window and just have fun. That's how I like to do improv. But they're still kind of in the back of your head.

Jim Allan: So Steve Harvey was on Comedians in Cars getting coffee. And so Seinfeld, that's a Seinfeld thing. Seinfeld, I'm not going to imitate Seinfeld, but Seinfeld speaking to Steve Harvey. He goes, is comedy teachable? And Steve Harvey goes, no, if you explain it to them, it'll always make no sense. Yeah, well, they're better.

Chili Davidson: He's rich and bitter, though.

Jim Allan: Seinfeld says then you can get better at anything you want to get better at, except this.

Chili Davidson: Right. I was once asked to talk at a comedy class and I went in front of the class. I said the fact that you're even here is a very bad sign because I wouldn't be a part of any of this. So, I mean, you obviously don't agree with that. I mean, I do what I don't, which is weird. I mean, first of all, the statement that you can't get better at it is wild because he literally has gotten better at it. That's how everybody improves. The part that I do think is true is that, and he said it in a way that was like, because Jerry's such an interesting guy because I love that show and some episodes he's just sort of like being a jerk, explaining to people what comedy is and other episodes he's so fun and they're great episodes and he's my hero. I love Jerry. But 80 percent, I'll say, just picking a number of the stuff that I've learned about how to do comedy is just by doing it.

Jim Allan: Right.

Chili Davidson: You just get out there and you find it out. Did I learn stuff at Humber College in Toronto? Absolutely. Did I meet people that I like? Did I develop tricks and tools about how to do stuff? Absolutely, I did. But what's the majority of the comedy I learned was doing it. And there's tons of people that didn't go to the program that are great. And there's tons of people that did go to the program that have had success. Nathan Fielder being the biggest example of someone who basically invented a genre and built this show that no one had ever seen before and is kind of known in, I think, Canada and the U.S. is this original dude.

Jim Allan: Were you funny or after you took the course? Or are you the same?

Chili Davidson: I think I would have to be because just time gets you better. Just getting up on stage. Just getting up on stage. I came right out of high school and I consider myself super creative and weird. And I think a lot of my friends saw that. But I was very inconsistent and just like undisciplined in what I really, I just didn't have it figured out at all. I mean, who I was at 18. I mean, everybody can say this is different than you are at 25, which I am now.

Jim Allan: So I went to Ryerson for radio and television.

Chili Davidson: Oh, yeah.

Jim Allan: And I was pretty anonymous. Most of my classmates probably wouldn't even remember who I was. Except for the real core group. But that was a three-year course. And I remember looking around the third year and I'm just going, OK, not to be, you know, I have got to be better than half of these people.

Chili Davidson: OK, yeah.

Jim Allan: So when you were in this course, did you look around and say to yourself, I've got to be better than half of these people?

Chili Davidson: I have never had that confidence. I wish I did.

Jim Allan: But don't you have to? Don't you have to?

Chili Davidson: You have to. And I've gotten better at it. But I am one of I'm definitely just so I don't I lack a lot of confidence in a lot of areas. But I sort of always tried to apply. Harold Ramis used to say, find the funniest person in the room and go sit next to them. That was always my philosophy. How can I get myself associated with the funniest people in the room? And if I wasn't working with them, I'd go see their shows and I'd go hang out with them. And I just marveled at them. And I tried to just and, you know, over time, groups break up and and sketch shoots or whatever. And you end up just starting to work with these people. But, you know, Harold Ramis did that with Bill Murray and Brian Doyle Murray and Joe Flaherty and Gilda Radner and these people. And, you know, I would do the same thing with my peers, right? I'd go, that person makes everybody laugh. I'm going to become friends with this guy because everyone finds her funny or them funny or him funny. I want to be with them.

Jim Allan: But now, but you have to be confident, don't you? I mean, the likelihood of big success for you is slim. And I'm sure you've been told that and told that and told that. If you don't believe in yourself, no one will.

Chili Davidson: Right.

Jim Allan: So don't you have or is it a constant? Do you just it's a constant?

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Do I believe myself? Absolutely. Do I believe that I could be somewhere in a lot of years? But you're only as good as your last set is what they sort of say. It is such a difficult world. Stand up. We've talked a lot about stand up. But stand up might be my least favorite of the comedy areas because it is so nerve wracking. And you can I can go off a couple of weeks where I'll have a good set and I'll just get on a roll. And then every show open like I do, I'm just rolling. I'm confident. I'm doing great. And then I'll have a bomb and I'll be in my head for like a week or two. And you just start going, why did I bomb? It's the same jokes, different rooms. Do you blame the crowd or the room? It's all about my delivery. Right. Like if I'm not delivering every line, of course, they're not laughing because I'll listen to the tape because I record every set. And I go, yeah, well, I said the wrong line there. That doesn't make sense. I forgot a whole word there. I wasn't confident because you can say people can get away with some pretty crummy jokes if they deliver them really well.

Jim Allan: Yeah. And I guess when you get up on stage and bomb, right, everyone says you got to go through that. You got a bomb. But that's that instant feedback that why did I bomb? Why did why did those jokes not work?

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Why did it? And I guess it's I don't know that feeling, but I guess you could screw up the first beat or joke. And then everything after that just is a cascading effect.

Jim Allan: Right, right. What's bombing like?

Chili Davidson: Bombing is so so what I sort of talked about this, but when I started stand up, I would do it once at the Humber Night at Yuck Yucks. Bomb my tail off and be so afraid and I wouldn't come back for a month and then write a whole new act. And I'd bomb and I go, what's going on? And then just bomb after bomb after bomb. And then I started listening to recordings and I was like, oh, people laugh at like my cadence sometimes when I'm like awkwardly make a comment. So that's when I built this character that was supposed to bomb. It was like dad jokes, just sort of like me dialed up to like a hundred. And it was all these really weird jokes. Now it's like pretend to do like, you know, little things in between like Dave Coulier being like, keep it rolling or like make noises like Tim Allen and just sort of do this thing. And it worked to a certain extent. People were enjoying it. It was weird. It was different. And then I did my showcase at the end of Humber College. You do this sort of mock showcase. Some former students come back and evaluate you and the teachers evaluate you and Mark Breslin sits at the back on his phone and pretends to pay attention. And then you go up to him afterwards. And I'd met him the week before and we got along because I like classic comedy and stuff like that.

Jim Allan: So he's giving you feedback?

Chili Davidson: So his feedback to me was you had a funny face and a funny name, but other than that, there's nothing funny about you. This is what he says to people. It's all real. It's all very brutal. He goes, you did a character up there and no one other than Pee Wee Herman does a character. There's actually multiple people that have done characters and stand up over the years. Not as many, but Steve Martin, Emo Phillips, whatever, like lots of people who have done successful. But then he did say something which I sort of took to heart, which was that he said dial it back a bit and you might have something. And I thought, that's interesting. That's actually a good piece of advice. Don't look like you're trying so hard. Just pull the thing back a bit because I started doing some open mics afterwards and it was really hard at open mics where it's just comics and you're waiting two hours to get on to just pump up this energy to do this character that seems like he's on another planet. I'm not looking at the audience. I'm not looking at anyone. I'm looking above them acting, acting rather than doing stand up. And so I just decided to throw everything out and you started again and I would bomb most nights just finding. And then I found this great middle ground of going, I can use some of that stuff because that is me. I am this kind of weird guy, but I can also write stuff that's meaningful. I can talk about relationships I've had. I can talk about my family.

I can talk about my personal life and I can be self-deprecating and I can be honest about myself. And you kind of find that and when you bomb, it sucks because sometimes it's just how you deliver the material. But when you deliver it right, you can go back and listen to the tape and go, OK, that line's working. That's not working. The punch line isn't nearly good enough because the setup is getting a laugh and that's not getting a laugh. So you just go through it. But you're going to do some bad open mics and sometimes for whatever reason, I just get nervous and I don't deliver it well. And it's hard to avoid that. But that's it. I mean, Seinfeld has so many great quotes about stand up too. And he goes, why I like baseball so much. The best hitter in baseball is hitting 400, let's say. That's even a lot for today's standards. But that means they strike out six out of ten times. They don't get a hit six out of ten times. That's what comedy is. And hopefully over the years, you learn to weed out those bombs. But you're still bombing and he still goes out. He made a great documentary of he did this great special in 98 and then he did a documentary about restarting. And you see him bomb. You see him working on material. So he gets heckled and he goes, this is bombing. I'm bombing right now. And that is so I love that documentary because it's like, yeah, everybody does. Everybody has to build that material up and figure out how to do it. And, you know, as I say, as you get farther along, you have audiences that want to see you, which is helpful. You're not on some whatever show and you just build confidence hopefully over the years. But everybody can lose that confidence at any point.

Jim Allan: So that that month when you bombed, you bombed and then you kind of took you kind of retreated from the stage by the sounds of it. Was this a crisis for you when you bombed that particular event? Then you kind of stepped back, reworked your app. Was that an existential crisis? You're going to have to get the dictionary.

Chili Davidson: A little bit.

Jim Allan: But you never considered quitting or anything?

Chili Davidson: I've just considered quitting a few times. I mean, I tribute a lot of people. I remember this may have been still when I was doing the character, but I remember a few months after I'd done college, I couldn't get any shows. And I was scared to death to ask people to do shows. It was that was a problem with my confidence because you're being rejected by the booker, basically whoever's book. Yeah. And I was like, why am I good enough to be on these shows? I'm some 19 year old schmo who doesn't know anything. And then I remember emailing someone to do a show. Incredibly nice person, Claire Belfort, who used to do Show Up Poor Boy in Toronto. And I emailed her. And about a week later, she messaged me to do the show. And then I did the show. I had a really good set.

And then afterwards, I was like, hey, you saw that email. And she goes, no, that email doesn't work. I just saw you at an open mic and wanted to book you. And I was like, OK, maybe I won't quit this because somebody thinks that I'm good at this. And, you know, that's happened a few times where, you know, I could go through months, weeks where I don't get anything and then I'll get a bunch of stuff in a row. And you just build your confidence again. You go, oh, I can do this. I'm not that bad at it. So it, you know, you kind of I don't know if I've ever considered quitting entirely, but you definitely go, am I really in the right position to be? Is this for me? There's so many good stand up comedians in Toronto. There's so much competition for what you're going for. You start to go, what do I have to offer? What do I have to add? But then you do a great set and you go, well, I felt like I was original and I felt like I was me and I'm the only me that exists out there. So I should just keep tapping into that.

Jim Allan: I'm a I'm a big believer in free speech and, you know, pushing the envelope. So I appreciate, you know, edgier.

Chili Davidson: Sure.

Jim Allan: Material.

Chili Davidson: Sure.

Jim Allan: From a from a, you know, an audience member's point of view, that's part of the fun, the danger. Are there any topics that are off limits?

Chili Davidson: So my opinion has always been nothing should be off limits. It's what you talk about. And that's how you talk about it. Because, you know, if you see a comic up on stage who's talking about being gay, for example, and he or she or they are not gay and they clearly don't know what they're talking about. You're immediately going to go, well, this doesn't make any sense. And it's just me. What's not authentic? Is it or something's missing? Something's missing. It just seems hurtful. And it's bullying and it's hurtful. And you're going, well, there's no point in this comic in 2022 talking about hate or whatever, because it doesn't make sense.

But again, I think anybody can talk about anything if they have the right angle and they're creative about it. And there's dark people out there who we all like. And that's fine. But you just have to be prepared to deal with the consequences sometimes if what you're saying is drawing a line. And, you know, I've seen people in Toronto and they go, that was five minutes of hate speech with no laughs about being domestic abuse or whatever. And you go, that wasn't funny. That wasn't enjoyable. Doesn't mean you can't find angles. But it was really disturbing to watch. And I don't want to see that. Right. So I think that there's that line of where it's mean and where it's fun.

Jim Allan: So true or false? If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.

Chili Davidson: I would say true, despite the vagueness of that statement. I'll say true. Where's that from?

Jim Allan: you've never heard that before?

Chili Davidson: I feel like I have, but I couldn't tell you.

Jim Allan: Crimes and Misdemeanors. It's Alan Alda. It's a Woody Allen movie. I thought you'd roll your eyes when I said that.

Chili Davidson: I've seen it. I no longer watch Woody Allen movies, but I will not lie and say that I loved them when I was a kid.

Jim Allan: They cancel everyone that I like, like Louis C.K.

Chili Davidson: Right. For good reason. But also frustrating too. You were saying the best stand-up set I've ever seen was from a guy that should be in prison right now. But he's been released. But it was, I saw it a number of years ago and I thought this man is the most talented person I've ever seen. And he should be in prison.

Jim Allan: Who's that?

Chili Davidson: I mean, he's the worst of the worst. We know who he is. He had his own show for about 10 years in the 90s. Love Jell-O.

Jim Allan: Oh, okay. It's so bad you won't say his name.

Chili Davidson: But goodness gracious, that was an incredible stand-up.

Jim Allan: So personal question for you. Has being in comedy been good for your love life?

Chili Davidson: Yes and no. I think in the sense that I can talk about things, right? I can talk about it.

Jim Allan: You don't have to answer that. But I did see this on Twitter.

Chili Davidson: Okay.

Jim Allan: Quick tip. Just a week or two ago. If you ever want to end a Tinder conversation but are too afraid to ghost the person, tell them you're a comedian and it will stop any good conversation dead in its tracks.

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Yeah. I said that. There's no way to navigate those things at all. You can never predict when someone's just going to stop talking. But it is funny when sometimes I'll say, I actually do comedy because I'm not going to lie about what I do. Like, I'm not going to open up with it. But if they ask, I'll answer the question and then radio silence.

Jim Allan: So what are you going to do if this doesn't work out?

Chili Davidson: Is it too dark to say on the show? No. I think I would love to be in the creative world in some capacity, wherever it is.

Jim Allan: Isn't the correct answer, there is no plan B?

Chili Davidson: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my only plan B is that, as I say, I'll find something in the creative world. If I have to shift within the creative world, wear a different hat, I'll do it. But my dream is, you know, my short term goal is do live improv and write for TV, long term produce TV and movies. That's sort of what I want. That's the short answer. But I will go wherever this journey takes me.

Jim Allan: People watching this, is there anything you want to promote?

Chili Davidson: Anything I want to promote. So I don't know when this comes out, but next Friday night, 830 p.m. at the Socap Theatre in Toronto, my sketch troupe is doing what might be our last show altogether because I might be moving south. And we've got a killer lineup on it. Jackie Pirico, Chris Sanford, Tim Blair and Vance Benzo from The Tall Boys. It's going to be on it really, really good. So check that out. Check out my podcast. And you can follow Boy Go Party Sketch. We have a lot of video sketch on there. And I do a weekly improv jam, 930 p.m. at the Socap Theatre, also in Toronto on Wednesdays. So come see that.

Jim Allan: I think you buried the lead. We're burying the lead here. You said you might move south. Was that a Freudian slip?

Chili Davidson: No, it's not a Freudian slip. So what's that about? Something I've been telling people for way too long and haven't done. So I'm lucky enough through my mom's family to have dual citizenship. So I hold a passport for Canada and the U.S. And I've been planning to move there for a while. And then two things have prevented me. One is this big colossal Earth thing that just happened where everyone can get sick at any time. The other one is just fear that I haven't gone down there.

Jim Allan: Where is this specifically?

Chili Davidson: Los Angeles. So I just have to rip off that band-aid and go do it. You know, I've got some strategies about how to kind of ease myself out there. But I've been out there a couple of times. I've done some improv and some open mics and stuff down there before. And it's a bigger pool with more fish is the way I like to describe it. More opportunities, more shows, but a lot more people. I'm not so unrealistic to the point that I'm like, soon as they go down there, Spielberg will be calling or whatever. But if I can get anything, if I can be a script assistant on a late night show and just signify my way in. I hope I look at this interview in 10 years and cringe at how optimistic or unguided I was. But that's sort of, you know, I hope I can get somewhere and get into some door and you never know what happens. I think there's been a healthy dose of optimism and realism here. So I think that's the secret for a stand-up comic.

I don't understand any comedians who are so overconfident. I spoke to one comic once and I won't say their name. But this person came up to me and we were talking about comedy. And he goes, you got any gigs this month? And I was like, I have one thing or whatever. And he goes, yeah, I'm hosting this one show. It's the only entry level gig I have this month. Entry level gig? What job do you think you're doing? Right? And I don't think about it enough as a business because you do to a certain extent. But like, I think when you start referring to things as entry level jobs, like it's the corporate world, you're already in trouble. I don't know. That feels like a weird thing to say when you talk about comedy. Because comedy to me is all about the love and making people laugh. And that's why I love improv. Because it's all about collaboration and fun and getting to work with people and get to have fun with people you like working with.

Jim Allan: It's really good to talk to you.

Chili Davidson: Great to talk to you, Jim.

Jim Allan: Thanks for coming.

Chili Davidson: Happy to be here.