Brad Gosse Writes Books That Result in Online Threats

As comedians we cover topics, we have in common such as booking shows, online trolling, and controversial comedy. Brad discusses his unique approach to comedy and the dark humor books he has published. He has written over 100 Amazon Best Sellers such as: "Mike Hunt Smells Like Fish,"
"Clip Clop The Racist Horse Cop" "Race Wars" and many more.  

We discuss our approaches to dealing with trolls and negative comments on social media. Brad shares his experiences with receiving death threats and how he responds to them. 

Overall, the conversation highlights the importance of not taking things personally and using humor to navigate difficult situations. Brad Gosse started writing children's books as a joke on TikTok, but one book in particular, titled 'Why Daddy Hits Mommy,' gained a lot of attention and led him to publish more books. He found success in comedy by testing his jokes on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, using the algorithm to gauge their popularity. 

We also discuss Brad's childhood as a class clown and how his single mom allowed him to challenge authority, which shaped his sense of humor and attention-seeking behavior. 

In this conversation, Brad and I discuss our experiences in entrepreneurship and comedy. We talk about our journeys in starting our own businesses and the importance of taking risks and learning from failures. 

They also share insights into the world of comedy, including the importance of performing in comedy clubs and the art of roasting. 

And lastly Brad Gosse talks about his current Kickstarter campaign for a compilation of his best-selling books. 

You can follow Brad on social media using the links below:

https://www.instagram.com/bradgosse/
https://www.tiktok.com/@bradgosse  
https://x.com/bradgosse
https://www.youtube.com/@BradGosse  

You can purchase his books directly on his website:
https://bradgosse.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Importance of Equipment and Knowledge
• 2:31 Navigating Online Platforms
• 4:14 Dealing with Trolls and Negative Comments
• 7:35 Controversy and Comedy
• 13:13 Being Misunderstood as a Comedian
• 29:46 Inspiration for Writing Children's Books
• 30:50 New Book Release: Baby in a Hot Car
• 32:04 Brad Gosse's Journey into Comedy
• 35:37 Using Social Media as an Open Mic
• 43:11 Childhood Influence on Brad Gosse's Comedy
• 47:30 Quitting the Basketball Team
• 52:58 Inspiration from Canadian Comedy Shows
• 56:35 Impact of SCTV on Brad Gosse's Career
• 57:41 Entrepreneurial Journey of Brad Gosse
• 58:58 The Importance of Comedy Clubs
• 1:00:32 The Art of Roasting
• 1:03:39 Using Kickstarter to Test Demand
• 1:07:03 The Power of Silence

Transcript

0:00

Today's guest is Brad Goss. Brad is a comedian living in Toronto, Canada. He loves to entertain people, whether it be through his jokes or through his books. He started publishing his children's books. I say that in air quotes in 2019. They are definitely not for children. He's published over 120 dark humor books so far. Over a hundred of them are Amazon bestsellers. I'm very excited to have Brad on today. And please remember to subscribe to the Funny Truth podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. This is Adam J. and you're listening to the Funny Truth podcast. That is the funny truth. You know you on you're on Omegle a lot. Do you still do that? Not as much Omegle shut down and now there's a couple of alternative websites, but they're not as good So I've kind of Backed off of that a little bit. I may try it again in the future but it's it's one of those things where it's like it's kind of hit and miss and You know the the majority of the people on these sites even though they're supposed to be over 18 or under 18 I And so I end up skipping a lot of people because they're like, you know, eight years old and they're on like, what are you doing on here? There's people jerking off. Like, why are you on here? You know, and, and like, it's filled with predators. Like, dude. you know, it's, it's interesting to me, just all this stuff that's coming out with predators is like how many people there are that are predators. my last roommate that I lived with, like I didn't, I got evicted. Cause I'm a comedian. I got evicted from my last spot. So I just went, I found some of my friends was like, Hey, my guy's looking for a roommate. And, I didn't really talk to him. Didn't know him. I just knew I could do it under the table and, come to find out like a year later, like he had a fake name. He told me he was a year younger than me, but he was like 42. he was like, but I was like, now thinking back on it, I'm like, maybe I could have seen it, but I just minded my own business. But, as soon as I found that out, yeah, I left. So, But it was, the funniest part was he made me do a background check before I moved in. Put me on my heels. So if you're a predator, you ask somebody else for the background check. So forget to ask you for your background check. People who have the most to hide often act like they have the least to hide. So for sure. For sure. So I wanted to get into, I mean, I've followed you now for past, I don't know, a couple of years. Ever since I got into comedy, And you have a very unique approach to what you do. You do do stand up. How often do you stand up? most weekends, most weekends. Yep. I do a lot of shows in Toronto. I've done some tours, but mostly in Toronto. Have you done anything in the States? Yeah. I've done, just some gigs in California. I did the Omaha comedy festival. yeah. And. your stand -up style, I haven't watched a lot of it, forgive me, but do you go up there with your books or do you have like other written material that you go up with, like jokes, punch lines? I do both, yeah, I do both. So I usually do about half the set will be stand -up, just me telling jokes and then like I'll have the books in a bag, you know, behind my back, like a messenger bag and then I'll just kind of, you know, and my humor is very dry, very dark. Sure. So I'm very monotone. I kind of give off this like disappointed dad vibe on stage. Mm -hmm. And the audience doesn't quite know what to expect from me. I make a lot of dark, dark, dark jokes, race jokes. I make a lot of unexpected things. I say a lot of unexpected things. And so at that point, when I get to the point where I say I've been writing children's books, they think that's a joke. They're like, yeah, whatever. This guy doesn't write. And then I pull some out. And then they laugh harder because they're like, my god, he's got books. And then. Usually once I pull the books out someone in the audience will say you're that guy Yeah, and so that it's kind of like they're trying I think they're sitting there trying to figure I think I know him from some of them are like I think I know him from somewhere right and then I pull out the books and one guy even yelled recently I was doing a show and I pulled out the books and he's like you're the omega guy I'm like really I don't want to be known as the omega guy, but whatever That's probably where you grew Probably the fastest at least from what I observed because I think I was looking at your profile and your YouTube, you have like almost 400 ,000 subscribers on your YouTube. I remember when I first met you, we never met in person, but like even a little over a year ago, you were getting big, but you've gotten a lot bigger since then. It's weird how some of the comedians that I follow, like I used to see your stuff all the time and then I follow you and I never see anything from you. If I do. It's usually one of your pictures of your death threats that you get. I got some that I saved that were my favorite from your Instagram and from your Amazon reviews that I'll pull up. I'll probably edit into the show later. Yeah, I was thinking about that. We almost need people that don't get the sarcasm and that just makes it even funnier. If everyone knew you're being sarcastic, then it probably wouldn't be as successful. You almost need those stupid people to fuel. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of comics that are way more successful than me that don't get death threats. So I feel like maybe I need them because that's my style. I like triggering people. I'm good with having enemies. And I think it's just, you know, it speaks to my, maybe it's my only child syndrome or whatever it is, but I'm okay with being misunderstood. but a lot of people aren't. And I feel like, you know, if I, I mean, some of my favorite comics don't have haters like I have haters and they're way bigger than me. And even just by default, the fact that they have 10 times the following I have, they should have, you know, a few death threats, but they're just not getting them because their jokes are a little bit more sort of, you know, it's clear that it's stand up. It's clear what they're doing isn't, you know, whatever. But for me, you know, there's just a, there's just a tiny pocket of people who are like, you're in my school library. You're teaching my kids about swinging and, and you're a pedophile or, right. You know, even like my sketch comedy sometimes gets misunderstood as serious. Like I just, I just did a video where with a waitress and she's, she's another comic. I tagged her in the video and every, and, and, and I'm like, you know, I did one of those like kindness influencer spoofs. And I tipped her 10 % at the end of counting out a whole bunch of cash. I just gave her a four dollar tip and everybody's lost their minds and they're so mad. And like, I got death threats for that. So, you know, and people are like, I would, I would meet you in the, I want to meet you in the parking lot with brass knuckles. And they're just like, you know, they're so mad. And, and, you know, and then I, and then I always kind of, and I, I have a, I have a bad habit. It's a bad habit if I'm honest, where. And I don't know what you do about this Adam, but but when they come at me I can't help but just Poke the bear and I'll push the buttons a little bit, you know Yeah, I think it's like I obviously don't never had any death threats yet But even trolls like do you do you poke a bear? Yeah, it's like it's like opportunistic. Like if if I got a good rebuttal I'm not gonna sit there and like spend more than you know, a minute if I don't have something that comes up, it's like, well, this is a banger. It just sort of back. I usually respond with like absolute positivity. I keep going, but you know, you're doing great. Right. And stuff like that. Just like I like to. How does that work for you? Usually they just stop because they know that they're not. I know that and just like in the real world, too, people want conflict if you just fucking. go this way with it, like I'm not backing down, but I'm also not, you know what I mean? They're almost like, they think I'm the idiot. And that's even funnier to me. See, the way I look at it is the opposite because the algorithm doesn't care if it's negative or positive, engagement is engagement. Correct. If you say something nice to me in my comments and I respond with, thanks fam, or appreciate you, whatever, that's the end of the interaction. And even if you're a troll and I say something nice and that's the end of the interaction, but if I say something mean back to you, like if I treat you like a heckler in the comedy club, which is how I treat trolls, to me, everybody who leaves a negative comment is a heckler. It's no different than someone yelling at me drunk in the club and I gotta put him in his place and make everybody laugh at him. I do the same thing to the commenters. And that can create like a 50, 60 comment exchange with that person. And what they don't know, and it, you know, this is like a, it's kind of a fun secret, but I have an app on my phone, a keyboard app on my phone filled with canned responses. Right. And so I, you know, I have like, you know, cause I get, I get the, it's like the same 10 attacks every time, right? It's like, you know, you're a pedophile, I'm going to hurt you or kill you. your hairline, you know, do something about your, shave that hair already. And it's always men and always men obsessed with my hair. you know, you know, stay away from the children. Why are you targeting children? All this kind of stuff, you know? And so I have in this, in this app about 50 canned responses. And, so I already wrote them. Right. And so, and then, and I just know, yeah, this guy gets this response. And one of my favorites is your comment is as cute as the picture your kid drew that I have on my fridge where I'm the daddy. You know, or like that kind of stuff where I just like, I just kind of, you know, I lean into it even more. Like they think I'm a pedophile and now I'm talking about their children. And it just agitates them so much that sometimes, sometimes the death threats, Adam come from my shitty canned responses. Right? So it's like, they say something mean and the nights and then I invoke your, you know, your kid drew a stick figure of me as his daddy, as your daddy, like they lose their minds over that. Like they can't separate themselves from the fact that I don't even know who you are. Right. You're probably just an anonymous account anyway. But somehow me bringing your child, like the people who get triggered over this, that when I bring your child into it, man, do they get more angry? And that's sometimes where the death threats come from. It's not so much the initial, sometimes it's the initial. I get a lot of death threats from just writing the kids books, but a lot of the death threats come from my canned responses, you know, like, and they're not like, I mean, dude, it's just like, I could, I could tell you some of them. And it's like, you know, your reactions are as delicate as a snowflake and it's, you know, or, and like, I also learned that if I, if I see, if I look at your profile and I see like your pro Trump, then I'll use words like snowflake or trigger because I know that's going to piss you off more. Like I kind of can tell just by looking at your profile, who you voted for and what words are going to really piss you off. Right. Yeah. No, I would, yeah, I would say I'm, I'm really good at doing that. I just avoid it. but. thinking about it from your perspective, it's almost like social media rewards you for like not being the bigger person. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just all the bad habits. Because yeah, like I have had videos in the past where like I had a standup clip where, you know, you're a comedian, you understand the context. I was on stage, I was doing an open mic in a club and I was going into this new bit that I'm working on to close the show and. Like the setup was, I said, you know, my friend lost his leg in Afghanistan and somebody in the crowd like cheered. He was like, they like cheered and I just, I just laughed. I was like, and then like it crushed for like, like almost the rest of the whole minute. And I had the light and I was like, all right. And I just like, all right, I'm done. I walked off stage and I put that clip up and it did really well. But then people were in the comments like, like. if that shuts you down, then maybe stand-up's not for you. And then other people would come and attack. I didn't respond to anybody. Other people came to my defense, were like, you fucking idiot. You don't know that in a comedy club. I was like, there you go. I like that better when you get, because I imagine most of the stuff that you get is more positive, even though you get a lot of stuff that, you probably have people that come to your defense in your comment sections as well. A little bit. It's 50 -50. A little bit. I get, and it depends on the video. Some videos just get to, like the algorithm reaches the wrong people. Like that waitress video is all the wrong people. It hit all the boomers who like kindness content, found that video. And because I think the algorithm thought that it was me being nice to a waitress, because the algorithm doesn't know that 10% is a bad tip. So when I do the whole routine of, I heard you're a single mom. You want to take your kids to Disney World and count out a hundred dollar bills. And then I'm like, I'm going to give you a 10 % tip today. That's $4. And everybody like, like, I think it just because I checked and it's like, nobody, nobody was following me that saw that video. It's got like 5 million views. And it's all boomers that love kindness content. And so when it got to the end, they just they just lost their minds. So that there's like 1000s of comments in there. And they're all negative. They're all like almost, I would say 90 % negative, but then have other videos where it's like all positive. Sure. So you get kind of two different groups. And each video is different, right? So sometimes you put a video up and the algorithm just shows it to the wrong people. Like I have one book that gets me more death threats than all 150 other books. And it's just like, for some reason, that book triggers men. It's Mom and Dad's Swinger Party. And for some reason, that book just pisses men off because they hate the idea of sharing their wives. And then somehow they insert themselves into the situation. because people do that and then they make it about them and then they get angry. And I love that. Like I love I love that it makes people angry because it's it's you're clearly misunderstanding. And it's funny because that book doesn't even sell that well, but it triggers people online. I'm here for it. Isn't a bunch of little kids on the on a swing set. It's it's the parents on swing set. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was going through I was looking for your like books that had the most reviews. And then looking for the funniest ones. I think my favorite was, yeah, I told you it was the Becky the Throat Goat book. yeah, she's got some good reviews. Someone's just like, someone's like, this is not a children's book. Like, no, what? Wow. Write that down, everybody. And like grotesque, gruesome, groomers. Like that was like the subject. Yeah, the groomer is my favorite. Yeah, and then that was. They're not even verified purchase. No, they never are. They never bought it. These people never know the most one star reviews come from people who didn't buy the book. They saw somebody tweet it. And what happens is someone will take my video. This happens all the time, Adam. Someone will take my video from Instagram or TikTok, download it, re -upload it to Twitter with a caption that says, this guy's reading books to your children in the school library or these books are in your school library. And then it triggers the angry like, you know, ultra right people or whatever. And they, and they go nuts. And then they, then they show up in the review section. They're like monster, you know, get the monster. And so it's like, and you know, what's funny too, is that like a book like Becky, the throat goat, if you were seven years old and I read you that book, you would have no idea that it was naughty. Right. There's not like, it's just a book about a, about a female goat with a giant neck. At the end of the day, that's all it's about. And you don't really know, like, if you were a kid and I read you that book, you would have to wait several years before you figured out what was really going on in that book. And even then you might not quite get it. So it's like, I would say most of my books are like that. There's a few where it's like, okay, wait a second, you know, mom just needed a second cock. Okay, you know, but like, you know, or mom's only fans or something like that. But most of the books, are actually designed where if you read them to a child, like all the Mike Hunt books, which are my number one bestsellers, you could read that to a kid and they would have, they would just be like, this is boring. Yeah. It reminds me of, I was going to, I was going to an NHL game out here. We just lost our team, but like a couple of years ago, I think, I think maybe they were playing the maple leaves. Maybe, but they, there was this guy who was like a street performer. He was like, he was doing like all these hockey tricks and stuff. And he was like a very, very clean, like you're like, this is a whole shtick. But he did some jokes that, and he was like, I think one like reference, you would know he's referencing Viagra. If you know what that is. But like, obviously he doesn't say that, but he's like, and parents, if your kids know what that is, that's on you. I said something like that. It's like, that's a good way of looking at it. Yeah. Cause yeah, the kid wouldn't, shouldn't understand that. Exactly. So yeah, throat goat. If your kid knows what throat goat is, it's maybe more on you. Yeah, it's it's like we were saying in the beginning, people people that are so out outright like. They have they probably have something to hide or some sort of insecurity that's they're just showing it like I did last summer, I went and did I'm from Portland, Oregon originally, if you want to type out. liberal shit. dude. When I started comedy, I think I was in it for maybe three or four months. I was like, I got to leave this city. I can't. If I want to do this, it's not going to be here. Yeah. You're not allowed to tell most jokes in a place like that. Well, and you know how it is from a comedy being a comic too is like when you're starting out, you know, you have your local scene and it's like, you know, that gets political and that doesn't change anywhere. But. especially in that area. Cause I would do shows where it's just an audience and not comics. And like I was doing just fine, but when it's with the comics and maybe people who book stuff or have, have power at the club, if they don't like you, then you almost, you know what I mean? So I did a, they have one comedy club out there and I went back last summer for, their comedy contest that they have for Portland, Portland's funniest. I think all the heliums have it for whatever every city they're in. And I brought, dude, I brought like 50 people, because that's where I'm from. I actually, I was actually the guy who's actually from there and brought all these people. Had a good show, did some jokes that were offensive. You've probably seen my material, Portland people. Yeah, it blew up like the Facebook groups of all these people. They were just like, it was an echo chamber of just these shitty open mic comedians bitching about my set and blah, blah, blah. he's. He's ableist and he's transphobic and like come to find out. Yeah. One or maybe a couple of them were like known as like sex offenders and some of my, of course they were. Right, right. Yeah. I didn't even give them the time of day to really respond. I did, I did fuck with one of them, but I mean, it was too easy. It's almost like. I like being called ableist. I think it's one of my favorites. That was a new one. That was a new one I learned. I didn't know that that was a word. and That one cracked me up. I made fun of the conjoined twins, Abby and Brittany Hensel, you know, the famous ones that were on the TLC show. And they got married recently. They got married to an army veteran recently and I made some jokes about it. And people were just coming at me and they were like, leave them alone. They just want to have a private life. And I'm like, they invited journalists to their wedding and put out a press release. They don't want a private life. They want a public life. This is what they want. And so... If you're going to be a conjoined twin and you want to get married and you want to be left alone, don't invite people magazine to your fucking wedding. And so like I lose, you know, I just come back at them and they're like, you're being ableist. And I'm like, they are, they are completely able bodied. There's nothing that they can't do. So don't you dare say that they're disabled because that is you being ableist. And then they get more mad because they're like, you know, it's like, they just have two heads. They can do everything. They can do everything I could do. And they can do one thing better. which is give a blowjob. So you kind of just come at them. You just kind of have to be like, okay, I'm gonna turn you into the joke. I'm gonna put it back on you and say, you're the one who's being discriminatory or whatever. But being called ableist is my favorite because I don't really get into it, but whenever I make fun of the conjoined, I have two books about conjoined twins. And so I get called ableist all the time. And the funny thing is is that, The people who call you the thing are never the thing. Right? So it's like, I actually had a conjoined twin show up in my YouTube channel and he was like, this is one of the funniest things. He was like, I was separated from my sister at birth. He's like, this is one of the funniest things. He's like, I don't know why everybody's so mad. I'm a conjoined twin. I'm okay with this. Ask me anything. And I pinned the comment, you know? And people were coming after that person and saying, well, you're not really a conjoined twin because you got separated at birth or whatever. And it's like, so now you're gatekeeping the disabled people, the disabled, you know? Yeah, it's the same with race, all that stuff. Yeah, it's white people that get mad when you make race jokes. Yeah, it's weird to me. I guess it's not weird. It's probably just human nature that people that are like that will never admit that they were wrong. No. They will never. That's the best part about them is you can attack them and like. very rarely will they come back and say, my God, I got this wrong, I'm sorry. Like, you know, people who call me a pedophile and they're like, you're targeting children. Sometimes I'll say, well, let me walk you through this because if I targeted children, I'd be broke because they don't have credit cards or Amazon Prime accounts. So why am I going, like, where would be any, how would I make any money if I did that? I'm targeting the parents who buy the books for their children, you know, and then they get more mad. It's like, but you kind of have to turn it around on them, but most people will still, even when they figure out that they're wrong, they just need to, they need to continue to argue the point that they originally made and they can't, they can't go outside of that for whatever reason. Yeah. Then the jokes become like about your hairline or something that's like, yeah, then they attack my appearance. You're old, whatever, you know, you're, you know, you know what my favorite one is, and you probably get this a lot too. And this is like, And it's always people who have given up on their dreams and they've, you know, they traded some plan in life for some shitty station in life. They've got, you know, they got a job they don't like and they probably wanted to be a musician or an artist or something. And then they decided not to take the job route. And they'll say, this is like, I don't know why this, I get a kick out of it when people say this, they're like, you call yourself a comedian. You know, and it's like, because you put it in your bio and it's like, yeah, I call myself a comedian. That's what I do. This is my full -time job. But for some reason, they love to come at you with the, you call yourself a, because they didn't laugh at your retort, you know, cause you pissed them off instead of made them laugh in your response. But it's like the, the, the comment that I made isn't for you loser. It's for everybody else who's going to see it. And they're laughing at you. You're not laughing because you took it personally. And then you get mad and you're like, that wasn't funny. You call yourself a comedian. And it's like, yeah, that's what I call myself. What do you call yourself? I can't read your, you have a private account. I don't know what you call yourself. Yeah. I think I saw, I think it was you who posted that as like most of these comments always come from these private accounts or they got no, they got no profile picture or anything. So, because the reality is, is the very few who leave death threats. and actually have a public account or have their real name attached to it, what ends up happening is they lose their jobs, right? Because my followers are ruthless. Like if I post a screenshot of a death threat, the person who made that death threat, if they have any kind of real name attached to their account, they are fucked. Like the number of people who come at me, they're like, I got his home address, I found out where he works, this is his wife, here's her account, here's his Facebook, here's his, you know. Here's a picture of the and I'm like, my God, like someone went and took a picture of this guy's house, you know, or whatever they took it. You know, it's like my what ends up this is, and this is what happened. The last guy who made a death threat. I posted a screenshot. He had a public Instagram account. He had a YouTube channel and he privatized. He ended up having to privatize his Instagram account, turning off comments. and then he, he had to block me and then he had to turn his YouTube account into a YouTube kids account because my followers were bullying him in the comments. And it's like, you know, and I, and, and I don't encourage that, but at the same time, it's like, if you, if you make a death threat against the comedian, you got something wrong up here and you deserve whatever fallout comes from that. If you lose your job, if you have to privatize your account, if you have to go into hiding, that's a hundred percent on you. Cause you're trying to put me in hiding. Like. They, and, and not like, and they're very specific too. They're like, I'm going to be at somebody actually just said to me two days ago, I'm going to be at your next show in Toronto. I seen this. You said, here's the date. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then he said, he's like, he didn't say true. This was a different guy. He said, I'm going to be at your next show. He's like, when's your next show? I'm coming. I'm coming. Like, and he'd already made a threat. And so I said, I'll be at, I'll be at growers world in Toronto tonight. And then he's like, come to Albuquerque. And I'm like, you want me to get on a plane and come and, and, you know, deal with you and your, you want me to come to your town so you can hurt me? Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Like, you know, like they're like, I'm going to be at your next show. And then they find out where it is and they're like, well, come to my town. Like, yeah, yeah, it's, we're not dealing with sane, rational people at this point. No, no, but nobody's ever come to a show. Nobody has ever, like I've had. local threats and nobody has ever actually shown up to do anything. Yeah, I mean, I think if someone really wanted to, they wouldn't say it. They would probably just show up and do it. Unless, you know, unless I don't know, I feel like most people, it's that the loudest one in the room is usually the weakest one in the room. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's I think it's people who can't handle the my retorts or they can't handle me. And the only way that they know how to how to like their last resort mentally is violence. Okay, I'm going to make a threat of violence and that will stop him. And then I screenshot that and I put it up and then everybody sees it. And now they've gone from dealing with just me to dealing with 100 ,000 people or more who have decided to go after them or 10 ,000 people or 1000 people. And they just get overwhelmed by the fallout of them making that threat. Because to me, it's like the minute you make a threat, I have to shine a light on you because one, if anything does happen to me, I really do want the police to have a short list. Like, you're gonna need the suspect list. Here's all the people with motive who have actually made a threat. And more importantly, it forces you out into the open and now everybody can see you. You didn't want that. You thought you could scare me, but now you have to deal with a whole bunch of other people coming at you. And it just allows me to stand back and let whatever happens happen. Yeah. I think that's as that's that seems to be the is poetic justice, I guess. Yeah, it's the right way. So what so OK, what inspired you to start writing these books? What was there something that happened or what was how did you get how did you go down this road? It just started with a joke on Tick Tock. I used to be a. I had a graphic design company and so I used some of the graphic design elements that we owned, cartoons and stuff to put together a fake children's book cover. It wasn't real. It wasn't even done yet. You know, it was just like, here's, you know, and I made a joke. I was doing Tik Toks and I wasn't getting a lot of traction. You know, I was trying different things and none of it was really working. And then I said one day, you know, my name is Brad Goss. I write books for children. But my publisher keeps rejecting them. Why do you think they rejected this? And then it was like, why daddy hits mommy? And that video got a million plus views and it just took off. And everybody in the comments was like, read it to us. And then I was like, I guess I got to write this book. So I wrote it, you know, and then, and then I published it and, and, you know, and then, you know, after a few iterations, I said, okay, I held the book up and I was like, I got it. I read it. And then I said, I read the whole thing and I'm like, it's available on Amazon and some copy sold. It wasn't, it wasn't a lot of copies, Adam. It was like enough, but it was enough to give me a taste that there's something here. And I'm like, okay, if I, if I did this a hundred times, I could probably, you know, do something out with this and it was easy to do. Yeah. So I did it 152 times, you know, and I'm still doing it. I have another 18 books in the queue right now. Awesome. and it is what my newest book just dropped today. It's called baby in a hot car. That's funny. Did you, now did you do comedy before this? like, like stand up or just online or. Yeah, I was, I, when I, when I had my own business, I did a lot of public speaking. Sure. And, I wrote a business book in 2012 that had a lot of humor in it. And, And so I started getting asked, because that became a best seller, I started getting asked to speak at a lot of like entrepreneur conferences and that kind of stuff. And so I did in 2012, I did a second city standup comedy course. And that was the eye opener for me. There was, you know, I did my first 10 minutes set at a comedy club, because they basically set you up with. They're like, okay, you know at the end we do a showcase and you know, they set you up with a with a set at a proper comedy club with an audience you do your set and I was like I want to do this. So I was like this is yeah fuck every I was ready to blow up everything and just be like this is what I want to do I See, yeah, that's interesting. That's and how long ago was this? This was 2012. So we're 12 years ago now Wow, and I didn't start right away. I started I started adding comedy to everything I did. I started adding it to my marketing. I started adding it to my talks that I would do. Everything I did involved some level of humor after that in my business. And then 2019, I started on TikTok and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do comedy. I was like, I'm gonna do it. This is gonna be my thing. And then also in 2019, I remember, is when I called myself a comedian. I changed my Instagram to say comedian. And that's when, and back then if someone had said, you call yourself a comedian, I would have really, it would have really hurt. Yeah, yeah. Cause I was like, yeah, I did. I'm still kind of iffy about this. But now I'm like, yeah, of course I do. I do shows, I headline, I sell out rooms, like shut up. Yeah. But like at some point, you know, in the early days, I remember making this change to my Instagram bio and changing it to comedian. And I remember thinking that was what was in my head at the time was you calling yourself a comedian really dude, is this really going to be your thing? But then I would look and I would go to Instagram to post something and I would see that I called myself a comedian and I would take shots at being funny. I would make more jokes, more jokes. Like it convinced me to make more jokes. Cause I'm like, well, you got it. You said it now you got to do it. Yeah. Are you a, you ever your Russell Brunson guy? Yeah, I'm a friend of Russell Brunson's. I know him personally. okay. Yeah. So he talks about like the expert secrets. Yeah. Like the first step is giving yourself permission to be an expert. Yep, exactly. 100%. And comedies really just change the whole paradigm. Like, yeah, if you call yourself this, then you do it. And you get better. But yeah, a lot of people are afraid to like when you ask them. And it's funny too, like it'll be people that are like even really good. It's just like they won't post on social media, but they're really solid comedians. Yeah. They're like, I'm waiting. I'm waiting till I get some better, better stuff or they're always waiting for the better thing. And it's like, I tell Congress all the time, if you're not treating Instagram and Tik Tok and YouTube like an open mic, you're doing it wrong. You need to test your jokes. The algorithm will tell you like, I can learn faster if a joke is funny on Instagram than I can by doing 20 open mics because. Open mics are all comics working on their own jokes and trying not to laugh at you. And testing your jokes at a show is hard because you don't know, if you don't say it with the confidence that you believe it's funny, it's kind of hard to do. They can sense that you're working it out and it doesn't always happen for you. But if I test it on social media and it gets a lot of views, I know it's funny. And then I go do it at a show and I do it with confidence because I already know it's funny. So I'm not worried about whether or not it's funny. I just say it, assuming you're going to laugh at it because, and that's like the confidence in the joke is a big part of the joke. If you have the belief that, you know, a couple of times I've done it where I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. Like, and I'll tell the audience I'm working this out. I don't know if this is funny or not. And, but I think it's a good story either way. And then I tell the story and it kills, you know, then it's like, okay. that that worked because sometimes it's jokes too long for social media or whatever. It's like, you know, if you tell a 10 minute story that has funny in it, that's not going to work out so well on Instagram because you're limited to your one and a half minutes or whatever. So you sometimes if you tell them you're working it out, then you kind of give them the permission to see that you're working it out and that it's not polished. And so they're along for the ride, but if you're just testing, you know, it's, it's, it's hard, but man, the algorithm tells you quick, like it knows. It knows. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes, you know, that's that's one thing I've learned more recently is like reposting the same video again. Like I think my most viral standup clip was like it's like two million. And then on the flip side, the first time I posted, I think it was like it got like 4000. But like it was like, dude, this is your best show. This is your best. And then I. put it up at a different club or whatever and it ended up getting two million. And then I put it up again and it's like better quality with line feed from the club and like great backdrop and like 1,000 views. Like it's weird sometimes reposting too. It's like, it's kind of unpredictable. If you might have something. It depends on the hashtags that you're using. It depends on the words in the description. It depends on the timing of the joke. So much matters, but. But you're right about the line feed thing, because if you have, like I've learned that the more, the more money I spend, whether that's actual spending or it just appears to have been spent, like better quality camera, better, you know, like, like I did, you know, like I've, you know, whenever I like rent a space or pay a camera guy or do, you know, like I invest any kind of money into the production. It doesn't do very well. But if it looks like I just threw my fucking phone on the table and filmed it, everybody's like, that's amazing. That's you know, but like the harder you do you seem to work on it, or the more budget you put into it, the less interested they seem to be. It's maybe like, in the sense of you're just not getting out as many clips at that height of a clip where you could just pull your phone out and start just banging things out. And you can, you know, setting up lighting and like you have a nice studio there. Like you can, you can film quality content just from a smartphone. Yeah, I've done it. I've done like little clips and then you don't even need a nice background. You can just have a green screen too. Like for the Tik Toks. Yeah. I have a green screen set up here in my basement. I have like a whole, my whole space down here is a studio. So I have a red curtain to do stand up. I have a green screen. So I have a red curtain in this corner. I have a, I don't know if I, maybe I can show you. I have like a. red curtain in this corner and then and then like like over here I've got a green screen it's all not lit properly but hey Google turn on the green screen. So like you get, it'll take a second for them to come. There we go. So I have like a green screen set up there, a red curtain there. And then this is my regular background here that I just kind of, this is like a real background that some people think is a green screen. But I have kind of different corners of my space set up and I can just move the camera and it's like lit. I have another one. I have the same microphone in the green screen section. You know, I have a standup mic on the curtain side. So I have all these different settings to shoot in and it makes a big difference if you can just kind of boom, like, okay, go, go, go. Now I'm gonna spend a whole day making green screen videos. I'm gonna spend a whole day on the red curtain. I'm gonna spend a whole day here, whatever. Yeah, I think it goes back to the, I was down that Russell Brunson type of like click funnels rabbit hole with all the, well, I said like, we talked about videos being popular is like the hook is super important. And I've gone back and learned like, how can I make my social media, you know, what can I do? The hook, the first three seconds, like, and again, oftentimes it seems, it needs to be something controversial. It's gotta be something that triggers people and can cause a debate a lot of times. And if you can hit them and then just like, you gotta hook them, but you can have amazing content, but if they're not interested in the first three seconds, maybe even one second. A lot of time it doesn't do anything. So there's all these things. I'm always constantly studying it and nobody really knows what the real algorithm is. But when you start finding something. A couple of times I've made videos where I'm like, I know this one's gonna be viral and it has been, but then there's been other times where I'm like, I think this is gonna be viral and it dies. So you never do know. But a good hook always is, a good hook is always the text. So if you have just a little bit of text above your head or something, that can be your hook. Right. If you just kind of anchor them to what's going to happen or what, or what, how you're going to set this scene, the three or four words above your head will be a massive hook. Absolutely. Yeah. I've gone back and studied a lot of that and I try and add that stuff in and it's, it's good to, and then, and then a call to action afterwards, like, follow me. Or, like if you're trying to sell tickets to a show, you put that as your call to action or whatever you want somebody to do, putting it in there and treating it. a lot like a business. I never do calls to action. I shouldn't say never, but I almost never almost never do calls to action because they, the algorithm hates calls to action. Do you know why? Because people leave. So if I say click the link in my bio. Yeah. If you're doing that, but like if you want, if you're looking for like followers or subscribers, yeah, I've learned if I say follow me, it can hurt the numbers. I do it sometimes, but it's rare. because I've learned that I think the algorithm hears you saying follow me because they're transcribing everything, they're pulling it all out. And if you have a call to action, that video loses algorithm points, right? It's like, okay, this guy's, this is a thirst trap. He's trying to get people to follow him. He's trying to get likes, like this video if, or whatever, any of that kind of stuff will hurt your numbers. Yeah, it could. I would rather just put like a little button that says follow. you know, with an arrow or something. I don't do it, but that's what I've been putting in. I invested in like getting it for all the platforms. It's like at the end of a video, just put it in there. Yeah. But that's if I'm going for a follow or I'm trying to build subscribers or something. That's not always the case. Right. Just depend. Or I'll put I seen, I think a lot of the advice for social media or podcasting too, it's all, it all comes from like the business side, like, you need to niche into if you're going to do, you know, luxury. or you're going to be a, this type of insurance sales or some sort of like boring business. There's so much, there's endless advice for that, but there's not really a lot of stuff for like a comedian to grow. But really comedy can, like you said, you used it in your business. Like it's almost just another element. Like I see musicians and people and other things like using comedy is like, it's almost like it's just a good skill to have. Yeah, of course. It's great for your marketing. I mean, you know, the best commercials are the funny commercials. Right. And it's usually insurance. Insurance always has the best commercials because it's so fucking boring. Yeah. You got to make it funny. That's what I used to do. That's where I came from. I have almost a similar background to how I got into comedy as you did. Almost verbatim. Did you... By the way, I... I wouldn't be a good comedian if I didn't point out the fact that you have like a spit on your wall that's just like dripping down behind your chair. probably. Yeah, it's a come, stay, and do. I love that. I love that. Yeah. See, I want to get a nice background. Just don't have it yet, but it'll come. Because I do most of my podcasts in person, but I got this so I can start expanding to do other stuff. Because there's a lot of people that, when are you going to be in Phoenix, Arizona? Maybe. And then when you are here, do you have time to drive over to the studio and shoot a podcast? Maybe. But allows me to connect with people outside of this. Yeah. Just get like a $20 red curtain on Amazon, put it behind you. I have a green screen, but it looks like shit too, but probably doesn't look as bad as the cum stain behind me. Doesn't look as bad as someone spitting on the wall. Yeah. But that's also funny. So, you know. Yeah. Dude, yeah, like I was doing a show. I was at Dallas Comedy Club a couple weeks ago. Second show, late show. I was pretty fucking hammered during my set. And I reached for my beer on the stool and just knocked it over. Like, shit. I'm like, that might actually be a funny clip. Yeah, why not? Yeah, like that's a thing I think in life too is, you know, I'm gonna ask you about your childhood in a second. But like when it came to like, being scared of being bullied about something. I just always made fun of myself first. Like learn that life hack early on. Like, if I just call myself out and people be like, no, no, it's okay. It's not, it's actually not that bad. Right. I got a shitty fucking haircut recently. People are like, that's not, it's not that bad. And then the comedian's like, yeah, that fucking sucks. Yeah. But like other people will, no, no, no. But, so your childhood, were you the class clown? growing up, were you the funny kid? What was that like? Yeah, I spent a lot of time in the principal's office. I spent a lot of time suspended, a lot of suspensions. Yeah. I was an only child, so all the cliches that go along with it, I was kind of... You know, I didn't have the best social skills, but I was good at making people laugh. And I liked that because I was alone a lot of the time. Sure. I'm going to, I'm still as a 50 year old man, an attention seeker. Sure. So I, and I, and I've learned to not care if it's positive or negative, cause I've learned that just helps my career. But as a kid, it was always positive attention seeking. So I always was the class clown because I loved making the other kids laugh and I loved being the funny guy. And I was, and I didn't mind if it got me in trouble because it got me, you know, it helped me to climb a social ladder as a kid. So yeah, I was, I was a heavy, heavy class clown. and I was also lucky because mostly, most of the time I was raised by my mom, single mom. And she was a pretty like progressive parent in, in the way where like she didn't, She didn't yell at me if I got in trouble. she does. She kind of just let me get in trouble. And it was like, that was just, it was like, he's a young boy. He's going to get in trouble. He's going to get suspended. So when the first couple of times I came home with that letter, you know, don't come back for four days. I was like, shit. You know? And then my mom was like, whatever. And then, and I remember thinking, okay, this is, this is different. So she just, she just let me get, she just let me challenge authority. She let me get in trouble. I think she, I think she, she was smart enough to know that, you know, if you, if you force a kid into a box where they, where they're scared of the teacher, scared of the principal, they're going to live a miserable life. You're going to live a life of people pleasing. And I think she realized that I wasn't that kid. And so she just let me be the kid that I was, which has led me to be a man child. And that has totally worked for me. You know, it's, I've figured out the right place for me to be a man child. And it just works. So I was really lucky because I had all the ingredients that allowed me to be the class clown. Yeah. And it was like, and they would always do things to me like I remember. I was six foot five in grades, I was six or four in grade seven. And I'm six or five now. So when I was in seventh grade, the... and I hated sports, but they so desperately wanted me to join the basketball team. I went to an all white school, you know, or mostly white school, and they were like, join the basketball team, because these other schools are coming, you know, and they got these black kids and they're way better than us. So like, we need the tallest kids to learn how to play basketball. And they begged me to join the basketball team and I hated sports. But I was also the class clown. And I was like, you know, these teachers that don't like me are kissing my ass and begging me to join the basketball team. So I was like, okay, I'll join the basketball team. And I played a couple of games and I was okay. You know, I needed to learn. I definitely didn't know how to play, so I had to learn. But I was pretty good, because I was closer to the net than most kids. Yeah, at that age too. Yeah, I was taller than almost everyone in my school. And I remember... you know, it was my history teacher. His name was Mr. Manzuck. And he was the basketball coach, but he was also an asshole teacher. He was just the worst teacher. And so I was a bitch in his class. I don't wish me on anybody, on any teacher. And he like, I remember he begged me to join the basketball team. I joined the basketball team. And then he somehow got it in his head that I liked it. But I didn't like it. I didn't like, I was not into it. I was not having, I wasn't having a good time. I didn't even like changing. Like I didn't even like bringing a change of clothes to school and getting into a pair of shorts to fucking go and play basketball. Right. And so one day I was being a class clown and he made this huge mistake, huge mistake. He was like in front of the whole class, he was like, if you keep acting like that, you're going to get kicked off the basketball team. And I was like, I quit. Just like that. I was like, I quit the basketball team and the look on his face, dude. set and I knew, because I knew he desperately wanted me on the team. Yeah. And he thought he had, he was like, now he's into sports. I'm going to use the sports against him. And I just like, I just blew it up right in front of him. And like, you know, I learned at an early age, if you, if you're right, if you're always willing to take your toys and go home, you can win everything. And so I was just like, I quit the basketball team right here. And now I will not be at tonight's game. And he, the look on his face, he sent me to the principal's office. the principal and the vice principal sat me down and begged me not to quit the team. No, no, this is going to be good for you. You should really, we need you. And I was like, he just, he just told me he was going to kick me off the team. I don't want to take any shit from him. So no, I'm done. I won't be there tonight. And I just, I never played basketball again. I never, I never got involved in sports again. I had like no respect for sports in school because I was like, they're just going to. They're just gonna get me to like this and then take it away from me or threaten to take it away from me. And I just didn't want them to have that power. Interesting, interesting. Again, man, it's very, like almost very similar path. I had two parents, but like I'm glad, cause I was a class clown, but I'm like glad that my parents maybe were more strict to me. And I had like sports as a thing because I was a fuck off dude. Like it was like school was so easy. It was like, it was so boring. And it was way more fun to hang out with like the idiot kids and do stupid shit. Like I had way more fun with that. When it was like a smart class, I had to actually like learn that then I would, I wouldn't be as much of a troublemaker, but man, I feel bad for some of those substitute teachers that I was, I was like the mastermind. I was like the mastermind of like getting other people to do things. Like sometimes I would do the dirty work, but I'm. devised like master plans to just do some stupid shit. Nobody remembers any of the other bullshit, but sports maybe kept me, because now I look at school and it's kind of bullshit, but I mean, you do need to learn to read and fucking not be an idiot. But yeah, I was like, I still have nightmares now as a 30 year old, like of me being back in high school. I'm like, I'm not doing this fucking homework again. I'm not doing it. Like that's, I don't know why. Are you naked in those nightmares? Cause that's mine always. I'm always naked and having to do a presentation. I'm just like, I really made the sacrifice. Like I worked really hard in school, but it's only for basketball. Cause like I ended up playing collegiately and I, but my whole reason for doing good in school was for that reward of like, well we can't give you an athletic scholarship, but we can give you an academic. Right. You can raise the G. So I was always trying to be as a. you know, well -rounded as I could. But now that that's all over, like I don't give a fuck about sports anymore. I used to don't care anymore. And same with, I mean, I will say I don't care, but that's because I got into gambling. But that's a different story. That makes it, that makes any sport fun. Sure it does. Yeah. But I mentioned, I actually played a year of college in Canada, in Vancouver. Okay. Simon Fraser. It's like, I don't know if you know Vancouver at all, but that was. I do, yeah. Yeah, that was a, that was a side of the country for me, but I performed out there. So yeah, what's, I mean, I'm from Portland, so it's really just the Northwest, but then there's a border. Like there's still, it's like the same type of what people, cause people just like, same with like when I've been to Alaska and Alaska in January and it was like 60 degrees, but then you go to a different part. Yeah. It's full of snow and ice. It was like, you almost snow a lot up there. No, it's just like the weather here, man. But like, There's shitty parts like the Midwest of Canada that are probably like above like, like Brandon. What is that? Is what I'm thinking of. What, what are the, what are the provinces? Manitoba you're thinking. Manitoba. Yeah. Yeah. Who would want to go there? I don't know. Somebody lives there. Some, yeah. Well, isn't like all the population of Canada condensed into like the, like five major cities, but it's, it's all within a few hours of the U S border. Most of the population density in Canada happens close to the US border. Some of my favorite, I went to that school for a couple of reasons. I'd be lying if I said Trailer Park Boys wasn't one of them. Because I came across Trailer Park Boys, I think Netflix, Netflix obviously brought it back, but I came across it when we had like old, it was like. We said like on demand, like with the cable provider we had and I was like trailer park boys and it was just like two movies. Yeah. And I watched them. I was like, this is amazing. Yeah. Jim Lahey, one of the best shows ever. dude. And then my friends like, did you know there's a show? I was like, what? Seven seasons on Netflix. And God, it shows so good. Yeah, it's so good. I think the newer stuff, not really, but the old stuff like it was still filmed almost like shitty on purpose. That show was so good. It wasn't on purpose. It was just based on budget. It was a low budget show, but most Canadian content is filmed poorly, low budget. But you'll find that a lot of Canadian programming was exported to the U .S. A lot of Americans love Kids in the Hall. That's another one that did really well over there. SCTV in the 1980s was a big one, Second City Television. If you look at the people that were on that show, they're all very familiar with SCTV. Do you know what that is? So SCTV was on here in the late seventies and early eighties. It was filmed in Toronto and it was a sketch comedy show. And it was like, but, but like every single person that was on that show is either dead and famous or ultra famous today. So like Eugene Levy. Right from Schitt's Creek and American Pie. He was on that show. Rick Moranis, who was part of Ghostbusters. Harold Ramis, who developed Ghostbusters. John Candy was on that show. Andrea Martin, who was on Schitt's Creek. Or sorry, was Andrea Martin? No, Catherine O 'Hara that was on Schitt's Creek. Dave Thomas, like all these names of... like super famous comedians in that are like net even now still doing well. Yeah. Part of that show. And that show was developed, you know, with, with government grants, you know, it was, it was, it was poorly done, but it ended up doing really well here. And it ended up being exported to the U S in the eighties and it did really well there. And almost every single person on that show has been. has gone to the US and become famous for comedy there. And it's like, and that's, I remember watching that, because it was made through Second City. I remember always thinking as a kid, I wanna do Second City. I wanna be a part of Second City. I wanna get in on this, whatever, you know. And when I found out as an adult that they had comedy training, I'm like, I'm gonna do that. And I went and I did it. And it was like, I learned a lot there. And I... If it wasn't for SCTV, I probably wouldn't have cared enough to do Second City. But it was like, you know, one of the best platforms for me to kind of say, okay, this is now what I want to do. Well, that's, you know, because you've been an entrepreneur, right? You've, right. You've... Yeah. Since I was 24, I've had my own business for the last 26 years. I've always worked for myself. Yeah, same. I haven't, since I got out of college, haven't. But I think we can relate on that where... Like when I got into it, I just found a course online that was like targeted me for comedy writing. And I was like, it looks like be interesting to learn how to be funny. And then my friend was always like, you need to stand up, sent me this link to join a comedy contest. And so I was like, I'm going to do everything I need to do to prepare for it like you would in business. So I bought a bunch of books on Amazon, you know, learned a lot of the game before even doing it. And then, to what you were saying of doing it at a comedy club. It's like, that's so, that's so important. I think like if you're going to prepare and get a good, like doing it in a comedy club, cause like we've all done shitty dive bar mics and like, if you think this is what comedy is and I don't blame you for wanting to quit. Cause I, I stopped doing those a while ago. It was like, yeah, I'm not. But when I did my first set and obviously it's shit now if I compared it to where I've grown, but. getting those first laughs in that comedy club was like, it was like a drug and I was like, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, you're either addicted to it from day one or you're not. Correct, and you maybe miss out on that if you don't take it, I guess, that serious where you can kind of tell too when people have taken a comedy class, I'm like, that's so structured and canned. Right. But you'll get better, keep finding your voice, but there are ways you can write funny jokes while you still try to figure out what kind of the speaker you are, but again, I've had, I did a lot of like group sales and presentations and public speaking. So like you said, you've done that too. So it really translates a lot faster because we look at a lot of people who get into comedy. I feel like they're like these introverted fucking weirdos. yeah. It's like and you want to put a microphone in your hand. There's a lot of mental illness in the business. there's a it's it's some of it. Yeah. Some of some a lot of me hates like a lot of. parts of like the industry comedy side of things or just being in it. Cause I'm, I like to commodory, but also it's like you've been in local scenes. It's like, I just got to stay away from this. It's like, yeah, it's both. I've, I've met a lot of comics that I love working with and I do other stuff with, you know, and I do projects with, and then I've met a lot of comics where I'm like, you know, this five minutes backstage with you is killing me. And like, you know, just talking to you or you talking at me is driving me crazy. And I, and I wonder, you know, how some of them are even in the business, but then you find out it's like, you know, and then they go up on stage and they're just trauma dumping. They're telling it's like, you know, you can't recover from telling the audience you attempted suicide, right? Like if you, if you go up there and you're like, I'm, I tried to kill myself. They are not going to laugh at anything you say there. You've. You will not recover from telling them you have clinical depression. You will not, you know, like, don't be that person where you feel the need to tell them your horrible stories. Like that's not going to get you any sympathy and it's not going to help you tell jokes later, but they do it. You know, they go up and they trauma dump and you're like, what, who told you this was a therapy session for you? Well, yeah. And I think maybe we had the benefit. I mean, we chose to, but like of learning about structure from the jump and like how to kind of. approach writing jokes and performing. And people that don't do that might shit on it, but like, well, you've been doing these open mics for 10 years, where have you been? Like, what have you been? You're still making the same mistakes that like, from me reading one chapter of a book without ever doing comedy, I could be like, yeah, don't do that. Right. My favorite is, and I see that I see a lot of people do this especially, and I don't host shows, so it's easy for me to pick on hosts, but like, I see a lot of hosts who are way too nice to the audience. And they're like, you know, give yourselves a round of applause for coming to the, you know, it's so thank you so much for being here. You guys are a really great crowd. The fucking crowd hates that shit. Right? Like if you come out and I do this, you know, my standup is I come out with this shitty energy and. I give you the feeling that I don't want to be here and I fucking hate every single one of you in the audience. And I do the opposite. Like I'll say, you know, I just want to say I've done a lot of shows, you know, in Toronto over the last year and they think I'm going to say something nice, you know, because like, you know, the, the, you know, the thing people always, you guys are really great crowd. And I'll just say, I just want to say you are the ugliest crowd I've had in over a year. And they definitely love it. Like they don't, they don't want their asses kissed. They want to be roasted. They want to be treated with a little bit of discontent. They want to feel like he doesn't want to be here and he doesn't like us. And that is to them, that's like more unpredictable, more fun, more edgy versus the placating, the kiss in the ass, the thanks for supporting live comedy, everybody. That doesn't fucking work, man. Like you can ask for applause and get it, but the crowd is, you're losing the crowd every time you kind of. play that game. And if you if you go the opposite direction, they don't expect that. And especially if the host is doing that, if the host is being super ass kissy with the audience, and then I come out and I'm just like, like my favorite thing to do when I come out is I just grabbed the mic, and I kind of hold it in my hand, I put my hand on the mic stand, and I just look around the room. And I just breathe this huge sigh like, yeah. You know, and I look at them like, you fucking losers. And they love it. Like, I don't even have to say anything, they start laughing. If you just look at them like, I hate you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Did I do a lot of that too? That doesn't work in public speaking, but it works in comedy. Yeah, I learned that from one of the books or courses I took on comedy. Like, go up and like, don't... People do you see people make that mistake all the time where they will come up and grab the mic and like they have to start filling up the room with words Less is more. yeah silence is amazing, dude Silence is your best friend and if you can get them laughing before you even say anything like I already know I got him like I Usually open with like an opener. That's like a one -liner I'll cycle through them. But if I got you laughing on the setup, it's not funny at all. Then I know it's gonna be a We're gonna have a good show. My favorite opening thing, and I do it almost every show, and even if you know it's coming, you don't, it still hits. I do the sigh, I look at the audience with discontent, and then I just look at one, I pick one person, and I just point at them, and I pause for another five or six seconds, and then I go smash, smash, pass, smash. And then I'll stop on somebody and I'll ask them a question, some random question like, how old are you? And if they're too young, I'll say pass. Or I'll say, you ever kiss your dad on the lips? Or like, ask them random weird questions. And it's like, it looks like crowd work, but it's just me. And I'm honestly doing the smash pass. But I'll sometimes smash on a guy and it'll throw people off or whatever. or I'll see a really good looking girl and I'll pass, you know, and like some bridesmaid, you know what I mean? You know, they're there for some party and I just like, and they love it. And it's like, you kind of win the audience over by just being completely crass and weird. But that works so well for me. Is this like, I pause for like 20 seconds before I start talking and then I smash past the audience and they, they love it. Yeah. And yeah, I think, you know, for maybe guys like yourself, myself, we're not people pleasers with that. It might work for some other people and I can see why people like other styles. Because there's a lot of people who fucking hate my comedy. I know there's people who hate your comedy, but that's fine. There's other, there's, I think. But there's people who hate Jim Gaffigan and he's the most vanilla comic. You know what I mean? There's people who hate Jerry Seinfeld. He just made a movie about cereal. Every comic has people who love them and people who hate them. And if you're, you know, but I feel like the more you try to please everybody, the less effective it goes. It's like being a politician that's not gonna work in comedy. No, you gotta ruffle some feathers, but some people, they don't do it as much, but you also, you might not hear about them. They're not that popular, but I see that a lot. Do you like a groan? Like, do you like when the audience groans at a joke? Yeah. Me too. that one. I think that's a special kind of comic. If you like the groan, then you're gonna do well. If you can't handle the groans, you're gonna have a hard time. But because the groans is actually like, I thought that was funny, but I'm afraid to laugh at it. Or I don't quite know how to react to this because everybody's looking at me. But the groan to me is like, because I will make fun of them for groaning. They'll groan and then I'll be like, you know, I'll groan back at them like, you know, like. And I think if you can handle a groan, you're gonna be fine in this business. I have one instance in particular, like I have some material that gets that, but they had me do a roast battle. And you know, roast battle, that's more of an urban sport, but we're doing it in like this really nice area in Chandler, Arizona. It's all white people and it's like a fundraiser for some kids leukemia. And you know, and they put me up against this fat black lady and she wears like a bonnet and shit and I called her Harriet Chubman. Nobody laughed, dude. I was like, get the fuck out of here. I was like, if we were downtown right now, that shit would crush. But since we're in, people are like, I don't think you can say that. Yeah, because you're white and you made fun of a black person. It's almost impossible to recover from that, but it's fucking hilarious. dude, I was, I loved it. Did you post that clip? Did you post that clip? No, I didn't get the film. I didn't get the film. I asked the dude for the film and he never gave it to me. my God. Yeah, it was one of those things where there's a two -upper. You should find a way, because that's so funny. You should find a way to like... Like if I were in your shoes, what I would do is I would repackage the joke and I would go use AI, like Mid Journey or some shit, and I would create some pictures, random pictures, but I would prompt it to make an overweight black lady with a bonnet as one of the pictures. And then I would say, this is me randomly reacting to AI pictures of people. And then, and then roast like three or four people. But then just when that, when that black lady shows up in the AI pictures, you'd just be like Harriet Chubman and then just move on. Like, I think it would be fun to recreate, like repackage that joke in a way where it's just like, you could just do it at your desk, make it a clip and upload it and see what happens. Cause I've read, did you see the, did you see the Kevin Hart Mark Twain prize? On Netflix? I was about to joke that someone made of it or there was a bunch of jokes, but one of them was, and it was the guy made the joke. He made, he came out and he said he was the, he was, I can't remember his name, but he was the black comic that had to walk out with the cane. Cause he's had a couple of strokes. Okay. Sinbad? No, no, it wasn't Sinbad. It was somebody else. Anyway, he came out and he, and he was like, you know, they had to take, he took forever to walk out on the stage and he had, he said like multiple strokes, one half of his body barely works. And he picks up the mic and he was just like, He's older guy, older black guy, and he picks up the mic and he goes, backstage, Chris Rock just called me Strokey Robinson. And it was just so funny. Like, I was dying laughing for the longest time. So it's like, whenever you come up with something like that, that's fucking funny, man. Like, if you can find a celebrity or like a historical figure name and then add some twist to the name, some rhymy twist to the name, it's almost always a win. I was I was like, I was so fired up to do that joke. And but I knew by the way they groaned, I was like, that's a good one. And anyone I've told anyone I've told that shit to have like your reaction, I was like, yeah, this is just like I usually know when something's fucking hilarious. And that was that was one of them. I wish I had it on film, but I didn't win the roast battle. But. I definitely had the best. I'm actually writing this down because I need to remember Harriet Chubman. I'm writing down your punch line because I'm going to, I'm not going to use it, but I'm going to use like, I, cause I'm, I got a roast battle coming up and I'm reminding myself to do the celebrity rhyming thing. Like just by writing this down. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I roast battles. I used to lose all the time. And then I started. kind of studying them and seeing like how people are winning. I was like, using fucking jokes that you could use on a lot of people. Yeah, just right. And so I tried doing one like that, like a whole tournament and I crushed everybody. But I like, you had jokes for these people that I have. I didn't even like some of the jokes, but since there was money on the line, I was like, okay, well, I guess for doing this, I don't like to go for pleasing the audience. So that's never, never my ambition, but in certain like a roast battle or something where it's audience vote. I'm going to have to, going to have to do what I have to do. My first roast, my first roast battle was horrible because I wanted to do one so badly that the guy who put on the show, who puts on the roast battles in Toronto was like, listen, in order to get in to the roast battles, you have to kind of go through a bit of a trial by fire. And I was like, okay. And he said, so what we're doing, what we do is we do these roast battles where you're not you, you're, you're a character. in it from a movie and you have to roast another character. And they do these like star wars, roast battles or Marvel superhero roast battles, or they did one that was like, and they're like, you're fucking Plutarch heavens be from the hunger games and you're roasting, you know, somebody from fucking Harry Potter. And I was like, I don't watch these fucking movies. I don't know who these people are. Like now I got to study these characters and I got to figure out how to roast a fucking fictional character while they're roasting me back. It was so awful. It was like, hated it. I'm like, I'm never doing that again. I'm never doing that again. I've seen, I've seen someone do that. I was like, that's a cool idea, but like it's niche for like, I think he did a whole show about it. Like the whole show. Yeah. I've seen that. I think my buddy in Dallas did something like that. I was like, that's cool for like that audience, but like, I wouldn't be interested in doing it. I'll never do it again. I learned my lesson. But that's the other thing. I think one of the things that I liked most about comedy in my like upbringings, I didn't watch a lot of standup, was watching the Comedy Central roasts. Where it's not a battle, but you just go up there and just dump in haymakers. But usually it's like people, there's a few strangers, but usually it's like people that are your friends. That like, I can, cause that's what I would get caught up doing early in roast battles is I would know this person and I would just go to depths. to find some shit about him. And like the audience doesn't know anything about this person. The person knows it was a zinger, but nobody else really gets it. But that becomes the premise of the joke, right? Like I was helping another comic write some roasts one night, a friend of mine, and he had to roast this girl, this female comic. And I went to her Instagram and I saw that she had just come back from a trip to Vietnam with her husband. And I was like, you know, you know, because nobody would know this. So you just start with the premise where she just, you know, so I said, you know, I said, why don't you try this joke? He didn't even use it, but I would have totally used it. I said, you know, Ali just came back from a trip to Vietnam where she got to meet her grandfather's second family from the war. You know, and it's just like, you know, it's just like, it's like, it's, it's like, you just kind of find the thing as the premise and then add something to it and, you know, to make it like ridiculous. It's like, so telling the, If you know something about the comic, that's the premise, right? They just went on this trip, they just did this thing. They're part of the blah, blah, or their job is this, their day job is this, and then you have the punchline, and it doesn't matter, because you just set it up with that premise. Right. Yeah. Yeah, and also writing good jokes, timing. And another weird thing with roasts is it's not like a joke that you've practiced or anything. You gotta go like right there. And I feel like even though you have the piece of paper, like if you can do without that, it's even better. Yeah. And then you kind of want to know what people are going to say about you. So you have some canned maybe or ready to respond. Cause as I've done enough and people kind of say the same shit, like when they say something that I haven't heard, I'm like, I like that. It's a good one. I've heard it all with my, I'm lucky. Cause my Instagram is all people roasting me. So everything that's been said or it's going to be said has been said. but the one that I'm doing in June is, it's a little bit of a different format. They're not letting us know who we're roasting until we get there. And then audience members are also signing up to be roasted. So that's, that's going to be kind of, but I've, I've also done a lot of shows where it's crowd work and I'm just roasting the audience anyway. So it's pretty easy to, it's pretty easy to pick on somebody and say, which, you know, it's like, you know, you kind of have to do the rundown. Like what celebrity do they look like? You know, you know, what? what like stereotype in society do they fall into, you know, just based on like, you make all these judgments on first impressions anyway, and it's just tapping into a lot of that stuff and trying to find the, you know, like, you know, sometimes it's just like, you look like this celebrity if they blah, blah, blah, you know, or you look like a homeless guy who shaves it, you know, like some, you just have to find like a. a stereotype and then a funny thing that, and they don't even have to align necessarily. Right. Yeah. I called, I think the last one I did, I called the guy homeless Simpson and a murder. Yeah. Murder. Yeah. But I also had a bunch of jokes that like, I'd written for somebody else that actually ended up working for him. Like he, it was a replacement last second. It was like a tournament style. So you go and then if you move it on, you move on, you don't really get a study. You get like, you know, 10, 15 minutes to get shit. So. I think that's the one thing I learned is just always just keep writing jokes. And yeah, one roast you have for one person can work for a lot of people. Yeah. so because what you said, there's only like 10 response, 10, 10 roasts that you get. Yeah, there's about yeah, there's about 10 to 15 roasts. And most of them involve my hairline, which I'm very aware is there ever a roast that you've gotten that you were like, that's a good one. Like not from like not a comedian, but like some somebody online talking shit. Not that I can think of. I mean, but then again, it's when you're getting roasted, it's hard to say that was good. But I mean, I think I would, I think. Like I've actually used a couple actually, no, there are some good ones. So, I, so I, I don't know if you were to, if you were to look at me, which celebrities do you think I look like? Kramer? Man, I don't know. I get. Elon Musk. Okay. Yeah. Fuck. And Dwight Schrute are my number one and number two most, most common things they say. And so I will often say something to the effect of when I, when I, when I introduced myself on stage, I'll say, my name is Brad Goss, but you might remember me as alcoholic Dwight Schrute, or you might remember me as the Elon Musk doll you ordered from wish. or something along those lines where I kind of say, okay, I'm this celebrity, but like the Walmart version, the dollar store version, the cheap version, the drunk version, the Cokehead version, the fat, I'm the fat Elon. And that tends to work really well. And so I've taken, anytime someone says, you look like, someone will say that, like, you look like alcoholic Dwight Schrute. And I'm like, I'm going to use that as a joke. I'm going to steal your roast. I'm going to use it as a joke about myself, self -deprecating joke. They love that. So yeah, those ones, the, you look like this celebrity, but like a shittier version or like if he was never famous or you look like Elon Musk, if he never made any money, you know, like, okay, I like that. It's a good joke, right? So those ones have worked for me. Okay. Yeah. I think, yeah, I'm trying to think. I had a few, I've had a few that I was like, wow, that's a good one. That made me laugh. Someone said something like, it's always the edgy edgy comedians. Why are the edgy comedians always so pointy? So he could pop balloons with his chin or something. I thought that's pretty funny. Right. Like I would say if I were roasting you, I would say you look like Andrew Schultz went to prison. I've gotten a wish version, Andrew Schultz, that one pretty common, probably because of my mustache. But you have a similar face shape and you have the hair color. And so you kind of have all the elements, but then it's like, okay, how do we make it edgier? Yeah, by edging. Okay. So you got a Kickstarter promotion going. I was checking it out. So what is it? It's a compilation of... It's 101 of my bestselling books in one hardcover. There's like six days left as of today on the Kickstarter. I'm two thirds of the way to the goal. We'll see if we actually hit it. But I've done a few Kickstarters in the past that were successful. So I'm hoping this one tips at 30K is my goal. I'm up to about, it's Canadian dollars. I'm up to 20K right now. I think it's going to go. What does that mean for someone who's dumb like me? It's like a. to actually, okay, Kickstarter's like, if I get this much, then I will do this project, right? Is that how it is? Yeah, because it's, so for me to put this hardcover book together is about a month of work. Sure. Most of my books take a day. Yeah. So for me to sit down and put together and lay out 101 books in one hardcover, it's gonna be like 320 pages. It's gonna take about a month to put that together, lay it all out, typeset everything, set it all up. and that's me doing that work. And so often what I'll do with a Kickstarter, like my last Kickstarter was a card game that I did with another comedian named Jamie, Jay Rainville. And I remember that. I remember you did that. Yeah. I was called identity war and we needed to know if, you know, the, the, the, the goal of the game is to become the most protected minority. So it's like, you know, you collect all these cards and at the end of the game, if you're like, I'm a trans disabled woman, you know, or whatever. I'm a, I'm a black indigenous, you know, gay. Okay. It's actually so funny. Yeah. Did you guys come out with them? Did you actually do it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, yeah, we created the game. And so the way we did it on Kickstarter was because, you know, you gotta do, you gotta print these things on mass. You can't just, you can't be like, I think this is funny. I'm going to print 2000 copies of this card game and fill my basement inventory to find out nobody wants it. So you do a Kickstarter and you get pre-orders, right? And so you can say, okay, so with this book, it's like, if I sell $30 ,000 worth of this book, I know, because a month of my time is worth a minimum of 30. So if I can reach that goal, then I know, okay, I have at least this much sold. So then I can maybe print. twice or three times as many copies, or I can print that number of copies, but then I can also republish that book with a different cover on Amazon or whatever. Now I know enough people want it that it's worth the work. And the great news is if it doesn't get successful, everybody gets their money back. It's like a show that didn't sell enough tickets. Everybody just gets their money back. And okay, we tried. So it's just one of those things where it's like, I want to know if it's worth the work. And that's how I figure it out is... I'm gonna do a pre -order campaign on Kickstarter. If enough people order it, I'll do the work. And how long have you been running that campaign? Because I was checking it out, you look like you're almost, like you said, like two -thirds of the way there. It's a 30 -day campaign. Okay. So there's a week left. So I'm three weeks in and I'm two -thirds funded. But what happens is you kind of get the most in the first few days and in the last few days. And in the middle, right now I'm still kind of in the middle. You won't see as much, but over the next few days you'll see, I'm going to be pushing more and more videos out about it. I'm going to be talking about it more. I'm going to be kind of really like, you know, pushing hard on the gas pedal of I'm going to do some book reads and then say, this is part of my Kickstarter, you know, whatever. So I'll push it. I'll do more live stuff, you know, over the next few days. and, and you really on the last like 72 hours, you'll see, you know, it'll either, it'll either take off or it won't. and it, you know, it's. It's like for me, it's like everybody. It's so funny because a lot of people, especially with all the negativity I've been getting lately, they're like, I hope your Kickstarter fails. And I'm like, I'm OK with it failing because it tells me not to do the work. I would be more upset if I did the work and it failed than if I because putting the Kickstarter together is basically me mocking up a couple of pages, mocking up a cover and showing you what this could look like if I do the work, but not doing the work. Right. It takes two days to put the Kickstarter together. It takes 30 days to put the book together. I'd rather do the two days of work and find out nobody wants it than do the whole thing and find out nobody wants it. So like, I'm okay either way. That's like what I learned about. I've written a few books for Amazon and you have too. Obviously, did you write books before these books that you put out? Like, are there more serious books? I did a business book in 2012. Yeah. Right. So one of the things, and it doesn't have to be a book, but when you're... when you're trying to write a book, you need to go do homework on what is not being written about that people want to know, you know, by reading reviews. And that's how you basically write your book. So and then in that sense, you don't write this whole fucking book or make this whole product or like you said, print or make, spend all this money buying all this shit just to know that nobody wants it. Yeah, exactly. We'll put it in the show notes, put everything on link. I'll make sure that there's a link for everyone to go and. Check out your page, where to find you. The book is called Bookakie. Of course it is. Of course it's Bookakie. It's Bookakie. But really appreciate you coming on. It was fun. Yeah, it was fun. Thanks, Adam. Learning a little bit more about how you've grown into being a comedian and where you're at right now. And we'll see how things progress, man. But thanks again for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah. listening to this episode with my guest Brad Goss. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the funny truth podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. I'm Adam J and you've just listened to another episode of the funny truth podcast. That is the funny truth.