Name: What Made You Choose Stand Up? | Theo Von w/ Chris DiStefano
Uploaded: 2020-05-11T16:00:19.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Made You Choose Stand Up? | Theo Von w/ Chris DiStefano' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-05-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Made You Choose Stand Up? | Theo Von w/ Chris DiStefano' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-05-11. Transcript available.

Hey, what's up, Theo? What's up, Chris E.D., baby gorgeous. Hope you guys are
doing great.
My name's Nick. I am from Aurora, Illinois. And my question for Chris, actually
for both of you,
if you both could answer this, it'd be great. But for Chris, I know that you
had started a
career in physical therapy. And I was wondering what was the moment and what
made you decide to
pursue stand-up full-time? And what was going on? I'm always curious to know
what it was that
made you transition into different career paths. Was stand-up maybe just a
hobby? Was it always a
passion? And how was that for you? How did that go? And for you as well, Theo,
what were you doing
when you decided that you were going to do stand-up and become a comedian full-time?
And how was that
like for you as well? It's something I'm always interested in to know with
anyone that pursues
something as crazy as stand-up. So thanks, guys. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it. Have a great
rest of the day. Gang, gang. Gang, bro. Gang. Thank you for coming. Very
articulate. I did not expect
him to be as articulate and well-spoken and well-mannered and soft in a
positive way as
he was. I thought it was going to come out. Because last time I did your
podcast, your fans
were just coming out swinging, saying, I want to fight you, fuck you. Really?
Yeah, because they were only going off what they had seen of me. And what they
had seen
of me was you and I ripping each other from Opie. But now, again, positive
because I came
on your show and some of your fans start listening to my stuff. I can see they're
using, calling
me baby gorgeous and Chrissy Chlamydia. They listen. So it's a different thing.
So I appreciate
all this.
Yeah, look, man. I appreciate you. I'm glad that you're here, dude. The good
thing about
this.
Hold my hands while I'm in this.
All right. I haven't held a guy's hands like this. Hold on, bro.
No, come on, man.
I don't touch the top of my hand with your other phone.
You've got those fingers, bro.
Huh?
You've got those fucking perfect-ass fingers.
They're not perfect, dude. I'm very, very, like kind of the hands that you
could barely
fucking choke somebody. You have to have somebody else just come and help you.
Nah, dude. They're fucking good in there. And you don't bite your nails either.
I do. My thumbs are good.
You've got sexy-ass cuticles.
Really?
I think so.
Look at this finger.
Oh, that finger's disgusting. That looks like ET.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's gross. Yeah, actually, your fingers are a little long.
Yeah. I mean, they're fingers, though. They shouldn't be real not long.
You could just rock your toes, man, with no... My feet are disgusting. They
grow over each
other.
I could easily see that.
It's disgusting.
Yeah, you look like somebody who would have webbed feet almost.
I don't have webbed feet, but I believe I was born with broken feet, and they
never fixed
it.
Yeah, sure.
I just... My feet are broken.
Take care of yourself, dude, okay? That's what I'm saying. You look like a guy
that definitely
was in the band, in the school band, even though he wasn't really in it.
Yeah, like I was just... You look like you were on the marching thing with the
flag.
Yeah. Dude, you look like my third grade gym teacher, Mrs. Klein. She was like
this
lesbian. We used to call her Liu Kang. You kind of look like Liu Kang from
Street Fighter
if he was a white dude and had money.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
That's awesome, man.
But I'm going to...
What should we answer his question, though?
Yeah, let's answer his question.
Okay, you want to start?
Yeah, so... Yeah, what was I doing? I mean, I was always doing something else
on the side
until comedy was just enough of a job, you know?
I think at a certain point, it just kind of chooses you. I always... I think
even until
about like 10 years in, I was like, am I going to keep doing this? Am I going
to keep
doing this? At some point, I have to grow up, it feels like.
Comedy for me always felt like a place where I could just be... I never had to
grow up.
You get to travel all the time, you get to escape whatever was going on in your
regular
life. You always got to get out of town. If you were about to be in a
relationship, I
got to go, I got to get out of town. You know, there was always... You're
always on
the go. You never had to be in one space. You never had to really kind of deal
with
yourself, I guess, in a little bit. So comedy always gave me that, the ability
to escape,
I felt like. And then at a certain point, I was like, oh, I'm getting older. I
need
to figure out, am I going to have, you know, what am I going to do here? How am
I going
to have a real future? And then, yeah, I think at some point, it just kind of
chose me. It
was like, okay, there's enough here where I can survive, you know, so I'm going
to stay.
What I always liked about you is you were a guy that you had to really... Not
that it
mattered, but there was a lot of proving that you had to do to your peers
because when
you started out, it was real world. And then you start doing stand-up and
already people
like, nah, he's a real world guy. He's not a real stand-up. And then your
career, like
you said, was like just maintaining, maintaining, maintaining, did the Netflix
special and it's
just maintaining. And then you start to prove yourself in the podcast game. And
then they
say, oh, well, he's just starting a podcast. You know, he's still the real
world guy, but
then you start to explode with the podcast. And then it got to the point where
it was like,
now I've shed that real world thing. I don't think anybody, I know for a fact,
no one
even thinks about that with you. And he was like, that was something he did 15
years ago.
And now it's just like, great podcaster, great stand-up. It's Matt. So I don't...
Sometimes
as a peer of yours in the comedy world, we, I noticed, I'm like, that was
pretty insane
how he was able to do all that. The random fan may not know that. Then he's
like, oh, I've
always fucked with Theo. But it's like, where you had to come from, because you
could have
easily quit is my point. Because you're saying 10 years, it's like, I'm sure
you heard it.
Because if I heard it in New York, then you heard it was like, oh, it's the
real world dude. But
that's, you know, we don't want to be known as that. Like just now, am I
starting to shed? Oh,
you that guy from guy code where it's like, that's a part of me. That's I'm
proud of it. But now it's
like, they know my name a little bit. They know my podcast. They know me for
stand-up, not for
being a talking head. And you are not known for being on a reality show. Yeah.
You know? So it takes a lot
of work to do that. So I'm, I'm always noticing about you. And that's, I
started just to answer the
fans. Thank you for that question. I was a pediatric physical therapist. I have
a doctorate degree in
physical therapy. It's crazy, dude. It really is crazy, man. When you get skull
fucked, your paths
change. So I went and I became a physical therapist. I was working with
children, pediatric, mentally,
and physically handicapped children. It was a beautiful job. But then
simultaneously, I got on
guy code. And guy code really started to pop off on MTV too. And then they
created girl code. And that
really started to pop off. So what happened was, see, the thing is this, is,
you know, they, a lot of,
a lot of the people who were watching the shows were younger people, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22 is a college
younger people show on MTV and MTV too. And it's very well known that older
women sometimes will give
birth to a child with a disability. You know, there's a lot of testing that
women as they get older have
to do. It's less and less now, but it's still a thing. That's what people say
on my biological clock,
but what's also not as known, but is very true is younger women, 17, 16, pre,
they don't have the
proper prenatal care and they don't know that they're pregnant. So their
children are born with
high disability rates as well. Definitely. And high sugar too. They always at
Sonic.
Always at Sonic. Yeah. Oh, um, so, so they, so they, uh, a lot of the moms and
dads of the children I
was treating were young people that were watching guy code and girl code. And
the principal of the school
I was working, I was like, look, we found out you're doing comedy and doing
these TV shows.
And they're like, it's not, you can't be treating handicapped children and also
doing a show about the
guy code to hiding your boner. So you're going to have to choose. And so I was
really this little
kid, my little man, Aaron, great kid. He was in a wheelchair, had cerebral palsy.
So cognitively,
he was fine. No problems with speech or his mind worked like our minds, but his
legs didn't work
from cerebral palsy. So he was sitting in his wheelchair one day, we were
throwing the ball at him. You know,
he would throw it at me. I would, you know, rifle it off his legs. He couldn't
feel it anyway.
So I would just rifle it off, you know, light him with, you know, burn him with
cigarettes,
whatever it is. You know what I mean? No, you know, he couldn't feel shit. I
would tell him
to close his eyes. I would just, yeah, whatever, you know, light his pants on
fire, joke around.
Have a pet bat bite him. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. I'm obviously I'm kidding. But
what he's your agent now is my agent. No. So Aaron, so, um, so Aaron, um, told
me I was when I was
flirting with this idea of leaving, uh, physical therapy, he's six years old.
But the thing is,
when you're a six year old kid, that's got a disability, you're, you're so wise
beyond your
years. So the reason, cause the, you know, man asked me what, why, what made me
change? I was
always flirting with the idea of leaving for a year. I was like, I'm, I should
leave. I need to jump
two feet in if I really want to do standup. And then it got to the point where
Aaron told me we're
talking, throwing the ball back and forth. And, uh, and I was like, ah, I kind
of want to leave
standup. I kind of want to leave physical therapy to do standup, but I'll miss
you guys so much. So
I don't know if I could do it. And he was like, well, it isn't standup. Isn't
being a comedian
your dream. And I said, yeah, it is. And he goes, so why wouldn't you go? Why
wouldn't you go do it?
If that's what you always want to do. And I was like, um, I was like, I don't
know. I'm going to miss
you guys. And he was like, he would, and he said to me, he was like, I'm not
going anywhere. I can't
walk. I'm always going to be sitting in this chair waiting for you. He's like,
but I want to, Aaron
said this to me. He goes, I want to, I think it's pretty cool. If I could see
one of my therapy,
my teachers, he called, he calls teacher, one of my teachers on TV. He said, I
would think that was
pretty cool. He said, and if I had that opportunity, I would go and I would
hope you would want to watch
me and be proud of me. And he said, we're all proud of you. I think you should
go do it and go live your
dream. And I was like, damn. And then, cause I would say, cause he, cause he
said, cause I,
and then I said to him, I said to him, I was like, how are you so smart? How
are you so smart like
this? And how are you so brave? And then he said, like, I'll never forget. He
was like, well,
he was like, you see, Mr. Chris, it was like a fucking movie. He's like, you
see, Mr. Chris,
he said, when you can't walk or use your legs and you're in a wheelchair, he
said, you have all day to
sit and think. He said, so I'm thinking about you and I think you should go do
it. And then I swear
to God, I fucking relieved myself, hysterical crying. Like three hours later, I
told the
principal, I was like, I'm, I'm going to leave. Is this patch Adams? I think.
No, dude, it was
legit. It was fucking legit, man. It's a, it's wild. I mean, it's a fuck. And
then I put Chinese
finger traps and shit on his toes. I took those off cause he couldn't feel it
anyway. Yeah. Did he
really say that man? I swear he really said that. It's remarkable. Yeah. To
think about how much
time you have to think just how still probably your world gets when you can't
even move. Cause
it was that, that pushed me out. And also I, this is true too. I had sex with
four of the
teachers at different times and the heat was starting to get turned up because
they all found
out about it. So they were starting to get a little heated in that physical
therapy room.
Petri does for that drip drop. So between Aaron telling me to go live my dream
and, and these
girls, you know, about to press charges, it was, it was time to leave. Good
evening. Good
afternoon and other times. Thanks for watching that video. You just saw. I mean,
it was okay, but the next
video you could watch could be way better. What if you watch a video right now
that changes your life?
Well, you could watch this one or watch this one, watch this one, watch this
one, watch this one. Ah.

What Made You Choose Stand Up? | Theo Von w/ Chris DiStefano

Hey, what's up, Theo? What's up, Chris E.D., baby gorgeous. Hope you guys are
doing great.
My name's Nick. I am from Aurora, Illinois. And my question for Chris, actually
for both of you,
if you both could answer this, it'd be great. But for Chris, I know that you
had started a
career in physical therapy. And I was wondering what was the moment and what
made you decide to
pursue stand-up full-time? And what was going on? I'm always curious to know
what it was that
made you transition into different career paths. Was stand-up maybe just a
hobby? Was it always a
passion? And how was that for you? How did that go? And for you as well, Theo,
what were you doing
when you decided that you were going to do stand-up and become a comedian full-time?
And how was that
like for you as well? It's something I'm always interested in to know with
anyone that pursues
something as crazy as stand-up. So thanks, guys. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it. Have a great
rest of the day. Gang, gang. Gang, bro. Gang. Thank you for coming. Very
articulate. I did not expect
him to be as articulate and well-spoken and well-mannered and soft in a
positive way as
he was. I thought it was going to come out. Because last time I did your
podcast, your fans
were just coming out swinging, saying, I want to fight you, fuck you. Really?
Yeah, because they were only going off what they had seen of me. And what they
had seen
of me was you and I ripping each other from Opie. But now, again, positive
because I came
on your show and some of your fans start listening to my stuff. I can see they're
using, calling
me baby gorgeous and Chrissy Chlamydia. They listen. So it's a different thing.
So I appreciate
all this.
Yeah, look, man. I appreciate you. I'm glad that you're here, dude. The good
thing about
this.
Hold my hands while I'm in this.
All right. I haven't held a guy's hands like this. Hold on, bro.
No, come on, man.
I don't touch the top of my hand with your other phone.
You've got those fingers, bro.
Huh?
You've got those fucking perfect-ass fingers.
They're not perfect, dude. I'm very, very, like kind of the hands that you
could barely
fucking choke somebody. You have to have somebody else just come and help you.
Nah, dude. They're fucking good in there. And you don't bite your nails either.
I do. My thumbs are good.
You've got sexy-ass cuticles.
Really?
I think so.
Look at this finger.
Oh, that finger's disgusting. That looks like ET.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's gross. Yeah, actually, your fingers are a little long.
Yeah. I mean, they're fingers, though. They shouldn't be real not long.
You could just rock your toes, man, with no... My feet are disgusting. They
grow over each
other.
I could easily see that.
It's disgusting.
Yeah, you look like somebody who would have webbed feet almost.
I don't have webbed feet, but I believe I was born with broken feet, and they
never fixed
it.
Yeah, sure.
I just... My feet are broken.
Take care of yourself, dude, okay? That's what I'm saying. You look like a guy
that definitely
was in the band, in the school band, even though he wasn't really in it.
Yeah, like I was just... You look like you were on the marching thing with the
flag.
Yeah. Dude, you look like my third grade gym teacher, Mrs. Klein. She was like
this
lesbian. We used to call her Liu Kang. You kind of look like Liu Kang from
Street Fighter
if he was a white dude and had money.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
That's awesome, man.
But I'm going to...
What should we answer his question, though?
Yeah, let's answer his question.
Okay, you want to start?
Yeah, so... Yeah, what was I doing? I mean, I was always doing something else
on the side
until comedy was just enough of a job, you know?
I think at a certain point, it just kind of chooses you. I always... I think
even until
about like 10 years in, I was like, am I going to keep doing this? Am I going
to keep
doing this? At some point, I have to grow up, it feels like.
Comedy for me always felt like a place where I could just be... I never had to
grow up.
You get to travel all the time, you get to escape whatever was going on in your
regular
life. You always got to get out of town. If you were about to be in a
relationship, I
got to go, I got to get out of town. You know, there was always... You're
always on
the go. You never had to be in one space. You never had to really kind of deal
with
yourself, I guess, in a little bit. So comedy always gave me that, the ability
to escape,
I felt like. And then at a certain point, I was like, oh, I'm getting older. I
need
to figure out, am I going to have, you know, what am I going to do here? How am
I going
to have a real future? And then, yeah, I think at some point, it just kind of
chose me. It
was like, okay, there's enough here where I can survive, you know, so I'm going
to stay.
What I always liked about you is you were a guy that you had to really... Not
that it
mattered, but there was a lot of proving that you had to do to your peers
because when
you started out, it was real world. And then you start doing stand-up and
already people
like, nah, he's a real world guy. He's not a real stand-up. And then your
career, like
you said, was like just maintaining, maintaining, maintaining, did the Netflix
special and it's
just maintaining. And then you start to prove yourself in the podcast game. And
then they
say, oh, well, he's just starting a podcast. You know, he's still the real
world guy, but
then you start to explode with the podcast. And then it got to the point where
it was like,
now I've shed that real world thing. I don't think anybody, I know for a fact,
no one
even thinks about that with you. And he was like, that was something he did 15
years ago.
And now it's just like, great podcaster, great stand-up. It's Matt. So I don't...
Sometimes
as a peer of yours in the comedy world, we, I noticed, I'm like, that was
pretty insane
how he was able to do all that. The random fan may not know that. Then he's
like, oh, I've
always fucked with Theo. But it's like, where you had to come from, because you
could have
easily quit is my point. Because you're saying 10 years, it's like, I'm sure
you heard it.
Because if I heard it in New York, then you heard it was like, oh, it's the
real world dude. But
that's, you know, we don't want to be known as that. Like just now, am I
starting to shed? Oh,
you that guy from guy code where it's like, that's a part of me. That's I'm
proud of it. But now it's
like, they know my name a little bit. They know my podcast. They know me for
stand-up, not for
being a talking head. And you are not known for being on a reality show. Yeah.
You know? So it takes a lot
of work to do that. So I'm, I'm always noticing about you. And that's, I
started just to answer the
fans. Thank you for that question. I was a pediatric physical therapist. I have
a doctorate degree in
physical therapy. It's crazy, dude. It really is crazy, man. When you get skull
fucked, your paths
change. So I went and I became a physical therapist. I was working with
children, pediatric, mentally,
and physically handicapped children. It was a beautiful job. But then
simultaneously, I got on
guy code. And guy code really started to pop off on MTV too. And then they
created girl code. And that
really started to pop off. So what happened was, see, the thing is this, is,
you know, they, a lot of,
a lot of the people who were watching the shows were younger people, 18, 19, 20,
21, 22 is a college
younger people show on MTV and MTV too. And it's very well known that older
women sometimes will give
birth to a child with a disability. You know, there's a lot of testing that
women as they get older have
to do. It's less and less now, but it's still a thing. That's what people say
on my biological clock,
but what's also not as known, but is very true is younger women, 17, 16, pre,
they don't have the
proper prenatal care and they don't know that they're pregnant. So their
children are born with
high disability rates as well. Definitely. And high sugar too. They always at
Sonic.
Always at Sonic. Yeah. Oh, um, so, so they, so they, uh, a lot of the moms and
dads of the children I
was treating were young people that were watching guy code and girl code. And
the principal of the school
I was working, I was like, look, we found out you're doing comedy and doing
these TV shows.
And they're like, it's not, you can't be treating handicapped children and also
doing a show about the
guy code to hiding your boner. So you're going to have to choose. And so I was
really this little
kid, my little man, Aaron, great kid. He was in a wheelchair, had cerebral palsy.
So cognitively,
he was fine. No problems with speech or his mind worked like our minds, but his
legs didn't work
from cerebral palsy. So he was sitting in his wheelchair one day, we were
throwing the ball at him. You know,
he would throw it at me. I would, you know, rifle it off his legs. He couldn't
feel it anyway.
So I would just rifle it off, you know, light him with, you know, burn him with
cigarettes,
whatever it is. You know what I mean? No, you know, he couldn't feel shit. I
would tell him
to close his eyes. I would just, yeah, whatever, you know, light his pants on
fire, joke around.
Have a pet bat bite him. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. I'm obviously I'm kidding. But
what he's your agent now is my agent. No. So Aaron, so, um, so Aaron, um, told
me I was when I was
flirting with this idea of leaving, uh, physical therapy, he's six years old.
But the thing is,
when you're a six year old kid, that's got a disability, you're, you're so wise
beyond your
years. So the reason, cause the, you know, man asked me what, why, what made me
change? I was
always flirting with the idea of leaving for a year. I was like, I'm, I should
leave. I need to jump
two feet in if I really want to do standup. And then it got to the point where
Aaron told me we're
talking, throwing the ball back and forth. And, uh, and I was like, ah, I kind
of want to leave
standup. I kind of want to leave physical therapy to do standup, but I'll miss
you guys so much. So
I don't know if I could do it. And he was like, well, it isn't standup. Isn't
being a comedian
your dream. And I said, yeah, it is. And he goes, so why wouldn't you go? Why
wouldn't you go do it?
If that's what you always want to do. And I was like, um, I was like, I don't
know. I'm going to miss
you guys. And he was like, he would, and he said to me, he was like, I'm not
going anywhere. I can't
walk. I'm always going to be sitting in this chair waiting for you. He's like,
but I want to, Aaron
said this to me. He goes, I want to, I think it's pretty cool. If I could see
one of my therapy,
my teachers, he called, he calls teacher, one of my teachers on TV. He said, I
would think that was
pretty cool. He said, and if I had that opportunity, I would go and I would
hope you would want to watch
me and be proud of me. And he said, we're all proud of you. I think you should
go do it and go live your
dream. And I was like, damn. And then, cause I would say, cause he, cause he
said, cause I,
and then I said to him, I said to him, I was like, how are you so smart? How
are you so smart like
this? And how are you so brave? And then he said, like, I'll never forget. He
was like, well,
he was like, you see, Mr. Chris, it was like a fucking movie. He's like, you
see, Mr. Chris,
he said, when you can't walk or use your legs and you're in a wheelchair, he
said, you have all day to
sit and think. He said, so I'm thinking about you and I think you should go do
it. And then I swear
to God, I fucking relieved myself, hysterical crying. Like three hours later, I
told the
principal, I was like, I'm, I'm going to leave. Is this patch Adams? I think.
No, dude, it was
legit. It was fucking legit, man. It's a, it's wild. I mean, it's a fuck. And
then I put Chinese
finger traps and shit on his toes. I took those off cause he couldn't feel it
anyway. Yeah. Did he
really say that man? I swear he really said that. It's 