Gadgetory

it is episode 15 87 and you know where we're winding down this season but you guys know that we deliver the goods and today in the studio joining us via Skype funny man Aziz and sorry all the way from the NYC Aziz what's up how are you I'm doing good we're doing great so welcome to the show thanks so much for coming out in obviously there's been a lot of news surrounding you not only in what you're doing in the comedy world but also on the online world we kind of wanted to talk to you about you know what have you been doing you're starting your tour pretty soon and also how is dangerously delicious doing uh it's doing well I'm not gonna release any numbers come on that's it okay so how about this can we play little that's like asking me like how much money do you make year I mean you know how much money do you make a year zzzz you can do the math exactly man of a private thing yeah but how's the response to dangerously delicious you're doing this podcast no seriously I know that response has been tremendous uh the overwhelming thing I've gotten back is people are so glad that someone else has done the same thing Louie CK did they're like I hope more comedians do this um this is so simple it's easy to get it it's a fair price and that's kind of been the overwhelming feedback I've kind of taken from all this maybe we should give some background to on what this is this is your comedy special dangerously delicious at your offering from your website that's like a five dollar download right yeah just get it directly for me aw jeez I'm sorry calm it's five bucks any and you get the special there's no like it's drm-free and you know I'm someone that you know downloads media and uh you know it can just be frustrating sometimes cuz you're like oh I want to watch Game of Thrones is it on netflix is it on hyphens is it on HBO on demand where do I watch it I know I paid for it somehow I found this where do I get it from and and then eventually like you know I'm just gonna steal it cuz I can't find it so so so have you um this is a drm-free thing so you're definitely in touch with what people want have in the past have you experimented using some of the benefits that the internet has sometimes offered for content that you may not pay for well the whole impetus for this was I recorded the special like in June of last year and I saw how many people would watch clips of my last stand of special on YouTube versus how many DVDs I'd sold and it was clear when more people were discovering the stuff online so I was just trying to embrace that and while i was having different meetings with people about ways we could do some sort of unique digital release I was actually hanging out with Louis CK while he was editing his special he told me what he was going to do and I thought it was really interesting and I was curious to see whether it would work and it and it clearly did it was a resounding success and immediately after he did it people were asking me hey would you ever release a special this way I think that would be cool so it just seemed like why try to fix something that isn't broken it seemed like something people like and so far it's been going well for me and it's been a fun experience cool and now I under that saying like Louis CK model I know he he had a huge expense up front to like book the production company book the theater did do everything his own way was that still the same case for you you had to get involved a production company and make this at the actual special kind of feel and produced yourself yeah I mean I did this back in June was when I did it so even before lewiston came out I paid for everything myself you know you paid for running the venue and all that stuff and it ends up being about roughly 250 thousand dollars for everything yeah and for that causes as offset by people buying tickets for the shows that you filmed but you know it's definitely a big expense and you're gambling on yourself to kind of make things work but you know you also know like all right well if this online thing doesn't work I'll you know I I own this content so I can do whatever I want with it you know are you Aziz are you happy enough with the response that you will potentially do this for your new tour that's coming out buried alive I know you still have to tour it starts I think April 10th is that when you're starting to jump on board and just fly around the country to do this tour yeah I have a brand new tour I'm doing it's all different material and I'll probably sad as a special in a couple of years but you know who knows how much the landscape will change by that time I mean I'm still not sure what to do with the one I have you know this five-dollar thing the main thing i like about this is you can buy for five dollars as opposed to a DVD is cheaper than it would be on itunes and it's directly for me um you know I don't know if maybe down the road I'll also want to put it on you know video on demand or whether i should put it on TV like I think it's like such uncharted territory that no one really has any answers but for right now for the immediate release I like being able to release it directly to people for five dollars and just because it's way cheaper than a DVD I just think ultimately this is better than releasing a DVD right a deep gift is more expensive and people just want the video anyway so I've got a question from the chat room here that want to ask you dr. Karl wants to know if you've got any flack from more the corporate channels more than the distribution channels that you might have previously put your content on it there's been in any backlash from you know people you would have worked with before for the method that you're using or is it pretty much a win all around um no like backlash haven't like gotten mean emails from anybody yeah like a comedy central or like uh what you know is he Aziz is doing it Louie CK is doing it or they is it there's a sense that this is kind of the trend going forward I mean I think they understand if you're comedian that has a big following there's been some power that shifted back to the artist and and you know they were super cool with me the last special I did with them they still air that special all the time so I have no no palms with them I think they understand like as far as releasing it visually that this is what I wanted to do and what I've done but you know I don't think I've ruined any kind of relationship with everything yeah that's awesome stuff now if you guys haven't just joined us make sure you guys can check out Aziz Ansari calm his special that we're talking about here dangerous still dangerously delicious is available for five dollar download really funny stuff but Aziz also you know embracing the whole internet technology generation you're really active on Twitter and I just kind of want to know maybe what your thoughts are good or bad or some of your unique experiences that you've had using Twitter um you know I what I like about twitter is it's directly it's a direct connection with people that follow my work so I can you know not only just make jokes about random stuff but do things like releases special um I've also done like random things like so whatever people by the special it says like oh if you want to tweet and say that you liked it you know you can do that and so I'll see you when people tweet and say hey i just bought the special really enjoyed it so i'll find like random people like that and there was a couple people last week when we first started selling it i like sent them like flowers and cookies and like couldn't do that before like I don't know who I don't have anyones info bought the DVD I released last a couple years ago you know like we did the thing where I tweeted like oh if you're in New York you bought the special and you don't have lunch plans the first ten people that email this address like we'll go to we'll get you lunch and so 10 people even I mean a hundreds of people emailed right away and we found like 10 people that we could do it with and I went like bottom lunch and not with them and talked to him for a while about their whole experience behind the special and everything and we just started a new contest today where if you go to aziz ansari calm and you hit the facebook like button the city that has the most number of likes i'm gonna do a free show they're like a small free show thanks for you know supporting the special everything but yeah it's just cool that you have like such a direct connection to people that enjoy your work it's really you there's never been anything like it I don't think in our times now in your routine sometimes you've talked about some of the interactions you've actually had based on feedback that someone might have given you is that all really real or you know some of it is a little too story I mean you have those fun raw conversations with you know let's say a fan who may agree or disagree with your stuff yeah in the in the new special I do this bit towards the end about arguing with the guy online and you know now I I just never engage with anyone that's a negative because it's ultimately a dumb thing to do because the way you got a thing about it is like take your favorite thing in the world like you know whatever movie or you know for me like if i type in Chris Rock bring the pain like that's one of my favorite things ever I think it's one of the best an especial ever hands down I could type that into Google and find 50 people that say it sucks it's horrible Chris Rock's terrible that jokes not funny and then you realize it's like why am I even playing this game you'll never win no matter what you do there's going to be people that don't like it and there's going to be people that say it's bad or whatever so don't care it's like you know if you're putting something out and so many people enjoy it just you know you should be happy with that there's one person this is empty Lee just kind of criticizing it and so but in that bit when I talking about it one guy said something to me and I just started engaging with him like and bugging with him and I just kept going back and forth and it was really fun of me so I talked about it on stage and it's all true multi that's good stuff also there's one thing that you and I have in common believe or not a love for our Kelly where did that start for you you know I've been a fan of his since you know the 90s with the hits a bump and grind and everything and then my fandom grew with trapped in the closet and everything and then I went to this concert that was really insane I talked about that my first special and then when I was touring dangerously delicious whenever I would come out for encore whatever you know people will check out our Kelly and want me to talk about him so I came up with a new bit about him which actually things better than the first and I do it in the new special Oh to update people on our oh cool oh I had a one question just with the how involved did you get getting back to the special and this whole like direct distribution model how involved did you get with the actual like the back end of it I've actually figuring out how you're going to be able to deliver the video file the people and that'll the complicated mess that would scare people like me off from doing anything in that realm have a friend that uh luckily is like very good with all the web stuff and I kind of just had him kind of take charge of everything but I was really hands-on with everything I wanted to use all the site and like see all the pages and all the stuff you read like when you get an email from buying a special that's like I wrote that email and like made sure all the wording sounded in my voice and you know I it's kind of cool you get to like make it really sound like you so like when you buy the special you know it's not like on Amazon where you get like thank you for purchasing the swing like evil for me that's like oh snap on that five dollars is mine I got that email check out that email is awesome yeah people really like that stuff and you know whenever you buy a special there's like a digital bonus pack of just um you know photos from the tour different tour posters we did and it's like a set to like make your own DVD cover like the Photoshop files and stuff you would need to like make your own DVD cover using all the photos and materials and assets we give and people have been sending me those on Twitter and it's really cool you can do stuff like that that you normally couldn't do with the traditional physical release awesome well as easy no we just want to say thank you so much for your time believe it or not we actually have an earthquake drill coming up in two minutes I I you not I guess this interview is not going well yeah that's that's excuse for the out but you know congratulations on your success will keep on falling you and I hopefully have you back you know sometime in the future but a great stuff and thanks for coming out thank you thanks for speaking with me guys I really appreciate it alright awesome there you go Aziz Ansari in the house for bol so we're gonna take a quick break we're gonna duck under duck cover and roll whatever we do so we'll be back in a few moments don't roll don't roll you know stay under that table all right buzz allow coming back in a bit you