From Stand-Up To Stardom: Dante's Journey In Comedy And Entertainment (Motivational Speech)

In this episode, Reginald D had the pleasure of sitting down with Dante, a multifaceted talent in the entertainment industry. Dante is not only a top stand-up comedian but also a movie producer, activist, actor, talent agent, and writer. We delved into various aspects of his career and personal life, providing listeners with a comprehensive look at his journey and insights.

Dante shares the story behind Golden Artists Entertainment, the company he co-founded with his wife. The company has grown significantly, managing a range of clients and producing various projects, including documentaries and stand-up specials.

Dante talks about his journey into comedy, which began at a very young age. He started performing at seven and officially entered the comedy scene at 15 years old.

Don't miss this inspiring episode of Dante's comedy journey.

Website for Golden Artists Entertainment

Dante's Website - www.comicdante.com

Dante the Comic Instagram - Dante (@dantethecomic) • Instagram photos and videos

Dante the Comic YouTube Channel - (236) Dante TheComic - YouTube

Transcript

Welcome to Real Talk with Reginald D. I'm your host, Reginald D. On today's episode, I have Dante. He's a movie producer, activist, actor, talent agent, comedian, and writer. And he is one of the top stand-up comedians in the world. Welcome to the show, Dante.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on here.

Yeah, man. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to hang out with me for a minute.

So do people call you Reginald or Reggie or what do you prefer? And most people call me Reggie.

All right. It don't really matter, man.

You know, I figured. Yeah. I'm sure everybody's got a million nicknames. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. So it's like whatever's easier.

Yeah. Yeah. Whatever's easy for you, too. That's why I told you, you don't even have to say my last name because I don't know what it is. Who knows what my last name is?

So, Dante. Yes, sir. Let's talk about your business. before we go into your comedy career. Okay. Golden Artist Entertainment. Tell us a little bit about that.

So about 10 years ago, my wife and I, we were making a bunch of movies and writing for people. She and I were both writers for Joan Rivers on Fashion Police. I was writing and directing commercials for the ShamWow guy. Remember him? ShamWow, Slap Chop, all that stuff. and then making some movies and writing them and directing them and so on. And she said to me, we're making all this money for everyone else. Why don't we start our own company so that people can write for us and make movies for us and things like that? And she goes, all these celebrities want to know why, you know, you make almost as much in stand up as they do. And they're way more famous and things like that. And they want you to manage them. And I was like, OK, So we started this company and she became my first client. And then the ShamWow guy became, I think, my second client. But because my wife was already famous as an actress and we had started this company, I think a lot of people wanted to bet on us, if that makes sense. Like they all liked us. I've known every celebrity in town pretty much since I started stand up when I was 15. And like Richard Pryor and Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay and all these different guys were like my mentors, you know, and so everyone knew me. And so when we started the business, it took off. So now our company is great, man. My wife's inside right now. She's monitoring a pilot for Perez Hilton that she got him and she's working on that. But yeah, we've got great clients. We've got a documentary coming out this year. We've got two stand up specials coming out. What else? Bunch of clients that we got on some reality shows like Traders and some other ones. And then. I don't know. We're just busy. You know, my wife's always getting someone a pilot or something big like that. So we're just waiting till these all hit. I mean, they're all in production right now. But yeah, it's a really fun company. I love running it with my wife. You know, we get rid of people if they're terrible. And I don't mean bad actors. I mean, if you're a bad person, I'm not into it. I'm not going to allow that. You know what I mean? Go be bad with someone else. Not me. You know, I'm not here to I've always been the nice guy in comedy and acting and stuff. So I'm like an Adam Sandler. I want to surround myself with nice people who are nice to work with. And if you're not, beat it.

Yeah, exactly, because it will mess your culture up. Yeah, man.

And I'm not that guy who's here to protect you, you know, doing this or doing that, or you cheated on your wife or all. I don't need it. If you could go do it, I don't care. But don't bring me into that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to be the one. Oh, yeah, he was on a movie. Don't ask me to lie for you. I'm not going to do that. That's your problem, not mine.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So Dante, who are some of the people you match?

Um, you know, we've got so many different ones. I could just name celebrities, but it's it's not just. Celebrities that we have and we don't just manage people, I'm also the booking agent for a lot of people that I don't necessarily manage. You know, we have a lot of celebrities that we get sponsorship deals or autograph signings or convention work or book deals or Broadway or whatever outside of the norm of their agent and manager and then the people I do manage. Of course, like I'm in charge of their entire career. But yeah, some of the fun people that we either have or have had or that we manage or have booked, I don't know if you're a reality person or not, but we've got a lot of the top ones, you know, Sari Fields from Survivor. She's like one of the top people on Survivor. We've got Richard Hatch, Rachel Riley. We've got Aza Awosom. She's great. Just tons of people, Silky Nutmeg Ganache from the drag race show, Perez Hilton, just on and on and on. Check out Golden Artist Entertainment sometime, you'd be shocked, especially by the comedians. People are always like, oh my gosh, you have Jimmy Walker, you've got this guy, you know, like, it's pretty crazy.

Yeah, and I was going to say that I checked it out and I saw Jimmy Walker on there and I saw a certain entertainer. I saw a kid from kid and play.

I love kid from kid and play. Come on. Yeah.

So yeah. So the crazy part about it, I was on the ship with them on a cruise, the Tom Joner cruise with them a couple of weeks ago. Nice. So I've known.

to that Cedric since his first time on TV on Comic View, because I was already kind of big on Comic View. I don't know if you remember that show. It was on BET in the 90s, but I was on there like every day. And so by the time Cedric came around, we were on like season three and he was so nervous. I remember him coming up to me, man, I don't even want to be on the same show as you. I'm nervous to go up on the same show as you and this and that. And I was like, you're going to be fine. And sure enough, he went up there and killed. And then the next year, I think they asked him to host. I was like, you're going to be just fine. But yeah, no, I'm not his manager. I am just one of the people who tries to get him some comedy bookings, but yeah, he's a great dude. Always loved Cedric. Always loved Cedric, man. What a nice man too.

I could tell that about him. Yeah.

Yeah. He, there's a really good dude, man. Like there's some really good dudes in this business. And then, you know, every once in a while you meet people, but I don't, I don't like hate them for their bad behavior on one day. It's multiple days. You know what I mean? Because one day we've all had bad days. I don't want someone saying, oh, I saw him on his bad day. That must be how he is all the time. But then there's just some you're like, oh, this guy, blah.

I know something like that. I know something like that.

And it's in every business. It really is every business. And it's like, people are always like, oh, why do actors change and blah? I think power makes anyone change. Think about even just at your job. The person at your job could be your best friend. All of a sudden, they become your boss. Now they're the biggest jerk on the planet because power went to their head. Because they make two more dollars than you, you know? You're like, oh. What is wrong with people? But sure enough, man, I've given power to people and I've watched them change. I was like, okay, I will never give them power again. Exactly.

So Dante, now let's get into your comedy career. Can you tell us about your early life and what inspired you to get into comedy?

You bet. So this is kind of an interesting story. I told you I started at 15, but I really started at seven. So when I was a little kid, I grew up on a Navy base called China Lake here in California. It's out in the middle of nowhere, nowhere. It's Mojave Desert, surrounded by Sierra Nevadas, a town where people beat you up just because they wanted to, because their their parents probably beat them up. You know what I mean? Like, it's just one of those. Couldn't wait to get out. But on the base, being on the base was actually nice. It's, you know, because base life is different than the town life. But being on the base was always good. And my dad was in charge of big visitors. His job on the base was PR or whatever, or entertainment for if a president came, or the governor, or astronauts, or the secretary of the Navy, whatever, right? Or he set up all of the USO shows for the base. And so when I was a little kid, I was meeting people like, Ray Charles, you know, he's coming to my base. And my dad's like, would you like, of course I want to meet Ray Charles. And then I got to watch his concert. And then a lot of concerts I couldn't go to because they were for adults, but someone like Ray Charles, I could go to. And then the one that changed my world was, I wish I knew who these guys were, but there was an improv group that came to my town. And I thought they came with a guy named Willie Tyler and Lester. He's a black comic with a puppet, older guy who used to be on TV a lot. But apparently I told him about him. He's like, that wasn't me. He goes, I know who that guy was. He used to go around and pretend he was similar to me and tell similar jokes. But it wasn't me. But anyway, so I watched that guy and then I watched this improv group and I had never seen comedy in my town. I had seen big singers come through, but comedy. So I turned to my little best friend. His name was Jared. And I go, hey, you know how we listen to comedy? Because we would always listen to Richard Pryor, which is crazy. And then he became my friend when I grew up. Or we'd listen to Bill Cosby's records. Oh, what happened to that guy? Sometimes you think you can trust people will wear sweaters and then you're like, maybe you can't trust all sweater people. And then. But anyway, so we listened to all these albums. We had them all memorized, you know, and then I turned to him, I go, hey, if they can perform here, we can perform here. Do you want to be a comedian? He goes, yes. So we wrote an act. We kind of stole from the people we saw. We stole the idea, not the jokes. What they were doing was they were standing in a line and they're like, here's an impression of us changing the channels. And one person would say something. The next person would say something that led from this guy to that guy. For example, how we changed it. And believe me, it was the seventies. So this is an old, old joke, but so I would go first and I'd go, all right, changing the channels on the TV. Hi, I'm Farrah Fawcett, and my favorite food is, and then I'd flip around and Jerry would go, Alpo dog food, the best dog, you know, and then that was the joke. And we'd go on and we'd do more and more and more. And then we had a couple of jokes. But anyway, we won all the contests that you could at your school. We performed at all the classes. And then our career was over at seven and a half. And so, We didn't do anything else, man. And then I wanted to be a comic my whole life. My parents finally moved me to San Diego when I was 12. And I don't think it was till I was around 15 that I had the guts to want to do it again. And I found a friend again. I found another friend. You want to do it with me? I was always too scared to do it by myself. So we were called Dante and the Wolf. His last name was Wolf. And we show up to the comedy store on the first night. And my friend Faison Love is the doorman. Do you know who Faison is? Big worm from Friday. I went to junior high and high school with Faison. And I show up and I'm like, Faison, I thought you have to be 21 to get in here, man. He goes, how about you shut up? He goes, man, look at me. They think I'm 50. Cause he always looked 50 since we were children. Like he always looked identical to how he does now. He never looked different. Anyway, he's like, I'm going to tell them, even though I was 15, he's like, I'm going to tell them that you're like 20. That way you only have to wait like a year. He's like, but you look way too young, man. I can't tell him that you are 21 now. He's like, we just got to fake them out for a year. So that's what I did. I waited a year, but we would run in, perform and then run out, run in, perform. Finally, I turned 21, or no, I didn't. I turned, whatever it was, 19 or whatever I was gonna be. 16, but I told them, I don't know what it was, man, but I had the fake ID and they believed me. And so I started performing there all the time, became a doorman just like Faison did, started checking IDs when I was like 17, being a bartender and a bar back, I should have gone to jail, man. And what's crazy is some dude pulled a gun on me one night, and when I walked him out to get his wallet, and I ran through the alley like you do in a cartoon, like, oh, if he shoots over there, I'm gonna be running this way. So I was just doing this through the whole alley. And I ran back inside and I remember the police came and I was so nervous. I didn't care about the gun. The minute I saw the gun, I was like, oh, the police are gonna come and know that I'm not 21. So the whole time the police were like, would you like to press charges? I'm like, absolutely not. I don't want to, I'm just not in the mood. She even asked for my ID and I think she got distracted and never looked. But man, that night I was just sweating bullets the whole time. I thought I'd go to jail. Who knows what happens to someone who lies about this? It's funny, when I did turn 21 there, the fake 21, I was really 17 or whatever. One of the guys goes, Dante, remember this day, you'll never be 21 again. And my friend who knew the real age was like, you never know. You never know. I'm like, shut up. That's hilarious.

That's hilarious.

And then from there, I stayed till I was 21. So when I knew I was actually legal, I moved up to the comedy store and started working there. But yeah, for like five or six years, they thought I was in my 20s and I was still in my teens. I had a lot of explaining to do to my friends later in life.

So what were some of the key moments or turning points in your career? What's that? What were some of the key moments or turning points in your career?

Oh, that's a good question, man. By the way, sorry, there's a garbage truck right outside my door. Hollywood. Anyway, I would say one of the very big first turning points for me was Comic View, because when I moved up to LA in 91, Comic View came out in 92. I had started a room at the comedy store upstairs that was basically a black comedy room. All my friends were black comics, and the audience was filled with celebrities every single night. It was Tupac was there almost all the time. Dr. Dre, Snoop. I mean, everybody, everyone from TV, everyone from whatever came to these shows. They got really popular. And then BET, I guess, came out and saw me, put me on the show, and that changed everything for me. I thought, you know, You get into the comedy store to get famous. And I didn't expect it to happen that quickly. You know what I mean? I just moved up there. I got on Comic View. And the truth is, Comic View didn't pay a lot. I think it paid $200 or something. So it's not like we got rich from it. And they aired me every day. Like, I was on there. Comic View used to air four times a day. And my set was at least one of those, because I did it every year, and sometimes twice a year. But that really changed my life in the way that I went from begging for gigs from everyone to people offering me stuff all the time and being flown around the country to perform. So that was the big change in my life was BET Comic View.

Absolutely. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah. I mean, it was nice meeting celebrities and stuff, but only their advice was helpful. It's not like, you know, any of them changed my career, but I did get good advice. Like, I remember this one time I said to Richard Pryor, I was so excited to try out a joke on him and be like, hey, here's what Richard said about my joke. So I go out to him, I'm like, hey man, I have this new joke, can I try it on you? And he was a little sick at the time, he goes, let me ask you, have you done the joke? I say, yeah, I've done it. Do people laugh? Yep. Why are you asking me then? I was like, okay, got it, nevermind. He goes, only the audience matters, don't ask other comics. I was like, got it, got it, got it. Good advice.

Yeah, it was. And Dante, when I think about comedians and being in comedy, it seems like it's real competitive and it's tough to be a great comedian. Would you say that? Or is it- 100%. 100%. 100%. And I don't think

I don't think most comics know that they're great when they are. You know, people try to tell me I'm great. I don't have the mindset for that because I see too many people better than me. You know what I mean? I might be great to everybody, but then there's still a Chappelle in front of me. There's still a Chris Rock in front, you know what I mean? I just go, okay, I'm just good. Because there is a difference. I can crush on stage for an hour. These guys can crush on stage for six hours. Six. Chappelle's done it. I've watched Eddie Griffin do like six hour sets. I could never do a six hour set. And it wasn't all material, but I couldn't even talk that long and be funny and entertaining without walking everybody or giving up at some point. There is a difference between, I don't know, a Muhammad Ali and whoever's boxing today. You know what I mean? There's just a difference. It was a difference, that's all. There's certain people that are the greats and we all see it and they make their way. I remember when Chris Rock and Chappelle weren't even that famous. They weren't, they were barely famous. I think Chris, when I first moved up here had done a small role in a couple of movies, like we all knew him from stuff, you know, but he wasn't super famous at all. He was just a guy who'd been in a couple of movies, but I always knew that he and Chappelle were gonna be big. And as a matter of fact, I was in, I came in and auditioned for Chappelle every year for something. He would always call me. I always remember being at the mall when he would call. I'd just see like a pager would come in. Call Dave Chappelle. Back in the old days, kids, there was something called pagers. Anyway, so it would say, call Dave Chappelle. So I'd call him up and he'd always be like, hey, I got another pilot. Come in for it. So if you ever watch his show or anything he ever does, at the very end of the show, it always says Pilot Boy Productions. And the reason for that, Dave Chappelle had more pilots in Hollywood than anyone, and they never went. Only the Dave Chappelle show went, and I was like, the only one I never auditioned for, damn it.

Wow. So let me ask you this, Dante. Yeah. How do you think the world of comedy has changed since you started? What are the biggest changes you've noticed?

Internet, the internet, people can get famous. And I'm not bitter or mad or upset by saying any of this. I'm all for anything that's good for comedy, I am. There's a lot of people, oh, the internet's ruining things. These influencers, they're selling out clubs and then can't make people laugh. Well, so what? So what? Were you gonna sell that out? Because if you weren't, it wasn't your spot that they took. You know what I mean? So what? It's seats and drinks sold, that's our business. Funny's last, it is. I'll give you a good example. There was a big star here in LA that I booked one time and I thought they would sell out, but it's LA. People don't show up in LA to see a big star unless it's like at the Greek or some joint. I had them at some small club, right? People don't care. They can go see everybody tonight at the comedy store. So having this one person, I was taking a chance on it. No one showed up to see them. Thank God this person forgot they were even on and goes, oh my God, do I have a show tonight with you? And I went, no, no, no, it's canceled. I was very lucky. Otherwise I had to pay them a lot. Then the next week, this guy who's terrible, he was a terrible open miker. He goes, hey, I've got this hook where I talk about being a Republican and I know I can pack your place and blah, blah, blah. I was like, none of this sounds good to me. None of it. He goes, but I promise. And if I don't, I'll at least give you like two hundred fifty dollars for the space. I was like, fine, let's do it. This fool sold out the place, sold drinks everywhere. And so now I use that when I teach comedy classes and I go, who do you think that I will book next time? The big celebrity who got no one to show up and canceled on me or the open miker who proved that they could pack the house and sell tickets? Of course, I want to book the person who I believe, but I have to go by the numbers. And today, the Internet is numbers. Everything that we do now, if they want to see how popular Dante is, they just go, oh, oh, that's sad. He only has thirty six thousand followers on Twitter. Damn, that's not great compared to someone who has thirty six million. So everyone has a number. In the old days, I could be like, I'm the most famous person in San Diego. And they'd be like, wow, he must be, because he said it out loud. Today, they're like, let's look up, Siri, who is the most famous person in San Diego? And they'll tell you. That's funny, but that's the truth. It is the truth. And people look at it, especially on movies or things like that. If a part comes down to two people, right? And let's say it's a low budget movie, right? There's a couple of stars in it, but it's low budget. They need everyone to buy this movie or watch it or whatever. If it's down to two actresses that are unknown and one has 200,000 followers and one has 200 followers, they will always pick the one with more followers because of the odds of their fans watching it and bringing in more money because they already have 200,000 built-in audience. The other person's 200. So it's all numbers now. I mean, we have these celebrities that will say to a company, hey, they just got, you know, 50,000 to promote something on their Instagram and do one quick story. They're like, yeah, we don't do that anymore. We use analytics. Let's check. What is their name? And blah, blah, blah. OK. Yeah, we can offer 15000. Wow. And these are like 20 year olds who are like, I don't know who they are. I don't know what the what Academy Award they won or blah, blah, blah. I'm just telling you what we can afford to pay them based on their analytics. That's Hollywood today, analytics.

That's it. That's it. So what would you say to somebody who's trying to be a comedian? What are some of the failures that you see the most in becoming a comedian that people run into?

Giving yourself too little time. Most people think I'm gonna come out to LA and give myself two years, okay? In two years, if you say, I'm gonna take some comedy classes, some acting classes and become a comic and all this, At the two-year mark as a comedian, you're going to be terrible. You have a price tag on still. No one likes you. You don't know your own voice yet. You don't know how to dress yet. You haven't figured out the best way to tell jokes. So the biggest mistake I see is people limiting themselves of how much time they give themselves to make it. And also, what is making it? Because if making it is you need to be Kevin Hart, then you should get out, really, because what are the odds? It's like any other. It's like saying, oh, I want to be the next Michael Jordan. What are the odds? You know, if no one is telling you you're the next Michael Jordan, then you're probably not. You know, if you've never done stand up and you're like, I'm going to be how do you know there's no proof? So don't over, I would say, find a goal that works for you. I'm going to go out to L.A. I'm going to get myself a day job and at night I'm going to do stand up till I'm great and can quit my day job. That's an excellent goal. Now, all of a sudden, you have something under your butt saying, get out of this job. So that's gonna make you go out every night and be like, if I just focus on this for two, three years. Because the truth of the matter is, if I looked at my career when I first started out thinking of what I wanted and Academy Awards and this and all that, to where I am now, I'd be like, oh man, this isn't great. But if I told myself what I've done over my lifetime as a comedian and actor, I'd be like, oh, well, yes, I'm in, I'll do it, I'll do it right now. You know, so be realistic with your goals is what I would say to comics. And then one more thing, be realistic with your writing. People want to hear jokes. The first mistake a new comic makes is I'm great at telling my friends stories. I'm sure you are. But guess what? If you watch Richard Pryor, Kevin Hart, Chris Rock tell a long story, you're not watching a long story. You're watching a long story that they have sewn together with about 20 jokes. They took 20 jokes from their act and went, oh, I tell this one about flying to New York. I might as well make that flying to Japan because I have a whole bit on flying, you know, about being in Japan. And then I had a joke about staying in a hotel in Seattle. I'll just move that hotel story to the middle of Japan. So now I'm flying to Japan. I'm in Japan and now we're at the hotel. Now I met this girl, but I met her really five years ago and it was a bit I used to do, but now I'm saying I met her in Japan. That's how it works. That's actually how it works. So if you go back and you study it, you go, Richard Pryor didn't tell a 15 minute joke. He told 150 jokes in 15 minutes that was put together in a story. So that's how it works. What I would tell new comics, set up punchline, set up punchline, just the quickest joke. We all know what jokes are, right? We all know what a set up and punchline is. If not, an example, why do all Italians wanna grow up to grow mustaches? to look like their mom. It's just a one-liner, you know what I mean? It's quick, it's easy. I'm not saying that that one's funny or anything like that, but I'm saying that's an example of a one-liner. And if you can't do one-liners, it's like not being able to dribble a basketball and still saying you're gonna be the next Michael Jordan. Because if you can't master a one-line joke, how can you tell a story? Makes no sense.

Wow, that's well put. That makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense. So what has been one of your most memorable performances or moments on stage?

Hmm. Gosh, I've had so many that I really liked. Sometimes you'd be surprised, man. Things will happen to where you go, I can't believe that was the show that really got me. Because I've been in front of 15,000 people in stadiums telling jokes before. But then you'll be in a small room with like 12 people and it turns into magic. Magic. Like they laugh harder than the 15,000. I have to say, remember that kid I told you when I was seven who became my comedy partner? His name was Jared McQuarrie. I was performing about five years ago in Reno, right before COVID, I believe. And he and his girlfriend surprised me in Reno and came out to see me and my wife. And I hadn't seen him in years. I was so excited, man. And I brought him on stage and guess what? We didn't remember too many, but we did a couple of those together and we hadn't done those since we were seven. Then he says, can I have the mic? Sure. He brings his girlfriend up there, gets down on his knees, pulls out a ring, and proposes to her on my stage. And luckily, I was videotaping my set that night, so I had it all on video. But I'd have to say that was probably my most memorable, because what a full circle moment, right? At my comedy show, my first comedy partner at seven years old is now a 50-year-old man or whatever, getting engaged on my comedy stage. It was great. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Full circle all the way around.

By the way, there's a police helicopter now over my house. They hate me. They hate me.

They're not near me, but they hate me. Dante, what is one of the achievements you are the most proud of in your career?

From my career or just my life? Just say your life. Gosh. My daughter. That's my biggest achievement. She is better than me. She's better than me. She is. She's just better than me, man. Like even when she was little, she was better than me. I remember we were driving at like midnight in a carpool lane on a freeway with no one on it. And I was like, oh, do you have to pee or anything? Yeah, I could pee. So I start to get out of the carpool lane. Daddy, you're not supposed to cross double white lines or whatever it was. Honey, there's no one on the freeway. But Daddy, does that make it OK? I was like, I'll wait till the next broken lines, dear. But that's how she's been her whole life. She's just a sweet pea, man. She's never done anything wrong. My wife is always like, you did that. You were such a good dad. You did that, you know? So I'd have to say her more than anything else. And I've had a crazy fun life. When I was a kid, like I was into boxing and I got to spar with Muhammad Ali. Like who could say that in a lifetime? You know, but I'm not trying to just be a dad, but it's so rare and it's always funny that I'm never mad because she's never trying to hurt anybody. She was just raised by a comic and is too quick for me sometimes. Is that too loud? The police? Cause I can ask them to leave. They know me. All right. Anyway, I'll give you an example of what I mean by my daughter being funny. I'm very sensitive. Like everything I do, I'm like, Oh man, my daughter's going to love this. So it was my birthday. I was performing in Texas and this guy goes, Hey Dante, I gave you your last tattoo. I'll give you one for free again. I was like, it's very nice, but I don't really want one. And he goes, you sure you don't want like your daughter's name or your wife? I was like, actually, you know what? At the time, my daughter liked this song about Peter Pan. I am a lost boy from Neverland, you know, and she's like at the time, I guess, like 17. And I was like, so I called her up on FaceTime. And I said, baby, I'm thinking about getting a Peter Pan tattoo. And then you're Wendy. My wife is, you know, mommy is the Tinkerbell and we have a little dog. I'm going to get that across my chest. She goes, daddy, you should get it across your forehead so that men know you're available. I was like. I was like, oh, that's my fault for raising her in comedy clubs. That's it. She's a good girl. She's turning 21, June 19th. And I asked, do you want to go drinking? You went, no. Finally, we figured out she wants to go to the Magic Castle. So that's where I'm going to take her. And it's on my same street. I live in Hollywood. If I walk up my same street, I can take her right there. So it's easy.

That's it. It's easy. So I'll tell you, every comedian has dealt with hecklers at some point. How do you handle them? Say that again? Every comedian, I feel like they have dealt with hecklers at some point. How do you deal with them?

You know what? I realized a long time ago that hecklers aren't the way we see them in cartoons and movies. In cartoons and movies, they're always like, hey, you're terrible. Here's a tomato. That's not what people do. A heckler usually is someone who's just drunk and a bit loud, you know, who says something during your act that is distracting, but probably meant to help. You know what I mean? Like, I'll tell a joke, let's say, about shoes, and they're like, I have those things! Maybe you didn't hear what they said, but they were trying to say I have the same shoes. And it's like they weren't heckling me. But I realized at one point I was like, man, I would always be like, can you shut up? Can you quiet? And then they get upset. The audience felt uncomfortable. And I was like, why am I yelling at these guys? They're having a good time. I am the host of this party. Would I yell at someone for having a good time at my house if we were having a party? When I was young, I figured out my shows are gonna be a party and they are. When people come to my shows, they're different than most standup because I intertwine jokes with talking to the audience. And then like, if I'm talking to you for five minutes, that's nothing that I wrote. Maybe two jokes get slipped in because I had them in my back pocket. But most of that time is gonna be on you, you know? It was like, I did a show at a casino recently and this guy got up and danced with his wife beforehand and um in the in the club right in the comedy club inside this casino and I went up on stage I'm like man that is big d energy right there when you dance in front of everybody before the show I was like man you so I did probably 10 minutes on just this guy having a big d and then I even closed out my set later by ending on his big d like I told another joke and everyone went crazy so it's like none of it was planned But it was a party and he did that so I reacted to it and then someone else said something I reacted to it so that's, I don't think I have ever. The only real heckler I ever had was some guy was drunk in San Diego, and my wife was going up before me she's a comedian, and she was new at the time and we were at a crazy, crazy. college bar where the host usually gets them. He calms them. This was a new host. He went up, he was supposed to do 10 to 20. He went up, did about a minute and went, oh, I'm going to bring up your next comic. So they are screaming loud. She gets up there, starts to tell jokes. A guy walks up, grabs the mic and goes, who thinks she's terrible? We should get rid of her. You know, I walked up on stage, pick the man up. I walked him out with his feet off the ground throughout this bar. I had to walk him from the stage all the way out. I pushed him in the street, and I told the bouncer, keep him out. That was the only time. And then I go back to my wife. And as I'm walking in, I hear the host go, OK, let's welcome Dante. I think you just threw someone out. So I get up there, it did work out. But when I got off stage, I thought my wife would be happy. She was upset that I had to throw someone out. She was more upset that the whole thing happened. That's what it really was. But that was the only bad time I've ever had a heckler. And I didn't hurt the guy. I wasn't mad at him. I just knew he was drunk, but I was like, not having it.

Right. So Dante, looking back on your career, what is the most important lesson you've learned?

Wow, that's a really good question. Most important lesson. I guess that it's a business. That's probably the most important lesson I learned about my career. Is that what you mean about the career? Yeah. It's a business. It starts off as fun. I want to go tell jokes. I want to travel the country. I want to see these places. I want ladies to like me. I want guys to want to be my best friend. And I want all this stuff. And then you go, wait, I need money. Oh, I'm tired of finding change in my couch to buy gas. And now we live in a time where if you don't get on the business train, we're in a recession, we're in inflation, we're in all these things where it's like, if things are costing 25% more and you were living check to check before it, how are you living? You know, I think I've seen a huge shift in Los Angeles. I would say more than half of the people I knew in this business have moved. They've moved. They could not afford to stay here. Luckily, a lot of them stayed in the business, but just went, I live in Michigan now. And if I ever have to come back for an audition or what, I will.

So with that being said, your legacy, how would you like people to remember you in the world? How would what? I said, how would you like people to remember you in this world? Well, how would you like your legacy to be?

I guess I think about this a lot. I used to think I wanted to be remembered. And then I realized one day we're all ants, man. We're all ants. Even the most famous ants from a hundred years ago, no one remembers, you know? Like I'm sure we have to tell our own kids today who, you know, who Elvis was or Marilyn Monroe, or how about Harry Houdini? You know, like I live in a Charlie Chaplin home. My house was built by Charlie Chaplin. The Charlie Chaplin studio is right behind my house. I've never watched a Charlie Chaplin movie in my life. I'm sure I've seen him on TV a million times. We all have seen him jumping around and doing things, but I never sat down and watched one. I wouldn't even know where to find one. I guess I'd have to search it. But I realized none of it matters. It just matters what you do while you're here. And so I just want to be the best person I can be. I stopped lying. Right after high school, I broke this girl's heart by cheating and lying and I wanted to die. I wanted to die, man. It was the worst feeling I had ever had. And I just went, it all happened because I memorized all these lies and portrayed them as reality and lived in that. And so from that moment on, man, I never lied to anybody. I figured I would rather get in trouble with people or whatever. It's not like I'm rude and will be like, hey, you need to lose weight. I'm not overly honest. I'm just honest. You know, like my daughter, when she was growing up, I was like, baby, I'm never going to lie to you. And I never have. There's never been one day where she's like, dad, you promise you never lie. She would be like, what happened there? I was like, oh, all right, I'm going to tell you. But I shouldn't be telling or how about I tell you when you're you know, there's always I'll tell you when you're older than I did, but I never lied to her. I've never lied to my wife. Like if you ask my wife, we've had fights. She's never once called me a liar. It's important to me, I want to be a good person. I want to help people because I like people.

So lastly, Dante, let's tell the people, how can they reach you or book you, but it wants you to match their talent or anything like that.

Okay. So my company is golden artists entertainment. That's, and it's just the same website, www dot golden artists entertainment. If you want to check out my comedy, I have a YouTube channel. It's Dante, the comic I'm Dante, the comic on all social media. My website is comic Dante, but yeah, if you go to comic Dante on YouTube, there are. hundreds and hundreds of hours of my standup. There's hundreds of hours of my standup comedy classes that I teach. I have these little Dante tips that I make every day. There's 270 of them or something like that. There's a lot. So if people want to get into comedy, there's 270 free pieces of masterclass for you. And then I guess I think that that's it. But yeah, on YouTube, you can also watch all those activism videos I told you about all the police videos and a whole bunch of other stuff. But yeah, people want to hire me or any other great comedians for your parties, for a comedy club, for anything or actors or whatever. Hey, if you have a company, so many companies aren't thinking about this. I have so many actors and influencers that will post a tweet for you. for a lot less than you probably think. You're like, oh, that person's got a million followers. He's going to charge me a million bucks. I bet you I can get him to do it for a couple thousand because it's one tweet. I bet. I bet I can. And all of a sudden your business gets hit by a bunch of people at once because a famous person told him to go there. So, yeah, Golden Arts Entertainment hit me up, hire some comics, hire some actors. 

Dante, I thank you, man, for stopping by and hanging out with me for a minute. 

Sorry I got so deep at the end. I know when it says Comic Dante, you think it'll be funnier, but I got a little deep. I'm sorry. Oh, you got some funny moments in here, I'm telling you. All right, good. Thank God. 

Thanks for having me. All right, I appreciate it, Dante. Thank you for tuning in to Real Talk with Reginald D. If you enjoyed the show, please share with anyone you feel the need to take this journey with us on being a better you. See you next time.