Rare News Desk
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Videos by Rare
Kurt Wallace: Our guest today on Rare is a 17 year veteran comedian David A. Arnold he’s a writer for popular sitcoms such as Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Meet the Browns the Tony Rock Project and David thanks for being with us today on Rare.
David A. Arnold: You’re welcome. Let’s add a couple more things to what you talk about me going on and doing as far as my credits are concerned. I also have a TV show coming on July 12 starring Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence on the FX network. As well as a show on right now with Kim Whitley called raising Whitely on the OWN network that I’m also a writer for. So things are going really well. It’s to to be here and finally catch up with you how are you doing?
Kurt Wallace: I’m doing great. You and I met on a plane out to Dallas and I got to catch your show you were headlining in Dallas and I loved your show.
David A. Arnold: Wow, thank you man. I remember that it’s so funny because those little things spark future endeavors because I’m now going back to that very club next month to headline for the entire weekend.
Kurt Wallace: It’s a great club. You’re actually on a comedy tour at the moment? Where can people find out about it?
David A. Arnold: You could go to my website DavidAArnold.com and check it out. You can follow me on twitter @DavidAArnold. The tour is called the ‘I’ve never heard of your either tour’ We made it that because like you said I am a 17 year veteran comedian. But I’ve been doing so much television writing that a lot of the people while they may have heard my jokes, are not familiar with my face. So I decided to go out on a tour. And they go ‘I’ve never heard of that dude’ so I said well I’ve never heard of you either. But let’s go out and meet each other so we can put an name with the face and that’s what we doing and it’s really really working I’m having a lot of fun.
Kurt Wallace: Now if they can’t come to a show because you’re not actually in their city. They can catch a radio show you just launched where you talk about a ton of interesting topics.
David A. Arnold: Yeah, we just started a radio show the David A. Arnold radio show podcast/Ustream show which is really great. We do it once a week on Wednesdays. If you can’t catch it live, it’s Wednesday nights a 7pm PST. But if you can’t catch it live you can always go to my website DavidAArnold.com you can look at it and click on the radio podcast tab. And you can see all of the show they’re archived there. It’s really funny man I’m having a lot of fun. It’s my first time stepping into that type of arena but it’s a different muscle but still giving me a chance to be creative and be funny, you know what I mean? So, I did it because my wife was like uh ‘you need something to do, I can’t sit around here looking at you all day’. So, I said I gotta do something or we gonna get divorced. If one person aint go nothing to do and the other person does then you get on each other’s nerves quick. So, I was like let me go do a little podcast radio show. And I’ve been doing it and I love it. It’s incredible.
Kurt Wallace: As a seasoned writer for many years and a comedian you’ve encountered various situations, life lessons, some comedians they simply use shock humor but others like yourself try to incorporate a message it’s a craft to be able to be both funny and sharing that vulnerable truth as to what’s important in life.
David A. Arnold: Wow, you know that’s so true and I think that I probably do that because there’s so may times I do a lot of material on relationships, family and stuff like that and I think a lot of it probably sparked out of the fact that when you’re trying to stay married there’s a lot of stuff you can’t say so you know what I want to tell her this and that but I can’t say that so I’m going to go on stage and I’m gonna say it, then I can just go “hey it was a joke’. But you know you gotta find a way to get it out. So, I did that and it’s turned into this – you know some people after my show they call me thanks for the lesson Dr. Dave you know what I mean because I take relationships and life and I just try to find the humor in what is sometime absolutely ridiculous. As far as, the things we go through in relationships and life and turn it into funny. So, yeah it’s a little bit more to it than just like you said some shock humor sometimes.
Kurt Wallace: It’s very therapeutic for the audience and yourself at times.
David A. Arnold: Absolutely, there’s been many a times that I was about to go ‘you know what woman I aint coming back’ and then I’ll go to the comedy club and I’ll talk about it and I’ll get some laugh and I’ll go you know what I gotta keep going home because I get material out of this. It’s so funny that this is funny. This is how long I’ve been doing comedy and how much my wife knows me and my act. When we get into an argument sometimes we’ll start arguing and I’ll go really? Okay and I’ll pull out a pen and paper or I’ll start typing in on my computer – on my phone. And she’ll go ‘oh hell no you will not put this on stage’ and I’m writing oh yes the hell I will. It’s like she knows the moment my mind sparks and it’s always in the heat of us doing an exchange. And something about that just sparks me and bam I’m off to writing, I don’t know what that is…
Kurt Wallace: That creative side. I’ve been looking forward to asking you this question about the TSA, they aren’t too fond of David A Arnold are you a dangerous comedian that needs to be silenced what happened with these guys?
David A. Arnold: Okay, so here’s the story right. So, you know I travel a lot, obviously, and they have this new TSA pre-check now that you can do that you can go and fill out this paperwork and do an interview and then they will give you this card that allows you to bypass the first line where you have to go and show your ID an all that. So me and my wife and two kids we all filled them out, my wife and my two daughters and we all went down to do the interview. We go down to the interview ad everything’s great. About two weeks later everybody’s cards start coming in the mail. Boom boom boom – I’m like wait a minute where’s my card? I get an email from the TSA people going ‘listen uhhh looks like you had a situation back in ’95 we are not going to be able to you know we gotta do more investigation on that before we can issue you one of these cards’. I’m like wait a minute ’95? The only thing I ever did in ’95 is I wrote a bad check to Pizza Hut and that was it. And they were like ‘well we just need to investigate’. So, I might not be able to be a pre-checked person because I wrote a bad check 25 years ago and they just think that that might have sprung me into something that could be future problems for them. But I was like this is ridiculous. So, now my kids and wife they just get right on through and I’m standing in that long line all and they’re going ‘where’s daddy?’ ‘Daddy’s coming baby, daddy can’t come right now because daddy wanted some pizza back in ’91 and I got to stand in this line to pay for it’
Kurt Wallace: That is crazy! What they’re trying to do is keep people from doing they’re job. Especially with someone who travels all the time.
David A. Arnold: It is definitely something. You know a lot of times I get so aggravated especially when I look at some of the people and they, you know and I’m going through that little pre-check line and I’m like really? Look at some of these people I know some of them like there’s no way you’re the person that I’m gonna trust to scan out a bomb. You understand this dude can’t even figure out how to tie his shoe. I’m like there is no you’re the one that’s going to sniff out danger for the rest of us. We need to pick a better group of people sometime to do this job and they’re supposed to be protecting our country and keeping us safe. Some of these people don’t even look like they know they’re left from they’re right. You know but what do you do? You just stand there like yeah this is my ID yeah this is me. You know what I mean so you just have to go through it, it’s ridiculous.
Kurt Wallace: David A. Arnold davidaarnold.com thanks for being with us today on Rare
David A. Arnold: Hey man I enjoyed it thank you I’m glad we finally got a chance to hook up.
