Steve: So at what age did you get into comedy?
Shuli: I always remember making people laugh. School was meaningless to me, the only thing I retained were jokes. I always loved hearing different people laugh, but I never had the balls to try it. One day I got the courage and I tried an open-mic - I‘ve been doing it ever since.

Steve: Where and when was that?
Shuli: The first time I ever went on stage was at the Laugh factory on Sunset Boulevard. They have an open-mic there once a week and you basically have to camp out there all day long and get on a list, then come back at 8pm to do the show. All these open-mic guys just talk shit about every comic who has made it, "see that Chris Rock special? What a hack. How unfunny is he?" At the time I was new to comedy, I thought maybe these guys were right and I had been duped all these years and I don’t know what comedy really is. But I watched one after another die a miserable death on stage.

Steve: So how did it go the second time?
Shuli: I stopped doing comedy in LA, I didn’t like the scene. I moved to Vegas and ran into a guy named Sandy Hackett, he’s Buddy Hackett’s son. He had a comedy club and had me come in once a week, then twice a week, eventually he turned his whole room over to me and had me host his whole comedy room every night.

Steve: So what was it like when you got the call from Tim Sabean to come here?
Shuli: To be honest with you I thought it was a prank because it sounded a little like Sal. He said, "we have something we'd like you to try out for, but I can’t talk about it over the phone." It was like a coke deal or something. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he asked me to be here by Sunday night. I told him on the phone, "listen I’m buying this ticket, and if this is a prank I’m still using this ticket and coming out to beat the shit out of you Sal. If this is Sal or anyone but Tim Sabean." And Tim said, "if this is a prank you can kick me right in the nuts." So I got the ticket, came out, I was supposed to be here a week and stayed a month and a half. Eventually they said "go get the rest of your shit and come back."

Steve: What was the first day like?
Shuli: The first day was nerve racking because a lot of professionals were here and I was brought in as a reference; the guy you turn to when you need to know who is who. I remember the first time they played me a news brief and they were saying things like "wack-packer Artie Lange." I thought to myself, "holy shit we’re in trouble!" It sounded good but the content wasn't right. By the second day no one was really asking me for anything and I was bored, so I grabbed a recorder and went out on the street and starting interviewing people about Howard and it ended up on the News the that night.

Steve: Well I think you're pissing off a lot of veteran reporters because you’re better than most of them already.
Shuli: Well thank you, here's that 20 bucks for the compliment.

Steve: When did you first listen to Howard?
Shuli: I believe it was either 1990 or 1991, I actually saw him on the Channel 9 show. I was in LA at the time and it was on channel 13 and it went up against Saturday Night Live and it was so much funnier than SNL. Just the looseness and the realism of the show, I think it was the first reality TV. Then when the radio show came on in L.A., I used to listen to it while my parents drove me to school in the morning. My parents at first said, "What's this disgusting thing?" I remember one guest who said if you present him with dog feces, he can guess the breed. He said if he gets it wrong he'll eat the feces. I looked at my dad and said, "one day I'm going to be on this show."

Steve: How do you feel about being a part of Howard 100 News?
Shuli: I tell a lot of people that I have two weeks experience in everything known to man. At two weeks, I either quit or get fired, or if you’re in Vegas you fail a drug test. But this is something that I feel like I could be a part of for a long time. I am grateful for the opportunity; it’s been a dream ever since I started comedy. If I died tomorrow, I’d be a happy man because I get to work for the greatest show ever and I get to be me.