Factually! with Adam Conover - Being Funny in Deeply Unfunny Times with Gianmarco Soresi

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Comedy has changed as an art form. On top of social media fundamentally reconfiguring the expectations of the audience for what the role of a comedian is meant to be, we live in deeply unfunny times. Despite these challenges, we still all need to laugh. This week, Adam talks with comedian Gianmarco Soresi about how to adapt to the times without compromising integrity. --SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. I don't know the truth. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's all right. That's okay. I don't know anything.

Hey there. Welcome to Faxually. Conover, thank you so much for being on the show again. You know, I've been doing comedy for a couple decades now, unfortunately, and it's changed a lot in the time that I've been doing it. We have seen the death of cable television and the rise of social media. And with that, comedy itself has changed. You know, as a stand-up comic, it's one of the kinds of comedian I am, you used to be able to just put out a special every couple years and tour in the meantime. But now you have to constantly be posting new clips on social media

that you don't get paid for just to promote your live appearances. And that has fundamentally changed the art form of stand-up comedy in some ways, because now stand-up comics have to mold the material that they're doing to meet the demands of this new form

of media. Likewise, the connection of politics and comedy have changed a great deal. It used to be that people would say that, like, conservative stand-up comedy doesn't even exist. Whereas now, some of the biggest comedians in the country had the former president, now current president, on their podcast and endorsed his run for the presidency.

And that is, again, a big change in the role that comedy plays in the American landscape. Well, you know, one comedian who have always really admired the way he handles both of those changes is Jean-Marco Soresi. He's on the show this week. If you're a comedy fan on the internet, you've probably seen his clips, his YouTube appearances, his podcast. The guy is all over the place. He's incredibly funny.

I'm really thrilled to have him on the show this week to talk about how comedy has changed and how comedians can meet this political moment if that's even something we're supposed to do, especially as regards, you know, some other countries devastating foreign wars slash genocides. We're going to get into it. Before we do, I want to remind you

if you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Con. Over five bucks a month. It gets you every episode of, the show ad-free. You can also join our online community. We'd love to have you. And if you want to come see me do stand-up comedy, myself, live on the road, coming up soon. On October 5th, I will be at the lodge room in Los Angeles, California. On November 15th, I'll be at the Bell House in New York City

for New York Comedy Festival. I'm also going to be in Brea, California, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Des Moines, Atlanta, Georgia. A bunch of other great cities as well. Head to Adam Conover.comte for all those tickets and tour dates. I would love to come see you out on the road. And now, let's get to this week's interview with Jean-Marco Soresi. Well, thanks for being on the show. Thank you for having me.

It's good to have you here on YouTube to talk about what it's like to be a comedian on YouTube. every comic I know is so upset all the time about what has happened to comedy you do well I feel like are doing it as better than most people you've figured out how to do comedy honestly I don't know if I'm upset

I always say like whenever people long for the Tonight Show at Johnny Carson or whatever are those days where you could be seen and known and your talent would thrive I go that's because you're only hearing from the comics who got that show back in the day in the different day you did not hear from the comedian that the book of the tonight show didn't like yeah good point you're not you're not reading all the books

from the the women who never got booked on this tonight show because they couldn't get booked at the comedy store right like yeah it's it's more fractured but there were many problems back in that other day too so i don't i don't idolize the past yeah i think at all sucks yeah there was that thing uh years ago where like the letterman booker got fired because he just said he's like i don't book women and they and they were like oh you're fired now and they said it like that too like uh you can't say that out loud like Eddie man don't say don't say that you're not doing it just do it you know uh yeah no I absolutely and look the industry's full of people who want to stand they want to like you know like set up a gate and stand by it

and, like, let people in or not, you know, and there will always be injustice in that. But at some extent, I'm still like, well, at least that used to be, like, a person. Like, you could fire Eddie. You can't fire the Instagram algorithm, you know. Sure. I don't disagree. I don't disagree.

It's just like I was an actor before I was a stand-up for me. Like, I went to college from musical theater. And I very much felt the gates being closed in my face as an actor. And I mean, in the sense of, like, couldn't get enough auditions to even find out if I could get in there. And, you know, maybe, maybe lack of talent, maybe not good looking enough, whatever. But I felt what it was to be on the other side of the gatekeepers so intensely, so much so that I pivoted careers. And I look at what I've been able to do with the chaos that is social media. and I go, of the two, I prefer the latter.

At least I can do something. Yeah. You know? And I think like it has deteriorated so many things and stretched everyone out too thin and maybe made it harder for talent to rise to the top. But it allows you if you have a work ethic to at least get a shot. What I like about the way you do it is you at least do it joyfully. So many comics who are putting stuff on social media.

media, it's like someone was holding a gun to their head and forcing them to do a front-facing camera video. Yeah. You know, and it's a bummer. And they really are going, I wish I could just do stand up or I wish I could, or I wish I didn't have to, like, produce these clips. You at least look like you're having, you've found a way to do it where you're having fun doing it. Yeah, I think it's just like, I liked in the beginning, like, I liked editing clips.

I enjoy there's some kind of flow state that I would enter with editing. and getting a little bite-sized morsel of a crowdwork clip or whatever or having a sudden thought and wanting people to see it. So I definitely tapped into what I liked. Did I like Man on the Street? No, I tried. It was awful for me. It wasn't in my soul.

I hate doing Man on the Street. Oh, it's the feeling of, of, I can never even bark people into shows. I just go, I am being such a burden to this person. They do not want to talk to me. I'm so sorry, yeah. Yeah. The feeling of impoliteness or, like, I'm tense, With an audience, when I get the sense the audience doesn't want to be there,

like those ambush shows I would start, you know, I would do starting out where it's like you're in a bar and a show starts. So the people who were in the bar didn't know there was going to be a show and they're just annoyed that someone set up a microphone like that vibe is death. It's a terrible feeling. Yeah. But I, so I found what I liked, you know. I don't know.

I have a lot of friends and friends who have worked working together for a decade or so. and they hated social media in the beginning. And to me, if I'm being like harsh, I go, that's like saying you hate email. It's like, that's fine. But then you need to readjust what you're expecting out of life. If you don't want to participate, if you want to be Amish,

don't expect to travel faster than other people. Like you have to make the best rains. I don't know. I mean, I do feel that way sometimes. where I'm like, look, if you were on, you know, TV in the 70s, you were doing, as a person who makes what goes on the media platform, all you can do is try to feed the beast, you know, that's all like what George Carlin was doing when he was going on, you know, daytime variety shows over and over again, developing an act for that. And that's what we're doing now. this is media, you know, if your dream is to be someone who performs in the media, then that's the media that exists.

Yeah. This is social media. And so, therefore, do it. Like, that's the dream that's available to you. So, you know, but I think it's the feeling of seeing it change, right, under your feet that is so disorienting for people, you know. And I think it's like, I don't know, like, I sometimes think about, like, let's just say, like a Chris Farley.

If your desire, and again, right now I'm looking out for myself because I have to, I'm not looking out for the comedy writ large. Yeah. That's too big a responsibility. I think as a comedy fan, I would ask myself, like, could a Chris Farley happen now? And I think like, and I don't know enough about Chris to speak, but I just know he was chaotic. Seems like someone who might not show up to rehearsal on time or Obama show now and then, but an insane talent. and there were enough channels and systems that eventually got him in front of a camera

enough times to create glorious comedic work. And I don't know if that exists as much anymore. And I do think there are probably some chaotic people that will never get to build those pieces of art because you have to be a self-starter. You have to have this business element to you. And that's not the same as being a comedian. Chris Farley is a little bit

an uncomfortable example because that chaos killed him. And, like, he needed help. He needed help. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg would have made it any better. Yeah, exactly. But I'm just saying like some people I know are brilliant talents, but they're not business people. And I do think you can look at the world as it is right now

and go, that's a loss of comedy talent. You could also look at the world back then and go, some of the brilliant people are ugly as fuck. and TV people won't put them on TV. That's also a loss. Right. At least now, you can decide if you want to be in front of the camera.

I guess what we're dealing with is, you know, a lot of people now are just, they're the silent film actors who had the horrible speaking voices, you know, like in singing in the rain. It's like the transition is like fucking with people,

you know, people who could survive in the cable television atmosphere. Yeah. Which is, I feel very lucky to have been around for the last days of cable. And I also feel very lucky to have been around for the last days of cable. And I also feel very lucky. I've been able to transition to the new, you know, industry.

And it turned, like, I was, I was, some people couldn't. And it's like, it's just too bad, but that sucks to go, oh, we're losing folks now. Yeah, but it's all like, like, think about there was the term face for radio and people did radio because they said you weren't. And then we podcasts were like a thing of radio. And now we're filming, we're filming every podcast. Yeah. And it goes like, wow, it's just gradually becoming TV shows again and, and, and,

are becoming networks again. And I don't know if humanity's going to last long enough to see the ups and downs of the cycle, but it just feels so like I think people will get maybe bored or just want more concentrated forms of entertainment. It'll go back. I see Twitch streaming stuff. Like people who Twitch streamed their whole life.

And I go, God damn. You're just on the whole time you've Truman showed yourself. and and I don't criticize it because I'm very far on the spectrum in terms of like I film a lot of what my life is. I post on Instagram, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But I do think at some point people will go, okay, I want to now watch just two hours of very well edited, well-crafted movies. Maybe. I mean, I hope so.

I hope it pushes people back towards more like human experience. Also, once AI slop like really takes over, what is that going to push things to? But sometimes podcasts are great. You know, maybe maybe maybe. maybe a movie or a great TV show gave you a certain feeling, but then a relationship you have that you heard someone's artistic mind for, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not as, as pessimistic as I am about a lot of things. I go, there's a lot of great stuff that comes out of the way art is made now.

Yeah. As a comedian, I think you individually have to hold yourself accountable if not like, you know, okay, I do my crowdwork. I do my topical quips. do I want to have something that is more focused, more elevated, make that an hour, release that hour once every two, three years. And I believe I have the ability to go more concentrated, more edited, more thoughtful, and then just equip and people can engage with me however they like.

Artistically, yes. Look, I don't want to turn this into a complainathon. It can be. I'm more than happy. Okay, great. Well, because I'm interested in how you do it. But look, yes, great art comes from constraints. There are always constraints in any form of media.

And so you look for how the constraints create something good, you know? And television was so, you know, rigidly capitalist. But within that structure, you know, we got Seinfeld and everything else, right? Like sitcoms, someone was talking about, and I haven't seen paper, so this isn't a critique of it. But they basically said, like, old sitcoms, part of that joke density, part of that, like, that churning forward was. because they needed to keep you for after the commercial break. And it's like, yeah, you'll never get

that old sitcom feeling again. A hundred percent. When I started doing Adam Ruins, everything, I came from the web. And the True TV was like, we need you to get people over the commercial break. You have to tease. And I was so resistant.

I was like, I don't want to. It's annoying. It's chilly. Yeah. And then it just became part of the rhythm of the show so that like by probably the second season, like we were just sort of seamlessly we weren't going, stick around.

We were seamlessly weaving in this little hint of what was coming next dramatically and informationally. And it just made the show work rhythmically really well. And all shows do that. And I remember really specifically like this show, I think it was called Disenchantment.

It was like all the best Futurama and Simpsons writers like created a new show with Matt Grainning. This was like six or seven years ago. It was on Netflix. Yeah. And the first episode was like 42 minutes long. and I was like, where's the A story? Where's the B story?

What's happening next? Like, I was so disoriented in the show. I was like, these motherfuckers needed the commercial break. The commercial break is part of what made the Simpsons and Futurama rhythmically great. And we spent our whole lives hating it. But that, that constraint, that annoying constraint that everybody hated is part of what made it so good. And that's why I think when comedians complain about social media, I go, these are just different constraints. And you would have complained about different constraints in the past.

And now we have different constraints now. And some of them are frustrating. Some of them are unfair. But some of them can be used to just create a different kind of good art. So yes, I agree with you about the art, right? The problem is, how do you get paid all the social media work that you're talking about? I don't disagree. The editing that you're doing yourself and that you're like, okay, I'm doing all my clips

and my crowdwork. And your clips in your crowdwork, I think best in the biz. I don't think you can think you're at the top. You don't get paid for any of that. Some of it a little bit A little bit A tiny negligible Sure

Once in a while You get in there I got into Facebook Reels When they started Reels And I just posted old TikToks That I had already made In the course of three months I made $100,000 off Facebook

And I was waiting For a knock on the door I was waiting for a knock on the door Of some guy in a suit That said an error has been made Give us the money back Wow But these

But it went away Yeah It vanished All these companies I mean they're just too big, and you can get in there at the right time, you know. I was in the TikTok creator fund at sort of like the peak of that. And I was turning out million hit videos every day, get a million hits, make 40 bucks.

That was the, that was the payout. I went back recently because now I just sort of have my stuff auto posted. I have a socialist assistant. I don't make it custom for TikTok anymore. Yes. But I was like, is this still paying out? And I went and I couldn't even find, I was like, TikTok creator fund doesn't even exist. I was like, where's the current monetization?

They rename it to some other shit. I can't. The worst menus, like TikTok's an unintelligible app, is designed just as a creator, it's a slot machine trying to get shit out of there. So you can, so maybe you find a nice little grift for a couple months. Yes. Yes. And it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. And it happens like, I mean, even like when Elon Musk took over Twitter, he like tried, some people were like, look at all this money I made. And I knew from other apps. I'm like, there's, it's impossible for this to continue. Yeah. We can't all be making thousands of dollars every month off front facing videos. It just doesn't work. Yeah, it's like any of these tech, it's Uber in the beginning or any of these

things. Then you found out you had to be sleeping with Elon Musk to get the highest amount. You're like, oh, well, I didn't know about that term. It's really easy to sleep with Elon Musk, actually, if you just want to be a womb for him, you can do it. He's so easy to fuck. Isn't that crazy? He's got no standard. Sure, sure. But so you're like, okay, all of that is to promote your special that you're doing, except that, let's say you think of it that way, the big piece of art, right? get people in the door to have them see the hour special. That market has also cratered. It used to be, you know, go a guy like you in your position with the amount of heat that

you have will go to a Netflix or somewhere like that, right? And maybe they'd put $100,000 behind filming it. And you're releasing it on YouTube. I don't say that as a knock because I'm going to do the same thing next year. Please. Like, because that's where people watch it. But the whole industry has been devalued. Like the comedy special itself has, it doesn't even make sense anymore as something other

than a YouTube video. But that's what I think what I like about being a stand-up comedian is at the end of the day, my money is from live performance. And I go, I go, thank God. I look at everything down the pipeline, whether it's AI slop, whether it's, whether it's all the social media things and I go, it's so nice that at the end of the day, I am trying to get people to leave their homes, take a seat in front of me in person, and they give money. And, you know, there's a couple of people between there.

but I go, that's, that doesn't devalue in the same way that, that, you know, technology is able to make everything else so volatile. Yeah. And that's really nice. So like, I do make some money off TikTok. I do make decent money off YouTube. It doesn't sustain the operation. But if all of that leads to ticket sales, I'm okay.

Yeah. And there's a really nice tangibility that, again, whether it was in my acting days or if I was mostly an online creator that it just keeps everything grounded. Yeah, my business works basically the same way. Like a big chunk of it is just from the ticket sales, which is, it is reassuring because like I often think about the fact that, you know, AI taking over like slop or whatever. I'm like, we still exist in the real world, you know? Yeah.

And like people do need to go out and like leave their house. No one wants the holograms. No, no, I've seen these holograms first. they're terrible, but, like, it's, but no, no one's, it really is the experience. I saw, I saw Lady Gaga. I'm not a big concert guy, but Lady Gaga, I went to see a massacre garden, and you go like, yeah, I, it's worth the money. I'm seeing that person and they're there.

And I'm out. And I'm out. I mean, a different, like, when I go to a sports game, that's what I call them, because I go so free to me, I call them sports games. Half of the appeal is just being in a big space. Sure. You're like, wow, I'm looking at stuff that's far away from me. Like that green

That green square is really big And it's in the real world And I'm like a quarter mile from it Wow Yeah And like the idea that we were gonna put on VR headsets and like watch an NBA game that way Is like that's not why people go

I did a show It was something It was like a meta VR show And it was You go Man This is this is First of all it's not even close to like feeling pleasant

It's you feel ill When you're wearing the headset. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I'm walking around and the graphics feel like the first generation Sims level graphics, if not worse. And you just go, why would anyone, and of course, if you can't leave the house, if you're, if you're ill or you're old or whatever, great. But like voluntarily, never, not a million years. And it's nice. It really feels like reality is the one thing that will prevent technology from taking.

over fully. We just need it. Yeah. It's not the same. I mean, we are literally actually flesh and blood. You cannot actually, I don't know why we ever thought this. You cannot replicate with a screen three inches in front of your face, the experience of actual photons bouncing off actual things and hitting your real retina because you exist in flesh and blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a, those aren't comparable. That's a different way of experiencing photon. Like, it's different. It makes you nauseous because your brain is not designed for it. And it just, you lack, there's senses that I think, I never went back to in-person therapy after we went to Zoom because of COVID. Yeah, I mean neither. And I miss it. Yeah. And I never did because it became a choice. I was like, well, I don't want to

fucking go all the way up to the Upper West Side to do this anymore. But I'm like, there was a huge loss there. Yeah. There's a huge loss. And also like, there's the loss is the journey, the different location. And I would argue, in a therapeutic sense, like, there's something about when you smell another human being in the room, it does something to you. You're in a different place. When you hear, when you sense, you cannot replicate it, especially with therapy where you want to be vulnerable with someone. It's very different to be able to close your laptop and you're alone again. Yeah. It's just, it's the difference between your therapist being you're in their space and you have to be confronted by them.

You cannot escape. You're in a room for 45 minutes. versus them being on a little square in the room you've been in all day next to your email. And I find that hugely emotionally different. And also in L.A., when meetings went to Zoom, right, I did pitch meetings over Zoom. And I'm like, just the difference, me trying to sell something to an executive, sell them on a good idea. Like, if I'm in the room with them, it's impolite for them to look at their phones. They have half an hour to spend with me.

They must be in there with me. I actually have their attention. When I'm on a square in their office and they're going to log out at, you know, 4, 29 and 59 seconds to go to their next one, like, I'm just, I'm just a YouTube video to them. And bouncing back from that is going to be so hard. Like I think, you know, Zoom auditions, I think are garbage and it's like, well, what's going to make it turn back? I don't know a dark period of the arts where everyone goes, wow, everything kind of sucks. Folks, do you struggle with pro-Crasta-saving?

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I mean, I'm being rude, but it's just like the power that they have has become too consolidated. And it's like 10 guys that you would never want to have dinner with. And they are running things. And it's like, yeah, they're making a world for them. not for an agreed upon and it's bad. The best example of this, it's not the most pernicious one, but the best example is like the Apple Vision Pro,

which by all accounts is incredible technology. I've not tried it, but it's like it's supposed to be super amazing in terms of what they've accomplished. But what it does is it puts your emails in the room around you. Who wants that other than Tim Cook? Yeah. Like Tim Cook is like, yeah, sure would be great

if I had a more interesting way to look at what I do all day I'm like, I want to be looking at emails less overall. Yeah. A better world for me is one where I'm not fucking trapped on any of your devices. But AI is that way like the people who like AI best are programmers. Yeah. It looks them program fast. It seems like maybe it couldn't help them program faster.

Jury's kind of out. But if it can, hey, that's nice. But why is that so appealing to the rest of it? Like the use case for everybody else is just it's a bad web search and it'll tell your son to kill himself. Great. Oh, my God. But, well, my, my girlfriend's mom, she uses it where she'll, like, send a picture where it's like, hey, here's a picture of me if I was the Pope. And it's one of these things, like, I know that picture killed a small family of rabbits. And they, they didn't have enough water to drink. But I go, oh, I've made a smile. And it's, it's one of those where I'm like,

I'm like, just, just this. And she wasn't commissioning artists before this. It's not like, it's not like some artists oh i used to make those great pope picks yeah but uh that's true well hey there were probably some people on devian art who could have drawn her as the pope with you know a huge ass and some great anime titties yeah and they are going hungry but i but i don't know how you convinced the the greater population i think to to most people it's like remember those uh like e cards where they put your face into like they'd put your face into like an elf and be like jib jerry christmas yeah and i I think that's how the general population views a lot of the AI art stuff. They're like, why can't I do this?

Why can't I do this? Oh, my God. First it was over on now, it's this. Can I just enjoy my life for two days? Oh, so you think that's how it's worming? I worry that's, I just worry that's the like the average person who just wants to use chat GPT for shits and giggles. And I don't know how to beat that messaging.

Oh, yeah. Oh, God. No, I mean, the sort of like, look, I'm an anti-AI guy generally, but the sort of like blue sky tone about AI of like, oh, like we can't be using because of the water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, we have to recognize this is a minority. This is 5% of the population feels that engaged about this at any moment. We could try to let people know what's up, but it's like that's not going to totally win the day. I had just fingers crossed for those court cases.

There's some court case that was recently decided about like the usage. there was a huge payout. Oh, yeah. What I read about this, Anthropic paid publishers, I believe it was $1.5 billion. Yeah. And what's wild about that is there's speculation in the tech press that the reason they agreed to such a high amount

is because they can afford it, but nobody else can. So they're trying to shut out competition. Okay, Microsoft can afford $1.5 billion. Anthropic can't, we can afford it. Sure. Maybe one other company can't. But like everyone else can be fucked because they can't afford to pay this giant. So they agreed to a giant fine for monopolistic evil reasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you think about it, it's like I saw some author, now I'm forgetting. Oh, Matt Pierce says a really great newsletter. He wrote that it worked out to about three grand a book. Yeah. Which is like, if you're an author, you get a check for three grand, you're like, okay. But that's not enough to, like, write books, you know? Sure.

Like, you can't write a book for three grand. Yeah. And so it's like, it is still less than the value of a book, right? so it's this it's high but also too high and not high enough yeah it's really sad i guess i had some kind of like weird faith that the the people who stood to benefit from copyright not individual authors but big publishing companies big music companies would hold these tech companies feet to the flame no no no they just want to be cut in yeah it's like the music it's like the music labels on spotify right where like what what happened my understanding is the way spotify actually

took over the music business was they gave the major labels just like a stake in Spotify they like paid them off in like equity or whatever so hey now you own part of the thing

and that is why they are willing to fuck over their artists and their own business model was they got cut in fundamentally on the new one sure so like all

that's all the New York Times wants from open AI they're just like give us our piece oh yeah yeah I'm sure they're still suing now I always hear that

every podcast I hear like full disclosure we are suing I don't know what the status of the lawsuit is, but like the corporation, yeah. I mean, that's what they'll settle for. You cannot train on copyright material. I mean, there's there's no language bullshit that's going to convince me that you can train. You can't.

You're using it. I don't care that it's shrouded in different language. You are using the copyrighted material. Yeah, to reproduce the like the same thing. The only reason it can make an episode. It can make a shitty one page episode. of Adam ruins everything. It's because it's trained on the scripts.

It's the only reason. And it can, like, reproduce, like, the thing that I created in a, you know, crude facsimile. It's all still really bad, though. Like, I've done, I've done, someone done a show, like, looked up, make a joke in the style of me. And I got that. I was Jewish and Italian and then just made a stereotypical joke about Italians and Jews. So I don't know where this model is, but you always hear about, like, well, this next model. Oh, my God.

It'll recreate. It'll make your next hour. Yeah. I don't know. I really love they've been telling us, oh, it's just getting started. It's been about as good. Chad GPT itself has been about the same amount of good

for like three years. Like, yeah, it hasn't gotten. You keep hearing. I feel like John Mullaney, like a year ago, he wrote an article or he referenced an article that his friend wrote that was like, guys, it's coming. I saw, I was brought into the lab. And this, and George Carlin was there.

I'm sorry. This is an article by, I believe, Simon Rich. Yes, and I have read it. And he's either a mark or he, is participating in the scary, like, illusion in order to sell books. And I think he probably did a pretty good job of that. Like, he's fine. No, no problems him personally.

But I read that. And I was like, so. I read it as a quiver. I said, oh, no, he saw it. It's over. This was a, this was a, so my criticism of this was, this was a period when authors were going, I got AI to write a humor essay or a book or a script. And it's really good and it's going to take over.

But I was looking at the going, no, you talk to chat GPT for like 20 hours and then you copied and pasted your favorite stuff and you put it in the form of a book and then you came up with a pitch and then you wrote a blurb and then that's a writing motherfucker. You did that. That's magnetic poetry. Your fridge didn't write the poem. You did. And so what I object to about that project was it made it sound like, you know, he did in the furtherance of telling us how the scary thing is. coming. If he was like, hey, look what I did with chat TV. It's awesome. You know, I'd be like, all right, that's fine.

Whatever. It's a project. Yeah. Um, but like the, a lot of people became participants in the doom narrative, which is what the companies were selling us. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think all these like, the spin is always like this is it. Yeah. And no one ever, no one ever pays for the, the moment of like, it wasn't it. Yeah. It wasn't it. Like it hasn't, where's the, I was told that I would be out of a job by now, you know? And we're being told that all we're going to do is sit around and watch AI generated movies.

And what I always ask people is I'm like, would you watch an idiot? Is that what you want to watch? Like right now? Like if you could watch one right now? Would you sit down and watch it? And I think about the part of the movies is, oh my God, that's Endaya. Oh, my God. And she has an accent.

You know? I mean, like, that's the whole thing. Yeah. Though I think if TVs and movies get taken down a peg and the world has to do more theater, I'm fine with that too. That's fine. People like people, right? That's the point is like you like knowing who the actor is. Oh, they're single.

Ooh, maybe I could, you know, oh, I'm a big, whatever. Like they have that connection with the person, which is what stand up comedy trades on so much. So you are bringing people back into the room. Is that's like part of what you see yourself is doing. When I think about like what is my, what do I go? What am my best at? what am I driving towards the most what's my heart thinking about

it is that live show it's it's not like it's it's I don't really do I don't really run like my perfect hour but like I try to train myself to have a lot of things to pull from a lot of material if there's some crowd work it'll happen if there's some new stuff I'll let it happen but to just

if you come see me live I keep myself in shape to put on a show and that's that's to me that's my guiding light, you know, and it's not for everybody. I mean, for some people, they have different priorities or, or the stage is secondary or tertiary to them. Yeah. And I agree, like, from a stand-up comedy perspective, like, why are these comedy clubs putting up these people? Well, it's because they sell tickets. But I understand, like, I understand why

that might be frustrating. I know a lot of people get frustrated with, you know, the TikTok stars who can barely hold the stage for 20 minutes, headlining the clubs. Yeah. And I go, I think the clubs will rue the day, though the ones that have no standards, I think one day when they find they don't have any brand or any status or any taste or just a box people come visit, that those TikTokers are going to ask for the meanest door deal possible. They're not going to make any income off the shows. And those that didn't hold their ground and continue to cultivate some kind of like come here for a good show will eventually lose. It's going to take a while.

It's going to be gradual. It's not going to be clean. But I can't get mad at the club. At the same time, I think they'll regret it. They're trying to sell tickets. They're trying to sell tickets. And I think some of them will regret the, and, you know, when they complain to me, when they go, oh, we had this TikTok a last week.

And then he said, good night. Before the checks drop, I want to be like, yeah, that's on you. You deserve it. You deserve it. You brought in someone who wasn't a comic. You helped them with the scam of selling a show that they weren't ready to do. Yeah. You could have booked a couple more people to open who were good.

You could have made the show work better, but instead you just splapped the person on stage. Yeah. Comics long for the day. They long for the day where they say, I will be great. And this club will, this club has an automatic audience, and I will go. And I'll go there this year, and next year I'll have some, it's a long plan. And it's a beautiful thing, but it doesn't always work. I knew people, I felt like I got at UCB.

the Uprice Citizens Brigade, like, late in New York. And I met, I met people who really were so spoiled us to believe audiences just show up. I also, I mean, I was at UCB from like 2000, during the peak years, like 2006 to 2012 or so. And it was like audiences did just show. It was just like a mile of NYU kids out the door every single night to see, whatever. And I just thought that's how it was. And it's like, you know what? And when they did, and UCB didn't pay.

And it almost was like, well, they gave you this full audience. And then when that audience started disappearing, when the casting director started disappearing, suddenly the deal that was never written out on paper was broken. Yeah. And there was a feeling of like, well, fuck, I'm not getting paid. And there's no one here. And I have to bring everyone here. And that's when the adjustment, the problem with free labor is if sometimes it exists

in a realm where it actually did kind of, you want. we're getting a lot out of it. Yeah. Is that when that thing fades, as it always does. Yeah. There's not an adjustment made. And then you're just careening towards rebellion. You see B, when they started sending emails to the performers saying, hey, your, your audience numbers are down this week.

That's about the moment that people started going, what the fuck is this again? Of course. Because I thought, I thought this was, you know, you were giving me. I thought it was an equal exchange. I didn't think I was working for you. But in fact, the people who ran the theater always did think of the performers as working for them. They just, like, pretended that they didn't.

There was a time where to audition for any commercial at certain casting offices, you had to have UCB training. That was the easy calling card for the cast director would be like, well, if they're UCB trained, that means they know what they're doing, kind of. And then, of course, with that UCB, the classes blew up. And suddenly one day the cast director said,

God, that's the third UCB student that fucking sucks. This is no longer the status card for comedy. Yeah. And I don't know. It's like none of these things lasts forever. It's every time someone who's spent time on UCB comes on the show, the conversation devolves to this. Yeah, yeah.

Because I think those of us who are there for it have this constant wrestling with like, what was that? I was only there for the bad. So like I never, I feel like in a lot of ways with my acting, I really came in on the tail end of a lot of sinking ships. And in fact, the fact that I got on that ship should have been the first warning sign that it was sinking into the ocean. I always have felt actually in my career that I have jumped from sinking ship to sinking ship. Like I was on, like I got a job at college humor in the last days of, you know, web videos as being like a business model.

Sure. And then we hopped to. as that was sinking, we hopped and we did cable television. And I'm so lucky I got to make a cable television. I grew up watching cable. I got to make a cable TV show. We ran for five years. People know me for the show.

And then that sank into the ocean. Then I got a show on Netflix right as they sort of stopped making comedy or documentary, anything original. And now I'm back on like internet video, which is where I started. Oh, and then also every scene, every city. I was in New York, right, as like the really cool alt scene moved to L. and then I moved to LA right before like meltdown comics stopped being a thing. Like it's just, it's funny to always feel like you're there for the last days of the good thing.

Sure, but at least you were there for the last days. I came there and I said, oh, is the party over? And they say, yeah, the party. Facebook ruined the party last year. Oh, God. You know, going online without Express VPN is like not closing the door when you use the bathroom. Even if you think you have nothing to hide, why give random. creeps a chance to invade your privacy.

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all these, like, YouTube video essays about stand-up comedy now with, like, guys with disembodied voices talking about the Joe Roganosphere or, like, what the deal with Bert Kreischer is. Are you watching an elephant graveyard? I have watched some of that. I mean, some of that's incredible. That's a good one, but I'm also like, show your fucking face. We do, you know, to people who are talking about stand-up comedy on YouTube, I'm like, you show your face.

I like that video, but there's a lot of other people. And it's like, again, it's like, maybe he's like, he's like, listen, and we don't all have to be front and center. And maybe he's brave. Some of those, listen, those Joe Rogan guys, some of them are look real strong. I'm not going to speak for their comedy, but they could outlift me for sure.

So I understand. I understand the fear. I have fear. I have fear of some of these people that I talk shit about running into them. You know? You know, they're talking about you probably. I'm sure.

But I can't pirouette at them. You'd be like, hey, man, I'm making content. I'm trying to make something for other people to make YouTube videos. about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a beef, like people breaking down stand-up comedy beefs, people who watch hundreds of hours of YouTube podcast of comedians talking, and then they'll go about, like...

Show list and Bert Kreisher got in a fight once at a Bachelor Party three years ago, and I, like, know all these details about it, and it's crazy. Yeah. But it also, like, it, I don't know, seeing the, um, seeing the, the, the Drake-Kendrick beef, part of me said, this is, this is good for the industry. Like I've never listened to more rap Than in this this week I'm learning

I'm all these verses and I go I go maybe beefs can be good I'm you know Sometimes people It does hurt their careers But sometimes I'm like Sometimes beefs are good Yeah I want to lean into that

I mean it's both things at once You know it's it's It's the famous tweet about Trump right Like this is bad for the country But it's tremendous content Like it can be great media and you know overall deleterious i think it was so frustrating about like mark marron's on

this kind of run of like criticizing these guys and i and i i want to go why aren't you going on rogan and doing this face to face yeah that's entertaining that's entertaining you got pretty close you went on um you went on bad friends right that's like that's like yeah it's like friends friends of friends close to it it's close to it but but like come on yeah come on go on the show it's true and and if they don't want to have you, then go, oh, wow. Yeah. You couldn't talk this out. I think it would be exciting.

I think it needs to happen. Is someone going to make a YouTube video about you calling out Marin on my show? Are we? No, but then Marin and I talk, and we're both going to agree. I just go like, I think, I think Marin, I, if Marin went on Joe Rogan, that would be the first Joe Rogan, I would have listened to it in quite some time. It would be really interesting. And it is like, as two of the original comedy podcasters. Have either of them ever appeared on each other's show?

We should go check the archives. I'm sure. I'm sure. They both started in that. But like that would, it would be really fitting. Yeah, just duke it out. I don't know.

I think like one thing that was always tough as, I sometimes don't know how to refer to the liberal side, the left side. But there really was like a thing of like don't platform people, don't have them on at all. And it failed spectacularly, I would argue. I would agree. And, and I go. if anything, I think it'll be the other way around right now, given who's in power

that I think some of those folks are not going to want to have someone that's going to talk tough to them. And I think to use tactics that work, to call them out, to be like, yeah, have them on. Yeah. And what are you scared? Yeah. What are you scared? You just at a nice plunge, Joe. You can talk to Mark for an hour. What's the problem? Well, I want

about crowd work, like people complain about it. The reason I brought up YouTube videos, as I've seen YouTube videos about, you know, people complaining how crowdwork ruined comedy, et cetera. I think you do it in a way that is like really honest and I think captures what is good about crowdwork. Because crowdwork, I mean, the reason it works is it's, you're literally talking about what's in the room, which is what is essentially good about stand-up comedy that's happening

in a real place to a real group of people. And so it's like fundamentally in the moment. Yeah, it's like, I mean, first, if I look at like improv versus sketch, I will defend good improv can be great. It's a different art form. It's not the exact same. Crowdwork is not the same as prepared stand-up comedy. That's fine. I think it's very popular online, but so can prepared material be good. My, like, mean argument to a lot of people complain about crowdwork is like, my crowdwork has better joke writing than a lot of your prepared material. yeah that that that's what i would say when i'm like really like go fuck yourself yeah and also like i will do at my shows what i want i do think it is rude in a showcase club where you're doing sets and the general premise that has been agreed upon is you're doing stand-up comedy yeah to do crowd work here and there of course if a moment arises that's brilliant by all means go for it.

I think there's a matter of manners that has been lost. I don't do as much club work as I have but I knew those comedians that were using the show to farm for clips or just didn't have material and wanted to crowdwork and would change the nature of the show

in a way that was tough to recover. That's annoying. If you go to a show and they have no prepared material and they build it as a stand-up comedy show and didn't say it was a crowdwork, I think that's annoying. um do i think a lot of bad comedians get away with doing a lot of crowdwork and edit it to make it

look like it was a good minute but really that's the only good minute in the full hour of that show sure yeah do i think we should be dictating like what an art form should be based on those that do it poorly no i i i listen you want the algorithm to change you know uh put out even better prepared material. It will go viral. It has always gone viral. Yeah. I think I think the it has less to do with crowd work as it does

with comedians not necessarily creating the shame and bullying system that we used to have if you were a bad stand-up comedian. And it's a tough line because I would say like I always think about when I see a Patrice O'Neill documentary I go he would have bullied the shit out of me. I know it. He wouldn't have liked

me and and I was in a club when I first started where I was bullied where it was they were harsh L.O.L. in New York City. It's long gone. But it was like, you know, they were harsh. They were mean. I had to earn my stripes. And it was good for me in that atmosphere. Now, the problem with the bullying world is it's often a boys club and it often is, you know, it's a lot of homophobic bullying and whatnot. Oh, yeah. But in defense of homophobic boying. Are you making the whiplash argument? You've got to have a symbol thrown at your head to be a good drummer? A little bit.

Maybe not at your head, but maybe right at your feet. Wow. I say maybe change the aim of the symbol. But I will always think that art will always involve a degree of like, gatekeepers is one term. The other term is like integrity amongst your peers, wanting respect of your peers, holding each other accountable, feeling embarrassed when you do badly on the show. and and the the whether it's the joe rogans or or so many people who have big podcasts they were they don't get bullied because you want to do their show right and and i think like that to me is far more detrimental than people doing crowd work if if someone sucks it either

it's it's not great for the art for them if someone if someone is convincing people to come to a show and delivering a shit show. And then that audience goes, you know, I don't really like stand-up comedy. I do think that's bad for the overall market. The number of people that come up to me after shows and go, this was my first comedy show. That's my favorite thing that people say after a show.

But that's how untapped this market is to speak from like a business perspective. So many people have never seen a stand-up comedy show. Yeah. So I do think that's bad. I have enough stress in my life criticizing my own work that I don't feel the need to look at, I mean, there's, you know, there's 50 names racing through my head. It's like, how many people do I want to? My girlfriend told me recently, she said, listen, do you want to go after comedians for their political views or comedians who you think are bad

at the art form? If you want to do both, don't be surprised that you don't have a lot of friends. And she's right. There's too many fronts in your war? There's too many fronts in the war. And right now, unfortunately, the political takes the mantle. And, but there's a lot. There's a lot. A lot of people I think are terrible. A lot of people have bad political views and are bad at comedy. Of course, but there's a lot of people with great views who are terrible at comedy. And I talk about this with Jay Jordan, who I'm sure you know.

Jay Jordan, I think he's vocal on both. And he doesn't need, he doesn't need to be as liked as much as maybe I do. But, you know, he's like, I've been in rooms with people where we talk, we're like, you see Jay talked about them? About time. About time. someone said this so and so, and it's, I do think there needs to be bullying. I don't know if I can leave the charge.

I mean, bullying is a maladaptive social behavior versus genuine criticism, you know? Sure, but you should feel anxious to perform at the comedy seller. You should feel, not all the time, but you should go like, man, I better have my shit together. I better be ready. I better not audition at this club until I'm, I feel certain about myself. Yeah. And I think like those things are hard to maintain.

Those, those respect, value, and everything about technology and social media undermines that. Yeah. And that's the problem. So when people talk about crowd work, I go, I go, it's like, it's like your eyes are in the wrong place. Me talking to an audience member at my show, that's not the problem with comedy. writ large. Yeah, I want to be clear. I'm not criticizing you in any way, nor am I interested in

people who criticize crowdwork that much. I'm interested in like, because there's a lot of bad crowdwork out there. Sure. I'm interested in how you do it with the soul of an artist. I am. Yes. I'll talk about like the deep of like I love to, I love, I think of crowdwork as like asking the question I would want to ask someone in, in a. conversation, but it would be too polite to, or it would be too dark or too fucked up or too weird. So I really feel like I'm trying to unsheathe my, not just politeness brain, but just like social customs brain and going, this is a different space. We can talk in a different way and we're here to like have a good time. So if your dad died and I asked how did he die,

we're engaging in this conversation a way that you will never with a person on the the street. They're going to go, I'm so sorry for your loss. You don't need to talk to me about it. I'm going to ask. And you volunteered it at the comedy show and hopefully the contract is there. And if it's not, you would adjust in the moment. Yeah. You know, I fucked up now and then. But, but like, I think there's so, there's so many cool stories out of people that, that people have incredible dinner party stories that they're going to tell two dinner parties and die. No one's ever going to film it or clip it. And I have an opportunity to talk to a person and like get their story, get their thing. And clip it. And clip it. Sure. Sure. I think if you want to

find, my opinion about what it'll be the end of crowdwork will be too many self-aware audience members. Like that, that could be the end of, because I have it happen now. I've had an audience member now and then go, oh, you got your clip or whatever. And it's like, enough of that. Believe you me. Yeah. The moment the funny's gone, I'm out. Yeah. The moment the moment the audience member comes in and sees the sign that says you may be recorded for the show and goes, I'd like some of the ticket money back if I'm going to be on the YouTube. I know you guys are making money this way. It'll be the end.

Yeah. You know? I'm just making the art out of the circumstances I have in front of me, which is I'm on stage for like 90 minutes and sometimes to mix it up, I want to talk to some people. Yeah. I mean, the fact that the person is there in front of you and you're having an actual conversation with them in front of other actual people, that to me is like, like the soul of the of the thing.

Like it's bad. Crowdberg is bad when it feels canned or it just feels like, I remember saying a warm-up comic like 15 years ago for a late night show who was just like getting people's ethnicities and then doing a canned joke for each ethnicity. Of course. And the end he was like, oh, you're Jewish. You can open a deli with the Greek guy or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the crowd lost their minds, but it was so wrote, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was because he was doing it every single. single day as a warm up for a late night show. Of course. And he has to kill. There's no, there's no, I didn't give him tonight. Yeah. He's got seven minutes to do it before the,

the host comes on and they need to be hot, right? So, you know, it was hackery for a purpose. Yes. But you see a lot of people, so I don't, I don't criticize him, but you see that a lot on social media of people who they've just got their, like, thing down. They're not actually being present in the moment. And I feel like, to, I've, I've started doing more crowd work or just more talking to the audience in my own act over the past couple years. And as more and more people have been complaining about crowdwork, and to me it's helped me get closer to what I think stand-up comedy is or at least how I want to do it.

Because I feel like I always used my jokes, my joke writing, my delivery as like armor against the audience and the comics in the back who I'm trying to impress, right? that insecurity that you think we should have. Yeah. I'm, to me, that's helped me back a little bit because, yeah, I always wanted to impress the other comics, but to the extent that it makes you feel insecure on stage, the audience feels the insecurity off of you, and they're like, oh, this guy isn't confident, or they just feel, they feel unsettled. Yeah.

And then the show isn't as good as they could be. But if you, when you're watching a really great, when you watch a really, really great comic, a lot of the feeling is, I'm in really good hands. Yeah. person no matter what happens you know she's going to be fine right and uh when i am really in my element doing stand-up when i'm on the road in front of a in front of a you know a good crowd in a city i like i feel connected to the place and i can just start the show by just like talking to the audience for 15 minutes you know about like man i really that's great being in a buffalo

crazy city you guys what are you guys doing you know just we're like and we're just having like a conversation before I launch into the material. That's what I'm like, oh, I'm just naturally funny. We're just having a natural connection. They're saying things to me, and I'm just responding naturally, and they're laughing, and it's like,

I can do no wrong. And it's also like, why are we, you know, to be like really artsy, fartsy about it, but like, why are we a comedian? It's, there's some, there's some part of us that interacts in a humorous way with the world. So you're really just like taking

the material away for a second and kind of like, showing really your comedic self like just closer to your heart and your brain and and you know again sometimes it's like is that enough for a full show maybe not always but to visit it and to show it and to engage with it and also in a way to like let the it's it's kind of like going to see uh again i don't know a lot about music but i certainly would like sit and saun if sonham was like what if this was a song, and I talked about this, and I'd be like, ooh, I got to see, like, Sondheim think and work and craft.

And then, you know, again, if I went to a show at Carnegie Mellon, I'd go, okay, now play Sendin the Clowns. But, like, I'd be totally down to engage as part of the overall show. So I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a, it's just an element. And again, I think there's some spaces it's not right. I think there's some spaces it's like, you do have responsibility to your peers on the show to make the thing. I remember Broadway Comedy Club, which is still open, there was some guy, and like,

so I was a new comic, it was a harder crowd, and this guy he would, like, leave the stage and, like, go into the audience for the whole set. Again, and maybe you look at it and you go, you're brilliant. You're, uh, uh, uh, what's his name, the S&L guy that, uh, Mickey Mouse, Andy. Oh, uh, oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, The famous... Yeah, the famous... Maybe you're one of the most important comedians in...

I've loved him since I was a child. And it's not Andy Richter. It's not Andy Kimler. It's Andy Kaufman. It's Andy Kaufman. You made me forget. And maybe that guy's Andy Kaufman. Maybe that guy's Andy Kaufman and he's doing brilliant, brilliant work that I can't even see. But if you're asking me, the community knows to follow that, I go, we got to...

We got too much leaving the stage and stand-up comedy. Yeah. Because I'm not doing that. And now the audience is, like, completely disengaged. They're looking here. They're looking there. What happened to theater? Yeah.

So it's like in that, I do think it's about taste and it's about respect and it's about understanding what spaces are meant for what. And I do think there are a lot of bad comedians relying on crowdwork. And but then that's bad crowdwork. We can, I think if anything, instead of like painting crowd or we can go like, this is bad crowdwork. This is good crowdwork. This is crowdwork where you're just asking mundane questions that chat GPT could come up with.

And this is one where you did an investigation of this person's day or family or life or where you are bringing your own self to it or you are asking from your own point of view. Yeah. And until you can differentiate the two, it's too easy to just like look at the whole thing and go, it's all bad. That's crazy. I think what I just want most from comedy, either me performing or seeing other people, do it now is presence. I want to feel the presence of the comic. I want to be present and I want

the comic to feel present. And so actually the example that you chose where someone goes into the crowd and does something crazy and the next comic has to say, oh, geez, we're all going to expect this. Oh, you're going to expect me to go on the crowd. Well, that's the right thing for that comic to say, right? Because they're speaking to what just happened in the room. The comic who's really fucked is the one who can't even do that. Who's like, I just need to open with my opener. Of course. with my scripted opener that I do exactly the same every time and the same tone of voice

because that's how I know I produce the laugh which is how I was doing comedy like five years in right I got my I got my little act you know yeah and that's that's like bad in its own way because you're not actually

your knees aren't bent you're not in the room sure and the comedy club model I mean it created that to a degree where you were terrified you're like you just had to kill for five minutes I know I know those comics who have like a killer 50 minutes that I couldn't top it to save my life and that's all

they've done for 50 years. I've seen them. I've seen the 70, LOL, the old people, and you go, like, they've been doing the set every single time forever. And then I go, then why? Why? I could, that's not, you're scared. You're just living in sphere. There's a, yeah, different comedy shows demand specific jobs. So, you, when you, when you're on the road, you like, I've seen you promote, like, this, this set is going to be crowd work and this set is going to be I do. I say this is going to be new material in crowdwork, and that's usually, I call it the silver lining. I'm trying, I'm trying to figure out, like, how do I establish a regular headlining set versus, like, I'm going to go really new. I want a space where I can go really new and lean

a little more into crowdwork. I've never done, like, a full crowdwork show, because I usually have so much material I want to do. And sometimes people are surprised if they only know me from the internet, some people, like, will think that I only, that I only do crowdwork. And it's like, well hopefully when I release a special you'll see you know you'll see and and again like if it ever came the day every audience member goes what the fuck was all that material I would go okay I need to adjust my output I'm dealing with 10 social media platforms spread out everyone's getting me different ways it's going viral in different ways I'm constantly adjusting yeah um but uh I try to differentiate like oh I got the headlining it's like oh I'm gonna my priority here is

to kill a little bit more, and then new material, I'm like, I, there may be moments that I'm going to really talk through something. However, I would argue there's more crossover. I'm not pure. You know, I'm still doing a 90 minute regular headlining show and I'm dropping in new stuff, but it's still good. For me, it's less about like, I rarely, it's not in me. I'm not focused enough to just do a strict hour. There's usually probably 30, 40 minutes that's going to be the same. But then the rest, I do like to float around. I do like to change up the order. I do like crowd work when it happens. And in my mind, I just have to reach a certain threshold of like this was a good show. But some shows you'll get, and I'll talk about religion and death for a long

amount of time. And the next show, I won't touch it. And it's like, you know, whether it's, whether it's, whether it's good or bad or good for business or bad, it really is just who I am. If I'm doing two shows a night, I get too bored too easily to do something else. That's just me. Yeah. Someone told me Brian Regan would go on tour

and he'd tour two shows at the same time and at the end of the show, and at the end of the show, hey, if you like that, you can come to tomorrow show, same city, different hour. And I'm like, God bless. That's great. That OCD helped you out in this specific way. That's great.

And my ADHD helps me out in a different way. You know, what is our business? but using your mental illness to your advantage. This is actually really helpful for me because the two shows in a night is like a grind, right? And if you're doing the exact same material, it's like, all right, the second one's never going to be as good. It's just on autopilot, you know, and if you're, so if instead, that is when you're freshening up and you're like, hey, they're drunk anyway, I must fuck around a little bit, you know,

it's 10.30 p.m. on a Friday. Yeah. Or if you can go long, if you can go long, I love, I mean, I really, I would like to go to a one show a night model. I do. I would rather do like a 90. Sometimes if I'm really feeling it, I'll do an hour 45. And I'm like, if I was done, the feeling of finishing a show and then having to restart for that second show.

Yeah. It's killing me, man. You get 30 minutes off. It's killing me. You'll meet and greet after or no? I used to. I stopped this year. It was just too much.

I'm doing it. And I love to. It's genuinely like my favorite part of the night. And it's physically exhausting. And I want to be present And I feel sometimes people come up With some heavy shit They come up with some

They're like They're like I was going to kill myself And whenever they say you save me And I always want to be like which video was it My God We've got to All right I got to figure out how to do material

What people say you saved my life No they say I all I had a guy come up and go like You know you like I was in a really dark place with like conspiracy theories and like right wings that's really beautiful and you really pulled me out of that and i was like i'm sure you were fine and his wife goes no it was really bad see i think that's great i think that's god dear god do we need more of that now

fuck i think that's a really good compliment it is a really good compliment and it's nice when you actually made an individual because you put stuff out on the internet and you're like you know i've been doing this shit for over a decade now a lot of it has been you know trying to kind of correct misconception stuff. You do it for long enough, and you're like, well, I said everything and it didn't, the world didn't change, you know, so did this have an impact? Yeah. And when you, you know, I think about when John Stewart retired the first time, he's like,

I've been talking about Fox and Friends for 15 fucking years. They're still on the air. Like, you know, like, what am I supposed to, I'm just supposed to keep doing this for, whatever, I'm out, you know? Sometimes I feel that way. When someone comes up to you and says, like, hey, it actually helped it, like does, you're like, okay, it was all worth it. It's crazy.

I guess I'll get up again tomorrow and do it again, you know. I have too much. Ray, you know, I saw recently, I think a lot about, like, how media literacy feeds into conspiracy theories, like, understanding how Hollywood works. And this person said, you know, those South Park guys, they just have to stay in line or else Comedy Central will shut them down. And I want to be like, the South Park guys could buy 10 Comedy Central's. Yeah. You think Comedy Central runs South Park? Who?

Who? You don't know about the deal that they signed in 1997, giving them ownership of the show? Like, yeah. And I go, like, it lets people. like they, it's like a deep misunderstanding. Yeah. Of, and, and, oh, it's terrible. I don't know. I don't know. I get

too mad. I would just start screaming. I think, like, you have, you have the patience to, like, talk someone through, okay, let's talk about networks and streaming and how it's transformed the entertainment industry. Yeah. I mean, you do you do a lot of politics in your material. Why?

Um, I guess it depends on the cause, you know? I think, like, when it comes to, like, Israel-Palestine stuff, I think it felt, it feels very specific to me about, like, American Judaism, about being a Jewish-American. And, like, I wasn't raised religiously. I did do birthright when I was 24. And, I mean, truly, I didn't know a thing about anything. I went to college from musical theater. My education came later in life, which I'm not using as any kind of excuse, all I just say, like, I, someone said, did you know this place? Do you know Israel? They give free trips to Jews. And I was like, what, what? And that was it. That was my full understanding of things. But I feel like one thing that, first of all, American Jews, whether it be, you know, the phase of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs or just like, you know, interacting with Hasidic people in New York or just more Jewish family members or whatever, there was always a sense of like, you're a Jew. You're a Jewish person. And this community is always here for you, blah, blah, blah. And there was something kind of presented where it was, I grew up in a very progressive area. I went to a very progressive high school. And there was always a thing of like, whether this was the image true or not, but like Jews were with Martin Luther King Jr. like marching for civil rights. And there was this, the image was like, we were ostracized. We were blamed. So, we were, we were with Martin Luther King Jr. like, marching for civil rights. And there was this, the image was like, we were, we were we stand with people who are not in power.

We stand for equality. Yeah. And, you know, it felt, oh, good. I'm glad that's my people, that we stand for that. And there was just such a, again, I wasn't raised with any kind of Zionism or any talk about Israel, period. I don't know if my mom ever said the word Israel growing up. So when I saw this kind of, and then, you know, I was educated. a little bit more about about the way palestinians were treated in general and then and then

I just saw the shift suddenly where suddenly all my Jewish friends were so resolute and like like you cannot criticize Israel and Israel's actions are after October 7th yeah after October 7th and obviously like you know the there's like there's the week one where it's like you can't be you you'd be a fool to be surprised that people were were acting foolishly but I I think I was right, that was when I was coming to my political awareness and learning about the response to 9-11. This is like in the middle of me listening to

I think the podcast called Blowback. Yeah. And just like, just like understanding more deeply, it's not like for the first time, but being like, oh, this is what happens in the face of like an attack is this immediate nationalism that functions to excuse war crimes

and actions that are improper. And it's so powerful. It's like a way, of bowling you over. I mean, I was in college in the post-9-11 years, and I just remember it being like, I wasn't incredibly politically aware, but it was like irresistible.

It was, you couldn't even argue with it. It was just sweeping everybody along, and people either, you know, swam with it or fought against it fruitlessly. Yes. And just were born along by it. And just like, just like things, you know,

knowing, oh, this this crime was, was, was, or something was invented as a crime to excuse a horrible action, just the way propaganda works. Just an understanding of propaganda. And again, it's like I never, I really don't claim to know, you could fail me on a test pretty quick about like the history of Israel and the history of Palestine. But what I did see was American Jews falling and endorsing propaganda of you can't criticize a foreign state without being an anti-Semite and going like, This is so obviously false. This equivalency is so and so detrimental to being a Jewish person to go, like, as a Jew, I endorse this foreign country's entire military agenda.

And it was just crazy, frankly, crazy. And at a time where, you know, if you have a good point, you could easily be labeled an anti-Semite, I go, well, I am a Jewish person. And so I feel I have the backbone and the authority just by being a Jew to speak honestly and speak harshly, to speak harshly about hypocrisies and bullshit in a way that, you know, in the last, I started getting some emails, people, but going like, you're not Jewish or whatever, you know, saying you're not really Jewish. And it's like, it's like, you can't get me like that. You, I was chased down every high holiday saying, are you Jewish? Are you Jewish? I was told you're Jewish.

I mean, everything, everything was about you're Jewish. You can't, you're not going to trigger my guilt or shame or identity. Yeah. This was the rules. And my mom is Jewish. Yeah. So like, forget about it. Yeah.

These are the rules. And the same way that I see. Very recently, it was a Holocaust memorial, I believe, in L.A., where they said, you know, genocide isn't just against the, they released a post generic, but in this context, you could feel where they're saying, a genocide is not just a genocide against Jews. And it was a bunch of hands holding each other. One had, you know, tattoo. And then they had to retract it. They had to retract the statement that said essentially, like, genocide doesn't just mean against the Jews. and because so many people complained.

And I go, that's the capitulation to the propaganda that I am as a Jewish person. I just feel I can stand on my two feet and shout, fuck off, fuck you. This is bullshit. And as a comedian, you know, it can be tough because when I think about my comedy, I do think when comedy, when you're trying to speak in a way where you're saying, right. Yeah. It's not always funny because your punchline is predictable. You know, the punchline is, and so I think about my comedy differently where I'm like, first, listen, if you want my preachy self, like, follow me on Twitter. You'll get the non-comedic version of me. But I think, like,

I, with that of being a Jewish American, like, I try to incorporate in my comedy where I often think that my setups are where you're going to get who I am as a person. And the punchlines are going to be funny. You know, I think the joke that I'm proudest of as like a writing perspective is I'm a trans ally. I ran to my old college roommate. They told me they had recently transitioned. And I was thrilled because I had forgotten their name.

And it's like what I, what I like about it is, is like, I'm, the joke is I'm a trans ally for the most egotistical, personal reasons possible. Yeah, it's a great joke about you. It turns, part of the surprise is it. turns it back on yourself. Yeah, but it's it's the setup that the setup I go, I'm a, I'm a trans ally, and the punchline isn't transphobic, and the setup says who I am, and if, if you can't assess that I'm, that I don't just like, that I don't support trans people just because I forget names, that's on you. That's on you. It's not my job to, like, make sure you know that. I don't think

anybody's making this mistake, sure, based on that joke, but yeah. But it's like, that's how I see, and by the way, I even see, like, I would say even on the inverse, I see a lot of, like, I would argue a lot of transphobic like, I don't even think that joke is like a trans ally joke. I think I am a trans ally and I made a joke that involved transness. Yeah. And I think like same way on that I think there's bad, you know, left-leaning liberal, whatever comedy, I think when you have a joke that's transphobic, it's not surprising if the punchline is just, and then that person's crazy. And that person's not actually trans. And that person. It's like,

Well, that's not funny. That's expected because that comes from your, what is your point of view? There's no twist. You just shared your opinion. Well, and so many comics who do jokes about trans people, the subtext you can tell is that they literally have never met a trans person. Of course. That they don't have any experience with, I mean, your joke seems to illuminate, is at least about the experience of having somebody come out to you or transition, right? It's like, as a social experience, that is a common one that one might have.

But, like, so many comics are doing jokes where they're doing it based on what they imagine a trans person to be based on what a joke they heard, another comic. And it makes it less interesting because, listen, I have other jokes that I wouldn't as casually just say where I go, like, it is more, it does feel even a little edgier. And it's about, like, if it's about, it's about someone specific. It's about something specific. That is in the details. Good comedy is in the details. And I go like, instead of writing, if you're at some Austin comic, instead of writing some joke about the generic trans person writ large as you perceive them to be, why don't you joke about the Joe Rogan who you meet? Like, is he a guy anymore?

He has more testosterone than any other man. Is this not a new thing? Like something specific. Something specific is funnier. Yeah. Like, like, don't tell me about trans people. Tell me about your trans friend. Or you're trans enemy, but not trans people, because that's, that's, you're speaking in such a broad brush.

You're never going to say anything new. Yeah. It's, and so like, I kind of, I don't think good art is inherently progressive. I do think, I do think good art, good art is inherently, uh, detail oriented. And I, and I, uh, subsequently believe, uh, knowing things in detail makes you a more empathy. unethetic, caring human being. Yes. But again, I don't, I think there can be great art that is terrible morally per se,

but it's at least specific. Yeah. I mean, I do, I do a couple jokes on these topics. I think the audience can tell that, like, I have personal experiences. Yeah. With trans folks with queer folks. They're like informing the joke. It's like, I don't need to go.

Oh, and by the way, I'm an ally, right? Yeah. And not that you are either. But it's just like you can, it's suffuse. in there and as like the the empathy is there I also want to say I think like your uh you're you doing jokes about Israel Palestine as a as a Jewish person I think is important I also I also had a lot of Jewish friends I'm not Jewish I had a lot of Jewish friends who or people in my social circle or in entertainment you know who went really hard you know in support of the state of

Israel's actions I also have a lot of Jewish friends who were like as soon as October 7th happened, their first reaction was like, something, this is going to be really bad, you know, something really bad is about to happen. And they were right. They were 100% right. And I'm really grateful to those friends who, like, because, you know, there's a lot of conflicts in the world. It was not the one that I was the most read up on. Yeah. Foreign policy, I know a lot, a lot about a lot of things. Foreign, you know, foreign policy, global affairs are not like a specific area of study for me. Not quite a gap, but it's something that I'm, you know, I was not ready in on October 7th.

Yeah. I knew about the historical injustice, but not the, not sort of the deeper dynamics. And to have folks just be like, oh, no, I'm, there's a lot of propaganda that,

like, get ready for it, you know, was really important and helpful. But also, like, I also remember there was a good six months where,

especially in the entertainment industry, it was really hard to talk about this stuff. I had friends who literally were dropped by, their reps by their agents I know one of them for yeah for posting Instagram stories for doing fucking ad to story on like BBC posts

and shit like that and got screamed up by reps and drop like it's yeah I got I mean I was more about actual censorship you know of course and I always remember I try to keep it a slightly vague but I remember

Chappelle again I Another comedian where it's like, he was on SNL, but he was mentioning a lot of Jews being in Hollywood. And he was making a joke and he was being a comedian. And the next day, a Jewish friend of mine in the industry was saying, like, yeah, I've been texting with my other industry about just how inappropriate, my other industry friends about just how anti-Semitic was.

And I said, I said, everyone in this chat, Jewish? It's like, yes. And it's like, the, obviously, the conspiracy of the blanks run blank, the Jews run Hollywood, that's a conspiracy. There are a lot of Jewish people in Hollywood. And when, when those in power, the moment someone posted something pro-Palestinian fired them, I go, well, you've reinforced the conspiracy that there's, that there's, you've reinforced this conspiracy and it's not a it's it's no one runs anything that that implies like a almost godlike belief

that things are run you know like like like there's some meetings and everyone's on the same page nothing is run that smoothly in the world nothing is run that conspiracy just so i'm like have you ever tried organizing a game night people aren't so organized that they can run a whole of the industry but but like diasporas of all ethnicities are unevenly distributed and have concentrations of certain people in certain areas and in certain histories. And some of those reasons were because there was an anti-Semitic time where Jews could only do this or do that. And then you go, oh, they're all cheap. And it's like, yeah, we could only work.

They always want money. It's like, well, you only let us be a lenders. So yes. Yeah. You only let us be lenders. So we're talking about money a lot and we're good with money. Yeah. And it's like, not all of us, not genetically.

It's just that's the only job we were allowed to do. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like if I, it's like, it's like if I, it's like, it's a lot of things that led to that point. Yeah. And so when these, when people, Jewish people of power, like firing people, I mean, for expressing this, it goes, I go, well, you're reinforcing the stereotype. You are creating the sense that, that Hollywood has a overall political agenda, and it's going to bite you in the ass. And you're ultimately going to side with, by the way, a lot of anti-Semitic, real anti-Semitic people who go, who do believe that there should be one place all of the Jews. Ustco.

Like it's just, and I don't know, I just, I just think there also was like an energy of, you know, whether, whether, whether it is gay rights, trans rights, race-related stuff. I'm a straight white guy. And there's always been a figuring out, like, how do I joke about, how do I talk about certain topics from my own perspective? And there have been worlds where, where it feels like careful or, or if you fuck up a little here, you're going to be in big trouble or whatever. There was eras, and eras where social media made it, you could get in big trouble for something or whatever. And which is a comedian's job to understand the nuances of society and navigate them and walk the tightrope.

But there was a freedom to a degree for me to more fully express my own heart and mind on this matter because I am a Jewish person. And in a time where it felt like a shocking, to me, number of Jews were very kind of in the party line. line when it came to Israel, I was like, well, what is a comedian's job? But right now. And with the social status that I have as a Jewish person in this arena, just shout at the top of my lungs with jokes that feel like it shakes it up a little. I'm not going to ask you, how do you write a

joke about something? Because I get asked that shit all the time. How do you write a joke about something tragic? But like, it is probably about the hardest topic to write jokes about, wouldn't you think? Yeah. Again, I think like sometimes people will go, sometimes people go, oh, I thought you were going to talk about Israel Palestine tomorrow. And I'm like, right now I have like one joke that like, again, the punchline is, is wild and not a policy proposal. And the setup expresses my views. And that's all I got right now. Yeah. It's some topics. You just get one good one. You're like, that's the thing I'm going to say. Time to move on. I don't write a joke about a tragedy. I write a joke inspired by a tragedy. You know? Because, yeah, it's tough to write a joke

about the thing. Yeah. But I think, like, I think the classic joke, and I know this is aged poorly in multiple ways, but the classic inappropriate joke was they say that Louis C.K. wrote the first, like, 9-11 joke in New York. And he said, he said, I think you can tell how long, how good a person you are, how long you waited after 9-11 to masturbate and he said for him it was between the first and second towers and it's like

that's not a joke about oh people died that's a joke about a human being's response to this awful thing happening in front of them that they still jerk off

and that they and and the surprise being this is how soon it was you know and it's a diagnosis is to make it almost is to make it unfunny but it's like the joke is not about 9-11 it's about what it is to be human when 9-11 happens yeah Jesus Christ uh man the number of times uh someone brings up a louis joke and I'm like yeah ah yeah okay we have to we have to we have to be able to to just say a thing oh absolutely you know I still do the quibling and the whatever and you know no it just makes me sad every time yeah yeah yeah

It just bums me out. I'm like, yeah, man. Only he had been able to write that kind of joke about himself. I mean, I'm more bummed about this Saudi Arabia comedy festival, to be honest. I think, I think, like, there's, I haven't, I mean, there's, there's a, that's a, that's a lot of comics on that list. There's a lot of comics going to this festival. Yeah. And I, I don't, I don't love it.

Yeah. I don't love it. What don't you love about it? I think it's like, again, it's a government sponsor. It's for a very clear purpose. It's to send like an image that things are good. Things are chill here. Look at all these edgy people we have. And even worse, I think it's like, you know, if you go there as a comedian and you're not bringing up Khashoggi in some capacity. And I understand there's plenty other things to talk about. But Khashoggi is just a, if I'm a comedian thinking of what something the whole audience is going to start with that. Start with Kishoggi. It's like, first of all, I think certainly if you're going to do it, you better. You better come up with something commenting on this. But secondly, it's like, I bet you it'll be fine. But if any of the people in that audience were to say that joke later, it might not be as fine. And I just, I don't know, a government spot, I think comedians should not be as hand in hand with the government.

I know we all want money. I know we all want power. I know we all love the lights. But I think we always have to question when we're too close to the decision makers because did you want to be a comedian or did you want to. be a government employee? You know, I did a show with Barack Obama. I know. And I had qualms about doing that in the way that I made my peace with it.

First of all, it's like, Barack Obama, did you do many things I take issue with? Yes, of course. Yes. Am I generally culturally and politically aligned with Barack Obama in many, many important ways? Yes. There's not a huge conflict. If we have to split the world up into two parties, we are limited in our options. So those people could say, you know, hey, well, you did that.

Why don't I do the same thing, right? Like maybe they don't disagree with Saudi Arabia that much. I don't know. Or, you know, maybe they don't disagree with J.D. Vance. And that's why they'll go, you know, fly across the country to take a photo with an interview. But also, part of the way I made my piece with it was whenever I'm entering into a project like that, I think, what is the thing that nobody expects me to be able to say? What is the thing that's hardest to say? And that's what I'm going to do.

And so we did a like five minute segment about unmanned drone strikes. We had a drone strike a, uh, we alluded to a drone striking a wedding, right? We talked about the growth of that program under the Obama administration and what a horrible thing it was. And it took a lot of rounds of revision to get that through, but we fucking did it. And like, would it have been a little bit spicier with someone else's company? Probably. We still did it.

We took it as far as anybody was fucking. going to do on that show. Absolutely. And I think there's always an argument to be made to participate with the system to send a message. I just think it's so easy. And we've seen time and time again where people think they're doing that. And they're just softening the blow. Yeah. So, so I haven't, I haven't seen this. And again, it's like, who knows, you did your best in this world. There are definitely people who thought that that's what that was, you know. Sure. Not in my view is my, you know, best judgment I could make as an artist in that particular year. Of course, that, but at least I made a fucking effort.

And I didn't just say, I didn't just say, ah, who gives this shit if I take the money? I agree. I agree. It's, I think that's, the finding that line is, is always going to be a stroke because I also, as much as I, I, I can relate to my, the, some people I follow that are so leftist, I go, oh, you, you don't ever want to get anything done. You never want to get anything done. Yeah. And I go, like, if you really believed in this, you would, you would take, uh, you would, you would take, uh, you, It's harsh to say, you would commit violence against the state if you really believe this, you know, you know.

It's like, it's like, and if you, if you aren't willing to do that, you know this thing that you want is not occurring in this world. So what is your point? Yeah. What is your existence? But I just think we've also seen a lot of people like soft challenging. And then before you know it, you're, you're rubbing the next president's hair on NBC. and you go, uh,

oh, fuck, that's, this is bad. Yeah. You know, I think Trump being on S&L, like, it's kind of like, it can't be overstated. That's crazy. Yeah.

That's crazy. And I mean, Lord Michael is a conservative. Like, it's, you know, it's crazy, but also it was just like, yeah, they wanted to book him.

Like, it's, but I, I think, that wasn't even like soft. Oh, let's just have them on for fun. It was just like supporting the guy. Yeah, and it's just, and I'm sure there's the counterargument, it's like, it's like, and then we made, you, you make fun of him. And it's like, I think what's what I find so frustrating about like, it just because like what Andrew Schultz, like they, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a view that like comedians, we always have power. Like, oh, well, well, if I, I could challenge him later. I think with like, with Trump, there was this thing, at least what he said in some, some interview of like, if Trump. didn't keep the promises he said on his podcast,

he'd hold him to task or whatever. And I think I go, we're all in this world, we're all chess pieces. We have very specific moves that we can make. Comedians, there's rare pockets of time that we can criticize something

and that it works. And in this moment of an upcoming election with this motherfucker, all you can do is help him. And after that help is done, none of your things can change the fact that he now has power for four years and will appoint judges

and will deport families and will take away trans rights and gay rights and just destroy our country in such a deep way. And so I don't really I'm not going to oh you changed your mind

or oh you're criticizing now no you had a pocket of time and you used that in I think a very poor way I don't think it's I think anyone can can earn something back but I go that was the moment that was the moment of the moral decision to be made

and again like for my podcast not that it matters not that anyone's asking on the political's front but I'm like right now we're like no politicians period because I don't feel equipped at this moment or know how I feel about what my role is in relation to those politicians however I would do a fundraiser for Zoran

but but even even some of the people that I like, I'm like, I don't want to have them on. You wouldn't have them on the show? Because, no, because it's, it's right now, I'm not in a place where I feel educated enough in this arena to challenge them in a way that I think a politician should, I think a politician should be enemies. I think Michelle Wolfe deserves so much more praise than she even got that they ended the comedian segment at the White House Correspondents dinner.

I think there's nothing, there really is nothing more of an honor to, to, to, you know, in that his time in history to have them go no more comedians here. Well, they had Trevor Noah a couple years later. I remember because I was at that one. Sure.

But they ended it for a few years. But again, it's that pocket of moment. It's not forever. It's not this. It's not that. When does a comedian do something? You know, Lenny Bruce, there was a time where he did something

where it's not brave to go on stage and say fuck shit piss balls now, but Lenny Bruce did it at a time where he got in trouble for it. Is there going to be the comedian that goes to the Saudi Arabia Festival and gets thrown in jail, they go so hard, they don't even do an hour of comedy. Yeah.

Then I'll go, hey, good on you. I mean, yeah, when talking about these comics who had Trump on their podcast, a lot of it was also because they thought he was going to win, and they were right, you know? And so it's, that's not, there's no bravery in that. Maybe they didn't say that there was, but like, and maybe Kamala could have done it, and maybe Kamala should have done it, but I just, but I just, but I, I just, go, I still, regardless of that, I go, I think about the things that you brought up with Trump. And I said where Trump was on Schultz's pockets with Theo Vaughn, I go, how could you

not bring up Epstein? How could you not bring up Epstein? Yeah. And the response in a private conversation that was lied about publicly, so I feel comfortable talking about it. It was, it was like, well, it's been asked and answered. You know, he's addressed it. And I go, well, then you bring it up again when when shaggy says it wasn't me you don't go okay moving on you go how is that not you bring it up again it hasn't been answered it keeps coming up that literally as we're speaking today and now now there's the turn of like yeah he's got some more answer he had answers before you needed to ask all the time how could you as a comedian get the next president the former president and the next president on your fucking couch on camera and not use that opportunity to to ask a brutally

embarrassing question because you want to get invited to the next thing because you want the next politician to come on your your show what adam friedland did uh with ritchie torres was incredible i doubt a politician will ever go on a show again and i go he used a moment he used the the pull that he had, the crazy booking that happened to come through in that moment to have an incredible comedic thing. And it might mean that he would, no one will come in a show anymore. Yeah. Or, or, you know, or, or maybe it'll inspire, probably not because the world is a fucking mess. It would inspire every interview show to get a little harsher in their questioning and a little more insistent on challenging someone's humanity. Yeah. So I go, that's an act

of bravery. I go, Michelle, Michelle Wolfe, and to have the future, to have the nominee with all his fucking dreadful policy positions, and to not, as a comedian, to not bring up pedophilia? I mean, you're disgracing the art form. A subject that's funny that the audience wants to hear about. Yeah, he already answered it once. Yeah. Each picture, go, what was this party? what was that party? What was this? How old was she? How old was she? How old was she?

Yeah. I mean, it is just a president should not. I, and I remember when Obama did between two ferns, I had a friend, this is like on the other side of things. And this is also, there's always the thing that you have to ask yourself, I remember when Obama did it. I had a friend who was like, I don't like this. And at the time, I was like, shut the fuck up. We got to win. Or we're like, this is good. And then I go, and then you look. later and you go, oh, maybe it isn't, maybe it isn't good in the long term because now comedians and celebrities can be written off as like, you know, democratic shills or whatever. Like, like, you know, it's or is that the moment you do spend your, your card? Should you have politicians, should you engage them in entertainment this deeply? I don't know. I don't know the answer. And I certainly don't think I'd be perfect. But I think when you got the next president on your chair and you're a comedian to just put out a kind of mildly entertaining episode, Yeah.

Lame. Yeah. It's lame. Yeah. And that was the moment. Maybe there'll be other moments to make up for it. But that was a moment. And I see that as an abject failure. let's put aside politics.

I mean, let's put aside values. That was a comedian choosing to be a propagandist. Yeah. And it's all on film. It's not even serving comedy. Like there's nothing, like, the funniest thing to do. I would ask, why do you want it?

Why do you want to have the politician here? Is it, is it, is it, is you want to make something funny? Or is it because you, like, there's something entertaining about being close to power? And it's like, fine. But if you're close to that, question it be the comedian yeah don't don't cower in that moment and that's why by the way why sometimes i go maybe i'm not going to have a politician until i feel that i'm ready to do that

yeah i'm not casually i'm not casually you know i'm not saying jimmy fallon i don't think that tonight show is like the right setup for jimmy phallon to have been like you know hey well it's but they don't have them you're pointing out first of all we're in a different political moment as far as comedy and politics goes. And so, you know, Jimmy found Rubbin Trump's head and, you know, Trump on Theo Vaughn look old in the same way that slow jam the news with Barack Obama and Obama between two ferns. Like, they all look old in the same way. Yeah. They're like a little too comfy and we don't want that at all right now.

But I also think, like, for your own part, like, as someone, who does try to do this occasionally and have like politicians on and I still look the the show that I did with Obama was like uh again I thought really hard about how to do it in a way that I thought was honest. Am I sure I got it right? No. It was still I'm still proud of the work. Um, but you have to at least try. That's the point. You know, like you, um, you're right if you say, okay, I'm not equipped at all to do it in this current format. But like, you know, you can't be certain that you're going to, you know, live up to the highest ideals of what a comic should be every single time.

Of course. But you should at least try to make the person uncomfortable. When I interviewed Obama on the show, and it's in the final episode, I tried to get him pissed off at me. Sure. A man who I like, you know, was all about in 08 and had a complicated, you know, almost like psychic father-son relation to I was like I have to have an interview where

I piss him off you know and I did piss him off and he went and it like hurt me when he did yeah you know but I was like I got to push a little further and you know again how far can you go in that situation I went as far as I possibly could and that's

the only way I sleep at night was because I made an attempt and that's what is really sad about watching this stuff they didn't even try different. Like, I think it would be, I think the circumstance, if he was running for office again, yeah. And you were right before the election, I go, well, the circumstances are even different. I think I would go, like, maybe I'd go, you'd have to go harder by my standards. And then after

the fact, it's different. I mean, these are different times in history. Yeah. I don't think it's just blanket, you know, every time I, every time I see AOC, I go, why haven't you criticized Israel, even more. Yeah. There's moments. But if you're going to, if you're going to have any width of the comics privilege of being an edgy truth teller, of being like, of saying the thing that other people can't say, you have to at least try when you have the opportunity that you're saying. It's just a matter of we just, again, like I think kind of classically of the jester in, in with the king, it's like you're in the room. But if you have a chair next to the king, you're not the jester anymore. Yeah. You know, and and I just think a lot of this is just a consequence of, of a lot of us

Me and to be able to get a lot more money. There's a lot more money in some of this stuff and money corrupts. But if you piss people off the right way, you can't, like I do a fair number of like nonprofit or corporate speaking engagement, like a couple a year, you know, most of the time I'm just hosting or doing something at some panel in L.A. You open for Hillary. I did a, before we started rolling, I was talking about I did a marketing conference years ago that wanted me to talk about millennials. And so the approach I took was, this is bullshit.

Millennials don't exist. You guys are condescending to people. Yeah. I did a climate summit. There's a Hollywood climate summit that I, they asked me to do almost every year in L.A. I did it this year. And it was on like how media can solve the climate crisis. And I talked about, this is bullshit. The fact that we're even talking about, how can a plot line in a sitcom help address the crime crisis is just a proof of our complete, you know, inability to do anything. Yeah. Like, I try to go into those events and question the premise of why I've been

invited and the unspoken presumption that everyone else there has. And when I do that, it's a fucking hit every time. Yeah. People come up and they go, oh, that was the only good talk the whole weekend. Sure, sure. Because you were the, oh, I was, blah, blah, whatever. And yeah, you piss off a couple of people. But, like, that is the comics approach.

And, like, all those people who were, who were, you know, talking about here, they would have gotten more cred had they done that, you know, into Trump's face or to J.D. Vance's face. Even just, even just a fucking little. Yeah. And, like, I don't know, it's so noxious where Theo Vaughn, like, he will talk about Palestinians in a very empathetic way where he's moved to tears. And then a month later is just, like, chatting it up with J.D. Vance. and like having fun with the guy and and well jd vance is powerless he can't actually do anything

about sure sure but just like but just like like i'll hang out with you i mean i mean him endorsing him endorsing are these comedians i also go like with these comedians i'm like part of comedy is the ability to go i was just joking and i go okay if you want to hold on to that if you want to hold on to the beautiful freedom of, I'm just joking, don't endorse a secretary of health. Don't do it. Don't do it. No one, by the way, no one was asking. No one was asking you, Theo Vaughn.

No one said, oh, before we decide. Did he literally endorse RFK? Oh, my God. I mean, then again, recently with the new hearings of, you know, or, you know, is J.D. Vance being like, these liberals, they don't want us to put these untested vaccines, but they're fine, like, with genital mutilation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, he was like, true, 100%. And then, and then I, I go, you chose this.

You decide to engage. So when one, one kid dies of preventable measles, I'm going to, you are no longer can go, I'm just joking. You decided to enter the arena of the serious. Yeah. You were a comedian. You got famous off comedy and all these, you cultivated enough fans. that still listen to you for some other things.

Know what you're going to me for medical advice. You entered the arena of the serious. And when you, when there are consequences to that and you want to check out and be dumb again and talk to the Rizzler, I, I'm going to go, fuck you. I'm going to go fuck you. And I think there should, I think there should one day, maybe, you know, you go to the comedy club and there's enough people there who aren't just your, your fans. That's, you get booed.

because a kid died off the vaccine plan of the guy that you endorsed. Don't endorse a secretary of health. I wish I could talk to the Rizzler on this show. Sure. I would really, I just started thinking about the Rizzer. I agree with you. But the whole, the whole I'm just joking thing

really bugs me from comics in the first place because, like, I will tell a couple jokes that are like completely absurd flights of fancy. Most of the time when I'm telling a joke, it does reflect something I actually believe. Sure. And that is why the audience likes it is because there is truth value. There is no just joking.

It was always, that was always a nonsense deflection. Sure. I mean, listen, it's, again, like some people have comedy that's even more absurdist or more sillier. Some people really want to go for the quip. You know, they just want to be like, blah, say something. And sometimes they lean on the edge of something to do that, whatever. But you can't have that flippancy and then engage in something that has real material

consequences yeah you know they they start it should it should stick to you in some capacity and i think it will eventually yeah and and it's deserved it's deserved i it's it's humiliating it's humiliating for comedians to to to to like support power to to run to run you know to help with with the people in power stay in power. That is the fucking opposite of the whole fucking enterprise of comedy. It's not funny.

And when these same group of comics go, oh, best George Carlin, best ever dude, I go, he'd hate you. You fucking hate you. He would, he's spitting on you from his grave. So I don't know.

It's just embarrassing. It's just embarrassing. And I do think there's some comedians who have, you know, in hindsight, I guess, somehow thought getting rid of undocumented immigrants wouldn't entail horrible actions. Maybe they thought it would and they thought were friends. And maybe they turn around and, yeah, go badmouth the guy or whatever. And go, go have, you know, Bernie Sanders on and, you know, do whatever work you think is good. Yeah. I don't begrudge that, but I think, you know, you had the moment and you used it to help the president get in power.

And now you're tied to some of these actions. And you better be, you better be fucking loud in your critiques. You better be fucking smart and ruthless and funny to keep your fan base. But like, you own some of this. Yeah. I mean, it's almost refreshing at the very least that we're no longer living in this world where people are saying there's no such thing as conservative comedy and the conservative comics are no longer trying to pretend that they're anything but and they're just like being openly. You know, at least we can sort of like dispense with the fiction. Sure.

To a certain extent. It's, you just got to stand by. I mean, I think a lot of times, listen, I'll always be the first say that of course there are sometimes people. collect around a joke they thought was bad and I think are overly harsh or the punishments there was an era

there was an error and again it wasn't even the era it was Twitter and going viral on Twitter in a specific way at a specific time could ruin your life in a way that felt

a little bit outsized for sure but I think there are there is a category of people where I'm like oh no the reason we don't want you to say that joke or people

have a problem with that joke is because what's what is your belief behind that joke yeah and and that's the only reason you've liked that joke and the people laughing at it are because again I don't ever want to feel I can fall into the being on my high horse

I can get there it's in me of like you shouldn't sue that a little bit you shouldn't do that yeah but I never I want to I look back at some of the ways I thought I was like oh they shouldn't do that or that was that was bad to say and I go eh that's not the worst thing it was an attempt at a joke

or just this bad attempt or they're working on something I never want to feel like I'm policing language. I am criticizing views. Yeah. And language is often a reflection of views. So.

What are you trying to get across when you're on the road now? How do we end this? I'm trying like, we were talking about other comics so much. I want you to say one more thing about like, what are you trying to bring to audiences? I don't I mean I really I go and put it on a show I I don't I don't leave you I don't really I always

I went to the Edinburgh fringe just to do it and it was amazing but I always struggled because I said like I don't have a thesis to a show like I don't have a final conclusion my job is to point out the flaws in conclusion yeah you know and that that's what I see is my so so I think like you know I'm talking about AI, I'm talking about technology. I'm talking about the family, my divorce family, my current relationship. I really believe that my, I don't even see my comedy as like, you know, I certainly have a lot of gay fans and people who write, like, thanks for being an alley or whatnot. It's like, that's never the goal of my comedy.

It's like I'm trying to be a great entertainer. I'm trying to be a great, funny entertainer. and I think I pro gay rights as just a being and so my the best thing I can do is just be

make great work yeah that's my job you know and and my views will come through in that work

but that's not I'm making comedy oh yeah ma'am that's what I'm trying to do where can people find you where are you gonna be soon when does it come out

God I don't know next couple weeks Okay, as long as it wasn't right before my Tonight Show appearance. I, uh... Okay. It will have already happened. You're earth-shattering tonight show appearance. People are finally going to learn about you after you're on the Tonight Show.

He holds my car. He goes, this next comedian loves talking shit about an incident that happens. Six fucking year. Give me a fucking break. Give it up for John Marco. He's got a special coming out on YouTube. You know the place anyone can upload it. anything, you can find me everywhere. I'm on the road. I'm going to be all over America and then

I'm sure by the time it comes out, I'm going to Australia, I'm going to India, I'm going to some parts of Asia. It's some places where I do have to submit a transcript in advance. Some places where I probably will not, where I have to decide if I'm going to bring a Palestine at risk of who knows. You're fucking better after this interview. I know, right? Yeah. We'll see the Singapore show. If you want to see me do some nice, clean family comedy, come see me in Singapore. I got a podcast called The Downside. And my special should be on YouTube, September 19th.

Check it out. Thanks so much for being here, buddy. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you once again to Jean-Marco for coming on the show. I hope you love that conversation if you did. Once again, patreon.com slash Adam Con over five bucks a month. Get to every episode of the show ad-free.

For 15 bucks a month, I might read your name in the credits. This week I want to thank Chris Rezek, God King Engineer of Beaverkind, Quinn M. Enoch's, Shannon J. Lane, Nicholas Raderman, Sager, Macher, and MiskBits. Oh, oh, one more. Let's read Serious Dinosaur. That's a really good one. Thank you so much for your support, Sirius Dinosaur. If you want me to read your name or silly username at the end of the show, once again, patreon.com slash Adam Conover. If you want to come see me do stand-up comedy on the road, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, Los Angeles, California, Bray.

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