Grubstakers - Episode 30: Jerry Seinfeld

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

On this episode we cover Jerry Seinfeld who’s net worth will be over a billion in the near future. We talk about Jerry’s humble origins, his entry into comedy, and all the controversy it took to profit on the show about nothing. All that and more right here on Grubstakers. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. This week we bend our own rules a little and ask the question, what's the deal with Jerry Seinfeld? Is he the king of comedy? Was his Netflix specials worth the amount that he was paid for? Why did he date that girl that was 17 when he wasn't? All that and more, this week on Grubb's Dates. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much.

I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens, and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, I love having the support of real billionaires. All right. In five, four, three, two... Hello, and welcome to Grubstakers, the podcast about nothing but billionaires.

Sean P. McCarthy here, joined by... Andy Palmer. Yogi Poliwal. Steve Jeffers. And so this week, we're breaking our rules a little bit, because we're doing an episode about Jerry Seinfeld. And as of 2018, Jerry Seinfeld's net worth, he's not quite a billionaire. It's been estimated he's worth between $860 and $920 million.

He has a fleet of Porsorsches at least like 20 he's got like a garage in santa monica and a garage in new york where he keeps his porsches the everyman observational comedian um but but the thing is the reason we are doing an episode about jerry seinfeld is we are just tired of eating our vegetables on this podcast we have done so many episodes about hedge fund and private equity guys where you have to spend six hours figuring out what they do, another six hours why it's evil, another six hours trying to explain it to people why it's evil. All for free, by the way.

We're not charging you for this research, so it'd be nice if you gave us some money from time to time. I mean, what's the deal with free podcasts? But Jerry Seinfeld, when explaining it's evil, why he's evil, all you have to do is say comedians money from time to time i mean what's the deal with free podcasts but jerry seinfeld when explaining it's evil all why he's evil all you have to do is say comedians in cars getting coffee and it's much easier for us and we just needed a break so we're doing jerry seinfeld and it should be noted you know his net worth between 860 920 uh million the given this typical seven percent return on capital he's going to be a billionaire

within two or three years even if he doesn't do anything this is our first asterix right so we will re-release this episode in two or three years as soon as jerry seinfeld is a confirmed billionaire is this what's happening uh but but so basically uh there's so much to say about Jerry Seinfeld. And, you know, Andy, Yogi, and myself are stand-up comedians. So obviously Seinfeld has been in one way or another influential or at least relevant in our lives, let's say. Who can forget this classic? Who is shaving on the plane? And shaving so much they're using up razor blades?

That was edgy pre-9-11 airplane humor. It was like a month before 9-11 airplane humor. Airplane humor died after 9-11, guys. It's really sad. I can never forget those bits jerry seinfeld gave muhammad otto the idea to use airplane razor blades they have the weapons on the plane comedy's dangerous people you never know who's but anyway look the point is this episode is about three unsuccessful comedians trying to find any excuse to present their animosity towards Jerry Seinfeld as based on anything other than professional jealousy.

And I think we can all agree on that. But also, we're not just doing a fun one because we're burnt out of the world of sadness. Though that is also true. But also, Andy, I think you'd like to share some thoughts on the world today. Oh, yes. With the death of war hero, Senator Maverick, John McCain, who always put country above party. Right, right, right. We were just absolutely depressed and we just needed someone to lighten things up so we could have a nice giggle about how he. But I don't want to be a pirate but i don't want to be a pirate

he doesn't want to be a pirate i was watching the mariners play the arizona diamondbacks yesterday and they announced during the baseball game that john mccain had passed and they're like oh he's he's watching the team from heaven now and they were also telling this anecdote i guess because i was watching the arizona broadcast about had come and sat in with them on the booth during some thing. And he knew all the prospects better than they did. I'm like, oh, that's what he was doing instead of his job. So glad to know McCain's better at judging baseball than he is wars. wars i do like that the mariners honored john mccain by uh defeating his team four to three in solidarity with every election and war that he's been involved in if john mccain's in heaven

that's the longest he's managed to remain airborne yeah fuck you arizona yeah all right well uh but uh setting aside our edgy john mccain humor let's let's focus on another friend of Israel, Mr. Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. Now that all the moderates have been alienated, here's a Wii music version of the Seinfeld theme. All right. So Jerry Seinfeld. And we'll kind of go, as usual, loosely chronological. Jerry Seinfeld was born in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York. And most of my research for this episode is based on a biography. It's called Seinfeld, the Making of an American Icon by Jerry Oppenheimer. It's a pretty good book.

If you're interested in Jerry Seinfeld, he's got a lot of dirt. The pros is, you know, three out of five. And it's Jerry on Jerry. I like the name Oppenheimer because it's like we knew an Oppenheimer who studied giant bombs. And now this one's studying the post-Seinfeld, the TV show career of Jerry Seinfeld.

His bum. It is funny that like... A bum almost on the scale of Trinity. At least 10 to 15% of that book is just like TV critics and newspaper writers being like, you know, I just don't find Jerry Seinfeld that funny. Right, right, right, right. It's kind of like if you look at critiques at like Dilbert right now, it's like, you know, now that guy's alt-right completely, that comic wasn't ever that good.

But so Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1954. The story of his father is actually pretty fascinating. I'll just cover it briefly. His father was named Cal Seinfeld, Calman Seinfeld's grandfather, paternal grandfather, was a fishmonger who basically abandoned the family during the Great Depression. So Kalman Seinfeld was like a hustler and a salesperson. And he had to like figure out how to survive during the Great Depression. Apparently, he like learned how to fix car engines by the age of 13. So he like, you know, hustled as a mechanic. And then he was, you know, selling towels in the early 40s to like you know hustled as a mechanic and then he was you know selling towels uh in the early 40s to you know hotels and businesses he gets drafted calvin seinfeld goes to um the pacific he's like a mail orderly in the pacific and then he comes back in

1945 uh from the war he's doing door-to-door sales in the 1950s like shingles and encyclopedias apparently he was also selling fake holy water from like lords like because i guess calvin seinfeld like he he looked like he was you know irish or italian or something so he would go out to long island and sell to these you know uh christians uh this fake holy water wow you know like these little um mini grottos with like the virgin mary and he would say it's like real holy water. Wow. You know, like these little mini grottos with like the Virgin Mary and he would say it's like real holy water. Sure, sure.

He was basically the inspiration for a Mr. George Lincoln Rockwell. He used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, very, very common New York Jewish upbringing. But Calvin Seinfeld, he's doing door-to-door sales in the 50s he meets jerry seinfeld's mother uh betty in 1950 uh she was a bookkeeper and a seamstress um and then they

are able because of a va loan they buy their first house uh in massapequa long island and they move there when jerry was 14 uh months old they were like living in an apartment in borough park brooklyn that's where jerry was born and then when jerry's like 14 months old. They were living in an apartment in Borough Park, Brooklyn. That's where Jerry was born. And then when Jerry's 14 months, they move out to Massapequa, Long Island. So Jerry had kind of a typical suburbia, 1950s, 1960s Americana existence. Aren't his parents both orphans as well?

Yeah, because his mom is the child of Syrian Jews, and her mother died, and then her dad had a breakdown, so she got sent off to an orphanage. And then, as we mentioned, Cal Seinfeld, his dad abandoned the family, and so he was kind of raised by his sisters, partly. So yeah, they're both orphans, basically. But yeah, so they grow up in suburbia uh typical stuff uh jerry has joked that massapequa long island is the indian word for near the mall so uh i want the audience to know that's not hindi at all so seinfeld don't know dick i think he means uh american indian whatever case wait andy could you Wait, Andy, could you play... Wait, wait.

Could you play Jerry Seinfeld on David Letterman reacting to his Massapequa near the mall joke? Stop laughing. It's not fun. But so, Jerry... An interesting thing from this book is Jerry was was like into sneakers at like six years old he would like demand his like mom buy him sneakers and if you're familiar with jerry seinfeld it's like that's like besides porsche's that's kind of the big purchase he makes is just closets full of sneakers he's a child he's a grown man child exactly um but so he grows up his parents are

kind of lower middle class initially but his dad calvin seinfeld he eventually settles on the hustle of uh selling signs to businesses you know seinfeld signs is what it's called so calvin seinfeld is making you know a a middle class living by the 60s just selling signs to businesses they moved to harbor green in long island in 1962 and just interesting story is that uh the mob boss carlo gambino was their neighbor what yeah um it was just like a couple things from the book uh that caught my eye was just like uh carlo uh calman seinfeld used to like go over to carlo gambino's place and like play cards and poker with the mobsters. Really? That's nuts. Yeah.

I mean, I guess then again, at that time being like near the mob, whether it's your, the restaurant or business or your neighbor wouldn't, wasn't that big of a deal, huh? Yeah. And like from the Jerry Oppenheimer book, Cal boasted to friends that every time Carlo Gambino saw Jerry Seinfeld, he'd pinch his cheek and say, you're being a good boy now, Jerry, aren't you? And give him a new silver dollar. And also, it's alleged that Carlo Gambino wrote a fat check to Jerry Seinfeld

for his bar mitzvah. Oh, really? Yeah. So just like, you know... Blood money going into the Seinfeld name. Yeah, I see what's going on here. A common theme with the Seinfeld success story. Later on, when a thing called Netflix developed, they remember my's going on here. A common theme with the Seinfeld success story. Later on when a thing called Netflix developed, they remember my son and my nephew. That's true.

Carlo Gambino and Seinfeld are both stars of Netflix now. I like the idea of Carlo Gambino on his deathbed being like, I hope I didn't create a monster. But so typical suburbia Long Island existence jerry was bullied a little bit uh partly for being jewish he was at least once called a dirty jew by the other kids he's carl eichmann he was a beat up a couple times at least um but he was like so he was a his first job was like a newsweek bicycle delivery boy um and uh he starts Massapequa High School in 1968 and the way Jerry Oppenheimer says it is like he was really interested in both cars and Bill Cosby and so as we mentioned yeah he like he listened to all the

Bill Cosby records he watched you know comedians like John Meter on Ed Sullivan, and this is where he kind of got the interest in it. But so he has kind of an uneventful high school. He says he hated it, didn't have that many friends. But in summer of 1971, this is between his junior and senior year of high school, he does a summer trip to Israel in 71. And there have been allegations that this is where he lost his virginity and

this kind of stuff. Yeah. But you know, where he popped his cherry, he went with another comedian, didn't he? Yes. Yeah.

It was like, that was like one of his early girlfriends. I think his second girlfriend or something was like another future comedian. And, but so basically have this audio from him going on his birthright i can't sleep i can't leave the house i'm here i'm climbing the walls meanwhile i'm dating a virgin i'm in this contest something's gotta give and that's when he learned to hate palestinians

uh but so jerry he talked about this so he worked on a kibbutz, you know, like the communal farm on stolen land. He worked on the kibbutz, and Jerry Seinfeld said, I didn't like the kibbutz. Nice Jewish boys from Long Island don't like to get up at 6 in the morning to pick bananas. All summer long, I was working for ways to avoid work. And this is where he meets, you know. You know what else little Jewish boys don't like? what's that?

getting beat up in the schoolyard you know what else they don't like? yeah but I don't want to be a pirate being pirates but so Jerry Seinfeld would later tell Playboy that he lost his virginity around 19 or 20,

but it's been alleged like his first girlfriend said that Jerry told her that he'd lost his virginity on this kibbutz. And so, look, there's a lot of speculation about when Jerry Seinfeld finally had sex. I'm pretty sure that the latter is probably true and the former is just him bragging to a girl. Yeah, that's his uh she goes to a different school i lost my virginity on my kibbutz yeah yeah this was his birthright before birth when did jerry seinfeld finally yada yada yada um but so you know uh besides that it's

uneventful uh he hates high school he wants to get get out. So he's able to, a year early, goes to the State University of New York at Oswego. So he heads out there. He's remembered as a sensitive kid in college. His college girlfriend was like a heavy pot and Marlboro smoker and stuff. So Jerry did actually smoke a little bit of pot in college, but he wasn't heavy into it like some of them. Like Obama. Yes. So Jerry, according to the Oppenheimer book, Jerry was a control freak and a very controlled person.

He wasn't quite as anxious to get high as his girlfriend. What's the deal with space? He'd be fine with it, the laughing, the sex, the eating, but I just don't think he enjoyed it all the time. I don't think he really liked it, and I't remember him having anything any pot of his own you know and so that was kind of jerry seinfeld's experience with drugs he's he's been noted as a minimalist throughout his life uh whether it's his like first place in manhattan people talk about like he just had like a mattress on the ground and like some books so he's been, outside of his massive collection of shoes and Porsches,

he seemed to appreciate not owning many things. For a man that's almost a billionaire, strange. Yeah, I mean, and that's the other thing. It's just like, why do you need all this money, Jerry Seinfeld?

Right, right. Like, and I'm not, I know I have a self-interest in saying this but he could just fund the entire generation of comedians yeah it's crazy how a good chunk of the issues playing comedy right now could be solved with a percent of jerry seinfeld's network oh yeah and i mean like seinfeld will we'll get back to this but he's paid like 20 million a piece for his netflix specials which like i would love to see the numbers on how many people watch more than five minutes of that oh you mean he's

doing jokes he wrote in the 1980s right right yeah the entire special was just his act from then that he like rehashed for now and i mean like it is a bit of like a, not behind the scenes, but just a sort of like, hey, this is who I was. Which is not terrible, but it's almost very anti-Jerry. He's the most, you don't even know anything about my life, I'm just going to tell jokes about some random silly shit. So the fact that he's like, well, I grew up in this town and I started at this comedy club. It's like, we don't need this, Jerry. We don't give a fuck. I like the idea of somebody putting on that Netflix special and he's like, we don't need this, Jerry. We don't give a fuck. I like the idea of somebody putting on that Netflix special,

and he's like, you know when you're trying to meet up with a friend, and you are late, and you can't call them? So what's the deal with Reagan breaking this air traffic controller strike, huh? I mean, it's hard enough to fly. In Talking Funny, they talk about a joke he did, one of the early late night sets he has about a roller coaster in the ghetto, basically. Oh, I was just looking for that, yeah.

But he does that joke in the Netflix special. Wait, really? Yeah, so a bit that they're talking about, like, hey, remember that great old bit you had, is a part of the jokes he sold for $20 million. So, I mean, his dad sold fake holy water, and he's selling fake jokes at this point. So, I mean, what are you going to do? But so, he's, you know, he has this college.

He does a media studies degree. He eventually transfers to Queens College because he wants to be in New York City because, you know, he's always had this interest in stand-up comedy, and he wants to be in New York City because you know he's always had this interest in stand-up comedy and he wants to be in New York understandably so he transfers to Queens College he does various media stuff he gets this degree in media studies and it is the day after he graduates or no the night of his graduation he does his first comedy set he does the open mic at Catch a Rising Star and bombs uh you know completely unlike a real good comedian like me who just just did it fine from the beginning but so he uh uh he bombs and uh then it takes him like a couple months but then he goes back and he starts uh doing you know

uh regular sets at these various bars around town, around New York City. And it's interesting because he has a couple of odd jobs at first. He was a waiter. He was selling street jewelry. Oh, really? Yeah, it was one of those very New York jobs where he would set set up uh you know like a table in new hatton and like peddle jewelry to people until the cops would come and tell him to fuck off you

know um so he was doing that and then this is also where he was doing the old dad hustle yeah i mean he would he was exactly doing that and then this is where one of the other odd jobs that uh gets under talked about but it's in the the uh jerry oppenheimer book is that he was doing a boiler room scam where him and his friends pretended to be uh vietnam war veterans whoa whoa whoa seinfeld has stolen valor is a part of his bio that's hilarious what's the deal with the trenches there were charlies in the trees so so basically it's his friend uh uh my best friend died in my arms for nothing what's the deal with agent orange i mean mean, does this guy know James Bond or something? What is all along the Watchtower?

Oh, the humanity. The horror, the horror. And I'm telling you for the last time. And then he said, me lie? And I was like, no, we all lie. Well, you heard it here last, folks. They say the U.S. Marines are raping people, and I say they're not people.

Palmer, do the music. people and I say they're not people Palmer music alright so they say shooting out of a helicopter is hard I thought it was pretty easy once you close your eyes. They said it was Operation Speedy Express, but when we shot 500 people a week from a helicopter, they didn't run that fast. I wasn't into pot in college, but heroin overseas? Mm-mm-mm. McNamara? Is this the new mcdonald's burger all right oh my god all right well so basically uh his friend i believe his name was mike costanza and uh they would have a falling out later um um but so mike costanza says the scam the boiler

room scam this way quote we used to scam people to us it was just a game just a joke jerry was dave wilson i was mike davis and we'd sell light bulbs over the phone jerry and i came up with a bit about not having any hands losing them in the war we'd see how much we could make each other laugh and see who could floor the other guy using the most outrageous scenarios. And so they would say, like, one scenario was they would, like, call, cold call people from, like, this lighting company, and they would say, like, they would give their names and say,

we're the handicapped Vietnam veterans with the lighting company. Then one of them would drop the phone on the floor, step on it like 10 times, pick it up and bang it against the desk and say, Mr. Cohen, are you still there? You know, it's hard to get used to these hooks,

but I have two cases of light bulbs for you. And you know, they'd be laughing and like, um, if I ever meet Seinfeld, I'd go, uh, hi, Mr.

Seinfeld. I'm David Wilson here. Uh, I'm a Vietnam war veteran. I just don't want to know if you wanted some light bulbs, but yeah, so this was basically like a boiler room light bulb selling scam. Wilson here. I'm a Vietnam War veteran. I just wanted to know if you wanted some lightbulbs. But yeah, so this was basically like a boiler room lightbulb selling scam. It was illegal, obviously.

But not the worst bit. Pretty bad. Yeah, well. This isn't that far off from the precarious position of young people today. Yeah. It would be some TaskRabbit bullshit instead. Well, it's interesting. We can compare that. Seinfeld, essentially, he was doing these odd jobs,

including a boiler room scam, and then what happens is he's hitting the open mics and stuff, and early on in either 1976 or 77, so this is only a year or two into his comedy start uh the comic strip which still exists today in new york city uh hires him as the house mc they pay him 35 a night at 23 years old and this allows him to quit his day job and pursue comedy and uh just if you're wondering about the modern economy of uh-up comedy, $35 a night to MC is $35 more than you will receive at Laughs in Seattle for an entire weekend of MCing gigs. That $35 dries up, guys.

Yeah. Comedy booms over. And he has help. He gets an apartment in the city at 23 he's originally living with his parents in long island and then commuting into the city to do these stand-up gigs what year is that he's making 35 dollars uh either 76 or 77 so that's like 130 bucks today like i mean if you had it for inflation it is funny that like club pay has not scaled up at all no no like it is exactly the same seven dollars

last night for doing seven minutes a dollar a minute isn't a pay we need to fact check this inflation uh man there's been some terrible deflation in the comments yeah seriously um but so you know he's able to quit his day job because of this $35 a night. And then from the 76 to 1980, he's just kind of like running around New York, just doing spots and actually making, you know, a lower middle class living just off doing that, essentially. Though it should be noted that his dad did help him get the apartment because he was living in Long Island, commuting to the city. Then around 23, he gets his first apartment in New York City on the Upper West Side, which he would keep for a long time because it was rent-controlled. You're pretty much right. It's $141.

Just for inflation? Jesus Christ. $35? $141. $141. In 2018 dollars. Oh, man. Man, imagine making $140 a night hosting doing stand-up.

That's fucking nuts. Yeah, I could... Think about all the food I-up. That's fucking nuts. Yeah, I could... Think about all the food I could buy. That's pretty good, actually. That's a real amount of money that I'm like, wow, you could really have a career. It's sad hearing that number makes me be like, wow, comedy could be really fruitful and valuable.

Outside of enjoying it and it being the love of my life, $140 a night, I really could do some damage with that. If you told me I could make $140 sucking dick a night, I'd be like, I mean, I'll consider it if I'm that broke. But instead you just do comedy and suck dick ass. Yeah, right, right, right. But yeah, no, I mean, it is interesting.

And like we've talked a bit about, you know, Seinfeld, 900 some million dollar net worth. And it's like it's just interesting where he will like lecture or speak to whatever younger comedians. And it's like, well, we have a completely different economy than what you had. And it's it's like I don't expect the guy to fucking pay bills for other comics. But I think as far as charitable givings like if he's interested in the art form that is something he can do because i know a ton of hilarious comedians who are struggling financially and you know i have a decent nine to five i'm fine but like i know a lot of just the funniest people in the world and they might never get the chance to be jerry seinfeld

because they're just like living on fucking fifty dollars a week if that you know it's crazy there's not a club Seinfeld owns like when you really think about it like it's not necessarily a you know money loss or money made scheme it's literally just hey Seinfeld do you want a place you could do as much time as you want whenever you want I mean to be fair he can do that anywhere in the city, but also he could be making profit on that. Well, it's like one of the funniest comedians that we know had like a Conan special. I think he's had two, and he was

renting a couch from Yogi to sleep on in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. So, like, I mean, the economy is so terrible. He was on television. Right, right, right. What's the deal with downward mobility? How do you get one in?

We'll get to this in a second. But, yeah, I mean, that's the other thing. And this is kind of a discussed ad nauseum in comedy. But Jerry Seinfeld makes his Johnny Carson debut in 1981. A spot on Johnny Carson was worth $5,000 a week. Oh, my God. Yeah, so that's how much he was making after he did his Carson appearance he was making $5,000 for a weekend

so it's just like Jeffries what's the inflation on that? I know in the 81 but so anyways the point of this podcast is basically you can buy one of those new towers on Park Avenue without money but to continue Jerry Seinf seinfeld is making 35 a night emceeing at the comic strip uh between 76

and 1980 he's uh you know running around the city doing like six spots a night getting you know decent spot pay and um sometime before there was spot pay too yes um it's probably the same as it is today but he was probably getting like well today there's not spot pay well the clubs in manhattan there is yeah there is you have to be a dual threat mc slash dick sucker in order to make that money um but so in the late 70s sometimes in the late 70s when i believe when he's emceeing at the comic strip rodney dangerfield comes in uh and rodney dangerfield sees jerry seinfeld and he gives him his television debut putting him on an hbo showcase um but but really what happens for jerry is uh uh he's actually able to start kind of touring even by the late 70s right because like again you know

talk about the changing economy and all this but uh there's a comedy boom with the death of disco where a lot of disco clubs became comedy clubs oh really yeah so like you know they would have like the fucking disco light and all that stuff and then because they couldn't make any money on disco anymore they just take it all down and put a microphone on the stage and say oh it's a comedy club now so there was like a real kind of boom economy so in the late 70s uh seinfeld's already touring and uh actually by 79 apparently one of johnny carson's people had seen him out somewhere and wanted him to do the carson show but jerry was very nervous about bombing on carson because it was considered so career defining sure sure and you know this is all what happens when there are three networks.

Right. There are three options on your television. So he actually delays doing Johnny Carson. But he's actually making a decent living touring in the late 70s already. And then again, this is only like four years into comedy. But he decides in 1980. Oh, just like us coming up on 11 years

of uh no spot pay or minimal if at all i've been doing it longer than 11 john yeah i've been doing it 10 i'm probably probably closer to 12 or 13. I do love how I'm just like, I'm about to turn the age at which Jerry Seinfeld was probably worth half a million dollars. There's a Facebook post. I can't remember who it was, but it was really good, which was like, I didn't expect to be a millionaire 10 years in, but I was hoping to at least make $30,000 a year.

Pipe dreams. in but i was hoping to at least make thirty thousand dollars a year pipe dreams uh but so in 1980 uh jerry seinfeld decides to seek his fortune in la and um he actually interestingly enough keeps his rent controlled uh nyc apartment and again this is i'm bringing up the va loan and the rent control and stuff just because I know people have this obsession. Wait, you got a VA loan? His dad bought a house with a VA loan. Oh, okay. That would be funny if he used his fucking hands bullshit. Sorry, it's so hard to talk on the phone.

No, I can't come in to do the paperwork in person. Have you seen the movie Born on the Fourth of July? I'm in a wheelchair. That's me. What's the deal with you guys being bitches? How many babies did they make you kill? I bet you didn't kill any babies. i don't want to be a swift boat veteran um but so he uh uh he moves to la in 1980 but he keeps the this rent controlled new york apartment

and he sublets it to his friend and he keeps that apartment into like the 90s or something i don't know exactly when he gets rid of it but he keeps it a long time and i'm just bringing up the rent control and the va loan and the dad loan and stuff just because it's like a lot of these self-made myths are just that you know there's always a helping hand either from the government or from friends and family llc or whatever you know so So it's like, uh, uh, Jerry Seinfeld is probably the richest person to ever make their money doing standup comedy. And, and you still see this kind of benevolent forces helping him along the way that are not always available to people today.

Like Larry David, uh, was living in artists housing on like 23rd street in manhattan and it was subsidized housing for artists if you can imagine that today and yeah it's called bushwick without the subsidy subsidized by their parents yeah it's subsidized by the fucking carlisle group trust fund subsidized by training the saudi arabian mercenaries who uh murder their populace when they act up that's like that apartment now has to be worth like several at least a million dollars baseline just just like the one bedroom apartment where kenny kramer i don't think kenny kramer can afford to live there anymore no he's still there he can't afford to live there but he's still there i was i was thinking once we started recording like oh man we probably could have gotten kenny kramer for this

episode yeah i mean i feel like he kept leaving and coming back to the podcast though the the biggest thing i remember all your food about kenny kramer is um and we'll talk about the michael richards things a little bit, but basically when the Michael Richards thing happened, Kenny Kramer put a statement online saying, the real Kramer does not endorse racism or discrimination of any kind.

Said some pretty nasty things to some Afro-Americans. You know, you have to respect the comedic timing that went into the apology. Oh, yeah. Stop laughing. It's not funny.

Stop laughing. It's not funny. It's the review of b movie um but so in 1980 uh jerry seinfeld makes the move to la this is about after doing comedy about four years in new york city doing you know six spots a night or so making decent money and also touring a fair amount uh by the late 70s so 1980 he moves he gets a bit part in a sitcom called benson where i guess they like signed him to be on for the whole season and then they like dropped him i think after an episode or two but they'd signed him for 40 grand again 40 grand 1980 so he was signed for this bit part in benson they fired him but he still gets paid out 40 grand so he's doing fine by this point but 1980 he moves

to la he's like the going price for a mansion um uh he struggles a little bit but then uh in the sense that his first six months he's like feeling like nobody's putting him up or whatever he does he does that he does the improv uh for for spot pay. He's not getting up. He's got $40,000 from a sitcom, but he's not getting up. Continues to get the mythical spot pay. People talk about the grind of Seinfeld. He really put in the work. He worked real hard with his $40,000 that he didn't have to do much for.

He read a script for. But so he had this $40,000. He's able to subsidize himself with this. But in 1981, he makes his Johnny Carson debut. He's called back, I think, two months later. And then a few months after that, he's called back again. And by this time, 81, and throughout the 80 after that he's called back again and by this time 81 and throughout the 80s he's a road warrior as we mentioned he was being paid uh 5 000 a week

typically after his johnny carson appearance in 1981 and he's like him and jay leno were kind of the two uh tough dogs as adam carolla would put it, they rode it hard. They did the road hard. They were doing like 300 gigs a year or something like that, you know, or high 200s. So he's actually like making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1980s just off stand-up comedy. They spread the word about America, about what is the deal with, have you seen this, have you heard about this? And by the way, Seinfeld has talked about during this era, he knew comics that would tour the country with like a good 10 minutes. So the era stand up when it comes to like what this era meant is not the, you know, Louis C.K. new hour every year type of thing. It's he's doing his act.

And his act is the same act that you will see on his snapbook special released 2017 and so yeah he really grinds apparently he would like do daily yoga exercises on the road you know he's a big proponent of yoga and meditation right right he talks about this a lot yeah and you know like and he writes about how he like wrote every day and stuff and yeah i'm sure he worked hard at stand-up. But it should be noted that he was very fortunate as far as timing in the comedy boom, where he was making so much money that I believe in 85 or 86, he hired an accountant who ripped him off for 50 grand.

Oh, wow. Because he was just storing his money under the mattress. Sure, sure. And his girlfriend had to convince him to fucking get a Merrill Lynch account and later an accountant. Right, his 14-year-old girlfriend. You should get a Merrill Lynch account.

Adjust it for inflation. She was 23. But so yeah, he's making hundreds of thousands of dollars by the 1980s. In 87, he's making hundreds of thousands of dollars by the 1980s. In 87, he's profiled in Time Magazine. He has his first solo HBO special in the same year. And by 1988...

Which he did for Exposure. Exposure and drink tickets. Don't forget the drink tickets. He actually crowdfunded to get that HBO special But yeah so he's making like a hundred Plus grand at this point in The early 80s That's crazy And just like random things from this era

His father sadly Passes away in 85 Obviously that's very emotional for Jerry And He is engaged to a woman in 1984 is there a video of that eulogy and apparently it exists i mean you know did it's the somebody in the book describes it as like obviously the most emotional they'd ever seen jerry but kind of off-putting because he's such like a not emotional person you know off-putting that he

was like grieving his dead dad oh jerry that's a bad look for you he was what's the deal with crying that's why he left scientology they were like this is an unacceptable expression he wouldn't be able to finish his joke he'd be like what's the what yeah what's the scientology thing so the scientology thing as far as the book describes it is that he gets into it in the um uh the 80s what judaism wasn't good enough for him right so he tells his girlfriend his like longtime girlfriend um and some of his friends that uh in the in the mid 80, that he was involved in the church. I'm quoting from the Jerry Oppenheimer book. He was what was known as a, quote, preclear,

a person who was not yet clear, a person learning more about himself and life. As a preclear, he said he was involved in a form of personal counseling called auditing, one-on-one sessions with a Scientology minister known as an auditor. And for those not familiar, auditing uses processes, questions, or directions given by the auditor to the preclear to help him find out things about himself and improve his condition and free himself from what the Scientologists claim are unwanted barriers that inhibit stop or blunt natural abilities. So do you have,

are you remembering something that gives you great pain? Yeah. Why are soda cans so hard to open? You can't get the table. There was Charlie everywhere, man. We called down napalm on my own position. The Seinfeld voice is like very you know jewish ptsd member like it's just i don't understand what's going on we called it napalm because it burned their palms uh but so and it's like it's kind of weird where like, he's involved in the mid 80s.

And then journalists kind of started to ask him. I hate flying Delta because it reminds me of the Mekong Delta. Can I have a warning at the beginning of this episode? But so, yeah, journalists started to ask him about this in the early 90s because Scientology was already controversial then. And, of course, the Seinfeld show had blown up. Wait, I want to do a second shot at that joke. Yeah. I thought the Mekong Delta was bad.

Then I started flying Delta Airlines. So do you want me to cut the other one? Yeah. Or just leave both. I'm just going to do it again. Great. or just leave both yeah i'm just gonna do it again great uh so uh journalists started asking him about scientology in the early 90s and he told um a playboy interview in 1990 he said it taught uh scientology taught him in a sense how to handle hecklers better it gave him those

communication skills and i i like the idea that scientology taught him to handle hecklers better by teaching him how to kidnap them, destroy their lives and cut them off from their families. But at least as late as 1992, he was like defending Scientology in interviews. And he was always kind of like downplaying it where he would say, I'm paraphrasing, but he would say things like, yeah, you know, I kind of like take a grab bag from different religions where like I got into Zen and meditation. But I also learned about, you know, this kind of stuff about myself from Scientology. And I just kind of like took what I liked from each, you know, little religion or following or whatever. That is the only truth. I used to be bothered by hecklers, but then Scientology taught me about disconnection that's why I don't love my family

and I only care about my money I do like the idea that it was like it wasn't his act it was his Scientology he'll never get on a DC9 again it does make sense though that he might have been financially struggling if he was in Scientology all this time.

You know, do you guys know about, like, the Scientology when you want to move, like, to one of the higher levels? They take you out on their yacht. You guys know about this? Oh, yeah, the, like, seasteading thing. Yeah, yeah. So, like, it's this, like, yacht that they take out to international waters. And essentially, you know, you've put in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they want you to put in more money at this point.

And rightfully, a person might be on the fence about this, but when you're in international waters, surrounded by people forcing you to go take the next step, you'll probably take the next step. And I don't advocate pirates, but I would love for pirates to attack the Scientology yacht. To get the seahorn. Yeah, they kidnap Jerry and they're like,

say the line. Scientology yacht. Seahorn. Yeah, they kidnap Jerry and they're like, say the line. But I don't want to be a pirate. I am captain now. Did you know that that was started so that L. Ron Hubbard could avoid his tax fraud charges? Oh, God. I didn't know that.

Okay. All right. So in 1988, he's made some 30 appearances on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. And this is where NBC essentially gives him, they tell him, do almost whatever you want. And we'll put it on TV as a show. And so he's like, he meets up with Larry David. And they kind of come up with this idea. Like, the story is they were, like like doing a set at Catch a Rising Star

and then they went and they like started riffing in a deli afterwards and Larry David was like this is what the show should be just comedians you know figuring out how they get their bits or whatever and so you know he also also prides himself on being one of the few people

that could be on Carson and Letterman during that period. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. You know, back before political correctness ruined that for him. But so, oh, and just one other thing. His longtime girlfriend from the mid-80s to the early 90s before they finally broke up, he broke up with her essentially because she wasn't Jewish. Oh, really? he broke up with her essentially because she wasn't jewish oh really yeah and it's like a

weird thing where the the way the biographer says it is that his mother jerry seinfeld's mother was very clear to him that it's like never marry a girl who's not jewish and even a girl who converts to judaism it's not okay and it's just one of those things where it's like i mean that's racism yeah and nobody ever calls uh the jewish on that, because especially when you're talking about like not even a convert to Judaism, that is just racial discrimination. Yeah. And that's something that this country is known for, where it's like, you know, oh, speak English. They're never talking about Hebrew. You know, I mean, like it's a very clear cut thing where the bigotry that the Jewish community

holds is not ever under question in this country it's also it must have been really confusing for his first girlfriend when she first met his parents and then met them a second time and it was a completely different pair of old people yeah he like fired the guy who played his dad on I think the pilot

because he didn't Jerry didn't like the job he was doing. Yeah, yeah, they completely replaced him. Yeah. But yes. I didn't get that bit. That's very funny. The story of Jewish racism is why Andy is an unmarried man today. But yeah, so he told his girlfriend, quote, I will never marry someone who's not Jewish.

And of course, he would eventually go on to marry and have children with a Jewish woman. And I don't have anything to say about it, except it's just kind of this weird form of racism we've all decided to tolerate. By we, Sean means the whites. Yes. You get a pass in it in fucking white liberal circles to just be like, yeah, I, uh, I will only date someone of my race. No,

no, no, no, it's okay. I'm Jewish. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a,

like it's acceptable to say I will only date someone who is the same religion as me. And so it's kind of, but they can't convert. They have to be the racial religion. Right, right. It's kind of a backdoor to like,

all right, well, none of you are running for office. No, it's fucked up. And I mean, like right it's kind of a back door to all right well none of you are running for office no it's fucked up and i mean like it's fucking stupid like i mean if i told you like oh yeah my parents won't let me marry someone that's not indian and hindu you'd be like that's stupid but you know the moment we change we'd be like yogi you clearly do much better with white girls but so 88 um nbc picks up the seinfeld television show it's uh first three seasons uh it's this has been talked about to death but we'll just kind of go through it briefly it kind of survives on essentially the ratings itself aren't that good but they do very well in a high income demographic yeah he

talks about this on howard stern actually stern is like oh your numbers were down earlier you probably cancel these days and jerry seinfeld very like confident he's like no our demographic was uh high income so we were fine like very confident it's like no fuck you howard that is definitely different than what they said in the old like dvd many documentaries i watch where they'd be like we just have a very loyal audience. And so we knew we'd be able to stick through it. They got the NPR crowd. I mean, if you want to talk about pre-stereotypical liberal NPRs crowd,

that is the demographic that they got, that NBC was like, well, they're going to buy the merch, so who gives a fuck what they like? Yeah, yeah. The advertisers want the rich people to be on the show. So you got the Frasier people? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, certainly. All right, right so continuing on uh seinfeld the first three seasons they're um uh they're doing okay uh but they're performing fine among the high income demographic but it is like you know the fourth and the fifth season where seinfeld really becomes such a cultural phenomenon yeah they get moved from wednesday i

think to thursday so yeah oh yeah and they have cheers as a lead-in so they're like doing much better and uh you know i mean i think uh i'm not sure your guys's opinion on seinfeld i think it's a hilarious show i think larry david probably deserves the lion's share of the credit but i'm not going to say seinfeld didn't contribute a lot to the show yes his fucking show some of you may be asking like if if you're doing jerry seinfeld and he's worth less than a billion dollars are you gonna bring out larry david's dirty laundry that i say no other than sour grapes which everyone's allowed a mistake artistically larry david's perfect go fuck yourself i don't know why i'm being mean no one has been mean to us

there's a funny story people have been mean to you, ain't he? Yeah, but no one listening to this. That's fair. There's a story in the Jerry Oppenheimer Seinfeld biography is that a comedian would meet Larry David, and so he came up to him after a set once, and he said, hey, good set. And Larry David just kind of looks at him like he's an alien and walks off.

He comes up to him again. He's like, hey, great set again. Larry David just kind of like looks at him and just like says thanks and walks off and then this same community comes up to him at a deli a third time and he compliments his jokes and Larry David's like what's with this nice guy shit that's great hmm yeah but um we will spare the famously curmudgeonly larry david he's only worth about 500 million dollars that he hoards for himself and uh he's openly curmudgeonly he

should give the money away but we're not going to break our rules and do a larry david episode though we will be doing a julia louise dreyfus or dreyfus family episode at some point all the sugar how the fuck do they own all the sugar? Look into it. Literally, sugar grows only in brown countries. How is this white family owning all of it? Look into it. It is true.

The Dreyfus company goes back to mid-1800s France, which was famous for their very fair trade deals with African nations, among others. Afro-Americans. Yes. That'd be funny. Julia Louise Dreyfus has actually done more to hurt the African community than Michael Richards.

Probably true. Probably true. You know, she's used the N-word more. But so Seinfeld is, by its fourth and fifth season, a big, huge hit. And it is in 1993 where Jerry Seinfeld gets his first bad press. And we've kind of alluded to this. But this is a weird fucking story. And it's been talked about a fair bit.

But he starts dating a 17-year-old. Yeah, it's fucked up. He is a 17-year-old. Yeah, it's fucked up. He is a 38-year-old man at this point. And the only thing weirder than the actual story is how he met her, at least according to this biography that I've been referencing. The story is that,

and apparently this is the way Jerry Seinfeld told it, which I'm like, what the fuck? The story he tells is that himself and his friends were in central park taking pictures of attractive women which is like you know that's the pre-me too era yeah yeah that's before political correctness ran this is pre like cell phones all i mean pre-cameras being on everyone's body like this is literally two randos in the park going let's just take photos of chicks man right so and they're 38 they're not fucking like in their 20s they're 38 years old yeah these are grown men and it's so weird because it's like

he described that as like a prank where they were like he says they were gonna like show it to their other friend to make him jealous or something and i I'm like, that's not a very funny prank. That's not dropping the phone and pretending to be hook hands. He's like in season three or four of his show at this point? I think it's four or five. He's like a bona fide television star. Oh, yeah, he's a star. And he's just taking photos of chicks in the park.

Yeah, because at this point he has like a million-some dollar, multi-million dollar Central Park apartment. Oh, my God. And so he lives right next to Central Park. He still has a place next to Central Park on the Upper West Side. Well, someone confronted him about that. Let's talk about serious things.

While he was taking the picture. The Me Too campaign. Yes. What's wrong with the industry? I mean, are you asking yourself how come all of this is coming? It's not the industry, honey. It's the whole gender.

It's men and women. This is about men and women you just call me honey yeah well in fairness he would later tell brian williams i'm on the autism spectrum he was just advertising for b movie yeah but so let's let's get back to the 17 year old because we'll finish that story and then we'll move on to to other such stuff so basically he is taking pictures of women in the park and then he sees this 17 year old girl and he goes back to his apartment and he's like infatuated with the pictures and then he goes back to the park i think it's infatuated with the pictures. And then he goes back to the park. I think it was a later date. And he meets her again and introduces himself to her.

Hey, I was taking photos in the park the other day, and I couldn't stop jerking off to these photos. I just wanted to know, do you like jazz? He came up to her and was like uh i lost the bet because of you um but it seems like he just he copied uh season one episode to the stakeout three years after it came out sure um but so basically he meets this girl and again as we've mentioned he's a huge national celebrity at this point. Seinfeld is crushing it in the ratings.

This is 1993, the height of his celebrity. So she's, I think she's an Upper East Side Jewish girl. Aren't they all? Her name was Shoshana Launstein, and she was, you know, taken aback with him uh and so uh this is april 1993 they meet and then they finally their relationship becomes public in may uh 29 of 93 he takes her to a nix game and she's like in the camera when he's like interviewed or something and he like he apparently that night like called his publicist panicked because he knew that this story would break about him dating a 17-year-old. And he was like, you know, oh, my God, is this illegal? Like, what's going on?

And they were worried about, like, her parents suing him. But apparently her parents loved him, I guess, because he was, like, you know, multimillionaire famous guy or whatever. Um, but so, uh, and it is interesting where it's like, they talk a bit about the tabloid environment at the time because, uh, the first person to confront him on it was a Howard Stern. By the way, it's worth noting that on Shoshana Lahnstein's Wikipedia page, uh,

for, uh, her professional years active, it's 1998 to present. What? In other words, right after the breakup like several years her her years as a professional person are uh significantly after her relationship with jerry seinfeld yeah um but i want to circle back on one thing real quick sean that's okay

of course you asked like our opinions about the show seinfeld and uh it's a perfectly introvert show i used to watch with my dad, which is a nice personal memory. But let's be honest here. A general bunch of white people in New York, that's a TV recipe that just works. Yeah. I mean, whether it's Seinfeld, Friends, fucking Girls, I don't know, Sopranos. I mean, the list goes on. It's not that hard to make white people in New York pop on TV.

So you're saying we should fire you from the podcast. But so Howard Stern, it's just I want to just quote this. Howard Stern confronts Jerry Seinfeld when he does a phone interview. And this is like the last time Jerry Seinfeld appears on the show till like the late 2000s i think and then howard later does a song about jerry's girl is only 17 something like that uh but so howard asks him so you sit in central park and have like a candy bar on a string and pull it when young girls come by and jerry uh was described by the book as barely controlled and jerry says i am not repeat not a cradle snatcher um and then he lies asserting firmly she is not 17 that's all i'm going to say about it case closed she was in fact 17 um but it's just kind of a weird thing where it's like

they actually they date a little while until i think 1998 um she goes to george washington university like she was in high school when they started dating well she needed a ride yes she goes to george washington university um uh jerry visits her on campus at george washington then later she transfers next the following year to to UCLA so that she can be in L.A. where Seinfeld is, of course, filming the show Seinfeld. He gets her an apartment in L.A. And they continue their relationship for a... Oh, he gets her an apartment in L.A.? Actually, I can't confirm that.

But she gets an apartment in L.A. I assume Jerry helps her financially. Sure, sure, sure. I don't know. She comes from a rich family. Yeah. assume jerry helps her financially sure sure sure um i don't know she comes from a rich family yeah um and then uh just like one other random anecdote about that apparently they they did it until 1997 and uh had an amicable breakup but um in 1996 they did uh they were shooting an episode of seinfeld and an audience member uh it was, I think a female they were doing audience questions essentially, and a

female fan from the Oppenheimer book a female fan stood up and asked what size cups does your girlfriend wear? Her question was met with an icy silence. Well, Jerry finally responded, we've suddenly taken a nasty turn here, haven't we? I don't think that's any of my business

much less yours. By the way, what size jock do you wear? Looks like a large to me. Wait, he said that to her? Yeah, he said that to the audience member asking him what size broad does his girlfriend wear or something. Oh, so he said she has a penis? I guess so, yeah.

He's trying to say she's got a big old set of balls. How dare she ask Jerry this question? How dare she, a woman, ask Jerry a question on the anatomy of another woman? Oh, and so we'll kind of jump around here as we're winding down. But just one other thing. From when Jerry first started to become rich in the 1980s, his girlfriend at the time describes he would go on tour and like buy all new stuff for

himself and then just throw it out when he got home instead of doing laundry and she actually like got him to stop this because she would like take his stuff and like donate it to her father brother or just whoever and she describes the story of like he bought like a brand new hundred some multi-hundred dollar wallet and uh he was disappointed because he had ordered it and, and he got it in Brown instead of black, like he liked. And he just threw it in the trash can. And he,

she had to explain to him, are you insane? Go give it to a homeless person, but just don't throw it in the trash. And he said, quote, Oh, Oh,

you're right. I, I just didn't think about it. And, uh, yeah, you know, as Christopher Lash said, quote, oh, oh, you're right. I just didn't think about it. And yeah, you know, as Christopher Lash said, culture of narcissism. But yeah, I mean, it's just interesting where it's like an adult in the mid 1980s was like, oh, I just didn't think that instead of throwing things out, I can donate them. Yeah, that's the thing. I think that it's very easy to think that, you know, Seinfeld in his like fourth, fifth season is in his like late 20s or something. But he is a 40 year old man at that point. And so all of this like infantile behavior, it's like, oh, well, there's a story of basically uh he breaks up with his 17 year old girl and he cucks another dude and that would become his still today wife with

whom he has three children it's just kind of an interesting story uh the the brief of it is that she's uh his current wife was married an extremely rich husband but not quite rich enough right uh and he got her a gym membership uh which he would later regret because she met jerry seinfeld at the gym and so the actual story is they get she she meets jerry seinfeld before the actual wedding when she is engaged to this guy they get married they go on a three-week honeymoon to Italy where he just lets her spend all the money on whatever, but she cuts the honeymoon short to go back to New York where she shacks up with Jerry,

and I think five days later says, I'm breaking it off with you to get with Jerry Seinfeld. So, you know, that is an alpha move. Yeah. Say what you want about Jerry Seinfeld, but he did cuck a man pretty thoroughly. Yeah. And that other man, his name was Michael Richardson.

Her name was Jessica Sklar, and it's quite the shame that we didn't get to find out what would be the comedy act of the Sklar brothers and one Sklar sister. But so before we wrap up here, I do just want to talk about Jerry Seinfeld in Netflix. We've kind of mentioned he got a $100 million deal with Netflix for two specials

plus Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. And he's being sued by the co-creator of comedians in cars getting coffee uh you read about that andy so apparently the co-creator of uh comedians in cars getting coffee pitched the idea to him back in 2002 um and it uh at the time seidenfeld was pretty like ambivalent about it and then a little while later i think it was after it was after the failure of the marriage ref oh yeah uh one of his crimes we don't have time to uh yeah to address uh seinfeld uh said that seinfeld takes the guy aside backstage like have you thought about going younger

apparently his representatives just kept giving him shit because he didn't have anything going after uh the marriage ref right uh got completely shit canned and so then he brought it up to this guy um last name charles he's not larry charles though christian charles and he, Hey, let's do the idea about the comedians and cars getting coffee. And so, uh, Christian Charles made the, uh, pilot. He basically wrote it. He had a treatment for it already. So then he, uh,

set everything up, got the locations and everything ready for the pilot. And apparently the, uh, for the pilot Seinfeld for the pilot seinfeld was just pissed off and didn't want to do it and uh just really annoyed and they had to kind of like coax him to do it and then he refused to do the voiceovers what and so i like how he's like wesley snipes on the set of blade which if you've seen comedians and cars getting coffee like the voiceovers are critical yeah it's mostly voiceovers on that show yeah and so they uh eventually this guy sends it

to seinfeld and uh seinfeld and his people like sit on it for a minute and then they're like it's great and uh decide to run it and then they tell the guy basically like oh you're just a four hire director after the guy like you know produced the the whole first pilot you're like you're just a director and kind of cut him out and said that his only he like billed them for like creating the thing and they're like oh no your only payment is your uh director's fee for whatever episodes you direct and so so then he filed a lawsuit, now that it's on Netflix, and Seinfeld basically seems to agree

that it's basically his people's argument is that it's just outside the statute of limitations. They can't do anything. Yeah. So it's comedians in cars stealing creative property. It was the deal

with being a powerful monster who can crush your enemies. There's another story in the Oppenheimer book. I think... By the way, there's this line from the Hollywood report it says defendant comedians in cars LLC yeah I mean look Jerry Seinfeld uh has benefited a lot from other people's work let's say that yes and you know what at least he he made Larry David half a billionaire,

but not the guy who thought up the idea of having rich assholes drive around and insult service industry people in coffee shops. But anyways, and then the other thing is just like, this was kind of a story this year, was Jerry Seinfeld did some sort of a israeli defense force training camp uh i don't know the exact details of that steven you looked at that a bit yeah it was like a like a fantasy camp for sort of defending israeli settlements he goes there and starts having vietnam flashbacks and if you look it up online, there's a picture of him posing next to an IDF

soldier. Yeah, that's the kind of famous thing. It looks like the Sacha Baron Cohen Mossad character. Right. His dad was a big pro-Israel guy and Jerry, of course, was very influenced by his dad and as we mentioned, he went on this kibbutz, this trip to Israel

in 1971. It's ancestrally our land! What's the deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? We have a right to defend ourselves! There's no such thing as Palestinians. They were living in the country called Jordan, okay? What's the deal with white phosphorus anyone i just love the tone change yeah you know what we're at an hour it's winding down but look the

the point is here jerry seinfeld is going to be the first person to become a billionaire from stand-up comedy or more specifically from a television show he's made at least 400 million just off residuals and such for the the seinfeld show it's of course it's really a country why can't anyone leave it it's uh it's the most successful sitcom of all time i think we can say confidently and jerry seinfeld you know uh is an interesting person. And I think it's just like we mentioned the story about him, like, not giving his possessions away and then just throwing them away. And it's like he's worth almost a billion dollars. He doesn't spend on anything except for, like, sneakers and Porsches and, like, you know, the most basic. I guess it's different now that he has three children.

But it's just like. Is it, though? Is it different? I think he's mostly spending his money on sneakers and porches yeah just necessities and he's still like and he's kind of like leno where he's got you know the compulsive thing and and you know we're all stand-ups we can we can sort of understand but he still tours relentlessly forbes has him making like 57 and a half million dollars this year and of course it's partly netflix but it's also just he's still selling out stand-up arenas and there's still people paying to see him and i got really nothing

to say except for comedy is subjective and i don't understand like what's the deal with comedy it's so subjective yet i keep making money from it well like eight years ago sean and i were hanging out my apartment and seininfeld was on Letterman. Oh my God, it was so bad. It was so bad. To the point where I joked like, you think Dave's going to call him over? To the desk?

They bonded over their shared love of teenagers. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, and it is just like something interesting where Jerry Seinfeld has like the most milquetoast act, but he's also complained about political correctness because he had some dumb joke about like when you're scrolling through your iPhone, you're like a gay French king. And some people got a little tense at that one. And he's like, it's the audience's fault. But it's like, I don't know.

It's not that it's the audience's fault but it's like i don't know it's not that it's the worst joke anyone's written this year it's just it actually was written in 86 so let's not forget that part 86 it murders so yeah let me know but it is just like look i've watched you know seinfeld stuff from like the 80s and it's like it's fine stand-up comedy but it's i think clearly becoming a billionaire who doesn't buy anything except you know mets box tickets or whatever the fuck and you know his having two garages worth of porsches has probably detached him a bit from the average human experience and having a show where they just drive around and be rich together you know um you can't be rich and funny unless you're larry davis i think that's that's what we learned that's the takeaway yeah and uh

so uh rest in peace to john mccain and uh we we hope another vietnam veteran jerry seinfeld will include more diversity on comedians in cars getting coffee. We called in for help, but then the plane that was supposed to bomb the Charlies crashed. What's the deal with war? It's nothing like MASH. War? Oh, good God, y'all. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing. Say it again. One other thing uh as of 2002 when this unauthorized biography was published he has not given any money to his father's synagogue for repairs he also hasn't given any money to his high school understandably he hated it but it was just kind of interesting where it's like we project he'll be a billionaire within two or three years and uh his record of charitable contributions seems to support that thesis because i don't think he's giving that money away no he cares about todd berry a coffee and then was very condescending where he was like hey you're doing

great aren't you and todd berry just was like you want to swap they every episode of comedians in cars getting coffee, they have to edit out where the person gets really angry at him for giving him the bill. So let's go Dutch on this, right? Well, Jerry Seinfeld, billionaire within two or three years, reinvented the American comedy, and provided a model that all of us are following and will continue to follow.

And with that, this has been Grub Stakers. We've got a new episode coming out next week. Thank you for listening. My name's Yogi Poiwal. I'm Andy Palmer. Sean P. McCarthy. Steve Jeffries. Boom, ba-dum, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.