Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast - Ep 634 - Department of Jokes (feat. Yakov Smirnoff)

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Support the D.A.W.G.Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Go See Yakov on the Road!!!! @ https://yakov.com/ Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Lemaire Lee Live @ https://lemairelee.fun/ Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want  @  https://www.shawngardini.com/live hello. Happy Fri-Yay everybody. We got the D.A.W.G. Yakov for you this week. Unc blessssssed the cast with some tales of yore / wisdom. From the soviet union to Branson Missouri. Big beast. You must go see him on the road. Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $150 if you win your first $5 lineup!  This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/MSSP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Wild Wow, West. Yakov, thank you very much for being here. Thanks for having me. Yes. You're actually coming at a good time. Matt's become a bit of a Russiophile later. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. He's from Ukraine. I know. I heard. I was like, dang, that's not good. So, I'm reading Dostoevsky right now. He's made me at Rousseffal. You're liking it, I'm sure.

Otherwise, why would you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's converted me. I'm just 100% in Russia right now. It's not that I can do about it. Well, it is an interesting time to decide which side are you going on.

No, I don't think he's a culture. He's not a government. He's not picking a side of the war. It was just a joke. I thought I thought you're Ukrainian. I'm like, oh, that's not. That's, you know. Well, I grew up in Ukraine, but I speak Russian and my wife is from Ukraine.

And we speak Russians to each other. And we have a one-year-old that we're teaching Russians. So all of this, we're just hoping that this thing will blow over at some point. And so how does the name thing work? Because I notice there's like three names for everybody. There's like a pet name. Yeah. There's like a formal son of.

Yeah. Father's name in the middle. Uh-huh. So it would be my dad. name would be so it would be ivanovich if your dad's uh Ivan it would be like yakov ivanovich and then the last name so did you have like a pet name though like a nickname too no no well my mom would call me like yasha there you instead of yakov right but uh not yeah that's not normal so i was reading that book and everyone has three names there's

like the Ovich name, there's the Asha, like, pet name, and then there's like one more. Yeah. Just like first name kind of thing. But most of the time, it's your name, you're given name, then your father's name. And it ends on itch or whatever that, Ivanovich, Petrovich, whatever. Kevinovich. And then your last name. That's normally.

And, yeah. It's confusing. When I came to America, I just chose not to have that. Drop the bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're reading this, the bitch fell off.

You like that, Nate. Well, nice. Well, as you saw, we're going through some struggles here. The guys are down bed. Nate flicked off Joe Rogan yesterday. Yeah. What happened? He made a mistake.

Mistaking identity. He gave the middle finger to the boss last night, which is... I might be cooked. I thought it was Tony. I saw him come out from the back. I thought his car was Tony's car. So I was given what I thought was Tony, double middle fingers standing in front of the car.

You were gunning for the vice president. The president are cool, so I can get away with that with the vice president. I don't know the press. The press have only spoken up. Damn, double middle fingers, crazy. Double shaking them. Double bircheroge's.

He's probably about to get out of the car beat the shit. He was literally just showing us he could do round house kicks still. He was just amped up. I saw the cop. Like, once I noticed what was happened, I saw the cop that was like watching him leave. Like, he was like had that alert. Like, what the fuck is that?

You know, like you didn't get tackled. Yeah, I was about to get shot from down the street. Dude, I, there was. He was also hitting splits in the green room last night. It was so funny. The splits are wild. Rogo was like, I can still do the splits. That's awesome.

Because there was a rumor that David, uh, that David Lucas could do. splits. Interesting. And I said, I don't believe it. Yeah. And then Rogan immediately was like,

I can't, and did it. And then while he was on the ground doing a split, David Jolly walked in. I was like, the fuck's going on in here. It's a wonderful night.

I used to be able to do this Kazatsky dance, you know, with the kicks. Yeah. And so now in the show, if I, because I have a,

I have a theater in Branson, so there's more like a variety. So I do. stand-up stuff, but I also do some fun funny stuff. So I have like dancers in the show, and then I come out and I sit on a little stool that they don't see it. And I go like this. And people just love it. And then I get up and turn it around and there's a stool back there.

Yeah, it's like. Kind of rocks. What's the name of that dance? Kazatsky. Kazaki dance. Yeah. Kazakh, Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan.

Is that where they're doing it? No. Cossacks were the soldiers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The soldiers, and they used to. Do you also, like, drop it. I've noticed they'll drop it low on that, too. Like, they'll be kicking and kind of hit this to a drop.

I like when they drop it. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun when they drop it low on. It is very cool. They drop it low. There's some spinning going on sometimes. Yes.

Yes. Is that reserved for, like, an occasion? Or is that just, like, if you're on the dance floor, you break it out? Or is that, like, a formal kind of thing? We didn't understand. Like if you're busting out the Kazowski, could I go to a club and just fucking. Well, when when you're capable to do it, it's like doing splits, you know, it's like. Really?

Yeah, it's not an easy thing to do. And you watch those guys that they can do spinning and jumping up and doing splits up in the air. So you got to get like your leg straight up to the air. I use my leg for that. Yeah. I use my arm. I'm like, let me chill with that too. Yeah.

I'd be in a hospital, yeah, before I... Dang. Yeah. Before, no, I would be. Yeah, if you tried that. Yeah. But you can break, if you can do it, break it out. It's like the worm, basically.

Yeah. Weddings. It was normal. Yeah. A few, few glasses of vodka and... That sounds... Honestly, sounds awesome. Yeah, it is awesome.

Getting hammered and just kicking like crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's one thing I did enjoy about the Red Army. The dance. It's a fun thing. I feel like if the Germans had had a fun dance, maybe people would have been like, these guys are kind of cool.

Yeah, they would not. But the Germans had no dance. What's it? They just, they just, they had no, they didn't, they weren't. They kind of cripp walked. They got the goose step, which some countries still hold down.

North Korea still rocks a goose step. There you go, that's pretty sick. When everyone, the whole, From a military drill perspective. Just from visual perspective. For sure. Military aesthetics. Nothing else.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire. and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Can I actually, I want to run something by you.

Yeah. This is for everybody. I saw this thing a couple days ago. And I think this is a new development in like ultra white behavior. You know, you're dog poops. You grab a dog poop bag and pick up the poop. The guy was squatted down next to his dog holding the bag open while the dog shit into the bag.

and I just wanted to say right now I hope that's not a new trend because that was so so disturbing it was so disturbing to watch what did this guy look like give me a description it's like one of those it's like an ultra white

yeah you know what I mean like someone who's how old probably like 60s like it's like a fleece like a fleece vested kind of soft-handed white I don't know

if I had it probably like some shit with a carabiner on it I guess like probably some cargoes maybe was a Harris voter? Undeniable. I got to be honest, that screams Harris voter.

It was a Harris voter. They need to talk about that, man. It was an establishment Democrat for sure. It was definitely, it's about as damn as it gets, dude. Like 10 pins on your back, just holding a bag for your dog to shit in

was like, I'd rather you leave it there. Just leave it and walk away. I really did. I'd rather you leave that and me be like, motherfucker, then watch that and be like, whoa, dude, why are you doing that? What if it has, we're talking diarrhea.

That's what I've been thinking. How do you catch that? Dude, it was, my older dogs will kind of skewed a little bit, too. So it was, I couldn't believe what I saw. So I'm hoping that stops now. Yeah. Yeah. Was it a trash bag?

It was a dog poop bag, the tiny little bag. Yeah, okay. He was just holding a tiny little dog bag. Around the rim? Right next to the photo. Right on the crater. Just, you know, down a little bit. He let it drop.

He should have screamed at him. Dude, I should have, I should have. Like, hey. I should have beaten them up. You should have fought him. So this is, this is a good job for like a robot to go behind the dog. Yeah. You're exactly right.

That way nobody's upset. Yeah, I don't like it. Dog shit robot. You might be on a billion dollar idea. I've been trying to make money off a dog shit for a while. I have because, like, you had a thing. think it has to break down into something that's worth some you know i think they i ate off gases there's all this dog shit i'm so serious i mean it's like all this dog shit is getting just

thrown in these bags and trapped in plastic and it's like there's got to be some quality within dog shit that you can like it's like way protein ethanol something man you want the gas i want to i want to corner the dog shit market and turn it into a million dollars i mean you might be i've been thinking about this a lot. It's a good call for a Cossack. I'll celebrate with a Cossack. If you do this, I'll get in enough shape. I'll get stem cells in my knees.

I'll hit it. So this is why it's called secret podcast. No one can know about it. Yeah. No one can know about it. Because if somebody gets wind of Matt's dog shit idea. True. They're going to take advantage of it.

Elon Musk might be listening right now. Dude. Please. Could fuel his rockets. Oh, true. So shit. there's got to be some use of all that dog shit apparently it doesn't work as fertilizer

because that was my first line of thought apparently don't work well the bag would not work well they say they're compostable some of the bags but I've looked into the fertilizer and like yeah I could be carrying some nasty you know I don't know why a cow's shit would be you were looking into it

I did for sure you're Googling this already I've looked into a deeply it's always me walking dog shit to my out of my garage to my thing and I'm like is there an industrial application? I forget it. Whatever Grock says, I'm like, I forget.

But yeah, stay tuned. Yeah, what do you? The robot picking it up. Robots great. Now you're sitting just cleaning it up as a robot. That could just be a form of getting it to you. Yeah, you could use those, you know those robots that carry like food orders?

Yeah. When there's no order in between orders, they could go and just vacuum dogs, you know. Fill out with shit. And have it in a separate compartment than your food. Which would be a good deterrent for the people kicking those things over. too. Every once in a while you go, I was actually carrying dog vomit. Vomits got to have something. We got to get vomit going too.

Got to be some stem cells. How about cum? Dog come will be. Dog come could be very valuable and lucrative. There's got to be like B12 in it probably. Do you have any dogs? I had the dog for a while. I had them in the show.

It was part of this kit. And then I had them for about a year. year. He's a working dog. It's a working dog. Yeah, it was kind of half and half. He was supposedly a pet and part of the show. And it was a Shih Tzu and a Poodle, so called him shit poo.

So it was a cute little dog, but I realized that I didn't have enough patient for that. You did. And then so I, when I was in the road, I felt guilty that he was alone. and so I would put him into dog motel, and I realized that I was spending more money on a dog than me, staying in a nice motel. So the lady who owned the motel said, why don't we co-parent this dog?

And I said, great. So she took him and that was it. That's great. I visited him a couple of times. He was running the motel. he's really cute, so he would sit on her on her desk and greet people and it was really

so it worked out really nice. Nice. There's a happy thing. The mayor got rid of his dog. They three, the way him and his family got rid of their dog is they took the dog to the park and they threw the ball

and then got in their car and drove away. You're serious? Dead serious. And the dog is still with the ball. It's probably a dog. Motel. Literally, what the most hard. Did you just wipe your fucking hand on the chair

affuated chicken finger? No, I just, I was getting it up. Oh, you had already spilled. Yeah. Sorry about it. I didn't mean to actually get upset with you, but that genuinely would have made me angry. That you wiped ketchup on the fucking chair.

That would be crazy. Actually, I would have been truly mad. I would have been like, dude, you got to leave. I just talked to a storm chaser. Fuck. Reed Timmer, I believe his name. He had a, he has the guy who has the tank, who he goes in her tornadoes.

He had a dog that would do storm chases with him. That's what I said. I was like, well, for... Was that dog's name, Toto? It's a little Wizard of Oz joke. They're going to get in Russia soon. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I was like, well, that's got to be crazy for a dog.

They don't like, like, light thunder. I was like, that dog. that tornado must have been bugging. He was like, yeah, he was actually pretty scared. It was called the dominator. It's just like giant, it's an F350. Dominator's awesome. It's an F350 that just anchors down to the ground

and it just like, it's like bulletproof glass. You can go inside of the swirl. Not an F5, obviously, but you can go down and just be inside of a tornado. And then they launch rockets up into it to like study the wind pattern or something. Damn, the guy saw Twister. Yeah, pretty much.

That guy saw Twister. It was like, I'll do that. I'll do that. That's crazy. I mean, that was actually, I think the name of it was Toto. Really? Yeah.

I was, I loved that movie. Twister was sick. Did you like Twister? Twister was good. I guess. Did you see Waterworld? Uh,

did you see Waterworld? Waterworld. Kevin Costner. I, I, I remember that for me. I loved it. I thought it was sick.

Yeah. Smokers. The what? The smokers? That's who they were fighting. Is that the guy? I don't remember. Smoke Sigs, the bad guys.

What? Yeah. Dang. I just remember my uncle Neil took us a saw it. And I think you see Kevin Kossner's butt in the movie. You see his butt. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. Football is finally back.

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$150 instantly in lineups. If you win your first $5 line up, that's code drenched to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. Run your game. When you were growing up in Odessa, how long did you live in Odessa? I was 26 when I left the Soviet Union. So I lived all my life in communal apartment with my parents sharing the room. So basically that was my life.

So when you hear people talk about how cool communism is, what are your thoughts? Well. That's a good question. Because I'm curious, because I never lived under communism. If you don't know any better, that's the way people live. So some people live just a little bit better than others. But you get used to it. I know I grew up, no phone, no car, nine families in one apartment, one bathroom,

kitchen shared between all those nine families, one stove, and you have a schedule like when you can cook and God forbid you cook longer than other people get real upset and you can have lead pipe in your soup, you know, and just for flavor, you know. So, but you don't know any better. You just live like that. And in my case, you know, I was lucky that I kind of discovered comedy because I wasn't good in sports. I wasn't good, you know, in studying. But I was good in making people laugh,

getting in trouble and still keep doing it. And so that's what got me. Yeah, how did stand-up start in the Soviet Union? When were they doing that? Well, in my, normally there was like two stand-up comedians in the whole country that approved by the government. It's awesome. So they can be on television, they can be on the radio, and so... We were doing that for a few years. Yeah. We did that for like eight years in the United States.

I don't think there's anything close to that. It's kind of like that. No, no, no. We all share an apartment with one bathroom. No, I got to tell you, this. This was like when I came to America and I was hoping that I can do comedy, but I didn't speak English.

So, but I remember going to... I'm sorry to stop you. In communist, in the Soviet Union, would any of the people in the communal apartment leave dishes in the communal sink? Because that would be a beating. Yeah. There was a lot of challenges.

Dishes, dishes was not one of them. Dishes was not a challenge. You're saying they cleaned up and dried. Even Soviet Russia. Wow. They would. Are you hinting on someone? So if you had been really good at sports, though,

would you get like a different apartment or would you still be locked in with a fan? You would still be in same situation. You would probably have more opportunities like going outside the country, like representing the Soviet Union. Comedians were not sent out to represent the Soviet Union. So you would have like if you're a ballet dancer or, you know, opera singers, those were, they were pride of. Oh, man. You guys weren't proud of your comedian.

They weren't proud of the comedians. No. Well, if you were approved by the Communist Party, then you were an asset to them. Yeah. And then so what would happen in each apartment in, there would be a speech. speaker that was connected to like the whole so and they were on all the time so on sunday mornings they would broadcast a comedy skid that were approved by the government and and so i would record that like a big recorder and i would record that thing and i would memorize it because there was no

riders so there was no it wasn't like you were stealing because there was nothing allowed so but this was allowed. So then I was able to memorize it very quickly and then would tell my friends and they would laugh. And it was kind of like an impression. They knew where I got it. It was everybody heard it. It wasn't like I was, you know.

But it gave me a chance to be popular with my friends. And that's what encouraged that. Damn, there's something kind of bleak about that, though. You're just memorizing like state propaganda. that was the only thing you're allowed to do, which is, but I get it. That's the only thing that was there, but that's like pretty wild. And I got, you're conditioned so much. I remember seeing one of the comedians in New York and I, and he said that Jimmy Carter had a

hemorrhoie operation and he will be perfect asshole. And I literally docked behind the table because I thought somebody was going to shoot him. I swear. I mean, this is how conditioned you were. Don't say anything against the government. And literally, we had the Department of Jokes that each state, we had 15 states or 15 republics. And each Republic had the Ministry of Culture that had a Department of Jokes. So if to become a professional Canadian, you had to submit your material in.

writing, all the jokes that you're going to do. And it would be more like vaudeville comedy. So you're not doing an hour special. You were doing hosting something, few jokes here, few jokes there. And then they would approve it with a stamp. What type of jokes would they approve? You're allowed to like make fun of your wife or something? Yeah. Yeah. You're allowed to make fun like gay guys? Yeah, mother-in-law, yeah. Mother-in-law jokes. Stuff. Racism? Oh, no, no, no. They didn't like No, no, you can't do political jokes, you can't do sexual jokes, you can't do religious jokes, you can't do, you can talk about fish. You know, I mean, stuff like that, I'm secure. Yeah.

And those jokes were pretty much like old jokes that everybody was hashing them over. so you didn't have to deal with the communist party. Right. And the informers were everywhere. So you could not just like sneak in a joke because they were watching. So it was pretty great. But backstage, you would tell jokes about Khrushchev Brezhnev. I mean, this was just okay.

I'm surprised they didn't catch on worldwide like they thought. Do what? I'm surprised the communist dream didn't catch on worldwide. Well, I'm, you survived. Yeah. I survived in that environment, came here and realized that you can do whatever. What was that like coming here and when you first got here and you were just kind of like existing and. Well, I didn't speak English.

So for the interpreter, the guy, you know, was laughing at me and it, uh, at the immigration office. Like he was saying, like, what? what do you want to do in America? And I said, I want to be a Russian comedian. And he started laughing. And I go, why is he laughing? He said, well, it sounds like Amish electrician. And so, and then I see dogs are sniffing my luggage.

And I said, what is, what's going on there? And the interpreters said, they're looking for drugs. And I go, I thought in America people are hooked on drugs, but dogs. And they started. laughing again. I'm going, kill it. I'm doing pretty good. Without even knowing the language, I'm doing good, you know. So that's how, but then I didn't, I got a, I was really determined.

I knew that I wanted to do it, but I had no, nobody to kind of, there was no sound. Robin Williams was doing suppression jokes and people kind of thought that he was, Russian and then they were thinking, oh, you're faking that you're from Russia. All of that stuff was happening for real. And so I figured I got to learn English and so I got the job as a, went to bartending school because I figured. Where did you move to New York? New York. So I was, all you knew how to make was the Moscow meal before that. That way, right. would have been a good one, yes, but I had no idea.

I'm like, and I go to Bartainee School on Fifth Avenue, and they want $200 for a week or two-week course to become a mixologist. So I would have a diploma, but I don't speak English. And so I bring that big tape recorder with me and record all the drinks that they're, you know, like grass supper or drugs. I try martini, whatever, and then I try it and I get hammered. Yeah. But eventually I got a job and it gave me a chance to start talking to

and trying my jokes on Americans. What years? That was 77. Whoa. Yeah. When you came to America, how, like, they must have interviewed you a lot, right? Like to come from the Soviet Union to the United States? No.

The government wasn't like. Like the government being like. Who are you? Government. Yes, they did. We had to wait in Italy for three months to get passed. So they didn't want people with Communist Party records or, you know, like a criminal record, and Barry Manilor.

I joke about that, but they didn't want any of that. And Lee Harvey Oswald just got right in. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Interesting. So, and then the interview comes. and you think that, you know, CIA is going to, like, grill you. And I walked into that. And the guy's in shorts, kind of, you know, relaxed, kind of going,

looking at me, going for my papers and going, are you a spy? I go, no. He said, okay, that's fine. So, I got in. Strict security. Yeah, yeah. So tell me, are you a spy? You have to tell me.

No. I would tell, I would, I would be honest if I was a spy. That's pretty, so what was it, what was your impression, though, when you came here? And it was, if you were so used to, that, that was so normal to be, like, nine families in an apartment. And you got here and you had your own spread. Like, where did you move? Well, you didn't. I mean, at first, at first, it was like, I had a friend who immigrated before me, and she had an apartment.

and we slept on the floor for a while. I came with my parents, so we didn't have any money. The funny part, how we survived this three months in Italy, they would allow only so many things to take out of Russia. And there was a list, like a camera, a hat, something like that, and $100 a person to exchange. That's it. So we as kind of a part of this research was what do we need to take with us so we can sell in Italy.

And one of the things was condoms. Because in the Soviet Union, there were like a couple of pennies. And there you could sell them for a dollar. And we heard that. And there was no restrictions on how many condoms you could get. So I would go to all different, and you got to talk to the pharmacist because it wasn't like just pick it up. You got to talk to them. So I would go from one pharmacy to another and just get as many condoms as I could get.

So we got like a suitcase full of condoms. I'm not making this out. Full of condoms. And we gave it to my mom. So figure they won't ask her why, you know, whatever. And so we passed them through and we got to Italy. And my job and their job was on Saturday and Sunday, there was an open market and you go there and you open the suitcase and you sell condoms. Awesome.

So it was funny because my parents who were very conservative, you know, never seen capitalism. All of a sudden they become this. capitalists. So my dad, I'm going to be in charge of advertising. So he starts blowing those out. You're the minister of advertising. Right?

And mom's clever. I mean, and she's as straight as she translates into Italian. If you don't want to have a kid like this and points at me by a condom. And people would laugh and they would buy it. And that would give us money to pay rent. for this time and we survived. That's awesome. Where is Chernobyl compared to Odessa?

It's about, it's closer to Kiev. Yeah. So it's probably 60 miles from Kiev. And what year was that? Were you there? No, no. That blew up in right before the Soviet Union collapsed. I believe that that was kind of the last strong.

that broke the camel's back because Gorbachev did not know. They literally tried to cover it up for a long time. And I talked to a when I visited so, well, at that point still Soviet, no, no, it was after Soviet Union. I visited, I took my kids to St. Petersburg and we happened to, through some friends, knew a general who was in charge of covering up Chernobyl. And so, and he said, we tried. So we got all the heavy equipment

from all over the country to get there, to bury it, the whole city, the whole thing. But after, afterwards already been out and the news were out. And that was kind of Gorbachev's, you know, and of that. It's interesting, I went and I visited there. Trinople? Uh-huh. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, it's, and they give you a Geiger counter and there's still, so if you walk on the pavement, no, no problem, just same as in the city. But the moment you like veer off just a little bit into like a grass area, well, blah, blah, blah, yeah, still there, still there. That was only like five, six years ago when I went. Jesus. And, but you walk in and there's. It's kind of like a monument to a fallen empire because everything, I'll grown with trees.

And so the pictures are still of, you know, all the Soviet politics, all of that was still there. But it's totally a ruin. How far around it is like unusable, basically, we're unlivable now? I don't think the radiation level, if you compare it to just a regular city, it has already just from the sun and all of that. So I would say 20 kilometers maybe around that. And they build like a dome over it now? I don't know.

I don't be wrong. Yeah, I think so. As a museum or just to protect? Yeah. Well, maybe I shouldn't have gone. Yeah, it's kind of nuts. But I have a one-year-old now, so I guess it's still okay. Yeah. Got three arms.

I'm great. Maybe it would help me. Did you ever see the show, Chernobyl? I did. It was great, right? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, you're sitting at the edge of the seat and the music or whatever that sound that. But I like the, my favorite part is the communist party.

Like when they have the meeting of all the townspeople and they're like, everything's fine. Yeah. And the one guy's like, why is the air glowing? And he's like, shut up. He's like, everything's fine. And then he throws up blood. Yeah.

Get him out. Dude, that. Totally. That was, what year was that again? I thought it was. No. What's that? Chernobyl.

I think it was like. When did it blow up? It would be 90. It would be, no, 80. Nine or right before the collapse. The collapse was 91. So it was just... It was, yeah.

Damn. Yeah, that's an epic, that's an epic failure. Damn, no name's last title. Soviet Union existed. Really? That's tough, too. We'll be back. This is our year.

You're ready for some college football? No. You got to get fired though. Really? It's time. You live in Missouri? Yeah. You a Missouri Tiger fan?

Well, I don't follow sports, so I should. Yeah, well, yeah, with your background, yes, my backgrounds. Like, I don't know why grown man bent over and touch each other. I mean, that, you know. If you put it that way. Well, if you say it's gay, I can't, you know, it's hard to argue. I didn't say. I just described it.

That's all. This episode is brought to you by Better Health. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I can instantly tell me. If you could get better at anything or something, what would you choose? Oh, man, you know, if I can get better at anything,

if I can get better at something, it would be, I'm, you know, I would just be better at just kind of like holding my friends. Holding them. Yeah, sometimes when my friends are talking to me, you just stand like, you know, apart from them. Why not just hold them? Embrace when you talk. Embrace when you talk, yeah.

Grab the back of their neck. That's interesting. I never thought of that. Yeah. Feeling better. Feeling better. Being better. It's defined differently for everyone.

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Excellent. Ah. Do you like any sports? With any? No, not really. No. I never got into it. I wasn't good at it.

So if I wasn't good, I was... Scott loves basketball. I mean, you should see him. Sure. That might be the worst person. and ever touch a basketball, but it is my favorite thing. He likes to see the men. He likes to see the big men.

See what they can do. He cheers for them. I cheer for them. I wear their shirts. He said he would kiss a bunch of the players for them to win a championship this year. I said I would kiss water the players. And then he said he would mash butts with LeBron James. I said I would make naked butts and mash them together. I said I would bash butts with you. You said you would mash butts back.

I'll match butts for a couple of them. I'm sure he's talking about Basketball or yes Well it's also like would you rather mash butts or kiss That's a tough question Damn mashin butts is disgusting But it's disgusting But it's almost like

You guys ever do a naked mash It's a little more clinical Mashed butts quick you're off A kiss is pretty intimate What do you think is gay Naked butt mash Or kissing No tongue

But wet lips Do I do I wet lips Yeah but wet lips Those are the only two choices. You got to pick one. Are you mashing butts or kissing? Just think you made it out of the Soviet Union to be sitting in Texas someday talking about mashing butts.

Yeah. Who would have guessed? You say. We won. We can literally do anything we want. We can mash butts whenever we want. We can mash butts whenever we want. can do it. Mashing butts is our scissory.

It is. So what brought you to Missouri? Branson, Branson, Missouri. It's a little town that has a lot of theaters. And I didn't know anything about it. And my career

kind of went through, I got canceled, kind of, What did you get canceled for? For the Soviet Union collapsing. Oh, shit. They blame that on you? Somehow I got the brunt of that.

Who'd you get canceled by? Well, officially, Letterman had the top ten list on the night of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the things that will now change. And I made number one on the list, Yaakov Smirnovel, the outer work.

And I thought it was kind of funny because I was playing Vegas, Atlantic City. I was killing it, you know, and one joke, what's a big deal, right? And six months later, none of my contracts were renewed. What? Kind of like SNL kind of a thing. It's just like one thing and it's just that you're done.

Yeah. And I couldn't find. work for two. And I had two little kids at that point. And we were living in a house next to like Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzen. I mean, we were in Pacific Palisades, two and a half million dollar home. I'm like going, this American dream rocks. It's never will end. This is, this is it. And the mortgage didn't end, but the career did. And so all of the sudden, I can't pay my mortgage. And so... Just change the joke to Russia instead of Soviet Union.

Just say Russia instead of Soviet Union. Nobody cares. Nobody. You know why? You know why? We had to stop talking shit. I realized later on, and this was something that took me years to figure out, that I was meeting the need that America had.

America, the Soviet Union was a pain in the butt to America. I was like preparation age. I was like, you know, so when the itching. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Now we're connecting it. Yes, yes. Russian America finally butt mashed and there was no more market. I tore down the wall, everyone.

There's my hand. It was great. So. Damn, that sucks. But when the itching and the swelling and it goes away, you don't need preparation age. So that's kind of what happened. I was like put it aside. and literally couldn't find even going back to clubs were not.

Nobody, it was like, who cares? So, Ovitunia is not there, who cares? So then I- Also, was that around when the comedy bubble itself burst? Well, it wasn't like, it wasn't huge in the 80s and then like 90s it kind of dipped, or am I wrong about that? I think you might be right. Timing might have been similar to that.

And then I remember I was telling my agent, you know, what do I do? And he goes, well, Willie Nelson is doing this concert in Ames, Iowa. And they won't pay anything, but he needs a co-host. Would you want to go to Ames, Iowa? And I go, farmers would not know who I am. Why would I, you know, and it's, but I had no choice. So I went. And it was, you know, I, I did my set.

And they gave me a standing ovation. It was like, holy, this is pretty cool. So, and then I want to say goodbye to Willie Nelson. And this is where I opened the door at his tour bus. And this smoke comes out. And he goes through the smoke. He goes, Yaakov, you did great. You should go to Branson.

They'll love you there. And I go, what's Branson? You know. And so I, um, so I. I went and in Branson, they didn't know that the Soviet Union collapsed. Oh, nice. So I got 33 years out of that. I owned 2000 C theater and I entertained over 6 million people there.

So it in some ways being canceled worked for me. So that's... It's getting in the theater business. well i'm i'm i'm i really it's just my theater where i when i got there it was not easy i rented it and i per show i'm thinking well i'll do well there that 17 people showed out so it was started oh my goodness do little kids what am i going to do now they must they must love you in bransson now well it took a little while but they do they do and so it became So I did 400 shows a year.

I would just do show after show. Was it you performing or you were throwing a place? Just me. Yeah. Damn, so you just tour up. And then it became because they liked more variety. So I added some dancers and sketches and things like that. But mostly it was me.

That's awesome. Now I kind of, you know, I do only like 30 shows a year. And this is where I, for the first time, really, come back and kind of put my foot in the water, go, they still know who I am? And then, you know, kill Tony. You know, Tony says to me, sure, I'd love to have you as a celebrity judge. And all of a sudden, it's like, and yesterday I was like,

I felt like I was an ugly duckling walking into the Swan Lake, honestly, going, are they going to kill me or are they going to just accept? me and of course well of course in your mind your mind plays tricks it's like you go i don't know i'm sure when you went back yeah you know and saturday night live it was like what's gonna happen here you know yeah so yeah that's interesting i still feel that way whenever i go to any yeah any other club for sure i'll go back to the cellar and be like they hate me they hate me yeah i'll go anywhere though i go to the store i'm like fucking l-a they hate me Then you hang out with them for 10 minutes.

You're like, all right, I like hell. Yeah. Any club I go into, I'm like, I hate everyone here. Also, luckily there's somebody says hi and you go, hey, how are you? Thank you. I love your stuff. Yeah. Luckily, there's plenty of political strife again with Russia.

What was that? There's a lot of political strife with Russia right now, too. Yeah. Could be another harvest season. Yeah. Yeah, I try. After, I feel like after that whole thing happened in 90s, I feel like I developed, like, I had like PTSD from going into a political direction.

Right. So I started and I was going through divorce and I realized that this is a lot more job security talking about men and women called war. It will never end. So I just, I doubled down on that. I got, I literally, while I was doing shows. in in brands and I got my master's degree in psychology at Japan because I wanted to research laughter and here's what triggered it. It was like realization that when the relationship starts,

everybody laughs. And then when it's over, the only people laughing are the attorneys. And you're like crying, literally. So I was like, I started asking my audience, I go, let me ask you, how many of you when you fell in love remember laughter being part of that? And then I go, how many of you would go on a second date if you didn't have laughter? Silence. Oh, there's something here. All those guys are lying, by the way. She's hilarious.

God, she's funny. And you fuck, are you going? I don't get it. I don't get them. What's the punchline? Well, but that was in Branson. It's a different. What, all right.

So if you, you studied, what were you studying laughing? Like, first of all, I got to question, what the fuck is laughter? How about that?

The relief of psychic tension. Yeah. Why does it come out like that? I just remember hearing that somewhere. I had a feeling you'd know. It's a perceived threat that gets. Well, yeah.

I was going after. deeper, you know, like there's a lot of understanding of laughter is an element of surprise. All of those things are correct. I was going for a route. My dad was an engineer and inventor, so my brain is like, what is it? What is it?

I want to understand why there's laughter in the beginning of the relationship and why there isn't later on. And it's not just a relationship with your wife, It's the same with the children, the same with your coworkers, the same. So I was looking for what's the common denominator? What is it? And so I did my dissertation, and then I went to Pepperdine and got my doctor degree because I wanted to continue figuring this out, and the dissertation is online.

You can 190 pages of no jokes at all. I mean, it's like serious research. And so the dissertations called Law Law. of laughter, LOL. That's the only joke they allowed me on the cover. That's it. That's a good one. And so, so the, what they boiled down to and it started and it, that's what explained to me,

my success in, in, in America, not just because, you know, I had, I was hardworking. I had talent, all of that. But the main thing that got me on the level that I never imagined making movies and doing all was that there was a need. America needed relief from that crazy tension that. So Brezhnev and Khrushchev with the shoe, we will bury you, all of that. America lived in that. And here I show up and I'm like, we're afraid of this. and that's what got me

to get on the tonight show all of those things and then I realized so the need so I was meeting the need and that's what happens in the beginning of the relationship you do everything to meet

her needs she's doing everything to meet your need whatever the needs are and then the humor triggers the laughter that's it so if the need is not mad

you're screwed and then the end of the relationship. Normally, you're saying, I'm not meeting her need, I'm done, or vice versa. Because I've noticed me and Lemaire stopped sharing giggles.

Dr. Smirnoff, could you, Dr. Smirnoff, can you please diagnose these two? I feel like their love is fizzled out. Their love is fizzled. My love with Lemaire is fizzled. It's not as funny.

At first, I go, oh, Lamer, he just wiped ketchup on the chair after eating a chicken finger during the podcast. And I go, now I go, what the fuck was it? Oh, you left the dishes.

I'm having people for dinner. Who cares? Now I go, what the fuck are you doing? Stop jacking off in the office. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th,

join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving. research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Well, what about a relationship of like years where like maybe the laughter has died, but then the wife falls on the floor and you go, yeah, because that never gets old. Then the need was met. True. Yeah. Yeah, you could marry a clumsy bitch. Yeah. And you're going to laugh for the rest of your life.

Until she takes a header off the fucking porch and you get blamed. That's cool. You went back to school for psychology. So what do you do with that? You just sit on the doctorate? Well, at first, I kind of have a similar path. True. Yeah, I'm a master.

I have a master's of social work. Okay. So at first I thought I'll go into that relationship arena. Do TED Talks, maybe. I did a PBS special called Happily Ever Laughter, but then I realized I'm splitting myself that, you know, I believe that comedy is really what I want to do, but I was doing it to fit to meet the need.

And then I realized that most people don't want to change their whatever their pattern is in a relationship. You can spend all your life trying to help them, but they don't. So I use that in my show. I use a lot of material men, women differences, my wife telling stories about my wife, me, and that's basically incorporated what I learned into my stand-up. Nice. So that's-

I was a Drexel, by the way. I went to Drexel right next to Penn. Yeah. We used to live, did you go to Penn? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we lived right there. We lived in University City in Philadelphia. He and I lived together.

It's a beautiful campus. I loved it. Penn's nice, yeah. Drexel's ugly. Drexel was literally voted. I went to Drexel right next to Penn. It was voted one of the ugliest campuses in America. You should see Harrisburg area community college.

I went from like very nice schools at first. And then literally Harrisburg area community college in Westchester, both of them look like Soviet. The architecture is Soviet block. That's why. That's why I liked it. That's why you felt at home, right? I feel the right at home. Oh, there's only three windows.

Yeah, Westchester's building. Yeah, they got some rough. This fucking AT&T building. At least they have like grass. Drexel is no grass. It's just concrete and it was run by Greeks for a while.

So they got this idea to put like giant, almost an amphitheater thing in the middle of like a paver. It looks horrible. Yeah, Drexel was Greek run for a long time. Hack was right next to the farm show complex and a bunch of fucking train tracks. It was like, it was tough, dude. I feel like it was always.

cloudy when I was there. That was a dark period. Yeah, that's a tough one. Although you definitely probably felt like Boy Genius at the HAC. Yeah. That's all, it's really nice. Community College, you can go there. Really tear it up. Wait a second. I am smart. Smart as hell. Yeah, that's a good feeling. So I'm curious about you're coming back to SNL. The set, you were pretty, I mean, you were pretty sad on that set, right? I mean, it was, you weren't winging it there. It was because solid, it was great. Thank you. Yeah.

No, I mean, I was winging a little at the beginning, just being like, I was like, how do I address getting fired? And I thought about it for a while of like what to say. And I was like, should I fucking tell him to F you? Yeah. Double birds. And it's like, why would I ever do that? Double birds to the grogan. But I love that you had your family there.

Yeah, yeah. That was a great. set up, you know? It was like, I'm going, oh, man, he, he thought it through. No, that was last second. No, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, I knew they were coming, but I was like, can we, because I didn't even think to ask if I could get them on camera? And then when we were doing rehearsal, I was like, could we get a camera? Like, because I was like, where are they going to be sitting and they showed me? And I was like, could we put a camera on? Yeah. Perfect. And then I didn't tell them that they were going to be on camera. That's so funny. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that was nice. That was a nice moment. The mom and dad held hands. That's really sweet. I was like, God damn. This is like the sweetest moment of my life. They're neat. Their needs were being mad. Yes. Kids not a loser.

Look at that. We didn't waste our time. Because there was a good 30 years before that where they were like, oh, God, damn, this kid sucks. It's got to be so nice to be like, holy fuck. But then I'm up there like, my dad's fucking gay. Get a camera on him. Pussy. Still.

Yeah. This is nice. Yeah. It's so fucking funny. Gay bitch. Hey, my dad's, you know, TV? Just like...

Yeah, okay. That's great. You keep rap. But then at the... Yeah, I remember at the after party, he was sitting at a table. It was just him, Lauren Michaels and Mike Myers.

Yeah, that's awesome. At a booth just drinking. Phil was holding court. I was like, damn, this is good. Yeah. Yeah. You can imagine what my parents thought, thought when I wanted to do stand up in Soviet Union.

You can imagine that. They're probably like, don't tell anyone. Insane. Yes. You are, are you crazy, totally crazy. But here we are. Here we are. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, how did they feel? They probably said no, right? Oh, are you kidding? No for years. Yeah. I started when I was 15 in the community. It was community. college or trade school i was uh they kind of forced me to go to become a refrigeration mechanic because

comedy are you kidding you know um so and i was doing amateur comedy there and and then uh i went to military and two years and I was kind of doing amateur stuff there and then I came back and I'm going I want to do a kind of they said no no you got so I've got my bachelors in art and that's another thing that I do so they said at least this is not so comedy yeah because again going through they knew how difficult it would be to pass those communist party people and all that. And so in college, I was just doing it again as an amateur, but and then later on. Where do it as an amateur though? Where would you do it as an animal?

In the club, like in school, there would be a club and there would be every like May Day or a Revolution Day they would do some kind of a concert. Were you guys still working on that calendar that was like completely? cut off from the regular calendar? Well, regular, like, what do you mean? Didn't they split the calendar? Didn't they take all the religious stuff out of the calendar?

And I think that was France actually. Well, they changed like, you mean Christmas, like into New Year's, right? Is that they did? Yeah, they did. They saved the tree, but it was New Year's, not Christmas. Got you. And it was Santa Claus. It was Santa Claus.

It was Father Frost. Father Frost? Yeah. And that's how, and, you know, and yeah, it was. You can stop the tree. Yeah, Christmas tree is too cool. Christmas rules. But they didn't, you know, we didn't even know that there was some.

They took the Christ out of Christmas, basically. They took the Christ out of Christmas. There you go. Absolutely. There was no. Religion was totally not allowed. You could not even say the word God in school. You would be expelled.

You said, gosh. At those days, yeah. Gosh. I didn't try. I didn't try. So that was my reality. And so we doing this comedy thing. And then I get an offer to go on the cruise ship to do like stand or master of ceremonies,

like assistant of cruise director. You're like the Black Sea or? In the Black Sea. Yeah. Yeah. So I was. And so they liked me. And this is a cool thing that happened there.

So I go there and they don't, they said, won't pay you, but you get your cabin. You get a cabin. Universal. That's pretty universal. They did that here to everybody, sorry. Now. Well, and I was like, yeah, I'll be, I'll have my own room for like a week. Holy cow, that was amazing. And the bathroom for myself? Odessa is there. Odessa, right? It's on that little, right? What's it called the peninsula? Well, it's near Crimea. It's all. Yeah, but it's a little bit more south. So, but that's where the cruise ships go out of and they go around.

Submarines. I don't know why. Submarines. Things I know about Odessa. No, that's in a lot of submarines. That's right. That's the Crimea. It's a little bit farther south from that.

So. I thought he was saying the cruise ship was a submarine. No, but that's funny. on it. So this is. There you go. You can do comedy there. You're the master of ceremonies.

You're the MC of the... So I was emceeing. And this is... And how, because I didn't speak English or any other language, they had a lot of tourists from different countries. So you would have Czechoslovakians. You would have Polish. You would have Germans, Americans, Australians, whatever.

And my job was to do like games with them. you know, do some kind of Miss Cruz or, you know, competition. Like, yeah. Hot as Chick. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy.

I was 24 years old. That's awesome. And they let me. It's like they let me into. Anyone can enter into the running for Miss Cruz? Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty much up to me.

And they gave me an interpreter so I could talk to them for the first time to those. Oh, boy. I have, yeah, it was really adventurous and fun. That's awesome. And Russian women are a lot more conservative. And, you know, they're not like, they weren't like the hottest women in this room. Trump would disagree. Who would disagree?

Donald Trump. He loves Russian women. He likes those. Well, now, yeah. Yeah. But in those days, oh, big burly, they were, they were all. No, they were nice, they were nice, beautiful women. Sturdy.

But they were standing behind those big, barely women. So you never saw them. Right. But here all of a sudden I have women who are from the Western culture and they are like, they know things about sex and that we never even heard of, you know, even though it's universal. But, boy, you were so far ahead. Or they were so far ahead. Blow jobs.

Yeah. Yeah. Titty fucking. Yeah. Titty fucking. Titty fucking. I was learning. I had to learn all of this.

Really? So all of a sudden, I'm in this environment and I'm getting to know. You got bring your interpreter in. Tell her I'm about to fuck the bus. Tell her this doesn't happen too much. What should I do with it? Tell me where? Tell her.

Tell her. So that was exciting to be there. All this, I was allowed something that I totally couldn't imagine. And so then the cruise comes to the end. And I'm, they said, would you like to go again? I said, well, would it be possible to get my parents a cabin as well, because they've never been on the cruise and stuff. And the communist party, you know, boss who controls that whole company

or the whole Black Sea cruise line, and there's only one cruise line, he says, who do you think you are, that you're going to request something? We have hundreds of people like you get out of here. And so I was like, oh, shoot, well, I tried, but didn't work out. I go home and I tell my parents that it's not going to happen. And it's like in the morning we have no phone. And all of a sudden, this messenger comes an hour later.

And he has two sets of tickets for me and my parents. Turns out there were not any other. There's no one else. No, no. There was more kind of an interesting twist. Because so what happened, so we obviously got excited. We go. and I said to a cruise director, I said, what happened?

I never heard of them going back on their word because once they say it, it's over. And they said, oh, well, you see, these ships are rented by European cruise companies during like nine months out of the year. And we go, the captain and the crew goes to those places. could be Britain could be whatever, whatever they needed. And she said, we learned that if somebody is essential, then they should get more than an average person. And the captain, he said, liked you. And he said, even if you need to give him my cabin,

I want him on a ship. And I went like, wait, wait. You just told me that if you're more talented, you will get more stuff. And they go. Dangerous idea. Yeah. And I was like, I said, mom, dad, we got to start. We got to start being talented.

What the fuck? So how did you know the captain? What was your, that's had the captain's blessings in honor, especially on the craft. Captain would just come to watch the shows. That's awesome. That's it. And I didn't speak those languages. So my mom was very conservative.

She didn't. It's funny to be watching the show and be like, oh, shit. Fuck, I got to be driving this thing. You had an alarm go off and go, oh, shit. This guy's so fucking funny. So my mom watched me perform in front of, like, people who didn't speak my, I didn't speak their language.

Because she always thought that I wasn't very, very smart and I couldn't do well. I didn't do well in school. So it was like, how is he going to go to another country and learn the language? And he's so dumb that he thinks that he can do comedy in that language. All of that stuff was in the back of her mind. And here she's watching me do it and watching those people laughing. And they don't understand even what I'm saying.

But I guess my timing and facial expressions. and then whatever their interpreters tell them, whatever it is, it worked. And then at that point, she said, you know, you may have an international comedy career. I was like, wow, really, Mom. And that's when we started. Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, my mom told me to become a teacher when I was saying. I had a club owner. I had a club owner. I bombed so bad. He sat me down. He was like, what do you go to school for? And I was like, history teacher. And he was like, you should do that.

I was like, damn. So that's what fueled... Yeah, really. That's what fueled the escape, basically. That's when you guys took up. That gave us a chance, and Jimmy Carter was at that time, wanted to get some Russians were starving.

There was no food, and they needed some wheat. And so they made a deal. So if you show human rights in Soviet Union, then you can, and let some people out we will give you some wheat so we were basically exchanged for some grain you know good deal yeah i i i salute every time i see a wonderbread truck you know hey you never know yeah yeah so one hot commodity for another uh said one hot commodity for another

he's saying you and the wheat oh yeah hot commodities yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, I'm very grateful for that. That's awesome. And that's what allows you guys to just head off. That's what allowed. Well, it took still, they didn't want people to leave, even though they, so they would put a lot of challenges in front of you. One of them was that if young person applies to leave,

they have to take their parents with them. most older people would not take that chance. And my dad wanted to get out of their years before my mom ever imagined that. My dad knew it. He was like, he was telling my, I remember I was like maybe like seven and we're in this little apartment right in one room. And I wake up in the middle of the night and I hear my dad, So listening to this huge radios and he's sitting there with his ear to the radio. And I go, Dad, what are you listening to?

And he goes, don't let neighbors hear us. This is the voice of America. Whoa. And they would jam the signal during the day. But at nighttime, they didn't think anybody was listening. So they didn't jam it. And so he would get up. And he was like, so now I'm listening to it.

him and so and you know it's like the voice give me you're tired you're hungry and you're poor and I'm like going I'm qualified for yeah and so that's how what about uh what about uh how did you guys feel about JFK we it was used obviously as propaganda immediately uh as look what they do in in America they killed their presidents you know So they used everything as propaganda. They used the Charlie Chaplin movies. We watched. That's the only American we saw.

And so there was always that villain and this poor guy who's getting beat up by the police. And that's America, you know. Yeah. So they used. Was your dad in the military? During the Second World War. Yes. Yeah.

Dang. That's crazy. Yeah. Sheesh. Where did he see, like, was he in battle? He, I think he was smarter than that. Yeah. I think he was in the chemical warfare.

So which it was smart enough because they never, it never, it was kind of stupid because you don't know which way the wind is going to go. Yeah. So, so if you, if you. Damn. Right. World War I, they found that out. Yeah.

Yeah. So he went into and he got into that. So he was in charge of like having all this gas masks and all of that. So he didn't get hurt. And yeah. Damn. That's wild. I think we're. We did it.

Yeah. Any final thoughts? Oh, we did. We just talking. I thought are you going to start rolling? That was great. Any final thoughts? Thank you for having me.

Thank you. And I, you know, I don't know if, do I, can I plug stuff? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Okay. So I'm going on tour. Awesome. I am on tour.

I'm starting September 6th in Oklahoma City at the breakdown comedy club. And then after that, you can go on Yaakov.com. and all my dates are there. And I hope it's the first time I'm kind of getting out the Branson bubble. So I'm hoping that people will come. I think people will come.

I hope so. We'll plug the thing too. They'll be able to click your website. Oh, cool. Very cool. So thanks for having me. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming.

That was awesome. My pleasure. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast on Spotify. Do it. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.

Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Thank you.