The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #1 Matthew Broussard

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

On the premiere episode of The Downside, GIANMARCO SORESI (@gianmarcosoresi) and RUSSELL DANIELS (@russjdaniels) welcome stand up comic MATTHEW BROUSSARD (@mondaypunday) to discuss the downsides of being ridiculously good-looking, growing up in Corpus Christi, helping his peers cheat on math tests so they'd finally be his friend, too many Broadway stars being on Law & Order: SVU, and non-Jews playing Jews in tv/film, which is only a problem for shows it's too late for Gianmarco to be on. Follow MATTHEW BROUSSARD on twitter, instagram, & tiktok Listen to MATTHEW BROUSSARD's podcast 'She Does Stand Up Too' Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp E-mail the show (and suggest your own 'This Has Gotta Stop') at [e-mail] Join The Downside patreon Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello. Hi, Russell. How are you? Hi, John Marco. I'm good. How are you? Fucking terrible. One, two, three! Downside! You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With John Marco Cerezi.

Hello. I realize Russell doesn't have headphones. I'm listening to this very fun theme music and I'm like, come on, Russell i'm good it's uh hello welcome to the downside i think this will be episode uh one hello russell you're not going to use any of the other ones that we've done maybe they'll be released as patreons i don't know yet i'm still figuring this out we're we're going to take a picture of this setup it is truly chaos somehow i've sunk thousands of dollars into this nightmare and it's it's the thousands to go yeah uh russell's very good to see you good to see you too you you had uh quite a trip here you said you took the first subway in a long time yeah well so i had covid in november and um i haven't been on i work from home and so i haven't had many things to do once

in a while i'll take an uber places sure sure it's like once a week if i go a lot of exposition with this story well so i took my first um train today on the way here and a month i'm not being on the subway and i came down and i stepped on the first car and only one other person and it was a homeless man jerking off now this a real jerk off like a real jerk like like he was close i thought at first yeah i mean it was he was just there and he looked angry that i was getting on board and and i it's like when something pops into your mind as you're trying to well i've been i've lived new york for years and i've not seen i've not seen that yes yeah but a lot of people see it it's not that well it reminded me i wanted to bring up because this was early in my my comedy uh sketch comedy days i did a sketch

comedy a sketch with you and uh you i like many early what's an easy punchline it's a homeless guy so the sketch was i was with a woman we were going back we had to take the subway and we're trying to keep the sexual momentum going so we're making out all over new york as we waited for the trains it actually ended up being a fake commercial for uber and your job you came on we shot this on the train was that we were making out and you were a homeless guy yeah masturbating to us making out so and and course, it's like sketch comedy homeless person, which is always like a smudge of dirt on the face, a slightly loose sweater. And as we're filming it,

in truly just a moment of, oh, I'm a piece of shit, an actual homeless man gets onto the train. Do you remember? An actual homeless man got onto the train. And I mean like, I should have offered the role to him. You guys were trying to dirty me up. to the train do you remember an actual homeless man got to the train no i mean like he should i should have offered the role to him you guys were trying to dirty me up and make me look worse

and then you're like and then we were filming and he he he sat down right next to me right next to me and it was the worst thing to feel like i was just like can we just stop like we just it was horrible it was a moment of like oh i'm terrible for making fun of this b we really missed the mark you looked you look quite not almost you look like an animal i used to yeah wearing like nice sweatpants and i would have offered him the role but it wasn't paid to begin with so i think that wouldn't help either yeah so it's just one of those lessons just just you don't you be careful Obviously the homeless people are a great metaphor comedically, I think, because it's the kind of thing where you see suffering in front of you that you're not doing something

about. So I have jokes that involve, you know, the, the, the shitty way we behave when we see a homeless person, but you gotta be careful. It becomes an easy punchline of like a homeless guy. I was mistaken for a homeless person one time though um what we should have filmed i know i was i was like you know it was i was just wearing sweatpants and and uh and and i had like a longer beard and longer hair at the time and uh but i was like it was like a early saturday or sunday morning and i was on this train all the way down to like uh

fulton street and uh this woman got on the train with like three giant carts you know the big the grocery cart like filled with stuff and she kind of placed it i was like in the side of the corner she kind of placed it all around me in like the corner of the thing so and then she sat down on the other side of it so it was like a wall between us but i was kind of blocked in yeah and then i like stopped paying attention and and everyone else was coming coming on and then i looked suddenly and i realized that what she had done is she blocked all of her stuff so i was blocked in then she went and sat down at the other end the very far end of the cart and so it was just me with all the bad with all the things and so

everyone on the subway was looking it was this weird thing to look up and be like, oh, I'm the homeless person. And then I had to get off. And so I moved the carts and I left. And the people were looking at me like, you're going to leave all your stuff? And she was just at the other end of the cart reading a paper. Just like, put it, not my shit. She was sitting at the other end. But I had to move and everyone was looking at me like, why are you leaving like looking at me like that's the people looking at you like you fucker yeah

i wonder if she did it as a prank whenever she sees a guy i don't know what's funny it was funny that she was reading a paper she was just like at the other end reading a paper i think it's funny every time you put on sweatpants people are like oh look at this poor type of fish um well uh this is good i'm just gonna check with it's okay we can get behind the scenes everything looking okay mic wise russell you keep it close uh oh am i low yeah i think because our guest is a stand-up i'm a stand-up we know we're like everyone has to hear every word okay okay i got you're a normal human being i have this uh this is the first time we've had we actually have four people in this very small living room once advertised as a second bedroom uh i used to tell people i lived in a two-bedroom by myself and i was like this does

not count as a bedroom but i this pipe behind me if you ever watch the video clips it's boiling hot and so i have to be very careful because i just sat back and it really hurt but i didn't want to interrupt your very good story all right look we gotta get back here um so here's what i wanted to say that's just bugging me a little bit. It's been bothering me. Russ, I've told you about this. People keep reaching out to me. I did this tooth whitening commercial.

And I keep getting people reaching out. I did this tooth whitening commercial in 2012. And I signed a 10-year contract. I was a new baby in New York. I was a new baby actor. And I signed a 10-year contract i got paid in tooth whitening product and uh it used to air like on those cable channels i had like a friend who had satellite growing up and you go to his house and you watch the playboy channel like

channel number 5633 that's where this used to air but i think because of coronavirus uh they ran out of commercials and now they're airing this shit on CNN, on Fox, on CBS, major channels. And everyone keeps writing me. And I just feel like I'm angry about it. I want money. What do you do in the commercial? So I synced up. This is the audio of me doing a tooth whitening testimonial.

The results were awesome. Power swabs was easy to use every day, and each day I could see it better and better, and from beginning to end, it's definitely whiter. They look clean. They feel clean. And people have made comments about it, which is nice. Call for your five-minute solution to whiter teeth.

The results were awesome. So it's just a testimonial. It's a testimonial, but it really feels kind of... It's also like hearing myself lie. Like, I'm just lying. And I'm giving my acting skill four years of acting training to be like, people have been making comments. But they sent you...

So how long... For ten years. So did you get... No, I did not get ten years worth of project. That would have been nice. I got like two weeks worth of tooth whitening products and that was it and the food sucked too it's all unforgivable so i just i wish i wish i could go back in time and tell myself being in an infomercial is not a credit that will become useful ever yeah and then don't sign a 10-year contract for

anything yeah i mean that's a really long time for it for anything it is nice to be on tv though occasionally and speaking of being on tv we have a man he's been on tv a bunch of times i'm we're very lucky to have him he's a he's a stand-up comedian he has been on conan he's been on the tonight show with jimmy fallon he's been on comedy central we just did a movie that we don't know when it's gonna come out who knows we could never we could be dead by the time it comes out it is my friend matthew broussard hello matthew broussard welcome to the downside hello thank you so much for having me are you doing okay i'm doing okay you're doing okay so we were in this movie i did stand up last night and i just forgot how much that boosts my mood for days. Well, that's one of the biggest things.

Sometimes before a set I get a real dread or I'm like, I don't want to do this. And then I always walk off and I just feel like... It lasts for many, many hours. I'm like, why am I in such a good mood this morning? I didn't sleep that well. I didn't even drink that much coffee. I'm like, oh yeah, because I had two sets last night. Where were they?

My Girlfriend Show, which they moved to a new venue that's outdoors and really good. And then I snuck into the cellar and performed in the... I had dinner at the cellar, as I'm supposed to say. Oh yes, wow, what a good dinner. How long did you have dinner for? How long was your dinner? 16 minutes, and then I brought up Dave Attell. Oh wow, to dinner, that's exciting.

He's so fun to watch. I did a show with Dave Attell. I was off waiting for... I'd already gone. I was just listening. And then I heard a voice on stage. I was like, holy shit. Someone's playing a video of Dave Attell.

I thought someone was playing a video. And then I went up and he was doing some new bit where he plays a recorder. Yes, he's been doing that. Actually, as I walked into the cellar last night, there was a man in that little like porch area who was just faced all the way into the corner so he looked like the the last scene of of the blair witch project and i just heard the recorder playing i thought it was like a homeless man peeing and it was uh it was a tell warming up speaking of someone who is probably misinterpreted for a homeless man a lot probably he has a great joke about that does he was trying to put him in shelters yeah oh yeah Oh, yeah? He also has a flip phone.

He's one of these guys. He's an interesting man. I don't know him personally. He's quite peculiar. Is he nice? He's very nice. I like how you said peculiar. I like that.

Peculiar. It's a peculiar way of saying peculiar. You said it in Italian. That's Italian. Peculiar. Yeah, peculiar. So, Matthew, you seem to have a very charmed life, and I want to kind of find out why it's not as charmed as one might think from the outside.

But let me just say, you are a very nice guy. You were one of the first, like, when I first started stand-up, where I knew you from TV, and I remember doing a show with you. And you said to me, it was at that, what is it? It's somewhere in Brooklyn. It doesn't matter. But you said, like, hey, I like what you're doing on twitter keep up the good stuff and i was like oh fuck and then you know how good then i do three shows with you and then you know you're just you're just just a guy yeah i should it really i need to not come down i need to not make myself so

i should keep some some mystery about me stop reaching out pretty mediocre shit on twitter keep figuring this shit out uh no i think that is what's interesting about stand-up i feel like uh there is a lot of people above and you work with them a couple times and they become peers there's very quickly a moving of carmen lynch was one we're like hosted for and then after you do four shows it's like oh now it feels like we're peers to a certain extent she is clearly more of a resume. You have more of a resume. But then we acted together.

Yeah. And it's a nice feeling because as a stand-up, you've been doing it longer than me. As an actor, though, you know, I'm Daniel Day-Lewis compared to you. Yeah. I'm just kidding. That is fairly true. But it was very interesting because we were with all these Broadway actors. What's interesting, you do a movie and all the small parts are these broadway's world-class broadway actors and and broadway is putting it so mildly it was tootsie

and tootsie it was beetlejuice in beetlejuice yes it was stars of broadway stars of broadway three lines and i like so what were you guys doing in the we were all snl cast members so the whole thing was there was an snl movie i was col calling jost perfect yes basically of course and i was the featured player who's not going to make it to next year uh-huh um that's what you wrote to the characters you were just a funny character who had an on on on uh yeah you you ran some sketches and you had a sketch go to to air i find yeah so that was a big exciting moment i think the coolest part of it was like i was like part of the main cast enough that i was on like one of the posters in the background of some scenes and that was really it's very cool to walk in a room and

see like oh this is the life i had dreamed of yeah of being a star of snl for a brief brief moment but it was a it was a unique because i'm not i'm not a broadway guy but i know enough about theater that i can talk to them about the sondheim and bill finn and boy was i yeah i felt really all these conversations where i just didn't know the names i didn't know yeah we were really so i felt very and he was my uh he was my bridge but they admire you they admire stand-up i think i think most art forms every most art forms do the thing with like i could never do stand-up comedy and you're like you have lots of skills that i do not have but you couldn't but you are more talented than me

but you'll never be good at stand-up but you know what i mean it's a different kind yeah yeah yeah that that's interesting russell like russell someone you're a very funny person and he i've asked russell for some thoughts we have in conversation like russell can i talk about this on stage i think you'd be a good stand-up i don't no i don't never no i'm not saying right out the gate no no i that's why i'm like if i have an idea that i think was i like to just run it by you it like if i can't think of it and put it into a sketch or some sort of thing, I don't have anything to do with it. I just want to give it away. Well, he had this.

We were on the sketch team, Uncle Function. You were a guest on. He had a sketch about someone for Lent. He gives up supporting the troops because that's what he loves the most. And it's so good. That's very funny. And I wanted Russell to tweet for lent i'm giving up supporting the troops and you do but i don't really tweet so i was like i'm not gonna you're

on twitter that's amazing i'm gonna like pop in and put like three months of nothing i'm gonna just tweet like lent joke you know what i mean like about the troops so i just feel like i'd rather every three months of tweeting four months and drop a gym. I love it. So, Matthew, when was your first Conan set? Is that your first big break, would you consider it? No. First big break was my first Comedy Central set, which was 2013.

2013. It didn't make any waves uh in terms of uh building uh an audience but it was like my industry break-in sure sure got me representation now you're for for a stand-up comedian you're very good looking guy thank you very much uh gotcha okay i don't have to address it when i start my sets that's the difference I noticed, I was watching your sets in preparation for this interview, and what are the downsides of the way you look with the kind of stand-up comedy you do? The only really good-looking comic I can think of of the same caliber

would be, like, an Anthony Jesselnik. And, like, I've noticed that you address your looks frequently at the beginning of a set. There's a lot of good-looking black comedians. Yes. That's a different issue for some reason. For some for some reason i i mean we could list we could yes we're not the group to address those it's there's the there's something there culturally and with with the with the differences and yeah but did you feel it was something that you're like

i have to address this i look like a dick i was just told that i would just do uh i just did comedy for like a you know i was doing comedy for like a year or two and i said uh i remember i just just one night i had a joke about looking like an 80s villain that i was like kind of playing around with that i just just kind of we had rifted at the bar and then i tried it on stage and i was doing it like later in my set and then one night i tried opening with it and a drunk guy comes outside and he was like dude i fucking i hated you and then one night i tried opening with it and a drunk guy comes outside and he was like dude i fucking i hated you and then you said that 80s villain thing and i was like this guy's great and i was like well that's that's his directive feedback it's amazing what the audience will

tell you not just like with their reactions with their words uh and and how worth listening it is it's it when people i mean you did it i i've learned it from roasts where jp mcdade said to me he said before you tell every joke you look like you say a five six seven eight and it was one of these where it's one of these where the reaction was it's because it's not a it's not a sharp punchline per se but it like captures something so clear that like i'm the setup is my body and my face and my energy and that's the punchline and i was like oh i need to play somewhere in this realm because it captured something and so you captured that you look like a bad guy yeah i think anything that helps you on a dating

profile kind of uh hurts you in stand-up that's an interesting it's a bit of a generalization but you know no one no one wants to people don't want to feel intimidated it's one of the the last things you want to do to an audience is is make them feel bad about themselves in any way that's why it's so hard to write a joke about working out yes i think that's a great point it's yeah i think comic comedy is really a celebration of our shortcomings and and sharing in them so it's to come from that place you have to you have to prostrate yourself in some way to the audience especially unless you're i mean like then the opposite of the scale it's like judah friedlander can get away with saying all of that shit because we know it's sarcastic and he looks even more homeless than david tell yes yeah

that is very true um did you ever have any of those jokes like something like uh don't you hate it when women just want to fuck all the time what did i have i said uh i had i had some some material like that i had to vote people assume i come off as cocky which isn't true uh i'm not arrogant people just assume i am because i have so much going for me so i had like that's a great line and i had a joke about uh i hate being called pretty boy because then i have to pretend to be offended i used to be my closer like shut up pretty boy like no you shut up in my head i'm just like hey that's see i love it yeah yeah that toyed with it and always it found a vulnerability i'm sure i had i don't remember the the the misses as well you always you always tend to show those. I'm sure if you found old footage of my stand, you'd be like, yikes.

But I played with arrogance because I thought that was the way to go. And Houston was a bro-ier scene. It was more bar show. So they would respond to that kind of machismo, even if it was false in my case. So when I moved to Austin and when I subsequently moved to L.A., that really hurt how people perceive me. Because in L.A., you're not good looking. Well, thank you again for saying I'm good looking. But in L.A., no one wanted to.

That scene's just run by, it's a different scene. It's the alt scene. So it's a bunch of self-identified nerds and rejects. It's Freaks and Geeks. It's kind of proud. So they don't want that they don't want that especially for the shows i was doing they didn't want that comedy store joe rogan brendan shop they wanted like i'm a loser and so that yeah that didn't that's a good you captured a whole brand of comedy with jessa

um well fantastic uh where did you grow up i grew up in corpus christi texas and atlanta georgia and what sucks about that corpus christi is a very sad town uh i grew up i went to a magnet school uh so somehow brag magnets a smart school right yes yeah okay in a very dumb city okay so no so this is like an average school in a regular it was what they did yeah and i think my mom probably pulled some strings in getting me tested into the program my mom was like really so it's like the only aggressive as a mom the only history program in texas where they do talk about slavery um but it's south texas is so different it's it's very far south um yeah how far is corpus christi from houston three or four hours but it's only it's only like 150 miles north of the border

oh yeah okay yeah is your family okay right now everyone okay with the cold my mom's in atlanta oh okay yeah move there corpus was fine but i just didn't i didn't know anything better i didn't realize it wasn't a big town and it was kind of like a nowhere, kind of a nowhere place. And then my dad retired when I was 13. And he had, also because of Parkinson's, he was forced to retire early. And there's a downside.

Sure. Any downsides to your dad having Parkinson's? I was pretty chill. Yeah. Pretty chill. Pretty. It was a good time. Yeah.

Moved to Atlanta. And then Atlanta, I think that was a formative thing for me was i went from seeing not like abject poverty but just like a a some some down and out groups of people in corpus and i went to a private school in atlanta that was really wealthy and just that that uh that whiplash of of of the differences in the two cultures and the and the wealth and seeing how unaware the rich people in Atlanta were, they, they went to this,

they're 14 year students at my high school. You start there in kindergarten and there were kids who were like, yeah, I went here all 14 years of my high school of my schooling experience. And I was really put off by that, by the elitism, by the wealth, by,

by the challenge. Yeah. Were you like the kid in school being like, you know, no, because I didn't, I didn't have much to stand up because my family was upper middle class. So's not like i was yeah i wasn't i wasn't i was not as wealthy as them but i didn't have anything to complain about i use that term to upper middle class i

think i saw someone someone on twitter make fun of it being like that's what rich people say i was upper middle class oh i saw what real rich is and uh they're wrong like that top one percent is so much wealthier yeah we were i think the math was my family, we were 5%ers in terms of income. I think we looked it up. That was where we sat. Did you have a pool? No.

We had a boat. We had a small boat. You had a boat. Alright. I think a boat and a pool are exchangeable. And a lake house. No, I'm sorry. We didn't have a lake house. We used our family. We used my mom's sister's lake house. Lake house? No. No, I'm sorry. We didn't have a lake house. We used our family. We used my mom's sister's lake house, so we would go. And we brought the boat down there.

They had a timeshare between two of my aunts. And then we brought the boat so we could use it sometimes. And we let them use the boat. It was all big. This was later on, though. My dad made money. He started poor and then made money. So by the end of my high school experience we were

cushier than when i started that's i mean i guess better better money than not but wealth god wealth at a private high school there was a family and i knew i knew who it was the family donated 15 million dollars to the school it was on a plaque at the school how did the kids grades must have been pretty fucking good after that she wasn't very smart what is this that's why imagine your kids so shitty they're like how much do i have to donate 15 million that's a dumb fucking kid and i saw kids who made really bad grades kids who i was the reason they passed certain courses because i would do their homework get it really you were actually that's a real i i've you know that's mentioned i you really did other people's homework so we did this thing called web assign which is where you'd go online, you'd get 10 problems, and you'd have to type in the numerical value correctly to within a certain percentage.

But it randomized certain variables. So what I would do is I would solve my homework with the randomized variable set as variables. And then I'd have a solution that was A times C divided by B times 3.2 to the 10th or something like that. Okay. So that means I could type in the – Russ, can you pass the pen to me really quickly? So you could type in the values you saw, and then that was a way to generalize solutions for everyone no matter what their randomized values were. So I would solve it in terms of the variables, which wouldn't take much extra time.

I didn't have any friends, so this was my way of making friends. Wait, so you weren't compensated in any way. You did this for getting invited to the pool party. And I never got invited until the very end. Yeah, they still hated me. I remember they let... What the fuck? You're doing their work.

I know. There was a Facebook group that they let me in, and I was like, oh, I'm part of this Facebook group, and then they kicked me out. And I was like, I do your fucking homework for you. Oh, no. That is insane. Part of it was pretty evil, though. I also knew if i did their homework

for them they'd fail the tests oh i see so the great it was great i remember this is that was your long game plan i mean it was like yeah i would see i would see that like seven of us would get a's two people would get b's no one would get c's and then 12 people would get f's there was just this gap and and it was was, the other side of that gap was people I gave the solutions. This is the kind of school where they posted the grades publicly? No, no. I don't know how I knew that. How did you know? It sounds like you hacked into

the fucking computer mainframe. I didn't go that far. There was a girl, I knew her middle name, so you could guess people. There was a girl in the class who, she took it and i knew what i i guessed what her uh her login name would be because i knew her middle name because i was in yearbook so it was your name plus your middle initial plus your last name was the was the entry

and then your password we all started the semester with the same password so i would just log into her account and then test out my answers on hers to make sure the variable solution worked for mine and hers and it was likely to work for everyone. Never told her. She never knew why she would just open it and all of the problems would be solved. She just goes in. I didn't interact with her very much.

I just wonder what she thought. If she thought there was a glitch or she thought maybe I'm waking up in the middle of the night and I'm a what she thought. She thought there was a glitch, or she thought, maybe I'm waking up in the middle of the night, and I'm a weird savant. Weren't you scared of getting caught? No. Actually, I had a beer with the teacher years later.

Really cool teacher, young. I think the teacher was still in her 20s when she was teaching us. And the teacher had to drop out because all their students kept failing after getting all their homework good. Yeah, and I admitted to her. I admitted to her years later. I was like, yeah, yeah i did solutions for everyone she was like i can understand your motivation of doing that that's the way to fit in she's really cool about it now so you were she's fucking great she's a teacher now and i think denver she's the fucking coolest she does crossfit and teaches physics and she's she's dope she's one of the coolest teachers i've read there's something nice about admitting to a teacher something that you did or like a prank.

I told my high school band teacher years later that I didn't like band that much. I didn't tell her that. But I didn't like band that much. And my friend and I, when we would do the warm-ups in the morning to start things, we would play. We played saxophone. We were supposed to play a G. And so she'd have everyone play the thing we would always play g sharp and it would delay class for like 10 15 minutes because she'd go section by section she's like something's off and she'd go to each

instrumental thing and then she'd go to the saxophones and we play g and then she'd go i don't know and then she'd go back and like do the whole group again and then we play g sharp and she'd be like something is off and we would just do it to delay class and now as an adult I'm like that's so shitty like and so I told her there's nothing gained in that at least I was doing it for personal value no I just was doing I don't know why let's not be judgy here you just confessed to like corrupting an entire grade of school for my own testing out your answers on someone else but it felt good to tell her it felt good how did she react i admitted uh was it was it like at the mental hospital where you said to her hey she was like well i got the ear surgery already so

um no but it felt good um but yeah i i cheated uh not super frequently but I was a test looker I was definitely and only one time like the smart math kid his name was Alan Cole and he's like a political guy and he's caught me and I was like

I said I was just seeing where everyone else was on the test you know to keep up and like it was probably math

but I I wasn't it wasn't cheating all the time. But math sometimes, spelling sometimes. And you know what? I look back and I don't feel a thing. Fuck it. I hated math.

I was not good at it. And I did a similar thing. One time we had to do proofs. Do you know what proofs are, Matt? I couldn't do a proof like i couldn't even start i don't even i don't even know how to talk about it right now but um one time right before christmas break we had to do um you to draw names to do like a big proof in front of the whole class and so you like put your name on a on a thing when you walked in the room and they would draw sticks and i put another kid's name and they were they were in the room and they would draw sticks and i put another

kid's name and they were they were called oh my god they got called twice and i and but i picked someone that was like really good at proofs so it wouldn't be embarrassing for them but eventually did they reach the end and she said well who didn't go yeah they all everyone laughed when they got pulled again because she was like she's like i already went like she was you know but it ended up not being a big deal i think the funny version that is every name is that kid's name everyone did the same thing you did so you were a math i liked math it was a savant a correct word or no no i liked it and i had above average abilities at it but what was your sat on math 790 i missed one question do you remember the question does it haunt you at night?

Do you think about it? I remember when I looked at it again, I was like, it was very obvious what the answer. That's why I was only docked 10 points. Because usually if you miss one question, you get docked like 30 immediately. It was a relatively easy answer that I must have just bubbled in wrong. I see. You're like, fuck, I should have used that girl's test first to test it out. I struggled more with reading.

I'm still a bad reader. History was always so much work for me. was like but writing was pulling teeth um so i would i would take the harder math courses and and i didn't i don't remember studying for math i would just do the homework and i'd be prepared for the test whereas i would just agonize over all the other courses and i what do you were you bad at anything uh i was bad at reading bad at history but um i would make i would make some b's in those classes in in high school and then when i got to college i was a horrible student i was just very bad student it's hard to imagine it's hard to imagine you being a bad student i'm not disciplined i wasn't disciplined i was so it was the first so i didn't have any

friends in high school so when i got to college and there was partying and social events i just let that completely distract were you a drinker i tried to be i wasn't very good at it so you just went to the parties and i would drink but i wasn't like a like a booze bag i was just chasing chicks and and i i got really bag it just feels like out of the 60s yeah you know booze bag mark normand of course i recognize yeah a real booze bag he's like uh he's like a thesaurus of antiquated terms yeah yeah what was your major in college applied math i started mechanical engineering realized i didn't like it that much and then uh i had to take certain some of our required courses were in the applied math department and when i figured out what that

was i realized i liked it a lot more that it was it was the math i actually liked real what what's what's considered math at the college level is not fun it's very theoretical it's very abstract whereas applied math is probably would seem if you saw me doing the homework it would seem more like what you consider when when you're done in college like with applied math like what does that where do you go how do you like what would you have done after that what's the jobs i work for a non-profit after that but a lot of my friends uh some went to grad school but uh computational finance so a lot of those so you can you can work in finance you could easily get a job as an engineer it's it's such a base level of math and so so rarely do

people learn what they actually apply you just kind of learn the the logic and the technical stuff and then then when you go to the job you learn you've learned how to learn are you happy that you majored in that? It was really fun. I really wish I had paid more attention in certain classes because it was really interesting, really cool stuff to me. I might have maybe tried electrical engineering. That also seemed really fun. Mechanical was not for me.

When I got to mechanical, it was just like a bunch of people who loved cars and engines and steam. And you're not that guy. That wasn't fun to me. I don't like the application i like the theory i like working out the numbers if there's a physical uh manifestation of those numbers cool but i'm more interested in writing a long equation and canceling things out there was a lot of coding it was it was kind of like a it was a half math half comp sci major and coding is really fun fun. And I think coding is similar to stand-up writing in that you're just looking for pieces of information and how to isolate and order them correctly.

And so much of stand-up writing is just minimizing and cutting down all the fluff around stuff. What's the important, what's the word that I need right here to get this point across? And how do I cut the information between this and the punchline so that the punchline pops harder? It's's it's similar to coding i describe really clean one liners the older i get the more i like watching one-liner comedians like sometimes strict one liners because and i i think of it in that same way where like it's a beautiful equation

and that's like i do i wasn't a super math guy i was i was always okay at math but i think of it in that way like a beautiful mind and someone's like knock knock and i'm like oh wow yeah just right to the point a person's at the door and you just said knock knock right i like i i usually i think a good one-liner is about missing information good jokes are usually about what piece of information is missing that you the listener have to then deduce what's the stepping stone between so finding finding a way to go to show them a and c in a way that they unveil b not too easily but it's not too tricky that's which of my one linus is your favorite okay it's so hard to choose it's so hard to choose there's one uh our friend chris he heard it on an open mic we don't know who it is i don't know if they still do comedy, but it was,

Miso soup, quit bragging. And I love it. And that's the kind of joke that most people roll their eyes tremendously. But I'm like, four words? That's beautiful. Four words. What's the shortest joke you've ever written? Shortest joke.

You know me. I'm not quite as skilled. Let me think for a second. What's yours? You have it on the top of your head. I had a shortest tweet that was, similes are like metaphors. It was the shortest I think I ever wrote. Russ, what about you?

Shortest joke? I don't have any. I have jokes. What's the shortest joke? The shortest opening joke I know, which is really cool with an opening joke. I love, I love. How many words to your first laugh? Yeah, yeah. Gary Veeder. uh the shortest opening joke i know this is which is really cool with that i love i love how many words your first laugh yeah yeah gary veder what's his is it was it uh four words to his first lap is how's everyone doing financially it's great very good very good

i know a good opener guy named peter angelo i saw in connecticut had uh he just goes out he's this big trucker looking guy he goes i know it just it worked it got a lot of it was like oh that's cool two words that's impressive sure my favorite opener two of my favorite was louis anderson moving the mic stand out of the way let me get out of this let me get this out of the way so you can see me great and then uh chris crespo who uh doesn't have uh full arms is that the appropriate term i know and he said he takes he takes his time getting the mic out of the stand um and it cranks up the tension and then he goes uh don't worry i put my pants just like you do eight hours at a time so funny and it's just like it's so good

i'm like you know what i would give up my arms just to have an opener this good i saw him do uh i just flew in from california boy my arm's not there oh my god he said that uh-huh oh wait no this nine miler oops oh who is it wait is that another person nine mile who's the agent that really suck when you are the comedian without fully formed arms and then another one comes on the scene clearly it's too competitive because if you have them on the same lineup you're like well do we have to say it's a theme show like it's just i think there's that thing comics talk about all the time where they'll feel like uh they they have a contemporary comedian who let's say it's it's a black woman and they're like they never get to be on the same show together because everyone's like well we already have and like it's a way people are shitty

without even thinking about it they're like well they're they and like it's a way people are shitty without even thinking about it they're like well they're they're similar so we can't have them on the same line mean up you meanwhile you have 10 mark normand impersonators on the lineup at the same time and no one gives it a second thought nope no and uh i was with a friend recently and we were watching snl and she said uh oh man this is weird to say uh ego is so much better than sashir of course people do that and my black friend was there to be like why are you comparing those two specifically from years apart yeah that's it would be more years apart but there hasn't been that many black cast members on snl uh i heard one actually speaking i

believe it was uh it was a improv team of three black women. And they do a suggestion of like, who are we? And someone said, Destiny's Child. Because it's three black women. And everyone booed the fuck out of this. I'm sure from Wisconsin, seeing their first improv show. And they're like, I love improv. And they're like, oh, Destiny's Child.

Booed to pieces. But it makes sense it gets it must be fucking exhausting yeah to constantly have that be the conversation i was looking at a an audition and i looked at who they had already cast and i saw someone and it was it was diverse and i saw they already had one white guy i'm like well there goes my chances so now it's at least starting to happen to white men where they have the certain certain good casting where they do diverse and you're like oh well they got the white guy covered i find many lineups i'm like it's either me or melanie it's one of the two is getting the netflix special and when melanie gets it i'm like i guess that's it for me this year um you opened for

melanie i did and uh i'm very jealous of that when should i should be clear i asked to do that you asked to to your reps to my reps came up with the idea i was i was like oh cool it's a mulaney's at this festival my agent was like i'll message his team and and say that uh you're interested in opening so did he watch your set he knows me uh he knows you yeah he'd love you i mean there's no there's no question about that yeah but you know this i would really like that his approval would mean more than any comedians to me. Really? That's the number one?

Truly. Because he's the most honorable comedian. You know what I mean? There's not one single cheap shot. There's not one single I could have thought of that moment or I've heard something like that moment. Every joke. I think you're glorifying him in the way other people glorify other comedians.

I think there's plenty. I think every comedian has a little bit of hack. There's 10 of hack in any any comedian i know he has the smallest percent of his smallest percent okay like a body fat thing yeah for okay for you i can't think of anything for you we know it'd be louis big louis fan over here but even what comedian what what comedian what performer anyone if they saw you do a sketch and they came up to you and they said, fuck, you're funny, that you'd be like... Like a sketch person? To be fair, Louis would be my number two.

Yeah, I mean, Louis, obviously, but, you know, it's weird to say that now, but I'm a huge Mulaney fan, too, now. Really? I didn't know you were a big Mulaney fan. You're a secret stand-up watcher. You've, all the specials i do yeah of course i think it could be a it could be a milaney for me i think if chapelle said something it would it would like

there's a childhood chapelle thing where i'm like that i've just loved him for so long here's the thing i would put chapelle on that list and i would put vanford on that list except i think those two are specifically very generous with their compliments because i've heard i've seen posts i maybe regarding both they're like wow i can't believe this person complimented my set look banford compliment chappelle told me how great i was i was like oh they were they were lying like i know you're at i know oh boy that is by the way a great business strategy. Just be the headliner who compliments everyone. And it will never bite you in the ass because they'll be like, they believe in me. And sometimes a shit comic just figures it out.

And then you get to be the person who saw it. Maybe Louis should have complimented some more people. They would have been like, look, I understand. I understand what he did was wrong. But he once told me I had a good set when I was three years into comedy. So let's give him a chance yeah um oh boy honestly how many people are going down just because well not just because but it's like it's a combination of if something comes out and you are also have been a dick to people yeah

i've always surviving i always think those kind of tests uh whenever someone gets in trouble and not just not just in the sexual assault realm but whenever someone gets in trouble and not just not just in the sexual assault realm but whenever someone gets in trouble i also think it's a bit of a litmus test onto how you treated your peers along the way will determine how they stand up for you who's going to retweet the new york times article about your ass and it's i just think it's it's it's proof of how you came up i agree with that um so uh we we have to move on to this next section but i really want to talk real quick about I just think it's proof of how you came up. I agree with that. So we have to move on to this next section, but I really want to talk real quick about any family downsides.

Dad was sick most of my life, and my mom is not mentally very healthy, and that's gotten worse. I don't hear you talk about any of this on stage, whereas I'm... I talk about my mom a little bit more now. Any specific mental health thing in particular? Yes. yes about her being bipolar i do a little bit of that and just just a very broken person who i love very much but is just just a festering untreated wound of mental health issues just never never took care of it and this is what it looks like

at 74 is that do you think now do you think this is why you're a comedian this kind of stuff i don't know i'm not i i consider myself a fraud i don't think i'm like what do you mean why are you a comedian i'm like you really think because i started doing it that's it i don't think i naturally have something i'm not like one of those people for this i think people uh i don't think like i i had to be funny to make it through those dinners with my family. But I think there's certain environments where you are the person bringing levity to the room. When I have family dinners, I'm the funny one at the table amidst a lot of anxiety. And I think that's where I found that I was funny.

That's not because. Were you funny at home? Can you make your mom laugh? No. Can anyone make someone laugh? No, but no one can. I'm sorry. My parents are both humorous humor humorless people they didn't yeah i think my the one thing that maybe drove me towards comedy was coming from a background where i wasn't taught social skills i was i was studying and academics were heavily enforced and i was at the expense of of social learning of

socializing of going out of going to parties and mingling and i didn't have a strong role model in terms of of how to be a charming sociable person either my parents were in a traditional way and when i went to that school in atlanta most of those kids were rich because their parents were businessmen and salesmen so i was was up against very, very charming people. And I also went to Jewish summer camp with a bunch of Jews who were, by nature, very charming salespeople. And I grew up very jealous of social skills, and I became very obsessed with how can you learn this? The way you learn a sport, the way you learn an academic field, is there a way to understand how to be charming and interesting? You're like, what's the variables for a conversation? conversation right and then stand-up was a laboratory for that so when i when i got into

stand-up it was like oh i can go up and like test words and intonations and test how to be going up on stage like how what did you do for this summer like you're doing crowd work crowd work for me was definitely like oh i was i always thought like i can't do crowd because i can't talk to strangers and like learning how to ask those questions how to be curious like i learned a lot about talking to strangers from doing crowd work because i i would always be like well i just don't go to parties but then i would host and i'm like why i have to learn how to do this yes and now i feel like that ultimately led to doing like a podcast i still haven't learned crowd work so really that sounds great i would love to learn all those you really can't uh i don't seek it out it makes me too nervous i don't like it especially when my set's going well why would

i want to i like doing it makes me so nervous as an audience member really really i get very stressed out about it it's the same as going to improv shows i i get too stressed for for everyone that i'm gonna have to involve they're gonna have to be involved they they don't know what they're gonna do and it just stresses me i think the thing with crowdwork i really enjoy doing it if it's a small if it's a shitty show i'll i'd love doing it if it's like a really hot huge show and i'm hosting i feel that's where i get stressed of like there's so many people here i'm gonna ruin this great opportunity every joke that lands makes you seem more and more infallible. And then why would you want to step out of that line and then dissolve that illusion?

Have you ever dealt with a heckler well? Are you a good heckler dealer? Somewhat, yeah. Not normally. I have one woman who, it was last weekend, at the end of my set, I finished some joke. And it was towards the end of it anyway. And I finished my joke. It was slightly politically tinged

and I just heard her just going yeah but no one would do that here because no one fucking does that here we're like cooler than that and I go what? I just no one would do that and I was like okay I love you I just didn't know what she was going to say fuck you dick and I was like

well I got the light already so I'm going to get out of here before I get a shoe thrown at me probably from payless and it just came out of my mouth but i had the courage of knowing i had like three minutes i knew i was on my closer i'm like well okay i got an apology from her the next day she was blacked out by that point but i was i was like jesus i didn't i didn't realize i had that meanness in me yeah it almost sounds forever i know well i think that's a good i was like if anyone in the audience if anyone in the audience didn't believe that i that was in the moment i wouldn't fault them for i still wonder did i steal that from someone like that's just one of those lines yeah yeah no that's in the patrice documentary so i you have a good stock one what's my which one that one with a kid yeah yeah oh i was ready

for this one so i i do this i was on an episode of law and order svu and i had a couple times in the past people would go like what episode and it would ruin the joke and i had this line ready to go i never said it out loud but i was doing a family show i said so i was on law and order svu and a little kid said what episode i said the episode where i murdered the audience member for interrupting my joke and it was just like it was it was the best feeling in the world it was the first time i ever said it out loud but i i had prepared it and sometimes with those lines you you have a great heckler moment and you're like oh my i will write it down and like i have a section of like

it's very embarrassing crowd work and i have one or two that i like to work in where i can i like my document for crowd work. It's like, be curious. Be if you're having like, it's very trite things about like, it's great. If you're having fun, they will have fun because I have anger issues. And I, if I do too with crowd work, crowd members, it's just like, dude, don't fuck. You wouldn't throw dollar bills at a ballerina. You know, don't.

Why would you? And then that then that's me being like, I'm'm an artist which is the fucking worst thing a comedian can feel like and to express it the show's over you're done of course yeah but i have that line where sometimes i'll say like shut the fuck up and it's like it pops it's funny and then if i feel it a little too much and they hear me go shut the fuck up death i had one these college kids they were making fun of other people for laughing too hard like they were they were cool college kids and i did and this was like after not being on stage this was post uh uh the coronavirus like eight months nine months

and i said to them like oh what are you studying college she said something i was like like you should study killing yourself or something really, really fucking harsh. And it was over. Like, they just started heckling me mercilessly after that about you shouldn't joke about suicide. I also started doing a lot of college shows, and you can't do crowd work there. Because if you hurt anyone's feelings, you're never doing colleges again. They're so fragile. Sometimes you can get with them. i i would they're fratty if they're like you seem like you could tour frats and make millions no no i would do and i the college

shows where it's the kids who show up for college shows are they're so wholesome you know i mean it's never yeah it's never the kids the frat kids are partying and not trying to glorify frat kids but at least like they bust balls a little better you know they're all terrible i did one it was in a cafeteria one of the nightmare college show and i was talking to some kid and they're like oh yeah we're in the stand-up comedy club and i was like do you know there was a stand-up comedy show and they're like no no one told us and i was like and then i was like i'm a working you should you should be here yeah this is a big lesson for you this is what you have to look forward to this and i pissed off a kid there he wouldn't it was a terrible show i was like basically harassing a cafeteria because i had to perform for an hour

to cafeteria so i was doing crowd work and some kid like wouldn't answer me he was like i'm chewing my food and i kind of i kind of i kind of fucked him for a little. He was in a cafeteria. You were the one doing stand-up. But then later, after the show, my favorite part of the cafeteria show is I get to eat at the cafeteria, which is fun to do after not doing it for a year or two. And he came up to me and he was like, hey man, when someone says, leave him alone,

maybe you leave him alone. And my heart started just, I was furious. Because the gig was so humiliating it was so humiliating and i was like well maybe chew your food fucking faster i'd been paid already all right let's go to this next segment all right this is uh again this is probably the first episode we're figuring a lot of things out i um let's let's hit that, that green button. This one? Mm-hmm. Nope. No. Which one?

Uh, yellow button. This one? Yeah. Actually, that sound I made. I've got some bad, bad news. What were you saying, Matthew? I was going to say that, that, that sound it made for the green button, it makes for any button if it's the wrong button. That is good. That is. It was, oh, Russellsell couldn't hear it no russell does not have headphones it's

fine i'll hear the green button was the stock one that came with the machine going and we just played i've got some bad news this is where we take headlines that might seem positive and find find their downside find what wasn't thought about them so let me pull up we got this uh this first one here uh dolly pardon was in the news i'll read the headline exactly once it it loads dolly pardon who is famous famous singer what's her big songs uh jolene it's a beautiful song nine to five nine to five have you seen that is she in the movie or she just wrote this she's in the movie yeah is it movie? I don't know. I saw it once a long time ago. I don't remember much.

Yeah, I need to see it. So the headline is, Dolly Parton humbly declines to have statue of herself outside Tennessee Capitol. She says, I don't think it's appropriate. Okay, people were very excited about this. Honestly, people were basically memorializing her just for making this decision, which I think is counter to the whole idea of no statue to begin with my fear is that it's tennessee so if they're not going to do a dolly parton statue is it going to be another one of

robert e lee is maybe maybe you do want the dolly parton statue as opposed to another confederate leader yeah she just doesn't own enough slaves to have a statue built of her in the south that would be the rest of the quote was in fact that i did not come from slave owners yeah i saw a statue it was walking on new york city i saw an old statue of like a general like probably a slave owner based on everything i've i've read now about these these these statues yes people more than 50 years ago yeah my my stepfather he has uh he's collected for some reason this is where he puts his money it's like an old american flag old old old with 13 stars and i'm just like this was this was a really bad why why like 13 for each slave your your great-grandfather owned i don't think this is something to celebrate anymore that's the problem with statues i think if there's

anything we've learned from statues it's that as a society we've we've everyone from the 1800s did some shit that we would not approve of so do we have statues of people anymore are we done with statues um i think don't do them i don't know i don't think there's no way you can ever know what is going to come out in the future and be a thing that we are still cool with or find out about this person. And I don't know what the point of it is. You have experience. Like statues are naming pets after certain celebrities. I know.

I'd like to know. Okay. His cat's name is Louie. And it was after the allegations came out. That's what was so weird. No, it was before. I also like the name. I had an uncle, Louie. That's what was so weird. No, it was before. I also liked the name. I had an uncle, Louie.

That's not what you did. I did not. You did not name your cat after your uncle, Louie. No. I just liked the name, too. And I was co-naming it. Would you want a statue made of you? That's fucking nothing, by the way.

He's a friend of mine, and I hope he doesn't hear this, but I had a friend. There is no... Let me just say, there is no chance that louis ck is listening to this no no i'm sorry the person i'm about to speak about oh i see i'm sorry i was using a uh mysterious pronoun there a friend of mine named his his uh kids after comedians he's a comedian himself and had kids and uh no yeah oh no they all said it was S***. Can you guess? I feel so bad saying this. Did he change the name? The kid goes by S***.

Still a pretty name. Still a beautiful name. But it was maybe two years before that went down. Maybe a little less. That's so funny. That's a unique name too. Louis, you can say it's my uncle. Oh man.

That is really... Wait, so... But wait. He had multiple kids. Oh, different comedians. Yeah. Somehow more shameful. I, uh...

Well, that is clearly a bad move. I have a friend named Kevin, but it wasn't Kevin Spacey. But that would have been funny. I was like, if you're going to name it after a celebrity, let it be a friend named kevin but it wasn't kevin spacey but that would have been funny i was like pick if you're gonna name it after celebrity let it be a common name but to take oh yeah yeah that's like i named my son polanski it's a brutal um i was reading life and i was talking about uh sci-fi and i just read a really good series called three body problem and it it's like uh the the timeline keeps you know randomly skipping ahead 50 years because of cryogenic freezing or it just jumps to the next generation and how they're dealing with this alien

invasion and it's really cool because it talks about like the one guy who's the hero of this generation then 50 years later like is the villain of the next generation and then another hundred years passes and they all realize that that was truly the hero and something they did now saves wow and you see all these different characters and sometimes these characters actually live that long uh live because they take some freezes and they're like they live as the villain and then die as a hero and then humanity maybe humanity goes away and then some other tribe now reveres that as their savior it's a really thoughtful analysis of how we jump 100 years now one extreme or the other and that's my issue with the dolly parton thing if i if i might say the downside yeah is more generally beyond this this statue thing she's being deified because she's done some really good things but i'm sure she's made mistakes

and when those come out uh people are going to react now as if they were betrayed that she also said this or did this and it's i'm sure she has a slew of of good deeds she seems like a really great person but i'm sure she has some mistakesw of of good deeds she seems like a really great person but i'm sure she has some mistakes and and also whenever you create a deity for for one side of the political spectrum now the whoever's against her stances is going to try to i just think it feels like cutting out the middleman instead of like we don't have to have the argument like like by not having statues that we don't have to feel either way about it you know in the future yeah but i also think like i think it's like it can be nice like it's like oh this is a i think

statues can be cool i've seen statues that are cool or they're pretty or you want to see a person and i understand the desire i i mean i remember when everyone was taking down the christopher columbus statues and i thought i don't i don't give a shit so i'm like sure take them down and then i read the first four pages of a People's History of the United States, which just like, it's the history of America told from the point of view of the oppressed. And you like just hear, I mean, a couple of Christopher Columbus's journal entries, and you're like, tear the statues down now. I mean, it was just like articles of like oh the the native american people they're nice this is how i'll kill like brutal brutal shit where i'm like yeah get rid of that statue italians are disgusting the worst truly um would you want a statue no because the

second this thing with statues the second you build a statue of someone, because the second... That's the thing with statues. The second you build a statue of someone, you can't be ambivalent towards that figure. You now either have to worship them or hate them. Yeah. It's almost like... You turn down a statue of it. If the comedy star said, hey, we would like to put a statue of you...

It would never happen. Okay. I put my headshot on the wall, but amongst other comedians... Well, what's an early club that you could see being like... You're their star. You're the guy that started there. You have a club like club like they're all shut down for tax fraud they're all i i just don't know if i would i would say no to a statue you would say no if someone said hey

we're a big we just watched your conan set and it was so good i don't feel deserving of one that would be that would be you would tell them don't do it if i was getting paid for it but if i got some money off of it i'd probably say yes that should automatically disqualify you from getting a statue what would your pose be would you be holding a Bible i can't consider this because there's no reason anyone would build a statue of me that's like you i could see you you you're on a life path where it's not unfathomable that some small city stand-ups in the history of time have any statues yeah i agree with that i'm not saying that you're not the hypotheticals is impossible for me to consider yeah if i did some like service act with my life over the next 20 years and like really

turn this ship around and start doing things for other people i don't know you're right it's not fathomable uh russell you i could see you having a statue you do a lot of good deeds no i don't i mean not i i'm not a bad person so we're celebrating dolly parton why aren't we celebrating you you're turning down a potential statue i'm just saying it's a very low bar to be like oh you said no yeah to a statue i think you're a hero people without the statue thing you know dolly parton is one of those people that people like to day like you know people it's like a thing we do it's like chuck norris memes and then it turns out he's like the worst kind of republican well there's also this thing where and again dolly part it seems like what she does is great but

there is also i think this is like one of the traps of capitalism where she's super rich so she donated two million dollars to help with the moderna vaccine coming to light and it's like yeah because she had a lot of money but like you get you get celebrated for your deeds and uh you start becoming so wealthy you can if you put it in the right places do a lot of things that are incredible but it's like well the wealth is the problem did you see the um the tickle documentary i did and it was that was i looked up that guy who who led a weird life, the guy, the villain behind all of it. And he had all this family wealth. He never had to work.

And he donated money, lots of money to a lot of really good causes. If you're rich, you can just do a lot of good. Yeah. Even like Epstein gave to incredible causes like undeniably good causes and unbelievable amounts of money. It's some of the worst people do the most donations. Yeah. So do you mind if the pull clip for this is going to be Epstein did a lot of good things. And then cut to another.

He should have a statue of him. We create this divide now. I don't know if it's comic books or movies or something where people can only be the bad guy or the good guy. Yes. or something where people can only be the bad guy or the good guy yes i do think i do wonder how it will affect because i remember shortly after the cosby uh stuff all came out i went to rockefeller center and it's just cosby was one of their properties so everything on the walls and the posters and the history like he's front and center and center. And it's just, you know, I think, I wonder if it'll change how people glorify individuals in general. Because they're like, well, if they get in trouble, it's a big headache to redo all the walls. I don't think so.

People still do it. Do you know what I mean? I mean, you can see so many people that still, like, get obsessed with politicians or things. Of the politicians. And they're the ones who get the most statues. I'm sure there's a hillary clinton statue being built right now do you know anyone in politics personally yeah pursuing uh i i did theater with someone who's now like a green party guy just jabari yes same but the one person i know one of my good childhood friends we did uh theater together in middle school and i i couldn't take honors theater

because that was the same time as honors math so i had to give up that theater path at that age that's the movie that's not great there's a movie of the kid who picks theater over math but you went the real route yeah i got a degree that to this day ensures me some sense of stability in this world um but he's now uh pursuing a political career but i just wonder what kind of people get into it it's it might be a little psychotic yes who could there is some level of psychosis that if you're doing it i think it's great it's a crazy thing we have a friend we have a good friend but people will hate you yeah yes well we have a good friend oh yeah chris and he comes from like a politically involved, and he's right there.

And he lives a life, and it's tough as a comedian. I've done enough stuff as a comedian where I'm like, until the world changes, I could never become a politician right now. There's so many videos of me doing roast battles, and if half the people hate me and people hire people to get me in trouble online, the world would have to just adjust accordingly. But he kind of lives this line where I think he's careful to a certain extent of what he puts out publicly. I think it kneecaps him sometimes comedically or he is safer. And we always joke we have group chats. We have comedian group chats for sure and i think there will come a day and age where all our phones start getting hacked and group chats start taking

people down and that's when i think people will go all right let's be got in trouble for the the his wife's group chat and someone said they said someone was like is it okay that we shared the group chat and it's because we all know that our group chats contain some i only have one now we used to have a facebook group and then that was sullied oh yeah we used to have a like a 15 person facebook group where we could just say our worst thoughts and then then it fell apart you have a comedian group chat it was a comedian no my my group chat now is with my it's it's called cousin talk it's me my brother a cousin and our second cousin and we got into it because of politics we were all spread out we're all spread out across the country and then we just randomly started texting and now it's a

it's a major source of entertainment to me and and the shit i say in there is uh problematic yes i i can imagine i uh but you say all this like trump was never president trump the trump did kind of just you know tear that down now and like you imagine all the worst things you've ever said coming through and it not hurting you yes but he also like that was the full brand i think like you either have to go full and never apologize that's another thing i'm just never uh caleb here on who's a he's a very funny twitter a guy but he said something like you can't cancel people if you're not their audience like like that's the whole concept of canceling it's like well if if you weren't even participating in their fame that's why people would always want to like

cancel trump and it'd be like you're not the people who have elevated him to this point so you don't have power ticket buyers in the comedy world um all right let's get to the second headline we've got i've got some bad news and this one uh really really uh gets under my skin for some reason i um it says law and order svu which is a show i want to be on so let's be gentle to them law and order svu turns to a dark broadway for job hunting actors and this was about uh people from law and order uh alex alex pride man of course and here's the thing so there's this there's this thing about broadway actors obviously we're dealt a tremendous blow with coronavirus.

And so there's kind of like, we need to help these Broadway actors. And my thing is like, you know who's really suffering? The guy or the lady who made it to the eighth callback for Phantom and then still didn't get it. They're the ones that need that law and order tv spot phantom of the opera is what he's talking about for the uh for the people who aren't familiar with broadway as well as i am let me just be that transulator phantom of the opera phantom of the opera so there's this thing of it's like i'm like yeah broadway people are suffering but like that's not the acting community that is the top tier glad glad they're finally throwing these guys a bone

yeah exactly i'm like you you've been making poor alex brightman who i couldn't walk down the street without without him being mobbed by not just people who recognize him people who loved him the people who saw alex on the street were like they weren't just like oh i know you from that thing they're like i worship you beetlejuice is clearly fine alex it's like a thing like for like a goth light like people who weren't fully goth but they like like beetlejuice it's like yeah i think about death sometimes beetlejuice that's like that's the fan base so it's it's it's a so there's this thing of this article talks about the actors that they're offering the roles to aren't even like broadway they're the leads of broadway shows it's not like

you know what broadway's suffering let's give it to the the the swing for the chorus let's give them a nice meaty role also it's probably not even doesn't even mean that much to them it kind of no no grades their resume and and you the one thing i learned from talking to alex was like oh they don't want to do one day of shooting they want to act every day yeah they want to do it they want to do eight shows a week because they love it that much and like law and order you you show up you do an hour of makeup you run your it's it's the cameras are on for 30 minutes maybe they do two angles they could probably do it with two shots because they have so many cameras and so much money. You go home, you make $1,000

and you get one little bing on your... There's a funny thing about that article, the phrasing of it. We are putting food on Nathan Lane's table. Do you know what I mean? They're going to be hiring the big Broadway leads. Of course, this happens on Twitter

where some Broadway star tweeted, I haven't been on SVU yet. They're like don't worry we're on it and i'm like they're huge they're just they're so famous that i just don't i'm like they're bad film actors perhaps my acting coach is like i know people with tonys who can't get a guest star sure they're like patty lupe you can you can play the corpse you know it's even for the corpse you're playing too big we get it you're dead patty take it down put the tongue in the mouth you don't have to put actual x's over your eyes yeah we don't know where you got those from oh god i stole them off you know the like the the the font you put on the white sign i i think it's why you go to all these super theatrical like you do a good Harvey Fierstein

like Harvey Fierstein is like the killer. Yeah, yeah. It's like, what's your heart? Do your Harvey for me. Ah, hello. How are you? Where were you on Friday night? Where was I?

Where wasn't I? That's so funny. That's fun. All right, fantastic. that was i've got some bad news now we're gonna go to oh that was so good uh uh this has got to stop uh let's play play the dark blue one this has got to stop this has got to stop all right that's my all this is my friend douglas goodheart did all these these sounds i really appreciative also it's a jewish thing to look at all the downsides of everything nothing's ever good well i originally john marco i had i had a lot of podcast ideas and one was called kvetch and my my jewish girlfriend she she she said it wasn't quite right it was too whiny and i'm you know i wasn't raised fully jewish actually very jewish this is my this

has got to stop so let's get into my this is my this has got to stop and i'm going to be very vague about this there was there's just a movie that came out and it's a non-jew playing a jew and the movie really hinges on the fact that i thought miss mazel was a tv show this is not mazel i'm not talking about mazel because i want to be on miss mazel and i think that one's okay so i'm gonna i and again no one's listening to this horrible footage of her in jew face so now did you know is matthew jewish uh i no i don't know he is jewish i'm just saying like you're someone it's not obvious but you are so so there's this there's this movie and uh again i no one's gonna listen to this so i think i can speak a little bit about it we're like it's it has a jewish term as the title and in the poster she's wearing a dress with bagels on her.

It's like, it's really just like, Jewy McJuerson the movie. And she's not Jewish. And I'm just wondering, is this fine? Should I, is this a little weird? Because, like, again, I don't think, if we get too niche,

then you can only play the small spectrum of roles. But if I was playing the lead in some ireland drama called potato and like i was the potato farmer it's a little weird right but in her in that actress's defense to get in character for that role she probably had to hang out with a lot of jews which means she suffered enough for that role sure she's she's dealt with the pain i just think there's they with the jewish roles they go two different ways one they take a non-jewish person who looks a little weird and they go you can play a jew because you're weird looking and i don't like that or they say if it's a big big role they say well we don't want the lead looking too jewy for this so they get someone who's not jewish and i think both of those are not good.

Zac Efron's Jewish. Zac Efron, really? Which you're like, I don't see it. And then you see what his chest looks like unshaven. You're like, ah, one of us. He's a hairy boy. That's what it is. It makes you feel way better. I used to think I was Italian hairy.

I used to think I was hairy because my dad's Italian. And then I went on Birthright and we did a sports day and we all wore tank tops. And I was like, oh, no, I am Jewish hairy. Yeah. Much more focused on the upper shoulders. Upper arms. I shaved from my shoulder down to my elbow. Really?

Yeah. And my dad had like three chest hairs. The Cajun French, not that Jewish. So it must be the jewish that so so i don't have a jewish face or like head hair but i think the body hair is super jewish yeah my mom's jewish no chest hair and so it's always just spring um all right uh matthew do you have a this has got to stop this has got to stop i know okay good i um think about something say that's got to stop something that bothers you that you're like i'm so sick of hearing this seeing this people doing this yeah there's got to stop. Something that bothers you that you're like, I'm so sick of hearing this, seeing this, people doing this.

There's got to be something that's bothering you. Social media. I just hate everyone on social media. I just hate everyone's trying to be. No more podcasts. No more new podcasts. No, I'm just kidding. Great.

Fair. That is fair. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful. Just the internet. You know what I hate? Here's what I hate.

Stop sharing things because they're outrageous. This is what I hate. It's what I hate. Stop sharing things because they're outrageous. Well, this is not called this is what I hate. It's called this has got to stop. This has got to stop. When you see something that upsets you, it's sharing it being like, look how ridiculous this is. Because that's what they wanted. These aren't people who function out of positive or negative validation. They function out of numbers.

How many shares is this? How much engagement does this get? They get paid on clicks. So when you be like, look at this outrageous thing, this dumb fuck congress person with a district of 1300 people said on twitter by sharing it you're empowering it yes gotta stop and that person is that's exactly what they wanted you to feel yes they win they went buying by commenting on it by engage by fucking looking at it they win so just stop absolutely stop rewarding it stop i have a chance one worse whenever something's offensive like a picture's offensive or a video

like they'll find an old video sketch and they're like this is triggering and bad and painful and they share it fucking everywhere and i'm like if it's so painful don't share it right now everyone's in this supposed pain yes this was with the cat cohen thing particularly yeah no one was watching that wasn't getting new views yeah yeah exactly it's on funny or die in the archives of funny or die and now you're like hey look at this thing it's not good it makes you upset it really hurt to see this look too i just feel so inauthentic russell um this has got to stop me being fat in the covet era not that there's anything wrong with being fat um it's just i am not a spokesperson for that community and i feel like it comes up a lot more as a hero

it comes up so much more i feel like there's some part of me that is still like a little kid where i'm like like you know oh like let's not like we don't have to dress that i'm fat unless it's like i'm on a plane or like scooting by someone at a dinner table but like the the the in covet for instance i got covet in november and uh the amount of friends that uh reached out to me was very sweet but also it was like every time i was like you're fat like they were like they were like how are you feeling today i was calling you every hour like hey bud how you feeling and so it just has like like brought up a lot of like stuff that you're like, you're like in theory cool with, but like, you're like reminded constantly. And I feel like too, now that there's like, you can like the vaccine is, is coming out

for people. They're like, do you know, like you can get it because you're fat, you know what I mean? And in my head, I'm like, I'm like, I don't know. I'm I'm, I have high blood pressure uh which i do um so i can get it because of that but like in my it's just like the really it's like just daily it's like it's like you're fat you're fat you're fat in covid yeah and um even though i've had it and i was actually like pretty fine it is like then even people who get it now or i know someone close to me had it recently and like people someone i was hanging

out with last night because they were like they were like well this person's fat you know like they don't say it like that but it is that thing of like do you all know each other they they made it they're like you made it through do you have any advice to another i like huge piggy piggy piggy that might that might be struggling with it you know like so it's like this thing where it's like no one's saying it like that but it keeps coming up in weird ways and so i just i'm like let's get through this because i'm i'm sick of like remembering that and i don't want to be a spokesperson so i just picture the word at risk spelled with instead of a k a cc like thick it's like it's a new girl be like i'm at risk oh that's funny yeah so that's mine well

i'm so glad you're safe bud now okay do you think now because because all right i want to i want to like speak speak my truth we're like when you got coronavirus i i there was a feeling of like fuck i'm scared yeah and like what do you want people to do with that no i'm not saying anyone was wrong i'm just saying it's just the situation and uh it's one of those things where i like to ignore it more and be like in theory i am cool like obviously i'm not like someone pretending yeah that but you're like it is one of those things where you're like i just like yeah like it is you know it's just a funny thing that pops up and and people don't know how to do it in a way where they're like, you can't, you can't call a friend and be like, Hey, we're just really worried about it. Cause you're, cause you're fucking huge.

You know? Like, so, so, uh, I'm not saying that anyone did anything wrong. I'm just saying, I had a comedian friend die. His name was Kenny Ortega. And, uh, there was this thing when I, when I tell the story about, you know, how he got it and he went to ventilator and died, there's this thing where i notice i always am like well he was very large and diabetic like i add that as a thing like i need to tell people as if it's like well this is why yes and obviously that was all his jokes he i mean not all his jokes but he went up

on stage and when he went up two stairs his opening line was talk about an opener made it and that that was his opener and you know he's like oh this guy wants to choke me but i don't have any neck and like that was his but it's just interesting how i i bring it i like say it i don't know why whether i'm like trying to assure the person like well this death was for a logical reason or like well he was at risk or but it is interesting it's just interesting when when weight becomes part of like the reality of like a conversation and you don't know how to address it because you haven't figured out how to right talk about it before did you see andrew schultz's thing on uh kovid really killed the body positivity

movement it was pretty it was good it was really funny yeah um well now we've we've bitched and moaned a lot so we're gonna get to the final moment i know this is the right button it is the purple button please you better count your blessing. This is You Better Count Your Blessing, where we count our one blessing, one thing we're grateful for. And do you have one? Do you want to take a second and I'll tell you mine first? I know mine. I'll tell.

What's your blessing, please? I haven't lost my hair yet. You haven't lost your hair yet? Gorgeous hair. You know what? This actually happened to me last night. I was combing my hair back and I was like, is my hairline moving? I've always assumed

it would be fine, but your hair seems nothing. I think out of the three of us, you would lose it first. You have a mole? I have a mole right behind my hairline. This is my little canary in the coal mine. The second that peeks out, I'm like, uh-oh, Propecia. That's hilarious. That's the canary in the

coal mine wait what the fuck did you just say russell about i would be the first if we had to pick one of the four of us one of the four of us in the room i think you does it look like i'm balding no not at all here's the thing don't do don't do what we did to chris that one time we had a friend our friend chris his dad is bald and he came he came from the he got his haircut and he came and i guess the the haircut person said your hair is thinning he's and he's at risk he re like he came up to us with the thing where he's like my hair's not thinning right and we're like i wanted to do a bit about this no matter how no matter how bad toxic masculinity is no matter how mean we are to each other no man would ever say to another man that he loves that their hair is thinning yes there's it's it's the line no man will cross you look dude no you're fucking great because my brother's losing his mind over here you're like no

you think am i balding russell no not at all i'm just saying i'm looking at thickness of hair of i've always had thick hair i I'm, maybe your hair's shorter. I don't know. I'm just saying Your hair looks great. If it wasn't, we wouldn't tell you but it looks great. If I'm having Because we did a flyer for this podcast and my

complaint to the guy who did the illustration I said my forehead is a little big on this flyer and I showed it to my girlfriend and she said it seems pretty accurate, actually. And I was very upset. I'm just saying. I said, gun to my head. No one actually put a gun to my head.

Who would do this? I'm going to put a gun to your head and tell me. Is my hair thinning? No, guns are well exposed. I'm just saying, as I look around, very thick and and it's you know it's great it's not bad here's the test go to the comedy cellar on mcdougall use the urinal and there's a mirror there's two mirrors you can look at the top of your head you can look at your yarmulke spot to see if there's a bald spot coming in god it's i feel terrifying that's the place to go

didn't they say your your grandfather or your gram i forget it's on your That's the place to go. Didn't they say your grandfather, I forget, it's on your grandma's side? Yeah, they say it's your mom's dad. I was like, yeah, I think about hair loss. How's your mother's dad? I'm like, well, my brother's five years older and lost a lot of his. Yeah, but what's your mother's dad? I'm like, the same as his.

So clearly that's not the... Yeah that's true my mom's dad he's dead but did he have hair i think so so i'm fine you're not bald you're great yeah you're okay fuck i know i don't even have a blessing i was fine no fuck it we were talking about i thought we it was just yeah it's very strange that you volunteered of the four men in the room who would go bald first who has this prediction well you were talking about his and i was just saying i i was just contributing it was like uh you know who gets murdered in a horror movie first kind of thing you know that's like if there's a new coronavirus that affects like balding people more and then i get those calls hey jamarco how are you doing what the fuck are you saying um well all right my blessing is short and it's very narcissistic i i on twitter roy wood jr retweeted me he's a very he's a very great

comic he's done it a couple times and i just wrote him guy i wrote him uh and i was like thank you so much i appreciate it and he wrote back like you're one of my fave accounts uh keep keep kicking their teeth into something and i was like oh this feels very nice roy will jr is one of those where like i've been on a couple lineups with him uh but he's obviously a different league and just just for him to say something nice and then i heard he he sends it was a copy and paste he sends that to everyone who writes him a message on twitter so i don't believe that it was a joke sometimes i just do it too believable no it was very sweet and it's always nice it's always uh he's a certified mensch and that means a lot yeah yeah it's always yeah it's just like of i'm so cynical and so many heroes of mine teachers used to be a time where like i had

teachers who when they said to me as an actor like really good work up there like i would tear up and all those things they've been broken they i hate everybody but they're still comedians like i have a respect for great comedians that i think will always be there and if someone who i think is a great comedian says something nice to me that feels very generous once bill burr told me i have great hair he didn't see my set but he uh so yeah yeah man like a weatherman yeah and then he said to you he said you am i balding and you're like no bill beautiful head of hair you got bill um russell what's your blessing other than me not killing you at the end of this my blessing actually his name has come up a couple times and i want i chris uh our friend i wanted to bald chris i oh my god i want to say

my blessing is i'm gonna get to see him. I haven't seen him a long time. And I maybe implied that anyone that went into politics is a psycho. And I don't think his dad is a psycho. And I don't think he's bald. So I wanted to go on record with those two things right now because I'm going to be seeing him. And I'm thankful for his friendship. Thanks for using the blessing segment to cover your own shit. I appreciate it.

Well, that was probably episode one or something but this was a lot of fun thank you matthew broussard anything people should check out monday punday is a big thing you do sure uh she does stand up to my my podcast yes with my girlfriend about kind of getting started in stand-up and i was on an episode yeah first guess oh yeah uh uh russell anything coming up for you okay uh this is geomarcus raze uh thank you for listening to the downside let's hit that yellow button play us out no oh the oh fuck god no it's the other one uh upper right the non-color you got to get it wrong every episode thank you guys subscribe tell your friends geomarcus raze

remember all joy is at someone else's expense. Bye.