The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #116.5 Late Night Bois

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Gianmarco and Russell made their late night debuts in the same week, but did Gianmarco win because he taped it first or did Russell win because his aired first? We really get into the weeds of this important question! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Listen to our live weekly show on AMP, every Tuesday at 4 PM ET. Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's bi-monthly show in NYC Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram See Russell in Titanique in NYC! E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Spencer Sileo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to The Downside. It's the end of the year, and it's a special Fakakta episode. I hope that's the right Jewish-Yiddish word and not a slur. You're about to hear a little bonus episode Russell and I recorded about our late-night debuts. And then, after that, you're going to hear footage from Russell and me doing a live amp episode there's a couple amp shows left if you want to listen I post the amp by the way

it's a new app from Amazon it's live radio but if you can't listen live there's a couple more before the end of the year you can listen to all the amp episodes over on our Patreon patreon.com slash downside and we're going to be releasing all the old amp episodes over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. And we're going to be releasing all the old amp episodes. We recorded one week at a time,

along with our back catalog of bonus episodes, just me and Russell. And then later, later next year, a video version of my clean album and audio, if you want to listen to it too. And so now here's a Russell and I talking about being late night boys. This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain.

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Woohoo! I feel lucky that my big scene is earlier on. So then the second half of the show goes so fast because it's like all the ship is sinking kind of antics. And so the show feels, it never feels that long to me, like as a show. Because in my head, I'm like, got to make it to my big scene. My big scene kind of happens right before intermission.

And then after that, everything gets pretty quick. So I don't ever feel like it's like, I'm like, I don't have time enough to be like, oh yeah, you know? I mean, I'm two weeks in. So who knows? Maybe I'm excited to see you four years in four years in Titanic. I have no voice laughter just like from screaming every eight times a week.

It really is unhealthy. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point I get nodes because what I'm doing is not healthy. Listen, I think about nodes all the time. Also, I'm addicted to cough drops now. I'm just addicted to them. Oh, man. I know. I can't wait till we do a full episode

where you're writing everything on a pad. All back to the theater. I worry about nodes. I've tried to yell less on stage because I just love to yell. I love yelling. I love yelling. But if I'm doing like the two headlining Friday,

two headlining Saturday, sometimes I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah. You ever think about going, just checking in with a voice teacher? No. Doing some exercises? Why? maybe i will if i feel like i feel like i'm doing a really good job of of managing it right now i'm taking care of my voice but what about the show just reviewing everyone in that show

has voice teachers i'm breathing low i'm breathing from my diaphragm just just to check in well you you want to wait until there's an issue no i feel like i have i feel like i i used to have a voice teacher i had a voice teacher for years i had a voice teacher multiple voice teachers in high school i had in college i had a voice teacher and you know when you just feel like you don't want to do that thing again like it's just that thing of like i don't want i don't want to do i don't want you telling me what's going on. I don't want you staring at me. I don't want to do warm-ups with you.

You know, I just. Sure. But I do think if you're right, it couldn't hurt to do that. I just think the other thing is like New York voice teachers, like a good one. It's like 250 for 45 minutes. They don't even do the hour. Some of the people on the show, that's what they do when they're not in a show. They make so much. Oh, they teach.

Yeah. And they have waiting lists for months. They have people because they're Broadway singers. So they're like that have been big parts. And most of them should not be teaching. They might be good singers.

God bless them. I think the ones in my shows they seem good i think i remember voice yeah i was like obsessed with this voice teacher back home unhealthily so because she was very like she broke it down into like science she broke it down she broke it down she broke it down that's sorry and a fun sketch reference for the one person who saw an uncle Punky show and listened to the podcast. But so much of voice felt like the kind of loose metaphor is that anyone could say without meaning anything. Put it in the mask.

Put it here. Breathe deep. I mean, just a lot of stuff that didn't feel quite grounded. In fact, and I've been thinking about this the other because obviously i wanted to be a singer yeah and i feel like i hit a wall where it wasn't just technique i think it's literal unlike a basketball player where you could be like you're four foot eight yeah it might be a struggle to dunk you can't see it reach the limit so there's a degree of like i'm like i'm trying to hit a high c and that's the equivalent of someone who's four foot eight trying to dunk it's like it's it's not

you yeah uh and i feel like that's a lot with voice where that's how i feel in the in the show i'm definitely an actor who can sing uh-huh but i do feel like i hear other people sing and i'm like oh even if all the technique and i'm on my best vocal day just the the my voice will never sound as good as you know what i mean like or or in the same level of like that kind of thing singers are monstrously good yeah and they're probably they're singers who can do comedy yeah Yeah. Yeah. Well, we should talk about. Yeah, I don't know if we're, this might be a little bonus thing.

We'll just throw in there. Yeah. Or put it at the front of an episode. But we made our, shockingly, I mean, truly, truly shockingly,

we made our late night debuts. I recorded mine way before you on a Monday. You recorded yours on a Monday. I recorded mine on Tuesday. you recorded yours on tuesday mine came out on a wednesday yeah so but but within who would have thought after all these years insane a of all who would have thought that i was that's the real that's the real mine made sense and when i thought that i was gonna beat you to late night man oh man were the gears grinding to make a joke so so funny uh so how how was it for you you did uh we we both did like the later late night shows later we did not do we did not do colbert or the tonight show we did seth my i

did seth meyers you did colbert or Corden, which was interesting after everything that's happened. But I'm just kidding. Well, that's the thing. Everyone kept commenting on the video. Like, did you tell James to go fuck himself? And I'm like, no, I did not. First, let me just say this. James was super nice to me.

He gave a lot of time. so like in terms of my relationship he came up before the show came in chris was in the room uh uncle chris and uh uh he talked to he talked to me about stand-up comedy in london and and talked about who he never he never felt like he could ever do stand-up comedy talked abouted about his friend, John McIntyre, who's a big stand-up comic in London. So he talked to me. He talked about Edinburgh. That's so nice.

He was five, six minutes. And before he had to go film a show. Yeah. And then he came up after the show and said nice things. So by my money, I'm much more upset that Neil Brennan didn't even say hello. But moving on. And I just think it's a very easy gesture

as a comic to literally write outside and just say, hey, good luck. But that's that. I got to see some people who write for the show who I know. Like, that's very cool. You're like, oh, I have friends who create this thing. I think everyone was super nice it all moved really fast like the sound check happened the sound check

happened and i like left having more questions yeah i couldn't quite sometimes you have the speakers near you so you really hear how your mic is sounding back there other times it's not so it didn't feel like my mic was like super loud. So I was nervous if I whisper like this. Will they hear it? Will they hear it? And I must have asked 10 different people. And it moves so fast.

And because they do it every day, they're not at all concerned. And it's because you're only gonna do it maybe who knows how many times. Yeah, yeah. This needs to be good. and it because you're only gonna do it maybe who knows how many times yeah yeah you're like this needs to go this needs to be good um can i tell you soundcheck story for me uh so we were at soundcheck and they the way that they soundchecked for our show i mean they did a full one we did it with a band and everything but because it's a musical performance but um the way that they were starting it was they had each individual sing acapella and so it's with

all these ridiculous singers going and they're all singing acapella and are they being obnoxious are they going like no they're really they're really singing like good yeah like they're going like, no, they're really, they're really, they're really singing like good. Yeah. They're taking, you know, they're being real and they're, I, and, um, and it sounds amazing.

And, but it's acapella. It's so, and there's like the whole cruise there and everyone's there. And I was like, I got, when I realized this is how we're going to do it, I would just get,

I was like freaking out. I was like, this is just so, this is so stressful. And stressful and and and they all sound so good and they're going on and it's not like a quick like hey is this working no it was like sing for a minute and it was like it was felt like an eternity and so um it got to my turn and i was like as they're like okay russell and i was like, as they're like, okay, Russell. And I was like, I was like,

this is a fucking nightmare. And then my mic came on and it was so loud as I was saying, this is a fucking nightmare. No way. Yeah. It was like, it was like, this is a fucking nightmare.

Nightmare, nightmare, like in the studio. And then what you're saying, what, what line I just did was one of the things from the course we were doing in the show. And you think people in the tech would,

we're like, Oh, he's an actor who sings. He's, he's absolutely. Cause it was like, it it was like also it's like a harmony part you know like my heart was breaking down but i always come back for more yeah like it was that is that is very embarrassing it wasn't like here's my solo um no so uh it was very stressful to me in that moment but um and it just it goes so fast goes so fast did you have like a big dressing room for the whole cast no we had um so there's three dressing rooms off of the green room yeah and so the like the principal guys were put in that uh-huh and then i think celine had like an snl where did you put in that. And then I think Celine had

an SNL dressing room somewhere. In that dressing room? Oh, you all went one by one in that room? No, it was big enough. There was couches. It was a big enough dressing room that you could fit seven or eight guys. There was two couches, two chairs, a TV.

For those wondering, that clicking noise, that's russell moving the mints against his teeth uh so so with cordon they do this bit that like it's it's i i don't want to be seen as a stand-up comedian before i get on stage i want that to be your first impression i hate with comedy shows where like there's no green room and the audience member is like hi and i'm like oh no no no but they do this thing for cordon where they in the beginning he goes like let's go backstage see our guests and it's it's uh neil uh linda cartolini is that her name yeah and then me and i wanted to do something funny i think one of the funniest ones i've

heard so far is like greg stone uh who did it a couple weeks before me uh said something i think along the lines of like thanks james i owe you one and at the end of the set he gave five dollars to james corden like as a bit which i'm not that i don't know maybe i don't have the chutzpah to do it but i was like i'm not gonna do any weird bit there i thought it's very funny what you did but so so tova kind of had the idea of like i'll do a bathrobe thing i'll make it like sexy i guess and funny and just just so but it's very under rehearsed and chris was there yeah and i said chris could you hand me grapes uh uh in my mouth and i'll just say like hey james i'm here i haven't seen this part of this we haven't seen the part have

you seen the pictures of me in the bathrobe yeah yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what it was from. Oh, my God. So, like, they open the door, and there's just a camera, and James is talking to you from the stage. And you can barely see him on the little camera screen. You can't really hear him. You can kind of hear when something gets a laugh. But it's hard. It's like Zoom communication.

Yeah. And it's a big moment. So I open the door, and door and hey and he you know oh uh uh and then i said for some reason i was like do you want to come in like i really immediately switched to a very like i'm gay like that's you know it's just like a degree of like hey you want to come in and we'll suck each other off like that's the that's the comedy i'm i just immediately falled back fell back so So we rehearsed it twice. I was really trying not to focus on it.

All I care about is the set. This is not the important part. But we go back there, and I give Chris, I bought grapes in advance, and first we're trying to figure out the door angle to do it. And it was very funny because we had the comedy coordinator, Authentic was there, Haley, and I said, can you watch, tell us what you think.

And she said, oh, can the grapes go higher? And Chris is just a short little boy. So that hurt his feelings. But then we kind of got it down and the grapes were going to go away. It was hard to cue it because we didn't know what James was going to say. So I was like, you know, have the grapes go away

and then I'll be like more and then we'll come back. But I guess when we opened the door for the actual thing you're in the dressing room they just knock and you open it I opened the door less than I had in rehearsals so Chris couldn't get around so I guess Chris like I think he went on the dressing room the green room chair and hung them over the grapes but all I know is i went to go look at the grapes to my right no grapes and then i look up and they're way high so i have to like kind of bite them like a giraffe in a tree oh my god and then one of the grapes fell into like the door the picture with my name on it and it was uh it was weird and they cut around it a little bit. And I think like given what it is, it was fine enough.

But I should have run it a little more. Yeah. For sure. That's stressful to have to do a bit outside of the set. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would have skipped it. I got stressed that we had to do the good nights.

We had to be there to be having fun. And when you have to have fun and you're like oh you know were you in your outfit for that yeah it was just after our performance you should have made a statement with the shirt that would have been moving just what do you mean you know like like some people at the snl closing they have like a shirt that'll say like oh like uh what's his name um don was was it Don Cheadle? Don Cheadle, yeah. Don Cheadle has a shirt that, like, protect trans kids. Yeah. But you didn't want to do that. I didn't know.

I didn't, honestly, it went right from our last performance. I had to wear the shirt the whole performance. It went right from our performance into that. So I kept my shirt on from my blouse from the show um but uh but you know it's like when then when they air it it's five seconds but when you they film in the goodbye you're dancing like a crazy person for five minutes you know and you're just like yeah we are having fun yeah were you starstruck at all no um no i mean it is i was i was starstruck by the building oh i was starstruck by like when we got there they're like here's your dressing room and you like walked out in the hall and the snl studio was open yeah you could like see snl you could

peek in you could see the stage the stage was open like you saw it yeah that's really cool so i was starstruck by that like being in the building and being in those halls that you've seen on tv for years and years and years that little intern office thing where they'd sometimes do bits when you come out from the host comes out from the thing so that's right where the dressing room was so i was like holy shit i know this hall um i was starstruck by that but then when you actually meet like seth myers you know it's very quick and he's very nice but it you know it didn't that didn't feel like as did you did you shake his hand was he going yeah that's nice yeah that's fun yeah um and then matt you got to work with matt yeah matt did a little opening for the matt rogers who we want to have

i saw that i saw him the next day matt and bowen yeah before the concert before the concert for the concert i don't i i wonder if they were going to the concert i mean it was just it was like a very specific time to be having dinner at that particular restaurant so close um but uh well that's exciting like looking back do you wish you had prepared in any different way? No, it was stressful because we were prepping to open previews for the show, and the cut of the number is not the way it's done in the show.

So it's a very specific performance for late night, or for, like, a TV show. So what was kind of the mind fuck of it was getting ready with the new staging for that song in the previews but then having completely different staging for the tv show yes and then also that was the that was different staging from when we did asylum so it was like having three different stagings of that musical number yeah in your head and being like, wait, which is, what are we doing here?

And, you know, so that way it just felt like also to only get the one chance and basically to be like, we're going to run it without costumes, take a break for five hours and then you're going to have to go and do this on the show without any sort of like, wait, you know, just go. That felt stressful because it was so specific it was a musical it's not like a like even with a sketch you're like okay there's a little wiggle room you know obviously but i don't know it felt because it was so specific it was so music also at one point um this is don't tell anyone um but um at one

point because there's a weird key change that doesn't happen in the show. I couldn't find my note for the for the first word. When we sang the end of you're here for my heart will go on. I couldn't find that note. So I faked it. And then I just came in on here. So you. I.

John Marco, I went to open my mouth and I realized I don't know this note. And... Because it's coming from a weird key change. And I was like, and I can't on live TV or not live TV. I can't on TV do it wrong. And then...

Because then they probably could fix it. They do some post thing. Sure, sure. But I was like, who wants to like, you know... I was like, I better just fake it and then come in when I, when I know it would be funny if they heard the wrong note and the sound person immediately is like, it's this one.

Yeah. They, they just knew from the sound tests, the exact button to press to fix it. Cause I knew it would have been like, you know, you know, like you're defined it,

you know, like you, when you're like, yeah, stressful, like stressful. So I'll just fake it and come in when I know it. Um, yeah, for for me i was hard it was less my opening joke did not like slam dunk as much

as i had hoped it would and in a way where it's a very good set i appreciate it but that opening is like it normally gets like a very specific kind of pop, like a JFL, a comedy clubs. And it really was like, I had that feeling of, oh, this is not necessarily the ideal standup audience. I'm a little bit to the right. They're a little bit, they're far away. Which I've heard for some late night, not all of them, but like, they felt like far

away. I kept turning to the band because normally the band is like like if douglas is on stage i know if i turn to douglas he's gonna be showering me with love and laughs yes reggie watts is not a fan of my comedy i kept looking over there and then i just like dead-eyed. And then I'm like, all right, moving on to the drummer. Doesn't he do a lot of comedy stuff too? Yeah, who knows? They did two tapings that day. I couldn't do that.

I'm not a good laugher. Even if I'm forcing it, you can feel it. You can feel me go. I can do late night. Like that kind of late night. Tova can hear in the podcast whenever I'm

doing a fake laugh because it's coming after something that you say so ditto my friend ditto I'm just we have we should wrap this up so we'll probably just release this this is fun yeah we'll just tag it on the front of this episode

what's your next late night dream which show do you want to do now? With Titanic or? Solo. Solo. I love it. A seven minute character bit. I mean, could you be the guy that goes to the couch

and does a big weird character bit? No. That's, when I watch those people that really commit to those things, I'm like, that is, I mean, but you're silly and funny like that. But Will Ferrell would do. I remember,

uh, uh, Kristen wig did one where she was, uh, from game of Thrones and she had like two beanie baby. Yeah. Yeah. But it is,

it's, it's bold. You, but I, I also understand. I also understand the thinking behind it because there's a part of you that's like, I'd rather do that than have to talk about me.

Do you know what I mean? Like talk about about like like i say that on this podcast jesus fucking crazy i know that you say it on this podcast oh no i know but i but you know what i'm saying like i can see the thing of in people to be like i'd rather do a character thing so i have a bit of separation from this and i don't have to worry about like is my life story that i'm gonna tell really boring people are gonna be like what the fuck why did they share that you know because that does happen like most times you're like yeah cool and it is stressful it's also like more it's also when people are doing the stories from their life it's so hard to have a transition where you don't feel it like the host yeah the Yeah, the host. It can be a little clunky. So you've recently gotten into popsicles

and then like, I got a popsicle stuck up my butt. The big mistake is when it gets too specific where it's like, so you've done a lot of movies. Have you ever stolen anything crazy from set? I'm lifting that one directly. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then I think it's just for me, like Roddy Dangerfield, he'd do full sets. Uh-huh. He would just do these one-liners. And Johnny Carson knew. Well, we've interviewed people on the podcast

where that can happen sometimes. Sure. Well, I think, I feel like the reason the Zarna clips did really well is like, we tapped into that really quick. I was like,

you've never said love? No. And then she goes into the bit in a way where I know what to ask in that moment to not trip up their setup. But some people can't. But like some of Louis' best, the big viral moment, I don't know if it was the moment, but everything's amazing and nobody's happy, was him doing his stand up with Conan. I feel like Conan was like an excellent tee it up for the comedians. Yeah.

Um, all right, we, we got to wrap this up. We got to find out where our guest is. Rafi Bostos. Uh, thank you for listening to the downside.

Um, fucking tell your friends, tell your friends, tell your friends. That's the way that's the way these things grows. Now we've been on two late night credits. Suddenly night credits. Uh,

we do have a live show, uh, January 15th. i'll make sure tickets on sale by the time we release that sesh comedy club it's late it's a 10 to accommodate a rusty boy over here uh so 10 p.m we'll have a really good guest uh and then we'll release it on the patreon if you're not a member patreon.com slash downside thank you for listening to The Downside. You're going to die someday. Oh, that was a fun little treat. Yeah, wow.

Oh, I loved that. I loved reliving it. What accent was that you were doing at the very end of that clip? What clip? The one we just played of us when we did the late night. At the end, you started doing, it was some kind of accent in the Asian region, I think. Okay, shut the fuck up.

Russell, I'm very emotional today. So just so you know, Russell, this is what's going to come out. This is like our end of the year episode. Last year, I did a best of episode i uh do not have the facilities to do that this year but i'm hoping that in the in the new year with uh some more funds coming in that uh uh i can hire our fantastic producer page asachika to uh you know throughout the year mark the couple good moments every few four or five episodes and then assemble it at the end of 2023 yeah if we could just put together 10 solid minutes from a year of work you know

um russell i'm so i had such an emotional day um but uh i i i'm at the University of Miami. My sister graduated. This is December. So I never went to the big graduation. I had like the theater school graduation in the theater. I never went to the big one. I had no desire.

I think the older I get, the more I'm like, oh, this is big. Even though this sucks. It's literally a listing of names. For a lot of people, this might be the only time they're ever on a stage outside of a eulogy. Well, they would have been on stage for their high school graduation, too. Yeah, but this is like, at least here, this is like a stadium. Oh, I see, yeah. People get to perform for a stadium like I do every Friday and Saturday night.

Yeah, that's true. It's very interesting. I feel like this is a December graduation. So I feel like there's two kind of families there. There's families of kids who are like geniuses who graduated early. And then there's families of kids who like you know it took them four and a half maybe five and a half years and they're so happy they're like thank god we made it thank god something went terribly wrong along the way and uh

i was there on on my sister's dad's side. It was my dad. And on her mom's side, it was my ex-stepmom, her grandma who listens to the podcast. Right. Her two aunts, her aunt's kids, her stepmom's husband, her stepdad. I mean, just a – there's a real lack of Serezes to other side. Um, and, uh, sorry, Russ, I have so much to share. Feel free to tell me to shut up. No, no, no.

I I'm curious to buy yourself. So, well, so first, I mean, first, you know, see my dad. Oh my Jesus Christ. Like, so one woman, one woman, like her kid went on and she was like, and my dad, like, you know, whispers to me, like, I, I, I bet that's the sound she makes when she has an orgasm. Fine. It's crude. It's crude. I'm a, I'm his son. That's okay. That's fine. Right. But then I see him after he tells me this joke he turns to my sister's mom to tell her the same joke

and I'm like it's like to me that's a you know these are the warning signs yeah listen though I gotta cut in real quick it's only because it's a bad joke that you I mean we all do

we're testing out the joke with a few different people, with a few different things, you know, that's all he was doing. But it's only because you don't like the joke that it's like, oh, brother, you know? Yeah, but it's more like, it's more like audience. Like you can't, you like, what do you expect from your ex-wife to be like, yes, I love that joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. expect from your from your ex-wife to be like yes i love that joke yeah yeah so my dad he uh he he can't he can't hear anything that i say um this has been a problem for 10 years

and he goes you don't enunciate you don't enunciate or you're not loud enough. Imagine, just imagine. You're pretty loud. I'm pretty loud. And, and I, I, I've said before, and listen, my dad's like, he's dealt with a lot of illness, but I've said in the past and I said much more firmly this time, I said, have you thought, cause he's 70 now. I said, have you thought about hearing aids? And immediately he's like, no, my hearing is fine. My hearing is absolutely fine. It's just you and your sister, you don't enunciate and it's hard to hear.

Now, about five seconds later, my sister's mom, my ex-stepmom says something. My dad's like, what'd you say? I can't hear anything you're saying. And then he talks about all his employees and how they they seem to struggle to like he's always telling them they need to enunciate more because he can never understand what they're saying oh god and so i i i really go for the fences i go okay dad because he's really into science like i don't know he knows like material science like more than the layman. He likes science. Yeah. I said, okay, then I said, okay, thanks. If I'm a scientist and I go, no one has ever complained about me being too quiet

or enunciating except for you. What should my takeaway be from that analysis? And, and he goes, okay, this is before I before he said what to 10 people. He was like, okay, but if I can hear everyone except for you, what should be my takeaway? And I said, okay, dad, I hear where you're coming from. How about this? I will work to enunciate more and you try hearing aids for a day. He immediately shuts back down and goes, no, I don't need hearing aids. for a day yeah he immediately shuts back down and goes no i don't need hearing aids and i'm like well we've we've we've hit an impasse yeah i mean he did offer up almost everyone in his life currently as talking too quietly yes so so yeah so then i i walked around campus I had like I told you I do these mints now they're 2.5 milligrams but

pot makes me a little I think a little more like susceptible to emotion but I'm walking around this campus and I haven't been back since I graduated 2011 and I am like struggling to breathe

every place I go there's I'm like, I'm like struggling to breathe. I'm struggling to breathe. Every, every place I go, there's, you know, a hundred memories of like, I, oh, there's where I met some of the people in my grade. There's where we, we like worked on this scene. There's the room I went to every morning to like sing. There's, there's where I always saw the alligator as I went to every morning to like sing there's uh there's where uh uh I always saw the alligator as I walked to class and it's surreal because Miami has a lot of money they

have built a shitload and in fact I went to go to my my theater department which was a huge building that I also lived in for about two years and it was demolished it It's entirely gone. The whole building is gone. So I'm just like walking around and I'm just like, I haven't felt, that feeling of like, oh my God, this was 12 years ago. I can still remember it.

I can still remember. I saw a stairwell where I had like an existential crisis. I saw, you know, this place where I heard this bad news, all these views, all these perspectives. And I felt like, fuck, I'm old. I once was young. I'm like dying. I wish I could go back I wish I had done this I wish I had done that and it really was just a mindfuck man I could have just walked around

all day by myself that's so strange though I understand the thing of like going, revisiting places you've been in the past and having a strong emotional response i definitely had that experience but it never flips over for me in terms of i wish i could go back it's always like no this is definitely better like where i am in life because but maybe that's i mean i don't

know it took me a long time to feel like i know who i am and i still don't you know and we know none of us really do but i think like i think of like anytime i'm having those kind of things i'm like oh i was in this thing i didn't really like doing and like i was just kind of like trying to you know do the right thing and I don't know like I always feel like when I'm revisiting those past things I was like I feel like I'm more full person now

than I did then I mean it makes sense because you're like what you're 12 years older than me it makes sense well you might have more perspective yeah yeah yeah no but I think it's like, to your point, it's like, I didn't know who I was. And I think about, you know,

I feel a degree of sadness of like, almost everyone from my college, we fell out of touch. And I think about, I think about, oh, if I had been a more, you know, again, I've, I've, I've all sorts of like stresses and anxieties and, and my mind gets stuck on things and I work too much, but I think, oh, I know myself so much more now. I wish I could bring who I am now into the opportunity of like going to this event and being with this group of

people. I wish I could go to a football game as a freshman now, because now I know, oh, you know what fucking Jamarco get drunk, dude. Who cares if you work on your singing tomorrow morning. And again, a lot of ways I'm still similar in that like you know i'm still a workaholic i really struggle but especially because of tova i'm like i am more able to take some moments off and i go back and i'm like oh man i should have like gone out i should have gone to that weird frat party in the miserable time and like and like got rejected by a girl i i tried to hit on and i should have gone to a bar and gone to a club and uh all that all that stuff i i and you know it's it's like you go like oh well i can apply these lessons to my life now um but yeah and i i have to say i hope

this doesn't hurt your feelings but i I do think, um, knowing you and I've, I've known you since 2015, um, you, even in that amount of time have been like, it's a huge difference in how you interact with people and how you, you, you know know like before truly you were so focused on like work stuff like that it like in interacting with you everything was built around that so there's such a wall up of like you know connecting with you truly like it took me a long time to like feel like i really knew who you were so i do i can see how you've gotten much better at that more naturally like late like since i've known you because i can see you meet new people now and it's i can feel that there's a huge difference of when i was meeting you and getting to know you in 2016. so i can only imagine that that has softened since when you're a little bit younger it was

even more intense possibly i'm glad we can talk about that on the podcast that I'm being paid to do for work. Ever since you started this podcast, I know you now. So it was, you know, I still got the dinner with my dad and this whole crew and i feel uh uh just anxious man my dad is just you know what i don't know i don't know if they're all coming to my comedy show tonight which you know that do you know if anyone is or or you're just my sister is and i mean it sounds like her her grandma is a huge fan but like if it's all of them and my dad that's gonna make me sick because this is i mean listen her side of the family it's all sweet it's just dynamics and this theater is like um like the size of like the pit loft oh my god it was so funny stressful i'm backstage i'm backstage and

like the ticket counts have been fine you know i've been pushing it but you know who knows it's hard sometimes you're like maybe i don't have an audience in miami who knows but i'm in the green room and one of the comments comes back goes like it's looking good out there and i was like oh really well hell yeah i walk out on stage no no it's like 18 people tops oh yeah and i just felt you know i wasn't i wasn't like bummed they were fantastic this amazing space where 18 people it feels like enough but i just like to me i was like this is is this killing it yeah you know for this space yeah and one other thing that happened so i'm leaving the graduation venue and it's packed everyone's pouring out and. And a little, not little, I would guess 16, 15, 16 comes up to me and it's like, oh, could I take, I'm a big fan. Can I take a

picture with you? And, you know, I, she has me sign the, the graduation pamphlet and then takes a picture with them. And I do that thing i kind of look to see if any any of my family or not single one was facing that direction man i listen that sucks because you really want to get like that is a cool thing to have happen you know i told the story i told the story before about that the one of the earliest times i was going out on a date with nicole was right after that bachelorette show and we were meeting and we went to get on the subway at 42nd street times square and there was a group of people that came running up to me who had just been at the show and they were like and it was

like nicole didn't really know me at that point. She hadn't seen the show yet. She hadn't seen how bad that show was. So it was just one of those things where you're like, oh, yeah, you know, this happens sometimes. It never happened again, and it just never happened since. No, it happens more with Titanic because it's like the theater's right across the street from the subway.

But, yeah. So funny. The graduation was, as you expect, pretty boring. But you know what? It made me, again, these are kind of stoned thoughts at the time, but everyone's watching the video montage. There were soldiers that came out and they did like, you know, someone saying the national anthem or whatever.

And I'm watching them like cheer for the university of Miami and they're all wearing the colors and they're all blah, blah, blah. And I'm at the side. So I kind of can kind of see it kind of a special kind of view. And I'm like, oh my God, this, this this is like in a way it feels like they're preparing them for the blind patriotism of like being an american like it's again you can't you know you can't if you're in the right frame of mind you can look at any group of people facing a speaker and like i just got flashbacks to you know like naz Nazi Germany. Just like you see these people making their hand gesture for the U and singing. And there's soldiers and there's someone yelling anti-Semitic slurs on stage. And you're like, oh my God, this is so similar.

Yeah, it's hard to have any sort of ceremonial thing where it doesn't feel a little weird. any sort of like ceremonial thing where it doesn't feel a little weird because you're like the ceremony is such a weird thing of like why are we doing this because because if it's a ceremony that's something that's done every year this way there's just an implication that there's no thought put into it and so it's just people blindly doing something that they've always done which is weird you know what i mean like it's like very wait, why are we doing it this way? Why is this happening? You know? And so I can often feel like that.

I feel similar. It feels, it's like, it's not like it's real Nazism. And it's such a weird event because every member of the audience really only cares about 10 seconds of the event that they're here yes yes yes yes well it's like what it's like so often weddings too like you'll go to a wedding and you'll be like you'd be like no one thought about any of this they'll be like like they'll be like they they put this all together very quickly so they can have this party and it feels it's just weird know, it's just like a weird thing that like,

you're like, well, this is what happens at weddings. And really no one cares about until they're going to cast. Do you know what I mean? Like no one really cares until it's happening until the end of it. So. Do you, do you remember your graduation? Did you go to either? I didn't go to grad school. Um, cause I was booked and blessed. Um, so I had the job to go and do, um, I didn't, um, by the way, I've never heard you say the phrase booked and blessed.

And I have to feel like you have heard people say, Oh, I, I am picking up on so many gay say, I was just telling them, I was just telling them a Titanic. I was just telling them last night. It's so funny.

Um, cause they were joking about something and they're like, Russell, you must pull up on. I was like, I was like, Oh, I noticed the other day,

Nicole was kind of like talking sternly to the cat and in my head I said yes drag him like in my head I was just like filling in what someone would say in the show and I just was like yes drag him

oh my god that is so fucking funny. So, no, I've never actually said booked and blessed until right now, but yes, absolutely, that is something I have picked up. So, no, so I didn't go to grad school, and then I did go to undergrad, but truly i don't really fucking remember anything about it it was not it was not very impressive to me it was in like a bad gym you know i didn't love it yeah it's it's uh i don't know i just i i i just can't get excited about that kind of thing i just don't connect i mean mean, you go to concerts, so you know what it's like to connect

with like musically a group of people. But like for the guys of like, we went to this, I just can't help it. I'm too cynical. I look at this college and I see this like crazy new buildings they built and the new bridge

and the house that the head of the school stays in. And I'm just like, man, everyone's getting fucking scammed. Everyone's getting scammed. They were charging for like food and drink at, at the graduation thing. And I'm like, can you give us a fucking break?

No, that's crazy. I mean, they, that it is so hard to not be incredibly cynical about all colleges. I just feel like, i don't know i just really turned a corner where i have like very little respect for those institutions and i would it would be really hard to be like yes you should definitely go if i had a shot you know what i'd be

like no don't go like who cares do you mean like we'll find someone that knows someone and that's how you'll get a job because i i don't know. I mean, depending on what they want to do, I guess it just feels very like everyone I know that I talk to on a daily basis does nothing with their degree that they spend tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on. of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on and and to kind of see the people that like then benefit from that system of just kind of being there for decades long these fucking losers like these fucking losers that run those things like i think of like some of the high high academic type people at my undergrad and they were fucking losers do you know i mean like they live in these small college towns and they just you know and there's so much money i remember there was like you know like there was like a teacher who i don't know what it was but he like he he was the reason i went to this college he like you know at audition, he like talked to me like really bluntly,

but like he seemed like a brilliant, like a creative mind. And I, there's always been a part of me, like he basically became friends with like some of the kids. It was one of these fucked up things where he was like friends with some of the students. Yeah.

Not in a bad way. I mean, you know, this happens. This happens in college. Yeah. But like there was some kind of rift with us. And I think the big thing was like, which, you know, I'm sure it was annoying. But when I went to the school, I said,

I have this voice teacher at home. I want to keep studying with her. Is that okay? And he was like, yes, of course. And then I got to school and they were like, you can't be studying with another voice teacher while you're doing our program. How would they even how would they even know do you know what i mean like yeah i told them they didn't this was like this is where i'm like man someone need to put me an

institution i would go to these uh practice rooms these you know uh sound sort of soundproof booths that you'd sweat tremendously be boiling hot hot. And what I would do, because I was so anxious about like getting tattled on, like they implied like they might kick me out, that I would put up a blanket over the little window. Oh my God, Russell, I did this for probably the whole fucking years because I was so terrified. They kind of implied they would kick me out.

Oh my God. And I would be sweating even more and I would do like hour two hour long lessons and again it's like you know it was obsessive and at one point I was doing one hour Mondays two hours Fridays and spending a fortune and it it was it was not good. However, this program was not that good either. And this teacher kind of fell out with me. I, I always remember distinctly, he was Jewish, and he was also a chef, and he would invite all the Jewish classmates and people he liked to his house for the Jewish holidays. And he didn't invite me. And, you know, it was fucked up. It was fucked up. And he took it out on me in other ways, too. And I look back on it, and I'm like, that's a 50-year-old tenured professor.

Why don't you fucking lace up your shoes and, yeah, am I a little bit of a weird 18-year-old? But fucking, like, grow the fuck up. Grow the fuck up. He's a fucking bum. He's a loser um the um the yeah i i i felt more strongly about my undergrad kind of i i only liked a few of the people in undergrad like professors um but again i was in music school and i shouldn't have been grad school i was i i liked more of the people but it was because also it was a free program. So that does change how you view the thing.

I was like, I'm getting paid to go here. So it's, you know, it's less of a, I felt less like fuck off kind of thing, you know? That's pretty wild. You got paid. You got paid. You know, those acting programs are like that, some of them though you

know like i mean it's amazing i mean it wasn't much let me tell you but um but um i was thankful for that you know but yeah it was the thing of like when people were professors were petty you'd be like i remember one time in undergrad i was taking two i was taking you know because i was a music ed major so i had two different education classes one was like uh teaching young children general music kind of class and one was teaching opera the children um both things that i do not do anymore but um the teaching to opera class at least we went out into schools to like like do it like give the presentations that we were learning and blah blah and um i remember one time i had to give a presentation at the school and it conflicted

with one of my general music classes. And I went to the professor and I was like, okay, so I'm supposed to be teaching this 45 minute lesson at a nearby school this day. So if I can change my five minute presentation in this general music class that I was going to give to other people in the class, not to real kids. And it was a five. I was like, if I can just switch with someone and do a different day so I can go and do this thing. And he's like, that's not going to work for us. And I was like, so you as the person who's teaching me music education, think it's more beneficial for me to have a five minute lesson to a bunch of 21 year olds, or I could teach a 45 minute lesson too. It just was like, what are, what is

the goal here? Do you know? It's just's just like it just it just is a constant reminder it's never really about like bettering it's just like all of these people's egos and and also it's just so they they can keep a job and just so that they can have food and and they can live in these shit hole towns and like you know keep their little power in this little community it's just of course tenure tenure is like this whole thing where again i don't it's like it's beneficial in some ways of course teachers you know there's lots of tremendous teachers out there who protects them but then you have these like these nightmare horrible teachers we had this teacher and he taught he taught movement and like everyone like jokingly they're like you know he's no he's no good and it's like and you're not gonna

get rid of him because everyone here is paying fifty thousand dollars a year to prepare them for their lives yeah what is this and everyone's joking and joking um i remember there was this there was this especially with the the arts there was this woman, and she was a dancer, and she got on to So You Think You Can Dance. In the same year as her sister, older, who was also tremendous. And they said, no, you can't do it, because you're in the ensemble of Hello Dolly. And, you know, it's this kind of stuff where we're like i i i understand like i think

very often about like it would be tough to to teach a good acting program if people are are actively pursuing the industry because yeah you you you need time to learn things and grow but unfortunately that's but that's what they're they're there to do so you're like if they book it then done you're you've like you teach someone who's not booking it you know like yeah i always said it's crazy like especially in miami you know it's not new york or la or chicago but they film shit all their time why would you not have kids at least starting in junior year fucking go audition any chance it gets learning about the fucking

world? And having to have to make those decisions of like, do I want to take this thing right now? That's a real decision of like, do I want to take this opportunity? Do I think that saying this other thing is going to be, you know,

you're not always going to be right, but they should have practice having to make those decisions. I, I remember the, the teacher I was talking about that, that, uh, it was not very good. He directed our senior showcase, which again, this is like another thing, uh, where they gave it to him because he was tenured, even though this is like the moment for us to get an agent or a manager. Yeah. So I wanted to do this monologue from the office, which at the time was not hacky,

but cool and innovative. And it was this, I don't know if you remember this. I just found it. It goes like, I love babies. I think they're beautiful in all sorts of different ways. I try to pick up and hold a baby every day if possible because it nourishes me. It feeds my soul. And he just talks about babies. Yeah. And I, I said, this is what I, one of the pieces I'd like to do.

And my professor was like, you know, you're just not really like a comedy person. You know, I go out there and like, tell people like, you know, I can be funny. I'm working on it. Let me show you what I've been working on. So, you know, you want to stick more to like, you know, drama stuff. And, and it was very funny because basically what I did, I kept fighting and it was a fight. And then we got to do a presentation for like this, the school, the conservatory, and I got to do the monologue and it, you know, if I'm being honest, it killed and, and I got to do it in the, in the thing. But like, that's the kind of insightful people we're talking about.

You might think I'm a bad comedian. No one thinks I'm a better dramatic actor. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, I will say that I always found people that would like, surprisingly, like I was very frustrated with undergrad, but I did find like a couple of people that like were really level headed. And like two of which were one,

there was the opera director. I was basically in this class that she taught and it was like all arias. And then like halfway through the class, she realized that was funny. And she let me do monologues and stuff instead of opera arias, which I was like the class she realized that was funny and she let me do monologues and stuff instead of opera arias which i was like good for her to be like this is not the curriculum like i should be i should have to be singing arias like here but but it was like truly like no this will serve him better you know like this is a performance class and like like so that

was nice that was like oh okay and then also my voice teacher too was really sweet he's dead now but he was an old wrestling man and he saw me in a play and then the next lesson he brought me in and he did not sing and he told me i should stop doing music education and i should be an actor i was like, oh, that's nice. It is very funny that that's your takeaway, that every singing teacher in the world told you to stop singing. And I was like, it was just that I was just such a true actor,

you know? No, yeah, they were like, okay, stop singing. And stop doing this. At least it wasn't like you should be like a physicist or something yeah i guess i never thought of it that way that they were all literally like stop singing arias stop singing arias for me please Yeah, it's, I don't know. I think the thing that I take away from college, and I don't know what to do with this, where it's like, I guess the regrets I have or the feelings of like,

oh, I should have done this or I should have gone out more. It's like, I guess you learn that in college. Like, that's what it's for. You're not like, you know, I think there's a fantasy. And I have this fantasy with all sorts of things, whether it's starting in New York or starting in stand-up or starting at college where I'm like, oh, if I could go back now with my mind, I could have done so much better. And I guess that's just natural. You know, of course I know now. Of course.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's hard. It's hard. Oh, go ahead. No, I just like to look back now, you know, in five years and be like, oh, I have known. Yeah. That's why I think like, I don't know.

That's why, that's one of the reasons I've always been skeptical of like all institutions like marriage is because I think if you look back like two years ago, even I'm like, Oh, what the fuck was I thinking about? I was an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why it's like so weird when people are so weird about when things change, like when they're like, you know, cause that's why,

that's why I really struggle in the modern world because uh things change so quickly and people be like oh they're changing all these words you're like yes we've always done that and like you just have to like you have to be cool with things always changing because it's it's so hard not to truly feel bothered by it because i there's moments all the time where stuff happens where you're like i don't know i feel like an old person curmudgeon but you're like if you embrace that curmudgeoness like you feel so old so quickly because you're like there's just so many things that i'm wrong in my thinking about right now just because that's how they are in the world and that's how we've always accepted it and then that changes and then you're like oh well are you how open am i going to be able to be to all those changes or am i going to be like now this is the way i knew it you know like so it's really hard to like

balance all that there's some really great twitter like i don't know if you've ever seen them where some guy goes like the history of kids don't work hard enough these days. Yeah. And they show these, these, uh, articles, uh,

dating back to like the 1800s of different times that adults have been like these kids these days, they just don't want to work. And I think what's amazing is how people, how do they get to that age? And I guess we'll find out when we're, you know, in our fifties, how does that get happening? It's already happening. Do'll find out when we're, you know, in our 50s.

It's already happening. It's already happening. Do you know what I mean? Like, you'll talk to someone our age, and they'll be like, they'll talk about a younger person, a Gen Z person, and be, you know, and you're like, it's already happened. Like, it's already, like, you're already going down that path, you know? I think what's different, though, is that, really,

kids are not working these days. And that's what's unique about our scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This time we're correct. Well, I think this is where we can at least close this extra thing. So let's just talk. You know, it's been... When did we start the

Downside? March of 2021? Yeah. It's coming up. It's over a year and a half. Oh my God. What are the... Last time we did downsides of doing the podcast or each other. Downsides.

Any downsides about me you want to share this rare opportunity where i'll take criticism no i don't i don't think i have any about you i think um i feel like i i feel like we've we've had a good stride in our communication and and you know and we're we're in the thick of it in terms of these amps and doing what we're doing right now. We are in the thick of it. I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, oh, it's actually like better in

some cases than the once a week kind of thing. Yeah. But it is very like I feel like we've both been navigating it and trying to make the best of it and like still have a good time and a quality time and come up with good things um yeah and i feel like i feel proud of what we've done in that way i'm glad i it makes me want to there's sometimes i've oh you know, once Amp, whenever Amp is done, or maybe Amp lives on forever, but, but it makes me like go like, you know, not, not that I want to be Joe Rogan, but, but like, you know, he does, he clearly like does episodes that are like the for himself episodes where he has on you know like three of his friends they

they get drunk they they get stoned they talk and it's like you know it's i'm sure if you're like a real fan of these dudes it's fun and i'm like maybe once a month or you know again this is all like once once there's more kind of an income to support it, but like maybe once a month, uh, one of the four episodes a month or, you know, every three months, some kind of bonus one where we get to just,

it be us. And maybe we have, you know, Douglas or Chris or Jessica or just like a space where like, we can not worry about having a guest with, with a following or just friends. And, and it could be fun.

Yeah, yeah. By the way, I saw Chris today. Did you know that? How's he doing? I saw him two days ago. Oh, he did? Where? In LA.

He helped me. We went out to breakfast. Oh, right, right, right. He's great. He's great. Seeing him for the show. Can I tell you something um unrelated chris i this is the weirdest thing john marco i was been walking to like go to the theater early because we could be there a little early tonight there's a new york times thing happening

but um just humble brag um but um i like walked here and i don't know where i am like i really thought i was going along the right way and i have i have like in my mind i'm like on the street where i'm standing where the theater should be and this is not the theater so i'm like very turned around and i'm like questioning reality because i'm like i i i should be there but let me look what happened to me oh i see what i did okay i'm i have to i'm i'm not on the road i'm not by the heart by the park. I have to cut through the park. Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay, sorry. You listen, the city is big.

It really drew me though, because you take a turn and you're like, okay, I'm going to be right here. I've been walking where I need to walk. And then it was nothing I'd ever seen. It was like walking through the wardrobe in Narnia and being like, what, where am I? Sorry. I don't know if you see the sign, it's like, welcome to Pennsylvania. Yeah. Oh, come on.

What is the New York Times doing tonight? Well, nothing really with me, but like, I think they've just interviewed and are doing some profile on the creators and then they're, they're wanting to like observe slash film or take pictures of our, like our warmup, like our, our, our sound chapter. So we just have to go in earlier than we would for those pictures. I saw that out magazine, I was doing a feature and they said you're the number one gay performer of 2022. Fuck you. Well, that's

still feeling good. Last night was good? Last night was great. Really great crowd last night. Yeah, the crowd's been great. It's a lot of fun to do. You know? High energy.

Lots of fun. But it's a bit tiring. Because it's like non-stop. You know? Yeah, yeah. Well, Tove and I, she's coming to miami tonight oh yeah uh oh i gotta get a present for tova i wonder what's right right right yeah luckily thank god tova and i think we agreed because we have so many presents to get we're gonna do like

house purchases yeah that's smart That's what we do. Yeah, I mean stuff Tova needs she needs there's the next volume of Dragon Ball Z Super Volume 13. She's hoping for that. Okay, you're giving me presents for you.

I know this trick. I mean, you've known her for a long time. Here's what I was thinking. I was thinking of either a gift certificate to a really good restaurant that's up her alley in terms of no cilantro kind of thing, or I was thinking some sort of mani-pedi or like massage type of situation. Ooh, I think massage is really good. Do you know, does she have a standard place that she likes? No, I don't think I've known her to get a massage other than when we went to the spa thing

together last year. It's hard to do in New York. The only thing that's hard about it is you want to send someone somewhere good, but I don't have spots. Does that make sense? Yeah, you want to ask someone. Some great gifts.

She had a client. She got her a really nice cutting board where that stores the knives inside the board and it said Tova on it. Oh, that makes sense. She got, but once she got, hopefully I'm not freaking out, someone gave her, it seemed like

it was a gift certificate for the restaurant, but it just covered the fee to make a reservation at the restaurant so we got there and like we thought the meal was going to be covered but it was just like the 20 for the reservation that was covered and it was like a it was a real bummer no um but you I mean what else have you done together there's like massage is great

you know you could do a step up and go super personal but I think massage no one says no to a massage that's true um we know she's allergic to cats last time she went to your place she couldn't breathe for like three days.

Yeah, that's true. I'm not going to cry. I walked the wrong direction. Fuck me. You are... I know. I'm trying to be like a good person. I'm not paying attention to where I'm going

because I'm trying to be more concentrated on this conversation um it's like as soon as i try to text when i'm doing the amp and like i swear like all right yeah yeah you can't do it yeah because i know i know i can tell when you're doing it and i'm sure you can tell when i'm doing it and it really is so noticeable it really is like such a dumb fucking voice that you get when you're trying both of us when you're trying to do anything else and talk it's like um oh yeah um i know you're trying to take a long time to ask the next question and it's so fucking obvious i hear toba do it all the time and if I call her out I swear if I ever installed a camera like a secret camera in our home

it would just be to catch her when she lies and goes I wasn't texting it would just be for that that I could be like I have video footage of you texting while you said that you lied to me but I do it when my parents call me

there's times I'm like, I should be closer to my parents. And they'll talk to me and I'm like, yeah, I'm intelligent enough to scroll Twitter and listen. And then five minutes later, like, I'm going in and my mom's like, yeah, and that's why I might only have a couple years left to live.

And I'm like, oh, what the fuck did I just miss? Yeah. Wait, I can't remember. Did I tell you on the podcast, when I talked to my mom, she did I just miss? Yeah. Wait, I can't remember. Did I tell you on the podcast, when I talked to my mom, she did that thing again? Where? What?

Oh, yeah. But say it again. I think you texted it or told me. So say it. Oh, yeah. So I was like very busy. You know, I'm doing these things. And sometimes I take these amps in between two shows.

So it was like I had just done the amp with you i had 10 minutes before i had to be like signing in to do the next show and she called and like it was fine it was very quick conversation but i was like okay i really gotta go you know and then she a couple more things to tell me and then i was like i'm so sorry i just i really have to go because i have, and then she had a couple more things to tell me. And then I was like, I'm so sorry. I just, I really have to go. I have to grab food before I'll be back in five minutes. And so she goes, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I get it. You're so busy.

And then I was like, okay, well, I'll talk to you soon. She goes, oh, did I tell you? Donna's husband died of an overdose. And I was like, you can't start that conversation at the very end. There's no part of the world that I can't just be, I have to have some sort, you know, I can't just be like, gotta go.

I'm like, oh my God. You know, we've known this woman for, I've known this woman for 30 years. Like, so you're like, okay, let's dive into that, you know? And then you're on stage saying these gays are trying to murder me, and deep inside you're like, oh, my God, life is so fragile. John, something better than overdose. For me, the thing my dad does, and I man it kills me and again i really you know many

years ago i resolved like okay nothing's changing here nothing's changing but i will be with my dad and he just goes like son getting older sucks getting older sucks nothing I love saying that. And I'm just like, man, I got it. I heard you loud and clear. Yeah. The last thing I need more in life of is dread. Yeah.

No, I know. And I know that a lot of people say that. But I'm also like, I think in general, a lot of people say that but i'm also like i think in general a lot of people complain i mean i'm hey i might talk past where we complain but i'm actually not really fancy myself like the complainer and real like like uh you know like this kind of in every like you know non-fun way yeah like Yeah. Sometimes the most cool personality in life is to

kind of complain about stuff. Be like, you know? And so I feel like that when you get older, that's just heightened by your already not fun. For me, there's two different versions

of complaining. And one I do enjoy, which is you're trying to make fun of it. You're like, oh my... That's why people like Larry David. And people think that they're Larry David, but they're actually very insufferable.

That's what I mean. It's like, he's having fun with the notion of complaining and it's like isn't this a fun little thing that's annoying or that's we can all relate to and it's like oh but like there is something where some people think that that is what they're doing but in reality it's just like everything that they have to do they're like like everything that they have to do they're like they're like annoyed by and not in a fun way it's just like in a you know i don't know very like because i also have noticed this that some people um can only really relate through complaining about stuff and that's a very real thing but sometimes you're like okay like i'm thinking one person

that i like see on occasion and it's like all they can do is complain about everything and in a way that it's just like well sometimes things are fun you know like sometimes sometimes it's not all so bad you know and it's always like oh and then get your word back you know that extra tax or something like that where you're like yeah okay you know whatever um yeah yeah yeah um it's hard it's hard to connect as human beings so that's what they found works for them. So tell me, how do I get my dad to wear hearing aids? What tact would you take? I think everyone should start, like, I don't know,

because I feel like at this point, he's not someone that's going to be wrong about it, you know? Yeah, it's like there's an inception type thing it's got to be his idea yeah i i i want to i i feel like he will have that moment that like babies do who can't hear and get the device implanted yeah they'll be like oh my god i can commute because like it's unbearable i mean it, it prevents conversation from happening. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's brutal. It's brutal. And I don't know, maybe I'll get hearing aids too.

Yeah, you could do that. You could say you got them. I think, yeah, you're almost like you have to do like a you have to do like a plan sort of thing where everyone in his life just like starts kind of talking quieter around him so that he like and then like you program his TV and stuff to be lower volume

so like eventually he just has to like deal with it you know just like yeah turn the down on all the devices you have to like truman show it and like get everyone interacting with his life to agree to be quieter so that he's like okay i gotta do this you know it's just so funny it just feels like listen my hair it's it's thinning to a degree i worry about this bald spot i hate it i hate it but like and clearly like like hearing aids for him like you know the the way they look

it's like it's something to him that's like that's reside that's the end but they're so small now you can get them that you don't even notice them you them they're so small and my mom had to get one because she has something like a benign tumor so she's got a hearing aid I don't know dude my mom's having just a tough year just like

you hit a certain age fuck it's tough that's why I feel like as much as I complain and don't worry for the listeners, this is not going to become a positive podcast. But I know that like, you gotta, you gotta work on the way you handle life

because if you don't, then it's going to get real tough with medical stuff and you will be insufferable because you just haven't worked on like dealing with things yeah i don't know getting old stuff as my dad says it sucks son no one ever tells you and i'm like really you've told everyone times yeah since i was terrified of birthdays i always think of there's this monologue in The Golden Girls where Sophia is basically dealing with some dementia stuff. losing parts of her like, like, you know, like basically being like, first, it's like your back and your things and like, things that I used to be able to do physically. And then it's friends

that you've had for decades, you know, your whole entire life that are taken away. And then she's like, now they're trying to take away my memory, my thing. And it's just like, oh, God. I think about that all the time. I think about that. I had a nightmare. I was on, I had a real, like, stage nightmare of, I was on stage and I couldn't remember any of my bits. And, like, a comedian in the audience tried texting me a joke. Oh, my God.

And I still couldn't remember how it went. And, you know, I have fears. I have dementia fears now. Oh my God. And I still couldn't remember how it went. And I, you know, I have fears. I have, I have dementia fears now. I gotta, you know,

hopefully it's not dementia. My dad just can't fucking hear. Yeah. Well, we're, we're reaching the end here. This is, this is,

we're going to put this out. As I told you, the, the, the reason we're putting out this episode on Tuesday as a regular feed episode, first of all, if you go to the Patreon, you can now listen to, this is a new Patreon thing, we're going to put all of our live shows, audio and video, onto the Patreon. So we did a live show with Dusty Ray Bottoms, and you can now listen to it and hear it over on the Patreon.

I'm going to post clips, but you you got to join the Patreon to do it. Again, it's only $5 a month. You get all this bonus old shit, new shit, video, audio of my clean album special, and all these live episodes. And speaking of live episodes, we have one January 15th at 10 p.m. at Sesh Comedy Club. Tickets are only $10. Last one sold out. We haven't announced the guest yet, but it'll be great. And I guess to all the listeners.

Wait, sorry. When's the date of that again? Geez. January 15th, Sunday at 10 p.m. Oh, yeah. I got that. I got that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great. Good to know. Thanks. Thanks, buddy. But I guess, what do you want to say to our listeners? I want to say to our listeners? I want to say for listening, follow you, follow me

at Russell J. Daniels. And if you're in New York, come and see Titanic, the musical, at the Dale Roth Theater. And then say hi, say that you heard about it from the downside. I've been delightfully at the Dale Roth Theater. And then say hi. Say that you heard about it from The Downside.

Because I've been delightfully surprised by the people that I've met that do listen. It's always like, oh, I had no idea. So, but yeah, just let me know. Now, just so I know, when you bow at the end of Titanic, do you tell the audience to listen to The Downside? Every night. Every night, every night.

I, I it's there's music playing, so you can't hear me say it, but I am, I am mouthing it and I'm wearing a picture of you as I do it. Good. Well, thank you to our listeners.

Please don't die. We need all of you and join the Patreon. If you can, patreon.com slash downside. Otherwise we, the reason we're doing this episode is because our first episode of the new year is with a New Yorker art critic Jerry Saltz

great guest, we got a lot of great new guests, we got the new studio I'm about to put in lighting, everything's looking up on the downside so don't kill yourselves yet. There is good things to come. Russell, I love you. We love you. I love you too.

Bye.