The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #117 Inner Demons with Jerry Saltz

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Jerry Saltz discusses the downsides of throwing soup at paintings to raise awareness for climate change, how there’s always been and will always be bad art, why he only listens to female comedians, his mom taking her own life when he was 10, the tepid romantic life of long distance truck driving, and assesses Gianmarco’s first assessment of art.  Get tickets for The Downside's live recording in NYC on January 15 featuring Alia Janine here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-downside-with-gianmarco-soresi-live-podcast-recording-tickets-471811670407 You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Listen to our live weekly show on AMP! Follow Jerry Saltz on Instagram and Twitter. Read Jerry's book, Art is Life, here. 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

This is Jerry Saltz. I'm the senior art critic for New York Magazine. That's so crazy. And what I'm in shock about with both of you is how on earth had you ever heard of me, an art critic, because I don't know your two worlds. Sure. And I love it from afar, but nobody cares about art critics. So how the hell have you heard of me? Yeah, you go. Well, I've seen on Instagram.

I've seen some of your things on Instagram, some of your videos and things. And we also, well, we wanted to broaden the people that we had on. Because sometimes it gets too into we're just talking comedy stuff, and that can get pretty boring. I don't know if I'd use that word. Well, maybe not for you, but for me, it gets pretty boring. But I knew you from Twitter. You know, you're a social media star in your own right.

But comedy, it seems to me, particularly your field, is kind of like the avant-garde right now. Although I would be honest to say that, frankly, I will only listen to female comedians right now. Really? I'm sorry. Russell actually takes the opposite approach today. I think that men, we already know what we think. We think of three things and three things only. If you're a straight male, you think of SEX.

You think of boring things like traffic, traffic patterns. And then all day long you waste because men don't have an inner life at all because we don't have bodies. We've never been forced to look to our left or right when opening an apartment door like every woman has. So we'll think of abstract things like, is there time travel? So I'm only interested in short to hear from the 51% we've never heard from

in the history of the world and to hear women the 51% we've never heard from in the history of the world, and to hear women's secret lives. Men have no secrets, and it's just bro and terrible. I hate us. Well, for those of you who haven't turned off the podcast already based on that assessment of men sharing their inner lives, my name is Jamarcus Araizi. Welcome to The Downside.

I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels. Hi. We're here with Jerry Seltz. I'll tell you, the other reason we know about you is our producer, Paige Esachika, works at, let me just pull up the exact gallery she works at, which I believe you have taken to task, perhaps. Oh, no. But you also, it's a- But she likes you. David Zwirner. Oh, I was just communing with her on DM,

and I actually just wrote her today saying, do I know you? I feel like I know you. She works at David Zwirner, one of the mega gallery death stars that have operations in as many as 22 cities. But I have to say that i've never missed a show in a mega gallery and david zwerner may have won the mega wars between them all for now

but your listeners may not even care about what i'm saying no well we will first i do want to real quick what do you, list everything you know about like contemporary art? I'll go first. Banksy, the banana tape to the wall and I just saw

the thing about the ATM where you put in your card and it shows your bank statement. What do you know? Two of those three things. Two of those three things. I don't know what that is.

That's, that's it. Yeah. I feel deep shame around, Deep shame? Not deep. You can't sleep at night? You're like,

I don't know any other contemporary artist other than Banksy. Light, moderate. Well, I feel, right now I feel more shame around you that I don't know much about it.

I don't, it's not something that's in my world or... That's Russell. I feel deep cynicism about all art, including my own. But I see that ATM thing, and I think I have mixed feelings. Well, we all have mixed feelings about everything.

When you look at a Rembrandt, you will often quietly think to yourself, it's kind of brown. It's very brown. I'm looking at the naughty bits in other paintings or my reflections in this. So being of two minds is a very human thing. I have no degrees. I never went to school. People that have heard me, unfortunately, have heard me say this a lot

and listen to this podcast at two times the speed because I'm a slow talker with a terrible Midwest accent. I sound like a duck. But I would say I was a long distance truck driver until I was 40 and had not started to write and taught myself to write while I was a long distance truck driver. That must have been dangerous. It wasn't. I was... You parked before you did the i thought i was cool i've been on every highway in this country everyone i've seen what's your favorite they are all the exact fucking same

because i learned fuck nothing i i'm sure other people learn a life and a journey and a path. Well, I looked a hundred yards to left and right, saw nothing, hated everyone, thought the world owed me a living, was envious of everything and everybody I saw, thinking, how come I don't have money? How come I don't know how to schmooze? Why are my ankles so bad? Why does everybody get what I want? And finally, by the time I was 40, I thought, nothing on this earth could make me more miserable than how I feel right now. I loved art.

I had started as an artist, and I quit making art for the same reason both of you and all of your listeners will have to confront every night at 3 15 which is you don't really know what you're doing you don't have anything new to say other people have done this you're just faking everyone out you're not cool you don't have you didn't go to the right schools you have bad hair you're too thin you're too fat you're not this you're not just you're perfectly for that just so you know it's it's i looked at both of them and uh and but i these are the and i

want to be a role model for people of what not to do because i listened to those demons and those demons forced me into self-painful exile. I've heard a lot of interviews with you. You love the word demons. And I'm wondering, where did you... I feel like demons would be like someone with a real Catholic upbringing. Well, I'm a Jew, but in any event, I would say, let's change the word to the mean person that lives in your mouth. But you like persona... Do you see it?

The reason I see it as demons, I think it's a good one-word descriptor is because it's part of a cosmic force. It's a universal group mind known. That means every person I say it to knows the icky dark feeling of saying icky dark things to yourself and beginning to believe them do you have a better

word i'd love no i love demons it's more just interesting of like it's more about the way you identify it as like something uh separate from yourself yes that's what i meant by a cosmic force yeah that you can't program out of you i'm 71 71, both of you, and I, this morning, procrastinated. I, too, hated my work. I, too, wanted to call in and go, I can't talk to Jerry Saltz. I can't talk to these people. I don't know what I'm doing. I need to quit. But because we are poor, did not win the lottery. We are damned to never leave work life. I have no way out. You don't retire from art, you see. I'll be, the last thing I do is I'll be in my office dying,

trying to correct a sentence, delete it, try it again, make it work. Would you rather die there or looking at a piece of art? Which of those two? That's really a great question. I guess I should be a little ashamed to say I'd rather die trying to fathom and write about it and put one language into another language and be writing. I'd rather be dying at my desk.

Hopefully it's not like one of those bananas duct-taped to the wall bits. Well, I want to tell you about the banana stuck to the wall uh could you pronounce your name again john marco john marco is describing a work of art from 2017 in which or 18 i'm not sure that the very well known artist um marizio catalan did at the miami art bas, this sort of tent city where billionaires, trillionaires, poor people like you, the art world goes to touch antenna. I want, and I say this all the time, even you losers should be able to make money. I want that. That's the only way i can see who you are yeah um everybody goes there it's a system like america that no one likes but we don't have a better one and it filters

enough money to enough good bad and very bad people that really mediocre people like me can stay in a job. At this art fair, Maurizio Catalan took a real banana, Gaffer taped it to a wall and signed the tape. It was sold for $125,000. And this is where John Marco died, because he became cynical. If you are cynical listeners, a part of you is dying.

That's the theme of this whole podcast. Cynical? I block cynics, okay? I also don't think that John Marco is a cynic. It's a defense. Yes, exactly.

It's a fear. Yes, exactly. It's a total... Wait a second. It's a fear. You love to label yourself this, and it's not you. Because when you really get down to it, there's a lot of non-cynic... He lies. He's lying. You're right.

The cynicism is an inability. It's to see the dark side of things. I feel like I'm fighting nihilism every day of my life. But that's different than nihilism. There's an ocean that's laughing towards me and saying, you know, it's coming. A cynic has given over to it

and there's no sort of duality. It's like, no. They know it. It's done. It's finished. I forgot your first name. Russell. Russell.

See, I've just met, we've met. I love them from afar, Russell and John Marco. So, first of all, cynicism thinks it knows cynics think they know things can i just finish short yeah god she's making it invite them on and then you're like uh cynics i believe in my opinion they i they think they know things and i think john marco in my opinion, they think they know things. And I think, John Marko, that you can't know anything about another person's trauma, feelings, ironies, sincerities, paradoxes, good feelings,

bad. You know, as she said to Jon Snow in the Game of Thrones, you know nothing, Jon Snow. You know nothing. Cynics, if anything, idealists nothing, Jon Snow. You know nothing. Cynics, if anything, idealists are the ones who claim to know things. If we're thinking in terms of religious belief, they claim to know. The cynic goes, you don't fucking know. That's all. But why do you have to be either one of those things? I don't know.

No one knows. Why do you have to be either one of those things? You're putting it into these two camps. Yeah, it's so male. It's so male to only be able to count to two. The first time I've ever been so male in my entire life. You're putting it into these two sort of camps. Yeah, it's so male. It's so male to only be able to count to two. The first time I've ever been so male in my entire life, so I'll take it as a double. You're saying it's mm or mm.

All I want to say about this work of art is that it is an extraordinary... Because it's sold for so much money, that's when art now becomes known to the general public so it is no wonder mr john marco or whatever john carlo john marco john marco see now the listeners hate me um uh no wonder that the public has become unfortunately they see the world the art, which is about communing with ancestors, about cosmic forces, about a space that I think is sacred and has been with us since the beginning, has caused everyone to look through the lens only of the money, which can't help but make you cynical. The an exact one of the most rare works of art because it's a terrible

work of art that made you ask enormous questions let me name the questions before this guy keeps making faces here's the questions why would somebody pay money for this? These are found objects. Where is the idea of skill? Why is this art at all? How is where it is installed, that is, at an art fair, suddenly become very much part, even materially part of the work? And to unpack those questions if you stopped the cynicism and got quiet inside you would accidentally be able to

answer some of the most vexing questions about a category we invented more than a hundred thousand years ago called art if this art was in complete access to the public and was not uh and again i don't know the specifics but i imagine that if you wanted to go see the banana in person you're generally a fairly rich person not at all see there's your cynicism okay it's blocking you listen it's at an art fair people go for free some people pay money there were hundreds of thousands of people there they were in addition of several to own it if your bag and your fetish is about ownership i'll tell you the truth i found it such an interesting bad artwork that i made my own i put a plastic banana on my fridge and taped it and signed his name and it really helped me understand it look

nfts just came along yeah and everybody became cynical me included because of people sold the first one for 39 000 you know people fuck him he made money i didn't as americans we must want money and hate anyone who makes it. That's our job. That's a good job. And I practiced it all day long. Only men got into it for too long. Most of the NFTs are very boring, graffiti-like art.

And so I taught myself to make one. I sold one for $100,000. And I gave all the money away. Well, that's very nice. To Memorial Sloan Kettering and to suicide prevention and to a very small percentage, 10% to Asian hate crimes, especially at that time in 2019 or 20. Point being, by me taking the money out, as painful as that is for me not to have money

because i'm three times your age and i'm still working you do not want to be me listeners you want to be living someplace normal with the dog and children i have no pets i hate children my wife and i are both art critics we work all day every day because we want to i gave the money away because i needed other people to see what i was doing and that's a beautiful thing and certainly suicide prevention they need it from all the people losing money on nfts i'm sure they're working overtime with all that going on but when i see amounts of art going for that amount of money the side of me that's uh feels anti-capitalist goes look at this look at this deformity that's grown off capitalism that a banana is selling for 120. we've indulged the art is again i don't think art is the source of it. I think art is on the sides, and we see the disgusting core of capitalism grow into these horrible fruits of a banana taped to a wall selling for $120,000. So when I see those numbers, and when I see this recent ATM piece, I go, art is just the poison fruit of the capitalist

tree. But that's present in every aspect of American life and also just the fact that you even know are asking him these questions. Doesn't that highlight what he's saying in terms of there's so many things, works of art that none of us are talking about

so at least people hear about it. We're talking about the richest artists in the world. We're talking about the ones that are popular right here's what we're doing we're doing what everybody does right now there's heard journalism there's heard comedians there's heard critics where collectors buy what other collectors have already bought because other collectors like them have bought them newscasters I sit in these green rooms before important important segments on CNN and Fox News and I always ask what are you gonna say about like Trump or the recession or the whatever the depression and they scroll their Twitter and they they go, oh, this looks good.

And I always say, but you're just repeating what somebody like you has already said. Why don't you just say what you really think? Okay, so what you're doing is 1% of what, you're giving 99% of your attention to the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of all creative people who make money. And that's what TV does all day long. That's what politics is now. None of it is real. That's the

game. I think it's fine that you know about Maurizio Catalan, the banana maker, or the latest scheme from the art fair, the ATM machine which shows people's income. And I thought that was not a great work of art, it probably stinks, but I thought, would I have the nerve to put my card in? I asked my wife, and she said, are you afraid you'd be too rich or too poor? What would you be afraid of?

Or would you be proud to be poor? I'm the bigger victim than you. I'm poorer than you. I think I would lean more towards that. I don't think it would be like I'd be embarrassed. But I think I would rather that. How about if I saw your parents' ATM card? You'd be embarrassed.

How about if I saw your parents? I'd be interested'd be embarrassed. How about if I saw your parents'? I'd be interested. I've got to know what my dad's got because I'm very curious. What does he make? I don't know. He is a conundrum. My stepfather, though, I'm sure I would be. It would be embarrassing.

Everybody in the art world comes from the 6%, and everybody listening to this that now hates me, I know I lived on a squat, not a mile from where we're sitting with drug dealer dogs that lived in the hallway drug dealer dogs dogs their dogs patrolled this is during the crack era and I was robbed so many times the best robbery is when they came and they unscrewed the hinges of exactly that kind of New York door.

And I found the door, very carefully placed there, and I went to Avenue A. I lived on Avenue B and 4th Street and went and bought some of my stuff back from the guy. I said, that's mine. How much is it? And he said, oh, it's $25. And I got it. Point being, was there any acknowledgment said, oh, it's $25. And I got it. Point being... Was there any acknowledgement of...

No. Oh, that looks familiar. You walk in, he says, Jerry, your place is beautiful. I lived in a place about this size. Listeners were sitting in a tiny, tiny, shit-hole, beautiful place on the Lower East Side near the Williamsburg Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge.

And I love it here. And this is where some of the most creative life in the history of the United States has ever happened. In the neighborhood we're in, new genres of comedy, songwriting, cooking, making art happened right here in shitholes. So we're talking about money, which brings us further and further and further away from the life of art, the inner life of art. And that's the game right now. Everybody thinks they know because they know what everybody else thinks. But the truth is, if you go to any museum and you get very quiet inside, really quiet, you start to hear things

that you were sort of shocked to hear, good and bad. You find out you didn't like things you thought you liked and vice versa. And again, I don't know. With criticism, here's what I would say. I don't know what fields you're in. I know you're in theater, you're in comedy, I'm in art. Nobody knows about anything outside their own field because I'm a loser and I'm very narrow that way. I should know who I'm speaking to, but because I'm on deadline every day of the year, I write 52 times a year for New

York Magazine and probably thrice a day on my idiot Instagram, which has a half million followers and another half over on Twitter. Every day I get 500 new assholes torn from me. Every day I say something off or wrong or stupid or asshole-ish. We're living in a time of no criticism. Everybody likes everything. Every TV show is good. Every comedy act is good. Every this is good. Every meal is good.

It's disgusting to me. And I think being critical of art is a way Every meal is good. It's disgusting to me. And I think being critical of art is a way of showing our respect. Now, there were two pandemics. I've talked about this. The first was COVID-19 when we went back into the caves and had to rely on our ancient selves of adapting in real time to nothing, to being able to make our, we're making it out of ourselves again. The kitchen, the pharmacy, the bedroom, the studio, the office,

the place where you take care of children and dying grandmothers, they became the same room. That's very ancient. You made stuff out of what was at hand. You should see this room we're in. It's just crappy furniture that they've got jerry-rigged. It's one of my favorite studios I've ever been in. So then came the bigger pandemic that you took part in

because as an immunocompromised person living with somebody with cancer, I could not take part in the second pandemic which was when you all went back out with the angel of death after george floyd was killed now what this forced was every single person the creative field is liberal so to speak we've always talked the talk but we never walk the walk. And so in my world, more women, artists of color, underrepresented, queer, disabled, etc., are taking the field, as are in your and your professions. Every person listening to this, then you have the secret thought. But this is letting in so much mediocrity.

So much of it is shite. And we won't say it's shite. My answer to you is a couple of layers. One is yes, a lot of it is very, very mediocre. But it's no more mediocre than it has ever been 85 of the art made in the renaissance was crapola we just never see it it disappeared 85 of the art that you see in museums and that's pre-screened crapola you think is crap and that's supposedly the best of the best of the best same with netflix if you watch comic specials or you look at theater you're thinking that's crap well

it's never been that much different it's just more black it's more female it's more ecuadoran i'm an illegal estonian immigrant i am one one sitting before you. I am an anchor baby, an actual example of a child born in America to illegal aliens from Estonia, whatever. Yeah. And no Estonian artist could get a negative review right now. What about from you? For me?

Well, Estonian, maybe. I'll tell you what. The other day I wrote about these climate protests by splashing potatoes and mashed potatoes and oil on the glass of paintings. I posted a picture in Vienna of them throwing oil on the Gustav Klimt. And I just said thoughts. And I was an article was written on how I'm against addressing the climate.

Just to raise it, you're now complicit. What I would say to you about it is let the pendulum swing this far for a while. The mediocrity will be on the field, but time always takes care of this faster than you think and there's also a vacuum growing and idiots like you are filling it with your idea of what's good the system broke it's obvious the system is dead it was cracked and broken for so long. But it was too fun to not fix it. When you say the system, you mean art at large. Every system.

Every system. Politics, medicine, economics, religion, every fucking thing. Because it was easy to not fix it. It's easier to click like on your cool post about the Latinx people, or to yell at Jerry for not being gung-ho enough about the the climate protest what did you think of that because it makes me fucking sick to my stomach

that one beauty would attack another and that the subject of the protest doesn't become the climate it becomes the act itself but by your point of the banana earlier if it does get media attention and for the first time people say the word climate change in the first time in a year nobody's ever done that i think attention okay because it gets on the news the guy the guy who burned himself on the stairs of the court there was no videos of that frankly i'm sure that's what he would have wanted, would be a video of a man on fire to fucking get people to start talking. The video I did see was two people throwing tomato soup.

What about you? Everybody clicked like. We all got our panties in a twist. That's good. And we're talking about it again. And I would say Nan Golden, who protested OxyContin and the Sackler name, and there's a brand new film about her protest,

was very focused. They did die-ins at museums with the Sackler name. And they actually, by addressing the problem directly smaller problem but addiction is not that small they actually help change the problem so you i don't care let me just finish this for the listeners if you want to throw shit at paintings and even slice them up be my guest go ahead i'm you asked how i felt about it yeah i would ask you not to do it but if i understand i would i would say that no smeared piece of canvas is more important than the coastline of norway i mean i'm not psychotic yeah so i'm done with this diatribe. I talked for 30 minutes. Should I just leave? No, no.

It was wonderful. You can edit this any way you want. Yeah, yeah. It's just me talking for the whole time and you nodding. Yeah, you have to talk now. No, I'm only allowed to talk 30% of the time. No, stop. But you, but I feel like with the, like, for example,

with the throwing on the painting, I think you do have, you have strong tear-it-all-down tendencies. That's why we're friends. I do sometimes. Let's hear your argument to an older person. Okay, but here's why I actually don't know how I feel about it. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you.

You do. I don't know. Will you let him finish and stop yelling? Listen, I don't think I like it initially. I don't think I like it. I don't think I like it initially. I don't think I like it. And when you say that, oh, it's getting us talking about it, I then have the feeling of like nothing about the way I live my life has changed with hearing about that or hearing about the man set himself on fire, which is deeply upsetting.

Where nothing in my life have I done to change how I'm living or how I'm impacting our environment has changed with either of those examples, which are two very different things. And that makes me sad because you're like, sure, this person setting himself on fire. And so I don't know what either one of those do. What about your feelings of, yeah, tear it all down. Tear it all down. That is what you were defined. I, there is a part of me that likes chaos in terms of of of things but sometimes it doesn't i don't in this case i don't i don't love the i see that and

i'm like that's kind of shitty that's all i really think about it you know i think that we're going to see the climate protests on top 10 lists of our hipsters like us. We'll put that on. I think those artists could get in the biennials and documenta, get a grant. And again, more power to them. I'm fine with that. Listen, destruction is a force. It can be a creative force.

We know that from the beginning of time. So that's not new. And maybe they can make it a creative force. They're now threatening to actually destroy paintings. And that's what the Taliban did with the Buddhas. We always destroy art. It's the first thing we do. And again, to use that percent, about 0.00001% of all the art ever made by our species still exists. All of it. Most of it was destroyed purposely. The first thing armies do is they, you know, knock cross out heads cut off faces it's nothing new uh the cave painters painted over everybody else's cave paintings just like graffiti people and like that okay so i've ruined the podcast no no no no it's fine it's good it's good just to be able to you know we had Jason Zinnemann

Do you know Jason Zinnemann? He's the comedy critic at the New York Times I feel like Any critic I'm going to have on the show We're going to disagree But it's not a disagreement Like Jason Zinnemann, we fought But I wasn't worried about Jason storming out

What was his thing that so bothered you That you made you all fight? If you had to put it on a T-shirt, don't go on. Uh-huh. I think with my critique of contemporary comedy criticism was it was like someone made a musical and there was no singing or music. And people said, whoa, they've reinvented the musical. And I said, no singing or music and people said whoa they've reinvented the musical and i said no they wrote a play and that was my general feeling about a lot of you know all the comedy lists are coming out right now and what's wrong with them by and large where's

their bad taste on it not names but what's the general thing they're doing that you think is off? I'd love to learn. I think I have no problem with what they're doing. People can do whatever art they want. But I think critics who had been bestowed the tastemakers of stand-up comedy were being so enticed by the shiny different thing that they had abandoned the art form of stand-up comedy. And sure, you could call anything stand-up comedy. You could call someone singing on the train stand-up comedy if you want to. Were there any women or comedians of color

that just did stand-up on any of the lists? Oh, for sure. There's some phenomenal. I think it was the same debate that people had with Nanette. I don't know if you followed the Nanette. It was a... I thought it was a phenomenal one-person show they put on Netflix.

They bill it as stand-up because it's an easier category for people to digest. And a lot of people had a very strong reaction to Nanette. I thought Nanette was a good piece of art. would you call yourself a purist no i know i don't think so so you're not started in theater so i think i'm a little bit looser than the the typical born and bred stand-up comedian you're not trying to protect

or define categories is what you're saying no i'm looking at like the i'm looking at the comedian who's a good stand-up comedian the sense of the structure of jokes and turns and who's good oh i mean and you can't remember as soon as i ask i understand that of the who emerged in the 21st century i've probably never heard the name. Right now? Yeah. I mean, just a comic I like. Yeah. Jeffrey Asmus is a comic I admire very much.

Okay, I don't know that name. Do you know that name? Of course you wouldn't. I don't know Jeffrey Asmus either. But you don't know Nanette either, so I don't know if we're going to get anywhere. Right, well, I'm old, and I don't know how to work TV.

What stand of comedians do you, if you were to name, who would I see them? Well, I'm going to name ones that I've actually seen. I've seen Leanne, like the Big Panty Tour. I saw Ilza, something like that. Eliza Schlesinger.

Yeah. I like Whitney Cummings. I like, I don't know their names, unfortunately. See, he's giving me such an interesting look like, well, this is an older man who's who's eating basically conservative TV of comedy I understand I probably am no no I mean I sit next to Jesse Fox the great great great are a comedy critic at New York Magazine yeah and he always tells me yeah you don't know comedy.

You should come out to the Brooklyn clubs that he programs. And then he tells you about the latest Banksy piece that he really loves and you go, okay, well, you know. Yeah, nobody knows anything.

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Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. Woo-hoo! So I did want to talk about, so you, where did you grow up? The suburbs of Chicago. Oak Park River Forest, where if you do you know who Frank Lloyd Wright was? The architect?

I am familiar with the name. He's an architect, an American architect. He built the Guggenheim, the Swirly building, and one of the great american artists and i grew up on the way to high school i would pass 14 of his houses so i grew up in chaos complete chaos my mother committed suicide when i was 10 they never told me but that's not much different than your traumas well she was never mentioned again for as long as i lived

to this day her name never came up again there was no funeral no cemetery no zero do you have an impression of why i would guess this would have been in 1961 keep in mind i'm born in 51 guess this would have been in 1961 keep in mind i'm born in 51 um that we were a similar assimilation as jews uh also illegal uh you would never know it meeting my father ever there's no accent when he was alive there was no accent you would never know he ran with his brothers a women's underwear factory. And they were just the suburban story, a nice suburban house. And one day she was gone. And I said, where did she go? And they said, she's with the angels. And so I had to grow antenna. And I became a kind of feeling organism, because everybody treated me different the way they treated both of you different when people started to discover your odd secrets and odd strange ways

and your fucked up families and the stuff that you had to keep secret no different that's my normal the same way your normal is yours and yet when when I hear it, when I hear your normal, I'd go, wow, that's rough. That's why I'm not a cynic. I just think people have no idea how we made it. We're all survivors. Again, 99.9% of the people didn't end up in a beautiful shithole like this on a ratty couch instead of being a truck driver like i was or laying sheet rock

of being able to talk did your mom take you to art once one time she brought me to the art institute of chicago about a month before she died and left me there alone completely alone and i just hated art and i never seen it I wanted to play baseball and play with the kids and go back to my suburb. And I've written about this. One painting caught my eye, a diptych. And I'm not going to get into the details. I've written about Giovanni de Paolo, 15, 16, a Renaissance artist.

And I looked at these two panels, and I realized it was a beheading of St. John the Baptist. And I looked at left and right, and I thought, this painting is telling a story. This isn't just pretty stuff. And I looked around, and the whole place went erotic, honestly. I mean, I thought, this is a story machine. Every single thing in this building this machine is is telling me something about itself its time and all the other art it was ever in communion

with the same way all art comes from other art okay there's's no such thing as a brand new work of art. Dolly Parton moves into the oldest, stupidest genre of all. Beautiful. Country and Western, same three chords, same time signature, and writes, Jolene, Jolene, I could never compete with you. Please don't take him just because you can. And a door to the world opens that had never opened before.

It's like reggae. Change the beat of rock from 2-4 to 1-3. That's stupid. That idiotic. That no one ever did it before, and you change the world. You change the beat. With Dolly Partonon she told the secret life

of women if both of you start giving your secret lives in your work and all these listeners i promise you the world will crack open it will fucking crack open because all of you are not saying what you're really really thinking You have to be radically vulnerable. Hear how stupid I sound. You have to be willing to risk that kind of flamboyant failure of losing it all every other time out. I don't like to risk. I never risk, but each time I'm, I always say I'm writing for the reader and I'm writing as hard as I can. Before we get too inspirational on the downside, it's very moving. Oh, yeah, the downsides.

Yeah, the downside. I love that title. Do you mind me asking how your mom took her own life? I only found out many, many years later she jumped from a hospital. Oh, my God. See, to me, that's nothing. He said, oh, my God. What do you mean it's nothing

what answer would he have given you that you'd have been like oh that makes sense no but wait that's a good question sure what manner would have i never thought of this you've helped me what manner would have been like yeah not no not like yeah but like oh pills or the bathtub with the wrist. The idea, for me, the job. That would have been a... No, no, no. I've been skydiving, and it's just the emotion that you have to leap over, so to speak, to force your body.

I think I could take pills, and the effect's later. It's gradual. You can swallow those pills. You're not dying right away. Someone who jumps, there's something deep inside, I think. That's interesting. You can swallow those pills. You're not dying right away. Someone who jumps, there's something deep inside, I think. That's interesting. I've never thought about it.

But again, that happened, the jump happened 20 years after the jump. Like it's very Proustian for me. I only find out that present 20 years later by accident from someone in my family. So that's the answer to the question. That's how she killed herself. But to me, she just disappeared. And my father then remarried two years later, a Polish working class woman brought in two brothers. I became a twin suddenly with a brother my own age, who a gangster and the first night we were together

he tapped me in my bed and said we're sneaking out of the house and we snuck out he had tools and we stole about five or six street signs in our suburb and he brought one back a little sign and when we woke up in the morning my father came came in and said, what's that under your bed? He pointed to my stepbrother. It's a big stop sign under the fucking bed. And it was amazing. And I was really panicked. As a suburban Jew, I thought, this is the end. I'm going to get, you know, this isn't bad.

And then I crossed to the other side of the law. My life changed just by watching an exchange. My stepbrother, paul just stared at him like a narcos or something like you know just like these guys that are ice cold and dead already on the inside he just said what son and i saw my father look at him and none of this is interesting at a podcast and he my father looked at him in a way I'd never seen before. I knew the world was changing. I'd seen something I'd never, another behavior,

a non-middle-class Jewish, non-Jewish behavior that I'd never witnessed in my life. And I thought, that's for me. I'm going to be a gangster. I'm going to be a pirate. And so I started lighting leaf fires, breaking into schools. Nothing new. I just love it.

You was going like, I'm going to be gangster. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't really do it well. But you ever steal anything big? What was your biggest crime? Biggest thing, I probably stole $10,000 worth of books in my life. All at once or spread out? Every day I would go in with what was called a gym bag.

I guess they're like backpacks now, to our Chicago bookstore. Then I worked in this very bookstore and put books out on the loading dock, and I would take them every day. And then, of course, when you break up with that girlfriend you leave the thousand two thousand five thousand books there and you go you leave and you pine for the record albums you pine for the

sweater you left but you never really remember it that's what happens in New York what have you stolen oh god I'm not much I'm a very what have you stolen? Oh, God. Not much. I'm a very... What have you stolen? I've stolen probably three to five candy bars.

Not bad. Not bad. What was the most recent? Oh, not in like 10 years. What's the most recent time you've stolen? I've stolen this month. You know what? No, actually.

That's a lie. I got drunk like six months ago and I stole a little thing from Junior's. I was in time. What's a thing? I bought

the full meal. It was taking a long time. I was on the way and there was this little muffin kind of baked good there. I just slipped it in my pocket. You took it. I took it.

If you need any money, I got you. It wasn't about that. I had already paid. He was sick of it. I had already done it. I did it. I paid. It just was there.

And it just was the feeling of like. I did the same thing. I just did it two or three weeks ago in some town I was in lecturing. And I was sick of waiting in line. I had this already made sandwich in my hand and i thought well i'm gonna just go eat it yeah so i ate it and then i walked past the register again to see if i was gonna be spoken to when i wasn't i left what was the last thing you stole some roommate stuff i like a like a tie that i borrowed three times and then it was in my closet and then

I moved out and it just happened to go. Did you know you were going to steal it all along? I really lied to myself gradually. This is its new home for now. He's forgotten about it. He's never asked about it. He doesn't need it anymore.

Everybody justifies themselves what they do everybody is on the psychotic level the trump voters really do believe now the election was stolen even though they don't they do yeah and it's the weirdest thing and we envy them it's like i envy all religious people who are certain that they're going to there's a heaven yeah we talk about that a lot yeah would you say atheist or agnostic uh me i don't know what i meet believe in nothing i believe that all of this space time is doomed i believe and that everything that we're saying and doing speaking his language is non-existent that we're primitive organisms and that perceiving about a billionth

of a percent of what's really going on we see i'm more i'm more hopeful there i i think i'm more unless i'm no i'm no hopeless i feel like i was dead 15 billion years i lived this little bit 13 billion and then i'll be part of the consciousness for 13 billion more so you do believe the consciousness you're a pan-psychist no i just believe whatever energy energy doesn't die we know that for a hundred percent sure it doesn't mean that you know you know i don't know where it goes but i know that there's such a thing as a burning bush. That is things that put off more energy than went into making them. I'll give you an example of it. The Jackson Pollock.

A drip painting by Jackson Pollock. Or name your favorite painting. That's still putting off fucking... The Sistine Chapel is putting off energy. 500 years later. What's the best piece of art yeah you've seen i'll say when i saw i guess the statue but the david when i saw the david it was the first piece of art that i said oh i get it i get why this is like why do you think you what do you remember liking about it um do you know the david yeah a nude boy 17 feet tall one hand down one

hand holding a sling okay what did you like but then i'm gonna ask you it's kind of a man what you called a boy or a man how old is he well i'm nervous praising his nude body if he's too young let's say 18 i think he's just 17 if you know what i mean and the way he looks is way beyond compare he's gorgeous yeah it's like prince walking into a room instantly you just go whoa or whoever from your generation um and what do you remember about the david liking uh he was he was attractive it was something about it felt like it had captured a human being so realistically and given how old it was it felt like magical that you know we we try to take pictures now that are hyper realistic and all these things but like someone like captured it

felt like it was alive right but do you remember it at all in your mind's eye no okay so that we can't talk about it's never good to talk about a dream unless everybody had the same joy we're going to bore your listeners but i'll tell you what that david is doing david kills goliath they needed somebody to go into torah torah torah bore to kill osama bin laden nobody would do it this naked child jew shows up and he says i could do this i i have a little sling that I use hitting gold finches and stuff with rocks and I'll go find him and I'll kill him. And you are seeing a sculpture that had never existed before on many, many levels. But what you're seeing is not the act itself. If you think about it, he's just standing there. It's not after the act because there's no

head under his foot, which was the traditional way. It's thinking. He's pensive. He's thinking about what he's about to do. It's the birth of human consciousness, of thinking, of contemplating an action of having thoughts feelings you know about it and that's a big deal he's also 17 feet tall he's got a teeny weeny what does that tell us we don't know yes yeah anyway so and it's marble that seems alive and um that's what you can get out of art. What's your piece of art? I don't have a... And then we'll do pages. I don't have a piece of art, but I have...

So this is a strange answer, but if I'm going to be honest in terms of... Yeah, you better be. ...of having an emotional response to something, the building across the street of where I live, and I've lived for seven years, there is the way that the brick and the way the thing, it looks like an outline of a female figure in that thing.

And it's something I can see from my window. I can see from my roof when I'm up there. And I feel like that is the most emotional sort of physical response that I've had to something. It's something that I, I seek out and look at it. I get like a motherly sort of energy you have energy from say again do you have an instagram i do i think you should take pictures of it post it from time to time i really think

i mean i have tons of pictures of it already in my phone and um i'm part of a race of straight males that finds it difficult to seduce women that That's just me. I don't have the vibe. It's certainly just you in this room. Well, it's me. I did nothing in high school. I only begged. So for me, when you say that, that opens a really intriguing window

that would be worth really going into. These displacements of finding... Look, I experienced rapture from form as a male, right? Every single boy or girl, especially girls, that walk past me on the street, I start to cry just a teeny bit from wanting, from needing, from wanting something. And art produces a little of that. It looks at you from across a room

like that idiot shape or that weird sculpture of a naked boy and it goes, I see you looking at me. Come here. Whenever I see Mickey Mouse ears, I see tits. I just can't help it. I was hoping your piece of art

was going to be the poster for Shelf Life. This is why male comedians, it's not going to work. What could a male comedian honestly say about the- What are you talking about? About that's revealing anymore. Because I'm still a human being? No.

You're stuck with the XY chromosome. We're dead. We're doomed. No, everybody in this generation, I'm kidding. I have to say, I am. I'm not an essentialist. I was trying to joke with him. We do want to do, since our producer works at,

what was the name of the art gallery again? What was the name of it? David's Werner. David's Werner. So she wanted to try one thing. We've never done a segment like this on the show before. Okay, let's do it. Russell's going to show me a piece of art.

I've never seen it. And I'm going to tell you my thoughts of art. I've never seen it. And I'm going to tell you my thoughts of it. So we have a picture. You've seen it, though. No, I haven't shown him yet. Show it to me first. Okay.

And you've talked about this one. Paige sent us. Thrilling podcast audio for all the listeners out there yeah you trim this out no no trimming yeah okay um so i'm gonna show you okay and you can just offer you know if you yeah i'm not gonna be a dick about can i give can i give him some advice before he answers? Sure. Here's the first thing to do. You don't have to tell us if you like it or not. That's the key.

Okay. You already know that. It's a bit like buying a sweater or wanting to kiss somebody. You have a sense already what you want. But that part doesn't matter to me. What I'm interested in only is what you see and how you see it. Okay. And you'll put it up on the video for people so they can see it. Take a look at it.

No, no, no. But like, well, no, you'll physically, you'll just put it. Yeah, yeah. Get quiet inside and just look around. Just look around. He's shaking his head. Drop your, yeah, let it happen. Let me do it on my own.

I understand. I was an actor. He's right his head no. Drop your... Yeah, let it happen. Let me do it on my own. I understand. I was an actor. He's right. I've done all the things. Who am I speaking? I'm speaking to listeners. Who am I speaking to? I'm speaking to listeners. I see a – the way that pollution – I'm looking at cigarettes. I'm looking at toilet paper.

And when I think of a child expressing themselves, they think animals and trees and the ocean, and it's very beautiful. There's an innocence to the way that they draw. There's no, the same way a really good child actor is suddenly capture something very human about them. It's because they don't necessarily have the eye outside being like, is this good? Does this accurately depict the turtle's fins? So there's this innocence about a child's drawing. And normally, I don't think of a child as drawing about pollution. A child sees the world, sees the beauty, the beauty stands out more. They're not thinking about the global warming or where is the ocean going or are turtles able to survive? But this picture shows pollution has become such a problem, so deeply integrated that even through the eyes of a child, the cigarettes and the toilet paper are just as much a part of the world. They've invaded the innocence okay that's one of the most beautiful reviews of the work of Katherine Bernhardt that I've heard it

is remarkable that you got to that level that quickly your listeners I'm afraid can't see this but if you are watching it yes it looks very beautiful exotic like it come from the south eye you know the south pacific but he saw even then through the childlike graffiti smeary spray paint junk thing and you saw to a deeper content that many many reviewers haven't so I would say you're not a cynic you're just fine you love you're filled with love sure you are cynicism was only the first filter like you said you said that so I'm not disagreeing I know you want to show him a work of art no I don't i want let's let's keep oh i have to well yeah let's uh uh we have two more quick i did want to say um well you're okay yeah uh what was the downside you

were starting to ask me uh i think i wanted to do the downside i mean about a long distance truck driving oh i know i know it sucks but like what's is was there any disastrous night did you get any bad accidents did you fall asleep a couple of things i took the job thinking i'm going to sleep with a woman in every single hotel that was my and again they're looking at me because they know i'm a quasi incel but the second night in in Jacksonville there was a woman out on I was looking at a thousand yard broken up parking lot made out of pavement with old trucks and weeds growing up and the dark and I was smoking cigarettes and out on the balcony with me you know 50 feet down was a beautiful young woman.

She looked at me for a long time and put a cigarette up to her mouth and said, you want a date, honey? And I looked at her and I went, no, ma'am. And I ran back into my hotel room, fucking terrified, terrified. And I thought, it just happened it just happened so from now on that's my life and it never happened again now do you think she was looking for a date or was she offering prostitute it was a prostitute yeah and i must have the lords must have been looking at me and i you know i must whatever and it never happened again uh nothing happened um when I went

to the Grand Canyon was the one time I left the route I was programmed I was a machine I wanted to get there and get home I think I was paid a hundred dollars a day which seemed like a fuck of a lot of money I didn't like working around people because if people looked at me while i was working i'd get nervous and then i'd be pissy anyway um drove 50 miles i think north and east to the canyon off of that what route 40 or something and And I parked the truck, checked into a hotel motel room, and went to the Grand Canyon. And I really had an epiphany. I looked into the canyon and I thought, my pants are kind of tight. I didn't really like the room that much. There was this mildewy smell. I wonder if I'll be able to fall asleep there. The TV looked pretty shitty. I'm leaving. And it was at that moment that I understood that the sublime that had once been in,

the big buzz of it all, the big feeling of life that had been in the caves, in the fires, of life that had been in the caves, in the fires, and then in Neolithic stones, and then in the Renaissance, moved up to the ceilings, and then in the Baroque, went into churches and these great paintings, and then in the 19th century went into nature itself, and nature painting especially, that the sublime was no longer located in nature for a minute in 1965 i think it was located in the ford mustang which was the last thing that americans made that americans truly love to this day everybody would go pretty good the ford mustang not a bad thing. I understood where the sublime went, and it changed my life. I understood that the sublime was in us, that I would rather be here with you two huge losers

speaking to a 71-year-old fucking geezer with hair growing out of his nose than anything else in the whole world and it changed my work a lot and the only other bad thing that happened is i almost got in two pretty bad accidents once i remember falling asleep and a cop stopping me being really sweet outside of dc going you were all over the road and i said i did not know i didn't know and then another time down in florida um so i knew i didn't like that job i was very abusive to the art because i was resentful of everybody you know why not why don't so then the truth is do anybody

listening to this if you want to get, you have to stay up late every single night with other people like you, other huge losers, artists, comedians, actors, whatever you do, that's you're teaching each other the new idiom. You're spreading the pheromones. You're arguing with each other, sleeping with each other, becoming worst enemies, breaking up, and then having breakfast together the next morning. These are beautiful lives. At the same time, you must work, work, work, work, work. You big fucking babies. You have to get to work.

Nobody cares about your problems. When I dance naked in public every week in my work and every day on my Instagram, and if I worry about what other people think of me, I now know nobody's ever thinking of you. Ever. No one's ever thinking about you other than the wonderful feeling that you failed. That's a fun thing.

Oh, thank God she failed. That leaves more room for me in that weird zero-sum psychology that artists have. So other than that temporary jolt, oh good, they got a bad review. No one's thinking, I want you, as I said, to fail flamboyantly. I want you to make an enemy of envy today because envy only looks out. Take it from a former envious person. It only sees what other people have. And while cynicism kills you slowly,

envy will start to kill your work because you're fucking up the feed. I tell you, you got eyes that only look out and that's a problem you better start looking in a little um was that a slow death or slow getting rid of that for you it's oh no getting rid of the envy like saying that you when it comes my test was this can i walk down the streets of New York? This was my envy. Mind you, it applied to everything,

but I thought if I cross that Rubicon, I've made it. I used to look at every apartment and think, I should live there. I want to live there. Or anybody on the streets while I was at my jobs thinking, how the fuck are they out at 11 in the day while i'm here in my truck how did this happen when that went away when real estate envy went away and what are everybody doing and i gave it up what's for me what's your envy gave it up what's for me what's your envy it's watching it's watching a stand-up comedy show and other comedians and what are you destroying i when they're great you mean when they're great

when they yeah there's i think mine immediately it almost goes through an immediate filter of oh i suck like that's my way of like i think dealing with the feeling yeah we all do that yeah i'm not this good i'm not this good i could never do this to really the way i know is if i laughed is if i laughed at it that's how i know yes that i had pierced through and you all of that and what's your envy i think it's honestly it's the the real estate thing because i i don't feel i don't feel that when i'm watching a performance or when I'm... Because you're very good. No, no, no.

I have all those doubt stuff, but I don't feel that when I'm watching another thing. It is the superficial financial things. It's like knowing that I keep a creative life. I'm doing lots of things that I feel... He's in a famous play right now. It's, it's the thing of why can't I do those things and then still have those things. That's where I,

where I get tripped up because I just was doing what you were saying yesterday. As I walked from, from, from one place, a rehearsal thing to the theater, I was walking by all these amazing places off 14th street and being like, how come? Just thinking,

how do these fucking people live here? You'll never will have never, either. Never. No, no, none of us. And I know that.

Yeah, I know that, but it is that thing that, that I need to. Um, so when you put envy aside, it clears up a huge amount of internal space. The other thing I would tell you all is finish the damn thing.

God, it's never going to be perfect. It's probably just barely going to be good. I put out a lot of mediocre work. I don't know it's mediocre when I'm doing it. I think I'm bulletproof nobody's ever written a review of this thing this good and then later when i read it i see the problems and i have a couple of the best is yet to come your next work is going to be better the thing i have over my computer is i'm not going to fuck it up this time you know just remind myself i'm trying

but you have to get it out of your studio your office your computer you'll never be done with it it will never be perfect finish the fucking thing you baby i promise you unless you were like even beethoven could sometimes write a symphony in days okay okay? If Mozart dies at 32 and he wrote 106 pieces of music, you got to get your act together and start writing. And he had to work from his stuff too. He would check in at people's house, write a sonata for them and leave it on the cadenza and hope that they paid him no i'm sorry you're not going to be rich anybody listening to this you know unless i recommend marry well there's nothing wrong i want you to be a sociopath about your own work have a fake marriage that somebody can support

you you're not going to win the lottery and if your parents don't die soon I'm sorry if they don't have money then you're never gonna get anything from them and by the way everybody younger than me please stop dealing with your parents so much I want you to only speak to them a maximum of twice a month. Sending this to Chris right away, my friend Chris. I mean, twice a month is a lot, in my opinion, but I'll give you twice a month, but never, how often do you speak to your parents if you have parents? Dad, definitely, that twice a month range at the most.

Okay. Mom, probably once a week, and she's driving the car. Dad, probably twice a month. Mom, probably twice a week. Okay, that's why the— But they're quick. Okay, because all of you listening to this, basically you're lying to your parents during the entire call.

You're pretending that you're not high, that you're not boinking people, that you're not being drunk or alcoholic you're lying to half of it and then you're kind it's just you cannot have your own nervous breakdown to become a great creative person if you're cathected on your parents because it's a fake friend it's like a friend on the payroll because who could not love you? Who could not love you of their own child? I would say not to break up with your parents so much

as go through this alone. It's hard, but I promise you'll get through it. Every person between the age of 25 and 34 must have the inner hologram of their life that was built before they were 24 collapse it must collapse because it was a child's construction to keep a world going so it wouldn't explode and die and you had to create a facade this hall hull hologram. Let the hull fall. If you get insomnia, for example, know this from Daddy Jerry,

you will never die from a lack of sleep, and you will never go insane. If you need to be awake for about a year or two with only one or two hours of sleep, that's a good thing. That happened to me. I realized one day, oh, I'm supposed to be awake with the heebie-jeebies jumping out of my skin because I don't know yet what I am. I'm still being born a second time, a second time, not with religion. So I want all of you, don't connect on your parents

or people on the payroll, so to speak. And don't be afraid when the thing starts to collapse. That's you telling yourself a new thing is trying to get out. The thing that you're going to be until you're my age. Well, my mom listens to the podcast, so if you're listening, Mom, don't bug him. Stop calling him. Stop calling him. Stop calling him.

You know you need him and that you're insecure without him and you think he can't deal with anything. He's a jerk. He is a little loud, I have to say. Could you deal with him on that? Your headphones aren't even in. That's how loud I am. No, I put my headphones on and he terrified me. So, yes. Do you need to end the podcast?

Two final quick close segments. One is called This Has Got to Stop. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. What's got to stop, Jerry? I'll tell you the thing that has to go. Hudson Yards. It's this enormous corporate city built on the west side of New York

between, goddammit, like 40th Street now and all the way down to 15th Street, or no, 20-something Street, of these awful corporate buildings that are now all empty. And you can never afford to live there. And it was a terrible mistake to build them. That should stop.

I think I've done the Law & Order SVU auditions are at one of these things. Probably, yes. There's big warehouse spaces. There's a Chelsea Studios. For auditions, it's been a while. What also has to stop is all of our journalists have to do this.

They're all lazy. They all are told things from Republicans off the record and on background. They all know the secrets of these Republicans that don't believe that the election was stolen. They know it was all a lie. They know their shits. And yet none of these reporters, and I talk to them all, I say, why don't you all at the same time reveal all of your sources, the tapes, the notes,

everything on the same hour of the same day so no one is at a disadvantage from that moment. You take MSNBC, CNN, and a network site. That's simple, an NPR. They all have it and they all go, well, we can't. And I finally figured out why. They're lazy. They don't want to lose their access to power.

They're afraid of losing sources, connections. They won't be invited to the parties. This has to stop. What's more important, your country or your nice, you're a vaguely telegenic person. You went to a Midwestern school. I went to no school, so I'm not putting down Midwestern schools. I'm a Midwesterner.

You ended up, say, in a network. You have to work for your country the same way critics have to stop holding back. If you don't like something, say what you don't like. A critic's job is to notice things and say what they notice. And if you don't like a woman's work or an artist of color, you have to be able to say how that came about and why, as opposed to being too terrified to say i did not like her work because you're going to be called a sexist no matter what that's a given so this kind of herd thinking that america's involved with needs to stop and each one of you could stop it today

just to make it clear you're saying're saying no to get rid of the concept almost of off the record. Well, I would say, yeah. When the country's, you know what? When the country's at stake, you know what I would do? Senator Lindsey Graham today on background, here's the little tape he made, said, I believe it was all a lie lie but i'm afraid of my voters

now i would do that knowing he would never speak to me again and maybe no republican would but if i could get him on tape and they all have it i know all of these reporters everyone yeah and they all have it oh it's our integrity jerry it's our and i said no that's a made-up rule you made to protect yourself not them you're protecting your job you're not protecting your country it's just like not turning off the air conditioner this summer i didn't turn mine off you didn't either you didn't either we had the option we could have but we didn't and these decisions are made all the way down the line unfortunately all the way to losing the american experiment which saved my family and probably everybody listening to this that made america the great hope my people would never have survived without this country.

We do have three listeners in China, though, so they might not be able to really... We love you, China, too. Everybody is under the same thumb. We love you, China, you're the best. Everybody's under the same thumb of their authoritarian governments telling us we can't do anything,

so we only yell at each other. You're more woke than he is. I'm more woke than you are you can point your finger at me i didn't say the right word it's much easier to do that than simply play the tape of lindsey graham much easier you know so great this has to stop and we have them on next week so we'll try to we'll try to nail it down listen i'll break the code of ethics of journalism any second our final segment you better count your blessing you better count your blessing we end with one positive thing uh russell do you have a blessing you want to share small um i have a new foot massager and it brings me a unexpected amounts of joy in terms of doing the show.

And I forget what it's called, but I have a knot on the bottom of my foot that I've never had before. And this massager really works. Yes, yes, yes. It's planter flesh. Yeah, you have that. There's a simple operation. It'll cause some pain for a few days after, and it's over for life. Yeah, okay. I've never had it before. Go days after, and it's over for life. Yeah.

Okay. I've never had it before. Go, you big baby. Go. I know. Yeah, you big baby. I'm sorry you have that. That's an ever-present pain.

It's been much better since doing the massage, and I looked up a few sort of things, and it's gone away a lot. I'm sorry. But, yeah. He's doing this theater show now. It's a new physical. And you're on your feet for hours. on away a lot. I'm sorry. But yeah. He's doing this theater show now it's a new physical like. And you're on your feet for hours. Yeah well it's all

the set is all stairs and it's like you know. Congratulations on your theater. I'm grateful for you performing naked in front of people. Yeah. Having an audience.

We need attention unfortunately because our parents fucked us up. Mom you fucked them both up. They need attention. Yes my mom fucked you up. And so do I. um they need attention and so do i and i love that

you you're getting attention right now yeah um i my blessing is i've recorded this uh this clean album i think i was feeling uh there's just a feeling of like i don't want to do this album where it's it's it's clean for the radio but uh But the whole team kind of showed up. Jessica Moses from Blonde Medicine, Paige was there, Paige Asachika, our producer. And then David from Sash Comedy Club, David Hogsett, fantastic club. And couldn't be happier with that to be done.

And that sounds great to me too, because we can't complain to our own audiences all the time. And to do a quote, whatever a clean album is, I think I understand that, is a great practice. I have to learn to be able to write about what abstract expressionism is for both of you every week in my articles and do it simple without taking up all my space.

And I think it's a great skill to know how to play to big rooms. I agree. Where can people find you that want to find you? I'm grateful. About 75% of every single day, I have to tell all your listeners that I spend most of my day thinking, God, am I lucky? I almost didn't make it. I really came close, and I made it somehow, some way, with nothing. So I'm grateful for that. And you can find me in New York Magazine, and do follow my idiot Instagram at Jerry Salts. My Twitter game is not as strong, but I put a lot of great art up on my Instagram.

We have huge conversations about it all night, every night, every day. And we'll have good arguments. It'll be good. Speaking of weak Twitter presence, Russell, where can people find you? Russell J. Daniels on Instagram.

And then I don't think I have anything else, but come see Titanic at the Daryl Roth Theater. Correct. Yes, and this is coming out December 20th. Merry Christmas, everyone. I'm here for Christmas, but you can see me in Jacksonville, Florida, December 29th, December 30th, and New Year's. Wow, your lives are so much better than mine.

I was sitting here thinking I was speaking to losers. I'm the loser. That's what happens in all conversations. If you think the joke's on them, it's on you. It was on me. This is The Downside. One, two, three. Downside.

You're listening to The Downside The Downside With Gianmarco Cerezi Russell, you good? I'm good Yeah Russell I realize we never played the theme song

Just for those listening If you're a fan of The Downside You might be new listening for Jerry Join the Patreon Patreon.com slash Downside I think we're going to have a I just recorded a clean album And it's only going to be on SiriusXM But I believe on patreon.com slash downside. I think we're gonna have a, uh, I just recorded a clean album.

Um, and it's only going to be on serious XM, but I believe, uh, we're going to be, uh, releasing the video on the Patreon. And, uh,

you can even join just for the month. If you want to just want to watch it or join to get old episodes, old bonus episodes. Uh, we have a live episode coming on there soon and all future live episodes will be exclusively available on the Patreon. And once we hit 50, I got to get a tattoo. Yeah, I know you're close to that, right? Yeah, once we get to 100, Russell will try heroin.

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