The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #126 Poop, Blood, or Vomit with Alingon Mitra

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Comedian Alingon Mitra joins to discuss writing for the Harvard Lampoon, why we need to stop complimenting rich people on looking good for their age, whether you should be allowed to take off your shirt at Soul Cycle, no longer being able to say his dad is “funny in a Bill Cosby way”, Roseanne’s recent Fox News set, the joy of leggings, and you’ll have to listen to the episode if you want to know about the title.  You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Alingon Mitra on Instagram, TikTok, & YouTube Get tickets to Alingon's shows at https://www.alingonmitra.com/shows 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 Dave Columbo 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 to The Downside. My name is Joe Marcus-Harezi. I am annoyed at my co-host Russell Daniels. Why? For what? For what? To keep it as vague as possible, you had a life decision to make last week. You called me three separate times as a sounding board and a piece of advice for that life decision. And you made the decision. I did. And you didn't tell me for, what, four days now? Okay, wait.

What is wrong with you? Okay. Okay. There's things. First of all, I felt like the last time we got off the phone, you could tell where I was going or how I was really feeling. Okay. You felt, and I was, you know, I talked it through to you.

And then I also, full disclosure, you are dating my manager. So I thought, like, you would get the word through her and um i didn't i you know also okay so does that work like the reverse like on your birthday should i say here's what happened here's what happened too i without getting into too many details i confirmed with her my decision on that thing okay and then um she was like great i'm seeing so and so in a few hours blah blah and then i didn't hear for like a day so in my mind i started spiraling being like maybe they changed their minds and anyways they didn't and it's all great but i i then when it was confirmed it'll be public now by the time

this comes out yeah well i i have a new agent so it's good and it's gersh it's gersh which our guest is with oh cool oh great great this was the fuzziest conversation I know sorry I don't know I don't know why I was being vague you didn't tell me about something

that we sort of I was deciding on what I wanted Russell's one of these friends where he'll have you'll be a part of his life

for like a chunk and then he you'll check out for the conclusion of that that's very seductive you bring people in and then you completely forget about them. Man of mystery.

Yes. No, I, no, I, yes, I'm excited. We're here with our guest. Yeah. The honor of sharing a show New Year's Eve. Not this last one. No. The one before.

The one that, well, whichever variant took out that entire weekend. Yes. That's when we were punchline punchline i tried to not have a showcase show this year for new year's and somehow i still oh like it changed from a headliner to a showcase show okay and i said son of a i love showcase i hate showcase shows what are you talking about don't you don't you have things you want to do you We're both material men. Yeah.

What does that mean? We have a lot of things we want to try. No, but showcase, what is the difference between? It's like three or four comics doing a bigger chunk. Oh, okay. So it's doing 20 minutes each. Yes. Yes. Yeah, you know what?

Well, this is what I like about it is that I don't actually get to like, I feel like I don't spend time with comedians in New York City. You're right. You're always just like hopping. And even if you're hanging, it doesn't feel the same when you're out of town and you're spending time together. All of a sudden it's like camp. And I like that. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did, one of our co-showcase people went on a date with like a drug dealer. Had a wild time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know how much we can reveal, but like I followed it by accident, followed up with her. And it turned out that guy was like a pure con artist. Oh, really? So was he not a drug dealer?

He was just. No. Well, OK, so she she thought he was black, but he wasn't black. He was he was he was like a Puerto Rican or something. OK, but but he said it's a picture and it's Russell. And I'm like, that's not, but he portrayed himself as such for a while.

That was, yeah. How'd you find out? I would try to make a joke, but I'm not going there. Yeah. I forget, but it was,

it was like just like things that slowly revealed themselves to her. And then finally she was just like straight up ass. And then he kind of like weaseled him. It was, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to botch the story. So you're going gonna have to ask her directly yeah i want to have her on yes um uh well before we kick off this theme music and i have something to talk about russell sounds like he had a trip getting here uh something about your hands being dirty no yeah just humanity okay humanity humanity right in front of your apartment what happened

i okay we lead into the thing. Just you, might as well. So I was right crossing the street to get here, and I had headphones in, so I can't hear, but I can see a man wailing in the middle of the road. No pants, poop. No pants, no underwear. No, he has... Noise canceling or not noise canceling?

My headphones are noise canceling, so I can't hear My headphones are noise canceling, so I can't hear. They are noise canceling, so I can't hear him, but I can see he's screaming. And there's pants, but the crotch is ripped. So it's exposed and it's kind of like they're down. But there's a lot of poop like around and he's fallen. He has a walker that's also tipped over. He's screaming. Screaming like just. In pain. Like he fell. He fell has a walker that's also tipped over. He's screaming. Screaming like just...

In pain. Like he fell. He fell. His rocker fell over. He looks homeless. So, you know, what I love about New York, everyone rushes to there. But everyone's kind of feeling out how we're going to... Because you're trying to help but also avoid poop.

But everyone helps. We help him up to his feet, to to his walker but then it's like that's not enough like like we can't just like like but we no one else knows what to do we helped him up we got him to his walker we put we picked the walker up but then you're just like okay i'm like i gotta go to a podcast you know like if nothing feels good in that moment to be like to resolve it, you know? So you were just left unresolved, making sure he's not in the middle of the road

and he's walking now, but he's crying. He's, it's, it's a terribly upsetting way to like. Were you the first person to dip out? Like a jury, like. No, I was, I was in the middle. There was a woman that was trying to talk to him and I was. I have a podcast, me too. And none a woman that was trying to talk to him and I was, I have a podcast.

Me too. None of you are lying to be fair. No, there was a woman that was still talking to him and I kept looking like, should I, but I was like, what am I going to do? Like, I don't know where to take him.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, he was on his feet. He was walking, but he, it's just very upsetting anyways. And you know,

if you brought him here i'd be like let's get him on the pod let's talk to i i mean the stairs though they would never have come up and been able to come up the stairs you know like he's older and it's just was um well that was humanity you must really be struggling to get through this that's the only reason he's not on the podcast that's the only reason it's the only reason i'm here he isn't well this is the downside you're listening to the downside with john marco cerezi so ling on before we before we talk about you first of all i'm glad you're here uh i i view you just from that time that we spent together yeah when you when you disagree with someone or you have a thought on something yeah you don't

hide it you're you're you're not you're not one to be like yeah do you have an example you can say without like the opposite of you okay yeah no i get that but i'm saying like do you have a real life example uh someone's saying something but i remember i i can't remember the exact things we were talking about i i think i think i think i remember i think um and i don't think this will be uh saying anything that she wouldn't be okay with but when we were hanging out so the show had k said me ray sani uh-huh uh you and then uh tova was there as well ray said something about how uh like if somebody says anything like that's, I think it's like, maybe it wasn't the N word,

but it was like, oh, like, if there's anything that's like maybe pro-Trump or something like that, as a black person, she felt like that was just like intolerable or something like that. And I was of the mind that, well, in and of itself,

that isn't like a deal breaker but um it's a hard conversation to have when somebody is like well it's the equivalent of saying the n-word or something and she herself is black and then you know i'm not somebody who can really speak on that but i still felt like my point was valid so we like continued that conversation in a way that i feel like you and tova were like we'll. I just agreed with whoever was speaking at the moment. I said, that's a great point. That's another great point. We're all making great points here. So you might not have a strong opinion on this. And Russell, don't devil's advocate me just to devil's advocate me because this one I feel really passionate about.

Okay. Okay. I've talked about it once a long time ago on the podcast. Taking off your shirt as a man. I don't know the rules with women. But if you're outside and you take off your shirt, you're allowed to do that. That's legal. As a man. As a man.

I don't know the rules right now. Someone told me the other day. He said women can do it too. I think in New York you can do it. I think they freed them. They freed them. Her and Britney at the same time yes so i went to soul cycle it's a spin class very popular spin chain they just got a class pass

i already disagree with you and i it's dark you're sweating uh majority female and uh i'm i'm in class and about five minutes in i go you know what i'm gonna take off my shirt now i do this in many uh places in new york i do a lot of like cross-fitty hit high intensity interval training type stuff you take off your shirt uh you don't do it at crunch or blink i think part of that is you know you have this equipment that everyone's sharing you get too much sweat on it. But I take off my shirt. There's no signs indicating you can't take off your shirt.

What is the exercise you're doing? We're just on a bike. On a bicycle. Just moving. And it's dark and lights and just loud. And I take it off. It's off for about 25 minutes in this 45-minute class. It's off for about 25 minutes in this 45-minute class.

And suddenly the teacher is like, all right, guys, let's keep your nips or your nipples covered. And I'm the only one with my shirt off. And I very begrudgingly, though no one can witness this because the music is blaring, put it on over my now dripping with hot sweat body. It feels horrible. Yeah. I felt shamed. Yes. I was, I've my own, my body things.

Actually, it's worse that she didn't just call you out. I think it's worse that she just said. Great. Yeah. So I'm livid. I almost leave. I almost leave because there's only a couple of minutes left. Yeah. And I got enough of my workout.

Tova's kind of at the angle and I leave and I almost leave because there's only a couple minutes left. And I got enough of my workout. Tova's kind of at the angle. And I leave and I'm very upset. Tova points out, not that I needed it, that I guess the teacher at some point had motioned to me to put my shirt back on, which I didn't see. And she said, the teacher might have thought your head was nodding.

And I said, you mean because we were all doing... Not only that, we were doing choreo per her half of this. If she thought I was nodding, she must have been curious why the whole class was nodding along too. They all wanted you to put... I was

very upset. I feel that... Let me just read the letter I wrote them. Oh, my goodness. I didn't realize that this is the way this goes. How often are you writing letters? Not very often. It does feel like the way he said it,

that this is like... This is something you do. Not very often. Three weeks. So, yeah, because I was just... This is an email, right? This is an email. Okay, because a letter.

Postmarked letter. And, you know, there was a degree, Tova and I discussing, like, you know, how much anger do you display in public? I'm a guy where that's what I, you know, I just yell at the sky. Okay, people at home can't see this multiple paragraphs. Yeah, well, they had a response that was not satisfactory or else I wouldn't be talking about it okay so i said okay now remember i'm heated yeah no i know uh hello there are absolutely no signs in your studio clearly indicating the policy on removing one's tank top or shirt during class instead your instructor

made an announcement for us to cover our quote-unquote nips or nipples frankly i don't know what she said because i was so body shamed in front of an entire class with their apparently approved appendages out to not come over and share the policy with some kind of courtesy which could have easily been done while blasting music from artists who routinely bear their quote unquote nips is pathetic behavior from a chain of your size that has clearly done nothing to figure out what i'm sure is not a wildly uncommon error given the number of classes in new york city that don't seem to get their policies from the catholic church you should be doing better for the amount of money you charge people to move their legs in circles at slightly varying speeds

okay this was this was the first draft or the final draft okay but are you that offended? Yes, I am. I am offended because I think that this is such a strange world. We've taken the idea of making people feel comfortable to decide now everyone else has to cover up. Now, people are showing their belly buttons. People are showing their shoulders. What's to stop to say, no more of that, no more of this?

Let everyone have their nipples out for all I fucking care. But if you think that this kind of like mentality of the nipple isn't also tied to the way that we treat sex in society, which also relates to the way we talk about drag queens and the way we talk about all sorts of expression tied to can the gay can the gay pride parade have bdsm it's it's all tied to this idea that in order to make people feel more comfortable

we're gonna go back we're gonna go backwards in terms of of people being allowed to like bear their bodies and it's antithetical to the bot the the whole body positivity movement. Yeah. Ling on. Yeah, no, I think I agree with the teacher. Why? Because you broke the norm. The norm is... But why is there no sign? But let me add on to this. Okay, even if that is the norm,

that's a different discussion where I could say philosophically I disagree. All the academic stuff you said about how this relates to body positivity and all that, I think that's more window dressing. Like had she just said it nicely, would you have felt as worked up about it? Of course, I would have felt very differently about it. I think that's more – like her way of doing it was wrong. Sure.

I think her doing it was not wrong. Sure. I don't think it's wrong. But I also think that you should, if you're going to have a rule inside of a studio that's different from the rules of the outside world, a sign is nice. Especially given, we're not talking,

I didn't take my shirt off in the middle of a restaurant. A spin class where the goal is primarily to sweat. I guess I just, when I walk into a, when I imagine a spin class, I'm not picturing a guy with his shirt off. And you know why? Because these cycling classes also, there's not a lot of guys in them. To me, you just have to make it clear. Because it's very confusing as someone who bounces around from all these different places some places it's fine well that's i was surprised that the other

places it was like a common thing where guys were just working out with their shirts off yeah sure so i think i agree with you i think you're reacting most strongly because it was done poorly yeah um because i think i can see a world where they're like, just like, because if you're without a shirt, it's easier for your sweat to go flying all over everyone. So they're like just being like. Sure do agree. But also these women with their hair, they're flinging it. Like if we're talking about sweat exposure, we've already lost. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I think it was done poorly. And I think I agree with all the philosophical thing that you just did. You disagree with my philosophy. i think the philosophical stuff was more because you feel outraged at being humiliated in public oh sure but it's you're talking you're speaking what do you think about nipples this body shaming nipples shake the foundation of society i don't think that's what they were doing here i think there were just norms here that you crossed sure but what about the fact that i think there were just norms here that you crossed.

Sure, but what about the fact that I think there's an argument where men tend to sweat more. Our bodies sweat more. So that's one of the reasons why a lot of these more man-leaning gyms like a CrossFit, that you do take off your shirts.

And part of it's because, well, men sweat and that's naturally, you eventually go, you know what, just take off the fucking shirt. We're all sweating. So I don't know if the science behind it is that true is that true that men sweat more than women yeah i don't know that i'm gonna look it up it's okay that may be true that may not be true but i don't think that that is a that's like a separate

argument than the nipples shaking the foundation of society no but but the argument is that it's it's uh it's going like well sorry you sweat more you're gonna have to be uncomfortable uh-huh all right let let's you went to harvard and you don't know you should organize you should get you could if you do that you could go pretty far that's the thing right like society slope doesn't sure society has drawn this line and why this line that's that's just the line that has been drawn. Now you're saying, well, we could push against that. True.

But when you're doing that, you can't do that without first clearing it. Sure. But I think, again, there's of course two separate issues here. But I think a sign is useful if that's the policy and especially if you go like well in class it's going to be tough amidst the music to i guess can i can i want one thing wait can i just confirm men produce more sweat per gland than women do okay great do do men have more glands uh while women have just as many active sweat glands men produce more sweat per gland than women do. Okay.

I will say, in reference to the sign, there's a possibility that you are the first person to ever take off your shirt. And they never even thought that they need to put a sign. I will give my life savings if this has never happened before in the sweat room. Well, how often do you think it's happening? Like enough, you think, where guys need to be told through sign, right? Yeah, they say they have a no nipples policy, so clearly this is,

they had a meeting about this and they decided to call it this. Is that, that's the official policy? When they wrote me back, they said that we have a no nipples policy. Oh, yeah,

you didn't read the, so they don't see me. Yeah, because their response was so, it says, nipples, where it says uh nipples where does it say nipples maybe was I

we're sorry to hear about this experience while we do have a no nipple policy in the studio so we never want this to be communicated

in a way that feels shaming or like you're being put on the spot didn't offer free class so would that have done it

no society has been no you constructed once no but it would have at least been a gesture it would have at least been a gesture big sign i want i hope when i show up next time that above the door there's two like like a painting of two nipples. And it says, no. I guess, you know, there's not that many rules for if you're riding on a bike. Yeah. Then you could put, you know, no swearing, no. But they do swear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And can I just say the extra hypocrisy where I mentioned in my long run on sentence, you may have missed it.

When they told me to put that shirt back on, Harry Styles was playing. Now, Harry Styles, if we all recall, was recently at the what? The fucking Grammy Awards where everyone's wearing a suit, wearing a corset thing with his fucking nipples out. So we live in a world where God forbid we have the nipples out in the class where everyone's sweating and practically naked to begin with. But we're listening to an artist who we all love and people praise because he goes to the place where you're supposed to wear suits i and have no nipple and let me add this i want to get i want to get chris evans i want to get harry styles i want to get him to the soul cycle class and i want to see if he takes off his shirt

i'm coming i'm coming around to you because it's not framed in a way where it's practical about sweat like because i was like it could just be you need to keep your shirt on so you're not like get but if it is a no nipple policy then it is it it feels like it's about um offending someone or like being naked and that's what it feels like yeah which yeah i think but that you think that that in itself is wrong yeah i well i think it's or it's it's just strange it doesn't feel like i don't know we're in new york city like even if i went to a workout class and a woman took off her top i'd be like well this is new york you know this happens like i wouldn't be you're like i just saw a guy shit himself on the street

i can deal with this yeah like so i'm not we're not in like a small town where it's like i'm i don't know it just feels conservative to not be able to i do think it is conservative yeah but i still understand it like especially from the i don't know like i feel like when women are working out they're always just like kind of worried about like pervy guys yeah and and the act of taking off a shirt even though you are not this type of guy is something that i could see like a pervy guy doing so they're like all right this is why we don't have that sure but phyllis i think that my issue is like well the solution is not to just restrict restrict restrict because what's stopping from there then then the slippery slope the other way well you're allowed to wear shoulders exactly you're allowed to wear shorts you're allowed to

wear like a a shirt but you're not allowed to go shirtless sure i just think like the the idea of like what a nipple is sometimes sometimes especially as you get older you go what are we what are we doing here it's this it's nothing a nipple is nothing well you could deconstruct everything that's the point if you go that like once i think dickhead and pussy is a little more than a nipple why why because it's it's smaller it's less it's less gonna it's less gonna like you know you're you're riding pussy out on those you haven't seen the chairs disappearing my my point is like society has imbued this thing with some sort of meaning and that's why we keep it but if you wanna you could say yeah there's nothing there you could say there's nothing to like kissing also.

Right. But we're like, well, actually, we as a society say this thing is something. So we do that. Well, now, OK, then we could then the murder, maybe murder. We could murder in the SoulCycle class. Why not? OK, well, I feel like we're on my side. So a ling on.

Yes. I'm very happy to have you here. Yeah, likewise. We are. I feel like we're very much playing a lot of the same clubs right now. Oh, yeah. I just see your face, you know, like at all the clubs. Yeah. It's kind of wild to go to a club and all the new upcoming people are like, I know fucking all of them.

Yeah, kind of like working the same circuits a little bit. Yeah. So you grew up in Boston. I did, yes. Near Worcester? Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester, yes, yes. working the same circuits a little bit yeah um so you grew up in boston i did yes near wooster worcester massachusetts yes yes and there must be some downsides to growing up in boston uh downsides to growing up in boston so you don't realize how uh much diversity is lacking until you leave like until i came to new york city i didn't realize how like white my like areas were what did you think when you were a kid was there like an age where you're like you felt it at all or was it not until you went to new york and you're like wow

it was more when i came to new york yeah yeah that's when i was like oh this like there's a lot more people of color around in a way that i just wasn't like seeing in boston yeah was there any because you started stand-up in boston was there any like a chunk of your life that you couldn't talk about or joke about because it wasn't relatable to the general audience no no i think so it was almost the opposite where uh my earlier stuff if it got laughs i was like oh this is this is working this is good and then when i came to new york it wouldn't get laughs and i and i realized one of the common threads was like oh this is like uh maybe maybe borderline racist and in boston there was just a comfortability with some stuff that could go either way um whereas in new york i think people were like i don't know about that one yeah and it was racist

about oh anything just like indian people black people white people asian people anything that i said that was like touching on race that could potentially like kind of yeah yeah yeah you know be and again i was like a younger guy so maybe i just didn't have like the um the knowledge at that point to be able to thread the needle as well you should see russell's early facebook post i mean we all went through these um yeah uh well it's just i just think it's, I was just in Bristol, Tennessee, and it was like, I felt the conservativeness of that area and a real lack of Jewish knowledge. I made some joke. There were some real rough hecklers and somehow foreskins came up in some bit. Wait, from them or you?

I have a joke that involves like if Jews don't recruit like Christians do, we don't go up to guys who still have their foreskin on. Have you heard the bad news? And something where they, I realized, we had a weird crowd work interaction. I didn't understand. And then later the bartender. Was this Blue Ridge? Blue Ridge. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. The bartender was like, oh, I think yeah the bartender was like oh i think those guys they are circumcised and they thought to be jewish you have to be uncircumcised and so like looking back i was like oh that's why our encounter i was so confused they truly thought the opposite yeah that's how and i had assumed that that's known. That's his common knowledge. That's like one of the three things, two things that people would know. I'm curious what, are you circumcised? No.

No. See, I'm so curious. I guess I can look at the numbers one day. Because at least when I grew up, it felt like most people were circumcised. Well, in America. In America. It's different other places. But I wonder up, it felt like most people were circumcised. Well, in America. In America. It's different in other places. But I wonder what the numbers are like now.

Because there's a degree. I feel like everyone in my generation goes like, I don't know. You are uncircumcised. Yeah. And I think that was just like family. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember the first time you saw a circumcised penis were you confused

i don't think so yeah i don't yeah no i don't remember recognizing anything yeah yeah if you had a son circumcised or un um i wouldn't probably yeah yeah yeah yeah it's because it like the well the history behind it is just like crazy have you ever seen that so i used to write for adam ruins everything they do it a whole oh yeah they did a whole thing about how like it's just rooted in like this this like crazy uh christian guy who like basically spread this uh this around america and then that's where it was like uh getting popular in america what like When did he spread it around America? Man, I'm going to have to watch this thing again.

Because he separated it from the Jewishness of it. Yes, yes, yes. That's really interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. It really hit off here and then it does feel like there's a shift. It feels even more interesting because it's like you're not Jewish,

you're circumcised. Yeah, yeah. If you asked your parents, why did you do this? I wonder if they were just like, everyone was cutting their son's penises. Yeah, it seems very, like, I don't understand why one would. Definitely, you definitely, I could not imagine anyone coming along now and gaining traction with a movement that was like, here's what we do to the genitals. Right out the puss.

So, but these guys, they just didn't know. And what were they yelling to you though oh they they were just heck they were just bros who were trying to be like too much involved in the show okay but it was just they weren't mad about it no no no they everything everything was fine but like but to to not know something that fundamental it made me go like man some of these bits i'm gonna have to really handhold or just understand just to be prepared. Like now if that happened again, I'd be like, oh, do you know that circumcised, that's a Jewish thing? This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain.

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Like a flavorful fusion. Precisely. When is the gallery opening? It already has. Experience the Cajun Ranch McCrispy today for a limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. So, were your parents born in Boston as well? No, they grew up in India. In India?

Yes. And when did they come here? Dad came, I want to say, like early 1970s. Uh-huh. And then mom probably like late 1970s. Early 1980s. Yeah, probably late 1970s. Only child or do you have siblings?

Older brother. Older brother. Yes. How much older? 2.5 years. 2.5? Yeah. That exact?

No, it's roughly that. Yeah, two and a half years. What does he he's an attorney okay mine too well what kind of cases is your brother doing he does like educational law anything exciting like um you know i don't know what's interesting is because he works in the same area as my parents he and my they're they used to be in education he could never like talk about it because it would be involving cases like around them uh or in their districts so i he doesn't talk about it that much so but i don't think so i think it's a lot of i mean not not interesting but i think it's a lot of like i don't know like this teachers got caught with drug you know like that kind of thing like this student got sexually harassed You know that kind of thing like anytime their law is involved in education when he's done with the case

Can he talk about it? I mean he has talked about certain things, but you know He's so quiet, but yeah, I mean we can have him on he's very quiet I just want to see what your brother's quieter than me. Oh my god, Jesus Christ What kind of law does your brother do? He's a corporate attorney. He works for the Major League Soccer. For the...

For Major League Soccer. For their side. For... Yeah. I don't know what other side. He's against soccer. Well, like, class action lawsuits. Oh, I see.

I see all that FIFA stuff, and it's like, I don't care about soccer enough to dive deep, but I'm like, God damn, this shit is corrupt on an international level. Yeah, yeah. I think Major League Soccer is like such not that. Like, FIFA is like global, and there's like so much, there's like Saudi money going into things. Oh, yeah, I guess I hadn money going into things yeah that's a whole lifting ball game major league soccer is like the nfl okay well because how many people died building that world cup uh stadium it was like yeah a couple thousand a couple thousand wait

really yeah building it man and like and still everyone goes yeah it's a cool game oh that's really bad. Yeah. It was like, it was like, the thing was like the games themselves were so good. That's that, that was like the worst part of it. Where like the games became so like exciting to watch that people were like, I can't not watch this. Yeah. And then they just like trumped all the, uh.

How were people dying? On the suffering. So. You know, like falling off beams i imagine and i imagine more like dehydration and it was hot yeah exactly it was like it was overwhelmingly hot when was this uh just like the years leading up to the to the like last year oh my god yeah i had no idea um wow um yeah there's death in the world uh so you now tell me about transition from that to whatever comedy thing you're gonna ask well you went to harvard which uh you you know all the connotations that that that you're very

smart do you see yourself as a smart person? I don't think so. I feel like, I don't know. I feel like most people when they're interacting with me aren't like, oh, this guy knows a lot. But what kind of student were you? Were you, I mean, when you were a kid, were you like?

I was like hardworking. I was like studying quite a lot. Yeah, I was just like very diligent. I mean, I was also kind of chaotic in terms of how i approached it but i would do a lot of work when you applied and got into harvard was that a very exciting thing or were you like there's no way i'll get in or or you're like duh yeah like what was that feeling of like getting in i feel like it's a big thing yeah no it was it was big for so like my uh it might like my my grandmother she's like illiterate um didn't have a chance to go to school my grandfather this is on my mom's side

um was uh was like the first person in his uh group to like get an education and he loved like literature and like reading and like loved all this stuff but he at that time in india you couldn't really like do much with it so he literally was like a manager at a shoe store so uh he came and visited my family when i was little and he just wanted to go and like look at the campus at harvard um because he had heard so much about it so for him it was like this like temple right and then uh and then he had passed away but then yeah no i got in after and uh yeah it was like a it was it was like very uh especially for my mom was very like a moving thing for that to happen yeah um but i i i think i had a i think

i had a pretty good chance of getting in but it was still exciting because you could never know for sure yeah your your grandma was it did is she still around uh she passed away recently she was illiterate to the very end yeah yeah i mean i think uh yeah i think she knew how to like sign her name um but in terms of like uh being able to read i don't think she was able to read yeah that's wild i mean yeah i mean not uncommon for people of that age group in India. Yeah. Was she living in India?

Did she stay in India? And when was the first time you visited India that you remember? They all kind of blur together. We used to go once every couple of years when we were little. I think I was, as best as I I can remember I was a very clean and neat freak type OCD level? No, not like OCD but just like

I didn't like bugs You would not have helped the man on the street pooping his pants Poop is a hard one He wasn't actively pooping He had probably done it in the last few hours Poop is a hard one for me Barf is really hard for me.

Okay, okay. Like, yeah. Yeah, both are difficult for me. Blood, I still freak blood. See, I'm more okay with blood, actually. I'm more okay, me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that I'm around open wounds often.

I always forget about if I have a cut and they have a cut. Is that bad? I think that's bad. Yeah, it's not great. I mean that bad? I think that's bad. Yeah. I mean, for many levels How often are you

in a situation where you both have open wounds? I imagine my I'm saying I could have little paper cuts or little No, no, no.

It's got to be a real I think it's got to be bleeding actively bleeding. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not so you're concerned of like oh, you're going to transmit something.

Yeah. Oh, I'm not're going to transmit something. Yeah. Oh, I'm not. Poop and vomit. I just will breathe through my mouth. I'll get through it. Oof. I'd rather have... Fuck.

I'd rather have poop than vomit. You'd rather have vomit than poop? I think so. That's my final answer actually i because i really just did in my head and it is i'd rather have poop because when i when i visualize vomit like if if someone just says like these are the type of things that uh they ask you when you're trying to get into harvard and there's a right answer um so you went to india you were you were kind of clean you're clean oh yeah it was very clean like as a kid i was just like it was very kind of like finicky in that way and so going to india at

that time was very difficult for me i think because because you just had dealing with like you know it's at that time it was more third worldy so you'd have just like you know bugs and animals in the in the rooms and things like that and just like more like uh like you had you didn't have like a toilet things like that um and this was you visiting you visited both your parents parents no my dad's parents had passed away before i was really yeah quite young then yeah my dad's mom died when he was like three jesus yeah from what i think she had meningitis um and so like his his dad raised him basically um financially did your parents did the money they make here did they like send money back like like could they did they help did did they help your mom's parents like live a

better life yeah yeah i mean we we weren't we weren't growing up we weren't like i think we were like bordering middle class a little. And then like as things picked up, we moved up. But when I was little, it was like just kind of like kind of making ends meet. And then my dad started business. But we would definitely, I think, be like transferring money. I just wonder what the burden is of, you know, leaving a place to live a more prosperous life. What kind of, what do you owe to this thing and navigating that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, I think definitely, you know, they would do what they could. Did your mom's parents just not want to come to America? It would be too much of a... Yeah, I think... You just make it sound like life here, at least life here was better than where they were there. Okay. life here at least life here was better than where they were there okay i mean at that time if you were here you had like uh certain amenities that weren't available there yeah i don't know

so it's more shocking going over there exactly yeah it's like you know if you're if you're like if you're used to having uh like running electricity 24 hours right sure there when we would go there would be times where you would just have they were called like load shedding which like they would basically shut down the uh electric grid because it would get overwhelmed and so there would be like periods of time where you just didn't have electricity would there be any kind of warning like a super leaving a note no no i think it was like kind of understood that around like the hours when people most use electricity that's when it goes down but it wasn't like it wasn't like uh known it was going to be from this hour to this hour and then or like

running water there would be like a time in which the water would come in and so it would basically fill up this tank right and um the water would keep running for this period of time until the tank is full so you would try to like shower during that time so you're using the water so that as the water is still running at that time it would get full again so that you'd have that amount for the whole day yeah stuff like that you know i didn't grow up with having concerns about that um but all of that being said india now is so drastically different and i i still remember like the first time i visited the home that my uh grandmother was living in and they had wi-fi and i could send like a i message from that place which used to to not have running water 24 hours, to America in an instant.

And I was just like, well, this is... Oh, wow. Yeah. What was the big change in India? What changed? I think they changed the way they were open to the opening investment. So before, I think they were a little bit more like, we're going to keep things things closed off and then i think they opened up the economy a lot more interesting um i think and then also because there was so much english speaking in india outsourcing started happening

which meant sure funds would start going to india and then you could just you know develop very quickly i've always wanted to tour india i told an agent once a touring agent like you know i people keep writing me from india they're like come to india come to india i think i have a fan base there and he was like as if he'd heard this 20 times before from comics just like trust me yeah it's not you're not gonna financially recoup the the money the tickets would cost so little your deal would be so bad it bummed me out because i was like i thought it'd be so cool right i had this like fantasy of like what if i was like big in india and i just went to india one month a year made my money yeah oh well yeah you wouldn't make the money but you might be big in india because you're like youtube there is such a popular way of consuming yeah um i think it would be so cool to like go there and like yeah like sell out like a decent sized theater and be like cool oh yeah this is very fun to do

totally yeah yeah yeah i think i mean my guess is you probably could um they're right that there wouldn't be any money in it because the ticket sales wouldn't be worth much. But, like, I've talked to Indian comedians from India, and the way they generally make money isn't by doing their own shows. It's more by doing corporate gigs and college gigs and things like that. But they do have these huge followings and can, like, pack out places. So they get kind of both in that way. Did you feel like, because you did a tour there, right?

Sort of. Me, Akash Singh, Tushar Singh, and Kunal Arora, we all went and did shows out there together. Yeah. Do you feel like there was, whenever I go to a new place, and especially India where I've never been,

I would start doubting like so many of my i would just go through that thing where i'm like will this reference make sense will they know this will they know this did it feel like yeah yeah i mean i was doing these jokes and they didn't know like jews were circumcised i was like this is no different than america then i guess basically bristol tennessee like i'd love to it'd be great to like take our sketch team uncle function to india yeah we could only we couldn't get a show anywhere but la and toronto yeah i i did i did like look at the look at the act a little bit and i was like is is this gonna work the good thing is when we were going there we were branding it as a american-born desi meaning indian

basically american-born desi comics so people coming out knew what they were coming out for yeah so it made it a little bit easier in that way it wasn't just like we were going up at clubs and just like the random audience that's at a club and seeing whether this material hits like there's a joke you have right now what's one you say, do you say I am a pedophile in the joke? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a joke about your past.

Yes. And it's my time in the law system. But like that's a perfect example where like that joke is about how in America you have to sometimes tell a community that you're a registered sex offender. And I'm like, like that's an example of a joke where i'd be like would would any other country understand that what's the rules for this and that's what i just go like i start uh being very anxious before yeah i think i mean i feel like the the i don't know you're on stage just saying i'm saying yeah there's no punchline that works and then the i mean the punch line is that the like like the police require you to say it

and when you say it and they don't know the reference then it just sounds like the police actually require you to say it yeah yeah yeah uh yeah i think but i think i think um this might be weird but like would in a place like india they still have access to a lot of Western media. So they would have some sense of it. And even if they didn't, there is still, I think, something to, oh, this person's coming from the West. And so whatever they're saying carries a weight. Like, they still admire Western things in a way that they're not going to, maybe they won't laugh, but they're not going to be, like, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt there. Sure. Yeah.

Like, they still are like, oh, this guy's coming from America. Yeah. And they still, like, elevate America in some respects in the way that, like, you know, might not be the healthiest. Do you speak any of the languages? Yeah, so growing up, my parents... I have to apologize. Once on this podcast, I asked I think I asked Sar and I said, do you speak Indian?

That's stupid. That's really dumb. Name one of the languages. Name one of the languages. Bengali, boom! Oh, you nailed nailed it that's actually what i speak um yeah i i don't think it's it's i feel like indian people for whatever it's sort of like uh similar to like were you offended that they didn't know about the circumcision i couldn't care less i feel similar where i'm like it's kind of presumptuous of me to think people who didn't have experience or exposure to indian culture would know so much about indian culture you know it would be one thing if i was like oh actually there's no language called indian

and you were like i think i know that there is you know then i'm like all right what are we doing but in this case it's like all yeah, you didn't grow up. It does feel like a trick. In China, you speak Chinese. In Italy, you speak Italian. In America, you speak American. It's like a moose meat. True.

Very true. But yeah, stuff like that, I feel like I'm much more willing to accept that the person's coming from a place of good faith. So growing up, we'd speak Bengali in the home. Yeah. When did you do your learning English side by side? Or did you have to take classes? No, no, no, no. Look, my parents, I think, were speaking to me in Bengali.

And so when I was a kid, I was speaking primarily in Bengali. And so when I was a kid, I was speaking primarily in Bengali. But my brother also, I think, was speaking to me in Bengali and English. So probably there was like that seeping in. And then just like, it's just exposure. Like I didn't have to like, yeah, like it didn't, it was never an issue. Can you do your full act in? No, no.

My Bengali is pretty bad now. Not pretty bad, like it's uh it's conversational but it's not funny yeah and that too there's a lot of english in it if you did master it could you open up a lot of income no that's what i'm saying bengali indian uh comedy doesn't have an income in it unless you're playing to corporations and colleges. Maybe five, ten years from now there will be. Because economies are kind of switching around. But I would still like to. I think it would be cool to – I don't speak Hindi, which is technically the language that a lot of Bollywood movies are in. Do they have any – like the same way Italian and French are of the same family?

Are they, they're close? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Bengali, Hindi, they have very similar wording. They're kind of the same roots. You have like North Indian languages, which are often very similar. And then you've got South Indian languages, which are very different from the North Indian languages.

So you've got like two kind of families of languages there yeah fascinating yeah i'm gonna test you after this next week okay uh so okay so you you you do well enough in school you're working real hard you go to harvard um what do you want to do yeah like what was your original plan like what did you want to going going into it i think i wanted to be a lawyer or a judge uh-huh yeah judge yeah maybe how far into that did you like get um so after after i graduated i did have you ever have you guys ever heard of americorps there's-hmm. There's a... No. Okay. So it's basically, it's like a... Is that another language? It's another Indian language. It's a Peace Corps, except domestic.

So basically, you're kind of like basically volunteering. You're paid like a living wage in some sort of nonprofit within America. In my case, I was placed in a legal aid organization. It's for a year. And I was basically like interning at this legal aid organization in Boston. So they would be in the Boston Medical Center and patients would come in with like health issues.

But these health issues are things that something that a lawyer could assist with sometimes. For example, somebody comes in with like coughing, right? And the reason they're coughing is because there's mold in their apartment. The doctor can give you a prescription, but the doctor can't get the mold away. So they could write a reference

to this legal aid organization that was in the Boston Medical Center and then the Boston Medical Center could help or that legal aid organization could help the patient get that mold taken care of so you would need a referral from a doctor yeah so the doctor would refer you to a lawyer yeah and then you'd go to the landlord and say legally you you you can't have mold here yeah exactly then the the legal process would take was that was that like a common one just mold um they were so they they did a couple things like housing often was uh something that people needed assistance with just getting like um their forms in for whatever uh like assistance in getting into the lottery for affordable housing or

something like that, they would oftentimes just like not be aware of it. So something like that we could assist with. There was like housing. I think there was education was something else where you'd have like students come in who needed, I'm blanking on the word, but like a,

it's not a tutor, but if they have like some sort of like mental issues and things like that, they need like another person there with them. Right. Yeah. And the school wouldn't give that, but unless you had, yeah,

but an educational, an educational lawyer could come in and be like, well, these are the reasons why. And then the doctor could give like the formal explanations why. And then you have to submit that to the, to this public it feels like a very when you did that work were you like fuck i'm i'm one of the good guys so this was the

problem i didn't have the same heart for it that i needed to yeah you know uh while i was doing it i was thinking about jokes and I also I saw man I feel like I might have told this story before but basically there was like this time where so the legal aid it was me and a couple other people were in this program together and mainly it was like it was like 98% women it was me

and like two other guys in this program but so it's like a soul cycle class I go in and then they do this kind of like conference thing where they're talking about like, okay, how do you deal with the, uh, emotional weight of the day to day of dealing with patients or, uh, clients that are dealing with this heavy stuff. Right. And there's on the, on the panel, there's three, there's three people, there's two women

and one of the other guys that was in the program with me, right? First woman goes and she says, I always carry, I have two things in my drawer. One is chocolate. The other is a box of tissues. And she's like, those are the two things that help me. The other woman goes and she says, I always have my running shoes with me so if there's ever like stuff that's very stressful i'll run and that helps me um

helps me cope with it and then they asked the guy how do you cope with it and he said um i just forget about it and just that i feel like was what i was doing too where it was just like i i just didn't have the same like emotional connection that i felt like was kind of necessary for that you're like you're like when they come in i think of what the setup would be and then what's the twist yeah i i feel like i so i went to school to be a teacher. Okay. And when I was student teaching, I was like, I hate this. Like when people talk about what they got out of teaching and having this experience of breaking through, I'd be like, I like that I'm standing up in front of everyone. I don't like that. I don't care what they like.

I just didn't feel connected. But I was sensitive in the way that like sometimes horrible thing would happen to a student where i'd be sad like i'd be like oh this kid's dealing with this awful family you know like that kind of thing but it just that just bums me out it doesn't make me like i just was like i don't get anything out of the teaching part of it yeah and i just get bummed out by children going through stress and you know so i was like i hate this i just didn't feel yeah so similar i didn't feel yeah and i was like you know want to make fun of it too and yeah i mean i i felt like it was fulfilling it's just

like if it's to be your life's work yeah i felt like you needed something more yeah were people crying in front of you there like was it like uh i didn't see oh like the people that would come in they'll come in yeah yeah there were definitely some very like heavy stories when because i would i would assist with basically when the patient comes in you're doing like an intake interview to see like what sort of things are there that our legal aid organization provides that we could potentially help with so it's a pretty thorough yeah interview that you're doing and yeah you're dealing with like you know like um sexual abuse survivors and things like that and so that's that's pretty heavy stuff but um but again like i

maybe it was and you'd be like okay what do you think of this one right yeah yeah so my uncle yeah my dad give her the light um but yeah it was uh it was like it was just like i think maybe i was okay in in retrospect but at the time i i didn't think i was committed enough because i think there were people who were like committed but then you burn out if you get too emotionally connected with that stuff so maybe i was okay with it but i just didn't think of it i was at the time yeah and you're doing were you like i'm a comedian at this point when did you when i started doing the stand-up um i had started stand-up a little earlier um in between so i my first job out of

college was straight up it was like a consulting job and i i like quit that in like two months um just because i was like i can't this isn't i't, I can't, this can't be the life. I was like, I'm in my 20s. This is the prime of my life is where my head was at. And I was like, I can't be spending it looking at spreadsheets. So I quit and I, my dad and my mom had started a tax consulting business. dad and my mom had started a tax consulting business so i was like maybe i can work here and it'll at least be something that i have some control over and that'll feel feel good so i was doing that a little bit and that's when i started doing stand-up a little bit um but then i was like

maybe i'll go to law school so i applied to this program and was doing this like legal aid. And that was while you were at Harvard? No, no, no. This is, this is after, after. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, was it hard at all? What, so was it, was leaving that program when you were said, I'm going to go full time standup? Like, what was that?

Cause for me going to stand up first, my parents, my parents were just like, he'll be fine. Yeah. But it was no, no, me going into standup.

Wasn't like, are you sure? Yeah. Because I was currently doing theater. So it was like, it's like stand-up wasn't like, are you sure? Yeah. Because I was currently doing theater. So it was like, okay. Good luck with that other one. All right, I guess plan C might come through. Everything's better.

Yeah. That's how it's going with that one. Okay. Was it hard? I mean, your brother, your older brother, like, was your family like, cool? Yeah, yeah. So what happened was I so i worked with my with my family i did this legal aid thing i realized like i i shouldn't go into law because i would

have done public interest law if i had done it and i just didn't have like you know the capacity for it so then i went back to working with my family which was a tax consulting practice um and did you like working with your family the The aspects of it were good. Like I liked the independence of it because it's a small business. So I could basically like get the work done. I could kind of come and go as long as I got the work done.

It wasn't like, oh, you got to be here from this time to this time. Yeah. You know? And yeah, you got to kind of like, I got to like, like my dad had built this thing up, but there were things that i was like oh this

could be more efficient so how about we try this because he's not like technologically that savvy but he like knows the business right so stuff like that i could help with and we could that was like kind of cool to to help with but um in terms of like the day-to-day work of it which is like tax consulting that wasn't something that was as fulfilling to me right yeah so uh when you at harvard did you work on the lampoon i did yeah well so okay i i technically was on staff um you have to you have to submit a couple of packets basically um and then go through a couple rounds and then like each each semester they take like a handful of people. What is it exactly?

Is this a weekly thing? The magazine? Yeah. It's a magazine. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a publication.

I don't know if it's week. It's not, it's definitely not weekly. It's monthly. Monthly. If that, um, yeah,

it's like, I think it comes out maybe like, I don't know, two or three times a semester or something like that but you got onto it that's impressive yeah maybe i don't know uh there's there's it has a very specific uh comedic voice which at the time kind of mirrored maybe something like new yorker cartoons uh-huh you know did it have any kind of teeth to it or was it like family from new yorker cartoons are pretty pretty safe oh so it there were there would be two things that they would

do one was the publication itself and that that generally wasn't like satirical and that was more just kind of like almost like zany um but they would kind of be like kind of sketches or just it was kind of like off the wall comedy stuff um but then they would also do these parodies so uh when i was there there was like a national geographic parody and it was literally like partnered with national geographic and then you create like a parody of the national geographic oh wow yeah yeah so that sort of stuff was um where like this the satire and the bite would come yeah yeah and there would be like like the crimson was like the name of the paper so they would like release like a fake version of that yeah um who any any big comedians that were on staff when you were there was this colin jost's era colin had graduated

already um i so in terms of stand-ups yeah or just comedy people i just think i think it's so cool i mean the lampoon just seems to be a place that a lot of people have gone through yeah yeah so so my my roommate uh he's davenport um wrote for the fate wrote for family guy wrote for just like a ton of hbo shows um and then uh robert padnick wrote for the office chris schleicher wrote for a ton of like mindy's projects um justin herwitz was uh he won like an academy award for what's that a la la land oh yeah yeah um so like people came out of there that were definitely and continue to be like very qualified i just i wonder i always wonder if i would have been able to get on it i don't know i just feel like i would not i mean i couldn't even get into harvard i don't know man the thing is the other thing is like you're

a college kid so there's that element of like you don't even know anything yeah yeah so that's i think like the overlying thing that like you know i don't even know what this like i i didn't grow up like my my roommate hayes he his his folks had go or like his dad had gone to harvard and he knew very well what like the history of the lampoon was yeah he used to watch like mr show he was the guy who like introduced me to like comedy in that way yeah i i had very little insight into any of that so yeah what led you to even apply like well he was going and he was like oh this is like the the humor magazine and he was he i think he was kind of like understood like oh this is where like the funniest people are so i was like all right i like comedy yeah i love to stand up always so i was like all right um

but yeah um harrison greenbaum was my year um he started the stand-up club but i didn't do that yeah yeah very interesting i was trying to get har on the podcast, but he's in Vegas now. Ah. Doing a Cirque du Soleil thing called the Big Apple. Okay, okay. And he's like the host of it. Yeah. Well, that's so, okay, so then you're working at your family's company. What's the big leaving of that full-on stand-up?

Was it winning the Boston Comedy Festival? Yeah. So that was, so again, if these things happen, one of the nice things was it was a transition. It wasn't going from full time working here to full time doing standup. It was like,

okay, I'm working at the company. And then as standup was picking up, it was kind of like gradually moving out of there and doing stand-up more and more um it was yeah we had i had a conversation with my dad about it and my dad you know had wanted i think me to be pursuing the family business because he was like oh this is perfect now i can kind of this thing that i built can be passed down and you know can continue in that way but he was also like man the reason i came to this country is so that

you could pursue things that weren't available in india yeah pursuing art he had wanted he like he's he's very uh he loves like poetry and literature and drama and that sort of thing if he could he's like if you if he could he could have been like an actor but that opportunity just didn't exist that for for him you think so an actor you think like that specifically uh i mean yeah he's uh he's very like even within our community the the bengali community we always have like these um annual there's a festival called the durga puja which is like our big annual festival um it's it's like a hindu festival but during that time there's all kinds of like celebrations and always there's like plays um yeah that's a big part of like bengali culture and even in

worcester would they would do these plays even in boston they would do these plays my dad would be a part of it you just like nail it always wow yeah he's very like very capable uh it's like it's like with uh with jewish kids you do passover and there's like the reading of the story and like it very clearly gets to the theater kids and they go and then moses waved his staff yeah uh that's so sweet yeah yeah yeah how how intense do these plays i mean is it just like a reading or like their scenes and they memorize and they put on costumes yeah no it's it's a it's a reading or are there scenes and they memorize and they put on costumes? Yeah, it's a play.

That's so cool. They have a stage and they do the play. It's a full-on play. People memorize. There's this community theater element to it where there's varying levels of talent and varying levels of buying into

how much you're going to memorize the lines yeah all of that you know it's it's still like it's still small town uh theater in some respects but you know the people who do it well do it well yeah he should become an actor now so he he he wouldn't act i don't think but he's um the thing that he's very good at is public speaking uh-huh like very good at public speaking and so because of his upbringing which is like basically they were when his dad when his dad was the one raising him they were basically homeless and then because of that he was able like you know just uh he had to basically like kind of like learn a lot and then through a series of things that led him to come to the country and then he was able to start the business this his life story is very interesting yeah um

and he can and he can tell it in a very compelling way um so he does like public speaking um if he could do that which just like he goes around like just to inspire people like what is sort of yeah yeah there's there's like there's like the entrepreneurial aspect of it so he could do that for like businesses but he he's like spoken around the world at like different like rotary clubs and things like that because he's, yeah, he's just a very inspirational figure in that way, yeah. That's a similar field to what you're doing.

Yeah, it's a little frustrating because he's funny, but... Does he do a, I'm a pedophile joke at his inspirational? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah always always that's how i knew i could do it in india i was like as long as dad's doing it uh now he's a he's he's like he's like funny and i used to say in a and now i can't say it but like i'll still say it but he's like he's like funny in like a bill cosby way which is like you know like an avuncular man i when i was little bill cosby was so funny really you know oh yeah i remember watching one of his one of his early specials with my grandparents like

when it was like that was like one of my introductions to stand-up was watching um do you like remember the jokes too i i don't remember i mean i've always i think i've said this before on this podcast i don't remember a specific stand-up bit, but I remember one of my earliest memories of laughing at a sitcom was The Cosby Show at a part where- It was the one about that special liquid that makes women fall in love. No, it was this bit where,

I don't think there's any talking in it, but he was always sneaking food, Cliff. He was always sneaking food, always getting caught. Big hoagies. And she was always trying to catch him not to eat you know i so i related to it um the content and so um she had made a cake and um she's like don't eat that cake and um and then she leaves the room of course and he goes and he's you know he's doing funny cosby faces and he cuts

he cuts a hole in the middle of the cake yeah and i always think about this yeah he cuts a hole in the middle of the cake pulls out a piece yeah eats it puts paper towel paper towel in the thing and then frosts over the top so it won't and i just thought that was so fucking funny and like also a good idea so funny anyways um i think the clip for this should be like favorite bill cosby moments no i just love i watched i watched the other day uh comedian that documentary yeah and i mean it's it's such a good documentary but like the really the the climax of it is you know as as much as documentary has a climax it's just like jerry after working to get back and feel like a comic again he visits bill cosby performing in new jersey on a 5 p.m show and it's just kind of a riff of just like look at this

god look at this older guy and it's so it's surreal to watch it now it's just surreal yeah and i always think that uh they got netflix i still i'm so curious if it was deleted for real that you know that he filmed his last special. Man, I would love to see that special. Who wouldn't love to see it? He was rising again as a stand-up at the time. There's a clip from like January of the year it all happened. Him at the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

And he comes out and the band's going crazy. And he's like doing the Kiss Cosby faces. And everyone's going nuts. They're going nuts yeah they're going nuts yeah man he was he was right they had a he had a comedy central whole hour like the year before like his stand-up was becoming yeah well he's going he's going on tour yeah yeah i'm so i'm so curious no no that's that's a firm one yeah that's a firm one. Yeah. That's a firm one. Yeah, no. Would you? No.

No, no, no. Can you imagine if it was someone like, it was like an open mic-er in the scene? Yeah, yeah. Who was just like, I mean, this is a great opportunity. Yeah, I mean, he's going to have openers. The question is, will any of the clubs, no, I actually don't think he does. I think historically he just walks out. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, now he's blind as fuck. Is he? Oh, he's blind as fuck. Oh. All right, let's... Okay, we'll get off Cosby. Now, I think the biggest difference is between us, other than shirts on and shirts off,

is when you won the Boston Comedy Festival, what did you do with the money so i thought everybody who the way the festival works is you submit to get in right and you have to pay a submission fee yeah and then when you perform you do a quarterfinal semi-final final and then and then and then a winner the winner gets ten thousand dollars everybody else gets nothing which i was like this is a system seems flawed i would much rather the performers get paid for their performances and so what i did was so i took half the money we so even before the final winner was announced i think it was like in the finals it was like me mark normand wow langston herman um ray harrington matt d sean bedgood i want to say there's a couple

other people but it's like 10 people um we all discussed it amongst ourselves and we're like all right second place should get a couple hundred dollars and third place should get a couple hundred dollars oh that's cool yeah yeah so um but when i won i was like i paid out the second place but we had just determined before i paid out the third place what we had determined before but the rest of it i was like everybody basically gets spot pay. So every performer got $25 per performance. Okay. Um, and so that left me with,

I will, with like $5,000. Um, and then that 5,000 I donated to the, I think it was called the one fund. Cause I think Boston had the marathon bombing at that time. Um, so half the money I gave to the other comedians is spot

pay and then half the money i donated to the what would you do if you had if you won a competition i okay i like this plan that you guys came across i like the first half of the plan i'm on first half of the plan i'm like the person getting second and the person getting yeah love all that and i like i like the spot pay thing is a very nice i it is hard for me in my life right now to imagine uh donating the rest to a charity i to be full disclosure sure i'd like to imagine that at some point in my life feeling that way personally if i'm speaking honestly i would give more than i want to a charity i would double it even if it was at a great sacrifice yeah i'm glad that we're both being honest um if you had that's amazing if you had one last time well here's the here's the thing if you if you hadn't won you wouldn't have had that

money totally you know so there's that element of it and you wouldn't have been like i am down this much money it's only when you get the money that you're like, oh, now I have this money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but then you have the money. Then you have the money. The other thing was I felt like the reason I had become the comedian I had become was because the city had supported me. Sure. I thought you were going to say because of runners.

I became a comedian that I am of my own volition with no assistance from anyone. Sheer gent of personality. Just sheer force of will yeah i if you had one last comic standing how much money was that a million i don't think so i think it's 250 000 would you have given like every comedian their sag day right leading up to that so the comedians get paid anyway oh that's nice yeah you're getting you're getting your how far into that did you get? It was a little convoluted, basically.

We've had someone else on here before, and they talked about how weird it is. Did we have someone from Last Comic Standing? Oh, so sorry. No, I'm thinking of another... RuPaul's Drag Race? No, America's Got Talent. America's Got Talent.

Yeah, it all sounds... It's all very similar. Speaking of debt, I posted the other day. This is how Dat Phan, who won the first season, he does these Zoom open mics that are kind of like bringers. And he posts these flyers where it was like him and like, I'm serious, 20 other comedians on this flyer in a way that was just like, this feels like hell.

This feels like it was, it's just like, you know when you see a flyer where something about it, something smells of these people are being exploited. Like a bringer. Who's getting exploited? I think the comics. I think the comics on that thing. There's something about they either have to stay

and watch the whole mic or they all have to bring someone. It's just like, it's like one of those flyers. It's like a, I shouldn't say the club, but there's some flyers where you go like, something feels fishy here.

Okay, okay, okay. Are you a friends with that fan? No, no, no. I'm not friends with that fan. So was, he's creating this thing? He was the host. Yeah, he runs this like

weekly Zoom open mic with like a kind of flyer that makes you go, you won this thing he runs this like weekly zoom open mic with like a kind of flyer that makes you go you were you won this thing yeah yeah yeah the rumor at the time was that he went on tour and he didn't have an hour and comics were resentful because he was like a newbie comic okay i don't i don't know what actually yeah i mean those those early seasons of last comic standing there was a lot of fishiness because i think the the person who created was barry katz and he also managed the comedians who were who were on the show so there's a lot of like fishiness around who's actually moving forward and winning these things is their voting the judge is actually

counting yeah yeah who were the judges when you were there um russell peters uh-huh um rosanne and damon wayans okay wow did rosanne give any good advice did you see her recent set i didn't see her recent stuff twitter it's pretty it's pretty rough. Caleb Hearn had a really funny, or a really insightful tweet I liked about Roseanne. Oh, just about how brilliant Roseanne as a show was. Yeah. It's just like now she's doing, she's like, my pronouns are kiss my ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which Ted Cruz also did at CPAC. So she stole it as well. It was just one of those where it was, even for conservative, it felt like, you're a little late to this one. Really? You're a little late to the kiss my ass pronouns joke. Have you watched any of her early stuff?

I've seen like the cards. I mean, new, fresh, great. This was this stank of nothing even from herself or her being or anything of interest just just the worst kind of schlock yeah there's that the thing about roseanne was there was always an anger there that was really originally really interesting and coming from a place where you're like whoa that's a voice that you know we're not hearing and then now it feels so bitter and angry and like just cash grabby i always wonder about i so i i question if whether it's a cash grab i my i wonder whether it is age the fact that

what she was saying then aligned with the the popular trends at that time and now it doesn't align with what the what's popular and if you listen to older people and they and they're watching her it resonates with how they're thinking like would they be like finally somebody is saying the stuff that we're thinking in a funny way but the topics feel supercharged by uh media input in a way that feels different from her earlier stuff felt like it was coming from her life. And I feel like when you've heard the 100th conservative make the same joke about pronouns, there's part of you are like,

how many people on your way to the Fox News studio did you run into that insisted you use their pronouns? Because I don't think anyone's mentioned their pronouns to me in a month. Or like, they act as if like, they act as if they've been, well,

I've been performing a lot in this house, to be fair. But like, but it's, you feel, I'm not saying that they, listen,

there are people in the audience applauding and cheering and whatnot, but it feels like supercharged with this obsession about a particular topic that I'm like, I just don't believe that you're dealing with this as frequently as your whole set was this. Okay. Man, I got to look at her history.

We're having her on tomorrow. I mean, I never on. It would stress me out. Would you have Cosby? No. Oh, you wouldn't have even been on the pod. No, no, no, no, no. it would stress me out would you have Cosby? no you wouldn't even have him on the pod no no no you seriously think that?

you think I could have Cosby on this and not be fucking you're like oh you fucking hack sell out you won't even have Cosby Roseanne I gotta watch what her special is and then also what happened to her i'm not so sure because she she said some stuff on twitter racist thing and it was straight up racist yeah yeah but the thing is and she's now wildly conservative you know very but it's not different conservative it's not like uh whoa she has a take we haven't heard it's like

it's like mcdonald had plenty of views that i found yeah rather deplorable and he was hilarious i i'm not so blind that i can't go like oh that's funny you know i i'm not i'm not of that ilk where i'm like like you just felt like the jokes were because there's no question it's not a special you're talking that sure you're talking a two-minute clip that you saw yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. It was not a full special. But I promise, based on this special, I promise, from the bottom of my soul, we're not talking about a great comic. It would be really funny if there was that two-minute chunk

and then a brilliant comedic special that we're not seeing. That's what they pulled. That was the clip they pulled. And they just pulled that really hacky. Well, I do think there probably is an element of that, right? Like they're going to get their viewers and they're going to show the most supercharged things to get those viewers. So it might be very well the case where she might have some nuance in what she's saying that isn't being portrayed in that ad. Yeah, I really think we see this clip.

All your benefit of the doubt will vanish in 10 seconds. It's 4.55. okay uh yeah yeah uh uh but but okay so you you did you did last comic standing how's your i i'm curious i just want to ask since our lives are very tour heavy right now has it has it been with the tick tock uh with the media? Did it change your touring life? Oh, certainly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was touring more as kind of like a serviceable comedian who could be on stage. And if people are coming to the show, it's generally like clean.

It's generally somewhat of a different voice. And it's generally like hopefully it's generally somewhat of a different voice and uh it's generally like hopefully like punchline heavy so you're gonna get like boxes checked and so you can put him out but it's not like i was drawing for for a while sure also i had some credits so like they could at least be like well this person's been on this thing so they could kind of at least sign off like well he's kind of like a rubber stamp of proof of uh sometimes it feels like credits don't fuck like in terms of like even now like the idea that one's been on comedy cetera or one's been on late night i'm like i don't think that moves a single

ticket yeah i would say i would say pre-pandemic the clubs were looking at that more as just like a a validator yeah you know of just like oh this person had gotten on this thing so we can tell the people coming to the show oh this person's been on this thing sure right i don't think people were like oh i've seen this person on five minutes of colbert yeah right but just to be like oh you've seen this person on colbert i feel like you see every flyer has every late night show on it no matter what anymore and at a certain point everyone becomes numb to you know I could put any flyer up and just put late night comedy central and I'll go oh cool right right right I so I think in terms of ticket sales today you doing a late night spot isn't going to move the needle unless

that late night spot goes up on youtube and does really well on youtube like that is the only way that you're going to get like the movement from it yeah or there's the possibility of like some long-term play of like hey some casting person is watching these shows sees this person and then it's like let's bring them in for this of course and then you know somewhere down the line how are you feeling i feel like we both we put out a lot of stuff and we were touring and how are you enjoying this phase of your career i feel i feel there's just exhaustion there's just sometimes there's a there's a burnout i feel like i'm a tv network and i'm i'm the sole generator of content and sometimes just get it's just a tough it's just tough it's all so gradual and i just would like do anything for

just something that you felt a real a real ooh ticket sales like super increased it's just tough i'm just exhausted how are you enjoying this this part of your life do you feel lonely do you feel tired do you feel like what's the end goal here it used to be a special now sometimes i'm like the clips are going to be seen by a thousand more people tend you know uh so um i i guess i'm curious, when you're going out, you are seeing people coming out from what you're putting out. Oh, for sure. It's moving. It's moving. It's all just like it's just it's funny how things like being on Corden. I mean, it it's literally as if nothing really changed. It's just all so gradual. and i feel like back in the day okay you had more moments of oh you did this cool now like things change so it's just

sometimes it's just it's it's i i look and i think oh wow i i went to for bristol yeah you know it's like there's sometimes it's a week ahead of that and they're like we have three tickets sold for friday okay four for the early show saturday zero for the late show saturday i'm like there's only seven people in the town so you got everybody of course um so i so i i don't it's are you enjoying i'm saying are you are you how are you feeling right so it's it's hard for me to tell um whether what's different is our perspectives uh or what's different is like the numbers because for me prior to posting stuff i would have just whatever the inbuilt audiences of the crowd of the club coming up right yes um and then i would perform for whoever was coming out to a comedy show that night um very rarely are they coming out for

a lingon mitra now it is quite drastically different for me um so that element of oh it being gradual again i can't tell whether you and i just have different uh ideas of what gradual is for me this has felt very drastic sure um in terms like, before I really started headlining, I think when it was, I really headlined post pandemic, post TikTok. So I don't, I don't know if I fully experienced the opposite of,

I think you had like a full headlining experience life before I, before I did it all. So maybe I just don't feel it as much. Yeah, there might be. But also it sounds like he's doing better than you. It does. I mean I just don't feel it as much. Yeah, there might be. But also, it sounds like he's doing better than you. It does. I mean, you got TikTokcomic.com.

I can't compete with that at all. I can't do that. I mean, that's worth at least $1,000. TikTokcomic.com. Which I'll then donate to all the TikTokcomics. What do you think you could sell that for? TikTokcomic.com? Not much, honestly.

Who's going to buy it? Present company excluded because because you're still saying that as you're like the tiktok comic so the reason i got the website was because you can't link into instagram right like if you put tiktok you mean no not oh yeah i don't really talk to i don't really use tiktok. Oh, you've moved on? It's not that I've moved on. I guess, yeah. I guess maybe there's an element of I've moved on. I used it for like two months during the pandemic. And then I kind of stopped all social media.

And then when I came back, I started posting on Instagram. I just thought TikTok was like a dumpster fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. on instagram um i i just thought tiktok was like a dumpster fire yeah yeah um and then when i tried to like re-insert into tiktok i think like i have to post again very very very consistently to get back into the algorithm or whatever it is and i haven't really done that i will just put everything out everywhere but it but tiktok isn't really the reason the reason tiktok has worked is because i feel like everybody calls short form content tiktoks so literally there are people who come out and be like hey i saw your tiktok on instagram you see and i'm like okay that's they use it like xerox yeah or kleenex you know interesting that's very interesting youtube is shorts

reels is facebook and instagram yeah yeah but no one calls those things no normal people call those things though yeah yeah you know yeah yeah they'd be like tiktok you're tiktok that's really smart what if we called our sketch team tiktok tiktok function tiktok function instead of uncle function tiktok function.com yeah what if we blew up after that tiktok function like that was it yeah that's all art is that's all oh there's this little clever branding um all right let's go on to our next segment this has got to stop this has got to stop do you have a this has got to stop wrestling on something yeah maybe so so this is old but new in some ways so the super bowl happened uh-huh um the halftime show i didn't i

didn't watch this year i don't know if I remember last year. The one I remember was J-Lo. Did you guys watch? I certainly did. I don't remember. I'm going to remember it now. They say it was one of the good ones, I think. Perhaps. I don't remember whether it's considered one of the good ones or not.

What I do remember is I was watching it with a group of people, and they were primarily women, I was watching it with a group of people and there were primarily women and they Could not stop talking about how good JLo looks Yes, people are obsessed with and and they were like and she was 50 I think when she when she performed the Super Bowl I think oh, they love Looks really good This is exactly what people were saying. She was like, she looks amazing.

I can't believe she's 50, right? And I think that should stop because I think it's really insincere when she doesn't tell everybody the amount of surgery and amount of things that she is having done to her yeah to preserve that look well let me tell you how this relates to me taking off my shirt please this is what we're back with but okay so so would you do you think it's one of those where it'd be like they should go wow her doctors did a great job. No, no, no.

Yeah. No, I could go ahead. Sorry. I think what should happen is people should be like, it is completely unnecessary for somebody to be doing this because it is like a flaw that we require people to age in this way for us to still appreciate them. people to age in this way for us to still appreciate them i think they should be like hey if somebody looks 50 and they're acting 50 that's the thing that we should be trying to uplift so you you prefer people went oh you see how good jayla looks disgusting i think just be your age i think they i mean not her particularly but the system they should be questioning i think they should be like why why are we pushing?

Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say. But why? Because human beings are dumb and they see the sexy and they pay money. I mean, that's why. But what's going to happen is this. When these women become 50, right, they won't have the access to the money and the surgeries, laser laser treatments are that j-lo's having right so they're going to age the way 50 year olds generally are aging and they're going to look in

the mirror and they're not going to feel as good because they're going to be like look at me right if only i had those puerto rican genes of j-lo which is what everybody's saying it's like oh my god she must have great genes and she must have like a great exercise routine which i'm not discounting those things and or i am discounting but i'm not saying that those things don't exist i'm saying there's all these other bigger factors that people refuse or don't talk about which are leading to this thing happening and if we don't acknowledge that then we're kind of screwing ourselves because we're not going to look like her when we're 50 and we also shouldn't be uplifting that as like the model that's where that's where i'm like i

might agree with you in theory but i'm like human nature is human nature people are going to do this my issue with j-lo is the music i've seen no i don't really know her music yeah are you talking about my scene partner no no listen, it was insane when she did that movie. People were like, she might get an Academy Award. I'm like, an Academy Award for that movie? No offense to Hustlers, but there's this weird thing where people, with the looks and even with anything she does, people put her- She's not a likable lead.

I watched that movie that she just did on amazon and she is so miserable and everything she's so like oh my god like she's so mad about everything she's not a funny comedic likable person so i'm like stop putting her in these things and propping her up like she's this great thing she's beautiful yes she's 50 we can't Whatever. But like, like she's not that good. And I'm just sick of it being like, what can't she do? Act in a comedic romantic comedy and make me laugh or like her at all. That's what she can't do. Be a believable romantic lead that I am rooting for because I don't root for her. I'm like, I don't know.

You don't seem like you like the guy that you're with in every movie that marry me with Owen Wilson I've seen them all Nicole watches them and I watch them too and she's just not likable Mated Manhattan you know I haven't watched that one but I feel like she probably was more likable at some point I don't know just now I'm like I don't

anytime I watch the last Jennifer if you listen to the pod after we work together and hustle I want you to know I strongly disagree and if we ever have you on douglas goodhart will be the co-host of that episode because wrestle uh okay i hear what you're saying i just sometimes i see this stuff i'm like it's like when madonna madonna like she's recently been the focus because she came on tv and had like just a lot of plastic surgery just in a way where you see it and yet we can say anything we want but we look at it we go wow that's that looks that looks different yeah and and there's a degree of like

don't talk about it and i'm like there's yeah but like who are we gonna pretend that that we're not we're not going like whoa that's a that's a shape i've never seen before there's there's there's sometimes there's there's like there's two prongs of the body positivity when i'm like yes be body positive and then when i'm like do you think no one's gonna notice this thing well what do you uh thing is body positivity well the degree of there's a degree of like hey don't talk about her looks and it's like because i feel like it came out of the screen like so i'm not sure if plastic surgery is body positivity i feel like not doing plastic surgery is body positivity i think body but the difference is J-Lo,

they're saying probably there's plastic surgery involved, but it must have just been more subtle or better. Or better genes overall. That's the thing with like a Paul Rudd or Jennifer Lopez. People say Paul Rudd, how does he not get older? They're not aging. They're not aging. They're very wealthy people that probably have. Do you wish celebrities were more honest about like

when someone said to Paul like, oh my God, you look like you're 20. But is it them or Do you wish celebrities were more honest about like when someone said, when someone said to Paul, like, Oh my God, is it them or is it us that we're talking about it? Do you know what I mean? Is it them? Is it JLo and Paul Rudd?

Or is it that as a society, we're like, we should at least, because if we can't get rid of being complimenting people who still look youthful, should we at least be more honest about procedures? Totally. I, especially in that, in that realm. Like I, if you're, if, still look youthful yeah should we at least be more honest about procedures totally especially in that in that realm like i if you're if you're like a regular person and you're exercising or

whatever you're eating healthy and you're like doing the things that everybody can kind of do that's different but if you have access to these things and then what you're saying and then you're going for example like a jennifer aniston or something right clearly there's work that's done yeah yeah but she's also like promoting vitamin water and people are like well if you drink this water you're gonna look this way right it's like no it's not the water it's the money that's going into these like micro surgeries that are happening that i think especially for like young especially impressionable women and things like that is a very negative thing but it's happening for guys as well with a bull run or something that we are feeling this like same

kind of like desire to oh i have to also do this thing do you think you would never get plastic surgery no now let me let me think unless i got burned oh sure but I imagine people say this yeah and then one day let's say you start having a TV career a movie career yeah

and things are going well and then you hit 50 and like suddenly nothing's coming in yeah and your agent or manager someone you're very close with sits you down

and says I gotta tell you like I think if you could just play in your 30s or 40s like the TV world would open back up to you right

there's a guy he just it's here and it's here it just goes like this and that's it yeah that's it

yeah I feel like you've had this conversation already based on how specific these are no because I I also agree I'm like

I don't want there's something about me that I'm like I something about plastic surgery yeah I have an aversion to But it's also because

I think it's because You see the worst examples And you go Ah Don't risk that Don't risk looking like a Muppet But I also feel like

People have said it before Yeah And then someday You see Amy Poehler And you're like Damn You look like

Oh something There's something It was done well So I think there's two things One is You look great, Amy. For your age. I mean, you're... She drinks a lot of water.

A lot of water. So there's two things. One is acting world, theater world, has this preoccupation with looks that... People do. Comedy, I don't think, has as high a preoccupation with so i am very satisfied with what i'm doing and i don't think i would ever require that kind of work to have people come out to see me do stand-up can you imagine though a bunch of 20 year old open micers

getting heavy plastic surgery to imitate their comedy? I totally could. I mean, hot comedy is becoming something. I hate hot comedy. We've talked about hot comedy. Oh yeah, hot comedy. But even if it was the case where they were like, hey, you could be doing theaters and arenas. We just gotta, right?

No, because I don't need that. If I can play clubs, I have very low overhead. I'm very content doing what I'm doing. And then if they're like, oh, you're out of clubs, unless then i'm like all right well i'll do something else because i would lose too much of me to really do you think that's do you think that's what they said to dane cook you're gonna lose man this stadiums poor dane oh man what happened oh just oh just he's a lot like people were like with the plastic surgery it's so visible that sometimes i wonder like i always

wonder i'm like was this your fault was this sometimes i'm like was this your fault in the sense that you wanted more and more and more or did you get a bad doctor well yeah i think yeah i think it's a combo and like they can only do so much and like so like there is a point at which you break yeah like if you if you look at people like it's short-sighted to get it done because eventually you're going unless unless technology moves very very rapidly like you're eventually gonna have to fix what it was that is happening to your body if you want that's what's interesting about it is that you're right it's like it's like it works until all of a sudden because i feel like anytime i'm like, oh, you got plastic surgery,

then it didn't work. Because then I'm like, I'm not thinking of like, look how young they look. I'm thinking of this surgery. So there is a thing where even when it's working for a certain point, at some point it turns over

and then that's all anyone sees, really. It's like, oh. If you started balding, you have beautiful long hair, would you ever, would you ever? you ever never no because then that's what i'm saying like that but that's this it goes back to the circumcision thing i'm like what is the reason for i want hair i want hair even for me to run my fingers through

you can get a wig i'm nervous i got this thing it's good i know it's i know it's coming and i'm going to turkey you're going to turkey i mean to Turkey? I'm saying to get the hair transplant surgery. Turkey is the place a lot of people go. I didn't know the reference. I thought you were like, I'm going to Turkey and I don't want to look like this without hair. I thought you were going to Turkey. You know how

mean they are in Turkey about bald people. You know how tall they are over there. I didn't know that that's where it happens. Turkey is where a lot of people go because the hair surgery is a lot there. I didn't know that that's where it happens. Turkey is where a lot of people go because the hair surgery is a lot cheaper. I don't think you should do that. I think if you're going to get hair surgery. It's not like getting a Brazilian butt lift.

It's a regular surgery. You've done a lot more research than anyone else knows. I feel like Andre Agassi was known for his hair. And it turned out he was wearing a wig. But he went bald. The thing I value about him is his tennis abilities the thing i value about you is your comedy i don't care about your hair yeah you might not but the majority of my fan base i said i have feelings sometimes whenever someone's like like a compliment about like looks wise i'm always just like fuck

you don't like me for the right reason and these looks are gonna go away but that's that's the point right that's why leaning into that stuff is dangerous and it's short-sighted of course if you're fine with aging then you're never gonna have to confront oh people aren't liking me for who i am i just think it's it's gotta be crazy to be a pop star because it's like they value the youth and it's like it's a different business. I'm sure they can sit down and be like, no plastic surgery. This is where the money's gonna go. Plastic surgery.

But again, I feel short-sighted even being a pop star. There's plenty of examples of people that were like, okay, I can't do this kind of music forever. I have to change the thing and adapt to being- Sure, that's the thing with Madonna. I think that some people feel where sometimes there's like this really heavy sex stuff you and but not even sex it's like trying to be cool or youthful when you're like just oh you're but i feel that with like cardi b2 like somebody should be like she'll be like my man we have i think she

said what's like we have sex six times a day. And I was like, shut the fuck up. That's my, it's similar where I'm like, you are a workaholic. None of you people at the top of these industries, you're working your ass off. Six times a day? Even if I was going for it, I don't think I could break four. Maybe five if I really like, if I stayed up the whole night, if I took drugs, I could do more. But I can't even imagine what that four,

I think in my prime, three. And that was not sex. That was by myself. Let's go to our final segment. You better count your blessings. You better count your blessings. Russell, you got a blessing? Yeah, I got a new dog. What the fuck?

Big life decision. Why won't you share your life with me, Russell? You break my heart. Well, no, I haven't told anyone. That's the problem. It wasn't like that thought out um but we we uh we did it we got a new dog uh he's very sweet what kind he's he looks a lot like our our current other dog ziggy so he's a pit bull uh that same kind of coloring um what sex offender did you

name it after uh no so he what came with they all come come louis's cat um his name is daniel so daniel daniels but um daniels well my last name is daniels oh so i was saying his name is daniel daniels um uh no so he very sweet um taking slow in terms of like you know it's two pitbulls together um but uh they seem to be getting along on their walks and going well. And, you know, he's doing really well. He's a very sweet boy. Did you train Ziggy? Yeah.

So we're doing the same training. So it's a lot of, like, the first three or four weeks, it's, like, a lot of, like, he's in the crate. And then we go on, like, six short walks a day. And that's when he gets rewarded. And then we do some, like, place time. So it's a whole thing. But it really works with Ziggy. So we're doing the same thing with him.

But he's going well. I'm glad. Glad to hear it. My blessing, Tove and I, this episode is coming out on fucking February 28th. But we did an early Valentine's Day because I'm doing a gig. And she took me to this place where you do collages. She's got a prop. It's like there's,

it's like an art place and it's like, really like for crafts and so we did the collage and we were both like, this is what we're in, this is how our minds work and you go to

two different tables, there's scraps everywhere, magazines and you just, you just make a collage for two and a half hours and we were stoned. It sounds lovely. And it was really, and like I stupidly, I tried to make it onahaj for two and a half hours. We were stoned. Sounds lovely.

And it was really, and like I stupidly, I tried to make it on the whole paper. I didn't finish it, but both of ours are really intense. Hers was about like femininity. It said femininity. It was about dieting. And mine, I made it, a case file says broken home. And I had Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, and they're split up. They're both with new sexual figures.

And there's their son in the middle. And he's holding on to them, holding hands. And it's really heavy. Yeah, I was expecting something very sweet and lighthearted. Not at all. And this was like very much. This is like something you would do in prison. Yes.

And then I found this giraffe. This might be a suicide. Yeah, I could write it right in here. And imagine leaving a suicide collage. That makes it more palatable for me. People would be like, the creative. If not suicide, this is like when you have a serial killer and they go into his room. Uh-huh.

This is what you would find. Is that someone as, are you totally ready? That's that Australian actor who got me too. As Einstein. As Einstein. And it says, are you totally ready? Yeah. Are you totally ready?

This says, on your side internment this this is very upsetting was there somebody like kind of walking around while you guys were doing the collage and then they were like looking at very happy ones very happy ones and then they were coming to you and being like they're pretty hands-off because i think if they came over to me let me explain this to you right what's cool about collage is a lot of random like coincidences happen and it feels in the moment like this is brilliant okay so at least in this one so this is a dead fish and i cut out the eye and the eye is now focused on this man's cock and this is like the ex-wife with the new this is my you know my mom and and the fish the dead fish carcass is tied to this

forest on fire it's a family on fire. And you know what? It's just a case, another case of a broken home. So great. It's called. This segment is called Blessings? Yeah, just something you're thankful for. Or if you have a collage.

So this place is called, let me say the name because I want to go back here. It's called Happy Medium. Very cool. It was very immediately there was a thing I had to fight in me where I'm like, I need to make it perfect. I need to get it done in time. See. I need it to be. But it was good because I felt something I haven't felt in a very long time, which is like making art for the sake of being artistic.

Do you? Okay, I have a question. Would you ever do this with me? Yeah, I would. I have a question about your process, please. Real quick. Did you have this story laid out while you were putting this together

or did it come together when you were like... Thank you for asking me. The thing that I think most deeply was when I saw Bill and Melinda Gates, that's when I... So then you crafted the story around them. And it was them together back when they were married. And I was like, let me play with that.

Okay, I got it. And yeah. So I'm... I would do that with you. I would be really into it. Are you going to frame it? I don't know if Tova's into mine, but I'm going to ask her to. It's upsetting to look at maybe.

I don't think you should throw it away. I like it. Well, you know how you need something on a frame and then you put like the actual thing over it? Yeah. So maybe it could be like the thing that goes behind. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that.

But I think what's so smart about Tova, so they gave you this big brown piece of paper and I'm like, fuck, that's a big collage. I gotta use it all. Tova just- Oh, she made a smaller one. Tova made a smaller one. And it's like, that's how, that's the ways. I feel like when you, looking at the way she made a collage i made collage that like a psychologist could not only tell emotionally

based on what we did but also just like our short my shortcomings particularly my brain i do like some psychologists be like oh so do you come from a broken home brilliant psychologist but like the fact that tova like saw the paper was like oh i'll make a smaller one and my mind i was like i have to was like, Oh, I'll make a smaller one. And my brain, I was like, I have to fill the whole paper. If you were going to do that one, you should have done it this way.

Cause it's, it's upsetting, you know? Okay. So what's your blessing? I like leggings. So in the winter time, I wear a layer of leggings and then I put the jeans on.

Really? And it is for somebody who grew up in Massachusetts who didn't know how to dress himself in the cold this has been a more recent thing where I've learned how to dress in the cold game-changing I feel like a god when I walk out and it's cold outside and I have leggings on on top of the jeans and I'm warm everybody else is cold I'm waiting on top or under oh you're right it's oh so the jeans and i'm warm everybody else is cold i'm wait on top or under oh you're right so so the jeans go on top the jeans that would be crazy otherwise i'm getting i'm getting close to

that you're gonna feel like a god and everyone's like what is it a true i figured something out that no one else has i will i will say that that's you make me want to try it i've heard people say that before i always they call it they call it like whatever what what are they they don't like long underwear long johns yeah i feel like it's more feminine say leggings but that's what they are is it like boxer-like material or like underwear-like material or is it no it's so like uniqlo makes these like it's it's like it's almost like yoga pants interesting yeah i will give that a try next winter yeah i think you'd be up your alley you what's not you just seem like a cold person like

it's my legs are hairy and sometimes they always wear tights for like ballet and musical yeah they're like tights yeah but sometimes tights make my legs itch okay crazy but i'll give it a shot yeah plus you sweat a lot i'd rather wear no pants yeah in public yeah but we haven't won that battle yet um so this episode is coming out february 28th is there anything you would like to plug yeah sure if you go to my website tiktokcomic.com it's actually a lingodmeter.com but it directs their tiktokcomic.com. You'll get my email list. That's how I let people know about my shows. So if you sign up for that, next time I'm in your town, you'll get an email.

And then all my show schedules are there. But I think in March I'll be in Texas. And then after that I'll be in North Carolina. And after that I'll be in Europe. So you can check all that out. Really? Where are you going in Europe? I'm going to be – so TBD on uh locations london is already on the calendar i'll probably do

manchester amsterdam and maybe maybe one other place good for you i'm trying to figure out a kind of thing yeah it's a lot it's a big undertaking yeah yeah yeah it is that's exciting uh russell anything you want to plug yeah come see tit see Titanic, the musical at the Daryl Roth Theater. Great. If you're a fan of the show, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. By now, we will have released our live episode with Aaliyah Janine about working in the adult entertainment industry. You get a lot of bonus content. If you ever see me at a headlining show and you say you're a Patreon member,

I will give you our new Downside sticker. And we just recorded a live episode yesterday. I don't know what the guest was yet, but let's hope it was someone good. So Patreon.com slash Downside. Even if you don't want the bonus shit, it's a good way to support the show and help us to keep growing.

For me, you can find all my dates at TikTokcom comic.com but with two eyes and the tick and uh i will be headlining in san diego this thursday through saturday i think it's five shows it's a nice little room so let's sell it out then i will be in aruba and then hartford connecticut march 11th for two shows at City Steam. But find it all online at Jamarco Cerezi. And let's see. What's a... Fuck.

I got to figure out a new way to end these shows. Sometimes I like to have a little twist. I like to gather everything we did. But with Ismael, we cut something out of the episode. And I ended the tag with a reference to a part that we cut. And so it made no sense. I said, just do it in the butt everybody this is the downside if you could not mention anything about the circumcision or the stuff where i mentioned my dad um or harvard or anything about harvard or roseanne bar or

this is the comedy festival Downside Downside You're listening to The Downside The Downside with Gianmarco Cerezi