The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #135 Don’t Freak Out with Chris Gethard

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Chris Gethard joins to share the downsides of raising a kid post-Industrial Revolution, performing for NASA employees in Alabama, your therapist advocating for numerology, what alt comedy really means, mass shootings screwing up your commute, and whether Gianmarco has thyroid cancer or just a really big Adam’s apple and if it’s appropriate to e-mail him about either. Russell also got a haircut. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Chris Gethard on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Get tickets to Chris' BEAUTIFUL/ANONYMOUS convention May 4-7 in NYC: https://www.beautifulcononymous.com/schedule 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 Tremarcus Oresi. I'm here with a fresh haircut. No, yeah. Russell Daniels. How are you doing? You don't know, but I was really long before. I'm good.

This is going to take some comedy points away from your show. I know. I know. Part of your, he's in Titanic off Broadway. Oh, very nice. And part of, I would say maybe the only funny part of your role is when you swing your hair around. Yeah.

Do you wear a wig in the show? No. Oh, so you're going to really butch Rose's mom for sure. Well, you know, people before played the part before didn't have that long hair. So I was letting it grow for that. But it was it was too much. It was in my mouth. It was like it was just and it was like hard to get the headpiece on.

And you couldn't even see the earrings and stuff because of the hair. So it just didn't, it was, it was time. You know, I felt, I felt, something, I need to change something, maybe physically to quickly, like to shed. How did Britney, oh, you meant Britney Spears. When she shaved her head, you know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how low you were.

I don't know. I just was, it was, it was something, I know it doesn't, it does, that's not going to change it, but I felt like an impulse to like, I have to get rid of this hair. Do you think this will get as much press as Britney Spears did? No, no. I was hoping you meant you were financially controlled by your father. I was like, no.

But so, I'm okay. I'm doing, you know, we talked a little bit about last week. I felt like just been in this weird thing i'm about to go on vacation so i'm looking forward to that i've been in the show for six months and comedically i feel like i'm in my head a little bit like yeah and i felt like maybe in the beginning we were spoiled with audiences and things and so i feel like a lot of things are happening but i feel like almost an adversarial relationship with the audience the last two weeks, and I don't love that.

So I'm trying to, like, I felt like I've been working so hard to, like, manufacture kind of what's happened before more naturally, and I'm in my head and in a rut about it. Good. I'm glad you're going on vacation. I'm coming out of it, I think. Well, we're here. We're joined today. We're very lucky to have him. Yeah. You know, I'm from the Chris Gethard uh uh i well i just said your name already please welcome chris gethard to the hi everybody it's me from that financial domination joke it's me the guy who said that thing um and how are you doing i'm pretty good i'm pretty good i uh

i'm certainly not stressing out over an adversarial relationship with the audience. I'm just thankful they still show up sometimes. I'm on that side of it. I've been through it. I remember it. It's new for me. I'm not someone who performs. I usually do sketch comedy.

It's like once a month, then it's like a big show and blah, blah, blah. Do that. That Broadway grind's no joke. No. Are you doing seven, eight shows a week? Eight shows a week. Yeah. And so I think it's just, it's been doing six months. It's just like a new thing. It's something joke. No. So seven, eight shows, eight shows a week. Yeah. And so I think it's just,

it's been doing six months and it's just like a new thing. It's something I'm getting used to. I remember, um, I remember when I was going so hard doing so many shows a week and having that thing of like having to find that motivation through some anger with them at times. And,

uh, I regret it. I won't lie. I do regret it. So I hope you get past it. Yeah. I missed eight shows a week. It's tough.

I did eight last night and it's, uh, it's gotta be tough for. I do regret it, so I hope you get past it. Yeah. I missed eight shows a week. It's tough. I did eight last night, and it's got to be tough for you, Russell. Did you do eight sets last night? No, no, I wish. There's comedians who do. You do a lot. You do a lot. Well, once I started doing The Road, first of all, I don't think that was ever available to me

eight at night. I think once and maybe twice I've done eight at night, but once I did The Road, I'm at a point now where you need some time off during the week i need some time i come back sunday and if i have three shows sometimes i'm like i was in i was in hoover alabama on thursday rough rough show you're telling me hoover alabama was rough you're telling me hoover alabama was a tough time brutal really as we sit here in the Lower East Side of New York City, you're telling me Hoover, Alabama didn't embrace you with a parade and the key to the city?

Then I went to St. Louis and I told them on stage, I said, I feel like I'm in San Francisco. I mean, compared to Hoover, Alabama, St. Louis felt like a liberal haven. Yeah. But I... Well, you could feel that in the audience or was things happening around you? I want to be careful the way that I say this. love where this is going just go with your gut it was thankfully in hoover alabama it was a diverse audience and diverse in a very specific there were white people there were black

people and i felt like i the the black audience members i felt like had whatever sensibility that I would perform for in New York. I felt like that was where I felt like our values aligned. Where when I looked at the white people in Alabama, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what kind of white person you, there's a scary version there. So I just felt like the sense, like I could, white person you there's there's a scary version there so i just felt like the sense like i could i since i i again it feels it feels tricky obviously i'm stumbling but uh i lived in harlem for a long time i performed in harlem and i i just felt like uh the the values i like to joke about and riff on i was so happy that the audience was diverse in Hoover. Because if it had just been white people in Alabama, I go, oh, we don't agree on anything.

Right, right. And then sometimes they come up to you and they're like, they're the one Democrat or one liberal in Hoover. And they're so thankful that you were there. Yeah. But I think that's what made it, like when I was in Oviedo, Florida,

it was like an all white audience. And this is near Orlando. And like, it was tough. I'm looking at the guys and they all look like Trump. They all have orange. So this is not me to, I don't mean to suggest that all black audience members are the same, but I know that in that particular part of the South, there's like a version of a white person that is not going to like some of the things I'm going to say. Now, can I ask you a personal question? Please. Since we're on this topic. So your name has a lot of vowels in it.

Uh-huh. How far south do you have to go before you start to feel like you've traveled back in time and that's a thing people are noticing? Because in New York, no one blinks. Well, it's not so much. I'm more, I say that I'm Jewish. And that's the part that I get the weird pushback. You've had people say, ew.

When I was in Houston, I said I'm Jewish, and someone in the audience went, yuck. Oh, boy. Yeah. And that's happened at like three different shows. And I think there's that degree where because I'm in a liberal bubble – my girlfriend called me and said I'm like a liberal edgelord in a certain sense. And if I'm in a liberal crowd, it feels like, it's the same way that if I'm joking about race in a diverse audience,

it feels like we all understand what I'm actually saying or what I'm joking about. But if I talk about, I don't want to talk about race if the audience is all white, because then it feels like, hey, now that we're alone, guys, let's do some jokes yeah yeah so so yeah i don't know when i'll be back in alabama have you done huntsville huntsville is interesting because it's all nasa employees really it's a big nasa hub i guess it's like one of the biggest ones that's that you know texas florida and i think it's huntsville right

that's where i played i feel like every comedian must be like, I'm going to do a new Challenger explosion joke. See, I didn't know. So I went and did a club in Huntsville a few years ago, and I'm like giving these speeches where I'm like, guys, I got to say, like, I was a little nervous coming down here. Like, this was in the heart of, this was before Biden was elected, and it was like Trump times, and you're all supposed to not like me

because I'm like a progressive who lives in AOC's district in jackson heights queens at the time that's a open with i'm from aoc's district well at the end of the show i went on this big soapbox thing where i'm like and then i come down i meet you guys and i feel like you're supposed to hate me and i'm supposed to be nervous around you and then and then they all came up to me and they were like you know we're all like 80 of this room room is NASA employees who moved here for the opportunity, right? And I was like, oh, great. Oh, you're all, like, ultra-educated people who have been to school. Not that there's not other places in Alabama that aren't,

but I'm, like, up there, like, all right, you come down here, you meet people, you realize we are all the same. And they're like, because we all moved from New Jersey. We voted for AOC. Yeah. They're like, do you still eat at this one restaurant in Jackson Heights? Because I used to live there too. Like that type of vibe.

The recent thing I've been dealing with, I have some like gun jokes. And again, it's not preachy. I really do everything I can to not be preachy. But when I do that and an audience member leaves, I suddenly get this thought in my head that I have not been able to let go where I go. They're going to their car. They're going to get a gun and they're going to shoot me on the stage right now.

You're going to be like, if it's not fatal, it's going to be the biggest thing that ever happened to my career. This is The Downside. You're listening to The Downside Downside You're listening to The Downside The Downside With Gianmarco Cerezi So Chris, before we get to you

I do want to talk about something that really bothered me On Saturday night I got an email I want to make sure I read it exactly So I had a set Don Don't Tell Comedy, link in bio, not link in bio, link in the description. And it was, you know, well, I was getting some attention. I felt good. And I recorded this, I think in February or March. And it came out two months later. And then I got this email. I said, oh, cool, some fan mail. Subject.

Great comedy. This is still the subject. Great comedy. Please have a doctor check out the lump in your throat. It could be thyroid cancer. So then I go, oh, okay, anything else? Hi, I loved your drag queens versus priests set. And then sent me the link to the set.

In the video, I saw what looked like a large lump on your throat. I want to encourage you to have a doctor check it out if you haven't already. It could be a goiter or possibly thyroid cancer. Please take good care of yourself. I wish you well, and I want to enjoy your comedy for years to come. Sending you good healthy vibes listen you do have a large adam's apple i had never noticed it really as your friend until right now profile looking at it it's big yeah it's always been big it's an adam's apple

right what was being referred to well let's hope well so i go back to the video and i'm instead of looking in the mirror i'm looking at the video like, like it's shadowy and it's dark and I turn and you know, my Adam's apple. So I'm pretty sure it's nothing. In my head, I say to myself, don't be Russell. Don't be Russell in this situation. And don't be me. I'm, I'm a little, I'm not a hypochondriac in reality, I think clinically, but I'm paranoid. Yeah.

And I say to myself, don't, don't, don't give into this. You know what it is. You have a big Adam's apple. And I posted online. I thought it was funny. And everyone's like, where are you going to get checked out? And it felt like everyone was bullying me into being a hypochondriac. It was like everyone was projecting their hypochondria. And everyone was like, this one time, a viewer saw an anchor on a thing and they said, is there a lump? And he had cancer. It's like if your tummy hurt and you said, I'm worried I might have stomach cancer,

instead of saying like, no, you don't. They said, well, one time that did happen to a guy. And people were just writing so much that it felt like they were bullying me for my Adam's apple. It's like if I got an email saying, hey, I think you might have a tumor in your nose. It's like, no, it's just a big nose. And everyone was... I was overwhelmed by how many people that no one said, oh, don't worry about it.

Everyone was commenting like- Well, no one wants to be in case it happens, in case you do have a tumor, no one wants to be the one that would encourage you to ignore it. Do you know what I mean? It's easier to be like, maybe just get it checked out, rather than say, no, it's fine. But why say anything? Why say anything?

No, I agree. Because this email didn't end with whatever the person's name was, MD Mount Sinai. There was nothing. This is nobody. And so, I'm like- Well, not nobody. As far as you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm like- Well, not nobody. They have- As far as you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I feel like if you're gonna give someone a diagnosis, you might as well include your credentials at the bottom. But so I'm trying to ignore it. I was trying to like be at peace, but like I can feel it. I can feel it rising up in me, that feeling of like what it is.

I'm trying to get a real good look at your throat to make sure it's not anything else. And so then like Tova had a friend whose mom was was was it was an ent and suddenly i'm like talking to them and people were like you should just get it checked out just in case as if as if i don't live in america as if i'm gonna oh yeah let me go to the ent on the corner pop in say hey no appointment could you just take a look yeah i i so i'm writing my doctor and and my doctor But people were commenting My aunt was commenting like I know you're a comedian

But you should take this seriously And I'm like who the fuck are you Well you shared it Because I thought everyone would go ha ha ha You shared it and the answer is She's a pretty close relative One of your parents sisters That's relative

It's pretty close When you yell who the fuck are you like i know my karen it is a little like you're not had bad intentions doing it sounds like you're scared understandably everyone was like well people just care about you but i'm like but but if you really cared about me you would say hey i i called in a favor and he's gonna be knocking on your door but it was one guy who said one random thing and you're the one who shared it to thousands of people who then

are concerned. They follow you and they're like, they're just playing like, oh, well maybe get it checked out. Imagine if I said to you this, if I said hey Russell, I think through the mic, I think your heartbeat's sounding a little bit off. If I said that I would never take it to Instagram and share it with people and be like,

John Marco thinks I have a heart problem. I'll tell you that much. I would freak out. I would freak out quietly. And I would maybe go to a doctor. But I would not share it on my Instagram. I would not go on and be like, hey, everyone, John Marco thinks I have a heart problem.

Isn't this funny? I'm with you. Or if I did, I wouldn't double down on my own fury if other people were concerned. I know we're not tight. But am I justified in saying that to Russell when I don't know anything about hearts? No, the initial thing is weird. Would you say, wow, you're so caring? What a great friend.

If that person's not a doctor, well, if you thought something was really wrong, then maybe. But you don't. You would have no idea. Move this here. Are you familiar with swatting? The internet? Yeah. Where you like call.

I wonder if there is someone out there who finds videos and sends people emails on their websites. Hey, you have cloudy eyes. I think you're losing your eyesight. Yeah. I wonder if that could be a new swatting. And then you go to a doctor and they're like, it's your Adam's apple. And then you're like, well, some random internet weirdo told me to get it checked out.

And the doctor's like, well, I still get my copay. You know? Yeah. I wonder if this is the new swatting. It's a scam. Wow. It's blue cross, blue shield. If you drop dead, though, your last words can't be Gethard said it was a scam. I don't want to hear that shit. When they're like, you waited too long and now it's blue cross blue cross blue shield if you drop dead though i don't your last words can't be gethard said it was a scam i don't want to hear that when they're like you waited too long

and now it's terminal i don't want you to be like gethard said it was the new swatting he said he heard something about i'm positing a theory here that's the problem where no one that's that that's the world we live in no one wants to take the risk to be like it's fine it's definitely fine but it sounds like you don't want to go to a doctor. You're saying it's the world we live in? You just don't want to go to a doctor. If I went down the street and pointed out everyone who I thought had a medical condition, it would be chaos. No one would be able to get to work. They'd be crying in the street.

And so this one woman commented. Oh, fuck. But she commented because you shared it. No, no, no. This was a good one. This was a good one. I feel like I can't. But she basically was like, she. No, no, no. This was a good one. This was a good one. I feel like I can't. But she basically was like, she's a TV personality or whatever.

And she says, I have like a puffy throat. And every time she's on TV, someone writes her and says, I think you have cancer. Here it is. Here it is. Okay. Her name's Francesca Ramsey. No, it's okay. It's on Twitter.

It's public. Okay, her name's Francesca Ramsey. No, it's okay. It's on Twitter. It's public. So she said, she said, I really wish strangers didn't feel comfortable sending these sorts of unsolicited messages.

And of course, someone commented, how horrible that people care about you to be concerned about your health. And she rightfully said, no shade, but you have 32 followers. Your experience online is very different from mine. A barrage of unsolicited messages about your body can be very hurtful, even if people have the best of intentions or are genuinely concerned about you.

But did you hear what happened to her? She's not just here. It's in the news. She had crazy throat. She had this disease called crazy throat. Crazy throat. Yeah, where your own throat tries to strangle itself. And she died on the news. She had crazy throat. She had this disease called crazy throat. Yeah, where your own throat tries to strangle itself and she died on the air two nights ago.

You didn't hear about that? I didn't know it'd be a good sketch where a doctor finds a new disease and they're like, I call it crazy throat. They're like, let's call it. There are really bad names for diseases. When Celine Dion just got diagnosed with stiff person's disorder,

I was like, that's a lazy name. That's such a lazy name like for i don't know isn't that the colloquial one though i feel like that's like the i don't know but still it was like that's what was in the news like that's what they were sharing it they could have shared the real name then i don't know it lets you know what it is right away person like you just like you know it just sounds like it could have been a little more creative i guess not it tells you what it is. Well, that's what Seinfeld's old bit was, rhinoplasty.

Like, okay. Because it's your nose. Yeah. Well, this could be the last episode. So let me just say real quick, if you're a fan of the show. I don't think it'll be slow if you die from that. I don't think it'll be fast. You think I'll be like, who is that radio guy that died from throat cancer? The really conservative one.

Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh. Oh, did he die? Yeah. And he was doing radio to the very end. So don't worry, guys. I am the liberal Rush Limbaugh, everybody. If you're a fan of the show,

join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside for bonus episodes. Our recent live episode with Steph Tolev and my clean comedy special, The Rats Are Film Festival, A Real Pain, written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Well, Chris, thank you for being here. Oh, a joy. I'm having a lot of fun. You are very familiar with your work. I always remember when I saw Career Suicide, I feel like I expressed to some friends, I was like, his therapist's actions are criminal. I was upset.

This has been said, yeah. It was one of those things where I felt like it was funny, but I was like, but this is really bad. I have friends who are mental health professionals who reached out to me and said, this is actually very concerning. So you're not alone. And those people are professionals.

Unlike you, who again, I will say, you apparently reacted and did the thing. You just condemned someone else for doing too good. Let's point that out. As someone with no... You expressed concern for me based on something I put out there publicly, medically. You just condemned...

You spent the whole intro to your show saying people shouldn't do it and then just told me that's what you did. Yeah, you'll be happy to hear I'm still with her six years after that special came out. And even earlier today, I was telling her about some career stuff I have going on that's tenuous.

And she told me she would really like to read my numerology chart. And I had to tell her again. I mean, I've been with her for 16 years now. And I had to say, it's not my thing. I know you like numerology, not my thing. And four times she pitched me on it. And I just was going, it's not, I don't, it's not, I'm not going to buy. I don't want to spend time doing it because I don't believe it. She's like, it's it's eerie it's eerie the result i said it's not my thing so still happening it's still happening same lady and in

your mind what is what is the good what is the good part the good part is she's a tough talking broad from linden new jersey and the first time i ever met with her she was cursing a bunch and i immediately was like i she's like a jewish lady from linden i grew up in west orange and i immediately felt like you know i was in a crisis point nobody goes and you know now people do actually back when i was in my 20s things have changed a lot in the past two decades like you started seeing a shrink when you hit a crisis point that was generally when it happened yeah and uh i immediately had a sense of i know people like this i grew up around people like this and

her vibe instantly felt um familiar because of. And that has gone a long way, even though she does oftentimes do things that are ridiculous. And I had had some doctors prior to her who really played it by the book. And I felt like that often put me in a place of, you know, where I'm going, I need help right now. And they're going, but there's a lot of hoops and red tape and forms to sign and things to jump through and this and that. And, um, I, in career suicide, I talked about, there was one point where I got hired for a job in California for a few months and the doctors wouldn't prescribe. And

I was just like, I know that's the rule, but it's unsafe. You have a 23 at the time, 23 year old kid living 3000 miles away from his support system and you're cutting off his medication. Just write me a prescription like yeah she pays no attention to the rules and many people are concerned with that but it turns out for me it's a much safer feeling so that's interesting when you say that that she was also from new jersey i think about i feel like i've i've seen online with with you know like uh a black person feeling like they want a black therapist or similarities, commonalities. And I never thought of it in terms of like being from New Jersey is a commonality that lets you be open in a way or communicate in a way.

Yeah, yeah. And I also felt like there was probably a lot of stuff that she would understand the shorthand for, too. You know what i mean just me she's okay with you saying the f word very all the f words all the any word that starts with that no of course not of course not but you know things that things that we had in common enough that she could go oh right because you grew up where you did and i know what that's like i know that area is like x y and me going cool i don't have to explain all the different swirling bullshit nonsense that went on in my past um so yeah it worked out well but thank you for your concern i guess my only question is if you

were so concerned why didn't you know you reach out or anything like that i'll wait till he comes on my podcast apparently all these years later i'm hearing you were concerned but not concerned enough to actually intervene and try to do anything. I saw a great commercial for therapy. I don't know if it was for BetterHelp, which I have problems with all that online stuff, but the commercial was effective. And it was like, it was a guy at the gym and he just had the bench pressed, but it was like on his chest. And someone came over and was like, do you want me to help you? And he was like, no, I got it.

I don't want, like, it was just like a metaphor about the way it was like, I mean, maybe it's condescending to men, but they could use it where it was just like, you need help. Yeah. And it was a really nice, effective way to see it. It's this mix where I think everyone should go in therapy

and now I feel like as therapy gets more commodified, it will become worse and exploited and ultimately a means of making people okay with circumstances that maybe they shouldn't be economically politically right and also i think you know the idea that the stigmas around it have lifted so recently and we're immediately boiling it down to services that you never even actually meet a doctor or you can't even get them on the phone that it's all based on you know online interaction i go that's a very big swing from we don't even allow this to be okay or this is a stigmatized thing or you know grew up, I remember there was a kid who was in therapy in my school,

and he was mocked for it. We all found out he was mocked for going to see a therapist. We all called him crazy and mocked him. And now it's gone all the way in the other direction, but people are going to feel like it doesn't work, and they're wasting their money, and they've been tricked if it's not a good service.

There's also a thing I would like to point out too, which is there are also now a number of organizations trying to get into the space of therapy and schools. And they're for-profit companies. I'm very, very wary of that, of people who are going, you know, there is some angel investor in Silicon Valley who's realizing this is a growth industry. Yeah. And it's showing up with young people. I think that's very dangerous as well. It has to be medical and it has to be in the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath. And I don't know exactly how we got here, but I'm glad to call it out and say, like, I don't think that especially amongst children, this should be a for-profit enterprise.

That feels really dark yeah really dark it's just it's hard because it's it's a soft science or it's like therapy is more artistic in nature so it's hard to regulate it i mean like you could have colleges give degrees but that doesn't guarantee anything and it's just it's just one of those tough i was always skeptical about therapy because my dad saw the same therapist for so, he still sees this person. And I'm always like,

what are you talking about in there? What are you talking about? Because I, and I, I have this idea in my head that one day I would like follow him. And I, I would, after he left,

I'd like, you know, tape the door so I could go in. And it would be like that movie where his mom's a skeleton in the dress that is like a skeleton of Freud in a suit. And he's been going every day, three times a week. Yeah. But do you think he talks when he goes in or he just sits there? The skeleton or my dad? No, your dad.

No, my dad. No, no, for sure. I feel like in my mind mind i bet this is the therapist jessica's i hope someday you do tape the door and sneak in and the therapist looks at you and goes this is the most inappropriate thing i've ever seen a family member of a patient do and he goes i told your dad to do numerology he just would never give in your father has been convinced you were stalking him for years. I don't know what numerology is.

What is it? Like, what day were you born? Oh, similar, like adjacent to astrology kind of? Yeah, related in that. Not something you want the medical professional to ask with your mental health. To be a fervent, not just supporter, but almost evangelist of. Yeah. I've had to borderline beg her to cut that out.

I think the difference- It's funny to know you for 16 years and still be like, I'm going to get him one of these days on numerology. I think I might be her, no, I'm not her only client, but at a certain point she told me she was semi-retired and she was not taking on new clients. That was years ago and i haven't really asked much more about it so this means as other people quit or die

i'm one of i could for all i know i could be her only remaining client i have no idea yeah but she does prescribe it'd be fun if she incorporated that into the numerology she's like you're born on this and i only have three patients left. And this son. I've got to be the last one, right? Yeah. I have a goal in life to be her last patient. To be her last patient. I also have realized if she were to die, I have no idea how I'd find out.

That's a weird feeling. Yeah. Because you're in person on Zoom. Phone calls now. Phone calls, really? Well, I was ahead of the curve on that. She, before telehealth was even a thing, she moved to Mexico years ago. And we started doing Skype sessions.

And my friend who is a mental health professional said, I am fairly certain that that is illegal, that you cannot be doing that. Now, obviously, it happens all the time yeah everything's changed but i think for a long time it wasn't exactly uh okay the way we were doing it um now i do phone because i leave the house and i walk while i do it so i feel like i'm getting both some physical exercise as well as the mental health thing and i'm not like shackled to my desk with my screaming toddler son right underneath me are you walking where there's no people or like, cause I've once in a while, I don't, I do a zoom, but once in a while, the connections batter, I'm somewhere I walk.

And occasionally I'm walking amidst people being like, and then my father, just wait one second. Oh, I do. And then he, and keep in mind, you're in New York city where none of these people will care. I live in a neighborhood. That's just one one street that's a big circle so anytime i pass someone it's like a neighbor i know it's like someone where i've probably like watched their kid or they've watched mine or we've been to a barbecue in each other's yards and i'm like ranting about some nonsense and then i just stop and look at them and nod and then we all keep going and i can tell they know if they haven't guessed it's therapy they know that I'm at least ranting about something that they can't hear and it's a weird feeling yeah um now you have a son I do how old now he turns four in two weeks I'm curious this is why no one sees me

around the New York comedy scene anymore yeah because i had a child and disappeared to new jersey bring him bring him to the shows i would love if if you came to the show right around covet too i mean he was born uh april 2019 so he was his first birthday was while we we had fled our apartment in queens um we had bought our house in january of 2020 and then our our uh building would not let us move into it. Our building in Queens was like, we're not letting movers in. We can't have weirdos in the building. And I was like, I both understand completely,

but it's not like I'm fleeing. I bought this house months ago, and I have a safer place to go raise my kid. Please don't make me stay two blocks from Elmhurst Hospital, the hospital that the New York Times did the expose on, like, the bodies in the trucks outside. That was one of the first things that people were like, oh, I guess we should get masks.

Like, it's not, was that expose? If you made a right out my front door and walked two avenues, you were at the front door of that hospital. So we were like, please let us just get our kid out of here. So it was all a thing. But, but yeah my kid's a pandemic baby and uh yeah he's great he's the best but it's been wild it's been a wild few years how we we had a friend who had a kid and the fears of covet i mean the truth is like when it came to covet at least after the first couple months i think in my head maybe not not true, but I was like, I'm a healthy younger, I'll be okay.

But people with kids. We could have killed them. And just the paranoia, just like I know my body, I've always been healthy-ish. So I have some kind of inappropriate believing I'm going to be okay but with a kid how stressful was that awful well it went both directions in the one sense my life sort of didn't start back up at the same rate as all of my peers because i wasn't going to go do a bunch of shows before my kid could get vaccinated and the vaccines for kids were many many many months after ours and then as you know everybody's like cool cool, shows are back.

And everyone starts doing shows. And then back channel, everybody starts to hear through the grapevine, like, don't do any shows at this club. Everyone who performed there on Tuesday got COVID the same night. And you start to hear stuff. I'm like, I can't risk it with the kid. At the same time, there was also something really beautiful about the world is shut down and I'm hanging out every day

with a human being who doesn't know a thing about it. I'm just hanging out with this kid who wants to play with toys and laugh, excuse me. And he's learning words and I'm there. I'm not on the road. I was there for his first steps. I was there for a lot of things that I would have missed if the world had been functioning. So he was the ultimate distraction in some way. Like I was, my life was going to be put into a weird little bubble of dealing with the birth of my son no matter what. And it coincided with the world shutting down.

So some level, maybe that's a good thing. But on another level, yeah, I lived in constant fear that my lifestyle would kill him. But if I didn't get back to my lifestyle, how was I going to pay the mortgage? Like really, really fine line to walk there. It's wild. But he's a good boy.

It's worth it. It's going to be, when I think about getting older and talking to younger generations, like, will they be like, please don't tell us about COVID? I wonder if all of us will have, like, teenagers at the house. And we'll be like, you know, there was a time it'll be like, cause cause something about it. It was, it wasn't dynamic. It wasn't, it wasn't particularly thrilling. There's not a lot of stories.

I'm like, well, I finally read Stephen King's it. Yeah. And that's what I did for two months. And I learned how to cook one lasagna and that was it. Right. But it was such a significant. It was just such a significant, like even your kid. It's like, he's just not going to remember any of it. All the parents of our age though are like, they're not going to remember any of it.

But is it going to completely have fucked them up that their first experiences with teachers, the teachers all had masks on? Like no one knows psychologically what's that going to do. Like my son hates school. He hates going when he gets there the teachers are like he's actually a great kid and he's helpful and he always wants to engage and he's great so he tells you he hates it but he's having a good time but i'm like i wonder if he says he hates it because his first experiences with daycare was people in crazy n95s and plastic sheet masks like if he doesn't just have some lingering subconscious memory that

his teachers are fucking darth vader you know what i mean yeah it's is that gonna mess him up how is how many more years is that gonna mess him up who knows yeah my nephew's five and similar that sort of like feeling of like does really well knows things but like hate does not want to go to that to school and uh you were wondering like, and also hasn't had a lot of the same experiences in kids that seeing kids. Cause there was that two year period where it wasn't really around anyone else. You know,

you're just kind of with your adults. So I think still it's better younger. I had two siblings in college for COVID and I feel really bad for them I feel like oh they missed everything I mean I mean I think I think about money those places for nothing you know they got no discounts barely any discounts dude you missed the parties you missed everything yeah it's all the you only get college like I look back at college and I'm like man I was really stressed out and depressed during college. And man,

do I regret it? Cause that was the, there was no responsibilities. There was slight responsibilities by some standards. And I thought there were so many, but man, if I could go back, man,

if I could go back, I have that fantasy too. But then I'm like, no, but this is who I was. Just not the party guy. I always think me neither. I wasn't, I didn't do, but then I'm like, no, but this is who. I was just not the party guy. I always think. Me neither.

I didn't do, I like pot and I realized I liked pot, but I wasn't really doing potting in college. I was smoking pot. And I always think about a college life that I could have had. And I'm like, no, but I think you're lying to yourself. I hated it the whole time I was there. And my golden age in my life was my 30s by far my 30s ruled so hard the most fun stretch of my life hands down by far no question my 30s significantly better than my 20s yeah but if i look if i look back at my college years i'm

like oh i sat there and i stressed but imagine just having two or three of those years taken away yeah you gotta go live back at home again and do all your classes on Zoom. Well, especially it's just that's the runway. And I have plenty of problems with the whole COD system, but that is your runway of like figuring out, okay, now I'm going to go on my own. Getting to test out being who you are without parents around and without that sort of like figuring out like okay I'm detached from this thing what can I you know I would have just bummed around I can't blame I would just have watched The Office

and like diddled my thuns and jerked off and watched TV shows like I wouldn't I didn't have the ambition to be like oh well let's write a book diddle my thuns that's what I call masturbating he said masturbating but then you said masturbating you said diddle my thuns? Diddle diddle my thuns. He did say diddle. That's what I call masturbating. Diddle his thuns. He said masturbating, but then you said masturbating.

He used two different phrases of masturbating. Diddle my thuns. You said diddle my thuns. I was like, that must be sad for jerking off. It's a different technique I've been working on, just my thuns. But then you said masturbating. I last a lot longer if it's just the thumbs. I can really make a day out of it.

Diddle my thuns. Diddle my thuns. I was like, I haven't heard that one. He's how he masturbates. But then you followed up with masturbation post that. I said, wait, but then what was the first one? How have you, did you read a lot of books? I'm always curious.

Did you read any books on parenting? Did you look at any philosophy of parenting? What was your preparation? I did not read so many books there were a few that um my wife read and highly encouraged me to read in very cliche fashion i was reading less books which is a major plot point in knocked up and i fell into it like seth rogan katherine heigl knocked up um i will say we took a many week long birthing class that was insane and we took a one-day birthing crash course at the hospital where my son was

born and that was even more insane what was insane at the hospital are you watching people no no no no hands-on at that point the hospital is just you sit in a room with a few other nervous couples. Okay. And then this nurse threw open the door and was like, no, hi, how are you, everybody? No, is everybody ready? Like throws open the door and walks in. This was out in a hospital on the border of Queens and Long Island. And she just walks in and she goes, okay, there's a lot of things that are going to happen in that room. They're going to make you want to freak out. Here's everything you need to know so you don't freak out.

And then she just talked for an hour. No stopping for questions, no clarification. Just like, this will happen, this will happen. Your baby might be born covered in wax. Your baby might be born blue. Don't freak out. This and that. Don't freak out.

I'll never forget. She just kept using the phrase, don't freak out. She's like, you might think your baby's dead if it doesn't cry right away. No, don't freak out. They might need to clear the mucus out. So stop freaking out. It'll stress everybody out around you. Don't freak out. She's like, you might think your baby's dead if it doesn't cry right away. No, don't freak out. They might need to clear the mucus out. So stop freaking out. It'll stress everybody out around you. Don't freak out. She was just this like chain smoking nurse who had clearly been delivering babies for decades.

She was like, everybody stop freaking out. And then the birthing class we took was so wild. Wait, let me ask. So when she finished this spiel, did anyone, did any neurotic parent or go like, oh, what about, should I freak out in this case? We tried, but the time was really up. But all you saw, a few people had brought pens and pads, but most of us were just like, oh, oh. You just saw everybody going like, oh, and taking out their phones

and just like desperately trying to take notes on what she was saying because it was nuts. The presentation was nuts, but it was the most real deal shit anybody said to me leading up to the birth she was just like this could happen this could happen this could happen this happens all the time that happens what was the one she said she was like there was something that was racist it was like sometimes babies if the baby's a different race than the father don't freak out no it was like the it was one of them was like sometimes these babies have these crazy birth

marks on their bodies they're really big they call them stork bites with black babies they call them Mongolian bites don't freak out and it was just like what? there's like different names

for the races it's just you calling them Mongolian bites no one else is calling it you're the one it was crazy don't freak out just everything was like

every piece of information was just basically you're going like Google like Mongolian bites Google that stork bites I like my wife telling her husband don't write down that part i know yeah if there's a screen grab i get canceled and then our class i think was nine weeks and i look back and it was so funny because it was

this very hippie dippy experience it was almost the opposite and uh a lot of that we were doing like walking meditation and they were like okay you going to bring a yoga ball to the birthing room. And as you're having your contractions, you're going to sit in these different positions on the yoga ball. We got to that hospital. We didn't even inflate the yoga ball. It stayed in the box. My wife's attached to all these wires. They're monitoring all this.

You're holding a box. She's like, well, we took a class that said I should be on my side or inflate the... They're like, no, you might. There's a complication. You will not. You will have these monitors taped to you and you will stay still. And it was wild. I mean, so there was a guy who came to that birthing class every week for nine weeks.

And I never learned his name, him and his wife. And he wore a vest every week. He wore like a puffy vest and he was swiss and towards the end of the class like week eight or nine i finally we had a snack time we were adults and they had a snack time as part of this class every week for the snacks you every each week a different couple had to bring the snacks oh yeah and i went up to him finally and i never learned his name but i was like hey like uh we was like hey you know it's like classic guys thing like barely connecting the wives are all having

these like mystical conversations about birth and how they're like growing life inside I'm like so what are you doing he's like I work in chocolate and I was like I can't I can't I can't with you you've been wearing a vest every week you have a thick Swiss accent like

the only thing that could have been more Swiss is if you were like a clockmaker, you know, just you work in chocolate. And I never learned that man's name. I used to call him Swiss vest man. And my wife would be like, stop. And then. Was he there with his partner? With his partner. Oh, he was there.

Okay. I like him being there just alone. Just like, I'm just curious. It was this wild thing where I was making fun of all the partners because I thought all these guys were acting so fucking weird. And my wife was like, you're saying weird shit too. And I'm sure they're making fun of you. So candid, asshole.

But I'll never forget too. There was this one guy. They had us go around and introduce ourselves, right? Week one. Everybody's like, oh, yeah. So we're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We live in Fort Greene and we're due this day. And I do this, blah, blah, blah. You know fort green and um we're due this day and uh i do

this blah blah blah it's you know a lot of brooklyn economy yoga instructor this and that they get to this one couple and the woman says oh i'm blah blah blah here's what i do for work icebreaker and he inexplicably stands up out of his chair no one else has he stands up and he goes hi everybody my name's robin i guess you could say i'm something of an iconoclast and his wife who's like so little and when you're around like a very small framed woman who's pregnant they like look like a beach ball yeah yeah his wife just looked at him and had this face like you asshole stop saying you're an iconoclast and i had to look up iconoclast wait let me guess what the fuck was that i i think someone of significance he's an icon he's a man of

import no even better okay someone who questions authority oh somebody questions the rules and authority was he doing with a wink or no he was he was really everyone was fucking freaking it was all these guys who were like our lives are about to change we're all in over our heads yeah i'm sure i said stuff that i meant as a joke where my wife was like he's a comedian everybody like he's a comedian like she must have been quietly assuring people like he's not a fucking serial killer saying this shit this guy just I'm something of an iconoclast. And I just could never look him in the eye again. I was like. Did you say comedian?

When you. They started to realize. There was another friend of ours. Or did you go like, you guys know who I am? No, there was none of that. Believe me. None of that. None of that.

After the yoga teachers, I feel like. No, it's just a bit of a. When you're getting into a class kind of thing, you're like, you want to be honest. But it's also like, if you say you're a comedian, it's just like bit of a... When you're getting into a class kind of thing, you want to be honest, but it's also like, if you say you're a comedian, it's just like, sometimes it's like... It's going to be a whole handle.

Yeah, yeah. But I did. I introduced myself. I was like, hi, everybody. You may recognize me as Alana's boss from Broad City and Trevor from season nine of The Office, everybody. So hold questions to me. No, I avoid that conversation at all costs.

But yeah, it was was i remember one time too the the darkest it got for me in that class the teacher's gone she's this really nice woman named christy once we sliced through the hippie dippy stuff there was stuff to get out i was never i've never been that guy you know like yeah i grew up in north jersey listening to punk rock like you're never going to convince me that walking meditation is my thing. No way. Excuse me. But at one point she goes, so here's what happens the first six months.

She's like the baby sleeps for about an hour and a half, wakes up, needs to be fed. It'll scream and cry. You'll feed it. It'll need to be changed. It'll stay awake maybe 20, 25 minutes. You'd be able to like swing it around hold it try to connect with it it'll need to be fed again and then that process repeats 12 times and that's your 24 hours of a day and i was like what every all the guys all the women were like yeah we're we are aware that all the guys were like, yeah, we are aware of that. All the guys were like, what are you, that's, your day is just a 12 hour, it's just 12 sets of two hours of screaming and changing and feeding.

And I raised my hand. I was like, I am not trying to be funny. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I was like, what are you talking about? What do you, like, when do you work? When do you get anything done? When do you work? When do you get anything done?

She was like, well, the thing about that question is that since the industrial revolution, and immediately I was like, oh no. What the fuck? She's like, so the industrial revolution changed humankind and made us all think that we're supposed to be couples living in isolation from other couples and we do this ourselves. And that's a fallacy.

Like what evolution should have is we should be a band of 50 to 70 hunter-gatherers and there will be some people keeping a fire going and other people catching fish and other people foraging. Oh my God, yeah. Other people patching up the houses. And the iconoclast is like, I'm not that revolutionary.

He's like, I question all of these tropes but she's like and then there should be all the babies from this band wow there will be a group of people that raise all the babies and then everyone's help me that's what humankind is supposed to be a hundred percent yeah she was like but since as soon as the answer is well well, since the industrial revolution, I was like, God, I'm fucked. I am fucked. That's how. Wow. That's what I've always thought, though, especially, you know, my family. I'm close with some people, but we're separated.

And I'm like, me having a kid is very different from people who live near their parents. I mean, how do you fucking function without that kind of community? Yeah. Welcome to my goddamn life. Believe you me, if I had a kid, Russell, you're coming over. You're keeping the fire going. You made a face like news to me. Well, news to me.

You get me once a week for this fucking podcast. You think I'm coming to Lower East Side multiple days outside of this podcast? No. Today's guest is my baby. I'll see you later. I'm going to Alabama for one more day. You just enter this room and there's a baby on this couch and no one here no guests this week we've had stranger guests it'll be an hour and 15 minutes and then i'm done um uh the um yeah my brother five days a week my parents have his kids and it's like that's

they live upstate you know i would never be able to do that i mean that's beautiful but that's another consequence of like the divorce world where i come from where it's just like those there is no two-parent unit my mom's gonna bring over whatever 90 year old she's dating at the time to take care of she's gonna change both her diapers It's not going to work out. Wow. That is... Now, when you decided to have a kid, because you're an ambitious person. I was, yeah. And you really feel that past tense?

I've been thinking lately. Well, I have in my joke notebook. This is not... I could show you. It's a note on my phone. Just in quotes, the phrase, I'm post-ambitioned. I'm post-ambitioned. It's a bit I've've been thinking about lately i don't know what the joke will be but like i remember

being a very ambitious guy and someone who was like an organizer of people sort of legendarily for a while in the new york comedy yeah of course yeah like anthony devito who's a friend of mine he said to me once he was like last year we were in edinburgh together disaster oh i heard i heard it was it was a rough time for me personally no not for you my friend um well uh lucas uh arnold was there was sam morrison there i think sam was there sam did good though sam did pretty good but i just i just heard oh i heard titus went back home sam's room oh titus went home that's true sam's room adjo mine, and we were up at the same time. So every night I'd be performing for literally the smallest crowds I've performed for in a 23-year career while hearing the joyous, raucous cheers of Sam Morrison's Sugar Baby right next to our sugar daddy.

And I like Sam. I'm giving him. It's not Sam's fault. Sam's not going to take it personally. How dare you say that, Krabs? given him it's not sam's fault i'm not gonna take it personally and i'm here like i feel so old and past my prime as i hear this new young buck of the new york scene like people cheering next door and i've told sam this and we have laughed about it he's like well they may have been loud they were it wasn't always a full room i'm like it had to be more full than mine but i do that as a seller

every time the bar and the lounge are very close and whenever the bar is like crushing and it's just a quiet show in the lounge i'm like and you guys picked the wrong show and it's always it's always easy save easy save but devito said to me he was like it's always kind of been like the alt scene the club scene the uptown scene the north and south brooklyn scenes part of the alt scene and then whatever the fuck gethard was up to was always a piece of the new york comedy scene i feel like that's done done. I feel like that was true for years. And I no longer have the energy or the wherewithal or I don't know. I don't know if it's self-doubt.

But I feel a little, I don't know. I feel a little past my prime in some ways. What came first? Did the kid change you? Or do you feel like you were? ways as like someone came first did the kid change you or was it leading up to the cure well the timeline of my life was that i had you know a lot of my life was defined by my old tv show which kind of broke off from the ucb theater looking back on it this was not intentional but it was sort of i think as the ucb corporatized we sort of broke off and i think a lot of the people of that ilk started to realize

oh the reputation of this place as this like weird haven i was freaks gonna ask is not as true but it kind of this satellite thing that broke off from it is like the public access studio is kind of where that type of person is really heartbreaking i was gonna join you yeah truly at like this a lot it's getting out of titanic now yeah it's where we we i got on a house team uh and then our sketch group got a run in the last year right around the move and but but i remember my first ever meeting after i got on a mod team uh they like we're gonna throw out all your props truly we had no we had we had a sit down company meeting in december before i started in january and it was like amy puller was there everyone you know but it was already like this tension of like and i

remember being like this seems bad and like and growing up as a little kid looking at like watching stuff and being a bit of a comedy nerd and being like you know when you started when you were there around there and feeling like that like just that you could feel like when you'd see things and be like that kind of punk rock energy that fucking chaos i started there when i was 19 i'm about to turn 43 and it was nuts it was as nuts as people thought it breaks my heart to hear because i had left as a teacher um and i i had i realized looking back on it i i knew i sort of knew this was true but like i as a teacher was still trying to carry the torch of like no we're gonna make this kind of we're gonna

try to make this a thing that's a serves you you're not here to serve this theater this is theaters here to serve you which i always thought was important and b even if you don't get on a team i want you to feel like you got something out of this and to me it that means like how do you kind of empower yourself as an artist to just go and like have enough fucking gumption to go out and do some shit you want and that worked with people i think um and it breaks my heart to hear There's so many people I've met who are like, yeah, I showed up there and I started too late and felt that it was just a lot of rules. A lot of rules. I liked a lot of people there.

It just was this thing of like, and I was proud that our sketch group who didn't go through, all of us go through the thing, were able to get a run there. And then we were like, we're doing it. We do great. Three. Three great sold out shows with like at the news great guests and stuff and then you know covet and whatnot but i think it was more that like i was surprised about like the rules of everything and being like and not that rules are always bad it just was this thing where it felt corporate it felt like me and my gang were like let's go to the public access studio and

have even less rules yeah we came up with and i think it was a very funny thing for me but then as far as me being like not feeling as ambitious or as relevant tv show was canceled 2018 my wife immediately got pregnant yeah we had the kid april 2019 tried to launch a couple things and realized like oh the audience from the old public access show, they're not coming with me. Okay. Was that a... That was very sobering. Very sobering.

What do you think it was? I think for a bunch of people who followed that show, it was like something they were really devoted to. And the audience always, you know, everybody always laughed of like oh it's like a cult but i felt a lot of responsibility with that i felt this thing of like there's like there is like a cult like yeah i don't want to be a cult leader i want to be a comedian i want to be a weirdo comedian i want to experiment i want to kind of fuck with the parameters of television and we got to cable and got to do that a little bit. We had to fight to do it. It's funny.

My wife said to me, I started to realize some of the people who had been so devoted to it, when it got canceled, they were happy and joking about it. And it killed me. Because I was like, oh, these were some of the people I always had in my mind as the people I was making the show for.

And my wife summed it up. She was like was your because you got to realize like i've met people who are working comedians now on a high level who come up to me and they're like i used to watch your public access show when i was in high school or middle school because it was in 2011 that's 12 years ago at this point yeah like i'm not trying to name drop i don't know her so well but it was very sweet the first time i met sarah squirm yeah she was like i applied to intern for you guys she's like i used to email you and say when i was home from college in the summers can i come work on the show i went and found the emails i was like how fucking cool is that yeah college kid trying and like makes me feel good you know when i met meg stalter she was like yeah me and my friends used to talk about

your show and some of these people were in middle school and my wife goes who was your favorite band when you were in high school i was like well my early years of high school i was really into less than jake who was a 90s ska punk band i was you know born in 1980 graduated high school 98 and she's like and what were you saying about less than jake when you were in college and after college i was like probably making fun of them saying ska was really cheesy she's like how do you saying about less than jake when you were in college and after college i was like probably making fun of them saying scott was really cheesy she's like how do you feel about less than jake now i was like i don't really throw their albums on but if it comes on shuffle i get pretty happy i'll sing along i still know the words and she's like a lot of the kids who grew up with you are in the middle phase right now we're like because also it was a call-in show

and also we would invite fans of the show to come hang out in the studio and they'd come and be on camera yeah my wife was like if when you were 15 would you want like some video or audio of you being an idiot recorded on for posterity on YouTube I'm like yeah I'd probably have to put some distance at some point so either way I don't know I don't know. I don't know. Plus, I don't know. I'm also just getting older. Sure. But I put that, because when I was getting ready for this, I went back, I listened to you on You Made It Weird.

And it was like you were talking to Pete about, it was that moment where he got his TBS show. Yeah. And you had had some hopes that Conan was going to pull your show. They had had a few a channel conversations with me about like keep it going and maybe we can talk oh and peace a friend of mine first first or second guy who ever put me up as a stand-up as i was moving on to ucb was pete so i can't i'm not trying to be jealous or resentment over my friend but i was like oh but part of what you talked about in the interview was that concept of like uh I don't know if you mentioned the Ramones were like not having a hit album, but it's like, I think it's in the world we live in, maybe just America.

It's just like the idea of success is, you know, what, a nationally syndicated show or for forever or something. And that's why UCB was special because it could at least create this middle. I think about improv a lot because I've seen enough good improv shows in my life that I'm like, something about it's really magical. When it's good, it's great. When it's bad, it's terrible.

And I think about my current life as a standup where I can financially sustain myself going to Alabama. An improv team could never survive off what I make, even on a good weekend these days. And it's like, so what do you do with an art or with a show that maybe should only exist on a certain plane? Well, you need a society that values that and maybe funds it, even if it's not fully profitable. And when you live in a post-capitalist society you're you're gonna lose all of that art and of course ucb's dead here you know what else

is dead mom and pop shops it's all bank of america and chase banks so how could a ucb function here yeah and it's true yeah it's it's i think you know i think too a lot too of like i'm like there was a time where i think i felt pretty progressive as far as being a troublemaker in comedy. And I think career suicide, which we talked about, it felt pretty shocking to people when it came out six, seven years ago. But now I go, a white guy talking about being depressed doesn't feel so progressive anymore. And that's because of progress. But it also feels like the space i used to occupy was rebellious i don't know if a 43 year old white

guy who's had a fair amount of success gets to you outgrow that rebelliousness and i think there's a certain grace and maturity and going i shouldn't take up the oxygen in that room anymore yeah um because there are people for whom that oxygen is pretty vital you know like i'm joking about sam having a better run than i did at edinburgh but at the same time i sit there i go yeah someone like sam should live in that rebellious space hearing him do a show about i had a lover who died and i'm in a support group and you know all that aspect of it i go i used to occupy the space of like i'm fucking depressed i'm medicated i'm not going to apologize for it i'm going to speak openly about it it felt

pretty shocking in its day it doesn't feel so shocking today because that conversation's grown there's other conversations from other people they need to occupy the space i used to occupy and if i tried to just desperately hang on to it, it wouldn't work. It would feel desperate. And on top of it, it would take oxygen out of the room for people who really do need the space to say the shit that's rebellious. And I think I'm not rationalizing too hard to say that I'm smart enough to get out of the way. Like now when I perform in the city, more often than not, I'm'm at the cellar which is not the rebellious space in my no no not at all i'm very grateful to be passed there but this is not like years ago when i was like fine fuck you i'll take it to public access if no tv network

wants to buy it fine ucb's getting corporate fine fuck it i'll go branch out into brooklyn i'll head to the lower east side the lower east side starting to get blown out. How deep into Brooklyn do we have to go? That was a big part of some things that felt underground. I don't know if I get to feel underground anymore. Or if anything, I'm learning how to be comfortable being the sort of cheesy elder statesman of the underground while knowing, there are people and we could name names. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think I need to lay claim to the rebellious space anymore when there's people, you know, give that to the Patty Harrisons of the world.

Give that to Jackie Novak in recent years. You know what I mean? Like these people who are taking up that action, it doesn't need me anymore. Or you see like, I think older, especially white guys' version of rebellion can transform into something very dark. Very dark.

Very dark and very sad. But I think like, certainly part of that is, you know, when I think of like, like Chappelle and his like focus on this, about like talking about trans people so much. I mean, there's a degree where like, amidst all these conversations, sometimes you're like, but you understand trans people so much. I mean, there's a degree where like amidst all these conversations, sometimes you're like,

but you understand it's so much. It's so, so much at the thought. And it's just like, for him that must feel what's rebellious. And I'm always, I always get frustrated, especially because like when rich people go like, oh, this is what the rebellion is. This is the fight that needs to be fought. I'm This is this is the fight that needs to be fought.

I'm like, no, the fight that needs to be fought is the money. It's the money. It's all the money you fuckers have. That's the real rebellion. But they can't because they they're they want to keep their money. Yeah. So how so fuck off. It's really infuriating.

Well, we talked about it with Caleb here recently about like we're talking about Rose. Another one. Caleb told me once he was in New York and I did Whiplash, which was the hot show at the time. Yeah. I read this actually in an interview. I had never spoken to Caleb one-on-one that I knew. And then I read in an interview, he was like, yeah, there was one night where at Whiplash, I like went into the green room and found Chris gethard and like asked him for a bunch of advice

and he sat and broke a bunch of stuff down to me and i was like i was that guy for a bunch for like a generation i was the guy that if you ran into if you were in new york for a week and you ran into me you'd be like tell me what i gotta be and i'm like that's cool and now caleb needs to take up that you know what i mean yeah now caleb's the perfect example of someone where I'm like, oh, you have some shit to say. But so do you. I don't know. But you know what I mean. Of course.

I have to be mindful of where that happens and how that happens. And I'm also, also the alt scene's fucking like young and glamorous and hot now, which is cool. But it's not my, this is me. You know what I mean? I'm not a club coming guy, you know, like it's a different thing and it's fucking cool. I was never, it's, I've always felt- It's a little too cool, but- I think it's a little cooler than it is funny at times.

At times, sure. I've never been, I've never been, I'm not rejected from it, but I think there was a degree, I've always felt, and again, this could be my own self-paying thing. I always was like, as a theater kid, it always felt a space that if I were gay, I would have had a little bit more opportunity to be a part of it. Yeah. Or if I had been super alt-y. I'm not super alt-y. Like, I was so mad one day.

Do you know Jay Jordan? Jay Jordan's a friend of mine. And Vulture called him, like like he can do alt and club. And I was like, fuck off. Jay is a club comic coming from a club comic. We are club comics. Jay is not, he's not an alt comedian by any means. He's black and bisexual, but he's not an alt comedian.

He'll tell you this himself. But it was just like one of those things where I'm like that's for at least for this vulture writer these are interchangeable words where is that mental i will say as someone as someone who started at ucb i had an almost obsessive desire to be able to be a club comedian all comedian in any type of alt room also to just say someone's an all comedian there's five or six different things that could mean yes for sure i was someone that was like i remember when i was coming up at a ucb and started doing solo performing there were a handful of people where i was like they're dropping my shows at ucb then they're going down to refifi then they're doing the comedy seller then they're doing some weird NPR show then they're doing some and I was like that's what I want to be someone who can walk

into any room figure out how to survive and I am pretty proud that I think I did that yeah and it means nothing ultimately to anyone except me but as an artist the artist side of me is like good I never got too comfortable in one place to the point where I couldn't survive in other places but as an artist, the artist side of me is like, good. I never got too comfortable in one place to the point where I couldn't survive in other places. Anyway. Yeah. I mean, we'll see.

It could be more fractured these days. I mean, like it's, there's certain realms. It's more fractured than I've ever seen in 23 years in this fucking city. It sucks. It's bad for every, let me say this too.

I don't know. I'm just gonna start no go for it no it's this idea that we all need to talk shit about each other when i started it was the clubs you know the alt scene had started with luna lounge which was slightly before my time there was ucb there was collective unconscious surf reality downtown turned into which was really great and around that, people stopped giving a shit. And you would see that the best alt people started bleeding into the clubs

and that a lot of the club people who wanted a little more room to breathe or maybe tell longer stories or try stuff that was more socially, how's it going to go? They'd show up at the alt shows to workshop stuff. And there was this age where everybody had more stage time because of it

networked more because of it and if we're just going to be cutthroat ultimately there was more opportunity to make money for all of us because of it and i'll call this out a couple years ago i think it was vulture and they've been good to me over the years last few years they've stopped covering me because i got mad at them because they booked me on their show at union hall and then the same week slammed gave a terrible review to my special and rory scoville special anyway i don't know which one i put out one that was like following me in nine different cities i remember um and they were like this whole thing with like half documentary half specials needs to stop they're not funny and it's it's like, and it was like me, Rory had just done one, a few other people. It's like, we're all bored during the pandemic and trying to be artists.

We're all trying to find cool ways to present stuff during the pandemic. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. Vulture put out this article that was like, there's this dividing line. You're a club comic or an all comic. My opinion is that that was not true, but that article marked a point where everybody then started picking sides and it became true and you know as well as i do there are certain clubs that really get off on shitting on the alt rooms yeah there are certain alt rooms where the people go so alt that they get off on

shitting on the clubs i think probably you know it's a matter of personal taste of who you agree with more but the sad thing to me is that there's like short term explosions of opportunity because of it or audience building because of it. But long term, it sucks for all of us. And we're all going to make more money or less money because we're making comedy fucking insular and more annoying to ticket buyers. insular and more annoying to ticket buyers yeah ticket buyers are gonna get so fucking tired of hearing us all bitch about the other side of a fight they don't give a shit about yeah they don't care it's annoying whiny behavior for all of us outside of the bubble this idea that it's just gonna be a fight between alt and club comics it's like who gives a shit about that fight we're all gonna cost each other money in the long run yeah let's all get out of the way you build your act i'll build

mine if there's a way for us to help each other we do it if not we can just coexist and go in different directions but this idea that it's like you can get this almost like sugar rush of empty calories by shitting on another corner of the comedy scene yeah it's it's empty calories that burn out quick and leave a lot of fucking damage and everybody's been doing it the past few years and the way i see this i just go less opportunity for everyone it also it also leads to almost like a partisanization of like you're if you're club or you're alt you're like you're trying to be that thing so you don't want to there's less diversity in terms of like the content because you're like i'm going further and further alt or further and further club

to make sure i'm in my box of thing where you're watching lineups and you're like there's no sort of sometimes if if those worlds could did when they did come together you were you would watch a lineup that would be wildly different like oh that's more of a club person but it doesn't feel like yeah you're feeling very hard worlds in both of those camps and and then you're trying to fit the images of those camps instead of actually being creative yeah yeah and it's like how do i become accepted amongst the coolest clique in any given corner of the scene where I go, to me, it should just be, where are the ticket buying public? What are they looking for? And how do you assemble a group of people to go perform for them?

How do we provide the most opportunity for all of us as artists? we become insular shit on each other fragments so we all have less collective power less collective bargaining less ability to you know come together as necessary as artists to change things or whatever blah blah blah the whole thing is like it's a snake eating its own tail and to me if you have a date night and you're like, I could either go see a movie or a comedian, it will hit a point where it's like comedians are fucking annoying. Yeah. It's annoying shit talk on TikTok and Instagram. Who the fuck wants to spend my one night off?

I'm going to get a babysitter so I can go see these people who fucking cause endless crybaby drama. In the short term, you can gather a big crowd. In the long term, it gather a big crowd in the long term it sucks for all of us yeah i've been putting people's crosshairs too i've been sure you know and i'm not trying to get into that but i just sit here and i go the thing that's most annoying to me about it is just like i've spent 20 years building a little audience so i can go on the road sell tickets meet the people who support me. All I've ever done is tried to build my own thing,

keep it going, work with people I like along the way. I get opportunities, I try to help the people who I think are good, who fit the mold of whatever I'm working on. That should, to me, I go that, if we all start fucking shitting on each other for living in a different corner of the scene, you're going to cost me money.

You're going to cost you money. You're going to make this whole thing feel top-heavy. We're going to burst the bubble. Less people are going to make a living from it. It needs to stop. It's annoying. It's my opinion. Well, before we go on to our last two little segments.

That was soapbox nonsense. No, no, it's good. No, it is soapbox nonsense right there, no, it's good. It's real soapbox nonsense right there. No, it's like, you know, I feel like I've been doing standup maybe eight or nine years now. And, you know, it's amazing going like, wow, over eight years,

I do see patterns or I do see, I certainly think I'm seeing the rise of like the social media star. And I know at some point I'll be like, here's how the people fell. And here's how the people figured out how to still ride it when people finally said no more crowd work clips

when that day comes. And it will come, but like everything came. And just ride it out. Just ride it out. Just keep riding. And there's people who are so mad at the social media stars. And it's like anything that helps you skip the line

in the gatekeepers is good and guess what comics of any experience can watch the social media stars and go this one's actually good totally doing tricks i can see the tricks i see the magic trick that's not real unfortunately the term funny is funny has been so misused to like justify just making racist jokes but there is a degree of like, well, funny is people. If people enjoy something, they will come back to that. Well, here's the thing too. It's like,

if you get mad at a social media, like there are people who you watch on social media where you go, Oh, this has tens of thousands of likes, but people who aren't comedians don't realize they get to decide when the clip starts. And we all know, and we all know when you're watching it,

there's some people you watch where you go, Oh, they're doing the crowd work thing and they're masterful at it there's other people where you go i have a feeling they spent 30 minutes of their set trying to get a fight to happen and they're clicking play for the fight part yeah yeah yeah and i can tell that that's that type guess what that person doesn't have a long shelf life anyway. The system will correct itself. Whenever someone comments to me, I'm a crowd work clip thing. Sometimes people call me like, he never misses.

And I'm like, I promise I'm not posting the misses. I've had a plenty of misses. I had a plenty. There's no crowd work clips coming from that Alabama show. I'll tell you that right now. What do you do for work? I work in the oil fields. All right. All right. Cool. Cool. All right.

Some of the theater. Before we go on to the last minute, I do want to ask because I'm a very autobiographical comedian. And especially now that you have a kid, I'm sure it changes. Because you've been, just listening to Pete Holmes, you were talking about a breakup in a way where i was just like damn yeah have you any big regrets of like or especially being older being like i didn't have to talk about that thing yeah um it's a great question it's i had an older comedian tell me once, and we're, we're very different comedians, but I, I joke a lot about my girlfriend and, and, and he was just like, I don't recommend it. And it sounded like he had a marriage that ended because of his jokes. And I thought in my head, I said, I said, well, you know what? We're different're different this is what i this is what i do yeah but do you have any any regrets any like yeah i will say that you know there is this parasocial relationships phrase that gets tossed around now and uh started my public access show

was that it was a small audience that really really felt like they knew me and to a degree they did i will say career suicide helped a lot of people so i don't regret it do i wish that i didn't to this day get very intense messages from people online telling me about their suicide attempts too yeah i sometimes go, I put that thing out six or seven years ago. You know, I'll also say too. It'd be funny if you had an auto message. That's just like, don't do it. Imagine. All right.

But I'll say this too. Like, um, you know, I've had, there are times where I will go to your hoover alabama's of the world yeah and someone will come up to me at the merch line or after the show and they'll say you know i watched career suicide and um my son killed himself and i've had someone tell me her brother killed himself she was like i never really knew what he was thinking but your special gave me a little bit more of an idea of what he might have been thinking. So thank you for it. And it's beautiful to hear. I'm also going to go sit in a hotel room in Alabama and think about it.

You know, and that's not always easy. I made that choice. I gave a piece of myself away in doing that. say that um trying to like being someone who has been very open and i think that was always real now that i am a like for example when i used to do merch for my tv show i was living in greenpoint at the time in a basement apartment with another guy who was on my TV show, our lives had no consequences to them. I wasn't married. I didn't have a kid. If you ordered a T-shirt from me at that time,

it had my address as the return address. And I licked that envelope and I walked it to the post office. And that felt very fucking cool and punk rock to me. You know? It felt like I'm in the lineage of all these bands. I do it myself. I cut out the middleman. This is great.

But I will say, I do it myself. I cut out the middleman. This is great. But I will say, having made a lot of my work about mental illness, there are some mentally ill people who follow me. And now I have a kid. And there have been some situations that I will speak to delicately and just say, there are times where I have revealed so much about myself and I've seen it go wrong with other people who are struggling. And God bless those people. I'm not judging them. But I will say that I have... My career has become harder

because I was someone who was known for being an open book. But I have been in enough situations that scared me where I go, they scared me where i go they scared me and it was my choice my son is not making that choice and my four-year-old cannot get scared because someone feels like they know me and i do regret that in that sense if that makes if you know yeah of course i think it's also hard as a fan. This is not to dehumanize it, but there was a show, Gimlet Media, the podcast company,

they had a show called Startup and it was about him starting his company. And there was a significant change when it became a real business and every episode was like, well, we can't go into that conversation anymore. And as like a listener, it was like, well, we can't go into that conversation anymore. And as like a listener, it was like, well, what the fuck? I was in it to like know about the blood

and the guts and the truth. And you, for me, that show stopped being a great show because he went, well, now there's contracts and lawyers and in a similar sense, there's a child and there's people who i'm responsible for yeah and it's it's but as like a fan it was just like well you've you took something magic away yeah i can like when we were doing the public here's a really good example when we were doing the old public access show the audience was never huge but it was intense and that's how we

survived and it was beautiful i look back i'm like that was the most fun stretch of my life but i'll also tell you my friend jd am who ran the show. He was the guy behind the scenes running everything He used to keep a list of names of people who were very intense about the show Where if anything ever happened to me, he would go to the police with those names and this was half joking half not He told me that and we were like ah and then he was like and let's go over the list of names to make sure you feel like all the names are on there and that none of these people are being misconstrued like it was real but you know what i mean i was also 31 years old i was chronically depressed my whole

life didn't really have any consequences i was single i didn't care yeah somebody wants to come and be a fucking weirdo to me yeah let's do it but probably put it on public access tv if i can you know what i mean at a certain point especially when i had a kid i go i gave a lot of myself away and this idea of i have fans who might kill me and my friend keeps a list of names to go to the cops if anybody ever stabs me to death it's no longer funny yeah because i had a situation i did have a specific situation where i realized like okay like yeah if somebody if i ever look out the window and see somebody getting out of an uber in front of my house i might need to fucking kill this person before they get to my son like i have thoughts like that now you know and this is

not i want to say too now i'm in trouble because there are gonna there might be people out there going he's talking about me i'm not i'm not i'm this theoretically if someone thinks they're talking about you know you're in home listening and you're like i'm here oh my god is he talking about me right like this is a theoretical thought that i've had like if i let people in too far yeah there are times where it's gotten scary and now there's a little kid involved and when a little kid is involved i don't know how to explain it as a dad except to say like i'll fucking kill somebody if my son feels threatened and that's not me trying to sound tough i'm not tough yeah yeah it's like a human instinct of like oh like if if my kid's in danger i'd rather i die or you die than my kid die and that's how i think

now and and i realize sometimes that i opened some doors that you can't totally close sure yeah sure and i just imagine as your kid gets older, it's just that degree of, I mean, I think about this show and I talk pretty openly about a lot of things. And that's like, I could see an age where you'd be like, well, I don't know if I should share this story about my kid.

You know, I think parents are, we've talked about it before on social media. I think it seems, it looks goofy to me when parents post a picture of their kid with a big raccoon emoji over their face. But like, I'm sure it's a

struggle to figure out what to do with this i i also think too about like is this kid someday gonna go is he is my son someday gonna be on the playground and somebody's gonna have found career suicide where i talk about how i once took a medication that made me come water and is somebody gonna turn around and go like your dad's crazy and wants to kill himself and he comes water and it's going to be used as a way to mock my son like i think about that yeah sure somebody gonna find the old i think all the time about should i just pull all the episodes of the public access showdown because i love them i met my wife as part of the show yeah it's part of our family story and people still tweet at me especially during the pandemic there were people like i just found it and watched it all during the pandemic okay i guess i'll leave it up at the same time i'm like

someday is my kid's friend gonna google my name and find the episode where i had a dominatrix dripping wax on me on public access tv or someone eating a belly burrito off my as i wore a loin cloth on public access tv like it's embarrassing for a kid even if my dad had a show though i'd probably watch like half an episode and be like okay it's not even a kid. Even if my dad had a show, though, I'd probably watch, like, half an episode and be like, okay. It's not even, I assume he will do that, but it's more somebody turning around and going, like. It's more about other people using it against him. Hey, everybody, look at this clip of his dad. Look at this clip of his dad being a fucking idiot. They get a water gun, like, that's your dad's cum.

Yeah. For real. I think about it all the time. Yeah. I think about it all the time. There's a part of me that's like, maybe I should just pull it all down and just go fucking find a job. You know? I think about it all the time. I'm like, no, don't.

But I don't have a kid. You don't have a kid. 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 to share for us other than I thought of one, yeah. Yeah, tell us. How are you guys feeling about true crime? How do you feel about true crime? I feel like we've hit a point of... Have we talked about this on the show yet?

No. But we've... We have hit such a saturation where it's so... Like, there was a time where it felt like, oh, this is interesting. Serial. Making a murderer. Oh, yeah. And now they will make anything.

And the stories aren't even done yet. It's like this thing happened, this horrible, horrible thing. They're like, learn about this horrible, horrible thing. And he watched six episodes on it. And then they're like, we don't have the answer about it. And you're like, then why did you start telling me? And he's still out there. There's also podcasts that are just straight up.

We're going to go find a Wikipedia entry. Yes. And we're just going to read it. and that's the extent of our contribution no research no crafting of course it's just hey you want to hear about the worst thing that ever happened to a woman we're just gonna read it to you from wikipedia and that's our episode and it's just i'll go even further i hate i hate like i totally agree with and again i don't like this media so i'm biased but like the american uh uh true crime american thing that did they just they just renewed the jeffrey dahmer show for seasons two and season three and they showed on twitter uh i talk about

like exploiting life for art it was like uh the the woman confronting woman confronting Jeffrey Dahmer on the stand, and then they compared it to the actor's rendition of it. And I'm like, that's crazy. That's disgusting. And people are disgusted about it on Twitter. Twitter is constantly bearing witness to how shaming doesn't change anything. Like, yeah, everyone was like, fuck Ryan Murphy, and then it gets renewed for two more seasons. So you go, there's no consequence.

And I think it's horrifying. I feel like there's a perspective with true crime. Like I've heard Jenna Friedman talk about it. I've heard some women talk about true crime in a way where they deal with fucking crazy people in the world and fear of being murdered. And so in a way, there's a different relationship. To me, I go, this is horrifying. I don't need to know about this and invasion of privacy and exploitation. I like True Crime. My favorite podcast to this day is Criminal. I've listened to every episode

of Criminal. Phoebe Judge puts it out. But here's the thing about it. It's well-researched. It's thoughtfully prepared. It is packaged in a way that's respectful to victims who went through things but now there's just a lot of it that's like hey do you hear about this one where a woman got a fucking hockey stick stuck inside her and then they found her in the fucking ditch anyway now you have heard about it buy a mattress buy some socks and it's like, what the fuck is this? Like, there's no level of thought put into any of it except like, let's just take a bunch of vomit that's been vomited up by the worst of society and fling the vomit across the room into your eyes.

And now an ad. It's too much. The juxtaposition of ads. It's very dark. Very dark. I think there's a degree of the ads. It's very dark, very dark. I think there's a degree of overexposure so then it stops meaning anything. I think, but this is all of the internet. I think I had a friend send me, you know, some meme, edgelordy-ish, with the Twin Towers.

The Twin Towers are used a lot. There's that picture of that guy whispering to George Bush about 9-11 or whatever. And it's like funny. As a dark comedian, it like tickles whatever thing inside of me. But I'm like at a certain point, I'm now seeing buildings on fire where people were actively dying. And I've seen it so much that it's just like a picture to me. And it's the same with true crime. Like if you hear about a woman who got a hockey puck and died in the woods you should feel like bothered and upset and it's hard it's it's i just feel like we're all becoming numb to real life things yeah it's i mean it's the same thing with mass

shootings where there was a day where the mass shooting would be that's all you talk about and now it's like it trends on twitter and then truly the next day you want to hear this I had this happen to me last week it's not a joke last week I was taping my special so I was coming I came into the city on New Jersey Transit five days in a row and one of the days I got to my station and there were all these buses heard this hmm and they said the trains aren't running and I went up to the woman at the booth said trains aren't running and she goes, there's an active shooter at the next station, so you got to get on the buses,

and they'll take you two stations down so you can get past that. Skip the active shooter. We'll just skip around. And then I get on the bus, and I was like, I want to make sure this is the bus heading towards whatever station. And they go, yeah. And then this guy on the bus goes, yeah, they're going to drive us the same route anyway.

The driver will just tell us when to duck. And everybody started laughing. And I was like, active shooter. We're already getting on a bus to just go around an active shooter. And we're making jokes about it. It's happening right now. There's not even time to remove it. You'll know when it's bad when they get mta uh voiceover guy in the booth to be

like there's an active shooting at the next station please respect the conductor i came so close to that last week yeah there's an active shooter so you got to take the bus down two stops and then you pick up the train there like you won't even send the bus all the way to the city like we're just going one extra stop we'll, skip that stop because there's an active shooter and we'll tell you when to duck, everybody. I'm like, there's people fleeing terror right now. Right now we're joking about it. As it's happening, none of us even know the facts yet

and we're making jokes about it. It's so dark. Well, let's go to our final segment. You better count your blessings dark. Well, let's go to our final segment. You better count your blessings. A very appropriately dark episode.

Let's say something. Were you thankful for something nice? Two former podcast guests come to Titanic this week, which was so nice of them. This isn't to make pressure on you. He's got a kid.

You have the perfect excuse to never see a show. I have not seen a friend do a thing in years. Oh, my God. No. Joyelle came literally the day after we talked to her. I came out, and I was like, she really... You know what? Sometimes someone's like, I'm going to come to your show

tomorrow. And you're like, yeah. She said, I'm going to come. She was in the front row. She was in the front row. She's also the coolest. Yeah, yeah. So that was so nice. And then Dr. Schaps, the dentist brought his whole family. Brought his whole family. Last night, yeah.

That's so sweet. Which was so sweet. It was very, very sweet and very nice to shout out to them that was that was uh you gotta go get him get your teeth fixed uh well i don't yeah um uh yeah that was so funny we had we had the orthodontist and we talked about the tefillin yeah with the jews and and then like uh there's a jewish guy who wants to like do it to everybody and went to his office and did it. He keeps asking me to do it, and I don't want to. I feel bad.

He asks me every day. Dr. Chaps? No, no, no, not him. It's just a group of Jews, and there's nothing that makes them happier. If they've got someone to do the tefillin for a day, it's like that's an accomplishment. And I don't want them to get a picture of me with it. And then they catch the one moment I'm about to sneeze and I look like this, like, I really care. That's not my brand. My, well, speaking of Jewish, I had a, you know, this is coming out on May 2nd, but had a great out uh on may 2nd but had a great passover meal with my my uncle my mom was not very jewish but my uncle is very jewish and i got to go there i got to see my mom's original nose 20 times around

the table and it was like i brought tova and tova is in any jewish party she grew up chabad so she's doing the hebrew and doing it well So they're all struggling and then they go to her and she fucking nails it. And so it felt cool. It felt nice. It was a family thing. Did not find the Afikoman. It was $100. If I had known it was $100 instead of $20, I would have been pushing people.

But I had a great time. So that's always nice. Do you have a blessing? I do. I'll tell you, if you haven't been by lately I've mentioned that I'm a New Jersey transit rider now and I'll tell you this one New Yorkers will get

other people need some explanation Penn Station is half fixed now it really is and it's beautiful that it's half fixed because we all know as New Yorkers you know Grand Central beautiful Penn Station historically Penn Station fixed it's because we all know as new yorkers you know grand central beautiful penn station

historically meal off the floor penn station den of fucking horror den of horror port authority even worse oh yeah that's not even started but penn station right now as a new jersey transit rider there's a very funny thing where you can go in all the old entrances and stand in the old shitty area that you know when you're used to and it's still terrifying and there's still people in there who you are concerned for your safety about or you can go down to the nice new section and somehow you can access the same tracks from this nice new section it has a bathroom that's functional i wouldn't poop there but i peed there the other bathroom area i will not enter there i would rather shit my pants than step foot in that fucking bathroom. That's such a funny way of describing public bathrooms.

In New York City? Come on. I would pee in it. I wouldn't poop in it. That could be a whole website. Yeah. Pee, poop, or shit your pants. Pee, poop, or nothing.

I'm not going in. Yeah, but I mean, there's something really beautiful about saying, like, that's what it used to be. So get your nostalgia fix. Here's where it's going. It's going to be so get your nostalgia fix here's where it's going it's going to be much nicer it's up to you how much you want to experience of both it's like the caterpillar is half butterfly and we get to have this moment as new yorkers to just experience both and i love it but i bet if a caterpillar does go have butterfly they end up

dying because it's not good enough i i imagine that new space i i feel how many months how many months away i think it may be no i think it's gonna be years can i tell you i once had a friend who took a at port authority and because growing up in jersey you would sneak in in high school you take the bus okay yeah and i had a friend who um waiting for the last bus back to jersey and realized he had to poop and didn't have time to leave and make he would have missed the last bus you can't miss the last bus so he went and took a at port authority and while he had to poop and didn't have time to leave and make it. He would have missed the last bus. You can't miss the last bus. So he went and took a shit at Port Authority. And while he was in there, he heard someone else come in and start screaming.

And this was in the late 90s. But as he left, he saw that a man was removing his own teeth with pliers in the Port Authority bathroom. So that's Port Authority. He was just doing that. That's how you had to pay for the tickets back then. It was a very painful process. It's hard to imagine a scenario where you need to remove your teeth with pliers in Port Authority.

Yeah, I'm going to guess it wasn't fully logical. I'm going to guess that person had some internal justification. You were thinking of what scenario? I was trying to think of what happened, like, where he'd need to give his teeth away. Like, you know. And he'd be like, well, in the scenario when the government is listening to your thoughts through your cavities. Sometimes if you have gold teeth, you could pull the gold out to, I don't know, use it. Sure.

Sure. Anyways. I guess we don't need that. Well, this episode is coming out, as said may 2nd anything you want to plot oh this is great i'm hosting a festival may 4th 5th 6th and 7th uh the first night's a screening at nighthawk cinema and then i'm having a whole podcast my my podcast beautiful anonymous we're having a big fan convention we're gonna have live we have live music the comedy bills are just all people who aren't assholes I mean the aforementioned joy L Joe Firestone Roy Wood jr. Adam Pally so

many great people Brittany Carney like some people why it's an act some people who like I came up with some people who I had really Meyer who came up after me to preface it though that there's no assholes when i'm not on the lineup feels like pretty indirect comments on my character assholes no assholes nobody's gonna throw a beer at you at this shit i kid how many times have you gotten that how many times that's a that's a good call back you come to this show there's not gonna be any of that nonsense no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding but uh um yeah i mean just a lot of great people. So I hope people come on out. That's fantastic.

Russell, what would you like to plug? Titanic, Off-Broadway, Daryl Roth Theater. Sorry. I'm going to come see Titanic. Come see it. Come see it. Come see it. What about your barber?

You want to give him a plug? Your barber shop? Yeah, go to Ray's Barber in Inwood. You come all the way from Inwood to do this podcast? Let me tell you, Chris. Oh, my goodness. I've told you to move. For me, this Sunday, May 7th, I will be at Laugh Boston.

It's going to be a really good one. Oh, I want to give a shout out. What a boring name, that club. Laugh Boston. I think it's club names. It's hard. No, I know it's hard, but just like, laugh. You know what I got today that I have to point out?

We're going to have a taxidermist on the show and I'm going to take a class where we're going to make taxidermy mice. I'm going to get it. Okay. And so I'm going to make – I got a little microphone. I'm going to make a taxidermy stand-up comedy club with the dead mouse, and I need to come up with a name for the comedy club that plays off keys or something. So if Laugh Boston is too hacky for you. Let's see what Russell comes

up with. And another big one I want to shout out. It's a ways and ways, but September 25th, I will be headlining The Big Room at Hollywood Improv. And Steph Tolev, who was just on our Patreon episode, patreon.com slash downside, will be opening it. Then Caleb

Huron will be in the middle and I will be closing. And we have an Uncle Function show that week in LA too. We have an Uncle Function show. I was hoping you'd start plugging that too. So yeah. So be in LA that week. We're going to have great shows there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And frankly, I'm scared. Sometimes booking...

Sometimes you book a lineup where you're like, these are going to be tough to follow. You got Caleb Huron, you got Steph. They'll be great. It'll be great. No, they'll be great. That's not what I'm... I'm just... People will here. You got Steph. They'll be great. It'll be great. No, they'll be great. Yeah. But you'll be great. I'm just saying. People will come. And again, join the Patreon. Support the show.

If you want to listen to extra stuff, watch my clean special. And oh, just is that I noticed there a mole on your neck. You probably should. You should get that checked it out. It could be skin cancer. This is the downside who's that too whoever's listening each individual person oh god wait rosa put this next to your heart again let me hear that real quick you're listening to the downside with john marco cerezi