The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #140 Pay Your Writers with Mike Drucker

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Mike Drucker shares the downsides of being a tv writer and we get into the weeds of the writers strike, the existential threat of AI, Bill Maher, the rules of picketing, and why theater kids could be the strike’s greatest ally. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Mike Drucker on Instagram, Twitter, and Bluesky Sign up for Mike's newsletters for all the latest: https://mikedrucker.substack.com/ 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. Hi. My name is Jamarcus Harazi. I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels. Hi, Jamarcus. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Great. Try to clear the throat before we start the whole thing.

We're here with a guest. Listen, this is, we're recording this, we're all out of order, but I wanted to, you know, I wanted to get a writer on. Yes. We talk about the writer's strike. Russell is pro big corporations. Oh, yep. Russell is big pro.

That is me. But we're here with our guest, writer, comedian, Twitter personality, Mike Drucker. Welcome. Hello. This is my voice, if you hear it. Hi. And with the strike, this is the first time you've worked 10 weeks just coming here today. So thanks.

I'm sure it was tough getting out of bed. It was tough getting out of bed. I apologize. When we were supposed to originally record this, I have not recorded an in-person podcast in like two years. And so I was like, I set up my microphone. I set up like, because I do a little setup at my desk when it's time to record a podcast and I got everything ready and I got quick time open.

And then I read the email. I was like, I'm allowed to swear I'm sure but I'm a fucking idiot yes like I totally did not know it was in person well you rescheduled the week after and that's all that matters yeah I apologize yes we got work done we got work done that day we did

we recorded speaking of we recorded an extra episode that will come out eventually on the Patreon. Patreon.com slash downside. Glad we got to that. I'm wearing a new vintage Little Shop of Horrors shirt. This is from New York. Some random high school.

What is it? Virginia Theater. Who gave that to you? My sister got this for me. She gets you all your shirts. Oh, that's nice. She gets me. I said I want vintage theater shirts. And this one is a... So listen, at home, if you all your shirts. I wanted to complain about, because this is the downside, about, I went to my brother's graduation yesterday.

And it's Boston College. Okay. Which I learned in the graduation. I said, a lot of Jesus, because we're Jewish. And that's when I found out it was a Jesuit. Jesuit? Jesuit. Jesuit. Jesuit.

Yeah. I can't even say it. My tongue starts burning. And one of the most boring ceremonies I've ever been to in my entire fucking life. I mean, there's not like a fun college graduation. Why are graduations so utterly, utterly awful? There's no, there's not a, I was excited because the day before at BU, Boston

University, the head of Warner Brothers spoke and he was booed. And everyone chanted, pay your writers. And so when I saw that this graduation had an ambassador from the Ukraine, I was like, ugh. I'm so sorry. You had to go through that. What kind of chant are you going to do?

You know, it would have been fun if we did a through that. What kind of chant are you going to do? You know. Yeah. It would have been fun if we did a pay your writers too. Yeah. How long are we talking? Oh, it was two graduations. So first it was the big one. What?

Wait a minute. Why did you go to both? Because my brother was there. My brother, he was in like the, he was in the whole school. Yeah. And then thank God they don't do the names for the whole school. They break it off into majors essentially. Yeah. And then thank God they don't do the names for the whole school. They break it off into majors essentially.

Yeah, okay. And I just don't, look, okay, you have to do Jesus, you have to read Latin, but someone must sing in the graduating class,

have them sing a song. We're on a football field. Get the cheerleaders out here. You want to do all the names. You want it more. Yeah, they would take more time. You want to do all the names. You want it more. It would take more time. I want to watch them just by the end, just deteriorating. I want a flip for each name.

And I just don't understand. I get it's not going to be a Broadway show, but I feel like there's been this resignation of, we're going to make this painful. Everyone's going to stay because they have to. For this one moment, they cheer for their kid. And I don't know why they have to be so bad. And I don't like how they honor some of the students like extra.

Yeah. Like this is the day. Just let everyone be an equal. Yeah, some of them have extra cloaks and things. Little cords and medals. Little extra cords. Yeah, some of them have extra cloaks and things. Little cords and metals. Little extra cords and things. Yeah, and they honor them and they say their name. And they're like, you sit in front, you know, like kind of like, I don't know.

And they had one kid they said, you know, he graduated with a 3.9 while pursuing cancer research. And I was like, just give him the 4.0 then. Yeah. Just give him the 4.0. Yeah. Just, it's all, especially because it was Jesuit, it's smacked of propaganda for college, propaganda for America, and propaganda for Jesus

without any of the entertainment that comes along with it. Yeah. Yeah, that's what Jesuit, that pretty nails Jesuit. What is Jesuit? Yeah, I don't, I've heard of it, but I don't know what it means. Essentially think, and I'm going to get this wrong and someone's going to write a very angry email to you. We have zero Christian listeners.

It is essentially like a sort of a monastic type group. And they're, think like monks, but they're kind of like a little more focused on education. They're a little bit older. They're more like established. You've heard of like Franciscan monks. Jesuit monks, I think, are another branch branch sort of like a different type of monk but they often run educational institutions yeah i just wish as maybe it's a spice of the graduation you put a gun to everyone's head and said do you believe that in the resurrection because part of

me is like how many people here, how, how many of us are buying this anymore? Right. What are the numbers? Cause, cause I imagine there's, it's, it's never been everybody,

but I just feel like, I feel like it's like three people now in a stadium full of people. Yeah. It's, it's like, it's not even the priest saying the words. And I just, I think when I realized how Jesuit it was, was when they did the cross,

it was like the wave. Like it was so big to see a thousand people do it at once. And it's not like the professors are all Jesuits, right? No. No. No. But it's Boston, which I feel like is a heavy Catholic area. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was, it was awful. You have any fun? You got, you got drunk. I saw on your Instagram. I got drunk the night before. I had a great dinner with the mom. And my siblings, Katie, booked a part on The Voice.

She's on The Voice tonight. Oh, my God. So she's dancing. So it was good to see my mom. But just, I just don't know who it's fun for. Like, it's fun for the families. The only moving part, two parts. One, when they they

applauded the people who were the first in their family to go to college that felt that felt special sure even though they just entered a different scam you know and then the ukrainian she this was the only joke the only joke was the ukrainian woman said she was there to talk about love. And she said, not the love necessarily romantic, like flowers and chocolates. Although, as a married woman, let me tell you, doesn't hurt. That's the only joke. How old was she? I appreciate it in a way.

Unless she was like 23. No, no, no. A 23-year-old ambassador for Ukraine. As a married lady, the whole husband. It was like someone who felt right that she made that joke. It felt like her husband had not brought her flowers

for a long, long time. Might be hard in Ukraine. Sure. I'm sure they used that as an excuse. I'm sure she's like, like oh you couldn't get any flowers while you're out in the battlefield they call it a battlefield for a reason there's flowers you could pick some so just awful uh and did you go to your you have a younger sister i have a younger brother younger brother did you go to his graduation um i did not go to either his college

or his business school graduation um just both times i had a? I did not go to either his college or his business school graduation. Just both times I had a job that did not give time off. Like if you took time off, they would fire you, kind of. Really? Yes. What job? It was a showbiz job. Oh.

Which I won't get into deeper. Ruthless. Because I still have friends there. But it wasn't like they're like, if you go, we'll fire you. It was just like, no. you cannot go to my brother went to business school in england so he's not i could not go to england in the middle of a week of a work week yeah it's it seems less important to do i don't know i think i went to my brother's high school graduation definitely not his college graduation and by the way i didn't even go to my own when I got my graduate degree

I did not go to that high school graduation I went to my brother's that was fun they had chorus they showed their talents even if they weren't good it was fun to watch

I'd rather see the worst chorus in the world. Yeah. Than a good chorus. Unless it's a Mormon tabernacle. I don't, I'd rather see like. Yeah. Boys who are the worst.

It's the worst thing you've ever seen. That's fun. You want, you want to see other people not have fun. Yes. That would be fun. Yeah. At my college graduation, I forgot who,

but they had some like, I guess, famous trumpet player. Fun. Whose name? It was fun at first, but it went on about 10 minutes. There was like three minutes and I was like, this is amazing. And about five minutes and I was like, this is going. Trumpet alone? Trumpet alone. Like his whole thing was like,

we've invited this musician. Sometimes you need other things. Right. Certain instruments. But it was like his almost thing was like, we've invited this musician. Yeah. Sometimes you need other things. Right. Certain instruments. But it was like his, his like almost speech was him playing trumpet for 10 minutes. Like that was his message. Yeah.

That's a long speech. And you know what the other thing with the Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador was, she just kept talking about like democracy, the importance of democracy. And there I am in Boston. Yeah. Very conservative Boston with,

with, and I'm just, there was a degree of like no one here believes in the same definition of this word that we're all talking about right now. It's just weird. There's nothing wrong. You've got to do propaganda sometimes, but why at the college

thing? This is their day. Ukraine can wait. Take a day off, Ukraine. I don't know. I don't have a strong opinion. No, it's just a weird speaker you want a fun speaker this is this is the this is supposed to be they probably tried to get a fun speaker i'm sure they asked for big you know funny funny people it's the same thing with having the time warner guy though it's like why are you bringing this this overly rich billionaire to the thing? Yeah.

What does he have to tell these kids? For him, these kids are just like cheap workhorses for him. Yeah. He's looking at unpaid interns in front of him. Why have him speak? Yeah. Dream speaker. Dream speaker.

For me? For graduation. Oh, I don't know. Probably a comedian because you're like, you just want it to be funny. Yeah. And you want it to be quick. And you don't want to like, you don't know. Probably a comedian. Cause you're like, you just want it to be funny and you want it to be quick. And you don't want to like, you don't want to leave. I don't actually want to leave feeling like inspired that much.

You're like, you're done with something. Your head's not, when you're graduating, your head's not like, I don't know. You're like, yeah, let me finish this thing. Yeah. And not like be challenged to look like towards my whole future quite yet. Sure. So you want it to be funny and quick. That's my, that'd be my only kind of.

Maria Bamford did one year and I think it's online where I believe it was about how she was asked. Her speech was about how she was asked to do said speech for free and how she's like, no, pay me. And it was about like the negotiations to get money. And then she donated the money anyway. But she, for a while, was on a real kick about like, I'm going to talk about the finances of show business. And looking back, and it was like, I'm sure some of the parents were like,

they couldn't get the Ukrainian ambassador. Right. But for me, as like a younger person, I'm like, this is interesting. Yeah. This is interesting. Yeah. But you get to a point, you hit on a point, which is a lot of the time the graduations

for, and I don't mean this in an emotional way for the parents in terms of like, we got someone that an old person will like. Yes. We got someone that your dad's going to love. Almost. I don't think that's the entire point of it. But part of me thinks sometimes they cater to the parents more than the students. Yeah.

Because they're like, they want to feel like the money that they spend is worth it. Look at this brilliant billionaire who like our speaker is Dick Gregory. You're excited to be your kid. Do you know what I mean? Like there is a thing where they want to, they, that's what will impress people. They think,

you know, I, yeah. Like if you're, if you're like a 65 year old college Dean, you think what's impressive to you is what would impress a 65 year old dad. Yes. Yeah. And I guess they do deserve it given how much money they

just spent. Right. Or yeah. Or put on their kids in a loan. Yeah. Yeah. So Jojo, my brother Jojo, I know you don't listen to this podcast, but my sister Katie does. Katie told Jojo that I love him and I'm proud of him. Is his real name Jojo? Why would you

say it like that with that disgust in your voice? His name's Joseph. I call him and I'm proud of him. Is your, is this real name Jojo? Why would you say it like that with that disgust in your voice? His name's Joseph. I call him Jojo. Okay. You've affection. You've never affectionately called him that name in front of me before. That's why I recognize the name Joseph, but I,

I've never heard you call. I didn't know you had a brother named Jojo. So funny. Cause his name, I think his name's technically William Joseph. And the number of, the number of William Joseph's at this very white

Boston Collective was insane oh I can imagine I mean just because every time I thought like oh my god they skipped it to him

I'm gonna miss the thing so Jojo I'm proud of you don't ever make me go to a graduation ever again this is The Downside one

two three Downside Downside you're listening to The downside with john marco cerezi if this is your first time listening to the downside this is a place where we let negativity flow we don't pretend things are getting better they're getting worse for all of us and we might as well enjoy it while it's happening uh real quick again, if you want extra episodes

or access to our live episodes, my clean comedy special, The Rats Are In Me, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. And we have another live taping, June 5th, 7.30 p.m. New York City.

We will be taping with Molly Carney from Saturday Night Live. Ticket link in the description of the show. I got to tell you, we have, I feel like we have a good amount of listeners, but the live shows. I worry that our listeners are the kind of people who don't leave the house. So guys, buckle up. But then we had a full show in Houston.

It's an interesting thing. Yeah. Come in New York. June 5th, New York, 7.30 p.m. It's going to be really great. The live ones always are. a lot but then we had a full show in houston it's an interesting thing yeah it's a come come in new york june 5th new york 7 30 p.m it's gonna be really great the live ones always are and from saturday night live yeah uh i but we're here with the garbage people in the pre-recorded ones no no no no no no not at all we we want to get this one out soon because it looks like the strike could be over any second now. Any moment now. So close.

Anyone's in such good spirits. Mike, I know you a lot through Twitter. Yep. You've written for fucking everything. And what was the thing? Did you leave any job for this strike? Were you on a job? I was briefly going back to Tonight Show

because I kind of knew there was a strike coming, so it felt like a good time to get a job beforehand so I could kick back my union insurance. And I was bored because I wasn't writing for a couple months. So at the moment, I was at Tonight Show and had to leave that for the strike. So I really want to get into the weeds of being a writer, what The Strike's about,

and why things have gotten so bad. I'm very pro-strike. Even if I didn't have a lot of knowledge about it, I have a degree, but I'm pro-sag-striking. Yeah, me too. I had some awful payouts from a show I did called Bonding. I filmed it for a French streamer called Black Pill. Technically, I was in three episodes.

$150 a day for two days. Then Netflix bought it. It was on their marquee. And I did not get any change in money from the $ 150 a day for fucking netflix yeah uh and and i just remember uh with with acting as everything went digital online stuff never paid quite enough yeah yeah yeah and uh i yes so i'm i'm very excited uh i'm very excited for there to be a strike tell me about what was your first writing job um well uh i like college, I majored in English and journalism. So I started to freelance a little bit for video game publications in college.

So I would say I got a few things published in literally FHM Magazine, Maxim Magazine, because they would spend a lot of money on video game stuff. I didn't even write about hot people. What's a lot of money for a video game columnist? When you're in college, 250 bucks. Wow, that is a lot of money. It was 2003, 2004

when I was starting to write in college. And so, you know, back then, 250 is a good chunk of change. What would you say that is now? I always have a really bad calculator of when someone's like, I used to make $1.50 in the 30s i'm like i have no idea i feel like it's like three 320 or 350 now it's not like an insanely different amount but it's still like for a college student what are these headlines is is

like what's uh i covered i don't remember what the headlines are but i covered a halo tournament i covered uh like a bar that which now everywhere, but back then was like a new thing, a bar that was like dedicated to games. You know, I interviewed a couple video game people. Sort of, I mean, kind of like you're in college and journalism school getting whatever you can type jobs.

Yeah. I was just lucky enough to do it in something I was interested in. But this is when video game, I feel like video game journalism got harder as a gamer. It did. It got more tied to society and I was interested in. But this is when video game, I feel like video game journalism got harder. It did. Like it got more tied to society and societal values. I don't think people were necessarily talking about

like the role of gender in Nintendo Power in the 90s. No. Which is the magazine I used to read. No, but a lot of what you're thinking of was also like 10 years after I was doing that. Like Gamergate was around like 2013, 14. So this was still like kind of in the, you know, you could say hobbyist media type okay cool yeah uh so you're digging it yeah you like video games russell's not a video game guy no that's okay i gave up before college you don't

have to i love i i always watch it from afar with a weird like i gave it up because i don't see how i could be a functional human being and indulge in this. Yes, that's fair. It's so much fun. Yes. Much more fun than anything interpersonal with human beings. Yeah, no, that's why I'm there for it. Yeah.

That's why I like it. And so then what was the transition from that into like comedy writing? I just, I don't know. For some reason, I got a bug in my head that I wanted to try comedy in college. And I went to, I went to NYU. I went for English and journalism, but I was in New York city. And the advantage to going to college in New York city is if you want to try to do comedy, there's a thousand open mics that are, you know, I've done open mics when I visited my folks in Florida. I've done, you know, open mics with, you know, when I visited other friends

in different college, like my girlfriend at the time when she was living in Pennsylvania and open mics at a small town or a small college are very different than like just New York city open mics. So I was lucky to jump into a big pool and learn how to swim in a relatively big pool. They're still open mics, but I had a nice advantage that I was in New York. I could go to the cellar if I wanted to and just watch a show without it being like my tourist trip of the week. You know what I mean? Or I could hit an open mic, hit another open mic, then go to a friend's show. It really allowed me to start doing comedy, not well, but at least fast.

I could do a lot of it fast. Were you good out the gate? No. I was so bad. I was so abysmally bad. I'm still not, I wouldn't say amazing. I think I'm a better writer than a comedian. I'm a good one if you're booking it.

If you're listening to this and booking a show, I'm amazing. Out the gate, I was just, I'm a naturally nervous person. And I actually have genetic, like shaking. I shake naturally. What is it called? Essential tremor. Essential tremor. Essentialor it's called an essential tremor an essential tremor and when were you diagnosed with this uh it was actually after this point uh it was in my late maybe mid or late 20s just because like i starting to notice it and like be annoyed by it and so i went to a doctor and they were like oh it's just a tremor.

And it's not related. Cause when I get nervous, I, and thank God this went away, but I was always terrified in comedy. Whereas once in a while I would get the shakes. If I was holding a mic like this and I would have to hold my mic like this,

people would think it was a choice, but it was because I was nervous and something would happen. See, and for me, it's sorry. I'm just moved the mic. He's like a fucking idiot. Um, uh, it's not, it's not that I'm nervous so much would happen. See, and for me, it's, sorry, I just moved the mic from my face like a fucking idiot. It's not that I'm nervous so much.

It's that almost if I'm paying attention to it, it'll start to do that. This hand is worse than this hand, but it'll still happen. I tend to like lean on, like not lean on the mic stand, but keep it in the mic stand and just do this. Because even when I'm not nervous, I'm still shaking a little bit and it can make the audience think I'm nervous. And that like, of course, it's like a feedback loop. Everyone's getting nervous.

Exactly. Joe Pera. And you're like, this is fully what I am. Right. Which is not my bit. Um, my bits,

how cool. No, um, I, uh, no, but like people like, cause I'd have like friends who'd see me,

they'd be like, you were so nervous up there. And I'm like, I don't, I wasn't. Yeah. And it's's frustrating but also what a weird thing to say to your friend after a show yeah right but you were terrible nervous up there you looked nervous that's the main thing i have had that more than once from like a like you know back when i had non-comp back when i had not commented um back when I was a normal human being before I was amongst the gods

I um people would come to shows and they they would be very open on they'd be like you were so great you seem nervous and like you were shy and it's like so you didn't have a good time um but yeah I wasn't very good at it for a long time and I think I just kept at it and because I was in New York I was able to do it so much that I built up the muscle a little bit. And even though I was bad at it, it was one of the first non-academic things I had done that I felt good doing. Like, I think if I had not gone into comedy, there's not a small chance I would have stayed in academia. I got my master's in English lit. I really, you know, thought about getting a PhD and just sticking around. Um, but I don't know know i fell in love with comedy and when you started doing that were you like oh i see a path as a stand-up comedian or

did you when did you go oh a writer i could be a writer and i could have a whole career um well again like i had been writing before i had started comedy so i already knew that like at the very least i could make some money doing it it wasn't like mercenary to the sense where this is going to be my, this is going to be my living. This is all I'm going to ever do. But I was like, I can do this. And luckily the two sort of came together because while doing standup, I met Megan Gantz who, you know, later on went on to execute and produce Modern Family, but she was at The Onion at the time. And she was like, Hey, do you want to, you were really funny, would you like to apply to be a freelancer? And I was like,

of course. And so I applied to be a freelancer, and I got in and started being a freelancer for The Onion. And around this time I also got a job as a photo researcher on Saturday Night Live, and they let me start submitting jokes. A photo researcher? Photo researcher. What is that? You know, like on,

like, for example, Weekend Update, and they'll be that? You know, like on, like, for example, Weekend Update, and they'll be like, you know, President Biden, and they'll have a photo of him. Oh, yeah. You have to clear all that. That's Biden, for sure. I'm pretty sure. That's a funny job.

That's him. But you have to clear it. You gotta find the photo. You have to find the photo. You have to make sure you can use the rights to it, whether it's Getty, you know, or AP. Like, you have to, like, any photo, and you also, anytime you use a photo on a TV show,

you have to make sure you have full rights to it in perpetuity so you can keep using it forever. It's not like I'm a lawyer going through it, but it's more like I'm making sure that the photos they're using are photos that we can keep using. That's interesting because it must be,

in that case too, they're making a new joke. Sometimes there's a quick timeline on that, I'm imagining you have to like quickly get approval for it absolutely anyone who was any photo that was like a challenge um not off the top of my head because again this job was maybe 12 years ago or 13 years ago there was definitely more of a challenge would be like a writer would send you a photo that they might have seen online and And they were like, and not necessarily even for a weekend update.

It could be like, you know, a background in a sketch or like a poster or something. And they'll be like, I saw this photo on Twitter or Facebook. We got to use this photo. And you'll like search for it. You'll do backwards

because you can like search from a photo to see where it's from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen catfish. And exactly. But exactly. And like, you'd have to go through this roundabout process and then be like, we can't use it.

We don't know who owns it. We can't get the rights to it. And then you have to have that conversation of like, can we build it a different way? Like, what if we put these pieces of different photos together to make what you want? Yeah. What a crazy way to get in at SNL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then how did you start writing for Weekend Update from there?

Were they just, hey, ask the photo guy? Or they knew? They knew. And back then, I think it has stopped now, but back then they let you kind of like the onion try out a bit and write jokes. And if you were good enough, it wasn't – if you were good enough, that didn't necessarily mean you'd get jokes on the show. Yeah. But they'd let you keep doing it. If you were so bad at it, they would like, you know, probably like –

We're good. Yeah, exactly. would like you know probably like we're good easy yeah exactly not in a rude way we're good on these emails right exactly but but really though you know um and so i'd send you know 10 jokes a week and for a year or two i was getting nothing on because i wasn't i still wasn't that good and i think i sort of in my head not cracked the code like i could do it every week but i began to get at it. And then I'd get like one on a week. And then there were weeks when I'd get two or three on, um, was any that you're really proud of or any that you're really embarrassed by? Uh, I don't remember embarrassed by the ones I was embarrassed by weren't mine, but because I was the photo, one of the photo guys, I would be used in photos a lot. And at the time, like I, and it was never

complimentary. It was never complimentary it was never they never like were like hey let's use you like there was definitely there was definitely uh there was some joke someone wrote it wasn't me but someone wrote some joke about like a star trek fan digging up a corpse so i had to dress as like and they wanted me to look bad so i had to dress in a and like a spock outfit that was too intentionally two sizes too small on my body So I had to dress in a, in like a Spock outfit that was too intentionally two sizes, too small on my body. And I had to like hold a shovel and like do a, I had to do a photo shoot looking awful.

Yeah. Did you get a big pop? Did they go? It got, it did well. You took the photo and then you're like, you don't have the rights to this photo. Actually.

Sorry. I talked with the owner. Now, how does this work when you're getting on a couple of jokes? Like, like let's say, and are you still labeled as photo researcher? Yeah. Is there any extra, like, writer credit pay?

Money? No, that's why they've kind of stopped doing it, because it was a very gray area of freelancing. Uh-huh. I don't know when they stopped it, but I think they stopped it a while ago. But you get $100. You get $100 per joke. Per joke. On the show.

Really? Yes. Wow. That's not a lot, but i could see it being really cool it it and when you're like 23 or 24 and really trying to break in yeah you know i don't think i would do that necessarily now but when i'm you know you're a kid and you you're you desperately just want to do anything in comedy well i think this is what's interesting about you know uh uh an industry like comedy where it's like, to me, I could see a time in my life

where that entry point might be more accessible because that's not enough money for a lot of pros, but it allows accessibility into this big world. I mean, I think that was the argument, one of the arguments about like unpaid internships or just a degree of like, this is a way you can figure it out. Cause you're not at a place where ready to give you a full-time staff

position on Saturday night live, but you can submit jokes. Right. And it did lead places like, uh, because of look, it helped you, right?

Yeah. It helped me because of that. Those jokes, Seth Meyers hired, like I was still a photo researcher when he hired me as a writer on the ESPN awards. And I don't know sports. I had to cram sports for two months.

That's scary. But if someone gives you that opportunity, if they're like, do you want to write on this award show in the summer? There's no world in which I could have been like, no, I don't like sports. I was like, fuck it. Two months, I'm going to learn sports. How did you cram that? I would feel, if I had to write for that, I don't even know what I'd do.

One, my brother and my father are both big sports fans so i was able to be like hey what are like the big scandals of the year and then literally google things like biggest sports moments of the year a super bowl recap like because just like tv shows there's world series recaps there's biggest scandals of the nba playoffs like any like like all the listicles that you see of anything whether it be movies out music whatever they have those for sports. And so I just did a deep dive into every who are, you know, who's the most hated people of whatever year that was or like who won trophies, you know. And then I would look at pictures of the popular players and be like, this person's attractive.

We're going to do a joke about that. Or this person has, you know, their face looks like it's upside down. Let's go there. And so it was almost like cramming for an exam. Wow. God. Wow. So do you remember any of those jokes? I love, I love, I love monologue jokes. I'd love weekend update jokes. I don't remember any of the ESPN awards jokes. We get an update weekend update. I, uh, the two that I remember or the two that I really like one was um and i'm gonna like butcher the exact saying so i apologize but one was something along the lines of the in

you know the inventor of the trampoline died this week at the age of 80 something uh his family will always remember his last words look what i can do so just a just a just a nice weekend update joke yeah uh the other one was and the other one almost didn't get it and they to their credit like to the writers in the room credit even though i wasn't a writer they fought for this joke uh um so they were a good team they weren't like i know that sometimes it sounds like a hundred bucks like you were getting screwed but they really were helping me um whether or not the deal was entirely fair is up to other people but i did get a lot of help out of it um you remember that joke the joke was uh it was uh an apartment building in new york city uh residents of an apartment building in new york

city are upset because they learned that their uh that their building super is a registered sex offender and i was like but on the bright side, if I know building supers, it'll take him forever to get around to molesting your kids. That's a really good joke. Oh, that's so funny. That was because my thought when I read the story was like, well,

yeah, but supers don't do anything. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. And it got on, it got on, it got on the show.

Were you in the room when they were fighting for it? No, but they were like, they were like the standards and practices really wanted to cut this one and we fought for it because we liked it which was very sweet of them because it was none of theirs like what year is this oh boy uh this must have been two i want to say either 2009 or 2010 but it could have been it's 2008 to 2010 but i don't know the exact time so i'm curious just before we go into all the strike stuff, take me to where you're making a living and what kind of contract, what kind of role that was from SNL. So you're making – are you making okay money as this image researcher?

No, no. I'm making pretty – not terrible money, not poverty wages, but like not very much. Do you mind sharing? I feel like numbers help people. I would probably say maybe $45, not very much. I feel like numbers help people. I would, I would probably say maybe 45,000 a year. Okay. And this was again, like 2000 years ago,

2008 to 2010. So not, not great money on this podcast per week. Brutal. It's killing me. Not great money in New York city, but like I found, I lived in a,

like a nice basement apartment in Queens that was kind of like, you know, crummy now. But like, again, when I was like 24 was awesome and it was a cool studio apartment and a nice part of Queens. It was deep, deep, deep ass Queens. But it was still, you know, an apartment I could afford on my paycheck. Sure. Yeah. But it wasn't much money. But so towards after about two years there, I kind of like had a talk with not Seth, but someone else.

And I was kind of like, you know, do you think they'd ever make me a writer here? I'll get jokes on the show. I feel like I contribute. And they were kind of like maybe in a few years. And I didn't want to wait that long. So I had an opportunity to go work for Nintendo of America. So I just moved to Seattle and worked at Nintendo for two years. Uh, and what was your job there? I was, uh, an English localization editor, uh, which means I worked with a Japanese translator to rewrite scripts to make sense in English.

Do you feel like looking back, like a little Julia Roberts, like big mistake, huge, you could have had me on the SNL staff or looking back are you like yeah i get why they want someone who's been doing it a little longer um i don't think it's either i think it's somewhere in the middle along the lines of you know um you know kind of like almost like uh like i'm not gonna wait around forever for you to marry me yeah you know it looks like it looks like this place is pretty eager to have me i'm'm going to go over here, but it wasn't, it wasn't bad. It wasn't like I fucking quit. It was after the season was over. I just said, Hey, I'm not going, I'm not, I don't think I'm going to come back next season, which is never sound like it's as long as you're polite

about it. It's never sour grapes. That's never mean. It wasn't like you give me a job or I'm gone. It was more like I had the understanding at the end of the season that that was not in the cards. I'm going to go. But I didn't tell them that was why I wasn't like you didn't make me a writer. So I'm gone. It was more just like I have this great opportunity. Sure. Sure.

So you go to Nintendo. Go to Nintendo. Are you making a good salary? A little more. I would say about probably like 60, 65,000. But that was again, I was like at the very, it's a good department to be in, but I was at the very bottom of the ladder in that department. Yeah. So you're in Seattle. You've extricated yourself from some of the comedy. Were you doing a lot of side comedy

projects or were you out? Yeah, no, I was doing a ton of side comedy. I mean, the nice thing was because, you know, I was a small fish in a big pool in New York. And so when I moved to Seattle, I had already had a lot of standup experience. So I was sort of like a medium sized fish in a medium sized pool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I got to do a lot of standup. I got to do a lot of featuring at different clubs in Seattle and Tacoma. Um, I got to, yeah, I got to open for a ton of great people just because I, I sort of defaulted to being one of the more experienced comedians who wasn't on the road all the time. So a lot of people like Marc Maron would sweep through and I would be their feature act. Sure. Nice. Were you, what did you care about being better at more standup or writing?

Um, you know, that's a good question. I think neither. I think whichever seemed to be serving me the best at the moment is what I preferred. It wasn't like, you know, my dream is to be the world's most famous comedian and it wasn't the world's most famous writer. It was almost more like if you were a juggler and you're like, I just want to keep juggling. Yeah. Like I just want I don't want someone to come and tell me that this is done. You have failed. Yeah. So as long as I get to keep juggling things, I'm happy. Sure. So, OK. So take me, take me where you leave Nintendo, where are you going? So I leave Nintendo. Uh, I get hired for,

this is the first time I had a job where I was like, Oh, I'm making good money. Except I moved to San Francisco to write, uh, comedy videos about video games. Kind of like I had been doing comedy. I'd been getting noticed. And this website sort of was like, Hey, we know that, you know, video games. We know that you're doing a lot of comedy. Would you like to come write videos for us for a year? It was a year contract.

And I knew that it was probably not longer than a year, but it was the first time it was like 90,000, which is a huge jump, especially for me who'd never made anything near that amount. Is this all non-union still? This is all non-union. This is all, I mean,

this is all Nintendo's video games, which are very, very few companies are union video games and no Japanese companies are. I don't think. Was this a new company? San Francisco? No, no, no. It was a video game site called IGN.

So it existed forever, but they were trying to break into doing like funny content. Yeah. It just feels like one of those things where you're like, this thing's not gonna be around for a while. IGN. So it existed forever, but they were trying to break into doing like funny content. Yeah. It just feels like one of those things where you're like, this thing's not gonna be around for a while. Like they're paying me $90,000 to come do this like new thing. You know, I think the, and the initiative wasn't the initiative ended soon after I left the Quibi situation, but you know, but like, imagine like Netflix started a Quibi. Yeah. So like, you're like,

Netflix will be fine, but the Quibi part won't. Yeah. So like, you're like, Netflix will be fine, but the Quibi part won't. Yes. And so that was kind of the situation. And it was to nobody's fault. They put a lot of effort into it. People watched it. I think it just like,

the numbers didn't necessarily come out that it was worth what they were spending. Yeah. Yeah. So then what was, when did you join the union? So during my one year at IGN, I did New Faces in Montreal,

the Montreal Comedy Festival, which got me some more traction. And then from both that and from Seth Meyers' recommendation, I got hired at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It was Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at the time. And that was my first full-time staff TV job. And that's what got me into the WGA.

And how did that job pay? That job paid, I mean, I was making, I think, the union minimum and it was more money than I'd ever made in my life. It was, I think at the time, something like 200,000. Really? Yeah. And how long was the contract?

For late night shows, contracts are 13 weeks. So you get to work 13 weeks and then they decide whether they want to renew you or not. Well, you say 200,000, you mean? A year. A year. Should that contract get renewed? For a year. How long does that go on for that you do the 13 week renewals?

Essentially. So like, let's say I was hiring you. I might give you a two year contract with 13 week cycles. Okay. So that means like, you know, for two. Quarterly a two year contract with 13 week cycles. Okay. So that means like, you know, for quarterly, yeah, exactly. Quarterly cycles. Um, so essentially like you, I have you for two years, you, you could quit. Like, I mean, it's kind of silly in its own way because if you were like, I want to go, they're not going to be like,

we have you very rarely. If you were like the star of a television show, they might, but as a writer on a late night show he's like hey right i want to go on the road right yeah um but like uh so you get like a two-year contract and every 13 weeks you can they can let you go essentially the good thing about that is one they can only let you go at that time like if they're like hey we're we're clashing with your personality we can't fire you for cause like you they can fire you for sexual harassment or something, but let's just say, I don't like your attitude. There goes your late night career, but keep going.

But I don't like your attitude. I don't want you to come back for the next four weeks. They would still have to pay you those last four weeks. So if they fired you seven weeks into a 13-week cycle, you still get paid out that 13 weeks. And I think this is, as we go into this, I think one of the hardest things with like communicating showbiz money stuff to those not in the business, especially with acting,

is like people go like, oh, for a guest star, you got paid six grand for a week's worth. What are you complaining about? It's like, yeah, but I got two guest stars this year. It's like the 13-week contract thing. I think it's just the whole model is so different. Yes. That you could just work 13

and then you're out and then it's hard to get another gig. It is. So it's just so nice, hard for, I think, outsiders to understand the numbers. Yeah. And the shortness of the jobs,

which is related to, Yeah. you know, where the strike is going. So when you got this job, is this a good deal? Is the 13 week thing obnoxious? Do you think it's fair? I mean, you know, how old were you at this point?

28. So it's good. 28, you feel, you're feeling. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Um, you know, I think, I think, I think it was fair for me. I didn't have much experience. Um, I don't think I would have accepted that rate. I didn't accept that rate when I went back last time. But, you know, I was really new. I had written for a lot of award shows, but like award shows are different than a daily talk show.

So I think it was fair. Now, the other thing, you know, that people don't know is like, I had an agent, manager, and lawyers, and those all take out percentages. that people don't know is like I had an agent manager and lawyers and those all take out percentages. So about 25% of my check pre-taxes was going to representatives and still happens for almost every project I work on. And those are the, those people, to be fair, negotiate better deals for me or negotiate me out of deals. If I want to get out of a deal, although that hasn't really happened, they help, you know, they've helped me find work. So they earn the money I give them. But when I say $200,000,

really what I was taking home was $150,000 before taxes, then after taxes, less than that, which is still a lot of money, but it does chip away slowly. Did you ever live in fear when that 13-week came around? Were you scared? All the time. In fact, I was told to stop, to stop being so scared. Are those formal sit downs or are you just getting email like thumbs up? You're still here. Like how does, if you're still here, it's usually thumbs up. You're still here. Like usually your agent or manager, or if you don't have one, they'll email you and they'll be like, you're renewed. Like that's it. They'll be like, we're going to, we're going to exercise your next cycle. But if you get a meeting on the books, it's like, yeah. But usually the meeting on the books is like, Hey, we're going to renew you.

However, it's going to be like a probationary period. We'd really like you to pick things up in the next 13 weeks or else we might have to think about cutting you. Oh, man. I mean, that sucks, but at least. That's an inspiration. Yeah. But here's the thing is you still at least have 13 weeks versus like two.

I want to have a meeting after this episode is done just so you know. Okay. Right. Don't. Okay. So you you know. Right. Okay, so you do that. I want to avoid getting too timeline-y here.

So then from there, is Samantha B after this? Bill Nye saves the world is after that. So much fucking shit. Let's go through all your titles. So your title for that was Staff Writer? For Fallon Staff Writer, Bill Nye was Head Writer. Was that with Joanna Hausman? Yes, that was with Joanna

Hausman. For Adam Ruins Everything, I was a Writer-Producer. Which is a step above Head Writer or different? Different. It's different. I would say it's below Head Writer, but it it's below head writer, but it, it gave me not privileges,

but it was a title higher than staff writer. Yeah. Uh-huh. Um, then on president show, I was just a regular writer. Um, and then Samantha B,

I was a regular writer and then became overtime head writer and executive producer. Now. All right. Just before we get to the strike, I do have one question because you have worked in a lot of like educational comedy, which I find very interesting because do you have any philosophy in terms of like how to make good? I feel like it's always like it's either not funny enough or it's, there's so much, so much liberal comedy feels, I think I've gotten to a point where I'm like,

this feels like propaganda right now. Sure, sure, sure. And I really hate it. I feel really just the moment it feels like that. I'm like, yeah,

yeah, that's fair. Do you have any, like, have you learned anything in, in your doing this educational comedy? Like what your approach is? Um,

my approach and what I think is true. And I found this both on Bill Nye and Sam B., that the more narrow you go with a slice of the conversation, the better you can do it. So if you're like, here's why Donald Trump's bad. It's vague and it is

sort of becomes preachy, but if you're like, here's how, like we did a segment that did not sound like it'd be interesting, but became really interesting and fun, but it's like, here's how the sand industry is a segment that did not sound like it'd be interesting, but became really interesting and fun. But it's like, here's how the sand industry is actually doing a ton of environmental damage that nobody cares about because it's sand. And like, it was this whole story about like how there's like only like sand and different things needs different types of sand. And so, you know, you can't just go to a beach and get sand for concrete. You have to go to a special place that has a special type of sand because the shape of

the granules are different. Yeah. And that all sounds boring, but it's so specific. And it's also surprising. I think the other thing that you're probably hitting on, which I admit happened to us, happens on a lot of shows where you already know a lot about the topic. So you're just hearing people sort of repeat what you already know and feel back to you. Yeah.

And that's why I also think narrow slices are always better because even if you know a topic, if you're like, oh, I didn't know that like, you know, uh, nuclear weapons had this specific thing that happened in 1977. I didn't know that, you know, like you get to learn a little more versus being like, yes, I agree. This is bad. Yes. We should not be doing this.

Yes. Um, so yeah, I would say, I would say just the more specific you are, the more funny you can make it. Yeah. I, I, the one that always pops in my mind in terms of it like, oh, it's gone off the rails a little, and I'll speak on it so you don't, but when Colbert had the people dressed as vaccine shots

and they were dancing and it was like, get the vaccine. And that's where I was like, what's going on now? Right. Everyone in this room is vaccinated. They all agree with this. Everyone agrees with it. And now they're dancing as needles where's the where's the what are we doing yeah there's just a lot of like people in the room being and i know those older people who go like yeah trump is

stupid yeah he's gonna go to jail i'm like no he's not he's never going to who's gonna take him there the police officer voted for him you're out of your mind. I'm curious about writing for a specific host's voice. In terms of their involvement, I just feel like it seems like it would be a daunting thing to have to do. Is that a skill you have? Writing for other people's voices. Yeah, I can do that. Do you have a process of, I don't know, it just seems like you'd have to really fine tune how can do that and how like how does do you have a process of like i don't know it just seems like it'd be like a you'd have to like really like fine-tune how you do that i just feel like it doesn't seem like a natural thing that you have to acquire over time it's not a natural thing over time but you know you kind of you know um think about an impressionist the way

an impressionist might do a character where you kind of like study the celebrity a little bit you kind of know their mannerisms you might know what they don't say, you know? And so I'll watch it before I get a job. I'll usually watch a ton of the show. I'll try to like, you know, feel out the rhythms of speech, feel out where they like to pause, what they don't necessarily say. Sometimes you like, you know, when, um, people write packets for a show like Fallon and they're like, do you have any advice? I'm like, don't swear. And don't mention sex. Not because, you know, those are like taboo, but because he'll never do those on the show. And therefore you're putting in something that automatically marks it as a, he would never do that. Yeah. And, um, that's specific to him. But what I'm saying is like,

you got to watch and figure out where they move, what they say, what they think, what they think is funny. Um, you know, Jimmy Fallon does a lot of act outs. Sam B does no act outs. And so if you give Jimmy a script with zero act outs, that is like a long explainer. He's not going to like it. If you give Sam something, that's all her doing like different accents of different celebrities. She's going to look at it like,

like the worst thing ever. So if I was writing for you, all the punchlines will be all caps, maybe slightly bigger font. Right. Yells it. Yells it. Size 24 font. Right. Yells it. Yells it. Size 24 font.

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Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario uh okay so it sounds like you've had a pretty good career why the fuck are you striking then it seems like everything's going pretty great for you well think one first of all things are going uh downhill for everybody so even if things are fine for me one things won't be fine for me forever I know I'm like my first uh full-time writing job was 28 and i was like oh my god i'm young i'm gonna do this i'm 39 now and i'm like

i got two years left before they like kick me out an airlock um is there you feel that you feel like after this it's bill maher i will say this uh when i first started doing comedy bill maher was the first packet i did and i got to the final round of it. Wow. And not getting that job must have been the nicest dodged bullet ever. Yeah. I imagine some rooms are older and younger, and that room has got to be old. It is. That room is young and hip.

Young, young, young. That room is old. I can see in that room. Everyone introducing with their pronouns right at the gate. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. No, I think that room is everyone's 50 plus, which is fine. There's a lot of good... There's got to be jobs for

people that age. We don't have to watch it all the time. And in 10 years, I'm sure I'll be like, ah, Gen Z! And then I'll be more than happy to take Bill Maher's money. In 10 years, you write me that email like, hey, could we take out the Bill Maher part of that episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I really need the money. Oh, Bill. Oh, Bill. Okay, so where is the breakdown? Let's put AI to the side because that's its own new beast. But where did the breakdown start happening in terms of these contracts aren't looking so good anymore or it's no longer so fair is it is it streaming streaming is the main thing um it's a few different things which makes it sometimes

hard because people want there to be like the big issue yeah um it's almost like when you break up with someone and it's like not because of one big big fight, but it's like, you're like, okay, I think, I think we need to talk because enough things have built up, um, regarding streaming. The problem with streaming right now is there's the minimums aren't very good. Like, like you would think that the minimum pay you could get for a streaming show must be much higher than a network show because everybody watches streaming who watches NBC or who watches abc the thing is one way more people watch nbc and abc still and two those pay way higher so like your minimum let's say you're on law and order brand new writer let they you wrote a play that was a hit they took you they put you as a law and order writer it's your first year you're gonna make a ton of money because it's network

and it's law and order but network a ton of money and when they rerun it a ton of money because it's network and it's law and order but network a ton of money and when they rerun it a ton of money because it's network now let's say same with acting same yeah exactly now let's say you went on cable it's a little bit less but still pretty good um again every time they run it you get good money minimums good money streaming minimums are terrible across the board and for comedy variety which include like things like uh you know like Hasan Minhaj's show, those weren't able to have minimums. They had to themselves fight to pay their writers. And how did they get away with such shitty terms and not just they had to do what cable did or do what network did?

Because during the last strike in 2007, 2008, one of the smaller negotiating points was what to do with this new site, YouTube. What are we going to do with YouTube? This site that came out two years ago, mind you. So it wasn't YouTube of today. It was two years ago and shows were just, you know, like shows were just starting to put on a sketch they did or a commercial for the show. And the question was, how do we pay people for these small clips that are being put on this website? And the monetization system for YouTube probably was in its infancy. Exactly. Too. Exactly.

So they're like, okay, well, nobody's making any money off this. All right, so we'll set the terms like this. And unfortunately, those terms at the time made sense because, you know, they literally thought that YouTube was going to be a place you put, like, clips and trailers. They didn't realize that, you know, the way the legal description of it was would eventually become netflix and hulu and disney plus yeah yeah yeah and so the deal was made back in an era when we did not know how big streaming would be um and there was no hint at it to be fair this wasn't like 2014 or something where you're like house of cards is that what are we doing like literally they had no clue but that's why things are so bad now this was the last strike or the last strike 2007 how often is the negotiation every three years every three years

okay so got it so this was the last strike 2020 we probably would have struck then but it was the pandemic so we had no leverage no shows were being made oh my god oh god fascinating so okay so were you part of the strike or were you not writing it i wasn't writing it you weren't writing it how long was it it was till i I think it was November to like February. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, it was like four or five months. I just read about it. Is it considered a success?

Was that considered a success for the writers at the time? Yes and no. I think there's actually debate within, not the guild as an entity, but members of the guild. I was not there for it, so it's hard for me to suss out. And some of the things they negotiated for, people criticize now, but at the time, made a lot of sense.

Like, residual payments on DVD and Blu-ray sales were very, very low, so that was a big negotiation point. What a sad waste of time. Right, but at the time, that made sense. Yeah, of course. You know, at the time, in 2007, you're like, well, no one's gonna stop buying these movies. Yeah, that made sense. Yeah, of course. At the time in 2007, you're like, well, no one's going to stop buying these movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have entire stores that are just giant racks of DVDs.

And so it made sense. But now it's often criticized as sort of a mistake. But you could not have known that back then. Of course, of course. And so in that way, some people consider it a failure because some of the biggest achievements we got aren't necessarily the most needed. However, it kept the pension and health care fund going. It kept a lot of things going. And at the very least, it might not have solved the streaming problem, but it put something – like at least our foot was in the door.

Yes. So we didn't create the problem as it is now. The problem was going to be a problem no matter what. We didn't successfully stop it from happening, but at least we got some of ourselves into it so we can now widen what we want. Okay, so then how did these problems start getting worse, at least with streaming?

Yeah, a couple ways. One, with the streaming model, and whether this is a cultural change or done by streaming companies, but one thing is we're now doing shorter seasons. Shows have shorter seasons. Shows have 10 episodes. You know, like a lot of network shows like Law & Order

will still do 22, 24, but something like Succession, 10 episodes. Something like Game of Thrones, 10 episodes. And one, that means there's just a shorter writing room, you know? So rather than being maybe employed for 24 weeks on a show, um, by the way, these shows don't work with 13 week cycles. That only applies to like comedy variety shows, game shows. Um, that's a little more on sort of a dip, like almost an Island. Um, but, uh, so like, you know, where you used to work 24 weeks, 26 weeks on a show,

you might be working 10. And so a ton of money over 26 weeks might be pretty good money over 10, but not less. Like if you're making, let's say like, let's say you're on a show making 7,000 a week, good mid pay for, you know, maybe, you know, like let's, you know, good med mid career pay, not necessarily the best, you know, like let's, you know, good mid, mid, mid career pay, not necessarily the best, not necessarily the worst. Yes. Um, and you're making that for 30 weeks. That's amazing. Uh, if you're making that for eight weeks, that's good. But what if it's another six months before you get another job? Yeah. And that's the problem is you make a lot of money per week.

Nobody would deny that. Sure. But if we cut down those weeks by three fourths, suddenly that ain't so good. Um, and so that's part of one of the problems too. They have developed something that's called a mini room that you've probably heard of and mini room. The description almost sounds like,

okay, you just have fewer writers, which you do. But the problem is, is it's almost a legal loophole. So when you green light a show when you're like this show is being made what you get to do what you have to do is you have to pay everyone a certain amount because the show is being made and they're officially hired in a

mini room is this idea where it's like well we haven't green lit the show yet so we're going to have a couple writers get in the room plan out the entire show start writing scripts for it and then we'll tell you if we're going to do the show. And the problem with that is, one, they can do that in any time frame they want, because the show hasn't started yet, and two, there's far fewer protections, so it's a lot easier to kind of screw people over. It's a lot easier to be like, you're a higher level writer. Usually your rate

is very high, but this is a mini room. We're going to pay you maybe half of what you normally make. And they just created this out of whole cloth, or was this part of negotiations in the past? Whole cloth. Whole cloth basically almost like figured out they could do this. It's kind of like a little loophole.

And one of the reasons they can do that to sidestep more is the way things used to work is in the back half of the year you would start buying and making developing shows. And then early in the year you would have your pilots for shows. And then those shows would become shows.

But now that's all rolling all year, which is good. It's new shows. Well, the fact that we make new shows all year is good because it doesn't mean you, you know, your chances for becoming an actor or writer are a window of like January to March. Sure.

Well, just for listeners who don't fully know, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong from the actor's perspective, at least. Pilot season used to be a very specific time at the beginning of the year where ages of managers would tell me, don't go out of town for pilot season. And you wouldn't get anything. But they shoot a bunch of pilots. Pilot is the test episode. And there's so many pilots made with so many stars that you would die to see. But basically, if the show doesn't get made, they get buried.

You rarely see them, if ever. And all this stuff exists out in the world on a hard drive somewhere. And I forget what percentage actually get made on average. But you'd be shocked. Very little, yeah. You'd be shocked. And some of them are great. And then streaming sort of upended it to a degree,

partially because like House of Cards, they said, we know this is going to be good. I mean, it makes more sense. I don't know. I don't know if pilots make sense. They make sense, but because they can now do them at any time, because in the past, to go off what you're saying is,

they had to start, they had to have a pilot shot and a show made at a specific date because they have agreed with their advertisers that's when our new season starts yeah so you don't necessarily have that time to fuck around i see whereas now you have time to be like okay we'll let you play with this idea for a bit before we see if we want to make it because like all the time even big shows they'll be like ah we're delayed we're two weeks later than we said we would be because on streaming that matters a little less yeah so companies now have the luxury to take their time

which ironically means they have the luxury to make people work faster because you know they can be like no we don't like it well you worked for four weeks we'll throw it out someone else will work for four weeks and do it because it doesn't necessarily matter when that pilot is made because streaming is is more flexible flexible as opposed to network tv which was why was network tv not as flexible because you're selling ads because you're basically saying in a cycle in a seasonal seasonal cycle because you're like oh you're like okay you're gonna give us a hundred thousand dollars for your beer commercial on the premiere of this season of this popular show so we are scheduled to air your beer commercial at 8 15 on this date for this show

like that's how the deals are and so if you don't have that new season suddenly the beer company is like we paid for a new episode so we'll give you less money you know or like we'll do the deal of the rerun deal yeah yeah whereas with streaming even though there's ads now with streaming there's a little more like okay we didn't get it's not going to be here you know july 17th it's going to be here july 31st and fans are like ah but it it doesn't affect them monetarily as much sure sure so when these mini rooms come out was there was did people realize how bad this was from the get um people realized they were weird from the get they didn't realize they'd become the norm i think at first they were a little more like,

oh, they're doing, yeah, they're doing, they're doing a mini room for this. Okay. Oh, all right. And now it's become much, much, much, much more the norm. And so like, you know, instead of having 10 people plot out a season for the regular pay,

you can get three or four people plot out the season for less pay. Yeah. And then go, yeah, we'll do the show and sort of be like, oops, script's already written. And then you can sort of like skip ahead a little bit. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, so we got streaming problems in general, shorter seasons. Shorter seasons. We got this concept of the mini room. Yeah. Any other big things before we touch on AI? And the other thing with minimums in streaming is there's also residuals in streaming.

So when they rerun it, like I said earlier, when they rerun it on network, you get a good amount of money. When they rerun on cable, you get a decent amount of money. Streaming residuals are awful, both because of the contract, but also because there's no honest way for us to know how many people have viewed a thing. And this is the same for commercials. And what's so infuriating about this is, in theory, you should be able to get the number of watches way more accurately than you were with TV. TV, you had to go off of what Nelson ratings. It feels like the studios are in this position where you're like, if they're trying to inflate their numbers, they can't in a way because then they don't want to give people credit for getting all these streams so they in theory have to pay them but they want to have

see everyone's watching this show the streaming numbers are huge so it's this you know that they have the numbers it's literally in a computer so just real quick the Nielsen is can you define it better I'm going to do it so wrong but the Nielsen at least what I remember of it,

was basically you got this special box that you would, like your family would get a box, and they would pay for your, I think, cable or whatever, and you would tell the box or push a button on the box or something to let them know what you were watching when you were watching it. And a ton of families do it. I'm sure it's different now than what I thought it was in 1995. I got an application for it once. Really?

Oh, that's great. They sent two dollars with it. Like, like it was like, and then they, I filled out the initial paperwork and then they send another dollar back with another thing and then I didn't go further with the process. Sure. Because I was like. If you had done it, Lost of Spookies would still be on the air. Yeah. So so it basically, bottom

line is it took a sample size and extrapolated. Whereas with streaming, they somehow made it less money, even though they could actually know for sure. They know for sure. What was getting watched. But places like Netflix don't reveal their numbers because then they have more leverage. Then they can say whatever they want. They can say the show is a hit. Right.

And that self-perpetuates itself. You know, that's why when they do press releases, you know, a company will be like, the most watched show since this. Yeah. Or more views than any of our other movies. They're never going to be like, 100 million people watch this.

But soon they're going to have to because you have to to get commercials, which is the new model that they're switching to. And there's some law that makes it if you are going to sell commercials, you have to reveal the numbers. So hopefully that'll help us. Okay.

Yeah. So the residuals suck. Yeah. And okay. So all that stuff. Yeah. Which to me, and this is from as an outside perspective, I'm like, okay, that all seems like regular strike stuff that can be worked out

and hopefully a good deal. AI. AI, yeah. Feels like we are all collectively wondering what is the existential threat to humanity posed, not necessarily by AI becoming a terminator and killing us all, though, sure, that's to be feared,

but to making jobs obsolete. Right. Personally, I think a little bit of this is Silicon Valley being overhyped and hyping itself up. And I, for example, I said I have this taxidermy mouse and I Googled stand-up comedian names with a cheese pun and the results were atrocious. Yeah.

I couldn't use it professionally oh yeah the like chat gbt yeah yeah and and you know you'll see i think ben shapiro shared something he was like it's over for writers which by the way the the conservative thing against writers as if it didn't take writers to write big bang theory is infuriated ben shapiro also wanted to be a screenwriter and failed both of his his parents worked in Hollywood. Sorry, go on. Yeah. But the bottom line is like he shared, someone typed in, write a scene from The Office or whatever.

And it was like, it's not, it's impressive. It's cool, but it's not ready to fill. Yes. But I feel like this debate is so much harder because we don't even,

like similar to what you were talking about with YouTube back in the day. Yeah. We don't know where this is going to go. Right, yes. And the studios might be hesitant to sign away too much just in case in two years you can go write a new season of The Office where it spits out an amazing season. And it feels like it goes beyond writing. It feels like an existential. Oh, yeah. out and it feels like it goes beyond writing it feels like a an existential oh yeah like it's a it's a big thing that feels like it's so weighty in so many terms it feels like it's beyond that yeah i mean it's going to affect actors it's going to affect musicians i mean there's just

like there's things that can write like people are making things where it's like you know make me a soft study music jam and it'll generate you you know, a song. So it's going to affect artists. It's going to even affect like actors. Like imagine if you, instead of doing like, Hey, we're going to do a couple of takes on it. We're like, you know what? We got it. We're just going to adjust it with the AI. You know what I mean? So instead of you working a full day, we got you half. We can, we can fix it in post. Oh man. And, and there's a big question again just for those especially like with music the way it makes this stuff is pulling from past examples so there's a big question about how does copyright apply here and i feel like there's going to be some big supreme court cases

in the next couple years oh definitely that really question where this is going to go. Yes. But first of all, does AI, do you ever have moments of existential fear when you think about AI? Um, no, here's my theory about AI. Now this is my near future theory. This is like my five to 10 year theory. I don't know in 25 years. Um, my theory is that at first AI won't take jobs. It'll just make jobs worse and lesser paid. And here's how. Rather than saying, hey, I want you to write, you know what? We're doing a new, I don't know, rebooting Iron Man. And I want you to write it. You would write it from the beginning. You'd be paid as the original writer. And even if they switched you out, someone else

comes in, your name's still on it in some way you still get some credit but you're the original writer and i would pay you as the original writer now let's say i said hey chat gpt write me a new iron man reboot it gives me an iron man reboot it's not very good but then i can hire you at a much smaller rate to fix it yeah so then like even if it's a top to bottom rewrite i'm like like, well, you're not the originator of it. You didn't write the first draft. Your name will still be on it, but you're more of a helper. You did punch up. You didn't really write it. ChatGBT wrote it. You fixed it. And that's going to happen to music. It's going to happen to art. Like imagine like monster design, where you just type in AI. I want a giant mechanical spider that shoots lasers. And you get it and you're like, ah, that doesn't look right. I'll hire this guy to fix it in Photoshop

rather than a designer to make it. So I don't think it's going to destroy jobs. I don't think someone's going to write, you know, write me a new season of Friends and write me and have everyone fake act it out. And then you get that episode and it's seamless. What I imagine it'll more be like is like, hey, I made this piece of shit

and because you didn't make it i don't have to pay you for making it but i can pay you to fix it do you blame the studio person because you were calling it a piece of shit but right there could come a point where it's a good start yeah yeah good first draft do you because i think there's two things here like one is like well if we're going to do that can we still compensate the writer to make up for the fact that, you know, can we have the writer have a living? Right. But then there's a deeper emotional existential one of like, this sucks.

Sure, yeah. This sucks that ChatGPT is going to write all the rest of Marvel. Like, there is a degree. Right. I think this is like, I don't think capitalism cares about this at all in general the march of capitalism of just like no this is kind of lame isn't it cool that martin scorsese directed the movie and not and i think that'll be the saving grace for a lot of things i think people are fans you know the reason people go to concerts isn't because they want to

hear the song worse than it sounds on spotify they want to go to the concert because they're a fan of the performer. Like, you know, if I wrote a song that sounded exactly like the Beatles and you were a Beatles fan, you'd be like, yeah, that sounds like the Beatles, but you wouldn't be like, this is as good as the Beatles. Yeah. People are, uh, now that doesn't necessarily mean like, I do think it'll take jobs and things like, you know, technical writing. Like there's a person who makes their living writing a manual for your blender. And I can imagine that job being supplanted by something like AI because that's a little less creative. And you'll still have an editor go through it, make sure it's all right. Like, I could see technical writing that doesn't need a lot of human emotion instructions, medical guide work, things like that.

But you'll still need editors. You'll still have those people. But again, those people who might've written the whole blender manual themselves will now be editing it and probably at less money. Because a lot of this AI stuff, you know, if AI could make something much better than what people make and everyone bought into it, I might have mixed feelings, but at least I would respect that it's doing that. I think, and I think that might be the 25 years in the future and maybe even 10, maybe I'm overestimating or underestimating. The problem I think right now is it's going to be used to save money and it's going to be used to save money by basically making you do your same job,

but a little bit harder because we said something else already did the job first. bit harder because we said something else already did the job first and what where do you think this is gonna go i mean how are you feeling how is everyone feeling so just a little so this is coming out on tuesday yeah i i voted uh for sag did you are you saying um yeah i know uh no i didn't know i was just checking i was just checking I voted for SAG to authorize the strike, but obviously people are going to vote yes. Actors are not happy either. We'd love an excuse that we're not working. And a lot of the same threats we have, you have.

Yes. And then, and then we would strike and then potentially the director's guild. Is that the other? That's the hope. That's that, that would be the hat trick. DJ is a little harder. Um, just because I feel like they're a bit smaller

and have fewer outright out outrageous and outstanding needs as both sag and the i feel like sag and the wj are in the same boat uh and the dj is in a boat next to our boat so we're like close but we're not in the same exact boat sure and first of all how long has it been now the strike do you know this is we are closing out i think closing out week three or four and what was the longest one in in the past was there a 200 day one i had seen i i honestly don't know i know that it at the very i don't think that 2007 2008 was the longest but it might have been the second longest i think like a few months so i. So I think, just a side note, what was funny, there was a commercial recently. I'm not going to say what it is. But all the comments were saying like, this is what happens when the writers strike.

This is this. Look how bad this is. And what was funny is it was completely written before the writers strike. Yeah. People have the, you the the the layman thinks like oh it must have happened right yeah and they already filmed it they already but all the comments are like we got to get the writers back in there man this is awful and it's like this was written this was written but it i mean and it was probably shot beforehand too but if they were shooting it

if it was written beforehand but they were shooting it after they probably couldn't make changes in the moment sure so let's talk about the consequence of this writer's strike. Because again, there's a delay. There's a lot of stuff that was already made. So people don't feel it right now. Yes. People are not feeling it yet. But for example, I saw Deadpool started filming yesterday.

Yeah. And the thought is you can't change anything in the script. Right. Not a word, not an an um because that constitutes writing right now directors and actors have a little bit of leeway but very small how small um you can you can adjust a line if you're in a director like or if you're an actor you could be like what if i said it this way you're allowed to do that it's it's a very narrow area however the crazy thing is if you're a writer actor or writer director you can't because of the strike so let's say you're an actor who wrote the movie you could

not you could perform you could act but you would not be allowed to go i want to change this line you couldn't could you improvise what if the scene was called for improv it it's a very gray area and the thing is it's not like there's hunter killer robots watching so it's not like someone's gonna be like you fucking that's why the strike hasn't won yet. We need some hunter-killer robots. I feel like there should be a responsibility right now of people doing that in those positions to be like, we can't film this now.

That's what the Duffer Brothers did. I'm trying to get Hugh on the show, so could you shut the fuck up? Hugh Jackman's in Deadpool. They're both in it. They should not be doing this. I agree. They shouldn't be doing this. I agree. They shouldn't be doing it.

But in their mind, they're like, Hugh's not free until 2028. Are you crazy? And they're not scabbing. They're not scabbing. You know, like, they didn't write the movie. Well, Ryan Reynolds probably helped write it. But as long as he's just acting, he is within his rights and he is not scabbing. He's going to be improvising, though.

We all know this. We all know there's going to be improvising though. We all know this. We all know there's going to be a little bit of writing done on the day of. There's definitely going to be a little writing done on the day of, but there's sort of, you know, you, you, you want to approach it almost like COVID approach it practically.

If you're like freaking out at everyone, not doing everything perfect, you're never going to win. But the strike gets excited when people stop production. Yes. Like the Duffer brothers did. Yeah. Um, it's, it's much harder for them i'm so curious of the duffer brothers who wrote stranger things yeah i'm just so curious if netflix says whether whether they just go we're

not doing it or the netflix says has lawyers calling you have to fucking do it like it takes a lot of strength i imagine it does what they did it does take a lot of strength the nice thing is i'm sure netflix is cajoling them. I don't think they're threatening them because they're so big, but I'm sure they're cajoling them or being like, well, can't you do this? Or like, what if we had someone do that? Like, I'm sure they're trying to, you know,

find some workaround that the Duffer Brothers, to their credit, aren't letting happen. But that's because they are a big name. They're the biggest name. They're the biggest English language show on Netflix. And so they're much more able to be like, we're not going to do this now. It's harder if like, let's say you're, you know, in your early thirties, you sold your first show. Nobody's watching it. It's a lot harder to be like, I'm not going to do this. They, you know,

shows will get canceled. Um, people will lose things that they worked on for years because of this. And that is something that we are aware of. There's momentum. Not that I had anything in the camp, but my girlfriend represents a lot of writers. And there's just so much. It takes two years to build the momentum. And this person's on board and this person's on board.

And then if the momentum's gone, the emails just don't get responded to. I mean, it's brutal. It really hurts a lot of people. Right. But you can't have a collective labor action without, like, the point of it is to show that we are right. The point isn't to hurt people, but to show that we contribute things and prevent the hurt of people. But is it hard in a competitive industry to keep...

I mean, I sometimes, my mind is not poisoned, but I'm very tunnel visioned by... My Twitter is very leftist. Sure. You know, in my mind, Bernie was going to win the last two elections, I think. But it's like, in a competitive industry, I do feel like it sometimes

must be tough to tell people who have not been working for years and who did not get the late night and did not have the impressive career that you had to be like and don't work now as well right and they're like fucking a dude like i don't feel yeah a lot of solidarity with with sag right sure and and this is not me going like oh i would scab immediately but in my mind the i haven't had health insurance for years because I have to make a certain amount of money. I used to work so much in commercials and then it stopped. And again, these could be my shortcomings. This could be a lack of talent, lack of opportunity, lack of representation, any number of things. Right. But in my mind, I'm like, this is someone I pay money.

I don't get health insurance and I haven't worked in years. My feelings of love are not, and the Netflix deal, which I know is not their fault. They were fucked, whatever, but it's tough. Do you feel like writers, do you have the, or do you have solidarity? I think, I mean, from what I've seen, yes. And it might be confirmation bias because, you know, mostly I've seen people at like picket lines, but those picket

lines are often very big. Um, I think you do. I mean, I think one of the problems is things like mini rooms and shorter seasons means there's just fewer people in every room. So even if you're not working part of what you're fighting against isn't, and I, when I say system, I don't mean that in the grandiose way of the system out to get you, but literally you're fighting against isn't, and when I say system, I don't mean that in the grandiose way of the system out to get you, but literally you're fighting against a system that is now being set up to hire fewer writers for projects. And so part of the reason you might not be working is because we were going to hire eight. We could only hire four, so we hired the most experienced four. And, you know, the mid-level and low-level people, you know, we only had four slots. people, you know, we only had four slots. Um, so that is, I think part of it is, is that because rooms themselves are actually contracting in size, a lot of writers who haven't worked in a little

while are like, maybe that's the reason I'm not working. It has nothing to do with, you know, sure. Um, and I do think like, you know, just by logic that a lot of people aren't getting jobs because there are fewer slots, even though there's so many more shows. How are the strikes feeling? I mean, what's the mood like? Is it, is it like, tell me about striking. I've only done, you know, I did some marches in 2020. It was a very, very different thing, I imagine. Right. It, you know, I mean, it never, I don't want to be out in the sun for four hours. So on a physical level, it is tiring at a certain point, but it's kind of nice to see so many people supporting it. It's nice like when-

I imagine a lot of people wearing all black. Yes. A lot of pale. A lot of pale, all black. But there's like, you know, college students who have like donuts and water and there's, you know, you do see SAG people with SAG signs and SAG shirts

that are like marching in solidarity, which I think will go the other direction too. If SAG strikes with, you'll see WGA writers showing up at SAG picket lines. It's, when I say the mood's been positive, I don't mean it's been a party. It hasn't been like, ah, we're all having a barbecue. We're all writers. I did see like dating. That's LA.

The picket line. That's fucking LA. Los Angeles is a different world. Really? Because there's a lot's fucking LA Los Angeles is a different world really there's a lot more writers in Los Angeles and there's a lot more Ozempic in Los Angeles and so people are much more like you see these beautiful people who are writers

and you're like how dare you how dare you be an attractive writer and then like in New York we're more like pay up they're mistaking you for the inflatable rat right exactly if if you write for svu or a late night show you've seen some shit so it's like a little different they use the svu writers for corpses on occasional episodes right right uh i remember because uh we had a moment where you know like i

was talking to an svu writer and it you know and she was like oh i love late night i took late night classes what's it like working for late night shows and i was like, you know, like I was talking to an SVU writer and it, you know, and she was like, Oh, I love late night. I took late night classes. What's it like working for late night shows? And I was like, Oh, you know, it's okay. It's like really busy, but sometimes it just like, you know, kind of, kind of feels like it's a lot of work, but it's okay. And I was like, what's it like working for SVU? And literally the same answer where it's like, ah, it's a lot of work. You know, sometimes it's not great. Sometimes it's great, but it's okay. I'm glad I have it. Like, it's so funny to talk to someone who's in a different sector of the same industry and be like i oh i love what you do that's so cool and they're like i want it to do what you do yeah yeah yeah if you were to guess yeah how long what do you think's gonna happen what like what are you feeling you think things will be back in

a couple months you think the sag will really move the needle i think i think if sag struck that would really move the needle if the i think sag is more likely than the dga to strike and this is all my personal opinion i want to be clear i don't speak for the guild yada yada yada um i think sag is more likely than the dga if all three struck it would it genuinely i believe would change the. We could get the fucking moon because that would shut down everything. Reality shows, game shows, shark tank, like anything, almost everything would be shut down. And that would really move the needle.

I think both SAG and WGA doing it would move the needle. And if WGA does it alone, it'll be harder, but it'll still help. So I don't know how it's gonna end. My guess would be, my sort of like middle of the road gut guess is we're going to end around late August or September. Really? Yeah. That'd be nice. That, that, that is my like middle of the road guess. I don't think it's going to be very soon. I hope it doesn't go past the holidays. Um, but I think, you know, they're, they're losing money too on the other side it's

not just that like we've stopped getting paychecks on our side you know every day that they can't shoot you know every day that daredevil has to shut down for a reason or that they have to spend two days shooting a scene because they needed a fix and there was no writer around that's costing them money after money after money like we've we've picketed and to be fair, a lot of the labor unions won't cross a picket line. Now, if there's no picket line, they will cross, like their unions are like, if you do not want to cross a picket line,

you do not have to. Can you help me understand when you say a picket line, we're talking literally members striking and just by beat, do they have to walk back and forth? Yeah, it's all like an honor handshake type system. And it could just be one person. It could literally be one person going back and forth? Yeah. It's all like an honor handshake type system. And it could just be one person. It could literally be one person going back and forth. And if you're a truck driver, you're allowed to your union without retribution to go, I am not going to cross a picket line.

Just to be really nitpicky here, if there was a rider with no legs, do they have to still cross somehow? They probably have a chair. But you're saying it's like, literally there has to be some kind of movement. This is the agreement. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

It sounds dumb. It really does sound dumb. No, I mean, it's a dumb thing. I'm just saying there's gotta be some riders with no legs. Yes, but I think they would have- And even more riders. They would have no legs, because what are you gonna do?

They would have a wheelchair though. Yeah. And a wheelchair- But even that wheelchair- They're not gonna be dumped on them. I'm saying an 80-year-old rider, one of bill maher's top guys can barely move he's still gotta he's still gotta go there he's still gotta go back i bet you bill maher's old guys are not union guys um i do see your point but but like i'm just curious like because i'm always interested

it's it seems so silly but there has to be a physical person there has to be a physical person there um and it is up to the discretion of the other labor union member like you could be a driver who wants to deliver what you're delivering you could be and when i say driver i mean like people who have like all the lighting equipment in the truck or like a bunch of props in the truck because that's its own union of people who drive those things and what so a little a 23 year old boy he's supposed to bring coffee to the director he's in what union would respect this that's probably i don't think there's an there should be a union for assistance but i don't think we'll give me a different job then he prop master yeah so he goes he's got the bloody knife yeah and he sees you yeah and you're walking

back and forth yeah and he doesn't have to cross he's allowed he's allowed to be like sorry there's no no knife on set today i mean he's allowed but i'm sure there's people with external like you know in your work setting there's probably pressures to do certain things you know i mean you're allowed to cover what one street um i actually don't know the exact rules uh you're allowed to cover more than one entrance though you're definitely allowed to cover more than one entrance usually buildings have something that's called was it like it's like it's called a neutral entrance or a safe harbor entrance and that's usually an entrance where it's like non-union staff like let's say like the assistants

the people carrying the coffee can come in you know um and oftentimes like if we see like a kid carrying coffee we're not like scab yeah you know? And oftentimes like if we see like a kid carrying coffee, we're not like scab, you know, because they're not, they're not in a union. They're not breaking union rules. And even those people in like the unions that are deciding not to cross, they're still allowed to cross

because it's their job to, they're just allowed not to because of the strike. And so, you know, and like you said, like people have different things. Like you might really need those hours. You might really need those hours. So you really need to make that delivery. Or you might be like, you know what? Fuck it. I support these people. I'm going to sit in my truck and wait until they say they're going to be here four hours. I will be in my truck for four hours. And when that's done, I'll make my delivery. And that slows down the

production for four hours, which means they're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that helps us because it's like, look, the longer you keep us out here, the more money, not the drivers, but like the people at the top lose the more on your spreadsheet. It says that this show that you budgeted at 10 million, it's going to cost you 20. Yeah. What I like about that is, you know, it's, it can be very painful as an actor walking around New York city and, and, you know, your agents say, Oh, there's not a lot of jobs. jobs yeah that's why you're having being auditions and then you see signs that say you know go to set this way you see trailers yeah people working and if i had the power to be like no work today i'm gonna walk back and forth

for the rest of the day to get back at i and you know what i would only do it for shows i auditioned oh if marvelous miss mazel was still shooting right now, I would dedicate my life. I would say, listen, you used up 12 auditions of my life. Yeah. I'm picketing 12 hours a day. Yeah. No more Maisel.

It's done, yeah. I know. You'll never get that opportunity. That's a cool power. Yeah. Are you going to go somewhere after? I mean. Shouldn't you not be doing this?

Shouldn't you be fucking up Law & Order right now, just walking back and forth? He's been fucking it up for three weeks. Yeah, yeah. I've been going every day. Yeah. It's just very interesting, the idea that you have to be there. Well, they give you a schedule, too.

They'll be like, hey, we could use people at a studio in Brooklyn from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Or like, hey, they're shooting. If you have a car, they'll be like, if anyone has a car, they're shooting on location in New Jersey. Could anyone be out there? And sometimes it's early.

And they're not dicks about it. They're not like, you have to be out there at 5 a.m. But they'll be like, hey, if anyone can be in Jersey at 5 a.m., it would really help us shut down this production. Last question before we move on to our last segments. The Tony Awards. Yes.

So at least this is my understanding of the argument was the Tony awards, I believe still is not going to air on TV because. No, I think isn't it airing now? It's airing, but it doesn't have writers. It doesn't have writers. So they can do old, they can do numbers of existing songs. So they just say originally the question, Tony awards were saying, we're not going to air because we can't get a host.

We can't get writers because people would be scabs. And then a lot of people were like, guys, the Tony Awards is one of the biggest commercials for Broadway. It's this industry that we both agree can collapse. But it's easy to say. And then you meet people whose livelihood. Everything's complicated in the world of capitalism. Well, those producers should fucking deal with it like fuck those it's so frustrating because then build a better business thing for yourself as producers that your whole livelihood won't collapse if one fucking tv show

that no one watches no one watches no one i mean outside of some fucking musical theater nerds no one's watching the goddamn Tonys, okay? It's not this huge thing. They care about who wins it. They care about who wins it. So you can still announce the awards and get the people to go on the talk shows and talk about winning. But no one's, it's not like the Friends finale or something.

Every year it's like the worst Tony ratings ever. No one's watching. The only Tony Awards Russell ever watched was one hosted by Kevin Spacey. Okay. Okay, so I guess they're going to do it without writers. I think so. But isn't there a degree of a writer does have to go, then this song, then this song.

Well, that's more like a schedule. I would say that's more like a producer. But it's just going to open. No one's going to even say, welcome to the Tony Awards, because that's more like a schedule. I would say that's more like a producer. So, but it's going to be, it's just going to open. No one's going to be, no one's going to even say welcome to the Tony Awards because that's writing. They got to, they got to wing it. They got to wing it. They better wing it. They got to wing it.

They got, like, someone could be like, welcome to the Tony Awards. But they like, and if they were like, this is really important. Like they can't write it down. Right. They can't like put it in a teleprompter. Yeah. There better not be. it down. Right. They can't put it in a teleprompter.

I'm going to try to get there and monitor it because I just feel like I don't know how it's going to work. I'm curious. There was the thing I saw on Twitter where someone was like, guys, this is a part of Broadway. Everyone was like, guys, strikes

are supposed to be disruptive. There's that meme that don't make me tap on the sign. Strikes are supposed to be disruptive. Yes. Yes. There's that meme that, you know, don't make me tap on the sign. Strikes are supposed to be disruptive. Yeah. Well, equity is the worst one, too. They get nothing done. Oh, equity is awful.

Awful. Actor's equity, man. Awful. I mean, I have so many friends in actor's equity. I'm doing show right now. Not a one loves them. They don't do anything. They don't do anything.

How do you tell? People can get away with murder in actor's equity. But how can you tell? It can get away with murder. But how can you tell? It's so hard from afar. And I'm not in equity. But it's so hard sometimes to tell, is this a bad union or is the industry awful? Both.

What is equity going to be involved? But think about all the things that we did not equity. What if equity was involved with Uncle Function shows at the pits? It'd be crazy. It'd be chaos. They can't monitor that. There's no money in it.

I just feel like live entertainment is hard. It's gotta be really hard. Yes. You're overpaid for Titanic. Okay, okay, okay.

So, is it in your mind? Are you like, if the Tony Awards didn't happen, would you be like, good, strikes are supposed

to be disrupted. Everyone should be, it's hard. You kind of want pain to be felt yes part of a strike is deciding inside how much pain do people yes yeah but i think also part of you know part of this strike too is like not recognizing where our limits are in a negative way but almost being like we can't stop them from putting it on. But hopefully they put it on and they realize it's awkward and weird and people go like, this wasn't very good. Yeah.

You know, because there's ways to show pain of like, oh, you're going to go without us. All right, well, it might not be great. Like there's ways to show pain. And I agree, like we should shut things down as far as we can legally go. Unfortunately, legally, we can't necessarily shut everything down.

If you get the theater kids striking, though, those are powerful allies. Yes. They can annoy people. They've shut down Denny's. They can certainly shut down Lauder. There was a Broadway strike in the same time as the writers strike last. But it was only for three weeks. But it happened in November.

They were cartwheeling across the picket line. No, they ended theirs quicker. And I don't know what they got out of it. I mean, I don't see anything. Yeah, it's clearly not a lot. Yeah. All right, let's go to our next segment. This has got to stop.

This has got to stop. Do you have a this has got to stop? Could be writing, could be personal, whatever you want. You guys go first. Or do I do? Is it only me that goes? It's generally only you. Or I might have some work

you go yeah look right at the beginning yeah you go first okay I had to mail in my lease today and I think it cost me at the UPS store $11.95 to send this contract and they wanted a physical contract get

the fuck out of here I hate that. And listen, I feel bad for postal workers that they've chosen a dying industry, but it's insane to charge $11.95 for this document. A letter is a stamp, which is what, $0.42, $0.48, but a little bit more than a letter, $11.95, your industry deserves to collapse. Sorry.

Yeah. Sorry, Postman. Sorry. Mine is, okay, so when you get a contract or something in a PDF, it should be just a little bit easier to somehow do that on your phone. Like we're at a time now where we're getting enough things, technology is advanced enough that I shouldn't have to go to my computer to be able to quickly sign a form on my thing.

And I know I could probably do it somehow on my phone, but it feels like it's just a little too difficult. And I want to be able to sign those forms on a fucking phone while I'm on the go. I'm signing multiple contracts. It's a little too difficult right now. Do you promise you're okay not being paid for this food in this room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sign it, sign just, it's a little too difficult right now. Do you promise you're okay not being paid for this food?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sign it, sign it, sign it. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. I would say, and this is a slight change, I would go, I really want people to stop using the expression, it's the thought that counts when giving gifts, because they usually say that after they give you something they put no thought into.

And usually when people say, it's the thought that counts, what they mean is, I remembered it was your birthday, and I bought you something they put no thought into. And usually when people say it's the thought that counts, what they mean is I remembered it was your birthday and I bought you something. Isn't that what matters? Which yes, it's very nice to do, but sometimes you'll be like, you don't know me at all. Why did you spend money on me? I like, this is more of a thing about my family,

but my family loves, uses money as a love language. And we don't have a lot of money. So it's not like we're like a hyper wealthy family that does it. It's more like a bunch of broke idiots who are like, I thought you'd like a love language. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And we don't have a lot of money. So it's not like we're like a hyper wealthy family that does it. It's more like a bunch of broke idiots who are like, I thought you'd like a giant dinosaur, which is a real gift I got. But the problem with that is like, you didn't put a lot of thought into it. You sort of put a first level thought and not like a, would he like this? Would it go somewhere?

And a lot of people are bad at giving gifts because they think that just giving a gift itself is good. And it usually is. But the thought that counts means you thought about it you thought do they have this do they have space for this is this something they would actually like or something i think is funny to get for them which is a different thing what's this dinosaur you got a big dinosaur i got a uh four foot tall pewter tyrannosaur statue. Oh my God. That I donated. I basically put it in my building lobby and said, anyone who wants this may have this.

Oh my God. Do they get you funny gifts? We just had on Jeff Acuri and he said his family always got him funny t-shirts because they're like, you're a comedian. Wear the funny t-shirt on stage. They don't get me funny t-shirts like they mean to be funny.

They get me t-shirts like, because none of my parents, I have two siblings, there's three kids in in my family none of us have our own children so everything they get us are like things they would have got us when we're eight so like it's not like they're getting me a funny shirt they'll get me like a shirt with like a nintendo controller that goes i'm a gamer on it and i'm like i can't there's no world i'm gonna wear that shirt yeah yeah like i'm I'm going to visit my parents. You have to explain to them, this is not cool even in gaming circles.

Well, I don't want to hurt their feelings. Of course. So I'm usually like, oh, thank you so much. This is so nice. Thank you. Or if it's a, with the T-Rex thing, I was like, I had to like sit down with my dad and be like, hey, I really appreciate it. I know that you saw it and you thought I'd love it.

But, you know, you have to keep in mind, I live in a one bedroom apartment in New York. So I don't really have a lot of space for things and like but i really appreciate because i don't want to hurt his feelings if he started crying that would be a great scene in a movie right please take it like i haven't always had a great relationship with my parents but i do know that like i don't want to hurt his feelings i just want it to cross his mind that like just getting a gift itself alone does not mean that it's a good idea. Also,

sometimes he doesn't have the money for it. Sometimes I'm like, you spent like $100 or $200 on this. Why don't you put it in a bank? Yeah. So you hear that, guys. Stop getting Mike Trecker gifts. He doesn't appreciate them and he gives them away to his building for free. No, I've received good gifts.

Put real thought into it. Or don't do it. them and he gives them away to his building for free. No, I've received good gifts. Just, you know, put thought, put real thought into it. Or don't do it or don't do it. Our next final segment. Your blessing. You better count your blessing. Russell, you got one. Yeah.

My neighbors moved out and I really liked them, but i feel they were the apartment right across the hall from mine um i feel a sense of freedom that no one's in that building no one's in that that apartment right now yeah i feel like pants are coming off in the slamming doors i'm i'm i'm letting my dog off from the elevator to like i it's like a small small tiny thing i never had any issues with them i loved them they were wonderful people but having no one in that apartment across the hall for me right now feels very free and it's i'm just loving it how long is this gonna last i don't know they've been they've been showing it to people you're you're playing porn full volume yeah you know me on my 80 screen tv i'm just

full all my sono speakers blasted it windows open yeah that's the way you do it all of inwood to here yeah that's me um uh that's that's good that's a good one yeah uh you think quick they'll fill it up quick i'm sure i'm sure by i'm sure by well it's gonna be june 1st so we'll see june 1st okay can you imagine you come home one day i open the door i say russell if it was the podcast studio i'd be like hello i would be excited yeah i mean i it's not making this commute down to the lower just you know no fucking chance. My blessing. This is a good one. Okay. I went to my brother's graduation.

My mom and stepdad, his parents, got divorced when I was like 19. And not the most fun divorce. If you've been listening to podcasts for a while. But they got back together yeah oh my god oh man that would be so fucking funny

no but after after the graduation they gave each other a hug oh that's nice there you go and you know I was like more more keep going keep going keep hugging graduation, they gave each other a hug. Oh, that's nice. There you go. And I was like, more, more. Keep going. Keep going. Keep hugging. Yeah, let's give him privacy, guys. Let's give him privacy.

Hug it out. Including his current wife. I said, get away. Get away. Get away. But I mean, truly, I don't think they've had much contact at all. And to see them hug. And finally, sometimes you see moments with adults. They never would have

spoken together to each other again if they didn't have kids. But it's in this moment they can just enjoy it. Yeah. Just go, fuck,

we get to stop paying for college. Yeah. And let's at least celebrate that. Yeah, I think that's nice. Do you have a blessing?

I mean, mine might be obvious, but it's going to be Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom on the Nintendo Switch. It came out do you have a blessing uh i mean mine might be obvious but it's gonna be a legend of zelda tears of the kingdom on the nintendo switch uh it came out right as the strike started so it's nice that like after being on a picket line for like three or four hours or like you know working on a project for the wj in some way where i'm like helping in some form or um to like just play a game that

feels like magic and just walking around. And it also doesn't have like a heavy story. So I don't feel like I'm watching someone else's writing while I'm not writing. If that, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like the last of us where there's a ton of acting and a ton of scenes and a ton of story. So it's kind of nice to just feel like I'm in this magical world that exists sort of outside of the troubles I'm in right now in terms of, you know, like not

making any money or being frustrated with the, the industry. It's just a nice little release. And it's so, it's so nicely made and it's so gentle and it's so fun. And you always like, you're like, I don't know what I'm doing. And then you stumble across something magical. So that is really a blessing right now. Sounds fun. I'll never play it, but it sounds really good. It sounds really special. It sounds like it would destroy my life. Real quick, this is for the patrons. We're going to have the patrons flash across the screen while Russell reads us.

Do you know any street jokes? Not off the top of my head. If one comes to your head, do a Russell read. I don't even know. Just read this one. We'll see. Patrons, thank you. If you want to join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside.

An Italian guy goes up to his neighbor and says, Hey, Tony, you're like a woman with a big sloppy tits that drove down this far. Tony says, no. Can I be Italian? Tony says, no. He says, you're like a woman with a big huge ass. What? You're like a woman with a big huge ass, like? You like a woman with a big huge ass,

like a dump a truck. Tony says, no, he says, you like a woman with a big, thicker mustache. And she smells like a garlic all the time. Tony says,

no, he says, then why are you fucking my wife? Then why are you fucking my wife? I love you reading these this is fantastic that was acting that was acting once again this is from jackie bartling's book jackie jokes a collection of street jokes and i uh enjoy street jokes very much mike this coming out thank you tuesday sweet where can people find you you can find me on twitter at mike drucker uh i'm also on uh instagram as at mike drucker is dead

and uh we'll see how long it lasts blue sky as mike drucker so you can just search for me if that happens to last longer than when this comes out i gotta tell you i got blue sky and i went on and i said i can't no i know i know i can't i can't have another i can't write a really good tweet a really good whatever yeah and get three likes. I can't do it. It's hard to go back to it. But also I feel like I've missed the boat on so many social media platforms that I need to stop being like, we'll have to see if everyone else is good at this before I try it.

I know. I know. Fuck me. Russell. Follow me on Instagram at Russell J. Daniels. And come see Titanic, the musical musical at the Dale Roth Theater. Excellent. Guys, I am headlining Helium Indianapolis June 2nd and 3rd.

Help me sell these out. I've said on the podcast before I was thrown out of a Starbucks in Indianapolis before so please make me feel more welcome this time. And then after that I will be in Plano, Texas, June 8th through the 11th. And otherwise, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside.

Send me your theater shirts. I would love to wear it on the podcast. Yes. And come to our live taping with Molly Carney, 7.30 p.m. in New York City, June 5th. At Sesh Comedy Club. At Sesh Comedy Club. It's going to be great.

And last thing, if you have any This Has Got to Stops, send it to us. The Downside, wgs at gmail.com. We will read them on the show or on the Patreon. Once we hit 150 patrons, we're doing one bonus. We're doing the New York Times, Questions to Fall in Love 2. We're very close. So a lot of good things. And support the strike.

Support workers. And if you're not worried about AI, let me tell you right now, this entire episode was actually created by ChatGPT. This is The Downside. One, two, three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. Downside.