The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #175 Collateral Damage with JP Mcdade

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Comedian JP Mcdade joins us to share the downsides of roast battles, toeing the line between being mean and funny, growing up in Sandy Hook and living on the same street as the school sho0ter, and why conspiracy theories are akin to religious beliefs. Gianmarco and Russell get into a lovers quarrel. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow JP on Instagram & Twitter Follow The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi on Instagram Get tickets to our live podcast recording in NYC on January 8 here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/743999631927 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 E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Dave Columbo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history see a real pain only in theaters november 15th this is joe marcus raze welcome to the downside i'm here with my friend who occasionally disappears from all form of communication like he did this weekend i knew you were going to bring it. You have vanished. You vanished. And I... On a holiday?

I took a holiday. More than that. Holiday is for friendship. I took a holiday. It was Nicole's birthday and a holiday. Sure, sure. How present did you need me to be? All I know, all I know is I sent you something from Felicia

Madison. You didn't respond. Then I said, then I said, didn't respond at all. It was a really good one. Let me see. No, you can look on your own fucking time. Then I said, now this is the one that hurts. What? I said, what did you do for Thanksgiving?

Oh, yeah. And then many days later, you sent me someone else saying something crazy about Israel and Palestine. No, I didn't. I sent you a different thing that was about aliens. Oh, it was just a Palestinian flag. Which side are they on? So you sent me something about aliens. I said, ha, ha, ha, even though I was hurt inside because I was just being nice.

Okay, John Marco. And then I called and you said, hey, sorry, I missed the call. What's up? Okay, yeah. And you didn't answer. Admit that you fluctuate, though. Admit that you sometimes talk and talk and talk and it's like you vanish. Okay, Wednesday I had two shows and then I went home.

Let me get out the fucking violin. And then Thursday I had the one day off and I didn't really do much at all, and then I went to a friend's house that night. Did you want to hear that? I went to a friend's house that night. Cool. For Thanksgiving. What did you do, John Marco? I didn't know. I thought you were mad. Why would I be mad at you?

JP and I texted more in the last couple days than you and I did. We've known each other for years. I sent you an alien thing. I thought, like, listen, what we're really talking about here is you texted me on Friday, right? Uh-huh.

And then on Sunday, I texted you an alien thing. Thursday, I texted you Thanksgiving. Okay, that's just a holiday, so it doesn't count. So basically, you text me Friday, and I text you Sunday an alien thing that I thought you would enjoy because we talk about aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and I text you Sunday, an alien thing that I thought you would enjoy because we talk about aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now we're here. And I knew I was going to see you Monday. Men think that you send a picture of someone else saying something and that counts as communication. May I speak? Yes. Please, JP. I've been buddies with John Marco for a few years now,

like comedy friends. And this is really interesting to see up close what it's like to be good friends and close with John Marco. This is fascinating. It fluctuates between it's abusive because it feels a little like a wife where I'm like, oh, yes, yes. Let me get to, you know, like I'm like trying to respond right away. What a load. Everything's cool. To keep you happy.

Everything's cool. To keep you happy. Everything's fine. And then if I let my guard down and I would like just like I don't do everything to what he wants, he flies into a rage. And how does that make you feel, John Marco? And I can tell that you were mad when I said, sorry, I missed your call. What's up? And you didn't respond. I was like, oh, great. He's mad at me because I didn't text him back.

You haven't told me that I sparkle all weekend. I didn't walk away from my mashed potatoes to call him in a bathroom to be like, oh, if the holiday's going great, dear. If I ever left Russell on Red for more than an hour, I would have 10 missed calls. No, you wouldn't. You just never have to experience the pain of having you as a friend. Goddamn, dude. Theater kids just feel shit more deeply. Yeah, we do. We're here. That deep voice was Mr. J.P. McDade.

Hello. Welcome to the podcast. JP, who I want to give the flowers to because the Netflix set has now come out by the time this is released. It was a roast joke of yours that ultimately took me a long time to figure out how to say it myself about myself. How to turn the gun on yourself. So I did a roast battle with JP, and it was like the finals. So I did a roast battle with JP, and it was like the finals. And I was like, the prize was you could do five minutes at New York Comedy Club, and they wouldn't spit in your face. And I was like, I got to get this.

I need this so bad. And JP won. It was a good match, though. It was a good match, but it was tough. And your joke that really, really cinched it was you said, I look like before I tell a joke, I whisper to myself a 5, 6, 7, 8. Oh, wow. You came up with that joke.

I'm the author of that little poem. Wow. Thank you. And Aaron Berg, who is judging, he said, Jamarco, you would have won if before your next joke, you had went a five, six, seven, eight. And I said, I said, that was, I hold that as like a comedy lesson. So many, many years,

figured out how to say it on stage. First, I tried to say it like about myself. I said, I know I look like I, before I tell a joke, I whisper. By the way, I don't know if I should be saying any of this. Some people like to believe that, you know, I've never had any help in my entire life.

Had a lot of help. But then I tried saying, I look like before I say a joke, I whisper to myself, five, six, seven, eight. Didn't really work. Then I said, I did the full meta. I had a comedian once told me I look like, and that kind of worked. You're like, we're going to throw in a dance number, a couple of kicks, a couple of turns. Oh. Workshop. Oh, I did. I did i did a plie i did i looked up before i tell a joke i whispered self a five six spin eight or a five six i did everything i've tried everything yes and then finally i

connected it to another joke i have about a drag queen telling me to take it down a notch before she brought me on stage she said this next comedian looks like before he tells a joke he whispers a five six seven eight and it worked damn so i had to recreate the roast uh uh atmosphere with a meta i made you a drag queen you had to be like imagine oh you made me a drag queen you made me a more interesting performer thank you so much a much more successful successful drag queen comedian. I love how you're trying to explain the roast battle atmosphere to an audience. Just pretend it was

a niche little form of comedy that was a little bit popular six years ago. Yeah, do they do roasts still? They still do. They meaning me. Because obviously roasts hit a thing where Comedy Central was having them and it was like a thing.

And now Comedy Central doesn't do them anymore, do they? I don't think Comedy Central does much of anything anymore. Did you not see Justin X's post recently? No. There's something coming back with Roast that he is going to be the host of. Fucking let's go. Never mind. I take back all the terrible things I've said about Comedy Central in the last two or three years.

I think... So, okay. By the way, everyone, this is the downside place where we get negative. Join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash downside. Roast Battle, for my money,

I mean, you did one with Yamanika who I wouldn't go against Yamanika. Oh, God. I'd be fucking terrified. Was. Maybe the most nerve-wracking

moment of my life. Yes. Did you win? No. No. No, but it was like, well, here's, let me just say, I would have to review that match to assess for myself, but I think the biggest problem, in my opinion, with what happened when they made roast battles on TV

is they were fully scripted in a way that you took away. It would be like if you watched a basketball game, but they had already decided who won the game. In like a WWE kind of way. Yes. Allegedly. So no one really whiffed. People rarely whiffed and silenced.

The comebacks were always so clean and so well executed that it lacked the feel of, oh my God, they just came up with something in the moment. It was like, you know, the fight choreography in The Matrix

is a little bit like mechanical. Yeah. It was kind of like that. And then they immediately started getting celebrities and it just, I always thought there would be something,

I think, I believe that like roast could be in theory, this big thing with, especially with that, not that it's necessarily fan base you want high school boys. I feel like high, I feel like my brother was in high school at the time that I was doing roast. And I was like, he would fucking love this shit. Yeah. Shout out to my dudes, the high school. Shout out to all the Jadens out there. They're my guys but seriously like roast like roast proper before battling they did launch some people like jessel nick basically got launched off of that roast yeah the one that he was on with

schumer like no one really i mean he had a following a little bit but then like you you know it was probably touring huge after that i think. His first roast, I believe, I'm a big Jessalynuk fan. It's embarrassing, was Trump. Really? I think so, yeah. It was Trump. And then I think after that- What year was Trump?

Like 2000- 07, I want to say. 08, something like that. You say before, as in it was before he was president? No, no, no. It had to have been before the birther stuff, I figured. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so was before he was president? No, no, no. I was like, I couldn't remember if it was, it had to have been before like the birther stuff, I figured. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like before 2012.

I think so. Before he was like. Just before he was racist. He was a Democrat still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he did, then he did Charlie Sheen. Yep. And then Roseanne.

I think he only did three. I don't know if there was a fourth. Yeah, I think you're right. Which was the one he did with Patrice there? Was that? That was the one where Patrice was like, I think this is going to be my last show. And then he died a few months later.

Yeah, yeah. That was Charlie Sheen. Yeah, that's how badly Jesnick roasted him. He lost a foot after that. Oh, my God. So JP is known amongst many other things a phenomenal roaster.

Known by dozens. Is the roast scene dead? No, it's actually very much alive. It's wild. It's just more scattered. It's in more places. But it's thriving. They have a whole league that's global. It's big in Austin. It's big in LA. It's kind of still league that's like global it's big in austin

it's big in la it's kind of still big in new york but they're in like london and tokyo and there's all these other leagues like around the world that are like competing for i think pat parker it's like organizing it he's an la guy really funny dude uh but yeah it's like i think it's in terms of like mainstream attention no no, definitely not. I remember when I did JFL at Montreal, it was like that was the thing that was going on that week. That was 2016. Everyone wanted to get into roast battle. Like, oh, John Mayer's going to be there.

It was the year you did JFL. I did JFL, but I didn't do roast battle. I helped a couple people with their jokes. Broussard did it last minute. He had done it the year before. Matthew Broussard, episode one, gassed of the downside. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yes.

I think he won or he lost to Jimmy Carr in the finals. He lost to Jimmy Carr in the finals. Yeah. To do, I'd be so scared. I think I could go back, but I worked so hard. I went to Mike's. For nothing. Ran for nothing. We worked so hard on all these mike's for nothing for nothing we worked so hard on these jokes well that's the thing if the moment you lose i'm sure there's some kind of term for this but

like the moment the reward or the prestige disappears people stop working as hard and then immediately the product goes south my favorite is you for a while you would like run the jokes by me yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd be spouting them off. And I didn't know the person. You'd try to give me a few things at the top to tell me about them. But then you'd do a joke, and then you'd be like, his sister's in a wheelchair. You'd have to be like, otherwise I wouldn't get the joke at all.

And I'm like, what? And then you'd have to fill it in as you went, after you'd give me the punchline. Well, those interviews, you'd sit down and you'd be like did your have your are your parents still alive how did they die what do you meet me at this panera bread and let's talk about how time you got molested uh-huh yeah and and it always be people had their own unique things about like there was one uh woman i knew who i i roasted and you're allowed to talk about her dead father. She said, please don't talk about how old he was. He had her when he was old.

So I could joke about him being dead, but I couldn't make jokes about your dad was old. That was her sticking point. Anyway, she had a totally normal dad, but he died after he broke his hip. And it kind of went downhill from there. Dementia pretty bad. I never took anything off the table. I now I would like not

want Tova to be the object of roast. Innocent bystanders. I don't like it. I don't like when there's collateral damage from people in those battles. They didn't agree to sign up for it. Yeah. I try to avoid it.

You try. He says try. But then for the final joke, he'll let it slide. If it's too good. Well, you, I wanted to grab it because I worked really hard for our match. And one of the things with JP that everyone has taken a stab at,

maybe you remember all of them, is that JP, where did you grow up? Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Sandy Hook, Connecticut. If you're a roast battler, you start frothing. That's top of mind if you're a roast battler. I'll give the podcast audience a minute to recollect where they know that name from. It's been 11 years. It's probably a lot of jokes like you know he couldn't kill in a room yeah what were you gonna come up with no

something like you know like he's worse than whatever happened it's you know what i mean like yeah a lot of like that kind of thing you know i that was where i i wouldn't say i i think if i recall i wouldn't draw a line at mentioning it, but all I said, I asked people, it's like, make the joke about me, please, because I have to go back there and see people. I'd like to... That's what I tried to do, JP, and I have a note here.

It's in my grand document saying this one did not work. It says, JP grew up in Newtown, Connecticut, but he told me not to talk about the Sandy Hook shooting because it makes him too hard. Marco. It didn't work. It didn't work. And I'm like, oh, I've comedically matured because I think I can see now more clearly what jokes were dark that the audience is going to go, oh.

Now it rouses him, you'd use a bigger word. Yeah. Just an Oppenheimer sequence of John Marco being like, I'm going to combine a school shooting with pedophilia and a fusion reaction the world has never seen. And it bombed. It bombed. So I always struggled with roast battles. What do you think

people said about me? What do you think their main target was? You're gay. Yes. And I remember once... Annoying. Okay.

That's enough. That's mine. That's my category. I did a roast with Anthony Passaretti way back in the day and he said the two that, like, and this was early, so I also felt a lot of feelings. I was a new comic. And the two things he said that really hurt my feelings, he said that I got a job on CBS's Blue Bloods because they needed someone to make Donnie Wahlberg look like a good actor.

Oh. And that hurt because I think that could be true. Yeah. Because I think that could be true. Yeah. And then something about, I had in my Facebook bio that I was a panpsychist. He said, that's when, is a joke,

is a religion where you're the only one who believes in yourself. And that hurt. And then something where I was annoying. And I felt, I felt a tear. Yeah. And I was like,

if I cry, I might have never, I might have had to leave stand up wait have you ever been really hurt like your feelings been hurt by uh i'm like punch drunk at this point i and also i'm more nervous on stage during a roast battle than i am during regular stand-up so like i'm just thinking about the next thing that i'm going to say so i'm just over here like okay they're going to call me some kind of sex predator winklevoss uh the tyana school shooting thing whatever and i'm not like let you really letting it in i'm just kind of like get the next joke right yeah just trying to play it and act natural i don't think i've ever really had

my feelings hurt who's the scariest person you've ever gone against scariest like like in the way that they are really good and you like made you nervous i think yamanika is an awesome example because a that was the first time I was doing anything on television. They paired me up with her like a week and a half before and it's like, okay, white boy, you're going to go out

and make your television debut. Tell insulting jokes about this woman of color who happens to be plus size. In my roast battles, I went against Pedro. Yeah. But other than that

Everyone I roasted Was Was white Yeah And I don't think I would really know Or feel comfortable It would have to be

A brilliant joke If it involved race Yeah Because I just feel like If it was going to be As mean as I want My roast joke to be I just see it

Out of context Yeah in my mind. So I was panicking. And then on top of all that, she's a fucking killer. She is. And a killer. She can do the jokes, and she could also in the moment just be like, look at you. And in a way, she said it, people would be like, ah! And also, I've seen her do stand-up many times.

She can ride a laugh in a way that if she got it like if she gained an inch she was going to take a mile like if she got a laugh it was going to be like just blow it out for a full minute of me just suffering how did it go it went it went amazingly well i couldn't like even though i didn't get the result it like i couldn't have asked for more it was just that's good unbelievable experience it was so cool. The one joke that I had here that I was still proud of, because people call me gay, and I never figured out how to fully ride it. Because in one way, I thought, oh, I'll be like,

yeah, I'm the gayest. I'll be even gayer. Which way do you go? Do you shoot the moon, or do you counter with, I fucked your girlfriend, or whatever? Well, I tried both. I said, I fucked your dad. I was like,, I'm the, I fucked your girlfriend or whatever. Well, I tried, I tried both. I said, I fucked your dad.

Like I was like, I was so gay. I fucked your dad. And, and the, the one thing that worked with, with you is I said, uh,

JP is six, seven. I'm six, four. We're like the twin towers because this is probably going to end with us going down on each other. And it was like, there was some, if,

if I could make you gay with me, gay by association, that was the only move I ever found that worked. You think you would spiral me into an Irish Catholic panic where I'm like, no, no, I'm not.

No, I'm not. You're gay. Yeah. You can't flip it on me. You shared your darkest, meanest joke about me. I feel like I should get blood on my hands too.

Please. Because like the topics of, what, common topics about john marco being annoying being a theater kid i don't know if this one hit this was in round three i remember i said john marco gets his personality from his jewish ancestors dicey in this climate uh they were never brought to the camps because the Nazis thought that would be too cruel to the other Jews. That's good. It was a different time. It was a different time. Yeah.

I'm finally on stage because now when I say I'm Jewish, I feel the audience go, well. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, fine. We'll assess that and then we'll... Roast Russell. Oh, I don't want to. I don't like roasts. You know I don't like roasts. I've thought about it where it's like...

They're very stressful to me. I can't even watch the Comedy Central ones in the thing of my own home. I can appreciate them when I see them and I can be like, wow, that's good, but it's really stressful to me. What do you feel about i feel like the other thing about roast battles is i feel like thank you andy richter with a voice coach jeff ross like became like his philosophy of roasts were became the philosophy of roast yeah so what do you think

of the phrase you can tell already how i feel about it you only roast the ones you love bullshit bullshit of course what the fuck that was like that was that was part of the thing and at some you predominantly make fun of people you don't like yeah like that's the impetus of all of it yeah but i think there's some truth where, if there's someone that you really respect, there is like a notion of you're respecting someone in some way by paying attention to them enough to write a careful roast joke about them. I think it does take a level of respect. I say doing a roast battle is like doing a history project on someone who

doesn't matter. Yes. But that's the thing with comedy roasts is there's a degree of like, how hard are you, how hard are you really going to go yeah the one time that i was offended in a way that like it still sticks with me is uh uh i'll fucking say it i i battled a uh and it was it was over covid i did it from my bath i thought it would be cute it just it was the most embarrassing thing I did it from my bath. I thought it would be cute. It was the most embarrassing thing. And I'm in my bath getting cold.

But a lot of his jokes were about me being a hack. And for me, that felt like you went out of your way to insult. I don't know. You could say I'm a little bitch about it. But the fact that he kept hitting on it, it just felt very personal. I see what you mean, yeah. And it felt like we're doing the thing right now, we are agreeing to play a game right now, and that's what you're going to go after? Yeah, that would be something in me that would like want to like trigger a sincere response something embarrassing well i was about to be like you opened for me at a college

and i didn't because i felt like that was see that's where it shifts we're gonna have to bleep out that name son of a bitch it was michael richards but it was i've seen this many times from like dialing and judging where it goes from performance to dispute where it's supposed to be a duet. It's supposed to be a two-person performance where you're both getting laughs. You want the other person to get laughs too

and you establish a rhythm where it becomes like this weirdly personal thing and people are clapping back at each other. Then it gets awkward. Nobody likes it. You're like, well, you're a rapist, and it's not fun at all. It's just like Drew. Nobody knows that yet.

And then you're just like, I guess I can't roast anymore. Going to have to take that name out too. Might as well. That was one. That was what I was going. I don't know what that is. I know.

Nobody does. It was like, oh, God. We're going to have to beep now. But I was... Nobody does. It was like, oh, God, we're going to have to beep now. But I was going to go... He had opened for me at Bananas. And I... Bananas coming back around, I was just like, oh, I'll just ask him again. And I couldn't find him online.

And I asked him, I was like, hey, do you know where he went? And they were like, oh, you didn't hear? He was accused multiple times of rape and vanished the scene. So he's available? That's how I knew that I was out. I had moved outside of the New York comedy scene because I had no idea about this guy. I don't know if you'd even move. I think it's not as cohesive as it used to be.

There are segments. The New York scene is more segmented. There was a time someone raped someone. You heard about it. You were talking about it at the water cooler. There are like segments. The New York scene is like more segmented. There was a time someone raped someone. You heard about it. Yeah. You were talking about it at the water cooler. Oh my God.

The a** days are gone. I know. Jeez. That was before I, that was before I, we can keep that name out there, right? I don't know.

I don't know what the law is. I'll fight him. Wasn't he in a loss? Allegedly, allegedly, I don't know. You gotta bleep all this out. This is the worst.

What a terrible segment. The worst and terrible segment. Because I do think there was a lawsuit involved, and I don't know if he won or not. Yeah, there was always a rumor that that's why UCB. Why are we talking about this? There was a rumor that that's why UCB lost a big chunk of change. Oh, really?

It was a lawsuit. It was a rumor. That was a rumor. Oh, God. B of the lawsuit. That was a rumor. That was a rumor. Oh, God. Bleep the whole thing out. We can mention that. We can take out the name. There was more than one rapist who worked at...

Okay. Did you have another one that you wanted to... No, but just in case. Just in case we needed them up. It's nice to get something out of them because we were just doing roast battles for like no content there might have been a video

but we weren't even getting clips out of them we were just doing them if you put the monetary value on the writing work that we did for all those

if we had any self esteem we don't we don't and once in a while I got one joke and I promise people

listening who hate stand up comedy for whatever reason we will move on in a while, I got one joke, and I promise people listening who hate stand-up comedy for whatever reason, we will move on in a sec. I did get one joke from Pontillo, James Pontillo, that I used in my act. That was my joke for him. It was about his dead mother became my almost dead father, which was, for him, I said, you know, his mom mom passed away but she'll still be at all his shows just like

she was when she was alive in spirit something like that and it worked for me when I did it to him people were like oh my god I said awful things you're as stiff as your mom's body it was brutal about his recently

that's what the roast was brutal. Oh my God. As I said about his recently. That's what the roast was. Wasn't there a famous roast comedy fight club? It was Vietnam, basically. There was like a comedy fight club where I think someone said the N word and it was like the one moment where everyone was like,

no. Yeah. No. That was the tipping point where they were like, we're not doing this anymore. Was that the one roast that you tried? Shut up.

Would you ever for your birthday want to have loved ones roast you? Absolutely not. No. Would you ever want to roast me? No. Get some big laughs and say some things you've always wanted to say. No. No, I don't want to do that to you.

You'd be like a roast character. If I ever have a roast thing, I'll throw them into the podcast. You know what I mean? Sure, sure, sure. As we go. I can't decide if being the honoree at a roast Would be fun or terrible Probably a mix of both But like you get to go last

You get the last word You probably kill But then you have to just kind of Sit there and awkwardly Yeah Did anyone ever get mad in those Comedy Central ones? There was a famous Comedy Central one Chevy Chase

Chevy Chase Where He was getting roasted He was. He was getting roasted. He was getting roasted. And apparently no one, none of his friends wanted to do it.

So there were people, there were up and coming comedians who wanted to kill and make an impression who didn't really like him. It was Mark Maron.

He's not well liked. Yeah. Mark Maron, Steve Colbert, Todd, I don't know But they were just mean And it was uncomfortable

And they aired it once Maybe Geraldo Like an early Geraldo Yeah And they just said No one likes you No one And the audience would applaud

This is The Downside One, two, three Downside Downside You're listening to The Downside. One, two, three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Can you imagine Colbert doing a roast now? That's crazy that he did a roast.

Yeah. I just feel like it's like, because remember he did that. You remind me of Mr. Donald Trump. He did that one great Bush thing too. Remember? This is a guy who's not up to date with his vaccine boosters. It's just crazy. I'm sure he could

be so mean. Of course, big fan. Go back to it. Just different times. This is coming out December 19th, but we are recording this a little bit early to accommodate Russell's busy, busy schedule.

I love you, buddy. I love you, too. I did have one more thing, because I recorded my episode with Joe Firestone earlier today. I was talking about Thanksgiving, and there's one thing I forgot to bring up, is that I went to a family function for Thanksgiving, and I had a family member. There's some sports I forgot to bring up is that I went to a family function for Thanksgiving,

and I had a family member. There's some sports game on football, and they were wearing neon green. There was some type of sports pageant happening. Sort of costumed sporting event. I assume football was very choreographed. The choreo was tight, I will say that. And one of the team, I don't know if it was the Sharks or the Jets, but one of them was wearing neon green. Their outfit looks a little weird.

And I was like, has their uniform always been this green? And this family member was like, oh, he's making a bid. He's making a bid. All right. It's cooking. I sealed the win. And I was like, oh, my. I wanted to be like, no, Aval, I'm not making a bid.

If I was making a bid, it would be about the racist thing you said to me on the car ride over here. It would have nothing to do with this. But, like, it was one where it was i could not say anything other than a basic question again and again i go not not just you should make this a bit but they went oh here it goes it's such a it's such a well-meaning thing that family members say but they don't know how annoying it is and it's every single gathering was oh you gotta get a lot of material you're gonna get a lot of material yeah and the assumption of how interesting people think they are yeah they're like the gall to just be like you think i agree with you and then i go i thought i was so interesting that i decided to

make a profession out of talking about it so yeah i have the same delusion it's true that's true but yeah but but i work to bring it. I think the solution would be... I think of all the times I'm so boring. I would never just be around... Do you know what I'm saying? Of course, there's nothing...

If something worthwhile happened on stage, it would be so traumatic in the moment that no one would be like, you should make a bit out of this. Like if someone had a heart attack at the table,

that's the thing I'd make a bit out of. Yeah. But you wouldn't bring it up then. I think the solution would be I invite them to a show

and I take their suggestion and I go, oh, it was that Thanksgiving dinner the other day. So many candied yams. More than we could possibly eat. Who made so many candied yams. More than we could possibly eat.

Who made so many candied yams? Who's candying the yams? This isn't candy. There's a football team. The uniforms were green. What are these greens they're doing these days? The way you respond in the moment

is just corner that guy and be like, hey, can you help me with this green bit that I'm working on? Just pull out your notebook. Really make him work. Green with envy. If you're new at something, you're green. Green light. The green lantern.

And then you go like, I don't like talking about comedy, actually. It's like, you're in this now. It reminds me of that. It's Robert Patterson. What's his name? Patterson? Pattinson. Pattinson.

He told a story. I don't know if it's apocryphal, but he had a stalker. And so he just took them out to lunch and complained about his agent and whatever. And the stalker was like, oh, I don't like you anymore. Doing that with comedy. Be like, oh my god, you're right. Exposure therapy. Where would this go?

What would be the twist? Can we think of a tag? And then they turn to my girlfriend and go like, please, no more. Wait, who did you do Thanksgiving with? I was trying to keep it vague for all the things I just talked shit about. You don't have to say that. No, no, it was many. It was my mom's side.

It was the Jew side and Great Neck. Got it. I think the answer is now that there's a solution. Like, oh, you're going to get a lot of material. It's like you just launch into a bitter tirade. Like, it's not about the material anymore. It's about satisfying the algorithm. Getting followers, these fucking clubs.

They book off of who has Instagram and TikTok fucking followers, not who's fucking good. And just gripe as much as possible. I like how you use that story as an excuse to express your own feelings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Then you do crowd work with the table. Yeah, I should.

You ever see a black dick? What about this Asian guy over here? I bet he's got a different dick. Oh, you thought there was an Asian guy at my Thanksgiving? You bring an Asian guy just to aid the crowd work. Who brought this Asian guy? That was me. What's up, pal?

You circumcised? I... Who brought this Asian guy? That was me. What's up, pal? You circumcised? Family members, I get that they want to connect on that level and they want to express an interest in this thing that I do. But honestly, if we were in a conversation, I'd love to just hear about your recent promotion at IBM. I want to hear about the new car you just leased. Please tell me about all that shit i'd like i'd be so much more interested if we just talked about your normal

stuff i think it's it's just always about like specifics like if they it's just the yes general questions how's touring as opposed to like how was san diego yeah how like it's all those conversations just become let me tell you you, the Sheraton, like. Oh, another Marriott. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Oh, you live, you live the Bonvoy lifestyle.

Oh, yeah. Well, now it's everything. I think I've made it, and this has got to stop, where I hate how it's like Marriott's Ace Hotels, Marriott's AC Hotels, Marriott's. Too many brands. Too many brands. Too many verticals. Yeah, they're all.

I saw a management company today. It was five names. And I was just like, stop it. Yeah. You guys, I know it's guys. You guys stop it. Just pick imagination studios. Shut the fuck up.

Yeah. Well, JP, we worked together a bunch. Not too many bad gigs. We did that one gig in Connecticut. A couple in Connecticut. We've run amok in Connecticut. Mohegan Sun. That's where I met JP.

Yes. Well, we did Mohegan Sun for sure. But JP and I did that one. You probably saw a picture. It was outdoors. It was in front of a big American flag. You were with me. Yes, you were with me when I got the speeding ticket driving to that one. You probably saw a picture. It was outdoors. It was in front of a big American flag. You were with me. Yes, you were with me when I got the speeding ticket driving to that gig.

Right. In a car that was not mine. Right. Wanted man. You bravely riffed on that experience at the outdoor show with 800 people. Yeah, I riffed on the price of McDonald's drive-thru surprising me. Uh-huh. And the audience was like, they were well aware.

These were a crowd of McDonald's lovers. I was like, how much do you think this, this, and this cost? The lady was like, $17.21. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They weren't surprised at all. What's your point, idiot? Go back to New York. That was the show.

Trump rally. Yeah, it was. It was very Yeah Very conservative That's the weird thing About Connecticut Is that

It's a real mix Oh yeah Even I was telling We talked about it before But at Mohegan Sun It would be really interesting Because it would be like Watching some jokes

And there would be some Like kind of liberal type people That you could do them for And then But then some of your stuff, they were like, oh, this kid had a dick in his mouth. You know, or like, they got really conservative. And it's interesting because-

We sanctify you in the name of Jesus. To be clear in the bit, my dick is in his mouth. Your dick's in his mouth, sorry. Connecticut, what I've realized having grown up there is it's the worst parts of both political parties. You have every kind of evil Republican, every kind of evil. All the cities are run by the most corrupt Democrats you could possibly imagine. And then all the rural areas are either rednecks or George H.W. Bush-type, skull-and-bones Republicans.

And they're just in different parts of Connecticut? Yes. Because where we were for that show, it was just conservative. Boondocks. It was guys. It's where the men look like they looked at Trump as also a fashion. They're orange.

They're orange. They became orange. And they're heavy in the same way and orange and buttoned down. It's a lot of guys who own pool companies and they have Punisher decals on their pickup trucks. They have Confederate flags.

Things like that. The northernmost part of Connecticut. I remember one guy at that show, he shook my hand and said, I like it because you made fun of the other side too. And I was like, okay. That was my past. Do you remember what else he said?

He was like, you know where you are. Okay? He was shaking what else he said? He was like You know where you are Okay Like he was shaking your hand For a weirdly long time He was like you know where you are Like in a very threatening tone Oh my god And it was also the show

Where a woman came up And just took one of my My merch towels And just started dabbing herself And walked away with it And I was like Oh no You have to

You have to pay for that And it was very uncomfortable She came back like Oh Even in the have to you have to pay for that oh and it was very uncomfortable she came back like oh even in the redneck parts of connecticut there's that entitlement like yes this is mine i'm a wine mom and i'm taking your towel because connecticut is where i performed most uh like when covid when outdoor shows first started right that's our florida was that fair to say there are many floridas of this region i think think, but Connecticut has a fair claim to many of the Florida-type regions. I just know that first outdoor show I did with Kenny Ortega, rest in peace, he didn't get cover from that show,

but when I was walking back, I put on the mask, walking back to the car, and someone from afar was like, Masshole! Like a mask asshole, that was the term. from afar was like, Masshole! Like a mask asshole. That was the term. And I was like, that's great. It also has a different definition in the region. You can't co-op that.

It's for bad drivers from Massachusetts. Yeah. Masshole. Oh, I see. That's interesting. Remember I got yelled at in New Hampshire when we were on that? Oh, New Hampshire's different. They were yelling at me because they saw my New York license plates.

Yeah. They were not happy that I was there. What'd they say to you? They said, were you- They're like, you going- Also, everyone's on Southern in these places. But they're like, oh, New York, you going back there soon? And I was like, no.

And then, but I was. How about right now? Yeah. It was like they were really upset about it. And I couldn't tell. I mean, I had a mask. I had like, you know, it was like a hide of COVID. But it's so.

You look like you didn't have a pill addiction. And we were like, this guy must be from not around these parts. I had almost the exact same thing happen to me. I was in rural Virginia with some college friends. And my college friend had on his car, he had jersey plates. And one guy, I swear to God, we were coming out of some store, he was like, y'all from New Jersey? And we were like, yes, sir.

And he's like, starts my stairs, starts my door, now. Like, we didn't get one word. You could tell it was a slur. A riff of syllables, some kind of cryptic warning. Did you, I guess I don't really understand Connecticut in general because I feel like I know... It's a tough nut to crack. The Hamptons

is Connecticut? No, it's Long Island. Long Island. Okay. The Gold Coast is Connecticut. Well, we know my friend Chris's dad has a boat there. So I know there's some wealth in certain parts of Connecticut. All the smart, rich people dock their boats in Rhode Island for tax reasons, so I know there's some wealth in certain parts of Connecticut. All the smart, rich people dock their boats in Rhode Island for tax reasons, but yes, there are many boats in Connecticut. And then it's other mixes of really southern.

How did the south people get there? The same as upstate New York. I mean, where I'm from is basically the south. It's different in Connecticut, because in Connecticut the parts of that are like rural the accent is like midwestern it's like chicago like you got yeah you gotta move the truck for the guy to get in because he's got to bring the hose around like that kind of guy and he's like you know landscaper type dudes who talk like furta like they say instead of for that they say furta like guys like that yeah they sound like chicago cops for whatever and it's not explained why they talk that way because it's between massachusetts and new york and there's some like in the suburbs there's

mixes of those accents yeah but then it's like an unexplained rural you know third way these guys like i delivered a pizza to a guy one time he just had a gun they had like a shotgun out on the porch just laying there i used to deliver pizzas in in connecticut and it was uh an interesting little slice of life so you just had a gun and you were scared how old were you i was like 17 16 yeah yeah it must have been 17 because i had my license but it was yeah it was one of my first jobs but connecticut rednecks i i was trying to do this bit for a while where a Connecticut Redneck is like a guy who has two dirt bikes, but his kids share a bed. Like, there's a lot of those style guys. Yeah.

BMX style Rednecks. Does that work in Connecticut? I haven't tried it in Connecticut. Sometimes local jokes, it's tough. It's just like, can it translate outside? But you make it local. You'd be like, Shelton. You-huh oh shit people love the hyper specific references um so you grew up in in newtown did you did you enjoy it would you ever raise children there honestly absolutely

yes i honestly couldn't think of a better place to grow up so we moved there from long island when i was eight. Okay. And I kind of resented it at first. I didn't really like it. I was away from all my friends, whatever. But it's a pretty idyllic suburb. And honestly, this is not a dark joke.

Great schools. We have really good schools. And it was part of what made it so terrible. It was shocking. It was known as an especially good place to raise kids. Yeah. Like a lot of youth sports, a lot of investment in the arts. Kids did theater and music and everything was very kid-centric. It was all like people who just wanted to get their kids to college.

That's why you raise your kids there. And it was a good place. Why did you move from Long Island originally? My dad's job moved. He was working in the city and then like they opened a new branch in stamford and uh we just like kind of relocated with that did you were you really sad at first i feel like yeah i didn't understand how close it was geographically i was like i will never see these people again yeah yeah an ocean now separates us you never saw your friends from then i'm sure i saw them saw them a couple more times.

That's how it works. I moved schools at the end of fifth grade. Tough year. Yeah, because then you're in middle school. But you do that thing where- Middle school, you start getting so busy with the homework. You see them. You try to see them, and then you just-

We're just going in different directions, pal. That's how I felt at the end of summer camp. When I entered summer camp, I ended like it was weeping. Really? I feel like it's because deep down we knew no matter how many promises we made to each other. These five weeks have meant so much. But they did. But they did because you spent the whole day together.

They did. They did. But they did because you spent the whole day together. They did. I, if I was, if I was single still at this age, or if Tova dumped me out of the blue. You'd reach out to some. No, no, no.

I would go to. Have your hand job skills improved since you were 12. If I needed, if I needed like some friends, if I was like, if I was like, oh, I need some friends. Russell's just booking too many Broadway shows. I would go to a, some kind of sleep away. I think you need to share spaces beyond the regular bounds of friendship to become more bonded.

100%. When we went to New Hampshire together, that is a leveling up of the friendship. Definitely. When you get so drunk, you spend the night. That's a level up. Comedy festival friends. Comedy festival.

COVID interrupted, I think, when I would have done, like, every single festival. And those are so crucial. Yeah. You know each other for, like, two days, and then you're, like, friends for life. Every comedy festival, and I would be weeping with all the comedians. And they'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? We got a weeper on our heads. We got a weeper.

He weeps at roasts. Yeah, he's the guy We got a weeper. He weeps at roasts. Yeah, he's the guy who weeps at roasts. He weeps at the festivals. Pagliacci over here. There are two sides to McDonald's new Cajun Ranch McCrispy. On the one hand, it's a masterpiece centered around that crispy, juicy, tender seasoned chicken. On the other hand, McCrispy fans are going to love the bold, tangy taste of the new Cajun

Ranch flavors. In other words, the Cajun Ranch McCrispy is are going to love the bold, tangy taste of the new Cajun Ranch flavors. In other words, the Cajun Ranch McCrispy is a work of art for all your senses. Yep, like a flavorful fusion. Precisely. When is the gallery opening? It already has. Experience the Cajun Ranch McCrispy today for a limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that? Just like that. McDonald's in Canada. You're on your own there. Could have skipped it. Should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. So do you remember, since this is the downside, I do think people would be curious about what year was the—

Labor Day parade? It's every year now. What, because I— 2012. 2012. Yeah,cember 14th um i remember where i was because i was literally doing extra work on the wolf of wall street really and uh it was it was such it was an awful environment it was awful because it was like with 200 extras uh some of whom were like, some of whom were like, would call Marty, Marty. Oh, no.

The least emotionally aware people during an extremely emotionally heightened time. Oh, Marty. God, Marty. And Wolf of Wall Street was one of those, I remember it may be so mad, because Backstage Magazine featured, there was an extra in Wolf of Wall Street

that Ryan Gosling liked him, so just made him his assistant. He got a couple lines. So then every extra believes for the next 50 years. So this poisonous story that got out there. Yes. And luckily, AI is about to replace all the extras. But depending, we'll see.

Just going out to producers like, is there room for riffing in the script? Listen, I love you extras. I made some money. But I was also a non- Is that what you call them? Background artists? I think we call ourselves extras.

Pigs. I call them- Pigs! I call them screen pigs. Oinky, oinky little- I call them couches that need food. I was a non-union extra, so all the union extras would get to eat first. Yeah.

It was just like you knew in every place you were the lowest on this totem pole. And we had. Varsity goes first. That's awesome. We had, it was these big boardroom scenes, and it was like 200 guys. They told us, don't bring your phone, and I stupidly listened. And then I was there for eight hours doing fake work. Oh, man. Fake work.

And you just, you move around, you go on the phone. If you're ever watching a movie. Putting the phone between your ear, crossing your legs. Have you ever watched the movie, or can you ever see yourself in it? I don't think so. I don't think so. You were a spiritual extra. Yes.

And that's even more humiliating. I'm literally not even there. Yeah. But there was a moment where leo said he learned a lot from me yeah yeah we're the guys we're all fucking around we're all men in between our 20s and 50s in the lowest point of our lives yeah just and we were putting people putting sticky notes on each other's back and basically someone called cut and they said, 180 to two, three, 84, all the way in the back. Marty said someone walked by with a sticky note that said, I have herpes.

So guys, guys, come on. And it's one of those things where you're trying to get adults to behave, but you're not giving them any respect or reason to. I think it would have played in that Strat and Avon environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have these dialogues with Marty all the time. Marty, Marty. them any respect or reason to... I think it would have played in that Strat and Navon environment. I have these dialogues with Marty all the time. Marty! Iron sharpens iron, if you ask me. It's good for us to disagree like that.

At Gutenberg recently, Martin Short came out, and I felt like people being real loose. Short A! Marty! And then Marty came down and you're like, shut up!

Stop calling him that! That's not what you... It's just a funny thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When someone over-familiarized... It was me and Bert Einstein and we were talking physics. Me and Dolph Hitler.

We go way back. Dolph. The stache. I said, lose it, pal. And he wouldn't listen. He was famously stubborn. But you're on this set, and you have one very dark thing to talk about with all these men. Yeah, it was like to share a collective tragedy with a group of people you didn't want to be with in the first place.

How did you find out? People just saw it on the phone or what uh yeah they just spread it it was like it happened like a lot of tragedies unfolded where i think i'm always like i don't fully grasp if because mass shootings had happened so i didn't know like how uh that this was a different degree and a different level and a different like, oh, this really is about to shake the world. Yeah. I remember when 9-11 happened. I was in eighth grade, maybe? No, no, no.

I was in seventh grade. 13, 14, maybe? And I just didn't understand. To the industry, I was five years old. I didn't know the size of the catastrophe. I was like, oh, something bad happened. And everything bad, things bad happened in the world. But very quickly, you were like, holy shit.

Yeah. What was it like? Did you know that school particularly? I went there for three years. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah. So we moved there the summer before second, no, third grade. Summer before third grade for me.

So I went there for, they used to have fifth grade there. I went for third, fourth, and fifth grade. And like, I can smell it. Like, you know, I know like what the floor tiles look like. And it's like, you know, visceral sense memories of what's going on there. But kind of like what you said, how you like immediately don't grasp the scope of it. Like, I got a text from my mom that morning like shortly after the news broke like my parents found out from SWAT trucks driving by the house because the shooter lived on our street he was on we knew

them i went to their house and like it that's how they found out my mom texted me like shooting at st duke school i was like no there's immediate denial but it was like you figure it's something like okay it's not one of the real ones you know it's like yeah some kid had a gun in his bag and it went off or something like that and it was like oh shit within a matter of hours it was like what the fuck we went through the time warp like the town went from in terms of media presence it went from zero to super bowl in about 12 hours. It was like, what the fuck? It was baffling. And you knew the family. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah, they initially thought it was his older brother. I don't know what he's doing now. Jesus Christ. But, like, I think they brought— Changed his name, I would hope, number one. Yeah, but I think they put him in a squad car in New Jersey. And, like, yeah, they lived down the street from us.

Like, we went to the same bus stop I think for a little bit and like I remember going over to their house to watch Dragon Ball Z at some point nothing against the show no because I like Dragon Ball Z

it's a good show that's a wide net think about how wide that net is that's why we're having such a problem in America it was so popular

there's not enough anime to bring us together you went to his house? Yeah. I knew the older brother. The younger brother who was the shooter, he was very, very young at that time. We weren't hanging out or anything.

He was around the house. Did he kill his mom? Yeah. He killed his mom first. First. Yeah, and then went to the school. Was the dad not around? Yeah, I never met the dad. I don't think the dad was in the picture i think they were like uh they

were divorced dragon ball z divorce strike two divorce but uh yeah i don't think he was really in the picture uh do you remember like did you? Did you, did you talk about it with someone? Like, it's, it's just strange when the tragedy is that close, but it's not direct, but it's like, it's interesting. Cause yeah, it was like, thank God I didn't lose anybody, but it was, it was so geographically close. I went home that day and like, I went through the house and there were all these news trucks like lined up in front of, they were right in front of our house. Cause of where they had like cordoned off the street. So that was as close as they could get.

And it was just so absurd. Wait, what was your initial question? I lost my train of thought. How you felt? You went home. Yeah. Was it just to see your family? Yeah, I was fully panicking.

I was getting text messages, the news started to roll in, and as the scope of it became apparent, all the blood drained out of my fingers and toes toes i couldn't do i was at work in like the financial district and i was like i can't do anything my boss was like go home and it was a friday too so three-day weekend but i uh i was i was an intrusive thought of like yeah i knew it was bad i got like my favorite lunch and i couldn't eat it i was like what the fuck and was, I just got on the Metro North and I met my mom in Bridgeport and she picked me up and I went home. But it was like.

You scared at the news all day? Just. Well, yeah, it was literally surrounding us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the TV was on and like the person reporting would be outside. Yeah. And like we, we drove through the center of town and it's like, there's Anderson Cooper. There's like Don Lemon or whatever, whoever was actually there.

But it was people in the spotlight. We all went to the church. We went to St. Rose. That's where the town congregated. And it was thousands of people in there. Again, even more news trucks. It was this massive, massive media circus and just people crying. No one knows what to say.

No one knows what to do. And just hugging each other. And it was like this massive massive media circus and just like people crying no one knows what to say no one knows what to do and just like hugging each other and it was just deeply but i was struck by like not only how terrible it was but how absurd i was like this can happen sure you know yeah sure like yeah and think how often that happens now right like there's so many places where people like oh yeah it can be my town was there any was there any like when you see all these this industry this news industry just kind of suddenly taking all this interest and ask all these questions was there any like you vultures like 100 yeah they talked to me so here's what happened so they were like i said the trucks were all in front of our house we were like kind of in the epicenter we Our house was like down from the street. So they were just literally walking down our driveway and they would walk up to the house and we'd have to be like, no, no thanks. And then like the day after, I guess my parents just kind of had enough. They were like, all right, we'll answer some questions.

And then there's a, outside my front door, there's a huddle of the press, like after a football game or something. And like probably 12 to 15 reporters, like with microphones. And they were like, my parents were like, they, you know, you knew him. They want you to ask, answer some questions. I'm like 23, I guess at the time. And I'm i'm like fuck it let's get it over with and like i go out there i remember there was one fox news reporter who was like they asked me a bunch of questions i think it was live on tv and like um this one fox news reporter was like uh so so he was autistic right and i was like i don't know if i can say that like it's not for me to say like well yeah but you noticed right and like she's drilling me just to get me to go with like a narrative. I was like, fuck you, lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just freaking out. And yeah, the vault, like they would not stop.

I put a sign on the door eventually where I was like, do not knock. Do not ring the bell. It was like, they just wouldn't stop. Oh, yeah. That's true. If someone says to me, so were they autistic? They're like, oh. Oh, let me wing a diagnosis here on national television

in the height of a tragedy. It was truly absurd. There's some comedians who flirt with Alex Jones. Listen, the world is complicated. The older I get, the more I question, for example, the Anderson Coopers and the Don Lemons of the world. And I go, are they equally as vulturous and spinning their own narratives? I mean, maybe not Alex Jones.

But I think they're pretty gross. Sure. But the world is complex. But there's some things that I can't help but I go like, no, this is bad. Yeah. And then I'm like, well, are you still right about this? But Alex Jones spreading the conspiracy and the thought that these parents were faking it and these parents having to move because they were getting harassed,

to me, that should be punishable by a thing I won't say and I don't know it's just like was that just because it was to come up against any sort of gun thing was that just to be like

everyone would agree that this was like the worst possible scenario we could imagine of like the youngest kinds of children being impacted by this. And so instead of dealing with that horror, you just spin a tale that's so farcical. Well, there's the NRA side of it, which they all have their different angles. There was a great episode about, I think it was the Combine shooting. It felt like the NRA was about to lose, and then they figured out their system for getting about this. But I also feel like some conspiracy theorists, when something so awful happens, it's akin to a religious belief.

Yeah. Where they go, surely this chaos can't exist in the world because if it does that means there's no just there's nothing yeah my whole understanding of everything is blown apart and i think i never really got to the bottom of like why people do that but i do think okay so if you look throughout history there have been real conspiracies there have been things that were done that were you know where the original narrative that was accepted was not true and there's enough of those but then there's counter programming against that where there's like okay if you conflate thought about stuff like that with wacky shit like flat earth or whatever then it all be kind of blends together and people don't

so i kind of understand people's impulse to like to be like don't tell me not to ask questions and i i don't want to be the guy who's like don't ask questions except whatever the narrative is but i also and i also i like i don't want to like put down independent media either because i think like that's important too but i also I mean, if you get to the point where you're harassing victims' families. Yes. Yes, that's the degree of... You've lost the thread.

Yeah. It was funny, Tov and I were at a bookstore and I was like, oh, let's get a book about Palestine and Israel that's fully just the facts. And then the moment we got to that, we were like, how the fuck do we even tell?

Right, how do you know? We're looking at... Just the facts. Israel, Palestine. Just the facts, by net Yahoo. Guess I'd be co-authored by one Israeli and one Palestinian. The cover is both of them in a bed like the odd couple.

My Iona. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But it is a moment that I do think I also experienced getting older where I was just like, oh, I don't know how to trust. I understand how people lose it. Listen, harassing people, that's a different, that's an emotional, like, tick that you're stuck in your head. But I do, as I get older, go like, it is tough because, you know, if you do look up enough big pharma stuff, I could see how you get to the point where you go, I'm with every the government saying i have to get this thing i get how you could get there i could wrap

my head around yes yeah and ultimately my answer is i'm not willing to do i first of all i don't have the intelligence to understand science well enough to get down into the depths of that and so i just accept i accept it but but i don't know what the answer is i the more you read about uh iraq you're like oh well then should i guess i can't trust any mainstream media source and then who do you trust where do you get anything and then you i don't know yeah i feel i feel it now i just feel it worse and worse as i get older yeah yeah well because it feels like sometimes you're like, there's stuff you hear like Alex Jones stuff,

you're like, no, that's crazy. But then there's other things where you're like, I can see how people started somewhere. JFK, I still don't know. The granddaddy of them all. That's where the term conspiracy theory originates. Now listen, the conspiracy theorists outside the JFK, the Sixth Floor Book Repository,

they were nuts. They were clearly nuts, and they were hawking their goods. I can recognize- Oh, the people who are selling books there, you mean? Yeah. Selling books, and they got a picture of JFK's corpse, and they're just showing it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I do know people that I respect that go like, something was up.

And I'm like, what? Let me tell you. With that one? Something was up. You think so? Yep. I could be swayed. Really?

Alien boy over here could be swayed? I don't care enough about it, I think, to really investigate. But I could be swayed. There was a second shooter? I don't know about... Okay, so if you look at other... really investigate, but I could be swayed. There was a second shooter? I don't know about... My theory is that there's two shooters and they were unrelated. They both just ended up

shooting at the same time on the same day. You did, but I was doing it. And then they fell and they got in the car and they drove away with Jackie. There's an interesting book called The Devil's's chess board about the formation of the cia like it's rolled throughout like the mid-century like post-world war ii how it became like in this incredibly powerful

powerful force within our government or outside of our government however you want to look at it and there's some real interesting stuff about like cia connections to this mafia personality or this uh hit squad in the in central america and you look at these assassinations dad we involved in the kennedy assassination hey but just it was in the company you don't have to say on the record i know i know i but i don know, but then sometimes you're like, no, we're, but it becomes so complicated. Yes. Every president you could tie to the mafia in some way. Well, especially.

But then, like, if you look at, like, CIA assassinations that took place in Central America, like, the way they were drawn up, you get a guy in a limousine making a left on a street, like, it's, there's a lot of smoke, is all I'm saying. There's a lot of stuff. There's the magic bullet. Doesn't there's a lot of smoke is all i'm saying there's a lot of stuff there's the magic bullet doesn't quite add up but this is what i'm saying like i'm i want to leave open a little room for kookiness like this definitely where like i don't want to be the guy who says don't ask questions like yeah have some explore some wacky thought but if you if there's compelling evidence that says okay one guy lee harvey oswald was very mad and he shot the president three times from a moving target from 500 feet away, then great, I'll accept that. You've got to be in a position where you can be like, all right, when presented with evidence,

you can be rational and be like, that makes sense. I just think it's this far away from going, though. It was staged and we need to harass Jackie Kennedy until we get to the bottom of the But she wouldn't know. Sure? You know. Would she? Yeah.

Listen. Maybe. I don't know. yeah listen maybe i don't know uh man i just don't i just don't know i i get the older i get the more i go like i i feel very flummoxed i still like listening to my new york times the daily podcast every morning and then i'm like but wait a second yeah i think my my bigger thing with with like as I get older, I'm like we need my theory is we should stop teaching a broad, niceified overview of history, period. you're ready to talk about the deaths that were involved. Better to learn about like something very specific and understand the intricacies of it than have you have to educate your kids, oh, by the way, the Thanksgiving meal wasn't this fun. It wasn't this cartoon. Yeah.

And I think my moment of really starting to doubt like newspapers was I was part of a theater company, and the head theater critic of the new york times talked about this theater and they said it's oh it's a it's a small indie theater but a lot of casting agents frequently come to the shows and i thought casting agents no one's doesn't add up casting agents yeah no one uses the term casting agents. No one uses the term casting agents. I was like, if the head theater critic gets that detail wrong, what is the person covering

the news in Palestine? I do feel like there's moments where you have realizations of the current thing right now, where you can see the difference of headlines and how they phrase things. How with some people it's phrased in one light and other people it's phrased in a different light. And you're like, oh, this is happening in this one scenario.

It surely is happening in a lot of other scenarios. I love how John Marco's entire understanding of the world is through the lens of theater. Okay, so the JFK assassination, right? There were a bunch of stage moms who tried to put on the Bay of Pigs invasion. And they forced President Kennedy, the star of the play, to go along with it. And he wanted to pull his troops out of Vietnam and scatter the CIA to the wind. And then the stage moms behind the stage who were pulling the levers, they dropped a sandbag on them.

But they blamed it on the quiet kid who was the stage hand. Who was the principal's nephew. Yes, but what was the principal's nephew doing in Mexico months before the... Why was he in Soviet Russia? It wasn't a production of Once on this Island. You know, conspiracy theories are fun, too. It's the other thing.

They're fun. Yes. In the right doses. In the right doses, yes. And San Diego's not fun. That one is awful. Very not fun. That one's not fun.

But ones where it's either older or there's not really like a – Old people who had it coming to them. Well, like JFK, we're far enough removed from it where we can have a little fun with it. You know? Yeah. Like – but yeah. Because part of you is like, ooh, wouldn't that be crazy if we found out something new, you know? Yeah.

I need one of them to come true hard. You need Tupac to show up. You want to find out George Bush did 9-11. Your lifetime. Deathbed confession. No, I think the one that I would love to have. I brought this nation

together, didn't I? 85% approval rating. I would love if a bed of Donald Trump sitting on a chair in front of a Russian sex worker peeing on a bed.

If that came out, I'd go alright, okay, who knows? Also, it wouldn't hurt his campaign chances at all. Not at all. If anything... They're obsessed with my tape. Pick up some freaky liberals.

They're jerking their little puds to my tape. My beautiful tape. You'd think it would get a bunch of... Just kink some kinky liberals being like, you know what? You'd be selling t-shirts with a screenshot of the golden moment on the campaign. There was that one weekend where everyone was really into that and we all thought that it might be true p-tape week yeah one of the great twitter weeks you know what one of the biggest to keep talking but when when when

the uh access hollywood first of all with with the generative ai i do think the sad thing is it will get rid of all if ai existed as it did now and that access hollywood tape came out anyone could legitimately say that's fake 100 100 and that gets rid of like that gets rid of a lot of smoking gun moments true i mean we're really gonna lose them even and as it gets a little bit better video too like right now you can kind of tell when a video is ai generated but how long until you can't yeah you know i said my theory is like right now you can kind of tell when a video is ai generated but how long until you can't yeah you know i said my theory is like especially like you know deep fake porn like the good news is we can we can all just start filming ourselves fucking again yeah and if it

leaks throw on a couple other inches 60 videos of me masturbating in my bedroom who who did that yeah why would they do that's what you need if you want film of that. Finally, I can start filming myself jerking off again. Yeah. I don't know. I just always see stuff, like, people talking about, like, deep fake. There's some streamer who got, I mean, like, he shared his screen, and he had a deep fake porn tab open of another streamer. And it was, like, a scandal and and whatnot and he

apologized it was but i'm like i'm like oh deepfake porn you i don't know how you stop that period to me that's like that's a battle most porn battles are lost pretty fast porn yeah i've been struggling with the editing myself but no I see yeah you want to I just like yeah I just don't know how you if you create a program where you could put because I know there's some guys out there that are going to put my face on something and I just don't know how I could possibly keep track

of the thousands it's got to be like everyone at a certain level of fame has deepfakes made of them they're already circulating how do you explain that like some relative sees that or something. It's got to be nuts. But it's the same way with, like, cartoon porn, where, like, you'll see an image of Homer fucking family guy.

What's the family guy's wife? What's her name? Lois. Come on. Lois. It feels like different species. But, like, at some point, you'll be like, okay. You're like, oh, there's Russell and Jamarco,

deepfake of them fucking. And they're like, eh, it's not real marco deep think of them fucking and they're like it's not real yeah it's got to be real if it's not real who cares yeah you scared about ai scared that it's gonna like uh change the fabric of society yeah no ai definitely worries me that ain't great it ain't great for comedy it's not good for society i don't think i'm you know there's an argument to be made like there are a lot of effective uses for it i don't know what they are but they uh like media content if they start making stuff out if they start making ai generated content of whole cloth it's over like what the fuck? Yeah, but, however, part of media consumption is everyone's watching the same thing. So if you can make an infinite number of episodes of The Office, what's the point unless someone is, I guess, you know, networks could then be curating AI generations.

But again, I think it's not fun if the people aren't real I think everyone is worried about when the Michael Jackson hologram went out there but no one talks about it anymore because who gives a shit I think that for sure I don't want to watch anything that's AI generated I want to watch stuff that's made by people

and especially live performance too it's like 100 times better I think there's going to be a huge market if they do decide to make like you know avengers uh fuck the guardians uh 12 and they do it all made out of ai and is that going to gross a billion dollars probably no because because your computer program can make a thousand different versions of that movie so who's going to have the rights to that that's true yeah and then you get the curated version. Like, Thor is smashing the head of your high school bully.

Oh, God. Like, it's completely tailored to you. Yeah, we're approaching... It's not an original thought at all, but we're approaching the WALL-E universe where we're all just kind of sitting in chairs being entertained and fed at all hours of the day. I hope everyone's enjoying watching this podcast

eating at home. We're very... No, you guys are cool. You guys are the cool ones. You're the smart ones. You're 6'7". I try. Wait, the JFL New Faces.

Yeah. Was that the famous one? The infamous one? Because Jeffrey Asmus. Yes. Remember Asmus? It's the one that was really bad. Where was that? Because Jeffrey Asmus. Yes. Remember Asmus? It's the one that was really bad. Where was that?

It was at a different venue that was far away, and it was during Rose Battle Finals. And who was the host? The host was the great George Wallace. We love George Wallace. We love him. We love George. He's a good friend.

He had basically just retired from comedy, and he didn't give a fuck and like he shouldn't he's george he's done it he had just ended his vegas residency if i recall correctly and it's like okay you've got he was talking about his like five houses host uh i don't think they on rep new faces part of me thinks that he i mean i don't think he was at a stage of his career where he was doing anything he didn't want to but he was just he wasn't out there trying to impress anybody he you know what he didn't even do that bad of a job that the report was like oh he bombed blah blah blah he was doing crowd work but the crowd was like all industry so okay for the listeners

who don't know this is like a showcase for they you know they pick x amount of new comics up and comics like in this case it was 11 i think and it all told it's like 30 every year because there's a couple of regular ones and then there's the unwrapped and they showcase for the industry in montreal so it's a big show with a huge amount of industry presence you know used to be like you you nailed this your career was set people used to leave with six figure holding deals they used to go to the festival and they used to like times yeah they used to get a deal and be a rich person after that yeah but um now you do new faces they'll bring it back next year let you do your podcast for 20 people yeah exactly so it i was and this was like right on the cuffs when it was becoming like it

ain't what it used to be because people had already had conan sets they already had other late night sets and they were doing new faces whatever so george wallace is out there he's doing crowd work with the industry and the industry it's like a jaded audience and also the room is like two-thirds full something like that because of logistical errors that were made whatever so it was luckily i went first and i got like whatever meat was left there and it was five like george wallace he's up there he's doing crowd work he brings me on he leaves his notes on the stage on the stool and i riff on that i was like he left his notes here the stage, on the stool. And I riff on that. I was like, he left his notes here.

Can I just do this material? I'd be thinking, too. And, like, I got a little. Did it work? Yeah, I got a little bit of a laugh, a little applause, riff to start my, like, little six-minute set. But, like, from then, I mean, people left. It was, like, it's supposed to be one of the biggest shows at the festival.

And, like, the crowd started small and got smaller throughout the show. So all these people... I feel like I can say this. I'm not telling tales out of school. You know who had a rough time? Janelle James, who is now one of the biggest television stars in the world.

Who cried, though? Someone cried. Oh, people cried. I'm not trying to air them out. I forget if Asmus aired them out already. I think it was a whole thing already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there were tears.

But some people did well. Ismael did well. I feel like I did okay. Did Asmus do as bad as that review said? No, that was the funny thing. There was this one review written by some unhinged person who I don't think was even like a critic. She wrote this long piece reviewing all of us, all like 11 of us or whatever. We all get like a paragraph.

Jeff Asmus gets three or four large paragraphs getting both barrels just like he was the worst. He was arrogant. Everyone hated him. He did okay. I mean, it was kind of a rough set. And his character is arrogant. He's a funny guy. His stage persona is arrogant.

If I could, without hurting people's feelings, I had this thought once of, like, I would love to write fully thought-out reviews of, like, middle school, eighth-grade productions of musicals. Just, like, vicious. Just, like, Tevye, clearly played by a non-Jew,

did not bring any of the weight of the Jewish struggle to this role. It took some liberties with the second act that were not true to the source material. Getting you going to watch a middle school production and being like, we have a professional comedian and actor, he's going to give us notes on their dress rehearsal. And then just to them, one-on-one like to the to the whole cast ripping them apart stanley kowalski was 10 pounds overweight really committing to it oh man i i've i've had it as a bit i had it as a sketch i i have this fantasy of i get hired to go to a college of musical theater majors and i like do an hour

performance or lecture where i get them all to quit by the end i think that would be walk the room and and i i i'd stage a joke about like let me hire you to talk your kid out of it but i'm like you know what you think you could really do it? I think I could really, really make an impassioned plea for them to consider not majoring in it in college. The problem is I would also

encourage them to not go to college if they actually wanted to pursue it. But for the right money, I'll say anything. I'll say get into physics. But I think I could do that. I'll say get into physics. But I think I could do that. I think I could really talk through all the ways

that their lives are going to be miserable. But I'd have to be mean. Yeah. You could do that. I'm not mean in real life. No, you're not. You wouldn't be to kids.

I've said this before. John Marco is a surprisingly good Hank. Yeah. He is fine. That's very sweet. You wouldn't think it, but he's fine. I still say that, yeah.

So this Netflix, there's a harsh Alec Baldwin joke, and I'm very curious to see... Oh, in your new Netflix set that's coming out? Is out now? You take his side. I take his side. You're pro-Baldwin. I said he could have killed

more people on that set. It's very funny how... Listen, well, you know, she wasn't laid back from craft services. I texted John Marco. I was like, SNL recently,

they tested out the Baldwin waters. Yeah. They just put him in a late night, like later in the show sketch at the very end. Br like it was just very funny it felt so like we'll just test the waters a little bit we won't put him in the god damn we'll put him in the opening like yeah we'll just you know throw a man let's just test the water see if he's it's cool

cold open trump let's go you're out j out, James Austin Johnson. The real Trump is back. That is funny. I wonder when he'll host again. It'll happen. I think it would be, I think, we're talking years, I think, still. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was very funny.

It all depends. It all depends how that movie does. Are they releasing that movie? That's still going to come out? That's the whole joke I say in the fucking Netflix holy shit I say how can you give that movie a positive review Baldwin never misses

but I think it depends I can't believe it's still coming out I don't think that movie is going to do anything it's not going to make money and it's not going to get good reviews but if it's so going to get good reviews. But I... But if it's so good that the reviews say...

Isn't there like legal stuff still happening with the thing? I feel like that matters more. Isn't there like... Isn't he like... Sure. It seems like, and again,

I don't trust any news source anymore. And who knows? All could be actors. There were a lot on set. But I... No, it just... It does seem like

it was like... I do think it's very... so disingenuous and awful when some Republicans go, like, blame Baldwin in a way where I'm sure he was just handed a... It seems like he was handed a prop gun and had no reason to think that it would be a real gun. Yeah, like, it doesn't compute to them

that the presence of a real gun and live ammo in the environment was what precipitated a terrible thing happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put two and two together there. It's like maybe it wouldn't have happened if there was an equipment difference there. Sure.

Yeah. Can you do an Alec Baldwin? No, I just kind of whisper like this. Lemon, Lemon, I'm going to shoot that PA if he looks at me one more time. Jesus Christ. He made eye contact with me, bringing me my tea. I'm going to put him in the ground. What are your best, can I pimp you out for a second?

I see your chest on that. That was the one that started it all, I think. It's a little bit, it's hard not to do walking when you do chest. Yeah, they're close though. I'm realizing, yeah. But yes, Mike, if you spent half as much time reading books as you do chasing skanks, you probably wouldn't have AIDS. Did you get any Alec Baldwin jokes in for that roast?

I did. What was your joke? God, I just remember that. Contributed a couple of things. You contributed for the Alec Baldwin roast. Oh. Just a little bit. What was your joke? God, I just remember that. Yeah, I contributed a couple of things. You contributed for the Alec Baldwin roast. Oh. Just a little bit. What did I say? There was one.

You did that. Liz, I'm going to shoot this PA if they bother. Yeah, I submit that. They were like, what is this? I put that in every packet I do. Just running up the flagpole to see if it flies. I got something about Blake Griffin. I was helping out Nikki Glaser.

She wrote like 95% of her own jokes, whatever but like i think i got one when you write jokes for her does just is that the contract that you have to say that before talking about it yeah it's check get it on tape i was worried i don't know how people like she we talked about it on her podcast and she was like going on and on about how i wrote for her so i was like yeah like i didn't know i always wanted to be honest about like that five six seven eight where i asked jps i can i do this joke and people do that with rose stuff sometimes but i can also see the world where someone goes like you know jim marco doesn't write his own jokes yeah we we live in a weird world where i remember seeing award shows and thinking they wrote every Mont-Lanc show. And part of that, people care

about that facade. People are busy. There are big, successful comedians who need people like me who don't have enough going on to give them a page of jokes that they can work with. And Rose Battle, sometimes someone just gets to your fucking essence and you go like, well, you saw something. Let me pretend

I saw that in me let's go to our next segment this has got to stop this has got to stop uh uh i'll start i got it this has got to stop my uh my alexa i hate it man alexa's fucking suck it feels like they made them and they just stopped working on them and then started try getting money out of you for everything i in the morning will, what's the weather? That's the biggest thing I ask my Alexa. I say, play sex music and what's the weather? It doesn't respond with a compliment of my comedy, and I'm furious.

And every time, the first time of day, it goes, good morning, Gianmarco. The weather is, and I go, I don't need a robot to say good morning to me. I don't need that extra two seconds. I don't need any formalities or niceties from a machine. You say all that every morning. I don't want it to engage me as like a human. You're not a human. And you're not good enough to play that game.

And AI is going to do that shit all the time. Good morning, because they want you to become emotionally dependent and i say stop you don't wish me a good morning you are imagine if every time you open the fridge before you could open the door it said hungry russell and then you opened that would be annoying so how do they know you're like look at you i am yeah Are you going to make one of the favorite recipes that your mother, Regina, would make for you when you were seven? She would cut the crusts off, wouldn't she?

I mean, it is interesting. Also, I don't feel like they get the weather right all the time. Yeah? Or like they, you sometimes, I feel like, listen, I've like, listen, I've seen other people interact with their Alexas. I think mine

is particularly bad. No offense to her, but I stopped using her because it just, it would be so many questions back and forth. It would never be what I'm asking about.

Yeah. It would be a lot of suggestions and you're like, no, I don't want that. Like, I feel like I have a particularly bad one

and I don't know what is different about it. Tova gets mad. I say, because we both yell at it. But I say Tova yells at it in a way where it's as if the Alexa could understand her frustration. Her tone. I yell because I'm mad. And I need to express it. Tova yells in a way of like, I'm going to let the Alexa know that you need to listen this time.

We're really nice to the Alexa, but we don't. If we ask and she doesn't know, we'll quiet tones. She's trying. We'll be like, just leave her. Because we kind of have a policy where we can't yell at her. I just feel. Do you have to enact that policy or get a little too no i just think that i i for whatever reason i don't like when people yell at the the the ai

or the robots i because i i don't i just you know i room bomb fucking walk i'd rather not use them than than yell at them does that make sense i guess i think ai is gonna fuck you up you have such a respect for an Alexa, the lowest form of... Well, I don't want to use it. I'm saying I don't want to... I've already drawn the line being like, and we're past it. We can't. But I don't want to use it because I'm like,

it's going to be bad. We're going to be friends with them. People are going to marry them. This is Roko's Basilisk taking place. You're familiar? The thought experiment? No, i don't know that one there there's there's a thought experiment roco's basilisk where if you could imagine that an ai will one day exist that will become so powerful that it will punish all of the people who didn't aid in its construction yes would you then support it or would you not would you like try to ignore

it and there's like this whole school of thought like it's already happening where the simulation reality theory where like this machine already exists and like you will be destroyed if you don't help out things like alexa i'll leave a tip for alexa but you like so that so russ is taking the side of like i'm gonna help the machines i'm gonna be nice to them and they'll be nice to me one day john marco and i are going down uh-huh uh-huh i like that also i like that john marco's thought is like yeah this is part of the softening process that will one day end in all human beings being killed by boston dynamics robots and then russ is like yeah they get the weather wrong too sometimes.

Yeah. Do you have this kind of stuff? Yeah, this kind of stuff. The last two nights, and this never happens to me, the last two nights I've had that classic dream for different shows where I don't know my lines. And I don't know where this is coming from.

But it's I've woken up really not feeling rested, not feeling good about things. And I've just never had those as an actor. I've been an actor forever. And for whatever reason, the last two nights, it was two different shows. Not even the shows I'm doing. But I had that. And it felt like it was hours of my life being stuck on a stage,

not knowing what the lines are, and no one helping me out, and the deep panic and anxiety and stress of that. And it felt like it was these long, long performances. And I'd get off, and I'd be like, I don't know. And I'm looking at the pages. And then I'd go back on, and I just didn't know. And I don't know where this is coming from, but it happened the last two nights, and I'm fucking sick of it.

Well, Gutenberg, you probably need a new understudy Because this one is cracking It wasn't even Gutenberg, that's the weird thing Three Hours was one of your sketches Blue Man Group The one show was Something from middle school or high school And then the other show was Titanic

I was suddenly in Titanic And I went out in that dumb bird thing, and I didn't know any of the words. Didn't know any of the moves. Didn't know any of it. Stressful. And you know what's crazy about dreams is you feel like I'm there, and I was so frustrated because I was like, how do I not know already?

It's only been not that long. Anyways. JP, you've got to stop. Sorry, I'm leaving in five minutes. Oh, are you? This has got to stop. Whistling and drumming along to music if you don't have rhythm.

That is the caveat. If you are whistling along to a song, you're whistling a tune, you better have perfect fucking pitch. If you're drumming along to a tune, you better have metronomic tempo. Because I'm tired of it. You're just being a toddler.

You're being a noisemaker, banging on something. I hold my fellow man to a high musical standard when I'm surrounded by these people. Can you whistle? You got a good whistle? A little bit. I can carry a tune.

That was pitch perfect right there. Not great. I can only do it in one key. It's really stuck there. Yeah. Sorry if this gets you an RIAA strike against your podcast for being too similar to the melodies. Final segment. You better count

your blessings. You better count your blessings. Let's do a blessing and then the plug on top of that. Russell, do you got a blessing? Remember, this is coming out December. Real quick blessing. I did a gig a while back and people were

dragging their feet with paying me for it. And the payment has, with some fighting and some prodding and thankful for my reps. We got that money and so thankful for that.

A couple of kneecaps broken. Thank you, Kent. And, you know, we won. We won. We won. Yeah. We did it, Joe. I don't know what that was.

That was Trump congratulating Kamala. Congratulating Biden. If he only did that, it would bring the whole country together. For me, my blessing. You know what? Fuck it. I'll say I had some reps. I had a situation with something with representing a social

media arm that was taking some money, didn't get the money, and I finally got the money, and it was mine. Yeah. So shout out to all my rep power. We get money. Say your plug. Just follow me on Instagram,

at Russell J. Daniels. For me, I will be the silver lining. My new material show is December 27th, and then I will be at Punchline Philly December 28th, 29th, and 30th. Even if the Netflix does well, those shows have tickets available. I promise. It's huge. And let me just say, if you're a fan of the podcast, and 30th. Even if the Netflix says, well, those shows have tickets available, I promise it's

huge. And let me just say, if you're a fan of the podcast, join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Downside. We do one bonus episode a month, and we're starting to record it even closer to the date so Russ and I can talk about what's going on, Israel-Palestine in the moment.

And also, we are working on getting a producer here we are gonna hopefully early next year be working to record and release the next day so we can just talk more about what's going on and it'll be a lot of fun jp give us a blessing and your plugs well since you guys talked about getting money uh via your your representatives and showbiz i'll keep the theme going i'm uh count your blessings i'm thankful for crossword puzzles that was that was the one i thought but for real though crossword puzzles fucking rock yeah everywhere people they get a bad rap is like a thing that you do when you're

really bored i wish i was doing a crossword puzzle right now i love them i love crosswords i just often go like oh i'm too dumb i stuck. There was some variation on a crossword puzzle when I was in London that was their thing. I was like, oh, I can figure this one out. I would love to have that experience too, but I like them for the me solving them part. Do you do the New York Times?

It's got a great one. New York Magazine. Phenomenal. New Yorker. A little more pretentious, but also good. I mean is each category a different pronoun? it's all just two, three, four

it's all the 47 different genders did you see the trailer for the new there's a new Daily Wire movie feature

movie featuring I read for it we did some jokes where it's like I punched it up. The whole joke is, these guys are bad at sports, so they make a team, they all identify

as transgender, and then they play in the Women's Olympic Basketball, whatever, whatever, whatever. I love it. So true. It's just so true. I thought about, we should watch it and review it for the Patreon. Oh, God. Jeffrey Asmus did, they reviewed Matt Reif's special for the Patreon. And it's one of those things, though, where it's like

I will want to listen to that. I don't know if the average human being... We had fun watching a bad special one time together. Or we didn't have fun. Douglas. Why? You gotta bleep everything. Please, please.

Please, please. No one liked Douglas. Every proper noun in this episode. No one like Doug. No one like Doug. Imagine the earlier one about assault being funnier. It was, though. It was a much better special. That would be fun.

Maybe we will watch that. It looks awful. And even conservatives will realize that even though they hate liberals, they love their art. What do you want to plug i want to plug uh this comes out two days after i just recorded my special my debut comedy special uh be on the lookout for that it's going to come out in 2024 please subscribe to my youtube channel get some a little subscriber base going i'm also on instagram at mcdade baby follow me subscribe i'm going to be posting a lot more videos i got a little documentary road series that's going to be coming out soon oh yeah so be on the lookout for that jp jp's

a tremendous comedian he he blends the the tight uh joke structure of anthony jelsenick but with kind of alt perspectives that are so surprising and crazy tell tell your tell your uh uh rich people bragging joke. Oh, man. Did I fuck it up already? No, I didn't. Oh, yeah. I'll walk around New York sometimes

and I'll see people from time to time who are like, I get it. I get it. You have money. Stop shaking your cup full of coins at me. This is the downside. One, two, three.

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